Coffee Sonata (35 page)

“Ah, please, Mikey. We were more to each other than that.” Brenda’s eyes glittered with malice. “We lived together, you see, Vivian. We were inseparable.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Tilly. Mike’s obviously come a long way on her own since then, hasn’t she?” Vivian’s voice was polite, but Mike could hear the strength beneath it.

“Yes, but you know what they say. You can take the girl out of her habitat, but you can’t take the habits out of the girl.”

“Brenda. Not here.” Mike glared at the woman who’d once been her world. Brenda had tied her to herself so closely, it had taken Mike more than a year to realize she had the power and the ability to make it on her own. Brenda’s verbal abuse, her tantrums and demands for absolute obedience finally drove Mike away.
And I still feel ashamed. I look at her, and I’m embarrassed at how I let her run my life and how I bent over backward so many times to accommodate her. In every fucking way!

Mike’s ire was up, and it infuriated her that Brenda would try to cause trouble in her usual calculating way. She sometimes saw Brenda in town but made a point of ignoring her.

“I think old sayings like that are ridiculous and, most of the time, completely wrong. And I think Mike’s success proves my point.” Vivian still sounded polite, but her eyes, no matter how bad her vision, showed nothing but pure, blue-tinted steel.

Brenda, obviously taken aback, tried again. “You don’t know Mike the way I do, so maybe you oughta wait before you judge,” she said. “She used to be at my beck and call.”

“You should stop now before you say something really stupid, Brenda,” Mike growled. “The day I left was the first time I did something really good for myself. And after that, life only became better.”

“Better? No matter how you like to pretend that you’re playing with the big guns and the rich and famous in this town, everyone will always think of you as the daughter of the drunk child killer.”

Mike grew cold.

“You have the man’s genes, don’t you, and you’re cut from the same mold, pretty much.” Brenda glowered at Mike. “You could follow in his footsteps.”

“Stay away from me from now on.” Mike’s chest hurt.
Damn it. She talks about my worst fears like they’re nothing. She has no right to say these things! No one has.
Mike leaned closer as her voice sank to a low, cold hiss. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

Mike returned her attention to Vivian and saw a faint smile play at the corners of her mouth. “Want to check on your prescription?”

“Yes, why don’t we? It’s nice outside, and I’ll enjoy the walk back to the car. Good-bye, Ms. Tilly.”

As if Brenda were air, Mike and Vivian walked over to the counter where Arnold’s grandson was waiting with a small paper bag. “Here you go. All ready.”

“Sorry ’bout that,” Mike said as they left. It had felt good to finally tell Brenda off to her face, but now her stomach was quivering and she wondered what Vivian was thinking.

“Don’t be. That’s been brewing for a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel better for standing your ground?”

“Yes. But I feel awkward too. I wish you hadn’t had to overhear the whole thing.”

“
Cara
, it makes no difference to me.” Vivian squeezed Mike’s arm. “I think you’re wonderful, and so strong, to have turned your life into what it is now after such a rocky start.”

“Rocky is putting it very nicely. My father was a fisherman. He worked hard and partied hard. My mother died when I was about two years old, too little to remember her.”

Mike guided Vivian into the William Dodd Park and up to a bench where an old oak provided some shade. “Want to sit down?”

“Yes. I want to hear what you have to say. This is important.”

Warmed by Vivian’s obvious interest, Mike sat next to her, still holding Vivian’s hand. “Father had a lot of money when the fishing was good, and he used most of it to buy beer for himself and his friends at the pub. He would come home and I’d try to do what he wanted, take care of the house and do my homework. I even tried to cook, but I was only six or seven, so I failed a lot.” She frowned.

“He didn’t beat me very often, but it happened, and he yelled at me when I did something wrong. When I was almost eight, someone at school, a nurse or a teacher, reported him to the authorities, for child abuse. The child welfare services put me in a temporary foster home, but father regained custody only a few weeks later. I don’t know how.

“Then one day, he didn’t come home till late. And in the middle of the night, the police came to arrest him. They took me back to a foster home again, this time a different one, and that was the start of my treadmill.” Mike sighed as the feeling of the years gone by flooded her senses and transported her through time.

“Many foster homes.”

“I lived in nine before I ran away when I was fifteen.”

“You couldn’t take it anymore.” Vivian didn’t turn her words into a question.

“No. Not one day longer. I met Brenda a year later and she swept me off my feet. I had just come to terms with my sexuality, and there she was, a little older and so worldly and sure of herself. She was beautiful, and both men and women in our circles pursued her.” Mike glanced at Vivian, feeling shy. “People going from shelter to shelter sometimes lucked out, and the social services helped them get an apartment. Brenda had a one-bedroom one behind the industrial area. The first weeks I stayed there were as close to heaven as I’d come.”

“What happened?”

“Brenda…has her ways to get you to comply.” Mike blushed. “She had a voracious sexual appetite and was very aggressive in bed. I tried to accommodate her, but soon the thrill and the feeling of being in love were gone. Instead, I was afraid of her. Afraid I wouldn’t please her and make her angry. She could get really ugly, and her razor tongue lashed out at me in ways…” Mike clung to Vivian’s hand. “I still dream about it.”

“I don’t blame you. I’m glad you decided to leave. Not everyone can find the strength to do that—certainly not without help.”

“I didn’t have any help then,” Mike admitted, “but later, when I found shelter at the Youth Center in Providence, I met Josie Quinn. She worked as a volunteer counselor, and she was the first one I learned to trust.”

Vivian’s eyes turned a brighter blue, and she raised her hands to touch Mike’s cheek. “I’m forever grateful to Josie.”

“Manon’s going to help me track her down. We could go visit her, if you like.”

Vivian nodded. “That would be great, don’t you think? She sounds like the type of person I admire immensely. Selfless and caring, like a kindred spirit to Manon.”

“Yes.”

Mike became silent when she thought of the afternoon’s turn of events.
What a catharsis it was to run into that bitch. Who’d have known? Vivian took it well. She defended me. I knew she’d do that, though.

“What did Brenda mean by those cryptic remarks about your genetic inheritance?” Vivian asked, interrupting Mike’s thoughts. “And what happened to your father?”

Mike went cold. She’d hoped Vivian wouldn’t remember to ask about that but realized that was a wasted hope. She pushed that thought so far out of her mind most of the time that she almost forgot it herself. “Oh, Vivi,” she sighed, squaring her jaw yet shivering. “Can we drive back to the café? It’s getting cold.”

“Of course.” They walked back to Mike’s Honda Civic and drove back to the café in silence. Mike felt unsettled, and the topic they’d tapped into ate at her. After she parked behind the café, she helped Vivian to the back door, and Vivian managed the stairs on her own. Mike breathed in relief when they were finally within the walls of her basement.
Safe. Nothing can happen here. Nothing bad, right?

“Ready to continue?” Vivian took off her cashmere coat, then sat down on the couch and kicked off her shoes. “We need to talk about this…whatever it is, if we stand a chance together.”

Are you talking about more of a future than you’ve allowed us before?
Mike was afraid the truth would divide them, but she realized Vivian had a point. Mike knew what it was to live a lie, to hide things from the world constantly.

She put her leather jacket on a chair and sat down next to Vivian. “It doesn’t matter that I changed my name and tried to better myself. I’ll always be Richard Collins’s daughter. Fortunately, not many people knew he had a daughter, and if they do, they didn’t know my name.”

“Why is that fortunate?”

“Because he killed someone.”

*

“Belmont Foundation. Ms. Belmont’s office, Dennis Altman speaking.”

Efficient fellow.
Eryn twisted a pencil between her fingers. “Hello, Dennis, this is Eryn Goddard. Is she in, please?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Goddard, but Ms. Belmont isn’t in and won’t be back until Wednesday at the earliest. May I take a message?”

What?
Eryn’s heart dropped. “I’m a friend.”
She didn’t mention taking time off
. “Any way I can get in touch with her? I’ve left several messages on her cell phone.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but Ms. Belmont hasn’t checked in yet today. When, and if, she does, I’ll give her your message.”

He’s not sure she’ll be in touch today? Manon, workaholism personified?
Puzzled, Eryn tapped the pencil on a notepad. “May I ask where she’s gone?”

“Ms. Belmont is in Boston, ma’am.”

Boston!
Eryn dropped the pencil and caught it again. When they spoke early the day before, after returning from the hospital, Manon hadn’t said a word about going to Boston. Granted, Manon didn’t have to tell Eryn her every move, and things could have come up at the last minute, but it still…hurt. Perhaps it had something to do with Marjorie’s will.

Manon had gone up to her penthouse, and Eryn hadn’t seen or heard from her since, which was unsettling. She ached to see Manon, to hold her and reestablish their fragile bond.
I just need to see her. Period.

Belmont Industries’ headquarters were located in Boston, but Eryn had a gut feeling that
someone
rather than
something
had pulled Manon there on such short notice. “Thanks, Dennis. If she checks in, please ask her to call me. Here are my phone numbers, in case she lost them.” As Eryn hung up she felt slightly nauseated and jittery.

She had begun her research of the Dodd dynasty and, encouraged by all she’d found already, had wanted to share it with Manon, hoping the subject might somehow console her.
And why did I bother to worry? She didn’t worry for a second about me, certainly not enough to say she’d be gone for days.

She returned her attention to the computer and saved a few more Web pages to her hard drive, hoping she could use a few of them. Elizabeth, the first “Dodd woman,” to use Harold Mills’s phrase, had come to the colonies from London in 1693 as wealthy landowner William Dodd’s bride. He’d met her in England as a young man, married her after only two months, and they’d sailed for Newport a few weeks later.

Lizzy ran William’s household with a determined hand. She cared for the sick and the elderly, and organized a group of her peers to do charitable work. Earlier Eryn had discovered Lizzy’s oldest granddaughter’s journal in Marjorie’s private library and learned from it that Lizzy had died from pneumonia at age thirty-nine and her husband had never remarried.

Eryn leaned back and thought of the first Dodds in East Quay. Lizzy must have been a strong woman. She’d borne seven children, five of whom lived to form their own families. The country was hard to live in back then, and, she broodingly thought, it still was for a lot of people.
And those are the ones Manon burns for. She’s all about helping the bleeding masses, and how can I compete with that? If she doesn’t prioritize her own happiness, what chance do I stand?

That was the nucleus of the enigma that was Manon. She had practically inherited her social conscience, and her grandfather, who had bled for the misfortunate and the displaced, had obviously molded her. But also Manon was apparently trying to make up for something.
Her lesbianism? The death of her brother?

Eryn shook her head. She hoped Manon would call soon, just to make sure she was all right. She knew Manon missed Marjorie and wished she could help Manon feel less lonely.
She simply doesn’t need you the way you hoped she would by now, you fool.

Angry at her tendency to accept defeat in matters of the heart, Eryn focused on what she was good at and typed new search words into the Google search engine. “She’ll call,” she muttered. “She better.”

*

“I just don’t know what to do.” Manon was grateful that Faith, her longtime friend, took the time to listen.

Faith Dabrinsky was a tall, dark woman with an incredibly commanding presence. Manon knew you could hear a feather crash to the floor when Faith entered a boardroom. Preferring to dress in black or dark gray pants suits and crisp white shirts, today Faith wore a dark blue skirt suit which softened her otherwise austere appearance.

“You’ve really been through it over the last weeks, haven’t you?” Faith asked with a trace of tenderness in her matter-of-fact voice. “You look worn out.”

“I’ve lost my footing completely…everything I used to know; the truths I used to cling to…” Manon reached into her purse for a tissue and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “Am I going insane?”