Balancing Act

by Fern Michaels

  Twigg Peterson had never been a creature of discipline; he preferred doing things when the urge came over him rather than waiting for someone else’s schedule. Except, of course, when he was due in the classroom. Expressive green eyes and a winning smile made him a favorite with his students, and rarely did he ever have to ask for their attention. He was tall, athletic, and sapling slim. At thirty-two he felt he knew who he was and where he was going. He wore his self-confidence like a Brooks Brothers suit. One of his students, a precocious coed who had the hots for him, said he had a grin that made a girl just want to cuddle and snuggle with him. He had shied away from her after that, as well as several others whose interests were more for the instructor than the course. It wasn’t that he didn’t like aggressive women; he did. But “Betty Coeds” were hardly women as far as he was concerned. They were little more than girls, all giggles and Pepsodent smiles.

  Twigg’s eyes went to the cluttered kitchen with its seven-day supply of dirty dishes. He was going to have to do something about the mess or he wouldn’t be able to eat without risking food poisoning. And, he was out of clean dishes. Baked beans out of a can only required a fork, and it was better than slugging into town and losing precious time from his writing. What he needed now was some exercise before he hit the sheets for a nap. A couple of laps along the lake would get his adrenaline flowing. Then a shower and a shave and he’d be a new man. Starting the iPod and adjusting the ear set, he hooked the modular miracle onto his belt buckle and left the cabin at a slow trot. He picked up speed as his feet left the rough, pebbled walkway.

  Twigg was concentrating so intently on the music piping through the earphones that he didn’t see Rita until he was approaching her as she sat on the far end of the pier. A human being and a woman at that! Not that Twigg wasn’t aware Rita occupied the neat cottage with the long, sweeping, raised decks of aged cedar that encircled the house. He had known of her existence, but whenever he had seen her she had seemed so unapproachable, so distant, that he had been reluctant to make contact.

  Rita watched the jogger approach her with some nervousness. She had seen him before, jogging at an energetic pace along the lake. With unsettling recognition, she realized that she had admired his tall, whip trim body and his easy loping grace to such an extent that the hero in her book was taking on some of his attributes. Whenever she needed to describe him, she had only to think of this man who jogged outside her cottage with the sun burnishing his hair to glinting auburn. Right now, she realized this stranger was approaching her with deliberateness. No, go away, she wanted to tell him. Don’t stop, don’t talk to me. I want to be alone and that means no companionship, no outside interests, not even a casual acquaintance. She debated if she should get up and pretend she was just leaving or sit and wait to see what he did. She knew she would look clumsy if she tried to get to her feet, so she opted for staying where she was.

  “Terwilliger Peterson, professor from Berkeley, here on a sabbatical to write a series of articles on dolphins and whales.” A wry grin split his features. “Call me Twigg, everyone else does.” He sat down next to Rita and held out a hand. Rita blinked as she shook it.

  “I’m Rita Bellamy. I’m a . . .”—she had been about to say a housewife—“I’m a writer and I’m here to finish my latest book.”

  “Jesus, I’m glad to meet you. I was beginning to get cabin fever.”

  “I won’t bother you,” Rita said hastily, wishing the man would leave. He was sitting too close and he was acting as though she was his long-lost friend. She wasn’t ready for friends like this one. Out of the corner of her eye she took in his appearance. He looked like he had slept in the trunk of his car and then got rained on.

  “Bother me! Bother me? I’d kill for a kind word at this moment. Tell me, what are you thinking right this moment. The truth.”

  Rita flushed. Rachel would know what to say to this brash young man. The truth. He wanted the truth. “I was thinking you look like you slept in your trunk and then got rained on. You do look rather . . . untidy.”

  Twigg threw back his head and roared with laughter. Rita looked up at his long, slender throat. How wonderful his laughter sounded. She hadn’t heard anyone laugh like that in years and years.

  “Rita Bellamy, you are a writer, I can tell. Untidy, huh? I’m a goddamn mess. I worked all night and have had these clothes on for two days. I’m what you could call gamey right now. I promise though that the next time you see me I’ll be spruced up to the nines.”

  Rita flushed again. “Oh, I didn’t mean . . .”

  Twigg’s face grew serious. “Yes you did. You said what you meant. I always tell my students to say what they mean and not beat around any bushes. Makes for less misunderstanding later on.” Twigg stared into her blue eyes and was startled to see the fusion of warmth and intellect that enhanced her femininity. He blinked and mentally backed off. He wanted to sit and talk to her. Talk to her for hours. Get to know her. But this wasn’t the time. Instead, he got to his feet and stood looking down at her. “I’m staying in the Johnson cottage.”

  Rita frowned. “I know.” She didn’t know if he knew where she lived and didn’t offer the information.

  “Nice meeting you, Rita Bellamy,” he said, picking his way back toward the sandy beach. Rita nodded, grateful he was leaving.

  Rita sat for another fifteen minutes wondering what Camilla and the children were doing and wondering who made the top three on the New York Times Best Seller List. Wondering about anything and everything except her recent encounter with Twigg Peterson. She should go back and get a letter off to Charles, her youngest son. Charles still wasn’t handling the divorce the way she had hoped he would. At eighteen he could certainly make his own bed, and store-bought cookies were every bit as good as her own. Why couldn’t he accept that she still loved him and would always be there if he needed her? Instead, he put obstacles in her path, daring her to fight back with him. How he resented the cleaning woman who now did the cooking and the baking and the ironing. Was that all she was to Charles . . . Chuck, as he now wanted to be called? Someone to clean and bake and see to his immediate needs? The typical stereotype picture-book mother? Time was what he needed. She needed time too; couldn’t any of them see that? Camilla, the oldest with three children of her own, said she understood and didn’t blame her mother. Blame! Rita’s spine stiffened. Blame her! When it was Brett who married a girl younger than Camilla. Brett who couldn’t wait for the ink on the divorce papers to dry. No matter what Camilla said, Rita knew she blamed her in a way. That she was somehow less than perfect, less than . . . those two words, “less than,” haunted her twenty-four hours, a day. They had all hung guilt trips on her, and she accepted them because she truly believed in some way she was less than. It didn’t compute. Here she was, a successful author, making pots and pots of money, and she still felt less than.

  It was Rachel who surprised her the most, Rachel who accepted the divorce with a shrug of her shoulders. Rachel who encouraged her mother to “go for it” whatever “it” happened to be. Get out, Mom, meet men, do your thing. You’re your own person, you aren’t an extension of Daddy.

  Rita tried to check the troublesome train of thought. Why was she thinking about all of this now? Now she had to get back to work. Or maybe she should take a ride into town and order some furniture and have it delivered as soon as possible. She didn’t want Ian to see her primitive living conditions.

  Ian Martin considered himself the man in Rita’s life. Middle-aged, attractive, he was her literary agent and business manager, deftly handling Rita’s career. He doled out advice in large doses and saw himself as her protector. She had come to depend upon him and she respected him. It was nice to have a man in her life, she admitted, and though Ian hoped for a more meaningful relationship, Rita was as undecided about her feelings toward him as she was about almost all other aspects of her life. Ian was coming to the lake to pick up her completed work and take it to a skilled typist in the city. She knew he expected her
to ask him to spend the night. Pushing that thought from her mind, she concentrated on making preparations for his arrival. Groceries, furnishings.

  That’s what she would do. Pick up some food and a couple of bottles of wine. She would make the effort for Ian. Without realizing it her eyes circled the lake and sought out the Johnson cottage. There was no sign of the tenant.

  Chapter Two

  Rita entered her spartan cottage and for the first time was truly faced with the quiet and emptiness. Living like this was ridiculous. She deserved more and had certainly earned it! Why was she constantly trying to prove herself, to punish herself?

  Quickly she washed her face and hands and changed to a clean blouse. Making a shopping list, gathering her credit cards and checkbook, she prepared to leave the house. There was no need to make an inventory of the refrigerator; the only thing it contained was a half dozen eggs and a can of evaporated milk for her coffee.

  Willie Nelson warbled on the MP3 player in the SUV, and she hummed along with his reedy voice. It was the only recording of his she owned, bought impulsively despite Brett’s comments about country western music appealing to vacant intellects. He had always been taking jabs at her intelligence near the end of their marriage, trying to shake her belief in herself and even in those things she enjoyed. “Sing on, Willie, honey,” Rita spoke to the voice coming out of the speakers. “Your secret listener is coming out of the closet. She’s a little afraid of the light of day after all this time, but she’s coming out anyway.”

  In Maxwell’s Furniture Store, Rita went up and down the aisles with the amazed salesman. She had first ascertained that delivery could be made the next day. She purchased entire display rooms, everything down to the accessories. Tables, lamps, modular pieces, and area carpets. As she made her choices, she felt the strain lightening between her shoulders. Everything was light, contemporary, gleaming and new. Nothing even remotely resembled the formal colonial cherry and bright chintzes that had previously occupied the cottage, and Rita worried that the house might not lend itself to this sleek style. But when she thought of the smooth varnished oak floors and light sandalwood paneling and floor to ceiling windows looking out on the open air decks, she realized it was actually contemporary in spirit. Besides, she didn’t want to restore the cottage to what it had once been. She didn’t need reminders.

  “And send me those silk palm trees over there in the corner,” she said, writing out a check for the full amount of her purchases. She had just spent eleven thousand dollars without a blink. Writing out the check made her feel good. She had worked for the money, earned the right to spend it in whatever way she wanted. There was no one to ask now, no cajoling, no reasoned arguments. She wanted it and that was reason enough. She now had four and a half rooms of new furniture that would be delivered by four o’clock the next day.

  Her next stop was Belk Department Store. In the linen department she selected coarsely woven tablecloths, bright place mats and napkins, kitchen dish towels, bath towels, sheets, blankets, bedspreads. The salesgirl thought she was an hysterical housewife as she pointed and picked, but Rita smiled and whipped out her credit card. Lastly, she bought curtains for the bedroom and simple roll-up blinds for every other window in the house. They were easy to hang, needing only a few nails to secure them to the frame, and they would offer privacy in the evening. Privacy, not self-imposed exile, Rita smiled to herself.

  At the grocery store the first item on the list was a kit of hair color, some body lotion, and a huge container of bubble bath. She filled two shopping carts with groceries for the freezer and empty shelves. Last on her list was a stop to the garden department and the purchase of six hanging baskets of flowers, two containing feathery ferns. One would go over her sink in the kitchen and the other next to her desk. If she had to be indoors, she could at least look at something green. She wondered if Twigg Peterson liked plants. Researching whales and dolphins, he was definitely an outdoor man. And a Ph.D. at that! She felt heat at the base of her throat and immediately switched her mind to the characters in her novel. Only thing was, the hero was beginning to look exactly like Twigg in her mind.

  Driving up the scenic road leading to her cottage, Rita passed the Baker cottage and was surprised to see Connie’s prized Jaguar sitting in the drive. Connie Baker and she had been friends for what seemed a lifetime, yet somehow as often happens they only really saw each other up here at the lake. God, it was two years since she had seen her friend! So much had happened in those two years, so much to talk about.

  On impulse, Rita almost swung into Connie’s drive but at the last instant thought better of it. She just wasn’t in the mood right now to hash and rehash the defects and failures of the divorce. Soon, she promised herself, she would call Connie.

  Deep into the history of the Dutch East India Company, Rita almost decided not to answer the phone that pealed insistently. The instant she picked it up she was sorry. It was her oldest daughter, Camilla, and if there was one thing she did not need right now this minute, it was to listen to Camilla trying to coax her children into saying “hello Grandma” despite the certainty that they would cry and scream. The least Camilla could have done was to wait until the kids were quiet before she made the call instead of trying to quiet them while Rita was on hold.

  “Mother, I need a favor from you,” Camilla said breathlessly, a hint of emergency in her voice covering the imperceptible whine that was always present when she knew she was about to ask the impossible.

  Rita clenched her teeth. “What is it, dear?”

  “You sound as though you’re going to refuse even before I ask,” Camilla complained, immediately putting Rita on the defensive.

  Rita shifted into what she called neutral and tried to concentrate on what her daughter was about to say. “I’m in the middle of a very important scene, Camilla. You know I came up here to work, and I did ask all of you children not to call unless it was an emergency.”

  “Yes, Mother. But this is an emergency. Tom has to go to San Francisco over the weekend, and he said I could go along if I could find a sitter for the children. I’ve already asked Rachel, but she said she had a big weekend planned. You always used to go with Daddy when he went away on business,” she said accusingly. “No, Jody, you can’t talk to Grandma right now. She’s very busy talking to Mommy! Mother, Jody wants to say hello. Here, talk to him, won’t you?”

  For the next few minutes Rita carried on an infantile conversation with three-year-old Jody while little Audra cried in the background, I don’t need this! I really don’t need this! Rita was telling herself over and over even while she cooed and crooned to Jody. She was ashamed of herself. They were her grandchildren! She loved them! What kind of grandmother was she that she resented this intrusion? On another level of her brain, Rita was formulating excuses to decline babysitting. Camilla finally returned to the phone.

  “What do you say, Mother? I really need a break from these darling demons. San Francisco would be such fun at this time of the year, and Tom and I need some time together.” The tone of Camilla’s voice was conclusive, as though Rita had already agreed.

  “Darling, it isn’t as though I haven’t babysat for you in the past. You know I love the children. . . .”

  “Good! Tom and I plan to take the six thirty out of Kennedy tomorrow evening. I’m so excited ! I haven’t been to California in over a year, and it was no easy trick getting my reservations at the eleventh hour.”

  Camilla had booked even before asking Rita. This chafed. There was starch in Rita’s voice when she replied. “I’m very sorry, dear, but this weekend is definitely out. I must finish to meet my deadline. I’ve never been late and I don’t intend to start being unreliable at this stage. Why can’t you hire a babysitter?”

  “Motherrr!” Camilla’s tone was aghast. “Tom won’t allow just anyone to take care of the children! You know how he is about that! You just don’t know how important this is to me! There is more to life than laundry and children, you know. I remem
ber how you used to go off with Daddy . . .”

  “Yes, Camilla, I did go off with your father many times. But it was never at the last minute, and I always made preparations ahead of time. You are being unfair, dear. I don’t like to refuse you, but I do have to finish this book . . .”

  “Where would you have been if your mother put a career ahead of you?” Camilla accused. “Grandma would always drop everything to come and stay with us and you know it.”

  “Camilla, my mother was a wonderful help to me and she loved her grandchildren. But that hardly applies here. Grandma was alone in the world without ties or a job and she looked for ways to make herself useful. Darling, it isn’t as though I haven’t helped you in the past. Only last month . . .”

  “That was last month.” Camilla’s voice was cold. “I need you this weekend.”

  “I’m sorry, Camilla, I just can’t see my way clear this weekend.”

  “Mother, you don’t even have to come back to the city. I’ll drive the kids up to you. Tom and I thought we’d stay on in San Francisco for a few days. Four at the most. I need you, Mother.”

  Rita clenched her fist around the receiver. She almost capitulated, but something stiffened within her. “No, dear, I simply have no time for the children this weekend. If there’s nothing else, I must hang up now. Say hello to Tom for me.”

  Rita hung up as her daughter was saying, “. . . your own grandchildren, I can’t believe . . .”

  When the receiver was back in the cradle, Rita sat down, nearly collapsing. Her forehead was damp with perspiration and her hands trembled. She felt guilty and angry at the same time. God, why did they do this to her? Why couldn’t they leave her alone and manage for themselves? Better yet, why hadn’t Camilla called upon her new stepmother for assistance, or even her father?

  The clear blue eyes misted over. They think I just play at this, that I have nothing else to do. None of them had ever taken her career seriously. Wife, mother, cook, laundress, seamstress, confessor, mechanic, baker, chauffeur . . . she was never Rita Bellamy, author. Rita Bellamy, person. No, they only thought of her in direct relationship to themselves and their own needs. They looked upon her writing as a competitor, alienating her from them. Even now, when she was alone, without a husband, needing to make a living for herself, they only considered themselves.