Man In A Million

CHAPTER THREE

“THE MIRANDA POOLE AGENCY.” A slightly bored voice with a pseudo British accent answered the telephone. Paris felt her courage wane. Her mother had often talked about her very first agent, and Paris had looked her up on the Internet, somewhat surprised to see that she was still in business. But would her mother’s agent know about Paris’s father?

She might very well know something, Paris answered herself with a fortifying toss of her hair. One of the few bits of information her mother had given her was that they’d been represented by the same agent. That was how they’d met.

Paris assumed a tone of voice a shade deeper and more authoritative than her usual courteous manner. “May I speak to Ms. Poole, please? This is Paris O’Hara calling.”

There was a momentary pause. “Does Miss Poole represent you?”

“No, but she represented my mother some time ago.”

That was almost a non sequitur, but not quite. The voice didn’t seem to know what to make of it.

“Who was your mother?”

“Camille Malone.”

“Hold on a moment,” she advised.

A cheerful New York voice came on the line almost immediately. “Miranda Poole,” she said. “Camille, is that you?”

“No,” Paris replied, sitting up straight at the kitchen table to sustain her woman-in-charge attitude. It was threatening to bail on her. “This is Camille’s daughter, Paris. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me.”

“About Camille?”

“About…another actor you represented at the same time. Jeffrey St. John.”

“Ah, yes,” Miranda replied. “He and Camille were in the chorus of Damn Yankees together as I recall.”

“That’s him.” Paris’s heart thudded against her ribs. Now came the tricky part. She had to make her willing to share information without revealing that he’d gotten her mother pregnant, something her mother claimed no one had known. If she could at least confirm where he’d come from, she’d have somewhere to start in an effort to find out what kind of man he’d been. “I understand he was from Florida.”

“That’s right,” Miranda replied. “Still is, last I heard. Got one of those photo cards from him at Christmas. He and his sons have formed a band and they’re working clubs from Daytona to Miami Beach.”

Still is. The words rang over and over in Paris’s ears. For a moment she couldn’t speak.

“Paris?” Miranda asked.

“He’s…” Paris had to clear her throat and try again. “He’s alive?”

“Of course he’s alive. You kids, honestly. A person turns sixty and you think the warranty automatically runs out. I’m eighty-three and still placing the best talent in New York.” Paris heard the sound of paper being shuffled on the other end of the line. “I don’t seem to have kept his number,” Miranda said, “but he shouldn’t be hard to find if he’s working clubs. Performers like privacy off duty, but they can’t make themselves too hard to find or they won’t get work. I think it was a Fort Lauderdale address.”

Paris was still speechless.

“How is your mother?” Miranda asked. “She was such a game girl. Once played a pickle in one of the first commercials for Burger Bungalow. A lot of actors won’t take those roles, but your mother paid her rent with whatever came her way. Not too many actors like that today.”

“She’s fine,” Paris replied, finally regaining a fraction of her composure. “She’s in Africa on a fashion shoot right now.”

“She was a beautiful girl. I suppose she’s matured into a handsome matron.”

“She has,” Paris confirmed, then thanked Miranda for her cooperation. She hung up the phone, thinking that it was a good thing her mother had experience playing a pickle, because she was going to find herself in one the moment Paris got a hold of her.

Paris paced the living room with its unobstructed view of the lake, but failed to notice the setting sun, the ducks sheltering in the reeds, the lone sailboat dawdling across the middle of the lake, its running lights streaking a pattern across the water as it moved. She usually took such pleasure in the beautiful, quiet moments when she was alone in the house without her charming but chattering mother and sister.

Tonight, all she could think about was that her mother had lied to her. Twice! First, she hadn’t bothered to tell her that Jasper O’Hara was not her biological father, then, when confronted with Paris’s evidence to that effect, she’d lied again, and told her her father was dead.

To think Paris had waited a year, trying to respect her mother’s sensitive feelings on the subject. Only the need to pull her life together after a year of floundering had made her desperate for more information.

She couldn’t believe it. What had motivated her mother to do such a thing? It wasn’t as though Jeffrey St. John had been some demented villain. Certainly, the plain-spoken Miranda Poole would have said something about that.

Paris guessed that her mother decided life would be simpler without an ex-lover’s involvement in it, so she’d lied.

Then she paced a little more and realized that probably wasn’t true. While her mother often had the quality of a diva about her, she wasn’t prone to selfish decisions.

Camille Malone O’Hara had been a beauty queen, then a model, then an actress, and a beautiful face and body were still very much a priority with her. She ate only healthy foods, worked out every day at the gym and chose her wardrobe with skill and care. And she was always after Paris and Prue to do the same.

Prue had a natural inclination to fall into step, but for Paris, all her mother’s encouragement had done was remind her that she took after her father and would never be gorgeous.

So, her mother could be…superficial. But, usually, when it came to her daughters, she did everything in her power to be supportive.

Still—she’d lied twice, so maybe in regard to this particular issue, her maternal instincts could not be relied upon.

Angry and exasperated after hours of thinking about her situation and her mother, Paris tried to call her. She stopped first to try to figure out what time it was in Morocco. Five hours ahead of Boston. She glanced at her watch. It was 11:00 p.m. It would be 4:00 a.m. She didn’t care and called anyway.

She sympathized for just a moment with the sleepy sound of the voice that answered the phone. Camille, she was told, had taken off with a photographer and two other models. They would be back in several days. Until then, there was no way to reach them.

“You’re telling me,” she asked, “that in an age of cell phones, e-mail, faxes and global positioning, they’re out of touch?”

The foggy voice sighed. “Is it an emergency?”

Yes, it’s an emergency! she wanted to shout. Who the hell am I? I need to know. But she understood that while it was important to her, it didn’t warrant sending out a search party or otherwise alarming everyone on the shoot.

“No,” she replied finally. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Shall I have her call you when she comes in?”

“No,” she replied. “Never mind. Thank you.” She could pursue this herself without her mother’s help.

Prue came home an hour later and sympathized while she made tea.

“Why would Mom have lied to me again?” Paris demanded.

Prue took the boiling kettle off the stove and poured water into a fat brown teapot she’d already warmed with hot water and fitted with a loose tea infuser. Had Paris been doing it, she’d have simply poured hot water into two mugs and dunked a tea bag, but Prue was into ritual. She carried the pot to the table, put a calico cozy on it, then went back to the cupboard for china cups and saucers.

“It’s pretty obvious she doesn’t want you to meet him, whoever he is,” Prue said frankly.

“I have a right to know who he is.”

“Not if he’s going to hurt you.”

Paris gasped impatiently. “Prue, life isn’t all about hair and makeup and cups that match the teapot! Sometimes it’s messy, and if that’s my life, I have a right to know.”

Prue frowned at her testy remark. “Yes. I’m not telling you you don’t have a right to know, I’m just speculating on why Mom won’t tell you.”

“Well, I’m going to call him.” Paris whipped the cozy off the pot and poured the weak but steaming tea into Prue’s cup, feeling guilty for snapping at her. Then she poured her own. “First thing in the morning.”

“What if you get his wife, who doesn’t know he fathered a child that isn’t hers? Or one of his boys?”

“I’ll be careful. I won’t talk to anyone but him.”

“Okay.” Prue dipped her spoon into the sugar bowl. “Want me to drive for you in the morning so you can make the call? I’m not sure it’s a good idea, but I know you’ll do what you want to do, anyway.”

“The truth,” Paris said loftily, “is always the right thing.”

“Noble,” Prue acknowledged, “but probably not always right.”

“You can’t pick and choose with it,” Paris countered.

Prue stirred the sugar into her tea. “You should go back to law school. You certainly sound like a lawyer. All black and white, right and wrong.”

“Before I can do anything relating to my future,” Paris insisted, “I have to settle this. Good or bad, I have to know. And then I can go on.”

“What if it’s harder than you think?”

“I can handle it.” At least, that was her plan.

Prue sighed. “Well, you’re a better woman than I am. I’d be happy knowing Jasper loved me like his own.”

“I do love knowing that,” Paris said defensively. “I just also need to know who my biological father is. Then I can reorganize my life and get somewhere with it.”

“I thought you were doing pretty well. You provide a much-needed service in this town.”

Paris sipped at her tea. “I like the work, but anybody could do it.”

“I don’t think so,” Prue argued. “Not everyone would let the old folks run a tab, or keep an eye out for runaways, or take the homeless to the clinic as a service to the community.”

“It’s a custodial world. We’re supposed to take care of one another.”

Prue shook her head at her. “That’s radical thinking in today’s world. Well, maybe not in Maple Hill, but almost anywhere else. You certainly don’t hear that kind of talk in political circles, I assure you. Except for Gideon, and that apparently was just a front.”

Paris decided they’d talked enough about her problems. Prue was doing her best to be supportive, and the least she could do was return the favor. “Do you miss that life?” she asked. “The politics and the power parties?”

“Sometimes.” Prue pushed away from the table and went to the cupboard for a box of thin ginger cookies she claimed were a safe indulgence. Paris thought it a crime to waste valuable calories on something that wasn’t chocolate or cream-filled, but she was determined to be cooperative. She took a cookie when Prue offered her the box.

Prue fell back into her chair. “Then I remember all the nights Gideon came home after midnight, all the plans we had to cancel at the last minute, all the things we planned to do but never got to because something more important had to be taken care of. I accepted it at the time, but now that I don’t have to, I’m happy to live for me.”

“It’s hard to believe,” Paris said quietly, “that Gideon would have done that to you. The intern, I mean.”

Prue grew defensive. She always did when Paris suggested that fooling around with an intern in their summer home in Maine was unlike her brother-in-law’s straight-arrow approach to life and politics. “You always take his side, but I saw it with my own eyes. They were on the sofa, and she was in her underwear. How else would you explain that?”

“I don’t know,” Paris replied, “but I think I’d have asked that he try.”

“He’s a politician.” Prue’s eyes filled with turbulence, and her cheeks with color—other effects Gideon’s name always had on her. “He can explain away anything. I know what I saw, and no one’s going to make me believe that it wasn’t what it looked like.” She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Washington does that to you. The success of your cause is worth whatever it takes to accomplish it. Men wheel and deal, gain power, make life-and-death decisions for millions of people and finally come to believe that they deserve whatever they want in recompense.”

Again, that didn’t sound like Gideon. Paris remembered him when he was an alderman in Finchbury, a town on the other side of Springfield, and fought big money and the almost rabid historic conservationists who wanted to oust every resident and retailer in a block of old buildings downtown and turn the area into an interpretive center. He’d slaved for a year to get the funding to restore the buildings, maintain the businesses and the residences, and turn a large upstairs room into a sort of miniconvention center. Everyone praised his efforts as the perfect combination of conservation and commerce.

But Paris kept that to herself. Prue’s ignition switch was always hot where her soon-to-be ex-husband was concerned.

“Well, the best revenge is living well, they say.” She reached across the table to pat Prue’s hand. “And you’re about to become a brilliant designer.” She gave her sister a small grin. “And if I’m going to have to eat these ginger things until the fashion show, you’d better move up the date.”

“SAINTS AND SINNERS!” A smooth voice answered the phone just after nine the following morning. Paris had stared at the phone for a full hour before mustering the courage to dial. She’d told Prue she’d make her call at 8:00 a.m.

At eight-fifteen, Prue had anxiously checked with her. “What did he say?”

“I haven’t called yet,” Paris had admitted.

“I’m sorry. I’m not rushing you.”

“It’s all right. I’m calling now.”

Prue checked again at eight-thirty.

“I still haven’t done it. But I’m going to. Now.”

“You’re sure you want to know?”

“I’m sure.”

The voice was younger than Jeffrey St. John would be, Paris felt sure. She tried to sound like a prospective client.

“I’d like to speak to Jeffrey St. John, please,” she said.

“This is Jeffrey St. John,” the voice replied. “Did you want to make a booking?”

“Jeffrey St. John,” she asked carefully, “who was in the chorus of Damn Yankees?”

The voice laughed. “That was my father. But I’m in charge of our scheduling.”

“I need to speak with him please,” she said pleasantly, but as though she would brook no argument.

He hesitated an instant. “Well…he’s on the golf course. But I can page him and have him call you.”

“That would be nice, thank you,” she said, and passed on the pertinent information. Then she paced and trembled for ten minutes while waiting for the return call.

Jeffrey St. John Sr.’s voice was a little gravelly and reminded her of Tony Bennett. She imagined him in her mind’s eye when she introduced herself. “I’m Paris O’Hara,” she said, sounding far more confident than she felt. “I’m Camille Malone’s daughter.”

“Camille Malone…” St. John repeated, as though having to think about it. Paris was immediately alarmed. Would a man have to think twice about the name of a woman he’d impregnated? Of course, her mother had said she hadn’t told anyone. It had never occurred to her that she might not have told him.

“You were in the chorus of Damn Yankees together,” Paris reminded him. “Miranda Poole represented both of you.”

“I remember her,” he said finally. “She was small and blond with a voice like Ethel Merman’s! How is she?”

“Oh, fine,” Paris replied, whipping up her courage. “She’s modeling in Morocco at the moment and I’m…I’m sort of…on a search for my father.”

“Ah,” he said, as though he understood and was waiting for more.

She wanted him to volunteer it without her having to ask. But that didn’t seem to be happening.

“Are you…?” she began, and stopped short when she heard his intake of breath.

“Now, wait a minute,” he said, his voice a gasp. “You aren’t thinking that’s me?”

“I was, yes,” she admitted. Then she asked candidly, “Are you?”

“No!” he insisted, his voice rising a decibel. Then he lowered it and repeated, “No. Your mother and I were friends, we hung out together in a group and enjoyed each other’s company, but we were never intimate. I was married.”

“Mr. St. John, I don’t want anything from you,” she said, certain he had to be lying to protect his family. “And I promise I won’t tell a soul. Your family doesn’t have to know. It’s just that I need to know. Please. Tell me the truth.”

“Miss O’Hara.” A strain of sympathy mingled with the denial in his voice. “I’m telling you the truth. I understand your need to find your father, but…I promise you it isn’t me. Wouldn’t you do a better job of this if you asked Camille? What made you believe it’s me?”

She didn’t want to tell him that her mother had given her his name. It seemed like a betrayal, though this apparent third lie was seriously battering Paris’s loyalty.

“I’ve been doing some investigating on my own while my mother’s out of the country,” she replied. “I…may have taken a wrong turn.”

“What’s your birthdate?” he asked.

“March 20,” she answered, “1977.”

“Okay, so…” He was apparently calculating. “I did HMS Pinafore in London from April through November 1976. Miranda Poole can verify that. I wasn’t even around. If memory serves, your mother was playing Martha Jefferson in 1776 on Broadway.”

If that was all true, it was convincing proof of her misdirected data.

“You are mistaken,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. Your mother was a wonderful friend and had I met her when I was still single…” His voice trailed off, silenced by the possibilities. Then he went on. “Dora is the mother of my sons. I wouldn’t have done that to her, rest her soul.”

Paris heaved an accepting sigh. “All right. I’m so sorry I bothered you.” She talked over him as he apologized again. “No, no, it’s not your fault. I just got my clues a little twisted.”

“You should ask your mother.”

He was absolutely right. “I should. Thank you for calling me back. Good luck with your career and your family.”

“Good luck to you, young lady. And…if you can’t find him, I wouldn’t mind standing in for him if you need your car tinkered with, rude clerks leaned on or sage romantic advice.”

She had to smile at that. And feel a little regret that he wasn’t her father.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I’ll remember that.”

Paris hung up the phone and called Miranda immediately. She was clearly mystified by Paris’s questions, but looked through her files and corroborated everything Jeffrey St. John had told Paris.

She felt as though she was going to explode. She reached for a cup of coffee, then changed her mind. She was so enervated, coffee would only make matters worse. And she couldn’t reach for wine because she had to relieve Prue.

Chocolate! she thought. That contained caffeine, too, but it was charged also with serotonin, a mood booster. And her frame of mind was now somewhere below sea level. As she dialed Prue, she praised the scientists who’d made that discovery. Slender hips for Prue’s fashion show would have to take a back seat—no pun intended—to her sanity.

“What do you mean, it’s not him?” Prue asked as they stood in the driveway, the driver’s side door of the cab open, the motor idling.

“I mean Mom lied to me again,” Paris said calmly, doing her best to prevent her anger and disappointment from boiling over. “I mean Jeffrey St. John is not my father.”

Prue studied her worriedly. “Maybe he lied, Paris. Certainly someone presented with that question and unprepared for—”

“He was in London when Mom got pregnant with me. Their agent confirmed that.”

Prue wrapped her arms around Paris. “I’m sorry.”

Paris held on for a moment, then pushed her gently away. “It’s all right. I’ll be fine. You get to work on your designs.” She jingled the car keys. “I’m off.”

“I could work until four. Give you time to…adjust.”

Paris shook her head and slipped behind the wheel. “I’m okay. I’ll probably work late, but if I get tired, I’ll call you.”

“Paris…”

“Thanks for this morning. You get to work. I’m going to drive and think about things.”

“You should drive and think about driving!” Prue shouted over the sound of the motor.

“I will!” Paris promised as she drove away. “But, first,” she said to herself. “I’m buying chocolate.”

RANDY AND CHILLY WERE helping shred lettuce for Paul Balducci’s famous taco salad when Kitty came into the firehouse kitchen with the call.

“Berkshire Cab was T-boned at the northwest intersection of the Common,” she said urgently. “Single occupant, female. Caller says she’s conscious but a little incoherent.”

Randy and Chilly were already running toward the rig.

She drove for a living, Randy thought, edgy and anxious as he raced the rig to the scene. You’d think she’d be careful at intersections. And why was his heart thumping? He was always steady as a rock.

Because he was a compassionate human being, that’s why, and he knew this woman. That was all it was.

But he felt a great jolt in his chest when they arrived on the scene and found the Berkshire Cab crunched. Fortunately, it was on the passenger side. But he couldn’t see Paris for the people crowded around her. Chilly ran interference for him while Randy got their gear.

“How you doing, Miss O’Hara?” Chilly asked as he opened the door. Randy knelt on one knee and took her pulse. She was pale and her voice was strained when she tried to grin and said, “I’ll bet the car that hit me was Addy’s. She’ll do…anything to get us together.”

She sounded as though she was gasping for air, but her vitals were good. Her pulse was a little fast, but her heartbeat was steady and she was awake and responsive.

“Did you hit your chest against the steering wheel?” he asked as he worked over her arms, feeling for breaks.

“No,” she replied. “The collision just…jarred me.”

“Legs hurt?”

“No.”

“Can you move them?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know your name?”

The look she gave him was enough to tell him she hadn’t sustained a blow to the head. “I’m the woman who refuses to date you, remember?”

“Is she okay?” A worried older woman clutching a quilted handbag stood on the other side of the open door. “I thought she saw me. She looked at me, but she kept on going. I couldn’t stop in time.”

“I think it was my fault,” Paris said to Randy, that tight sound in her whisper. “The stop was on my side. I stopped, but…I didn’t see her.”

“That’s right,” a young man standing behind the older woman confirmed. “I saw it all. She stopped, but she mustn’t have seen the car coming ’cause she took off again.”

A police officer had arrived on the scene and was making notes.

“I’m fine. Really.” Paris used the side of the door to pull herself to her feet.

Randy reached out to steady her, suddenly understanding the pained voice with no corroborating physical evidence of injury. It didn’t reflect pain, but a strong effort to hold back tears.

“Chilly’s gone for the gurney,” he said, still holding on to her. “You seem fine, but we’re going to take you to the ER and let them look you over to make sure.”

“No, I’m…”

“Rules, Paris,” he said, ignoring her protests. “Just relax. Here’s the gurney. Just sit down and I’ll swing your legs up. Tell me if anything hurts.”

“Just my insurance premium,” she joked thinly.