the restorative power of a romp in a meadow.
My sense of renewal was short-lived. When we got home, I could hear the phone ringing before I unlocked the front door. I raced to pick it up, heard the husky music of Lucy Blackwell’s voice, and felt my spirits plummet.
“Music Woman, you’ve got to give me a chance to explain.”
“Go for it.”
“Not on the phone. Can we meet for a drink somewhere?”
“I have a family, Lucy. I have to make supper.”
“I’ll take you to a restaurant – all of you. Please, you have to listen to what really happened.”
I almost hung up on her, then I remembered Signe Rayner. There was a chance that if I heard Lucy out, she might answer some of my questions about her sister. I took a deep breath. “Forget the restaurant,” I said. “You can come over. But it’s going to have to be a quick visit.”
Lucy Blackwell was at our front door in ten minutes. She was still wearing the gypsy outfit, but there was nothing carefree in her manner. As she looked around the living room, she seemed both tense and unfocused. “This is so homey. That rocking chair is perfect.”
“It was my grandmother’s,” I said.
Lucy laughed softly. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Can I sit in it?”
“Of course,” I said. “Would you like a drink?”
She shook her head. “I had too much at lunch. After you left I was feeling a bit shaky.”
“Because I’d caught you in a lie.”
She flushed. “Yes. What Signe and I did was stupid, and childish, but it wasn’t malicious. It was,” she shrugged helplessly, “make-believe. We were just using make-believe to show you the truth. In the last year, my mother had fooled so many people.” Lucy leapt to her feet and came over to where I was sitting. In a swift and graceful movement, she knelt on the rug in front of me. “Mrs. Kilbourn, you saw Tina’s face today. That abomination was a direct result of my mother’s enlightenment.”
I almost cut her off. I had believed Eric Fedoruk when he told me that Justine had given Tina the money she asked for, and I’d had my fill of make-believe. But there was a real possibility that, as she spun her latest fiction, Lucy would reveal a truth that I needed to know. I sat back in my chair. “Go on,” I said.
Lucy’s gaze was mesmerizing. “Tina was in a business where you can’t get old. When she asked for help to get the surgery that might have saved her career, my mother didn’t even hear her out. Instead of cutting her a cheque, Justine gave her a speech about how privileged we all were, and how it was time we stopped taking and started giving. That job of Tina’s might not have looked like much to you or me, Joanne, but it was her life. You should see her apartment. It’s filled with pictures of her doing all this demeaning public-relations stuff for CJRG: riding the float in the Santa Claus parade, flipping pancakes at the Buffalo Days breakfast, running in the three-legged race with the sports guy on her show. Total fluff, but it was her identity.” Lucy raked her fingers through her hair. “Tina’s always been fragile, emotionally. My mother knew that. She knew terrible things might happen if Tina was hurt again.”
“What kind of terrible things?”
Lucy looked away. “Forget I said that. I didn’t come here to talk about Tina.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You came to explain why you and Signe decided to produce that little vignette for Hilda and me.”
She winced, but she soldiered on. “I told you, it was just a way of getting you to see the truth.”
“How many lies do you think it’s going to take before I see the truth, Lucy?”
Her body tensed. “What do you mean?”
I moved closer to her. “I know Tina got that money from your mother.”
“How do you know?”
I remembered Eric Fedoruk’s certainty. “There’s a cancelled cheque,” I said. It was a bluff, but it did the trick.
In a flash, Lucy was on her feet. “Tina must have lied to me,” she said weakly and she started for the door.
“Wait,” I said. I got up and followed her. “My turn now, and I haven’t got time to figure out which of you is lying about what. Lucy, I have one question for you, and the answer you give me had better be truthful because I’m running out of patience.”
Lucy gazed at me intently.