Someone Like You (22 page)

Joely shook her head and looked down at the plain polish on her fingernails. “Do you love Michael What’s-His-Name?”

“We’re talking about you.”

“You didn’t answer the question, Cat.”

“Neither did you.”

Joely looked at her sister and sighed. “Mr. Spock found it easier to admit to human feelings than we do. What’s wrong with us?”

Cat plunged the scoop deep into the tub of chocolate fudge ripple. “Do you really have to ask?”

THE PHONE SHRIEKED them awake a little after seven the next morning.

Zach was out to the world on the back porch, and Cat was wrapped around the john in her bathroom, so Joely leaped from bed to answer it. It was probably for her anyway. Who else but William would call at such a crazy hour? She dashed down the hallway and pounced on the phone before the third ring.

“William!” she cried into the phone. “I’m so glad you—”

“You’d better get over to Mimi’s,” a vaguely familiar female voice interrupted her. “There’s trouble.”

“What?” she said, as she realized it wasn’t William after all.

“Cat? Is that you?”

“It’s Joely.” She pushed down her disappointment and focused. “What’s this all about?”

“This is Trish at the police station. Someone tried to break into your mother’s house. You need to get down there as soon as you can.”

Zach, a little bleary-eyed after his feast of Merlot and chocolate fudge ripple the night before, staggered into the kitchen in search of orange juice and black coffee. “What idiot calls this early?” he asked as he poured them each a glass of juice. “I want the name and license number.”

“Somebody broke into Mimi’s house last night. I have to go over there and check it out.” Cat was in no shape to go anywhere and wouldn’t be for hours.

“I’ll go with you.”

She almost wept with relief. “You don’t have to.”

“I figure this way I won’t have to grill you later for the details.”

“I’ll spring for breakfast on the way back.”

He groaned and held his head between his hands. “I don’t want to hear anything about food for another year or two.”

“That bad?”

“You don’t want to know.” He flung open the doors to Cat’s cupboards. “Your sister doesn’t believe in pharmaceuticals, but you’d think she’d have some aspirin in the house.”

“I have some in my carry-on.”

“I’ll give you fifty dollars if you can give me two of them in the next thirty seconds.”

It took her a little longer than thirty seconds, but he was grateful just the same. She had to push his fifty-dollar bill back into the pocket of his shirt.

“What about the munchkin?” he asked. “We can’t take her with us, can we?”

“She’s sound asleep. I’ll tell Cat to keep an ear out for her.”

“I’ll make coffee while you get dressed.” He pushed her in the direction of the hallway. “Move it. CSI Idle Point is waiting for us.”

No wonder Cat adored him. He had the same off-center, wiseass sense of humor her sister had. They really were a perfect couple in every way. If you eliminated sex from the equation, they could go the distance.

Michael Whatever-His-Name-Was had his work cut out for him to come close to measuring up to Zach.

Cat was still busy being miserably sick in the main bathroom, so Joely grabbed her toothbrush and quickly cleaned up in the tiny powder room off the hallway. Annabelle was deeply asleep when she came back into the room, and she dressed as quietly as she could, then slipped back out again.

Cat was in the kitchen with Zach.

“You look awful,” she said, before she had the chance to censor herself. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” Cat poured herself a glass of flat, room temperature ginger ale and leaned against the counter. “Zach told me about the phone call. I’d go myself, but it would have to be later.”

“No problem. I figured you’re still not at your best in the morning.”

“Quite an understatement.” She sipped the ginger ale and made a face. “Sorry,” she said then raced back toward the bathroom.

Zach stared after her, his face pale. “And they say war is hell.” He pushed a cup of black coffee toward Joely. “You did it the right way. Instant family.”

No muss. No fuss. No commitment. She knew he didn’t mean it that way, but that was the way she internalized his words. A babysitter who was halfway to a Ph.D. in biomechanical engineering and who slept with the lord of the manor on a nightly basis. Was that how William viewed their relationship? Another question added to her list of questions she’d rather not have answered.

 

 

The workday started early in Hollywood, too early for Michael’s taste, and it all seemed to revolve around breakfast. Lots of breakfasts. So far his schedule for the next two days looked like a series of breakfasts with one dinner thrown into the mix for variety.

For a guy whose brain didn’t kick into gear until lunchtime, this was going to be one hell of a business trip.

His first meeting was set up for an ungodly seven a.m., which meant room service caffeine by five so he was awake enough to drive.

You had to drive in California. It was written into the state charter. He’d gone out for a walk last time he was in town and ended up in an LAPD squad car while they ran a make on him.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and stepped out onto the balcony. He was over the limit on sunshine and stepped back into the air-conditioned suite. Too bad he hadn’t brought his digital camera with him. Cat would have loved the fusion of old Hollywood and English hunt country. Glitter and chintz. A marriage made in designer hell.

It was the bank of televisions that told a guy he wasn’t in Queens anymore. This was a company town, after all, and entertainment was what paid the bills. Even he had to admit there was something pretty cool about watching Katie, Diane, and whoever it was on the other channel all at the same time and still have enough screens for the Food Network, home shopping, and
Entertainment Tonight
.

He put a head on his coffee, then raised the sound on
ET
. Some reporter he’d never seen before was waxing eloquent about some singer he’d never heard before who was about to be featured on an awards show he never knew existed.

Nothing was too small to escape notice. It was a celebrity blitzkrieg of information. If you had had even a flirtation with fame, you were fair game for the reporters and paparazzi. If Julia Roberts slipped out to the drugstore for an extra box of Pampers for the twins, somebody with a camera crew and microphone was waiting to document the event. Innocent dinners, not so innocent lap dances, engagements and weddings and divorces and deaths were all worthy of some airtime. He was grateful nobody gave a damn about the writers.

Katie and Diane went to commercial. Emeril threw a handful of something into a pot of something else, and Mary Hart crossed her legs.

He raised the sound.

“. . . Get well wishes go out to Mimi Doyle, one-half of the classic sixties folk-rock duo The Doyles. Sources in Idle Point, Maine, say Mimi Doyle suffered a stroke yesterday morning and is in intensive care at a local hospital. The Doyles stopped performing in 1978 when Mark Doyle disappeared. Coming up next on
Entertainment Tonight
, we roll out the red carpet for the premiere of—”

Where the hell was TiVo when you needed it?

He crossed the room to the desk where he’d hooked up his laptop to the hotel’s high-speed connection. Every show on television had its own Web site. He Googled
Entertainment Tonight
, found what he needed, and waited while the page loaded.

There it was. He hadn’t imagined it. Mimi Doyle. Wife of Mark Doyle. One-half of the legendary Doyles. An accident. A fire. Idle Point, Maine.

What the hell were the odds a man would hear the words “Idle Point, Maine” twice in one week? Probably not half as high as the odds he would have spent a few hours there at the hospital and not have a clue.

He glanced at his watch. It was after eight o’clock back home. He grabbed his cell and pressed 1 and waited. She answered on the second ring.

“Michael,” Cat said, “it’s morning, and I’m seven weeks pregnant. This better be important.”

“When were you planning to tell me? When the kid starts college?”

There was a long, guilty silence.

“You saw it?”

“Five minutes ago.”

“Wow,
ET
24/7. What a town.”

“Cut the sarcasm, Doyle. Your mother is Mimi Doyle.”

“You’ve known her name for a long time, Michael.”

“But I didn’t know she was
the
Mimi Doyle. When were you planning to tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”

“The Doyles are icons, Cat. They helped define a generation.”

“You’ve been busy this morning, haven’t you? Web surfing your way back through pop culture history.”

“I didn’t have to Web surf. I’m a fan.”

“I didn’t know that. When were you planning to tell me?”

“That’s why you kicked my ass back to New York the other day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s not something you can drop into a casual conversation. ‘By the way, did I ever tell you my parents used to be famous? And, oh yeah, before I forget, my father went out to buy a new guitar string in 1978, and she’s still waiting for him to come home with change.’ ”

“I get your point.”

“I thought you might.”

He felt like he had been stumbling through a dark room, and somebody had suddenly turned on the light. “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?”

“You’re going to start asking even more questions.”

He pushed past the defensive sarcasm. “Mary Hart was the opening salvo, Cat. You’re going to be swarmed with reporters before the day’s over. I don’t think you have any idea what’s about to hit.”

“Nobody’s called yet.”

“It’s early,” he said, “and you live in the boonies. Trust me, they’re on their way.”

“Five bucks says you’re way off base.”

“Five bucks says I hope you’re right.”

 

“WHAT ARE YOU doing, Aunt Cat?” Annabelle asked as they crossed the yard that separated her house from her studio.

Cat liked to think of herself as a decent, fair individual, but she couldn’t resist having the last word. “I’m texting a message to a friend of mine,” she said.

“That’s silly,” Annabelle said. “You’re supposed to talk into a phone.”

“You can type into it, too, Annabelle.” She showed her the message.

 

ALL QUIET ON WESTERN FRONT—TOLD YA SO.

 

Not that she was rubbing it in or anything, because she wasn’t.

“You spelled a word wrong,” Annabelle said. “Right there.”

“That was for comic emphasis.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sometimes spelling a word wrong is funny the same way a cartoon is funny.”

Annabelle opened her mouth—no doubt to ask another question—when Cat’s phone beeped, and Michael’s response appeared on screen.

 

DAY’S STILL YOUNG, DOYLE.

 

“That’s like on the computer,” Annabelle said as Cat showed her the message. “Sometimes I talk to my daddy that way.”

Cat was sure it was a sign of some faulty character trait on her part, but she took almost wicked pleasure in the fact that Michael was wrong. The phones were silent. There were no photographers hanging from the trees. No reporters hammering on the door for exclusives.

In other words, business as usual.

The short feature on
Entertainment Tonight
had been the result of a slow celebrity news day, not revived interest in The Doyles. Except for a few aging folkies and old friends, nobody would notice or remember.

“Where is everyone?” Annabelle asked as Cat unlocked the door and switched on the lights.

“We all work different hours here, honey. Some of the women have little children they have to take to school or to doctor’s appointments.”

“Oh.”

Her stomach started its familiar descent into rebellion, and she made it into the john without a moment to spare.

“Are you sick?” Annabelle called through the closed door.

“N-no,” she managed, rummaging around for the mouthwash. “I’m fine.”

“But I heard you.”

She rinsed her mouth, then rejoined the little girl. “I’m going to have a baby, Annabelle, and sometimes you don’t feel too well in the beginning.”

“How can you have a baby if there’s no daddy?”

Out of the mouths of babes. “There’s a daddy,” she said. “His name is Michael. That’s who I was sending the message to.”

“You don’t look like you’re having a baby.”

“It’s still early days, honey. In a few more months I’ll be big as a house.”

Annabelle giggled. “I asked my daddy and Joely for a baby brother, but they said I’d have to wait.”

There was no way on earth she was going to tackle that subject.

“Annabelle, were you serious about wanting to learn to knit?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Come sit down in the chair by the window, and I’ll start you on the knitting knobby.”

Annabelle was happily knitting away when Jeannie, Taylor, and the others started drifting in.

“Look at her go,” Bev said, gesturing toward an industrious Annabelle.

“Great dexterity,” Denise said. “I didn’t begin to get it together until I was ten.”

Cat did a quick head count. Everyone was there. “Listen,” she said, “this won’t take long, but I need to tell you guys something.”

“Really?” Denise said, with a wink for Bev and Nicki.

“It’s about time,” Jeannie said, looking up from her Louet wheel.

Taylor laughed, dropped a stitch, and quickly recovered it. “We were afraid you were going to try to blame the boobs on water retention.”