Читать книгу Introducing Daddy - Alaina Hawthorne - Страница 9

Sheets of rain sluiced against the windows of the shop, and every so often thunder boomed in the distance and rattled the panes. Through the gray rivulets Evie Rabalais could just make out the waists of Houston’s skyscrapers; the tops of the buildings were plunged into the clouds that had hovered over the city for days. The radio said the bayous were jumping their banks. Beneath the streets the storm drains roared with brown foamy water. Evie stood by the front door, arms crossed and motionless, and watched the traffic—wheel-deep in water—crawl miserably down Westheimer. Her mood matched the bleak weather.

Edward and Frank, both of the part-time delivery drivers, had called in saying they couldn’t make it into the shop because of the flooding. Evie wondered if that was really true. She scowled and sighed. Not that their absence would make much difference. This type of weather was terrible for business. There wouldn’t be any foot traffic at all today, and gloomy weather also seemed to affect human generosity: there were always fewer orders when it rained.

When the phone suddenly jangled, Evie flinched and crossed quickly to the desk. She wanted to catch it before the ringing woke Juliette. The baby had fussed all night. Since it was too soon for her to be teething, Evie assumed the infant had sensed her unhappiness and responded to it. All the books she’d read said babies were sensitive to moods.

She lifted the receiver. “Something Different. This is Evie, may I help you?”

“Um, yes, I think—well, I hope so.”

The woman’s voice was high-pitched and tentative. A nervous type, Evie thought. This might take a while.

“Um, are you that place that makes those gift baskets with all kinds of, you know, different stuff?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Evie replied. “We make gift baskets and boxes for all occasions. Our slogan is Why Just Send Something When You Can Send ‘Something Different.’“ Evie winced. It sounded stupid today. But then, she thought, it could just be the way she was feeling.

“Oh, good. Let’s see, well, I’m not really sure what I want. I mean this may not be appropriate. I…well, it’s—you see, there was a picture in yesterday’s paper. A business associate of my husband’s. The caption was about some sort of charity thingie…”

Ah, of course, a charity thingie.

“…but the caption hinted that she might be getting engaged, too.”

Getting engaged, too? Surely it can’t be… Evie choked, but the woman apparently didn’t hear her.

“It’s not for sure, you see, so I don’t really know if it’s appropriate to send, you know, congratulations. The paper implied it was just a rumor, you know, but Betsy’s never wrong. She knows everyone and everything. Like God.” The woman cackled at her own joke. Evie wrestled with the urge to slam down the phone and run from the room.

“Anyway, so Vic, my husband, he wants to be the first to send something if there really is an engagement. Nothing too obvious or flashy, you know. Kind of a two-way gift—mostly for the award, but with something about the engagement, too. Something in the two-hundred-and-fifty range. What do you think?”

I think I’m going to start screaming. For one panicstricken instant Evie considered saying that they were closed—going out of business even. She didn’t want to scour her favorite shops and bookstores for beautiful, thoughtful gifts. But the woman had said “the two-hundred-and-fifty range.” The shop had suffered over the past week. Olivia would be thrilled to hear someone wanted to spend more than two hundred dollars. Evie swallowed and tried to sound normal. “Do you know any of her interests? If you give us a couple of days I’m sure I can—”

The woman gave a little scream of protest. “Oh, no, no, no. It has to be delivered today. Before noon, in fact. You can do that, can’t you?”

Evie swallowed hard. It wasn’t so much that she had to make a suitable presentation from the available inventory—there were plenty of beautiful things in the shop. But there would be no one to deliver the basket. Except her.

“I see. Yes, of course, we can do that. Well, how about a nice Burka hamper with a book of poems and…champagne and flutes. We can also enclose a gift certificate for a day-long session at La Paradise…” For what seemed an eternity, Evie made tasteful suggestions, understated suggestions. No matter how outraged and betrayed she felt, she knew she would have to choke back her anger. The basket would be elegant; nothing ostentatious or overwhelming. She was very good at her job.

Her client clucked and exclaimed gleefully over each recommendation, and in less than twenty minutes every item had been approved.

“Thank you so much, Edie,” the woman gushed. “I know she’s going to love it—”

“It’s Evie.”

“And you’ll guarantee she’ll have it before noon. We don’t want anyone to beat us to the punch. Oh, and the card will have to say congratulations or something. Only not the word congratulations. I think that’s too masculine, don’t you? And you should see her, she’s such a gorgeous girl. I just hate her.” The woman hooted at her own humor. “Now, it’s for Kimberley Van Kyle at Van Kyle Oil. Van Kyle is two words, capital V and capital K.”

“Yes, I know.”

Evie had also read the item in the Sunday Metropolitan section of the paper. “Kimberley Van Kyle Receives Nighthawk Award.” Besides, Evie had known how to spell the name Van Kyle for years. After all, Van Kyle Oil had been instrumental in the disintegration of her marriage. She’d even met Kimberley three or four years ago at a Christmas party at the Van Kyles’ River Oaks estate.

That was long ago. Yesterday’s paper was the first time Evie had thought of Elvin Van Kyle’s daughter in years. Olivia had seen the article, too. She’d stayed up with Evie well past midnight listening to her cry and rail against the beautiful heiress and her ruggedly handsome companion. In the photograph, just to the right and behind the stunning redhead stood Kimberley’s escort for the charity gala, Adam Rabalais. Evie hadn’t even known he was back in the country. She recalled the almost physically sickening sensation of seeing the photograph-the exuberant, smiling faces. She had stared at the picture with the same fascinated horror a patient regards a terminal X ray. She had no idea how many times she’d read Betsy’s chatty tidbit.

And who’s the tall, silent hunk escorting Kimmie? Mizz Van K’s not spilling any beans, but folks in the know have mentioned wedding bells…

Evie jerked herself back to the present and tried to concentrate on her customer’s voice. She repeated the address, which she already knew. Van Kyle Oil occupied six floors in One Shell Plaza, smack in the middie of downtown Houston. Evie nearly shuddered. She hated downtown.

“And you will guarantee the basket arrives before lunch?” The woman now sounded peevish.

“Yes,” Evie replied quietly. “Before lunch. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Evie set the receiver quietly in the cradle. Why, she wondered, why, of all the places in Houston to call would she have to call us? It was probably the advertising, Evie reasoned, not some cruel twist of fate. Lately Olivia had taken out a couple of ads in the downtown tabloids and shoppers’ guides. Evie dropped her forehead on her arms and let a few hottears slip out.

She willed herself not to cry anymore. It was so odd, she almost never cried, but last night she’d boo-hooed so hard her face was as swollen as if she’d stuck it in a beehive. This morning her puffy, reddened eyes defied her attempts to camouflage them with makeup. She eventually gave up and washed the mess off. Or most of it.

Rings of stubborn mascara still circled her eyelids, since the baby’s hungry demands had superseded her attempts to scrub it away. Besides, she hadn’t planned on leaving the shop all day. No one here gave a damn if she looked like a raccoon.

But now she was going to have to go downtown. What if she had to come face-to-face with Kimberley? With Adam? She took a calming breath. That would never happen. She wouldn’t go near the executive floors. She’d make up the basket, hustle downtown and drop it off with the receptionist. No fuss, no muss. In and out. After all, she’d done it a hundred times in buildings all over the city. But despite her efforts to be brave, Evie felt a deepening of the pain in her torso.

This is why they call it a heartache—it really hurts. I can’t stand this feeling. How long does it last? Months? Years?

She bit her lip. Maybe Olivia could make the.but no, Olivia never made deliveries. After all, she owned the shop, and besides, she was past seventy and too frail to wrestle with the cantankerous transmission of the van or lug around heavy gift baskets. Evie glanced up at the clock. Nine forty-five. She mentally calculated the amount of time it would take to fill the order. An hour to put the basket together. Twenty minutes to make it downtown in the rain. Another fifteen to park and get up to the thirtieth floor. If she got right to work she’d make it just in time.

Twenty minutes later Olivia came down the stairs from her apartment over the shop. Evie’s quarters took up the back half of the top floor of the giant old Victorian house.

“Is that an order?” she asked, obviously pleased.

Evie nodded, but couldn’t hold her friend’s gaze for long. The minute she saw sympathy in those warm, gentle eyes, she knew she would start crying again. Still, there was no hiding her feelings from Olivia.

“What is it, honey? Are you still…?”

Evie shrugged and gestured toward the order pad.

“Two hundred and fifty dollars?” Olivia exclaimed. “But why the long face? This is wonderful. Praise the—Oh. Oh, dear. I…what did you say?”

“What could I say? I promised to have it there before noon as requested.”

“Evie, I’m sorry. Call her back. Tell her we can’t—”

“No way. We need the order. It’s been a crummy week.”

Olivia opened her mouth to protest but slowly closed it. The shop hung on by a tenuous thread at the best of times. “Maybe I could take it.”

Evie rolled her eyes. “Thanks for offering, ‘Liv, but downtown’s horrible even when you know your way around.” She sighed. “Besides, this thing’s gonna weigh a ton. Would you look at the size of it? You’d be doubled over for a week.”

Frown lines creased the older woman’s forehead. “I’m going to murder Ed and Frankie. If I find out they’re somewhere goofing off I’ll…”

Evie gave her friend an attempt at a smile. “Oh, well, we were young once, too. I used to love to goof off on gloomy days, didn’t you? Hot chocolate, good books or an old movie. Maybe even a fire. Or best of all…” Evie’s voice was beginning to shake.

Adam had loved rainy days. Years ago when they were first married, he’d worked construction to put himself through grad school, but. every rainy day meant the work stopped. Back then Adam always seemed gleeful to have a day alone with her.

“I arranged this for us,” he’d say. “I just used my magic words—Come on, rain clouds, show your power. Adam wants a shutdown shower.”

He was greedy for her in those days. If it was winter they’d build a fire, and if it was summer they would fill the fireplace with candles and enjoy the colors of the little flames dancing on smooth skin. Adam almost always insisted that they splurge on a bottle of good wine, and they’d take turns reading passages of their favorite books to each other.

After love, it was always the same. He would trace slow patterns on her back. “Guess what I’m writing,” he’d say. “Now, if you win.” Most of the time they skipped dinner and fell asleep curved together on the hearth.

But those times were gone—eroded by years of explosive arguments, hurt silences and the slow, creeping abandonment of two people sharing less and less. Sometimes Evie still couldn’t comprehend exactly what had happened.

“I’ll make us some tea.” Olivia said softly. She had heard most of Evie’s story over the past ten months. The rest she just seemed to understand without being told.

Before she left, she paused to look at the artfully packed basket to which Evie was just applying a few special touches—sheer pastel cellophane and satin ribbons. “Beautiful work as always. Are you sure you can do this?”

“Oh, it won’t be so bad. I’ll just put on Frank’s slicker, pull the hood over my head and duck behind this big thing.” She smiled. “Besides, there’s nothing to worry about. There’s no way I’ll run into either of them.”

By the time Evie pulled into the underground loading area beneath One Shell Plaza, her nerves were even more frayed than before. Just as she’d been leaving the shop, Juliette had woken up squalling and had refused to settle down. Not even Olivia had been able to do anything to soothe her. Then Westheimer had been flooded at three intersections, and though the van rode high, other cars had stalled and traffic had backed up for blocks.

Finally she’d had to circle around and take the Allen Parkway. The trip that normally took twenty minutes had taken almost three-quarters of an hour. By the time Evie had turned onto Louisiana Street she’d felt the beginnings of a potent and long-lasting headache. Traffic had been snarled around the building, and she’d had to spend another fifteen minutes inching toward the light at the corner of Walker. When she’d finally made the turn into the underground parking, there hadn’t been a single space in the loading dock.

Evie checked her watch. Fifteen minutes until twelve. The tunnel system would be crowded with lunch traffic—dry, smartly dressed, professional people. Evie was soaked just from walking from the shop to the van. Wind had blown the rain almost horizontally. Her hair, which normally fell in bouncy natural ringlets past her shoulders was wildly corkscrewed and unruly from the humidity.

She double-parked next to a courier’s truck and stepped out of the driver’s side into an inch and a half of water. As the brackish runoff soaked into her good running shoes, Evie indulged her temper with a few words she seldom used and went to the back of the van. It took both arms to carry the basket, and she had to peek around it to see where she was going.

She stopped at the security window and balanced the basket against the narrow ledge to sign in.

“Where’d you park?” the attendant asked, not looking up.

“I’m doubled, but there’s plenty of room for the other guy to get around me.”

“Can’t do that, lady. You’ll get towed.”

Evie felt the ache in her chest ratchet up a notch. “But there’s nowhere else. I’m running late and I’ll only be five minutes. I’m just going up to Van Kyle to deliver this.”

He glanced up with unsympathetic hazel eyes. “Suit yourself,” he said. “But if you’re not down in fifteen minutes, it’ll be towed.”

Evie scrawled her signature and bumped the heavy swinging door open with her hip. The blast of airconditioning made her damp skin feel clammy, and the distant murmur of voices echoing through the tunnels sounded spooky and disquieting.

As soon as she passed through the double swinging doors of the service entrance she saw the sea of bodies surging through the narrow underground walkways. She wasn’t really surprised at the crush of people; no one would brave the weather outside today unless it was an absolute necessity.

The knot of people waiting at the tunnel level elevator was at least twenty deep, so she made a quick decision and took an escalator up to the street level. Through the glass walls of the lobby Evie could see City Hall and the dark green oaks that lined the reflection pool. Their crowns whipped in the stiff breeze while the fractured surface of the pool reflected the dark underbelly of the sky.

Across the street the fountains in Tranquility Park gushed water straight up, where the wind immediately tore it away while simultaneously dumping rain back down into the stone-lined ponds. Evie glanced back at City Hall clock. The day was so dark the hands glowed red even at noon. High noon. She was now officially late.

The lobby was choked with people pressed almost up to the glass, some waiting to bolt for cabs as they pulled up on Smith Street, some just eager to leave their desks but not wanting to brave the tunnels or venture far in the wretched weather. A few miserable smokers huddled outside against flanks of the building, obviously unable to wait until after work to indulge in their cigarettes.

Evie thought the people looked as gray and threatening as the sky. The women wore dark power suits, chopped-off hair and sculpted nails, and the men glided among them as smoothly and gracefully as sharks. At least it seemed that way to her.

She shrugged her yellow slicker a little higher on her shoulders and hefted up the basket. On both sides of her face, her wiry hair seemed to be trying to claw its way out of the hood by itself. More than anything Evie wanted to put the damn basket down and shove the ugly mess back under her hood, but there was nowhere to stop.

The One Shell Plaza lobby was a gleaming expanse of white, echoing marble with polished brass appointments and ruthlessly tamed ficus trees standing obediently erect in their architectural planters. The seating edge of the planters didn’t look inviting at all. In fact, Evie wouldn’t dare sit down on one. She had a feeling that there was a ficus guard lurking somewhere who’d leap out, grab her by her collar and make a humiliating example of her in front of all the frostyeyed MBAs and their administrative assistants. No, she thought, best to just hurry up and get this over with as soon as possible.

When the elevator doors closest to her slid open, she practically lunged in. She ignored the disapproving looks and noises from the people she’d shoved past, but this was an emergency. Besides, she told herself, the predatory downtown atmosphere was contagious; here it was every man for himself. God, if she didn’t hurry up and get out of here she’d turn into one of them.

She elbowed the button for the thirty-eighth floor and then pressed herself to the back of the car. In the close quiet of the little space she became aware of noises she hadn’t noticed earlier—the crackle of the cellophane, the squishy noise of her soaked sneakers and the cheap rustle of her yellow slicker. She felt a slight itch, just a tickle really, just alongside her nose.

Somewhere between the thirty-first and thirty-third floors a particularly loud and long roll of thunder rumbled outside. The lights flickered and the elevator car hesitated. One of the passengers groaned.

“Not again.”

“Did you hear? Melvin got stuck in the elevator for an hour on Saturday.”

“I’d lose it.”

“We could have taken the stairs.”

“Are you nuts? Forty-some-odd floors?”

While the others swapped elevator war stories, Evie kept her head ducked and counted the minutes. Every time the car stopped passengers changed; some got off, some on. She pressed herself as deeply into her corner as she could and tried not to see the people, not to hear them. She wished she could look at her watch. Had it been fifteen minutes? Did the security guard really mean he’d have the van towed in fifteen minutes or he’d call to have it towed in fifteen minutes?

Again the car stopped and this time the elevator disgorged nearly all its passengers. Before the doors closed two men stepped on—charcoal gray legs and khaki legs. Khaki Legs said, “So, are we on for Wednesday?”

“Wednesday’s good for me.”

That’s all he said. Just “Wednesday’s good for me,” but Evie’s body underwent the same reaction it had the first time she’d heard that voice fourteen years earlier. The hair on her nape stood, and her stomach erupted in a storm of butterflies.

Oh, please, no. Don’t let him see me. Please. I’ll go to Mass, to confession even. I’ll make the nine first Fridays. I’ll join the Altar Society. Hail, Mary, full of grace—

Another boom of thunder seemed to make the whole building shudder, and the lights flicked off for a full three seconds.

“That was close,” Adam Rabalais murmured. “Think it struck the building?”

“Could have,” his companion answered. “Happens all the time.”

Evie held her breath. I’ll stay on until he gets off. I don’t care if I have to ride this thing to the moon.

Something told her he was looking at her, noticing her. But how could he not be curious? There were only three of them in the elevator—two smartly dressed businessmen and one extremely short person who wore squishy sneakers, rumpled, rain-soaked jeans and carried an enormous Burmese hamper. That same person was obviously cowering under an old, yellow rain slicker and had frantic blue-black ringlets of hair crawling out of her hood.

Why? she wondered. Why is this happening? It’s like a nightmare or a horrible movie. Evie bowed her head against the basket. The cellophane crackled maliciously.

When the elevator car creaked to a stop Khaki Legs exited. “I’ll call you Wednesday when I’m on my way,” he said.

“Right. Wednesday, then,” Adam replied. Evie recognized the thoughtful tone in his voice.

She felt bereft. She almost wanted to follow dear old Khaki Legs out but she had no idea what floor they were on. She didn’t dare to look up to check, either. Besides, if she started to get off, Adam would notice that there was still another floor punched. He might speak to her, and if she answered, he’d recognize her voice for sure. And her height. She was so damned short.

Why didn’t I wear tall shoes, she wondered. Oh, right…wet blue jeans and pumps. Just what all the delivery drivers are wearing. What could possibly be more low profile? Please, God, she prayed, please don’t let him talk to me.

“That’s a beautiful basket, but it’s nearly as big as you are.”

You just have to be Mr. Friendly, don’t you? Why can’t you leave me alone? “Mmmm,” she answered, trying to disguise her voice and ducking her head even lower. She wished she could hide her bony little hands and the frenzied hair that refused to stay wadded up inside her hood.

A moment of cold, pregnant silence ensued, during which Evie sent up one more desperate prayer that Adam hadn’t recognized her voice—that he wouldn’t try to make her say anything else and give herself away completely. She swallowed and kept her gaze riveted to the floor. The angle of his gleaming wingtips told her that he’d turned to face her.

“Who’s it for?”

Oh, God, he knows. Evie didn’t answer.

“I said, who’s it for?” This time his voice was peremptory and demanding.

Evie looked up hot-faced and unashamed of the sheen in her eyes. “Your fiancée, Adam.”

For a fleeting instant a look of joyful disbelief flashed across his face, and he stepped toward heralmost reflexively. Then his look hardened.

Evie took a deep breath to make sure her voice was steady. “By the way, when were you planning to tell her that you’re still married to me?”