Out at Night (17 page)

He crossed his arms over his chest. Moonlight angled across his face.

“And Grace, I don’t know how you fit, but I can tell you this. Be careful. Truth is, Pete’s looking for some reason to hold on to her. Still have her be their little girl. They’d love it if I was out of the picture.”

“One more question. Where was Vonda Wednesday night?”

It was dark outside, but she could still see him stiffen. “I have no idea.”

Chapter 19

Sunday

French tourists swarmed over the breakfast room in the Comfort Inn, chattering happily, as Grace carried an orange and a cup of coffee back to her room. It was eight in the morning, three hours later in the Bahamas.

It was hot in Palm Springs, close to eighty. The air smelled of desert heat and sage. The cliff wall of the San Jacinto Mountains crackled like crumpled tinfoil against the flat blue of the sky.

She dialed the Pink Sands Hotel, picturing the front desk with its scalloped pink and orange arch limed in shells, the polite and efficient clerks. It rang into space. She was on the edge of hanging up when a musical lilting voice answered and asked which suite.

She remembered their villa and all the suites had names. She remembered nothing. She had no idea.

“Mac McGuire. Please.”

Grace inspected her toes. It was hot enough for the sandals she was wearing, but a bad idea if she ended up tracking a bad guy into the desert. Rattlesnakes, scorpions, and cacti. Oh my. She’d change after the call.

“I’m sorry, madam, but he and the little one appear to be out.”

The air really was sucked out of the room then.

“Ma’am?”

Grace tightened her grip on the phone.

“Would you care to leave a message? Oh wait, wait just a moment.”

A voice in the background, laughter, and then remarkably, his voice coming across the distance.

“Hey.” He sounded tired and relaxed. She could hear Katie chattering happily in the background.

“Hey.” Tears spilled.

“Honey, are you okay?” It slipped out, and the concern and warmth derailed her.

“Is it Mommy?” Katie squealed in the background. The happy sounds of exuberant chaos. Mac raised his voice.

“Yeah, buttercup. Want to say hi?”

A scream of joy and the phone was transferred. Katie sounded breathless.

“Mommy! We had breakfast at this place all blue, and they fix whatever you want, and yesterday, Daddy took me to a pool with a rock that spouts into a slide and he got me a pencil thing so I can use it when I swim.”

Grace pressed the phone to her ear. She could almost smell the chlorine in her daughter’s soft tangle of curls.

“That’s great, sweetheart. Having fun?”

“Yes, double, yes, triple, all of the numbers.”

Grace could hear gales of laughter and Mac joining in. It went on a long time. She crimped the bedspread and smoothed it flat.

“Sorry, Mommy. Daddy’s being his silly self. There’s fishies here in the main place.”

“The lobby.” Grace closed her eyes. “They’re koi.”

“Daddy let me have two scoops of ice cream and a cola and bye! Love you!”

“I love you, too, honey, so much.”

“And here’s kisses.” The sound of wild kissing and silence.

Mac’s voice. “I’m back.”

He sounded happy, and for some reason, that made her angry.

“Two scoops of ice cream and cola?”

He was silent.

“I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re doing fine, it’s just—”

“What?” His voice turned cool. “Grace, she’s fine. I have to go. We’ve got a busy day planned, lunch and swimming and then taking the golf cart around the island.”

“She needs milk.”

“I think I can handle that.” His voice had a definite edge now.

She couldn’t seem to stop herself. “When you tucked her in?”

The air between them grew heavy and she could picture, like one of those CSI shows, her energy spiraling down the coiled wire, sparking like a synapse across a continent, burrowing under an ocean, roiling up intact into Mac’s ear, her immaculate, angry, pitch-perfect timbre of neediness: “Did you find the Anne of Green Gables? I left it on the dresser. I’d marked it, where I left off, I forgot to tell you, but Katie probably did. She’s been really excited about that book and—”

“She wanted Green Eggs and Ham. Over and over again. That’s all I’ve read to her the last two nights.”

“Green Eggs and Ham. Good choice.” Katie hadn’t wanted Green Eggs and Ham in at least two years.

“I brought it as a gift.”

The silence grew heavy. “Have fun.”

“We will. We are.”

Too fast, she said, “Did you have fun today?” She’d already asked that. She already knew the answer.

“Look, Grace, I need to wrap this up. We were walking by the front desk when you happened to be on the phone. I hate to tie up their business line.”

“I’ll call later.” She was falling. Spinning into space. “When’s a good time?”

“Let’s play it by ear.” He hesitated. “She really is okay, Grace.”

__

Twentieth Avenue to Karen. Second mailbox to the right.

Grace drove slowly down Twentieth, a frontage road of I-10, looking for Karen Street. Wind turbines towered in gleaming white columns, and the wind, as it went through them, whined like a living thing.

She passed a sign advertising windmill tours, and a row of metal mailboxes. On the seat next to her, three orange juices and three coffees sloshed in a cardboard container.

Karen turned out to be an avenue, optimistically named, in Grace’s opinion. The road dipped and she slowed, one hand holding the cups so they wouldn’t spill. The smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls filled the car and her mouth watered.

A faded FOR SALE sign had been tacked on the side of a post, with a newer sign slapped on top: SOLD! TINE REALTY!

Her car bounced down the path and then the road opened out again and she saw a building shaped like a bubble. An oasis suspended in blowing dirt. Nothing stirred.

The greenhouse. The building looked deserted, but through the blowing sand, Grace could see a stucco house up ahead. She was passing the greenhouse now. A small, hand-painted sign stood on a wooden post, the words already nicked by the constant blowing sand. She slowed her car to get a better look: GOOD FARMS.

She’d slept little. She’d found herself thinking about Vonda. Hearing Stuart’s pain made it real. As a doctor, she’d worked with parents of sick children, but she’d tried hard not to cross a line. Practice compassion, but maintain a boundary. Doctors who forgot that important lesson and let patients get close enough to grab hold always got dragged under.

She could feel the currents in her cousin’s story threatening to pull her under. She was too tired to defend against it. She couldn’t afford to drown so far from shore.

Grace drove up a gravel driveway leading to the carport and parked behind a battered, mustard-colored van. In the carport, a U-Haul stood with its back hatch open. Inside, a mattress lay folded over a kitchen table.

They were leaving, from the looks of it. And soon.

Chapter 20

The door opened and Vonda stepped outside, smiling. She was wearing her hair in a braid and she flipped it and it settled at the nape of her neck. She shuffled down the steps in a pair of fuzzy blue slippers. Her ankles looked like they’d swollen since Grace had seen her in jail the night before.

“Hey. You made it.” She grinned and patted her swelling stomach. She was wearing a blue T-shirt that said BABY ON BOARD.

Grace reached into the car and took out the drinks container and the grocery bag. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I brought a little of everything.”

“I can carry something.”

“You already are.”

Vonda laughed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“This damn cold.” She shuffled ahead of Grace and held open the door. “Stu’s taking a shower. He’ll be done soon.”

“Who’s moving?”

Vonda cracked a looked at her, and for an instant, Grace saw the kid she’d been, darting into traffic, the same smile. “Stu’s job is winding down, and the greenhouse sold out from under us. Time to move on. What the hey.”

“Are you nuts? Crazy? You’re days away from giving birth.”

“Stu’s been accepted to Stanford. We’ll live in student housing. We’ll drive up, take our time.” She held the screen door open. “Come on, Grace, ease up.”

The living room was small and spare, separated from the kitchen by a pony wall. Moving boxes lay in high stacks against the wall next to the door. The only furniture left was a half-emptied bookcase, a sofa and coffee table. The sound of a shower came from down the hall.

Grace set down the food and drinks on the kitchen table. Stacks of homemade bread lay in piles on the counter. Cranberry seemed the most popular; there were only three left in that stack.

“Coffee, yay. I can have one cup a day.”

“There’s a little thing of milk, too, if you need it.” Grace unpacked a carton of cantaloupe and the cinnamon buns and Vonda’s face fell.

“Oh, I was going to serve homemade banana bread.”

Which was why Grace had brought buns. She was too tired to pretend it was delicious. “I’ll bring a loaf home.”

Vonda brightened and cracked open her coffee lid.

“I hear you sell it in front of the Hyatt on Thursday nights.”

“Farmers’ market.”

Grace busied herself with the yogurts. “I was wondering.”

“What?” Vonda took a sip, relaxed, oblivious.

“Where you were Wednesday night.”

Vonda looked at her. All the life went out of her face. She put down the coffee cup and went down the hall, her back rigid. She entered a room across from the bathroom and closed the door. Grace followed her down the hall and knocked.

“Vonda?”

Silence.

“Vonda, let me in. I’m coming in.”

It was a baby room with a decorated crib and a chest of drawers with a changing table. Boxes of Pampers stood against one wall next to a baby carseat.

Vonda stood hunched over the crib, digging her hands into the quilt, trying not to cry. It was small squares of blue, the stitches tiny and even. Grace wondered which relative had sewn it.

“Vonda.”

“Don’t.”

“I have to ask everybody that.”

“Why? Because my dad tells you to? He’s not going to believe me, anyway.”

“Try me.”

Vonda grimaced. She smoothed her fingers over the crib. The wood was oak.

“Stuart didn’t want to put the crib up this time. Not until we were closer. Now I can’t stay out of this room. I made him promise it would be the last stuff to go.”

“Try me.”

She exhaled. “I was walking. I was walking around outside. I knew we’d be leaving soon. I was walking.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it.”

Vonda raised her dark eyes, her face so like Grace’s. “I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

There was nothing to say and Vonda knew it. She turned and went past Grace down the hall into the kitchen. There was something lonely and deliberate about the way she walked, as if she’d been walking alone for a very long time and still had trouble getting used to it.

By the time the bathroom door opened, they were sitting at the table, drinking coffee, or pretending to.

Stuart padded down the hall, toweling dry his hair. He was wearing worn jeans and a pullover. In the daylight, his sideburns were salted with gray and his abs looked taut. He went into the kitchen, glanced at Grace, and kissed his wife.

“You okay?”

“Grace, my husband, Stuart. Stu, this is Grace, the cousin I was telling you about who knows a lot about microbiology.” Her voice was toneless. The joy had gone out of it. “That’s what he’s doing at Stanford, going back to finish up his doctorate.”

He blinked as if he’d forgotten the script. He was still staring at his wife, and Grace could see the confusion in his eyes, and tenderness. They might have bumpy spots, but this was a man who loved his wife.

Grace said, “Actually, we met briefly last night at jail. He was just leaving.”

“Hey. That’s right. Good to see you again. Starbucks. Wonderful.” He put the towel around his neck. He cracked open the lid and took a small sip.

The room grew silent. Vonda blinked, close to tears. Stuart moved behind her and rubbed her neck with one hand.

“What kind?” Grace and Stuart were going to have to lug this conversational ball up the hill together, and it was a heavy one.

“What?”

“Microbiology. It’s a big field.”

“Oh. Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Are you asleep yet?”

Grace smiled. She waited. A fly buzzed. “You’re starting Stanford winter quarter then.”

Vonda stared stiffly at her cup, refusing to make eye contact.

“Right after Christmas. If we leave now, we’ll be settled in for a couple of months before I have to go to school. We’ve been saving some money, I’ve got student loans, and I’ll be working part-time. We’ll be okay.”

Stuart dropped his hand. “Honey, do you know where the spoons went to?”

Vonda shrugged.

“I brought plastic ones,” Grace said.

Stuart looked at his wife. She kept her eyes averted. He found spoons and put one next to each place, along with a napkin. He smiled at his wife again but Vonda shook her head. A silent, pained communication snapped from her eyes to his. He sat down.

They ate in silence, fishing out slices of melon wedges from the container as if they were ripe pickles.

“How’s your mom taking the move?”

Vonda exchanged a quick glance with Stuart. Her lower lip trembled.

“You haven’t told your folks yet.”

Vonda wet her lip. “Mom’s at Curtis and Sandy’s, baby-sitting. They live on the coast—Carlsbad, not far from you, Grace. Curt won this big sales award and he and Sandy are on this cruise.”

Grace vaguely remembered a row of Vonda’s older brothers, dark and mischievous, Curt second from the oldest.

“So your mom’s going to come back to an empty house here, is that it?”

“It’s not like that, Grace.” Stu’s voice was sharp, his tone preemptive.

“He thinks I’ve fallen in with a bad crowd.” Vonda tried to make it a joke and Grace could tell by the grim set of Stuart’s mouth that this was an old battle, but the wounds were still raw.