“Ah, the toxic smell of ozone,” said Cordelia, stopping for a moment and taking a deep breath. “I love airports.” She adjusted her sunglasses, then resumed her pacing.
Jane figured they’d have some time to wait before the plane came in, so she’d saved her big news until now. Besides, she always felt apprehensive in Cordelia’s Hummer, as if it might launch a missile at any moment. “You’ll never guess who walked into the bar at the Xanadu Club last night.” She leaned against the front of the truck, the runway directly in front of her. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, cool and breezy. In Jane’s opinion, the ozone didn’t add much.
Cordelia stopped again. She was the only one Jane knew who could pace in three-inch heels over cracked pavement and not break both her ankles. “Who?”
“David Carlson.”
She deadpanned. “You’re kidding me.”
“Odd synergy, wouldn’t you say?”
“You mean … are you saying he didn’t know his sister was coming to town?”
“Had no idea.”
“Freaky.”
Today, Cordelia wore a bright red, yellow, and blue sundress. She looked like a human beach ball. This was one of Cordelia’s more restrained outfits. While on their way to the airport, she’d said she wanted to tone herself down so that Joanna could take the spotlight. Jane complimented her on her sensitivity.
“Why’s he here?”
“I’m not sure,” said Jane, looking up at the thin, wispy clouds spreading across the sky.
“He didn’t say?”
“He said he needed a break, thought a road trip would be fun.”
“Sounds like you don’t believe him.” She leaned back against the hood next to Jane.
“I’m not sure what to think. But something’s not right.”
“And you know this how?”
“He looks terrible—like he hasn’t slept in weeks.”
“You think he’s ill?”
“I hope not.”
“Maybe there’s trouble in paradise.”
“You mean Diego? He didn’t mention that. On the other hand, he did kind of skirt the subject when Diego’s name came up.” Jane pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her pants. “I’m worried about him, Cordelia.”
“Where’s he staying?”
“Well, he was going to stay with me, but, see—”
Cordelia pushed off the hood and pointed at an approaching blip in the distance. Checking her watch, she shouted, “That’s Joanna!” She began to wave frantically with both arms.
Jane wondered what Cordelia must look like to the pilot as the plane approached the runway. “Follow the bouncing ball,” she whispered.
“What?” said Cordelia.
“Nothing.”
As the small jet slowed and then taxied to the gate, Jane said, “We can’t get past security without a ticket, so I guess we wait here. I figured there would be a swarm of reporters.”
“No paparazzi,” said Cordelia. “All information about Joanna has been stamped strictly Top Secret.”
A moment later the hatch opened. The stairs came down and Joanna descended. She had on dark glasses and was wearing beige linen slacks and a matching long, belted cardigan. Her blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. She looked glamorous, tanned, and healthy—but years older than the last time Jane had seen her. Jane tried to remember when that had been and decided it was probably close to eight years ago, when Joanna had invited Cordelia and Jane to Sandpoint for the big Fourth of July celebration. They’d stayed for a long weekend.
For the moment, all they could do was cool their heels. A few minutes later, Joanna came out of the doorway, followed by a man pulling a luggage cart. Cordelia charged up to her and gave her the official “Thorn bear hug.” Jane followed with one that was equally welcoming though less bone crushing. Joanna seemed happy to see them, but distracted. As they walked to the Hummer, she kept looking around, like she expected someone to leap out at her.
“There’re no paparazzi,” said Cordelia, reassuring her. “You can relax. Only a few people at the theater know your schedule.”
“How was the flight?” asked Jane.
“Is that what you’re driving these days?” Joanna asked as they approached the Hummer. She lifted up her dark glasses to get a better look.
“Sure is.” Cordelia beamed and patted the rear end. “Ain’t she a beaut?”
“What’s it get? Twenty feet to the gallon?”
“How come everyone wants to slam my car?”
“Ever think about the larger ramifications of the gas crisis, Cordelia? Our dependency on foreign oil?”
“I drive a Mini,” said Jane. “I figure that evens things out.”
The burly guy pulling the cart loaded the luggage into the back of the Hummer.
As they were about to get in, something fluttered at them from between the parked cars.
They all turned as a woman rushed up to the right rear bumper. “Hi,” she said, her eyes cast down. She seemed out of breath. “Can I talk to you for a second, Ms. Kasimir?”
Jane stepped in front of Joanna. “Can I ask what this is about?”
“I, ah … I was hoping that I could, you know … like … like, see, I’m a freelance journalist.”
“You want to interview me?” asked Joanna.
The woman smiled shyly, finally lifting her eyes. “I’m such a huge fan of yours. Maybe even your biggest fan. I realize I’m nobody in the scheme of things, and you’re, like, this amazingly successful celebrity. I’m sure you get asked for interviews all the time by really important people. Maybe this seems ridiculous to you. I wouldn’t blame you if it did. But if you could just give me, like, even fifteen minutes, it would be such an incredible honor.”
“Do you write for a particular paper or magazine?” asked Joanna.
“Well, like I said, I’m freelance.” She tucked one side of her chin-length brown hair behind her ear. “But I’ve had pieces in The Rake. Minnesota Monthly. City Pages. I don’t make a living at it yet, but it’s my dream that someday I will. Everyone should have a dream, don’t you think?”
Jane noticed Joanna’s eyes flicker. Something the woman said had touched her.
“Yes, actually, I do.”
“I’m a good writer. A really good writer, but sometimes I don’t come across well in, like, interviews. I mean, like, sometimes I seem too aggressive, and at other times I’m not aggressive enough. I never get it right. But I know I could produce a piece on you we’d both be proud of. I don’t want to bother you. I mean, just tell me to go away and I will. I’m used to being turned down.”
“What’s your name?” asked Joanna.
“Hillary. Hillary Schinn. I live in Richfield with my dad. He’s ill and I help take care of him. And then I also have a job. But I’ve got plenty of time to write. I wouldn’t disappoint you, I promise.”
She was so eager, so earnest, thought Jane. She was attractive enough but didn’t seem like she had much confidence.
“Do you have a card?” asked Joanna.
“No, but I wrote my information down for you.” Hillary opened her purse and took out a folded piece of paper. “It’s my home number. I have a cell phone, too, which I included. Look, I know I’m asking a lot—that you’re very busy. But if you’ve got a few minutes someday and you want to get together, well, I mean, I’d be so blown away. If you want, I could send you some of my articles.”
“Let me think about it.” Joanna took the paper and slipped it into the pocket of her cardigan.
“Okay, sure. Gee, it was so great to meet you. I hope you have a wonderful time here. Thanks. I guess … I mean, I suppose I should get going.” She backed away, smiling, her eyes locked on Joanna. “Thanks again. Really, this was so cool. Like, just meeting you, talking to you.” She disappeared behind a dark maroon minivan.
“Uff,” said Cordelia after she’d gone. “The price of fame, I guess. The weird ones are always out there waiting to pounce. I wonder how she knew when your plane would land.”
Jane thought it was a good question, but Joanna didn’t say anything. She gazed after the young woman for a long moment, then climbed into the backseat of the Hummer.
On the way back to Minneapolis, Cordelia brought up the subject of David. “He’s in town, you know.”
Joanna leaned forward, put her hand on the front seat. “You’ve actually seen him?”
“I have,” said Jane. “He came to my restaurant last night.”
“God, you don’t know how glad I am to hear that. I’ve got to call Diego right away.”
“Why?” asked Cordelia, glancing at Jane with one eyebrow discreetly raised.
“Because David’s been missing for weeks. Diego is out of his mind
with worry.” Joanna explained everything she knew, which confirmed Jane’s initial impression that something was terribly wrong.
“Where’s he staying?” asked Joanna.
“Well, he was planning to stay with me,” said Jane. “But there was an accident in the middle of the night. David went down to make himself something to eat. He must have left the faucet on in the kitchen because when I got up this morning, there was water all over the house. It caused some significant damage. David said he’d take care of it. He was really embarrassed. Said I would probably need to move out for a few weeks while the work is being done.”
“Where will you stay?” asked Joanna.
“At the Lyme House. My office has a big couch and a bathroom.”
“No you won’t,” said Cordelia indignantly. “I won’t hear of it. You’ll move in with me.”
“No, really—”
“The matter is settled. If you stay at the restaurant you’ll be working twenty-four/seven.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
She held up her hand. “The issue is closed. Hattie and I will take good care of you and Mouse until you can return home.”
“And David can stay with me,” said Joanna.
Jane closed her eyes. She recalled what David had said. She was glad Joanna was in the backseat and couldn’t see her expression.
“Actually,” continued Joanna, “this couldn’t come at a better time. To be honest, I could use the company.”
“Any particular reason?” asked Cordelia. Her nose twitched the way it always did when she sensed a secret.
Joanna was silent for a few seconds. Glancing out the side window, she finally said, “Something happened before I left Sandpoint. I almost called you and canceled the trip.”
“What?” Cordelia nearly drove off the road.
“I didn’t, so don’t have a coronary. Look, I really don’t want to get into it right now, but it … unsettled me.”
“But,” said Cordelia, staring at the road ahead, “you will talk about it eventually, right?”
Joanna turned to look at her. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you.”
“Prurient to the core,” said Jane.
A slow grin broke over Cordelia’s face. “I’m one of life’s immovable objects, dearhearts. I am the sphinx. Always there, waiting and watching.”
Bel Air, California
Spring 1989
If Joanna had learned anything in her many years in Hollywood, it was that physical beauty existed in a very small pond, but that ugliness was an ocean. She had to admit to a certain shallowness when it came to the opposite sex. She liked male beauty. She’d been married twice since she arrived in Hollywood in the fall of 1981. Both marriages had been lust at first sight. Marriage number one had slowly given way to disinterest and finally outright disgust. Marriage number two never even got off the ground.
The famous director Freddy Kasimir had been the first to catch Joanna’s eye. She must have caught his, too, because it wasn’t long before they were a hot item in the tabloids, then engaged to be married. Somewhere along the way she was cast as the ingenue in his next movie. The marriage had given her the professional break she’d been praying for. Once the door was open, she walked through and never looked back. She hated to think that Freddy was simply a means to an end, but in the final analysis—in the biography somebody was bound to write one day—that’s the way it would look. Freddy had been a clever man. When the sex got boring, as it always did, he was capable of decent conversation. Maybe she should have hung on to him. At the very least, he made her laugh, and that was saying something with the caliber of narcissistic bad boys she was currently dating. To a man, they’d all fallen in love
with their beauty and had a hard time wresting their attention away from the mirror.
Joanna’s second husband, Cyril Connor, the Irish actor, had been another golden boy, but one who’d checked his brains at his cocaine dealer’s front door. That marriage had lasted less than fifteen minutes. They were both paging their divorce lawyers when the limo hit the Pasadena freeway, five miles from the church. It was probably some sort of record. Joanna was deeply embarrassed, but she was capable of learning. After the second disaster, she nixed the marriage license thing and just slept with the Adonises.
And so, on this ordinary spring morning as she awoke from her usual fitful night’s sleep, Joanna would have been surprised to learn that her life was about to take a major right turn onto a dead-end street. Living in Hollywood, Bel Air to be exact, was like a carboholic living in a bakery. The most beautiful people on earth swarmed to Hollywood like sugar ants to sweet poison. They were everywhere. Waiters. Mechanics. Department store clerks. As hard as she tried, Joanna found it impossible to maintain a “hands-off” policy. With her career in high gear, she could have just about anyone she wanted. Her sexual appetites didn’t rise to the level of obsession, but clearly they weren’t healthy. She knew, deep in her unanalyzed soul, that her lifestyle probably spoke loudly about spiritual emptiness. But how could her life be empty when she’d attained everything she’d ever wanted? That wasn’t the way the American dream was supposed to work.
Today was a Thursday, eight days before her birthday. She had appointments in the afternoon but nothing pressing until then. Her brother, David, and his partner, Diego, had arrived earlier in the week with bags of opulently wrapped birthday gifts they’d brought for her from their home in Atlanta. They planned to stay for two weeks. They both liked to vacation in L.A. because, like Joanna, they enjoyed the view. But unlike her, David and Diego were monogamous. They seemed to be truly in love.
Joanna was happy for her brother, but seeing him with Diego always left her feeling vaguely on edge. Another red flag she scrupulously ignored. She did wonder why true love had somehow escaped her. She lived in a cocoon of constant affirmation and praise. She knew the mirror that everyone was so quick to hold up in front of her face lied, but she didn’t think she was fundamentally
flawed. “Redemption” was a word that occasionally flitted through her mind, though she never gave it any serious thought.
David and Diego were staying in the small bungalow next to the cabana. It was private and yet it had most of the comforts of the main house. Joanna had picked this place after looking at only six houses. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of times twelve. It was actually way too much for one person, so because of her working-class guilt, she adopted four cats in an effort to justify her existence. It made no sense, of course. Her reality—the manicured lawns and mansions, the movie industry filled with manicured people—was surrounded by another, darker reality: a teaming, chaotic mix of L.A. ethnicity, a pot that simply refused to melt. Joanna wasn’t blind. She knew there was something deeply wrong with the excess she was surrounded by, and yet she dismissed her need to examine it. Plato be damned. The excess, as some called it, was her freakin’ life! The problem was, when she ignored something fundamental, it had a tendency to scream at her until she turned and faced it. And that’s why, in the end, she became a sitting duck, just waiting for the right hunter to come along and pick her off.
David entered the kitchen as Joanna was making herself a pot of coffee. He looked tousled and still rosy from sleep. He had the same sapphire eyes as she did, the same sandy blond hair. His was cropped short, while hers flowed down past her shoulders and was dyed platinum.
“It’s official,” said David, getting two mugs from the cupboard. He was dressed in a rumpled gray T-shirt and white running shorts. “I’m staying here. Never leaving. I’m hiring myself on as your pool boy.”
“And what will Diego do?”
“He’ll sit by the pool with a cold beer and build an amazing house of cards.”
“Always the architect.”
David hopped up on the counter, waiting as Joanna poured coffee into his mug. “That’s smells fabulous. What are you up to today?”
Before answering, she stepped up to the window overlooking the side garden. The old gardener, a middle-aged Japanese man, had recently been replaced by a new fellow. She hadn’t really taken much notice of him, but with his shirt off and his muscles gleaming with sweat in the bright morning sunlight, she noticed him now.
“Earth to Joanna?”
“Hmm?”
“What are you looking at?”
“Flowers.”
“No, you’re not.” He jumped down off the counter and moved up behind her, gazing over her shoulder. “Nice. Who is he?”
“I think his name is Gordon. He’s the new man the service sent out.”
“What happened to the old one?”
Joanna turned, grinned, and poked him in the stomach. “You ask too many questions, bro. How should I know?” She picked up her mug and sauntered toward the door.
“And where would you be going?”
She threw him an innocent smile. “It’s impolite not to personally welcome a new member of the staff. Don’t leave, Davey. I’ll be back in five.”
He snorted. “Like hell you will.”
Joanna hid behind a large chamise bush and watched the new gardener clean out weeds growing between the flagstones that ran along the north side of the yard. She was five foot five in her stocking feet and this guy wasn’t more than a few inches taller. But he was built. His body looked like it had been chiseled from a block of cedar. His blond hair was wiry, waving slightly at the nape of his neck and falling in heavy coils over his forehead. He had a square head and a prominent cleft in his chin. Joanna wondered what he’d look like naked.
“I was curious what you’d think about my putting in some creeping thyme as ground cover between the flagstones.”
His deep voice startled her. She had no idea he’d seen her standing there. Now she was embarrassed. Stepping out from behind the bush, she said, “That sounds like it might be nice.”
“It’s very fragrant. I love fragrance, don’t you? ’Course, nothing beats a rose, in my opinion, but if you’d like, I could show you some landscaping ideas I have for this place. There’s lots of ways to go, depending on what your personal preferences are.” He’d been crouching, but now he stood. A shaft of sunlight caught the glistening sweat on his pecs.
Joanna found herself staring at the light feathering of hair just above his waist. “What did you say?”
“Well, I mean, do you enjoy butterflies? Birds? Or, like I said, we can do plantings for fragrance. Every garden should be special, should reflect the owner’s tastes. But like I said, we can talk about it.”
“Okay.”
He smiled at her. “You’re Joanna Kasimir?”
“That’s me.”
“I wasn’t positive it was you. I mean, I knew this was your house and all, but I thought maybe you were a relative. You look better without all the makeup.”
She wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a slam. “Thanks.”
“Well, better get back to work. I wouldn’t want my boss to think I was malingering.”
She realized she was grinning. “Nothing to worry about there.” She didn’t want to leave just yet. “Are you from around here?”
“Me, no.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his forearm. “From the Midwest.”
“Me too,” said Joanna. “How come you ended up in California?”
He gazed up at the sky. “I don’t know. Wanderlust, maybe. I got my degree in forestry a few years back. I was offered a good job, but I wanted to travel.”
“You mean you’re not trying to break into acting?”
“Hello, no,” he said, his smile fading. “That’s the last thing on earth I’d want to get mixed up in.”
“Not a moviegoer?”
“Nope. I like to read. And I like the outdoors. Movies and TV never interested me. Too fake.”
Joanna should have been insulted, but instead she felt her pulse quicken. This guy was for real, not some Mel Gibson wannabe. Not only was he gorgeous, but he seemed entirely content with and absorbed by his work. She could tell by his demeanor that he wasn’t the least bit impressed that she was a famous actress.
Joanna didn’t realize it, but she was already hooked. “I’d like to hear your landscaping ideas. What time do you usually finish up?”
“Five, or thereabouts.”
“Come up to the house when you’re done. Maybe we can sit on the terrace above the pool and talk. I’ll open a bottle of wine.”
He scratched his head, then stuck his hand in the back pocket of his jeans. “I, ah … I don’t drink. But a Coke would be great. Or water.”
“I think I can manage a Coke,” said Joanna. She wasn’t sure what she was getting herself into, but the train had already left the station. She’d just have to wait and see where it took her.