by Carolyn Hart
I would definitely be an outsider. Sophia was Jimmy’s wife.
“It’s a lot to ask.” His voice was husky. “I’ve always felt I can count on you.”
Jimmy was my friend. That trumped everything, but I didn’t share his confidence. I doubted I could make a difference. I drew the bow of a ship on the pad.
His voice was hopeful. “Maybe you and Sophia will get around to talking about the will—”
I shook my head at this suggestion.
“—and you can encourage her to let them have the money.”
“I don’t recall Sophia as a let-down-her-hair gal.” My tone was dry.
“She says what she thinks and she’s going to be thinking about the will. Henrie O, you’re coming?” His voice lifted with hope.
“How much does the cruise cost?” A two-week cruise could be very pricey. I don’t have a bare-bones budget, but I look for travel bargains.
“That’s taken care of.” Suddenly his voice was eager. “You’ll come, won’t you?”
“I can’t let you buy my passage.” I’d always insisted on paying my share on our holidays.
“I’ve already done it. Everything’s paid for. I don’t expect you to pick up the tab here. You’re doing this for me—”
If I agreed, certainly my journey would be for Jimmy. Still—
“—and it’s like an assignment. Travel expenses included. Henrie O, thank you.” Relief and gratitude lifted his voice, restored the timbre I remembered.
Friends…Yet my presence would ask more of me than he realized. How hard would it be for me to stand near, accept Sophia’s possessive hand on his arm? Harder than he would ever know. Yet the fact remained that deep inside I felt a certainty: if I called on Jimmy, he would come. I could do no less for him, no matter how difficult it might be.
I kept my tone casual. “A Baltic cruise sounds wonderful. Sure. I’ll do what I can and maybe together we can lighten the atmosphere.”
He rushed ahead. “I’ll overnight everything. Tickets and background on the Riordans. Between us, we’ll figure it out. I’ll see you on board.”
2
The huge airliner, dim except for reading lights such as mine, was a capsule of drowsiness as it winged over the Atlantic. An occasional cough or snore, the quiet rustle as a steward moved past, the distant click of shuffled cards were the only sounds in this deep watch of the night. I’d napped, comfortable in the reclining seat. Jimmy had reserved a business-class seat at a window. Now I was wide awake. I looked at the screen that reported the progress of the flight: speed, direction, time elapsed, time remaining, and the—to me—lonely inching of the line marking the plane’s journey over emptiness.
I opened the packet I’d received from Jimmy and slid out dossiers with information he had gathered about the family members I would soon meet. A good reporter digs hard before an actual interview. Jimmy had dug well. I started with Sophia. Much of it I knew, some I didn’t.
Sophia Montgomery Holbrook Riordan Lennox: 52, b. in Laguna Beach, CA. Father Benton Montgomery, well-known seascape artist; mother Hazel Taggart Montgomery, poet. B.A. in journalism from UCLA. Member women’s tennis team. First documentary job with Brittany Films. Started as an assistant to Joshua Abbott. Twice nominated for an Oscar for best documentary. Married actor Joe Dan Holbrook January 1, 1980. Widowed September 9, 1984. Married financier Frank Riordan June 22, 1990. Widowed March 19, 2000. Married writer James Allen Lennox October 4, 2003. Four stepchildren: Alexander, Kent, Rosemary, and Valerie.
Jimmy had appended a recent interview from the L.A. Times. The photo layout contained dramatic pix of Sophia atop an elephant, Sophia maneuvering a lever in a diving bell, Sophia at the keyboard of her computer, fingers flying.
The reporter described her as passionate about poetry (“The imagery in The Waste Land touches my soul”) and travel (“Everything’s different but everything’s the same. We all live and love and hope whether in Constantinople or an Andean village or a dusty West Texas town”).
I scanned the piece: “…a slightly built woman with a mass of blond ringlets, Montgomery exudes a wild and restless energy. Her blue eyes glisten as she speaks in staccato phrases. A thin hand moves in butterfly-swift gestures. The nails are colorless but a top-dollar diamond flashes…”
I raised an eyebrow. Jimmy’s taste ran more to a single golden band. Did she still wear Frank Riordan’s ring? If so, how did Jimmy feel about that? That wasn’t any business of mine.
“…Montgomery is rarely still, hand moving, foot tapping, jumping to her feet to pace. She smiles often, a vivid, infectious smile. Her laughter is throaty, intimate, unaffected. ‘Regrets?’ Her look of surprise is obvious. ‘Who looks back? Why?’ She swipes a hand through her curls and looks more windblown than ever. ‘Sweetie, who has time? I have projects up to here.’ She flips her fingers beneath her chin. ‘Who’s checking out under-the-counter steroid sales to high school kids who don’t have a clue about Faustian bargains? What’s happening now with women in Afghanistan? How secure are our borders?’ Montgomery claps her hands together. ‘As long as I have a camera, I’m all right.’ ‘You’re happy?’ For an instant, her sparkle dims. ‘Happy? That’s a Walt Disney word. I’ll settle for busy.’”
Happy? I wondered at the age of Sophia’s interviewer. Content. Challenged. Stressed. Engaged. Satisfied. Excited. Despairing. There are many emotional possibilities in life, but rarely does anyone over the age of thirty have the temerity to proclaim happiness. I understood Sophia’s answer. I found an interesting passage near the end of the interview: “I believe in the ideal. I’ve never reached it. None of us do. But we have to try. I’m willing to cut anyone slack if they try. If they don’t try, it’s sayonara.”
If she applied this standard to her stepchildren’s lives, Sophia might not be an errant heir’s best friend.
A steward paused in the aisle, spoke softly. “May I get you a snack? Some nuts and juice?”
I smiled. “Yes, and water, please.” It’s never possible to have too much water on a long flight.
When the steward returned, the mixed nuts heated, the orange juice cold, the water icy, I moved the papers on my tray. The nuts were delicious. When I returned home, would I take the time to microwave cashews? Probably not, but I enjoyed the ripple of sybaritic pleasure as I ate. I picked up the dossier on Frank Riordan’s eldest son.
Alexander (Alex) Timothy Riordan, 29, b. in San Francisco, CA. Father Frank Riordan, financier; mother Anna Nesbitt, civic leader. Private schools in San Francisco. Business graduate UCLA, master’s in finance USC. Worked two years for WorldCom in Atlanta. Joined two friends in telecommunications company in China. Failed in December 2002. Next venture involved delivery of hybrid vehicles in Bolivia. Failed in March 2003. Invested in a whole foods restaurant in Berkeley. Failed June 2004. Trying to raise capital for a wireless venture in China. Accomplished mountain climber, biker. Married Margaret (Madge) Louise Brinker 2003 in Santa Monica. He met Madge at a UCLA football game. She was a cheerleader, aspiring actress, sometime model. Madge grew up in Long Beach, father a pharmacist, mother a secretary.
Kent Clarence Riordan, 28, b. in San Francisco. Private schools. English honors graduate USC. Worked as a reporter for newspapers in Pasadena, Long Beach, Santa Clara. Currently teaching as adjunct faculty at a community college in Marin County. Author of several short stories published by online magazines. Triathlete. Competed in Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii last five years. Single.
Rosemary (Rosie) Margaret Riordan, 26, b. in San Francisco. Private schools. Dropped out of Claremont. Spent a year as a singer on a cruise ship. Worked as a waitress in Las Vegas. Two years in Rio with an import-export company owned by one of Frank’s old friends. Currently working as a hostess on a dinner cruise ship out of Long Beach. Single.
Valerie (Val) Amelia Riordan, 25, b. in San Francisco. Private schools. B.A. in film studies from UCLA. Working for an independent filmmaker in Los Angeles. Single.
Evelyn Jessamine Riord
an, 56, unmarried sister of Frank Riordan. Education degree from USC, taught French in high schools in Long Beach, Pasadena, and San Diego. Joined Frank’s household after the death of his first wife to assist with the children. Returned to teaching upon Frank’s marriage to Sophia Montgomery. Came to Carmel after Riordan was diagnosed with cancer and was there to oversee his care until his death. Still lives in the Carmel house.
That last succinct summary was studded with red flags. The children had been young when their mother died. How painful had it been for their aunt to see them dispersed to boarding schools when Frank married Sophia? Where was Sophia when Frank was ill? Why did Evelyn still live in the house? Why was she on the jaunt to the Baltic?
I stacked the dossiers, unfolded several sheets of ruled paper. Even in the dim light, Jimmy’s bold, unmistakable script was easy to read.
Dear Henrie O,
You know what you mean to me, what you have always meant. You are kind and brave and generous. You are also smart and tough and persevering. That’s why I know you will find the truth. Maybe I’m wrong and they’re as innocent as babes. That would be wonderful. If I’m right, the shock will be enormous. In the best of all possible worlds, I’ll be wrong and we’ll enjoy a wonderful holiday.
God knows Sophia has managed to upset or disturb—oh, I might as well admit it—alienate almost all of them. If I can plead her case, her decisions are based on what she feels Frank would have wished. She isn’t motivated by greed or dislike or jealousy or indifference. She means well, but she has never been able to empathize. She has a curious inability to divorce abstract principles from emotional reality. She’s trying to do what she thinks Frank would have wished. Frank wanted his kids to be big, tough, take-charge Riordans. That’s not who they are. Here’s who they are:
Alex is the oldest. He turns thirty in November, which triggers the provision concerning possible dissolution of the trusts. He’s a little guy who wants to be as big as his dad. You remember Frank, six feet three and built like a bunker. Alex is five feet five and scrawny. He took after his mother, short, redheaded, nervous. He’s been in one financial scrape after another, always thinking he’s going to hit it big. He lost a bundle in telecommunications. Now he’s trying to get in on a wireless boom in China. His wife never met an expensive piece of jewelry she didn’t want to buy. Madge is an ice blonde with a frozen heart. No kids. Fortunately. Yeah, I don’t like her. All the charm of a viper. Poor Alex. Nobody’s ever made him feel like a big guy. We all need to be big guys at home. So like any approval-starved kid, he acts out. Swaggers, blusters, tries to bully, never with much success. If Alex relaxed, figured out who he is, liked himself, he’d be a different guy. He’s a good athlete, runs a mile in under five, mountain climbs, shoots rapids. If he’d yank the plastic away from Madge, he’d roll a boulder off his shoulders.
I wiggled my toes in their airplane fuzzies. What Sophia lacked in empathy, Jimmy had in spades. I grabbed another handful of warm cashews and continued to read.
I don’t have a handle on Kent. I’d never met him until this week. He didn’t come to the wedding. He and Sophia quarreled before she and I married. I’ve tried to find out what happened and Sophia shrugs it off. All she’ll say is that anybody who wants to live with a lie is a fool. He’d be likable if he didn’t radiate hatred when Sophia’s around. He’s a good-looking guy, about six feet tall, dark hair, blue eyes, sensitive face.
Rosie’s a pistol, as we used to say in West Texas. Red hair that glistens like hot lava. Green eyes. A body to lust for. She’s a knockout and knows it. She enjoys attracting men and blowing them off. At the wedding, she gave one of the toasts. I still remember it. Throaty voice, flute of champagne held high. “To Sophia and Jimmy. May life reward each of them as they deserve.” I looked at Sophia. It’s never occurred to her that Rosie despises her. That’s when I decided Rosie was a woman to watch.
Val drifted around the wedding like a ghost. No smiles. No frowns. She’s a redhead too, but with none of Rosie’s fire. Val has a soft voice and a face that reminds me of a Minnesota lake on a windless day. Still. Quiet. But you know the water is deep and cold. When Sophia and I came back up the path after the boulder crashed down, Val was standing on the terrace. I yelled that Sophia had almost been killed. Val stared at us, cool as a Mississippi gambler, and said, “It would have been a long way down.” I swear she sounded disappointed. She gave a little nod and strolled to a chair and settled down with a book.
As for Evelyn, she’s an enigma. When we got married, I told Sophia I was surprised that Frank’s sister lived at the house. Sophia laughed and told me that Evelyn couldn’t make up her mind whether Sophia was a devil or an angel. A devil because she married Frank, an angel because she made him happy. A devil because she insisted the children go to boarding schools, an angel because that made them depend upon Evelyn. A devil because she kept on traveling and working when Frank was ill, an angel because that made Evelyn his companion. Sophia said after Frank died, she asked Evelyn to stay on and that was a plus on the angel side.
Sophia said she’d send Evelyn away if I preferred. Frank left Evelyn comfortably fixed so money wasn’t a problem. I told Sophia absolutely not, Evelyn was fine, leave her in peace. Everything runs beautifully and I like Evelyn. She’s cheerful and good-humored, always saying something positive.
That’s the happy family. Any one of them might have wobbled that rock loose.
Any one of them…
I pulled out a sheaf of photos printed from a computer. There were several of Sophia but one I suspected was Jimmy’s favorite. She stood on a rugged cliffside, likely near her office, looking out to sea, a breeze stirring her golden ringlets, a slight smile softening her ascetic face. Her blue eyes were piercing and eager. The only hint of her eternal restlessness was the almost imperceptible lift of one hand. I wondered if she’d thought of something she had to do or if she was commanding the photographer to hurry. I had no doubt the moment of inaction had dissolved into a flurry of movement. There was work to be done, scripts to write, films to make. Sophia Montgomery was not a woman to waste a moment. How like her to transform a decision about her stepchildren’s trusts from a dry legal responsibility into a journey of…what exactly? Expectations? Reconciliation? Confrontation?
The five sheets of photos contained a montage for each of the family members with brief descriptions written by Jimmy beneath each photograph. I took Alex’s sheet first. In his wedding picture, was he standing especially straight to seem taller? Madge was a beautiful bride. She looked triumphant, excited, pleased. She lifted a champagne flute to her husband but I saw no softening of her features. Where was the love? I could imagine the same expression after a big catch while deep-sea fishing. In the next picture, I felt a vicarious thrill as I looked at the sheer cliff face. Alex’s narrow face ridged with effort as he climbed hand over hand up a rope. In an office shot, a beaming Alex shook hands with a much taller man. Alex’s expensive chalk-stripe black suit was too big through the shoulders. On a tropical beach, a coconut palm suggested carefree days. Alex slumped in a webbed chair near a swimming pool, zinc oxide on his nose, bare shoulders an unlovely pink from sunburn, blue trunks baggy. He stared forlornly across the pool. His mouth had a sullen set. I wondered what he saw.
I looked at the second sheet. Jimmy had written: Kent would be likable if he didn’t radiate hatred…Unlike Alex, whose features were too sharp, too ferret-like for handsomeness, Kent Riordan was an attractive young man. Moreover, all the photographs reflected a shy charm. In one shot, he strummed a mandolin with a whimsical smile. He leaned against a wrought-iron lamppost, relaxed in a sky blue polo and worn chinos and leather sandals. In a beach scene, he ran barefoot and shirtless with an easy grace, hair tousled, baggy chinos rolled up to his knees, laughing. A studio portrait caught a look of inquiry. Lips parted, he might have been asking a question. In a snapshot, he opened his arms as his sister Rosie ran toward him. They were teenagers, features still not quite set. Their affection was
apparent.
Despite reservations, I grinned at the third sheet. Ah yes, I expected that Rosie Riordan was indeed a pistol. Her studio portrait was impudent as the taunt of a street kid, red hair spiky, malachite-bright eyes challenging, voluptuous lips in a seductive droop. Each photo was distinctive. In a sailor suit dress, she looked like a winsome waif. In a gold lamé gown molded to an exquisite figure, she was the eternal enchantress. A snapshot caught her cross-legged on the beach, wet hair plastered against her head, face spattered with mud, industriously excavating a sand castle.
Val’s pictures were shockingly different. Val and Rosie both had the same classic bone structure, which they shared with their brother Kent. Only Alex missed out on the Riordan good looks. But Val’s expression in a studio portrait was severe, remote, her gaze cool and reserved behind heavy and distinctly unstylish horn-rim glasses. On a movie set, her face was stern as she gestured to a group of men clustered around a camera. The glasses rode atop her head. She wore no makeup. An oversize dingy white sweatshirt hung almost to the knees of loose worn jeans. At a premiere, her black taffeta dress was high-necked and unrevealing. Again no makeup or jewelry. Always, her face was enigmatic, unreadable. One photo told a different story. I reached out and touched it with my finger. In a snapshot obviously taken without her realizing it, Val cradled a huge tortoiseshell cat in her arms, head bent, eyes soft, lips curved in love.
Was Val only comfortable offering love to creatures without power or expectations? Why was her face to the world as inhospitable as a barbed-wire barrier?
The final sheet made me smile. It would take a curmudgeon or a snob to resist Evelyn Riordan. At a glance, she was untidy, her Riordan red hair straggling from a shapeless, sagging bun, and unstylish, her clothes unimaginative and dated, but in these pictures with her brother’s children she was gloriously, unrestrainedly effervescent, eyes shining, rosebud mouth smiling. Beneath the first, Jimmy noted: Alex’s wedding. Evelyn was shapeless in a pink silk suit, but her face was alight with joy as she threw rose petals. Standing near a Christmas tree, she held out a wrapped package with silver paper and a huge red bow to a teenage Kent. Her gray cardigan drooped, lacking the bottom button, and a hem hung loose, but Santa couldn’t have appeared more eager to please. On the beach, she walked arm in arm with a grown-up Rosie. Evelyn was smiling, her face eager as she listened to her niece. The last picture was as far from gaiety as a war-ravaged street from a peaceful country lane. A younger Evelyn was in funeral black. She bent her head against bright red curls as a child clung to her. Beneath it, Jimmy had written: Don’t know whether it was Val or Rosie. Obviously a funeral. Maybe Frank’s first wife.
