Tides of the Heart (9 page)

He smiled an I-told-you-so smile. “As I suspected,” her father said, “he was only after you for your money.”

She protested.

He laughed. “He’s gone, Jessica. He and his lowlife family took the money and ran.”

Took the money and ran.
His words echoed in her mind now. She opened her eyes and looked around the house that Miss Taylor had bought.

Fifty thousand dollars was a long way from two hundred. Yet something about it now seemed very, very strange. She wondered if there was a connection.

Or was she imagining things? The handwriting, after all, had not been her father’s. Nor was it his secretary’s, which she knew so well—the secretary who had been responsible for sending Jess her money, the one person, after her mother’s death, who corresponded with Jess at all.

The handwriting certainly bore no resemblance to what was on the anonymous letter she’d received. There was no real reason to think there was a connection.

Still, it nagged at her. And as she politely finished her tea, Jess became anxious to return home, to call Ginny, and learn if the sum fifty thousand dollars meant anything to her or not.

But before leaving, Jess gave Loretta her telephone number, asking her to call if she thought of anything that might help. Loretta grumbled, then retreated to the mustiness of the house that her sister had bought.

“Are you crazy?” Ginny asked later that night when Jess finally reached her. “The fee for that place was a thousand a month, plus medical expenses. Believe me, I remember. I stole just enough from my stepfather to go there. Ten thousand total.”

“Oh, God, Ginny,” Jess said with a moan. “What should I do now? There was nothing else there.…”

“I’d say fifty grand is enough to prove something weird
went on. It was thirty years ago, Jess. That was a shitload of money … for most of us.”

“Do you remember when we were at Larchwood—and I told you that I found out my father paid off Richard’s family?”

Ginny laughed. “I wasn’t real shocked, Jess.”

“I was. Father paid them two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Two hundred grand?” Ginny shrieked over the line. “That was a freaking fortune back then! Well, I guess some of us had it. Some of us didn’t.”

“Apparently Miss Taylor did,” Jess said, then added with a sigh, “Or she got it. Fifty thousand, anyway.”

“Maybe your father gave it to her.”

“But I remember seeing the entries in his checkbook. He paid a thousand dollars every month, too. Why would he give her more?”

“Who knows. Maybe she was sleeping with him, too.”

“Ginny …”

“Sorry. My mistake.”

Jess tried to ignore Ginny’s comment. “Well,” she said, “there was no mistake about one thing. Miss Taylor’s records said my baby went to the Hawthornes.”

“And mine went to the Andrews,” Ginny said. “And P.J.’s to the Archambaults, and Susan’s to—oh, Christ, I can’t remember who got her kid.”

“The Radnors.”

“Right. From New Jersey.”

Jess laughed. “I’m surprised you remember.”

“You might say your little reunion was rather a significant event in my life. Hey—I wonder if Susan’s kid ever tried to find her.”

“I don’t think so. I had a note from her at Christmas. She married some college professor named Bert and they were going to England to teach at Oxford.”

“Yuck. All that tweed and wool. I’m sure she’ll be quite happy.”

Jess did not bother to agree that Susan Levin had not been one of their favorite people: older, wiser, sedate Susan Levin, who had never quite fit in with the immature, fantasy-driven teenagers. Susan, who had been so stiff-upper-lipped when she learned her son had not wanted to meet his birth mother, that he was content to know only his adoptive parents. Jess once again remembered the reunion, and how ironic it had been that Ginny’s story had turned out best.

“Ginny … Should I forget about this?”

“And do what? Go crazy every time you get another letter or another phone call?”

“But what if it’s just a prank?”

“Look, kid, maybe it is. But why? It makes no sense why someone would do this, unless it’s for real.”

Jess did not mention Charles, or the fact that Chuck had been in Boston. She did not want to bring her own family under suspicion, even to Ginny, who would never be shocked.

“Here’s what there is,” Ginny continued. “You’ve got a letter from Martha’s Vineyard that says it’s from your baby. Followed by a weird phone call. Now you tell me there’s a note saying Miss T. was paid fifty grand for who knows what.” Jess listened quietly, trying to absorb Ginny’s words. “They may not be connected, but if I were you, I’d want to know. Fifty grand—thirty years ago—reeks of something shady.”

Part of Jess had hoped that Ginny would not react the same way that she had. “But what should I do? I can go to the Vineyard, but where would I begin?” She heard the tap-tapping of Ginny’s fingernails on some surface.

“Hire someone,” she finally said. “Somebody who’d care.”

“Like a private investigator? How do I do that? Look through the phone book?”

There was another long pause over the phone line, then
Ginny asked, “Hey—what about P.J.’s son? Wasn’t he in law school?”

“Phillip?” She had a quick-flash memory of a handsome boy. “Yes … he’s probably a lawyer by now.”

“Then as they say in the courtrooms—I rest my case.”

Phillip Archambault despised playing racquetball. Running was his favorite sport; he preferred to compete against himself rather than others, which was probably not the appropriate attitude for an up-and-coming corporate attorney. Then again, it wasn’t Phillip who had wanted to be a corporate attorney, but his brother Joseph. It was Joseph who had bought him a desk and a briefcase and a health club membership long before Phillip had taken his boards.

They had kept the same storefront office on the Lower East Side that their father had worked out of for nearly thirty years, though Joseph—more inclined toward dollars than sense—was determined to take it uptown, or, at the very least, midtown. Which was why Phillip was at the Manhattan Health and Racquet Club now, playing a game that he despised, trying to win over the thirty-something CEO of McGinnis and Smith—computer gurus on the fast track to global software greatness. Joseph dreamed that Archambault and Archambault would be along for the ride. And Phillip felt destined to help his brother’s dream come true.

“Game!” Ron McGinnis roared with a crack of his
racquet and a slam of the ball against the wall. A victorious grin broke through the sweat that trickled down his face. “Good match, Phillip,” he said. “You’re getting better.”

Wiping his brow, the young attorney returned the smile. “Apparently not good enough.”

“You put up a fight. Which is just what McGinnis and Smith needs.” He grabbed a towel from the floor and headed for the door. “Wish I could catch another game, but there’s a board meeting at three.”

It was not news to Phillip: Ron’s partner, Ed Smith, had already told Joseph that they would be presenting the Archambault and Archambault credentials to the board today, that today the decision about the next legal counsel for the firm would be made. Until recently, McGinnis had seemed unwavering in his choice of Brad Eckerman—a hotshot Wall Street type who had been an instrumental force in the Microsoft-Apple deal. But Ed Smith wanted to throw their business to Joseph and Phillip: Joseph, after all, had been a frat brother, and frat brothers trusted frat brothers no matter what the odds.

Phillip tipped his hand in a semisalute. “Then we’ll talk later,” he said, walking to the corner where the racquetball lay silent, its energy depleted, its duty done.

McGinnis waved and went out the small door, leaving Phillip alone in the tall-ceilinged, wood-walled cell. He stood for a moment and listened to the muted echoes of other balls against other walls, other deals being banged out in the macho-sweat rhythm of the prestigious club that Joseph had insisted they join.

“Fifty thousand dollars a year?” Phillip had moaned. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Look at it this way,” Joseph had rationalized over pastrami sandwiches at the deli next to the office. “If we lived in the burbs we’d have to join a golf club. How much do you think that would cost?”

“But we could hire a real secretary for fifty thousand!
God, Joseph, can’t we just get clients on our merits? Not on our athletic performance?”

“Little brother, you have much to learn,” Joseph said, sinking his teeth into his pastrami and dismissing further talk.

Phillip picked up the ball now and slipped it into his leather bag. Joseph probably would have wanted him to follow Ron into the locker room, to continue the back-and-forth banter of bullshit so seemingly crucial to winning a client. But Phillip’s arms ached, his head ached, and he’d done the best he could.

After all, he reminded himself as he left the room, he’d really rather be running.

Back at the office, Phillip arranged and rearranged the pens in his desk drawer, pretending not to notice the clock that said 3:07, pretending that he didn’t care about the outcome of the McGinnis and Smith board meeting.

But damn it, he did care. For all the differences of opinion he had with his brother, Phillip knew that Joseph had their best interests at heart, as he always had, as he always would. Phillip had still been an undergraduate when their father died; Joseph, two years out of law school. It was Joseph who had worked while Phillip finished law school; Joseph who had told their mother she needn’t worry, that he had a plan in which he and Phillip could save their father’s law firm and take care of her forever. Phillip, of course, had agreed.

He glanced at the clock again and wondered how long the board meeting would last. And if Joseph’s tie to Ed Smith would carry any weight at all.

He would rather it didn’t. He wanted their success to be based on his hard work alone. Phillip had spent the past eighteen months researching the firm, researching other software companies, studying copyright and the new Internet laws that hadn’t even existed a decade ago when
Joseph graduated from Columbia. It was dull, tedious work, but Joseph expected him to do it, and do it well. And he had. Now he wanted to make his brother—and mother—proud. Even if it meant playing racquetball for the rest of his natural life.

Joseph stuck his head into Phillip’s office. “Don’t forget that Mom’s expecting us for dinner.” He glanced at his watch. “Maybe we’ll be able to bring her good news.”

Phillip continued to straighten his pens. He wished that just once he could stay in the city on a Wednesday night, maybe go to bed in his loft apartment early, maybe even watch some mindless TV. “When do you think we’ll hear?”

“I expect by four.”

Phillip nodded.

“It’s a shoo-in, little brother. Don’t sweat it.”

“Hey, I’m not sweating,” he lied.

But a few minutes later, when the receptionist-for-a-day buzzed the phone on Phillip’s desk, he could feel the sweat on his forehead and his heart began to race. Dropping the pens, he reached over and lifted the receiver.

“Yes, Marilyn.”

“I’m not Marilyn. She’s the girl you had last week. I’m Sandy, remember?”

Phillip closed his eyes. “Right. Sandy. What is it?” But he knew by the flashing red light on line one that there was a phone call, and it was for him. A short burst of pride that McGinnis and Smith would call him—not Joseph—was quickly replaced by a moment of dread: maybe they didn’t want to call Joseph because it was bad news; maybe Ed didn’t have the guts to tell a frat brother he was out before he was in.

“You have a call on line one.”

“Did they say who it was?”

Her pause was unnerving. “Well, no, did you want me to ask?”

“That would have been nice.”

“Well, sorry. Do you want me to find out?”

“No, no, Sandy, it’s all right. I’ll take it.”

But before he cut her off, the receptionist added, “I didn’t want to pry. On account of it’s some woman.”

A woman? What woman would be calling him? It must be his mother. God knew he’d been too busy to date in, well, too long. But as he reached for the button to access line one, Phillip had another thought. Maybe it was Ron McGinnis’s assistant. Maybe Ron was too chicken to be the bearer of bad news.
God
, Phillip groaned as he punched in the button,
I
hate being a lawyer.

“Is this Phillip?” asked a female voice. “Phillip Archambault?”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“Phillip. I don’t know if you remember me. We met a few years ago.…”

A filmstrip of faces clicked through his mind of girls he had dated and women he’d known. But none in his memory matched the soft voice he heard now. “Go on,” he said.

“It’s Jess Randall, Phillip. I was a friend of … of P.J.’s. Remember?”

The filmstrip stopped, the faces dissolved. And in their place came the clear vision of a beautiful woman, her head wrapped in a turban, her emerald green eyes locking onto his own.
P.J.
The beautiful woman who had at last taken his hand and held it in her own. The woman who had been his birth mother, whom he never would have known had it not been for Jess Randall.