Waiting for Magic (46 page)

He shouldn’t despair anyway. His brothers called him The Prince of Wales because he was the heir apparent to Tremaine Enterprises and the future head of the family. If any Tremaine had magic in his genes, he did. He just had to be patient. She knew it was difficult to have a father like Brian Tremaine. The power that lived in Brian’s genes was Adapting. He could do anything, really well, after just reading about it, or hearing someone talk about it. Difficult to live with. It wasn’t that he was a bad father, far from it. And after he’d nearly sent Devin into an emotional tailspin by learning to surf in about an hour, he didn’t try to share his children’s enthusiasms. And he’d patched up a relationship with rebellious Tristram in a way that showed he had a big heart. But even if Kemble would never quite live up to his father, he had so much to be grateful for in his life. He was a gorgeous man, with his father’s black hair, fair skin and blue eyes. Big, like all the Tremaine men. He worked out compulsively just to show up his brother Tristram. It showed. He was smart, too. Nobody could beat him around a computer. And he was kind. Like taking her home today. Some woman was going to be the luckiest woman in the world to get him and a magic power into the bargain.

If anybody had a right to despair it was Jane.

But she’d learned how to live with despair a long time ago.

“There’s the driveway,” she said, pointing. Until today she’d been successful at keeping the Tremaines away. Even Drew hadn’t been to her house in years. Why should she? Jane was more than happy to come to the Breakers. Once she’d been there almost every day.

Kemble swung the black Escalade into the driveway. The Pedrino house was modest. Not like the Breakers. But it was in a good neighborhood—a development on the bluffs above Palos Verdes Drive West. Some of the houses even had blue water views. The security guys pulled up at the curb behind them.

Jane took a breath and let it out. You could hear the shrieking expletives from here. The older woman dressed in a white uniform and sensible white shoes, carrying a capacious brown purse, had her arms folded across her chest and her lips pressed into a line.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” Jane said, hoping it didn’t sound too much like a dismissal but still did the same job.

“Just sit tight,” Kemble said, getting out of the car. What was he doing? He was reaching into his back pocket.

Oh, no, no, no
. She got out of the car, but he had a long, purposeful stride.

“This is for your trouble. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell the agency you took a short shift,” he was saying to the nurse’s aide, as he pushed green bills into her hand. The woman’s eyes got wide and the number and the denominations. Just like Kemble. Didn’t he know she couldn’t pay him back? “And we’ll report that you worked a full shift as well. You just get the rest of the afternoon off. Deal?”

“Whatever suits you, sir,” she said, stuffing the bills into her handbag. She gave Jane a glare and strode up the drive to her car, muttering, “You got your hands full with that one.”

Wasn’t that the truth? The screaming hadn’t let up. If she didn’t get her mother calmed down soon, the neighbors would call the police. Again. She hurried past Kemble.

“Thanks, but you shouldn’t have done that,” she murmured.

“Yes, I should.” He flashed the security guys a signal for ten minutes and followed her to the door. “If she reports your mother to her boss, you’ll have to change agencies.”

“I’m on my eighth agency,” Jane said, pausing. She could open the door. She knew she could. She just needed a second. “I know how to provide for my mother.”

Her mother’s screaming was clearer from here. “And you tell that shit-ass daughter of mine to get her lazy ass back here. Good for nothing. That’s what that girl is.” Her words were slurred. Jane was sure she’d checked the house thoroughly for booze. Where was she getting it?

“All the more reason you can’t lose this one.”

“I’ll…I’ll pay you back and… and I can handle it from here.” She turned with as much dignity as she could muster back to the door. She was
not
letting him see this. “I’m afraid she’s having a bad day.”

“I’m not leaving.”

She glanced up at him. He had that determined look he probably wouldn’t even realize he shared with his father and Tristram. Jane felt the panic rise in her throat and tried to swallow it down. She couldn’t bear to have him see this. He was already getting an earful. She felt her eyes fill. “Please,” she said. “Please go.”

“It’ll be better if I’m here. You’ll see.” He reached over her head, not hard since she was more than a foot shorter than he was, and pushed the door open for her.

They’d hardly gotten inside when the smell hit them. Jane’s stomach rolled.
Oh, no.
Her mother’s hospital bed took up most of the space in the small living room. She sat in it like an inebriated queen, swaying and waving the large bottle of Bombay Sapphire around. There wasn’t enough left in it to slosh, but she must have doused the whole living room with it liberally sometime in the last hour. The other smell was from the human feces that had been smeared over the walls. Her mother was confined to her bed only when she wanted to be.

Jane and Kemble stood, frozen, in front of the door. Her mother got a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Well, well. A Tremaine. Never thought you’d land one, with how mousey you are.”

Could anything be more humiliating? “He’s a friend, Mother.” Jane was so ashamed she was afraid she might faint. “Give me the bottle.”

“Hope you had the sense to let him knock you up. Man like that’d never stay with trash like you. But if you got a brat, then he’ll have to pay and pay good. Trust me.”

Jane tried to grab the bottle. “That’s the liquor talking.” She could feel her face was bright red.

“Not taking my booze,” the woman muttered.

“Where did you get it?” Jane asked, trying to distract her attention.

“Think I can’t order delivery?”

“I told Stefano’s not to take orders from you.” Jane reached across her for the square blue bottle, and got a corner of it, right across the cheekbone. “Oh,” she gasped, stepping back, her hands darting to her face. She blinked, trying to keep her balance as her vision darkened around the edges.

“I called The Liquor Mart.” Her mother’s grin was smug, and… well Jane couldn’t call it evil. But there was no trace of a mother’s love there. Not any more.

Kemble stepped firmly up to the other side of the hospital bed and grabbed the bottle.

“Hey,” her mother protested, flailing for it. “That’s mine.”

“I don’t think so,” he said firmly, glancing to Jane. “You all right?”

“Of course she’s all right,” her mother slurred. “Little bitch deserves what she gets.”
Jane wanted to sink into the floor. Her eyes were filled with tears from the pain. She could feel her cheek had split. Warm liquid ran down her cheek.
Oh, no.

“Enough,” Kemble barked. His voice had all the authority of a real Prince of Wales in it. “You will not talk to your daughter like that, Mrs. Pedrino. Look at this place. What’s wrong with you?”

Uh, oh.
Kemble didn’t even know he was punching a button. He tossed the bottle into a corner and rounded the foot of the hospital bed on his way over to Jane.

“What’s wrong with me?” Her mother’s voice was rising. “A no-good husband who divorced me when I was pregnant? Made a fortune and gave it to some other bitch. Second husband died in jail. And all I’m left with is a shit-ass daughter I never wanted who dragged me down.” She was shrieking now. “Nobody ever valued me like I was worth. All my life, nothing but crap. Crap, crap, crap from everybody…”

Kemble’s cell phone was ringing, but he was busy gently taking Jane’s hand from her face. “Let me look at this.” He got out his handkerchief and daubed at the streak of blood.

“You’re ruining your handkerchief,” she protested.

He ignored her. “Do you have any disinfectant around here? You may need stitches…”

A knock sounded on the half-open door and two patrolmen in navy blue uniforms and black leather leaned into the room. Jane saw the moment they smelled the feces.

“Jesus Christ.” The younger one looked around and held his nose. He was a handsome Hispanic young man.

Jane held Kemble’s handkerchief to her cheek and hurried forward. “Officers, I’m so sorry.”

“Ms. Pedrino,” the older man with the salt and pepper hair nodded to Jane. “You know you have to keep your mother quiet.”

“Hard to do when she’s being assaulted, Officers,” Kemble said. He stood behind Jane. At least her mother had quieted down. She was muttering to herself and plucking at the covers.

The older officer peered at her. “It’s nothing,” Jane said.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. Do you want to press charges, Ms. Pedrino?”

“Of…of course not.” She looked around, feeling a little confused. Kemble stood stiffly off to one side. Her mother looked triumphant. There was a trail of spittle at the corner of her mother’s mouth.
How old she’d gotten recently
, Jane thought. Her skin was almost gray. It looked opaque somehow, like paper. Her eyes were clouded and flat too. The wrinkles around her mouth from years of smoking made her look like some kind of a tide-pool creature when she pursed her lips. Jane wasn’t even sure how sick she was anymore. Maybe she’d live forever.

“Well, Ma’am, then you call her doctor and get her a sedative or something. You know we can’t have her disturbing the peace like this.” The older guy’s eyes were apologetic. He couldn’t feel any worse than she did about it all.  “You need any help here?”

She shook her head. The officers turned to leave. The young one looked very relieved. Kemble strode past her and shut the door behind him.

Well, that was that. A little piece of her heart seemed to break off and flutter to the ground. Nothing new about that. Jane had been slowly losing pieces of her heart for years.

*****

Kemble couldn’t believe this whole situation. “Wait, officers. Aren’t you going to do anything about this? She’ll be screaming again any minute.”

“What do you want us to do?” The older officer looked disgusted. “Arrest an old woman in a hospital bed? The girl just has to keep her quiet.”

“And clean up the house,” the younger one murmured.

Kemble watched them walk away. He’d never felt so frustrated in his life. He’d had no idea what Jane had been dealing with. And that felt wrong. He should have checked it out. Even his father didn’t know, he was sure. This woman was practically part of the family, and they’d fallen down on the job. She had no one to protect her. The police wouldn’t do anything. Maybe it was true, they couldn’t, but weren’t there social workers or something? Couldn’t the old bat be put in a home?

He turned back to the house, hesitating. He knew what the problem with that was. Jane wouldn’t allow it. As she’d told them all before, this was her mother. Taking care of your mother was what you owed for her raising you. But nobody owed this.

He pushed back into the house without even knocking. He had a feeling Jane might not let him in. It wasn’t lost on him that she hadn’t wanted him to see this.  He wasn’t that dense. “Jane,” he said. She was standing behind her mother’s bed, turned away toward the window, her back to Kemble. Her mother’s incoherent mumbling, punctuated by cursing, and cackles. “Jane, come back to the Breakers. Let Mother take care of that cut on your cheek.”

“You know I can’t do that.” Her voice sounded distant.

“Sure you can. Eddie and Ken can take a turn watching your mother.”

“And leave you unprotected?” She sighed, turning. “Go home, Kemble.”

“I’ll send over a cleaning crew…”

“Kemble, no. I’ll clean it up.”

“Really, it’s just a call away.” He reached for his phone.

“No.” Jane had actually raised her voice. “How would I pay for it?”

He shut his mouth when he found it was hanging open. “You don’t have to pay for it, Jane.” He shrugged and tried to muster a grin, just to lighten things up.

Now Jane started wringing her hands. “Your father built me a darkroom at the Breakers, for goodness’ sake. I’ve been there all the time. I eat with your family, drink with you. I’ve been mooching off the Tremaines for...for years.” Her voice broke. “I’ve got to stop.”