Father Christmas (16 page)

Molly hoped she looked as interested as she
ought to be. What Elsie Pelham was saying was important. Molly
needed to know about the custody arrangements of her school’s
pupils—and she needed to know the home environments her students
were coming from. But two days after John had kissed her, she was
still dazed and distracted, struggling to keep her focus on the
present. Her memory of those few passionate moments in the foam pit
kept dimming her mind like a dense winter fog.

She’d been all but useless on Sunday, when
she and Allison Winslow had driven down to Stamford to look at
bridal gowns and dresses for the attendants. Allison had oohed and
ahhed over sophisticated white-silk sheaths and fairy-tale
confections of satin and lace, and like a dolt Molly had just
nodded and mumbled, “That one’s nice. So’s that one. I like that
one fine.” She just couldn’t get excited about bridal dresses when
she was suffering from emotional arrhythmia, her heartbeat becoming
syncopated whenever she thought about John—which was most of the
time.

“
The only reason his
lawyer is calling me instead of my lawyer is to frighten me,” Elsie
Pelham prattled. “It’s a kind of harassment.”

“
I understand that it
upsets you,” Molly interjected. “I hope you’re not projecting your
concerns onto Abigail.”

“
She doesn’t even ask
about her father. But it’s hard, you know? Every time the phone
rings, my blood-pressure rises through the roof. I’m really trying
not to drag her into it, but it’s hard.”

“
We’ll do whatever we can
to give her a stable environment here,” Molly assured her. “You
ought to talk to your lawyer. As you say, this other attorney is
harassing you. Maybe there’s some legal way you can make him
stop.”

“
I mean, because I don’t
even know where my ex is. The court gave me custody, and if that
jerk cared he could’ve stuck around in town so he could see Abbie
on the weekends. Instead he just took off, and now his lawyer is in
my face.”

Molly smiled gently. “I can’t give you legal
advice, Elsie. All I can give you is child-care advice. And you
know what I’ll tell you there—you’ve got to make Abbie feel secure
and loved, and try to keep her as far as possible from the strife
between you and your former husband.”

“
I know, I know.” Elsie
Pelham sighed. “Thanks. I’ll give my lawyer a call. Even though the
minute he picks up his phone the meter starts running. That’s the
real reason they’re doing this, you know—to cost me money. My ex is
exacting revenge for the settlement. He resents every penny I
got—and believe me, there weren’t too many pennies in that
settlement. And now it’s all going to my lawyer.”

Molly nodded again. She truly felt bad for
what Elsie was going through. Some lawyers were in it for nothing
but the money. And the people who wound up suffering the most in
ugly divorces like this were the children. “I’ll tell Shannon to
pay extra close attention to Abbie,” she promised. “If we see any
signs of stress, we’ll let you know.”

“
She’s my baby,” Elsie
said, buttoning her wool coat and thrusting her hands into her
gloves. “I want her to have a good Christmas.”

“
Of course.” Still
nodding, Molly shaped a compassionate smile for Elsie and waved her
out the front door. She couldn’t solve the woman’s problems for
her, but she could pledge that as long as Abigail Pelham was at the
Children’s Garden she would be all right.

It was a pledge she honored with all the
children at the school, no matter who they were or where they came
from or what was going on in their parents’ lives. That included
Michael Russo and whatever was going on in his father’s life.

And there she was, thinking about John
again.

The door swung open, letting in a gust of
chilly air. Like the embodiment of her thoughts, Michael skipped
past her desk and into the front hall, singing “The Wheels on the
Bus” but garbling the words. She grinned at the way he mangled the
verse about the wipers—he called them “wet-wipes”—and turned
expectantly toward the door, both hoping and fearing that John
would enter.

Her hopes and fears were realized. John
stepped across the threshold, his hair windblown, his bomber jacket
zipped against the cold, his hands in his pockets and his gaze
resolutely on his son, as if he didn’t want to look at Molly.

“
Hello,” she said. He
might wish to avoid looking at her, but she wasn’t going to be a
coward about it. He was here, and the least he could do was
acknowledge her existence.

He turned toward her reluctantly. The dark
beauty of his eyes stunned her. His expression conveyed so
much—only she couldn’t interpret it. She knew there was a message
in his eyes, in the enigmatic curve of his lips, the rugged angle
of his chin. If only he was as eloquent with his words as he was
with his gaze.

“
Hi,” he said.

Now what? If Saturday’s
kiss hadn’t happened, Molly could have asked him how Michael’s
weekend was. But Saturday’s kiss
had
happened, and the daily morning drop-off ritual was no longer
a simple thing.

As difficult as John was to read, she got
the impression that he was uncomfortable, regretting the time he’d
spent with her on Saturday, regretting the kiss. He probably would
prefer to pretend it never happened. But ignoring the truth wasn’t
one of Molly’s talents.

“
How are you?” she asked
cautiously.

He studied her at her desk, his eyes
narrowing on her upturned face. His smile grew more mysterious, but
it didn’t disappear. “Loaded question,” he said, then glanced down
the hall at Michael. “Are you having trouble with your boots,
Mike?” he asked.

“
No, I can do it,” Michael
shouted back. Molly heard the thud of a boot hitting the carpeted
floor, followed by Michael’s cheerful, off-key warble: “The
wet-wipe on the bus go swish, swish, swish!”

John chuckled. Turning back to Molly, he
fell silent, as if embarrassed that she should see him enjoying his
son’s dreadful singing. “I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly,
pivoting on his heel.

She wanted to grab hold of him and force him
to talk about what had happened Saturday. She and John had shared
something significant, and she didn’t want to forget about it.

But she couldn’t force him to accept what he
would rather deny. She couldn’t force him to want her today the way
he’d seemed to want her Saturday. He might have lost control then,
but he wasn’t going to lose control today.

She considered this a sad thing, and not
just for selfish reasons. For a few precious minutes in the foam
pit, John had laughed and played. He’d been carefree, not a police
officer or a single father but a man in the throes of fun.

He wasn’t carefree anymore. And that was a
loss to him as much as to her.

***

“
WHERE’S YOUR SANTA SUIT?”
Dennis Murphy asked.

John wondered what the hot-shot lawyer was
doing in the detectives’ squad room. Was Murphy here on a client’s
behalf, or did he have personal business with John?

Maybe last week’s situation with his
children and the ATM machine had backfired in some way, requiring
further police action. Or perhaps Murphy had just stopped by to
razz John about his Santa Claus disguise. What with the holiday
hubbub in the station house lobby, where crews were setting up a
huge spruce on one side of the entry and an enormous electric
menorah on the other, Murphy’s comment might be nothing more than a
display of spirit.

What John had to say about the holiday
spirit wasn’t printable, so he kept his mouth shut.

He’d already been in an unsettled mood when
he’d arrived at headquarters that morning and discovered the tree
lying tethered on a flatbed truck outside the station house. He
didn’t like the way Molly could get to him with such a seemingly
innocent question as “How are you?” That was the normal courtesy
acquaintances used, wasn’t it? “Hello. How are you?”

Except that Molly was no mere acquaintance,
and nothing that happened between them could be considered a normal
courtesy. Not after Saturday.

He shouldn’t have kissed her. He shouldn’t
have let her reach inside and take hold of his soul the way she
had. He had no time for an affair with her, no energy. The whole
thing had failure written all over it.

As if seeing her wasn’t enough to remind him
of everything that was screwed up in his life, he’d arrived at work
and seen the tree. Like the reproachful wag of a finger in front of
his face, it reminded him that he was going to have to get a
Christmas tree for Mike. Last year, Sherry had argued that standing
a huge, messy fir tree in the living room would be more trouble
than it was worth, given that Mike was too young to understand
Christmas. She, after all, would be the one stuck watering the
tree, decorating it and vacuuming the needles from the floor every
day. If she didn’t want a tree and Mike didn’t care, why get
one?

But that was last year. This year, Mike knew
damned well what Christmas was all about—if not the religious
significance, then certainly the part about Santa leaving a
sleigh-load of toys under a tree.

John felt inadequate and overwhelmed. Not
only did he have to get a tree, but he had to buy ornaments and
tinsel and all that Christmas stuff—plus gifts for Mike. He had no
idea what Mike needed or wanted, other than a second toy airplane.
The kid was too young for a bike or baseball gear. Did they make
basketball hoops for two-year-olds? John had no idea.

Molly would know.

Thinking of her brought on
a memory of her standing behind her desk at the preschool, peering
up at him with her caramel-soft eyes and saying, “How are you?”
Such a typical question wasn’t supposed to wreak havoc with a man’s
equilibrium, but coming from Molly it did. He knew he couldn’t
answer, “Fine.” She’d wanted a
real
answer, one he wasn’t able to provide—one he could hardly
begin to put into words.

Dennis Murphy was approaching his desk. He
had to stop obsessing about Molly and act like a proper officer of
the law.

Murphy drew to a halt at John’s desk and
glanced at his civilian apparel. “So, you’re not impersonating
Santa anymore?”

John gazed up and him over his computer
monitor and shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint your daughter, but
I’ll be out on the streets as Santa this afternoon.”

“
I hate to think my kids
are old enough to learn St. Nick is a fraud, but I don’t hold you
accountable. You did those two a tremendous favor,” Murphy said
earnestly. He adjusted the blazer of his thousand-dollar suit and
smiled. “I’ve got a client upstairs, called in for questioning
about a bit of financial legerdemain he might or might not have
witnessed. I thought, on my way upstairs I could stop by and say
hello.” He smiled. Even his teeth looked well-groomed. “Actually,
to express my gratitude.”

John shrugged. He hadn’t considered his
actions on behalf of the Murphy twins anything out of the
ordinary.

“
Thanks to their little
walk on the wild side,” said Murphy, “their mother is paying closer
attention to the baby-sitters she hires. This is a good
thing.”

John nodded.

“
You handled the entire
incident with great sensitivity.”

Translation:
I
owe you big for not opening juvie files on the kids.
Well, of course he hadn’t opened files on them.
He wasn’t going to give a couple of seven-year-olds a police
record, even if juvenile records were usually sealed, and then
expunged if the kids made it to adulthood without further brushes
with the law.

John studied Dennis Murphy. Like John,
Murphy was a single father, but he wasn’t the custodial parent
dealing with the day-to-day stuff. If anyone should have John’s
sympathy, it was Murphy’s ex-wife, struggling to find a decent
baby-sitter for her children. Mike had been through a few sitters
himself: Norma, whom he’d loved, and Harriet Simka, whom he’d
hated. John knew just how difficult it was to find the perfect
caregiver.

“
I guess I’d better get
myself upstairs and make sure my client doesn’t shoot his fool
mouth off,” Murphy said, cracking another bright smile. John held
his own smile in place until Murphy had vanished into the
stairwell. Then, expressing his mood with a quiet curse, he ran
through the last of his phone-mail messages and headed for the
locker room to change into his Santa Claus costume. He wished he
could put on a jolly spirit along with the abdomen padding and the
fake beard. Saying “ho, ho, ho” convincingly was going to be
impossible when all he could think of was Molly, Molly,
Molly.

***

SHE WONDERED HOW LONG she could put off any
sort of meeting with him. He obviously felt uncomfortable with her,
and his discomfort made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t going to be
able to avoid him forever—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t
try.

Monday afternoon, it was easy enough; she
simply asked Cara to remain at the desk for the final hour of the
day, when parents came to retrieve their children. “I’ll be
upstairs straightening up the second floor, if you need me,” she
explained. “If I stay down here, I might have to listen to another
tirade from Elsie Pelham.”

“
I can handle her,” Cara
said sunnily. Molly didn’t doubt it. With her beauty and her sweet
disposition, Cara could handle a grizzly bear coming off a hunger
strike. Elsie Pelham and her messy divorce would be a
snap.

Going upstairs and sweeping the scattered
sand from the floor around the sand table was a snap, too—at least,
compared to coming face to face with John Russo again. Sooner or
later she’d have to confront him. But she had a decent chance of
delaying the inevitable for at least another day. Tomorrow morning,
she could arrange to be busy in the supply room while the children
were coming in, and she had a dental check-up scheduled for four
o’clock that afternoon, so she’d be out of the school by the time
parents came to start picking up their children.