Fancy Dancer (3 page)

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Authors: Fern Michaels

Tags: #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Fiction

BOOK: Fancy Dancer
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When he got home, he headed to the second floor, stripped down, and pulled on cargo shorts and an old LSU T-shirt from his college days, which was so soft and worn that it felt like a second skin. His feet went into Birkenstocks and off he went. His next stop was Leona Sue’s flower shop, and then on to St. Patrick’s Cemetery.
Sweat was dripping down Jake’s face when he entered Leona Sue’s flower shop. He looked around at the profusion of flowers. His mother had always loved flowers, white roses being her favorite. She’d had a wonderful, beautiful flower garden when he was a boy. Mika, the gardener, had helped her with the compost and the peat moss and taught her all he knew, which was a lot. Mika always told her she had the prettiest roses in all of Louisiana. He made a mental note to check on Mika in his retirement.
A young girl, probably the owner’s daughter, smiled and asked how she could help him.
“Do you have any white roses?”
“Believe it or not, we actually do. Not much call for them, but some came in yesterday. They’re in the cooler. How many would you like? Oh, are they for delivery or are you taking them with you? We charge for delivery.”
“I’ll be taking them with me. How many do you have?”
“Let me look. Mom might have sold some of them after I left yesterday. I’ll be right back.”
Jake walked around, savoring the smell of the potted plants and the bright colors. He liked the smell. He turned when he heard the young girl shout from the back room where the cooler was. “I have three and a half dozen, sir!”
“Good! I’ll take them all,” Jake shouted in return.
“Would you like some greenery and baby’s breath in the mix?”
Jake smiled. The young girl probably thought he didn’t know what baby’s breath or greenery meant, but he did. “Absolutely. Make it pretty.”
When the young girl returned from the back room, her arms full of roses, Jake grinned. She’d wrapped them in green tissue, and they really were an armful. Jake thanked her and paid with his credit card.
The flowers took up the entire passenger seat. Now, if he had a dog, the dog would have had to sit on his lap.
Damn, where are these thoughts coming from?
Jake drove with the window down because he hated air-conditioning in a car. For some reason, he always got a sinus infection when he turned it on. Recycled air, someone had once told him. The air outside was thick with humidity, but he didn’t care.
Twenty minutes later, Jake drove down the road to the cemetery. He parked and walked to where his mother’s final resting place waited for him. It was a quiet place. But then, all cemeteries were quiet places. He had helped Mika plant a young tree the day after his mother had been laid to rest. In eighteen years, the sapling had grown into a tall, sturdy young tree, with branches that resembled a giant umbrella. It created a canopy of shade over the bench Mika had helped him build out of mahogany, and he was stunned to see how the stout bench had survived the elements. The plot of grass was so green it shone like a giant emerald. Mika must still come out here to water and to clip the grass. To Jake’s eye, it was the tidiest grave site in the whole cemetery. He marveled at how each blade of grass seemed to be the exact same length. Mika was a perfectionist. The stone was simple black marble, and he’d had the stonecutter carve an angel in the middle of it. The lettering was simple: his mother’s name, the date of her birth, and the date of her death; and underneath, the inscription, MOTHER OF JACOB. He wondered, and not for the first time, if there had ever been any gossip or feedback when the name
St. Cloud
had been omitted. If there had been, no one told him, and he didn’t really care one way or the other.
Jake sat down cross-legged and stared at the graceful angel, her wings spread protectively over a babe in a cradle. In his mind, he was the babe in the cradle. Tears burned his eyes. He made no move to wipe them away. They splattered down on the roses like the first morning dew.
He talked then of everything and nothing as he tried to play catch-up. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been there in the last eighteen years—he’d been many times, but all he’d done during those visits was leave some flowers and say a prayer that his mother’s soul was resting in peace. This time, though, he owed her an accounting—an accounting he was not proud of. He didn’t try to shield himself or make excuses. He owned up to everything.
“I feel like a real shit, Mom. I didn’t keep one promise I made to you. Well, maybe one—I finished college, then took it on the lam. I think I went around the world at least three times. I was searching... for what I have no clue. The truth is, I was running away as hard and as fast as I could. It was so hard after you . . . after you were gone. I had a hell of a blowup with
him.
I said hateful, unforgivable things to the man who is my father. I told him he was a sperm donor. I really pissed him off, Mom, when I told him there had been a time when I had wanted to be like him. God, was that funny. You know what, Mom? He called me an ungrateful little bastard. He said I was a wuss, a mama’s boy. I took it, Mom. I didn’t argue or fight back. That day. But on another day, when they read your will before I left for college, we had it out, right there in the lawyers’ offices. I reamed him a new one. I’m not being disrespectful here, Mom; I’m just trying to be as honest as I can because I’m here to ask your forgiveness. I know that a mother’s love is unconditional, but I have to ask, just the same, because I can’t forgive myself. Maybe I never will be able to grant that to myself. I told him I knew all about his women and how he was with one of them when you were dying. He didn’t deny it.
“I tried, Mom, to find the woman named Sophia. I hired a dozen different detective agencies, and they all came up dry. I barged into his office one day and asked him point-blank who Sophia was. I saw, for just a nanosecond, a spark in his eye that confirmed there was someone named Sophia, but he called me delusional. I asked him how many illegitimate children he had. He called security and had my ass booted out of the office.
“Today is my birthday. I wish you were here to bake me a cake and help me blow out the candles. Thirty-five candles is a lot to blow out by oneself. I’d give my right arm if you could somehow magically appear to wish me a happy birthday! I’m turning over a new leaf and turning my life around, Mom. I mean it this time. I meant it the last time, too, but somehow I lost my way. I am so sorry, Mom. Estes and Elroy asked me if I was done lollygagging, and I said yes. I mean it, Mom. I’m going to do it all now, everything I didn’t do the first time around. I just want to tell you how sorry I am that I let you down. It won’t happen again. I need you to believe that. It would help if you’d find a way to give me a sign that you believe me and forgive me.”
Jake sat for a long time, sweat dripping from his forehead and mingling with his tears. He was just about to get up when he saw a yellow butterfly perch on the angel’s wing. A sign? He reached out a trembling hand, and the butterfly settled itself on his index finger. “Thanks, Mom!” He held his hand up, and the butterfly took wing. “That’s good enough for me!” He blew a kiss in the direction of the angel, stood, and turned to leave. “I’ll be back soon, Mom.”
He saw
him
then, walking among the stones, weaving his way toward Jake.
“I thought I’d find you here,” was all
he
said by way of a greeting.
“I’m sorry I can’t say the same thing about you. This is the last place I ever expected to see
you
.”
The two men, one old, one young, locked eyeballs. They were an even match, inch for inch, pound for pound. Jonah St. Cloud reached for his son’s arm. Jake shook him free. “You don’t want to do that again, and if you do, I’ll forget who you are and deck your ass so that you can’t walk for a month.”
Jonah St. Cloud ignored his son’s words. “I need to talk to you, Jake.”
Jake walked away.
“Did you hear me,
boy
?”
Jake clenched his fists at his sides. He could feel his body start to shake, and he couldn’t stop the tremors. He knew right that minute that he was capable of killing. He jammed his hands into his pockets. He turned around. “How did you know I would be here?”
“Simple. Today is your birthday. You turned thirty-five. You were born at seven twenty in the morning. You were bald as a cue ball and weighed seven pounds eight ounces, normal size back then. You were twenty-one inches long and had big feet. It was the proudest day of my life. You’re in town to sign the papers so you can inherit your mother’s estate. I figured it stood to reason you’d find your way here at some point today. I was prepared to wait all day if necessary.”
“Why now? Why today? You want Mom’s money, is that it? You figure you’re going to throw a guilt trip on me and I’ll just... what? Hand it over? Man, you are one sick, sorry son of a bitch if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking, and it’s not what I want. I need your help, Jake.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I wouldn’t lift a finger to help you if you were dying. How’s that grab you? Why would you ask me, of all people, to help you?” Jake asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.
“It doesn’t grab me too well. And the reason I’m asking you is because you’re my son.”
“Oops! Guess you missed that part about your being my sperm donor. Sperm donors have no rights. Kiss my ass,
Dad
.”
Jonah St. Cloud flinched. “Name your price.” “Did I hear you right? Name my price? Well, you know what, I do have a price. If you’re willing to pay it, then I’ll be willing to listen to you, and maybe—I said maybe—help you out of whatever jam you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“Name it, and it’s yours. If you agree to help me.”
Jake took all of two seconds to come up with his response. “Last name, address, phone number, and name of the child belonging to Sophia.”
Jonah St. Cloud’s face drained, but he didn’t miss a beat when he said, “Sophia Rosario. The address is four twenty-two Aspen Lane in Slidell and the phone number is in the book. The boy’s name is Alexander Luther Rosario. He was born on the Fourth of July. He’s four years younger than you, which makes him thirty-one.”
Jake lost whatever control he had thought he had. His fist shot out, and his father toppled to the ground. Right then, he wanted nothing more than to pummel the man till he was a bleeding, hulking mess. Instead, he turned and went to his car. When he got in, the thick, heady scent of the roses he’d brought, mixed with the heavy humidity, lingered on the leather seat, making him gag.
“You gave me your word,” Jonah shouted as he struggled to his feet.
“I lied!” Jake shot back as he gunned the horsepower under the hood. He would have taken off like a bat out of hell, but he saw the yellow butterfly settle itself in the middle of his windshield. He stared at it, then across to the space where the black marble angel hovered over the babe in the cradle. He sucked in his breath and whispered, hoping the butterfly heard him, “Okay.”
A second later, the delicate little creature was airborne and out of his line of vision. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the beautiful little creature flew back to perch on the angel’s wing.
Jake leaned out of the car window and said, “That was just so rude of me. Whatever
was
I thinking? I don’t know what got in to me,
Dad
. What that means is, don’t call me, I’ll call you.” And he would, because at the age of thirty-five, the new Jake St. Cloud was a man of his word.
Chapter 2
J
ake turned off the highway and into a St. Cloud gas station. He pulled to the side and just sat there.
Did I just deck my father?
He looked down at his throbbing hand—all the proof he needed that he’d done just that.
What the hell was I thinking? What was it? Thirty-five years of pent-up rage?
Was it because of the way his father had treated his mother, and this was payback for his betrayals? Or was it all the father-son things he’d wanted that had never happened during his growing-up years? Maybe it was that he’d been forced to work at the drilling sites during the summer and all vacation days? And to think that, somewhere in the back of his mind, at one time he’d wanted to grow up to be just like his father.
What a crock.
Jake massaged his throbbing hand. He felt ashamed at what he’d done. But at the moment he’d let his clenched fist fly, the man he was aiming at wasn’t his father. He was a man who had betrayed his wife. A man who couldn’t be bothered to be at her side when she died. A father who was never there for his son. A sperm donor. He’d let his seventeen-year-old son make all the funeral arrangements. It still boggled Jake’s mind that he’d even shown up at the service for his wife. The son of a bitch had even managed to squeeze out a tear. And then he was gone, leaving Jake standing alone, with only Estes and Elroy Symon to provide comfort.
Jake took great gulping breaths as he struggled to gain control of his emotions. Everything else aside, now he finally had the name of his half brother and his address. That alone was worth whatever consequences there were from the confrontation with his father.
The address was burned into his brain. He typed it into his GPS, headed for the gas pump, and filled the Porsche.
Twenty-three minutes later, the robotic voice on the GPS told him that he was eighteen feet from his destination. Jake drove around the block twice, trying to get a feel for the neighborhood. He decided it was a great place to raise kids. There were sidewalks; humongous trees shaded the front lawns and the sidewalks as well. Old-fashioned lampposts were on every corner. All the houses were well maintained, the lawns mowed, and the flower beds just perfect. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought Mika worked the neighborhood on his off-hours. The house itself was a ranch with diamond-paned windows. The front door was a cheery yellow that matched the yellow cushions on the two chairs on the small front porch. He could see pots of late-summer flowers lining the walkway to the front door. The house itself was painted white and had dark hunter-green shutters and trim. The white paint sparkled in the bright sunlight. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the house looked freshly painted.
Here goes nothing
, Jake thought as he climbed out of the car that he had parked on the street in front of the house. He walked to the door and was not the least bit surprised to see that there were no weeds in the lawn. He wondered if anyone would be home at that hour of the day. Surely, the mother and son worked.
That’s when he noticed the Mustang convertible sitting in the driveway. He’d been so taken with the house, he hadn’t seen it at first.
Okay, Mom, I’m here. I’m going to try to make it right.
Jake rang the doorbell. Five musical notes could be heard. A welcome to visitors.
The door opened, and Jake stared at a mirror image of his father. His jaw dropped. The young man standing in the open doorway, his tie askew, his shirtsleeves rolled up, stared at Jake as though he knew him.
“I’m . . .”
“I know who you are. Jake St. Cloud.”
Damn, the guy even sounds like the old man.
“Yeah, that’s me. Look, I’m not sure what the protocol is here. I just found out about you forty-five minutes ago. I came straight here.”
“Why?”
“Because years and years ago, on her deathbed, my mother asked me to find you. I tried. She herself had tried for years, too, before she passed. All we had was what we thought was your mother’s name—Sophia. My mother wanted me to know she thought I had a brother or a sister. She didn’t want me to be alone after she was gone.”
Alex Rosario slouched against the door frame as he eyed his half brother. “You weren’t exactly alone now, were you? You had a father, which is more than I had, but I do have the best mother in the whole world.”
“Back then, I would have fought you till one of us went down for saying that. I had the best mother in the whole world, too. I’m willing to concede the point, though. That father you might have anguished over not having? Give it up. He wasn’t a father, he was just a sperm donor. Now, are you going to invite me in or not? It’s got to be a hundred and ten degrees out here.”
“Well, it’s a hundred degrees in this house. Our A/C went out. That’s why I’m here. I’m waiting for the technician. Come on in.”
“You don’t look like the sperm donor,” Alex observed, leading the way into the cheeriest, homiest kitchen Jake had ever seen. “Do you look like your mother? Iced tea?”
“Whoa. Switch that up. You do look like him. I do take after my mother’s side of the family. Which I think puts me one up on you. I was blessed, and you got cursed. I was born first, if that makes a difference. Yes on the iced tea.”
The brothers sat down across from each other and eyed one another.
“Why are you here? What do you want? How did you find us?”
“I told you, I made a deal with the devil. Well, maybe I didn’t exactly say that, but that’s what I did. Meaning the devil is our mutual sperm donor. Until today, I hadn’t spoken to Jonah St. Cloud since the day of my mother’s funeral. He found me. Today is my birthday. I turned thirty-five, and I had some stuff I had to do with my mom’s lawyers, and after that, I went to the cemetery to... to... to own up to my mom that I had failed to keep every damn promise I made to her on her deathbed, mainly the one about finding you and your mother.
“Just as I was leaving, the sperm donor showed up. Guess he kept track of things. He asked for my help. He told me to name my price. You were my price, and he gave it up. And here I am. Well, before I left, I knocked him on his ass. Then I came here.”
Alex leaned across the table, his expression intense. “How did it feel?”
Jake grinned. “Liberating. I put everything I had into that punch. I wanted to keep beating him till he was a bloody pulp, but I didn’t. I pulled into a gas station to calm down and felt ashamed for all of ten seconds.”
“He just took it? He let you punch him out and didn’t fight back? What kind of man is that?” Alex asked, his eyes wide in shock at what he was hearing.
“Think sperm donor, bro. Oh, he did ask when we would get together for the help he wanted from me. I told him I lied. All I wanted was your name. Just so you don’t think I’m a complete shit, I will get in touch with him. My mother taught me better than that.”
The doorbell rang. Alex excused himself and went to answer it. He was back in minutes. “A/C guy. Thank God! More tea?”
“Yeah, it’s good.”
“My mom makes it from different tea leaves. She owns the restaurant she used to work at when she met... And before you ask, she bought it working around the clock, and
he
didn’t give a penny toward it. Actually, we just paid off the mortgage last year. That’s how my mother met our . . . the sperm donor. She was a waitress and he swept her off her feet. She was only seventeen at the time. She doesn’t . . . she just told me what she thought I needed to know back then when I had questions. I found out the rest over the years. I’m not getting any of this. What is it you want from us?”
“Not a damn thing. I want to do something for you and your mother. I told you, it’s what my mother wanted. I promised her. So, tell me, what can I do for you?”
“Not a damn thing,
bro
. We’re doing just fine on our own. This place,” Alex said, waving his arm about, “might not be up to your standards, but it’s how most of America lives. I wouldn’t trade it for all the palatial mansions in the world.”
Jake didn’t like the sarcasm he was hearing in his brother’s voice. He winced.
This wasn’t going to be easy. He looked up when he saw a man in a baseball cap standing at the kitchen door. The tag on his shirt said A-1 REFRIGERATION.
“Mr. Rosario, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your unit is shot. You need a new one. I can have it installed tomorrow if you want.”
“Crap!” Alex slapped at his forehead. “How much?”
“It will be seventy-two hundred dollars, including labor.”
“Can’t you jury-rig it?”
“It’s been jury-rigged so many times, there’s nothing left to jury-rig. So, what’s it going to be? I got six more service calls today.”
“Give me a few minutes; I need to call my mother to see what she wants to do.”
Though he knew he should try not to listen, Jake strained to hear every word his brother was saying. The bottom line to Jake was that they didn’t have that much cash on hand. He waited.
Alex ended the call. If he was embarrassed that Jake had heard any part of the conversation, he didn’t show it. “What kind of installment plan do you have?”
“Twenty percent down and the rest spread over two years.”
“Okay, order it. When do you want to do the paperwork?”
“Tomorrow, when I get here.”
“That’ll work.”
When the door closed behind the technician, Alex said, “Where were we?”
“You were telling me you didn’t need anything and middle America lives the way you and your mom live. I was about to agree with you and tell you how much I like this house, especially the kitchen. Growing up, my mother and I ate at this very long dining-room table. It sucked. I don’t think she knew how to cook. My mother, that is. But she did make me hot cocoa when I was sick, and sometimes she made cookies. They were very good. She called them sugar cookies. They were like cake.”
“Well then, let me tell you how it was here. Jonah St. Cloud had his lawyer give my mother just enough money for us to get by. He did pay Mom’s hospital bills. My mother had to keep working and pay for day care when I was little. As I got older and needed more stuff, a friend of hers convinced her to get a lawyer to ask for more money. The skunk tried to fight it, but Mom held firm, so he increased her monthly allotment. Not by much, but it did help. He only paid for a quarter of my college. Mom banked it because I worked my way through. That’s how she was finally able to pay off the restaurant. I have to tell you, to this day, my mother never said a bad word about that man. I, on the other hand, let it rip, and she’d look at me with those big eyes of hers and tell me she was ashamed of me. So, you see, I know what that feels like. It was all her workers, who are incredibly loyal to my mother, who chipped in and bought me a clunker of a car when I was old enough to drive. I had to learn to be a mechanic because it kept breaking down. Mom says it all helped build my character.”
Alex stood and started to unroll his sleeves. “Well, if we’re done strolling down memory lane, I have to get back to the office. It was nice of you to stop by, bro.”
“It
was
nice of me, now that you mention it. I have to wonder, if you were in my place, would you have done the same thing?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, that’s honest enough. I truly admire honesty in a person. What is it you do, Alex?”
“I’m a lawyer. I work with three other guys in a storefront office for people who need lawyers but can’t afford them. As I said before, the sperm donor did not pay for my education. I worked my way through and had some grants. I’m still paying off student loans. I had a full-ride scholarship if I wanted to play football, but I turned it down.”
“Why?”
Alex laughed. “Because my mother said she didn’t want an idiot with a bad back and bad knees for a son. She said no. I know all about how you gave up five different scholarships back in the day. Maybe that made it easier for me to say no. Jesus, you have no idea how much I wanted to be you. You should have heard me cheering you at all those football games and not being allowed to tell anyone you were my brother. Pretty jerky, huh?”
“That hurts me, heart and soul. I swear to God it does. You knew about me, but I didn’t know a damn thing about you or your mother. Until an hour or so ago.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let it get your panties in a knot. It all worked out just fine. As you can see.” Alex held out his hand. Jake reached for it and wanted to cry so damn bad, he had to bite down on his lower lip. He wasn’t sure, but he thought Alex was feeling something, too.
“Can I say one more thing?” Jake said.
“Sure, spit it out.”
“I understand pride. I understand you don’t want anything from me. That’s fine. I’m okay with that, but your mother, from what you said, got the shitty end of the stick. It wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t my mother’s fault. It was my mother, another woman, who maybe understood what happened better than you or I ever could. She was dying, Alex, when she made me promise to find you and your mother. You want to be cavalier about all this, fine, but don’t make that decision for your mother. That’s not right.”

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