‘Why? Are there voters here, Your Honor? Maybe I’ll keep my opinions to myself. Maybe not. I don’t know yet. We still have to work together. For now. But I don’t like it.’
‘I’m grateful to you for trying to help me,’ Whit said. Aware now of people on the deck starting to stare.
‘Screw your gratitude. You made your choice, Whit. And I’m making mine. It was nice knowing you, once.’ Claudia turned, walked out. She tried to slam the bar door but it was hinged to shut slowly, and even the angry yank she gave it couldn’t overcome the mechanism. She stormed out.
‘People are very territorial about you, Whit,’ Eve said, but her voice was subdued.
‘Yes.’
‘She cares about you.’
‘She did.’
‘She will again,’ Eve said.
‘I don’t think so,’ Whit said. ‘Or it will be a long road for her and me.’
She touched his hand. ‘What have I cost you, son?’ Eve asked.
Suddenly he thought of Lance Gartner, that boy dead from heroin in the bay, his mother’s pleas for Whit to change the death certificate. I can’t go against the law, he had said, and a sudden hard shame rose in him. Whit took a long swig of his beer. ‘It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay.’
He took Eve back to the guest house. He poured good cabernet and she went into the guest bathroom, came out smiling, holding a bar of soap. ‘Gardenia,’ she said.
‘Isn’t that what you used?’ He had bought it as a surprise for her.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ He drank wine while they made phone calls. Five of them, with Whit talking first. To Whit’s brothers. Teddy hung up on her when she started to speak and did not answer when they called back. Mark talked to her for nearly an hour. David and Danny weren’t at their homes, and Whit simply left them short messages saying he had important but good news and to please call, anytime, night or day. Joe talked to Whit but said no on talking to Eve. At least for now. Give him time.
Eve sipped at her wine. ‘I didn’t expect hugs right away.’
‘No.’ Whit felt as tired as he’d ever been. ‘You want to watch a movie?’
She studied a long line of DVDs on the shelf. ‘Who is Monty Python?’
‘British comedy. Hilarious.’
She’d moved on to the next section of films. ‘I don’t much like Woody Allen. He whines a lot.’
‘He’s self-deprecating. It’s an art.’
‘Caddyshack,’ she said. ‘That one I like.’
So he put in the movie, one of his favorites, and they sat on the couch and finished the bottle of cabernet. He laughed where he usually did and so did she.
When he was putting away the disc she said, ‘Did I tell you that if any of the boys ever came looking for me, I figured it’d be you?’
‘Why?’
‘Fiercely independent. Strong. Like me,’ she said. ‘No holds barred about getting what you want.’
He was suddenly unsure if this was a compliment or not.
‘I love you, Whit.’ She kissed him with a quick, almost embarrassed smack on the cheek. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, I love you, too,’ he said, the words and the idea still a little strange. They stayed up late, hoping for Joe or Teddy or the twins to call back, her opening a bottle of zinfandel, him drinking more, and finally he dragged himself back to bed, happy and dizzy-sick and wondering exactly what the rest of his life was going to be like.
He awoke suddenly, hearing the soft little click of the front door shutting, a wetness on his cheek. The linger of a kiss. The scent of gardenia.
He sat up in the darkness, the guest house too quiet, knowing it was empty. He glanced at the clock: 3:34 a.m.
Whit went to the guest bedroom. She was gone.
He hurried out the front door and up the driveway. Eve stood at the curb, one of his duffel bags packed and sitting at her feet.
‘Where are you going?’ he said.
She turned. ‘Oh. Honey. I hoped you wouldn’t wake. I shouldn’t have kissed you good-bye. But I had to.’
‘Where the hell are you going?’
‘I have unfinished business. The less you know, the better.’ She drew a hand through her hair. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘You don’t leave in the middle of the night if you plan on coming back.’ His voice rose; he suddenly felt as scared as a child, and he forced himself to calm down.
‘I don’t fit in with your life, Whit. I don’t. I do love you, but
…’
‘Bullshit. Bullshit. I’m calling you on your bullshit, Mom.’
‘I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me. But I need to do this. Alone.’
He saw it then. ‘You know where Frank is. With the money.’
She glanced down the darkened street.
‘Did he call you? After what he did you’d go back to him?’
‘Of course not. But I can find him.’
‘Who gives a shit about that money, Mom? You’re here. You’re home.’
‘But it’s five million, honey. Five million.’ She gave a quick little shrug. ‘Probably four by now, knowing Frank, but still…’
Whit shook his head. ‘You aren’t going to do this to me again.’
Out of the dark a cab from a Corpus Christi taxi service rolled up and stopped three houses down. Of course. She wouldn’t give the cab this address; the headlights might wake him up.
She tried to smile at him. ‘Whit, honey. Let’s not have a brutal little scene. You can either let me go or tie me up, but I’ll go eventually. That’s the hard, bitter truth. Love me, but don’t change me into what you’ll love better.’
‘Mom-’
‘And I want to change you, and I can’t. You don’t want what I call life. You’re going to look at me every day and see the bad things you did. Don’t be more like me. Be like your father. Your brothers. Even Claudia.’
‘I can tell the police about James Powell,’ he said, desperation rising in his voice. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.’
‘Go right ahead.’ She gave her little shrug. ‘He threatened to kill you and your brothers if I didn’t do what he said, so I killed him. You want me to confess to a crime, there you go. I’m not one bit ashamed of it.’
‘Mom. You killed him for that money.’
‘Believe what you want. Do what you like. Lock me up, throw away the key.’ She leaned over, kissed his cheek again. ‘Stay good, baby.’
‘Please don’t. Please don’t do this,’ he said.
She leaned down, picked up her duffel. She didn’t look back, didn’t wave. He watched her get into the cab, vanish into the dark.
Eve who became Ellie
I’m breaking one of my own rules now, because I’m close to a beach. Beaches are okay for me now. To the police I’m a city girl. The Mosleys think of me as a beach girl. But Whit won’t come looking for me again, and he won’t find me if he does.
The beach here at Princeville is absolutely pristine, and the tourists are mostly honeymooners, nice kids, a few golf widows sunning and reading fat novels. The beach here is far prettier than the ones in Texas, but it’s so pretty it almost doesn’t seem real. A dream. So it seems safe.
Here I am Ellie again, now Ellie Masters. Eve fit like a suit faded from fashion, so I shed it. I stayed a while at a small hotel on the south side of Kauai, waiting, thinking, until I found a condo for rent by a landlord living in California. Retired lady, she and her husband moved here, then he died and she moved back to San Francisco to be close to her grandkids. I hope she decides to sell and I bet she’d like cash. God knows I do.
Jacksonville, Florida, was where Frank landed; it was where he spent summers as a kid, visiting
