Please Remember This (25 page)

Tess had seen the list of the new vendors. They would be selling railroad memorabilia, Adirondack outdoor furniture, homemade doggy beds. “What do these have to do with Nina Lane?” she asked.

“Not a blessed thing,” Phil replied evenly. He didn’t care about Nina Lane. “Does that bother you?”

“No. Quite the contrary. I’m sure if I had a dog, I would want it to have its own homemade bed.” Which was more than she could say of anything the Nina Lane vendors were selling.

“The two main organizers are coming to town next week. I think most everyone understands that you don’t want any fuss made about your being Nina Lane’s daughter.”

“I’m not trying to hide from that fact. I simply
don’t want the fans pawing all over me. Do people find that strange?”

“Lord, no. Considering how strange we all find the Nina Lane fans, people would find it odder if you did want to be a part of it.” Phil never wanted to have long conversations about people’s feelings. “Did I tell you that Charles Dussell is definitely going to close?”

Charles Dussell owned Happy Little Bluebirds. “I guess that’s no surprise.” He had run the business very badly. Everyone knew that. But still it would be depressing to see a
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
sign on Main Street.

Phil went on to tell her that a retired Kansas City dentist and his wife were negotiating to buy the Victorian mansion across from the restaurant, hoping to open a bed-and-breakfast, but the house was in such bad shape that Phil didn’t think the deal would go through. At the other end of town, Mrs. Kleinhardt was buying too much inventory for her antique shop. It was so crowded that people couldn’t stand to go in it. A lady from St. Joe was coming into town this afternoon to look at space for a yarn shop. No one in Fleur-de-lis thought that a shop selling nothing but yarn was a very good idea. Quilt fabrics would broaden the store’s appeal, but the lady wasn’t a quilter. She wasn’t interested in quilts. She liked yarn. She was determined to open a shop for knitters. The quilters could just learn how to knit.

The following week, two strangers entered the Lanier Building, arriving just as the high school students were leaving. They had to step back to keep from getting bumped by the kids’ heavy backpacks. Both
wore jeans, T-shirts, and desert boots although the man coming through the door first was in his fifties. He was of medium frame, with high cheekbones and graying hair worn in a ponytail. The other man was younger and bigger. He was—

He was Gordon Winsler, Tess’s one and only lover, the one who needed to keep the lights off so that he could pretend she was Nina Lane.

He hadn’t seen her yet. He was looking around the Lanier Building, surprised, as newcomers often were, by the bold use of color and the artistically displayed merchandise. He had gained weight since college, making him appear a little burly.

Tess could not believe this. Gordon Winsler, walking into the Lanier Building—things like this didn’t happen. It was too much of a coincidence.

“This place is new, isn’t it?” the older man said as he approached the counter. “It’s nice.”

Gordon was now gazing up at the overhead chalkboard, still not seeing Tess—not that he had “seen” her even when they were lovers.

She kept her voice even and pleasant. “Hello, Gordon.”

His eyes jerked down. He stopped dead, stunned. “Tess?” She nodded.

“You two know each other?” the other man asked, his look of curiosity so acute that it felt intrusive. “That’s funny. I thought this business was new.”

She nodded. “It is. Gordon and I knew each other during our freshman year in college.”

Gordon still looked as if he had been hit in the
stomach by a hardball. “Where did you go? You just disappeared.”

“I had to go take care of my grandparents. There wasn’t anything mysterious about it. Everyone in my dorm knew.” But he wouldn’t have asked. Their parting had been bitter. He had done something that Tess could not forgive, and she had said something that he could not forgive. “Now, what can I get you to drink?”

Tess supposed that she had reason to be grateful to Gordon Winsler. He had shown her how she didn’t want to live, that she didn’t want to stake her identity on being a Dead Celebrity’s Daughter. Nonetheless, she hoped he and his friend would take their coffee to a table. She didn’t want to talk to them, but they lingered at the counter. Gordon introduced the other man as Brian Something-or-other. Tess heard his name, but an instant later found that she couldn’t remember it.

They talked about the improvements in town. The place did look dramatically different than it had last year. Tess mentioned the various state and federal projects that had helped fund the improvements. Neither of them seemed very interested. Brian drifted off to examine Tess’s merchandise. Gordon remained at the counter, obviously not sure of what to say. Tess felt obliged to ask him what he had been doing since college.

His answer was a little hard to figure out. He was apparently helping individuals with computer and Internet issues. He did some Web page design. But most of his efforts went to “this.” He mentioned
“this” several times. Finally Tess lifted her hand in a gesture of ignorance.

He looked surprised, obviously having assumed that she knew why he was in town. He and Brian were the main organizers of the Nina Lane Annual Birthday Celebration. They weren’t traditional promoters; they had no financial interest in the event. They did it out of love for the books. Brian had been involved in the event for nearly ten years; Gordon’s level of responsibility was more recent.

Phil had indeed warned Tess that the organizers were coming to town, and she now realized that when the older man had first walked into the Lanier Building, she had assumed he was such a person. The surprise over seeing Gordon had sent the thought out of her mind.

So it was not such an astonishing coincidence, his appearance at the Lanier Building. He was a Nina Lane fan with leadership skills and organizational abilities, definitely someone whom a festival like this would need.

“So”—he leaned toward her confidentially—”what can you tell me about this Phil Ravenal fellow?”

“He’s a local attorney and chairman of the town’s Economic Development Council. He’s been the primary force behind the revitalization of Main Street.”

“He did get the parking organized last year with the shuttle and all. That was good.”

These might have been words of praise, but it was clear from Gordon’s tone that he didn’t trust Phil. That was not fair. Phil was exceedingly trustworthy, in part because he was always open about why he was doing what. If Gordon wanted to trust Phil, all
he needed to do was understand that Phil cared almost nothing about the Birthday Celebration as an entity in itself. He cared about the local economy.

Phil and Gordon had different goals. As long as their journeys toward their respective goals kept them on parallel paths, they would probably be an effective team. But when they came to a fork in the road, and Phil wanted to go one way, and Gordon another … Tess didn’t want to be around to witness it.

She had a feeling that she would be.

The two men finished their coffee, leaving, Tess noticed, a used paper napkin crumpled on the floor. Gordon hadn’t said anything about Tess’s being Nina Lane’s daughter.

But that wouldn’t last. Gordon was going to want her to give a talk during the Celebration or make an appearance at whatever was his equivalent of a VIP cocktail reception. And she would say no. It would be simple. She would say no.

At two that afternoon, Brian and Gordon were back at the Lanier Building.

Brian was fizzing with excitement. “Gordon just told me. This is so incredibly cool. I can’t believe it. Are you really Nina Lane’s daughter? Really and truly?”

The man was at least fifty. Why was he still using an expression like “really and truly”? “I am.”

“It’s amazing,” he continued to gush. “Why haven’t you ever surfaced before? People must be so interested in you.”

“We talked about this,” Gordon said heavily, sounding as if he were far older than Brian instead of nearly twenty-five years younger. “The most loyal
readers like to think of themselves as having a monogamous relationship with the books. They secretly feel that the books were written for them and that no one loves the trilogy as much as they do. Tess’s presence is a barrier to that, someone who would have meant more to Nina Lane than they do. It’s confusing the author with her work, but people do that.”

People certainly did, most notably Gordon Winsler himself. “It is not clear that I meant all that much to Nina Lane,” Tess pointed out. “She committed suicide when I was three months old.” Neither man winced at the word “suicide.” “But if you are here to ask me to keep a low profile during the Celebration, I’m happy to do that.” This might be easier than she had ever imagined.

“That’s what we would like this year,” Gordon said.

“This
year?” Tess didn’t like the sound of that.

“You must feel like we do,” Brian said, his words coming out in a rush. “The Celebration’s gotten too big. It’s nothing like it used to be. Not at all. You remember what it was like at first, when it was really about Nina and the books. You must miss that.”

“Actually, I’ve only been to one. Last year.”

That caught him by surprise. “Oh, right. I guess Gordon would have known if you’d been coming all along. Anyway, this guy Ravenal is only going to make things worse. I’ll admit his idea last year about the parking shuttle to the Kmart lot was a good one, but now he also wants people parking at the high school, and he wants to have vendors and exhibits in the park.”

“I know that,” Tess said evenly. “It will be good for the downtown store owners.”

Brian acted as if she hadn’t spoken. He cared nothing about the downtown store owners. “I don’t understand where he gets off being involved in the first place. He’s not the mayor or anything. And as far as we can tell, he knows almost nothing about the books. He might not even have read them.”

Tess could have reassured them on that matter. Of course Phil had read Nina Lane’s books. Not to have done so would have made him unprepared, and Phil was never unprepared. But she couldn’t imagine that he had liked them.

“Too many of the new people are like that,” Brian continued. “They don’t care about Nina. They know nothing about her.”

“And I don’t know much more,” Tess pointed out.

“When Brian says ‘Nina,’ “ Gordon interjected, “he means the books, not the author as a person.”

“Does he?” Tess asked dryly.
You didn’t.

His eyes shifted away. “Many people posing as fans,” he said slowly, “just think of Nina as the Goddess of the Weird, that she just stands for anything Gothic. But she was much more than that. She was an intellectual. She read everything. You can see that in the books. The books got me to read Jung and to look at Art Nouveau, the things that she loved. I got an education from her.” He shook his head. “But the new people … a lot of them are pseudointellectuals, people who pretend to know this stuff and then they don’t. Sure, it’s fun to draw maps of the books—we all can do that—but what’s important are her ideas, and everyone’s losing track of that now.”

If he had been anyone else, Tess might have felt some sympathy. If she didn’t like the weird pedants and countercultural freaks among Nina Lane’s fans, how more wounded must be the readers who genuinely loved the trilogy. But this was Gordon Winsler, whom she had accused of necrophilia. “What does this have to do with you wanting me to keep a low profile
this
year?”

“We’re thinking of splitting off,” Brian said, “and starting a new festival in California. The core group of fans, the ones who really care about Nina, are generally from the West. It’s the people from Colorado, Texas, and the Midwest, the ones close by, who show up just to party and make money. We want to get back to something authentic and meaningful, where it’s more important to understand the thought behind the books than to spray your hair black.”

“I’ll keep a low profile at that one too,” Tess volunteered. “I have no problem doing that.”

“That’s not what we had in mind,” Gordon said. “It’s not going to be easy, starting something new. This place has a lot of momentum going for it. We would need a draw, something that clearly marks us as the authentic event, the one for serious fans to go to.”

“But serious fans of the books would have no interest in me. Didn’t you just say that?”

“We’d pay all your expenses … if you don’t mind flying coach. It wouldn’t take a lot of preparation on your part. Some opening remarks, of course, and then maybe one seminar about your memories of Nina, but mostly it would be—”

“I have no memories of her. You know that.”

“I realize that you don’t remember her and that your grandparents never talked about her. But you remember
them.
No one’s ever had a good sense of what Nina’s relationship with them was like. You could at least tell us about them. And growing up in the shadow of someone famous who wasn’t talked about … that’s interesting. There’s still a legacy there.”

Tess did not answer. Was he serious? Did he honestly believe that she would ever talk about that?

“Or you don’t have to give a speech.” Brian spoke in a hurry to fill the uneasy silence. “It will be enough that you are there. You could sit on the podium and be introduced. That would be enough.”

She would be like a trained pony. A zoo exhibit. A professional daughter. A professional daughter of a suicide. Oh, yes, she would be the center of attention, the most important person in the room, but not because of anything she had done. “No, I will not do it.”

“Then can we at least count on you not to make an appearance here?” Gordon asked.

“I will not ever appear in public as Nina Lane’s daughter, not here, not anywhere.” She turned her back and started to tidy the back counter. The teas were supposed to be in alphabetical order, but they weren’t. Behind her, she could hear the door open and close. They had left.

She dropped into a chair. Why did they want this? What was all that talk about the readers’ monogamous relationship with the books? Who was she to interfere with that, whatever it was? She was no homewrecker.