by Mara Jacobs
I nodded. “Thank you. And yes, I did like the dresses.” I thought about how the peach skirt of the dress twirled when I danced, and how much I’d liked how I’d looked in it.
I looked over at Stick, who was taking a sip from his coffee mug. It was as if he was remembering dancing too. A small, soft smile played at the corner of his lips, and he quickly covered it up with another sip of coffee.
“I’m glad you liked the dress. I can’t tell you the number of weddings I stood in when I was younger where I absolutely hated the dress.” She waved a frail hand. “Too many to remember, that’s for sure.”
“This was the first wedding I’d been in,” I said, trying not to stare at the tininess of her wrist.
“I know it wasn’t easy for you to even be there, Jane. But it meant so much to Betsy to have you be a part of it.”
I knew the woman was sick, but… “Oh, come on,” I said. “Let’s not go that far.”
She looked taken aback, and I regretted that I’d said anything.
Then she burst into laughter. “God, you’re right. And what does it matter now, anyway? You’re a smart girl. You always were.” She looked at me and gave me what seemed like a nod of respect. “You’re right, it meant nothing to Betsy. But it did mean something to your father.”
I refrained this time from saying exactly what I thought it had meant to my father. But she knew that I knew.
“Well, it meant something to me. Something real. I know you’re not my child, but you are my children’s sister, my daughter’s only sister. It meant something to me to see you standing up at that altar beside Betsy. And Joey.”
She placed a finger on the screen of the laptop, tracing around Betsy, and then Joey, and then dragging her finger down the line to me. “Especially now,” she whispered.
“How long do you have?” I said quietly.
She shrugged. The movement seemed so odd on her, so…un-Caroline. “Not long.”
Stick stood up, his cup in hand. “I think I’ll go check the garage.”
“What’s wrong in the garage?” Caroline asked, but she didn’t look up at Stick—she was still looking at the photo of her kids. And me, their sister.
“Nothing, I think. But I just want to check on the cars.” He looked at me pointedly. My earlier crack about his competitors stealing Caroline’s cars must have gotten to him.
Good.
Chapter Sixteen
He left the house through a back door in the kitchen, and I was alone with Caroline Stratton for the first time in my life.
It should have felt weird—being in the house I’d stared at with my mother, sitting at the kitchen table sharing chitchat with the woman whose life my mother destroyed.
The woman who was dying.
“Is Joey coming back from Africa?” I asked.
Her finger on the photo moved back over to Joey’s handsome face. “No.”
“They must have ways to get ahold of him, even if cell coverage isn’t available wherever he is.”
“They have service. He calls every now and then. Mostly he just texts me pictures of the group he’s working with. He’s loving it.”
“They wouldn’t let him out of the program, out of whatever commitment he made, to come home to be with you?” That sounded barbaric. If Joseph Stratton didn’t have enough pull to make that happen, Grayson Spaulding surely did.
“It’s not that. He can leave at any time.”
Something wasn’t adding up. And the beginning of that odd equation began with Stick.
“And Betsy? Why isn’t she here with you?”
“She and Jason are in Europe. Or Asia, I think it is now. They’re taking an extended honeymoon before they move to their place in New York and start new jobs.”
I had known that. Joey had told me at the wedding. Both the big honeymoon and Joey’s trip to Africa had the added benefit—or perhaps sole purpose?—of keeping them out of the country while their father ran for governor.
But surely they’d put up with the annoyance of the campaign to be with their mother when she was sick?
Unless…
“You haven’t told them, have you?”
She didn’t answer, just continued to trace her finger back and forth between her two children. I noticed her path didn’t include me any longer, but just a glide back and forth between Betsy and Joey.
“No,” she finally said. There was a finality, a steeliness, in her voice that told me nothing I said now would make any difference.
And I don’t know what I would have said anyway. I was not part of this family, not Caroline’s family, much as she tried to include me from time to time.
For whatever reason, she had chosen not to tell her kids she was dying.
“I’ll tell them,” she said. “I’ll have them come back, when it’s time. When I’m closer. I will…say goodbye to my children.”
I wanted to ask when she thought that would be, but how do you ask that?
I took a drink of water, waiting for her to say more, but she didn’t. She finally stopped looking at the photos, pushed the laptop away and took a drink of tea. She held the mug in her hands after she drank, elbows resting on the table, and stared out the window to the grounds of the estate.
We sat in silence, though not awkward silence, until I saw Stick coming back into view, presumably from the direction of the garage area.
As he entered, I stood up. “Well, we should probably get back. I’ve got some studying to get to.”
She looked up at me from her seat, blinking several times, as if she was putting me in focus, trying to place me.
Had the disease settled in her brain?
“And how are you finding Bribury, Jane? Are you enjoying your freshman year?”
Okay, so she was still lucid.
“I am. Very much. I get along great with my roommates. I’m liking my classes for the most part.”
She smiled, but it was a practiced smile and didn’t quite reach her eyes. “That’s nice. Bribury is a good school. You’ll enjoy your time there. What are you majoring in?”
My pat answer for that was usually “partying,” but I held it in check. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m just getting in all the basics this year.”
She nodded, looking away from me, back to the window. “That’s a good idea. No need to commit to something right away.” She looked back to me. “You’ll find what speaks to you.”
Would I? I wasn’t quite as sure, but I knew I wasn’t the only freshman in the world who didn’t know what they wanted to be when they grew up.
Hell, I wasn’t even the only freshman in my dorm suite who didn’t know.
Stick poked his head in the fridge. “Can I make you something before we go?” he said. “How about an omelet?”
“I’m not hungry, Stick, thank you.”
He shut the fridge door and gave her a stern look that I was willing to bet very few people gave to Caroline Stratton.
“When was the last time you ate, Caro?”
“Dotty made the most delicious crab salad for lunch.”
“But did you eat any?” he asked with the suspicion of a parent wheedling the truth out of toddler.
She looked away from him, just as a guilty toddler might, and shrugged. “A little bit.”
“Where is Dotty, anyway?”
“Grocery shopping.”
“How about a quick omelet? We’ve got time.” He looked at me questioningly.
“Sure. We can stay,” I said, and made my way over to Stick at the counter. I wasn’t much of a cook, but I figured I could help with an omelet.
“Really, Stick, I can’t eat anything right now. And Dotty will be home soon with enough food to feed an army. She’ll make something mouthwatering for dinner, and I promise I’ll eat.”
He studied her, then finally gave one short nod. She exhaled, like she’d just been given a death-row reprieve.
“Are your omelets that bad?” I teased him under my breath.
He rolled his eye
s at me, but moved away from the counter, toward Caroline. “Is there anything I can do before we leave?”
“No, dear, you do enough. We’re fine today.”
“And you’re sure Dotty will be home soon?”
She nodded. “I think I’m just going to go lie down until she gets back.”
“Okay. We’ll show ourselves out.” He gathered up his phone and my keys and motioned for me.
I walked over to Caroline. What was the proper etiquette here? Shake her hand? A kiss on the cheek? I felt like I might break some bones if I hugged her.
Not that she’d want a hug from me.
“Thank you for…the water,” I finally said, making no move to touch her in any way.
She smiled softly, like she got how weird the whole situation was.
“You’re very welcome, Jane. Feel free to stop by…for water anytime.”
I smiled, but didn’t quite laugh. It was all just so strange.
I turned to leave her, but she placed a cold hand on my sleeve. “I mean that. Please come by with Stick again. I enjoyed the company.”
“I…I’m not sure…”
“I’ll bring her by again,” Stick said from behind me.
“Only if you want to,” she said to me, a sadness in her eyes.
“That would be nice,” I said. I leaned closer to her. “I only hesitated because I wasn’t sure I’d need any more driving lessons from Stick.”
“Oh, is that what brings you out this way? I’ll bet he’s a good instructor.”
I thought of how he’d distracted me in Chesney with talk of his father so that I wouldn’t freeze up at the traffic lights. He was a good instructor, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing I thought so.
“There’s lots more I can teach you,” he said. He was standing right behind me now, almost touching. He held out my coat to me, his arm brushing mine.
“You help a lady on with her coat, Stick,” Caroline said in that teacher tone.
“She’s fine,” he said, and tucked my coat over my outstretched hand. “She’s got two hands.”
Caroline gave a long-suffering sigh, and shook her head at Stick, but there was warmth in her face, and this time her soft smile reached her eyes.
I put my coat on (just fine by myself, thank you very much), and followed Stick out of the kitchen.
At the doorway I turned back and looked at Caroline, still standing in the middle of the large room, looking small and frail.
I gave a tiny wave, which she returned.
“I’ll come back,” I said.
“Thank you.”
I turned and walked out of the Stratton family home.
Chapter Seventeen
I let Stick drive home. He even tried to hand the keys back to me when I gave them to him, but I shook my head and moved to the passenger side.
It wasn’t that I was mad, or so mad that I didn’t want to drive. And I wasn’t so overcome with emotion of the idea of Caroline Stratton dying that I wouldn’t properly be able to shift Yvette.
I just felt kind of numb. Like everything I knew had been turned upside down.
Stick Whatever was apparently taking care of a dying Caro Stratton and she’d asked me to visit her.
Yeah, everything was turned upside down.
“Okay, spill,” I said, after we’d cleared the town of Chesney and were heading back to Schoolport. We’d driven in silence since leaving Caroline’s home.
“What exactly do you want to know?”
“Why you?” But the moment I asked the question, the answer came to me. “Because of your experience with your father.”
“Yep. Grayson knew—somehow found out—about me taking care of my father. I actually got pretty good with it, administered IVs and shit. Even thought about doing it long term after he died.”
“But by then you’d had a taste of the fast, quick money car stealing brought?”
He didn’t look at me, just stared ahead at the bare road as he drove the deserted highway to Schoolport.
“It wasn’t even that. It was more…” He gave a flip of the wrist that rested on the stick shift. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”
“I’m on a highway in a car I didn’t want, with a guy I barely know, after visiting my mother’s nemesis to find her dying of cancer.” I took a deep breath, ran my fingers through my hair, tangling in the curls. “I think I can handle stupid.”
He snuck a look at me and I gave him a “go on” nod.
“It wasn’t the stealing of the cars. Yeah, sure, there’s an adrenaline rush that comes with it. And, of course, the thrill of not getting caught.”
“Of course,” I said, like I knew what he was talking about.
“It was the info gathering I got off on. The making connections, forming the network.”
I stayed silent, not really sure what he was talking about. I figured he just went up to a car and, you know…stole it.
“I built up the best group of sources around.”
“I don’t get it.” He looked at me suspiciously. “Oh, come on, tell me. Who cares now, if you’re really out of it,” I added.
He made some kind of silent decision, took a deep breath and told me about his network of valets, cleaning people, gardeners, hairdressers—anyone who would know when people would be on vacation or away. He also knew about every high-end luxury or sports car that was purchased in a three-county area.
“I’d keep my eye on them all. And when we’d get a…request for a particular car, I’d know exactly where to go to get the information on when the car would be the easiest to…liberate.”
I snorted at his word choice. But I had to say (although, of course, I wouldn’t say), it was pretty genius. Except… “Any one of those people could have turned on you.”
“But they didn’t.”
“But they could have.”
“Ah, but that’s the risk you take. That’s always the risk you take when you trust someone with your secrets, Jane.”
I didn’t touch that bait, just let it dangle on his pole.
“And these people were cool with you getting out of the biz? I’m assuming they were compensated for their information?”
“They were. Very well compensated.”
“So they couldn’t have been very happy about your newfound respectability.”
“They weren’t. Well, I think a couple were relieved. A few, the ones I thought were the best—I gave them the option of letting me pass their names on to…”
“On to who?”
“The people who requested the cars. The people that, in a way, I worked for.”
“And I’ll bet they were not pleased either.”
I saw his hand tense on the gearshift knob, then soften, as if he feared hurting Yvette.
“You’d be right.”
“No broken legs or anything?”
“Nah, not their style.”
“What is their style?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It was unpleasant, but eventually they saw the value in me divulging my contacts. I only gave them a few at first, until I was sure that there would be no repercussions and they were sure they could trust my people.”
“And this has all happened since the night Lucas was arrested? And you’ve become Nurse Nancy? Stick has been a very busy boy.”
He rolled his eyes at me without looking my way. I could just feel it.
“Shortly after that night, yeah.”
We rode in silence for a bit, entered Schoolport and took the turn off Main to head to campus.
I played it all in my head, the series of events that landed us here. “Why do I have the feeling that Grayson Spaulding played puppet master on all of this?”
“I don’t know, why do you have that feeling?”
I sighed. “Oh, shut up. Tell me how he was involved.”
“Shut up? Or tell you how Spaulding is involved? What’s it going to be, Jane?”
He was infuriating. It was like dealing with a five-
year-old. Except a five-year-old didn’t make my insides squirm like they did now as Stick looked at me and grinned.
I quirked a brow at him and motioned with my hand for him to go on.
“Spaulding and I had a conversation not long after that. And somehow it came up about my experience with my father dying from cancer.”
“Somehow?”
“You wanna hear or not?”
“Go on.”
“Caroline was going to need help. And as you now know, she didn’t want Betsy or Joey changing their plans just to be with her.”
“They would want to know.”
“That’s what I told her early on. And she agrees when it gets…closer, she’ll tell them.”
“That’s what she said to me, too.”
He nodded. “She promised. I made her promise. I told her that as hard as that year was, I was glad I was able to be there for my dad.”
He seemed embarrassed that he said that last part, and quickly went on. “Anyway, they didn’t want the news to get out yet. Wanted to keep it controlled.”
“Because of the campaign?”
“That, and the kids. And she really just wants to keep it private.”
I thought about her previous fights with the disease and how they’d been all over the papers. The first time it was shown in a sympathetic light, as she and Joe Stratton battled the disease together while he was a senator and then presidential candidate. The second time was just after their divorce, and it was used to vilify my philandering father.
Rightfully so. But I could see how she’d want this to be out of the public for as long as possible.
“Restoring the cars is real, and I am working on them, but they won’t take much. Her old man kept them in pretty good shape, actually.”
“But it’s your cover for being there.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded. We reached campus, and he drove toward the student parking lot.
“And the wedding? Were you already working for her then?”
“No. That was my…audition, I’d guess you’d call it. How I could deal with that kind of group. Would I, I don’t know, pull my junk out and piss all over the bride, or something?”
I laughed. “They wanted to see the animal in an unnatural habitat and see how he did?”
