The Confidence Woman (5 page)

She came up suddenly on the flashing lights of the car ahead of her and pressed down hard on her brakes, hoping the semi wasn't still on her tail. The car's lights became a beacon that guided her through the storm. She stayed a respectful distance, not too close to stop in time, not far enough away to lose sight of the lights. The car was her guide, but if it drove off the road into a ditch she would too. Sometimes dust gusted between the cars and she lost sight of it, but then the lights blinked on again.

Slowly the dust began to lift. She was able to ascertain the color of the car—yellow. There was a last gust of wind and they had driven through the storm. The driver stepped on the gas and sped ahead. Claire looked in her rearview mirror and saw the semi breathing down her neck. She was glad she hadn't known how close it was as they passed through the storm. The driver swung into the fast lane, flashed his lights, honked his horn and waved as he passed, letting her know that she had been the beacon for him.

Chapter
Five

T
HE FUNERAL WAS HELD IN THE
E
PISCOPAL CHURCH
Evan's family had stopped attending years before. It was, in fact, the church in which Claire and Evan got married, a stone building with stainedglass windows that made no concessions to its desert location. To Claire it appeared to have been transported intact from the Midwest, as had many of its parishioners. The first time she saw this church, she had an image of it sprouting wings and flying to Tucson from a suburb on Chicago's North Shore. Compulsive as she was about being on time, she somehow managed to arrive at the church ten minutes late. She had spent the night with her friend Madelyn and they had lingered over coffee. Some people might consider showing up late a lapse in character, but for Claire it was a small victory, late enough to allow her to take a seat in the rear of the church behind everyone else. There were more people than she would have expected at the funeral of an eighty-five-year-old woman, but Nana had remained active in the community and lived at home until the end. She had been married to Paul, Claire's former father-in-law, for sixty years, and Claire knew he would not be taking this well.

While the minister spoke to the accompaniment of organ music and sobs, Claire stared at the flower arrangements on the altar, wondering which one had come from her and the children, thinking that Nana had lived a life full of family and volunteerism. The service was mercifully short. The mourners stood up. The family began walking down the aisle. Evan came first with his father hanging on his arm. Paul had aged since Claire last saw him. His posture was stooped and he had a shuffling walk. Evan's hair fell across his forehead in little-boy bangs. His face was swollen and his eyes were red. She couldn't remember ever seeing him cry during all the years she'd been married to him. Melissa followed Evan and Paul with every blond hair in place and wearing a black dress that looked expensive. She had put on weight, about ten pounds in Claire's judgment. Not enough to make her look frumpy, but enough to send the signal that she was no longer in the market. Was that a sign of contentment, Claire wondered, or unhappiness? Weight gain could be either. It was hard to judge at a funeral where one was expected to be unhappy.

She followed the rest of the mourners out of the church and waited on line to offer condolences. She came to Paul first. Claire had never felt close to him; he was a man who stayed in the background and let his wife perform all the social functions. Yet he seemed pleased to see her.

“Claire,” he said, taking her hand. “It's so good of you to come. Nana was fond of you, and the children were always her pride and joy.”

“She
was a wonderful grandmother to them,” Claire replied.

Up close she could see that Evan had also aged. He still looked like a preppy, but his hair seemed thinner and grayer, and he had put on a few pounds, too, leading Claire to wonder if Melissa liked to cook. While Evan gave Claire a stiff hug, she glanced over his shoulder and saw his new wife standing farther down the sidewalk talking to people her own age.

“Thanks for coming,” Evan said. “I wish the children were here.”

“I'm sorry, Evan,” Claire said, summoning as much warmth as she could. “I know how much your mother meant to you.”

“We're inviting friends and family back to Dad and Mother's house after. Could you come?”

“I'll try,” Claire said.

“I hear you're doing well at the center,” Evan said.

“I like New Mexico,” she replied. “And you? How are things at the U of A?”

“All right. I…” The expression in his eyes was skirting dangerously close to an abyss of regret. If he had any regrets, Claire didn't want to hear them. There were people in line behind her. It was time to move on.

“I hope we'll see you later,” Evan said.

Claire made a wide circle around Melissa and her friends as she walked to her truck. It was the only truck among the SUVs and sedans in the church parking lot, which seemed symbolic of the fact that she had started a new life in a rougher place. She got into the cab considering what to do next. She wasn't sure whether it was an ex-wife's duty to go back to the house or not. It might make the new wife uncomfortable. It would certainly make the old wife uncomfortable.

Instead of driving toward the house in the foothills where she had spent many a dull holiday eating overcooked turkey and mashed potatoes, she drove to the U of A and parked in front of the sorority house. It also looked like a transplant from another place, a place with tradition and deciduous trees, a place with cats and dogs, a place that wasn't surrounded by mountains and desert, coyotes and rattlesnakes. The sorority was housed in a three-story brick building with white shutters.

It embarrassed Claire now that she had ever been a member of a sorority. She was reluctant to enter the building, but she forced herself. There had been some changes over the years. The insipid blue carpeting had been replaced (thank God) by polished floors and scatter rugs. The upholstered furniture was in the overstuffed, subdued-color mode popular now. Still the overall effect was as bland and soothing as it had been when she lived there. The polished furniture and pastel upholstery created a false sense of security. At this point in life Claire thought it was better to recognize that the world was a dangerous place and to deal with that reality. Although she could hear music playing upstairs, no one was in sight. Claire had no desire to encounter anybody; she considered this a solo expedition. There was a
box
in the entryway with a sign on it that read “Donate your old clothes to Goodwill.”

It was a tradition that had endured over the years and evoked in Claire the memory of a nasty scene she had witnessed over clothes in that box when she lived in this house. It wouldn't be the same box after all this time but another one dedicated ironically to Goodwill. She remembered Elizabeth Best coming across a sorority sister named Miranda Kohl wearing her jacket. It was an unusually cold and blustery day and they were on the street when the incident happened. Elizabeth had a mean temper. She grabbed Miranda by the arm and demanded that she take off the jacket. In the style of the sixties, Miranda liked to wear outfits she bought at thrift stores. She had a mane of copper-colored curls and a flawless complexion and looked good in fringe and long denim skirts as well as in an expensive suede jacket. Miranda claimed in her rather spacey way that she found the jacket in the Goodwill box and she thought that whoever it belonged to didn't want it anymore. She shouldn't have taken clothes from that box, but Miranda didn't have much money and the sisters tended to look the other way if she showed up in their discarded clothes.

Elizabeth insisted she hadn't discarded the jacket, that it had been stolen from her closet. She claimed she had reported the theft to Mrs. Rutherford, the housemother. Mrs. R heard the commotion and came outside. Followed by several sisters, she went upstairs to Miranda's room and began yanking clothes off hangers in the back of her closet, clothes that had all been stolen from the girls in the sorority.

“I didn't put those clothes there,” Miranda cried.

To Claire's inexperienced eye she appeared stunned and shocked, but Miranda was also an actress. She was a scholarship student who came from a different background than the other sisters and they were not inclined to believe her. Mrs. R said she wouldn't press charges on the condition that Miranda left the sorority house. Miranda not only left the house, she dropped out of school and pursued an acting career. Claire saw her occasionally in television commercials and in bit parts on TV series. Sometimes she appeared young and glamorous in her commercials, but she also did one for Lemon Pledge in which she appeared as a grandmother. Claire supposed Miranda was paid very well, but she hated to see the Lemon Pledge commercials because the radiant young Miranda she remembered had been made up to look eighty years old.

Her memory of the angry scene involving Miranda and the clothes came back vividly, although she couldn't be sure that it was entirely accurate at this point. There was one point, however, that she was absolutely sure about, which was that Miranda's roommate at the time had been Evelyn Martin. She remembered Evelyn watching with a blank expression while Mrs. R pulled the clothes from the closet. The thought that Evelyn could have framed Miranda back then made Claire dizzy and she headed outside for some fresh air.

As she reached for the front door, it was opened from the outside by two young women.

“Can
we help you?” one of them asked.

“I don't think so,” Claire replied.

“Are you someone's mother?” asked the other.

“Yes,” answered Claire. “But my daughter doesn't live here.”

******

Claire followed her road map to Elizabeth Best's house. She had recently moved back to the Tucson area to be with the new man in her life, a woodworker, and she lived on the outskirts of the city in an area of scrubby desert. When Claire had lived in Tucson, Elizabeth lived in the former mining town of Bisbee, embracing her idea of an alternative lifestyle. As Claire recalled, her significant other at that point was an artist. She saw Elizabeth from time to time during those years. Elizabeth had never married, but as far as Claire knew, she had never been without a man or children. Elizabeth's lifestyle, supported by a sizable trust fund, made room for creative and impoverished men. Many women tried to hitch their stars to men who had power. Elizabeth's money gave her the power and she was capable of abusing it in all the ways that men did.

In the semirural area where she now lived the numbers of the houses weren't clearly marked, so Claire studied the houses themselves trying to guess which one belonged to Elizabeth. She didn't expect it to be ostentatious, but she did expect it to be unique. When she saw a rambling old adobe, she pulled into the driveway. She knew she'd come to the right place when her arrival stirred up a storm of activity. The sleepy, dusty yard turned into a swirl of dust, a cacophony of dogs and children. One of the dogs, a yappy little mutt, nipped at her heels as she stepped out of her truck. A towheaded boy, who appeared to be around eight years old, yelled,
“Cállate, perrito,”
reminding Claire that one of Elizabeth's accomplishments was a fluency in Spanish.

Elizabeth came to the door wearing jeans and a T-shirt and balancing a dark-haired baby on her hip. Could the baby be hers? Claire wondered. It was possible, if not probable. She would be in her fifties now, although she didn't look it. Elizabeth still had the kind of full-breasted, long-legged body men loved. She was tall and had always had excellent posture. The legs in the faded jeans went on forever. She had allowed some gray to show in her hair, but mostly it was ash blond and she wore it pinned up on top of her head with stray tendrils wrapping around her neck. Elizabeth had been dealt a royal flush at birth that included looks
and
money. To her credit, she had managed to hold on to both. Claire liked to believe that eventually character won out, but she knew that all Elizabeth had to do to win the games she played was to flash her high cards. She was quite capable of doing so if it was to her advantage.

“Claire Reynier?” she called. “Is that you?”

“Hello, Elizabeth,” Claire replied.

“Come
on in.”

Claire tried to get across the yard, but the dog nipping at her heels made it difficult

“Toby, hold on to Michoacan,” Elizabeth yelled.

The boy grabbed the dog and it yapped in protest while Claire made her way to the door.

“Is that
your
baby?” she asked.

“Good God, no. She belongs to Allison, the daughter of my significant other, Jess. We named her Artemis. She's beautiful, don't you think?”

Claire had to admit that she was.

“Toby was my last child.”

“By Jess?”

“No, Alan is his father. You met Alan in Bisbee. Do you remember?”

“I'm not sure.” It was hard to keep up with the men in Elizabeth's life. “How old is Toby? Eight?”

“Exactly. Come in,” she said. “Let's get out of the heat.”

It was still spring but already the temperature was heading for triple digits. The interior of the house was cool and dark, decorated in Mexican colors with walls painted deep red or brilliant yellow. Paper cutouts and piñatas were suspended from the ceiling. They entered the kitchen, where a teenage girl was chopping vegetables on the counter. She was lovely, too, but in a different way than Elizabeth. She was small and delicate with dark curly hair and pale-as-moonlight skin. Claire wondered where she fit into the menage but Elizabeth didn't bother with introductions.

“What are you doing, Allison?” she snapped.

“Making gazpacho,” the girl replied without looking up from the peppers she was chopping into tiny pieces.