Ciji Ware (17 page)

Daphne was suddenly conscious of Sim gazing at her intently above the burning candle in its glass holder that cast a warm glow over their table. Light and shadow played across his striking features, reminding her of Maddy’s parlor last night, just before—

“And your mother?” Sim was asking. Daphne returned her full attention to her dinner companion. “Did she get in touch before she left Natchez?”

“No… and I didn’t expect her to.” Daphne felt her chest tighten as it always did when the subject of mother-daughter relationships was broached. She studied Sim’s expression, trying to read the thrust of his rather personal questions.

He arched an eyebrow. “I was hoping maybe that she’d… thought about some of the things she’d said and would—”

“Apologize?” Daphne interjected softly. She pointed to the silhouetted flower etched into the restaurant’s wine list resting on a corner of their table and gave a small, defeated shake of her head. “Magnolias never say they’re sorry. They just change the subject.” She toyed with her coffee cup. Finally, she said, “I was so touched when you mentioned earlier to Maddy that in the last three months of your father’s life, you… you were able truly to get to know him… and… to settle any issues that existed between you.” She turned to gaze out the window at the lights dancing on the water near the
Lady
Luck.
“I envy you that.” She turned back and looked directly at Sim. “But, isn’t it sad that it took his illness to bring you both to that point?”

“Yes, it is,” Sim agreed soberly, “but sometimes, that’s what it takes to make people… strip the mask off, you know what I mean?” He reached across the table and gently encased her fingers, curled around the stem of her wineglass. Daphne lowered her eyes to take in the sight of their joined hands. “From what I saw of your mother yesterday, I’m not sure that can happen with certain people. Both sides have to be willing to be honest about the good
and
the bad things they bring to the party, don’t you think?”

“Is that what happened with you and your dad?” she asked, fighting back a lump in her throat.

“Oh… yes,” Sim said with a pained smile. “We were both definitely ready and willing to clear up a lot of misunderstandings.” He withdrew his hand from Daphne’s to take another sip of his coffee and she felt bereft at the sudden loss. “I had been on the road so much, I’d used it as an excuse to avoid talking about stuff that had built up. I’d say to myself, ‘Gotta catch a plane, so there isn’t time.’”

“Did he disapprove of your being a photographer?”

“Not really. Of course, early on, he and my mother assumed I’d be a doctor, like he was—”

“Your father was a
doctor
and ignored cancer symptoms?” she asked, astonished.

“He was a dermatologist,” Sim replied, with a sad shrug. “You know the old saying, ‘a cobbler’s children have no shoes’? He could spot a melanoma on someone’s face across the room, but he was frightened of getting sick himself, just like the rest of us. And too busy, like we all are sometimes, to take proper care of himself.”

“Had you considered being a doctor?”

“I liked science a lot, and I took all the premed courses at Stanford. Like most kids, I knew my parents would be pleased if I carried on the family tradition, since my mother’s family also had its fair share of medicos—as well as newspaper types. The majority of my dad’s family had been farmers down in the valley, with the big shots in the family in the railroad business. But no, when push-came-to-medical-school, I got my advance science degrees in botany and ornithology, and took a fellowship at the Brooks Institute of Photography, in Santa Barbara—and they were okay with that.”

“And then Bird Man hit the road,” Daphne said, smiling as the waiter poured a second round of espresso.

Sim remained silent for a long moment, and repeated softly, “And then Bird Man hit the road.”

Suddenly, Daphne grew wide-eyed. “Oh, m’God,” she exclaimed. “Sim, I just got it! Railroads, hotels, newspapers.
San
Francisco
?”

“Top of the Mark, and all that?” he admitted with a crooked grin. “We’re only distant kin to Mark Hopkins—one of the Big Four who brought the railroad out west and got a hotel named after him on Nob Hill—but my grandfather on my mother’s side was a Chandler.”

“The
Los
Angeles
Times
Chandlers, right?” Daphne said, identifying the flagship publication of the Times Mirror Company founded by the Chandler family in the nineteenth century and sold for millions at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Sim pantomimed taking a picture of her across the table. “I guess it pays to get there early in a gold rush,” he said modestly. “As for me, after grad school, I was working steadily in my chosen field. All my parents’ friends in San Francisco suitably admired the nature books I wrote and gave my full-color calendars to each other for Christmas. My profession wasn’t the problem.”

“So, why the estrangement with your family?” Daphne asked, and then added with a pinch of embarrassment, “If you don’t mind my asking?”

Sim grew silent once again. Finally he said, “After I got married and started flying all over the place… my parents and I just sort of… drifted in different directions.”

“What about sisters and brothers?” she asked sympathetically.

“My sister Brooke and I’ve done better keeping in touch, especially now.”

Daphne fiddled with her napkin in her lap. “And how did your wife deal with your traveling so much of the time?”

An uncomfortable silence grew between them.

“Not well.”

He pronounced the words as if they were two distinct sentences and with a finality that indicated, in no uncertain terms, that the subject was one he preferred closed. The growing sense of intimacy that Daphne had felt taking hold had been erased in an instant by her question concerning the breakup with his wife.

Sim glanced at his watch and signaled for the waiter to bring the check.

He’s gone absolutely cold
, she realized, bewildered. Why would he do such an about-face at the mere mention of a wife from whom he’d been divorced for nearly a decade?

Battle
scars
still
festering, Flash?
she asked him silently.

Simon took a final sip of coffee. “Interviewing subjects is supposed to be my line of work, isn’t it?” he asked in a tone only slightly warmer. “How about we head a few doors up from here and go dancing?”

Sim’s sudden withdrawal left Daphne feeling utterly deflated. Magnolia Mama had nothing on him when it came to changing the subject. Clearly, the evening had taken an unhappy turn into no-man’s-land, and all because she’d brought up the subject of Sim’s ex-wife.

Obviously, time had not healed all wounds.

Chapter 7

Sim seized the pen left by the waiter and signed his name with a vengeance, wondering why he’d cut off Daphne so abruptly. Considering all the personal questions he’d asked
her
these last twenty-four hours, she’d inquired in a perfectly reasonable fashion about his relationship with Francesca, and he’d stifled her.

“Back in just a sec,” his dinner companion said tersely, rising from the table and effecting a strategic retreat toward the ladies’ room. She strode purposefully toward the rear of the restaurant, providing Sim a chance to admire her slim figure and the chic, understated clothes that marked her for the New Yorker she had become. With a defeated sigh, he marveled at how an extremely enjoyable evening had suddenly taken a sharp turn south.

Angry with himself, he added a generous tip, and handed it to the appreciative waiter. Even after all these years, the subject of Francesca Hayes still caused consternation in his solar plexus. As usual, he had simply ended all discussion when it came time to assess blame for the ultimate explosion that ended his marriage. The jury was in… and had been for nearly a decade. He’d gone AWOL when his wife was pregnant, as Francesca had declared to all their friends and family.

Simon Chandler Hopkins: guilty as charged.

His marriage had died the day he’d been photographing ducks in a remote rice paddy outside Sacramento, for God’s sake. It was so unbelievably prosaic.

“A flock of fucking mallards is more important to you, you bastard, than your
wife
at
the
worst
moment
of
her
life!”

And then Francesca had turned her back on him to face the hospital wall. The irony of it all was perfect. He’d ducked his responsibility, and couldn’t be located for three days. At least, those were the scathing words Francesca had used in her last note to him, the one she’d attached to the crib’s bare mattress with a diaper pin.

He looked up just as Daphne returned to their table with her generous mouth now set in a tight smile.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” he echoed, rising from his chair.

She merely nodded, and marched silently by his side out of the restaurant and up the street toward the Under-the-Hill Saloon. He gently took her arm as they walked, his thoughts a million miles from Natchez, Mississippi.

Give
up
hoping
for
a
better
past, pal You can’t rewrite history. Concentrate on the future
…

“Daphne?”

When she turned to look at him, the old-fashioned streetlight cast a golden nimbus around her glorious caramel-colored hair as if it were spun sugar, good enough to eat.

“What?” she asked coolly.

He could read the new wariness in her dark eyes. In the distance, the sounds of a Dixieland band playing on board the
Lady
Luck
drifted across the water. He gazed beyond the guard railing at the river’s edge, wondering if he would ever be free of the ache in his gut whenever he pictured that note pinned to the crib mattress.

“I’m very sorry I was so… curt… when you asked how Francesca—that’s my former wife’s name—how Francesca felt about my traveling so much.”

Daphne affected a shrug. “Maybe I was being nosy.”

“No. That wasn’t it. I’ve asked you plenty of personal questions in the last twenty-four hours, so I owed you an answer.” She looked surprised by his words, but remained silent. “To tell you the truth, my traveling to here-and-gone became a major bone of contention when my wife became pregnant. It’s what ultimately caused our split.”

That, and a few other things that are far too complex to sort out, even now
…

“So you have a child,” she murmured.

“No. The baby died.”

Her startled expression was immediately transformed into one of compassion.

“Oh, Sim… I’m so sorry,” she said, touching his sleeve. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been. For both of you.”

Now this is a kind woman, he thought gratefully. Despite all the knocks she’s taken in the romance department, she doesn’t automatically assume that only Francesca suffered.

She
doesn’t know the half of it
…

Daphne turned to face the river, a light breeze lifting her hair off the shoulders of her linen jacket. “You know,” she mused, “in my world, the principal thing that breaks up couples—even if only one spouse is a professional musician—is just that: the horrendous amount of travel required if you want to be a soloist at the top of your field.” She turned and looked him squarely in the eye. “It’s pretty hard to maintain any sort of intimacy when only one person is ever around.”

“Do you mean physically, or emotionally, or both?”

“Well,” Daphne replied slowly, “if one person isn’t there physically, it’s tough staying emotionally connected, wouldn’t you say? Too many distractions.”

“That was pretty much Francesca’s opinion ten years ago.”

“And yet, you remain a travelin’ man.” She drawled the words, giving them a slight edge that he’d heard from other women of his acquaintance in the years since his divorce. Instead of bristling—as he usually did—he paused a moment, allowing her words to sink in. Here was someone who understood the demands of a profession that required travel in order to succeed at the job. She just didn’t like what she’d seen it do to couples. Well, at this stage, neither did he.

Even so, he felt slightly on the defensive, and so he said, “I’m not ready quite yet to trade in my passport for some studio job photographing babies for grandma’s wallet.”

Daphne laughed. “Wait a minute, Sim. Isn’t there a middle ground between living in airports and taking baby portraits all day long?”

“Maybe so,” Sim acknowledged. “I just haven’t figured out what that is.”