What Mother Never Told Me (7 page)

“Don’t I always?”

“Call me tomorrow,” Leslie said, not missing the lack of bite that usually underscored any mention of “The Shaws” coming from Celeste.

“I will.” She disconnected the call. She didn’t want to think about the evening ahead. The hours of pomp and circumstance, air kisses and enough food to feed a third world country. All the while she would perform as expected, keep her chin lifted to the right height, her eyes sparkling with interest and her laughter pitch perfect. And for her Oscar-winning performance her bank account would receive its monthly infusion of capital, and she would continue to live the life of the consummate hypocrite.

Celeste turned onto the block of the would-be club and looked for a parking space. She was able to squeeze in between a U-Haul truck and a vandalized Volkswagen with missing plates. She turned off the ignition and looked around at the breath of despair that filled the lungs of the corner trio and pushed the residents unwillingly up and down the street.

Her existence, so far removed from this that the experience of being here in the midst of a language and a life she couldn’t fathom was equivalent to walking into a foreign land where you were an illegal immigrant. Her gratuitous attempt to bring life back to the dead was only to ease her own conscience so that she could sleep at night in her queen-sized bed nestled on fluffy down pillows and imported cotton sheets.

You still benefit…why aren’t you in the Sudan or building houses…?

Parris’s question buzzed around her like a mosquito. No amount of swatting, ducking or moving from its path could still the insistent, incessant demand for attention.

In her rearview mirror she spotted Nick’s car pull onto the block. She took her safety net from the seat and got out, draping the strap over her shoulder. They met in front of the club.

“This is my friend and business partner, Sam Blackstone. Sam, Celeste Shaw.”

Sam stuck out his hand and hers was enveloped in a bed of gentle strength and warmth. A flutter danced in the center of her chest when she stumbled into the invitation of his brown eyes and teasing smile.

“Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.” She buried her gaze in the depths of her purse in search of the key. Her fingers shook as she fumbled with the lock.

Sam took the key from her fingers. “I can do that.”

Her heart pounded. She took a step back, feeling foolish and giddy at the same time.

Sam released the locks and opened the door, allowing Celeste to enter first. Her shoulder brushed his chest. The jolt quickened her step. He was right behind her. She felt the heat of his presence press against her back, tickle the hair on her neck.

All of her patented sales lines drifted in and out of her head like a bad cell-phone connection. She opted for silence lest she say something totally inane. She came to the center of the space and turned, only to come face-to-chest with Sam. Her gaze rose upward and his probed her, picking away at the thin layer of facade. She knew standing there would allow him to strip her raw, but she could not move. Maybe she didn’t want to.

“What do you think?” Nick asked, coming up on them, giving her the escape she needed but couldn’t find on her own. He blew into his cupped hands.

“I’m thinking it has potential.” Finally he turned away from Celeste and followed Nick to the back.

Celeste allowed herself to breathe and followed them with her eyes, not trusting her legs, which were suddenly weak. She’d never reacted that way to a man before. Not to Clinton. Not anyone. He was nothing special. An ordinary man. Yet the sweet honey of his eyes, the generous curve of his mouth, the rough-hewed texture of his brown-sugar complexion stirred her deep below the surface. Absently she rubbed her hand where his thumb had brushed her knuckles when he held it.

She adjusted the strap on her purse and jammed her hands in her pockets, then crossed the dimly lit room and took a chair down from a three-legged table and placed it by the murky window. Professionalism dictated that she at least give a semblance of a tour and do her spiel. Nothing was working—her brain or her limbs.

Voices deep and rich drifted toward her, their harmonized camaraderie gave life to the peeling walls and cracked ceiling. They were laughing as they approached, laughing the way only people who know the worst about you can, and still care.

She pushed herself up from her seat, straightened her shoulders. “So,” she said on a breath, “what do you think?”

“I think my man here made a good deal.” Sam tilted his head to the side. “It’s going to need some work.” Sweet honey settled on her. “But we can make it work.” The corner of his mouth tipped upward. “Neighborhood leaves a lot to be desired.”

“It’s the same thing I was saying to Nick…Mr. Hunter. This entire area is set for revitalization,” she rambled, knowing that she was but unable to stop herself. “In a few more years, you won’t be able to buy your way into this neighborhood.”

“Time will tell, I’m sure.” He turned to Nick. “When is Parris due back?”

Nick’s buoyant expression became solemn. “Not really sure.”

“Have you heard from her?” Celeste asked.

“No.”

“You will.” She offered an encouraging smile.

Nick exhaled. “Well, we better get out of here. When will the papers be ready? I can’t make a move until they are.”

“I’m expecting everything to come through this week. I’ll call as soon as they do so that you can come into the office. I know how anxious you are to get started.”

“Sam will be coming with me, if he’s in town.”

She snatched a glance at Sam. “Of course.” She ducked into her purse. “If you’re ready, I’ll lock up.” She let them out in front of her while she secured the locks. When she turned, Sam was right behind her.

“Good to meet you.”

“You, too.”

He extended his hand and she placed hers inside it. Her heart thumped so hard in her chest she grew light-headed.

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” He released her hand and she was able to breathe as she watched him walk toward Nick’s car and get in.

For several moments she stood there, even as they drove off, working to get her bearings. Finally, in a state of mild confusion she got in her car, focused on the mechanics of driving and pulled away.

A
s Celeste prepared for her evening under siege with her parents she held on to the wicked image of their appalled expressions if she walked in with Sam Blackstone on her arm instead of Clinton Avery. The smile that she would be able to maintain throughout the ritualistic evening would certainly be due to the anarchy she held in her heart.

Clinton was impeccable as always and for a moment when he stood in the threshold of her doorway, there was a second that Celeste’s heart softened, her stomach lifted and a fleeting warmth filled her.

“Hello, sweetheart.” The perfunctory kiss on the cheek—something that she’d encouraged long ago to avoid smudging her lipstick—broke the temporary spell of “just imagine.” “Ready?” He brushed by her in that long-legged loping stride, simultaneously checking his Rolex watch.

Celeste drew in a breath of resolved frustration, closed the door and followed him inside. He turned upon her approach, his sea-blue eyes cool and discerning.

“You seem happy.”

He said the words with the same unfamiliarity that its association had with his fiancée. In the years that he’d known Celeste, been intimate with her in ways he’d never been with another woman, he would describe her in many ways: pretty, intelligent, highly sexual, at times complex, opinionated, but never happy. Celeste was content, if anything. At ease with her life and what her station in life could afford her, much like himself. He supposed that was the equivalent of happy, something they simply took for granted. But he’d never
seen
Celeste
happy.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She plucked her mink jacket from the chair and draped it over her arm.

Clinton’s brows shrugged off the momentary glitch and he settled back into his comfort zone. “I decided to get a driver for tonight,” he said, his breath warm on the back of her neck as he helped her on with her jacket. “So we can really enjoy the evening.”

Celeste smiled to herself. That may be the obvious reason, but the real reason was that Clinton was angling to make an impression at her parents’ soiree. She couldn’t blame him. It’s what they did. She turned out the lights and with his guiding hand at the small of her back they started on their evening of predictability.

When the black Lincoln pulled up in front of the Shaws’ Park Avenue town house, they were greeted by red-vested valets and a long line of luxury cars. The party was in full swing although Celeste and Clinton had arrived only an hour beyond its start time.

“Your parents always know how to throw a party,” Clinton said. “I think I just saw the finance chairman speaking with Senator Collins.” The excitement in his voice was barely contained.

“Probably,” she said absently. “They’re always around.” She’d grown up calling most of her parents’ inner circle “aunt and uncle” so-and-so. To see the eclectic blend of who’s who in the house where she grew up was tantamount to Sunday dinner at Grandma’s—no big deal.

Although they’d both come of age under the umbrella of wealth and all it entailed, the Shaws also had political capital where the Averys did not. This salient fact still brought a glimmer of awe to Clinton’s eyes.

Celeste glanced across the crowded floor of the main room. There were at least sixty guests milling about, chatting in the airy way that rich people did; all smiles and knowing nods, flashing diamonds, platinum and new figures courtesy of very expensive Park Avenue surgeons.

Corrine gave her daughter a finger wave above the heads of the gathering and motioned for her.

“We’re being summoned,” Celeste murmured.

He dipped his head in her direction then followed the lift of her chin. “Who’s that with your mother?”

“Richard Phillips, he’s running for senate.”

Clinton straightened his shoulders. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

While Celeste smiled and nodded in all the right places, her mother—always the consummate hostess—extolled Clinton’s virtues and how well he would one day do in politics.

“What line of work are you in now?” Richard Phillips asked.

“I’m a financial consultant for Ameritrade. My fourth year. I handle the corporate accounts and acquisitions.”

He nodded his approval then dug in the breast pocket of his suit jacket and extracted a card. “Stay in touch. Depending on how things go, I may be able to use someone like you on my team.”

“Thank you, sir, I like the sound of that.” He took the card and gave Phillips one of his own.

“I’d better go mingle,” he said to the trio. “Good meeting you, Clinton, and as always it’s a pleasure to see you, Celeste.”

Corrine turned to the two young people. “These are the kinds of people you need to know, Clinton, if you plan to get ahead in this world.”

“I totally agree. I appreciate all of the introductions.”

“Have you spoken to your father?”

“We only arrived a few moments before you saw me,” Celeste said, feeling immediately defensive. And knowing her mother she was being set up for the onslaught.

“Had you arrived when I asked you to arrive you would have had the opportunity to speak with him before he was bombarded with all of these people vying for his attention. But of course that would never occur to you—to do anything that I ask.”

The flame of ridicule began in her ears, spread to her face and down the center of her chest until the heat of her embarrassment engulfed her. Her eyes burned. “I’ll go find him.”

“I’m sure he’s out on the terrace. Heaven only knows why in this chilly weather. I’m sure he’s smoking one of those damned cigars.” She turned her back on Celeste and hooked her arm through Clinton’s, telling him who she wanted him to meet as they walked off. As if Celeste no longer mattered. Maybe she didn’t.

As she made her way through the knots of guests, Celeste
was stopped by her “Aunt” Anne, who was happy to see that she hadn’t brought that “friend” of hers. “She really doesn’t fit in, if you know what I mean,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.

Celeste lifted her chin. “Actually, I don’t.” She offered a tight smile to the startled expression of her “aunt” and escaped.

Celeste found her father on the terrace in deep conversation with the head of one of the computer giants. Ellis Shaw was a handsome man, one who commanded attention the moment he entered a room. He was still tall, even at sixty. His full head of black and gray hair was the envy of many of his associates. But it was also the power he wielded that drew lesser men to him—they wanted what he had to rub off on them somehow. Her mother carried the fortune. But her father was the real rainmaker of the family. He had the ear of anyone who was important, from one end of the country up to the highest office in the land. That was his gift.

“Hi, Daddy.”

He blew a cloud of smoke into the air before turning to the sound of her voice. Something mildly resembling a smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “Did your mother send you?” His gray eyes glimmered against the backdrop of the night sky.

“Something like that.” She stepped up to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

“Clinton’s here, I’m sure.”

“Mother is introducing him around…like a pet,” she added with disdain.

Ellis made a noise in his throat. “That’s how you get ahead in the world, by who you know.” He tugged on the cigar and let the smoke drift along the night air.

Another lecture on social networking she did not need. “You’re right, of course. I suppose I should get back inside and mingle. Especially since I already know you,” she teased, in an attempt to lighten the weight of the mood.

“I’ll be in as soon as I’m done.”

Celeste nodded, opened the sliding glass doors and stepped back inside, closing them behind her. In the few short minutes that she’d taken to speak with her father, the number of guests had multiplied. The noise level ballooned and food, drink and music flowed with the gusto of rushing water after a heavy rain.

“They should gather up all the poor, the blacks and the Jews and ship them off,” one man was saying to another.

“Aren’t they all the same?” his friend quipped.

They laughed at the joke and raised their glasses in a toast.

“The problem is the Democrats.”

“They’d love to have the whole country on welfare and have
us
pay for it.”

Celeste cringed and kept walking.

She didn’t see Clinton or her mother and that was a good thing. She threaded her way around the bodies until she’d reached the front door, where she’d been ceremoniously relieved of her coat upon her arrival. She dug in her evening bag, took out a ticket stub and handed it to the young girl on coat duty. Shortly her coat was given to her and Celeste took one last look over her shoulder before slipping out. Of course, she’d never hear the end of it from her mother but her mother’s diatribe would be the punishment she was willing to accept simply to get away from the oppressive scent of success.

Celeste stepped out into the chilly March night, drew her mink jacket around her and began walking.

Leslie Evans lay curled up on the well-worn couch. A half-eaten bowl of potato chips rested on the smudged glass coffee table. CNN played in the background rehashing the latest on the political landscape. Since the election of President Obama, she’d become addicted to politics after years of malaise. It had become her refuge, a way of turning her mind onto the problems of the world and away from her own—the life that she’d come to dread waking up to day after day.

Anderson Cooper was in the middle of discussing the plummeting stock market prices when the doorbell rang. She glanced at the clock that hung above the mantel. Five more minutes and it would be time for MSNBC, she thought absently. The bell rang again. Annoyed at being disturbed and by the fact that she had to get up or else the next ring would surely wake her mother, she pulled herself up and padded barefoot across the cold tiled floor to the door. She drew her robe tighter around her.

“Who is it?”

“Les, it’s me, Celeste.”

Leslie frowned and opened the door. “Cee, what in the world are you doing here? I thought you had that thing with your mother tonight.”

“I did. I should have called….”

“Girl, please, come on in. You’re letting in the cold air.” She shivered.

Celeste stepped in. “Thanks.”

“I was watching—”

“CNN.” Celeste finished the sentence, knowing her friend all too well.

“So how bad was it?” Leslie asked, leading the way to the living room.

“As bad as I expected.” She slipped out of her expensive fur and tossed it to the side like a pair of dirty gym socks. She plopped down on the love seat and kicked off her shoes, wiggling her toes in relief.

Leslie resumed her position and tucked her bare feet beneath her. “What did you do with Clinton?”

Celeste waved off the question. “He’ll be fine. By the time he realizes I’m gone, it won’t really matter. I’ll simply tell him I came down with a splitting headache and didn’t want to pull him away.”

Leslie pursed her lips, flattening their plumpness into a tight line of concern. Her dark eyes rested on Celeste. “Why do you put yourself through all this? I could never understand. You are so unlike
them
.” She uttered the last word with the puckered bite of one who’d sucked on a lemon.

Leslie and Celeste’s lifestyles were polar opposites. Yet it was their differences that bound them in a way that was incomprehensible to those outside of their intimate twosome. It was the inconsistencies about their lives, the cracks in their personalities and the internal angst that they shared that strengthened their fledgling sisterhood. One black, one white, one wealthy, one poor.

Celeste could only imagine what life must have been like living in the projects of New York City. She’d only seen pictures and heard commentary by those who’d laid the foundation for generation upon generation to be entrapped there. Of course their perspective was couched in myth and sanctimonious rhetoric. But if there was any truth in the notion that you are a product of your environment, it was certainly true, at least in part, about Leslie. She had a hard edge to her soft roundness, a wariness and often pessimistic view of the world and a resiliency that Celeste often marveled at. Although she
wouldn’t want to change lives with Leslie, she respected where her friend had come from and how far she’d taken herself…at least on the surface.

Leslie reached for a potato chip then changed her mind. “Go on and say it.”

Celeste’s green eyes glanced up. “Say what?”

Leslie huffed. “That I don’t have any business laying around wolfing down a bowl of potato chips. Why don’t I have something healthy, like a yogurt or some carrots?” she singsonged in a mocking voice.

Celeste screwed up her nose. “Do I really sound like that?”

“Yes. You do.” She rolled her eyes.

“You know I don’t mean any harm. I’m just worried about you. We already had a scare with your blood pressure and that fainting spell a couple of months back. And your mother…”

The albatross had entered the room with the mention of her mother. Theresa Evans had been a strong, dominating force, wielding and molding Leslie into a mere caricature of the woman she might have been. That woman was now a shadow of her former self confined to bed and a wheelchair, needing assistance to eat, wash, dress and even speak. Some days Leslie was so overwhelmed with the enormity of the responsibility that she often felt that this was yet another way for her mother to control her life. The resentment battled constantly with the guilt of her ugly thoughts. Depending on the day and her mood, one or the other won out. Today resentment clinched the title.

“How is she today?”

Leslie’s gaze drifted away. “The same.” Her eyes suddenly filled. “I’m just so tired.” She pressed her fist to her mouth.

“Leslie, you need a break. I told you I would help you pay for someone to come in and take care of her.”

Vigorously she shook her head, the tumble of naturally curly hair spilling back and forth across her shoulders. “I need to do it. It’s my responsibility. And I still have her home attendant Gracie at least for a little while longer.”