Vanishing Point

Sunday

Ma’s “little wedding reception” turned out to be quite the event.

The spacious home north of San Diego that she shared with her husband, Melvin Hunt, was filled with their friends and neighbors, most of whom I didn’t know. A full bar was set up in the living room, waiters circulated with trays of canapés, and a string quartet played softly in the garden gazebo. All this she’d organized in a little over a week, and, knowing Ma, if she’d had a couple more days’ notice she’d’ve had the house redecorated-something she did with great regularity. It was a far cry from the family barbecues she used to throw in the backyard of our old rambling house in San Diego proper, and I was hoping the genteel atmosphere and presence of strangers would stave off the contretemps that usually erupted when the clan gathered.

If any of them ever arrived.

Hy, in a beige summer suit, circulated through the crowd, beer in hand, charming the women and discussing with the men the stock market, the price of real estate, and golf handicaps-even though, so far as I knew, he’d never so much as picked up a club. Tall and lean, with curly dark blond hair, a hawk nose, and a swooping mustache, he wasn’t handsome in the conventional sense, but he had a presence that turned heads. When he smiled and winked at me across the room, I felt a rush of warmth. This man was my husband.

Then he was swallowed up in the crowd. I clutched my wineglass with tense fingers, looked around for a familiar face, but saw none. No one was paying attention to me, and even in my most becoming pale green silk tunic and flowing pants, I felt more like a wallflower than the guest of honor.

Where the hell were my relatives, anyway?

About three minutes later the front door opened and my older brother John entered, accompanied by his teenaged boys, Nate and Matt. Nate, blond and clean-cut like his father, was carrying a large, silver-wrapped package and looked around expectantly. His brother slouched, a sullen expression on his face, which appeared to have fallen victim to recent piercings-a gold ring dangled from one nostril and his right eyebrow sported a silver one. His hair, a peculiar shade of orange, looked as if it had engaged in a hostile encounter with an eggbeater. Nate and John came toward me, but Matt slunk off toward the door to the garden. Probably planning to go behind the gazebo and smoke some dope.

John enveloped me in a bear hug, lifted me off the ground, and twirled me around. “Hot damn, you finally did it! Where’s the lucky man?”

“I think Ma’s friends have co-opted him.”

“We’ll have to make a gallant rescue.” He raised his head, listening to the faint strains of the music. “What the hell’s that?”

“Vivaldi,” Nate said. “The Four Seasons.”

“What a drag.”

“Maybe you expected Grandma to ask John Fogerty to perform?”

“Kid’s a snob,” John said to me, ruffling Nate’s longish hair. “Thinks I’m stuck in an outdated and musically crude era.”

“No, my tastes are just more eclectic than yours.” Nate smiled shyly at me and extended the package. “This is for you and Hy from all three of us.”

“Thank you! Should I open it now?”

They exchanged glances. “Uh, I don’t think so,” John said. “Not in this crowd.”

“Ah-hah! Well, I’ll put it with the others and open it later.”

A table was set up nearby, and it was already loaded with presents. A nice thought on the part of those who had brought them, but I couldn’t help but entertain the image of more stuff riding up and down the coast highway in the trunk of my MG. People who get married in their forties, particularly people with three houses between them, really shouldn’t qualify for wedding gifts.

“I’ll take it over there for you,” Nate told me, “and then I’m gonna find some food. I’m starving.”

John snagged a glass of wine off a passing waiter’s tray, said, “Where’re Ma and Melvin?”

“Circulating. I think she gave this party more for them than for Hy and me.”

“No, I think she gave it to impress someone.”

“Who?”

“Your birth mother. From conversations we’ve had, I gather Ma’s intimidated by Saskia Blackhawk-or at least the idea of her. Lawyer, champion of her people’s rights, has argued before the Supreme Court. You know.”

“Saskia is a very down-to-earth person, and she doesn’t care about social trappings.”

“That may very well be. But you know Ma.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I do. And I’m sure Saskia and my half sister Robin will like her and handle the situation beautifully.”

“What about Darcy?”

Darcy, my half brother. I smiled. “I don’t know how he’ll feel about Ma, but I know he’s going to hit it off with Matt.”

“Matt doesn’t get along with anybody these days.”

“Neither does Darcy.”

My Aunt Susan and Uncle Jim McCone, down from Jackson in the Gold Country, were the next family members to arrive, followed by Charlene and Vic and my nieces Jamie, Molly, and Lisa. Charlene looked wonderful-slender, her blonde hair streaked by the sun, her skin glowing. Obviously this second marriage was agreeing with her. But her eyes clouded for a moment as she held my hands.

“What?” I asked.

“Oh, I was just thinking of Pa. How happy he would’ve been. And Joey-I wish he could be here.”

Our other, sadly troubled brother had died a suicide last spring. “Me too, but you know he wouldn’t’ve come. He avoided family parties for years.” I didn’t mention that Charlene and Ricky’s youngest son wasn’t attending either. His parents’ much-publicized divorce had been hard on Brian, and he was currently at a camp for troubled teens in Arizona.

“True.” She squeezed my hands, then released them. “Vic and I have a gift for you guys, but we didn’t think it appropriate to bring it inside.” She smiled at her tall, distinguished-looking husband, and he grinned wickedly.

“Oh?” I asked. “What?”

“Later, Shar. Later.”

Charlene, Vic, John, Molly, and Lisa went off to say hello to Ma and Melvin. Eighteen-year-old Jamie stayed behind. “How’s Derek?” she asked. She’d developed a major crush on Derek Ford at a party she’d attended at my house last month.

“He’s fine.”

“Does he ever ask about me?”

Jamie was the most sensitive of Ricky’s four daughters; I wasn’t about to tell her that last weekend Derek had brought her older sister, Chris, an undergrad at UC Berkeley, to the party at Touchstone. “He says hello.”

“Oh! Tell him I say hello, too.” Her big smile immediately made me regret the lie, but I told myself it was a harmless one. Derek dated a new woman every week, and Chris was not known for sustaining long-term relationships. Even so, when Jamie didn’t ask any more questions and headed off to find Ma and Melvin, I felt a certain relief.

Moments later Hy appeared at my elbow. “How’re you holding up?” he asked.

“Better, now that there’s family here. All these people… well, they’re very nice, but I didn’t picture this big a gathering.”

“Big gatherings don’t usually intimidate you. Are you still upset about that shooting incident?”

“More concerned that somebody in the Paso Robles area seems intent on derailing my investigation.” We’d gone over the incident in detail when I’d arrived in San Diego that morning, and Hy’s professional instincts confirmed mine: the shot had been intended to warn me off.

“To tell the truth,” I said, “I’m glad to be going back home tomorrow. I picked up a bunch of Laurel’s papers and her postcard collection from her sister before I flew down this morning, and I want to study them before proceeding.”

I paused, thinking back on my last conversation with Anna Yardley. “You know, when I picked up the stuff I mentioned that I’d met with Sally Timmerman, Laurel’s best friend. The sister, Anna Yardley, said she was surprised I’d bothered, since Laurel and Sally had fought over something and weren’t speaking the year before Laurel disappeared. But Sally was called to the Greenwood house by the chief of police after Roy reported Laurel missing, and she never mentioned anything about a falling-out to me. I’m going to call her and do a little probing.”

Hy nodded. “Good idea. And I can understand why you’re preoccupied with the case, but that’s not all that’s bothering you.”

I’d never been able to hide anything from him. “Okay. Saskia’s plane landed an hour ago. She, Robin, and Darcy should be here any minute.”

“The great maternal face-off.”

“Well, I doubt it’ll come to that. But it’ll be awkward. Why Ma felt compelled to invite them, and why they accepted… I don’t get it. Did you know Ma actually called Elwood and invited him?”

“I’d’ve loved to be party to that conversation.”

“Yeah, I can just hear it: ‘I’m giving a little wedding reception for our daughter on Sunday. Can you attend it?’ ‘Daughter. Yes. Sharon and I are working on coming to terms with our relationship.’ ‘But would you like to come to the reception?’ ‘Ask me again after I’ve had time to assemble my thoughts.’ ‘Do you think you can assemble them by Sunday afternoon?’ ‘I don’t know. The mind works in strange ways.’”

Hy laughed. “I guess Elwood didn’t assemble in time.”

“No, thank God, and-”

The doorbell rang. I stiffened.

No one seemed to have heard it.

It rang again.

Hy nudged me toward the entryway. “Showtime, McCone,” he whispered dramatically.

Opening the door to Robin and Saskia was, at once, like catching a glimpse of my past and future selves. Robin, with her high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes, looked much as I had in my twenties, except that she’d recently cropped her black hair, while all my life I’d worn mine on the longish side. In the lines that bracketed Saskia’s full lips and the furrows on her forehead, I could envision how I would look when I reached my sixties. We three shared the same oval facial shape, tilt of nose, medium height, and slender body type; our eyebrows were slightly mismatched, one set a fraction of an inch higher than the other. No one could have missed the fact that we were related, even though Robin and I had different fathers.

As she stepped into the entryway, Saskia smiled at me and placed her hands on my shoulders. Looking into my eyes she said, “I’m so happy for you.” Then she turned to Hy and hugged him.

Robin embraced both of us, and I heard her whisper to Hy, “Thank God I’ve finally got a normal brother-even if you are kind of removed.” Then she turned, frowning, to Darcy, who seemed to have shaved his head for the occasion. He hung back on the doorstep, arms folded across his loose black tee, which was emblazoned in red with the word “Roog.” Whatever that was.

“Well?” Robin said.

“Uh, hi, Sharon,” he mumbled. “Congratulations.”

Robin made a clicking sound with her tongue. Although fiercely protective of her emotionally damaged brother, she often ran out of patience.

I said, “Thanks, Darce.”

He nodded stiffly, his one long silver earring bobbing. In addition to shaving off the hair that had been purple the last time I’d seen him, he’d also removed all of his facial jewelry except for a small stud in his nose. An effort to appear normal to my family, or merely a change of fashion?

Hy stepped forward and I introduced them.

“Darcy,” Hy said, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Come with me. You look like you could use a beer.”

As they walked away, Robin said, “And he wanted to come. Can you imagine how he’d’ve behaved if we’d forced him?”

“Robin, dear-” Saskia began, but then her gaze was drawn away from her to the archway to the living room.

Ma stood there, her rigid social smile frozen on her lips. She held herself very erect, her blonde head at an angle that would have seemed haughty had her eyes not been so afraid. I started toward her, but Saskia-recognizing Ma from pictures I’d shown her-moved around me, reaching her in two strides and clasping both her hands.

“Kay,” she said, “I’m so glad to meet you. You’ve raised such a lovely daughter.”

Ma’s cheeks went pink, and her eyes showed relief. Her fears, I realized, were not of Saskia’s learning or professional stature, but that she would make a claim on me other than the one that had already been established. But by her words my birth mother-wise woman-had made it clear that she had no such intention. For a moment Ma seemed at an unaccustomed loss for words; then the social smile was replaced by a genuine one and she regained her poise.

“Thank you, Saskia,” she said. “I think our daughter has turned out quite nicely. Even though,” she added with a dark glance at me, “I often despaired of ever seeing this day.”

“I understand perfectly. Robin has a very nice young man, but apparently she prefers studying the law to him.” My half sister was transferring from law school at the University of Idaho to Berkeley this fall; she’d be going straight from San Diego to her new apartment there.

Ma said, “Maybe when Robin does decide to get married she’ll have a proper wedding, rather than running off to Nevada like Sharon.”

The bonding of the mothers. God help me!

Robin elbowed me in the ribs and whispered, “The two of them in cahoots is not a pretty sight.”

Saskia smiled tolerantly at both of us and introduced Ma to Robin. Then they linked arms and went off into the crowd, leaving us in the foyer.

An hour later Ma found Hy and me in the gazebo-he had left Darcy behind it with Matt, and denied knowledge of any controlled substances being used there-and told us it was time to cut the cake. I squared my shoulders and followed her to the dining room, glad to dispatch what must surely be the last of my bridely duties. Just what I needed to round out my day-a sickly sweet white confection with the consistency of cardboard. I only hoped it wouldn’t be topped by a miniature bride and groom.

When we entered the room, a woman in a white pastry chef’s coat was carefully placing a red rose on the top tier of an enormous cake covered in the the richest-looking chocolate I’d ever laid eyes on. She turned, motioned to it with a flourish, and I recognized my youngest sister, Patsy.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “You told me you couldn’t take time to attend the reception.” Patsy and her husband, Evans Newhouse, ran three restaurants, and the newest one, in the wine country town of Sonoma, had proved problematical and time-consuming.

“It was the God’s truth,” she said. “I couldn’t take time because I was back there”-she motioned toward the kitchen-“creating this damn thing. You don’t serve store-bought wedding cake when you’ve got a master chef in the family.”

At close to midnight, Hy and I had finished unwrapping our three gifts from John and his boys, Charlene and Vic, and Patsy and Evans. Identical baskets full of exotic bath toys from LuvYou.com sat plundered and pillaged on the floor of RKI’s condo.

“Makes you wonder if they sit around speculating about our sex life,” Hy said, contemplating a package of organic body paints.

“It makes me wonder about theirs.” The Love Mermaid leered up at me as I tried to figure out what one did with her.

“Three sets.” Hy looked thoughtful.

“One for the ranch, one for San Francisco, one for Touchstone. No riding up and down the highways for these babies. Good thing, too. What if we got in an accident?”

“Yes. As your mother would say, what on earth would the highway patrol think?”

“Not mother-mothers.”

“And what would those mothers think about us experimenting with this stuff?” He winked and motioned toward the bathroom, where there was a Jacuzzi tub.

But before we could try out the new toys, real life intruded: Mark Aldin called to tell me that Jennifer had gone missing.