Venom and the River (11 page)

She sat in the big brown chair and studied the Red Lady. Marti was right: the nipples were astounding. “I’ve always loved Matisse,” she said into a mug of tea she’d brewed as soon as she’d returned from the meeting.

What was the committee planning now? Three hundred women were soon arriving in town to celebrate a long-dead writer, and she was living in the bull’s eye of their obsession. Perhaps she shouldn’t have left the meeting so abruptly. Perhaps she should have read through the agenda she’d left on the table. Had one of the items been “Group assault on the cottage”?

Three hundred and one. Three hundred Little Girls and Roberta Garibaldi. It had been, what? Ten, twelve years?

“Call me Robbie!” the woman had said the moment they’d met. Of course, they’d both been naked in a hot tub at a plush resort in West Virginia, crossing paths one night as guest speakers at a symposium on Women and the News. Why not be friendly?

Twelve years, that was it. Just before Roberta—Robbie!—had retired from the
Courant
and started writing fiction. Just before Leigh had fudged her first detail in a story.

Leigh had never read one of Roberta Garibaldi’s books. By the time the first one came out, she’d been banished from newspaper work and had no particular desire to read the highly praised novel another ex-journalist had written.

Her temple throbbed and she pressed the warm tea mug against it. What had she gotten into with this photo shoot the next day? Would Peach really keep her promise and make it a low-key event? She snorted. Fat chance. She’d bet her meager monthly income that nothing that woman ever did was low key, certainly not if it concerned this convention.

The goddam convention. Maybe she could just disappear. Find an excuse to go home and let Marti stay with Roberta. Terry would wonder why she took off, but it wouldn’t take much of a story to appease him. Geneva might wonder, though. She’d have to know there were guests in the house and she might wonder about that and why Leigh was leaving them alone. If she told her…

“Oh, hell,” she sighed. “I’m so tired of hiding behind stories.”

The Red Lady’s eyes seemed to flicker.

Had this chair really belonged to the little Ida May? Had she truly sat here and thought up her stories? Sat here, staring at the painting as she imagined other lives and adventures?

The Red Lady’s frown seemed to deepen.

Leigh stroked the arm of the big brown chair. No. This belonged to the mother. She was the one who sat in the chair, perhaps nursing a glass of wine late at night after her daughter was in bed. Night after night, keeping company with the Red Lady as she waited for her lover.

6.

“I have a confession,” Leigh said as soon as she took her seat in Terry’s study.

He waved papers. “I know all about it. Peach was here not long after daybreak. Brought a waiver and a photo release for me to sign.”

“A photo release? Oh god, I didn’t even think about that. I’m sorry, Terry, I just.…”

“Just what? Just wanted to spend more time with the donkey ass daughter of the donkey ass father?”

“I just didn’t want to get on her bad side. It seemed like a reasonable compromise to keep her from pestering me. She might have some work for me down the road.”

“Fair enough. I hear they’re doing a photo album. She said it was your idea.”

“It just blurted out of me.”

“Let’s hope some more brilliant ideas blurt out for my book. When Peach told me about it, I could practically hear her counting up the gold. Ka-ching!”

“The photo session’s early this afternoon. Why don’t you come over and watch with me? Have you even seen the cottage since it’s been re-opened?”

He gazed out the window and began tracing the lines of the oak with his hand. “Twice. Once when Geneva got started on it and wanted to show me how many things were wrong with the place, and then again when we hung the copy of the painting. I’ve always loved that painting. I had it in this house for a while, but my older daughter insisted that security here wasn’t good enough. She took it to New York.”

“Did you know the author referred to it as ‘The Red Lady’ in her books?”

He frowned as he thought, then laughed as the explanation dawned. “Granddad would have loved that.”

“Maybe he knew. Do you suppose he ever read her books?”

Terry shrugged. He signed the two papers quickly and handed them to Leigh.

“Thank you. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

“There’s none, unless it keeps you from working on my book for too long. What have you got for me today?” She handed him a sheaf from her back pack and he settled into his chair. After three pages he looked up and smiled. After he turned over the fourth his eyelids drooped. Soon he was dozing.

She wrote for an hour and then went to the kitchen for fresh coffee. When she returned to the study with a full carafe he stirred awake. As she settled into her usual chair opposite his, he feigned being alert and tapped the pages on his lap. “This just gets better and better. I wish I’d had your help on the first volume. Are you enjoying this project?”

She picked up his cup and refilled it. “It’s the most interesting writing I’ve done in years.”

He took the cup from her, kicked off his loafers and rested his feet on a footstool. “Enjoying Pepin?”

She looked out the window. More and more, he was dipping in and out of time, forgetting where he was and where he’d been, at least if it was within the recent past. Clearly he’d forgotten their earlier conversation. Would she have to explain once more that she was letting people into the cottage today?

A single red wing blackbird groomed itself on a branch of the oak tree. “I am enjoying Pepin. It’s a beautiful town. I’ve been getting out some. Meeting a few people.”

“Charlie Ewald’s daughter. Lord, he was a donkey ass. How’s the car?”

“Not quite done. They’re a little slow down there.”

“Use mine.”

Charlie Ewald. The accident. The slow pace of the repair work and his insistence she use his car. Every day, the same conversation. Did he really not remember that they went through the routine each time they talked?

If her own parents were still living would she be having this sort of repetitious conversation with them? Would she be this patient? Her father had died when she was ten in a typical Wisconsin death—car crash involving a deer. But her mother had died more recently. Leigh hadn’t been patient during that ordeal two years before, not when her mother—dying from lung cancer—continued to light up as she continued to lash out at Leigh. One last battle, one last round of protests about her daughter’s life. “A long chain of mistakes,” Marge Lee had shouted over the phone. Their final conversation. A mother’s benediction.

“Sonny will do a good job on your car,” Terry said. “His people have worked on all of ours. His great-grandfather was my grandmother’s driver.”

“Families stay put in this town.”

“Not me; I went to Washington and India. Now I want to see what you’ve written about that.” He held out a hand and wiggled his fingers. “Let me see the new work.”

“I gave it to you, Terry,” she said softly. “It’s in your lap.”

He stared at the papers. Then he whispered, “Peach pie.” Their eyes met.

She said, “As I told you, your life is the most interesting story I’ve written in a long time. I’m so grateful you hired me for this job.”

He rested a brown-spotted hand on the papers. “You’ll get it done, Leigh? Promise me that?”

“I’m trying my best, Terry. It’s a big story.”

He nodded as he gazed out the window.

“I know it doesn’t seem related, but as I said, it’s a big story. I have some questions about your grandfather.”

He stiffened.

“Why are so many of the original furnishings still in the cottage? I’d have thought the girl would have taken more of them.”

Tall tales and venom, she thought as Terry continued to stare out the window. That’s how Peach had described the Bancroft version of Ida May’s life. Would she hear some of that now?

“My grandmother…” his words faded into a deep sigh. “Granddad told me once that he was out of town on business when the doctor died. He wasn’t notified right away. By the time he’d returned, the daughter had come and gone.”

“Taking nothing?”

He faced her. “Apparently my grandmother behaved badly. She claimed the cottage and furnishings were Bancroft property, and the girl wasn’t allowed to take anything but clothing and a few books she could prove were her own.”

“Did your grandfather ever talk about the doctor’s death or about the daughter? He lived long enough to be aware of her writing success. Do you know if they kept in touch? He must have known Ida May fairly well. I imagine they might have had some affection for each other.”

Terry made a scoffing noise. “Girl’s mother kills herself, don’t you think the girl put at least some of the blame on him?”

“Did he blame himself? Is that part of the reason why he chose to live in the cottage? How did he explain that to the family?”

He again looked out the window. “Can’t really help you with any of those questions, Leigh. He never said much. And certainly no one else did. Even after she was famous Ida May Turnbull and her mother were not discussed in the family.”

“Which is why you said nothing about them in your first book. You talked about your grandparents, but said nothing about their separation or his mistress or her famous daughter.”

“Good god, why would I? Haven’t you ever kept something out of a story because you decided it was irrelevant? You can’t tell me you haven’t played around with the truth in your writing. Hah—you should see your face. Guilty as charged!” He pointed to the bookcase. “I’ve read the books you wrote for my friends.”

Leigh rubbed her left thumb against her right wrist. “Those books were vanity projects written for private audiences. They made no public claim of truth.”

“Even if they had—does truth require full disclosure?”

“Maybe not, Terry,” she said softly.

“I’m not paying you to get caught up with those women,” he said. “You’re letting Peach in to take pictures and that’s bad enough. I suppose it’s my own fault, of course, because I put you in the cottage. But goddam it, Leigh, that doesn’t mean you have to spend night and day thinking about that writer and her mother and my grandfather. We have work to do.”

“I know, Terry.’ She pulled a notebook out of her backpack. “I have some questions about this next section of your outline. It wasn’t clear when—”

He swatted the air to silence her. His gaze locked on something in the middle distance for a moment, then he slapped the arm of his chair and rose abruptly. Leigh shot up and held out a hand as he wavered.

He brushed her away. “I’m not that decrepit.” He left the room.

Leigh sat back in the chair. Had she ruined it now? Even without Marti’s threatened exposure, had she gone and messed things up for herself? Placate and flatter—her winning formula for working with all of Terry’s friends who’d hired her. Why had she deviated this time?

She heard brisk footsteps on the hall steps, too brisk for Terry. Geneva appeared at the door. “What have you two been talking about?”

“Just a few things. Family. The work I’ve done. I asked a couple of questions I guess he didn’t like.”

“Well, you’ve got him all agitated. He’s upstairs digging around in boxes and won’t listen to me. You cannot get him worked up that way. I’ll call his daughter if it keeps up, and let me tell you she is a gorgon and you do not want to deal with her.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Terry! What are you doing?’ With a final furious look at Leigh, she hurried from the room. “For god’s sake, let me carry that,” she bellowed.

Leigh heard only the low growl of his reply. Geneva said, “You are one stubborn ass.” Then her footsteps clipped away toward the kitchen.

Terry carried an ancient brown cardboard beer carton. He dropped it just inside the door. “You want some answers, you’ll probably find them in there. After my grandfather died my grandmother swooped into the cottage and got rid of everything she dared destroy without breaching the trust. But he expected she’d do that, and he’d given some things to me before then. If you think there needs to be something about that woman and her mother in this book, Leigh, then put it in. No one’s calling me a liar.” He pointed a finger at her. “But I don’t want to read about it in any book but ours. Understand? Nothing goes in this goddam photo album you’ve decided is a good idea. Now, can we get some work done?”

7.

A woman and two men were peering into a window as Leigh approached the cottage.

Peach was checking her watch.

Leigh set the beer carton on the ground and fished for her keys in a pocket. She tipped her head. “Who are they?” She said to Peach as she unlocked the deadbolt.

The trio turned from the window. Petra Sinclair extended a hand. “What an honor to meet the resident of the cottage.”

Leigh took in the Pilates queen’s hair color and then her skin tone. Fake blond and fake tan. She shouldered the balky door open and shook hands with the former child star.

Peach put a hand on each of the men. She nodded to the slender man on her left. The window-peering had left a tangle of spider web on his silver brush-cut hair. “Spencer Dunham. Photographer extraordinaire. We’re so lucky to have him do this. And this is Wallace Beadle.” Her head dipped toward the man on her right. “Wally is the president of Christian Family Universe. They all flew in this morning on the network jet.”