Chapter 3
“The people, this reunion. When? Are there any young guys?”
Gerald removed his glasses. “You are not to bother the guests, you know that.”
“What if they bother me?”
“Nobody will bother you if you keep to yourself.”
“Fun.”
“Go find your mother, help her count the chairs. One hundred forty-three, that’s how many we need. And tables, too.”
“One forty-three,” Jennalee muttered as she headed for the door. “Should be a few hunks in there somewhere.”
“Go help your mother,” Gerald said. “And practice.”
Jane Preece was already in the Oak Room storage closet counting stacks of folded chairs. “Where are all these people coming from?” Jennalee asked after she gave the official count to her mother. Jane Preece was a youthful forty-one and Jennalee wondered if she’d ever gone without panties, then dismissed the notion. She’d married Gerald Preece, after all.
“All over,” Jane told her daughter. “Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, just all over.”
Some of the chairs were on an old cart, and Jennalee helped Jane push it out into the room to get to the stacks behind it. “We’ve got enough,” Jane finally declared. “It’s tables that concern me. Let’s see, one forty-three.”
Jennalee wandered out into the Oak Room to stand at floor-to-ceiling windows that filled an entire wall of the sizeable banquet room. She always imagined this a movie screen, herself an actress, the audience scattered over the golden hills beyond. Inspired by her bare-bottomed freedom, she decided today it was a porn flick and she raised the hem of her skirt and thrust her head back to imaginary howls until her mother called and she shrugged, covered herself, and went to her parent.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to play, you know,” Jane said as they pushed the cart back into place. “It means so much to your father.”
“Then why doesn’t heplay?”
“We’re not getting into that again and, to be honest, I don’t understand it, either. You used to love playing. You used to skip meals to practice. What happened?”
“This happened.”
“Malvern? Are you going to blame everything in your life on the move?”
Jennalee’s lips were set. It was harder to do this to her mother. She nodded.
“But don’t you see you’re just hurting yourself? All that work. If you don’t keep up, your skills will erode. That’s what Mr. Mendel says.”
“You talked to Mr. Mendel?”
Jane hesitated. “Well, yes. When you stopped playing, I grew concerned.”
“How could you! Oh, Mother, that is such an invasion. He’s my teacher. It’s not like he’s a pediatrician or something.” She whirled away so quickly, she felt heat against her bare buttocks. “I can’t believe this!”
“I’m sorry, but what did you expect me to do?” Jane called, but Jennalee was already outside. She reached the main building just as a silver Lexus full of people pulled up, followed by a tiny blue Kia, and she retreated to stand in shadow while the first of the Sutherlands spilled out onto the courtyard drive. 2
The biggest guy got out of the smallest car. He wasn’t all that tall but had a large, squishy midsection and thick neck, and the combination gave him a lumbering, animal look. Bear maybe, Jennalee thought, or polar bear, his skin was so white. He looked maybe thirty-five, the girl with him twenty and pregnant, her middle nearly as big as his. He pulled bags from the Kia and the girl kissed his cheek. Jennalee wondered how on earth the poor thing had chosen so badly.
Wesley, the handyman/bellhop the Preeces inherited from the Burketts, appeared to attend to the Lexus, dragging along a cart he soon piled with luggage. He spied Jennalee and grinned. In the six months they’d had the place, this gaunt, timeless creature hadn’t spoken a word to her.
The Lexus people were smartly dressed, middle-aged parents with four children: mother in white, blond, slim; father graying and trim in royal blue and tan. The kids, all boys and none Jennalee’s age, appeared starched. She turned her attention to the squishy guy and his wife who waited until the Lexus family had gone inside, then began pulling their wheeled bags up the walk. He had a nice enough face, Jennalee decided, but his rounded shoulders and heavy gait defeated everything.
When the courtyard was empty, Jennalee sat by the fountain at its center, a Spanish-style circular oasis with a low brick edge. She was glad Wesley had finally gotten it working. Tracing her fingers along the brick, she imagined a chord beneath them and recalled her final hour with Mr. Mendel, the Kruetzer filling his small studio, her piano, his violin, and she dropped her hand into the water as another car pulled in. It appeared to be the same family as before.