Much Ado About Mother (6 page)

CHAPTER 7

SUZANNA

Suzanna knew she was out of sorts due to the potential Rio sightings but that was no excuse. It was like plucking the petals off a daisy: “It's Rio,” “It's not Rio,” “It's Rio,” “It's not Rio.” She had seen the mysterious man a couple of times now, sometimes skating, sometimes jogging, always in motion. But he never was within identification range. Each time she saw him, a jolt went through her. Not the jolt one always read about in romance novels but the jolt from an open wire. Searing and painful, it was the kind of sensation that made you understand to the soles of your feet that you should never, ever go near an open wire again.

Even if it were Rio, Suzanna had left that world far behind her; she was now a happy if slightly out-of-shape wife and mother. Part of her wanted Rio to see her . . . see what he was missing. And a part of her wanted to make sure he didn't see her. . . . The out-of-shape part was really sinking in. But that was no excuse for being so short with her mother at the airport.

Had her mother suddenly become irritating? Suzanna didn't think so. So what if Virginia couldn't tell a minivan from an SUV? Was that a sin? So what if she had a dog the size of a mouse? There were worse flaws. Suzanna was also annoyed with Erinn for being out of town. Erinn always managed to be the sister who skated away from all responsibility when Suzanna wore the tag of “good daughter,” and nothing had changed! Erinn was off doing God Knows What while Suzanna was clearing out a room in their apartment for their mother. Typical!

When they got back from the airport to the Bun, Suzanna found herself having a hard time getting her mother up to the apartment; several of the tea-shop regulars had hung around and were waiting to greet her. Piquant seemed to be causing quite a stir among the customers, too, although Suzanna noticed that the dog didn't seem to particularly crave the attention—something she could not say for her mother. Virginia had been to the shop many times over the years and was always a hit with the clientele. Apparently, the years in New York had done nothing to dim her allure. Suzanna felt the sting of remorse at her own behavior as she watched her mother interact (
elegantly
was the only word for it) with the tea-shop guests. Virginia hadn't seen many of the Bun customers since Suzanna's wedding almost three years ago, but she appeared to remember each and every name.

Eric took Lizzy up to the Huge Apartment, while Suzanna hovered in the background as her mother held court on the front porch of the Bun. Looking out toward the ocean, she felt a gentle calm until a tidal wave of emotion nearly flattened her. She held her breath as if she were underwater as the man whom she had decided was not Rio came running up the Beach Walk.

The glistening man with TV-worthy hair continued in her direction. She tried not to stare; the sun was not her friend and it blinded her. She started to squint, but realized if it were indeed Rio, her scrunched-up face was not what she intended to present. She tried to calm her heart as well as her facial features as he drew closer and closer.

The sun went behind a cloud as the man was almost upon her. Whoever he was, it almost hurt her to see that his hair, jet black and wild as the wind, whipped across his face, and he had to keep tossing it back like a stallion in a storm. She had wild hair herself and when it was being blown around by the wind she looked like a circus clown. When she shook it out of her face she wound up trying to spit out the curl that ended up in her mouth.

Life could be so unfair.

As she turned back to the sanctuary of the tea shop, she felt a hand on her arm. Frozen in place, staring at the sweat-soaked hand, tanned against her pink, freckled forearm, she heard him speak before she saw him.

“Hello, Suzanna,” Rio said. The soft Spanish accent was as silky as ever.

Suzanna berated herself. Why hadn't she rehearsed a stinging rebuke? On the one hand “Hello, Suzanna” didn't really lend itself to a haughty retort, but she should have been prepared. She met his eyes and prayed for something to come to her.

“Hello, Rio,” she said.

Not exactly what she had in mind. She willed herself to look into his eyes. When she took a breath to try again, her strawberry-blond curls leaped into her mouth and almost gagged her. She tried to flick a saliva-covered strand out of her mouth and it snapped against her cheek with such force she was sure it left a welt.

“I thought it might be you,” Rio said.

Oh? Imagine the odds of that—a woman who looks just like me standing in front of my own tea shop,
she thought. But she said, “You cut your hair.”

A shadow of a melancholy smile passed over his handsome face. He continued to look into her eyes.

“Yes. My mother, she always cut my hair. When she died, I could not stand the thought of someone else cutting it. It would be as if . . . as if I lost her twice. After five years my hair was so long, I was sitting on it. So I had to cut it,” he said and shrugged. “Life goes on, you know?”

Suzanna was stunned. She thought back to the days of her passionate crush. There was a day when he came into the tea shop and was showing pictures of his mother to one of the waitresses. Suzanna had thought it was a come-on strategy. She realized now that his mother was already dead and he was probably reaching out to anyone who would listen. She was so blinded by jealousy that he was paying attention to the waitress that she had never asked either one of them about it.

Perhaps he had been in mourning. His mother would have been dead at least a few years by then. Latin men could be so attached to their mothers—so sweet.

“You look well, Suzanna,” Rio said.

She felt herself melting. OK, so it wasn't “You look beautiful” or even “Lookin' good,” but it was a start!

“Hey, you too! You're looking very well, extremely well.”

And she was telling the truth; he looked irresistible. Which was a problem, because she was going to have to resist him. Plus, she reminded herself that he'd been a total tool to her!

She admitted the demise of what Erinn called their “pathetic little romance” had certainly not been all his fault. She had set her sights on him and went after him with everything she could muster. She knew that he was a dance instructor with a roster of female students practically two-stepping over one another to get his attention. She had deluded herself into thinking that she meant more to him than his other students. Well, that's one of the qualities of a great instructor, isn't it? Make every paying female feel special?

With every possible justification stripped away, the bare truth was she had thrown herself at him. In hindsight, he really hadn't paid much attention to her at all, had he? A few misguided gropings that she had practically insisted upon; she was more to blame than he was for the pain he'd caused her.

Rio leaned in, still holding her arm.

“Suzanna,” he said. “I must speak to you alone.”

Her feet left the ground. She tried to control her breathing but there was nothing she could do: A full-blown stress float was upon her. Because Rio had her by the arm she thankfully couldn't float out to sea, but she was floating horizontal to him, her feet in the air. She kept her eyes locked on his to make sure he didn't notice and, if he did, he seemed too overcome with some sort of urgent emotion to be aware of it.

“Suzanna?” said a voice from the patio.

POW! Suzanna was back on the ground.

Rio and Suzanna turned toward the voice. It was her mother, carrying the quaking Piquant and walking toward them. Suzanna tried to remain calm. After all, Virginia knew nothing about Rio. But mothers had a sixth sense, Suzanna knew, and she hoped her mother's own intuition was just a little rusty from being in New York for so long.

“I'm sorry to interrupt,” Virginia said. “But some of the ladies were wondering if we could get tea.”

“Oh! Sure, Mom!” she said, relieved that she still had the power of speech.

“This is your mother?” Rio asked, pushing his hair back and looking at Virginia in that sexy, bored way of his. Had she imagined his urgency at needing to see her?

“Yes,” Suzanna said. “Mom, this is Rio. Rio, Mom. I mean Virginia. Virginia Wolf.”

Suzanna studied her mother as Virginia took in the glory that was Rio. Suzanna wasn't sure what she expected: her mother to burst into flames at the sight of such magnificence? She only saw her mother's defenses go up and then lower as she realized there was not going to be a Virginia Woolf joke. Virginia Woolf jokes were definitely not Rio's style. As a matter of fact, no joke was Rio's style. Virginia offered her hand and Rio finally let go of Suzanna's arm to shake it. She tapped the ground lightly to make sure she was going to stay put.

“I am pleased to meet you,” Rio said, his accent sounding like a hand stroking the nap of velvet. Smooth, smooth, smooth.

“And I, you,” said Virginia, the relentless university professor.

Suzanna felt the smallest flash of irritated déjà vu. She had forgotten how annoying her family could be with their off-putting perfect grammar. She might be able to nag her sister into speaking more casually, but her mother was a different story. Suzanna worried that Rio might think her mother was stuck-up. She tried to shake off the adolescent embarrassment; she was a mother herself now. Besides, what did she care what Rio, the consummate jerk, thought of her mother? When she tuned back into the conversation, she realized her mother was speaking in Spanish.

Having no idea what the two of them were saying, Suzanna plastered on her “I'll pretend that I know what's going on” face, looking first to her mother and then to Rio as they conversed, lifting her eyebrows and nodding as the conversation appeared to warrant. It was a trick she'd picked up years ago. Her family was very intellectually inclined, and she found it much easier to look learned than actually learn a bunch of stuff. It turned out that nobody was fooled, but she fell back on old habits from time to time—like now.

Mercifully, Virginia switched back to English.

“It was very nice to meet you, Rio. I'll have to stop by your dance studio,” Virginia said. “You are absolutely extraordinary.”

Rio bowed slightly to both of them and jogged off. Suzanna's head was spinning.

Suzanna realized she was staring down the Beach Walk, watching Rio disappear around a clump of palm trees. He was running again and she took in every taut flex of his calf muscles until he was out of sight.

“Tea?” her mother asked.

“Tea!” Suzanna said, turning quickly to face her.

As the two women walked up the path to where Virginia's mini fan club waited, Suzanna hoped they would be able to confine their conversation to what kind of tea the ladies might like.

“What an interesting man,” Virginia said.

“Extraordinary, even!” Suzanna replied. She seemed to be reverting to her teenage self minute by minute.

Virginia stopped walking and looked at her. Piquant sniffed the air, sensing tension.

“A man opening a dance studio for underprivileged kids seems pretty extraordinary to me,” Virginia said.

Rio was opening a dance studio for underprivileged kids? That was impossible—that would just be so un-Rio.
Or would it?
She didn't really know him at all.

“Maybe you misunderstood, Mom,” Suzanna said. “I mean, you were speaking Spanish.”

“Yes I was, and I understood every word,” Virginia replied, her voice a blend of confidence and childlike pride.

Suzanna had to admire the fact that her mother had unswerving faith in her own abilities, a trait she'd passed on to Erinn but that somehow had managed to skip Suzanna.

They started up the steps to the tea shop, both aware that the ladies were watching and probably much more interested in the body language they were witnessing between mother and daughter than any tea Suzanna might be brewing.

“He has opened a school for underserved kids. He's a couple doors down from you. It's in the back of that lovely brick courtyard . . . you know the one.”

“Mr. Clancy's Courtyard?” Suzanna said. “Just the other day I was talking to someone who rents space there.”

This was perfect! If Rio was working (and maybe living?) on their block, she was sure to run into him. Especially since she'd told Christopher that she'd stop down and see his latest work. And of course this was the building that her husband was working to get declared a historic landmark. Or a historic district. She really hadn't paid much attention, but she would now! She would head down there as soon as possible. It really had been a while since she'd stopped in.

Suzanna imagined throwing herself into the good fight to save the buildings on her little corner of the Venice Beach Walk. Sure, they were old and there were no tiled bathrooms and stainless-steel balconies that were all the rage in Manhattan Beach, just down the coast. But they were lovely weathered buildings and should be saved! Were the buildings in jeopardy? She really should be paying more attention to these things . . . these things that were so important to her husband. Maybe Rio was interested in all this, too.

She made a mental note to find out more about this historic monument thing so she could converse knowledgeably about it with Rio. She realized her mother was still standing beside her and Suzanna shook her head, trying to get the sweet chocolate pools that were Rio's eyes out of her mind. She turned to face her mother and found herself looking into the sweet chocolate pools of Piquant's eyes instead. They both blinked.