The Devil's Interval (15 page)

Impulsively, I pulled her close for a hug. “You can make exactly the life you want, honey,” I said. “It's just that you have to be willing to reinvent it every single day.”

And then she was off, climbing into the world's oldest Honda and heading down the hill and back to the city.

Y
ou're something else, Gifford,” the guard had said when he took Travis's lunch tray away. “Even in this dump, you get attention from the ladies.” Travis had heard the guards commenting on the visit from Isabella and Maggie. He found what they said distasteful, disrespectful, but you've got to go along to get along in this miserable place. “Yeah,” he retorted, “but it's all talk and no action.” He amused himself by imagining Maggie and Isabella and their lives on the outside. He thought Isabella was single, somehow. She wouldn't tell him, but he just got that vibe from her. And Maggie, very married. But then, what did that really mean? He thought about a photo he'd seen once of his mother and father on their wedding day. None of that white gown charade for Ivory. She was in a hippie-dippie flowered miniskirt, standing in front of the Amherst City Hall, and his dad had his arm around her. Dad, thought Travis. Damn sentimental name for somebody who wasn't much more than a sperm donor. At least they got married. Maybe if Grace's parents had been married…he censored himself. Thinking about Grace's childhood made him feel sick. But she had entrusted him with her stories, so he was honor-bound—not to speak, but to remember. And what did he know about raising kids or marriage anyway? At least there was no chance Ivory would ever marry that bullshit artist Gus, and give him an even bigger loser as a stepfather. His mom and Gus. What a crime
.

O
kay,” said Calvin. “This is my idea of heaven. One guy with a really long lens and three hot babes, out on the town. Hoyt, nice of you to come along to pick up the check. I know it's just part of the Southern gentlemen reparations for all that oppressive slavery stuff your folks perpetrated on my folks.”

Calvin, Andrea, Hoyt, Linda, and I were perched on barstools at the champagne bar at Neiman-Marcus. As part of the
Small Town
story on Death of a Socialite, Calvin and Linda were planning a shoot of Grace's haunts around the city.

“You are a wonder, Mr. Bright,” said Hoyt. “You manage to insult these lovely ladies and me in the same breath.”

“You're insulted to be called a fine Southern gentleman?” asked Calvin, while he signaled the bartender for another round.

“As the great-great-grandson of a sharecropper, indeed I am,” countered Hoyt.

Linda and Andrea were ignoring the exchange, flipping through pages of notes and oversize computer printouts of a rough layout.

“Okay,” said Linda. “Let's go over the shot list and see what we've got—and what we're missing.”

She distributed a summary of photo locations to all of us and shuffled a set of digital printouts like a deck of cards. “I've got digital scouting shots of all potential locations from one of the photo interns, so we can see what's worth pursuing and how Mr.
Long Lens here is going to shoot these places.”

She placed two photos on the bar, slightly overlapping. The first, a small, wood-frame house with a tidy front garden; the second, a Moorish-styled, generously proportioned house with arched windows facing the street and a courtyard fountain in the front.

“Grace's grandparents' house in Oakland,” said Linda. “The place she was raised. And, the house where she and Frederick lived in St. Francis Woods.”

“Upward mobility. Just one short trip across the bay and marrying a few million bucks got her there,” I said.

Linda quickly shuffled a handful of other photos onto the bar, capturing Grace's piece of social San Francisco: first, a head-on shot of the white-tented entrance to the Black & White Ball, the City's signature charity event; the second, the front door to the Crimson Club.

“The older ladies-who-lunch are trying to give a more contemporary feel to the big social events,” said Andrea. “Grace was well-liked, fearless about fundraising, and involved lots of Frederick's venture capital colleagues and their wives in bringing some younger energy to the event, and in contrast…” she pointed to the Crimson Club front door.

“And we all know about the Crimson,” said Linda. “Though my guess is some of us here at the bar know more than others.”

“Hoyt, you devil,” said Calvin.

Hoyt looked uncomfortable. “The appeal of those places eludes me, I'm afraid.”

“I know what you mean,” said Calvin. “Gorgeous women, no inhibitions, really good call brands at the bar, no-tell policies, really, what's to like?”

Linda glanced at her watch, “Gang, I've got to get home to my boring little underage darlings soon and get dinner on the table.”

“Oh, man,” said Calvin. “I can just picture an art-directed dinner at your house. One perfect piece of sushi on a white plate.”

“Put a plug in it,” said Linda. “It's mac-and-cheese on
Fiestaware. If I'm lucky, I'll sneak a couple of carrots or tangerines by them, too. They'll eat anything orange.”

She quickly spread four more shots in front of us. “Ocean View Day Spa, the place that kept Grace beautiful; San Francisco Botanical Gardens, where she worked as a volunteer; St. Francis Yacht Club, where she and Frederick kept their sailboat; and, here's the wild card,” she finished, tapping a finger on a nondescript row house, with a tricycle and two collapsed strollers on the front porch. “A Mom's Place. It's like a halfway house for single mothers.”

“The plot thickens,” said Calvin. “Maybe Grace had some little bastard somewhere along the way and left it in a basket on the front door of the joint.”

“It's not an orphanage,” said Andrea. “And according to Grace's medical records, she'd never been pregnant. Grace worked at A Mom's Place as a volunteer. It's a residential program for single moms in recovery and their kids. Anywhere from four to six moms and their children live there at any one time. Grace designed and put in a vegetable garden in the backyard. They've kept it going, and according to the intern who scouted, it's quite wonderful. The director says that one of the moms who Grace got really involved in the garden still comes over to tend it, even though she's got a job, husband, another child, the whole shebang. And, the director also says the garden is so productive, it makes a significant contribution to their weekly food budget.”

“It might be interesting to talk with the mom who's still involved,” I said.

Andrea gave me an exasperated look. “Gee, Maggie, that never would have occurred to me.”

“Sorry,” I said, meekly.

Linda moved the photos around on the bar, rearranging them into groups of two and three, “I've got to run,” she said. “I'm giving Calvin a final shot list next week, so you guys need to think about anything else we want to add. And, I'm assuming Andrea will go with Calvin on most of the shoots, but Maggie, since you're taking such an interest in this piece, maybe you'd like to tag along on a
couple of them.”

“I don't want to intrude,” I began, until everyone but Hoyt burst into laughter.

Hoyt held up his hand. “Ladies and gentleman, a schedule check, if y'all don't mind. I've got this story on the docket for the July issue. That means lockdown in late May—art and copy. Does that work?”

Calvin said, “Works for me.” Everyone else nodded around the table.

“We're short on evergreens, Andrea,” Hoyt pointed out. Evergreens are magazine safety nets, backup stories that aren't time-sensitive that can be dropped in at the last minute in case a story blows up, a writer flakes on deadline, or worst of all, the magazine's lawyers start to back-pedal.

“Shouldn't be a problem, Hoyt. Unless…” she hesitated.

“Unless?”

“Unless the unassigned writer who's riding shotgun on this piece throws me a curve.” All eyes on me.

I shook my head. “It's your story, Andrea,” I said. “That's the only way this works.”

Linda gathered the layouts and started packing up her briefcase. “Calvin, you cool on the look of these shots? I really want that moody, black-and-white noir feel to the whole thing.”

“Got it,” he said. “You'll think Lana Turner has come back to life in these shots.”

A
week later, Andrea and I were standing in the family room of A Mom's Place. At least it looked like a family room. Two beat-up couches, a wall of built-in shelves overflowing with games, puzzles, and open bins of Legos. A kid-scale table and colorful chairs were tucked in the corner. A girl who looked no more than fifteen had answered the door, with a baby in a shoulder-tied sling on her hip and a toddler clinging to her jeans. We'd asked for Purity Meadows, the director, and the child-mom and her entourage disappeared to get her.

Now Purity stood before us, five-feet-nothing, probably 105 pounds dripping wet, but ten of those pounds had to be breasts. First Krissy, now Purity. Lawyers, do-gooders, apparently everyone had boobs but me. Purity's were encased in a snug T-shirt that read, “Bountiful Baskets.” The type was picked out in rhinestones. It was hard not to stare, or giggle. But with superhuman effort, I managed to keep my eyes firmly placed north of Purity's chest. Watching Andrea, decked out in her usual New England prep gear—black cashmere twinset, gray linen trousers—shake hands with Purity was like observing visitors from different planets, maybe even different solar systems, have a close encounter.

“Welcome to A Mom's Place,” said Purity formally, shaking hands with me.

“I apologize for being a few minutes later than we said we'd be,” I said.

“No need for apologies,” said Purity. “Everything happens in Jesus's own time.” An unbidden image of the classical image of Jesus—shoulder-length gold curls, blue eyes, white robes, updated with a digital watch—floated into my brain.

“Your photographer friend is already here,” said Purity, gesturing in back of her. “He's outside taking pictures of the backyard garden. It's still pretty early for the vegetables to be doing much, but we've got snow peas and lettuces up.” She shook her head, “Calvin, that's his name? He said something funny.”

“Did he?” Andrea and I asked together, exchanging a glance. The thought of Calvin's reaction to all that bust packed into the rhinestone-labeled T-shirt sent off warning bells for both of us.

“He's always making jokes,” I said hastily. “I hope he didn't offend you.”

Tiny lines appeared between her eyebrows. “Offend me? He wasn't joking; he just told me he was taking black-and-white pictures. Isn't that an odd way to photograph a garden? Nothing much is going to show up.”

“Oh, our art director has a photojournalistic vision for this story,” I explained. It didn't seem like the right time to go into a lot of detail about noir films and an homage to Lana Turner. Although, as a fellow “sweater girl,” they might have seen eye to eye, or at least nipple to nipple.

“Well, we're happy for the publicity,” said Purity. “The more people know about what we do here, the better. And I'm so pleased to do something that will honor Grace Plummer. We called her Amazing Gracie; she did so much for our girls.”

I remembered the last time I'd heard that sobriquet applied to Grace: Travis had told me that the people at the Crimson Club had called Grace Plummer by that same name.

“I've made fresh coffee,” said Purity. “Why don't we sit down and talk in the kitchen? Unless you need to supervise what your photographer is doing?”

“You two get started,” I suggested. “I'll just go say hello to Calvin out in the backyard, and catch up with you in a few minutes.”

I slid open the glass door from the family room, and descended two stone steps into the backyard. It was an ordinary, Mission District, pocket-size backyard, but every available inch was under cultivation. Four diamond-shaped raised beds occupied the flattest part of the yard, divided by neatly raked gravel paths. Calvin was kneeling in front of one raised bed holding a light meter near a row of staked snow peas. Even from a distance, I could see the slender peapods with their curly hats, dangling off the stalks. The outside borders of the yard were edged with low rock-wall borders, planted with purple, pink, and white sage. Low lavenders and white verbenas spilled artfully over the rocks. A sturdy picnic table with benches, and a scattering of brightly painted Adirondack chairs were tucked into the few empty corners. The effect was an artful combination of French
potager
and unpretentious mountain vacation home.

“Calvin,” I called. “How's it looking?”

He unfolded himself, brushed gravel off his knees. “Good. A little wholesome, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's a vegetable garden, Mags. Hard to make that look very noir.”

“Oh, you'll manage,” I said.

“Do I get to put Ms. Overflowing Baskets in one of the shots?” he asked.