Someone Like You (21 page)

“And you argued with them,” Cat said. “I remember you in the ER. You were fighting with one of the cops, trying to make him understand that you were the one who’d been driving, not Mimi.”

Joely turned to Zach. “She really did that?”

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “Your mother tried to protect you. My mother blamed me for killing my brother.”

“Oh God, Zach—” Cat leaned forward and touched his arm.

“She wasn’t entirely wrong,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let him drive.”

“You didn’t know he was high,” Cat said.

He shot her a look. “I knew something wasn’t right. We all knew he was heading for trouble. Everyone in this town knew that. I’ve spent ten years trying to figure out what I could have done differently.”

“So have I,” Joely said quietly. “If I’d taken another road home, if I’d made the turn more quickly.” She closed her eyes. “You know how it goes.”

“You somehow always end up with the same bad ending.”

“Always.”

“I know you don’t believe me yet,” he said to Joely, “but she loves you. It may not be in the way you needed, but I saw it that day.”

“You think you saw it.”

He raised a hand to stop her. “I saw it. I know what happened.”

She looked toward Cat and saw the same hopeful confusion she was feeling reflected in her sister’s eyes.

“It doesn’t change anything,” she said to Cat. “One moment doesn’t make up for twenty-eight years.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Cat agreed. “But it’s one more moment than you had before.”

She had never been good with raw emotion. Neither was Cat. She liked to step back and let her feelings mellow for a day or two, if only so she could regain perspective and a degree of control. Being in the moment was dangerous. That was when you said and did things that could change your life forever.

“I don’t know about the two of you,” she said, “but I feel like I’m trapped in a
Lifetime
movie for women. Two sisters, their wildly successful gay friend—tell me that’s not the stuff ratings are made of.”

Cat suddenly leaped up from the sofa. “Oh, damn!” she said. “I meant to watch
Entertainment Tonight
. They told me Janna from
Pink Slip
was going to be featured tonight, and she gave me a big plug.”

“I hope she wore that gorgeous lavender cashmere tank top,” Joely said.

“I think it’s the felted bag with the Swarovski crystals knitted in.”

She found the remote under a stack of
Vogue Knitting
and clicked on the television.

“I keep telling you to get TiVo,” Zach said as she started clicking madly around the dial. “It’ll change your life.”

“It’ll turn me into a total hermit,” Cat said as she landed on Mary Hart. “I watch too much as it is.”

“Shh!” Joely ordered. “Let’s hear what she’s saying.”

“Get well wishes go out to Mimi Doyle, one-half of the classic sixties folk-rock duo The Doyles. Sources in Idle Point, Maine, say Mimi Doyle suffered a stroke yesterday morning and is in intensive care at a local hospital. The Doyles stopped performing in 1978 when Mark Doyle disappeared. It was believed at the time of the disappearance that Doyle was heading down to Appalachia to tape some mountain music for an album he and Mimi were working on. Coming up next on
Entertainment Tonight
, we roll out the red carpet for the premiere of—”

“Appalachia!” Joely and Cat said simultaneously.

“I knew that,” Zach said, clearly delighted by the mention on
Entertainment Tonight
. “Mark’s passion was blue-grass and mountain music. In 1968 he told an interviewer from
Time
that the roots of all American music could be found in the mountains of Appalachia.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Joely asked, shaking her head.

“You should know this stuff,” he countered. “It’s important. Mark was trying to compile an aural time line of the progression of American music from the time of the first settlers until the present day. Mimi said she had his notebooks and tapes hidden away.”

Joely and Cat exchanged glances.

“If they were put away in her attic,” Joely said, “then they’re lost for good. The house is a total disaster.”

“Not if she put them in some kind of fireproof safe.”

Cat laughed. “Mimi put something in a fireproof safe? You’re lucky if she didn’t just stick them under her mattress.”

“We should take a look.”

“No, thanks,” Joely said. “One visit to that place was enough for me.”

“How important would those papers be?” Cat asked Zach.

“Very.” His tone of voice was deadly serious. “This would be Smithsonian type of material.”

“Unless they’re a figment of her imagination,” Joely said.

“I don’t think so,” Zach said. “I believe she has them.”

“She’s never said a word about them to me,” Cat said, “and I never saw anything interesting in her attic.”

“We’re not talking the crown jewels here,” Zach said. “You’d see a box of papers and some reel-to-reel tapes, maybe a cassette or two. Would you have paid much attention to that?”

“No,” Cat said. “I wouldn’t even have noticed them.”

“This is ridiculous,” Joely said. “Even if she had anything of value, it would be lost now.” There was fire and water damage everywhere in Grandma Fran’s old house.

“It wouldn’t hurt to look,” Zach urged.

“Why bother?” The conversation was starting to get on Joely’s nerves. It smacked of the kind of romanticism that made a sixty-something-year-old woman believe her man would come back one day. “If it’s there, you’ll find it when they empty the house to sell the property.”

“When ‘they’ empty the house?” Cat gave her a look. “Try when ‘we’ empty the house.”

Joely drew in a breath. “When are you planning to start?”

“When are you planning to go home?”

“This weekend,” she said. “Annabelle misses her father.”

“I thought her father was in Japan.” Cat kept her voice free from inflection, but the words carried a punch just the same.

“She’s got you there,” Zach observed.

She pushed the thought away. “I don’t see why we can’t hire somebody to go through Mimi’s things.”

“Who would we hire?” Cat shot back. “She would hate knowing some town busybodies were pawing through her things.”

“If I understood the extent of the stroke’s damage correctly, she won’t understand enough to care.”

“I care,” Cat said. “If you don’t want to help, fine. That’s up to you.”

“I’m not doing anything tomorrow,” Zach spoke up. “If you need some manual labor, I’m yours.”

Cat turned all her attention away from Joely and directed it toward her old friend. “That’s great, Zach, but you might change your mind when you see what you’re in for.”

“We’re not planning to knock down any load-bearing walls, are we?”

“I doubt it,” Cat said with a laugh, “since I’m not sure I know what a load-bearing wall is.”

“Then count me in.”

“Don’t we have to check with the police before we do anything?” Joely asked. “And with the insurance company?”

“She’s right,” Zach said. “You’d better get the okay before you start sifting through things.”

“Thanks,” Cat said to Joely with a stiff nod of her head.

“You’re welcome,” Joely said with an equally stiff nod of her head in return.

“The Olsen twins wouldn’t behave like this,” Zach observed dryly, and the three of them burst into air-clearing laughter.

“We need chocolate,” Cat said, getting up from the couch. “Lots of chocolate.”

“Screw the chocolate,” Zach said. “I could use more Merlot.”

“You’ve already had too much,” Cat shot back. “You’re either spending the night on my sofa, or I’m driving you home.”

“I doubt that, since I live in Napa.”

She tossed a throw pillow his way. He ducked, and it slid across the floor toward poor Newman, who was napping in his bed near the window. “Your parents’ place, Karen and Danny’s, wherever you’re hanging your hat these days.”

Their bond was so vital, so strong, that Joely found herself awash in unexpected envy. She had always held herself apart from deep friendships, unwilling to let down her guard long enough to let anyone see the woman behind the facade. Even with Sara, her closest friend, she withheld much more than she revealed. The night of the solstice—was it really only two days ago?—she had revealed more of herself in a few hours than she had in the four years that had come before.

“It’s too bad you’re gay,” she said as they followed Cat into the kitchen on a chocolate hunt. “You and Cat would be perfect together.”

“You sound like my mother,” Zach said. “Ever hopeful.”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Joely persisted. “I’m talking about the way you two get along. You get each other’s jokes. You really care about each other. Except for the sex thing, it’s the perfect relationship.”

“The sex thing is pretty hard to ignore,” Cat said as she pretended to pat a nine-months’ belly.

“I know what you’re saying, though.” Zach held open the freezer door while Cat rummaged around for the chocolate fudge ripple. “When the fireworks stop going off every night, there has to be something more to keep you there.”

“Exactly!” Joely grabbed three big white bowls from the cupboard and put them on the counter. “You two talk to each other. You listen. You know each other’s secrets.”

“What secrets?” Cat and Zach said simultaneously.

“See? You two are in perfect harmony.”

“We’re both Libras,” Zach said. “It’s in our nature.”

“I don’t think you’re talking about Zach and me,” Cat said as she dug the ice cream scoop out of the junk drawer. “This is about you and William, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s over between us.”

The silence in the room had a physical presence.

“Don’t look at me that way,” she said to them. “I swear I’m not going to fall apart on you. I’m just stating a fact.”

“He
told
you it’s over?” Cat asked.

“He hasn’t told me anything,” she said. “We’ve been playing phone tag for the last two days.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Cat said, looking toward Zach for support. “You’re mistaking crossed wires for trouble.”

“I phoned the hotel in Hokkaido where he said he’d be staying. They told me he wasn’t registered.”

“Shit,” Zach murmured. “That’s not good.”

“Zach!” Cat glared in his direction.

“Don’t jump Zach,” Joely said. “I
know
it’s not good.”

“Maybe he switched to another hotel,” Cat offered. “Reservations get screwed up all the time.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s crossed wires,” Cat persisted. “I’m telling you that’s all it is.”

“Oh, Cat, it’s more than crossed wires. Things haven’t been right for months. We tiptoe around the house like there’s a dormant volcano in the middle of the drawing room and we’re afraid a little noise will set it off.”

“Great analogy,” Zach said. “Lloyd didn’t even give me that much warning.”

“Zach,” Cat warned again. “I don’t think this is the time.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Joely said. “I’ll bet you knew, didn’t you, Zach? Tell the truth. Deep down in your gut, you
knew
things were changing with Lloyd.”

He glanced over at Cat, who was glaring at him down the length of the couch. “Sorry,” he said to his old friend, “but she deserves the truth.” He met Joely’s eyes. “We started being very polite to each other. Please this and thank you that. Excuse me, pardon me—we were sickening.”

“That’s no help. William’s English,” she said. “He thanked the OB for delivering him.”

“You and William need to sit down and talk about things,” Cat said. “You can’t go on this way. Not with a child involved.”

“It didn’t seem so urgent when Annabelle was younger, but she asks questions now. We want to be honest with her, but there’s just so much adult baggage you can allow a child to carry. She wants a real family, and I’m not sure we can give that to her.”

Cat glanced away, and she knew exactly what her sister was thinking. They had both carried more than their fair share of their parents’ baggage. Especially Cat.

“She’s started calling me Aunt Cat.”

“I know.” She buried her face in her hands. “She wants to call me Mummy, but William and I—” She shook her head sadly. “What am I going to do?”

“Talk to him,” Zach said. “The two of you need to sit down and talk it out.”

“He’s right,” Cat agreed. “You can’t go on like this any longer. If for no other reason than the fact that Annabelle deserves more from both of you.”

She looked up at her sister. “They used to say I was the smart one, but I’m not. You’re the smart one, Cat. You have your own house, your own life, your own baby. Nobody can swoop in and take any of it away from you.”

“Wait a minute! I’m not doing this alone. Michael is going to be a full partner in our child’s life.”

“But on your terms,” Joely persisted. “You’re not in love with him. You’re not planning to marry him. You’re not a visitor in your own life. I was supposed to be the smart one. I was supposed to be the one who thought things through before she jumped, who made logical decisions.”

“And who told you there was anything logical about love?” Zach asked.

Cat’s gaze was direct and uncompromising. “Are you with William because you love him, or are you with him because you love his daughter?”

“I’m not a hearts-and-flowers type, but the second I walked into his house, I knew I belonged there. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

“I wish I knew the right thing to say, honey, but I’m at a loss here.”