LITMIR.BIZ

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speaking as one who has passed her thirtieth birthday, I can tell you I plan to live well past fifty. And I don’t intend to become an old hag in the process.”

      “Of course not,” Lisette said, smiling as she popped a vitamin in her mouth and followed it with half a glass of orange juice. “You can have all the plastic surgery you want.”

      “Will you do that?” Julia, the third of four girls at the table, asked.

      “I hope to age gracefully.”

      “Why would you do that when you could still look young and beautiful?” Lisette asked.

      “Because I want my husband to think of me as a wife and companion, not as someone who’s concerned with nothing but her looks. I want to enjoy every phase of my life, to live each age honestly whatever its challenges.”

      “Kerry doesn’t want me to look old,” Lisette declared. “He wants me to be as beautiful as possible. I want to go to parties, wear beautiful clothes and have men follow me with their eyes when I walk past.”

      Kathryn decided somebody needed to explain to Mother Nature that some girls, regardless of their age, were just too young to have babies. Lisette should have been at the top of that list. This wasn’t about rich husbands or beautiful clothes. She was about to become a mother. It was about learning to act with the maturity and responsibility necessary to make her a good mother.

      “I want lots of children,” Cynthia said. “I want a thousand pictures of when they learn to walk, start school, go on their first dates, of their proms and their graduations. I want books of pictures of their weddings, even more of their children. I want movies, too. After Mama got sick, she used to watch movies of me when I was a baby. She said I was her touchstone. She said as long as she had me she never felt lonely.”

      “Kerry will never leave my bedside when I get sick,” Lisette said. “He’ll be holding my hand when I die.”

      “Has your father dated?” Julia asked Cynthia.

      “No.”

      “He must have loved your mother very much,” Kathryn said.

      “Both of them were only children whose parents died early,” Cynthia said. “I think they were friends more than lovers.”

      “Would that bother you?” Kathryn asked.

      “It would bother me,” Lisette said. “If Kerry doesn’t love me to distraction, I’ll divorce him.”

      “Mama said she was happy because she had me to love,” Cynthia answered. “Maybe a woman doesn’t need more than that. What do you think?”

      Kathryn realized what she thought was uncomfortably close to Lisette’s feelings. Her own mother had been content to spend most of her married life waiting for her husband to return from business trips. When the split came between her sister and their father, her mother had backed their father’s position without hesitation. Away at college at the time, Kathryn had been too furious to give any thought to her mother’s position, but now she wondered. Could a woman be happily married to a man who was away from home more often than not?

      “I can’t speak for anyone but myself,” Kathryn said, “but—”

      The sound of the doorbell caused her to break off. Lisette bounded up from her chair. “It’s Kerry. He can’t stand to be separated from me.”

      “He must stay in the living room,” Kathryn called after her. “I’ll be in as soon as I fix my coffee.”

      “Do you think their parents will let them get married?” Julia asked as the door banged shut behind Lisette. “They’re nuts about each other.”

      “It will depend on what Kerry’s father says when he gets home.”

      “Where is he?”

      “On a business trip. No one seems to know when he’ll get back.”

      “My dad was on a business trip, too, but he came home right away.”

      Kathryn didn’t know quite how to interpret Cynthia’s expression. It seemed to be some combination of pride and anger. Kathryn concluded that Cynthia loved her father deeply but just didn’t happen to like him very much right then.

      Lisette came back into the kitchen looking dejected. “It’s Cynthia’s father. He said he’s come for his sensitivity lessons.” She made a face. “Nothing personal, Cynthia, but that man’s not normal. It’s Saturday morning, and he’s in a suit and tie.”

      Kathryn felt something in the region of her stomach flutter uncomfortably. “I didn’t expect him so early,” she said, getting up to put her coffee cup on the sideboard. “I’m not even sure I thought he’d come.”

      “If my father says he’ll do something, he does it,” Cynthia said, as though that was not a trait she admired.

      “Does he do everything in a suit and tie?” Julia asked.

      “I’ve never seen him wear anything else outside the house,” Cynthia said.

      Kathryn was about to say it was an attitude that was as outmoded as the twentieth century, but she was flattered Ron Egan had taken such care with his appearance. He could have come dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. That was not a wise thought. Just imagining Ron Egan in jeans and a T-shirt caused her belly to tighten.

      “What’ll I do when Kerry comes?” Lisette asked.

      “You can use the TV room as long as Mrs. Collias is in sight,” Kathryn said.

      “She hates me,” Lisette wailed. “She never lets me—”

      “Do anything foolish,” Kathryn finished for her. “That’s why I hired her.”

      “I can watch her,” Cynthia offered.

      “Your father might want to see you. Now I’ve got to go. Make sure you both finish your breakfast. Good nutrition is extremely important now.”

      Ron turned from the window when Kathryn entered the room. It was 7:58 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and he looked like he’d just stepped out of Gentleman’s Quarterly. Foolish, though, to be feeling like a young girl meeting a date.

      “You’re earlier than I expected,” Kathryn said.

      “I want to get this over so I can get back to Geneva,” Ron said, coming toward her. “I left my assistants to handle some very difficult negotiations.”

      The thaw that had begun in her feelings toward him stopped. She didn’t know why he’d bothered to come home. He could have saved himself a lot of trouble by shouting at her over the phone.

      “I’m sure there are lots of people in Geneva far more qualified than I to help you with sensitivity training,” she said. “If you’ll tell me where you’re staying, I’ll see if I can line up someone. I don’t know about Saturday flights from Charlotte to Geneva, but I’m sure Atlanta or New York—”

      Ron looked at her like she had lost her mind. “Who said anything about my flying back today?”

      Kathryn took a moment to gather her thoughts. “I interpreted your remarks to mean you planned to return almost immediately.”

      “Well you interpreted them wrong.” He seated himself on a sofa. “Come on, let’s get this over with. I want to talk to Cynthia, and I want to be sensitive enough to understand how the hell she could get herself in such a fix.”

      Kathryn broke out laughing. She didn’t know why. There was nothing funny about the situation, but she couldn’t stop.

      “What are you laughing about?” Ron demanded.

      “I don’t have a magic potion I can pour over you like Achilles’s mother.”

      “She didn’t have a potion,” Ron said. “She held him by his heel and dipped him in the River Styx.”

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