Redemption (3 page)

Claire closed her eyelids briefly, wondering if there were some god somewhere she had somehow offended. Perhaps she should have thrown a few pennies into the fountain this morning. No, she quickly amended, it would take more than pennies—quarters, perhaps, half dollars…Series EE treasury bonds…

She opened her eyes, focusing on the woman whose Chanel was beginning to smell like a withered floral arrangement. Between that and the stale cigar smoke, she felt as though she could barely breathe.

“As much as I hate to sound like a spoilsport,” she began, “there are, however, several considerations, aside from the most obvious financial ones. There is absolutely no guarantee that any film starting out as an innocuous romantic comedy won’t end up overflowing with gratuitous sex and violence—scripts get rewritten all the time. We simply can’t have Kaslow’s reputation, as well as our premises, exploited.”

She glanced at Bernard Kaslow as she spoke, hoping the implied threat to his own good name would concern him. “Our customers won’t want to shop at a store that’s been the scene of—whatever sort of mayhem they decide to film here. And shutting down the store even for one day would be tantamount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales, as hundreds of customers take their business elsewhere—possibly for good.”

Jackie looked taken aback by Claire’s reaction. “Are you actually suggesting we should turn down the opportunity to have our store featured in a film? Think of what
Miracle on 34th
Street
did for Macys!”

“I’m suggesting we give the matter some thought—from a financial standpoint rather than an emotional one. The lure of Hollywood is strong, I realize.” No one knew better than she how strong it was. And how destructive. She swallowed, trying not to appear as desperate as she was.

“Now, Claire, I think you’re blowing this all out of proportion,” Jackie began. “Perhaps your priorities are—” she glanced at Bernard Kaslow, who had listened to the discussion without reaction “—not with Kaslow’s at this point,” she finished, a shrewd look on her face.

“On the contrary,” Claire bit off, turning to Bernard for support. “Surely you agree it would be…unwise…to allow our location to be used without knowing more of the details. If they can’t provide them, we shouldn’t sign a contract.”

He nodded his head thoughtfully, his chair creaking in rhythm. “You’re certainly right, Claire, to have concerns.” His gaze shifted to the portrait on the wall, as if wondering what his legendary ancestor would do.

The face in the portrait gazed back, a crafty look in the painted eyes.

Bernard cleared his throat. “We’ll do what we can to have all your questions answered. Jackie, why don’t you set something up with our attorneys and Claire, let them meet personally with these movie people. I’m sure once all the questions get answered, we’ll all agree this is a good idea—after all, there’s always room in the budget for some free publicity, isn’t that right?” A satisfied smile appeared on his face, and his eyes glowed with excitement.

Probably seeing his name in lights
, Claire thought, fighting the urge to swallow.

“Of course, Mr. Kaslow. I’ll set that up right away.” Jackie scribbled a note with her hot-pink pen.

Just the thought of meeting with anyone from Hollywood, or wherever the independent production company was from, made Claire’s stomach roil. But if she insisted on squelching the idea totally, without a legitimate reason, more questions would be raised than she wanted to answer.

Hiding her apprehension, she nodded. “All right, then. If they can provide more information, I’ll be glad to hear it. But I warn you, it would take a lot to convince me this is truly in Kaslow’s best interest.”

Or her own. She closed her notebook with a final thud and left the room.

Back at her desk ten minutes later, Claire tore at a fresh roll of antacids with shaking fingers. Not a good start, she thought, crunching two peppermint-flavored tablets at once. She had definitely chosen a battle, though not exactly the one she’d gone into the boardroom prepared to fight.

She leaned forward and began massaging her temples. Her gaze traveled over the few personal items she had placed on her desk: a crystal jar packed to the brim with gourmet jelly beans she never ate; a clay mug molded into a lumpy face, an assortment of pencils sprouting from its brown hair; and a silver picture frame.

The photographs encased in the double frame caught her attention. Her son’s third-grade school picture, and another of him in a blue uniform, proudly clutching a soccer ball. She would have to call the local league and find out if there was a team in their neighborhood. As compensation for leaving San Francisco, she had promised to sign Tripper up for the sport of his choice, despite knowing the logistics involved would be a nightmare.

She wondered how his first day at his new school was going. Hopefully better than hers. Mr. Gonzalez, his teacher, had assured her he would have no trouble adjusting this early in the year. The fact that Tripper had a male teacher was a plus, in Claire’s opinion. As a single mom, she had always made an effort to seek out male role models for her son, and Mr. Gonzalez had hardly raised an eyebrow when she responded with a terse “there’s no father” to his question about the blank line on the enrollment form.

Fatherless kids were probably as common as untied shoelaces in schools these days.

Remembering the catastrophe she still planned to avert, she straightened, mentally tucking the part of her life labeled “motherhood” back into its compartment. She picked up the phone and summoned her office assistant, resisting the urge to pop another antacid into her mouth.

“I’m going to need rental rates for downtown commercial space,” she said when Joan appeared. “And call the Philadelphia Film Commission and get a list of location fees for anything filmed here in the last three years. Then I’ll need projected January sales for our downtown store, plus a list of employees.” As she spoke, she jotted down each idea, each objection, and like a general with a foolproof battle plan, she felt her doubts all but disappear.

Joan lifted her eyebrows. “I heard they were thinking about filming a movie here, but I thought it was just another rumor.” Then she grinned. “Last year, I heard Denzel Washington was in the store, getting the royal treatment. Turned out it was the fire inspector.”

“Well, hopefully this will amount to nothing but a lot of smoke.” Claire made a final note on her pad, and then she ripped off the page and handed it to Joan. As she turned to leave, Claire remembered: “Oh, by the way, I was told you’re expecting a baby.”

Joan glanced back at her, her look of surprise mixed with apprehension. “Yes, around March.”

Claire’s smile was warm. “Congratulations. I’ve made sure Personnel upgraded you to a permanent employee. You’ll be covered under the family leave policy that went into effect this month.” In the past, Kaslow’s had often hired “temporary” workers for long-term positions in an effort to avoid paying them benefits, a practice that, in Claire’s opinion, stank.

Joan seemed stunned. “I was told this job was classified as temporary. I thought I wouldn’t be eligible for benefits.”

Claire shook her head. “From now on, seasonal workers will only be hired in the retail side. Here in the corporate offices, we’ll make every effort to hire permanent employees—and give them full benefits.”

Joan’s face broke into a smile. “I also heard a rumor you were trying to get a childcare center here.”

Claire nodded. “Yes. Although we’re not exactly sure where it will go.”

“I know the perfect place—that old theater on the eighth floor. No one uses it anymore.”

“That sounds feasible. I’ll make a note to look into it.”

Then, as Joan left, Claire’s smile faded. She knew Joan wasn’t married, a fact that, subconsciously at least, had probably prompted her to transfer her from reception to the position as her office assistant. She knew all too well the difficulties a single mother faced. If it hadn’t been for her grandmother’s support all those years ago, freely sharing her retirement pension as well as her time babysitting after Tripper was born, Claire never could have made it on her own.

She shuddered to think what the alternative would have been.

She turned to the work on her desk. The past was just that, and fortunately, she no longer needed to worry about where the next diaper was coming from. Now all she had to do was outwit this latest trick of Fate.

“Mom, are you sure I’m your son?”

Tripper’s question stopped Claire in her tracks on her way to the refrigerator. She glanced over to where he sat at the pine dining table, staring at his school photos. They’d been taken before they left San Francisco and had just arrived in the mail. His face bore a puzzled look of introspection, a look she had often noticed. She assumed it was the inevitable result of being the only child of a single parent. Sometimes there was just too much time for thinking.

This time, though, his bout of nine-year-old introspection had backed him up the wrong path.

She laughed and answered lightly, “Of course you’re my son, silly. You certainly aren’t my daughter.”

“Mo-om!” he protested, rolling his eyes at her attempt at humor. “I’m serious. We don’t even look alike. Your hair’s a lot darker than mine, and your eyes are—” he looked up at her face for confirmation “—sorta gray,” he declared, then continued with his comparative analysis. “And you’re not very tall for your age. I’m already almost your height. I bet I’ll be a lot taller than you one day.”

The incontrovertible proof of his mistaken parentage was offered solemnly, with all the thoughtful reasoning of a genetics expert.

“Hmm. You know, you’re right,” Claire agreed with mock seriousness as she took a seat across from him. “We look nothing alike. There was probably a mix-up of some sort at the hospital.” She tilted her head, pasting a thoughtful look on her face, and mused, “Maybe my real son is out there somewhere, wondering why on earth he looks nothing like
his
mother.”

Tripper heaved an impatient sigh. “You know what I mean.” He gave her an accusing look, then said with blunt accuracy, “I look like my father, don’t I?”

Claire’s heart took a quick dive. He rarely brought up the subject, and she had begun to hope his questions would eventually cease altogether. She looked away, pretending to study the credit card bill that had arrived in the mail. “I suppose you do resemble him,” she prevaricated, hoping to steer the discussion away from awkward territory. Carefully she refolded the bill, then inserted it into its envelope. “I need to start dinner. And it’s past time for your homework, isn’t it?” she said, rising from the table.

But this time, Tripper wasn’t letting her off so easily. “How come you never want to talk about him?”

She was about to put him off again, but the sight of him looking up at her, his green eyes filled with confusion, sent her around the table toward her son instead of the refrigerator.

“Oh, Tripper!” Guilt tugged at her heart. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about him; it’s just that…there’s nothing to tell. I’ve told you before, I hardly knew him.” She tunneled her fingers through his hair, a maternal gesture that reassured her as much as it did him. She wished for the hundredth time the answers were simple enough to be understood by a nine-year-old, wished even harder she could assuage her guilt with a simple explanation.

“It doesn’t matter who your father was or whether you’re a dead ringer for him. You’re an individual, Tripper, not a reflection of your parents.” She believed that strongly and more than anything wanted her son to share that belief—even more than she wanted him to stop asking questions she wasn’t prepared to answer.

Tripper stared stonily at her midsection, refusing to meet her eyes. He had heard this before, and Claire knew he had questions—and not just about his parentage, but hers as well, a subject she definitely wasn’t going to discuss with him.

She nudged his chin up gently and gazed at him, his eyes finally turning toward hers. She resisted the urge to go all “sappy” on him—nine-year-old boys hated to be embarrassed more than they hated missing basketball shots at the rim.

“And as for who you look like,” she said, smiling, “it wouldn’t matter if you had green hair and purple eyes, you’re still my son. I distinctly remember giving birth to you, so don’t get any ideas about going off to join the gypsies.

“Now, why don’t you cut out one of those pictures so I can take it to my office? We can mail the rest to your friends in San Francisco. Then you need to get started with your homework.” With a last warning glance over her shoulder, she opened the refrigerator door and began looking for dinner ingredients.

Chapter Two

“O
H
, H
ELL
.” M
ATT
G
RAYSON
S
TOPPED
short at the sight of the two naked women lounging next to his swimming pool.

“A.J.!” he hollered, ignoring the beckoning looks cast in his direction. “Are these yours?” he demanded as a shorter, dark-haired man appeared, balancing three cocktails in his hands. He looked like the bed he had no doubt just crawled out of: unmade and rumpled.