Girl in the Mirror (17 page)

Michael leaped from the truck and hurried to her side, scooping her in his arms and planting a deep kiss on her mouth. When he released her he handed her an enormous bouquet of flowers.

“You weren’t supposed to be awake yet. I wanted to be here when you opened your eyes.”

The tears in her eyes flowed down her cheeks and she reached around his neck to hug him close. “Oh, Michael, I am awake. Wide awake. And I see you.”

“That’s not all I want you to see. Come! Look at what I’ve brought,” he said, tugging her toward his truck with the excitement of a boy at Christmas.

He was a man accustomed to giving orders, and the men responded to him quickly and with respect. She lingered close behind him, admiring the flats and flats of flowers as they were unloaded.

“So many, Michael!” Her hands were on her cheeks; her mouth was grinning widely.

“That’s just the beginning. Wait here.”

He strode off in long, happy strides toward his men, then led them around the lot, pointing out the landmarks for his foreman and reviewing the blueprints. He spoke to the six workers in Spanish, joking with ease and friendliness. How efficient he was, she thought, watching him with pride mixed with admiration. And his crew was well organized. Within a half hour of their arrival, they’d begun outlining her gardens with string and the first shovels struck the earth.

“You’ve brought so much more than I ordered,” she said when he returned to her side.

“I hope you’ll allow me to give you gifts.”

“But so many…I’ve given you nothing.”

He moved to stand intimately close to her, running his callused hand along her back. The silky slide of fabric revealed she was naked under the robe. His lips caressed the top of her head and he said in a gruff voice, “The gift you gave me last night was the most precious gift I’ve ever received.”

She was deeply moved. The final insecurities she’d felt this morning evaporated in the sunlit sky like a specter at dawn. A small smile curved her lips and she moved them closer to his ear. “The pleasure was in the giving.”

“Dios,”
he swore softly, and moved his head to cover her lips with his own. “You are a quick learner,
querida.
One night a virgin, the next morning a temptress.”

“I had a good teacher.”

“I’ll give you another lesson tonight, my love. But for now—” his caress on her bottom became a firm pat “—I must get to work with my men. I’ve already stripped the crews from other jobs. There’ll be hell to pay, I’m sure. So, if we’re going to get your garden in before you leave to film your movie, it’s got to be today. Besides, you really must go inside and get dressed. It would be a shame if I have to kill all those good men for sneaking looks at you in that skimpy robe.”

She blushed furiously, unaccustomed as she was to such teasing. He loved her shyness, the fumbling on the sash of her robe, her long toes curling in the grass. She was in so many ways still a gawky young girl, all long limbs, bones and awkward blushes. Then she’d surprise him and assume a mantle of maturity, a depth of wisdom in those pale blue orbs that extended beyond her years. She was a quixotic creature, and he doubted he would ever grow bored. He reached for her again and cupped her small rear, pressing her close.

“Okay, break it up. You’ll inspire a mutiny out there.” Bobby sauntered to their side, his large panama hat fanning his smiling face. He was dressed in pale linen pants and a flowing mint shirt, certainly nothing to wear while working rocks out of the soil. He once told her that he went to sites “strictly as an adviser.”

“They’re looking at you like you’re a bowl of juicy ripe strawberries,” Bobby said to Charlotte.

She laughed lightly, feeling happy.

“Nice of you to show up,” Michael said. He seemed aloof and dropped his hand from her. She tilted her head, wondering at the sudden tension. “Go around back and tell them to keep their eyes to themselves. I’ll be right there. Please,” he added, his voice cool.

Bobby’s smile hardened. “You’re the boss.” He flopped the hat on his head, then with a worldly air, bowed to Charlotte, offered her a friendly wink and walked away, his heels clicking on the pavement.

“Shit,” Michael swore, slamming his hands on his hips and scowling.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” He was cutting her off. “Listen, I’ve got to see to things.” He gave her a chaste kiss. “Later. We’ll talk about those strawberries.”

Her gaze followed Michael as he walked with purpose toward the side lot where his men were working and his brother was leaning over the blueprints, directing the placement of the plastic edging. What could have happened between those brothers that made them so estranged, she wondered?

The men finished packing up the tools into the truck and drove off before the sun set, eager to be home. They’d put in a long, full day. Bobby was the last to leave, presenting Charlotte with a hybrid tea rose plant as his gift.

“Yellow roses are for friendship,” he told her, placing the pink-fringed yellow rose in her hands. “I’ll leave it to Romeo here to give you the red roses. Long-stemmed beauties. Like you. I took the liberty of creating a small bed for roses over there by the far edge of the patio. The spot is perfect and you’ll catch the scent as you sit.” He kissed her on both cheeks. “Welcome to California.”

“Don’t feel you have to leave,” she hurried to reply. “I was just going to serve some wine. Won’t you stay for a glass?” She looked at Michael to add to the argument, but he held curiously back.

Bobby glanced at his brother, then back at her with a slight flush. “No, but thank you for the offer. It’s Friday night and I have plans. I’ll be back next week with a truckload of mulch, that is, if my brother doesn’t bring it. Now, why do I suspect he will?” There was a gentle tease in his eyes. Michael looked at his boots.

After he left Charlotte carried a tray of chilled glasses of white wine and a bowl of fresh strawberries that she’d purchased at the market especially for tonight. Beyond them the sky was shooting out spears of magenta, purple and pink that rivaled the colors in her new garden.

And such a garden Michael had given her. She was overcome with love for him just to see it. The scrubby lot had been transformed into a charming, informal garden that had the exuberance of spirit that comes from a mixture of flowers and herbs against a backbone of select trees and shrubs. Earlier, Michael had taken her hand and walked the gentle sloping hills now dazzling with the extravagant colors of verbena. She was delighted with his asymmetrical approach, curves blending one into another. It softened the harsh lines of the landscape, flattering the house, creating an oasis in which to relax.

On the patio he’d placed several immense terra-cotta pots for Melanie’s herbs. Occasionally a breeze brought the scent of rosemary or lavender, and the heady fragrance of Bobby’s rose.

“You’ve done too much,” she said, gazing at the last views of her garden in the fading light. “Do you always go overboard?”

“Only where it concerns you,” he replied. “I intend to spoil you terribly so you’ll be unfit for any other man.”

“You’ve already succeeded. You can rest on your laurels.”

“Hmm. I still have to plant a laurel bush.”

“Stop, you’ve done too much already. They’ll say I’m a kept woman and Mrs. Delaney will raise the rent.”

He shrugged insolently and swirled his wine. “Tell her they’re mostly annuals. If you leave, it will all revert to nasty weeds with long, stubborn roots in all that expensive soil I just put in. She should reduce your rent for improving the property.”

“I don’t care about any of that. I’m just so happy.”

“I am, too,” he replied, surprised to realize that for the first time in many years, it was true.

S
o this is love, Charlotte mused. For one glorious summer Charlotte lived and breathed Michael Mondragon. His name was on the tip of her tongue while the sun was up, and filling her dreams when the sun was down. Her skin glowed with a rosy color, partly from joy and partly from the long hours she was spending outdoors in her garden. She liked to run her hands through the rich, black soil, relishing its coolness, thinking of the way she combed her hand through Michael’s thick black hair when they made love. It seemed all of her senses were awakened and alive. The air smelled sweeter, the birds sang more clearly, the nerves of her fingertips were sensitive to hot and cold, smooth and rough.

Most of all, the woman that she saw in the mirror was no longer an impostor. Especially after lovemaking, after Michael had caressed every inch of her body and turned her feelings inside out. At those times, flushed with satisfaction, when she looked in the mirror she actually liked the face she saw smiling there.

It was the face that Michael loved.

Michael came to see her every day. They’d trowel together in the garden a bit, perhaps she’d toss in some peat moss, or he’d add a plant or two. Then she’d cook him dinner and he’d stay until late in the night. He was an insatiable lover and an incurable romantic. She discovered a sweetness and kindness that he hid behind his usual stern expressions and silent demeanor. Or perhaps it was a side that he chose to reveal to only a few people. She wondered this while watching him chop vegetables into professionally small pieces and talking animatedly. She giggled thinking that her stoic Michael could talk up a storm when alone with her after a heady bout of lovemaking. He had many sides to his personality. He was like the soil—dark, mysterious, sensual, grounded. The thought of planting roots in him appealed to her. Her love for him was everything. She couldn’t imagine a future without him. She never thought she could feel so connected to another human being.

Which was why lying to him had become such a burden. The more he opened up to her, the more she found it necessary to close doors. At night, after they’d made love, Michael liked to draw her up to his shoulders. He’d punch the pillows behind his head, then hold her tightly in his arms, sometimes lightly stroking her hair, sometimes tracing patterns on her arm, while he talked about his family, his philosophies, his ideas. It was then, when she should have felt closest to him, that she felt the wedge of lies slip between them.

He told of the time his father, Luis, swam across the river into the United States one dark, starless night. Thigh-deep in water he’d met a pregnant woman struggling to cross with her three-year-old child. Luis carried the child on his shoulders as he swam the heavy current, then, after settling the child on the shore, he’d returned to help the woman reach safety.

He told of how every Saturday night, until puberty when he staunchly refused, his mother had treated his dark skin with a mixture of egg white and lemon juice concentrate as a remedy to lighten his dark skin. It was Marta’s lifelong sadness, Michael said with a sad smile, that the potion never worked for him.

Lying on his dark chest, she loved to hear his laugh rumble beneath her ear as he spoke of his fiery sister, Rosa, a tomboy who refused to wear a dress, learn to cook or take dancing lessons like all the other girls. She was a home-run hitter on her softball team, liked strong coffee and Cuban cigars, was a whiz at math and science, and was stronger than most men he knew. Yet as a woman, she had fought with their parents to send her to college. College was unthinkable for a girl whose main job in life was to raise a family. A waste of money. So Rosa got married to Manuel quickly after high school and ran the business with their father. When Charlotte asked about Bobby, however, Michael was strangely silent.

He had so many stories to tell about his family, his boyhood, his years away at college. He had opinions about everything: pollution, politics, religion, even the way she wore her hair. In turn, Charlotte ventured her own opinions about these subjects, flattered that he was a rapt audience. She prided herself on her intelligence. For most of her life, it was the one attribute she could hold out to the world without shyness or fear of being mocked. Now, when her brains tended to be overshadowed by her beauty, she was all the more appreciative to share ideas with Michael. They loved to debate loudly, heatedly, over anything at all, usually ending their contest in a tangled, passionate pile on the bed.

When he asked about her childhood, however, she answered obliquely, shrugging away a lifetime with “Oh, there’s not much to tell.”

One night she came very close to telling him the truth. That the face he loved had been created by man, not God. That she was estranged from her mother, that her childhood had been hard and downtrodden. What did he call the story? The Ugly Duckling Who Turned into the Swan? Yes, she wanted to say to him. That was her story!

But he told her again how much he loved her face, how her beauty mesmerized him. How would he feel about her if she told him the truth? He would think she was unnatural. Some kind of freak. The truth died, unspoken, on her lips. So the lies endured, and the more days that passed, the more trapped she became by them.

All these thoughts were like thorny rambling roses in her mind as she dug energetically in the late summer garden, the one he’d created for her. Tomorrow, she’d be leaving to begin filming
One Day in Autumn
in Maine. They had only today left before they’d be separated for two months. Their love was too new to test, she decided. She’d tell him everything when she returned.

“You should wear some gloves or your hands will get callused.”

Charlotte startled, bringing mud to her shirt where her hand covered her heart. It was more than the surprise that made her heart jump. That feeling happened every time she saw Michael Mondragon.

“You scared me. I didn’t hear you.”

“You were a million miles away.”

“Not really. I was thinking of you.”

That answer pleased him. His eyes lit up and shone like the sunshine, and he gathered her in his arms as gently as if she were a bunch of flowers.

Freddy was eager to see Charlotte, eager to discuss the travel itinerary with her, eager to give her the good news of another pivotal project he’d just lined up for her. Production of
One Day in Autumn
was right on schedule. And he already had another project in the works. A big deal with big money that would eclipse anything she could have imagined. Another period piece. Charlotte’s classic features were perfect, and combined with her remarkable ear for accents, a whole vista of film opportunities closed to actresses without her range lay open to her.

Then there was that book treatment on the horizon that LaMonica had sent over. It was a zany book, full of action, romance and humor and, most of all, memorable characters. If film could do the book justice, then it was sure to be a cult hit. Like
Pulp Fiction.

He was coming from a meeting with LaMonica that had lasted from coffee and doughnuts in his office, to Ma Maison for lunch to cocktails at the Polo Lounge. There was a part in there for Charlotte that could really showcase her. Zoom her right to the top. He knew it, LaMonica knew it. The question was, for how much?

LaMonica kept saying, “We’re also talking to Uma Thurman.”

Freddy would counter with “Yeah, and we’re talking to Begelman about another deal.”

It was a game they were playing, shuffling the pieces like cards on the table. He knew that LaMonica wanted the script and the director to be the stars of this film. An unknown actress with an unforgettable face was what he was really after. And Freddy had her.

“Go fish, John,” he said to himself with a smug grin as he pulled into Charlotte’s driveway and yanked back the parking brake. He was in the works early on this one and was working like a dog trying to package the big deal. When he left LaMonica’s office, it was all set except for Charlotte’s signature on the line.

He grabbed the bottle of Dom Pérignon from the passenger seat, slammed the door and almost sprinted to the house. He was feeling buoyant, like he was full of helium and about to fly. What was that cornball saying? High on life, not blow? Whatever, it was true. When there was no answer at the door, he mumbled impatiently and trotted around the back.

En route, he looked around, puzzled. It dawned on him that something was different since he’d been here last. The place looked pretty good. What was it? He craned his neck. The shutters and the front door were painted a bright turquoise color, there were some nice bushes by the front door, and hell, he was walking on an attractive winding gravel path that wasn’t here before.

When he rounded the corner of the house, he stopped short, mouth agog. The whole frigging yard was transformed. It was like a fairy godmother had come, flicked her magic wand and changed the pumpkin into a coach.

“What the—” With his hands on his hips he took in the curves of flowers and landscaped walks, the blooming shrubs. It was like he was in a small park. Where the hell did all this come from? Who died and left these gals some money? He heard a soft, throaty laugh and turned his head toward the back patio. Under a pergola that wasn’t there two weeks ago, he saw Charlotte on her knees digging some kind of leggy vine into the dirt at its base. Beside her knelt some dark-haired, dark-skinned man, no doubt the gardener. Freddy’s heart skipped when he saw her in that funny little white straw hat and those cute little gloves. She was something, all right. What a pretty picture she made.

He lifted his hand in a wave and was about to shout out a hearty hello when he saw her raise her eyes to the gardener and, with a coy smile, reach up to tenderly brush a leaf from his hair. Her hand lingered by his ear, then slid down to cup his jaw in her palm while she gazed at him. The man’s eyes burned into hers, then he turned his head to kiss her lightly.

Freddy’s hand dropped to his side. His mouth turned dry and he felt the breath whoosh out of him like he’d been socked a good one in the solar plexus. What the hell was going on here? He stared for a few minutes more before getting the feeling that his eyeballs were going to burst into flames. He could understand her flirting a bit with the gardener. Hell, every estrogen-replaced woman in Southern California licked her lips over those broad shouldered, tanned young boys who toiled in their manicured lawns. But Charlotte was a hot young girl with a world of prospects. She didn’t have to bottom fish.

So could someone explain to him why she was in her backyard with some guy in stained khakis and dirty hands, both of them cooing and pawing each other like teenagers in a hormone surge?

His own blood began to bubble and he could feel his pressure rise. He wasn’t about to sit back and watch his investment go down the proverbial cesspool. Gripping the champagne tight, he stepped forward.

“Charlotte!” he called out. “Come to Papa, baby. I’ve got good news.”

Charlotte sprang to her feet, and he was pleased to see an embarrassed flush flame her cheeks. Yeah, he thought bitterly. Caught you in the act. He sauntered, even swaggered, to her side, arms outstretched. When he reached her, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her long enough, and with enough familiarity, so as to make it clear to the guy he wasn’t just another acquaintance.

Charlotte stepped back from Freddy’s embrace and eyed the young man at her side warily. From the corner of his eye he noted that the dark-haired man was standing very still, his broad shoulders thrown back over slim hips, and his dark, thick brows knitted over squinting eyes. Freddy thought he looked like a matador and despised him instantly for that glamour, that brutal power. He resented him deeply for making him feel like the goddamn snorting bull.

“Freddy,” Charlotte said, her voice high with tension.

“I’d like you to meet Michael Mondragon. From the Mondragon Nursery.”

Alarms went off in his head. Nursery? So that was where all the flowers and stuff came from. Shit, he thought, looking around. What the hell did she do to deserve all this? Freddy purposefully slighted him, dismissing him with a scant glance.

“Hmm, yes.”

Charlotte flushed and the young man eyed him with barely concealed fury. Freddy added insult to injury by turning his back to the young man and addressing Charlotte.

“Can we go somewhere and talk? In private.” He looked over at the man with deliberate disdain. “Tell your gardener to go home. It’s past quitting time.”

“He’s not my…”

“I’m afraid you misconstrue the situation,” the man said in a low, dangerous voice.

Freddy turned with insolent slowness, taking the man’s measure in a trick he’d learned years ago from a five foot two, balding movie mogul. It was all in the straight shoulders and the sneer, and it almost never failed to intimidate.

“Oh, yeah?” he drawled, finishing the routine. “And just how do you know what I ‘construe’?”

The man didn’t back down. Rather, he smiled with a superior kind of mockery that set Freddy’s teeth on edge. “I have no intention of leaving. I’ve only just arrived. My business with Miss Godfrey is personal. It’s you, I believe, who keeps business hours with Miss Godfrey and it’s—” he looked briefly at the red sun lowering in the western sky “—quite late. We were just about to have dinner.”

Freddy felt the doughnuts he’d had for breakfast, the mussels marinara he’d consumed for lunch and all the nuts he nibbled on with his martinis roil in his gut and threaten to choke him. His temper erupted and he took a step forward and pushed hard against the man’s chest, shoving him back. “Listen, you lousy spic, I oughta…”