“We might have to move again.”
Mom opened her door and stepped out, reached for her backpack and the duffel bag with his batting helmet and sweatshirt.
He’d lived in lots of places. Mom told him it had been too many for her to count before they had moved here three years ago. He didn’t remember any of the other places, he’d been too little to recall them now.
She had been telling him that they might have to move his whole, entire life. It seemed like forever she had been saying the reason they couldn’t buy this or that was because they might have to move and they couldn’t carry a lot of stuff around. That’s why they had no pets. No dog, no bird, cat, or even a fish.
Too hard to move.
He was afraid he would grow up like Mr. Evans, the short, bald man who lived by the bocci ball and shuffleboard courts in the middle of the mobile home park. Mr. Evans swept his walk and front porch three times a day. He didn’t want kids or dogs or bikes getting anywhere near his place, and nobody ever came to visit him.
Mr. Evans was such a grump that Mrs. Schwartz never even gave him any of her Christmas jelly, but she gave jars of it away to people she hardly knew.
Chris thought Mr. Evans must be the loneliest man who ever lived, and he was afraid that was what he was headed for since there was no one in the whole world he was related to except his mom.
Mom waited with her hand on the door while he climbed out. He kept his head down, slowly dragged his feet, and kicked the sand at the edge of the pavement just in case she didn’t get the picture.
“No dog, Chris,” she said softly. “You might as well save the drama for something really important.”
He sighed. Loud. The only thing more important than a dog was a dad.
“How about those peanut butter and jelly stars? Want some?” She started across the Astro-Turf that covered the stairs and porch outside their mobile home. The aluminum screen door squealed when she pulled it open. He waited while she turned the key in the front door. One day she said she was tired of looking at all the scratches on it and painted it bright purple.
He wanted to say no to the sandwiches and pout awhile, but his stomach growled. “I guess I could eat a little something.”
“I’ll make the sandwiches. You wash up.”
Mom dumped her backpack on one of the dinette chairs and headed for the kitchen as he walked down the hall to his room.
Star sandwiches were okay. She had made them lots of times. They tasted like ordinary peanut butter sandwiches, but Mom always got excited about recipes and crafts she saw in her magazines, so he pretended they were the best things he ever ate.
He stepped into his room, walked over to the bed, threw himself down on top of his race-car comforter, and stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets Mom had stuck to the ceiling.
There wasn’t any reason to bug her about going on a date with the man who had been talking to her and smiling real big.
She hadn’t even told him the guy’s name.
11
CARLY BRACED BOTH HANDS AGAINST THE RIM OF THE kitchen sink and closed her eyes against a sudden wave of guilt and uncertainty.
Chris could probably have everything he ever wanted if he were living with the Saunders. Though she barely made ends meet, she was independent, happy, and safe.
A dog might make him happy now, but what would he say when he was old enough to know the truth? How would he feel about what she’d done, about the privileged life and identity she had kept from him?
His kindergarten teacher claimed he was gifted. He was due to be tested in the fall when school started again.
The Saunders could afford to send him to any of the finest universities in the country. The way things were going, she’d be lucky to scrape together tuition and book money for the local junior college.
Chris was Rick Saunders’ son. She looked around a kitchen that was barely large enough to swing a cat in. Was it fair to bring him up this way?
Maybe he would be better off with the Saunders and all the advantages they could give him.
She shuddered at the unthinkable thought and pressed her hand to her mouth. He was her baby. Her heart. She could never give him up. Not for anything.
She knew what he was feeling, though. She had grown up longing for things she’d never have, loving people who weren’t there. At eleven she started a life of shuffling from one foster home to another. After that she never had two pieces of clothing that matched, let alone her own room.
She’d worn hand-me-downs and thrift shop specials, worn out shoes and ragged parkas that failed to keep out the harsh, high desert cold.
At least she was able to give Chris more than she had ever had. Their home here was modest but clean as a new dollar bill. She’d painted the walls, made slipcovers for the used furniture, hand painted race cars in bright primary colors around Christopher’s room. He had as many books and toys as she thought he needed and that she could afford.
She read everything she could get her hands on about raising a child and running a home. She tried in every way she could to be a good mom, the kind she wished she’d had.
She’d survived by being a chameleon, watching and imitating the qualities in others that she lacked and admired.
But the one thing she could never be was a dad.
Sighing, she shoved her hair back off her face and looked around her tidy kitchen again. For now, this was enough. It had to be. There was no sense in worrying about how Chris would judge her in the future. For now she could only hope that he would understand that she had let love be her guide.
But was love enough?
She was taking the peanut butter out of the cupboard when Etta Schwartz called through the front screen.
“Woo hoo! Carly?”
“Come on in, Etta.”
The screen door screeched and then banged shut. Carly started spreading peanut butter on a slice of whole wheat bread. Etta walked into the kitchen and stood at her elbow.
“Do you ever give that boy any lunch meat?” Etta was losing her hearing, and she had developed a habit of yelling. She also owned an endless wardrobe of spandex leggings that were all bagged out at the knees. She wore them topped with oversized T-shirts hand painted with puffy paint and sequins.
Not only did she also own an abundance of muumuus, some dating back to the forties when her father was stationed at Pearl Harbor, but she had a different wig for every day of the week. They were all too big for her head and made of shiny synthetics in a rainbow of shades with names like Mocha Madness and Chestnut Cherry.
What with the woman’s passion for scented candles, Carly’s worst fear was that one day Etta was going to set her hair on fire and that one of the wigs would melt onto her head.
Today Etta’s faux tresses were a shade close to magenta, set off by a bright chartreuse jumpsuit with a leopard print belt. When she moved, the scent of liniment and peppermint wafted around her.
“The Stingrays won the game today, so this is a special treat.” Carly knew that if Etta had any idea of what Carly had grown up eating, it would have curled her toes. She was used to Etta questioning everything she did, but knew Etta did it out of concern, so Carly let it go.
Etta had opened her home to Carly the day Carly and three-year-old Christopher had stepped off of a Greyhound bus with nothing more between them than two backpacks full of essentials. Carly had stopped for a cup of coffee at Selma’s after spotting a Help Wanted sign in the diner window.
After a brief, informal interview in a back booth, Selma hired her on the spot and sent her straight to Etta, suggesting Carly ask the widow if she would agree to rent Carly a room in her mobile home. Selma had guessed that Etta could use the extra income and companionship, and she had been right.
It turned out there was a rule at Seaside Village against subletting, so Etta told the manager Carly was a long-lost niece. Etta started baby-sitting Chris while Carly worked, claiming she could always use the extra money for Bunco, her bimonthly
dice club.
Etta “loaned” Carly her old Ford. Three years later it was still registered in Etta’s name, although it was Carly who paid the registration fees the last two years.
When the mobile home next door to Etta’s came up for lease, Carly took it, and the two women remained partners of sorts. It was a symbiotic relationship—Carly needed Etta for childcare, Etta needed the extra money and companionship. Carly drove her into town and into San Luis Obispo to her doctors appointments and to shop.
And they both loved Christopher.
“It’s Saturday. You working tonight? Same as usual?” Etta asked.
“Five-thirty.” Carly pressed the small cookie cutter into one corner of the peanut butter sandwich and carefully lifted out another star.
“Better warn Christopher it’s his turn to come over to my place. It’s Bunco night, and all the girls will be there.” Etta wriggled her eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “Things get pretty wild.”
Carly hid a smile. Not one of the Bunco girls was a day under seventy-seven. “I’ll tell him. He’ll watch television on your bed and stay out of the way.”
“Only if he takes his shoes off. I can’t carry that spread to the laundry room. It’s too heavy.” Etta’s mouth puckered into a frown. Carly knew she was already envisioning footprints on the bedspread.
“Want a star, Etta?” Carly offered the plate of peanut butter and jelly stars, but Etta pursed her lips harder and shook her head.
“You really should learn to play Bunco so you could join us. You know, Carly, for a woman your age, your social life is a disaster.”
12
THAT NIGHT AT FIVE-FIFTEEN JAKE SLOWED HIS SUV AND turned left off the highway into Seaside Village Mobile Home Park. As soon as he passed the entrance with its flaming gas tiki torches, he knew he’d entered kitsch world.
There was no grass in sight, but yard art was still plentiful. A plastic Bambi watched doe-eyed as Jake navigated a narrow lane that curved between the rows of double-wide mobile homes.
Here, mobile home was an oxymoron. Most of these had never moved. Many were fortified by additions of permanent porches and sundecks, a few even topped by observation platforms with views of the ocean. A wooden sign in the shape of an arrow pointed to a narrow, sandy trail.
Gnomes sprawled on white rock flowerbeds. Plaster squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks frolicked with tacky pink flamingos amid small evergreens and color pots overflowing with blossoms. Matching markers in front of every home displayed addresses in corroded aluminum numerals.
He kept an eye out for number forty-three and eventually spotted a ceramic burro wearing a sombrero and pulling an empty cart outside of a pea-green mobile home. The place looked as if it might have been one of the park’s originals.
Selma had told him that Carly lived right next door.
Jake pulled into a parking stall and killed the motor, then glanced around the interior of the vehicle to make certain he hadn’t left anything out that might give him away. Dark, tinted windows hid what he called his office annex. The compact SUV was perfect for surveillance but hell on gas.
He avoided meeting his own eyes in the rearview mirror and tried to convince himself that not telling Carly what he was really here for was perfectly justified until he was sure she wasn’t a flight risk. He wasn’t doing anything he hadn’t done before to get information he needed.
It was his duty to learn everything he could about Caroline Graham, a.k.a. Carly Nolan, if not for the Saunders, then for Rick’s memory. Besides, he hadn’t exactly lied to her. . . . He’d simply avoided the truth.
The minute he stepped out of the car, he heard the sound of the rolling surf, but it was quickly drowned out by wild hoots and hollers. A woman’s voice called out, “Bunco!” behind the closed door of the pea-soup green place right next to Carly’s.
There were no fake woodland creatures, no impish gnomes adorning the front of Carly’s mobile home. Butterflies made of crayon shavings melted between layers of waxed paper floated from a mobile hanging on the porch. He had a sudden flashback of making something like it back in grade school. The strings were tangled, causing the mobile to hang lopsided.
He paused long enough to straighten out the knot and set the butterflies free before he searched for a doorbell. No luck, so he knocked on the frame of the screen door.
Within seconds the bright fuchsia front door opened, and Jake found himself staring down into Carly’s son’s eyes. Blue eyes, blond hair neatly trimmed. The boy was slight but not overly thin. He looked healthy, well cared for.
“Hi!” A broad smile creased Christopher’s face as he stared back at Jake. Then he turned around and yelled, “Hey, Mom! It’s that guy! Mom! Hurry up, will ya?”
Christopher looked up at Jake again and shrugged. “She’ll be right here. You know how girls are.”
“Yeah.” Jake nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jake Montgomery. And yours is Christopher.”
“Yeah. I saw you at the game today.”
“I saw you hit that homer.”
“Where’d you meet my mom? At the diner?”
“The gallery. I like her paintings. I’m trying to get her to paint one for me.”
“Oh.” Chris’ smile dimmed a bit. “Is that all you like about her?”
Through the screen, Jake saw Carly hurry out of the narrow hallway between the open kitchen and the living room area and stop dead still. Then she crossed the room, stood behind her son and placed her hands protectively on the boy’s shoulders.
She looked tense, even a bit wary, although she was smiling. His sudden, unannounced appearance had obviously rattled her.
“I came to see if you’d like to go out to dinner with me, now that you have the night off,” he said.
She failed to smile. If anything, her concern deepened.
“Ow, Mom.” Christopher squirmed beneath her hands. “You’re squeezin’ me.”
“How do you know I have the night off?” Carly’s eyes never left his, but she released her grip on the boy. “How did you find this place? How did you know where I live?”
“Go, Mom!” Christopher bobbed from foot to foot. “I’ll stay at Mrs. Schwartz’s. It’s Bunco night anyway. They’ll need me to write down the score if they drink too much wine.”
Carly gently covered Christopher’s mouth with her hand.
“What’s really going on here, Jake?”
Her blunt query startled him. Jake hesitated almost a split second too long before he held out his hands and shrugged. “Selma overheard me ask you to dinner yesterday. When you bowed out because of work, she told me she’d give you the night off, so I came by to ask you out again.”
Chris wriggled out from behind his mother’s hand. “Wow. Selma just called a couple of minutes ago.”
Carly remained silent, still watching him somewhat guardedly.
“Listen, Carly,” Jake shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Selma gave me your address. I’m sorry for showing up unannounced like this, but it was her idea. If you don’t want to go, just say so, and I’m out of here.”
“Aw, Mom.” The boy tugged on Carly’s hand.
“Chris is invited, too, of course.” Though asking her son along was an afterthought, time with them both would give him a chance to see how things really were between them. “He’d probably like to celebrate that home run.”
“Really?” Christopher looked up at him with such open admiration that Jake decided he should have “Scum of the Earth” tattooed on his biceps when he got back home.
He met Carly’s eyes, marveled again at the stunning deep green in them. “What do you think? Are you both up for some Mexican food? I saw a little hole-in-the-wall where the canyon road hits town.”
“Tacos!” Christopher yelled.
Carly took a deep breath, slowly let it out and smiled, finally opening the screen door. “Since it appears I’m outvoted, why not?”
Christopher rais
ed both fists and victoriously cried, “Yes!”
Jake waited in the small living area while Carly went to change and help Chris clean up. The furniture was slip-covered in plain, heavy canvas, maybe painters’ drop cloths. A distressed wooden storage chest did double duty as a coffee table. An array of magazines that appealed to women, with headline articles entitled “Flea Market Decorating” and “Get the Most for Your Shopping Dollar,” along with recipes, housekeeping and organizational hints, were neatly fanned across the trunk.
A lopsided wicker rocking chair was piled high with so many pillows in bright floral prints that it actually looked inviting.
Toys including Transformer superheroes and Matchbox race cars were tangled up with some deadly looking plastic dinosaurs in a wicker laundry basket in the corner.
From where he stood, he could see most of the small kitchen, too. The appliances were old but clean, the refrigerator covered with magnets displaying kindergarten art and good citizen awards. A closed-in back porch served as her studio. An old, faded floral sheet covered a work in progress on an easel near the wall of windows. A small side table held her paint tubes, jars of brushes, and linseed oil. There was also a long sofa at one end of the room that was draped in a bouquet of tropical print fabrics.
Aside from a television the size of a postage stamp and a portable CD/tape player on a low brick-and-board bookcase, there was nothing of any real value in the living room. Nor were there any photographs on display except for one of Christopher in his T-ball uniform.
Not one of Carly’s paintings adorned the plain, faux wood paneling.
Except for the picture of Christopher, there was nothing personal in sight. Not one item that would give any hint as to the identity of the home’s occupants. Everything but the photo could easily be left behind at a moment’s notice.
He could hear them talking down the hall, mother and son, their voices rising and falling in an easy cadence, but the words were indistinguishable.
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