The Bette Davis Club (18 page)

“Nah.” He rubbed his face. “Well, you know.”

“You’re remembering about Mummy,” I said.

My father introduced me that day to the female housekeeper, but not to his wife, Irene. Then he told me he had business in town, kissed me good-bye, and left. With nothing to do, I wandered down by the swimming pool. A skinny, flat-chested girl in a two-piece swimsuit was floating on her back in the water. She was about thirteen years old. I knew I had an older half sister because on the ride over my father had told me about her for the first time. Suspecting this might be her, I sat down on a lounge chair to watch.

The girl rolled over, thrashing like a crocodile. “Hey, you little creep!” she said. “Get off my towel!”

This was how I met my big half sister. This was Charlotte.

Route 66 goes more or less to the heart of Chicago. By the time Tully and I enter the city, it’s late evening. We’re cruising through the downtown area when a beeping sound emanates from my bag. The cell phone. Charlotte again.

“Breaking news!” Charlotte says. “It cost me a Kate Spade clutch and a gift certificate for full-mouth dental veneers to find out Georgia’s staying with her best friend, Kelsey. Kelsey moved to Chicago last month—but Tully knows her. They met when Kelsey came back to LA for the wedding.”

Charlotte sounds even more manic than usual, and I wonder if she’s had her head inside that globe in the library.

“After your odyssey in Daddy’s little car,” she says, “that is, when you
finally
reach Chicago, I want you to go to Kelsey’s.”

I gaze up at the lights of the Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, the signature skyscraper of the Windy City.

“I have the address,” Charlotte says. “Wait—” She drops the phone on the desk, and it clanks in my ear. I hear her talking to herself and rustling through papers.

I worry Charlotte may wander off, forgetting about me altogether. But moments later, there’s more rustling, the clink of ice cubes in a glass, and she’s back.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m a little woo-woo right now. I’ve been doing deep medication. Ha-ha. I mean, meditation.” She rattles off an address, and I write it on a notepad I pull from my bag.

“Charlotte,” I say, “if you have this address, you probably have the phone number there as well. Why don’t you ring them? Or text Georgia. Tell her the game’s up. Tell her to come home, nothing is forgiven.”

“Georgia’s not answering her cell,” Charlotte says. “She’s still not talking to me. Find her, make her understand the mother-daughter healing can’t possibly begin until she gives back what she took from me.”

It’s been four days since I broke into Georgia’s hotel room in Palm Springs. I have not yet mentioned this escapade to either Charlotte or Tully, but I decide it’s time to take a chance. “You mean that old screenplay, don’t you?” I say.

I glance over at Tully, who’s preoccupied with the heavy Chicago traffic. After days of Charlotte’s incessant phone calling, Tully’s become adept at tuning out entirely my endless discussions with my half sister.

“I saw it, you know,” I say to Charlotte in a low voice.

“You found Georgia?” Charlotte says.

“No, but I got into her room in Palm Springs. That script she has would make quite a movie.”

“If you only knew!” Charlotte says. “It’s a very hot property.”

“And I imagine it’s the item you want returned to you.”

“It is,” she says after a moment. “Along with one or two other things.”

“Charlotte,” I say, “I’m weary of this scavenger hunt.”

Tully stops at a red light just as three young men come out of a bar. Hanging on each other, they gape over from the sidewalk—pointing and giving thumbs-up to our little car. I wave at them.

“If you want me to continue,” I say to Charlotte, as the car starts up again, “you have to let me know exactly what it is you want from Georgia. One item? Two? A baker’s dozen?”

“All right,” she says. She gives an exasperated sigh. “I’ll tell you the truth.”

There’s a pause as Charlotte and I both apprehend that she’s set herself a personal best. Charlotte
tell the truth
? We’re half siblings, after all. We share the same DNA—and in our family, DNA stands for Denial Now and Always. The truth never came easily to our father, and it doesn’t come easily to his daughters.

I again look at Tully, who continues giving his full attention to the traffic. I press the phone tightly to my ear.

“First,” Charlotte says, “how much am I paying you?”

What? This is not what I expected. What’s she talking about?

“How much,” she repeats, “am I paying you to locate Georgia and retrieve my possessions?”

She’s paying me fifty thousand dollars, but I haven’t lived in New York City all these years without picking up a few tricks. “Fifty-five thousand dollars,” I lie.

“All right,” she says.

Bother. I should have said sixty.

“I’ll make it sixty,
if
you’re successful in getting my things returned to me. Georgia has abused my maternal love. But I do care about the goose. So tell her . . . tell her I’m willing to pay for shamanic counseling or mother-daughter hypnotherapy if it will help us heal the hurt. Do please try.”

“I will,” I say, amazed to hear Charlotte use the word “please.” “I’ll do my best.” And strangely enough, I mean it.

“There are three things I want back,” she says.

“Three things,” I echo.

“Yes, three. Although one of them is my lost youth.” At this last statement, she breaks into peals of laughter. She’s laughing so hard at her own joke, she can hardly speak. “That’s funny, isn’t it?” she stammers.
“
My lost youth
.”
She goes off into more laughter, snorting and giggling into the phone.

I take the phone from my ear and hold it in my hand, staring at it. I’ve always had trouble understanding people, communicating with them. My relationship with my half sister is simply another case in point. Here I am in the middle of North America, searching for Charlotte’s daughter and some trio of purloined objects, and here’s Charlotte, collapsing into what I can only assume are drug-induced hysterics.

I put the phone back to my ear. Charlotte’s still laughing, but her tone has changed. The pitch of her voice has gone lower, there’s a hollowness that doesn’t seem right. She no longer sounds like she’s laughing. Not anymore. She sounds like she’s sobbing.

“Charlotte?” I say. “Everything all right?”

She breathes in. “Of course! I’m tired, that’s all.
Muscle Man
premieres in a few days. I’ve been working”—the phone cuts out—“that picture! Dog, I’m telling you. D-O-G!”

“There’s trouble with
Muscle Man
?” I say.

“What? No. I’m in complete control!”

Maybe. But her voice is husky, she’s sniffling. Is
Muscle Man
shaping up to be a flop? Don’t read too much into this, I tell myself. Maybe she’s not sad. Maybe she’s been snorting cocaine.

“Anyway,” Charlotte says, all business again except for the occasional sniffle, “as I was saying, the script. That’s the number one item I want returned to me. And then there’s the other.”

“I know there’s another item,” I say. “You keep telling me that. But what is it?”

“Hmm?” she says. “Oh, that’s not as important. But I’d like it anyway. Sentimental reasons. And if you must know, there’s something else Georgia stole from me. Margo, you’re my . . . half sister. So I might as well tell you as anybody. But you won’t be able to help. I’ll have to handle that myself.”

“But what
is
it?” I say.

“It’s upsetting, is what it is. I have feelings, too, you know. After so many years together, a woman shouldn’t feel betrayed by her man, her own daughter—”

And then I lose her. The line goes dead.

“Charlotte!” I say. “Are you there? Dammit!” I beat the cell phone against the dashboard.

“Hey!” Tully says. “Don’t do that!”

I cease flogging the phone, though perhaps too late. Its lights have gone as dim as Tinker Bell after she drinks the poison intended for Peter Pan.

“Let me see,” Tully says. He holds his hand out, and I pass him the phone. In the darkened cockpit, it glows weakly.
I do believe in fairies; I do believe in fairies.
Glancing away from the traffic for a moment, Tully looks down at the device.

“Battery’s dead,” he says. “Put it in the charger tonight, and if you didn’t kill it banging it around like that, it should be okay tomorrow.” He hands it back.

I’m not really listening to Tully, however, because I can’t stop thinking about Charlotte. Her man, did she say? Meaning her husband, Donald, the screenwriters’ agent? Her own daughter, meaning Georgia?

Is Charlotte saying what I think she’s saying? That Donald is romantically involved with his stepdaughter, Georgia? Wait a minute! Is that why Georgia ran off? To be with Donald? And why wasn’t Donald at the wedding, anyway?

It’s late. After Tully and I check into a downtown hotel, I call Charlotte from the landline in my room. All I get is her voice mail. I undress and climb into bed, but I can’t sleep.

Three things. There are three things that Charlotte wants returned to her. At least now I know what they are. The first item, the most valuable, is
An Innocent Lamb
, written by our father, Arthur Just, and Orson Welles. I’m guessing she needs that to offset whatever losses she incurs on
Muscle Man
.

The second item isn’t terribly important, yet Charlotte wants it for sentimental reasons. Well, it’s not the
Spy Team
script, is it? She didn’t even mention that. So it’s Georgia’s wedding dress, it must be. That dress is exquisite. And I remember Charlotte saying at the Malibu house that she hoped to get the dress back. After all, it’s meant for Daughter’s First Wedding—like Baby’s First Christmas.

But the third thing? The item Charlotte said she’d have to handle herself? It’s not a thing at all. It’s her own husband. It’s Donald. No wonder Charlotte feels betrayed. No wonder she’s ambivalent about her relationship with Georgia. No wonder she was crying for her lost youth!

I wonder what Charlotte ever saw in Donald. Something hidden, I suppose. Something the rest of us will never see. Well, she’s right: I can’t help her retrieve her husband. And I already have the wedding dress.

So my path is clear. Find Georgia, talk to her, get that screenplay. The one thing I absolutely must lay my hands on is
An Innocent Lamb
.

CHAPTER TWELVE

EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

I
n the morning, the sun is out, there’s a chill in the air, and the wind is blowing in off Lake Michigan. Tully and I leave the hotel and drive to the address Charlotte gave me. It turns out to be one of those glass and steel luxury high-rises across from Millennium Park. After we park the car and walk to the building, we take a very fast, very smooth elevator to the thirty-sixth floor and press the buzzer of apartment 36C.

The door opens and a young woman stands there. Blonde, attractive, yet somehow a tad world-weary for her years, she wears tights and a sleek, stretchy leotard that make her look like she’s on her way to dance class. For a moment, she considers Tully and me both, thinking perhaps that we’re salespeople or religious zealots. Then recognition comes into her eyes. She leans against the doorjamb.

“Hey, Tull,” she says.

Without a word, Tully brushes past her, and I’m pulled along in his wake. The woman closes the door and follows after us. We pass through a marble foyer and into a living room that’s all white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows with multimillion-dollar views of the park, the lake, and the city. There’s a lipstick-red sofa, a white Berber rug, and a lot of expensive, modern furniture, but I get the feeling we won’t be invited to sit down. The three of us stand there, ignoring the view and focusing on one another.

“This is Georgia’s aunt,” Tully says to the woman. “Margo Just.”

The young woman gives me a childish wave.

“Kelsey Burke,” he says to me. “Kelsey and Georgia are best friends.”

“Duh,” Kelsey declares, hand on hip. “Since we were dweebie little boppers, surfing the breaks together.”

Kelsey turns to me and her attitude changes. Now it’s as though she’s addressing the aging headmistress—that would be me—of a private girls’ school and has put on her best manners in an effort to escape punishment for some outrageous transgression. “I lived in LA my whole entire life,” she says politely. “Until last month, when I moved out here.”

“Right,” Tully says. “Listen, Margo and I are here to see Georgia. We’re worried about her.”

“Don’t be,” Kelsey says. She leans against a sofa table and pulls a leg up behind her, stretching. “Georgia isn’t stressed about you.”

“She told you that?” Tully says.

Kelsey laughs. “She told me lots of things. The day before the wedding, she texted me she was going to ditch you. Sorry to say that, but you asked. By the way, that was some wedding reception. Too bad you missed it.” She laughs again. “After you left, everybody partied. Danced the whole freaking night! Somebody had disco biscuits.”

Disco biscuits?

“Party drugs,” Tully explains for my benefit. “Ecstasy.”

“Anyway,” Kelsey says, stretching her other leg, “too bad you and Georgia weren’t there.”

“Kelsey was going to be Georgia’s maid of honor,” Tully says.

“That always sounds so
Robin Hood
,” Kelsey says. She does a half curtsy toward Tully, then makes a fawning gesture like a courtier. “Thy maid of honor, my lord. Forsooth!”

Is she mad? Surely no one in her right mind could be so willfully insipid.

“Kelsey is also studying acting,” Tully says. He’s beginning to sound like a frazzled father, humoring his two-year-old.

“Umm,” Kelsey agrees. “And Kelsey is about to get her big break. Kelsey will soon be back in Hollywood. Kelsey is stoked!”

“You got a part?” Tully says.

“Yup. Not supposed to tweet about it yet, but it’s big.”

“I’m impressed,” Tully says, though whether he’s commenting on Kelsey’s career or her anatomy is a mystery. She continues stretching, and we both watch as she lifts her right foot up to the sofa table and bends forward, effortlessly touching her forehead to her knee. Her spine and flawless back muscles are outlined by her leotard. She turns her head so that her cheek rests on her knee.

“You know,” Kelsey says, gazing up at Tully, “Georgia totally guessed you might show up here.”

“I want to talk to her,” Tully says.

“That’s funny,” Kelsey says, taking her right leg down and switching to her left. “Because whenever Georgia talked about your wants, it was never, you know,
conversation
.”

She makes this last remark sound terribly suggestive, and I feel myself grow warm. Why? The idea of Georgia and Tully together, I suppose. Together and not conversing.

Tully, the frazzled father, has had enough. “Tell me where she is,” he says.

Kelsey stops stretching and stands, arms crossed, staring straight at Tully. “Not here, I promise.”

“But she was.”

Kelsey laughs. “Sure. After Georgia exited your non-wedding, she checked it to Palm Springs where, I guess, she partied with friends. Then she calls and asks if she can kick it here a few nights. By that time, I’m flying home myself. So I’m like, No problem, perfect timing, Boone’s away on business.”

She turns to me again. “Boone’s my fiancé,” she says, once more addressing me in the tone one might employ with a schoolteacher, nun, or sufferer of senile dementia. “He’s in Canada right now. Import, export.”

I take it Kelsey means Boone is in the import-export business. Though it could be she’s sharing her prescription for dealing with the male sex.

“So, anyway,” she says, addressing herself to Tully, “Georgia flew here, and we chilled. She needed that. Her life’s been pretty random lately.”

Tully impatiently shifts his weight. “Yeah, well—”

“We girl-talked,” Kelsey says. “Listened to music, watched DVDs. She stayed with me a couple days, then hasta la vista.”

“Where’d she go?” Tully says.

Kelsey sighs. “Out of your life, babe, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t believe that,” Tully says. “And I won’t, unless I hear it from Georgia.”

Kelsey seems amused, like a teenager suppressing a giggle at the expense of a clueless grown-up. “Tull, everybody knows you’re a sweetie,” she says. “And for two or three weeks, five minutes, whatever, Georgia was amped on you. She was.”

She pauses, as though a thought has come into her head. What an unexpected and spooky feeling that must be for her. “Funny,” she says, “how some girls, when they’ve had lots of dads and stepdads, go for older guys.” She looks Tully up and down. “I never got that.”

Her brief observation on sugar daddies ended, Kelsey returns to the topic of Georgia. “But you better face it,” she says, “you and G are so dunzo.”

“If by ‘dunzo,’” Tully says, “you mean—”

“I mean,” Kelsey says, “you have been kicked to the curb. You are Mister Ex-Fiancé. Any relationship you have with that girl is strictly in your dreams.” She taps her temple with an index finger. “Totally imaginary. My advice is get off the L train. L as in loser. Collect your emotional baggage from the rotating carousel of life and move on. Know what I’m saying?”

I’m not at all sure
I
know what she’s saying, but Tully seems to understand perfectly. “Is she with somebody?” he says.

Kelsey sighs again. “Like another guy? Look, Georgia’s ambitious, she has plans. She doesn’t park her butt in the sand and watch killer waves break on the beach without her. She paddles her board out there and takes ’em.”

And in this case, I’m thinking, it’s possible Georgia paddled her board out and took her own stepfather, Donald. Charlotte’s husband.

Kelsey turns to me a third time, obviously racking her brain for the polite thing to say. “Would you like some herbal tea or something?” she says.

I get the feeling “or something” would be a motorized wheelchair or a gift certificate for assisted living. Like Tully, I’ve about had it with Kelsey. If he’s the frazzled father, I’m the exasperated mother.

I sit myself down on the red sofa. “I’ll pass on the tea,” I say. “But if there’s any gin in the house, I’d love a large martini. Very dry.”

Shocked, I suppose, that the headmistress tipples, Kelsey nevertheless goes over to a built-in bar and makes me a cocktail. She also mixes herself something large and fruity and pours Tully a soda. She hands round the drinks.

Through all this, Tully and Kelsey continue squabbling about Georgia, but I’m no longer listening. A dozen thoughts swirl through my brain, not the least of which is that remark Kelsey made a few moments ago seeming to suggest Tully and Georgia had an energetic sex life. I don’t like picturing that—it makes me feel surprisingly jealous, incestuous, and a trifle sick. Actually, more than a trifle. I down my drink, but my stomach is in knots. From out of nowhere, I hear myself say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel well.”

They both stop bickering and spin round in my direction. Tully appears genuinely concerned. Kelsey looks like she’s suddenly guest starring on a television medical show. She seems to be debating whether to call 911 or to go straight for an Emmy nomination by performing open-heart surgery using the only materials she has at hand: disco biscuits and a swizzle stick.

“Perhaps I should . . . visit the powder room,” I say. I lean heavily against the sofa back and place one hand on my stomach. With my other hand, I cover my mouth and let out a small, ominous hiccup.

That’s all it takes. Kelsey eyes her sofa, her white rug, and the rest of her expensive, sparkling furniture. In a flash, she’s hurrying me down the hall to the toilet. I’m just able to grab my tote bag as we go.

“Take your time,” she says, hustling me into an elegant half bath. “Don’t rush or anything. Tull and I will hang. Don’t worry about coming back until you’re . . . done.”

I give her a brave smile.

Kelsey leaves, and I shut the bathroom door behind her. The minute her footsteps die away, I open the door again and step out into the empty passageway. I can hear Kelsey and Tully still going at it in the living room.

I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t feel well. I don’t. But what’s wrong with me can’t be cured by a visit to the ladies’ room. What’s wrong with me can only be put right by a look round Kelsey’s flat, because what’s wrong with me is that I need to know more.

Besides the powder room, there are two additional doors off the hallway. The one nearest me is ajar. I tiptoe over to it. I’m jumpy and nervous because I’m certain the minute I peek into that room sirens will wail or a housekeeper will scream or a giant, salivating German shepherd will leap up and take a bite out of my thigh. But when I push on the door, it swings open, and none of these things happen.

I’m standing in what must be the master bedroom. There’s a massive flat-screen television, a king-size bed, and two bureaus topped with jewelry boxes and glossy photos in silver frames, mostly glamour shots of Kelsey. Off to one side, an archway leads to a master bath.

Emboldened by gin, I get to work. This is the second time in recent days I’ve rifled through someone’s things. I’m practically an old hand at it. Once again, like when I searched Georgia’s suite in Palm Springs, I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I feel compelled to look.

I snoop through bureau drawers and nightstands, finding little of interest except a few bottles of prescription narcotics, some spicy underwear, and several titillating sex toys. Quickly, methodically, I search the walk-in closet, the bathroom, under the bed. Nothing. The clock is ticking, I know, but I need to keep looking.

I creep back out to the hallway and stare at the other door, which is shut tight. My heart beats wildly. If I enter this room, I know I will face the sirens, the screams, the large barking dog.

I turn the handle and open the door.

There’s only silence.

I walk into the room. It’s smaller than the master bedroom and contains an unmade bed and some sleek modern furniture. Something about the room is oddly familiar. I have a feeling of déjà vu, like I’ve been here before. But that’s not possible. This building didn’t exist the last time I visited Chicago. Still, there’s something about the look of the room, the feel of it, even the smell—

Oh, oh! OH! Dior Pure Poison! And the instant my nose gets it, the instant I recognize that lingering fragrance, I catch on to something else: what’s familiar about this room is that it’s a complete mess. Luggage and makeup cases are thrown open, their contents spilling out. Clothing and personal items are strewn about like tinsel on a Christmas tree. This is a decorating approach I associate with just one person: Georgia.