Strings Attached (7 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Tiffany had the same look on her face that Donna had at my brother’s funeral. The very picture of guilt, of regret, of deep grief for a man whose life she’d single-handedly ruined, all because of lust. It was evident to me that Tiffany had experienced all too clearly the consequences of her filthy greed: that beautiful young man who’d once loved her, or more correctly had once
made love
to her, was dead. And it wrecked her; you’ve seen the proof of it yourself all these years. Only, and you’ll forgive me for saying this, she hadn’t the strength of character to redeem herself the way Donna did, at least not as quickly or efficiently.”

She paused, sighed, then pushed the virtually unmolested salad away from her and replaced it with her nearly empty glass of wine, which she stared at for a moment then drained unceremoniously.

“You see, without Jonathan around, the courts had no choice but to award sole custody to her. So she took you and her settlement money to Fresno, claiming she wanted to bring you up in a more
wholesome
environment. I learned later that she’d followed some man there whom she had designs on, the son of some Armenian dairy owner, if memory serves. But Jeremy, dear, what I think…
what I know
is this: your mother is in some way responsible for your father’s death, for his murder. Don’t you see? It was she who murdered my son and stole my grandson, then made off with $200,000 of my money. Now you tell me who should hate whom!”

No.
His mother was a lot of things, and nobody knew this better than he did, but this was too much. How could it be true what Katharine was alleging? If she had been responsible, wouldn’t she have been found out? It made no sense to think that his mother, all by herself, could have pulled off the perfect murder.

Jeremy saw his inebriated aunt sitting in the blazing afternoon sun, her tipsy mind reliving the details of devastating events nearly two decades past. And in spite of her weakened state, he saw a powerful woman righteously angry about having someone stolen from her whom she still dearly loved, a man she had just referred to as her son even though he was not, just as he himself was not her grandson. And he felt, deep within himself, the first great connection he’d ever felt with anyone: his aunt and he had both suffered deeply for the loss of his father. And now they could grieve together.

“Aunt Katharine, let’s go home.”

She nodded sluggishly, fished her phone from her purse, and then handed it over. “Press number two to call Arthur. Tell him we are at Jeffrey’s and that I am in no condition to drive. He’ll know what to do.”

A gang of belligerent seagulls on the balcony startled Jeremy from his afternoon nap; for a moment he didn’t know where he was, and it took a concerted effort to reorient himself and calm his pounding heart. And after his panic melted and it all started making sense again, he swung his feet to the floor and pushed himself up from the bed to stand before the windows, looking west. He saw that the October sun’s reflection on the western sea made twin fiery pumpkins: one hovering above, the other shimmering on the water. He turned and glanced at the clock.

Good, he hadn’t missed dinner.

He then left his room, having been drawn to the faraway drone of a vacuum cleaner. He followed the sound down a labyrinth of halls until he found Arthur propping up one corner of a delicate-looking antique sofa with his left shoulder as he shoved the complaining machine under it with his right hand.

“Hey!” Jeremy shouted.

“Hey,” Arthur replied, his concentration focused on a stubborn piece of lint.

“When’s dinner?”

“Hold on a minute.” He switched off the appliance and stared, doing his best to mask his amazement, at Jeremy from head to toe and back.

Jonathan, back from the grave.

“Well, I guess it’s true what they say about diamonds,” was what he said.

“That they’re a girl’s best friend?” Jeremy asked.

“No. That the rough ones polish up—and rather nicely I might add.” He reached down and unplugged the machine, then re-coiled the cord. “Really, Jeremy, you look great. You’ll do more than just fit right in with the young Ballena Beach elite, and I imagine you’ll turn more than a few heads.”

“I’m used to that, only usually for the wrong reasons.”

“You sell yourself short, young man. Certain things are always visible to the discerning eye—like intelligence, poise…and a swimmer’s build. But there’s no substitute for a decent haircut and tasteful clothes. Speaking of, how did that stuff fit that I picked out for you?”

“Like, perfectly so far, but I haven’t tried on everything. How’d you know my sizes?”

“I am a keen observer of the male form. Plus, I apprenticed as a tailor in one of my stabs at an earlier career.”

“Before you were a butler?”

“Yes, before I became a butler.”

“What made you change?”

“I fell in love, but that’s another opera. You’re too young.”

“Yeah, like I’ll be eighteen in five months,” he declared. “Anyway, when’s dinner? I’m already starving. Aunt Katharine only ordered me some fish for lunch. It was stinky, so I didn’t eat it all.”

“She
ordered
for you? Please tell me you were in the restroom when the waiter came.”

“No, she said she wants to make sure I eat the right stuff. And she even wanted to have my hair cut a certain way and ordered a bunch of stuff for me from Banana, and she corrects the way I walk and the way I talk. It’s kind of driving me crazy.”

“Figures.” Arthur nodded. “You have to understand that she wants to carve you into her vision of the man she thinks you should become, which means she probably wants you to be as much like your father as possible. And I can’t say I blame her. Your dad was quite a guy.”

“You knew him?”

“Not the way I wanted to, believe me,” he said, then smiled. “Just from afar. He was one of those amazing people with everything going for him, and I mean
everything.
He was smart, rich, gorgeous, athletic, popular, and the nicest guy you ever met. Everyone wanted to be his girlfriend or his…buddy. The swim meets were standing room only when he competed, and when he got his black Porsche for graduation, five other kids from Ballena Beach High traded in their cars for black Porsches. I graduated a couple of years ahead of him, but I heard about it when the whole scandal took place with Tiffany, with your mom getting pregnant, I mean. By the way, I’m sorry she’s in the hospital again.”

“I’m not, but thanks anyway. So, can I get myself something to eat?”

“Sure, but one more thing. Your aunt needs to remember that one of the best things about your dad was that he was nobody’s puppet—he made up his own mind about everything he did. Unfortunately, that became his downfall too. No pun intended.”

“Huh?”

“Bad joke. Just learn what you need to from her, and when the time’s right to stand on your own two feet, you’ll do it. So, what’re you hungry for?”

“Can you make me a peanut butter and Fritos sandwich?”

“No, but I can make one
for
you. Just go change your clothes before you spill on them; I’ll have your disgusting sandwich ready downstairs in five minutes—your wish is my command.”

Arthur was arranging a corn chip happy face on one slice of the peanut-butter-smeared bread when Jeremy entered the kitchen wearing stiff new jeans, and a T-shirt with the packaging creases visible in a large grid across his torso.

“I’m back, Arthur.”

“I can see that.”

“After I eat, could you show me around the house? I don’t want to get lost or walk in somewhere I shouldn’t. Maybe you could even show me the guesthouse where my parents lived.” He remembered what his aunt had alleged about his mom; maybe Arthur had an opinion on the matter. “And I have a lot of questions for you, when you have time.”

“Sure. I don’t think your aunt would object to my showing you around, and it’ll be a while before she’s up, probably not until dinnertime. But only after you sit down and eat.” He slid the plate in front of the boy.

Jeremy devoured the sandwich. “There. Should we start on the first floor?”

“Drink your milk first.”

They ambled from room to room while Arthur explained to Jeremy the proper names for everything. They visited the Grand Foyer with its flying staircase, Carrera marble floor, and Louis XVI chandelier; the drawing room with its green velvet drapes, gloomy portraits, and elegantly carved Baroque settees; and the formal dining room with the Inquisition-size table flanked by rows of Italian Renaissance chairs. Eventually, they made their way to the conservatory, a kind of room that Jeremy had never seen before.

The structure was attached to the western end of the house in order, Arthur explained, to catch the fog-dimmed rays from the afternoon sun. The walls and even the ceiling were constructed almost entirely of glass panes, which rose up two stories to a point in the middle that formed a glass pyramid through which the drifting clouds were visible beyond the crystal chandelier hanging at its apex. The glass room had been crammed with exotic plants and trees sprouting chartreuse and emerald-green leaves, from which drooped the most delicate and intricate flowers Jeremy had ever seen, with petals of pink, orange, purple, and yellow. The furniture in the room consisted of a battered Victorian chaise and a few crumbling armchairs gathered in a circle around an ottoman; the other pieces included some mismatched English bamboo side tables and a moldy wall fountain that drooled water from the mouth of an angry stone chimpanzee.

Arthur explained that Katharine had shipped the items over from England one summer after nodding hello to an old friend at an auction and inadvertently outbidding a famous designer known for her chic and “shabby” interiors. Upon arrival from her trip, she’d had the conservatory built to house the pieces which, she explained, were too expensive to be put out by the curb, yet too ratty to be seen by polite company in the rest of her home. Ironically, Arthur had discovered since then that if he could not find his employer in her office working, she was usually reading or asleep on the chaise in the conservatory, a cold cup of tea on the table by her side.

Jeremy stood in the doorway of the room, quite taken with the magic of the place. The air even smelled differently than in the rest of the house—it was velvety and sweet, like a warm bubble bath.

“Come sit down with me and watch the sunset.” Arthur pointed to an armchair.

They sat and watched the sky before them as if from the first row of a movie theater, heads tilted back.

For Jeremy, this felt like the first sunset of his life. He watched as the cobalt sky dimmed to lavender and the silhouetted clouds before him rose up like ragged mountains, while the amber sun kissed the watery horizon and gilded the whitecaps.

“People say they move to Ballena Beach to be near the water, but the real reason is the sunsets,” stated Arthur, breaking their silence at last. “I always like to watch a good one with someone who’s not from around here, it’s like seeing it through their eyes again for the first time. Makes it fresh.”

“I can see what you mean. We didn’t have sunsets in Fresno,” Jeremy said, then paused in thought. “At least not that I remember—it just gets dark all of a sudden.”

“Oh, I’m sure Fresno, like all places, has sunsets. It just sounds like you didn’t have the time to enjoy them.”

“You’re right about that, I guess,” the boy replied. “Anyway, how do you know so much about me?”

“I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that I’ve overheard conversations between your aunt and uncle. This house may be big, but it doesn’t keep secrets well.”

“I guess not.” Jeremy paused, noticing that the moon had slid up into easy view now, illuminating the jungle of plants enveloping them, as well as their two figures, with silver light. “So how much do you know…about my situation?”

“I guess I know everything your aunt and uncle know, at least about your ‘circumstances.’ But I can’t say that any of us here knows the real Jeremy Tyler.”

“Except me.”

“Of course, except for you,” the man said, then smiled.

Jeremy sighed. “Well, maybe that’s not even true.”

“How is that so?” asked Arthur cautiously.

“Do you remember what it’s like to be seventeen?”

“Of course I do, although parts of the memory grow dimmer with each year. But some parts seem like they happened yesterday.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Like graduating from high school, starting my first job, my first kiss—all the really important events. The first time I knew I had fallen in love.”

“So how do you know when you’re in love?”

“Just like you know when you’re hungry and then you know when you’re full.”

“It’s that easy?”

“Sometimes. Unless you try to make yourself fall in love with the wrong person. Just remember, you can’t make yourself hungry when you’ve stuffed yourself, or convince yourself you’re not hungry when you’re starving. Unless of course you have an eating disorder.”

“If you know so much, then how come you’re not married?”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Well, you live here, don’t you? And I haven’t seen any maids besides you.”

“You’re correct. I’m a single man, as I’ve been, unfortunately, for some time now.”

“Then you were married?”

“In every sense of the word, except legally. My spouse passed away.”

“How?”

“I’d rather not say. It’s hard for me to talk about it.”

At first Jeremy didn’t know what to say; he’d never known anyone besides himself who owned a tragedy. “It’s OK. I know what you mean,” the boy said finally. “It seems like everyone here in Ballena Beach dies young, like my dad and both my grandparents. None of them even got to thirty.”

“Well, fortunately that doesn’t always have to be the case, as is evidenced by my presence here this evening.” Arthur laughed, rising from his chair to switch on the chandelier overhead. Jeremy also pushed himself up, as he sensed that their conversation had grown too intimate for them to remain in this room together.

“Can I see the rest of the house now, Arthur?”

“I’m afraid I am neglecting my ‘maid’ duties, Jeremy. And besides, this talk of love and death has left me a bit melancholy. Maybe tomorrow morning.”

“But tomorrow I start school,” Jeremy reminded. Not that he really cared about seeing the rest of the house, but he did have more questions to ask. And he liked the man’s company.

“Tomorrow afternoon, then, so I can hear all about your first day of school. In the meantime, I expect you’ll want those shopping bags emptied and the heaping contents laundered?”

“You don’t have to wash them,” Jeremy laughed. “Nobody’s worn them.”

“Yes, of course. I’d forgotten.” He grinned.

“Arthur?”

“Yes, young man?”

“Do you know anything about my father’s accident?”

His smile vanished. “Jeremy, at one time just about everyone in Ballena Beach had their own theory of what happened that night. All I can say is you’ve got enough to deal with without listening to rumors or imagining things about a tragedy that happened so long ago. Just believe in the fact that the truth always comes out. And the important thing is that you’re here now, and you’re safe. I’ll make sure of that. Now what do you want for dinner?”