Shooting Gallery (18 page)

I glanced at my watch and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. After a quick shower I dressed in a long purple velvet skirt, a stretchy celery-colored tank top, and a chartreuse jacket that fell in soft folds to my hips. I topped off the ensemble with a feathery, multicolored scarf that my sister, Bonnie, had knitted for me for my birthday, a pair of long beaded earrings, and a touch of mascara and lipstick. I pulled on a pair of black stockings and slipped into ankle-high boots. My mother would raise a delicate eyebrow when she caught sight of me, but if I had to confront mysterious men in black SUVs again I wanted to be comfortable. I snatched up my black leather shoulder bag and thundered down the stairs.

Le Cheval was on Clay between Tenth and Eleventh, a brisk fifteen-minute walk from my apartment. During the weekdays the streets and sidewalks of downtown Oakland were clogged with hordes of government employees and businesspeople, who crowded into the coffeehouses, sandwich shops, and supply stores. After five o'clock these folks disappeared into the suburbs and Oakland's formerly grand downtown felt more like a ghost town. The Merchants Association had been working hard to change that, so as I crossed Broadway's faded glory and hurried past Old Oakland's renovated Victorian town houses, I was not surprised to hear the strains of a rock band at the Washington Arms pub competing with a jazz trio at Jesso's Seafood Café. San Francisco was chic and Berkeley was funky, but Oakland was down-to-earth and friendly, and its fierce partisans, like me, were sure it was on the cusp of a rebirth.

Le Cheval was mobbed, the cavernous space sufficient to accommodate only a fraction of those in search of good Vietnamese food served in a lively ambience, and as a regular I had known to reserve a table as soon as the restaurant opened this morning. A tiny woman in black jeans and a sparkly red top led me to a table in the center of the room where my mother waited, dressed in a navy blue linen suit and matching Hermès scarf. Beverly LeFleur Kincaid was, as always, cool and elegant as she sipped a cup of steaming green tea and smiled graciously at all and sundry.

All, that is, except her youngest daughter.

“Anna Jane Kincaid,”
she scolded as I sat down. “I believe I told you to leave Robert Pascal alone.”

“Hi, Mom. Good to see you, too,” I said, relieved to find her unscathed, even if she was annoyed. “Something to drink?”

We placed our drink orders, decided to start with an appetizer, and settled in for what promised to be a very trying conversation.

“You don't understand, Annie,” my mother said, her slim hand grasping mine. “This is very important.”

“Then help me to understand. What is going
on
? Who were those men in the SUV last night? By the way, why haven't you been answering your cell phone, like
you
promised? I've been worried sick.”

“Oh, you know how it is,” she said, chagrined. “The battery went dead. These cell phones aren't as convenient as they're cracked up to be.”

I laughed, and she joined in. It was a relief to be reminded that we had something in common. Lately I had begun to wonder if daughters were from Venus and mothers were from Alpha Centauri.

A waiter brought my
ca phé sua da
, an espressolike coffee that was mixed with sweetened condensed milk and poured over crushed ice. It tasted like a high-test milk-shake, and I took a moment to revel in the sweet caffeine bliss.

“So. Mom. What are you doing here? And don't give me that ‘Gee, I just needed to get away from Asco for a few days' baloney. It's almost Thanksgiving. Why aren't you busy decorating?”

“Oh, my. That reminds me. I haven't started marinating the rum cake yet. . . .”

“Okay, my fault. Let's stay on subject, shall we?” I said, interrupting her. “What the
hell
was going on between you and Seamus McGraw?”

“Language, young lady,
language
,” she scolded, and I wondered, for the thousandth time, how it was that my mother had been raised by my rogue of a grandfather and yet seemed untouched by the coarser aspects of life. Then again,
she
had raised
me
and look how I'd turned out.

Mom took a deep breath. “If you must know, Seamus and I, were, you see . . . we . . .”

“You what?” I said, almost afraid to ask. I did not want to learn that my mother had not been the loyal wife I had always believed her to be, not because I would love her any less for being human, but for entirely selfish reasons: I needed to believe that love could last because I hoped to find it for myself one day. I was equally afraid that she was in over her head but would not tell me about it out of a misguided desire to protect me. I'd kept her in the dark about my wilder exploits, partly because I didn't think she would understand but mostly because there were some things a red-blooded young woman did not want to share with her mother. I mean, geez.

She took a shaky breath. “It was a different time, Annie. It was Berkeley in the sixties.”

“Uh-huh,” I responded, dreading where this was going.

“Don't
uh-huh
me, young lady. You
asked
.” She gazed across the room at the huge mural of horses, the restaurant's namesake. “I put an end to it long ago.”

A waiter brought a plate of
cha gio
, deep-fried rolls served with lettuce, mint leaves, and
nuóc mam
, a salty fish sauce. They went untouched.

“Put an end to what?”

“Seamus and I . . . well, all of us, your father and Seamus and Pascal and I . . . we were all friends back in the day.” She busied herself arranging lettuce leaves but did not eat anything.

“Friends?”

“Good friends.”

“What
kind
of good friends? The kind who posed nude for one another in the heyday of bohemian Berkeley?” Tears glinted in her eyes and I regretted my snide remark. “Mom, I'm sorry, I . . .”

“I miss him,” she murmured, dropping the lettuce and dabbing at the tears that coursed down her smooth, powdered cheeks. “We haven't spoken in years, but I miss him. I know his work had become violent lately, but he was such a gentle man, deep down.” Her cornflower blue eyes held mine. “What happened, Annie? How could Seamus have died like that?
Why?
”

“I don't know,” I whispered, surprised that she was asking me, the daughter who never had the answers to anything. “Mom, I—”

“Good evening, Annie,” a deep voice interrupted.

“Why, Frank,” I said, surprised. “What are you . . . ?”

“Ingrid and I were having dinner with some friends,” he said, looking relaxed in a charcoal-gray wool Italian suit.

I whipped my head around and scanned the room, hoping for a bona-fide Ingrid sighting.

“She just left.”

“Of course she did. Oh, um, Mom, this is Frank DeBenton, my landlord. Frank, this is my mother, Beverly Kincaid.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Kincaid?” Frank asked, as my mother shot questioning glances at me. I ignored them.

“Quite well, thank you, Mr. DeBenton,” she replied. “Won't you join us?”

“Please, call me Frank,” he said, taking a seat despite my glare.

I enjoyed serendipitous social encounters, but I was dying to learn what my mother was up to and she would say nothing in front of Frank. For the second night in a row our heart-to-heart chat had been preempted by a handsome but unsuitable man.

“Sorry about the burglar alarm, Frank,” I said. “I think a friend may have set it off accidentally. I'll talk to her about it.”

“I'd appreciate that,” Frank said. “But enough shop talk. What are you lovely ladies drinking? May I propose some champagne?”

“No, you may not,” I said.

“We'd love some!” my mother said.

Frank ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, winked at me, and turned to my mother. “It seems I've been a little bit slow to put two and two together. Do you mean to tell me that you are related to the Asco Kincaids?”

“We aren't exactly royalty, Frank,” I grumbled.

“I never doubted that, Annie,” he replied, his cool brown eyes sweeping over me. I was pretty sure I'd just been insulted, but since my mother was at the table I held my tongue.

“Indeed we are,” my mother interjected, breaking the tension. “From Asco, I mean.”

“What a wonderful coincidence,” Frank said, watching as the waiter poured champagne into three crystal flutes.
“A votre santé!”

“Cheers!” my mother said gaily, clinking her glass against Frank's.

“Here's mud in your eye,” I mocked, channeling Evangeline.

“As I was saying,” Frank continued, “I've been negotiating with a Dr. Harold Kincaid to transport art to a conference to be hosted by the college in Asco next summer. I didn't realize you were related to the professor, Annie.”

“He's my father,” I acknowledged and, in view of the beautiful smile my mother kept flashing Frank, added, “And her
husband
.”

“Isn't that something, your knowing my Harold,” Mom said. “What a small world.”

“We've only spoken on the phone,” Frank replied, “but I hope to meet him soon.”

Although my mother had at least fifteen years on Frank, I had to admit they looked good together. Both were elegant, graceful, and unfailingly refined. My father, in contrast, was more like me: clothes rumpled, hair askew, and mind usually somewhere else. I felt a sudden and unprecedented surge of empathy for good ol' Dad.

Frank and my mother looked at each other for a beat too long and I lost patience with the both of them. “What are you doing here, Frank, and why won't you go away?”

“Anna Jane!” Mom gasped.

Frank smiled. “I apologize if I'm interrupting something.”

“You most certainly are not,” my mother insisted. “My daughter seems to have misplaced her manners, that's all.”

“Your daughter has many charms, Mrs. Kincaid—”

“Beverly.”

“Beverly, thank you. Manners, alas, may not be foremost,” he said, his warm brown eyes meeting mine. “But she makes up for it with talent and personality. You must be very proud.”

My mother all but melted into a puddle. I wanted to rip his face off.

“Alas, I'm afraid I must run,” Frank said, finishing off his champagne. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Beverly. Enjoy your dinner, ladies.”

With one last smile and a nod to me, he left.

My mother glared as I bit defiantly into a spring roll. “What's gotten into you, young lady? I happened to notice there was no ring on his finger. It wouldn't kill you to make an effort once in a while. He looks like a successful man. You could do worse.”

“Mom, I'm happy with my life the way it is. And need I point out that you said almost those very words last night, too?”

“That was before you told me what Michael did for a living,” she chided me. “Are you saying this one's an art thief,
too
?”

“Keep it down, Mom,” I said, glancing over my shoulder.

“I'm simply saying that for a girl without a date all weekend you seem to have a number of
very
handsome men expressing interest.”

“Frank isn't interested in me, Mom. He was just being . . . Frank. He has a girlfriend; you heard him. Anyway, let's get back to our conversation. Do you know someone named Francine Maggio?”

She spat out some tea.

“I take it that's a yes?”

Two waiters flanked our table, set out clean dinner plates, and laid before us a fragrant, heaping dish of lemongrass chicken and a hot pot of rice, meat, and vegetables aptly named hot-pot stew.

The moment they left my mother reached across the table and gripped my hand. “Annie, how can I make this any plainer? Leave this alone. Do you understand me? For my sake as well as for yours.” She took a deep breath and sat back in her chair. “Why don't we get this food to go? I think we're both exhausted.”

“Mom, I—”

“I won't discuss this further, Anna. I'm going home tomorrow. I have a million things to prepare for Thanksgiving. The rum cake, of course, plus that yam-and-marshmallow dish your father loves so much. I do hope you will change your mind and join us. Just because I invited Javier and Tiffany. . . .”

“He's my
ex-fiancé
, Mom,” I protested. “And I can't stand his new wife. Don't you think it might be a little awkward with me there?”

Javier was a good guy and all, but at some point during the visit he and my father would start crooning to old Julio Iglesias albums, crying in their holiday beers, and reminding me of the fortune Javier was making by selling grooming products to Sir Snufflebums and his pampered ilk.

I attributed our brief engagement to an excess of wine coolers, but in my parents' eyes Javier would forever be “the one that got away.” I just wished he would go ahead and get away instead of hanging out with my parents on major holidays.

Mom kept yammering on about yams, and I stopped listening. While the waiters packed up our untouched food we argued over who would pay the bill only to discover that Frank had taken care of it. We drove home in silence. All in all, it was an uncomfortable ending to a very long day.

But it was made much worse by the death threat a few minutes later.

—Georges LeFleur, quoted in
El País
newspaper