With an Extreme Burning

TWO

Cecca said, “Condoms. And not just one—a whole package.”

“What kind?” Eileen asked curiously. “Not french ticklers?”

“Eileen, for God's sake. Not so loud.”

“Oh, nobody's paying any attention to us. It's too noisy in here anyway.”

Which was true enough. Romeo's at noon on a summer Saturday was always noisy. Poor acoustics and babbling tourists. Still, Eileen's voice carried. And usually at the wrong times, when she was making one of her more uninhibited comments. I should have waited to talk about this, Cecca thought. Someplace private. But it was too late now.

Eileen said, “It could have been worse, you know. It could've been drugs you found.”

“I know that. Amy's always been dead set against drugs; I count both of us lucky on that score. But condoms … I didn't think I had that to worry about either.”

“Mothers always want to believe their daughters are virgins.”

“Naive, huh?”

“The protective instinct. Was the package opened?”

“No. Why do you ask that?”

“Maybe Amy's carrying it just in case. Maybe she hasn't had occasion to use one of the things yet.”

“That's possible,” Cecca admitted. “She hasn't had a steady boyfriend in months.”

“Planning ahead. Very mature, if you ask me.”

“Yes, but my God. She's only seventeen.”

“Uh-huh. How old were you and Chet when you started doing it?”

“What does that have to do with this situation?”

“Seventeen, right?”

“We're talking about Amy, not me.”

“Kids are sexually active a lot younger these days. You know that.” Eileen devoured part of her bacon cheeseburger. Chewing, she said, “I can guarantee that neither of my kids is a virgin. I wouldn't be surprised if Bobby started when he was twelve or thirteen. He's a handsome little devil, if I do say so myself.”

“Boys,” Cecca said, “you have boys, not girls. It's not the same thing. Girls get pregnant.”

“Not if they carry condoms in their purses.”

“Eileen, this isn't funny. Not to me, it isn't.”

“I know, honey.”

Eileen reached across the table and patted her hand. The gesture was maternal and her expression was serious, but even at her gloomiest, Eileen seemed to be on the verge of a wink or a chuckle, if not one of her bawdy laughs. It wasn't that she was frivolous or insensitive; it was just that she looked at the world with a positive, sometimes wryly humorous eye. Her self-assessment, which she was fond of quoting to people she'd just met, was that she was “a big brassy blonde who loves life and doesn't give a hoot who knows it.” Even a sudden disaster like poor Katy's death hadn't dampened her spirits for long, although she'd cried as hard as Cecca had when they first heard about it.

“What would you do if you were me? Ignore what I found, or talk to Amy about it?”

“Probably ignore it.”

“You wouldn't want to know if your daughter was sexually active?”

“I don't think so.”

“Ignorance is bliss?”

“Her right to privacy, too, even if she is under age.”

Cecca picked at the remains of her Cobb salad. “I keep telling myself the same thing. But I still want to know.”

“So what's stopping you from asking?”

“Amy's finally quit blaming me for the divorce; we have a good relationship again. I don't want to do anything to rock the boat.”

“You mean she might think you were snooping.”

“I wasn't snooping. I really did bump her purse off the table by accident. But what if she doesn't believe it?”

“Mmm,” Eileen said reflectively. She finished the last of her burger, licked her fingers, wiped a spot of grease off her chin, and permitted herself a ladylike burp. “Have you ever talked to her about the birds and the bees?”

“Once seriously, when she was thirteen. I've tried since, but …”

“Awkward?”

“Awkward.”

“You used the mother-to-daughter approach, right?”

“What other approach is there?”

“Woman to woman. Casual, chatty, the way you and I talk. If she's been doing the deed, and you don't make her feel threatened about it, she'll either tell you straight out or let something slip. At least you'll know how she feels about sex at this stage of her life. And you won't have to mention the condoms at all. She'll tell you about carrying them, if she wants you to know.”

Sometimes Eileen amazed her. She could be so cavalier, downright flighty at times; and then she'd come up with a perfectly wise, practical suggestion like this. Funny how someone could be your close friend for thirty years and you still didn't have a clue as to how her mind worked.

Eileen said, “Good idea?”

“A lot better than any I could come up with.”

“You know, maybe I missed my calling. Maybe instead of a nurse I should have become a family counselor. Or a sex therapist, like Dr. Ruth. What do you think?”

“I think I'm going to buy your lunch.”

“Ah! The exact amount of my consultation fee. It also entitles you to an extra ten minutes, so let's move right along to your sex life. How're things with you and Jerry?”

“Jerry and I are just friends, you know that.”

“Meaning you still haven't slept with him.”

“No, I haven't.”

“Going to?”

“I don't know. Probably not.”

“Doesn't make your toes tingle? He's a real hunk.”

“Let's drop that subject, okay?”

“Uh-oh. Do I detect a hint of sexual frustration?”

“No, you don't.”

“That's what it sounds like to me. How long has it been, anyway, since you got laid?”

“Eileen …”

“Come on, how long?”

“I don't keep track of things like that,” Cecca said, which was a flat-out lie. It had been thirteen months, give or take a few days. One night with Owen Gregory. On a sudden whim or temporary brain lock … whatever you wanted to call it. After she and Owen had been to a party at Eileen and Ted's, as a matter of fact, and she'd drunk a little too much wine. It hadn't been very good. In fact, it hadn't been good at all. One-night stands weren't for her; she'd felt cheap afterward and still wasn't quite at ease in Owen's presence, even though he'd been a gentleman about the whole thing. She was a woman who needed a strong emotional attachment before she was comfortable in a sexual relationship. And since Chet, there simply hadn't been anybody. She wasn't even sure she wanted there to be anybody again. Once burned, twice shy.

Still, Eileen was right: She was a little frustrated. You didn't lose your sex drive when you got divorced and then turned forty. And with all the things that had been wrong with her marriage to Chet, sex hadn't been one of them. Lord, no. In fact, if it hadn't been so damned good, she might have left him before he decided to leave her—and wasn't that a sad, pathetic comment on the life and mindset of Francesca Bellini?

A busboy took their plates away. On his heels was the waiter with a dessert tray. Eileen said, “Oh, no, not for me,” and then allowed herself to be seduced into ordering a piece of Chocolate Decadence. “My friend and I will split it,” she said, and smiled at Cecca, who thought fondly: No, we won't. You'll eat the whole thing, you pig.

When the waiter was gone, Cecca said, “Oh, I didn't tell you who I saw earlier” to forestall any more of Eileen's probing sex questions.

“Who?”

“Dix.”

“You stop by his house, or what?”

“No, he was coming out of the hardware store.”

“How did he look?”

“Pretty well, considering. He's lost some weight.”

“I'd be surprised if he hadn't. Poor Dix.”

“I think he's going to be all right.”

“I hope so. I worry about him, rattling around in that big house all alone.”

“It was what he wanted.”

“What people say at funerals isn't necessarily what they mean.”

“Dix meant it. He has a right to grieve in his own way.”

“Well, sure he does. But I still think a person needs friends at a time like this, not isolation. If I lost Ted the way he lost Katy, I'd want a houseful of people around me every minute.”

“I suppose I would, too,” Cecca agreed. “If it hadn't been for you and Katy when Chet walked out, I don't know what I might have done.”

“So is Dix ready to start letting us back into his life?”

“Soon, I think. He as much as said so.”

“Encouraging,” Eileen said. “When are you seeing him again?”

“I don't know, I hadn't thought about it.”

“Don't wait around. Invite him to dinner tomorrow night.”

“That's too soon.”

“No it isn't. He's alone, you're alone. Two needy people. Make your move before somebody else does.”

The waiter brought Eileen's Chocolate Decadence and two forks. She plunged into it greedily. Cecca didn't touch the second fork; she was frowning.

“You think I'm needy?” she said.

“Aren't you, honey?”

“No. And even if I were, even if I were interested in Dix Mallory that way, which I'm not, Katy's been gone only three weeks. Three weeks, Eileen!”

“The living go on living. You're not attracted to Dix?”

“Not the way you mean, no.”

“Well, he's always been attracted to you. The way he looks at you sometimes … I'd say he's very interested. He never made a pass at you?”

“Dix? Don't be silly.”

“Well, why not? He's a man, and men are horny beasts, thank God.”

“He worshipped Katy. He wouldn't have cheated on her.”

“It's too bad Katy didn't feel the same way.”

“Oh God,” Cecca said.

“I know, I know, she was like a sister to me, too. But I swear she had a lover.”

“You don't know that she did.”

“Well, you don't always have to have proof positive. She was getting it from somebody besides Dix, all right.”

“I don't see how you can be so catty about her.”

“I'm not being catty. I'm the brutally frank type, honey, you ought to know that by now. I say what I think.”

“But after the horrible way she died …”

“Sure, it was horrible. But quick in an accident is a lot better than slow with cancer, no matter how awful the accident.”

“Even at forty? I suppose so.”

“You bet it is. Besides,” Eileen said philosophically, “accidents happen. Most of the time we're lucky enough to survive them, like when the ceiling panel collapsed at the hospital and almost squashed me. Or that time up in Oregon—all three of us could have been highway statistics that night. Poor Katy's luck just ran out.”

“Can we please change the subject? My lunch is starting to curdle.”

“When you've been a nurse as long as I have,” Eileen said, “nothing bothers your digestion. Or your appetite. You sure you don't want some of this cake? There's only one thing I can think of that tastes better than Chocolate Decadence, and Ted's not here.”

Cecca sighed and watched her vacuum up the cake. And thought about Dix. Attracted to her? Maybe, in the same platonic way she was attracted to him. Nothing serious, just an easy, good-humored friendship. Nothing sexual. She liked the way he looked, and his intellect, and his gentleness, and his smile—but that was all. Eileen was crazy if she thought there could be a romance between them. Still, she had to admit that he appealed to her more than Jerry or Owen, and she'd gone to bed with Owen. There was no harm in inviting him to dinner, seeing him socially. Not dates, exactly, just two friends getting together. Not even Katy could have found fault with that.

Katy, she thought. My best friend Katy. Dead three weeks, burned to death at the bottom of a ravine, and here I sit, planning casual get-togethers with her husband. I'm as bad as Eileen. Worse, because I'm not as honest.

God, what predators we humans are.

When they stepped out of the Mill's air-conditioned coolness, heat closed around them like sticky wool. Splinters of sun-glare pricked at Cecca's eyes; she put on her dark glasses. The light change bothered Eileen even more, made her grumble as she donned her own shades.

“Why did we have to have a heat wave now?” she said. “It'll be even hotter up at the lake.”

“Not in the water, it won't. What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

“Ted says we'll be on the road by seven, but if we're off by eight, I'll be happy.”

“Coming back Monday or Tuesday?”

“Labor Day, dammit, fighting traffic all the way. I've got to be at the hospital at eight A.M. on Tuesday. Still—seven glorious days of R and R.”

“I envy you. I'd settle for a two-day vacation right now.”

“Honey, are you sure you can't get away for that long? There's plenty of room at the cabin; the boys can double up.”

“I'd love to, I really would, but I've got showings scheduled for next week and there's a good chance the couple from Walnut Creek will decide to make an offer on the Morrison property. I really need at least one commission soon. Otherwise I don't buy any new fall clothes or you any more lunches.”

“Well, if things happen fast and you have the time, just come ahead. No need to call first.”

“I will.”

“Give my love to Dix when you see him,” Eileen said, and winked, and went off toward the public parking lot behind the Mill, her ample hips grinding inside those hideous paisley stretch pants she insisted on wearing.

Cecca drove to Better Lands to check her voice mail. The Agbergs, the Walnut Creek couple, were still debating, evidently—not that she'd expected otherwise. They were a methodical pair; it might take a week or two before they made up their minds. There were no other messages and not much going on at the office. Tom Birnam, boss and friend, told her there'd been only half a dozen calls and one showing all day. Saturdays were usually a busy time and she'd been a little sorry to have this one off. End-of-summer doldrums … but she knew that wasn't it. This damn recession was hurting everybody. She'd had just two sales in the past fifteen months, and it was the sheerest luck that one of those had been on the Ridge. One of the other agents hadn't had a sale of any kind in ten months.

And what made the pill even more bitter was the fact that Los Alegres had once been and should still be a real estate agent's paradise. Home prices had climbed radically in the greater Bay Area in recent years, but most houses here were still affordable and a good value for the money. Small-town America was dying, thanks to global shrinkage, overpopulation, technology, a dozen other factors. You couldn't find many towns in California these days, particularly close to a major urban center like San Francisco, that had a hundred-and-fifty-year history, an untricked-up, old-fashioned ambiance, community pride, good schools, a jobless rate of four percent (half the state average), no serious drug or gang problems, at least not yet, and therefore a relatively crime-free environment, and a commute to the city of not much more than an hour. Escapees from Oakland and Berkeley and San Francisco ought to be flocking here, engaging in bidding wars for prime home sites. Would be, once the economy perked up. If it perked up in the foreseeable future.

She stopped at Safeway for a few things, so it was almost three when she turned onto Shady Court. She'd always loved this one-block cul-de-sac; it was the prettiest little street on the west side. Tall elms lined both sides, their branches interlocked overhead to form a tunnel of summer shade. Well-maintained old houses of mixed architectural styles: Spanish, Victorian, neo-colonial, 1920s frame. Shady Court had such traditional charm that Hollywood location scouts, like bugs with highly sensitized antennae, had scoped it out and offered enough money to make the residents give in and allow their homes to be used as backdrops for (at last count) three TV commercials and scenes in two films. Cecca had voted against the intrusion of cameras and outsiders the last time, but as the newest resident, she was outvoted. In fact, she'd been the only dissenter.

She had adored Shady Court as far back as she could remember. Her parents' Christmas-tree farm had been a nice enough place to grow up, but it was too far out in the country to suit her; she preferred town and its attractions. When she was at Los Alegres High, eight blocks to the north, she had driven by the Court often on her way to and from school and had told her friends, “I'm going to live there someday.” They'd laughed at her. Well, it had taken her twenty years and an ugly divorce, but here she was. Thank you, Chet, she thought wryly and not for the first time. Walking out on Amy and me was a lousy thing to do, but at least you were decent about the settlement. Half the joint savings, Chet agreeing to give her seventy-five percent of the proceeds on the sale of their Cherry Street house in exchange for title to the Mendocino beach cottage, this place coming on the market at just the right time and at just the right price … sometimes in the midst of chaos there is an island of good.

Amy's little Honda, that her granddad had bought her over Cecca's protests last Christmas, was neither parked out front nor in the driveway. Off somewhere with her friends; she finished work at Hallam's Bookshop at one on Saturdays. Cecca felt a small disappointment. Eileen had psyched her up and she thought she knew now how to approach Amy on the subject of sex, if not the subject of the condoms. You had to walk such a fine line with the girl sometimes. Most of her hostility was gone, but it still flared up now and then, when Amy felt she was being threatened in some way. “If you and Dad had stayed married, it wouldn't be like this.” Insecurity. Distrust. Thank you again, Chet Bracco, you deceitful jerk. At least Amy's hostility had extended to her father as well, and in fact seemed to be lingering there, where it belonged. Cecca couldn't have stood it if she had somehow been twisted around in her daughter's mind so that she became the villain.

Some leaves were down already, she noticed as she dragged the groceries out. Elm and magnolia both. Still August, hundred-degree temperatures, and the trees were showing fall color and losing leaves. Easterners were wrong about California not having seasons, but there was no getting around the fact that the seasons were erratic.

It was relatively cool on the porch. She thought she would sit out there for a while and wait for Amy to come home. The porch was her favorite part of the house—a half wraparound that extended to the back on the south side, with rounded pillar supports and intricate filigree work, wide enough for plenty of furniture and plants without crowding. The house, a two-story frame, had been built in 1926, when life was much slower paced and people had time to sit and relax on porches like this. The fact that modern architects wouldn't even think of putting such a porch on a new house was a sad commentary on present-day lifestyles. Houses weren't built to last like this one either. Nearly seventy years old and in sound condition; its succession of owners had treated it well. The people she'd bought it from had painted it four years before, in rich browns and tans, and done the interior with such style and taste that she hadn't had to alter much of it at all. Eight large rooms, two and a half baths, a detached garage … too much house, really, for just Amy and her.

Just her in another year, she thought. Amy seemed determined to move out next summer, take an apartment with a couple of girlfriends who were also planning to attend UC Berkeley. Eighteen and caught up in the wild Berkeley scene … every small-town mother's nightmare. She wouldn't listen to Cecca's touting of Balboa State. She wanted to be out on her own, she said, and she had the grades to get into UC, and UC's journalism program was so much better than Balboa State's—a point Cecca could hardly argue. Amy wanted to be an investigative reporter, either TV or newspaper/magazine, but preferably TV. She would probably succeed at one level or another; she had the talent and the determination. But she was still so young, prone to letting her emotions rule her common sense. And now this thing with the condoms. Good or bad, wise or foolish—Cecca couldn't decide which.

There was one message on the answering machine, for Amy. Cecca put the groceries away, drank a glass of ice water, and went upstairs to change into shorts and a thin blouse, no panties or bra. One good thing about having small breasts: When you turned forty, you didn't have to worry about sagging, flopping, rounded shoulders, or the need for sweaty uplift on hot days. Downstairs again, heading for the porch—and the telephone rang.

Her first thought was that it might be the Agbergs; she'd given them her home as well as her office number. She did a quick about-face, hurried into the kitchen to pick up.

“Hello? This is Francesca.”

Silence. A steady, rhythmic breathing.

Him again.

How many times now? Five, six? Never said anything, just breathed. Something to be grateful for, that, since twice it had been Amy who answered. But Cecca was not going to tolerate any more of it. The man at the telephone company had told her to buy a big whistle and to put it up close to the mouthpiece and blow on it as hard as she could; sometimes that hurt their eardrums enough to make them think twice about calling again. She opened the drawer under the counter, found the whistle she'd picked up at K-mart, lifted it out.

“Don't hang up.”

Male voice, but weirdly distorted, unreal.

Oh, God, she thought, now it starts. The filth, the profanities. She put the whistle in her mouth, thinking: No, you don't, I won't listen to that, not in my own kitchen.

But she didn't blow it because when he spoke again it wasn't sexual obscenities she heard. It was something worse—something much more chilling.

“Do you know where Amy is, Francesca?” he said. “Do you have any idea what's happening to that little bitch of yours this very minute?”