Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (25 page)

     Then Christine looked around for a phone booth.

     When she found one, she wedged her suitcase inside and got a nickel out of her purse. The first phone call was to San Francisco General Hospital, where Mouse had been taken.

     It was some minutes before she convinced them that she was a relative: "I'm her older sister. I'm away at college and I just heard the news. I won't be able to get there for a few days. Can't you please tell me how she's doing?"

     Finally the nurse said, "She's lost most of her hair, and there's some scarring on her face, but we think her eyesight has been saved."

     "Thank God. What? A message? Yes, please tell her that Christine called. And tell her, please, that...I'm sorry."

     Then she took out the phone number she had copied from her file. She paused before dialing. What should she say to him? What would her first words be? Should she come right out and ask him why he had told her so many lies? Or should she just forgive him, right here and now, and pretend she didn't know the truth, just say to him, "Daddy, I'm coming home."

     She dropped the nickel in and dialed. When a man's voice answered, "Department of Corrections," she was momentarily taken aback. "I'm sorry," she said, "I must have the wrong number." She got another nickel and dialed again, getting the same answer.

     When she asked the man at the other end of the line if this was the number she was calling, and he said it was, she asked to speak to Johnny Singleton.

     "Is he staff or inmate?"

     "I beg your pardon?"

     "Is he on the staff or is he an inmate?"

     "What do you mean?"

     "Does he work here?"

     "Yes."

     "Hold on...Sorry, I have no listing for a Johnny Singleton on staff. What is his job classification?"

     Christine grew distraught. "I don't know. You have to have him listed. He's my father. This is the number he gave the school in case of an emergency. You have to know where he works."

     "Just a moment, miss, I'll transfer you."

     She clutched the phone as she listened to the minute of silence, and when the next male voice said, "Inmate Services," her fear grew.

     "I'm trying to get hold of Johnny Singleton," she explained, "but the other person transferred me. What is this place? Where am I calling?"

     "This is the Department of Corrections, miss."

     "Yes, but where?"

     The man at the other end paused, then said, "This is San Quentin State Prison."

     She stared at her reflection in the glass.

     The man said, "Did you say Johnny Singleton?" and there was a chilling familiarity in the way he said the name.

     "Y-yes, he's my father. I have to talk to him. He must work there, the other man must have been mistaken when he said he wasn't on staff."

     "Can you identify yourself in some way, miss?"

     She started to cry. "No—" she said, and it came out in a squeak. "I...I'm sorry, I must have...the wrong number."

     She hung up and stumbled out of the booth.

     Her daddy, in prison. San Quentin. Maximum security. For the worst crimes. What had he done to put him in there? Maybe Martha Camp had been right all along—maybe Johnny
was
a gangster!

     And what about all those letters from exotic places, when all this time he had been here, just across the bay in that horrible prison? He must have had someone mail those letters for him.

     She went to the water's edge and took Johnny's picture out of her purse. Why didn't you tell me? she silently asked the smiling, handsome face. Why couldn't you trust me? Was it because of the incident with Hans? Did you kill him, is that why you're in prison? Why did you lie to me again—our whole life together has been based upon lies. And now there's nothing left to keep it together.

     She tore up her mother's and father's pictures and tossed them onto the bay. As she watched the pieces float away on the tide, she heard Mother Superior's words again: "You are never going to amount to anything." And Christine thought, You're wrong. I'll show you, I'll show everybody. I'm going to be someone, just the way Johnny told me to be. I'm going to fight for what I want, and someday I'm going to be somebody.

     Finally, she took out Frizz's birth certificate and thought, I am no longer Christine Singleton. I have nothing to do with Johnny or his name. From now on I am going to be the person on this piece of paper. I am going to be Philippa Roberts. And I am going to
be
somebody.

T
HE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION TOOK PLACE IN SECRET, TO
make certain that it wasn't overheard.

     
"I've been informed that Philippa Roberts is on her way to Los Angeles, where she will be visiting the Starlite headquarters. I'm afraid this calls for an immediate change of plans."

     
There was a moment of silence while the person on the other end spoke, disturbed only by the impatient squawk of a parrot.

     
Then: "I have someone watching her and reporting to me. We have to be cautious now. We must proceed very carefully. What? No, it's too late for that. She's already on her way. She'll be there in a few hours. Yes, I'm prepared. Let me emphasize this: she knows nothing so far. And she is never to know. Is that understood? Here is what I intend to do..."

T
HEY LOOKED LIKE MARTIANS, MATERIALIZING SUDDENLY
out of nowhere, two slender unisex beings encased in bright pink and orange Day-Glo skins, joined together by wires that led from their heads to a yellow box between them. Their feet didn't touch the ground as they glided past the Starlite limousine, across the busy street, and up to a giant chocolate donut that was three stories tall.

     Charmie watched the young pair sail up to the sugar shop on narrow blade skates and order something through the window at the bottom of the donut, their bodies constantly in motion as they moved to the music emanating from their shared Walkman. After they received their order, they glided off again, each cramming a donut into his/her face, the blade skates skimming the sidewalk as if it were air.

     Charmie shook her head and said with a laugh, "Welcome back to Southern California, the land of fruits and nuts. See what you've been missing, Philippa?"

     Charmie and Philippa and Ricky were riding in the limousine that had met them at the airport. The partition behind the driver was up, sealing the
three passengers in a cell of plush, soundproofed comfort. There were soft drinks and a bucket of shaved ice, plus a tray of cold cuts and cocktail breads; from hidden speakers the gentle music of station KOST came like a breeze.

     Charmie was creating a miniature pepperoni and cheddar cheese sandwich for herself, while Ricky stared through the smoked-glass window at California.

     "Will we see any film stars, do you reckon?" he asked when he saw a sign that read HOLLYWOOD, 17 MILES.

     As the limo moved through the heavy traffic, Charmie poured a diet Coke, taking care not to spill on her emerald green rayon caftan. "You never know what you'll see in L.A.!" she said with a laugh.

     Philippa was also looking out the window, thinking that there was no place on earth like Los Angeles in December: the surrounding mountains were all topped with snow; the smog-free air was as sharp as hand-cut crystal; and tonight, she knew, the basin was going to be a glorious blaze of glitzy, gaudy Christmas lights, with commercial buildings and private homes competing to out-holiday one another, while the streets were going to be crammed with impatient holiday traffic. Los Angeles in December, where every day was an orange grove kind of day.

     She was suddenly glad to be home.

     As the limousine swept past familiar sights and street signs with names that triggered a wave of nostalgia, Philippa found herself thinking of things she hadn't thought about in a long time. She had been born very near this place, in Hollywood; she had drawn her first breath in this city, and she hoped someday to draw her last here. She had lost her virginity not far from here, in a street behind Grauman's Chinese Theatre. And it was not far from here that Starlite had gotten its start, just over the Santa Monica Mountains, a quick dash through the Sepulveda Pass into a town with the impossible name of Tarzana. A memory flashed in her mind: paintings of Tarzan, longhaired and nearly naked, wrestling with lions and riding elephants through jungles. Paintings that had hung in the Tarzana post office many years ago. She wondered if they were still there.

     When the car climbed an on-ramp and joined the traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway, Philippa stared out at the orderly palm-lined streets of
Century City and Santa Monica; she could just glimpse in the distance the thin blue ribbon of Pacific Ocean that stood like a mother-of-pearl wall guarding California. Thousands of miles away lay Perth, Point Resolution, and the place where the
Philippa
had gone down. She felt the invisible threads stretch away from herself and out over the many miles, connecting her with the man she would never stop loving.

     Him, too, she had met not far from here, over those mountains through the Sepulveda Pass. This had once been his home, as it had been hers. And coming back now, Philippa was suddenly filled with a sense of pilgrimage, and of destiny.

     "Do you want to check into the hotel first?" Charmie said as the car neared Century City. "I thought you might want to freshen up before facing the barracudas." Although Philippa still had a house in Beverly Hills, she had closed it up when she had gone to Australia to claim her inherited villa. It was simpler, for now, to check into a hotel. Later, after the mess with Starlite and Miranda International was cleared up, after she found out who Beverly Burgess was, she would consider what to do next: return to Perth or stay here.

     "No, thank you, Charmie," she said now, her anxiety showing in her posture, the way she sat slightly forward in her seat, with her hand resting on the door handle as if ready to spring out. "I want to go straight to the office." She turned to Ricky. "After the car drops us off, you go on to the hotel and get us checked in. Make a lunch reservation for one o'clock."

     "Yes, Miss Roberts," he said, and Philippa added more quietly, "Welcome to California, Ricky. I'm glad you came with us."

     The building that housed the main offices of Starlite Industries rose an impressive forty storys above Wilshire Boulvard on land that was riddled with earthquake faults. Philippa never ceased to marvel at the optimism of Los Angelenos—their skyscrapers got taller as the day of the "Big One" drew nearer. It was almost as if they were saying to nature, "Come on, shake us down, we dare you."

     "Well, Charmie," she said as they stepped out of the limousine in front of the glass and brick building, where a bronze fountain sprayed a giant hydrangea of water. Philippa squinted up to the top of the building and saw
how the amber-glazed windows flashed back the sharp morning sun. "A moment of truth is about to be upon us. We'll go straight up, no announcement. Let's carefully watch everyone's reaction when they see me. If there is a corporate takeover in the works, and if it does involve someone inside Starlite, they're bound to give themselves away at my sudden appearance."

     Starlite Industries occupied the upper floors of the building, with the executive offices being at the very top. Philippa and Charmie stepped out of the elevator into a quiet reception area that was decorated in subdued tones, with hidden lighting illuminating the Starlite logo, tall and imposing behind the receptionist's desk. There was a glass case displaying a collection of books, the various hardcover and paperback editions of Philippa's books:
The Starlite Diet and Beauty Program, The Starlite One-Hour Diet
, and the four Starlite cookbooks. They had all been international best-sellers, and a very scholarly, personal book by Philippa titled "Hyperinsulinemia: Its Causes, Detection, and Control Through Diet" had sold well.