Tides of the Heart (15 page)

She was thinking these things so deeply, she did not notice Phillip coming up the walk until his green eyes met hers and he gave a big wave. Jess blinked and opened the door.

“Phillip,” she said with a smile, stretching up on her toes to kiss his soft cheek. “I didn’t expect you.”

“The way you were standing in the window, I thought you were watching for me.”

Jess laughed. “I was watching for the crocus to bloom.”

He frowned.

She laughed again. “Only kidding. What brings you out here?”

He studied her face.

“Oh, my God,” she said quickly, her thoughts suddenly gelling, suddenly springing back to her real world, where catamarans and lovers did not exist. “You’ve learned something.”

“Can we talk somewhere private?”

Her eyes darted around the shop. Her workers were busy, but not deaf, despite the noise from the machines. She glanced out the window again. “The park,” she said hurriedly. “Let me get my jacket.”

The park bench was damp with the remnants of morning dew, but Jess did not mind. She sat perfectly still, her hands in the pockets of her light canvas coat, listening as Phillip told her that Bud Wilson was dead, listening as he told her of his conversation with Dr. Larribee. She listened and was aware of her own gentle breathing; with each inhale and each exhale she tried to assimilate his words, tried to sort their meaning.

When Phillip had finished, Jess did not move; Jess did not speak.

“So, based on Dr. Larribee’s story,” Phillip concluded, “I think we can be certain that Amy was not yours.”

Jess watched a pigeon alight by her feet, his small black eyes staring up at her, sizing her up as if trying to determine if she had any bread crusts.

And then the butterflies took wing in her stomach. She twisted the emerald and diamond ring on her hand, the ring that had been there for thirty years, her mother’s ring, her mother’s love.

“My daughter is still living,” she whispered.

Next to her, Phillip crossed his legs. “Well, we don’t know that for certain, Jess. But I think we can assume she’s probably out there. Somewhere.”

“On Martha’s Vineyard?”

“Maybe. We don’t know that, either. I’d have to do some fairly deep digging.”

Jess lifted her eyes to the tall trees, to the bright green buds that would soon be full leaves, that would soon be thick and shady and lovely. She thought about Maura, about her daughter’s newfound independence. She would be a strong woman, Jess decided. Not perfect, but strong, strong enough to handle what Jess needed to do, strong enough to, someday, understand.

“I need to find her.” Her words floated into the air, past the pigeon, up into the trees.

Phillip nodded. “I will help.”

“But your brother …” Jess said, “Your practice …”

“They’ll survive.” He smiled and lightly touched her arm. “Besides, I think P.J. would want me to help, don’t you?”

Jess remembered the bright, auburn-haired woman with the wide smile and the unstoppable drive. Unlike reluctant Susan and “no way, never, not in my lifetime” Ginny, P.J. had agreed to the idea when Jess had gone to her condo, suggesting the reunion. “Yes,” P.J. had said, “I would like
to meet my son.” Jess smiled now and gently patted Phillip’s hand. “You’re right,” she said clearly, “I think P.J. would like it a lot.”

“Amy was not mine.” Jess’s small voice came from the answering machine that was perched on the bar across from the sofa where Ginny was sprawled, sipping a Coke, watching Regis and Kathie Lee, and eating her third egg-and-cheese croissant of the morning. “Phillip is going to help find my baby.”

Consuelo waddled into the room, stared at the machine, then moved to pick up the phone.

“Don’t,” Ginny commanded. “Leave. Vamoose.”

The housekeeper shook her head. “Why you no talk to your friend?”

Ginny pulled herself up. The machine beeped, then clicked off. “None of your business, señora. Now, vamoose. Leave me alone.”

The woman, whose white-streaked dark hair was pulled back into a bun, planted her hands on her wide, wide hips. “Mr. Jake, he’d be so ashamed.”

Ginny brushed crumbs from her lap onto the white carpet on the floor.

“Look at you,” Consuelo continued. “You’re a god-awful mess.”

“What I am is your employer. Which means you need to shut the hell up and leave me alone.”

“Alone? You want alone? So you can keep hanging around stuffing your face like a little piglet?”

“Little” came out sounding like “leetle.” Ginny did not understand why when these Mexicans learned English they couldn’t at least learn to speak it right.

“No one want to be around you anyway,” Consuelo huffed. “Not even your own daughter.”

“Leave my daughter out of this.”

“Lisa is a nice girl. I bet her other mother is nicer to
her.” The housekeeper huffed again and walked from the room.

Ginny stared at the TV where Regis was sticking a redheaded straight pin into some place on the map of the country, somewhere near Dubuque. She supposed there were people out there who had had a husband or two drop dead. She wondered if that was why they were sitting watching Regis and Kathie Lee in the middle of the day. She wondered if they were eating egg-and-cheese croissants.

“Sheet,” Ginny said, mocking Consuelo. She flicked off the remote and decided the housekeeper was right about one thing: She was a mess.

Hauling herself to a sitting position, Ginny thought about Lisa. The last time she’d seen her had been on the weekend—not last weekend, the weekend before. Or the one before that; it was hard to remember. Lisa had shown up without warning. Ginny had been lounging outside in the hot tub, naked.

On another day, at another time, it would not have fazed Ginny for her daughter to see her without any clothes. But as she looked down at her white, rounded belly and jiggly, puckery thighs, Ginny was embarrassed at the weight she was gaining, the visible result of the fact she could not seem to stop eating everything she could see, smell, or touch.

So instead of greeting Lisa with a smile and a hello, Ginny tried unsuccessfully to cover her bulges by turning her back on her daughter.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she muttered.

“I came to see you,” Lisa answered. “I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Well, now you’ve seen me. All of me. Go home, Lisa. I want to be alone.”

Lisa crouched down on the deck of the tub. “Ginny,” she said, “I want to help you. I loved Jake, too.”

Ginny slipped her head under the water, letting it steam into her hair and sink into her scalp, wishing it would saturate her brain and wash away all the memories that
lurked inside. Then she broke through the surface but did not open her eyes. “Go home, Lisa,” she repeated. “I need to do this alone.”

For a moment, Lisa remained silent. Then Ginny felt her daughter’s cool hand on her bare, wet shoulder. “You’re not the only one who’s hurting. I need you, too, you know.”

She left, and since then, they’d not spoken. Ginny had not wanted to talk to Lisa or anyone: she had not wanted to be reminded that life was happening outside the walls of her house. Life—where people worked and laughed and loved and … breathed. Where people like Lisa were at the top of their game, churning out successful careers that helped buffer the pain; where people like Jess were drowning in their day-to-day crap, like sewing, for God’s sake, and trying to find old babies, as if those things were the most important in the world. Well, as far as Ginny was concerned, her world had stopped several weeks ago when Jake dropped dead, not that she would expect Jess or Lisa to understand.

I
bet her other mother is nicer to her
, Consuelo had said.

“Yeah,” Ginny muttered now, “I bet you’re right.”

She stared at the TV screen and thought about Regis, Kathie Lee, and the widow in Dubuque. Suddenly—perhaps it was the croissant slathered with butter churning inside her—Ginny knew she had to shape up. She had to emerge from this self-induced prison or she would go out of her fucking mind.

Lisa was probably where she should start. Her daughter was most likely pissed off that Ginny had shut her out—or maybe Lisa really was upset that Jake had died and really did need Ginny, too.

“Yeah, fat chance,” Ginny mumbled. She knew a con when she saw one, and she figured Lisa would do or say anything to get Ginny out of her funk. She was, after all, nice.

But Ginny stood up and decided to go. Con or no con,
Lisa was the one person in the world who might be able to stand being with her, no matter what the señora said. Lisa was Ginny’s daughter, and Ginny was her mother, and Lisa understood her moods. Understood them as if she had known her all her life. Only to herself would Ginny ever admit that there was something soothing about Lisa, something grounding about being in the same room with the one creature on the face of the earth who had sprung from her womb, no matter how tainted that womb had been.

Yes, she thought now with a small smile. She would go and see Lisa. Maybe they could do lunch.

All her pants were too tight, so Ginny had thrown on the same shapeless dress she’d worn when Jess had been there. With a long white sweater that was older than Consuelo, she tried to cover the creases across her swollen lap that hadn’t been there the last time she’d put on real clothes. But when Ginny stepped outside into the infernal California sunshine, she quickly realized it was too hot for a sweater: It was nearly April, and it was L.A., where women did not need to hide under sweaters. They ate alfalfa sprouts instead of egg-and-cheese sandwiches, and did not let themselves become a god-awful mess.

Hopefully, Lisa would be so glad to see her that she wouldn’t care.

Pulling off the sweater, she flung it into the backseat of her Mercedes, started the ignition, and headed down the canyon road. She longed for a cigarette, for the sharp, soothing taste of self-destructive tobacco. If she had a cigarette she could suck in a deep breath and blow out her thoughts on a thick cloud of smoke. If she had a cigarette she could die of lung cancer instead of obesity.

But she had no cigarettes, and she had no food. So she snapped on the radio.

James Taylor was on one station; LeAnn Rimes on another and a loudmouthed deejay spouting off about a
feared big earthquake on another. Ginny played the buttons as she had the TV remote, with nervous, angry twitches and disbelief that she could not land on something that would take away the battle that raged inside her.

Adjusting her oversized sunglasses, she tried to relax, which she knew would be much easier if the elastic of her underpants didn’t feel like a girdle around her gut.

Girdles
, she thought with a laugh. “Now there’s something I haven’t thought about for a while.”

Of course, Ginny had never worn one. Not even in the sixties, when everyone else did. Girdles were so … restrictive. And you never knew when you’d need to take one off quickly, when a man would desire to touch your flesh and not want to come up with a handful of rubber, even if the rubber had been hand-edged with lace.

Her thoughts drifted to Jess, who had been too tiny to need a girdle, then to Susan, whose broad ass could most definitely have benefited from one, but who probably felt her long tunics, love beads, and caftans compensated for the enormous shimmy of her enormous butt. P.J. was probably the only one of the girls at Larchwood who had worn one: not that she needed to, but a mother as uptight and prissy as P.J.’s probably had insisted. After all, what would the church ladies think if she didn’t?

None of them, of course, could have squeezed into girdles at Larchwood Hall, where their stomachs were bloated with unexpected babies, where their mountainlike mounds hid their adolescent ages.

With a twinge of unexpected feelings, Ginny realized she was glad that Jess’s baby was not dead. She had been so cruel to Jess when they were kids: stealing her money, then stealing her ring—even though she gave it back in the end—she’d been cruel to her and had not cared that Jess was such a scared little girl. “Hell, we were all scared little girls,” Ginny said aloud.

She turned onto the road toward town and resolved to call Jess this afternoon, after she had had her emotional fix
from Lisa, after she’d pulled up her bootstraps one more time for the world.

Maybe she’d even have a diet special for lunch: a watercress salad with endive and sprouts and balsamic vinegar. Puke.

The soundstage was quiet, an unusual event for a hit like
Devonshire Place.

Ginny’s heels clicked against the wood floor as she picked her way in the darkness amid cables and cameras and lights and booms. Stopping in the center of the stage, she let the hollow sound envelop her, return her to those days so long ago when she had tried so hard to be a star, when all she wanted in the world was her name up in lights and people kissing her ass. A small memory struggled to come to the surface: a memory from Larchwood Hall days, when she lay on her bed devouring movie magazines, dreaming of capri pants and high heels and standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, Ginny Stevens, the star, the sought-after box office sensation waiting for her pink Cadillac to come and collect her and whisk her off to another cocktail party, another premiere.

Her dreams, of course, had been just that. Oh, there had been a few small parts—damn few and damn small—when she’d first dragged her mother from Boston to L.A. once her stepfather was dead, once Lisa had been born, born and permanently (she thought) ensconced with the family who had signed the appropriate papers and come up with the appropriate bucks.

There had been a few small parts, long before her dress creased across her middle. A few parts and many husbands—three before Jake: the cigar-stinking agent who died and left her his floundering business and beat-up car; the studly young Texan whose heart-stopping face and her fifteen percent of it landed him enough roles to put Ginny back on her feet and not give a shit when he announced he
was gay; the soft-porn writer with the hard-core imagination who prodded his wife into cavorting with other women until he found religion and traded his life with Ginny for one of the cloth.