The Wishing Garden (38 page)

“I wish you had,” he said softly.

Cheryl dropped her hands in her lap. By the time Cal got back to his desk, she was crying. He handed her a tissue.

“We’ve got witnesses placing you at your house in Phoenix the night Roy disappeared,” he went on. “Bethany Appleton saw a man coming off Roy’s boat, a
twenty-year-old
, with dark hair and a rifle. And it would have taken more than a hundred-ten-pound woman to smash in a man’s skull.”

Cheryl looked up. “I’m telling you, I did it. If you’ve got a confession, who the hell cares if it’s the right one or not? Roy’s not here to tell you different.”

Cal knelt down next to her chair. When he touched her hands, she cried harder. She didn’t want anyone’s pity. She wanted a chance for redemption. She wanted to finally start acting like somebody’s mother.

But all Cal did was squeeze her hands. “I’ll do everything I can to keep him out of jail, but it’s almost as if he wants that. I’m fighting him, more than anything else.”

Cheryl stood up. She swiped at the tears that just kept coming. “I wanted to kill him. Roy had so many enemies, someone was bound to do him in eventually. He was dead either way. It shouldn’t have had anything to do with Jake.”

“I’ll try …”

Cheryl walked out. She got in her car and drove back to the Dawson house, where the garden had turned wild in Doug’s absence, the jackmanii clematis claiming a whole sidewalk, the ginkgo tree roots turning over cobblestones. She walked into the house and went straight to the telephone directory. She found a
Bethany Appleton on Diaz Street, and picked up the phone.

When a woman answered, Cheryl said nothing, just held the phone to her ear while the woman said, “Hello? Is anyone there? Who the hell is this?”

In the coming week, she would call every Bethany Appleton within a hundred-mile radius. After she’d worn them all down with silence, she would call one more time and do a perfect imitation of Roy. “Whoever condemns a man to hell,” she’d say, “goes there with him.” And then she’d hang up while they both were crying.

Maggie never invited Doug on her shopping excursions. It was hell on him to get down Jake’s mountain on that sorry excuse for a road. But a week after Savannah left, when Maggie walked to her car, he was already in the passenger seat, waiting.

“I’m coming with you. Don’t argue. I mean it.”

Maggie got in the car. He had a blanket over his legs, but when she tried to tuck it in around him, he kicked it off.

“Don’t go crazy now,” she said.

“Why not? Why not now?”

Maggie got a chill up her spine and started the car. Since Savannah had left, the cabin had been eerily quiet. Jake had hardly come out of his workshop. When he did, he stomped along the front porch and threw stones at the rooftop, where they clanked against something hard, then came whizzing back down. He walked for miles, and only came back after sunset, when his legs were trembling and they couldn’t see his eyes.

Maggie knew they had worn out their welcome, but she was not leaving. There was something in the
air up here that was making Doug well, and if she had to lie, cheat and steal to keep it coming, she would. Whenever Jake asked their plans, she told him plans were for newlyweds, for people with all the time in the world. “All I plan for,” she said, “is to get up earlier every morning, so I can have more time with Doug.”

Her husband was eating meat and cuddling her in bed again, and she wasn’t going to miss a second of it. She knelt beside him when he worked in Jake’s garden, and never took her gaze off the rise and fall of his shoulders. Sometimes, when his breath shuddered a little, her stomach dropped out. She couldn’t get her breath either and had to sit there until the spell passed.

She drove carefully down the mountain, then north toward the outlet mall. She parked in the handicap spot, though they had no sticker. But hell, she had an open bottle of wine in the back, too, which she sipped after shopping, on occasion. Rules were for people in their thirties who gave a damn.

She helped Doug into the Levi’s outlet, and had him try on a new pair of 501’s. They were three sizes smaller than the pair they’d bought six months ago, but when he walked out of the dressing room, he looked like everything she’d ever dreamed of. The hairs that were slowly growing back on his head were red, of all things. Red and soft as kitten fur. He looked so good in the jeans, she walked up to him and planted a kiss on his lips. A teenager looking at sweatshirts gawked at them.

They bought the Levi’s, then went into Fieldcrest Cannon and found new sheets for Jake. They also bought him sixteen crystal goblets, which he would never use. At Crocodile Rock, Maggie bought a leather purse, and at the Lane store, Doug charged a leather recliner, which they had shipped to their house.

When they were through, they drove to Lynx Lake and brought out the open bottle of wine. They sat on the sand and drank Merlot out of Jake’s new glasses.

Maggie closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun. She still thought life was horrible. God was unjust and downright mean. Then he did something crazy, like give her someone to love. He gave her a moment so perfect, if she didn’t sit still and enjoy every last second, she’d be a goddamn fool.

Doug slipped his hand into hers, and the moment passed. She opened her eyes and looked right at him. His hair was coming in red all right, but the whites of his eyes had turned red, too. There was blood in his urine. It seemed only right that he buy everything he could get his hands on.

“Maggie,” he said, but she shook her head. There was nothing more for him to say, and only a few words left for her.

“I love you, Doug,” she said.

He smiled and squeezed her hand. “I’ve always known that.”

She lowered her head, because if he knew that, then he probably knew the rest. That she was sorry for the things she’d said. That it was easier to be mean than tender. And that there was no way she could live without him.

When Savannah returned to San Francisco, she had two choices: Return to Taylor Baines or work the party circuit, telling fortunes with Ramona. After trying out a couple of parties, she realized it was no choice at all.

Something had changed, and Savannah supposed it was her. Suddenly people were lining up across ballrooms to hear their fortunes. After all these years, she’d discovered the secret of successful predictions:
People didn’t want to hear how to be happy. They wanted her to promise them their heart’s desire, assuming this was the same thing. Actually, it wasn’t even close. A heart’s desire was Emma’s safety; happiness would have been keeping her safe herself. When Savannah sat parked outside of Harry’s house, she had what she wanted, but she couldn’t hold it in her hands. She could only hope for quick glimpses through an upstairs window, or a sudden, miraculous change of heart.

Most people, however, didn’t care about this discrepancy. In fact, her business was on fire. After handing out business cards at a few parties, customers started lining up outside her house. Her first client on Thursday night was a man in his thirties with thinning hair. He was shaped like a bell curve, thin at the ends, soft and protruding in the middle, and when he sat across from her, she could feel the fingers of his sadness washing over her. She pulled down her beret and leaned away from him.

“Tell me what you want to know,” she said.

He hesitated, then took the cards she offered. “I guess … I guess I just want to know how to get Julie back. Otherwise, I don’t see how I’m supposed to go on.”

Savannah sighed. Just once, she’d like to hear someone ask how to change the world. She’d like a man to come in hoping for swords, or the Voyager’s Seven of Worlds, the card of breakthroughs. She’d like someone to ask her how he could be free of caring, so she could find out for herself if it was even possible.

The man shuffled nervously, then handed her back the cards. Sweat speckled his forehead. He sat with his hands in knots on his lap while she laid them out.

Instead of the Celtic spread, she now used an old
gypsy layout, a simple fifteen-card design that wasn’t nearly so threatening. No crossing cards, no destiny. Just three cards to define the questioner, three for the past, three for the forces beyond his control. Then the last six for the future—three for the natural future, if nothing was done to change it, and three for the possible future, if he chose to get involved.

She liked it. It gave fate an out, and a man some alternatives, if he’d only take her up on them. This man got Art in his natural future.

“You’ll be ruled by creativity, if you decide not to change anything. The Art card often means putting things together, using your artistic side to make yourself whole. Are you a painter, maybe? A writer?”

The man went pale. “No, but Julie wants to be a novelist. She’s been writing something for the last seven years or so, a romance I think. I’ve been after her to send it out to publishers, but then yesterday … Yesterday, she said she couldn’t work in our house anymore. Said it was stifling. She left me this.”

He reached into his pocket and handed her a piece of crinkled paper. She opened it and smoothed out the wrinkles.

Savannah thought of her father’s poetry. Every night, she put his poem to her between the Star and the Moon, then tucked them all beneath her pillow. Sometimes, though, she imagined she felt the rough edges of the paper poking her. Sometimes, she had to take them out so she could sleep.

“Oh dear,” she said, handing back the poem. “But look at this.” She pointed to two cards in his possible future, the Seven of Wands and the Emperor. “The Seven of Wands is courage. The Emperor builds an empire with planning and logic. Are you a businessman?”

“An electronic salesman, at Circuit City.”

Savannah was getting a headache. “Have you ever dreamed of something more?”

“Like what?”

She stood up and walked to the door. She wondered what would happen if she just started making things up. If she took out all the cups, and started talking about the joys of solitude.

There was clanking going on in the kitchen. Ramona had come by for dinner and was bustling around, slicing cantaloupe and toasting bread she would eat without butter. She’d lost thirty-five more pounds since Savannah had been gone. She’d dyed her hair jet black and taken to wearing Cleopatra-style eyeliner.

“As I see it, you can let this woman rule your life,” Savannah said. “Or you can be brash. You can be daring. You can be a whole new person, if you choose to.”

The man looked up. His eyes were dark brown and round. He was like a puppy she wanted to take into her arms to stop its pitiful whining. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Of course. And this.” She pointed to a card in the events beyond his control, the Ace of Cups. “That’s ecstasy.”

He just sat there, staring at the card. “Well, I can’t imagine where that’s coming from.”

“It can come from anywhere. It comes from everywhere, Ned. Let the novelist go and see where life takes you. Think about what it is you really want to do
and do it. Whether you want it or not, you’ve got a good fortune.”

“I just don’t think …”

Savannah didn’t hear the rest. She was making money like crazy, and every dollar felt dirty. It turned out she couldn’t say anything; the only fortunes that got through were the ones a person wanted to hear. It turned out she wasn’t happy here, either.

She and Ramona sat up late drinking the latest Sonoma Merlot. Sometime after midnight, Ramona tucked her newly sleek legs beneath her.

“So are you going to tell me about him or not?”

Savannah was not surprised. Ramona had always known everything. She was the real fortune-teller. “Not.”

“You know what I think?” Ramona asked.

“I really don’t care.”

Ramona laughed and went on, regardless. “I think it’s easy to be happy when you have no life. It’s love and marriage and jobs and babies that screw everything up.”

Savannah got up and walked to the small window. Even from there, she could smell Ramona’s scent of caramel. Whenever Savannah kissed her cheek, she swore the rouge that came off was made of powdered sugar.

Ramona came up beside her and took her hand. “You loved him that much, huh?”

“He’s got a bad heart. His father died at forty-one.”

“Ah-ha.”

“He killed a man. The police could be picking him up right this minute.”

“Well, sure.”

Savannah yanked her hand away. “You could act a little shocked.”

“Oh, honey, come
on
. A bad ticker, homicide,
whoop-de-do. This is Ramona you’re talking to. This is San Francisco, for crying out loud. When I first moved here, I lived in the Tenderloin. We had three murders in two weeks, I kid you not.”

Savannah just stared at her.

“It’s true. Don’t be taken in by those sunny days in October, Savannah. It’s as vicious here as anywhere else. You know Monty Wells, the healer over in Berkeley? You know those scars on his arms he said were from a car accident? Ha! That was no accident. That was a knife blade from his ex-wife. When he fought back, he pushed her beneath a moving van.”

“You’re not serious.”

“The hell I’m not. Shit happens everywhere, that’s all I’m saying, and it skyrockets when love’s involved. Just wait. Johnny Pells might be giving his lover roses now, but I’ve seen him checking out women. He’s thinking of switching sides, and he’s crazy enough to do it too. Next door, Sarah Alder is into freebasing, so it’s really just a matter of time before something explodes around here. If you’re not careful, it could very well be you.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Why not? Life’s dramatic, and if it’s not, let’s all just shoot ourselves now and be done with it.”

Savannah hugged her friend fiercely. When the phone rang, Savannah squeezed tighter, because it was late, and the ring sounded fierce and impatient, just like her mother.

“Sweetheart?” Ramona said.

Finally, Savannah pulled away and went to the kitchen phone. She didn’t need tarot cards or shadows to explain the panic that went straight down to her gut. She only needed her mother to say honey.