Читать книгу Father Of The Brat - Elizabeth Bevarly - Страница 9

Carver Venner was beat. In the last seventy-two hours, he’d logged over eight thousand miles on his frequent flyer account, had been slapped in the face, kicked in the shins, bitten by an angry cat and shocked by an electric fence. He’d been shot at—twice—and called a filthy, stinking capitalist, an imperialist dog and a lousy tipper. He’d survived a taxi ride in a town that had few—if any—traffic laws, had eaten food he’d been hard-pressed to identify—which in itself was probably a blessing—and had somehow stumbled onto a literal den of thieves. He had a stubbed toe and a throbbing hangnail, and he could scarcely remember the last time he’d slept.

Man, the life of a journalist hadn’t turned out to be anything at all like he’d thought it would be when he’d enrolled at Columbia University twenty years ago.

How he’d managed to make it back to his South Philadelphia apartment in one piece was some vague memory he knew he was going to have to write up tomorrow. For now, though, he dropped his battered, ragged duffel bag in the middle of his bedroom floor and fell backward onto his bed with a sigh. Almost as an afterthought, he sat up to skim off his faded green polo, then found himself too exhausted to bother with the blue jeans and hiking boots he’d also been wearing since yesterday morning. Instead, he dropped onto his back again.

Sleep, he thought. Finally, finally, he could get some real sleep. He ran a restless hand over the three-day stubble of beard on his face, shoved his overly long, dark brown hair from his forehead and closed his eyes. He was just about to lose himself in the welcome relief of slumber when someone—someone who obviously had a death wish—launched into a ceaseless pounding on his front door.

“Dammit,” he muttered without moving. Maybe whoever the someone was would go away, and then he wouldn’t have to kill them after all.

But whoever it was keeping him from sleep did indeed seem to have suicidal tendencies, because the knocking just increased more loudly.

Carver sighed again, jackknifed up from his bed and staggered out to his living room. He flattened one big hand against the front door and curled the other over the knob, then stood with his chin dropped to his chest and one final hope that his visitor had gone away. But the rapping started again, even more annoying than it had been before, so he jerked the door open hard.

“What?” he barked. “What is it?”

A woman stood in the hall with her curled fingers poised at shoulder level. She was about to knock again, something that would have landed her fist in the middle of Carver’s naked chest, but she stopped herself just shy of completing the action and dropped her hand quickly back to her side. In the other hand, she carried a battered leather satchel not unlike the kind elementary schoolchildren had carried way back when Carver was young enough to have been one of them himself.

She was a good foot shorter than he, her black hair liberally threaded with silver and cropped shorter than his own. She wore round, tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses that made her brown eyes appear huge, and a shapeless olive drab trench coat over a white, baggy, man-styled shirt and brown, even baggier, man-styled trousers. Her only concession to her femininity was a filigreed antique brooch pinned at her collar and matching earrings that dangled from her ears.

She was in no way the kind of woman with whom Carver normally associated. But somehow she looked very familiar.

“Carver Venner?” she asked in a no-nonsense voice of efficiency that immediately grated on his nerves.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“I’m with the Child Welfare Office. I’ve been assigned to your case.”

Okay, he was tired, Carver thought as he studied the woman harder, still trying to place where he might have met her. But there was no way he was so tired that he had forgotten about the presence of a child in his life.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

“Your daughter,” she clarified, aiding him not at all. “I’m here to assist the two of you—to help you get acquainted and settled in.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to wake himself from what was one of the most bizarre dreams he’d ever had. Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes again, he was still standing in front of his open door, and the oddly familiar woman was still staring at him.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

Her eyes widened for a moment in what he could only liken to panic, something that just compounded his confusion. Without replying, she lifted her satchel and flipped it open, shoved her hand inside and withdrew a pristine, white business card.

M. H. Garrett, L.C.S.W., it read in bold black type. Caseworker, Child Welfare Office of Pennsylvania. It was decorated with the official state seal and seemed to be legitimate.

M. H. Garrett, he repeated to himself. Nope, not a name that rang any bells. “What’s the M.H. stand for?”

“Mostly Harmless,” she told him without missing a beat.

He glanced up at the woman again only to find her staring back at him in silence, daring him to press the issue. Dammit, even her prissy voice was familiar. He was sure he knew her from somewhere, he just couldn’t remember where. It was about to drive him crazier than he already felt when he recalled that she had just accused him of having a daughter.

He smiled wryly. “I think somebody got their wires crossed somewhere, Ms. Garrett. I don’t have a daughter. In fact, I’ve never even been married, so it doesn’t seem likely that there’s a little Venner kid out there running around somewhere.”

M. H. Garrett, Caseworker, narrowed her eyes at Carver and stuck her hand back into her satchel, this time pulling out a very thick, very well used binder. She flipped through it easily until she found whatever she had been looking for, scanned a few pages, then looked up at Carver again.

“Rachel Stillman,” she said, as if those two words would explain everything.

Carver shook his head. “Sorry, never heard of her.”

Mostly Harmless Garrett eyed him warily. “She’s your daughter, Mr. Venner.”

“No, she isn’t.”

“Yes, she is.”

He chuckled, feeling more and more bizarre with every passing moment. “Oh, come on. She doesn’t even have the same last name as me. Boy, you folks at Welfare really are overworked.” He relented when he saw her lips thin into a tight line. “I assure you, Ms. Garrett, that I do not have a daughter named Rachel anything. Somebody at your office has sent you on a wild-goose chase.”

The caseworker glanced down at her notebook again. “Abigail Stillman,” she said this time.

Carver was about to tell her that he didn’t have a daughter named Abigail Stillman, either, when he remembered that he did in fact know someone by that name. Or rather, he used to know someone by that name. Another journalist he’d met in Guatemala about ten or twelve years ago. The two of them had shared a very hot, very heavy, very brief affair. One week, he recalled now, unable to halt the lascivious smile that curled his lips. And what a week it had been.

“Okay, I do know an Abby Stillman,” he told M. H. Garrett, still smiling at his heated memories. “But I haven’t heard from her in years. Have you seen her recently? How is she?”

“She’s dead.”

His smile fell, and something raw and hot knotted in his stomach. “She’s what?”

“She’s dead, Mr. Venner. A car accident. Drunk driver. She was killed instantly.” The caseworker shifted from one foot to the other a little uncomfortably. “Uh, hasn’t anyone contacted you about this?”

Still feeling as if someone had just kicked him in the groin, Carver mumbled, “About what?”

M. H. Garrett pressed her free hand against her forehead and rubbed hard. “About Abigail Stillman. About the child she left behind—a twelve-year-old girl named Rachel.” She dropped her hand back to her side and studied him for a moment before continuing. “According to the girl’s birth certificate…um…you’re her father.”

Carver’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Ex…excuse me?” he stammered. “I’m what?”

M. H. Garrett bit her lip and tried—without much success—to smile. “Congratulations, Mr. Venner,” she said, clearly striving for a levity she didn’t feel. “It’s a girl.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Carver objected, holding up his hand as if he could stop her announcement. “That’s impossible. I couldn’t…I mean, Abby didn’t…and I sure as hell…” His voice trailed off and he stared at the woman in the hall. “This can’t be happening,” he finally concluded.

“Maybe I better come in and try to sort things out,” the social worker offered. “Someone was supposed to have contacted you by now, but obviously no one has. I’m sure you have some questions, and maybe—”

“Questions?” he sputtered. “Questions? You’re damned right I have some questions. Not to mention a few choice words.”

The woman stiffened immediately and pointed a finger at him. Somehow, even before she started wagging it at him, Carver was certain that that was precisely what she was going to do.

“Look, don’t take this out on me,” she said with a vigorous shake of her finger. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

He nodded slowly and tried to calm himself. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that this is a little…uh… surprising, to say the least. There’s obviously been some mistake. There’s no way I could be this girl’s father.”

M. H. Garrett eyed him thoughtfully for a moment before asking, “So you and Abigail Stillman never…?”

“Never what?”

The caseworker looked uncomfortable again. “Never… um, you know.”

“Know what?”

“Never had…relations?”

“Relations?”

The woman sighed fitfully, and he could swear she was blushing. “Of a, um, of a sexual nature?”

Finally Carver understood. “Oh, sure, we…uh…we had relations. Quite a few times if memory serves, but—”

“I see.” M. H. Garrett frowned her disapproval.

Carver didn’t like her tone of voice one bit. “No, you don’t see,” he insisted. “I’m not this kid’s father.”

The caseworker sighed heavily and tilted her head forward, toward the inside of his apartment. “Maybe I should come in and try to get all this straightened out. I can’t imagine why no one at Welfare has contacted you before now, especially with the child arriving tomorrow, but maybe—”

“Tomorrow?” he repeated. “This kid’s coming to Philadelphia tomorrow? But I’m not her father.”

“—but maybe we can get it all straightened out without too much trouble,” the woman finished as if Carver had never spoken.

He wanted to slam the door in her face, wanted to go back to bed for some much needed sleep and forget that this surreal encounter had ever occurred. Unfortunately, M. H. Garrett’s expression assured him she wasn’t going anywhere until this thing was settled. Reluctantly, he moved aside for her to enter. As she passed him, he caught a whiff of her perfume, a rich, floral fragrance that seemed an unlikely choice for her. He liked it, though, and was pretty sure it was gardenia. His sister, Sylvie, wore a similar scent.

Impulsively, he reached for his shirt pocket, where he kept his cigarettes, and when his fingers encountered only flesh and hair, he suddenly remembered that he was only half dressed. Feeling inexplicably embarrassed by the realization, Carver began a hasty retreat to his bedroom.

“Uh, let me just go put on a shirt,” he said, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder in the direction he was already headed. “I’ll only be a minute.”

When M. H. Garrett seemed to be relieved by his decision, he got the strangest impression that it wasn’t so much because she was offended by his lack of clothing as it was because she was fascinated by it.

Lack of sleep, he remembered, could give a person the craziest sensations.

He returned to the living room inhaling deeply on a much needed cigarette and buttoning up a well-worn, plaid flannel shirt that he didn’t bother to tuck in. The woman from the Child Welfare Office had discarded her trench coat on the coatrack by the door and sat in the middle of his couch with a number of official-looking documents spread out on his coffee table. Carver’s furnishings were sparse at bestsecond and third-hand castoffs he’d picked up at garage sales and flea markets. His things were inexpensive, functional and no-frills. And somehow, the woman sitting among them fit right in.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked her as he headed into the adjoining kitchen. Although he felt as if a good, stiff shot of whiskey was probably more appropriate for the bomb she had just dropped, coffee was what he was craving most. “Coffee? Tea? Soda?”

“Whatever you’re having will be fine,” she said.

“I’ll just be a minute.”

While the coffeemaker wheezed and dripped laconically, Carver returned to the living room to find the infuriatingly familiar Ms. Garrett reading over a file. He wished he could remember where he knew her from, couldn’t quell the certainty that the two of them shared some kind of significant history. But her name was in no way recognizable, and she wasn’t at all the kind of woman he normally dated. He’d never had any cause to work with the Child Welfare Office, and couldn’t imagine anyplace else he might have met her. Maybe she was a friend of one of his sisters, he thought. Though even that seemed unlikely. She just appeared to be too straitlaced to be someone who would run around with Livy or Sylvie.

He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray after using it to light a second. “I’m sorry,” he said as he expelled an errant stream of smoke from his lungs, “but I just can’t shake the feeling that I know you from somewhere.”

The woman glanced up quickly at his statement, and he could almost swear she looked panicky again. Her reaction made no sense, but he couldn’t dissuade himself of the feeling that he’d put her on edge somehow. Then she frowned, waving her hand in front of her face to dispel the cigarette smoke he had inadvertently sent her way, and he understood her agitation. Mumbling an apology, he stubbed out the second cigarette, as well.

“And where might we have met, Mr. Venner?” she asked as she watched him perform the action. He could almost feel her disapproval of what was only one of his many bad habits, and he wondered why he cared.

“See, now that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question,” he told her as he took his seat in a chair opposite the couch. “Can you help me out?”

She smiled briefly and looked back down at her pile of information. “No, sorry, I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Somehow, he suspected the latter was true.

Her head snapped up again, and she glared at him. That glare, more than anything else she had done since he’d opened his front door, made Carver even more certain that he did in fact know her. Unfortunately, a lot of women had glared at him in his time. For some reason, this woman just seemed to be better at it than most.

“I have a copy of Rachel Stillman’s birth certificate along with some other documents,” she said, ignoring his question. “From the state of California. They clearly indicate that you are the girl’s father.”

Carver frowned. “Let me see those.” He took the collection of papers she extended toward him. They, too, appeared to be legitimate documents, complete with raised seals and indecipherable signatures. The birth certificate stated quite clearly in black and white that a female child named Rachel Carver Stillman had been born into this world a little over twelve years ago, that she had weighed seven pounds, fourteen ounces and had been twenty-one and a half inches long. It also indicated that her mother’s name was Abigail Renée Stillman. And that her father’s name was Carver Venner.

“Nevertheless,” Carver said, “this doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves that you’re the child’s father.”

“No, it proves that Abby Stillman filled out a form and said that I’m the child’s father. Hell, it could have been any number of men. Abby was a great girl and a lot of fun to be around, but she wasn’t exactly a one-man woman. I wasn’t the only guy she ever dated.”

“But you are the one she said is the father of her child.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” he repeated.

Mostly Harmless Garrett, who was proving to be anything but studied him some more. He was starting to feel like some kind of lab specimen the way she kept staring at him like that. Her eyes were so dark, he could scarcely tell where the brown of her irises ended and the black of her pupils began. Those eyes, like the rest of her, haunted him.

“Nevertheless,” she said, taking the birth certificate back from him, “you’re the one who’s responsible for the girl, now that her mother is dead.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Carver countered. “She’s not my daughter.”

“What year did you meet Abigail Stillman?” the caseworker asked in an obvious effort to try a different route.

Carver thought for a moment. “Let’s see now…I was down in Guatemala working on a story for Mother Jones about how American businesses were taking advantage of the local labor. Abby, if I recall, was covering the local elections for UPI. That would have been…” He ticked off the years on both hands, then started over, touching three more fingers. “Almost exactly thirteen years ago.”

“So the timing would be about right.”

He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t, because you said this kid is twelve, right?”

M. H. Garrett nodded. “Twelve years and three months. Add to that nine months of gestation, and her date of conception would be…almost exactly thirteen years ago.”

Carver didn’t like that line of reasoning one bit. And it still didn’t prove a damned thing. Abby Stillman had been a real party girl. She hadn’t exactly been promiscuous, but she had liked men. A lot. And there had been plenty of men in Guatemala besides him back then. Any one of them could be this Rachel kid’s father. His name on an official document didn’t mean anything, and he told the caseworker so.

Unfortunately, M. H. Garrett and the state of Pennsylvania saw things a little differently. “Sorry,” she told him, “but as long as you’re listed as Rachel Stillman’s father on her birth certificate, the law says you’re responsible for her now that her mother is dead. Unless you go to court and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the girl is not your daughter.”

“Then I’ll go to court and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Fine. In the meantime, just make sure you show up at the airport tomorrow morning at eleven-thirty, a half hour before Rachel’s plane arrives. You and I are both going to be there to meet her.”

That said, M. H. Garrett, Caseworker, scooped up her impressive array of documents and stuffed them back into her satchel, snapping the briefcase shut with all the aplomb and confidence of Clarence Darrow. Then she stood and collected her trench coat from the rack by the door and shrugged back into it.

“USAir flight number 422,” she said as she turned up her collar. “Arrives at 12:04 p.m. Be there, Mr. Venner, or risk the wrath of the Child Welfare Office.”

He chuckled, a derisive sound completely lacking in mirth. “Oh, and I’m supposed to be terrified of a bunch of overextended social workers who don’t even have the time or organization to tell me I’ve become a father.”

At his assertion, M. H. Garrett slouched a little, looking even more tired than Carver felt. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re supposed to be terrified of us. Maybe we’re overextended, disorganized and pressed for time, but at least we care about our kids. And maybe we don’t always get the job done right, but we do our best.”

She reached behind herself for the doorknob and pulled the door open, but her gaze never left his. “I’ve been assigned to your case, Mr. Venner, and I’m going to do my best to make sure that you and your daughter get situated properly. If you need counseling, I’ll arrange it. If you need financial assistance, I’ll see what I can do. If you need help getting her enrolled in school, I’ll take care of it.”

“And if I need the services of a lawyer to prove this is all just a scam?” he asked pointedly.

“Then you’re on your own. Although I do have legal counsel at my disposal, I’ll only notify them if you don’t show up at the airport tomorrow or if you conveniently decide to leave town. Like I said, I’ll do what I can for you and the girl. Because as far as I’m concerned, and as far as the law is concerned, Rachel Stillman is your daughter.”

He was about to object again when he decided it would probably be fruitless to do so. He knew a good lawyer, one who’d pulled his butt out of a sling on more than one occasion. This Rachel Stillman thing would be a piece of cake for her. Before the kid’s plane hit the runway, Carver would be off the hook.

He watched M. H. Garrett’s back as she descended the stairs, still rattling his brain trying to remember where he knew her from. He even stepped out into the hallway to lean over the banister, and continued to observe her until her dark head disappeared into the stairwell completely.

Only when she was safely out of sight did it finally strike Carver in a burst of memory where he had met her. And once he remembered, he immediately recalled what the M.H. stood for. It didn’t stand for Mostly Harmless. It stood for Madelaine Helena. He also recalled that although Maddy was a lot of things, as far as he was concerned, harmless wasn’t one of them.

Madelaine Garrett settled herself wearily into the driver’s seat of her aged sedan and sighed. She told herself she should be worrying about the outcome of the Stillman case. Or about the outcome of any number of cases assigned to her docket. She told herself she should be studying the ragged city map in her glove compartment to locate the address of the next family she had to visit that day. She told herself she should even be thinking about what she was going to do for lunch, since she hadn’t consumed anything but coffee for more than seven hours. Instead, only one thought meandered through her brain.

Carver Venner hadn’t remembered her. He hadn’t recognized her at all.

Uncertain whether she was happy or sad about the realization, she angled the rearview mirror down toward herself and studied her reflection. Had she really changed that much since she had last seen him? Her face was still oval shaped, and her fair skin was still almost too pale. Her eyes were still brown and her hair was still black, albeit significantly touched with gray and considerably shorter than the waist-length tresses she had sported twenty years ago. The glasses she wore now weren’t so very different from those she had worn throughout high school, but these days they were considered fashionable instead of geeky.

Although she had been a little on the pudgy side as a teenager, she reminded herself. And she had shed all her surplus weight and more while going through her divorce five years ago. She was quite a bit thinner now than she had been as an adolescent—really too thin, she knew—something that made her eyes seem larger and her lips fuller than they had been before, something that more clearly defined what had turned out to be surprisingly stark cheekbones. Maybe that was why Carver hadn’t recognized her, she thought.

Or maybe he hadn’t recognized her, she pondered further, because she simply wasn’t anything at all like the kid he’d known at Strickler High School. Maddy leaned her head back against the seat and inhaled an unsteady breath. Boy, would Carver laugh hysterically if he only knew how right he’d been about so many things.

She turned the key in the ignition and waited for a moment while her little car sputtered to life. It groaned and grated and finally choked itself into gear, and Maddy drove forward with no particular destination in mind.

She had thirty-two cases assigned to her at the moment, not one of which showed any promise of turning out well. When the Rachel Stillman file had landed on her desk, she had at first embraced high hopes for it. Only when she’d realized the man she would be informing of Rachel’s existence was Carver Venner had she tried to get someone else to take the case. She’d pleaded with Vivian and Mohammed to pay back favors they owed her, and had even tried to bribe Eric. But, like she, everyone else at Welfare was overburdened with casework as it was. As usual, no one had the time.

Maddy caught sight of a fast-food chain up ahead and flipped on her right turn signal to make a quick stop at the drive-thru. When she exited with a greasy cheeseburger and fries and diet soda in hand, however, she suddenly lost her appetite. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually been hungry. Funny, at one time food had been her greatest comforter. Nowadays, even the most decadent confection in the world couldn’t ease the feelings of hopelessness that wanted to drag her down.

She pulled into the parking lot of a downtown Philly church and reached into the glove compartment for her map. Another new case, she thought as she flipped through her binder looking for the name of the family in question. Another lost cause.

She suddenly felt overwhelmed, a feeling she had to battle every minute of the day lately. It was all Carver’s fault, she thought. Seeing him again had made her ache for a time in her life when things had been so much simpler, so much happier.

“God, Maddy,” she scolded herself as she finally located the file she’d been seeking. Immediately she ignored it and stared blindly out the window at the passing traffic instead. “If you’re thinking of high school as a simpler, happier time, you’re definitely getting maudlin in your old age. Not to mention delusional.”

Her years at Strickler High School had been neither particularly simple, nor especially happy. The only child of parents who had adored her to the point of sheltering her from everything that might make her unhappy, Maddy Saunders had been the nerdy kid who wore the wrong clothes, listened to the wrong music and read way too many books. She’d been the brainy girl with big glasses, the only one in Chemistry who’d thought logarithms were a piece of cake, the only one in English who’d thought Lysistrata was hilarious.

She’d always been the nice kid. The other students, when they’d bothered to think of her at all, had referred to her as “Goody.” As in “Goody Two-shoes,” as in “Good God, she’s so naive.” The nickname hadn’t bothered Maddy, though. She’d considered it a compliment. Because back then, it had been true. She’d been a good girl with a good mind, good manners and a good heart. And twenty years ago, she’d also been something else she wasn’t anymore and would never be again—an optimist. She had always been certain that the world was, in essence, a good place, a place where she could make a difference.

Boy, what a laugh that was, she thought now. Had she ever been that innocent? That naive? That stupid? Everyone else at Strickler High had seemed to think so. Especially Carver Venner. But Carver had differed from the other kids in one respect: where the others had pretty much overlooked and dismissed her, he’d seemed to single her out on a regular basis. He’d teased her relentlessly, infuriated her daily, and generally made a mockery of her decency.

And then there was that episode during the senior play, that kiss behind the cave scenery during Act One of Macbeth. Even if it had been brief and passionless, and even if he had only meant it as something else to make her crazy, Carver’s kiss had been the first one Maddy had ever received from a boy. As maddening as Carver Venner had been, she’d never been able to forget him because of that.

And now, dammit, he had to come barreling back into her life. When she least expected it, when she was ill-equipped to handle it.

She closed her eyes and remembered again the way he had looked when he’d thrown open his front door. Half naked, with his dark hair falling over his forehead and his unshaven jaw set in exasperation, he’d looked like some brooding gothic hero. So incredibly masculine. An odd thrill of excitement had wound through Maddy unlike anything she’d ever felt. He’d been a wiry kid back in high school, she remembered. Now he was solid rock.

The moment she’d seen him, she’d been nearly overcome by an inexplicable urge to lean against him and feel his arms around her. For some reason she still couldn’t figure out, she had wanted to bury her face in his neck and inhale great gulps of him. She’d wanted him to make her feel as strong as he looked. Instead, she hadn’t even let him know who she was. Because that would have been a foolish thing to do. That would have made him remember too many things, too.

After her divorce, Maddy had only kept her married name because it would have been too inconvenient and timeconsuming to change it back to Saunders. She’d never thought she would have a reason to be thankful she’d kept Dennis Garrett’s name, especially since she hadn’t been able to keep Dennis. But because she was no longer Maddy Saunders—neither literally not figuratively—there was absolutely no reason for Carver Venner to find out who he was actually dealing with. Her time with him and his daughter would be minimal, then she could slip discreetly out of their lives without a backward glance never to see Carver again.

How very like him to have fathered a child without even knowing it, she thought.

Pushing the memory of Carver away, Madelaine Garrett blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes, found the street she’d been looking for on the map and lurched her little car back into gear. She didn’t have to think about him any more today, she told herself. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

And suddenly, for no good reason she could name—and for the first time in years—Madelaine Garrett was actually looking forward to the following day.