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“Well, it’s not like I really expected you to come. Since when have you made it to any of the important moments in my entire existence?” a sarcastic, high-pitched voice complained. “Anyway, Mom was the one who told me to tell you.”
Well, I was there at the moment of your conception, Nick could have said. But he wisely kept that remark to himself.
“Anyway, there’s no need for you to interrupt your busy schedule on my account,” Amara went on.
“I really want to,” Nick insisted ingenuously. Hanging out at the snotty prep school Amara attended in upstate New York—and where his well-mannered, maturely sensible ex-wife happened to work in the development office—was not high on his list of favorite activities.
“Don’t even pretend, Daddy.” She made the word sound ugly. “Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be there anyway.” The last remark was almost a throwaway.
Nick was immediately suspicious. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not graduating? I thought you were supposed to be some hotshot student?”
“Have you ever seen a single one of my report cards?” she snapped back.
“No, but, somehow I remember you or maybe your mother…”
“Forget Mother.”
Gladly, thought Nick.
“She’s out of the picture, on her honeymoon in Tahiti with Glenn.”
“Honeymoon? Tahiti? And wait a minute. Glenn?”
Nick heard a sigh of exasperation on the other end of the line.
“God, you’re so lame. Don’t the two of you ever talk? I don’t know why I even bother to ask. Anyway, I blamed it all on defective genes, inherited from you.”
Now Nick was really suspicious. “Back up there, Tonto. Blame what on me?”
“My getting kicked out. I figure I’m just keeping up the family tradition.”
So this is what fatherhood was all about? Not that he would really know, given his rare contact with his daughter. “Listen, Amara,” he responded, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice. “As amusing as you may find it to pick on your old man—” he heard snickers, which didn’t improve his mood one bit “—it’s quite another to get kicked out of high school right before graduating. If nothing else, just think of how your mother will take this.” That sounded like something his father would have said about him growing up, Nick thought.
A loud whooshing noise on the phone drowned out whatever Amara was saying. That’s when he went beyond being suspicious to downright panicked. “Where are you? Did you run away?”
“Hardly. I’m at the Grantham Junction train station. I called your production-company office and the receptionist told me where you were. The school wouldn’t let me leave except into the custody of a parent. And since Mom is now doing the dirty with Glenn…”
Nick cringed at the thought. Whatever affection he had had for Amara’s mother, Jeannine, had long since vanished. Still, he couldn’t deny a sense of irritation that his ex had managed to get on with her life while he was still floundering through random relationships.
The least he could do was put on his big-boy pants and do the right thing. “So I guess this means you’re planning on staying with me, right?” he asked.
“It looks that way.” Amara was not giving an inch. “So are you going to pick me up at the station, or do you plan on sending one of your lackeys? I always thought your cameraman was kind of cute.”
Now Nick was really scared. “I’ll be there. It’ll be a few minutes. My car’s in the garage, and I’m at a dinner party right now.”
Lilah approached him with a look of concern. “Problems?” she asked.
“Are you sure that party’s just dinner?” Amara asked sarcastically over the phone.
Nick narrowed his eyes. “The voice you heard was my friend and married host for dinner, thank you very much. Listen, I’ll be right over. Whatever you do, don’t move. And don’t talk to any strangers,” he barked before hanging up.
He thrust his phone into his pocket and rolled his eyes. “That was my teenage daughter. She’s unexpectedly descended on me.” He didn’t feel the need to elaborate. “I’m just going to pick her up at the train station, and somehow I’m gonna find her a place to stay, which, given that Reunions and Commencement are just about to start, is going to be quite a feat.” He rubbed his mouth. “I don’t think she’s up for the close, personal experience of sharing a room with me.”
“Surely there’s another option.” Lilah frowned in thought, and Nick could practically hear the machinery of her altruistic fervor grind into action.
Lilah snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it. I was going to call Mimi about Press and Hoagie Palace. Why don’t I ask her if your daughter can stay at her family’s place on the western side of town? The house is enormous.”
“It could easily provide shelter for a whole village,” Justin said.
“Well, it’s probably going to take a whole village to keep my teenage daughter in line.”
“It can’t be that bad,” Lilah said with a shake of her head. “Listen, wait a minute. I’ll call Mimi now before you leave and that way you’ll know.”
Nick watched her leave and turned to Justin. “Is she always this determined?”
“Why do you think she’s so good at what she does?”
“You’ve got a point.” Then he waved to the sink. “Move over, and let a pro take charge.”
After a few minutes, Lilah returned, phone in hand. Nick was wet up to his elbows with soapy water as he washed the dishes before passing them to Justin to dry.
“Mimi says it’s no problem. The pool house is vacant, so she can have privacy.”
Nick turned as he sponged off the silverware. “If she’s sure? I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Lilah repeated his words into the phone, then looked up. “She says it’s no problem.” Then she listened to the phone again, nodding, before hanging up. “So, it’s all settled then. Mimi even said that if your daughter—”
“Amara,” Nick supplied.
“Amara, nice.” Lilah smiled. “Anyway, if Amara wants to help out, she can probably provide some free babysitting for Mimi’s little half sister, Brigid. She’s adorable. Seven going on forty. Here, I think I even have a photo of her on my phone from last year’s Reunions.” She quickly pressed the screen on her cell phone, scrolling through her photos. “Here she is. Doesn’t she look cute with the ribbons in her hair? I think she even insisted that Mimi put them in.” She held out her arm so that he could look.
Nick passed the forks to Justin. “Cute,” he said, barely glancing at the photo. That seemed to be the thing one said in these circumstances.
“She looks a little like Mimi, but really, I see a lot of Noreen in her. Noreen’s her mother, and she works with me at the nonprofit.” She began flipping through more photos. “Wait, here’s another.” Lilah thrust out her hand again. “You’ve got to see this one.”
Nick stopped washing the large serving bowl and squinted. He saw a little girl laughing as she sat on the shoulders of a young guy. She seemed to have lost one of her ribbons, not that it bothered her. But it was the guy that really got Nick’s attention. His mussed-up blond hair looked sun bleached from high-class stuff like sailing or polo. He wore an orange polo shirt that hugged his slim body. Could you say negative body fat? His large hands gripped the girl’s small ankles. A row of perfect white teeth seemed to shine as his smile pierced his cheeks, the sunburned skin showing nary a blemish. The gods would not allow it.
Nick’s nose started to itch and he rubbed it with the back of a soapy hand. “And he’s?” Nick asked, pointing but careful not to drench the phone.
“Oh, Mimi’s half brother, Press. The one we talked about earlier? He graduates from Grantham in another week.”
Nick’s felt a sense of dread well in the base of his throat. “But he lives in the dorms, right?” Please, pretty please, a little voice inside begged.
“Sure, just like we all did.” Lilah kept her eyes on the phone’s screen as she went through some more pictures, a smile curving her lips. “Though maybe with exams and everything over, he’s moved back home.”
CHAPTER FIVE
PENELOPE©GLANCED©DOWN at the watch on her wrist. The appointment had been for eight o’clock. It was now eight-oh-six. Exactly. Penelope knew it was correct since every morning she set her watch to official U.S. Time, using the government website.
Justin had called her around seven in the morning, knowing she was an early riser, to let her know that the celebrity chef and author Nicholas Rheinhardt was in Grantham to speak at Class Day ceremonies and also to shoot an episode about local cuisine. Penelope remembered him from her college days, not that he would remember her. He had been Justin’s Residential Advisor, and as far as she could tell, he spent most of his time avoiding anything resembling advising, let alone remaining in residence. He had appeared to be more interested in taking the train to New York City to hear grunge bands, only to return to campus toting several Peking ducks, heads and all.
And now it seemed that he had mentioned to Justin an interest in filming some scenes in the Rare Book Library. Something to go along with a more scholarly approach to food and society.
Penelope found this odd. Not that someone would be interested in the library. Grantham University, after all, had one of the finest collections in the country, if not the world. Research scholars, museums, other libraries, and film and television people asked to use specific works, or to borrow manuscripts for all kinds of scholarly and commercial endeavors. The process for approval varied from object to object, with the standard legal, financial and insurance hoops to jump through.
Mr. Rheinhardt apparently preferred not to do any jumping.
So, she had reluctantly agreed to meet him, assuming nothing would come of it in the end. “All right, Justin, you may tell him that I’ll be here. I’ll go in early and pull a few texts relevant to his particular field. But this meeting is strictly preliminary. No cameras.” She’d cringed at the idea of cameras.
“Of course, of course,” Justin had agreed in his usual easygoing fashion. Somewhere in his prenatal development he had acquired a mutant “no worries” gene that was not a normal part of the family mix. “I’ll let Nick know. He’ll be very happy.”
Unconvinced, Penelope had hung up. But like the conscientious person that she was, she had arrived at the library forty-five minutes early to search for manuscripts pertaining to food and its preparation—not that she didn’t know the entire extent of the holdings already, but one could never be too careful. Then she’d pulled the material and put it on display in a locked conference room off to the side of the main reading room. The whole procedure had taken twenty-six minutes.
That had still left nineteen minutes to check her email, make a cup of coffee and do some deep-breathing exercises.
Now as she stood sentry at the front double doors to the modern building, she looked at her watch again. If she had known Mr. Rheinhardt would be late, she would have used the extra time to watch one of his old episodes online, to perhaps gain some insight into his character since his college days.
And then what? They’d discuss the street food of Penang Pen? She thought not.
But then she remembered an episode she’d accidentally caught while flipping channels. Yes, much to her father’s dismay, Penelope owned a flat-screen television—a small one, mind you. “The nature shows on public television are quite fascinating,” she had argued, appealing to her mother’s interests. Her father had coughed dismissively.
Nature shows weren’t the only things fascinating, Penelope thought as she cooled her heels. Nicholas Rheinhardt had definitely aged in the seventeen years since she’d last seen him in college. But at least on-screen, those years appeared to have provided real-life knowledge—as opposed to the book-learning variety—and a sense of mocking self-deprecation that only someone truly confident in his skin possesses. Not that she personally had ever experienced such a sensation.
Penelope pursed her lips. Perhaps she should just watch an episode after all?
* * *
“WHERE©THE©HELL©IS©SHE, and why doesn’t she answer her phone?” Nick threw his cell phone on the dashboard of the rental car.
Georgie, who was driving, glanced over. “Hey, watch it. That’s genuine plastic. And besides, what are you getting all worked up about? It’s only eight in the morning. Amara’s probably fast asleep with her phone turned off. My kids at that age used to sleep past noon when they didn’t have school.”
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? She should have been in school,” Nick replied.
The traffic inched forward on Main Street only to grind to a halt when the light turned red. “So why’d she get kicked out?” Georgie asked. He tapped his fingertips on the steering wheel.
Nick stared at him. “You know, I didn’t even ask. What kind of a father doesn’t even ask his kid the reason for being thrown out of school?”
“I don’t know. A total screwup?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Nick glanced past Georgie at a small movie theater on the corner. The marquee displayed the title of some esoteric foreign flick. “Maybe Amara would want to take in a film? She seems like the artsy-fartsy type.”
The light changed and the traffic sputtered forward. Georgie eased his foot on the gas pedal. Three cars advanced. Then a car wanting to turn left held up everybody behind it. Naturally the light turned red again.
Georgie shook his head. “If I had known traffic would have been this bad in this two-bit town, I would have suggested walking. I hate being late. Maybe we should give this Penelope lady a call?”
Nick reached for his phone on the dashboard and checked the time. “Nah, we still have five minutes.”
Georgie looked unconvinced. “You’re really sure this is worth it? I mean, we’ve already got that Hoagie joint set up for tonight.”
Nick held up his hand. “Which reminds me. I’ve got to text Mimi Lodge—”
“The war correspondent?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Definitely get her to come. She’d be fantastic for ratings. Plus, I’ve never known any other woman to do quite so much for a kuffiyeh—you know, those Palestinian scarves all the correspondents wear?”
Nick tapped away as he texted. “Glad to know you’re such a fashion maven. Anyway, she promised to have her kid brother there, too. A nice…ah…sort of quasi-multigenerational thing.”
Georgie nodded.
The light changed. “Finally we have action.” Georgie gunned the engine so they didn’t waste any more time. “According to the GPS we’re within spitting distance. Hey, isn’t that the Hoagie Palace?” He pointed to the left. The building’s trim was painted a combination of orange and black, Grantham University’s colors, so it was virtually impossible to miss.
Nick sighed. “My heart is already going pitter-patter.” He fluttered his hand on his chest. In deference to meeting a librarian type, he’d traded in his usual frayed souvenir T-shirt for an open-neck oxford-cloth shirt and a blue blazer. Only the quest for the Holy Grail—homemade ’nduja—could bring out this sartorial condescension. “Trust me, this library gig will be worth it. We’ll go through the whole food-manuscript charade, and then get down to the real meat and potatoes, so to speak.”
“Okay, supposedly just a right at the next light, and we’re practically there,” Georgie said.
The next light changed to red.
Nick laughed. “That’ll teach you to be optimistic.”
Georgie nodded in agreement. “Why do I even try?” he joked. Then his face turned more serious. “You know, Nick, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about your relationship with Amara.”
“You mean my lack of relationship—totally my fault, by all stretches of the imagination.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I really had anything to do with bringing up our kids—not with the constant travel. It was all Marjorie, really.” He bit down on his bottom lip.
Georgie’s wife, Marjorie, had died two years ago of an aneurism. Nick knew that the suddenness had rocked him, but through it all, Georgie had insisted on working. “It’s my therapy,” he had said at the time in an unthreatening voice that was so not Georgie.
“She was a great lady,” Nick answered now.
“She was,” Georgie agreed. “But you know, even she had her moments with the kids, especially Sallie, our second, when she was Amara’s age. Kids are kids. They talk tough and give you all sorts of grief. But deep down you can’t imagine life without them.”
“You promise?” Nick asked.
* * *
AMARA©LAY©IN©THE©QUEEN-SIZE©BED in the pool house staring at prints of America’s Cup sailboats artfully arranged on the walls. On the nightstand, the glass eye of a sculpted seagull stared back at her. She blinked, grateful that she hadn’t noticed it last night before she’d fallen asleep.
It was about the only thing she had to be grateful about. Mostly she was scared stiff that by getting kicked out before graduation she’d blown her acceptance to Grantham University.
The headmistress had informed her that her guidance counselor would be letting Grantham know about her changed status. “In light of that news, do you have anything further you’d like to say about the incident?” she’d asked, her half-glasses sliding down her nose. Photographs of the woman shaking hands with an Academy Award-winning actress and a prominent female senator, both graduates of the Edwina Worth School for Girls, had been prominently displayed.
Amara had silently shaken her head. She wasn’t about to rat out anyone else. She was already something of an outsider. Not only was she a day student among mostly boarders, her mother also worked in the development office. A double strike against her.
True, having a father who had a TV show counted in her favor. But the positives of being Nicholas Rheinhardt’s daughter stopped there, as far as she was concerned. He was a nonentity who, when she was younger, didn’t always send monthly checks. In more recent years, though, he was far more generous where the money was concerned.
As for any personal interaction? Did one week a year in Manhattan count as father-daughter bonding time? When she mostly ended up going to museums by herself or sitting in his production offices reading? Sure, he seemed cool and all—some of her classmates said that, for an old guy, he looked sexy.
But to Amara he remained someone she was supposed to love, who she wanted to love but who had hardly shown any interest in her love.
So screw him.
Yet, here she was. With him.
Her so-called father might have noticed the black fingernail polish and the purple streak in her dark hair. And if he had—a big if, in Amara’s opinion—he might have assumed that they were signs of subversive behavior. Truth be told, these affectations were more an indication of boredom. After all, there wasn’t a lot to do at an all-girls private school in what had to be the dreariest town in upstate New York.
And as she mulled her sorry state, Amara heard a splash in the pool outside. She got out of bed and peeked through the white sailcloth curtains. It was a guy. A couple of years older than she. The cutest guy ever, swimming laps. He was strong, fit. And he had shoulders, actual shoulders, and real abdominal muscles just like in the ads.
She pulled open the door a few inches and took a tentative step into the sunlight.
He reached her end of the pool and slapped his fingertips on the wall before standing up in the shallow water. He whipped back his head. Water sprayed. He casually ran his hand through his wet hair, pushing it off his forehead. Then he placed his hands on his hips where the waistband of his low-slung trunks hung. “I thought I spotted someone looking out the window,” he said with a smile.
Amara blinked as she watched a droplet wander down the pale line of blond hair that trailed toward his waistband.
“My name’s Press,” he announced.
Embarrassed, her head shot up. “I’m Amara,” she squeaked. “This woman, Mimi, said it was okay for me to stay here for a few days while my father has work in Grantham.”
Press laughed. “That’s just like my half sister—to invite someone when it’s not really her house.”
“If it’s any problem…”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can stay.” Then he studied her. “So how come you’re here? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
She pulled in the sides of her cheeks. “I got kicked out of private school right before graduation.”
“That sucks.” He ran his hand through his hair again. “Can’t your parents just bribe the school administration with some fat donation? Happens all the time.”
“My father barely knows the name of my school, so I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“What about your mom?”
Amara pressed her lips together, then sighed. “She doesn’t know I was suspended. She’s on her honeymoon on some Polynesian island, and her phone doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Well, won’t she be surprised when she shows up at your graduation and you’re not there?”
Amara swallowed. “I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking. The whole thing just blew up yesterday.”
Press picked up a beach towel from a chaise and started to dry himself off. Amara turned her head away, taking a sudden interest in the climbing roses on a trellis. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the way he moved the towel across his back. This time her throat was too dry to swallow.
He tossed the towel over one shoulder and slipped his feet into a pair of well-worn flip-flops. “So what are you planning on doing? Hang around the pool all day?”
Amara nervously slipped a lock of hair behind her ear. “No, I think from what my father and your sister Mimi said, I’m supposed to be babysitting. You have a little sister?”
“Half sister. Brigid. She’s cool. For a seven-year-old. But she’s in school until three, so you still have most of the day to yourself.”
“I guess I’ll just wait around here. I’ve got a book I could read.”
“That sounds pretty boring. Why don’t you just hang out with me?”
“Shouldn’t I let your other sister know?”
“You mean Mimi?” Press shook his head. “Trust me, Mimi will eventually wake up later, a little fuzzy about the fact that she invited you to stay here.” He used the tip of the towel to get water out of his ear. “I mean, you can say no. Or if you think your father wouldn’t like it?”
Amara shook her head. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind since he’s really tied up with work. My being here suddenly has only complicated his life.” She didn’t feel like filling him in on the details of who her father was. The conversation would then inevitably turn to questions about what Nicholas Rheinhardt was really like, was he really as cool as he seemed on TV. The thing of it was, she really didn’t have the foggiest idea how to answer.
“Well, in that case, why don’t I meet you back here in about fifteen minutes? I need to take a shower.” Press pointed over his shoulder to the house. It was a stately brick Georgian manor complete with towering columns and shiny black shutters. “And then we can go to the club to get some breakfast. Normally I live in a dorm on campus and eat there. But since I’m graduating from Grantham next week, and classes and exams are done, I decided to crash at home for a change.” Unconsciously he rubbed his tanned washboard stomach.
Amara’s mouth dropped open.
“You haven’t eaten yet, right?”
She snapped her jaw shut. “Ah, no.” She hadn’t even had dinner last night.
“They have scrambled eggs and bacon and stuff like that at the club. You’re not a vegetarian, are you? A lot of girls are vegetarians. I just don’t get that. There’s no way I could live without bacon.”
Amara hadn’t had a bite of meat in more than three years. It was a philosophical thing—she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting animals—not a weight thing, the way it was for some of her friends.