By August, Moetown began to emerge from its slump. Paul took on a two-week magazine shoot in Palm Springs. Donna and Carol found their old rhythm and began making progress on the book. And Lucky won a cottage in Ireland.
The Palm Springs assignment seemed to put Paul’s career back on track. As it wrapped, his agent called, telling him that he had a shot at a television commercial, that the scheduled actor had gotten a movie role. It was non-speaking but had enough range that it could lead to bigger things. After the Palm Springs shoot Paul signed on with an acting program and a voice coach and was excited about what his agent was calling his ‘second stage.’ He told William that the new schedule meant he’d miss this year’s Willathon—that he hoped he understood.
The summer also saw Donna arguing her first motion in five years—second chair in a murder case. The client was a woman who had lived with an increasingly abusive husband for over a decade. The defense strategy, built around a new term: “battered wife”, required both imagination and research—both perfect, as William said, for pulling Donna out of her hole. The first two nights on the case she came back to the camp visibly tired and questioning both her legal skills and stamina. But by the end of the week she was staying up until two or three in the morning, sketching arguments and making notes on precedents to research the following day.
Friday afternoon of Labor Day weekend, Donna was working up in the L, her law books open and her legal pads filled with notes. Overhead a ceiling fan moved slightly, stirring the summer heat. The fans were Josh and Clark’s nod to the summer’s insufferable heat, with each cabin getting its own fan. Today was Donna’s turn, forcing her temporary evacuation.
As she scribbled another note, she heard a step on the L, then a tentative knock. She shaded her eyes against the afternoon light that silhouetted her visitor. “Yes? Who is it?”
“Scott Baldwin. I’m…is Alexis here?”
Donna got to her feet and crossed to the door. “I’m Donna,” she extended her hand. “You’re Alexis’s husband, right?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Ex, but yes. Is she here?”
“She’s working, but I can reach her. Have a seat, I’ll be right back.” She headed towards the kitchen, then stopped. “Is she expecting you?”
“It’s a surprise. But now that I’m here…” he looked around the L, “I’m not sure how welcome a surprise it’ll be. If you can just tell her I’m here, that I’d like to talk to her, I’d appreciate it.”
“No problem.” She came back a few minutes later. “She’ll be right up. Should take her about fifteen minutes. Let me get us a couple of beers while we wait.”
She came back with the beers and they took a seat at the table, Donna clearing her notes and books to the side. He gestured at them. “I didn’t know you were still practicing.”
“Just getting back on the horse.” She looked at him. “I forgot that you’re an attorney. Mind if I run my opening argument by you?”
The Cadillac pulled up in front of the L twenty minutes later. She and Scott exchanged a stilted hug. Donna gathered her books and notepads, shook hands with Scott, thanked him for his suggestions, and headed down to her cabin, where Clark was just finishing up.
An hour later, Alexis walked in without knocking. “I’m going up to San Francisco for the weekend.”
“Alone?” Donna smiled.
“Not quite,” Alexis didn’t return the smile. “There are some…complications, and this isn’t the place to work them out.” She headed for the door. “Tell William I’ll try to be back Monday in time for the party.”
The Willathon came off without a hitch. The clothing was particularly garish this year, with most of the costumes forsaking subtlety for impact. It was, by all estimates, the closest competition yet. Donna stayed on the porch of her cabin for the most part, watching the festivities with an untouched glass of wine in her hand. Mollie wandered back and forth between party and porch, resting her head on Donna’s thigh whenever she returned.
Josh checked in throughout the afternoon, complimenting her on his first visit for the ivory leather jumpsuit. Donna barely smiled. “Carol picked it out for me. I kept meaning to get down to Goodwill and shop for myself, but I never got around to it.” Her eyes returned to the party.
“Tough day?”
“I keep wondering what we would have worn this year. Harry was getting to the stage where I think he would have gotten the joke. He could have picked out his own costume. I keep wondering what it would have been.”
Josh took a seat next to her and she reclined her head on his shoulder. They sat that way for thirty minutes in silence, until Lucky summoned Josh for bartending relief. Most of the mountain community walked over to say hello, but respecting the day, no one except Josh and Clark stuck around. And by mid-afternoon Clark was out of commission, manning the barbeque pit for the next four hours.
Around five, Josh came back with a bottle of wine. He tossed the untouched white wine in her glass, now gone warm, and refreshed it.
“Alexis didn’t make it back?” he asked.
“She said she’d try, but something must have come up.”
“Such as?”
She looked at him. “I don’t know. She just said there were…’complications’, I think was how she put it.”
Josh looked back at the party. “What’s he like?” he said, his eyes roaming the gathering, staying away from Donna’s.
“Why are you so interested?” Donna said, a little tease in her voice.
“Forget it. I’m just trying to make conversation, but I’m getting tired of doing all the work.” And he returned to the party.
The Cadillac rolled into the camp Wednesday right after lunch. Alexis popped the trunk, took her bag out and headed into her cabin. Carol was down in Kinsella attending Donna’s trial; none of the men, including William, disturbed her for the rest of the afternoon.
Carol and Donna returned around five, as Alexis was getting ready for her shift. Still in her navy suit, her hair a tight coiled bun, Donna gave Alexis a quick hug, then sat down on the edge of the bed. Carol took the chair.
“So?” Carol said, rolling her fingers.
“So what?” Alexis said, looking under the bed for her shoes.
“So did we get lucky?”
“I was just thinking about how much I miss the intellectual repartee here. As well as the sisterly concern for my mental well-being.”
“Answer the question.”
Alexis looked at Donna for help, but received a shrug in return. “It wouldn’t have been my first question, but definitely in the top five.” She reached behind her neck and loosened her hair. “How was it, really?”
“It was…productive.”
“Listen,” Donna said, “We’re not trying to pry. Well, Carol is. You tell us when you’re ready.”
Alexis put her shoes down. “Hell, Wednesdays are slow anyway.” She rubbed her eyes, suddenly looking tired. “It was awkward at first. It was clear that he had an agenda, and since he’d caught me by surprise, I clearly didn’t. On the drive up to the airport he was a magpie, trying to impress on me how much he’d changed. It was like he had a stack of answers ready, but I wasn’t asking the right questions. So it was pleasant, but, like I said, awkward.
“Then we get up to San Francisco and he’s booked us a suite at the Stanford Court.”
Carol let out a low whistle. “Tres chic. And tres expensive.”
“We’d stayed there a couple of times in the past when he was out for ABA conventions, so I knew he was trying to bring back good memories. We went up to North Beach, again to a restaurant we’d been to before and really liked. At that point I called him out on how shameless he was being, but he just grinned and acknowledged it.”
“Well, it had to be a nice change of pace from here,” Carol said. “I mean, chivalry up here is a guy opening your beer for you.”
“Exactly. And when we got back to the hotel there was a bottle of champagne waiting there in an ice bucket. I know, I know. And yes, Carol, then I got lucky.”
“And it was…?”
“Great. Gentle at the right times, eager at the right times. It was great to feel attractive, to be wanted.” Her eyes moved away.
“But…” Donna said gently.
“But when I woke up the next day it was clear: he wasn’t the guy for me. He’d changed, I have to give him that. But so had I. And we’d gone in different directions, winding up in very different places as very different people.”
“Did he feel the same way?”
“Not at first. But the more we talked, the clearer it became. To both of us. But once that was cleared up, we decided to go ahead with the rest of the romantic getaway. And yes, Carol, we screwed like rabbits. And it was great.”
“So you’re staying?” Carol’s tone was cautious.
Alexis nodded. “For now.”