The Social Climber of Davenport Heights (28 page)

“If that’s the way you want it.”

“So you’re letting me go to Italy,” Brynn said. “So does that mean you’ll be giving me money?”

I hesitated, quickly trying to think through the answer. I was pretty certain this was a test, an attempt to discern how deep my commitment to her freedom was. If I said that as an adult
on her own she wasn’t taking my money, that would be controlling again. I had to find a way to give the control to her without making her feel abandoned.

“No,” I said finally. “I wouldn’t like the idea of you being in Europe without funds. I’ll talk to your father. We’ll keep cash in your account. Just be sure and take your ATM card.”

I had made a decision to trust her. For good or not so good, I’d finally given her her freedom and now I had to live with it. It wasn’t easy.

O
N A BRIGHT
and sunny Monday in May, Mikki gave birth to a healthy seven-pound-three-ounce boy. David called me, sounding upbeat but a lot like David.

“I double-bogied the ninth hole on the Sunday dawn patrol. It must have been sympathetic labor.”

I laughed appropriately. He filled me in on all the details. The emergency cell-phone call on the eleventh green. The mad rush to the hospital, fearing that the baby would be born on the floorboard of the Volvo. The following twenty-two-hour marathon wait in the labor room. W.D.’s helpful advice to the expectant mother about getting on with it and giving birth. Edith, nearly tearing her hair out with anxiety, finally telling her husband to simply “Shut the hell up!”

Edith raising her voice and actually cursing at W.D. was so out of character, that everybody in the room must have been stunned.

“What did your father do?”

David chuckled. “We didn’t hear another peep out of him until the baby was born.”

“Unbelievable.”

“I swear,” David told me, “it was as if Mom morphed into
General Patton. The minute she took charge of the situation, Mikki started pushing the baby down into the birth canal. They moved us into delivery within fifteen minutes.”

David made it sound like so much fun and such a family occasion that I actually felt a little left out.

The little fellow was given the very large name of Wentworth David Lofton IV.

“Mikki thinks we should call him Worth,” he told me.

It seemed logical to me. David’s grandfather’s name was shortened into Went, his father was W.D. and he was David. Worth was about all that was left.

“I think that would be fine,” I assured him.

“It’s kind of a pretentious name. Don’t you think it sounds too…I don’t know…too economic?”

I laughed. “Well, maybe it is a bit,” I said. “But better to call him something economic than to take to calling him Booger or Diaperbutt.”

David chuckled.

“I like you, Jane,” he said. “You know, I think I like you more now than I ever did.”

Strangely, I felt the same way. I realized at that moment that I liked my life a lot. And David’s small part of it was just exactly enough.

“How’s Mikki?” I asked him. “Did she have a tough time?”

“Oh my God, it was hideous,” he answered. “I thought the labor room was the very worst. When she wasn’t screaming, she was moaning or crying. But then we get into delivery and there was blood and mucus and gook everywhere. It was disgusting.”

“It’s always like that,” I said.

“Well, I was just grateful to have Beau Tatum as her doctor. If he hadn’t kept talking, keeping my mind on golf the whole time, I probably would have thrown up or fainted.”

“Well,” I said, “at least now you know where babies come from.”

“I liked it better with Brynn,” he said. “I just showed up at the hospital. She was all pretty and sleeping in a little pink blanket and you were sitting up in bed with your hair brushed out and your makeup repaired.”

“You remember that?”

“Of course I remember,” he said. “It was one of the most important days of my life.”

I smiled into the phone. It felt good hearing him say that. I don’t think he’d ever mentioned it before. That’s one of the downsides of being married. Those things that are so important to say often go without being said.

“I’m not sorry that you and I didn’t have more children,” I told him sincerely. “But I am glad that you are lucky enough to have more with Mikki.”

“Why, thanks, Jane,” he said. “Mikki tells me she wants a whole houseful of kids. I’m not sure how good an idea that is, but I guess we’ll work it out.”

“So what did Brynn have to say about Worth?” I asked him. “Is she anxious to get down here to see him? Has she given up on Italy to volunteer for babysitting?”

He hesitated.

“I called you first, Jane,” he said. “I was kind of hoping you would call and break the news to her.”

My disappointment was like a blow to the stomach.

“Oh, David, no,” I said. “You should tell her.”

“I know I
should
.” His tone was whining. “She hasn’t been all that pleased about this baby idea,” he said. “In fact, she’s been downright hostile to Mikki.”

“You have to expect that, David,” I told him. “Changes you and I make in our lives affect her, too.”

“I know,” he said. “I just thought she’d get over it by now.”

Brynn had managed to hold a grudge against me since the onset of puberty, but I decided not to point that out.

“Let’s give her time to sort out her own life, David,” I said. “Love her, include her in your new family and give her time.”

He heaved a big sigh. “Yeah, I know you’re right,” he said. “I want to invite her to spend time with us, but Mikki’s worried about all that negativity around the baby.”

I didn’t want to see Brynn cut off from her father. “Mikki is wrong on that score,” I told him. “Once Brynn sees little Worth, I promise you, she won’t be able to resist him.”

David laughed. “That would be hard to do,” he admitted.

“But you have to be the one to call your daughter,” I insisted.

“Jane, please.”

His words were unapologetically pleading. I was very tempted to do as he asked. I resisted.

“Brynn deserves to hear from you,” I said. “If I call her, she’ll feel more left out of your life than she does now. Call her, David. Just give her the details and then talk golf like you always do. It will be easier than you think. I’ll talk to her later, but she needs to hear the news from you.”

Reluctantly he agreed, and I got off the phone quickly before his courage failed him. It was not my responsibility to make sure that Brynn and David maintained their relationship, but it was a good thing to do and I was in the business of doing good these days.

I called Scott and told him about the baby and that I was going to take the day off in celebration. In fact, I wanted to spend the morning with Chester.

I talked to Chester about Scott all the time, but I’d never actually mentioned the man to Scott. Somehow it didn’t come up. I suppose because I hadn’t told him anything about my vow,
my new focus, my scorekeeping. It wasn’t just because I thought it made me sound sort of crazy. Scott was sort of crazy himself and I knew he wouldn’t pass judgment like my in-laws, or suggest therapy like David did. I think I kept my secret because I didn’t want him to know the truth about me. That I was really a narrow, selfish person. All the things he liked about me were the new things—the new me, and I wanted all the old things, the old Jane Lofton, to simply disappear. But that doesn’t happen.

I told Chester about how I felt. He was sitting up, but not in his lounger. He was in a very uncomfortable-looking wheelchair. His one leg was awkwardly elevated.

“You can’t make the past not exist,” he told me. “Are you sure you would really want to?”

“No,” I admitted. “There are things I don’t want to lose. David and I were talking this morning about when Brynn was born. I had a lot of happiness in my marriage. There were lots of good times, many things I never want to forget. But I was so single-focused, uncaring, self-absorbed—I was completely wrapped up in becoming part of a world that doesn’t even hold my interest anymore.”

“I guess most of us have found ourselves in that position a time or two,” he agreed.

“Scott has such respect for me and he likes me, too. I guess I just wish I was the person he thinks I am.”

“Maybe you are,” Chester said.

I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t quite manage it.

“You’ve changed your life completely before,” he said. “You walked away from the world you grew up in, from everything that was familiar to you.”

“But that was easy,” I told him. “I walked away, but somebody else tore it up. My friends were scattered, my mother
died and there was not one street, building, house or tree to remind me of what had been.”

“That was easier?” Chester sounded as if he didn’t believe it. “Sometimes memories are far stronger than any tangible evidence.”

I didn’t argue. It was hard to compare yesterday with today. And had I really left all my days at Sunnyside behind me? In some ways they were always with me.

“I wish I could make some sort of symbolic break,” I told him. “Find a way to demonstrate that I’ve changed.”

“You demonstrate that every day,” Chester assured me. “If you need a symbol, I’m sure you’ll find one.”

He was right, of course. And it was less than a hour later, sitting in my own kitchen, fixing myself a tuna sandwich, when I recognized it.

I called Scott to find out how his day was going.

“I’ve been up to my ears in energy policy all morning and I’m about to run off all your new customers,” he said. “You’d better come racing in like the cavalry, Janey Domschke, and save this business.”

The minute I heard it, I knew.

“The human contact will do you good,” I told him. “I’ve got one more errand to run. I need to go downtown to the clerk of courts office to file a petition.”

“What are you doing now? Getting signatures to have antiques declared a protected species?”

I laughed. “Not anything quite so dramatic or globally charged,” I told him. “I’m getting my name changed.”

Just saying it aloud made me feel better. Jane Lofton was no longer the kind of woman I wanted to be. It would be good to put her and her life behind me, at least in name only.

I gathered up my driver’s license, social security card, birth
certificate and divorce decree and was thirty seconds from the front door when the telephone rang. I almost let the voice mail pick it up, but at the last second I checked the caller ID. It was Brynn’s college.

“Hello,” I answered, dropping my purse to grab up the receiver at the last minute.

“Mrs. Lofton, please.” The voice at the other end of the line was middle-aged, female and very formal.

“This is Jane Lofton.”

“Good afternoon, I’m Genevieve Pipington, coordinator of the Simmons Summer Overseas Program.”

She hesitated as if that should mean something to me. It didn’t.

“Yes?” I inquired finally.

“I have received Brynn’s application,” she said. “And I commend you for filling it out and getting it back to us so quickly. We hardly ever accept applications this late in the year. But for Brynn, of course, we would love to make an exception.”

I didn’t remember filling out anything, but I kept that to myself.

“I do have a couple of questions,” Ms. Pipington continued. “That is, naturally, if you have a moment. Brynn has told us how very busy you are these days and has asked me not to bother you.”

“Believe me,” I told her, “it is no bother. What questions do you have?”

“I understand that both you and your husband will be out of the country yourself all summer,” she said.

I made sort of a noncommittal murmur.

“However, we have our policies and we absolutely must have some emergency contact person,” she said. “Listing her friend Hailey will simply not do. If Brynn has no other family, could
we perhaps list Hailey’s parents? I would really prefer that over listing another student.”

For a moment it was as if I was in a fog, possibly the result of too much stimulation and too little sleep. Fortunately I was able to get a grip, and quickly. I had not made inroads into local society without recognizing the earmarks of a genuine connive. The apple, apparently, hadn’t really fallen all that far from the tree.

“Ms. Pipington, I’m so glad you called,” I said effusively. “Honestly, I was going to call you myself just this morning.”

“Really?”

“Yes, as it turns out, I will not be leaving the country for the summer,” I said. “I’ve undertaken some new management responsibilities at an adorable little antique store and I am going to stay right here in the city.”

“Well, that’s fine then,” the woman said. “I’ll just change the emergency contact to this number.”

“Yes, and,” I continued, “I’m beginning to rethink this trip. I’m not sure that Brynn needs to go overseas this summer. I’m thinking that maybe she should come home and stay with me.”

“Oh.” She sounded particularly sad. “I am terribly disappointed to hear that. I just adore Brynn. She’s so bright and funny and has such a natural sensitivity and understanding about art. I was so thrilled when she changed her mind unexpectedly and decided to go. I was so looking forward to showing her Florence.”

“You are going on the trip?”

“Oh yes, I do these every year,” she said. “Dr. Sally Milton and I have been shepherding young women through the finest art in Italy for the last nine years.”

“Just the two of you, with all these girls?” I asked.

“Nine serious students of art,” she said. “Believe me, we haven’t had a moment’s problem with any of them.”

I sat there for a long moment, thoughtful. Then decisive.

“Would you hold on a moment, please?” I asked.

I set the phone down and hurried into the privacy of the kitchen, digging into my purse for my mobile. I quickly pulled up the directory screen and scanned down to Dr. Reiser’s name. I hit Talk.

It took a moment to connect, and my thoughts were racing, but my attitude was hopeful. A nasally female with a Boston “r” answered the call.

“Hertzhog and Reiser Family Counseling.”

“Yes, I’m calling to inquire about who will be taking Dr. Reiser’s calls this summer while he’s on vacation,” I said.

“Dr. Hertzhog will be taking emergencies,” she said.

“What about regular weekly visits?”

I could hear her mouse clicking as she checked the appointment screens.

“I believe all of his regular appointments have been rescheduled,” she said. “What is your name and I’ll check on yours.”

I ignored the question.

“He can reschedule after being on vacation for three months?”

“Three months?” Her voice was incredulous. “He’ll only be on vacation the first and second week of July.”

“How can he go to Italy in that amount of time?” I asked.

“Italy?” The woman’s voice was incredulous. “He’s going fly-fishing in British Columbia.”

“Oh well, never mind,” I said, and hung up before she had a chance to ask any more questions.