A Signal Shown

by Yvonne Montgomery

  "I'm sure you will." Rose handed over the key. "This copy is yours. I keep master keys in my office, in case of emergency. The land-line extensions are labeled, and some local pizza places that deliver along with the Chinese place on the Hill are listed on the kitchen phone."

  "What else..." Rose paused. "Oh, the new associate who'll share the duplex with you isn't coming yet. She broke her leg and isn't sure when she'll arrive, so you're the sole occupant for now." She added, "Dinner at the main house at seven, drinks beforehand at six-thirty. It's a good way to meet the others, though I'm not sure who'll be there tonight. Tomorrow's Thursday—those are the nights reserved for the group get-togethers, but you're always welcome as long as you let Aura Lee know in advance."

  Brenna bit back a yawn. She hadn't slept much the night before, and the airport drill was always a drag. "I'll just veg out tonight, I think. I can meet everyone tomorrow night."

  Rose nodded. "I don't blame you. See you when you're ready."

  "Sure." Brenna did her best to return the friendly look.

  "If you need anything, just yell." Rose smiled a farewell and pulled the door shut behind her.

  Brenna closed her eyes for a moment. She was finally here. After she'd received the Wisdom Court acceptance letter, she'd slipped into the zombie zone. That lasted long enough to force her to crank herself into a frenzy to get everything done. The hardest had been getting rid of most of Gran's stuff in the apartment. By comparison, packing up her things and putting them in storage had been simple. It already felt like a dream.

  Dreams. Brenna crossed the black and white tiled floor and entered the kitchen. Nightmares had tainted her sleep for months.

  "Just need a nap," she said aloud. The sound of her voice startled her. The silence was nearly total, only bird calls to break the calm. Man, how will I get used to the quiet? L.A. was loud—car engines, sirens, music from every passing vehicle. Half the reason for A/C was the white noise value.

  "I'll make my own noise," Brenna muttered as she turned on the faucet. She found a glass in the cupboard over the sink. She was alone now, not just here in Boulder, but in the world.

  Brenna swallowed the water and put the glass on the counter, imagining herself standing on an earth revolving in a cold universe. She let out a shaky breath.

  But she wasn't alone. She had Dink. The idea of him, of his hazel eyes under scrunched brows as he played his guitar, of the way he flipped his hair out of his face when he sat at his computer, steadied her. If he were here he'd tell her to get moving, to quit feeling sorry for herself. They'd agreed she had to do the Wisdom Court thing. "Your films deserve to be seen," he'd said the night before. They'd been in bed, clinging to each other as the weight of passing minutes increased. "A year, it's only a year. We'll e-mail like always and Skype. Text and talk on the phone."

  Brenna had traced the two wrinkles between his eyebrows with her forefinger, her other hand cupping his strong neck. He'd smelled of spicy soap, and his breath was warm against her cheek.

  "I'll be able to fly back every once in a while." Her voice had thickened. "You can come out to Boulder and spend weekends sometimes." He'd nodded wordlessly, eyes sad, and stroked her hair, memorizing the strands with his hands. He'd used the rest of his body to learn her by heart. They'd barely slept at all.

  Now Brenna smiled, thinking about Rose's comment about Dink's physical endowments. DiCaprio had nothing on him. It wouldn't be easy to be away from him, and she would miss their lovemaking. But even more important were the feelings he gave her of being loved. Of being understood. Of being part of a whole. She sighed. L.A. was too damned far away.

  Brenna returned to the living room for her suitcase and picked up the instruction booklet Rose had left. She walked down the hallway, found the shadowed stairs and went up them to the bedroom. The walls were papered in cool blues, and the large bed had a gray comforter bordered with black vines and maroon roses. The pillows called to her, cloud-fluffy, but she had something to do before she hit the sheets. She swung the case onto the bed and found the Wi-Fi specs she needed. The sooner she got her laptop going, the sooner she could get online. She'd touch base with Dink and find out what was happening in L.A. The connection to her real life was still there. She wasn't alone at all.

  * * *

  Kerry Tomlinson turned the last page of the journal she'd been reading the last two days and closed the top cover, barely resisting an impulse to throw it out the library window. "Dammit, Caldicott, why won't you let me in?" She was silent until she realized that, on some level, she was waiting for an answer. "Oh, balls," she muttered. All she needed was to turn into a crystal gazer like Aura Lee.

  Kerry raked her hands through her hair in frustration. The auburn bob settled back around her cheeks, framing green eyes shadowed by discouragement. She'd been at Wisdom Court for over seven months now and she was no farther along in capturing the real Caldicott Wyntham than the day she'd arrived.

  Kerry was drowning in information about the founding of Wisdom Court, reams of it about the various associates over the years. She'd even found profiles of the board members, along with copies of letters nominating future associates, committee reports, and minutes of alumnae group meetings. Caldicott Wyntham was ever present as the force behind the building of the institution, but as a person she was nowhere to be found. With so few glimpses of what had formed her—what had driven her to create Wisdom Court—the biography Kerry struggled to write had no heart.

  Nothing about Caldicott's early years: family, education, marital status, or work history as a young woman was to be found. Evidently her life had begun at age thirty-eight in nineteen fifty-nine when she was hired by the Uptide Foundation to expand the donor base for a nation-wide community of professional and amateur ornithologists. Caldicott excelled in her appointed duties and had moved on to greater things after an exemplary run of nearly three years.

  "But who was she?" Kerry scowled at the volume in front of her. The memory of the old woman who'd welcomed her to Wisdom Court shortly before her death had no warmth now. Kerry had listened to her every word, asking many questions, and Caldicott supplied many answers, along with the fourteen volumes of her journals. But the journals were accounts of Wisdom Court, mostly recollections of its thirty-year history. The few personal details Caldicott gave her hadn't added much about her own developmental years. We can talk about that later was a frequent reply. Later had never come.

  Kerry recalled Caldicott as she'd been before her sudden final illness. A portrait of her in her thirties hung over the living room fireplace. When Kerry met her, beauty still shone from her older face. Age hadn't affected the strength of her chin or the humor and intelligence in her gray-green eyes. Her flaring eyebrows hinted surprise at what life had thrown at her but she was still willing to see it without blinders. Her hair had faded and thinned, and her neck had wrinkled, but she was still lovely and vital.

  "Why didn't I demand more?" Kerry asked aloud. Forget that one didn't demand anything of Caldicott Wyntham. She should have been more assertive. How could one write a biography of someone who wouldn't give up the most basic data? Like where she was born? Who was her family? Were there siblings? Any children? And most of all, what had possessed her to create a foundation dedicated to giving talented women one magical year to reach for the stars? Any biography without that information in it wasn't worth reading, let alone writing.

  Kerry jumped at the ring of her cell phone. "Hello?"

  Noreen Prescott's deep voice was brusque. "Kerry, I need your help." Kerry pictured the small woman, her hedgehog hair and no-nonsense demeanor. "Any chance of getting you over here for a drink before dinner?"

  "Sure." She had no reason to slave away. "What's up?"

  "I've just finished the book and I need your younger eyes to glance over the last chapter. I don't see any typos or such, but I've gone over it so many times I wouldn't catch a misspelling of my own name."

  Kerry was grinning in delight. Noreen's primary project whi
le at Wisdom Court had been a compilation of quotations from strictly female authors and figures of note. "That's wonderful! Congrats and all that. When will you ship it off?"

  "Rose is giving me an agents list." She paused. "I don't suppose you've thought of any who might be interested."

  "Yay, Rose. Though you might not need one for a non-fiction work." Kerry had researched whether she would need an agent when Caldicott's biography was completed. Like that's ever going to happen.

  "I don't know." Noreen added, "News makes itself known fully only at the moment when it can no longer be forestalled. Winifred Pennington-Smythe, 1834-1855."

  Kerry did the math. "She wasn't very old. What did she do to be worthy of quoting?"

  Noreen snorted. "She was an early utopian. One of the more obnoxious I've encountered, too. Every problem dealt with through pure reason, everything measured and arranged just so. Died of a snake bite."

  Kerry winced. "Ouch. I'll be there in a few minutes."

  Replacing the receiver, Kerry glared at the pile of journals and files on her desk. She would look at Noreen's chapter and have that drink. Maybe five or six. If she couldn't find more information about Caldicott, she might as well drink herself into oblivion.

  Chapter 3

  The old fashioned dining room was fragrant with the spices of Thai food. A bottle of wine graced each end of the long walnut table, one red and one white. Heavy flatware lay on paper napkins along side chopsticks, and serving spoons jutted from large containers of Seafood Pad Thai, Jungle Curry, and rice. Rose had started round the curry from the head of the table as Aura Lee passed a ceramic bowl of green salad from the foot. Judging by the flood of words, nearly all of the room's six inhabitants were talking. Thursday night dinner at Wisdom Court was underway.

  Brenna felt as if she'd entered one of the movies she'd watched with her grandmother. A nineteenth century period piece—maybe Pride and Prejudice—with gowned ladies and waistcoated men around a table piled with silverware and three or four wineglasses per person. The dining room fostered the image with a built-in sideboard and beveled mirror and a hanging brass light over the table. The chopsticks and only one serviceable stem glass at each place blew the Georgian ambiance. And the women were dressed casually, only two in skirts of any type. No men in waistcoats. Brenna smiled inwardly at the idea of Dink in a waistcoat. The costumes weren't formal, but the conversations here were probably as entertaining as the cat-and-mouse courtship games of Jane Austen's characters.

  Brenna had been introduced to the other women, and then they'd all toasted Noreen Prescott, directly across from her, who'd just finished a book of quotations. The tiny woman spoke in a deep, authoritative voice and had a purposeful personality. If she were casting Noreen in a film, Brenna thought, it would be as a judge or politician—definitely a Glenn Close role—who exercised power and knew how to kick butt while she was at it.

  Kerry Tomlinson—here Brenna paused. Kerry looked younger than her eyes said she was. She'd be typecast as the Irish lass with that auburn hair and her green eyes, like Janet Munro in Darby O'Gill and the Little People. But intelligence came off her in waves. And hurt of some kind, though Kerry did her best to hide it. Maybe the vulnerable best friend would be a better fit for her—the one who always watched out for the main character and complained at her lack of romantic action.

  To her left was Andrea Bellamy, a painter, Rose said. She was laughing at a remark by Aura Lee, and her eyes were alight. Chestnut hair framed a lived-in face, friendly and approachable. Brenna thought for a brief moment about how different Andrea looked from so many of the women she saw in L.A., home of cosmetic surgery. Their tight, tanned kitten faces were vacant not only of age, but also of emotion and personality.

  "I know you're a filmmaker, but that's about the extent of it," Andrea was saying to Brenna. "What kind of movies do you make?"

  "That's what the critics asked." Brenna shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Well, one critic who showed up to one of the two screenings my last film had. He decided on quirky and experimental and threw in out-of-the-ordinary world visions."

  "Screw the critics," Andrea said cheerfully. "They're more hung up on their own reactions than what they're reacting to." She smiled over the edge of her wineglass, took a sip. "What are the movies about?"

  Brenna felt herself beginning to relax. "My first was a meditation on soffit braces. You know," she added at the confusion on Andrea's face, "those brackets that seem to hold up the undersides of eaves on roofs?" At Andrea's slow nod, Brenna grinned. "I know, it's pretty out-there, but I started noticing them, how many different shapes and designs there are, especially in San Francisco, where I shot most of the film. I love how they're often used to trim a structure, almost as an afterthought, but sometimes they're made with such intricate carving that they just—I don't know—they just shine."

  "Like pearl earrings with jeans and a sweatshirt." Andrea smiled.

  "Yeah. Not hidden art, exactly, but you have to look for them. I loved doing that piece, though I ended up with a majorly stiff neck." Brenna took a bite of noodles and washed them down with wine. "Then I did Soul Reflections, which was a series of window shots. You wouldn't believe how many window styles there are on buildings. And they totally affect the way you see structures."

  "You're into architecture, I take it."

  "Seriously." Brenna could feel the familiar excitement fill her. "Just think how much we're influenced by our surroundings. City buildings even create their own climate with the shadows they cast and the way they guide wind through the spaces between them. That's how I got interested in the last film I did, Steps. I really got into things like stairs and passageways. Oddball walkways, footbridges, stuff like that. People walk in so many different places and I just began seeing them, you know? How the various shapes of things dictate the routes people take."

  Andrea was nodding in understanding. "Isn't it weird? I mean, when all of a sudden you focus on something you never paid much attention to before. It's like fever vision. Your temp goes up and you get this visual clarity."

  "Yeah, that's exactly what it's like." Brenna looked at her with interest.

  Andrea sent a glance over the vital faces of the women gathered at the table. "That's one of the cool things about being here at Wisdom Court. Not only do you get to do what you do, you also get to talk about it with a great group of women. I've learned so much more about painting because of the different perspectives I've encountered here."

  "It's the exposure to other people's specialties." Kerry had leaned in to listen to Andrea and Brenna. "All of us end up knowing more than when we came here."

  "And we get the fun of seeing how projects like Noreen's turn out." Andrea spooned more rice from the circulating carton onto her plate and passed it along to Brenna. "So do you have a new film in mind?"

  Brenna passed the rice on to Kerry. "I'm working on a film I call Signs, though I'll have to change the title when it's done. M. Night Shyamalan already used it," she said in answer to the question on Andrea's face, "and he's way more famous than me. Anyway, I began paying attention to signs wherever I went. Not the big store marquees or anything like that. I mean the stuff like notices on telephone poles, small sheets of paper in shop windows, the circulars people hand out. I actually saw a man with a sandwich board sign. Then all the papers shoved under windshields, and the messages on ticket stubs. Papers blowing in the wind until someone picks them up. Fortune cookies, papers stuck in library books. Newspaper inserts. You get the drift. All these messages aimed at people, though most of them go unnoticed. So I started photographing them. Early on I used a still camera, then I decided to go back to my sixteen millimeter. I have cans of film—couldn't afford to develop it before now—and I don't even remember what all I've shot. So it'll be an adventure just to see what I've got."

  Kerry nodded. "It sounds interesting. So you're not into digital technology?"

  "Sometimes, but I'm a sucker for film—you get a better picture quality, and
the colors are truer. Digital's easier, cheaper, but I figure with the support I'm getting here, I can afford to do what I really want." Brenna remembered that Kerry had talked about a biography of the woman behind Wisdom Court. "So your thing is writing?"

  "Yeah. Though research is the real turn-on." Kerry's face dimmed. "At least that's what I keep telling myself." Brenna raised a brow and Kerry grimaced. "I'm having a hard time with the project right now. Not enough data, so not much writing."

  "That's tough." Brenna sympathized for a moment, wondering what she would do if she couldn't find the kinds of images she wanted to photograph. She pushed away the notion with mental crossed-fingers for luck.

  "I'm sure Cottie meant to give you what you need." At the end of the table Aura Lee looked both worried and defensive. "I know she wanted you to write the whole story."

  "I thought she did... she acted like she did." Kerry sighed in frustration. "I just can't figure out why she would've set me up to fail. It's a lot of trouble for what's basically a nasty practical joke. She didn't come across as that kind of person."

  "Well of course not!" Aura Lee's agitation set her long beaded earrings into motion. "She'd never have agreed to the biography if she hadn't intended to go through with it. Cottie wouldn't have made it difficult on purpose."

  "We know that," Rose said gently. She rolled the stem of her wine glass between her hands. "She was ill and didn't have the energy to make sure everything Kerry needed was available. She just ran out of time, Aura Lee."

  Brenna glanced between the two of them, confused at the intensity of the conversation. "Who's Cottie?" she murmured to Andrea.

  "Caldicott Wyntham," Andrea responded in a low voice. "The founder of this place. She died four months ago. Cottie was her nickname. Kerry's project for her year here is to write Caldicott's biography, but she hasn't found a lot of the personal papers and things she needs to wrap it up."