Second Child (3 page)

Melissa’s eyes wandered over the beach. It was just the way she liked it—all but deserted, with only a few people far off to the south, sunning themselves on the sand that fronted the Cove Club. Between here and the club, which perched on the southern point of the cove itself, there were only five other cottages, none of them quite as large as the Holloways’, but all of them surrounded by equally well-manicured gardens and lawns. And since most of the other kids hung out at the club all the time, Melissa thought of the beach as belonging almost exclusively to herself.

She dressed quickly, pulling on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt she’d talked Tag into giving her last week, then went downstairs to find her father. The first thing they’d do today, she decided, was go for a long walk on the beach. They’d go north, away from the club, and maybe climb around the rocky point that cut Secret Cove off from the beach beyond. As she started down the stairs a few minutes later, she’d already made more plans for the day
than she and her father could possibly carry out. Still, whatever they did would be fine with her. The important thing was that it was her birthday, and no matter how important his business was, her daddy would spend the day with her, even if her mother thought it was childish.

Melissa smiled as she remembered the conversation she’d overheard last Sunday, before her father had gone back to New York for the three days before her birthday.

“She’s going to be thirteen this year, Charles,” her mother had said. “She’s not a baby anymore, and it certainly isn’t going to hurt her if you don’t get back till Friday night.”

Melissa had held her breath, waiting for her father’s reply, and hadn’t let it out until she heard the words. “It’s her birthday, and it doesn’t matter which one it is. I’ll be here for her. She counts on it.”

The conversation had gone on, but Melissa hadn’t paid further attention, for she knew that once her father committed himself to something, even her mother couldn’t change his mind. Which meant that today was all hers, and Daddy would do whatever she wanted, even if it were no more than flopping on the beach and making up stories about what the clouds looked like. That was just what they’d done last year, in fact, and her mother had stared at her at dinner that night as if she were crazy. Indeed, even after a whole year, she could still hear her mother’s angry voice: “Well, you certainly managed to waste your father’s valuable time today, didn’t you? It was very inconsiderate of you to make him come all the way out here just to do the same
nothing
you do every day.”

Melissa, stung, had felt tears well up in her eyes, but then Daddy had come to her defense. “I thought having nothing to do was the whole point of coming here,” he’d said. “And if Melissa had as good a time as I did, I’d say the day was pretty damned close to perfect.”

Out of the corner of her eye Melissa had watched her mother’s lips tighten, but she’d said nothing. Still, the next day, after her father had gone back to the city …

She resolutely put the memory out of her mind. This year it was going to be different.

She found her father in the kitchen with Cora, and he grinned at her as she came in. “Ready for one of my special chocolate-blueberry waffles?”

Cora frowned her disapproval. “I swear to God, I don’t know where you got the idea for those things. I certainly never fed them to you when you were a boy—”

“Want one?” Charles interrupted, cocking an eye at the elderly housekeeper, who pursed her lips, surveyed the counter full of dirty dishes her employer had created, then sighed in resigned defeat.

“Well, I suppose just one wouldn’t hurt.”

“Go get Tag,” Charles told Melissa, winking. “Tell him he’s not allowed to do anything on your birthday except goof off.”

Melissa started toward the back door, but the phone jangled loudly and she paused as Cora picked it up. A moment later, her face pale and her hand trembling, Cora handed the receiver to Charles.

“It’s Polly,” Cora said, her voice quavering as her eyes filled with sudden tears. “She’s—She and her husband … There was a fire …” She sank down onto a stool next to the sink as Charles snatched the phone from her hand.

Melissa stood next to the back door, trying to sort out the fragments of sentences she heard her father speak. When he finally hung up, his face was as pale as Cora’s. “I’m afraid something’s happened, baby,” he said, his voice gentle, but choked with emotion. “I’m going to have to fly to Los Angeles this morning.”

Melissa stared at him, her eyes wide.

“Polly and Tom MacIver have died,” he went on. “There was a fire in their house this morning.”

“Teri,” Cora breathed, her eyes fixing on Charles. “What about Teri?”

Charles’s own eyes closed for a second, and his right hand went to his forehead as if he’d been seized by a sudden headache. Then he managed a nod. “She’s all right,” he said. “She got out. From what they said, Tom didn’t know she’d escaped. He was trying to rescue her. Polly tried to go out a window, but fell.”

“Dear God,” Cora whispered.

Melissa heard the words, even understood their meaning, but still she shook her head. “But … But it’s my birthday—”

Charles came to her, put his arms around her and hugged
her tight. “I know, baby,” he whispered into her ear. “And I know what I promised. But it can’t be helped. I’m Teri’s father, too, and I have to go to her. She doesn’t have anyone else. Can’t you understand that?”

Melissa stood perfectly still for a moment, then nodded. As Charles released her, she managed an uncertain smile. “When you come back, will you bring Teri to live with us?”

Charles hesitated, not certain what Melissa might be thinking. “I guess I’ll have to, won’t I?” he asked. “She’s my daughter, and there isn’t any other place for her to live. And even if there were, don’t you think she belongs here?”

Melissa hesitated, trying to sort out the mix of emotions inside her. Of course she was sorry about what had happened to Teri’s mother and stepfather, but she’d never met them and didn’t really know anything about them at all. And she didn’t really know anything about Teri, either, except for two things.

Teri had been born right here in this house.

And Teri was her half sister.

A half sister was almost the same thing as a full sister, and for as long as she could remember, Melissa had wanted a sister more than anything in the world.

An older sister, someone who would be her friend and answer all the questions she couldn’t ever ask her mother.

That, really, was what she’d always wanted D’Arcy to be. Except that D’Arcy wasn’t real.

Teri MacIver was real.

Melissa’s uncertain smile widened slightly. “It’s all right, Daddy,” she said. “I mean, I’m awfully sorry about what happened, but I’m finally getting something I always wanted. I’m going to have a sister, aren’t I?”

Charles bit his lip sharply as his eyes flooded with tears. “Yes,” he said, “I guess you are.”

Melissa floated on her back, kicking her feet just enough to keep them from sinking, feeling the heat of the sun on her face. Her eyes were closed and all she could see was a faint pinkish haze through her lids. She concentrated hard, trying futilely to focus on the colors that swirled behind
her eyelids, but then gave it up as a shadow passed over the sun. She opened her eyes and gazed up at the bank of clouds coming in from the sea, then rolled over in the water. A few feet away Tag was floating on his back, his eyes still closed. As silently as she could, Melissa drew an arm back, preparing to shoot a cascade of water over Tag’s freckled face, but just as she was ready to make the splash, Tag suddenly came to life, flipping over and at the same time flailing his own arm so that it was Melissa’s eyes that stung with salt.

“Got you!” he shouted, then began swimming toward shore as Melissa hurled herself after him.

A moment later she caught up and her hand closed around his left ankle. She pulled hard, felt him slide beneath her, then planted both her hands in the center of his back and shoved him farther under while maneuvering and kicking to escape his reach as he tried to grab hold of her, pulling her down with him.

The fight went on, each of them ducking the other, until at last they both gave up at once, swimming toward the beach, riding the gentle surf the last few yards. Laughing and gasping, Melissa dropped onto the sand, wrapping her arms protectively around her face as Blackie, the huge Labrador that only technically belonged to Tag, hurled himself upon her, his big tongue slurping affectionately at her. “Down!” she yelled at last. Obediently, Blackie dropped down onto the sand beside her, resting his large head on her lap. Melissa scratched at the dog’s ears, then glanced over at Tag, sprawled a few feet away.

“What do you suppose she’s like?”

Tag understood the question immediately. “You mean you wonder if she’ll like you?”

Melissa flushed. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But I mean, I wonder what she looks like?”

Tag grinned slyly at her. “Want to see some pictures of her?”

Melissa stared at him. Most of the day, ever since her father had left for the airport, she and Tag had been talking about Teri. Until now he’d never mentioned any pictures. “You mean you have some?” she demanded.

Tag’s grin broadened. “Sure. Her mom sent one to Grandma every year. Grandma’s got ’em all in a drawer.”

Melissa scrambled to her feet. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

“How come you didn’t ask?” Tag teased, picking up his beach towel and slinging it around his neck. “Am I supposed to be able to read your mind or something?”

With Blackie trailing along behind, they crossed the beach, then started across the lawn toward the small cottage behind the pool house in which Cora Peterson had lived every summer for the last half century. They had almost reached the front door when Melissa heard her mother’s voice calling from the master suite on the second floor of the main house. “Melissa! Where are you going?”

Melissa froze, her mind working quickly. “The pool!” she called back. “We’re all covered with salt.”

“Well, can’t you just take showers?” Phyllis Holloway called back. “You know Tag shouldn’t be using the pool.”

Melissa reddened with embarrassment. Her mother could see that Tag was standing right there! And why shouldn’t Tag use the pool? Then she remembered that she and Tag hadn’t been planning to go swimming anyway. “All right,” she called back. She started to turn away, but once more her mother’s sharp voice cut through the quiet of the afternoon.

“I want you in the house in five minutes!”

“Yes, Mother,” Melissa replied.

She quickened her step, catching up with Tag just as he disappeared around the corner of the pool house. Though he said nothing, Melissa could tell by his expression that he’d heard every word her mother had said.

“We can use the pool if we want to,” she offered. “Daddy said we could.”

“Sure,” Tag replied sourly. “And right after we got done, she’d make me drain it and scrub it.” His eyes rolled scornfully upward. “Us servants aren’t too clean, you know.”

Once more Melissa flushed with embarrassment. She wanted to deny that that was what her mother had meant, but what was the use? It was
exactly
what her mother had meant, and they both knew it. “You and Cora aren’t servants,” she said. “Cora’s just like my grandmother, too.”

Tag rolled his eyes. “Don’t ever tell your mom that.” They were at the front door to the little house now, and
instinctively they both looked back. But from where they stood, Phyllis’s window couldn’t be seen. Feeling like conspirators, they slipped inside the house.

“They’re in the drawer on the end table,” Tag said. He tossed his beach towel at the foot of the stairs and moved into a living room sparsely furnished with a worn sofa and a pair of sagging easy chairs. A moment later he handed Melissa a small album.

Melissa stared at the album’s cheap plastic cover for a moment, feeling a strange hesitancy about looking in it. Finally, she opened the book and studied the first picture.

It was of a toddler, no more than two years old, clutching the hand of an unseen man. The little girl wore a blue dress with white socks and patent-leather Mary Janes, and her pale blond hair was capped by a wide ribbon with a bow on one side.

The little girl in the picture didn’t look much different from any other two-year-old, and Melissa, suddenly feeling better, flipped quickly through the album to the last picture.

Her heart sank.

She stared at the image of a tall and slender young lady whose hair, cut stylishly short to leave her perfect features unobstructed, was only a few shades darker than it had been when she was a baby. Her features themselves were elegant but delicate, and her blue eyes, spaced well apart, seemed to gaze out at Melissa with the kind of self-confidence Melissa herself had never felt.

Almost against her will, her eyes left the picture and went to the mirror that hung above the mantelpiece. She silently began comparing her own features to those of the girl in the photograph.

Her hair, an unremarkable brown, hung lankly down her back. She tried to tell herself that it was only because she’d just gone swimming, but knew it wasn’t true—no matter how much she brushed her hair, it always seemed unwilling to come to shiny life.

Her own features seemed hopelessly plain—her nose just a little too large, her brown eyes, almost lashless, a little too close together.

And there was a slight puffiness about her face that she
was positive, no matter what her father told her, was not merely baby fat.

“She—She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Melissa managed to say.

Tag nodded. “Grandma says she looks just like her mother.”

Melissa’s eyes drifted back to the image in the album. She studied it carefully and began to think that maybe things weren’t going to be so bad after all. Even though she’d never imagined that Teri would be so beautiful, she could also see that Teri knew how to dress and how to do her hair.

On Teri, clothes looked right.

On herself, they always looked as if they’d been bought for someone else.

Maybe Teri could teach her how to do her own hair, and how to pick out clothes that would look good on her.