The Touch of a Woman (23 page)

“Because she’s lost all perspective. It’s a jolt to find out your mom is seeing a woman, but only at first. Especially with somebody as open-minded as Allison. The problem is it calls up all the old emotions from when everything in her life changed.” That was dangerously close to psychobabble, she realized, brushing Ellis’s cheek with her knuckles. “I shouldn’t be talking out of my ass. You know Allison best.”

Ellis gave her a pained look. “I’m worried about her.”

“Of course you are. So just tell me how you want to handle this.” They could pull back and see each other only in private. Stolen moments were better than none.
“I’m willing to talk to her if you think it would help.”

“No!” she said emphatically. “There’s no telling what she’d say to you. The way she is right now, it would be awful.”

“I’ve seen this before, Ellis. Allison will come around eventually. The person she is deep down won’t be able to live with herself for taking away your happiness.”

“I think we need to step back…”

No no no no!
“Step back? You mean…not see each other when she’s around?”

Ellis turned to face her, wearing the same solemn look as the night she’d told the story of Bruce’s rampage. “You know how I feel about you, right? Everything we said about making love…it’s all still true.”

There was definitely a
but
coming.

“But I can’t think about myself when one of my kids is hurting this much. It just isn’t possible.”

Summer knew exactly what was coming next, and it filled her with dread.

“I can’t do this. I just can’t. I need to call her and tell her we aren’t seeing each other anymore…that we talked it over and decided to just be friends.”

“Friends.” Her instincts for self-preservation kicked in, prompting her to withdraw her hand and stiffen. She wouldn’t grovel in front of someone who was callous enough to toss her aside at the first sign of trouble. “Why not just neighbors?”

“Summer, please don’t be like that. I don’t have any choice.”

“Of course you have a choice. You could stand up for yourself. For us. You could try to find a way to bring her along. Get her some professional help to figure out why she’s taking her anger out on you.” She leapt up and started toward the door, brimming with frustration. “You have lots of choices, Ellis. Why are you going with the most extreme?”

“It isn’t extreme to want to keep her from hurting herself.”

That was Rita’s
modus operandi
—to stop drinking for a short while and threaten to start again if Summer didn’t come back. To moan about how life wasn’t worth living without her. “That’s called emotional blackmail. The only way to beat it is to ignore it.”

Ellis sprang from the couch like a striking snake, the cords in her neck tightened with anger. “I don’t care what it’s called. I don’t take chances when it comes to my kids.”

Summer whirled away, using all her willpower to resist slamming the door.

Ellis seethed at the tinny sound of pop music seeping from the headphones of the woman in the next cubicle. Between that and the putrid smell of someone’s tuna sandwich, she was ready to scream. Why couldn’t people keep their obnoxious habits to themselves?

She picked up the next assignment from her inbox, a printed Word document clipped to the reporter’s notes. It was a promotional feature for the entertainment section, an interview with Tamara Tinsley. Fresh off a stint on Broadway as Cosette in
Les Misérables
, she was coming to Sacramento as Maria in the national tour of
The Sound of Music
.

Summer had presented her with a pair tickets for that, and for the next two shows as well. The only reasonable thing to do was give them back, and if she wouldn’t accept them, to pay her whatever they cost. Maybe Gil would agree to let her do some freelance articles, something she could work on after hours and on the weekend. A few hundred extra bucks would come in handy.

Her chances for preserving even a friendship with Summer were slim, given how they’d avoided each other completely for the past three days. She’d even skipped her workout, fearing she’d be humiliated if she walked into the fitness room only to have Summer pick up and leave without a word.

It was true what Summer had said. Allison probably could benefit from talking to a therapist, especially if she was threatening self-destructive behavior. That wasn’t coping—it was a cry for help, made worse by her continued refusal to reply to the half-dozen messages Ellis had left urging her to call.

Summer hadn’t deserved such an unyielding response, though the emotional exchange had exposed the shallowness of her feelings. You didn’t walk out in a huff if the relationship was worth fighting for. Ellis had only been concerned about her daughter. Had Summer not stormed out, they might have calmed down and explored some of those other options.

Who was she trying to kid? This wasn’t Summer’s fault. She’d walked out because Ellis had told her she couldn’t see her anymore. It wasn’t over though…at least not as far as her heart was concerned.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to salvage what they’d started, even if it were only an agreement to stay close for now and keep their possibilities open while Allison dealt with her issues. Neither of them had said anything overly cruel or malicious that couldn’t be forgiven. It all depended on whether or not Summer felt the same sense of loss. Or was she relieved to have gotten out before little differences became big problems? Only by talking again could they find out.

Ellis toyed with her phone, puzzling over how to say that in a pithy text message.
Been thinking about us all w—

Her cell phone, set to vibrate, rumbled in her hand. It was her attorney’s office in San Francisco. “May I please speak to Mrs. Rowanbury?”

She resisted the urge to correct the woman, since her conversation was open to everyone in the adjacent cubicles. The
Vista
staff didn’t need to know she’d changed her name.

“I’ve been asked to schedule a meeting with you. Could you make tomorrow morning at nine o’clock?”

That was a horrible time to drive into the City across the Bay Bridge. “I’d prefer a bit later…ten thirty? And can you tell me what this is regarding?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve only been instructed to schedule the appointment for nine.”

Resigned to leaving her home at six a.m., she scribbled the time on her notepad as though it weren’t instantly burned into her head. After over a year of wrangling, she was more than ready for some movement on her case. At this point the outcome almost didn’t matter—she just wanted the whole affair behind her.

Her downward fall since Bruce’s death was nothing short of remarkable—from a lively three-story homestead to a cramped apartment where she lived alone. From lunching in North Beach and Woodside to leftovers in Rubbermaid. From being her own boss to working on the lowest rung of the ladder.

For a brief window, Summer had given her a reason to look toward the future. Now she’d have to add another heartbreak to that list. Unless…

Angie appeared in her cubicle with her usual stack of folders, which she carried all the time to dole out at the first sign of an empty inbox. “Here’s the photo that goes with the Tamara Tinsley interview. Clip that to the rest of it when you’re done.”

Ellis needed to concentrate on her work. Not on Summer, nor Allison. She scanned the notes and typed Tinsley’s name into her search engine. The feature was mostly background with a few quotes. MFA from Boston Conservatory…twenty-six years old. Except her official bio had her birthday as February first, which meant she’d be twenty-seven by the time they went to press on the next issue. She scribbled a note in the margin.

The article referred to Tinsley as a blonde, and the attached photo showed her as such—but in her role as Cosette. Ellis had seen her in
Phantom
and remembered her as a brunette, and in fact, there were no other photos online of her as a blonde.
Need photo as brunette
.

There wasn’t much more by way of facts to verify. According to the notes, the interview had been conducted over the phone, and the reporter presumably had a recording. That was their standard practice in case something needed to be verified. As best she could, Ellis matched the quotes to the gist of the scratchy notes to ensure Tinsley wasn’t being misquoted or taken out of context.

The final question, however, raised a red flag. Among several roles Tinsley indicated she’d love to play was Sally Bowles in
Cabaret
. Peculiar she’d chosen that one because Bowles was an alto, whereas Tinsley was a soprano. Not just a soprano, but a lyric coloratura—the lightest of all sopranos. Why would she want to sing a role as brash as Bowles?

There was nothing in the notes about
Cabaret.
In fact, the question wasn’t even listed in the interview.

With growing suspicion, Ellis reread the article. Other than a handful of quotes, it was a bland regurgitation of mundane production info—direction, choreography, number of cities on the tour—nothing that couldn’t be found on the theater company’s website. Her doubts were confirmed when she Googled one of the quotes and found it in Houston’s city magazine. Another was purloined from the
Hollywood Reporter
, and the quote about
Cabaret
was actually from one of Tinsley’s costars in
Les Miz
.

The entire article had been fabricated. Cobbled together from snippets found on the web by a freelance writer who’d probably never picked up his phone to conduct an interview in the first place.

“Angie?”

Her supervisor returned. Reluctantly, it seemed, as she herself was busy trying to make sense of a feature article on Sacramento’s growing network of bike trails.
“This is a mess. I can’t tell if the miles are one way or round trip. Or if there’s a fee to ride through the park. Our readers won’t be able to make sense of this.”

“Let me show you this.” Ellis hated to pile on more bad news, but she couldn’t let this freelance entertainment reporter get away with repackaging content from other published sources. “What do you want me to do?”

“Hmm…we’ll have to strike that last paragraph, since she wasn’t the one who said it. But see what you can do about boosting the word count. That one has to come in at five hundred.”

“That’s it? It’s not even our interview.”

Angie shrugged. “We do that sometimes. Just check the wording and make sure it doesn’t say we actually talked to her.”

A fake interview. Like the supermarket gossip rags that told outrageous tales around a tiny quote or paparazzi photo taken completely out of context.
Angelina Tells Brad’s Gay Lover ‘No More!’

“Did
Vista
really pay someone to do this? It’s worse than an eighth grader’s book report.”

Angie chuckled. “One-fifty apiece, I think. Some of them aren’t even that good. But they fill the pages. And they leave more resources for the important stuff.”

Ellis could only shake her head. In a matter of minutes, her view of
Sacramento Vista
had tumbled from that of a prestigious local news source to a tabloid. It was depressing…and yet, it was a treasure trove of opportunity. Three of these a month would cover her daughter’s car payment.

* * *

The movement of the dreamcatcher caught Summer’s eye as warm air began flowing from the air duct in the ceiling. As a child, she’d gone to sleep many nights under its hypnotic sway from a small electric fan in her bedroom.
It catches all the bad dreams
, her mother had said. Which made it pretty useless in her office, except as a calming focal point when she took a break from her work.

For the past three days, her “breaks” were merely breaks in concentration as she rehashed the ugly confrontation. She’d all but backed Ellis into a corner by getting angry at the first hint of her cracking resolve. Had she discussed things calmly instead of flouting her indignation, they might have found a way forward. Instead she’d forced her to side with her daughter and now was left with nothing.

Rita would have called that throwing out the baby with the bathwater. That had been one of her favorite arguments as she insisted her drinking was only a small problem, certainly not serious enough to cause a break up.
You’re always overreacting
.

It hadn’t been the case with Rita, but she couldn’t escape feeling this time it was. She was too impatient, too proud.

The worst part was knowing she’d piled even more stress on top of a woman who’d already been through enough to last a hundred lifetimes. So much for wanting to support her no matter what—she’d failed that test.

Alythea appeared in the doorway of her office waving a document. “You want to know how these people are going to solve the homeless problem? By giving them salmonella.”

“Who’s that?”

“This place in San Jose…the Good Way Kitchen. They were cited three times last year for health code violations and neglected to report it in their grant renewal application. Not one word.”

“Don’t they realize we compare those reports?”

“Funny you should say that.” Alythea put a hand on her hip and held out the document.
“I always thought we did, but apparently not this time.”

Summer got a sinking feeling she’d missed something. “Is that my recommendation?”

“Uh-huh.” Her boss did sassy better than anyone on the planet.

“Sorry. Give it back. I’ll fix it.” Apparently she’d allowed herself to be mesmerized by more than the dreamcatcher.

“I already did. I just came in here to see what’s up with your head. You haven’t set foot outside this office all week.” As she talked, she strolled around the small space, stopping to give the dreamcatcher a spin. “Rita bothering you again?”

“No, I haven’t seen her.”

“Your new lady then. What’s her name?”

Nothing like wearing her heart on her sleeve. “Ellis. Ellis Keene. Except she’s not my new lady, at least not anymore.” She spilled out a sanitized version designed to preserve the story of Bruce—her daughter was dealing with other emotional problems and couldn’t handle the idea of her mother getting involved with someone.