by Wendy Wax
She spent most of puberty telling herself that her mother had been nothing more than a vessel who’d carried her father’s DNA. On the morning of her sixteenth birthday she’d finally conceded that her height, which was nowhere near tall enough for the size of her chest, and the blond hair, blue eyes and Kewpie doll features that resulted in an immediate deduction of IQ points and caused strangers to talk to her slowly using really small words were, in fact, unwelcome ‘parting gifts’ bequeathed by the absent Deirdre Morgan.
In architectural terms Avery was a Fun House façade wrapped around Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. It was that façade that nullified her architectural degree and the years spent on her father’s construction sites and that had encouraged two television networks to try to turn her into the Vanna White of the Do It Yourself set.
Avery drew a deep breath of freshly sawn wood, shook a ton of sawdust out of her hair and smiled. It was a heady scent, filled with new beginnings, borderline heavenly, one that conjured her father and everything she’d learned from him in a way nothing else could.
She took in the room that had been designed for Chase’s father, who’d fallen and fractured both his hip and femur just before she and Deirdre had moved in. The newly framed walls, just laid hardwood floor. Windows stacked against one wall waiting to be shimmed into their openings. She ran a hand over the shelf of a bookcase that she’d built around the front window. The large bedroom/bath/sitting room would be warm and cozy. Most importantly, it would be barrier free.
“It’s looking good.” Chase Hardin, who had once been a contender for the title of most annoying man in the world, stepped up behind her, hooked a finger in the tool belt slung low on her hips and pulled her closer.
“Yeah. The space will be perfect for your dad. He’ll be right here with you and the boys, but he’ll have his independence, too.” She turned in his arms and looked up at him. “I hate to leave before the addition’s finished.”
“I know. But it means a lot to Dad that you and I have been working on his new space together.” Jeff Hardin had been her father’s longtime partner in the construction business they’d founded and that Chase now ran.
The mother who’d abandoned Avery at thirteen had returned almost two years ago and refused to leave. She and Deirdre had been working with the Hardins since they’d finished shooting the first season of Do Over. They’d moved into the Hardin’s garage apartment in January after Bella Flora sold.
Chase buried his face in her hair. “Mmmmm. What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”
Avery snorted. “I believe that would be “Tresor de two by four. Or perhaps zee Poisone de Pine.” She tried for a French accent and failed miserably.
He nuzzled her ear. “I like it. Maybe we should bottle it.”
“Great idea. I’m sure we could sell a ton of it at Home Depot.” She laughed. “Right next to the Drano and Commercial Cleaning Products.”
“Hey, there are a lot of men who like the smell of a woman who knows her way around a construction site.” He nuzzled her other ear. “Of course they like her to be wearing less clothes than you have on right now.” His hands dropped down to cup her bottom. Which vibrated on contact.
“Wow,” Chase said. “That’s incredibly . . . responsive. I’m flattered.”
“Very funny,” she said already reaching a hand toward her shorts’ pocket, which was in fact buzzing. “I asked Kyra to let me know when they were close.”
Pulling out her cell phone she held it up so that she could read the screen. The text read Amset air in HaRrin funjom.
They looked at each other. “I don’t understand it. But I know who sent it.” Madeline Singer’s thumbs and her iPhone were often incompatible. She claimed she’d been a lot more comfortable with her smart phone before it got so smart.
Avery peered down at the screen again to check the time. “I was so into the bookcase, I forgot to order the pizza.” She swiped at her T-shirt. Fresh shavings sprinkled to the floor. “I know I’ve got the delivery number in here somewhere.”
Many of the meals they’d shared with Chase, his two teenage sons and his increasingly frail father had been delivered. Few of them had required silverware. She began to scroll through her contacts.
“I have it on speed dial,” Chase said. “But Deirdre took care of dinner.”
“Deirdre?” She asked. “Deirdre ordered pizza?” Deirdre continued to claim that all she wanted was to be Avery’s mother and to make up for abandoning her. But none of her efforts to build a mother/daughter bond had included a willingness to lower her epicurean standards.
“Not exactly. I think the appetizer is a liver pate of some kind. The main course is pampano en papillote.”
Avery groaned. “I don’t know why your dad gave her that apron and those cooking lessons for Christmas.”
“Hey, there’ve been four males living in this house for way too long for me to see a downside to a home cooked meal of any kind. And he was smart enough not to give them to you,” Chase said.
“Ha. Deirdre always has an angle. She took mothering lessons from Maddie in Miami. Now she’s trying to become Betty Crocker. If she thinks she can turn her reappearance in my life into some Brady Bunch reunion show, she’s crazy.”
“I agree that she has a lot to make up for. No one’s ready to pin the mother of the year medal on her chest. But she did throw herself in front of a bullet for you,” Chase pointed out.
This was still almost as hard to believe, as it was to dismiss. “Well, all I know is Maddie and Kyra have been on the road for eight hours with a toddler. Greeting them with ground up goose livers and fish cooked in a paper bag is ridiculous.” Avery hurried through the newly widened doorway and into the family room.
In the kitchen Deirdre was arranging crackers around a mound of pate. Jeff Hardin sat at the kitchen table, his walker within easy reach. A bowl of fancy nuts and an opened bottle of red wine sat breathing on the counter.
“There.” Deirdre slid the plate of hors d’ oeuvres closer to Jeff and untied her apron. She wore a periwinkle blue silk pantsuit that looked as if it had been dyed to match her eyes. She was built just as small and big breasted as Avery, but the cut of her tunic top downplayed the D cup that dwelt beneath it. A pair of strappy sandals gave her an extra couple of inches.
Avery wore a pair of Daisy Dukes, a chopped off Do Over T-shirt, and an ancient pair of Keds. Which just went to prove that the apple could fall far from the tree if it tried hard enough.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Deirdre said giving Avery the once over. “But there’s time if you want to shower and change.”
That had been Avery’s plan until Deirdre brought it up. “I’m good. Thanks.”
With a snort of laughter Chase reached in the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. “Dad?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Chase handed his father a beer then opened one for himself. He slathered pate on a fancy cracker and popped it in his mouth. “Mmmm—mmmmm.”
Deirdre beamed at him. Avery gritted her teeth and went to the pantry.
“Where are the Cheez Doodles?” she asked scanning the shelves.
Deirdre raised an elegant eyebrow. “I believe we’re out.” She said this with a regretful tone that was no more convincing than Avery’s French accent. “But if you put them on the shopping list I’ll . . .”
“Forget to buy them. Again.”
“They turn everything they touch orange. There’s no telling what they do to your internal organs,” Deirdre said.
“I’m thirty-six-years-old. My internal organs belong to me. And you showed up on the scene way too late to influence my taste in food.”
Deirdre rubbed her arm where the bullet had gone in.
Avery rolled her eyes. “She does that every time I even think about disagreeing with her.”
“Which is pretty much a
ll the time,” Deirdre said.
“My Cheez Doodle habit is my own business,” Avery pointed out.
“That’s true. But I think ‘habit’ is the operative word.” Deirdre’s chin jutted forward. Her hands fisted on her hips.
It was like looking in a freakin’ mirror.
There was a strangled laugh and Avery turned her attention to Jeff and Chase.
“Sorry,” Jeff said smothering his smile. “I just never can get over how much you resemble each other when you square off like that.”
“Well, I think orange dye on a woman is kind of sexy,” Chase said. “Add a little sawdust and . . .” He managed to shrug and leer simultaneously. “I’m a goner.”
Jeff guffawed.
“Fine. Laugh all you want.” Avery settled on a bag of mini pretzels. Which was a poor substitute for the air filled cheesiness of her favorite snack. She was munching the little twists when the doorbell rang. “I’ve got it.” She strode to the front door, pulled it open. Kyra stood on the front porch with Dustin in her arms. Madeline stood beside her. She was already hugging Maddie when she spotted movement on the sidewalk.
“Halo Avery!” The voice was loud. The accent British. The tone overly familiar. The tabloids had gone crazy over Kyra from the moment they’d discovered she was pregnant with Daniel Deranian’s child. It had only grown worse since Dustin was born. “Are Deirdre and Chase inside?”
The photographer was tall and lanky. A pack of paparazzi jostled each other behind him. They looked completely out of place on the modest tree-lined street. Like a pack of wolves hunting sheep in a grocery store.
A digital flash went off. Avery fell back a step.
“Come on, Kyra luv!” The Brit coaxed. “Just one clean shot and we’ll be on our way.”
“That’s Nigel and he’s lying,” Kyra said with a shake of her head. “Last week in Atlanta I was at a drive through waiting for Dustin’s Happy Meal when I heard his voice on the speaker. I hesitated for just a second, because you don’t hear all that many English accents at a fast food place and I’d already paid for our food. A whole herd of them jumped out from a bush right next to the cashier’s window.”
Another flash erupted. Avery looked up and the flash went off again. She had a brief vision of what she was—and wasn’t—wearing.
“Avery. Darlin.” Nigel urged. “If you can just get her to turn around for . . .”
Avery grabbed Kyra’s free hand and pulled her the rest of the way into the foyer. Maddie tumbled in after her. Avery shoved the door closed behind them.
“I’m so sorry,” Kyra said. “I don’t even know where they came from. I didn’t see anybody tailing us down from Atlanta. Although there was this really homely woman wearing what looked like size 13 shoes in the stall next to me at the rest stop.” Kyra sighed. “That’s how bad it’s gotten. I’ve been reduced to checking out feet in stalls! But I thought we were safe. I didn’t even think about wearing a disguise. Plus there was no way I was making an eight hour drive in a burqa.”
Dustin rubbed his eye sleepily. One side of his face showed signs of contact with what must have been a corduroy car seat. His dark curls looked smashed from sleep.
Chase and Deirdre came into the foyer. Maddie set down their overnight bags. “I need to get Dustin’s booster seat and porta crib out of the car.” She squared her shoulders and turned back to the door with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner about to face a firing squad.
“I’ll get them.” Chase took the mini-van keys and offered a mock salute. “Cover me! If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, send reinforcements.”
“If I had a gun I’d gladly cover you,” Kyra said. “I don’t know how to get rid of them. I just keep praying that a real celebrity will show up to distract them.” She propped Dustin up in the crook of her arm. “I mean where are Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan when you really need them?”
Keep reading for a preview of Wendy Wax’s latest novel
WHILE WE WERE WATCHING DOWNTON ABBEY
Available now from Berkley Books
Chapter One
As a child Samantha Jackson Davis loved fairy tales as much as the next girl. She just hadn’t expected to end up in one.
Every morning when her eyes fluttered open and every night before she closed them to go to sleep, Samantha marveled at her good fortune. In a Disney version of the airline passenger held up in security just long enough to miss the plane that goes down, or the driver who runs back for a forgotten cell phone and barely avoids a deadly ten-car pileup, Samantha averted disaster in the once-upon-a-time way: she married the prince.
Over the past twenty-five years Samantha had sometimes wished she’d spent a little more time and energy considering alternatives. But when your world comes crashing down around you at the age of twenty-one, deep thinking and soul-searching are rarely your first response.
There was plenty of precedent for prince-marrying in the fairy-tale world. Sleeping Beauty had not ignored the prince’s kiss in favor of a few more years of shut-eye. Cinderella never considered refusing to try on the glass slipper. And Snow White didn’t bat an eyelash at moving in with those seven little men.
It wasn’t as if Samantha had gone out searching for a man to rescue her and her siblings when their world fell apart. She hadn’t feigned a poisoned apple–induced sleep or gotten herself locked in a tower with only her hair as a means of escape. She hadn’t attempted to hide how desperate her situation was. But the fact remained that when the handsome prince (in the form of an old family friend who had even older family money) rode up on his white horse (which had been cleverly disguised as a Mercedes convertible), she had not turned down the ride.
The fact that she hadn’t loved the prince at the time he carried her over the threshold of their starter castle was something she tried not to think about. She’d been trying not to think about it pretty much every day for the last twenty-five years.
* * *
Samantha smiled sleepily that early September morning when her husband’s lips brushed her forehead before he left for the office, but she didn’t get up. Instead she lay in bed watching beams of sunlight dance across the wooden floors of the master bedroom, breathing in the scent of freshly brewed coffee that wafted from the kitchen, and listening to the muted sound of traffic twelve floors below on Peachtree Street as she pushed aside all traces of regret and guilt and renewed her vow to make Jonathan Davis happy, his life smooth, and his confidence in his choice of her unshaken.
This, of course, required a great deal of organization and focus, many hours of volunteer work, and now that she was on the downhill slide toward fifty, ever greater amounts of “maintenance.” Today’s efforts would begin with an hour of targeted torture courtesy of her trainer Michael and would be followed by laser, nail, and hair appointments. Since it was Wednesday, her morning maintenance and afternoon committee meetings would be punctuated by a much-dreaded-but-never-complained-about weekly lunch with her mother-in-law. Which would last exactly one hour but would feel more like three.
Samantha padded into the kitchen of their current “castle,” which took up the entire top floor of the Alexander, a beautifully renovated Beaux Arts and Renaissance Revival–styled apartment building in the center of Midtown Atlanta.
When it opened in 1913, the Alexander, with its hot and cold running water, steam heat, elevators, and electric lights, had been billed as one of the South’s most luxurious apartments. Like much of mid-and downtown Atlanta it had fallen on hard times but had been “saved” in the eighties when a bottom-fishing developer bought it, converted it to condos, and began the first of an ongoing round of renovations.
A little over ten years ago Samantha and her prince spent a year turning the high-ceilinged, light-filled and architecturally detailed twelfth-floor units into a four-bedroom, five-bath, amenity-filled home with three-hundred-sixty-degree views and north– and south-
facing terraces.
For Samantha its most prized feature was its location in the midst of trendy shops, galleries, and restaurants as well as its comfortable, but not offensive, distance from Bellewood, Jonathan’s ancestral home in Buckhead, one of Atlanta’s toniest and oldest suburbs, where both of them had grown up and where his often-outspoken mother still reined.
The doorbell rang. As Samantha went to answer it she pushed thoughts of Cynthia Davis aside and gave herself a silent but spirited pep talk. She’d married into Atlanta royalty. Her prince was attractive and generous. A difficult mother-in-law and a life built around pleasing others was a small price to pay for the fairy-tale life she led. As Sheryl Crow so aptly put it, the secret wasn’t having what you wanted but wanting what you got.
* * *
Shortly after the morning’s training session ended Samantha rode a mahogany-paneled elevator down to the Alexander’s marbled lobby. The gurgle of the atrium fountain muffled the click of her heels on the polished surface as she took in the surprisingly contemporary high-backed banquette that encircled the deliciously carved fountain. Conversation groups of club chairs and sofas, separated by large potted palms, softened the elegant space. A burled walnut security desk, manned twenty-four-seven, sat just inside the entrance. The concierge desk sat in the opposite corner and commanded a view of the lobby as well as the short hall that accessed the parking garage and the elevators.
“Good morning, madam.” Edward Parker’s British accent was clipped, his suit perfectly tailored, his starched shirt crisp. His manner was deferential but friendly. A relatively recent addition to the Alexander, the concierge was tall and dark with rugged good looks that seemed at odds with his dignified air. “Shall I have your car brought around?”
“Thank you.” She was of course capable of simply going into the Alexander’s parking garage to retrieve her own car, but the last time she’d insisted on doing this Edward had looked genuinely disappointed, and the minutes saved would come in handy if she ran behind or hit traffic between appointments or on the way to lunch with her mother-in-law. Punctuality was a virtue that Cynthia Davis prized; tardiness a vice to be stamped out at all cost.