Child's Play

by Danielle Steel

  “He doesn’t need to,” his grandmother said blithely. “Why does he need to settle down with a girl like Amanda, and wind up in Bronxville like her parents? He’s in his twenties, not his seventies. I’m seventy-six and I wouldn’t want to live there.”

  “He loves her,” Kate said simply.

  “He probably does, but that doesn’t mean he has to marry her. I’m just not comfortable about the whole thing.”

  “I know you’re not, and neither is Claire, but we’re not marrying her, he is,” she said, exasperated with her mother.

  “That’s the whole point. He needs more spice in his life at his age, and the bridal catalogue from Bergdorf is the last thing he needs.”

  “They’re going to put on a beautiful wedding. They’ve already ordered the tent, with chandeliers,” Kate said, impressed by the lavish wedding they were planning.

  “Good, then let them find some nice boy from Greenwich to marry her in it. Your son deserves better, that’s all I’m saying to you. Stop expecting them to do what you think is perfect for them. Let them figure it out. They’re never going to make the same choices you did. It’s not fair to them if they do, to please you.”

  “Stop trying to rabble rouse, Mother,” Kate growled at her. “They’re very traditional kids.”

  “Maybe they’re not as traditional as you think, or want them to be. You can’t expect them to live in the perfect little cookie-cutter mold you laid out for them. Sometimes you expect too much of them,” Margaret said more gently. “They can’t be perfect all the time. You’ve imposed that on yourself. Don’t do that to them, Kate. Let them make some mistakes. It’ll be better for them in the end.” Kate didn’t answer for a minute, wishing her mother didn’t make so much sense.

  “I’m not trying to tell them what to do,” Kate said weakly.

  “Maybe not, but you’ve always told them what they shouldn’t do.”

  Kate knew that was true. She believed that you had to set the bar high. They were all successful in their chosen fields, no one had made any terrible mistakes, and Kate liked it that way.

  They talked about it for a while longer, then about Kate’s work, and after she left, Kate thought about what her mother had said. They didn’t always agree with each other, but the things her mother said always had value. She had extraordinary insight into people, and she was rarely wrong about her grandchildren. They trusted her advice more than their mother’s. The generational jump and the way she expressed herself made what she said more palatable to them. Kate was more judgmental, which made her comments harder to take.

  She let herself into her silent apartment when she got home, and thought about them. They were each so different. She had had to be both mother and father to them, and the older they got, the harder it was. She had begun to realize, more and more since they’d grown up, that children really did need a father, and sometimes one parent, even an adoring mother, just wasn’t enough.

  * * *

  —

  When Kate left her mother’s apartment after dinner that night, Claire and Reed had already made love twice in his Tribeca apartment since she’d arrived at eight o’clock. The first time was on the floor of the entrance hall. They made it no farther than that. He pinned her up against the wall and undressed her, and they slid breathlessly to the floor, starving for each other.

  They made it to a chair in the living room after that, a big comfortable chair which engulfed them, and it was another hour before they made it to his bedroom, with a view of the Hudson River. They couldn’t get enough of each other, in bed, in the shower. They were insatiable, in a frenzy of passion whenever they were together. Claire had never known anything like it. Reed was an expert lover, and they made promises to each other that Claire’s mother and grandmother would have known they could never keep. But the words tumbled out of them with the same abandon as Claire’s screams. And then afterward, she would settle into his arms for a tender lull until they had to have each other again. No one could keep up the frenzied pace forever. They were like Jack and Jill tumbling down the hill unable to stop their free fall of passion, helter-skelter at full speed, and not wanting to. It felt great to both of them. It was love and sex at its most intoxicating, and when he told her again that night that he wanted her to move in with him, she didn’t doubt the wisdom of it for a moment, forgot her mother’s words at lunch, and agreed immediately. She would have done anything for him.

  * * *

  —

  Anthony and Amanda had spent a quiet evening, while she brought him up to date on the latest details of the wedding. She and her mother had it all under control. Amanda was their only child, and her parents wanted her to have the wedding of their dreams. They genuinely liked Anthony. He was undeniably a brilliant boy, and even if a little shy and awkward at times, they could see how loving he was with her. He was a good person, with solid values, and her father was impressed that he had gone to MIT, and graduated magna cum laude.

  Amanda had another fitting for the dress coming up in a week, since she had lost some weight. She had been swimming in her parents’ pool every weekend, and her body was long and lean. Her boss at Vogue had special ordered the shoes for her at Manolo Blahnik with cameo blue soles, for “something borrowed, something blue.” Her parents were going to fly roses in from Ecuador, and lily of the valley from France in December. The heated tent was being custom made by the leasing company to their specifications, with crystal sides and parquet floors, and their wedding coordinator had found three matched antique Austrian chandeliers to hang in it. Anthony would have fainted if he’d known the price. It was going to be the wedding of the century and Vogue was going to cover it for their March issue since they had a three-month lead time. Her wedding gown was white velvet trimmed in white mink, with a white mink cape over it, which Anthony also didn’t know. She wanted him to be surprised when she appeared looking like a Russian princess.

  The night before the wedding, they were planning to have a skating rink installed and to give a skating party, so Kate didn’t have to host a rehearsal dinner. The skating party was going to be a surprise for Anthony, with snow machines to cover the grounds with snow, and ice sculptures of prancing horses larger than life size, as part of the decor. She had told him about everything else. He knew most of the important details. They had a cake tasting scheduled in July, and one for the wedding meal booked in September. Amanda’s father was ordering the wines, since he was something of a connoisseur and had a remarkable cellar of great vintages of the most famous French wines. Anthony knew very little about wine but Amanda told him the vintages were worth a fortune.

  Anthony was stunningly handsome, with his father’s dark hair and eyes, like Claire. Amanda was a beautiful blonde with almost translucent porcelain skin. There was no doubt they would have beautiful children. Amanda couldn’t wait to get pregnant. They had agreed to start trying right after the wedding. She hoped to be pregnant by spring. He wasn’t in a hurry for a baby, but she was, and she said this was the right age to start a family. They wanted to have children while they were young, which was safer. She had everything planned, and it was easier for Anthony to just go along with it. It was like drifting down a river, while she told him her plans for them. She could envision everything about their future. He had never thought that far ahead before. He figured that once they were married, she’d relax and be more casual about everything. There would be nothing left to worry about. She’d have everything she wanted. It was simpler letting her plan it all, since it made her happy. It felt like one giant video to him.

  She was an easy woman to please, unlike other girls he’d gone out with. They got along famously and never argued, mostly because he gave in. There was no fire in their relationship, and no challenge. It was peaceful and effortless for him, with Amanda and her parents running everything.

  Amanda never objected to the time he needed to develop his videogames,
which she knew was important to him. He stayed late at the office frequently, and lost track of time. It only bothered her if they had a dinner to go to and he forgot about it, and had turned off his phone so he could concentrate. He had missed a few events that way, but each time he promised he wouldn’t do it again.

  Their conversations were mostly about the wedding now, and before that they had been about her job. She was planning to give it up before the wedding. The last month or two before their big day would require her full attention. It seemed a little excessive to him, how time consuming it could be to organize a wedding, but he knew she didn’t like her job, and he made enough money to support them. He had agreed to move into her apartment. Her father owned it and didn’t want them to pay rent. Anthony’s apartment was too small for both of them, and he didn’t have enough closets for Amanda’s wardrobe.

  Her apartment was in SoHo, which she loved. The only thing missing from Amanda’s life was a husband and children, which was all she’d ever dreamed of. He knew she’d be a wonderful mother because she wanted kids so much. And once they had a child, they were going to look for a house out of the city, maybe near her parents. She had it all mapped out. He wanted to have more say about their future, but he figured they would work that out after they were married.

  Getting married had been her idea. He was comfortable with the arrangement they had, but she had told him she wanted a commitment from him, or she didn’t want to see him anymore. It made him realize that he didn’t want to give her up. He assumed that marriage would be like dating, but in one apartment, and eventually with kids. He liked her parents, and his mother thought Amanda was perfect for him. He liked making Kate happy. She had been a fantastic mother in his opinion, and had been both a mother and father to them. She had always encouraged him to follow his dreams. Amanda was part of them now. As long as she gave him the time he needed to develop his games, he was happy. He dreamed of having his own videogame company one day. Her father thought he could find investors for him. All the pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly.

  It annoyed him that Claire was critical of Amanda and didn’t think she was intellectual enough. Anthony was part of the creative board of the company he worked for, and got enough stimulation there. He didn’t need to come home at night and talk to Amanda about work. He didn’t expect her to understand technical issues.

  Plans for the wedding had taken over their life since the engagement, but in December that would be all over, and they could settle back into ordinary life, go to the movies, see their friends, go sailing in the summer. They were going skiing in Europe for their honeymoon. He wanted to spend more time doing sports with her, but they’d been too busy lately. He wanted to get back to that too, although she warned him that they would have to postpone anything strenuous if she got pregnant.

  He wanted to make love to her that night after she told him about the latest details of the wedding, but she was asleep by the time he got out of the shower. There was a stack of bridal magazines on the floor next to her side of the bed, and two new books she’d found about table settings for weddings. They were her bibles now. He wondered if other women spent as much time planning their weddings. He couldn’t imagine Claire or Tammy doing that, but Amanda was different. She was more of a girl than either of them. His sisters didn’t dream about babies either. They were both more focused on their work, like their mother. He had talked to his grandmother about it, and she had advised him to be sure that he and Amanda had common interests and the same goals, which he thought they did.

  Their common goal was their future, hiking, skiing, and doing all the sports they loved together, building his videogame business one day when he was ready, and having kids whenever it happened. That was enough view of the future for him. The rest was details. Amanda was good at those, so he was leaving them to her. For now, they just had to get through the wedding. It was boring for him, but he knew how much it meant to her. If he had to listen to her talk about it for the next six months, he didn’t care. He could put up with it for now. He loved her, and it was worth it in the end. He still couldn’t believe that in six months they’d be married. He smiled at her, as she lay sleeping next to him. He liked knowing that they would be together forever. She was a beautiful girl and they loved each other. What more could he want?

  Chapter 3

  As he often did on short notice, Bart called Kate mid-week and told her he had time to spend the weekend with her, if she had time for him, and wasn’t locked down working on a case she was preparing for court or deposition. They hadn’t seen each other in six weeks. He’d been traveling a lot, and had been in the Middle East on an information gathering mission for a Senate subcommittee. He was on two important committees. Kate loved hearing about what he was doing. It kept things interesting whenever they met, and he was always intrigued by her work too.

  The six years they had been dating had flown by, and had gone smoothly, once he understood the ground rules. At first he’d thought she was the kind of woman he would want to marry, if he ever ventured on the choppy seas of marriage again. He’d been divorced for ten years by then, and was still engaged in constant battles with his ex-wife, and frequently with two of his daughters on her behalf. Their marriage had always been stormy, and had finally ended with an embarrassingly public affair on his part with a twenty-three-year-old congressional assistant. In the end, the divorce was a relief for him, even if expensive.

  He had liked the fact that Kate had grown children when they met. They were from twenty to twenty-six then, so she’d be free. It took him months to realize that she was married to her work and her children, and had managed well on her own for so long that she had little interest in marriage and no great emotional need for a relationship that was too close and might interfere with her freedom, work, or kids. Once he understood that it made her even more appealing to him. She didn’t want anything from him, just to spend time together when it was convenient for both of them, take occasional trips together, enjoy intelligent conversation, and a peaceful weekend now and then when they could both relax. Despite her cool, sometimes standoffish independent style, she met his own emotional needs surprisingly well, more than he had expected. She was a kind, warm, caring person, she just didn’t want to be someone’s wife again and she didn’t need a man to survive. She was doing fine on her own. Better than fine. Extremely well in fact.

  Their relationship was based on an even trade of intellectual exchange and fun. Two smart people who enjoyed each other’s company, with neither of them strangling the other. He hadn’t dated anyone else in the past two or three years. Kate was enough for him, and no one else quite measured up to her in his eyes. She never asked him about it, and he was sure she had no other involvements either. She was discreet, had integrity, and believed in playing fair, unlike his ex-wife, who still wanted money from him.

  Six years after they’d started, Kate was still more involved with her children than he was with his. He never had been. He readily admitted that he hadn’t been the father he should have been when his kids were young. He hadn’t been there for them as Kate had been for hers. He had relied on his wife for that. He had been building his political career then, and his marriage had gotten stressful early on. He’d had numerous infidelities when he was on the road for campaigns. His constant absences took a toll on his relationship with his kids, two sons and two daughters, all of whom clearly remembered the important times he hadn’t been there for them or their mother, and they never missed a chance to remind him of it. As he always said to Kate, you can’t un-ring a bell. It was too late now. All four had married and had young children of their own. Two lived in Boston, one in L.A., and the fourth one in Hong Kong. He invited them skiing for a weekend occasionally, but he didn’t see them often, unlike Kate whose three children lived in New York. She saw them regularly.

  He had met Kate’s mother a few times, liked her enormously, and thought she was a remarkable woman, candid,
intelligent, who had impressive insights into people. She was a lively, interesting woman and he had enjoyed their infrequent contacts. He liked Kate’s children too though he rarely saw them. When she and Bart were together, she focused on him, and he liked that too. He thought she had been luckier than he was with his children, which he also knew wasn’t an accident. She had spent a great deal of time with her kids, and was devoted to them, in spite of her career. He thought she was even a little too involved with them now at their ages, and that she continued to expect too much from them, though they had never let her down. One of his sons had struggled with drugs when he was younger, two were divorced, and his youngest daughter suffered from depression. But he felt it was too late for him to take an active role in their lives now. The die was cast, and they were closer to their mother than to him. Kate encouraged him to spend more time with them, but the opportunities to do so now were rare, and he was never at ease with them. He preferred spending time with her.

  She was pleased that he was coming to New York for the weekend. They had no special plans, and they both loved spring in New York. In winter, they often hibernated in her apartment, and wouldn’t go out for two or three days. This time, they were going to walk in the park, relax at home, and would have time to catch up on each other’s activities. They texted and spoke several times a week, checked in with each other on FaceTime, which they both enjoyed. It helped maintain the link between them, even though they were busy in their own lives.

  She made him a martini just the way he liked it, as soon as he came through the door. She was wearing jeans and a white sweater, little Chanel ballet flats, and looked almost as young as her daughters. Bart loved her looks, and it always excited him to see her. Their sexual rapport was great. He liked everything about her. He was a tall, handsome man, with a very masculine craggy face, graying hair, lively blue eyes, and a cleft chin. She thought he looked like one of the old-time movie stars, Gregory Peck or Gary Cooper. There was something very sexy about him, and he smiled gratefully as he took the martini, and stretched out his long legs, as they sat down in her living room. He knew generally what she’d been doing lately, but not the details, and she filled him in.