Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (25 page)

     She had committed adultery, too, something Sissy had never in all her life thought she would ever do. Or, if she ever should commit such a sin, she had always imagined it would make her feel wretched beyond salvation. She felt no such thing. She wasn't in love with the two men she had had sex
with. Was that what made the difference? Don't give your heart away and it isn't betrayal.

     Was Ed in love with his Linda?

     Sissy realized that that was the crux of her pain. If it was just sex...

     Her thoughts amazed her. If she had learned of Ed's cheating before coming to The Grove, she never would have said, "If it was just sex." There were no fine lines. Sleeping with another person was wrong. Period. But now that she had done it herself, she saw the fine distinctions. Sex with a stranger was one thing, falling in love, another.

     Ed had called the night before, while she was out—being carried by a United States Marine because she had twisted her ankle. She hadn't seen the message light until she woke this morning. "Sorry I missed you," Ed said. "You must be having a good time. Everything's fine here, don't worry about us."

     Everything's fine here.

     How stupid did he think she was? Hadn't he checked in at home? Didn't his mother tell him Sissy had called?

     Pain and anger were starting to give way to indignation and annoyance. He could at least give her credit for catching him. Well, it was a beautiful morning and she still had four more days at this fabulous resort before she had to return to Rockford and figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

     As she stepped from her cottage into the sunshine, she ran into the couple next door. Sissy was instantly embarrassed, recalling her fantasy with them. Could they read her thoughts? The blonde was tall in spiked, strappy heels, a mini skirt that barely concealed the tops of her stockings and garter belt, her mammoth bra-less breasts visible through her gauze blouse. Sissy thought that if she dressed like that on the streets of Rockford, Illinois she'd be arrested.

     And then Sissy realized the man with her wasn't the man who had grinned at Sissy from the garden Monday morning and yesterday in jodhpurs. But the way they held onto each other told her they weren't strangers either. The woman sent Sissy a wink and a flirty wave—as if she could read Sissy's thoughts—and they disappeared, giggling, into the bungalow next door.

     Sissy stared after them. She had thought they were honeymooners, but now, remembering the "escorts and companions" that the resort offered, she
wondered if her next door neighbor was in fact a secretary from Detroit or a nurse from St. Louis, spending her year's savings on a fantasy fling with several bed partners at The Grove. In another age, Sissy would have been shocked. But a lot had happened in the past two days.

     She thought of Alistair on the Japanese bridge. So polished and perfect, his sexual technique impeccable. In fact, looking back, he was
too
perfect. He had been incredibly deft and discreet with the condom. Did he work at The Grove? Was the Japanese garden his beat, where he waited for lonely frustrated females to find him? And the Marine lieutenant, so perfectly masculine and masterful, yet getting permission every step of the way. Also slipping into a condom before she was aware of it. Fantasy partners?

     Strangely, it didn't bother Sissy that they might be. After all, she
had
enjoyed it both times. And she wasn't looking for a relationship, just a pleasant physical interlude. Men had been doing it for thousands of years.

     But the love—that was the vital part. If Ed loved Linda then he was rejecting Sissy, and Sissy had already been rejected twice. That would devastate her.

     Calling the Guest Services office, she asked to be connected to Ms. Coco McCarthy. Sissy remembered what Ms. McCarthy had said in the boarding lounge back at LAX, that she was a psychic, and she had offered to give Sissy a reading.

     The woman at Guest Services said she would forward the message, so Sissy waited by the phone, hoping Coco would call right back. And when the phone did ring, she picked it up with a thumping heart, realizing she was pinning high hopes on what Coco could tell her.

     But it wasn't her fellow contest winner who was calling but Vanessa Nichols, asking Sissy if she would care to have lunch with Abby Tyler at Ms. Tyler's private residence.

     But Sissy needed to straighten things out first. "Can we make it dinner?" she asked.

     "Certainly, Mrs. Whitboro. I shall come for you at seven, to escort you."

     Sissy was about to leave when her phone rang again and it was Coco, saying she would be happy to do a reading. "I can be there in half an hour."

     "I cannot command my gift," Coco explained when they settled on the
sofa in Sissy's blue and orange living room. "I've tried. It just doesn't work that way. And for some reason I can't explain, I am more open psychically to women than to men."

     "Maybe women are more spiritually open and aware," Sissy offered, suddenly nervous, wondering if she should go through with this. Didn't the Catholic Church frown upon psychics and mediums and involvement in paranormal activities?

     "When I picked up your purse in the boarding lounge Sunday night," Coco said, "I received a very strong flash that you were going to experience a shock here."

     "I did. But I need to know more." Sissy started to tell Coco what the problem was, but Coco stopped her. "It's best if I do a 'free' reading. This way I have no preconceptions to cloud the message. All right, give me something to hold. Something related to the problem." Coco had left the crystal back in her room. The crystal was for
her
, nobody else.

     Sissy handed Coco the jeweler's receipt for the watch.

     Silence settled over them, filled with morning breezes and distant laughter. Coco closed her eyes and relaxed.

     Sissy twisted her fingers and chewed her lip.

     Coco breathed softly. Let the breeze play through her hair and over her face. Images and sensations filled her head. Finally she said: "Delgado."

     Sissy waited for more. "Is that all?"

     "I'm afraid so." Coco set the claim check aside.

     "Is it a person's name?"

     "I don't know."

     "Could it be
Linda
Delgado?"

     "I have no idea. It just came to my mind. It might mean nothing. I'm sorry I can't be of more help," she said rising.

     "Thank you for coming," Sissy said.

     After Coco had gone, Sissy looked at the phone by the bed and knew what she had to do. Dialing Directory Assistance, as calmly as she could she asked for the number of Linda Delgado in Chicago, Illinois.

H
E STOOD NAKED AMONG THE FOLIAGE, LIKE
A
DAM IN
E
DEN.

     But as Vanessa drew near, she saw that Zeb wasn't really naked, just shirtless, his wiry torso glistening with sweat. It made her think of the day she first met him.

     "I've found someone to take care of the wildlife," Abby had said a year before, when the veterinarian who took care of the exotic birdlife, the resident desert tortoises, the domestic cats that kept down the rodent population, and the occasional wildlife—foxes and coyotes—that strayed into the resort, left to get married. Abby used a hotel employment service in San Diego to recruit her staff; they had found Zeb and forwarded his impressive résumé to Abby. "He's perfect. He was a game warden in Kenya."

     "He's
African?"
Vanessa had said excitedly. Her love affair with Africa went back to her childhood.

     Abby had been interrupted by a phone call and gave no further details except to say he would be arriving on the evening flight. Picturing Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington and all the fine black men she could think of,
Vanessa had spent two hours getting ready, discarding outfit after outfit before deciding on the Moroccan caftan with the gold embroidery. To let him know she was a "sister."

     And when Vanessa saw the handsome black man emerge from the plane into the desert evening, her heart did a somersault. He was even more impressive than she had expected, with his thick black moustache and dignified bearing. He had barely reached the bottom of the steps when she was offering her hand, effusively welcoming him to The Grove, so glad to have him become part of the family, not letting him get a word in edgewise until the baffled man managed to withdraw his hand from her grasp and comment on how he had heard of The Grove's hospitality, but this was off the charts. And that was when the man behind him, a
white
man, said, "I believe, Miss Nichols, that you are looking for me," and Vanessa learned of another kind of racial prejudice. Back in the sixties, growing up in Texas, she and her friends had been refused service in whites-only diners. She even remembered the separate drinking fountains. But she didn't hold it against white people because, after all, they also marched and carried signs and helped to get the laws changed. She had no idea that she was not as color blind as she had thought. African meant black. How could a white man be African?

     She soon learned that Zeb was born in Kenya to English settlers. He hadn't even gone away to school in England, as other colonists' children did, but had sat side by side with native children in the mission school at Nyeri. He spoke Swahili and wore shirts made of kanga cloth, and told tales of the Kenya highlands as if he were just as native as the natives. Which of course he was.

     It made Vanessa's head spin. White men had never been her cup of tea. She had never even fancied light-skinned African American men, preferring her men dark and dangerous and powerful. In appearances, anyway. And now here was this stranger with a ruddy complexion, fifty-seven years old with thinning hair, but virile all the same, and out of his mouth came the romance of the continent she so loved and yearned someday to see.

     Zeb was not the strong and silent type. Strong, yes, but far from silent. He loved to talk, and the tales he spun enthralled many a guest at The Grove.
Yet Vanessa sensed at the heart of his loquaciousness a carefully guarded secret. How could a man who talked and laughed so freely still give the impression of being mysterious?

     It was what he was
not
saying that intrigued her.

     She remembered the night she fell in love with him.

     He had been drinking, heavily. An item in the morning's Los Angeles Times had upset him. Nine thousand pounds of illegal ivory had been found on sale in Nigeria. "Twenty years ago," Zeb had complained over a bottle of Foster's Lager, "there were over a million elephants in the world. Today, less than half that number exist. In some countries, Senegal, the Ivory Coast, they have been wiped out. Soon there won't be any."

     Full of outrage, Zeb had shouted and pounded his fist. And then he had wept—for better days, old memories, and an Africa that was gone forever. "They called us white hunters murderers. But
we
were the ones policing the parks.
We
set the rules—no females were to be killed, and only one male per customer. We respected our prey. We did not allow senseless, random killing. We were tough regulators and we shot poachers on sight. But once we were outlawed, the poachers rushed in and no one is policing them!"

     Vanessa had been deeply moved. But not without wondering why, if he felt so strongly about the issue, he didn't go back and fight to save the animals. It was all part of his mystery.

     She espied him now among the foliage in the main aviary, his damp torso glistening in the morning sunshine. He lifted his hat to wipe perspiration from his forehead. It was a Dodgers cap, American baseball being his passion. From April to October, Zeb didn't miss a game. It was another facet to him that she found fascinating, and she decided she had never been so in love in her life. And never so miserable because of it.

     She could never tell him the truth about herself.

     As she rounded the curve in the trail that meandered through the gigantic aviary, she paused beside a blooming hibiscus, her heart and body aching with desire, and a question jumped into her mind: Why
not
tell him?

     It suddenly occurred to her that, with Abby packed and poised to leave, and a homicide detective nosing around, a chapter in her own life was coming to a close. She and Abby had enjoyed thirty-three years of relative freedom,
but now it was coming to an end and neither of them knew what tomorrow would bring.

     This was probably going to be her last chance with Zeb. Why not tell him the truth about herself and her past?

     Her heart began to race as the prospect of confessing to Zebulon Armstrong made her believe there could be a chance for the two of them—he harbored a secret, might he not therefore be sympathetic to
hers?
He didn't seem a man to judge others, and besides, the crime she committed was so long ago
and
in self defense.

     Yes, she thought in sudden excitement, feeling the courage build within herself. I will tell him! Right now, blurt it out, in this private place among exotic birds and flowers, with the diffuse sunlight streaming through the overhead mesh that protected the aviary and the birdlife—in this garden that was as untouched and unspoiled as Eden—as pure as Africa itself! Tell him now because tomorrow everything was going to be different and all chances would be lost.