ready?”
“Let’s meet there. I think I can manage to look respectable in half an hour, but an extra few minutes couldn’t hurt.”
Showered and in her robe, with a towel wrapped around her head, Charlotte stood in front of her only closet and was glad that her choice was practically made for her: one single little black dress, a sleeveless sheath. Finished with black pumps and with the short denim jacket to keep it from looking too stuffy, she would feel attractive and comfortable. But her nails were a mess from everything she had been doing the past two weeks, and an extra ten minutes went for a quick manicure. Fluff the hair, add the lipstick and a bit of mascara, the hoop earrings and the silver bracelet—done.
Walking in pumps on the way to Amaretto felt odd after not wearing them for so long—the last time was at Ellis’ performance at the state competition. It seemed like years ago now. The sidewalks were full of people walking to and from the restaurants and bars, and here and there a couple kissed, or a group of young adults laughed at something one of them said. It was a lively little downtown, much more so now than it had been a decade before.
She’d long wondered what a date with Simon would be like, and now she was about to find out. Her palms were slightly damp again from nervousness. I wish I didn’t like him quite so much, and could just be cool about it. Whatever I do, I mustn’t gush. Ellis would be more mature than this.
Amaretto was full, as was usual on a Saturday night, and Charlotte was impressed that Simon got a table at such short notice. She spotted him standing at the crowded bar, his back to her, talking to someone she couldn’t see. Even if she didn’t know who he was, she would have picked him out in a crowd as “her type.” He turned toward the bar just then, and she took in his gray sports jacket over a plain black knit sweater and a fresh pair of black jeans. As Charlotte approached, she could see a woman standing next to him put her arm around his waist and pull him toward her, and he placed a hand on her shoulder and laughed. It was Lola, in spandex, cleavage, and very shiny red lipstick, a good bit of which was left on Simon’s cheek.
Charlotte almost turned around and left, and probably would have, except the bartender noticed her and smiled, and Simon turned to look, as well, with an expression that was, for him, hapless.
“Charlotte!” Lola squealed, and strutted over in red stilettos to give her a hug and air kisses. “You look fabulous!” She then went on a bit in a tipsy monologue about how great it was that Toley Banks was in jail, at long last. Simon, standing behind Lola, made a face that almost sent Charlotte into hysterics.
To Charlotte’s relief, however, they were called to their table, and it was in a quiet corner.
When they sat down, she pointed to his cheek. “Lola left her brand on you.”
Simon winced at the realization. “She means well, but she’s awfully full on.” He picked up his napkin to wipe his cheek, and handed it to Charlotte to finish when he missed a spot. When she handed it back, he looked at it with distaste and set it at the edge of the table. “I think I’ll ask for a fresh one.”
He picked up the wine menu. Charlotte took in the details of his face, the line of his nose, the way his hands held the menu.
Simon looked up, first at her face, then at the rest of her, taking in the way she looked, and somehow managed to make her feel, without saying a word, that he liked what he saw. “Let’s do this properly, what do you say? A good bottle, an appetizer, an over-the-top main course, and maybe even a little dessert if we’ve room? Something to make the whole world go away for a while?”
He gets it. He read her expression, and chuckled. She grinned, inside as well as out.
Sunday, Charlotte slept in, after ten solid hours of the kind of sleep that had eluded her for weeks. She’d had a lot to drink and eat at the restaurant, but there were no ill effects, and she practically purred at the memory of an utterly enjoyable evening. Simon had walked her back to the apartment, where he gave her a long, warm full-body hug, and then a kiss that landed on her jaw, close to her earlobe, as if he was going to kiss her neck and then stopped to move up to her cheek and didn’t quite make it. They laughed and tried again, this time getting it right. Then once again he looked at her with an inscrutable expression, thanked her “for a wonderful evening,” and went on his way. No matter where it went from here, they had a connection, of that she was now absolutely certain. It made her feel ten years younger.
As she moved to get out of bed, something shiny on the duvet caught her attention: a stainless steel tea ball. What on earth? Then she noticed Shamus sitting a few feet away from the foot of the bed.
“Did you bring this to me?” she asked him.
The tip of his tail moved, but that was the only answer he had.
The tea ball still had a price tag attached to it, and then Charlotte recalled there was a box of them in the kitchen section of The Good Stuff. How in the world did Shamus get it in here, with the pet door closed off?
“You are one very mysterious cat.”
He looked up at her, and once again she could have sworn he was smiling, a happy, pleased with himself, feline smile.
They all met at The Coffee Grove for brunch, sharing the Sunday paper’s headline story about Toley Banks’ arrest and his ties to Olivia and Wesley Warren. Diane, as usual, was effusive in both her surprise and praise, and Jimmy looked thoroughly entertained. Helene set aside her usual elegant reserve for a moment in the limelight, retelling the story of luring Mitchell and Doc from the basement. Lola staggered in late with a hangover. Simon gave her his chair, then grabbed another chair and squeezed in next to Charlotte.
“So, then?” Diane asked Helene. “Is the whole thing figured out? You’ve got all the notebooks, you’ve got a rare book you didn’t know about in the beginning, and you’ve got the people responsible for the crime. But do you know why, or did I miss that?”
Helene gestured toward Charlotte. “There’s the one to ask, Diane. Charlotte’s been trying to make sense of all this from day one.”
Charlotte put up her hands in protest. “Hey, I couldn’t have done it without you and Simon, or without everyone’s help when I moved and tried to get settled in the middle of everything.” She shared an encapsulated version of Olivia’s story, then concluded, “I still have a few more things I’m wondering about, but maybe the answers will turn up over time. Or maybe not. Some of it might always remain a mystery.”
Jimmy nodded at the last bit. “Human motivation is rarely as clean-cut in real life as it is in a detective story.”
As the conversation around the table continued, Charlotte thought of Olivia’s promise as a writer, a whole career lost to spite, and how it contributed to Donovan’s wasted potential, as well. She recalled Helene’s remark about how parents set the stage, set the tone for the future, and hoped that she gave Ellis a chance to blossom by letting her go to Paris so young.
“People sometimes make terrible choices,” said Helene, “or are afraid to make any choices at all. The next thing you know, entire lifetimes are wasted.”
Simon shifted to get comfortable in the tight space, stretching his arm across the back of Charlotte’s chair, and settling in closer to her. She turned to give him a big smile. He grinned back.
“It was never easy to please Olivia,” Helene was saying to Charlotte, “but I like to think you would have come close.”
Regardless of Helene’s praise for her efforts, after a couple of hours more research into the French Resistance, Seamus O’Dair, and the various people known to associate with him in his Paris days, Charlotte debated whether she should continue with the project or not—it would, in essence, amount to a comprehensive research project that might be best left to O’Dair specialists. Then again, there was no reason she couldn’t become such an expert, given time and devotion. Olivia’s story could certainly change some perceptions about O’Dair, Least Objects, and his Nobel Prize.
She read through
the composition book with Donovan’s story in it. Like Helene, she could see Olivia cherishing something that showed a shared interest between herself and her son. Charlotte expected an immature tone, a naive point of view, or something cartoonish, but to her surprise Donovan’s story was about a soldier in the Vietnam War, one that seemed to be based on Ronson Targman, and in a decidedly negative light. The structure was simple: a scene where the soldier describes cruel treatment of captured enemy soldiers, then of locals suspected of being guerilla fighters, and then finally of innocents, interspersed with scenes of the same soldier’s harsh, abusive treatment of people and family members back home, including firing at protesting college students “like the ones at Kent State.” It was a rough draft, but the descriptive passages were perceptive and direct—too well written, she thought, for a ten-year-old, which was how old Donovan was in 1968. Perhaps it was placed in the coal chute at a later date? She looked up the Kent State shootings: May 4th, 1970. The story was written when Donovan was at least twelve years old. Much more plausible.
Here and there the pages were torn and stained, as was the cover. The notebook had suffered abuse. Had it been thrown away, and Olivia found it and saved it? There was no mention of it in her own notebook from 1970, or the next one from 1976. Charlotte did spot a passage where