by Robyn Carr
Now this article. Someone had written a book about her, and within the book were dozens of little-known facts about her husband. It said that Christine Palmer was one of possibly four women he’d married. Wives with money. Wives who had disappeared. They didn’t disappear, Chris wanted to say, they only ran out of money and became clerks and housekeepers. She ought to buy a copy of the book, find out what that weasel had done with her money.
But first she had to talk to Mr. Iverson. And Florence.
“You mean I gave you a hundred bucks and you’re worth millions?” Mr. Iverson said. He held the paper in his hand. She sat across from him. He had an office, sort of. Two walls in the shipping area in the back of the store. A cluttered desk. A computer.
“Read a little farther,” she said. “I was ripped off. I married this jerk who took me for my inheritance, and I am now a destitute grocery clerk with two fatherless children. That’s who you gave the hundred bucks to.”
He read farther. “Says here you’re probably dead.”
“Well, I suppose that’s the current Mrs. Zanuck.”
“Jeez. Who wrote this book?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Maybe you ought to read it.”
“I was thinking that myself.” She watched while his eyes roamed the page. “Look, I’m really sorry about this, Mr. Iverson, but I didn’t exactly do it on purpose, you know? I’m going to have to get in touch with my aunt—I can’t have her thinking I’m dead. I’m probably going to have to go home. Chicago.” She swallowed hard.
“You want some time off? Jeez, you don’t want to work here. You’re an heiress, for crying out loud. What are you going to do? What about my hundred bucks?”
“Oh. That. Look, don’t worry about that, okay? Here,” she said, digging into her purse frantically, trying to pay her debts and retain her dignity. She stopped suddenly. This was what she’d been doing for more than three years. Trying to assure people that she wasn’t a no-good, taking-you-for-a-ride con artist. She slowed down. People had helped her, had always said don’t worry about it, but in the end they worried they might not get their loans back. They were, in fact, more suspicious of her when they found out she’d come from money than when they believed her to be poor, pitiful and down on her luck. It was as though she had no business being so stupid if she was so rich.
Well, they were probably right about that.
She pulled sixty-three dollars out of her purse. “Okay, here’s sixty. And I worked the other day—six hours. Take that, too. And I’ll ask Aunt Florence to send me something. But is that enough?”
“There’s taxes.”
She sighed and gave him the three dollars she had left. “Let me know if I owe you,” she said quietly.
“How do I reach you?”
He instantly thought she’d run out. Would Mike see the paper? Would he think she’d run out? Would he want her to run out, now that she was someone else? People got crazy when they found out there was more to you than what was on the surface. And here was this terrifically nasty article, plus a book. Mr. Iverson was looking at her as if she were Patty Hearst.
“You can reach me at the same number,” she said even more quietly. “I’ll let you know if it changes.”
She picked up the kids at the babysitter’s and went back to Mike’s. She told Juanita not to expect them unless she called but didn’t quite say goodbye. She never had, she realized. To anyone. Anywhere. She always acted as though she was just going down the block to buy a candy bar and would be right back. And if she didn’t do that to people, they did it to her. She was going to have to stop that. At once. Stop running, stop pretending that she would have this fixed in a minute. It was now officially bigger than she was. She would have to either fold her hand or learn to blame the right person. She didn’t do this. It was done to her. Help.
That was her thought as she placed the call. She was thinking hard about it, about her promise to Mike, when she dialed direct rather than collect. She wanted to negotiate with Aunt Flo, if possible.
But when she heard Flo’s voice, when she felt the tie that bound them tighten around her heart, she forgot negotiations. What she said, through her suddenly rasping tears, was, “Oh, God, Flo, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I never meant to hurt you like I have. Never!”
“Chris! Chris, where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. I’m in shock. I just read about myself in the paper, and I’m in total shock. I didn’t know I was missing, didn’t know I was the subject of a book, didn’t know that Steve—I’m in California,” she said, not mentioning Sacramento.
“California? We tracked him as far as Texas.”
“Oh, I’ve been alone for years, Flo. Years.”
“Where in California? I have been looking for you forever!”
“Flo, I didn’t know that…honest. I thought you were still mad, which you have every right to be. I wasn’t hiding, I was trying—Listen, listen, one thing at a time. I’m not going to hang up in the middle, I promise. But first, is he dead? Is he really dead?”
“Oh, who knows? Who cares? Three years, Chris! Good God, how could you? Even after all we’d been through, you had to have known that I…” Flo’s voice caught and drifted away. Chris couldn’t quite imagine her aunt crying. Flo could be angry, wildly happy, or her usual—completely composed. But cry? Make her pillow wet and wake up ugly, like Chris did? Was she in pain?
Chris, the nurturer, tried to comfort. “Oh, Flo, I kept trying to get it together, to salvage something. He wiped me out, naturally. And I have two little kids. Carrie is five now, and Kyle is three. I’ve been working, trying to get on my feet so when I did go home I wouldn’t feel like such slime. I was wrong. I should have called you. But I…just couldn’t get up the nerve.”
“What about Steve? When was the last time you saw him? Did he leave you anything? Anything at all?”
“I haven’t seen him since before Kyle was born. He ran out on me, left me holding the bag. I don’t know what he did next. I hired a lawyer who tracked him down, finally, in Dallas. I got the divorce. I never got anything back. Except my name. I got my name back.”
“Your name? Palmer?”
“Yes,” she said through her tears.
“I guess that explains why I couldn’t find Christine Zanuck.”
I screwed that up, too, she thought. Figures.
“Come home,” Flo said. “I’ll send the money. I’ll wire it. I’ll come and get you. We can deal with this. We can—”
“Wait. Hold it a second, Flo. I’m coming. I’m coming home, I promise, but—”
“But? You said that before. You said ‘as soon as I can,’ and weeks went by. Then I couldn’t find you. Then—”
“No, no. No, I won’t do that to you again. No, Flo, but listen. It’s a little complicated.”
There was silence, then a short laugh. “How is it that doesn’t surprise me?”
Chris started to cry again. “I’m like a bad penny. Why do I do this to people? I never meant to hurt anyone. Never.”
“All right, all right, calm down, Chris. Try not to be childish. This isn’t the worst thing, God knows. At least you’re all right. First, give me the number where you are—the real number. Please don’t lie to me.”
Chris grabbed for a tissue to blow her nose. “No, I won’t lie to you.” She sniffed again and recited the numbers. “Now look, Flo, listen, I want to come home, I mean it, but I’m not ready yet. I can’t just pick up and run. I won’t. For the moment, the kids are more comfortable than they’ve ever been. I don’t want to jerk them out of here. They’re—”
“Out of where?” Flo interrupted.
“I’m living with a man. He’s been very good to us. I can’t run out on him.”
“Who is this man, for goodness’ sake?”
“His name is Mike. Mike Cavanaugh. It’s real complicated.”
“I bet. So bring him, too. Who cares? Or I’ll come there. Chris, after all this—”
“Oh, God.”
“He’s a wonderful, generous man. He’s calm. Sensible. He’s good to the kids, and they adore him. It’s the very first time a man has—He’s been very good to me, too. I’m not going to stay here forever, but I promised him that I’d stay for a little while. See, he lost his wife and daughter in a car accident about ten years ago, and he’s been all alone since then. And here I was, all alone with my kids, and we—”
“God Almighty.”
“This is important, Flo. For both of us. It’s as if we’re both in some kind of recovery. This is the most comfort and safety I’ve felt since before Mom and Daddy were killed. It’s not necessarily permanent—we don’t have any long-term commitment, but—”
“Chris, listen to me. Here’s what you do. Tell this nice man you appreciate everything he’s done and you’ll stay in touch with him when you get to Chicago. Tell him—”
It was all coming back to her. Chris, here’s what you do…. Chris, you don’t study only literature, you have to have a few business courses. Chris, you don’t just marry the first man you— “Are you listening to me? Tell him you’ll call him every night, all right? Visit him. Let him visit you! You’ve been missing for three years, and I am your only family! He’ll understand. Do you hear me?”
Chris started crying again. “I’m not telling him that,” she said. “I don’t want to.”
“Chris, now listen to me….”
“Flo, please, don’t. Stop making my decisions for me!” She blew her nose again. Carrie found her, in the kitchen, pacing with the phone in her hand, crying her eyes out. Carrie tugged on her jeans. “Flo, listen, I haven’t made this mess on purpose, but ever since Mom and Daddy died I’ve been bouncing between people who want me to do things their way, to take sides, to choose. Like now.”
“Chris, you’re getting—”
“Just this morning I told Mike I was going to call you so you’d know where I was and that we’re all right. He thought that was good, but he asked me not to surprise him, you know, like run out on him without any warning. Don’t you understand, Flo? His wife and baby—they were gone, without warning! And I know how that feels because Steve…Oh, please, try to understand. He saved my life. And I…I told him I was going to stay a while. Just a while. I can’t keep doing this, Flo. I love you. I want to see you desperately. I want to make up for hurting you so much. I just don’t want to hurt him, too. I’m sorry.”
And she hung up. She blew her nose. “Mommy?” Carrie asked, her little chin wrinkling. Carrie would cry if Chris was crying; children didn’t need to know the reasons.
Damn. She had hoped to find Flo tractable, reasonable. She had wanted Flo to be glad to hear from her, relieved to know she was safe and happy, period. She had wanted Flo’s humor, generosity and spirit, not her commands. She needed Flo; Flo was her only link to her roots. She even liked Flo’s take-charge manner on occasion; it sure came in handy in foreign airports. But that was where she wanted Flo to stop. She didn’t want Flo to keep taking charge of her.
The phone rang. Chris laughed through her tears. “Hello.”
“Dear God. You really are there. I don’t know why I try. You are the worst brat.”
“I really wanted to talk to you, you know. But I want to talk when you start listening and stop ordering that I listen to you.” She was amazed at the strength in her voice. Yes, this was why she hadn’t called before. Yes, she was sorry she’d hurt her aunt so deeply, frightened her so much. And she did love her, but she wasn’t going to be pushed around anymore. By anyone. “I shouldn’t have hung up, but I was upset. I would have called back. Do you want to talk awhile now? If you can listen and I can keep calm?”
“Please tell me exactly where you are. Tell me I can fly out there and see that you’re all right, that you’re alive and well, not living with some lunatic. Or some jerk like that Zanuck masterpiece. Please. I deserve some peace of mind, after all.”
“Sure. But, Flo, you’re going to have to hold back a little. I want to see you very much, but you’re not going to keep telling me what to do. I’m going to make my own mistakes and pay for them myself.”
“That,” said Flo, “is the understatement of the year.”
“Will you give me a couple of days, please?” Chris asked patiently. “Before you come? So I can get Mike ready for this? So I can explain what kind of mess I’ve made?”
“Two days?”
“Yes. And, Flo, you’re going to have to understand that I have business to finish here. I might be ready in a day or in a couple of—”
Flo sighed heavily. “You want my promise that I’m going to leave you and the children with this—this fireman?”
“Flo, do you know anything about that book? The Missing Heiress?”
“I just read it.”
“Is any of it true?”
There was a moment of silence. “Only the really bad parts.”
Mike was hoping to run into Chris at the grocery store when he and the guys went shopping for dinner, and he couldn’t hide his astonishment when he inquired about Chris’s whereabouts and the clerk said she was gone. Quit. Poof.
Well, he thought, maybe Aunt Flo had come through, wired money. Then, back in the rig, Jim handed him the newspaper. “Isn’t that your Christine Palmer?” he asked gently.
My Christine Palmer? So I had thought, briefly.
Back at the station Mike took the paper into the bathroom with him. He read it. Christine Palmer Zanuck, heiress to a multimillion-dollar furniture empire, possibly dead—one of four women Steve Zanuck had married and swindled. The Palmer fortune, excepting Chris’s inheritance, was still sound and in the possession of Florence Palmer, who did not know where her niece was but had been actively hunting for her for three years. Even after the horrible ordeal of their lawsuit, Aunt Florence longed only to know that her niece was alive and well.
He left the bathroom.
They had two alarms in a row. One turned out to be nothing—a smoking stove. The other was a burning car, no injuries. He kept quiet, doing his job, straining his muscles, his mind elsewhere.
“Well,” Jim said. “That her?”
“I guess so. Yeah, must be.”
“She still at your place?”
“She didn’t say she was leaving.”
“You seen her lately?”
“Yeah, I saw her. Before I came to work.” Jim probably knew, Mike figured, that he’d left her in his bed. The other firefighter knew how early they reported for their shift. It was pretty unlikely that Mike had gone from his parents’ house to his house for coffee at 6:00 a.m.
“Think she’s still there?”
“Well, I suppose so. I’m not afraid she’s going to rip off the television, if that’s what you mean. Especially now.”
“Want to call? Take a couple of hours of personal time to run home?”
Want to? Oh, did he want to. So bad he could hardly stand it. But if he rushed home to check on her, what did that say about him? That he had not known what he was doing when he asked her to stay with no strings. That he could talk about love and trust but couldn’t act on it. “Nope,” he said. “She’s a big girl.” It was her life.
He lifted weights that afternoon. He thought it through. Long and slow.
He believed in people. He believed in love—in saying it, showing it, trusting people. And when he loved, he loved hard, totally and with faith.
He had known right off that Joanie was the one for him. The second time he’d felt that way was with Chris. With Chris he hadn’t felt giddy the way he had with the flight attendant, desperate the way he had with the woman on the rebound,
or entrenched the way he had with the artist. He had felt secure and strong and exact. So he had done what he had done—given everything he had. He didn’t hold back a little, save a little, like for a rainy day, in case he had been mistaken. Nope. He’d plunged in with everything he had—every tear, every passion, every possession, every hope.
Kind of stupid to think you’d be more relieved to find out she’d kidnapped her own kids than to find out she was rich. Stinking rich.
He didn’t want to push his own needs on to anyone. He didn’t want Chris to save him, exactly. He just wanted her to tell him the truth or refuse to answer. That simple, two choices. Don’t say it if you don’t feel it. When he had asked her to stay awhile and she had said okay, even though she’d been afraid of what it would mean, what it would become, it had meant she’d stayed because she wanted to. And when she said, “I love you,” it meant she did. Oh, he knew she was reluctant to say that, and he knew why. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed her, but he had, and she’d said it. Simple. She didn’t say she would stay forever, he didn’t ask her to, and unless something happened to change her mind, she would probably go. But not without saying goodbye.
No alarms through the night, but he didn’t sleep. He almost picked up the phone to call her about fifty times. But she had the number. He’d told her to call if she needed him. You can’t be any plainer than that.
Long and slow, he thought about it. By morning he thought he knew what he felt. He wanted to take care of her, protect her and love her because it felt good. He wanted to have some time with her and those two little kids because if he could remember what it felt like to be loved and depended on as a man, a provider, a lover, maybe he could get on with his life. Finally. He wanted to hold her without holding her down.
He didn’t hang around the station for breakfast. He drank a quick cup of coffee and went home. The old Honda was in the driveway, but he didn’t breathe a sigh of relief—not yet. If Aunt Flo had recited the numbers on her American Express card, there might be a note on the refrigerator telling him to sell the car for his trouble. Please, God, no. Please, God, all I ever wanted was the straight line.