Roller Coaster

by Karin Kallmaker

  "Where to begin? My husband died suddenly before the twins were born. I think I was five months along. His mother tried to be helpful, but she wasn't well, and had been widowed for years. I had his money, but I'd have rather had him." She paused because she was finding it hard to call up the once-vivid memories of that time in her life. "We were best friends. Peas and carrots."

  "Do you still miss him? After all these years?"

  "The place he was supposed to have in my life is still there. It's been filled by the kids to a large degree, I guess, though they have their own places, of course. I do sometimes wonder what life would have been like if he'd lived. He had such a good soul, very gentle and full of fun. I guess that's why I'm just not drawn to the me-Tarzan type of guy. And I've been too busy working and being a mom to look for any other Justins out there."

  "My straight friends tell me the good men are all snapped up. They seem to only have choices of married men, or ones who have no real desire to connect more than horizontally. Look-a shooting star."

  Helen followed the line of sight from Karolina's pointed finger, but it was gone before she could track it. She wondered what Karolina's perfume was. It was very complex, almost a spice, but there was perhaps a hint of rose as well.

  "I know women who don't want anything more than that either." She added wryly, "But then I haven't dated in so long I'm not sure how it's done."

  Karolina laughed. "I should talk. I'm not good girlfriend material. I work too much. I'm in a business where taking a break can be fatal, but I love it, every minute of it."

  "I understand completely. As a famous restaurateur once told me, your heart tells you what it wants and you're a chump if you don't listen."

  "I like that." Her gesture took in the entirety of the world beyond the ship's railing. "I think I'd be a chump to give up any of this. And thank you again for taking a break from what you love to do this," Karolina said. "I mean that. When I thought of focusing on stage stars instead of screen stars that was the first thing I ran into. They work all the time."

  "Or certainly try to. By the way, where is Trevor Huntley?" She was enough of a fan of movies that she was looking forward to meeting the multi-Oscar winner herself. She also respected him for his theatrical work; what little he had done had been excellent.

  "He doesn't join us until tomorrow when we get to Grand Cayman. Apparently he has a home there. He'll leave us at Costa Maya on Tuesday and return to his hideaway."

  They were approaching the stern and the sound of the engines was definitely louder. But the rush of the warm evening air was still welcome enough that they persevered around the deck to the other side. Behind them a Florida island was sparkling with lights, but the map in her packet had indicated they would be striking out directly across the Gulf, skirting Cuba and then heading farther south to George Town on Grand Cayman. Tomorrow would be entirely spent at sea. So far her stomach was tolerating the ship's motion. Cass had warned her that sleeping was the real test.

  "Thank you for the beautiful suite, by the way. It's lovely. The balcony is a treat. I'm looking forward to maybe even reading a book."

  Expecting Karolina to answer, she glanced over at her when she didn't and was surprised to find her blushing.

  "You look guilty about something."

  "You hit a very pleasant memory, that's all. Balconies are indeed very useful."

  "I see."

  They walked in silence for a bit, dodging other couples also circling the deck, and one intrepid soul who was jogging. She didn't need more details of whatever had happened on a balcony that had left Karolina with such a smile. It reminded her of the look on Laura's face when her girlfriend had leaned in for a kiss. She could imagine... Another woman, nothing but the seagulls to see them. Kisses in the shadows, hands...

  Oh.

  They had reached the first entrance into the ship's inner corridors. Karolina asked, "Do you want to see the late-night comedy act? Or check out the dance floor?"

  "No, but another night I'd love to. I'm suddenly very tired." She found a smile. "My body clock is telling me that right about now the performance would be over. Though normally on a Friday night I would stay out for a while."

  "This is the right stairwell for you, then." Karolina stopped to look at the posted map.

  "I think so too."

  "Well, I think I will see if any other talent-I'm so sorry. That's just the word we use. There's talent and guests aboard that I want to be sure are having a good time. My VIPs, as you said."

  "I'm talent?" Helen shrugged. "It's okay, that's flattering."

  "No, actually, you're Helen. At least that's who I was walking the deck with, I hope. I'll see Helen the Talent tomorrow before her session at eleven."

  The distinction Karolina was making between Helen the woman and Helen the actress made her want to escape all the more. "Enjoy the rest of your night then. I hope everyone is settling in well."

  "Sweet dreams."

  She found her cabin easily and discovered Jeffrey was ready to bring her a nightcap, which she declined. A shower turned out to be a good idea; the knobs confounded her and she had to ask Jeffrey for a demonstration. She was glad not to do that in the morning when she was sleepy and addled. Scrubbed and brushed, she wrapped herself in the robe the ship provided and stepped out onto the balcony. She didn't peer down at the deck-given her unsettled state of mind she wasn't going to trust that her fear of heights was under control.

  Warm air rushed around her wet hair. The ship's lights sparkled off the dark ocean as they rose and fell. In the distance another cruise ship was heading in the opposite direction. Stars touched the horizon, faint and golden. She followed them upward to a breathtaking canopy of white twinkling lights. She hadn't seen this many stars at night in years.

  That easy, almost boneless feeling came back. She sank down onto the deck chair, telling herself she was only interested in looking at the stars, but the moment her head was against the chair back she closed her eyes.

  Kisses in the shadows. Karolina's kisses. Would they be as sensual as she was? As elegant and warm, with the fire that sparkled in Karolina's eyes? And hands... Hands slipping under clothing. The feel of another woman's hands sliding over her body. The idea of cupping the swell of soft breasts. The sound of her kisses on Karolina's shoulders in the warm shadows.

  She was washed over, her bones dissolved and she couldn't catch her breath. The balcony was suddenly too exposed and she stumbled back into the cabin. Shedding the robe she tried to escape the tidal wave under the sheets but it followed her there, rolling her over.

  Clinging to a pillow, as the world rocked under her, she thought perhaps it was something she'd eaten or seasickness. It was hormones, she added desperately, a bizarre kind of hot flash. And Cass was right, she'd ignored her libido for too long and now it was acting crazy. Nonsensical attraction, and wholly inappropriate. She'd flirted with Karolina, she'd enjoyed her company, she'd really liked looking at her and it was rude to use her for an out-of-control fantasy of sighs in her ears and her body savored by the knowing touch of another woman.

  Just private fantasy, she told herself. Everybody has fantasies of things they don't really want except for the way it happened in the movie screen inside their own head. That's all this was. Just...hormonal lust.

  For the first time, with not even two weeks until her fiftieth birthday.

  Just hormonal lust. For another woman.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Saturday morning after the horrible date with Suzy, Laura stopped at the produce market because she could no longer avoid it. To her vast relief Teeny treated her as always, so she was hopeful that a story about Laura being some kind of low-life had not circulated from Suzy to her boss to Teeny. At least not yet. Instead, they had a jolly conversation about Brussels sprouts and English peas. The former weren't in season but the latter were available because of a local grower's greenhouse. A chilled pea, sweet onion, herb and mustard salad would be delicious alongside a chicken ste
w with Jamaican seasonings.

  She might even be convinced to make her favorite low-fat brownies for the twins to enjoy over the weekend. They'd both loved the coq au vin, and their general friendliness had proved distracting the past couple of days. Though they didn't know why, she was very grateful. Julie and she had marked out the area for her herb garden and made up a list of three things Julie needed to accomplish before the end of October to get her project going.

  Landscaping trucks partially blocked the driveway, but she managed to get past them and roll into an empty carport bay. Upon opening the back hatch of the Volvo she discovered that the box containing the shelled peas had overturned and all the precious little orbs of green delight had rolled every which way. Well, hell.

  She spent twenty minutes dredging peas out from under the seat. She didn't relish the smell of rotting vegetation and certainly the Volvo already had a layered aroma of old fruits and vegetables. It was inevitable in any food preparation environment-sooner or later, all the things that could taste good together built up into a complex and not entirely pleasant smell akin to dried peat. The car interior was due for a deodorizing. In the meantime, she did not need rotting peas in the gestalt.

  Finally, lightheaded from hanging almost upside down, she thought she had most of them. It hurt to throw them in the garbage can next to the cars. As she went back for the surviving groceries she realized she had been ignoring the sound of raised voices. Following the sound around the corner of the patio she saw Grace and one of the gardeners arguing, their voices overlapping in Spanish. She stayed out of sight, not wanting to tread into Grace's domain, but she wanted to make sure that nothing more than a verbal sparring was underway. It was easily the most animated she'd seen Grace to date.

  A few moments later, Grace leaned close and said something harsh almost in the man's ear, then she stalked back to the house. Laura hadn't a clue what had begun the incident and the man immediately resumed hacking at the hedge. Maybe he hadn't been showing enough skill, but they had both been very angry.

  She shrugged off the mystery and went to the car for the rest of her groceries. The potatoes had also escaped and rolled across the back, but they were easily rescued and could be washed. She had set the box on the kitchen counter when she realized she again heard raised voices.

  It was none of her business, and she might not like Grace much, but she'd seen her share of what happened when men let their temper get the better of them, and this man sounded livid. They were again speaking in Spanish and the words overlapped at a pace she couldn't follow. She lingered just out of sight at the end of the sitting room and caught a glimpse of the man, his back to the front door as if he'd just entered. It was the supervisor of the gardening crew, his dark face mottled with rage, and one balled fist clutching the bandana he usually wore around his neck.

  He called Grace a name that was extremely rude. It wasn't a word Laura would ever utter, in any language, but she knew enough variations that a member of the kitchen staff never ever got away with calling her one.

  Grace laughed and cast aspersions on his male anatomy. The tone was getting uglier and uglier, and Laura felt a foreboding chill. She decided she had to intervene-and then her rusty Spanish kicked in and some of what Grace was shouting made sense.

  Estúpido Mexicano, that she understood. Then a string of words she puzzled over for a moment and then took to mean, "I have the power. You have none."

  He responded with a denial, then said, "There is no more. We die..." No, that wasn't right. He had said they couldn't live. There was no life, no comida, not enough for food to live on after they paid.

  Grace said he was suerte, lucky, fortunate to have only had to pay percentage diez until now. Ten, now to be twenty. Then, clear and plain, "Another word and you're all fired."

  Grace turned on her heel and headed for the stairs. The man, boiling mad, stood choking on words, then he slammed out the front door.

  Left blinking in confusion, Laura puzzled over what she had just heard. Her Spanish had never been great, but it was enough to tell cooks what to do, offer praise and criticism they could follow, understand when she was being disrespected, and deal with vendors who tried to use the language barrier to their advantage. If she had heard rightly, something very rotten was going on.

  She went back to the kitchen, not sure what to do. The calm environment and cheerful sunshine belied the sick chill in her stomach. She couldn't forget about it, even though she knew it wasn't her domain.

  She began mindlessly unpacking the produce and nearly jumped out of her skin when Grace spoke from behind her.

  "I didn't hear you come in."

  "I wanted to get through the market before things were picked over," she said.

  Grace only shrugged. "Julie is out with friends at the library and Justin is at the school skateboarding. They'll both be back by five."

  "Perfect." That gave her plenty of time for brownies before she started on dinner prep. She was glad when Grace left again, not sure she could look at someone who had been leveling racist sneers only a few minutes earlier. What was she going to do?

  She had the melted chocolate, egg- and yogurt-beaten sugar and sifted dry ingredients stirred together when she saw the landscaping trucks move to the side yard. The supervisor was talking to his people. The situation wasn't right, and what was more, she was sure Helen knew nothing of it and wouldn't tolerate it if she did. She had met her share of wealthy people who would have cared less as long as their needs were met, but she'd also met just as many who would care that people who worked for them were being extorted by someone else in their name. Helen was definitely in the latter group.

  Creeping through the mud room and out the side door, she waited there, out of sight of the house windows, until one of the workers saw her. She gestured. She could see he was tempted to ignore her, but finally he signaled his boss, who turned to give her a glance. She waved urgently, and he said something, then slowly made his way over.

  "I'm sorry to interrupt," she began, then she lapsed into what passed for her Spanish, asking him if he and his crew were paying Grace to keep their jobs.

  He lifted a brow, maybe surprised that she spoke in a string of street-learned phrases, not the halting perfection of Spanish learned from books. "Es privado, señora."

  She repeated herself, then added what she hoped was, "I'll speak to Mrs. Baynor myself. She knows nothing of this. This would upset her."

  An involuntary smile ghosted across his face, and he relaxed slightly. Laura realized she'd said Helen would be crazy instead of upset. Then he shrugged. There was no hope in his eyes.

  "It's not right," Laura said, growing more certain of her language as it dredged up from the back of her brain. "Mrs. Baynor pays Grace to pay you, and Grace takes a lot for herself. That's not how it should be."

  He choose his words carefully, probably gauging to her second grade vocabulary. "Grace no tomar su dinero?"

  "She wouldn't dare," Laura snapped. On the other hand, maybe Grace was just biding her time, waiting to decide if it was safe to blackmail Laura. But she'd learned, all those years running kitchens staffed almost entirely by men, in resorts owned and run by men, that once you bowed to illicit authority and bullies, you always bowed. Because of her mother she had choices and power her mother had never had. She would be damned if she'd bow to someone like Grace. She loved this job, loved...everything about it. But she wasn't going to let Helen be ripped off. She couldn't pretend she didn't know.

  "Un americano, con papeles. Mis hombres…" His voice trailed away, leaving Laura certain that some of his crew were in the country without documentation and Grace knew that too.

  "When do you return to work?" She started to attempt the sentence in Spanish, but he cut her off.

  "Past tomorrow. The day after tomorrow."

  His English was better than her Spanish, she suspected, so she stuck with it. "I'll talk to you the day after tomorrow then. Say nothing about this to anyone. I'll do my best, my v
ery best, to stop this."

  He nodded and went back to his crew and Laura slipped into the kitchen. The oven was ready and she slipped the brownies inside, her head spinning. She had no further plan made when the twins both arrived home and clomped their mutual way up the stairs to various Internet and phone call pursuits, each with a warm brownie in one hand.

  Grace had paused in the mud room to write something on the schedule board, then she joined Laura.

  "I've got a few errands to run in Menlo Park and I thought I might take in a movie. I'll probably be back after you leave." Her face was its familiar, impassive façade. Laura realized Grace had never once met her gaze squarely.

  "We'll be fine," Laura told her. "I won't dash out, but the kids are fine all by themselves for an hour or two."

  She got all of the ingredients of the stew into the pot and settled in to read on her iPad while it bubbled, all the while listening for the sound of Grace's departing car. She waited three minutes after the gravel had stopped crunching from the main drive, then picked up an invoice to carry into the study where she'd had her interview.

  This was so not her business. It really could wait until Helen came home next Sunday. It was only a week from tomorrow. But she wanted some proof, something to give Helen to examine or ask her accountant to research, and she didn't know when she'd have this chance to look for something again. What if the maintenance supervisor said something to Grace about their conversation? She shouldn't have spoken to him yet. That hadn't been a smart move.

  The file cabinet wasn't locked, but she was quickly frustrated by its contents. The gardening company invoices were there and marked paid. Grace was getting her share in cash handed back from the supervisor. Kickbacks happened all over the world-she'd worked in plenty of places where delivery people took cash to bring goods to her kitchen first. But her bosses had been aware that she was paying them and their bosses knew it too. This was different. The workers were vulnerable and Grace was using that to line her own pockets while Helen footed the bill.