Flash and Fire

by Marie Ferrarella

  Carla nodded absently as she continued scooping very worn-looking residents of Sesame Street into the folds of her apron. She sat down on the floor and tucked her legs under her.

  As Amanda left the room, Carla glanced over her shoulder at her. “Christopher is really hell on wheels, you know.”

  Amanda found that she wasn’t too exhausted to grin fondly as she looked in his direction. “Yes, I know.”

  At the moment, Christopher looked completely incapable of causing any problems. Anyone looking at him now, as he concentrated on placing one block on top of another, would have said that he was the embodiment of innocence. The angelic-looking face was wreathed in springy, light brown curls. Just like his father’s.

  His hair color was the only thing his father ever gave him, Amanda thought ruefully. She tried to remember if Jeff had ever so much as held the boy in his arms, even once. Not a single memory came to mind. All Christopher had ever been to her ex-husband was a pawn. A pawn he had used effectively in order to get what he wanted out of her.

  Which was everything.

  Amanda had no doubt that if Jeff could have used the little boy to siphon money from her father, he would have gladly done that as well. But the route to her father’s money had long since been off-limits. Henry Foster had disowned his only daughter when she had turned her back on the life he had dictated for her.

  Amanda smiled cryptically. It seemed that the only thing she and her father had ever agreed on was that neither one of them liked Jeff. It had just taken her longer to reach that conclusion.

  Some lessons, she knew, took time. But once they were learned, they couldn’t be unlearned.

  Like the Cheshire cat, Pierce’s smile, disembodied and beguiling, floated before her. Amanda blinked twice, the second time furiously.

  “Hey, something wrong?” Carla stopped in mid-swing, a plastic toy dangling from her fingers as it hovered over the opening of the toy box. She stared at Amanda quizzically. “You’ve got a funny kind of look on your face.”

  “No.” Amanda shook her head. “Just preoccupied.” She rotated her shoulders, as if the feeling of pain could bring her back to reality. “I really need that shower.”

  She got as far as the stairs.

  Carla picked up a yellow plastic telephone and remembered. “Oh.”

  Amanda gripped the banister, hoping that whatever had caught Carla’s attention was insignificant. “What?” The word was wrapped in annoyance.

  “Someone called to talk to you just before you came home.”

  Amanda counted to ten and waited in vain for more information. There were some things Carla was good at. Taking messages wasn’t one of them. Carla hadn’t been functioning at full capacity since they’d arrived in Dallas. She blamed it on homesickness.

  Amanda tried to remember what it was like to feel homesick and couldn’t. She had never really had a home or a home life that she had felt attached to. Certainly not like Carla’s. Carla’s family numbered in the double digits. The warmth, Amanda had seen firsthand, was an exponential by-product.

  “Did this ‘someone’ have a name?” she asked Carla patiently.

  “Yeah.” Carla paused. “Whitney something.” She tossed the name at Amanda as carelessly as she was throwing the toys into the box. She was busy attempting to pry Christopher away from the base of the pole lamp before he managed to topple it

  “Granger?”

  “Yes, that was it. Granger. Whitney Granger.” She grinned, looking as pleased with herself as she’d have been had she just given the right answer to a particularly difficult question on “Jeopardy!”

  Amanda froze.

  “Whitney Granger called?” After all this time, why? “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Carla parroted the word. Her affirmation was punctuated by the clatter of another armload of toys crashing into the box. “With a name like that, how could I forget?”

  Easily, Amanda thought.

  Lately, there seemed to be gaping holes in Carla’s memory. She tended to forget appointments and errands she was supposed to run. That space in her brain was cluttered with trivial information. In a subconscious attempt to fill the hollowness in her life left by the absence of her family, Carla had adopted the residents of a soap opera. She knew every one of the actors in “As the World Turns” and the characters they played. Not only their names, but each of their individual histories.

  Her only saving grace was that Carla truly loved Christopher. In the long run, for Amanda, that was all that really mattered.

  But Amanda’s mind wasn’t on Carla’s strengths and weaknesses right now. It was on Whitney. The mention of his name immediately conjured up a collage of memories framed in affection. He was once the most promising automobile executive Detroit had ever produced. Having left his mark on no less than all three of the top corporations, he’d struck out on his own four years ago to begin his own company.

  That was Whitney Granger, the public figure. Handsome, dynamic, forceful. A leader.

  But Amanda knew him on a far more personal level. Whitney was one of her father’s clients. And one of his friends. How someone as charismatic and genuinely warm as Whitney could possibly find common ground with a dour, straitlaced criminal lawyer like her father was beyond Amanda.

  Yet there he had been, Sunday after Sunday, in her father’s house, at his table like an honored son. Charming her mother, bringing the only trace of a smile to her father’s lips Amanda had ever seen. And rapidly becoming Amanda’s hero, her knight in shining armor. She had been, she mused lingering at the foot of the stairs, more than half in love with him for years.

  He had known it, she suspected, and had been too kind to squelch it and too honorable to take advantage of the fact, though there was a time when she, young and impressionable, would have gladly given him anything he would have asked of her. She had fantasized about him hour after hour in her room, creating scenarios that were alternately sweet and tender, torrid and passionate.

  Nothing ever came to pass.

  Whitney was fifteen years her senior and had always been the most wonderful man she had ever known. With a warm stir, she remembered that he had given her her very first corsage and her first kiss, a chaste peck on the cheek. But it had still counted, and it resided in a special place in her heart.

  Just as he did.

  Although he worked predominantly in Detroit, he had roots in disparate parts of the country. He’d grown up in fairly modest circumstances, though his mother’s side of the family were Whitneys who boasted Senator Whitney in their number.

  “I was named after my mother’s family name,” he’d once explained to her. “I think she thought the connection would give me a sense of class my father’s side of the family couldn’t.” He’d laughed. “Poor Mother. I don’t think it took.”

  In later years, he maintained a home in Los Angeles yet had somehow managed to be there for the important times in her life.

  Or maybe they were important because he had been there to share them with her. He had been the one to encourage her to follow her heart and become a reporter even when her father had sternly forbidden it.

  Busy with his own life, he had tried to act as a go-between to smooth things over between Amanda and her father. But in this one effort, he’d failed. It had bothered him, she remembered. And he had made her promise that if she ever wanted for anything, she would call on him.

  She never did, even though she had wanted to. Because by then, he was married.

  Though he had been a vivid part of her formative years, after marrying Alicia Buchanan, he had kept in touch only through cards and an occasional letter. It had hurt, but by then she’d been well on her way to creating her own career, her own world.

  Through mutual acquaintances, Amanda had heard that Whitney had purchased a house in Dallas, but they had not gotten together in the nine months that she had been living here. She’d been busy, and she had assumed that Alicia was at the root of Whitney’s not calling.r />
  It seemed very odd that he should call her now, out of the blue.

  A premonition zipped through her, keen and fast. Ordinarily, Amanda would have been overjoyed to receive a telephone call from Whitney. She loved talking to him. But the huge lapse in time since she’d heard from him created this nameless dread that refused to dissolve.

  She was being silly.

  Shaking herself free of the feeling, Amanda stepped into the living room again. Whole sections of carpet, in between islands of toys, were emerging. Carla was slowly making headway.

  “Did he leave a number?”

  Carla didn’t turn around. Like a bulldozer that had been placed in high gear, she pressed on, tossing toys into the box.

  “It’s on the blackboard in the kitchen—unless Christopher erased it. He was trying to eat the chalk this morning.”

  Amanda merely nodded. Christopher’s eating habits had long since ceased to surprise her. Spiders were his favorite treat, right after chocolate, and he periodically split a can of beef-flavored dog food with Muffin, eating it right out of the dog’s dish.

  She glanced toward the kitchen, undecided. Part of her wanted to dash off and call Whitney immediately. Feeling like the little girl she once was, she longed to hear his voice. But her thoughts were colliding into one another as jarringly as Christopher’s blocks had been a moment earlier. Amanda knew she needed a few minutes to gather them together. Those minutes could best be spent under the direct aim of a shower head. With a sudden, unexpected burst of energy, she took the stairs two at a time.

  Hooded brown eyes regarded Amanda with keen interest from across the room as she entered the kitchen ten minutes later. Humming to herself, Carla moved about the counter, gathering ingredients to prepare dinner. She was preparing one of Amanda’s favorite Mexican dishes, one that required patience and time.

  Carla’s mild expression didn’t fool Amanda. She knew Carla was always on the lookout for another romance, fictional or real.

  The number was on the blackboard. Amanda hunted through the “everything drawer,” where miscellaneous items went to die. She found an almost-dried-up pen, but no paper. She tore off a section of paper towel and wrote on that.

  Carla looked at Amanda, disappointed. “You’re not making the call here?”

  “Christopher’s too noisy for me to concentrate.” Amanda pointed to her son, who was busy dragging out pots from the cupboards.

  Taking the paper towel, she closeted herself in the den. There wasn’t a lot of free space in the room, but she wanted privacy, at least for the moment.

  She rarely kept things from Carla. In the eighteen months the woman had been with her, Amanda had come to regard Carla as more family than employee. But this was an exception.

  Amanda dropped the ragged piece of paper towel on the desk and eased herself into the swivel chair. Despite the air-conditioning, the leather felt the slightest bit clammy against her bare legs and back. There was no reason for her to feel this nervous. Maybe she hadn’t gotten over her teenage crush on Whitney after all, at least not totally, despite the years that had passed.

  She shook her head. Her hormones were definitely getting out of hand. “First Alexander, now Whitney. Mandy, you have got to start dating again, before you jump on the next man who smiles at you.”

  Amanda could just hear the trailer now: “Five o’clock anchorwoman attacks pizza delivery boy outside of house. Story and pictures at eleven.”

  And wouldn’t the station manager just love to hear that? Grimsley had been eager to find a reason to break her contract since she had threatened to take him to court on harassment charges if he didn’t cease literally backing her into corners.

  Smiling, feeling somewhat composed, she pulled out her cell phone and entered the telephone number on the keypad.

  Whitney answered on the third ring. When she heard his voice, low and resonant, Amanda knew that somewhere within her there still existed a young, awkward girl who was undyingly grateful for the kind attentions of such a debonair, handsome man.

  “Granger here.”

  She closed her eyes and saw him. Tall and as unsettlingly suave as they came. “Whitney, this is Amanda.”

  “Amanda.” He said her name with deep, resounding pleasure. It filled her with a warmth and a sense of homecoming. Speaking to her father had never even begun to approach this. Conversation with Henry Foster, at least for her, was like entering the enemy camp. She had to guard every word against attack. Now comforting waves of nostalgia came with every syllable.

  “How have you been?” Whitney asked.

  He really wanted to know. The genuineness was still there, just as it always had been. That was what she liked the most about him. He cared about people, he took an interest. It was an attribute, she had discovered while growing up, that was rare.

  “I’m fine, Whitney. It’s been a long time.”

  “Yes. Yes, it has.” Was it her imagination, or was there just the slightest tinge of sorrow in his voice? “I watch your broadcast whenever I’m able. I’m impressed, Amanda. I meant to call before now, but...”

  A sense of contentment flowed through her veins. She leaned back in the chair and began to rock slowly. Maybe this was just a social call after all. Maybe he just wanted to catch up on old times and pick up their friendship where they had left off. She was quick to spare him any undue guilt.

  “That’s all right. I’ve been too busy to draw two breaths in succession. It’s a hectic way of life, but I love it.”

  “That’s easy enough to see.”

  The pause that followed was overly long and unusually awkward. There had never been pauses like this before. Her nervousness returned. Something was wrong.

  “My housekeeper said you called,” Amanda prompted. She twirled the phone wire around her finger.

  It was time to take the step. He had no choice. “Yes, I’d like to see you if I could.”

  He sounded . . . troubled. That was the word she was looking for. Troubled. She didn’t like admitting it, but that was the best description of his tone. She just couldn’t envision him that way. He was too full of life, too sure of himself. In all the years she had known him, she’d never even seen him so much as frown.

  She stifled the impulse to ask what was wrong. If he wanted her to know, he’d tell her. Reporter’s instincts warred with personal feelings.

  Mentally, she flipped through the pages of her schedule. “I could come by tomorrow—“

  “Today.” The word vibrated, urgent, commanding, across the wire. She heard him sigh on the other end. “I know it’s an imposition, but I can’t talk about this matter over the telephone and you’re the only one I can turn to about this.”

  She was both proud and frightened.

  Her scalp tingled as tiny needles of anticipation pricked at her. She resisted the urge to prod him. “You could never impose, Whitney. I owe you too much.”

  He understood. “Not much, Amanda. A few moments here and there.”

  It wasn’t a careless remark; he just wasn’t a vain man. “Very important moments. Moments my father couldn’t give me. Moments no one else could spare.”

  She had been highly impressionable and vulnerable then. And Whitney had gone out of his way to make her feel special. It was partially to please him, to catch his eye, that she had developed the backbone she had. And in so doing, she had forged the course of her own life.

  She heard him draw a long breath, as if he was fortifying himself to deliver his next sentence. But when it came, it was devoid of drama and offered her no clues as to what was happening, or why he had called. “Then you’ll come now?”

  She thought of the agenda she’d planned for tonight. There were tapes of her broadcasts she had wanted to review to assure herself that her delivery was still credible and sincere. The station manager’s constant criticism was making her uncertain about her work. She had to stay on her toes at all times.

  But Whitney needed her.

  It was no contest.
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  “Of course I’ll come.” There was a crash from the kitchen, followed by a string of colorful Spanish oaths. When Christopher began talking in earnest, those would probably be his first words. “You really want me over right away?”

  She heard the barely suppressed relief. “Yes. As soon as possible.”

  “I’m on my way.” She forced herself to sound upbeat.

  Was it something to do with his health? Had he discovered his wife with another man? Adultery would have been a stupid move on Alicia’s part, but then, Amanda had never thought of the woman as particularly intelligent, just very, very lucky.

  She harnessed her imagination before it got completely away from her. “Are you still at the same address?” She remembered filing it away in her address book.

  “For now.”

  For now.

  What did that mean? He had transferred his business holdings here. Dallas had become the heart of all his operations. He wouldn’t leave unless ...

  Unless what?

  “I’ll send Saunders around to get you.”

  “Fine, I’ll—“ She was already on her feet when there was an embarrassed cough from Whitney on the other end of the telephone line, as though he’d just remembered something.

  “No, sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Whitney said, voice rough. “The truth is, Saunders doesn’t work for me anymore.” She heard him struggling to compose himself. “Amanda, I hate asking, but would you mind driving over yourself?”

  “No problem. I’ll be there in half an hour,” she promised.

  Even if I have to break every speed limit from here to your house.

  Saunders was, or had been, Whitney’s chauffeur for as long as Amanda could remember. The older man had relocated with Whitney, first to L.A., then to Dallas. Had the man died? She knew for a fact that the man would never retire. He had nothing else in his life except for his work. He was too devoted to Whitney, too proud of his position to ever quit.

  Unless, of course, Alicia had forced him to. Alicia had steadily grown more and more critical of every facet of Whitney’s life, constantly nagging him that he could do better, be better. Even her father had thought that Whitney’s marriage to Alicia had been a mistake. Had the woman fired Saunders for some reason?