Picture Perfect Page 7

  She curled herself out of the bed, careful not to wake him. Smiling, she hugged her arms around herself, thinking that she was quite rightfully the envy of every woman in America. If she had had any doubts about the validity of her marriage to Alex, they were gone now. Two people could not make love like that without a history. Cassie laughed. If her heart stopped beating that very second, she could say she'd lived a fine life.

  It is a good day to die. The words stopped her, and a shiver ran down her body before she realized they had not been spoken out loud. Recovering, she padded into the bathroom and stared into the mirror, touching her fingers to her swollen lower lip.

  A lecture. It had been the opening line to a lecture she'd heard by a colleague at UCLA. Cassie let her hands drop to the marble sink basin, sighing with relief as she realized she was not facing an omen, but a genuine memory. It was a course on Native American culture, and that phrase was part of the ritual prayer spoken by tribal warriors of the plains before riding off to do battle. Cassie remembered telling the professor he sure knew how to draw a crowd.

  She wondered what Will was doing now. It was Thursday morning; he'd probably be on his way to work. He had left her his phone numbers. Maybe later she'd call him at the station, tell him she lived in a castle in Malibu, mention she was flying to Scotland.

  Cassie brushed her teeth and dragged a comb through her hair, careful to place each item back on the counter quietly so that Alex wouldn't stir. She tiptoed back into the bedroom and sat on a chair in the corner.

  Alex was snoring lightly. She watched his chest rise and fall a few times, then stood up and walked to the closet across the room that held all of his clothes. She pulled open the door and drew in her breath.

  Alex's closet was twenty times neater than her own. On the floor, on little shoe trees, were lines of sneakers and Italian loafers and black patent leather formal dress shoes. A hanging closet organizer proudly displayed folded sweaters, Shetland and Norwegian on one side and cotton on the other. His shirts stood stiffly on cedar hangers. A lingerie chest tucked into the corner of the walk-in closet was lined with neatly folded silk boxers and socks--arranged in separate drawers by their uses.

  "My God," Cassie whispered. She ran a fingertip over the line of shirts, listening to the music of the hangers batting each other. Neatness was to be expected, especially if one had a good housekeeper. Something, though, something else made this closet cross the line between fastidious and obsessive.

  The sweaters. Not only were they segregated by material and folded neatly, they were arranged in color order. Like a rainbow. Even the patterned sweaters seemed to have been placed by predominant color.

  She should have laughed. After all, this was odd to the point of being funny. This was something to joke about.

  But instead Cassie felt tears squeeze from the corners of her eyes. She knelt before the rows of shoes, crying in near silence, pulling a sweater from its appropriate spot and holding it to her mouth to muffle the sounds she made. She bent over, her stomach knotting, and she told herself she was losing her mind.

  It was the stress of the last few days, she thought as she wiped her cheeks. Cassie walked back to the bathroom and closed the door. She ran the water until it was so cold it numbed her wrists, and then she splashed some onto her face, hoping to start over.

  FOR DAYS, THEY HAD BEEN TALKING ABOUT THE BLIZZARD. IT WAS going to hit sometime after three on Friday. It was going to be the storm of the century. Fill your bathtubs with water, the weatherman said. Buy batteries and firewood. Find your flashlights.

  The only thing that could have been better, Cassie decided, would be if the blizzard hit on Sunday, so school would be canceled the next day.

  Cassie walked into the kitchen. She had been at Connor's all afternoon but had promised her mother she'd return before the first flakes fell. Cassie's mother was terrified of snow. She had grown up in Georgia and had never seen snow until she moved to Maine when she got married. Rather than being efficient about a winter storm--like Connor's mother, who had taken out candles and bought extra gallons of milk to store in the drifts--Aurora Barrett sat at the kitchen table with wide eyes, listening to the weather reports on her transistor radio and waiting to be buried alive.

  The one thing Aurora did like about nor'easters was that they provided a chance to accuse her husband of everything that had gone wrong in her life. Cassie had grown up understanding that her mother hated Maine, that she hadn't wanted to move there, that she didn't want to be a baker's wife. She still dreamed of a house with lawns that rolled down to the river, of a latticed bench veiled by cherry trees, of the melting southern sun. While Cassie watched, tucked in the shadows, her mother would rail at Ben and ask just how temporary ten long years in the same godforsaken place could be.

  Most of the time her father would just stand there, letting Aurora's anger blow over him. Technically, itwas his fault: he'd promised Aurora that as soon as it paid to sell the bakery with a tidy profit, they'd move back to her neck of the woods. But the bakery lost money every year, and the truth was, deep down, her father had no intention of leaving New England. Ben had given only one piece of advice to Cassie as she was growing up.Before you decide what you want to be , he said,know where you want to be .

  It did not snow that night until Cassie went to sleep, and when she woke in the morning the world had changed. Outside, a white lawn rolled right up to her bedroom window, and hills and drifts had smoothed the landscape so completely she almost lost her sense of direction. She grabbed an apple and stuffed it in her pocket; then she sat at the kitchen table to pull her boots on.

  She heard the argument clearly, although it came from her parents' room upstairs. "Sell the bakery," her mother threatened. "Or I can't tell you what I'll be driven to do."

  Cassie's father snorted. "What could you possibly be driven to that you don't do already?" Cassie jumped as a blast of wind whitened the window before her. "Why don't you just go home?"

  Go home. Cassie's eyes widened. For a long while there was silence, save the shrieks and moans of the storm. Then she heard her mother's exit line. "I'm not feeling well now. Not well at all." And after that came the unmistakable ting of the bourbon decanter Aurora kept on her vanity being opened. The more she drank, the less Cassie's father could tolerate her. It was a vicious cycle.

  "Jesus Christ," Cassie's father said tightly, and then he thundered down the stairs. He was dressed as she was, ready to brave the blizzard. He glanced at Cassie and touched her cheek, almost an apology. "Take care of her, will you, Cass?" he said, but before she could answer, he left.

  Cassie finished lacing up her boots and cooked an egg, soft-boiled, just the way her mother liked. She carried it up on a plate with a piece of toast, figuring if her mother had something else in her stomach, it might not be so bad today.

  When Cassie cracked the door open, Aurora was lying across the bed, her arm flung over her eyes. "Oh, Cassie," she whispered. "Honey, please. Thelight ."

  Cassie obediently stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. She smelled the cloying sweetness of the bourbon hovering at the edges of the room, mingling with traces of her father's rage.

  Aurora took one look at the breakfast tray Cassie had set down and started to cry. "Did he tell you where he went? He's out there, in this, thisblizzard --" She jerked her arm toward the window to prove her point. Then she rested her forehead against her hand, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I don't know why this happens. I just don't know why."

  Cassie took one look at her mother's eyes, red-rimmed and raw, and she planted her hands on her hips. "Get up."

  Aurora turned toward her daughter and blinked. "Pardon me?"

  "I said get up." She was only ten, but she had grown old long ago. Cassie pulled her mother off the bed and started handing her clothes: a turtleneck, a sweater, bulky socks. After a moment of disbelief, Aurora began to follow her, silently accepting what she offered.

  When Cassie opened the front door, Aurora took a step back. The chill of winter followed her inside. "Go," Cassie commanded. She jumped into the snow, grinning for a moment as the drifts hollowed up to her thighs. She turned to her mother. "I mean it."

  It took fifteen minutes to get Aurora more than five feet away from the front porch. She was shivering and her lips were nearly violet, unaccustomed as she was to being outside in a storm. The wind ripped Cassie's hat off and sent it dancing over the snow. She saw her mother bend down, like a child, and touch the drifts.

  Cassie scooped a mittenful of snow and rounded it into a neat ball. "Mom," she yelled, a minute's warning, and then she threw it as hard as she could.

  It hit Aurora in the shoulder. She stood perfectly still, blinking, unsure what she'd done to deserve that.

  Cassie leaned down and made a pile of snowballs. She tossed one after another at her mother, leaving her mark on Aurora's shoulder and breast and thigh.

  Cassie had never seen anything like it. It was as if her mother had no idea what was expected of her. As if she had no idea what to do. Cassie clenched her hands at her sides. "Fight back!" she yelled, her words freezing in the cold. "Goddammit! Fight back!"

  She leaned down again, more slowly this time, waiting for her mother to copy her movements. Aurora was sluggish with alcohol, and she stumbled as she straightened, but in her palm she held a snowball. Cassie watched as her mother wound her arm back and sent the snow flying.

  It hit her square in the face. Cassie sputtered and wiped the ice from her eyelashes. Her mother was already building a small arsenal. In the blinding white, Aurora's eyes didn't look nearly as red; in the frigid cold, her body was starting to move with a little more rhythm.

  Cassie strained her ears to catch a sound over the howl of the wind. It was clear and fine, her mo
ther's laugh, and it got louder and lighter as it broke free from where it had been locked. Smiling, Cassie whirled in the snow, arms outstretched, and offered herself up to the soft, sweet blows.

  WHENEVER WILL WOKE UP WITH THE BLANKETS KNOTTED AT HIS hips and his chest soaked with sweat, he knew he'd been having the thunder dream. But he did not dwell on the details; in fact, over the years, even though the number of dreams increased, he found it easier and easier to dismiss them. He'd get up and shower, sloughing off with the sweat the memories that bound him to the Sioux.

  Having been scheduled for the evening shift on Thursday, Will slept in and dreamed of the thunder until the phone jolted him awake. "This is Frances Bean at the library," a voice said. "We have the materials you requested."

  "I didn't request any materials," Will started to mumble, stretching to place the receiver back in its cradle.

  "...anthropology."

  The word was all he heard, faint and fading, and he pulled the phone back to his ear.

  The library was small and dark and quiet as a tomb on a Thursday morning. After identifying himself at the front desk, Will was handed a sheaf of papers secured with a rubber band. "Thanks," Will said to the librarian, moving to a spot where he could read Cassie's articles.

  Two were from technical journals. The third was fromNational Geographic , and it was composed of dozens of photographs of the illustrious Dr. Cassandra Barrett at the Tanzania site that had yielded the hand. Will quickly read the anthropological significance of the hand and its stone tool, but found nothing Cassie hadn't mentioned. He skimmed ahead to the paragraphs that mentioned Cassie herself.

  "Dr. Barrett, young enough to look more like one of the UCLA students she often brings on excavations than the head scientist, admits she's more comfortable on a muddy site than on the lecture circuit." Will mouthed the words silently, staring at a photograph on the facing page of Cassie bent over the ground, dusting off half of a long, yellow bone. Will skipped to the final line of the copy: "In a field dominated by men, Dr. Barrett seems to emerge as a leader,hands down."

  "Patronizing bastard," he murmured. He scanned the page, looking for another picture of Cassie. Seeing none, he flipped back to the beginning of the article. On page 36 of the magazine was a photo of the hand itself; and spread beneath it for comparison was Cassie's hand. Another picture of her took up the rest of the page. She was caught in shadow, with the sun behind her the way all thoseNational Geographic photographers liked, and her chin was tilted up just the slightest bit. Will touched his thumb to her throat. The photo was too dark to show her eyes. He would have given anything to see her eyes.

  He wondered how a woman perfectly at home in the African grasslands could also be happy being hounded by paparazzi at premieres. He wondered how you could go from writing a piece for a scholarly journal to scanning theEnquirer for stories that defamed your husband's character. He wondered how the hell Alex Rivers had met Cassandra Barrett; what they did on Sunday mornings; what they talked about at night, wrapped around each other, when no one else was there to listen.

  Will left the articles on the table, everything but that one page with the picture of Cassie in silhouette. He folded the picture when the librarian's head was bowed to her computer screen, and then tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. He thought about walking home with it there, knowing it would get soft and faded at the edges until he could barely see Cassie's face at all.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CASSIE opened the front door of the apartment, and there stood the most beautiful woman in the world. At first, she could do nothing but stare at the woman's long, shining hair; her spring-green eyes. She wore a silk shirt the color of the inside of a casaba melon, a cashmere beret, a tremendous scarf wrapped twice around to serve as a skirt. "Can you believe this, Cass?" she said in a thin, reedy voice that didn't match anything else about her. She pushed past Cassie, holding her right arm with her left, as if it were something she'd rather be rid of.

  The woman's arm was encased from wrist to elbow in a black plaster cast. "Tell me," the woman whined. "What am I supposed to do about Clorox?"

  "Clorox?" Cassie murmured, stumbling up the stairs behind her and watching this stranger pour a glass of orange juice from her own refrigerator.

  The woman smirked. "What's the matter? Alex have you up half the night talking about himself again?"

  Cassie's hands clenched defensively at her sides. She did not know who this woman was, but Alex had been incredibly considerate. Yesterday while Cassie slept on the beach, he'd had John, his driver, bring over every photo album and slide carousel that could be found at the house. When she'd awakened, Alex had sat beside her in the dark, quiet library in the apartment. He had connected names with unfamiliar faces, sketched a past for Cassie in simple lines. He had added long descriptions of the minutes that had mattered, and Cassie had leaned against the easy comfort of Alex's shoulder, closed her eyes, and watched her life explode with shape and color.

  The woman drained her glass of orange juice, sat down on a tall maple stool, and wrapped her legs around it. Cassie narrowed her eyes, trying to recall a picture Alex had showed her yesterday from an album she'd put together in college. "Didn't you used to be blond?" she said.

  The woman wrinkled her nose. "Like a zillion years ago. Jesus," she said. "Whathas gotten into you?"

  Alex crept up so quietly behind Cassie that the only indication she had of his approach was the darkening of the woman's eyes. He was wearing only a towel knotted around his waist. "Ophelia," he said coolly, tossing an arm around Cassie. "Nothing quite like seeing you first thing in the morning."

  "Yeah," Ophelia snorted. "The pleasure is mine."

  Fascinated, Cassie watched them, glancing at Ophelia again. No wonder she hadn't felt threatened. The most beautiful woman Cassie had ever seen had shown up on her doorstep, but she paid as much attention to Alex as she did to her orange juice, and Alex only wanted to leave.

  Alex pointed to her black cast. "Tendinitis? Overexertion? Some other occupational hazard?"

  "Fuck you," Ophelia said lightly. "I slipped on a sidewalk."

  Alex shrugged. "Could have been worse."

  "Worse? I'm supposed to be shooting a commercial next week, anational commercial for Clorox, my right arm pouring bleach into a damn measuring cup--"

  "You're an actress too?"

  Cassie's quiet question stopped Ophelia's tirade. She flicked her eyes toward Alex. "What the hell did you do to her?"

  Alex smiled at Cassie, reassuring her. "You ever read the papers, Opie, or is that past your level of education?"

  "Reading gives you crow's feet. I watch the news on TV."

  Alex leaned against the marble island in the center of the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest. "Cassie got into some kind of accident last Sunday and hit her head. She was found by a cop in a graveyard, and she didn't remember her name. She's still just getting her memory back, in bits and pieces."

  Ophelia's eyes widened until Cassie could see a ring of white around the green. Then she turned to Alex. "How convenient for you," she said. "No doubt you've painted yourself as a saint."

  Alex ignored Ophelia's comment, leaned over, and kissed Cassie's forehead. "Her name's Ophelia Fox, and it's not her real one--but then there isn't too much of her that's real anymore. She's a hand model; she was your best friend in college and your roommate when we first met, and as far as I can tell, she's the only character flaw I've ever found in you." He tightened the towel around his waist and headed toward the stairs. "And Ophelia," he said, grinning, "if you're real nice to me, I'll autograph your cast."

  Cassie wondered how an anthropology major would have ever met anyone like Ophelia Fox, but before she could even put the question into words, Ophelia came toward her. She ran her long, tapered fingers over the fading cut at Cassie's temple. "Thank God," she said. "I don't think you'll scar."

  Cassie burst out laughing. That had been the least of her worries. She stepped back from Ophelia, scrutinizing her face, this time for recognition. "You're beautiful," she said honestly.

  Ophelia waved her hand in the air, dismissing the compliment. "My eyes are too close together and my nose twists a half-centimeter to the right." She held out her good hand, pale, nearly hairless, capped by five sculptured nails with white moon tips. "Nowthese are beautiful. Each time, they use a little bit more of me. The last ad got up to my shoulder, so I figure it's only a matter of time."