Dreams of the Dead

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “I’ll take some water,” Nina said.

  Dana wore a white T-shirt and low-slung jeans held up with more battered leather. She smoked indoors, in California an act of such eco-evil, Nina could hardly take her eyes off the burning tip of the cigarette, the languid arm, the anachronistic romance of it all.

  Dana went to the couch and curled up, holding an ashtray. Nina took a seat at the table, about ten feet away, and Kurt went to his tiny kitchen.

  Glasses briefly clinked in the distance.

  The two women sat together in excruciating and suggestive silence, Nina riveted on Dana’s smoking, breathing in and out. Nina hadn’t witnessed such blithely negligent inattention to personal health and the general welfare in years. Dana couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Nina either. Her eyes fastened on Nina’s shoes. Foot mutilators, yes, but red and oh so beautiful. Nina crossed her legs to show them off, enjoying her burning feet, reveling in the insane height of her heels. Dana, though, was making bare feet look chic.

  Finally, Kurt came back to dole out drinks.

  “In case you’re wondering,” Dana said to Nina, quickly touching Kurt’s hand as he gave her a glass, shaking the ice, “he wasn’t overjoyed to see me. I forgot to call, too. I think our Kurt”—she gazed steadily at him—“doesn’t welcome surprises.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “Stockholm.” Dana took a long drag and tapped the cigarette out into the ashtray. “Flew into Reno. The taxi up here cost a fortune.”

  “With notice,” Kurt said to her, “I could have picked you up.”

  “Then it wouldn’t have been such a lovely surprise.” Dana’s shining, poreless cheeks dimpled when she smiled.

  “Cheers,” Kurt said. He raised his glass in the air, looking uncertain, younger somehow.

  They all raised their glasses, but to what? Their mutual destruction?

  “God, I’m tired,” Dana said moments later, her glass already almost empty, yawning. “I hope you’re not going to turn me out, Kurt.”

  Like that, Dana had set forth her plan. She expected to spend the night with Kurt. Nina set her glass down, awaiting his response.

  “Let’s talk about that later,” he said, voice almost a whisper.

  The burr in Nina’s stomach moved around. He should blow this interloper off in front of her, shouldn’t he? Nina, never afraid of confrontation in the courtroom, ought to fight back, shouldn’t she? Nina asked Dana, “What exactly brings you here?”

  “You’re a direct one, aren’t you?” Dana took a handful of nuts from a bowl on the table. Nina saw that Dana didn’t know what to say either, in spite of her cool expression.

  “I find it better than being circuitous.”

  “Circuitous.” Dana played the word like a dirty marble in her mouth. “Something to do with circles? Anyway, Kurt and I have been sitting here having a chat. That’s why I came here, to chat. Like you, I’m direct. I prefer face-to-face.”

  “And then I come along to interrupt absolutely everything.”

  Kurt sat down on the other end of the couch, his voice wobbly. He had tossed off a double in one gulp. “Should I feel I did something wrong?” he said.

  “You did do something wrong. You don’t belong here.” Dana waved a dismissive hand around. “I can’t believe this.” They all looked around at his place, at the generic rented furniture, boxy beige. They regarded the shabby droop of curtains that never got washed. They observed how the grubby clutter on the kitchen counters competed with a leggy plant sporting unhealthy, brown-edged leaves. They probably all came to the same conclusion, Nina decided. Kurt simply didn’t care.

  Nina thought back. Kurt’s place in Wiesbaden had been airy and light with high ceilings, windows overlooking a park, and sleek but comfortable furniture and striking artwork on the walls that showed how much he cherished his home.

  “Mine own,” Kurt said, emptying his glass fast, staring at the threadbare rug. “My life to date.”

  Dana sniffed, looked down at her drink, held it up for a refill, and said, “You’ve been here for months, yet you’re not working.”

  “Jobs aren’t easy to find these days. They never have been. Now’s even worse.” He scrambled for the bottle, like someone grabbing for something left floating after a boat capsized.

  The two women watched him. Dana began smoking another cigarette and said to Nina, “I thought you were taking care of him.”

  “And I thought you were out of his life.”

  Dana ran a hand along her calf as if it ached after her long journey, or else to draw attention to its long slimness. She wore a gold anklet with a charm in the shape of a cross.

  “Until last week,” Nina continued. “So, Dana. What brought you all this way from Stockholm?”

  A long draw, a final tap of ash. “I know you are an attorney. I suppose that means you’re like a bulldog and can’t let a delicate question go. What brings me here? Hmm, I haven’t really put it to myself in those terms. I suppose I came to fetch him. I love him so much. Do you?”

  Kurt got up. He provided refills for all, then plopped down on the couch opposite Dana. He had adopted the wooden face of the alienated male in a group of females. He would tolerate and he would survive, but he clearly did not want to participate, not at all.

  “We have been calling each other,” Dana said to Nina. “Right, Kurt?” She yawned deeply and unself-consciously, like a kid. “A couple of hours a night. Thank God for Skype.” She quit pretending to sit and stretched the length of her body out on the couch. Her sunny hair spread out over the pillow. She placed her bare feet across Kurt’s lap. Her eyelashes closed as lightly as expensive feathers over her cheeks, and she yawned hugely again. It would have been charming, this little-girl act, in some other scene.

  “Can we talk?” Nina asked Kurt, jerking her head toward the door. He nodded, extricated himself from underneath Dana, and got up from the couch. Dana didn’t open her eyes. She was moving into the deep sleep of the jet-lagged traveler and would be hard to budge now. Kurt spread a woolen throw Nina had given him over Dana’s slumbering form.

  Nina led him through double doors to the outside landing. Night had arrived and the usual astonishingly clear stars danced in the sky.

  “Dana’s always been spontaneous, but I never dreamed she’d fly all this way without telling me. I suppose our last conversation got a little out of control.”

  Our last conversation confirmed the many intense ones that must have come before. Nina wondered if they had been the controlled conversations of two people trying to make peace with an awkward breakup, but suspected they had edged more toward emotional cliffs, injuries, recklessness.

  “She’d call me at midnight her time when we were both half in a dreamworld. Things got said.”

  How reminiscent of a politician waffling, playing with meaning through the detachment of passivity. He did not say, “I said something painful and intimate I had no business saying and so did she.” Nope, things got said in that world and somehow things went awry.

  “Remind me,” Nina said. “How long were you two together?”

  “For four years in Stockholm, right before I moved to Germany. She was a violinist in the same orchestra as me. Those paintings of hers you noticed on the walls of my place in Wiesbaden—she’s a painter, too, as you know.”

  “So—Dana’s going on that tour you’ve been invited to join. You didn’t mention that. Why not tell me that?”

  He said nothing for a few moments, just placed his hands in his pockets and stared up into the sequined black above them.

  She judged his reluctance to answer and didn’t like what she was thinking. “I’m not an enemy, Kurt. No need to mess with my mind.”

  “Of course we aren’t enemies,” he said finally.

  “What exactly did Dana have to do with your invitation to this European excursion?”

  “You’re so quick, Nina.”

  Jab. He complimented her, and, oh, how betrayed she felt, recognizing
the stall for what it was.

  He gave himself another few seconds to think. “Dana knew about my money problems. She knows people. She promoted my involvement in the tour.”

  “Huh.”

  “I didn’t know that until just now. I swear.”

  “You told me you broke up before you came back to me. Was that true?”

  He nodded, grimacing.

  “Why did you break up?”

  “Who knows why women break up with men.”

  Nina steadied herself on the patio railing. If you felt low enough to consider jumping off a balcony, was that love or psychosis? So Dana had broken up with him.

  “She’s volatile. We fought constantly. Now she says she’s got that all under control. Oh, why should you care? It’s nothing to do with you, Nina.”

  “She’s got things under control,” Nina repeated. Her voice, usually so reliable, sounded cracked and troubled. She struggled to get a grip. “How old is she again?” Nina didn’t really need to know. Dana was much younger than Nina, fresh, in love, tough. Nina needed a minute to pull together the vying parts of herself. She wanted Kurt. She didn’t. Maybe she no longer had that first option.

  “Dana’s twenty-five,” Kurt said uncertainly. “Maybe twenty-six?”

  “I want to do this situation justice, so please, correct me if I’m wrong. Since your return to Tahoe and to me and Bob, you’ve continued to communicate with your old girlfriend, reigniting a relationship you told me was over but wasn’t.”

  “Don’t blow this out of proportion. You make me feel like I’m on the witness stand.”

  “You want her back?”

  “I can’t answer that! Everyone does it nowadays, staying in touch with old lovers. It doesn’t have to mean anything. You work so much. I get lonely.”

  He said that last calmly and in a deep voice.

  Nina pulled her coat around her. “You’re hurting me.” The old Kurt would never have been able to stand seeing her in pain. He would gather her in his arms, hold her, and whisper in her ear that he loved her, that he’d get this all sorted out.

  He didn’t look at her. His eyes flicked toward Dana, asleep in the other room.

  “So, she’ll stay with you tonight. Maybe again tomorrow night?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess.”

  He tore his eyes away from the vision lolling in his living room, back to Nina. “Now that she’s here, I need to talk to her. She’s an old friend. I’d like to know how things are going with the orchestra.”

  “Look at what you’re giving up. Look at me.”

  Kurt shook his head, looked down. “I’ll call you later.”

  Nina allowed him to lead her back toward the front door. Dana snored away softly, a tousle-haired, gangly girl, a girl who had known Kurt longer and apparently better than she, Nina, ever had.

  Walking back down the unforgiving concrete steps toward the SUV, Nina thought about Dana. Would Dana have got on a plane and flown six thousand miles to talk to somebody if she didn’t love him a lot and if Kurt had not encouraged her?

  No.

  On the way home, she picked up barbecued chicken at a drive-through. Bob was waiting, and he needed his supper. They ate in the warm cabin, then took Hitchcock out for a walk.

  Only when she was brushing her teeth to go to bed did she think about the thing she had done at Kurt’s apartment, a thing that went against all her principles, all hard-won wisdom, all morality, and all maturity.

  On the way out, while Kurt was distracted, she had tossed the sushi bag behind the couch, inches from Dana.

  Nina looked up at the clear sky through the stars, hoping the fish dinner would rot there for a long, long time.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Lodge, a huge room with tall skylights, was full of people, but Nina sighted Marianne and her brother almost immediately at a table in front, their heads close in conversation.

  Gene Malavoy stood politely and shook hands with Eric and Nina. Marianne didn’t move, but she gave a nod.

  Nina did not like Marianne Strong, but she had to admire the professional skier’s beauty. Limiting her time to managing the ski lesson program at Paradise, at thirty-six Marianne no longer did aerial tricks in exhibitions. However, she still possessed sharply defined features and an aura of suppressed energy seen only in people whose lifestyle is devoted to sports or the military. Today she wore a purple sweatshirt, partially unzipped to show off smooth, round cleavage. Her black hair shone under the striped headband. With a gesture, seeing Eric, she removed it and invited him to sit down.

  Nina sat down next to Malavoy. Also dark, younger than Marianne, he kept his sunglasses on. His hair when she saw him last had been shorter than usual. Now it was cropped as short as Eric’s. His thick eyebrows stood out all the more. He avoided looking at her. She had never understood his hostility toward her.

  “So,” Marianne said, holding her coffee with both hands. She had a slight accent, which Nina had thought was purely French, but Eric responded in another language, which must be Portuguese: “Eu deseo que en estivesse esquiando hoje.”

  Marianne answered with a slight smile, “Também, eu deseo que voce era, que voce parece forte.” He responded by putting his elbow on the table and turning to her full-face, giving her a look of complete male attention.

  “I like your boots,” he said. “Frye, aren’t they? Retro but so pragmatic.”

  Nina watched Malavoy. At the first foreign words, he had leaned forward, and his facial muscles tensed. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he might understand the Portuguese.

  Thus had Eric, in one expert swoop, established a relationship with Marianne and also revealed that her half brother might know something about Brazil himself. Paul couldn’t have done better. In fact, Paul couldn’t have done it at all. So Eric did have some interesting skills, even if he hadn’t been effective in Brazil. Eric said a few more things in Portuguese, and Marianne responded.

  “Sorry,” Eric said then, turning to Nina. “Marianne’s mother was from Florianópolis, a city on the southern coast, exquisitely beautiful. You’d like it, Nina.”

  “I’m sure I would. Does your mother still visit there?” Nina asked.

  “No,” Marianne said. Her expression became formal again. She glanced at her half brother, Gene. Aside from their coloring, they did not look much alike.

  “Your father was from France?” Nina said, turning to Malavoy.

  “Yes, we both have dual citizenship. Why do you ask?” This came from Marianne, apparently the designated spokesperson.

  “I’m trying to remember. You have the same father?”

  “That’s right. Gene has never been to Brazil, though I spent considerable time there as a child. He grew up with our father in France.”

  “So you don’t speak Portuguese, Mr. Malavoy?” Nina asked, trying again to talk directly to the glowering young man beside her.

  Marianne said, “You had something to tell us, something important about the sale and Jim. What is it?”

  “You may know that Eric has returned from Brazil, where he spoke to the attorney who has caused two affidavits to be submitted, supposedly from Jim,” Nina said.

  “What did you find out?” Marianne said to Eric.

  “Nina is of the opinion that the affidavits are fraudulent,” Eric said.

  “Of course she thinks that.” Marianne nodded. “She doesn’t want him to be alive any more than the rest of us. What did you find out, Eric? Give us a detailed report, okay? Philip hardly talks to us, but I understand he is paying big money.”

  “I can tell you this,” Eric said. “I didn’t see Jim. I didn’t talk to him. I was handed the paper you already have a copy of, with his current driver’s license attached.”

  “The lawyers in Brazil aren’t all crooks,” Marianne said, “even though you people probably think they are. It’s a civilized country, and southern Brazil isn’t that different from Europe. Maybe Jim’s alive. Frankly, although I hate him, it
would be great if he were alive.”

  “Why’s that?” Nina asked.

  “Because then we could settle the escrow problem and each of us could take a share. And then arrest him.”

  “How does it affect you financially if Jim is dead?”

  “I’m sure you already know that. Jim’s share goes to Kelly and his father.”

  “So the only disadvantageous situation for you would be if you have no evidence either way and if you have to wait three years for the legal presumption of death,” Nina said.

  “That’s all very interesting, but you don’t seem to understand yet that the sale itself is in danger if you don’t resolve some legal questions very rapidly. We will lose the buyers. All I ask you to do is get the sale through. From my point of view, and Gene agrees, we need this to happen. Let Jim’s share go into escrow, if it will ensure the sale. But make sure it’s just his share, not all the net.”

  “The court seems inclined to place all the net proceeds in escrow. Either way, whether it’s the entire net proceeds or Jim’s alleged share, Philip needs it right now, to have something left over for him and Kelly to live on after the lenders are paid.”

  “Why didn’t he think of that before he ran the resort into the ground? He should do whatever he has to so that sale happens. Nelson Hendricks said—”

  Nina wondered yet again what Marianne had been doing at the title company and decided to assume she really had been there to quiz the man on finances. That was her obsession after all. “Nelson Hendricks isn’t involved in this. And Philip isn’t solely responsible for bankrupting the resort.”

  “Think what you want. The ski school was always run at a profit by me. Philip keeps the day-to-day operations of the rest of the resort to himself. Philip treats me condescendingly. I’m an owner of Paradise Resort and yet I have to teach little kids to slow down on the bunny hill. I could have helped prevent this disaster.”

  “Ever hear of any problems with the resort’s accounts?” Nina asked.

  “Only the allegations you made in court, that Jim was an embezzler, too. I told you, I was kept away from the money. From what I can glean, Philip stopped paying attention a long time ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spends all his time playing poker downtown. Philip and Jim managed the money, and look what happened to a world-class venue. Now let’s sell it. I have wanted to sell it since before Jim disappeared.”