The Uninvited Read online

  But then he saw Mavis in his mind’s eye-saw her face as he tried to explain his plan. He imagined her green eyes shifting away from the jewels he was holding out to her. Think of all the paint, think of all the canvas, he would say, trying not to raise his voice. He imagined her rubbing her hands together nervously, shaking her head. No.

  Who was he kidding? He would have to sell the stuff himself, and there was no way he could do that. Stealing it was going to be way hard enough.

  He glanced at his watch. He had twenty minutes to get to work, and only if he hightailed it. He took off across the lawn, angry now. He had three jobs: the plant, the store, and keeping his mother happy. It was one job too many.

  The night-shift job was contract work. Cramer didn’t get benefits, but the pay was good. Sometimes he’d get laid off without any notice for a week or two, but he’d always get hired back. He was a good worker. Reliable.

  Usually, he worked at PDQ Electronics two afternoons a week, but lately business had been booming. He had been an intern there in high school, and Hank Pretty, who owned the place, kept him on as an apprentice. Cramer was good with his hands and was computer savvy, but there had been no thought of going away to school, even though Hank urged him to go. Who’d look after Mavis?

  She was on her feet again now, and that made things better. Cramer would get home from the plant around five in the morning, and sometimes she’d be up already, hard at work. The other morning she had even stopped and made him breakfast, sat and had coffee with him. Then he’d gone to bed, and the last thing he’d heard as he fell asleep was her humming along with cheery morning music on the radio as she painted away.

  Right now she was painting over old canvases. She wasn’t complaining, not much, but he felt in his heart how hard it must be for her.

  He was not a thief. He was not going to break into just anybody’s house. The Pages were different, the way he saw it. He had not stolen the emerald necklace; he had recovered it to its rightful owner.

  “It was meant to be mine. Just look at it, Cramer, for heaven’s sake.”

  And when he had finally held it in his hands, looked at it, up close, he had known that Mavis was right. The jewel was exactly the color of her eyes.

  He had staked out the Page place for days before entering the house that crisp October afternoon. He had watched from the water, from the deep shade on the south shore of the Eden. Watched the comings and goings of Dr. Lou and her friend, when the cleaning lady came, the postman. That was when he had learned that Jay was back from out west. He followed him upriver and discovered the little house on McAdam’s Snye.

  When he finally brought the necklace home and snapped the clasp of it at the nape of his mother’s neck and saw how happy she was, he ventured to tell her about the house on the snye. She had smiled the saddest smile he had ever seen, and tears had gathered in the corner of her eyes. She didn’t need to tell him why. The little house was where she and Marc Soto used to meet.

  He knew the story. A love story. The story of an artist and his young and talented student-the most talented student he had ever come across. Mavis had turned the artist’s life upside down, made him leave his wife. But she had given him the courage, the inspiration to paint as he had never painted before. That’s what the artist had told her and that’s what she told Cramer. The story never changed, every time she told him. Sometimes he wanted to say to her, I’m a little old for fairy tales, but he didn’t dare.

  The artist and his brilliant student would move to New York, according to the love story. He would go first and find them a place. She would follow. Except there was a glitch: by then she was pregnant. How proud Marc was, she told Cramer. How happy. But she mustn’t tell anyone who the father was, Marc warned her. It might get back to Louise, and there would be big trouble. Legal trouble. It could ruin everything. Oh, she understood. The last thing Mavis wanted was trouble, when she was this close to a dream come true.

  And so she waited.

  At first Marc could only find a tiny one-roomed place; the prices in New York were outrageous. It was a wonder he could find anywhere at all. And this place was definitely not big enough for two people, let alone a new baby. But things were going well. He would get a bigger place.

  And so she waited.

  She didn’t talk-didn’t tell a soul. Grew fat with child. Kept the child’s father her special secret. Not that she was often in Ladybank, anyway. She was living up in Chester’s Corner back then. Didn’t need to go to town hardly at all. Had the baby at the hospital in Smiths Falls. No birth announcement in the Ladybank Expositor, though she was dying to share her joy with the world.

  And she waited.

  And waited. And he stopped calling. And he never came for her. But still she waited, until the day when she didn’t even know where he lived anymore.

  A love story.

  Cramer had Googled Soto a few times, back in high school. It had shocked him to find the man. He had half expected the artist was imaginary. But there he was, a big shot, just as Mavis had claimed. Mostly there were pictures of his paintings, articles from newspapers and magazines. But there were a few photographs of the man himself, too, the best one appearing in a profile on his gallery’s website. He was a smooth man with glossy black hair. His eyes were as blue as Cramer’s own eyes. It was eerie. Cramer didn’t like him, didn’t like his chiseled, smug face, his liar’s smile. He wondered whether he should download any of this stuff to show Mavis. They didn’t have a hookup out at the house. He decided not to. She had spent so long a time forgetting the bastard, it would be cruel. Cramer didn’t check up on Marc Soto after that. By then Waylin Pitney had started coming around, and that was more than enough to deal with.

  Until he saw Mimi heading out to the snye with Jay, it had been four days since Cramer had seen her; it might be four days before he saw her again. But he thought about her all the time, especially when he was working out. Four sets, fifteen reps. Upright rows, lateral raises, flies and pullovers, curls and squats. Chin-ups to bulk up his lats, bench presses for his pecs, bent-over raises for the deltoids. Lunges, hack squats, triceps curls, wrist curls, reverse wrist curls. He piled on the weight, expanded his circuit. But he wasn’t bulking up for Waylin Pitney anymore.

  Cramer woke up. Thursday morning, 11:00 AM. He’d managed five hours sleep after getting back from the plant, but Mr. Pretty expected him at the store by one. Despite the lack of sleep, his mind felt wonderfully clear. He wasn’t angry anymore-didn’t want to be-pushed it aside. For one thing, she was staying. Mimi was obviously moving in. There was a bad side to that-namely, Jay-but at least she was still near. He lay there, his hands folded behind his head. Last night the shift manager had talked about getting him on full-time at the plant. Full-time meant security, and maybe he could parlay that into a loan. He’d talk to Hank Pretty about it. This money-for-Mavis thing would work out fine, without stealing stuff.

  He listened. There was no sound downstairs. His mother must have gone out. That was another encouraging sign. She was getting out more, getting some air, going for walks up the road or down to the creek. One day she walked all the way to the old bridge at the very end of the Upper Valentine, or so she said. Quite a hike. But she looked better for it, stronger. He wouldn’t tell her about getting full-time just yet. He’d surprise her.

  He listened again. Then he dug the silver-framed picture of Mimi out from under his mattress. She and her friend on a beach somewhere, their arms around each other, their sandy cheeks pressed together, smiling at the camera. “Jamila and Mimi, summer ’06” was written in gold across the bottom of the picture. He groaned softly, closed his eyes, and pressed the picture to his heart.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  You can have the bedroom,” said Jay.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. That way if I decide to stay over, I can work at all hours of the night and not bother you.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.” She had thought the same thing herself.

&
nbsp; “And you’ve got your desk in the front room,” he added.

  “Right.” She grinned at him, felt awkward about him making all the decisions. She had never had to negotiate about who had what when and where. She was a spoiled brat and she knew it, but then so was he. This was so strange. She was moving in with a guy, and yet she wasn’t really. Not a guy — guy.

  “I’ll help you with the mattress,” she said. And so they hefted his bedding upstairs and flopped it in a corner. That was when she saw the stones. They were lined up on the windowsill of the gable, but she hadn’t noticed them that first day up here; there had been too much else going on.

  “These rocks are famous,” she said, picking one up and turning it over in her hands.

  “You recognize them?”

  She nodded. “The sketches in the guest room?”

  Jay looked impressed. “You don’t miss much.”

  “Actually, they’re even more famous than your guest room. There are paintings, too,” she said. “Humongous paintings.”

  Jay looked skeptical.

  “Utterly humongous,” she said, proud of her father, despite herself. “Twelve feet square. Seriously!”

  Jay took one of the stones from her and looked it over.

  “The paintings are pretty abstract,” she said. “More color-field stuff than really representational. But you’ll recognize them when you see them.”

  “When I see them?”

  She made a face. “Well, you’re going to visit me, aren’t you?”

  “Hadn’t gotten that far,” he said. “But yeah, of course.”

  “There was a retrospective at the Whitney a couple years back,” she said, putting the stone she was holding back down again. “There was this stupid column in the Herald: ‘Soto Gets His Rocks Off!’”

  “Ugh.”

  Then Jay’s attention had drifted to the windowsill, and he looked concerned all of a sudden.

  “There’s supposed to be nine,” he said.

  Mimi counted. Eight. There were supposed to be nine; she knew that. Then they looked at each other, and she stroked his arm because his face had gotten sad again, bent out of shape over a missing stone.

  “It could have been gone for a while,” she said.

  “Oh, that makes me feel much better.”

  Mimi set up the desk right where her father’s desk must have been. It was in the big room, under the left front window, with a view of the snye, looking as pretty as a picture on a corny calendar. She could tell a desk had been in this spot-that her father had looked out at this same view-because the paint was faded above a certain line on the wall. Even though no one had lived in the place for over twenty years, it was as if there was still a shadow of him, his presence in this house. But that wasn’t all. Scrawled on the wall beside the window, above where his desktop must have been, there were phone numbers, written in ballpoint pen or pencil or Conte or charcoal-some numbers with names or initials, some without. Some retraced and darker than others-the hand busy while the ear listened. There was no phone line any longer.

  It amazed Mimi how energetic her father’s writing was, even in such a mundane endeavor as scribbling down a phone number. But then, any mark making was serious to her father. There were also flurries of his very recognizable doodles. She stared at the wall-almost a piece of art itself. An art supplier in Ottawa, a framer in Richmond, a gallery in Montreal. There was even a 212 area code. She phoned it on her cell to see who it was. Caprice! So he had already made the connection with his present gallery way back then. It was a mini history-a connect-the-dots bio. The writing on the wall!

  Tuesday and raining.

  Eleven days since she arrived; almost a week since they took up residency. Except that only Mimi was in residence right now. Jay had stayed at the snye for the first three nights. Nothing had happened. Nothing bad had happened! Well, a famous rock went missing, but somehow she was sure that must have happened before. Jay had been back and forth since then, and she’d stayed in town at the Pages’ on the weekend. And nothing bad had happened. Whoever had been stalking the place and leaving mementos of his visits had made no appearance, as far as they could tell.

  “Guess I scared him away, huh?”

  “You are pretty scary,” he said.

  They were old friends. Week-old friends.

  But Jay wasn’t here now, and he wouldn’t be back until Thursday. He’d come by that rainy morning in Jo’s Honda to tell her he was driving to Toronto to pick up his girlfriend.

  “Your what?”

  “Iris. Iris Xu. She’s at school in Toronto.”

  “And when were you going to tell me about Iris?” Mimi had said, her arms crossed like some jealous high-school coed.

  A crack appeared in the edge of his smile. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She wasn’t kidding. She couldn’t believe this hadn’t come up. A girlfriend?

  But getting her wits together, she said, “Of course I’m kidding. It’s just the little-sister thing. You know. ‘Uh-oh, what’s he up to now, la-de-da.’ That kind of thing, you know.”

  But of course he didn’t know what kind of thing. Neither of them did. They were only children.

  Only children.

  That’s what they had grown up thinking, anyway.

  She would meet Jay and Iris at Conchita’s in town Thursday evening for drinks. He’d phone when he was back to confirm. So now she was really alone.

  “How far away is Toronto?”

  “Just beyond the edge of the world where everything falls off into the Great Turtle’s mouth.”

  She wished she hadn’t asked.

  Mimi stared at the screen of her computer. She was using Final Draft, screenwriting software that took all the work out of formatting-almost wrote the screenplay for you. Almost. You’re in a scene with two people? The software knows it; as soon as you push the Return key after writing a bit of dialogue, it automatically centers the name of the other person in the scene. You type Z-it knows who you mean.

  ZORBA

  INT. OFFICE AT UNIVERSITY-DAY

  ZORBA

  For Christ’s sake, pick up the phone! Little bitch.

  Her cell phone rang again. “Let me go, let me go, let me go!” She was beginning to hate “Bohemian Rhapsody.” She checked the caller, didn’t recognize the number; she didn’t answer. If it was Lazar calling from some booth, she had to shudder at his uncanny timing.

  EXT. PASTORAL SETTING-DAY

  SASHA steps into the stream, bends down, and lowers her screaming cell phone below the water. She holds it there until it stops.

  She pushed the laptop out of the way and flopped her head onto the desk. She closed her eyes and listened to the rain. There was a drip somewhere inside she didn’t have the energy to deal with. She checked that it wasn’t directly over her bed. Then she went upstairs and checked on Jay’s computer, his instruments. Everything was fine. She sat for a moment and picked up the fat electric guitar. She had learned a song once, from Jamila. She tried to recall the chords. But then the cell phone rang. Again. Shit.

  Jay was right. She should get a new one. She’d been here long enough; there was a place in town, but she kept putting it off. Why? Because she expected Lazar to stop. She expected him to get the message-to give up. To do the right thing. To act his age! That was part of it. Why should she be turning her life upside down because this supposedly mature- way mature-man couldn’t take no for an answer? But it was more than that. She knew at some point she would have to pick up; she would have to have it out with him. But not until she was good and ready. And she wasn’t ready yet. She was frightened of Lazar Cosic, and she didn’t want him to know that, didn’t want her voice to betray her.

  She had brought with her a box of dishes and silverware, for one. And she had planned on buying a microwave or toaster oven if necessary. But the stove worked, and so she had purchased a tiny little beer fridge at the Canadian Tire store in Ladybank. A beer fridge from a tire store. Go figure. She kept soy milk
and veggies in her little blue beer fridge. And wine.

  She had settled in.

  The first few days had been fun, a chance to get to know each other. A brother. She had a brother. The idea still seemed impossible. She had yet to phone her father to confront him with the news, which, apparently, wasn’t news to him. She was still too angry, and yet she wasn’t really sure why. And what was the point of being angry with him, anyway? Anger slid off his hide like water off a duck.

  INT. SOHO STUDIO-NIGHT

  HENRI

  So, you’ve met him. Hell, I’d forgotten all about the boy. What do you think?

  HENRI sips from a glass of wine. Dabs a Venetian blue smear across his canvas.

  SASHA

  Has it ever occurred to you that you are a first-class schmuck?

  HENRI

  So I’m told. But seriously, what’s he like?

  SASHA pours herself a large refill of the wine, then hurls the contents all over the canvas.

  She hadn’t told her mother about Jay, either. Not yet. She had fished to see if Grier knew anything about other siblings. She didn’t seem to. So the only person back home who knew was Jamila. And when Jamila had gotten over the shock, she had said, “Oh, my God, welcome to the club!” Because Jamila had four brothers, and she had promised to get Mimi up to speed on the whole thing. They had chatted furiously back and forth by e-mail while Mimi was still staying at the Pages’, but there was no Internet connection out here. And, for that matter, the connection at the Pages’ had been dial-up, so not exactly a furious rate. They were too far out of town for the local tower to get high-speed, although there were rumors of a new tower going up soon. So Mimi had felt very far from home. She was welcome to use the dial-up at the Page house anytime-welcome to stay there whenever she wanted. Lou had given her a key. There was also a great little Internet cafe in town right on the park. But Mimi was trying very hard to do what she had set out to do, which was to be on her own, sorting things out, digging deep. Trying, in one way or another, to figure out who the sap was who had gotten herself in so deep with an almost forty-year-old professor who just might be mentally unstable.