“With the girls gone I’m a little at loose ends.”
“No more clothes to toss?”
“None. But I spent yesterday cleaning. I feel caught up.”
“How does that feel?”
“Good.”
I picked up my tray of yellow paint and my paintbrush, ready to climb back up on the ladder and cut corners.
“Paint fumes aren’t good for the baby,” Rachel said.
I glanced around, half expecting to see Mrs. Ably. “Don’t say the B-word.”
She arched a brow. “Not talking about it doesn’t mean the B isn’t smelling fumes.”
“We’ll keep the windows and doors open, and, remember, we bought the nontoxic paint that doesn’t smell.”
She picked up a can and read the back label. “Seems like any smell would be bad for the baby.”
“I’ll get a fan. This is our only time to paint.”
“So what do I do?”
I took the can, opened it, and poured it into the paint pan. “I cut corners and you roll.”
Rachel shook her head and reached for the brush. “I’m a master at edging cakes. I’ll cut in at the corners.”
I handed her the brush. “Have at it.”
And so she cut neat, precise lines while I rolled the long strokes that connected her edgings. We worked in silence for several hours. Painting was a simple, mindless task for the most part, and right now I craved simple. The smell was a little strong but with the door open and a breeze blowing I managed.
After a good four hours both of us were tired of the work and ready for a break. Rachel made us ham sandwiches, and I grabbed a couple of sodas from the refrigerator in her apartment. We sat picnic style on a blanket in the center of the newly painted room.
“It looks bigger without all the pictures on the walls,” I said. “I like it less cluttered.”
She pulled the crust off her bread. “It definitely looks different.”
“You want the pictures back?”
“Not all of them. But it would be nice to have some. Our history is important.”
“We’ll sift through them later.”
“Sure.” As she said it, Rachel sounded broken and sad. I thought about the pictures of Mike that had been on the wall. One more reminder he was gone.
“I know it’s different, Rachel. I wish I could give you your old life back.”
“Thanks.”
“But we’re here now, and we’ve got to make the best of it.”
“I know. And I’m trying.”
“Me, too.”
My cell rang and I glanced at it. “It’s Dad.”
She frowned. “Wonder why he’s calling you?”
“Let’s find out.” I hit Send. “Dad, how goes it?”
“We’re hanging tough.” His voice sounded rough and tired.
Chuckling, I said, “Let me put you on speakerphone. I’m here with Rachel.”
“Sure.”
I hit the Speaker button and immediately could hear the girls hollering in the background. I glanced toward Rachel, but she didn’t seem worried, as if she’d heard the sound a thousand times.
“Dad,” she said. “Are they driving you insane?”
“They are little angels,” he said. “But they are loud little angels.”
“Where’s Mom?” I said.
“She’s making sandwiches in the kitchen.”
“Can you put your phone on speaker, Dad?”
“What button do I push?”
“The green one on the top right.” I’d gotten them new phones for Christmas. They had all the bells and whistles, but so far all they’d done was call in and out.
Dad sighed into the phone. “If I lose you then call me back.”
“You won’t cut me off.”
I could hear him muttering oaths mixed in with “life was simpler when each house had one phone attached to a wall.”
“Dad? Green button,” I shouted.
“Hello, hello,” he said. “Do I still have you?”
“We’re here, Dad,” Rachel said. “Mom, can you hear me?”
“Oh, I sure can, dear,” she shouted. “How are you doing?”
“That’s my question to you. Surviving the girls?”
At the sound of their mother’s voice the girls stopped singing and squealed. “Mo-oom!!!”
Her eyes brightened. “Hey, girls. Are you being nice to Grandma and Grandpa?”
“Yessss.”
Rachel shook her head. “Are you sure? Are you taking quiet time each day like we talked about?”
Silence.
Mom cleared her throat. “We’ve been on the go so much there hasn’t been much time for sitting, Rachel.”
Rachel leaned toward the phone. “Mom, my angels turn into devils when they are sleep deprived.”
“They’ve been a delight.”
This was not the woman who raised me. That woman had never sounded calm in the face of chaos.
“How’s the bakery, Daisy?” Dad said. “The renovations coming along?”
“We’re getting it done one brick at a time. Jean Paul is finishing up wiring today. And the new freezer will be here by Friday or Saturday.” And with luck we wouldn’t run into major wiring problems and the floor wouldn’t collapse.
“You still painting the front of the store?”
I picked up Rachel’s crust and nibbled on it. “As we speak.”
“Same color?”
“Pretty much, Dad.” I glanced at yellow walls needing a second coat to cover the blue. “So how’s the weather?”
“Hot,” Mom said. “We are going to putt-putt golf tonight. And then tomorrow we’re going to the place where you mine for gemstones. It’s in a nice air-conditioned building, they give you a pail of rocks, and you spend hours sitting and digging looking for gems.”
“Will I find a diamond?” Anna said.
“I don’t know,” Mom said.
“Will I find a diamond?” Ellie said.
“Count on twenty minutes max, Mom,” Rachel said.
“Send me your positive thoughts, Rachel,” Mom said. “Think at least one hour.”
Smiling, Rachel shook her head. “I will think as hard as I can.”
“Hey, Mom,” I chimed in. “Maybe if you click your heels three times the girls will spend the entire afternoon going through the rocks one by one.”
“Funny, Daisy. Just you wait, dear. One day you will be a mother, and then I will sit back and laugh.”
“My kid is going to be perfect.” The conviction behind the statement surprised me. “She’s going to be doing mathematical equations while I read my favorite novel.”
Both my parents laughed.
Dad lowered his voice a notch. “Ten bucks says Daisy’s kid is a ballbuster like her old mom.”
“We can only hope,” I said.
“Can I write those words down?” Mom shouted.
“Okay,” I said. They were talking about the grandchild they thought would never be. I was talking about the baby scheduled to arrive by Christmas. Suddenly, all Mom and Dad’s jokes took root. Was the kid going to be a ballbuster? Shit.
Rachel stared at me wide-eyed as if to warn me I played with fire. “We’ve got work to do. If you people of leisure will excuse us, we’ve got walls to paint.”
“See you two lovebirds in a week.” I turned the cell over to Rachel.
Mom and Dad said their good-byes while Rachel took the phone, retreating to a corner to speak to her girls.
As I tossed the remains of my sandwich away, my thoughts turned to the kid and then to Gordon. I moved to the window and glanced toward his yellow bike shop. We’d had our talk two days ago and I sorta hoped he’d cool off, see I was as thrown as he was, and return. He was always the pea
cemaker and the one who talked me off the proverbial ledge.
Down the street, he emerged from his shop, shepherding an electric blue bike outside. A teenager followed and watched as he tested the brakes. Frowning, Gordon pulled a screwdriver from his pocket and made adjustments before pronouncing the bike good to go. I’d learned over the last few months he took safety very seriously. I’d kidded him about it weeks ago, and his expression had grown serious. Screw up a company and send it out of business like I did, and you’d worry about the details, too.
Gordon glanced up, a smile on his tanned face. He pushed his long hair back with his fingers and watched the kid ride off. He turned and for an instant his gaze captured mine. I wanted to shrink from the window, but I stood steady, holding his gaze, raising my hand, hoping he’d smile back and saunter to the bakery. Instead, his expression hardened, and he turned and walked back into his shop.
A hard lump formed in my throat as tears burned my eyes. He had every right to be pissed but . . . I really wished he wasn’t.
I pulled back my shoulders. I didn’t handle rejection well at the best of times. And right now was not the best of times. “Rachel, I need to take a break.”
“What?”
“I’m going for a walk.” I didn’t dare face her for fear I’d really cry. “Keep the phone and finish your call. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Okay?”
“Never better.” My hand on the door, I jerked it open.
The door closed behind me, bells jingling madly over my head. I thrust unsteady hands in my pockets and headed down the street away from Gordon’s shop. I didn’t know where I was going, but I needed to move. To do. And not to think. I didn’t want to dwell on the kid, the disaster renovation, or Gordon.
I ambled for several minutes before I remembered Jenna. The Alexandria Gazette. Stood to reason she might have been mentioned at some point. A wedding announcement. Birth announcement. Some details to tell me a little more about the woman who’d worked at the bakery. From many of Margaret’s ramblings, I remembered the original papers were held in Richmond at the state library, but microfilm copies were available here. It could take hours and days to find a mention of Jenna, and that was time I did not have. Margaret, however, knew the shortcuts.
Realizing I didn’t have my phone I went back to my apartment, taking the back staircase to the third floor. There were dozens of important tasks I should have been doing but right now all I cared about was Jenna.
I opened e-mail, knowing Margaret’s went straight to her phone, and typed.
Margaret,
Hope your adventures with the dead are as thrilling as you hoped. All’s well here. Mystery of recipe box is bugging me big time. Know anyone who has access to local papers who can track references to Jenna? E-mail or text.
I leaned back against the wall and scanned my inbox, which was fairly full of junk. No word from Terry and I couldn’t say I was surprised. For her to suddenly open up in an e-mail seemed a stretch.
Still, her nonanswer hurt, not because I was looking for another mother. I had one. But I wanted a connection with the woman who’d given birth to me. And I also wanted information about my birth father’s DNA.
I logged on to the Internet and typed on a whim: Who is Daisy McCrae’s birth father? Bits and pieces of the search popped up. A Daisy in England. A woman searching for her birth father. A McCrae in Kansas. But of course the universe had no illuminating answers for me. It was about as helpful as Terry.
“Who the hell did you hook up with back in the day?”
From my desk drawer I pulled out the picture of Terry and me on the day of my birth. She’d been pretty with her long sleek black hair, and her smile was vivid. She looked happy when she’d been holding me. She’d looked like she was willing to give it her best shot.
Had she gone to my birth father? Had he been at the hospital when I was born or had he taken this picture? Had he rejected her and me? Had she told him, or worse, did she not know who he was?
As a kid I’d never given him much thought. All my musings had been for the woman who’d raised me for three years and then left me on the bakery steps. I’d developed long and complicated stories about her, but he’d barely registered. Once I’d imagined he’d been a brave prince killed in a war, but for the most part he remained faceless and unimportant.
Now, however, he was important. He was half my genetics. One quarter of the kid’s DNA. And like it or not, he mattered. I wasn’t looking for Father Knows Best or a daddy. I had Dad like I had Mom. But a 411 on my DNA would be good.
“Shit. He’s probably a serial killer locked away in Leavenworth. Terry said she didn’t have great taste in men, so it stands to reason she’d pick the worst of the worst.”
Absently I smoothed my hand over my puffy belly, which still looked more fat than pregnant.
I wanted to tackle motherhood better than Terry, and part of doing that had to do with DNA. The kid’s bio dad wasn’t a Father Knows Best type. I held no illusions that I’d contact him and he’d rush to my side with an engagement ring in hand. Roger hated, with a capital H, kids. He didn’t want any. And on some level I was relieved he wouldn’t make a big fuss.
But the kid deserved to know him. The kid was going to look at me one day and ask me about Daddy. And I knew I’d have the answers. I would find out more about Roger than his taste in scotch and his favorite stock option. I would. Soon.
Just not right now and not today. One problem at a time. Bakery rehab. Freezer install. Prenatal checkup. And tell the parents they were not only parents to a ballbuster but would by Christmas be grandparents to one.
Christmas. The kid was due at Christmas. I’d yet to live through the holiday season as the manager of a bakery, but I’d lived through enough as a kid. It was all hands on deck. Dad often worked twenty hours a day. Mom worked every second she wasn’t doing something for us, and we all helped after school.
By the time I was in high school I’d come to dread the holidays. Yeah, we were closed early on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, but we were so tired it was all we could do to heat up lasagna and open presents.
And this year I would be short a sister and birthing a babe in the midst of chaos. Dropping my head back against the desk, I closed my eyes. I did have a knack for choosing the worst time.
We were going to have to hire help. I’d not really thought it through when Margaret had said her good-bye, but I knew we’d have to hire a couple of teenagers to help in the back. I’d make a sign in the morning and put it in the window. We had enough interest from kids in the past, so filling the job shouldn’t be but so bad. I hoped.
My computer pinged and an e-mail appeared in my box from Margaret.
I knew u couldn’t resist. I’ve put out the word to the powers that be, and you should have answers soon. Keep checking e-mail. BTW, dead body in iron coffin and submerged in water. Coming up with plan to raise it. This is so f-ing cool.
Margaret
Smiling, I shook my head. Only Margaret would be knee-deep in water and mud with a two-thousand-pound iron coffin and talking about the coolness of her life.
A dozen smart-ass retorts danced in my head, but I couldn’t seem to type a one. Instead, I typed, You go, girl!
I’d no sooner hit the Send button when another e-mail popped up in my inbox. I didn’t recognize the e-mail address, but thinking it might have been one of Margaret’s network, I opened it. It was from Terry.
Chapter Ten
Wednesday, 3:30 P.M.
9 days, 18.5 hours until grand reopening
Income Lost: $1,500
Traveling now. Will contact you soon. T.
Terry’s brief, terse message lingered with me as I rolled the second coat of yellow paint on the bakery wall. I couldn’t shake the simple message she’d most likely tossed out with little thought. I dissected the word choices, the sentence structu
re, and the way she’d signed with an initial instead of her name.
Traveling. Where was she? I knew she lived in New York. Was she headed back to Alexandria? I was, after all, going to make her a grandmother at fifty-one.
And why couldn’t she have said when she was calling me? Would it have killed her to elaborate on Soon? A date and time weren’t asking much. And how about signing her name? I didn’t expect Mom, but how about spelling out Terry. And what was with her omitting my name in the e-mail?
The spin of senseless questions had me leaning into the paint roller as I applied the second coat. “Shit.”
“What’s with the shit?” Rachel cut another corner with paint. “Is the baby okay?”
I shoved out a breath. “The kid’s fine. I’m actually feeling a little half human.”
“A step in the right direction. Maybe you are through the worst of it.”
“I’m thinking the worst of it arrives when I’m holding my screaming bundle.”
Rachel grinned as she dabbed her brush in the paint can and wiped away all excess paint. “That’s the best part. It’s the part that makes you glad you went to all the trouble.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.” I reloaded the roller. “The shit is for Terry.”
Rachel’s smile eased. “Did she answer your e-mail?”
“She did. She’s traveling. She’ll call me soon.”
Cutting a straight neat line along the seam between the wall and ceiling, she shrugged. “That’s a good e-mail, Daisy, for her. What are you moping about?”
“I don’t know. Why can’t she answer a simple question? Who is my birth father?”
“Maybe that’s what she’s going to do once she contacts you. Might not be an easy conversation or e-mail to send.”
“Yeah, because I’m still her dirty little secret. She still hasn’t told her husband and sons about me.”
Rachel pursed her lips. “You don’t know for sure.”
“I know.” Rushing to get paint on the wall, I overloaded the roller and a huge dollop fell on my shoe. “Damn it.”
“Look, Daisy. Slow down. I know you’ve a lot on your plate right now. I know. Take it one step at a time.”
Sweet Expectations (A Union Street Bakery Novel) Page 13