Moments In Time (24 page)

“Yes, she certainly is.” She pushed Glory to the back of her mind as she gazed down at the photograph, at Caroline’s shy smile, the hint of a blush tinting her cheeks. “Rick, you took this? It’s wonderful.”

“It’s easy to take good photos when the subject is so lovely,” he mumbled as he stuffed the packet back into his pocket. “How long have you known her?”

“Known who?” Maggie had been momentarily distracted as another small group of strangers filtered in through the front door.

“Caroline.”

“Oh, gosh, ten years maybe. We roomed together at college. Why?”

“She’s just a very interesting person, that’s all. Smart and sweet and—”

“Oh, no, you don’t, Rick Daily,” she told him sternly. “Don’t you be playing my two best friends against each other. If you are seeing Lindy—and evidently you are— leave Caro out of it.”

“I’ve no intentions of playing anyone against anyone else,” he said somewhat gruffly. “I was just curious about her
…
She’s a very different sort of woman. Lindy’s such a fireball, you know. She’s so wild and sort of reckless, a good match for me, I suppose. But I always feel, I don’t know, calm when I’m around Caro.”

“Well, things may not be so calm if Lindy gets wind of it.” She poked him in the ribs playfully. “So if you’re going to continue this relationship with Lindy, I’d suggest you put Caroline on the back burner and leave her there.” “Maggie”—Judi
th stuck her head around the corn
er— “Grandmother Jennings is looking for you.”

“I’m coming,” Maggie told her, then turned to Rick before stepping out into the garden. “You tread very carefully where Caroline is concerned, Rick. She’s not the sort of woman you play with.”

* *
* * *

M
aggie could not wait to probe J.D. about Glory, and she did the moment the party had ended and they’d gone to bed.

“So, tell me about Glory.”

“Not much to tell,” he said, having fully expected the conversation to turn to this topic. “Glory wanted to do an album last year. It was some pretty awful stuff. She asked me to work on it with her. I went into the studio to listen one day, we ended up getting stoned, and I ended up working with her, and it took us six months to produce the most dreadful piece of trash I’ve ever heard. You’ve no idea how humiliating it is for me to hear any of it. And yes, I had an affair with her. I hate to even use that word, because it connotes some manner of emotional involvement. And there was none, not as far as I was concerned. It was one of those things that happened more or less out of proximity and convenience. But I was never in love with her, and I never pretended to be. I suspect whatever feelings she thinks she has for me surfaced after she heard I was married and after she started looking for someone to work with her again.”

“That’s pretty much what Rick told me,” she said.

“Oh, so you checked this out already, did you?”

“He brought it up. This afternoon. After Glory advised me she hadn’t quite finished with you,” Maggie told him. “I hadn’t asked him.”

“It’s okay if you did. I was trying to find some private minute or two to talk to you alone, but it seemed you were always in the midst of a conversation. And for the record, just so you never have to wonder, I am very much finished with Glory, in spite of what she might have said to you. She likes a bit of a drama, you know.”

She stared over his shoulder toward the night beyond the open window.

“She called me cute,” Maggie grumbled.

“Who did?” He yawned.

“Glory.” She spat out the name.

“Well, you are cute,” he whispered, “cute as a button.”

“Oh, please,” she groaned, and he laughed.

“What’s wrong with cute?” he asked.

“Coming from someone who looks like Glory, cute is an insult,” she told him crankily. “Puppies are cute. Small children are cute. A pregnant woman on the brink of thirty is not cute. And she knows damned well there wasn’t another woman in this house as beautiful as she is.”

“That’s sheer nonsense.” He pulled her over to him. “You’re much more appealing than she is. You’re the one I fell in love with, the one I married. And why this sudden concern about the way you look?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve gained almost ten pounds. And my hair’s gone stringy and my coloring’s
off
…”

“All temporary conditions, sweetheart. Didn’t the doctor tell you that?” he reminded her. “And your hair looks fine and your face is a constant source of joy to me. Don’t give her another thought, Maggie. She simply has no meaning in our life together.”

“Can she really do what she said? About making sure you don’t get a contract?” she asked after several minutes had passed.

“I doubt it.” He shrugged off the possibility. “She may work Tommy over a bit, but he’s not stupid, you know. He’s not likely to let someone walk away who could make money for his company. And I’ve always made money for whomever I’ve recorded for. I wouldn’t give it a second thought. I’m having lunch with him this week in the city, so we’ll have to just wait and see how it plays out.”

It played out pretty much as J.D. had predicted. Tommy had been more than happy to offer J.D. a good solid contract, which called for three albums over a five-year period. To J.D.’s amusement, Glory’s name never was mentioned.

“So what would you like to do now,” J.D. asked Maggie over dinner in a quiet, elegant restaurant. “Would you like to take a trip? I’ve a little time to spare, you know. I’m employed, but I don’t have to start work immediately. Would you like to go someplace? Paris? Rome?”

“What I’d like is to spend a few days here in London. Then I’d like to go back to your mother’s for a bit. It’s nice
to have the time to get to know them, your mother and Judith and the kids. We’ll be going bac
k to the States sometime soon, I
would guess, and we won’t see them for a while. Paris and Rome can wait,” she said. “Tomorrow I’m spending the day with Lindy. We’re going shopping. In case you haven’t noticed, I have exactly three articles of clothing that still fit me comfortably. It’s time for me to buy some clothes specifically designed for my expanding midsection.”

“Well, then, by all means, shop with Lindy tomorrow. I’ll see what Rick is up to. Maybe we can get together with some of our old cronies.”

“Which old cronies?” She raised an eyebrow.

He laughed. “Some of the guys we used to hang around with years ago when we started out. Harry—you met him on Sunday—has a new band and I’d like to check them out. And maybe drag Hobie along if he’s still in town.”

“He is,” she told him. “He and Aden are staying at the Dorchester.”

“Then I’ll ring him up in the morning,” he said, adding, “I was happy to see that you and Aden hit it off so well. I doubt she was looking forward to the trip—the only other time she’d left Anjjoli was the one time Hobie brought her here to meet his mother.”

“She’d mentioned that. Mrs. Narood apparently doesn’t care much for her, which is sad. Aden is wonderful.”

“She is that. And she seems to have given Hobie roots, you know? I doubt he’d even realized how much he’d missed by not knowing his father until after the man died. But his mother, who raised him all those years, remember, was incensed that he had—in her opinion—turned his back on her and preferred the ‘uncivilized’ culture of his father.”

“Does Hobie make a lot of money?” she asked.

“I would think that he should. He’s highly regarded, worldwide, highly sought after. And he’s slated to begin a long tour in about six weeks. I’d say he does very well. Why do you ask?”

“Aden told me she makes some of her clothes,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “I mean, right down to weaving the cloth. And it struck me as odd—more than odd, actually—that
she would do that. And they live very simply. She said their house has only four rooms, and Hobie and his cousins built it in a sort of family enclave.”

“So?”

“You don’t think it’s odd that an internationally acclaimed musician would build his own house while his wife weaves the fabric for the clothes she wears?”

“Hmmm, now there’s a thought,” he mused. “Maybe Aden could teach you how to—”

“Don’t even think about it,” she laughed. “But I can’t help but wonder, Jamey. Where do you suppose all Hobie’s money goes?”

A
week or so later, as Maggie trailed around behind Luke as she tended her garden, an unexpected call came from Mary Elizabeth. The realtor that Maggie had contacted to find them a house phoned and wanted her to call him as soon as possible. She hurried outside to tell J.D. the news.

“Jamey, guess what? You’ll never believe this. I’m so excited—”

“For heavens sake, Maggie, calm down,” he said, looking up from the newspaper.

“I just spoke with my mother. She got a call from Mr. Lynch. You know, Mr. Lynch, the realtor I talked to back home, the one who’s looking for a house for us. He told my mother it’s for sale. Jamey, can we go home? Jamey, I’m afraid someone else will buy it, and I’ll never forgive myself if—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He folded the newspaper and dropped it to the ground as he looked into her shining eyes.

“My house. My house is for sale. Oh, Jamey, please, can we—”

“What house?” He hadn’t a clue.

“My house. The one I showed you, remember, with all the chimneys and—”

“And the overgrown yard and the peeling paint and the crooked front porch?”

“Yes, yes. It’s for sale. Can I call him and tell him we’re coming back and not to sell it to anyone until we look at it?” she begged.

“Maggie, I don’t think we’ll have to rush back. I doubt there’ll be a long line of buyers for that old place. I can just imagine what it must be like inside. I would suspect that the realtor may get a lot of curiosity seekers, but few real prospects.”

“Jamey, I don’t want to take that chance. I want to call him. I want to go back. Please, Jamey.”

“Call him and see what he has to say,” he suggested, then said to his mother, who was pruning a rose bush, as Maggie flew into the house, “Maggie has her heart set on this house that looks as if it’s about to tumble down in the next bad storm.”

“If she likes it that much, maybe you’d better go in and talk to the realtor.” Luke smiled.

“She hasn’t even been inside this place, but she’s enamored by it.”

“Then you’d best go in and see what the man has to say about it, J.D.”

He walked in the back door in time to hear Maggie say
,
“Well, no, I don’t know when we can get there, Mr. Lynch, it’s not as if we’re around the corner. I’m sure there are, but if you could just hold off showing it to anyone
for a few days, I’m sure we…
It would be absolutely criminal for someone to knock that h
ouse down and build apartments—
please don’t tell me that. Well, maybe by Thursday
…
”
She looked at J.D. with pleading eyes. He smiled and nodded, and she hugged his neck, telling the realtor that they would, in fact, be there by Thursday. She hung up the phone and wrapped her arms around him.

“Thank you, thank you.” She danced joyously.

“Just a minute, now. First we’ll have to see when there’s a flight. Then we’ll have to see the house. Maggie, we may not want it. Maybe it needs a roof and a heater and God knows what all. It may cost more to fix it up than it will to buy it. How much are they asking anyway?”

She stepped back and looked at him sheepishly. “I forgot to ask.”

He laughed.

“It can’t be all that much, do you think? I mean, obviously it needs some repai
rs. The realtor told me it does…
”

He shook his head, still laughing, and called the airport.

Thursday at one o’clock, they walked up the drive with the realtor. Maggie was hardly able to contain her excitement while J.D. was wishing that he was still sleeping on the plane.

“Now, keep in mind that it is being sold ‘as is,’
” Mr. Lynch was saying as he unlocked the front door, pushing hard to force it open. “She—Miss Whiteside, that is— didn’t use this door very often
…
Here we are. Now, what about that staircase?”

It was lovely, rising from the right of the front door to the second floor, a beautiful stained glass window at the landing bringing the only light into the downstairs hallway.

Maggie turned to the left of the hall and peeked into a sitting room. The windows were heavily draped and tightly closed, the air musty and suffocating. A room opened beyond, a huge parlor crammed with furniture, and across the hall, a large dining room. Thin, uneven fingers of peeling wallpaper reached from every wall. Layers of dust covered everything with a thick gray film.

Maggie walked into the dining room and found J.D. staring up at a large hole overhead where a chandelier had hung. The chandelier was on the floor, shattered into a thousand pieces, surrounded by a good portion of the plaster ceiling. He looked from her to the ceiling, then to the floor and back to her again without comment.

“I told you it was likely to need some repairs,” she said archly and, without so much as a blink, turned heel and walked into the kitchen, hearing him chuckle as she left the room.

The kitchen area, a rabbit’s warren of small rooms, could have possibilities, she thought, and a large rounded conservatory, filled with withered plants long dead, opened off to the left. There was a large screened porch, or what was left of
it, off the back. J.D. viewed it all with a most skeptical eye, but one look at his wife’s face told him he’d never be able to talk her out of it.

He sighed deeply and said to the realtor as Maggie ran up the steps to check out the second floor, “How much are you asking for this pile?”