She raised her hand. "No more. You've gone as far as I'm going to let you."
"You're changing, Patterson. I don't know if I like it."
She slung her pocketbook over her shoulder and switched off the office light. "I like it," she said, meeting his eyes straight on. "For the moment, that's all I care about."
She turned and headed toward the elevator. Ed fell into step with her, his heavy wing-tip shoes thudding against the polished tiles. She pushed the button and looked over at him.
His brows were drawn together in a scowl, and for a moment she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Meeting Michael again had been like flinging open a door to a forgotten room; not even for Ed would she close that door again.
"Nose to the grindstone, Patterson," he grumbled as the elevator doors creaked open. "Just because I trained you doesn't mean I won't fire you if you get out of line."
"Ah, Ed," she said, as she stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. "How could I live without your sweet talk?"
The doors slid shut after the first two words of what promised to be a particularly inventive description of a physical impossibility.
A soft laugh of relief escaped Sandra as she sagged against the rear wall, the wooden handrail pressing against her back. Ed Gregory wasn't about to fire his star protégée, that much she knew.
His warning, however, was something else.
Corporations stole as much from an employee as the employee let them. For too long she'd been willing to hand over her life on a silver platter, contenting herself with the bones that remained after US-National was through picking over them.
Even her engagement had been arranged around her job. Of course, that type of careful planning had been something Andrew understood; his own social calendar was constructed around his law career.
She'd cared for Andrew Maxwell, and would have made him a good wife had they married; but he had never made her feel that what they would create together was greater than anything she could create alone.
Their marriage would have been a merger, like any of the mergers she'd handled on her job.
Precise. Legal. Faultlessly constructed on a firm foundation of logic and respect. But so lacking in passion, so devoid of real commitment that the breakup had left her relieved that it had happened before their wedding, saving them the legal hassle of filing for divorce.
Heartbreak had never even occurred to her.
The elevator opened at the ground floor. She hurried through the marble-and-gilt lobby, then pushed her way out into the early October sunshine. The air was crisp, impossibly clean, filled with autumnal promise. She almost hated the thought of being cooped up in her car on the drive into Manhattan.
But the thought of seeing Michael again was too seductive, the need to meet his son too imperative to ignore.
If she and Michael should ever come together permanently, Elinor would remain Sandra's problem; her medical bills, Sandra's worry. If she'd learned anything from the breakup of her engagement, it was that.
She climbed into her car and started the engine.
David, however was another story. Everything he did, everything he said and thought and dreamed, would become part and parcel of her life if she and Michael decided to marry. That one small boy held the key to her future in a hand used to carrying nothing more important than a baseball or a comic book.
If he didn't like her, the chances for happily-ever-after for her and Michael would be pretty slim.
If she didn't like him –
She shuddered.
What kind of woman could dislike a five-year-old boy?
But Sandra knew her life had taken her away from the mainstream lives of most women.
Children were foreign creatures to her; small, exotic beings who inhabited a world she didn't understand.
In the best of circumstances, she found talking to them more difficult than understanding the new state tax laws.
Talking to the living, breathing proof that the man she loved had taken another woman to wife was going to be almost impossible.
She turned to back out of the parking spot and noticed the beeper resting on the passenger seat. She'd always sworn she would never, ever use the blasted thing, but she was about to make an exception.
If there were a fiscal emergency, a sudden worldwide rush for mortgage information, it was her duty as a responsible employee, a card-carrying assistant vice-president, to be on call for the hierarchy at US-National.
Any hardworking executive would do the same thing.
As she pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the Expressway, she glimpsed herself in the rearview mirror and sighed.
"Get real, Patterson," she said to her reflection.
At the moment, she didn't give a damn if US-National went bankrupt or was bought out by a handful of power-mad Arab sheikhs who planned to turn the mortgage division into their own private harem.
The beeper was the modern equivalent of a safety net. If the going got too rough, she could always sneak out to a pay phone and have herself paged.
Emergency. You're in over your head. The boy hates you. Return to the safety of your old life before his father ends up hating you too.
"The age of technology," she muttered as she pulled onto the highway. "Is it great or what?"
#
Michael pulled the telephone into his cramped office in the construction shed and kicked the door shut.
"Would you repeat that again, Arthur? I didn't catch what you said."
And what he had caught didn't set too well with him.
Arthur Bentley's cultured tones eased their way through the telephone wires. "I said, the morning flight was canceled. David will be coming in at three o'clock."
"Why was the flight canceled?"
"Thunderstorm," Arthur said calmly. "It knocked out four of our power stations. We're just getting back on line now."
Michael ran his fingers through his hair and tried to control his anger. "I know all about power failures," he managed.
He'd had a long talk with Jim Flannery that morning about Arthur's veiled and not-so-veiled threats to launch a battle for David. Jim had been patient, thorough, and brutally honest. He didn't feel the Bentleys had much of a case, but he had pointed out that reason and logic rarely entered into custody fights.
"Rein in your temper, Mike," Jim had warned. "Give in on the small things and save yourself a big heartache later on."
The implication had been that, if pushed, the Bentleys were still emotionally fragile enough simply to take the boy and run.
Michael thought he'd managed to cover every parental fear in the book but he'd been wrong. Jim Flannery's sober warning lay upon his shoulders like the eight-ton blocks of Indiana limestone outside his workshed.
"David has been riding the Andersen child's bicycle while he's been down here," Arthur was saying. "I hope you don't mind, but Margaret and I have taken the liberty of buying him one of his own. We're shipping it up for his birthday."
"David already as a bicycle."
"This is an Italian racing bike. Gunn Andersen says it's the finest one on the market."
"The Schwinn can make it another year or two." An Italian racing bike for a five-year-old who still needed training wheels? Bentley was off his rocker. Michael wanted to tell him so, but the memory of Flannery's warning stopped him. "Listen, why don't you keep it down there, Arthur. That way David can use it when he visits."
"Margaret had her heart set on giving David a reminder of us. We see him so little, you realize, Michael." A pause for effect. "Since we lost Diana, he's all we have."
The Bentleys were suffering; no matter what Michael thought of them, he would never minimize their grief. Their loss had shattered them. It was up to Michael to make sure their loss didn't shatter his son's chances of having a normal childhood.
"Why don't you send David a photo of the two of you to keep on his nightstand? An Italian racing bike makes more sense on those flat
Florida roads."
It also made more sense in the hands of a world-class athlete, Michael thought, but he managed to hold his tongue. Jim Flannery would have been proud of him.
He headed inside and found Annie Gage waiting for him in the workroom.
"You look like hell," she said. "Another delay with David's homecoming?"
He nodded and put the phone back on the ledge. "What else. He comes in at three."
Annie made a face. "Well, at least this time you found out before you left for the airport. That's an improvement."
"He's up to something," Michael said, taking the mug of coffee she'd extended to him. "I don't know what, but he's cooking something up." He took a long sip, let it sit in his mouth a moment before he swallowed. "I don't like it."
"My coffee?"
He shuddered as the thick liquid slid down his throat. "That's a given. I'm talking about Bentley's threats."
"Is he trying to trade on Diana's death again?"
Michael shook his head. "Not at the moment. This time he's concentrating on the importance of nuclear family, how David needs a full-time mother."
"A full-time mother is a luxury few kids have these days," Annie said, her dark eyes thoughtful. "They still seem to be doing okay. Why should David be the exception?"
"You want to call Art and tell him that? I didn't get too far with the same line of reasoning."
Annie just grinned, and poured herself some more coffee from the huge urn near where Leon and Angel were working. "Why don't you tell him you're getting married?"
Michael stared at her. "What?"
"Tell him you're getting married. Tell him you're providing your son with a full-time mother yourself."
She was joking. The twinkle in her eye, the laugh in her voice, were easy enough to recognize. Why, then, was he finding it impossible to summon up an answering wisecrack?
"Don't look so nervous, McKay. That wasn't a proposal."
"That's not nerves you see, Annie. That's shock. And here I thought you cared . . . "
Annie put down her coffee cup and looked him straight in the eye. "I do care," she said slowly. "I just have the funny feeling the time is never going to be right for us."
"We're friends," he said. "Nothing is going to change that."
"That's not exactly what I wanted to hear. I could be more specific, but I'm afraid you aren't ready for it."
He thought of Sandra, of the dreams she had brought to life within him, and he shook his head. "And I'm afraid you're right, Annie. Just this once, I have to play it by the book."
Anything less wouldn't be fair to any of them, himself included.
Annie tossed her hair back over her left shoulder with a quick gesture and smiled at him. "Does playing it by the book preclude bringing David by for tacos tonight?"
He hesitated, trying to think of the easiest way to say no.
"Other plans?" she asked.
"Afraid so, Annie."
"I won't even ask you if it's your old friends."
"Thanks," he said, finishing his coffee. "I owe you one."
He grabbed his car keys from his work bench and was heading for the door when Annie reached for his hand.
"If it doesn't work out, call me," she said. "I think the three of us could make it work."
Damn it, he thought as he jogged across the vacant lot to his car. She's probably right.
Annie was warm and loving and talented, and probably dynamite in bed. She could cook and paint and tell dirty jokes and fairy tales with equal flair. She was a great friend to him, and would probably make a great mother for his son.
But there was one big problem.
She wasn't Sandra.
~~
Chapter Nine~~
Sandra had been in the city for more than five minutes before everything she despised about her old hometown came flooding back in vivid detail.
The thick layer of smog hovering over the skyscrapers. The crazed cab drivers playing leapfrog with two-ton taxis as they tried to cop a fare. Bearded wonders wearing necklaces made of empty tuna cans, proclaiming the end of socialism and pay toilets.
The noise, the crowds, the feeling of being at the edge of civilization and about to fall over into mass hysteria.
New York was a microcosm of everything, both good and bad, that America had to offer.
Except a parking space.
Sandra circled the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Divine for the fourth time. A slight young man in a tweed blazer was standing by the driver's door of a Renault chatting with a woman in a tight red dress with a thigh-high slit.
She considered double-parking and waiting while they concluded their business, but three cabs and a city bus were bearing down on her, and not even a parking spot was worth dismemberment.
She'd noticed a vacant lot near the rear of the church where two vans, an MGB and a Cadillac with a harried-looking businessman sitting in it were parked near a construction shed.
Why not?
If she didn't find some place to leave her car soon, she might as well turn around and drive back home again.
That, of course, was the coward's way.
She hadn't driven into the heart of Manhattan to back out now. Meeting Michael's son was the logical, inevitable next step in their relationship, and as far as she could tell, there would never be a perfect time to do it.
So she went around the block one last time, then whipped into the vacant lot, wincing as her poor car bounced its way across ruts and over pieces of unidentifiable garbage.
She parked the car and locked it; then she took a good hard look around at the alleyways and toppled fences ringing the lot, and double-checked the doors.
Not even the Almighty could protect an unlocked car in New York City.
It was hard to imagine Michael sweating and straining here in this broken-down neighborhood where dreams came to die. Even the huge Gothic church – beautiful despite the missing spires – seemed almost obscene, a testament to the worst kind of ecclesiastical excess imaginable, in a city where people lived on the street, sheltered by cardboard boxes and old newspapers.
Surely the money spent on construction could have been put to better use.
But none of that had anything to do with Michael. He'd said he was part of the construction crew, not on the planning board or funding committee. The moral responsibilities inherent in the project weren't his business.
He had a job – probably a good job – and in this age of economic uncertainty he was probably glad to have it.
Neither of them was a child of privilege. Working for a living had been a given since they had been old enough to stand on their own.
She had managed to come to terms with the fact that not all of her old dreams were going to come true.
So why was it so hard for her to accept that the same was true for Michael?
She stopped at the door to the huge construction shed near the back entrance to the church. The windows were clouded over with city grime and iron bars. She couldn't see inside, but figured it was the construction equivalent of an employees' lounge.
Male laughter rumbled through the metal door, mixed with the sounds of the Temptations.
A warm, sweet feeling washed over her, then crept inside her heart.
No doubt about it: Michael McKay worked here.
She knocked sharply on the door, but the racket inside was so loud that no one heard her.
Normally she would just have opened the door and stepped inside, but the possibility of walking in on a score of naked construction workers snapping towels at one another butts was something to consider, and she hesitated.
She stopped hesitating when she heard a scream too close for comfort, followed by the quick footsteps of someone either running away from or running toward something Sandra had no business being in on.
She flung open the door and stared, dumbfounded.
It wasn't a locker room or a lunch room or any of the hundred and one run-of-the-mill things she'd imagined
the shed to be.
There, in the center of what seemed to be ten tons of uncut rock, a black girl and a Hispanic boy were doing a crazy parody of one of the old Sixties' era dances, which had probably come and gone long before either of them was born, while a crowd of laughing cohorts egged them on.
"Hey, Leon!" a tall skinny guy lounging in the corner to Sandra's right called out, "the man ain't here. Why don't we play some real music?"
The girl who had been dancing turned and made a face at him. 'This stuff may be old, Redbone, but it's hot! Why don't you – "
The girl stopped as she caught sight of Sandra standing in the doorway. The construction shed grew as quiet as the adjacent cathedral.
She was being sized up by twenty curious pairs of eyes, and she felt old and out-of-place in her idiotic dark blue suit with the de rigueur white blouse.
Where were the miracles when you really needed them?
She'd have given a month's salary to be back in her car and trapped in traffic.
"Excuse me," she said, managing her best professional smile. "Is Michael McKay around?"
The silence deepened. She forced her smile a fraction wider and waited. A young man with skin the color of toasted almonds finally stepped forward. His hair was dark and curly with an incongruous purple streak over his left ear, and she had trouble not staring at the well-muscled forearms exposed by his rolled-up shirt-sleeves.
"You're lookin' for the man."
It was a statement, not a question.
"I'm looking for Michael McKay." She paused. "I think he qualifies."
A few chuckles broke the silence.
"Michael McKay is the man," the guy with purple streak said. "Around here he is the only man."
Since ninety-five percent of the people in that room seemed to be of the male gender, that left only one interpretation of the word man.
The boss.
Their curiosity was so open and, she suddenly realized, so friendly that her anxiety eased.
"Is he around? We have an appointment."
That did it. The room broke up into raucous laughter, complete with a lot of nudging, high-fives and wolf whistles.
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