at First Sight (2008) (28 page)

"Whatever you want, if we can drink while we work."

"Deal."

He went to the bar and started looking around in his built-in wine cooler for the bottles. Then he pulled one out and uncorked the Screaming Eagle Cab. "You're supposed to let it breathe for half an hour first, but let's cheat and have a glass now." He poured some into two wine goblets, then picked his up and swirled it around, watching it hang on the side of the glass, doing the whole wine connoisseur thing. "Good consistency." He sniffed the glass. "Great nose, not too sweet or acidic . . . A great little wine for three grand a pop."

He handed me a glass and clinked against mine. "To new beginnings."

Shit, I thought. New beginnings? What the hell does that mean? We'd both just lost our spouses. For me, it was hardly a beginning. It was a vast, unacceptable ending. But I held myself in check, didn't respond, and took a small sip of the wine, which was remarkable. Then I looked up at him. "Let's see the list."

"I'm sorry?"

"The list. Let me have a look."

He seemed puzzled.

"The list of things your sister-in-law wanted you to find for Evelyn's mother."

He reached into his pockets and started pulling things out. "I know I have that damn list someplace." He grinned and started patting his pockets like a guy trying to dodge a dinner check. Then he looked at me sheepishly and shrugged.

No list, I thought. Great.

My panic alarms were all blaring. If there was no list, then the whole trip up here was bullshit.

I was now beginning to think I might actually be in some physical jeopardy, when he suddenly snapped his fingers and crossed the room, picked up the car keys on the hall table, and opened the door.

"Left it in the car," he said as he walked outside.

I stood there wondering what I should do next. The elk and bears hanging on the walls glared down at me. Since they were former victims, they offered no sympathy.

After a few minutes he returned, list in hand. "Got it," he smiled. "I forgot, I stuck it up under the visor while I was driving over to the hotel to pick you up. Come on, most of this stuff is out in the garage."

He picked up the wine bottle, then led the way through the house into a large game room, where more stuffed animal heads hung on the walls.

"Bagged that big guy over the fireplace in Oregon last year," he said conversationally, gesturing toward a huge dusty-looking elk head. "Mmm . . . " I answered.

He continued through the kitchen, opened the door to the garage, and turned on the light.

The garage was almost floor-to-ceiling junk. I'd rarely seen a space with so much discarded stuff piled randomly. There were boxes jammed up on the rafters, stacked in precarious disarray. The shelves contained more labeled boxes: old linens, tools, and household goods. Discarded furniture and scraps of broken lumber were stacked in both parking stalls.

"I told you it was going to be a big project," he said brightly. "My God, Chick, what is all this stuff?"

"We redecorated last year. This is what we didn't keep. I wanted to just throw it all away, but Evelyn wanted to clean it up and donate it to the homeless shelter down in Longview. That was Evelyn, always looking out for the less fortunate." He sipped his wine and smiled. "Boy, this really is smooth. Hard to believe it's a California red. I bet it's almost decanted by now. Let me pour you another and see if we can spot any difference."

"I'm fine. Let's get started."

He looked down at his list. "A box of her baby and high school
pictures from the summer house in Michigan. Should be up there
,
somewhere."

He pointed to a shelf full of boxes, then found a stepladder, carried it over, and climbed up. "We brought a lot of this stuff up here when we ran out of storage space in town," he said, starting to pull out cartons and hand them down.

As I took the first box, I glanced out the window and noticed a shed of some kind behind the garage, which I hoped wasn't full of more junk. I placed the box on the floor behind me.

We worked steadily for an hour. Chick had opened the second bottle and kept topping off my glass. Even though I was trying hard not to drink, I have to admit it was a great wine, and after a glass or so, I was feeling much better. The more we worked, the more harmless it all seemed.

When we had taken quite a few boxes down, we started going through them and pulling out the things he wanted to load into the trunk to take back to L
. A
. Then we carried those items out of the garage and stacked them on the kitchen counter. Once we got organized, it went quicker than either of us had imagined. After an hour and a half, we were almost finished.

Chick was up on the ladder, pulling out a big box of Evelyn's journals. I picked up the list that he had left next to the wine bottle. I read the last item: "E's paintings?'

"I didn't know Evelyn was a painter:' I said to Chick, who was up on the ladder with his back to me.

"Yeah, she wasn't real accomplished, like you are, but she used to like working with watercolors. Still lifes mostly. She said painting relaxed her. There's a slew of them up here somewhere?'

I glanced down at the list, and then turned it over to make sure there were no more items on the reverse side. That's when my heart froze. The list was written on the back of an invoice from the Fawnskin gas station. The date on the top was today's. It was the receipt he'd just gotten for putting the chains on the Mercedes.

The list was less than three hours old.

Chapter
37

I SET THE PAPER DOWN AND TOOK A STEP BACKWARD, trying not to let my voice convey anything. "Find the paintings yet?" I asked.

"Yep, right here. Got 'em." He pulled a box out and climbed down the ladder backward, then turned and carried it into the kitchen, setting it down with the others.

"That's all of it. Come on in and we'll uncork the French Bordeaux to compare and celebrate. This is thirsty work."

I moved into the kitchen and stood as far away from him as I could.

He must have noticed my stiff posture because he asked, "Something wrong?"

"I forgot to tell you, but I need to call Peter Ellis. We're redoing some things with the learning foundation. Peter's attorneys need t
o k
now where I am. They're working through the weekend because we have to file all this stuff with the Corporations Commission on Monday. I'm supposed to check over some of the redrafts this evening. Since the phones are working now, I'd better give them your number."

"First, let's crack another bottle:" he persisted, blocking my way to the phone in the living room as he opened the bottle of Bordeaux. He refilled my glass without asking me.

"To a job well done:' he said, clicking rims.

I pressed the glass to my mouth and let the wine run up to my lips, but didn't swallow. I didn't want any more alcohol. I was now in a full panic.

"So what was the deal with you and Chandler anyway?" Chick suddenly said, leaning back and studying me, a sly smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "I've been meaning to ask you about that."

"What was the deal?" I said, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you guys seemed so different is all. I could never quite figure what that was all about--how it worked with you two. He didn't seem to have your ambition, your sense of adventure:'

The statement was so out of line I didn't answer.

Chick smiled. I'd had about a glass and a half of wine, but he'd had at least five. I was standing there, calculating my odds, preparing for battle.

"Yeah. Guys like Chandler really baffle me," he went on, obliviously. "Kind of like a John Kennedy Jr. type, if you ask me. Money, nice to look at, but you gotta admit, these guys pretty much had life handed to them on a platter. John Jr. knew he was hot looking, an
d t
he press called him an American prince. But he crashes his plane in a whiteout, which was just plain stupid. I was always thinking why is everybody bawling? What it boiled down to was the guy didn't know what he was doing and he killed himself."

Then he gave me a little smile. "People magazine puts out a special edition. Entertainment Tonight couldn't run enough profiles. If I killed myself flying in zero visibility with no instrument rating, they wouldn't sing my praises; they'd open up a fucking accident investigation. See what I'm saying? Totally outta whack."

"Why are we talking about JFK Jr.? And what the hell does his death have to do with Chandler's?"

He took another sip of wine, then turned and focused his gaze out the window. It was now dark outside and I could hear the wind howling. He was quiet for about thirty seconds before he said, "People magazine was going to do a profile story on me when bestmarket
. C
om made the Forbes list. But the fucking entertainment editor killed it. Not newsworthy enough:' He turned back to me. "I popularized a whole new form of Internet commerce and they say it's not newsworthy. Instead, we get a story on Cher's plastic surgery. See what I'm saying?"

"Chick, we've cleared out this stuff. I think you've had enough to drink. Let's get it in the car and go."

Chick's eyes were shining. There was sweat on his upper lip. He cleared his throat and then said something so inappropriate it actually staggered me.

"I know you loved Chandler, and hey, there was a lot to love about the guy, I'll grant you that, but giving away his fortune to help
L
. D
. kids? If he'd earned that money himself, I could maybe respect the gesture. But he didn't earn it, he inherited it. Unlike Chandler, I know what it means to earn a dollar. Chandler never had to go out there and struggle to survive:'

"Let's check on those lodge reservations again," I said, a surge of adrenaline hitting my bloodstream.

"They'll call if the rooms are available:' He drained his wineglass in two long swallows and immediately poured himself another. Then, apropos of nothing, he said, "You ever notice that everything in America seems be about nothing or about just getting laid? We don't have dipshit royalty to fawn over like the Brits. We've got Gwyneth Paltrow and Johnny Depp. Who cares if Rosie is gay or who these celebrity airheads are cheating on each other with? Yet there are forests being cut down so we can read this shit?'

My back was flaring up from the long ride in the car and from moving boxes. I figured I'd better do something about it because I wanted to be in top form and pain-free if this got any loonier. I moved away from him. "May I have some water? I need to take a pill for my back?'

He crossed to the refrigerator, talking over his shoulder all the way. "Americans are focused on all the wrong things, Paige. We've made celebrity more important than accomplishment. It's better to be Kevin Federline than Charles Best Jr. You can't get any respect in America ifyou don't own the right stuff. What kind of car do you drive? Isy our house on North Elm? We don't read about the guys who invest in the future--guys like me, who pioneer whole new area
s o
f Internet commerce. Instead, it's all about the lucky sperm club. Guys who were born looking like Calvin Klein models, or who inherited their position and wealth."

"And you're saying Chandler was in that category?" My voice was shaking with anger.

"Chandler?" He stopped and looked at me, then came over and handed me the water.

"No," he replied. "No . . . " Then the condescending smile appeared again. "Okay, maybe. That's what I was saying about not getting you two as a couple. You don't seem like a woman who would just give it up to some great-looking guy with perfect teeth who never did anything but clip stock coupons. You deserve so much more than that, Paige. It's why I'm glad we finally got a chance to get away and be together?'

I was praying he was drunk, because if he wasn't, then he had to be insane.

Chapter
38

I TOOK MY PAIN PILL, WASHED IT DOWN WITH WATER
,
then turned toward him, subtly giving him my right side and settling into a open-legged, karate-ready stance. A soto-hachiji-dachi. I was trying not to telegraph it, but if Chick went to the next level, if he tried to even so much as lay a finger on me, then I was going to unleash some dojo whup-ass on him. Or at least try.

". . . Life should be about more than good times and a great backhand, don't you think?" he rambled on.

"We should get this stuff loaded into the car and get out of here," I repeated firmly.

"I was hoping we could sit and talk."

"Why don't we talk in the car on the ride back to L
. A
.?"

"There's things I really need to discuss with you," he pressed. "Things we need to sort out. A few conditions for our relationship."

My heart was now slamming inside my chest. Conditions for our relationship? This was totally nuts.

And then, he took a step toward me. I flinched and dropped th
e b
ottle of pills. It rolled across the floor and settled between his feet. He stooped and picked it up. Then he squinted at the label. "Percocet?" he said, reading it. "I thought you took Darvocet for your back."