Scrambled Babies (11 page)

So she lives in New York.  That means she’s in L.A.only temporarily.  Is she on business?  Visiting someone?  Where is she staying?  A hotel?  A friend’s house?

Steve looked at Paeton McPhilomy’s little girl, waving her baby arms vigorously and making tiny bubbles.  He bent down and gave her a special kiss right next to her soon-to-become-bewitching mouth.
 I don’t know your name yet, sweetheart.  But I know who you are, and we’ll be talking to your mommy real soon.
  He took his first full, semirelaxed breath since that astounding diaper change.  “Real soon!” he said out loud, liking the notion of some good news for a change.

Suddenly he put his hand to his eye
.  Damn!
  Was his twitch reminding him that one piece of good news nevertheless left him with “third down and a hundred yards to go”?

#

“The jerk never called!  It’s eight o’clock, for god’s sake.  I can’t believe it!  How could I have made it any clearer who I was?” 

Paeton was roaming frantically about in her hotel suite.  They had recently returned from InKredabal Real Estate.  It was a few minutes past eight.  Eleven o’clock in Boston!  Two hours after the game had ended!  Fred was already on his second martini and looking into the bottom of that glass. 

“What is the matter with this guy?”  She stopped short.  “Okay, that does it!  I’m going to his office myself!”

“You’re what?”  Fred did a spit-take into his martini.

Paeton turned to confront Fred.  “Fred, do you know how weird it is to have your baby, but not to have your baby?  I take care of this child as if it’s mine.  I talk to it.  I call it Kelsey many times.  And I give him all the love I have for Kelsey.  But, well, there really aren’t any other words for it besides “weird.”  I have to find that jerk.”

“But you’ll miss your first and most important meeting with Christian.  Besides, Kaselman’s in Boston, not New York.  You haven’t an inkling where he’s staying.  And you don’t know where his next assignment is.  Christ, he may be flying out here next!”

“Please cover for me, Fred.  I’m going back to the East Coast.  I’ll start with his office in New York.  At least his secretary will know where to find him.  I have to start somewhere.  I’m leaving tomorrow morning.  Somehow I’ll meet him.  We’ll make the switch.”  She choked back a cry.  “We have to!  And soon, Fred.  I don’t how much longer I can take this.”

Paeton inhaled deeply, marched unsteadily over to Fred, and kissed him on the cheek.  “I’ll be back when I get back.  Talk to Christian.  Please?  Make something up.  Tell him the truth if you have to.  He stands to lose too if the media creeps get a whiff of this.”

“But making up stories is your job, not mine!”  Fred’s exasperation carried a sarcastic barb.

“Fred, please, I need your support, not your berating.”  She took both his hands in hers.  “I’m going to get my baby.  Do you know what that means, Fred?  Do whatever you want to do or don’t want to do.  If it wouldn’t be so hard on the children, I’d take a red-eye tonight.  I’ll be back as soon as I can, Fred.  Please understand.”  She gave him another brotherly kiss.  “Madison.  Pack your things.  We’re going to New York tomorrow morning.”

Paeton tried to convince herself that tomorrow would bring her baby back to her.  That the dread of public humiliation would be extinguished. 

A rush of adrenaline swept through her as she considered what was at stake: her newly achieved fame and inevitable fortune, her screenplay-writing career, her reputation as a mother. 

All this could be lost.  After years of struggling and building and hoping.  In one momentary, foolish lapse of concentration, in one innocent surrender to a glorious fantasy, could lay her complete destruction.

#

Steve focused on the infant on his desk.  He studied her angelic face. He put out his hand, and the baby carefully curled her tiny fingers around one of his.  He brought his face very close to hers.  “So your mama’s a romance writer, huh, darlin’?  And apparently a pretty good one too—
New York Times
best-seller list.  Not too bad for a bewitching mom.  But Sophia garbled her phone number.  And there’s no way I can reach her publisher at this time of night, sweetheart.  Sorry, kid.  I’d like to talk to her right now as much as you probably would.”  He studied her sweet face more intently.  “Mm, you are a beautiful little thing, baby.  Of course, you’d have to be—you look exactly like—my son.”  Steve laughed.  “You know what I was going to say?  I was going to say you look just like your mother!  Your mother is an—an interesting person.  You know that?  You seem to like the way I’ve taken care of you.  Do you think your mother would like it if I—” 

He turned from the child.  “Watch it, Steve!  You haven’t even met the woman.” 

He propped his feet on his desk.  He noticed he had become more relaxed in the past several minutes.  Things seemed workable now, even though his eye-twitching persisted.  He would take tonight’s red-eye to L.A.  Call Paeton’s publisher in the morning.  Find out where she was staying and meet her and make the switch.  Maybe they could even go out for a drink and have a good laugh over the whole botch-up. 

Steve liked knowing that Paeton was widowed.  Not that he wished anyone dead.  He certainly had nothing to do with her husband’s passing.

Then he had a thought to call some of the major hotels in L.A. 
No, the hell with it!  Wild goose chase!

He sat up.  “Come on, baby, let’s go see the mom with the killer mouth.”  He took out his smart phone phone, tapped the airline ticket app, and like magic, he and this baby were booked for the next flight to Los Angeles. The twitch continued to inform him of his intensity.  He was painfully aware that his intense nature prompted him to act impulsively at times.  Such as right now, jumping on the next flight to L.A.  Steve had been burned many times by listening to this impulsive side. 

Of course, he did have his rational side.  Right now it was counseling him to wait until the following morning to do anything.  Tomorrow he could call her publisher, locate her, and plan an intelligent method of meeting her.

He looked at the baby girl.  He drummed his fingers for a few seconds on the desk. 

Then he stood up sharply.  He grabbed the handle of the travelseat and said, “Too late.  Right, baby?  I’ve already booked us to L.A.”

The child gurgled back.

“I see you agree with me.  Okay.  Let’s go.”  He strode out the door.

Impulsive
was
Steve Kaselman.  He only hoped this wasn’t one of those times when he should have listened to his rational side.