He scraped the wads of wet paper off her tongue and considered it a success that she only bit him twice. He looked at the two puncture holes on his finger. “You hardly drew any blood, Ms. Vampire.”
He listened to another scream, and watched a few tears flow, then went into the kitchen in search of a plastic garbage bag to clean up the mess.
“I’m not cleaning this myself,” Nick told her, putting the trash bag on the floor. He lifted Jessica out of the walker and put her down on the carpet. “Pick this up and throw it in here.” He showed her how to take the scrap of paper and put it in the bag.
Like the other two women in his family, his mother and his sister, Jessica appeared to listen, appeared being the key word. Then she turned her back on him and ripped the cover off another magazine.
“That does it.” Nick put her back into the walker, and this time he rolled her out in the hallway. “Go, Jessica. Go race to the front door.”
She stayed right where she was, in the doorway, and watched him. Nick, mumbling to himself about how a great uncle like him ended up with such an impossible niece, got down on his belly to search under the bed for more papers. That’s when he found it.
Nick had thought he could handle anything. Until he reached under the bed and pulled out the pieces of his broken college-championship football trophy.
He glanced at the nightstand where he always kept it, hoping that what he held in his hand was something else. But no, the top of the nightstand was bare, and he held pieces of the constant reminder that as far as his father was concerned, second in the nation wasn’t anything.
He looked across the room at Jessica staring at him from the doorway. She wasn’t crying now, just sniffing through her clogged nose.
“Why?” he asked her. “Why did you do this?” She stared back at him with those big blue eyes, eyes so like his sister’s, so like his own. And just as calculating as his father’s.
As quarterback for the University of Texas, he led his team to the division championship, and ultimately the Orange Bowl. UT lost the Orange Bowl game by one point. Still, Nick had a great deal of pride in the accomplishments he had made that year, both for his team and himself. There had been a parade in Austin that day. A big ceremony when they passed out the trophies, and other honors. Nick had been king of the world, a hero to the school.
“Second isn’t first, is it?” his father had said the day he came home with the trophy. “People only remember who’s first. It’s not second place that goes down in the record books.”
Nick gripped the broken-off football player, a miniature replica of the person he had once been. Almost number one.
Maybe for him that was good enough. Nick didn’t build shopping centers or office buildings anymore. He did what he had always loved to do, creating the most beautiful and unique homes in the city. And he had a waiting list for his services.
He heard Jessica rolling herself down the hallway, giggling all the way.
“I think you are a little sadistic at heart, baby,” Nick called out so she could hear him as he very gently put the broken pieces of the trophy safely away in the top drawer of his bureau. “Because if you aren’t, then you have a very strange personality.”
Jessica had rolled back into the doorway, as if tearing around in her walker was the greatest game in town. She clapped and giggled then rolled back down the hall again.
Nick finished shaving, threw on shorts and a T-shirt and followed her to the hallway closet. “I’ll take you for a walk. I need to release some of this stress you’ve caused. Then I’ll call my secretary and see if she can find you a baby-sitter.”
He rummaged through the boxes lining the back wall of the closet until he found his old University of Texas backpack and took it to the room he used as his office. Cathy had placed Jessica’s things over the couch and all the available chairs, and had his desk covered with pink paraphernalia, too. The box of diapers sat next to his computer.
Jessica had followed behind him, rolling faster than he walked, tripping her wheels over the backs of his running shoes. All the while, she leaked water from her face and there was no telling what the other parts of her were leaking, too.
He put eight diapers into the backpack and moved the box away from the computer. If he were lucky, eight might last an hour. He carried the portable crib into the spare bedroom and set it up next to the queen-size guest bed. Jessica still followed him, crying sporadically, throwing stuffed toys at him. She had pretty good aim.
“Come on, kid.” He took the backpack and went into the kitchen. Jessica stayed behind, rolling up and down the hallway. He packed eight bottles of milk to go with the eight diapers and had zipped up the backpack, when he heard Jessica’s earsplitting screams. He ran back to the hall and found her, sitting on the floor, the walker tipped over on its side. Nick scooped her up in his arms and brought her back to the kitchen, sitting down in the chair near the window. He ignored her screams, which sounded different than they had before. “Quiet down for a second, Jessica,” he said through his clenched mouth. “I’m checking your head to make sure it’s not cracked.”
She only screamed louder.
When he didn’t find any damage, and his heart rate had gone back to almost normal, it dawned on him that Cathy had been wrong. Jessica didn’t break her head open the way she’d said she would. It stood to reason then that if she’d been wrong about Jessica breaking her head, she could also be wrong about other things. Like Jessica having gotten over her hatred for him.
The baby climbed off Nick’s lap and stood herself up on wobbly feet. He walked back toward the counter and she followed close on his heels, all the while swatting at the backs of his legs, screaming nonsense.
“Would you like a cookie?” he asked. He didn’t care what she thought inside that little head of hers, he knew he was a great uncle, offering cookies and bottled milk. She didn’t deserve him. He didn’t deserve the treatment she dished out
“Nooooo,” she screamed, taking hold of the material on his jeans’ leg and twisting the denim, pinching the back of his knee.
“Ouch,” he cursed, which made Jessica laugh. “The least your mother could have done was teach you how to say, ‘No, Uncle Nicky.’“ He bent down to her level and handed her an oatmeal cookie.
“Nooooo,” she screamed louder as she grabbed the cookie and chomped down.
“That’s what I like. A woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to tell me.”
“Nooooo.” She smiled at him through her red nose and watery blue eyes.
He didn’t know what to do with her. A baby who cried and smiled at the same time wasn’t normal. As soon as she finished the cookie, Nick asked her if she wanted another one.
“Nooooo,” she said with another wet smile, holding her arms up toward the bag on the counter.
“Then let’s go.” He handed her two cookies, one cookie for each hand, then shrugged into the backpack. While she was occupied with the food, he lifted her. As soon as he did, the tears started coming.
After several tense moments, the baby ended up horizontal, as if she were swimming at his waist. She kicked his behind with her legs, and pounded his thigh with her fists. “I’m going to remind you of this when you start dating,” Nick muttered. “These are the exact tactics I want you to use on any guy who tries anything.”
BY NINE O’CLOCK that morning, Diana was both physically and emotionally exhausted. Then she heard the ominous tap-tap-tap of approaching footsteps.
Her dad, though, seemed to perk up. Where he got the energy after all they’d just talked about, Diana didn’t know. But Harry spit into his hands, slicked back his hair and pasted a smile on his face.
“Sheila, my love,” Harry gushed, holding out his arms.
Diana rolled her eyes. Her dad hadn’t even reached fifty yet. He was still a good-looking man with all his dark brown hair. He could have done better than Sheila-the-Hun.
Harry positively glowed when wife number five floated into the
white room, her arms spread out wide, the white bell sleeves of her white caftan flapping in the breeze her entrance had created. And her father called Diana dramatic. Hah!
“Darling.” Sheila patted hair that had been pitch-black the last time Diana had seen her, but was now dyed blondish-white to match the room. She blew kisses past Harry’s cheeks, since she was so small—even in her white highheel shoes, she still only came up to his shoulder—then flitted to the white couch where she perched. Diana wasn’t fooled for one moment. A white canary with the heart and personality of an albino vulture. “Diana, dear, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Sheila,” she said sweetly. She decided then and there that when she arrived at Duke, the first thing she’d invent was a chemical to take Sheila’s blood out of white carpet
Sheila’s own eyelids narrowed. “Really? How interesting. I would have thought with all you’ve been through, you’d be more downtrodden.” She turned away, showing Diana her bony backside.
Diana wouldn’t be dismissed. She walked around to the side of the couch where Sheila sat, and stood in front of her, waiting until Sheila finally looked her in the eye. “The only bad thing I’ve been through is coming home and finding out you threw away my table and chairs. Mine, not yours.” Unshed tears stung her eyes, and gave her the beginnings of a headache, but she refused to succumb to the pain. She would not let Sheila, the black-hearted wolf in sheep’s snowy clothing, have the satisfaction of knowing how much she’d hurt her.
“Those old things. I didn’t know they had any kind of sentimental value until your father—” she gazed at Harry with loving eyes “—told me. Afterward.”
She was lying and Diana knew it. By throwing out the tiny table and chairs, Sheila had found the perfect way to say, “I’m taking over, and you’re out” Diana had been through enough stepmothers-in-training to know they all had their own private agendas. Harry’s other wives may have been a little different, but none of them had been cruel or mean. Diana had liked them all, and was sorry when each marriage had ended.
Sheila, on the other hand, was mean. And since meanness wasn’t part of Diana’s personality, she was having trouble coping.
But she’d learn. Diana was nothing if not studious.
“Harry, did you tell Diana about our plans for her future.”
A sinking sensation gripped Diana in the pit of her stomach. Stepmothers-in-training weren’t allowed to make plans for the children of their new spouse. If that wasn’t already an unspoken rule, then it would become a written one as soon as she wrote the manual.
“Not yet, Sheila. Come, Diana, sit down,” her father said gently. “We haven’t had our coffee yet”
She glanced at Sheila. Diana’s first cup of coffee was meant to be savored. She couldn’t enjoy anything sitting in the same room with wife number five. “I’ll have mine later.”
Harry’s jaw dropped, as well it should have. Diana was never known to turn down a cup of coffee. He picked up a white bell from a white stucco end table and shook it
“If this is going to be a meaningful conversation, we should both have our coffee now. Right?” His smile seemed weak.
“Okay.” She knew the unwritten script. The stage directions said, “Agree.”
“Really, Harry,” Sheila fussed. “You mustn’t drink that coffee in here. You might spill it on the rug. Or the couch.” She looked sideways at Diana, and Diana knew who Sheila was really worried about
“We’ll drink in here.” Then he bellowed loud enough to carry through the twelve-thousand-square-foot penthouse, “Alicia, bring two coffees and one of Mrs. Smith’s teas.”
“But, Harry, darling—”
“Coffee will be served in here.” This time, Sheila stopped, apparently deciding this battle wasn’t worth fighting.
“Thank you, Daddy.” Diana stood on her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “For being my dad.” She had learned in her psychology classes at Princeton and Oxford, before she’d been asked to leave those schools, that arguing didn’t do much good. Now, sentiment, that was another matter altogether. Sentiment could get a positive response. Diana had a feeling that before the morning was over, she was going to be using sentiment a lot.
By silent agreement they didn’t say anything else as they waited for the coffee. Diana walked around the living room. All signs of lived-in comfort were gone.
Diana squinted. “This room is giving my eyeballs a sunburn.”
Sheila said, “Don’t be flippant.”
“I didn’t think I was,” Diana said. She plopped herself down on the white stuffed sofa and immediately sank almost to the floor.
“I could have sworn I’d lost weight at Yale.” Crossing one leg over the other, trying to adjust to sitting down with her knees higher than her bottom, she refused even to think she might have gained weight. “I have a theory that having a passion for chocolate-filled doughnuts doesn’t put on ten pounds, as long as you set your mind into weight-loss mode. You see, I did this experiment with some of the women who lived in the college’s apartments. We each ate five chocolate-filled doughnuts a day, and then we willed ourselves not to gain weight. Only two of us didn’t gain. The rest didn’t use their minds to will the calories away. Which is why they gained weight. That’s when I started working on a pill that turned the properties of chocolate into water.”
“Really, Diana,” Sheila said. “How your mind works. Silly.”
“Not to people who like candy.” Her foot buried itself in the carpet and only some red, slightly chipped toenail polish showed through the white wool whorls. She’d bet her life Sheila was a closet chocolate eater.
Alicia came into the room wearing a white dress with a white apron and white lace collar. She served coffee on a clear Plexiglas tray. “Here are your beverages, Mr. Harry and Ms. Sheila. Good morning, Miss Diana.”
“What’s with this Miss Diana and Mr. Harry stuff? Why are you wearing a uniform?” Diana asked. Alicia didn’t wear uniforms. She called Diana’s dad, “Hey you, Har.” Alicia was not someone who should ever have to say miss and mister.
Alicia’s face scrunched up as she nodded in the direction of the stepmother-in-training. “Miss Sheila’s idea.”
“That’s insulting.” Diana turned to her father. “Aren’t you going to do something about this?”
“Now, Diana,” Harry started. “Sheila thinks that a man in my position should have a more formal staff.”
Alicia rolled her eyes at Diana as she poured the coffee in a set of new, white bone-china cups. She rolled them again when she left the room.
“We need to think about dismissing that woman, Harry,” Sheila said. “She doesn’t know her place.”
“You do anything to Alicia, and I’ll personally see you gone,” Diana threatened.
“Well, I never.” Sheila tsked, drumming her whitepainted fingertips on her white sleeve.
Diana struggled out of the sofa. When she regained her balance, she took the cup of coffee and gave it to her father, ignoring the second cup.
Finally Harry cleared his throat “You’re my daughter. I could never get angry at you. I know these experiments you do will work, eventually. The problem is, most schools don’t have the patience to wait until you get it right. Maybe you’ve been distracted, and that’s why things go wrong. It can’t be easy pulling up stakes every semester.”
“It hasn’t been hard. Disappointing though. I thought I’d be further along than this.”
“Well, I did do the best I could for you. You know that.”
“Of course I do. And I appreciate how you’ve always been here for me, allowed me to try and fulfill my dream.”
Harry put down his empty cup and paced. Diana stood next to the window, looking down thirty stories to the park across the street
“Sheila thinks that you should switch your major from science to English.”
When she saw Harry had a very straight face, and realized he wasn’t joking, she said, “English. Surely you’re joking,” she sa
id. “Daddy, nobody saves the world by majoring in English.”
“You’re jinxed, sweetheart. Face it”
Diana laughed, only her laugh verged on hysteria. “Oh, Daddy, you’re so wrong. So very wrong. I’m not jinxed.” But then again, maybe she was. Maybe the problem with her was that she’d been carrying the burden too long about the White Envelope Incident. She knew if she told him the truth, she could lose it all. But she looked over at Sheila, saw her evil grin of satisfaction and knew she was going to lose it all anyway, so it didn’t matter.
She drew in a slow, deep breath. “Then again, maybe you’re right”
“Of course I am. You see, Sheila thinks—”
“Oh, no, it has nothing to do with Sheila, and everything to do with these condominiums.”
“What are you talking about?” It was his turn to look befuddled.
“Oh, Daddy, have I got a story for you. You better sit down.” She would tell him, just the bare facts, just enough to let him know why she’d been so distracted. And why chemicals may have gotten mixed up. “It’s about these condominiums. And Nick Logan.”
“Nick Logan?” he snapped. “That bastard Charlie’s kid?”
The way he said Nick’s name, Diana knew that all her dreams of being with Nick were just that—dreams. The family hatred ran too deep.
“What about that Logan?” Harry said.
It was too late to go back. She could only hope he’d forgive her. Hope he’d understand that everything that had happened to her in the past six years was directly or indirectly related to that day.
Harry waited, and Sheila smirked. English. That stepmother-in-training had a lot to learn about Diana Smith.
Her life had been hell for the last six years, and she knew the exact day it had started. “Remember the summer I worked for you when I was eighteen. Right before I left for the Sorbonne.”
“Sure.” He poured himself another cup of coffee. “We thought it would be a great way for us to spend more time together before you left the country. I was between wives then, too.”
Kidnapped / I Got You Babe Page 19
