And the corollary: Have you guysreally broken up?
Yes, we have. (Though Dance wondered if Brian felt differently. After all, he’d called several times since the breakup.) The therapist had said his behavior was normal, and Dance could work it out if she remained patient and determined. Most important, though, she couldn’t let her son control her. But in the end she decided she wasn’t patient or determined enough. And so, two weeks ago, she’d broken it off. She’d been tactful, explaining that it was just a little too soon after her husband’s death; she wasn’t ready. Brian had been upset but had taken the news well. No parting shots. And they’d left the matter open.
Let’s just give it some time….
In truth the breakup was a relief; parents have to pick their battles, and, she’d decided, skirmishing over romance wasn’t worth the effort just now. Still, she was pleased about his calls and had found herself missing him.
Carting wine outside onto the Deck, she found her father with Maggie. He was holding a book and pointing to a picture of a deep-sea fish that glowed.
“Hey, Mags, that looks tasty,” Dance said.
“Mom, gross.”
“Happy birthday, Dad.” She hugged him.
“Thank you, dear.”
Dance arranged platters, dumped beer into the cooler, then walked into the kitchen and pulled out her mobile. She checked in with TJ and Carraneo. They’d had no luck with the physical search for Pell, nor come across any leads to the missing Ford Focus, anyone with the names or screen names Nimue or Alison, or hotels, motels or boardinghouses where Pell and his accomplice might be staying.
She was tempted to call Winston Kellogg, thinking he might be shying, but she decided not to. He had all the vital statistics; he’d either show or not.
Dance helped her mother with more food and, returning to the Deck, greeted the neighbors, Tom and Sarah Barber, who brought with them wine, a birthday present and their gangly mixed-breed dog, Fawlty.
“Mom, please!” Maggie called, her meaning clear.
“Okay, okay, let ’em out of doggy jail.”
Maggie freed Patsy and Dylan from the bedroom and the three canines galloped into the backyard, knocking one another down and checking out new scents.
A few minutes later another couple appeared on the Deck. Fortyish Steven Cahill could’ve been a Birkenstock model, complete with corduroy slacks and salt-and-pepper ponytail. His wife, Martine Christensen, belied her surname; she was sultry, dark and voluptuous. You’d have thought the blood in her veins was Spanish or Mexican but her ancestors predated all the Californian settlers. She was part Ohlone Indian—a loose affiliation of tribelets, hunting and gathering from Big Sur to San Francisco Bay.
For hundreds, possibly thousands, of years, the Ohlone were the sole inhabitants of this region of the state.
Some years ago Dance had met Martine at a concert at a community college in Monterey, a descendant of the famed Monterey Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan had made his West Coast debut in 1965, and that a few years later morphed into the even more famous Monterey Pop Festival, which brought Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world’s attention.
The concert where Dance and Martine had met was less culture-breaking than its predecessors, but more significant on a personal level. The women had hit it off instantly and had stayed out long after the last act finished, talking music. They’d soon become best friends. It was Martine who’d practically broken down Dance’s door on several occasions following Bill’s death. She’d waged a persistent campaign to keep her friend from sinking into the seductive world of reclusive widowhood. While some people avoided her, and others (her mother, for instance) plied her with exhausting sympathy, Martine embarked on a campaign that could be called ignoring sorrow. She cajoled, joked, argued and plotted.
Despite Dance’s reticence, she realized that, damn it, the tactic had worked. Martine was perhaps the biggest influence in getting her life back on track.
Steve’s and Martine’s children, twin boys a year younger than Maggie, followed them up the stairs, one toting his mother’s guitar case, the other a present for Stuart. After greetings, Maggie herded the boys into the backyard.
The adults gravitated to a rickety candlelit table.
Dance saw that Wes was happier than he’d been in a long time. He was a natural social director and was now organizing a game for the children.
She thought again about Brian, then let it go.
“The escape. Are you…?” Martine’s melodious voice faded once she saw that Dance knew what she was talking about.
“Yep. I’m running it.”
“So the bugs hit you first,” her friend observed.
“Right in the teeth. If I have to run off before the cake and candles, that’s why.”
“It’s funny,” said Tom Barber, a local journalist and freelance writer. “We spend all our time lately thinking about terrorists. They’re the new ‘in’ villains. And suddenly somebody like Pell sneaks up behind you. You tend to forget that it’s people like him who might be the worst threat to most of us.”
Barber’s wife added, “People’re staying home. All over the Peninsula. They’re afraid.”
“Only reason I’m here,” Steven Cahill said, “is because I knew there’d be folks packing heat.”
Dance laughed.
Michael and Anne O’Neil arrived with their two children, Amanda and Tyler, nine and ten. Once again Maggie clambered up the stairs. She escorted the new youngsters to the backyard, after stocking up on sodas and chips.
Dance pointed out wine and beer, then headed into the kitchen to help. But her mother said, “You’ve got another guest.” She indicated the front door, where Dance found Winston Kellogg.
“I’m empty-handed,” he confessed.
“I’ve got more than we’ll ever eat. You can take a doggy bag home, if you want. By the way, you allergic?”