Wishing On A Starr (3 page)

Daniel left Saks with Starr and Neve flanked on opposite sides. So far, he’d managed to successfully dodge their needling questions, but if he knew his daughter, and he did, he was certain he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long.

They strolled down the walkway, heading to Rockefeller Center. Memories of Hilary surfaced in the back of his mind while a familiar ache resonated around his heart. At the sight of the golden Prometheus statue, Daniel drew a deep breath. Twenty-five years ago, he met Hilary at that very fountain.

“Everyone is entitled to one wish upon the star. But you have to make it on the first night in order for it to come true,” Starr said simply. “Everybody knows that.”

The way Starr smiled melted Daniel’s heart and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I’m about to be mushy in public,” he warned, shortly before he brushed a kiss against her cheek.

Instead of protesting, Starr allowed it, and kissed him back.

“So are you going to call her, Mr. Davis?” Neve asked timidly. “The lady in the store.”

He drew a deep breath and watched how Starr’s eyes had zeroed back onto him. “I’m going to do more than that,” he announced proudly and produced Gia’s business card. “I’m taking her to dinner.”

Shock colored Starr’s expression shortly before her eyes glowed with excitement. “You’re kidding me. Let me see it.”

She reached for the card, but Daniel quickly jerked it out of reach. At the same time, a sudden gust of wind slipped it out of his fingers. Stunned, Daniel turned a bit to quickly and slipped on a patch of invisible ice.

“Hey, buddy. Watch it.”

His fall was everything but graceful. Daniel arms flailed wide and by the time he landed with an awkward thud, Starr and Neve tumbled on top of him, knocking what little wind he had left out. True to form, not a single New Yorker stopped or inquired if they were okay, but Starr and Neve suddenly caught a case of the giggles.

“So glad that I amuse you girls,” he groaned. “Do you mind getting off me now, so I can stop looking like a idiot?”

Still laughing, they lumbered slowly to their feet and then did a lousy job trying to help him up.

Bones aching, muscles throbbing, Daniel dusted the snow from his clothes and glanced around. “Please tell me you saw where the card went.”

The trio’s gazes searched around the snow-covered ground and in between the feet of the bustling crowd. However, after fifteen minutes, they gave up.

“Maybe she’s still in the store,” Starr said, hopefully.

Daniel glanced at his watch and sighed. “I seriously doubt that. Not to mention the low probability of finding her in that crowd. “What was the name of that interior decorating business?” he asked himself and tried to will an image of the card in his mind, but it wasn’t working.

Neve patted him on the shoulder. “It looks like you have a wish to make, too, Mr. Davis.”

“Yeah, but by Tuesday it’ll be too late.”

Chapter 3

“Don’t you dare call that gal,” Ma Belle spat from her sickbed. “She hasn’t come to see me in all these years, so she doesn’t need to come and see me now.” Her jaw set in a stubborn line, but she was unable to prevent her bottom lip from quivering.

Glenda said nothing as she tucked the blanket tighter around her grandmother.

“You might as well fix your face ‘cause I’m not gonna change my mind.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Glenda said, turning and lifting the dinner tray from the nightstand. Everyone knew there was no point in arguing with Ma Belle. She rarely, if ever, changed her mind about anything.

However, Glenda was hardly fooled by the matriarch’s blustering. Ma Belle’s heart broke the minute Gia escaped Talboton, and it never healed.

The majority of the family thought Gia’s dreams of finding a better life in a big city like New York wouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks. Some even suggested that she should set her sights on Atlanta-where she would at least be no more than a couple of hours from home and the fall on her face wouldn’t be as painful.

But Glenda knew her sister would make it because despite what everybody else believed, Gia had already hit rock bottom.

“Momma, we’re out of Coco Puffs.”

Glenda glanced at her sixteen-year-old daughter, Jenny, and her bulging pregnant belly, and felt an overwhelming weariness in her bones.

“Momma, did you hear me?”

“Yes, chile. Just put it on the grocery list and I’ll get some more in the morning. Why in the world you want to eat cereal for dinner anyway?” Glenda headed for the kitchen sink to get started on the dishes.

“’Cause that’s what I have a craving for,” Jenny laughed. “Don’t tell me that I have to explain cravings to a woman who had ten kids.”

Glenda bit her lip and warded off the sting of tears. Without a doubt, Jenny didn’t mean anything by the casual comment, but that didn’t stop it from smacking her with the truth of her life.

Gia fled from Talboton to avoid turning into Glenda: an endless baby factory and a woman who fell for every lie every man has ever told her. Glenda pressed a hand to her mouth, but failed to stop a ragged sob.

“Momma, are you okay?” Jenny closed the refrigerator door and waddled next to her.

“I’m fine,” she answered, but the tears that followed said otherwise.

“Did I say something wrong?” The concern in Jenny’s voice heightened as she slid her arm around her mother’s waist. “I’m sorry if I did.”

“No, Chile. I think I just need to go lie down for a few minutes. Be a dear and finish the dishes for me.” Glenda avoided making eye contact and slid out of her daughter’s arms to shuffle to her own bedroom in the back of the house. Once she had entered and closed the door behind her, she glanced around the room she had lived in her entire life and drew a deep breath. “Gia, whatever you do, don’t you ever come back here.”

#

Miraculously, Gia survived a full day of shopping. Of course the ten-hour venture resulted in only two Christmas gifts, but that was another gripe for another day.

After closing and locking her front door, Gia tossed her keys onto the first end table she passed in the living room and pretended not to notice the flashing light on the answering machine.

“It’s my day off,” she mumbled under her breath. The first one she’d had in almost four months, three weeks, and two days.

Not that she was counting.

Gia wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a Diet Pepsi from the fridge before meandering to her bedroom where she placed her cell phone on its charger. Like most of the day, her thoughts returned to the wickedly handsome man she’d met at Saks. Her lips curled upward at the memory of his dimpled cheeks and Crest-white smile, but they kept turning south whenever she’d replayed the way the man had taken off.

She sighed as her gaze landed on her little red dress across her bed, still plastic-wrapped from the dry cleaners. The only thing about heading to a private birthday dinner was the meal itself. She was starving.

On cue, Gia’s stomach released a mighty growl as if seconding the thought. “Just hang in there,” she mumbled under her breath and glanced at her watch. “Two hours until chow time.” Popping the top to her soda, she made a beeline toward the adjoining bathroom and turned on the shower to full blast.

She took her time peeling out of her clothes and pinning up the back of her hair, but instead of stepping into the shower, Gia froze at the sight of her blurred reflection. Her heart skipped a beat when she caught a glimpse of a younger version of herself with a protruding belly.

Gia drew a shaky breath and inched a trembling hand along her stomachher flat stomach. Sorrow, her old and faithful friend, swept across her body and squeezed her heart until tears leaked from her eyes.

Blink, her brain screamed. If she blinked, the image would go away and the pain would ease in her chest. But there was that part of her that was still fixated on the young girl’s belly and it was just a matter of time before a million “what ifs” crammed into her head.

The phone rang, jarring her daydream and forcing her to blink. She quickly tempered her flash of annoyance with a deep breath before she closed the bathroom door. Let the answering machine pick it up. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late. Of course, what she really wanted to do was stay home and rent a movie.

That was how she spent every December-going in hibernation mode and avoiding people. Sighing, she glanced back at the mirror. It was completely steamed over, but she paid it no mind as she pulled open the medicine cabinet.

Gia hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed the bottle of Prozac. Only one pill slid around in the bottle. If she was going to survive the holidays, she was definitely going to need to get a refill. Up until a few months ago, Gia was hesitant to seek help for her low energy, irritability, and bouts of prolonged depression. For years she had hated doctors, nurses, and especially hospitals; however, Bernie and Maryann were the ones that practically dragged her to a doctor after she had refused to climb out of bed after two weeks of sobbing uncontrollably.

Depression, the doctor had announced proudly. Gia was hardly impressed. Hell, she
knew
she was depressed. She was just in denial on how bad it had gotten. In a way it still didn’t make sense. She had accomplished everything she had set out to do and still...

Gia shook her head to change the direction of her thoughts. She plopped the pill into her hand and grabbed her soda again. However, when she went to pop the medicine into her mouth, the damn pill slipped through her fingers and hit the sink. She scrambled to catch it before it rolled down to the drain-but no such luck.

“Damn,” she hissed and immediately felt a wave of panic. For an insane moment, she jabbed her finger down the narrow pipe, but then realized what she was doing and gave up in disgust.

“I have to cancel,” she mumbled, fairly conscious of the fact that she might be overreacting; but damn if she could help it. She drew a few deep breaths and then evaluated the situation. Surely, she could survive a weekend without her magic pills, she reasoned. It wasn’t like she was addicted or anything.

#

Starr watched her father intently as they waited to be seated for dinner. “Daddy, I’m sorry you lost that lady’s business card,” Starr apologized yet again with her bottom lip turned downward in a genuine frown.

Daniel looped his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault.”

She nodded, but she didn’t believe it. No way after searching high and low for the perfect woman was Starr going to just give up looking for the woman. Starr wanted to see her father light up again.

“Besides,” her father added. “It’s not like I have time to be pursuing a relationship right now, anyway.”

Starr rolled her eyes. That had been his patented answer since she’d started playing matchmaker. She was guessing that it was some kind of defense mechanism-an annoying one.

“With the practice and taking care of you-”

“Don’t.” Starr’s gaze challenged him. “Don’t use me as an excuse, Dad. I’m fine. Of course I don’t know for how long if you don’t stop babying me all the time.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.

Hurt flashed in his eyes as he glanced down at her and allowed his arm to fall from her shoulders.

“Davis party of three,” the hostess announced above the steady hum of the crowd.

Daniel, Starr, and Neve worked their way up to the hostess stand where they then followed an attractive woman to their designated table.

Starr continued to feel worse when her father went out of his way to avoid her gaze again. She glanced over at Neve who, in turn, just shrugged and offered no help. “Dad, I didn’t mean-”

“Honey, forget about it.” He smiled tightly, but still avoided meeting her gaze. “You’re just saying how you feel.”

Before Starr could respond, the waitress appeared and went over the night’s specials. While waiting patiently, Starr reviewed in her mind another way to get her point across. As usual, everything always came out the wrong way.