Failure to appear jpb-11

by J. A. Jance

  "Karen?" I stammered. "She has cancer? How can that be?" I tried to focus my stricken mind on what Jeremy was saying, but his words drifted over me from far away, as if beamed to earth from a distant planet.

  "Kelly's been stuck in denial, and I understand that. It happened to me, too, but I've been trying to tell her all along that it was wrong to run away, that she couldn't hide out from what was happening forever. I wanted her to go back home and face up to it, but she's stubborn. You know how women are."

  But that wasn't true. Listening to Jeremy talk, I realized once again that I still don't know the first damn thing about women. Any of them.

  CHAPTER 22

  If I do say so myself, it was a hell of a wedding. Kelly and Jeremy had paid for the first wedding themselves-the one that didn't happen. I figured the second one was on me. We did it on the twenty-first of September, the day Little Karen, my granddaughter, was four months old.

  The wedding still had to be held on Monday afternoon, because that's still the only day the theaters are dark in Ashland and the only day when theater people could attend.

  But instead of being in June, in the height of the summer tourist season, this was the end of September, shortly before the outdoor theater goes dark for the winter. The end-of-season weather was beautiful-crystal-blue skies with the sharp, fresh bite of fall lingering in the air as soon as the sun went down.

  Remembering Guy Lewis' down-filled jacket, I encouraged everyone to come prepared for chilly weather, and they did. With Florence's able help, we managed to find suitable accommodations. Most of the out-of-town guests arrived on Thursday and stayed through until Tuesday with a liberal sprinkling of theater dropped into the celebration for good measure.

  For me the real coup was flying my grandparents, Jonas and Beverly Piedmont, down from Seattle. They hadn't been out of town for years, and neither one of them had ever flown in an airplane before, so coming to Ashland was a huge adventure for them. Not only that, my grandfather is wheelchair-bound, so there were some real physical hurdles involved in boarding that Seattle-Portland-Medford shuttle.

  My grandparents have a beloved old white dog named Mandy that had to be cared for in their absence. Given the problem, Ames found a place nearby called the Academy for Canine Behavior. According to him, it was more of a doggie resort than a kennel. That news put Mandy's traveling owners at ease.

  Because of a long-standing rift in our family caused by my own out-of-wedlock birth, Kelly and Scott had never met their great-grandparents. As soon as Grandma Piedmont saw Kelly, she burst into tears at Kelly's amazing resemblance to her daughter. Once she mentioned it, I saw it was true. Kelly really does look like my mother. If the grandmother of the bride had any derogatory comments about Karen Louise's birthday preceding the wedding by several months, she kept them discreetly to herself.

  The one most likely to voice disapproval-my scrawny, tough-minded Presbyterian forebear who had disowned and never reclaimed my mother, his own unwed daughter-also kept quiet on the subject, due primarily to the fact that he suffered a stroke two years ago. Speech, for him, is all but impossible. But he sat there in Lithia Park, with his wheelchair parked next to my son Scott, nodding and beaming throughout the ceremony, so I don't think he was very much opposed.

  Given some advance notice, Jeremy's dad, Colonel Jeremy Todd Cartwright II, managed to get leave and fly home from his command somewhere in Korea. He's career army. We didn't have a lot of time for visiting, but he's an interesting guy, and I'm looking forward to crossing paths with him at holiday family gatherings, christenings, and the like.

  Incidentally, the minister christened Karen Louise Beaumont Cartwright-Kayla for short-in the same park immediately prior to the wedding, which is getting things slightly out of order, but I doubt God is that much of a stickler for observance of form. At my age, I've come to believe He's a whole lot more concerned with substance.

  Gordon Fraymore turned up at the wedding. Jeremy had already showed me Fraymore's wedding gift-an almost complete set of automotive tools in a red, multi-drawered tool chest.

  "Jeremy's so proud of his tools he can barely stand it."

  Fraymore shrugged modestly. "Picked the whole shebang up from a garage sale up in Grants Pass," he said. "He's going to need tools if he expects to keep that old van of his running."

  Weddings have a way of making the father of the bride feel like an extraneous jackass. Fraymore and I had gravitated over to the side of the crowd and stationed ourselves near a punch bowl at the liquid-refreshment table, a place where I hoped to stay out of harm's way.

  "How are you doing?" I asked.

  Fraymore looked at me as if trying to assess exactly how the question was intended. He nodded. "Okay, I guess." He thought about it a minute and then added, "It's tough."

  From personal experience, I knew that was true.

  "My wife and I are going for counseling," he continued. "She doesn't know about Marjorie. Confession may be good for the soul, but I don't think it's all that good for putting broken marriages back together."

  Scott came searching for me right about then. "Dad, they're looking for you. It's time to cut the cake."

  I waved to Fraymore. "Duty calls."

  "Wait," he said. "Before you go, I have something for you." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small white envelope, which he handed to me. It had been folded down to the size of a regular business card. "Open it," he said.

  Inside I found a single key and recognized it at once-the ignition key from Anne Corley's 928.

  "It must have been blown clear by the explosion," Gordon Fraymore explained. "The crime-scene guys didn't find it until several days later. I mentioned it to Jeremy. He said he thought you'd like to have it back, maybe have it framed or something."

  My hand closed around the key. I probably only imagined it, but it felt warm to the touch. I didn't know what to say. "Thanks," I mumbled finally.

  "It's nothing," Gordon Fraymore said. "I owe you way more than that."

  With a lump in my throat, I stumbled off to attend to the picture-taking of the cake-cutting ceremony. Nobody thought anything of it. On his daughter's wedding day, the father of the bride is allowed to be a maudlin, sentimental slob.

  Ralph Ames had been pleased to present Kelly and Jeremy with not one but two gifts. In keeping with his penchant for gadgets, one was an automatic-bakery thing, an appliance that supposedly bakes bread from scratch. The other was an absolutely magnificent wedding cake.

  The multitiered edifice had actually arrived in Ashland the night before the wedding, naked and in pieces, driven down I-5 in a '68 Cadillac limo chauffeured by none other than Ralph Ames himself and accompanied by Mary, the wizard woman who had baked the cake and also owned the limo.

  Mary, Ralph Ames' lovely new lady friend of the willowy blond variety, presides over her own dining/dessert establishment in Seattle, a place called Queen Mary's. She agreed to do an out-of-state cake only on the condition that she accompany Ralph to the wedding so she could decorate it in situ as an enthralled Ralph told me with a love-besotted smile.

  The cake was suitably beautiful. I was happy Jeremy and Kelly restrained themselves from smashing it all over one another's faces. That's one of those currently popular customs I personally find disgusting. By the time the cake was served, it was almost evening, and I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself. As far as I could see, the whole event had gone off without a hitch.

  I have a friend down in Arizona who paints watercolors. Rhonda tells me that what makes a beautiful picture isn't the colors so much as it is the contrast between light and dark. I believe the same holds true for weddings.

  There was lots of light. After three months Kelly's hair wasn't much longer than mine but she looked lovely in a gauzy veil and wearing her beautiful long white gown. I figured what the hell. Why not do it right? — and Jeremy looked slick in his white tux with tails. James Renthrow made a smashingly handsome best man, and Karen, mother of the bride, was
also matron of honor. Together Dave and I walked Kelly down the damn aisle, holding her between us. When the minister asked who giveth this woman, we both answered, "Her parents do."

  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Ann Landers.

  But there was also plenty of dark. In four months, Karen had lost more weight. Lots of it. Her skin was almost as transparent as Grandma Piedmont's. The latest bout of radiation and chemotherapy had pretty much destroyed her own hair, and the wig she wore didn't do her justice. Knowing now that the reason she had needed to go straight back to Cucamonga in June was because she was in the middle of chemotherapy didn't make me feel any better about some of the things I said back then. But I can't ever take them back any more than Guy Lewis could ever take back his last hurtful remarks to Daphne.

  As the reception wound down, Karen and I found ourselves alone for a few minutes with the autumn chill cooling the air around us.

  "I thought your friend Alex would be here for the wedding," she said.

  "Alex and I run hot and cold," I told Karen truthfully. "We're in a cooling-off period right now. She didn't think it would be a good idea to horn in on the wedding. She thought her being here would make things too complicated."

  Karen nodded. We stood together for some time, watching the guests starting to say their good-byes and wander away. It had been a wonderful day, but suddenly, for no particular reason, I felt terribly sad. I wanted to take Karen in my arms and hold her, I wanted to tell her how sorry I was about everything, but I didn't. Couldn't. It wouldn't have been fair to either one of us, and it sure as hell wouldn't have been fair to Dave.

  "Why wouldn't you let anyone tell me about it?" I asked finally. "How come I had to find out from Jeremy?"

  Karen shrugged, the knobby bones of her shoulders clearly visible under the sheer material of her dress. "You'd already been through so much with your mother," she said quietly. "I didn't want you to have to go through it again."

  I did hug her then. I held her because of all the good days we once had together and because of the kids and because, no matter what, we were grandparents. Dave came up about then, his face haggard and questioning, hopeful and worried sick, all at the same time. The hug ended, and I handed her over to him. I couldn't say a word to either one of them right that minute. Dave and I are indeed veterans of the same war. In more ways than one.

  Alex tells me that within the next few weeks they should come close to having a solid accounting of the monies that will come to the Seattle Rep on an ongoing basis from the Guy and Daphne Lewis Trust Fund. On the other hand, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival was the primary beneficiary of the Marjorie Connors Trust. Her estate was found to include a surprisingly large amount of cash, most of which, I believe, came from her systematic blackmailing of Daphne Lewis.

  In effect, both the Festival and the Seattle Rep are reaping handsome long-term financial gain due to the labor and generosity of Guy Lewis, the much-maligned king of the chemical toilets. It is my sincere hope that the next time Monica and Alex go to war, the theater-development game won't prove quite so deadly.

  I talked to Kelly a few days ago. Sunshine is fine and adjusting fairly well to living in town. Kelly is excited about the remodeling they're doing on a house we bought down there. She's managed to walk her way through a complex tangle of zoning rules so that by the time the season starts up again next spring, the remodel should be finished and she'll be able to have a day-care center right there in her own home. She wants to be able to take care of kids for the people who work at the Festival, but she'll also be available for occasional playgoing parents who need a reliable place to park the baby or babies while the grown-ups get a dose of the Bard of Avon.

  Ralph has been in and out of Ashland twice in the last two weeks, crossing the t's and dotting the i's on the financing package, changing it over from a bridge loan to a regular mortgage. When I helped Kelly and Jeremy buy the house, the price was more than right because the place was almost in ruins. The transformation since then seems truly miraculous.

  One thing that's helping keep costs down is that we've had to hire out only the major electrical and plumbing work. Jeremy and Kelly both have put in plenty of sweat equity by serving as general contractors. Their friends from the Festival, especially Jeremy's sidekick, Romeo, are doing all the finish work themselves. The work crew, the people responsible for the physical labor, will move in when the work is done. Kelly is keeping track of all their hours. They'll be credited with a dollar amount off their rent once they all move in. They'll also be using Marjorie Connors' system of sharing chores. It's a good deal for everyone involved, including the major investor.

  Ralph tells me that between donating dollars for ex-gang member scholars and running a hostel for impoverished actors, my investments may be becoming a bit too diversified, but he told me I didn't need to start worrying about money quite yet. I had to write a sizable check for the difference between the insurance settlement and the purchase price on my new, special-order Guardred 928. I wrote it, and the check didn't bounce, so I guess financially I'm still okay.

  I took Gordon Fraymore's suggestion. The key to the old 928 is framed in a shadow box lined with red velvet. A guy at a place called Ace Frames over in Kirkland fixed it up for me. I keep it on the table beside my leather recliner.

  The last time Ralph was in Ashland, I asked him if anyone down there had heard from Tanya Dunseth. He said no. Over Fourth of July weekend, she took Amber, the few clothes she had left, and her diaper bag, and disappeared. Someone said they saw her out on the freeway, hitchhiking with the baby, heading for California. A search of Marjorie Connors' Suburban had provided enough information about the blackmail of Daphne Lewis to prove that Marjorie had acted alone. Consequently, when Tanya disappeared, no one bothered to go after her because by then it was clear that other than using fake I.D. she had broken no law.

  Ralph and I have talked about Tanya several times since, wondering if we should make some attempt to find her. Martin Shore's first wife, Tanya's mother, died years ago. As her father's only child and heir, Tanya is due a small inheritance from his estate. The problem is, Tanya obviously has no interest in Martin Shore's money. She probably regards it as dirty, and I can't say that I blame her.

  So Ralph and I continually debate the issue. Usually, we're in agreement that tracking Tanya down would be a bad idea-the wrong thing to do. Occasionally, one or the other of us wavers; then it's up to the other one to hold the line and talk him out of it. So far we've always decided against it.

  I wonder sometimes where Tanya is and whether or not she's all right. Knowing what we know now, I believe it's fair to assume that Tanya Dunseth is certifiably crazy. She has spun some very complex webs as a device to shut out the terrible truth of her pathetic upbringing. Roger Tompkins called them "wheels within wheels." They're so confusing, I'm sure Tanya no longer has any idea what's truth and what's fiction. So yes, she probably is crazy, but she's certainly not a danger either to herself or to anyone else, including her daughter.

  I imagine she's settled in someplace far away where she has reinvented herself and where she has written a brand-new set of roles for Tanya and Amber, although those most likely are not the names they go by anymore. And the part she's playing-the one for which she's best suited-is, no doubt, the one she created for herself without any role model in her own life-that of a good mother and parent.

  So what if she's crazy, maybe even a little more so than most? God knows she has far more cause to be crazy. She's had far more to overcome.

  And every time I think about poor Tanya Dunseth, I try to send a good show-business thought in her direction, wherever she may be.

  "Go with God, Tanya Dunseth," I say to myself. "Break a leg."

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