Skinny Dipping (29 page)

“
Nothing
I have
ever
done has
ever
impressed him,” Prescott said an hour later, stabbing a finger in Joe’s direction. He then held out his empty wineglass, and Joe, ever the attentive host—even when it wasn’t his damn house, thought Prescott—leaned forward and refilled it. Didn’t the guy realize he’d just denounced him as a father? Didn’t he
care?

“He should care,” Prescott muttered. “I’m a bona fide genius. I am the youngest professor ever to get tenured at MIT. I invented a—”

“I used to be a genius,” Mimi interjected cheerfully.

Prescott, stymied midrant, raised his eyebrows. Mimi was lolling on the couch with Wiley while she fiddled with Blondie’s ears. Bill, deprived of his rag, sat on the edge of the carpet and sulked.

“I was,” she insisted.

“How’dya know?” Prescott asked suspiciously.

“My mom had me tested when I went into kindergarten.”

“
My
mom had me tested when I was
two and a half
,” Prescott said smugly. “She was very perceptive.”

“Couldn’t be more perceptive than Solange,” Mimi disagreed equitably. “Solange has a radar for untapped potential that is frightening.”

“So, what happened to you?” Prescott asked.

“Whatddya mean?” Mimi said.

“You said you
used
to be a genius.”

“Oh. Yeah. I gave it up.”

“You can’t give up being a genius.” He looked at Joe, sunk comfortably on the other end of the couch, his wineglass balanced on his stomach, a content smile on his face, though what he had to be content about was beyond Prescott.

Joe opened his mouth as if to say something. Great, thought Prescott, now he would take over the conversation because people
lu-vved
listening to Joe’s Velvet Voice. He wondered if they’d love listening to him so much if they knew “the velvet” was a result of having smoked in college. His mom had confided that little bit of info. Prescott prepared to watch Mimi be charmed right out of her shoes. Except she wasn’t wearing any.

“You know how many kinds of germs the dogs have undoubtedly carried in on their paws?” he asked, nodding toward her bare feet. He vaguely noted that Joe wasn’t talking; he was yawning. “There’s probably all sorts of snow-borne parasites and bacteria and God knows what all on this floor.”

“I think they’d be frozen solid, Pres,” Mimi said, unconcerned.

“No. They are not. Why, do you realize that scientists have found viable bacteria in bore samples taken from Paleozoic ice pack—What are you doing?”

Mimi’s smile had broadened into a Cheshire cat grin as she leaned over the coffee table, reached out to where Prescott’s foot was propped up on the wheelchair footrest, and flicked his big toe with her finger. “Touch.”

“What’s she doing?” he squealed, recoiling in alarm as she proceeded to flick each of his toes in turn, chanting, “Touch, touch, touch, touch.”

“Desensitizing you,” Joe said calmly.

“Tell her to stop!” Prescott recoiled.

“She doesn’t listen to me. You tell her. She might listen to you.”

With a cackle of glee, Mimi went back to Prescott’s big toe and gave it a final yank.

“Ow!”

She flopped back in her seat. “And touch again!”

“She’s drunk,” Prescott said.

Joe studied Mimi a second. “I think so.”

His father had been right about Mimi, Prescott thought morosely. She was not the woman he’d thought she was. The woman he had idolized had been a font of Zen-like serenity, an Earth Mother, a Madonna of the snows, a Mignonette—not a Mimi. Someone who encouraged and supported you, someone diligent on your behalf, who had only your welfare in mind. Someone like his mom.

“You’re
nothing
like my mom,” he muttered disconsolately.

“He’s drunk,” Mimi informed Joe.

Joe looked at him. “I think so.”

Mimi, her suspicion supported, turned back to Prescott. “I don’t want to be like your mother.”

Both Joe and him gaped.

Mimi whooped. “You should see yourselves! Both staring at me with the same poleaxed expression.” She whooped again. “What? No one ever told you how much alike you two are?”

No. Never. In fact, his mother had always said it was amazing Joe had produced a son so dissimilar from himself. Prescott whipped his head around to see whether Joe took this as an insult. He didn’t look insulted. And he hadn’t even been drinking that much.

Since it appeared Joe wasn’t going to say anything, he would.
Before
his father started laughing. “That’s ridiculous. We don’t look anything alike.”

Mimi’s drunken hilarity segued smoothly into drunken seriousness. “True. I didn’t think you looked anything alike when I first met you, but take away the black hair dye—
please
,” she snickered, “and the eye bolt ring, pare off a few pounds, get a tan, and there is a definite resemblance. But where you really see the similarity is your personalities. Both germaphobes. Both control freaks. Both overplanners. Both regimented—”

“You think I’m a germaphobe? You think I’m a control freak?” he and Joe broke out in unison. They looked at one another in startled recognition.

“What about our good qualities?” Joe asked Mimi.

Our?
Prescott thought wonderingly.

“Those were the good qualities,” she said.

Joe laughed. Prescott couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Joe laugh spontaneously. Of course, he and Joe didn’t make much with the merry.

“You have the same expressions, too,” Mimi went on. “Same smile. Same look of disgust. Same look of shock. Like just now when I said I didn’t wanta be like Kathy.”

“Her name was Karen,” Prescott said, his thoughts jerked back to Mimi’s inexplicable comment about his mother.

“Whatever.” Mimi waved her hand.

“Why wouldn’t you want to be like my mom?” he demanded. “Anyone would. She was an amazing woman. A genius. Smart, motivated, capable of anything she put her mind to.”

“She was valedictorian of her class. Won a full ride to Miami of Ohio,” Joe put in, nodding.

But Mimi wasn’t attending Joe; she was looking at Prescott. “I take it she put her mind to you.”

She sounded scornful. Why would she sound scornful? Prescott must have misinterpreted her tone.

“Yes,” he said. “She dedicated herself to seeing that I had every opportunity to excel. She wouldn’t take a position anywhere, choosing to homeschool me rather than have a career. She was a brilliant teacher.”

“She got a lot of job offers, did she?” Mimi asked. “But she turned down all of them?”

Prescott frowned. He didn’t actually know the answer to this. He’d just assumed she had offers.

“No,” Joe said. “She never finished college. She stayed at home with Prescott. But she was planning on going back to school when Prescott entered college himself.”

“Pffbt.”

“
What
did you say?” Prescott asked.

“Pffbt.”

Mimi was
dissing
his mother.

“Is that what she told you guys?” Mimi asked. “That she sacrificed all for Prescott? God, I gotta call Solange and apologize. At least she never gave up her life for me. Thank God.”

The sneer in her voice was unmistakable now. And who the hell was Solange?

Mimi chuckled. Slowly, her amusement faded, replaced by consternation and then all-out amazement as a thought occurred to her. “Hey. You guys didn’t know, did you? Prescott, I can sort of understand. But, Joe, are you telling me you didn’t know you were married to a nut?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your expression is loud and clear. Oh, Joe”—her voice softened—“Joe. I’m sorry. I’m sure she was a perfectly lovely nut. She’d have to be to have you guys so thoroughly snowed.”

“She had the best intentions,” Joe said stiffly.

“I don’t doubt it. So does Solange.”

“My mother was not a nut job,” Prescott said.

Mimi’s gaze danced away from Joe, the unmistakable tenderness in her eyes shifting to empathy. “My mother is a head case, too. Not in the league of your mom, evidently, but definitely triple A team. That doesn’t mean I don’t love her. I do. But I’m not blind to her…less desirable qualities.”

“My mother didn’t
have
any less desirable qualities.”

“Look, kid,” she said, “I understand loving a parent and thinking they are the bee’s knees. Believe me, I do. But you can’t let pining after what you lost keep you from seeing what you got. In this case, that would be your dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wasn’t around much when you were a little kid, but he’s here now.”

She stared into the ruby contents of her wineglass. “You know, genius babies would scare the shit out of a lot of guys. Maybe you scared the shit out of your dad. Maybe he felt inadequate. Hell, I bet I scared the shit out of my…” Her eyes widened slightly as she trailed off.

Prescott’s glance snapped to his father. Joe was looking out the window.

Prescott didn’t know what to think. It had never occurred to him that the cosmopolitan, erudite Joe Tierney would ever feel inadequate about anything. “So he’s here out of guilt?” he finally asked.

Mimi gave a drunken little snort. “Hell. Who cares why he’s here, Pres? Maybe between his being out of the country most of the time and your mom’s grand designs for you, things aren’t all Walton’s Mountain between you and your dad. But the point is, Joe is here. She’s not.”

Prescott started to open his mouth to say he didn’t need Joe but shut it again. Joe was here. And he had been here, or wherever Prescott was, arriving every year like clockwork. He frowned uncertainly. He had come to a crossroads: he could continue defending his mother, who, to be blunt, was dead, or he could give Joe, who was not dead, and as Mimi had pointed out, was here, a chance. Joe would likely screw it up, but still…He twisted the silver bolt in his brow thoughtfully.

The doorbell rang, startling them all. Disentangling herself from Wi—Merry (Prescott refused to call his companion the name of a cartoon character), Mimi got up and headed to the front door. Curious, Prescott backed his wheelchair up so he could peer around the corner and through the front-door window. A pretty young woman with soft blondish hair and a perfect complexion stood outside, her hand raised to knock.

She spotted Mimi and waved. “Hey, Big Sis! Lemme in! I’m freezing my ass off out here!”

“You’re pregnant,” Mimi said, staring at Sarah’s protruding stomach.

“Almost five months.” Sarah shouldered her way past Mimi into the house, her gaze traveling appreciatively around the open-beamed ceiling, the carved stone fireplace mantle, and the pegged hardwood floors. “No wonder you love it up here. This is great!”

“This isn’t Chez Ducky.”

“Crap.” Sarah’s face fell, but she shrugged philosophically. “I didn’t think so, but hope springs eternal.”

“Where’s the father?”

“Don’t know. Wait. That’s not true.” Sarah corrected herself. It must be a burden, Mimi thought, being that scrupulously honest. “I know. It’s just not relevant.”

“Does
he
know it’s not relevant?”

“If you’re asking if he knows I’m pregnant, the answer is yes. If you’re asking if he thinks I ought to keep the baby or give it up”—she looked down at her large stomach—“any other option no longer being on the table, he doesn’t have strong opinions one way or the other.”

“This would be the grad student?”

“Yup.”

“Mimi? Who are you talking to?” Joe called. Even when he shouted, he contrived to sound sexy…Man, she
had
had too much wine. “Is it Mrs. McGoldrick? Because if it is, tell her you’ve been running unattended in the lower level.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mimi shouted back.

“Who’s that?” Sarah said, giving her a look.

“Joe Tierney, but—”

“Joe
Tierney
?”

“Look, there’s a perfectly reasonable and innocent explanation, the same of which cannot be said of your, er, situation.”

“Why don’t you show her the downstairs, then come back?” Prescott shouted. Like her, he simply sounded loud. “We haven’t finished the conversation.”

“In a minute.” She felt for the kid, but right now she had more important things than his abandonment issues to deal with, especially since he hadn’t been abandoned. Now, she—Nope. Not going there.

“And who is that?” Sarah asked, brows rising.

“Joe’s son, Prescott. He just got here this afternoon.”

“Really? My, my, my.”

Mimi ignored this. “What does Mom say about your interesting condition?”

Sarah flushed slightly. “Mom doesn’t know. Or Dad.”

Mimi’s eyes widened. “How did you keep it from them?”

“I avoided them as much as I could. Then, when I started to show, I told them I was taking a six-month internship in Singapore. I’ve done internships out of the country before, so I knew they’d buy it. They did. Clever, huh?”

“Positively weasel-like. What about Mary?”

“Mary doesn’t know anything. And we’re going to keep it that way.”

“We?”

Abruptly, all Sarah’s newfound sangfroid drained away. She lifted her eyes to Mimi’s, looking the same as when she’d been five and Mimi had told her that despite what Sarah had called “empirical evidence to the contrary,” there really was a Santa Claus. She’d looked so pitiful, like she expected to be disappointed but couldn’t help from getting her hopes up. “You and me.”

“Oh, Sarah,” Mimi said, backing away, “I’m not the person you want to talk to about this sort of thing.”

“I don’t want advice,” Sarah said quickly. “That’s exactly
why
I came to you. I knew you wouldn’t have any. I just need time, you know. To see how everything shakes out.”

“That’s a baby, Sarah,” Mimi said, aghast. “It’s not going to just ‘shake out.’”

“Things’ll work out one way or the other if you just let ’em. That’s what you always do and it’s always worked for you.”

“It’s
not
the same thing,” Mimi said sternly. But isn’t that exactly what she’d done regarding her own pregnancy? Just waited? What if she hadn’t? Would she be holding a little mini-Mimi right now? Would she have handed the mini-Mimi over to another couple? She’d never know. In order not to make a mistake, she’d done nothing and it turned out that might have been the biggest mistake. Damn it. Why did Sarah have to show up here pregnant?

“Sure, it is,” Sarah was prattling on. “Things haven’t always necessarily worked out
well
, but they do work out. There’s a certain security in assuming nothing. Expecting nothing is smarter than convincing yourself things will always work out for the best. I understand you a lot better now, Mimi, what with getting knocked up and everything. The whole ‘let it slide’ thing?” She nodded portentously. “Makes total sense.”

Knocked up
? Once again, as she was at Solange’s anniversary party, Mimi was struck by the changes in her sister. Sarah didn’t use words like “knocked up.” She’d be more likely to say, “now that I have procreated and am midphase of my gestational period.”

“You can’t let this slide, Sarah. This is a human being we’re talking about. You have to make certain choices, decisions, plans for the baby’s future.”

Sarah was regarding her stonily. “This is such a disappointment. I cannot believe this is you speaking, Mimi.”

“Me, either,” Mimi said faintly.

“Look,” Sarah said, “I caught you off guard and it’s thrown you. You’re not yourself. I understand.” She patted Mimi’s arm. “You haven’t had time to adjust. I have. I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve decided right now, I
don’t
want to think about it, so, I’m not going to. Whaddya say, Mimi? You’ll let me stay, won’t you?”

Of course.
“All right. But you aren’t going to like Chez Ducky. It’s cold and drafty and it smells sort of musty. There’s no television or radio. Even the cell phone service is iffy at best.”

“It sounds wonderful. I’ve never been camping. Besides, I brought along my doctoral thesis to work on if I get bored.”

“Mimi?” Joe called again.

Mimi looked over her shoulder. “I suppose introductions are in order, since we’ll be eating together for the next few days anyway.”

“Why’s that?” Sarah asked.

“Follow me.” Mimi led the way into the living room, Sarah waddling behind her. “Sarah, you remember Joe Tierney? This is his son, Prescott. Prescott, my sister Sarah.”

For a few seconds, Sarah just stood politely looking at the pair in their matching wheelchairs, bandaged, bruised, and definitely bowed. Then, as if she couldn’t hold it in any longer, she burst out laughing.

“My God, Mimi!” she sobbed, holding her stomach. “What did you do to them?”

“These meatballs are great,” Sarah said, happily digging into a mound of Smelka’s Swedish meatballs Joe had returned with a few minutes ago. “You guys eat like this every day?”

“Unless we run out of frozen food,” Joe said.

Sarah started to push herself away from the table.

“Where are you going?” Prescott asked.

“To get a piece of bread to sop up every drop of that gravy.”

“You should let Mimi get it,” Prescott said. “It’s easier for her.”

Mimi? In the matter of the few hours since Prescott had arrived she’d gone from Mrs. Olson to Mignonette to Mimi. Hm. Sarah slipped back into her chair and looked at Mimi expectantly.

Mimi grumbled, getting up.
How fickle and foul, a young man’s fancy.
But, Mimi reminded herself, Prescott hadn’t ever fancied her, he’d idolized her. But,
how fickle and foul, a young man’s idolization
just didn’t have the same ring.

“Thanks, Mimi,” Sarah said around a mouthful of meatball before returning her attention to Prescott. “What was I saying before? Oh, yeah. It’s really lousy being the sister of an unproven genius. You oughta talk to our sister Mary about it.”

Mimi slid the bread in front of Sarah.

“Mimi’s a genius? I mean, she said she was, but I didn’t really…” He trailed off, cheeks flaming.

Sarah nodded sympathetically. “I know. Well, we only have Mom’s word for it. And I did say
unproven
genius.”

Sarah winked at Mimi. Mimi couldn’t remember Sarah ever winking before, at her or anyone else. Pregnancy had not only inflated Sarah physically but it had inflated her already expanding personality, too. At this rate, Sarah would end up on stage at some local comedy club by the time she delivered.

“I like to tell people that my oldest sister is the most brilliant person currently doing nothing in the world,” Sarah said.

“You what?” Mimi said.

Sarah popped another forkful of meat in her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and said to Prescott, “Which is fine by me, but Mary? I think she would give an arm if Mimi would just
try
to do something, anything that required her supposed genius. Hell, I bet she’d be satisfied if Mimi did something that just took some raw talent.” She speared another piece of meatball and swished it around in the gravy. “You know, I can see her point, too.”

“Uneven race,” Prescott piped in, nodding vigorously.

Sarah looked at him approvingly. She pointed her fork at him and winked again. Maybe she wasn’t winking. Maybe she had a tic. “Exactly.”

“I’m not in any race,” Mimi said.

“Exactly.
You’re not in the race
,” Prescott pronounced with the same eager intensity as the kid in the front row who always had the right answer. “Do you know how frustrating it is trying to prove yourself when no one’s looking?” He glanced at Joe. “Someone explain to her.”

Joe reached across the table for the butter dish. Sarah shoved it toward him, chewing away rapaciously. She caught Mimi’s glance. “Hey, I’m eating for two.”

“Yeah, and apparently one of them is Orson Wells,” Mimi said. “And no one has to ‘explain to her.’ I’m not an idiot. I get it.” She folded her hands under her chin and looked appropriately forlorn. “Poor little Mary Werner has always felt herself measured by a yardstick without marks. Tested against a chimera. Racing against a phantom.
So
unfair.”

Both Prescott and Sarah stopped chewing long enough to look at her with humiliating wonder.

“Oh, come on,” Mimi said disgusted. “It’s not exactly the most profound insight ever offered.”

“Yeah, but it’s so self-aware.”

“You know, just because someone doesn’t particularly
care
what others think about them doesn’t mean she doesn’t
know
what they think. It’s not the same thing at all, and before any more stunning psychological revelations are made, let me say that there’s a very simple reason why I don’t care about Mary’s late-blooming case of sibling rivalry, and it does not stem from mishandled potty-training or being forced to babysit her when she was little, and this is it: I think it’s dumb.”

Sarah was the first to speak. “When did you figure this out?”

“I’d like to say years ago, but it was actually at Mom’s house this fall. Mary was all grim gauntlet throwing. She kept saying melodramatic things about me ‘actually doing something—or trying,’ and glaring like Snidely Whiplash. I would have had to be as dense as last year’s fruitcake not to get it.”

“Mary must feel the comparison keenly,” Sarah said loyally.

“Oh, yeah?” Mimi asked. “How did you manage to escape feeling so put-upon?”

Sarah thoughtfully slathered butter over a piece of bread. “I’ve always assumed I’m smarter than you.” She gave the Tierney men a diffident smile, then said to Mimi, “Besides, I escaped that whole cankle unpleasantness. I told you how much it affects her.”

“Cankles?” Joe asked interestedly.

Sarah stuck her foot above the table and pointed. “Cankles. Heel to calf, no stops in between.”

The men accepted this bit of information with the gravity it deserved.

Mimi continued. “If Mary needs a worthy opponent to measure herself against, I hear Stephen Hawking is a scrappy little fighter.”

Joe laughed. “You have to admit, Mimi has a point. If Mary purposely chooses to pitch herself into a contest only she’s entered, she can’t gripe about the lack of competition.”

“My hero.” Mimi fluttered her eyelashes.

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress,” Joe said. “Besides, I look too good in designer Shining Armor to pass up any opportunity to wear it.”

Mimi sputtered, almost losing the mashed potato in her mouth.

Prescott and Sarah looked from Joe to her, and then back again. Prescott set his fork down and slumped in his chair, reverting to surly mode once more.

“What do you do, Prescott?” Sarah asked, either advertently or inadvertently saving the day. Or at least the meal.

“Computer stuff.”

“Like what?”

“I, ah, design stuff.”

“While teaching and doing research at MIT, he created a host-to-host security protocol used by every major investment firm in the world. MIT patented it, but Prescott gets a percentage of the royalties,” said Joe, then added with what could only be pride, “He is the youngest tenured professor there. He’s on sabbatical.”

“Really?” Sarah asked, wide-eyed.

“Yeah.” Prescott wiggled in his wheelchair, looking massively embarrassed.

“I am in awe,” Sarah declared sincerely.

“I…I…think the dogs are hungry,” Prescott said and cast Mimi a pleading expression. Poor kid did not know how to handle compliments. Or maybe it was Joe’s obvious pride he didn’t know how to take.

Mimi pushed back from the table. The dogs, sensing dinnertime, roused themselves, emerging from under the table like wolves from their den. Mimi picked up the lone meatball she’d left on her plate and tossed it into the center of the pack. On cue, Blondie sailed up and plucked the meatball out of midair just before it entered Bill’s open maw.

“Nice pick!” Sarah said.

“What are you doing?” Prescott asked.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mimi said, reaching over and liberating a meatball from his plate. “They all end up getting the same amount. Except Bill. Who is fat. He gets half.”

Bill lifted his lip at her, but more out of a sense of obligation than any real animosity. At least that’s what she told herself.

She divided the meatball in half with her fingers and dropped one portion into Bill’s mouth and handed the other to Wiley, who took it delicately. She looked up, expecting Prescott to be regarding her with sappy approval. He was frowning at her.

“You’re not supposed to feed dogs from the table,” he said tightly. “And you’re not supposed to feed them human food. It’s bad for them. Onions can kill a dog.”