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Tom kissed Leigh, then nuzzled her hair, saying, “That’s okay. There’s always a plan B.”
“What is it?”
“No idea. Whatever you want.”
“You don’t even have a savings account.”
“Money goes and flows too fast these days.” He waved toward the glowing sunset. “We’re doing all right, aren’t we?”
But they weren’t. Leigh tired of the parties and Tom’s erratic, and to her, aimless existence. Between jobs, between auditions, he played volleyball on the beach or visited with his buddies while she slogged away, installing cabinets on construction jobs, the only steady paycheck.
Leigh confided in Kat, “I can’t stand the way he just hangs around! He offered to get a real job the other day, but I know how that would go. He’d hate me in the end.”
“He wouldn’t,” Kat had replied. “Oh, Leigh, I wish you had never hooked up with him. He’s so crazy about you. He’ll do anything you want, just so he has you.”
“I don’t think Tommy knows what it means to be grown up,” Leigh had said, screwing in some private final screw.
“You liked that about him.”
“I turn thirty next month,” she said.
Then she had met Ray Jackson. Leigh moved back to her folks’ house and dated both of them for a month. She told Kat she was breaking up with Tom before she told Tom. “Ray’s solid, creative, smart, driven. He’s like me. We’re both productive people. Creative.”
“You said that as if Tommy isn’t?”
Leigh flung a look at her full of heartache, angst, and decision. “Tom’s adorable, but he doesn’t care enough about what really matters. He’s not for me. Ray’s serious about life and so am I.”
“Tom loves you!”
“So does Ray.”
“But-” But what could Kat say? “Don’t hurt him.”
But the talk-or argument, whatever you wanted to call it-didn’t go well. Leigh told Kat some of the things she had to say when Tommy wouldn’t understand. They were cruel things, Kat thought.
Kat worried, but she thought her brother would move on to another pretty girl as he always had in the past.
But Tom did not.
Acting like a man who had been hit by a truck and left to die on the road, Tom begged Leigh to come back to him and staged progressively more desperate scenes until Leigh demanded that he go permanently away.
And so he did. Leigh and Kat had a fight the next day. Things were said, more cruel things, this time brought on by grief and guilt.
And Kat thought, I have to stop now, stop thinking anymore about Tommy, about what I did to Tommy.
She dropped off her notes at the office and got back on the freeway, heading north now, embracing the rush hour like a penance.
Almost thirty minutes after Kat had arrived at the Jackson house in Topanga Canyon, at about five-thirty, a Porsche Boxster drove up, blue, waxed, carapace gleaming like a huge tropical beetle’s in the sun, windows shadowy. Rather than pull into the garage, the car pulled up beside Kat’s. A man got out.
Tall, taut. Probably six feet two. Dark, groomed, no recession marring a noble brow.
These fine details etched themselves on her mind. A veteran dater, she noticed his clothes, faded jeans topped with a designer shirt, quite formal, silk.
And wow. Very good-looking behind the shades. He and Leigh would make a pretty pair. Kat was disappointed to see that he was alone.
Ray Jackson did not appear happy. He stood by her car like a highway patrolman getting ready to ask for her license. She rolled her window down.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“Hi. I’m-uh-an old friend of Leigh’s.”
“You are?” He considered her, but not for long. The heat made his silk shirt wilt. “Oh, yeah, the one that’s been calling. And calling.”
“But you never answer.”
“We have caller ID. I answer calls from people I know. It’s hot. You should come in.” He turned abruptly, heading for the front door.
She rolled up her window, adjusted a silver shade over the dashboard to fend off the fading sun, and followed him.
They introduced themselves, and she walked behind him through the security routine into the marble entryway.
She looked around. “Will she be home soon?”
“That would be nice,” Jackson said. He took off the sunglasses, folded them carefully, placed them on the polished table. “You should have mentioned you’d be stopping by.”
“I tried to. I would have, if you had ever answered your phone.” He waited for her next move, and she really didn’t have one.
“I knew Leigh for years,” she said. She didn’t say, You stole her from my brother. Did Ray Jackson know that? Maybe not.
“Apparently not so much recently.”
“No.”
“Why have you been calling? Why are you here at my house all of a sudden?”
She felt herself blushing and did not have an easy answer. “My sister saw an article about a project you’re working on and we got to wondering about Leigh. I just want to see her. Am I completely out of luck tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Too bad.”
“I’m sorry.” He was relaxing a little.
“Can I leave her a note?”
“If you want.”
“I just wanted to get it over with. Jacki talks me into these things-”
“Get what over with?”
Startled, she realized she had spoken out loud. “Seeing Leigh. We have old business between us. I decided to deal with it in an adult fashion, by confronting my demons.”
“You calling my wife a demon?”
“What? Oh.” Of course he was teasing, although he didn’t look especially amused.
“What is it?” Jackson tilted window blinds on the main wall that overlooked the Pacific Ocean so that the raging sunset didn’t make it impossible to see. “Your business with Leigh?”
“Unfinished business?”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“It’s complicated.” But she always tired of discretion fast. Blurting was her style. Another Buddhist precept said: Guard your mouth. No idle talk.
“We were best friends.”
“She mentioned you,” he said. A halo of orange-gold sunset silhouetted him between the blind’s slats.
“She did?”
“Said sometimes you’re too close to someone to stay friends. What do you think she meant by that?”
“She knew I thought I was fat and that I stuck a finger down my throat if I ate too much for a while when I was fifteen,” Kat said, rattled. “I knew she fed the dog her oatmeal in the morning even though it gave him the runs, which made her parents insane. Her mom was really house proud.” She set her bag down on the marble demi-lune table, trying to imagine Leigh living like this, so pristinely. The Leigh she knew flung things and thrived on creative disorder.
“I don’t think you’re fat,” he said.
“Uh, thanks,” she said. He didn’t flirt exactly, but all this guy had to do was flash that straight line of perfect orthodontia and any girl might feel the wind unbuttoning her blouse. She slumped, letting her chest cave in just slightly, not wanting to give him-or herself-any ideas.
“So you’re Kat. Leigh told me you’d dropped out of her life,” he said. “She told me she missed you. Called you her dark secret. What do you think she meant, saying that?”
“No idea,” Kat lied.
“How long since you last spoke with her?”
“Six years.”
“That’s a long time. Nothing more recent?”
“No.” She couldn’t tell if he looked relieved or disappointed.
“That’s how long we’ve been together,” he went on. He moved toward a wall, then pushed a button. A mahogany panel lifted, revealing a mirrored bar.
“Nice,” Kat said. “Modern. I heard about you, before Leigh and I lost touch.”
“Really? What?”
She didn’t want to talk about Tom. She never liked talking about Tom. She liked holding him close to her heart. “Leigh was just getting to know you, in love.” It came out sounding accusatory, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He nodded. “I fell hard for her, too,” he said. “Listen, I’m thirsty. Long commute. Can I get you anything?”