Blueprints: A Novel (20 page)

“Oh, I’ve worked,” she cut in, annoyed that he would suggest she was slipping. “Our clients need jobs done. That’s what I do when I wake up in the middle of the night.”

“Where?” he asked—a valid question, since her office was now Tad’s bedroom.

She eye-pointed to the table where Tad was happily coloring—and gasped. “Oh
no
.” She rushed over. “No, no, monkey, keep it on the paper.” She showed him how, then scrubbed at one of several crayon marks that marred the white lacquer, but a bare fingertip wasn’t much of an eraser. A cleaning spray would work—or hurt?

Taylor. Taylor had chosen the table. Taylor would know.

Brad stood nearby with his hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped. “You need a dedicated office, especially if you’ll be working more at home. You can have that at Roy’s.”

“Not happening,” Jamie insisted.

“Why not?”

“(A) That house is too big, (B) it gives me a headache, and (C) it’s my father, not me.”

“Redecorate, and make it you.”

“Why spend the money? We’re planning to build our own house anyway. I’ll sell Roy’s house, and we’ll build something that’s plenty big enough for us and kids.” Not that she had drawn up any plans. She had kicked ideas around, both in her head and with Brad, but time hadn’t allowed for more. And that was before Roy’s death.

Brad looked troubled. He might want a house, but he didn’t want Tad. He was so not ready for this. She was about to scream that he needed to be a
responsible person,
too, when the phone rang. She was upset enough to answer without checking the screen first.

“Jamie, it’s Claire.”

She grimaced. Claire had been calling daily, and though the messages she left never asked for callbacks, their regularity pointed to a motive beyond saying hello.

“Hey, Claire.”

“How
are
you?”

Jamie looked around the wreck of her condo and said, “Hanging in there.” She watched Brad lean over Tad and point at the lines of a clown’s hat to show the child where to color. “Things are a little weird, if you know what I mean.”

Fisting a green crayon, Tad scribbled over the clown’s feet.

“I do. I wouldn’t be bothering you if I wasn’t getting pressure on my end. We need a final decision here. Publicity wants to put together preliminary pieces before the Fourth. Are you ready to commit?”

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry, Claire. I haven’t been able to really think about it,” which was a bald-faced lie. Jamie had thought about it for
hours
. She knew that if Claire could get a commitment from her, Caroline would back down—and Jamie’s relationship with her mother would be permanently screwed.

Claire was using her again.

She might have said something to that effect if Brad hadn’t been trying to reposition the crayon in Tad’s hand. She was rounding the island when Claire said, “It’s been a hard week for you. When you’re ready to talk, will you give me a call?”

Jamie was about to remove Brad’s arm when Brad did it himself in response to a cool stare from Tad. “Sure,” she told Claire. “Thanks for understanding.” She ended the call.

“I don’t think he likes me,” Brad murmured.

Well, duh,
said the little voice in her head.
You don’t like him. He feels that.

With a defeated breath, she slipped an arm through his. “He doesn’t know you. You have to play with him.” Brightening on an idea, she said, “Stay home with us today, Brad? A few hours, and Tad will
love
you. You said it yourself. The office is officially closed.”

His gray eyes ruled it out even before she finished. “There’s still a skeleton crew, and a family member should be there. But I miss you. We haven’t been alone together at all. How about dinner out tonight, just us two? Can you get a sitter?”

Trying to weigh his needs against Tad’s, she said a sad “How can I? Right now, he needs me with him. It hasn’t even been a week.”

Sweet children’s voices sang,
If you’re happy and you know it wear a smile …

She pegged a stare at the iPad.
Seriously
?

Brad shared her dismay, likely for a different reason. “What station is that?”

“Toddler Pandora.”

 … tee hee …

He wasn’t amused. She saw disappointment, concern, maybe even annoyance—and she tried to understand. He didn’t know where he stood now that she had Tad. He was feeling left out, feeling
unloved
. He needed reassurance.

But so do I!

Which basically put her between a rock and a hard place.

“Okay,” she said as much to herself as to him, “maybe this weekend? If a sitter comes after he’s asleep, he won’t know I’m gone.”

“What happens with work next week?” Brad asked.

She hadn’t thought that far—actually, she had and had pushed the thought aside. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing. Once the weekend was done, she would be down to the wire. “How do I find a nanny? How do I know who’s good?”

Brad shot her a bewildered look. Then he glanced at his watch. “I have to run.”

She might have begged him to stay if she felt it would help. But really? His being there was only one more messy thing.

“Say good-bye,” she mouthed, hitching a glance toward Tad.

Brad ruffled the boy’s hair. “Have a good day, sport.”

Jamie walked him to the door, where he gave her a kiss that was sweet, gentle, and totally devoid of passion. For the first time, that bothered her—angered her, even. She needed something stronger, something that said he was on board with this change to her life, something with
promise
.

*   *   *

“About what you told Brian and Claire at the funeral,” Caroline began, leaning forward to see past Champ, who rose from the backseat like a sentinel. They were in Dean’s truck on the way to a new project for which he wanted her to build custom cabinetry. She had plenty of work of her own, but it was a small house—and the truth was, a new project was always a distraction, and she needed one of those. She ached when she thought of Jamie, ached when she thought of
Gut It!
She also ached when she thought of Theo, who seemed to be aging by the day, which she would do one day, too, and then what?

Dean seemed to know her frame of mind. Since the funeral, he had rarely let a few hours pass without checking on her. He hadn’t said anything about sex. She wondered if he regretted mentioning it in the first place. That would probably be best, she told herself, though the part of her that was feeling old and unwanted was sorry. Whether she wanted sex or not, being pursued was a good thing.

“The possibility of taking
Gut It!
to another station?” she reminded him. “I’ve been thinking about it. It’s not a bad idea.”

“I’ve been thinking about it, too,” he said in a voice that rumbled over a cracked road. Nudging Champ back, he shot her a look. “It sucks.” No rumble there, just a deep voice disagreeing in a familiar way.

“Why?”

“Because the risk is too great. We’re already with the strongest local station. No other one will do the show as well or be able to match the syndication schedule. Switching stations would have been easier if Roy was here to work a deal—”

“We don’t need Roy.”

“I can understand your being angry at Claire—”

“Anger doesn’t begin to describe it, and I’m angry at Brian, too. It’s fine to say Claire is into the power of it, but Brian is old enough to know better.”

“He’s listening to market research. He’s answerable to moneymen up above.”

“How can you defend him?” Caroline asked as he pulled up in front of a barely framed house.

After shoving the stick into park, he reached for her hand. It was a surprisingly gentle gesture, matched by his eyes and his tone. “I’m not defending him. I’m trying to understand. But there’s another reason why we need to back off. If you start shopping around, Jamie will take it personally. You haven’t talked with her about this. I keep telling you to.”

“I can’t.”

“So you’re suffering.” He gave her hand a jiggle. “I’ll bet she is, too. There are so many crossed signals here that every day makes it worse. You need to talk with her, sweetheart. And you need to see the boy. They’re a team now, those two.”

Caroline wanted to argue. Only, he was right. Without Jamie, she was missing a limb. And his calling her sweetheart? He had done that in the past, but it sounded different to her now. Given the upheaval in her life, she needed the endearment,
and
the hand-holding. He seemed to know that, too. Even if he had changed his mind about the sex. Which was probably for the best, since they did have to work together. Which brought her back to
Gut It!

“What if I talk with Jamie and she agrees?” Caroline suggested, mellow as she linked her fingers with his. “We need a bargaining chip. She knows how that works.”

“Assuming she doesn’t want to host.”

It was a big assumption. Caroline wanted to believe Jamie,
desperately
wanted to believe her. Being the star of the show, though, was a huge lure, and Jamie had said that, yes, she wanted it, but only some day. So there was room for compromise here. Caroline could more easily accept a gradual transition than the abrupt change the station wanted. Every bit of common sense in her—every bit of maternal instinct—told her Jamie would agree.

Unless she didn’t know Jamie at all. Which had occurred to her more than once lately.

Seeming to sense Caroline’s fear in this, too, Dean said, “Tell you what. You talk with Jamie. If she’s on board, I’ll make some calls.”

thirteen

The morning flew, as mornings always did when Jamie had nonstop meetings. She met with a checkout clerk at Whole Foods, one at the Container Store, and one at Toys “R” Us—the last, an emergency stop when Whole Foods didn’t have the Huggies Tad wore.

Big mistake, that last stop. He threw a full-out tantrum when she tried to remove him from a Cozy Coupe that was definitely too big for her condo but ended up in the SUV nonetheless.

Next time, she would buy Huggies at CVS.

No. Next time, she would buy Huggies online.

Actually, next time she would get
lots
of things online. Taking Tad in and out of the car seat, walking him in and out of stores, and stopping to take things from his hands and replace them on shelves took twice as long as running errands alone.

Armed with a new respect for Jess and every other stay-at-home mom, she returned home to unload the car, switch towels from washer to dryer, and make lunch, all the while ignoring the marks the Cozy Coupe left on her polished hardwood floor as Tad propelled it round and round.

His nap brought a brief reprieve. She could have fallen asleep in a nanosecond herself, but time without Tad was too precious to waste. So she organized. By the time she was done, she had a bin for diapers, a bin for stuffed animals, a bin for Legos, and a bin for trains, which was all well and good until Tad woke up from a longer-than-usual nap cranky.

He didn’t want his diaper changed, didn’t want a snack, didn’t want a story. He didn’t want the Cozy Coupe or any of the toys now neatly housed in the den. He squirmed out of her arms when she tried to gather him in and lay back on the floor, crying for his mother.

The novelty of being with Jamie was clearly gone.

But what to say? Tad didn’t know what death meant. Even if he were old enough to grasp the concept of finality, how could she tell him that he would never, ever see his parents again?

Frantic, she simply sat beside him with her stomach in knots and finger-combed his chocolate curls until he quieted and asked for milk, and all the while she felt like a fraud. She was an architect, not a mother. She was clueless when it came to baby moods, not sure at all whether she liked the pressure of being
the most responsible person
in her orphaned half-brother’s life.

Needing a shoulder to cry on—and desperate enough to risk being rejected—she put Tad back in the car and this time headed for Caroline’s. The mere act of driving the route held normalcy, and once she turned onto the tree-lined street, the familiarity was a balm.

Her eyes flew ahead in search of the dusty red truck, but the driveway was empty. Her heart fell. She needed to see her mother—physically
see
her—needed even just a hint of Caroline’s lily-of-the-valley scent, whether they talked substantively or not. That scent, as light and delicate as the tiny white bells that appeared so briefly each spring, was ageless. Caroline’s mother had worn it before Caroline, and though Jamie was always looking for something new to give her, it was never perfume. That fresh, subtle sweetness was resilient.

But it wasn’t to be right now, and Roy had thrown down the gauntlet.
If you can’t behave like a grown-up …

Clearing the lump from her throat, she said with surprising enthusiasm, “See the trees, Taddy? They’re called maple trees. They’re very old. See how big they are?” He didn’t answer, but the rearview mirror showed him looking out the window. “What color are they?”

“Blue.”

“Blue … or … maybe green?”

“Gween!”

“Good boy! Annnnnd”—she turned into the driveway—“here we are at Mom’s house.”

She backed out and parked in front. Taking Tad from his seat, she carried him halfway up the walk before catching herself, setting him down, and taking his hand. She was holding him too much, wanting to shield him from loss, but the loss was a done deal, and he was starting to rebel.
No, no, Mamie, Taddy do it.
He wanted to move.

As soon as the screen door squeaked back and she opened the wood one, he ran inside. “Kitty, kitty, he-ah kitty.” Amazing that he remembered, since she had only brought him here a time or two before. The two upstairs cats would be warned off by his high-pitched shout, but Master sensed a playmate and came close. While Tad crouched low, Jamie showed him how to stroke the cat from neck to tail, how to throw a scrunched-up paper ball for the cat to retrieve, how to drag a piece of string along the floor for Master to follow, and all the while Jamie struggled to capture the tiny wisps of woodsy scent her mother had left behind.