Jesus, what piss-poor timing. A month ago, he’d wanted to meet Miranda, wanted her to understand who he was and why he’d come forward; he wanted her not to hate him. He would have let her see Lily; why not? She cared about his daughter, had formed a bond with her. He’d meant to call her back right away, but he’d just gotten busy. Now he couldn’t even think of returning the call. He was too ashamed. So he left the message on his phone; he could not bring himself to delete it, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer it either. Instead, he waited until he was out on the street, headed to an appointment, and called Isabel Clarke—he had a bunch of unanswered messages from her too.
“Are you all right?” Isabel picked up after the first ring. “And what about your daughter? That was a total surprise, Jared. I had no idea.”
“Can you meet me?” he said. “I’ll tell you everything, but I don’t want to go into it on the phone.”
“Brandon’s back,” she said. “I have to be . . . discreet.”
“So do I, baby,” he said, thinking of what Athena would say—and do—if she found out he was involved with a married client. “So do I.”
They met several days later, ostensibly to see a penthouse apartment at 125 Central Park North. It was a recently constructed building, so it had plenty of amenities, like a private roof terrace, fitness center, lap pool, indoor parking, and a temperature-controlled wine cellar. The asking price was a hefty $2.049 million, which Jared thought was going to make the apartment too rich for Brandon’s blood. But he also knew the guy would be impressed by all the bells and whistles.
Isabel showed up to the apartment wearing big black sunglasses and a broad-brimmed black straw hat that obscured much of her face; was she intentionally trying to assume a disguise? But she appeared as eager to see him as he was to see her, and they had a quickie in the master bedroom, though not, at his insistence, on the bed.
“How will anyone ever know?” she had said. “I’ll remake it when we’re done.”
Jared was too spooked though, and instead they used the floor, where the sisal matting did a serious number on his knees. When they said good-bye, he pressed several glossy, stapled sheets about the building and the apartment into her hands and insisted she show the material to Brandon. “I’m just covering all our tracks,” he said. “Trust me, okay?” But even though he was single, and ostensibly had less at stake here, he was jumpy for the rest of the day. What the hell was he doing, taking up with her? Like there weren’t plenty of bodacious, badass single women out there?
* * *
It was after six o’clock when Jared got home one Friday evening in the waning days of August. He could barely meet Supah’s eyes when he paid her and told her to have a nice weekend. After that conversation on the street, she had never again upbraided him or mentioned what had happened. Still, she knew.
The door closed quietly behind her, and then he was alone with his baby daughter for what promised to be two very long, hot days. Isabel told him she would be away this weekend, and he knew Athena and Gabe were off to Sag Harbor. His other buddies were away too. No one stuck around this late in the month. No one, that is, except him.
Damn. How had his life come to this? He remembered the rush of recognition when he first saw the photograph of Lily; that heady moment had since morphed into an endless treadmill of diapers, laundry, and sleep deprivation. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. Of course he did. But he didn’t think he could keep doing this. At least not like this and not by himself. Lily was quiet, occupied by chewing on a teething ring in her crib. He reached for his phone to make the call; Miranda Berenzweig wanted to meet him? Well, he wanted to meet her too. And there was no time like the present.
* * *
The next night, Jared was bustling around his apartment in preparation for Miranda’s visit. She’d been so eager to see Lily that she would have come last night, when he called. But he wanted a chance to pull the place—and himself—together. Earlier in the day, he’d buckled Lily into her stroller and walked over to Fairway, where he’d managed to grab a few things he could serve for dinner before Lily got too fussy. Then he spent the next hour at a playground, pushing her back and forth in a baby swing, which at least tired her out enough so that she fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep for a while once they got there. The respite gave Jared a chance to shower, change, and set the table.
But when Lily woke up, he saw that the diaper had leaked. Damn, what was wrong with those things? They sure cost enough. She needed both a bath and a change of clothes, and the crib sheet had to be stripped and dumped in the wash too. He managed the bath okay. He’d gotten better at it, though when he looked down he saw his own shirt was wet and he’d need to change—again. Plus he had to find something for Lily to wear. He wanted Miranda to think he was taking good care of her.
He pawed through the stash of little dresses and outfits; the ones he thought looked best were in the wash, and when he pulled something out of the pile and attempted to put it on her, he realized it was too small. She was outgrowing her clothes and he’d need to replace them. What the hell did babies wear, anyway? And where was he supposed to go to get this stuff? He remembered Bedelia’s, but he also remembered the price tags on a couple of the things Athena had brought. Sixty bucks for a dress that wasn’t even going to fit her in a couple of months? Ridiculous. Anyway, he couldn’t deal with any of this now, so he found some pajamas with a pattern of kittens on them—good enough.
The buzzer rang precisely at six p.m., and in his haste to answer it, Jared nearly tripped on Lily’s playpen. But he caught himself at the last minute and scooped Lily up. “Here she comes,” he said to her; she was already starting to fuss. “Here we go.”
TWENTY
Miranda took the three flights of stairs to Jared Masters’s apartment with ease.
Since she had lost Lily, she’d stepped up her routine of jogging the loop around Prospect Park, either very early before she went into the office or in the pastel-colored evenings when she got home.
Her phone buzzed while she was climbing. Evan. They had been missing each other for a couple of days, but she really couldn’t talk now. She’d connect with him later. Miranda was nervous about her visit with Masters; would he really consider letting her become a part of Lily’s life on a regular basis? So much depended on this meeting. He had to see her as responsible and kind but not overbearing or intrusive. And if he perceived her as a threat, he might withdraw entirely.
The door was open and he was standing there with Lily in his arms. “Glad you could come,” he said, extending one hand for her to shake. “It’s really good to meet you.”
“Good to meet you too.” Even her eagerness to see Celeste did not prevent Miranda from registering how handsome Jared Masters was. She had seen the picture of him that accompanied Geneva’s second piece. But that had not prepared her for the real thing—tall but not overly so, lean and muscled, with smooth brown skin the color of coffee beans or the best dark chocolate, and an intense, probing gaze. And oh, the smile, with those brilliant, lit-from-within white teeth. She actually felt flustered. Get a grip, she told herself sternly. This wasn’t a date. Though she had the sudden, irrational wish that it was.
Then Lily turned at the sound of her voice and began an almost synchronized series of arm and leg movements. The spell cast by Jared was broken, and Miranda reached for the baby. “Oh, she’s grown so much! Can I hold her?”
“Of course.” Jared handed her over. There was an awkward pause, and then he said, “So please, sit down. We’ll eat, right? And get to know each other?”
“I’d like that,” she said. “I know how strange this is. . . . But we both have a connection to her. Yours is by blood, mine by pure happenstance.”
She joined him at the table, where the food had been set out. “Has Lily eaten?” Jared shook his head no, and Miranda slid her into the high chair. “I could feed her if you want. Give
you a little break.”
“Sure. If you want.” He spooned some pureed beef and sweet potato into a dish and warmed the food in the microwave. Lily opened her mouth wide for every spoonful, and when the food didn’t seem to come fast enough, she lightly pounded her fists on the high chair’s tray.
“No wonder she’s been growing,” Miranda said. “Look at her eat!” Her own food—some indifferently prepared chicken dish, bland vegetables—was not terribly interesting, and she ate only enough to be polite. She was much more interested in giving Lily her bottle, changing her diaper, and putting her to sleep, all of which Jared allowed with what seemed like relief.
While Miranda was in Lily’s pink-and-white room, she could hear him clearing the table and loading the dishwasher. Finally, she went back into the living room, leaving Lily’s door ajar. “I think she’s down for a while,” she said. “But I wanted to leave the door open just in case.”
“Care for some more wine?” Jared said. He’d poured from a bottle of white with dinner, but Miranda had not even finished her glass.
“That would be very nice. Thank you.” She accepted the goblet and sat down on the couch. Not too near him though. Her own animal reaction to him was making her uncomfortable.
He sat down too and started playing with the stem of his goblet.
“I’m grateful that you agreed to let me come here.” Miranda watched his fingers move up and down the glass stem; maybe he was as uncomfortable as she was, though she assumed the reasons were different.
“You know I offered to meet you early on,” he quickly interjected. “But I get why you didn’t want to.”
“I was afraid,” she said. “I couldn’t even deal with the possibility that you might take her from me. And then when you did—”
Jared looked into the wine goblet. “I can imagine,” he murmured.
“It was pretty terrible in the beginning—when she first left. But then a friend pointed out that I was mourning her even though she wasn’t dead. That’s when I began to think—to hope, I mean—that there might be some way I could be in her life. Not as her parent, of course.” She stopped for a sip of wine and then another. “Or even as family. But as something. Because something really would be better than nothing at all.”
“I don’t see why we can’t come to some arrangement about that,” he said. “Maybe she could even spend the night with you sometimes. . . .”
“Really?” Did he mean it? That would be so wonderful.
“Yeah. Sure. Why not?” He took a sip of his wine. “And I haven’t even thanked you yet.” She must have looked puzzled, so he went on. “For finding her. For taking such good, good care of her.”
“Finding her was the most extraordinary thing that’s ever happened to me,” said Miranda. “Think of it. In the course of your life, you might find money or jewelry or even a dog or a cat. But a baby? A newborn? What are the odds of that?”
“Not too likely,” he agreed.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“You really didn’t know anything about her? You had no idea you had a child?”
“None,” he said.
“I was told that her mother was . . . unstable.” The lawyer’s warning had no weight, but she still wanted to be diplomatic.
“That,” said Jared, “would be a serious understatement. I loved Carrie, but I couldn’t take it anymore. We parted on bad terms—really bad. I stopped hearing from her, and to be perfectly honest, I was relieved.”
“So you didn’t even suspect? Not a clue? Not a hint?”
Jared hesitated. “The last time I saw her, she told me she was pregnant. But I didn’t believe her.”
“Oh,” said Miranda. “I see.” The guilt he must have felt when he found out Caroline was telling the truth. And the shame.
“I know it sounds really shitty of me. But she had lied to me so many times. She said she had AIDS. Also cancer. And that she was going blind. So when she played the pregnant card, I thought it was just another ploy.”
“How tragic,” she said. “For her. For you. And for Lily.”
He poured himself another glass of wine and refreshed Miranda’s. “I was the one to identify her at the morgue. I don’t know if she had family or where to even look for them. She never spoke about it, not even when I asked. When I found out that she might have given birth, I just assumed the baby had drowned with her. I didn’t make the connection until I saw Geneva’s piece.”
Geneva. Miranda stiffened at the mention of the name. “Have you been in touch with her? Since then?”
“A couple of times, yeah. She said she wanted to keep tabs on us; she even mentioned doing some kind of follow-up.”
Miranda thought about that. “Did you say yes?”
“Not in so many words,” said Jared. “But I didn’t say no. I mean, how could it hurt?”
Miranda debated whether she should tell him what she now knew about Geneva. Then she wondered whether he already knew—a very upsetting thought.
But if he didn’t know, she wasn’t ready to share it. At least not yet.
Jared refilled his glass and then leaned over to refill hers too. Miranda raised a hand in a gesture that said, stop. She was feeling a little tipsy but not that tipsy. She knew it was time to go. If she stayed, she might say—or even do—more than she wanted to. “That’s enough for me. I’m going to be heading back now.”
“How are you getting home?” he asked.
“Subway.”
“Take a cab,” he said, reaching for his wallet. “I insist.” He handed her two twenties.
Miranda looked down at the bills and then up into his face. “It’s not necessary.”
“Yes, it is. Please, just take it.”
Should she? Finally, she took the bills and tucked them into her wallet. Then she stood and smoothed down the front of her skirt. It was an innocent enough gesture; the skirt was wrinkled and sticking to the fronts of her thighs. But she was suddenly aware that he was watching her, and the air now seemed charged with unexpressed longing. Hers? His? She felt her cheeks go very hot. He stood too, and when she gave him a quick good-bye kiss, she wished that he would turn his face and she’d be kissing his lips instead. Oh, but it was really time to get out of here. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.” And then, after a last peek into Lily’s room, she left.
As she sat in the taxi heading home, Miranda thought about Jared. She had never thought he was a villain, but she had not expected their meeting to stir such a welter of emotions in her either: tenderness, sympathy, and, yes, desire. She believed him about Geneva; he had not known about her connection to Lily. Did he feel attracted to her? It had certainly seemed that way, especially when she got up to leave; she knew what that kind of look meant. Was this just about the most improbable wrinkle in an already highly improbable story? Adoptive mother meets biological father and falls madly in lust. . . . What if they actually got together? What if? They could be a family, the three of them—Jared, Lily, and Miranda. Wouldn’t that be perfect? She allowed herself to linger on this fantasy; how could it hurt?
The cab stopped at a red light, and Miranda looked out the window in surprise. They were in Brooklyn already; she’d be home in a few minutes. She continued to think about Jared as she paid the fare, climbed the stairs to her apartment, and began getting ready for bed. It was only when the lights were out and she was falling sleep that she realized she’d been so preoccupied by her fantasies that she had not called Evan back.
TWENTY-ONE
Miranda was still in bed when Courtney called. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you and Harris were going to Southhampton.”
“We were. But there was a crisis at the office and he couldn’t get away. Just as well; gives me time to do a little wedding shopping. Come with?”
“That depends.” Miranda w
as grateful that her rough patch with Courtney seemed to have been smoothed over; she had even agreed to be one of the bridesmaids at the November wedding. But did she really want to spend the day at some massive bridal chain store, fighting her way through the trains, bustles, and veils? She did not. “Where are you going?”
“NoLIta,” Courtney said. “Elizabeth Street, to be exact.”
“What bridal shops are down there?”
“It’s not a bridal shop. Her name is Solange Repassier, and she does custom work—some bridal but other things too. Very understated, very chic. I think you would approve. And then we can get lunch down there. You can tell me all about seeing the baby. Please say yes.”
Miranda hesitated. The sheets were smooth, the pillow soft. The late-summer sun dappled the parquet floor. She had been savoring last night’s visit with Celeste—Lily—and replaying certain details in her mind. It had been such a sweet reunion. And if she handled things well, it could become a regular occurrence.
But she supposed it was time to get up. “All right,” she said, warming to Courtney’s idea. “It sounds like a plan.” Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered that she’d made tentative arrangements with Evan. He’d want to know about her meeting with Masters, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to lie. Better to put him off—at least temporarily.
The shop on Elizabeth Street was exactly as Courtney had described it. Not a bolt of lace in the place. No sequins or rhinestones or ruffles either. Instead, Courtney was able to consider a fitted strapless number with a skirt that belled out at the ankles, or another with a high waist, square neckline, and the simplest of lines; its only embellishment was the gleaming satin bow in the back. Miranda perched on a tiny gold chair and was offered a glass of prosecco and chocolate-dipped strawberries as she watched Courtney model the dresses. She was surprised—pleasantly—by the direction the wedding was heading, especially when Courtney said they had scaled the guest list way back. “We don’t want it to feel like a mob scene,” she said. “Harris and I both want something more intimate.” Score one for Harris, thought Miranda as she nibbled on a strawberry. And the choice of venue truly shocked her: the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
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