She's All That (27 page)

“Will your grandmother drive you home?” Stuart asks. “Do you want me to come back for you?” Just by the way he offers, I can tell it isn't really an offer. It's his way of saying, “I'm a gentleman, and that's what gentlemen do; but please find your own way and spare me any more of this chauffeur business.”

“No!” I swallow over the lump in my throat. “I don't know how long I'll be here. Thanks for the offer though.”
As false as
it was.

“Call me on my cell if you need a ride, all right?” Stuart slides me another business card, and half of me wonders if pharmaceuticals are all this man is selling. He's as smooth as a freshly Zambonied patch of ice.

“Thanks.” We pull up in front of my grandmother's place, and Max is outside the house, trimming a small hedge while he balances on his good leg. “I really appreciate the ride, Stuart.” I try to race out of the car, and Stuart grabs my arm.

“I'll prove it to you. What I said is true. I am moving on.”

“Thanks again!” I wave at him and slam the door. “Max!”

“Lilly,” he says, without emotion.

“Well, that was quite a trip. A whirlwind tour and all that!”

“Who was that?” Max nods toward the taillights of the BMW.

“Morgan's friend, Stuart Surrey. He was at the hotel with—with his friend, and he offered me a ride home when Nana called.”

“I would have sent a car for you,” Max says, his eyes meeting mine. “You didn't need to resort to
him
.”

“He was there at the hotel. With his girlfriend,” I finally admit.

“I heard about Mildred's visitor. Don't worry about Sunday night. We can call things off. We'll just reschedule when the timing is better.”

I feel real disappointment here. Nothing will ever happen with Max, but at least something was happening with me. A few days ago, I had three men I thought were possibilities. Now, I have none, and while I probably should be focusing on putting food on my table…heck,
having
a table…it's still a tad deflating.

There's something about the way Max looks at me, like he understands what I'm about to face. I don't for a moment get him, or his unlikely concern for my grandmother, so sure, I question his motives. But right now, I have no one else.

I grab his hand and look him straight in the eye. “I'm scared to go in there.” I nod toward my grandmother's apartment. “What's she like?”

Max shrugs. “She's…she's sort of…hard-looking.”

“Hard-looking?” I ask.

“Like she's lived a hard life. She looks older than she must be if she had you so young.”

Max's words don't soothe me. I'm trembling now, and the idea of going into that lion's den is the last thing on my agenda. “Take me home, Max. Please? I should be back there with Morgan. I never should have left.”

“I can't drive, Lilly.” Max looks down at his broken leg apologetically. “Come on.” He puts down his pruning scissors behind the gate. “We'll go in together. I have a very commanding presence,” he winks. “It's the journalist in me. Scares people.” He laughs.

I take his hand, and I feel everything within me shaking. I can't catch my breath, and I cling to his hand tightly.
Put one
foot in front of the other
, I tell myself. Max walks with one crutch and leads me into the doorway where Nana is hunched over the sink, scrubbing the finish off it, no doubt.

“Nana?”

“Lillian,” Nana exhales. “You're here.”

“Where is she?”

“She's in the bathroom freshening up. She'll be out soon.”

I look to Max, and I know my face is panic-stricken.
This
is my mother.
The woman who gave birth to me, then left me with someone she barely knew. “What do I tell her I do for a living?”

“You're a designer, Lilly,” Max reminds me.

“Not an employed one.” I try to laugh, but it only comes out a muffled sob. Max wraps his arm around me, and brings my hand to his lips. He brushes my hand with the softest kiss, and for a moment I completely forget where I am.
Lord in
heaven, I just want out of here.

“You're the best designer I know,” Max says.

Again, I try to laugh through my tears. “And you know how many designers?”

“You'd be surprised who I've met in my father's hotel. Maybe you're better than Donna Karan. Did you ever think of that?”

When I look up at Max, there's something in his eyes that makes me all of a sudden want to kiss him. There are moments in life when God puts just the right people in place. This is one of those times. I pull my gaze away. I know it's just the emotion of the moment and needing to be wanted. Isn't it? I mean, an hour ago I was lusting over an Englishman with a girlfriend, who seemed more than anxious to ditch me in some special way. Clearly, I'm having major issues and mass confusion. This is not the time to be thinking about romance, a subject which I fail at regardless of my timing.

The bathroom door slowly opens, and I swallow hard, trying to calm my beating heart. I fear she's going to know how nervous I am, just by hearing my throbbing pulse. She walks toward me, and I clutch Max's hand until I see his fingers go white. I force myself to let go and allow my eyes to swallow the vision: she's nothing like I imagined all these years.

“You're blond” is the first thing out of my mouth. She has lovely, long blond hair and deep hazel eyes. There's not a sign of frizz or the need for John Frieda anywhere on her person. And her skin…it's not olive like mine. It's ruddy with a pink tinge; and she has full, round cheeks. She's not a small woman, and I'm beginning to wonder if I might have been switched at birth. Because she also actually has a bust.
All
right, Lord, what happened?

“I used to be blond,” she says. “Now I pay dearly for the privilege.”

We both laugh nervously. I see that she does look like life has taken her down a rough path. Lines are etched strongly in her cheeks and around her mouth, and I smell the cigarette smoke on her and maybe just a touch of pine-smelling gin.
Where's my Lysol?

“Do you live in San Francisco?” I ask her, thinking about how many times I've searched the crowd, wondering if she might be out there somewhere. Wondering if I'd see my own eyes staring back at me one day in the city. I never would have looked for a blond, though. Or a woman with a bust. I clearly got robbed.

“No, I live in Missouri.”

I laugh, thinking about my lack of geographic knowledge, and my friends saying I should know where Missouri is on the map.
I guess they were right.

“What do you do there in Missouri?”

“I have a family. Two boys and a girl.”

I gasp. These words hit me hard—really hard. I never once thought about another family, but of course she has another family. My mind races to process this. “I have brothers? And a sister?”

“They don't know about you yet. Here are some photos I brought for you. Alisa is sixteen. Jeremy is fourteen, and Joshua is thirteen.” She hands me the pictures, and three towheaded blond teenagers stare back at me. “I didn't want to tell them in case you didn't want anything to do with me. But my husband knows. I came with his blessing. I've kept you a secret all these years. But as you got older, I wondered if you might seek me out. I decided to be proactive.”

Nana is busying herself in the kitchen. I have no idea what she thinks of this meeting. This is the woman who slept with her eighteen-year-old son. Right before he died. The woman who abandoned her granddaughter one Sunday afternoon without warning and left me for her to raise. She left to get some diapers and never returned. Nana slams a cookie sheet on the countertop.
All right. I guess I have some idea what she
thinks.

“I'm going back to my hotel.” She grabs my hand and shakes it like we're at a business meeting. “It's been a long day, as you can imagine. My name is Tammy. Well, I guess you know that. But Jamison is my last name, and this is where you can reach me if you want further contact.” She hands me a wrinkled sheet of hotel stationery with her information scrawled across it. “I wanted to meet you for so long, but especially before your thirtieth birthday. Neither one of us is getting any younger, you know.” She tries to grin, but it looks more like a grimace. I just stare at her.

“No,” I whisper. “We're not.”

“I want to give you time to digest all of this. You're a mighty beautiful girl. Your grandmother tells me you're a fabulous designer, and that you have a master's degree from Stanford. I couldn't be more proud of you, Lillian.” She runs her hand along my cheek and quickly heads for the door as if I'm following her with a meat cleaver.

I want to say something, but my mouth doesn't work. I watch her leave. I turn and snuggle into Max's chest, desperately needing to be hugged. She didn't hug me. My mother didn't even hug me. I feel Max's mouth beside my ear, and his breath is warm against my hair. “You
are
a beautiful girl,” he whispers.

“Ever the drama queen, that Tammy,” Nana says, and I quickly pull away from Max.

“What did you say?” I asked in a daze, trying to focus on my Nana.

“It's all about her. She's got a daughter with a master's from Stanford and her own design business, and what does she do? Calls you home from the spa, stays five minutes, and makes it all about her: Her family. Her husband. I don't know what I expected from a woman who would abandon her own child.”

My jaw muscles tighten. “But I have siblings, Nana. That's exciting.”

Nana smiles a little then and nods her head, “So you do, Lilly. Maybe you'll get to meet them someday.” She goes back to cleaning, and I know she's hurt. My grandmother has always been harsh with me, but harsher still on anyone who would dare hurt me. She wanted the best from me, and I think she's missing the actual warmth gene, but as for consistency? There's no one like my Nana. She'd come back from the grave to help me if she could.

“Do they actually have planes that go to the middle states?” I wink at her, and she really smiles then. It's a small gesture, just between us, that says:
Everything is okay, Nana.
You are my one and only mother. And you are still my daughter—
fashion dreams and all.

“Now, I've got bingo tonight.” Nana breaks up the sentimental moment and begins bustling around. “You okay? Madeline is picking me up in a few minutes, and there's leftover pasta in here,” she bangs the fridge, “if you and Max are hungry. You do know how to use a microwave?”

“I'm fine, Nana.” And surprisingly, I am. I have a birth-mother. But if the truth is told, I'm more interested at this moment in what's going on with this quiet TV reporter in front of me. If only because his warm whisper was just what I needed a few seconds ago, and I'm wondering exactly how he knew that.

But back to my birthmother: she has a family. Wow! I sort of imagined her living on the street somewhere, crushed by the terrible mistake she'd made so many years ago, you know? Someone sort of drinking out of a paper bag and all. Well, I guess we know where the drama queen comes from. Emotionally, she seemed pretty detached, which I guess makes sense. She doesn't know me from Adam, but it still rubs me raw. I guess I hoped for something a little more maternal. Like that there would be this deep emotional bond that couldn't be broken by time or distance.
But yeah, didn't really feel it.
You know, maybe she actually felt bad for abandoning me as a baby. Is that too much to ask? I start to feel anger begin to build, before I remember—like the Bible says—that I can capture every thought. I struggle but stamp it down.

I bite my lip and look into Max's eyes. He smiles. Not with his lips, but with his eyes. Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, the fascination with Stuart Surrey completely evaporates from my mind, taking the momentary fixation on Nate Goddard with it. My attention is fully focused on Max. He was the one who was here for me. Just like Nana.

See, my Nana and I have never had a man around, and we did okay. But that didn't stop me from wanting one of my own. I have the sappy dream of the white picket fence and Mr. Right bringing flowers home as he hops over the little fence, and I yell, “Honey, watch the pansies!” But inside, I'm laughing at his curious ways and the flowers in his hands, while the children gather at my feet to welcome their dad home. It's a bad 1950s sitcom. I know that, but it doesn't stop the dream.

There's this weird thing that happens when your mother doesn't care enough to raise you, a sort of deep-rooted insecurity that no one will ever care enough to stick around. There's this fear that you're not good enough to keep, not special enough for anyone to want you that way. But the yearning for it never goes away.

“Lilly, did you hear me?” Nana asks.

“Yes,” I say, still looking at Max. “Leftover pasta in the fridge. Are you hungry, Max?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Ravenous,” he says with a sideways grin. “Why don't we take it upstairs, so we can see the city lights while we eat?”

“It's not dark out,” I remind him.

“It will be,” he whispers.

Nana plops the cold bowl of pasta in my hands, which pulls me out of my thoughts. “Ah! That's cold!”

“I taught her to cook, Max. Don't let her play dumb with you. Lilly, make him a vegetable and some French bread to go with that. There's starter for the dough on the counter.”

“French bread takes for—” I clutch the bowl of pasta tightly. “How about if I take your Jaguar to get some bread at the store?”
Because I could really get used to driving a little horsepower
without the need for disinfectant spray.

“I'm in no hurry. Homemade bread sounds divine, and I'll wait. Where do I have to go?” He looks down at his leg. There's a horn blaring now for Nana.