MILLION DOLLAR BABY

by Patricia Ryan

  "Barbershop?" That was a new one on Laura.

  "Listen," Kay said, "about Janey. We can put her to bed upstairs, as usual, but I just checked my tickets and realized I'm gonna have to set out for La Guardia at, like, five o'clock tomorrow morning."

  "Yikes! You want to cancel Chick Flick Night?"

  "No way! I haven't seen Casablanca in years, and Dean, of course, has never seen it."

  Which came as no surprise to Laura. One thing they'd learned from having shared Chick Flick Night with Dean for the past seven weeks was that he'd seen incredibly few movies in his lifetime.

  "Anyway," Kay said, "you're best off bringing Janey home tonight after the movie."

  "No problem. So." Laura nodded toward the overstuffed duffel. "You all ready for your trip?"

  Spreading her arms, Kay gazed heavenward with a transcendent expression. "Ten days in the Greek Islands. I couldn't possibly be any readier."

  "I envy you." Laura would give anything to trade places with Kay, whose well-heeled mother liked to treat her to exotic vacations a couple of times a year.

  "I did invite you and Janey to come with us," Kay reminded her.

  "We've been all through this," Laura said, raising her hands to stave off a reprise of their recent debates on the subject. "I can't afford it and no, I am not going to break down and take that money from Dean, no matter how much of a pest you become. Plus, going to Greece means flying, and I don't do that."

  "Phobias should be confronted, Laura."

  "More brilliant psychological revelations from the supposed ex-shrink."

  "Fine." Kay shrugged with overstated indifference. "It's best that you're here, anyway, in case Dean has any trouble playing reservations clerk." She usually drafted Laura to check her messages and return the calls of prospective guests when she went away. This year, Dean had agreed to do it, in exchange for free room and board for the remainder of his stay. "Remember, I'll be coming back Sunday, May 27, if anyone needs to speak to me personally."

  "I'll remember." Heading for the kitchen, Laura said, "We'd better get this show on the road or you'll sleep through your alarm tomorrow morning. I'll put Janey to bed, you make the popcorn."

  "I always make the popcorn," Kay groused as she unzipped her duffel and poked around inside it. "How about you do that while I tuck Janey in?"

  "Deal," Laura said as she opened the kitchen door. "I'll send her out to…" She stood motionless in the doorway, staring openmouthed. "Uh…"

  Dean was lazing back in a kitchen chair in the middle of the floor, his blue-jeaned legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his arms folded beneath the towel draped over his shoulders, his eyes half-closed. On a step stool behind him stood Janey, clad in her favorite dinosaur pajamas, her hair in two braids, frowning in concentration as she snipped away at Dean's hair with a pair of children's safety scissors. Hanks of that hair were scattered around her on the tiled floor. What little remained on Dean's head varied dramatically in length and stuck out at all angles, making him look like a particularly depraved punk rocker.

  "Uh, Janey…" Laura began as she slowly entered the kitchen. "What are you doing, monkey?"

  "Playing barbershop!" Janey announced, holding up her scissors in one hand and a freshly severed lock of hair in the other.

  Dean gave Laura a sleepy-eyed smile. "Man, I forgot how good it feels to get your hair cut."

  "Uh … Dean?" Circling around to face him, Laura stared unblinkingly at his … head. "You do know she's been using real scissors."

  "Well, duh. How else could she cut my hair?"

  Laura rubbed her forehead. "Have you looked in a mirror since she went to work on you?"

  "Jeez, you are so uptight sometimes." Reaching out languidly, Dean grabbed Laura's hand and gave it a playful little shake. He'd been doing that more and more over the past couple of weeks – touching her casually for no reason in particular, as if she were some skittish young animal he was trying to tame. "Lighten up, Lorelei."

  "Yeah, lighten up, Mommy!" Janey echoed, then dissolved in giggles at having chastised her own mother.

  Shaking her head as if to clear it, Laura looked around for something reflective. She spied the shiny new stainless steel percolator Kay had bought herself when she'd decided she didn't like dripped coffee anymore, brought it over to Dean and held it in front of his face. "Check it out, wise guy."

  "Oh, hey, cool!" he said, taking the percolator from her and holding it this way and that while he inspected himself in its gleaming surface. "It's like a fun-house mirror!"

  "Let me see!" Taking the appliance from Dean, Janey peered, wide-eyed, at her own distorted reflection. "Cool! What's a fun house?"

  Reaching behind him, Dean tugged on one of Janey's braids. "A place where you have fun, silly."

  "Like Aunt Kay's house?" Janey asked. "Since you've been here, it's been way fun," she exclaimed, spreading her arms wide.

  "It has for me, too, monkey," Dean said over his shoulder. "And by the way, you did an awesome job on my hair – you're a natural." He smiled at her. It was a fond, reassuring smile.

  Downright paternal.

  Laura felt suddenly off balance, as if the real world were just as contorted and surreal as the reflection in that damned coffeepot. "Give me that," she said, lifting it out of Janey's hands and setting it back on the counter. "Janey, you're up almost half an hour past your bedtime. Aunt Kay's going to tuck you—"

  "But I'm not finished with Mr. Kettle-wing's hair!" she wailed. "I have to even it up."

  "I'll even it up," Laura said, taking the safety scissors out of Janey's hand and slipping them in the front pocket of her jeans.

  "But…"

  "She'll just be doing the finishing touches," Dean told Janey, chucking her under the chin. "You did the important part."

  With a sigh, Laura said, "That's right, monkey." She hefted her daughter off the step stool, gave her a big squeeze and set her down. "And Mr. Kettering's right – you did an excellent job."

  "Weally?"

  "Really. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that sooner."

  Janey rewarded her belated stab at graciousness with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "G'night, Mommy." Laura found herself unsettled when Janey turned to Dean and gave him a good-night kiss and hug, too.

  After Janey left, Dean said, with a smile, "She almost makes me wish I had kids of my own."

  Laura filled her lungs with air and let it out slowly. Forcing her mouth into the shape of a smile, she nodded toward Dean's grotesque new hairdo. "What do you say I clean that up for you?"

  "Just a little off the top," he said, settling back in the chair again. "I wouldn't want you compromising Janey's artistic vision."

  Sorting through Kay's utility drawer, Laura came up with a nice, sharp pair of grown-up scissors. "I can't believe you let her do that to you," she said as she shoved the step stool aside and positioned herself behind Dean.

  He lifted his big shoulders in an indolent shrug. "It's just hair. It'll grow back."

  "Very philosophical." Laura finger-combed Dean's hair this way and that, trying to figure out how to repair the mess.

  "Mmm, that feels great," Dean murmured, his eyes drifting shut. "Do that some more."

  "I never realized what a hedonist you are," Laura said as she set about trimming off the really bad parts.

  Dean smiled without opening his eyes. "Then you haven't been paying very close attention."

  "Do you have a comb?" she asked as she separated sections with her fingers and took tentative snips.

  "Upstairs in my room."

  "Maybe you should get it. I really need a comb to do this right."

  "Then do it wrong. I'm enjoying this too much to get up."

  Laura shook her head ruefully. He really did live for the moment. "There's a barber in town. You can get him to fix this up tomorrow."

  "Too much like work."

  "Aren't you at all worried about what your hair's gonna end up looking like?"

  A groggy little
huff of laughter escaped him. "It's not like there's some dress code for my lifestyle. I'm not gonna kick myself off the Lorelei for having a bad haircut."

  His mentioning the Lorelei reminded her that they were in the third week of May already, and he'd always planned to be gone by the end of the month. "You, uh … you'll be heading to Portsmouth when Kay gets back from her vacation, I guess. Then off to Bermuda?"

  Opening his eyes, he looked at her, his electric blue gaze making her breath catch in her throat. "That's the plan."

  Laura nodded distractedly as she worked. "You realize you haven't spent the whole million on me yet. Not that I've been keeping a strict tally, but I can guestimate with the best of 'em, and I don't think you're even close. Plus, you should know that, as soon as you leave, I'm going to be returning all that stuff you bought me – the Blazer, the boat, the riding lawnmower, the snowblower, those tools, the dishwasher, the microwave, the new furniture, all of it."

  He expelled a long, lingering sigh. "Laura, honey, why are you such a pain in the ass?"

  "Look, Dean … I told you right from the very beginning that I couldn't accept your money, but you've insisted on finding ways to make me take it. Obviously I can't do anything about the improvements you made to the house, but I can and will take back all that other stuff, and send you the money."

  "Seems like an awful lot of trouble over nothing, but suit yourself." He closed his eyes again. "If you do that and send me the money, I'll just add it to Janey's trust fund."

  Laura stopped cutting. "Trust fund?"

  With his eyes still closed, he grinned. "Didn't I tell you about that? It's how I decided to solve the problem of not having spent the whole million on you before I leave. I'm setting up a trust fund for Janey that'll mature when she's eighteen. I went to Hale's Point and saw a lawyer about it yesterday. Once it's set up, he says there's no way you can undo it."

  Laura let out an outraged little growl. "You just don't know when to stop, do you?"

  "Never have." Gesturing toward his hair, he said, "Keep going. I'm enjoying this."

  She stalked over to the counter, yanked the utility drawer open and slammed the scissors back into it. "I'm done."

  "How does it look?"

  "Like shit." She slumped forward, her arms braced on the counter.

  There came a pause. When Dean spoke, she realized he was right behind her. "Laura…" She felt his hands on her arms, stroking them lightly, up and down, through her white cotton shirt. "It's for Janey. Think about it. Think about the difference this money could make in her—"

  "You don't understand," Laura moaned, shaking her head. How could she let him bestow all that money on Janey, given the magnitude of the secret she was keeping from him? And revealing that secret, regardless of Kay's advice, would only end in misery, especially for Janey, when Dean decided he'd had enough of experimenting with domestic bliss and it was time to move on – which was bound to happen sooner or later.

  "No, you're right," Dean said quietly. "I don't understand. I'm not going to ask you to explain it to me again, because that only sets you off, but I am going to ask you to think about Janey and what's best for her. This lawyer I'm using to set up the fund has asked me to get her Social Security number and a copy of her birth certificate. That's all I need from you, Laura, and then Janey will be set for college and then some."

  "Oh, God." Laura straightened up. Her birth certificate? That was all she needed, Dean seeing the telltale blank space next to "Name of father" on Janey's birth certificate. "I can't do that, Dean."

  "Why not?" He said it softly, cajolingly, as he turned her around to face him. "Think about what's best for Janey."

  "I am."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Why are you doing this, Dean? The new roof, the new car, the trust fund, all that stuff. Why?"

  "I already told you," he said gravely. "I promised Will I'd take care of you, and it was about time I lived up to that promise."

  Laura swallowed hard. "I know why you didn't. I know why you left that night, after we…" She dropped her gaze to the floor between them. "You were afraid I'd get all clingy, just because we'd … we'd…"

  "What?"

  "You thought I'd try and tie you down, and I don't guess I can blame you, knowing how I was – how I am – but you didn't have to just sneak out like that in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea how it hurt, after what had happened, to wake up and find you—"

  "Yes. Yes. I do." Pulling her toward him, Dean enfolded her in his arms; she smelled the warmth of his skin, and the freshly laundered scent of his chambray shirt. "Oh, honey, yes. I've imagined what it must have been like for you a hundred times, and felt like a world-class heel every single time. It was inexcusable. But I didn't do it 'cause I didn't want to be with you. God, I'd always wanted to be with you."

  "Then why…"

  "Oh, Laura." Holding her tight, Dean kissed her on the top of her head. "I went prowling around that night, after … after we made love, and I found…" His chest rose and fell. "I found your letter to Will, the one where you told him you were pregnant."

  Laura closed her eyes. "Oh…"

  "If I'd felt conflicted before, well…" He shook his head. "I was beside myself. I'd had no idea you were going to have a baby. That made it all so much worse, what I'd done to you – and him. You'd been consumed by grief – you didn't know what you were doing. But I did, and I went ahead and—"

  "We were both responsible for that night," she insisted, meeting his gaze. "I told you that before. It was inevitable, meant to be."

  Still holding her, he cupped her face, stroked a callused thumb over her cheek. "You had his child inside you. It didn't feel like it was meant to be. It felt wrong."

  "Dean…"

  "You were devastated afterward. You cried."

  "I cried harder the next morning, when I woke up and found you gone. I did feel guilty, Dean, but that didn't mean…" She shook her head, frustrated with the inadequacy of words. "That didn't mean it was wrong, exactly. Just … complicated."

  He nodded. "I guess I understand that now. I didn't then. I hated myself when I found that letter about the baby. I felt like a monster."

  "You've always been too hard on yourself."

  He sighed raggedly. "I decided you'd be better off without me in your life."

  Laura's instinctive response was to tell him he was wrong about that, but she held her tongue. Hadn't she herself concluded the same thing? "So, that's why I never heard from you again? Because you were protecting me from…"

  "From me." He gathered her more snugly in his arms. "Yes. But then that million dollars came along, and now…"

  And now…?

  Laura looked up and found his face very close to hers, his gaze heartbreakingly earnest. "Not a day has gone by these past six years," he said, "that I haven't thought about you, wondering how your life was going, thinking about what might have happened if … things had gone differently for us."

  Laura closed her eyes against the drunken riot of feelings coursing through her.

  "Did you … think about me?" he asked.

  "Yes," she breathed.

  He buried his hand in her hair, gripped the back of her head, bringing her closer. "When Kay comes back and I … after I'm gone … will you miss me?"

  Laura's delirium evaporated. He was leaving. Of course he was leaving. He would always leave. It was who he was; that would never change.

  Still… "Yes," she whispered as he lowered his head to hers. "Yes. I'll miss you."

  The kitchen door banged open. "You guys…"

  Laura wrenched herself free from Dean's embrace, turned her back to him.

  "I don't smell popcorn," Kay said. "What have you two been…" She gasped, then snorted with laughter. "Oh, my God! Dean! Whoa! Your hair!"

  Laura turned to see Dean grinning sheepishly as he ran a hand through his inexpertly shorn hair. "What do you think?"

  Crossing her arms, Kay appraised him with a critical expressio
n. "I actually kinda like it. It's … different, all right, but … I don't know. Somehow, it suits you."

  Strangely enough, on taking a good hard look at Dean, Laura had to admit that Kay had a point. He looked eccentrically handsome with that awkwardly cropped hair, which seemed to accentuate his keen-edged features and menthol blue eyes.

  "Looks like Chick Flick Night's not gonna happen unless I crack the whip." Kay slid a bottle from her wine rack, grabbed a corkscrew out of the utility drawer and plucked three glasses off the overhead rack. "I'll go pop Casablanca into the VCR and uncork this lovely cabernet. Laura, you're still in charge of the popcorn, and Dean, if you wouldn't mind doing broom duty, inasmuch as that's your hair all over my kitchen floor…"

  "At your service," Dean replied with a bow.

  "I'm pushing the Play button in ten minutes," Kay announced as she crossed to the door. "Anyone who's not there when the movie starts will be sent to their room." Turning in the doorway, she added, with a devilish little smile, "Alone."

  *

  It was during the scene where a desperate Ilsa comes to Rick late at night, while her husband is at the political meeting, that Laura felt Dean's hand come to rest lightly on her bare foot.

  She and Kay were sitting at opposite ends of the burgundy velvet sofa in Kay's parlor, fleece throws draped over their laps, the half-empty popcorn bowl situated conveniently at the juncture of the two seat cushions. Dean had taken up his usual position on the floor between them, leaning back against the sofa with his legs stretched out on the Oriental rug.

  Laura hadn't noticed him edging slightly closer to her – or rather, to her legs – until she felt his hand, warm and rough, molding itself to the top of her foot.

  She started momentarily, anxious that Kay might see. Before the movie had started, while they were alone in the kitchen popping corn and sweeping up hair, Laura had made Dean promise not to do anything in front of Kay that might give her ideas. This situation was difficult enough without giving Kay – or, God forbid, Janey – the impression that there might be an actual relationship in the offing. Dean had agreed to keep his distance, yet now here he was touching her bare skin, and in a way that, even if not overtly sexual, felt all too familiar, all too intimate.