Strapless (4 page)

Right now, she didn't like him, not in a dim bar, in a hotel bed, or anywhere else—especially a little kid's birthday party he claimed not to remember.

Australia looked better and better.

 

The next day Darcie popped an analgesic tablet in her mouth and washed it down, praying it would at least kill her cramps. Still in a mood after Merrick yesterday—not all owing to PMS—across the small table in a crowded coffee shop just off Broadway, she watched her mother ease a manicured finger around the inner lining of her black pump. Thank heaven Darcie had been busy packing until now. She sure wasn't in the mood for this.

“I must have stood in line at that ticket kiosk in Times Square for over an hour,” Janet Baxter said, one reason they were meeting here. “This is still a filthy neighborhood. I hope I don't regret even the half price. Most of these shows have no substance.”

“The audience, either. That's what you get on Wednesday and Saturday matinees.”

Only tourists and suburbanites from Connecticut and New Jersey filled the seats then. In town from Cincinnati, Janet Baxter belonged to the former group, and had come with friends from Ohio, but of course she must have another purpose, too—something even beyond this visit with her older daughter, Darcie had decided. Her mother's clear brow furrowed before she seemed to remember that a frown could cause lines. Permanent ones at fifty-five. Her expression smoothed out like a banana peel.

“I'm deeply concerned about your grandmother,” she said, apparently the real reason for their chat over tea (for Janet) and black coffee (for Darcie). Cheap tobacco, sweat and bad perfume roiled in the heavy air around them. So did conversation from the other tables, and Darcie had to raise her voice.

“About Gran? Why?”

Naturally, Darcie thought she knew. But in her current frame of mind she'd enjoy hearing her mother talk about a subject Janet found distasteful and uncomfortable.

“Your father and I sent you to live with Eden for two reasons.”

“Cheap rent. Free utilities.”

“And…” She obviously wanted Darcie to recite this part of the old litany, and one of Darcie's hot buttons. It was
all about security, a safe place for their firstborn daughter to live. Darcie felt she could take care of herself.

“There's a third? You go ahead, Mom.”

Janet squirmed in her chair. She pursed her lips, then just as quickly stretched her mouth to erase the tension. Toying with her cup of Darjeeling, she avoided Darcie's all-knowing gaze. Darcie let the moment—and her own chance to escape her bad mood—build. Until her mother surprised her.

“We wanted you—” Janet cleared her throat “—to keep an eye on her.”

“There's a new slant. I'm supposed to baby-sit my eighty-two-year-old grandmother?” Darcie paused for effect. “Mom, she's had more dates in a month than you and I combined, in our entire lives. You should see the guys she comes up with.”

Janet turned pale. “You're joking. Aren't you?”

Sure, but why let her off that easy? “I tell you, those men are already wearing a path in the brand-new carpet she had installed in December—a trail from her front door to her bedroom.”
Let her tell you what's in Julio's pocket.

Janet plucked lint from her navy Talbot's suit, straight from the Kenwood Mall store in Cincinnati. “You're trying to upset me.”

“Go see for yourself.”

Janet looked around the narrow shop, at the various array of Saturday-in-Times Square characters, as if only just aware of them, and wrinkled her nose. “I wouldn't cross the river to stay with her. I'm not welcome. Eden has always hated me.”

“
Hate
's a strong word.” Darcie couldn't even use it on Merrick yesterday.

“I'm sorry we ever suggested you share her apartment for a few months.”

With the seemingly casual statement, Darcie's instincts went on full alert. Uh-oh. Checking up on her wasn't the issue, but neither was Eden's sex life. Darcie had lived in Fort Lee for her four years in the East. Both she and Gran liked the arrangement. Although Darcie planned to get an
apartment of her own, in the meantime, except for Sweet Baby Jane, they didn't get in each other's way and Gran was as tolerant of Darcie's lifestyle as Darcie had become of hers. She liked to think Eden's social life was mainly invention (good grief, she's my
grandmother
) even when she knew better. But obviously, she'd missed something. Janet had still other ideas.

“Perhaps we should find you a place now. With your pay increase—”

“It's not that much.”

Which seemed to play right into her mother's hands. “You could get a roommate to share the rent. A real roommate.”

“Mmm.” Darcie remembered her college days sleeping with the lights in her face because her art student roomie needed to finish a project. All night. Tripping over someone else's clothes, someone else's boyfriend. Finding used tampons on the dresser and spent condoms on the rug. “I'll pass. At Gran's I have my own room and no one bothers me.”

Janet was undaunted. “When you get back from Australia, we'll see.”

“See what?” Darcie shook her head. “Mom, I don't need help.” Not from her Midwestern parents anyway. “What's this really about?”

“Your sister,” her mother finally murmured, sending Darcie's sharpened senses into another spin. Janet studied her lap. “She graduated from Smith last June. Seven months ago.”

“Now there's a tragedy.” UC—the local university—for Darcie, the Ivy League for her kid sister. “I was
at
the ceremony. What's she done?” Darcie smiled to soften the words. So Annie was the bottom line here. Annie, who didn't give a damn what other people thought. Darcie wouldn't mind if she had gotten herself into some sort of trouble for the first time in her life. Not serious trouble, of course. “Speeding ticket?” she said. “Didn't register to vote Republican?”

Janet waved a hand. “She's headstrong, you know how
she is. She wants to come to New York.” Her mother said this as if Annie's career goal was to become a prostitute—though Janet would likely say “lady of the night.” She pushed her cup aside, a drift of pungent Darjeeling rising into the stuffy air. “I honestly can't imagine her living with your grandmother.”

“Corruption, Incorporated.”

“Yes. Well. You may smirk but it's true. Eden is a bad influence.” She dragged the cup back for another swallow, and another little frisson of discomfort trickled down Darcie's spine. “Your father and I are adamantly opposed to Annie's wishes—unless, as her big sister, you could look out for her. If you shared an apartment—”

“Mom, Annie's a slob.”

Clearly defeated for the moment, Janet surged to her feet, then ruined her exit by stumbling in her Via Spigas. “I'll be late for the theater. Please think about what I've said.” Recovering her balance, she gave Darcie a tight smile. “It was good to see you. I'll phone tomorrow. Perhaps we can do something together before you leave.”

“I leave tomorrow night.”

“Sunday brunch, then. We'll talk more about Annie.”

Darcie rose, too, determined not to make any logical decision until after her trip to Sydney. But the devil rode her heels. “And I can tell you all about Julio.”

 

Darcie was still smiling to herself when she whipped through the revolving doors at FAO Schwarz into the Saturday afternoon chaos that always reigned there. She didn't often venture into such stores—after all, she didn't have kids, as Janet might point out—but before she left the States she wanted to buy a gift for Claire's new baby. Her goddaughter.

A little thrill went through her. She'd only seen the baby once, but already she loved the tiny girl. And the promise she represented. Maybe this one fragrant little human being would get everything right. No errors, no strikeouts. Just a solid crack of the bat, and a home run down the center line of life into the bleachers.

Darcie wasn't a sporting person. “I'm the last one chosen for the softball team,” she murmured and swept past a display of basketballs and soccer pads. “You should have seen me when I took horseback riding lessons. Ever watched someone end up backward in a saddle? And don't forget swim camp. I sank like a rock.”

“May I help you, miss?”

A clerk stepped into the aisle, his gaze curious.

“No, thank you.” She gave him a bland, unfocused smile.

“I heard you talking….”

“Was I? Oh, I must have forgotten to take one of my medications.” She zipped onto the escalator to the second floor, and waved at a mountain of Bob the Builder toys on display. “Gotta watch it, Darce. Even in New York.” She grinned. “But gee, he noticed.”

She wandered through the video games department, then stopped to watch two boys tap out a tune on the giant keyboard that had become famous years ago when Tom Hanks played it in
Big,
still one of Gran's favorite movies. Eden espoused its same whimsical, youthful view of life. By the time Darcie located the baby area, she had nearly forgotten tea with Janet.
An apartment with Annie?
The possibility raised the hairs on her neck.

Darcie lingered over a table full of stuffed animals. She tried to envision herself holding an infant like Claire's daughter, standing at an altar for the christening beside her own husband—handsome, well-dressed, with a look of absolute devotion on his face as he gazed at his new family. The image was her mother's, not Darcie's right now…but was she seeing Merrick?

The fantasy ended when she remembered Merrick's vagueness about his nephew. And her need to figure out her own life first. Darcie surveyed the pile of animals, discarding the usual bears and bunnies. She had just paid for a cross-eyed zebra sporting a huge red bow when, across the aisle in the doll department, she spied a familiar form.

What would he be doing here? In a toy store?

It didn't fit his image, but Darcie sidestepped a woman
pushing a stroller so she could get a better look. Dark-blond hair, not a strand out of place, that recognizable
GQ
look even on Saturday in khakis and an Irish fisherman's sweater. Her heartbeat tripled in alarm. Since leaving Janet, she hadn't combed her hair, couldn't have any lipstick left. And her dark-green eyeliner, which tended to run when she got warm, probably streaked her face. It was too hot in the store. She must look a mess.

What difference does it make? You're
you,
with or without makeup.

He moved and so did she. Darcie saw a flash of profile—straight nose, not a bump or deviation—that tilt of his head, a little imperious, a lot commanding, even arrogant. The set of his shoulders. And wouldn't she recognize those hands anywhere? Especially on her bare body. It must be…

“Merrick,” she called softly just as he lifted a hand to someone—not Darcie. Mad at her? He'd left in a mood yesterday morning. So did she. Once he saw her, and they talked… She didn't want to leave for Australia in a snit. Claire was wrong about him, she tried to tell herself. So was Gran.

When a little blond girl rushed toward him, Darcie didn't react. Someone's child had run headlong into a stranger—not unusual here, except that he seemed to know her. Merrick caught her slight shoulders with a laugh, said something, then watched her skip away. An odd look on his face…like adoration.

Her pulse thudding (the zebra's head sticking out of its bag with apparent suspicion, too) Darcie crossed the aisle into the doll department. It was pink. Hundreds—thousands—of Barbie dolls dominated the display space. Dentist Barbie. Wedding Barbie. Olympic Barbie. A host of international Barbies, the Dolls of the World collection. A little too crowded for Darcie's taste. She wouldn't make that mistake in Sydney. “Her” store would be clean, uncluttered, sophisticated.

“Merrick.” He stood in front of a rack of miniature clothing, his back to her, and Darcie saw him stiffen. When he turned, his smile looked wooden.

“I thought I heard your voice.”

She shrugged. “Just talking to myself again. Or Buster.” She held up the zebra bag then closed the distance between them, wondering why she didn't feel better about this chance meeting in a city they both shared. “Shopping for your nephew?”

Again, he looked blank. Carefully blank this time.

“Guess not,” she said, gazing at the pink all around them. Like onlookers at a circus, scores of Barbies smiled at her, at Merrick from their plastic-windowed boxes. “I mean, what would an eight-year-old boy want in this department?”

“What are you doing here, Darcie?” His voice sharp, his eyes harder.

“Talking to you. Now.” She brightened her tone. “I wondered…before I leave town…if we might…”
Fall into bed again in apology?

“Daddy!” The same little girl pelted full-tilt into his knees.

Merrick set her away, smoothing her dress—Saks Fifth Avenue, Laura Ashley…?—running a hand down the length of her sleek blond hair. Hair almost like his. She wore a blue plaid ribbon to hold it back, and had Merrick's eyes, too.

Darcie's unwanted coffee sloshed in her stomach. No, this wasn't a circus for the Barbies to watch. It was the Roman Colosseum. Lions, gladiators, victims…

Daddy.
Darcie bent down until she reached eye level with the child.

“Hi.”

Merrick stepped between them. “Uh, why don't you run over there, kiddo.” He pointed at a pyramid of dolls on a nearby table “Pick out one you like.”

Assuming he was talking to the child, not to her, Darcie straightened and the little girl said, “Can I?
Can I?
”

“Yes,” he said. “You may.”

Her mission approved, she scampered off. A heavy silence hung in the air.