Whiskey Island (36 page)

Casey turned her attention to the solemn-faced child at her elbow. “You did such a good job of placing the candlesticks.”

“I helped my mommy. At our house.”

Casey was surprised Ashley had volunteered that information. Until now the subject of her life before the Whiskey Island Saloon had been totally off-limits. “Did you help her set the table, too?”

“When my daddy was away.”

Casey felt her way through emotional land mines. “Did you have candlesticks?”

“Uh-huh. And things to stick napkins through.”

“Napkin rings. I’m so glad you remembered. We have some, too. Let’s go find them. You can put the napkins inside if you’d like.”

“We had flowers, too,” Ashley said, following Casey up the stairs back into the apartment.

“What kind, do you remember?”

“Roses. They smelled good.”

Casey opened the apartment door and ushered Ashley ahead of her. “I wish we had roses for the table today. But not in winter.”

“We don’t have winter where I live. I don’t like snow.”

“Don’t you?” Casey rummaged through the box she’d brought down and pulled out four china napkin rings. “Look, they’re painted with roses. I’d forgotten. So we’ll have roses after all tonight. Little teeny painted roses.”

Ashley made a noise that almost sounded like a giggle. Casey glanced down at her. The little girl was examining the old china napkin rings as though they were special treasures, slipping one over a tiny finger to see how it would look.

Casey empathized with Ashley. She felt righteous anger for the circumstances that had brought her here. She felt protective and concerned and moved by her plight. But she had never, until this moment, felt moved by the child herself. Now she felt a rush of emotion. She wanted to scoop her up and hug her hard.

Instead she cleared her throat. “You know, snow’s not so bad. Have you ever made a snow angel?”

Ashley looked up. “Angel?”

“Tell you what, after dinner, you and I will bundle up and go to the park. And I’ll show you how. Snow’s no fun unless you know what to do with it.”

“I made a snowball at school. It fell apart.”

“Then you didn’t pack it tight enough. I’ll show you that, too.”

Ashley considered, but not for as long as usual. “Okay.”

Casey smiled at her. Her own heart seemed to be swelling. “Good.”

“Casey?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Will I see my mommy soon?”

In all the weeks Ashley had been with her, she had never asked this question. Casey had been told not to lie to the child, that lies would complicate an already intolerable situation. But somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to tell the whole truth.

“You know, I wish I could tell you yes, sweetheart, but we just don’t know when you’ll see her. I do know one thing. She’s thinking about you right this minute and sending her love.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she’s always thinking of you, and she always loves you.”

Ashley considered. “That’s why I’m here.”

“That’s right. Because she loves you, and this is the best place for you.”

“If you had a little girl, would you send her away?”

The questions seemed too grown-up for a child not quite five, yet Casey knew that Ashley was particularly intelligent and—unfortunately—precociously mature.

“If I had a little girl, I would always try to do what was best for her. Even if it was very, very hard.”

“Your little girl might cry.” Ashley looked Casey in the eye. “Not me.”

Casey knew this to be true. “I’m sorry you don’t. You’re allowed to, you know. It feels good, and it helps.”

“It doesn’t help. People don’t stop hurting you when you cry. They just make you be quiet.”

Casey’s stomach knotted. “It’s bad to hurt little girls, and it’s wrong to tell them to be quiet when they’re sad. No one here will tell you that.”

As quickly as she’d opened up, Ashley closed off again. She started toward the door with the napkin rings in her tiny hands, and in a moment Casey could hear her descending the stairs.

Casey spoke through clenched teeth. “You bastard, Bobby Rayburn. I hope the Good Lord strikes you dead in your Palm Beach mansion. Because if he doesn’t, somebody who loves this child will do it for him.”

Casey looked around the table at her two sisters and Ashley. They had just said grace, a rusty, seldom-used version that only Peggy had remembered. The scene was picture perfect—except for the Guinness sign lighting up the wall just behind her.

Megan lifted her head. “Pass your plates.”

The roast lamb was garlic scented and anonymous. The three sisters had decided that they’d just as soon not tell Ashley what animal they were eating. Instead it was the “roast,” and it smelled delicious. To go with it, Megan had steamed potatoes, then set them to finish cooking in the juices from the lamb, turning them every few minutes so they browned evenly. Finally she had steamed the prettiest vegetables she could find at the West Side Market and lightly coated them with a butter-and-herb sauce. The gravy was dark and succulent, and even now, a homemade pie made from extravagantly expensive blueberries—Peggy’s favorite—was baking in the oven.

All this so she and Megan could tell Peggy about Rooney.

“The table looks so pretty,” Peggy said. “And the food is spectacular. So, what do you want to weasel out of me?”

“What?” Megan set down her fork.

“You heard me. This was the meal I always got when you wanted to find out what was going on. If I broke up with a boyfriend we had roast la—” She glanced at Ashley. “A roast. If I got a C on a test, it was the roast again. If things were particularly sticky, I got a blueberry pie, too. And I smell blueberry pie.”

“You mistake a sister’s love for manipulation.”

“Baloney.”

“How
are
you doing?” Casey dished up a plate for Ashley, who seemed mesmerized by the conversation. She hadn’t spoken again since the moments upstairs, but she was certainly listening hard enough.

“Just fine. I like being here. I needed to be here. Subject closed.”

Megan ignored the last part. “Is it a guy? Is this guy trouble?”

Peggy spoke a little too quickly. “There is no guy in my life half as irritating as you are.”

Casey felt a tingle of recognition. She understood denial backward and forward. She also knew that no “guy” had been calling Peggy at the apartment since she’d returned home. At least, not when Casey had been there. “Weren’t you seeing somebody from your anatomy class?” she asked. “Somebody from Cincinnati?”

“You’re a year too late. He moved to Indiana last summer.”

“That must have been tough….”

“On who? I was dating someone else by then.”

“Anyone we’ve met?” Megan said.

“No. And not anyone you will meet, either.”

Casey filed this away as Megan went on. “How are your grades?”

“I have a 4.0 average. And for the record my job at the hospital is still working out great.”

Casey took over. “Okay. That just about covers it all. Except for stuff like life planning, what you want to be when you grow up. You know the drill.”

“Listen, I know you’re concerned, but you have no reason to be. Do I strike you as someone in a funk?”

In all fairness, Casey had to say no.

“See?” Peggy reached for the vegetables, eschewing the broccoli but heaping on the carrots and snow peas. “Next subject.”

“Casey, how’s
your
life?” Megan sounded defeated.

“No guy trouble, for a change—”

“What about Jon?”

“Good grief. Is this the Irish Inquisition?”

“He’s here a lot.” Peggy dropped the serving spoon back on the plate. “If he’s not causing trouble for you, he should.”

“He
may
have the mistaken idea that he’s fallen in love with me. He thinks being able to talk to each other and wanting to spend time together is the same thing.”

Peggy screwed up her face. “What an idiot. A man who thinks a nearly perfect relationship is the same thing as love. Where does he get off, anyway?”

“Eat your snow peas.” Casey dove into hers.

“Of course, if you don’t find him attractive…” Megan passed the potatoes, selecting the choicest to add to Ashley’s plate. “I guess a tall intelligent guy with broad shoulders and a smile that lights up a room just isn’t your type.”

“We’re best friends. Love would complicate that.”

Peggy dished up her potatoes. “Ever see
My Best Friend’s Wedding
? Jon might just get tired of waiting for you and find somebody like Cameron Diaz. Then what would you do?”

“I’d wish him well and dance at his wedding.”

“That didn’t work too well for Julia Roberts.”

“How about you, Megan?” Casey retaliated. “As long as we’re on the subject of men, let’s hear why you’ve blown off Niccolo Andreani.”

Casey knew they weren’t about to hear the truth. Megan had “blown off” Niccolo because he’d gotten too close to her heart. She was a woman who spent little time contemplating her own actions and less time worrying about them, but this time, the reality of what she’d done seemed to be eating at her.

“I don’t want to talk about Niccolo,” Megan said evenly. “But I do want to talk about something that has to do with him.”

“If I have to talk about Jon—”

“And I have to talk about my future—”

Ashley’s fork clanged to the table. “Stop fighting!”

The three sisters fell silent, all of them staring at the little girl. She picked up her fork and began to eat again, but she looked frightened.

“Honey, we weren’t fighting,” Casey told her.

“Yes, we were.” Megan turned to Ashley. “But, sweetheart, we’re not mad at each other. We’re a family. We love each other. We just don’t always agree.”

“People get hurt,” Ashley said, not looking up from her plate.

“Not here they don’t,” Peggy told her, momentarily covering Ashley’s hand with her own. “Megan’s right. We love each other. And we’re just trying to find out what each of us is doing and thinking.”

“People hit people sometimes.”

“Not here they don’t,” Peggy promised. “No one hits anybody here.”

Megan caught Casey’s eye and raised a brow in question. Casey shook her head.

They fell silent, working on dinner for a few minutes before anyone spoke again. Peggy was the first, addressing Megan. “You were going to say something a while ago. You said you had something to talk about.”

Casey knew they couldn’t put off telling Peggy about Rooney, but before either of them could start, there was a soft rapping at the saloon door.

Megan picked up her water glass. “Tell whoever it is to go away. Do they think we’re open on Sundays?”

Casey stood to do the honors. Jon was waiting at the door. He peeled off a heavy stocking cap, and snow instantly dusted his brown hair. “I saw the light on down here, and no one was answering upstairs. I hoped I’d catch you.”

Her entire day seemed to brighten. This was the way it had been between them once upon a time. She stopping by his house on a whim, Jon stopping by hers. When a day passed without seeing him, she’d been irritable.

She remembered suddenly just exactly how lonely and lost she had felt after she’d left her sisters, and Jon, too. Her life had seemed like a book with random pages missing. Making sense of it had taken concentration, and for a while she’d lost her drive to get to the ending.

She felt herself smiling inanely at him. “We’re having dinner down here for a change.”

“I’m interrupting. I’m sorry. Can I call you later?”

“You’re family. Join us.”

“I’d be in the way. I’ll—”

She grabbed his gloved hand and hauled him inside, until he was standing in the tiny vestibule with her. “Megan,” she called, “it’s Jon. Will he be in the way, or can we set another place?”

“Tell him it’s set already, although not with the good china, since I’d have to go upstairs, but I’m putting food on his plate.”

Casey smiled at him. Megan had said that Jon’s smile lit the room, and now it did. Something fluttered in her chest, and for a moment she had the strangest feeling that it might be her heart.

He stripped off his coat and hung it on a peg, then he followed her inside. The sisters had made room for him beside Casey, and after greeting them, he took his chair, first helping Casey into hers.

“This looks terrific. I could drop by every Sunday afternoon.”

Megan beamed at him. “Sure, but make it earlier, so you can peel potatoes.”

“Tell you what, when the weather warms up a little, I’ll have you to my house for an old-fashioned Hungarian cookout.”

“Which is?” Peggy said.

“Aunt Magda used to specialize in something she called
saluna.
Unsliced bacon cut in chunks. We’d make a campfire in the backyard and roast it on sticks.”

“A Hungarian weenie roast,” Casey said, adding an extra potato to his plate.

“More or less. But you catch the drippings on fresh bread, and when the bread’s gooey, you eat it. Then you cut off the roasted part of the bacon and put that on bread and eat it before you start all over again with whatever’s left over. It can go on all night, depending on how big your slab of bacon was to begin with.”

“How old did you say Magda was when she died? Twelve? Thirteen? Heart disease or hardening of the arteries?”

He laughed. “She was older than I’ll be.”

For some reason Casey could easily imagine a fall night in Jon’s Lakewood backyard over a barbecue pit. Chicken breasts or lean hamburgers instead of bacon chunks, but friends and stimulating conversation and…Jon.

“Megan, what were you planning to discuss with us?” Peggy pushed back her chair. “If it’s not important, I’m going upstairs to get some coffee beans to go with that pie you made.”

“Stay. We have coffee down here. We serve a hundred cups a day.”

“I’m in the mood for some really good decaf. High-test will keep me awake, and I want to take a nap. I’m pooped.”

Casey saw indecision perched on Megan’s features. She took the matter into her own hands. “I think Jon should know what’s going on, too, Megan. I don’t think he’ll mind being part of this.” She turned to him. “This is family stuff, Jon. Do you mind being here for it?”