“Okay, okay,” Katie interrupted. Geez, was it going to be this hard with the other writers, too?
“The point I’m trying to make is that I wanna be sure I can deliver a story that’s up to my standards. This anthology idea of yours is a good one but I don’t wanna ruin it by writing something worth crap. Besides, I’m already in the middle of my new novel, I’ve got that TV show coming up, then we’re on vacation, and now I’ve got Danielle and her kooky family to worry about.”
Katie sighed.
“Please try to decide quickly,” she implored. “Please? I was hoping to use the fact that you were on board to lure the others on my list, especially Diego.”
Max made a dismissive gesture.
“Don’t worry about Diego,” he said. “I’ll handle Montrose if it’s that important to you. He owes me for that time I did that charity book signing with him.”
Chapter 3
Max knew there was a particular brand of footwear that was only available at Harvey Nic’s and which Danielle happened to adore; a collection by a relatively new designer with the unlikely name of Mohammed Jacobowitz who was threatening to seriously cut into Manolo Blahnik’s domination of the overpriced shoe market. Danielle already owned one of Jacobowitz’s creations, a pair of Swarovski-studded sandals that nearly caused Max serious injury in an upstairs hall six weeks ago. But despite the future threat to his safety by bringing even more shoes into the house Max figured that if he took Danielle shopping this evening for Jacobowitz shoes she might enjoy herself enough to finally own up to what’s been bothering her lately.
So after leaving Katie following their lunch Max phoned Danielle at her office suggesting that upon leaving for the day she order her driver to drop her off at Harvey Nic’s because, “I want to pick up a new jacket and since I’m in a spending mood why don’t you take a look at some new shoes?” Surprisingly, even with the promise of acquiring new footwear Danielle was reluctant to join him.
“Max,” she said wearily, “all I want to do is go straight home. God’s gift to women was in the building today and I had to deal with him hitting on me. I need a shower.”
But Max refused to take no for an answer. It took a few extra minutes of coaxing but eventually he got her to agree to meet him, but only after sweetening the deal by also promising dinner at Fifth Floor, one of her favorite restaurants.
***
“The red or the black?” Danielle asked Max a few hours later, stretching out both her legs in front of her. On her left foot was the new Jacobowitz four-inch stiletto pump in red; on her right the exact same pump but in black and she regarded both with a critical eye.
Quite frankly, Max didn’t have a preference, they both looked phenomenally sexy and he’d be pleased to see her wearing either color—with or without other clothes. But he shook his head to clear thoughts of sex away; he was here on a mission and had work to do.
Normally, Max Bland did not like to pry. Even if he was certain—as he and Katie both were—that someone he cared about was experiencing some difficulty or other he preferred to let that person broach it themselves to avoid any possible embarrassment. This, however, was a different matter. Not only did he care for Danielle more deeply than anyone else but he was tired of walking on eggshells at home for fear of rankling his wife. The only problem he was having was coming up with a way to bring it up.
Fortunately, Danielle provided the opening herself.
Making a decision she said, “God knows the last thing I need is another pair of black pumps.” Max didn’t correct her. Technically, after all, she did need another pair of black shoes, what with him having incinerated a pair just this morning. “And I’ve been meaning to add more red to my wardrobe, so…”
“Red it is?” Max said.
“Red it is,” Danielle concurred.
Under normal circumstances Danielle would then have signaled the salesperson, ordered the shoes to be boxed up and eagerly taken possession of her new acquisition immediately upon Max paying the bill. Yet this time she hesitated and, eyeing the red pump on her foot, said:
“I don’t know, Max. It’s kind of expensive. Do you really think we ought to spend the money?”
Suddenly Max’s eyes lit up and he exclaimed, “A-HA!”
He said this so abruptly that it startled his wife. After smacking him on the arm for giving her a fright she asked him what was the big idea.
“I knew something was bothering you,” he told her triumphantly. “Since when do you care what a pair of shoes cost, huh? Since when do you care what anything costs, for that matter; especially if I’m paying and especially if the shoes in question are by this Jacobowitz idiot? So, come on, out with it. What gives?”
“Nothing gives, Max,” was the murmured answer, delivered not at all convincingly.
Max took her hand.
“Look…sweetie…you can’t continue hiding it, alright? I mean, for the first few days I appreciated you keeping it to yourself because back then I thought it was something stupid like your manicurist going on vacation, but now I know it’s serious. Even Katie has noticed it and if you don’t tell me now you can count on her bugging you about it later tonight. I know you like to project this image that you are stalwart in the face of adversity but come on, every now and then we all need a hand to get through some things, right? Take me for example…I’ve been seeing an analyst to help me deal with your stupid shoe addiction.”
This earned him another smack on the arm, but it was delivered with a chuckle. Her resistance had melted.
“Okay, fine,” she said, “but it’s not the kind of thing I want to discuss in the shoe department of all places. Let’s go upstairs to eat and I’ll tell you there.” Now she did signal for the blue-haired saleslady. “Oh, and by the way, to get you back for calling my shoe addiction stupid I will take the black pumps, too.” Danielle stuck out her tongue at him while leading him by the hand toward the till.
Max shrugged. It meant dropping nearly two-thousand quid on shoes but even that wouldn’t stop him from burning the fucking things the first time they caused him to fall flat on his face at home.
***
“My Dad is a lying bastard and I hate him,” Danielle said flatly.
They were now seated in a quiet corner of Fifth Floor, Harvey Nics’ signature restaurant which, mercifully, wasn’t crowded and thus afforded a civilized setting for serious conversation. On the table between them was a bottle of California pinot noir and a basket of varied breads.
Max was surprised at Danielle’s declaration. Like most women who grew up in happy homes Danielle was more emotionally fond of her father and was very much daddy’s little girl, even now at age thirty-three. In fact, when Danielle came out to her parents as a bisexual—a circumstance made necessary by falling in love with Katie—it was Danielle’s father, Harold, who had been unfazed and supportive. Danielle’s mother, on the other hand, had reacted to the news much the same way a parent would react to their only child stating an intention to pursue a career as a suicide bomber.
So Max was indeed surprised by this statement of Danielle’s. Yet, he figured, how bad could it be? The guy probably got caught screwing one of his grad students at Arizona State. Regrettable, sure, and a rather cliché move for a man going through a mid-life crisis, but was it enough to justify Danielle’s behavior as of late?
So Max said:
“Lemme guess…your Dad’s gone and had an affair. Surprise, surprise…yet even more proof that men are bastards and women should take over the world.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a whole fucking lot more than an affair, Max,” Danielle said after a good-sized sip of pinot. “Turns out the fucking prick has a whole goddamned second family.”
“What?”
“Yeah, in New Mexico.”
Max was flabbergasted, as evidenced by his gaping mouth. And for the next half hour, through another bottle of wine and the delivery of their entrees, Danielle explained the Edwards family crisis.
Her fathe
r, a professor of Native American Culture at Arizona State University, had long been in the habit of traveling to New Mexico several times a year, sometimes for weeks at a time. Ostensibly, he made these trips to study the ruins and artifacts left behind by the ancient Anasazi, the Native American tribe whose history he specialized in, and it was this reason he gave for never allowing Arlene and Danielle to tag along; he claimed to not want the distractions of a wife and daughter keeping him from his all-important research.
As it turns out, academic pursuits were not the only reason he made these journeys. He had a mistress in Albuquerque, a colleague in the world of Anasazi studies and herself a professor at the University of New Mexico. Twenty-seven years ago a daughter was born.
“So he kept two families in two different states?” Max asked. He hadn’t even touched his food, so engrossed was he.
“Yep,” nodded Danielle. “I guess the other woman was fine with it, though. My Dad would fly into town every few weeks, play with their spawn, and write a check before jetting back to Arizona.”
“Fuck,” Max muttered.
“Yeah, fuck,” Danielle agreed. “And apparently he managed to be a great dad to the spawn. I hear tell he was at her school plays, her soccer games, all of her birthdays, her high school graduation—he bought her a car, by the way—and even her college graduation. The bitch went to Bryn Mawr. Has a Masters in Comparative Literature.”
“Fuck,” Max said again. Then, “How did you find all this out?”
“Mom, of course,” Danielle said. “She first told me three weeks ago.”
For reasons which have yet to be explained, Harold’s mistress felt compelled to finally admit the truth to her daughter. The daughter apparently went ballistic, horrified to learn that her father, whom she believed spent most of his time in Arizona studying Hopi ruins and artifacts, had been leading a double life full of lies and deceit.
“She tracked down Dad’s address and flew to Arizona,” Danielle said. “Mom says she showed up one morning just after the lying bastard left for work and that she was armed with her birth certificate and a suitcase packed with photo albums.”
Arlene, needless to say, had been devastated and, to make a long story short had kicked Harold out of their Fountain Hills home. Divorce was imminent, as in only days away.
“Jesus,” Max exhaled, slumping back into his chair. “Harold always seemed like such a straight shooter, too. Sweetie, I’m so sorry this happened. But why haven’t you flown back to the States to stay with your mom a bit?”
“She won’t let me. Absolutely refuses to let me come. I think she’s too embarrassed. It’s just as well, Max. With the economy the way it is I have enough on my hands just trying to keep the bank running strong. Besides, if I found myself in the same municipality as my father I might just kill him, the prick.”
***
Later, Danielle had to recount her tale to Katie once she and Max reached home that evening but she was surprised at how good it felt to get it off her chest.
“Which you should have done as soon as you got this crap news, sweetie,” Katie admonished her.
The three of them were in the main salon of their massive house in Kensington, sipping Sherries Max had poured from a reserve collection of bottles he kept aside only for their use. He was seated in an easy chair upholstered in butter soft leather but the two women were together on one of the couches, Danielle reclining against Katie, enveloped in the blonde’s arms.
Danielle couldn’t really explain why she’d kept this to herself for three weeks. It wasn’t as if, like Max had imagined, her dad had had a plain vanilla, run-of-the-mill affair. Keeping that kind of dirty family laundry to herself would have been excusable. But her father had a whole other family! And something that monumental should have been shared with the two people who mattered most to her, the two individuals whom she considered herself married to.
“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you guys,” Danielle confessed. “It’s like…when Mom first said that something was wrong I thought it would prove trivial. You both know how Mom is. But when she told the whole story I was stunned and my brain had trouble processing it, making sense of it. I still can’t make sense of it and I think that perhaps I was waiting until I could before I opened up to others, even you two.”
“But why did your father continue that affair for so long and why on earth did he play the role of family man on both ends?” Max asked.
“Who cares, Max?” Danielle queried. “Jesus, does it really matter?”
The writer shrugged.
“I’m just curious, is all. But now that I think about it…maybe it does matter. Seems to me Harold went to a lot of trouble and risk keeping up appearances when he could’ve just sent a monthly check to this other woman and been done with it. Instead, he chose the more difficult option and laid himself open to eventually being exposed. Why?”
“Are you about to suggest that this is somehow Mom’s fault?” Danielle exclaimed; her eyes were flashing fire.
“I’m not saying that at all. But come on…this is your father we’re talking about here. You may be justified in hating him right now but you gotta wanna know what the hell he was thinking.”
Opening her mouth, Danielle seemed about ready to launch into a verbal tirade that would be capable of emasculating Max; he even winced in preparation for it. But no such tirade came. Instead, she rolled her eyes and blew out an exasperated sigh which fluttered her bangs.
“God, I hate living with a writer sometimes,” she said. “Writers always have to look for a story in any situation.” She stared pointedly at Max; it was the look she gave her subordinates at ARCL when said subordinates had displeased her in some manner. “I don’t give a fuck why the lying bastard did it, Wordsworth. Even if things weren’t optimal between he and my mother the lying bastard still had adult decisions to make and he made the wrong ones.”
“Pelham!” Katie suddenly squealed. “Come here, boy!”
This exclamation was directed to a Chinese Crested that had just then come into the room, but Katie’s eyes were locked meaningfully with Max’s. Things are getting a little tense here, her eyes were telling him. Maybe we’d better change the subject.
By an almost imperceptible nod Max indicated his concurrence. He didn’t want Danielle to begin to regret exposing this wound to them. He got up from the chair, grunting softly as he did so but not really caring. Although he was slender and reasonably fit (thanks entirely to Danielle lovingly making sure he ate a bowl of fruit and granola every morning and that he spent three hours a week on the Tread Master she’d bought him) he was still forty-five and, he supposed, grunting when getting up from a seated position was just something forty-five-year-olds did.
He went to the couch, bent and kissed Danielle’s forehead.
“I’m on your side, sweetie,” he assured her. “From now on this is an anti Harold Edwards household. I shall order Maureen to shoot him on sight. Either that or to suddenly appear before him naked which I’m sure is equally deadly.”
“That’s more like it,” Danielle said with a smile.
“It’s time for the dog’s walk,” Max then said, checking his watch. “Lemme get it over with now because I’ve got some work to do tonight.” He patted his leg. “Come on, idiot, let’s go.”
Pelham the dog happily left off from slobbering on Katie’s hand and bounded over to where Max stood. He plopped down onto his haunches and sat looking up at the novelist obviously hoping to be rewarded with a few scratches behind the ears. But Max just turned and began walking out of the room. At the door he looked back, noted the dog hadn’t moved an inch, said sternly, “What are you a cripple? Let’s go!” and resumed walking.
Pelham ran across the room and out the door to join him, but his ears were down sullenly as it dawned on him that he had somehow, yet again, displeased this one.
Alone in the main salon now, Katie gave Danielle a kiss on the forehead.
“Hey,” she said, “I’ve got some
good news, at least. Today I received the confirmation package for our vacation. It’s only four and a half weeks away now.”
“Christ, I’d practically forgotten about that,” admitted the other woman. “Now that you mention it I’m ready to leave now because I sure as hell need a vacation, like to another planet. So, where are we going?”
Katie considered for a few moments.
“No,” she declared. “I’ll wait till you’re in better spirits to tell you. In the meantime…” Katie gave Danielle’s left breast a squeeze.
Danielle purred contentedly and shared a kiss with Katie. Then she murmured, “I need a bath first, a long one. I also need to call Mom. I know, I know but look…if I don’t assure myself that she’s alright I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else, especially—”
“Interesting places on my body to put your tongue?” Katie finished for her, hope in her voice.
“Exactly,” Danielle confirmed. Reluctantly, swung her legs off the couch. “I’ll go run the bath now,” she said after another kiss with Katie.
Chapter 4
Pelham the Chinese Crested joined the Bland-Edwards-Shaw family one Saturday about seven months ago. Danielle and Katie had wanted to spend the day shopping at the Piccadilly Arcade. Normally, Max would have gladly seen them to the door, wished them happy hunting and then enjoyed having their enormous house all to himself for the day. But that particular Saturday he was in a rather good mood due to having finally finished an especially difficult chapter the day before and so, feeling unusually sociable, accepted the ladies’ invitation to join them. In fact, he was in such good temper that upon reaching Hay Street he told them to pick out something nice for the house and it would be on him.
Two for One-Relatively Speaking (The Two for One series) Page 3