"I'm glad you called back," Libby said against the wind as they left the Hollywood Freeway. The top of her convertible was down and her hair was a black flame.
"I had to get out of the house."
"It was like I said, wasn't it?" Libby nodded knowingly. "He wanted to be alone?"
Jenny was reluctant to tell her friend all the details. Where should she begin? With the wreath that he had not believed was a prank? He said he believed her, but she knew better. Or the mysterious telephone call to the mortuary, by someone who used her name—or was it simply that the Funeral Director was lying through his teeth? Was it really about his parents and nothing else? Or had Lee's obsessive thinking started earlier, before they were married?
"Yes," she said. "He didn't feel like talking. He just wanted to sleep." He won't even know I'm gone, she thought. If he wakes up, I'll tell him I went to the market. "Remind me to get some eggs on the way home."
"Sure." Libby let go of the gearshift and patted Jenny's knee, a gesture of reassurance that was remarkably similar to the way Lee often touched her. "But first, I've got some friends I want you to meet."
"What kind of friends?"
"Don't worry, you'll like them. Jan and Laurie I went to school with. Lisa and Janelle are grips at the studio. Let me see. Marla and Gail moved here from Vermont last year. They're new…"
Why do they all sound like couples? wondered Jenny.
"And then there's Rose."
That was the way it was here. In L.A., everything separate and compartmentalized, like scenes in a movie, even friendship. It was possible to know someone for months, as she had known Libby, without ever being privy to any of the players in other scenes. Lives could be played out according to the schedule on a call-sheet, with no overlap.
"I don't think you've ever mentioned them," said Jenny.
"You're right I haven't.'' Libby turned off Sunset and downshifted around corner after corner. "We have a kind of group, you might say. Every Thursday."
The side streets climbed higher, leaving the boulevard far behind. Stars twinkled through the trees that swept past the open Miata. At the end of the block, near the top of a rise, the round face of a huge yellow moon waited on the horizon, nodding. When they reached the summit, Jenny saw what looked like a pool of liquid mercury far below, smooth and without a ripple. It was the Silverlake Reservoir. Then the car tipped forward as if crossing a knife edge and started down the other side. A smaller moon swam on the surface of the artificial lake, pacing them.
"It's beautiful," she said.
"Yes, she is."
"She?"
"The Goddess. There's a reflection of Her light in each of us, you know."
"That's a little too New Age for me," said Jenny, and laughed. Another side of her friend that had been kept from her, until now.
Libby did not laugh. Not this time. It wasn't like her to be so serious. Maybe she doesn't really want me along, Jenny thought.
"You know, you don't have to do this," she said. "If it's a party, I'm really not up for it tonight."
"It's not a party."
"I don't want to spoil anything."
"You won't."
"Are you sure?"
"Promise."
"Well, just for a little while. Not too late, though."
"You got it."
Libby made several more breakneck turns, as though they were being pursued. Then she entered an alley and switched off the ignition, ratcheting the hand brake.
"Come on," she said, jumping out of the car.
At the top of some rickety wooden steps, a yellow bug light shone like yet another moon through a dense growth of vines and rambling roses. Libby took her hand and Jenny was drawn irresistibly toward the haloed bulk, as though she no longer had a will of her own. It was almost comforting not to have to make any more decisions.
From inside, the sound of voices singing and a guitar strumming. Libby started to knock, then gave the door a push. It swung open as the song ended. The round of applause was timed so perfectly that it might have been for their entrance. For Libby, Jenny thought. They don't even know me. I'm sure they don't want to, either. I don't belong here. I should be home with Lee…
"Well, look who's here!" someone shouted.
Jenny entered, lagging behind.
It was an old house with a high-beamed ceiling, knotty pine walls and a polished hardwood floor. On the floor were several handmade braided rugs, and centered on one of these was a large round table fashioned from part of an enormous barrel, with the staves sealed under a heavy coating of varnish. Around this table were sprawled nine or ten people, all dressed casually in flannel plaids and jeans or T-shirts and shorts. They got up at once to greet Libby. There were hugs all around.
"This is my friend Jenny."
"Hi! I'm Marla." A stout woman with short hair and thick glasses pumped Jenny's hand.
"And I'm Gail." A small, dark-eyed woman with thin, pale lips.
"Alma…" A taller woman in a deconstructed jacket and stretch Levi's.
Only now did Jenny realize that all of those present were women. It had been hard to tell at first, with the candles.
As they introduced themselves, she began to relax in spite of herself. Here was the sort of openness that can happen only among women who are old friends with shared memories, women not in competition with each other on any level. She was not one of them, and yet they accepted her without reservation or pretense. That meant they thought very highly of Libby. Why, she wondered, has Libby introduced me to her inner circle? What could I possibly have to offer?
"Libby's told us all about you," said a pretty Asian woman without makeup.
"She has?"
"Sure. You're the one who wrote the documentary."
"Well, not a documentary, exactly," she said. "More of a miniseries. A docudrama, they call it."
"When do you start shooting?"
"Oh, not for a while yet. Next season, at the earliest. If they pick up the option."
"I'll be watching," said Alma.
"So will I," said Gail. "It's an important story."
"I hope the network thinks so," said Jenny. "It happened more than a hundred years ago. It's not exactly hot off the presses."
"Lizzie Borden's story is more timely than ever," Gail told her with surprising fervor. "She represents the way women were treated in the nineteenth century. Like indentured servants, with no lives of their own. She washed the dishes, ironed the clothes, made the meals…"
"Things sure have changed a lot, haven't they?" said Alma, and everyone laughed.
"They did have a maid," Jenny said.
"But did she have a life? Did Lizzie? A forty-year-old woman, still living at home!"
"Thirty-two," said Jenny.
"Think of it! All to serve her father!"
"Well, her mother, too. The stepmother, Abby."
"It was the father, don't you see? He held all the cards. Did the women have any money of their own?"
"Actually, Lizzie and her sister…"
"Any real money? The only hope was that he would die, and leave them what was really theirs! Lizzie was America's first feminist! When she couldn't take it anymore, when she finally acted in the only way that was possible for her, the press—the male press—crucified her!"
"The point of the story," Jenny explained, "is that she didn't do it. She knew who committed the murders, but she refused to say. No one else was ever charged, before or after she was acquitted. She took the secret with her to the grave."
Alma was shaking her head. "It doesn't matter who killed them. What matters is that she was put on trial for all of us."
Jenny thought, That's an interesting interpretation. It may or may not be true, but would it work? Saint Lizzie. No, it was too late to change the script. The last draft was done.
"I'll have to think about that," she said.
The candles began to flicker. The table was rocking. How could that be? Jenny saw no one near it. All the women were gathered around her.
"Hold that thought," Libby told her. "Right now, there's someone else you have to meet. Someone special."
It was the wooden floor under the table that was moving, vibrating as if in response to an aftershock from the San Andreas Fault. Then the circle parted, and all heads turned to a stairway in the corner, as a large woman in a caftan descended to the living room.
Libby and Alma went to the foot of the stairs and helped the large woman find her footing. They steered her to the table.
"This is Jenny," Libby said to the woman. "Jenny, meet Rose."
"Hi," said Jenny. She was at a loss. Finally she extended her hand. Then she saw the woman's eyes. They were milky-white. She's blind, Jenny thought, startled.
The woman's head turned, turned again, seeking the source of the voice, and zeroed in. Jenny had the uncanny feeling that the eyes were staring directly at her, as if from behind opaque contact lenses.
"How do you do, Jenny Marlow?" She was at least three hundred pounds, and tall, taller even than Lee. Her hair was cropped close, but that only served to emphasize the dimensions of the woman's skull. She had a thick, overhanging brow, which made her eyes appear small, deep-set in massive sockets. The overall effect was of a powerful, almost primitive strength. "Let's sit down now."
"Here, Rose." Libby helped the woman settle her bulk into a large rattan chair at the table. The chair creaked.
Will it hold? Jenny wondered.
Alma dropped to her knees and sat on the woman's right, folding her legs under the table. Gail, Marla and the others took their positions on the floor.
"I have a question," Alma began.
"Not yet," Rose told her. "Does everyone have enough wine?"
"Marla?" Gail lifted a half-gallon of Napa Valley chablis.
Marla refilled her glass and passed the jug around. In the warm glow of the candles, each face was captured and reflected in the long-stemmed glass before it, with a faint distortion added.
There was an empty space at the table, Jenny realized, across from Rose. Even an empty wineglass. She sat down on the rug as gracefully as she could.
"No, thank you," she said, when Libby started to fill it.
"Sure?"
I haven't eaten anything, thought Jenny. It will go right to my head.
On the other hand, it would ease the pressure of thinking about Lee, about all that had happened in the last few days. And if she needed anything it was to forget, to blot it out of her mind, however briefly.
"Well, maybe just a taste."
Libby poured. The candles flickered as glasses were raised. Jenny could swear that Rose was looking at her. She averted her eyes self-consciously and tasted the wine.
"You look nice tonight," someone said. "Did you do something new with your hair?"
"I thank Janine for that," Rose said.
Which one was Janine? Jenny sipped more of her wine, scanning the table furtively. There were five to her left, six to her right, counting Libby. Plus herself, and Rose directly opposite.
"It was just a trim," said a young woman with long hair woven into com-rows. "Maybe a little D'Iffray holding gel."
The others laughed, setting the candles to flickering again.
"Can you get me some?" asked a woman with gold- loop earrings.
"I'll bring it next time," said Janine. "Or you can come by the salon."
"I will. Thanks."
"What about partnerships?" asked Janine.
"In what respect?" said Rose, who knew somehow that the question was directed at her.
"Well, I'm thinking about investing in the salon," said Janine. "I was wondering if this is a propitious time."
"You may ask," Rose told her.
Ask? thought Jenny. She just did ask, didn't she?
"All right," said Janine, "who are the Companions for this enterprise?"
"The Companions," said Rose, "are two, but neither is of any consequence in the present inquiry. One is a former doctor of medicine, the second a housekeeper and seamstress. Neither wishes to communicate at this time, so they need not be considered. There are no barriers to any partnership."
"I see," said Janine.
"Do you, dear?" said Rose, blinking her blind eyes for the first time. "I don't!"
The others joined in her laughter.
Jenny did not know how or when it happened, but an invisible boundary had been crossed, so that now the conversation was on a different plane. The shift was subtle but unmistakable; they had been making small talk, and then they were talking about something more elusive and abstract, using a secret vocabulary. Companions. What did that mean? They seemed to understand. It was a ritual or ceremony of some sort, apparently, and everyone was in on it. Everyone except Jenny.
"I have a questions about travel," said Gail. "Marla and I are thinking of going to St. Croix in the fall, but she doesn't like to fly, and I get seasick on cruise ships. I'm willing to take Dramamine, but I was wondering—we were wondering—if there are any negative augers?"
Rose responded easily, as if carrying on a side conversation, one that did not engage her full attention. Her eyes remained directed at a point somewhere near Jenny's head; it was impossible to be sure because the pupils were not focused.
"The Companions are many and varied in this case. All were once slaves in what is now known as Antigua, prior to the arrival of Captain Mission in the seventeenth century, who liberated them under the Articles of Freedom. The Primary Companion is a Freemanson who was Mission's first mate. He observes that the climate of freedom has long since departed, and the old ways have returned to the islands. Any travelers to the area might wish to note the encroachment on former liberties, and arm themselves accordingly.''
"Arm themselves?'' said Gail. "You mean with guns?"
''The real battlefield is in the mind. Armor made of light contains all colors and deflects the darkness, which is defined as the absence of color."
"Okay, then," said Marla. "Are you up for it?" she asked Gail.
The two women interlaced their fingers. "Why not? Let's go for it!"
This, thought Jenny, is a seance. It must be. She couldn't believe what was happening; Libby had never hinted at any interest in the occult, never once in all the time they had known each other. And what a strange kind of seance! There was no dimming of the lights, no billowing curtains and spirit voices and ectoplasm. The medium did not even go into a trance. It was all so ordinary, so matter-of-fact. As if it were a part of their everyday lives.
She leaned over and whispered into Libby's ear. "What are Companions?"
Libby put a finger on her own lips.
Rose's round white eyes adjusted in tiny increments until they located the whispering. Could she see, after all?
"Do you have a question, Jenny Marlow?"
How does she know my last name? Jenny thought. No one had said it. She felt pinned like a butterfly to the braided rug, unable to get away. Nobody moved. And yet the candles flickered again, as if a breeze had entered the room and was about to snuff them out. A wisp of black smoke rose from the wick in front of Jenny. Above the guttering flames, Rose's massive head loomed in the yellow glow, floating on the fire.
"Me? Not really. I'm just listening."
"You have a question." This time it was a statement. "Don't be afraid."
"I'm not." She tried to laugh but her throat was dry. Every other face was watching her, too. They were friendly but neutral, waiting to see how she would play her part.
"Don't move away from the light…" Rose began.
For the first time the woman lowered her head, releasing Jenny from the grip of her blind stare. Around the table wineglasses suspended in the air, lips parted expectantly, smiles froze. Something out of the ordinary had begun. They were watching and listening to find out what would happen next.
Rose's head tipped upright again, and now her eyes were even wider, no longer implacable but round and alert, awakened by an inner vision of such intensity that Jenny all but expected to see it projected onto the dancing light and smoke-filled air over the table.
"The Companions are two…"
Her voice rose an octave, like a violin string tightening up. Jenny felt the new, higher pitch alive in the air between them, testing the strength of the thin crystal glass near her hand. In the convex surface of the glass she now saw something move: a face, long and squeezed, as of a homunculus imprisoned in a bottle, desperate to escape. Was it her own face?
"They are sisters. One serves the light…and one the darkness. The light is dimming, and the other comes near…the blade! I see the blade…the blade that falls!"
Rose slumped forward, her features slipping below the line of guttering flames. Where her head had been there was now only the pane of a tall window, and beyond that the darkness. Within the darkness Jenny saw an image of the table, with the candles in the center and twelve faces turned to the night.
"Are you okay?"
Alma put her arm around Rose's shoulders, supporting her.
"Rose!"
Janine was at her other side, shaking her.
The table rocked unsteadily and one of the wineglasses teetered and fell over, shattering. The chablis spread in a pallid inkblot across the tabletop, darkening rapidly against the varnish. Jenny snatched her hand away before it touched her fingers, but it dripped over the edge and onto her skirt. Candles tipped, hot wax sizzling in the wine and bubbling blisters into the table.
Rose sat up straight, shrugging off help.
"What's the matter?" she said. "Did I doze off?"
"I guess you did…"
"You said…"
"I didn't say anything," Rose told them. "Not anything at all. Is that clear? Now…are we quite finished for the evening?"