Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel (17 page)

She smiles and hands over the bag. “I know you don't have any food around here. Figured you could use some greasy meat.”

I'd hug Cindy if I weren't busy tearing into the sack. “I adore you,” I say before taking a big greasy bite.

“So, you never said why you need me here. What's going on?”

“I have to call the Billingtons,” I answer, without bothering to chew and swallow first.

Cindy actually turns away from the television to stare at me. “Why in the hell would you do a crazy thing like that?”

It is crazy. But some small part of me wants to talk to them. Okay, a big part of me wants to talk to them. I'd like a few tears exchanged between us. I'd like for them to tell me they love me. “Wendy Underwood is why the hell I'm doing a crazy thing like calling them.”

Cindy frowns. “Who is Wendy Underwood?”

Now to drop the bomb. “My mother.”

Either the news or a fry Cindy snatched makes her choke. I thump her on the back. “I think she's looking for me,” I explain. “She might have contacted the Billingtons after I ran away. She might have left contact information for them in case I come back or call.”

“When did you find this out?”

“Morgan told me this afternoon. He got hold of a copy of my birth certificate and that was the name listed under ‘mother.'”

Earth-shattering news obviously doesn't affect Cindy's appetite. She digs in my bag and takes another fry. “What's your father's name?”

“The certificate says ‘unknown.'”

“Bummer,” Cindy responds. “What makes you think your biological mother might be looking for you, Lou? I mean I know you hope she—”

“She worked for that lab in Nevada that was doing a search online for me,” I interrupt. “The one you heard Morgan tell me about at the club. It had to be her trying to find me.”

Cindy sits back against the couch cushions and sighs. “So, what are you going to say to them?”

As good as grease tastes to me, I put the half-eaten burger aside. “I don't know. But I do know I need you here with me when I make the call.”

She reaches forward and pats my hand. “I'm here. Just don't mention me when you talk to the Billingtons. I'm sure my folks don't care where I am or if I live and breathe.”

The pain in Cindy's voice breaks my heart. She tries to act tough, like me, but deep down, we're both still little girls who grew up in a little town in Texas. It hurt her deeply, tragically, when her father kicked her out. I thought he was all about compassion and forgiveness. Guess I was wrong.

My hand trembles when I reach for the phone resting on the sofa table. It takes almost more courage than I have to dial a number I have not dialed in years. When the phone starts to ring, my heart hammers hard against my chest. I realize how badly I want to hear Norma's voice, or even Clive's. I realize that I love them. I miss them. The phone picks up and an automated voice informs me that the number I have dialed is no longer in service. I hang up.

“What's wrong?” Cindy leans forward to look at me. “No answer?”

“Disconnected.”

Her brows shoot up. Damn, I'd like to get a hold of those brows. “That's kind of weird.”

“Kind of weird” pretty much describes everything about my life these days. Cindy snatches the phone from me and punches in a number. A moment later I realize she's called information. She gives them the Billingtons' name and the town and state. I dig in my beauty bag for a pen and notepad but she hangs up.

“No listing.”

Have they moved? Gotten an unlisted number? A horrible thought occurs. Has something happened to them? I've spent seven years worrying that they might worry what had happened to me, if I was alive or dead, and it never occurred to me to worry that something might happen to them. I have to know, and not just because I need information from them about my birth mother. I care. There is an easy way to find out.

As if sensing my thoughts, Cindy glances away from me. “I can't call them, Lou. Don't ask me to. I am dead to them.”

We sit in silence for a moment. “You could say you are the ghost of their former daughter.”

My comment fails to get a smile from Cindy. “I'm not kidding, Lou. I can't call them. I won't.”

More silence.

“I guess you can call them and ask,” she finally says. “It makes more sense than me calling.”

I knew that before silence break number two, but I needed Cindy's permission to call her parents. It's a given. No matter how selfish I want to be, I can't unless Cindy gives me permission to dig up her past hurt.

“You're sure?” I ask.

Instead of answering, Cindy punches numbers into the phone and hands it to me. Then she promptly leaves the room and heads into my kitchen, which she knows has nothing good in it.

Mrs. Emerson answers on the second ring. Her voice brings back memories, the good kind, and I feel a catch in my throat. “Hello?” she repeats.

“Ah, hello. Mrs. Emerson, this is L—Sherry Billington.”

Silence. The shocked kind, I imagine. I forge ahead.

“I tried to get in touch with my folks earlier and their number has been disconnected. I called information but they didn't have a listing for them in Haven anymore. Can you tell me where they are?” More silence. I wonder if Mrs. Emerson hung up on me. “Mrs. Emerson?”

“Are you all right, Sherry?” her small voice finally asks. “No one has heard from you since you disappeared on prom night.”

Guilt. It rushes up and takes my breath away. What happened to me was not the Billingtons' fault. I should have called them. I should have at least mailed them a note saying I was all right … but I foolishly believed I could leave my past behind and start over. Now my past is catching up with me. Fast.

“I know,” I whisper. “I'm sorry.”

I hear movement, like Mrs. Emerson had to sit down. “I have some bad news about your parents, Sherry.”

Now I need to sit down, but I already am so instead I stand up. My heart hammers again. “Has something happened to them?” I force myself to ask.

A pause, then a sigh. “I don't know, Sherry. No one knows. They just up and disappeared one night two years ago. Took everything and were just gone. The house is standing empty. They owned it and there haven't been any For Sale signs posted, so we all assume they might come back.”

Clive and Norma were predictable people. They were not spontaneous. Not impulsive. I can't imagine them packing up and moving in the night and telling no one what they were doing, or why. Something niggles at me. Something Kane said. My birth mother disappeared from the lab in Nevada two years ago. She just up and left without telling anyone where she was going. At least no one she worked with. Coincidence? I don't think so.

“Would you give the Billingtons my number if they do contact anyone in Haven, or if they come back?”

“Of course, honey,” Mrs. Emerson says. She always called me “honey” and I feel a catch in my throat again. I give her my cell number, the one that should say “blocked call” if they've moved into the twentieth-first century and have caller ID. “Thank you, Mrs. Emerson.” I almost hang up when she says, “Do you know where Cindy is?”

I'm silent, which is not a good thing. A definite indication that I do but am not saying anything.

“Please,” Mrs. Emerson whispers. “Is she all right? It's eating me up inside. Please just tell me that she's all right.”

Am I betraying Cindy's trust if I say anything? Agony. I hear agony in Mrs. Emerson's voice. It is not the voice of someone who has turned her back on her only child. It's the voice of a desperate mother.

“I should have told her father that he couldn't stop loving someone just because they did not turn out to be who he wanted them to be. I shouldn't have let her go.”

I hear Cindy banging around in the kitchen. I think she's trying hard not to listen to me. To distract herself so she won't be tempted to try to hear her mother's voice.

“She's all right,” I say. “She's here, with me.”

“Thank God.” Mrs. Emerson's voice catches on a sob. “I've been so worried about her.”

What else can I say? Nothing. The ball is in Mrs. Emerson's court.

“Can I talk to her?”

I hesitate.

“Please,” she begs.

I walk into the kitchen, go over to Cindy, who is staring into an empty pantry, and slap the phone in her hand. “She wants to talk to you.” Then I leave and go back into the living room. I turn up the TV because this is not my business. An hour later I'm glad that I make a lot of money because Cindy is eating all my minutes. When she comes back in and sits beside me, laying the phone on the sofa table, her eyes are red and her nose runs.

“Am I in deep shit with you?” I ask.

Cindy draws a sleeve across her nose and shakes her head. “No. You know I wanted to talk to her. I just didn't know if she would want to talk to me, and finding out she didn't would have killed me all over again.”

I put an arm around Cindy and pull her close. She gasps and pushes me away. “You're cracking my ribs. You don't know your own strength sometimes.”

A vision of me holding Terry down and climbing on top of him last night flashes through my head. Was that a groan of pleasure or a grimace of pain? Oh, yeah, Cindy. Back to the matter at hand. I turn to her.

“Sorry, I just want to give you comfort.”

The sleeve goes across her nose again. There's a damn box of tissues right there on the end table, but I won't split hairs over it.

“I'm okay. Mom and I are at least speaking. She has my number. She says she'll call.”

I don't want to ask, but it will seem odd if I don't. “What about your dad? Did you talk to him?”

The waterworks come on. I should have just stuck with being odd. However, now it's perfectly acceptable to reach across Cindy and snag the tissues. I hand her the box.

“No,” she answers. “He's still pretending I don't exist.” Cindy removes a tissue and blows her nose. She wads it up and tosses it on my sofa table. Again, I must contain myself and pay attention to the important issues.

“The sad thing is, I really want to talk to him. I want to forgive him for what he said, what he did. And I want to forgive my mother for letting him. Does that make me pathetic?”

More gently, I put my arm around Cindy and pull her close. “No, dear friend, it makes you a better man than your father, and stronger woman than your mother. They could both learn a thing or two from you.”

“Damn straight they could.” Cindy hiccups. She rises and stomps toward the kitchen again.

“Amen!” I say for good measure, following behind her.

Cindy has her head in my empty fridge when I catch up to her. “Watch what you say,” she warns. “I'm the only one allowed to talk trash about my folks. And why in the hell don't you ever have any food in this place! I'm starving.”

When she's upset, Cindy's blood sugar gets low and if she doesn't get something to eat quickly, she's liable to kill someone. I'm the someone at the moment.

“Why don't we go out? Have some booze and red meat.”

Slamming the fridge door, Cindy smiles for the first time in an hour. “Now you're talking.”

CONFESSION NO. 15

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have learned a lie is more often kinder than the truth. Now if everyone else could just learn the same thing, we could all be happy.

Two apple martinis later, two steaks, one rare, and a decadent chocolate creation that Cindy and I felt we should share, we sit in sated satisfaction in the greatest steak house in Brooklyn. We're both too stuffed to talk. I imagine Cindy is thinking of her mother and their conversation earlier. I have so many thoughts rolling around in my head it's hard to focus on just one.

What happened to Dog Breath? Did I kill him? Or will I dream again tonight? I glance out the windows to the streets beyond. He could be out there right now. Watching me. I don't want to think about that.

Or the fact that my cell hasn't rung all day. I try to ward off the insecurity seeping in—feelings that were so much a part of my life when I was Sherry Billington. Just where are the Billingtons? Where is Wendy Underwood? Why the hell hasn't Terry called me?

“Haven't heard from him, have you?”

Glancing back at Cindy, I say, “That obvious, huh?”

She gives me her sad smile. The one that's supposed to make me feel better for reasons I can't fathom. “You're wearing the same look you did the day you lugged that stray cat home. Clive and Norma said you could keep it and it ran off the next day.”

“Damn cat slept with me the night before he ran off, too,” I grumble.

My cell rings. My heart skips a beat. It's been an emotional twenty-four hours. I let it ring three times before I answer. I sound calm and collected.

“Hi, Lou. Terry.”

When I spend the wee hours having sex with a man who signs his notes and identifies himself when he calls, it's not a good sign. “Terry who?”

He laughs. “Busy day. Just now got a chance to call. What are you doing?”

“Cindy and I are at Pete's in Brooklyn, wondering if we can undo our pants and pick our teeth.”

I get another laugh. “Can I come by and give you a ride home? Cindy, too, of course.”

It's weird to be a supermodel, lusted over by millions of men, the object of most fourteen-year-old boys' wet dreams, and suddenly feel like I've never had a relationship with a man before. I guess I haven't, not really. “We're finished eating. Cindy might be anxious to leave.”

A pause. He wasn't expecting me to decline the offer.

“I can put on the siren on top of the El Camino and be there in ten minutes. I was over at my folks' for dinner.”

Good enough for sex. Not good enough to meet the parents. I know I'm being a total geek about this and decide to chill. “Ten minutes,” I say and hang up.