Amanda didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
Because she didn’t know her father at all.
The wealthy William Sedgwick, a man her mother never married and a father Amanda barely saw her entire life, had never been interested in Amanda or any of his daughters as far as Amanda could tell. If he were a true father to her, as she always dreamed, she might have kept the first check and opened a college fund for Tommy. But to accept what seemed like guilt money, not that William Sedgwick appeared to feel guilty for anything, was just wrong to Amanda.
She’d hoped the birth of an innocent child would sway her sisters into forging a new relationship. But neither Olivia nor Ivy seemed interested.
Born to different mothers, only one of whom had been married to William, the three Sedgwick sisters led very different lives. Amanda’s mother, a former secretary of William’s until her pregnancy and lovestruck gazes got her transferred to another office, also refused his “keep quiet” money and raised Amanda single-handedly in Queens. Olivia’s mother, a wanna-be socialite, furious when William wouldn’t marry her when she became pregnant, famously sued him for millions in child support and won a comfortable living. Ivy’s mother, who often bragged that her daughter was the only legitimate one, had her marriage annulled by William within a week of their wedding. She too made out handsomely financially, and was able to raise Ivy in style.
William never married again. A brilliant businessman with no interest in family life, William rarely saw his three daughters except for a two-week summer vacation at his cottage on the southern coast of Maine. The mothers were not permitted on the property, and as each woman had her own motive for wanting her daughter invited back every year, the mothers complied.
Despite her negative feelings about William, Amanda’s mother felt it was important that Amanda get to know her sisters. Olivia’s mother wanted to make sure her daughter was exposed to her father’s rich-and-famous lifestyle. And Ivy’s mother wanted to make sure the other Sedgwick daughters, illegitimates as she called them, received no more, preferably less, than Ivy.
Over the summers, Amanda got glimpses of goodness in both her sisters, but generally, the three girls treated each other as rivals.
And grew up as strangers.
What different lives we lead, Amanda thought as the taxi sped through the Midtown Tunnel toward the New York City borough of Queens, where Amanda lived. Olivia was as glamorous as her job—beautiful, stylish, and very well-off in her own right. Ivy, much to her snooty mother’s dismay, was a policewoman in a small New Jersey town and was also beautiful, but in a different way than Olivia. Ivy was earthy and natural, preferring jeans and sweaters to Olivia’s cashmere and gold.
And then there was Amanda, who could hardly make ends meet, but whose son, Tommy, was worth the heartache his father had caused. If Amanda let herself think about it, the parallels between her own situation and her mother’s love affair with William Sedgwick so many years ago would be particularly painful.
The family’s lack of interest in getting to know Amanda and her baby was also painful, but Amanda was so fulfilled by motherhood that she stopped feeling so alone in the world.
I have my son. I have good friends. I have a roof over my head, Amanda told herself.
Well, I have a roof over my head if I can convince Anne not to fire me, she amended as the taxi bumped and swerved its way along.
Tommy was going to be all right. He’d been admitted to the hospital and had been kept overnight for observation and treatment, but it was just a bad virus.
As Amanda watched him sleep in his crib, which was against the wall in her bedroom, Tommy stirred and pressed his tiny fist against his cheek. Her heart squeezed in her chest.
I love you, my sweet boy, she whispered. I love you so much.
Leaning against the crib, on the baby blue round rug on the floor, was the big giraffe Ivy had sent and sitting next to it, the bear from Olivia. The sight of the stuffed animals sitting side by side made Amanda happy, made her feel as though her sisters were almost in the room, in spirit, if not physically. When she looked at the giraffe and bear she believed her sisters did care about Tommy, did want to know him, did want to be his aunts.
There was simply too wide a gulf between them for her sisters to put aside years of estrangement simply because a child had been born. But if not a child, an innocent baby, a new Sedgwick, then what?
Amanda bent over Tommy’s crib and kissed his forehead, which was cooler now. He was still wheezing a bit, but at least his cough didn’t sound so dire, Amanda thought as she watched his little chest rise and fall under his blue-and-white pajamas.
Amanda glanced at her watch. It was almost eight-thirty. Anne worked until nine on Fridays. Perhaps if she called her boss now, begged—yes, begged—for her job back, Anne could be swayed. This was busy season at the hotel, and perhaps Anne needed Amanda at work tomorrow more than she needed to train a new hire.
Amanda picked up the phone and dialed. A receptionist transferred her to Anne’s direct line.
“Metropolitan Hotel, front desk manager Anne Pilsby speaking.”
Amanda took a deep breath. “Anne, it’s Amanda Sedgwick. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what happened yesterday. I understand how important it is for your staff to be reliable, and I want you to know I’m taking new steps to ensure that I won’t have to leave work again.”
That was true. Even if those steps were baby steps. Lettie, her neighbor and Tommy’s sitter, felt terrible that Amanda had gotten herself fired.
“I feel so guilty!” Lettie had said. “I should have just taken Tommy to the hospital and left you alone. The result was the same, whether you had been there or not.”
But it wasn’t. At the sight of his mother, Tommy had stopped crying and had sagged into her arms. If Tommy had had a bad cold or a mild fever, Amanda would have stayed at work. But a fever of one hundred four was dangerous, as was dehydration. And besides, Lettie had children in school; it wasn’t fair of Amanda to ask Lettie to bring home Tommy’s illnesses to her own kids.
Amanda had assured Lettie that she’d work on her boss or try to find a job that would pay the rent and allow her more flexibility. She’d yet to find one of those, though.
Please be understanding, Amanda prayed into the phone. I need the benefits. I need the week’s vacation I have coming to me.
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” Anne responded without a shred of feeling in her voice. “But I have already replaced you. Please empty the contents of your locker within a week or they will be removed and discarded. You may pick up your final paycheck, which will include your vacation pay, docked from the extra personal days you’ve taken this year. Human Resources can tell you how to extend your health insurance. Good-bye.”
Amanda listened to the click and the buzzing dial tone for a few moments and then finally replaced the phone. She stared up at the ceiling, mentally subtracting the four extra personal days she’d taken.
Well, one day’s vacation pay would still cover the electric bill and a few small Christmas gifts.
I’ll get through this, she told herself. I’m a resourceful person. If I nursed my mother through the final stages of cancer, I can do anything.
That was hard. And at least her mother had still been alive, her warm hand still able to hold Amanda’s. Her mother had been sick for over two years, and Amanda had dropped out of City College after only three semesters in order to care for her mom and also work full time. She’d never built up any kind of longevity in one industry because she needed flexibility to deal with the fluctuations of her mother’s treatment. Once, she’d wanted to be a nurse, but the requirements were more than Amanda could sign on for at the time. And then her mother lost the battle and Amanda got pregnant. On her own in every sense of the word, she couldn’t very well afford to go back to school for any kind of career training.
The phone rang, and Amanda jumped to answer it. Perhaps it was Anne, calling back to say she didn’t want to be such a Scrooge,
after all.
“Amanda Sedgwick?” asked a male voice she didn’t recognize.
“Yes, this is she.”
“My name is George Harris. I’m an attorney at Harris, Pinker and Swift.”
Was Anne suing her? For being a bad employee?
“We represent your father, William Sedgwick,” the man continued. “I’m so sorry for bothering you at this sensitive time, Ms. Sedgwick, but I do need to inform you that the reading of the will is scheduled for—”
Amanda blinked. “Excuse me?” she interrupted. “The reading of the will?”
Sensitive time?
“Your father’s will,” Mr. Harris explained.
“My father’s will? I don’t understand,” Amanda said.
Silence.
“Ms. Sedgwick,” the man continued, “I am very sorry. I was under the impression that you knew that William—that your father—had passed away.”
What?
Amanda gripped the phone. “My father is dead?”
“Yes, unfortunately,” Mr. Harris said. “He died last night. Late-stage cancer was discovered some months ago—he didn’t want anyone to know. I’m so sorry.”
As the air in Amanda’s lungs whooshed out of her, she dropped the phone. She sat numbly, blankly staring at her lap, where the receiver lay.
“Ms. Sedgwick?”
Amanda picked up the phone and put it to her ear, but all she heard was the rushing beat of her own heart.
My father is dead.
My father is gone.
The father I never really knew is now gone forever. I’ll never have the chance to know him. Tommy will never have the chance to know his grandfather.
Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes. “I’m here,” she told the lawyer.
“Ms. Sedgwick, do you have a piece of paper and a pen? You’ll need to jot down our address and the date and time of the reading of the will.”
Amanda picked up the notepad and pen on the side table and numbly wrote down the information the lawyer gave her. He offered his condolences again, and for the second time in fifteen minutes, the phone buzzed in her ear.
She glanced down at the address in midtown Manhattan, on the East Side. She shouldn’t have bothered writing it down.
There was no way she was going to the reading of her father’s will.
HAUNTING OLIVIA
Chapter One
The moment Olivia Sedgwick entered the playground, the dream boy and girl flitted through her mind as they always did, the girl’s light blond hair bouncing on her thin shoulders as she skipped. The boy, holding a frog, gently cupped it in his hands as he held it out to Olivia before both children faded away.
Visits to the playground always brought the children to mind, their images as real as they were in her dreams, which were more frequent now.
Olivia sat down on a bench near the wrought-iron bars separating the playground from the busy city street, her lunch, a salad in a plastic container, on her lap. Her appetite was gone.
The last time she’d come to this playground, just two days ago, the dream boy, three or four years old, had been marveling over a daddy longlegs making its way up his little arm. The girl, the same age, in a yellow tutu, twirled along a meadow filled with wildflowers, despite it being January in New York City. Like now, the images were fleeting, a moment, maybe two. But they were as vivid as a photograph. Sometimes the boy and girl were very young—but never infants—and sometimes they were older. Like thirteen.
“What you’re doing is illegal, you know.”
Olivia turned at the unexpected voice of her coworker, Camilla Capshaw. Glitz magazine’s assistant beauty editor, one of her only friends at the office, waited for a group of moms pushing strollers to pass, then sat down next to Olivia, pulling her own salad from a bag onto her lap.
“Sitting on a bench is illegal?” Olivia asked.
“Entering a playground when you’re not accompanied by a kid is illegal,” Camilla explained, tossing her shiny, straight dark hair behind her shoulder.
Olivia glanced at her. “Really? We could be arrested for just sitting here?”
Camilla nodded and speared a cucumber. “Don’t you remember reading about that woman who got a ticket last year for doing the same thing?”
Olivia shook her head and swiped a cherry tomato from Camilla’s salad, her appetite returning. Camilla’s presence always made Olivia feel better. “No, but I guess I understand the reasoning behind it. Especially in a city like New York.”
“Why would you spend your precious lunch minute watching a bunch of tiny screaming lunatics, anyway?” Camilla asked. “We work with enough screaming lunatics.” She sipped from her water bottle. “I’ve seen you sitting here many times. How can you stand the noise?”
Olivia made a show of glancing at her watch. “We’d better get back to the office. Our lunch minute is up.”
Camilla raised an eyebrow. “One day you’re going to tell me all your secrets, Ms. Private. But you’re right: if we’re a second late for Bitch Face’s two o’clock staff meeting, she’ll probably fire us.”
Their boss was definitely a nightmare to work for, but at least she’d saved Olivia from having to answer Camilla’s question.
“Motherhood ruins your life,” Camilla whispered into Olivia’s ear. “Case in point—your boss.”
Olivia followed Camilla’s upped chin at her supervisor, Vivian Carl, senior features editor of Glitz magazine. Vivian, sitting at the far end—the executive end—of the conference room table, was nine months pregnant, due three days ago, and looked very uncomfortable, both physically and otherwise.
“Vivian, we’ve reassigned your celebrity interviews for the upcoming months,” the editor in chief, Desdemona Fine, announced, without looking at Vivian. “Olivia will now interview Nicole Kidman for our June issue and take over your feature article on the best spas in the country.”
Vivian sent Olivia a withering glance, then turned to the editor in chief. “I’m sure I can handle all my work. I’m planning only a three-day maternity leave, and—”
“Moving on to personnel matters,” Desdemona interrupted, pushing her poker-straight blond hair behind her shoulder. “As representatives of Glitz magazine, one of the most influential and popular beauty and fashion journals in the country, I expect you to dress appropriately. For example”—she slid her cold gray gaze on an editorial assistant—“Uggs are out. And mock Uggs were never in. Additionally, we at Glitz magazine do not support the counterfeiting of designer goods.” The editorial assistant turned red and slid lower in her chair. “If you are unsure about the image you are projecting as a Glitz staffer, please see our fashion director or one of our stylists.”
Olivia glanced at Glitz’s fashion director, whose cropped blazer was made entirely of sparkling black feathers. Olivia tried not to stare at her hat, a bizarre silver cone that reminded her of an art project for preschoolers.
“Bitch Face chewed me out over the length of my skirt yesterday,” Camilla whispered to Olivia as the editor in chief droned on. “‘An inch higher would completely change your look,’” Camilla mimicked. “‘You really should invest in a full-length mirror, dear.’ I hate her guts.”
Olivia shot her friend a commiserating smile. “I love the way you dress,” she whispered back, taking in Camilla’s thrift-store glamour ensemble. The editor in chief often commented that vintage and “send to Goodwill” were not synonymous.
Olivia had worked at Glitz for five years and had never been taken to task by the editor in chief.
Because you have a great sense of style, Camilla had once said. That’s all Bitch Face really cares about. And because you have the bucks to buy great clothes. And because you’re a Sedgwick. You can do no wrong.
First of all, Olivia wouldn’t say she had a great sense of style. She was attracted to understated, classic clothes in pale, muted shades or black. She hated to stand out. And she didn’t have big bucks. As the associate features editor of Glitz, Olivia could b
arely afford the rent on her Manhattan apartment.
It was the Sedgwick that gave the impression of money and glamour and grandeur. Olivia’s father, William Sedgwick, who’d passed away only one month ago, had been a regular on Forbes magazine’s Wealthiest in America list.
In fact, magazines and newspapers provided Olivia with most of her information about her father; the rest came from gossip—which might or might not be true—from her mother.
Olivia hadn’t even known that her own father had been dying of cancer.
If he hadn’t named Olivia in his will, she had no doubt she would have found out about his death from the New York Times obituary section. As it was, she’d learned of his death from his lawyer.
Olivia forced herself to focus on the editor in chief, who was sitting at the head of the long, polished table, still cutting staffers down with a word or even just a glance.
“You’re not related to the Sedgwicks, are you?” the editor in chief had asked five years ago at Olivia’s interview—her fifth and final for the magazine.
The Sedgwick, Olivia had wanted to correct. But she’d rightly sensed you didn’t correct Desdemona Fine, whose real name—according to office gossip —was Mona Fingerman. There was no family of Sedgwicks, past or present. There was William, the Sedgwick. And his three daughters, each born of a different mother, none of whom were society page material or remotely well-off, let alone living in luxury.
Olivia’s mother berated Olivia on a daily basis for not living up to her name. You’re a Sedgwick! If I had the name, I’d milk it for all it’s worth. And it’s worth millions.
Olivia’s mother had never married William Sedgwick. She’d famously sued him for millions in child support and had been awarded a very comfortable settlement. Of Olivia’s half sisters, only Ivy was a “legitimate” child, only Ivy’s mother had been married to William. Briefly, of course. According to legend, Dana Sedgwick had gotten a young William dead drunk during a trip to a luxury casino in Las Vegas and sweet-talked him into marrying her at a drive-through wedding chapel. He had the marriage annulled within the week. When anyone asked Dana how long she’d been married to William, she often said they’d had many good years together.
Shadowing Ivy Page 24
