Tides of the Heart Page 3

  He shifted his well-worked-out, taut little ass on the flowered cushion and flashed his winning, Kennedyesque smile. But the L.A.-speak that emerged from his mouth was just that: a phony, impossible-to-believe load of crap.

  “In case no one’s told you, my father has died. I’m here to grieve.”

  Ginny resisted the temptation to smack his cynical mouth, reminding herself that in a moment, Brad would have much more to grieve than the loss of his beloved father, whom he had done everything in his thirty-six-year-old power to humiliate, take advantage of, and otherwise suck off while the old man was still alive. She flicked her cigarette ashes on the ground. “I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but experience warns me otherwise.”

  “And we all know, Mommie dearest, that you do have experience.”

  She disregarded the lash. “And you might as well know, Brad, that there’s no money for you.”

  He did not answer, but steadied his eyes on his stepmother.

  Studying the thin line of smoke as it rose from the orange-red cigarette tip and dissolved into the smoggy afternoon, Ginny felt grim satisfaction at her small contribution to polluting the air that Brad breathed. “A few years ago your father chose to put all his assets into my name, and my name alone,” she said. “The house, his business, his investment portfolio—everything is mine.”

  Brad’s expression revealed little, but a layer of pink tinted the flesh of his cheeks. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

  Ginny shrugged. “He gave you the restaurant. At least, he gave you the money for it. That was your inheritance. Sink or swim.” The fact that Brad was sinking fast was not news to anyone. The once-popular restaurant he’d blackmailed out of Jake was in trouble with the IRS. Again.

  Quickly, he stood. “I want to see the will. I’m going to call my lawyer.”

  “You’re welcome to see Jake’s will. It spells out his feelings in great detail. As for a lawyer, I think you’d better consider how you’ll pay for it before you hire one.” She stubbed out the foul cigarette and got up from her chair, moving her face to within inches of his, drilling her eyes directly into his. “You might consider joining the New World Covenant with your sister,” she sneered. “It may be your only hope for redemption.”

  He bared his teeth. “Apparently I can’t afford it.”

  Ginny allowed herself a small smile. Then she walked barefoot across the patio to return to her guests.

  By seven o’clock the string of Bentleys and Mercedes and Jaguar convertibles had threaded their way down the canyon, leaving plenty of time for their occupants to change out of their mourning clothes for dinner. One party was over; another typically followed.

  It was a lifestyle Ginny had always loathed, yet it was what had once held her together, what she had been good at. She sat on the edge of the king-size bed now—the bed that Jake would never share with her again—and listened to the muted, cleaning-up party sounds: clattering dishes, rumpling trash bags, one-line murmurs between thick-accented Consuelo, a nameless bevy of white-coated caterers, and deep-voiced Lisa, who had insisted on staying to help.

  She supposed she should be able to find comfort in the familiarity of the sounds. She supposed she should pretend it was only the aftermath of any ordinary party—post-Oscar night, perhaps, like the one where she had worn the transparent dress and screwed not one but three megastars backstage, including the Best Actor himself.

  But the truth was, those memorable nights had brought nothing but morning-after shame. And by the time she had fallen in love with the fourth man she’d married, Ginny had been ready, at last, to settle down. Lisa had come into her life at the same time: Lisa, who did not know what a whore her birth mother had been, who had seen, instead, a woman devoted to a good, kind man, a woman who had found far more happiness than she’d even come close to deserving.

  “Ginny?” Lisa’s voice called now from the doorway. “Are you okay?”

  Ginny looked up. The room had grown dark while she’d been sitting there—daylight had turned to twilight, then dusk, during some moment when she’d not been paying attention.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, because even though her daughter was nearly thirty years old, Ginny’s fractured maternal instincts told her it would be inappropriate for a child to think her parent was anything but.

  Without invitation, Lisa entered the room, made her way through the darkness, and sat beside Ginny on the bed. “It was a nice funeral,” she said. “Jake would have been amazed at all the people who came.”

  No, Ginny wanted to say, he would have expected them. For though Jake kept a low profile as a documentary producer, he had known the name Jake Edwards commanded respect in a town that had so little, just as he would have known that anyone who was anyone or who wanted to be anyone would have shown up at his funeral for the photo ops alone.

  What was surprising was not the number of people who had been there, but that after nearly five years in L.A., Lisa was still so naive.

  They sat for a few moments in the quiet of the darkness, because Ginny did not know what to say to her daughter and because she was fearful that if she opened her mouth, her hurt and her anger at Jake’s death and at God would spew out, and then Lisa would feel she had to comfort her mother, and Ginny would hate that more than anything. What she wanted, instead, was simply for Lisa to leave her alone in the dark in her pain.

  But when Lisa made no move to leave, Ginny finally found the courage to speak. “Don’t you have an early call tomorrow?” she asked. It seemed the best way to tell her to go.

  “I told Harry to shoot around me.” Lisa grew silent again.

  Ginny was suddenly aware of the sound of her breathing, aware of each inhale, aware of each exhale.

  “I thought I’d spend the night here,” Lisa added.

  There it was, Ginny thought. The daughterly attempt at solace, the dutiful effort to comfort. Ginny stood up and snapped on the light beside the bed. “Thanks for the thought,” she said, brushing the hair back from her forehead and raising her chin. “But I’m forty-seven years old, Lisa. I don’t need a baby-sitter.” Forty-seven, after all, was too young to play role reversal: too young for this daughter to start taking care of this mother.

  “Tough,” Lisa replied. “I’m staying.”

  Ginny took a long look at this person who was her daughter and wondered if she really was hers. Where Ginny’s hair was dark, Lisa’s was light, as light as Ginny’s mother’s had been; where Ginny’s smile was small and tight, Lisa’s was always warm and wide, again, the same too-friendly smile always worn by Ginny’s mother. And even though Ginny and Lisa had the same perfect-size-six body, Lisa was tall, making her appear slimmer. And, God, Lisa had that annoying tendency to be nice … certainly not a genetic quality in this family. But there was the voice: If it weren’t for the startling, husky voice that spoke not of too little estrogen but of too much testosterone, Lisa would definitely be someone else’s.

  Shaking her head, Ginny crossed the room to the sliding glass doors. She stared out at the hot tub that churned and bubbled within its dramatically lit deck, as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed. She stared at the bubbles and wondered if Lisa’s hormones were as rampant as hers had always been, if sex for her daughter was as much a requirement as brushing one’s teeth. She hoped Lisa was able to get her need for approval met in front of the camera, not in the bed or the hot tub or the backstage dressing room of any and every man who offered a hard-on.

  Sex, Ginny thought. Shit. She turned back from the hot tub and wondered what she was supposed to do now that Jake was dead, now that the other side of the bed was cold and empty and no longer breathed. Quickly, she marched back to Lisa.

  “Don’t you have a date tonight or something?”

  “No.”

  Ginny paced the carpet, wishing she still smoked. She’d always depended on smoking to fill in the blank spaces of conversation, to take up the time when she tried to hold back her words or did
n’t know what to say. But she’d quit years ago—right after Lisa had come into her life and Jake had asked her to, and he’d been so damn good to her that Ginny could in no way say no. She’d quit and had not missed it a minute. One drag on Brad’s disgusting cigarette this afternoon had reminded her of that. Still, she wondered if she should—if she would—go back to smoking. Then she wondered what else would be different now that Jake was dead. Everything, she supposed. Every fucking thing.

  “I haven’t got time to date right now,” Lisa was saying while Ginny was musing. “The show keeps me busy.”

  “As long as it’s just the show.”

  Lisa shrugged. “Maybe I just haven’t met anyone special.”

  “You have a zillion fans. Don’t tell me there’s no one ‘special.’ ”

  “Well, according to the tabloids, I’ve been seen with Lorenzo Lamas, I’m sleeping with Brad Pitt, and I’m the secret love child of Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.”

  Ginny laughed in spite of herself.

  Lisa stood up and stretched her long, lean body. “The truth is, Mother,” and Ginny braced herself, for Lisa only called her “Mother” when she was dead serious, “I think relationships are fairly scary.”

  Ginny did not mention that though she’d had more than her quota—and everyone else’s—of men, there had only been one real relationship in her life—with Jake—and that had not happened until they’d been married for years and she’d finally broken down and let him know her true self. “Well,” she said slowly, “relationships take time.”

  “I’ll be thirty this year. Wouldn’t you think that was time enough?” A slow crack splintered the husky, testosterone voice. Then quickly, Lisa shook her head and turned toward Ginny. “I don’t believe I’m feeling sorry for myself when Jake has just died.”

  “Death has a way of scaring the shit out of us all,” Ginny said. “It’s pretty permanent.”

  “And pretty awful for those left behind,” Lisa added.

  Ginny wrapped her arms around herself. “Yeah. But I’ve buried enough people to know life goes on.” She thought about her mother and her rat-bastard stepfather.

  “What are you going to do now, Ginny?” Lisa asked. “What are you going to do now that Jake is … gone?”

  The hollow pit that had bored into her gut two days ago when Jake had dropped dead now rolled like a cement mixer at a construction site. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Sell Jake’s business, I suppose. Travel, maybe.” She turned back to the glass doors and wondered what indeed she would do, and if it was possible to go back to a life of … nothing. Would she drown the pain in vodka? Would it even work? In these last few years, she’d even stopped drinking. Jake had never complained; it was a decision Ginny had made on her own. But part of her knew she was taking her cues from her husband, trying to please him—someone—for once in her life. She wondered where her cues would come from now.

  Suddenly a voice came from across the room. “I was hoping I could interest Ginny in becoming a partner in a restaurant.”

  The irritation that rose whenever Brad entered a room climbed up her spine without missing a vertebra. “I thought you left.”

  Brad’s grin was broad, catlike. “I deposited Jodi at that mausoleum like the good brother I am. I came back to fix you a drink.”

  Ginny’s eyes darted from Brad to Lisa, then back to Brad again. “The last time I looked, the bar was not in the bedroom.”

  She let Brad make a pitcher of vodka martinis because it seemed easier than telling him to get out, safer than risking an argument in front of her daughter. But as she watched him move expertly behind the teakwood bar in the family room—the thick, clumsy bar that had been Jake’s favorite piece of furniture, purchased when he and Ginny had honeymooned on the big island of Hawaii half a lifetime ago, at least one of Jake’s—Ginny was struck by the discordance of Jake’s son standing where his father should have been.

  She leaned against the bar and took a glass from Brad. Thankfully, Lisa had sat down on the sofa across the room; typically, she had declined the vodka but accepted a glass of soda water instead.

  “To Dad,” Brad said, raising his glass in a toast.

  Ginny raised her glass as well, but said nothing. She took a small sip, then set the glass on the bar. “Brad,” she said, hoping to cut off any ideas he might have before he could spill them in front of Lisa, “whatever business you and I will or will not have I will not discuss tonight. We buried your father today, and that is all that matters to me right now.”

  He toyed with his glass and ignored what she said. “Speaking of business, what are you going to do with Lansing Productions?”

  Jake had named his production company after the Michigan town in which he’d been raised, so he’d never forget his “humble beginning,” he liked to explain. “I think I’ll keep it,” Ginny said. “I always wanted to be a Hollywood mogul.” It was a lie, of course. She had no interest in running Jake’s business, and had already received three offers to “talk.” But Ginny had no intention of telling Brad anything even close to the truth. “But if you’re here looking for a job,” she continued, “I’m afraid I’m not hiring.”

  “I’m not here about a job, Ginny,” he replied with the smooth coyness of a used car salesman from Podunk. “Actually, I came back because I thought you’d like a little post-funeral company.”

  Ginny picked up her glass again, but did not bring it to her lips. “As you can see, my daughter is here.”

  Brad nodded slowly, casting an up-and-down eye toward Lisa, then grinning back at her mother. “I noticed.”

  She cursed herself for not keeping up on current events, for not knowing if California had reinstated the death penalty for murder. “Brad,” Ginny spit out, “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  Lisa was rigid on the sofa, as if just realizing there was tension around her, that mother and stepson were on the edge of a fight. “I can go outside,” she said, “if you two want to talk.”

  Ginny blanched at Lisa’s predictable innocence. But then, she supposed, Lisa had no reason to think there was anything wrong: She’d made it a point to keep them apart. She would not have been able to handle it if Lisa had learned about Ginny and Brad, the mistake she had made, and the way he held it over her head like raw meat outside a lion’s cage.

  “We have nothing to talk about,” Ginny said flatly, then turned to Lisa. “And I really would appreciate it if you both left. It’s been a very long day and I want to be alone.”

  “Poor Mommie dearest,” Brad cooed, then set down his glass and moved away from the bar. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll be back. I can’t stand to see you suffering so much.” He spun on his heel and was gone.

  Lisa stared at Ginny, but did not mention Brad, as if some part of her knew it was better that way. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  “Positive.” Her breathing had somehow returned to normal now that Brad was no longer in sight. She stepped close to her daughter and gave her a hug. “Call me in the morning. I’ll be fine. Really I will.”

  But Ginny wasn’t fine. She lay awake most of the night, eyes glued to the ceiling, praying for sleep that would not come, praying to rid herself of the emptiness that would not leave, praying that all these feelings would go away and never come back.

  Chapter 3

  She wished that Maura weren’t coming home for the weekend.

  But it was Friday and Maura was coming and somehow Jess had made it through the day despite not having slept at all, despite not being able to keep her mind on her work but on the letter that was still in her purse.

  She turned on the gas jet and watched the soft orange flames come to life in the fireplace. What she needed, Jess knew, was a peaceful weekend alone. She’d almost had one: Travis had gone skiing in Vermont with some friends, and Chuck—well, she reminded herself—Chuck was in Boston, and, anyway, he rarely appeared since he’d rented the loft in Manhattan. If Maura weren’t coming, Jess could have had he
r peace. She could have wrapped up in her old chenille robe and spent Saturday and Sunday immersed in a book, shutting out the snow and the cold and allowing—or not allowing—herself to obsess about the letter, to feel her emotions swing from anger to hope, from anxiety to bliss, and to think about what, if anything, she could do.

  But Maura was coming and there would be little time for emotion. Instead, there would be a trip into Manhattan to pick out a wardrobe for Maura to take to Sedona. A trip into Manhattan, endless chatter from Maura, and no time to ponder the past or fantasize about the future. Still, Jess realized as she moved from the fireplace and gazed out the window at the dark waters of the Sound, she was grateful that Maura wanted her mother as a shopping companion, that she still valued her mother’s opinion as much as her credit cards.

  Touching a finger to the cool glass, Jess wondered if she would have spent hours, days, caught up in the giddy fervor of shopping with her own mother, if her mother had lived, if her mother had not died when Jess was only fifteen.

  They’d had their rituals, of course, when Jess had been a child … scooping up treasures at Bonwit’s and Saks, toting their violet-painted and crinkly-brown bags to the Plaza for tea in the Palm Court, skipping across to F.A.O. Schwarz for a romp with the toy soldiers and musical dolls.

  Those had been the moments of magic in Jess’s young life; the magical moments when mother and daughter escaped into one of their dreamy flights, away from the sternness of Father, from the have-to-do things and the have-to-be ways that being the family of Gerald Bates had demanded.

  But when Jess was fifteen, it had all changed in a heartbeat, a heartbeat that stopped.

  She rubbed the chiseled stones of her mother’s diamond and emerald ring now—the ring that Jess had worn since the day that the magic had been snuffed out forever.

  “Pills,” Jess had overheard one fur-draped lady whisper to another at the funeral on that grizzly New York morning in March.