“Don’t let it worry you. I expected to be treated as a nuisance, not as a guest.”
“Would you like some herb tea?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
She smiled a little awkwardly and disappeared behind a curtain. He heard water running into a kettle. Moments later she came back.
“Kitchen’s to the left,” she said, pointing back at the curtain, “bathroom’s to the right. Both the size of phone booths. Sit down, for goodness sake, and tell me how I can convince Mr. McCauley I’m not a threat.”
He sat down at the card table. She took the other chair as he fished a sheet of paper out of a pocket.
“You told me you were born December thirteenth, nineteen seventy-three, right?”
She nodded.
“You never told me where.”
“The Palmer Clinic, in Yucaipa. That’s down near San Bernardino.”
A sudden chill burst under his breastbone.
“And your parents were?”
She almost told him — but stopped herself.
“Sorry, Shannon. I wasn’t trying to trick you. Fargo’s not your real name, is it?”
Almost accusingly, she shook her head.
“That’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Now I want to show you” — he unfolded the sheet of paper — “a copy of someone else’s birth certificate.”
She took it, read the name. Her nose wrinkled. “Pretty Katie Icicles.” Then her mouth sagged open. Her eyes were shocked.
“Yes.” His mouth was dry. He tried clearing his throat. “I got the original from Charles this morning and copied it on his fax machine. Katherine was born just before midnight, December twelfth, nineteen seventy-three, at the Palmer Clinic in Yucaipa — where you were born some time after midnight.”
She stood up. Her lips were bloodless, her face stark with shock. She saw she was still holding the photocopy and threw it down on the table as though afraid of contagion.
Beyond the curtain, the tea kettle had begun to whistle. She ignored it, or didn’t hear it.
“A strong resemblance could be a coincidence,” Tom said slowly. “But you’re as alike as two matched pearls, and the coincidences are kind of piling up.”
Her face showed the beginnings of fear.
She said defensively, “So?”
“So I don’t know what it all means any more than you do. This is going to jolt hell out of the McCauleys.”
“What exactly are you doing for them?”
“Finding out who you are — so they’ll know you aren’t another McCauley. Nothing sinister.”
After a while Shannon nodded vaguely, muttered something about that shrieking kettle, and went back behind the curtain. The shrill whistle died. A minute later she reappeared carrying two steaming china mugs. She set them down on the card table. The steam was fresh and minty. She went away again and came back with a saucer.
“For your tea bag, when it’s steeped enough.”
She sat down at the table again, withdrawn, maybe thoughtful, her eyes unfocused. The copy of Katherine’s birth certificate had landed on top of the photo mailer. She took it by one corner, slid it toward Tom. He refolded it and tucked it into the zippered chest pocket of his nylon jacket. Absently, she folded back the flap of the mailer and took out a five-by-seven color print. She gave it a glance and turned it toward him.
“Me and some friends down at the beach. Back when things were simple.”
Half a dozen grinning, laughing young people, Shannon among them, were crowded around an elderly man who sat at the tiller of a small sailboat. He had a weatherbeaten face and an open grin, wore a frayed shirt and a yachtsman’s cap.
“Who’s the old geezer?”
“That’s the Skipper.” A hint of animation crept back into her face and voice. “I don’t know his real name, I only met him a couple of times. That’s his boat. My friends say he’s retired, likes to do some sailing when the weather’s nice, sometimes springs for a six-pack or a bottle of wine.”
Shannon picked up the frame, examined the glass for dust and traces of cleaner, and slid the photo behind it. She pushed the cardboard backing into the frame behind the photo, laid the picture face-down on the table, and just sat there a while.
Finally she gave a ragged sigh.
“Okay. My dad was Curtis John Farr. He died when I was six. My mom is Eileen Scott Farr, who lives in San Pedro and works as a beautician. They were married when she was twenty and he was thirty. I was born ten years later.”
“Why’d you change your name?”
“I ran away when I was sixteen. Well, sort of. I mean I write my mom pretty regularly, no return address. I don’t want her to be able to trace me. I mean... we fight all the time. Can’t agree on anything. Well, I looked up and saw this big billboard for Wells Fargo Bank and thought, well, Farr, Fargo, why not?”
“And the Shannon part?”
“That’s real. Shannon Elayne.” Then fretfully, “Oh God. Am I going to regret this...?”
Someone knocked on the door.
“I mean trusting you with all this?”
He said grimly, “Not if I can help it,” stood up, and crossed quickly to the door and opened it.
Katherine said from the concrete step, “I got tired of waiting.”
“No one asked you to wait. You promised me—”
“Changed my mind. Going to let me in, or just stand there looking silly and self-righteous?” A light rippling laugh. “Come on, Tom. Loosen up.”
“It’s okay, let her in,” Shannon said behind him.
Tom moved aside. Katherine came in. She had shed the bandanna and the dark glasses. She took in the room in a half-amused, half-contemptuous glance.
Shannon said cautiously, “Hello again.”
“I thought we’d best get acquainted,” Katherine said. “Tom, don’t let us keep you, I’m sure you have things to do.” She smiled serenely. “It’s quite safe, leaving us alone together.”
Tom said to Shannon, “Talk to you outside a minute?”
She nodded and preceded him through the door into near night. The air had developed an edge. There was no wind. Trees made no sound.
They walked to the corner of the house. Someone had turned the porch light on.
“I don’t know what she’s up to,” Tom said. “If you like I’ll stay, or get rid of her for you,”
“How? No, it’s all right, I’ll be okay.”
“Okay. I don’t want you taken by surprise if she sees that picture you showed me. The guy you called the Skipper? That’s Michael J. McCauley. That’s Mac.”
Half in shadow, half illuminated by the porch light, her face was still and grave. Her mouth formed an almost inaudible, “Oh.” Then she said, almost as quietly, “He did ask me where I was from, who my folks were. I said I was a runaway and couldn’t tell him much...” A short stressful sigh. “You’re going to talk to my mom, aren’t you?”
“If I may.”
“Well... give her my love.”
“Okay.” He thought a moment, then took her face in his hands and kissed her, undemandingly, on the mouth.
She didn’t object. “Which one of us was that for?”
He was too surprised to answer. She went on, “Ever make it with her?”
“Her? Katherine?... No. Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because it never occurred to me. Because she would’ve killed me for even trying, and then her father would’ve killed me.”
“Okay. Good night.”
Tom left. Shannon went back inside, found Katherine still standing in the middle of the room.
“Sorry to interrupt your tea party,” she said abruptly, “but I was quite beastly to you yesterday. I’m sorry. In my own inadequate defense, I can only say that I was, well, shaken. Someone was trespassing on my property — my face. But it’s not just mine, is it? Let me make amends and take you to dinner.”