“My car’s in the Communitex lot. Can we go there and talk?”
Sighing, she checked her watch. “I have to be back in the boardroom in twenty minutes.”
When they were settled in the rental car, Matt edged sideways as much as the cramped space would allow and said, “I know this isn’t the optimum time or place—there really isn’t enough room to grovel properly.”
She tilted her head. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to apologize for being a jerk. For abandoning you when you needed me. And for not being brave enough to tell you what’s in my heart.”
Although outwardly Eve looked perfectly calm and composed, her bottom lip disappeared beneath her smooth white teeth. “Matt, we said all that this morning. We love each other, but love isn’t enough to make a relationship work. You said Elizabeth Taylor tried love and—”
Matt raked his fingers through his hair. “Are you going to remember every stupid thing I say for the rest of our lives? I hope not, because there are going to be more. I guarantee it.”
“The rest of our lives?” Eve repeated.
Matt closed the gap between them. “I love you, Eve. I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I don’t even have all the questions, but I do know that I want to try to figure this out. With you.”
Eve moved back slightly. She looked as surprised as a person can be without actually fainting—although given her paleness, that was a possibility.
“What about Ashley? Your job?”
“Ashley has a lot on her plate, and I’m sure this is going to cause some extra anxiety, but I honestly think she can handle it. She’s a smart kid—even if she makes some dumb moves once in a while.”
He turned her shoulders slightly so he could look into her eyes. He felt her nervous tension, her fear. “As for my job, I was sent here to find Eve Masterson, and I can’t leave when there’s still a part of you missing.”
She drew her hands up defensively and pushed on his chest. “What are you talking about? I’m here. Unemployed, but I have marketable skills. In fact, I have a whole list of calls from when I was sick, and my old agent Marcella has called half a dozen times. I’ll find something. Maybe not just what I want, but—”
He cut off her frenetic ramblings with a light kiss. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. I faced my fear, Eve. I want to help you face yours. The voice on the phone.”
She intensified her effort to escape and he released her. She put her hand on the door handle but didn’t open it. “You don’t understand. You don’t know anything about her.”
“No, I don’t. But I know that my fear—my feelings of inadequacy—almost kept me from being with you.”
Matt could read the conflict in her face. He gently touched her cheek. “Let me help you, Eve.” He fished in his pocket for the slip of paper from the restaurant. “The real reason Bo called was to give me your birth mother’s current address. Ashley told me she saw the name on an investigation report and I had him trace her. Let’s go see her, Eve. Together.”
She shook her head and tried to flee.
“Eve, running away doesn’t help. Trust me, the only way to fight your fear is head-on.”
She took a deep breath and seemed to collect herself. Matt didn’t have a clue to what she was thinking. “I have a meeting to finish,” she said flatly.
Matt nodded.
“Will you wait for me?”
A slight quiver in her voice gave him the spurt of hope he needed. “Forever, if I have to.”
A tiny smile made her lips flicker. “It shouldn’t take quite that long.”
Matt leaned across the gap and kissed her. Sweet and significant but far too short. She opened the door and got out. Matt did the same.
They walked in silence until Eve said, “The first time I ever saw my birth mother was at the Miss Teen America pageant. She was drunk, and she had some guy with a video camera with her. She said I was going to be her vehicle to the stars.”
Matt’s knee buckled painfully.
“The irony is, she’d already sold me once. For a car—a 1967 Buick.” Eve looked at him, eyes glittering with tears. “Get it? Vehicle? Buick?”
Ignoring his throbbing knee, Matt pulled her tight. “Oh, honey, don’t you see what this is doing to you? You have to face the past so you can see yourself the way I do. If I’m brave enough to admit my cowardice, then you have to be strong enough to go to Florida with me…tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” she peeped.
He nodded. “Why not? You don’t have a job at the moment, and Bo said not to come home until I finish things down here. As far as I can see, there’s only one thing left to do.”
A LITTLE OVER THREE HOURS into their journey the next morning Eve remembered something she’d wanted to tell Sara, who’d called just as Eve and Matt were walking out the door.
Sara, ever the optimist, not so subtly suggested that Eve and Matt might consider having a double wedding with Bo and Claudie in June. “They’re planning on renting a catamaran at Lake Tahoe. It’ll be a big party. Since Matt’s going to be there anyway…”
Sara’s leading hint was enough to blow Eve’s question straight out of her head. She’d meant to ask what Sara thought of Marcella’s idea that Eve return to Sacramento. The previous afternoon—after all the forms and papers had been signed at Communitex—Eve had talked with her former agent at length. Marcella seemed to think Eve could wind up with the executive producer’s job at her old Sacramento station if she was willing to do some high-profile PR for the company.
For some reason, Eve had kept the possibility to herself, not mentioning it to Matt when he’d picked her up to go home.
“Are you hungry?” Matt asked. “There’s one more doughnut left.”
Eve’s stomach was far too knotted to tolerate food. She shook her head and rubbed the embossed design on the brass button of her blazer. She’d spent a solid hour trying to decide what to wear, finally settling for navy wool slacks and a scarlet blouse to wear with her dull gold blazer.
They’d shared her bed last night. Their lovemaking had been bittersweet, needy and silent, but somehow more attuned to each other than the all-consuming passion they’d shared in Mexico.
“You know, I just remembered something,” Matt said. “Ashley asked to talk to you and I put her off. Would you mind if we called her?”
“Right now? Isn’t she in school?”
He fished his cell phone out of the pocket of his jacket lying between them. “She had an orthodontist appointment this morning and I think Sonya usually brings her home afterward instead of driving all the way back to school. Wanna try?”
Eve hesitated. Finally, she took the phone. “I guess I might as well get it over. But what do I say if your ex-wife answers?”
Matt snickered. “Ask to speak to Ashley.”
Eve made a face. “You know what I mean.”
He gave her a slow, dreamy smile that made her heart do cartwheels. “We’ll talk to Sonya together when it comes to that. One step at a time.” Nodding at the phone, he said, “Hit zero one and then send.”
Eve did as directed, then pushed her hair out of the way and put the phone to her ear. She cleared her throat. “Ashley? This is Eve…Masterson.”
Ashley’s delighted laugh unloosened the knot in Eve’s chest. She let out the breath she’d been holding and relaxed back in the seat. “Your dad and I are on our way to Florida. He said you wanted to tell me something.”
“I want you to know that you’re the first woman I’ve ever met who’s good enough for my dad. Even though Grandma was worried about Dad not dating, it never bothered me because I knew it would happen when he met the right person—someone special who could appreciate him.” She paused a second then asked, “You do, don’t you? Appreciate him?”
“More than I could ever say.”
Ashley let out a long sigh. “Cool…I’m so glad you found each other. Really, I am.”
Eve’s eyes filled with tea
rs. “That’s incredibly nice of you to say.”
“I mean it,” Ashley said with feeling. “You’re awesome. It meant a lot to me seeing your scrapbook the other night. I mean, a lot of adults want you to think they were born grown-up—all perfect and everything. You weren’t afraid to let me see you with braces. I liked that. I think we can be friends, if you want to be, I mean.”
“I’d be honored. Thank you.”
“Sure. No problem. Can I talk to my dad a minute?”
She passed the phone blindly and reached in her purse for a tissue. She tried not to listen to Matt’s conversation, and didn’t look at him until the phone landed in her lap.
“Well…?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
“She’s wonderful. I could love that girl—almost as much as I love her dad.”
Matt chuckled, forcing his jaw to relax. “Good. I’m going to hold you to that.”
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and a ripple of nervous tension passed through his body. Not much longer if his estimate was accurate. They’d been in the car since nine, when they took off armed with two steaming mugs of coffee and a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
The address Bo had given Matt matched the one on the report in Eve’s guest room. Patricia Benson lived in a small town in the panhandle of Florida, south and east of Tallahassee. According to the investigator Eve had hired, her birth mother was in poor health from throat cancer. Virtually housebound, Patricia lived in a small mobile-home park a few miles away from her daughter, Jill—Eve’s half sister.
When Matt spotted the sign he was looking for, he reached out and took Eve’s hand. “We’re here.”
“Already?” Eve sputtered. She gripped his hand. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Less time to be nervous.”
She grabbed her purse and pawed through it, finally producing a tube of lipstick. Her hand was trembling so badly Matt doubted she’d ever get the color on straight.
“Wait,” Matt said.
After pulling into a spot marked Visitor, he leaned over and kissed her, hard and swift. When he backed off, she had a slightly dazed look that made him smile. “Now, the lipstick.”
She pulled down the visor and stared into the mirror. For the first time since his impulsive decision, Matt questioned the wisdom of this confrontation. Maybe she wasn’t ready. She’d only been out of the hospital a little over a week.
“Are you going to be okay?” Matt asked. “If you’ve changed your mind, I can…”
Eve inhaled deeply. “Could I have a couple of minutes alone?”
“Of course.” He opened the door and got out. The heat startled him. He peeled back the sleeves of his shirt, reveling in the eighty-degree temperature. “Wow. No wonder so many New Yorkers migrate south in the winter. This is great.”
Ducking back down, he told her, “There’s a convenience store right across the road. I’ll be right back. I want to pick up a couple of bottles of water.”
She nodded. Matt couldn’t read her expression. She seemed composed but caught up in a distant memory. Even sadness couldn’t diminish her beauty. How could any parent give away someone like Eve? Suddenly choking on the bitter taste of chagrin, Matt realized he’d come damn close to making the same mistake himself.
AS SOON AS MATT LEFT, Eve touched up her blush and quickly blotted her lipstick then ran a comb through her hair, which she’d chosen to wear down and unfettered.
Will she look like me? Eve had only the dimmest memory of the woman who crashed into her life when she was fifteen. True, Eve herself had sought out the meeting after finally goading her adoptive mother into helping her find Patricia. But the storybook meeting Eve had envisioned never took place. Instead, a loud, garishly dressed woman in too-tight capri pants and a tube top had descended the steps of the rehearsal hall with a cameraman in tow.
“There’s my baby girl,” Patricia had exclaimed, pushing Eve’s mother out of the way. “That’s her. Even Mine.”
Eve’s parents had interceded before the cameraman could set up, but even her father’s broad shoulders couldn’t protect Eve from the other woman’s loud demands to a “share of the profits” from Eve’s future film career.
“You can tell by looking at her she’s the next Liz Taylor,” the woman had ranted. “She’s exotic. Exotic sells.”
Eve never had a chance to ask the question burning in her gut, the one that had haunted her all her life. Why did you give me up?
Eve’s adoptive parents had tried to minimize the damage, but Eve couldn’t stop asking questions, and finally the truth of her adoption came out. The Mastersons had been living in Texas at the time of Eve’s birth. Howard Masterson owned a used car dealership. He’d sold a car to Eve’s mother who later defaulted on payments. When he tried to repossess the vehicle, he found Patricia drunk…and in labor. He’d rushed her to the hospital.
As an interested bystander, he later inquired about the baby and found out the state planned to take the child away as it had the woman’s two older children. Although the Mastersons hadn’t planned on adding to their family, Kathleen had always wanted a daughter, and Eve became theirs. Howard later returned the car to Patricia as a gesture of goodwill.
“I have to do this,” Eve said under her breath. “It’s now or never.”
Leaving her purse on the seat, Eve got out of the car. Her feet felt disconnected from her body, her navy flats looked surreal against the crushed pink rock. Hauling in a deep breath of warm moist air, she looked around.
The court looked clean and pleasant. Most places showed pride of ownership. Flower beds were interspersed with ceramic squirrels and pink flamingos. Patricia’s home was by far the smallest. A metal overhang was adorned with a faded rebel flag, tattered on the edges. Three lawn chairs sat on the green artificial turf at the far end of the patio; a woman occupied one of the chairs.
Eve’s stomach felt queasy, her knees rubbery. She might have dropped to a crouch behind the fender if Matt hadn’t materialized at her side. “How ’bout we do this together?”
Gratefully, she clutched his hand. Faking bravado she didn’t feel, Eve led him around the car.
Later, she’d recall odd little sounds, like the gravel crunching under her shoes and the birds squabbling in the mossy birdbath, but as each step took her closer to her past all she could focus on was the small, frail-looking woman in the padded metal chair. Her hair was artificially red, her face the same elongated oval as Eve’s. Her eyes were more occidental, her skin a paler hue, her lips withered and drawn.
Matt held open a creaky gate of chain-link material. The woman motioned them forward with one pale bony hand. Eve’s step might have faltered if it weren’t for Matt.
“Even Mine,” the woman said in her odd, artificial rasp. “You came.”
If Eve lived to be a hundred she doubted she’d ever forget this moment. She felt like a visitor from another planet watching some strange, inexplicable play. The artificial property of her mother’s voice sent a chill up her spine, and Eve was grateful she’d selected a jacket that hid her shiver.
“Hello,” Eve said softly. “I’ve come for a visit. This is Matthew Ross.”
Matt stepped closer and held out his hand. Patricia’s painfully thin hand shook visibly. Although she nodded politely at Matt, she never took her gaze from Eve. “You came,” she repeated. “I told Jilly you would.”
Jill. My sister. Fearing that her legs might not support her much longer, Eve walked to the closest patio chair and sat down. Matt positioned himself behind her, hands on Eve’s shoulders.
In the silence that fell, Eve studied the woman who had given birth to her. Hints of Patricia’s former beauty remained like an image in a smoky mirror. A Georgia peach, withered from too many nights in honky-tonk bars, too many cruel men and too many cigarettes.
Eve didn’t have the slightest idea how or even where to begin. What does one talk about with the woman who traded you for a car?
Matt took the initiative to
break the ice. “Could you tell us about yourself?” he asked. “Maybe explain how you came to give Eve up for adoption?”
The words—which had haunted her for so many years—seemed to fall between them like brittle bones. Eve flinched, and Matt patted her shoulders, reassuring her.
Patricia took a wheezy breath. “Didn’t give her up. The State took her. Put her brother and sister in foster homes.” She grimaced. “I was in a bad way back then. Booze and drugs. She was so tiny.”
Her rheumy eyes filled with tears as she looked at Eve in supplication. “The car man—her new daddy—gave me the pink slip of my Buick just to be nice.” She sniffed. “Made it easier knowing he was a nice man.”
Matt dropped to one knee beside Eve’s chair. “Are you okay?” he asked softly.
She wiped tears from her cheeks with a mangled tissue. “Would you do me a favor and get my purse? I left it on the seat.”
He nodded with obvious reluctance.
When he was gone, Eve sat forward. “Patricia,” she said softly. “I want you to know you did the right thing by giving me up. My parents are wonderful people. All I’ve accomplished I owe to them, but I owe you my life. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to visit you sooner. I’ve been sick recently. Anemia.”
Patricia winced. “You got that from me. Our bodies can’t make iron fast enough when we run low.”
Eve started. Was that true? It would explain a lot.
Matt returned a moment later. Eve put the purse on her lap. She dug into its depths then extracted a cashier’s check. She and Matt had stopped at the bank before leaving town. Sitting forward, she placed it on her birth mother’s lap.
“I tried sending you a check once before and my…sister,” she said, stumbling over the word, “returned it in pieces. Her letter said you didn’t want money. You only wanted to see me.” Eve’s voice quivered. “Now you’ve seen me. Now you can take the money.”
Patricia’s eyes filled with tears and she picked up the check as if to hand it back. “I used to think money would make everything okay. It doesn’t.”
Eve’s fingers closed over her mother’s. “Keep it. Buy yourself something nice. Or donate it somewhere. It isn’t much—not even the price of a good Buick.”
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