Love Handles (5 page)

Hilda, a sixty-year-old battleax with silver hair and a big bosom, pulled her into a quick hug. “That’s for the other children. Now, cleansing breath. Cathy will look out for Kennedy until her mother gets here.”

Surprised by the embrace, Hilda stumbled back a step. “I’d never heard her cry like that before. I couldn’t leave her.”

“Reflection,” Hilda said. “You were feeding off each other.”

“It wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t.”

Hilda pursed her lips and stared at her over her glasses.

The butterflies in Bev’s stomach flapped their wings, but she managed a professional face, anticipating her coup when Hilda offered the PM job and Bev was able to offer a partnership. “It’s just the last day,” Bev said with a smile and a shrug. “Having to say goodbye.”

“We had this exact conversation last year,” Hilda said. “You promised you could keep it together this year.”

Bev’s smile tightened. “She needed me.”

“You were getting emotional.”

“Of course I was getting emotional. Kennedy’s wonderful. They’re all wonderful. And now we’re saying goodbye.”

Hilda dropped her head into her hand. “This is what I’m talking about. It’s just too much for the kids to manage their own feelings and yours.”

“I know, I know. But wouldn’t it be hurtful if I acted like I didn’t care? We spend all year loving them, to just shove them out the gate and wave and look happy about it—”

“We do not spend all year loving them,” Hilda said. “That’s your mistake. We spend all year teaching them. Or better yet, providing a safe space for them to teach themselves.”

Bev bit the inside of her lip. “You know, love is a good thing.”

“Not at school. It confuses them.”

“They’re so little.”

“And you’re not.” She turned to her desk and picked up a piece of paper. “At least, I didn’t think you were when I hired you.”

The room fell silent. “It’s not just the emotional stuff that’s bothering you, is it?”

Hilda shook her head and took a deep breath, filling her lungs for an elaborate run-down, then bit her lip and shook her head as though there was just too much to say.

Bev’s mind raced. Against the school’s child-centered philosophy, Bev liked to direct the kids in organized projects, making group banners and costumes and murals and music and plays under her direction, instead of putting out all the toys and letting them do whatever they wanted. Hilda had halted the projects more than once and dragged her into the office for a chat. If the California public schools hadn’t cut most of their elementary school arts programs, Bev might have looked into building a career there. “So you’re not offering me the PM job.”

Hilda drew back. “Oh, no.” She held up her hands, palms out, as though bracing for a collision.

“Even though I’m the best candidate.”

“You’re not suited to it. I’m sure you can see that.”

“No, I don’t.”

Bev frowned. “You can do better.”

“Better?”

“Somewhere else.”

Bev froze in her chair. “Somewhere else?”

“Head Start is more hands-on. And the city rec programs. I’m sure you can find something.”

She was firing her? “You hate those programs.”

Hilda shrugged. “Maybe you won’t.”

“They pay almost nothing. And the benefits are horrible, and the turnover—”

“I am sorry, Bev, but that’s my decision.” She swiveled sideways in her chair to the desk. “I’ve written you a recommendation. I only mention our philosophical differences, nothing about the inappropriate bonding. That might be hard to explain away.”

Shaking, Bev got to her feet. “
Inappropriate bonding?
Yes, if you put it that way.”

Hilda held up the paper, wiggled it around.

Cathy stuck her head in the room. “Excuse me. I need help out here.”

Bev glared at Hilda and imagined yanking out her puffy gray hair with her fists like little Ethan had done last week.

“I’ll be right there,” Hilda said.

“Actually,” Cathy said, smiling, “they’re asking for Bev.”

Hilda’s eyes flashed. “We’ll both be there.”

Cathy glanced at Bev, eyebrows raised in concern, then fled. Bev grabbed the printed recommendation out of Hilda’s hand and strode to the doorway, fuming, then spun around. “You know what I think? I think you’re jealous. Of me. Of the love.”

Hilda’s mouth dropped open, and for a split-second something soft and uneasy flickered in her eyes. Then it hardened into naked contempt. “You don’t want to be a teacher.” She sat up bolt upright. “You want to be a mommy. Young women like you say you want to devote your lives to other people’s children. It’s a lie. You’re lying to me, you’re lying to the children, and you’re lying to yourself. Now that you’ve hit thirty you’ll realize you want your own baby and walk away. It’s written all over you.”

“
You
never had children.”

Hilda shook her head in disgust. “You’re not me. You want children you can manage. Line up and show off. Just like Jacob’s mother last year, getting him head shots, taking him to auditions. At three years of age!”

“So I’m like a stage mom? Because I helped the kids make valentines?”

“Two words,” she said. “Annabelle Tucker.”

Bev sucked in her breath. So that’s what this was about. Not her job performance, not the affection the children held for her, not the meddling in art projects—Hilda nursed a grudge about a child Bev had first met in the university child care center over a decade ago. Bev had been a student teacher, getting her degree. Later, she had babysat Annabelle for years to help pay the bills. Last year, Annabelle, then fifteen, had asked Bev for an introduction to her father, a Hollywood exec. Now the girl had her own show on the Disney Channel.

“It wasn’t my idea, but it seemed the nice thing to do,” Bev said. “I didn’t feel it was my place to make any career decisions for her.”

Hilda shrugged. “Like I said, you’d be better someplace else.”

Molars clenched together, Bev took a step backwards, then another, out through the door until Hilda’s face and its smug disapproval went out of focus. She kept moving until all she could see was the frame around the door and the rows of cubbies on the wall, then she turned away from the office and wandered through the playroom. She paused to tidy up a pile of foam blocks, willing her hands to stop shaking.

When she reached the backyard, chest heaving with the effort to breathe, the kids presented her with a farewell bucketful of roly-polies, and for once, their Ms. Bef was too angry to cry when she said goodbye.

T
he apartment building was surprisingly shabby. Liam frowned at the chipped concrete structure in the middle of the modest southern Californian street, double-checking the address on his phone. He could even hear the roar of I-5 from inside his car, her street not seeming to have the clout to extend the concrete sound barrier from its wealthier neighbors. Maybe he’d made a mistake while inputting the number he got from the lawyer. The ranch houses on the rest of the street, though, were too small to be broken into apartments, and hers was definitely 2B, as in “to be.” He remembered that part in particular.

She must live in the big shithole then, the one with the rusty dial-up box outside the propped-open security gate and gravel lawn and the dead shrubs lined up in geometrical precision along the sidewalk.

He wondered if she gave them bottled water.

He’d be in a better bargaining position from inside the building, not begging for an audience through an intercom with a gate between them. Even an open one. Smoothing down his dress shirt, straightening his tie, he decided to appeal to the mercenary spirit Ed had bemoaned all these years as the only unifying family trait.

Liam frowned at the useless security gate as he walked into the building. The elevator had a Post-It note over the call button declaring “Broke”so he found the stairs. At least it didn’t smell like piss. The idea of her living where random thugs off the street could hide out in the stairwell bothered him.

Why did Ed’s granddaughter live in such a dump? He pulled open the fire door—surprisingly functional—and strode down the hallway, looking at door numbers. Beverly Lewis’s was in the middle on the left, not even the end unit. She had neighbors on all three sides and a kidney-shaped brown stain on the carpet in front of her apartment.

He wrinkled his nose and knocked on her front door, his knuckles making a hollow, tapping sound in the cheap wood. Music turned off, and footsteps approached the door.

“Hello?” Eyes red and pale skin splotchy, Bev peered out at him through a foot-wide crack.

“Hi. It’s Liam Johnson. From Fite. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but I couldn’t risk the wait.”

“Liam Johnson?” Her sad face lit up with rage. “You! What are you doing here? You’re in my building.”

“Unfortunately.” He glanced over his shoulder. “At least I don’t have to live here.”

“What?”

“Sorry. May I come in?”

“You came all this way to insult me?”

“Not at all. I’m here to point out that you don’t have to live here either.” He glanced over her shoulder and gestured inside. “May I?”

She didn’t move. “You have no idea how badly you screwed up my life. And now you just barge into my home and insult me. What’s the matter with people? Couldn’t you have been decent and respectful and used the phone? Didn’t I deserve at least that courtesy?”

Taking in her tears and the illogical rant she’d flown off into, Liam concluded Bev was upset about something other than his sudden arrival. “I apologize. Would you have answered?”

She hesitated, her face conflicted. “Maybe.”

“Hear me out.” He rested his forearm on the door frame, leaned closer, and smiled into her suspicious face. “I have a deal for you. I think you’re going to like it.”

Chapter 4

A
cross the hall, a door opened and a young male face appeared. “You all right, Mary Poppins?”

Bev stopped glaring at Liam and took a deep breath. “I’m fine, Arturo. It’s nothing.”

“You want me to call my brother?” He looked Liam up and down and his eyes widened. “Or the cops?”

“No, no. This guy’s just a suit. Thanks, but I’m fine. He and I will talk inside.” With a tight smile at her neighbor, she stepped back for Liam to enter, shooting angry sideways looks at him.

Just a suit?
 

He stepped inside and felt as though he’d been magically transported to a high-end SOMA condo. Like his. Somehow, she’d managed to make the hard angles of the institutional ‘50’s apartment building look cool. Not a single shabby chic, cozy thrift-store item in sight—everything was sleek, simple, and modern. She didn’t even seem to have—ah, there it was. A white, long-haired cat, comatose on a black rug and looking like a fluffy plus-sized slug.

For a moment, he forgot why he’d come. He ran his fingers over a triangular lamp shade. “Is that a Winzler?”

“IKEA,” she said. “Winzler’s not quite in my budget.”

He nodded, turned, pointed at the low-backed leather sofa. “You like red?” Other than white, black, and stainless steel, red was the only color in the room.

“Yes.” With quick, rough jerks, she combed her fingers through her dark hair and pulled it back into a ponytail, sending little peachy ears on each side of her head into high relief.

He jerked his attention away.
Remember, she’s nothing special—just a younger version of Ellen
. “You’ve got a talent for design.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” she said. “What do you want? As if I don’t know.”

Shrugging, he smoothed his hand down his shirt and fought down the absurd urge to tuck a loose strand of hair on her cheek behind her ear. “Ellen mentioned she had mailed the contract to you.”

“I’ve already signed it. You’re wasting your time.”

His stomach dropped. “You mailed it?”

She closed her eyes, hesitating, and he felt the breath seep back into his lungs. There was still a chance.

“There’s nothing you can say to change my mind,” she said, then walked over to the door and pulled it open for him. “You might was well go.”

“I’ll pay you more.”

She paused, pulled the door open wider. “I’m sure you could. That’s not the point.”

“It’s not?”

“Ellen deserves it. It’s time for my family to move on.”

“Ellen? Deserves?” He was confused. Buying time, he went over and reached above her head to push the door shut again, inadvertently getting close enough to smell a hint of lemon. Nothing bottled or distilled, just nice. He stepped back away from her, even more confused by the rushing of his blood.

“I need a drink,” she said. “Stay, go, whatever. I don’t care.”

Glad she moved away from the door and out of scent range, Liam walked into the living room and sat on the red leather couch. The cat didn’t move.

“No thanks, I drove here,” he said when she returned with a highboy.

“It’s Diet Coke.”

He glanced down at it.

“Let me guess, you don’t drink Diet Coke?” she said.

“It’s fine.” He brought it to his lips and watched her over the rim.

“Liar.”

He sipped. “Mmmm.”

To his satisfaction, her scowl melted away. She was trying to bite back a smile. “Cut it out. I’ll get you something else.”

“Don’t bother—”

“I bet you’re the Brita pitcher type,” she continued, “so you’re in luck. My brother got me one for Christmas, and I even set it up.”

As soon as she was out of sight, Liam set the soda on a bamboo coaster, irritated with himself for not hiding his tastes better. He didn’t want to give her any reason to turn away from him until she’d agreed to his deal.

“Drinking water is a type?” he asked when she returned.

“Admit it. You have a special pitcher and you change the filters in it every month instead of every two, just in case.”

“You’re supposed to change them more frequently depending on rate of use.”

She laughed, triumphant, and he was momentarily stunned by the transformation in her face.
Nothing special
, he repeated to himself. Ellen had the same supernatural complexion, the impossibly blue eyes. But Ellen never glowed like that, like she was filled with something bright and warm.