Between Sisters (10 page)

Julie moved toward her, touched her shoulder. “You're forty-two years old, Meg. If you don't have anywhere to go and no one to visit, it's about time you reassessed. This is a job. A damn good one, to be sure, but just a job. You've made it your life—I let you, I'll admit it—but it's time to make some changes. Go find
something
.”

Meghann pulled Julie into her arms, gave her a fierce hug. Then, feeling awkward with the uncharacteristic display of emotion, she stumbled backward, turned around, and strode out of the office.

Outside, night was closing in, drawing the warmth from a surprisingly hot day. As she neared the Public Market, the crowds increased. Tourists stood in front of flower shops and outside bakery windows. She cut through Post Alley toward her building. It wasn't a route she often chose, but she didn't want to walk past the Athenian. Not now, when she felt vulnerable. This was the kind of night where it would be easy to slip from grace and, honestly, she was tired of the fall. It hurt too much to land.

In the lobby of her building, she waved at the doorman and went up to her condo.

She'd forgotten to leave the radio playing. The place was jarringly silent.

She tossed her keys on the entryway table. They clanged into a floral-carved Lalique bowl.

Her place was beautiful and neat, with not so much as a paper clip out of place. The cleaning lady had been here today and carefully removed all evidence of Meghann's natural disorder. Without the books and folders and papers piled everywhere, it had the look of an expensive hotel room. The kind of place people visited, not where they lived. A pair of blue-black brocade sofas faced each other, with an elegant black coffee table in between. The west-facing walls were solid glass. The view was a blue wash of sky and Sound.

Meghann opened the antique black-and-gold lacquered armoire in the television room and grabbed the remote. As sound blared to life, she slumped into her favorite suede chair and planted her feet on the ottoman.

It took less than five seconds to recognize the theme music.

“Oh, shit.”

It was a rerun of her mother's old television show—
Starbase IV
. She recognized the episode. It was called “Topsy-Turvy”; in it, the crew of the floating biodome was accidentally transformed into bugs. Mosquito-men took control of the laboratories.

Mama hurried on-screen wearing that ridiculous lime-green stretch suit with black thigh-high boots. She looked alive and vibrant. Beautiful. Even Meg had trouble looking away.

“Captain Wad,” Mama said, her overly plucked eyebrows frowning just enough to convey emotion but not enough to create wrinkles. “We've received an emergency message from the boys in the dehydratin' pod. They said somethin' about mosquitos.”

Dehydratin'.

As if a microbotanist on a Martian space station had to be from Alabama. Meg hated the fake accent. And Mama had used it ever since. Said her fans expected it of her. Sadly, they probably did.

“Don't think about it,” Meghann said aloud.

But, of course, it was impossible. Turning away from the past was something Meg could do when she was strong. When she was weak, the memories took over. She closed her eyes and remembered. A lifetime ago. They'd been living in Bakersfield then. . . .

“
Hey, girls, Mama's home.
”

Meghann huddled closer to Claire, holding her baby sister tightly. Mama stumbled into the trailer's small, cluttered living room, wearing a clinging red-sequined dress with silver fringe and clear plastic shoes.

“I've brought Mr. Mason home with me. I met him at the Wild Beaver. You girls be nice to him now,” she said in that boozy, lilting voice that meant she'd wake up mean.

Meghann knew she had to act fast. With a man in the trailer, Mama wouldn't be able to think about much else, and the rent was long past due. She reached down for the wrinkled copy of
Variety
that she'd stolen from the local library. “Mama?”

Mama lit up a menthol cigarette and took a long drag. “What is it?”

Meghann thrust out the magazine. She'd outlined the ad in red ink. It read:
Mature actress sought for small part in science fiction television series. Open call.
Then the address in Los Angeles.

Mama read the ad out loud. Her smile froze in place at the words
mature actress.
After a long, tense moment, she laughed and gave Mr. Mason a little shove toward the bedroom. When he went into the room and closed the door behind him, Mama knelt down and opened her arms. “Give Mama a hug.”

Meghann and Claire flew into her embrace. They waited days for a moment like this, sometimes weeks. Mama could be cold and distracted, but when she turned on the heat of her love, it warmed you to the bone.

“Thank you, Miss Meggy. I don't know what I'd do without you. I'll surely try out for that part. Now, you two scamper off and stay out of trouble. I've got some entertaining to do.”

Mama had read for the role, all right. To her—and everyone else's—amazement she'd nailed the audition. Instead of winning the small part she'd gone up for, she'd won the starring role of Tara Zyn, the space station's microbotanist.

It had been the beginning of the end.

Meghann sighed. She didn't want to think about the week Mama had gone to Los Angeles and left her daughters alone in that dirty trailer . . . or the changes that had come afterward. Meghann and Claire had never really been sisters since.

Beside her, the phone rang. It was jarringly loud in the silence. Meghann pounced on it, eager to talk to
anyone
. “Hello?”

“Hey, Meggy, it's me. Your mama. How are you, darlin'?”

Meg rolled her eyes at the accent. She should have let the answering machine pick up. “I'm fine, Mama. And you?”

“Couldn't be better. The Fan-ference was this weekend. I have a few photos left over. I thought y'might like a signed one for your collection.”

“No thanks, Mama.”

“I'll have m'houseboy send you one. Lordy, I signed s'many autographs, my fingers ache.”

Meghann had been to one of the
Starbase IV
Fan Conference weekends. One had been enough. Hundreds of starry-eyed geeks in cheap polyester costumes, clamoring for photographs with a bunch of has-beens and never-really-weres. Mama was the only cast member who'd had a career since the show was canceled, and it wasn't much. A few bad made-for-TV movies in the eighties and a cult horror classic in the late nineties. It was reruns that had made her rich and famous. A whole new generation of nerds had latched on to the old show. “Well, your fans love you.”

“Thank God for small miracles. It surely is nice to talk to you, Meggy. We should do it more often. Y'all should come down and visit me.”

Mama always said that. It was part of the script. A way to pretend they were something they weren't—family.

It was understood that she didn't mean it.

Still . . .

Meghann took a deep breath.
Don't do it. You're not that desperate.

But she couldn't sit alone in this condo for three weeks. “I'm taking a vacation,” she said in a rush. “Maybe I could come stay with you.”

“Oh. That would be . . . fine.” Mama exhaled heavily; Meghann swore she could smell smoke coming through the phone. “Maybe this Christmas—”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Mama laughed. “Honey, I've got a photographer from
People
magazine comin' over at three o'clock, and at my age I wake up lookin' like one o' those hairless dogs. It takes ten women all day to make me beautiful.”

Her accent was getting pronounced. That always happened when her emotions were strong. Meghann wanted to hang up, say forget it, but when she looked around her empty, photo-free apartment, she felt almost sick. “How about Monday, then? Just for a few days. Maybe we could go to a spa.”

“Don't you
ever
watch the E! channel? I'm leavin' for Cleveland on Monday. I'm doin' Shakespeare in some park with Pamela Anderson and Charlie Sheen. Hamlet.”

“
You? You're
doing Shakespeare?”

Another dramatic pause. “I'm gonna forget I heard that tone in your voice.”

“Cut the accent, Mama. It's me. I know you were born in Detroit. Joan Jojovitch is the name on your birth certificate.”

“Now you're just being rude. You always were a prickly child.”

Meghann didn't know what to say. The last place in the world she wanted to go was to her mother's, and yet being studiously noninvited rankled her. “Well. Good luck.”

“It's a big break for me.”

For me.
Mama's favorite words. “You better get a good night's sleep before the magazine shoot.”

“That's the God's honest truth.” Mama exhaled again. “Maybe y'all could come down later in the year. When I'm not so busy. Claire, too.”

“Sure. Bye, Mama.”

Meghann hung up the phone and sat there in her too-quiet home. She called Elizabeth, got the answering machine, and left a quick message. Then she hung up.

What now? She had no idea.

For the next hour, she paced the apartment, trying to formulate a plan that made sense.

The phone rang. She dived for it, hoping it was Elizabeth. “Hello?”

“Hi, Meg.”

“Claire? This is a nice surprise.” And for once it was. She sat down. “I talked to Mama today. You won't believe this. She's doing—”

“I'm getting married.”

“—Shakespeare in—
married
?”

“I've never been so happy, Meg. I know it's crazy, but that's love, I guess.”

“Who are you marrying?”

“Bobby Jack Austin.”

“I've never even heard his name.” Not since
Hee Haw
went off the air, anyway.

“I met him ten days ago in Chelan. I know what you're going to say, but—”

“Ten days ago. You have sex with men you just met, Claire. Sometimes you even sneak away for a wild weekend. What you don't do is marry them.”

“I'm in love, Meg. Please don't ruin it for me.”

Meg wanted to give advice so badly she had to curl her hands into fists. “What does he do for a living?”

“He's a singer/songwriter. You should hear him, Meg. He sounds like an angel. He was singing in Cowboy Bob's Western Roundup when I first saw him. My heart stopped for a second. Have you ever felt that way?”

Before Meghann could answer, Claire went on, “He's a ski instructor in Aspen in the winter and he travels around in the summer, playing his music. He's two years older than I am, and he's so good-looking you won't believe it. Better than Brad Pitt, I kid you not. He's going to be a star.”

Meghann let it all soak in. Her sister was marrying a thirty-seven-year-old ski bum who dreamed of being a Country and Western singer. And the best gig he could get was Cowboy Bob's in Nowheresville.

“Don't be yourself, Meg,” Claire said evenly when the pause had gone on too long.

“Does he know what the campground is worth? Will he sign a prenuptial agreement?”

“Damn you, Meg. Can't you be happy for me?”

“I want to be,” Meghann said, and it was true. “It's just that you deserve the best, Claire.”

“Bobby is the best. You haven't asked about the wedding.”

“When is it?”

“Saturday, the twenty-third.”

“Of
this
month?”

“We thought, Why wait? I'm not getting any younger. So we booked the church.”

“The church.” This was crazy. Too fast. “I need to meet him.”

“Of course. The rehearsal dinner—”

“No way. I need to meet him
now
. I'll be at your house tomorrow night. I'll take you guys out to dinner.”

“Really, Meg, you don't have to do that.”

Meg pretended not to hear Claire's reluctance. “I want to. I have to meet the man who stole my sister's heart, don't I?”

“Okay. I'll see you tomorrow.” Claire paused, then said, “It'll be good to see you.”

“Yeah. Bye.” Meg hung up, then punched in the number for her office and left a message for her secretary. “Get me everything we've got on prenuptial agreements. Forms, cases, even the Ortega agreement. I want it all delivered to my house by ten o'clock tomorrow morning.” As an afterthought, she added, “Thanks.”

Then she headed for her computer to do some checking up on Bobby Jack Austin.

This
was what she'd do on her idiotic vacation. She'd save Claire from making the biggest mistake of her life.

C
HAPTER
TEN

C
LAIRE HUNG UP THE OFFICE PHONE. IN THE SILENCE THAT
followed, doubt crept into the room.

She and Bobby
were
moving awfully fast. . . .

“Damn you, Meg.”

But even as she cursed her sister, Claire knew the doubt had been there all along, a little seed inside of her, waiting to sprout and grow. She was too old to be swept away by passion.

She had a daughter to think about, after all. Alison had never known her biological father. It had been easy so far, bubble-wrapping Ali's world so that none of life's sharp edges could hurt her. Marriage would change everything.

The last thing Claire wanted to do was marry a man who had itchy feet.

She knew about men like that, men who smiled pretty smiles and made big promises and disappeared one night while you were brushing your teeth.

Claire had had four stepfathers before she'd turned nine. That number didn't include the men she'd been asked to call Uncle, the men who'd passed through Mama's life like shots of tequila. There and gone, leaving nothing behind but a bitter aftertaste.

Claire had had such high hopes for each new stepfather, too.
This one
, she'd thought each time.
He'll be the one to take me roller-skating and teach me how to ride a bike
. Of course, it had been Meg who'd taught her those things; Meg, who never once called one of Mama's husbands Daddy and refused to have any hopes for them at all.

No wonder Meghann was suspicious. Their past had given her reason to be.

Claire walked across the main lobby of the registration office. On her way to the window, she picked up a fallen flyer, no doubt dropped by one of the guests, and tossed it into the cold fireplace.

Outside, the sun was just beginning to set. The camp lay bathed in a rose-gold light in which every leaf edge seemed sharper, every green distinct. Sunlight sparkled on the blue water in the swimming pool, empty now as the guests were firing up their camp stoves and barbecues.

As she stood there, feeling vulnerable and uncertain, she saw a shadow fall across the grass.

Dad and Bobby strolled into view. Dad wore his summertime uniform: blue overalls and a black T-shirt. A tattered River's Edge baseball cap shaded his eyes; beneath it, his brown hair was a mass of fuzzy curls.

And Bobby.

He wore a pair of faded jeans and a blue T-shirt that read:
Cowboy Up for Coors
. In this fading light, his long hair was the color of eighteen-carat gold, rich and warm. He carried their Weed Eater in one hand and a can of gasoline in the other. In the days he'd been here, Bobby had pitched in with the work. He was good at it, though she knew he wouldn't be happy at River's Edge forever. Already, he'd mentioned going on the road for a few weeks this summer. The three of them. “The Austins' road trip” was how he put it. Claire thought it sounded great, traveling from town to town for a while, listening to her new husband sing. She hadn't broached the idea with her father, but she knew he'd be all for it. As for what would become of the camp next season, they'd have to cross that bridge together when the time came.

Dad and Bobby stopped in front of cabin number five. Dad pointed up toward the eaves and Bobby nodded. A minute later, they were both laughing. Dad put his hand on Bobby's shoulder. They moved away, toward the laundry room.

“Hey, Mommy. Whatcha lookin' at?”

Claire turned around. Ali stood at the bottom of the stairs, clutching her Tickle Me Elmo doll. “Hey, Ali Kat. Come over here a minute, will you?” She sat down in the blue-and-white striped chair-and-a-half by the fireplace, putting her feet up on the matching ottoman.

Alison crawled onto her lap, settling comfortably in place. Heart to heart, the way they always sat.

“I was just watching Grandpa talk to Bobby.”

“Bobby's gonna teach me to fish. He says I'm old enough to go to the trout farm in Skykomish.” Alison leaned closer and whispered, “There's a trick to catching the big ones. He's gonna teach it to me. An' he says we can float down the river in inner tubes by August. Even me. Did you ever put a worm on a hook? Yeech. But I'm gonna do it. You'll see. Bobby said he'd help me if it was too wriggly or snotty.”

“I'm glad you like him,” Claire said softly, trying not to smile.

“He's great.” Alison wiggled around until she was facing Claire. “What's the matter, Mommy? You look like you're gonna cry. The worms don't feel anything. Honest.”

She stroked Alison's soft cheek. “You're my whole world, Ali Kat. You know that, don't you? No one could ever take your place in my heart.”

Alison and Elmo kissed Claire. “I know that.” Alison giggled and scampered out of Claire's lap. “I gotta go. Grandpa's taking me to Smitty's Garage. We're gonna get the truck fixed.”

As she watched her daughter run out the front door, heard her yell “
Grandpa! Bobby!
I'm here!” Claire felt the pressing weight of responsibility again. How did a woman know if she was being selfish, and was that necessarily a bad thing, anyway? Men were selfish all the time and they built multibillion-dollar corporations and rockets that flew to the moon.

But what if the marriage didn't work?

There it was. The clay beneath it all.

She needed to talk to someone about this. Not her sister, of course. A friend. She dialed Gina's number.

Gina answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

Claire slumped back into the oversize chair and put her feet up. “It's me. The Insta-Marry Queen.”

“Yeah, Claire. That's you.”

“Meghann thinks I'm being an idiot.”

“Since when do we care what
she
thinks? She's an attorney, for God's sake. That's below invertebrates on the evolutionary chain.”

Claire's chest eased. She smiled. “I knew you'd put it in perspective.”

“That's what friends are for. Would you like me to sing that?”

“Please, no. I've heard you sing. Just tell me I'm not being a selfish bitch who is going to ruin her daughter's life by marrying a stranger.”

“Oh, so it's your mother we're talking about.”

“I don't want to be like her.” Claire's voice was suddenly soft.

“I've known you since all five of us showed up for the first day of school in the same blue shirt. I remember when you bought cream to make your boobs grow and still believed in sea monkeys. Honey, you've never been selfish. And I've never seen you this happy. I don't care that you've known him less than two weeks. God has finally given you the gift of love and passion. Don't return it unopened.”

“I'm scared. I should have done this when I was young and optimistic.”

“You
are
young and optimistic, and of course you're scared. If you'll remember, I had to drink two tequila straight shots to marry Rex—and we'd lived together for four years.” She paused. “I probably shouldn't have used us as an example. But the point remains. A smart person is afraid of marriage. You made it past the marriage-for-marriage's-sake years and you haven't reached the nursing-home-desperation years. You met a man and fell in love. So it happened fast. Big deal. If you're not ready to marry him, by all means, wait. But don't wait because your big sister made you question yourself. Follow your heart.”

Claire's gut was clenched, her mind was clouded, but her heart was crystal clear. “What would I do without you?”

“The same thing I'd do without you—drink too much and whine to strangers.”

Claire heard the tiny thread of depression in Gina's voice. It made her love her friend all the more for listening to her problems while her own whole world was caving in. “How are you doing?”

“This day or this week? I've got more mood swings than a teenager, and my ass is starting to look like a Buick.”

“No jokes, Gigi. How are you?”

She sighed. “Shitty. Rex came by last night. The son of a bitch has lost about ten pounds and dyed his hair. Pretty soon he'll ask me to call him the Rexster again.” She paused. “He wants to marry that woman.”

“Ouch.”

“Ouch with a blowtorch. I'm remembering the day he proposed to me, and he's pricing diamonds. It hurts like hell. But you haven't heard the real news: Joey's back.”

“You're kidding. Where's he been?”

There was a pause, the sound of movement, then Gina lowered her voice. “I don't know. Here and there, he says. He looks bad. Older. He got home yesterday. He's been asleep for almost thirteen hours. Honestly, I hope I never love anyone as much as he loved Diana.”

“What's he going to do?”

“I don't know. I said he could stay here, but he won't. He's like some animal that's been in the wild too long. And this house brings back a lot of memories. He stared at the picture of my wedding for almost an hour. Honest to God, I wanted to cry.”

“Give him my love.”

“You got it.”

They talked for a few more minutes about ordinary, everyday things. By the time they hung up, Claire felt better. The ground beneath her feet felt firm again. Thinking about Joe and Diana helped, too. With everything that had gone wrong between those two, they still were proof that love could be real.

She looked down at her left hand, at the engagement ring she wore. It was a strip of silver foil, carefully folded and twisted around her finger.

She refused to think of what her sister would say about it, and remembered instead how she'd felt when Bobby put it there.

Marry me
, he'd said, on bended knee. She'd known she should smile gently, say,
Oh, Bobby, of course not. We barely know each other.

But she couldn't say those words. His dark eyes had been filled with the kind of love she'd only dreamed of, and she'd been lost. Her rational self—the part that had been alone for almost three dozen years and become a single parent—had warned her not to be a fool.

Ah, but her heart. That tender organ would not be ignored. She
was
in love. So much so that it felt like drowning.

Gina was right. This love was a gift she'd been given, one she'd stopped looking for and almost stopped believing in. She wouldn't turn away from it because she was afraid. One thing motherhood had taught her—love required boldness. And fear simply came with the package.

She grabbed her sweater off the back of the sofa and slipped it over her shoulders, then she went outside.

Night had almost completely fallen now; darkness enveloped the salmon-hued granite peaks. To the tourists who sat around their campfires making s'mores and roasting hot dogs, it seemed like a quiet time in this patch of green tucked up against the mountains' vertical walls. The locals knew better. Within walking distance, there was a whole world unseen by the casual observer, unheard by those who spent their lives listening on telephones and watching computer screens.

On peaks nearby, ones with names like Formidable, Terror, and Despair, the glaciers were never still, never silent. They slid forward, groaning, creaking, crunching every rock in their path. Even the heat of an August sun couldn't melt them away, and along the banks of the mighty Skykomish, just beyond where the humans walked, a thousand species of wildlife preyed on one another.

Yet the night felt still and calm; the air smelled of pine needles and drying grass. It was that time of year when, for a few weeks, the lawns in town would turn brittle and brown. That rarest of times in the Northwest—a patch of dry.

She heard the quiet buzz of the campers' dinner conversations, punctuated every now and then by a barking dog or a child's high-pitched giggle. Underneath it all, as steady and familiar as the beating of her heart, was the chattering of the river. These sounds had become the music of her youth, long ago replacing the jumbled cacophony of raucous music that had been Mama's soundtrack.

She didn't bother with shoes. Barefoot, her soles toughened by summers spent along this river's banks, she strolled past the empty pool. In the small, shingled pool house, the filter's motor thumped on, buzzing. A pair of inner tubes—one shocking pink and one lime green—floated on the darkening water.

She made her nightly rounds slowly, stopping to talk to several of their guests, even sharing a glass of wine with Wendy and Jeff Goldstein at campsite thirteen.

It was completely dark by the time she reached the small row of cabins on the property's eastern edge. All of the windows glowed with fuzzy golden light.

At first, she thought the sound she heard was crickets, gearing up for a nightly concert. Then she heard the sweet sound of strings being strummed.

Cabin four had a pretty little porch that faced the river. They had taken the cabin off the market this summer because of rain damage to the roof; the vacancy had given Bobby a place to stay until the wedding.
Destiny
, Dad had said when he gave Claire the key.

Now, destiny sat on the edge of the porch, cross-legged, his body veiled in shadows, a guitar across his lap. He stared out at the river, plucking a slow and uncertain tune.

Claire eased into the darkness beneath a giant Douglas fir. Hidden, she watched him. The music sent shivers skimming along her flesh.

Almost too quietly to hear, he started to sing. “I've been walkin' all my life . . . on a road goin' nowhere. Then I turned a corner, darlin' . . . and there you were.”

Claire's throat tightened with an emotion so sweet and powerful she felt the start of tears. She stepped out of the shadows.

Bobby looked up and saw her. A smile crinkled the suntanned planes of his face.

She stepped toward him, her bare feet making a soft, thumping beat on the hard, dried grass.

He began to sing again, his gaze on her face. “For the first time in my life . . . I believe in God almighty . . . in the Lord my grandpa promised me . . . 'cause, honey, I see Heaven in your eyes.” He strummed a few more chords, then thumped his hand on the guitar and grinned. “That's all I've written so far. I know it needs work.” He put down the guitar and moved toward her.

With every footstep, she felt her breathing shorten until, by the time he was standing in front of her, she couldn't seem to draw a full breath. It was almost embarrassing to feel this much.