'To your face." Carla stuffed a bite of cake into her mouth. "You think you're the only one with problems? With heartache? You won't be so quick to shrug it off when you're pushing fifty and facing
life alone."
"You're pushing fifty from the back end, Mom, and being alone is, again, your choice."
Temper turned Carla's eyes dark and sharp. "I don't appreciate that tone, Stella. I don't have to put up with it."
"No, you don't. You certainly don't. In fact, it would probably be best for both of us if you left. Right now. This was a bad idea. I don't know what I was thinking."
"You want me gone, fine." Carla shoved up from the table. "I'd just as soon get back to my own life.
You never had any gratitude in you, and if you couldn't be on my back about something you weren't happy. Next time you want to cry on somebody's shoulder, call your country bumpkin stepmother."
"Oh, I will," Stella murmured as Carla sailed out of the room. "Believe me."
She rose to carry her cup to the sink, then gave in to the petty urge and smashed it. She wanted to break everything as she'd been broken. She wanted to wreak havoc on the world as it had been on her.
Instead she stood gripping the edge of the sink and praying that her mother would pack and leave quickly. She wanted her out. Why had she ever thought she wanted her to stay? It was always the same between them. Abrasive, combative. No connection, no common ground.
But God, she'd wanted that shoulder. Needed it so much, just for one night. Tomorrow she would do whatever came next. But she'd wanted to be held and stroked and comforted tonight.
With trembling fingers she cleaned the broken shards out of the sink, wept over them a little as she poured them into the trash. Then she walked to the phone and called a cab for her mother.
They didn't speak again, and Stella decided that was for the best. She closed the door, listened to the
cab drive away.
Alone now, she checked on her sons, tucked blankets over them, laid her lips gently on their heads.
They were all she had now. And she was all they had.
She would be a better mother. She swore it. More patient. She would never, never let them down. She would never walk away when they needed her.
And when they needed her shoulder, by God, she would give it. No matter what. No matter when.
"You're first for me," she whispered. "You'll always be first for me."
In her own room, she undressed again, then took Kevin's old flannel robe out of the closet. She wrapped herself in it, in the familiar, heartbreaking smell of him.
Curling up on the bed, she hugged the robe close, shut her eyes, and prayed for morning. For what happened next.
TWO
She couldn't afford to be intimidated by the house, or by its mistress. They both had reputations.
The house was said to be elegant and old,with gardens that rivaled Eden. She'd just confirmed that for herself.
The woman was said to be interesting, somewhat solitary, and perhaps a bit "difficult." A word, Stella knew, that could mean anything from strong-willed to stone bitch.
Either way, she could handle it, she reminded herself as she fought the need to get up and pace. She'd handled worse.
She needed this job. Not just for the salary—and it was generous—but for the structure, for the challenge, for the doing. Doing more, she knew, than circling the wheel she'd fallen into back home.
She needed a life, something more than clocking time, drawing a paycheck that would be soaked up by bills. She needed, however self-help-book it sounded, something that fulfilled and challenged her.
Rosalind Harper was fulfilled, Stella was sure. A beautiful ancestral home, a thriving business. What was it like, she wondered, to wake up every morning knowing exactly where you belonged and where you were going?
If she could earn one thing for herself, and give that gift to her children, it would be the sense of knowing. She was afraid she'd lost any clear sight of that with Kevin's death. The sense of doing, no problem. Give her a task or a challenge and the room to accomplish or solve it, she was your girl.
But the sense of knowing who she was, in the heart of herself, had been mangled that day in September of 2001 and had never fully healed.
This was her start, this move back to Tennessee. This final and face-to-face interview with Rosalind Harper. If she didn't get the job—well, she'd get another. No one could accuse her of not knowing how
to work or how to provide a living for herself and her kids.
But, God, she wanted this job.
She straightened her shoulders and tried to ignore all the whispers of doubt muttering inside her head. She'd get this one.
She'd dressed carefully for this meeting. Businesslike but not fussy, in a navy suit and starched white blouse. Good shoes, good bag, she thought. Simple jewelry. Nothing flashy. Subtle makeup, to bring
out the blue of her eyes. She'd fought her hair into a clip at the nape of her neck. If she was lucky, the curling mass of it wouldn't spring out until the interview was over.
Rosalind was keeping her waiting. It was probably a mind game, Stella decided as her fingers twisted, untwisted her watchband. Letting her sit and stew in the gorgeous parlor, letting her take in the lovely antiques and paintings, the sumptuous view from the front windows.
All in that dreamy and gracious southern style that reminded her she was a Yankee fish out of water.
Things moved slower down here, she reminded herself. She would have to remember that this was a different pace from the one she was used to, and a different culture.
The fireplace was probably an Adams, she decided. That lamp was certainly an original Tiffany. Would they call those drapes portieres down here, or was that too Scarlett O'Hara? Were the lace panels under the drapes heirlooms?
God, had she ever been more out of her element? What was a middle-class widow from Michigan doing in all this southern splendor?
She steadied herself, fixed a neutral expression on her face, when she heard footsteps coming down the hall.
"Brought coffee." It wasn't Rosalind, but the cheerful man who'd answered the door and escorted Stella to the parlor.
He was about thirty, she judged, average height, very slim. He wore his glossy brown hair waved around a movie-poster face set off by sparkling blue eyes. Though he wore black, Stella found nothing butlerlike about it. Much too artsy, too stylish. He'd said his name was David.
He set the tray with its china pot and cups, the little linen napkins, the sugar and cream, and the tiny vase with its clutch of violets on the coffee table.
"Roz got a bit hung up, but she'll be right along, so you just relax and enjoy your coffee. You comfortable in here?"
"Yes, very."
"Anything else I can get you while you're waiting on her?"
"No. Thanks."
"You just settle on in, then," he ordered, and poured coffee into a cup. "Nothing like a fire in January, is there? Makes you forget that a few months ago it was hot enough to melt the skin off your bones. What do you take in your coffee, honey?"
She wasn't used to being called "honey" by strange men who served her coffee in magnificent parlors. Especially since she suspected he was a few years her junior.
"Just a little cream." She had to order herself not to stare at his face—it was, well, delicious, with that full
mouth, those sapphire eyes, the strong cheekbones, the sexy little dent in the chin. "Have you worked for Ms. Harper long?"
"Forever." He smiled charmingly and handed her the coffee. "Or it seems like it, in the best of all possible ways. Give her a straight answer to a straight question, and don't take any bullshit." His grin widened. "She hates it when people kowtow. You know, honey, I love your hair."
"Oh." Automatically, she lifted a hand to it. "Thanks."
'Titian knew what he was doing when he painted that color. Good luck with Roz," he said as he started out. "Great shoes, by the way."