Suspicion

“Oh, absolutely.” She smiled. “Idyllic. My twin sister and I had Shetland ponies and our own Boston Whalers to sail around the bay. Ingrid’s was red, mine was blue. My father called us the twin princesses of Catalina. He and my mother were the king and queen. Anything we wanted, we could have by stamping our little feet.”

Scott thought of his own daughter. Pictured her stamping her foot to demand that her parents quit acting like selfish geeks and get over themselves. Pretty much the essence of his last conversation with her.

“It’s hard for mainlanders to understand,” Ava said, “but there’s a magic to life here on the island.”

“And is it still that way for you?” He’d opened her portfolio and now glanced up from a picture of tiles embedded into the low wall of a children’s playground—star-fish and shells, a child’s beach bucket, an ice-cream cone, a bright yellow sun. He waved a hand to take in the picture-postcard views of blue ocean all around them. The impressive diamond on her left hand. “It all looks pretty good to me.”

Eyes hidden behind dark glasses, she smiled again. Her left shoe wobbled precariously from her toe. “Of course it is.”

He glanced down at his notes. “I had a question about your mother’s accident—”

“We’re here to talk about hand-painted tiles,” she said. “Do you have any other questions?”

He didn’t and she replaced her portfolio in the canvas bag, tossed her potato-chip bag in the trash, picked up the dog’s leash and bid him a terse goodbye. Scott watched her until she disappeared behind the Casino. If she’d been any more brittle and uptight, he thought, she’d shatter completely. He briefly considered going after her, then decided that Ava Lynsky’s emotional well-being wasn’t his concern. Besides, his ex-wife had taught him all he needed to know about dealing with neurotic, stressed-out women. It was an exercise in futility.

SOMEHOW SHE’D MADE IT through the interview with Scott Campbell. With blood pulsing in her head, Ava walked around to the back of the Casino, where tourists seldom ventured, and stood against the wall, breathing hard as if she’d just run a race. Henri whimpered at her side, licked her fingers.

“I’ll be okay, Henri. Give me a minute. I’ll be okay.” Her face felt hot and damp her fingertips numb. Her heart was thundering again the way it had in the therapist’s office. She opened her eyes. A man in a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat appeared over by the railing. He stood watching the water. With the back of her hand, she swiped at the tears streaming down her face. “I’m okay,” she told herself. “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Happened again, huh?” Ingrid asked when Ava met her on the narrow strip of town beach ten minutes later. “Did you see the therapist this morning?”

Ava pulled her knees to her chin, wrapped her arms around them. They were sitting on a patch of empty sand amidst the brightly colored towels spread out all around them. The breeze off the ocean blew strands of hair across her mouth; the mingled aromas of coconut oil and waffle cones drifted from Olaf’s ice-cream stand.

“I don’t like her,” Ava said. “Do you want to get an ice cream?”

“I just had an apple.” Ingrid pinched Ava’s arm. “Oink.”

“Thank you,” Ava said. “I needed that.”

“Sorry, that was hateful. I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it. It’s not like I don’t know myself. Every time I squeeze into my jeans, I can hear the way Mom nagged about my avoir du pois. I guess she thought it was more tactful to tell me I was fat in French.”

“What about those antidepressants you were taking after Rob died? Maybe they’d help. Do you still have some?”

“No.” Last night, unable to sleep, she’d torn her bathroom cabinets and drawers apart looking for the pills prescribed after her husband’s death three years ago. She’d stuck the mostly full bottle in the medicine cabinet and pretty much forgotten about it until the dreams started. But the bottle had disappeared, and she had no idea what happened to it. She opened her mouth to tell Ingrid, then found she didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t need them,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“If they stop the panic attacks, Ava—”

“I’m going to move,” Ava said. “I think the problem is living in Dad’s house. When I’m not there, I can kind of imagine that Mom just forgot to call.”

Ingrid sighed.

“I know,” Ava said. “I’m just telling you how it is. Remember how wrapped up she used to get in her projects? Days would go by and then I’d finally call her and she’d have no idea how long it had been. That’s what it seems like now, as long as I’m not up at the house being reminded of everything.”

“Yeah, Mom would give an absentminded professor a run for his money.” Ingrid smiled. “Remember that time she paid for gas and drove off without pumping any? I was there when she called to say she’d run out up by the hospital. Dad just shook his head.”

“Yeah, well…” Ava threw a rock for Henri and watched as he ran down to the water, white floppy ears catching in the breeze. I’m not happy, Diana’s voice said. I haven’t been for some time. She squeezed her eyes shut and the voice went away. “If I just kind of think of her that way…”

“It’s called denial,” Ingrid said.

Ava shrugged. “I only know I feel worse at the house. I can’t walk up the hill without looking up and seeing Mom on the balcony, or lie in bed and not hear her singing downstairs…”

Ingrid laughed. “That alone would be reason enough to move. Mom’s singing, I mean.”

Ava glanced at her sister and they both started laughing. In a sudden rush of feeling, Ava put her arm around Ingrid’s shoulders and pulled her close. They sat there for a moment, toes dug into the sand, united in the bond of shared memories. Two thirty-four-year-old women, slightly built, with blue eyes, pale skin and thick black hair. Ava’s was long and curly, Ingrid wore hers in a spiky bob. They were two parts of a whole, Ava thought. Even if they lived on different continents, she felt sure she would instinctively know if Ingrid was ever in trouble.

“‘Pineapple Princess they call me,’” Ingrid sang in Diana’s off-key voice. “‘Pineapple Princess, I love you, you’re the only girl for me-hee—’”

Ava punched her arm. “Stop.”

“‘Someday we will get married,’” Ingrid warbled, “‘and I’ll be your Pineapple Quee-een.’”

“Ingrid, shut up,” Ava said. “The lifeguard thinks you’re insane.”

“Let him,” Ingrid said. “So where are you going to move? Wait, I already know. Grandma’s old cottage.”

Ava stared at her. “I only saw the For Rent sign this morning.”

Ingrid shrugged. “You’ve only mentioned the cottage a dozen times before. It just figures. What does Ed think of the idea?”

Ava watched the glint of her diamond in the sunlight and realized with a pang of guilt she hadn’t even considered her fiancé’s possible reaction, but since he’d been waging a vigorous campaign to have her move in with him, he was hardly likely to be thrilled about the idea. “I haven’t told him yet.” She dug her toes into the sand. “I’m meeting Lil at two. She’s going to take me up there. Want to go?”

“I can’t. I’m giving a riding lesson to a bunch of Breatheasy kids. Hopefully Dad won’t want to go along to make sure they don’t start wheezing or something.”

“Ingrid,” Ava said reprovingly, “he’s a doctor, for God’s sake. The kids have asthma—of course he’d go along. That’s why parents send their kids to the camp.” She watched a couple of small boys, all coltish limbs and salt-dulled hair, kick sprays of sand into the air. After a moment they settled down to work, faces intent as they arranged pebbles into fantasy castles, held together with wet sand carefully dripped from plastic beach shovels. “You and Dad need to work things out,” she said. “You can’t stay mad at him forever.”

“What’s to work out? I think he’s a two-faced phony and he thinks I’m beyond hope. I can live with it.” She stretched out her legs. “So how’d the interview with the Argonaut guy go? I forget his name.”

“Scott Campbell.” Ava pulled a face. “He didn’t like me, I could tell. Plus, I was a bitch.”

“A bitch.” Ingrid grinned. “You?”

“I couldn’t help it. Something about him just set me off. I know he didn’t give a damn about hand-painted tile. He wanted to talk about Mom.”

“Reporters are like those pigs that sniff out truffles,” Ingrid said. “They get a whiff of something wrong and they keep rooting until they dig it out.”

“But there is nothing wrong,” Ava said. “A boating accident isn’t sexy, that’s all. They’d rather hear that Dad pushed her out of the boat or that she wanted to end it all. They start asking all these casual little questions. ‘Now, your parents were married forty years,’” she said, mimicking a reporter’s impartial tone. “‘Must have been a happy marriage.’ And you know damn well that’s not what they’re thinking.”

“So what’s he like?”

“Mr. L.A. Times?” Ava shrugged. “Kind of preppy-looking. All Gap and Eddie Bauer. Chambray shirt, cotton this and natural fiber that. Wire-rimmed glasses. Condescending.”

“Cute?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Liar.”