Moondance (24 page)

She sat on the couch adjacent to his desk and his cell phone rang. He glanced at the call display.

“I have to take this,” he said.

As Vince talked, Althea looked around at his books, toys and community awards. Two oil paintings from local artists hung between two windows. Rocky, the office cat, lounged on the couch, his tail wrapped around his body. He was snug between two stacks of hanging files, just as he had been during her interview with White Light two years earlier.

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. Yes, I did that already. Okay. I’ll see you shortly.” Vince hung up. He looked down for a moment, as if he was organizing some papers in front of him. When he looked up, Althea felt a tickle of fear in her chest.

“Peter’s gone, Althea. I wanted you to find out from me.” Althea’s tickle turned sharp.

“Gone? Is he —”

“No, no, he’s fine. I had to let him go. It’s Exeter. When they found out I was sick, they swooped in like vultures.” Vince laughed dryly.

Althea’s head spun.
They didn’t know? How could they not know?

• • •

“SO WHAT DO YOU think it means? What’s in your gut?” Celia, the logical intuit.

Althea shook her head slowly. “He’s lying. I don’t know about what, though I have a couple of hunches.”

“Me too. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Anyway, enough about this. I got your email Monday.
It seems like weeks ago now. What else have you heard?”

“About Francis, you mean?”

“About whatever.”

“She’s been in Singapore almost two years. I heard they created a position for her.”

“Are they —”

“They’re married, Al. A year and a half ago.” Althea was silent. On a notepad in front of her, she drew a series of circles, until the paper ripped. “Are you okay, Al? I wasn’t sure whether I should send it to you, but I thought you’d want to know.”

“I’m glad I do,” Althea said, a lump hardening in her throat.
So fucking glad
.

“Did you ever write him? Tell him what you think of how he handled
it? I know you were thinking about it. You deserve to be angry.”

“I wrote it. Didn’t send.”

“Are you writing for yourself?”

“No, I’m not.” Her pen broke, and blue ink spilled on her hands. “Crap,” she said. She tried wiping the ink off. Instead, the spot grew.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m just making a mess. Enough about me. What are you working on these days?”

“I surf travel sites. Did I tell you that, as a pre-honeymoon, we’ll be spending four months in deepest Africa?”

“You got a sabbatical?” Althea and Celia agreed that a sabbatical was the best employee benefit on earth.

“No, I told Gilda to shove it.” Celia’s new boss, who had been recently hired from a competitor, looked like the late Gilda Radner, but less funny.

“No kidding. What happened?”

“She pushed me too far. She’s into the blame-game and I don’t want to play. So the day I resigned, I told her what I thought.”

“I should take a lesson from you. So you’re a free agent. Are you looking?”

“In good time. I think this might be the time to look into artist management. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“I know. I think it would be perfect for you. About Africa, I’m so jealous. When are you leaving?”

“In ten days.”

“That’s so fast!”

“I know, it’s amazing. Everything just fell into place. About you and work, wanna know what I think?”

“Of course.”

“This recent development is good. Whatever’s going on, it means your corporate saga is about to come to a swift conclusion.”

• • •

THAT NIGHT, ALTHEA DREAMED of a beautiful street and a large tower covered in a matte of ivy. Two white sand paths emerged from the front of the structure, and curved in a broad circle. Though she couldn’t see it, she could hear the pounding ocean beyond. The tower was about to be sand-blasted, the ivy stripped off to expose the warm red brick underneath.

She felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. She turned and a tall, red-headed man
bowed and extended his hand to her, and as she looked into his face, his hair grew, turning black and lustrous, and his eyes glowed green, sending a wave of pain through her body. She looked away and the ocean sounds grew, until she was sitting on a cliff
too close
she thought.
She could fall
.

In her bed, alone, her arms around her pillow, her face buried there, the sounds of sobbing seemed to come from someone else.
Smells so sweet
, she thought. As she stirred, an amber-scented warmth tucked up against her, spooning her body, rocking her.
Are you ready, my love?
With the voice, she felt a touch on her hair, feather light and bittersweet, like something she had lost.

chapter 37

THE DAY AFTER CELIA told her that Daniel was married, and she and Tomas were leaving for Africa for four months, Althea got into White Light late, after sleeping poorly the night before. As she headed toward her desk, there was no sign of Exeter.
Good
.

She picked up her voice mail: a message from Vince, that he’d be in later this morning, and a question about Ivana’s publicity plan. He sounded weary. As she listened, she reviewed her to-do list. She noticed the faint, colorless grooves of circles from her doodling the day before, and her last entry, underlined:
Call Ivana re lunch
. She had been putting it off and Vince was beginning to notice.
No more waiting — just do it
. She deleted Vince’s message, and went into her contact list to find Ivana’s number.

She heard Foster’s footsteps behind her. She didn’t want to talk with him. His company might be buying White Light, the deal was even being accelerated for some reason, but to her knowledge, it wasn’t signed yet. She wanted him to fuck off.

“What’s up, Mike?” Her voice was cool and she kept her eyes steadily in front of her. He didn’t answer. She looked at him and he was staring at her with a blank look. He always looked so damned tired.

“Althea, there’s no easy way to say this —”

“There never is.”

“Vince is dead.”

Foster faded into a foggy blur. “This morning, massive stroke. He was meeting with —”

Not listening
. She fought the grey behind her eyes. Her whole body was numb. Vince was her employer but he was more than that — he was her friend. How could he be dead? He had just left her a message. The message she had deleted. Deleted Vince. Vince’s voice. Panic set in as she tried to think of ways the message could be restored. Her whole body was searing with pain, heavy, insidious.
Missing something
.

“I’m sorry, Althea.” Foster lightly touched her shoulder and she wanted to pull away. Instead, her grief opened, her stomach turned to water, and she leaned into him to steady herself. He smelled like soap.

“... canceled. The office is closed.” Foster was still talking, though to Althea his words seemed mumbled, intermittent, as though he were a radio station signal fading in and out. “Everyone knows ... take next week off. Phyllis is taking care of the ... if you don’t, I understand.”

He was offering to buy her breakfast. Food? Why would she want food?

He stopped talking. She felt small and lost. He placed one hand on her arm to help her up. Leaning on him, she stood up on wobbly knees and allowed him to carry her knapsack. In the elevator, she fought the compulsion to lay down and curl up on the floor.

Foster led her to the convenience store inside their building and paid for two breakfast sandwiches. The clerk, a slight, smiling Korean man who knew everyone in the building by name, looked at her, patted Foster on the arm, nodding, and threw in an apple and banana for free.

• • •

MICHAEL LED ALTHEA OUTSIDE into the sunshine, across King Street East into a city-sized park across from a small brick church. The wind was sluggish and the air was oppressively humid. They sat down on a bench, and he passed Althea a sandwich. To his surprise, she began eating it.

Michael sat quietly, the hot July sun warming his face. He had run out of words. He hadn’t known Vince well, yet he felt his own memory awaken, recalling the loss of Elizabeth, the loss of his parents. His grief stirred. He understood what Althea was feeling. For some reason, her presence steadied him.

Every few minutes, the hollow clanging sound of the King Street streetcar slid past them. Motionless on the bench, he glanced at Althea now and then. In her face, he saw the woman he had run into on the road three years before. Today, she had that same expression, the same lost look.

Althea finished her sandwich and scrunched the wax paper bag into a small ball, clutching it tightly in her palms. He followed her eyes as she looked at the church across the street.

He wondered if she was religious.

He also wondered if she knew about some of the accounting practices White Light had been using. Michael recalled how Stefan’s eyes had gleamed two days ago when Michael shared what he had found. Exeter had notified Vince the day after. He had a stroke while meeting with his lawyer early this morning.

A company’s secrets.

Michael gazed at the church steeple, which hid the sun from his view. He squinted and covered his face, peering at the black spire through his fingers. His forehead was hot and his heart was heavy. He shifted his position on the bench, glancing at Althea who sat beside him, so still. He knew he’d drive
Althea home if she’d let him. Then he’d spend the rest of the day with Stefan and Exeter’s lawyers. And later tonight, though they hadn’t fought, he would go home expecting to find Lara gone. Michael looked down at his uneaten sandwich. The heaviness descended behind his eyes. He felt so tired.

When had he known for sure that his marriage wouldn’t last? Had he known it all along? Perhaps he had known after they made love the night his test results came back normal. Or maybe he had realized it when he first discovered the unassuming fold of baby blue plastic. Or maybe it was later, after he went back to the same drawer the next morning, and every morning since, and each day, one of the tiny pink pills inside had disappeared.

A woman’s secrets.

chapter 38

SOPHIE NOTICED THAT ALTHEA became quieter than usual in the days after Vince died, spending hours on her own by the lake. In the evenings, Sophie would talk, keeping it light. She’d share anecdotes about her garden, the food they loved, the jazz clubs she and Albert used to frequent, long before Althea was born. As she spoke, she watched her daughter carefully. Looking for the right time.

That night, after they’d finished their meal of poached fish with lemon and herbs, gazpacho, green salad and grilled squash, Sophie joined Althea in the solarium, carrying two small bowls of Haagen Dazs Caramel Cone Explosion. The early evening air was cool and comfortable. Jazz piano played softly. Sophie sat down in a rattan chair opposite her daughter.

“Have you heard when the funeral is?” It was the first time Sophie had spoken directly about Vince’s death.

“It’s tomorrow.”

“What about Exeter?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t
know
.” Althea concentrated on the spoon in front of her, scooping the ice cream, moving it to her mouth, her eyes unblinking. Princess was curled up in her lap. The jazz stopped. Sophie got up and put on another album: Michael Hedges, Aerial Boundaries. Hedges was another life taken too young. The brilliant guitarist had died in 1997 in a car accident. Sophie started slowly.

“I’ve always believed that when life gets away from us, there are ways to get back control, to get it back and keep it.”

“Mmmmmmm.” Althea said, leaning back in her chair. Princess stirred and settled. Sophie continued.

“It’s about knowing the rules of life, the rules of the universe. It’s about mastering those rules to create your own life.” Sophie sat forward, her blue eyes fixed on Althea who now stared back at her.

“The rules of the universe,” Althea repeated.

“Yes, the people who just trust life, they have no control, they’re the passives. They look at the world and what’s in front of them and they accept everything they see. They don’t see the possibilities, they don’t recognize opportunity, they don‘t embrace their own power.”

Sophie could feel her emotions rising as she spoke, her words, held captive for years, stumbling out in an evangelical stream. As Sophie recited the speech she had been practicing for decades, Althea straightened in her seat.

“The passives have faith, they say, but they’re really weak and let others control them. The atheists say they don’t believe in anything, except maybe science. The truth is, all of them — most of the people in this world — are just too afraid to try. What they don’t get is that it’s not up to God, or the universe, or science whatever you want to call it. It’s up to us. The universe provides the tools, but we hold the key. It’s right in front of us: the power to take the reigns and shape our lives the way we want. To triumph over tragedy. To control our own destiny. To singularly define and shape the outcome of our lives, no matter what life throws at us. To envision each event and make it happen exactly the way we want. I believe that harnessing the power of the universe to manifest our dreams is the most important thing we can learn as a human being.