The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (54 page)

They chatted briefly about the high price of real estate before Gerry shoved off.

Fifteen minutes later she was on her way home. Turning down Green Willow she waved at Tom Kemp, bent over his hedge with a pair of clippers like a tall question mark. She remembered when Martin’s former partner had been crazy about Sam, and wondered if he was still carrying the torch. Did love truly spring eternal? She wouldn’t know. The men she dated were disposable. Only Aubrey was different, in a way she hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint.

She turned off Green Willow onto Mesa, slowing at the sight of two boys cruising along on their bikes. A little farther down, Marcy Walters’s little girl was playing hopscotch on the sidewalk while her brother pedaled in furious circles on his Hot Wheels. It used to drive Mike crazy that he couldn’t park his Lincoln Town Car in the driveway without worrying that some kid would scratch it. But everything Mike had hated about this neighborhood she loved—its older Spanish-style homes standing hip to hip, many still trimmed in Christmas lights, and the neighbors who waved to you and knew everything that went on. She wouldn’t have traded it for Mike’s fancy new house in the hills any more than she’d have given up the job she loved for one that paid twice the salary.

Pulling into the driveway, the first thing Gerry noticed was Justin’s bike blocking the door to the garage. Her mellow mood dissolved. Damn it.
How
many times had she told him—

Go easy,
a voice interjected.
You don’t want to set the wrong tone.

Inside she found her son slouched in front of the TV, lost in a video game. He barely glanced up when she walked in. “Where’s Andie?” she called, dumping an armload of groceries on the kitchen counter.

“Huh?”

“Your sister. You know: five foot two, curly dark hair. Last seen wearing a red sweatshirt and jeans.”

“I dunno—with Finch, I guess.” His eyes remained glued to the screen, on which amazingly lifelike race cars zipped through tunnels and around bends.

“Did she say when she’d be back?”

“Nope.”

Gerry sighed. When Andie and Finch were together they lost all track of time; she’d be lucky if Andie made it home in time for supper. But hadn’t it been that way with her and Sam? At that age they’d been inseparable. Gerry had probably spent more time at Sam’s house than at her own.

Justin still hadn’t budged. “Hey, buster, I could use a hand here. If it’s not
too
inconvenient.” Their elderly Labrador, snoozing by the fireplace, lifted his gray-muzzled head. “Not you,” she said. Buster dropped his head back onto his paws with a grunt.

Justin shot her a sheepish glance. “Uh, sure, Mom. In a minute.”

Gerry sighed again. The manic soundtrack emanating from the living room made the days she and Sam used to hang out in the penny arcade at Palisades Park, playing Gypsy Fortune-teller and Rifle Shoot, seem basked in a golden glow. Though she was certain her son, perched on the sofa in his baggy jeans and even baggier Lakers T-shirt, would have scoffed at the idea.

She went back for a second load. Her mother would say she was too easy on the kids, that you couldn’t run a tight ship without cracking the whip now and then. But Gerry wasn’t interested in running a tight ship.

Hadn’t she done that with Mike? Juggling a job and kids with a constant round of lists, chores, and activities: cocktails with clients, dinner parties for people she barely knew, an endless stream of country club affairs.

If it hadn’t been for the Dawsons, who knew how long it might have gone on? She cringed at the memory, even though it had been her salvation in a way. Paul and Nancy Dawson, a couple she knew from church, had expressed interest in joining the club. Gerry, seeing no reason such nice people wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms, had offered to sponsor them. Unfortunately, the board members hadn’t seen it her way. The Dawsons, she learned when the vote came down, weren’t quite tony enough for the Dos Palmas crowd.

“They knew the risk,” Mike had said when she came to him in tears. “This is a private club, not some church organization.”

That had only stoked Gerry’s ire. “I get it. They’re good enough to organize a drive for earthquake victims in Nicaragua, but not loll about by the pool showing off their tans.”

Mike shrugged. “There were lots of considerations.”

“You mean like the fact that Paul doesn’t play golf, and Nancy isn’t on the museum board?”

“That had nothing to do with it, and you know it. Stop blowing this out of proportion. They just … well, they didn’t fit in.”

“Maybe I don’t fit in either,” she’d shot back. She knew perfectly well she wouldn’t have gotten in on her own. Not that she’d have cared; Mike was the one who’d been so hell-bent on joining.

The very next day she told him he could screw the club. But if she’d secretly hoped he would come around to seeing it her way in time, the plan backfired. Mike saw no reason to stop spending his weekends at Dos Palmas just because she was foolish enough to stay home. It was around that time he’d met Cindy—newly divorced, and an ace golfer to boot. Cindy, with her tiny voice and even tinier waist, her baby blues that could fell a man at fifty paces. Once they became an item, it was all over but the shouting. They’d been married a year, and Gerry wished them well. She had nothing against Cindy; Mike either, for that matter. It all made perfect sense. If anything, she wondered what he’d ever seen in
her.

With the groceries unloaded and put away, she filled a large pot with water. When it was boiling furiously, she dumped in a packet of noodles and went hunting for the jar of Ragu she was sure she had. One of the great innovations of the twentieth century, she thought, was spaghetti sauce in a jar. Mixed with a pound of hamburger you had the perfect meal.

Dinner was almost ready by the time Justin ambled into the kitchen to help. She put him to work setting the table, trying not to notice when he laid the forks and knives in the wrong place and left the milk carton out. Andie walked in the door just as they were about to sit down.

Gerry watched her daughter shrug off her jacket and toss it over one of the hooks by the door. Her cheeks were ruddy with more than cold; it looked as if she and Finch had hit the makeup counter at Rusk’s. And was that a new earring? It was hard to tell with so many in her ears.

“You’re just in time,” she said.

Andie meandered over to the table. “What’s for dinner?”

“Spaghetti.” Gerry spoke calmly, though it was perfectly obvious what they were having. “Did you and Finch have fun?”

“We were at the ranch most of the day. Then Hector had to go into town, so we caught a ride with him.” Andie dropped into her chair, eyeing the spaghetti without much interest. “I tried on some stuff at Rusk’s.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, yeah. We saw Laura’s dress. She had to go in for a fitting.”

“Was it nice?” Gerry remembered that Laura and Hector’s wedding was just weeks away. She hadn’t gotten them anything yet. What did you get a couple who’d spend their entire lives on horseback and camping out under the stars if they could?

“Yeah. Not frilly or anything. More like a long slip.” Andie buttered a slice of bread. “And she’s wearing a wreath instead of a veil.”

This wedding would be very different from Alice’s, that was for sure. Instead of a church wedding followed by a fancy spread on the lawn at Isla Verde, there’d be only a handful of nearest and dearest attending the rustic hilltop ceremony. Gerry wondered what kind of wedding Sam and Ian would have if they ever decided to tie the knot. Knowing Sam, she’d combine it with the baptism for efficiency’s sake; why not kill two birds with one stone? She smiled at the thought.

“Weddings are stupid,” Justin said. He was sulking because she’d told him he couldn’t bring his friend Nesto.

“Only a stupid person would say that,” Andie replied loftily.

“Says who?” Justin glared at her.

“Ask anyone.”

Gerry dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter. “That’s enough, you two.” She felt weary all of a sudden. How could she bring Claire into the mix when half the time they barely got along with each other? “I’d like it if once, just once, we could get through dinner without your squabbling.”

Andie and Justin were subdued throughout the rest of the meal. They stuck to harmless topics: the new teacher who’d replaced Mr. Geiger at Justin’s school, the Little League tryouts in just a few weeks, the car wash Andie and Finch were organizing to raise money for Lost Paws. By the time she got up to clear the table, Gerry was feeling more optimistic. Nevertheless, she waited until the dishwasher was humming and the kids settled in the living room with their bowls of ice cream.

“Guys. I have something to tell you.” She sank down on the sofa.

Justin lowered his spoon with a worried look. “Something bad?” The expression on his face was the one he’d worn when she’d told him she and his dad were getting divorced.

“Not at all,” she said. She felt sick. Hadn’t these kids been through enough? Why didn’t she just write a book?
Fifty Ways to Screw Up Your Child.
“Just something you need to know.” She looked from Justin to Andie, who’d gone very still. Gerry would have given anything just then to have them little again, when they’d still believed in the tooth fairy and the idea of an unknown sister wouldn’t have seemed so strange. “Remember my telling you about when I was at the convent? The reason I left?”

“Because you weren’t cut out to be a nun, right?” Andie eyed her warily.

“That was partly it.” Gerry took a deep breath. “I was also pregnant.”

There was a long, stunned moment in which no one spoke.

Andie’s mouth fell open. She stared at Gerry as she might have at an intruder that had just burst in through the front door.

Justin merely looked confused. “But … you weren’t married to Dad then.”

Andie whipped around to glower at him. “Don’t you
get
it? She wasn’t married,
period.”
She turned her blazing eyes on Gerry. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us.”

“I didn’t see any reason for you to know.” Gerry spoke calmly, as if by her very tone she could make them believe there was a perfectly rational explanation for all of this.

“So why are you telling us now?” Andie’s eyes narrowed.

“Something’s come up.”

“What?”

Gerry felt as if a bone were stuck in her throat. This was worse than when she’d told them about Mike because at least then they’d had some idea of what to expect. This was like dropping a bomb on a village peacefully going about its business. She swallowed hard.

“You have a sister … and she wants to meet you.”

Andie stared at her, the color draining from her face. “I don’t believe it.”

“Her name is Claire,” Gerry went on in the same purposefully upbeat tone. “I didn’t know where she lived until just a few weeks ago. It turns out she’s just up the coast. She’s flying down next week to meet us.”

“I don’t believe it,” Andie repeated, shaking her head.

“What’s she like?” Justin asked hopefully.

Gerry could have kissed him.

“Nice. I think you’ll like her.”

“You make her sound like a puppy.” Andie’s voice was heavy with scorn.

“Is she staying here?” The bowl of ice cream on Justin’s lap had melted to a brown soup.

“Not this time,” Gerry said. “We thought it’d be best if she stayed at a motel. Until we get to know each other a little.”

Andie moaned. “Tell me this isn’t happening.”

“I’m sorry to spring it on you like this.” Gerry reached over to place a consoling hand on Andie’s knee, but she jerked away as if scalded. “I should have told you. I
wanted
to. But … it all happened a long time before you were even born.” She didn’t add that Mike had been adamant she not tell them.

“Why didn’t you keep her?” Justin looked so innocent just then—like when he was a little boy wanting to know why Grandpa Ed had to go to heaven—it very nearly broke her heart.

She smiled at him tenderly. “I was young. And you’re right—I wasn’t married to your dad then. I was afraid I wouldn’t do a very good job raising her.”

“Couldn’t Grandma have helped?”

Gerry had often wondered the same thing, but ultimately it had been
her
decision. “She was working two jobs and taking care of Uncle Kevin. It would have been unfair to her, too.”

“What if it’d been one of us?”

All eyes, even Buster’s, turned to Andie when she spoke. There was something in her voice—something so lost and plaintive. Suddenly Gerry knew the real reason she’d kept it a secret for so long: She’d known this was the root of it, the common denominator of the equation. For hadn’t she asked it of herself, too?

“It was different when I had you. I’d have cut off my arm before giving either of you away.” She spoke firmly, leaving no room for doubt.

“You’re only saying that now.” Andie wasn’t going to be bought off so easily. “But if it’d been
me
instead of her you’d have done the same—given me away.” Gerry’s heart constricted. “Oh, honey. You know I—” But it was too late. Andie jumped to her feet and dashed from the room. A moment later Gerry heard the door to her room slam shut. She let out a ragged exhalation, the air in her lungs feeling like it was being squeezed through too small an opening.
Make that
Fifty-one Ways to Screw Up Your Child, she thought. Her gaze dropped to the bowl of ice cream Andie had left on the floor, which Buster was happily lapping up.

Justin, slumped on the sofa, said tonelessly, “He can have mine, too.”

Later that evening, as she lay reading in bed, Gerry heard a tap on her bedroom door. “Come in,” she called.

Andie poked her head in. “Justin’s in his room crying. I just thought you should know.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, like a TV newscaster announcing that two hundred people had been killed in a plane crash. But the look on her face told a different story.

“Come here.” Gerry patted the bed beside her.

After a moment’s hesitation Andie nonchalantly strolled over. Shed changed into leggings and an old T-shirt of Mike’s—regulation nightwear these days. Standing next to the bed, her curly mop pulled back with an elastic band, she might have been a tall crane poised at the edge of a pond.