The Summer of Sunshine and Margot

by Susan Mallery

  Steven shifted away from her so quickly he nearly lost his balance and fell off his chair.

  “All right then,” he said, coming to his feet. “We should probably call it a night.”

  “I think that’s a really good idea.”

  Just then the server appeared with the bill. Sunshine let Steven take care of it and made her way to her car. Twenty minutes later she was sitting on a molded plastic chair at her local Taco Bell, her dinner on a tray. As she unwrapped her crunchy taco supreme, a teenage guy approached.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he began, as he offered her a smile.

  “I’m married and he’s a Marine.”

  His eyes widened. “For real?”

  “Yup. He could squish you like a bug.”

  He sighed and walked away. She finished her dinner, took her soda with her and headed home. When she walked into the house, she went directly to Declan’s office.

  He was focused on his computer and didn’t notice her at first. He looked as good as always, she thought wistfully, liking how his worn T-shirt stretched a little at the shoulders. She could hear the TV in the family room and guessed Connor was watching a movie.

  If she wanted, she could close the door behind her, walk over to Declan and... And what? Kiss him? Offer him sex? Hadn’t there been enough of that for one night?

  Truthfully, she didn’t even want sex. Okay, she did want sex, but not just sex. She wanted more. She wanted love and a commitment and the promise of years with someone. She wanted forever, not just one night, and while she might see potential in Declan, she had a feeling what he saw was what Steven had seen. Boobs and an ass and nothing else.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Declan looked up. “Hey, yourself. What are you doing back? I thought you and Phoebe had a night planned.”

  She waved her Taco Bell cup. “Not exactly. She lied. It was a setup for a double date.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  She tried to figure out what he was thinking, only she couldn’t. His expression was carefully neutral, damn him.

  “You didn’t like the other guy?” he asked.

  “I didn’t like being lied to and no, I didn’t like Steven. However, Phoebe went home with her gentleman friend. I would say she’s completely over you, so you can let that one go.”

  “Thank you for clarifying.”

  “Tell me you wore a condom.”

  He flushed. “What? Why would you ask—” He grimaced. “I see your point. Phoebe seems to be, ah, friendly with many men.”

  “Exactly. She was with you and Marcus in the past couple of weeks. If we extrapolate from that, it’s a heady number.”

  “I wore a condom, which I hadn’t done in years. It was more complicated than I remembered.”

  “Everything is easy at seventeen,” she teased. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that she has recovered from your breaking up with her.”

  “I appreciate the information.”

  They looked at each other. She once again thought about closing and locking the door, but while the next step was really clear, the step after that wasn’t. She’d promised herself not to be that girl anymore. She’d promised herself she was growing and changing. Giving in would mean she’d been lying this whole time. Worse, it would mean she wasn’t capable of changing.

  “I’m going to go study,” she said. “There is the slightest of chances I’m beginning to master algebra and I don’t want to take that for granted.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thank you.”

  She offered him a quick smile, then made her escape before she could say or do something that would be amazing in the moment, but disastrous in the long term.

  * * *

  Alec perused the shelves of the upscale wine shop. While he had plenty of wine at home, Margot was cooking coq au vin for dinner and he wanted to get something...unexpected to pair with the meal. He generally favored California and Washington wines, but perhaps a French-inspired dish deserved a French wine. Maybe a nice red Bordeaux.

  As he studied the tasting notes from the staff, he thought about how much he was enjoying Margot’s company. Being with her was easy—something he wouldn’t have thought was possible. In the past, relationships had always been difficult and awkward. Once the sex was over, there wasn’t all that much to talk about. At the end of the evening, he’d always been eager to be alone. But with Margot it was different. He found himself missing her when she wasn’t there. In the morning, he wanted to stand and talk with her while she got ready for work. He looked forward to spending time with her, regardless of how much of the day they’d already spent together.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured with a smile as he made his wine selection.

  The Bordeaux, an old vine wine made in the traditional style that had brought fame to the region, should go nicely with her dinner.

  He was nearly at his car when he heard someone calling his name. He turned and saw the manager of the store hurrying after him.

  “Mr. Mcnicol, Mr. Mcnicol, wait! Please wait!”

  Alec stopped and stared at the man, wondering what on earth he was so frantic about.

  “Good afternoon, Nathan. How can I help you?”

  The man pointed at the bottle in Alec’s hand. “Mr. Mcnicol, you forgot to pay for the wine. If you could take care of that before you leave, please?”

  Alec stared at him, disbelief blending with humiliation. He mentally retraced his steps and realized that he had been so caught up in his musings about Margot that he had simply walked out of the store without paying.

  “I apologize,” he said swiftly, turning around and walking back the way he’d come. “I wasn’t thinking. I never intended—”

  Nathan fell into step beside him. “Of course not. I understand completely. It happens. You’re a brilliant man with so much on his mind. You’re also an excellent customer. I never thought it was anything but momentary forgetfulness.”

  He entered the store and walked to the cashier. No one said anything, but he felt all eyes on him. He’d nearly stolen a bottle of wine. It was unimaginable.

  He made the payment and drove home, all the while trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Yes, he’d been thinking about Margot, but he thought about her all the time and nothing untoward happened. Why had today been different?

  He walked into the house and put the wine away in the rack in the kitchen. His mother breezed in.

  “There you are, darling. I wanted to ask you—” She frowned. “What on earth happened? You look like you’ve seen the wandering spirit of the Indian god Kali. Or maybe I mean Vishnu. I get them confused.”

  “What? They’re completely different gods.”

  She smiled. “Oh, I know. I’m just messing with you. So what went wrong?”

  He told her about the incident with the wine. “I don’t know how it happened.”

  His mother laughed. “You were distracted. It’s just one of those things, Alec, at least for those of us not so rigid as to always be in control. Once, when I was in Italy, I accidentally walked out of the Prada store with a ten-thousand-Euro handbag. No one thought that was funny, let me tell you. I just hadn’t been thinking.”

  “But that sort of thing happens to you all the time. It doesn’t happen to me.”

  Or it hadn’t, he realized. Until recently. There had been the priceless, fragile document that had been damaged because he hadn’t thought to move it before making love with Margot. Today, he’d nearly shoplifted. What was next?

  Although the question was rhetorical, as he asked it of himself, he felt a cold knot form in his stomach.

  “You’ll be fine,” his mother told him. “Just relax and accept that you, too, are human.”

  He nodded and excused himself, all the while feeling the chill spread. Although he w
ould never admit it to anyone, he knew his greatest fear was that one day he would turn into his mother—that he would not care about doing the right thing or convention or rules or other people. He’d always prided himself on being in control. If he lost that...

  He hadn’t, he told himself. It was a momentary lapse, nothing more. He would be more vigilant. He would stay in control. He would not, under any circumstances, do anything remotely Bianca-like, no matter what.

  * * *

  Declan was beginning to think there was no solution to the problem. He had impossible clients and he should simply accept it. Jessica and James wanted some way to connect the gardens at the hotel. Something unique. He’d gone so far as to get samples of an artist who worked in stone, thinking some custom pattern or design would excite them but they hadn’t been inspired. That was their word—inspired.

  He tried not to work from home on the weekend, but this Sunday morning he’d wanted to take an hour or so to see if he could come up with something to show them the next time they met. So far he had exactly nothing.

  Zen space, he thought, then grinned. He was about to do a Google search on Zen gardens when Connor walked into his office. Instead of settling on the sofa, Connor walked around the desk and leaned against him.

  “What’s up, buddy?” he asked, putting his arm around his son. “Feeling let down because you had the big party last weekend?”

  “No.” Connor pushed up his glasses and looked at him. “I want to go see Mom.”

  Declan immediately shut down his computer, then stood and held out his hand. “Sure thing. Let me grab my car keys and we’ll head out.”

  The first few weeks after Iris’s death, they’d visited the grave site every Sunday morning. After that, Declan had let Connor tell him when he felt the need. This would be the first visit since Sunshine had started working for them.

  Forest Lawn–Hollywood Hills was a sprawling place with manicured grounds and lots of trees. Declan was more a “be cremated and scatter the ashes” kind of guy, but this was what Iris had wanted. She’d left detailed instructions and had, in fact, chosen her plot before she died.

  Declan stopped at a florist and let Connor pick out the bouquet of flowers he liked, then they went into the cemetery and parked.

  Together they walked along the path before making their way to Iris’s small headstone. Connor put the flowers at the base of the stone before dropping cross-legged to the grass.

  “Hi, Mom,” he began. “It was my birthday last week. I’m nine. I had a party and it was really fun. Did I tell you I got an ant farm? It’s really cool and Sunshine ordered me a second one that’s even bigger and it should be here this week.”

  Declan realized this was going to be a lengthy visit. Sometimes Connor wanted to talk and sometimes he just wanted to drop off flowers. He settled at the base of a nearby tree, prepared to wait for however long it took.

  “Sunshine’s my nanny,” Connor continued, plucking at a blade of grass. “She’s really nice. She knows how to cook and make stuff for a party and we laugh a lot. I want her to stay forever. You’d like her.”

  Declan didn’t react outwardly to his son’s comment, but he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was Connor getting too close to Sunshine? Not that there was a way to keep them apart. Her entire job revolved around Connor. It made sense that they would be tight.

  Life was never easy, he thought. Or straightforward. He glanced at the gravestone. When Iris had died, he’d been so angry. Furious about the affair, devastated she’d chosen someone else over him, enraged that she’d waited to tell him she was sick and beyond pissed that she’d gone and died. He’d had so much emotion and nowhere to put it. But the cliché was true and time did heal.

  Looking back he could see that neither of them had been happy in the marriage for a long time. While her way of dealing or not dealing with the problems hadn’t been good for either of them, he wasn’t angry about it anymore. He could see now that they’d drifted apart and at some point getting back together would have required more than either of them had been willing to put into the marriage.

  He saw now that, rather than confront her or do something about her affair, he’d chosen to simply let things drift. Not exactly healthy for either of them. He should have insisted she move on while he stayed and got custody of Connor. He should have divorced her. Except...

  He listened as his son talked about school and his friends and learning to play baseball this summer. Except a divorce would have been hard on Connor. His life would have been shattered and then a few months later, Iris still would have had cancer and she still would have died. The irony didn’t escape him. His inability to accept what Iris had done had trapped him in indecision. While it had been a crappy move for him, it had been the best thing for Connor.

  “I miss you, Mom.” Connor said, coming to his feet. He turned to Declan. “I’m ready to go, Dad.”

  “Okay.” Declan stood. He looked at the headstone. After a second, he walked over and lightly touched it. “Goodbye, Iris.”

  He took Connor’s hand and together they walked away.

  * * *

  “I’ll have the chicken nachos, please,” Margot said, passing the menu to the server. She probably should have ordered a salad, but it seemed like a nacho kind of evening.

  “Make that a double order.” Sunshine watched until the server left, then pointed her finger at Margot. “Okay, start talking. What’s up?”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “It’s your turn to pick the restaurant and you picked Mexican, which you never do. Then you ordered nachos which you only do when you’re unsettled about something.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Sunshine raised her eyebrows but didn’t speak.

  The Mexican restaurant was casually tacky, decorated in bright colors and a worn tile floor. It had been in the same location for at least forty years and Margot hoped it lasted another hundred. She stirred the straw in her margarita, then finally sighed.

  “Maybe. I’m not so much unsettled as confused.”

  “I knew it!” Sunshine wiggled in her seat. “Work or man?”

  “Both.”

  “Wow, that’s a surprise. You never have problems with work.”

  “It’s not a problem, exactly. Bianca is progressing nicely. I keep telling her it’s time to cut me loose, but she says she’s not ready.”

  “What does your boss say?”

  “To give it another couple of weeks, then insist we’re done.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Sunshine sipped her margarita. “So what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know. I guess there’s nothing.” She faked a smile. “This has been a wonderful assignment. Bianca is going to do great with Wesley, and I’m considering working with a group of women coming here from Chile. They sell textiles. It would be a four-week assignment but I wouldn’t live in or anything. I’m ready to be back in my own place. So how are things with you?”

  “Uh-huh. Nice try. You left out the Alec part of things. What’s going on there?”

  A simple enough question and Margot had absolutely no answer.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Margot held in a groan and wished the nachos would arrive. She needed crunch and cheese and a dollop of guacamole.

  “I’m confused,” she admitted.

  “Then let me ask a series of questions to get things started. How’s the sex?”

  Margot grinned. “Excellent.”

  “Does he have any weird habits that annoy you?”

  “Not really. He’s funny and smart and thoughtful. The other night I made coq au vin and he bought a French Bordeaux.” She frowned. “Saying French is redundant, isn’t it? Doesn’t a Bordeaux have to be from France? It�
��s a region so—”

  Sunshine slapped both hands on the table. “Stop. Just stop trying to distract me from the main point.”

  “I haven’t made a main point.”

  “Of course you have.” Her sister leaned toward her. “Honey, you’re totally and completely in love with him and that has you freaked out and in need of nachos.”

  Margot shook her head. No. No way. She wasn’t in love with anyone. “It’s not like that. Really. It’s not. We’re just dating and, well, I guess, semi living together, but that’s only because I’m working for his mom and it’s super convenient. Okay, that’s not the only reason. We get along really well. Alec has some unique qualities that other people might find off-putting, but I like them. He’s very dependable and solid. That’s nice for a change. And his work is remarkable. But it’s not love.”

  The server arrived with a huge platter of nachos. As soon as she set it down, Margot grabbed a chip. “So how are things with your class? You said you were doing better.”

  Sunshine studied her. “So you’re in love with him.”

  Margot glared at her sister. “Yes! Fine. I’m in love with him.”

  She closed her eyes as the truth sank in. She was in love with Alec. She probably had been for a while. She hadn’t recognized what had happened because it was so different than it had been with Dietrich. Her life wasn’t uprooted. She didn’t feel foolish or know he was bad for her. When she was around Alec she felt good. Happy.

  She opened her eyes. “Oh God. Now what?”

  Sunshine’s smile was smug. “I love being right, especially with you. You’re supposed to be the smart one and you didn’t even see it coming.”

  “That isn’t helpful. I’m panicking here. What do I do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Repeating the question isn’t helping.”

  “I didn’t repeat the question. I changed it by at least two words. Calm down and eat a nacho. You don’t have to do anything.”

  “I have to do something. In a couple of weeks, I won’t be living there anymore. Then what? Are we dating? Does it end? Do I say something? Hope he says something? I should probably say something, but that’s an awkward conversation to have. How do you tee it up? ‘Hey, beautiful weather we’re having. By the way, I’m desperately in love with you so can we keep seeing each other?’ You know, he doesn’t like messy things and love is often messy. What if he doesn’t love me back? What if he does, but he doesn’t want to admit it? What if he laughs?”