Allison (A Kane Novel) (30 page)

A moment later I heard Travis on the keyboard, his playing joining Mom’s in an intricate choreography of tone and rhythm.  They were performing a piece for cello and piano that I recognized as Schubert’s
Arpeggione
, a hauntingly moving sonata that Mom and Travis had played many times in the past.  More a virtuoso showcase for cello than piano, the music progressed through a contrasting arrangement of winsome themes—Mom taking her fair share of the melodic burden but in the process making several uncharacteristic errors.

Feeling petty and small for the envy I routinely felt when hearing Mom and my brother play, I listened as the music proceeded to a sensual middle section as transparent and lovely as a waterfall.  Next Mom and Travis set out on a spirited final movement, Mom again making mistakes only someone familiar with the sonata would detect.

As the sounds of the piano and cello died away, I found my eyes stinging with emotion, moved by the beauty of Schubert’s composition and the artistry of Trav’s and Mom’s playing.  Jeez, what’s wrong with me? I wondered.  I continued staring out over the horizon, deciding that if I were going to get through the day without making a fool of myself, I needed to do a better job of keeping my feelings in check.

In the distance offshore, I spotted a raft bobbing on the swells, the ten-by-ten-foot platform an illegal albeit inconsequential navigational hazard that Dad and other beach residents had placed some years back.  McKenzie, Nate, and I had played an unexpectedly pivotal role in its launching as well.  Seeing it reminded me of what had seemed a simpler time, hearkening back to an era uncomplicated by the uncertainties now facing me.

“How’re you doing, honey?”

I turned to see my mother easing down beside me on the swing.  “Good,” I answered, quickly wiping my cheeks.

Mom gave the swing a push with her foot, then looked at me more closely.  “Is something wrong?”

“No.  It’s . . . it’s just great to have you home.”

“It’s great to be home,” Mom replied, still regarding me with concern.  “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, embarrassed that her music had affected me so deeply.  “Your playing just now was fabulous.  You haven’t lost your touch.”

“Liar.  I was awful,” Mom laughed, adjusting a floppy velvet hat she was wearing to cover her baldness.  “Not practicing for a month takes its toll.  According to Rachmaninoff, ‘If you don’t practice for a day, no one knows.  If you don’t practice for two days,
you
know.  If you don’t practice for three days,
everyone
knows.’  I’ll definitely have to spend some hours in the music room before returning to St. John’s.”

“It doesn’t seem fair that you have to do the chemo all over again.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Mom sighed.  “Speaking of which, I’m going in on Wednesday for a checkup.  Why don’t you meet me afterward for lunch?  We could eat at that Chinese place on the Santa Monica Mall you like so much.”

“Sure, Mom.”  I hesitated, then changed the subject.  “I can’t believe Dad’s attempting another luau,” I remarked, gazing out to where my father had finished digging a large hole in the sand, several dozen yards from the volleyball court.  He had been unnaturally secretive about his plans for my birthday party, but I had known what he had in mind from the minute I’d seen Dad and my brothers gathering kelp from the water’s edge on Saturday.  My father was currently lining the sand pit with stones.  Nate was helping carry rocks, while Callie was trotting around proudly with a baseball-bat sized piece of driftwood in her mouth, futilely trying to get someone to play.

“The last time
was
kind of a disaster,” Mom conceded, referring to a similar attempt Dad had made years back to roast an entire suckling pig.  Refusing to fully cook, the pig had to be cut up and finished in the oven.  As a result, everyone wound up eating long after dark.  “He says he has it wired this time,” she added hopefully.

“If he doesn’t, today’s crowd could turn ugly—which for most of Dad’s cop buddies wouldn’t be much of a stretch,” I observed.  “By the way, how many of our nearest and dearest did Dad invite?”

Mom smiled as she answered.  “Well, most of his police associates are coming, of course, plus all of our neighbors.  I invited musicians from the Philharmonic, Nate called his baseball teammates, Trav invited friends from SC, and you’re having over people from school and work.  There should be at least a hundred and fifty.  Maybe more.”

“Great,” I grumbled, secretly pleased that my parents were turning my birthday party into such a production.  Of course, it was also to celebrate Mom’s homecoming, but I was still thrilled at the prospect.  “It’ll be wonderful to have the unwashed masses trooping through our house, just like the old days,” I added.

“It’ll be fun and you know it.”

“Sure.  About as much fun as watching Olympic curling.”

“Oh, come on,” Mom chuckled.  “It’s a beach party.  Besides, no one will be ‘trooping’ through the house.  Everyone will be outside.”

Once more the sound of Travis’s playing drifted from the music room.  He was practicing passages from his recital repertoire—haphazardly stopping and starting, repeating different sections.  Mom and I fell silent, listening to him play.  “He’s incredible, isn’t he?” said Mom during a lull.

“Yes, Mom.  Trav is getting better all the time.”

My brother resumed his playing, this time attacking a particularly strenuous progression embedded in one of his recent compositions.  “Did I tell you I got my press credentials last week?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, honey.  What did you say?”

“I said I got my press credentials, along with my LAPD, Highway Patrol, and Sheriff’s Department passes.  A raise in pay, too.”

“Congratulations, Ali,” Mom said carefully.  “I know how hard you’ve been working at your intern job.  I just . . .”  Her voice trailed off.

Afraid our old tensions were about to resurface, I resumed staring out at the beach without replying.  I noticed that my father and Nate had finished lining the sand pit with rocks and were now constructing an enormous firewood teepee in the center, using driftwood from a pile stacked near the sea wall.

“What’s bothering you, Ali?”

“Nothing,” I replied.  “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Because I know you.”  Mom reached for my hand.  “Something’s on your mind, and it isn’t just our disagreement about your news internship.  What is it?”

I didn’t answer.

“Ali, I love you.  If something’s wrong, I want to help.  Please, Ali.  Talk to me.”

I finally responded, my words barely audible.  “Mom, I know that your doctors are doing everything for you that’s medically possible, but what if—”

Mom cut me off.  “I’m going to get better.  Now, I don’t want to hear anymore about that.  Not today.  Especially not today.  I’ll be fine.”

Wanting to believe, I searched my mother’s eyes.  And for a brief, chilling instant, I glimpsed the doubt behind her iron curtain of control.  Shocked, I started to say something more.

Mom silenced me before I could speak, raising her fingers to my lips.  “I’ll be fine.”

*        *        *

Hours later, having burned most of the driftwood that was stacked near the sea wall, Kane instructed Nate and Travis to shovel the remaining coals from the rock-lined pit into a shallow depression in the sand nearby, leaving only the fire-blackened stones in the pit as a source of heat.  Then, after laying down a bed of bladder kelp taken from tangles of seaweed they had stored in several thirty-gallon trash containers, he layered in foil-wrapped food:  a twenty-pound fresh Alaskan salmon, a dozen lobsters, buckets of clams and mussels, whole chickens and crabs, bushels of corn and potatoes, racks of marinated pork ribs, and pumpkins stuffed with seafood and vegetables—judiciously interspersing additional seaweed between layers and placing slower-cooking items on the bottom, faster-cooking ones higher up.  The remainder of the kelp went on top, followed by a tarp and three inches of sand, leaving a small hole near one edge for steam to escape.

Satisfied with the status of the cooking pit but determined that nothing should go awry, Kane surveyed the growing party with an eye seasoned by many similar endeavors—though none in recent years, not since the old house had burned.  Standing on the beach with his hands on his hips, he proceeded to go over a mental checklist, reviewing various other party preparations.  Beer:  kegs in ice tubs on the redwood deck.  Soft drinks:  cooling in chests beside the kegs.  Porta Potties, a precaution to avoid overstressing the house’s septic tank:  two stationed on the street near the outside staircase.  Trash cans:  lined with plastic bags and strategically positioned around the deck.  Serving tables:  set with paper plates, plastic forks, and an assortment of appetizers, casseroles, and side dishes that early-arriving guests had already brought.  Salads, both green and fruit:  staying fresh in the upstairs refrigerator.  Desserts:  butter-pecan ice cream and a huge chocolate cake waiting upstairs, along with watermelon and baskets of fruit.

Everything was ready.  As predicted by the tide tables consulted weeks earlier, the ocean was still receding, affording the luau pit a wide margin of safety.  Overhead, the summer sun beat down from a cloudless California sky, sending the afternoon temperature into the mid-eighties.  With a shrug, Kane decided that if he had forgotten anything, it was too late to rectify the omission.  Although many of those invited had said they wouldn’t be coming till later, by now over fifty guests had arrived, and like a runaway locomotive barreling down a mountain grade, the party was gaining momentum by the minute.

Deluca, Banowski, Kane’s ex-partner Arnie Mercer, Lt. Long —the single member of the LAPD brass who had been invited—and various other police associates not camped out near the beer kegs were engaged in a clamorous competition on the volleyball court.  Feet churning the sand, the generally overweight and out-of-shape police officers were offsetting their athletic shortcomings with boisterous enthusiasm and good-natured ribbing.  Most of Catheryn’s music associates, including Alexander Petrinski and a score of Philharmonic musicians, were gathered beneath the upper balcony, claiming a rare bit of shade.  Escaping the hot sand, a number of younger partygoers had taken to the ocean, where several hundred yards offshore a dozen swimmers had crowded aboard the raft, with a dozen more in the water waiting to climb on.  Along the hard sand at the water’s edge, Travis, McKenzie, and Allison were sailing a Frisbee back and forth.  Kane smiled as he saw Allison charge through the shallows to snag an errant pass from Travis, then tumble backward into an oncoming wave just as she snapped a perfect backhanded toss to McKenzie.

“Man, that grub’s smellin’ mighty good, Dan.”

Kane turned to see Lou Barrello, an Orange County Sheriff’s detective with whom he had worked several years before.  “Hey, Lou.  Glad you could make it.”

“No way I’d miss one of your shindigs, amigo.  From what I hear, your parties are the most fun someone can have while still wearing underwear.”

Kane inspected his friend, noticing that Barrello’s fire-plug body had grown even more padded over the past year, his balding pate even more devoid of hair.  Following the death of his wife, Barrello had taken an early retirement and now skippered a scuba-dive boat berthed at Port Hueneme, a short drive up the coast from Malibu.  “So how’s the seafaring going?” Kane asked, shaking Barrello’s outstretched hand.  “Still puking over the rail every time the channel gets a little choppy?”

“Not me,” Barrello retorted, his twinkling eyes belying a scowl as crusty as a tugboat keel.  “We Italians are born with constitutions of steel.  You must be thinking of someone else.  One of your pansy Irish friends, maybe,” he added with a grin.  Then, his smile fading, “Seriously, Dan, why don’t you and the family come up sometime?  My treat.  We still have space on a charter next weekend to the outer islands.  Should be a great trip.”

“I’ll take a rain check on that,” replied Kane.  “We have a lot on our plate right now.”

“I know,” Barrello said sympathetically.  “I was so sorry to hear about Kate.  Believe me, Dan, I understand what you’re going through.  If there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all . . .”

“I appreciate that, Lou.  If there is, I’ll let you know.”  Kane glanced at Barrello’s empty beer cup.  “Appears your drink needs a little freshening, pal,” he said, changing the subject.  “Can’t have you getting parched out here in the hot sun.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” said Barrello, sensing Kane’s discomfort.  “But I meant what I said.  If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, please let me know.”

The two men negotiated a three-foot rise to the top of the sea wall, then fought through a throng of people crowding the deck, heading for the kegs of Heineken and Michelob chilling in tubs filled with ice.  In an eddy formed in the flood of partygoers by the metal tubs, a knot of beer drinkers stood jostling for cup position beneath the flowing spigots.  Using his low center of gravity, Barrello pushed forward and jammed his cup beneath the Heineken tap.  “One for you, Dan?” he asked, grabbing another cup.

“I’m sticking to Coke,” Kane answered.  Ignoring Barrello’s quizzical frown, Kane gazed across the deck, catching Catheryn’s eye.  He winked and smiled.  Pausing in a conversation with Arthur West, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s principal cellist, Catheryn smiled back.

“Kane’s still riding the Shirley Temple wagon,” explained Arnie Mercer, who was waiting behind Barrello for a refill.  “Didn’t you know that, Lou?  Dan swore off booze years ago.  Gave up drinking right around the time he started squattin’ to take a piss.”

“Up yours, pard,” Kane chuckled.

“Same to you,” said Arnie, impatiently cramming his cup under the spigot and spilling half of Barrello’s newly filled drink.

“As we’re discussing personal matters, I heard Mercer’s got his whole security crew switching to Maxi Pads,” offered Deluca, who had followed Arnie up from the beach.  “Says there’s less chance of leakage on those troublesome heavy days.”

“Screw you, Deluca,” Arnie said.