Ashes (28 page)

“As long as we stay out of the butterfly exhibit.”

“Oh, come on, Jen, that butterfly looked cute on top of your head. Like a bow.”

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t
leave.”

They got back to Haven Cove a little after five, stopping to drop off Suzanne. “Bill should be back from his conference any minute now. We’ll meet you guys at the Blue Moose, OK?”

The Blue Moose was almost full up. She and Matthew had to wait twenty minutes for a booth, and when they did get one it was situated right next to one of the big TVs. She had to strain to hear the waitress. “We’ve got three more coming,” said Jennifer. “Any way we can turn down the TV?”

The waitress shook her head. “Not a chance. Big game tonight.” She gestured around the room, and Jennifer noticed all the men in sports jerseys. “If I touch that TV we’ll have a riot on our hands.”

“No problem, we’ll deal.” She ordered a plate of onion rings, a Coke for Matthew and a glass of white zinfandel for herself. The first drink she’d had since New Year’s but she felt it was safe. It had been a good week, a great week, and why not celebrate?

Gene arrived at the same time their drinks and onion rings did. The waitress turned and was gone before he could order; he shrugged and sat down. “How was the Aquarium?”

For the next ten minutes Matthew dominated the conversation. Piranhas and sea otters, beluga whales and orcas. He opened his bag of treasure for his father to see. Two books about marine life, a key chain shaped like a shark, a plastic mobile of prehistoric ocean creatures that would glow in the dark.

“Very nice,” Gene said with a smile. Looking up at Jennifer, he said, “He didn’t drive you crazy, did he?”

“Not at all. We all had a great time. Bill and Suzanne should be here any minute.”

The waitress arrived. Gene asked her for a beer and an order of potato skins. He’d had no lunch, he said, and besides, Matthew had already put a very sizable dent in the onion rings.

As the waitress jotted down the order, one of those peculiar silences fell — the sort that always strike a room at the worst possible time. On the television a beer commercial faded out, and there it was.

The screen in blackness, and a portentous voice-over. She recognized the narrator from movie previews. He said, “A story torn from the headlines” and she didn’t hear the rest of it because there it was, on screen, for all the patrons of the Blue Moose, everyone in Haven Cove, hell, probably everyone in British Columbia to see,
that
picture,
her
picture. After a few seconds it did a digital fade from her and the firefighter to the actors playing them, but what did that matter? She had thought she was safe from it, had forgotten that Canada was more or less the fifty-first state and that there were such things as foreign rights to broadcast. She looked away from the screen, only to see the eyes of the waitress widen slightly in recognition. Through the music of the commercial — Mozart’s
Requiem,
Mr. Bradbury played it a lot — and the narrator’s booming voice she heard the waitress say softly, “Oh...
wow
.”

She didn’t feel herself get up. There was a tinkling and a dripping sound, and she was standing, her glass of wine knocked over. Its fumes rose to her nostrils and made her think of New Year’s Day. “Miss Jen?” Matthew’s voice was soft and worried. “You OK?”

“Fine. Be right back.” Without reaching for her coat or purse she began making her way through the tavern to the front door, needing to get out of this crowd. Too many people, too much noise, too many pairs of eyes looking at her or getting ready to look. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the place. She made it to the tavern’s door — free! — and opened it to find Bill and Suzanne. Suzanne said, “Hey, Jen. Is...my God, are you all right? What’s wrong?”

She babbled something about not feeling well, needing air, prayed they wouldn’t follow her. She walked through the parking lot at a fast clip, not quite a run, walked down the block until she found a park bench, looking down a slope toward the harbor. Jennifer sat down, heedless of the cold coastal breeze. Her stomach roiled and she actually longed for the release of vomiting, but nothing happened.

She had made her bargain with Amber LaSalle all those months ago because it wasn’t really her, not her story, and she had thought she could ignore whatever movie or book came to light. She’d made the bargain but hadn’t counted on the real cost; what shamed her now was not who she was and what she had survived, but that she had traded on that, bought her happiness with blood money. Gene and Mr. Bradbury hadn’t known that. Now they all would know. Everyone. Once again she would no longer be Jennifer, whoever that was. She would be the girl who turned tragedy into profit, like Rumpelstiltskin turning straw into gold. Yet what else could she expect? She had made the deal, even if she hadn’t realized all the terms of it, and now it was time to pay.
And I’m tired of paying for this, so —

Footsteps coming toward her. She did not look up to see who it was, kept her face turned toward the ocean. Suzanne most likely, bringing her coat and purse. There would be a cold look in Suzanne’s eyes, she would hand Jennifer her things and say, “Here.”

“Jennifer?” Gene’s voice.

Ah, Gene. Come to tell her that Matthew would be tutored by someone else now, come to ask Miss California what was wrong, didn’t she like being famous? She didn’t answer him.

“Anything I can do?” His voice was softer than usual, and she looked up at him. He stood with his hands behind him, like a child called on to recite something in school.

“I don’t think so.” It was her own bed she’d made, she’d have to lie in it herself. “Maybe you should go.”

Instead of going, he sat down beside her. “You want to talk about it?”

She shook her head, then blurted out, “What’s to say? I mean, I’m the one who sold my story, why am I so surprised when I see me on TV?”

“Because that’s not why you did it.”

It was the last thing she expected him to say. She turned to look at Gene. His eyes looked paler than ever in the streetlight’s glow but for the first time she thought she could read behind those eyes, and found no accusation there.

“I had to get away from Los Angeles,” she said. “I couldn’t go to work in any of the office buildings without thinking they’d blow up. I wanted to go someplace I could start over and just be me. That’s all I wanted.”

“And that’s what you got.” He patted her shoulder gingerly, as if he thought she might break. Or bite.

“No, damn it, not just that. Did you see the look on that waitress’ face? Now everyone will know who I am and what I did to get here. Suzanne and Bill and Mr. Bradbury and everyone else I know.” She took in a deep breath. “I can’t stand to see how they’ll look at me.”

“They’ll look at you the way they always have. Like you’re their friend. Nothing’s going to change that. They know you. They like you.” He paused, looked away from her, out at the ocean. “I like you.”

“I thought I was Miss California.”

Gene blushed. “I’m sorry for that. I really am. I was upset. What you said about Matthew, I mean, in one afternoon you figured out what I hadn’t. It was just one more way I’ve let him down. That’s all I’ve done, it seems.”

How could he say that? If her father had shown a tenth of the devotion Gene showed Matthew, she might actually miss him.

Before she could protest, Gene said, “I guess by now you heard about me and Becca.”

She nodded.

He took out his wallet. Buried deep, not in the plastic photo insert but back behind his driver’s license was a small wedding photo. Gene in a rented tux, smiling broadly at his good fortune. If there was any doubt in his eyes the camera did not see it. Beside him a beautiful woman: black hair, white teeth, red lips, like in the old fairy tales. And even in the puffs and ruffles of a wedding dress a body that, as the saying goes, wouldn’t quit. Large brown eyes, Matthew’s eyes.

“I always knew it would never last with me and Becca. It was only a matter of time.”

“Why’d you marry her?” she asked.

“Because for the first time in ages I was happy, or something like it. I thought, well, it won’t last but I’ll take as much of it as I can get. I thought I would be the only one to get hurt.” He put the photo away.

“You were willing to make that bargain,” she said.
Oh Gene, that’s the problem with bargains, they’re never as simple as they seem. I know.

“Yeah. I did. But you see.” He dropped his voice to a near-whisper, leaned close to her. She leaned toward him. “We didn’t plan for Matthew. Becca hit the roof when she got pregnant. She didn’t want to have him. I talked her into it. Once I got over the surprise, I really wanted a kid. I’m the last of my family. My folks are dead, I don’t have any brothers and sisters. So we had Matthew, and right away I loved him. That’s where it all went downhill for Becca and me.”

“Because she didn’t want him?”

“That. And I knew then what it is to care for someone. Whatever it was between Becca and me, caring wasn’t part of it. We started fighting. I tried not to fight with her in front of Matthew but Becca didn’t care. She’d say things.” He paused, searching for the right word. “Hateful things.”

Jennifer tried to imagine what Becca had said, and decided she didn’t want to know. The look in Gene’s eyes was enough.

“That night when Becca left, I knew I’d screwed it all up. My son was five and not a week had gone by where he hadn’t seen his parents fight. His mom ran out on us and took everything. From day one I let him down. and when you came to see me at the docks, I just felt that all over again. I let my son down.”

“I thought, the way you called me Miss California, I reminded you of Becca,” she said, hoping it wasn’t so.

He shook his head. “It wasn’t that. I don’t know how to say it. It was partly just feeling, you know, ashamed. But the way you looked when I came back. You weren’t going to let it go. You were going to bat for Matthew, doing more for him than I could, and it made me feel worse, but I admired it too. The look on your face ... I don’t know how to say it. Like a lion. Brave.”

“Don’t make fun of me, Gene, I’m the chickenshit of the century.”

“Stop it, OK. You are brave. You started over, got your life back on track. You’re helping Matthew, and God knows you didn’t have to. Mr. Bradbury wants to adopt you, you’re the best thing that’s happened to him and the library in years. If you want to talk about chickenshits, talk about me. I got married to someone I didn’t love because I didn’t want to lose her, I’m a stupid Newfie who can’t read and I work the same job that killed my father because that’s all I know. So stop beating yourself up.”

“I will if you will,” she said. Then, asked softly, “Your father?”

Gene looked down at his hands, hard and callused from years of work. “He was a fisherman, back in Newfoundland. He drowned.”

Something of Matthew’s look in Gene’s face, vulnerability kept well-concealed. “How old were you?” she asked.

“Ten,” he replied.

“I’m sorry.” She reached out and put her hand on Gene’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said again, not just for Gene’s loss but for so many things.

“Thanks.”

They said nothing for a while. Suddenly she realized how long they’d been out here. “Where’s Matthew?”

“Back at the Blue Moose with the Delacroixs. They’re probably on dessert by now. You ready to go back?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so.” As they walked back, she kept her hand on Gene’s shoulder. It was good to have someone to hold on to.

H
e sat in the Blaines’ den, watched Richard pace, and betrayed none of the anxiety he felt. Because what he’d done to MacReady was a mistake, something that could cost the entire mission. Sooner or later, Sean was sure, someone would put things together. Henry Connolly, Doug MacReady. One in a quarry, one locked into the trunk of his car and deposited at a long-term parking lot at Green Bay airport. And Sean the common denominator.

It was an error, and a big one. He had only himself to blame for letting emotion carry him away. That was usually how it happened. You pulled the trigger not out of fear or inexperience but out of anger. It had happened to everyone in his old crowd at least once. They even had a code for it, among themselves, based on the tired explanation their superiors always trotted out.
An MWM,
they said.
Mistakes were made.

Richard paced, Sean sat. Above them in the kitchen, the sound of Anna loading the dishwasher, singing a Beatles song — “I’ve Just Seen A Face” — as she worked. “You haven’t heard anything from him?” asked Richard, who stopped pacing and looked at him.

“Not a thing,” Sean replied.

Richard nodded, began pacing again.

“It’s probably taking longer than he thought and he wants to give you the full report,” Sean said. “You know how Doug is.”

“Probably,” Richard said. “He was two weeks longer than we thought he’d be when we were planning Los Angeles.” He shook his head. “It’s been a hard summer, that’s all. The business with the Wisconsin Patriots, having to worry about that. And speaking of the WPs, today I was riding out by the lake to think things over, and saw the local coroner’s van. Seems someone reeled up an unexpected catch.”

“Our unexpected guest?” he asked.

Richard shrugged. “Who can say? Unless he had ID on him they may never know. Nine months at the bottom of a lake, you don’t look too pretty.”

“I can imagine.” He certainly could. “What’s next, then, do we wait for Doug?”

“Of course. His is the place I’ve always thought was the best target. I’m sorry yours turned out to be a dead end.”

“It happens.”

Richard began to pace again, then looked up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of his wife walking in the kitchen. “Sam, I need you to do something for me. A favor.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going out of town this weekend. There’s an old contact of ours who helped get the supplies together for Los Angeles. I want to see if he’s still around and amenable.”

Sean’s nerve endings tingled. This might be the opportunity. Keeping any betraying note of eagerness out of his voice, he asked, “You need a backup? I’m free.”