Arena (52 page)

Meg blushed. “To be honest, I can’t remember. And somehow I don’t even care. I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself. At least we got the fifty dollars out of it.”

“We did?”

“They gave it to us at the end.” She picked up an envelope lying on the end table. “I know you got one, too. I saw you put it in your purse.”

“Oh.” She’d have to check when she got home.

Meg’s eyes had focused on something in Callie’s lap and now widened. “Is that an
engagement
ring?”

Callie looked down at her hands. Her right hand was nervously turning the ring on the third finger of her left—a gold ring, inset with a glittering blood crystal. Her heart leapt. It
had
happened!

Meg frowned. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“No. Uh . . .” Callie pulled the ring off her left hand and put it on her right. “I was trying to discourage this guy, so I told him I was engaged. Don’t you remember?”

Meg appeared unconvinced but accepted the story and moved on, wondering aloud what Jack would think if she called.

Callie tuned her out. Meg’s memories—what few were left—were being distorted by the need to make them fit her old reality. Beyond that her mind had been washed. Just as Pierce’s would be. The thought made Callie reel again. She stood in the middle of Meg’s sentence. “I have to go.”

Meg gaped at her, but Callie couldn’t explain. She just had to find him.

When she got home, the phone was ringing again. After it stopped, she picked up the receiver, dialed information, and got the numbers for six Andrewses in Durango. She called them all. One was a secretary. One had died. One invited her via answering machine to leave a message. One’s phone was disconnected. The other two did not answer.

She called local feed stores next, and hit pay dirt on the second try with a friendly and garrulous clerk. Of
course
she knew Andy Andrews, and wasn’t it awful about his son gone missing?

“The sheriff’s just called off the search yesterday,” the woman said, “and why not? After eight days of looking and no sign, what else could he do? Poor boy’s been gone over two weeks now, and is probably hurt besides. He’s a tough kid, but the odds are against him in this. I hear Andy and Helen are taking it hard.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Callie said, her voice trembling. “Their son . . . would be Pierce?”

“Of course.” The woman hesitated. “You don’t know them well, then?”

“Not the parents, no.”

Another silence. “Where’d you say you’re calling from?”

“Tucson.”

“Arizona?”
Suspicion rang sharply in the woman’s voice now. Again she paused, apparently to marshal her thoughts. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, miss, but do you know something about this situation that the Andrewses ought to hear?”

“I might. You wouldn’t happen to have their phone number, would you?”

The clerk was reluctant to give it over, but she did. Unfortunately it was one Callie had already called, and again, no one answered. Probably out searching, she realized—but she was bitterly disappointed nonetheless. Of course, if she kept calling, someone was bound to answer eventually. But then what would she say? The feed store clerk’s suspicion had made it clear how untenable her position was, and since she couldn’t really tell anyone where Pierce had been, and since he himself wouldn’t even remember her . . . well, hopefully she’d think of something. At least she had a number now.

But already the horrible suspicion that she wasn’t supposed to find him had begun to gnaw at her.

Again the phone rang. It was her mother.

Callie hung up half an hour later, surprised at how easily she’d taken control of the conversation. Mom hadn’t known what to make of her assertiveness, had hardly known what to say when Callie had refused to let her go on and on and deftly redirected the discussion. She had even managed to end the call in a relatively short time without being ugly.

She sat there a moment, feeling unexpectedly pleased.

Find yourself
, the flyer had promised. Maybe she had. In more ways than one.

She surveyed her small living room with its bricks-and-boards bookshelf, and the drawing table littered with paint box, water jars, and brushes. Her books, sketches, and supply bins lay scattered across the floor where she’d left them Friday night. Her current project—a watercolor of desert wild flowers—stood taped to its board in a corner for viewing. It wasn’t done. She had left it in that awkward stage where it looked awful and hopeless.

Except that it didn’t anymore. In fact, she saw just what she needed to do.

At nine that evening, she set the finished painting, matted and framed, on the couch and surveyed it critically. Late afternoon shadows streaked across an adobe wall. The stems were a little awkward, but the values worked. And it was evocative, conjuring memories of her early-morning walks down the alley out back—

Her thought halted and excitement flushed her. Maybe there
was
a way to keep the fading memories alive, a way to hold on, if only in part.

She pulled her sketchpad from the cabinet and began blocking in the planes of a man’s face. Miraculously, the image took shape before her, and her heart began to pound. Seeing his face made her exquisitely aware of how much he’d meant to her. She would go to Durango herself.

On Monday she quit her job to make the trip, withdrawing her meager savings and going into debt with Lisa. But in Durango, she learned Pierce had been found the day she’d first called, walking out of the woods with no memory of what had befallen him. His parents had immediately taken him to be evaluated at a hospital in Denver and hadn’t been home since. She followed them there, but nothing worked out as she hoped. Neither hospitals nor doctors were willing to give out information to non-family members, and she didn’t want to lie for fear of alienating her quarry once she finally caught up with them. They were sure to be just as suspicious and put off as the people she’d questioned in Durango, and, having no reasonable explanation for her interest to offer them, she knew lying would only make things worse.

In the end it didn’t matter. With both funds and options depleted, she was finally forced to face the fact that she wasn’t going to find him. Not without help, anyway.
“Trust Elhanu,”
he’d said. It seemed she had no other recourse.

Back in Tucson, she decided that rather than find a new job she would take the plunge as a full-time artist. Her mother had a fit, but Callie ignored her doomsaying and set to work gathering a body of paintings and approaching galleries. Within a month she had representation for her traditional watercolors.

Summer turned to fall. Her career took off. Three months after that fateful weekend, her work was selling briskly. In October, the fantasy paintings of her memories found a market. She won two national awards that winter, received a commission for a book cover the following spring, and had collectors in New York, Denver, and L.A. buying her work by the next summer. She bought a car and moved into a house on the eastside with horse property. She even bought a piano and began taking lessons. She knew she would never be a professional pianist—as Pierce might have been—but she practiced diligently, and it fed her soul.

Everyone marveled at the way everything suddenly came together for her, but Callie knew it for Elhanu’s promised reward.

Her desperate need for Pierce waned. It helped that she had never known him in this life. She had only the ring and the painting in her bedroom to remind her. It was an oil of him standing on that hillside above Rimlight. She supposed she ought to take it down—and forget— but somehow she never got around to it.

Meg had also experienced the reward of prosperity. Shortly after the weekend in June she married Jack. He had made her deliriously happy. And before long, pregnant, as well.

The next June Lisa threw another party—a black-tie affair at the
Westin La Paloma
. Jack was out of town, so Callie dragged Meg along for moral support. Parties didn’t intimidate her as they once had, but she still disliked them, and once again, Lisa had some guy for her to meet. His name was Alan, and Tom had met him on the plane.

“You’ll like this one, Callie,” Lisa had assured her. “And remember, it’s black tie, so gussy up a little.”

Reluctantly Callie obeyed. At least now she had something to gussy up in—a white chiffon dress she’d bought for the reception in New York. Hitting just above the knee, it had a Grecian style neckline and a figure-flattering drape. She put her hair up in a soft chignon, threw on a string of pearls, and even condescended to wear a pair of low heels. That was as gussy as she would go, however. If Lisa didn’t like it, too bad.

“And we’re not staying long,” she told Meg as they drove across town. “We’ll just eat and run.”

“Just like old times, huh?” Meg asked with a smile. Her baby was due in a little over a month, and she was showing substantially. “Have you ever considered that this might be to your benefit? You might meet a client or potential client—”

“Of course I thought of that. Why else do you think I’m going willingly?”

“You might even like this Alan character.”

“He’s a stockbroker, Meg.”

It was dusk as they parked and entered the resort. Heading for the Canyon Four Ballroom, they passed a dimpled blond youth manning the sign-up table for a seminar on Life Management, and Callie did a double take. The crowd around the table made it hard to see him, and she finally decided she didn’t know him. But he was young enough, and handsome enough—he
could
have been Aggillon.

She couldn’t see an ad for a seminar now without wondering—were they recruiting again? “Life Management” would certainly fit the bill. And the young preppies bent over the table wouldn’t be there if they weren’t searching for something. Maybe this time they’d find it.

“What?” Meg asked, noting the direction of her gaze. “You interested in that seminar?”

Callie laughed. “No. My life’s doing just fine, thanks.”

The hall and balcony outside the ballroom had been roped off, and a young hostess stood at the opening to take their invitations. As they stepped into the company of the glitterati—Lisa’s parties always included state senators, city council members, bigwig business types, and local celebrities—a waiter passed with an empty hors d’oeuvre tray. The name on his badge brought Callie up short: Angelo. Before she could get a good look at him, though, he had disappeared into the crowd.

Meg was eyeing her again. “What is it now?”

Callie shook her head. “An attack of déjà vu. Come on. Let’s find Lisa, and get Alan out of the way.”

She had to admit the meetings with Lisa’s prospects had not been so bad lately. Maybe it was because of her increased self-confidence, or maybe she had previously perceived negativity where there had been none. At least Alan was supposed to be interested in art.

The ballroom was decorated with potted palms and white twinkle lights. White-linened tables ringed a wooden dance floor, and a band played in the far corner. To the left, servers were restocking the buffet table. Callie spotted her sister talking to a group of gowned and tuxedoed movers and shakers near the gift table. Tom stood between her and a slender man in a tan, western-cut suit with wavy brown hair and eyes so brilliantly blue Callie could see their color from across the room.

Her knees went weak, and her breath left as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She managed to duck around a knot of people, then sagged against the wall. Meg was immediately at her side. “What’s the matter? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine.” She drew a deep breath.
It was just coincidence
, she thought.
It wasn’t him. It was just someone who looked like him
. She drew herself together and stepped out for another glance.

It wasn’t coincidence. And it wasn’t hallucination. It was him. He looked up and met her eyes from across the room, but there was no sign of recognition. Just the brief glance, and then he was speaking to one of Lisa’s friends.

She was shaking violently, aware of Meg frowning at her, but there was no way she could walk up to that group and speak to anyone normally. Abruptly she turned and headed out of the room.