Under the Influence (20 page)

I
had come over to Folger Lane to show Ava the final page proofs of the birthday book, due at the printer the next day. Just as I turned into the driveway, Ava's Mercedes pulled up next to me. Estella was in the passenger seat.

“I took her for a mani-pedi,” Ava said, when they were out of the car. “Can you believe she's never had one?”

I could, actually. Now Estella was holding out her hands—her short, work-worn fingernails gleaming with bright red polish. Red toenails peeked out of a pair of those paper flip-flops they give out at nail salons. Her own shoes—an old pair of Nikes—were tucked under one arm.

“I tried to talk her into something a little less flashy,” said Ava. “But our girl wanted to go for the whole piñata.”

I leaned over to take a closer look.

“How's Carmen liking her classes?” I asked her.

“She's doing good,” Estella said. “This girl of mine, she's going to be a doctor. Take care of her family.”

“You don't have to worry about that, Estella,” said Ava. “No matter what Carmen decides to do, you know Swift and I will always take care of you.”

“Carmen graduates, we take care of ourselves,” Estella said. “I got a smart daughter.”

“Medical school's pretty tough, Estella,” Ava said. “I hope she makes it, but don't give up your day job.”

“Yes, Mrs. Havilland,” Estella said as she started toward the house. The hopefulness in her tone from earlier seemed suddenly subdued.

“Besides,” Ava added, “what would we ever do without you?”

A
va and Swift needed to take care of some things up at the Tahoe house. They had a property manager who normally looked out for their place, but he'd been giving them problems. They needed to find a new person to handle the job.

“I could probably work this out over the phone,” Ava said, “but that place is so special to us, I don't want to hand the keys over to someone we don't know.”

She asked me to drive up to the house myself and interview a couple of property management firms. “You can make a vacation of it,” Ava said. “Bring a stack of magazines. Interview the guys who answered our ad and see who you like. Swift and I trust you totally to make the best choice.”

That wasn't all. Evidently Ava and Swift were thinking of doing a total renovation sometime in the spring. As soon as the big birthday event was behind her, Ava was going to start talking with architects.

“What we were hoping is that you'd bring your camera up and take a bunch of pictures of the place,” she said. “To give our architect a preliminary idea of what he'll be working with before he makes the trip up himself.”

She waited for a moment, then added, “You could bring along that boyfriend of yours if you wanted.” It was odd how she and Swift never said Elliot's name.

I told her I'd go. But by myself. I hated that this was so, but I wasn't in the mood to spend time with Elliot. What I really needed was some time alone.

I'd never been to Lake Tahoe before. I wasn't a skier, for one thing—though neither was Ava, of course. But more than that, the place always sounded to me like a spot for people from a world I didn't belong to—people who grew up snow-skiing and water-skiing and playing tennis, and knew how to sail and had fast boats. Just the way they called it
Tahoe
—never
Lake Tahoe
—suggested a certain familiarity that I couldn't pretend to.

But after all these months hearing about it from the Havillands, I wanted to experience the place. And I felt proud that they trusted me with the decision of hiring a new property manager. While I was there, Ava suggested, maybe I could have the rugs cleaned, and the curtains, and arrange for someone to come take a look at the dishwasher, which had been acting up the last time they were at the house.

The part of my responsibilities at the house that appealed to me most was the photography, naturally. It had been a while since I'd done anything but shoot portraits of dogs and schoolchildren, one after another, for my day job. I loved the idea of having a whole day to wander through the rooms of the Havillands' lake house and the grounds beyond it, shooting photographs on my own timetable.

It took me more than four hours to get there, but I didn't mind. I was thinking about Swift's promise to talk with his lawyer about reopening my custody case, and the fact that he never seemed to get around to following up on it. I had been hesitant to pester Swift about it, but a couple of days earlier I'd brought the subject up, afraid he might have forgotten. “I'm working on it, babe, don't you worry,” Swift said, patting my arm. I wasn't so sure, but what could I do?

By now more than three years had passed since my DUI and I hadn't had a single problem. I wasn't out of debt, but at least I was earning reasonable money. And most important, my son himself was saying he
wanted to come live with me. Maybe part of what fueled his desire was his hero-worship of Monkey Man. Maybe partly it was about how much he loved playing Frisbee with Rocco. But it was about his wanting to be with me, too. We had come a long way over the summer. My son trusted me again.

I was considering all of this as I made the long drive up to the town of Truckee and then the fifteen miles or so beyond, to the house Ava and Swift owned on the shores of Lake Tahoe. The plan was to settle myself in and relax after the long day of driving and wait till morning to go into town and meet up with Ava's candidates for the property manager job. If I left home by noon, I'd still get to the Tahoe house in time to shoot my pictures of the property during the golden hour.

I passed a lot of big lakefront estates on my way to the Havilland house: large, no doubt expensive, custom built, with all sorts of amenities, but none was remotely charming. Then came the turnoff for Swift and Ava's property.

There were more magnificent houses, but nothing that came close to the charm of Swift and Ava's. My first thought, seeing the place, was to wonder why anyone would want to change a single thing about it. The house was situated at the end of a long driveway, with no other houses in sight, trees all around, and a mossy path that led down to the beach. The house itself was a good size, but it gave the feeling of a cottage more than a mansion, with a porch that wrapped around on all four sides and a stone chimney rising up from the roof.

The house was shingled, with red shutters, and the trees surrounding it weren't like the ones at those other places I'd passed along the road, that had the look of having been planted recently by some high-end landscaper. These were mature pines and redwoods, growing out of a carpet of ferns. There was a hammock strung between two of them and, facing the lake, a glider swing.

The other buildings on the property included the guest cottage and a boathouse, where I gathered that Swift and Ava kept their kayaks and
paddleboards, along with a birchbark canoe Swift had specially built by a man in Canada, and the water-skiing equipment. The boathouse was also where Swift kept his pride and joy, the Donzi. I knew all about this boat from my son, of course: how much horsepower it had, how the men Swift bought it from had eluded the authorities on a crazy five-hour chase somewhere off Florida, with a couple of million dollars' worth of drugs on board, along with an AK-47. Telling me this story, Ollie displayed a tone of awe. “Then the bad guys went to prison,” Ollie said. “And Monkey Man got the Donzi.”

Even before I turned off the ignition I could see the lake, glittering blue against the horizon. Not many boats out now, and probably not a single one as fast as the Donzi.

“I've got the most badass boat on the whole lake,” Swift had told Ollie.

For me, it was the piece of land where the house sat, more than anything else, that was most dazzling—a spot where the year might have been 1900, there was that little evidence of modern life.

I brought the car to a stop in front of the house and got out, taking in the view. It was five thirty or six by now and the light was hitting the lake at the perfect angle. I reached for my camera.

Something happens to me when I start shooting. Everything else falls away. There could be a forest fire raging, but if it didn't show up in my viewfinder, I might not even notice. Now I was transfixed by the sight of the sun going down over the lake. I spotted a loon gliding over the water, illuminated by that perfect golden light.

He dove under. I caught him just as he surfaced.

Who knows how long I stood there. It could have been five minutes or half an hour. But suddenly I became aware of music coming from the house—some kind of hip-hop. I looked away from my camera, up toward the main house, and took the place in for the first time up close.

That's when I saw it: another car in the driveway—a yellow convertible, top down. Now I could also see that there was smoke rising
from the chimney, and the sound of laughter coming from an open window.

I should have been frightened, I suppose, but the idea of someone invading Swift and Ava's precious, perfect space must have banished whatever fear I might otherwise have experienced. All I registered was fierce protectiveness.

An unlikely impulse hit me then. I raised my camera. If, as I was now thinking, someone had broken into the house, it seemed important to record the license plate number of the yellow car, so I did. Then, too stunned to feel fear, I approached the door and turned the knob. No need to take out the keys. The door wasn't locked.

At first all I could see was a suitcase, which was leather, and expensive looking. On the floor next to it sat a worn backpack. No one was in sight, but I could hear the crackling of a fire and smell the woodsmoke coming from what must have been the living room. Like a person in a dream, I made my way down the hall into the room, with its old velvet sofas—the kind that are so much nicer than new ones—a couple of leather club chairs, an oak rocker, a southwestern-style rug, and a piece of art I recognized as made by the same outsider artist whose dog painting had inspired my first conversation with Ava.

I could smell something cooking. Meat. Now I heard voices, too—one high-pitched, giggling, and a lower one. A familiar laugh, but different, too. By now I realized that whoever was in this house was not a burglar.

I was standing there, trying to figure out what I should do next, when the door on the other end of the room swung open. It was Swift's son, Cooper, holding a martini glass. Though we'd never met, I recognized him immediately. Beside him, wearing nothing but an unbuttoned man's shirt, was Estella's daughter, Carmen.

F
or a few moments, at least, we all stood there. I didn't say anything, and neither did Cooper, who was holding a very long and slightly bloody barbecue fork in one hand, his drink in the other.

The three of us just looked at one another. The last I'd heard of Cooper, his parents were toasting his engagement to beautiful Virginia. The last time I'd seen Carmen, she'd been cleaning the toilet.

I studied their faces. They took in mine.

Then I turned around. I walked out the door and down the steps, back to my car. I set my camera on the front seat, though not—once I was partway down the driveway and no longer in view—before taking a photograph of the property. I had promised that to Ava and Swift. I had told Ollie I'd get a picture of the Donzi, too, but there was no way I'd head down to the boathouse now.

It was a long drive back to Portola Valley. Sometime around eight thirty my cell phone rang. Ava.

“Let me guess,” she said. “You're curled up on the couch by the fire with a glass of that Pellegrino you insist on substituting for the really good cabernet you could be drinking,” she said. “And you probably were crazy enough not to bring the boyfriend along, even though you're going to be sleeping in what may be the most romantic spot on the entire lake.
Which may possibly tell you something about what's lacking in your relationship. Not that I intend to belabor that point.”

“I'm on my way home, actually,” I told her. Though making up stories had never been difficult for me, I had not yet had time to figure out how I'd explain to Ava my premature departure from the lake.

She wanted to know what happened, of course. “I'm feeling kind of nauseous,” I told her. “It must be some stomach bug.”

“In that case, you're coming straight over here as soon as you hit town,” she told me. “We're putting you to bed with a hot-water bottle and a cup of mint tea. I'll wait up.”

“I'll be fine,” I told her. “I just need to get home.”

“You're coming here,” she said. “No argument. We need to take care of you.”

It was nearly eleven o'clock when I pulled into the driveway at Folger Lane. The lights were on. The dogs were waiting. Ava met me at the door.

“Okay,” she said, ushering me into the living room. “What's going on? Because I just don't buy the upset stomach line. You never get sick.”

She was right, actually. This was one of the many moments that reminded me how well Ava knew me, how close we were.

“Let me guess,” said Swift, coming up behind her, holding a drink. “You brought the accountant with you to Tahoe after all. Then you had a big fight. I'm thinking you tried to play an illegal word in Scrabble and he was sticking to the rules. You had to get out of there.”

I shook my head. I couldn't let them believe I'd had a fight with Elliot. How could anyone fight with Elliot?

“It's just—female trouble,” I said. I figured that would be enough to send Swift out of the room, and it was. I had learned long ago that nothing gets rid of a man faster, if that's what you want, than some vague allusion to the menstrual process.

“Okay,” said Ava, once he was gone. “Now you're going to sit down and tell me the real story. This is me, remember? Your best friend. We don't have secrets from each other.”

She had never actually called me her best friend before, but now, hearing those words, I fell apart. I collapsed on the couch. Ava leaned forward in her chair to put her arms around me. “You can tell me,” she said. “It's going to be all right.”

“It was Cooper,” I said. “He was up at the house and I walked in on them. He had Carmen with him.”

Almost imperceptibly—to a degree that would have barely been discernible to anyone else, probably—Ava pulled back slightly to right herself in her chair. Her beautiful long arms returned to their armrests. She looked at me with that steady, cool-eyed gaze of hers.

“That's it?” she said, her tone a combination of irritation and amusement. “The big catastrophe?”

“They were cooking a meal together,” I told her, as if any further information were necessary. “She was wearing his shirt.
Just
his shirt. They were
together
.”

I couldn't read the look on Ava's face. She was nodding her head with a kind of smile on her lips, though not the kind she'd exhibit if one of the dogs had laid his head on her lap, or if Swift had come up behind her to bury his face in her hair.

“Listen,” she said. “Whatever was going on between Cooper and that girl”—
that girl,
she said—“it doesn't mean anything. He's just being a boy.”

“He's engaged,” I said. “I thought he was getting married to Virginia.”

Ava didn't laugh, exactly, but she came close. “Everything that matters is still the same as it ever was,” she said. “Cooper will graduate from business school next June and go to New York. There'll be a big wedding. He and Virginia are going to have a very nice life.”

Nice.
That word she'd questioned when I'd used it to describe Elliot.

“I doubt Virginia would see it that way,” I said.

“She already does,” Ava told me. “You think she doesn't know that Cooper plays around now and then? You think this is the first
time in the eight years they've been together? That's what men do, Helen.”

I might have argued this point, but I was past that.

“But what about Carmen?” I said. “She probably thinks it's something else. She's probably in love with him. And Estella . . .” I didn't know what the rest of that sentence might be. But however it was that Ava had managed to justify Cooper's behavior, I knew it wouldn't fly with Estella.

“It's not your job to look after Carmen,” Ava said. “Not yours, or mine. Or Cooper's, for that matter. Carmen's a grown-up. She can make her own decisions, and evidently she's doing just that.”

“Does Swift know?” I asked her. I was still reeling from her reaction. Ava looked vaguely impatient.

“He might, he might not. Either way, it wouldn't be a big deal to him. And it shouldn't be to you, either.” She adjusted the wheels on her chair in a manner that indicated she was ready to make her exit from the room.

The conversation was over, clearly.

“You'll spend the night, right?” she said to me. “After that long drive? We've got a bedroom all ready for you.”

I told her I'd just as soon get back to my apartment. She didn't try to convince me to change my mind.

“I guess all of this happened before you had a chance to take care of things up there?” Ava said as I was heading toward the door.

“Take care of things?”

“Interviewing the property managers. And taking those photographs to show our architect.”

“I only got one shot of the exterior,” I told her. “Sorry.”

There had been a few others—the sunset, the loons, the license plate on the yellow convertible. None of those would be helpful in any way.

“Don't worry about it,” Ava said. “No big deal. Let's just concentrate on the birthday party now, shall we? Can you imagine the look on
Swift's face when he walks in and sees snowdrifts in the backyard? He's got to know I'm cooking something up for his birthday, but I've never put on a party like this one before.”

Driving home that night, it wasn't the party I was thinking about. Or Swift. I was thinking about the look on Cooper's face when he'd emerged from the kitchen of the house at Lake Tahoe earlier that evening.

A different kind of person might have displayed fear or even horror at being discovered in such an awkward situation, but that wasn't what I saw on Cooper's face. He was a young man who even now, at just twenty-two, seemed in possession of total assurance that the world would go his way, and if other people had a problem with his behavior—if, for instance, his parents' trusted friend caught him in a compromising position with their housekeeper's daughter not long after the announcement of his engagement to someone else—that was her problem, not his.

Cooper knew who I was, evidently. He had actually grinned a little when he'd seen me. A little lopsidedly, in a way that suggested he'd had a few drinks, although it might just have been his usual boyish grin, with which he was accustomed to charming people. If there was one thing that might have bothered Cooper about my impromptu visit, it was probably just that I disturbed the mood. Because the other person in the room—Carmen—had looked the way a person might (her mother, for instance, years back, crossing the desert into Texas from San Ysidro, confronting the border patrol).

Cornered and terrified.