Falling Angel (7 page)

“I was seven when my dad left,” Cara said.

Ann nodded. “That must have been hard. Were you close?”

“We were. But now, I don’t even know him. Haven’t talked to him in years. I think he moved to New Mexico.” Her tone was light, as though this were nothing of consequence.

“You know, some people are good at reinventing themselves,” Ann said. “Other people, when you take away the thing that defined them, just get lost. That’s what happened to my dad. He’s a lost soul. He started drinking a lot. He’d take off for days or weeks at a time without a word.”

Cara nodded sympathetically. “How did your family get by?”

“My mom did the best she could. She was pretty much worn out with taking care of us and fighting with my dad when he came home. She got a job cleaning houses to keep us afloat.” Ann gave a bitter half-smile. “She didn’t make it much fun to hang around the house.”

“Neither did my mine. I could never do anything right. If I got a B in school, she’d ask why it wasn’t an A. If I made my bed, cleaned and vacuumed my room, she’d ask why I hadn’t washed the sheets.”

“How did you deal with it?” Ann asked. “You seem pretty well-adjusted to me.”

“I kind of retreated into myself. Into books and gardening.”

“Wish I’d taken that route. I dropped out of high school and moved to Seattle with my boyfriend. Boy, was that a mistake.” Ann told Cara a little about Clint, an aspiring musician was convinced that because he and Kurt Cobain both hailed from the same small town they were possessed of a similar genius. “Only problem was he liked the rock star lifestyle more than the actual work of writing music and performing.”

Cara laughed. “Sounds like my own bad-boy musician boyfriend.”

Ann’s eyes widened. “You had a bad-boy boyfriend? I don’t believe it. Tell me more.”

For the next hour, Cara and Ann had brought each other to tears of hysterical laughter trading stories about the various insults and degradations they had suffered in the name of love. Although their experiences were similar, Cara realized that their impact had proved very different. Ann embraced her weakness for creatively inclined bad boys, even taking a certain perverse pride in her lack of sound judgment. She enjoyed the intensity and volatility of her short-lived affairs. Cara, on the other hand, no longer enjoyed the sturm und drang of such relationships. “Maybe now you can understand better why I’m looking for someone more practical,” she said. “The majority of so-called artists I’ve met turn out to be unstable, narcissistic, and drug-addicted. I don’t need that in my life.”

As Ann leaned back and fixed Cara with a sardonic smile, Cara half-regretted her attack of honesty. Ann had a sarcastic sense of humor that Cara found amusing, most of the time. But her tendency to laugh at other people’s weaknesses made Cara nervous that she herself would one day be the target.

“Have you ever tried to get in touch with your dad?” Ann asked.

“Not after the way he walked out on me and my mother. It was really hard on her.” Cara finished her drink and stood up. “Shall we move on?”

It wasn’t until late afternoon, at a small boutique on First Avenue, that they found what Cara was looking for.

It was a Grecian-style dress in gold silk chiffon, with brocade trim around the waist and bust and halter straps that tied at the back of her neck. An asymmetrical skirt fell below the knee in soft folds. It was the perfect combination of glamour and comfort, sensual without being overtly sexy.

“It’s you,” Ann said, and Cara agreed.

When she read the price tag she almost put the dress back on the rack. It was much more than her mother had wired to her. But she had been so frugal since moving to Seattle, and the urge to splurge was irresistible.

That evening at the apartment, Cara accessorized the dress with a pair of high-heeled, rhinestone-studded sandals in gold leather that she had bought at a vintage store years ago. They were a perfect match, adding a touch of sophistication to the ensemble.

“Gorgeous,” Ann declared as Cara shyly modeled the outfit. “Your transformation into Venus is complete.”

Chapter Six

It was a windy day in early winter and the Lincoln Park Zoo was almost deserted. Cara, age seven, held tight to her father’s hand as they walked through the exhibits. She dragged him to her favorite, the Farm-in-the-Zoo, an urban replica of the typical small Midwestern farm of the 1950s and a complete novelty to Cara, who’d lived her whole life in the suburbs. She loved to watch the zookeepers milk the cows and stroke the scrubby hair on the heads of the crazy-eyed goats.

She held out sugar cubes, crumbling from being stashed in her coat pocket all day, for the horses, giggling at the moist heat of their muzzles as they lipped the sweet treat from her palm. Her father watched, smiling, his blue eyes bright. When she’d used the last of her sugar cubes, she tugged on his jacket sleeve. “Tell me about the farm, daddy.”

He laughed. “Again?”

Cara nodded. Her father took off his Cubs baseball cap and cleared his throat theatrically. “I was born on a small farm in Idaho.”

“That once was your great grandfather’s.”

“Right.”

“And you used to ride horses, and you had a pet chicken called Lucy that you wouldn’t let your mama put in the stew pot. You hid her in your closet and she pooped all over the floor.”

He laughed and ruffled her hair. “Who’s telling this story, anyhow?”

“Why’d you sell the farm, daddy? I would have liked to live there.”

“It wasn’t the best place to raise a child.”

“But I love animals!”

“Your mother’s a city girl. She hated farm life. It’s not for everyone.”

He bought her an ice cream and they huddled on a small bench by the pond, watching a pair of swans glide regally across the frigid water. Cara dropped half her ice cream into her lap and burst into tears. Her father scrubbed at her skirt awkwardly with a wad of tissues from his pocket.

“No sense crying over spilt ice cream, angel face. What say we get you another?”

Cara took a long time to finish her second ice cream cone. She didn’t want to go home. Her parents had split up less than a year ago, and now she rarely saw her father. Every third weekend, he came to pick her up for a day out. They would come to the zoo, or visit the huge FAO Schwartz store on Michigan Avenue, or ride the L Train to a pretty park for a picnic lunch. She began to look forward to their next day together the moment he dropped her off.

“I miss you, daddy,” she said, moving closer to him on the bench.

He kissed the top of her head. “I miss you too, pumpkin.”

When her mother had heard they were going to the zoo, she’d started screaming at him. “How can you be so irresponsible? Dragging Cara through Stockton Avenue and Clark Street. You could get shot!”

“Lou, for pity’s sake, she’s my kid too,” he’d responded wearily. “Do you really think I’d do anything to put her in danger? It’s our tradition. I always take her there.”

“If I had my choice you wouldn’t take her anywhere! You’re not fit to be her parent.”

Cara had always thought of her dad as fearless, like the bold and noble knights in one of the King Arthur stories he used to read her. But that day, he seemed defeated, beaten down, sitting beside her with his hands and head drooping. 

He lit a cigarette. A thin plume of smoke eddied and spiraled through the gray air before dissipating in the wind. “Daddy’s going to go away for a while, Cara bear,” he said.

Cara was confused. “Where are you going?”

“I have a new job, far away from here. But I’ll write to you.”

Cara’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t want you to go.”

He folded her into his wool-lined Carhartt jacket and held her close. She could feel his heart beating fast.

“I don’t want to either, sweetheart.”

It was the last time she’d seen her father.

And yet, although seventeen years had passed, she realized that Daniel Walker’s impact on her life had been immeasurably strong. He had loved her. He had made her feel special and beautiful, and always treated her with respect. So why had he left them? Why had he abandoned her?

Cara directed the cab to stop in front of the concrete edifice of the Cinerama. One of the few remaining theater palaces in the U.S., it had been painstakingly restored to its original 1960s glory by Microsoft millionaire Paul Allen in the late 1990s. Funky, quirky, and retro-cool, it was the perfect location to show the retrospective of Mrs. Fineman's life.

The extras hired to wait in line were milling about by the entrance, while the Finemans' friends and family members entered the theater discreetly through a back door. Hopefully by the time the couple arrived, everyone would be seated and enjoying their complimentary popcorn, candy, and drinks.

Cara entered the foyer and immediately spotted Ingrid, a bevy of assistants, friends, and theater staff buzzing around her like bees around their queen. They kissed on both cheeks, European style.

“You look beautiful! And before I forget, happy birthday.” Ingrid reached into her bag and handed Cara a square-shaped package, wrapped in embossed silver paper and tied with a bow.

Cara was touched. It was so like Ingrid, with her generous nature, to remember her birthday in the midst of all the party preparations. She gave her a hug, inhaling the rich rose scent of Joy perfume mingled with an expensive Swedish skin crème.

“Now I hate to put you to work the moment you arrive, but the movie people forgot to place CDs in the front row.” Ingrid gestured to a stack of live-performance CDs by Big Band and the Merrymakers at the base of a sleek silver pillar by the snack counter.

“I’ll get right on it,” Cara said.

She deposited her coat, bag and gift at a coat-check set up for the evening, and entered the theater, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust to the muted light. The front row was filling up, and Cara had to kneel down by each seat to place the CD under it. Embarrassed, she focused on the job at hand, navigating between high-heeled pumps, flowery party skirts and smartly pressed suit pants. As she deposited a CD under a seat occupied by a pair of black and white wingtips, buffed to an exemplary shine, she felt a hand on her bare shoulder and heard a familiar voice.

“There’s no need to grovel. I accept your apology for ditching me.”

She looked up into the amused green eyes of Ben Kilpatrick.

“Unless of course you really want to,” he added as she scrambled to her feet. “In which case, I’m all for it.”

A barrage of conflicting emotions coursed through Cara as she stared at the man she had been trying to forget for the past week and a half.

He was as handsome as she remembered him, assuming a whole new aura of sophistication in his smartly tailored black suit and crisp white shirt. His face was clean-shaven and his unruly russet hair combed back. The wingtips and a paisley tie added a touch of originality to the formal look.