The month of March slipped by, and one April evening as she sat on
her back porch, she heard the first spring peepers. The next day she cut a
half-dozen of the bright yellow daffodils that grew next to the old stone
foundation of the house, put them in a jar of water, and drove to the cemetery.
Katie was here, and Mama, and Grandma and Grandpa Bradley, but it
was Danny she’d come to see. She knelt in the damp grass by his gravestone and
arranged the flowers in front of it. “See what I brought you, darling?” she
said. “Daffodils, because I know they’re your favorite.” She sat quietly,
drinking in the peacefulness of this place where he rested. Tugging at a tuft
of grass near his headstone, she said, “There are some things I need to talk to
you about.”
The sky was vivid blue, the air clean and clear. Toying with a
blade of grass, she said, “I imagine you know about the deal I made with Drew.
And why. You always needed so much to be somebody. I had to prove to you that
you were. Not too shabby a deal for a bastard wop kid from Little Italy.”
She gazed up into the towering elm that had somehow escaped the
fatal blight that had attacked so many of its fellows. “I suppose,” she said,
“you know about Rob, too. I took my marriage vows very seriously, Danny. I
loved you desperately, and I was always faithful to you, even when I knew that
my feelings for Rob had gone miles beyond platonic.” Her voice softened. “Not
a day goes by that I don’t miss you.”
She
plucked at a blade of grass, caught it and rolled it between her fingers. “But
I have to move on now,” she said, tearing at the slender green stalk. “You’re
gone, but Rob’s here, and I love him, Danny, I love him so much it hurts. I’ve
always loved both of you. My feelings for him simply deepened into something
neither of us expected.” She dropped the blade of grass, shoved up the sleeves
of her sweater, and leaned back to better see the brilliant blue of the April
sky. “He’s a good man,” she said. “And if it’s not too late, I’m going to
marry him.”
Still gazing at the sky, she said, “I know you loved us both.
I’d feel better if we had your blessing.”
She stayed there for a long time in the spring sunshine, waiting
patiently for his answer. When it came, she stood up slowly, her knees wet
from the squishy ground. She bent and removed a single daffodil from the jar
and lay it across her daughter’s grave.
And held her head high as she walked back to her car.
***
When she dialed Rob’s number, a woman answered. Stricken, Casey
broke the connection.
What did you expect?
she chastised herself.
Did
you think a man like Rob MacKenzie would stay celibate forever? Did you expect
him to sit around waiting for you?
But of course, that was exactly what she’d thought. She had
obviously been mistaken. Six months had gone by, six months in which he hadn’t
even attempted to contact her. That should have told her something.
She agonized for hours before she worked up the courage to try
again. This time, when the young woman answered, she took a deep breath and
asked for Rob. “Sorry,” the woman said. “Wrong number.” And hung up.
Casey stared in disbelief at the bleating receiver. Again, slowly
and meticulously this time, she dialed Rob’s number. Again, the woman
answered, and this time she sounded irritated. “Look, lady,” she said, “I told
you before there’s no Rob here.”
“Wait!” Casey said. “Please don’t hang up. I’m calling long
distance.”
Something of her desperation must have gotten through, because the
woman’s voice softened. “I’ve only had this number for a couple of weeks,” she
said. “Looks like your friend moved and forgot to tell you. Men!”
It didn’t make sense. Rob wouldn’t have moved. He loved the
Hotel California. Maybe, for some reason, he’d had his number changed. To
avoid overzealous fans.
Or to avoid her.
Directory Assistance was no help at all. Nor was Rob’s answering
service. “Mr. MacKenzie stopped using us in January,” Judy Rossiter told her.
“He paid his bill in full and we haven’t heard from him since.”
She pondered the meaning of all this. Was this Rob’s idea of
retaliation, forcing her to track him down? Or was his disappearing act a
message to her that they really had nothing more to say to each other? Maybe,
just maybe, she’d pushed him too far this time.
She tried Marty Bonner next. Marty had been Rob’s agent for five
years. He would certainly know where Rob was.
Except that Marty didn’t. Coolly, he said, “Mr. MacKenzie and I
are no longer associated.”
“Marty? What on earth are you talking about?”
“He fired me, Casey, three months ago. Just like that. Said it
had been great working with me, but he needed to make some changes in his life,
and he couldn’t do it in L.A. Very unprofessional behavior, if you ask me. He
said he was leaving town, but he didn’t say where he was going, and I didn’t
ask.” Marty paused. “Hell, I figured if anyone knew where he was, it would be
you.”
She’d hit a dead end. If Rob had really left Los Angeles, he
could be anywhere between Tijuana and Bangkok. If he didn’t want to be found,
finding him would be next to impossible.
Unless...
It was a long shot, but if he’d made some kind of permanent move,
he must have gotten around to telling his mother by now. And if he hadn’t,
Rob mailed money home to his parents on a regular basis. Those envelopes had
to be postmarked.
Mary was overjoyed to hear from her. “Casey Fiore, it’s been too
long!” she said. “I thought you’d up and forgotten us!”
“Of course not. I don’t mean to neglect old friends. But life
just gets so godawful messed up at times.”
“Troubles, darlin’?”
Casey hesitated. She would have liked to lay her head on Mary’s
ample bosom and cry. But how could she spill her troubles to the older woman
when it was Mary’s own son who was the cause? “It’s nothing,” she said. “I
called because I’m trying to find Rob. I thought by some wild chance you might
know where he is.”
“I know where he is, all right,” Mary said darkly. “And driving
us crazy, he is.”
Adrenaline shot through her veins. “He’s there?” she said. “In
Boston?”
“He’s been here for going on two months, moping about the house
with this long face, and mean as an old tomcat. He got into a fight with his
dad, tried to talk poor Patrick into buying a new car. Said the old one was no
good, and you know how much stock Patrick takes in that car. Wanted him to buy
a Lincoln Continental, of all things. Can you imagine?”
Casey made a small, strangled sound. “He won’t talk about it to
me,” Mary continued, “but it’s woman trouble. He admitted it to Rose. I’ve
prayed to the good Lord above that the boy will settle down, find himself a
decent wife, but—” She paused, then heaved a mighty sigh. “I don’t know what
to do with him. He’s been puttering around this old house, playing with the
plumbing, caulking the windows, complaining that the place’ll fall into the
cellar one of these days.”
“Mary,” she said, “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”
On the other end of the telephone, there was a measured pause.
“Now, darlin’,” Mary said carefully, “how could it possibly be your fault?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know. Look, I’m coming to Boston.”
“Good girl. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. Should I set
another place for dinner?”
“I’d like that. But, Mary—”
“What, child?”
“It’s really important that I talk to him. Sit on him if you have
to.”
There was another pause. “For you, sweetheart,” Mary said, “I’ll
rope him and tie him to a chair if I have to.”
***
The
kite was bright red, a Chinese dragon, and the kid was having trouble with it.
It took a nose dive and plummeted toward the sea, recovering at the eleventh
hour and swooping back upward with a crisp snap that he heard clearly from
three hundred yards away. Except for the two of them, Rob and the kid with the
kite, Revere Beach was deserted. Over the past few weeks, he’d come out here
often enough so the residents of the massive, ugly condos that lined the beach
were probably familiar by now with the black Porsche with the vanity plates
that said
WIZARD
. Seldom given to introspection, Rob MacKenzie had
found in his thirty-fifth year that he had a great deal to think about. And
Revere was the ideal place to do it, close enough to the city so he could watch
the silver birds at Logan, people coming and going and living their busy lives,
yet isolated enough so he could watch without having to be a part of that
busyness.
Mostly
he thought about the three of them, and about the complexities of their
interrelationships over the span of fifteen years. He remembered vividly the
first night he’d met Casey, and how they’d clicked, right then and there. He
might have even let himself fall in love with her then, if it hadn’t been so
obvious that she and Danny were blind to everything but each other. He could
never compete with Danny. Who could? Danny had something that drew people to
him, men and women alike. He had dazzled, and Rob had never begrudged him
that. Dazzling involved certain responsibilities that Rob wouldn’t have welcomed.
He was too much his own man to covet the opportunity to live his life to please
other people. He lived his life for Rob MacKenzie, and he wouldn’t want it any
other way. It wasn’t Danny’s charisma he coveted; it was Danny’s wife. Or,
more precisely, Danny’s widow.
And
that, he reluctantly admitted, was the real reason he’d turned tail and run.
The plain truth was that Danny Fiore was a hard act to follow. He didn’t have
Danny’s looks or his charm or his goddamn sense of style. Danny was silk and
Dom
Perignon
. Rob was denim and Heineken. Danny was filet mignon, he was Big
Mac. Danny was a god, while he was just a mortal man, trying his best to
survive in this mixed-up world.
He’d
said some terrible things to her. He’d accused her of not being ready, but the
truth was that he wasn’t any more ready than she was. He’d run away because he
was so afraid that some day—maybe not next week or next month, but somewhere
down the road—he would see it in her eyes, the disappointment she was too much
of a lady to voice. And he couldn’t face that.
The
kid with the kite was way down the beach now, and somehow he’d finally got the
thing to fly. It dipped and swooped, then climbed steadily into the blue
brilliance of the spring sky. Rob got up from his seat in the pavilion and
shoved his hands in his pockets as the wind that was left over from March
whipped his shirt against his lanky frame. Maybe it didn’t matter that he was
something less than a god. Maybe being with her was more important than worrying
about the future. Maybe loving her would be worth taking the chance.
He found his mother in the kitchen, mixing a cake, those sturdy
arms whipping the wooden spoon in a rapid motion perfected by decades of
cooking for a small army. Her hair was a mess, reddish-gray strands poking out
in every direction, and for the first time, Rob realized how old she looked.
He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her and gave her a
bone-crunching hug.
“And what in blue blazes might this be about?” she said.
“Women may come and women may go,” he said, “but a man’s mom is
always his first and best girl.”
She snorted. “A mother continues to love her child,” she said,
stirring the cake batter with a vengeance, “even when he acts like an
abominable ass.”
“Is that how I’ve been acting?”
“I sugarcoated it so I wouldn’t hurt your precious feelings.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a shithead.”
“Watch your mouth. I don’t know whether to hug you,” she added,
wiping the spoon on the lip of the bowl, “or take you over my knee. Exactly
what kind of foolishness have you been perpetrating?”
He felt the same way he’d felt at twelve, when she caught him
smoking out back of Billy Neely’s store. “What?” he said with exaggerated
innocence, and stuck a finger into the cake batter.
“I talked to Casey today.”
He froze, the batter halfway to his mouth. His mother’s lips were
pursed and she looked as though she knew every rotten thing he’d done in his
entire thirty-five years. “I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out sooner,” she
said. “The way you’ve been pissing and moaning about the house. I knew three
years ago that she was sweet on you.”
“What?” he said. “What in hell are you talking about?”
“Lick that damnable batter off your finger before it drips all
over my clean kitchen floor. When Casey came to visit me, the summer she and
Danny, God rest his soul, were renovating that money pit they bought up in the
wilderness, all she could talk about was you. It was Rob this, and Rob that.
Rob, Rob, Rob. Some way or another, we ended up looking through the family
photo albums. Pictures of you kids when you were little. She swallowed up
those pictures of you like they were sugar candy. I thought,
Lord have
mercy, there’s heartbreak ahead here
.”