Chances Are (44 page)

He held her gaze.
You’ve never lied to me before, Kelly. Tell me the truth, and I swear to you everything will be okay.
“You’re telling me the truth?”

“Yeah,” she said, shooting a fiercely indignant look his way. “Not that it’s any of your business.” She started tossing photos back into the box marked
O’Malley.
“And you can tell Aunt Claire the same thing.”

Relief almost brought him to his knees. “I’ll tell her.”

“Good.” She stomped out of the room. Seconds later, her bedroom door slammed shut behind her.

She was pissed off, but she wasn’t pregnant. Apparently God hadn’t entirely forgotten his name.

“THE CELTIC CROSS?” Gina demanded Monday morning as she flashed her upper left hip to the mothers crowding around her and to her little Joey’s delight. “I’m Italian! What the hell was I thinking?”

“How many margaritas did you have anyway?” Gina’s sister Denise grabbed her youngest by the back of his collar before he skittered away. “You pass out at the sight of a sewing needle.”

Everyone laughed but Maddy. She lingered at the edge of the crowd, mimicking their responses while her thoughts remained with Kelly. She had gone through the motions with Hannah and her mother, the usual morning routine, but she hadn’t really been present. All she could think about was Aidan’s daughter, what she was doing, how she was feeling, what the future would hold for them all.

Anything could happen between now and late afternoon when they had arranged to meet up in the parking lot. She might decide trusting Maddy was a big mistake and take matters back into her own hands. The entire issue might be resolved before Maddy had a chance to make a difference. It wasn’t that she wanted to bend the girl to her will. This was Kelly’s life and future, not hers. She understood that. She also understood that she had never needed her own mother more than the day she had discovered Hannah was on her way.

She had longed for her mother, a Rose she had really never known, during those first few weeks, and had never felt the emotional distance between them more keenly. Her father Bill had been enormously supportive and understanding, but it was her beloved stepmother Irma who had provided the maternal warmth and unconditional love she had desperately needed.

She saw all that and more, maybe too much more, in Kelly’s eyes, and she couldn’t turn away.

Maybe she was crazy to be taking this risk for Kelly. She was crawling out on a very shaky limb, one that could send her future with Aidan crashing down at the slightest breeze, but the girl had no one else to turn to. Kelly was the quintessential golden girl, the good girl who solved her family’s problems rather than made problems of her own. There was no room in that perspective, at least not that Kelly could see, for mistakes. She had to be perfect, or her entire family would collapse.

It wasn’t fair. Not to Seth or Aidan. Not to Claire. Certainly not to Kelly herself. Families pulled together in times of trouble. At least that was what they were supposed to do, and neither Seth nor the O’Malleys would have that chance if Kelly followed through with her plans.

It was a chance Kelly needed to take, no matter what her ultimate decision turned out to be. All Maddy wanted to do was open up a window of time for Kelly to think about her options, to consider all possibilities, before she made a truly irrevocable decision.

Kelly wasn’t the only one in trouble. Aidan might never forgive her for what she was doing, but she couldn’t see any other way. She believed Kelly when she said she would run off to a clinic in New York if Maddy broke her promise and told him. She knew the odds were against it, but if anything happened to Kelly and she hadn’t at least tried—

“. . . really think we were going to let you off that easy, did you, Maddy?”

The Great Tattoo Unveiling was over, and they had turned their attentions to Maddy and her romantic weekend.

“Was it wonderful?” Denise asked with a big fake romantic sigh.

“The hell with that,” Gina said. “Was
he
wonderful?”

They all laughed, even Claire, who up until that moment had looked like she was undergoing root canal.

“So wonderful they moved up the wedding date,” she said before Maddy could open her mouth.

“Get
out!
” Gina gave Maddy a Seinfeldian shove that almost knocked Maddy on her butt. “I still have five pounds to lose before Lucy measures me for my bridesmaid dress.”

“July twenty-first,” Claire said. “Better get moving.”

“You’re well informed,” Maddy said to her future sort of sister-in-law. Aidan must have spread the word last night at the bar.

“Have you mentioned it to Olivia yet? It’ll be interesting to hear her take on it.”

Gina let loose with a loud
meow
that made everyone except Maddy and Claire laugh again.

“Why would Olivia care when I get married?” Maddy asked, her temper sparking dangerously. “She knows Aidan and I are—oh.” She had completely forgotten about Cuppa. “Oh God. That’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?”

Claire’s look said it all.

“That went well,” Maddy said to Gina after the school bus left and the other mothers scattered. “I think I managed to confirm every awful thing she ever thought about me.” Flighty. Unreliable. A terrible candidate for wife and mother.

“Forget it,” Gina said. “I’ve got real problems.”

“Please don’t tell me you did something even dumber than that tattoo.”

Gina could do innocent indignation better than anyone. “That photographer is coming to Upsweep later to take my picture for the book, and I look like the Before poster child.”

“I think he’s coming to The Candlelight tomorrow.”

“Hey,” Gina said, “this is about me, remember? I look like hell. I’m not supposed to look like hell. I own a salon. This is going to be terrible for business.”

“I don’t think they’re looking at this as a promo opportunity for Upsweep, Gee.”

Gina bent down and retrieved Joey’s stuffed dinosaur for the stroller-bound toddler. “You know what, cuz? I liked you a hell of a lot more before you got yourself engaged.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Don’t mind me,” Gina said as she straightened back up. “I’m in a lousy mood.”

“Still hungover?”

“Do you ever have the feeling something awful is about to happen, but you don’t know what it is and you don’t know how to stop it?”

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.” That horrible someone-walked-over-my-grave feeling ran up her spine.

“I know, I know. I sound like my mother, don’t I? Next thing you know, I’ll be telling you somebody gave me the evil eye.”

Maddy crossed herself. “Now you have me acting like
my
mother. Don’t say things like that, Gee. Don’t even think them.”

“I almost went to Mass with Lucy this morning,” Gina said. “
That’s
how strong this feeling is.”

Maddy, who had gone to Mass with Lucy that morning, said nothing at all.

 
CORIN FOLLOWED OLIVIA over to Cuppa a little after eight to shoot a roll of his sister at the incredibly kitschy cottage she was turning into an English tea shop. It wasn’t exactly his cup of tea, so to speak, but he had no doubt that her instincts were right on the money, and she would have another huge success on her hands. She walked him through the place, pointing out architectural details that he might otherwise have gone to his grave without recognizing, and he dutifully took a few shots of wainscoting. Whatever the hell that was.

He also managed to grab a few candid shots of Olivia as she scrutinized the new wallpaper and checked out the window treatments.

“Enough,” she said, laughing as he circled her like a paparazzo. “That’s my bad side.”

“You don’t have a bad side, Livvy. Never had, never will.”

“Good genes, brother mine. We were both born lucky.”

They locked eyes, and the irony of the statement hit them both at the same time. Great parents. Great childhood. Great genes. Yet there they were, charging fearlessly into early middle age with no kids, no spouses, not even a cat to give a shit if they came home early, late, or not at all.

Somewhere along the way they had stopped being lucky, but he would be damned if he could figure out when or why.

He was saved from a morose trip down angst lane by the noisy arrival of Lassiter and his crew.

“I’m finished here,” he said, grabbing for his camera bag. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Don’t leave on our account,” Lassiter said after a jovial good morning. “A few stills of the process in motion might be a good addition.”

Corin checked his watch. He was due at Upsweep in a half hour, but that was only two blocks away.
What the hell,
he thought and popped off the lens cap.

“Act natural,” he ordered everyone to great laughter. They had been saying that to the citizens of Paradise Point for the last month with varying degrees of success.

Crystal was setting up her recording equipment on one of the enormous work surfaces in what would be the kitchen in another day or two. He liked the way the morning sunshine glittered off her quintet of eyebrow piercings. He crouched down a few feet away from her and started snapping as she fiddled with dials, ran a mike check, and pretended she wasn’t being photographed.

“Forget I’m here,” he said as he aimed the camera up her nose. “I’m part of the scenery.”

“I hate being photographed,” she said. “I end up looking like a baked potato.”

“Baked potatoes are good,” he said, trying to put her at ease. “But you’re no plain old baked potato . . . no, don’t look at me . . . just do what you’re doing . . . you’re baked potato with cheddar cheese and bacon bits and green onions and maybe some really hot salsa—”

She started to laugh, and the sun zeroed in on the stud fastened through her tongue.

“You must drive the metal detectors nuts at the airport,” he said as he paused to change rolls.

“I’m an agent for social change,” she said, clicking the stud against her bottom teeth. “The day will come when body piercings are as common as makeup and hair color.”

He decided to leave that one alone. “So what did the PTB think about your hook for the documentary?”

“Shh!” She placed her index finger to her lips. “I haven’t had a chance to transcribe the tape yet, but it’s going to blow them away!”

“The guys at
60 Minutes
are getting pretty long in the tooth. You should walk your skills up to Fifty-second Street and see if there’s an opening.”

“Yeah, I can just see me sitting next to Mike Wallace.” Crystal pulled her notepad from her backpack and uncapped her pen with her teeth. “That would be one for the Emmy reel.”

“Listen, kid, if you managed to score a story in the middle of a Jersey Shore karaoke bar, you could blast the rest of ’em off the screen.”

“I’m going to try to transcribe it tonight. I have the tape all set up and ready to go as soon as I get back to the rooms.” She winked at him. “Get a good picture of Gina Barone. It might come in very handy.”

 
“MISS O’MALLEY, WOULD you care to rejoin the rest of us and answer the question?”

Kelly struggled to swim up to the surface of consciousness. “I-I’m sorry, Mr. Alfredi. Would you repeat the question?”

He dismissed her with a look and turned toward Carol Mortensen. “Miss Mortensen, please enlighten the rest of us with an answer.”

“Yalta, Mr. Alfredi.”

“Thank you, Miss Mortensen. Perhaps Miss O’Malley is proficient enough at
Jeopardy
that she can reconstruct the original question using that answer as her clue.”

The class laughed. She didn’t even blame them. She might have laughed, too, if the situation had been reversed. She hoped she wouldn’t have, but lately she was beginning to think just about anything was possible.

Seth was waiting for her in the hallway, and her heart twisted into a sailor’s knot at the sight of his familiar, beloved face. She wished she didn’t have to smile and lie to that face, but she was in so deep now there was no turning back.

“What was that all about?” he asked as they walked to the cafeteria for lunch.

“I fell asleep,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I was up until four working on that paper, and when he started droning on about Stalin and FDR, I drifted off.” Which was another total lie. She had stayed up all night staring at the six photos Rose DiFalco had given to her. Sandy O’Malley had lived nineteen years, and a handful of photos, her husband’s memories, and a daughter named Kelly were all that remained to prove she had walked the earth.

Seth lowered his voice to a whisper. “Maybe you should run that test again.”

“Oh, shut up!” she snapped, pulling her hand away from his. “I told you the results on Saturday. What more do you want from me?”

She wished he would get mad, maybe tell her to go to hell, or call her a bitch and leave her standing there alone in the entrance to the cafeteria. That was what she deserved for lying to him.

But he didn’t do any of those things, which was why she loved him so much. Instead, he looked at her closely for what seemed like forever, then he fell back into step with her, and they walked into the cafeteria together like it was just another day.

 
GINA BARONE LOVED the camera, and unless Corin badly missed his guess, the camera loved her right back. She reigned over staff and clientele at Upsweep like a benevolent despot in leather. She flirted, she cajoled, she laughed, and when she thought nobody was looking, she looked sad enough to break a man’s heart.