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“I hardly think the woman is a battle-ax.” Sam rubbed his brow. But that was a lie. Three hundred pounds if she was an ounce, Cloretta sported kinky gray curls that looked rubberized, wore hideous flowered polyester pantsuits and size-twelve white nursing oxfords. She topped it all with a perpetual scowl. Okay. So what if Cloretta was a bit of a stereotypical battle-ax nanny? “It wouldn’t hurt Meggie to come under a firm disciplinary hand for once.”
“Oh, really? What good would that do? Discipline or not, Meggie is always going to be age three, mentally.”
“But she doesn’t have to be a bratty, unmanagable age three,” Sam argued. He had long worried about the fact that Andrea spoiled their child to pieces, but he felt powerless to change that when he only had Meggie for short visits three times a year. But now, for the foreseeable future, their little terror Meggie was going to be his sole responsibility. He didn’t exactly have a ton of options here. “I’m calling Bob Barrett.”
Gayle stopped making the sandwich and clapped her hands once. “Wait! I know who we need!” She darted in front of Sam on his way to the built-in kitchen desk. “Christy Lane! Do you have a phone book?”
“Who?” Sam followed his mother as she turned and charged to the desk. The name Christy Lane had a familiar ring.
“The Pearsons’ nanny. That child is delightful! Very creative. Does origami and stuff like that with the Pearson children. Why, she actually gives those kids piano lessons.”
“Mom, Meggie doesn’t need piano lessons and origami. She needs constant management and close supervision.”
“Meggie has the right to have fun just like any other child. And from what I hear, Christy Lane is an absolute bundle of fun. Lou said she is adorable.” Gayle was rapidly opening and closing cabinet doors above the desk.
“Lou who?” Sam said.
“Trustworthy. Kind. Talented. Lou can’t say enough good things about her. The girl is a regular Mary Poppins.”
Finding Sam’s cupboards predictably bare, Gayle started opening the desk drawers. “Where on earth do you keep the phone books in this house?”
Sam wondered how his mother knew so much about this Christy Lane woman. “If this nanny is so special, won’t the Pearsons be determined to keep her?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. The Pearsons don’t actually need a nanny. All Amy Pearson does is shop. Ah-ha!” She pulled a Tulsa telephone directory out of a drawer.
“I swear, every time I pass through Dillard’s at Utica Square, there’s good old Amy,” Gayle muttered as she flipped the pages of the phone book. “Pawing through a sale table or examining some ridiculous little purse as if it were an archeological find. It wouldn’t hurt that woman to stay home with her children once in a while. And I saw Christy running a register at Wal-Mart the other day, so I’m thinking the Pearsons probably don’t employ her full-time. I’m sure she’d much rather work for you.”
Again, Sam wondered how his mother could possibly know what Christy Lane would rather do. “Mom—” he slapped his palm onto the open phone book “—I refuse to hire somebody else’s nanny right out from under them.”
“This—” Gayle yanked the phone book out, jerking Sam off balance “—is a family emergency. Besides, I’m not calling Christy Lane. I’m calling Lou Allen—” She flipped the phone book open.
“Lou who?” Sam asked again.
“Lou Allen. Amy’s mother? I’ll talk to Lou and then she’ll talk to Amy and then Amy will talk to Christy. It’s how these things get done—with a little finesse. Before I’m through with them, the Pearsons will feel like they’ve done a great kindness for us.” She glanced at his skeptical frown, then started punching numbers into the phone. “Sam. Your situation is dire, even if it is—” She paused with her finger above the phone and gave Sam’s face a searching look. “This is only temporary. Isn’t it?”
Sam didn’t know what to say. The thought that it might not be temporary had snaked across his mind, but he’d banished it. Andrea would get well. Andrea had to get well. She would get well and they would all return to their former lives—patched together and painful as those lives sometimes were.
How he longed at this moment for his former imperfect, sometimes hectic life. Drumming up enough projects and contracts to keep a business with twenty employees thriving. Keeping track of a handicapped daughter who lived all the way across the country. Staying at the office until the wee hours to finish the drafting on a project. Sometimes he got lonely, but now that his imperfect life was about to be torn to pieces, he decided it hadn’t been so bad, after all. He could visit the remote building sites whenever the mood struck. He could indulge in late-night dinners and drinks at the Polo Grill with his buddies. He never had any trouble arranging the occasional date with an attractive young woman. But now…now his solitary life was about to become totally disrupted. His mother’s meddling couldn’t possibly make it any worse.
“Okay,” he said, caving in, “call your friend Lou and ask her to see if Amy Pearson might be able to loan me this Christy Lane woman for a while. Let’s say just for the summer.”
“Yes. We can make it through the holiday weekend on our own.” Gayle Solomon was already punching in the final numbers. “And then Christy can start next week.”
CHRISTY LANE SMILED AT THE next customer. Smile. Smile. Smile. It’s a good thing she had perfected that little habit. The average patron at Wal-Mart seemed to be in sore need of a smiling face. Especially on a Memorial Day weekend when the crowds were crazy.
This next guy was a fat old sourpuss who whomped a very corroded battery onto the conveyor belt beside the shiny new one he obviously intended to buy. “I’ll want the battery deposit refund,” he announced to the whole store. “You got any idea how to do that?”
“Sorry. You’ll need to stand in our special battery-deposit-refund line on the other side of the store for that.”
His face shot red and his fat lips dropped open, ready to spew out a diatribe, no doubt, about how he’d already been standing in line for half an hour, or whatever. But quick as a flash, Christy tapped his rough hand with her pen. “Just kidding.” She winked. “Five bucks, coming right up.”
If her smile didn’t work, a little touch usually did. The old sourpuss grinned, visibly relaxed.
A little girl in the line started whining about needing to go to the bathroom, so Christy punched the necessary keys lightning fast. “Here you go.” She dismissed Mr. Sourpuss with his receipt, the refund and another quick smile.
Christy treated every customer special. Every customer got her full attention. Her friendly, laid-back style was deceptive. Christy’s line actually moved faster than the other checkers’.
The next lady, a slender, petite woman with stylishly bobbed graying hair, smiled and said hi. Christy could sum people up pretty fast, and this one was not your typical Wal-Mart maven. She wore an expensive-looking gray silk outfit with a tiny black alligator shoulder bag strapped across her chest. She was buying a bunch of kiddie stuff, and while Christy ran the items over the scanner, the woman leaned forward confidentially. In a strange, low voice she said, “Christy?”
Christy glanced up from her work with her habitual smile. Her name tag read Christina, so how did this woman know she preferred to be called Christy? “Do I know you, ma’am?”
“No, you don’t,” the lady said. “I’m a friend of Amy Pearson’s.”
“Oh!” Christy relaxed. “Yeah. Mrs. Pearson.” The beep of the scanner continued rhythmically. Some little kiddo was sure getting a load of stuff. Beginner coloring books, Barney videos, musical cassettes, preschool toys. Maybe she was shopping for two kids, because there were also socks and underwear big enough for a school-age child.
The woman leaned in a little more. “I called Amy a couple of days ago, asked her to give you my number. Did she?”
“Me? No. Not that I know of. But I haven’t been home enough to check my machine.” Between this Wal-Mart job at night, her part-time nanny job in the daytime and writing her songs, there was little time to take care of details at her own humble apartment. Lately, Christy had been praying for a breather.
Beep. Beep.
“I’m Gayle Solomon.”
Christy’s hand halted and so did the beeping. Solomon. As in Sam Solomon? This woman, though incredibly well preserved, certainly did look old enough to be his mother. Christy took a closer look. As a matter of fact, the deep-set dark blue eyes were amazingly similar.
“Do I know you?” Christy said again, although she already knew that the answer was no. If she had ever met Sam Solomon’s mother, she would have surely remembered it.
“No, you don’t know me, but I believe you went to high school with my son.”
Gayle Solomon decided to leave it at that. She didn’t add that she’d had a soft spot in her heart for Christy Lane ever since she delivered a new coat to Christy’s house on behalf of the Junior League. The beautiful, tiny blond child who had answered the door had caused Gayle’s breath to catch in her throat.
“Are you the coat lady?” the child had said with the sweetest little smile.
Gayle hadn’t been able to stop herself from staring. The delicate little girl before her could have been Lila’s twin.
Through the years, Gayle managed to find ways to encounter Christy over and over, always from a distance, always with a strange mixture of longing and curiosity and sorrow. At the Junior League vision screening in third grade, when it was determined that Christy desperately needed eyeglasses, Gayle quietly arranged to pay for the eyewear herself. She had seen the conditions at Christy’s home firsthand—there would be no money for glasses in that impoverished family of four children. Later, Gayle had come to the same conclusion about braces.
And years later, when the arts council was choosing its scholarship recipients, Gayle had squared Christy’s application in front of her on her mahogany desk and reminded herself to remain strictly impartial. Then she opened the folder and stared at Christy’s senior photo, at her pretty, round blue eyes, her sweet smile. She remembered thinking, Is this what Lila might have looked like?
Through the years, Gayle had managed to keep track of Christy’s progress, and her struggles. And through the years, Gayle had kept Christy close in her heart, wishing the best for her, as if she were her godchild or something. As if she were her lost daughter.
And now here they were, face-to-face in Wal-Mart. If only Amy Pearson had cooperated and allowed Gayle to do this behind the scenes, the way she’d done everything else for Christy Lane.
The beeping started again.
“Your son? Is his name Sam?” Christy smiled her famous smile again. But she imagined it looked just a touch uneasy now. She could never think about Sam Solomon without getting a little confused. She’d actually written a song about him once, to get him out of her system: “I Should Be Over You.” It never sold.
“Yes. My son’s name is Sam Solomon.” The beeping finished and Gayle swiped her card to pay. “Do you remember him?”
“Kinda.”
“I was wondering if I could talk to you when you get off work,” Gayle said while Christy finished the transaction.
“That won’t be until midnight.” Christy handed Gayle the charge slip to sign.
“That’s okay,” Gayle said while she scribbled her name. “Would you mind giving me a call then?”
Christy frowned. “What is this about?”
“My son needs a nanny.” The woman looked up, and Christy thought her eyes had grown sad. “For his little girl.” She fumbled in her slim shoulder bag.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not looking for another nanny job.” As much as Christy loved kids, being a nanny hadn’t been as undemanding as she’d imagined. Originally, she had wanted to free up her mind and her time to concentrate on her songwriting, but she’d ended up funneling all of her creativity into her little charges. For her, this mindless Wal-Mart job was a better fit.
“My granddaughter is special,” the woman said as she withdrew a card from her purse. “Sam will pay you very well.”
To Christy’s astonishment, the woman snapped the business card onto the counter along with the signed charge slip. Christy separated the receipts, then picked up the card, examining it. It had unusual angular lettering slashed across thick gray paper.
The center read:
Solomon Architectural Masterpieces
Samuel Solomon, AIA, Restoration Architect
“I’m staying at my son’s house,” Gayle Solomon explained. “Call the number in the right-hand corner. It forwards automatically.”
The customer in line behind Mrs. Solomon shoved her goods toward the register with an impatient scowl. Christy smiled apologetically at the woman, remembering that the little child with her needed to go to the rest room. She started scanning the stuff as fast as she could.
“Okay,” she said as she worked, “I’ll call you.” Mrs. Solomon picked up her plastic bag, bulging with kids’ stuff, and they smiled at each other one last time.
Later Christy slipped the card into the pocket of her blue Wal-Mart vest. Life was so weird, she thought. Who would ever imagine that she’d be standing here, minding her own business, scanning stuff at Wal-Mart, and suddenly Sam Solomon’s mother would appear and say “Call me.”
Sam Solomon, the blond Adonis that Christy had fantasized about all through high school. Christy hadn’t thought about him in a long time. Well, at least she’d tried not to think about him. Christy had heard, somewhere, that Sam had gotten some sorority girl pregnant and they ended up married. End of fantasy.
But Sam Solomon remained stubbornly imbedded in Christy’s heart, in her dreams. And if she was honest, she’d have to admit that over the years he had become the haunting benchmark for all other men. And now she was going to work for him?
CHAPTER THREE
CHRISTY SURVEYED THE STARK interior of Sam Solomon’s home with a mixture of dread and awe. She was actually going to be Sam Solomon’s nanny, in Sam Solomon’s house.
She wasn’t exactly sure how that had happened, except that Mrs. Solomon—Gayle, the woman kept insisting—had been very persuasive. She had shown Christy pictures of Sam’s beautiful daughter, and Christy had recognized Sam in the child’s wide blue eyes. And then when the grandmother had told Christy about the child’s disabilities, about the fact that this darling child’s mother was gravely ill, Christy’s heart had melted.
So, here she was.
The outside of the arts-and-craft-style house in this historic Tulsa neighborhood had actually looked inviting. But the inside…
Mrs. Solomon had gone upstairs to get the child, Meggie, and so Christy took a moment to explore the surroundings before they got down to business.
Her mama always said you could tell if a person was happy or not by looking at their home. And from the looks of this place, Sam Solomon was not a happy man. His home looked as cold as the lobby of a bank.
The more she looked, the more she wondered if she’d made a huge mistake. What kind of man lived in such a home? Uptight? Austere? Controlling? Cold?
So much black. So much black that even the banks of bare mullioned windows failed to brighten the place. Even the floor where she stood was painted black. Everything seemed dark, shiny…slick. The man actually had an entire wall of his foyer covered in smoky mirrors.
But Christy was adaptable, she had proved that. Flexible. Creative. Sunny and positive under any circumstances. The fact that her new charge had been brain-damaged at birth did not deter Christy in the least. But this house…that was another story.
A little girl was living here? Already Christy was formulating plans to get the child out of this place as much as possible.
She peeked around the corner into the living room. It was spacious, airy. Really high ceilings. At least the walls in here were painted off-white. But still, starkness prevailed. Black marble fireplace. Black leather couch. A big old painting with slashes of hot red, yellow and lavender in birdlike shapes. As her eyes traveled over it, she realized the thing spoke to her on some level. She supposed she could live peaceably with the painting, at least. She really liked art.
Oh.
Oh, my.
In an alcove of windows draped in gray velvet gleamed the most gorgeous black-lacquer grand piano Christy had ever seen.
She went to the keyboard as if drawn forth in a Sleeping Beauty-like trance.
She slid onto the bench and plucked a few keys with her delicate fingers. The notes resonated, perfectly tuned, like sounds from heaven. Magnificent! This piano would surely be her salvation in this bleak house. Impulsively, she drifted into a few bars from Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major. Then she cut loose, momentarily filling the barren room with trilling sounds of magical notes.
“Hello,” a man’s voice called above the music.
She swiveled her head with her fingertips guiltily poised on the keys. “Hi,” she said, a little breathless. He’d startled her.
“You must be Christy Lane,” he said as she straightened and stood. “Mother said that you play.”
Christy examined the man—a tall, blond man with Nordic good looks—leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest. He wore tasseled loafers and a smooth black mock turtleneck tucked into sharply creased chinos. Were it not for his wild mane of caramel-and-cream hair, his appearance would be as stark and forbidding as his house.
“Or did I see that on your résumé?” He slipped on a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and perused the piece of paper in his hand.
He was still in great shape, but it was a surprise to see Sam the Athlete in reading glasses. She supposed since he was an architect he spent a lot of time at the computer.
“I love music,” she said. “This is a wonderful piano. Do you play?”
“No. I got a good deal on it and thought it looked great in the alcove.”
“I hope it’s okay that I tried it out.” She trailed her fingers over the keyboard. She felt a little self-conscious about playing Sam Solomon’s piano before she’d even been introduced to him. But his mother had said he was out of town, up at some place called Moonlight Grove. She thought about explaining herself. But the explanation would be long and complicated. She certainly couldn’t tell her new employer how she had chosen to subsist in a series of undemanding jobs so that she could pour her creativity into her music. “You must be Sam Solomon.”
She marched toward him with her hand stuck out. As she came closer, she suspected that he didn’t remember her. It was important to make a good first impression, if, in fact, this was Sam Solomon’s first impression of her. She hoped to goodness it was. She didn’t enjoy being associated with her sad past.
For one protracted second he held her hand too tightly, then dropped it. “Yes. I’m Sam Solomon.”
“Yes. You’re Meggie’s daddy.”
From up the stairs a child’s protesting wail curled through the house.
Christy watched Sam Solomon wince and run his fingers through that thick chamois-colored hair and thought, This man looks stressed.
Hmm.
