When We Were Sisters (15 page)

I tried to put the story into words Mick would understand. “She gave me to her mother to raise, like a fairy-tale sacrifice to an evil witch. And if that sounds overwrought, believe me, it's not. I do understand why she left, though, so my gift to Alice Swanson, who reluctantly gave birth to me, is to leave her alone. That way I can pretend she misses me and wishes she could make up for what she put me through. Truthfully, all these years later she probably still wakes up every morning delighted that she had the courage to start a different life.”

His expression was sympathetic but not pitying. “And you ended up in foster care.”

“I hope you report some of the happy foster-care stories, Mick. There are so many selfless, overworked and underpaid foster families who do what they do because they love kids and for no other reason. Not all my placements were good. You'll see the worst up close when we get to Florida, but I was so much better off in care than I ever would have been with my grandmother. This may sound crass and unfeeling, but my future turned brighter the moment she died. Even though I was suddenly at the mercy of strangers.”

He was silent. I thought I'd offended him, but when he glanced at me, I saw he looked pleased. “I think you may just have titled the film, Robin.
At the Mercy of Strangers
. I like it.”

“Glad to help.” Our gazes held.

He spoke after a moment, and he didn't look away. “I'm happy you took this on. I sense it's not easy on a personal level. You have a husband and family, and exploring this subject is going to bring your own share of pain. No matter what, though, you're going to be a huge asset. I like to give the people who work with me as much autonomy as they can handle, but I hope we'll work off each other's talents. I can use your help, and I may be able to help you.”

“You did already.” He cocked his head in question, and I explained. “That moment in the airport when I had to graduate from Cecilia's sister to professional photographer. You nudged me from one to the other.”

“I'll continue to nudge, but you nudge, too. We'll be a team.”

I was suddenly all too aware I was experiencing the symptoms of an adolescent crush. My heart was pounding too fast and my hands were unsteady. I was standing just a little too close to a man I had looked up to for years, a man I had never expected to meet, much less work with. On top of that, Mick was so much more than I had imagined. Warmer. Less apt to insist on having things his own way. And definitely more attractive, despite the years between us.

I thought about Kris, who in all our years together had never quite understood why my past turned me into the woman I am. And here was Mick, almost a stranger, who seemed to understand it perfectly.

“We'll be a team,” I said, and silently promised myself I could and would keep our relationship professional. I would not let the problems Kris and I were going through affect the way I viewed Mick.

“Let's go see what else Thea has for Cecilia.” Mick started back up the path, and a heartbeat later, I followed, determined to listen carefully to my own words.

17

Cecilia

Roscoe and I like this inn, and we'll be sorry to fly back to California tomorrow. So tonight we decided to take a sunset walk to say goodbye. Alone, without the trusty Hal, who likes to shadow me everywhere I go. I wouldn't be too surprised to learn he's following me with binoculars from a window.

Maybe some deeply buried part of me remembers the western Pennsylvania countryside and knows I've come home. At night here the air smells green and new in a way that feels familiar, even when it's tinged with wood smoke from the fireplace in the inn's keeping room.

No place I live smells quite like this. I'm sure, of course, that when the mines were operating nobody came to this part of the state on a pleasure jaunt. But I think I've discovered why Frank Lloyd Wright built Fallingwater to the east. The family that engaged him must have believed this tiny speck on the map deserved more than smoke from steel mills and the destruction that comes from mining. It deserved a masterpiece built over a waterfall.

When Roscoe finally yipped to get down I set him on the ground between the two rows of sunflowers where we were taking our stroll. Twilight was deepening, and a nearly full moon was peeking over rows of tall trees on the horizon. Robin was inside, on the phone with her children, and some of the crew were sitting by the fireplace dissecting everything they had done today. Mick had been on the telephone for most of the evening, insisting we need another camera operator, and Jerry and Fiona were out shooting B roll of Randolph Furnace at night.

I miss Donny, who had an emergency with a country singer he just agreed to represent and flew out of Pittsburgh this morning. There's no reason he needed to hold my hand through the filming today, but I wish he could have been at the cemetery when Thea helped me figure out who I was and am.

Roscoe growled, and what fur he has at the back of his neck rose like the spikes of a stegosaurus. He began to bark, a shrill shuddering screech that's guaranteed to make every bad guy for a hundred miles wince in pain.

I turned to see what had disturbed him and glimpsed a figure ambling through the half-light along the row behind me. I had expected to find Hal was the intruder, but Donny and I have been together so long I recognize even his shadow.

“How'd you do that?” I called. “Pittsburgh to Nashville and back in one day?”

“Got there and the guy was so coked up he threatened to fire me if I didn't fix his nonexistent problem immediately. So I told him to fire away and caught the next plane back.”

I despise drugs because of what they did to Maribeth, as well as to my first manager, a brilliant man who died of a heroin overdose just as my career began its rise. Donny despises drugs because at heart he's a solid Midwestern guy who doesn't believe in flushing talent or money down the toilet, and for someone in his profession, he's surprisingly and blessedly intolerant of bad behavior.

Donny doesn't need more clients. I've asked him not to take on anyone else, but he doesn't have to listen, something he lets me know from time to time. He still represents the occasional talented newcomer, although he has an associate who does most of that work. Donny himself only shows up when things fall apart or take off big-time.

Roscoe and I waited as he caught up. “Was this your
American Idol
finalist?”

“The very same. And after today I know for sure why he didn't win. He's not famous enough to be a brat.”

“Hey, I'm famous, and I'm not a brat.”

“Debatable, but here's the genuine article.” He stooped and scooped up Roscoe who had stopped yipping and taken to sniffing the cuff of his trousers. “How's the little guy doing?”

“Settling in. Why don't I let him stay in your room tonight, and you'll see how well and frequently he announces his need to go outside.”

“Your dog, darlin'.”

I hated to admit it, but I was glad Donny was back.

He rose, Roscoe draped comfortably over one arm. “May I carry your puppy, ma'am, and accompany you back to the inn?”

“Don't tell me Hal sicced you on me?”

“I was told you needed an escort. And I don't think Mick trusts you not to run back to the Evergreen to see what other wildlife you can pick up in the parking lot.”

“Walk a little farther. Then I'll turn around. Mick knows you won't let me do anything stupid. I'm too valuable.”

“That you are.”

We walked side by side, comfortable in silence for a minute until he spoke. “Okay, I'll ask since you haven't volunteered. What happened today? Start at the beginning.”

He could easily have met me in California tomorrow or the next day, when we'll be talking to the executive team at Cyclonic about my new album. Instead he had come back to check on me. Donny thinks I'm fragile, and he may be right.

“As my manager or friend?” I asked.

“Your friendly manager. Emphasis on friendly.”

“It was...” I cleared my throat. “No adjectives available.” I told him about Thea and what I'd learned about the Ceglinskis. “After that we went to my father's grave. The crew stepped back and let me be there alone with him for a minute or two.”

“I hope you told him about your life. I always update my grandmother when I visit her ashes.” He didn't sound as if he were teasing.

“No time for that. I just told him I would be back.”

“And will you be?”

“This was a good stop, Donny.” I cleared my throat again.

More silence. I think he knew I was gathering composure.

I finished when I was ready. “My mother's family was interesting. It seems I might be descended from revolutionaries.”

“That surprises me not at all.”

“Do you know who the Molly Maguires were?”

“Something to do with mines and mine owners and strikes? Are you descended from the ones who fought the good fight and then got out of town before they dangled from a rope?”

“Thea thinks maybe I am. If it's true I'm not sure whether I should be proud or sorry they ran. I do know I'm not as unhappy with my Malone grandparents as I used to be, and not because of the Mollies. After Maribeth dumped me, no official could locate them. It turns out they went west. A former neighbor who Thea tracked down remembers that after my father died, my grandparents heard there were jobs in California, so they went ahead, hoping to settle there and send for Maribeth and me once things stabilized. But they never made it. Their truck ran off a bridge in Missouri. It was years before they were identified. Thea found an old newspaper article online. And, of course, by then there was nobody left in Randolph Furnace to notify.”

“Wow.” Donny made the word last for several syllables. “Some saga. Very Steinbeck.”

“Donny, something else...”

“All ears.”

He was, too. I knew he was listening.

“While we were filming today a crowd gathered by the cemetery gate. Or at least a crowd by Randolph Furnace standards. Anyway? Those American Legion guys from the party? They got together again, made calls, twisted arms. And after we were done for the day the sheriff let a few men through. They presented me with a notebook filled with old photos people found in their attics and notes about my family. Personal accounts. You know? Like the time my grandfather Malone beat up a guy in the local bar for talking trash in front of a woman. And the time Grandmother Ceglinski dragged three dogs out of a burning house.”

I was still trying to process this. People often do nice things for me because I'm a star. I get gifts whether I want them or not, usually with strings attached. But nobody here gained anything but goodwill by rummaging through their attics. For the first time in my life I had photos of some of my family, including a faded but still discernible photo of my father as a young teen.

“You come from scrappers,” he said. “And a nice little town, to boot. Rough around the edges, but lots of heart.”

“Roscoe liked the story about the dogs.”

“You're okay?”

“I sang for them. The group kept growing, and pretty soon it was a real audience. After I got the notebook I asked the sheriff's men to let everyone come in, although Mick was wary. Somebody had brought a guitar. They came up the hill. I rested my leg against my—” I cleared my throat, hopefully for the last time “—my father's tombstone, and I gave them a concert. When I was finished, the cheers were like nothing I've ever heard.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against his side. “Your father was listening, too.”

My eyes were filling with tears. “You don't believe that, and neither do I.”

“Of course I do. And so do you. Stop being a brave girl and just be happy, okay?”

I liked the way he felt against me, and quite honestly I can't often say that about a man. But he wasn't issuing demands. Just a friend indeed for the friend in need.

“I'm not paying you even a dime more, Donny. No matter how nice you are to me.”

“But
somebody
has to make up for what I lost with the
American Idol
guy.”

“It won't be me.”

He kissed my cheek before he stepped away. “Time to turn around?”

“I like it out here. I wonder if the owners would like to sell this place?”

“You won't find home by buying every piece of property that appeals to you, Cecilia.”

“I found a little piece today, though, didn't I?”

“That you did.”

“I'll come back and visit.”

He handed me Roscoe, then he squeezed my hand. “No matter where we come from? That's all any of us can ever do.”

18

Robin

Sorry I missed your call yesterday. You've been gone four days. Feels longer. Kids were busy for dinner last night when I wasn't. We need an events coordinator. K

Monday afternoon in my new hotel room in Jamestown, New York, I read Kris's latest—and slightly friendlier—text and wondered if he was beginning to see the shape of things to come. We've reached a point where we need to accommodate ourselves to our children's schedules and not vice versa. Not always, of course, but often enough that they realize how much they matter.

Another, less positive, interpretation of the text? I was missed because somebody needed to be there to keep things organized. I needed to go back home and take over.

Not going to happen.

After our early arrival in western New York, the remainder of my morning was spent at an oval table in the parlor while the crew discussed what was next and what responsibilities each person would take to prepare for Cecilia's arrival on Thursday. We've been housed in a 1930s home built of handmade Belgian brick by a local architect. The vintage beauty, now a bed-and-breakfast hotel, has seen several incarnations and renovations, but much of the former glory is intact. I love my little room with its cozy sitting nook.

Now a late-afternoon rain was falling steadily outside my window, a familiar sight in this part of the world until it turns to snow. Luckily for us, snow isn't forecast today but might be later if temperatures continue to drop.

On the drive north Starla told me that Jamestown was once a thriving city, home to furniture manufacturing, textiles and metalworking, but like much of the North it fell on hard times as jobs and workers moved south. Oddly the halt of expansion seems to have spared many of the gracefully historic buildings, and now even the abandoned brick factories have a charm I found compelling as we drove past on our journey from Uniontown.

At the moment I'm torn between a nap and doing more editing of the photos I've already taken. More time with my camera isn't an option. I have hours between now and Cecilia's arrival to prowl the streets of this city where she was a temporary resident, looking for more evocative scenes to photograph. But since I've already deleted most of what I've taken, I'm not at all sure I would know evocative if it stood in my path, rested its head on my shoulder and wept. Mick asked to see what I've done so far and I reluctantly handed him a flash drive with my best photos, but I'm not hopeful he'll see more in them than I did.

Someone knocked on my door and, glad to stretch, I got up to answer. Mick, in faded denim and a heavy waterproof parka, was shifting his weight from foot to foot in my doorway.

“You busy?”

I shook my head.

“Let's take a drive.”

I'm no sissy, but at this point the rain was coming down in sheets. “Right now?”

“It's supposed to slack off pretty soon. I've got my camera. You get yours.”

I wasn't going to refuse. The great Mick Bollard was asking me to come along on a photo shoot. I would have followed him into the depths of hell.

I dragged a smile into place. “I'll meet you downstairs.”

He disappeared down the hall.

Five minutes later I joined him near the hotel entrance with my camera bag. I brought two folding umbrellas, one large enough to shelter me and another for my camera—which also has its own rain jacket. I opened the first and followed Mick outside to one of the vans that had carried us here, climbing into the passenger seat. Apparently no one else was invited.

I buckled up. “Where's Fiona?”

“Writing a paper on the Austro-Hungarian Empire for a professor at Stanford who graciously agreed to oversee her world history education. She's behind.” He smiled, as if silently reminiscing. “My fault. She could have stayed in California with her mother and easily finished, but I wanted her with me on this trip.”

“You two are very close.”

“Fifi keeps me sane.”

“Most teenagers drive their parents
in
sane.”

Mick pulled out to the street. “Speaking from experience?”

“My two aren't quite there. But I doubt they'll weather the hormone storm as well as Fiona has.”

“I stayed with my wife for years longer than I should have because of Fifi. Divorce is hard on children. I didn't want to cause her any pain. When it became clear staying was going to cause even more, both her mother and I decided we would give her as much or more time separately than we could have when we were together.”

“Is more time part of the reason she's not in school?”

“A big part.”

We started down a side street that almost passed for a creek. I listened to the swish of wipers across the windshield, the sloshing of tires. If the rain was supposed to diminish, it wasn't following orders.

“I looked at your photos,” Mick said.

I saved him the search for a polite comment. “I don't like most of them. A couple are acceptable, if surrounded by better ones.”

“Good, then. Because I was about to break that piece of news myself.”

“I know.” And I did. I explained my lack of ego, so he would understand. “I don't need false praise or kid gloves. I really am a pro, although I didn't give you much on that flash drive that proved it.”

“So what's the problem? Because I've seen your previous work. Otherwise you wouldn't be here no matter how badly your sister wanted you.”

“You would go head-to-head with Cecilia over me? You're a brave, brave man.”

“She's not nearly as strong as she pretends. But let's not make this about her. Let's make it about you.”

I was so unused to making
anything
about me, this threw me a moment. “If I understood the problem, I could probably do something about it. I keep hoping I just need to find my groove again, that I've been away from this kind of work so long it'll take a week or so to fall back into it.”

“Are you coming closer?”

“I think so. But close enough? Not nearly.”

“Is your sister the problem?”

“I just don't seem to be able to judge a good shot until it's too late to take advantage of it. And, of course, that makes no sense. Maybe when I was shooting film and every click had to count, it did. But these days I can take a hundred shots and discard every one without anyone questioning my judgment.”

“The camera has to become part of you. Right now it's a novelty, something entirely disconnected.”

He was right, but that wasn't news. “The time span between ‘maybe this will be a good photo' to ‘yes, it will, now how will I best shoot it?' and the eventual click of the camera? That's exactly how long it takes to ruin a shot.”

“Figuring that out is part of the solution.”

“But it's
figuring
. And the head that figured that out
is
part of the problem. I can't figure out a good photograph and still have enough time to take it. Remnants, yes. Leftovers. Not the shot I wanted and missed.”

“That's why we're here today. It's a terrible day to be outside with a camera. You aren't going to get any good photos, and I'm not going to get any good footage. So we're going to relax and enjoy the challenge. Nothing we do matters. If we luck into something? A miracle. Not our doing.”

I doubted this would help. I would still miss opportunities, too busy framing shots and figuring the best perspective. Above? Below? Dead-on? My brain refused to disconnect.

“This will help,” Mick said, as if I'd spoken my concerns out loud. He pulled over and parked. Ahead of us was a multistory building, tumbling to the ground in a cascade of brick. Vines had overtaken parts of it. In high summer the vines, maybe poison ivy or creeper, would soften or hide the decay. Now, with winter fast approaching and leaves gone, they outlined the problem, as if they were holding the bricks together in one final spurt of defiance.

I squinted through the rain for a better view. “How did you know to come here?”

“I asked at the hotel. They're a wealth of knowledge. Tomorrow when you go out alone they'll help you find anything you want.”

I hope by tomorrow I'll know what to ask.

He turned in his seat to face me. “Here's what you've forgotten. Photography is like sex, Robin. You can think it to death, or you can let your heart and your body guide you and leave your head out of it. It's instinctual, with a flow all its own, and you can't guide it or harness it. You just have to let go and let it be. That's what your sister does when she sings. Music is like sex to Cecilia. She loses herself inside it, which is why she's such a star. You used to lose yourself in photography, but you've forgotten how. So today we're going to help you find that gift again.”

“Sex?”

He laughed, and his dark eyes lit and held mine. “I won't go any further with my analogy unless you make me.”

“Very little chance of that.”

“Zip up. Have you shot in this kind of rain before?”

I was still processing his lecture and incapable of sifting back through my history to previous photo shoots. “Not like this,” was the best I could manage.

“Than I'll play teacher. Make use of reflections if you can so the rain is more obvious. If you can adjust your flash for just the slightest burst of light, that may give you some interesting effects. Find light behind the rain but don't let it overpower your shot. You with me?”

These were all things I knew, but now I could feel my excitement building. Knowing and doing are entirely different.

Like sex.

I laughed softly; he smiled in appreciation. Then I bent down to open my case. “After that lecture I'm going to feel strangely vulnerable if I pull out my biggest lens,” I said.

“It's never size, always prowess.”

“Spoken like every man in the universe.”

This time
he
laughed. A moment later we were out in the storm together, smiling, both of us, still.