The Complete Novels of the Lear Sister Trilogy

by Julia London

  “Sort of,” she admitted, but again, Myron didn’t seem to hear her—he was shaking his head at the injustice of it all. And while he waxed indignantly about an unfair system, there was a little thought in Rachel’s head that Myron had been a professor of history for years now, and he’d been struggling through the very same scholarly article about pre-colonial America for as long as she had known him. Once she even suggested he find a new topic, and he had all but taken her head off.

  When Myron finished his impassioned speech about the communist basis for tenure, he returned to his sandwich, moved aside the groceries that were in his way, and settled in to finish it off.

  As Rachel put some apples in the fruit bowl, she noticed her new phone beside it. She picked it up to check for messages.

  “Hey, cool. Can I see that?” Myron asked when he saw her phone. She handed him the cell phone, continued putting groceries away. “This is really cool. Where did you get it?”

  “New York. Mom got it for me. She wants instant access.”

  “Now see, your mom understands you better than your dad, I think. She’s back in New York, right? Taking care of Aaron? He actually sounded pretty good on the answering machine.”

  The comment gave Rachel pause, and she looked out over the kitchen sink to her unkempt lawn below. “He’s really sick,” she said honestly. “The chemo and radiation have made him weak.” So sick that all he could seem to do was lie around and think of ways to badger her after Mom had cajoled her into coming to New York to look after him while she went back to L.A. to take care of a few things. It had been okay at first, Rachel thought. Stressful, because Dad was always stressful—but not unbearable. In fact, Rachel was beginning to believe that she could handle the old man.

  It didn’t get bad between them until he asked her how much her graduate teaching position was paying. “It’s not,” Rachel had answered truthfully. “The professor took a post at UCLA and I lost my internship.”

  She could recall Dad on the couch, looking bone thin and exhausted and dumbfounded. “So . . . what are you doing for money?”

  Rachel hated money. Which was sort of ironic, seeing as how she came from a family with loads of it. “I’m teaching a weaving class—”

  “A what class?”

  “A weaving class. You know, like tapestries and rugs and—”

  “I know what the hell a weaving class is, Rachel. I just can’t believe that is your solution to replacing my money. You think weaving is going to pay your bills?”

  Well no, she never thought it was going to pay her bills, particularly since she had waived the fee for half the class—hey, times were hard and people needed a break. And even though a few could pay, their fees did not add up to enough to pay her utility bill, which, in September, had swooped into her mailbox, demanding one hundred and fifty dollars that she did not have.

  At any rate, the conversation had deteriorated from there, and Dad had reminded her for the umpteenth time that he was pulling all support for her school, because she had just turned thirty-one years old and was still in school and would never finish, and because she would never finish, she would never amount to anything, and because she would never amount to anything, she would have to rely on the likes of Byron Tidwell to provide for her, but hey, if she wanted to live under a bridge somewhere, that was okay.

  Rachel would finish school, no matter if her father believed her or not. She was searching through what seemed like a haystack of hypotheses for a needle of a dissertation, and that was all she had left. And she wouldn’t rely on Myron, not Byron, for anything but friendship, but like it or not, Myron understood her and accepted who she was while her father wanted her to be someone else entirely— like her sisters, Rebecca and Robin. She was never going to be a Rebecca or a Robin. Which left the part about her never amounting to anything.

  That was the part that had sent her, fists clenched around a Big Grab bag of potato chips, on a train back to Providence.

  “Hey listen, I got something for you,” Myron said, pushing aside his empty plate. He got up, walked into the adjoining dining room where he’d dumped his stuff, and came back with a box.

  “What is it?”

  “Check it out,” he said, and beamed like a little kid as Rachel opened the box and pulled out a figurine of a dancing woman. She was wearing a blue dress with a pink sash and was holding up one side of her gown as she twirled about.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, holding it up, wondering where she’d put something like this. “I saw something very similar to this in a museum in England,” she added. Which was where things like this belonged.

  Myron nodded. “This is a copy of a French piece Lord Billingham brought from England to New York in the eighteenth century. His was bone china and hand-gilded.” As an assistant curator, Myron got an employee discount in the many gift shops of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Society, and recently had become fond of buying reproductions.

  “It’s lovely, Myron,” she said, putting it down again. “But you really shouldn’t buy me gifts.”

  “Why not?” he asked with a quick, friendly buss to her temple. “I like to give you things.”

  Right. But what she would really like to get from him was the money he owed her. She could just never think of a polite way to ask for it, and tried to think of one as she watched Myron pick up his ancient canvas backpack.

  As no polite way came to her, another thought did. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” she said, putting the figurine down. “Do you think you could get me a job with the preservation society?”

  Myron choked on a cough. “A job?” he asked incredulously as he slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Why do you want a job?” He asked as if she were asking for a shot at leprosy.

  “Because my dad is cutting me off, and I lost my internship, and I have a utility bill and a tree problem and about twenty bucks in the bank. It’s serious, Myron. I’m out of salami. So do you think you could get me one?”

  Myron adjusted the backpack, looked at the kitchen door. “Well . . . no. No,” he said again, obviously flustered. “You can’t work at the preservation society, Rachel. I mean, you have to know what you are doing—”

  “You can teach me!” she said brightly.

  He laughed as he reached for the doorknob. “I don’t think so. It’s not like it’s on-the-job training. You have to know about the history and the artwork. Besides, you don’t want to work there—the pay’s no good. So okay!” he said quickly before she could argue that some pay was better than none. “I’ll check you later, okay?” And with a jaunty wave, he stepped through the back door and shut it soundly behind him

  Dipshit.

  Rachel looked again at the little figurine he had brought her, put it back in the box, and left it on the breakfast bar while she decided where to store it. In the meantime, she picked up Myron’s dirty plate, noticed her new, multifunction phone was gone, and looked around for it. It was nowhere. Myron must have inadvertently put it in his backpack. Could he be anymore annoying?

  She put the dirty dishes away, then tried to raise Myron on the phone. He didn’t answer, of course. He probably didn’t know he had it. Rachel finally gave up and flipped on her computer to check her e-mail before she had to go teach her weaving class.

  Subject: Re: Re: Hey

  From:

  To: Rach

  F. Y. IIIIIIII you moron, the zing in our sex life is helped along by experimentation across a broad spectrum, and if you ever tell Jake I said that, I will kill you. Anyway, I just figured you and My-Ron are doing the tantric thing, so why can’t we? Just send me the stinking book already, will you? Rob

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Hey

  From:

  To:

  First of all, Einstein, Tantra is not a sex manual. It’s a way of thinking and believing and is all about the harmony of spirits. Do you even have a spirit, by the way? If you
want EZ-read pictures, go get a copy of the Kama Sutra. That should give you some broad spectrum to talk about. And F.Y. IIIIIIII, Myron and I do not practice tantric anything. Our relationship is strictly platonic. I thought I told you that! I know I did!! If you’d get your mind out of the gutter you might remember some of the very important stuff I tell you! Stop bugging me.

  Rachel

  She hit the Send button and happened to notice the time—she was going to be late for her class. She grabbed up her purse and headed for the corner grocer near class, cursing My- Ron the whole way for eating all her brownies.

  At the grocery, she grabbed a few things lest the night clerk think that she had actually jumped in her car and driven down for something as singularly sinful and indulgent as a brownie. She picked up enough trash bags to last through the millennium, some laundry soap in the event she took up laundry as opposed to sending it out, and an extra-large box of super-duty tampons, as they were on sale. With her finances in the shape they were in, that was definitely not a product she wanted to take a chance on running low.

  With those items in her basket, she nonchalantly strolled to the deli counter.

  The counter was closed, but the deli guy had left a basket on the counter with the day’s unsold products, nicely wrapped and dated. Rachel rifled through the cookies and brownies until she found an enormous double-chocolate brownie that looked to be about as big as her head. She shoved it down into her little basket, then walked briskly to the front.

  When she paid for her items, she walked outside, paused next to the trash can to pull out the brownie, and unwrapped it. She was running a little late and wouldn’t have time to scarf it all before class, but why not have a little taste? She was about to wrap it up again when she suddenly felt the presence of someone close by. She stopped mid-munch and slowly turned her head.

  There was a man in a suit standing before her, his hands shoved deep in his trench coat, his grin nice and wide. Rachel was so badly startled that when she tried to step out of his way, she dropped her bag, and the tampons went shooting out across the walk, which, naturally, she couldn’t catch because she had a giant brownie in her hand.

  “What a happy coincidence,” the Brit said cheerfully. And as he dipped down to retrieve her tampons, he smiled so warmly at her that he damn near melted her brownie.

  Chapter Five

  Rachel sprang into action, swooping down on the tampon box like a buzzard on roadkill, as Grandpa used to say, snatching it at the exact same time he wrapped his big hand around it. They looked at each other, the tampons between them. “I’ve got it,” she said, and jerked it out of his hand. Only it took her two hands to grab it, the box was so enormous. He was surely thinking she had some sort of horrific problem and she quickly stood up, which caused her to make a little sound of pain when her legs barked at her.

  “Are you all right?” bonny Prince Charlie asked, standing smoothly and effortlessly, holding her trash bags in one hand, the bag with the laundry soap in the other.

  “Yes,” Rachel said, trying desperately to juggle tampons and the brownie.

  “This is a little strange, isn’t it?” he laughed.

  Well, of course it was, and she could feel her face growing hot with humiliation for the second time that day. “Not really. They were having a sale,” she said as she finally managed to balance the tampons between her arm and her chest, the brownie on top.

  He glanced at the tampons. “Actually, I meant running into one another again,” he said, smiling, and before she had the opportunity to just die right there, he smoothly changed the subject. “You must live in the area, eh?”

  Rachel looked at him fully then, noticed for the first time that he had the sexy shadow of a beard, and his hair was a little mussed.

  “Do you?”

  “I’m sorry?” she asked, startled.

  “Live in the area.”

  “Oh!” Rachel put her free hand to her nape. “Umm . . . well, as a matter of fact, I do. Do you?” she asked suspiciously.

  He shook his head. “I’ve only recently arrived, and at present, I’m staying with friends nearby. I quite like the area, however. It’s rather quaint, really, and the people are remarkably friendly.”

  So what was that, some sort of dry-humored British joke? The people around here didn’t make eye contact. Or was he making a dig at her? She hadn’t been exactly friendly, but honestly, she’d been smelly and sweaty and—

  “By the bye, I hope you will forgive my demanding a cup of coffee earlier,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I suppose that was a bit forward of me.”

  “Oh no!” she said instantly, blushing furiously. “No, I didn’t think . . . I mean, I didn’t, ah . . . I was really in a rush,” she babbled, and noticed he still held her things in his hands. Very big hands to match his broad shoulders. Rachel couldn’t help herself; she glanced at his feet. A healthy size—she could just hear Robin now, “Big hands, big feet, big—”

  “Yes, well, I can’t have you thinking the worst. But I’ve only been in the States a few days, and I was a bit anxious for a chat with anyone who is not taking my money for some service.”

  Why in God’s name would he want to chat with her, especially having actually seen her this morning? She nodded, peeked sheepishly up at him. “Could I, ah . . . just have that, please?” she asked, nodding at her items.

  He glanced at the bag and handed them to her. Only Rachel wasn’t quite prepared to take it, what with the stupid tampons, so he politely held the bag open for her and stood patiently as she wrestled the box inside, followed by the brownie, which, she couldn’t help notice, had been hopelessly mangled in her struggle to appear calm and collected.

  “That’s a pity,” he said, peering with her into the bag at the brownie. He added the box of trash bags, then closed the grocery bag and handed it to her. As she took it from him, his fingers accidentally brushed her palm, and an amazing little shiver ran up her arm and directly into her groin. “Thanks. Thank you,” she said, and awkwardly stepped around him.

  He turned halfway around. “Should I suppose, then, that it won’t do me the slightest bit of good to ask you for a pint?”

  Okay, what was going on here? Guys like him did not ask chicks like her for drinks. Rachel self-consciously pushed her braid over her shoulder and folded her arms over the bag as she tried to sort it out.

  When she didn’t answer, he sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. “Bloody marvelous, I’ve gone and done it again, haven’t I? At least give me your name, will you? That way, the next time I’m so bloody forward, I might apologize properly.”

  He sounded so sincere that she couldn’t help it; she smiled.

  “Aha!” he said delightedly. “I’d made a small wager with myself that you did indeed have teeth. And do you perhaps have a name as well?”

  “Of course I have teeth,” she said, her smile deepening. “And the name is . . . Rachel.”

  “Thank you, Rachel!” he said with a bow, as if she’d done him an enormous favor. “I’m Flynn.”

  Flynn. How dashing. How British. She flashed another self-conscious grin, and still clutching her bag, she began to walk toward her car.

  “Ah . . . Rachel?” he said after her. She turned around, still smiling stupidly. “Would this mean that you are declining my offer of a drink?”

  “Oh!” she said, laughing a little as her blush deepened. “Thanks . . . but I can’t. I have class.”

  “Ah. And it wouldn’t do to skive out of it, I suppose?” he asked with a gorgeous, dazzling, GQ smile. If GQ guys ever smiled. If they did, they would look just like Flynn.

  In fact, his smile was so dazzling that she was somehow walking backward, smiling back, her bag clutched tightly against her as she laughingly shook her head. “I can’t! I’m the teacher!” she said, and jarred herself right out of the clouds by stepping off the curb and stumbling backward into the parking lot before righting herself. All righty, then! If ever there was a cosmic sign, that was it— wi
th a quick wave, she turned and hurried to her car.

  Flynn Oliver shook his head as he watched her get into her little yellow car and drive off. A smidge odd, that girl, but really rather pretty with a bit of tidying up, wasn’t she? Her eyes, which he’d not, apparently, appreciated fully this morning, were a teal blue, and in her woolen jumper and long black skirt, with her hair loose down her back, she looked exactly like what he’d always pictured an all-American girl to be. Rather charming, really.

  With a shake of his head, he walked into the grocer. After a bit of wandering about, he picked up some kippers, sliced bread, and a six-pack of what Americans called beer, then headed for what was temporarily home.

  As he passed through the lobby, he said good evening to the night clerk. “Hi, Mr. Oliver,” the night clerk, a goth kid, said. “Do anything fun today?”

  “Nothing that you’d find terribly exciting,” he said with a wave, and got in the lift. It took him to the fifth floor and a small corporate apartment.

  He pitched the keys to his rental car on the table, put down his bag, and shoved out of his trench coat and suit jacket before proceeding to the kitchenette and putting away the few things he’d bought to supplement the eggs and cheese he had purchased two days ago.

  Beer in hand, Flynn loosened his tie and walked to the phone, pressed the little blinking light indicating there were messages.

  “Flynn, darling!” Iris’s voice, accompanied by music and voices in the background, pierced the quiet of his flat. “You naughty boy, I’m frightfully worried about you,” she exclaimed. “Really, you haven’t rung up in days, so do please ring us, will you, darling? Ta-ta, love.”