Someone Like You (4 page)

THREE HOURS LATER Cat and Michael faced each other across a tiny table at Aquavit. She had ordered her all-time favorite Swedish meatballs with lingonberries, but so far all she had done was push the berries from one side of her plate to the other and ignore the meatballs altogether.

“You haven’t touched anything but water,” he said.

“I don’t see you making inroads on that salmon you ordered.”

“I’m not eating for two.”

She picked up her fork, broke off a piece of meatball, then popped it into her mouth.

“There,” she said. “Are you happy now?”

“Sorry.” He looked suitably chastened. “Next time tell me to back off.”

“I will.”

She took a sip of water and leaned back against the padded banquette.

“Still queasy?” he asked.

She had had an episode in the doctor’s office, a combination of nerves, no breakfast, and the fact that she was in her first trimester.

“Queasy?” She considered the question. “No, but if you ask me if I’m scared, elated, or overwhelmed, you might get an entirely different answer.”

He reached for her hand across the table, but she grabbed for her fork. “Screw the meatballs,” he said, and she laughed. “I’ll order you some ice cream.”

“I know I’ll regret leaving these meatballs behind tomorrow when I’m halfway between here and Maine.”

“So take them with you.”

“I don’t think they do doggie bags at Aquavit.”

To her surprise they not only did, but they managed it with high style and grace. Her entrée was neatly packaged and replaced with a towering dish of snowy vanilla ice cream, a dazzle of lingonberries, and an icy silver spoon.

Michael ate some of his salmon, then pushed his plate aside. “You’re right. Nutrition’s overrated. Eat dessert first.”

“Grab a spoon,” she said, “and help me out.”

The waiter appeared next to them with an urn of coffee. Michael nodded, and so did Cat. Then she remembered and opted for more water.

“There’s so much to remember,” she said with a shake of her head. “No caffeine. No wine.” She tugged at a lock of hair. “Good-bye highlights, hello dark roots.”

“That talk about amniocentesis and genetic counseling took me by surprise.”

“Same here,” she said. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about, do you?”

He shook his head. “We come from good stock. He’s just being cautious.”

She knocked lightly on the wooden table. “From your mouth to God’s ear.”

“Superstitious?”

“Cautious,” she said. “Like the doctor.”

He took a giant spoonful of her ice cream, then followed it with a slug of black coffee. “Colfax seems like a good doctor.”

“Great reputation,” she agreed. They had done their homework before making the appointment. Harvard Medical. Interned at Johns Hopkins. Chief of ob-gyn at Columbia-Presbyterian.

“So why aren’t you going to have him deliver the baby?”

Michael Yanovsky was a terrific guy, but clearly geography wasn’t his strong suit. “For starters, how about the fact that he practices in New York and I live in Maine?”

“You’re down here every month,” he said. “Sometimes more.”

“Right, and the baby will check my schedule before entering the birth canal.”

A remark like that might have dimmed another man’s enthusiasm but not Michael. “No problem. You can move down here.”

Before that moment nothing had ever come between her and a bowl of ice cream. She dropped her spoon into the bowl, creating a vanilla wave. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She loved the fierce creative energy that was the lifeblood of the city. A five-minute walk in any direction provided more food for her imagination than her brain could absorb, but there was no denying that she was a country girl through and through.

If he was kidding, he had forgotten to tell his face. He looked frighteningly serious. “I’ve been thinking about it. You could land a plane in my loft. Finding a space for you to set up your spinning wheels shouldn’t be a problem.”

The urge to run—a Doyle family trait—was almost irresistible. She fought it down as best she could. “I don’t know what to say, Michael.”
Don’t ruin everything, Yanovsky. Didn’t we agree we liked things the way they were?
“You know my business is in Maine.”

There were times she wished he was a bricklayer or a truck driver, anything but a writer. Michael had this way of cutting through the layers of bullshit and going straight for the heart. The same gifts that illuminated his work made him tough as hell to lie to.

“Your business is like mine,” he was saying, and she clicked back into the conversation. “It’s portable.”

“Not exactly.” She took a fortifying spoonful of ice cream. “I own a dozen sheep. Wonder what they’ll think of city living?”

It wasn’t often a girl from Idle Point shocked a native New Yorker speechless.

He took a few long seconds to regroup. “Did you say sheep?”

“Twelve Romneys,” she said, reaching for her tote bag. “I have pictures if you’d like to see them.”

“You carry pictures of your sheep?”

She laughed out loud. “Don’t look so scared, Michael. One of the producers at
Pink Slip
grew up on a sheep farm in central New Jersey. He wanted to see my stock.”

Poor man. The thought of sleeping with a shepherdess clearly threw him for a loop. She had seen him adjust to random gunshots on Sixth Avenue faster.

“What the hell are you doing with twelve sheep?” His expression was priceless.

“I haven’t been spinning straw into gold,” she countered. “I need fleece, and it has to come from somewhere.” She didn’t tell him they lived on a farm three miles from her home. His shock was too delicious.

He gulped some more coffee. He probably wanted to mainline it. “I figured people bought it.”

She was starting to enjoy this. “You mean like at a fleece store.”

He knew when he was being played and grinned. “Yeah, a fleece store.”

“I don’t suppose I mentioned my four alpacas and two crias.”

“Okay, now you’re scaring me, Doyle. What the hell is a cria?”

“A baby alpaca, the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. We bred two of the females and got lucky first time out.”

“Bring ’em on,” he said. “If the writing doesn’t work out, I’ll sign on as your shepherd.”

They fell silent as the waiter made another pass with the coffee urn.

“Colfax gave me the name of a good doctor in my region. That’s where my house is. That’s where my business is. People depend on me. I can’t let them down.”

He was censoring himself. She could tell by the way he drummed the tabletop with the ring finger of his left hand.

“If you have something to say, say it,” she urged him. “We’re not going to come up with a perfect solution to our geography problem, but we can work something out.”

“Listen, Cat, maybe—”

The sound of reveille poured from her tote bag. “I’m sorry. I forgot to turn off my cell.” She reached down to silence it, then caught sight of the caller ID display. “Karen’s my business partner,” she explained. “I’d better take it.”

She stood up and hurried to a hot spot in the corridor between the kitchen and the restroom.

“Where are you?” Karen asked without preamble.

“Standing in front of the ladies’ loo at Aquavit.”

“You’re still in New York?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?” Few things were more frightening than silence when you needed words. “Karen, say something. You’re scaring me.”

“There’s been a fire, Cat. Your mother’s in the hospital. You’d better come home right now.”

 

MICHAEL HEARD A commotion coming from the rear of the restaurant. He glanced around, but nobody else seemed particularly concerned, so he settled back into demolishing Cat’s bowl of ice cream and didn’t notice the waiter until the guy practically climbed onto the table to get his attention.

“Sir, your lunch companion isn’t feeling well.”

He jumped up and clipped the poor guy with an elbow. “Where is she?”

“In the ladies’ room. She said—”

He didn’t wait for the paraphrased version but barged into the women’s bathroom, where he found Cat stretched out on a chaise longue in the anteroom.

“I’m fine,” she said before he could form the question. “Don’t look so worried.”

“Do we need to call Colfax?”

“No!” That brought a splash of color to her cheeks. “We just left his office. I’m two months pregnant. It comes with the territory.”

“So what happened with the phone call?” he asked.

“A—um, a problem back home.”

“Yarn emergency?”

“Something like that.” She swung her feet to the floor and tugged at the hem of her sweater. “I’m sorry. I have to leave.”

Understandable. They were in a public bathroom. He wanted to leave, too.

“We’ll go back to my place,” he said. “You can take a nap.”

“No, no. You don’t understand. I have to get home.” She swayed like a sapling in a hurricane, then sat back down again on the edge of the chaise.

“You’re not driving.”

“I’m fine.”

“You almost fell over.”

“Give me a minute. I’ll splash some water on my face. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s a three-hundred-mile drive.”
She drives it every month, moron. She knows the mileage
.

“I’ll pace myself. I have to get back this afternoon.”

“Let Karen wait. You can drive home tomorrow.”

“No,” she said. “I have to leave now.”

“What’s the rush? I have a phone. I have a fax. I even have a computer. You can handle whatever you need to handle from my place.” He tried not to notice that she hadn’t told him what the emergency was.

“Look, I know you mean well, Michael, and I really appreciate your concern, but it’s unnecessary. I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t say “case closed,” but she might as well have. He knew every centimeter of her body. He knew parts of her body she had never even seen. She was carrying his baby, and he still had the feeling they were strangers in all the ways that mattered.

“So are you going to tell me what the emergency is?”

She actually looked surprised, like it hadn’t even occurred to her that he might have a need to know. “It’s a family thing.”

He placed a hand on her flat belly. “So is this, Cat. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“My mother,” she said, then stopped. “My mother had a—there was a fire—” She raised her hands in a classic gesture of helplessness. “They rushed her to the emergency room, and it’s not looking good.”

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll go to my place and get your things, and then I’ll drive you up to Maine.”

“Listen,” she said, “I appreciate the gesture but—”

“It’s not a gesture. It’s what you do when someone you care for needs help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Remember that the next time you find yourself hugging the floor in a four-star restaurant.”

She handed him her keys.

 

ANNABELLE POUTED FOR a good thirty minutes after Joely told her William wouldn’t be home in time for the solstice picnic, but then her sweet nature returned and with it her excitement. She talked nonstop about what would happen as the day lengthened into night, elaborate fantasies about faeries and imps and trolls who came out to dance in the midnight sun. She wanted Joely to phone William on his mobile and tell him that she had seen evidence of faerie infestation in the side yard, but Joely finally convinced the little girl to save up all of her stories to share with her father when he called later that night.

“Will he call us when we’re up the hill?” Annabelle asked as she helped Joely prepare the picnic basket of snacks they would take with them later on.

“He’ll call us when we get home.” Joely washed some cherry tomatoes and dried them on a clean dish towel.

“Why don’t we call him?” Annabelle persisted as she swiped one of the tomatoes and rolled it across the countertop. “Then it will be like he’s there with us.”

“Don’t bounce the tomatoes, Annabelle.”

Annabelle popped the bounced fruit into her mouth. “I’m not bouncing. I’m eating.”

“I saw you bounce it.”

“Did not.”

Joely bit back a reflexive—and incredibly childish—
did, too
. “Why don’t you run upstairs and look for your favorite red plaid blanket,” she suggested. “We’ll take it with us tonight.”

Annabelle’s eyes twinkled with delight. “The big soft one with the tickly fringes?”

“Yes, the one my sister made for your birthday.”

“Brilliant!” Annabelle darted from the room and clattered up the back staircase. She had taken to wearing clogs that made her sound like a Clydesdale horse.

Joely leaned against the countertop as an unexpected rush of love almost took her legs out from under her. She had never understood the term
unconditional love
until she met Annabelle and every maternal instinct she hadn’t believed existed suddenly sprang to life.

The thought of not seeing that precious face every day was unendurable. If she did think about it she would never find the guts to sit down with William and force them to talk about their future.

She had lingered on the edge of a full-on crying jag all day, a combination of that early morning dream and William’s e-mail and the rain that had been sputtering on and off for hours. Then again it could be PMS. Whatever it was, she wished it would go away. This weepy nostalgic mood wasn’t her style.

The rain came and went all afternoon while Annabelle provided a running commentary on the weather, interspersed with melodramatic laments over the welfare of the faeries who lived in the gardens. Joely, who didn’t have a fanciful bone in her body, had to remind herself that these problems were very real to the little girl. Finally she retrieved an umbrella from the stand in the hallway and jury-rigged a way to suspend it over a tiny part of the side garden where Annabelle claimed the faerie children liked to hide.