Acts of Love (22 page)

“I don't intend to batter her door down.”

“But you are going to see her?”

“If I can. I want to take her something that Constance left her in her will.”

“You could ship it to her.”

“I'd rather not”

“Well, call me when you get back, and tell me what she's like now. I remember her so clearly . . . but of course that was a long time ago. She's become an important illustrator, but I can't imagine why she'd give up the theater for that. Let me know.”

“I will. Thanks, Warren. I won't tell anyone we talked. Including Jessica.”

For the rest of that week, he had no time to read Jessica's letters or her books. A hundred small details had come up, many of them issues that had been pushed aside in the early weeks of rehearsal, and now, with only ten days left, he and Monte and Fritz were together every night, smoothing them out.

“That entrance always was awkward,” Fritz said as they looked at a diagram of the stage. “Martha complained about it a long time ago.”

“Move the door,” Luke said. They stared at him. “About a foot and a half downstage. Then when Martha comes in there's no way she'll miss seeing Lena; she'll practically stumble over her.”

“I like it,” Monte said. “Fritz?”

“Not a bad idea. Okay. What about the tea things in act two? The silver reflects the spotlights and there's these blinding glares shafting out to the audience.”

“Use china,” Luke said. “I know Kent wanted silver, but if we can't, we can't”

“China,” Fritz muttered, and wrote it down.

“I was thinking,” Monte said, “that we ought to hold a while longer before the final curtain.”

“While they stand there like dummies?” Fritz asked.

“It's a very moving moment Give the audience time to absorb it.”

“Let's talk to the cast,” Luke said. “I like it, but I want to make sure they're comfortable with it. Anything else?”

“Costumes,” Fritz said. “Abby doesn't like her shoes.”

“Get new ones. The greatest actress in the world can't act if her feet hurt.”

“She doesn't like the way they
look.”

“I'll say it again: get new ones. Fritz, we can't have her worrying about shoes, for whatever reason.”

The lists went on and on and it was not until Luke was on the plane for Seattle that he finally settled down to read the twelve slender children's books he had brought with him.

The stories, for children two to six years old, were amusing and lively, some deserving close attention, but Luke was concentrating on the illustrations. And as he studied them, he knew that they would have captivated him no matter who the artist was.

Their styles varied, from Russian fairy-tale art to French folk art, from African tribal art to modern American realism, and they were done in watercolors, oils, charcoal, even crayon, depending on the style. But in spite of their differences, all the illustrations gave one overwhelming impression: that nothing was real.

Luke tried to put his finger on what made him feel that way. He found the hidden drawings, ingeniously flowing into and out of other parts of the pictures but clearly visible once discovered, and he knew how exciting it would be for children to discover them and show them to parents and friends. But they were not the reason that he felt this pervasive unreality. There was something else, something more elusive. It was not until he had finished dinner and put his head back, worn out from the long days and nights of the week just ended, that it came to him. “They're dreams,” he murmured aloud. His eyes opened and he sat up and turned on his reading light again.

“May I bring you something?” the steward asked. “Another glass of wine?”

“Coffee,” Luke said. “Thanks.” He pulled his table from its niche in the arm of his seat and spread the books on it, opening them at random. The steward reached across to set a cup of coffee on the small ledge between the seats, but he barely noticed. He was absorbed in the drawings. And he saw that even the most mundane activities in them—a young girl raking leaves, a boy taking out the garbage after dinner, a dog hiding under a porch—were like dreams: a little bit distorted. Sometimes the pictures erased boundaries and ran into each other as dreams did. Sometimes they were multiple images that overlapped as dreams did. Sometimes they became blurred at the edges, then faded to nothing, as dreams did. Everything was recognizable, but nothing was exactly as it was in reality.

Everything a little off center.
Marilyn Marks had said that about her first set for
The Magician
when she described it to Luke and Kent.
A woman who's always been different—and now she can't figure out what's gone wrong. That feeling of things askew, like a dream that she's trapped in.

Luke put away the books and his table, once again turned out his light, and pushed back his seat. A movie flickered on the large screen at the front of the cabin, but he closed his eyes and saw Jessica, her photographs he had seen in the library, his memory of her on stage, the way he had pictured her with his grandmother in Italy from descriptions of her visits in her letters.
Trapped in a dream.
Was she? Nothing she had written hinted at that. Maybe he'd missed something; he'd read many of her letters so quickly, hungry for the next.
That feeling of things askew.
Well, it doesn't matter, he thought drowsily. Because I don't have to rely on letters anymore. I'll be able to talk to her about everything, find out everything I want to know.

He arrived in Seattle at ten o'clock—one o'clock in the morning, New York time—and took a taxi to Union Lake, where the seaplane he had reserved was waiting for him. They flew low over dozens of small islands, tiny islets and barren rocks thrusting out of the sea, and the pilot pointed out Lopez when it was still some distance away: a handful of lights in the darkness. Jessica's island, Luke thought, and suddenly realized how tense he was. She didn't want to see people from New York; she didn't want to see anyone except the cast of
Pygmalion
and her friends on the island.
I should have called. I should have pushed Warren to give me her phone number. But if she'd refused to see me . . .

The plane banked and Luke saw the island at an angle, a dark sliver in darker water. He was struck by its compactness, and it seemed an act of desperation to him that she had chosen it, abandoning one of the most brilliant acting careers in history, and one of the world's greatest cities, to settle on this tiny piece of land floating in waters invisible and unknown to the rest of the country. Coming in low, they passed over the cluster of lights. “Lopez Village,” the pilot said. “Downtown, if they had a downtown.” Luke had a quick impression of other lights widely scattered about the island: isolated ones in open fields and single ones flickering like tiny stars amid the forests. Private homes, he thought. And one of them was Jessica's. His hands were clenched. Almost there.

They landed on an airstrip a few miles beyond the village. To the east a three-quarter moon was rising, its reflection a rippling pale ribbon that stretched across the black waters of Puget Sound to the dock where Luke stepped out of the plane. Angie's Cab Courier drove him along deserted roads winding narrowly through dark pine forests, then up a gravel drive to the Inn at Swifts Bay, where he had reserved a room. It was the inn where Jessica had told Constance she had stayed when she first came to the island, and Luke stood in the entry way trying to imagine her there.

The inn was vaguely Tudor on the outside, but the atmosphere inside was a riot of cluttered Victoriana. In the living room, the shelves of an antique hutch were crammed with fuzzy white rabbits dressed in Victorian costumes; a blue velvet wing-backed chair was adorned with lace antimacassars; a round skirted table was piled with books on flower gardens, architecture and art; shelves flanking the fireplace were stuffed with books, pictures, memorabilia and island artifacts, and on the top shelf straw dolls stood watch over the scene below.

Luke was smiling, thinking Jessica must have imagined she had walked onto a stage set, when his host came in, his hand outstretched.

“Robert,” he said, “and of course you're Lucas Cameron. You must be totally out on your feet; it's halfway to dawn your time, isn't it? I'd show you around—hot tub, video library, all the rest—but I assume you'd rather see your room.” He led the way down a narrow hall. “I think you'll find everything you want; would you like coffee, by the way? Or tea or port?”

“Nothing, thanks; they fed us all the way across the country.” Luke took a swift glance around the room, appreciating the care that had gone into it, and smiled at more rabbits on the bed. Rabbits were not his style, but he admired anyone who was not afraid of excess.

“Will you be biking tomorrow?” Robert asked. “Carl Jones rents bikes and delivers to our door.”

“No, I've come to see someone. If I can find her address. Maybe you can help me.”

Robert's eyes narrowed. “You've come to see someone and you don't know where she lives? We respect people's privacy here; I doubt that I could help you.”

Luke nodded thoughtfully, and lied, which he knew, in a community this size, could come back to haunt him, but he was tired and it was all he could think of. “I had her address; I've lost it. I know she built a house on a bay about three years ago. Very private, she said, and the beach has a cliff on one side and a forest on the other. I'm a friend from New York. I haven't seen her for years, but my grandmother left her something in her will and I've brought it to her. I'd be grateful for your help. Her name is Jessica Fontaine.”

Robert shook his head decisively. “Jessica doesn't see people, especially people who just walk in off the street.”

“Of course she sees people; what are you talking about? Look, I'll say it again. I'm a friend. More important, my grandmother was probably her closest friend. She died a few months ago and I want to talk to Jessica about her. There isn't anything sinister in this; if she doesn't want to see me, I'll leave.”

Robert contemplated him. “I'll think about it. Sleep well; breakfast is at eight.”

Furious, Luke started to say something, but fatigue washed over him and he turned on his heel and closed the door of his room behind him. He paced three times from the fireplace to the sliding terrace doors and then he could not stay upright any longer and he went to bed. In spite of his anger, he slept soundly and woke with a start to the crowing of roosters, not knowing where he was.
I hear roosters crowing in the morning (actually, they keep it up all day; are they supposed to do that?).
And then he knew: he was on Jessica's island and soon he would be with her.

He dressed in chinos and an open-necked short-sleeved shirt and would have refused Robert's enormous breakfast to get started immediately, but he did not want to seem insulting. He ate as much as he could, then pushed the swinging door and went into the kitchen, where Robert was cooking while his partner, Chris, served.

“Not allowed,” Robert said cheerfully. “No guests behind the scenes.”

Luke nodded. “I want to thank you for breakfast; it was wonderful. But I can't wait any longer; I need to know how to get to Jessica's house. I have only today and tomorrow morning; I have to be back in New York Sunday night.”

Robert flipped a pancake. “I called her, but she wasn't home. You did know her in New York?”

“I did.”

“Socially?”

“Yes.”

“And your grandmother was her closest friend? Big difference in ages.”

“They had a lot in common. And they loved each other.”

Robert used his spatula to lift the edge of a pancake and look at its underside. He stirred something in a pot at the back of the stove. “She's a very nice person, very quiet, a good neighbor.” He glanced at Chris, who nodded, then he turned back to Luke. “But she lives alone and she doesn't have any social life and we think she ought to. We've tried but she's turned us down. Very nicely, of course, but very definitely. So we worry about her. Well, she's on Watmough Bay on the south shore of the island. You might miss the driveway because it looks like a trail that doesn't go anywhere, but watch for her sign: it's the picture of a fountain.”

“Thank you. I'll call a taxi.”

“Oh, take the truck. Nobody's using it; it just sits there. Stop in the village, though, and get some gas; I think it's pretty low.”

“That's good of you.” His anger was gone. He had had an excellent breakfast, the sun was burning through early-morning clouds, he had transportation. And he was on his way to see Jessica. He felt wonderful.

The truck sat high off the ground and Luke saw the panorama of the island as he drove on two-lane roads between forests and open fields. He caught glimpses of water through the pines until, suddenly, the road curved and he was at the water's edge, small waves lapping gently at narrow beaches where driftwood bleached white in the sun and dune grasses waved in the light breeze. A few minutes more and he was surrounded by forest again, dense pines and firs rising from a floor of ferns. At last he came to a broad open space of grassy fields beside the water, with a cluster of one-story buildings, all of blue-gray wood. Once again he thought of a movie set: a tiny village scattered over an almost treeless plain beneath an enormous sky. There was a food market, a real estate office in back of the barbershop, a bakery, an artist's cooperative, a bookstore, a post office up the road, a fire station, a library that looked as if it had once been a schoolhouse, a bank, a church, a thrift shop, and, oddly, an espresso stand. Two weathered buildings were the Lopez Historical Museum and nearby was an even more weathered performance pavilion.

At the gas station, he leaped from the truck and while he was filling the tank, several people greeted him, commenting that he must be staying at the Inn at Swifts Bay since Robert had loaned him his truck, and wishing him a good visit. Amused, Luke paid and drove on. A small community, he reflected, increasing his speed. A place that respects privacy. He laid Robert's map on the seat beside him and followed it, driving around the island to the south shore and Watmough Bay.