by Gina Ardito
“I’m going to call my lawyer, Ms. Wainwright.” The threat in the widow’s tone was obvious.
I wasn’t the least bit intimidated. In fact, I knew her attorney would back me one hundred percent. “That would be advisable, Mrs. Chambliss. If he has any questions for me, he can reach me here until five tonight or during the day tomorrow. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you in this matter. Have a good day.”
“Yes, well…goodbye,” the woman replied and hung up.
Placing the receiver back on the box, I sighed and looked up at Nia. “Shoot me. Please.”
She snapped her fingers in an “aw, shucks” manner. “Sorry. I left my sniper rifle in my other purse.”
“What good are ya?” I harrumphed.
Waving the bag over my desk, Nia proclaimed, “Behold. I bring you tidings of chicken in the sauce of Buffalo, enveloped in flaky flat bread.”
I pointed a finger at her. “You’re flaky flat bread.”
“Let’s leave my chest out of this, shall we?”
“Ha ha.” I relaxed into my chair and offered a cool smile. “So, how are you? Long time, no see.”
“Yeah, about that…” She shuffled from one foot to the other, obviously contrite. Good. I wasn’t ready to let her off the hook just yet. If guilt was the only way to guarantee she’d be at Friday’s clambake, I’d call in every favor she owed me since we were five.
“I really am sorry,” she said at last, then reached into the bag. “I brought a peace offering. Buffalo chicken wraps from The Hearth.”
I moaned with delight as I removed the wax paper. The spicy smell made my taste buds pop. “Extra bleu cheese dressing?”
She grabbed the chair from behind Ivanka’s desk and while rolling it over, shot back, “Would you let me in the door without it?”
“Probably not.” I bit into one end of the wrap and chewed. Ohmigod, this was sooo yummy. If Nia gave up glassblowing, she could have a future as a diplomat for the United Nations. No one would ever consider war while eating one of these delicacies.
“Good?” she asked.
“The goddess is appeased and ready to forgive,” I replied airily.
“Then my work here is done.” She settled into her chair and bit into her own wrap.
“This is my lucky day,” I told her. “Lou Rugerman bought me breakfast this morning—a French toast bagel with cream cheese. Ever have one?”
Nia’s eyes widened as she swallowed. “French toast? Seriously?”
“Seriously. Amazing. You gotta try one.” I took a sip of soda, pleased that it was diet. I make no apologies for that quirk. If I could order a low-calorie hot fudge sundae, I would. Until modern science caught up with my desires, I cut back wherever I could. “Hey, that reminds me. I have a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“This is gonna sound totally bizarro, but do you remember Glen Bergen?”
Color drained from Nia’s face. “Who?”
“Glen Bergen,” I repeated. “From high school.”
“Wow, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a decade or two.”
“Yeah, I know. But think back to our senior prom. You remember he asked me to go with him, right?”
“Uh-huh.” She fussed with the waxed paper from her wrap. “I was supposed to go with Evan Rugerman. But that was a long time ago. What difference does it make now?”
I’d made her uneasy. I could tell from the way she focused on the napkins, the paper bag, and at last, her straw, which she’d chewed flat. Nevertheless, I pressed on.
“Lou made a comment earlier. About Sam. Something about him ‘taking a swipe at Glen’ for talking about Mom and me. Did you ever hear anything about that?”
Her lips tightened, and she shook her head. “Mmm-mmm.”
I didn’t buy the denial for a second. “Lou heard about it from Evan. Your date.”
“His son.” She shrugged. “So?”
She knew something. Something she tried to hide from me. Shaking my head at her, I sighed. “Still trying to protect me, Nia?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. I might be the older twin, but ever since Mom left, you always took on the job of keeping me safe, keeping me from getting hurt, keeping all the secrets. For God’s sake, you didn’t even tell me Daddy was sick until he was on his deathbed.”
She flitted her fingers at me. “Oh, please. It’s not like you could’ve done anything for him.”
I had to tighten my hand on my wrap to keep from slapping her silly and almost squeezed the saucy chicken onto my desk blotter. “I could have been here sooner. I could have helped you take care of him. But, no. You had to play the Wainwright martyr. Again. Poor Nia, the good twin. The one who stayed behind.” I edged my tone with biting sarcasm. “Daddy’s princess.”
She gasped. “That’s not true. Yes, I stayed behind. But not because of Daddy.”
“Why then?”
“For you. So you could get away from here. You were so smart, Paige. I mean, scary smart. You deserved a better life than you could ever have here. I didn’t want you to throw away your future.”
I studied her carefully. “Like you did?”
“No,” she replied too quickly. High color rose in her cheeks. “Not really. I was never going to set the world on fire. Face it, I was a B student with a flair for art. Not like you. You got the exceptional grades, earned the full scholarship. And look where it took you. I mean, my God. You got all the way to the state capitol! That’s why I didn’t tell you about Daddy right away. I knew you’d come home out of some kind guilt-induced sense of responsibility.”
Tears choked my throat when I thought about seeing Daddy in the hospital after I’d first returned home: bone-thin and too weak to lift a hand in greeting. “He was my father, too, Nia.”
“Yes, I know. But you hate this town. You always have. You had a real life in Albany. You shouldn’t be here, you should be there. The sooner you go back, the happier you’ll be.”
“Are you for real?” I leaned forward over the desk until we were nose to nose. “What brought this on?”
She shrugged, took another sip of soda before answering. “The challenge, believe it or not. I realize you insisted we participate in this thirty day thing because you’re bored. Don’t deny it. Be honest. If you were still in Albany, you would’ve watched that Dara episode, thought, ‘Hmm…interesting. Maybe Nia should try something like that,’ and then you would have gone on with your day-to-day life.
“You tossed this challenge at us both to ‘shake things up.’” She pointed an index finger at me. “Your exact words. But I think you really wanted to shake me up. So, okay, you did. More than you know. Now it’s time for you to go home. To your home. Which isn’t here anymore.”
Anger coursed through me, too hot and sudden to stifle. I slammed my hands on the desk and shot to my feet. “You don’t know squat, Nia. Who put you in charge of my life? And when? When Mom left, you didn’t automatically become my mother. You’re not even older than me. Since when is Snug Harbor not my home? I grew up here. I know most of the same people you do. I came back of my own accord, took over Daddy’s business of my own accord, and I’m staying of my own accord. Because I want to be here. This is home. Not Albany. Snug Harbor. You wanna do something different tomorrow? Schedule a CAT scan. Because you’ve got some serious brain damage if you believe that crap you just spewed. Now get out of my office. I’ve got work to do. Go back to your little shop and your martyred life.”
Hitching her purse onto her shoulder, she skulked away. “I’m sorry, Paige. Everything I ever did, I did because I love you.”
Of all the stupid…
I watched her walk out, then tossed the rest of my lunch into the garbage can. What kind of drugs had The Hearth put into the wraps to get Nia all wack-a-doodle on me? One minute she was smiling and exuberant, the next she became downtrodden Nia, Snug Harbor’s sacrificial lamb.
No wonder she and Sam had never hoo
ked up. She probably threw the same mixed signals his way. Well, sorry, sister mine, but whatever game you’re playing, I’m not rolling those dice.
I took a deep cleansing breath. Then another. I was one wrong move away from my head exploding.
Back to work. Back to the peace and logic of numbers and projections, dollars and cents. I logged onto my computer and checked the status of a few mutual funds, then for the heck of it, I punched in the web address for the Comptroller’s Office for the State of New York. Not much had changed since I’d left my job there. The same boring news cluttered the home page, the same photo of the Comptroller sat in the right hand corner welcoming visitors.
No, I didn’t miss my old job. I missed the ability to become invisible, a characteristic I couldn’t pull off in this tiny town.
Sure, I was bored here. If I thought about it, though, my ennui was due to my own inactivity. I hadn’t tried to connect with any of the newer businesses in town. I’d allowed myself to rest on Dad’s laurels, taking over his client list without attempting to create my own stable. I needed new customers, those who didn’t stay because of some misplaced loyalty to my late father, clients who needed and would accept my educated guidance. Unlike Georgia Chambliss.
I leaned back in my leather desk chair, thoughtful. I should probably go to that clambake on Friday to network with other professionals in the area. Sam would be a huge help. He could introduce me to people I’d never met. My conscience sent a sharp needle reminder, but I ignored it. The fact that Sam would be there had nothing to do with my decision to go.
A movement caught my eye, and I looked up as a woman stepped into my lobby. For a long minute, she stood near the corn plant in the Chinese pot. I watched her look over the two desks, the framed photos of Daddy with various local dignitaries, and the silk flowers a feng shui expert had recommended for luck. She wore her dyed blond hair in a short, spiky style that flattered her sharp cheekbones and long neck. There were deep crinkles at the corners of her blue-green eyes and around her lips. Her gray tailored blouse with cap sleeves and the black jersey skirt hung too loose on her thin frame.
Decades had changed us both. Still, our gazes locked, and I knew.
“Hello, sweetheart,” the woman whispered hoarsely.
“Mommy,” I heard myself say in reply.
Chapter 20
Paige
On shaking legs, I stumbled toward my mother’s open arms. Time melted, and I was eight years old again.
“My baby girl,” Mom crooned as she enveloped me in a tight hug. “My sweet beautiful Paige, all grown up.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I thought my heart would burst from pure joy.
My mother.
Here.
As a kid, I’d dreamed of seeing her again, of finding out the answers to the questions that had plagued me since the day we’d come home from Grandma’s and discovered Mom was gone. Now I had my chance, and I wouldn’t let it pass me by, no matter how gobsmacked her sudden appearance made me.
“Mom,” I whispered into her embrace. “What are you doing here? Where have you been all these years?”
She never hesitated. “I heard about your father. I came to pay my respects. After I left his grave, I thought I’d come here to his office. I didn’t know why, but now it seems obvious. The universe sent me here to find you.”
Either she’d rehearsed what she’d say on the off-chance she ran into one of her long-lost daughters, or she spoke from her heart. Too soon to tell which, so I neither accepted nor rejected her little speech out of hand. Though, I admit, the universe comment threw me. I didn’t remember my mother as a New Age guru. Still, twenty-five years had passed and my memories of her tended to revolve around the smell of warm chocolate chip cookies and lavender perfume.
She kissed the top of my head. “My beautiful girl.”
“I missed you, Mom,” I told her.
“I missed you, too.”
I pulled away to look up at her. I needed to see the truth in her eyes. Now. “But you left us. You never called, you never tried to contact us. In twenty-five years.”
“I know.”
She knew. Not exactly the response I’d hoped for. “Why?”
“I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” I jerked back as if she’d burst into flames. Fury surged through me. “Let’s get something straight, Mom. Crashing your shopping cart into your car is a ‘mistake.’ Forgetting to give your kid lunch money before school is another kind of ‘mistake.’ But walking out on your husband and children because you were bored? Leaving nothing but a note? And then having no contact for twenty-five years? That’s abandonment.”
Her sudden arrival had twisted the tap on emotions dammed for decades. All the disappointment, the anger, the loneliness poured from my mouth in a deluge. “I don’t care that you’d fallen out of love with Daddy. That was between the two of you and happens to lots of couples. But what did I do wrong? And Nia? We were kids. How could you so totally forget about us? Birthdays, Christmas, graduations, we never got a phone call, a card, nothing. Did you ever think about us? Because we thought about you a lot. Like, ‘Where were you when Nia fell off the roof and broke her arm? Where were you when I won the State Math-o-Lympics?’ Mrs. Seifert across the street took us prom dress shopping. Not you. You weren’t there for any of the important moments of our lives. Jeez, even for Daddy, you showed up six months too late. Now you pop up out of nowhere and tell me you made a ‘mistake’? I’m not sure, Mom, whether you made the mistake when you left or when you came back.”
Spots of color rose in her high cheekbones. “You’re right. But I do want a chance to explain. To you and Nia, if I can.” Mom looked around the office. “Is she here?”
If I had any doubt that Mom had completely forgotten us over the years, looking for Nia in this office confirmed her total lack of interest. Counting today’s visit with lunch, Nia had been in this place exactly four times in her life. Numbers bored her, desks made her feel penned in, and if I remembered correctly, she’d only mastered the finer points of email in the last few years. She could list twenty different shades of red and describe the nuances of hues in each, but still couldn’t text messages on her cell phone. That was Nia: poster child for the technology challenged.
“Nia’s not here.” A blessing, really. Because my sister wouldn’t exactly give Mom a warm reception anyway. She’d never forgotten that horrible day, still lived under the shadow of the Wainwright Family Scandal. Wasn’t that why I’d pushed for her participation in the thirty day challenge—to break her out of her safe, unassuming, don’t-make-waves-and-no-one-will-notice-you box?
“Oh. That’s too bad,” Mom said. “Where does your sister live these days? Far away?”
God, how I hoped she wasn’t sitting in my parking lot, pouting, right now. If she should see Mom walking out of here and recognize the woman who’d deserted us and launched the family scandal…? I shivered. “She lives in Grandma’s old house. Here in town. She just doesn’t come to Daddy’s office.”
“Maybe you could call her.” Mom’s eyes lit up. “Have her make an exception today.”
The more I considered that option, the more I realized I had the formula for a major league family Armageddon on my hands. In Nia’s currently overemotional state, this latest powder keg would probably have the same effect as a mini H-bomb in her hair. Kaboom.
Un-unh. No way. I wouldn’t bushwhack my sister that way. I folded my arms over my chest, becoming a solid wall, impenetrable and inscrutable. “Maybe you should start with me and we’ll take it from there.”
Mom cocked her head, and her spiky blond hair reminded me of Tweety Bird. “What do you mean?”
“Remember? The universe sent you to find me?” I reminded her. “Maybe you’re supposed to tell your story to me first. Then I can decide if you need to share the details with Nia.”
Her lips twisted in a disapproving moue. “You two always protected each other. Even from me.”
“Good
thing, huh?” I retorted.
Of course, she had a point—not an accurate point, but she was close. Generally, Nia protected me. Sometimes, like a few minutes ago, her interference enraged me. Deep down, though, I understood Nia felt responsible for me. She’d been shielding me from hurt since the day she found Mom’s note.
“You’re really going to ‘vet’ me before you’ll let me see my other daughter?” Mom asked, incredulous.
I said nothing. I didn’t even mention the fact that, in my opinion, she’d surrendered all rights to both her daughters when she walked out the door twenty-five years ago.
“Can we at least sit down?”
At that moment I realized we still stood near the front entrance—where anyone on the street could see us. “Sure.” I softened my stance enough to sweep an arm toward the chair Nia had recently vacated. “Have a seat. Would you like some coffee? Or water?” I treated her the way I would a potential new client.
“No, thank you.” She breezed past me to take the seat in front of my desk. Once there, she settled her big pink purse in her lap. “Where would you like me to start?”
“How about the day you skipped town with your lover?” Part of me inwardly winced. After all, she was my mother, not a murder suspect about to be grilled under a bare bulb in an empty room. At the same time, though, she was the woman who’d abandoned us without a backward glance, without a second thought. For Nia’s sake, as well as my own, I had to tread carefully. I practically tiptoed to my chair and perched on the edge, prepared to flee or leap across the desk, if necessary.
Mom merely shook her head. “No. I’ll have to go farther back than that. To when I first met your father. Did he…ever tell you about that?”
“No. After you left, Daddy never mentioned you again.”
