Ask Mariah (14 page)

Sophia paused in front of the sign that read Happy Hollow School. In a few moments she would go inside. She wished her sister Elena had come with her, but Elena had told her that nothing good could come from seeing this woman, that there was no point.

But there was a point. And Sophia knew exactly what it was. She just didn't know if she had the right to make that point.

The longer she hesitated, the more doubts flooded her mind, but she was consumed with curiosity. She wanted to know what the woman looked like, hear her voice, watch her mannerisms. She wanted to know if there was any possibility De Luca blood ran through her veins.

There was so much at stake. Marriage. Family. Reputation. Honor. The foundation of their lives. They weren't young anymore, none of them, not Vincent or Elena or herself. They couldn't start over.  Just being here was a risk.

Part of her wanted to run away, but another part of her knew she had to go forward. How could she not see this woman who looked so much like Angela?

The answer was simple. She couldn't.

* * *

"Joanna, you have a phone call in the lounge," Nora said. "My class is gone, so I can watch your last few stragglers."

"All right. It's just the twins."

"Aren't you going to stay and say hello to Daddy?" Rose asked.

"I have a phone call, honey," Joanna said, secretly relieved that she might actually miss seeing Michael. She'd thought about him all night and all day. In fact, she couldn't get him out of her mind, and it wasn't healthy. She needed some answers, something to put an end to the mystery. That's why she had made a few calls during her lunch break. She hoped one of them was calling back.

"Are you mad at Daddy again, Mama? Are you going to go see that other man with the black mustache?" Rose pressed on, her brown eyes filled with worry. "I don't like him. He has scary eyes. Please don't go there again."

Joanna glanced at Nora, who sent her a compassionate look. Then she turned back to the girls. "Rose, honey, I'm not your mother. I'm Joanna, and I'm just going into the teachers' lounge to take a phone call."

"Why don't you two show me what you did today?" Nora said, drawing their attention away from Joanna.

Joanna hurriedly left the room before any more protests could form. In the lounge she sat down on the couch, and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Joanna Wingate?"

"Yes."

"This is Pamela Cogswell. I believe you called me earlier."

"Yes, I did," Joanna said. "You might not remember me, but I'm hoping you remember my mother."

"Of course I do. Goodness, Caroline and Edward lived next door to us for eight years. That was before you were born, of course, and before they moved to San Francisco. How are your parents?"

"My mother is fine. My father passed away a few months ago."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess we all lost touch, didn't we? How can I help you, Joanna?"

She hesitated, knowing she was about to take a step that she might never be able to retrace. Her mother wouldn't forgive her for calling Pamela, regardless of the answer. Family matters were always private with Caroline. She never allowed herself to be exposed in any way. But Joanna knew she couldn't simply pretend that Angela De Luca had never existed, not with the twins sitting in her classroom each morning, not with Michael's image taking up permanent residence in her mind.

"Joanna?" Pamela repeated.

"Yes, I was wondering if you remember when my mother first became pregnant with me."

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "What an odd question," Pamela said. "Why on earth would you ask me that?"

She couldn't possibly give her the real reason. "I'm redoing our family albums, putting all the photos in order, and for some reason I can't find any photos of when my mother was pregnant. Since she said the two of you were very close, I was hoping that perhaps you might have one from a party or something." She held her breath, knowing it was a lame excuse at best.

"No, I don't have any photos. Frankly I didn't see your mother all that much in the few months before she and Edward moved to San Francisco. I didn't even know they were thinking of moving. It came as quite a surprise. And they took off so suddenly. The
For Sale
sign went up one day, and the next day they were gone."

"Really?"

"Yes. Your mother was unhappy for a long time, I think. We all had children and she didn't. We tended to talk about our kids, their schools, their sports programs. We didn't mean to leave your mother out, but sometimes I think she felt that way. Those were different times, you know. Women didn't have as many options as they do now."

"No, I don't suppose they did," Joanna murmured, Pamela's words only reinforced the uneasy feeling in her stomach.
Her mother had felt left out. She'd been trying to have a baby. She'd been feeling desperate.

"Anyway, a few months after your parents moved," Pamela continued, "I got a baby announcement, so I guess everything worked out in the end. We exchanged Christmas cards for a while, but neither your mother nor I were ever particularly good correspondents."

"So you never actually saw my mother pregnant?"

"No, but she was always so thin. She was probably months along before she showed."

"Probably."

"She must have been pregnant before she left. I think you were born just three or four months after they moved. I'm sorry I couldn't help you, Joanna. Say hello to your mother for me, won't you?"

"Of course." As she hung up the phone, she knew she had absolutely no intention of telling Caroline anything about this phone call.

It didn't make sense. Her mother said she had moved to the city just a few weeks before Joanna was born. She had to have been pregnant when she lived next door to Pamela Cogswell.

Unless Caroline had never been pregnant. Unless she'd gotten her baby some other way.

Goose bumps ran down Joanna's arms. Her pretty, petite blond mother was turning into a stranger in her mind. And her father with his jovial smile, his twinkling eyes, his tender words. Had it all been a lie? A farce? Was she really their child? And if Caroline wasn't her mother, who was?

* * *

Sophia dawdled as long as she could, but the redheaded teacher named Nora seemed eager to usher her out the door. "I was hoping to meet their teacher," Sophia said.

"Joanna's on the phone," Nora replied. "I don't know how long she'll be."

"Could I wait?"

"Maybe you could speak to her tomorrow -- or the next day." Nora glanced at her watch. "I need to close up the school."

"Can we go to the park?" Lily tugged on Sophia's sleeve.

"In a minute, dear."

Sophia darted another look toward the doorway, desperate to prolong her visit. She had summoned up the courage to see Joanna now, not tomorrow, not the next day -- but today. She didn't know if she would have the guts to come back. Second thoughts already crowded her mind.

"Why do you want to talk to Joanna?" Lily asked. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Do you think she's Mama, too?"

Sophia stepped back, startled by the question. "No, of course not. I just wanted to meet your teacher, that's all."

"Why don't you come back tomorrow?" Nora said decisively, moving them toward the door.

Sophia walked as slowly as she could, but eventually they reached the front door, then the walkway, then the sidewalk. She stopped to take one last look at the school. No sign of Joanna Wingate. Maybe it was meant to be this way.

* * *

Joanna met up with Nora at the door to the teachers' lounge.

"Don't move," Nora said sharply. Then, contradicting her own request, she took Joanna by the hand and led her over to the window. Slitting the Venetian blinds with two fingers, she tipped her head toward the window. "Look."

"Why?"

"Just look."

Joanna stepped up to the window. She saw Lily and Rose holding hands with an older woman. The woman had short black hair and was somewhat plump. Before Joanna could catch a glimpse of her face, the woman turned and walked away from the school.

"Who was that?" she asked, surprised that Michael hadn't picked up the girls.

"Sophia De Luca, their grandmother." Nora lowered her voice. "She wanted to see you."

"She did?" Joanna felt a shiver run down her spine. "I guess that's only natural. I showed you that picture of her daughter."

Nora stared at her without saying a word.

"You're making me nervous," Joanna said.

"I didn't like the way she looked."

"How did she look?"

"Like you," Nora said. "She looked like you, Joanna."

She swallowed hard. "It's just the dark hair. People think I'm Italian all the time. My mom and I just laugh it off. Some people think I'm Hispanic and they speak Spanish to me. It's no big deal."

"Are you done?"

Joanna hugged her arms close to her body. "I'd like to be done."

"You've got to talk to your mother, Joanna."

"I have. She thinks it's a coincidence."

"What do you think?"

Joanna moved away from the window. "I don't know. They say everyone has a double.It happens. A fluke of genetics."

"Your mother has always been so possessive of you," Nora said slowly. "She rarely let you out of her sight. Even in college she used to call you a couple of times a week and come down on the weekends. It was always fun to have her around, but now that I think about it, it was a bit odd."

She held up a hand. "Please, Nora. Don't speculate. Believe me, I'm doing enough of that on my own."

"What if something really strange happened?"

"Like what?"

"Like you were kidnapped. You might have been one of those kids who was stolen as a baby."

Joanna's hand shook as she tucked her hair behind her ear. "Don't be ridiculous. You know my mother. Can you imagine her doing such a thing?"

Nora didn't answer.

"Neither can I," Joanna finished. "I have to get out of here."

"Are you going home?"

"I don't know. I need to talk to someone who can tell me something, someone who can make sense of this absurd situation. Maybe I should talk to the twins' father again. Find out more about the De Lucas."

Nora walked her to the door. "The girls told me about your trip to their house and the ice cream parlor. Are you sure talking to Mr. Ashton is a good idea? You're getting pretty involved with this man and his family."

"I'm not sure about anything anymore," Joanna said as she left the room. Her life had once been so calm, so peaceful, so boring. Now she felt continually uneasy, as if every second of each day brought her closer to the edge of a precipice, and she was terribly afraid that if she fell in, she wouldn't ever get out. Unless someone threw her a lifeline -- someone like Michael.

* * *

Michael set down his drafting pencil. His sketch of the Connaught Office Building still didn't impress him. The lines were too bland. There was nothing exciting about it. It certainly wasn't special enough to replace the Stratton Hotel.

Impulsively he picked up the paper and crumpled it into a ball, "With two seconds on the clock," he said, mimicking a sports announcer, "he goes for the three pointer. At the buzzer he shoots and scores."

He tossed the paper ball through the small plastic hoop he had placed over the trash can. If nothing else, his shooting skills were getting better.

He sat back in his chair and tried to get inspired, but instead of lines and angles, he thought about Joanna, about her passionate plea to restore the Stratton. Of course, he could never convince Gary Connaught to do that. He wouldn't even try. Jackson Cox would probably fire him if he even mentioned the word "restoration."

Resting his hands behind his head, he stared at the ceiling. He needed a vision, something to spark his imagination. Who was he kidding? There was nothing to get excited about. He was designing a rectangle, a very expensive checkerboard of squares that would reach into the sky, blocking out sunlight and turning the street below into a dark and windy tunnel.

But he was not destroying the city. Contrary to what Joanna thought, there could be beauty in modern buildings, buildings that would withstand earthquakes, that could house offices, condos, and restaurants all within one structure. Each generation demanded its own monuments. Who was she to criticize Gary Connaught's choice of an office building?

A historian, that's who she was. He smiled to himself. Joanna might look like Angela, but she certainly didn't think like her. Angela had thrown food out before the expiration date just to make sure she didn't have anything old in the refrigerator. She had watched the fashion trends like a hawk, never wanting to be left behind the newest fad.