Ghost Flower (12 page)

Pulling away, she said, “I couldn’t be happier today if you were my own granddaughter.”

“I wish I were.”

She shook her head at me. “Don’t start with that kind of talk again. You know your grandmother. Hard on the outside but sweet inside. I could name someone else like that. Now get dressed.”

“I’m not like her,” I protested instinctively.

She laughed. Then her face took on a serious expression. “She needs you now. More than ever. You’ve come back just in time. Good girl.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She’s aging—aren’t we all?” she said, moving back to the bed and adeptly stacking the pillows on the low table next to it. She worked with the smooth precision of someone who has done this a lot, and I wondered if she enjoyed it. I hadn’t loved my time working for Maid-for-You, but maybe it was different in a place like this. “Soon we’ll all be as crotchety as this old house.”

I saw the photo strip on the desk where Bain had left it and slipped it into a drawer. I said, “It’s strange not remembering anything that happened. I know it was a long time ago, but did you notice anything unusual about me before I left?”

She froze. “Why are you asking that?”

I sensed the question upset her, but I didn’t know why. “It’s just—it’s hard not to know. Like being dizzy. I’m hoping I can piece it back together.”

She let out a long breath. “The morning before you and Liza disappeared, you didn’t eat any breakfast.” She turned to face me, clutching a pillow in front of her. “That was so unlike you that I came up to check on you, and you were crying. You told me you wanted to be alone.”

“Do you know why?”

“Girl cries like that for only one reason. Boy troubles.” She tilted her head to one side, and her eyes got distant like she was pulling something from her memory. “I knew you’d been up to something; I just didn’t know with who. I tried to get you to tell me, but you wouldn’t. And then—” She let out a breath. “And then you vanished.
I kept thinking maybe if I had done something, maybe if I had made you tell me, you wouldn’t have run off. You wouldn’t have—” Her hand went to her mouth.

I took a step closer to her. “There’s nothing you could have done,” I said. The words felt bare, common, but I hoped they worked. I liked Mrs. March. She gave a tight, trembling smile and nodded. Trying to figure out the right way to play it, I said, “I didn’t realize you knew my secret.”

Now she laughed. “Who do you think saw the tell-tale tracks of dirt up the back stairs first thing in the morning after you’d snuck in at night? Never a tidy one, you weren’t.” She looked down at the tangle of sheets and blankets on the bed and shook her head. “Still a tosser and turner, I see.”

“I had trouble falling asleep,” I said. Before I could remind myself that the door-knob-turning incident had just been a dream, I said, “We haven’t added a crazy relative in the attic or anything?”

“I don’t think your grandmother’s quite gotten to that yet, though I won’t deny some of your relatives could deserve it.” She carefully folded the top of the flat sheet over the comforter and turned to reach for the stack of pillows. “Why?”

“I thought someone tried to get into my room last night. Turned the door handle. I just wondered if there was anyone else up here.”

She had been leaning across the bed holding a square pillow with little silver beads on it. But as I spoke I heard a sharp intake of breath, and the pillow fell out of her hand and tumbled to the floor. I bent to get it. When I handed it to her, she didn’t meet my eyes, instead turning to carefully position it among the others.

“I’m sure that was just the wind through an accidentally open window,” she said, half-facing away from me. “This old house is as creaky as my back on a December morning.” She gave a laugh that
almost sounded genuine. I laughed with her, and for a moment I felt better.

But as she turned to go I caught sight of her reflection in the mirror next to the door, and there was no sign of laughter there. Her eyes flashed to the door handle, and her face was creased deeply with worry.

I
wasn’t sure how to dress for both a police interrogation and an excursion to the mall with Bridgette, let alone how the old Aurora would have dressed, so I went with a mid-thigh-length navy blue dress with ruffles up the front and cap sleeves that reeked of innocence on top, and the studded motorcycle boots on the bottom in case Bridgette needed to be taught a lesson.

The edge of the photo strip poked out of the drawer, and I opened it and took it out. This must have been the secret boyfriend Aurora was crying over the night before she left. I tucked it into the pocket of the dress and went out the door.

I hadn’t really been worried about the family reunion because from what Bridgette and Bain had told me all that really mattered was that Althea accepted me. But suddenly I realized I had no idea how Aurora would behave in this situation. What would it be like to see your family after a long absence?

Without warning my mind flashed to an image of walking into a large, elegant room.

There’s a woman standing in front of a tall window looking out, and as I
enter she turns toward me. The sun is behind her, so I can’t see her face. But I know it’s my mother, and I know she’s smiling. She opens her arms and pulls me toward her, and I can feel her warmth as she holds me to her, rocking me softly. I say, “I’m so sorry, Mommy,” and she says—

“What’s keeping her?” Althea’s voice, rising from somewhere beyond the base of the wide staircase, sliced through my thoughts, leaving me hanging somewhere between disappointment and relief.

You don’t have time for this,
I told myself sternly. It’s time for you to play Aurora, the Aurora everyone expects to see. My knees trembled a little as I descended the rest of the stairs. I was scared, I realized, but also… excited.

Walking into the large parlor was a little like walking into one of those dreams in which the mannequins in a store all come to life after it’s closed. I heard voices when I approached the door. But as I entered everyone froze, so the room seemed to be filled with very lifelike sculptures caught in self-consciously characteristic postures.
Bridger Silverton
—Bain and Bridgette’s father [55, property developer, now running for U.S. Congress, widowed and remarried, $26,000,000]—half-rising out of the leather seat;
Margie Silverton
[35, Bridger’s second wife, no money of her own. A former waitress and Bridger’s mistress since his first wife died, she’d “somehow convinced” him to marry her right after Aurora left; “ambitious, carefully conniving, manipulative, and dangerous,” according to Bridgette; Bain described her as “trailer trash with flair”], perched on its arm with her ankles crossed.

There weren’t enough chairs in the room, as though it was designed on purpose to make people uncomfortable. Bridgette stood near the wall behind her father and stepmother with her hands in fists, and Bain lounged alongside her, his face in a sort of gleeful smirk. On the other side of the room Uncle Thom looked like he
was wearing a suit even though he wasn’t. He was standing, his hand dangling over the back of the upholstered chair occupied by
Aunt Claire
[44 but tells people she’s 35, youngest of Althea and Sargeant’s children, ethereal beauty, dabbled in all the arts, “nice” according to Bain, “ruthless” according to Bridgette, older than her husband but worked very hard to look younger. She claimed assets of $14,000,000, although there was a rumor she’d lost most of it to a cult and was living on loans based on her future inheritance]. She had been Aurora’s mother’s best friend, so I looked at her with interest. But her pale alabaster face with its slightly too wide eyes and careful contours was disconcerting. She had a large Irish setter at her feet. She looked relaxed, but I had the impression she was watching me more closely than anyone else.

Althea sat in the middle of them all, perched in a burgundy leather wingback chair with large brass studs like an Elizabethan monarch. “Come,” she said, motioning me forward with one hand. The command shattered the tableau, and everyone started to talk and move and gather around me at once. After exactly two minutes of insincere hugs and wondering backslaps, Althea said, “Enough! We have work to do,” and everyone resumed their positions, well-rehearsed actors taking up their marks.

A young woman with tightly curled hair pulled into a puffy ponytail and skin the color of caffe mocha had entered but stood discretely off to one side in the middle of the meet and greet. I recognized her from the cards—
Jordan North
[23, friend of Bain and Bridgette’s from high school so had known Aurora socially; now Althea’s social secretary while applying to graduate school for psychology, net worth negligible]—but she was far prettier in real life. She was beautiful, like a model, but didn’t seem self-conscious about it. She wore a caramel fitted skirt and
sleeveless sweater and was by far the most formally dressed person in the room. In her arms she held a well-worn leather folder. As she entered her eyes moved briefly toward the corner of the room where Bain was standing next to his sister, and it made me wonder if they were a couple.

Althea started to say, “This is my social secretary—” but I interrupted her.

“Hi Jordan,” I said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

I could have sworn Aunt Claire sat up a little straighter.

Jordan said, “You too, Aurora.” She was smiling at me, but for a fleeting moment I thought I saw something flicker at the back of her eyes, something that suggested seeing Aurora again wasn’t really a pleasure. Then it vanished, and I couldn’t be sure I’d seen it at all.

Althea cleared her throat. “As I was saying, Jordan is my secretary, and all bookings will go through her.”

“Bookings?” I asked.

“We’ve been putting together the program for your launch,” Jordan explained, opening the folder. It had all been worked out already, apparently, and would begin the next night, Sunday, at the Country Club Member’s Dinner, which we would attend as a family. It would continue on Monday at the round-robin tennis tournament—it really was too bad about my hand, everyone agreed. A mixed doubles match with Bain would have been ideal—followed by the Country Club Dance that night to mark the beginning of the summer season. Wednesday morning we’d swing into the official portion with interviews, during which I would stay quiet on where I’d been and just talk about how happy I was to be home. Until then I’d make spontaneous “discrete local appearances.”

I felt like I was watching the entire event as a spectator, not only because they were talking about someone else but because it really
didn’t seem to matter if I was there or not. No one consulted me or asked my opinion. Apparently the business of being Aurora Silverton ran on its own steam, and I just sat there and got pulled along behind it like a crop being hauled to market.

“Mother, I really must object,” Bridger said. “Shouldn’t the Family vet her first before unleashing the press on the story? If we take two or three months, like that girl in Utah who—”

“I have told you so often about using words precisely, Bridger. There is no
must
about your objection. You would like to object. You think it’s objectionable but must object? No. You’re thinking of the well-being of your campaign, not your niece,” Althea accused him. Which seemed accurate but a bit unfair since I was pretty sure no one was thinking of my well-being.

“What did you mean by discrete local appearances?” I asked.

Jordan nodded, like I was a new, possibly slow student she wanted to encourage. “Well, for example, this morning you have a meeting at the police station to answer some questions, and we’ve been trying to contact Elizabeth Lawson’s family to have them come from Tempe for a joint appearance—”

“Good luck,” Bridger interrupted. “I tried to have the father come for the dedication of the new children’s center we named after Elizabeth Lawson, and he declined. Said he had his own way of honoring his daughter. Smarmy bastard.”

Margie patted his leg with a perfectly manicured hand. “There’s the Boys and Girls Club Day at the Tucson Days Fair on Tuesday,” she said. Her red sweater strained over her cleavage as she sat up, and her blond head bobbed with enthusiasm. “It would only be natural for Ro to go to that, and since Gina Gold arranged it, there’s bound to be plenty of press there.”

I could see what Bridgette meant by carefully conniving.

Althea scowled at Margie. “Where are those diamond stud earrings I bought you?” she demanded.

It seemed like a non sequitur to me, but no one else was surprised. “I wore them to the museum party last night, you silly goose,” she said. “You can see the photos in
Arizona
magazine next month.”

“Rather see the stones in your ears. I paid enough for them. Want to make sure you haven’t traded them for paste.”

“Mother, there is no such thing as paste anymore,” Aunt Claire said. “It’s all cubic zirconium.”

“I’m sure you know,” Althea shot at her. “And what did they use to make those fake pearls?”

Aunt Claire touched the pearls at her neck. “They’re real, Mother, just as they were the day you gave them to me.” Her eyes came back to me. “But since you are so concerned with authenticity, how can you be so sure that this young woman is really Aurora?”

Althea said, “Because I say she is, and I won’t take any more questions.” She settled back into her chair, and the machinery of being Aurora clicked on around me. I’d begun to lose interest when Mrs. March entered and bent to whisper something to Althea. Althea’s bright eyes rested on me, and she smiled. It wasn’t a smile I could easily read. She rose to her feet. “I have an appointment. You can show yourselves out.”

Bridger, who had been straining his neck to see the new arrival through the open door, said, “Mother, why is Chester Mac here?”

“Why does anyone invite their estate lawyer over? To make a new will.” Now her eyes definitely looked amused. “With Aurora back, obviously, some things will have to change. I’m sure none of you have anything to worry about. To each according to his merits.” She let loose a laugh that sounded like dry leaves crackling. “I’ll expect to see you all for supper at the golf club tomorrow night.”