Tracy Kelleher – On Common Ground (страница 6)

Lilah had to laugh. “You didn’t get in that much trouble—okay, you did. But it wasn’t as if you ever flunked a single course—even if I never saw you study.”

“Ah, I had my secret ways.” He pointed to the open door. “Are you going to get in?”

“Are you changing the subject?”

His smile was a little too charming.

“Okay, we’ll let that pass—for now.” She slipped into the seat without further complaining. Until it collapsed under her weight. “I think you need to do some internal renovation in addition to the bodywork,” she said, watching him circle the car.

He slipped into the driver’s side. “Be careful of the loose spring on the right side.”

Lilah shifted closer to the gearshift. “Now you tell me.” The bucket seats were really quite close and the gap separating them, not that wide.

“I’ve been concentrating on working under the hood so far.”

“So you fix cars for a living?”

“It’s just a hobby. And my work is nothing nearly as exciting as yours, that’s for sure.” He turned the key in the ignition and put the car in Reverse, looking over his shoulder before he pulled out.

“No, I’m curious. I mean, what does someone end up doing who spent most of his college years seducing every woman in sight and giving parties that are possibly still talked about in some quarters.”

Justin grinned slyly. “Not possibly. Definitely.”

He still had terrific dimples, Lilah noticed.

“And I didn’t seduce every woman, as you personally can attest to.” He reached across, his forearm almost skimming the front of her shirt. “Excuse me.”

Lilah swallowed with difficulty.

He flipped down the glove box and pulled out a ticket. “Your job is to guard this with your life,” he said and held it out for her.

“And if I don’t?”

“You don’t want to know what the Port Authority will do to you,” he joked.

“Oh, for a minute, I thought you had plans.”

He swung into the lane that led to the payment booths. “Oh, I have plans, but they’ve got nothing to do with parking fees.”

Lilah rolled her eyes. “So what do you do if you’re not in the business of fixing cars? Provide escort service, because I gotta tell you, your pickup lines are getting a bit old.”

He pulled to a stop behind a Cadillac Escalade. “You think? No one’s been complaining lately.”

“Then the women where you live have pretty low standards. Where do you live anyway?”

“In Grantham.” He put the car in first and inched his way up to the booth.

“In Grantham! You’re joking?”

He shook his head. “Ticket, please.” He held out his hand.

Lilah slowly placed the stub in it, careful to avoid skin-to-skin contact. “So you work at the university? Doing what? Coaching crew?”

He paid for the parking and pulled away, smoothly shifting up to second. “No, I gave up rowing a year out of college. I teach.”

Lilah leaned away from him to get a broader view. “You’re kidding me?”

He shook his head and concentrated on the signs.

“You mean at the university?” she asked.

“I have a much higher caliber student.” He deftly avoided a semi crossing three lanes at once. “The turnoff for the turnpike comes up sooner than you think, so I need to get in the far lane.”

“I don’t get it. Higher caliber? What do you mean?”

“Ah, ha! There it is.” He put on his signal and took the sharp exit to the right. “I told you it came up quickly.” He glanced over, obviously pleased with himself. “What do I mean? Isn’t it obvious?”

She shook her head.

“I teach kindergarten.”

CHAPTER FOUR

MIMI HAD HER HEAD BURIED in the refrigerator at her father’s house when she announced loudly, “Well, I for one wouldn’t mind having Justin Bigelow pick me up from the airport—or any place, for that matter.” She shut the stainless-steel door. “Dah, da-ah!” She held a jar of peanut butter triumphantly aloft. Then she spied the label and her enthusiasm diminished. “Wouldn’t you know it? Organic peanut butter with no salt and no sugar. No wonder it was in the fridge.”

“Since when has your dad become all health food conscious?” Lilah asked. She sat on a stool in the Lodge’s sprawling kitchen. Her entire studio apartment could have fit into the center island—with room to spare. The surface gleamed with acres of polished granite.

“It’s not Daddy. People who raid beleaguered companies don’t do organic, or so I’ve been told. It’s the preoccupation of his latest wife, the lovely Noreen, by way of Limerick. It seems no processed food is allowed to touch the lips of my little stepsister Brigid. Noreen even sent Cook to a health food cooking school for further instruction.”

Mimi seemed to think nothing of having “Cook” as part of the household. Ah, the prerogatives of privilege, Lilah thought. Not something that had been part of her upbringing, that was for sure

She watched Mimi unscrew the lid to the peanut butter and stick her finger in. Then she swallowed a glob and gagged. “Oh, yuck,” Mimi howled. “It’s like having sex without an orgasm.”

It had been way too long since Lilah had had sex, let alone an orgasm, for her to comment. Which probably also explained why her next thought was of Justin. She cleared her throat and moved on to the obvious—not about sex. “Noreen? Last I heard your father was married to Adele.”

Adele had originally been Mimi’s nanny before she pushed aside Mimi’s mother to become the second Mrs. Lodge. That was also before Mimi’s mother had committed suicide, a forbidden subject at all times.

“Boy, are you behind the times. After Adele and Daddy had a son, they hired Noreen as a nanny. That son would be my half brother, Conrad Prescott Lodge IV, known to one and all, yourself included, as Press.”

“Which would not have been my first choice for a nickname,” Lilah quipped.

“Be that as it may, Noreen then replaced Adele in the wife department. Daddy, as you may have gathered, seems to focus on the household help when he’s looking for a new mate. It doesn’t require too much legwork, I guess.”

“Look on the bright side. At least he marries them,” Lilah reflected. “Hey, how old is Press now? Last I saw him, he was obsessed with Magic Cards and some little medieval action figures or other.”

“Warhammer figures—the holy grail of prepubescent boys with unwanted blackheads and extensive imaginations.”

“I hope he’s gotten out of that phase—the blackhead part, I mean.”

“Oh, he’s turned out all right, our Press—quite a handsome man-boy. He’s very nice, actually, no thanks to either my father or Adele. I mean, how can you relate to a mother who looks like a boiled prune from playing tennis all day or a father who’s never there? Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he turned out so well?”

“So he’s how old?” Lilah asked.

“He’s just finished up his junior year at Grantham, a biology major but focusing on paleontology. I think he also plays on the tennis team. Anyway, he mentioned that he’s working Reunions, but I don’t know what exactly.”

Mimi abandoned the jar of peanut butter on the counter and wandered over to the adjoining walk-in butler’s pantry. Lilah, being Lilah, screwed the lid back on the jar and put it away in the fridge. Then she followed Mimi, leaning against one of the old-fashioned cabinet drawers that held linens. On one wall, glass-faced cabinets displayed massive amounts of silver serving pieces and glassware. On the others, shelves held neatly arranged packages and jars of whole-wheat flour, honey and granola. Lilah took in the jars of dried beans and legumes of varying dull colors.

“I can see that Noreen has had a major influence on this room, as well,” she said. “When I think back to college, these shelves had the biggest supply of Pop-Tarts I’d ever seen—it just makes me want to cry.”

Mimi let out a dramatic sigh. “You’re right. It’s the fall of civilization as we know it.” She shook her head and marched out of the pantry. “Never mind. There’s still the liquor cabinet.”

Lilah tripped along behind her into the dining room, where drop cloths covered furniture, rugs were rolled up and bundled in plastic, and the walls were denuded of paintings. “So what’s going on? A garage sale?” she said.

Mimi lifted a spattered sheet covering the sideboard. “No, it’s protection from the dust, all part of the current-wife-renovations phenomenon. First comes the new master bedroom—for all the obvious reasons. Then they work their way around the house imprinting their own unique personality. When Adele became the official Number Two, she had the kitchen redone, a wine cellar built and a new pool house put in the back. Now that Noreen rules the roost, she’s converting my old bedroom into a yoga room and turning the library into a screening room. They’ll probably sit around and watch documentaries about eating local.”

Lilah watched Mimi study the labels of various bottles of liquor. “So where are you staying, then?”

Mimi grabbed a bottle by the neck and straightened up. “Why, the pool house of course. It’s my version of the stepdaughter’s revenge. I’m co-opting something that really mattered to that money-grubbing bitch who usurped my mother’s rightful place.” She marched back to the kitchen. “C’mon, I’ve made the unilateral decision that we’re going to have gin and tonics. I think I noticed some designer tonic water in the back of the pantry.”