Coast Road (27 page)

"Did you hate it as much as she did? " Jack asked.

"More. She was the one defending the place. Restaurants. Funky clothing boutiques. I knew San Francisco was where her marriage went wrong, but she never said much that was negative. Not until Now You See Her. It's about a woman who turns forty and suddenly starts to disappear."

"Disappear? " "Really. Rachel said she felt like that in San Francisco. There were too many artists, too many people, too many noises, too many things going every which way at once, so that she couldn't clear her head and paint. She didn't have an anchor. Vital parts of herself were just floating every which way, up and away. " "Charlie. That's a little dramatic, " Faye scolded, and told Jack, "The book is about a woman whose identity comes only through other people�you know, Jack's wife, Samantha's mother, Charlie's friend. " "But Rachel had her own identity, " Jack argued. "She was an artist.

" "Struggling, " Charlie insisted. "She couldn't be self-supporting.

Not in San Francisco. She had to rely on you for her basic needs. " "I was her husband. That was my job. What was the problem? " Charlie looked at Faye, who patted the air with a warning hand. But Charlie Avalon wasn't being warned. Defiant, she said, "She hated the way her mother thought money was the be-all and end-all of life. She feared you were getting to be the same way." Jack drew back. "When did I throw money around? " "You bought her a rock." It was a minute before he realized what she meant. Then he hung his head and rubbed the back of his neck. When he looked up again, he said, "It wasn't a rock. It was a three-carat diamond ring."

"That's a rock." He blew out a breath. His stomach was starting to knot. "I had a buddy of hers�a totally artsy guy�set it in a shield of platinum and gold. It was unusual. I thought she'd love it."

"She said it was a consolation prize to make up for the traveling you did." Jack was hurt. "I was trying to tell her that I thought she was worth the cost of the damned ring and more. I was trying to tell her that since I hadn't had the money for a diamond ring when we got engaged, she deserved a special one. I was trying to tell her I loved her." There was silence. Pushing the remnants of his sandwich aside, Jack left his chair and braced his elbows on the rail by Rachel's head.

She hadn't said she hated the ring. She just hadn't worn it the way he had hoped she would. She should have told him. He could have said what he felt.

He studied her face, looking for answers, looking for movement. He took her chin, rubbed it lightly with the pad of his thumb, ran the backs of his fingers along her jaw. Finally he straightened.

"Apparently, " Faye said in soft apology, "a ring wasn't what she needed."

"What was? " he asked.

She thought for a minute. With a sad smile, she hitched her chin toward where he stood so close to Rachel. "Maybe this? " SAMANTHA loaded her backpack with books to bring home, then checked herself out in the mirror inside her locker door. She ran a comb through her hair.

She wiped a finger under her eye to get rid of runaway liner and studied something on her forehead. If it grew into a zit just in time for the prom, she would die. When she had looked enough and prayed enough, she straightened and tossed her hair back.

She mashed her lips together to make them red. Finally, when Lydia didn't show up, she took her baseball jacket from its hook. She was closing her locker when Pam Ardley turned the corner.

"Hey, Samantha! " she called, breaking into a trot. "Wait up! " She was all smiley white teeth and sleek black hair. Cocaptain of the cheerleading squad, she was probably the most popular gid in the class.

Samantha wasn't going anywhere, not when Pam Ardley called.

Pam slowed to a walk, then stopped and leaned a shoulder against the locker's edge. "Teague says you asked him to the prom. I think that's awesome. He's hot. We're having a party at Jake Drumble's. Maybe you two want to come? " Samantha couldn't believe it. Jake Drumble played football, basketball, and baseball. If Pam was the most popular girl, he was the most popular boy. And gorgeous? Drop dead.

"I'd like that, " she said without raising her voice. She didn't want to seem overeager. Cool was better. Suave was best.

"What can you bring? " Pam asked.

Samantha scooped her hair to the side. "What do you need? " Something told her that salsa and chips weren't on the wish list. Not for a party at Jake's. This was big stuff. Unbelievable.

"Whatever you have at home�vodka, gin. You don't have an ID, do you?

" An ID. No, she didn't have an ID.

Pam waved a hand. "Not to worry. Bring whatever."

"I may have a problem, " Samantha warned, but boldly. If she sounded weak, she would give herself away. "My mom's been in a coma for a week, so my dad's with us. It's a nightmare. He drives us here and back. He watches us like a hawk. If he gets even the slightest idea that I'm smuggling out vodka�" Like there was a drop of vodka in the house. There was nothing in the house.

Pam waved a hand. "Don't do it. We'll manage without." She stood back and grinned. "I'm glad you're coming, Samantha. I never understood what you were doing with Lydia and the others. They're very young."

"Tell me about it." Pam started bouncing from one toe to the other of crisp white platform sneakers. "No need. You know.

Saturday night at six for something before the prom. See you then. " She jogged off.

HOPE had turned the corner unaware and stopped short, watching from the other end of the hall. She didn't move again until Pam was gone.

"Sam? " Samantha whirled around. She put a hand to her chest. "You scared me."

"What did she want? " She was suddenly nonchalant. "Not much." She closed her locker and slung the backpack on a shoulder "She's a friend." She started down the hall.

Hope fell into step beside her. "Since when? " "What do you mean, since when'? We've been in the same class for years."

"Does Lydia like her? " "Lydia, " Samantha spoke clearly, "is not in this equation."

"Why? Did you guys have a fight? " "We didn't have to.

Lydia and I have been heading in different directions all year. Those guys are young." She swung through the door and started down the stairs.

Hope hurried to keep up. "They're your age."

"In years. That's all.

They have no idea how to have fun."

"But you're going with them to the prom, aren't you? " "I haven't decided, " Samantha said as she pushed open the outside door and hit the steps.

Hope followed her, squinting against the sun. "Mallory Jones said you were going with Teague Runyan. I don't think Mom would like that. " Samantha stopped short, came up close, and said with lethal quiet, "Mom's in a coma, and if you say one word to Dad, you're dead. " Scooping her hair back, she set off again.

Hope watched her go. Lydia, Brendan, and Shelly were watching, too, but from an even greater distance than Hope.

Halfway to the curb, Samantha turned and yelled, "Are you coming?"

Hope ran forward, because Jack was there and she didn't want him waiting, but during the entire drive to the hospital, she tried to decide what to do. Samantha would never forgive her if she told Jack�and it seemed like his mind was somewhere else anyway. If Rachel was still in a coma, the only one left was Katherine. But Katherine wasn't at the hospital when they got there, and when she finally came, it was late, and then Jack said he needed to talk with her and took her out in the hall.

So, while Samantha stared at her forehead in the bathroom mirror, Hope tacked a drawing she had made of her mother up on the bulletin board, then sat beside Rachel and told her that Angela Downing's mother was running Friday's picnic, but Jack was bringing drinks. Whispering, she read Rachel a poem she had written about Guinevere's death. She pulled a jar from her backpack and opened it under Rachel's nose.

"What's that? " Samantha asked.

"Paste. Remember all the signs we used to make? Thanksgiving, Christmas, end of the school year, start of the school year. " Construction paper cutouts pasted on poster board. "She likes the smell." Samantha snorted and turned away, but Hope didn't care. She couldn't do much if Sam decided to make a mess of her life with Teague Runyan. But if that happened, she wanted Rachel awake to help clean things up.

JACK stood in the hall with his back to the wall and his hands in his pockets. He didn't know whether to be embarrassed, angry, or hurt. "I was so proud of myself, asking questions and learning little things about Rachel, and then Charlie hits me with the business about trying to buy her offwith a ring. Do you know about that? " Katherine was unruffled. "I didn't know Chadie had said it. But I have seen the ring."

"What did Rachel do? Present it as display number eighteen, proof of Jack's materialism? Did the two of you sit back and laugh?

If she thought it was so gawdy, why didn't she sell it and give the money to the International Save the Walrus Foundation or something? " Katherine looked amused. "For the record, I thought the ring was beautiful. For the record, so did Rachel."

"Charlie said�" "Charlie is young. Charlie is poor. Charlie is the product of every possible kind of abuse. She is wonderfully loyal to the women in the group and lends a different insight to conversations, but what she told you may have been tinged by her own feelings, not the least of which is envy.

Charlie would give her right arm to be married to someone who could support her while she worked. She gave you her own take on the ring.

It may not have been a fair representation of what Rachel said. " "What did Rachel say? " When Katherine shot him a beseeching look, he said, "I gave her that ring because I loved her. I can't believe she took it any other way."

"You gave it to her at a time when she wanted you, not a ring. She worries, Jack. She sees you buying lavish gifts for the girls."

"On birthdays. For Christmas. And what shovld I do?

If they want CD players�or Patagonia jackets�or leather backpacks, and I have the money, why not? It's not like I see them all the time.

It's not like there's much else I can do for them."

"Do you really believe that? What about more time with them? That was what Rachel wanted most. That was what she missed. She didn't want the money.

She had it once. It didn't help."

"Ah." Jack pushed a hand through his hair. "We've been down this road before, Rachel and I. She had it and spurned it. Me, I grew up poor.

Dirt poor. Money means something, after that."

"But it's not abovt money, " Katherine said, suddenly impassioned.

"You could have made billions, and Rachel wouldn't have cared, if you had been there emotionally. But you were so obsessed with work, you lost sight of what mattered. Your days were exhausting. Come nighttime, you had less and less left over for Rachel and the girls. I see it, too. You walk in every day with briefcase, laptop, and phone.

Hey" �she held up a hand�"I'm not complaining. I think it's great that you're here. I think that if you'd been half as portable with work when you were married, you'd still be married. But are you enjoying it?

Doesn't look to me like you are. You look hassled. So some of that's worry about Rachel, but I see you on the phone. I hear you. You're not having fun. How much is enough? " Jack stared at her silently for a time, then dropped his eyes. "I don't know, " he finally said.

But he thought about it when he returned to the room, and thought about it back at the house. He thought about it when he woke up in the middle of the night and found Hope with tear streaks on her cheeks, wrapped in her quilt on the far side of Rachel's bed, sound asleep. He thought about it when he woke up and Hope was gone.

Sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing a stiffshoulder, he still didn't know. He opened the window. The morning chill felt good on his skin.

He stretched, flexed that stiff shoulder a time or two, put his hands on the windowsill and his face to the air, and wondered about a place that didn't need screens.

It was a good place. It was a different place. There was no cover price here, no charge for admission. All he had to do was walk, breathe, listen, and look, and the beauty was there.

Just then, that was enough.

He pulled his head in and closed the window. Picking up the phone, he called his would-be client in Boca and said that Sung and McGill was withdrawing from the project. Life was too short to be held ransom by a bunch of two-bit politicians, he said. No, he didn't want to take one last crack at it, he had already compromised too much. Yes, he knew he wouldn't be paid if he quit. But he wouldn't be paid, anyway, when perfectly good designs ran into last-minute code interpretations.

So he was cutting his losses. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

When he hung up the phone, his shoulder felt better, and no wonder.

The load had been lightened a little. David would be upset. But that was a passing thought. The one that lingered was that he couldn't wait to tell Rachel.

chapter thirteen.

COLOR AND CUT normally opened at nine, but Katherine believed that loyalty stemmed from accommodating the client, hence she was often at the shop far earlier. She had a seven-thirty this Wednesday morning, a young woman who worked a ten-hour stint as concierge at a resort in the valley. Even if Katherine hadn't been fond of her� which she was�she knew that Tracey L"Marr was a showcase for her work. Besides, Tracey was fun to do. She gave Katherine the freedom to try new things and had the kind of thick chestnut hair and pretty features to wear it all well.