Hot Dish (35 page)

So much for trading mother-daughter confidences.

“Why are you doing this, Jenn?” Nina said unexpectedly. “This AMS show. I don’t understand. And before you say anything, I’m not asking because of Dwight Davies’s reputation. I’m asking because it’s not making you happy.”

Happy. Now there was an interesting choice of words.

“I’m happy enough,” Jenn said, curling her lips up at the corner to prove it. “And I am going to be enormously successful when this thing finds its audience. You should see the fabulous amounts of money they’re throwing at this show, Mom. And the production values are fantastic … and …” She blinked rapidly. Fabulous, fantastic, enormous. All the superlatives in the world wouldn’t make this palatable.

She opened her eyes wide, willing the tears not to come. She tried to fake a laugh.

“Mom. They’re calling it
Checklist for Living. Checklist for LIVING
.”

And she fell apart. Again.

She melted like the Wicked Witch of the West, right down onto her knees, burying her face in her mother’s terry cloth–covered lap and wrapping her arms around her, crying like her mother could make it all better with a kiss.

“I hate this town, Mom.”

“Jenny …” Her mother’s hand, gently petting her head, checked.

“I do!” Jenny insisted. “Everything was going fine until I came here and now it’s all falling apart. This town is like some evil place from a Stephen King novel sucking my life away.”

“Jenny. Your employers would have changed the name of your show whether or not they’d come to Fawn Creek,” her mother said calmly.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. You don’t know, Mom. You don’t know what this town is capable of doing.” Her parents never had understood what it had meant when the student council had given her name to the Buttercup judges.

“I know they can be small-minded and oversensitive but I don’t think of the people of Fawn Creek as being Destroyers of Worlds.”

Jenn pushed herself upright, raking the damp tendrils of hair back from her face. “Mom, remember the year we moved here? The whole thing with the Fawn Creek student council and the Buttercup judges?”

“Jenny—”

“I know,” Jenn broke in, embarrassed. “It’s all in the past. I let it go. I really did. I thought I did. But then I arrived and Steve was here and he is so damned charmed by this place! He only sees the quaint and the quirky. It’s infectious, even though I know better, Mom! Before I realized it, I started seeing things through his eyes and”—she lifted her hands—”damned if things didn’t look not too bad. And Steve had me thinking that maybe over the years people had begun to … I dunno … feel I was part of the place. It’s stupid. I feel so stupid.”

“Why?” Nina asked.

“Because they’re doing it again, Mom. They’re fucking around with my future. I’m sorry!” she wailed. “I shouldn’t have said fuck! But fuck, Mom! Someone’s threatened to show the media that stupid picture of me and Heidi from the high school homecoming dance.”

“Oh, Jenny. No one here would do that.”

“They
have
! And I can’t let that happen. I’ve worked too hard for this.” She couldn’t believe her mother was defending the town. It
surprised and confused her. Her mom felt the same way she did about Fawn Creek, didn’t she?

“For what?” her mother asked, sounding every bit as frustrated as Jenn felt. “Jenny, if your new employers are the sort of people who would fire you because of a picture … is it worth it?”

“Are you kidding?” Jenn asked, dumbfounded.

“No, I’m not. Why is it worth it?”

“To succeed? For security. Since when do you have something against security? I don’t understand you and Dad. I go out and ‘do’ what you and Dad have spent twenty years ‘planning’ and then you act disappointed in me!”

“We’re not disappointed,” Nina murmured. Her eyes slid away from meeting Jenn’s. “Jenn,” she finally said. “I was forty-five, only five years older than you are now, when this business opportunity arose for Cash and I. It was an immense gamble. The initial investment would cost us literally all of our assets, but if it worked, we would not only be set for the rest of our lives but you, and your children, and possibly your children’s children, would never want for any material thing. We thought we’d have a lock on the future for us
and
our descendants. So we took that gamble and we lost.”

Such a short sentence with such long consequences.

“The next year was a nightmare, trying to figure out how to keep up appearances, declaring bankruptcy, trying to keep it from you, finding a buyer for the company …. Then some friends invited us on their annual trip to Las Vegas. We’d often gone with them before but this time we couldn’t afford the trip. Of course, we didn’t want them to know we couldn’t afford high-stakes gambling anymore. We had an image to keep up, in spite of the fact that we only had a few hundred thousand dollars to our names. So we went. And once we got there, we started talking about … everything. We decided to play the long shot, to risk it all, and either win back our former lifestyle or change it.”

She shook her head, smiling but without any bitterness. “You know what happened next.”

“You lost.”

“And moved here.” Nina nodded. “I know you hated it. But for us, moving from Raleigh was a relief, Jenn. I can’t tell you how good it felt to stop worrying. About keeping up appearances. About how we were going to pay the bills. About what our friends would think. Moving here was like holding your breath for two years and finally being able to breathe.”

Her mother stopped talking. It took Jenn a second to realize the implication.

“
You like it here
?”

Her mother lifted a shoulder, an apologetic movement. “Not at first. At first we were in shock and the adjustment took time but, gradually, we realized how much your father and I liked being together and not just at parties or to pass information to one another about the new landscaping or which season tickets to buy.

“I don’t think we realized how much we’d grown to enjoy our lives here for a long time. But then, each trip we took to the city just seemed more and more unnecessary, more an inconvenience than a pleasure, and then we realized we’ve been happy here. And it was all because of something going wrong in our game plan.”

“Why didn’t you say something? Tell me?” Jenn asked, surprised but then not as surprised as she ought to have been. Perhaps she’d deduced as much on some level.

Her mother—her composed, regal mother—flushed, which was something of a trick in a sauna and indicative of the strength of her feelings. “We should have. But how do you say, ‘All the terrible things we said about this town and this house? We were wrong.’ We’d too much pride. And I think on some level we’ve always felt a little guilty for liking this town—especially knowing how poorly you were treated in high school. But that was high school, Jenny. And sometimes things that seem awful have a way of turning around.”

“And you think that’ll be my story, too?” Jenn asked in disbelief. “That after working my ass off for years I will just quit and my life will magically become fuller, richer, and more rewarding?”

“Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

“Yes,” Jenn snapped back. “But with guarantees that no one will ever take them from me. And that’s what I’m trying to get through AMS, Mom. Some guarantees. I want the sort of security we had before you and Dad blew it.”

As soon as the words escaped, Jenn regretted them, but Nina, far from being offended, only shook her head sadly and laid her thin hand on Jenn’s forearm. “Baby,” she said softly, “haven’t you been listening? We lost what we had by chasing after the same sort of goal you’ve set for yourself. There is no security. Not the kind you’re talking about. There are no guarantees. They’re illusions.”

No, Jenn thought, her obstinacy tinged with panic, security was real. You just had to work for it. Be willing to pay the price. It was her mother who didn’t get it. “I just don’t want to end up …” Jenn trailed off, her eyes falling to the cedar branch in her lap, unable to bring herself to finish the condemning sentence.

So Nina said it for her. “To end up like your dad and I?” She sighed and her hand fell from Jenn’s arm. “You know, Jenny, my darling girl, I am getting heartily sick of being a disappointment to you.”

Startled, Jenn looked up. Her mother had that no-nonsense expression she’d worn so often when Jenn was a kid.

“It’s our fault, I suspect. Because when we came here we really did intend to leave just as soon as we could find a way clear. We beat that drum for months and you”—she gave a short, derisive laugh—“well, you made it clear from the start that anyone worth his salt would not be content to languish in a backwater, nowhere place like Fawn Creek.”

She had never heard her mom sound so coldly angry. “Mom?”

“No, let me finish.” Her mother raised her hand to silence Jenn. “This has been too long unsaid. We didn’t choose Fawn Creek, Jenny. We wouldn’t have chosen it. But it’s been good for us here. We don’t feel like failures, Jenny, except”—Nina took a deep breath, then caught and held Jenn’s gaze—“except when you tell us we are.”

Jenn stared at her mother’s face. Her jaw was set, her lips compressed, the angle of her head autocratic and vulnerable at the same time. She couldn’t even refute the accusation. “I …”

“Listen, Jenny. Steve wants to buy the Lodge. He’s offered two million dollars for the buildings and the land but he says he’ll go up to three if necessary.”

“What?” Jenn’s breath left her chest in a whoosh. Her brain went into lockdown.
The Lodge gone? No
. That wasn’t possible. Steve couldn’t buy the Lodge. Steve didn’t belong up here any more than she did. Less. A
lot
less. “Why would he want to do that?”

“He thinks it will be good for him. Good for his art, I mean. He says that you think so, too.”

“I never said that!” The day, which had started so serenely, had gone to dreadful and was slipping into surreal. For the last eight hours, she’d seemed to exist in a perpetual state of unhappy surprise, barking the word “What?” every fifteen minutes.

“He thinks you did,” Nina said. “He has a very high opinion of your opinion of his work.”

“That’s absurd.”

Steve had actually been listening to her drunken rambling? Of course, he had. And now he planned to buy the Lodge, move all his equipment here, dive into his work, and enjoy a spiritual and creative renaissance. And he would, too. She had no doubt about it. It was just … such a Steve Jaax sort of thing to do.

How could he do this to her? And her parents? Because now … now it was all suddenly, hideously making sense to her. Her parents’ stalwart refusal to accept her help hadn’t been pride. They hadn’t wanted to leave. They
still
didn’t want to leave. But how could anyone in his right mind refuse an offer of that magnitude? Sure they could find another place but it wouldn’t be here. It …

Jenn stood up, the cedar bough falling unnoticed to her feet. She was distracted and bemused and felt betrayed by Steve and unable to understand why. It was a generous offer. More than generous.

But then Steve would be here and she wouldn’t. Not that it mattered. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t care if the place burned to the ground. Did she? Her thoughts spun wildly.

“When is he going to take possession?” Her voice was barely audible.

“He’s not,” Nina said, both defiant and exasperated.

Jenn’s head snapped around and she looked down at her frail, elegant mother, chin high as she stared her daughter down.

“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said, Jenny? This is our
home
. We’re not selling it now or ever.”

9:00 p.m.

The Lodge

Steve lay spread flat on his back, balancing a glass of Barolo on his chest. Prince, né Bruno, was wedged between Steve and the couch, also on his back, his legs dangling limp in the air. Next to him, Nina sat at the end of the couch neatly snipping coupons out of
The Weekly Shopper
while beside her Cash read the newspaper and muttered about the latest candidate for the Green Party.

Across the room, Jenn shut the photo album she’d been looking at for the last half an hour. She hadn’t asked Steve to join her, and something in her body language—the way she angled her back against him, a certain tension in the bow of her neck—informed him that it would not be a good idea to ask to be included. He really wanted to ask to see her pictures. He wanted to know what she considered important, or worth remembering. He wanted, in short, to be included in her life. Her past. Everything.

He suspected that in part had been the reason he’d been so enamored of the idea of buying the Lodge. Because even though Jenn discounted its importance, he knew better. He knew it was important to her, and he knew if he held it, he might have the means to keep her coming back. Not only to the Lodge. But to him.

In a way, the Lodge was Jenn’s butter head. On the surface there was not much value, but important keys were buried within. He wondered if she knew. Or if Nina had told her that Cash had, instead of selling him the whole thing, agreed to sell him the barn and the quarter acre it sat on. He wondered if it pissed her off because she realized what he was doing or at least somehow intuited that part of it.

He sighed and lifted his head off the floor and poured a little more wine into his mouth and looked around at the others in the great room.

The phone rang in the kitchen.

“Get that, will you, Jenn?” Cash asked without looking up.

Without a word, Jenn got up and headed for the kitchen. Steve rolled over, pushed himself to his feet, and trotted after her, Nina’s interested gaze following him.

He got to the kitchen door just in time to hear Jenn saying, “Whatever you’re smoking, stop! I thought I warned you guys that I—”

She stopped abruptly, her expression revealing her disdain for whoever was on the other end. She glanced at Steve and said into the phone, “I don’t want you to be in contact. I want you to leave me alone. And if you—” She stopped, held the receiver away from her ear, and stared at it crossly. “He hung up on me!”