Handful of Dreams (28 page)

The studio was like any other: large, cavernous, filled with cameras, cameramen, and production assistants. Susan was quickly miked and told to get comfortable on a white sofa that faced her hostess’s chair on a dais. Tina assured her the questions would be chatty and’ easy, and then they were given a ten-second warning.

And ten seconds later Susan learned that Tacky Tina did indeed plan to skewer her. In her introduction to her audience Tina allowed her voice to drip with insinuation. “Neither Miss Anderson nor Lane Publishing try to hide the fact that the book is based on
the
Peter Lane. And when we come back, we’re going to get to the…nitty-gritty, shall we say?” A delicate little laugh, a lowering of her voice, a movement that brought her conspiratorially closer to the camera. “We’re going to delve here today and find out just how well—and how intimately—Susan Anderson actually knew Peter Lane.”

There was to be a sixty-second commercial. Tina smiled at Susan, and Susan smiled right back, certain that she could handle the woman. She felt as if she had been challenged to a fight, and there was nothing like that feeling of being armed for combat—righteously!

But something happened in that sixty seconds. She didn’t see exactly how, nor could she understand why or quite what happened in that short span. Before the camera rolled again, however, David Lane was miked and sitting next to her—to her surprise and apparently to Tina’s surprise, as well, for there, was definitely a glint of annoyance in her eyes as she saw David sit.

“What—”

“I’m David Lane, Tina,” he said smoothly, and he managed to look as if he hadn’t acted on the spur of the moment, as if he hadn’t moved like the speed of lightning to be where he was. He smiled, and that smile was a better warning and challenge, Susan was quite certain, than any that Tacky Tina ever had been given in her life.

Tina tossed her head and smiled plasticly to the camera. “A surprise guest! The late publisher’s son himself, Mr. David Lane. Now, Mr. Lane, do come clean! What are we hiding here?”

“Hiding?” David managed to sound completely surprised and innocent. His smile deepened. “I don’t think there’s a thing to hide. My father’s life is an open book, which you can discover by opening the pages.” He went on and on—smoothly, silkily. Tina was as lulled by the sound of his voice as Susan was amazed. He was managing to keep her included in the interview, and somehow keep Tina out of it. He also managed to imply that anyone looking for skeletons in closets surely hid a few of their own—that, or they were dreadfully bored with life.

The interview ended with Tina furious yet not sure exactly what he had done.,

And Susan wasn’t sure what she felt herself. A certain anger because, dammit, she could have handled it herself. And because, she thought, wincing as he led her out of the studio, he had stepped in simply because he had believed exactly the opposite of what he had said. In his eyes Susan Anderson did have a whole packet of sins to hide—sins that might degrade his father’s memory.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked sharply as he opened the passenger’s seat to the Camaro they were driving in Detroit.

“Nothing.”

She sat in the seat, anxious to get back to the hotel—and then anxious to get away from him. In just a ’few hours she could find a harbor in this strange storm, the company of her open and honest cousin.

He folded himself into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition, his teeth grating like the motor. “Don’t tell me nothing. What’s the matter?”

“All right!” She spun in the seat. “I’m supposed to thank you, right? For saving me from her clutches? Well, I’m sorry! I resent what you did! You implied that I was a bumbling fool! And you didn’t come up there for me, anyway! You came up to save the very precious Lane name because you’re so damned convinced that there’s something to save it from!”

“There is, isn’t there?”

“Go to hell.”

He shot her a glance, his eyes crystal blue with anger. Susan noted a taxi jamming on its brakes ahead of them. “David! Watch the road!”

“I know how to drive!”

“You almost hit him!”

“Then shut up!”

She did, compressing her mouth tightly. He watched the road, and she stared straight ahead until they reached the towering hotel. She was out of the car before he could help, striding toward the lobby to call a cab.

“Susan—”

“I’m off, Mr. Lane. I have a dinner engagement.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“No thank you.”

The doorman was signaling a cab. David narrowed his eyes on her very sharply and spoke softly, “Suit yourself, Miss Anderson. But remember, please, that we leave Detroit at ten
A.M.
The weather is bad—leave yourself enough time to get back here at a decent hour tonight.”

A cabbie sprang out and opened the door to his battered taxi for her.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Lane. I do live alone, and I’m quite capable of looking after myself. Good night!”

Susan gave the cabdriver the address to the restaurant in Windsor. He sighed and told her that he would have to charge her an arm and a leg to drive her over the Canadian border. Susan was sure she could have found someone who wouldn’t rip her off so outrageously, but she wasn’t about to get out of the cab with David still watching her from the doors of the Westin Hotel.

At the border she was questioned. Susan mused that if she were carrying a pack of explosives, she certainly wouldn’t admit it. But maybe the bored guard was more experienced than she could imagine; maybe he knew from her face that she wasn’t the type to be an international weapons smuggler.

She arrived at the restaurant thirty minutes early, yet was glad that she had. The night was a dark and ominous one; snow fell from the sky and turned to slush on the ground. A little guiltily, she made a mental note to start back to the hotel early, no matter how she and Madeline got to talking.

Sitting by herself and sipping a seltzer while she waited for her cousin, Susan felt her temper cool. The restaurant was a nice one, filled with warm, varnished wood tables, the walls lined with pewter trenchers and tankards, like an old English establishment.

She leaned back, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. David hadn’t said anything at all to her this time around that could be construed as mocking or demeaning. Oh, they’d argued over his appearance, her tardiness, and all, but he’d apologized too. It was as if he wanted to forget the past, almost as if he cared, even though he still believed that her “sordid past” did exist.

There had been moments so special and so nice between them! If only she could tell him the truth. But to what avail? Why should he believe her now? To convince him she’d have to tell him where she had really met Peter; she would have to tell him that his father had known he was dying almost a full year before the heart attack had struck. And no matter how angry she had been, she had never wanted to hurt him in such a fashion.

“Praying? Or meditating?”

She opened her eyes at the sound of her cousin’s warm, amused voice.

“Madeline!” With a little cry Susan was on her feet, hugging her tiny cousin. Madeline was in her mid-thirties but looked as if she were twenty-two. Her eyes were the same sparkling green as Susan’s, and she, too, had inherited the dark, flaming hair from some distant ancestor.

“Oh, kid, it’s so good to see you!”

For a few moments they stood there, laughing and hugging each other. Then Madeline sat down opposite her, and Susan plunged into a spate of questions about Madeline’s husband, Bill, and their children, five-year-old Timmy and two-year-old Amy. Madeline told her that Bill just hadn’t been able to get out of work, that the kids were fine, and they couldn’t wait until she could make a real vacation visit.

“Oh, you’re a liar! Amy’s too young to remember that I exist!” Susan accused her.

Madeline denied it with a grin, then ordered a glass of burgundy from the waiter. She frowned slightly as Susan hesitated and then ordered a light beer. They decided to split a giant prime rib, the house specialty, then continued to chat over idle things for a time. After the food had been served, however, Madeline sat back, studying Susan.

“You look awful.”

“Thanks a lot. I thought this was one of my better outfits.”

Madeline shook her head. “You look too thin and pale.”

“It’s winter. The Caribbean isn’t on my tour schedule.”

“Mmm,” Madeline murmured, sipping her wine. “And you’ve been on tour so long already, you’re even avoiding me! Hey, we only have a few hours here, so spill the beans, sweetie!” She tensed and asked slowly, “God, Sue, you’re not … sick, are you?”

Susan shook her head vehemently. “No, I’m fine, really. I’m … pregnant.”

“Thank God!” Madeline murmured, not batting an eye. She took a bite of her prime rib.

“That’s it?” Susan asked incredulously. “I make an announcement like that and that’s all you have to say?”

Madeline continued to chew serenely, then swallowed and took another sip of her wine. “Well, you’re either going to tell me about it or not, aren’t you?”

Susan laughed then, feeling as if she had come home in a way. “Yes, I’m going to tell you all about it. I’m desperate to tell someone all about it!”

And she did, leaving out nothing except for David’s name and his connection with Peter. Madeline informed her without mincing words that she was a fool. “Where have you been? That child is his responsibility! And”—she paused—“it sounds to me like you’re in love with the guy.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But, Madeline, don’t you see? I refuse to be a responsibility.” She told her cousin about the pretty model she was certain held some kind of sway with him, and that she was equally certain he would never believe a word she had to say, anyway, that he was capable of being judgmental, arrogant, and opinionated, a condition which she had certainly contributed to by being so flippant instead of indignant.

Madeline didn’t say anything else—nothing pressuring, at any rate. She was very glad that Susan had decided to have the baby and convinced her to come to Windsor instead of going somewhere else where she would have no family or friends.

“I’ll protect you,” Madeline promised, half joking, half serious. “Really! It will be fun and wonderful. We can make it so. Except I still think that you should look at the other alternative.”

“Like?”

“Like telling the father the truth.”

Susan hesitated. “I can’t, Madeline. Not unless he can fall in love with me for myself—and believe me because he believes
in
me.”

Madeline shrugged, then glanced at her watch. “Sue! It’s past midnight. I promised Bill I’d meet him at the tunnel at twelve. He didn’t want either of us getting into a taxi alone, you see.”

“Oh! We’d better get going.”

Sue insisted on paying the check, then she and Madeline slid into their coats and rushed out to the street. The slushy snow was still falling, yet the street was filled with traffic. Madeline managed to hail a cab, but they were in it for fifteen minutes and had barely moved a block.

“What the heck is going on?” Madeline asked the driver.

“Don’t know,” he mumbled. “I’ll turn around and take the bridge.”

“No, you can’t! My husband is meeting me at the tunnel,” Madeline told him.

“Lady, the meter’s running, but it’s your money.”

They sat a while longer, thankful for the heat in the cab. Still, the traffic didn’t move. The radio gave out static; horns beeped so loudly that the night seemed a cacophony.

At last the driver turned to them, having understood some of the static on his radio. “Seems the bridge is blocked by an accident—a lumber truck. That means all the traffic is headed for the tunnel, and we’ve got heavy traffic ’cause there was a big political banquet today—a huge thing, hundreds of Americans coming over.”

“Great!” Susan murmured.

They sat a while longer, then the driver finally suggested that they could reach the tunnel faster by walking.

They walked awhile, then Madeline’s heel broke off her shoe, so they ducked into what seemed to be the only lounge still open and ordered a drink. Madeline miraculously managed to find a waitress who carried glue and repaired her shoe—for the time being, at least. But then the waitress disappeared into the disgruntled crowd. Susan took her American Express card from her purse to hunt down her waitress. She paid the bill, but when she came back, her purse was gone from the booth. Madeline hadn’t seen anyone, so they crawled around on the floor and at last gave up, Madeline admitting that she had been so involved in pressing her heel into her sole that she might not have noticed if someone in the bar had reached over to snatch the purse.

They reported the theft to the restaurant; they called the police. The police couldn’t get there, it seemed, and so they had to leave with nothing more than a promise that as soon as possible something would be done.

“What am I going to do?” Susan wailed once they were on the street.

“It will turn up.”

“I have to fly out in the morning!”

“I’ve got money.”

“Thanks. I’m going to need it to get back into the States!”

But the night was intended to get worse. When they reached the tunnel, Bill wasn’t there. Susan talked to a woman at the customs cubicle and was told that there should have been a bus back to the States but that it hadn’t shown up yet.

“Oh, God! I think I’m going to have to walk back.”

“Wait!” Madeline told her. “I see a guy over there. Maybe he’s a cabdriver!”

“Madeline!”

But Madeline was already rushing over to the bus terminal, so Susan followed.

“You can’t walk through the tunnel,” the apologetic customs agent told her. “You’d asphyxiate from the fumes.”

“I’ve got to get back!”

“I’m sorry, I really am. This night is just an awful mess. The only way you’re going to get back over to Detroit is to hitchhike.”

Susan turned to her cousin.

“Well, we’ve got to get you into something, huh?” Madeline said, smiling in a manner that meant she was trying really hard to find the bright side of things.

“What about you?”