Shore Lights (27 page)

“You're comfortable with the arrangement?” Rose probed.

“No,” he said honestly, “but if she is, I'll back her up. So far my kid hasn't steered me wrong.”

Rose smiled and he saw traces of Maddy in the way her eyes crinkled at the outer corners. “I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't already know, Aidan, but Kelly is a very special young woman. She's going to go far.”

“Billy used to say she was a changeling,” Aidan said, smiling at the memory. “We couldn't figure how an ambitious O'Malley managed to sneak into our slacker family.”

“I think her parenting had a lot to do with it.”

“Don't get me wrong. I'd like to take credit for the way she turned out, but sometimes I think she raised me.”

There was a sadness in Rose's expression. She didn't explain—and he certainly didn't ask—but it was there and it didn't go away, and for a minute he actually liked her.

 
JIM KENNEDY HAD one of those voices that great radio was built on. If he had been born thirty years earlier, he could have ruled the airwaves, but Jim had had the misfortune of being born right in the middle of the television generation, a time when movie-star good looks were more important than genuine talent.

He had been with WNJI for six years, slowly building a Jersey Shore audience that might not be the biggest on the East Coast but was definitely among the most loyal. Maddy hadn't expected to hear his entire curriculum vitae, but once Jim started he was hard to stop. Clearly his fans weren't the only ones who enjoyed the sound of his voice.

“So Friday it is,” Maddy finally interrupted as she glanced at her watch. Poor Aidan. She really had to get moving. “I'll be at the station by one-thirty for the sound check.”

“Make it one-fifteen,” Jim said, neatly changing gears. “If news is light, we'll start the interview early.”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

“No more than I am,” he said. “You're going to be great. You'll need to build on more rooms to catch the overflow.”

What was a little hyperbole between friends? He meant well, that was the main thing. And free radio publicity certainly couldn't hurt. But how had it ended up with Maddy giving the interview instead of her mother? Rose was the one who brought the Candlelight to life. She had chosen every curtain, every drape, every roll of wallpaper, every can of paint, the furniture, the dishes, the menu—every last detail had Rose's stamp all over it. From top to bottom, the Candlelight was her creation, and certainly she was the one who should be basking in the limelight.

Maddy hung up the phone and took a second to smooth down her hair by her reflection in the computer monitor. She frowned at the halo of frizz and curls clearly visible. Maybe a blow-dryer . . . or a whip and a chair. No matter. Unlike the Candlelight, this was as good as it got.

Her footsteps sounded loud as she ran down the hallway. She stopped for a second to glance into the mirror, then quickly looked away. A buzz cut. There was no other cure for the last thirty-two years of bad hair days.

She was about to dash into the kitchen when she remembered the samovar. Good grief, where had she put the bag? The foyer? The kitchen? Oh, wait! She'd carried it with her to the office and tucked it under the desk. Now all she had to do was remember to slip it back into its hiding place in Rose's closet before Hannah came home from school.

She pushed open the kitchen door and stopped dead in her tracks. It looked like a scene from
The Waltons
. Soup simmering on the stove. The smell of bread baking wafting through the air. A fire crackling away in the small stone fireplace near the table where Aidan and Rose sat together, thumbing through an old copy of
This Old House
. All the picture needed was a shawl for Rose and a pipe for Aidan, and it could have been entitled “Domestic Tranquillity.” And to make the scene even cozier, there was Lucy, a new arrival, shaking snow from her boots in the mudroom near the back door. Priscilla—didn't every lovely scene of domestic tranquillity have a puppy?—sniffed at the snow, sneezed, and backed away as quickly as her tiny legs could carry her.

“I don't know how you did it, Ma,” Maddy announced, “but I'm going to be on
Weekdays with Kennedy
this Friday afternoon. A one-hour interview about the Candlelight.”

Rose leaped to her feet, pure joy radiating from every pore of her body. “I'm so happy!” she cried, then wrapped her arms around her daughter. “How wonderful!”

Maddy stiffened. She didn't mean to do it. She didn't want to do it. But she did it just the same. Rose quickly ended her embrace and stepped back, still smiling.

“You're going to be wonderful,” Rose said.

“Tell me the time and I'll make sure I catch the show,” Aidan said, beaming at her. “He gets pretty good numbers for the station. You'll be famous.”

“Why would he ask for me?” Maddy asked her mother. “I mean, how would he even know I exist?” She paused. “Unless—”

“I wrote him a note,” Rose said, lifting her chin. “I told him about the Candlelight, a little bit about us, and suggested he consider us for an interview for his ‘Down the Shore' segment.”

“Then you should be the one he speaks with.”

“No, Maddy. I've been front and center for four years now. I'd like to concentrate on taking the Candlelight to the next level and let someone else handle promotion.”

“Someone like me?” Maddy asked.

“If you're going to be part of the team, I'm going to need you to take over different aspects of running the place.” She stood up and reflexively smoothed the front of her perfectly tailored trousers. “You and I can discuss this later, Maddy. Right now I need to help Lucy with the soup and you need to take Aidan back to his car.”

“Fine,” Maddy said, face flaming like an embarrassed teenager. “Whatever.” She grabbed her jacket from the hook near the door and met Aidan's eyes. “I'll start the car.”

 
THE DOOR SLAMMED behind Maddy and the kitchen fell silent.

Lucy DiFalco busied herself with the dog's water dish while Rose regained her composure.

Time to go
.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he said to Rose.

She smiled. “And thanks for letting Kelly take the job.”

“She's been pretty much calling her own shots since she was ten years old,” he said, “and she hasn't been wrong yet. I'll trust her judgment.”

“You're a lucky man,” Rose said softly. “Very lucky.”

He said goodbye to Lucy, kept his feet out from under Priscilla, then almost slid down the back steps in his haste to get out of there.

And here he'd thought the O'Malley clan had the market cornered on tension and subtext. The DiFalcos made them look like amateurs. The tension between Maddy and Rose was so real he almost asked it to pull up a chair and sit down.

Maddy was parked off to the side, near the garage. Her Mustang idled roughly, kicking out puffs of dark smoke that would probably cause her to flunk her state inspection. She was drumming the steering wheel with the heels of her hands, and, judging by her profile, her mood hadn't improved.

“I was going to send in a search party,” she said as he settled into the passenger seat and closed the door. “I thought they might be holding you for ransom.”

“You embarrassed her,” he said. He had meant to say,
If you need a good mechanic while you're here, I have a few names
. Clearly it would have been the wiser choice.

Maddy swiveled in her seat and stared him in the eyes. “What did you say?”

Was it too late to pretend he didn't speak English?

“I said, you embarrassed her.”

“You couldn't embarrass her if you caught her in bed with Martha Stewart and Jackie Chan.”

He didn't want to laugh, but that didn't stop him. “She didn't want to discuss family issues in front of a stranger.”

Maddy made a face. “If she knew you were on her side, she would have.”

“I'm not on anyone's side.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You were pretty rough on her.”

Maddy looked away. “It was a lot easier when we had the entire continent between us.”

“She's probably thinking the same thing right about now.”

“Listen,” she said as she started to inch the car down the icy driveway, “blood may be thicker than water, but it doesn't mean every family is going to live happily ever after. Not even fairy tales can manage to pull that one off every time.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Listen,” he said, “forget I said anything. I don't know jack about what's going on between you and Rose. I should've kept my big mouth shut.”

“Yes, you should have,” Maddy said. “But I'm glad you didn't.”

“Is that a shot?”

“No,” Maddy said. “I mean it. I'm surrounded by family and every single one of them has her own agenda going. I needed a non-DiFalco perspective.”

She eased out onto the street, keeping the Mustang in first until she had gained enough traction, then shifting smoothly up to second. She knew how to handle a clutch. He liked that in a woman.

“You might find this surprising, but I'm not usually your mother's greatest supporter.”

“Could've fooled me. You two seemed to be forming a mutual-admiration society in there.”

“We're usually on opposite sides of every issue in town.”

They rolled to a stop at the corner and slipped a few inches into the intersection.

“Join the club. We've been on opposite sides since the day I was born.”

“She loves you.”

“She told you that?”

“She didn't have to. Anyone could see it.”

Tears, ridiculous, inappropriate tears, welled up, and she turned her head. “I always said men were the true romantics.”

Icy pellets pinged off the windshield and bounced across the hood of her aged Mustang. Main Street was a sheet of ice overlaid with enough fresh snow to make driving treacherous.

“Pull over,” he said after they'd gone another fifty feet.

“What's wrong?”

“You don't need to be out in this. I'll walk.”

“No.”

“Pull over.”

“The hell I will. I said I'd drive you back to your car, and that's what I'm going to do.”

“It's too dangerous.”

She ignored him and kept her attention focused on the road ahead.

“You know, there's a lot of your mother in you,” he said when she slid to a stop a few feet away from where he'd left his car parked.

She looked at him as she applied the parking brake. “Which is it? Stubborn? Pigheaded? Won't take suggestions from anybody?”

“Gutsy,” he said. “Independent.”
And bright and funny and beautiful
. . .

Her breath caught for a split second, then released. “I try,” she said, then grinned at him. “Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

She smelled faintly of perfume and shampoo, womanly smells that made him lean closer. Snow was quickly piling up on the windows as they idled there at the curb, shielding them in a world of their own. It was a heady combination: the storm outside; the warmth inside. If it had been any other woman but Maddy, he would have leaned across the console and kissed her goodbye and not thought twice about it. The moment demanded its due and he would have been happy to oblige. Instead he had to remind himself this wasn't a date. He was interested in her samovar. She was interested in his interest.

That was as far as it went, as far as he had any intention of letting it go. Probably further than she wanted it to go.

Looking for a losing combination? Try O'Malley and DiFalco. A train wreck would have a better chance at a happy ending.

“If I sit here any longer, you'll need a tow truck to get back to the Candlelight,” he said, unsnapping his seat belt and reaching for the door handle. “Thanks for the lift.”

“No problem. Thanks for the breakfast.”

“Remember what I said about the teapot? If your kid doesn't want it, I do.”

“I won't forget.”

She leaned over to pick up her glove, and for an instant he considered bridging the distance between them and kissing her goodbye, but she was too quick or maybe he was too slow, and the moment, like all moments, vanished forever.

MADDY SAT PERFECTLY still while he trudged through the snow and ice to his car. She watched while he knocked snow off the windows with his hand and forearm, unlocked the door, then climbed into the truck. It took maybe two minutes tops, and in that span of time she relived the kiss-that-wasn't at least fifty times.

He had wanted to kiss her. She was as sure of that as she had ever been of anything in her life. When she leaned over to get the glove that had fallen off the dashboard, something had happened. Their eyes locked and he leaned closer and she held her breath and you could almost hear those great tectonic plates of destiny getting ready to slam together and set off an earthquake of monumental proportions.

Or something like that.

She held her breath. His eyes drifted to her mouth. Her mouth parted. His pupils dilated.

And then he said, “See you,” and opened the door.

Nothing like a slap of wind and snow to bring a girl back down to earth. The inside of the Mustang still hummed with disappointment.

His parking lights switched on and the rear windshield wiper started slapping left then right, left then right, cutting through the relentless snow. He shimmied back a few inches, cut the wheel, then pulled forward and out. With a quick double-beep of his horn he disappeared into the storm.