airport, and Felix Schiff, Jill’s business partner, had stayed behind to clear up the tangle. As I was hanging up coats and ushering people into the living room, Jill introduced me to Evan’s sister, Claudia; his second wife’s twin sister, Tracy Lowell; and the best man, Gabe Leventhal. One way or another, they shared a lot of history, and if the emotional undercurrents that eddied around us were any indication, there was nothing in that history to inspire a Hallmark card.
Most of the tension in the room sprang from Tracy Lowell. My throat had tightened when I saw her in the light of the front hall. Her resemblance to her twin was uncanny: the same dark bangs, artfully fringed over the high forehead; the same spiky-lashed round eyes and spoiled cherub’s mouth. There was, however, a significant difference. In Black Spikes and Slow Waves, Annie Lowell was luminous with the glow of youth; time had drained the lustre from her sister’s face. Both women were as frenetically fragile as hummingbirds, but unlike her twin, Tracy had lived to reap what she had sown.
With her sequinned white shirt, Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals, fluttering hands, and hard-edged trilling laugh, she had the mark of a woman who would become dangerous with drink. I was relieved when she rejected liquor in favour of good old Colombian coffee. But as she knocked back cup after cup, I began to wish she’d switch to Jack Daniel’s. Halfway through the cocktail hour, Tracy had enough caffeine in her to jump-start a Buick.
Taylor was wired too, but her adrenaline rush came from the purest of sources. She was wearing a swooshy dress; she was going to be up long after bedtime; and the next day she was going to get her hair styled by a real hairdresser and be the flower girl in a wedding. She had also discovered that passing around the canapes gave her an excuse to get up-close-and-personal with everyone else at the party. She’d already swung by to report that Jill and Claudia were on the back deck smoking cigarettes; that Mr. MacLeish and Mr. Leventhal were arguing; that when Mr. Leventhal talked, he sounded like Columbo on A that Bryn was super-shy; and that Angus was acting like a total dweeb trying to make her like him. By the time my daughter swept through with the smoked trout rolls, she had stumbled upon some really big news. “You know what?” she stage-whispered. “That lady with the sparkly top is on TV. She’s the Broken Wand Fairy on ‘Magictown.’ ”
I took a second look at Tracy. “I didn’t recognize her without her tutu and her orange sneakers,” I said. “But I think you’re right.”
“I knew it!” Taylor whooped with delight, tilting her plate and sending a dozen canapes to the floor. Our Bouvier, Willie, bent his head to investigate, but Taylor’s recovery was laser-quick. In the blink of an eye, she’d grabbed the errant trout rolls, flicked off the dog hair, and rearranged them on the plate.
“Nobody will ever know,” she said.
“We’ll know,” I said. “Taylor, you’re going to have to scrape those into the garbage and start again.”
“They’re too good to throw out,” she said. “I’m going to eat them.”
“Me too,” Claudia MacLeish, an athletic blonde in a navy V-necked cardigan, extended a freckled hand and snagged some trout. “If dog hair could kill you, I’d have been dead long ago. I own a pair of Rottweilers.”
Taylor’s head shot up. “I love Rottweilers. Jo says people aren’t fair about them – they’re really nice dogs unless they have bad owners.”
Claudia licked her fingers contentedly. “Jo’s very astute,” she said. “With Rotties, it’s all in how you handle them. They need to recognize the pack leader – same as people.” Claudia glanced across the room at Tracy Lowell, whose zoned-out smile suggested she was headed for trouble. “A case for alpha intervention if ever I saw one,” Claudia said, popping another trout roll in her mouth. “Time to remind Tracy who’s boss.”
Claudia gave Willie a final pat, walked over to the fireplace, and murmured a few words in the ear of the woman who had once been her sister-in-law. Whatever she said appeared to do the trick. The chords in Tracy’s neck showed the strain, but her all-Canadian smile was dazzling. By the time the best man stepped forward to propose a toast, the Broken Wand Fairy from “Magictown” was delivering a socko performance.
Stocky, swarthy, seriously in need of a haircut, and dressed in a suit that hadn’t been pressed since “Columbo” was in first run, Gabe Leventhal was hardly a casting director’s idea of either a best man or a pre- eminent film critic, but he was both. When Jill told me that Gabe was coming west for the wedding, I’d felt a schoolgirl flutter. I’d been reading his column, “Leventhal on Film,” since university days. Unlike Shakespeare’s Leontes, Gabe Leventhal was not “a feather for each wind that blows.” He loved movies, and he had enough respect for the people who plunked down hard coin on the basis of his opinions to maintain stringent standards. More than once I had left the paper folded at “Leventhal on Film” beside Angus’s breakfast plate. Angus believed newspapers had as much relevance to his life as eight-track cassette players, but he thought Gabe Leventhal was cool. That night as Gabe put down his unlit cigar and raised his glass to Jill, Angus paid him the ultimate tribute: he stopped mooning over Bryn and snapped to.
“Before today,” Gabe said, “my only knowledge of Saskatchewan came from a movie.”
Jill winced. “A godawful movie. I’d almost managed to delete it from my memory bank.” She turned to Bryn. “It was called Saskatchewan , and it was about a Mountie who courageously drove a Sioux war party out of here and back to the U.S.A.”
“Talk about unenlightened,” Angus said, glancing at his young goddess to make sure she was on side.
“Two mitigating factors,” Jill said. “It was made in 1954, and Alan Ladd played the Mountie.”
Gabe looked at her with real interest. “You’re a fan?”
“From the moment I saw Shane.”
“I own every movie Alan Ladd ever made,” Gabe said. “If you’re ever in New York, you’ve got a standing invitation…”
Bryn hadn’t murmured more than a pleasantry all evening, but Gabe’s words ignited her. “We’re moving to New York,” she said. “All of us. Jill’s show’s going to be syndicated.”
Bryn’s gaze shifted to her aunts. If she was hoping for a reaction, she got it. Tracy Lowell’s rictus grin freeze-dried, and Claudia scowled. The smile Bryn gave them was winning, but a sliver of malice undercut its Pre-Raphaelite perfection. “I thought you’d be happy for us,” she said sulkily.
Tracy’s behaviour so far hadn’t earned her a place on my Christmas card list, but I winced at her words to Evan MacLeish. “You promised that everything would stay the same,” she said.
“Let’s keep our private lives private.” Claudia’s tone was brusque. More tough love, but this time Tracy wasn’t buying.
Quivering with rage, she balled her small hands into fists. “I believed you,” she hissed at Evan. “Nothing was supposed to change. That was the agreement.”
“Nothing has to change,” Evan said quietly.
“Watch your step,” Tracy said. “Your mother’s not going to be any happier about this than I am, Evan. Ignoring what the rest of us want will be a big mistake.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Evan said.
“You’ll regret it,” Tracy said. “I’ve always been the third rail in your life. The only way you’ve stayed safe until now is by being very careful around me.”
Evan swept the room with his cool sentry gaze. “We’re wrecking the party,” he said. “Why don’t we finish this in private?”
After the double doors to the dining room clicked shut behind Tracy and Evan, there was a moment of agonizing awkwardness, followed by a flurry of attempts to restore equilibrium. Jill and Angus hovered over Bryn, reassuring her that nothing that had or ever would go wrong was her fault. Taylor, the queen of diversion, invited Claudia to come up to her room to visit her cats. That left Gabe Leventhal and me.
He waved his cigar. “I wouldn’t mind lighting this.”
“You’re my guest,” I said.
Gabe put a match to his cigar. “Bolivar Corona Gigantes. One of Cuba’s best,” he said. “And I bought it at your airport. This party just keeps getting better and better.” He inhaled happily. “Now tell me, what the hell does Tracy Lowell have on Evan?”
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as I mine. I just met her tonight.”
“Then my guess is better than yours,” he said. “Tracy and I had a romance.”
“How long did the romance last?”
“Forty-five minutes,” he said. “It began in a hotel room before I went to the preview of a film in which she was the fifth lead and ended the next morning when my review appeared.”
“She didn’t care for the review?”
“She stalked me for three weeks, kept leaving noxious notes and other little nasties in my mailbox. I
