Child's Play

by Danielle Steel

  “Claire has a new romance,” she said after they’d covered the latest political news of the week.

  “That’s not an unusual occurrence for her, is it?” he teased her, with mischief and a warm look in his eyes. He knew of her kids’ activities and foibles better than he knew them. He was aware of how pleased she was about Anthony’s impending marriage, Tammy’s latest promotion in the hierarchy at Chanel, Claire’s job as a fledgling lawyer, and her tendency to change boyfriends every few weeks.

  “She’s involved with a big fish this time, a client of the law firm where she works,” she said, with a fleeting look of disapproval. “Reed Bailey,” she said and knew Bart would recognize the name immediately, as most people would.

  “Wow, that is a big one. Not serious, I assume, for either of them. He must be the flavor of the month.”

  “She says he’s ‘the one,’ and he’s supposedly claiming he can see her as the mother of his future children.”

  “That’s the oldest line in the world,” Bart said with a grin as he took another sip of his martini. She knew exactly the way he liked them, dirty, with lots of olives, and mostly gin. “I think I used it myself a few times. Unfortunately, Belinda took me seriously.” Kate gave him a scolding look and he laughed.

  “Anyway, she thinks it’s serious. I hope not. She’s too young to get married or settle down. She needs to focus on her career.”

  “That’s what you want for her. Is that what she wants?” He knew how hard Kate drove herself, and her children in some ways. She had always expected them to do well, and they had. They didn’t seem to question the values she had taught them and modeled for them, or the lofty goals she set for them, spoken or implied. He was impressed by them, and the fact that none of them had ever rebelled, or gone sideways on her. Their professional lives were a straight line toward success. She expected the same from them in their personal lives too.

  “Claire says she wants to get ahead quickly,” she answered his question. “She’s at a great firm. They’re known to foster women’s law careers, and she could make partner in a few years, if she works hard.”

  “Your kids always work hard. How old is Bailey?”

  “Thirty-nine, thirteen years older than she is.”

  “He’s probably just having some fun with her. She’s a very pretty girl.” He smiled at her. “Like her mother,” he said, stretching an arm toward her, and holding her hand for a minute as she smiled back at him. She was happy to see him. It had been too long this time. “Are you worried about her?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. She seems completely besotted with him, and insists he is too. I told her she should tell the firm she’s dating him, to keep things clean, and so they don’t assign her to the work they do for him. I’m not sure she will though. She has a mind of her own, and thinks my ideas are antiquated.”

  “I know that speech. I used to get it all the time from mine. I don’t offer them advice anymore.” His children were slightly older than Kate’s, enough so to not want to be counseled by a father they felt had fallen short for them. “They have to learn by their own mistakes, though it’s painful to watch sometimes. I’ve gotten used to it. It’s the only way they learn not to make the same mistakes again.”

  “That’s a very male perspective,” she said, taking a sip of the wine she had poured for herself before they sat down. “I just don’t want them to get hurt.”

  “You can’t stop it, and you shouldn’t try. It’s the way of the world. Did you listen to your parents?”

  “Actually, most of the time I did. Though not always. Why can’t they benefit from our experience?”

  “It’s not the nature of the human race. All you can do is hope they heard you early on, and that the information you want them to have is in there somewhere for them to draw on when they need it. If not, they fall off the cliff, and eventually pick themselves up again, bruised and battered like the rest of us. Do you regret your mistakes?”

  “Usually,” she said. Kate was honest with herself, and had her share of regrets. “I want things to be easier for them.”

  “We all do. It doesn’t work that way.”

  She sighed, thinking about it, wondering again if Claire’s love affair with Reed Bailey was real or a passing fling. Only time would tell. She doubted that it would be any different from the others, but she didn’t want an experienced man toying with her daughter and breaking her heart, which could easily happen. A man of his enormous success wasn’t likely to be serious about a twenty-six-year-old girl, nor should he be, in her opinion. And Claire wasn’t ready for it. She’d never been involved with anyone like him. Tammy might have been old enough to handle it, but not Claire.

  “You can’t worry about them all the time, Kate. They’re not ours forever to coddle and protect. At this point, they belong to themselves.” She nodded, listening to him, but not fully convinced.

  “I know you’re right, but I hate it. It makes me feel obsolete.” He gently pulled her toward him then and kissed her, and reminded her of why she liked spending time with him.

  “You’re not obsolete with me,” he said in a whisper, and a few minutes later, they set down their drinks and walked to her bedroom. He liked spending weekends with her there. The apartment was like Kate herself, neat, orderly, everything was where it was meant to be, warm enough but not stifling. It was a place where he could let down his hair and be himself, have all his needs met, and was then free to leave again. Their relationship suited them both perfectly. There was no drama between them, no demands, no expectations, no commitment either, beyond what they each wanted to give. It suited him better than he had ever expected it to.

  They had a great time in bed, and eventually made their way to the kitchen, where there was a light dinner she had picked up waiting for them in the fridge. They shared it at the kitchen table, where he told her the latest entertaining stories about what was going on at the Senate. She never told anyone else. He trusted her totally.

  They watched a movie in bed, and fell asleep before it ended, as they almost always did. They both had demanding weeks as a rule, and by the weekend, were more exhausted than they realized. They went for a walk in the park after breakfast the next morning, had lunch at a delicatessen on the way back, and got back to her apartment and made love again. It was a perfect weekend. They had dinner at a discreet restaurant they liked, and they both had work to do on Sunday morning, and sat together in comfortable silence doing what they had to do, side by side. Then they read The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, worked on the crossword puzzle together and almost finished it. In some ways they were an ideal couple, and agreed that they were because they weren’t one. For different reasons, or maybe in fact similar ones, they were both leery of marriage, and had no desire to change the relationship they had that worked so well for both of them.

  * * *

  —

  Tammy brought her grandmother a box of croissants and pains au chocolat on Sunday morning, as she often did, and came uptown to do it. She always called first, and Margaret loved the fact that one or the other of her grandchildren often dropped by during the weekend.

  She saw less of Anthony now that he spent most weekends in Bronxville with Amanda’s parents, and wondered if it would stay that way once they were married. Claire had been busy lately with a new job and a new man, but still managed to come by. Tammy came almost every Sunday morning, which gave Margaret a chance to catch up with her.

  Tammy always seemed the deepest and most solitary of her three grandchildren. She was single-mindedly focused on her career to the exclusion of all else, with impressive results, and a major position at her age, in the dog-eat-dog milieu of luxury, fashion, and beauty.

  Margaret worried about her. She always had the sense that Tammy was holding back, but she usually relaxed after they’d spent some time together. There was a guarded quality to her, whic
h Margaret sensed came from the fierce competition where she worked. She had had to fight hard to get where she was, and was willing to sacrifice everything personal for her work. She traveled a lot in her job, which Margaret knew could be lonely too. She worried that she’d be one of those women who gave up having a relationship for her job, and would wake up one day at forty-two wondering where her life had gone. She had no dating life at thirty-two, although she had her mother’s striking blond beauty. She had never had a serious relationship, and always said she had time for that “later.” But her grandmother knew that “later” came faster than someone Tammy’s age could imagine, and she didn’t want that to happen to her.

  Tammy was much less willing to talk about her personal life than her brother or sister, and Margaret was careful to respect that and didn’t pry, although she and Kate discussed it frequently. Kate worried about her too, and was concerned that her own reluctance to marry again had sent the wrong message to Tammy so that all she cared about was work. Kate said that choice was fine for her, but not a woman Tammy’s age.

  She sat happily at her grandmother’s kitchen table. She’d come all the way up from Tribeca to deliver the pastry. She was a thoughtful person, and adored her grandmother.

  “What are you doing today?” Margaret asked, always fascinated by how different Kate’s children were from each other. The romantic, Claire, the dreamer, computer geek, and artist, Anthony, and Tammy, the deep thinker and the most ambitious.

  “I thought I’d run around the reservoir before I go back downtown. I brought home some work, and I’m flying to Cleveland tomorrow, to solve some problems there, and I’m going to Paris on Thursday, to make an appearance at the introduction of our new beauty products. We want to get the press on board, and I want to be sure it all goes smoothly. I have to go back in a few weeks for the haute couture show.” It was a fun business to be in, but Margaret knew how demanding and competitive it was.

  “That’s a lot of traveling. You don’t mind being on the road so much?”

  “I love it. There’s so much happening in the company, and in the luxury business now. It’s never boring. And now is the time for me to do it. I couldn’t move around this much if I were married and had kids. Eventually, the women with children can’t keep up, or their kids run amok or their marriages fall apart. It gives me a real advantage.” That was one way to look at it, but Margaret always wondered if her granddaughter realized what she was giving up for her job. She was always beautifully dressed, very chic, and a perfect ambassador for the company.

  “Be careful you don’t give everything to your job. You can’t wrap your arms around that in your old age,” she warned her gently.

  “I know, Grandma.” Tammy smiled at her. She asked about the painting her grandmother was working on, and told her she should go to Paris for the art shows. Margaret loved to travel, but didn’t enjoy it alone, and her friends were traveling less than they used to. “You could come with me sometime when I go,” Tammy suggested with a warm smile, and Margaret was touched. Tammy was always thoughtful.

  “You don’t need to drag me around,” Margaret said, pouring them each another coffee. It was a quiet, sunny Sunday morning and was going to be a beautiful day.

  “It’s not dragging you. The last time we took a trip together, you wore me out, and I could hardly keep up.” They’d gone to London two years before, for the opening of a lavish new Chanel store. Tammy had taken two days off at the end of the trip so they could go to museums together, and do some shopping. “You’re hell on wheels in a museum, Grandma.” Margaret smiled at the compliment, and knew it was somewhat true. She had always had a lot of energy, and that had changed very little. She was almost as busy and active now that she’d retired as she had been when she was working.

  “Maybe I’ll come with you one of these days,” she said with a hopeful look. “I have this crazy idea that I want to go back to India someday, but that’s a big trip. I loved it when your grandfather and I went, but that was fifteen years ago. The poverty was appalling, but the colors and the light, the textiles, and the people were amazing.”

  “If we ever do a show there, I’ll go with you. We did a Paris–New Delhi collection two years ago, but I couldn’t make it. We were launching a new perfume then, and I was up to my ears in that.”

  “Am I allowed to say you work too hard?”

  “No,” Tammy said with a grin.

  “I figured. Have you seen your brother lately?”

  “No, he’s working on a new videogame, I think, and busy with wedding plans.”

  “Your sister and I are worried about him. I can’t see him with Amanda for the long haul. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s up to him,” she said diplomatically. “You can’t tell what works for people. He seems happy with her.” It was a typical answer for her, Tammy didn’t like getting sucked into family gossip, or passing judgment on the others. She had a strictly live and let live attitude about all of them.

  “What do you think about her?”

  “I’m not marrying her. It works for him, or he wouldn’t be marrying her. And she seems to be crazy about him.”

  “She’s crazy about the wedding and the idea of marriage. I can’t think of two more different people.”

  “Sometimes that works.” Tammy smiled at her grandmother. They talked about the refugee situation and the violence in Europe for a while, and how it was affecting the economy in France, and ultimately the luxury business, and then Tammy hugged her and left for her run around the reservoir.

  Margaret was pensive after she left. She always felt as though she knew nothing more about the private side of Tammy’s life than she’d known before. As gentle and kind as she was, and attentive to her grandmother, she kept her deepest thoughts to herself, and didn’t share them with anyone. It made Margaret sad for her. She needed more than new products at Chanel and haute couture shows to focus her attention on. She needed someone to care about, as much as she did her work. She had achieved the impressive goals that her mother aspired to for her, but it wasn’t enough, and Margaret wondered if Tammy would ever let someone in behind her walls. There was no sign of it yet.

  She had been at Chanel for ten years now, with a two year hiatus to go to business school at Wharton, which had projected her forward at an even more rapid rate. Her career was on the fast track, but she seemed to have no personal life at all.

  As she ran around the reservoir, Tammy wondered why she never opened up to her grandmother. She was the least judgmental and most open-minded of her entire family, but Tammy liked keeping her private life to herself. It was so much simpler that way. And she didn’t want advice from any of them. She knew what she wanted, and she had most of it. The rest would come one day. In the meantime, she had an orderly life that worked perfectly for her.

  * * *

  —

  When Bart left Kate’s apartment on Sunday night, he kissed her. They had no set plans to meet again, but hoped it would be in the next few weeks. The weekend had been just what they both wanted, a peaceful time, some meals together, great sex, and they had gone to the movies on Sunday afternoon, eaten popcorn, and held hands. It was like being kids again, without kids, which was a great relief to him, and good for her too. From what he could tell, she had stopped talking about Claire’s new romance, and didn’t think about her other children once during the weekend.

  “I’ll try to get back in a week or two,” he promised, as he kissed her again and then waved when he got in the elevator with an elderly woman with a French poodle who smiled when she recognized him. He smiled back. It had been the perfect weekend with Kate. It always was. He could count on her for a good time, and an oasis of peace in their busy lives. He followed the woman with the poodle out of the building, and hurried to the car and driver waiting for him at the curb. The rat race he loved was about to begin again.

  He
couldn’t wait to get back to Washington, but he smiled thinking of Kate as the car drove away. While she hung his silk dressing gown in her closet, until the next time, Kate was smiling too.

  Chapter 4

  Anthony got up at five on Monday morning as he did every day, and left for the gym at five-thirty. He was careful not to wake Amanda. He ran there in the early morning darkness and got there in twenty minutes. The run was a good warm-up for his workout. It cleared his head and always made him feel ready to face the day.

  Once at the gym, he got on the treadmill, followed by a bike he put on the highest setting, going uphill. He was soaking wet by the time he finished and headed for the steam room. It was nearly seven A.M. by then. After he showered at the gym, he dressed for work, in jeans and a T-shirt, feeling great. He stopped at the juice bar for a protein shake. He loved his morning routine. It challenged him, and calmed him, and made him excited about his work again. He could hardly wait to start the day. He had tried to get Amanda to join him, but she preferred ballet class twice a week as her only form of exercise. She wasn’t keen on gyms, or the heavy workout he needed.

  “That looks evil at this hour of the day,” a husky voice next to him said. His drink was mostly broccoli and kale, with lime juice, and it was a wicked shade of green. “Your workout looked rugged,” the woman said as he turned to see who was speaking. She was the most exotic-looking creature he’d ever seen, with faintly Asian eyes, and warm, pale café au lait skin. She looked Spanish or Mexican, or Indian, he couldn’t figure out which, and her body was so toned, she looked like she lived at the gym. She was drinking carrot juice. The jet black hair she released from an elastic was wet as it tumbled down her back in loose curls. She had full lips and delicate features and huge eyes. She smiled at him.