House of the Blue Sea (31 page)

“Be careful not to turn into a troll. They like dark places too, you know.” She began descending the stairs.

“Sandra.”

She stopped and turned.

“Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to and I know you didn’t want to.” He took a step toward her.

“I’m glad I came. Really.” She took three more steps before pausing and turning around again. She said the words before she allowed her mind to question her spontaneity. “Would you like to come tomorrow night, to the party?”

“But I’m not Canadian.”

“No, but you know what poutine is, and we were part of your empire.”

“Ah, so the lone Brit at a Canadian party. I’ll likely be strung up as a display of your independence!”

“Why do you think I’m inviting you?” She lifted the sunglasses from her nose and winked.

He chuckled. “I’ll think about it.”

“Well, great. If you decide to come, it’s the fourth house beyond the headland going toward Mar Azul, a pale orange place with a big deck out front. You’ll see the red and white flag stuck in the sand. Eight o’clock.” Sandra continued down the stairs to the beach. She glanced back before rounding the corner of the house and waved. Mark lifted his hand from the railing in response.

T
he sun had been down more than an hour and all remnants of its light were gone from the sky. Mark sat on his verandah, sipping a cup of tea and looking out at the dark water. He could just make out the white froth on the cresting waves illuminated by shore lights. It had rained in the morning but turned into a hot, sunny afternoon and a warm evening. He looked at his watch. Ten to eight. Sandra and Ian would be getting ready for the arrival of their guests; he envisioned them preparing plates piled high with chips and cheese curd.

His thoughts returned again to Sandra’s invitation the day before. Was she just being polite or did she genuinely want him to go? He wondered if it was a good idea, whether he was game for an evening of Ian LeRoy. Ian was probably a good chap—Sandra liked him—but something about the guy grated on Mark, and now there was the added discomfort of whatever Ian might know of last week’s cock-up. Mark took another swallow of tea and closed his eyes. He listened to the rumble of the surf and felt its fine mist on his face. There was so much more he’d wanted to talk about yesterday, beyond the dismal state of his career. It bothered him that she had gone away thinking all of his gloom was a result of Nate and the movie nonsense. Well, there’d be time to talk later. No harm in taking it slow and careful. He would be better off to stay home tonight and arrange to see her another time, without the distractions of Ian and a room full of Sandra`s fellow Canadians.

But, then again, it was a nice evening for a walk. He looked at his watch—eight o’clock on the nose. He thought of Sandra and how she’d looked when they walked on the beach that night, the moon on her face and her skirt hiked up around her thighs. He remembered the warmth of her hand when he held it and how his stomach danced when he thought about kissing her goodnight. Maybe he’d wander down the beach and see if he felt like going in when he arrived at the house Sandra had described. He ran his hand over the whiskers on his face and realized he’d need to clean up if he was going to a party.

***

A
s Mark drew closer he could hear the music and voices fading in and out with the ebb and flow of the surf. A large Canadian flag was stuck in the sand in front of a pale orange house, and the long, covered verandah was strung with tiny red and white lights. He stopped and stood for a moment outside the circle of light extending from the house and squinted at the twenty or so people mingling on the verandah. There was a blonde woman, but her hair hung long and straight, and another who was about the right shape and size, but with darker hair than Sandra’s. He also didn’t see Ian LeRoy, which meant they were both inside, together, as he so often found them.

On his way over it occurred to him that Ian and Sandra may have become more than just friends in the past week and the last thing he wanted was to walk in on them draped around one another. He moved a bit closer, just inside the reach of light. No one seemed to notice him. From this closer vantage point, he could see the kitchen was on the right side of the house and a window spilled light out onto the adjacent palms.
Maybe I’ll go and have a quick peek before announcing myself
.

Mark crept around to the side of the house, staying beyond the lighted area of sand, and looked in through the kitchen window. There were four people inside: three men, one of them Ian, and Sandra. All seemed to be busy with various tasks—one at the sink, another at the stove, a third operating the blender. Sandra was cutting something, her back to the window. She was wearing a red dress that hung to about mid-thigh in a loose skirt, the fabric climbing a third of the way up her back to two spaghetti straps that crossed and disappeared around her neck. On her feet, the sandals he’d convinced her to buy. She turned just then and he stepped back into the safety of darkness. Being caught peeping through the kitchen window wouldn’t make for a very charismatic entrance.

He retraced his steps back to the place on the beach that made a natural entry point and walked toward the stairs leading onto the verandah. He marvelled at a string of patio lanterns in the shape of maple leaves hung across the entrance.
Did Canadians travel with such things?
He smiled and nodded at those congregated outside, not recognizing any of the faces. He was hoping to find Paul here but he was quite likely busy at the restaurant. It seemed Mark would be on his own tonight, taking a flyer, and hoping not to crash and burn. He stopped outside the open door to the house, took a deep breath and rubbed his hands on the back of his trousers before entering. Sandra was rinsing off a cutting board at the centre island and was the first to see him. “You made it! Welcome to little Canada ... or,” she glanced at Ian, “
petit
Canada.” She grabbed a towel and came toward him, drying her hands.

He froze in place, not knowing how to greet her. What was appropriate for two friends who’d moved toward dating, had a falling out and now seemed to be friends again? What did etiquette demand? Fortunately, his body had more sense than his head in the moment and when her arms encircled him in a hug, he hugged her back and brushed a kiss across her cheek. She smelled like lavender with a hint of strawberries. She took him by the arm toward the gentlemen in the kitchen.

“This is Mark Jeffery, the British sacrifice—,” she made like she was placing a noose over his neck, “or I mean friend—I told you I’d invited.”

Mark stepped forward and shook hands with Doug and then Jeremy, the owners of the house, and then Ian. “Mr. LeRoy, nice to see you again.” It wasn’t, but it seemed the polite thing to say.

Ian greeted him with forced pleasantness, no doubt for Sandra’s benefit. “And you also, Mr. Jeffery. Sandra wasn’t sure you’d come.”

And you were probably hoping I wouldn’t
, he wanted to say. But instead said, “Wouldn’t have missed it. So many friendly people in one place,
and
poutine. How could I say no?”

“Indeed, how could you?” Ian said, his smile vanishing and his words tinged with sarcasm.

Sandra was back at the kitchen counter. “I’m drinking strawberry margaritas. Would you like one? Or, there’s also Labatt’s Blue—a Canadian beer that Ian found down in Cabo—and Corona, since it’s in almost every bar cooler in Canada. And there’s wine, from California, which is on the way to Canada.” She held a bottle of red wine off to her side, Vanna White style.

“Well, that’s quite a selection. But tell me, what part of a margarita is Canadian?”

“Ah, fair question. It’s a strawberry margarita, so, the red part and, of course, the ice.”

“I’ll have one of those then, easy on the tequila please.”

Sandra filled a shot glass from a bottle of gold-coloured tequila and poured it into a cocktail glass, topping it up with a frothy red mixture from a pitcher and a split strawberry placed over the lip.

The three men continued to finish up the food preparations and Mark stepped closer to the counter to have a look. Ian was pouring light brown gravy onto two large piles of chips and cheese curd, Jeremy pulled the lid from a baking pan that was filled with what appeared to be small cabbage rolls, and Doug was slicing up a ham and pineapple pizza. In the centre of it all, a cloth-lined basket filled with tiny doughnuts.

Sandra handed Mark his drink. “Well, what do you think of the buffet?”

“Rather fascinating. If I’m not mistaken, the only truly Canadian dish of the lot is the poutine. The others are, let’s see—Ukrainian, Italian, and American I believe,” he said, pointing to each one.

“True, multi-cultural like those of us who live there, but all distinctly Canadian.”

“I’m surprised there’s nothing you’ve borrowed from the British.”

“We would have, if you had better food.” She lifted her eyebrows at him before she turned toward the door to the verandah. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to some of my countrymen and women.”

Mark thought he could feel Ian’s eyes on his back as he followed her outside.

There were more people on the verandah than when he’d arrived, guests arriving via the beach from San Leandro. The crowd was like a jumbled Canadian flag, everyone dressed in red and white. Mark hadn’t thought to ask about dress code and was wearing khaki trousers and a blue and white flowered shirt. He felt a bit like a lone goose in a flock of flamingos.

Sandra introduced him around to everyone she knew, most of whom she’d met in the first hour of the party. Warren and Terri farmed in Saskatchewan and left their grown children in charge of things while they spent the winter in Baja. Barbara and Jennifer, the two women Sandra had been sitting with in Pablo’s the week before, were vacationers from Winnipeg, staying at Mar Azul and scheduled to leave in two days. Mark wasn’t clear whether they were single friends travelling together or a couple. They didn’t give off that couple vibe somehow. Carrie, Mike and their son Leo were enjoying their first winter in Mexico, now that Leo was finished high school and not yet committed to the next phase of his education. They were from somewhere in British Columbia that Mark hadn’t heard of, which could have been almost anywhere since Vancouver was the one city he knew in the province. He’d stupidly asked whether their town was close to Vancouver and Mike had chuckled and replied, “Quite close, yes, just
one
day’s drive.”

Mark had been to Canada twice, the first time as a young boy and only to Ontario when his father was attending a conference in Toronto. They’d taken a side trip to Ottawa the final two days because Dad felt it important to visit the capital of any country you visited. Mark remembered being surprised that the capital city wasn’t Toronto, since it was the largest and most known in the country. It seemed only logical to him, with London the capital of England and Paris the capital of France. But something about Canada had captured his imagination back then, so in his thirties, when one of his ex-wife’s films was being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, he’d jumped at the opportunity to return. Before the trip he did his homework on Canada, learning more of its history and political make-up. More than anything, he hated coming off as some narrow-minded git who knew nothing outside his own borders. He hoped the long-ago education wouldn’t fail him tonight. Perhaps he should have done a bit of brush-up.

It was hard to believe Sandra had known these people just an hour, since she remembered their names, where they were from, and usually a little something else. When he had her alone for a moment he asked, “So how do you accomplish that, remembering so much about people you just met?”

“Practice, and a bit of trickery.”

“Trickery? A nice girl like you? What sort of—”

“Sandra, you have to introduce us!” A tall bleached blonde was dragging a reluctant-looking gentleman toward them. Apparently Mark had been recognized.

“Lorna, this is Mark Jeffery. Mark, Lorna and her husband Kevin,” Sandra said quickly as Lorna pushed past her to shake Mark’s hand.

“I love your movies. I didn’t realize you were Canadian. You have such an excellent British accent,” Lorna gushed.

“Well, you see, I’m actually not—”

Lorna squealed. “Don’t you agree, Kevin? Doesn’t he sound British?” She was still holding Mark’s hand. “You were absolutely fabulous in
Missy’s Fortune
, and of course
Jane Eyre
from years ago. What are you doing in Baja? Are you on vacation or do you live here now? I can imagine it’s a relief to get away from all the hubbub of Hollywood, fans bothering you everywhere you go. Do you find that? Do you find it quieter here in Mexico or are you here working?” She opened her mouth in a gasp. “You are, aren’t you? You’re here making a movie. Kevin, isn’t that exciting?”

Sandra was standing off to Mark’s side barely maintaining her serious expression as he started to open his mouth in answer to Lorna’s questions but never managed to get a word out before she was on to the next one. Poor Kevin hung behind her, smiling and nodding where it seemed appropriate.

“So where is your movie set? Surely not right here in quiet little San Leandro?” She turned to Kevin, her eyes wide. “Maybe we can go to the set, honey. Wouldn’t that be exciting?” She turned back to Mark. “Do you think that could be arranged? Could we visit the set? I just love movies and to watch you work would be
such
an amazing experience. I guarantee you we’d be no trouble. You wouldn’t even know we were—”

“I’ll see what I can arrange. It was lovely to meet you. Shall we get another drink, Sandra?” Mark offered his arm to Sandra and turned for the open door to the house. He could hear Lorna still chattering brightly. “Isn’t his accent remarkable. You’d never guess he wasn’t British.”

Sandra burst out laughing as soon as they were in the kitchen and out of earshot. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell her.”

“And spoil her fun, and apparently yours?”