‘I’ve got money,’ he said stiffly. There was a long pause. ‘So what do you look like, Jolian, and where will you be?’
‘I’m medium height, Jem, with dark brown hair,’ she told him gravely. ‘I’ll be wearing a long red velvet gown, and a white chicken on my head. I’ll be eating a banana and reading the New York Times ...’
He laughed, and it was a tenor echo of his father. ‘Did anybody ever tell you you’re crazy, Jolian?’
‘Oh, I guess maybe a few hundred people have ... but what do they know?’ They agreed on a time and place for the rendezvous and at last Jolian hung up. She tucked up her legs and gave the chair a gleeful spin. Masculine pride, it worked every time! She’d hit just the right note, saying he owed her a coffee. The cloudy, grey day spun into view and her smile faded. If only his father were that easy to handle ... And perhaps she was counting her chickens with Jem too soon. He could always change his mind by tomorrow. Or it could rain ...
But the lavender clouds were shredding and streaming off to the east by the time Jolian pedalled home from the hotline office. Across the silver-blue river, the jagged brick pile of Beacon Hill glowed blood-red spangled with squares of fiery copper as its windows gave back the last of the sunlight. Tomorrow should be cool, but clear. And what in heaven’s name was she going to tell Fletch about tomorrow, if he called? The man was perfectly capable of flying back here tonight, if he thought she could lead him to his son.
You tell him nothing, dope. Just don’t answer the phone tonight, she told herself sternly. And there was no use admitting that the thought of Fletch returning tonight made her heart pirouette like a ballerina on catnip. No use at all. She pedalled faster, as if she could leave that thought behind her, spinning in the twilight.
But it was one thing to resolve not to answer the phone, and quite another to carry that resolution through, Jolian thought grimly as the phone started ringing again. This made the third time since she’d walked in the door. She shoved her chair back from the drawing table and then stopped herself. What time was it anyway? Eleven-thirty, by her watch. Surely he would give up soon. On the edge of the table, Yaffa stirred and lifted her sleek head. Pale blue eyes met dark blue above the pencilled roughs for a new bracelet. ‘Answer the phone, Yaffa,’ she instructed the cat. ‘Tell the man I love him madly and to kindly go jump in the lake, would you?’
The cat considered her gravely, as if she believed this late-night drivel. The phone stopped.
‘Good.’ Jolian sighed and stood up. ‘Bedtime,’ she announced. As if she would sleep. She could feel Fletch’s angry, insistent vibrations humming down the telephone wires from Chicago even in the silence, like the sensation of a pair of green-gold eyes boring into her spine. ‘Leave me alone,’ she growled, wandering out of the workshop.
But he didn’t. The phone rang again just as her lids drooped in hard-won sleep at last.
This was too much. Too much, she told herself, stalking down the hallway. She snatched up the phone and held it to her ear, too irritated to speak.
‘Jolian?’ That whisky-smooth voice was unmistakable. It stirred the hairs at the nape of her neck as if his lips brushed her there. ‘Are you there, love?’
‘Mmm,’ she murmured, smiling in spite of herself.
‘And where the hell have you been, my silky cat? Out on the town?’ Fletch breathed, the anger beginning to seep through the velvety tone.
Her anger reawakened to meet his. ‘And what gives you the right to even ask?’ she flared back.
‘Let’s just say I’m ... taking an interest,’ he purred evenly. ‘Did Jem call today?’
The change of attack caught her off guard. ‘Ah—’
‘So he did,’ Fletch concluded.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t need to, silky. I can read you like a book. Can you imagine what we’ll be like in bed together?’
‘No!’ she whispered.
‘Liar. So I’ll tell you then ... We’ll leave the lamp on, so I can watch your face, and I’ll—’
‘Fletch!’
He laughed softly. ‘So what did he say?’
Jolian blinked. ‘Who?’
‘You talked with Jem. What did he say?’
‘Oh ... he was mad at me.’
‘For the posters? I hope you two made it up.’
‘Why?’ She sank down slowly on the edge of the table.
‘Because if anyone can coax that kid down out of the tree, I think it’s you, Jolian. I’m counting on you.’
And there was the truth of the matter, the long and the short of it, she thought bleakly. She blinked her eyes rapidly and then scrubbed a rough hand across her lashes. Fletch thought she could recover Jem for him; that was the interest he had in her. Anything else he got from her would just be a nice little bonus to the business at hand.
‘What are you wearing?’ he murmured in her ear.
‘Why?’ she growled. And why couldn’t he stay on one subject? She was beginning to feel like a ping-pong ball with Fletch waiting for her at both ends of the table!
‘Because I’m undressing you in my mind, kitten.’ His low voice was a laughing caress. ‘It helps to know what I’m taking off.’
She shuddered violently, ghostly fingers stroking down her spine, and wrapped her robe more tightly around her. ‘Damn you, Fletch. Cut it out!’
‘Is it that blue silky thing?’ he insisted.
‘Yes,’ she hissed.
‘Good,’ he murmured in husky satisfaction. ‘I thought so.’
‘And goodnight, Fletch.’ Why had she ever answered the phone? She’d never sleep now!
‘Stay in touch with him for me, Jolian, will you?’
She sighed. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Good girl. I’ll be back in town in a few days ... and, silky?’
‘Yes?’ she breathed reluctantly.
‘Don’t sleep in the middle of the bed tonight. I take up a lot of space—’ His warm, laughing whisper was cut short as she slammed the phone down.
Jolian glanced down at her watch again and then continued sketching, frowning slightly against the bright afternoon sunlight. So maybe Jem wasn’t going to show after all. She stopped again, sat tapping the butt end of the pencil against the pad, and stared across the duck pond towards the willow she had been drawing, picturing it for an instant as a graceful, sweeping bracelet in silver and the deep greens of cloisonné enamel. The imaginary greens lightened, spun into circles, took on flecks of sunny gold, and Jolian scowled in sudden recognition. Go away, she thought fiercely. Fletch had cost her enough peace of mind the night before, might just as well have shared the bed with her, for all the sleep she’d got ... He had shared the bed, blast him. Go away!
She looked around quickly, wondering for a second if she’d spoken aloud. But no one was near. The groups of chatting women, the silent men with their newspapers had long since packed up their brown bags and their sandwich wrappings, had left their benches to trail back to their offices leaving the sun-warmed grass to an old man sleeping among the pigeons, a young mother teaching her child to walk, a couple sauntering hand in hand. The public garden snoozed again in the late September sunlight, its peace all the sweeter for the distant rumble of traffic beyond the wrought iron boundary fence. Above the tops of the reddening trees, the skyscrapers loomed like far-off mountains.
Jolian checked her watch again. An hour late. No, he wasn’t going to show. As much of a nuisance as his father. She sighed, more disappointed than annoyed. Well, it served her right for not minding her own business. This proposed rendezvous went far beyond the duties of a hotline volunteer, after all. You weren’t expected to—couldn’t—get this involved with every waif who called the office. You’d be an emotional wreck in no time.
But Jem had caught her interest from his first call with his obvious intelligence, his whimsical ‘peachy keen’, his devotion to Ralph. ‘Cat lovers of the world, unite,’ she murmured wryly, beginning to shade in her sketch with precise layer
s of cross-hatching. So many of the runaways sounded like sad little losers, at least at the moment they phoned the hotline. Jem had sounded like a winner, the kind of little brother she’d always wanted when she wasn’t wishing for a little sister, years ago ... No, apart from Fletch, she would have still wanted to meet Jem, to help him if possible.
Apart from Fletch ... if you could say anything in her life was apart from Fletch nowadays, damn him. No, she’d be a liar if she denied that knowing Fletch, or rather, not knowing the man, made her all the more anxious to meet Jem.
Fletch hid himself so well behind that hard smile, that cocksure sexual aggression. But surely his son, at fourteen, would not be so well armoured yet. Whether he wanted to be or not, Jem was a part of Fletch’s life and his blood, a product of his love. In meeting the boy, she might gain a few more clues to the nature of the man behind that polished mask.
Her pencil curved down the page, idly doodled a sprawling, calligraphic T followed by r, o, u, b—Jolian caught herself and looped the pencil up the paper to the willow again, continued shading it determinedly. No doubt about it, that man was trouble. Fletch was one big walking heartache, looking for a girl to happen to. Getting involved with Fletch would be a big mistake.
But did she have a choice any more? What had happened to all her cool objectivity where men were concerned?
Well, perhaps that was the real motive behind her eagerness to meet Jem. If she could just talk to the boy, persuade him to go back to Fletch somehow, then Fletch would go away, leave her alone before she made a fool of herself. Her stomach turned a slow, queasy somersault at that thought. Or more likely, it had just figured out it had missed lunch. She finished the willow and sketched in a few lines to suggest the banks of the pond and the tree’s wavering reflection in the dark water lapping at its roots.
Or maybe she was sitting here because she’d hoped to make a gift of Jem to Fletch, just so she could watch him smile ... This was absurd.
Jolian glanced at her watch again. Well, whatever she’d wanted from this meeting, she wasn’t going to get it. Jem had stood her up. Might as well start without him. Closing the sketchpad, she reached into the bag on the bench beside her and pulled out a loaf of bread. As she ripped open the wrapper, a single white duck cruised out of the shadows below the bridge spanning the pond. Neck outstretched, he homed in on the crust she tossed, swallowed it with greedy, nibbling haste and a muffled duck-grunt. ‘You’re welcome, but don’t quack with your mouth full,’ she told him glumly.
Across the pond, the clarion, derisive Aaack ... ack ... ack of rallying ducks rang out, and two more approached in a purposeful glide, their wakes silver lines drawn across the olive-brown water. Jolian tossed them both pieces, then scowled as the larger bird surged ahead of his mate to gobble up both.
‘Pig!’ She skimmed a full slice at the slower female, who made a valiant attempt to down it whole and nearly strangled. ‘Oops!’ Jolian was suddenly very popular and very busy as she dispensed bread and comments to a converging, gabbling mob of ducks. ‘Do that once more, you bully, and you’re on my blacklist!’
‘The runt hasn’t gotten a bite yet,’ The gruff, boy’s voice beside her was carefully offhand.
Jolian blinked, then concealed her start with a careful toss. ‘I know. He may be little but he’s slow ... You turkey!’ she gasped as, head low and menacing, a black and white duck churned after the runt.
She turned to the boy and jumped—Wo!’—as her eyes met a funhouse version of her own face reflected in an enormous pair of mirror sunglasses. She watched her eyes widen and her mouth drop.
The impish grin below the glasses turned into a delighted laugh at the look on her face. He pulled the Red Sox cap even lower over his forehead and leered up at her. ‘Wanna banana, lady?’
‘I don’t believe you!’ she laughed, shaking her head. ‘No one will ever recognise you!’ The M.I.T. sweatshirt—three sizes too large—and a scruffy pair of red plaid pants completed his disguise. He was a long way from the clean-cut preppie of Fletch’s poster.
‘That’s the whole idea,’ Jem agreed smugly. ‘Keep ’em so busy staring at the outfit, they’ll never even notice my face.’ He glanced towards the water. ‘In the meantime, have you ever been mugged by a duck?’
Jolian turned to face a barrage of beady, expectant eyes. Three of the largest ducks were waddling purposefully ashore, their necks craning at the forgotten bag of bread. ‘Uh-oh. Here, take some!’ She snatched a handful of slices out of the bag and passed him the rest of it. Uttering soft quacks of consternation, the attack squad hustled back to the water as she aimed a piece at their more patient friends. ‘I’d just about given up on you,’ she told the boy.
Jem bounced a piece off the black and white bruiser and chortled as a smaller duck snatched it from under his beak. ‘Oh, I’ve been here all along,’ he said breezily.
‘You have?’
‘Yup.’
Jolian flashed him a rueful glance. ‘Looking for ambushes?’
He looked absurdly young when he was pleased with himself. He nodded coolly.
‘Trusting sort, aren’t you?’
Jem’s smile was apologetic. ‘Dad has a way of getting what he wants, especially with women, Jolian...’ He looked back at the ducks. ‘And that is a lot of money he’s offering.’
‘Mm-hmm. But I don’t sell friends.’ She left him to collect the second loaf of bread off her bench, and gave him half of it in silence.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered awkwardly.
‘If you were really sorry, Jem...’
The glasses turned towards her uneasily.
‘... you’d take off those funhouse mirrors,’ she told him gravely. ‘I never realised I needed plastic surgery before.’
His grin flashed and he pulled them off. ‘You don—’ The smile vanished as his voice broke and he tried again. ‘You really don’t,’ he said huskily.
She smiled at the compliment and turned back to the ducks. And neither did he. He was going to be as devastating as Fletch some day, but in an entirely different way.
They worked out a system of alternate bread tossing, a game of keep-away which kept the bully birds working for their share of the treats and helped the smaller, slower ducks to snatch an occasional mouthful. Bread gone at last, they retreated. Jolian knew a bakery on Charles Street which served good coffee, and they wandered slowly over the bridge towards the distant gate.
Jem left the glasses off but pulled his baseball cap lower. Jolian slanted a wry glance down at him and slowed her walk to a thoughtful saunter. ‘So why did you run away, Jem?’ she asked at last.
He scuffed the first golden leaves off the pathway, staring down at them intently. Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked yet. ‘He didn’t need me,’ Jem spoke suddenly. He glanced up at her and away, his sensitive mouth pulled into a quivering imitation of Fletch’s hard smile. Yanking the bill of his cap even lower, he aimed a vicious kick at a crumpled paper cup on the sidewalk. ‘He’s tried to be nice, bought me everything he could think of, Jolian, but all the time, I’m just in the way.’ They caught up with the cup again and he smashed it on ahead of them. ‘He’s got his girl-friends in the city... his work ... I just thought maybe he’d be happier if he wasn’t stuck with me.’
Jolian gave the cup a gentle toe-tap. ‘What makes you think he’s not happy?’
‘I don’t know ... something ...the way he looks sometimes...’ He shrugged.
‘He doesn’t seem very happy without you, Jem.’
‘He’ll get over it,’ the boy said shortly, if he knew...’ He stopped suddenly and shrugged at her questioning glance.
Jolian hooked the cup his way with her instep and frowned. ‘So you went to see your mother,’ she probed gently.
‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘for the first time since she left us.’ His breath hissed out slowly. ‘What ... happens ... if you don’t like your own mother?’
She shot him a sympathetic look. ‘Something dark and furry, with gree
n teeth, pulls you shrieking down the nearest sewer.’
Jem’s surprised laughter rang out and he dribbled the cup back to her side of the path. ‘She’s even more beautiful than I remembered,’ he confided. ‘She’s an actress—in plays, not films.’ The laughter was slowly fading from his voice again. ‘She spent two weeks trying to act like she cared about me, and finally gave up.’ Jolian collected the cup and dropped it into a trash barrel as they stepped out on to Beacon Street. Jem put his glasses back on, his smile stiff.
‘But your father cares,’ she insisted.
The boy shook his head. ‘One of them had to take me, Jolian, and of course it would be him, I know that now.’ His breath hissed again, it doesn’t mean he wanted me. It’s not even fair for him to be the one.’
Jolian sighed. He was going to take some convincing. ‘Well, I think you’re wrong about your father, Jem, but I know how you feel.’ She glanced up, noted the gap in the traffic and touched his shoulder. They scampered across the street and fell into step again. ‘My parents didn’t really want me either.’ She straightened her shoulders, surprised herself at the echo of that old pain.
The unrevealing glasses turned her way, showing her a fat-nosed version of her rueful face. ‘Were they divorced?’ he asked.
She laughed. ‘Far from it. They were—are—the most married couple I ever saw in my life! They just didn’t want ... didn’t need ... anybody else. I was an accident.’ An accident they’d been careful never to repeat, despite her childhood pleas for a playmate. She stopped automatically to check some art-deco earrings in an antique shop window.
Jem studied her face in the plate glass reflection. ‘How do you know that?’
Jolian grinned back at him. ‘I got nosy, when I was about your age, and asked my mother.’
He scowled indignantly. ‘And she told you? They sound like jerks!’
She laughed softly and pulled him away from the window, shaking her head. ‘No, they’re not. My mother just has a notion that you should always tell the truth. She told me in the nicest way possible.’
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