The Celestial Wife, page 18
We arrived at the edge of a cliff that dropped a hundred yards into the inviting deep blue of Okanagan Lake.
I looked up and down the lake at the shadowy cascade of clay banks in the distance and their steep drops plunging into the clear water below. “Wow, this has to be one of the best views anywhere. Stunning. I can see why it’s called Paradise.”
“And it’s perfect for grape growing. Long, hot, sunny summers, the right soil, and irrigation water from the lake. Even these cliffs are a bonus.”
“How so?”
“The water table is low here, so the vine roots don’t stand in damp soil. They’re just like us; they don’t like to get their feet wet.”
“But what about the winter? Isn’t it too cold for the vines?”
“Rarely, but if there is a cold snap, I have a way to manage it. I’m building wind machines, like windmills, that keep the air circulating, bringing warmer air down from above and stopping the cold air from settling close to the ground.”
“Sounds like you’re proving your father wrong. Have you told him? Can he come and see for himself?”
One glance at Jean’s face and I knew I’d said the wrong thing. “My dad and I aren’t really talking these days. If Mom was still here, she’d have pushed him to call me, but now? I rarely hear from him.”
“I’m sorry.” I worried Jean would close in on himself again, but he surprised me by laughing.
“What is it about you that I find myself spilling my guts to you again?”
I smiled. “I learned to be a good listener when I was a kid. The less I talked, the less people noticed me, and that kept me out of trouble.”
“Doesn’t sound like a very happy childhood.”
“Mostly it wasn’t.”
We stared at the shimmering water for a while. “There’s a path to the lake,” Jean said. “At this time of day, I usually head down for a swim. It’s a hot climb back up, but it’s still worth it. You want to come along?”
“Sounds great, but I don’t have my bathing suit with me.”
Jean shrugged. “So what?”
I felt a hot creeping flush as it made its way from my neck to my cheeks. I knew what he was thinking: It hadn’t stopped me at Woodstock, so why now? “I really should be getting Mrs. Graham’s car back.”
Jean glanced at my reddening face and looked amused. “It’s cool,” he said. We turned and he walked me back to my car. The German shepherd bounded out to greet us. “This is Bijou. It means ‘jewel’ in French. He only responds to French commands.” He turned to me. “Say ‘Bonjour, Bijou,’ and he’ll let you shake his paw.”
“Bonjour, Bijou!” I found myself caressing a soft warm paw.
Jean clicked his tongue. “Ah, bien, you see how easy it is to learn French?”
“Thanks again, Jean. I really appreciate you making the call to your uncle.”
“I can’t promise anything, but we’ll see if he can suggest something or someone to help.”
I jumped into the car and put my head out the driver’s-side window. “Thanks for showing me Paradise and congrats on your wine. I really think it’s good.”
Jean leaned on the window ledge. “Thank you, but if I can’t find a buyer for the end product, my father will have the last laugh. I didn’t do my homework before I chose this place. No one drinks wine here. The restaurants don’t offer it. Ladies sip gin-and-tonics at their bridge clubs, and the men drink beer after work or rye and ginger with the evening paper. I have no buyers. I’m not sure my little winery is going to survive.” He stepped back from the window before I could make any attempt to console him and waved me away.
I took it slow on the way home. I’d only had a little wine, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. And after my near miss with the logging truck, I kept an eye on the rearview mirror.
Switching on the radio for company, I laughed out loud when the familiar sound of Wolfman Jack filled the car. A happy memory, one of the few from Redemption.
“Susie in Pasadena wants ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane,” growled the Wolfman. “Groove on this, sweet little Susie.”
I rolled my window all the way down, letting in the hot, dry air, and sang along with Grace Slick. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I noticed a brown Dodge not far behind. I took my foot off the gas and edged to the side of the isolated, narrow road to let it pass. But when I slowed, it slowed, never pulling out and going by.
“Dear Lord,” I said out loud. “What now?”
The next time I checked my rearview mirror, the brown Dodge was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Daisy, I don’t have much time and I have to tell you something important. It’s about the Utah brides.” Brighten’s voice carried a note of desperation.
I flicked my microphone switch on. “Did you find something?”
“Yes, I need to talk fast, someone might come looking for me any moment.”
This could be it, I thought. The break we’d been waiting for.
The year after I left, Bishop Thorsen began shipping Redemption girls to the Utah chapter. But requests from the Utah church for new brides from Canada had been nonstop, so the Bishop had had a revelation from God that all women must have babies as often as possible, including the celestial sisters. It was the only way the Bishop could stabilize the population of Redemption when so many young women were being sent away.
Blossom, like the other celestial sisters, had been married off last year. She was soon pregnant with twins. She couldn’t cope with all the demands on her time so, naturally, she stopped caring about her job as a celestial sister. Brighten, who was still childless, had offered to take over many of her financial duties. Blossom had simply handed her the keys to the locked file cabinets and walked out the office door.
Brighten’s new role was bittersweet. How long had she coveted the role of celestial sister? Well, now she had it. But this presented me with an opportunity: access to the Bishop’s financial affairs. I’d wondered why the Bishop was so anxious to send all the young brides south, so I’d asked Brighten to go through the files and look for answers.
Now, maybe she’d found them.
“I’m listening.”
“An invoice came in the other day from Sister Marigold, who handles the books for the Utah church. It was a demand for a refund for undelivered goods.” Brighten’s voice caught on the last word.
“Okay.” I knew that the Bishop shipped forest products to the southern churches. “What sort of undelivered goods? Lumber? Roof shingles?”
“The invoice didn’t specify, but I checked it off against the shipping dates of different products in the official books. Nothing was recorded as shipped on that date. I puzzled about it, and after I went home that night it hit me. The date of the shipment was the same day that a large group of brides left here for Utah. Daisy, the ‘thing’ that was undelivered was one of the new brides from Redemption. She died in transit.” Brighten sobbed.
I put my head in my heads and rubbed my forehead. “Oh my Lord. Who?”
“Tulip.”
Hot tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t believe that Tulip, one of the little girls from my assigned family, was old enough to be married, let alone dead in transit. I remembered a little chubby-cheeked thing, one of my favourites, so fun-loving except for laundry duty, when Mother Rose punished her for wetting the bed.
“What happened?”
“I don’t really know. Mother Hyacinth was told just that she died, but I do know she was rebellious and she didn’t want to go. She was openly defiant. Maybe she tried to run away.”
I slouched forward, cradling my stomach. “This is awful. Do you think she died trying to escape, or do you think they killed her?”
“I don’t want to think about it, Daisy. It’s too horrible. But do you see what I’m telling you here? Utah is sending money in exchange for the brides. They call it a dowry for the benefit of God’s work in Redemption, but I traced the paperwork. The money is going into a holding company that Bishop Thorsen set up. He is the company’s sole owner. I tried to put the evidence together, but when I went to make a copy of the original invoice, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Obviously, none of this shows up in the books that the Bishop gives the government tax auditors.”
I could hardly speak. Was there no end to the evil this man was capable of?
I heard static over the radio, then: “I’ve got to get out of here, now. Over and out.”
“Wait, before you go, I’ve got something to tell you—I’ve got a plan to get you and others out of there.”
“Tell me quick.” I heard a hint of excitement in her voice.
I told her of my plan to hold the love-in near Redemption in the fall, a celebration of peace, love, and freedom. A large crowd of hippies would be there to support and protect the mothers who could gather up their kids and just walk away.
“It sounds beautiful, Daisy, but anything could happen before then.” Brighten’s voice had flattened again. “I really gotta go. Your mom sends her love. She’s going to set up another phone call with you soon.”
Brighten’s mic went dead.
I slowly turned off my own radio and said a silent prayer.
* * *
I brooded all day until Saffron appeared at the end of my shift. She always managed to raise my spirits. The door to the radio room burst open in a flood of light and she twirled into the room.
“Look at these new threads I scored at the thrift shop. Can you believe it?” She did a little pirouette that made the beaded fringes on her leather vest dance and her long, homespun skirt billow over her ankle-high Beatle boots.
“Awesome. How do you find this stuff?”
“You have to be strategic. It’s all in the timing. They bring in new stuff from Kelowna the first Monday of the month. As soon as I see it unloaded from the ferry, I head over to the thrift store so I’m the first in line. I get the cream of the crop.”
I looked down at my own plain white tee and faded Lee jeans. “Maybe I should go with you next time. I could use a makeover.”
“Why are you suddenly so interested in your look? Does this have to do with a certain someone back in town? A very sexy, very moody Frenchman?”
I couldn’t resist a smile. Saffron could always see right through me. “I did go out to see Jean, but we’re just friends. He likes the Marilyn type, anyhow—you know, the type with curves, not like me.”
Saffron stood back and looked me up and down. “Guys were always crazy about Marilyn, but don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve got a certain something going on, a Twiggy kind of look. It’s hot right now. You should wear shorts to show off your great legs.”
I looked down at my old, faded jeans with their wide ballroom legs. “I guess.”
“Did I tell you that I heard from Marilyn? She’s fine, been living on a commune in southern Alberta—has had enough of that, so she’s going to San Francisco—was wondering how we’re all doing. I filled her in.” Saffron looked at me coyly. “How’s Jean managing out on his ranch all alone? Is he grumpy, Mr. Sad-Sack, or is he happier?”
“Seems okay, a little lonely maybe. He’s worried about his new wine. I tried it and it’s good, but he can’t find any buyers.”
“What’s the deal with that?”
I shrugged. “No one drinks wine around here. Not like in France. He didn’t get that when he decided to move here. Could be the fatal flaw in his whole plan.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“I wish I could think of something to do to help him. I’d hate to see his winery fail. It just seems so crappy, after all his hard work.”
“Hmm.” Saffron sat down, opened her bag, and took out a pouch and a packet of slim white papers. She carefully pinched a small amount of tobacco from the pouch, stuffed it into one of the papers, licked it, and pinched the ends. “Light?”
I reached over and handed her the ashtray and lighter from the desk. “I know better than to offer you one of these,” Saffron said as she took a long, slow drag and let out a sudden sharp cough like a gunshot.
“I don’t know why you smoke. All it does is make you cough.”
“I smoke because I can. It’s a freedom thing. No one call tell me not to. It’s why I do a lot of things.”
“What about Jean? If his dream fails, he’ll have to crawl home with his tail between his legs. His dad will be proven right. We can’t let that happen.”
“Agreed.” Saffron sat and smoked in silence while I got up and kept watch over the harbour. The ferry wasn’t due for twenty minutes yet, but it was occasionally early. A small water bomber that had been doing practise runs came in slow, dropped hard on its belly, and taxied to its mooring buoy. Both sailors and houseboats kept a wide berth, as bombers had priority.
I turned just in time to see Saffron drop her head back, curl her tongue, and blow an elaborate smoke ring. “When Lance and I went to California last winter, we got jobs in something called a pizza parlour,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Pizza is so far-out. Everyone digs it. It’s a kind of pie, but not sweet, made with things like tomato sauce, spicy meat, and cheese—lots of cheese. And they even have one called the Hawaiian, made with ham and pineapple.”
“Pineapple in a pie with cheese sounds gross.”
“Trust me, it’s not. The Italians thought the whole thing up, and they know food.”
I shrugged. “I’ve never been to an Italian restaurant.”
“Look, why don’t we introduce happy hour at the Apple Dumpling? After all the little tots head home with their mouths and hands happily slimed with ice cream, we make it adults-only from five to seven and serve pizza and Jean’s wine? People will find out how good his wine is and start buying it, and we’ll have a load of fun.”
* * *
Mrs. Graham had changed into her frilly white apron and black patent heels. She wore a single string of white pearls around her neck. “Come in, ladies, pick any seat you like,” she called to the first arrivals as she hustled over with menu cards, beaming. “Good afternoon, Miss Braid, Miss Getty,” she said to the two women as they settled themselves, removing their white gloves and safely stowing them and their handbags on the empty chair beside them.
“This is so exciting,” Miss Braid said. “I can’t honestly remember the last time we’ve had occasion to dress up for an event in town.” Looking at the menu card, she said, “I’m going to be bold and try the pepperoni pie with a glass of wine, of course.”
Miss Getty nodded her head vigorously like a nervous duckling. “Make that two,” she giggled, her hand covering her mouth.
A steady stream of customers began arriving. I smiled a greeting as I recognized my first employer, Hardeep Singh, and his wife, Sally. Mrs. Wong from the Canadian Chinese Café down the street waved me over. She squeezed my hand and confided in me that she was so sick of her own cooking that she couldn’t wait to try something new.
It wasn’t long before the small café filled, and as the evening approached, candles were lit, giving the whole scene the feel of a real Italian café.
Saffron expertly twirled the pizza dough, ladled the tomato sauce and swirled it around, and added the toppings, while I hustled about serving and refilling glasses. Jean arrived looking well-scrubbed in a freshly laundered white shirt and black dress pants. He visited the tables, describing to customers how he had grown the grapes and made the wine.
I could see scepticism on some faces, and I overheard Miss Getty explain to Jean that she too had homemade wine and he should be careful that it didn’t turn to wine vinegar as hers had. But it wasn’t long before the compliments started flowing along with the wine. People ordered more glasses and even whole bottles to take home for Sunday supper.
As seven rolled around, no one looked ready to leave until Mrs. Graham, her face dewy and flushed, flicked the lights. “Closing time,” she called. “Please join us next Thursday for another happy hour.”
Jean leaned in close to me and I got a faint whiff of Brut aftershave. His breath held a hint of parsley. “Tonight was a huge success, Daisy. Both the general store and the pub are going to start carrying my wine. Next week I’m going up to Kelowna to see if I can find some buyers. You’ve inspired me, Daisy.” He smiled warmly at me, his eyes glistening in the candlelight.
“Saffron and I were happy to help, and I don’t think Mrs. Graham has had so much fun in years.”
“Me too. I mean, I want to help you. I talked to my uncle.”
Sucking in my breath, I set down the tray of dirty glasses I was holding and waited for Jean’s news. “Uncle Pierre said something about it being an important legal question. He can’t do it himself, but he’ll give you a name to call once he’s set things up from his end. Not a junior lawyer, someone senior, with some clout.”
The relief I felt was mixed with naked fear. I was terrified to talk to powerful people, but I knew I had to. If they were willing to listen and actually do something, it could be a turning point. Between this and the love-in, the thought of success was almost overwhelming. I reached over and gave Jean a hug, feeling his muscled body momentarily yield to my touch.
He gave me a brotherly pat on the back. “Hold on, let’s wait and see what comes of it before we celebrate.”
Both Mrs. Graham and Saffron looked beat, so I offered to finish the cleanup while Jean loaded the leftover wine and empties into his truck. Alone in the café, I turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED and blew out the candles. The room took on a satisfied, after-the-party feel.
I stepped outside with the last box of empties and set them on the front porch for Jean. I paused, breathing deeply the clean, fragrant evening air with its heady mix of pine, lavender, and sage. Looking up, I could see the bright North Star off to my left and the Big Dipper almost directly overhead. It reminded me of the evenings five years ago with my new friends, Saffron and Jean, when we sat on lawn chairs at Hardeep’s farm, admiring this same brilliant night sky.
