Ashes (8 page)

Katie thought she did.

“Hi,” Katie said. “I’m Katie Granville.”

The client smiled and extended her right hand. “Jennifer Thomson.”

* * *

L
earn by going where you have to go.
And where might that be? Possibilities were suggested, examined, rejected. How these decisions are made no one really knows, any more than the gambler knows which card to draw. But finally a name came to her, nothing so specific as a town; a place she had only been to once before, years ago. And yet the name had come to mind, bringing with it images that were partly memories, mostly distant recollections of travel magazines and TV programs. British Columbia, Canada.

As good a place to find refuge as any.

* * *

J
ennifer bit back an apology; Katie had shushed her after the first one. “Don’t worry about it,” Katie said breezily, and despite everything Jennifer had to smile.
Aboot
. “No one ever finds the right house first thing.”
Hoose.

Jennifer tried not to think about all the people she’d known who had found the house of their dreams on the very first outing, or on a casual drive-by. She knew she shouldn’t be nervous, but it was difficult. She was not sure she was doing the right thing, and neither was anyone else.

“Canada?”
Amber LaSalle had asked, incredulity in her voice.

“Oh Jennifer, it’s so far away.” That was from her mother, who then suggested Jennifer move to Fresno for a while, until she got back on her feet. Even now, Jennifer shuddered at the thought. Things were bad enough in Glendale. How much worse would it be in Fresno, with none of a small town’s fabled charm and all of its prying and provincialism? Especially now.

Even Cindy, the one person she thought would support her, hadn’t come through. “It seems like a real big step, Jen. You sure you’re ready?”

No, I’m not sure I’m ready. Not sure at all. But if I wait until I’m sure, that could be weeks. Months, maybe. And I can’t wait that long.

No, she couldn’t wait. Because any fragile peace she might have found in Los Angeles had been smashed when she had hired Amber LaSalle to represent her. Just as it had taken only minutes for the bombing to wreck her life, in the course of a morning’s news report she’d gone from the haloed icon of that March day to a scavenger hungry for whatever spoils she could get. She got the first phone call minutes after the news hit the Web. A woman’s voice snarling, “Hey, bitch. I hope you enjoy your blood money.” After a few more calls like it she let the machine answer the phone. Each night she sat, drank too much Chardonnay, and listened to the messages, every single one. Listened with a taste in her mouth not of wine but something like ashes, the bitterness of shame and the sharp tang of resentment. She never answered but sometimes she wanted to say
I’m sorry,
and sometimes
Leave me alone,
and sometimes
All I wanted was to have a nice day at work and not die. What is wrong with that?

When she pushed the
Delete
button for the last time each evening, her resolve to escape Los Angeles and start anew only became stronger.

Escape. Somewhere pretty, somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe. “Sanctuary,” she said aloud.

“Pardon?” asked Katie Granville. There were in a restaurant, having coffee and pie. On the table between them was a list of possible homes, half a dozen crossed off the list already and Jennifer no closer to a decision than when she’d gotten off the plane in Vancouver.

Nothing,
Jennifer started to say. Oh, what the hell. Maybe it would help. “Sanctuary. Someplace safe. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Katie nodded. She took a quick glance at her list, then she smiled. Pure pleasure in that smile, none of a salesperson’s calculation. “I think I have just what you’re looking for.”

* * *

I
n Katie Granville’s blue sedan again, heading north. “It’s a bit further away from the city,” Katie said, but Jennifer was unconcerned. The drive to Vancouver might daunt a Canadian, but it was nothing to a veteran of Los Angeles’ freeways. It was mid-afternoon, and as the sun descended it burnished the trees with a golden glow, like the warmth left by a lover’s kiss. They drove north, then west, the sea ahead of them and the mountains behind them, the evergreens thinning as they neared the coast. The cool tang of the ocean filled the car. At the side of the road, a sign read
Welcome to Haven Cove.

Past a few isolated houses, and then they were in the town. “This is the main commercial row,” Katie said, gesturing around her. Jennifer rolled down her window and leaned out into the sunshine and salty breeze, looking at the businesses. Restaurants. Boating and fishing supplies. Bed-and-breakfast hotels. St. Anastasia Catholic church. Salto Family Mining Supply. The Starlight Theater, showing the latest Johnny Depp film.

Katie turned onto a road leading away from the coast, up a gentle grade, and pointed to the left and down. “That’s the marina,” she said. “Still quite a few fishermen in Haven Cove, thought not as many as in my parents’ day. It’s the safest marina on the Sunshine Coast. A south-facing beach, you see. Keeps the boats sheltered from storms. The old-timers call it Port Hidey-Hole.”

Jennifer smiled. Haven Cove was well-named indeed. The peninsula curved protectively around the marina, seeming to hold the boats tenderly, the way someone would hold a tiny kitten. She was a bit sorry when they made another turn and the marina was lost to her sight. But not sorry for long.

“Ah, here we are,” Katie said.

She did not know who had owned 314 Douglas before her. But they had loved it, and well. That was clear the moment Jennifer set foot on the walkway, red brick in a herringbone pattern. The house was cream-colored, with shutters and trim and door in dark green. Window boxes, although empty, nonetheless brightened the house with their cedar hue. The lawn was slightly overgrown but this only enhanced the appeal, gave the grass the look of a plush carpet. Rosebushes, stems hanging heavy with seashell-pink and lipstick-red blooms, flanked the doorway like sentries.

Katie unlocked the door and the two of them stepped inside. She followed discreetly, letting Jennifer discover the house for herself, only offering comments when she saw a questioning look in Jennifer’s eyes.

Jennifer was never able to describe, exactly, what she felt when she entered the house. It was not
deja vu
— she had no sensation that she had been here before. The feeling was not familiarity but comfort. The living room: a wine-colored carpet and the walls done in a marble pattern, creamy white with gentle threads of rose and gray, the fireplace in gray riverstone. The dining room: country blue accents and a plate rail that simply begged for knickknacks and bric-a-brac. The kitchen: more country blue except for the stove, a gleaming, stainless-steel beast that Jennifer had seen on cooking shows. A bathroom: not much counter space but a large clawfoot bathtub, snowy porcelain on the inside and deep cobalt blue on the outside, the walls painted blue with bright tropical fish stenciled in. A bedroom at the back: its windows looking out to the west, where the sun glittered on the ocean and slanted in the window, giving the room its golden light. Another room: too small for a bedroom but big enough to be a study or a sewing room or whatever she wanted it to be. A tiny backyard, big enough for a hammock.

Not a big house. A cottage. The sort of place that was called “charming” in the real estate listings. But size did not matter. Jennifer wandered the rooms, walked through them in a loop. She was not searching. She was drinking in the feel of the house, its comfort, the feel of an embrace from an old friend. Or a new one.

* * *

A
little more than a month later and Jennifer, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, sat on the floor, a cup of coffee in one hand and a half-eaten banana in the other, trying to summon the will to unpack. In spite of her resolve to start afresh it seemed she’d brought quite a bit from Los Angeles. And what had never seemed completely real through all the days of packing and signing papers was now very real indeed. She was an expatriate. An innocent abroad. It certainly sounded romantic, but in reality she was surrounded by boxes and furniture placed helter-skelter, there was nothing in the refrigerator but a six-pack of Coke and a jar of applesauce, and she couldn’t go get more food because she wasn’t entirely certain where the grocery store was. She supposed she could knock on one of the neighbors’ doors and ask. She peered out the windows. The house on the left looked as if the owners had gone to work for the day. The house on the right seemed occupied — she could see a light in the kitchen and make out the faint sounds of the TV, Elmer Fudd declaring that he would kill the wabbit with his spear and magic helmet. Jennifer smiled in spite of herself, almost lured by the sound of beloved cartoons and the desire for companionship, but stopped. That feeling of being a stranger was on her, as was the sensation of being on-stage, caught in the spotlight, that had dogged her since the bombing. She didn’t want to be introduced as the survivor from the Los Angeles bombing last March. She wanted to make friends the way normal people did it. Commiserate over the quality of the tomatoes at the produce section. Say hello when bringing the garbage cans out to the front. That sort of thing. Knock on the door and ask where the grocery store was.

The doorbell’s ring took matters out of her hands. She put down her banana and coffee, opened the door.

“Hi neighbor!” sang out a voice. The woman standing on the doorstep was maybe a few years older than Jennifer. Her reddish-brown hair was frizzy in the damp coastal breeze. She had a baby balanced on her left hip, a plate with an angel food cake on it in her right hand, and another child standing by her side, hanging onto the skirt of her denim jumper.

Jennifer wondered how she’d managed to ring the doorbell with her hands so full. “Hi,” she said, feeling at a loss for what else to say. “Here, you’ve got your hands full,” she said and took the cake. “Thank you.”

“Just a little welcoming treat,” the woman said. “When I moved in, I had so much unpacking I couldn’t find my way to the stove for a week. I’m Suzanne.” She held out her hand and Jennifer shook it.

“I’m Jennifer.” She realized there was nowhere to ask people to sit, nor was she sure where all the dishes had gotten to. Great, she couldn’t even offer her new neighbor some coffee. Off to a wonderful start. “I’m sorry about the mess.”

Suzanne waved dismissively, adjusted the baby. “You should see my place. These two look sweet but leave them alone for five minutes and boy! It’d be even worse if I had them 24 hours.”

Jennifer was puzzled. Was this some strange custody arrangement? But Suzanne must have seen her look; she smiled. “Oh, they’re not mine. Bill — that’s my husband — and I don’t have any. Yet.” Suzanne paused for a moment, as if thinking of something. “This one,” she patted the older child’s head, “Is Hannah. Say hello, Hannah.”

Hannah, who had not stopped staring around Jennifer’s house and its disarray with her huge dark eyes, made a noise that sounded vaguely like a greeting. Jennifer smiled and Suzanne was unfazed. “Shy girl. And this is David,” she said, jiggling the baby on her hip as he spouted an infant’s doggerel. “David’s not up to hello yet.”

“I’ll take ba-ba-goo as a hello,” Jennifer said.

“They’re Mrs. Reisman’s, from three doors down. She went down to Vancouver to see her mother and left these two with me. Have you met the Reismans yet?”

“I haven’t met much of anyone. I just got here a couple days ago. Which reminds me, can you tell me where the grocery store is? I’ve been living off what I get at the little quick mart.”

“Oh, don’t do that. You get anything that’s perishable at that place and you’re asking for trouble. Look, why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? Bill and I can tell you what you need to know. How’s that sound?”

For a moment Jennifer could not reply. No doubt Suzanne thought it shyness, but it was need, and loneliness, and the desire for companionship uncomplicated by the past. For a friend to whom she could just be Jennifer, the next-door neighbor. Who never had to know about that other woman, the one that had been left behind in Los Angeles. “I’d love it.”

“Great!” Suzanne said with a grin, and after a few more pleasantries she was gone in a swirl of denim skirt and cluckings to David and Hannah. Jennifer caught glimpses of Suzanne throughout the day, pushing Hannah on a swing set in her small backyard, handing the children over to a woman in a silver minivan later that afternoon.

That night she joined Suzanne and Bill for dinner. Bill was a big man with a deep voice and a rumbling laugh, Santa Claus’ great-great-great-grandson, and between his wry comments and Suzanne’s chatter, Jennifer felt she had a pretty good handle on life in Haven Cove, or at least on her new neighbors. And now she knew where the grocery store was.

Spaghetti and garlic bread and a decent red wine, and Jennifer felt herself relax for the first time in months. Over chocolate-chip ice cream, Bill asked her what brought her to Haven Cove.

“A change of scene,” she replied with a smile. It sounded so simple, and it was. Who knew that it could be this easy to fashion a new life out of the wreckage of the old? She smiled and said her thanks for dinner. Her sleep that night was dreamless, and she slumbered not knowing that she had brought far more burdens with her than the boxes scattered through her house, and not realizing that it would take more to start a new life than a change of scene.

W
ait,
Robert had counseled.
Make time work for you.

Sean knew how to wait. It was not something he enjoyed, but one of the first things he’d learned was that waiting could make all the difference between success and failure. Or between life and death. He returned to Florida and resumed his old routine. Ran, watched movies, read the occasional book. Did nothing to arouse suspicion, for he knew they were watching him. The signs were all there. The gray sedan he saw sometimes while on his morning runs, which slowed ever so slightly as it passed him. The soft click he heard when he picked up the phone. A faint thumbprint on the envelope of his credit card bill.