Dr. Dad

by Judith Arnold

  “Okay,” Meredith promised.

  “I’m just screaming now. I’ll stop when she comes in,” Amanda assured Lindsey. “She’s going around to the front door.”

  The doorbell rang, as if to prove Amanda’s report had been accurate.

  “Remember—be cool,” Lindsey warned them one final time before hurrying down the hall to answer the door.

  Susannah looked anything but glamorous in her jeans and a clean white T-shirt. Her hair was held back with a tortoiseshell headband, and she had no makeup or anything on. Even so, she was gorgeous. Lindsey wished she could be half as gorgeous.

  “Hi,” she said, beckoning Susannah inside. MacKenzie sat in the crook of Susannah’s arm and eyed Lindsey suspiciously. “Hey, MacKenzie, remember me?”

  He seemed as if he might.

  Susannah stared past Lindsey, and she turned to see Amanda and Meredith lurking in the hall behind her, gawking at Susannah. “These are my friends, Meredith and Amanda. Meredith’s the one with the cousin,” she said.

  “Your dad knows you have two friends over?” Susannah asked.

  “Yeah. It’s okay with him.”

  “Well,” Susannah said. “This is MacKenzie.” She extended the cat toward Meredith, who flinched back to life and reached to take him. “He’s kind of heavy, but he’s very sweet.”

  “He’s a great cat,” Lindsey said, leading the group back down the hall to the kitchen, where the lighting was better for shooting photographs.

  “He’s beautiful,” Meredith agreed, standing in the sunlit corner of the room and stroking MacKenzie.

  “He’s so soft.”

  “Okay, move a little to the left so the light hits your face,” Lindsey ordered, lifting the camera. Then the picture taking began. First Meredith and MacKenzie. Then Meredith, Amanda and MacKenzie. Then all three girls and MacKenzie, with Susannah taking the picture. Then—with very little goading—a picture of Amanda, Meredith and MacKenzie with Susannah.

  She was so relaxed, as if she didn’t even care that Lindsey’s friends knew she was a famous actress. When Amanda said, “I watch your show all the time,” Susannah only laughed and said, “It’s not my show anymore.” When Meredith asked if acting was fun, Susannah actually admitted that there were definitely some fun aspects to it, even though it was also a lot of hard work. When Amanda asked why Susannah had moved to Arlington, of all places, Susannah said, “Maybe because I wanted to have a next-door neighbor like Lindsey.”

  It was all Lindsey could do not to kiss her for saying such a nice thing. Whatever might have gone wrong with Lindsey’s father Saturday night, Susannah still liked her. Dr. Dad hadn’t spoiled things for his daughter.

  They used up all twelve exposures on the roll of film. If Lindsey didn’t come up with an idea fast, Susannah would leave—but they were all getting along so well, and Amanda and Meredith were really enjoying being with Susannah, and Lindsey knew they’d be her slaves forever if she could figure out a way to get Susannah to stick around a little longer.

  “Why don’t we bake cookies,” she suggested. “Susannah thinks she isn’t a good cook, but she really is. Would you stay and help us, Susannah?”

  Susannah hesitated for a minute and then said, “Okay. You girls shouldn’t be using an oven without an adult around, anyway. But don’t listen to Lindsey—I am a lousy cook. I’ll just watch while you bake.”

  Meredith and Amanda seemed excited about baking. They clearly saw Lindsey as their leader, which pleased her enormously. Meredith was more of a leader type than Lindsey, and Amanda was the one who’d supplied the information about Stephen Yates and the baby, so she might have stepped into a leadership role, too. But they both seemed willing to let Lindsey be the star. Well, Susannah was the real star, but Lindsey was the star of the fifth-graders.

  Rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, she found enough ingredients to make chocolate-chip cookies if they skipped the walnuts, which everyone agreed would be acceptable. MacKenzie curled up in a pool of sunlight on the floor and licked himself, ignoring the rest of them as they banged around the kitchen, smashing butter into a soft mush with a fork, measuring white and brown sugar, spilling flour on the counter. Susannah helped by wiping the spills, breaking eggs and making sure they were using the right measuring spoons.

  She also amazed Lindsey by keeping the conversation going. Lindsey and her friends couldn’t talk much beyond “How much baking soda am I supposed to use?” or “Do we have to grease the cookie sheets?” But Susannah kept talking about other stuff. “Are you all in the same class?” she asked. “I bet you can’t wait till summer vacation. What are you going to do this summer?”

  Meredith was going to a sleep-away camp in New Hampshire. “We do boating and tennis,” she said. “My mother went there when she was a girl.”

  Amanda’s mother had signed her up for an art program at the Arlington Museum. “It’s kind of boring, but it’s okay,” she said. “It’s just mornings. Hey, Lindsey, maybe your dad could sign you up for it, too. Then we could do it together.”

  Lindsey perked up. She was so bored by school in general and Ms. Hathaway in particular that she hadn’t gotten around to worrying about whether she’d be bored all summer, too. Last summer she’d had Cathy to hang out with, and they’d had a great time, biking to the community pool, swimming and buying soft-serve ice cream at the snack bar there, or planning picnics in their backyards. They’d played soccer and they’d slept over at each other’s houses a lot. But Cathy wasn’t going to be around this summer, and Lindsey hadn’t given much thought to how she was going to fill that void.

  Amanda wasn’t Cathy, but Lindsey could hang out with her. Maybe she could get her to eat a little more. “Here, have some chocolate chips,” she said, tearing open the bag and shaking a few chips into Amanda’s hand.

  Meredith stirred the rest of the chips into the batter while Lindsey and Amanda smeared butter over the cookie sheets. “What are you going to do this summer?” she asked Susannah.

  “Write. Fix up the house a little more. And I’d like to drive around the area, do some exploring. I haven’t seen much of New England.”

  “You should go to Tanglewood,” Meredith said.

  “You just drive straight north across the Massachusetts border. My parents go every summer while I’m at camp. The Boston Symphony Orchestra plays there.”

  “That sounds like fun. Maybe I’ll do that.” Susannah smiled at Lindsey. “Maybe you could come with me.”

  Lindsey took a deep breath to conceal her amazement. Classical music didn’t do much for her, but to spend a day in the Berkshires with Susannah was worth sitting through all of Beethoven’s symphonies at once. “Are you really going to spend the whole summer in New England?” she asked, putting aside her excitement about Susannah’s invitation and remembering that there were certain things she needed to know about Susannah. “I mean, don’t you want to go back to Hollywood?”

  Susannah laughed. “No.”

  What about her baby, though? Didn’t she want to see her child? “Haven’t you got family there?” Lindsey asked carefully.

  Amanda and Meredith fell silent, spooning the batter onto the cookie sheets and waiting for Susannah to answer.

  “I do have family there,” Susannah told them. “But I’m not sure I’ll be visiting them over the summer.”

  “Why not?” Lindsey was pushing, but she needed to know. Not just for the sake of the club but for her father’s sake, as well, just in case he had any lingering dreams of asking Susannah out for dinner again. If she had a baby, Dr. Dad ought to know about it before he got any complicated ideas.

  Susannah didn’t seem disturbed by the question. “I think I need a break from my family,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll visit eventually, but I only just moved here a few weeks ago. I’m not ready to go back yet.”

  Not ready. Not ready to be a mother to her child? Or not ready to work out whatever had gone wrong between her and Stephen Yates? Something must have gone wrong, o
r Susannah wouldn’t have left.

  Lindsey wasn’t going to let her father be the guy Susannah passed the time with until she decided she was ready to go home. As dazzled as she was by Susannah, her father was the one she lived with, the one she was going to be stuck dealing with if Susannah led him on and then dumped him. Lindsey didn’t want to believe Susannah would do such a thing, but she was a Hollywood star, after all, in the habit of being doted on and worshiped like a goddess. And there was the baby, too. It couldn’t be denied. Susannah was a fantastic neighbor, but as Dr. Dad’s girlfriend she’d be bad news.

  “I’d love to go to California,” Amanda said as Lindsey slid the cookie sheets into the oven. “It’s sunny all the time, and I bet the beaches are much nicer than our beaches in Connecticut.”

  “It isn’t sunny all the time,” Susannah corrected her with a smile. “Sometimes we get so much rain there are mud slides. And there’s never any snow. I can’t wait until my first winter here in Connecticut. I think snow is beautiful.”

  “Yeah, unless you have to shovel the driveway,” Meredith joked, and they all laughed. Lindsey knew Susannah would never have to shovel her driveway. One reason Lindsey wanted to be a Hollywood star when she grew up was so she’d never have to shovel the driveway—or collect the garbage or rake leaves or do any of those other tedious chores—again. She would be as gracious as Susannah was with her fans, but she’d expect them to adore her. It would be like the way Amanda and Meredith were her friends but also were kind of in awe of her at the moment—only multiplied by millions. That was what Lindsey wanted.

  “I’m going to go to California someday,” Lindsey announced. She didn’t add that she was going to become a star like Susannah. Things were going so well Lindsey didn’t want to wreck them by saying something wrong.

  The kitchen began to smell from the cookies—a rich, warm fragrance that made her stomach growl with hunger. MacKenzie must have noticed the smell, because he stirred from his sunny spot and wandered over to the table. He leaped onto Susannah’s lap and sniffed the air, turning his head left and right as if was trying to figure out where the aroma was coming from.

  When Lindsey became a star, she was going to get a cat like MacKenzie, too. And she’d bake chocolate-chip cookies and let him eat a few.

  The first batch was done. Meredith pulled the sheets out of the oven while Lindsey got a couple of plates and a spatula. The cookies were soft and steamy and kind of weird-shaped—not one of them was a perfect circle—but they smelled even better out of the oven than in it. MacKenzie stretched toward the table as Meredith and Amanda moved the cookies onto the plates to cool, but Susannah held him tightly so he couldn’t jump off her lap.

  Amanda’s mother arrived just minutes after they slid the second batch into the oven. She remained in her minivan, beeping the horn, and Lindsey was glad. She didn’t want Amanda’s mother to come in and meet Susannah. The more people who met Susannah, the less special meeting her would be. She’d actually turn into a regular Arlington resident, and then Amanda and Meredith wouldn’t think Lindsey was so important anymore.

  Lindsey wrapped some of the cookies in foil for Amanda and Meredith to take with them and walked them to the door. She was glad when they were gone. Having Susannah all to herself meant maybe she could find out some more about Susannah’s family in California.

  Susannah was pulling the second batch of cookies from the oven when Lindsey got back to the kitchen. She set the two sheets on the stove top and shut the oven door. “That’s it,” she said with a grin. “You’ve just seen the extent of my culinary ability. I can take things out of an oven.”

  Lindsey smiled. Susannah was treating her like a pal, someone to share jokes with. Lindsey liked that.

  She sat at the table and Susannah resumed her seat across from Lindsey. They each helped themselves to a cookie from the first batch. “You want some milk?” Lindsey asked. Chocolate-chip cookies tasted much better with milk.

  “No, thanks.”

  If Susannah wasn’t going to have milk, Lindsey wouldn’t have any, either. She bit into her cookie. It might not have looked perfect, but it tasted great, warm and soft with the chips practically liquid.

  “Your friends are nice,” Susannah commented lightly.

  “Yeah.”

  “The blond one—Meredith?” Lindsey nodded, and Susannah continued. “She looks a little older. Is she a fifth-grader, too?”

  “Yeah. She turned eleven in January. Amanda’s older than me, too, but she’s so skinny she looks younger.”

  “Girls your age change a lot,” Susannah remarked, her tone still light and casual, although Lindsey sensed a serious intent behind her words. She remained silent, and Susannah went on. “You’re all hitting puberty. I guess they’ve talked to you about that in school, haven’t they?”

  Lindsey licked the melted chocolate from her lips. “In health class,” she said. “Daddy talked to me about it, also.”

  “I think he’s a little worried that you might prefer to talk to a woman about it,” Susannah said, and Lindsey understood then what her intention was. Dr. Dad must have asked her to speak to Lindsey about this stuff. The idea didn’t exactly bother Lindsey, but it was sort of weird, his going to Susannah about it. She would have thought that if they were on a date or something, they’d discuss more romantic things than Lindsey’s puberty.

  Then again, their date hadn’t been romantic. Susannah’s romance was waiting for her back in California. “So my dad wants you to speak to me?” she asked.

  “Actually—” Susannah leaned forward, as though she was going to confide a deep, dark secret to Lindsey “—he wants me to ask you if you need tampons.”

  Lindsey was so startled she laughed. Susannah laughed, too. And then Lindsey laughed again, less in surprise than in what could only be called sisterhood. Poor Dad! He was just a guy. Guys couldn’t handle things like tampons, could they? They just didn’t have what it took.

  “I don’t,” she said, still giggling.

  “Well, when you do, if you can’t tell your father, you can tell me,” Susannah assured her.

  This was interesting. Lindsey helped herself to another cookie and nibbled it slowly, giving herself time to think. If Dr. Dad was asking Susannah to speak to her about puberty, did that mean he wanted Susannah to act kind of like a role model or something? Having Susannah as a role model suited Lindsey fine, so far as Lindsey wanting to be a star when she grew up. But this other stuff, tampons and all…that was more like what you’d talk about with your mother.

  Did Lindsey’s father want her to think of Susannah as a mother?

  If he did, did that mean he was planning to keep dating her, to build a real relationship with her?

  But what about Stephen Yates and the baby? Lindsey had to know. She couldn’t come right out and ask, though. She couldn’t just say, “So, that pregnancy of yours the magazine wrote about last summer—what’s the deal with that?”

  She had to find a subtler way to approach the subject. “What’s it like, having magazine articles written about you?” she asked.

  Susannah sat back in her chair and eyed Lindsey. She obviously hadn’t been expecting the change of topic. “Fame looks like more fun than it is,” she finally answered. “If I’d done something worthwhile, I wouldn’t have minded having magazine articles written about me. But being written about just because of who I was, rather than what I’d done, was annoying.”

  “You did do worthwhile things. You starred in the best show on TV. That’s worthwhile.”

  Susannah snorted.

  Lindsey knew what Susannah meant. The article in Amanda’s sister’s magazine was basically about who Susannah was dating and not important stuff like her acting. The article was really kind of pointless. Who Susannah was dating and whether she was expecting shouldn’t have been anyone’s business but hers.

  But it was everyone’s business now, because the magazine had published that story. “Do magazines ever lie about you?” she aske
d.

  Susannah shrugged. “I never read articles about me. But there were people at the production company who oversaw the publicity I got. I’m sure if any of the magazine articles had included serious lies, they would have told me.”

  “I mean…’cause I read an article about you that was in a magazine last summer. And I didn’t know if it was true or not.”

  “What did it say?”

  Lindsey suddenly felt like a snoop, poking around in Susannah’s private life. She had the right to protect her father, but did she have the right to question Susannah about her love life back in California? “I dunno,” she mumbled. “It said you were dating the guy who played Lucien Roche on Mercy Hospital.”

  “I did date him,” Susannah admitted.

  Then the article was true. Which meant Susannah had a child. “Do you still date him now?” Lindsey asked.

  Susannah smiled. “Well, I’m here and he’s there. So it would be kind of hard to date him.”

  In other words, Lindsey thought, if Susannah wasn’there and Stephen Yates wasn’t there, they’d still be dating. Which meant she shouldn’t be dating Dr. Dad.

  She heard a rattle coming from the mudroom. MacKenzie must have heard it, as well, because he leaped down from Susannah’s lap and started toward the mudroom door. When it opened, he froze, staring at Lindsey’s father, who stood in the doorway, his briefcase in one hand and his jacket in the other. “Hello,” he said, clearly surprised to find Susannah at the table with Lindsey.

  “We baked cookies,” Lindsey told him, as if that explained why Susannah was there.

  “Lindsey and her friends baked them,” Susannah corrected her. “All I did was wipe up the spills.”

  “She did more than that,” Lindsey argued. “And the cookies are really good, even though they look kind of funny. Have one.”

  Her father exchanged a gaze with Susannah before smiling at Lindsey. “We’re going to be eating supper soon, but…” He swiped a cookie from the plate. “One cookie won’t spoil my appetite. And they don’t look funny,” he added before biting into it. “Mmm. Delicious.”