Dr. Dad (2 page)

 

T
OBY HAD BLOWN IT
. He knew he had even before Lindsey had slouched out of the kitchen with her shoulders hunched and her gaze on the floor. She'd bounced in so full of energy, bright-eyed and exuberant—and he'd come down on her like the Lord High Executioner wielding an ax. And now she was gone, off to contemplate how very much she despised him.

Would it have made a difference if he'd given her a hug first? She seemed so prickly these days he was hesitant about touching her. Maybe he should have said he loved her—but she tended to recoil from all shows of affection, verbal or physical.

He didn't know how to reach her.

Obviously, Ms. Hathaway didn't, either.

Lindsey had always been a good student. Even Ms. Hathaway had admitted on the midterm report that she was gifted. But the report showed that she was slacking off in nearly every subject. It wasn't like Lindsey to do that.

He sank onto one of the kitchen chairs and reread the report, although he already knew its troubling contents. His day had entailed the usual ups and downs—treating sick children could be both rewarding and depressing. But nothing was as rewarding as raising his precious daughter. And lately, nothing was as depressing, either.

For not the first time, he suffered the gnawing worry
that he was losing Lindsey. She wasn't the girl she used to be, and he was scared out of his wits.

As a doctor, he understood the changes theoretically. He knew about hormonal upheavals, about the moodiness and restlessness that assailed children with the onset of puberty. Physically, she was already beginning to show the signs. Her body was developing a mature femininity that frightened the hell out of him. Even worse, her face was different. The last layer of baby fat had melted from her cheeks and chin, leaving behind a face of sculpted beauty—a face that resembled her mother's in an unnerving way. Every time he looked at Lindsey these days, he saw Jane, and it made him realize how desperately he needed Jane right now, and how alone he was.

Sighing, he shoved away from the table and crossed to the sink. He rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands and unwrapped the salmon steaks he planned to broil for dinner. The mechanics of preparing the evening meal couldn't distract him from his worry about Lindsey. That she had budding breasts and a new roundness to her hips, that she looked like the reincarnation of her mother, that she'd recently discovered the sublime thrill of sarcasm—it was all unsettling, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to focus on what he
could
do something about: getting her back on track in school.

If only the Robinsons hadn't moved away, he could have turned to Diane Robinson for help. Her daughter Cathy had been Lindsey's best friend, going through every developmental stage Lindsey was going through. And Diane was a mom. Lindsey used to be able to go to her with questions and problems she refused to discuss with Toby because he was a man. He wished there
were someone like Diane in her life now, when she needed a woman's guidance more than ever.

He sprinkled parsley flakes and lemon juice on the salmon, added a few modest pats of butter and slid the tray into the oven. It didn't seem fair that Lindsey was shutting him out just because he was her father. Denying him access to her because he wasn't a woman struck him as outrageously sexist. If he could be standing over the stainless-steel sink, rinsing and tearing lettuce leaves for a salad while the salmon broiled, his daughter ought to be willing to confide in him.

If he were a woman, perhaps he'd understand why the possibility that some boob-tube personality had moved in next door meant more than getting a satisfactory midterm report. What was her name? Susan something? He'd never even heard of
Mercy Hospital.
But then, he rarely had a chance to sit down in front of the television before the eleven o'clock news came on. The only way he was able to get home before six in the evening was by bringing paperwork with him. After dinner, he would review files, take notes, assess his patients' progress. On those occasions when he didn't have to work in the evening, he usually pried Lindsey away from the TV and they did something together—drive to Paganini's for ice cream, or bicycle around the neighborhood, or work together on a special project for school. He didn't want to waste those valuable minutes watching an inane TV show.

Maybe he shouldn't have given up the baby-sitter this year. Maybe that was why Lindsey was screwing up in school. She'd said she was old enough not to need an adult waiting for her at the house when she got off the bus, and Toby had agreed. But maybe Mrs.
Clarkson's presence had been essential to Lindsey's academic achievement.

Mrs. Clarkson had been a gentle, grandmotherly type, kind and patient. But kindness and patience didn't count for much with Lindsey these days. She was at an age when she considered anyone older than thirty an idiot. Older than sixty, Mrs. Clarkson probably qualified as doubly idiotic. So when she'd been offered another nanny job, Toby had wished her well and sent her on her way.

He was going to have to break through to Lindsey himself. Whatever was going on with her, between them, at school and in her fertile, mysterious mind, he was going to have to figure it out. He was going to have to grab hold of her and drag her back from the edge of disaster. Even if the falloff was only a few feet and the disaster was only a lousy report card, Toby was her father. He was going to have to save her.

 

F
INALLY
, thank God, the truck was gone. Susannah gazed around the living room. Although her furniture was in place, the room looked stark. The couches had been purchased for a very different house in a very different place. Maybe she should have ditched all the old pieces and purchased new things when she moved here.

But she didn't want to burn through her money. There would be more coming in, and she'd probably saved enough so that she would never have to work again if she lived frugally and budgeted carefully. Of course she would go crazy if she didn't work again; fortunately, she had those writing contracts waiting for her. They wouldn't pay what she'd been earning before she'd quit the show, but that was fine with her.

Trying to decorate a Victorian farmhouse in bucolic northwestern Connecticut with the sleek modern furniture she'd purchased for a sprawling ranch in a canyon north of Los Angeles was a challenge, but Susannah wanted challenges—new challenges, not the same old garbage she'd been battling for as long as she could remember. That was why she was here.

“What do you think, MacKenzie?” she asked her plump, sulking cat. He glowered up at her, then meticulously licked a paw. He was not pleased with the move—not yet. In time he'd get used to the new house. He'd discover that it was more fun to romp across a soft green lawn than the strawlike, drought-stricken grass of Southern California. He'd learn that curling up in front of a fire on a winter's day was more fun than never even knowing what a winter's day was. He'd come around.

For now, however, he clearly had no intention of offering her any input on the decor.

The air wasn't particularly warm, but she felt sticky and grimy. Strands of hair had unraveled from her braid; she could feel them tickling her cheeks and chin. Her lower back ached, even though she hadn't done much heavy lifting. Just standing all day, monitoring the movers as they unloaded her life from the back of their truck, had been enough to fatigue her.

“You think I made a mistake, don't you,” she muttered to MacKenzie.

He gave her a supercilious stare that seemed to say, “Do you even have to ask?” Then he went back to grooming himself.

All right, so she'd made a mistake in deciding not to renew her contract, selling her house and moving all the way across the country to a town that, one
month ago, she'd never even heard of. A colleague from Manhattan had told her Arlington was a charming place—not too big, but not so small she'd feel isolated. Less than two hours by train or bus to New York City, less than two and a half to Boston. A bustling downtown just minutes away from rolling countryside, hills and woodlands and crystalline ponds. “The half of the city that doesn't have weekend homes in the Hamptons has them in the Arlington area,” her friend had told her.

She didn't want to live surrounded by weekend exiles from Manhattan. So she'd asked a real-estate agent to find her a nice, manageable house in an established neighborhood. And now here she was, wondering if moving to Arlington was the most brainless thing she'd ever done.

Nah. She'd done so many other brainless things in her life this one might not even make the top ten.

“We've got a nice porch here, Mac,” she told her cat. “I picture you sitting out there on the porch, watching the world go by. Maybe I'll get a hammock. What do you think? Is that what folks in New England do?”

MacKenzie gave her another contemptuous look.

Irritated by his lack of supportiveness, she bent over, scooped him up and left the echoing living room, weaving around a few unopened cartons and heading down the hall to the door. Once Mac saw the porch, maybe he'd fall in love with it the way she had when the real-estate broker had faxed photos of the house to her. He cradled himself in the crook of her arm—he might think she'd made a mistake in moving here, but he didn't mind letting her carry him around as if she were his slave. She pulled open the front door, then
pushed open the screen door. The screen door would take some getting used to. She hadn't had one in California. There were no bugs out there, and when it was warm enough for screens it was warm enough for air-conditioning, so most people kept their doors shut.

It was not warm in northwestern Connecticut. It wasn't exactly cold, but it was bracing, the evening sky a delicate sunset pink and the air infused with the scent of greenery. She crossed to the porch railing and propped MacKenzie on it. “What do you think, Mac? Tolerable?”

Mac sniffed, less disdainful than curious. He could smell it, too—that exotic perfume of growing grass and budding azaleas and daffodils spearing through the humid soil.

“We're not in California anymore, Mac,” she murmured. “Get used to it.”

He meowed thoughtfully.

A movement to her right caught her attention. The garage door of the tidy brick colonial next door slid open with a mechanical rumble, and a man emerged dragging a wheeled garbage can. Her new neighbor.

Even in the dusk light she could see him clearly enough to observe that he was handsome. Not plastic handsome like most of the men she knew in L.A., with their perfect tans, their impeccable coiffures and their surgically improved features. There was something endearingly genuine about what she could see of his face—the prominent nose, the broad chin, the shock of dark, thick hair tumbling down over his forehead. He wore pale slacks and a blue shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled to his elbows.

This must be what real America is like, she thought—a quiet residential neighborhood of attractive
houses, the sunset lending the springtime air a chill, a husband wheeling the trash down his driveway to the curb. And here she was, a witness to this American panorama, practically a part of it—a lady on the porch with her cat in a quiet residential New England neighborhood.

“Hi,” he shouted over the hedge that formed a barrier between his driveway and her property.

It wasn't just a scene she was witnessing. She
was
a part of it, as much his neighbor as he was hers. Sooner or later, she knew she'd have to meet her neighbors. Perhaps later would have been better.

Fortunately, she wasn't well-groomed. Her sweatshirt was wrinkled, her jeans old and fraying at the hems. She was tired and washed out, and she looked it. In the fading daylight, the man might not realize who she was.

She was going to have to be friendly with him. Reserved, cautious, but pleasant. After hoisting MacKenzie off the railing, she descended the three steps to the lawn and crossed it, the soft grass springy beneath her sneakers. When she reached the row of dense, waist-high shrubs separating her from the man, she paused and gave him a closer look.

Damn. He was
really
handsome. If his personality matched his looks, his wife was one lucky woman.

He extended his right hand to her above the shrubs. “Toby Cole. Welcome to Arlington.”

What a sweet smile he had. Slightly shy, slightly crooked, his teeth straight and white and one cheek creasing into a dimple. “Sue Dawson,” she introduced herself, slipping her hand into his. His long fingers wrapped around her in a warm, oddly possessive grip.

He shook her hand and released it. “Welcome to the neighborhood. How did your move go?”

“Nothing broken so far,” she said. Either he hadn't recognized her or he didn't care who she was. Maybe this would work out after all. “I haven't unpacked everything yet, so we'll see.”

“It's a nice house. My daughter was best friends with the girl who used to live there, so we know the house. It gets lots of sun.”

“Good.” In Southern California, getting lots of sun in the house meant having to crank up the air conditioner to high power.

“If your cat likes to doze in the sun, he'll be happy. Is it a he?”