I soak for a few minutes, but I need to get going. I leave my hair wet and slip into a Juicy Couture sweatsuit that Morgan had brought and slipped into the bathroom. It feels like pure luxury, but I don’t have time to focus on good gym wear. I’ve got to get home.
I come out of the bathroom devoid of garbage and actually refreshed to see Morgan tearing up again. “I’ll be back,” I announce as casually as I can.
“Go, Lilly. You’ve waited a lifetime for this day. We’ll be fine,” Morgan assures me.
I brush out my hair and look at Morgan who’s still a bit ashen. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“I’m fine. I knew this might happen someday.”
I look into her gorgeous eyes, and I can’t say I’m too disappointed she’s not getting married, but I wish the man hadn’t died to free her from the commitment.
I take my hugs all around and dash to the lobby to find transportation home. The clerk behind the counter is obviously upset at my appearance. I am Garbage Girl and certainly not the image they’re looking for here in the wine country. Of course, my hair, starting to wave already, is straggled around my face, and it’s so thick that it won’t be dry before I reach home.
“Going somewhere?” Stuart appears behind me, and I feel my lungs fill up with air at the sight of him. If he truly is the creep Morgan makes him out to be, I see none of it.
“Home,” I say in a rasp, trying to find my voice. “I was just getting a taxi,” I say, not adding, which I can’t afford, but credit cards were invented for emergencies, am I right? Of course, mine were also invented with this horrible thing called a low credit limit too. But how much could it cost to get home? It’s only an hour or so. “Can you call me a taxi?” I say to the desk clerk.
“I’ll take you home,” Stuart says, his deep voice dripping with that heavenly English accent. “I’ve been called away for an urgent business meeting.” Stuart tosses his bag, complete with zippered tennis racket compartment, over his shoulder. My stomach betrays me, doing that butterfly thing again at the sight of him.
If I have such incredibly bad taste in men, why can’t I truly see it at all? See, he seems nice. He is offering me a ride. White knight rescues the princess and all that. Right?
“So what do you say, Miss Lilly? May I offer you a ride?”
“You’re going home? I thought you were having dinner with us.” I thrust a hand to my hip. He was going to stand me up!
Stuart brings his hand to my chin. “Does dinner with the woman you’re trying to leave behind along with the woman your heart cries out for sound cozy to you?”
I’m embarrassed to say that this cheesy line completely works on me, and I’m putty in his hands. He is just so incredibly gorgeous! And he says it with that English accent. Did you hear that? His heart cries out for mine! I think back to Nate’s kiss. Excuse me—Stuart’s kiss that I accidentally wasted on Nate Goddard—and I just don’t know which way is up any longer.
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t have been cozy,” I whisper back, sort of breathy like Caitlyn. Maybe that’s why she talks that way—it’s Stuart!
“Where are your bags?” Stuart asks.
“Long story. I’m ready.” I look into his chocolate brown eyes, and I see nothing that Morgan warned me about. Not one thing. If Stuart Surrey is bad to the core, I only see a plump, delicious red apple hanging in front of me, ripe for the taking. No core in sight.
“Does your having no luggage have something to do with your being in the garbage bin?” Stuart asks.
“Let’s leave that alone, shall we?” The last thing I need is to relive my worst no-Lysol nightmare. Even the thought makes me crave a good spray of Green Apple Breeze!
Stuart leads me to his car, and I notice when we get outside he does look back over his shoulder. Sort of like Lot’s wife. I cringe, as I feel incredibly like the “other woman.” Morgan’s voice is suddenly ringing in my ear. You’re not the best judge of men, Lilly. Clearly. I wonder if my mother had that problem too. Yikes! I’m meeting my mother. The reality of that has yet to sink in because right now, I’m trying desperately to see what Morgan means about Stuart.
I’m having second thoughts. Being alone with Stuart is not the best idea because, although I see nothing that Morgan is warning me about, I do trust her judgment and know she’s really on my side. I just believe with my whole heart that Stuart wants to leave Caitlyn in the past, and she won’t let him go. He’s just trying to let her down gently, surely. And playing a round of golf while staying comfortably ensconced in her daddy’s hotel is letting her down how? I try to ignore the niggling voice in my head.
“Are you sure you’re ready to leave the hotel, Stuart? If not, I can catch a—”
“I’m ready, Lilly. I told you, I have a meeting.” He looks down on me, my skepticism apparently obvious. “Caitlyn and I are taking a break. Really.” He gives me a sideways smile.
“Why?” I allow my eyes to narrow threateningly at him.
He simply laughs. “Pardon me?” Stuart helps me into his BMW and leans over the open door.
“Why are you taking a break? How are you taking a break? Are you breaking up with her? Are you afraid to commit? Or are you worried there might be someone better out there?”
Stuart slams the door, comes around to the driver’s seat, and slams his door behind him. “My, aren’t you straightforward?”
Really now, what do I have to lose? Except my heart and my good reputation.
“Stuart, you asked me out. I see you at a hotel with another woman, playing golf. Then you’re in her room. You owe me nothing, so I don’t know why you’d bother with the façade. I appreciate the compliment you’ve just given me, but my life is complicated, and so is yours. I’ve enjoyed our little flirtation—”
“Wait a minute.” Stuart slams on the brakes at the stop sign at the hotel’s exit. “I think perhaps I’ve made myself unclear.”
“Granted, you can’t really dump someone that you don’t actually have a relationship with,” I ramble. Then I remember Robert. “Well, technically, I guess you can, but I’m not dumping you. I’m just saying you’re good-looking, you’re charming, and you have a rich, beautiful girlfriend. I think you should stick with that. A bird in the hand, and all that—” I gaze out the window at the lovely vineyard on the rolling hills, proud of myself for my very mature stance.
Majestic oaks dot the canvas, and I wonder how on earth I get myself into these things. Although Morgan got herself into an engagement, Poppy got herself in a bad-fashion ditch, so maybe it’s the three of us together. What does a Christian call bad karma?
“Lilly, I think perhaps you’ve misunderstood. I was looking for a friendship, not a romantic entanglement.”
I’m gonna die.
“Well, with you, I mean,” Stuart continues. He drives out onto the main Napa road with a thrust of German engineering. “Maybe I do want something better for myself, but I just felt like I knew you, like I could confide in you.”
“About?” My heart is aflutter. I have the distinct feeling this is not something I want to hear.
“You really are unlike anyone I’ve met before.”
And haven’t I just made for a very long, uncomfortable ride home?
“So,” I clap my hands together. “Then what shall we talk about? Are you a Forty-Niner fan?”
“Not really, no. Rugby, actually.”
I’m now having a visualization of Colin Farrell in mud-drenched shorts. So wrong.
“Rugby. I don’t know anything about rugby, other than it’s violent.”
“It is,” Stuart agrees.
“So, how did you meet Caitlyn?”
“I met her at church. Lilly, I really feel I should explain something.”
“Must you?” I mumble. “What did you like about Caitlyn when you met her?” Bringing up the old girlfriend definitely serves my purpose. It reminds me that Stuart is a bit of a louse and helps me avoid whatever dire news he seems anxious to share with me
.
“Her confidence. Do you want to know what I liked about you when I met you?”
“No,” I answer severely. “Not really.”
“I’m not the player you think I am. I’ve been seeing a woman that I think highly of, but I don’t think it has the potential for much more than that. Do you understand what I mean?”
I laugh. “Men who don’t see potential? They move on quickly.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s why Caitlyn and I were here today. I had no idea you’d be here with Morgan.”
“I was up last night working. I’m a little tired,” I say, changing the subject. “I think I’ll just take a little nap.” And I lean my head back against the BMW’s lush leather seat. My eyes are fluttering, as I’m far too nervous to sleep, but I can’t bear to hear what Stuart wants to tell me. Not today. Not right now.
chapter 23
Where are you headed?” Stuart asks. I open my eyes and see we’re on the Golden Gate Bridge under a crisp blue sky with the bright W red bridge thrust into the scattered clouds. The ocean to my right, the San Francisco Bay to my left, the world’s most beautiful city before me, and the heavenly cliffs of Marin County behind me. I breathe in deeply. I’m home.
“Where to?” he asks again.
“I’m going to my grandmother’s. She lives in the Marina.”
Stuart turns toward me. “Your grandmother lives in the Marina? Impressive.”
“She rents a room there.” I have to admit, I never once thought about Max Schwartz, television critic, owning a home in the Marina. It’s one of the most posh areas in San Francisco, and why did it not occur to me that a newspaper salary and that home didn’t go together? Sometimes I think I’m the most selectively nonobservant person alive. I can notice the tiniest stitching detail on a Coach handbag but miss an entire mansion—pardon me, estate—that Max shares with my grandmother. My fears are confirmed. I am an imbecile. What is Max going to think when I drive up with a man in a BMW? When he knows I’ve been in the wine country for a respite. That’s all I need—him telling my Nana I’ve been on some sort of sordid getaway with a man in a great big foreign sedan.
I give Stuart directions from the bridge to my grandmother’s place. I’m completely paralyzed at the thought of meeting my mother. Will she like me? Will she think I’m loose for coming back with a man to meet her?
“Will your grandmother drive you home?” Stuart asks. “Do you want me to come back for you?” Just by the way he offers, I can tell it isn’t really an offer. It’s his way of saying, “I’m a gentleman, and that’s what gentlemen do; but please find your own way and spare me any more of this chauffeur business.”
“No!” I swallow over the lump in my throat. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here. Thanks for the offer though.” As false as it was.
“Call me on my cell if you need a ride, all right?” Stuart slides me another business card, and half of me wonders if pharmaceuticals are all this man is selling. He’s as smooth as a freshly Zambonied patch of ice.
“Thanks.” We pull up in front of my grandmother’s place, and Max is outside the house, trimming a small hedge while he balances on his good leg. “I really appreciate the ride, Stuart.” I try to race out of the car, and Stuart grabs my arm.
“I’ll prove it to you. What I said is true. I am moving on.”
“Thanks again!” I wave at him and slam the door. “Max!”
“Lilly,” he says, without emotion.
“Well, that was quite a trip. A whirlwind tour and all that!”
“Who was that?” Max nods toward the taillights of the BMW.
“Morgan’s friend, Stuart Surrey. He was at the hotel with—with his friend, and he offered me a ride home when Nana called.”
“I would have sent a car for you,” Max says, his eyes meeting mine. “You didn’t need to resort to him.”
“He was there at the hotel. With his girlfriend,” I finally admit.
“I heard about Mildred’s visitor. Don’t worry about Sunday night. We can call things off. We’ll just reschedule when the timing is better.”
I feel real disappointment here. Nothing will ever happen with Max, but at least something was happening with me. A few days ago, I had three men I thought were possibilities. Now, I have none, and while I probably should be focusing on putting food on my table…heck, having a table…it’s still a tad deflating.
There’s something about the way Max looks at me, like he understands what I’m about to face. I don’t for a moment get him, or his unlikely concern for my grandmother, so sure, I question his motives. But right now, I have no one else.
I grab his hand and look him straight in the eye. “I’m scared to go in there.” I nod toward my grandmother’s apartment. “What’s she like?”
Max shrugs. “She’s…she’s sort of…hard-looking.”
“Hard-looking?” I ask.
“Like she’s lived a hard life. She looks older than she must be if she had you so young.”
Max’s words don’t soothe me. I’m trembling now, and the idea of going into that lion’s den is the last thing on my agenda. “Take me home, Max. Please? I should be back there with Morgan. I never should have left.”
“I can’t drive, Lilly.” Max looks down at his broken leg apologetically. “Come on.” He puts down his pruning scissors behind the gate. “We’ll go in together. I have a very commanding presence,” he winks. “It’s the journalist in me. Scares people.” He laughs.
I take his hand, and I feel everything within me shaking. I can’t catch my breath, and I cling to his hand tightly. Put one foot in front of the other, I tell myself. Max walks with one crutch and leads me into the doorway where Nana is hunched over the sink, scrubbing the finish off it, no doubt.
“Nana?”
“Lillian,” Nana exhales. “You’re here.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s in the bathroom freshening up. She’ll be out soon.”
I look to Max, and I know my face is panic-stricken. This is my mother. The woman who gave birth to me, then left me with someone she barely knew. “What do I tell her I do for a living?”
“You’re a designer, Lilly,” Max reminds me.
“Not an employed one.” I try to laugh, but it only comes out a muffled sob. Max wraps his arm around me, and brings my hand to his lips. He brushes my hand with the softest kiss, and for a moment I completely forget where I am. Lord in heaven, I just want out of here.
“You’re the best designer I know,” Max says.
Again, I try to laugh through my tears. “And you know how many designers?”
“You’d be surprised who I’ve met in my father’s hotel. Maybe you’re better than Donna Karan. Did you ever think of that?”
When I look up at Max, there’s something in his eyes that makes me all of a sudden want to kiss him. There are moments in life when God puts just the right people in place. This is one of those times. I pull my gaze away. I know it’s just the emotion of the moment and needing to be wanted. Isn’t it? I mean, an hour ago I was lusting over an Englishman with a girlfriend, who seemed more than anxious to ditch me in some special way. Clearly, I’m having major issues and mass confusion. This is not the time to be thinking about romance, a subject which I fail at regardless of my timing.
The bathroom door slowly opens, and I swallow hard, trying to calm my beating heart. I fear she’s going to know how nervous I am, just by hearing my throbbing pulse. She walks toward me, and I clutch Max’s hand until I see his fingers go white. I force myself to let go and allow my eyes to swallow the vision: she’s nothing like I imagined all these years.
“You’re blond” is the first thing out of my mouth. She has lovely, long blond hair and deep hazel eyes. There’s not a sign of frizz or the need for John Frieda anywhere on her person. And her skin…it’s not olive like mine. It’s ruddy with a pink tinge; and she has full, round cheeks. She’s not a small woman, and I’m beginning to wonder if I might have
been switched at birth. Because she also actually has a bust. All right, Lord, what happened?
“I used to be blond,” she says. “Now I pay dearly for the privilege.”
We both laugh nervously. I see that she does look like life has taken her down a rough path. Lines are etched strongly in her cheeks and around her mouth, and I smell the cigarette smoke on her and maybe just a touch of pine-smelling gin. Where’s my Lysol?
“Do you live in San Francisco?” I ask her, thinking about how many times I’ve searched the crowd, wondering if she might be out there somewhere. Wondering if I’d see my own eyes staring back at me one day in the city. I never would have looked for a blond, though. Or a woman with a bust. I clearly got robbed.
“No, I live in Missouri.”
I laugh, thinking about my lack of geographic knowledge, and my friends saying I should know where Missouri is on the map. I guess they were right.
“What do you do there in Missouri?”
“I have a family. Two boys and a girl.”
I gasp. These words hit me hard—really hard. I never once thought about another family, but of course she has another family. My mind races to process this. “I have brothers? And a sister?”
“They don’t know about you yet. Here are some photos I brought for you. Alisa is sixteen. Jeremy is fourteen, and Joshua is thirteen.” She hands me the pictures, and three towheaded blond teenagers stare back at me. “I didn’t want to tell them in case you didn’t want anything to do with me. But my husband knows. I came with his blessing. I’ve kept you a secret all these years. But as you got older, I wondered if you might seek me out. I decided to be proactive.”
Nana is busying herself in the kitchen. I have no idea what she thinks of this meeting. This is the woman who slept with her eighteen-year-old son. Right before he died. The woman who abandoned her granddaughter one Sunday afternoon without warning and left me for her to raise. She left to get some diapers and never returned. Nana slams a cookie sheet on the countertop. All right. I guess I have some idea what she thinks.
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