Masquerade

by Janette Rallison

  Was it?

  Meredith had as much as said that Slade was interested in her. But maybe Meredith was just a romantic. Or hopelessly optimistic. The memory of every single middle school crush suddenly flooded into Clarissa’s mind. How many times had a friend told her, sworn to her, that a certain boy liked her, and then the next day the same boy would be hanging out with some other girl?

  You couldn’t depend on a third-party opinion when it came to love. Which was another reason to hate the whole dating thing.

  Maybe it would be best to be disguised as someone else. It would give her the information she needed to decide how to go about telling him the truth.

  Clarissa got out her phone and fingered it while she ran through possible scenarios with Alex. He was probably upset she’d run off for a wild fling with Slade, thought she was unstable, and thus no longer a capable mother. In this case, Clarissa would swallow her pride and tell Alex the truth. She wasn’t Slade’s girlfriend; she was his daughter’s nanny.

  And from now on she wouldn’t let her pride lead her into making foolish decisions like sending things to Renea.

  What an educational trip this was turning out to be. She had now committed to shun both dishonesty and pride. Before she boarded the plane for California, she’d most likely be dispensing with all her sins.

  Clarissa punched in Alex’s work phone number.

  A moment later she heard his voice. “Hello?”

  She waited for the stream of emotions that always came when she heard his voice. The hurt, the anger, the hollow sadness. None of them came this time. It was just Alex’s voice.

  “This is Clarissa,” she said. “I heard you called.”

  “Yes,” he said, and the word alone was an accusation. “What is going on with you? First I get a call from a reporter, and then I see this picture of you and Elaina off with Slade Jacobson in Hawaii—”

  “That wasn’t Elaina,” Clarissa cut in, and suddenly it all seemed so ludicrous. He didn’t even recognize his own daughter. “Elaina has straight blonde hair, not curly light brown hair, and she’s a year younger than the girl in the picture.”

  “If Elaina isn’t with you, where is she?”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t with me. I just said that wasn’t her in the picture. I thought you might want to know.”

  “My point is still the same,” Alex said. “I gave you half of everything I own, and I’m paying child support. If you’ve taken up with some rich guy, I don’t think I should have to give you anything. You’re probably better off now than I am. You ought to be paying me.”

  It wasn’t the hurt that made her take a deep inward breath, it was the surprise. He wasn’t upset about her running off on a fling with a movie star or her failings as a mother or even about Elaina. It was about money.

  She thought about telling him he paid hardly anything as it was. She thought about accusing him of all the ways he wasn’t a good father. She thought about bringing up how she’d worked two jobs over the last few months in an attempt to make ends meet. Somehow, as she held onto the phone, she realized it was a useless waste of emotional energy.

  I am better off than you are, she wanted to say, but not in the way you think. I’m better off because somehow I’m going to get through this a better person.

  She kept her voice calm. “The judge made a decision, and you’re obligated to it. If you don’t like it, you can discuss it with your lawyer. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Maybe I will call my lawyer,” he said, and then hung up the phone.

  She knew he wouldn’t. The fees he’d have to pay his lawyer to take the case to court again would exceed anything he’d get in reduced child support. Alex was just being nasty—which didn’t bother her as much as the fact that he hadn’t been concerned about Elaina. He hadn’t asked to speak to her. He hadn’t even asked how she was.

  Clarissa put down the phone, then went and peeked in on Elaina sleeping. The little girl lay on her bed, her blonde hair haloing her head. She looked so serene, so precious.

  She needed a father who cared about her. Someone who wanted to play with her in the swimming pool and talk with her on the phone. Just like Clarissa needed a husband, someone who would love and support her.

  And the only way she’d ever get either was if she opened herself up enough to care about someone, even if it meant getting hurt in the process. Without risk, there couldn’t be love.

  Chapter 30

  Slade and Bella didn’t stay long at the Aloha Tower. Bella found it only a mildly-interesting building and wanted to walk around the harbor instead. At lunch they stopped at a seafood restaurant. Slade couldn’t eat his shrimp cocktail without remembering the way Clarissa jumped around the hotel dining room, shaking her shirt while pieces of fish fell to the floor.

  He momentarily considered not leaving for California in the morning. It would be nice to stay here vacationing with Clarissa. He pictured her on the beach, her hair fluttering in the breeze and her swimsuit hugging her curves. Then he erased the image from his mind. This was exactly the reason he needed to go back to California. Then Clarissa would be safely home with her perfectionist husband, and Slade would stay as far away from her as he could.

  He had it figured out. When Clarissa tended Bella, he would leave before Clarissa came and not come home until after she left. Meredith would be there during the transition times and could take care of the payments and correspondence. That way Bella would still have the nanny she wanted, and he’d be out of temptation’s reach.

  After lunch Slade and Bella walked around the marketplace, looking at shells and tourist items. He bought her a Hawaii T-shirt, a child-size grass skirt, and a shaved ice.

  “Are we gonna get something for Elaina and Clarissa?” Bella asked as they walked along.

  “I think that would be a good idea,” he said. “Why don’t you pick out something for Elaina, and I’ll pick out something for Clarissa.”

  Bella quickly found a shell necklace she thought Elaina would like. Slade couldn’t find anything to give Clarissa. He wanted something that would tell her how much she meant to him, and somehow a T-shirt just didn’t convey that message.

  After looking for awhile, Slade decided to forget tourist items, and they drove to a jeweler’s. “You can help me choose,” he told Bella as they walked in. Because, after all, Clarissa couldn’t turn down a gift Bella had picked out.

  He wanted to get her a ring. Instead, he settled for a pair of black pearl earrings with tiny diamond accents. He would tell her they were for going above and beyond the call of a nanny by subjecting herself to a shirt full of dead fish in order to retrieve his child from underneath the salad bar.

  She couldn’t refuse that, could she?

  He picked up a pearl brooch for Meredith. She liked brooches, and if he gave her a gift too, it would make his gift to Clarissa seem less inappropriate.

  A little after five o’clock they headed back to the resort. Bella was overly excited to show Elaina her gift, and as soon as they arrived at the hotel, she insisted they take it directly to Clarissa’s room.

  Meredith, not Clarissa, opened the door. She smiled at the two of them. “Did you have a nice day?”

  “Yes,” Slade said. “Where’s Clarissa?”

  “I gave her the evening off. I thought it would be better if I watched the girls, you know, in case Zorro showed up.”

  Slade smiled despite himself. “Better for Clarissa or better for you?”

  Meredith returned his smile without missing a beat. “I’m still deciding.”

  Bella ran into the room and over to where Elaina sat in front of a coloring book and crayons. Without waiting another second, Bella pulled her gift from its bag and put it around her friend’s neck.

  “Isn’t it pretty?” Bella asked.

  “Ooooh,” Elaina said with wonder.

  Slade walked over to the girls. “It’s a present for you,” he told Elaina. “Bella picked it out.”

  Bella bobbed
her head. “And I helped picked out the earrings for Clarissa too.”

  Slade frowned at his daughter. “Hey, that was supposed to be a surprise.” Then to Elaina he said, “I want to show them to your mom before anyone tells her about them. So can you keep it a secret?”

  Elaina nodded and held the shell necklace up to look at it better. “I’m good at secrets. I haven’t told about the D force at all.”

  “The D force?” Slade asked. “What’s that?”

  “That’s why we don’t live at Daddy’s house anymore.”

  Slade stared at her, letting the words sink in. “You don’t live with your father anymore?”

  “Nope,” Elaina ran her fingers across the shells. “But he still loves me.”

  “Your mother is divorced?” Slade asked again.

  Elaina held a finger to her lips. “It’s a secret.”

  Clarissa had lied to him? Why would she have lied to him about being married? He turned to Meredith. “Where is Clarissa? Is she at the hotel somewhere?”

  “She’s out sightseeing,” Meredith said calmly.

  “Could you be more specific?” He pulled his cell phone and his car keys from his pocket. He wanted to talk to Clarissa about this, but he would do it in person.

  “You can’t go looking for Clarissa now,” Meredith said. “It’s a big island, and you’re in no mood to talk to her about it anyway.”

  “I’m in exactly the mood to talk to her about it,” he said back.

  Meredith glanced over at Elaina, then walked closer to the door and motioned Slade to follow her. When they were far enough away from the children, she whispered, “It’s always shocking to find out someone has lied to you, but I’m sure Clarissa had her reasons. If you talk to her about it now, you’ll just end up yelling at her, and I don’t think that’s what you want to do.”

  “It’s exactly what I want to do,” he whispered back. “I trusted her. I tried to protect her from Landon. I thought I was going to hell for wanting a married woman. The least she owes me is a really good explanation.” He pressed her number into his cell phone. A phone on Clarissa’s end table rang. She hadn’t taken it with her. He scowled and swore.

  “You need to calm down before you talk to her,” Meredith repeated.

  Slade noticed the time displayed on his phone and he swore again. “No, actually I need to get ready to pick up Kim.”

  “Kim,” Meredith said, considering the word.

  Slade narrowed his eyes at Meredith. “You don’t seem terribly surprised by the whole divorce thing.” His eyes narrowed even further. “Did you know all along that Clarissa was single?”

  Meredith put up one hand as though pledging. “I can honestly say that before today I thought she was a married woman.”

  He grunted, then opened the door to leave.

  “Slade,” she called after him. “Wait.”

  He didn’t want to. “When Clarissa comes in, tell her I need to talk to her. Tonight.” He let the door close behind him and stalked down the hall to his room.

  Chapter 31

  Clarissa sat on a cheap plaid couch in the lobby of the Sunset Park Motel and changed her mind every thirty seconds as to whether she should stay or not.

  It was ridiculous. The whole scheme was ridiculous, and the sooner she called it off the better. She needed to get up, walk out of the building, go back to her rental car, and find some service station where she could change back into normal clothes.

  The lobby clock read 6:50. She still had ten minutes to escape. Or ten minutes to sit here while every passing person gawked at her.

  Why couldn’t Kim have wanted to be something normal for Halloween? A surgeon or an Arabian princess, perhaps. But no, it had to be Cat Woman, and now Clarissa was stuck on a couch in a skintight leather and spandex outfit, looking like a hooker with an identity crisis.

  The only saving grace of the whole thing was that none of the people who were now staring at her would ever recognize her again. Except for the holes around her eyes and lips, the costume covered every inch of her skin. And just to make the outfit complete, she had worn blood red lipstick and dark gray eyeshadow. When she had looked in the mirror earlier, she’d hardly recognized herself. Certainly no one else would.

  Of course, that still didn’t mean she would be able to pull off the whole charade. Clarissa had no idea how to act like a botanist, let alone an English one. Meredith had let Clarissa read Kim’s undeleted e-mails. There weren’t many of them, and they weren’t very informative. All Clarissa knew about Kim was that she was specializing in something called systematics and that she thought the inevitable extinction of a quarter of Hawaii’s natural plant species was a tragedy of epic proportion. She just had to hope Slade never actually brought up the subject of botany.

  The English accent was another thing to worry about. As Clarissa sat tapping her cat claws against the couch, she thought of British terms. In England elevators were lifts, apartments were flats, gas was petrol, policemen were bobbies, and flashlights were torches. Something on a car was a boot, and something else was a bonnet, although she couldn’t remember which was what. Probably none of these things would come up in the conversation anyway.

  Why hadn’t she watched more of those educational British shows?

  Clarissa looked up at the clock again. It read 6:54. If she got up right now and ran all the way to the parking lot, which she vaguely remembered was called a “car park” in England, she might make it to her rental without Slade seeing her. He would never know what she’d done. It still wasn’t too late.

  Clarissa shifted on the couch but didn’t get up. For all the horrible images she had of the night, another image, a better one, kept replaying in her mind. In this scenario everything went fine. She and Slade had a wonderful time talking and dancing together. Then as Slade drove her back to her hotel, she asked him about his nanny. He hesitated for a few seconds, then told her how much he cared about Clarissa. A look of longing filtered through his eyes, and he murmured, “If only . . .”

  Then the moment of Clarissa’s bravery came. She said, “Slade, you once told me that we all wear masks. Since then I’ve thought a lot about the masks I wear. Some are for politeness— but I have other masks—masks I use to protect myself.

  “I have a self-reliant mask, so I won’t have to need anyone. I have a cynical mask, so I won’t have to trust anyone. And I have a victim mask that allows me to wallow in self-pity, so I won’t have to move on with my life. Being with you makes me want to take the chance of unmasking myself.” Then she would reach up and peel off her mask.

  In this fantasy scenario, her hair was still lush and beautiful after taking off her mask, not stuck to the back of her neck in a sweaty clump, as it undoubtedly would be. In the fantasy, Slade always wore an expression of pleasant surprise.

  In real life it might be very different. Well, if she took off her mask at all.

  She looked up at the clock: 6:57. Maybe he’d be late. Maybe he was stuck in traffic somewhere, or lost, and wouldn’t show up. Maybe she still had hope for an escape.

  And then she saw him walking through the lobby doors. Slade always had a powerful presence. As he strode into the lobby dressed in black, a cape flowing behind him, Clarissa didn’t know whether to laugh or to gasp and stare. He strode over to her. “Kim?”

  She stood. “You must be Slade. Either that or the masked crusader has finally tracked me down.” The accent didn’t come out as well as she would have liked. She sounded like a nervous Eliza Doolittle, and now she was stuck with it.

  He cocked his head, smiled at her, and said nothing.

  “What?” she asked. “Are my ears on straight?”

  “Yes, it’s just that . . .” His smile grew. “You’re much . . . taller than I remember.”

  “Well, I should hope so. I was only ten when you last saw me.”

  He looked her up and down, shaking his head. “You don’t look ten anymore.”

  No, she thought, now I look like a streetwa
lker with a personality disorder. She smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  He held his hand out to her. “Shall we go?”

  “Let’s.” She took his arm, and they walked out of the lobby. Slade smiled all the way to his car. In fact, Clarissa couldn’t remember when she’d seen him so uncommonly happy.

  During the car ride he asked her about her flight, the weather in Sheffield, and how she liked her motel. Then he said, “Tell me about what you’re doing here in Hawaii.”

  “I’m studying the plant life,” she said, tapping a claw against her knee.

  “I’ve always found plants so fascinating,” he said. “What exactly is it you do?”

  “Well . . .” she shrugged as though not even she found it interesting enough to talk about. “Basically, I gather plants and examine them under a microscope.”

  “What do you look for?”

  That would have been a good thing to research before this date. “Different things,” she said. “Cell structure. Disease. Photosynthesis. That sort of stuff.”

  “Photosynthesis? You can see that happening under a microscope?”

  Umm. Maybe not. She had no idea.

  She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “If you have the right type of microscope.” She should have brought her cell phone, she realized. If she’d brought a phone she could have faked some sort of emergency and insisted he take her back to the motel. She hadn’t brought it, though, because she didn’t have a place to put things, and she’d had the fear that Slade would call her—Clarissa—and grow suspicious when Kim’s phone suddenly went off. But now she was trapped in the car trying to remember the difference between chlorophyll and chloroform and hoping she didn’t have to use either of those words in the near future.

  “I’ve never understood how photosynthesis works,” Slade said. “Could you explain it?”

  No, not really. She glanced over at the dashboard and faked a gasp. Slade looked first at her and then at the dashboard. “What?”