“What do they have to be nervous about?” Jocelyn complained. “They all know each other.”
“How do you know that? There might be a lot of new people coming in.” Johanna put her coffee cup in the sink, where it would remain until she had a chance to deal with it. Housework had acquired a fairly low priority in her life these days. She searched for the right words, something that would make her daughter feel better. “This isn’t a small town, honey, where everyone knows everyone else. People move around a lot in New York.”
Jocelyn looked unconvinced as she toyed with oatmeal that had grown cold and hard.
Johanna eyed the mess. She wouldn’t have eaten that on a bet. But Jocelyn had always loved oatmeal. Until now. “I borrowed Joshua’s car so I could drive you over.”
Jocelyn remained unimpressed. She pushed her breakfast away. “You like him, huh?”
In order to have something to do with her hands as she mulled over the right way to address the question, Johanna swept away the bowl of dried oatmeal and deposited that in the sink as well. “Joshua’s a friend from a long time ago.” It didn’t answer her daughter’s question, but then, she didn’t think she could answer the question, not honestly. She didn’t want to, not even to herself.
Jocelyn played with the button on her vest. “He seems pretty nice.”
A smile rose to Johanna’s lips. “Yes, he is.”
“Think he’d let me work at the gallery?” Jocelyn asked suddenly. Hope sprang into her eyes with a half-formed thought.
Johanna was about to ruffle her hair, then stopped, her hand still up in the air. Jocelyn had mumbled a blue streak over brushing her hair just right this morning. Johanna dropped her hand to her side and stuck it in her dress pocket. “You’re a little young.”
“He wouldn’t have to pay much.”
Why did it hurt so much to be young, Johanna thought. Not so long ago, she was this same insecure girl, wandering off to college in the big city. And then, she remembered, she had met Joshua and she wasn’t lonely any more. “If you mean in place of school, the answer is no. You’re too young. They’d send me off to jail.”
Jocelyn’s eyes lost their momentary light. “Just thought I’d ask.” She drifted off into her own little world as she looked out the window. “Did you know he had paintings of you?” she asked out of the blue.
“Who?”
“Joshua.”
Johanna walked over to face her. “What do you mean, paintings of me?”
“In his apartment. I saw them the night you worked late at the show. I kind of found them leaning against the wall in his bedroom.”
Paintings? Paintings of her? He had been painting her? Her pulse quickened and then stayed at that high rate. No, it wasn’t what she thought. She wouldn’t romanticize it any further than the truth. Joshua has always said she had great lines for a model. It was as simple as that. “What were you doing in his bedroom?”
The thin shoulders beneath the vest shrugged. “I was kind of, you know, bored, so I explored.”
“What else did you explore, young lady?”
Jocelyn made a face. Johanna felt a touch of guilt for interrogating Jocelyn when the girl was really so nervous. “Nothing.”
“Let’s go,” Johanna linked her fingers with Jocelyn’s. Icy hand met icy hand. She was nervous for Jocelyn as well. Jocelyn’s eyes held a question in them. “Mothers get nervous for kids, too. C’mon, before traffic gets heavy.” For the time being, she locked away the information that Jocelyn had given her.
A bright royal blue sweater was carelessly tossed over Jocelyn’s shoulders, its sleeves knotted about her neck the way she had seen a friend in L.A. wear it. “If I’m lucky, there’ll be gridlock.”
“Let’s go, optimist.” Johanna shut the door behind them.
Johanna had chosen the private school on Lexington and Third because she had hoped for a better environment for her daughter. Jocelyn was used to a certain lifestyle and while Johanna didn’t condone elitism, she had to admit that the idea of sending Jocelyn off to a public school in New York City frightened her. From what she read in the newspapers, the element there was just what she was trying to get Jocelyn away from: drugs and easy sex begun too early. Knowing that it was next to impossible, she still wanted to try and protect her daughter as much as possible.
As she dropped her off at the imposing double front doors, Johanna prayed that Jocelyn would like the Rosewood Academy.
“Want company?” Joshua asked.
Johanna whirled around, dropping the album of prints
she was holding. Joshua made a grab for it. Together they rescued the book from crashing to the ground. “Thank you,” she murmured, feeling clumsy and foolish. She let Joshua take possession of the gilt-edged album that featured some of the paintings the gallery had to offer. “What did you say?”
“I asked if you wanted company.” He set the book down on the black onyx tabletop. “You’ve been looking at your watch every five minutes for over an hour. I figure it’s almost time to pick up Jocelyn. I thought that you might want company.”
Yes, she wanted company, and yet, she knew it was a mistake to get so accustomed to having him around all the time, to keep enjoying his company. She sought refuge in a simple ploy. “But the gallery—“ Johanna gestured around as if it were another entity that needed constant watching.
“Kathy can take care of anything that comes up this afternoon. Besides,” he pointed out, whispering the news to her, “in case you haven’t noticed, it’s like a morgue in here today. Might as well take advantage of slack time.” He grinned.
“What do you mean?” Because he beckoned, she followed him to the back office.
Joshua took out her purse from the bottom drawer of the desk and held it up before her. “Haven’t you ever wanted to play hooky?”
Yes, oh yes, from everything. “Not recently.” Johanna accepted her purse.
“You don’t lie very well, Johanna. I can see it in your eyes. You’re a born hooky player.” He ushered her out into the gallery. “Kathy,” he called out.
The young woman came around the corner, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “Yes, Mac?”
“I’m taking off with Johanna to pick up her daughter. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Keep the home fires burning, okay?”
“Sure thing.” Kathy sighed as she watched them leave.
Romance always made her sigh and she could spot one a mile away.
Joshua was certainly laid-back about work, Johanna thought as she sat down in the passenger side. How unlike Harry he was. All Harry could ever think of was “better,” every movie always had to be better than the last one. He had always been trying to make a bigger blockbuster, reaching out toward sensationalism at the cost of substance.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Joshua said as he guided the car out of its narrow parking spot.
Instinctively, she knew he didn’t want to hear that she was thinking about Harry, even fleetingly. “Do you always just take off?”
“No, sometimes I work around the clock.” He stopped the car, waiting for an opening in the flow of traffic on the street. Waiting was an art one developed while driving in New York. “Then I reward myself.” He saw his chance and took it, squeezing his car in behind a cab. A horn blasted behind him. He didn’t seem to notice. They had merged into the slow, endless stream of traffic. “Otherwise, the gallery would own me instead of the other way around.”
She sat back. “You have a point.”
“I always have a point,” he told her and was rewarded by the sound of her soft laughter. It echoed around him in the car. It was good to see her smiling again. These photos he had seen of her in the various magazines, the smile always seemed artificial, as if it had been pasted on just for the moment. He had always wondered if she was happy. Now he knew.
He also realized that he should have fought to make her stay when she had told him about her intentions. There was no time like the present to make up for the past.
“How does Rockefeller Center sound to you?” he asked suddenly.
“In reference to what?” She looked up in the rearview mirror and watched a car stop just inches away from their bumper as the light turned red in front of them.
“Dinner.”
Johanna’s mind swung around to the conversation. “I, um—“
There was fear there. Always that little flash of fear. “With Jocelyn.”
She let out a breath. “You want Jocelyn to come with us?”
“Why not?” he asked easily. The car moved forward again as the light turned green. A pedestrian darted by quickly, trying to make it across. “The fact is, she doesn’t eat with her hands and only rests her elbow on the table when she thinks you’re not watching.”
“Joshua, you don’t have to be this nice to me.”
“Why?”
Because you’re melting me, that’s why. Because my daughter says you have paintings in your bedroom with my face on them and I’m afraid to think about what that means. For both of us. “If you have something else to do—“
He pretended to turn the matter over in his mind for a full two seconds. “Not a thing I can think of. How about it?”
“Let me ask Jocelyn. She might just want to go home and kick the furniture.”
He laughed. He knew the feeling. “That happy about going to school, huh?”
“I almost had to drag her. The last time 1 had to do that, she was in kindergarten. I think they still have her heel marks in the cement back there.” Johanna grinned fondly. All of her most memorable flashes from the past involved Jocelyn. Only Jocelyn. “She can be very stubborn when she wants to be.”
He leaned over and touched her chin as he braked at yet another red light. Miss one, you miss them all, he thought. “Wonder where she gets it from.”
“I’m very easygoing.”
“Ha.”
“What do you mean, ‘ha?’”
He shifted his foot to the accelerator as they inched further along. “Don’t forget, I sat next to you on the debating team.” It was then he had fallen in love with her passion. It was evident in every word when she argued for a point she believed in. He had always wondered what that passion would feel like, directed toward him.
“It’s hard arguing with someone who knows all your skeletons. “
“Not all, Johanna.” He said it so mildly, Johanna looked at him for a moment.
No, not all. But I will, he promised himself. And when I do, we’re going to find a way to make you forget them and not be afraid to live again.
There was no parking allowed in front of the school. Joshua double parked next to a light blue mustang across the street.
“Here, you get out and wait for her. I’ll circle the block.” He glanced at the traffic that was thickening on the street. “Easier said than done,” he murmured with a sigh.
By the time the three of them were together again, it was half an hour later. Jocelyn looked thoroughly miserable about the day she had spent.
“I don’t want to go back,” she informed her mother as she sat in the back seat her arms folded defiantly in front of her. Her new textbooks had been dumped unceremoniously on the floor. Jocelyn rested her heels on them in absolute contempt.
“That bad, eh?” Joshua asked. He glanced to his right and saw the distressed look on Johanna’s face.
“They were awful. Somebody said I had an accent. Can you imagine? Me? They’re the ones with an accent.” She glared out the window at the streets as they drove by. “I hate it here.”
Johanna opened her mouth, but it was Joshua who said, “Give it time.”
“Why?”
“It might grow on you,” he suggested.
“Yeah, like a fungus.”
He turned to look at her for a split second. “Got homework?”
“No. Just covering my books and things. Why?”
“Well, I thought that if you didn’t have any homework, we might stop at the Strand after dinner. There’s a new Rick Renfield movie opening tonight.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her eyes open wide.
She leaned forward, grasping the seat with her hand. “Can we, Mom?” Can we?”
Johanna looked at Joshua. “I think you’ve earned yourself a friend for life,” she said in a stage whisper. Joshua saw the gratitude in her eyes. “How did you know she liked Renfield?”
“He was plastered all over the tee-shirt she was wearing the night of Bruce’s exhibition at the gallery. I figure you don’t wear a man’s face on your body if you hate him.”
But you might wear his emblem on your soul even though you hate him, Johanna thought.
“Mom?” Jocelyn squealed impatiently.
“What?”
“You didn’t say we could.”
“I think even if I said no, I’d be out-voted. Drive on, James.”
Joshua touched two fingers to his temple in an elaborate salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
Jocelyn clapped her hands and laughed, school, ostracism and homesickness temporarily forgotten.
Chapter Thirty-three
She had been holding her breath. Figuratively, perhaps, but the tension that had caused it was very real. She hadn’t realized just how real until she started slowly releasing it. She had left London four weeks ago and had managed to slowly pull the fragments of her life together. Harry had not contested her request for a divorce. He was too busy filing appeals. From what she’d heard, he’d even applied to his uncle, Senator Whitney, to help him beat the rap. But the senator had turned his back on him. Poor Harry. The court had found him guilty and had sentenced him to eighteen months in a British prison. For all intents and purposes, he was out of her life.
Starting over again was very difficult. She knew it would be. Being a single parent without the cushion of a housekeeper, the help of charge cards whose bills didn’t have to be dreaded at the end of each month, was decidedly much more difficult. For the last eight years, she had already considered herself to be a single parent. Harry had never been there for any of the traumas, any of the important things that mattered to a growing child. She had shouldered it all, made excuses and been there for Jocelyn in every way she knew how. But she had never had to worry about the financial end before. And she hadn’t had to worry about not being there. Now, with a full-time job, she wasn’t there as much as Jocelyn needed. With Jocelyn entering a new school and needing more than her share of understanding, Johanna, smarting from the irreversible step she had taken, needed understanding herself. It hadn’t been easy turning her back on Harry. Even as she boarded the plane, there was still a glimmer inside of her that cried out for her to stay, that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow would bring a change.
The eternal optimist. She had had to bury that part of her. And in so doing, she had eliminated hope from her soul. The kind of hope that went with romance. She could only pray that the rest of her life would proceed on an even keel. She wanted nothing more than to raise her daughter and pursue a career in art. If her mind occasionally strayed to other things, she ignored the yearnings and chalked it up to normal physical responses that had to be curbed. She was, after all, human. But that wasn’t an excuse to slip, to let her guard down.
She found that while she liked working at Joshua’s gallery, it had its drawbacks. Mainly Joshua. She liked him too much for her own good. He had changed since she had known him in college. All his good points had intensified and where once he had boyish charm, now he was attractive in a very manly sort of way. The kind of attraction that addressed itself to all her nerve endings, to the part of her that never stopped being a woman who needed to be loved. It had taken her only a few days to realize that. Somewhere in between his helping her settle into her apartment, training her at work and taking Jocelyn out after her first day at school, Johanna had realized that she could be very, very attracted to Joshua.
More than that, she was afraid that she was.
So much so that she hesitated when he invited h
er to attend the theater with him. He had only two tickets this time. She couldn’t take Jocelyn along as her convenient shield as she had on their outing to Rockefeller Center and to the movies.
Joshua slipped the two tickets back into his shirt pocket. He was smiling easily, but his eyes told her that he saw more than she wanted him to. Johanna wished for a room full of patrons, but not a single one crossed the threshold to come to her rescue. The gallery was empty this morning. Even Kathy was busy with billing statements in the back room.
“I know you haven’t seen the play because it just opened last week.” Just then, Kathy approached with a letter for him to sign, then, assessing the situation, backed away discreetly. “And as I remember, you were always a sucker for musicals.”
She bit her lower lip. Lying never came easily to her. It didn’t now. “Still am.”
“So, what’s the problem?” He leaned a hip against the table where she had spread out the latest prints they had received for the gallery’s album.
Her hand trembled slightly and she silently called herself an idiot. What was there to be afraid of? This was Joshua, just Joshua.
Still, her heart hammered harder than it was supposed to around an old friend. She raised her eyes to his. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea, Joshua.”
He saw the doubt there, the hesitation. That she was wavering from her staunch position as his friend gave him hope. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”
She pressed her lips together. “But—“
“And, as your boss, I’m insisting that you attend.”
She couldn’t suppress a grin that came to her lips. “That’s called harassment.”
He raised and lowered his brows comically and flickered an imaginary cigar. “You ain’t seen nothing’ yet.”
“That was Al Jolson’s line, not Groucho Marx,” she corrected.
Because he had a need, he touched her shoulder beneath the guise of friendship. “See, I need you with me to keep me straight on this kind of thing. This play is about heaven actually being an old vaudeville house and I don’t know one comic from another. Besides, it’s lonely going by yourself.”
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