by Abby Drake
Still, Babe chose her battle whenever Wes babbled on like a male jerk. She reminded herself that his blah-blah didn’t matter. What mattered was today and tomorrow. Which was why she’d already talked to her agent about launching a fragrance collection while some fans still remembered her name. Maybe she’d even add a line of signature jewelry. Moving forward made more sense than waiting around until she could be slotted for mature female roles, the kind Sarandon and Streep had made viable and fun. Besides, starting a business made more sense than continuing to peck at Wes’s accounts just because hers were nearly depleted. Needing a man for financial support had never been in Babe’s comfort zone. She’d watched her mother do that for too long.
The plane curved toward the gate and came to a stop. The seat-belt sign dinged, and Babe let out a sigh. Tugging at the hemline of her skirt, she supposed she shouldn’t have worn spandex. Uncle Edward would dismiss her as too California; Amanda would say thirty-seven was too old to parade that kind of attire; Ellie would smile and keep any critical thoughts to herself. Thank God Carleen wouldn’t be there.
“Smile,” Wes said as he unclicked his seat belt and stood up. “You never know who might be in an airport.”
They waited for the attendant to unseal the door, then stepped out of first class as if they still belonged there. They moved up the gangway and into the concourse. That’s when, amid the clutter of gift shops and the reek of fast foods, cameras started flashing and someone boisterously shouted, “Wes! Babe! Wes and Babe! Over here!”
Oh, God, Babe thought. What’s happening? But because she was a star and knew how to do this, she tossed a wide, automatic smile, glad Wes had paid for a recent whitening.
“See, darling?” Wes said with a naughty wink. “I still have a few friends here and there.”
She laughed a sweet-sexy Babe-laugh, then surrendered again to the flash of the cameras, wondering what on earth her husband was up to, and if it was the real reason he had insisted that they come.
He wasn’t on the island. Ellie and Henry had scoured the perimeter like cable TV reporters stalking the Red Carpet. But there was no sign of the rowboat, not even tucked in an inlet or a wooded hideaway, so there was no point in going ashore.
“Where now?” Henry asked.
Ellie scanned the lake from the castle at the south end to the hills to the north. The slate-colored water was as calm and flat as a nineteenth-century Hudson River Valley painting—all that was missing was the morning mist, but it was no longer morning, it was after four, and the others would arrive soon.
Damn. Where was Edward?
She lowered the paddle into a huddle of lily pads and watched them part as if in a ballet. Edward liked being mischievous, that was true. In his younger years he’d enjoyed a reputation as an imp, a lively producer who, during rehearsals, would switch the prop water with gin just to watch the actor’s reaction, who would hide a whoopee cushion inside a sofa just as the leading lady sat mid-monologue. His antics had not been harmful or hurtful, embarrassing, sometimes, but they’d always elicited laughter and an “Oh, Edward,” with a swat or two to his cheek or his arm or, if he were lucky, a hearty grasp of his backside by a favored star.
To Ellie’s knowledge, he had never disappeared.
“Maybe he’s back at the house by now,” she said, hoping she sounded optimistic. However, the truth was, Lake Kasteel was fairly large. They might not have seen him if he’d gone overboard; his rickety boat might have sunk. But though Edward had squandered most of his youth as a blue-eyed, roly-poly, quick-witted Irishman, a few years into his relationship with Henry, Henry had goaded him into fitness, beginning with T’ai Chi in a chair. Since then Edward was almost athletic, not knob-kneed like Henry, but fit enough to swim if a need arose.
So if he’d gone overboard, he still might be safe.
“If we circle the shoreline around the lake, we can check all the docks,” Henry said. “Maybe he tied up the boat and went socializing.”
But Ellie knew that Edward had never become friendly with the lake neighbors. Most of them, after all, were only there for the summer. Many of them had, at one time or another, no doubt peered through binoculars at the parties at Edward’s, or rowed their own boats close to his section of shore. Nothing invasive, really. Just for a peek. Edward often said it was more fun to stimulate his neighbors’ imaginations than to invite them over and have them see what bores his friends and he really were. Haha.
“I can’t imagine whom he would visit,” Ellie said. Then again, she couldn’t imagine why he had left before the party. And why he hadn’t told anyone. Especially her.
“Does he have any old acquaintances around here? A boyfriend, maybe?”
He did not mention a girlfriend, though Ellie supposed, like many, that Henry had heard the story long ago of Edward’s heated affair with a woman—the purported true love of his life—whose identity remained a mystery. She broke his heart, the gossip had buzzed throughout Times Square, so he turned back to men. Ellie sighed and reminded herself that was ancient, unimportant history. “No, Henry,” she said. “Edward has no old boyfriends around here.”
“Let’s go back, then,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s home.”
She stroked once, twice, three times, turning the canoe. She waited until Henry caught up with her rhythm, then started paddling back toward the house.
Chapter Four
“Pick me up Sunday evening at six,” Amanda instructed the driver as he pulled into the circular driveway inside the gates at Kamp Kasteel, the name the girls had once playfully christened Edward’s lake mansion. She drained her champagne glass, set it in the holder, and opened the door as soon as the car stopped. There was no need to wait for help. She was home, after all. Well, sort of. “Leave the bags on the walk,” she added, then took a deep breath and got out.
The place looked better in summer than in winter. Twisted arborvitae stood like sentries at the double front door, burgundy roses clawed their way up the stone walls, softballs of peonies tossed pinks and whites all over the lawn.
Once, Amanda had loved coming here. She’d loved watching the elegant women in their jewels and their hairdos, in their 1980s glitz. She had intended to become one of them: a wife of a renowned Broadway investor, perhaps, a man worth so much he could give it away. How could she have known Jonathan would not measure up?
“Ivy League, schmivy league,” Uncle Edward had commented the night before she and Jonathan married. “I’m not sure he has spirit. You need a man with spirit, Amanda. You have so little of your own.”
She hadn’t been sure what Edward had meant. Ellie had told her to pay him no mind, that Edward was trying to be a competent parent, because by then their mother and father had been killed in the fire and there had been no insurance and Edward had assumed the role of their guardian and sole means of support, though Babe had been the only one not yet of age.
The truth was, Jonathan did not have spirit. But he’d loved Amanda, he really had. And he’d stood by her through the whole scandal, saying he would still marry her, and, by God, he had. She wondered if he’d be as loyal to the Brazilian back-waxer under similar circumstances, as if anything could come close to being “similar.”
Pursing her lips, Amanda rang the doorbell the way she had rung it since Uncle Edward had announced he had found a man. She’d said she hadn’t wanted to invade his privacy, but in fact, she hadn’t wanted any surprises. She’d had enough of those—hadn’t they all?
She stood for a moment, aware that the driver had dropped the bags in the driveway and driven off. She rang again. Still, no one came.
Applying another light layer of lipstick, she blotted her lips and opened the door.
“Hello? Uncle Edward? Ellie?” She hoped she sounded happy to be there. “Is anyone home? It’s me, Amanda-Belle.” She used the childlike name Edward used to call her, back when she’d had those dreams about status and jewels. “You dream like an airhead from the south,” Edward had said. “A
mint-julep-sucking, Tennessee Williams, southern belle.”
The name had stuck.
She stepped inside, feeling the familiar chill of the foyer, where the local-quarried, cool limestone negated the need for air-conditioning. “Edward? Hello?”
A tall, Spanish-looking woman in a pink dress the color of the peonies came from the kitchen. She seemed vaguely familiar. She wiped her hands on her white apron. “Hello.”
“Hola to you. Where’s my uncle? Where’s Edward?”
The tall woman smiled. “Edward is not here.”
“Not here?” Surely Amanda did not have the weekend confused. She’d spoken with Ellie only last week.
The woman shook her head. “No. Edward is missing.”
Missing? Good Lord, why hadn’t he learned to hire people from this country, who understood English? Of course Edward couldn’t be missing. It was his birthday and his goddamn party. “Where is my sister? Señorita Ellen?”
The tall woman smirked. “Señorita Ellen is out on the boat. With Señor Henry. Looking for Eduardo.”
The housemaid seemed rather sarcastic. “Have any other guests arrived? My sister, Babe? Señorita Movie Star?” Amanda flailed her hands as if that would accelerate the maid’s comprehension.
The woman cocked an eyebrow but didn’t respond.
Amanda touched her temples. She felt a headache coming on, perhaps from the champagne.
“I’ll just go to my room,” she said and turned to the staircase that she knew so well. “Our bags are in the driveway. Please have someone bring them upstairs.” She did not care if the woman understood what she’d said. Sooner or later someone would trip over the suitcases and they would arrive inside. In the meantime, if Amanda could lie down, she would feel so much better. When she awoke, maybe Chandler and Chase would be there and she could fuss over them and pretend not to notice the rest.
Wes dozed with his head on Babe’s shoulder.
She looked out the car window at the steel-strangled boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan and realized that sometimes her husband could be a genius. It turned out that Stan-somebody, one of Wes’s old stunt doubles, was now a photographer for Hot Cars magazine and was based in New York. Wes had made a quick call before they’d left LAX, and lo and behold, Stan had been waiting at JFK with a sleek camera and a huge lens that had attracted attention. Once his shutter had started clicking, others followed suit—cell phones, mostly, but who cared? It was as if other people wanted to get in on the excitement.
In the media world, Stan could sell the photos of Wes McCall and his lovely wife, Babe, traveling back east to attend the seventy-fifth birthday celebration of Edward Dalton, producer of original Broadway hits including Central Park, Seasons, and Tunnel of Love. The accompanying story, however, would no doubt exhume the family dirt, because it had been years and God forbid anyone had forgotten.
Still, it would mean their pictures would be somewhere—that they would be visible—at least in the Post. Maybe, oh, God, maybe, in the New York Times. Visibility was such an important part of not being forgotten. It would be too bad, though, if her family had to suffer for it. Maybe they wouldn’t mind. She’d been invited, after all. What would they expect?
“Happy now, darling?” her husband whispered, not that he had to, for the privacy glass was raised high between them and the limo driver.
“Mmm,” she replied. She might have rewarded him with sex later that night, but Wes had lost his balls in a motocross accident before they were married, so sex wasn’t part of their lives. Compromise, Babe once believed, was essential in marriage and in life. Sort of like choosing one’s battles.
Luckily the press (or the fans) didn’t know about Wes’s unfortunate state, any more than Wes knew that sometimes Babe wished . . . oh, never mind, she scolded herself. She looked back out the window and forced a smile. “Maybe we’ll both have an offer or two by the time we get home.” If she only had one more juicy role, life would be so much more livable.
“Or maybe your uncle will find us work in New York.”
Babe blinked. The first time she’d met Wes, his trademark royal blue eyes had become Fourth of July sparklers. “You’re originally from New York?” he’d asked. “Why aren’t you acting on Broadway?”
Naturally, he’d heard of Edward (all those Tonys!) and had had a vague recollection about a scandal, but Wes had been too wrapped up in production (and, Babe suspected, in himself) to pay much attention. Besides, that had been on the East Coast, and Wes had been on the West, and cable TV had barely been invented, let alone YouTube or Facebook or Twitter.
So Babe had laughed and simply said the scandal was a small family matter, and surely he knew that the media sensationalized whatever they wanted.
He hadn’t asked further details; he’d seemed more enthralled with her Broadway connection.
“Imagine performing live—applause five nights a week and three matinees! God, I’d give up my left nut for that.”
Of course, he’d already given up his left nut and his right one, too, but he hadn’t shared that information just yet. Instead, he’d bought her a drink and they went out to the terrace and studied the smogged-in skyline. He seemed nice, and was handsome enough for his age, though Babe had long ago become immune to good looks. After a while, he asked for her number, and she gave him her real one because he was a star, too, and that’s how it worked. Unspoken trust. Paparazzi-protected.
Unlike Wes, Babe wanted no part of the theater. Acting to an audience was so . . . intimate. It was hardly at all like pretend. With film there were different angles and lighting and a billion takes to get it right. Even after that, they could reshoot if needed, or simply toss the scene out if the director said it didn’t work.
No such luck in the theater.
You were who you were. There was no hiding.
Besides, there was more money in films. Or, at least, there once had been.
She bit her lip and lowered her eyes. She supposed some of Edward’s former theater cronies would be at the party. “It will be just like the old days,” Ellie had said when she called. “Well, maybe not exactly like those, but it will be fun.”
“I thought Edward had given up entertaining.”
“This is different. He’s seventy-five.”
“Is he sick? Is he dying?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He isn’t vying for a comeback, is he?”
“Please, Babe,” Ellie had said without answering the question. “I need you here. I’ve wanted to see you for so long. And I still can’t seem to get on a plane to go there.”
“Why not?”
Ellie had sighed and explained that she rarely left Kamp Kasteel. She’d tried a few times; she’d had what she thought might be panic attacks. “Let’s just say, I’m better off here.”
Babe hadn’t believed her, but she knew that as long as Ellie believed it, that’s how it would be.
And so there was Babe, the youngest sister, the youngest niece, pretending this weekend was about merriment and a birthday and not about resurrecting old ghosts. She was glad Wes was with her, glad she would have him as a diversion, glad that his presence would help remind her of how far she’d come. Yes, Wes was a good enough man, a good enough companion. It shouldn’t really matter that she didn’t love him.
“I’m going to call the police,” Henry announced.
They’d tied up the canoe and left the boathouse, and now were walking up the hill, past the hubbub of decorators who wove tumbles of fairy roses around wire trellises like dollops of confection on a tiered birthday cake.
“No,” Ellie snipped. “No police.” Though they’d never discussed it, Henry was neither stupid nor blind, nor had he lived on another planet when everything had happened. Surely he knew the last thing they would want now was public attention, law enforcement or otherwise, no matter how much time had passed. “I think Edward has chosen to disappear. If so, he must have decided it’s for our own good.”
“He’s
missing. The boat’s missing. How can that be for anyone’s good?”
“It only means he’s gone somewhere. It doesn’t mean he’s dead. If he drowned, there would be a rowboat and no Uncle Edward.” She sounded terse, matter-of-fact. Not at all like the water-logged loofah her stomach had become.
“The police can dredge the lake. Maybe they’ll find the boat. Maybe they’ll find . . . him.” He choked back some tears. If she’d been closer, she might have seen his knobby knees knock.
“No, Henry,” she repeated. “Not yet.” She tried to soften her tone. None of this, after all, was his fault, no matter how easy it might be to think otherwise.
“Then, when?”
“My sisters will be here soon. We can discuss what to do together. The party doesn’t start until noon tomorrow. If he doesn’t come home tonight, my guess is he’ll turn up in the morning.”
“What makes you so sure?”
She could have reminded Henry that he was the first who’d said Edward had run off on purpose. But she sensed he was scared now, no longer trying to be funny. “Once,” Ellie said, “when we were children, Uncle Edward said he’d seen a monster in the lake. Years later he admitted he’d had no idea what to do with four small girls. He was terrified we’d all drown, so he figured if he made up a story and frightened us, we wouldn’t go near the water. As far as I know, to this day Babe doesn’t know how to swim.”
“I fail to see a connection.”
“He might be trying to distract us from something bigger. Like the fact that his three—maybe four—nieces are getting back together.”
They reached the back door. Ellie stepped into the mudroom and removed her straw hat.
