The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (25 page)

She’d done the same with Sam’s girls. Only now it was Ulla, as thin and dark as her mother had been stout and flaxen, bustling about behind the counter.

No, she thought, it hadn’t been all work. What would her life have been without crayon drawings stuck to her refrigerator? And all those priceless school projects: tiny handprints pressed into clay, mobiles fashioned from Popsicle sticks, pinecone turkeys at Thanksgiving?

And her children just out of the bath, pink and delicious, wriggling as she toweled them dry. Like round-limbed cherubim, so precious she’d wanted to spirit them off to a place where they would never get any older. She saw Alice at four, giggling as she covered her nakedness with the shower curtain. And Laura, with her wet hair that refused to lie flat, who’d have been content to run around all day without a stitch on.

Every year at Christmas, she and Martin would take the children out to Ed Claxon’s tree farm, where they’d tramp around as if in the woods of Maine. On the way home, with a tree strapped to the roof of the station wagon, they’d sing carols. Then there were gingerbread cookies wrapped in cellophane and strung with yarn, small fingers struggling to separate clumps of tinsel, and for the grand finale, Martin lifting one of the girls up to place the straw angel atop the tree.

Sam felt a tightening in her throat. How could she not love this child? Not seize this chance to snatch back the chubby toddler in corduroy overalls who had somehow escaped her? She could almost feel its warm weight in her lap, its small pink toes wiggling as she chanted, “This little piggy went to market…”

Yes, but where does Ian fit in?

She pushed the thought from her mind. She’d know soon enough. For now, all she could do was take a deep breath and hope it would all work out somehow.

Sam was stepping onto Delarosa Plaza when she ran into Tom Kemp, whom she hadn’t seen since the wedding. He’d called a couple of times, wanting to get together, but she’d put him off. The last thing she needed right now was another reason to feel guilty.

“Sam. I just came from the shop.” Tom greeted her heartily—perhaps a bit too heartily.

She flushed. “Oh?”

Sam slid her sunglasses down her nose to better see him. Tom, she thought, would cut a fine figure on the golf course: tall and narrow-hipped, with long arms that looked good in a short-sleeved shirt. He was goodhearted, too. Hadn’t he stuck by Martin at the end, working twice as hard to manage both client loads? Insisting she was owed a larger share of the firm’s profits than she was sure she was entitled to.

“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.

He’s heard about Ian.
The sun filtering through the trees overhead felt suddenly too warm. Oh God. Was he going to make a preemptive bid of some kind? Offer her what no sane woman in her position could refuse—a chance at a future with a solid, well-heeled man her age? She cringed inwardly, but at the same time couldn’t help thinking:
would that be so terrible?

She glanced at her watch. “I can spare a few minutes.”

“Good.” He took her arm. “I’ll treat you to an ice cream.”

They strolled down the arcade to Lickety-Split. The ice cream parlor was clogged with the usual jam of strollers and mothers with little children in tow, everyone jockeying for space at the marble counter, with its array of sprinkles: chocolate jimmies, crushed M&M’s, toasted coconut, dried blueberries. The blackboard on the wall listed the day’s flavors. Sam chose olallie berry; it reminded her of when she and the girls used to pick them in summer.

Miraculously, the wooden bench out front was theirs for the taking. Even better, it afforded a view of the bookshop across the way, where she could see Peter McBride on his front porch, peering across at his ex-wife’s rival bookstore. A sandwich board in front of the Last Word announced:
ASSUMPTION DAY DISCOUNT! ALL INSPIRATIONAL books 10% OFF!
Miranda, as far as Sam knew, wasn’t especially devout. She was only doing it to annoy Peter—and it looked as though it was working.

“I hear you may be getting Yo-Yo Ma this year,” Tom began in an obvious attempt to break the ice.

“We’re working with his manager on dates,” she told him. “The headline news is Aubrey Roellinger. Have you heard? He’s looking to move here in the fall.”

“
The
Aubrey Roellinger? The conductor?” Tom looked suitably impressed.

“He’s this year’s guest conductor,” she told him, “but that could become permanent down the line.”

“Wouldn’t that be something? Our very own resident conductor.”

Silence fell. She waited for Tom to tell her why he’d come to see her when he could just as easily have picked up the phone, but he just sat there, staring at the sidewalk tiles as if working up the nerve to say something. At last he cleared his throat.

“Listen, Sam, I came across something the other day—a file I’d overlooked.” He held his cone away from his slacks, giving it a cautious lick. “A real estate transfer Martin was handling before he—about three years back. It seems the client defaulted on his payments, and the deed had reverted back to the original owner.”

She waited, wondering what any of this had to do with her.

He straightened. “The original owner was Martin.”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not much, a little ranch house on a quarter of an acre. A few miles down the road from you, as a matter of fact. Martin must have bought it as an investment. I’m sure he’d have gotten around to telling you if—well, if things hadn’t gotten so confusing at the end.” He looked down. “Apparently he’d been holding the mortgage, and when the buyer stopped making payments…” He spread his hands.

“Are you saying I
own
this house?”

“Don’t get too excited,” he cautioned. “I’ve been out to see it, and it’s pretty run-down. There are back taxes, too. Two years’ worth. In fact, that’s what made me hunt for the file—the town was threatening to foreclose.”

Everything became suddenly clear. How Martin, spotting an opportunity for quick profit, had scooped up the house for a song. And because he was Martin, with a reverse Midas touch, he’d taken the down payment in cash, holding paper on the balance.

She felt a rush of anger toward her husband. It didn’t occur to her to be pleased by her windfall. She was too busy wishing Martin were here in Tom’s place so she could give him a royal piece of her mind. How could he have kept this from her when they’d been so strapped?

“I can’t imagine where he got the money in the first place,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even.

Tom looked uncomfortable. They both knew how easy it would have been for Martin to have sweet-talked one of his banker buddies into a loan with nothing down, or even to have taken cash in lieu of a check from one of his high-rolling clients.

“I’m sorry, Sam, I wish you hadn’t had to find out this way. But look at the bright side.” He brought his head up, a smile pinned crookedly in place. “It’s yours now. You can do whatever you want with it. Rent it, sell it. Hell, you could even move into it if you wanted.” His smile broadened at the joke.

She stared at the cone in his hand, smiling a little at the dribble of Kahlua fudge ice cream making its way down his knuckles. Oddly, it made her like him all the more.

“Thanks, Tom. I appreciate your telling me in person.” She touched his knee, nodding in the direction of his cone. “By the way, your ice cream is melting.”

He looked down as if surprised to see it in his hand. “I didn’t really want it,” he said. “It was just something to do.” He stood up, dumping it in the wooden trash bin on the curb.

She handed him a napkin. Who, she wondered, had appointed women the keepers of napkins and tissues? Who had decreed that mothers, not fathers, be the ones armed, at all times, for wiping runny noses and sticky hands? “I suppose I should stop by the office at some point,” she said. “I don’t even know where this house is.”

“If you’d like, I could take you out there. Maybe one day this weekend?” He wiped his hands with the napkin, taking his time, working it in between his fingers. When he looked up at her, his expression was carefully neutral. “If you’re free, that is.”

He knows
, she thought. He’d have to have been deaf not to have heard. Yet he wasn’t jumping to conclusions. She felt a rush of gratitude. “I’m free on Saturday,” she told him.

She’d made no plans with Ian. And suddenly the prospect of Tom—good old Tom, steady as Plymouth Rock—guiding her through the thicket of paperwork ahead was the most reassuring thing imaginable.

“If you decide to sell it, I could help with that, too.” He eyed the ice cream melting to purple soup in her cup, observing dryly, “I guess you weren’t too hungry, either.”

“I guess not.” She stood up, feeling lightheaded, the way she had with both her other pregnancies. She didn’t protest when Tom gently took the cup and tossed it in the trash.

He offered her his arm. “Come on, I’ll walk you back. Laura will be wondering what’s kept you.”

But Laura was waiting on a customer when she walked in: Gayle Warrington trying to decide between two hand-blocked silk scarves. Sam recalled when they’d gone to school together. Gayle was one of those girls whose lipstick had always matched her nail polish, and who was forever doing sit-ups to keep her stomach flat. Judging from her trim figure and perfectly manicured nails, nothing much had changed.

Laura, on the other hand, looked dreadful. Her face drawn and puffy, her eyes red rimmed from lack of sleep. Anyone could see how unhappy she was. Sam felt a stab of guilt.
My fault.

“If it’s a gift for your mother,” Sam heard her say, “you might want to go with the plum. The crane design is very traditional, very elegant, don’t you think?”

“I’m just not sure…” Gayle tapped her folded sunglasses against a mouth the same coral hue as her blazer. “You don’t know my mother. Look up ‘safe’ in the dictionary, and you’ll see her name. She’d probably go with this one.” She fingered the plainer ecru scarf.

“It would certainly go with everything,” Laura said.

“Don’t give her anything new to learn, and for God’s sake, don’t send her anywhere she hasn’t already been.” Gayle went on as if Laura hadn’t spoken. “Never mind her daughter the travel agent could get her a discount fare.” Her voice took on a sarcastic edge. “Paris? They don’t have proper toilets, much less speak English. London? They speak the language, but you can’t understand a word. Rome? Heavens, you’d have to sew in your valuables to keep from being robbed.”

“I…I’ve always wanted to see Paris.” Laura made an attempt to steer the conversation away from Gayle’s mother.

“Well, stop by the office sometime. I know a lovely little hotel off the Champs-Elysees. The clerks speak
English,
and wonder of all wonders, it even has flush toilets.” She gave the harsh laugh of a lifelong chain-smoker.

“Maybe I’ll look into it.” Laura smiled. “Now, about the scarf—”

Gayle settled on the ecru, and when Laura had gone off to gift wrap it, she turned to Sam. “Your daughter’s so sweet. It must be wonderful having her work for you.”

“We’re partners more than anything,” Sam told her.

“Like Doug and me,” she said, referring to her husband. They owned Off-and-Away Travel, four blocks down on Chestnut. “But to tell the truth,” she leaned close to confide, “most of the time we’re at each other’s throat. Can’t agree on a damn thing except my mother. We’d both like to put her on a slow boat to China.” She gave another harsh smoker’s laugh.

“I envy you having a mother at all. I wish mine were still around.”

Sam kept her voice light, but the message wasn’t lost on Gayle. Something dark and not altogether friendly flickered in her eyes. “Only kidding, of course. We love Mom to death. It’s just that she gets on our nerves sometimes. Don’t they all?”

“I suppose.” Sam felt distinctly uneasy, thinking of the recent drop in her own approval ratings.

“Like this birthday we’re not supposed to make a fuss over. God forbid we should take her at her word, we’d never hear the end of it.” Gayle reached into her handbag and pulled out a MasterCard, snapping it down as if it were the winning card in a poker game. But when Laura reappeared holding a gift-wrapped box, her expression all at once turned doubtful. “She can return it, can’t she? If she doesn’t like it?”

“Absolutely.” Laura smiled. “Just be sure to save the receipt.”

She waited until Gayle was out the door before saying, “Whew! I thought she’d never make up her mind.” She eyed Sam with concern. “Everything okay? You were gone an awfully long time.”

“Right as rain.” Sam felt a rush of tenderness toward her daughter, who was making a brave attempt to put on a good face—even though it wasn’t working. “I ran into Tom Kemp on the way back,” she explained. “There was something he wanted to go over with me.”

“Oh yeah, he was just in looking for you,” Laura said distractedly as she sorted through the jumble of scarves on the counter. “Anything important?”

“Some paper to sign.” Later, she would explain about the house—when she could think of a way to do so without putting a dent in Martin’s halo.

“Well, it was nice of him to tell you in person.”

“Tom’s been wonderful,” Sam agreed.

Noticing the scarf that kept slipping through her daughter’s fingers, Sam stepped forward to take it from her. “Here, let me do that. Why don’t you take care of Customs?” She vaguely recalled some confusion about a crate of Quimper pottery being held at LAX.

Laura looked at her as if she’d dropped in from another planet. “Oh, Mom. I was on the phone with them
half the morning.
And that was between waiting on customers, and chasing those baskets that never showed, and—” She broke off with a small, choked sob, glancing about in horror. Luckily, the shop was deserted. Her face, in all its misery, swung back to meet Sam’s. “It’s no good,” she said. “I can’t keep on pretending.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I know I’ve been a little distracted lately.”

“It’s not just that.”

Sam recalled Gayle’s halfhearted offer. “You’re absolutely right. You’ve been doing more than your fair share, and it’s time you took a vacation. As a matter of fact, I
insist
on it. I can hold down the fort for a week or two.”