A Place Called Home Page 31

  There was silence, then one brave soul ventured, “Because we use the laser car wash?”

  “Exactly. So find out what those automatic washes are using and I’m betting we can pitch Shine and Shield to them as well. You know what this is, don’t you? A new product use. Carver Chemical has never tapped this before.”

  “Is it safe?” someone asked.

  “It was a 1953 Chevy truck, meticulously restored over a period of five years. Does the person who restored that sound like someone who would risk ruining a paint job by using something that wasn’t safe? This truck looked brand spanking new. Mitch said he’s been using Shine and Shield for years. Apparently his father told him about it.”

  There were a few more questions and comments. Everyone knew Carver Chemical already had a line of car products. In effect, Shine and Shield would be competing against them for a market share. On the other hand, if this product worked as well as Thea thought it did, it meant Carver had something to sell that had already been developed. The big costs were behind the company. They would have to run some tests, but they weren’t going to be spending the kind of money they usually did on R&D. Thea didn’t have any trouble convincing the Blue Team that meant extra money in Carver’s advertising budget. The Foster & Wyndham creative team practically stampeded out of the corral.

  Mrs. Admundson took a step backward to avoid being crushed. “Those people would kill their young for the next best idea,” she said, entering the conference room. “What did you say to them?”

  Thea made a three-sixty in her chair. Her smile was beatific. “I just gave them the next best idea, Mrs. A. And I might take the rest of the day off.”

  “But it’s only nine-thirty. And it’s Monday.”

  “I know. What could be a better way to start the week?”

  Mrs. Admundson looked confused. That expression settled uncomfortably on her strong Nordic features. She held up a sheaf of pink message slips. “I have these for you,” she said, waving them in her fingertips. “Plus, Mr. Baker is on line two. He’s been holding for a while.”

  Thea immediately reached for the phone. “Leave those with me,” she said, punching the line. “I’ll take the call here.” Thea lifted the receiver while Mrs. Admundson put the messages on the table in front of her. She mouthed a thank-you and fanned them idly in front of her, hardly sparing them a glance. “Mitch?”

  “Oh, thank God, Thea.”

  His tone had her immediately sitting up straight. She didn’t even hear her assistant closing the door. “I didn’t know you were holding for me. What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Emilie,” he said. “I had to pick her up at school this morning.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “No, not what you’d call sick. Aww, hell, Thea, I don’t know what to do. My mother and Amy are out shopping together and they must not be able to hear their phones. I hate to call you while you’re working.”

  “It’s all right. What’s wrong with her?” Before he could answer that, Thea asked a second question. “Where are you, Mitch? What’s that noise in the background?”

  “I’m in Target. You hear the TVs in electronics. You need anything? I’m going through domestics.”

  Thea relaxed a little. He’d found his sense of humor so whatever it was that had him shaken was not a matter of life and death. “Where’s Emilie?”

  “She’s waiting for me in the car. She didn’t want to come in. Well, actually she couldn’t come in. She ... umm ... she had an accident ... sort of.”

  Her calm was short-lived. “Mitchell Baker, so help me God, you better tell me what’s going on or I swear—”

  “Emilie started her period.” This announcement was met by silence. “You still there?”

  “I’m listening. Go on.”

  “Well, it happened right after she got to school. One of her friends noticed the blood on the back of her dress and told her about it. Em, of course, was mortified.”

  “Oh, poor Em. What did she do? Is she all right?”

  “Her friend has a cell phone—and don’t think I won’t hear about that later. Anyway, Emilie called me at home and I went and picked her up. She was too embarrassed to go to the office or tell her teacher. She was waiting for me outside.”

  “You forgot to take her clean clothes,” Thea said.

  “I didn’t even think of it,” Mitch admitted miserably. “I’m telling you, Thea. It kinda shook me up. This is way out of my league. I thought ... you know ... since you play for the away team, you might—”

  Thea made a strangled sound.

  “Are you okay?”

  She reached for her bottled water and took a swallow. “Fine.” She managed not to choke on the word, but only barely. He was deeply nuts. “I’m fine. Mitch? Why are you in Target?”

  “To get ... you know ... stuff.”

  It was only the thought of Emilie sitting out in the car alone that kept Thea from spewing another mouthful of water. “You mean feminine napkins.”

  “Yeah. And tampons.”

  Thea set down her bottle and said slowly, “Listen to me carefully, Mitch. Do not, I repeat, do not purchase tampons for Emilie. Not now. I don’t know what she understands about using them and—this is just a guess here—but I’m thinking you don’t want to be the one explaining it all to her, you being on the home team and everything.”

  Mitch’s sigh of relief practically vibrated the phone. “So what do I do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he whispered into the receiver, “what do I buy?”

  “I thought I was clear. You buy her pads.”

  “Yeah, but which ones?!”

  Thea realized he sounded a little panicked. She could almost enjoy this. “Tell me your choices.”

  “There are too damned many of them,” he fairly growled. “Light days, medium days, heavy days, and superabsorbent overnights. Wait, I found a color code.” He paused, studying the legend. “Pink is for light. Blue is medium days. Yellow ... orange ... green is blue and yellow. Who thought this was a good idea?”

  “Go on,” she said, tamping down her smile. “Emilie’s counting on you.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Some have wings. Some are wingless. Deodorant. No deodorant. Scented. No scent. Thin. Wafer thin. Oh, God, there’s something here that looks like a mattress.”

  Thea jammed her hand over the receiver to keep him from hearing her choke again. When she was composed, she said, “Go on. You’re doing fine.”

  He grunted. It was as good a way as any of proving to himself that he wasn’t lost to the feminine side. “Long. Longer. Wide. Double-wide. Tapered. Quilted. Thong. Contoured. Channels. No channels. Awww, jeez, Thea, this isn’t right. This one has French drains.”

  Tears actually came to Thea’s eyes. Her chest heaved with laughter too long suppressed, and for a moment she couldn’t catch her breath.

  “Emilie’s waiting,” Mitch reminded her.

  That sobered Thea. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. “Get her a package of the thin, regular absorbency quilted pads with wings. No deodorant or scents.”

  “Got it.”

  “Do I have to talk you through the checkout or do you think you can manage that on your own?”

  “Amusing,” he said dryly. “But I was already in hardware. I threw a power sander into my cart just in case I get any funny looks about this stuff.”

  “Good thinking.” She hesitated a beat. “Mitch?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “When you get back in the car, will you let Emilie call me? I could maybe ... I don’t know ... maybe say something to her that might help.”

  “Sure, I’ll do that. She called you first, you know.”

  Thea sat up straight. “What?”

  “Before me,” he said. “She told me they wouldn’t let her speak to you because you were in a meeting. I’m assuming she talked to Mrs. Admundson because I think Emilie could have wormed her way p
ast Tamika in reception.”

  Thea looked more carefully at the messages in front of her. The third one was Emilie’s. “I just found it,” Thea said. Her shoulders sagged. “I didn’t know, Mitch. I would have—”

  She sounded so forlorn that Mitch stopped pushing his cart right in front of the nail polish. A glittery shade called In the Pink jumped out at him and he tossed it into the buggy. “It’s okay, Thea. She’s over it.” Wrong thing to say. Mitch moved out of nails and leaned against the jewelry counter.

  “She’s over it? That means she was upset. I’m leaving work and coming up there. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  Out of it? he thought. He’d been wracking his brain trying to figure out how to talk her into it. “You’ll stay for dinner?”

  Since it wasn’t even lunch, Thea considered he was planning far ahead. “I’d like that,” she said.

  “Good. How soon are you leaving?”

  “Give me ten minutes and have Emilie call my cell.”

  “Got it. I’m out of here. Thanks, Thea.”

  Thea replaced the receiver slowly, her smile bemused and little off-kilter as she stared off into space. Monday mornings had never been her favorite part of the week. She was thinking she might have to revise her opinion.

  In the next few weeks Thea spent more time in Connaugh Creek. Sometimes she drove up after work and stayed until the news was over at eleven-thirty. On alternate weekends they came to her home. Thea took Mitch and the children horseback riding. They went to the museum and the science center and a Pirates game. At the beginning of June school let out and there were swimming lessons and machine-pitch baseball. Emilie was lobbying heavily for dance camp. The twins wanted to live at the park.

  At Foster and Wyndham the effort to pull together a campaign for Shine and Shield had moved Thea and every member of her Blue Team from drive into overdrive. She arrived at work as early as six some mornings so she could leave at four-thirty and miss some of the outbound traffic on her way to Mitch’s. She attended NA or AA meetings on her lunch hour and kept tabs with Rosie several times a week. Joel caught her every few days at the office and they exchanged updates, his about a relationship on the skids, hers about the kids. For the first time her demanding schedule was not a distraction from life, but a purpose for it. She felt as if she were breathing, really breathing, and while she still took one day at a time it no longer required the sustained effort she had initially applied to the task.

  Until Father’s Day.

  On that day she was a single nerve ending. Her parents had returned.

  Mitch extended his hand to George Wyndham. “Glad to meet you, sir,” he said. Wyndham’s grip was firm, in spite of the knuckles being swollen and slightly misshapen with the effects of arthritis.

  “And you,” Wyndham said politely. “Thea’s told us about you. She sent us some of your cartoons.” He released Mitch’s hand and sized him up with a glance, that in spite of its obvious interest, was still remote. “Not your best work, I suspect. You’re a Democrat, aren’t you?”

  “Daddy,” Thea interjected quickly. “No politics, please.”

  “Thea’s right, George,” Patricia Wyndham said. She gave him a tumbler of Scotch, neat. “You’ll give yourself a stroke.”

  Mitch felt Thea’s mother’s cool, brittle smile turned on him. She was an attractive woman. Tall. Thin. Her hair was salt and pepper, expertly cut. She had a strong, linear jaw, and the choker of pearls she wore around her neck emphasized it. Her skin was too taut for a woman her age, which meant there had been a face-lift, probably several. Her nails were her own, buffed and polished with clear enamel. One of them tapped lightly against her cut-crystal tumbler. The ice cubes in her Scotch clinked together and against the sides as she regarded him for a long moment before she spoke.

  “I liked your cartoons, Mr. Baker. You mustn’t mind my husband. He left his sense of humor at Heathrow. It was a long and particularly trying flight.”

  Did they run out of Scotch in first-class? Mitch held his tongue and kept his expression carefully neutral. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Wyndham. It makes your invitation to have us here all the more gracious.”

  She lifted one eyebrow. “Do you think so? That is very kind of you.” Patricia turned her attention to Thea. “Will you introduce the children to us? They appear to be at sixes and sevens.”

  “Yes,” Thea said. “Yes, of course.” She touched Emilie lightly on the shoulder. “Mother, this is Emilie Reasoner. Emilie, my mother.”

  “How do you do?” Emilie asked. Her concession to her own discomfort was the way she shifted ever so slightly toward Thea’s side.

  “Very well, thank you,” Patricia said.

  Thea completed the introductions all around. The twins marched right up to George Wyndham and shook his hand, just as they’d practiced with Mitch. Thea thought her father looked impressed, but it was always a bit difficult to tell. His smile was present but the eyes remained unreadable.

  “Well,” George said, “perhaps we should go to the living room. Berte will call us for dinner. Thea? Why don’t you fix a drink for Mr. Baker? There are soft drinks for the children in the bar.”

  “Belly up to the bar, boys,” Thea said, earning a disapproving look from Patricia as if she’d just said something vulgar. “It’s from The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Mother. You took me to see it, remember?”

  Patricia Wyndham was not sure that she did but her features softened marginally. She slipped her arm through her husband’s and allowed him to escort her from the spacious den to the living room.

  When they were out of earshot, Mitch said, “Make mine a double.”

  A glimmer of a smile appeared on Thea’s lips as she walked to the bar. “They do seem to have that effect on people.”

  Case crawled up onto a leather upholstered barstool and pressed his stomach to the bar, taking Thea’s invitation literally. “Double.”

  Chuckling, Thea looked in the refrigerator. “How about a Shirley Temple?” She saw Case exchange a look of confusion with his brother. “Never mind,” she said. “Trust me. You’ll like this. Emilie? Grant? You, too?”

  While Thea made the drinks, Mitch looked around. “You grew up here?”

  Thea had recently determined that she had lived here, but that she had only grown up after she left. She might tell Mitch that at another time; for now she only said, “That’s right. There are eighteen rooms, not counting the baths. You saw the carriage house?”

  “As we drove up.”

  “That’s were Berte and John live. They take care of the place for Mother and Daddy when they’re traveling. Berte also cooks and John sees to the grounds.”

  Mitch whistled softly, accepting the drink Thea handed him. “Live-in help. Impressive.” He had known her family had money, but this was something else again. “I had no idea the ad business was so lucrative.”

  “My grandfather and my father did all right for themselves,” she said. “This house comes from my mother’s family. She’s a Carver.”

  It almost went over Mitch’s head. When he got it he felt like he caught it on the rebound. “Carver?” he repeated, turning slowly. “As in Carver Chemical?”

  “The same.” She flashed him a guilty smile. “I really thought you knew. Grant, you can’t have any more maraschino cherries in your drink. I’m not even sure they’re good for you.” She put the jar back in the refrigerator and took a tonic water for herself, adding a lime wedge to the rim of her glass. “Come on. Mother and Daddy will be wondering what happened to us.”

  “I think your mother and father are scary,” Emilie announced, perfectly at ease in doing so.

  “Me, too,” Case said, sliding off his stool. “Like Cruella.”

  “Yeah,” Grant chimed in. “And her boyfriend.”

  “Cruella didn’t have a boyfriend,” Emilie said. “Not really. Anyway, Mr. Wyndham looks just like Cruella, too.”

  Behind the bar, Thea felt a little weak in the knees.

  “
That’s enough,” Mitch said. “There better not be any Cruella comments at dinner. We’re Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham’s guests. Here, let me hold your drinks until we get to the living room. And don’t touch anything on the way there. I won’t make enough in a lifetime to replace what’s broken.”

  Emilie handed her drink to Thea and clapped her hands close to her sides. Her brothers followed suit and the three of them began marching out of the den single file.

  “Very funny,” Mitch called after them. He looked at Thea. “Your parents are scary,” he told her. “And don’t think you’re done explaining the Carver Chemical connection. I didn’t realize I was standing in the home Shine and Shield built.”

  Thea sighed, picking up Emilie’s drink and her own. She came around the bar. “Actually, it was Avalon that built this house.”

  “The soap,” Mitch said.

  “That’s right. ‘As a flake, in a cake, all the suds you can make.’ Soap flakes. Cake of soap. None of that rings a bell?”

  “Afraid not, but you sing it real nice.”

  She continued with the ditty in her clear alto voice. “‘As you glean, there’s a sheen in all the clothes you can clean.’” Thea eyed Mitch. “Nothing?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly a Barry Manilow jingle, but it was popular in its day. It sold a lot of Avalon even before it was set to music and heard on radio.” Thea was the first into the hallway. She waited for Mitch.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Your grandfather.”

  “Good guess. He wrote the words and later, the music.”

  There was more Mitch wanted to know but he was concentrating on not spilling the contents of the glasses he was carrying. The rug underneath his feet most definitely did not come from IKEA and he doubted it was something that was easily cleaned. Avalon or no.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Thea asked as they reached the pocket doors to the living room.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “The strain shows?”

  “A little.”