Scrambled Babies (12 page)

The woman looked up at Steve.  “Why, thank you, young man.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”  He turned to the bellman, pointed to the childseat, and said, “Could you get the baby for me?  I’m kind of needed here.”

The bellman set the bags down and retrieved the infant.  The elevator door closed, and Steve made his way to his suite with a warm heart, secure in the feeling that the most potentially disastrous event in his life was about to come to a painless and, if luck would have it, enjoyable end.

But something in the air told Steve that this dilemma was too huge to end this easily!

#

Paeton never saw the telephone message light in her hotel bedroom ignite into a pleading bright red.  She had closed her door and was on her way out of her hotel suite.  She hurried herself and Madison into the elevator while the infant bumped alongside in his travelseat.  She had decided all the luggage she would need would be her trusty carryall.  Everything else she might need was at her New York apartment.

She had to be in the hotel lobby by six a.m. for the airport limo to be able to catch her seven-thirty flight to New York.  As she and Madison were emerging from the elevator, out of the corner of her eye Paeton thought she saw a bellman picking up a baby in a familiar Zoo Kingdom travelseat from Bloomingdale’s. 

She stopped abruptly, her breath lodged in her throat.  She spun her head around, but by the time she focused to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, the elevator doors had closed.

She felt her pulse in her ears.  She grabbed Madison by the hand and picked up her pace to the limo. 

Heaven help me!  Now I’m hallucinating!  Will this ordeal ever be over?

#

Steve turned on TV the moment the bellman left the room.  Nothing about the baby mix-up was on the six o’clock morning news.  Paeton McPhilomy had waited too, and now it would pay off for both of them. 

He could envision the activated red message light next to her bed.  He smiled devilishly to himself.  He also realized he could envision Paeton in bed next to the light.  Steve loved tall, dark women.  Blonds were not his first choice.  And Steve had a thing about women’s mouths.  He always noticed the contour, the movement, the color.  The way her mouth moved when a woman was talking or smiling, or for that matter, crying.  The mouth was such a special place, such an intimate place.  A mouth could kiss.  A mouth could whisper.  A mouth could drive him crazy.  And Paeton McPhilomy had
the
mouth of all women’s mouths! 

He shuddered at the thought of that sensuous mouth and what it could do to him.

A sweet noise from the infant shut down his reverie.  He wished Paeton would roll over and see the message light.  But it was only six o’clock.  She was probably as exhausted as he was from the events of the previous day.  She would wake up in a couple of hours and call him.  God, he couldn’t wait to hear her voice!  He imagined she must have a damn sexy voice emanating from that damn sexy mouth. 

He chortled a little. 
What is it with me and this woman?  She writes romance books.  She’s probably some daffy, dreamy, jock-hating female.  And besides that, she’s probably got the men waiting in line with those looks.

He went into one of the bedrooms and looked down at the baby girl sleeping peacefully in the crib. 
Wait a damn minute, Kaselman, you’re no slouch in the looks department!.  I mean
—  He laughed out loud again.  He walked over to a mirror. 
But god, right now you look like hell!
  “You better get some sleep.” he said out loud, rather startling himself.  Ever since he had been living twenty-four hours a day with an infant and talking to it even though it couldn’t answer, he would find himself randomly talking out loud as well.  Did this mean he was getting old and senile?  Christ, he only recently turned forty!

He moved to the other bedroom and sat on the bed to slip off his shoes.  He punched the pillow under the bedspread and lay back.  He could feel a wonderful sleep coming on.  He knew the next sound he would hear after his much-needed sleep would be Paeton McPhilomy’s phone call, coming from somewhere in the same hotel.  God, this bed felt good! 

Unfortunately, Steve would find that the next phone call he received would greatly compound his present problems.

#

The plane reached cruising altitude on its way to New York.  The woman across the aisle kept giving Paeton sideways glances.  She would read her novel, then sneak a peek at Paeton.  She was fiftyish and both her body and diamond earrings were overweight.  Paeton sat with boy baby in his travelseat and blanket.  She had bought him a new, culturally acceptable, male-only outfit at the hotel gift shop.  The sleeper Paeton had “kidnapped” him in needed a rest.  Besides, Paeton thought it was the least she could do for a macho male, which Steve Kaselman must be.  He would be mortified to find his man-child dressed like a girl in public. 

Paeton startled herself.  Why was she being so nice to this jock who wouldn’t even return her call? 

Probably because no male had ever affected her quite the way Steve “Jock” Kaselman had.  She couldn’t help smiling when she thought about him.  As big a jerk as he must be.  She rolled him around as a character in a book, then drew a sketch of him in her mind: 
Steve Kaselman hadn’t been shortchanged in the looks department.  Except for his nose, he was the Prince Charming from any fairy tale with dragons and princesses.  He stood a little over six two, had too much blond hair, and was blessed with a Burt Lancaster jaw.  Fortunately, his broken nose saved him from perfection, lifting him from children’s stories into the real world.  But it was Steve’s eyes that could reach down inside a woman’s soul and unveil dark, secret desires, previously shrouded, even from herself.  Deep within those two blue demons crackled the promise of supreme rapture with no prospect of mercy. 

She reflected on her mental doodling. 
Hmmm.  Not bad, Paeton.  Mmm!
  She felt a pleasant surge of warmth in one of her secret places.  She smiled thinking that, should she ever use Steve Kaselman as a character in one of her novels, she could hardly stand by the disclaimer that “All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names.  They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.”

“Mommy, are we almost there?”

Madison
’s inevitable question brought Paeton out of her mind jottings.  She tried to be patient.  This whole situation was difficult for a six-year-old.  “No, sweetheart, we have quite a ride left.  Would you like a snack?”

“No, thanks.  I’m just tired of riding on airplanes.  After we get to New York, do we have to go back to Los Angeles?”

“Yes, honey, we do.”  She bent down and kissed Madison.  Paeton’s treatment of her children since that momentous bump nurtured a guilt that increased by the hour.  She talked in hushed tones to Madison.  “I’m sorry this is so crazy, Maddy.  But when we get Kelsey back, everything will be normal again.  We won’t have to ride on airplanes so much.  You are such a good girl, and I love you.  We’ll be there soon.  Now play your game, or try to take a nap.”

“Okay.”  The drone of the video-game music once more mingled with the cabin air.

Something familiar caught the corner of Paeton’s vision.  It was the cover of her book,
The Sky Streaks of Black!
  The woman across the aisle was deep into it. 
Oh, oh!
  Paeton knew her photo was on the back cover.  What Paeton really didn’t need right now was a fan talking to her all the way to New York.  They had been in the air for about an hour and had almost five hours remaining.  They would be eating soon.  Maybe that would keep the woman too busy to put two and two together.  No such luck.  Paeton noticed the woman raise her head tentatively toward her.

“Excuse me?”  The fat woman leaned across the aisle.  “Are you a romance reader?”

Yep!  Here we go!.
  Maybe she could end this annoyance abruptly.  She fooled with something on the baby, tendering only her profile.  “Not really.”

“Oh.”  The woman hesitated, then turned back to Paeton’s book.

Paeton roused an internal
Yea!

Time inched by.  Food!  Where was breakfast?  Finally, the flight attendant came to the head of the first-class cabin.  “May I take your order?  We have a western omelet with avocado, strawberry waffles, and ranchero steak and eggs.”  Paeton looked up.  The attendant was giving Paeton an inspecting look.

Paeton dropped her head.  “We’ll have the waffles for my daughter.  I’ll have the omelet.” 

The attendant abandoned all subtlety in her quest for a better look at Paeton’s face, bending awkwardly over the back of the seat ahead.  “Anything I can get for the baby?”

“No.  No, thank you.  She’s, uh, he’s fine.”  The attendant did not move down the row.  Had she noticed Paeton’s obvious confusion about the gender of her child? 

The attendant pursued her need to get a good look at Paeton’s face. 
No!  Please, no! 

But—as was Paeton’s luck of late—! 

“Excuse me, but aren’t you—?”  The attendant gulped.  “You are!  You’re Paeton McPhilomy!  Oh, Ms. McPhilomy, I’ve read all—”

“I knew it!  I just knew it!”  The rich woman’s mass of jewelry jangled like the bells on an ice cream wagon.  “Oh, how exciting!  How exciting!” she squealed.  “Right next to me!  Paeton McPhilomy!  Oh, goodness me!  This is so splendid!  Paeton McPhilomy!  Right here on the airplane!”  She put her pudgy face full into Paeton’s, looked at her with big, weepy eyes, and wailed, “Paeton McPhilomy—I don’t know how to say this—but—I love you!”

“So do I!”  The flight attendant gushed after her, writing Paeton’s meal order right off the pad and up her arm.

Thankfully, the six other people in first class were not romance readers.  No one else did more than briefly look up from reading or away from watching a movie. 

The rich woman fitfully undid her safety belt and rolled out of her seat like a loose beachball.  “And this must be your wonderful baby girl!”  As she looked more intently at the baby, the woman’s jowled face twisted into a perplexed expression.  She looked directly at Paeton.  “I thought you had a baby girl!”

Paeton squirmed in her seat.  Now she was having to explain the male-only outfit.  “Simply joining the uni-sex thing.”  She forced a nervous laugh.  “It’s the new millennium, you know!”  Then she decided to take the offensive.  “You’re not anti-feminist, are you?”

The woman flustered, “Well, I, uh, why, no, Paeton.  It’s that—”

“Good.  Good.  Then I can sign your book.”  She looked up at the flight attendant.  “And I can sign your sleeve!”  The flight attendant looked down to see the order scribbled on her sleeve and tittered.  “And we can all be happy and eat our meal.” 

Amid much fawning and fatuous chitchat, Paeton performed the autographing.  Then the attendant carried out her remaining meal duties. The woman rolled back into her seat. Everyone had breakfast.  Paeton breathed more easily.

Five hours later the choppy skid of rubber on tarmac announced their touchdown at JFK International.

Paeton used her children as a ticket to be one of the first off the plane.  A flight attendant came to her seat and ushered her off the jetliner.  She was in no mood for more autographs.

She shivered as she came into the high-ceilinged, gargantuan JFK terminal.  Here was where it all began
.  What did begin here?  The biggest calamity of my life or—?

“Where are we going, Mommy?” Madison asked, pumping her little legs to keep up with her mother, who had Madison’s hand tightly in tow.

“Oh, some place in New York, honey.  Keep walking, okay?”