Painted Moon Part 9

Her mother smiled fondly. The sun came out in her eyes again. "Darling, I won't lie and say this isn't a shock. It is. Your father will have to get used to the idea, but of course, there's no question-I love you, your father loves you. And I'm glad to see you alive and awake and aware of what you're choosing. Even if you never see her again, you've still woken up. I knew something was missing for you, dear." Jellica's voice broke. "I didn't know how to help you find it. And I so much wanted you to find it."

"d.a.m.n," Jackie said. "I'm going to cry." She blotted her eyes with the table napkin.

Her mother cleared her throat and said, "I remember when I fell in love for the first time, I felt just like you do. I didn't have a choice about how I felt. I loved who I loved. And it was the most torrid, shameless affair I'd ever had."

"What happened?" Jackie dabbed one last time and concentrated on her mother.

Her mother grinned and leaned forward confidentially. "Well, my friends told me he'd be the ruin of me, he'd squash every artistic impulse I ever had and lead me into a life of pure boredom. And his friends were telling him I'd be the ruin of him, get him labeled a radical, ruin his chances for promotion." She shook her head sadly. "In the end..."

"What? What happened?" Jackie heard the scoop on this part of her mother's life.

"Well. What could I do? Like you said, I might not have chosen to feel like I did, but whether I acted on those feelings was really up to me. So I married him.

Jackie flopped back in her chair. "You're talking about Daddy," she said, wrinkling up her nose. "No fair. Everyone knows you have the perfect marriage."

"It would be a mistake for you to a.s.sume it has always been perfect. Or that perfect is easy. It took work, believe me. My work is fortunately portable, so I could go with him wherever he went." She leaned forward to pat Jackie's hand. "But what a remarkable work of art we produced."

Jackie blushed and tears swam in her eyes again. "Thanks."

"I hope you find happiness, dear. It's always been my wish for you." She leaned back and waved one hand airily. "And Parker was not going to make you happy." Not for the first time Jackie wished for her mother's gift of conveying worlds of meaning with a casual gesture.

After that, her mother seemed content to munch on her breakfast and talk about life in Lisbon. Jackie finished her m.u.f.fin and had some strawberries.

"Well," her mother said briskly, as soon as the last of the berries had been eaten. "What are you going to do with yourself while I spend the day being dragged from gallery to gallery and feted at every turn?"

"I don't know. I wish I could drive out into the country somewhere. Just to see what it feels like. The sky is so big. And I didn't expect so many trees."

"Rent a car for the weekend, my treat. I know you told me not to feel bad about Christmas but I do. Find us someplace fun to go to tomorrow since all the festivities will be over. I'd love to hear some live jazz, I miss it. When do you have to fly out?"

"Not till Monday evening. Angela said it was okay for me to take Monday off even though I've only been there a few weeks. She's a veritable lion, but we get along okay."

"Maybe I can meet her when I come out there in February."

"You're coming to San Francisco?" Jackie sat up with pleasure.

"Didn't I say - oh no, of course. I hadn't even gotten around to telling you. The Weavers is debuting at the Museum of Modern Art and they want me to do a benefit gala thing. I said yes primarily because I could spend some time with you. I'll plan on staying at least a week."

"My studio's really tiny, but I make great coffee."

"Nonsense, dear, I'll stay in a hotel. You can stay with me if you want and pretend you're on holiday. I wasn't looking forward to seeing Parker, so that's just as well." Her mother stopped, then blurted out, "I'm so glad you're not with him anymore."

"I'm glad, too," Jackie said with a smile.

"Anyway," Jellica continued in her brisk tone, "if you are with - if there's someone you're dating, I shall want to meet her, you know. That will never change."

"I've been going out with someone, but we're just friends. She's showing me the ropes, so to speak." Her mother laughed. "Oh, I'm so pleased you're coming to visit. It'll be great."

"Now go away, dear, and let me put on my face. Enjoy your day and I'll see you around seven before the banquet, okay?"

"Okay. And you don't need a different face." She gazed fondly at the hazel eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. 'I can only hope to be as beautiful as you are when I'm fifty-three."

"Out," her mother ordered.

10.

Jackie was able to rent a car through the concierge who also gave her maps. Clad in black leggings, Reeboks and a bulky, warm sweater, she felt ready to explore.

She picked up the car and was pleased to find it was a little sports coupe. The highways around Dallas looked straight and flat on the map. She hadn't driven really fast since the last time she'd been in Germany. The clerk at the rental agency said the Texas highway patrol tended not to be much interested in anything under seventy-five-unlike California, where paranoia set in at sixty. She could whisk some cobwebs out of her mind and really get out into the country. Which direction out of Dallas? West toward Lubbock? Country-western songs began to play in her head. North toward Oklahoma City?

A town called Norman caught her eye. Norman, Oklahoma. Now where had she heard of that before? She concentrated for a moment and Leah's voice came back to her. Sharlotte Kinsey from Norman, Oklahoma. Can you imagine being from a place so off the beaten track that the main sight for miles is an oil field?

Unwilling to name what motivated her, Jackie set off for Norman, Oklahoma, her camera and map handy. She would spend most of the day driving there and back, but she loved exploring by car. Wildflowers. How people built their homes in different terrains. It would be a nice break.

The land was flat and soaked with rain, with no crops to break the unending stretch of dark orange clay. Gray clouds stretched overhead into the dim, charcoal horizon, leaving Jackie feeling very small and wondering about the native peoples who had roamed under the vast sky. How easy it would be think this was the entire world.

She eased herself into a caravan of cars and trucks all doing about eighty miles per hour. Sedate, by German standards, but it was exhilarating. The music was mostly country, but she didn't mind. She sang when she knew the words and drank in the red and gray countryside. She would build houses low to the ground with soft, rounded lines to merge into the hard horizon.

It was about three hours later when she stopped at a diner on the main drag into Norman. The town was not as small as she had thought it would be, but perhaps it had grown up since Sharla had lived here. She found herself asking the waitress about cemeteries. There were two, she discovered, and so she set off again.

The first cemetery looked disused and overgrown with no signs of any recent activity. She walked around a little and found deaths recorded only as recently as the 1930s. An icy wind cut quickly into her sweater and she gladly went back to the car.

The second cemetery was obviously in use. The size of it intimidated her. There was a funeral under way off to the right, so she parked some distance away and walked in that general direction in the hope that it was a more recently used part of the grounds. Some landscaping had created small rises and there were middle-aged oak trees here and there, which cut down the wind.

She wandered for a while, finding graves from the 1980s, but none more recent. The funeral was ending and people were leaving. She waited until only the funeral home attendants were left and then asked for their help.

The men, in their stiff black suits, looked her up and down. Jackie guessed she looked a little odd for a cemetery. Well, she probably looked a little odd for Oklahoma. She bent the truth and said she was looking for a friend from church camp. The men directed her to a general area where her school friend might be buried.

The graves along the path they'd directed her to were of the right time period. Beloved daughter.

Beloved wife. Beloved father. James, gone too soon. Carolyn, our loving sister.

Abruptly she realized she was looking at the right name.

Sharlotte Jean Kinsey. A simple, large cross in relief. At the bottom: G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner.

She looked at it for a few minutes, her fists clenching and unclenching. She was hot all over with rage - a deep burning anger the likes of which she'd never felt before.

To sleep here forever with such words over her - Jackie was at a loss. It was a shock to see the condemnation etched in stone. For her whole life she had been nothing but loved by her parents. She didn't have any enemies. Another shock hit her - these people would think the same of her, and they didn't even know her. She swallowed around the knot in her throat. No one had ever hated her before.

She thought about what her mother had said about making choices. So. She was choosing love and choosing to be hated, too.

She walked back to the cemetery entrance and around the corner to the florist that made its trade from mourners. She couldn't take a picture of the marker without something that showed that Sharla had been loved, deeply and truly loved.

Roses? No. Carnations? No. Gladioli-that was better. Scarlet glads, and some royal purple irises. Much, much better, she thought. She bought an armful of the most vivid blooms and a tall vase, refused the complimentary cross to hang from the bouquet, then carried them back to the cemetery.

The brilliant colors hid most of the saying and the cross. Would that she had the power to obliterate the cruel words and add Beloved Wife of Leah to the stone. As Leah had said, where was their charity? How could love ever be wrong? Especially love as true as Sharla and Leah's had been.

She took a half-dozen photographs and then stood for a moment, wondering if she had anything she wanted to say. She suddenly felt foolish. She didn't believe Sharla was really there anymore. She'd never decided what she believed about an after-life, but her father had taught her to be open to all cultures and ideas. She sighed and looked up at the sky and thought that wherever Sharla was it had to be closer to Leah than this place.

She shook her head at herself, took one last picture, pinched a petal of each flower for her pockets and then went back to the car. On the drive back she composed and recomposed the note to Leah to include with the pictures. She would include the flower petals, so Leah could see the colors. She hadn't made this trip to get a response from Leah, but she hoped that Leah would respond and that she would see her again.

When she got to the hotel she surprised her mother with a long, heartfelt hug and tickets to a highly recommended live jazz club.

"So what did you want to show us, Lee?" Valentina took another bite of her amaretto cheesecake and made delicate smacking sounds as though she were tasting wine. "Do you think this could use a little less amaretto?"

"Dearest, it's fine," Maureen said. "I don't see how a quarter teaspoon more or less of something would make a difference."

Valentina looked at her mate disdainfully. "You have no palate to speak of."

"I like the way you taste," Maureen said.

"Guys!" Leah looked at both her friends. "Let's not talk about s.e.x."

Valentina pointed her fork at Leah. "Celibacy's a drag, isn't it? Believe me, I knew all about it until this one came along." She waved her fork at Maureen.

Leah chuckled. "It's not that bad unless your friends carry on in front of you."

"Sorry," Maureen said. "I'll be more circ.u.mspect." She opened her brown eyes very wide with an innocent air. "So what's with these pictures you said we had to see?"

Leah hmphed and said to Valentina, "A little less amaretto."

Valentina nodded. "Would you serve this with amaretto? Or would that be too much?" She pushed stray locks of her curly black hair back from her face.

"Lee." Maureen's voice held a bit of a whine.

"Too much. It's very sweet. I'm not sure what you'd serve. Something dry and sharp, maybe."

"Lee!" Maureen sat forward and imperiously held out her hand. "Show me the pictures."

Leah smiled indulgently at Maureen and handed over the packet of photos Jackie had included with her note. Valentina got up to look over Maureen's shoulder.

Both women caught their breath, then sighed.

Valentina crossed herself and looked up at Leah, her dark eyes s.h.i.+mmering with tears. "Did you finally have the heart to go looking for it? Did her family finally relent and let you know where she is?"

"No, I got them from a friend." Friend? Could she call Jackie merely a friend? The gesture she'd made by taking these photos - it went beyond that. "From an acquaintance, really." She gave them the brief highlights of Jackie's stay over Thanksgiving. Well, almost all the highlights. She left out the electric moments in the kitchen that last morning. She couldn't stop herself from thinking of the instant when her fingers had slid into Jackie's wetness. Her stomach lurched.

"What a sweet thing to do!" Maureen stared at the photographs. "And the flowers... Sharla would have loved them."

Leah gently poured the collection of petals onto the table. They had faded, but enough of the vibrant color remained for her to easily picture the way the bouquet had looked.

"Oh, Lee," Valentina said softly. "What a lovely person Jackie must be."

She nodded and closed her eyes briefly. Her throat was suddenly tight again. The photographs were beautifully composed. Jackie had sent directions on how she could find Sharla's grave - maybe she would go one day, but she didn't need to. Not anymore.

"Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Maureen said with some heat after reading Jackie's note. "How could they put that on her marker?"

"Same old story," Valentina said. "They don't see her for fifteen years and suddenly they have the legal right to her body and what money she had, and her car. Thank goodness you put both houses in your name, Lee. They'd have taken them, too. How they can call themselves Christian..." She lifted her gaze heavenward for a moment, then quickly crossed herself again. "I could wish them ill, I really could."

Leah shrugged. "I shouldn't have told them she died. I told them because it was the 'Christian' thing to do. And we see where that got me."

"Irony's a drag, isn't it?" Valentina returned to her seat and had another bite of cheesecake.

"What you should have done," Maureen said, "was make out wills. And durable powers of attorney. Val and I did that after they took Sharla away from you."

"Wills can be contested," Leah said. "Raymond Burr's family held it up forever and you'd think he knew enough to get good legal advice."

"It's better than nothing," Maureen said.

Leah picked up her favorite photograph. Taken low to the ground, the flowers framed the lower foreground, with Sharla's name behind them. Above the top of the marker blurry green branches mixed with gray light. Jackie had her mother's eye for balance. "You're right." She cleared her throat. "Would you like to keep one of the pictures?"

"Yes, if you don't mind," Maureen said. "Sharla was a good friend."

"Do you think I could serve a port with this cheesecake?" Valentina took another bite.

Maureen threw her napkin at Valentina.

Leah carefully swept the petals back into the envelope and gathered the photos. "I wouldn't know unless I tried it," she said.

Valentina's eyes lighted up. "What a good idea." She disappeared into the kitchen.

"Last item," Angela said. "I've got two tickets to a benefit for the Women's Cancer Resource Center. It's an art gallery opening this Friday, but I can't use them. Anyone want to go?"

Jackie opened her mouth to say yes but thought she should let the partners have first crack at them.

"I'll take one," Diane said. "Mark won't want to go, so someone else should take the other one."

"I'd love it," Jackie said after no one else spoke up. "Thanks very much." The ticket was pa.s.sed down the conference table to her and she tucked it in her calendar.

'I didn't know you were an art hound," Diane said as they left the conference room.

"Can't keep me away. Not that I can afford to buy anything." She didn't mention that she had a small, original Jellica Frakes sculpture in her apartment. Her mother had given it to her when she had left for college saying that, in her most practical motherly way, Jackie could always raise some cash on it if she needed to.

"That makes two of us. Why don't you grab the Dearborn file and we'll go over the new specs they sent and pick out somewhere to eat before the opening."

Jackie fetched the file Diane wanted from her s...o...b..x-sized office - no bigger than her cubicle at L&B, but it had walls and a door - and walked the length of the office suite to Diane's office.

Diane looked up and said, "I was just thinking. I shouldn't have a.s.sumed you didn't have someone you'd like to take to the gallery opening. You could have the other ticket. I wouldn't mind."

"No, keep it," Jackie protested. "I'm very single at the moment." She thought of Leah and pushed away her hurt that she hadn't heard from Leah about the photos. She hoped that they hadn't gotten lost in the mail.

"Are you?" Diane considered her with her head tipped to one side. "Well, I have a friend who's a banker here in the city, and I think you'd get along great. Maybe I should give my ticket-"