Birthday Girls (41 page)

He laughed. “Oh, Maddie.
Our World
is on the verge of collapse. That’s why I need you! That’s why I need this story! Not for
Our World
, but for the new magazine I’m launching. I wanted to surprise you.”

Her mind whirled. The walls of the office that last week had seemed so inviting now threatened to close in around her. “
Our World
is on the verge of collapse?”

“Be realistic, Maddie. The world is changing. With everyone on-line today, magazine circulation is shrinking. A magazine like
Our World
is destined for failure. Its time has come and gone.”

She steadied herself. “You’re wrong, Parker.” She gestured at the opulence of the expansive offices. “Maybe you’ve spent too much money. Maybe you’ve taken too much for yourself.”

He laughed. “Yes, Maddie. The overhead is outrageous, my salary is exorbitant, and my expense account even greater. But I have an image to maintain.”

“And a wife with expensive tastes.” Her words surprised her, but he did not flinch.

“Why can’t you accept that you’re wrong?” he asked. “That
Our World
is … finished.”

“There’s still a market for quality.”

“Quality?” His laugh resounded in the room. He raised a short, stubby finger and pointed it at her. “Don’t you get it, Maddie? Why do you think that rag you work for is so huge?”

“Savoir?”

“Pure and simple, it sells sex. Sex and sensationalism with slick paper and chic ads. Conceal it, camouflage it, call it whatever you want, but that’s what sells. It’s probably the only thing left that’s guaranteed to sell today. And tomorrow.”

Her voice grew quiet. “No. People enjoy great photography. They love the opportunity to see into people’s faces, to see the world beyond their own. Edmund said …”

“Edmund,” he grunted. “Give me a break.” He stomped from his desk and went to the window. “Maddie, all these years on your own I thought you’d have grown up a little. I thought you’d have stopped being so naive.”

The shiver that ran through her body was not caused by the temperature in the room. Maddie stood up. “Just answer me one question, Parker.”

He did not turn around to face her.

“Did you want me—or did you want my ‘influence’ to get the photos of Abigail’s estate?”

He didn’t answer.

“And what about Sharlene?” Her words were choked now, sputtering from her lips in clipped staccato. “Were you planning to divorce her? Were you planning to divorce her and marry me again?”

With each second that passed, each second of dead air in which he did not respond, Maddie’s chill turned to hear rising many degrees.

I am disappointed for you
, Sophie had said.

Can you trust him?
Cody had asked.

Suddenly Maddie’s hands became fists. Her fists became balled. He was not like her father after all. He was not a kind man who loved her and left her because he had had no choice.

He was a bastard. A user. An abuser. A rotten, two timing, son-of-a-bitch.

She stepped forward. Her fists sprang open. She grabbed a paperweight from his desk. Then, with all her might, she hurled it at Parker. It missed his head by inches, bounced off the wall, and thudded to the floor.

“You bastard,” Maddie the wimp, Maddie the martyr, screamed. “How dare you do this? How dare you to this to me? How dare you do this to your children?”

He did not move. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it, Maddie? I’ve seen the way you’ve pretended to change. The way you dress. The things you’ve done to your hair. I know you were doing them for me. I may be getting older, but I’m not an idiot.”

Acid rose in her throat. “I’ll ruin you, you bastard. I’ll make you regret the day you were born. Why I ever spent one minute wanting you back is beyond me. You’re scum, Parker Daniels. And I don’t deserve scum.”

She turned on her heel and fled from the office, her head pounding, her heart pounding, and an incredible weight lifting from her purged, menopausal soul.

• • •

Abigail
sat on the porch in the cool evening, her back aching from re-covering the cushions of wicker chairs with brightly striped fabric. It had been wonderful to get her hands busy, to watch the transformation of this lovely old house into an attractive, inviting inn.

She reached for her cigarettes, then remembered she had none. She had not had any for several days; she had not even missed them. Not once. And it had been so long since she’d had a hot flash, she’d almost forgotten the heat.

The screen door creaked open and Joel came onto the porch. “Nice night,” he said. He walked over and sat beside her. His jeans were splashed with house paint; his flannel shirt was rumpled and well worn.

Abigail smiled.

“My daughter will be here next week,” he suddenly said.

For some reason she did not understand, Abigail’s neck tightened. “Your daughter?”

He grinned. “Guess I never mentioned her, huh?”

“Well, no.”

“I’ve been divorced ten years. Lacey—that’s my daughter—she’s twelve. Next week is school vacation.”

“No,” Abigail repeated. And then a vision of Sondra came into her mind. A vision of Sondra, the little girl who Abigail never knew how to love. “You never mentioned her.”

Joel rubbed his arm on the new cushion. “You did a nice job on these. I can’t believe you made the covers yourself.”

Neither, of course, could she. Just as she couldn’t believe she’d actually picked up a Martha Stewart crafts book in town and followed the directions herself. Martha Stewart, once her nemesis, before Abigail had abdicated her crown. She smiled. “I’m only trying to protect my investment.”

He nodded.

“Where does she live? Your daughter?”

“California. Carmel. With her mother.”

Abigail nodded. “Do you see her often?”

“Christmas. Spring vacation. And summers. She’s here all summer. She’ll be surprised at the changes around here. She’s always said we should get more people to come. That we should make more money.”

More money
. For the first time in her life, the words were unappealing. “Well,” Abigail said as she stood, “I’m afraid it will be a while before that happens.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Joel answered. “It’s been fun just putting something together. Money or not, we never would have done it without you.”

“I think I’ll turn in,” she said slowly. “It’s been a very long day.”

“Sarah?” Joel called as she reached the door. “You don’t have any children, do you?”

Abigail shook her head. “No.” She pulled open the screen door. “I’ve never had children.”

Joel nodded and Abigail went inside.

Abigail
lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering what she was feeling. For the past several weeks she’d relished her new project; she’d savored every moment of planning the changes to the inn, from the decor of the dining room to the reconstruction of the kitchen.

With the thirty thousand dollars she had fronted to Joel, he had been able to secure a bank loan for the remainder, and the plans were beginning to take shape. Of course, they had to do much of the work themselves to save money, but Abigail loved it. She’d even found herself telling Joel about the roses they should plant in the spring; she intended to care for them herself, the way she had learned by watching Edmund for so many years. But she was done watching. For once, Abigail Hardy was working for a living
without stage directions, without anyone standing over her to scrutinize, study, then criticize.

Why did the fact that Joel had a daughter upset her so much? There was nothing between them except a growing friendship, growing from the toil of togetherness. He was several years younger than she was. And his lifestyle certainly was different from anything she had ever known. Or had expected to like.

But he had a daughter. Lacey. And a mother, Grace. Together, they were a family of three. Three, the way she and Edmund and Sondra had once been.

She thought about Sondra’s baby. Edmund’s grandchild. She wondered whose side of the family it favored—if it had Sondra’s eyes, if it had Edmund’s smile.

Then Abigail rolled onto her side and wondered why she was wondering these things.

The doctor
had wanted Maddie to stay in the hospital until the results of the MRI had been reviewed. She lay quietly in the darkened hospital room, grateful that he had arranged a private room, one of the few left in this day of the managed care hospital. She suspected that Sophie and her can-do attitude had something to do with it.

Maddie had sent her mother home after the tedious clunks and clanks of the MRI tube had finally ceased and she’d been released from its coffinlike chamber of horrors. Sophie, of course, had not wanted to leave, but Maddie had insisted. Because Maddie Kavner Daniels was finally, really and truly, able to take care of herself.

Now she only had to wait.

To wait and to think—or try not to think—about Parker, about the stranger that had emerged from inside her and, for once, had stood up for herself.

She supposed it was a self-esteem thing, the kind of psychosis regularly heralded in headline-grabbing articles that appeared in
Savoir
. Maddie didn’t know if she’d lost
her self-esteem when Parker had left, or when her father had died, or if she simply never had any at all.

But now she did. And it was amazing how wonderful she felt. For now it was over, it was finally over. There would be no more stalking and waiting with camera in hand, focusing her telephoto lens from atop the knoll. There would be no more vile thoughts of murder. Maddie had decided to let Parker and Sharlene live their own twisted lives and kill themselves or each other or no one at all.

She, for one, no longer had the energy to waste on them.

And if Maddie were able to make her one wish again … it certainly would not be to have him back in her life.

I’ll never work for that bastard
, Timmy had cried.

Well, neither would Maddie.

She would do something better. She would tell Brian Dixon she’d shot her last
Savoir
cover, then she would take back her business, take back her life. She would get
Our World
back before Parker sold its spoils to another money-grubbing, gray journalist or simply let it rot altogether.

And she knew how she’d do it. It had been six years since the divorce—six years of two thousand dollars a month in child support. Her private little stash. Her “mad Maddie” money. There was a nice chunk set aside now, enough to get a bank to back her for the rest.

The first thing she’d do would be slash the overhead. Get rid of the pretentious Manhattan offices—maybe add on to her studio and move the operation to Westchester.

Suddenly the door to the room opened, distracting her from her thoughts, from her dreams that would not just be dreams after all.

The doctor stepped inside. He carried a clipboard and was not smiling.

“Doctor Chabot?” she asked.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be awake. The sedative often knocks patients out for a while.” He moved slowly toward the bed. He sat on the far corner and rubbed his forehead.

“Do you have the results? Can I leave now?” There was work to be done. Phone calls to make and work to be done.

He put on half-glasses. He took them off. “Yes, I do have the results. And we need to talk.”

An odd sensation moved through her head. “Why? Did you find out I have no insides, that I’m really some kind of alien being?”

He still did not smile. “Maddie,” he continued in a too-serious tone. “You said you’ve had headaches and dizziness. What about short-term memory lapses?”

“No more than usual.” Then she remembered the day she’d forgotten that Bobby was leaving for Paris. And the time she’d forgotten the Hasselblad. “Well, some, I guess.”

“Vision problems?”

“Well, yes.”

“And what about your periods? Have you noticed unusual changes in them?”

“For godssake, doctor. I’m almost fifty years old. I should be seeing some changes there, shouldn’t I?”

Doctor Chabot nodded. He placed his hand on the bed. “The episode you had last week was most probably a seizure. The MRI confirms that.”

“You’re scaring me, doctor. Save the medical jargon. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

He sighed. “It’s a brain tumor, Maddie. A tumor that began in your pituitary gland and hooked onto your brain stem.”

She closed her eyes. She tried to breathe, but no air came in. The room swirled.
This is a dream
, she thought.
This is only a dream
. But when she reopened her eyes, Dr. Chabot was still there. A vision of her twins came into her mind. “Am I going to die, doctor?”

“I won’t lie to you. This type of tumor can be tricky. It always looks nearly impossible to remove surgically, but often it can be.”

“Is it … is it malignant?”

If only he hadn’t paused, she might not be as scared.

“We can’t be certain until we go in.”

He had not said “not usually”; he had not said “of course not.” He merely had paused a heartbeat too long, then said “we can’t be certain until we go in.”