Unzipped? (15 page)

H
AL TRIED
to get control over his temper as he drove away from Shannon’s apartment. The weather was horrendous and fit his mood to a tee. Cold spring rain sluiced down his windshield and increased the night gloom.

It was late and he was in for a long day tomorrow, filing the police report with Tina.

Though he had insisted that she find another job, he’d promised his receptionist that he would not allow anyone to turn Binkie into a hat or turf her granny out of the nursing home. As for Greer Conover’s nude pictures, he’d do his best to see that they weren’t published, but he couldn’t guarantee anything.

He supposed he could understand why Shannon thought he’d slept with Tina. She’d heard what sounded like a highly enjoyable date, followed by a definite come-on, a sexual command and slurping noises.

If he’d been in her situation, he probably would have thrown off his earpiece, too. Who wanted to listen to a friend…no, a lover…engage in naked acro
batics with somebody else? Just the thought of Shannon with another man made him crazy. But then, Hal had been stupid enough to fall in love with her.

She
was just being unreasonable and territorial. She’d certainly given no indication of returning his feelings.

But what really pissed him off was her accusation that he’d lied to her.

Hal might be a workaholic with antisocial tendencies. He might be competitive and not have much fashion sense. But he had never been a liar, and if she didn’t know that by now then she wasn’t as bright as he gave her credit for being.

Hal pulled into a convenience store along Route 4 in Farmington, and got gas. He swiped his credit card through the machine, pulled out the nozzle and twisted open the cap to his tank. He inserted the nozzle and began fueling up.

Something didn’t make sense to him. Shannon was supposedly too cool to care if he slept with another woman. Wasn’t she? Hal applied male logic to the issue.

Since she had gotten so upset, either she wasn’t as cool as she claimed, or she did, in fact, care for him. Or maybe both.

He frowned. They’d had a fight about his male logic before, however. Male logic and female logic didn’t work the same way, although of course male logic was superior and always would be.

He finished with the gas and sealed his tank.
After climbing back into the Explorer and hitting the road again, he decided he needed a female perspective on the situation, and called Peg from his cell phone.

“Whah? ’Lo?”

He’d obviously woken her up. “Peg, it’s Hal. I know it’s late.”

“Is it Mom? Oh, my God—is she okay?”

“Mom’s fine. I’m having woman trouble.”

“You can’t be having woman trouble. You’re dating your computer.”

“I am having woman trouble,” he repeated. “And I need your advice.”

“You mean you got laid?”

“Yes.”

Peg praised God, all His angels and Shannon Shane, Image Consultant. Then she demanded to know what poor girl had had the bad judgment to sleep with him.

“Shut up for a minute, Peg, and answer this question. If a woman claims you should date other people, but freaks when she thinks you slept with someone else, what’s up with that?”

“Well, duh, Hal. She’s jealous.”

“What if she’s too cool to be jealous?”

“Nobody is too cool to be jealous. And maybe she just didn’t realize before that she had a thing for you.”

“Before when?”

“Before you slept with someone else! Wow, that means you got laid twice. We should alert the press.”

“I didn’t sleep with anyone else.”

“I’m so confused,” said Peg. “Hal, it’s after midnight. Can this wait until morning?”

“I guess so.”

“Good. Because…oh, no. Now I’m going to have nightmares about my brother having sex. Gross! And I was having the best George Clooney dream, too.”

“Well, pardon me, Peg. I didn’t mean to disgust you or interrupt your rendezvous with El Cloon.”

“He’s wearing a Speedo,” she said dreamily. “Small. Yellow. Stretchy.”

“Ugh.”

“Banana-flavored.”

This was far too much information, even in a fantasy. “And on that note, I’m outta here, Peg!”

“G’night.”

He hung up. Was it possible that Shannon cared for him? Or was she just a spoiled, fickle woman who wanted to drive him crazy?

He thought about the things she’d confided to him: her issues with her adoption and her experience with the director in L.A. Somehow, he couldn’t just write her off. But he didn’t exactly feel like sending her flowers right now.

He drove home through the rain and let it cool him down a little. He thought about what he could do to get through to her, to make her listen to him, believe him about Tina. He thought about what he could do to reach her cool, emotionally scarred, L.A. heart.

L
ILIA ANSWERED
the phone at Finesse when Shannon called in.

“What’s wrong, hon?”

She hated to lie to her friends, and it was colossally lame for her to not go in today, but she couldn’t drag herself out of bed. “I don’t feel well. Stomach virus. I only have two appointments in the afternoon, and with your help, I’ll reschedule them both.”

“My help meaning that you’ve forgotten your Palm Pilot again?”

“How did you know?”

“It’s in the kitchenette next to the fruit bowl.”

Shannon produced a weak laugh.

“How are you going to stay organized when you can’t even remember to take your Palm Pilot with you?” Lil’s tone was mock-severe.

“I’ve got a mind like a steel trap,” Shannon mumbled.

“You’ve got a mind like a steel drum,” Lil corrected. “Empty and echoing.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.” She got the client phone numbers from Lil and told her, “I’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Okay. Feel better, sweetie.”

Shannon hung up the phone and stared at the abstract painting on her bedroom wall for a while. As usual, it promised the keys to the creative universe and failed to deliver. She closed her eyes again, couldn’t fall asleep, and reluctantly swung her legs out of bed.

The hardwood floor was cold and rather dusty. If she were a person who cared more, she’d vacuum. But she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She shuffled downstairs in her pj’s, discovered that she’d run out of coffee and almost bawled over the fact, which was just pathetic. If she ordered a couple of gallons of coffee and three dozen doughnuts, would Krispy Kreme deliver? Doubtful.

Shannon drank a cup of ice water and ate the three stale fortune cookies in her cabinet, grimacing over the little paper predictions inside.

“You will be successful beyond your wildest dreams.”
Well, obviously. Just look at me.
She tossed that fortune into the trash.

“You will be lucky in love.”
Yup. A vibrator never lies to you or cheats on you.

“Pull your head out of your ass.”
Oh, perfect.
She laughed. This one was in Jane’s handwriting, and Shannon spent a few minutes trying to figure out how she’d gotten the tiny piece of paper out without cracking the cookie.

Obviously a corner of it must have been peeking out, and she’d just tugged on it until it came free. Then she’d written her own version and stuffed it inside. Yup—there was glue residue on the cellophane wrapper.

Breakfast consumed, Shannon flopped onto the lip couch and explored the offerings of daytime television. Finally she muted the volume and just watched various people run around and make ges
tures with their lips moving. The one thing she refused to do was think about Hal.

At eleven, she ordered a supreme pizza. When it arrived, she systematically picked off every black olive on the gooey disk and then ate the entire thing while her stomach stretched tighter and tighter.

She passed another hour in extreme regret for her piggyness, feeling bloated and sick.

During the hour after that, she popped cherry-flavored antacids and groaned a lot. And when the soaps came on, she watched two female stars scheme, bitch and then tug each other’s hairpieces off in a public fountain while their wet designer clothing stuck to their breasts.

Come to think of it, she’d auditioned for the role of one of their daughters—the one who’d driven off a cliff in the second episode of the season, leaving her illegitimate newborn and a mysterious buried box behind.

Shannon was trying to remember what had been in the box when her doorbell rang and she had to maneuver her bowling ball of a stomach off the couch to see who was there.

A guy from an overnight delivery service stood outside with an envelope. She signed for it, thanked him and accidentally burped before closing the door. She looked down at the return address and her pepperoni-encrusted heart stopped.

The envelope was from the Home for Little Wanderers. She stared at it while her heart did a backflip and then launched into a tap sequence. Slowly she sat
down and pulled the cardboard tab to open the packet.

There were two letters inside. One was from the adoption agency. The other was in a plain, white, sealed envelope.

The cover letter was simple and to the point.

Shannon stared at the white envelope and swallowed. The pizza roiled in her stomach. She went to the kitchen, got a knife, and took a deep breath before slitting open the seal.

Shannon read and reread the letter, her tears bathing the slanted, loopy handwriting. Her mother
hadn’t signed a name, hadn’t left an address—not even a phone number or e-mail.

The circumstances of my life do not permit me to meet you.
What circumstances? But no details appeared. No way to contact her in order to ask them. The letter was tender, loving, but it was also a very sweet entreaty to be left alone. It was clear that Shannon wasn’t welcome to turn up on her biological mother’s doorstep for a long-awaited reunion.

This was the type of information she’d feared. A double rejection. The stiff-arm treatment, no matter how gently presented. Her mind flooded with a thousand questions, Shannon turned her gaze back to the silent television and watched the actors and actresses go through the motions of life.

She felt suspended and weightless, as though she were underwater and unable to move with any urgency. She watched a woman slap a man, a snake menace a child, an executive get into an elevator. None of it meant anything or triggered any emotion. Once the final tear had fallen on the letter in her lap, she went numb.

S
HANNON AWOKE
to sunshine streaming through her bedroom window. Clearly it was there to mock her. How dare the sun shine when she’d managed to chase away the guy she loved and turn him into a jerk? How dare the sky be blue and birds chirp when her own biological mother didn’t want to meet her?

She staggered out of bed and headed toward the bathroom, where it was hard for her to even find the energy to brush her teeth. She squeezed out some toothpaste onto her brush and did so anyway. She scrubbed at a back molar and glared at her reflection. She had sheet marks on her face and her hair…yikes. She looked like a cross between Einstein and Ozzy Osbourne, and didn’t much care. She put herself on automatic pilot and got through the shower, fueled only by the knowledge that if she wanted coffee, she had to go out for it.

Minutes later she stood in front of her closet, discombobulated. She did not want to wear her orange leather jacket. She did not want to wear her jean jacket with the hand-embroidered Chinese dragon on
it. She obviously would not wear a black cocktail dress to work.

No jeans, though she longed for them—not professional. Red suit? Yeah, right. Hip navy waitress dress? Maybe. Very retro. Nope. She didn’t feel retro today, or hip, come to think of it. Black pencil skirt with two-inch back vent? Too confining.

At last she chose low-slung, wide-legged wool pants with a faint pinstripe. She stuck a leg into them as the phone rang, and hobbled to the bedside table to answer it, wondering what she was going to pair the slacks with.

She normally enjoyed getting dressed in the morning—she considered it costuming. Her clothes projected whomever she chose to be that day. It was fun.

“’Lo?” She stuck her other leg in, pulled up the pants and felt the zipper brush her backside. She looked down to find a pregnant pooch of fabric at her waist.
Brilliant. I just put my slacks on backward.

Next she’d forget a top altogether and go to work in her bra.

“Shan? Are you feeling better?” Lilia, bless her, had called to check up on her.

No. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel better.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’ll be in the office in about half an hour.”

“Okay. By the way, Hal Underwood just came by. He dropped off an envelope for you.”

Her heart lurched. She told it to right itself.
Hal is a goat.
“Weird. I haven’t sent him a bill yet.”

“Kudos, Shan. He looks incredible.”

Yeah, kudos.
“Well, I couldn’t have made him look worse, right?” She forced out a brittle laugh.

“I think he was very disappointed that you weren’t here.”

“Bummer,” Shannon said lightly. “Well, I’ve got to finish drying my hair. Sorry I’m running late. I fell asleep without setting the alarm. Be there soon.”

A
LL DAY LONG
, she refused to open the envelope. It was brown, nine by twelve inches, and definitely contained more than a check. She glared at it. Was it bad poetry? A ream of insults? Who knew. She was done opening mysterious envelopes. They never contained good news.

She pulled herself together to meet with three clients, sent PR packets out to two others and scheduled a speaking engagement. She dredged up a smile and some friendly words for Janna, the high school girl who was “paying” for her consultations by helping with direct mail.

She had blossomed with a little guidance and no longer hid her face behind her hair. She even smiled in spite of her braces—which would come off in less than a year.

Still, Shannon had the sensation that she was functioning underwater, in slow motion, and that nothing she accomplished meant anything. She ate a giant chocolate bar for lunch, ignoring the raised eyebrows of Jane and Lil.

She was slumped in her chair at the end of the day,
aimlessly playing solitaire on her computer and still ignoring the envelope, when her partners invaded her office. Lil picked up her purse—dropping Shannon’s Palm Pilot into it—and Jane held out her raincoat.

Shannon squinted at them and stuck her lip out. “I don’t wanna. If I drink cosmos, I’ll get all weepy and pathetic.”

“Yes,” said Jane. “That would be the point. You need to talk about it.”

“About what?”

“God, grant me patience. About whatever is turning you into a mope. It doesn’t take my degree in behavioral psych to figure out that you are depressed and repressing your feelings. Now suck your lip in, sweetie, and stand up.”

“Leave me alone,” she begged.

“We left you alone yesterday,” said Lil.

“It’s not good manners to pry,” Shannon said, in a last-ditch attempt to keep sulking alone.

“Shan, you’re as rude as they come,” Lil retorted, “so I just figure I’m making you feel at home.”

Shannon produced a weak grin and let them bully her out the door. They went just down the road to Max a Mia, where her friends set a cosmopolitan in front of her in short order. They also ordered appetizers, since she’d need something to soak up the alcohol after her unhealthy lunch.

“Speak,” said Jane. “My brilliant powers of deduction tell me that this all has something to do with Hal Underwood.”

“So do mine.” Lil nodded. “And I notice that you still haven’t opened his envelope.”

“I hate him,” Shannon said by way of explanation. “But it’s my own fault.” She picked up her glass and let some of the vodka roll over her tongue. “That’s the worst part. I told him to date other women, so he did.”

Jane made a sympathetic noise.

“But I didn’t tell him he should sleep with his tacky receptionist right after we…” She took another sip. Then she said to Lil, “You want a fake bearskin rug?”

Her friend shuddered. “Absolutely not.”

“Just checking.” She turned to Jane. “You?”

“No, thanks. Especially not if it has butt-prints on it. But it’s, uh, generous of you to offer.”

“Yeah.”

Jane and Lil looked at each other. “Okay. So you told him to move on, and now you’re mad at him for moving on. That makes sense.”

“I know.” Shan looked at them woefully. “And then he lied about it and said that he didn’t sleep with her!”

“How do you know he’s lying?”

“Because she clamped his hands onto her boobs, dragged him into her lair and I heard them kissing through the microphone.
Ugh!
And then it took him forever to show up at my apartment later to crow about it. Like, ‘Hey, teach, do I get a gold star for that?’ Unbelievable!”

“That’s bad.”

“Then the jerk tells me that he didn’t sleep with her and gets mad at me!”

“You’re sure he’s lying?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then you’re well rid of him.” Jane’s steady brown eyes held regret.

“Yup.” Shannon’s lip trembled. “But somewhere along the way, I fell for him. And I never thought he was a liar.”

Lilia reached over and hugged her. “I’m sorry.”

“But it gets worse. You know how I made the decision to see if my birth mother left anything in my file? Well, she did. A letter. And it said she loves me, but I can’t meet her because the ‘circumstances of her life’ don’t permit it. The letter may as well have said ‘Don’t bother me.’”

“Oh, Shannon.” Jane squeezed her hand.

“And it’s like a double rejection. First, she gives me up. Second, she doesn’t want to see how I’ve turned out. I have this overwhelming urge to…to hunt her down and
force
her to see how I’ve turned out! The letter was loving, but it also makes me angry.”

“That’s completely understandable.” They all sat in silence for a moment, while the buzz of restaurant noise went on around them. Glasses clinked, laughter carried over from other booths, another song began on the sound system.

Finally Jane said, “About the letter. There are all kinds of possible scenarios. Your birth mother is probably married now. She may never have told her husband that she had a baby before she met him. Or she
could be afraid of the reaction from any other children she has. Or perhaps her parents are elderly and ill and live with her. Maybe they’re devout Catholics, and finding out that they have an illegitimate grandchild could literally kill them. You just don’t know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Shannon said. “And that’s what hurts. I will probably never know.”

“Shannon,” Lil said. “I understand how upset you are. But you do have two parents who love you very much. Perhaps they’re not biological parents, but they’d move the earth to make you happy, even if they hate your toe ring. And that’s such a blessing…a blessing that many people don’t have in their lives.”

Shannon nodded. Lil’s parents had died young; her father on his second tour in Vietnam and her mother of a rare blood disorder. Lil’s paternal grandmother had raised her, and Lil had always felt somewhat odd that she didn’t have a normal family.

“You’re right. And I do love my mom and dad. I need to go see them and tell them that…that we can move beyond this. Tell them that in spite of the fact that we don’t always see things the same way, I do adore them and am grateful for everything they’ve given me—”

Jane, who was facing the television in the bar, suddenly pointed. “Look! Look, it’s Hal. On the news!”

Shannon whirled, spilling her drink.

A local TV newscaster asked Hal, “How do you feel, Mr. Underwood, knowing that your competitor, Greer Conover of Conover, Inc., has allegedly been engaged in corporate espionage and theft?”

She heard Hal’s voice as the cameras flashed to an office building. A man was being led out the front door in handcuffs.

“Well, mostly I feel relieved to have gotten to the bottom of things. I had known we had an information leak for some time, but I hadn’t pinpointed exactly how it was occurring.”

“Did it come as a shock to know your own receptionist was aiding and abetting your competitor?”

The camera flashed to a still photograph of Tina.

“What?”
Shannon couldn’t believe her ears.

“Absolutely, it came as a shock.”

“Your receptionist, Tina Wimple, claims that she was coerced and blackmailed into her actions. Do you find that claim credible?”

“I really can’t comment on that at this time.”

“Mr. Underwood, will this situation affect your planned IPO?”

“We will delay the IPO for a month or so, until I have all the facts in front of me, but I can assure you that our technology is still unmatched…”

“Oh. My. God.” Shannon stared at her friends. “I guess he was so good in bed she confessed.” She wrinkled her nose.

“Or,” Jane said, “he’s telling the truth and he didn’t sleep with her. Didn’t you say you were listening in on the date? To give him help if he ran into trouble?”

“Yeah.”

“Then he was wearing a wire. You said she came
on to him first. What if she tried to strip him, found the wire and assumed he was working with the police?”

Shannon had to admit that this was a possibility.

Lilia nodded. “Drink up, Miss Shane. I think it’s time you opened that envelope he dropped off.”

T
HEY ALL DROVE
back to the Finesse offices, and Shannon retrieved the envelope from her credenza. She slit it open with a pair of scissors and pulled out the contents: yet another sealed envelope and a single sheet of paper from Hal.

Shannon swallowed hard and handed the letter to Jane and Lil. She fingered the sealed envelope, her palms sweating.

I hope you can feel my love from afar, for the circumstances of my life do not permit me to meet you.

Her birth mother had asked her to respect her privacy.

Yet in her hands she held the answers to her past, courtesy of Hal, sweet Hal. He’d obtained the information illegally, there was no doubt about it. He must have hacked into private, secret files—she had no idea how. He’d risked his reputation and possibly his freedom for her.

And he hadn’t lied to her, after all. She believed him, now.

Her hands trembling, she stuffed the envelope deep into her handbag and shoved her hands into her pockets.

“You’re not going to open it?” Lil asked, incredulously.

“I don’t know.”

A wise little smile played around Jane’s lips. She said nothing for a long moment, then, “Go get him, girl.”

“Yeah. I’m going to try. I’m not sure I deserve him. But first, I have a phone call to make.”

As her partners filed out of her office, Shannon punched in the telephone number she’d known by heart since she was six.

“Hello, Mom?”

“Shannon!” Relief and love poured down the line, even through Rebecca Shane’s formal, continental accent. “I’ve been so worried about you. Are you all right?”

Shan nodded slowly, feeling ashamed that she’d refused to see or talk to her parents for the past few weeks.

Not lying this time, she said, “I’m fine. Mom, I just called…to tell you that I love you. I love you and Dad very much.”

A swift intake of breath told her that her words had healed a wound. Her mother began to cry, elegance taking a backseat to emotion. “Oh, sweetheart. We love you, too. You are more precious to us than anything, do you hear? I haven’t been a perfect mother…and your father knows he could have been around more, but—” Her voice broke. “We never meant to lie to you. We just didn’t know how to bring it up. We’ve been cowards, and I—”