Czytaj książkę: «Dream Baby»

CHAPTER TWO

May 1999

THE KID HADN’T SAID a word in over two hundred miles.

Jake Burdette slid another glance away from the road, just to make certain his son hadn’t fallen asleep or turned to stone or gone into some sort of cosmic trance.

Nope, Charlie was still with him all right, still seated in the front seat of the car, still so uncommunicative Jake might as well have been keeping company with an upscale kids’-store mannequin. One twelve-year-old boy dressed in clothes that were too tailored, a haircut that was too precise, a suitcase that was too expensive and an adolescent chip on his shoulder as big as a house.

Since the moment Jake had picked him up at Thea’s in New York—his private school term barely over—then flown down to Norfolk, and on to Orlando, conversations between the two of them had been increasingly one-sided. Nothing more than shrugs and grunts and a few uh-huhs ever since they’d hit the interstate. Not even the eye-popping excess of billboards advertising Florida’s theme parks got a reaction, and Jake’s suggestion that someday they might return for a trip to Walt Disney World was met with a complete lack of interest.

Jake stifled a huge sigh and glanced out the window.

There was no doubt that this little side trip to Florida had come at an inconvenient time in Jake’s life, a time when he really needed to focus all his attention on Charlie.

But right now, he had to keep his promise to his brother.

And Florida wasn’t that bad. After inching through the traffic congestion of Orlando, they’d headed north, past Thoroughbred country in Ocala, through the long corridor of rolling land that made up Florida’s panhandle. The area made you realize not all of the state had given way to the big developers. It was woodsy and wild, and it reminded Jake of some of the wonderful places his grandfather had taken him and his brother, Bobby, camping in Virginia.

To a spoiled snob of a city boy like Charlie, it must look like the backside of the moon.

Maybe Jake should tell him about a few of those childhood trips. They needed to start someplace. He opened his mouth to speak, but in that moment there was the familiar sound of electronic music. Charlie had pulled the video game out of his backpack. The kid could go hours on that thing.

So much for a folksy tale to bond them together.

An hour later Jake pulled off the interstate to gas up. Charlie was still smashing invaders from some high-tech planet—evidently meeting with success, if all the beeps and metallic crashes emitting from the video game were any indication. Still not a word of conversation. The only change in the boy’s stony countenance was the occasional frown of displeasure he gave the game in his hands.

Jake watched him covertly as he ran gas into the sports car’s tank. His son had a sweet forehead, wide and unblemished and intelligent. Without trying very hard, Jake could remember when the boy was four and had suffered through chicken pox—chicken pops, he’d called them—and Jake had sat by the side of his bed and stroked and stroked Charlie’s forehead until the boy had dropped into a restless sleep. Where had all that trusting innocence gone?

He screwed the gas cap back into place and then leaned against the passenger door. “You want a soda from the machine?”

Still fighting his video war, Charlie shook his head. There was the descending sound of a sudden defeat, and with a sigh of complete disgust, Charlie switched off the game and tossed it into the back seat. He stared out the front windshield.

“Sorry,” Jake said, guessing that he’d broken the boy’s concentration, and therefore caused him to lose the war. Jake turned and headed toward the convenience store. He seemed destined to remain on his son’s enemy list.

But for how long? How long would it take to reestablish a relationship that had once been taken for granted? He couldn’t give up. Charlie was his now. Thankfully, Thea had seen the wisdom in avoiding an ugly court battle.

From the interstate they bumped onto the cracked, paved road that led to Blue Devil Springs. “Almost there,” Jake remarked, trying for a cheerful tone.

No response. No surprise there.

“Look, Charlie...Charles,” he corrected himself when the kid turned an annoyed glance his way. “I know you’d rather be back in New York with your mom. I know you’re angry because you’re with me now. I don’t expect you to understand all the reasons behind that decision, but someday when you’re old enough...”

He stopped. God, he sounded so much like his father. And the kid would resent a lecture. A different approach was definitely in order.

“You know, after I take care of business in Florida, and we get home to Norfolk, you might find you like it. It has beaches. And we can go to the mountains, up to Washington...”

Again he stopped. He sounded pathetic, trying to find favorable comparisons between the two places.

He searched his son’s profile, looking for some chink in Charlie’s armor and not finding any. The kid’s jaw was tight with tension, and his gaze out the front window seemed impenetrable. And then suddenly the boy’s mouth gaped open a little, and he muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

Jake discovered why when he jerked his glance back to the road.

They’d reached the town of Blue Devil Springs.

Town was probably too big a word for the place. It wasn’t much. A few cross streets made up all of the downtown area, a collection of businesses that bore simple, unvarnished pronouncements like Ed’s Hardware, Painted Lady Antiques, the Cut ’n Curl, and a small establishment called simply the Pork Store. If Andy and Barney and the whole Mayberry crowd had been looking for a place to retire, this could have been it.

He drove slowly past the main intersection. Looking closer, he saw that Blue Devil Springs wasn’t a complete loss. There was a certain charm and Southern grace about it. There were lots of big oak trees dripping moss and a pretty Victorian band shell in the center of a small park. The grass there was green and lush. It wasn’t a ghost town bypassed by progress. The people on the streets looked energetic and involved in life, and overall, the place had an open, friendly feel.

Beside him, Charlie was still in a trance of stunned surprise.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jake said. “Don’t panic.” The boy rolled his eyes, but remained silent. “I’m getting hungry. Let’s see if we can find a place to get some food and information.”

They discovered some activity around what seemed to be the only red brick building in town—the Whispering River Café and Outfitter’s Post. Colorful rows of kayaks and canoes leaned against the building, and several huge tubs of dainty flowers led the way to the entrance.

The interior of the store wasn’t the dark, backwoods outpost Jack expected. It was bright, upscale, full of environmentally correct merchandise. As Jake led his son toward the back of the store where the café seemed to be, they wove past listening posts of New Age music, stacks of camping gear and a bulletin board fluttering with offers for guided float trips down the river.

The café was also a surprise. The room was small, but bathed prettily in mild sunlight coming through large arched windows. Unframed artwork decorated the walls. There were leafy alcoves for privacy. According to the menu posted at the entrance, vegetarian dishes seemed to be the heavy favorites.

They found a table for two against one wall. Almost before they sat down, a tall, good-looking fellow in jeans and a Save-The-Planet T-shirt placed menus in front of them and promised to return in moments.

For the first time, Charlie seemed to be interested in his surroundings, and Jake realized it was the artwork that drew the kid’s attention. Charlie’s gaze traveled over the numerous canvases that lined the walls, then settled on the one right beside their table. And suddenly Jake could see what had caught the boy’s interest.

Trendy as the Whispering River might be, whoever had decorated the place had made one huge mistake. The artwork was awful. Amateurish. They were all oils, the majority of them landscapes, but there wasn’t a stroke of talent in any of them that Jake could see.

Like Charlie, he peered closer at the one nearest them. It was a Florida beach at sunset—lifeless and boring, with wheeling seagulls in the sky that looked unpleasantly like flying worms. Jake’s eyes slid down to the artist’s signature. NLH, it said, and Jake noted that several of the surrounding works bore those small slashing marks in the right corner. He hoped to heaven that NLH hadn’t quit his day job.

He shook his head. “I guess now we know who actually buys all those Starving Artist paintings,” he muttered.

He hadn’t expected a reaction from Charlie, so it surprised him when the kid gave a little snort of amusement. Not an all-out laugh, really, but it was a more encouraging response than Jake had elicited from the boy so far.

He said softly, “You know, when you were five, you drew this great picture of a fish. Your mom put it on the refrigerator.” He motioned in the direction of NLH’s landscape. “In a head-to-head comparison, I think yours is better. At least I could tell it was a fish.”

Charlie turned his head to look at his father. “Mom still has that picture,” he said coldly. “It’s in a box with a bunch of my old stuff. Guess that’s all she’s gonna have of me now.”

Jake felt his heart rate slow to a crawl. So much for connecting. One step forward. One step back. “You’ll still be visiting your mother.”

Charlie’s gaze was openly dubious. “You won’t let that happen.”

“That’s not true. I want you to keep in contact. But there have to be some guidelines to your visits. She can’t just...there has to be someone looking after you.” Jake unfolded his napkin carefully and placed it across his lap. Criticizing Thea wouldn’t accomplish a thing except send Charlie further away. Quietly he added, “Right now your mother’s career is very important to her, and she doesn’t always think about her responsibilities.”

“Like you thought about yours five years ago?”

Jake lifted his head and met his son’s eyes. He wasn’t in the mood for apologies and justifications, but neither would he allow Charlie to believe everything Thea had probably told him about his father.

“When your mother and I broke up, I had a job that kept me out of the country for months on end,” he declared firmly. “Bridge construction often takes place in locations that barely have indoor plumbing. I couldn’t drag a little boy off to an environment like that. It seemed best to let your mother have full custody. She gave up modeling when she married me, and I had no idea she was so involved again. I thought—”

“She’s famous,” Charlie flared. “She doesn’t need you for anything. She’s a supermodel, and everyone loves her.” He turned his attention back to the painting on the wall, and Jake watched while muscles jumped and twitched along the tight ridge of Charlie’s jawline.

The boy was right. Everyone did love Thea. If you could believe half of what you read in the tabloids.

While heavily involved in rebuilding the family construction company, Jake had heard all about his ex-wife’s life. The New York parties that ran until all hours of the night. Rubbing elbows with the Hollywood elite. He was glad he wasn’t part of that lifestyle, but he’d never begrudged Thea any of it. She’d always been a good mother. There was never any mention of Charlie in those tabloid stories and Jake had been confident his son was safe. That Thea had never drawn him into her social life.

Until he walked away from a Nigerian newsstand six months ago with an American paper in his hands and saw the media coverage of Thea’s latest New York party. A glittering montage of celebrities and social arbiters all laughing, drinking, pressed close to one another. And in the middle of it all, his son Charlie. He knew in that moment that for four years he’d been fooling himself, and that as fathers went, he’d been pretty damn negligent.

It was an interesting bit of irony to discover that he’d failed miserably as a father on the same day that he was to make a catastrophic mistake with his own brother as well. That afternoon Jake had been furious with Thea, and three telephone calls to his lawyer in the States that wouldn’t go through hadn’t helped. The hill crew had yet to check in, and after the road foreman had asked a second time what they should do about it, Jake had snapped at Bobby to take care of it. Bobby, who’d never questioned a directive his older brother gave him. Bobby, who had always looked up to him and counted on Jake...

The waiter brought tall glasses of water to the table. He didn’t carry a pad to write down orders, and the small badge over his left breast said his name was Ben. Beneath it was a button that proclaimed, “Yes, I’ll remember what you want.”

“The special today is sliced turkey on mixed rye and pumpernickel,” he said with a genuinely friendly smile. “The soup is tomato bisque. Can I get you something to drink?”

Charlie swung his attention from the painting on the wall and scowled up at Ben. “A blind man could paint better pictures than these!”

“Charlie!” Jake snapped. “Apologize.”

He and Ben exchanged glances, and Jake had the oddest notion that the man knew the boy’s anger was not really directed at him. “No, that’s all right,” Ben countered. “Everyone’s an art critic. To tell you the truth, I’m not that crazy about them myself.” Then, with a wink, he added, “But you ought to see the artist.”

Charlie had subsided into sulky silence. Jake tried to fill the void. “Good-looking, huh?”

“Nora Holloway’s one of the prettiest girls the Springs ever produced. So what if she ought to be painting barns instead of beaches?”