Reunion (37 page)

“I had the same question for you. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to intrude. I saw the macaw, and—well, I’ll leave you alone—”

“No, it’s okay,” she backpedaled. “You startled me is all.” Her cell phone was ringing inside the house. She ignored it.

“Right,” Julian said. “I mean, who’d be out in this weather?”

And why? “Come on,” she waved him in and watched the flex of his bicep, his shoulder, revealed under his soaked tee, as he lifted the gate’s latch. She noted the trim taper of his waist down to solid hips, muscled thighs hinted at, inside clinging wet jeans, as he came up the path. He was so … alive. Tangible. Present.

It was all right to admire and appreciate him, to feel affection toward him, especially after what he’d been through—a person would have to be heartless not to. Everything else she felt for him had to be dismissed, and if she couldn’t manage that, disguised. Her reaction to him, this warmth in her belly, this urge to pull his T-shirt over his head and lap the water droplets from his skin, this was more the result of her long-running sexual drought than anything about
him
, surely. It was infatuation at most. A resistible whim. Was that plausible? She needed it to be plausible, or how could she be near him and not betray herself?

As he climbed the steps to the porch, she avoided his eyes, turning
away and going for the door. “Come on in, I’ll see if I have anything you can use to dry off.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to get your floors wet.”

“Oh, right, okay, I’ll be right back.” Inside, she was away from the edge of the abyss, she was safe.

“You playing hooky today?” he called through the screen.

“You could say that.”

Peter had been dumbfounded when she’d spoken with him this morning, said she’d come down to Key West, told him to cancel today’s show. Then he recovered enough to sputter, “You need me to do what?”

“Peter, I’m calling in sick, all right?”

“No! Today’s show took
four months
to coordinate—I’ll never be able to get it together twice.”

“Then it just won’t happen,” she’d snapped. “Get over it.”

Briefly, she’d had second thoughts, third thoughts, even, but dismissed them. It was her show. She could take an unscheduled day off for her mental health. The world would not stop turning just because
TBRS
had broadcast a rerun without warning.

She checked her phone: Marcy—Marcy could wait. Then she searched the cabinets, closets, and pantry and found nothing more absorbent than a can of Ajax. Julian would just have to drip-dry.

He was sitting on the porch step when she went back outside. “I hate to say it, but unless you want to roll around on the bedroom carpet, there’s not a thing inside to dry off with.” She regretted the words the second they were out; she sounded
lewd.
This was how her subconscious worked?

“Thanks for checking anyway,” he said, either not noticing, or pretending not to.

The macaw remained in the tree, preening. “He’s so gorgeous.” She sat down, leaving two feet between herself and Julian. If only the steps were wider.

“Your garden here must be part of his territory.”

“Mmm. I only hope my cat won’t scare him away when we’re here for the summer. Peep—my cat—and me, that is.” Smooth. “I’ll have to
think up a name for him. The bird, I mean.” She knew she was jabbering, and pressed her nails into her palms. Having him this close, where she could smell the rain and the musk on his skin, made her heart pound, truly
pound.
It was crazy.

It was wonderful.

She wanted to feel his arms wrapped around her, his hips against hers, his hands in the small of her back. She wanted to know everything about him, down to the smallest details: How often did he trim his toe-nails? What did he think of the current president? Was there phantom pain where his finger was missing? Had he ever read
Gulliver’s Travels?
Did he think baths were only for women? Had anyone ever told him a person could lose herself in his eyes?

Her nails dug into her palms.

She could hear her phone ringing again, and let the call go to voice-mail. This might be her last chance to be this close to Julian, one final happy accident of crossed paths before they went their separate ways.

He seemed preoccupied, which was lucky for her. They might yet get through this encounter without her embarrassing herself and, potentially, annihilating her relationship with Daniel and Lynn, which was the one gift that she could keep. She’d essentially ditched their son, but she was sure no one was going to hold that against her. They would not so easily get over hearing she was infatuated with their grandson. Their
grandson.
God help her.

He said, “I heard about
Lions.
I guess my father’s pretty excited.”

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“Not yet. In one of his emails he’d said he might be coming down with you—”

“No,” she said, probably too quickly. “There was some talk, after the benefit dance. But he and I, well, we decided we weren’t…”

“Compatible.” he said.

“Right.”

“Yes, my grandmother mentioned that too.”

She waited for some criticism, some chastisement for having led Mitch on. All he did, though, was nod thoughtfully.

“So …” she said, “is your schedule all cleared to shoot more of
Lions
this summer, or …”

“Actually, I’m not certain that’s what I want to do next.”

“No? Well, I imagine you have all kinds of options …”

He turned to look at her, biting on his thumbnail as he did. “You get my email?”

Startled, she nodded. Not only had she gotten it, she
had
it, folded into a square and tucked in the front pocket of her shorts. “I was—”
terrified
“very concerned for you. I’m so—”
grateful
“glad you all got back safely.”

“Not all,” he said, looking away. In a careful, even voice he described for her the narrow hillside road, the boys on the bridge, the single sniper shot, the helplessness. “I … I wasn’t sure who would get there first.”

“Oh, Julian.” She wanted to hold him. Why couldn’t she hold him? What sort of cosmic joke was this? The impossibility of the situation was torturous.

She had to get hold of herself. “Well,” she said, “it was generous of you to send that email. But really, you didn’t need to apologize. I understand how strange it’s been for you, my interfering with
Lions
and,” she glanced at him; he looked puzzled. “That is,” she added with less confidence, “it’s natural to be protective of your dad—”

“Right,” he said. “Sure, protective.” His voice lacked conviction, and he wouldn’t look at her.

“I’m sorry—am I being presumptuous?”

“No. It’s not that.” Looking out into the garden, he was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “I was sitting there in Iraq, in the truck, composing the email… because, the thing is, I may not have much, but I do have my principles … and, I decided, I couldn’t risk you not knowing how I felt. Feel.” He looked at her again. “So let me just say—”

There was a flash, then, that she mistook at first as lightning, accompanied not by thunder but by banging on the gate that made them both jump.

“Ms. Reynolds! Your reaction to the Drudge Retort?”

Icy dread washed over her. She stood up, shielding Julian from the view of a man with a camera, and his companion, a woman with a thick ponytail and an expression she knew well as one she’d worn herself, in her hungrier days.

She tried to look composed as she said, “I’m sorry?”

The woman shifted her umbrella so that she could make a note on a small pad. “You’re apologizing for attempting to bribe your midwife’s daughter into turning over confidential records?”

What?
Blue’s every nerve thrummed as if the flash really had been lightning striking nearby. She stepped to the edge of the porch and said quite calmly, “No,
I’m sorry
that I don’t know what you’re talking about—neither Drudge
nor … who
did you say?”

Julian came up behind her and put his hand on her arm. The camera flashed again. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. Stay here.”

The woman made another note as the camera flashed again, and again as Blue left the porch and walked toward them. Despite her instruction, Julian followed, so she let him; now was not the time to make a scene.

“Ms. Reynolds—or do you prefer
Kucharski?
—are you confirming or denying the report?”

“I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen any of today’s news.” Thank God for the rain; in better light they’d see the vein throbbing on her temple and the flush rising on her skin.

“According to Drudge, who followed up on another website’s report, you offered one hundred thousand dollars for the names of the couple who adopted your son when you were nineteen.”

Not one hundred, and how in the world… ?
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” she said evenly. Her stomach churned, and she felt as if she might vomit at any moment.

“And nothing at all,” the woman continued as the rain that was soaking Blue drummed on her umbrella, “about the website’s photographs of you at approximately seven months pregnant,” she held up a copy of the photo but Blue couldn’t make it out, “or your son,” a second photo, “shortly after his birth.”

Photographs.
She could feel the hook pricking her flesh and yet she could not stop herself from going to the gate for a closer look. The reporter continued to hold them up—out of reach, of course.

No question, the frizzy-haired pregnant girl was her. Presumably the other photo was the real thing too.

He was so tiny …

She kept her face blank and turned back toward the house, taking Julian’s hand when she reached him so that he’d come too. Already he was closer to the gate, to the photos, than she liked.

The reporter banged the gate’s latch. “Come on, Ms. Reynolds. It’s
Drudge
on your tail. Why not let me quote you as apologizing—it’ll go a long way toward making you look sympathetic.”

Her mind raced. She stopped and turned. “Oh. My lawyers will want to know the website those pictures are on; would you write it down for me?”

The photographer smirked. “A shorter list would be the ones they’re
not on
by now.”

“Originally,” Blue said.

The reporter was giving nothing away. “You’ll want to know that someone’s unhappy with your,” she glanced at her notebook, “‘over-liberal, soul-damaging beliefs and the terrible example you set for today’s youth.’”

“Look, Ms.—”

“Dana Coogan.”

“Look, I know you’re eager to scoop an interview here, but I have nothing to say. This is all baseless, and until I get to the bottom of it, my official comment is ‘no comment.’”

It took everything she had in her to turn slowly, to walk past Julian and back up the steps, to go inside without appearing to be upset or hurried. She was Blue Reynolds, not some intimidated, angered easy mark for a wet-behind-the-ears reporter.

Blue Reynolds was in trouble.

lue’s measured, silent retreat into the house made it clear she had nothing more to tell the reporter. Julian, fighting his confusion, strode to the gate.

“What the hell kind of person are you, ambushing her that way? Get out of here.”

“We’re not trespassing,” the reporter said. “Your name, for the record?”

“Fuck off.”

“Charming,” she said, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Let’s go,” she told the photographer. “That’s enough.”

“That’s right,” Julian said. He had the primal urge to throw himself against the gate in a show of aggression, even as he had, too, the unsettling fear that he was shielding Blue from some threat that he absolutely needed to see.

He walked back to the porch, replaying the scene. She’d denied everything, but he’d had a good enough view of the photograph to know its subject was a dead ringer for a teenage Blue Reynolds. It
could
be her … And if so, she had a kid somewhere in the world, a kid who would be about ten years younger than himself.

He stopped on the second step. Ten years. The age he’d been when she was seeing his father. “Oh, no …” He leaned against the handrail and closed his eyes for a moment. His judgment could not be that lacking, could it? She could not have kept that kind of secret from all of them …

When he tried the door, he found it locked. He raised his fist to knock, then stopped and let his hand drop to his side. The locked door was itself an answer, wasn’t it?

e parked himself on a hard bar stool in the Green Parrot, thinking he had a fair idea of what was what. Or might be what. Thank God he hadn’t finished what he’d been about to say to her, there on the steps—that his email was much more than an apology. A small grace, and he should try harder to feel grateful for it.