And Then I Found You (14 page)

He laughed. “Or something.”

“I really shouldn’t spout philosophy before I finish my first cup of coffee,” Kate
said and smiled. “Maybe keep some thoughts to myself.”

“Your thoughts are nice,” he said.

They sat in silence until they both stood simultaneously, as if on cue, as if a bell
or whistle had signaled their leaving time.

*   *   *

LUNA STUDIO.
The sign was made of a ten-foot-high piece of dark wood and the letters were fashioned
of bright zinc reflecting the morning sun in sharp swords. Kate glanced up at Luna’s
name high and bright on the signage, and shivered.

“You okay?” Jack asked.

She nodded. “Yes. It’s quite something to see her name up there like that. All big
and proud.”

He opened the thick glass door to let Kate walk in first. The foyer was brightly lit
with tiny sconces sending indirect light onto canvas and wood. Kate walked through
the small studio while Jack told her about it.

“The idea of this started seven years ago. Maggie wanted to have a place to show her
photography and the art of some friends she’d come to know. After the divorce, I dismissed
the idea. But then it wouldn’t leave me alone, so even though she has nothing to do
with it now, it was Maggie’s idea.”

Kate stopped in front of an angel painting so misty and surreal she thought the angel
should be able to fly. “She never asked about the name?”

He shook his head. “I thought that when we opened the studio I would tell her, but
now I don’t feel any need to explain.”

The desire came over her too fast. To touch Jack. To kiss him. To reach behind his
head and rest her head on his shoulder. Kate averted her eyes.

“Only Alabama artists,” he continued. “We have shows about every eight weeks or so.”

“Who takes care of all this while you’re working your real job?”

“Mimi Ann,” he said, and then stopped and called out the same name.

A woman came from the back room, smiling and full of energy. She was all blond and
platinum, all smiley and crisp. “Hi, y’all,” Mimi Ann said as she walked toward them.

Jack hugged her and then introduced Kate. “This is Mimi Ann Davolt. Luna Studio is
nothing without her.”

“No,” Mimi Ann said, “Jack has that backwards.” She smiled at him. “I keep it going.
Jack
is
Luna Studio.” Mimi Ann looked at Kate then, and it seemed as if this was a terribly
hard thing for Mimi Ann to do, as if it hurt to look away from Jack. “He has a fantastic
reputation for finding the newest geniuses and showcasing their work first.”

“Nice,” Kate said.

A silence fell over the three of them, an uncomfortable emptiness that made Kate turn
away, pretending to look at other work. Her heart was up underneath her throat, beating
against her collarbone, an old and devastating feeling she’d avoided.

The studio was too warm. Or the name
Luna
in bright letters had caused alarm. Either way, Kate felt light and dizzy, off balance.
She sat on a bench at the end of a short hallway and stared at a coastal scene painting.
Jack and Mimi Ann’s voices were murmured and light, coming down the hallway like music
turned low, laughter as punctuation.

Kate pulled out her cell phone, which she’d turned off at dinner the night before.
The phone’s light flashed back on, and she saw that Rowan had called six times. Lida
had called four. Text messages and voice mails had arrived from both of them.

Without checking the voice mails and with a single click, Kate called Rowan back.
He answered on the first ring.

“Are you okay?” he answered without preamble.

“I’m totally fine. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been trying to call you since yesterday afternoon. Where the hell have you been?
Why aren’t you answering?”

“I’m fine. I told you, I’m in Birmingham. I’m about to go by the boutique and then
come home. Is something wrong there?”

“Where were you last night? What did you do all day?”

“I drove around. I looked at Birmingham. I ate. I slept.”

“Where did you stay?” he asked.

Kate’s heartbeat doubled knowing she must again tell an untruth. She had no way to
explain the situation in a brief phone conversation, never mind in Jack’s studio,
which was named after their lost daughter. “The Regency,” she said. “I stayed at the
Regency.”

“I wish you would’ve called.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate whispered, sinking into herself. And she was. Sorry for the lie.
Sorry for her inability to explain her story. Sorry that only seconds before she’d
wanted to touch Jack Adams.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I just worry.”

“Don’t. I promise I’m fine.”

“Call me on your way home this afternoon and maybe we can figure out a way to meet
for a late dinner.”

“I will.”

Kate hung up and scrolled through Lida’s texts, each one a short question about something
that needed to be handled at the boutique. She answered and then looked up to see
Jack walking toward her. She stood to face him, embarrassed that she had thought to
reach for his hand, or touch his face, anything to have her skin on his.

“You ready to go?” he asked.

She nodded without finding her voice.

*   *   *

Wisteria boutique sat nestled in the middle of Mountain Brook Village. The old English
architecture matched stonewalls where ivy crawled in random patterns of its own making.
Kate sat on a large white couch in front of an iron-framed mirror large enough to
cover the entire wall. The owner, Colleen, sat across from Kate. “So, how did you
hear about us?”

“My friend, Susan Neal, was recently here and she told me I must see what you’re doing.
Susan thinks you have some secret you won’t tell anyone.”

“Secret? Ha. I wish. Really, if I had a secret I’d duplicate this store all over.
But the only secret I have is that I’m in a great location surrounded by great people
and we’ve become a sort of gathering place.” She stretched out her hands. “That’s
why I have the couches and chairs. Sometimes the women come here to hang out, and
that’s okay, because eventually they buy something.”

“And great taste,” Kate said. “I mean you carry lines no one else does. And Susan
says you’re always the first.”

“Yes.” Colleen nodded. “No one had ever heard of Flaming Torch or Haute Hippie until
I brought them here, but I can explain that.” Colleen smiled and leaned forward as
if she were about to divulge a world secret. “I am obsessive about clothes, new lines,
designers, and style. I’m preoccupied by it all, completely to the detriment of my
life. And you can’t teach obsession.” She grinned.

“I get it. I know,” Kate said.

As Colleen and Kate talked about their mutual passion, about New York buying trips
and fashion designers changing houses, Jack signaled that he was going next door for
coffee. The front door shut and Colleen asked. “How do you know Jack Adams?”

Kate stared at Colleen for longer than comfortable as she had no idea how to answer.
Oh, we had a baby together thirteen years ago
. Finally she spoke. “I knew him years ago, and then ran into him yesterday when I
came to town.”

“Can’t believe that man is still a bachelor,” Colleen said. “Lucky girl who nabs him.”

“Do you mind showing me around and talking a little bit about your layout?”

Together Colleen and Kate wandered the store and back rooms. When they’d finished,
Kate looked toward the front door to see that Jack had returned and was leaning against
a large table covered with shoes and belts. Kate turned to Colleen, grateful. “Thanks
for everything. “I’ll stay in touch,” she said, hugging Colleen good-bye.

Kate reached Jack’s side, smiled. “Was that torture?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I loved hearing you talk about your work. Who knew you were
so crazy about fashion?”

“I’m
not
going to take that as an insult.” Kate opened the door, waving over her shoulder
to Colleen.

“Not an insult at all,” Jack said, handing her a cup of coffee. “This is a new part
of you, that’s all.”

“Life changes us, doesn’t it?” Kate asked, lifting her face to the afternoon sun.

Cherry blossom snow fell around them, and the sidewalk appeared like a forest floor.
Tulips burst from the ground in gatherings of bright faces. Dogwood trees bloomed
white from green, an umbrella.

“This is the most beautiful time of year here,” Jack said, stopping in the middle
of the sidewalk, oblivious to the people walking past who halted and walked around
him.

“It must be,” Kate said.

He stared at her and then touched her cheek with the palm of his hand. She didn’t
move. She didn’t breathe. Then, in the middle of a spring afternoon, outside a boutique
in Alabama, Jack leaned forward and kissed her. She tasted coffee and warmth. It was
a soft and short kiss, almost as if he merely wanted to brush against her lips, not
stay to rest. Kate leaned forward, an instinct of wanting more.

Jack took a step back and Kate looked away, embarrassment and need combining in tender
combination. He took her chin to make her look at him. “I’ve been wanting to do that
since I saw you at the concession stand.”

“I think I’ve been wanting you to do that since I decided to drive here,” she whispered.

“But it was not a good idea,” he said.

“No, it probably was not.”

“I’d really like to do it again, but I promise I won’t.”

She stepped forward and dropped her head onto his shoulder. He placed his hand on
the back of her head. “Don’t go. Just stay one more night.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “I told Rowan that I’d leave as soon as I was
finished at the boutique. I’ve already lied to him once.” She cringed, squeezing shut
her eyes.

“You don’t have to lie. Tell him the truth. You ran into an old friend and you want
to stay one more night.”

“You make it sound so simple,” she said.

“There’s nothing about this or us that’s simple. But hell, I don’t know when I’ll
ever get to see you again, so don’t leave.”

“Okay,” Kate said, nodding. “Okay.”

thirteen

BRONXVILLE, NEW YORK

2010

Of course desire grows. That’s what desire does. Thirteen-year-old Emily Jackson was
finding that out.

“I don’t know,” Elena said to her daughter. “This might not be a good idea. Not yet
anyway.”

“Mom, it’s just some lady. That’s all. Let’s see what she looks like.”

Elena closed her eyes. She knew this day would come. All adoptive mothers know there
is always the chance their child (and this was her child, make no mistake) would ask,
“Who is my
real
mother?” As if the word
real
meant that Elena was a fake, a replacement, an imposter.

It had only been that morning that Emily had rifled through her father’s office looking
for the adoption papers. It was Sailor’s fault really, because she kept pushing and
asking, and when Emily had finally kissed Chaz during a spin the bottle game at Sailor’s
birthday party, Sailor had whispered. “Gross, what if he’s your brother?”

Elena had found Emily with the adoption papers in hand. They were original documents,
and the names and dates could be read through the thin coat of aging whiteout. Maybe
the secretary had been too busy to use the second coat of Liquid Paper or maybe she’d
been distracted by a phone call or had reached the bottom of the bottle and couldn’t
be bothered to open another. No matter all the possibilities, when Emily held it up
to the light, she could read the name of the birth mother.

“Will you look for her with me?” Emily asked her mom in the quietest whisper.

What is a mother supposed to say then?
No, I’m too scared. Please God, don’t let anything ever take you away from me?
Or does she say, as Elena did, “I love you and yes, let’s look together.”

Elena stood behind Emily, staring at the computer screen where the search bar said
KATHRYN VAUGHN.
Emily’s finger poised over the enter button while Elena stared at the back of her
daughter’s head, not needing to see her face to know that Emily’s green eyes would
be carrying her exact expression of need.

So there they were and a cold sweat covered Elena’s body, yet she was the one who
reached over Emily’s shoulder and pushed “enter.”

A list of Vaughn women popped onto the screen, but not one Kathryn. With an exhale
of relief, Elena squeezed Emily’s shoulder. “When you’re twenty-one, the records are
open for you to find her. We can wait.”

“This lady—Tara Vaughn—keeps coming up over and over.” Emily clicked on the journalist’s
name and a Web site popped up: Mothering Heights. From the information they quickly
read they discovered that Tara Vaughn was a journalist specializing in parenting magazine
pieces:
O, The Oprah Magazine, MORE
magazine
,
and others like it. Tara looked out of the screen with her wide smile and auburn
hair falling over her shoulders. She sat on a chair leaning forward with her glasses
in her hand and her elbows on her knees in a casual look that suggested she was in
the middle of a conversation.

Emily reached for the screen and touched the smile of the unknown journalist. “I’m
related to her,” she whispered.

“You don’t know that. Let’s let this go,” Elena said.

Emily then clicked on the small
f,
which designated Tara’s Facebook page. The page popped up, and Elena and Emily both
took a simultaneous deep breath, a quick intake that would almost prove they were
mother and daughter.

Without asking, Emily clicked the friend request button and waited. It was late afternoon
and homework waited, but Emily sat in front of the computer with her mother until
Tara’s approval arrived.
You are now friends with Tara Vaughn,
the message said.

Elena whispered. “What are we doing?”