The Café, Santa Barbara, 1996
Kate folded the pages of Geoffrey’s record of his imaginary interview with Philip Cobham and tucked them into her purse. Then she looked at Maddie with slightly moist eyes. “You got Geoff to be creative, Maddie. Well done.”
The sisters had become closer during the past few months, and Maddie tried to stop in Santa Barbara every time she got a break from her book tour. As usual, they met at the Café for dinner and family gossip.
“I did. I think that he is intrigued at the idea of using his imagination for something other than disease and death. I wanted him to get out of that ravaged body any way that he could!” Maddie grabbed her wineglass and finished the contents in an angry gulp.
“I wish that he’d move back home,” said Kate wearily. She had worked all day, and hadn’t taken the time to change from her professional clothes. Her skirt felt tight, and she looked enviously at Maddie’s comfortable, pale pink sweat suit.
“Coffee?” The waiter asked, removing dinner plates deftly. The restaurant had become even more crowded with the eight-o’clock dinner set. This consisted of well-dressed groups of locals sprinkled with a few tourists seeking good food and “real” Santa Barbara atmosphere. Sigourney Weaver and Sander Vanocur were the celebrities in residence at the moment, both dining quietly at corner tables with their families, comfortable in the knowledge that nobody was likely to bother them at the Café.
“I’m reaching the point of the evening in which I have to decide whether to go to coffee or continue drinking,” sighed Maddie, gazing toward the bar with longing.
“Coffee for me,” said Kate
Maddie lost track of whatever it was that she was going to say and stared at the door. “Egad, it’s Aunt Bette. What did you do, Kate, whip out and call her on your cell phone?”
“Nope. She eats here almost every day. Likes the place,” said Kate, rising and waving. “I had lunch with her yesterday, and she did mention that she hasn’t had a visit from you in some time.”
Bette Cobham Lawrence was somewhere in her mid-eighties and usually needed a cane for reasonably secure walking purposes. But she was feisty, upright, and mentally quick. She was dressed in a dark blue Chanel suit, carried a Hermes handbag, and wore real sapphires in her ears and on her fingers. Her white hair was carefully coifed and her makeup was discreetly and carefully applied. She smiled and wiggled her fingers at her nieces and nephew, then made her way toward their table.
Kate and Maddie rose to kiss her cheek. “What a surprise. I didn’t know that you were in town, Madeleine,” she said a bit reproachfully.
“I was going to call you in the morning,” Maddie said apologetically. “Kate tells me that you were entertaining some of the guest musicians for the Music Academy. That must have been delightful.”
Aunt Bette stood a big straighter and her smile disappeared. “It was a pain in the butt,” she said. “Impossible to please some people. I will not be doing that again.” Her nieces giggled, trying to imagine a clash of wills between world-famous, temperamental musicians and their indomitable aunt. “Oh dear, there’s that fellow who was in those terrible Police Academy movies—nice man, but so much more intelligent than that fool he plays—” she commented, gazing at a table in the back corner of the room.
“Please join us,” said Kate, pulling out a chair.
Aunt Bette shook her head and gestured toward a cozy cushioned table near the fireplace. “I’ve got my spot reserved. Go on with your whatever,” she replied.
“We were talking family history,” Kate explained. “We were speculating about a very old romance between Samuel and Rebecca Cobham back in Maryland.”
“Um,” said Bette Cobham. “Yes … the Revolutionary War and such. I once visited their old homestead in Virginia.”
“You never told us,” said Maddie eagerly.
“You never asked me anything about our ancestors,” responded Aunt Bette haughtily. “In my time, a lady knew about her people. Ah well, I’ve forgotten most of the stories anyway. Use your imaginations, my dears. I’ll see you later.”
Aunt Bette’s companion, a pleasant, reliable young woman whose main function seemed to be helping her in and out of cars and keeping the great lady entertained, assisted her to a cushioned seat near the fireplace. The bartender, observing Aunt Bette’s arrival, had already prepared two cranberry cocktails, and the waiter hastened to serve them to the new arrivals.
“She never changes,” said Maddie with a smile “Nope … no more coffee for me. I’m tired and have a book signing tomorrow.”
“Chaucer’s bookstore?” asked Kate. “One of my favorite places.”
“No. Somewhere in Ventura. We can meet later if you wish. Let’s go and see if Aunt Bette will invite us to lunch at her place.”
The Riviera, Santa Barbara, 1996
Aunt Bette lived in Santa Barbara’s Riviera neighborhood, high on a hill with a stupendous view of the city, harbor, and Pacific Ocean beyond. She had married a very rich man from an old Pasadena family. As all good Santa Barbarans were aware, the only pedigree better than “Old Santa Barbara” was “Old Pasadena.”
Bette’s “Old Pasadena” husband had left her a wealthy widow when she was sixty-seven, and she spent many of the following years traveling and enjoying herself thoroughly on six continents. She never made it to Antarctica but was still thinking about it. She lived in a big old home dating from the 1920s, often remodeled and furnished with colonial antiques. She kept what she termed a “small staff” of live-in housekeeper, cook, gardener, maid, and two genteel companions.
Luncheon was held on a sheltered south-facing patio. Bette was fond of her nieces and usually enjoyed their company. Today, Madeleine was somewhat grouchy after spending the morning signing books, and Katherine seemed more depressed than usual. “You youngsters have no backbone,” she said as they nibbled on grilled salmon, spring salad greens, and beefsteak tomatoes smothered in blue cheese. “Your lives are too easy. Even my life has been much too easy, but at least I’ve enjoyed it.”
“Sorry, Auntie,” admitted Maddie.
“You’re also a bit hungover,” remarked Aunt Bette, taking a sip from the cold white Pinot Blanc in Baccarat crystal. “Katherine, you probably sat up all night writing some silly legal brief.” Her words were stern, but she smiled sympathetically at her guests. “You both need a vacation.”
“Been there, seen it, sent the postcard, bought the T-shirt,” sighed Maddie. “You do serve a fine wine, Auntie.”
“Thank you. Life is short, as they say, too short for bad wine. Unless, of course, it is the only wine you have.” Aunt Bette signaled for her maid to remove the plates and bring dessert. “Always eat dessert, girls. It is the most important part of the meal.” Bette was particularly fond of ice cream, and her doctor found it puzzling that she could eat it on a daily basis and keep her cholesterol levels so low. “Yes—dessert and old age. Both involve endings and empty calories.”
“You’re in a philosophical mood today, Auntie,” said Kate.
“Yes, I am. I was in San Francisco last week,” announced Aunt Bette. “I visited Geoffrey. He’s not so well.”
Both Kate and Maddie nodded. “I’ll try to get up there next week. I know that Kate has been visiting him on a regular basis.”
“Do more than try, Madeleine. I asked him to come and stay with me, but he refuses.” Aunt Bette shook her head. “He’s still stubborn—and proud. Like all of the Cobhams. What we lacked in good sense, we made up in determination.”
“That can be a bad combination,” said Kate with a bitter laugh. “It seems that our determined ancestors were lucky in love and pretty stupid about money.”
“Hmmm, possibly so. But remember that the times were very, very different. We can’t begin to know what a woman’s life was really like in the old days. You mentioned Great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Rebecca—she and Samuel had ten children, and they all survived. That was quite a remarkable record for the eighteenth century. Then again, she lived to be ninety-one. Perhaps I’ll try that.” Aunt Bette smiled. “Even so, we don’t even know what she looked like.”
“Oh yes, we do,” said Maddie quickly. “She was blonde and tall and gorgeous.”
“Perhaps,” mused Aunt Bette. “I wish that I had known my grandfather a bit better.”
“Why?” asked Kate.
“Because his grandfather was Rebecca’s grandson, Joseph. He would have known her in his childhood. He might have had some memories of what Rebecca was really like.”
“So we’re only a few handshakes away from Rebecca,” sighed Kate. “Our hand to yours, yours to your grandfather, Hiram, his to his grandfather, Joseph, and Joseph’s to Rebecca. An unbroken chain of evidence …”
“Spoken like an attorney, Katherine. Not many folks in this family have been too interested in reconstructing it,” said Aunt Bette. “They’re all dead anyway.”
“Yes. But now Katie and I will be on the best-seller lists soon!”
“Then we have to sell the screenplay,” laughed Kate, finishing her wine with a flourish. “I am honored that the Academy has awarded me this Screenwriting Oscar, based on the best-selling novel by . . . me!”
“Katherine, no more wine for you,” said Aunt Bette, but she was laughing. “The cinema is one area in which our family has never dabbled. We’ve been planters and slave owners and bootleggers and soldiers and tavern operators, but we’ve never sunk to show business,” she said with a mock shudder.
“There is a first time for everything,” Maddie responded. “Now if Green Colony is successful, I might write another book set in the colonial Chesapeake. Last night I was tossing about and put it all together. I would call it The Diary of Rebecca White Cobham.”
“Not a catchy title,” observed Aunt Bette wryly. “Madeleine, I do believe that you’ve a strong streak of your mother in you. She lived in too many realities.”
“That’s not such a bad idea, Mad. We can add that to my narrative. It would be hard to get the syntax correct though. English has changed a lot since Rebecca’s day.”
“Ever the scholar, Katie! Well, I wouldn’t even try it. But still, she’s become so real that she’s dancing in my head. I think that’s why I had such trouble concentrating on Green Lagoon this morning. I kept forgetting that my heroine is named Priscilla.”
Aunt Bette rose from the table and lifted her cane as if it were a scepter. “Oddly enough, we have a Priscilla as our ancestress next in line. That, however, is another story. Now run along, my dears. I have a masseur coming in fifteen minutes.”
“I tell you what, Katie, I want to write Rebecca’s diary, and we’ll incorporate it into your book!” said Maddie as they watched their aunt’s slow retreat.
“Really? Sounds good to me. You write it and we’ll go over it together,” agreed Kate.
Maddie sipped her wine with satisfaction. “I’m going to begin tonight.”