Irresistible Forces (9 page)

“No, I guess I'm just shit-disturbing a little bit. When I see a good thing, I hate not having a piece of the action. We work well together, Meredith. We think alike in a lot of ways. I hate to waste that.”

She couldn't help agreeing with him, but they hadn't exactly wasted it either. “I wouldn't say we've been wasting time, would you?” They had put together a hell of a good IPO, working together.

“Of course not. I'm just already thinking about how much I'm going to hate it when our stint together is over. I may have to call you for advice every day. I'm already having withdrawals, thinking about it.”

She laughed at what he said. “I told you, you'll be sick to death of me by the time the road show is over. But you can always call me.”

“You'll probably be on the road with some other novice, whining and sniveling and needing you to hold his hand while you take his company public.”

“Not for a while anyway. I'm going to take it easy for a few weeks. Steve and I have hardly seen each other all summer.”

“I don't know how you do that,” he said admiringly. “Maybe that's how you've kept your marriage together for fourteen years. Maybe it works better if you don't see each other all the time,” although that hadn't been true for him, and he knew that.

“Steve says it's like being married to a flight attendant.”

“Not exactly,” Cal smiled at her, and seemed to relax at the end of a long week. He was looking forward to spending the weekend with his children before he left for Boston on Sunday. “How about an early dinner with my little monsters? I'll take you to the airport myself in time for the red-eye. You won't have to leave the house till eight thirty.”

Although she had agreed to meet them, she had resisted the offer of dinner earlier, but it seemed too awkward now to keep insisting she didn't want to impose on him, she enjoyed his company, and was curious about his children. “Are you sure they won't mind your dragging a stranger home from the office?”

“They'll survive it. They're used to businesswomen, like their mother. They don't pay much attention to what I do. At this point, all the girls are interested in is short skirts and makeup. And all Andy cares about is my Ferrari. I don't talk about work much with them.”

“That's probably just as well. They've got plenty of time for that later.”

“We just got back from Tahoe last weekend, and they started school yesterday. They were all complaining about it this morning.”

They walked out of his office together, and almost everyone else had gone home by then. His Ferrari was in the parking lot. He had driven Meredith down from San Francisco in it, her bags were still in the trunk, and as she got back in now, he put the top down.

“We're only five minutes from my house. It's nice to get a little air,” he said easily. It was at least fifteen degrees warmer in Palo Alto than it had been in the city. And Meredith enjoyed the brief ride with the top down.

They were chatting comfortably, as he pulled into a driveway with hedges on either side, and a gate opened automatically when he pressed a button on his visor. And once it opened, she saw a handsome stone house, with a large expanse of lawn to one side, several beautiful old trees, and a big swimming pool, with a bunch of children in it, and several others sitting on deck chairs wrapped in towels. And there was a nice-looking woman in her midthirties watching them, while a golden retriever stood next to a little boy and then ran after a ball he'd just thrown him. It was an idyllic scene, and in total contrast to his high-tech business life. This was the world he loved to come home to. Several of the kids waved as he drove in, and parked the car, and Meredith could see one of the girls watching her with interest.

“Hi, kids,” he shouted in their general direction, and walked across the lawn toward them. There were at least ten children there, and Meredith realized that some of them had to be friends, but as soon as they approached, it was easy to see which ones were Callan's. The two girls he had described to her, Mary Ellen and Julie, looked exactly like him, so much so that it was almost funny. And Andy looked like a miniature of his father. All three of them stared at her as though she had just arrived from another planet, as he introduced her.

“We've just been on the due diligence tour together. In Chicago and Minneapolis and L.A. And next week we're going to Europe,” he explained as Andy eyed her with suspicion.

“Are you my dad's new girlfriend?” Meredith smiled at the question, and Cal was quick to reprimand him.

“Andy! That's a rude thing to say, and you know it.”

“Well, is she?” he persisted, as the dog brought the ball back and dropped it at the boy's feet, but Andy ignored him. Interrogating Meredith was more interesting than playing fetch with the retriever. And his sisters seemed to be listening with interest.

“Actually, I'm married. Your dad and I are just working together. My husband is a doctor,” she said, hoping to gain safe passage from them. Their friends were circling nearby, and the two girls seemed anxious to rejoin them.

“What kind of doctor?” Andy asked her. “Does he take care of kids?”

“Sometimes. He takes care of people who have terrible accidents, he's a trauma doctor.”

“I fell off my bike and broke my arm once,” he said, smiling at her. He had decided that she was pretty, and not necessarily after his father.

“That must have hurt,” Meredith sympathized.

“It did. Do you have children?”

“No, I don't,” she said, wondering if she should apologize for it. The two girls were still watching her, but neither of them had said more than hello when their father introduced them. But they didn't make any move to step away either. They were listening to her answers to their brother's questions, and seemed satisfied by them. “I'm going back to New York in a few hours,” she said, as though to reassure them. She somehow sensed that they thought she was a threat, even if she was married, and she wanted to assure them that she would be gone soon.

Cal offered her a glass of wine, and the children went back to their friends then. And half an hour later, as he and Meredith sat on the patio, drinking wine and chatting, the last of the friends left, and his kids went upstairs to change for dinner.

“Your children are beautiful,” she said after they'd gone in, “and they all look just like you.”

“Charlotte always said that Andy looked like my clone, even as a baby. And both of the girls look just like my mother. I think it was actually part of why Charlotte never bonded with them.” But from everything else he had said to her by then, Meredith suspected that there were more severe reasons for her not bonding with them, mostly her long-term affair with another man, and the fact that she had never wanted children. “They're not used to seeing anyone come home with me. They've only met one or two of the women I've gone out with.”

“Why is that?” She was startled by what he said, and it explained why they had seemed so suspicious of her.

“I don't think that part of my life is any of their business,” he said bluntly. “There hasn't been anyone serious enough in my life to warrant introducing them to the children.” It was hard to believe that in the eight years since his divorce he hadn't been seriously involved with a woman. It made her wonder about him, and come to the same conclusion she had come to before, that he was commitment-phobic ever since his wife's betrayal, although he claimed to have recovered.

They sat outside for a while, enjoying the balmy evening, and then he invited her to come inside to the large elegant living room, filled with English antiques and handsome works of art. And a few minutes later, the housekeeper told them dinner was ready. And like clockwork, the kids trooped downstairs, and then stood in the door of the living room, staring at her. She felt like an animal in the zoo, as the two girls glared at her, and she couldn't help wondering what they were thinking.

Callan got up, and walked slowly toward them. “So how was school, guys?” he asked easily, as Meredith followed behind him.

“I hate school,” Andy announced, but without any particular fervor. It sounded like a standard response, and Julie said grudgingly that she liked her new teacher. Mary Ellen said nothing.

“Are you in high school?” Meredith asked her politely as they walked into the dining room, and Cal pulled out the chair next to his and Meredith sat down in it.

“I'm a freshman,” Mary Ellen said tersely, and the word that sprang to Meredith's mind was
sullen.
She was totally unlike her easygoing father. She was a pretty girl, but her lack of enthusiasm and seeming lack of warmth made her appear somehow less attractive. From what Meredith could see, there was very little charm about her, and more than anything else, she seemed unhappy. Meredith couldn't help wondering if she was always that way, or if it was just due to the presence of an unexpected guest, and seeing her father with a woman.

Conversation during dinner was awkward and slow, with the children saying little, and Callan pretending he didn't notice. And Meredith eventually gave up trying to engage them in conversation. The one thing they made plain, without actually saying it, was that they had no interest in talking to her, or even in answering her questions. And she wasn't all that at ease with children. After awhile, she had no idea what to say to them, and even Callan couldn't seem to draw them out much. They asked to be excused immediately after dessert, and ran upstairs so fast when he let them go, they almost knocked each other down in the doorway.

“I'm sorry, Meredith,” he turned to her apologetically as the housekeeper served them coffee, and Meredith relaxed visibly. It had been a strain having dinner with his children. “I think they were worried about you. They're not usually like this. They're good kids. I think they just couldn't figure out who you were, or why you were here. I'll have to talk to them about it.”

“Don't be silly,” she said politely, “if you never bring women home, no wonder they were worried. Isn't that a little unreal, though? Don't your dates want to meet your kids?” It seemed an odd way to live, to her. And it obviously had disadvantages, if his children sat like stones when he finally did bring a woman home, even if she was a friend in business.

“What my dates want and what they get are two different stories,” Cal said, smiling at her. “There's no point introducing them if they're not going to be around long.”

“That's a hell of a statement, Cal. How do you know that right from the beginning?”

“Because that's the way it's been for a long time, and probably the way it will be for a lot longer. If I change my mind about it, I can always do something about it later. It's a lot easier to introduce someone to the kids down the road, than to explain to them why I'm not seeing her anymore. They don't need to know that.”

“I think not dealing with it must make them very possessive of you.” Which was a polite way of saying that they had looked like little ax murderers as they sat there. Their eyes had bored holes into Meredith all evening, and she hadn't enjoyed it. No one would have. But she was afraid to say too much. They were his children after all, and it was hardly her place to tell him that he wasn't bringing them up right. She suspected they probably were nice kids. They were healthy and good looking, and seemed intelligent, but they sure hadn't been friendly. In fact, given a bit of rope, she suspected they would have been hateful to her, especially Mary Ellen. Meredith couldn't help pitying the woman who would walk into that, because she was in love with Callan, and it might happen someday, in spite of his protests.

They talked about business again then, and at eight thirty, right on schedule, he drove her to the airport. He helped her check her bags in, and then walked her to the first-class lounge, and she thanked him for an interesting afternoon and a pleasant evening, and told him she had enjoyed meeting his children.

“I wish I believed that,” he said apologetically. “They weren't exactly terrific, Merrie, and I know that. I guess I need to start introducing them to people, friends like you, if no one else.”

“It might make it easier for them in the long run, if there's no threat involved. They have nothing to fear from me,” she said candidly, and he frowned.

“I'm not sure they believed that. Maybe they thought I was lying, and that I am involved with you. Maybe they thought you made up the story about your husband.”

“Why would I do a thing like that, Cal?” She looked shocked at the suggestion.

“Because it's the kind of thing their mother would do, if it suited her purpose. She lied to them about the man she eventually married. They suspected her involvement with him long before she admitted it to them. I've tried not to do the same thing to them, by telling them nothing.”

“Maybe the right thing to do is somewhere in the middle.”

“I'll have to try that,” he smiled, and then wished her a good trip, and told her he'd see her on Sunday night at the Ritz Carlton in Boston.

“I probably won't be there till midnight,” Meredith told him. “I wanted to spend a little time with my husband, but as it turns out he's working, as usual. At least we'll have tomorrow together. And I'm on a ten
P.M.
flight out of New York on Sunday.”

“I should be at the hotel by seven,” he explained. “If you're bored after he goes to work, come on up and have dinner with me.”

“I'll call if I decide to do that. In the meantime, have a good weekend.”

“I'm going to play tennis with the kids tomorrow, and spend the rest of the day lying around the pool. I can hardly wait,” he admitted, and she laughed at the contrast.

“I'm planning to do my laundry.”

“Somehow I can't envision you doing that, Meredith,” he laughed. She seemed too beautiful and too glamorous to be spending time in a laundromat, or over a hot washing machine anywhere. He couldn't imagine her doing housework.

“Someone has to do it, and Steve draws the line at cooking. I'm not sure I blame him.”

“I'll have to meet this guy one of these days. He sounds too virtuous to be true, saving lives, and doing the cooking. The perfect husband.”