Night Swimming (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The restaurant was packed, but the maître d’ recognized Kaye the second she entered.

“Signora Alcott!” he welcomed her jovially. “What a pleasure to see you again!”

“Thank you, Marco. It’s good to be back. I’ve been on a cruise. The food was delicious, but it couldn’t compare with yours.”

“You’re too kind,” he beamed. He looked past Kaye to Lily. “A table for two?”

“Please. Marco, this is my daughter, Lily.”

Marco was good,
Lily thought. He let loose a torrent of Italian. While she couldn’t translate every word, she understood the general gist: Such divine beauty in a mother and a daughter was a blessing of the gods. Very nice.

Lily was far more impressed when, at the snap of his fingers, a waiter instantly materialized, then hurried off just as quickly, intent on carrying out Marco’s rapid-fire instructions.

Marco led Lily and her mother through the crowded restaurant to a corner table. He held their chairs for them and when they were seated at the red-and-white-checked table, he lit the candle that was stuck into a ratafia and wax-encrusted Chianti bottle.

To Lily, Marco became divinity incarnate when he placed a basketful of gently steaming bread and a bottle of deep green olive oil on the table. She realized she was starving.

With a flourish, he produced the menu.

“Oh, no, Marco,” Kaye said, waving it away. “You always choose so well. Please pick out something extra special for my daughter and me.”

“With pleasure,
Signora
.”

Aghast, Lily bit her lip. She’d break down and sob if she had to eat spinach and polenta. When Marco suggested that
la bella signorina
might enjoy the bistecca alla fiorentina, Lily mumbled a prayer of thanks.
Steak
.

“Lovely,” she said, smiling brilliantly.

Lily and her mother had finished their first courses. The salmon carpaccio had been delicious, disappearing quickly in mouth melting bites. Shortly afterward, the waiter returned and set a large, glorious steak in front of her. As soon as her mother had her saltimbocca, Lily picked up her knife and fork. Her first bite had her eyes closing in sybaritic pleasure.

“This is wonderful,” Lily pronounced happily. She was feeling increasingly mellow from the food and wine.

“Yes, the food’s divine.” Her mother reached for her red wine and sipped. “Marco’s fabulous. If I didn’t love Scott to distraction, I’d throw myself at the man.”

“From the looks of it, he’d be very happy to catch you.” A reaction shared by most men when her mother smiled.

Kaye pinkened becomingly and shook her head. “No, I love Scott. He’s the one. It took me years to find a man like him. I’m not about to give him up.” She took a small bite of her saltimbocca. “I called Scott earlier. He said to send you his love. He wishes he could be here now, but he can’t leave his patients so soon after returning from our cruise.”

Scott Alcott, her mother’s most recent husband, was a psychiatrist. Lily had met him once. He seemed nice enough. But she’d learned not to get too involved with her mother’s spouses. There were too many exes through them. “So he’s doing well?” Lily inquired politely.

“Oh, yes. He’s just so busy. Everyone knows what the top profession in Florida is: plastic surgery. And, of course, personal training is a great way to make a killing financially. But what people don’t realize is how much in demand good psychiatrists are. Fascinating, isn’t it?” Kaye asked.

Lily stared in amazement at the laughter twinkling in Kaye’s eyes. Her mother was actually joking with her.

“The majority of Scott’s patients feel lost without him.” She paused to trace the wax covering the Chianti bottle with her fingertip. At last she looked up and met Lily’s eyes across the candlelight. “Actually, Lily, Scott has been talking to me a lot . . . about mother-daughter relationships. He thinks you and I need to clear the air. I do too.”

Something inside Lily went perfectly still.

At Lily’s lack of response, her mother sighed and plunged ahead. “I really don’t like discussing certain aspects of my life; they’re difficult for me. But there are things that have been weighing on my mind that I need to explain to you. Things I should have talked about years ago,” she admitted. She broke off a piece of her bread and began to toy with it. “When I married your father, I was very young, not so much in years but in maturity. But Niels was so handsome—tall, strong, and with your extraordinary blue eyes. Whenever I look at you, Lily, I see Niels. Anyway, it only took one look, and I fell head over heels in love with him.” She smiled faintly. “Mother and Father did everything they could to talk me out of marriage, but I wouldn’t listen. When I think about it, I don’t believe Niels really wanted to marry me. But I wanted him, and I’ve always been good at getting my way, which I’ve learned is one of my biggest problems. . . . However, that’s not want I wanted to talk to you about.” Kaye raised her wineglass to her lips and took a long sip. “Our marriage wasn’t bad, Lily. But it wasn’t very good, either. Things fell apart completely when Niels was offered a job in Norway. His mother’s family was still there and he’d always reminisced about his childhood summers there. Anyway, Niels accepted the job, Lily, without even consulting me. You were just a newborn. I didn’t know any Norwegian . . . not any Norwegian I could use outside the bedroom, that is,” she clarified candidly. “And, well, I’m a
Florida
girl, one hundred percent. Norway’s dark for at least half the year. I begged, I screamed, I threw every tantrum in my repertoire. I did everything I could to make him reconsider, but he wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t go with him. . . .” Kaye’s voice faltered and she lowered her eyes, fixing them on her half-finished veal. “This is the hard part,” she admitted softly. “My marriage failed and instead of blaming myself, instead of hating your father for walking away, I took everything out on you. I told myself that if I hadn’t had a baby, maybe I’d have gone with him. A stupid lie, but a really easy one to swallow. I resented you so deeply, Lily. Unfortunately, that was only the beginning. It got worse. Because you grew up, were no longer this passive baby, but a person, an individual. And frankly Lily, I didn’t know what the hell to do with you.”

As her mother had begun talking, Lily had slipped her hands under the table, out of sight. By this point, her short nails had gouged deep into her palms. The pain so intense, not even Lily’s mask of stony indifference could hide it.

Her mother looked at her, and her beautiful face crumpled. “Oh, Lily, you’ve got to listen to me! Please, please listen.”

“Yes, of course, I’m listening, Mother.” Lily’s lips moved stiffly, frozen from the inside out. “You were at the point where you didn’t know what to do with me. No—what the ‘hell’ to do with me.”

“Oh, God!” Kaye wailed. “That sounds awful. And I was awful. But you were completely foreign to me— maybe even more foreign than Norway. All those horrid, smelly experiments you were always conducting in the basement, those science textbooks you closeted yourself with. And you never cared what you looked like!”

“Yes, Mother, I can see why you wouldn’t have liked that.” Lily laid her napkin on the table. The steak wasn’t worth finishing. Besides, she felt quite ill. She made to push back her chair.

Kaye’s hand shot across the table, detaining her. “No, you’ve got to hear me out.” There was a note of desperation in her voice. “Let’s reverse roles: You be the young mother, I, the child. Try to imagine giving birth to
me
, a girl who only wanted to play with Barbie dolls, have tea parties, and try out new hairstyles. What would you have done?”

Lily stared through her.

“Yes, I know the answer, too.” Kaye’s shoulders drooped in defeat. “You’d have played tea party with me until you went stark-raving mad. And I
should
have read those damned textbooks, at least asked you what was in them. But I didn’t—and that’s something I’ll regret for the rest of my days. But Lily, you know what? In the end it doesn’t matter that I was a lousy mother for you.” She leaned across the table, tears making her eyes shimmer brightly. “Look at yourself. You’re strong, talented, successful. Beautiful.” The tears began to stream down her cheeks. “I am so very proud of you.” Pressing her clenched hand against her mouth, Kaye wept brokenly.

For a while, Lily watched her with a kind of frozen detachment, cynically wondering how long the performance would last. Slowly she began to realize that her mother’s anguish was genuine, the tears ugly and raw and endless. “Mother.” Lily’s voice heavy, filled with unwanted emotions. “Mother, stop . . .”

“I can’t,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

As Kaye wept, Lily recalled the evening she’d spent with May Ellen. Granny May had told her that Kaye had really changed since marrying Scott Alcott.

At the moment she couldn’t decide if she considered this a change for the better.

Lily had always instinctively shied away from analyzing the motives behind her mother’s constant criticisms, probably because of the pain involved in probing those memories. But one thing was clear from her mother’s tearful confession. Kaye had been a desperately unhappy woman. And flawed though it was, Lily’s childhood was behind her, in the past. She was grown up now and was, as Kaye had remarked, a strong woman.

Lily realized she had a choice. Either she could use her strength to punish her mother for past wrongs, or she could use it to try and lift the burden of her mother’s regrets. What was the point in making her mother suffer? Any satisfaction would be cold, empty.

She reached out and shook her mother’s arm gently. “Mother, listen to me. Some of the things you did as a parent were fine. After all, if you’d really been dead set against my setting up a lab and doing chemistry and biology experiments in the basement, you’d have chucked the stuff. And my swimming—you were convinced that I’d end up with the shoulders of an East German weightlifter, but still you let me continue.”

Kaye lifted watery eyes and sniffed loudly. “Your shoulders are great, like the rest of you. Thank God I had the sense to let Hal Storey into your life. He always understood you, Lily, let you be, knowing you’d achieve your goals. You know, he used to call me and tell me everything was going to be fine, what a great kid I had.” Using the corner of her napkin, Kaye mopped her eyes and managed a shaky smile. “But even if I had tried to make you give up those things, your science, your swimming, you’d have figured out a way to get around me. You were . . . are so darned stubborn.”

“I know. I inherited that from you, Mother.”

“Kaye,”
her mother corrected Lily. Drawing a breath, she said, “Scott and I think you should call me
Kaye
, and not
Mother
anymore.”

Lily blinked, nonplussed.

“You see,” she explained, “I was so terrible as a mother to you, calling me that only makes us remember the hurt. . . . We can’t get beyond the past. So Scott suggested we start over, and I could be
Kaye
to you. Maybe we could be friends. I think I could be a damned good friend, one that wouldn’t let you down. I know it may take years, but please say you’ll give me a chance. Please, Lily,” she whispered.

Lily stared at her mother, at a woman she really didn’t know. Did she even want this person to be her friend? But she’d learned an invaluable lesson since coming back to Coral Beach. Everyone deserved a second chance. “Yes, I’d like that . . . Kaye.”

Marco seemed too elegant a man to rush, but rush he did. “Signora Alcott, is something wrong?” Horrified, he looked at Kaye, who sat with tears streaming down her face. “Was the saltimbocca not to your liking?
Signora!
” he cried.

Kaye collected herself. “I beg your pardon, Marco,” she said, giving him a tremulous smile. “My daughter and I have just made a very special pact. What can you bring us to celebrate the occasion?”

“Ahh!” He nodded indulgently, a smile of relief lighting his face. “But of course! I have a lovely Prosecco I keep for special moments only. To go with it, perhaps a tiramisu?”

A knock sounded on Sean’s office door. Dave ducked his head inside, his brows raised in silent inquiry. The phone pressed to his ear, Sean motioned for him to come in.

“Hello, is that you, Karen? It’s Sean. Could I speak to Lily? She’s not? Oh, I see. When did they leave? Do you know where? No, of course not. Well, listen, could you tell her I called, that I’ll call again in an hour? Thanks.” Sean made to hang up, but Dave grabbed the phone from him.

“Karen, you there?” he asked. “Yeah, it’s me. . . .”

Sean looked out the window, tuning out Dave’s conversation with Karen, trying not to feel envious of his friend. He’d been anticipating Lily’s voice over the phone, hoping she’d answer with breathless anticipation so he’d know she felt the same as he did.

But Lily was gone, out with Kaye somewhere. And Karen had no idea when she’d be back. She hadn’t left a message for him. Sean checked his watch.
Damn it
, he should have called her earlier, but he and Evelyn had been swamped, with one crisis after the next rolling in, as relentless as the ocean. Poor Evelyn had been weaving with exhaustion when he’d sent her home, ten minutes ago.

Sean was beat, too. He’d go home and take a shower, then wait for Lily to return from dinner. But first Cullen had to get off his phone.
He and Karen sure are chatty,
Sean thought. He caught Dave’s eye, scowled, and made a slicing gesture in front of his throat.

Dave smiled, gave him the finger, and continued talking. “Listen,” he said, “I’ll bring something over to cheer you up. Yeah. See you in ten minutes.” He hung up the receiver and sat back, oozing satisfaction.

“So, Dave, you have anything else to say or are you all talked out?”

“Hey, don’t be a sourpuss just because your girl stepped out.” Dave’s grin widened as Sean’s scowl deepened. “I came by to see whether you were heading over to practice tonight.”

“No—”

“Me neither. See you, McDermott.” Sean’s office door shut behind Dave with a depressing thud.