Secrets of the Apple (42 page)

Halfway through the pile Grandma came in, shrugging on her robe and sitting in an easy chair near the fireplace. “I haven’t seen you up this early of a mornin’ since you were a little bit and sneakin’ candy.” Her accent was always less polished before her morning Postum; she sounded more like her mother, who grew up almost wild in the mountains before she came to Charleston and married a banker.

Grandma watched me feed another drawing to the fire. I could see her weighing a decision, gauging the moment. Finally she said, “Speak up honey, this is the time. You weren’t ready last night, but you are now.”

“My husband wants a divorce.”

“Do you?” Grandma’s clear green eyes held me steadily.

The question hung in the air as the fire ate through a mermaid evening gown.

“Things can’t stay as they are,” I said without looking up. “That’s no good for anyone.”

“Do you want your freedom?” she asked, making no move to stop the destruction.

“I already have my freedom; I think I always did,” I said, rubbing the heel of my hand briefly over my heart, as though scratching an itch. “I got charcoal on that bedspread.”

“My mother smeared blood on it when she gave birth to me. It’s hardy.”

Neither of us spoke as the last drawing went into the fire. The biggest log had already caught, popping and crackling, warming the room.

O
nce, in passing, Kate had told Ryoki the single piece of advice her father had given her over hot fudge sundaes the day before her marriage, “Judge yourself first, always judge yourself first.” At the time Ryoki had slid over the comment, making some fortune cookie joke
.
Now, reading between the lines, he guessed her husband had checked out of the marriage early, turned progressively meaner, too cowardly to leave, despising his wife for not leaving him. He couldn’t help but wonder whether Kate’s father would have had the courage to give such a gift had he known what was coming. Ryoki himself would have put a big bow around a sword and a shield, and supplied plenty of steel armor to wear under her wedding dress. But Kate had apparently taken her father’s advice, never relinquishing her sense of personal responsibility.

Lucky Kate, less than two years divorced and already she’s recording events with the eye of a scientist hoping to avoid future disaster, performing a marital autopsy, a clinical study of the mysterious symbiosis between true love and simple, hard-bitten commitment.

Ryoki slowly slid the pages back into place and shut the binder. Leaning his head on his hand, he wove his fingers into his hair, inky black and curly. Genetic possibilities. So much to take in.

The doorknob rattled and he heard Kate’s voice as she entered the cottage, “That’s strange. I’m sure I locked that door. The maids are so careless.”

The door clicked shut and Ryoki was about to get up and show himself when Kate spoke again, her voice edged with false cheer. “So, this is my place. What do you think? I told you I have a separate house.”

“It’s nice. He certainly spared no expense,” Montgomery said flatly.

Ryoki froze, his eyes strafing left to right. Thinking it unwise on all fronts to let Montgomery catch him exiting Kate’s bedroom, he determined to escape through the bathroom’s french doors and scale the garden wall. He had placed his feet and hands to stealthily lever himself out of the chair, when he remembered those infernal garden wind chimes, so sweet in theory, but in reality loud enough to call forth the dead. It was the reason Kate seldom opened those doors. He looked back at the bedroom door—halfway open, shielding him from view. Might be best to keep silent and wait for the opportune moment. Worse case, Montgomery could breech the keep and find him feigning sleep with the reading lamp burning and the binder open in his lap. Admittedly not a great solution, but Montgomery had no business in Kate’s bedroom anyway. He settled back, an embarrassed and reluctant eavesdropper, hoping with all his heart they did not begin to kiss.

Kate spoke again, her tension breaking through. “So are you going to tell me what upset you, or are we going to keep pretending everything’s great and dinner with that woman was fun?”

“‘That woman’ is my boss,” Montgomery said, openly irritated. “I don’t know why you had to be so cold to her.”

“I just can’t get past that forked tongue,” Kate said.

“Oh really? Are you going to keep her from getting the Tanaka account because you don’t like her? I only ask because when I heard Jackson Browning had been replaced, I couldn’t help remembering how much you disliked him.”

“I’m only an assistant, for crying out loud,” she said with an exasperated groan.

“You’ve certainly got Tanaka’s ear, or at least his hands.”

Kate answered slowly as though hanging onto a perilous calm. “So this
is
about last night. We were dancing, I’ve already told you that three times. What more can I say?”

Silence, a heavy pause.

“What are you wearing, Kate?” Montgomery asked coolly.

“What? A pantsuit.”

“Do you remember what Amanda said about your pantsuit?”

“She said it was nice.”

“She said it was nice you dress like an executive.”

Kate remained silent.

“She said Tanaka must pay very well if you can afford to dress like that. Then it occurred to me, you dress a
lot
better than you did in school. In fact, everything I’ve seen you wear since you came here looks way above your pay scale.”

Ryoki smirked. Took Monty ages to put that together, did it?

“You have no idea how much I make.”

“Who buys your clothes, Kate?”

Kate answered so quietly that Ryoki could barely hear. “Before we came, Ryoki asked me to dress in a specific way to fit the image he needed to project. I wasn’t willing to spend that kind of money on a temp job, so, as part of the deal, he sent me to a corporate shopper who outfitted me. It was a perk.”

Ryoki appreciated her neutral spin, but Montgomery wasn’t buying it.

“Doesn’t that seem like a big, unnecessary expense? I mean, in light of how much he touches you, doesn’t that seem suspicious? You’re a great observer, Kate. Look at where you live. Look at your lifestyle. You can’t afford this, even in Brazil, and by the way, where’s the kitchen in this place? Do you even eat in here? Or do you share your meals with him?”

“Are you actually jealous of my boss?”

“Jealous? Kate, he’s every boyfriend’s nightmare. The only thing that keeps me from wringing his neck is that I don’t think you’re sleeping with him.” Montgomery huffed with irritation, adding under his breath, “I sure hope not, because you won’t even sleep with me.”

“Because I’m liberated from AIDS, STDs and single motherhood,” Kate said with a joking lilt to her voice, as though trying to diffuse the tension. Montgomery only grunted.

“Kate, it’s this whole—can’t you see, you’re not just his assistant, you’re more like his de-pend-ent.” He elongated the word, injecting it with venom.

“Funny, you make it sound like ‘mistress,’” she said quietly.

“Well, we went through his house to get out here.”

“Because that’s by far the shortest—”

“Last night all he had to do was touch your arm to keep you from walking away. Don’t think I don’t notice things like that.”

“I think you’ve misunder—”

“A
touch,
that’s all. Most dogs aren’t that well trained. It’s like he’s put you in a cage that he can lock whenever he feels like it.”

Ryoki put his hand on the lump of keys in his pocket, knowing Kate carried an identical set in her purse.

“I think you’re blowing this all out of proportion,” she said.

“Isn’t that essentially what your husband did after you got married, locked you in? Isn’t he the reason you left school and wasted two years working dead-end jobs, so his precious career wouldn’t be interrupted?”

“Would you want to date a person who refused to invest in her marriage?” she asked, but Montgomery was on a roll and stormed on as if he hadn’t heard her.

“I felt bad you had to go through that, but now I see the cycle starting all over again.”

“Remember, my job here ends in a couple of months. So this all seems a little unnecessary,” she pointed out reasonably.

Ryoki heard a heavy thump as Montgomery dropped onto the sofa, followed by a lighter, primmer sound as Kate sat as well. He wished he could see how close.

“Why did you follow him to Brazil, Kate?” he asked her gently. “I’d have asked you, if I thought you’d come.”

“Ryoki offered me an interesting opportunity. I’ve learned a lot, and it’s been very good for my resumé. Isn’t that why you’re in South America, to beef up your resumé? And by the way, aren’t you glad I came?”

“And what happened to your writing? You could have used this time to get published or start your doctorate. You could have been making a name for yourself in your own field. Instead you’re down here playing house. You even picked up a kid like a stray dog.”

“Lucas spends most of his time with the staff. Sometimes I don’t even get home from work until after he’s in bed.”

“Kate, you need to pull away from Tanaka. You could move in with me. I mean, I have an extra bedroom if that’d make you feel more comfortable.”

“Are you objecting to my job or my boss?”

“Come on Kate, it’s obvious he’s become more than a day job to you.”

“He
is
my job. He brought me here to help him personally.”

“This is not a good job for you, honey. You have a tendency to give too much and he’ll—” There was a pause and Ryoki could envision Kate’s quizzical expression. “It’s like the night we had that argument about Lucas. Do you remember?”

“We agreed to disagree, why bring it up now?” Her voice sounded scratched, wearied by the subject.

“You were already so busy, and I warned you that a kid would absorb all you had to give and he’d still demand more. If you keep giving and giving, one day there will be nothing left, like some kind of dried-up breeder.”

“I find that term incredibly offensive. Don’t use it again,” Kate said, her words clipped and clear. Montgomery was talking himself straight into a noose and Ryoki felt the empathy of a man who has been there himself. “Besides,” she added, “my contribution to Lucas’s life is largely sentimental, and Ryoki is the sugar daddy. It’s Cecelia who’s really taken on the job of mother.”

“You spend plenty of evenings with him, reading stories, teaching him the piano. It’s really sweet in theory, but you already work such long hours, I worry you’re just spreading yourself too thin,” Montgomery said, dripping honey into his voice, trying to sneak back across the line without backing off his argument. “Is it a guilt thing? Your mother died early, so you’re romanticizing her life and following in her footsteps. I can’t imagine that’s what she’d really want for you.”

There was a short silence and Kate shifted on the couch. “This isn’t about Lucas or Ryoki, it’s about us,” she said. “I’m worried we’re at cross purposes. Like we both want to do the right thing, but we’re having trouble striking a balance.” Her tone was grainy with sugar, but Ryoki recognized the peculiar quiet strain in her voice, a well-bred aggravation that he’d last heard when she talked to Browning.

“You know, sometimes grand ideals like Noble Sacrifice can cloud simple realities,” Montgomery said, equally sweet.

There was a long silence before Kate started to speak, slowly, choosing her words.

“I get what you’re saying. I truly do, because of my mom. She wasn’t naturally motherly, but she was smart and educated and she valued order and accomplishment. Instead she had a bunch of screaming, ungrateful little kids who followed her around, messing up everything she did. Sometimes she was so frustrated I actually remember thinking ‘I don’t want to end up like her.’ I worried about it for years because I wanted a happy family, but I also wanted to go out in the world and do things. I didn’t want to spend my life frustrated.

“Then came the day that her lower back trouble turned out to be cancer, already spread to the lymph nodes. Nothing they could do. After all that frustration, she turned to my dad first thing there in the doctor’s office and said, ‘I’m so glad I didn’t work.’ Three weeks later her heart stopped and she was dead.” Kate’s voice caught and she cleared her throat, swallowing back a bubble of tell-tale emotion. There was an awkward pause and Ryoki heard movement, as though Montgomery had reached for her.

“I’m really sorry about your mother,” he said with genuine sympathy. “These things aren’t fair, but you need to be careful about romanticizing her death. My grandmother’s life was cut short too. She took a whole bottle of pills a year after her last child moved out. Left a note saying she’d ‘never been anything but a breeder’—those were her words—and now it was too late to be anything else.” Montgomery paused and continued in still kinder tones, “She’d been so stunted by her life, she actually believed there was nothing else out there for her. That’s what I find offensive. I love you too much to stand by and let that happen to you.”

“I’m sorry about your grandmother,” Kate said.

“Don’t be. I have no memory of her, but my mother does. She told me that the very day she read that note, she decided to go to medical school. Now she’s a successful surgeon who’s helped hundreds, maybe thousands of people.”

“Your mother’s a good lady and I really respect her. I’d even like to be her, except it keeps nagging at me that Lucas came to me first, but now he’s picking up Japanese instead of English.”

“Who cares what language he speaks? He’s picking up a second language because of you. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted. Everybody has to make sacrifices for the greater good, Kate, even children. My mother taught me that. She couldn’t always spend time with me, but I had good nannies and good schools.” His voice softened. “I missed her, of course. She worked really long hours and her career was hard on her marriages. I admit I resented that she wasn’t there to make cookies and help me with my homework. I even went through a wild phase in high school trying to get her attention, until I got a D.U.I. The judge, who was a woman by the way, jerked me awake and made me realize that I was in charge of myself. After that I buckled down and I got over it. I think I turned out okay, and I’m proud of my successful mom. She’s won a lot of awards and been published in
The
American Journal of Medicine
.” Ryoki heard him shift on the couch. “Cookies don’t matter, you can buy them by the truckload in every supermarket.”