Somewhere Between Luck and Trust (13 page)

“But I haven’t agreed. Do more olives come with the deal?”

“Could be, and I don’t dole out my best olives to just anybody.”

She laughed and they chatted until it was time for the next course. When she offered, he let her tear the romaine for the salad while he put the finishing touches on the pasta fazul. He dressed the salad and took it to the table, then ladled the pasta into pottery bowls and added that to the table, too, with more of the crusty bread, a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano and a microplane grater.

“If this is a simple supper,” Georgia said, “we’ll need to work on definitions.”

“My grandmother would be ashamed. There should be at least one more course after this one, before we end with a simple dessert.”

She took the grater and topped the pasta with a flurry of cheese. “I could manage that. If I didn’t plan to eat for the rest of the week.”

“It’s all about taking time to enjoy what you have, and not taking more than you really need.”

“You could say the same thing about life in general, couldn’t you? Slow down, savor the good things you’ve been given and don’t keep asking for more.”

“I’ve told you a lot about what I’ve been given. What about you?”

She didn’t take the question lightly, and he guessed thinking before answering was just part of who she was.

“My childhood wasn’t happy, but so many people pitched in to help me. Hospital staff whose names I’ll never know, watching over me for months while I struggled to survive, then later when I needed surgery, they were
there,
as well. I went back to the hospital once to see where I’d started life, and a nurse who’d been on staff when I was born told me that both times, staff stayed for extra unpaid hours after their shifts to make sure someone was right there with me until I improved. So I was given life because of people who cared about an abandoned infant and went the extra mile. That was a good thing.”

“I’m glad they were there for you.”

She nodded. “Later Arabella taught me what matters and set me on the path I’ve traveled ever since. Again, just because she was a good person, not because she gave birth to me or felt an obligation. That seems to be a thread running through my life. The woman who was supposed to care probably didn’t, and the ones who had no real reason to, did. I learned something valuable about reaching out to other people, not out of duty but out of love. And I savor that.”

“It sounds like you’ve really come to terms with your unusual beginning.”

She toyed with her pasta a moment, then she looked up. “Maybe not as much as I thought I had.”

He cocked his head in question.

“Just something that came up recently.”

“I’m listening,” he said.

“You’re also a journalist.”

Since it wasn’t the first time his job had affected what friends felt comfortable telling him, he understood. He set down his fork and reached over to place his hand on hers.

“Georgia, nothing you ever tell me will make its way into any newspaper. I’m never going to write about you or anything that concerns you. Not unless for some reason you ask me to. I don’t see you as a human-interest story.”

She turned her hand so she could squeeze his before she withdrew it. “Sorry, but I needed to hear that.”

He decided not to press the issue. “So what do you think of the recipe?”

“It’s beyond delicious. I’m trying to figure out everything about it, which is why I didn’t say that right off. Is there exactly the right amount of garlic? Yes. Are the tomatoes overpowering? No. Is either the shrimp or the pasta overcooked? No, they’re perfect. The beans are tender but not mushy. And whatever else you’ve added just makes it rich, but not in a way that makes me feel guilty eating it.”

She had given it some thought, and he was delighted. “How about the consistency?”

“If you didn’t have the bread with it, to sop up some of the liquid, maybe I’d say it was a bit soupy. But with the bread, it’s perfect.”

“I thought about serving it
on
a thick slice of bread.”

“I’d like to try it that way. I just have to know one thing.”

He waited expectantly.

“Is this what Zenzo serves the women he plans to seduce?”

“Would it work?”

“I’m not sure. No matter how wonderful he is, it might be hard to get his date away from the dinner table.”

He didn’t tell her he hoped he would have a chance someday soon to put that to the test. He just offered her another hunk of bread and a smile.

Chapter Fourteen

AFTER THE DISHES
were washed and put away, Georgia knew she really ought to leave. But every time she made a start toward that goal, Lucas launched a new subject. Or brought out the world’s most fabulous pignoli that he’d bought in Atlanta that morning. Or made espresso. He was clearly not tired of her being there.

“So while I think my family’s terrific,” he said, explaining why he’d come to Asheville, “I get more done when we’re not right on top of each other. This way they’re close enough I can see them whenever I want, but too far for them to pop by on a daily basis.”

She couldn’t imagine any of this, but she found his family stories fascinating.

She settled back on his uncomfortable sofa and accepted another espresso, this time decaf. He sat beside her, hips not quite touching, and she savored the solid warmth of his presence. “I’m sorry, but I have a feeling they’re the kind of people I’d either love or hate at first sight. How do they take to strangers?”

“It’s not a word the Capelli women understand. My father, now, he sits back awhile, but if he decides he likes you, you’re in for life. The siblings? You come with a recommendation, you’re in automatically, but we watch each other’s backs.”

“I wanted a big family.” She was surprised to hear herself say it out loud, not sure she ever really had, except to Samuel many years before.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get your wish.”

“Now I realize I just wanted to create the family I’d never had. Samuel wasn’t as keen on the idea as I was, but we’d agreed to have three children. We planned to wait for the first one until he was out of the service and we were financially stable, but I got pregnant with Samantha unintentionally. He decided he had to reenlist, because that was the best way to support a family. Then he was killed in Beirut, and his parents never really forgave me. In a roundabout way they blamed his death on the pregnancy.”

“As if he wasn’t there the night it happened?”

She smiled briefly because Lucas sounded indignant, and even all these years later, it was nice to have a champion.

“Samuel was adopted. His biological mother was Korean, and his father was an African-American soldier, and at that time, at least, children of mixed parentage weren’t particularly welcome in South Korea. So his biological mother gave him up for adoption. The agency found the Fergusons in far-off Chicago, and they absolutely adored him. They were never able to find another child to adopt. Rules changed, I guess, and they always just missed out on another baby for one reason or another. So they poured all their love into him. When we married, they were unhappy to share him. When he died and Samantha was born, they offered to take her as their own, but I wasn’t allowed to be part of the deal.”

“I don’t like these people.”

“Grief does terrible things, doesn’t it? They missed out on having Samantha in their lives for years and years because of what they did, but they finally asked both of us for forgiveness.”

“And you forgave them?”

“I’ve made a good stab at it for Samuel’s sake, but we’ll never be close. It’s just nice to know Samantha and Edna have more family now.”

“Oh, I’m guessing you made up for a lot.”

She didn’t know why she was telling Lucas all this. He was easy to talk to, and he talked easily about his own life. Maybe sharing was catching, or maybe it was the unusual sense of intimacy they had established right away and just deepened with every encounter. Suddenly she decided to tell him about the bracelet.

“Remember when I said earlier that maybe I hadn’t come to perfect terms with my odd beginning?”

“You said something had come up recently.”

She liked that he listened so well. Maybe it was his training, or maybe—and she thought this was more likely—it was his interest in people. Whatever it was, she knew she was in good hands.

“I make a point of not talking about my birth mother,” she said. “The story fascinates people. I’d rather they were fascinated by me.”

“Guilty of the last part,” he said, raising his hand as if he were swearing an oath.

“Let me show you something.”

Georgia reached into her purse for the bracelet. She had debated bringing both bracelet and clippings with her tonight, and she’d put them in at the last minute. Now she was glad.

She recounted the story of the bracelet, where Edna had found it, her own queries of the staff and, finally, the way the UGA bulldog had captured her attention. She handed the bracelet to him, aware he wanted to see it up close but wouldn’t ask. And when he had silently finished his slow examination of each charm, she held out the envelope.

“I didn’t realize until later that this was also on the desk. I think it’s pretty clear these two things were left there at the same time by the same person.”

He set the bracelet in the small space between them, and took the envelope, carefully removing the contents and going through the articles, one by one. When he’d finished, he folded them along the original creases and put them back inside.

“Lucas, without telling you what I think, what do
you
think? Would you mind telling me what comes to mind right away?”

He shook his head slowly. “Let me look one more time.”

She liked that. She told him to pay attention to the dates, then she turned a little to watch him go through the charms again. When he’d finished, he set the bracelet between them.

“You checked with staff? Nobody saw anybody leave this or the envelope?”

“I’m afraid a lot of people come and go. I asked casually—nobody remembered anything.”

“Okay. In all these years, have you ever had anything else left for you? Anything you didn’t think about at the time, but something that might be related?”

“Nothing I can think of. My past has really been a sealed room. When I was a lot younger I used to wonder, and when Samantha was born, the old feelings came flooding back. How could anybody desert a baby the way my mother deserted me? Once she was safely away, she didn’t even call the hospital to alert a nurse I was there. I was found late at night, and that restroom was rarely ever used after visiting hours were finished. An orderly thought he heard something and went inside to check. The light wasn’t even on. If he hadn’t heard me when he did, I would have died. As it was, I nearly did.”

He put his hand on hers, although she’d purposely kept emotion from her voice. She was reciting the facts as she knew them.

“Nobody ever discovered anything about her?” he asked, squeezing her hand.

She shook her head. “Nobody ever did, and you’re a journalist, so you know how hard they looked. The police, the newspapers, the social service agency in charge of the case...They wanted to find her. Some people wanted to punish her. Some wanted her story. Some wanted to figure out who was going to pay for my medical care. If she’d been covered by insurance, that would have saved the state of Georgia a whopping amount.”

“Nobody saw a thing that night?”

“Someone, an LPN, noticed a young woman leaving the floor well after visiting hours had ended. She figured it was probably somebody who just hadn’t wanted to go when she was told to, because that happened now and then, particularly with young women who didn’t want to leave their boyfriends. She couldn’t give a description, except that the woman was young, maybe even in her teens, and she had on a bulky jacket and a winter cap. But I was born in February, and the temps dipped pretty low that month. Whoever that woman was, she might well have been dressing for the weather, not to cover up a pregnancy or a sudden lack of one.”

“Did you ever search?”

“I never saw a point. I didn’t have a new place to start. And if the trail went cold right after I was born, imagine how cold it was by the time I was old enough to follow it.”

When she had clearly finished, he picked up the bracelet once more. “I think somebody has just given you a new place to start.” The charms tinkled as he shook it. “I think somebody who knows who your mother is, or maybe your mother herself, wants you to look. But I think it’s a cruel game. They’ve piqued your curiosity, but given you very little to go on. There wasn’t
anything
else on your desk?”

“Once I realized something was going on, I searched every scrap of paper and every square inch. That’s all there was.”

“Maybe she—or maybe he—thinks they’ve given you enough information here. The articles point out why the bracelet’s important, that it really is related to your life. But the articles are in the public record. The bracelet? That’s entirely new.”

“Of course I can just ignore it.”

“Can you?”

“Well, maybe not ignore it. I’ve spent the past few minutes talking about it, haven’t I? Maybe not
act
on it. Just assume it’s all part of the mystery and move on with my life.”

“You could.” He jingled the bracelet again. “But won’t you always wonder?”

Georgia didn’t know. Apparently, however, the bracelet had consumed her to the point that she’d slipped it into her purse to show him if the occasion arose. Maybe eventually she could forget about it.

But maybe not.

“You write mysteries,” she said after a long moment. “As a reporter you have to do a lot of investigation. What do you think the possibilities are of me discovering anything significant from the charms?”

“I don’t know. But I know I’d like to examine it closer and think about it awhile. Would you trust me to keep it overnight? I want to make notes on the charms, maybe photograph them back and front. Then see if anything comes to mind.”

“I’m not sentimentally attached to it.” She heard the note of bitterness in her voice, but she figured she was entitled to that much.

“I guess not.” He set it on the table beside him. “I said the whole thing and the way it’s been done seems cruel, and it does. But there are other interpretations, so we shouldn’t rush to judgment. It’s possible this is a first step, that more will follow, that this was just preparation for the revelations to come. And it’s also possible that whoever left this for you is so ashamed she’s not sure how to reenter your life, and this was the best she could do.”

“It’s also possible I’ve blown the whole thing out of proportion, and this has nothing to do with my past.”

They looked at each other, then together, almost as if they were following a cue, they shook their heads.

“No, that’s one we can scotch,” Lucas said. “This clearly has to do with your birth.”

“We?”

He slid his arm around her, brushing a strand of hair over her ear. “Are you going to let me help?”

She tried to remember the last time she had let
anybody
help. When had she been given that luxury? For a moment she nearly said no, that she appreciated his taking a look, but she didn’t want to involve him.

The problem was, she
did.

“You know what?” he said. “This is an even better way of slipping into your life than becoming the adviser for the literary magazine.”

She felt his words inside and heard them as the invitation they were. “I guess you could double your money,” she said, her voice husky.

“I would like that, if you’ll let me.”

She slid a hand behind his head and brought him closer. And
she
kissed
him,
just to let him know she was on board, but for now, she was going to be the one calling the shots.