Don't Believe a Word (7 page)

T
he arrangements were businesslike, and done by email
between Eden and Flynn. Eden called her father in Florida to tell him that she was going out to Cleveland to see an author she had met at her mother’s funeral – one of Tara’s friends – who had subsequently brought his book to DeLaurier. Her father sounded happily preoccupied and didn’t question it, other than to remark that it was ironic that she was going there again, after spending a lifetime without ever setting foot in Ohio. He was proud of the way she was sometimes required to travel for business. To Hugh, it seemed a sign of her success, that her company would pay for her to fly out to meet authors. It wasn’t the first time she had been on such a mission. She couldn’t bear to tell him the truth of who she was going to meet.

She flew out to Cleveland from Kennedy, and picked up her rental car. She had reserved a one-bedroom unit at the Garden Suites hotel not far from the airport. When she arrived, Eden was pleased to see that the room, though unprepossessing, was, as advertised, more like an apartment than a hotel room. It had a living room and a dining area, as well as a small bedroom. The sliding glass doors, all unbreakable and safely locked, faced out onto a small courtyard which was bleak in the winter chill, with a few scrawny trees, and snow piled against the building and beneath a pair of garden benches. All the furnishings in the apartment-sized room were well worn and nondescript. Still, a layout of this size would have cost a thousand dollars a night in New York City, she thought. Here, the price was rock bottom and reasonable. Eden pulled the stiffly lined drapes closed, unpacked quickly and set up her electronics. She lay down on the plaid double bedspread and tried to take a nap, but it was no use. Her nerves were on edge.

Finally, she got up and went down to the desk to ask where she might buy a few basic supplies. The pudgy young man in his maroon Garden Suites V-neck pullover directed her to a convenience store down the block. Eden elected to walk, and was amazed at how the damp cold cut through her. The road to the convenience store was quiet, almost dead, except for the roar of planes arriving and departing overhead. The store was haphazardly stocked, but she carried back some water bottles and a few things for breakfast. She had noticed that the room had a coffee maker, and she liked the idea of having breakfast in her robe and slippers. When she came back through the lobby, the young man at the desk buttonholed her to inform her of the hours that breakfast would be served in the lobby.

‘I think I’m going to have it in my room,’ she said.

‘No problem,’ the desk clerk said pleasantly. He asked her if she wanted a free newspaper delivered in the morning, and Eden gratefully agreed.

Just then a stout, gray-haired man in a plaid sport coat and a parka came up to the desk. ‘Can I help you with those?’ he asked, pointing to Eden’s plastic bags bulging with water and crackers. ‘I’m in the next suite over from yours.’

Eden leaned away from him, surprised and shocked as if she had been spied on, but the young clerk laughed.

‘Don’t mind Andy,’ he said. ‘He’s here so much he thinks of this place as his neighborhood.’

‘I do indeed, Oren.’

Eden smiled wanly. ‘Oh, I see.’

Andy, undaunted by Eden’s obvious discomfort, plucked one of the plastic sacs from her hands, and opened the door to the sidewalk. ‘Shall we?’ he said.

Eden wasn’t quite sure how to act in the face of overbearing friendliness, but the clerk was looking at them with benign amusement. She walked along beside Andy, who explained that he was on the road and away from his beloved home in Indiana, his wife and children, for almost half the year. ‘Counting the days till I retire,’ he said as they reached their respective doors. ‘Though to tell the truth, I’ll probably miss the road.’ He handed Eden back her bag with a smile. ‘If you need anything now, Eden, I’m right next door.’

Eden thanked him, although she did not feel totally comfortable with his familiarity. ‘Good night,’ she said, and hurried to lock the door behind her.

The hours until the arranged meeting dragged, but at last it was time to get into her car and go. She left some extra time so she could negotiate her way across Cleveland, but, as she had six weeks earlier during the funeral visit, Eden found it an easy matter to get around. The city traffic was not the cutthroat affair that she was accustomed to in the New York area. People seemed to take their time, and there was usually a moment where one could peer at an address, or make a last-minute turn without the screeching of brakes all around.

They had agreed that Flynn would pick the restaurant for their first editorial meeting, and Flynn had decided on an Italian restaurant called Alfredo’s. Eden was picturing an old- world sort of place, with dim lights and candles, and a shiny mahogany bar. The reality was something very different. Eden parked her car on the busy, rundown block, and walked to the storefront with the striped awning which read Alfredo’s. She went in and was greeted by a pot-bellied man in a black T-shirt, wearing an apron stained with red gravy. The restaurant was filled with Formica topped tables. There were napkin dispensers and shaker jars of Parmesan on every table.

‘I’m meeting … um, Flynn Darby. He might have made a reservation,’ she said.

But before the word was out of her mouth, the proprietor shook his head. ‘Sit anywhere,’ he said.

Eden went to a table against the wall near the back. Along the wall was a painted mural of someone’s imagined version of the Amalfi coast, with stone buildings overlooking the sea from a verdant Italian hillside. That was about it for décor. The menus were laminated and almost as big as the tabletop. Eden picked one up and felt grease on her fingers.

The bell jingled on the front door and Eden looked up to see Flynn Darby entering the restaurant, carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag. For a moment she was able to study him before he noticed her. She hoped to banish that image of a drunken lout at his wife and son’s funeral. But little had changed. He was undeniably good-looking, although his hair was, again, unkempt and his engineer boots were scuffed and unfastened. He was wearing a T-shirt that was frayed at the neck, under a battered leather jacket. He seemed lonely and forlorn, and he exuded a labile sexual energy. Eden immediately recalled that moment in his book when he first met her mother. He had described their encounter, from both their points of view. For his part, he had seen only Tara’s aging, but still intense beauty. But he said that her first instinct toward him seemed to be almost motherly. She saw a bad boy in him, who needed protecting. Looking at him now, Eden could imagine it. Her mother had always been attracted to outsiders, to rebels. Sometimes Tara seemed to chafe at her comfortable life with Hugh, as if it did not reflect her authentic self. And everything about this man seemed to fairly scream danger. Whatever the magnetism had been which drew them together, their meeting was an instant of soulful recognition which could not be denied. For either one of them.

Flynn murmured to the proprietor, and then glanced to the back of the room and caught sight of Eden, seated beside the wall. He handed the paper bag to the proprietor, and came to join her.

‘You found it, I see,’ he said.

Eden looked around and nodded. ‘You could have picked something a little more … luxurious. You do know the company’s paying for this,’ she said.

Flynn looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes, bemused. ‘You don’t like this place?’ he asked, pulling out the chair across from her.

‘No, it’s fine,’ she said.

‘I like the food here,’ said Flynn, sitting down heavily. ‘Nothing pretentious.’

Eden nodded. ‘Whatever you think.’

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘Excuse me?’ Eden asked, startled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘To eat. What do you want to eat?’

Eden felt flustered. ‘I don’t know. What do you recommend?’

‘Everything’s good,’ said Flynn. He gestured to the proprietor, who arrived immediately at their table, holding the uncorked bottle of wine. Flynn looked over at Eden.

Eden ordered pasta and a salad.

‘You’re being overly cautious. You’ve got that New York superiority thing going on. But you may be surprised.’

Eden gazed back at him coolly. ‘I’m not that hungry,’ she said.

Flynn tipped his chair back and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I feel like I know you. From your mother,’ he said.

Eden did not want to hear it. She decided to turn the tables. ‘Do you like living here in Cleveland?’ she said. ‘Are you going to stay?’

‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘We only came here because of Dr Tanaka’s work on Katz-Ellison syndrome. At that point, your mother was willing to try anything.’

Eden hesitated. ‘So, you really just uprooted your lives for Jeremy’s sake.’

Flynn shrugged as if it were of no importance.

‘After all that, it just seems unfathomable to me,’ said Eden, ‘that my mother would just give up on Jeremy. After all she’d been through.’

‘You can’t possibly know what she felt,’ he warned.

‘But surely she had some hope for him. Why would she just … throw it all away?’

Flynn cleared his throat as the proprietor returned and placed their plates of food down in front of him. He poured a few inches of wine into their glasses. ‘
Saluti
,’ he said.

Flynn lifted his glass. ‘
Saluti
.’

Eden picked up her glass and sipped it. She was surprised to find that the wine was full-bodied and rather tasty. ‘Cheers,’ she said. The proprietor nodded, and shuffled away.

Eden hesitated a minute, and then decided to be blunt. ‘Did you know that she was suicidal?’ she asked. ‘There’s no mention of that in your book. Did you realize that she was coming to the end of her rope? That she needed help?’

Flynn twisted the stem of the wine glass in his large, rough fingers, and stared into the ruby liquid. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ he said without meeting her gaze.

‘I realize it’s a difficult subject,’ said Eden. ‘But I can’t help but wonder if a good psychiatrist or psychologist might have helped,’ she persisted. ‘Maybe she just needed someone to talk to.’

Flynn looked at her coolly. ‘She talked to me,’ he said.

‘Obviously that wasn’t enough,’ said Eden, avoiding his gaze.

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Flynn bluntly, setting down his glass and picking up a fork.

Eden thought about her mother’s phone call, on the night of Tara’s desperate act. ‘That’s why I’m asking you,’ she said. ‘Is there something I need to know—’

‘Nothing you need to know now,’ he said deliberately. ‘It’s all over now. And it has nothing to do with the book. The book is why you’re here.’

Eden sat back and stared at him. ‘Why did you want me to be the editor on this book? You could have had a much more senior person at a bigger house.’

Flynn’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s what your mother would have wanted.’

‘That’s the only reason?’ she asked.

Flynn shrugged. ‘DeLaurier’s a good house. I thought about it, and decided to mention our connection to Gideon Lendl.’

Eden kept her face expressionless. ‘Perhaps you thought that my being involved might be a good talking point for interviews,’ she said.

Flynn returned her gaze implacably. ‘I’m not really expecting a lot of publicity. It’s a first novel, after all.’

‘But everyone agrees that the murder/suicide of my mother and Jeremy will attract a great deal of interest,’ Eden countered. ‘It’s unusual. Unnatural … for a mother to … do that.’ She could hear it in her own voice – she was baiting him. It was unprofessional, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

Flynn stared back at her. ‘If it does, it does. Would that upset you?’

Eden had no intention of explaining her own feelings. But he was studying her as if he could see right through her. She tried to deflect his comment. ‘It just strikes me as … opportunistic.’

She knew she had crossed the line from baiting him, to insulting him. She felt guilty, and satisfied, all at once.

‘And yet you signed on,’ he observed. ‘You agreed to do it.’

Eden wanted to protest that she had no choice, but she knew that was not exactly true. She had agreed, in spite of her misgivings. He would see right through her protests.

Flynn sipped his wine and studied her. Finally he shifted his weight in the chair. ‘Look, let’s call a truce,’ he said. ‘You and I have both suffered a great loss. Doing this book might be kind of a … healing thing for both of us.’

‘I don’t need any help healing,’ said Eden shortly. ‘I’m fine.’

Flynn peered at her. ‘Really? I’m not. And if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem fine either.’

Eden was chastened by his honesty, and ashamed of her abruptness. For a moment, she could see beyond his scruffy sex appeal to what it was that her mother had liked about this man. It was not a faux pas for him to observe that some healing was in order. And it wasn’t true that she was fine. She was bluffing her way through this on every level. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said, adopting a milder tone. ‘Maybe there will be some … therapeutic value in working on this together. Many things about my mother came to mind when I was reading your book. I’m sure we both have … insights we can share.’

Flynn immediately bristled. ‘Well, let’s get one thing clear. I’m not really interested in adding your insights to the mix. You’re not a co-author.’

Despite his insulting tone, Eden recognized immediately the protective author’s ego in his words. This was a reaction common among authors to any mention of changes in their work. ‘I’m not proposing that we change what you’ve said in the book. I’m just talking about some shading. And we have to address the reality of my mother and Jeremy’s death.’

‘I’m not sure I want to hear this,’ he said defensively.

‘I’ve given it some thought. There are a number of approaches—’

‘I don’t want to talk about this right now. Let’s start the editorial work tomorrow. You can come to the house,’ he said. ‘I’m sorting through your mother’s things. There may be items you want to keep.’