The Uninvited Page 5

  He nodded. “I know what you mean. But I think this may be good.”

  She slapped her hands against her thighs. “Seriously, I am not into an evening with Joe and the boys.”

  Jay threw back his head and laughed.

  “This is not a laughing matter!”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that Jo is Joanne, and, believe me, she is not one of the boys.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “Guess again.”

  “Oh, shit, your mother. And you’ve got to start the macaroni and cheese because she’s going to be late getting home from the office.”

  “I do have to start dinner, yes. But Joanne was asking if I’d make my coriander-and-lemon-zest rub for the salmon she’s bringing home. And Joanne, by the way, is my mother’s partner.”

  He watched her closely. She looked surprised, not shocked. Good. Then she just looked amused. “Can this day get any stranger?”

  Jay shrugged. “I don’t see how.”

  Mimi shook her head, but he didn’t think she was saying no.

  “So you’ll come?”

  She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I guess. I mean, how can I turn down salmon with a coriander rub?” Then she looked thoughtful. “Just as long as your mom and her girlfriend aren’t Socialists. My mother warned me there are lots of those up here.”

  He grinned. “Lou’s a lefty,” he said. “Jo’s a fiscal Conservative. They sort of balance each other out. But do not talk politics if you can avoid it.”

  Mimi looked at him with a sheepish grin. He guessed it was an expression she didn’t use very often.

  “So, as you’ve probably noticed, you’ve got an idiot for a sister.”

  He reached out and touched her arm. Made her look at him.

  “Are you sure you want to take an idiot home to meet the folks?” she asked.

  “Yes. Absolutely. And we should probably get going.”

  Mimi nodded but her shoulders drooped. He put his arms around her, and the next minute she was sobbing and swearing and smacking her palms against his chest and then holding him close. They rocked back and forth, and neither of them could think of anything to say for a very long time.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was only a twenty-minute paddle by kayak downstream to Jay’s place, but he would ride with Mimi in her car. Before they left, she helped him move the table from the kitchen to the bedroom. It was surprisingly heavy. They laid it upside down on the trapdoor and piled the vacuum cleaner and a couple of chairs on top. It was the best they could do. Then they carried his kayak up to the enchanted little house. He wasn’t going to leave it outside.

  “Sorry for the mess,” she said as she moved all the debris from the passenger seat to the back. She almost cried with relief when she saw everything was still there: her cell phone, iPod, and the new camcorder. Not because of the value of these things-well, not just because of the value-but because seeing them there restored something of the golden feeling she had felt when she first arrived at the place so little time ago.

  “You look a little freaked,” he said.

  She tried to shrug it off. “It’s just my stuff,” she said. “I love my stuff.”

  Her little red-and-black car, her colorful tangle of clothing strewn all over the backseat-her room away from home. And she felt very far from home now. She phoned her mother right away, at the office. She was tied up in a meeting, so Mimi left a message with the secretary. “Tell her I’m here. Tell her everything is fine.” There was nothing else she could say. Not yet. Jay raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well…” Then she sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, dazed.

  “Not phoning Dad?”

  “Screw him,” she said.

  Another long moment passed.

  “What’s the matter?” said Jay.

  She meant to laugh, because it was a pretty crazy thing to say. But before she knew it, she was crying again, surprising herself probably more than Jay. Then she swore a bit, pushed her hair back off her face, and got herself together. He patted her shoulder, saying stupid, gentle things, until she pushed him away and finally managed to laugh.

  “Jesus!” she said. “Enough with the big-brother routine!”

  She wiped her eyes and spun the Mini around, heading back out toward the road. She glanced at him as she turned onto the Upper Valentine.

  Her brother. Jesus!

  They were quiet for a long time on the ride before she said, “I can’t believe he never told me about you.”

  And Jay laughed. “Yeah, a bit of a kick to the ego,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean that!”

  “I know, I know. Take it easy. But like I said, I’ve never met my father, let alone talked to him. No birthday cards, nothing.”

  They drove a fair bit farther still before Mimi said, “That’s something he’s good at,” she said. “Leaving people.”

  There was a tall cedar hedge bordering the front of the Pages’ half-acre lot on the north bank of the Eden River a few minutes out of town. The driveway curved leisurely to a turnabout in front of a modern house of floor-to-ceiling glass and honey-colored stone, one story high, with a roof of cedar shakes and set on a well-tended lawn, splendid with maple, willow, and butternut trees.

  The path to the front door wound through a flower garden of irises and poppies, the borders brimming with blossoms Mimi didn’t know the name of but that were pink and purple and lavender and cream. A tilting stone Saint Francis looked down in a saintly way at a stone toad sitting in a patch of white alyssum, which held the saint’s gaze with amphibian reverence. Jay unlocked the door and turned off the security system.

  “Ah, the tranquillity of country living,” said Mimi.

  Jay shrugged. “We never even used to lock the doors until last fall. We had a break-in. My mom lost some jewelry.”

  Mimi shook her head. “What is this, the crime capital of Canada?” It was meant to be a joke, but from the expression on Jay’s face, it hit a little too close to home.

  Inside was deliciously cool, a cool blond house. It was open and airy. There were maple floors and creamy yellow walls, butterscotch trim, and everywhere was light. The same honey-colored stone as outside formed a wide and impressive fireplace. It was comfortable, lived in. Mimi’s mother had hired an interior designer to make their apartment look lived in. Tastefully lived in. This was the real thing. As tired and freaked out as she was, Mimi was instantly happy to be here and slightly jealous.

  She sat across a kitchen island from Jay while he started grinding up coriander seeds with a mortar and pestle. By turning, she could look out the front windows, which she did regularly.

  “This is going to be worse than my interview at NYU.”

  “Take it easy,” said Jay. “They’ll like you.”

  So she stopped looking over her shoulder, but after a moment she sagged on the maple countertop and rested her head in her arms.

  “Why don’t you take a shower?” he said.

  “Do I smell that bad?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She retrieved some clothes from the car, and he showed her to the guest room, where there was an en suite bathroom. She emerged fifteen minutes later in a sparkly silver halter top and a denim skirt and resumed her seat across the counter. Jay was rubbing a lemon against a zester. The smell made her feel cleaner still.

  “How are we going to handle this?” she asked.

  “How about I tell them you’re my muse?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  Then Jay got some salad things out of the fridge and put her to work.

  Finally, a boxy, black SUV pulled up beside the Mini, and a slim woman in her mid-forties got out, gathered some groceries from the back, and came inside, singing “Hello” from the front door.

  Joanne McAllister was wiry, probably a runner, Mimi guessed. She was wearing a dark gray pinstriped suit over an oxblood-colored blouse. Her chestnut-colored hair was shoulder length, her eyes bright and inquisitive, her smile puckish.

 
; “Jo,” she said. “I’d shake your hand, but-”

  “Let me help,” said Mimi, taking a bag of groceries from her. “I’m Mimi.”

  “Thank you,” said Jo. She dumped the salmon in the sink and leaned on the counter facing them. “Well,” she said, “you two got everything under control?”

  Jay glanced at Mimi and they shared a look. “We’re okay,” he said.

  For a moment Jo held Mimi’s eye, then she smiled as if to say, Something is going on here, but I guess you’ll tell me when you’re good and ready. Then she turned back to the sink and washed her hands to get the fish smell off them. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, “until I am out of these clothes, I will not truly be able to get into a festive spirit.”

  “Yeah, like we’re so festive,” said Jay.

  When Jo had gone, Mimi asked, “What does she do?”

  “She runs the town,” he said.

  “She’s the mayor?”

  “No. She hates the mayor. She’s an administrator. She says her job is to follow the mayor around with a trash bag, cleaning up after him.”

  Jo joined them in the kitchen in mauve sweats, and soon everyone was busy.

  Then Lou arrived in a vintage green Mustang, though when she emerged, she looked to Mimi like the last person who would ever tool around in a sports car. She was big. She wore a sharply pressed pale-blue button-down shirt with the tails out, pressed blue jeans, and Birkenstocks. Her one concession to femininity was a pair of dangly earrings. The giveaway was the stethoscope around her neck and the little black bag. A house call, thought Mimi. And who knows, a doctor might be needed.

  Lou didn’t seem like Marc’s type, Mimi thought, apart from the fact that she was a doctor and he was always attracted to money. But when she met Lou up close, she saw a face as perfectly round as some doyenne from a Renaissance painting, with creamy-colored skin, chocolate-brown eyes, thick eyelashes, and a smile worthy of La Gioconda herself.

  Lou took Mimi’s hand warmly and looked so frankly into her eyes that Mimi felt nervous as a kitten for a moment. Then, strangely, she felt all her nervousness fall away. She was afraid, suddenly, that she might cry again. Did the Canadian border guards mysteriously strip you of your chutzpah once you crossed over?

  “I have the oddest feeling about you,” said Dr. Lou, standing back appraisingly. There was nothing discourteous in the comment. Her voice was friendly, but it was alarming nonetheless.

  The three housemates stood around the kitchen island staring at Mimi in silence for a good few heartbeats. Her eyes darted from one to the other of them but always came back to Lou. She seemed just like a doctor coaxing a reluctant patient to elucidate her symptoms, explain more fully about the ailment that had brought her here.

  “I hope that doesn’t sound rude,” said Lou.

  “No, it’s okay,” said Mimi. Then she swallowed hard and asked, “What do you see, Doc?”

  And Lou looked closer still. “It’s your eyes,” she said. Then she smiled. “And maybe something about your license plate?”

  “What’s this all about?” asked Jo, but nobody paid her any attention.

  Mimi clutched at her skirt, a little frantically. “Did you… did you know about me?”

  Lou shook her head very slowly. Then she reached out and gently smoothed a wet fringe of hair back from Mimi’s forehead. “No, honey, I didn’t know about you. But I’d know those eyes anywhere.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They ate on the screened-in porch overlooking the Eden. Salmon grilled on the barbeque, mango salsa, a salad with goat cheese and dried cranberries, washed down with cool glasses of white wine.

  Mimi caught them up-to-date on her infamous father.

  “They just bought something of his for MOMA,” said Mimi.

  Jay didn’t say anything, but he was impressed and a little weirded out, as if somehow he should know this.

  Then Mimi told them what she knew of Marc Soto’s marriage to her mother, which had lasted less than four years. She had been two when he moved out and didn’t connect up with him again until she was eleven and became curious about this man whose name cropped up now and then in the Sunday Times.

  “And you read the New York Times when you were a eleven?” Jay asked.

  “Not cover to cover,” she said without missing a beat. “Just the parts about my father.” She was very smooth.

  “Mom and I were squabbling a lot in those days,” she said. “Marc became my go-to downtown connection. Not ‘go-to’ in the sense that he would actually solve things.”

  She laughed and glanced at Jay. She looked tired to him, a little nervous, as if she was hungry for acceptance. Big-city girl to waif in a New York minute.

  “I mean it was easy to tell he wasn’t good for much but painting pictures,” she said. “That and finding rich patrons to pick up his bar tab.”

  “He had the beginning of a drinking problem way back when,” said Lou.

  “Well, he’s been working on it,” said Mimi. She screwed up her nose. “Not that he’s a drunk. I mean he’s real disciplined when he’s painting. But…” She shrugged and sipped her wine. Put down her glass. She’d barely drunk any. Barely touched her food.

  The conversation stalled in the cooling night air. Jay watched her-couldn’t take his eyes off her. Such an exotic creature. She was looking out at the lawn as if it were an exhibit. He followed her gaze to the lively shadows. A breeze rustled the leaves.

  “I don’t know why I do that,” she said.

  “Do what?” he asked.

  “Bad-mouth Marc like that.”

  “Maybe you thought it was what we’d want to hear?” said Lou.

  A bullfrog croaked down by the river.

  “It’s really hard to imagine him ever living here,” said Mimi.

  Lou laughed. “That’s what he used to say.”

  Mimi stared at her, her head cocked to one side. “Didn’t it bother you?”

  “Do I look bothered?” said Lou.

  Mimi shook her head. “No, you look like the least-bothered person I ever met. So how did you and Marc end up in Ladybank?”

  Lou leaned back in her chair. “We met in Toronto when I was a med student. Marc was… well, he was dazzling. Hotshot artist-you just knew he was going to make it. It was fun.” She dragged her finger slowly around the edge of her plate like a phonograph needle looking for music. She smiled. “But it got old pretty quickly,” she said. “The openings, the hangers-on. I never took a course in small talk.”

  “I’m majoring in it,” said Mimi, and everyone laughed. She looked pleased. But Jay saw something else in her eyes. She’s a little intimidated, he thought, though the idea surprised him.

  “You must be so tired,” said Jo. She didn’t miss much.

  “Thanks,” said Mimi. “I am. But this is really good-really helping.” She looked at Jay. “You’re so lucky.”

  “I know, the two best mothers in the world.”

  “My mother and I eat together about once a month,” she said. “She is a walking appointment book.”

  “There you go again,” said Jay.

  “Hell,” said Mimi. “Now I’m bad-mouthing my mom. What’s with that?” She looked down, picked up a piece of mango in her fingers, then put it back on her plate. “She’s pretty great. Really. I mean she puts up with me.”

  “Must be a saint,” said Jay, grinning.

  Mimi made as if to throw her napkin at him. Then she turned to Lou. “Marc is so downtown, so SoHo. I just can’t believe he ever lived here. Like, hello?”

  Lou laughed. “You’re right. A recipe for disaster. I wanted a family. I wanted my own medical practice. And so when Marc was set up with a gallery and all, we decided on a trial period here in Ladybank. He could paint anywhere, right? That was the plan. I got a yearlong job as a temp for a doctor at the clinic who was going on maternity leave.”

  “And you caught the bug,” said Jo.

  Lou smiled and sipped her wine.

  “Did
he, like, hate it?” asked Mimi.

  Lou considered the question. “Actually, you’ve nailed it,” she said. “He like-hated it. He missed the city, but he had that boyish enthusiasm about things.”

  “Still does. Well, sort of.”

  “He taught some night classes at the college, enjoyed being a big fish in a little pond. He took up kayaking. We both did. Then he found the old place on the snye, and he was just as happy as a clam. For a while. Which is when I made a very serious mistake.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Mimi, glancing at Jo.

  Jo laughed. “Not me! I was the mistake she made later.”

  “It was me,” said Jay. “Right?”

  Lou nodded and smiled across the table. “You bet. The best mistake I ever made,” she said. Then she raised her glass to Jo. “Sorry, darling,” she added.

  Jo chortled, not at all offended. It was getting dark and she went for candles. The others waited for her to return, each of them lost in thought.

  Then Jo was back, and in the new flickering light, the story continued.

  “Marc started spending more and more time upriver,” said Lou. She chuckled, as if “upriver” was a euphemism. It was funny, thought Jay. This story was for Mimi, and yet it was news to him as well. He’d never really asked about his father. His mother was smiling at him as if she had just realized the same thing. “The fatter I got with child, the less time he was around. It was as if my growing body was pushing him out the door. I’m not stupid. I could see what was happening. But you know something? I didn’t really care.”

  “No?” said Mimi.

  “No. I think I already knew by then that Marc was a biological necessity, little more. Cute and entertaining but, well…” She smiled again at Jay. “It was clear to me,” she said, “that whoever the child I was carrying turned out to be, it would probably not end up with Marc’s last name.”

  Jay looked at Mimi. “You don’t have his name, either.”

  “I used to,” she said. “But when I was ten, Mom got it legally changed to hers.”