The House on Olive Street (24 page)
Read The House on Olive Street Online
Authors: Robyn Carr
“So I hear. Well, you can stay with one of us while you look for a place. No one is going to make you feel like you screwed up by leaving Jack.”
“Or that I screwed up by marrying him in the first place?” she asked.
“Well, the jury’s still out on how many of us screwed up that one, so relax.”
Barbara Ann’s editor called and praised the book she had just turned in. She suggested only a few minor changes—something that could be done in a few days, if Barbara Ann agreed. And then the editor suggested, “Let’s see if we can somehow put together a two-book contract from your next proposal to take up the slack for that last canceled contract. I really must take responsibility for that debacle. I was the one who pushed for the book. I really should have stopped you at the proposal stage. I had my doubts then.”
“You did?” Barbara Ann asked.
“Sure. We’d talked about it. It was a fundamentally good idea, but I could see possible problems. Still, I had hoped it would come together—I mean, you usually pull off the most amazing things.”
“I do?”
Her editor laughed. “Twenty-seven times now, if my count is correct. Whenever you can send me a couple of proposals, I’ll see what I can do to work up a two-book contract for you. We’d like to give you a better sense of security about your future with us.”
Hah! Security! She wasn’t going to be tricked into that again! It could be a twelve-book contract and they still had the option of saying, “We don’t find this finished product to be publishable after all.” In which case, they’d want the advance money back.
“Let’s make it a three-book deal,” Barbara Ann said, feeling she had nothing to lose.
The editor laughed. “That’s pretty ambitious. Let’s see what you send me.”
So Barbara Ann, who worked very fast anyway, talked it over with the other women and they all agreed—she should take some time out of her schedule to finish the revisions and put together a proposal for a trilogy. “I already have an idea,” she said.
“Great,” Sable said. “And this time insist on a little clause in the contract—if they refuse the finished book, you don’t have to give the money back until, and if, you sell that particular book elsewhere. That takes a little of the sting out of it. You might not make as much money on the refused book, but you’re not stuck with a bill.”
“You think they’d go for that?” Barbara Ann asked.
“Well, I think they
have.
Ask around. You have plenty of friends who write for that publisher—friends who have agents. Other publishers do it all the time—”
“I have it,” Beth said. “I’ve never even had to ask for it.”
“How’d I get this far without even knowing about that?” Barbara Ann wondered aloud. “Well, hey, I thought my career was over.”
“It was,” Sable said. “And then reborn again. I think that’s what draws people to this business. Careers are destroyed one day and exhumed the next. There are a hundred ways to die in publishing—and a hundred ways to strike oil. The thing to remember is that nobody knows
anything. Don’t listen to anyone. The minute they tell you your idea won’t work, for whatever reason, you’ll find that someone else did it, successfully, the very next day. You go with your gut and cross your fingers.”
“My gut is saying three books,” Barbara Ann said. “Three books that I enjoy writing, for a change. After all, I’m going to have all the time in the world to write. In the Big House.”
Elly walked into the room with a few manuscript pages in her hand. “Before you’re sent away, I’d like everyone to have a look at this. Remember that chapter from Gabby’s novel we read together?”
“When Clare was threatening to leave Brandt?” Beth asked.
“I thought it was the last Gabby had written of their love affair, but there’s more. It doesn’t exactly complete the story, but it comes damn close. Who will read? Sable?”
“When he dressed and left her, it was mournful. He kissed her goodbye in a long, hard, painful way. They were both a bit more desperate than other times, times when he’d known she would travel halfway around the world when he sent a set of tickets to her.
‘I’m bloody goddamn tired of telling you goodbye, Clare. I swear to you—the next time I see you, I’ll be a free man.’
‘That’s the only way you’ll see me again,’ she whispered against his mouth.
He squeezed her arms. ‘Why’d you get into this with me if you weren’t willing to stick by?’ he demanded angrily.
She didn’t react to the anger that burned in his
green eyes. She didn’t flinch from the harsh grip he had on her, rather liking the pain; it matched what she felt in her heart. He came down on her mouth hard and she pushed against him with equal strength.
When he was gone, she sobbed. The war inside her was one of pride versus pleasure. She couldn’t keep following him forever knowing that, even if she dominated his time, another woman held the legal, public ties to his heart. But how could she endure life without the greatest passion ever born in her? Hadn’t millions of women made that choice over the centuries—passion over propriety?
It was more than passion, more than being his chosen woman. It was her children. She wasn’t about to retire her travel bags altogether, but she was done spending half her life abroad. She wanted more time with the children during this crucial stage in their development. If Brandt were free, she would even consider moving to Sydney or London with the children; the experience would be fabulous for them.
But not while her lover was married to another.
The afternoon aged, her tears dried and then, at dusk, hours after Brandt’s plane had departed Londonderry, the matron of the inn brought her an enormous spray of fresh flowers, filled in with fern and grass. She had to cradle the bouquet like a nine-pound infant, it was that large. The note, scrawled in his barely legible script, read,
Come to London. Let me prove my desperate love for you is real. Then I’ll go with you to Cal. B.
At once.
He had said that if she went with him
to London, he’d deal with Beatrice at once. Dare she believe him? She decided to go to London, too weak with hope to stay away.
Something about this felt so wrong to Clare. She was stricken with guilt because she had demanded this—that he leave his wife and children. What had been eating at her was that million-year-old female angst—he has two lives and I have one. He has Beatrice and me, and I am always in hiding.
She wanted to travel openly with Brandt, to publicly write the stories to accompany some of his photos. She’d like to have her children know him; she’d like to have him come home to her and the children. She ached to have him choose her, once and for all, so she wouldn’t have to be his secret indiscretion any longer. She was cursed with pride and now afraid it might cost her the greatest love of her lifetime.
London was wet and gray, overcast and oppressive. She checked into the Belvedere, having stayed there before. It was an extravagance, but she wanted her own bath. She ordered up tea and soaked off the remnants of Donnelly. Then, at five, she phoned William Berkhouse at his flat. They had an amiable chat before she asked, ‘Will you ring Brandt and tell him where I’m staying?’
‘He doesn’t know you’ve come?’
‘No, but he asked me to come when we were in Ireland together. I was being stubborn and cruel and refused. But in thinking about it…’
Bill laughed at her. ‘You can’t live without him, I suppose. Lucky devil. Certainly I’ll ring him for
you, but it’s rather late in the day. Chances are I won’t catch him right off. Tell you what, love, have dinner with me. We’ll leave a message for Brandt, and should he show his worthless face, he can join us.’
But it was only Clare and Bill for dinner, though Brandt had been reached. He said it was a bloody terrible moment and he couldn’t get away that night, but to tell Clare he’d see her the next afternoon—something about the children being home.
Clare felt herself harden inside. ‘I’m a damn fool,’ she told Bill.
‘Oh, don’t start with all that other-woman nonsense. It isn’t like that with you and Brandt. It could be any—’
‘Yes, it could be anything, but it’s not. It’s his wife and children. All those things he can swear to when we’re in Africa or Ireland fall away when we’re here, when he’s within a hundred miles of his marriage. He has a lot of bloody terrible moments….’
‘Aw, Clare, I don’t—’
‘I’m a convenience, that’s what. An expensive one at that.’ She flipped out the credit card that she used when she traveled with Brandt. ‘Dinner’s on your friend.’
‘Will you see him tomorrow?’ Bill asked.
‘Why not? I’ve come this far. I shouldn’t leave now without saying a proper goodbye.’
The terror in the streets began the next afternoon. The noise, the sirens, the screaming and running drew Clare to the window, then to the walk in front of the Belvedere. She couldn’t stand the
suspense; she walked a few blocks to see what had happened. Bobbies held all spectators at bay, but the rumors circulated through the gathering throngs. A subway crash. Perhaps a terrorist’s bomb. Smoke poured from the underground, scorching eyes and noses. Thirty dead. Hundreds injured. Then, forty dead. The numbers would only get bigger.
Clare went back to her hotel, knowing that Brandt would be delayed by both traffic and the lure of photographic opportunities. Once he knew what had happened, he would find a way to get underground. He was such a master manipulator; he’d find an emergency worker and buy off his uniform. He’d steal a fire marshal’s coat and hat. He’d bribe, cajole, lie, sneak. She’d seen him do it a hundred times. Somehow, he’d shoot the wreck. Then, just about the time she’d given up hope, he’d appear at her door, dirty and disheveled and higher than a kite.
She went to the bar at seven and ordered herself a double scotch with ice, which she took to her room. The hotel bar was quiet but the streets were still crowded and tense. The sun was sinking and soon he would have to give up on the tragic accident. She heard the light tapping at the door and tried to disguise her expression; she wished to erase the signs of relief and anger she’d met him with so many times before.
Oh thank God you’re alive and blast you for staying away so long!
This was not Belfast or Tehran, after all! This was London!
She faced Bill’s shattered expression. His eyes
were red-rimmed, his shirt rumpled and dirty, his hair tousled. She knew instantly. She knew it had happened when he was on his way to her.
‘After all these wars,’ he said, ‘taken down by a bloody train.’”
M
ike and all the boys had dressed up for court. Sable, Eleanor and Beth had driven Barbara Ann and were going to stay through the hearing. Barbara Ann’s attorney had filed some kind of motion asking for a dismissal because of illegal search and seizure of the pot found in her car, but if the judge didn’t go for that, there would probably be a trial date set. This court appearance, she’d been told, could end the whole thing. The judge could throw the case out. On the other hand, this being a “readiness conference,” they could affect some sort of plea bargain today and a sentence could be dispensed. It was all in the hands of the judge.
And she was a hangin’ judge.
Barbara Ann had arrived and was sitting with her cheering section when the first case on the docket came before the judge. Her lawyer wasn’t even there yet. “Don’t worry,” Sable said. “He knows exactly how long everything takes. He does this every day. He’ll walk in at just the right moment.”
Barbara Ann gulped. She didn’t have much faith in the system.
The judge was a woman in her early fifties, Hispanic
and quite attractive. She had manicured nails, shoulder-length curly hair, finely arched eyebrows and red lips that didn’t smile.
The first defendant came forward wearing a yellow jumpsuit with PRISONER emblazoned on the back. “God, at least I’m not appearing in one of those,” Barbara Ann whispered. “Is that what I’m going to have to wear if I get, you know, sent up?”
“It looks pretty comfortable,” Sable whispered back.
“Oh God,” Barbara Ann said. “I’m going to faint.”
“Don’t faint. It’ll make you look guilty. The innocent are unafraid,” Sable counseled.
“Shhh….” someone shushed.
“Young lady,” the judge said, “this appears to be your third time before this court…and for the same thing. What a surprise. Cocaine. Quite a lot of it, too. Four ounces. You weren’t going to use all that yourself, were you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean, I wasn’t dealing, Your Honor. Only holding.”
“You must be awfully enslaved to the stuff.”
“I’d like a chance to have treatment, Your Honor. I’m really ready to kick this.”
“Let’s see here…you were ready once before, weren’t you? Your first conviction, you went into treatment. Your second, you did some time. Four months. This is your third offense. Did anyone tell you the consequences of your possession?”
“Yes, ma’am. But I have a baby, Your Honor. I’m a single mother. I don’t have anyone to take her. She’s only nine months, Your Honor. I’m her sole support.”
“Who’s going to take her while you’re in treatment?”
“I could go to outpatient. I can do it this time. I know I can.”
“You’re ready to get off this stuff once and for all?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I swear on my baby.”
“We have AA and NA in jail, you know.”
“But I have a baby!”
“How I wish you’d thought of that. The poor thing. Eighteen months. Chowchilla Women’s Facility. And good luck in getting rid of this habit. Next.” She banged her gavel. Barbara Ann jumped.
A young man in an identical yellow jumpsuit came forward.
“You’ve had quite a hard time figuring out the system, haven’t you, Tony?” The young man said nothing. “Probation violation. Third time. Whew. Your original offense isn’t even that bad, but these probation violations keep making it worse. What’s it going to take to get your attention here?” He hung his head, defeated. “You going to talk to me today? What’s the problem?”
“My PO,” he said finally. “She don’t make it real easy, you know?”
The judge leaned forward. “I think you might be missing the point. It isn’t
she
who has to accommodate
you.
Now, my records show that you were only required to show up for one visit, once a month for six months, and pay a fifty-dollar fine each time. Six hours, three hundred dollars, and it’s all over. But you can’t keep the appointments.”
“I had car trouble a couple a times. She wouldn’t give me a break, you know?”
“We can’t seem to come up with a PO you enjoy spending your time with, can we, Tony? This could have been behind you two years ago, but you just won’t cooperate. That’s not good at all.”
“She was so mean, Your Honor. I just didn’t want to see her!”
“Tony, she’s the one you want to see, believe me.
I’m
the one you
don’t
want to see. Four months, county work program. Next.” The gavel hit and Barbara Ann jumped again.
“Barbara Ann Vaughan.”
The doors to the courtroom opened just as Barbara Ann stood. In strode her lawyer. She’d never gotten used to him. He was slicker than snot, so fashionable in his designer suits, all purchased, she feared, through the payments made for his defense of drug dealers. Sable’s lawyer had recommended him as “the best in this area” and Sable had insisted that she needed the kind of lawyer who knew what he was doing. That was probably true, Barbara Ann conceded, but even though she was guilty of felony drug possession, she still didn’t feel she belonged in this courtroom, beside this man.
“Counsel for the defendant, Your Honor.”
“Hello, Mr. Warneke,” the judge said. “Good grief. Six pounds of marijuana and a bong. That’s an impressive shopping list.”
“We’ve filed a motion, Your Honor, for—”
“I have it, Mr. Warneke. Mrs. Vaughan, why did the officer stop you?”
“Your Honor, I object to testimony from my client. This isn’t a trial and she hasn’t been sworn.”
“Relax, Mr. Warneke, this is only a hearing and with a little cooperation, maybe this whole incident can be cleared up right away. I have your motion. Now, Mrs. Vaughan?”
“I was speeding,” Barbara Ann said nervously.
“Why would you be speeding with a load of marijuana like this in the car? Isn’t that a little like sending the flag up the pole?”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” she said. She looked
behind her at her gathering, then back to the judge. “I was angry.”
“Oh?”
She began to tremble in fear. She couldn’t speak.
“Why were you speeding, Mrs. Vaughan?”
“Your Honor—” her lawyer began to protest.
“It’s all right,” Barbara Ann muttered. “I’m just a little nervous. I’d just had a big blowout with my family and I was on my way to the police department to give them that stuff. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“You had suitcases in your car?” the judge asked, intrigued.
“Your
Honor,
I beg the court—”
“Oh, be still a minute, I’m not trying to corner your client. I just want a simple explanation. Mrs. Vaughan?”
“I was running away from home,” she said.
The judge settled back in her chair and lifted a paper from the pile in front of her. “With your clothes, a couple of books, some manuscript pages and your marijuana?”
“It wasn’t
my
marijuana, Your Honor.”
“Oh, Jesus,” her lawyer muttered. “Your Honor, I—”
“Were you running away from home because you
found
the marijuana?” the judge asked, ignoring the attorney.
“Not totally. I mean, when I found it I went over the edge, if you know what I mean. But it was a lot of things that piled up. Literally.”
“Barbara Ann, we don’t have to answer these questions,” Bill Warneke told her.
“I don’t think she’s asking
you
any questions,” Barbara Ann said. The courtroom chuckled.
“I have a feeling you’d like to just tell me about this, Mrs. Vaughan,” the judge said.
“Well…I don’t want to screw anything up. Mr. Warneke—”
“I’ll take it into consideration that you’re being coerced by the judge,” she said, and strangely, there was a slight smile on her lips. She sat back and swiveled in her chair. “Go ahead.”
Barbara Ann glanced at her attorney, who was shaking his head and tapping a pencil on the table in front of them. He was disgusted with her. She was going to jail, she just knew it. What the hell, she thought. If I’m going to end up in jail anyway, I may as well make sure my side of the story is heard.
“I had a huge fight with my family, Your Honor, because they’re slobs. I mean, they’re really wonderful and I love them more than my life, but they are horrible slobs. I have four sons, Your Honor. They’re aged seventeen to twenty-one. Three are students. All four of them still live at home. And why shouldn’t they?” she shrugged. “I go out and kill a bear for them every afternoon….” The courtroom laughed. The judge did not, but that half smile was still there.
“So, I’ve been begging and pleading with them for some help in keeping up the house. Like every mother does, I guess. But you cannot
imagine
how— Well, suffice it to say, they weren’t making any progress. And then when I went out to the garage—” She stopped suddenly, a stricken look on her face. The judge frowned and lifted the report, glancing at it.
“You didn’t find this stash of marijuana by the mailbox at the curb?”
Barbara Ann sighed deeply. Damn, was she ever a lousy liar. Her lawyer groaned loudly and turned away from her in utter revulsion.
“We have two garages, Your Honor. One is attached to the house and the other one is a freestanding building. We have a million cars, with these boys. Anyway, the
un
attached
garage is where I try to steer most of their loudest, messiest projects. It’s a wreck. You can hardly walk through. I was out there digging through boxes looking for mousetraps, and I came across that stuff. And I came unglued. I mean, it’s one thing to work like a farmhand to take care of these boys—these
men
—when they are living by the moral standards of my house and the laws of the land, but it’s another thing if they’re…you know….”
“Doing drugs?” the judge helped.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin. “I don’t think I was jumping to conclusions, Your Honor. I mean, look what I found! It was like the difference between stumbling across an empty beer can and discovering a still!” Everyone laughed. The judge’s shoulders shook a little. “I think we have it pretty well established that my sons aren’t drug addicts, thank God. I have to tell you, my heart was ripped out of my body and stomped on.”
“Oh? So, who’s taking responsibility for the marijuana?”
“No one. One of the boys thinks he’s narrowed it down to one of his friends—they all have lots of friends. There were times my house was like a stadium. But, this is my fault, Your Honor. I let them treat that garage almost like a clubhouse. They worked on cars there, built things like big, huge model airplanes, played their guitars and drums out there, and there were young men coming and going all the time. There were times I’d find one of the boys’ friends out there working on an engine when my boys weren’t even home. We were going to run into a bad apple someday.”
“So, what has you so convinced your own sons are innocent?” she asked.
“I searched their rooms. I turned over mattresses,
emptied drawers, cleared out closets. I found some pretty unappetizing stuff, but I didn’t find any drugs.”
“But you still left?”
“It’s time, Your Honor. They’re grown. They can either act like the clean, decent young men I raised or they can live in that frat-house environment without me as their maid.”
“But you took the marijuana with you.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to
leave
it there! I didn’t want anyone from my family to have it or dispose of it or give it away!”
“I see. So, are you prepared to turn over the son who thinks he knows who put it there? Are you going to let someone take responsibility for what is felony drug possession?”
She hung her head. “No, Your Honor. I didn’t have very good control of that household, but it was my responsibility. I take the blame.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bill Warneke muttered.
“Is that your gang back there? The ones you’re sticking your neck out for?”
She turned and glanced at them. She nodded.
“Stand up,” she instructed them. “All of you. Yes, all of you.” Slowly, one by one, they came to their feet. Mike stood first. “Mr. Vaughan?” she questioned.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Can you vouch for any of this story your wife is telling the court?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” he said. “We let the house get to be a real trash heap.”
The courtroom laughed. Bill Warneke sat down at the table and began to massage his temples.
“Do any of you want to step forward and take responsibility for this crime?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bobby said. “It was somebody I knew put it there.”
Barbara Ann almost cried. Why couldn’t he just let her handle it?
“Your Honor,” Matt said, “it was one of my friends, I think.”
“No it wasn’t,” Billy said. “I think it was someone I know.”
“Your Honor, it was me. One of my friends,” Joe said.
Barbara’s eyes began to glisten. “Your Honor,” she said, “you can’t blame anyone but me. I was in charge of that household. I should have monitored everyone coming and going better than I did. I blame myself.”
The judge began writing. Without looking up, she asked, “You’re back at home again, Mrs. Vaughan?”
“No, ma’am.”
The judge’s head snapped up in surprise.
“I’m staying with friends,” Barbara Ann said. “That house has gone to ruin because one person just can’t do it all. And I work full-time, too. They can fend for themselves—that’s what they seemed to want. At least that’s what their total disregard for household responsibilities showed me.”
“We’re setting it right, Your Honor,” Mike said.
The judge lifted her eyebrows. Clearly she was doubtful.
“I haven’t seen it since I left, Your Honor,” Barbara Ann said. “I’m not up to it yet. I mean, I’ve seen the kitchen after they thought they’d cleaned it. Believe me, it’s not that I’m overly fussy.”
“When are you going to view it?” the judge asked.
Barbara Ann took a deep breath. “When I’m stronger. Right now I’m missing them all a little too much to be
as tough as I want to be on this issue. It’s very important to me. I don’t want to get suckered into doing it all alone again…just because I miss them and love them.”
“I see. So, just out of curiosity, what do you intend to do if you see your old house and find it has not improved?”