by Lee McKenzie
Nicola tucked her BlackBerry into her handbag. “And while I’m on the subject of weddings, we haven’t talked about my bridal shower.”
“I thought that was supposed to be a surprise,” Rory said.
“Don’t you dare surprise me. I do not want to show up for my shower in old blue jeans and no makeup.”
Like that could ever happen.
“That’s what you guys did to me.” Paige looked accusingly at Maria.
“I’ve apologized for that a dozen times,” Maria said. “What else can I say? It seemed like a good idea.”
“If you don’t want to be surprised, Nic, you’d better send me your schedule for the next couple of weeks,” Rory said. “We plan to have it here and Jess needs some advance notice—”
“Here? No way. Sorry, Jess,” Nic added quickly. “It’s a great place to hang out, but I can’t have my shower in a…a bar.”
Jess held up both hands. “No problem. I told her it was a bad idea.”
Rory tried to imagine a bridal shower in her new apartment. “My place isn’t big enough. Paige and Jess don’t have enough room, either, and Maria lives too far out of the city.”
“Call my mother. Here’s her number in case you don’t have it handy.” Nic jotted it on a cocktail napkin. “Our house is perfect for this sort of thing.”
Our house being her family’s Cow Hollow mansion near the Presidio. Rory loved that house, especially its views of the bay, but she wondered if there might be another option. The only person in the world who was a bigger control freak than Nicola was Nicola’s mother.
Jess gave them all a sly wink. “So your mother’ll be okay with the male stripper?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“She just likes to bug you,” Rory said.
The bride-to-be wasn’t letting go that easily. “If you ever do get married, little Miss Sunshine, just remember who’ll be your maid of honor.”
“And I’ll be fine with a surprise shower here at The Whiskey Sour.”
Jess grinned.
“But no stripper.”
They all laughed at that. Easy for them, she thought. And so much for the idea that being a maid of honor would be easy. She hadn’t bargained on shoe-shopping with Jess or teaming up with Nic’s mother to throw a shower.
Maria covered a yawn. “I have to get going. This has been so much fun, especially finding out that Paige has a new man in her life and Rory is living with a handsome firefighter. Anything else I should know before I leave?”
“I almost forgot. You’re all invited to my mother’s opening.” Rory took a handful of cards out of her bag and passed them around.
“I think we already have a commitment that night.” Nicola scrolled through the calendar on her BlackBerry. “We do. Dinner with one of the senior partners at Jon’s firm.”
“Tony doesn’t like me driving into the city alone at night, and I’ll never be able to drag him into an art gallery.”
“That’s okay,” Rory assured her. “The last thing we need is for you to go into labor on the bridge.”
“I’m here on Wednesdays,” Jess said.
“You don’t have to look so relieved,” Rory teased.
“No offense, but art’s not my thing.”
No kidding. Jess’s idea of art was a Han Solo poster and a neon beer sign.
“Paige, what about you?”
“I love your mom’s work and it would be great to see her again, but that’s the night Andy and I get together after work.”
“Sorry,” they all said in unison.
“No problem.” Just as well none of them were going, since Mitch and his daughter were.
“GOOD NIGHT, DADDY.”
“Good night, princess,” Mitch said from the doorway of his daughter’s bedroom. “Want me to leave the hall light on for a while?”
Her head bobbed against the pillow. “Just till I fall asleep, ’kay?”
“You bet.” He closed the door partway so the light wasn’t shining directly on her face.
“Daddy?”
He leaned back into her room. “Yes?”
“Today was fun.”
More fun than he’d expected. “We’ll have to do it again soon,” he said, bracing himself for the inevitable request that next time included a ride on a cable car.
“And Miss Sunshine can come with us, right?”
Okay, he had not seen that coming. It might take some time, but eventually he hoped Miranda would accept that although Miss Sunshine was living in their house, she wasn’t part of their family. She had a life of her own and wouldn’t expect or even want to be included in their activities. “We’ll see,” he said.
“Good,” Miranda said. “Let’s ask her tomorrow.”
Do all kids do this? Hear one thing when they’ve been told something else? “We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay?”
“’Kay. G’night.”
“Good night,” he said. “Sleep tight.” Then he quickly slipped out of the room before she had time to ask any more questions about Rory.
He still couldn’t believe that she, of all people, had moved into the attic apartment. He did not need the temptation of a beautiful woman living in the house, especially a woman who didn’t altogether approve of the way he was raising his daughter.
Downstairs, he made two restless circuits of the living room. Miranda was right. They’d had fun this afternoon, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been a strange day. He felt as if things were changing again. He didn’t like change and he was only just getting used to the way things were now.
He needed something to do, he thought, wandering into the kitchen. He and Miranda had helped his mother clean up after dinner, then Betsy had gone down to organize some stuff in her basement studio. He could hear her clattering around down there and it sounded as though she might be a while, which was fine because he wasn’t sure he wanted company.
He poured himself a cup of cold coffee and stuck it in the microwave. After it pinged, he carried the mug into the living room. From the window he could see Rory’s van parked on the street in front of the house. He and Miranda had arrived home late in the afternoon to find the van parked at the curb, right where she’d left it that morning. Miranda had begged to go upstairs to see her, but his mother said Rory had taken the bus downtown because she and her friends planned to go for drinks after the dress-fitting. She scored points for being responsible about not drinking and driving. If only everyone was, he thought bitterly.
Today, fourteen months after the accident that had robbed him and his daughter of the most important person in their lives, the afternoon at Fisherman’s Wharf had been just what they needed. He’d been avoiding doing the things Laura loved, assuming it would be too painful—not just for him, but for Miranda, too. That hadn’t been the case at all. Miranda had held his hand and talked nonstop about school and cats and Miss Sunshine. The only time she mentioned her mother had been at the ice-cream stand. She was happy with her memories of her mother. Instead of trying to avoid them, he owed it to his daughter to preserve them. He hadn’t been doing that. If anything, he’d wanted to bury the memories along with his wife because it hurt too damned much to let them live.
So what had changed? Selling his place and moving back into his mother’s house? Getting involved at Miranda’s school? Meeting Rory?
He drained his mug and set it on the coffee table. A crash in the basement was followed by his mother’s voice, no doubt using some colorful language. He contemplated going downstairs to see if she needed a hand, then thought better of it. He’d grown up with a mother who could bake bread, change a flat tire and rescue the neighbor’s cat from a tree—and all before breakfast. If she needed help, she’d ask for it.
He put his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back against the sofa. He was tired from spending the day with his mother and daughter and the new tenant, but it was different from the way he felt after responding to a fire. This was mental exhaustion. Maybe a
good night’s sleep was what he needed. After he climbed the stairs, he looked in on Miranda, who was sleeping soundly, then went into his own room and shut the door. As he pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it into the laundry basket in the closet, he heard a car door slam in front of the house. He glanced around the edge of the curtain in time to see a taxi pulling away and Rory walking up the front walk. He quickly let the curtain drop, hoping she hadn’t noticed.
The front door opened and closed, and he stood in the middle of his bedroom, stock-still, listening to her footsteps on the stairs. At the sound of her apartment door clicking closed, he gave his head a shake. He didn’t need to pay attention to her comings and goings, but having another person in the house would take some getting used to.
He turned on his reading lamp before turning off the overhead light, stripped off the rest of his clothes and slid between the sheets. Then he reached for a magazine on the nightstand and flipped it open.
A floorboard creaked overhead. He couldn’t hear her footsteps, but the ancient floor let him track her progress from one part of the apartment to another. And he wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear her voice. She’d definitely come home alone—was she talking to herself? No, probably to the cat.
He perused the magazine’s table of contents, looking for a distraction. It was a parenting magazine he’d picked up at the grocery store the day he’d visited Miranda’s classroom. Laura had always seemed to know what to do, how to handle their daughter, and he’d been more than happy to trust her judgment. Their arrangement had been a traditional one, about which his mother had periodically made disparaging comments, but it had worked for them. Now, as often as not, he felt at a loss. He knew he couldn’t learn parenting skills from a magazine, but it was a start.
The sound of running water caught his attention. He was used to listening for Miranda but this time he knew it was Rory. In the shower? The thought tumbled though his mind before he could squash it.
The water stopped. Not the shower. Not that it’s any of your business, he told himself, wishing he hadn’t already formed a clear mental picture of Rory’s long wet blond hair falling over her bare shoulders.
“Get a life,” he said out loud to himself, even though he had no intention of following his own advice. The existence he had right now was his life.
Parenting, he reminded himself. That was what he should be thinking about. The article on teaching children to be tactful might be helpful. Was it possible to teach a child not to blurt out things like, Then she died and we stopped going for ice cream? Considering that certain adults didn’t mind talking about where they’d been conceived, wanting a child to be tactful seemed like a high expectation. Again, he tried to focus on the magazine. A health topic, like the item titled “Bye-bye Baby Teeth” might be easier to master. Especially since it seemed that for the next few years, he’d have to keep the tooth fairy on retainer.
The floorboards creaked directly overhead, followed by the sound of metal on metal and finally a dull thunk. Rory was opening the Murphy bed. Until that instant it hadn’t occurred to him that she’d be sleeping directly above him. She’d said she didn’t have a boyfriend, but what if she got one? What if he started spending the night here? There. Up there, in her bed. No way could he lie here listening to moaning bedsprings and whatever other sounds went with Rory being made love to.
Mitch groaned, not wanting to think about her sprawling naked on the bed, especially not with some other guy. He could certainly picture himself with her. Even before the idea was fully formed, he rolled the magazine into a tube and batted himself on the head with it.
Maybe he really did need to get a life, or at least get out a bit more. In spite of Miranda’s assumption that someday he’d marry again, he wasn’t ready for the dating scene. But a couple of guys from the station had been after him to go for a beer after their basketball game. When Laura was alive, he’d always wanted to get home after the game. After the accident, he hadn’t liked leaving Miranda with a sitter any longer than necessary, but now that they were living here, what could it hurt? Tomorrow morning he’d check to see if his mother would be available to sit with Miranda. It was time he stopped making excuses and started living again.
Chapter Six
Mitch kept a firm grip on his daughter’s slender little hand as they waited for a walk signal to cross Powell Street. She was old enough to know better than to rush into traffic, but he felt better knowing she was there at his side, safe and secure.
“Have you ever been to an art opening, Dad?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Me either. Miss Sunshine said there’d be wine an’ cheese.”
“You’re a little young to be drinking wine,” Mitch teased.
Miranda giggled. “I wonder if there’ll be pop. I can have some if there is, right?”
“Sure. It’s a special occasion. But just a small glass, okay? Or maybe there’ll be juice.” Laura hadn’t wanted their daughter eating a lot of junk food.
“You already said yes to pop. You can’t change your mind.”
“I won’t. But just one,” he said, doing his best to sound firm.
“I hope there’ll be other stuff to eat besides cheese. I only like orange cheese, not the stinky white stuff that Grams buys.”
He had to agree with that. “They might have orange cheese.”
“I hope they have cookies.”
Wine and cookies? He doubted it, but what the heck. Aside from the breakfast cereal he bought, his mother kept the house stocked with health food, most of it organic. Miranda had a healthy diet. How much harm could there be in a glass of pop and a couple of cookies?
His mother’s boyfriend, Thomas, had picked up Rory and his mother and they’d gone downtown to have dinner with Annie McGaskell and Copper Pennington. He and Miranda had been invited to join them, but he had declined. He wasn’t ready to spend that much time with their new neighbor. He felt a little bit out of control when he was around her, and that scared the hell out of him. Luckily, Miranda hadn’t been around when the dinner invitation was extended. She would have begged to go along, and he had a hard time saying no to her.
Rory had been living upstairs for less than two weeks, but it felt like much longer. In a good way, mostly. Miranda talked nonstop about her, declaring she was the best teacher ever, his mother claimed she was the best tenant she’d ever had, and he was slowly coming around to agreeing on both counts. Miranda seemed to be behaving at school, which meant no unexpected phone calls from the teacher, and he was grateful for that. He’d also developed the habit of checking to see if her van was parked on the street, and wondering when she’d be home if it wasn’t. In a nonstalkerish way, he hoped.
For the past year, he’d often tried to figure out how Laura would have handled their daughter in a given situation. Now he also found himself wondering what Rory would do. Although she had insisted she didn’t want a family of her own, she had a natural, comfortable way with children that he envied.
A cable car jangled past and, as if on cue, Miranda brightened. “Will you ever want to go for a cable-car ride?” she asked.
“We’ll do it one of these days.”
“When?”
He sighed. At least the familiar old sound hadn’t made him feel as though he was suffocating. “I’m not sure.” And that was the truth.
He had assumed the exhibit would be at the Museum of Modern Art, but it was at a private gallery near Union Square. The place was all windows, and from the sidewalk across the street he could see it was already teeming with art aficionados. He hated crowds.
“Look,” Miranda said, pointing at the gallery across the street. “I can see Miss Sunshine. And Grams and Thomas and Annie.”
Mitch squeezed his daughter’s hand. He had already spotted Rory. She stood near a window with the others, but she might as well have been alone. As she laughed and glanced animatedly from one companion to another, her long hair swung around her shoulders and reflected the
light. Was she aware that she stood out from the rest of the crowd? In a good way, of course. He was pretty sure she wasn’t. She was definitely the only person he knew who could wear turquoise pants with a lime-green jacket, and make it work. From where he stood, he couldn’t tell what she had on her feet, but he had a hunch he was going to like it.
His mother had her arm linked with Thomas’s. It had taken Mitch a while to get used to his mother having another man in her life, but he was slowly coming around to the idea. Thomas was a quiet, thoughtful man who’d spent his working life as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and who wrote poetry in his spare time. Mitch had read some of it, and he’d taken his mother’s word that it was good. Thomas had a full head of unruly gray hair and a beard to match, which reminded Miranda of Santa Claus. Next to Thomas and Betsy, Annie’s petite stature made her look like an elf.
When the light turned green Mitch and his daughter crossed the street and went inside. San Francisco was full of art lovers, and judging by the size of this crowd, Copper Pennington’s work was well-known. The throng was shoulder-to-shoulder, and the place was abuzz with conversation and anticipation. Mitch took a quick inventory of the fire exits.
“Do you like Rory’s mom’s paintings, Dad?”
“They’re very…colorful.” They were modern or abstract or whatever the term was, and huge. Floor-to-ceiling huge.
“Can you see stuff in them?”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “What kind of stuff?”
“Like in the clouds. Miss Sunshine says if you look at her mother’s paintings long enough, you’ll see animal shapes and other things like that.”
He searched the closest painting, wishing this sort of thing didn’t make him feel as uncomfortable as it did. He had no imagination and he didn’t mind admitting it, but it was also possible that he couldn’t see anything in this painting because it wasn’t there.
After they joined his mother and Thomas, Annie and Rory, the conversation focused around Miranda’s excited chatter, giving him a moment to surreptitiously check out Rory’s footwear. Lime-green sandals, turquoise toe polish and a gold toe ring. He was pretty sure his heart missed a couple of beats.