Bygones Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Bygones

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1992 by LaVyrle Spencer

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1412-1

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First edition (electronic): October 2001

  My most sincere thanks to the following people for their help during the research of this book:

  Brenda Taylor

  Katie Holdorph

  Jennifer Severson

  Gar Johnson

  Dr. Don Brandt

  LaVonne Engesether

  Cheryl at the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce

  and a special thanks to the following people for allowing me to use their beautiful homes as settings for this book:

  Ted & Lorraine Glasrud

  Tom & Edna Murphy

  This book is dedicated with love

  to some of my oldest friends

  and some of my newest—

  Barb & Don Fread

  and

  Barb & Don Brandt

  Chapter 1

  THE APARTMENT BUILDING resembled thousands of others in the suburban Minneapolis/St. Paul area, a long brick rectangle with three floors, a set of steps on each end and rows of bruised doors lining stuffy, windowless halls. It was the kind of dwelling where young people started out with cast-off furniture and bargain-basement draperies, where toddlers rode their tricycles down the halls and could be heard through the floors when they cried. Now, at 6 P.M. on a cold January night, the smell of cooking meat and vegetables sifted under the doors, mingled with the murmur of televisions tuned to the evening news.

  A tall woman walked down the hall. She looked out of place, dressed in a classic winter-white reefer coat bearing the unmistakable cut of a name designer, her accessories—leather gloves, handbag, shoes and scarf—of deep raspberry red. Her clothing was expensive, from the fifty-dollar silk scarf looped casually over her hair to the two-inch high heels combining three textures of leather. She walked with an air of hurried sophistication.

  Pulling the scarf from her head, Bess Curran knocked at the door of number 206.

  Lisa flung it open and exclaimed, “Oh, Mom, hi. Come on in. I knew I could depend on you to be right on time! Listen, everything's all ready but I forgot the sour cream for the stroganoff, so I have to make a quick run to the store. You don't mind keeping your eye on the meat, do you?” She dove into a closet and came up with a hip-length jean jacket, which she threw on over her dress.

  “Stroganoff? For just the two of us? And a dress? What's the occasion?”

  Lisa headed back to the door, digging her keys from her purse. “Just give it a stir, okay?” She opened the door halfway and stopped to call, “Oh! And light the candles and put a tape on, will you? That old Eagles one is there that you always liked.”

  The door slammed and left Bess in a backwash of puzzlement. Stroganoff? Candles? Music? And Lisa in a dress and pumps? Unbuttoning her coat, Bess wandered into the kitchen. Beyond the galley-style work area that divided it from the living room, a table was set for four. She studied it curiously—blue place mats and napkins cinched into white napkin rings; the leftover pieces of her and Michael's first set of dishes, which she'd given Lisa when she left home; four of her own cast-off stem glasses; and two blue candles in holders she'd never seen before, apparently bought specially for the occasion on Lisa's limited budget. What in the world was going on here?

  She went to the stove to stir the stroganoff, which smelled so heavenly she couldn't resist sampling it. Delicious—her own recipe, laced with consommé and onions. As she replaced the cover on the pan, she realized she was famished: she'd done three home consultations today plus two hours in the store before it opened, grabbing a hamburger on the run. She promised herself, as she did every January, to limit the home consultations to two a day.

  Returning to the front closet, she hung up her coat and straightened a pile of shoes so she could close the bifold door. She found matches and lit the candles on the dinner table and two others in clear, stubby pots on the living-room coffee table. Beside these a plate from her old dinnerware held a cheeseball waiting to be gouged and spread on Ritz crackers.

  The match burned low.

  She flinched and flapped it out, then stood staring at the cheeseball. What the devil? She glanced around the room and realized the place was clean for a change. Her old brass-and-glass tables had been freshly dusted and the cushions plumped on the hand-me-down family sofa. The tapes were stacked neatly, and the junk on the bookshelves had been neatened. The jet-black Kawaii piano Lisa's father had given her for high-school graduation hadn't a speck of dust on it. Instead, the key cover was neatly closed, and on top of the piano a picture of Lisa's current boyfriend, Mark, shared the space with a struggling philodendron plant and five Stephen King books in a pair of brass bookends Lisa had received from her Grandma Stella for Christmas.

  The piano was the only valuable thing in the room. When Michael had given it to Lisa, Bess had accused him of foolish indulgence. It made no sense at all—a girl without a college education or a decent car or furniture owning a five-thousand-dollar piano that would have to be moved professionally—to the tune of about a hundred dollars per move—how many times before she was finally settled down permanently?

  Lisa had said, “But, Mom, it's something I'll always keep, and that's what a graduation present should be.”

  Bess had argued, “Who'll pay when you have to have it moved?”

  “I will.”

  “On a clerk-typist's salary?”

  “I'm waitressing, too.”

  “You should be going on to school, Lisa.”

  “Dad says there's plenty of time for that.”

  “Well, your dad could be wrong, you know! If you don't go on to school right away, chances are you never will.”

  “You did,” Lisa had argued.

  “Yes, I did but it was damned hard, and look what it cost me. Your father should have more sense than to give you advice like that.”

  “Mother, just once I wish the two of you would stop haggling and at least pretend to get along, for us kids' sake. We're so sick of this cold war!”

  “Well, it's a stupid gift.” Bess had gone away grumbling. “Five thousa
nd dollars for a piano that could finance a whole year of college.”

  The piano had remained a sore spot. Whenever Bess came to Lisa's apartment unannounced, the piano held a film of dust on its gleaming jet finish and seemed to be used merely as the depository for books, scarves, hair bows and all the other flotsam of Lisa's busy two-job life. It was all Bess could do to keep from sniping, “See, I told you!”

  Tonight, however, the piano had been dusted and on the music rack was the sheet music for Michael's favorite song, “The Homecoming.” In years past, whenever Lisa sat down to play, Michael would say, “Play that one I like,” and Lisa would oblige with the beautiful old television-movie theme song.

  Bess turned away from the memory of those happier times and put on the Eagles Greatest Hits tape. While it played she used Lisa's bathroom, noting that it, too, had been cleaned for the occasion. Washing her hands, she saw that the fixtures were shining, the towels fluffy and freshly laundered. On the corner of the vanity was the apothecary jar of potpourri she'd given Lisa for Christmas.

  Bess hung up the towel and glanced in the mirror at her disheveled streaky-blonde hair, gave it a pluck or two: after the day she'd put in she looked undone. She'd been in and out of the wind, the shop, her car, and hadn't taken time since morning to pause for cosmetic repairs. Her forehead looked oily, her lipstick was gone and her brown eyes looked stark with the eyeshadow and mascara worn away. There were lap creases across the skirt of her winter-white wool crepe suit, and a small grease spot stood out prominently on the jabot of her raspberry-colored blouse. She frowned at the spot, wet a corner of a washcloth and made it worse. She cursed softly, then found a lifter-comb in Lisa's vanity drawer. Just as she raised her arms to use it, a knock sounded at the opposite end of the apartment.

  She stuck her head around the corner and called down the hall, “Lisa, is that you?”

  The knock came again, louder, and she hurried to answer it, leaving the bathroom light on behind her.

  “Lisa, did you forget your—?” She pulled the door open and the words died in her throat. A tall man stood in the hall, trim, black-haired, hazel-eyed, dressed in a gray woolen storm coat, holding a brown paper sack containing two wine bottles.

  “Oh, Michael . . . it's you.”

  Her mouth got tight.

  Her carriage became stiff.

  He gave her a stare, his eyebrows curled in displeasure. “Bess . . . what are you doing here?”

  “I was invited for supper. What are you doing here?”

  “I was invited, too.”

  Their face-off continued while she curbed the desire to slam the door in his face.

  “Lisa called me last night and said, Dinner at six-fifteen, Dad.”

  She had called Bess the night before and said, “Dinner at six, Mom.” Bess released the doorknob and spun away, muttering, “Cute, Lisa.”

  Michael followed her inside and shut the door. He set his bottles on the kitchen cupboard and took off his coat while Bess hustled back to the bathroom to put herself as far from him as possible. In the glare of the vanity light she backcombed four chunks of hair hard enough to push them back into her skull root-first. She arranged them with a few chunks and stabs of the wire hair lifter, slashed some of Lisa's grotesque scarlet lipstick on her mouth (the only tube she could find, considering she'd left her purse at the other end of the apartment), glared at the results and at the dark blob on her jabot. Damn it. And damn him for catching me when I look this way. She raised her brown eyes to the mirror and found them flat with fury. And damn me for squandering so much as a second caring what he thinks. After what he did to me, I don't have to pander to that asshole.

  She slammed the vanity drawer, rammed her fingers into her forelock and ground it into a satisfying mess.

  “What are you doing back there, hiding?” he called irritably.

  It had been six years since the divorce, and she still wanted to arrange his penis with a hot curling iron every time she saw him!

  “Let's get one thing clear,” she bellowed down the hall. “I didn't know a damned thing about this!”

  “Let's get two things clear! Neither did I! Where the hell is she anyway?”

  Bess whacked the light switch off and marched toward the living room with her head high and her hair looking like a serving of chow mein noodles.

  “She went to the store for sour cream, which I'm cheerfully going to stuff up her nostrils when she gets back here.”

  Michael was standing by the kitchen table, studying it, with his hands in his trouser pockets. He was dressed in a gray business suit, white shirt and blue paisley tie.

  “What's all this?” he threw over his shoulder as she passed behind him.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Is Randy coming?” Randy was their nineteen-year-old son.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You don't know who the fourth one is for?”

  “No, I don't.”

  “Or what the occasion is?”

  “Obviously, a blind date for her mother and father. Our daughter has a bizarre sense of humor, doesn't she?” Bess opened the refrigerator door, looking for wine. Inside were four individual salads, prettily arranged on plates, a bottle of Perrier water, and sitting on the top shelf in a red-and-white carton, a pint of sour cream. “My, my, if it isn't sour cream.” She picked it up and held it on one hand at shoulder level the way Marilyn Monroe would have held a mink. “And four very fancy salads.”

  He came to have a look, peering over the open refrigerator door.

  “What are you looking for, something to drink?”

  The smell of his shaving lotion, which in years past had seemed endearingly familiar, now turned her stomach. “I feel as if I need something.” She slammed the door.

  “I brought some wine,” he told her.

  “Well, break it out, Michael. We apparently have a long evening ahead.”

  She took two glasses from the table while he opened the bottle.

  “So . . . where's Darla tonight?” She held the glasses while he poured the pale red rosé.

  Over the gurgling liquid he answered, “Darla and I are no longer together. She's filed for divorce.”

  Bess got as rattled as an eighteen wheeler going over a cattle guard. Her head shot up while Michael went on filling the second glass.

  She hadn't spent sixteen years with this man not to feel a mindless shaft of elation at the news that he was free again. Or that he had failed again.

  Michael set the bottle on the cupboard, took a glass for himself and met Bess's eyes directly. It was a queer, distilled moment in which they both saw their entire history in a pure, refined state, so clear they could see through it, way back to the beginning—the splendid and the sordid, the regards and the regrets that had brought them to this point where they stood in their daughter's kitchen holding drinks that went untasted.

  “Well, say it,” Michael prodded.

  “Good, it serves you both right.”

  He released a mirthless laugh and shook his head at the floor. “I knew that's what you were thinking. You're one very bitter woman, Bess, you know that?”

  “And you're one very contemptible man. What did you do, step out on her, too?”

  He walked out of the room replying, “I'm not going to get into it with you, Bess, because I can see all it'll lead to is a rehash of our old recriminations.”

  “Good.” She followed him. “I don't want a rehash, either. So until our daughter gets back we'll pretend we're two polite strangers who just happened to meet here.”

  They carried their drinks into the living room and dropped to opposite ends of the davenport—the only seating in the room. The Eagles were singing “Take It Easy,” which they'd listened to together a thousand times before. The candles were burning on the glass-top table they'd once chosen for their own living room. The davenport they sat on was one upon which they'd occasionally made love and cooed endearments to each other when they were both young
and stupid enough to believe marriage lasts forever. They sat upon it now like a pair of church elders, in their respective corners, resenting one another and the intrusion of these memories.

  “Looks like you gave Lisa the whole living room after I left,” Michael remarked.

  “That's right. Down to the pictures and the lamps. I didn't want any bad memories left behind.”

  “Of course, you had your new business, so it was no trouble buying replacements.”

  “Nope. No trouble at all,” she replied smugly. “And of course, I get everything at a discount.”

  “So how's the business going?”

  “Gangbusters! You know how it is after Christmas—everybody looking at those bare walls after they've pulled down all the holiday paraphernalia, and wanting new wallpaper and furniture to chase away the winter doldrums. I swear I could do half a dozen home consultations a day if there were three of me.”

  He studied her askance, remaining silent. Obviously she was happy with the way things had worked out. She was a certified interior designer now, with a store of her own and a newly redecorated house.

  The Eagles switched to “Witchy Woman.”

  “So how's yours?” she inquired, tossing him an arch glance.

  “It's making me rich.”

  “Don't expect congratulations. I always said it would.”

  “From you, Bess, I don't expect anything anymore.”

  “Oh, that's funny!” She cocked one wrist and delicately touched her chest. “You don't expect anything from me anymore.” Her tone turned accusing as she dropped the cutesy pose. “When was the last time you saw Randy?”

  “Randy doesn't give a damn about seeing me.”

  “That's not what I asked. When was the last time you made an effort to see him? He's still your son, Michael.”

  “If Randy wants to see me, he'll give me a call.”

  “Randy wouldn't give you a call if you were giving away tickets for a Rolling Stones concert and you know it. But that doesn't excuse you for ignoring him. He needs you whether he knows it or not, so it's up to you to keep trying.”