Secret Sister (11 page)

“Okay.” Bradley’s bravado was how he dealt with pain, I surmised. Even after several years, his love for his lost lover was clear. “Let’s get back to Michael, then. It sounds like I’m the life of the party. Is that why Michael stays with me?”

“You want my opinion?”

“Yes.”

“Michael loves to show you off. He stays with you because you make him look good to the other wolves in the pack.”

I had formed the same opinion, but hearing it made me uncomfortable. After all, I had joined in the fun and games wholeheartedly last night. Did this mean I was basically shallow, too? I had sex with him willingly but not because of love. I did him and welcomed him doing me solely because Michael Cimino was handsome and available and, and . . . for some other reason I couldn’t quite bring into focus. The words, “because I shouldn’t,” shot through my brain.

“I wonder what I thought was in it for me. With Michael. What do I get out of it?”

“Grief, mostly. Although rumor has it he’s very good in the sack.”

I clenched my right hand around my napkin. “But sex isn’t everything, right?”

“Right. It’s the only thing.”

We laughed, but Bradley gave me a quick, inquiring look. I was sure he’d guessed what went on last night. My face grew hot and I took another drink.

“I don’t know why you stayed with Michael,” Bradley added. “The heart’s a mysterious organ, Rox. Who knows why anyone loves anyone? There are very few well-matched couples in the world. I think it’s dumb luck when two people who turn out to be good matches end up together.”

Something buzzed in my brain. “It’s fate, I think.”

“Fate? Now you sound like Cathy. Or Nick. She finally convinced him there was such a thing as soul mates in this mean old world.” He looked out the window, as if lost in a memory too tender to share.

I cleared my throat. “So, does Michael cheat on me?”

“Yes. Excessively.”

“And I always found out?”

Bradley glanced at his hands. “Usually.”

“But I forgave him and took him back every time.”

“Yes.”

“That’s demeaning.”

“Yeah. Michael’s good at doing that.”

“What an asshole.” When the words came out, I heard an echo in my head. I’d said this before.

“Well, we all make allowances for people we’re in a relationship with.” Bradley sighed. “His dad was married like five or six times. I think Michael was mistreated by a couple of the stepmothers. He’s got his reasons.”

“Yeah, but what was mine for letting myself be treated like that?”

For the first time, Bradley looked as if he didn’t know what to say.

“Let me change the subject.” I braced myself. “Tell me about Cathy. What was she like?”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

His face softened. “She’s wonderful. Cathy is, was, one of those people folks immediately take to. She was kind. Solid. Upbeat. Not in a Pollyanna, ‘oh how wonderful life is’ kind of way. Positive about things in general.”  He finished his wine, his eyes shining. “She told me when my mother was dying that you must always have
faith
. I got angry with her, and told her that was pretty naïve to run to religion when there was no hope for a cure, as in my mother’s case. Cathy said I was missing the point.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I didn’t, either. But then she said you had to have faith
in life.
That life always holds the possibility for a miracle. So we must never give up hope.”

“She sounds too good to be true.” There was an edge to my voice. Was I jealous of a dead woman? I put my hand to my neck and felt a guilty heat.

“Cathy had the biggest capacity for love of anyone I’ve ever known, Roxanne. And she was naturally happy. That’s the best way I can explain her. She wasn’t a saint, not by a long shot. She could be bossy. Very bossy. And arrogant if she thought you were uninformed or ignorant about something you were opining on. And she is, was, very extravagant. Loved parties. And presents. But overall, she was fabulous. Which was amazing, really, considering her awful upbringing.”

“Betty said her mother and father both died young?”

“Yeah. Her dad, who she didn’t remember much at all, when she was a three or four. And her mother when she was about ten. Her stepfather was a drunk, and I think even abused her. It was rough, but Cathy didn’t let any of those experiences ruin her.”

“What do you mean, he abused her?” I clenched my fingers so tight my nails cut into my palms.

“He didn’t molest her. And he provided a home for her when her mom died. But when he drank, he broke things. Once, he broke everything in the house. A couple of times he hit her. He was a Jehovah’s Witness or something. Kept trying to kick the alcohol thing but never could. He didn’t believe in the holidays. But I think he was okay some of the time. She made allowances for him because he was the only family she had. A couple of times during high school, she had the opportunity to leave, but she didn’t. I guess she felt responsible for him, or something.”

“She sounds wonderful.” My voice was almost a whisper.

“She was. Very maternal, too, even though she had no children yet. She’d keep after you, push you, when she thought you needed to do something to make your life or yourself better. But when she loved someone, she loved unconditionally. Way before it was fashionable. That was her gift to all of us.” Bradley’s voice cracked.

I killed this woman
. My face felt numb.

The waiter placed salads in front of us. Bradley drained his glass. “Okay, let’s eat. You’ll love the dressing. Raspberry vinaigrette.”

“Great.” I looked past him, beyond the windows to outside, my eyes resting on Mt. Wilson.

“Are you up for a little more, Roxanne?” Bradley picked up the wine bottle. “Can you handle it?”

“Yes.” I was probably legally drunk, but not drunk enough. I took another gulp. “When did Cathy meet Nick?”

“In high school. We were all at a party, Fourth of July, I think. A bunch of us, you and me and Cathy. Nick showed up with his friends, football players we’d invited because they always brought beer. He was cute and quiet, nerdy even, but with broad shoulders and the most delicious dimples. Cathy fell for him on the spot. I think you actually had your eye on him first, but Cathy connected with him, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

I drew a sharp breath, remembering the image of Nick Chance in bed that had flickered in my brain. “Roxanne had a crush on Nick?”

“Yes, I think ‘Roxanne’ did. And to tell you the truth, I think Bradley did, too.”

We laughed like drunken friends do, loudly and conspiratorially, and Bradley gestured to the waiter for another bottle.

“Wow,” I said. “So we all loved Nick, but Cathy got him.”

“Well, that may be going a little far. Let’s just say we all appreciated the boy’s charms. But hey, that was what, fifteen, eighteen years ago?” Bradley shrugged. “If you were interested in him, it was probably because he didn’t pay attention to you. Which was unusual. When new guys came into a room, they
always
paid attention to you. But Nick only had eyes for Cathy from the get-go.”

I thought of the pictures in the album Betty had shown me. The look of devotion in his eyes. “Sounds like I’m all about me. Was I envious of their relationship?”

“We all were, a little. But that was the great thing about Cathy. You always knew where you stood with her. She had the ability to make everyone around her feel secure. And she was never petty.”

“Am I petty?” I made a face. “Sorry. I sound self-obsessed asking all these ‘me, me, me’ questions.”

“Hey, if it helps you remember, ask away. As to you being petty? Sometimes. But never with Cathy that I saw.” He gave me a smile. “Look, don’t get stressed by what I said earlier. Your attraction to Nick never came between you and her. I’m not sure she ever knew about it, and if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

Don’t be so sure, Bradley
.

Suddenly I was very nervous. Of what, I couldn’t exactly say, but I was twitchy and anxious, like I needed to get up and run ten miles and exhaust myself.

As the waiter appeared with rolls, I stood. “I need to go to the powder room.”

Truth be told, I had a dull ache in my head, and my vision was a little blurry. I hurried across the dining area and took a right at the dark hallway. The ladies’ room was on the right, exactly where I expected it.

I pushed the door and entered the small room. On the wall directly opposite was a framed print. I gasped when I realized what it was. Monet’s
The Bridge at Bougival,
the painting I had thought of so many times since I left the hospital. It hung in all its splendor on the bathroom wall.

I suddenly recalled the first time I had seen the original painting: at the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art, during summer vacation. My mother took me with her friend, who was a member of the board, to see the magnificent Impressionist Paintings show called, “A Day in the Country.” At eight years old, I had been very proud to be taken along to such a grown-up affair.

We had box suppers with exotic cheeses and tiny pastries and fruit. We ate outside in the leafy courtyard behind the museum, and spent hours inside looking at the Van Goghs, Pissaros, eighteen different versions of Monet’s Haystacks. And then we came into the room with
The Bridge at Bougival
.

I had stood transfixed, my mother silent by my side. “Do you like it?” she asked.

I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The play of light and dark on the picture was magical. I could not believe a person could create with paint and pigment the real glow of sunshine and the movement of water you swore would be wet if you touched the canvas. I yearned to step into the landscape, my mother beside me, and have us both disappear from our current life and become part of the scene before us.

With my child’s naiveté, I thought she wouldn’t be sick if we lived in the painting. “What’s down there?” I asked her, pointing to the sun-drenched pathway curving along the hillside.

My mother smiled. “We can’t know, baby. It’s life. The unknown.”

All these years later I was still moved by the magic of the scene, even in this poor quality print.

My knees went wobbly and I collapsed onto the wooden chair by the door. My pulse pounded in my ears as
I remembered
that my mother had died three months after our trip to the exhibition.

My mother?

I clutched my hands to my head and moaned. Across from me, the restroom mirror beamed back the image of a dark-haired woman who appeared in the grip of madness. I touched the dangling orb of turquoise in my left ear and in a rising flood of new memory saw a cloudless blue sky above a desert landscape.

A tall, smiling man with wide shoulders stood in front of me, holding a tiny jewel box. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” he said, flashing a dimple.

It was Nick Chance.

More sparklers burst in my brain as the room began to spin. “Nick,” I said aloud. “Nick.”

Inside my head I heard the squeal of car brakes and the crash of glass breaking. My body crumpled and I fell from the chair to the cold tile floor of the bathroom as a scene of carnage and destruction replayed inside my mind.

I was screaming and hurt and bleeding. I was lying on asphalt.

I was dying.

Then, floating. A dark-haired woman hovered nearby. “It’s all right, Cathy,” she whispered. “Come with me.”

“I’m not going!” I screamed.

With those words echoing inside my skull, the vision faded. I struggled to stand but could not, so I took some deep breaths and sat where I was.

A woman in a blue dress came in and stared at me with alarm. “Are you okay? Shall I go get some help?”

“No, I’m all right,” I said. “Too much wine.”

She washed her hands quickly and then left me alone. I stared again at the painting. I had worn a white eyelet dress to the museum, a gift from my mother.

She wore red sandals, and her legs were long and tan. I could see her face. Her smile. I stretched my hand out into space, as if I could touch her.

She reached back to me, patting my blonde hair, stroking my freckled face. “You have the prettiest blue eyes, honey,” she said. “Just like your grandma’s.”

And at that moment I knew.

I knew who I was.

My eyes stared down incredulously at the body I inhabited. Terror spread from my gut and clawed up my neck into my skull. I was either insane or a freak of nature, the inexplicable product of the tragedy that occurred when Roxanne and Cathy were in a car accident and one of them died.

Shaking badly, I limped to the sink and splashed water on my numb face and stared at the brown eyes in the mirror. A torrent of images rushed through my brain. Dozens, hundreds of memories flooded from every cell in a riot of color and sound and confusion. People’s voices, pain and happiness, the touches of loved ones; movies I’d seen, kisses I’d given and received, the taste of dinners eaten years ago. The glances and words of those who had hurt me and loved me blotted out my consciousness.

I blinked and the river of history slowed. I stood straighter and smoothed back the dark hair. Despite what I was seeing on the outside, I knew the truth.

It was
me
in the mirror, Cathy Chance, alive inside Roxanne’s body.

Tears welled up, but as shocked and frightened as I was, I also felt a surge of gratitude and giddiness. I knew who I was, who I had been, and that I was still here on earth with those I loved.

It was then the enormity of what I had to do crashed over me like a million tons of sand.

Who was going to believe it? Who
could
believe it?

I touched my earring, the turquoise stone cool in my trembling fingers. “Nick,” I said aloud. “Nick.”

I hurried to the exit. Nick would believe me. It would take some doing, but I would make him believe the truth.

And if I can’t?

If I couldn’t, I’d be better off dead.