“I know,” I agree. “But it’s weird, because it doesn’t feel like I missed a thing with her, even though twenty months went by without me and Damien in her life.”
Syl casts a warm smile toward the diving board. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“Mommy!” Ronnie yells, waving wildly. “Watch me! Watch me!” She holds her nose, bounces once, and leaps into the deep end.
“I swear the kid’s going to be a marine biologist. She’d live in the pool if we’d let her.”
Right before we adopted Lara, Jackson and Syl built a pool in their Pacific Palisades backyard. Like ours, it has an infinity edge, so that you have the illusion of swimming off into the void. Or at least into the Pacific. And I’m pretty sure that every single time we’ve gone to visit, Ronnie’s spent at least a little time in that pool.
Damien waves to us from the bar, where he’s talking with his best friend and Stark International Security Chief Ryan Hunter. “No, don’t get up,” he says as I start to rise. “Just tell me banana or strawberry.”
“Strawberry,” I say, and like magic only moments later I’m sipping on a virgin daiquiri while Sylvia enjoys a red wine.
Jamie comes running up just in time to take her own glass of Cabernet and get a kiss from her husband, Ryan. “Sorry,” she says as she passes me a small package wrapped in pink paper. “I left this in the car.”
“For me?”
“For Lara,” she says.
I lift the package, which weighs almost nothing, up to my ear and shake it, but I don’t hear a sound. “Okay, I give up. What did you get her? Air?”
“Fuzzy slippers,” she says. “Sheepskin lined baby moccasins, actually.”
“Oh, how cool,” Sylvia says. “They’ll be a great transition to actual shoes.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Jamie says.
My heart squeezes a little. “That’s wonderful.” Despite all our resources, baby slippers in the months following surgery hadn’t occurred to me.
Lara was one of the “waiting kids” in the Chinese adoption system that have special needs. Hers was polydactylism, which basically means having extra fingers or toes. In her case, she had an extra toe that grew sort of sideways just past her pinky toe on each of her feet. Not a big deal, except that it makes wearing shoes almost impossible.
She had the surgery to fix it about two months ago. She’s all healed up now, but we haven’t transitioned to regular shoes yet. And Jamie’s right. A moccasin-style shoe will make a wonderful interim pair.
I glance toward Lara, prepared to call her over so she can open her present, but Jamie shakes her head.
“We’re here all day—I’m not missing out on watching Damien and Ryan work the grill tonight. So she can slather Aunt Jamie with love and affection later. Right now, I want this,” she adds, then lifts her glass in a toast. “To Nikki. Off to enter the wild world of working moms with nannies.”
I clink glasses and smile and dutifully take a sip, but it’s a melancholy one. For the last few months, I’ve been bringing Lara and Anne outside almost daily. I’d set up the portable crib for Anne in the shade and then get in the pool with Lara. And sometimes Anne would even join us, her little face showing priceless expressions every time she splashed in what she surely considered a very big bath.
I have a zillion pictures on my phone documenting almost every second of every minute of every hour of every day. And starting tomorrow, there will be whole chunks of time that I’m not recording.
I’ll see it, sure. Bree will take pictures and we have video monitors in the kids’ rooms. But that’s not the same. Not by a long shot.
I sigh, and Syl puts her hand on my knee, smiling softly. She doesn’t say anything, but I’m certain she knows where my mind has gone. She’s a mom, too.
Jamie, on the other hand, is pulling off her T-shirt and stretching out on one of the chaises in her shorts and bikini top.
“Comfy?” I say, laughing.
“I asked Ryan if we could just live here with you guys, but for some reason he doesn’t like the idea.” She pushes her sunglasses down so that she can look at me over the rims. “So I’m doing what you always say and making myself at home.”
“Love you, James,” I say affectionately, using her long-time nickname.
“Back at you, Nicholas.”
“As for me,” I add, standing, “I’m going to join the kids. Syl?”
“Absolutely.”
I head for the shallow end to relieve Jackson. And as soon as Sylvia has a kiss from him, she moves to the deep end so that she can dive for plastic sticks with Ronnie.
All in all, it’s a wonderful, relaxing day, that ends with the kids asleep and the grown-ups coupled up around the fire pit. By the time everyone leaves and I crawl into bed next to Damien, I’m exhausted, but happy.
Of course, morning comes far too quickly. Even though I didn’t drink, I’m drained from spending the day in the sun, and even a scalding shower and two cups of coffee has barely brought me back to life.
“What time is it?” I ask as I lean against the counter, wondering if some genius in one of Damien’s research labs can invent an intravenous coffee-supply system for me.
“Just past eight,” he says, and I curse softly.
“I need to rush,” I say. “I told Eric and Abby I’d be there at nine-thirty.”
I hurry back to the bedroom to dress and do my makeup in record time. My hair is still damp from my shower, but I decide to let it air dry to give me a few more minutes with the kids while I brew a coffee for the road. I snuggle with Anne, then crouch down and call Lara into my arms.
“Mama, bye-bye?”
“Just for a little bit,” I tell her, forcing a jolly tone. “I have to go to work. Miss Bree’s staying with you today.”
“Mama, stay!” she demands, her words like an arrow right to my heart. “Stay with Lara!”
My throat thickens, and I pull her close. “I’ll be back, sweetie,” I promise. And though she doesn’t cry, her thumb goes to her mouth and her dark eyes blink as she holds Bree’s hand.
It takes a heroic effort on my part to actually leave the house, and even after driving all the way to Studio City, the image lingers in my mind as I arrive at my office—fifteen minutes late because of traffic.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I say as I slam through the door that opens onto my suite of three offices and a small reception area. I’d moved from my old one-man office to this new space on the same floor a few weeks after Damien and I decided to adopt. I needed the extra space for Eric and Abby. Plus, the move fit with my plan to take over the entire floor and hire five employees by the end
of the year.
I’ve had a plan for my business ever since I designed my first smartphone app. Hell, even before that. My mother is a straight-up bitch who tried to convince me that all I was good for was beauty pageants and being a wife. She didn’t care that I loved science. She sniffed at my double major in computer programming and electrical engineering.
And when my self-inflicted scars finally ended a hated pageant career, she swore that I was a spoiled, selfish girl who would never amount to a damn thing.
I think I’ve done a fine job of proving her wrong, even if I only have three employees and a corner of the floor to show for it. Considering I was busy with building a family, I figure I’m still on track.
“They’re in Abby’s office,” Marge—my third employee—says from her desk in the reception area. She used to be the receptionist for the building’s entire floor. Then I hired her to work as my part-time assistant. And when I moved offices, I asked her to come with me. So now she’s all mine, and she’s been instrumental in saving my sanity over the last eight months.
“Traffic was horrible,” I say, thrusting my purse into her outstretched hand. Then I take a deep breath, tighten my grip on the folio that has my electronic tablet and paper notes, and step into Abby’s office.
She’s tall and thin, with shoulder-length blond hair that resembles my own, but with more curl. It bounces when she walks, and with her youthful face and perpetually eager expression, she makes me think of Nancy Drew.
Right now, she’s perched on the edge of her desk while Eric sits in front of her in one of the guest chairs, flipping through a trade magazine. They both look up as I come in, Abby with a bright smile and Eric with a quirk of his lips and a small wave.
“I have everything ready,” Abby says, passing me a folder. “Status updates on all the accounts. Notes on the latest update for the Greystone-Branch interface, and, oh, just everything.”