“Love them. I swear.”
“Want to go out with me Friday night? We won’t get tattoos. We won’t skate. And we won’t shop for rings. Anything else suits me, too.”
“You have a deal.”
Kat smiled, thinking back to their conversation. Then Jacki came into the nursery, real pearls on her neck, looking older in the most lovely way, made somehow more sophisticated by her recent motherhood.
“We’ll be back by midnight. You sure you can do this?”
“I look forward to it.” That was true. Jacki gave her a hug and she and Raoul departed, leaving Kat with Beau.
He willingly came out of his crib and Kat sat in the rocking chair, resting him on her legs. “I hope you’re feeling amusing,” she told him. “Gum display. I guess that means you’re happy? You like the mother and father you picked? Oh, good. I totally agree. And what about me? Am I the world’s most fabulous aunt?”
Beau followed her lips with his all-out blue stare. She gazed down at him and something happened which had not happened before. They really looked at each other. Beau didn’t blink. He had the Tinsley glare down already. He looked and looked and Kat felt that she was being sucked into his new-old soul.
She leaned down close and whispered, “You’ll forget it all soon and this’ll be the only world for you. But before you do I have to ask you a question. Okay?”
His eyebrows raised. He waited with milk-scented, bated breath.
“Have you met your uncle Tom at any point?”
No change in his expression, but he continued fascinated. No kicks, no waves. He listened intently.
“No?” Kat said, disappointed.
“Aaah,” Beau said, suddenly opening his mouth hugely.
At that moment Kat understood. She just hadn’t phrased the question properly. Beau’s scanty hair, soft brown, smelled good as she lowered her head and rubbed her cheek against his. His ears were going to be big, and the nose had the Tinsley crook.
“I get it,” she said. “I think I’ve suspected it for some time. You look at people with the same…perspicacity. Right through me, just like him. He knew I meant no harm. He knew how much I loved and admired him.”
Beau brayed at her. A couple of brand-new baby teeth poked through his bottom gums like kernels of fresh corn.
“I’m going to take such good care of you this time, little buddy.”
Ray went home to Leigh.
When they had moved from Topanga, he had closed up his hobby room, stuffing the house models into the trash bin or sending them to a donation center. How relieved he had felt, letting go. The models had served their purpose, revealing their secrets, and the truth about both his father and his mother. His collection of keys, wrestled away from him by Leigh during foreplay to a particularly fine night of sex, disappeared, never to be seen again.
“Suzanne called,” Leigh said as he walked into their new shingled house in Santa Monica. He threw his car keys onto the painted bench from Leigh Jackson Designs, and then watched her setting down a plate on the trestle table in the kitchen. The bulge in her stomach didn’t slow her down one bit. She was at her shop daily-if not sawing and sanding, she was drawing. “I’m fertile in every sense of the word,” she had laughed when he had remarked upon her incredible energy.
He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, smelling her neck. “Oh, I am so very hungry tonight, Leigh.”
“Good. We’ve got plenty. It’s great to be out of the boonies and close to so much fantastic take-out food again.”
“Who said anything about food?”
She slapped away the hand that had begun a slow exploration of her hip. “This is important. Antoniou is trying to reach you. He wants you to design another house for him.”
Ray took a piece of crust off the pie and put it in his mouth. Chewing, he said, “Tough man to satisfy. Wasn’t the one I already designed enough for him?”
“He loves the Laguna place,” she said.
With the construction moving along at a rapid clip, it already looked fantastic and had gotten press Antoniou appreciated as much as Ray.
“But this time, he wants you to design one in Santorini!”
Ray sat down, laughing too much to keep standing. “You’re kidding.”
“I’ve seen pictures of the island. What a beautiful spot. Denise’s so excited. She’s ready to make a site visit. I told her I’m coming along.”
He put a hand on her stomach, and felt for movement there. “What about needing a new home for ourselves? Our next project together?”
“What, you can’t draw when you’re away from California?” She grinned at him, and put her hand over his to move it to a lumpy place that roiled like a wave. “We can’t dream anywhere else?”
“Okay,” he said. “ Greece first.”
“He said to give you a message. Antoniou.”
“Yeah?” Ray pulled her down on his lap. “Sit,” he said. “Whisper it to me.”
He smelled her perfume as she leaned in, felt her warm breath at his ear.
“He wonders: can he have columns this time?”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people are involved in the making of a novel. We have been lucky over the past years in having the backing of a fine publisher and are very grateful for the hard work undertaken by the imaginative and efficient staff at The Bantam Dell Publishing Group. As this novel presents a different direction for us, the process has been even more trying than usual, but we’ve heard nary a discouraging word.
We would especially like to thank our outstanding literary agent, Nancy Yost of Lowenstein-Yost Associates, Inc., for her steady guidance, enthusiasm, and creative participation. Nancy is that rare combination, a powerhouse professional associate and wonderful friend. Danielle Perez, Senior Editor for the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, contributed her usual unflinching critical eye, maintaining her patient support through an embarrassing number of drafts. Many thanks, Danielle, for your fair and gentle guidance.
For insight into the business of house appraisals, we relied on Mary’s knowledgeable and experienced Plantation Café buddy, Jim, of James J. Nicholas & Associates, real estate appraiser and consultant, Redwood City, California. A warm pat on the arm to you from Nina Reilly, Jim. That’s all you’ll ever get from her, whatever you may dream.
We also want to thank Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, which unwittingly contributed inspiration for our architectural firm. Nobody in Ray’s firm remotely resembles the good people working there, past or present, and none of the opinions about the business or building aesthetics expressed in our novel is theirs-these are all the authors’. However, anyone considering a major project ought to run straight to these talented people to get a taste of real, world-class architecture.
We have thought a lot about our own childhoods in writing this book, and how important our double cousins, Stephanie and Marc O’Shaughnessy, have been to our lives. We grew up together and remain very close. We stole heavily from their childhoods, too, along with cribbing from those of our sister, Meg, and Patrick, our late brother. We used our cousins’ house on Franklin Street as Kat’s childhood home. We will always treasure those hot summer days together in Penn Park, where Marc and Pat got up to no good, and we girls played so nicely.
And a final appreciation goes out to the good friends who put up with our insecurities, busy schedules, and late-night calls: Joan Westlund, Joanna Tamer, Helga Gerdes, and Ardyth Brock.
Perri O'Shaughnessy
