The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (84 page)

“I’ll be back and forth. We’ll still see each other.”

“Yes.” But she knew it wouldn’t be the same.

“Ever been to Brussels?”

“No.” She’d been to Europe exactly once—on her honeymoon. Two days in Paris and another two in London. It had rained the entire time.

“It’s lovely. You should come for a visit.”

“I doubt I’ll be able to afford it.”

“I don’t suppose you’d let me send you a ticket?”

“Not a chance.”

“In that case, you’re forcing me to run up an enormous long-distance bill.” He laughed, but it had a hollow ring. They were back on the main road now, driving north. As they crested the hill she could make out the winery ahead—a cluster of stone buildings similar to those in pictures she’d seen of the Loire Valley, another place she was unlikely to visit any time soon.

The world had never seemed so vast.

And yet she had no one to blame but herself. She had chosen this as much as Aubrey, so it was no use crying. There would be time for that in the weeks and months ahead—nights of lying awake in bed wondering how she could ever have thought she’d had it all figured out when she didn’t know a thing.

W
HEN
A
NDIE WAS EIGHT
she’d had her tonsils out. Her mother had sat with her for hours each day until visiting hours were over, reading aloud her favorite books. Her father had been away on a business trip—just like when she was starring in her sixth-grade play, and when she was presented with an award for the best essay on “What World Peace Means to Me” her freshman year in high school. When she looked back, it seemed she’d spent most of her life waiting for her dad: listening for his car, for the thump of his briefcase in the front hall, and more recently for the phone to ring.

She’d been at her dad’s a little over a week, and there’d been something going on nearly every evening: friends for dinner, some function at the club, a cocktail party he and Cindy couldn’t miss. Tonight was the birthday party Cindy was throwing for her best friend, Melinda. Her stepmother had been running around all day, mostly in circles—bossing poor Consuelo around, pestering the caterer with last-minute changes, chewing out the pool boy for tracking muddy footprints all over the patio. And now, with the house spotless, the flowers arranged, and every last bit of silver polished, she was turning her attention to Andie.

“Can I ask a favor, hon?”

Cindy stood in the doorway of the guest room, which Andie was currently occupying, smiling that sweet smile like hard candy on a cold day. Plus, she was calling her “hon”—never a good sign.

Andie pasted a smile in place. “Sure, whatever.”

“If you have to use the bathroom, could you go next door?” It was clear from Cindy’s tone that she thought it a perfectly reasonable request. “I phoned Mrs. Chambers and she said it was okay.”

God forbid the sink should be wet or a towel awry when the guests arrived. Andie’s smile slipped a little. “No problem,” she said, thinking there was no way she was going next door to pee. She barely knew Mrs. Chambers, a little old lady with a fat miniature poodle that yapped at everything that moved. She’d hold it in if she had to.

“Thanks. It’s a little crazy right now. If people would just
do
their jobs …” Cindy raked a hand through hair the color of buttered toast, looking supremely put upon. She’d been to the hairdresser yesterday and her new blond highlights made it look as if she spent loads of time at the beach—an illusion underscored by the fact that, in her long-sleeved striped tee and size-two white slacks, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Malibu Barbie. “Oh, one more thing, would you phone your dad and ask him to stop at the store on his way home? We need film for the camera.”

All those Kodak moments you wouldn’t want to miss.
Never mind there were hardly any photos of her and Justin. But that was Cindy. She didn’t have any kids of her own, and hadn’t bargained on stepkids, either. It was the only thing they had in common: They were all in the same boat.

“That’s it?” Andie got up off the bed, where her homework lay scattered over the quilted spread: her American history textbook, several ink-stained notebooks, a dog-eared copy of
Silas Marner,
and a binder covered in stickers.

“We’re a little low on dishwasher soap, too.” Cindy scanned the room with the eagle eye of an admiral making sure everything was shipshape. Andie had straightened up, but if the smallest thing was out of place, her stepmother would be sure to spot it. “Oh, and hon? Would you mind running the Dustbuster over the carpet in here?”

A crumb didn’t fall in the house without Cindy racing for the Dustbuster. After supper the night before, her father had joked that he was going to have a special holster made so she could carry it around on her hip. Cindy had laughed, which showed she had a sense of humor at least. No, Andie thought, she wasn’t a bad person. Just anal, which when you got right down to it was just another word for full of shit.

Still, she
was
trying—last weekend treating Andie to lunch at the Tree House, and afterward to a manicure. Now that she had her learner’s permit, her stepmother had even offered to take her driving. Andie had politely declined. A scratch on Cindy’s brand-new Audi convertible was the last thing either of them needed.

She thought of her mother: How when Andie was practicing parallel parking and had crashed into the garbage cans set up along the curb, Gerry had laughed it off, saying, “You’ll get it. Just keep trying.” Her throat tightened. She might as well face it: Her mother no longer cared. The last straw had been when she’d dropped everything to go running off to San Francisco with Claire. No warning, no note, just the one lame-ass phone call when she got back. She hadn’t phoned since.

She was walking over to the closet—there was a Dustbuster in every room—when she caught her toe on the carpet’s thick pile and stumbled. She bumped up against the dressing table—trimmed in a ruffled Laura Ashley skirt that matched the curtains and bedspread—sending her hairbrush skidding onto the carpet. Out of the corner of her eye, as she bent to retrieve it, she saw Cindy frown. Andie knew what she was thinking: What if it had been something breakable?

“Are you okay?” Cindy started toward her, stopping a few feet away from where Andie stood—like it was a game of Mother-May-I and she hadn’t been given the green light.

“I’m fine—just a little klutzy today. I always get this way before my period.” Andie bit her lip. Why had she said that?

Her stepmother gave a knowing laugh. “Tell me about it. When it’s my time of the month, your dad says I’m not fit to live with. What I hate most is the bloating—I might as well be in a tank at Sea World.” Andie could see her reflected in the mirror, patting a belly you could have fried eggs on. “Need any tampons?”

“No. Thanks. I have enough.” She’d bought a box in the hope it would bring on her period—a period that was weeks overdue. The only sign of it was sore, swollen breasts, which could just as easily be a symptom of—

“Well, let me know if you run out.” Cindy’s chirpy voice interrupted the thought.

Yes, Cindy was trying. At times like these she seemed almost lonely. Though in some ways Andie would have preferred a stepmother out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. It was easier to hate someone mean than someone you felt sorry for.

Her stepmother was turning to go when Andie asked, “Uh, Cindy? Would it be okay if I stayed over at Finch’s tonight? We’re working on this project that’s due on Monday.”

An outright lie, but a safe one. Neither Cindy nor her dad had a clue about her schoolwork. And Andie couldn’t bear the prospect of yet another evening holed up in this room, or worse, being fawned over by Cindy’s phony friends. She needed to get away from this house, where you had to remember to take your shoes off before setting foot in the living room, with its carpet the color of Cream of Wheat and its objets d’art (that’s what Cindy called them, though at her grandmother’s the same stuff was called knickknacks) that looked as if they’d shatter if you breathed too hard. She longed to be home, but since that was out of the question, her friend’s house, with its cats and dogs that roamed freely and the faint smell of horses that clung to everything, would be the next best thing. You could clomp around in riding boots, and if you broke a dish, Laura would simply shrug and say she’d been meaning to replace it anyway.

But Cindy was even more clueless than she’d thought. “You’ll miss the party,” she said, her glossy lower lip pushing out in a mock pout.

Andie tried to look disappointed. “I know. I’m sorry. I …” She started to say she’d been looking forward to it, but that was too big a lie. “Wish your friend happy birthday for me, okay?”

Cindy sighed. “Between you and me I don’t think she’ll notice one less guest. That’s what this party is all about—I was hoping it’d cheer her up.” She dropped her voice, spelling out, “D-i-v-o-r-c-e.”

“Urn, that’s too bad.” It felt weird talking with Cindy about divorce. “Do they have kids?” she asked to be polite.

“Just one—but he’s away at school. Poor Mel. She’s really broken up about it.”

Andie thought of Simon, who’d been calling and leaving messages that she hadn’t returned. What would have been the point? He’d only have given her more bullshit about Monica being his mentor when everyone in town knew that, handicapped or no, she was a Venus’s-flytrap as far as men were concerned. Just the other day Andie had heard she’d had an affair with Andie’s history teacher Mrs. Farmer’s husband, who owned the music store and tuned pianos on the side. “I heard Monica’s baby grand got quite a workout,” Herman Tyzzer at the Den of Cyn had joked.

Even so, the thought that she and Simon might be broken up for good brought a little ache to her throat, like a pill that hadn’t gone down. And what if she were pregnant? What then?

“Maybe they’ll get back together,” she said without much enthusiasm.

“Fat chance. He’s already living with someone.” Cindy blushed, as if realizing her words had hit a little too close to home. She cast Andie a vaguely sheepish look. “Listen, I know it’s been rough for you, too. I just want you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to …” She paused as if not quite sure what to say. “You’d do that, wouldn’t you—come to me if you had a problem? I’m not such an ogre, am I?” She gave a nervous little laugh.

Oh, God. Cindy was trying to befriend her. Not just to be nice, but out of some pathetic need of her own. “Sure … I mean, yeah, if I was—if I had a problem.” Andie put on a bright smile, hoping to convince her stepmother she hadn’t a care in the world.

But why feel sorry for Cindy? She had everything. And her father absolutely worshiped her. As much as he had fought with her mother, he thought Cindy could do no wrong.

A crashing sound in the next room caused Cindy to spin about. An instant later she was racing down the hall, squawking, “Bernard! What on
earth
?”

Andie’s need to escape was overwhelming. Right now she’d have traded every CD she owned for her driver’s license, but she had no choice but to try to bum a ride from her dad.

She reached for the phone on the nightstand—a cutesy white and gold vintage reproduction—and dialed his number. Luckily, he was still in his office. His secretary, Mrs. Blanton, put her on hold; then her father’s deep voice came on the line.

“Hi, cookie. I was just on my way out. What’s up?”

“Cindy wants you to pick up film for the camera. And dishwasher soap. Oh, and one other thing—” She crossed her fingers. “Could you give me a ride to Finch’s?” Andie would clear it with Finch, with whom she had a standing invitation, as soon as she got off with her dad.

He blew out a breath. “Can’t someone else take you?”

“Cindy’s getting ready for the party.” Andie could hear her in the kitchen yelling at the caterer. “I don’t think now would be a very good time for me to ask.”

“All right … but on one condition: We stop at your mother’s on the way.”

Andie grew very still, as if the world were suddenly made up of razor-sharp edges that would cut her if she moved so much as an inch. “Why? We don’t have anything to say to each other,” she said coldly.

“We’ll discuss it on the way.” Mike’s voice was firm.

Half an hour later they were in his car, the baby-blue Lincoln that Cindy made fun of, saying it was something
her
father would have driven. As they glided along the streets of Hidden Valley Estates, the gated community where Mike and Cindy lived, she thought how different it was from the neighborhood she’d grown up in. As perfectly manicured and maintained as Disneyland, its houses, which her mother called McMansions, set far back from the sidewalk and surrounded by lawns as lush and green as the fairway at Dos Palmas.

“This is stupid,” she said.

Her father didn’t respond.

“She doesn’t even want to see me. If she did, she’d have called.”

He flashed her a small smile. “You sound exactly like when you were little.”

She remembered when she used to threaten to run away, how her mother would always nicely offer to help her pack. Reverse psychology, she now knew, though at the time it had felt like she didn’t care.

She studied her father out of the corner of her eye. He was a handsome man with most of his hair, but he’d put on weight since marrying Cindy. Which was weird because her stepmother was just the opposite: She worked out like a demon and lived off what her father called rabbit food. He was like the paunchy middle-aged guy—wasn’t there always at least one?—lagging behind on the jogging path, making all those ahead of him feel that much better about themselves.

“Your mom phoned me today,” he said. “She sounded upset.”

“She did?” A little shiver went through her. “How come she didn’t act that way with me? It was like she could give a shit.”

He shot her an admonishing look. “Watch your language, young lady. Just because you’re not at ho—” He paused, and quickly switched gears, saying, “Your mom thought you needed some space.”

Andie pictured her mother and Justin in the kitchen getting dinner, her brother bitching that it wasn’t the right kind of pasta, and her mother saying agreeably that it all tasted the same and if he didn’t like it he could fix his own. Suddenly she missed them terribly; it was all she could do to keep from crying.