Someone Like You (19 page)

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Sorry,” she said, placing a hand over the center of her chest in an attempt to keep her heart inside where it belonged. He wouldn’t be carrying an explosion of flowers if he’d come to deliver bad news. “When I saw you, I—” She attempted a laugh. “I guess Annabelle isn’t the only one with a vivid imagination.”
It’s called separation anxiety, Doyle, and if you think this is bad, what will you do when you and William say good-bye?

“Everything’s fine,” he said, dropping down onto the bench next to her. “Karen had them all learning Spanish when I left.”

Relief tasted better than chocolate.

“So what’s with the flowers?” she asked. “Are you picking up some spending money running deliveries for Becky’s Blooms?”

“Actually they’re for Mimi.”

“Who are they really for?”

“Mimi,” he said again. “She’s out of ICU. I figured she could use some cheering up.”

“She had a stroke, Zach. She won’t even know the flowers are there.” Joely was too embarrassed to say this was the first she’d heard that her mother was no longer in intensive care.

“I’ll know.”

“Isn’t this carrying fandom a little far?”

“She’s a friend,” he said. “I care what happens to her.”

He strode off toward the entrance before she could think of something suitable to say. Zach Porter had left Idle Point long before she went off to MIT, and as far as she knew, his trips home had been infrequent at best. When had he found time to forge a friendship with Mimi? Not that it was any of her business. Her mother had never lacked for friends. Mimi could be funny and charming and all sorts of wonderful things when she was of a mind to be. The one thing she couldn’t seem to manage was being a parent.

It wasn’t hard to see how, on a good day, she might have dazzled Zach. If you didn’t have to depend on her for things like food and shelter, she was great company. She was beautiful and mercurial, and she had known everybody who was anybody way back in the sixties and seventies. If you cared about that sort of thing, the stories were worth the price of admission, which, in Zach Porter’s case, was an armful of flowers.

Apparently the tired old legend of Mark and Mimi Doyle still had some juice.

Like she said to Zach last night, that was way before her time.

 

“IT WAS SPUR of the moment,” Cat said again as she and Joely set the table for supper later that day. “If you’d seen him with Mimi, you would have done the same thing.”

Joely made a face. “If I’d seen him with Mimi, I would have lost my lunch.”

“That’s my area of expertise.”

“I always was competitive,” Joely said. “What’s the deal with him and Mimi? I knew he’d had a big case of idol worship but I never heard they were such good friends.”

“You never asked.”

“Your point is well taken, but it seems an unlikely pairing if you ask me.”

“You were a baby when it started,” Cat said as she swapped out the bright yellow place mats for the poppy red ones. “When we first moved here, he was on Grandma Fran’s doorstep every day, waiting to see Mimi.”

Joely feigned an enormous shudder. “Sounds like an adolescent stalker to me.”

“He loved their music,” Cat said. “He had every album and tape Mark and Mimi ever made. He knew their work inside out, backward and forward. He could tell you where they were when Mark wrote a certain song. He knew what Mimi wore at Newport in 1965. He had shoe boxes filled with clippings from
Rolling Stone
and the
Village Voice
—”

“Now wait a minute.” Joely leaned against the table and fixed her with a look. “You want me to believe a kid from Idle Point was reading the
Village Voice
?”

Cat threw a yellow place mat in her sister’s direction. “This is your heritage we’re talking about, little sister. It might not hurt you to learn something about it.”

Although she didn’t say it to Cat, there had been times when Joely would rather say she’d been raised by wolves than lay claim to Mark and Mimi Doyle.

“Just tell me he’s not going to bring his albums with him and force us to have a hootenanny in the living room.”

The idea made Cat laugh out loud. “Don’t worry. The man lives in the Napa Valley. I doubt he travels with his old eight-tracks.”

“He probably has an iPod,” Joely muttered.

“I heard that.”

They went back into the kitchen, where Cat gathered up the dishes while Joely collected the glassware.

“Is it true he sold his software company for eight figures?” Joely asked as she followed her sister back to the dining area.

“Karen said it was high eight figures. That’s how he bought the vineyard. He still owns the hardware side of the enterprise.”

“Looks like you missed out on a real winner, Cat. You should’ve stuck with your old high school sweetheart. You’d be rolling in Cabernet and Manolos.”

“Right.”

“No, I mean it. You two were great together. Everybody said so. I can’t believe you never think about what might have been.”

Cat stopped what she was doing. “You really don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“I can’t believe you never realized that Zach’s gay.”

“Gay?” Her voice rose a full octave. “When did that happen?”

“No cheap jokes, please, but he figured it out while we were dating in high school.”

“But you were crazy about him.”

“Just my luck, huh? I can’t believe you never guessed.”

“I was ten years old when you two were dating,” Joely said in her own defense. “I was still playing with my Barbies.” She set a glass down at each of the four places. “What about college? I thought you two got back together.”

“As friends,” Cat said. “We both had a tough time settling in, and it was nice to have someone you could trust on your side.”

“I always wondered why the Porters hung all their hopes on Ty instead of Zach.”

“The future,” Cat said simply. “If they wanted grandchildren to take over the farm, they knew they weren’t going to get them from Zach, so they turned to the next in line.”

“Pushing Zach out into the cold.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why didn’t they turn to Danny after Ty . . . after the accident?”

“Danny told them he didn’t want any part of being a dairy farmer. He was estranged from them for awhile, but they’ve worked it out.”

“Apparently so. He and Karen are living on the north forty.”

“And that could’ve been you,” Cat teased.

“Maybe in an alternate universe.”

“Do you ever think about it?”

“Alternate universes?”

“Marriage. Family. A house in the suburbs. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Do you?” Joely countered.

“Sometimes,” Cat admitted, “but I think I might be missing the wife gene.”

“No plans to marry the mysterious Michael?”

“We like things the way they are.” Her expression grew more serious. “How about you? Are you happy with your arrangement?”

“Arrangement?” Joely bristled. “We’re not an arrangement. We’re a family.”

She was determined not to flinch under her sister’s scrutiny, but it wasn’t easy.

“Do you love him?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“You never talk about him.”

“We’ve had a few other things to talk about since I got here, Cat.”

Her sister shook her head. “Not just now,” she said. “You’ve been like this practically since you met William. You never mention him, Joely. Not on the phone, not in your e-mails. Sometimes I forgot he was even living with you and Annabelle. I’m glad I got to speak to him last night. I was beginning to think he was a figment of your imagination.”

“You never mentioned Michael to me,” she pointed out. “If Mimi hadn’t had this accident, I still wouldn’t know about him.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Or about the baby, for that matter.”

“That’s because I was keeping him a secret.”

“I rest my case.”

“It’s not the same thing. You never tried to keep William a secret.”

She tried to come up with a logical reason for her behavior, but everything she thought of sounded lame, even to her. “It’s easier to talk about Annabelle,” she finally admitted. “It’s less complicated.”

Cat sighed deeply. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“It’s nothing,” Joely protested. “Really. Things have just been a bit off balance since my contract ended. Once I’m back in the lab, things will fall back into place.”

“I can’t believe someone with your background would have trouble finding a position.” She narrowed her eyes in Joely’s direction. “You have been looking, haven’t you?”

So this was what that legendary deer in the headlights felt like.

“My old team is reforming,” she said, “and there might be another opening down the line. It’s not like I’m in a rush.”

“You’re not?” Cat sounded skeptical. “I thought you loved your work.”

“You know I do,” she said, “but now that Mrs. Macdonald has retired, I need to be there for Annabelle.”

“Mrs. Macdonald is the only nanny in Scotland?”

“We trusted her. She was with William’s family for years.”

“You’re not a nanny, Joely. You’re not his wife. You’re not Annabelle’s mother.”

“Thanks,” Joely said. “I appreciate the clarification of my status.” She didn’t need to be reminded that nothing in life lasted.

“Oh, honey.” Cat rested a hand on her shoulder. “Be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” Joely said lightly. “I’m not in danger of a broken heart, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It’s not your heart I’m worried about,” Cat said. “It’s Annabelle’s.”

 

MAYBE DINNER WASN’T such a good idea after all.

First Annabelle didn’t like the salad. The “green bits” were prickly and scratched the back of her throat. Joely, red-faced with embarrassment, quickly substituted Cat’s lovely mix of baby greens with a small wedge of iceberg.

Cat leaned forward and smiled across the table at her sister and Zach. “So tell us more about this big IPO you’re working on, Zach.”

“Is that what they’re saying around here?” Zach laughed and poured himself some more wine. “No IPO.” He swirled the Merlot he’d brought with him and inhaled the aroma. “BJT Industries in Boston made me an offer for my hardware enterprise, and I think I’m going to take it.”

“What?” Cat shrieked. “I can’t believe it. I thought—”

“I’m hungry,” Annabelle stated. “When are we going to eat?”

“We are eating,” Joely said in a measured tone of voice. “Finish your lettuce, then we’ll have the next course.”

“But I don’t want lettuce,” Annabelle said. “I want food.”

“Annabelle,” she warned. “You interrupted a conversation.”

“I don’t care.”

Cat saw that they were sailing perilously close to a full-fledged mutiny. “It’s just spaghetti,” she said. “Why don’t I fix Annabelle’s right now.”

“No,” Joely said. “I’m not going to reward her for bad behavior.”

“She’s not so bad,” Zach said, trying to be helpful. “You should see Danny’s kids when they—”

He never had the chance to finish his sentence because Annabelle erupted into an impressive display of red-faced, clenched-fisted tears.

Joely placed her napkin on the table and rose from her seat. “I’m sorry,” she said to Cat. “I’ll be back.”

“She’s overtired,” Cat said as the door to the guest bedroom shut behind Joely and a shrieking Annabelle.

“And confused, no doubt.” Zach looked amused.

Cat speared a tomato with her fork. “Why should Annabelle be any different?”

“Joely’s good with her.”

“She loves her,” Cat said.

“You say it like that’s a problem.”

“It could be.” She stopped and shook her head. “Forget I said anything.”

“She’s wound pretty tight.”

“She’s seven, and she’s homesick. What do you expect?”

“I mean Joely.”

“How about we change the subject?” She wasn’t going to gossip about her sister . . . at least not with her sister just three rooms away. “So tell me more about this IPO that isn’t.”

“It’s pretty basic stuff,” he said. “Business one-oh-one. I have something they want, and they’re willing to pay me big bucks to get it.”

“I thought you loved your company. I can’t believe you’d let the rest of it go.”

“ ‘Loved’ being the operative word. It hasn’t been the same since Lloyd . . .” His words trailed away.

Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Zach!” She leaned across the table and took his hand. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. My God, he was younger than we are.”

“He didn’t die, Cat—not that I haven’t thought about killing the son of a bitch.” He looked away but not before she saw the pain beneath the fast talk. “If I’d known he was going to walk out, I wouldn’t have stopped smoking.”

“The bastard,” she said. “Are you saying he left you
and
the company?”

“He didn’t pull a Mark Doyle, if that’s what you’re asking. He asked me to buy him out. He said he wanted to start his new relationship without any baggage from the past.”

“And here I thought you were the one who’d have the Hollywood happy ending.”

“It could still happen.”

“Not another dreamer.” She made a face as she gathered up the salad plates to take them into the kitchen. “Just don’t end up like Mimi.”

“You sound bitter,” he remarked as he followed her into the kitchen. “I don’t remember you sounding that way before.”

She slid the salad plates into the dishwasher, then turned to face Zach. “You saw her today. The woman’s almost sixty-three years old, and she’s still waiting for the knight on a white charger to come along and make it all better again. There’s not one other damn thing in her life but Mark Doyle, and there never has been.” She wagged a finger at him. “And don’t go telling me it’s the stroke, because she’s been that way as long as you’ve known her which, I might point out, is almost as long as I’ve known her.”