by Peggy Webb
A monstrous suspicion grew in Pippa. “Luke, does your family know you have a daughter?”
He shook his head. “Don’t get mad at me. If I’d told Mom everything years ago, she’d have come down on me like a duck on a June bug.”
“That’s nothing to what she’s going to do now.”
“I know, I know. Look, I wish I’d done it but—”
“But you did what was easiest, as always.”
“Lord, but you sound like her!”
“I’m a mother, too. It comes with the territory.”
“Okay, so I’ve got to pick up the phone and explain before she sees the show.”
“Phone, nothing. You get over there and tell her to her face.”
He visibly paled. “You’re crazy. You don’t know my mom.”
“Are you a man or a mouse?”
“A mouse! Definitely a mouse!”
“Do it!”
“Okay, okay!”
“Now!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
He vanished, and a few minutes later Pippa heard the car being driven away. She wandered out onto the balcony and sat watching the sea. She knew a little about Luke’s family. In England he’d shown her photographs of his parents, his younger brother, Zak, seventeen in those days, and his sister, Becky, fourteen. She’d seen the family resemblance that had lain not so much in features as the anarchic grins and the looks of healthy animals that lived as they pleased.
She reckoned it would take Luke at least a couple of hours, but after only half an hour she saw his Porsche returning. Obviously nobody had been at home, she thought, and he’d come straight back. But then another car followed his into the drive, and an endless river of people streamed out. Aghast, Pippa realized that Luke had brought the family with him, and not willingly, either, if his helpless shrug up to her on the balcony was anything to go by.
The next moment they were all pouring through the back door, and Pippa was emerging nervously to meet them. Luke’s plump little mother surveyed her fiercely. “Are you Pippa?” she demanded.
“I…yes—” The rest was lost in a suffocating embrace. Pippa was half a head taller, but somehow Luke’s mother still managed to engulf her.
Then her husband, so tall that it was clear where Luke’s height came from, and with a face made for laughter. He, too, hugged her, with a great roar of delight. Zak was the same as in his picture, a younger version of Luke, not quite so tall, a little heavier, but with the same smile and the same air of knowing the world was his for the taking. Becky had gray eyes full of humor, and a no-nonsense manner than Pippa took to at once.
They were allowed only a moment before his mother shunted them aside and hugged Pippa again, saying, “We should have met long ago, but better late than never.”
“Yes,” Pippa agreed, liking her instinctively.
Luke made the mistake of putting himself forward. “Mom, why don’t we—”
She rounded on him. “Did anyone speak to you?”
“No, Mom.”
“You speak when you’re spoken to, and be grateful you’re being spoken to at all.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Becky and Zak exchanged grins. Luke glared at them, but otherwise subsided meekly. Suddenly a silence fell. All heads turned to the kitchen door where Josie stood rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Pippa was about to introduce her, but some instinct held her silent. She knew it had been a wise instinct, when Luke slipped his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and said simply, “This is Josie. She’s mine.” He looked down at his daughter. “This is my family—your family now.”
Everyone was waiting for his mother’s reaction, and it came quickly. The short woman and the tall child were almost at eye level. They surveyed each other. Then Josie gave her slow, gorgeous smile, and Luke’s mom gasped.
“Clarrie!” she cried. And burst into tears.
“Who’s Clarrie?” Pippa asked under cover of the commotion.
“She was Mom’s kid sister,” Becky told her. “She died years ago. I’ve only seen pictures, but I guess there is a resemblance.”
She, too, was swept up in the introductions, then Zak, then his mom again, then dad. Pippa feared that Josie might find this overwhelming, but not for long. As she’d already proved in the television studio, the child had inherited her father’s natural self-possession when “on show.” Josie sorted her thoughts out fast, said, “I’d better get dressed,” and vanished.
Pippa followed her and took out some clean jeans and a T-shirt. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Mom,” Josie said, awed, “I’ve got grandparents.”
“Yes, you never had them before.”
“Isn’t it great?”
“Yes, darling, it’s great.”
Luke was waiting as they emerged from the bedroom. “I’m sorry about this,” he muttered. “I barely got the words out when they pounced on me and dragged me out to the car. I didn’t even get the chance to call you first.”
“It’s all right. I’m glad they’ve taken to her so well. And at least you’re still in one piece.”
“I am now. But boy, the earful I got from Mom!”
“And your father?”
“No, he lets her do it for him.”
“It’s nice that they’re so pleased.”
“Are you kidding? This is their first grandchild. They’re over the moon. Zak and Becky are pretty thrilled, too, because it takes the pressure off them to settle down and start breeding.”
Zak, who’d come out into the hall, grinned. “Trust my big brother to come to the rescue,” he said. “Pippa, she’s a great kid. We’re all going to love her. And you.”
He followed this up with a hug. Pippa was glad the hall lighting was low so that they shouldn’t see the sudden tears in her eyes. All these years she’d thought she knew what she was missing, but there was so much more that she’d never dreamed of. She surreptitiously wiped her eyes and went back to the kitchen with the other two.
It seemed that Luke’s dad would monopolize his new granddaughter. They were seated side by side at the bar, drinking milk shakes and talking nineteen to the dozen. Now and then one of the others would join in, only to be edged out by his dad. Luke’s mother surveyed them with great satisfaction.
“He’s found someone his own age at last,” she confided to Josie.
Pippa soon saw that she was right. Between the man of sixty and the girl of ten there was a true meeting of minds. Pippa watched in fascination, beginning to understand Luke as never before.
At that moment his dad’s voice rose in horror. “You mean you’ve never been to Disneyland?”
Wide-eyed, Josie shook her head. “Never,” she said mournfully.
“Josie,” Pippa said, scandalized, “you stop playing Orphan Annie right now.”
“Don’t spoil it for him,” his wife said quickly. “He loves the place. Now he’s got a cast-iron excuse. You wouldn’t want to deprive him of it, would you?”
“I guess not,” Pippa said, dazed.
In no time Disneyland became the agenda for next day. Zak and Becky had to work, but the other five would drive over to Anaheim. With that point settled the family departed, leaving Luke’s house alarmingly quiet.
Next day she, Luke and Josie drove over to his parents’ house. His mom greeted Pippa and Josie as if they’d parted a year ago instead of a few hours, and she took Pippa aside. “I wanted to show you this,” she said, holding out a photograph. “It was Clarrie.”
The picture was forty years old and taken by a very basic camera. Even so, Pippa was amazed at the likeness. She was used to thinking of Josie as resembling herself, but now she saw that the child’s heart-shaped face was the same as the one in the picture. So, too, was the slight upward tilt of her nose.
“It broke my heart when I lost her,” Luke’s mom confided. “Well, I guess I’ve kind of got her back now.”
Pippa was shaken. She’d half suspected that the resemblance to Clarrie was an illusion,
invented by Luke’s mother. The discovery that it was real seemed to change everything in some subtle way. Josie really did belong in this family. She even looked different to Pippa’s eyes.
“I’m glad,” she said.
The older woman eyed her. “You look like a nice girl. How come you didn’t want to marry my Luke?”
“I—what’s he been saying?”
“He says he asked you to marry him and you said no. Isn’t that true?”
Pippa’s jaw dropped. “Well, he’s got a nerve ,” she said wrathfully. “He—I—well, yes, technically I suppose it’s true, in a sort of way. But I could hear it in his voice that he was only asking out of duty—”
“Duty? Luke?” echoed Luke’s mother.
“Well, there certainly wasn’t any other reason. You should have heard how relieved he was when I refused!”
His mother’s eyes were kind and shrewd. “So, no meant yes, right?”
“Right! At least, it would have been if he’d really wanted me, but we sort of had a deal—no strings, and so I, well, you know—”
“Sure I know. He’s my son. And his father’s son, heaven help us all!”
Pippa was breathing hard. “So he played the injured innocent, did he?”
“And good!”
“I can just hear him. ‘Mom, I wanted to marry her, but she brushed me off.’ I’m going to make him sorry he was born.”
“Hey, that’s a mother’s privilege. You wait in line.”
“No, you wait in line,” Pippa said firmly. “The first bite belongs to me.”
His mother chuckled. “Be my guest.”
“Maisie, are you coming?” Dad called.
“You hush up!” she told him. “I’m talking to my daughter-in-law.”
“Mrs. Danton—” Pippa said hurriedly.
“Mom!”
“Mom, I’m not—”
“You are as far as I’m concerned,” she declared, adding, with a belligerent eye on her son on the far side of the room, “and if some people had any sense, you would be.”
It was wonderful to be so accepted, but Pippa had seen the sudden alert look that came into Josie’s face, and she took the first chance to mutter in Luke’s ear, “Please don’t let her talk like that. It might give Josie the wrong idea.”
“I can’t help the way Mom talks.”
“You’ve got to. I don’t want Josie thinking we might get married. Please, Luke, this is very important.”
“All right,” he said, giving her a strange look.
They made the trip to Anaheim in his father’s car, with his mother sitting up front with him and the other three in the back. His dad was describing Disneyland to Josie, who was listening wide-eyed. Pippa sat quietly, trying to talk herself into a reasonable frame of mind, but it was hard after what she’d just heard.
Oh, if she could only get Luke to herself for just five minutes! She would kick his shins, stamp on his toes, wring his neck and boil him in oil. And then she’d do something really painful. If she could only think of it. By the time they arrived, her temper had worked up a fine head of steam.
Josie was speechless with the wonder of her first sight of Disneyland. Her grandparents took charge of her, happy as kids themselves.
“Let me show you the shops,” Luke said, taking Pippa’s hand. To the others he called, “You go on. Don’t wait for us.”
“Should we do that?” Pippa asked.
“You think it takes more than two people to look after our daughter? Anyway, she’s busy wrapping them both around her little finger. We’d only cramp her style.”
“You’re right,” she said. “This is a good chance for a private talk.”
“Why do I feel suddenly nervous?”
“Because you have every reason to.”
“Pippa, do you know that your eyes are glittering? In the old days they only did that when you were good ‘n’ mad about something. Usually me.”
“Well, ten out of ten for observation! How dare you tell your mother that you asked me to marry you!”
“But I did.”
“In a pig’s eye you did!”
“I asked you, and you said no,” he protested.
“Luke, there are ways and ways of asking people. There’s when you’re desperate for them to say yes, and when you’re desperate for them to say no. No prizes for guessing which one you chose.”
“And you think you’re a mind reader, huh?”
“I didn’t have to read your mind. You told it to me right from the start. No marriage, no domesticity, no babies, no being tied down. You couldn’t have been plainer. So I took the hint. When you raised the subject of marriage—at a safe distance of five thousand miles—I said what you wanted me to say, just as I always did.”
“Well, I’ll be—”
“And then you went and told your mother it was all my fault—”
“Pippa, she asked me why I didn’t marry you, and I said that I asked you and you said no—which was true—”
“It was a half-truth at best.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to her, tell how exactly how it was.”
“No, need. I already have.”
“So that’s what you were doing with your heads together, pulling me apart—”
“I’d like to pull you apart,” she seethed.
“Gee, this is like the old days! You wouldn’t listen to reason then, and you won’t now.”
“Reason? Hah! You talking reason? That I should like to hear!”
“Pippa, you wouldn’t recognize reason if it hit you in the eye.”
“You know the answer to that.”
“If you aren’t the most ornery woman—I’ll swear I—oh, to hell with it!”
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Luke had grabbed her hand and was hauling her after him.
“This way,” he called over his shoulder.
“Luke—”
“Hurry.” The next moment he was climbing aboard a horse-drawn carriage, giving her no choice but to follow. His hands were warm and firm, pulling her aboard, then just holding her while he laughed into her eyes.
“No,” she said, trying to be firm. “I will not let you shut me up like this. Do you understand?”
“There’s Mom and Dad with Josie. Wave to them.”
Josie was carrying a huge candy floss. She waved ecstatically, and Pippa could do nothing but wave back, smiling to cover the fact that she was fuming. “I’ll get you for this,” she muttered.
“Look happy, or she won’t be happy.”
“Considering I’d like to chuck you in the nearest fountain I’m looking amazingly happy,” Pippa said through gritted teeth. “And just what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m sliding my hand around your shoulder, friendly fashion—even if you don’t deserve it,” he said through his smile.
“I feel as friendly as a python at the moment,” she said through hers. “Remove your hand right now.”
“Nah, they’d suspect something. It’s more convincing if I just tighten it around your shoulder—”
“I’m warning you—”
“And then draw you closer to me—like this—”
“You let me go this instant—Luke!”
He mustn’t kiss her, because if he did her heart would melt, and she would forget why she was mad at him. She wanted to stay mad. That was always safest with Luke.
But it was too late to tell him he mustn’t, and he wasn’t taking any notice, anyway. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his mom, dad and Josie, all laughing with delight. Then the carriage passed on and they were out of sight.
“They’ve gone now, you can let me go,” she said.
“Nope.”
“You can’t kiss me in the middle of Disneyland.”
“What does it feel like I’m doing?”
She gave up arguing. The feeling that was spreading through her was taking over, silencing thought. It wasn’t desire, or any physical sensation. It was sheer happiness, of
a kind she’d almost forgotten: the happiness of being with this one man, in his arms, with nothing else to worry about—at least for a brief time.
And she had almost wasted that time in squabbling. Was she mad?
She kissed him back, then settled blissfully in the crook of his arm, feeling the years and the worries and the weariness fall away. Surely she could allow herself this one day?
“You’re a scoundrel,” she said. “But I forgive you.”
“You always did. Not mad at me anymore?”
“I expect I am, really—only I forget why.”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s have fun.”
“Oh, yes, please.”
When the carriage halted he gave her his hand, helping her down as gallantly as any squire with his lady, and steered her straight into a shop where a collection of cooks were making chocolates before an admiring crowd. Luke bought a bagful and they strolled out again, munching.
“When I was a kid I used to bring girls here,” he mused. “We all did. There was a set routine. You started with Sleeping Beauty’s Castle to put her in a romantic mood, then you progressed to Thunder Mountain because when the cars went up and down she’d let you hold her tight. The clincher was the Haunted Mansion, because with any luck she’d hold you tight!”
She chuckled. “You’re evil!”
“I know. It’s been very useful.”
They laughed together, and she slipped her arm about his waist.
“Shall we start from the beginning?” he asked, “and see if my technique’s improved over the years?”
“No need. Let’s take the early stages as read, and just wander.”
“That sounds good.”
As they strolled along Main Street he said, “I suppose in a sense we really have just met.” There was a question in his eyes.
“Yes,” she said, understanding him.
It was the perfect way. To meet again, without memories or pain, nothing in fact but the charm they had always had for each other: to meet practically as children, in an enchanted world.
Since coming to Los Angeles, Pippa had had a sense of unreality, as though she’d strayed into a hologram, and if she turned the wrong knob everything would vanish. Now that sense was heightened. She’d been given the chance to find Luke again in a dream, and when that dream was over the wounds would have healed, leaving her strong enough to face whatever she had to.