Woman in Blue

by Eileen Goudge

  Bella eyed her in confusion. “What happened to the old house?”

  “I moved, sweetie—to a whole new town. I was going to tell you over the phone, but I wanted to save the good news for when I could tell you in person. You should see this place! It’s right by the ocean. You can see whales there, too, only not the kind that do tricks. And outside there’s a ton of room to run around in. And here’s the best part …” She broke into a grin. “Your aunt Lindsay says I’m welcome to stay as long as I like.”

  “Who’s Aunt Lindsay?”

  “You haven’t met her yet.” Kerrie Ann didn’t add that neither had she until recently; it would only confuse Bella. “But she’s nice—you’ll like her.” She would explain later about Miss Honi.

  “Will I live there, too?” Bella wanted to know.

  Kerrie Ann glanced over at Mrs. Silvestre. She was tapping away at her laptop, pretending not to listen, but from her alert pose it was obvious that she was tuned in to every word. “You bet,” she said. “But not right away. First I have to get permission from the judge.”

  Bella looked up at her with big, solemn eyes. “When will that be?”

  Kerrie Ann sighed. “Soon, I hope.”

  “But when?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. It’s not up to me. I wish it was.”

  “Can’t you talk to the judge?”

  “It’s not as simple as that. But I’m working on it. Mommy’s trying as hard as she can.”

  Bella’s lower lip began to quiver. “You say that every time.”

  “I know.” Kerrie Ann felt on the verge of tears herself. “But I promise, as soon as the judge says it’s okay, I’ll come get you.”

  “How do I know you’re not just saying that? Like the time you were supposed to pick me up from Katie’s party and you never came?” Bella’s eyes narrowed.

  Kerrie Ann’s memory of her own early years might be a blank, but her daughter had a mind like a mousetrap. Bella recalled everything, practically since birth. The incident she was referring to had happened when she was in kindergarten. While Bella was at her best friend’s birthday party, Kerrie Ann took the opportunity to get high and was so out of it that she forgot to pick Bella up. Now she felt a resurgence of the old guilt. How could she have done that to her own child? She glanced again at Mrs. Silvestre, praying she hadn’t overheard. All she needed was another black mark on her record.

  “I was sick then, but I’m better now,” she said, swallowing against the knot in her throat. “I promise it won’t happen again. From now on, you can always count on me.” She hugged Bella. “Okay? You’re still my little girl, aren’t you? And I’m still your mommy?”

  Bella nodded, but her small shoulders sagged. “I want to come home with you now, Mommy. Please?” Her voice rose to a querulous pitch.

  Kerrie Ann darted another glance at Mrs. Silvestre, who was looking straight at her now. Cautiously she ventured, “Don’t you like it at George and Carol’s?” She was careful to strike a neutral tone.

  Bella shrugged. “They’re nice.” She never said more than that, as if not wanting to be disloyal, but the few times Kerrie Ann had seen her with her foster parents, she’d been affectionate with them.

  “What about your friends in school? You like them, too, don’t you?”

  Another solemn nod.

  “And I hear you have a new playhouse. How cool is that?” It killed Kerrie Ann to have to list the perks of life with the Bartholds, but she knew it was the best thing for Bella right now.

  Her instincts proved correct because Bella brightened at once. “You should see it, Mommy. It has furniture and everything. And Carol made curtains. They said I could have a kitty, too.”

  Kerrie Ann smiled and nodded, and her heart broke a little more.

  Before long their time was up. By then they’d polished off the bag lunch that Kerrie Ann had brought—tuna-salad sandwiches, apple slices, and Ollie’s to-die-for chocolate-chip cookies—and had spent most of the remaining hour playing on the swings and jungle gym out back. Now she cuddled a sleepy Bella on her lap, reluctant to let go. Each time it became a little harder.

  Finally she could delay it no longer, with Mrs. Silvestre making noises and glancing pointedly at her watch. “Time to go, kiddo. Mommy’s got a long drive ahead of her.” She kissed the top of Bella’s head.

  Bella clung to her, whining. “I want to go with you.”

  “Not this time, baby. But soon. I promise.” Kerrie Ann choked back tears. It never got any easier.

  Bella started to cry, and Kerrie Ann grew a little impatient. “Come on, baby. That’s enough. You’re a big girl. Much too big for this.” She caught a sharp look from Mrs. Silvestre and quickly changed her tack. “Will you do something for Mommy?” she said more gently. “Will you draw me another picture? You can give it to me next time. I’d really like that.”

  Bella nodded in mute assent, turning her woeful, glistening eyes up at her mother.

  Kerrie Ann thought her heart would break. With a last hug and a kiss, she fled the room before she could—what? Scream her frustration at Mrs. Silvestre? Grab Bella and make a run for it? All she knew was that if she didn’t get out of there fast, she was sure to do something she’d regret.

  Outside, Ollie’s jeep swam into view through the tears clouding her vision. She was hurrying toward it, stumbling a little, when she noticed a dark blue Mercedes sedan pulling into a slot nearby. The car came to a stop, then the driver’s-side door opened and a tall, dark-skinned man climbed out. George Barthold. A moment later his wife, Carol, emerged from the passenger side, a statuesque woman with her hair in tiny braids coiled atop her head like the elaborate headdress of some high priestess. Either they’d miscalculated the timing or they’d purposely arrived early to pick up Bella, with the intention of reminding Kerrie Ann who had the upper hand. No doubt the latter, she thought, starting to simmer.

  They spotted her and exchanged a guarded look before approaching her. George Barthold smiled pleasantly as he shook her hand. “Hello, Kerrie Ann. Nice to see you. You’re looking well.” He was tall and distinguished-looking, just starting to go bald on top, with skin the same coffee-with-milk color as his wife’s. The sort of dentist who would inspire confidence in a patient facing a root canal—which Kerrie Ann felt as if she were undergoing right now. “How did it go in there?” He gestured in the direction of the clinic.

  “Fine,” Kerrie Ann managed to reply through clenched teeth.

  “We came a little earlier than usual,” Carol Barthold explained, as if that weren’t obvious. “One of the girls in Bella’s class is having a party, and I know Bella wouldn’t want to miss any of it.” Her tone was friendly, if minimally so, but her haughty eyes told a different story. Just because you gave birth to that child, it doesn’t give you the right to ruin her life.

  Kerrie Ann felt her resentment bubble over. “No, we wouldn’t want that. God forbid she should spend a few more minutes with her mother when she could be stuffing her face with cake and playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.”

  George attempted to ward off a scene by saying with a wry chuckle, “Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey? We used to play that back in my day. Nowadays it’s clowns and pony rides and video arcades.” Behind his this-won’t-hurt-a-bit smile, his expression was tense.

  “You know what? This is bullshit. I’m not gonna stand here talking to you people like I don’t know what you’re up to,” Kerrie Ann erupted. “You think you can take my daughter away from me? Bribe her with a playhouse and a kitten and a trip to Sea World so she’ll want to stay with you? I’m her mother. She belongs with me, not with you two bozos. Got that?”

  Carol’s eyes flashed, and she drew in a sharp breath that caused her nostrils to flare. George, the more diplomatic one, turned to his wife and said, “Why don’t you wait in the car, hon? I’ll go get Bella.” The proprietary tone with which he spoke of Bella hit Kerrie Ann like a slap in the face. If she’d been carrying something heavier than a purse, she’d have s
mashed that smile right off his face. And now he was looking at her, saying in his carefully modulated voice, “I understand that you’re upset. But we all have to set our personal feelings aside and think about what’s best for Bella. Carol and I believe that it would be best if she remained with us. I know you don’t agree with that, which is why it’s up to the judge to decide.”

  Kerrie Ann was so enraged, she was momentarily speechless. It wasn’t until Dr. Barthold was halfway across the parking lot, headed for the clinic, that she found her tongue. In the heat of anger, she called after him at the top of her lungs, “Oh yeah? Well, you can kiss my ass!”

  At that exact moment she happened to look over and see Mrs. Silvestre emerging from the building, holding Bella by the hand. She paused at the entrance, staring straight at Kerrie Ann, her round face registering shock that quickly hardened into a frown of disapproval.

  Ollie did his best to console Kerrie Ann on the way home. “You couldn’t help it. Who wouldn’t be pissed off if someone was trying to take away their kid?” In a harsher tone, he added, “If it had been me, it probably would’ve ended with the cops being called.”

  At the image of genial Ollie being hauled off in handcuffs, Kerrie Ann let out a teary snort that fell short of a laugh. “No offense, but somehow I can’t quite picture that,” she told him.

  “Oh, so you don’t think I’m tough?” He looked a little put out.

  “No, I don’t, and you should be glad of it,” she shot back irritably. “There are two kinds of people in this world, Ollie. The kind like you who spread sunshine everywhere they go. And the ones like me who turn everything they touch to shit.”

  Ollie guided the Willys into the left lane to avoid the traffic backed up at the exit they were approaching. “The only thing the matter with you is that you don’t believe in yourself,” he said.

  She glared at him. “Give me one good reason why I should.”

  “Well, for one thing, because I believe in you. I see how hard you’re trying. And not just with your kid. You should be proud of how far you’ve come and that you’re still hanging in there. Not everybody in your shoes could say that, I bet.”

  Ollie was right about that, she grudgingly conceded. Though, like all addicts, she was never more than a slip away from falling off the wagon. “I wish I had your faith,” she said.

  “It’s a little like baking a cake,” he went on. “You don’t always have to stick to the recipe. You just have to trust your instincts.”

  “Even if your instincts suck?”

  “Deep down you always know the right thing to do, even if you don’t always do it.”

  Kerrie Ann gave in to a small smile. “You’re a smart guy, you know that?”

  “I don’t know about that,” he demurred, reddening.

  “You’re pretty cute, too,” she threw in.

  Ollie’s blush deepened. When he blushed, it wasn’t just his cheeks; it was his whole face, from his Adam’s apple to the roots of his electrocuted hair. “Glad you think so,” he muttered, casting her a look of such pained longing that she wished she hadn’t said anything.

  She’d put her foot in it. Again. She had no business encouraging him. Unless …

  Before she could take that thought to its inevitable conclusion, they were cut off by some asshole in a black Beamer going ninety miles an hour who nearly clipped them as he shot into the lane just ahead of them. Kerrie Ann uttered a curse, her thoughts returning to the Bartholds.

  If only she’d kept her mouth shut! Mrs. Silvestre was probably filling out her report at this very minute, and Kerrie Ann knew just what it would say: Difficulty with social interactions … lack of impulse control … needs to work on managing her anger. She’d seen it all before on countless report cards and evaluation forms and performance reports through the years.

  It was after dark by the time they rolled into Blue Moon Bay. Fifteen minutes later they were pulling up in front of Lindsay’s house. Ollie parked in the driveway and got out, walking her to the door. Kerrie Ann was opening her mouth to thank him and to apologize for being such poor company on the ride home when he did something completely unexpected and most un-Ollie-like.

  He kissed her.

  Kerrie Ann was so startled, she didn’t resist. Even more surprising, she found herself responding. Ollie might not be a man of the world, but he certainly knew how to kiss. His mouth closed over hers with authority, his big, capable hands cupping her head, and she found herself melting into him. It had been so long since she’d been held like this by a man … since she’d been touched so tenderly … not since Jeremiah.

  This time it was Kerrie Ann’s cheeks that were on fire when they finally drew apart. “Jesus. Where the hell did that come from?” she murmured in a low, unsteady voice.

  Smiling, Ollie replied, shaking his head, “Beats me.”

  She didn’t doubt, from the look he wore, that he was as surprised as she was. “I’ll let you off this time,” she said with mock sternness. “But don’t let it happen again.” At least not while we’re within sight of my sister. “Or next time somebody will call the cops.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He took a step back, but his smile remained intact.

  Moments later he was strolling back down the path, whistling a tune, his hands stuffed in his pockets and a huge grin on his face.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ollie was making a cake. Not just any cake; this would he his most magnificent creation yet. Kerrie Ann’s birthday was tomorrow, her thirtieth, and this would be his chance to show her, with something she could see and taste and savor, exactly how he felt about her.

  For the first time in his twenty-four years, Ollie was in love. There had been girlfriends in the past, but they’d been mere warm-up acts, he realized now. Kerrie Ann was different than any of them—the most beautiful, exciting woman he’d ever met. She’d been places, done things, he could only imagine. Yet there was a vulnerability to her, something almost … bruised. Despite his own relative lack of experience, Ollie felt oddly protective of her. With Kerrie Ann, he was a knight of yore looking out for his lady love.

  Until last Sunday, he’d feared his passion was doomed to go the way of all unrequited love. But then something extraordinary had happened: a kiss that, for him, had been more like a cosmic event. And she hadn’t pulled away or stiffened or made some lighthearted remark designed to fend him off. She’d kissed him back. For what had to be at least a full minute. She’d kissed him back. Like she was into it. Like she was into him.

  Admittedly there had been nothing since to indicate that she saw him as more than a friend. At work she was her usual breezy, irreverent self, acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. All she needed was more time, he told himself. Right now she was too preoccupied with her daughter to focus on anything else. He tried to see this as an opportunity rather than a setback. Simply by being there for her, helping her get through this rough patch, he would demonstrate that she could always count on him. And someday, years later, when they looked back on this, a gray-haired couple with children and grandchildren of their own, she would smile and say, That was when I knew I loved you.

  So, he thought, butter. Eight tablespoons or ten? Should he go with the cake flour or the all-purpose? Or maybe do a torte—ground nuts and only a handful of flour? Yes, he decided, a torte. Layered with shaved chocolate and whipped cream. That would make a real statement.

  As Ollie began assembling ingredients, the torte took shape in his mind. This was how he worked: a glimmer of an idea, a bagful of tricks, an array of ingredients that through some process he wasn’t always aware of (to him, recipes were like riffs to a jazz musician) magically alchemized into what emerged from the kitchen later on. Then he would marvel at his creation, hesitant to take credit for something that seemed to have more or less taken shape on its own. Through the years he’d had his share of failures, but he didn’t dwell on those. Every haul has its share of garbage fish, his dad always said. You just had to be patient and wait for t
he big one, like he was doing with Kerrie Ann.

  He’d finished toasting the hazelnuts and was using an old dish towel to rub off the skins when his mom walked in. Her gaze swept the countertop, scattered with bowls and utensils and ingredients, before dropping to the hazelnut skins scattered in a fine layer over the worn linoleum. Her mouth stretched in a wry smile even as she released a sigh of resignation. Frieda “Freddie” Oliveira had long since become accustomed to having her kitchen commandeered by her youngest son and finding it topsy-turvy, as much flour and sugar on the floor as in whatever he was making. Her only rule was that he clean up afterward. After thirty years of running a business that had her on her feet all day, the last thing she wanted when she got home was to spend her downtime with a mop and a broom.

  Which didn’t change the fact that she had a soft spot for her youngest. “Need a hand with that?” she asked.

  Ollie looked up at her with his smile that could melt a polar ice cap. “I’m good, Ma. Why don’t you take a load off? I’ll make you a cup of tea. Just let me finish this and I’ll put the kettle on.”

  “Tea would be lovely.” She reached for the kettle herself, but Ollie shooed her away.

  “Sit,” he ordered.

  Smiling, she pushed back a wisp of curly red hair dulled by age to the color of old copper as she settled into a chair at the kitchen table—one that had come off an old steamer and had seen more turbulence in the decades of feeding her noisy brood than when sailing the seven seas. “You’re getting to be awfully bossy,” she said, eyeing him with affection.

  Ollie grinned at her as he swept a handful of crackling skins into the garbage. “I had a good teacher.” It was a family joke that Freddie couldn’t walk past an empty chair without telling it what to do.

  She laughed. “I’ll own that.” She’d had to run a tight ship with such a large brood, though her discipline had always been meted out with equal measures of hugs and kisses. “Though Lord knows where you get your knack for baking—it certainly wasn’t from me.” Freddie was a “decent enough cook,” in her own words, but she had neither the time nor the inclination for baking. “Or your dad.” She clucked and shook her head. “The one time I let him loose in the kitchen, right after Tee was born, he nearly set it on fire trying to fry chicken.”