The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (56 page)

He groaned, his gaze dropping to the battered Swatch draped like Dali’s clock over the top of the monitor, where he was no doubt under the mistaken illusion it would be more visible. “Damn. I’m sorry. I lost track.” He lurched to his feet, nimbly picking his way over the computer cables that snaked like tree roots over the floor. When he pulled her into his arms, she resisted at first, then relented with a sigh. He smelled woolly, like a comfortable old sweater on a foggy day. “Forgive me?” He drew back to give her his endearingly crooked smile, his glasses askew and a tuft of brown hair sticking up over one ear.

“I’m working on it,” she said grudgingly.

“One more minute, okay?” He held up an ink-stained index finger. “I promise I won’t be long.”

“Okay. But this better be good.”

“It is. In fact, it may be the scoop of a lifetime.” He returned to his computer and tapped in a URL. “I’m interviewing Monica Vincent in”—he glanced once more at his Swatch—“exactly one hour.”

“
The
Monica Vincent?” She gaped at him in astonishment.

“The one and only.”

“How on earth did you manage that?” Their resident movie star was famous for turning down interview requests.

He tapped his temple, casting her a mysterious look. “I have my sources.”

A home page scrolled up on the screen, and a photo of Monica appeared. It must have been taken some years back because she was striding down a red carpet wearing a shimmery aqua dress, her famous auburn hair cascading down over her shoulders. She looked ravishing.

“Seriously,” she said.

“All right, it was pure luck. I must have caught her at the right moment.” He punched a key and the printer began spewing out pages. “Bob Heidiger at the
Clarion
is so excited he’s practically wetting his pants. And if one of the wire services picks it up …” He didn’t need to add that it would be in papers all over the country.

Andie peered at the photo on the screen. “It’s weird when you think how she used to be on the cover of every magazine. You couldn’t stand in line at the supermarket without her jumping out at you.”

She recalled the piece in
People,
just after the boating accident that had left Monica paralyzed from the waist down, in which her publicist and friends were quoted as saying how courageously she was carrying on. What they didn’t mention was what a raving bitch she was—all the shopkeepers downtown had their stories. Monica’s mansion on the hill was appropriately named LoreiLinda, after the Lorelei in the
Odyssey
that lured sailors to their death.

“You couldn’t get her to pose for the cover of
Time
magazine these days,” he said.

“I don’t see what she has to hide. I mean, look at Christopher Reeve.”

“Ego, pure and simple,” he said with a shrug. “She’d rather be remembered in all her glory.”

“I guess that means no photos.”

“I’m bringing my camera just in case. It’s only the local paper, after all.” He winked. “Hey, why don’t you come along? I’ll tell her we’re a team.”

“I don’t know,” she said, though it
was
tempting—no one she knew had seen the inside of LoreiLinda. “I should get home.”

Simon logged off. “Why? What’s up?”

Something a lot bigger than Monica Vincent,
she thought, but only shrugged and said, “I have a paper on
Of Human Bondage
that’s due tomorrow, and I haven’t even finished the book.”

“I’ll tell you all about it on the way.” He slung an arm around her shoulders. “Besides, how often do you get a chance to observe a praying mantis in its natural habitat?”

“She couldn’t be
that
bad.”

“Tell that to Herman Tyzzer.” Herman, a bearded ex-marine who fancied himself a film buff, owned their favorite video store, Den of Cyn. “She spent fifteen minutes reaming him out for not having every one of her movies. Even Blockbuster doesn’t carry them all.”

“I waited on her once at Rusk’s,” she recalled. “She returned a pair of panty hose that looked as if it’d been worn. Mr. Kremer told me to take it back anyway.”

“Smart man.”

“Do you think she’d recognize me?”

“I doubt it. From what I’ve heard, she’s more concerned about people recognizing
her.”
He grabbed his bulging backpack from the floor and slung it over one shoulder.

They were halfway down the stairs before she realized she hadn’t exactly told him she was coming. Simon had just assumed it. Oh well. It’d be worth it just for the stories she could tell.

His car, a battered tan VW Squareback with more miles on it than a 747, was one of the few remaining in the lot. She was opening the door to climb in when she spotted a briefcase-toting figure trudging their way. Recognizing him as her math teacher, she quickly ducked into her seat.

Simon grinned. “What’s wrong—you flunk an algebra test?”

Andie ignored the gibe. Okay, so math wasn’t her strongest subject. “Haven’t you heard? Mr. Hillman was spotted in a gay bar on Sunset Strip.”

“Really?” Simon sounded nonplussed. He started the engine, which sputtered, then caught with a grinding roar.

“Did you know he was gay?”

Her boyfriend shrugged, casting another glance at the teacher—everything about Mr. Hillman was beige: his thinning hair, his coat, his briefcase, even his skin—the last person you’d expect to see in any kind of bar. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m just wondering who’d be stupid enough to rat him out. I mean, think about it, why would you be in a gay bar unless you were gay yourself?”

He has a point,
she thought. After a moment, she said, “My uncle’s gay.”

“The one in San Francisco?” They pulled out of the lot and started down the hill.

“Uncle Kevin, yeah.”

“I’d like to meet him sometime.”

“You two would get along.” The last time she’d seen Uncle Kevin was a year ago when he’d flown her and Justin up for a visit. It was the most fun she could remember having since the divorce.

Simon flashed her a grin. “I’d like anyone who cooks.” He was famous for his appetite, though he never seemed to gain an ounce.

She hesitated before asking, “When am I going to meet
your
family?” In the four months they’d been dating she’d never once been out to his place. It was always one excuse or another.

“You know my sister.” Simon spoke guardedly.

“That’s only because she goes to school here.” Besides, Ricki was a sophomore, which meant they hardly ever saw each other.

“My mom’s hardly ever home. And you wouldn’t find my brothers all that interesting, believe me.”

“Like mine is such a prize?”

“Justin? He’s okay.”

Andie remained puzzled. Simon had gone out of his way to be nice to her brother, helping him with his homework and showing him stuff on the computer. It didn’t make sense that he’d be so dismissive of his own. Was he hiding something? Or—an even more worrisome thought occurred to her—keeping her at arm’s length?

The Squareback belched and rattled its way down the hill, making enough noise to drown out a fleet of Hell’s Angels. In the opposite lane a school bus, empty of its passengers, was trundling along like an old horse returning to its stable. The driver, heavyset Mr. Drill, who moonlighted with his wife as a caterer, waved to a group of damp-haired girls from the swim team, trudging along the shoulder. Andie felt older than those girls by at least a hundred years.

Simon seemed to sense her mood. “Hey, are you okay? You seem a little down.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’re not still mad at me, I hope.”

She slumped back in her seat with a sigh. “It’s not you … things have been kind of weird at home.” Even after two days it hadn’t fully sunk in.

“In what way?” He seemed genuinely interested.

She hesitated. It wasn’t that she cared if he knew—hadn’t she told Finch?—just that it was hard talking about something that still seemed so surreal. “Here’s a news flash for you,” she said in a lightly sarcastic voice meant to distance herself from the whole thing, but which twisted in on itself, grabbing her about the throat instead. “I just found out I have a sister.”

Simon cast her a startled glance, then seeing she was serious whistled through his teeth. “Jesus. How the hell did that happen?”

“The usual way. My mom got knocked up.”

“I’m assuming it was before she met your dad.”

“
Way
before.”

“And she waited all this time to tell you? Wow.” For once even Simon was speechless.

“She says it was for our own good. Can you believe it?” Andie bristled anew at the indignity of it.

Simon shrugged. “Normally intelligent people can have an amazing lack of insight when it comes to their offspring.” He ought to know. In last month’s issue of the
Scribe
Simon had run a column on the realities of teen sex that had outraged parents descending on Mr. Blanton’s office like a flock of screeching crows.

“Now we’re supposed to welcome her with open arms—one big happy family.” It seemed a cruel joke. For the past year and a half she’d wished for things to go back to the way they were before the divorce, but this wasn’t how she’d imagined the empty chair at their table being filled. “I mean, it’s not like my mom
lied
exactly, but isn’t it the same thing?”

They were cruising past the elementary school, where the flag was still at half mast for old Mr. Geiger, who’d died the week before last following a long illness. On the lawn out front a yellow ribbon, drooping now, was tied to the concrete base of the cast-iron bell from the original one-room schoolhouse across town.

“I remember when my dad walked out on us,” he said in an odd, tight voice. “I was nine. All I knew was that he went out for a pack of cigarettes and didn’t come back. It was at least six months before my mom got around to telling us he was never coming home.”

So that’s why he never talked about his dad. She felt a new sympathy for Simon; they had more in common than she’d realized. “The funny thing is, I always wanted a sister,” she told him. “I just never thought it would be like this.”

“Who knows? You might like her.”

“That’s not the point.” Andie thought for a moment, frowning. What
was
the point? “I used to think I knew my mom, but now … I’m not sure. It’s not like the guys she sleeps with that she thinks I don’t know about. It’s like … well, like all of a sudden she’s this whole other person.”

It was the same with her dad. She used to think she was the most important person in his life. Hadn’t he called her his Best Girl? He even had a special little wink he’d give her when siding with her behind her mother’s back. She remembered the mornings he used to wake her while it was still dark to take her fishing at the lake; they always stopped at Lundquist’s for coffee and doughnuts on the way home—something he hadn’t even done with Justin. But everything had changed since the divorce. Cindy was his Best Girl now. Andie was lucky if she saw him once a week.

“I probably wouldn’t even recognize my dad if I saw him now,” Simon said.

“She’s flying down on Friday.” In just three days. Andie felt panicky all of a sudden. “Mom’s bringing her home for dinner. How weird will
that
be? I mean, we’ll have everything under the sun to talk about … but I won’t know what to say.”

“She’s probably just as nervous about meeting you, so you’ll have that in common at least. By the way, does
she
have a name?”

“Claire.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a lawyer, I think.”

“That should be good for at least fifteen minutes. After that you’ll just have to wing it.” He reached over to give her hand another squeeze. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.”

“Easy for you to say.” Simon could have conversed quite comfortably with the Dalai Lama.

They fell silent, both lost in their thoughts. They had turned off Agua Caliente and were climbing the steep winding road to LoreiLinda. On either side of them rose sheer sandstone bluffs scrawled with manzanita and sage. Andie remembered her sixth grade teacher telling them that in ancient times this whole valley had once been part of the ocean floor. As Simon’s plucky little car chugged its way upward she imagined them to be sea creatures drifting toward the surface.

They passed Alice and Wes’s house, built in levels that jutted like steel and glass risers from the rocky staircase of the hill. Half a mile or so beyond, on an even steeper bluff, stood the house that one magazine had labeled “Monica’s mausoleum.” Andie could see it glittering in the distance like a temple atop Mount Olympus. Not until they drew closer was it swallowed up by the dense trees that surrounded it like a fortress. Simon drew to a stop before a pair of tall, scrolled wrought iron gates.

He stuck his head out the window and announced crisply into the intercom, “Simon Winthrop. I have a four-thirty with Miss Vincent.” As if it were every day that he dropped in on movie stars.

A buzzer sounded and the gates swung open with a low, ominous squeal. Slowly they made their way up a crushed gravel drive that glittered in the bright afternoon sunlight. A lawn worthy of the greens at Dos Palmas rolled away on either side, bordered in low-growing shrubs and shaded here and there by majestic old trees. She watched a squirrel scamper over the grass like a fugitive on the run. It was the first sign of life she’d seen.

They parked under the trees at the edge of the turnabout and got out. The house loomed before them, imposing and slightly surreal with its stone lions flanking the curving steps and soaring Greek columns. There was a fanlight over the front door like the one at her grandmother’s, only more elaborate, its frosted glass panels etched with graceful designs of fruit and flowers. On each side of the door was a large bronze urn.

Simon reached for her hand. “Relax. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

His knock was answered by a plump, mousy-haired woman in a plain white blouse and denim skirt whom Andie recognized from church as Anna Vincenzi—Monica’s sister. Anna looked at her in confusion, then gathered her wits and said graciously, “Andie! What a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.” She turned to Simon, extending her hand. “Hi. We spoke over the phone. I’m Miss Vincenzi’s assistant, Anna.”