Maybe Baby (17 page)

Babs’s eyebrows knit together. “No. Why would I do that?”

“Forget it.” Dana sipped her drink. “So, you were saying? Not over?”

Babs sighed. “I’m afraid not. Vivian and Gary are not the kidnapping types, trust me, but they’re stupid and desperate, and that’s a very, very dangerous combination. When they wake up in the morning, they’re going to come looking for the bird.”

“Unless I go looking for them first,” Nick said.

“Oh, they’re hardly worth the assault charges,” Babs said. “No, I’d actually like to handle this myself. But in order to do that”—she looked at Dana—”I’m going to need your help.”

“Okay,” Dana said. “Sure. What?”

“I’d like you to take the bird up to the winery.”

Dana paused to digest this before responding. “You want me to take the stinky chicken to my winery?”

Babs looked to Nick. “Would you go with her, Nick? Keep her safe?”

“You mean keep you both safe,” Nick said, his eyes firm on Babs, “because you’d be coming with us.”

“No, actually,” Babs said with finality, “I’ll be going to pay Gary and Vivian a visit.”

Nick gave a staccato laugh, then looked at Babs with all seriousness. “No, you won’t.”

“Don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe. I disabled Gary’s gun on my way out.”

“What?” Dana said. “How in the hell did you do that?”

“Stole it from his drawer, filled the kitchen sink with water, dropped it in. He’ll find it in the morning.” She sighed. “I’m kinda sad I won’t be there when he does.”

“I don’t like you going there by yourself,” Nick said.

Babs reached over and patted him on the hand. “I know you don’t, dear. If it’s any comfort, I think you’ll like what I have to say next even less.” She looked at Finn “Do you have any plans for the weekend, Finn?”

Finn cocked his head to the side. “I think I can clear my dance card. Why?”

“I’d like you to go with Dana and Nick. I’m going to offer Vivian and Gary the bird at a high markup, payable in cash tomorrow afternoon. If for any reason they can’t or won’t do it, I’ll need you to sell the bird. My understanding is it’s worth about a quarter of a million dollars, which should be enough. Do you think you can find a buyer in that bracket, Finn?”

“Wait. Enough?” Dana said. “Enough for what?”

“Funny you should ask—” Finn began in response to Babs, but Nick held up his hand.

“Cool your jets, Sparky,” Nick said, then looked at Babs. “She has to convince me to do this first, and that’ll take a lot of convincing.”

“Am I invisible here?” Dana said, putting her hand on Babs’s arm. “Enough for what?”

Babs met her eye. “Enough to save the winery.”

Dana went silent. Babs looked at Finn and smiled. “And to cover Finn’s broker’s fee, which I’m sure will be reasonable…”

“It hovers around 50 percent,” Finn said.

“Fifty thousand if we need you to sell the bird,” Babs said, “twenty-five thousand for your time if I get the money from Gary and Vivian.”

Finn eyed her for a moment, then gave a brief nod. “Deal.”

“But… wait.” Dana put her hand to her forehead, hoping that would delay its impending explosion. “Mom, all I need is a co-signer—”

“I know,” Babs said, “and I can’t co-sign for you, darling, I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean you can’t co-sign?” Dana said. “I mean, you absolutely have the right to say no if you don’t want to, but you’re not saying you don’t want to, you’re saying you can’t. I don’t understand.”

Babs eyed Dana for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t have any money.”

Dana stared at her mother as though she’d just started reciting the Gettysburg Address. In Klingon. “But…”

“Bryson was broke when he died.” Babs took a sip of her drink. “His partners at the firm saved the penthouse and everything in it, but on paper, it all belongs to the firm. The rest is gone. I have enough of a stipend from Bryson’s life insurance that I’m perfectly happy, but I don’t have the kind of resources to withstand a microscope up my nether regions for that sort of money, darling. I’m sorry.”

Dana blinked, feeling numb. She looked at Nick. “And you knew this?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, then shot a look at Babs. “You never told her?”

“It’s none of her business,” Babs said, then reached over and patted Dana’s knee. “Sorry, darling.”

“No,” Dana said slowly, still stunned. “You’re right. It’s not my business.”

Babs leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. “So, you see, if Vivian and Gary won’t pay handsomely for the bird—
and
my selective amnesia about being kidnapped and held at gunpoint—then I will simply call you all up at the winery and you sell the bird and everything works out perfectly then, right?”

“Not right,” Dana said. She put her glass down and stood up. “If you think I’m going to let you put yourself at risk—”

“Let’s understand each other, Dana,” Babs said, her face as serious as Dana had ever seen it. “You’re not
letting
me do anything. That winery has been in the hands of a Wiley for three generations, and as long as I draw breath, it’ll be in the hands of a Wiley. If you refuse to help, that’s your choice. But if it’s my safety you’re concerned about, I’ll certainly be in more danger with the bird here than if it’s upstate with you.”

Dana looked at Nick, who shrugged reluctant agreement.

Babs turned to Nick. “There’s a twenty-four-hour car rental place on—”

“I have a van,” Finn said.

Babs smiled. “Perfect. Can you do the deal upstate, Finn?”

Finn shrugged. “For that bird? I can do a deal from anywhere.”

“Wonderful.”

“I don’t trust him, Babs,” Nick said, then shot a look at Finn and bit out, “No offense.”

“None taken. First impressions are a bitch,” Finn said, his eyes landing coolly on Nick.

“I completely understand, Nick,” Babs said, “but I believe that everything happens for a reason. What are the chances of us having a bird thief at our disposal at the exact moment we need one? Very slim.” She cocked her head to the side and evaluated Finn with a smile. “And I have a good feeling about him.”

“Gee,” Nick said flatly, looking at Dana, “do you think he has honest eyes?”

Dana gave him her least-amused look. Babs stood up. Nick and Finn followed suit.

“The three of you should get going, then,” she said. “It’s a long drive. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know the verdict, then I’ll come straight up and we can celebrate. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to bed. It’s been a positively exhausting day.”

She kissed Nick on the cheek, hugged Dana, and waved at Finn, then disappeared into her room. Dana stared after Babs, trying to process what her mother had said.

“Dana?” Nick said. “We really should get going.”

“One minute,” Dana said, then followed after her mother, ignoring Nick as he called after her.

***

Back in her room, Babs settled on the chair before her vanity and stared at herself in the mirror.

She suspected she was getting too old for this lifestyle. It was one thing to manage the favors and listen to Nick’s stories over a bit of scotch after the fact. Being kidnapped at gunpoint, however, was a bit much for the system. When Nick first announced he’d be leaving, she’d thought she could probably handle the favors on her own. Accept jobs that didn’t require the physical ability Nick brought to the table. She was clever; she figured she could do it, with a few adjustments for age and temperament.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she wondered if she’d been realistic. Sure, she’d gotten the best of Gary and Vivian, but together they couldn’t intellectually challenge a lobotomized Great Dane. If she’d found herself facing a gun held in the hands of someone who had half a brain, what would she have done then? Could she have handled it?

She sighed. She’d been tired before, but she’d never felt old. She didn’t much care for it.

The door opened, and Dana walked into the room. Babs put on a smile and twisted in her chair to face her daughter. Based on the look on Dana’s face, the day’s challenges weren’t over just yet.

“Did you need something, darling?” Babs asked, pulling one earring off and laying it on the vanity.

“So that’s it, then?” Dana said.

“Yes, that’s it. Are you hungry? I’m starved. I’m thinking Chinese.”

Dana crossed her arms over her stomach. “You’re just going to decree that this is the way things are, no discussion?”

“We had a discussion. This is the decision.”

“Not
my
decision.”

“You’re right. It’s
not
your decision, Dana. I told you, I do this with or without you. If your concern is for my safety, then you’ll help me.”

“My concern is for your sanity,” Dana said. “I don’t like these people, they’re dangerous. You said so yourself.”

“And gunless,” Babs said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want you going back there.”

Babs stood up from the vanity and turned to face her daughter. “I know. I heard you. And I’m sorry if you don’t like it—”

“You’re not sorry,” Dana said. “You do what you want, and you pretend to be sorry later.”

Babs closed her eyes. It had been too long a day, and it was only getting longer. “You are planning on getting over that someday, aren’t you, Dana? What’s it been since I left your father? Thirteen years?”

Dana’s eyes flashed. “This isn’t about Dad—”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it always about your father? You and I used to be close. We used to be friends. Now every time we’re in a room together, it’s like he’s there with us, whispering in your ear about how awful I am.”

“That’s not true. This is about today, about you putting yourself in danger and not giving a good goddamn how I feel about it.”

“Because it’s
my
life,” Babs said. “Mine. Just because I’m your mother does not mean I belong to you. I am a full-grown, adult person, and I make my own choices.”

“And to hell with anyone else,” Dana said, storming toward the door.

“He was a drunk when I met him,” Babs said. Dana froze, her hand on the doorknob.

Babs was silent for a moment as she debated whether or not to continue down this path, then realized there was no way back, so she kept going. “He was charming then, because he was a fun drunk. It became decidedly less charming as the years went by.”

Dana turned to face her, but said nothing.

Babs went on. “I know you know this. I know I only protected you from so much of it.” She pulled her shoulders back and straightened her stance. “You were in college, and I left, and I don’t regret it.”

“For better or worse,” Dana said. “Did that mean anything to you?”

“Your father had chosen his path a long time before that, and he wouldn’t stray from it.”

“In sickness or in health, Mom. Just words, I guess.” Babs felt her throat tighten, and fought it by raising her head up high. “If you think I didn’t love him, you’re wrong. I did. But he was killing himself, and I wasn’t going to sit there and watch him do it.”

Dana turned to face Babs. “No. You left that for me.”

“You were an adult,” Babs said. “That was your choice.”

“You took away my choice.”

“And I suppose he was completely innocent?”

Dana dropped her eyes to the floor. “I’m not stupid. I know what he was. But you just left. He loved you, and you destroyed him.”

“He destroyed himself,” Babs said. “All I did was refuse to let him take me with him and damnit, I’m done apologizing for that.”

They stared each other down for a moment. Babs was the first to look away, pulling off her other earring and dropping it on the vanity.

“So, what’s your decision, Dana?” she asked, after the silence became overbearing.

“What?” Dana said. “About the bird?”

Babs nodded. Dana shook her head and sighed, then raised her eyes to Babs’s. She looked tired, defeated, and sad.

“I’m going to take it back home and wait for your call, because it’s either that or lose my winery, and it’s not like you’ve given me any choices.”

Babs watched Dana, trying to imagine how the three-year-old who couldn’t stop laughing had grown into such an angry young woman. What had actually done it didn’t matter much, though. Babs would always feel like it was her fault, even if it wasn’t, and she would always be trying to make it up to Dana, even if she couldn’t.

And she did have to consider the possibility that Dana was only angry around her. Cold comfort, that.

“Well,” Dana said, “I guess I’d better go get my things.”

“Yes,” Babs said. “It’s getting late.”

Dana let herself out of the room, closing the door behind her with a gentle click. Babs sat down at her vanity and stared at her face in the mirror, then raised her eyes heavenward.

“Don’t worry about the winery, Frank,” she said. “I’m on it.”

A realization hit her, and she let her eyes float toward the floor.

“Hope all those ‘priest walks into a bar’ jokes are going over well down there,” she said, smiling sadly. “Because if they’re not, you owe me twenty bucks.”

Eighteen

The black outlines of trees sped past on either side of the highway as the
Chez Animaux
van made its way upstate. Nick tightened his grip on the wheel and glanced in the rearview mirror. He could see Dana’s outline in the back of the cargo van, where she and the bird had both been sacked out since they’d gotten on the road three hours earlier. He was glad she was getting some rest, but at the same time he wanted desperately to talk to her. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, exactly, but she’d hardly said two words since she’d come out of Babs’s room, and it bugged Nick not knowing if she was okay.

“She’s fine,” Finn said from the passenger seat.

Nick trained his eyes back on the highway in front of him, saying nothing.

“She seems like a nice girl,” Finn said. “What’s the story with you two, anyway?”

Nick shot him a look. “None of your business.”

“Hey, man, I’m just making conversation. We’ve got at least another hour on the road before we get where we’re going.” He paused, stared out the window. “Don’t make me resort to Twenty Questions. I hate that shit.”