Читать книгу Summer Of Joanna - Janice Carter - Страница 10

MATT WATCHED her car zip out of the lot and disappear down the quiet, tree-lined street. A swirl of conflicting emotions threatened the grim determination he’d felt earlier when she’d rushed to defend Joanna Barnes. He wondered why he cared so much. Probably everybody else at the funeral had also been friends with Joanna.

He wiped away the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. For the first time he questioned his motives. He didn’t like the uneasy feeling in his gut when he envisioned Kate Reilly’s pinched red face and the angry flicker in her jade-green eyes. It wasn’t the anger that had struck a nerve, but the almost simultaneous hurt. As if she couldn’t comprehend why he was attacking someone she obviously cared for.

Except it’s Joanna, buddy. The last person he could think of to deserve such fierce loyalty from a friend. Matt expelled a mouthful of bitter air and spun around to go back to the church. The man standing to his right said, “She’s definitely worth pursuin’, don’tcha think?”

Matt grimaced and kept right on walking.

THE FLAT THROBBED with heat. Kate headed straight for the kitchen and flicked on the small air-conditioning unit she’d just bought. She peeled off her dress and, seconds later, was standing under a cool shower in the bathroom. Was it her imagination, she wondered, or were those really wisps of steam pluming off her body? Or was she still angry at how the afternoon had played out?

She raised her face to the fine spray, and the band of pain across her brow began to ebb. But a pulse of disappointment was still there, right at her temple, when she finally stepped onto the bath mat. It came from the sense that she’d been robbed of her day of grieving for Joanna.

Kate rubbed a towel over herself before slipping into a cotton nightie that instantly stuck to her damp skin. She was suddenly reminded of the short, pudgy police officer at the funeral and grimaced as the pounding in her head amplified. Together with the Ivy League lawyer-type, the two men had succeeded in wiping out all thoughts of Joanna, leaving behind an ugly smear of doubt and innuendo.

The air-conditioning was going full blast by the time Kate returned to the kitchen to get a glass of ice water. Splurging on the unit had been an act of desperation, driven by forecasts of a hot summer in the Big Apple. So far, she hadn’t regretted the purchase, even though it had removed a significant chunk from her already tight budget. Kate took a long swallow from the frosty glass, then rolled it across her forehead.

Perhaps she ought to have signed up for another summer-school course, after all. At least she’d have had a few hours of daily relief working in an air-conditioned building. But having the whole summer off had been part of the plan. Time for Carla, as promised. And time with Joanna. As promised.

Kate closed her eyes, fighting a stab of pain. A week ago, the whole summer was an uncharted map. The thrill of anticipation—of promise—had yet to draw lines on that map; to mark days and nights of events that Kate had only recently allowed herself to dream about. She’d been finally going to see Joanna again. Finally to tell her how that summer’s meeting long ago had changed her life. How it had fixed a real place in her childhood, a place called hope.

Maybe Joanna could be repaid through Carla, Kate thought. Carla. She hadn’t telephoned to confirm their weekly get-together. Signing on as a mentor and Big Sister to thirteen-year-old Carla Lopez had stemmed from another promise Kate had made to herself, years ago. Somehow, in some way, she’d help another troubled teenager the way Joanna Barnes had motivated her.

Glass in hand, Kate strolled to the living room to check her voice mail. She quickly punched in her password when the beeper indicated a message. Carla’s piping tones unspooled from the tape.

“Hi—Kate? I know tomorrow’s our day, but something’s come up so, uh, I can’t make it. Talk to you later. Bye.”

Kate frowned. She called Carla’s foster home and, after several rings, finally reached Rita Santos, the teen’s foster mother.

“Nope, she isn’t here, Kate. Took off about an hour ago. Didn’t say where she was headed. As usual.”

There was a moment’s silence. Thoughts of Carla filled the void. Kate felt more annoyed than worried. Carla’s street sense was twice what hers had been at the same age. Of course, by thirteen Kate had already met Joanna and was working on her goal to get out of Queens.

“No doubt she’ll turn up with some excuse,” Rita said. “If not, guess I’ll have to call her worker again. Sorry she let you down, Kate.”

“No no, don’t say that. Carla’s not letting anyone down—except maybe herself. I’ll call back in the morning, but if…you know, there’s a problem, please call me. Even if it’s the middle of the night.”

“Sure. Meantime, I wouldn’t sit up worrying, I was you.”

“Okay, Rita. Talk to you soon.” Kate hung on to the receiver a few moments longer, thinking about the ominous turn Carla’s behavior had taken over the past few months. Rita had had about as much as she could take from the girl, who’d been with her for almost a year.

The pity of it was that Kate knew Carla really liked her current foster home. Only she liked her gang of friends more. Keeping Carla away from that gang had been an ongoing project for Rita, Kate and Carla’s social worker, Kim, for several months.

Kate still remembered vividly her own desperate efforts to be part of a group that wasn’t controlled by adults. Fortunately for her, the vow to make good and show Joanna Barnes that she could, had supplanted her need to be a gang member. It was a goal that took her off the streets. She was determined to do the same for Carla.

For now, though, she could do little but hope that Carla would have the sense to go home. Kate prowled around her small apartment. It was barely past nine and the city was just now succumbing to the cooling embrace of dusk. She’d eaten a fast-food dinner on the way home from dropping off the rental car, so didn’t have to worry about conjuring up a meal from the meager contents of her refrigerator. Still, she was restless.

She peered out the bedroom window through the geometric frieze of the fire escape on the other side of the glass, over the treetops and row houses of SoHo. Last summer she’d flung open the window and lain awake most nights in fear of intruders taking advantage of the heat wave to climb to her second-story flat. But now, thanks to her air-conditioning, she was both safe and cool. Except that she felt like a prisoner, barricaded against the heat and the night.

She stared down into the street and watched couples stroll in the balmy evening air, envying them. She could understand why Carla preferred the street to the family room, dominated by a blaring TV and the constant bickering of youngsters. On summer nights in the city, the streets were alive with excitement, anticipation.

Kate let the venetian blind drop, hiding the night away. Loneliness overwhelmed her. Thinking she’d be busy doing things with Joanna, she’d turned down a chance to travel out West with a friend and colleague at her school. Now, except for outings with Carla, the summer loomed empty and unpromising.

She wandered around the room, pausing before the mirror above her dresser. Her chin-length, damp, reddish-brown hair framed her face in limp tendrils, making her look like a waif out in a storm.

Kate moved away from her reflection—no comfort there—and slumped onto the edge of the bed. Too early for sleep. Too wound up for television. Ginny, the tenant downstairs and also a friend, was visiting her parents for a few days.

Maybe she ought to go down to the streets and look for Carla. Her quick smile vanished just as abruptly. No, she warned herself. Worrying about Carla, making sure she was all right, could be a full-time job if she was foolish enough to make it one. Both she and Rita Santos had already come to that conclusion.

Thoughts drifted back to the afternoon. Joanna’s casket. The flowers. Had Joanna liked lilies? So much she didn’t know and now, no possibility of ever learning. Impulsively, Kate went to the closet, drawn there by a need to find some clue, some hint in the few letters she’d received from Joanna Barnes over the past nineteen years. Why, Joanna? Why?

The album sat on the shelf above the clothes rack. Kate carried it to the bed, stacked the pillows against the headboard and made herself comfortable. Then she opened the first page.

August 15, 1982. Today is my birthday and I got my first real birthday card in the mail. It was from Joanna! She’s kept her promise and I’m going to keep mine. The one I made to myself the last night of camp. Not to get in trouble anymore. Not to ruin my life.

Taped beneath the scrawled entry was the card from Joanna. Its message read simply:

Happy Birthday, twelve-year-old! Don’t celebrate too much. Manhattan’s amazing and I’m loving it. Watch for my byline in the papers—whenever. Have a great year and see you in eighteen!

Joanna

Kate passed her hand along the card’s glossy surface. She’d read the card more than a dozen times the day it arrived. It had been the first piece of personal mail ever to be delivered to her. She remembered, too, the way her foster parents and their children had stood openmouthed in surprise as she read the card. And the questions that had followed.

Who is this person, Kate? Where did you meet her? What’s this all about, anyway?

She’d been afraid then that somehow the whole thing—the cards and the promised reunion with Joanna—would be snatched away from her. But in the end, her partial explanation had satisfied her foster mother, who’d only muttered a last warning—I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. Kate hadn’t appreciated the irony of that comment until many years later.

Kate sighed and quickly flipped the page. This one—a postcard from Paris—had caused a real stir in the household because no one else had even known anyone who’d gone to Europe. Weeks before its arrival Kate had rushed to check the mail every day. She might forget. Don’t get your hopes up. But Kate had had the blind faith of a child. And she’d never been disappointed.

Suddenly she couldn’t take any more. Her only memories of Joanna Barnes were now permanently sealed behind plastic in an ordinary photo album. She’d never have the chance to transform all those bits of paper into a real person. Kate closed the album, sank back onto the bed and stretched out her arm to click off the table lamp. Street light dappled the room with a pale rainbow of color. But Kate closed her eyes to the summer night, turned her head into the pillow and cried.

KATE DIDN’T HEAR from Carla until two days after Joanna’s funeral, but she suspected the girl had tried several times to call her. There’d been a few hang-ups on her answering machine. She figured Carla had already been read the riot act from Rita and Kim, so she kept her voice light and neutral.

“Hi, Carly! What’s up?”

There was the slightest of pauses, as if Carla had been expecting another response.

“Uh, not too much. Guess you heard I got grounded.”

“Yes.”

Carla cleared her throat. “Well, I don’t know why everyone was so ticked off at me. I was okay. Not in any trouble or nothing—until I got home, anyway.”

“Maybe they were worried, Carla.”

“Yeah, right!” she scoffed. “More like Rita was thinkin’ she’d lose that check every month.”

Kate sighed. She’d heard the line before. “Is that fair? I don’t think Rita’s in this for the money.”

A longer pause this time. Then Carla mumbled, “Maybe not. But I wasn’t doing nothin’. Just hangin’ with my buddies.”

Kate counted mentally to ten. She’d had this conversation with Carla so many times she felt like screaming. Why aren’t you getting this, Carly? What does it take from all of us? Finally she said, “It’s all about communicating, Carla. Let people know where you are and when you’re coming home. Call, for heaven’s sake.”

A hoarse laugh drifted through the line. “If I’d’a called, Rita would’ve told me to get home. And I was having a good time—you know, with my buds.”

Kate knew better than to malign Carla’s friends. She’d seen Rita do it and it always brought Carla rushing emotionally to their defense. Besides, she’d heard all the excuses. Carla could pull them out of the air like a magician popping rabbits from a hat.

“So now what?” Kate asked, softening her voice.

“My last chance. Kim said next time she’ll have to send me to a group home. Out in the suburbs!”

Kate might have laughed at this final indignity, obviously a fate worse than death, were it not for the catch in Carla’s voice. The threat of a group home was now suddenly very clear to her. Kate sighed again. It had taken six months of “last chances” for that sober reality to register with Carla.

“Carla, be cool, okay? Look, my plans for the summer have altered a bit. I’ll have more time than I thought. We can do some things together.”

“Like go shopping?”

Kate smiled at Carla’s raised inflection on the last word. “Sure. Things like that. Maybe check out a museum or art gallery, too.”

“Yeah,” Carla murmured, less enthusiastic now.

“I’ll call you tomorrow about two and we’ll set a definite time and place. All right?”

Carla agreed and hung up quickly. Before I changed my mind? Kate wondered. Or because she had an incoming call? Kate shook her head as she set the receiver down. In spite of Carla’s attitude, she hadn’t yet crossed the line into serious trouble. Kate just hoped she could deflect the girl from that course before it was too late.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent in completing errands that Kate had postponed. She was grateful for the chance to be busy, thus removing thoughts of Joanna from her mind. Until she returned from feeding her neighbor’s cat and picked up the phone to order a pizza. There was a message for her from the law firm representing Joanna Barnes.

Kate sat down on the armchair next to the phone and listened. The cheery voice on the line requested her to attend a reading of Joanna’s will the next day at ten in the morning. Please bring some identification. After the message finished, Kate sat and stared into space, her sweaty palm clamped onto the receiver.

WHEN THE ELEVATOR DOORS parted, the man who’d spoken to her in the church after Joanna’s funeral was standing on the other side. The look of incredulity in his face must have matched her own, Kate thought, for they stood gaping at each other until she murmured a faint “hello” and stepped out onto the carpeted hall.

He’d obviously been about to enter the elevator, but turned on his heel to follow her into the reception area.

“Miss, uh…”

“Reilly.”

“I don’t know if you remember me—Matt Sinclair, from Joanna’s funeral.”

“It was only four days ago.”

He looked offended at her brusque tone. “Right. So you’re here for…?”

Kate flushed with annoyance. Subtlety definitely wasn’t his style. “I’ve an appointment with Collier and Associates. Why do you ask?”

“Sorry. I suppose I’m being rude, but I’m just curious. Are you here for the reading of Joanna’s will?”

Kate raised her chin to stare directly into his face. A handsome face, in spite of the knotted eyebrows and the glint in his eyes. Too bad he was so irritating.

“Yes, I am, Mr. Sinclair. Not that it’s any concern of yours.” She started to walk toward the reception desk where a young woman was watching them with interest.

He reached out a hand to her elbow. “I take it, then, that you’re more than just an acquaintance of Joanna’s, after all. Since you’re a beneficiary.”

Kate stared blankly at him. She’d been tormented by that very realization all night. What exactly was I to Joanna? But she wasn’t about to confide in someone like Matt Sinclair.

“And I suppose, since you were about to leave, that you are not. A beneficiary,” she clarified, and looked pointedly at his fingers splayed lightly on her arm.

Coloring, he dropped his hand. “No. I’ve been to see Marchant—his offices are farther along.”

Kate swung around to head for the desk.

“You just seemed different, that’s all.”

She stopped and faced him again.

“From Joanna’s pack of friends,” he said.

Kate’s eyes swept over him from head to toe before she resumed her course to the receptionist and asked for Mr. Collier. From behind, she heard the elevator door open and close. When she turned to head for the man’s office, Matt Sinclair was gone.

The brief walk down the hall was long enough to calm her, although Kate knew her face was still warm when she tapped on the lawyer’s opened office door.

“Miss Reilly? Come in, please.” Greg Collier rose from his desk chair.

He was in his mid-fifties and had the air of a suave used-car salesman. Or so Kate thought after a mere five minutes into their conversation. When he asked her if she’d known Joanna long, she derived some satisfaction from his surprise when she replied, “About nineteen years.” She followed him into a small boardroom where a handful of people sat around an oval mahogany table. Lance Marchant was pouring coffee from a stainless-steel jug at the head of the table and glanced up as Kate walked into the room.

Her arrival appeared to puzzle him momentarily, but he recovered almost instantly, setting down the jug and beaming in her direction.

“Kate Reilly?”

When she nodded, he moved around the chairs to her side, extending his right hand as he did so. “I’m Lance Marchant, Joanna’s husband.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

He frowned, studying her face. “Have we met?”

“I was at Joanna’s funeral,” she explained.

“Aah.” He nodded his head thoughtfully, obviously conducting a quick mental search of the day and still coming up blank. He was about to say something more when Joanna’s lawyer went to the head of the table, pushing aside the tray of coffee items as he withdrew a sheaf of papers from a briefcase. He put on his reading glasses cleared his throat and gestured toward the table.

“Shall we begin?” he asked, pausing while Lance returned to his chair and Kate sat down. “As all of you know, you’ve been requested to be here today for the reading of the late Joanna Barnes’s will, dated April 1, 2001.” He glanced over the rim of his glasses to smile. “Yes, that was Joanna’s idea of a little joke, though she assured me the will’s contents were quite serious.” He then began to read the legal preamble and Kate found her attention shifting to the others around the table.

Lance Marchant took a place to the right of Greg Collier. The lawyer’s secretary sat on his left and was jotting on a steno pad. The elderly woman sitting across from Kate had been introduced as Joanna’s housekeeper, and the thin, nervous-looking man with an earring in his right ear and a designer scarf knotted with a flourish around his neck had been her assistant at the fashion magazine where Joanna had worked as staff writer for the past five years.

Where were her other friends? Kate wondered. All the people she’d seen draped around Joanna in the newspaper and magazine pictures she’d clipped over the years? And family?

Kate peered down at her hands, clenched together on her lap. Her eyes filled with tears—as much for herself as Joanna. She’d thought herself immune to the sense of alienation that having no family produced. But here it was again, her pain on display for this roomful of strangers.

If only Joanna had called, made some kind of personal contact. But then what? Would we have had a real friendship? Would it have been a substitute for the family I’ve never had?

She chomped on her lower lip, forcing her mind back to Collier’s recitation of the will. There was a mild gasp from the older woman when the lawyer revealed Joanna’s bequest of a few thousand dollars. Likewise for the assistant, who received a smaller sum and all of Joanna’s office furniture and equipment. Kate almost missed her own name, except that everyone at the table looked at her.

“‘To my dear friend and co-conspirator, Kate Reilly, I leave Camp Limberlost and all its assets, in hope that she will rediscover the magic of a summer long ago. Kate, I can’t tell you how much our contact over the years has meant to me, and wish you all the best for a wonderful life. I have complete confidence in your continued success.”’

Kate stared blankly at the others. She was stunned as much by Joanna’s personal message as by the bequest. Tears welled up again and someone handed her a tissue, with which she quickly dabbed at her eyes. Joanna’s lawyer was clearing his throat again, waiting a discreet moment before continuing.

The rest of Joanna’s estate had been left to Lance Marchant. Through the labyrinth of legalese, Kate gathered that Joanna hadn’t owned very much personally beyond whatever she’d possessed jointly with her husband. When Greg Collier was finished, he asked the beneficiaries to stay behind long enough to sign some papers. While the housekeeper and assistant were doing so, Lance Marchant sidled over to Kate.

Still reeling from the will, Kate missed the first part of his comment.

“Sorry?” She blinked.

He smiled. “I said that I’d no idea Joanna had such a good friend in someone so young. She seldom discussed her friends, unfortunately.”

Unsure what he meant, Kate gave a tentative smile. What was he really thinking after learning his wife had left property to a virtual stranger?

She was saved from responding when Greg Collier approached with some documents. “Miss Reilly? Congratulations,” he said, as if Kate had just won a lottery. “If I can get you to sign these papers…”

“Of course,” she murmured. “Then I have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.” She went through the motions, still disbelieving the whole morning from the moment she’d stepped off the elevator into Matt Sinclair’s insinuating face. She was half aware of Lance chatting politely to the housekeeper and assistant while seeing them to the door. When she finished signing on all the lines Greg Collier had indicated, she looked up at the two men smiling benignly down at her.

“Well, then,” Collier said, rubbing his hands together, “more coffee, anyone?”

“Please,” Lance replied, pulling out a chair across from Kate.

Collier spoke softly to his secretary, who took the papers Kate and the others had signed and left, closing the door behind her. “Coffee, Miss Reilly?”

She felt she was being set up for something. “Yes, thank you,” she said, waiting while the lawyer poured and handed round the coffee with a tray of cream and sugar. Then she spoke, deciding not to let the two men take the lead. “I’m as puzzled by Joanna’s bequest as I’m sure you both are. Although I met her nineteen years ago, I haven’t seen her since. We corresponded only sporadically.”

Greg nodded at Lance, then at Kate. “That’s pretty much what Joanna explained when she had me draw up this will in the spring.”

Kate flushed at the knowledge that people had been discussing her.

“I’m sure you must have some questions about the property,” he continued, stopping as Kate began to shake her head.

“Actually, I’ve questions about Joanna’s death that I’m hoping—” she glanced quickly at Lance, then back to the lawyer “—neither of you will mind answering.”

The smile disappeared from Collier’s face. He sat down beside Lance, who was staring into his coffee cup. “Of course, Miss Reilly,” he said. “Ask away.”

“It’s just that, you see, Joanna and I had this promise to meet on July 14. It was meant to celebrate our meeting nineteen years ago. W-well,” she stammered under Collier’s blank look, “it’s a long story and I won’t bore you with it. I just can’t believe that she’d…she’d commit suicide, knowing how much the reunion meant to both of us.” She stopped, unable to continue.

Someone cleared a throat—Collier, Kate guessed. But it was Lance who spoke. “Kate, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve been tormenting myself with the same doubts. I’d always considered Joanna and I to be the perfect match for each other. I loved her deeply, and I know she was very happy with me. That’s what makes it so hard for me to believe she could…”

Kate’s ears burned. This statement from a bereaved husband made her own disbelief sound like pathetic whimpering. She kept her head down, unable to look either of them in the eye.

Collier broke the silence. “As much as we all want to have an answer for this…tragic situation, sometimes there just isn’t one that we can accept with any degree of comprehension.” He paused, then continued, “Now, about this piece of property, Miss Reilly. I’m not certain of the current market value because I understand that it’s been closed as a resort for several years. Most likely you’ll want to sell it, and I’d be happy to have someone give you an estimate of its worth.”

Kate’s head shot up. “Oh! I…I’ve scarcely had time to think about even owning Camp Limberlost, much less selling it.”

Collier chuckled. “I suppose all this does take time, but the summer will be the best season to show the property and all its potential.” He looked to Lance for agreement.

Lance simply nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on Kate. He wasn’t signaling his feelings about the camp either way, Kate realized. She had no idea how he felt about her inheriting it. Tongue-tied, she stared at the men.

“Owning it will most likely prove to be a greater disadvantage than asset,” Collier added. His voice dripped like honey from a spoon.

“I know Joanna hasn’t spent any time there since her father died almost eight years ago. And he closed it down a couple years before that, so…” Lance shrugged.

“I’ve heard the whole area has gone downhill,” Collier said, glancing at Lance and shaking his head. “Too bad. I understand it was once a prime resort.”

“I think so,” Lance murmured. He smiled across the table at Kate. “You’ll want to take a few days for this,” he assured her. “To let it all sink in. Believe me, as a developer, I know only too well what a headache owning a piece of property can be. Especially land and buildings that have been neglected. Let Greg—or me—know as soon as possible. We’ll help you get the best possible price for it.”

Collier nodded heartily. “Always available.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I must get back to work.”

Kate struggled to her feet. These two were good, she decided. If they shoved a dotted line at her at that moment, she was certain she’d sign without a second glance. Except for a sudden clarifying thought. If Joanna willed Camp Limberlost to me, she must have really wanted me to have it. So no way am I going to give it up that easily.

“Thank you for everything, Mr. Collier. I promise to get back to you as soon as is realistically possible.”

He patted her arm. “You do that, my dear,” he said, and left the room.

Kate reached for her purse, slung across the back of her chair. She felt Marchant’s eyes on her and, when she straightened, knew from the amusement in his face that her own was beet red.

“Collier can be…well, shall I say, a bit paternal.”

“Is he a personal friend?” Kate asked.

“Only socially—he’s my lawyer, too, of course.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

“Which doesn’t mean that I can’t be objective about all this.” He waved his hand into the room.

Confused, Kate followed the movement.

“The will—the inheritances and so on,” he explained. “Joanna and I agreed when we got married that we’d each hold on to our own assets. Of course—” his voice dropped and he lowered his head “—we’d been discussing any future possibility of divorce, not…death.” When he raised his head, his eyes were red-rimmed and tired. He managed a faint smile. “You obviously meant a lot to Joanna for her to include you in her will. And I know at some point in time that camp of her parents must have been worth a lot. It’s just that—” he paused to shake his head “—Joanna was sometimes prone to what we used to call flights of fancy. A real romantic.”

Kate felt herself nod, though she wasn’t certain she agreed. The Joanna she remembered had seemed to have both feet firmly planted in the real world and to know exactly what she wanted.

“At any rate, I think the occasion of an inheritance, whatever that inheritance may be, is cause for celebration. I’d be honored if you’d be my guest for lunch.”

The invitation capped a morning of surprises. Kate heard herself consent before she had time to even process the invitation. As she left the boardroom, Lance Marchant’s hand guiding her at the small of her back, she had the feeling she’d played her cards exactly the way the two men had anticipated.