Mary, Mary (2 page)
MARY SMITH’S ALARM CLOCK
went off at 5:30
A.M.
, but she was already awake. Wide awake, thinking about, of all things, how to make a porcupine costume for her daughter Ashley’s school play.
What would she possibly use for porcupine needles?
It had been quite a late night, but she never seemed to be able to shut off the mental ticker tape that was her “to do” list.
They needed more peanut butter, Kid’s Crest, Zyrtec syrup, and one of those little bulbs for the bathroom night-light. Brendan had soccer practice at three, which started at the same time as—and fifteen miles away from—Ashley’s tap class. Figure that one out. Adam’s sniffles could have gone either way in the night, and Mary
could
not
afford another sick day. Speaking of which, she needed to put in for some second shifts at her job.
And this was the
quiet
part of the day. It wasn’t long before she was at the stove, calling out orders and fielding the usual spate of morning-time needs.
“Brendan, help your sister tie her shoes, please. Brendan, I’m talking to you.”
“Mommy, my socks feel weird.”
“Turn them inside out.”
“Can I take Cleo to school? Can I please? Please, Mommy? Oh, please?”
“Yes, but you’ll have to get her out of the dryer. Brendan, what did I ask you to do?”
Mary expertly flipped a portion of perfectly fluffed scrambled eggs onto each of their plates just as the bread in the four-slice toaster popped up.
“Breakfast!”
While the two older ones dug in, she took Adam to his room and dressed him in his red overalls and a sailor shirt. She cooed to him as she carried him back out to his high chair.
“Who’s the handsomest sailor in town? Who’s my little man?” she asked, and tickled him under his chinny-chin-chin.
“
I’m
your little man,” Brendan said with a smile. “I am, Mommy!”
“You’re my
big
little man,” Mary returned, chucking him lightly under the chin. She squeezed his shoulders. “And getting bigger every day.”
“That’s ’cause I clean my plate,” he said, chasing the last bit of egg onto a fork with the flat of his thumb.
“You’re a good cook, Mommy,” Ashley said.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Now come on, let’s go. B.B.W.W.”
While she cleared the dishes, Brendan and Ashley marched back down the hallway in a singsong chant. “Brush, brush, wash, wash. Teeth and hair, hands and face. Brush, brush, wash, wash . . .”
While the older two washed up, she put the dishes into the sink for later; gave Adam’s face a quick once-over with a wet paper towel; took the kids’ lunches, packed the night before, out of the fridge; and dropped each one into the appropriate knapsack.
“I’m going to put Adam into his car seat,” she called out. “Last one outside is a googly worm.”
Mary hated the rotten-egg thing, but she knew the value of a little innocent competition for keeping the kids in gear. She could hear them squealing in their rooms, half laughing, half scared they’d be the last one out the door and into her old jalopy.
Gawd, who said
jalopy
anymore? Only Mary, Mary. And who said
Gawd
?
As she strapped Adam in, she tried to remember what it was that had kept her up so late the night before. The days—and now the nights as well—seemed to blur all together in a jumble of cooking, cleaning, driving, list-making, nose-wiping, and more driving. L.A. definitely had its major-league disadvantages. It seemed as if they spent half their lives in the car, stalled in traffic.
She should really get something more fuel efficient than the big old Suburban she had brought west.
She looked at her watch. Somehow, ten minutes had gone by. Ten precious minutes. How did that always happen? How did she seem to
lose
time?
She ran back to the front door and ushered Brendan and Ashley outside. “What is taking you two so long? We’re going to be late again. Jeezum crow, just look at the time,” said Mary Smith.
HERE WE WERE,
smack in the middle of an age of angry and cynical myth-busting, and suddenly I was being called “America’s Sherlock Holmes” in one of the country’s more influential, or at least best-read, magazines. What a complete crock that was, and it was still bugging me that morning. An investigative journalist named James Truscott had decided to follow me around and report on the murder cases I was working on. I’d fooled him, though. I’d gone on vacation with the family.
“I’m going to Disneyland!” I told Truscott and laughed the last time I’d seen him in D.C. The writer had only smirked in response.
For anyone else, maybe a vacation was an ordinary thing. Happened all the time, twice a year sometimes. For the Cross family, it was a major event, a new beginning.
Appropriately, “A Whole New World” was playing in the hotel lobby as we passed through.
“Come on, you pokes!” Jannie urged us as she ran ahead. Damon, newly minted teenager, was somewhat more reserved. He stuck close and held the door for Nana as we passed from air-conditioned comfort out into bright Southern California sunshine.
Actually, it was a full-out attack on the senses from the moment we left the hotel. Scents of cinnamon, fried dough, and some kind of zingy Mexican food reached our noses all at the same time. I could also hear the distant roar of a freight train, or so it seemed, along with screams of terror—the good kind, the “don’t stop” kind. I’d heard enough of the other kind to appreciate the difference.
Against all odds, I had put in for vacation, been approved, and actually gotten out of town before FBI Director Burns or his people came up with a half-dozen reasons why I couldn’t go away at this time. The kids’ first choice had been Disney World and Epcot Village in Florida. For my own reasons, and also since it was hurricane season down South, I steered us to Disneyland and their newest park, Disney’s California Adventure.
“California, indeed.” Nana Mama shaded her eyes from the sun glare. “I haven’t seen a naturally occurring thing since we arrived here, Alex. Have you?”
She pursed her lips and pulled down the corners of her mouth, but then she couldn’t help laughing, putting herself in stitches. That’s Nana. She almost never laughs at other people—she laughs with them.
“You can’t fool me, old woman. You just love to see us all together. Anywhere, anyhow, anytime. We could be in Siberia for all you’d care.”
She brightened. “Now,
Siberia
. That’s somewhere I
would
like to see. A trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Sayany Mountains, Lake Baikal. You know, it wouldn’t kill American children to take a vacation once in a while where they actually learned something about another culture.”
I rolled my eyes in Damon and Jannie’s direction. “Once a teacher . . .”
“Always a teacher,” Jannie said.
“Always a tee-cha,” repeated Little Alex. He was three years old, and our own little myna bird. We got to see him too infrequently, and I was partially amazed by everything he did. His mother had taken him back to Seattle more than a year ago. The painful custody struggles between Christine and me were still dragging on.
Nana’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Where do we go fir—”
“Soarin’ Over California!” Jannie had it out before Nana was even finished asking the question.
Damon chimed in. “Okay, but then we’re hitting California Screamin’.”
Jannie stuck her tongue out convivially at her brother, and he gently hip-checked her in return. It was like Christmas morning for these two—even the disagreements were mostly in fun.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “And then we’ll hit
It’s Tough to Be a Bug!
for your little brother.”
I scooped up Alex Junior in my arms and held him close, kissed both of his cheeks. He looked back at me with his peaceable little smile.
Life was good again.
THAT WAS WHEN I SAW
James Truscott approaching, all six foot five of him, with waves of red hair hanging down over the shoulders of a black leather jacket.
Somehow, some way, Truscott had gotten his editors in New York to agree to do a continuing series on me, based on my track record for getting involved with high-profile murder cases on a fairly regular basis. Maybe it was because the last one, involving the Russian Mafiya, had been the worst case of my career and also very high-profile. I had taken the liberty of doing some research on Truscott. He was only thirty, educated at Boston University. His specialty was true crime, and he’d published two nonfiction books on the mafia. A phrase I’d heard about him stuck in my head: He plays dirty.
“Alex,” he said, smiling and extending his hand as if we were old friends meeting by chance. Reluctantly, I shook hands with Truscott. It wasn’t that I disliked him, or objected to his right to write whatever stories he wanted to, but he had already intruded into my life in ways that I felt were inappropriate—like writing daily e-mails and arriving at crime scenes, and even at our house in D.C. Now, here he was, showing up on our family vacation.
“Mr. Truscott,” I said in a quiet voice, “you know I’ve declined to cooperate with these articles.”
“No problem.” He grinned. “I’m cool with that.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m officially off the clock. This is family time. Can you give us some space? We’re at Disneyland.”
Truscott nodded as though he understood completely, but then he said, “Your vacation will be interesting to our readers. The calm-before-the-storm kind of thing. This is great! Disneyland is perfect. You have to understand that, right?”
“I don’t!” Nana said, and stepped toward Truscott. “Your right to stick out your arm ends at the other person’s nose. You ever hear that wise bit of advice, young man? Well, you should have. You know, you have some kind of nerve being here.”
Just then, though, I caught something even more disturbing out of the corner of my eye—a movement that didn’t fit the circumstances: a woman in black, slowly circling to our left.
She had a digital camera and was already taking pictures of us—of my family. Of Nana confronting Truscott.
I shielded the kids as best I could, and then I really lit into James Truscott. “Don’t you dare photograph my kids!” I said. “Now you and your girlfriend get out of here. Please, go.”
Truscott raised his hands over his head, smiled cockily, and then backed away. “I have rights, just like you, Dr. Cross. And she’s not my fucking girlfriend. She’s a colleague. This is all business. It’s a story.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, just get out of here. This little boy is three years old. I don’t want my family’s story in a magazine. Not now, not ever.”
WE ALL TRIED TO FORGET
about James Truscott and his photographer for a while after that. Did pretty good, too. After umpteen different rides, a live show starring Mickey Mouse, two snacks, and countless carnival games, I dared to suggest that we head back to the hotel.
“For the pool?” Damon asked, grinning. We had glimpsed the five-thousand-square-foot Never Land Pool on our way to breakfast early that morning.
When I got to the front desk, there was a message waiting, one that I was expecting. Inspector Jamilla Hughes of the San Francisco Police Department was in town and needed a meeting with me.
ASAP, if not sooner,
said the note.
That means move it, buster
.
I gave my smiling regrets to the pool sharks and took my leave of them. After all, I was on vacation, too.
“Go get ’em, Daddy,” Jannie ribbed me. “It’s Jamilla, right?” Damon gave a thumbs-up and a smile from behind the fogged lens of a snorkel mask.
I crossed the grounds from the Disneyland Hotel to the Grand Californian, where I had booked another room. This place was an entirely American Arts and Crafts affair, much more sedate than our own hotel.
I passed through stained-glass doors into a soaring lobby. Redwood beams rose six floors overhead, and Tiffany lamps dotted the lower level, which centered on an enormous fieldstone fireplace.
I barely noticed any of it, though. I was already thinking about Inspector Hughes up in room 456.
Amazing—I was on vacation.
JAMILLA GREETED ME
at the door, lips first, a delicious kiss that warmed me from head to toe. I didn’t get to see much of her wraparound baby-blue blouse and black pencil skirt until we pulled apart. Black sling-back heels put her at just about the right height for me. She sure didn’t look like a homicide cop today.
“I just got in,” she said.
“Just in time,” I murmured, reaching for her again. Jamilla’s kisses were always like coming home. I started to wonder where all this was going, but then I stopped myself.
Just let it be, Alex.
“Thanks for the flowers,” she whispered against my ear. “
All
of the flowers. They’re absolutely beautiful. I know, I know, not as beautiful as me.”
I laughed out loud. “That’s true.”
I could see over her shoulder that the hotel’s concierge, Harold Larsen, had done a good job for me. Rose petals were scattered in a swath of red, peach, and white. I knew there were a dozen long-stems on the bedside table, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the minifridge, and a couple of carefully chosen CDs in the stereo—best of Al Green, Luther Ingram, Tuck and Patti’s
Tears of Joy,
some early Alberta Hunter.
“I guess you really did miss me,” Jamilla said.
Suddenly, the two of us were like one body, my mouth exploring hers, my hands holding her up from the rear. She already had my shirt half unbuttoned, and then I was reaching down her side for the zipper on her skirt. We kissed again, and her mouth was so fresh and sweet, like it always was.
“‘If lovin’ you is wrong, I don’t want to be right,’” I sang in a half-whisper.
“Loving me isn’t wrong.” Jamilla smiled.
I danced her backward toward the bedroom.
“How do you do this in heels?” I asked along the way.
“You’re right,” she said, and kicked off her shoes even as her skirt slid to the floor.
“We should light these candles,” I said. “You want me to light them?”
“Shhh, Alex. It’s already warm enough in here.”
“Yeah, it is.”
There wasn’t a whole lot of talking for a while after that. Jamilla and I always seemed to know what the other was thinking anyway—no conversation required at certain times. And I had missed her, even more than I thought I would.
We pressed hard against each other, chest to chest, breathing in a nice rhythm. I rose and hardened against her leg, and I could feel moistness on my thigh. Then I reached up and held Jam’s lovely face in both of my hands.
I felt as though she could hear my thoughts. She smiled, drinking in what I hadn’t even said. “Is that so?” she finally whispered, then winked. We had shared the mind-reading joke before.
We kissed some more, and Jamilla breathed deeply as I slowly worked my lips over her neck, her breasts, and her stomach. Everywhere I stopped, I wanted to stay, but just as badly, I couldn’t wait to move on. She wrapped her arms around my back and rolled us both over on the bed.
“How can you be so hard and so soft?” I asked.
“It’s a woman thing. Just enjoy it. But I could say the same about you. Hard and soft?”
A moment later, I was inside Jamilla. She sat bolt upright, her head thrown back, her lower lip clenched tightly between her teeth. Sunlight reached through the bedroom window and slowly crossed her face. Absolutely gorgeous, all of it.
We climaxed together—one of those ideals that everyone says is just an ideal, but it’s not, not always, anyway.
She lay lightly down on top of me, the air slowly escaping from her lungs, our bodies melding as they always did.
“You’re going to be too tired for the rides tomorrow,” she finally said and smiled.
“Speaking of rides . . . ,” I said.
She started to laugh. “Promises, promises.”
“But I always keep mine.”