Bobby Hutchinson - Past Lies

Kisha Harris manned the phones and the radio, dealt with paperwork and was great on the computer. She’d set up a Web site for Up And Away, and talked Tom and Ivy into advertising on the Web. She was a wonderful employee, but she’d made it clear from the beginning that the job was strictly temporary for her. She’d watched The Snow Walker about two hundred times, and she was convinced she had what it took to be an actress.

Tom figured there weren’t that many acting jobs for short, very round girls with absolutely no experience, but he’d been smart enough not to tell Kisha so. In the meantime, she flirted outrageously with poor Bert.

“Any calls since she left?” Ivy asked.

“Three,” Bert said in his deep, atonal voice, signing the answer simultaneously. He kept track by watching the light on the phone’s base. The messages would be on the machine.

Tom had worked out his own version of sign language, a combination of some of Bert’s and a lot of what seemed logical to him. And he spoke up around the kid. Too many people mumbled.

“Come and have a look at temp gauge on the Beaver,” Tom bellowed. “The engine’s been running high.”

IVY WATCHED THEM LEAVE, shaking her head and grinning to herself at the fact that Captain still figured if he talked loud enough, Bert would hear him. She pushed the button to replay the messages.

There was a request for helicopter transport from a group of Seattle skiers, and another from a German tourist for an aerial tour by floatplane. Ivy scribbled down the numbers.

The third call was from her mother, asking if Ivy could join her for lunch at Mike’s Palace. Ivy spent a puzzled moment wondering what was up. She and Frances weren’t exactly in the habit of lunching together.

She made the business calls first, arranging dates and deposits, recommending her aunt and uncle’s remote fishing lodge, when asked for advice on ac commodation. Usually June, July and August were the busiest tourist months, but lately there’d been increased volume in the less crowded shoulder seasons—late April, May and September. Up And Away was having the best April ever. At this rate, their dream of owning the Bell instead of leasing it would soon be a reality.

At last Ivy dialed her mother’s number.

“Frances Pierce.”

Ivy was accustomed to her mother’s businesslike manner on the phone. “Hey, Mom, it’s me.”

“Ivy, hi. Are you free for lunch? I thought Mike’s Palace, but if you’d rather go somewhere else—?”

“No, that sounds fine. See you there in fifteen, okay?”

Ivy hung up, wondering why she hadn’t just come right out and asked Frances what she wanted. That way maybe they could have skipped lunch altogether.

She took a moment to wash her hands and face in the cramped bathroom. Dampening her fingers, she ran them through her hair to freshen the short curls that had been flattened under her hat. She was wearing her usual work uniform: blue jeans, sturdy Frye boots, a white button-down shirt under a navy pullover. She caught herself fussing and turned away from the mirror.

Why was it that the only time she was even marginally aware of how she looked was when she was around her mother? It was time she got over that.

Before she headed out the door she shrugged into the black Gore-Tex jacket with the company logo she and Tom had designed—the outline of a stylized plane with a U and an A superimposed on it. The cap had the same logo, and she plunked it on, remembering too late her efforts with her hair.

Oh, well. Around Frances, it was a lost cause anyway.

It seems a lot longer than a week since I left Bellingham. I miss you and the sprout a lot, I keep thinking about that night he was born. I figured for sure you were going to die, Linda. I never dreamed how much pain a woman goes through having a baby.

From letters written by Roy Nolan,

April, 1972

IT WAS A TYPICAL SPRING day for Valdez, sunny but chill with a sharp, brisk breeze blowing off the harbor. The huge snowbanks were gradually disappearing. Ivy drove her battered red pickup with the window down, breathing in the smell of the ocean.

Mike’s Palace was just a short drive from the office, and Ivy pulled into a parking spot right beside her mother’s SUV and headed into the cozy little restaurant. Mike’s was popular with locals and tourists because it had the best lasagna around.

It also had a view of the harbor. The walls were covered with old newspapers that told the story of Valdez all the way from the gold-rush days through the oil boom, including the earthquake, the disastrous oil spill and the more recent tourist boom.

“Hey, Ivy, how ya doin’?” Mike, the proprietor, was tall, bearded and sinister-looking because of a crooked nose and a jagged scar that angled across his cheekbone and nose. He liked to let people think it was from a brawl, but Ivy knew he’d gone headfirst through the windshield of a snowmobile.

He jerked a thumb at a table by the window. “Your mom’s over there.”

The room was way too small to miss anyone—as if anyone with even one eye in their head would ever miss Frances. Her wild halo of long, snowy-white hair gleamed like a beacon, curling out from her skull as if it had been electrified. The brilliant turquoise sweater she wore stood out like a jewel among the drab browns and grays of the other patrons. Frances looked like a peacock trapped by a crowd of seagulls, Ivy decided, as she wound her way among the crowded tables and sank into a chair.

Seagulls, and now one woodpecker. The comparison amused her.

“Hello, Ivy.” Frances’s voice suited her. It was husky and dramatic, with a refined sensuality and a faint hint of the Midwest in the consonants. “Glad you could make it.” She smiled, her wide, voluptuous mouth revealing perfect white teeth. As usual, Ivy felt diminished by her mother’s beauty.

“Slow day,” Ivy said, taking a long, thirsty drink from the water glass beside her plate. “I took a group up the mountain early this morning, they’re skiing down and then I’ll fly them back to Uncle Theo’s.”

Frances nodded. “I talked to Caitlin the other day. She said Sage and Ben were due back today from that wildlife conference in Montana.”

Ben was Ivy’s cousin, Sage his wife. Caitlin and Theo had twin sons, Ben and Logan, ten years older than Ivy. Growing up, she’d idolized both of them and, during her teen years, she’d had a massive crush on Ben, the more charismatic of the two. Thank God maturity cured things like that.

Maturity and the realization that her handsome cousin’s actions didn’t always live up to his charm. His second wife was Ivy’s best friend, and there were times when she felt Ben didn’t deserve Sage.

“Dad’s going over to the lodge for supper tonight.” Ivy watched her mother’s green eyes, wondering if Frances knew or even cared where Tom was spending the evening.

Frances nodded. “Yes, he told me.” She glanced up and smiled again at the plump waitress. “Hi, Sally. I’ll have the lasagna, spinach salad and a glass of chardonnay.”

“Same for me.” About the only thing she and Frances had ever agreed on was food. Ivy had inherited her mother’s metabolism as well as her appetite, which meant they both enjoyed staggering quantities of food without gaining an ounce.

Conversation faltered as Sally poured their wine—one glass wouldn’t impair her ability to pilot—and then brought a basket of hot bread and, a few moments later, their salads.

After she left, the silence stretched painfully. Had there ever been a time when talking to her mother was spontaneous and easy? If there had, Ivy didn’t remember it.

Frances sipped her wine and Ivy wondered if her mother was also searching for a common interest. “How’s Bert making out with his flying lessons, Ivy?”