“Okay, that makes it official,” Spence Sibley announced, shoving his cell phone back in the pocket of his persimmon-colored Patagonia ski jacket. “This weekend’s gala tribute is now one hundred percent toast. They were fine with the highways and airports being shut down, no heat, no hot water. That stuff never fazes studio people. They just figure they can throw enough money at a problem and it’s solved. But when I told them that there’d been a death in Ada’s family, that was pretty much a deal breaker.”
“Awfully darned inconvenient for the family, too,” Mitch said, breath snorting out of his nostrils as he worked away at a sycamore branch with the heavy-duty pruning saw.
Both of the majestic old sycamores had pitched right over onto their sides, giant root balls and all, leaving craters in the ground big enough to lose a pair of United Parcel Service vans in. Their massive trunks were doing a handsome job of blocking the only way in or out of the castle. A nearby sugar maple had crashed down onto the roof of Choo-Choo Cholly’s depot, crunching its snow-capped roof as if it were made of papier-mache and shaving cream. Farther down the drive, dozens of smaller trees had come down, taking the power lines with them. Once Connecticut Light and Power gave the go-ahead, Jase felt he could horse many of these trees off to the side with the plow blade on his big Dodge Ram 4?4. For now, the three lumberjacks were not going anywhere near them.
“Mitch, I don’t mean to sound like an insensitive prick,” Spence said, his voice raised over the varoom of Jase’s chain saw. “It’s just that I’ve been working eighteen hours a day on this for weeks and weeks-twisting people’s arms, pleading with them. And now they’re not coming. Not Oliver, not Quentin, not anybody.”
“Will Panorama reschedule?” Mitch asked as he sawed, sawed, sawed. The blade had wicked jagged teeth that cut right through the pale speckled bark and deep into the wood.
“Oh, who gives a damn,” Spence replied, snapping off a two-inch-thick, ten-foot-long branch with Jase’s ratcheted tree loppers. They had razor-sharp jaws, and he was working them with intense fury. The young, clean-featured marketing executive was no more Mr. Upbeat Guy. He was Mr. Pissed-off Guy. “It’s not like I’ll be around to see it. I’ll be frozen solid by the time breakfast is served. They’ll find my cold stiff body right here, stuck to the pavement.”
Spence wasn’t exaggerating by much. It was absolutely frigid out there. The arctic wind gusts cut through every layer of clothing Mitch had on. He’d wrapped his scarf around his head and face so that only his eyes and nostrils were exposed to the elements, and they stung like crazy. His eyes wouldn’t stop tearing up. His nose kept running-and then freezing. Under his earflaps, his ears ached. His arm and shoulder muscles cried out in pain. His feet were numb. And the solid ice underfoot was incredibly slippery, even though Jase had laid down a heavy coat of sand and rock salt.
They’d quickly developed a routine. Mitch and Spence stripped away as many small limbs as they could with the pruning saw and loppers while Jase tackled the bigger limbs with his chain saw. Which suited Mitch just fine. He felt roughly the same way around chain saws as he did around loaded handguns. Much of this had to do with the fact that he sat through The Texas Chainsaw Massacre seven times in one weekend back when he was in the fifth grade.
Jase had thrown himself into the job with a manic form of abandon. He was obviously very upset about Norma’s death, yet when Mitch tried to engage him in conversation about it, Jase had purposely moved away from him, not wishing to share his heartfelt grief. Hard work was Jase’s way of dealing. He seemed tireless. Also impervious to the bitter cold. He did have on a pair of buckskin work gloves, but no coat. Merely that same heavy wool shirt he’d worn last night.
Mitch’s gloves were suitable for outdoor work. Not so Spence’s kid-leather dress gloves. Before they’d gotten started, Jase had led them across the courtyard to his cottage, where he’d fetched Spence a pair of work gloves. It was a low-ceilinged little cottage, smelling of mold and the kerosene space heaters that Jase and Jory had used in the night. Spence had seemed fascinated by the place. His eyes flicked eagerly around the cramped, dingy parlor as if he were taking in the sights of a preserved dwelling at Colonial Williamsburg.
“Well, at least you got your promotion,” Mitch reminded him as he kept on sawing, the icy air knifing in and out of his lungs.
“You’re right. I got my damned promotion.”
“You don’t sound so happy about it.”
“Right again.”
Jase halted his chain-sawing and barked out, “Okay, hold up a sec!” He jumped in his truck and used his plow blade to shove aside the heavy sycamore logs they’d produced. Then he backed up and got out, staring down the frozen, tree-strewn drive with an alarmed expression on his bearded face. “Man, it’ll take the crews forever to get here. And the more it blows, the slower it goes.”
The wind did seem to be picking up new strength, Mitch observed. It was positively roaring its way through the trees that were still standing, making them creak and groan most ominously under the weight of their ice coatings.
“We’ll be okay, Jase,” Mitch said confidently, even though he himself was quite unnerved to be standing out there under so many trees. He also couldn’t help noticing that the bright blue sky was starting to give way to dark storm clouds.
“I could hike my way down to the front gate,” Jase volunteered. “It’s only, like, three miles. I could make it.”
“And do what?” Spence asked him. “Where the hell would you go?
“He’s right, Jase,” Mitch agreed. “It’s another eight miles to town from there, and no one’s out on the road. Besides, it’s going to start snowing again.”
“I just, Norma wouldn’t…” Jase broke off, fumbling helplessly for the words. “Norma wouldn’t like this. How everything looks, I mean.”
The young caretaker seemed genuinely distraught. Mostly, it was his grief over Norma, Mitch felt. Partly, it was that Astrid’s Castle was his baby. Seeing all of this damage to its grounds was upsetting to him. Mitch understood the feeling. He felt the same way about Big Sister.
“We’re going to be fine, Jase,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
Jase shook himself now, much like a wet dog, and said, “Enough jawing. Let’s get some work done.” And with that he clomped on over to the other sycamore and began attacking it with his chain saw.
“Actually, I’ve been seriously rethinking my move out to L.A.,” Spence told Mitch as they returned to their own labors. “The promotion, the whole thing.”
“Is that right-how come?”
“The young lady who I’m presently involved with has roots here in the East, and she doesn’t want to relocate out there. Not right now, anyway. It’s… kind of complicated.”
“Life can be,” Mitch said, working the pruning saw back and forth.
“It didn’t used to be. Not for me. I’ve never let any woman get in the way of my career. They’re strictly around for recreational humpage, nothing more. But now that it’s turned into something more-Mitch, I’m not even sure I know how to describe how much different this all is.”
“I’m partial to food analogies, if that’s of any help.”
“Okay, then here it is,” Spence offered. “It’s like the very first time you taste fresh store-made mozzarella from one of those delis down in Little Italy. Once you’ve had the real thing, there’s no way you can ever go back to those blocks of bland pale cheese food that you get at the supermarket. Does that work for you?”
Mitch’s stomach promptly began to growl. They’d eaten no breakfast, and he was burning off a ton of calories. “Sure does. How long have you two been together?”
“We’ve known each other off and on for a number of years. But it’s only blossomed into a romance quite recently. She’s in the media.”
“Anyone I might know?”
“It’s… kind of complicated,” Spence repeated.
“Complicated,” said Mitch, who wondered why Spence was being so vague.
“I think about her day and night, Mitch. When I’m not with her, I miss her so much I can barely function. I will be miserable out in California without her-absolutely none of which was part of my plan. I never intended to get this involved.”
“Sometimes you have to come up with a new plan,” Mitch said, his own thoughts turning to Des and what he’d tried, and failed, to tell her in bed last night. He’d choked, no two ways about it.
Jase had powered his way through a massive log, the two pieces splitting apart. He paused a moment to catch his breath, the chain saw idling in his hands.
“The awful truth is that other women just don’t matter anymore,” Spence confessed. “Mind you, I’m not about to kick someone soft and warm out of bed on a cold winter night, but the whole time I’m with another woman I’m thinking about her.”
“You dudes going to work for a living or just talk puss?” Jase growled at them.
“Keep your shirt on,” Spence growled back. “We’re working plenty hard.”
Jase let out a derisive snort, then went back at it.
Spence glanced over his shoulder at the castle, his cheeks puffed out. “Norma dying in her sleep like this, it gives you pause, that’s all.”
“It does.” Mitch’s mind paused on Maisie and how quickly he’d lost her. One day they were young and in love, everything sunshine, everything ahead of them. The next day he was a lonely widower sitting by himself in the dark. “And it should, Spence. That’s healthy.”
“Believe me, what I’m thinking about right now is not healthy. Not career-wise. But I’m so nuts about this woman that I’m seriously considering turning it down. The very job I’ve been fighting for these past five years. Totally insane, right?”
“Not if it will make you happy.”
“But it’ll make me damaged goods, as far as the job is concerned.”
“Jobs come and go.”
“Mitch, what would you do?”
“That’s hard to say, since I don’t know the woman.” He looked at Spence pointedly. “Or do I?”
“She’s in the media,” Spence repeated stubbornly. “And it’s kind of…”
“Complicated, I got that,” said Mitch, wondering why Spence wouldn’t provide any more details about this woman. Wondering if it was because she was none other than Hannah Lane. Hannah worked in the media. Hannah was living in Washington, D.C. And Spence had known her off and on for years through the Panorama internship program. Toss in that she was presently hooked up with Aaron Ackerman and, well, that sure qualified as one hell of a complication, didn’t it?
Question: Was it possible that the talented young filmmaker was romantically involved with both men?
Answer: Hell, yes.