Single in Suburbia (33 page)

She stepped back so they could enter, but she barely spared a glance for Dan. All of her considerable energies were focused on her daughter.

Candace, who hadn’t shed a tear in front of her mother since her turbulent teenage years, wanted desperately to cry.

“To think that my daughter would parade around pretending to be a maid—and a French maid at that! Picking up people’s dirty clothing!” She shuddered. “Scrubbing their toilets!”

Candace felt an urge to throw up—she always felt nauseous these days—but she was too busy trying not to cry to give in to it.

“If it’ll make you feel any better,” she said, “I never actually scrubbed Susie Simmons’s toilet. I mostly knelt in front of it.”

Hannah Bloom’s look of horror grew. Turning, she focused on Dan for the first time. “Of course it would be you.”

Her words vibrated with disapproval. Candace could practically see her mother replaying the whole Irish routine in her head. Scrubbing toilets AND an Irish boyfriend. If she were Hannah Bloom, which would she find more troubling?

“And what do you make of my daughter’s behavior, Daniel?” her mother asked in a deceptively friendly tone, by which Candace was not deceived.

Candace wanted to sit down before her knees buckled. Or go screaming from the room—either action would have suited her at the moment. Instead she cowered under Dan’s arm, a ready-to-weep, emotional basket case. What in the world was wrong with her?

“I think she’s fabulous,” Dan said without hesitation. Or, fortunately, an Irish lilt. “She stepped up to help a friend when a friend was in need. I’d think as a mother you’d be proud that you’d raised a child who would do that.”

“She’s made us both a complete laughingstock, is what she’s done,” Hannah countered. “I don’t know what’s come over her.”

Neither did Candace. But Dan didn’t seem bothered by this. In fact, for someone so mellow, his voice was infused with a surprising amount of certainty. “Of course, Candace isn’t exactly a child anymore is she, Mrs. Bloom?” He pulled Candace closer to his side while Hannah glared at both of them. “She’s forty-two. I’d say that’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

This of course was the point at which Candace should have straightened beside him and shouted out her own emancipation proclamation. “Free at last! Free at last! Great God almighty, I’m free at last!” But she was so used to judging herself through the filter of her mother’s approval that she didn’t know how to stop. And she couldn’t tear her gaze from her mother’s face.

To her abject horror the tears she’d been holding back burst free in a scalding torrent. They flowed down her cheeks like lava from a volcano, taking the last particles of Chanel’s heavy makeup with them.

“Look what you’ve done to her,” her mother scolded Dan. “Look what she’s been reduced to.”

Putting his hands on her shoulders, he turned Candace to face him. The tears washed down her face and splashed onto the marble floor. A small puddle seemed to be forming at her feet.

“All I’ve done is love her.”

They all stood there absorbing that.

“Candace,” he said quietly, ignoring her mother as she fervently wished she could. “Look at me.” He placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so that her eyes met his. “Tell me what you want to happen right now. Should we ask your mother to leave?”

This sounded like an incredibly wonderful idea. Because then she could collapse into Dan’s arms and ask him whether he’d actually meant to say the “L” word to her. Or whether it was just a ploy to drive her mother out of the house.

But she couldn’t seem to find the strength to answer. Nor could she avoid turning to see the expressions now flitting across her mother’s face. There was hurt and horror and ultimately a look that said, “I gave you life and everything else. You cannot turn your back on me.”

It was the “I gave you life” look that did her in.

Sadly, Candace shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

Dan looked deeply into her eyes. After a long moment he dropped his hands from her shoulders and took a step away.

“Your mother has her own life and friends. Don’t you think you’re entitled to the same?” he asked her, still quietly, though she knew her mother was straining to hear. “It’s time to grow up, Candace.” His smile was almost as soft as his voice. “And I meant it when I said that I love you.”

Then he moved toward the door and put his hand on the knob. “When you’re ready to live your own life, give me a call.”

And then she was staring at his back as the door closed behind him.

Aghast at what she’d just done, or rather failed to do, she turned back to face her mother and caught the look of triumph that spread across her face.

Her final thought, just before she raced to the bathroom to throw up, was how lucky Brooke Mackenzie was that her mother wasn’t around to muck up her life.

chapter
28

I
t was an indication of how rattled Brooke was that she actually wished her mother was there on the long silent ride home.

She at least would have understood why her daughter had made up such a carefully crafted new identity and just how appalled she was that it had been jeopardized.

Amanda’s advice played in her head. But she didn’t see how she could possibly tell Hap the truth now when he was looking at her the way he was. What were the chances that someone from her distant past would see her in the paper and feel a need to point out the irony? No, her old secret was safe if she could just ride this out. So people would turn up their noses at her for this little escapade. As long as Hap didn’t, she’d find a way to tough it out.

Whenever they hit a red light or a stop sign, he turned to consider her. But he never actually said anything. He’d just look at her and then slowly shake his head as if to say, “Doesn’t she beat all?”

By the time they pulled into the driveway, she couldn’t take the silence anymore. She needed him to speak, even if she didn’t like what he said.

When they entered the house, Tyler was lounging on the couch watching TV. “Hey,” he called out, “I saw you on
Live
at Five
. Which one were you, Chanel or Simone?”

She didn’t bother to answer. Instead she took Hap’s hand and drew him along with her. In the bedroom, she closed the door and turned to face him. “Aren’t you going to speak to me?” she demanded. “I swear if you shake your head at me one more time, I’m going to jump out of my skin.”

Hap blinked in surprise, as well he might. Never once since the day they’d met had she ever raised her voice in his presence. As Amanda had pointed out, he didn’t know her at all.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what to say, but nothing seems to come to mind,” he admitted. “I actually think it was nice of you to try to help Amanda. But you look so not like you in that getup. And you’re not acting like yourself either. I mean dressing up like a cleaning woman and mopping other people’s floors? I’ve never even seen you with a dust rag in your hand. I can’t imagine how you could ever bluff your way through something like that. Didn’t any of your clients complain?”

He laughed and it was then that she knew she had to tell him. Because she loved him and wanted him to love her. But the real her, not the cleaned and sanitized version.

It hit her then like the proverbial ton of bricks, though it had, in fact, taken her nearly thirty years to figure it out. Her mother had not been a failure; she’d been a strong woman like Amanda, who had done what was necessary to take care of her child. There was no shame in that. Brooke would not be ashamed any longer. Not of her mother or herself.

She looked Hap in the eye and it was as if someone turned on a water tap: the truth simply began to pour out. “I wasn’t bluffing, Hap. I’m an expert with a mop and a broom. I come from a long line of cleaning women.”

She told him everything then. About how far and how hard she’d run. How difficult it had been to offer to help Amanda. Because she had been so afraid of this very thing.

“But I can’t be silent anymore,” she said when she’d run out of words. “I love you. More than anything. And I hope to Hell you’ll still love me now that you know where I came from.”

She stared into his eyes, willing him to understand.

“Wow.” Hap shook his head as if to clear it. “I just can’t seem to take it all in.” He sank down on the side of the bed and considered her carefully. But the smile of love and acceptance she was waiting for didn’t come.

“How am I supposed to know which parts of you are real and which aren’t?” he asked finally.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Hap. Really, I will. But you already know my deepest darkest secret. My mother is a maid. And so was my grandmother.” She was trying for a light tone but couldn’t quite pull it off as her panic rose. “It’s not exactly a criminal offense, is it? I mean I’ve always treated it as if it was, but it isn’t, right?”

Why was he sitting so still, his face so devoid of expression when she was dying for him to smile and take her in his arms and tell her it didn’t matter?

“And are you and your mother actually…estranged?” Hap asked. His tone, like his voice, was frighteningly neutral. “Or is that just part of the fairy tale too?”

“Not formally. I just don’t see her too often.” She dropped her gaze. “And I didn’t think you’d want to be obligated to have a relationship with her.”

“Even though she’s your mother.”

It sounded so wrong the way he said it. As if she’d been trying to do anything but save him from embarrassment. “Well, she’s uneducated. And quite young—she was only sixteen when she had me. And she, um, drinks too much.” Her heart was thudding painfully in her chest. She wanted to scoop up all the words she’d poured out and stuff them back inside her. Anything to have Hap back, instead of this unemotional stranger.

“But she’s your mother and you didn’t trust me to know her.” This, too, was delivered in a calm, measured tone, but she could hear the undercurrent of accusation all too clearly.

Her head snapped up. “It wasn’t like that. It was…” Her voice trailed off.

“It sounds exactly like that to me, Brooke. You say you love me, but you don’t have enough faith in my love for you to believe I could accept your less-than-idyllic background?”

“No, I…”

He stood and moved toward the closet. “I already had one marriage to a woman who didn’t trust me. I believe I mentioned that to you when we met.” When had Hap Mackenzie become such a king of understatement? Each simple pronouncement carried the weight of a shout. Or maybe that was just her guilty conscience?

“There is no element in marriage more important than trust. At least not to me.”

“Oh, Hap, I…”

“I’ve got to run Tyler to his mother’s now. And I think I might stay over at the club for a bit, to sort of think things out.” He pulled out his overnighter and stuffed some clothing into it while she watched, speechless. Then he opened the door and prepared to walk through it. “I do love you, Brooke. At least, I’ve always believed I do. But I’m not too sure how we get past this. Maybe we both need to give it a little time and thought.”

Then he was gone, taking Tyler with him. And Brooke was left in the perfect house with the picket fence all alone.

On Sunday morning a shot of the three musketeers—taken as they entered the detention center, before they’d had a chance to remove their disguises—ran on page one of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Brooke stared at the hairy mole on her face, which was impossible to miss given its position just above the front page fold.

The caption carried their full names along with their cleaning aliases. The headline screamed,

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES DON DISGUISES
AND CLEAN UNSUSPECTING FRIENDS’
HOMES!

The cancellations came fast and furious. Candace thought afterward that the clients called not out of courtesy but because they were afraid if they didn’t, the three of them might actually show up. Susie was still claiming to anyone who would listen that they had stolen from her, even though they’d been arrested for disturbing the peace—as had Susie—and not for theft.

There were only two clients who hadn’t canceled so far; Candace’s neighbor, Sylvia Hardaway, who had informed Candace that “I don’t care whether she’s French or Albanian. She does a damn fine job and she thinks I have style.” And Hunter James, who Amanda figured was still out of town and hadn’t yet heard the sordid news. And who, she said pointedly, had apparently gone somewhere on earth where they didn’t have phones.

So all three of them laid low that week, dealing as best they could with the specters that had risen to haunt them. The vacuummobile sat in Candace’s garage, its shiny yellow paint dimming under a light layer of dust.

To add insult to injury, Candace had absolutely no appetite but still seemed to be putting on weight. And Dan didn’t call, though she’d fallen into the habit of sitting by the phone wishing that he would. Nor were there invitations to lunch or to functions. Her phone remained accusingly silent.

Toward the end of the week, her mother reappeared. Hannah’s brown eyes were determined and her mouth was set in a grim line. Two trips to the hinterlands in one week had to be some sort of record, but this time Candace was too uncomfortable and too miserable to comment.

“What’s wrong with you?” her mother asked. “You look awful.”

“Thank you.” It didn’t help that she knew her mother was right.

“You can’t just lie around like your world is coming to an end. You need to get out there, start dating, hold up your head.”

Only she couldn’t and didn’t want to. And it seemed like her life was, in fact, over. For once nothing her mother said made any difference. Candace felt thick and mule-like; the more her mother talked, the more obstinate she felt.

Hannah walked over to stand next to the couch Candace was lying on and peered down at her. “I’m going to call Dr. Epstein and make you an appointment.”

“I’m not sick. I’m just tired.” And unhappy. And lonely.

“Well, I won’t have it.” Hannah all but stamped her size six foot. “No daughter of mine is going to moon over some silly Irishman like he was the catch of the century.”