LITMIR.BIZ

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often left her unhappy and resentful.

      “The term little fais-do-do is a contradiction in terms, Mama,” she said smoothly, “especially in this family.”

      With nine siblings, all married and all with families of their own, Chey sometimes felt like the lone member of a large tribe who just didn’t get it. They were all content to carry on in the time-honored traditions of their clan, marrying young and birthing babies with the same casual joy with which they might play the accordion or fiddle for an impromptu dance in the backyard. Only Chey had resisted the mold. Only Chey had other plans, dreams. Only Chey had remained determinedly single and childless, reserving her dedication for her career. Only Chey did not fit in.

      “Kay says that the kids stay out all night long and get into trouble when left to themselves,” Louise went on, ignoring Chey’s comment. “She wants to keep Melanie well occupied with family that night. I thought she was over-doing it a bit, but Frank says she has the right of it, and—”

      “Frank would know,” Chey said for her.

      “Since his five have turned out so well,” Louise finished with satisfaction.

      If by “well” one meant that they’d all gotten through high school before they’d started having babies, Chey mused silently. Only she and a few of her nieces and nephews had gone on to college.

      “By the way,” Louise said, changing the subject. “Fay went for her ultrasound yesterday, and the doctor says it’s almost surely a girl. Isn’t that perfect? Now they’ll have one of each.”

      “Any hope they’ll stop at one of each?” Chey asked acerbically.

      Louise rolled her eyes in apparent exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, Mary Chey, most people like babies!”

      “I like babies,” Chey said. “I just think the Simmons clan has enough. I mean, am I the only one who thinks that life is about more than making babies?”

      Louise answered that with a deep sigh. “It’s about more than making money, too, you know.”

      Chey rolled her eyes and spread her arms. “This isn’t about money, Mother. It’s about accomplishment and quality of life. It’s about doing something meaningful and being someone admirable.”

      “It’s about you, dear,” Louise Simmons said softly. “You’ve accomplished a great deal professionally, and I’m very proud of you. But don’t you see that not everyone is fixated on their profession?”

      “I’m not fixated, Mother,” Chey retorted defensively.

      “You have no life apart from this business. You don’t even date,” Louise pointed out. “How will you ever meet a man if you don’t even date?”

      An image of Brodie Todd flashed across her mind’s eye. She banished it immediately, snapping, “I don’t care about meeting men.”

      “But don’t you grow tired of being alone, dear?” her mother asked, going on when Chey merely shrugged. “I know you don’t want children, and that’s fine. Parenthood isn’t for everyone, and goodness knows I’ve no reason to complain with thirty-one, almost thirty-two, grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren, but I do worry about you being alone.”

      “Mom, I have just as much family as you do,” Chey pointed out.

      “But you don’t have anyone of your own,” Louise said gently.

      “You should talk. Daddy’s been gone for twenty years, and in all that time, you’ve never even looked at another man.”

      “When you’ve had the best—” Louise began a familiar litany.

      “I know that you loved him,” Chey interrupted, “and it just proves my point. That kind of love is very rare.”

      “All your brothers and sisters are happily married,” Louise pointed out, “and here you are, thirty years old without even a steady boyfriend. A woman as pretty and bright as you ought to have a husband.”

      “Mother, please, not now,” Chey pleaded impatiently.

      Georges appeared just then, a sheet of paper in his hand. “Sugar, would you look at this invoice? I can’t make heads or tails of it, I swear.”

      Louise subsided immediately, grasped the handle of her purse with both hands and looked down. “You have work to do,” she said softly, rising to her feet. “What shall I tell Kay and Sylvester, dear?”

      Chey managed a smile. “Tell them I’ll be there, of course.”

      Louise beamed. “Of course you will.” She reached across the desk and cupped Chey’s cheek in one worn hand. “Come for dinner soon, will you?”

      Chey nodded, warmed despite her irritation. “Soon, Mama.” She placed her hand over her mother’s and hugged it briefly between her own palm and her cheek. She stood and smiled her mother through the door, then braced her hands flat against the desktop and bowed her head. “Thank you, Georges.”

      He wadded the piece of paper in his beefy fist, not at all to her surprise. The invoice had never been written that Georges Phillips could not decipher. It was part of what made him so valuable to her.

      Solidly middle-aged and decidedly rotund, he was an odd combination of flamboyance and distinguished style. At the moment he wore a vanilla white suit and matching silk ascot with a flame-red shirt on his stocky, yet graceful body. His thinning, dark blond hair was combed back ruthlessly, allowing the silver of his temples and winged brows to challenge his blunt nose and plump mouth for dominance of his round face. His physical appearance and droll manner of speaking always put Chey in mind of a slightly slimmer, fitter Alfred Hitchcock, albeit one given to sometimes absurd sartorial splendors. Unfortunately, he was as astute with people as with billing invoices.

      “Don’t thank me,” he told her snippily. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it to spare that old dear’s feelings. She’s concerned about you.”

      “Well, she has no reason to be,” Chey protested. “Why can’t she understand that I’m perfectly happy just as I am?”

      “Perhaps because your lifestyle is completely foreign to her,” he suggested, “and just possibly because you aren’t as happy as you want everyone to think.”

      “I am so!” Chey refuted hotly.

      “Sugar, this is Georges you’re talking to. I know you better than you know yourself—and so does your mother, I suspect.”

      “You wish,” Chey retorted sourly. “Just because you’ve been married countless times doesn’t mean that everyone has to trip down the aisle after you.”

      “Four,” he corrected primly. “You have more fingers than that on each dainty hand, and don’t change the subject. Honestly, Chey, if you weren’t married to this business, you’d have a personal life like your mama wants. You’d have a man, a husband.”

      “Maybe I should just marry you,” she retorted. “That would be good for business and get my family off my back, too.”

      He made a face. “Not my style, darling. It’d be like marrying my sister.”

      “Georges! Do you have a sister?” she teased, knowing perfectly well that he was one of three brothers.

      “Don’t be cute. And if you want your family off your back, then find a man and fall in love!”

      “You should know better than anyone that it’s not that easy,” she insisted.

      “At least I try,” Georges said huffily, putting his round chin into the air.

      “And you’ll keep on trying,” Chey said drolly.

      “We’re not talking about me,” he said, pursing his cherry-red mouth.

      “No, we’re talking about your boss,” Chey pointed out dryly, “the person who

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