He was certain to criticize, but she told him anyway. “New hobby. I’ve been shooting some film.”
His answering silence unnerved her. She fiddled with the computer mouse. “Everybody deserves a hobby.” She lifted her chin. “I bought editing equipment. Just for fun.”
He rubbed his index finger with his thumb. “I can see.”
“Is something wrong with that?”
“No. I’m just surprised.”
He was surprised because the idea hadn’t come from him.
A shrieking silence filled the room. She made herself sit straighter in her chair. “Dad, I know you don’t approve of the way I’ve been doing things, but I’m not going to discuss it with you anymore.”
He shifted his weight, nodded. “I…just wondered if you had any idea where the fuse box is located in the guesthouse. One of the circuits blew, and I didn’t want to poke around without asking first.”
“Fuse box?”
“Never mind. I’ll check with Chaz.” His footsteps faded down the hall.
She stared at the empty doorway. He’d been acting so strangely since the splashing incident in the pool. She needed to talk to him-really talk-but hadn’t she been trying to do that for years?
She glanced toward her monitor. He had a good eye. She wished she could show him some of the footage she’d shot, but she needed his support, not his criticism. If they could only…relax together.
A wisp of memory skidded through her.
Her father went out to dinner, so Georgie couldn’t ask him whether her memory was real or not, although it probably wouldn’t have done any good, since he had a habit of brushing aside her questions about the past. Georgie gave him credit for at least trying not to speak badly of her mother, even though it was obvious their marriage had been a mistake.
The next morning she woke up a jittery mess. The party was a week away. Her father had moved in. She had the most important audition of her career coming up for a part no one believed she could pull off.
She spent the rest of the morning having her hair highlighted and her brows shaped. By the time she got home, she felt like jumping out of her skin. She was too agitated to concentrate on prepping for her audition. Instead, she decided to pack up her camera equipment and drive outside the paparazzi zone, maybe Santee Alley to interview some of the women selling designer knockoffs.
She hadn’t seen her father all morning, but he appeared just as she was coming downstairs with her equipment bag. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his khaki pants and jiggled his keys. “Do you want to go to a movie this afternoon?”
“You mean in a theater?”
“It’d be fun.”
The word sounded strange on his lips. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Then maybe lunch?”
She needed to get this over with, and she hitched her equipment bag higher on her shoulder. “You don’t have to be so polite. It makes me nervous. Go ahead and say what you want to-that I’m a shitty, ungrateful daughter. That I don’t understand the business. That-”
“You’re not shitty or ungrateful, and I don’t have anything more to say. I just thought you might want to go out for a while.” He pulled the keys from his pocket. “It’s all right. I have some errands to run.” He left through the front door.
She frowned at his uncharacteristic retreat and followed him outside.
She’d always loved the covered entry porch of Bram’s house, with its blue-and-white-tiled floor and arcade of twisted stucco columns. A purple bougainvillea formed a shady screen at the far end, and Chaz had recently added a few more terra-cotta pots along with a heavily carved Mexican bench and matching wooden chair.
“Dad, wait.” Without thinking about it, she reached inside the bag.
His expression shifted from quizzical to suspicious as she pulled out her camera and set the bag aside. “I had this dream,” she said. “Not really a dream. A memory…” The camera was her shield, her protection. She raised it to her eye and turned it on. “A memory of you and my mother dancing and teasing each other. You jumped over a chair. We were all laughing and…happy.” She moved in closer. “These memories I sometimes get…I’ve made all of them up, haven’t I?”
“Put that camera away.”
She winced as she bumped into the sharp bench corner, but she didn’t stop shooting. “I’ve made them up to cover the truth I don’t want to face.”
“Georgie, really…”
“I can count.” She sidestepped the bench and pinned him with her lens. “I know that you only married her because she was pregnant with me. You did the honorable thing. And you hated every minute of it.”
“You’re overdramatizing.”
“Tell me the truth.” She’d started to perspire. “Just once, and then I won’t ever bring it up again. I’m not going to blame you. You could have run out on her, but you didn’t. You could have run out on me, and you didn’t do that, either.”
He sighed and stepped back up on the porch, as if this were a tedious meeting he needed to suffer through. “It wasn’t like that.”
She circled him, moving backward, putting herself between him and the steps, so he couldn’t get away. “I’ve seen the pictures of her. She was so pretty. I know she loved having a good time.”
“Georgie, put that camera down. I’ve told you that your mother loved you. I don’t know what more you-”
“You also told me she was a scatterbrain. But you were only trying to be diplomatic.” Her voice grew unsteady. “I don’t care if she was nothing more than a party girl. A one-night stand that backfired. I just-”
“That’s enough!” He thrust his finger toward the camera. A vein throbbed at his temple. “Turn that camera off right now.”
“She was my mother. I need to know. If she was just another bimbo, at least tell me that.”
“She wasn’t! Don’t you ever say that again.” He snatched the camera from her hands and flung it to the tiles, where it shattered. “You don’t understand anything!”
“Then tell me!”
“She was the love of my life!”
His words hung in the air.
A tremor passed through her. She locked her eyes with his. Anguish twisted his features. She felt dizzy, wobbly. “I don’t believe you.”
He pulled off his glasses and sagged onto the carved bench. “Your mother was…enchanted,” he said in a husky rasp. “Enchanting…Laughter came as naturally to her as breathing. She was smart-smarter than I could ever be-and she was funny. She refused to see the bad in anyone.” His hand shook as he set his glasses next to him. “She didn’t die in a car accident, Georgie. She saw a pregnant girl being slapped around by her boyfriend and tried to help her. He shot your mother in the head.”
“No,” she said in a soft whimper.
He rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. “The pain I felt when I lost her was more than I could handle. You didn’t understand where she’d gone, and you cried all the time. I couldn’t comfort you. I could barely find the energy to feed you. She loved you so much, and she would have hated that.” He rubbed his face in his palms. “I stopped going to auditions. It wasn’t possible. Acting takes an openness I didn’t have anymore.” His fingers tunneled into his hair. “I couldn’t live through that kind of pain again. I promised myself I’d never love another person the way I loved her.”
Her chest constricted, ached. “And you kept that promise,” she whispered.
He looked up at her, and she saw tears brimming in his eyes. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t keep it, and look where it’s
