Chances Are (45 page)

Most of all, though, Gina Barone loved to talk. By the time he had been in the shop an hour, he knew the social and sexual histories of just about everyone in town.

“Glad I don’t live here,” he said as he snapped a shot of Gina as she mainlined espresso between customers. “A man’s gotta have a few secrets.”

“Oh, honey,” Gina said with a dangerously sexy laugh, “secrets are highly overrated.”

The sentence resonated with him. She had been disarmingly honest about her many and varied romantic adventures, and those adventures seemed to be part of what drew the women of Paradise Point to her shop. Gina was her very own reality show, and she was in no danger of being voted off the island any time soon. Not if the crowd of women waiting in the lounge for hair treatments or massages or manicures was any indication. They had reveled over her tale of the tattoo parlor visit after a pitcher of margaritas down the shore. He had already heard Crystal’s version of the outing, and Gina pretty much corroborated the whole thing with the exception of the mystery tape Crystal had alluded to. It wasn’t hard to imagine Gina talking first and thinking a year or two later.

Gina’s talking points bounced all over the place. She changed gears with the ease of a Ferrari, shifting from talk of Manolo Blahnik stilettos to Pilates classes to the sale on roasters at Super Fresh without missing a beat. She kept her customers chuckling during bizarre beauty rites that would have terrified the bravest warriors. Watching her work with squeeze bottles of color, folding strands of unsuspecting hair into aluminum foil packets, seeing her wield her shears with the artistry and precision of a da Vinci—he was impressed as hell, and he let her know it.

“So put your dermis where your mouth is,” she said with a sly wink. “You look like you could use a facial and some moisturizer.”

He laughed out loud. “And some highlights?”

“Low lights,” she corrected him. “Although I’m not altogether sure I’d touch that gorgeous gray of yours.”

“Look who’s awake and looking for his mommy.” Amber, one of the nail technicians, stood in the doorway. She held the hand of a toddler with thick dark hair and dark blue eyes. Something tugged at Corin, a feeling of familiarity that came and went in the space of a breath.

“Mr. Joey!” Gina opened her arms, and the little boy flew across the room and into her embrace. “Boy, did we miss you!” She met Corin’s eyes over the child’s silky head. “Nap time just finished. He likes to make an entrance.”

Everything about her changed with the little boy’s appearance in the doorway. She glowed the way women glowed in an Impressionist painting, that golden inner light that existed only in the imaginations of men and lunatics. Clearly that little boy held the key to her heart in his chubby hands.

“Joey, this is Corin. Why don’t you shake hands with him, and maybe he’ll take your picture.”

Corin bent down to eye level and held out his right hand. “Good to meet you, Joey.”

Joey considered him for a moment, then gave him a surprisingly strong handshake for somebody who weighed maybe thirty pounds. His attention was focused on the Hasselblad hanging around Corin’s neck, and he made a quick grab for it.

“I should’ve warned you,” Gina said as she scooped the kid up into her arms. “My boy has the quickest hands in South Jersey.”

Joey was the baby of the family, and he knew how to work it. There wasn’t a female in the place who wasn’t crazy about him, and if he hung around much longer, the kid would have Corin in his back pocket, too.

“. . . he’s had a tough few months,” Gina was saying as he clicked back into the conversation, “but I think we’re finally out of the woods.” She pretended to knock wood against her left temple, which made the little boy laugh.

“You’d never know he had any problems,” Corin said.

She gave his arm a squeeze. “Your mouth to God’s ear and back again.”

Joey had the same all-American-boy quality he had spotted in Claire’s youngest, the kind of face you saw in 1950s commercials for peanut butter or breakfast cereal, right down to the freckles that peppered the bridge of his nose.

“How about I take a picture of the two of you?” he asked, popping off the lens cap once again. “I like the way the light’s coming through that window.”

Gina made a joke about bad hair days, but she seemed pleased, so he sat the two of them down near the window and snapped a quick series of shots that felt right to him. Better than right. The viewfinder found something in Gina, a depth of sadness, a measure of kindness, that were easily lost in the heat and volume of her personality.

Okay, so maybe he was a sucker for mother-and-child shots. They could be corny as hell, sentimental to the point of triggering the viewer’s gag reflex, but when they worked, they could crack the ice around anyone’s heart.

He just might have his cover shot for the book.

 
“I WISH YOU had told me sooner that you were planning to be gone this afternoon, Madelyn.” Rose was using what Maddy thought of as her I Am Queen voice.

For once Maddy didn’t blame her mother one bit. “I forgot, okay?” she said, feigning daughterly annoyance. “I promised Kelly I’d go shopping with her for a prom dress. We’re going over to Bay Bridge and if we don’t luck out, I might drive up to Short Hills.”
Too much information
. Any good liar would know you keep your cover story simple.

“We’re expecting three couples from Virginia this evening. I was counting on you.”

“Maybe Aunt Lucy could stop by and lend a hand.”

“Your aunt is almost eighty.” A wry smile broke through the displeasure. “Besides, I believe she has a date tonight.”

“Ma, I wish I could help you, but I promised Kelly I would help her.”

“And it has to be today. This is the only opening on your respective calendars.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It has to be today.”

She could see the wheels spinning as her mother considered the situation. Unfortunately, Rose was no fool. “This isn’t about a prom dress, is it, honey?”

Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to acknowledge them. “No, it isn’t.”

Rose touched her arm. “If you need to talk—”

She shook her head. “We’ll be okay.” She gave her mother a hug. “But thanks for being here for me.”

“Always,” Rose said, hugging her back. “That’s one thing you can count on.”

“I’M OUT OF here.” Claire untied her apron and hung it on the hook behind the door. “I have to go over to the hospital and see if the social worker has been in to see Dad yet.”

Aidan didn’t look up from the carrots he was chopping for the soup pot simmering on the stove. “You’ll be back after you pick up Billy, right?”

Her stomach dropped to her feet. “Jesus Mary and Joseph,” she said. “I completely forgot about Billy. He has a dentist appointment at four-thirty.” Or was it five? Her mind was total mush.

Now, that got Aidan’s attention. “So what’s the big deal? Go to the hospital. Come back and get the kid. It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

True enough, except she had planned to go straight to the lighthouse the second she was finished at the hospital.

“Would you pick him up for me?”

He gestured toward the bar with his knife. “Tommy’s going home at two-thirty. I’ll be the only one here.”

“No, you won’t. Owen’s taking over the rest of my shift.”

“Thought of everything, didn’t you, Red?”

“I try.” She was beginning to wonder how he was going to get along without her. “Is Kelly working at The Candlelight tonight or the library?”

“She’s not working at all. Maddy’s taking her shopping for a prom dress.”

She felt a nasty little pinch of jealousy. “Why didn’t she ask me? I found dresses for four daughters. Hannah’s barely out of training pants.”

His poker face wasn’t any better than hers. “Look, I’m sorry. She probably knows how busy you are with work and Billy and your father and—”

“Stick it,” she said as she turned and started for the exit. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Aidan. I know things change. Just do me a favor next time and don’t bullshit me. I can take anything but that.”

 
KELLY WAS WAITING for Maddy in the high school parking lot, just as they had planned.

“Do you have everything?” Maddy asked as the girl fastened her seat belt.

Kelly nodded. “ID, money, extra sanitary pads.”

“Okay,” Maddy said. “Then we’re on our way.”

Maddy told her about Hannah’s latest escapade as they made a left on Main Street then headed toward the intersection with Route 582. She added a few extra details about Priscilla’s part in the drama, hoping to elicit at least a chuckle from the girl, but nothing. She sat there looking out the windshield, hands folded tightly in her lap, face pale and drawn. Even in profile Maddy could see the deep shadows under her eyes.

“We’re running ahead of schedule,” she said as they stopped for a traffic light. “Would you like to take a walk around the lake or something?”

“Maybe they can take us early,” Kelly said.

What she really wanted to do was pull over to the side of the road, lock the doors, and beg Kelly to tell Seth and Aidan about her pregnancy before she took this final and irreversible step. The afternoon suddenly seemed to have a momentum of its own, pulling them deeper into a tangle of lies neither one of them was prepared to handle.

They had slowed to a crawl behind a road repair crew when Kelly turned to her and said, “Did you know my mom?”

“Sure I did,” Maddy said. “Well, sort of. Sandy was six or seven years older than I was, so we weren’t friends or anything, but I knew her.”

“Did you like her?”

Maddy smiled. “Everyone did. She had a part-time job at the ice cream shop one summer, and she always gave me extra sprinkles on my cone.”

“What did she sound like?”

“Oh, Kelly, I’m not sure I can remember. It was a very long time ago and—” A memory, half-formed but vibrant, began to surface. “Musical! That’s how she sounded: musical. She did the reading of “The Night Before Christmas” one year at the tree-lighting ceremony, and I remember everyone saying that she had a very musical quality to her voice.” She almost cried at the look of pure gratitude Kelly gave her. She and Rose had had their problems over the years, but those problems seemed very minor compared to not having those years at all. She tried to imagine a world where she had never known her mother’s voice, or her touch, or the smell of her perfume, but the thought was too bleak, too terrifying to contemplate for long.

“I spent all night looking at the photos Mrs. DiFalco gave me.”

Maddy suddenly realized Kelly’s hands were folded over a tiny stack of snapshots. “Sandy was a very pretty girl,” she said carefully. “You look a lot like her.”

“Mrs. D said the same thing last night, and so did my dad. I want to see it, but when I look in the mirror, I just see myself looking back.”

Maddy reached across and pulled down the sun visor on the passenger side. “Your nose, for one thing,” she said. “And your smile . . . and there’s something about your eyes when you laugh that makes me think of your mom.”

“It’s scary, you know?” She leaned forward, examining her reflection for hints of Sandy O’Malley, who would be forever nineteen. “She was an only child, just like me, and now that both my grandparents are dead, I’m all that’s left of her.” Tears streamed down her face faster than she could brush them away. “If I vanished right this second, it would be like she’d never existed at all.”

“She exists in the hearts of many people,” Maddy said carefully. “She’s remembered and loved.”

But that wasn’t what Kelly was talking about, and they both knew it. She was talking about those connections of blood that link the generations. She had felt that way when Hannah came into the world, blessed that something of herself and of Rose and Bill and her Grandma Fay and all the others who had come before would live on into future generations. It wasn’t something you could convey with words; it ran far too deep for that. It was visceral, primal in its intensity, life doing what it did best: renewing itself once again.

“Honey, maybe we should stop at a diner or something and have a cup of tea.”
You need time, Kelly. You need to take a deep breath and let the people who love you best help you.

“No.” She flipped the mirror up and pulled herself together. “I just want it all over with. Once it’s finished I’ll be fine.”

She would give it just one more try before she admitted defeat. “You’ve given a lot of thought to what you think is best for Seth and for your father and for everyone else, but not once have I heard you say what you think might be best for you. It’s your body and your decision, Kelly, but more than that, it’s your life we’re talking about. You’re going to live with whatever you decide every day for the rest of your life. Make sure it’s what you want, not what you think you should want.”

Kelly nodded, and Maddy had the sense that she might as well have been speaking to Priscilla.

 
“HE’S ALL YOURS,” Claire said as Lilly opened the front door to her Lincoln Town Car so Mike could slide in. “And may God grant you patience and fortitude.”

Lilly laughed out loud. “Oh, he’s just an old teddy bear,” she said. “Once I get him set up with his cable and his remote control, he won’t be any problem at all.”

“Are you two going to stand there gassing all afternoon, or can we blow this joint?
Judge Judy
’s on in twenty minutes.”

The two women looked at each other and shared an eye roll.

“You have his chemo schedule?” Claire asked. “He’s been on a Tuesday/Thursday rotation but—”

“I have it right here.” Lilly patted her Kelly bag. “Along with his meds, his scripts, and his Dentu-Creme.”

“Jesus H. Christ, can’t a man keep anything private in this world?” Mike bellowed from the front seat.