Bursting Bubbles (20 page)

“So what were you, a nurse?” Georgiana persisted. “Is that why you were there?”

“I’m tired now.” Mrs Kilgour turned the chair so her back was facing Georgiana. “You better go.”

Anderson… Anderson… Anderson… Faceless and unknown. But, decided Georgiana, not necessarily unknowable. He may be lost to time and Mrs Kilgour, but that doesn’t mean he has to be lost to her. The World Wide Web exists now, where, if you know how and what to ask, any question you have can be answered just by tapping a few keys.

Unfortunately, Georgiana hadn’t realized how very long the Vietnam War was. It went on and on and on. Nor had she realized how many people are named Anderson – quite a few of them photographers, and a surprising number involved with that particular conflict. Because those are the only three things she knows about Mrs Kilgour’s tragic lover, it takes Georgiana several hours before she finally finds him. Anderson Littlejohn, born June 15, 1925, in Seattle, Washington, died July 2, 1967 in South Vietnam. She finds several pictures he took for
Life
, but no photograph of him. All that represents him are a woman fleeing with a baby in her arms, a burning village and bombs exploding among the palms.

Georgiana thinks about Anderson for the rest of the week. She can’t seem to stop. He is every hero she’s ever read about, heard about or seen on the silver screen or on the Shillers’ personal entertainment system – from William Wallace to Jesse James.

Anderson… Anderson… Anderson… Man of ardour and adventure. She sees him leaping over walls and jumping out of helicopters. She pictures him as ruggedly handsome and overpoweringly charismatic. Renegade and impetuous. Principled and brave. And such is the power of imagination that she creates a young and beautiful Margarita Kilgour to match him. The heroine of an epic, a tragic figure fated to an empty, lonely life. Georgiana knows that this Margarita, all these years later, is still in love with Anderson, and guesses that the old camera bag Mrs Kilgour uses as a purse belonged to him, and wonders if any traces of Anderson’s blood are still on it. Because Margarita has never stopped missing him. Longing for him. Grieving for him in her broken heart. Georgiana also knows that Margarita’s marriage to Mr Kilgour was an act of defeat and despair. If she couldn’t have the man she loved why not marry a man she could never love? Be safe in the suburbs. Be buried alive. Since her soul was already dead.

Moments featuring Anderson and the young, beautiful and doomed Margarita run in Georgiana’s head like a movie. They sit by the fire in Anderson’s cabin retreat, whispering love. Hand in hand, they stumble over minefields through storms of bullets, never letting go. They cling to each other while their helicopter spins down into the lush, chattering jungle. They dance in the moonlight, alone in a world of love. There is, however, one very major difference between Georgiana’s remake of Mrs Kilgour’s life and the original. In Georgiana’s version Anderson lives. As he lies in Margarita’s arms on the dusty road, her tears washing the blood from his face, she whispers, “Don’t die.” And he whispers back, “I won’t, my darling. I’m never leaving you.” Happily ever after. Georgiana channelling Marigold at last.

For days Georgiana is distracted by these fantasies. If only Mrs Kilgour were more forthcoming. All these months she’s been going on and on about the most boring and uninteresting things, and now that she actually has something to talk about that Georgiana wants to hear, she shuts up as if she’s taken a vow of silence. She has the twisted mind of a torturer.

In school, Georgiana’s thoughts wander, so that at the end of each class she has no idea what’s been going on and is always surprised by the bell. She brings her history text to maths, and her Spanish notebook to her media class. Mr Marks finally gets her attention by leaning on her desk and putting his face right in front of hers. “Well?” he asks. “Yes or no?” Georgiana says yes, causing the rest of the class to laugh hysterically. She only finds out afterwards that the question Mr Marks asked her was whether he was being more boring than usual or whether she was so deep in thought because she was trying to resolve the financial crisis.

At home, she puts salt in her coffee instead of sugar. She puts her phone in the refrigerator instead of the margarine. She parks the car in someone else’s driveway. Her mother wants to know if she’s taking drugs.

“Of course not,” says Georgiana. “I just have something on my mind.”

Georgiana’s mother’s eyes lock on her like laser beams. “And what would that be?”

It is as she’s gazing back at her mother that Georgiana finally has the idea that could solve her dilemma. A brilliant idea. She rarely flat-out lies to Adele Shiller because there isn’t any point. Georgiana’s mother is a very successful PR consultant. She is not only an expert at manipulating information, she can spot a lie the way a bloodhound can pick up a scent. But if Georgiana tells her the truth – that what’s on her mind is a man who’s been dead for nearly fifty years – Mrs Shiller will have her in therapy faster than you can say “Agent Orange”. However, if she handles this right, there’s a chance that her mother – whose other useful talent is that she is very good at putting people at their ease and getting them to talk – could help Georgiana find out what she wants to know about Anderson. She opts to tell her almost-the-truth.

“Mrs Kilgour,” says Georgiana. “You know, the old lady I visit at St Joan’s?” She frowns with concern. “I don’t know, I can’t help worrying about her with Christmas coming up. You know, everybody celebrating with their friends and families… But Mrs K has no friends … and no family… and she doesn’t mix with the other people at the centre…”

“And you feel bad for her, being all by herself,” finishes her mother. Understanding the human psyche is part of her job.

Georgiana nods. “Yeah. I guess I do. It just seems kind of sad.”

As Georgiana knows very well, Adele Shiller is a doer, not a worrier or a talker as many of us are. For her, problems are there to be solved, not fretted about. She nods, too. “I have an idea. Why don’t we invite her to join us for Christmas Day?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean…” protests Georgiana. Adele Shiller could make a corpse tell her its life story, but she won’t do it if she suspects that’s why Georgiana wants Mrs Kilgour to come. Manipulators don’t always like being manipulated themselves. “You have so much to do already. It would be a big imposition.”

“One person isn’t going to make any difference.” Mentally, Adele is already laying another place at the table and roasting a few more potatoes. “It’s just Bruno and Liz coming this year. And you know what they say: the more the merrier.”

Not if one of the more is Mrs Kilgour, but Georgiana definitely isn’t going to tell her mother that.

“Um… I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s not such a great idea.” What she’s not sure about, of course, is how Mrs Kilgour would react to an invitation from Georgiana. Just saying hello can cause an argument. “She might think it’s strange, you know—”

“Well, if you think she might feel a little uncomfortable, I could call and ask her myself. Say I’ve heard so much about her and I’d really like to meet her.”

“
You?
Are you serious?”

“Of course I am.” Adele taps her fingers together. Thoughtfully. “I know what I’ll do. We probably have to clear it with St Joan’s anyway. I’m sure they do have to know where their residents are. You can’t just waltz off with an octogenarian under your arm. So before I talk to your lady, I’ll call them and work it all out. That way I can find out if she has any special dietary requirements. There are so many different allergies these days. Remember that luncheon last year where one of the guests had to be rushed to hospital because there were nuts in the pasta sauce? And perhaps they can tell me if there’s anything she needs that we could give as a little gift.”

And here is something that Georgiana, dazzled by her own brilliance, overlooked. Adele Shiller likes to control things. (On a vacation in Rome she actually took over the tour when the guide showed up drunk.) Mrs Kilgour, on the other hand, doesn’t like to be bossed around.

“Oh, but you’re so busy, Mom. Maybe I should talk to Mrs Kilgour first. See if she even wants to come.”

Adele Shiller is shaking her head. “No, I think it’s better if I talk to her. I want her to feel that the invitation comes from all of us, not just from you.”

“She still might not want to come. She’s a very private person.”

But as Georgiana also should know, there is no such thing as a private person in the world of PR.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Adele. “We’re having her over for Christmas dinner, not putting her life story on Facebook. What’s the number for St Joan’s?” Her phone is already in her hand.

Claudelia
, Marigold and Georgiana are in the student lounge on Monday morning, catching up on what happened since the last time they talked on Sunday night. They are so engrossed in their conversation that they don’t see Byron, Will and Asher come in until they’re almost on top of them.

“So how was mountain-goat week—” begins Georgiana, but stops when she notices that Asher is limping and leaning on an old wooden cane. “Holy Christmas! What happened to you?”

“Oh my God, Asher!” Claudelia is trying to sound concerned and not laugh at the same time. “What’d you do? Fall off a rock?”

“No, a roof,” says Will.

Asher corrects him. “Actually, it was a ladder.”

“A ladder?” repeats Marigold. “You mean at the cabin? What were you doing on a ladder at the cabin?”

Will puts a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “I’m afraid Mr Grossman never made it to the mountains. I went with my brother, and we had an awesome time, in case anyone’s interested.”

No one is.

“So what were you doing up on your roof?” asks Georgiana. “Don’t you have a guy who does that stuff?”

“It wasn’t at home. It was at the community centre.”

“The community centre?” It hasn’t escaped Claudelia’s attention that Asher not only spends every Saturday at the centre, but that he also spends a lot of time organizing schedules and sessions on his notepad when he isn’t there. She just didn’t think he went there during the week as well. “What the hell were you doing there?”

“Tell the truth, man,” laughs Byron. “They’re paying you, aren’t they? They have you on some kind of retainer.”

Will winks at Asher. “Personally, I’m still not convinced that Mrs D isn’t so hot flames come off her.”

“Give me a break, OK?” Asher says to Will. “You know that’s not true.” He turns back to Claudelia, who seems to be glaring at him. “I just stopped by Thursday night to leave a note saying I was going away for the weekend.”

Georgiana asks how, if he was leaving a note, he wound up falling off a ladder. “Is the mailbox on the roof?”

“No,” says Asher. “The leak was on the roof.” And explains that the centre’s handyman couldn’t go up because of his back. “It’s just a sprain,” he says in summation, “but it really hurt for a day or two.”

Claudelia is looking at him as if he’s a puzzle. “Hang on,” she says. “Are you telling me that you were home alone all weekend, and you didn’t call me to help you or at least come keep you company?”

“I was OK.” He stares at the toes of her shoes. They’re a little scuffed. “And, anyway, you know… I wasn’t exactly at home.”

“Right.” Claudelia nods and the feathers hanging from her ears nod along. “So where exactly were you?”

Thursday night, when Carlin went to get some ice, Asher called Will and told him what had happened and said to go climbing without him. But he let Will think that he was already back at home. To be fair to Asher, he thought he’d go home the next day, but that was before Mrs Dunbar arrived at the centre at seven o’clock on Friday morning, bringing an ACE bandage, Epsom salts, a cane, breakfast and sunshine. Asher wasn’t going to explain any more, but he knows from the look on Claudelia’s face that she’s hurt that he didn’t call her. Hurt is just a heartbeat away from mad. He’s got enough problems without having her mad at him.

“I was at the centre.”

“At the centre? Are we talking about the community centre? What did you call it? The birthplace of chaos?” Claudelia almost smiles. “That’s where you stayed?”

“Dude!” Will leans towards him. “The whole weekend? I thought you said you were at home.”

“Mrs Dunbar insisted I stay there.” This is true. After breakfast she bandaged his foot with a skill and gentleness he wasn’t expecting, and said that he should stay off it for a couple of days. Carlin had told her there was no one at home to look after him so she thought he should stay where he was. “I’d bring you to our house,” said Mrs Dunbar, “but we have the in-laws staying and there really isn’t any room.” Which, for Asher, meant that there definitely is a God.

“But you said the centre’s a total dump,” says Will. “You said the only reason it doesn’t have rats is because rats have higher standards.”

It’s pretty astounding how – when it comes to something like this, but not when he suggests they carry their own hand gel or start thinking about life insurance – everybody remembers everything he’s ever said down to the tiniest detail.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really have a choice. You know, since I couldn’t walk or drive. I kind of had to take what I could get.”

Byron wants to know where he slept. “OK, they give out free food, but it’s not a homeless shelter, is it? They don’t have beds.”

“No,” admits Asher. “No beds.”

Everybody is looking at him.

“So?” prompts Claudelia. “Where did you sleep?”

Asher glances at his watch, hoping to discover that the bell is about to ring, but time seems to have sat down if not actually come to a dead stop. “There’s a sofa.”

“A sofa!” Will laughs so loudly that heads turn. “
You
slept on a sofa? On somebody else’s germ-ridden old sofa? Were you drugged?”

He slept badly his first night. His foot hurt every time he moved, the sofa was as lumpy as a cobbled street, Carlin’s clothes and blanket made him feel as if he was in someone else’s bath water, and instead of the howling of coyotes in the mountains there were drunks singing “Dancing Queen” on Main Street. But on the second night he fell asleep as soon as they turned out the light and didn’t wake until morning.