Michael nodded. He felt exactly the same way.
Chapter Ten
Sophia paused in front of the sign that read Happy Hollow School. In a few moments she would go inside. She wished her sister Elena had come with her, but Elena had told her that nothing good could come from seeing this woman, that there was no point.
But there was a point. And Sophia knew exactly what it was. She just didn't know if she had the right to make that point.
The longer she hesitated, the more doubts flooded her mind, but she was consumed with curiosity. She wanted to know what the woman looked like, hear her voice, watch her mannerisms. She wanted to know if there was any possibility De Luca blood ran through her veins.
There was so much at stake. Marriage. Family. Reputation. Honor. The foundation of their lives. They weren't young anymore, none of them, not Vincent or Elena or herself. They couldn't start over. Just being here was a risk.
Part of her wanted to run away, but another part of her knew she had to go forward. How could she not see this woman who looked so much like Angela?
The answer was simple. She couldn't.
* * *
"Joanna, you have a phone call in the lounge," Nora said. "My class is gone, so I can watch your last few stragglers."
"All right. It's just the twins."
"Aren't you going to stay and say hello to Daddy?" Rose asked.
"I have a phone call, honey," Joanna said, secretly relieved that she might actually miss seeing Michael. She'd thought about him all night and all day. In fact, she couldn't get him out of her mind, and it wasn't healthy. She needed some answers, something to put an end to the mystery. That's why she had made a few calls during her lunch break. She hoped one of them was calling back.
"Are you mad at Daddy again, Mama? Are you going to go see that other man with the black mustache?" Rose pressed on, her brown eyes filled with worry. "I don't like him. He has scary eyes. Please don't go there again."
Joanna glanced at Nora, who sent her a compassionate look. Then she turned back to the girls. "Rose, honey, I'm not your mother. I'm Joanna, and I'm just going into the teachers' lounge to take a phone call."
"Why don't you two show me what you did today?" Nora said, drawing their attention away from Joanna.
Joanna hurriedly left the room before any more protests could form. In the lounge she sat down on the couch, and picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Joanna Wingate?"
"Yes."
"This is Pamela Cogswell. I believe you called me earlier."
"Yes, I did," Joanna said. "You might not remember me, but I'm hoping you remember my mother."
"Of course I do. Goodness, Caroline and Edward lived next door to us for eight years. That was before you were born, of course, and before they moved to San Francisco. How are your parents?"
"My mother is fine. My father passed away a few months ago."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess we all lost touch, didn't we? How can I help you, Joanna?"
She hesitated, knowing she was about to take a step that she might never be able to retrace. Her mother wouldn't forgive her for calling Pamela, regardless of the answer. Family matters were always private with Caroline. She never allowed herself to be exposed in any way. But Joanna knew she couldn't simply pretend that Angela De Luca had never existed, not with the twins sitting in her classroom each morning, not with Michael's image taking up permanent residence in her mind.
"Joanna?" Pamela repeated.
"Yes, I was wondering if you remember when my mother first became pregnant with me."
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "What an odd question," Pamela said. "Why on earth would you ask me that?"
She couldn't possibly give her the real reason. "I'm redoing our family albums, putting all the photos in order, and for some reason I can't find any photos of when my mother was pregnant. Since she said the two of you were very close, I was hoping that perhaps you might have one from a party or something." She held her breath, knowing it was a lame excuse at best.
"No, I don't have any photos. Frankly I didn't see your mother all that much in the few months before she and Edward moved to San Francisco. I didn't even know they were thinking of moving. It came as quite a surprise. And they took off so suddenly. The For Sale sign went up one day, and the next day they were gone."
"Really?"
"Yes. Your mother was unhappy for a long time, I think. We all had children and she didn't. We tended to talk about our kids, their schools, their sports programs. We didn't mean to leave your mother out, but sometimes I think she felt that way. Those were different times, you know. Women didn't have as many options as they do now."
"No, I don't suppose they did," Joanna murmured, Pamela's words only reinforced the uneasy feeling in her stomach. Her mother had felt left out. She'd been trying to have a baby. She'd been feeling desperate.
"Anyway, a few months after your parents moved," Pamela continued, "I got a baby announcement, so I guess everything worked out in the end. We exchanged Christmas cards for a while, but neither your mother nor I were ever particularly good correspondents."
"So you never actually saw my mother pregnant?"
"No, but she was always so thin. She was probably months along before she showed."
"Probably."
"She must have been pregnant before she left. I think you were born just three or four months after they moved. I'm sorry I couldn't help you, Joanna. Say hello to your mother for me, won't you?"
"Of course." As she hung up the phone, she knew she had absolutely no intention of telling Caroline anything about this phone call.
It didn't make sense. Her mother said she had moved to the city just a few weeks before Joanna was born. She had to have been pregnant when she lived next door to Pamela Cogswell.
Unless Caroline had never been pregnant. Unless she'd gotten her baby some other way.
Goose bumps ran down Joanna's arms. Her pretty, petite blond mother was turning into a stranger in her mind. And her father with his jovial smile, his twinkling eyes, his tender words. Had it all been a lie? A farce? Was she really their child? And if Caroline wasn't her mother, who was?
* * *
Sophia dawdled as long as she could, but the redheaded teacher named Nora seemed eager to usher her out the door. "I was hoping to meet their teacher," Sophia said.
"Joanna's on the phone," Nora replied. "I don't know how long she'll be."
"Could I wait?"
"Maybe you could speak to her tomorrow -- or the next day." Nora glanced at her watch. "I need to close up the school."
"Can we go to the park?" Lily tugged on Sophia's sleeve.
"In a minute, dear."
Sophia darted another look toward the doorway, desperate to prolong her visit. She had summoned up the courage to see Joanna now, not tomorrow, not the next day -- but today. She didn't know if she would have the guts to come back. Second thoughts already crowded her mind.
"Why do you want to talk to Joanna?" Lily asked. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Do you think she's Mama, too?"
Sophia stepped back, startled by the question. "No, of course not. I just wanted to meet your teacher, that's all."
"Why don't you come back tomorrow?" Nora said decisively, moving them toward the door.
Sophia walked as slowly as she could, but eventually they reached the front door, then the walkway, then the sidewalk. She stopped to take one last look at the school. No sign of Joanna Wingate. Maybe it was meant to be this way.
* * *
Joanna met up with Nora at the door to the teachers' lounge.
"Don't move," Nora said sharply. Then, contradicting her own request, she took Joanna by the hand and led her over to the window. Slitting the Venetian blinds with two fingers, she tipped her head toward the window. "Look."
"Why?"
"Just look."
Joanna stepped up to the window. She saw Lily and Rose holding hands with an older woman. The woman had short black hair an
d was somewhat plump. Before Joanna could catch a glimpse of her face, the woman turned and walked away from the school.
"Who was that?" she asked, surprised that Michael hadn't picked up the girls.
"Sophia De Luca, their grandmother." Nora lowered her voice. "She wanted to see you."
"She did?" Joanna felt a shiver run down her spine. "I guess that's only natural. I showed you that picture of her daughter."
Nora stared at her without saying a word.
"You're making me nervous," Joanna said.
"I didn't like the way she looked."
"How did she look?"
"Like you," Nora said. "She looked like you, Joanna."
She swallowed hard. "It's just the dark hair. People think I'm Italian all the time. My mom and I just laugh it off. Some people think I'm Hispanic and they speak Spanish to me. It's no big deal."
"Are you done?"
Joanna hugged her arms close to her body. "I'd like to be done."
"You've got to talk to your mother, Joanna."
"I have. She thinks it's a coincidence."
"What do you think?"
Joanna moved away from the window. "I don't know. They say everyone has a double.It happens. A fluke of genetics."
"Your mother has always been so possessive of you," Nora said slowly. "She rarely let you out of her sight. Even in college she used to call you a couple of times a week and come down on the weekends. It was always fun to have her around, but now that I think about it, it was a bit odd."
She held up a hand. "Please, Nora. Don't speculate. Believe me, I'm doing enough of that on my own."
"What if something really strange happened?"
"Like what?"
"Like you were kidnapped. You might have been one of those kids who was stolen as a baby."
Joanna's hand shook as she tucked her hair behind her ear. "Don't be ridiculous. You know my mother. Can you imagine her doing such a thing?"
Nora didn't answer.
"Neither can I," Joanna finished. "I have to get out of here."
"Are you going home?"
"I don't know. I need to talk to someone who can tell me something, someone who can make sense of this absurd situation. Maybe I should talk to the twins' father again. Find out more about the De Lucas."
Nora walked her to the door. "The girls told me about your trip to their house and the ice cream parlor. Are you sure talking to Mr. Ashton is a good idea? You're getting pretty involved with this man and his family."
"I'm not sure about anything anymore," Joanna said as she left the room. Her life had once been so calm, so peaceful, so boring. Now she felt continually uneasy, as if every second of each day brought her closer to the edge of a precipice, and she was terribly afraid that if she fell in, she wouldn't ever get out. Unless someone threw her a lifeline -- someone like Michael.
* * *
Michael set down his drafting pencil. His sketch of the Connaught Office Building still didn't impress him. The lines were too bland. There was nothing exciting about it. It certainly wasn't special enough to replace the Stratton Hotel.
Impulsively he picked up the paper and crumpled it into a ball, "With two seconds on the clock," he said, mimicking a sports announcer, "he goes for the three pointer. At the buzzer he shoots and scores."
He tossed the paper ball through the small plastic hoop he had placed over the trash can. If nothing else, his shooting skills were getting better.
He sat back in his chair and tried to get inspired, but instead of lines and angles, he thought about Joanna, about her passionate plea to restore the Stratton. Of course, he could never convince Gary Connaught to do that. He wouldn't even try. Jackson Cox would probably fire him if he even mentioned the word "restoration."
Resting his hands behind his head, he stared at the ceiling. He needed a vision, something to spark his imagination. Who was he kidding? There was nothing to get excited about. He was designing a rectangle, a very expensive checkerboard of squares that would reach into the sky, blocking out sunlight and turning the street below into a dark and windy tunnel.
But he was not destroying the city. Contrary to what Joanna thought, there could be beauty in modern buildings, buildings that would withstand earthquakes, that could house offices, condos, and restaurants all within one structure. Each generation demanded its own monuments. Who was she to criticize Gary Connaught's choice of an office building?
A historian, that's who she was. He smiled to himself. Joanna might look like Angela, but she certainly didn't think like her. Angela had thrown food out before the expiration date just to make sure she didn't have anything old in the refrigerator. She had watched the fashion trends like a hawk, never wanting to be left behind the newest fad.
He'd been drawn to Angela's zest for life. She had always lived in the "now," not the past or the future but the very second at hand. She'd resisted his attempts to plan for the future, to draw up a will, to buy life insurance.
Sometimes late at night, when he was alone in the bed they had shared, he wondered what Angela had thought during those last few seconds of her life. Had she whispered "I love you" to him or the twins? Had she prayed to be rescued? Had she simply thought that this was just another adventure that she would live to tell about? Or had she known that the end had come?
Of course, he would never know the answers to those questions or to the other questions he had, such as why Angela had gone to the party when she'd promised to stay home, how she'd come to be on the boat in the first place, and who the dark-haired man with the thick mustache had been who wept uncontrollably at her funeral when the empty urn was lowered into the ground,
He had never tried to find out the man's identity. He hadn't wanted to know what their relationship had been. He wanted to remember Angela as a faithful, loving wife -- even if it wasn't true.
The intercom buzzed. "Iris Sandbury is on line one," Helen said. "I wouldn't have disturbed you, but she said it was important."
"Thanks." Michael picked up the phone. "Iris? How are you?"
"I'm wonderful. Michael, I think I've discovered a gold mine."
He smiled at the enthusiasm in her voice. Iris Sandbury was in her mid-fifties, the wife of Michael's former boss, Greg Sandbury. Greg had brought Michael into the firm, mentored him through the early years, and taught him more about structure and design than anyone he had ever met.
Since Greg's death, Iris, who came from money, amused herself by buying and selling houses. Although Michael had explained to her on numerous occasions that he didn't design houses, she loved to ask his advice, swearing that Greg always told her Michael was the best.
"What have you discovered this time?" he asked.
"The house where Ruby Mae Whitcomb, San Francisco's most infamous madam, lived out the last fifty years of her life. And it's going to be listed next Tuesday."
"Ruby Mae Whitcomb?" He tried to place the name.
"Yes. Surely you've heard the legends. She made a living running a very profitable whorehouse in the twenties. She supposedly died in a fire. At least that's what everyone thought, but I just found out that she has been living in seclusion in an isolated house in the Seacliff area."
"Seacliff," Michael echoed. The neighborhood of Seacliff, located on the northwestern edge of San Francisco, overlooked China Beach, aptly named for the Chinese smugglers who had landed there in the mid-1800's. The homes were large and expensive, many isolated by thick trees as they perched on the edge of the cliffs.
"Apparently Ruby Mae died a few weeks ago, and a very distant relative inherited the property," Iris continued.
"And that distant relative now wants to sell?"
"Yes. And I want to buy it."
"You haven't even seen it," he said, amused by her impulsiveness.
"I saw a bit of it from the street. The house and the property look terribly neglected, but the land is valuable and the location absolutely superb. I want to jump on it as soon as I can."
"But --" Michael prodded
, knowing she hadn't just called to share her good news.
"But I'm leaving for Mexico in thirty minutes. I'm at the airport now. Could you look at it for me, tell me if you think I would be able to preserve the house or if I need to raze it and build something from scratch?"
"Sure, I can get out there in the next day or two."
"You have to go in an hour," Iris said. "The relative is leaving on a business trip. He's willing to give you a key if you can get out there before he leaves."
"Iris, I'm busy." He looked at his plans for the Connaught office building, which were going nowhere fast.
"Oh, please, Michael. Gregory always valued your opinion. I know you won't steer me wrong."
He sighed as she pushed his guilt buttons. He'd always been a sucker for hard luck stories and lonesome voices. "All right, I'll go. Tell me how to get there." He jotted down the directions.
"Thanks, Michael. I really appreciate this."
"Have a good trip." He hung up the phone and reached for his coat. The intercom buzzed again. "Yes?"
"Michael, there's someone here to see you," Helen said, her voice somewhat hushed.
"Do you want me to guess?"
"She says her name is Joanna Wingate. For a moment there I thought I was seeing a ghost. What's going on?"
Joanna. His stomach muscles clenched. His heart sped up. He took a deep breath. "Send her in."
"Aren't you going to tell me what's going on?"
"No."
"Fine," Helen said with a sigh.
Michael slipped on his coat as Joanna entered the office.
She looked beautiful; soft curves in a rose-colored short sweater worn over a floral skirt. Her curly dark hair drifted past her shoulders, framing her big, dark eyes. Her lips glistened with a soft hue of pink. No bright red lipstick for her, no long painted fingernails, no black leather or tight jeans.
With a shake of his head, he told himself to stop comparing Joanna to Angela.
"Michael," Joanna said tentatively, "I hope I'm not interrupting, but I need to talk to you."
"The girls -- "
Ask Mariah Page 12