Icing Ivy (4 page)

“Here's my fellow best-seller,” Carla said, slapping the woman on the back. “Ellyn Bass—Jane Stuart.”

“Glad to meet you, Ellyn. You're also from Shady Hills?”

“Yes,” Ellyn replied. Her voice was high and squeaky. “But I don't work like Carla. I'm only a housewife.”

“Don't ever say that,” Jane said with a smile. “You're setting back the women's movement by about thirty years. Say, ‘I don't work outside the home.' Much more p.c.”

Ellyn nodded solemnly, as if completely unaware that Jane was being funny, or trying to be.

“Right,” Jane said. “Any children, Ellyn?” she asked brightly.

“Five-year-old twin girls.”

“And a handful, let me tell you,” Carla put in. “I've served them enough to know. I've also served that husband of hers,” she added, rolling her eyes. “Nice-looking, but useless.”

Ellyn made a little frown but said nothing.

“What kind of writing are you doing, Ellyn?” Jane asked, now eager to get off the subject of Ellyn's family.

“I write romance novels.” A dreamy, faraway look came into Ellyn's eyes. “I
adore
romance novels.”

“How wonderful. Do you know we have two romance stars with us as instructors this week? Bertha—I mean Rhonda—”

“I know.” Ellyn rose up on her heels in excitement. “Rhonda Redmond and Jennifer Castaneda. I've read every book they've ever written.”

At that moment another woman joined them. Jane was enveloped in a cloud of expensive perfume.

“Who's written?” the woman asked. She spoke with an aristocratic lockjaw drawl and was dressed to match in an expensive-looking tan silk pantsuit. Jane guessed her to be around fifty. Her hair was a subtle gold, swept back from her well-tanned face and turning up slightly at her shoulders. Jane was immediately reminded of the actress Dina Merrill.

Jane opened her mouth to answer her, but the woman smiled apologetically. “How frightfully rude of me. I apologize for interrupting.” She put out her hand. “Tamara Henley. I assume you're Mrs. Stuart?”

“Yes. Please call me Jane. Ellyn was just saying she's read all of Jennifer Castaneda's and Rhonda Redmond's books.”

Tamara's smile half vanished and she regarded Ellyn pityingly. “Romance. Yes, well, that's fine for some. I'm here to work on something a bit more . . . ambitious. I know you'll be able to help me, Jane.”

Ellyn stared down at the floor, duly put in her place.

Jane said, “Don't sell romance short, Tamara. It brings a lot of women pleasure. Most of it is beautifully written, too. People who don't read it aren't aware of that. They have a certain prejudice.”

“Mm,” Tamara replied, clearly bored. “As I said, fine for some.” Then she gave Ellyn and Carla an intense gaze, as if willing them to go away. When they didn't, she looked again at Jane and smiled. “So nice to have met you, Jane. I'm sure we'll have our chance to
really
talk.” She swept off toward the refreshment table.

“Snotty bitch,” Carla said, as if she were about to spit. “That one I've never waited on at the diner, I'm sure of that. She'd never set foot in it.” She cast Tamara a resentful look. “She's not even a member of the Midnight Writers.”

“Oh?” Jane said. “Then how did she know about the retreat?”

“She's friendly with Rhoda and Adam. He told her about it.”

Carla was watching Tamara at the refreshment table with a resentful look that made Jane uneasy.

“On to meet the rest of the students,” Jane said cheerfully, and spotted three men she hadn't met chatting together and laughing in a corner of the room near the refreshment table. Jane made her way over to them and said hello to a bald man with a pleasant round face.

“Hello,” he said. He had a warm smile that crinkled the corners of his deep blue eyes.

“Jane Stuart,” she said, putting out her hand.

“Oh, Mrs. Stuart,” he said, and dried his palm on his trousers before taking her hand and shaking it energetically. “A pleasure to meet you. Red Pearson.” Before Jane could speak, he touched his bare head and said, “When I had hair, it was red. Let me introduce you to my friends here.” He gestured toward an unusually unattractive man with pasty features and thinning, wiry, ginger-colored hair. “This is Larry Graham, our resident electrician.”

Jane shook his hand. “A pleasure.”

“Mutual,” Larry said. “ Course, I'm not here as an electrician. I've got a book I'm working on.”

“I would hope so, ” Jane said with manufactured fervor, and turned to the third man in the group, a tiny, shriveled creature who was eighty if he was a day. He was so thin and gaunt that it occurred to Jane that he would break if she touched him. But she put her hand out just the same and received a surprisingly firm handshake in return.

“William Ives,” he said in a thin, wavering voice. “Pleasure to know you.”

Jane noticed Adam gesturing to her from the edge of the room. “Excuse me,” she said to the three men, and made her way through the crowd to him.

“Jane, I think we should get started. What I usually do—”

But he was interrupted by a man who had suddenly appeared, a hunched, sour-looking older man with a thatch of white hair. “Somebody spilled coffee all over the table,” he said in a low, droning voice.

“Then clean it up,” Adam told him impatiently. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

The man skulked away.

“Who was that? ” Jane asked softly.

Rhoda appeared at Adam's side, wearing a look of distaste. “That's Tom Brockman, the caretaker,” she told Jane. “He's hopeless—a carryover from the lodge's previous owner. I've told Adam to fire him, but he refuses.”

“Let's not get into that now,” Adam said to Rhoda. “I hardly think it's appropriate.”

“No, but it's appropriate for Tom to stick his hand in the till when it pleases him.”

“Rhoda,” Adam whispered angrily. “Stop it. You have no proof that he's ever done that. Really, this is wrong.”

“Such a prisser,” Rhoda said with a dismissive wave of her hand, and walked away.

“Anyway,” Adam went on, his face red, “after the icebreaker we usually meet in the conference room next door. We go over how the retreat works, that sort of thing.”

“I'd be happy to tell them how the retreat works,” Jane said, “if I knew.”

“Oh, right, this is all new to you. Okay, then I'll do that, and if you hear anything you'd like to do differently, speak up.” Jane nodded, and Adam stepped back to address the entire group. “Ladies and gentlemen, if we could all go into the conference room, right through that door, I'd like to go over how the retreat will work.”

Everyone headed for the door. Passing Jane, tall blond Carla muttered, “Finally,” then saw Jane and forced a phony smile, revealing long, horselike teeth.

This character wasn't going to be easy, Jane thought. But then, the others didn't look easy, either.

What on earth had she gotten herself into?

I
n her room, Jane took a stack of sweaters from her suitcase and placed them in the top drawer of the dresser. She reached for another stack of clothes, changed her mind, and went to the window.

The snow was still falling heavily. Through it Jane could make out the thick woods not far from the lodge. Through a break in the trees, she thought she saw a pond. If she had a chance, and if the weather allowed, she'd try to explore those woods while she was up here.

It was very quiet. The students were in their rooms, writing. In the conference room, Adam had announced the retreat's structure. Each morning, between breakfast and lunch, the students would write in their rooms. After lunch, during the first half of the afternoon, students would meet with their respective instructors (Jane had been assigned Larry Graham, the electrician) for their “one-on-ones,” as Adam had put it. The second half of the afternoon students would have free, for socializing or whatever activities they chose. Then would come dinner, followed by an evening group session at which students would be encouraged to read from their works-in-progress.

She stepped from the window and, though she hadn't finished unpacking, sat down at the foot of the bed and looked around the small room.

Right in front of her stood the dresser, long and low, with a mirror above. Atop the dresser was a vase containing an immense arrangement of fresh flowers. At the foot of the vase was the card she'd found attached:
Jane—Thank you so much for bailing me out. Your friend, Adam
. At the far left end of the dresser sat a Mr. Coffee machine—a nice touch, Jane thought.

Missing from the dresser—or from anywhere else in the room, for that matter—was a television set. How refreshing. Now if only there weren't a telephone on the bed stand, she thought, it would be perfect; but she knew, of course, that that wouldn't be possible.

The only other furniture was a small armchair to the left of the bed and a tiny desk and chair in one corner of the room. Nearby was the door to the bathroom.

Jane smiled. Rhoda had clearly added her own touches. In the bathroom Jane had found a basket of assorted scented soaps in the shape of pine-cones and acorns. Here in the room itself Rhoda had added a holiday note: two large wreaths. A green one of fragrant eucalyptus and pine needles hung on the door to the corridor. On the wall to the right of the window hung a red one made of poinsettia flowers interwoven with cranberries.

She inhaled deeply, savoring the wreaths' mingled aromas. Then she was aware once again of the exquisite quiet. It really was quite lovely up here. She was surprised she hadn't been here before now. Rhoda had certainly mentioned Adam buying the lodge. Perhaps in the summer she and Stanley would come up for a night or two.

There was a boisterous knock on her door and Ivy burst in, face aglow. “He's on his way.”

“Who?”

“Johnny, who do you think? He just called from his car. He should be here in about an hour.”

But by lunchtime, two hours later, Johnny still hadn't arrived. Ivy sat glumly beside Jane at the large conference table that doubled as a dining table. Otherwise the chatter was lively and high-spirited, punctuated by laughter.

“Here you go, babe,” Ginny said affectionately, setting down a plate of spaghetti and meatballs in front of Jane. Ginny had decided to make herself useful by helping to serve the meals—a job usually done by Adam and Rhoda alone. After all, Ginny had reasoned, she was a waitress. Jane watched Ginny set down a plate in front of Carla, who glanced at Ginny out of the corner of her eye but said nothing. Professional rivalry, Jane decided with an inward laugh, and started on a meatball.

The room grew quiet. Jane looked up. Johnny stood in the doorway, a thin coating of snow on his head and broad shoulders. In that brief moment, Jane happened to glance again at Carla and saw her lock glances with Johnny. It was as if, Jane thought, they had found each other by some sort of sonar. Quickly Jane looked at Ivy to see if she had noticed this exchange, but Ivy's eyes were also fixed only on Johnny. She jumped up with a joyful smile and ran to him, rising a little on her toes to give him a kiss. Then she turned around and giggled. “Everybody,” she said, “this is Johnny, my boyfriend.”

“Glad to know ya,” Red called out, and tore into a roll.

Bertha, two seats down from Jane, leaned over Ivy's now empty chair and whispered ominously to Jane, “Sparks are flying . . . and I don't mean between Ivy and Johnny. She'd better watch out.”

Jane felt a lurching in the pit of her stomach and decided not to respond to Bertha's comment. She simply smiled. As she did so, she noticed Red Pearson watching Ivy intently as she made her way back to her seat.

Jane looked back at the doorway. Johnny was gone.

“Where did he go?” she asked Ivy.

“Upstairs to shower and change.”

“Doesn't he want lunch?”

Ivy shook her head.

At the other end of the table, Larry Graham appeared to be holding court, entertaining William Ives and Tamara Henley. “Not me,” Graham said pompously. “I'm taking my book right from today's headlines—literally.”

“What do you mean?” Tamara drawled, and now the whole table was listening.

“I'm using that hijacked-bus story. Except that in my book, the bomb in his briefcase is real.”

This created a flurry of chatter.

“You might say that about my book, too,” Red Pearson said loudly. Darting a glance at Jane, he touched his bald head self-consciously. “You remember that story a few weeks ago about that social club in East Harlem that burned down?”

“I remember that,” Ellyn said softly. “The Boriken Social Club.”

“That's right,” Red said. “Some nut started a fire right outside the club's only exit.”

“Why did he do that?” Tamara asked.

“To get back at his girlfriend for cheating on him. She was inside the club.”

“But what about all the other people?” Carla asked.

“He didn't care about them, apparently. There were nearly a hundred of them. They all panicked. A stampede. Eighty-seven of 'em either got trampled to death or got asphyxiated by the smoke.”

“How awful,” said Ginny, who had sat down next to Daniel to have her lunch.

“Horrible,” Rhoda agreed.

“Yeah,” Red said with relish. “That's what my book's about.”

“No happy ending there,” Carla said on a mouthful of spaghetti.

“Well, I'm taking certain licenses with it,” Red said. “You'll see.”

“I can hardly wait,” Carla said, looking bored, and grabbed a roll.

After lunch, Adam drew Jane into the lounge to speak to her. “How do you think it's going?”

“Too soon to tell, I think. We certainly have an interesting assortment of people.”

“True,” Adam said, looking troubled. Through the door into the reception room, they saw Tom Brockman go outside carrying a snow shovel.

“The snow is supposed to be real heavy,” Adam said. “Could be an accumulation of three feet or more.”

“Does it matter?” Jane asked. “We'll all be busy inside.”

“True, but I need to get down into town for food and such.”

“Of course. I didn't think of that.”

“We're fine for a few days, anyway.”

Larry Graham entered the lounge and hovered nearby, clearly waiting to speak to one of them.

“Do you need me, Larry?” Adam asked.

“I'm waiting for Mrs. Stuart. She's my instructor.”

Jane noticed that he had a spiral notebook in his hand. “Oh, yes, of course. I'm sorry, Larry. Let's go up to my room and talk about your project.”