Authors: Mariah Stewart
“I didn’t call to talk about me, I called to talk about Cody.”
“Oh, please, Emilio. It’s
always
about you.”
The silence on the line was so complete, Dallas thought he’d hung up on her.
“I’ll meet you anywhere you want. Someplace public—your choice.”
“Ah, of course. Public so that you can alert the media and they can send reporters and cameras and get all those touching close-ups of you saying good-bye to your little boy before you go off to wherever it is they’re taking you. Wouldn’t that go a long way toward rehabilitating your image? I can see the lovely shot of you and Cody on the cover of every celebrity rag.” She knew Emilio well enough to know that was exactly what he had in mind. “I don’t think so.”
“So are you saying I cannot see my son before I go away?”
“I think it’s best for him that he doesn’t see you for a while. This whole incident has been very upsetting to him.”
“All right. I can try to understand your reasoning, even if I don’t agree. I guess my reunion with my family will have to wait until my treatment has been successful.”
“What family? There is no
family
. Our divorce is all but final.” She gritted her teeth.
“Oh, but once I’ve completed my treatment, I’ll be a different man. You’ll see. Once I get this monkey off my back, I can be the man you married—”
“You cannot seriously think for one second that I would have any interest in you after everything that’s happened over the past five years. With or without the monkey, I’m done.” She could barely believe what she’d heard. “Here’s the best advice I can give you: whatever shred of self-respect you might still have? Hang on to it and don’t put yourself in the position for me to have to remind you and the rest of the world what an all-around shit you really are. You go ahead and get yourself straightened out so that you can make your big comeback. I really don’t care what you do. But don’t bring me or Cody into it. If you do, I will be forced to let everyone know exactly what I really think of you and this little charade of yours. Have a little dignity. Save face.”
“I’ll have my lawyer call your lawyer,” he said stiffly.
“That’s the only intelligent thing you’ve said since
this call began.” She hung up a split second before she knew he would be doing so.
Dallas sat on the back steps and tried to get her blood pressure under control with breathing exercises she’d learned in yoga and a few sips of wine. She was still sitting there when Berry and Cody joined her as the evening hung on to the last bit of light. Dallas knew that Berry would know that something had upset her, but she wouldn’t ask in front of Cody.
“Aunt Berry’s going to give me a glass jar to collect lightning bugs in,” Cody announced.
“Oh, but then they’ll die,” Dallas protested.
“Not if I let them go before we go into the house,” he told her.
“Why not just catch them in your hands—gently, of course—then watch them unfold their wings and fly away?” Dallas suggested.
Cody considered this.
“Try it and see.” She set her glass on the step between her feet, then opened her palms to show him. “See, your hands would be open, like this. You close them quickly around the bug—be very careful not to squash it, though. Give it a minute to rest itself, then open your hands, and watch. It’s so much more fun to watch them fly than it is to see them just sitting or crawling around in a jar. Plus, you can count how many lightning bugs you’ve caught and let go.”
He nodded—that made sense to him—then took off to catch and release.
“I don’t recall you letting the lightning bugs fly away unharmed when you were his age,” Berry said as she lowered herself to the top step. “I seem to recall
you and Wade both catching bugs in jars and leaving them.”
“We were young and didn’t know any better. Before I’d developed a conscience about such things.” Dallas looked over her shoulder at her aunt. “Besides, I always punched holes in the top and I always let them go the next morning before it got too hot.”
“True.”
Because Dallas knew Berry was dying to ask, she said, “That was Emilio on the phone. He called to try to set up a meeting with me and Cody before he goes away for his rehabilitation.”
“Drugs again?” Berry raised an eyebrow.
“No. Sex addiction.” Dallas let that hang in the air for a moment.
Berry laughed. “Surely, he isn’t serious.”
“Oh, he’s serious, all right. And quite indignant about it, too.”
“Knowing Emilio, the only thing he’s trying to rehabilitate is his reputation. How like him to use the malady du jour as an excuse for his very bad behavior.”
“That’s exactly what I said. He’s trying to stir up sympathy so that, once he’s ‘cured,’ everyone will forget what a jerk he is.”
“Surely no one’s memory is that short.” Berry tsk-tsked. “He’ll go off in a blaze of camera lights, portraying a tragic, solitary figure. The man who lost it all. No wife, no children, to bid him adieu and Godspeed.” Berry sighed dramatically. “Surely you didn’t agree to meet him? Or to let him see Cody?”
“No, of course not.” Dallas shook her head, then asked, “Do you think I did the right thing?”
“Absolutely. Good Lord, what else could you have done? Invited him here to St. Dennis? Rushed back to the coast with Cody to allow him to use the two of you to gain sympathy? Don’t second-guess yourself. He isn’t worth it. The sooner your divorce is final, the better off you and Cody will be.” Berry paused. “You didn’t tell him where you were, did you?”
“No, but I’m sure he’d be able to figure it out after he’s called every one of my friends and realizes I’m not with one of them. And he is smart enough to know that if the tabloids aren’t reporting that I’m in this hotel or that, at this one of our houses or the other, I’m probably not in California. And where else would I go but here?” Dallas shook her head. “I’m sure he remembers that this was always my refuge.”
“Well, if he comes here, we’ll deal with him.”
“He won’t waste the time. He said he’s leaving in a few days.”
“How long do you suppose he’ll stay?”
“I don’t know. I suspect it would have to be at the very least a month, if he’s trying to make this appear at all credible.”
“Credibility is exactly what he’s after. I’m sorry, dear. I know these past few years have been very difficult for you.” Berry squeezed Dallas’s shoulder. “But you know, he was never right for you. You need someone stronger, someone whose feet are on the ground. Someone who understands what it means to be a real man.”
“Well, now listen to you.” Dallas forced a smile. “Aren’t you a font of advice.”
“I’ve been around the block a time or five.” Berry
smiled coquettishly. “I’m sorry that your marriage didn’t work out, and that Emilio is exactly what I thought he was. You and Cody are better off without him. I doubt you’ll ever regret divorcing him, but I do believe you’d regret taking him back.” Berry looked out toward the Bay. “And there are few things sadder than regrets when it comes to matters of the heart.”
“Odd,” Dallas observed. “That’s the second time since we’ve been here that you mentioned regrets. I don’t remember that you ever admitted regretting anything in your life, Berry.”
“Mom! Aunt Berry!” Cody ran to them, his cupped hands held out in front of him, a huge smile on his face.
“I got one! Want to see? We can all watch it fly away together …” he called as he dashed across the lawn.
“Yes, dear, bring it here, and we’ll admire it before you let it go,” Berry told him.
“Here it goes …” Cody opened his hands and waited for the insect to fly off. When it had disappeared, he turned to Berry and said, “I’ll bet you’d be real good at catching lightning bugs, too, Aunt Berry. Maybe almost as good as me.”
“Now, that sounded like a challenge, young man.” Berry rose and made her way down the steps, the sparkly stones on her sandals catching the light. “Let’s just see who can catch the next one. Starting now …”
Dallas watched the old woman and the small boy hunt lightning bugs in the faded light.
There are few things sadder than regrets when it comes to matters of the heart
.
Dallas knew that, throughout the years, Berry had been romantically linked with this leading man or that director. She tried but couldn’t recall any one man in particular having been a part of Berry’s life for any real length of time. Certainly she’d never had gentlemen in her home when Dallas and Wade were visiting. A curious Dallas wondered who Berry looked back on with regret. Perhaps one day soon, she could persuade Berry to bring out her old scrapbooks, and see if she could ask the right questions that would lead her to the answer.
Berry was right
, Dallas decided as she set out on foot toward St. Dennis’s commercial center. Using the morning hours for shopping was better than waiting until the afternoon. For one thing, the morning hours were cooler, the tree-lined streets offered shade, and the breeze off the Bay was crisp. Once the sun rose high in the sky, it would beat down on the bayside town unmercifully.
The other good thing was that the shops were less crowded, which meant she’d run into fewer tourists who’d be elbowing each other when she passed by.
“Hey! Isn’t that …?”
It had taken the media exactly three days to find her, and since then, she’d been photographed from every possible angle. Whether professional photographers or tourists wielding digital cameras or cell phones, she figured she’d been good for a half mile’s worth of four-by-six photos if they were all placed end to end. But no one had really bothered her or harassed her, and several people had so shyly and politely asked if they might have their picture taken with
her that she couldn’t bring herself to say no, as long as Cody wasn’t photographed. So far, she suspected that some of those photos had found their way onto their owner’s Facebook pages, but she hadn’t seen them surface anywhere else. Everyone had respected her wishes about Cody not being included in the pictures. She drew the line at having her son’s photo taken by strangers. You just never knew.
But Berry had also been right about the residents of St. Dennis accepting her as one of their own, and that had given Dallas particular satisfaction. When camera crews from a network entertainment program showed up in town, suddenly no one had much to say about Dallas. As her aunt had predicted, discreet phone calls gave them quiet notice, so that Dallas could decide whether to come into town, or not. No one had given away the location of Berry’s house, though she realized it wouldn’t be too difficult to find for anyone who knew that Beryl Townsend, the great star of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, was her great-aunt and that the family name was Eberle.
Not so hard to discover for someone who took the time to dig into Berry’s bio, Dallas knew. As yet, no one had, but it could well be just a matter of time before she awoke one morning to find paparazzi parked along River Road. But Dallas understood that the less she made of her presence here, the less everyone else did, too.
And that was just skippy, as far as Dallas was concerned. Since arriving in St. Dennis, she felt everything around her slowing down, as if the earth itself were spinning a little slower. The days seemed longer and more pleasant, the afternoons spent languidly relaxing
on the dock or in the hammock in the shade of Berry’s ancient oak tree. Dallas had become a regular at Book ’Em, gobbling up the latest mysteries and romances and memoirs the way a starving woman would attack a buffet. For years, she’d read nothing but scripts and entertainment magazines and movie reviews. She’d forgotten what a wonderful world there was to be found between the pages of books. She read quickly, and once finished, the gently read books were donated to the local library. In the week since she’d been in St. Dennis, Berry had taken five new bestsellers to the library on Dallas’s behalf. The books had been gratefully accepted, since funding for new purchases had been cut.
Every day felt like a holiday, something to be savored and celebrated. She awoke each morning to the sound of the breeze blowing through the long thin branches of the willows, birds gathering in the pines along the side yard, or boats heading to the mouth of the river and the Bay beyond. She’d shower, have a leisurely breakfast with her son and her aunt, and then there’d be hours to do as she pleased, to read or to take walks, swim in the river or simply lie back on the grass and let her mind wander through the clouds that floated high over the Chesapeake. There seemed no reason to think about how long they might stay. That she’d found some bliss here was all she needed to know for now.
And Cody, it would seem, had found his own bliss. He and Berry had gotten into the habit of heading to the library in the mornings for the children’s story hours. Every day her son had returned bubbling over, eager to tell her about the book the librarian was
reading to them, or the book Berry checked out for him, or the kids he’d met that morning. Dallas had never seen him so engaged in any activity.
Just like a normal, happy boy, Dallas had told her friend Laura, the night before on the phone. They’d been young starlets together, though their career paths had taken different turns.
“Of course he’s a normal happy boy,” Laura had replied. “Why are you so surprised?”
“I guess because he’s so different here,” Dallas told her. “He’s … I don’t know, lighter. More lighthearted. More like a little boy than a …”
“A clone of every other kid in Hollywood?”
“Yeah. That, too, but he’s more engaged, less serious. Even before Emilio’s latest escapade, I felt Cody was too serious for a six-year-old.”
“Well, look at the way things have been for the past few years, babe. His mom and his dad were rarely together, and when you were, you were arguing. Dad’s picture was in the tabloids almost every week. Cody may not have been able to read, but he sure as hell had eyes to see that the woman his father was cozying up to on the magazine covers was not his mother. Kids absorb hostility. They soak up your anger and your unhappiness like sponges.” Laura hesitated, then added, “Plus, you’ve been working like a fiend for the past three years. You’ve gone from movie set to movie set, location to location. How much time did you really spend with Cody last year?”