Dr. Dad (24 page)

“I'd love to go to California,” Amanda said as Lindsey slid the cookie sheets into the oven. “It's sunny all the time, and I bet the beaches are much nicer than our beaches in Connecticut.”

“It isn't sunny all the time,” Susannah corrected her with a smile. “Sometimes we get so much rain there are mud slides. And there's never any snow. I can't wait until my first winter here in Connecticut. I think snow is beautiful.”

“Yeah, unless you have to shovel the driveway,” Meredith joked, and they all laughed. Lindsey knew Susannah would never have to shovel her driveway. One reason Lindsey wanted to be a Hollywood star when she grew up was so she'd never have to shovel
the driveway—or collect the garbage or rake leaves or do any of those other tedious chores—again. She would be as gracious as Susannah was with her fans, but she'd expect them to adore her. It would be like the way Amanda and Meredith were her friends but also were kind of in awe of her at the moment—only multiplied by millions. That was what Lindsey wanted.

“I'm going to go to California someday,” Lindsey announced. She didn't add that she was going to become a star like Susannah. Things were going so well Lindsey didn't want to wreck them by saying something wrong.

The kitchen began to smell from the cookies—a rich, warm fragrance that made her stomach growl with hunger. MacKenzie must have noticed the smell, because he stirred from his sunny spot and wandered over to the table. He leaped onto Susannah's lap and sniffed the air, turning his head left and right as if was trying to figure out where the aroma was coming from.

When Lindsey became a star, she was going to get a cat like MacKenzie, too. And she'd bake chocolate-chip cookies and let him eat a few.

The first batch was done. Meredith pulled the sheets out of the oven while Lindsey got a couple of plates and a spatula. The cookies were soft and steamy and kind of weird-shaped—not one of them was a perfect circle—but they smelled even better out of the oven than in it. MacKenzie stretched toward the table as Meredith and Amanda moved the cookies onto the plates to cool, but Susannah held him tightly so he couldn't jump off her lap.

Amanda's mother arrived just minutes after they slid the second batch into the oven. She remained in her minivan, beeping the horn, and Lindsey was glad. She
didn't want Amanda's mother to come in and meet Susannah. The more people who met Susannah, the less special meeting her would be. She'd actually turn into a regular Arlington resident, and then Amanda and Meredith wouldn't think Lindsey was so important anymore.

Lindsey wrapped some of the cookies in foil for Amanda and Meredith to take with them and walked them to the door. She was glad when they were gone. Having Susannah all to herself meant maybe she could find out some more about Susannah's family in California.

Susannah was pulling the second batch of cookies from the oven when Lindsey got back to the kitchen. She set the two sheets on the stove top and shut the oven door. “That's it,” she said with a grin. “You've just seen the extent of my culinary ability. I can take things out of an oven.”

Lindsey smiled. Susannah was treating her like a pal, someone to share jokes with. Lindsey liked that.

She sat at the table and Susannah resumed her seat across from Lindsey. They each helped themselves to a cookie from the first batch. “You want some milk?” Lindsey asked. Chocolate-chip cookies tasted much better with milk.

“No, thanks.”

If Susannah wasn't going to have milk, Lindsey wouldn't have any, either. She bit into her cookie. It might not have looked perfect, but it tasted great, warm and soft with the chips practically liquid.

“Your friends are nice,” Susannah commented lightly.

“Yeah.”

“The blond one—Meredith?” Lindsey nodded, and
Susannah continued. “She looks a little older. Is she a fifth-grader, too?”

“Yeah. She turned eleven in January. Amanda's older than me, too, but she's so skinny she looks younger.”

“Girls your age change a lot,” Susannah remarked, her tone still light and casual, although Lindsey sensed a serious intent behind her words. She remained silent, and Susannah went on. “You're all hitting puberty. I guess they've talked to you about that in school, haven't they?”

Lindsey licked the melted chocolate from her lips. “In health class,” she said. “Daddy talked to me about it, also.”

“I think he's a little worried that you might prefer to talk to a woman about it,” Susannah said, and Lindsey understood then what her intention was. Dr. Dad must have asked her to speak to Lindsey about this stuff. The idea didn't exactly bother Lindsey, but it was sort of weird, his going to Susannah about it. She would have thought that if they were on a date or something, they'd discuss more romantic things than Lindsey's puberty.

Then again, their date hadn't been romantic. Susannah's romance was waiting for her back in California. “So my dad wants you to speak to me?” she asked.

“Actually—” Susannah leaned forward, as though she was going to confide a deep, dark secret to Lindsey “—he wants me to ask you if you need tampons.”

Lindsey was so startled she laughed. Susannah laughed, too. And then Lindsey laughed again, less in surprise than in what could only be called sisterhood. Poor Dad! He was just a guy. Guys couldn't handle
things like tampons, could they? They just didn't have what it took.

“I don't,” she said, still giggling.

“Well, when you do, if you can't tell your father, you can tell me,” Susannah assured her.

This was interesting. Lindsey helped herself to another cookie and nibbled it slowly, giving herself time to think. If Dr. Dad was asking Susannah to speak to her about puberty, did that mean he wanted Susannah to act kind of like a role model or something? Having Susannah as a role model suited Lindsey fine, so far as Lindsey wanting to be a star when she grew up. But this other stuff, tampons and all…that was more like what you'd talk about with your mother.

Did Lindsey's father want her to think of Susannah as a mother?

If he did, did that mean he was planning to keep dating her, to build a real relationship with her?

But what about Stephen Yates and the baby? Lindsey had to know. She couldn't come right out and ask, though. She couldn't just say, “So, that pregnancy of yours the magazine wrote about last summer—what's the deal with that?”

She had to find a subtler way to approach the subject. “What's it like, having magazine articles written about you?” she asked.

Susannah sat back in her chair and eyed Lindsey. She obviously hadn't been expecting the change of topic. “Fame looks like more fun than it is,” she finally answered. “If I'd done something worthwhile, I wouldn't have minded having magazine articles written about me. But being written about just because of who I was, rather than what I'd done, was annoying.”

“You did do worthwhile things. You starred in the best show on TV. That's worthwhile.”

Susannah snorted.

Lindsey knew what Susannah meant. The article in Amanda's sister's magazine was basically about who Susannah was dating and not important stuff like her acting. The article was really kind of pointless. Who Susannah was dating and whether she was expecting shouldn't have been anyone's business but hers.

But it was everyone's business now, because the magazine had published that story. “Do magazines ever lie about you?” she asked.

Susannah shrugged. “I never read articles about me. But there were people at the production company who oversaw the publicity I got. I'm sure if any of the magazine articles had included serious lies, they would have told me.”

“I mean…'cause I read an article about you that was in a magazine last summer. And I didn't know if it was true or not.”

“What did it say?”

Lindsey suddenly felt like a snoop, poking around in Susannah's private life. She had the right to protect her father, but did she have the right to question Susannah about her love life back in California? “I dunno,” she mumbled. “It said you were dating the guy who played Lucien Roche on
Mercy Hospital.
”

“I did date him,” Susannah admitted.

Then the article was true. Which meant Susannah had a child. “Do you still date him now?” Lindsey asked.

Susannah smiled. “Well, I'm here and he's there. So it would be kind of hard to date him.”

In other words, Lindsey thought, if Susannah
wasn't
here and Stephen Yates
wasn't
there, they'd still be dating. Which meant she shouldn't be dating Dr. Dad.

She heard a rattle coming from the mudroom. MacKenzie must have heard it, as well, because he leaped down from Susannah's lap and started toward the mudroom door. When it opened, he froze, staring at Lindsey's father, who stood in the doorway, his briefcase in one hand and his jacket in the other. “Hello,” he said, clearly surprised to find Susannah at the table with Lindsey.

“We baked cookies,” Lindsey told him, as if that explained why Susannah was there.

“Lindsey and her friends baked them,” Susannah corrected her. “All I did was wipe up the spills.”

“She did more than that,” Lindsey argued. “And the cookies are really good, even though they look kind of funny. Have one.”

Her father exchanged a gaze with Susannah before smiling at Lindsey. “We're going to be eating supper soon, but…” He swiped a cookie from the plate. “One cookie won't spoil my appetite. And they don't look funny,” he added before biting into it. “Mmm. Delicious.”

“Well, I guess I should be on my way.” Susannah pushed away from the table and bent over to lift MacKenzie. When she straightened, she and Lindsey's father exchanged another glance. Lindsey wondered what they were trying to tell each other. Something private, something between just the two of them. Lindsey hoped it wasn't about dating, because Susannah's answers assured her that her father shouldn't be viewing Susannah as a woman to date.

“I'd ask you to stay for dinner, but I've got a class tonight,” Lindsey's father said.

“Daddy School?” Susannah smiled. Lindsey tried not to frown. If Susannah knew where Dr. Dad was going at night, they were too close. “That's all right. I've got things to do, anyway.”

“It was nice of you to stay with the girls,” he said, tossing his jacket onto one of the chairs. “Did your friends have a good time?” he asked Lindsey.

Nice of him to even notice she was there,
she thought sullenly. “Yeah.”

His attention lingered on her, and his so-happy-to-see-Susannah smile faltered. He must have sensed that she was getting grouchy. Great. He'd probably lecture her about her attitude all through supper. He might even ask her how school went, and she'd have to tell him about Mrs. Hathaway throwing a fit over her wrinkled math homework.

He turned from her and walked Susannah to the door. Lindsey heard their muted voices drifting down the hall, but she couldn't make out the words. Like she cared. Let Dr. Dad make a fool of himself over Susannah. Lindsey wouldn't interfere. No way. She'd just back off and let him make a total ass of himself.

He returned to the kitchen alone. He studied her for a minute as he loosened his tie. Then he gave her a crooked smile. “So, how was your day?”

This must be something he learned at the Daddy School—to be nice to your kid even when you and the kid were on the verge of a blowup. He knew Lindsey well enough to sense when something was bugging her, and before he'd started the Daddy School classes he would have made her tell him what it was. And they would have had a big fight, or he would have given her a hard time for being in a mood. Now, when
she was in a mood, he let it go. He smiled at her and kept his distance.

Maybe the change had nothing to do with the Daddy School. Maybe he just didn't care about her moods anymore. Maybe he was so focused on Susannah Lindsey didn't matter to him.

Susannah was
her
friend, though. He thought she was his friend, but she could do a serious number on him. She couldn't hurt Lindsey, because Lindsey understood what it meant to be a high-flying TV star who didn't live the way normal people did.

“My day was fine,” she muttered, reaching for another cookie.

“Why don't you save that till after dinner,” he suggested, sweeping the plate off the table before she could grab a cookie. “I'm going to cook up some burgers.”

They always had burgers on the nights he had Daddy School. Burgers were quick and easy.

She didn't care. She'd rather just eat chocolate-chip cookies, or nothing at all.

She sat at the table, moping while he slapped the burgers into a pan, slid the rolls into the toaster oven and sliced up a tomato and a pickle. The meat sizzled, overtaking the aroma of the cookies. She could have helped her father, but she was too glum to do anything more than pluck two napkins from the dispenser on the table and fold them.

He put a plate in front of her and then circled the table to sit facing her. “How was school?” he asked.