Echoes of a Distant Summer (22 page)

Jackson interjected, “That depends upon whether or not you think he is an instrument of evil.”

Dan responded, “I don’t know about that, but I’ll bet he’s part of the reason you reacted like you did yesterday.”

“Perhaps it’s the angst created by my memories of him,” Jackson replied. “He’s been strong on my mind these last few days. I’ve been reliving the summers that I spent with him. He had a lot of qualities that I now value. Qualities that I ignored because I let my hatred for him block out some of the good lessons he had to teach.”

There was silence at the table for several seconds. Jackson’s words had changed the mood. A breeze had swept the table, driving the light repartee before it like so many clouds.

“You had to grow up before you could really examine your relationship with your grandfather,” Pres said. “And finding out which lessons are the valuable ones can take some people their whole lives.”

Lincoln spoke, and there was no hint of sarcasm or cynicism in his words: “When we were kids, I envied you, Jax, because you had no parents. You see, I hated the store my family owned. It seemed to me that I spent the majority of my adolescent life in that damn store. My father and mother never wanted to modernize; they wanted to do business exactly as it was done in China. My father and I used to fight over my going to school. There were days when he wanted me to cut school to work in the store and I wouldn’t. School was one of my major links with the world outside the store. Yes, for a long time I particularly hated my father.”

“That’s not true!” Dan challenged. “I remember you cried at your dad’s funeral. How old were you then, seventeen?”

“I was seventeen, but I cried for different reasons than you think,” Lincoln answered.

“I remember that day because we got there late,” Pres mused. “Wesley’s rundown ’fifty-seven Chevy stalled.”

“We’ve heard this story a hundred times,” interjected Lincoln.

“It’s closer to a million,” Jackson corrected. He turned to Lincoln. “I’m interested in hearing why you envied me, Linc. I didn’t know your father well, but I thought your mother was pretty nice.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “I want to hear the reasons you cried since you say they’re different than I think.”

“My folks were born in mainland China. They came here to Gold Mountain to make money and eventually return to China as conquering heroes. All my father wanted me to do is learn enough English to run the store. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be an American. I wanted to wear jeans and sneakers and drink Cokes and root beer floats and hang out with the Rangers. My father didn’t like me to spend time with you guys. He used to beat me for hanging out with you guys. He told me that I was trying to run away from my responsibilities. I didn’t see myself that way. My membership in the Rangers was an important element in my perception of myself. You remember when I was sixteen and I had that big fight with my father?”

“Yeah, I remember. You broke his arm with a lead pipe,” Dan confirmed.

“After that, he threw me out. My mother begged her brother to take me in and he did. My uncle was good to me. He was more modern-thinking than my father. He understood the value of education. When my father died, I hadn’t spoken to him since our fight. But I knew his death meant my return to that damned store. That’s why I cried. I knew my mother would need me. While my father was alive, I had escaped.”

“Oh, but we had some damn good times in that store,” Dan said.

“Yeah, Jackson practically lived there during our senior year,” Pres recalled. “Wasn’t that where he got dressed for the senior prom?”

“And tore his pants on the pork rind rack.” Dan began laughing.

“Do you ever wish that you had cleared up the problems between you and your father?” Jackson asked.

“No!” Lincoln’s answer was short and clipped. “His death was the best thing for our family. My sisters, my younger brother, and I all have professional careers. We never would have had that if my father had lived. He would have had us working in that damn store.”

A presence had entered the ring of conversation and caused it to lapse. Elizabeth had come to their table. Jackson rose immediately and greeted her.

“Hello.” Jackson extended his hand. Elizabeth let him take her hand and returned his brief squeeze with one of her own.

“Are these your friends?” she asked. Her contralto seemed to wrap itself around him. She smiled and looked around the table.

“No,” Dan blurted out. “We were all cellmates at Q.”

“Forgive him his friends,” Pres attempted to explain to Elizabeth. “Jackson is not as weird as they would have you believe.”

“I quite agree,” Lincoln said with mock seriousness. “The papers he received when he was released from that maximum-care facility indicated he was quite sane.”

“Would you like to step away from the table and talk?” Jackson asked, hoping to speak to her without the raillery of his friends.

“I don’t have time now,” she said as she looked Jackson directly in the eye. There was only a trace of a smile, but the look in her eyes, a look that was directed solely to him, conveyed her desire for more time to examine their differences and meetings. Without a change of expression, she explained, “My friends want to leave now. I just wanted to come over and apologize for Diane’s going off on you. She’s very upset.” Elizabeth paused and gave Jackson another impish look then said,
“It might be fun to see you without your squad of Musketeers.” She pressed a card into his hand. “Call me.”

Lincoln said to Elizabeth without a hint of sarcasm, “You’ve made a good choice. He’s a good friend and brother.”

“He’s my brother too,” Dan chimed in. “But we have different mothers.”

“Don’t listen to them,” Pres interjected. “We’ve all been friends since the fourth grade.”

Elizabeth laughed and said to Jackson, “You have quite a rooting section.”

Jackson smiled. “Sorry for the promotion, but they’re my friends. They’re good people.”

“Don’t be sorry for the promotion,” Elizabeth returned. “Unsolicited, it says something about you, something good.”

“Either that, or we’re in a cult,” Lincoln observed.

“All right! Before you guys begin again,” Elizabeth declared, raising her hands to hold off the potential flood of badinage, “good night, gentlemen.” She turned to go and Dan lumbered to his feet.

He walked with her a few steps as he said, “If you still have any reservations about being alone with this man, I am available as an escort. However, I prefer dinner dates.”

Later, sipping a cognac in the darkness of his house, Jackson felt as if he had pulled out of a small, placid tributary to join the floodwaters of a rapidly changing river of events. Already, in his inner ear, he could hear the rumble of the rapids. He felt no regret, only puzzlement as to the direction his life would take as a result of the forces that had been unleashed.

His thoughts drifted to Elizabeth. It was strange to have a woman enter his life at this time, for it was a time of upheaval, a time for hardening the heart, not opening it. Yet there was something about her he could not deny; her voice had an echo in it, an echo that he remembered in moments of solitude. It wasn’t logical: They had not spent more than twenty minutes together, yet he knew this was serious. He pulled out her card and discovered that she had written her home number on it. Jackson decided on impulse to call her.

As he dialed her number, Jackson wondered what it would have been like to have had someone to love him without reservation; to have had someone sincerely concerned about his welfare; someone with whom
he could confide his deepest secrets; someone who would never judge him too harshly. It was a fantasy and he knew it. The phone began to ring.

The ringing stopped and a woman’s husky contralto said, “Good evening.”

I
t was seven-thirty in the morning. Serena Baddeaux Tremain looked at her grandson Franklin and was not pleased. She stood behind a newly reupholstered 1930s vintage couch. Her grandson, sitting in an overstuffed chair of the same period, was sipping on what appeared to be a healthily poured drink. Serena wrinkled her nose; she did not like men who needed to drink alcohol in the morning just because they were confronted with problems. She walked slowly around the couch to the coffee table and picked up a polished brass bell, which she rang several times.

Franklin was unable to contain his impatience. He had spent several uncomfortable days worrying. He asked, “What do you think? Who’s he representing? Do you know?”

A middle-aged, brown-skinned woman entered the room in answer to the bell. “Yes, madam?” She spoke with a Hispanic accent. Her straight black hair was pinned up in a neat bun. She was the majordomo of the house staff and ensured that the organization functioned like clockwork. She had an attitude of quiet competence.

“Mrs. Marquez, may I please have a cup of chamomile tea? Very hot, please.” Serena always addressed everyone she employed by their last name and expected the same. She felt it gave them due respect and prevented any unnecessary crossing of social lines.

Mrs. Marquez nodded her head in understanding, and asked Franklin, “Mr. Tremain, would you care for something?”

Franklin waved his drink at her. “I’m fine, thanks.” He turned to face his grandmother. “Why are you making this a mystery?”

His grandmother waited until Mrs. Marquez left the sitting room
before she said, “Some topics are best discussed in privacy.” She took a moment to seat herself comfortably on the couch. It irked her that Franklin did not have sufficient insight to see that Braxton was just using him.

“You realize that Braxton hated your grandfather, hated everything about him?”

“Who didn’t? Hell, I hated the man myself! I thought you hated him too.”

Serena took a deep breath. She had spent the better part of her life letting her emotions rather than reality dictate her actions. The irony of what she was about to say to Franklin was not lost on her. “Put aside your feelings for a moment and think of what is best for the family. Doesn’t that make you wonder about his motives? You don’t really think that if you helped him that would in any way mean that he would keep his word, do you?”

“We’re talking business. I scratch his back, he scratches mine. Anyway, I thought this guy was a friend of yours. You used to invite him over a lot.”

“That was many years ago. Many things have changed since then. I know more now than I did then.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Why don’t you just tell me who he’s representing instead of beating around the bush.”

Serena saw that her grandson was not interested in reasoning out the problems confronting him. All he wanted was an answer that would make the decision that he had already made appear correct. In the end she would probably have to intervene anyway. Life was so frustrating; she had wanted to be the mother of a new order, to start a dynasty, and all the material she had left to work with was Franklin. It was frightening the way dreams went astray over the years.

As stated in her separation agreement with King in the early fifties, Serena had taken over management of the properties that they had accumulated in the Bay Area. She had a gift for real estate speculation and an understanding of when neighborhoods were on the brink of change. Money came easy to her hand. There was never any discussion of divorce. Serena and King had both grown up in a time when people remained married for better or for worse. Despite their separation, he remained very much in her life.

For many years after they parted, King reached out from Mexico and caused people to disappear. He never forgave those involved in the killing of Jacques. Serena knew that King employed a vast system of spies
to keep tabs on the whereabouts of his enemies and their families. Sometimes, he would materialize in person without warning, to lie low for several days in preparation for taking some action against his various enemies. Even though King had worked out a deal establishing the “noncombatant” status of his wife and family, it was extremely nerve-wracking for Serena during those early years. Finally, on the condition that King restrict his activities to Southern California, Serena ceded him seventy percent of their real estate management firm. King’s thirst for blood was never quenched, but it did not disrupt her life as much.

Serena wondered whether an understanding of all this history would help Franklin appreciate that he did not possess the skills to become a player in this game. Serena was certain the first time he was seriously threatened that Franklin would come scuttling back to hide behind her skirts. However, if the faceless “they” decided to take action without warning, Franklin could lose his life. He was the only one of her three grandchildren who had not traveled off some side road and the only one who had continued to obey her rules and requirements in order to get the favors she had to give. She was compelled to protect him.

Franklin was studying his grandmother over the top of his glass. What is this old, judgmental bitch thinking about now? he wondered. His relationship with his grandmother had never been more than cordial. It seemed they never had a conversation that didn’t have some element of reproof. It seemed he had never quite lived up to her expectations, but he was sure that even the character Sidney Poitier had played in
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
would have fallen short as well.

Serena broke the silence. “Be very careful of Bill Braxton. He is not acting as a friend of this family.” She said no more.

Franklin exploded. “What’s going on? You invited him to family picnics and birthdays for years—”

“Keep your voice down!” Serena commanded.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Franklin demanded, enunciating each word.

“There is nothing that you should know,” Serena said evenly. “All you need to do is stay away from Braxton and his friends. You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll take care of it. Just refer all calls from Braxton to me.”

Franklin was amazed. “You’re not planning to tell me anything?” he sputtered. “I’m the head of the company and you’re not going to tell me? This is ridiculous!”