Angel Falling Softly (3 page)

T
he secretary returned to the conference room promptly at twelve-thirty. As they rode the elevator to the penthouse suite, Milada said, “I take it the invitation was Edward’s idea?” While Karen stammered for an answer, Milada continued, “No matter. I appreciate the thought.”

The city looked deceptively cool through the tinted windows, but Milada asked the waiter to seat them away from the wall of plate glass.

Milada said, “What do you recommend, Karen?”

“I usually get—” She didn’t seem too sure about what she usually got. “I usually get the chef’s salad.”

Milada said to the waiter, “Two chef’s salads.”

The waiter retrieved the menus and left. Karen said under her breath, “To be honest, I don’t eat here
that
often.” She quickly added, “But the chef’s salad really is good.”

Milada smiled. She appreciated that the girl was not good at lying and knew it. “Tell me, Karen, are you married?”

Karen shook her head. “Engaged. Well, almost.”

Milada took a sip of water. “An employee at the firm?”

“Tom Wilkins.” She brightened saying his name. “He’s an accountant with Smith Barney. We met at the Salt Lake AICPA conference last fall.”

“Where do you live?”

“I share an apartment with Cindy—at the front desk. Tom’s building a house in Draper up on the bench. It’s got a great view of the valley, but it’s a little far from things, you know? At least it’s not as bad as commuting from Lehi or American Fork. Draper’s the only place on the east side that’s affordable these days.”

“Where would you prefer to live?”

“Sandy would be nice, or Granite. But you’ve got to be totally rich to live there.” Karen reflected for a moment. “It’s going to be a real nice house, Tom’s.”

Milada put on her sunglasses and turned toward the windows. “Where is Draper from here?”

“You can’t really see it because of the haze. It’s due south, right before Point of the Mountain.”

“And Sandy?”

Karen pointed off to the left. “Right there, where you can see the entrance to Little Cottonwood Canyon. That’s actually Granite. Sandy is west a bit.”

The waiter came with their salads. Milada straightened her chair and unfolded the napkin in her lap. She selected a fork and inspected it briefly. “Karen, is there a real estate firm that Loveridge employs on a regular basis?”

Karen thought for a minute. “Mr. Christensen uses Valley Real Estate Management.”

“When we have finished lunch, would you get them on the phone for me?”

Karen cheerfully said that she would.

After lunch Milada found the missing SEC filings on the table next to her laptop.
Better late than never.
She got out her cell phone and called Kammy. Some conversations she preferred not to make over company lines.

“What’s up, Milly?”

From the background noise, Milada guessed her sister was at the student union. “Where are you staying?”

“The Crocker Science House. It’s a dorm for post-docs. Why?”

Milada frowned. She lowered her voice to a few decibels above a whisper. “Where in the world do you keep blood in a dorm room?”

“Gee, Milly, a medical college. Where could I get my hands on whole blood? Hmm, let me think that one over and get back to you.”

“I was only asking. How was the seminar?”

“Not bad. I’ve got rounds, so don’t go penciling me in for dinner or anything.”

“You know, you could apply for a residency, open a practice—”

“Not going there, Milly,” Kammy replied in the singsong voice she used whenever her sister started waxing maternal. “Bye. Gotta go.”

Milada knew she shouldn’t be surprised. For the last two decades, a significant portion of the charitable donations made by the Daranyi Foundation had ended up buying internships and fellowships for Kammy. Or maybe Kammy being so
content
playing the eternal student was what annoyed her. She, on the other hand, did everything she could to come across older than she appeared.

Why couldn’t her sisters settle down and
work
for a living? She could only dream of Zoë disciplining herself sufficiently to even attend school.

The intercom buzzed. Karen’s voice announced, “LaDawn Gunderson from Valley Real Estate.”

Milada thanked her and picked up the phone. “This is Milada Daranyi. I’m an associate of Mr. Christensen’s. I’m going to be in Salt Lake City on and off for the next six months or so. I was thinking of renting a house in the area.”

There was a block of upscale apartments a hundred yards north of Eagle Gate Plaza. But the thought of sharing walls and floors and ceilings with strangers—not to mention the halls and lobby—made her skin crawl. At least in a hotel the people next door had no pretensions of being her neighbors.

“Mr. Christensen’s a wonderful man, isn’t he!” The voice of an older woman, bubbly and overly enthusiastic. “What part of Salt Lake?”

Sandy would be nice,
Karen had said. “Sandy,” Milada casually suggested. “A small ranch or rambler with a finished basement. A covered porch facing north.”

The line fell silent. It was a clear connection. Milada could hear a pencil scratching against paper. LaDawn said, “I’ll see what I can find. I’ll phone Karen, okay?”

“That would be fine.”

LaDawn called back half an hour later. “Miss Daranyi, I have just the thing for you! Came on the market two weeks ago, a split-level rambler, three rooms up, bedroom and full bath in the basement. It’s in Cottonwood Estates. A
really
nice neighborhood. Right on Dimple Dell Park in Sandy. Would you like to see it?”

Milada tried to remember what time the sun set. “Would eight o’clock be acceptable?”

“Eight o’clock? Um, tonight?” The woman’s hesitation was obvious.

“Would seven be better?”

LaDawn collected herself. “Oh, sure!” she burst out, revealing a Midwestern accent tinged with Scandinavian roots. “The address is 1204 Larkspur Lane. Do you need directions?”

“I’m sure my driver can find it.”

“That’s just great. I’ll see you tonight, Miss Daranyi.”

“Seven o’clock,” Milada confirmed. After hanging up the phone, she opened the folder and thumbed through the SEC filings.
LaDawn,
she repeated to herself. In her long life, she’d never met a woman named LaDawn before.

It briefly occurred to her that she had no good idea about what she was getting herself into. She kept too many secrets not to know what she was getting herself into every minute of her life.

I
n purely utilitarian terms, being the mother of a dying daughter was not that difficult.

Every morning Rachel had someplace to go and something to do. It was almost like having a job again. She hustled the husband and the daughter out of the house, showered and dressed. And then hung around children for several hours in a teaching institution staffed by busy, competent professionals. Yes, many of the children were dying, but other than that . . . And it was only part-time employment. She was done every day by noon, one o’clock at the latest.

And so the days came and went.

In Sandy she stopped at Smith’s to get a few things, a few things that quickly filled her shopping cart. How many people had they invited to family home evening, again? Charlene was bringing a tossed salad. She’d talk to Doris at church on Sunday and get everything else on Monday.

She moved to the checkout queues. “Rachel!” A woman hurried up to her, a woman in her late forties stuffed into a Liz Claiborne pantsuit that would look much better if the person inside it lost twenty pounds and didn’t use quite so much makeup.

“Guess what!”

Rachel didn’t guess. A tree falling in a forest wouldn’t make a sound until LaDawn Gunderson told somebody about it.

“I’ve rented out the Lindstrom place!”

“The Lindstrom place? Oh, yes, the Lindstroms.”

“You’re going to have
quite
an interesting neighbor.” LaDawn spoke with an almost rapturous intensity. “Though I don’t think she’s a
member.
Didn’t seem at all like the kind of person you’d expect at Relief Society, if you know what I mean.”

“Not a family?”

“Oh, no. Single, early twenties.
Very
professional.
Immaculately
dressed.
Quite
attractive. The whitest skin you’ve ever seen. Rather a strange girl. No,
eccentric,
that’s the word. She wanted to see the place at night! Probably one of those supermodels you’re always reading about—doesn’t want to be seen in public. I didn’t recognize her. She drove up in this fancy car with her own chauffeur and everything!”

LaDawn lowered her voice to a whisper. “I shouldn’t be telling you this,” she said, patting her friend’s arm for emphasis, “but she paid six months all in advance. Wrote out a twelve-thousand-dollar check, just like that—like she was buying groceries! Can you imagine?”

“Ma’am?” said the checkout clerk, leaning over the scanner to get her attention.

“Sorry,” said Rachel.

LaDawn said, “Well, I’d better get going, myself.” She stopped and asked, “And how is Jennifer doing?”

“She’s doing fine.”

Such transparent lies no longer bothered Rachel when it came to greasing the wheels of social conviviality.

She pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto Sego Lily Drive.

Cottonwood Estates was the quintessential Salt Lake subdivision. Pluck this plot of earth out of the ground and deposit it outside the beltway of any Midwestern American city, and nobody would notice.

It was so unremittingly normal that the developers felt compelled to mess up Brigham Young’s commonsensical east-west, north-south street-numbering system with meandering mazes of ways, lanes, places, trails, circles, and avenues. She had to wonder when a neighborhood got too good for plain old streets.

Still, it was safe, quiet, and clean. The neighbors’ kids behaved. The neighbors’ pets did their business on their own lawns. Yes, she had in her youth sworn that she would never end up in a place like this, just as she had sworn she would never end up a bishop’s wife. But right now she was perfectly willing to sacrifice a small part of her principles for nothing jumping out and surprising her.

She drove up Larkspur Lane. There was the Lindstroms’ house. Mary had been second counselor in the Relief Society. Rachel missed her. But the Lindstroms were a young, upwardly mobile couple, and their future lay in Sacramento, not Salt Lake City.

An R.C. Willey furniture delivery truck was parked in the driveway and a pair of rusty pickups out by the curb. A small crew was busily trimming the lawn, washing the windows, sweeping the porch, flushing out the sprinkler system. This was a tenant LaDawn wanted to impress.

A supermodel,
LaDawn had suggested. How did one welcome a supermodel to the neighborhood? Would a supermodel appreciate a loaf of homemade whole-wheat bread? Or would that be like giving a chicken bone to a cocker spaniel? She had no idea.

Rachel made the dogleg from Larkspur Lane onto Willow Way and up the driveway of their three-bedroom rambler. The garage door opened at a touch of the remote. She popped open the back door of the Honda Odyssey and hauled the groceries into the kitchen.

After dumping the groceries haphazardly on the table, she ran a glass of water at the sink and paused at the kitchen window. The lots bordering Dimple Dell Park were a cluttered no-man’s-land of yellow backhoes and concrete foundations. Men with sunburned shoulders and tool belts slung low around their waists marched around like a small army on maneuvers, making war with circular saws and air hammers.

One good earthquake would topple the whole street into the Dry Creek arroyo, to be carried away with the alluvial flow.

The front door opened and slammed shut. Laura tromped into the kitchen. Rachel asked, “How was school, Laura?” and began putting away the groceries.

“Okay.”

Rachel had read an article the other day about how to get a child to reply to such questions with more than one-word answers. She’d have to read it again.

Laura asked, “What’s with the Lindstroms’ place?”

“Oh, yes. I ran into Sister Gunderson at Smith’s. She said she rented it out.”

“Who to?”

“A woman, she said.”

“Any kids?” Laura got the orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured herself a glass.

“I gathered she was single.”

“So why’s she moving
here
?”

“I don’t know. LaDawn did say she was quite attractive. Like a model.”

“She’s a model? Really?”

“She said she
looked
like a model.”

“Oh,” said Laura, disappointed. She put the glass on the counter. “I’m going to Heidi’s.”

“Be home by five.”

“Yeah, Mom.”

Rachel returned the orange juice to the fridge. It was time to start thinking about dinner. She looked in the refrigerator and found the pork chops left over from Sunday dinner. A bell pepper, an onion, a can of stewed tomatoes, tomato paste—she could whip together a cacciatore in thirty minutes.

That was enough thinking about dinner. She went down to the family room and turned on the computer. “Move it, cat,” she said, nudging the animal with the toe of her shoe. The cat had a habit of camping out next to the warm power brick. It jumped up and headed to the living room to find a patch of afternoon sun under the bay window.