In the van, Bobbi said, “By the way, Clint and I have decided to call it quits. He’s moving back to Whistler.”
“Oh,” I said from the passenger seat. Clint was an Australian, a part-time chef and ski instructor Bobbi had started seeing two years before, after meeting him while we were on a shoot in Whistler. He was a nice guy, but didn’t have much ambition. At thirty-five he was content to take whatever part-time work he could find in the summer and ski in the winter. “Are you okay?”
Bobbi shrugged. “Sure. It’s no big deal. Neither one of us is broken up about it. He’s a little too laid back for me and he thinks I’m too bossy and money-oriented.” She shrugged again. I wondered if she was as unbroken up about it as she claimed. “Do you think that policeman, Sergeant Matthias, is married?” she asked.
During the afternoon the sky turned threatening, heavy dark clouds moving in from the west, bringing the promise of rain after a week of hot, dry weather. The rain held off, though, and the event came off without a hitch. Without a major hitch, anyway. A dozen or so of the big Canada geese that hung out in the park all year round decided to check out the buffet tent, leaving a lot of squishy, sausage-sized calling cards on the grass.
We got back to the studio around six, left the film in the fridge for Wayne to process on Monday, then Bobbi dropped me off at Granville Island on her way home; she was going to use the van to help Clint move his belongings back to Whistler. Reeny wasn’t home, but the message light on my phone was flashing. It was Linda.
“Tom, you’re off the hook. Hilly has changed her mind. She wants to come to Australia with us after all. Jack is leaving next week and we’ll be leaving the first week of October. We’ll stop over in Vancouver, of course, so you can spend some time with Hilly. I’ll call you when I know more. Bye.”
I erased the message, uncertain whether I felt relief or disappointment. Both, probably. However, beneath the mingled feelings of relief and disappointment was a small stirring of anger at my former spouse. “You’re off the hook,” she’d said, assuming that I hadn’t really wanted Hilly to spend the year with me, that I’d be relieved that she’d decided to go to Australia. I wasn’t sure, though, why I was angry. Was it because Linda had taken it for granted that I’d be relieved that Hilly had changed her mind, or was it because she’d been right, that I had, in fact, felt a faint sense of relief? I’d felt disappointment too, damnit, although I couldn’t say which I’d felt first. Perhaps the disappointment had simply been the result of guilt at feeling relieved.
I was giving myself a headache.
“You’re being much too analytical,” Daniel Wu said later. We were in his dining room, the remains of a vegetarian lasagne on the table.
“Thank you, Dr. Fraud.”
“Don’t abuse the messenger,” he said. He gestured toward the chess board set up between us. “It’s your move, by the way.”
“Humph.” He had me cornered. No matter what I did, I was going to lose my queen. “I give up,” I said, toppling my king. “I don’t know why I bother playing with you. I never win. Hell, I rarely manage more than a dozen moves, except when you take pity on me and let me take moves back, which isn’t often.”
“One is supposed to learn from one’s mistakes.”
“Humph,” I said again.
“Another?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “Three total routs in one evening are enough.” I drained the last mouthful of beer from my glass. Daniel refused to allow me to drink from the can or bottle when I was in his house. “If you must drink that dreadful stuff,” he’d told me, “you can at least be civilized and drink it from a glass.” Daniel didn’t drink alcohol.
“You’re distracted,” he said magnanimously as he put the chess pieces back into a black lacquered box. “Speaking of distractions, where is your tall, blond lady friend tonight?”
“Reeny? Working, I guess,” I said.
“She’s really very striking, if I do say so.”
“Mm,” I said.
“How is she in the sack?”
“Eh? What?”
Daniel sighed. “Snap out of it, Thomas.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m not very good company tonight.” I stood. “Thanks for the lasagne and the games.” I collected my empty Kokanee cans. “I guess I’ll head home.”
“As much as I’m generally pleased to be your friend, Thomas,” Daniel said, “sometimes you don’t make it easy.”
“Sorry,” I said.
I went home. It was a little past nine. The weather had turned to crap. I got myself another beer out of the fridge and took it up to the roof deck, where I sat under the awning in the dark, listening to the rain and feeling sorry for myself without really knowing why. Or, to put it more accurately, without any particular reason to feel sorry for myself. Despite the thing with Hilly, the nagging conviction that Willson Quayle’s promise to come through with a cheque was as empty as my bank account, and getting in way over my head with Reeny, I told myself, things weren’t that bad. Were they?
My house is located at the intersection of the main dock that runs parallel to the embankment and the second of the finger docks perpendicular to the main dock. From my roof deck, I had an unobstructed view of the board-walk along the top of the quay. The boardwalk was only about thirty-five feet away from where I sat and was well lit for security reasons. I was watching for Reeny, and when a figure of a woman appeared on the quay, a little quiver of anticipation bloomed in my chest. However, the woman’s hair was dark, nor was she tall enough or slim enough to be Reeny. Then the figure of a thickset man joined her. He, too, was hatless. And bald.
Carl Yeager and the Missus. I watched them as they stood on the quay in the rain, looking at the floating houses moored below them. Although they were less than forty feet away, they couldn’t see me, sitting in the dark under the awning. Then they began walking toward the ramp that led down to the gate. A half a minute later I heard the thud of footsteps on the dock below me, then the knock on my door.
I thought about calling the police. They would certainly be interested in knowing the whereabouts of Pendragon’s former new owners. I even went so far as to get up and go downstairs to get the phone. However, when the knock came again, my curiosity got the better of me and I answered the door instead.
“Where’s Hastings at?” Carl Yeager demanded. His bald pate glistened with rain.
“I don’t know where he is,” I said. “Or his hat.”
Yeager blinked. “What? I don’t care about his gaw-damn hat. I figure it was him that set fire t’ the boat so’s we wouldn’t find out it was all rotten.”
“I still don’t know where he is.”
“Where’s the broad?”
“The broad what?”
Yeager was losing patience. “Listen, bud,” he growled. “I ain’t in the mood. Okay? The way I figure it, since Hastings burned the boat, he still owes me. I don’t care who pays me, long as I get paid. A deal’s a deal in my book. Unnerstand?”
“I’m not sure I do,” I said.
“Gawdamnit, you drunk or something?”
“Or something,” I said. “Well, good luck finding him.” I started to close the door.
He held it open. “The broad had insurance on the boat, right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I lied. “Now good night.” I tried to close the door again, but he leaned his weight against it. I pushed harder. He just bared his teeth in a sinister grin.
“Look, bud,” he said. “I ain’t leavin’ till I get some satisfaction.”
“The Missus not keeping her end up? I’m not getting much these days myself. Especially the girly action. Maybe — ”
“The fuck!” he bellowed.
“Carl,” the Missus said.
“What?” he snapped.
“Mister,” she said to me. Her hennaed hair was plastered to the shape of her skull. Wet, it was almost black under the yellow porch light. “We don’t want no trouble, but you gotta understand, Chris
was in a jam an’ we helped him out in exchange for that boat. Now it’s burnt and we got nothin’ to show for it. The way we see it, if there’s any insurance comin’, it’s rightly ours.”
“I’m not sure the insurance company would see it that way,” I said.
“You let us worry about that,” Carl Yeager said. “Just tell us where Hastings or the woman is at.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t do that.”
A cunning look came over Carl Yeager’s blunt face. “’Cause you don’t know or you ain’t tellin’?”
“A little of both, actually,” I said. “Now, if you don’t take your hand off my door, I’m going to call the police.”
Yeager glared at me for a moment, as if daring me to call the police, then shrugged and took his hand from the door. I shut it in his face and locked it, a little surprised but nonetheless grateful that he’d given up so easily.
The long muscles of my arms and legs quivered with adrenaline and the backs of my shoulders were stiff with tension. I went to the bar in the living room and poured myself a couple of fingers from the pitiful few that remained in the bottle of sixteen-year-old Lagavulin single malt I’d got for my birthday. I slugged half of it back, then almost spilled the rest when I heard a key rattle in the front door lock. It was Reeny, though.
“Was that who I thought it was?” she said as she came through from the hall. She dropped her big shoulder bag by the foot of the stairs and took off her hooded, waterproof jacket.
“If you’re referring to the Yeagers, yes. They didn’t see you, did they?”
“No.” She hung her jacket over the newel post and joined me in the living room. “Are you all right? You look a little freaked.”
I told her about my conversation with Carl and Jackie Yeager.
“I kept up the insurance,” she said. “I’m not the beneficiary, though. Chris is. But wouldn’t the insurance have lapsed as soon as he signed the bill of sale?”
“Probably,” I said. “Um…”
She looked at me. “What?”
“The police asked me if I thought you set fire to Pendragon.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What did you tell them?”
“I told them I was sure you didn’t. You didn’t, did you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Do you think it might have been Chris?”
“No, I can’t believe he’d burn Pendragon. He loved her too much.”
“Not too much to sell her for a dollar and consideration,” I reminded her.
She looked at me for a moment, then said, “I guess you’re right.”
I wanted to ask her where she’d been all evening, but it was none of my business. “Would you like a drink?” I asked instead.
“Is there any of that left?” she asked, indicating my drink.
“Some,” I said. I poured two fingers from the almost empty bottle into a glass and handed it to her. “Cheers,” I said, raising my glass.
“Slainte,” she said. We drank.
She sat down on the sofa and I sat in the easy chair on the other side of the coffee table. She tucked her feet under her. “Sorry I’m so late,” she said. “I should have called. We went out for a drink after the shoot to celebrate another episode in the can. Just two more and we wrap up the second season.”
“Will there be a third?” I asked.
“I think so,” she said. “But you never can tell. We could tank this year. I actually think the second season is better than the first, though.” She sipped her whisky. “Any word from Rainy Day Toys?”
I hadn’t had the opportunity to tell her about my Friday conversation with Willson Quayle, so I filled her in on the latest developments, concluding with, “If he doesn’t keep his promise and deliver a cheque first thing Monday, though, I’m going to tell him to take a hike.”
“I hope it works out,” she said.
She fell silent, contemplating her drink. I contemplated her, the straw-coloured hair, the curve of her cheekbone, the line of her jaw, the length of her neck, the slope of her shoulder, the depth of her bosom. I took a sip of whisky to calm myself.
“Tom,” she said.
“Mm?”
“I have a confession to make.”
“Speak, my child.”
“I think it’s only fair that I tell you that I’ve been talking to some of Chris’s friends.”
“Oh?” I said breezily, although I felt far from nonchalant.
She smiled slightly, gently, a bit sadly. “No one I spoke to has heard from him, though.”
“Maybe he was in town only long enough to sign Pendragon over to Yeager.”
“I suppose,” she said. She looked at me for a few seconds, then finished her drink. “Maybe I should find someplace else to stay,” she said, placing her glass carefully on the coffee table. “Until my house is vacant.”
“Whatever you think best,” I said, trying not to let my disappointment show.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it would be for the better.”
A voice in my head told me she was probably right, but I ignored it. “I can’t force you to stay, obviously, but I would like you to stay.”
“I’d like to stay too,” she said.
“Then it’s settled.”
“I wish it were that easy. I don’t feel right about staying here with you and trying to find Chris. I feel like I’m taking advantage of you. Using you.”
“I don’t. Feel that way, I mean.”
“Besides, you’ve got enough on your plate without me making your life more difficult.”
“You’re not making my life more difficult. Not at all. Look, whatever’s on my plate, to use your metaphor, is home cooked. You’re, well, a side order. Or maybe dessert,” I added with a smile.
“Desserts aren’t good for you,” she said.
“No, but when I was growing up, dessert was the reward for eating all your vegetables.” I cocked my head and rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Let’s see, if you were dessert, what would you be? Strawberry shortcake. No. Devil’s food cake.”
She laughed. “Okay, I’ll stay.”
“Great.”
“But,” she added, “even if you do eat all your vegetables, you may still have to go to bed without dessert.”
“So to speak,” I said, which made her smile crooked-ly. “But I’m a grown-up now. More or less. I learned years ago not to count on dessert.” I drank the rest of my whisky and put my glass down next to hers. “I think it’s time to put this food metaphor out of its misery,” I said.
She sat quietly, looking more or less in my direction but not really seeing me. Then her eyes focused and she said, “I’m not very sure about my feelings right now, Tom. I’d like to be, but I’m not.”
“That’s a normal state for me,” I said. “Uncertainty about how I feel. Most of the time, anyway. Daniel says it’s because I’m too analytical. Maybe he’s right,” I added with a shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t analyzed it.” That made her smile too. I was getting good at making her smile, I thought. “Let’s keep it simple,” I said. “You know how I feel about you, I think.”
“Well, let’s just say that you’re not a very good actor.” She shook her head in self-disapprobation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be flippant. Yes, I think I have a good idea how you feel about me.”
“It’s not always easy,” I said, “but I’ve learned to be patient, mainly because being impatient doesn’t make what you’re waiting for happen any sooner, and causes too much stress besides. At the risk of sounding fatalistic, if something is meant to be, it probably will be, although it might need a little nudge in the right direction once in a while.”
“Que sera, sera.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself. In the meantime, I’ll try to behave myself, so as not to screw anything up by trying too hard.”
“I’m not handling this very well, am I?” she said.
“You’re doing fine,” I said.
She sto
od suddenly. “Damnit,” she said. “I hate this. I really do. You deserve better than this.” I wisely kept my opinion to myself. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she went on. “I thought I’d put it all — Chris, I mean — behind me. When the Rainy Days Toys project was announced and I recommended they hire you, I was really looking forward to getting to know you better, maybe even falling in love with you.” My heart thudded. “Hell,” she went on, “maybe I have and that’s why I’m so damned confused.” She sank down onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. “I’m not making much sense, I am?”
“Sure you are,” I said. I waved my hand in a small circle over my head, indicating the house around us. “I wish this was a real houseboat,” I said. “Then we could just unhook and motor away to some secluded island somewhere.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“As it is, we’d probably just drift aground under the Burrard Street Bridge.”
“Maybe I’ll buy another sailboat,” she said, “and when all this is over we will go away, like we planned. But right now, well, I know you don’t understand. I hardly understand it myself. But if Chris is in Vancouver, I’ve got to find him.” Her smile was shaky. “If only to spit in his eye for selling Pendragon out from under me.”
“Are you still in love with him?” I asked, a little fearfully.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. No, I’m sure I’m not.”
“But you owe him a lot, you said.”
She looked at me. “Yes.” She hesitated, then said, “I haven’t had a very good track record when it comes to picking men.”
“I’ll try not to take that personally.”
“Up till now, anyway,” she added with a smile. “I was married, you know, before I met Chris.”
“I didn’t know. But I’ve been married too. I don’t hold it against you.”
“Larry was a screenwriter,” she went on. “He might have been a very good one, but…” She paused.
“What happened?”
“He killed himself a week before our third anniversary, three days after his thirtieth birthday.” Her voice thickened and her eyes glistened with tears.
Overexposed Page 11
