by Amanda Brown
She was tackled by Emily, who rushed into Becca’s legs and was nearly lost in the great fluffy folds of her orange bridesmaid’s dress. Emily’s eyes, wide and dazzled, took in Becca’s flouncy A-line tutu dress with awe.
“My fairy godmother!” the child said, leaping into her arms.
Forgetting that they were supposed to be quiet, Becca cried and hugged her daughter in joyous relief. Emily had not been hurt, but mostly bewildered by Bunny’s behavior. Mrs. Carter, furious at Bunny’s behavior, had helped Emily dress in play clothes and brought her to the stable, which Mr. Edward had wanted for the child hours ago. Henry, the Kirkland groom, had spent the last few hours giving Emily a basic riding lesson on one of the polo ponies Horace Kirkland kept for show, and had fallen in love with the chatty child. The reunion between mother and child did not leave him cold. On the contrary, he was the father of six children, each precious. Henry had put together the pieces of the little girl’s story and he announced that he would help in any way he could. “And damn”—he looked at Emily in Becca’s arms—“I mean darn the consequences. There’s plenty of stable jobs here.”
“Well, if not, you’ll have a job with me,” Becca exclaimed.
What is this, Crocodile Dundee? Her mother thought, but she stayed mum.
Poor, desperate little Emily had pulled herself as close to Becca’s chest as she could, and clung there like a marsupial. Becca had to pry Emily’s head back from her shoulder long enough to tell her the secret. They were pretending to run away from Eddie’s party.
“Let’s go!” said Emily, pressing her cheek against Becca with all her might.
Becca raced toward the line of cars she had passed on her way in.
When she found Edward’s driver, she told him he was wanted at the house. She asked for his key ring, claiming she needed to see if Edward had put the apartment key on there for her, as he had said. Shrugging, James headed for the house, agreeing to meet Becca and Emily back at the car. Before he was halfway across the horseshoe driveway toward the door, he heard the sound of his engine. He stood, scratching his head, while his car tore down the driveway.
Philippe met James at the entrance to Sternwood, where the driver was politely waiting to be admitted. He persuaded him with lots of money that, when James entered, Philippe would follow him in. If anyone asked, he was “with the driver.”
The driver assured him he would cooperate. His naturally accepting personality had always served him well, and James counted his money as he waited by the door.
Edward’s heart surged when he saw Philippe enter the room. Becca!
He grabbed the note Philippe handed him and read it eagerly. His hands shook as he recognized Becca’s handwriting, and he devoured her words with starved eyes. Philippe walked out before anyone even noticed he was there.
Edward. I have taken Emily away from Bunny. I can’t let her go. I love her more than anything I know. Please don’t follow me. I hope you understand. Becca.
Then he noticed a note scribbled at the bottom of the page, an afterthought. She had written:
P.S. Eddie, I just wonder—why aren’t you happy?
His hand shook as his eyes flew over the note. He felt the dullness, the aching of his head clear as if peeled away. His thoughts crystallized, sharpened into vivid flashing images; he felt a rush of energy. Becca.
He saw her name shining through memories that triggered in him the need to act. He saw her holding Emily against her chest, stroking the child’s hair, saw her laughing, then remembered her graceful neck yielding, collapsing for a moment in tenderness as she kissed him good-bye on her way to the airport, the last time he had seen her. He caught his breath as the desire for her returned to him, and closed his eyes, weighed with his longing for her and the regret he felt for letting her go.
She had come back!
“Why aren’t you happy?” her note asked. He gripped the paper, feeling his mind sharpen into precision. Purpose seared through Edward’s soul. He felt alive; he felt the energy of a thousand of Becca’s glances, laughs, and motions alive within him. He felt a hand drop down on his shoulder.
Bunny’s voice whispered into his ear.
“James told me what happened, Edward.” He whirled to face her, and her ice-blue eyes rested on him possessively. “She’s taken the child, has she?”
He looked at Bunny silently, his mind racing. Slowly he crumpled the note in his hand. He slid it, with his hand, into his pocket, and watched her in silence. His life, he felt, had moved on a slow course to this surprising moment, as the distance runner, eventually, turns from his resting pace to glorious striving, the end in sight. Remembering his obligations: his promise, such as it was, to his mother to accept a future with Bunny, he stood still, listening to her without interruption.
The portrait painter scurried from the room, cast out at once by the cold stare she flung at him. Edward had forgotten the painter, but Bunny, he saw, missed nothing.
“I have to go,” Edward said, his eyes meeting hers directly.
“Edward,” Bunny breathed, “let’s not be hasty.” She slid her cold, smooth hand around his neck to give him a little massage.
“That’s a joke,” he said. He gave a sarcastic laugh as he stepped away from her touch, indicating the extravagant wedding decorations that spoiled the house in every direction. “You seem to have jumped into marriage with both feet.”
“I want us both to,” she said, drawing him to her in an embrace. She held him firmly for a minute, feeling his tense muscles tighten even further. She could not console him. Not yet. He would learn to love her as he grew accustomed to the charms of their privileged life.
“Your friend Becca has nothing,” she said, fluttering her eyes with sympathy, entranced by her own graciousness. Charity sounded so sweet, spilling off her pampered lips. She could really give so much, when she wanted to.
He shuddered to hear Becca’s name from her lips. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the child might be better off with her.”
“What?” He shook with revulsion at the thought of abandoning his daughter, his special joy. Just minutes before, Emily had been the consolation he relied upon in this circus. Soon he would tuck her in, read her a story. When the tents were pulled down, the decorations packed up, they would go hiking on the horse trails, row the boat into the pond, where he would tell her stories about all the magic that hid among the elm trees, climb the trees with low branches, feed the horses, visit the kennel…Lose Emily? This woman knew nothing of him.
While Edward marveled at her ignorance, Bunny delivered the speech she had prepared for precisely this moment.
“Without the child, Edward, we would have the time we need to be together. To love each other. To enjoy each other.” She pursed her lips into a sensual pout, and glanced up from under her lowered lids. “To give ourselves to each other, completely.” Bunny breathed deeply. In her ears, it sounded just right. She felt as if a wind machine would blow her hair and a chorus of angels would sing on cue. She had delivered the enticement perfectly. So self-absorbed was Bunny Stirrup at that moment, she failed to perceive Edward’s look of increasing disgust.
She leaned down, rolling her shoulders forward to create a graceful pose as she reached into her briefcase and withdrew a document of three or four pages. Now is the time to hit him with the waiver, she thought. I will lose the kid, keep her assets, and cut my wedding cake in six hours.
He stared, thunderstruck, at her cold-blooded poise. Where did the briefcase come from? Her beauty meant nothing to him, suddenly; it was sharp and false. He saw her trying to hide the triumphant smile that played at the corners of her mouth. There was nothing real about her.
With effort, she adopted a low, compassionate tone. “I took the liberty of having this drafted,” she began, handing him the paper with a smile.
His eyes widened as he accepted the document, but dropped it to his side without reading a word.
“I understand,” she spoke, as directl
y as she had rehearsed, to get it over with, “that you might be struggling with some conflicting feelings right now. But if you take a minute to read this, I think you’ll agree with me that it’s the right thing to do.”
“What is it?” he asked her. His voice and eyes were suspicious. He would not let her off so easily. “This is quite unusual,” he said, adopting a teasing tone of voice. “You’ve never asked me to sign anything before. Please explain, my dear.”
She smiled with confidence. “It’s a waiver of parental authority. I got it from a lawyer over at Weil, Gotshal & Manges. It’s airtight, he assured me. Just sign here,” she said, grabbing the document with excitement, and flipping it hurriedly to the last page, “and permanent custody of Emily Stearns will be transferred to Becca Reinhart. Bing, bang, boom! Everybody wins,” she promised, beaming with a victorious smile.
He shuddered with revulsion. Bunny stood exposed before him as if for the first time.
Her eyes widened with fear. She sensed she had gone wrong with the waiver. Her mind raced as she considered the contact she might be forced to have with the child. She would still have her sent to Zurich, she consoled herself, and the staff would keep her most of the time.
Edward stared at her firmly, watching the clouds that drifted into her glowing blue eyes. Her selfish, steely eyes. He would not give up Emily.
With his eyes locked on hers, Edward said the kindest thing he could find in his heart for her.
“Enjoy the party, Bunny. It’s all yours.”
Shaking off the touch of her hand on his shoulder, Edward ran out the door. Becca would have taken Emily back into town. He’d have to ask his driver to hurry.
During the ride into the city “Bubbe” Arlene finally got to meet her grandchild. Emily had heard about Bubbe. Becca didn’t yet refer to her as her mother, to avoid triggering Emily’s grief. And now the two leaned close together whispering. Whatever secrets they were sharing must have been whoppers, because every so often there would be an outburst of hysterical laughter. Becca had known this meeting would be as smooth as the creamy peanut butter on the sandwiches Bubbe had thoughtfully packed and fed them now.
“I can have chocolate after this,” Emily said, looking straight into Arlene’s eyes.
“I don’t think so, over my dead body.” Arlene and Becca spoke at the same time. Then Becca picked up her phone to make an urgent call.
CHAPTER 31
Something Borrowed
Becca had not realized it was Sunday until Judge Jones picked up the phone in chambers; she never noticed the particular day anymore except to check it against Emily’s activity schedule. On Sunday afternoons the judge would duck into chambers to read quietly and prepare for the week ahead. She was surprised to hear the phone but thought it might be her husband, so she picked it up without introducing herself.
Hearing the urgency in Becca’s voice, she agreed to conduct a hearing, at once, to assess Emily’s custody in light of a grave and immediate danger to the child.
Becca was driving Edward’s great wide-bodied Bentley, and had hung up quickly to negotiate through road construction before Judge Jones thought to remind her to notify Edward of the hearing.
Arlene had pushed to come with her but there were some times in life when it’s better to negotiate the shoals alone. So Becca dropped Arlene at her own apartment, promising to tell her exactly, verbatim, what the judge said.
“Be insistent,” her mother had said as she was exiting the Bentley, “And don’t leave the courtroom without Emily.”
Right—Arlene was right on the money.
Becca knew by the time she returned her mother would have come up with ways to warm up the judge. If the hearing took long enough, it was probable that Arlene would find the closest Pottery Barn and stock up on dishes and pots that would never be used. Becca would not come back without Emily and, further, she intended to live with Emily in the Stearns apartment, which was now Emily’s. Edward and his bride could find another place to return to from their honeymoon—Bermuda she had heard. (Philippe got all the gossip everywhere he went!) A Bermuda honeymoon—how unimaginative can you get!
Pouring a cup of coffee, the judge sighed with anticipation of the end of the year, when she would rotate off the emotional JDR docket and back into the bread and butter of civil practice. Landlords, contracts, and zoning variances: it would be bliss after the frustration of family law.
She slipped into her black robe, picked up the file labeled In Re Emily Stearns, and headed for her courtroom to wait.
Becca’s hope had flared with the stimulant of escaping, but as she neared the courthouse, mentally making her case for custody of Emily, she felt more and more doubtful. What did she have? What was so dangerous about Bunny Stirrup?
She planned to ship Emily right off to Zurich—but when Becca regarded it with the awful clarity of hindsight, it was at best a nasty little piece of gossip. And who was her source? She breathed deeply, her confidence sinking like a stone. She imagined calling testimony forth from Adrian Parish, the flouncy feather-collared wedding consultant who couldn’t open his mouth but to exaggerate.
Becca reddened with anger. She knew—she felt certain that she had to protect Emily. But Adrian’s piece of gossip would be no use at all. She had not stopped, before she rushed home from Brazil in a panic, to think that Adrian might not be telling the truth. Bunny was his client, and by his own description quite a demanding one. She worked him like a slave to put her wedding together, he said. Becca’s analysts, toiling with her on contentious deals at three o’clock in the morning, had said worse about her own clients. Adrian had as much as admitted that his bias made him critical of Bunny, she recalled: It’s just that I hate her so.
No, it wouldn’t help to mention Adrian at all. But Becca had set the judge up to hear something: some emergency, some grave danger to Emily.
It’s my intuition, Your Honor, she imagined saying, and actually laughed at herself. She was not Emily’s mother. She would have to invent a new phenomenon for that argument to fly. It’s my legal guardian’s intuition, Your Honor, a very powerful sixth sense I have developed in the past several weeks.
It would all come down to Bunny Stirrup, so Becca marshaled her facts. The judge wouldn’t like sending Emily to Zurich. She had thought it important to keep Emily in the apartment where she was secure. That was something.
As vividly as she imagined making the journey to Zurich sound like an unspeakable torture, Becca knew it was possible for the judge to take a different view. Compared to the pile of preschool rejection letters she and Edward had managed to collect for Emily, Bunny had at least gotten her in somewhere. The judge might see that fact to the child’s advantage, Becca realized with dread.
And they were almost at three months, when the judge was supposed to make a permanent decision on custody. Maybe they were outside the window of vulnerability, when the judge wanted Emily to stay in the apartment, to minimize the harm of change. After all, in a stable, married, two-parent family…
Becca sank her forehead into the palm of her hand as she waited to turn the car down an alley into a parking garage. She had lost. She knew it right now. Why even bother, when Edward and Bunny would have that nice two-parent home the judge wanted for Emily?
“What’s wrong, Becca?” Emily asked.
Becca looked in the rearview mirror at Emily’s innocent, questioning eyes. She smiled to notice, for the first time, that the interior of the car was covered with pink and red rainbows, flowers, birds, and smiley faces, traced in the lipstick Emily took from her purse. She sighed. What did it matter? Today was all.
She stopped herself. She couldn’t think that way. She would tell the truth, and hope the judge understood her.
“I’m just thinking,” she responded to Emily, who had asked again, “what I should tell the judge so she lets you stay with me forever. So you don’t go away with Bunny.”
Emily poked her head into the front seat. “I’ll tell her,” she chirped. “
Don’t I get to pick?”
Becca laughed. “I hope so,” she answered. Enlivened by Emily’s simple confidence, she led her into the courthouse.
“The judge will love your dress,” Emily told her.
Becca hung her head. The borrowed bridesmaid’s dress, hanging around her calves like a lampshade, crushed from the airplane seat, stained by the horse, and plainly ridiculous to begin with, floated around her like a divine joke. The judge would think she was a maniac.
CHAPTER 32
Edward Makes His Case
What Judge Jones thought, when she first saw Becca, was that she was desperate. She was familiar with Emily’s custody case from her review of the file, and remembered Becca’s lively personality from the first hearing, but she couldn’t recall ever seeing such an extraordinary gown at a custody hearing.
The judge handed Emily a few packs of Smarties left over from a staff party, and watched her lay on her stomach on one of the courtroom benches, stacking the candy into towers, which she ate one “floor” at a time, from the penthouse to the basement.
While Becca used the excuse of assembling a few papers from her bag to buy herself some time, the judge walked to a window over the street. There was a huge traffic disturbance below: A large white horse trailer obstructed the street, drawing a great commotion of beeps, yelling, and profanity, from cabbies in particular. Its driver had apparently left the trailer, which was carrying a horse, blocking the street in front of the courthouse.
If there’s a misdemeanor charge, she told herself with a laugh, at least it won’t be on my docket. Judge Hammill was on his rotation through traffic court this fall.
