The Lady Vanishes (20 page)

Milton shook his head, knowing that a gentleman didn’t talk about a lady, but he wanted to talk to someone. It had been . . . She had been . . . Damn. He didn’t have the words for last night. “Not that reserved.”

“Hmm.” Nick looked at the ceiling. “So are you a couple?”

Milton sighed. “Not exactly.”

“Fuck buddies?”

“No.”

Nick waited patiently. Milton shrugged with feigned indifference. “She doesn’t want to go out in public with me—doesn’t want the attention because of what happened with her father.”

“You’re not in a boy band. The paparazzi don’t follow you around or anything.”

Milton nodded. “But I’m involved at the hospital, and she thinks that we’re going to break up and it’s going to negatively affect her position there.”

Nick seemed thoughtful. “Okay. That makes sense.”

Milton scowled. He didn’t want it to make sense, and he didn’t want his friends supporting her ridiculous idea. “Why is she so certain we’re going to break up? Why is everyone so certain that I’m going to lose interest and break up with her?”

“Maybe she’ll lose interest in you,” Nick suggested, and Milton threw a towel at him.

“Great. Thanks a lot.”

“You know,” Nick began, standing up, “for someone who spent all night getting laid, you sure are bitchy.”

“Fuck off,” Milton growled, and Nick left, chuckling.

After Nick left, Milton worked out for another half hour before heading to his office across the floor. On the way, he debated just taking off and stopping by the hospital to see if she wanted to get coffee or something, but stopped himself. He would see her tonight. She’d agreed to rehearse with him in his workshop that evening, though he wasn’t sure how much actual work was going to get done.

Within fifteen minutes of sitting down behind his desk, he realized that he wasn’t going to get any work done for Roland, either. He might as well go to Harvard Square and practice his tricks.

With a decisive click of the mouse, he shut down his computer. He texted Shane to meet him downstairs and stood up to put on his jacket.

“Heading out?” It was Roland, leaning on the doorjamb, his face expressionless. “What time did you get here? Seven thirty? You’ve only been here three hours.”

“Yeah,” Milton said, wincing. “I’m a little distracted.”

“A little,” Roland agreed. “The doctor?”

“More or less.”

“There’s rumor of a mind being blown?”

Milton looked at his blank computer screen. “Completely and utterly true.”

“I don’t get it,” Roland said companionably. “She’s just a woman. Enjoy her, but don’t let her make a mess of your life.”

“Roland.” Milton shoved his arms into his jacket. “Stuff it.”

Holding up his hands in surrender, Roland turned away.

Milton left with every intention of going to Harvard Square and performing tricks all day, but halfway down the elevator, he received a phone call from his mother.

“Hi, Mom,” he answered, already feeling guilty because he hadn’t called her this week.

“Milton, are you working?”

“I’m at the office, but I was just leaving. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes. I’m fine,” she said, her voice brisk and no-nonsense as always. “But you should come see me today if you can. We should talk.”

His mother rarely asked for anything, preferring to manage by herself, but when she did ask for something, Milton made a point of giving it to her whenever possible.

“Sure, Mom. I’ll be there in a half hour or so.”

“You don’t have to change your plans. Just stop by when you can.” His mother’s voice still possessed the slight accent of her Armenian upbringing.

“I can right now. See you soon.” Milton signed off, resigned to having yet another conversation about his relationship with Dr. Regina Burke. He felt certain that Mrs. Beechum had shared that he’d had a woman over last night.

Shane was waiting for him in the parking garage, engine idling. Milton ducked inside.

“Let’s head over to my mother’s.”

“Sounds good, boss,” the big man replied. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine.” Milton’s mother always insisted that Shane come inside and have some tea and a snack when Milton came to visit her.

“Good.”

“Tell you what, stop at the florist first. I want to pick up some more flowers for her.”

When Shane pulled up to the curb, Milton ran in and bought flowers, as always doing his best to charm Maria, before dashing back to the car with the bouquet of his mom’s favorite, Gerbera daisies. Not all that easy to find this time of year, so he’d been surprised and appreciative to find them in Maria’s store.

His mother’s house was in a neighborhood not far from the hospital, Mission Hill. Milton had the idea that he could maybe see Regina for lunch afterward, though he usually stayed and talked to his mom for at least a few hours, fixed a few things around the house, and she always insisted on feeding him when he came.

Thirty minutes later, the limo pulled up in front of the one-story home where he’d grown up. The house was tiny, no more than nine hundred square feet, and built in the fifties with the rest of the neighborhood. Milton had done his best to make improvements to it, upgrading the electricity, replacing the asbestos shingles with siding, putting in new floors, new windows, a new roof.

He’d offered to buy her a new place several times, but she always refused.

“I’m going to catch a few hours of sleep, boss. Tell your mom I say hey.”

“You got it, Shane,” Milton replied. He felt pretty bad for waking the man at four thirty this morning and asking him to pick up breakfast. Not bad enough that he hadn’t done it. He would have gone himself, but he hadn’t wanted Regina to wake with no one there.

His mom opened the door as he stepped out of the limo. She was wearing one of her colorful tracksuits, this one in bright magenta, and her graying black hair was pulled into its usual braid.

“Mom.” He hugged her and then handed her the flowers. “How are you today?”

“Fine, fine.” She waved him inside. “These are beautiful. I’ll put them in water.”

His mom hadn’t changed the décor much since he’d been a kid. A large floral couch dominated the living room and the antique furniture from her mother’s family took up the rest of the space. Along one wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves were crammed with books, photographs, and scraps of his childhood. In the center was a photograph from when he was about eleven: He and his brother were playing in the postage-stamp front yard, while his mom stood with her arms folded over her chest, looking down at them from the small porch. His dad had taken the photo from the driveway.

His dad was the reason there were so many books. Burton Shaw, a literature professor at Harvard, formerly from Cambridge. He’d married an Armenian woman from Watertown whom he’d met on the Harvard campus where she worked as an assistant. Together they’d had a modestly well-off life with their two sons: Milton and William. Milton had always been a little strange, at least compared with other kids. He was always direct—too direct, often too loud, and he never quite seemed to know how to handle strong emotions. He would withdraw when he felt something too strongly. But then William had gotten sick and Milton had had to find some way to handle his emotions.

Fingers twitching, Milton followed his mother into the kitchen, her favorite room in the house. The roses he’d sent her on Saturday were in a vase by the window. He’d had all the countertops replaced with a gold-colored granite that she loved, and all the appliances were top of the line. He’d had to send her and his aunt Sheeba on a cruise to get her out of the house so the workers could come in.

She unwrapped the daisies and filled a small purple vase that he’d given her with cold water. Using kitchen scissors, she carefully snipped the ends of the delicate stems and placed them in the water.

“Paula tells me you have a new girl.”

Milton had never really wondered where he’d gotten his propensity for blurting out uncomfortable truths. His mother rarely did anything except come straight to the point.

“I met a woman at the hospital, actually. She’s a doctor.”

“A doctor? What kind?”

“The kind who treats cancer in children.”

His mother paused, her wrinkled hands holding the scissors poised around the stem. “That’s good. She must have a kind heart.”

Milton considered that. He wouldn’t have pegged Regina as kind. Determined. Focused. Resolute. Practical. Yes. Those things. But not necessarily kind. He wondered what had made her become a children’s oncologist. Of course, if he asked her something like that, he might have to answer questions about why he visited the children’s hospital every week and played magician.

“She’s great,” he said instead, hoping his mother wouldn’t probe any further.

His mother gave him a knowing look.

“You like this one. Paula said you had that look in your eye.”

“Mom, I hired Mrs. Beechum as a housekeeper, not your personal spy.”

His mother waved that statement off and continued to fuss with her flowers. “She looks out for you. No stranger would do so much.”

Milton ran a hand through his hair. It was true.

“Mom, I can handle my own love life.”

She scoffed. “So why you don’t have a wife?”

“I could have had dozens of wives by now.” It was true. He’d even been proposed to once. It had been a memorable experience.

“Not a good wife.”

“Okay, Mom, listen. I really like this woman. She’s smart. She’s funny. She works hard. But she doesn’t like that people follow me around and take my picture, and she doesn’t think that we can have a lasting relationship, so we’re just enjoying each other’s company for right now.”

Now his mom looked irritated. “Why doesn’t she want a relationship with my son? Look at you”—she gestured at him—“so handsome. Wealthy. Talented. She would be lucky to have you.”

Milton smiled and grabbed his mom’s hand, kissing her fingers. “Thanks, Mom.”

Her face softened and she patted his cheek. “Well, maybe this is okay with this girl. You’ll go slow, find out what kind of person she is, and she will know you, too. It will be okay.”

Milton didn’t know about that. Mostly they just had sex. Great sex. Mind-blowing sex. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing? Did she call you?”

“Mom, she’s working. And I’m in my thirties, not twelve. I’ll handle it.”

“Humph. You should bring her here. I will tell her what a good boy you are. She should hear it from your mother.”

“Mom, no.”

“Yes. This is not public. This is your family’s house.”

“Yeah, but that’s like a real relationship thing. We just started this . . . whatever this is. If I ask her to come over here, I’ll freak her out.”

His mom finished putting the flowers in the vase and carried it past Milton over to the breakfast table, where she set it precisely in the center.

“Okay. Maybe soon, though, you should bring her to meet me. You are not getting any younger. You should have a family of your own.”

Milton slid his phone back into his pocket. A family of his own? Did he want that? He’d shied away from the idea of caring for anyone that much since William, but now . . . “Okay, Mama. If it seems like a good idea, I’ll bring her, okay?”

She nodded. “Good, and we’re going to the cemetery on Sunday?”

Every year, on the anniversary of his brother’s death, he and his mother went to visit his grave in the cemetery nearby. Milton always performed a trick with a deck of cards, or a set of trick knives, something fun. His mother always brought a letter that she wrote and set on his gravestone.

“Yes, Mom. I’ll be here.”

“You’re a good boy,” she repeated. “I’ll make you some lunch.”

Milton nodded, fighting the urge to pull out the deck of cards in his jacket pocket. His mom had a rule about magic at the table. He’d only set the tablecloth on fire one lousy time, and she’d never forgotten. He checked his phone again instead. This evening couldn’t get here fast enough.

REGINA CHECKED HER PHONE ABSENTLY
as she made her rounds, checking on all her patients. Chuck’s mom had been thrilled at the news that his tumor had shrunk, but the kid seemed doubtful that it meant anything. Regina had a feeling he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“So, when is Shaw the Magician coming back?” he asked her.

Regina blinked. “Tomorrow, I think. Why are you asking me?”

Chuck snickered. “He told us he likes you.”

Great. So that’s why the kids had been asking her about Milton: What time would he be at the hospital tomorrow? What trick did he teach her? Did he really have a basement full of dead bodies?

Regina had answered the questions with a simple, “I promised I wouldn’t reveal his secrets. You wouldn’t want me to get in trouble, would you?”

They’d shown a remarkable lack of sympathy for her. Heathens.

“We’re just friends,” she lied. Chuck gave her a
Get real
look and picked up yet another rope. He really seemed to like tying those knots

Still, he hadn’t called or texted. She’d thought—considering his enthusiasm for her—that he would have texted. Of course she hadn’t texted him, either, but she was more sensible than that.