Surprise Dad (13 page)

A
LLIE WALKED
Brian uptown to Central Park. His first treat was a trip to the most famous toy store in the world. He was fascinated by the singing clock, which was a good thing because there was no way he could grab it.

It was the only thing he couldn’t grab. She centered the stroller in each aisle, hoping the impatient shoppers who scooted around her understood that the alternative would be a floor covered with every toy Brian could reach.

He wasn’t misbehaving. He was smart, curious, just the way a baby should be. “Look at the polar bear, Brian,” she said when they passed a display of stuffed toys. Taking a chance, she handed it to him. He hugged it, and when he didn’t want to let go, she bought it for him.

The price was appalling. She couldn’t afford it, but the ruckus Brian made when she had to take it away
from him so the clerk could scan the tag made the purchase seem like nothing in comparison.

“So that’s the toy store,” she said, whisking him out the door. “Now let’s go to the zoo!”

She was as fascinated by the zoo as Brian was. It was a beautiful, sunny fall day, the kind that lifted her spirits, made everything look golden. Even as she talked to Brian, telling him the name of each animal, she was thinking about Mike, what confusing or disturbing facts and conditions were being thrown at him, how he was handling it.

On the outside, she was sure he was handling it in a businesslike way, just as he managed the diner, always cheerful, always with a twinkle in his eye. But why had she always wondered if he felt the same way inside? Was it some vibe thrumming from him that she picked up on when nobody else seemed to?

She was probably just wrong. “Look, Brian,” she said, “polar bears just like yours, but lots, lots bigger!”

They continued their stroll through the zoo, at last ending up at the aviary. It contained birds of all species, birds from dozens of countries, and yet they got along together.

She realized something about herself she’d never thought of. She was like these birds. She didn’t have to be separated from anyone. She relished contact with any human foible, weakness or need, with no agenda except to make the people with those problems feel better.

Help people feel better. That was what she’d always wanted to do, and that was what she would do, but not as a doctor, as a therapist.

The feeling that came over her was one of pure joy. She’d thought psychology was a maybe, but now she
knew it was what she’d wanted to do. At last, she’d made her career decision. She didn’t have to worry anymore. About many other things, but not that. Her heart lightened, and she felt a burst of energy. “Brian,” she said with refreshed enthusiasm, “That’s a parrot. Par-rot, and that’s a—”

M
IKE FELT
as if his brain had turned into a calculator. Abernathy Foods had made an offer that any sensible man couldn’t refuse. But he didn’t know the conditions yet.

He couldn’t wait to get back to the St. Regis. His guess was that Brian was already in bed and asleep, but with any luck, Allie would still be awake, because he needed someone to talk to in the worst way. Not Daniel or Ian. The person he wanted to talk to was Allie.

He unlocked the door to the suite and saw her sitting on the sofa, her feet curled up under her, wearing something pink and sheer, the scrap of fabric the security guard had plucked out of her carry-on, with an equally sheer robe over it. As always, she was reading, and when she saw him, she flung the book aside and stood up slowly. “How were the meetings?” she asked.

Mike felt the air whoosh out of his lungs. “Good.”

She moved toward him, the sheer gown and robe revealing more than they concealed. “Tell me what happened.”

“I can’t,” he admitted when she stood close to him. “All the blood has left my brain.”

“Oh, really?”

He slipped his arms around her waist. “Mmm. Yes. Maybe later I can remember, but right now—”

Then he kissed her.

B
RIAN’S COMPLAINING
cries woke Allie the next morning. She reluctantly climbed out of the warm bed, pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt, then padded to the baby’s room. “Hi, sweetie.”

Brian smiled at her and talked up a storm while she changed him, then went into the kitchen. She sat him in his car seat and said, “What’s for breakfast?”

“I’ll have the puréed apricots.”

She spun to see Mike standing in the doorway.

He was wearing a pair of jeans low on his hips. The sight of him made her heartbeat pick up. “Puréed apricots? Without turning them into an apricot soufflé?” she asked him.

He gave her a slow, sexy smile. “I’m way too distracted to make a soufflé,” he said, “And it’s a great feeling. How about you?”

“I’d never attempt a soufflé, and certainly not now,” she said, “not with you looking at me that way.” She moved toward him, but Brian indicated that she’d better come back at once.

“He’s hungry,” Allie said, deserting Mike reluctantly.

“So am I. For food, among other things. We’ll order from room service. My first meeting isn’t until nine.”

Allie glanced at the clock. Babies certainly got your days going early.

“I’ll make that first cup of coffee right now,” he told her. “I’d rather serve it to you in bed,” and his eyes roamed over her as he spoke, “but this will have to do. You want to call room service while I feed Brian, or the other way around?”

“I’m on phone duty,” she said, giving him a mischievous smile. Watching him spoon apricots into the baby’s
mouth while she placed their order, she realized she’d never felt this good, this fulfilled. She couldn’t ever remember feeling this—blissful. She wasn’t just happy, she was content. Content with what she was doing, content with the way her life was going.

The way it was going right this minute. With a sinking feeling, she realized it was already too late, that she loved them both, loved Mike passionately, loved Brian as if he were her own child. She couldn’t imagine not being with them every day.

Impulsively she said, “I’m so happy, Mike.”

He smiled at her. “It’s good to be happy.”

She suddenly felt shy, but she forged ahead. “I mean I’m happy right now, I like my life, I like what I’m doing. I don’t want anything to change.” She took a deep breath. “But yesterday I decided for sure what I wanted to study. Psychology. I want to be a clinical psychologist if I can get through the Ph.D. program.”

His face lit up, and his eyes sparkled. “It’s just what you should do. I want to get up and hug you, but…” He gestured to Brian, to his fruit-stained shirt. “Just you wait.” His smile was filled with promise.

Promise of what? Promise to respect her if she went back to school? Promise to wait for her until she finished her education? “I realize,” she rushed on, “that I could help you with Brian until he’s a bit older and then start the program…”
But
…But what if she settled in contentedly just as her mother said she might and didn’t go back to school, ever?

She glanced at Mike. He’d drawn his eyebrows together ever so slightly, so that he looked worried, or disapproving, maybe. It made her want to throw her arms around him, spilled baby food and all, and tell him that no matter what happened, she loved him. But
with that expression on his face, she couldn’t tell him what was in her heart.

His face cleared as suddenly as it had clouded over. “We’ll talk about it tonight. Right now, I have to clean up this young man before our breakfast gets here. Right, Brian?” He lifted the baby high into the air, making him shriek happily and wave his hands.

He was Mike as usual, cheerful, smiling, starting his day with enthusiasm. She stood in the kitchen for a moment, thinking about his growing and building relationship with Brian, and about her increasing love for both of them.

It was all about Brian, really, wasn’t it? Brian deserved a focused father. He didn’t deserve an often-absent—she could hardly bear to think the word—mother.

She knew what she had to do, even if it broke her heart.

Even though Allie was worried sick about the conversation she would have with Mike that night, she knew exactly how to entertain Brian today. The question was how to get there. Consulting a transportation map, she walked him to the closest subway station and peered down into it.

Stairs. Tons of stairs. She looked doubtfully at Brian’s stroller and decided his first subway experience would have to wait until he was walking.

“But
I
can walk,” she told Brian, and they did, thirty blocks north to the Museum of Natural History.

Brian was enthralled by the dinosaurs, the huge whale model suspended from the ceiling entranced him, and the grizzly bear made him say, “Ohhh.” At first, Allie gave him her complete attention, but at some point, she felt her thoughts drifting. It wasn’t the way a nanny should behave, but in the cool dimness of one of the display rooms, she felt all her concerns descend on her as heavily as if the whale had dropped from the ceiling right on top of her. Just yesterday, she’d felt her load had lightened.

It was mid October, which left her ten weeks to worry about whether she was doing the right thing, to change her mind if she wanted to. The look on Mike’s face
this morning—what did it mean? Was he hoping she’d stay? Or go, leaving him to concentrate on Brian and the restaurant, in that order.

But at that moment, she was a nanny, not a woman struggling to choose between love and a career. She peered around the stroller at Brian. “Hey, Brian, is this enough natural history for you today?” His head had lolled to one side and his eyes were droopy. Feeling very tired, she left the museum and hailed a cab.

In the luxurious suite, she fed and changed Brian, looked without interest at the room-service menu, then ordered the closest thing to a grilled cheese sandwich she could find.

While Brian slept, she finished the book she’d been reading, a study of various mental conditions, wondering again if she was doing the right thing or ruining her life forever.

M
IKE TRIED HARD
to listen to what Richard Stein and his colleagues were saying. “Six franchises to start with,” blah, blah, blah, “…not economically viable to have a different special each night, so we were thinking about a blue plate special for each night of the week,” yada, yada, yada.

He could hear the words, he was aware that although the plan made economic sense, he didn’t like it much, but his mind was on Allie.

She’d thrown him a curve this morning, made him wonder what she really wanted to do. When she suggested she didn’t have to go back to school immediately, he should have leapt at the chance she was handing him on a velvet pillow—and handed back that same pillow with an engagement ring on it.

Still, he’d heard the uncertainty in her voice. She
didn’t want to be, and he didn’t want her to be, one of those people who’d grown up in the valley and couldn’t imagine going beyond it. It was different for him. The valley was his resting place from the fights he’d had with the world outside the valley.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a way for each of them to…

“How does this sound so far?” Stein asked him.

“Like something that will take a lot of thought,” Mike said, knowing he wasn’t talking about franchising, but about Allie.

After the meeting ended, he walked back to the hotel. He couldn’t wait to talk to her about the information he’d gleaned. He was so conflicted about what he wanted to do with the diner that only Allie could straighten him out.

Was he using her, or was it just that he depended on her? Too much, maybe. He and Brian both did. But franchising was an important issue, wasn’t it? He’d kiss her, hug her, snuggle her against him, and after…well, after, she’d be happy to help him weigh the pros against the cons.

It occurred to him that he could return the favor, help her sort out the pros and cons of going back to school, like when and how to…

How to. Yes! He walked faster. There were ways for Allie to go back to school and still be a part of his and Brian’s life. Ideas hummed through his head. With every step his heart felt lighter. He’d tell her all about it, even before they talked about his day at Abernathy.

He stepped into the suite intending to do just that, but instead of finding Allie alone, he found her holding Brian.

“He’s teething,” she said, looking down affectionately
at the fussy boy grinding his fists into his mouth. “We had some medicine delivered, and I was about to rub it on his gums.”

The conversation would have to boil inside him until the right moment presented itself. He took off his suit jacket, sat beside her, and took Brian onto his lap. She squeezed a small amount of the medicine onto her fingertip and approached Brian’s mouth with it.

He wailed, turned away from her and buried his head under Mike’s arm. As Mike was about to offer Brian’s mouth for medication whether he liked it or not, she said, “Look, Brian, look at Allie.”

Brian quieted down and took a peek. Allie rubbed her fingertip over her own gums. “Ooh, that feels so good,” she crooned. “It’s cool, it tastes pretty good…you know, I think I’ll just rub in some more since you’re not interested.”

Brian sat up and stared at her, pressing down hard on another one of those teething biscuits. “Yum, yum,” she said in a singsong voice. “I might have to use all of it, Brian, because it’s so nice.”

It wasn’t long before Brian reached out for the tube. Allie said, “I guess I could let you have some, too, if you really want it. Open your mouth and close your eyes and you will get a big surprise.”

Of course Brian didn’t understand the directions, but he let her take the cookie away from him and open his mouth just enough to rub the gel on his gums, ever so gently, ever so lightly. Talking to him softly, she massaged and massaged until Mike felt the baby begin to droop in his lap.

“H
E’S ALMOST
asleep,” she whispered, gazing at Brian’s closed eyes, at Mike holding Brian with such assurance, feeling her heart expand with love for both of them.

Mike nodded. “You did it. You made Brian think that salve was the next best thing to ice cream. Now that’s good psychology. It’s what you were meant to do.”

“I hope so.” Or was she meant to be Mike’s wife, Brian’s mother? Her heart pounded loudly in her chest. “Mike,” she said, “I want to hear all about your day.” She paused. “And talk about some other things, too.”

“I’ll put this boy to bed,” Mike said abruptly, “and then we can talk.”

Mike put Brian into his crib and hung around long enough to be sure he was still asleep. He’d been so excited by finding possible solutions to his and Allie’s situation, but when Allie said
she
wanted to talk to
him
, something about her tone gave him a bad feeling.

W
HEN HE WENT
back to the living room, Allie was curled on the couch, looking so desirable that he remembered at once that Brian had scotched the hugging and kissing part of his homecoming. He was about to reach out for her, about to spill out all his thoughts about their future together, when she said in an all-too-practical tone, “What happened today?”

He guessed he’d have to start with the business side of the conversation. He sat beside her, wishing her curled-up legs weren’t keeping him from sitting closer. “They want to make some big changes, and I’m not sure I like them. It’s a catch-22. The diner is unique, but what makes it unique makes it hard to franchise.”

Allie nodded. “You’ve put your own stamp on the diner. Without you right there in the kitchen or talking
to the customers, it won’t be the same. But it could still be good.”

He sighed and leaned back against the cushions. “They’re offering me so much money. I’d be rich. My family would be rich.”

As he’d expected, Allie didn’t seem impressed by that. “If that would make you happy, you should consider the offer.”

He closed his eyes. “Happy to have done something for my brothers, but personally I might be miserable. Abernathy would like me to move to New York and work for them to replicate our menu. Specials, yes, but more like Monday Pot Roast and Tuesday Lasagna. Everything we offer would be by formula—a hamburger would be six ounces of beef, an inch and a quarter thick, and so on. I’d like to have some influence on those decisions, but—” he leaned toward her “—I’m not moving to New York. Allie—”

“Mike,” she interrupted him, no longer looking or sounding practical, “If you want to move to New York, you should. Because I’ve made a difficult decision. You’ll never know how difficult.” Her eyes filled with tears.

Mike drew back a little. It took all his self-control to keep his voice steady. “Go on.”

“The first thing I have to tell you is…is that I love you.”

“I love you, too. With all my heart. And I was thinking—”

“No, wait. Let me finish.” Her gaze pleaded with him to understand. “I’ve realized love isn’t all passion and romance. It’s doing the best thing for the person you love.”

“Allie, the best thing—”

“The best thing—” and her voice broke “—is for you to be free to become a real father to Brian, to be free to make this deal with Abernathy without having me to think about. I’m getting out of your life, Mike, so we can both do what’s best for us.” A sob escaped her. “I don’t want it to be this way, but it has to. Please understand. I love Brian, too, so very much, and I think he loves me. But he needs permanence in his life. That’s you, Mike, unencumbered and showering all your love on him.” She paused, tears streaming down her face. “If you’re still there when I’ve finished what I have to do, I hope we can start all over again.”

Ice formed over his heart, filled his veins. “I don’t want it to be this way, either, but I know you’re right.” He gazed into her eyes. “As soon as we get back to LaRocque, I’ll find a new nanny.”

She seemed to crumple. Slowly she stood and walked away—to the bedroom next to Brian’s rather than the one they’d shared.

Mike stayed on the sofa, feeling as if his life had ended.

A
LLIE MADE A
tour of Mrs. Langston’s house, looking for anything she might have forgotten, then went back to the living room, where her mother waited to say goodbye.

“I’m proud of you, honey. I know it wasn’t an easy decision,” Elaine said. “But getting a doctorate in psychology is a
good
decision. An adult decision. You won’t regret it.”

Allie nodded absently. She was going to miss this house. A lot. Just like she was going to miss this town. And the people. And…

Mike and Brian.

“In Burlington, you won’t be as distracted as if you stayed here,” Elaine went on, “surrounded by memories. Being away will ease the hurt a little.”

Allie felt that nothing could ever dull the pain. “I just hope I can get into the doctoral program,” she said, feeling as dull as her voice. She closed her second suitcase and placed it near the doorway.

“I’m confident they’ll accept you.” Elaine’s voice was reassuring. “And you’re so lucky you can stay in Suzy’s apartment until you find your own place to settle into.”

Again, Allie nodded. Yes, she was lucky. Lucky Suzy was spending the fall semester doing some special coursework in Boston. Lucky that she would be able to talk to professors, department heads and campus counselors to get an even better idea of what she was getting into.

She was just overflowing with luck these days.

“Of course, I’ll miss you, but you’ll be back soon for the benefit.” Her mother folded an afghan and laid it over the back of Allie’s special wing chair.

The benefit. The details of the dinner were in perfect order, but could she bear to go to it? To see Mike so soon? “I’m not sure if I’ll come back, Mom. We’ll see.”

Her mother raised a cautionary hand. “You can’t miss it. I don’t know what exactly happened between you and Mike, but you still have to come to the benefit, Allie. You have a responsibility to see it through to the end.”

Her mother’s expression was stern, and she was using the same voice she’d used when Allie had been small and had tracked mud into the house.

But her mother didn’t understand. Right now, she couldn’t imagine being in a room with Mike without
bursting into tears. A sobbing woman wouldn’t exactly help them raise money for the foster-care center.

Just as she realized the bitterness in her thoughts, her mother said, “Lemonade.”

Allie stared at her.

“Lemonade,” her mother said again. “You’ve been handed a bag of lemons, Allie. You have a choice. You can either let them turn you sour and bitter or—”

“I can make lemonade,” Allie said.

Her mother patted her cheek. “Yes, exactly. So go make lemonade.”