On Common Ground (Harlequin Super Romance) (15 page)

Noreen looked at her. “You had someone in mind.”

“Justin Bigelow.”

“Justin?” Mimi looked surprised. “He’s just a good-time boy. Great-looking, I agree, but for someone like Lilah—dedicated, serious…”

Vivian raised an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised. Besides, a little bit of party boy is something we could all probably use.”

Mimi laughed. “Okay. Let’s forget Justin for a while—as hard as that may be. On the subject of Lilah’s nonprofit, and from the perspective of someone with no business expertise, what you suggest seems to make sense. But let me get one thing straight. You called me in to set up a meeting with Lilah?”

“No, I’m capable of picking up the phone or tracking her down myself. In fact, it’s only right and proper that I speak to her myself, given what I’m asking. It’s just that I wanted to get your read on Lilah’s reaction before I approached her. I truly believe that given my background I can bring a real passion to what she’s doing. And even though I might not have the longest résumé…”

“Don’t underestimate your professional experience,” Vivian interrupted. “Don’t you still get calls from people at the World Bank?”

“That’s just a bit of consulting here and there. Nothing as grandiose as you imply,” Noreen dismissed.

Vivian coughed. “Please, the World Bank can call anyone it wants, and they called you.”

Noreen shrugged, then turned to Mimi. “Expertise is one thing. The truly important thing is that I want to convey my real eagerness to Lilah directly.”

“So, my work here is done?” Mimi rose.

Noreen held out her hand. “Actually, no. You see, if my plan works out, I will be mixing in travel with endowment initiatives and funding activities here in Grantham.”

Mimi slowly lowered herself to the love seat again. “Travel?”

“Yes. I’d like to be hands-on. As soon as possible. The first thing would be to go to Congo and observe directly the effectiveness of Lilah’s organization.”

“Which means…?” Mimi waited.

“Which means that Brigid will not have a full-time mom. I have already broached the subject with Conrad.”

Mimi snorted. “I bet he loved the idea of that. You don’t need to tell me—he proposed getting a nanny.”

“I know where you’re going with that, Mimi. But for once, I think you’re wrong. I don’t expect your father to give up on our marriage so easily.”

“She’s right,” Vivian said solemnly. “The guy’s gaga about Noreen here.”

“No, while I might agree to using babysitters, especially once school’s out, I don’t think a live-in nanny is the answer, nor totally necessary. Unlike some mothers, I don’t believe in shipping children Brigid’s age off to sleepaway camp. Besides, there are times when a child needs to be able to lie back in the grass and just look at the clouds and do nothing. Boredom can be very important.

“So, I have informed Conrad that I expect him to pitch in and help with Brigid,” Noreen went on. “He can use some of his vacation time if necessary, and telecommute when possible. There’s no reason why he can’t get her off to school in the morning and make her lunch, then go into the office a bit later. He has a driver anyway, so it’s not as if he is tied to a train schedule. Frankly, the man could afford to retire, but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon.”

“He wouldn’t know what to do,” Vivian said. “Besides, can you imagine him home all the time? I know my mother is going crazy with my dad home all day now that he’s retired. There’re only so many Rotary Meetings to go to in a week.” Vivian shook her head.

“So you’re planning to lean on your friends a bit to help with all the chauffeuring, if I understand you correctly?” Mimi asked. “I mean, it’s not like you don’t have a cook and housekeeper to keep the house running and all. And they could pick up the slack as far as Brigid’s concerned.”

“You’re right. I’m very lucky that I can afford full-time help. But I wouldn’t think of asking the staff to do more than their job description. That would be exploitation.”

All of a sudden Mimi had a weird thought. “You do know that I work full-time and live in Manhattan, and that my job is very demanding and requires me to take off at a moment’s notice to all parts of the world?” She tried to preempt where she thought Noreen was going.

“I am well aware of that. But I also know that summer is the slow time for the television correspondence business. Rerun time. I also happen to know that you haven’t taken a vacation in well over two years, except for this little jaunt to Grantham.”

“And you know this because?” Mimi asked suspiciously.

“She has friends in high places, very high places, or haven’t you heard?” Vivian said biting back a smile.

“Well, it’s true.” Noreen shrugged. “A woman in my Pilates class on Sunday is a fairly high-up executive at your network—no names here—and she’s very informed about the business.”

There were only so many women in top-level positions in television news, and Mimi had no trouble guessing to whom she was referring. She wasn’t at all comfortable with this underground Pilates spy network. “So what you want me to do is take my vacation time to be a babysitter?” she shot back, annoyed.

“No, I’m asking you to spend some of your vacation gaining something you’ve never had.”

“What? The opportunity to learn how to make beaded bracelets?” She raised her arm and shook her wrist. Actually, it was kind of cool, not that she was about to admit it right now.

“No, I’m offering you the chance to find out what it’s like to be a valuable member of a family—to experience unqualified love and affection from a sibling. Can you top that?”

For once, Mimi didn’t have a rejoinder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

J
USTIN
AND
L
ILAH
SAT
ON
the window seat on the landing above the ground floor at Lion Inn. A bottle of wine stood between them, empty wineglasses in their hands.

“Care for some fresh air for a change?” Justin asked, nodding toward the window. Even though they were removed from the bombardment of sound and the sweltering crush of bodies on the first floor, Justin still had to raise his voice to be heard.

Lilah nodded, and he unhooked one of the leaded glass casement windows and led the way to the fire escape. Lilah followed, letting Justin help her clamber down to the narrow metal grid structure.

“You show a girl all the exciting places,” she smirked as she settled down on the platform.

“A million-dollar view,” he argued with a sweep of his arm.

It was true. Now under the stars, they gazed out over the rooftops of the campus and the town of Grantham two blocks beyond. Intermittent whoops and hollers from within interrupted the serenity of the night but couldn’t entirely chase it away.

Justin crouched down as he balanced the glasses in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other. Lilah sat next to him, crossing her legs to fit in the narrow space. He handed her a glass and she held it as he poured. Then he poured himself one, settled the bottle behind him on the stone ledge of the mullioned window and turned to clink glasses. “To your award,” he toasted.

“To our
West Side Story
moment here on the fire escape,” she answered in return.

“Please don’t tell me you want me to sing. I’m practically tone-deaf.” He took a sip.

“What?” she asked in mock horror. “There’s something the great and wonderful Justin Bigelow can’t do?”

“You’d be surprised at the things I can’t do.”

“What do you mean?” Lilah rested her head against the stucco wall. “I mean, didn’t you even go to the Olympics? Talk about rarified atmosphere.”

“No, I quit after we won at the International Championships in Italy. I decided it was about time to get on with my life. I’d already taken two extra years after college to row full-time and eke out an existence as a part-time coach at the National Rowing Center here in Grantham. Enough was enough.”

“And now you’re some hotshot teacher according to Noreen and my mom. I mean, I’m not surprised you’re terrific at your job—but I got to admit I was a little surprised. Especially since…ah…since…”

He could sense the hesitation in her words. “What you mean to say is you’re surprised given that I have dyslexia, right?”

Lilah nodded.

“Your mom told you?”

She nodded again. “I never knew.” Then she rushed to add, “Maybe she shouldn’t have told me. I mean, before, when we knew each other in college, you never told me.”

“Because I didn’t know then, either.”

“Didn’t know?”

“I had an idea, but I didn’t know for sure.”

“But didn’t your parents have you tested when you were little? They’re both highly educated. They must have been aware.”

He laughed again. This time it wasn’t as funny. “I think being educated does not necessarily correspond to awareness. Besides, I think it’s fair to say that they were in denial, especially my father. You see, he—” Justin wanted to choose his words carefully “—he took my condition personally. He simply couldn’t imagine that a son of his could have a learning disability. It had to be that I was lazy, that I didn’t apply myself to my studies. It was much more reasonable to assume that I was rebelling against him, because when I took aptitude tests or in subjects not requiring heavy reading, I always did well.”

“You call that reasonable?” Lilah sounded shocked.

He shrugged. “Well, if truth be told, he was right. I
was
rebelling against him. It was a role I slid into naturally since my older sister was the brilliant student who soaked up Latin and Greek when she was barely ten, so brilliant that my parents decided to homeschool her to allow her to advance at this hypersonic rate. Whereas I—”

“Instead demonstrated athletic superiority and social skills not usually associated with nerdy academic types,” Lilah interrupted.

“Exactly.”

“So when did you realize your— I’m not quite sure what dyslexia is really,” she admitted.

“It’s what’s called a developmental reading disorder. Basically, my brain has difficulties processing graphic symbols, separating out the sounds in words and seeing the relationship between the sounds and combinations of letters.”

She considered what he said then spoke. “So if I understand what you’re saying, it has nothing to do with intelligence? In which case, I don’t know why your father would be embarrassed about it.”

Justin smiled, enjoying watching her gesticulate the way he remembered of old. Then he answered her question. “Who knows? It was his own ignorance, I suppose.”

“So when did you figure out what the problem was?”

“That’s the thing. I didn’t, or maybe I just felt too embarrassed to seek help. Anyway, I developed these mechanisms for compensating. It worked pretty well, but even then I read slowly as a student, and still do today. That made it hard to take lit courses with a lot of heavy reading. I knew if I tried I’d just feel so stupid.”

“But you weren’t.”

“Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one who had to stay up all night just to keep up. You have to understand—a person can know they’re not dumb but still feel that…well…they’re stupid. Weird, I know, but true.”

“I can believe you. The same way I can get on a scale or look in the mirror, and still think of myself weighing twenty more pounds like I did in college. It’s not logical. It’s all about self-perception.”

“Exactly.” Justin couldn’t believe it. Without having to go on and on about what it was like, Lilah just knew. “You’re incredible…you really are.” And when he saw her flinch to deny his words, he immediately went on. “No, I mean it. So get over your own issues with self-perception.”

“Believe me, self-perception isn’t my only issue. But listing them ad nauseum would probably be a complete mood breaker.”

“Hold on there. Me telling you about my dyslexia isn’t a turnoff?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. It’s like a key to this great, unsolved mystery. It explains so much about you in college.” She touched his arm to emphasize her point.

And she didn’t remove it—for a beat. Then two beats—two beats of silence except for breathing.

Until she nervously closed her fist. “But go on. You haven’t finished the story. Explain to me more about how you got to where you are today.”

“Okay, if you insist.” He was dubious.

She nodded. “I’m sure.”

He stared at the wine in his glass. This was the first time he had told anyone about his personal journey. “So college and compensating. Okay. The truth.” He closed his eyes and thought, really thought. “I guess even though I didn’t have a name for what I had, I figured out that the best thing was to gravitate to music and math. And then there were other outlets—sports, socializing.” He opened his eyes and smiled at the stars glinting in the black of night. “I got pretty good at both and—what can I say—neither required me to read a thousand pages a week. Unlike what some people could do who I won’t mention.” He looked at her from under his brows.

Lilah bit back a smile. “So all those women were really a form of overcompensation?”

He shot back a crooked grin. “Okay, not completely. But they did help take my mind off of you.” He waited for her reaction, wondering what she would say to that admission.

Instead, she took a long, thoughtful sip of her wine.

Damn.
She wasn’t going to make this easy.

“So when exactly did you get a diagnosis?” she asked, changing the obvious subject.

He could be patient, he told himself. “It was in Italy actually. Not to be overly dramatic, but it was this epiphany. The national rowing team was invited to visit this elementary school in Reggio Emilia—before the international competition held nearby. It was one of those goodwill outings—a photo op, really. You can imagine—these oversize jocks with little kids. Anyway, I was in this kindergarten, and the teacher, who happened to be an American on an exchange program to Italy, invited me to read a book to the class.”

“In Italian?”

“I know—wild, huh? The weird thing was that even though I had never studied Italian, just Latin—I couldn’t be the son of a classicist and not study Latin—I realized I could read it with very little difficulty. With a terrible accent, of course—but that only made the kids giggle and enjoy it all the more. Afterward, I mentioned how surprised I was to the teacher, saying that I had trouble reading out loud in English. I mean, even as a kid I found things like Dr. Seuss books totally confusing. I just didn’t get them. Anyway, she looked at me and explained that Italian is totally phonetic—you pronounce everything exactly the way it is written. And for that reason dyslexia is just about unknown in Italy. In fact, to diagnose it, they have to perform completely different tests.”

“So, you mean this total stranger diagnosed you?”

“No, this incredibly gifted teacher explained all the symptoms of what I had dealt with all my life. Suddenly, I felt this huge weight lift from my shoulders. As soon as I came back to the States, I went to a specialist, who confirmed the diagnosis. But even before I’d come back, I made a decision that if there was something I wanted—no
needed
to do—it was to try to make sure that no other child would feel the lack of self-esteem that had burdened me as a kid. And I realized that the key to this goal was early intervention and more broadly, early education. So, gone were my ambitions to go to the Olympics and support myself on a dead-end job. For the first time, I had a purpose in life—a passion.”

“Talk about a turnaround. They should give the alumni award to you.”

Justin laughed. “Not if you ask my principal. He hates my approach to teaching. He just wants me to follow the state’s emphasis on teaching to the tests—even for five-year-olds.”

“But I’m sure you’ll win,” Lilah encouraged him quickly. “Noreen told me how much the parents love you and how well the students do in your classes.”

“That may be true, but my principal’s brother works in the governor’s office, and through him he’s found a mouthpiece…you get the picture. And we all know New Jersey politics don’t play fair.”

“Which means?” She let her words float in the air, which was starting to cool. She rubbed her arms.

Justin saw it immediately. “You’re getting cold. We should go in.” He moved to gather up the bottle.

She stopped him by resting her hand on his forearm. “Is that what you want?”

“It’s
more
a question of what
you
want.” He waited.

And then she spoke. “You.”

One syllable. A ton of meaning. Expressing just what he wanted. But still… He looked into her face, obscured by darkness except for shadows defined by the light coming from within the window. “You mean what you said about Stephen? That he’s no longer an issue?”

She nodded. “He’s no longer anything.” Then she put the tip of her tongue to her top teeth. “One thing though?”

“About Stephen?” He was worried still.

“No, forget Stephen. I have. It’s the phone call you had to make at the pig roast?”

“Phone call?” Her question came out of left field, and he wasn’t ready for it.

“Don’t you remember? You excused yourself when Mimi and Matt came over?”

“Oh, yeah, that.”

“You called a woman didn’t you?”

“That’s right—Roberta.” He smiled. She was jealous.

“She’s…someone you’re close to.”

“You could say that.” He couldn’t help teasing her.

“She’s…”

“Roberta is someone very important to me.” That was the truth. “She’s older, a good bit older.” Also true.

He watched her digest that information as she wet her lips. They glistened in the backlighting.

Finally, she lifted her chin and spoke forthrightly, bravely—just the way he always pictured her. “There’s nothing wrong with older. Society unjustly considers an older woman diminished in sex appeal, but frankly, I think having all that experience and knowledge gained over time can make someone that much more attractive.” She rubbed her hand back and forth on her thigh, then glanced to the side.

Justin couldn’t keep a straight face any longer. He reached for Lilah’s upper arms and made her look at him. “Roberta is my mentor. She was the teacher in Reggio Emilia who’s taught me so many things—about myself, about teaching. She’s a master teacher at Bank Street School in New York, and I studied under her when I got my Master’s in elementary education and teaching certification. She also happens to have been happily married to a successful artist for more than thirty-five years and has a daughter who’s an incredibly gifted violinist. I keep in touch with her because I like and admire the whole family. And when I need advice about my work, she’s the one I turn to.”

“It’s good to have someone like that. But if you called, does that mean you have problems?” Lilah asked, relief evident in her tone even though he could see she was trying to show interest in what he was saying.