Seidel, Kathleen Gilles (12 page)

He liked her voice. It was pretty and feminine, but direct without any girlish, giggly hesitations. He hadn't paid any attention to it when he had met her. There had been too much else to admire. "Don't you think that's odd?" he asked. "That there was nothing from April, no film, no script?"

"It is a shame about the script. Losing track of it was just carelessness, but the studios are careless. That's the way it is."

"Don't they have any respect for their own history?"

Her laugh was soft and silvery. "That sounds like something my father would have said."

"It's something anyone from Virginia would say. I suppose the people running the studios thought of them as businesses, not museums."

"I don't think it ever occurred to them that scholars might someday be interested in what they were doing. You wouldn't believe what's been lost."

"Tell me," he said. He liked talking to her.

Important films of the silent era had been lost forever, she explained. Warner Brothers had thrown out the cels for its animated shorts to make room for publicity files. In the early seventies a big pit was dug near the intersection of the San Diego and Golden State Freeways, and into it MGM had dumped production files, screen tests, still photographs, and musical scores.

"We would never do that around here," Doug said, then remembered the native sons who were trying to build shopping malls on battlefields. "Well, anyway, what do we do now?" Doug knew that the "we" was a little premature, but he also knew how to build a team. He could take five guys, some from the worst slums of Philadelphia, others from the cushy Washington suburbs, guys with nothing in common except their ability to play basketball, and he could make them into a team. Turning himself and Jill Casler into a little two-man search team couldn't be any harder than that. "I've been talking to the people who were extras, but their memories of the filming are pretty much shaped by what made it into the final picture."

"I suppose that's to be expected. Have you talked to your uncle again?"

"I've already talked to him three or four times, but it never gets anywhere." Charles was always his helpful, gracious self, but he really didn't know what had been in the script filmed in April. "He wants to help, but he doesn't remember enough. I just get the same stories over and over."

"I wonder if a fresh ear might hear something different. Would he talk to me?"

"Of course. He loves talking about the movie, but he doesn't travel." Charles wasn't exactly an invalid, but he was elderly. As far as Doug knew, he had not left Virginia since the plane crash. "And he's not one for talking on the phone."

"I don't mind coming out there... if you could set up a meeting." There was a pause, as if she was consulting a calendar. "The rest of my week is reasonably clear. Anytime after—"

"Wait a minute," he interrupted. Had he heard right? Aunt Jill was coming to the Valley, wealthy Aunt Jill. The Caslers would have gang heart failure. "You're planning on coming here, and you're going to schedule it through
me?"

There was a pause. "Is that inconvenient?" Her voice was careful.

"It's not inconvenient, it's just out of the question." Didn't she have a clue? Apparently not.

How was he going to put this? He didn't want to scare her off. If he was going to find out the truth about
Weary Hearts,
he needed her help. On the other hand, a true teammate would warn her about the gang heart failures that would be brought on by her coming to the Valley. She might want to brush up on her C.P.R. "Look"—he tried to keep his voice light—"this Valley is crawling with Caslers. I'm not going to tell them that on Aunt Jill's very first visit she's coming to see the Ringlings."

"Aunt Jill?"
She sounded horrified.

"That's who you are, isn't it?"

"I suppose... how did you know this will be my first visit?"

"Everyone knows that. Please give me a break here. Call Brad, Dave, Randy, anyone. Let them know you're coming. It doesn't matter when. Charles is always around."

"I wasn't planning on an extensive visit."

What was she planning? To swoop in, see Uncle Charles, and dance off, ignoring the people who had made a tape of her walking into the Academy Awards and who would soon be in the market for group rates on heart transplants? Yes, apparently that had been her plan.

This must be what it was like to be an only child. You thought you could plan things yourself. Two minutes in the Valley would set her straight on that. How should he put this? "Do you know the song 'She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain'?"

"Well, yes... I suppose. I mean, who doesn't? But what does that have to do with anything?"

"I think it captures the tone of what it will be like when you come. May I give you Brad's number?"

"You're really serious about this, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am." He grabbed the slim phone book, figuring that Randy didn't keep his parents' number in his office Rolodex. There were now only three Caslers listed—Randy, his father Brad, and his uncle Dave. "It's 703-856-..."

"Wait, wait," she interrupted. "Let me get a pen."

CHAPTER 5

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes...

We'll all go out to meet her when she comes...

She'll be riding six white horses...

We'll all have chicken and dumplings... sleep with Grandma... wearing red pajamas...

Jill did not wear red pajamas. She did not eat dumplings and she had no intention of sleeping with anyone's grandmother. The six white horses were all right, but everything else was unacceptable.

Calling Doug had been hard enough. But she had been forced to; she had come to a dead end. Miles Smithson's widow said that he had never talked about work at home. Oliver McClay's widow had Alzheimer's. Steve Lex, the movie's first editor, had died in
1950,
having never fully recovered from his World War II injuries. Charles Ringling was her best hope.

She had given herself a stern lecture. Doug was not her enemy. She had first assumed that his silence about Cass was craftiness, but perhaps it had been innocence. He was thinking about his own family. Perhaps he hadn't considered what his story implied about hers.

She and he had a common goal, to find the truth. Certainly each wished for a different truth. He wanted his uncle to be recognized as a great talent; she wanted her father's reputation to go unchallenged. But whatever the truth proved to be, nothing less would stop their search. They might as well look together.

So she had called him... only to have him want her to make another, even more difficult call. Phillip Wayland would not have done this to her.

It wasn't that she had a bad relationship with her two half-brothers. She didn't have one at all. She exchanged Christmas cards with them, and every time she received a birth or graduation announcement she sent flowers—or had her father's office do so. But that was it.

The older brother, Brad, had come out to California for Cass's funeral. It was, she acknowledged now, the right thing for him to do, but at the time she had been so distracted by her grief that she could only be puzzled by the tall stranger and wonder why he thought he would be any comfort to her. They had stood side by side at the gravesite, and when it was time for Jill to step forward and drop her rose on the coffin, her brother had moved to take her arm. She couldn't help it, she regretted it for days afterward, but she had frozen. She didn't want him touching her. Payne's father had moved up quickly, circling her narrow shoulders with a warm, comforting arm.

And now Doug Ringling was telling her that she couldn't come anywhere near the state of Virginia without making a big production of it with half-brothers, red pajamas, dumplings, and a grandmother who undoubtedly snored.

We'll all go out to meet her when she comes...
Doug couldn't be right. Why would they be so interested in her? She went from one month to the next without giving them a moment's thought.

As much as she had always thought of the Shenandoah Valley as a magical land, she had never visited it. Doug Ringling wasn't the only one who knew his folk songs.
Oh, Shenandoah, I
long to see you, Away, you rolling river...
It was a haunting, beautiful song, but it wasn't Jill's theme. She knew the Valley through the movie and through her father's memories. That was enough. She hadn't needed to go there.

What are you afraid of?
she could hear her therapy group asking, if she ever raised the issue.
Don't you trust your father's memories? Are you unwilling to test them against reality? Would you rather have his memories than your own impressions?

That wasn't what Cass wanted. Even though Ellen's unforgiving stiffness had kept him from ever taking Jill to the Valley, she had reason to think he wanted her to go. He had left her a house there. During none of their discussions about his estate had Cass ever mentioned to her a house in Courthouse, Virginia. Yet it had been the one piece of property explicitly mentioned in the will.

"Why did he leave it to me?" Jill had asked Lynette a month or so after the funeral. "Why not give it to Brad and Dave or their kids?"

"I'm sure he had a reason," Lynette told her. "Even though he never went back, he always thought of the Valley as a refuge; maybe he wanted you to have one too."

Jill couldn't imagine herself needing a refuge, or if she did, that she would ever go to Virginia.

Ken, the estate's attorney, had agreed with Lynette. "Cass never said, but I'd bet that he wanted you to have a stake in the Valley. One thing he always felt guilty about was that he never took you back there. Don't sell it until you've seen it."

Jill trusted Ken. As a result, in the two years since Cass's death, she had done nothing about the house. When the elderly widowed relative who had been living in it died, Jill had been occupied with her mother's troubles, so she left it to Ken to work out some arrangement for its care, which she assumed he had done. Even when her own home had been swept away, even when she had indeed needed a refuge, she had never thought of going to Virginia.

Now everything was falling into place. Ellen was dead. Jill wanted to see Charles Ringling; she needed to look at this house. It was simple, perfect. She looked down at the phone number Doug had given her.

If only she didn't have to call Brad... What did you say to a brother you had met once?

One danger of being rich was that you could pay other people to do your dirty work. Lynette could call Brad tomorrow morning.
Jill needs to be out on the East Coast this morning, and I'm co-ordinating her schedule...

But Alice, Jill's British governess, had had high standards. A child raised by Alice Hastings had other people do her dirty work only when it would be easier on the person dirtied.

Jill looked back down at the phone. It was still there. She did not want to make this call.

She picked up the phone. She pressed the "one" button, then "seven," "zero," and "three," the Virginia area code.

If she were to say "This is Jill," would he know who she was? Should she say "This is Jill Casler"? or "Your sister, Jill"? "Your sister, Jill Casler"? "Your half-sister, Jill Casler"? "Your half-sister, Jill Casler, the very idea of whom made your mother's skin crawl"?

She hung up.

She wasn't being cowardly, she just needed to prepare herself. She dialed the Casler Properties office. "Lynette, you know my brother Brad... what's his wife's name?"

"Louise, I think, but let me check."

Whenever Jill got a Christmas letter or birth announcement from the family in Virginia, Lynette entered its information on a card file. Alice had set up the system. Some of the systems in Jill's life were better suited to Henry and his ducal accumulation of stately homes and debts, but they did have their uses.

Lynette came back on the line. "His wife is Louise, and he has five children: Carolyn, Christa, Stacey, Taffy, and Randy. The daughters are all married. There are thirteen grandchildren. Do you need their names?"

"No." Five children, thirteen grandchildren, and that was just Brad. Dave also had a family. Surely they wouldn't
all
come out to meet her. Or would they? It was an awesome prospect, enough to make a body turn those six white horses around and whip them mightily until all were safe on the far side of the mountain.

"I don't need their names right now," she told Lynette, "But I might in a day or so. Could you type out a list?"

Lynette said she would be happy to do so. Jill thanked her, hung up, and looked at Brad's phone number again.

She dialed quickly. The phone rang twice, then was picked up.

"Hello." It was a woman's voice.

"Louise"—Jill blessed Alice's system—"this is Brad's sister, Jill. Is he available?"

"Jill!" Louise's voice was almost shrill in astonishment. "Brad, Brad, it's Jill." She must have been so shocked that she hardly moved the receiver from her mouth. Jill could hear her clearly.

It was only a moment before the receiver changed hands. Brad came on. "Jill! What's wrong? Has something happened? What can I do?"

Jill blinked. What could he do? Why was he asking that? If something was wrong, she wouldn't bother him. It wouldn't occur to her. "No, no," she assured him. "Everything's fine. I've been thinking that I'd like to come out to the Valley and see everyone sometime, and I wondered when—"

"Come out here? For a visit?" His voice was blank with astonishment. "You want to come to the Valley?"

"She wants to come to the Valley?" This was Louise's voice. Jill could hear it almost as clearly as Brad's. "She wants to visit?"

"Doug Ringling was nice enough to look me up when he was out here." Jill had jettisoned the idea of saying that she would be on the East Coast anyway. She lied enough about her emotions; she tried to tell the truth about her plans. "That inspired me to come and see the whole family. It would just be for a day or two... if it's convenient, that is."