Neither woman saw the small, thin boy tucked inside the crawl space under the stairs, quiet as a mouse.
* * *
During the final weeks of summer, Faye concentrated all her efforts on the Hampton Tea campaign, no small thanks to the support of Wendy and Jack. She couldn’t have pulled it off without them. No one worked harder than she did, arriving early every day and staying late, overseeing every detail of the presentation, driving for better statistics and acting as liaison between the people at Hampton Tea and the team at Leo Burnett. As account exec, she covered every aspect of the campaign, from direct mailing to TV, so that the presentation the following week would provide her client a clear and consistent message.
Bernard admired people who “bit the bullet,” and she overheard him comment to Susan Perkins that his “girl had the old edge back.” Even her team begrudgingly followed her lead, working long hours to create the best campaign they could by next week’s deadline. They might not have been gung-ho about her campaign idea, but they respected her competence and went along. Susan Perkins kept her comments in reserve, lying in wait. She chose her moment a week before the presentation.
Faye was just finishing up the final review. She sensed a guarded optimism. Susan Perkins entered the room looking cool and professional as usual in a chic plum suit and white-silk blouse with her dark hair sleeked back behind two impressive pearl earrings. She didn’t sit but stood by the door, listening with a little frown of skepticism. Faye didn’t have to look down to see that her workhorse of a coffee brown pant suit was creased and tired after a long day’s work.
Susan didn’t have to say a word. Her stance, her pose, her animosity rippled through the room, ruining the optimism Faye had so carefully built up for the past two hours. When she finished her summation, Faye knew Susan had succeeded in her ambush. Jaishree crossed her legs and arms, frowning. Patrick immediately slouched and rolled his eyes at Susan, who, catching the glance, lifted her lip in a commiserating curl. After they’d left, Faye’s shoulders slumped as she stuffed her materials into her leather case.
“Don’t be discouraged,” Pascal said, hanging back.
“I didn’t need that from Susan—from any of them— right before I have to make this presentation. Don’t they know that?”
“But of course they do,” he retorted in his marvelous French accent. “Patrick and Jaishree, they are toadies that think the only way to get ahead is to suck up to the boss. And Susan, ha! She lives to bully the little people, like us. She is madly jealous of you and wants to bring you down.”
“But why? We’re on the same side. I’ve tried so hard to work with her.”
“Forget it, chérie. You make her look bad. You’re good, and she hasn’t had a good idea in a long time. People like her, they don’t care about the product. Or if other people get hurt. They care only about their own power. Whether or not Hampton Tea sells well in America is not so important to her. What matters to her is whether or not she climbs the ladder.” He shrugged and crossed his arms in front of him, openly assessing her figure. “And you are much more beautiful. That, she can never forgive you for.” He raised a brow and gave an insolent shrug. “Did you see those earrings?” He leaned closer to her ear. “Fake.”
Faye laughed and leaned against him. “Oh Pascal, what would I do without you?”
“I am wondering what you might do with me, chérie.”
“A wonderful campaign is all the magic I hope to create with you, monsieur,” she replied, tapping his chest.
“Too bad,” he responded, his dark eyes flirting.
“Probably.”
Suddenly the image of Jack Graham flashed through her mind. It startled her, and she blinked it away. She turned to stuff her papers into her briefcase. “I haven’t time for anything but work, work, work. And I’d better get going if I’m going to make that appointment with the Art Department at Hampton Tea. We’ll be discussing your work, by the way. I know they’ll go crazy for it.”
“Of course. You inspire me.” He wagged his brows, and she laughed again, telling him for the hundredth time that he was incorrigible, which was, she knew, exactly what he wanted to hear.
Her appointment at Hampton Tea concluded earlier than expected, and she found herself with an hour to spare. Thinking again of Jack, she recalled him saying he was giving a public lecture, not far away. Acting on impulse, she hailed a cab and made her way to the lecture hall, where she was informed by a small sign that Dr. Jack Graham was lecturing in the main auditorium that afternoon at 4:00 p.m. As her heels clicked down the long hall she smoothed the wrinkles from her suit and tucked her loose tendrils behind her ear, tidying up should Jack glance up and see her. Wouldn’t he be surprised?
The heavy auditorium door squeaked as she pushed it open. Faye paused, stunned. There was no chance that Jack would even notice she was here. She’d expected to find most of the seats empty, like the lecture halls she’d attended while in college. After all, she’d thought with typical creative smugness, this was a science lecture.
The place was packed! Students, professors, and guests alike were busily scribbling in their notebooks and leaning forward in their seats to better hear. Other than the sound of Jack’s voice, the auditorium was silent, spellbound. Clutching her briefcase to her chest, she ducked her head and tiptoed to the closest unoccupied seat and slipped in. Once settled, she sat like all the others, transfixed by the tall, lanky, handsome professor who leisurely paced across the stage, one hand in his suit pocket and the other gesticulating in the air.
Who was this somber scientist? He was like a star, a brilliant point of light out there on the stage. Gone was the boyish, sexy man in casual clothes and bare feet that knocked on her door on weekends and haunted her dreams in the night. Standing on the stage was, according to the paper hanging on the auditorium door, one of the world’s foremost theoretical physicists. An award-winning, visiting professor from Berkeley with several books to his credit. She had no idea he was anything but an isolated scientist working in some lab with high-tech equipment, computers, and test tubes. But here he was, discussing the possible beginnings of the universe with the same ease that he discussed fireflies with Maddie and Tom.
Faye felt her own small world rock. She sat back in her seat filled with awe and respect and something else she couldn’t define. She was seeing Jack with new eyes. Eyes that were wide-open. His intelligence was intimidating, but it was his charisma that overwhelmed her. His confidence, both in his knowledge and in himself, shone a little too bright. She felt, in comparison, quite dim.
How self centered she’d been all these months, focused solely on her problems--the tea campaign, Maddie and Tom, babysitting issues, Mrs. Lloyd, even the puppy. Jack had always been there to offer support, a suggestion, levity. Never once did she ask him about his work, or his problems. He’d never burdened her. The fact that she had no idea how important, even major, today’s lecture was drove home the point.
When the lecture was completed a crowd immediately clustered around Jack like planets around the sun, shaking his hand, holding out books to be signed, eager to ask questions. Faye grabbed her briefcase and slipped out of the hall unnoticed. A heavy fog had rolled in with a light drizzle. She had a difficult time finding a cab. By the time she caught one, she was soaking wet. As the cab sped past folks hurrying under umbrellas, several postage-stamp-sized parks, and scattered shops whose lights pierced the fog, Faye stared out the streaked window and only saw Jack up on that stage. A different Jack. Someone brilliant, clever, good. Someone beyond her grasp. She felt her old insecurities rumble, and in the recesses of her mind she was haunted by the whisper that she was not worthy of such a man.
Yet, she thought as she bounced and swerved in the backseat of the cab, she’d never before felt so attracted to him. It was as though a veil had been lifted and she saw the whole man for the first time.
And loved him at first sight.
She’d felt so enamored of a man only once before. Her ex
-husband, Rob. Despite his faults, Rob O’Neill had been a glowing star in his own galaxy.
She groaned, leaning her head back against the scratchy cushion. Why was she always lured by starshine?
Perhaps it was a defense mechanism to compare Jack to Rob, she wondered. A mental ploy to distance her from the chance of another disappointment. She’d cared for only two men in her life. And Jack Graham and Rob O’Neill were as different as two men could be.
Or were they, she wondered? They both ran from commitment. They both lived for the moment and relished the exotic. Peter Pans, both of them. She brought her fist to her forehead and rubbed it, as though she could rub the image of Jack from her brain.
“Once burned, shame on you. Twice burned, shame on me,” she muttered.
What to do, what to do? She didn’t need this now. She didn’t want to care for Jack. Didn’t want to need him or anyone else. Damn, no distractions now. She rested her forehead against the glass, staring out at the rain with a forlorn expression. Could she take the chance and become involved again in a relationship?
Her heart said yes, oh yes. But in her mind, the answer was as plain to read as the periodic table of the elements that hung in the lecture hall. Even a dummy in science like herself knew that mixing baking soda and vinegar resulted in an explosion.
Chapter 15
Back at No. 14, Mrs. Lloyd’s high-pitched voice entered the building before she did. While the keys rattled in the front door, Maddie and Tom darted down the rear staircase that led to Jack’s flat, carefully leaving the door open just enough so that they could spy. A trick they’d learned from Mrs. Jerkins.
“Here we are,” crooned Mrs. Lloyd in that sugar-coated manner that the children cringed at hearing.
Peeking through the crack, Maddie and Tom saw Mrs. Lloyd lead a tall, dark man with a funny black mustache and shiny shoes into the foyer. He narrowed his eyes to thin slits as his gaze swept the room, seeming to take in every detail. Maddie closed the door a wee bit more to be on the safe side.
“Now the house hasn’t been redone in years, but I believe you’ll see that it is in excellent condition,” said Mrs. Lloyd. “Just needs a bit of polish, eh?”
The gentleman merely sniffed and offered some polite muttering that the children couldn’t make out as a reply.
Mrs. Lloyd appeared flustered, and that alone might have been enough to raise the children’s suspicions. But it was her next comment that had them on full alert.
“Of course I shall have to make the necessary legal arrangements, but,” she hurried to add, “I should like to sell the house as soon as possible. Shall we begin in the first- floor flat? It is let at the moment to an American family. With children.” She said the last with the same tone she might have said, vermin. “It is only a one-year lease. Shall we have a look-see? The tenant isn’t home, but the nanny is expecting us.”
She knocked, and Mrs. Jerkins promptly opened the door and led them into the flat.
Maddie and Tom looked at each other, mouths agape and outrage flushing their cheeks. They knew their mother gave no such permission for Mrs. Jerkins to be opening the flat to strangers. And this stranger was obviously someone who wanted to buy the house. They hurried as fast as their legs would carry them up the stairs to the nursery, where in a rush they told Wendy of all they’d overheard.
“So, she thinks to sell the house from under me, does she?” Wendy’s eyes lit with fire, and she lifted her chin so that the delicate point resembled the tip of a dagger. “Tell me, children, are you in the mood for a little mischief?”
Two heads nodded enthusiastically.
Wendy tapped her chin with her finger. “I seem to remember your complaining about ants in the garden, isn’t that so, Maddie?”
Maddie’s eyes sparkled, and she smothered a laugh with her palm as she nodded, the glint of conspiracy in her eye.
* * *
Downstairs, Mrs. Lloyd was busily showing her mysterious visitor the second floor of the O’Neill flat. Upstairs in the nursery, the children were poised on the bed. At Wendy’s signal, they began leaping from the bed, the chairs, from any high point they could climb to, then landing hard on the floor. The lights were flickering in the nursery, as they knew full well they were also flickering downstairs.
“Excellent, children! Now man your next stations. Ready?”
At the signal, Tom turned the water on full blast at the kitchen sink. Wendy hustled to turn on the water in the bathtub. The pipes groaned and spit out sprays of water, pushing the pressure to the limits. Meanwhile, Maddie ran to the bathroom in their own flat and timed it so that when Mrs. Lloyd passed through the hall, Maddie stepped out from the bathroom, and complained loudly, “Mrs. Lloyd, the water’s not coming out again.”
Maddie sauntered by the tall gentleman in the hall, smiling politely. But not before slipping a small dog biscuit into his coat pocket while he poked his nose into a closet. In the bathroom, Mrs. Lloyd was fiddling with the faucets, sputtering out excuses that were as pitiful as the few drops of water that squeezed out from the pipes.
Just before she slipped out of the flat, Maddie heard Mrs. Lloyd exclaim in a loud wail, “I really don’t know where all those ants came from! I shall call an exterminator immediately, of course!”
For the coup de grâce, Wendy gave Tom a glass of water and dispatched him to the front foyer, then sent Maddie in search of Nana. A few moments later, when a frazzled Mrs. Lloyd and her gentleman visitor emerged from the flat into the foyer, Nana came barking at the stranger’s heels, then catching the scent, began leaping up his trousers at his pocket. Maddie put one hand to her cheek and with the other hand pointed to a puddle on the floor, and cried, “Bad Nana! What have you done?”
The tall gentlemen’s face puckered like he smelled a foul odor, he shook the puppy from his heel, and muttered something about how dogs did terrible damage to a house and how he’d seen quite enough, thank you very much.
Mrs. Lloyd’s face turned crimson as she watched the tall gentleman leave through the front door.
“Halloo, Jane dear,” sang Wendy’s voice from the upper landing. Her elfin face peeked over the banister, and even from the first floor anyone could see that her bright blue eyes were twinkling like distant stars. “What a pleasant surprise! To think you came for a visit!”
* * *
A few days later, Tom once again gave Mrs. Jerkins the slip and scurried up the stairs to find refuge in the nursery. He just couldn’t wait till six o’clock to see Wendy. She never scolded him for jumping on the bed like Ol’ Horseface did, and she didn’t smell of menthol or medicine, and most of all she didn’t look at him with that same scary, mean look that he remembered his father had when he talked funny and tripped on furniture and hit his mom. Tom liked it up in the nursery, where the walls were pale blue like the sky and filled with wonderful pictures that made him laugh, where there were fun, curious things to look at, and no one said, “Don’t touch.”
Here, the canary chirped and hopped closer to the wire rim of the cage to eat the bits of carrot and apple he fed it. Here, Wendy always was so happy to welcome him, to offer him candy, to cuddle him beside her on the window seat. She always read to him from her great green book, and sometimes she let him read aloud to her. They’d been working on that skill all summer. It was their greatest secret.
When he tiptoed into the nursery that afternoon, however, he didn’t hear Wendy humming or music playing; not even the canary chirped. It hunkered, one legged, on its perch. Tom stepped carefully, slowly, across the great long room, looking from left to right. Then he stopped, his left foot frozen in midair when he heard a soft groan coming from the bedroom. The groan came again, and this time he recognized the voice as Wendy’s. If he could have flown, he couldn’t have reached her side any faster.
Jack lay on the cold, damp flagstone under the fountain swearing like a sailor. The clanging from his wrenches as he wrestled with nuts and bolts that wouldn’t budge echoed in his ears, and he was so m
ad at the stubborn lump of bronze and brass that sometimes he just banged it for good measure. There was no reason that he could tell for this darn fountain not to work. He’d read dozens of books and it was all pretty straightforward. Water comes in, swirls through the pump and gets pushed out of the boy’s pipes. Except that this cocky boy wouldn’t play! Well, he’d just see about that, he thought, grinding his teeth and having another go at the mechanics.
Suddenly the door to the O’Neill flat burst open and he saw two small feet in Keds running across the patio toward him. His muscles tightened and his gaze sharpened. Nana had scooted out from the hydrangea bushes barking excitedly.
“Jack!”
Jack pushed out from under the fountain, not sure in the hustle of motion and the incessant yapping of Nana that he’d actually heard a small boy’s voice. He scrambled to his feet, and Tom rushed into his arms, pressing his tear-stained face against his belly and wrapping thin arms tight around his waist. Instantly, Jack closed his arms around the boy.
“What is it, Tom?” His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry.
“It’s W...W...Wendy,” he stammered. Between the sobs and hiccups he garbled a few more words that Jack couldn’t catch. When he tried to loosen his arms, the boy held on tighter.
“Tom, let go now, loosen up. That’s right,” he crooned. Jack bent low to look into the boy’s face. His eyes were round with worry. “Where is Wendy?”
Tom sniffed loudly and took a deep breath. “In the nursery. In her bedroom. I came in and it was dark and I heard her moan. She’s on the floor!” His voice rose. “She must’a falled down.” His voice rose higher. “She’s lying there, crying. Just like Mom! We gotta help her!”
“We will, Tom. I promise. Now, come on, boy. Show me!”
Tom led Jack to where Wendy lay on the floor beside her bed, just as Tom had told him. She was awake but groggy, alert enough to tell him she had no broken bones.
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