Fidelity - SF6 (16 page)

Moments after Catherine returned to her room from breakfast, the telephone on the bedside table began to trill. She picked up on the third ring and said, "Hello, Jim."

A small chuckle was her husband’s initial reply, followed by, "When did you become a psychic, Catherine?"

"Oh, I have quite a few hidden talents," she replied blithely. "However, since you’re the only person who has my number here, I thought there was an excellent chance that it might be you. Is everything all right, Dear?" It was quite odd for either Evans to call the other while on holiday, except out of necessity.

"Yes. I think things are fine." He hedged a bit, reasoning from her tone that she had not yet heard of his argument with Ryan. "Are you both settled in?"

"Yessss…" Catherine decided that something was definitely up, and she was determined not to let her husband off the phone until she knew just what it was. "Would you like to tell me why you called, Jim?"

There is no way in hell she’d be this civil if she knew I threw Ryan out of the house
, he reasoned.
Maybe I can back into this
. "I know you’ve only been gone the better part of one day, Catherine, but I’ve spent nearly the entire time thinking about Jamie and the situation with Ryan."

"Situation?" she replied rather archly. "That’s an odd choice of words, Dear."

"No, it’s not," he said firmly, deciding to reveal some of his evidence. "I didn’t have a chance to discuss this with you, Catherine, but I now believe that Ryan is trying to gain control of Jamie’s trust."

There was a long moment of silence before Catherine burst into laughter. "You’ve got to be kidding," she gasped. "You
are
kidding, aren’t you?"

"Of course I’m not kidding! She was down at Tuck Gray’s office demanding to know if she could get a power of attorney to make withdrawals!"

"She most certainly was not, Jim," Catherine said in a voice uncharacteristically firm. "Jamie wanted to ask for her distribution, but she didn’t even have a copy of the agreement, thanks to you, I might add. She wanted to get a copy, and while they were there she asked a few questions. She’s tired of being treated like she can’t make her own financial decisions, Jim. In my personal opinion, part of that is your fault!"

"My fault! My fault!" he yelled. "How can you possibly say that?"

"If you had not been so rigid about this, I doubt that she would have any interest in managing her own money. I’m certain she would have been happy to take her distribution and put it in a fund for you to manage. But now she’s worried that she’s going to be financially tied to you until she’s 30!"

"At this rate, she’s going to be," he muttered, now angry with his wife, as well as his daughter.

"Jim," she said sharply, "don’t take that attitude with her. She’s not a child any longer, and treating her like one will only drive her further from you."

She could hear the frustration in his voice, and felt a stirring of sympathy for him when he sighed heavily, seemingly in resignation. "What’s happened to her, Cat?" His voice was nearly a whisper as he added, "She’s just not my little girl any more."

"Oh, Sweetheart, she’ll always be your little girl," she soothed, touched by his very uncharacteristic vulnerability. "But only in some ways. In others, she’s an adult, and she has to make the choices that adults make. One of them is how much trust to put in your partner. She trusts Ryan completely, Jim, and we have to respect that."

"No we don’t, Catherine," he said, his normal confidence returning as quickly as it had fled. "I can’t stand by and let that woman make a fool out of her. Jamie will never forgive herself if Ryan is just using her for her money."

There was a long pause as Catherine tried to understand how her husband could be so shallow and shortsighted on this important topic. "Of course she would never forgive herself if Ryan was using her, Jim. But it wouldn’t be because of the money she lost, it would be because her heart would be so badly broken. The money would be totally irrelevant."

"Fine. Frame it any way you wish. I believe that the sooner Ryan is exposed for who she really is and what she is after, the sooner Jamie can get back to her old self."

"Jim," she started to explain that Jamie’s true self had never left her, but she knew that her husband would not understand that concept. "The more likely scenario is that Jamie would hate whoever successfully exposed Ryan as a fraud. Do you really want to be in that position?"

"No," he fumed, actually sounding like he was going to cry. "But someone has to, Catherine. I don’t want her to get hurt!"

"Then don’t be the one to hurt her, Jim." She let that sink in for a moment before she added, "I’ve spent more time with Ryan than you have. I’m confident that she loves Jamie and is not interested in her money."

"Oh, Catherine," he scoffed, "you wouldn’t recognize the fox in the henhouse. You always think the best of people."

Truly insulted, she bit her tongue to prevent herself from tossing back a hurtful retort. The silence continued for a moment, Jim either not recognizing that he had been rude or not believing he owed her an apology.

"Look. As I said, I’ve thought about this a lot since you left. I’ve come to the decision that Jamie should stay in Newport with you for the entire month. She needs some space to get her head on right, and I think being with your family will help her do so."

The silence continued for a long moment as Catherine tried to get her mind around his statement. "First of all, my family is much more skilled at skewing heads than straightening them. Secondly, I’m not going to have her lashed to the mast of David’s boat and cast adrift, Jim, and I guarantee that’s the only way to keep her from Ryan."

"There are other ways, Catherine," he said slowly, his unspecified threat sending a chill down her spine.

"Listen, Jim," she said with uncharacteristic fervor, "Jamie is my daughter too, and I will not tolerate you trying to force her to see things your way. I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, but whatever it is, I’ll have no part of it."

His heavy sigh showed that he knew arguing the point would be futile. "Fine. I thought I could count on you to support me in this. I assumed that you cared about Jamie’s long-term happiness. I’m obviously wrong."

"Jim," she said gently, her voice filled with as much empathy as she could muster, "I know how hard this is for you, Sweetheart. But the only way to stay connected to Jamie is to support her choices. You don’t have to like them, but you have to honor them."

"There is no way I’m going to honor her choice to welcome that woman into our family. She’s up to no good, Catherine, and one day Jamie will thank me for making the hard choices to protect her."

Her voice grew firm again as she demanded, "What are you planning on doing, Jim?"

"Whatever I have to do, Catherine. I will do whatever I have to do to protect my daughter." Before she could utter another word of protest, the dial tone sounded in her ear.

Mother and daughter got an early start on their shopping expedition, at least in Catherine’s view of the world. At eleven a.m. they entered the first of a string of small, elegant boutiques in the ultra-chic shopping district of Newport.

Since the family dressed rather formally for dinner, Catherine had already decided that Jamie needed at least five new outfits. Reluctantly, the younger woman agreed, insisting that she be allowed to pay for at least some of the items. Catherine agreed, and they reached a compromise. Since Jamie knew that she would rarely, if ever, wear the relatively dressy outfits that her mother wanted to buy, Catherine decided she would pay for the more formal clothes and Jamie could buy anything that she would wear in her normal activities. That settled, they forged a trail through the exquisite little shops, charge cards a-blazing.

"I can’t believe that I’m even saying this, but I’m about shopped out!" Catherine admitted when they stopped for a bite of lunch. "We marched through these stores like Sherman taking Atlanta."

"We did do a bit of damage," Jamie agreed, mentally shuddering at the amount of money they had just spent. "I’m afraid I’m going to have a hard time of it when I get home."

"Maybe she’d go easy on you if you brought her something nice," Catherine advised, smiling conspiratorially. "She has such a perfect body for clothes, with those long legs."

"Well, I did have something in mind, but it’s a little intimate. Ryan says I shouldn’t rub your nose in the physical side of our relationship," she said, testing the waters.

"You don’t have to worry about my being shocked. I was a child of the 70’s, you know. Granted, it was the late 70’s, and I was a Stanford sorority girl, but it still counts!"

Gauging her mother’s sincerity, Jamie asked, "So you won’t faint if I buy her some sexy underwear?"

"Ha! I’m made of tougher stuff than that, Dear. As a matter of fact, I know just the place."

Moments after their lunch was finished, they were enveloped in a sea of silk and satin and lace. Catherine had chosen a very small, very exclusive, and very expensive lingerie shop. Most of the items were imported and all were of the finest natural fabrics, each item beautifully displayed and artfully lit with tiny halogen spots.

When the dangerously thin salesclerk approached, Jamie told her that she was looking for a gift for someone.

"Ah," she acknowledged with a heavy French accent. "A nightgown or robe perhaps?"

"No," she replied. "I was thinking of a thong or some tiny bikinis."

"Ooo, an intimate gift. For your lover perhaps?" She rolled her r’s with a sexy trill, and Jamie noticed that her dark brown eyes lit up with interest.

"Perhaps," Jamie replied with a glint in her eye, feeling like she was back home in San Francisco. Normally, such an obvious question about her sexuality would stun, or at least offend her, but this woman’s attitude was so challenging that all of her spunk rose to the occasion.

She was escorted to a neat display of tiny little thongs and even smaller bikinis, the saleswoman draping herself casually against the table, watching Jamie through the cloud of cigarette smoke in which she was enshrouded. Jamie looked through the selections for a few moments, occasionally asking Catherine her opinion. "Is this your lover?" the woman asked conversationally, gesturing idly with her elegant hand.

"No," Jamie said with a shocked look, as Catherine chuckled mildly. "This is my mother!"

The woman scrunched her face and added a bored shrug, ignoring the outrage on her customer’s face. "What size does your lover take?"

"Definitely large," Jamie decided, holding up a pair that would obviously be too small. "Maybe even extra large."

The salesgirl assumed a knowing look, smiling slyly. "Ah, your lover is a man, no?"

"No!" Jamie snapped, ready to pop the woman for her insolence. "She is definitely a woman. She’s just a large woman. She wears size eight in panties."

"All of our things are European sized," she stated, the censure in her tone making it clear that this should be obvious. "How much does she weigh?"

"About 180," she replied.

"Ah, she is a
very
large woman," the clerk said with a contemplative nod. "Perhaps you do not
want
to see so much of her, no? We have some things to cover her up, to spare your eyes."

Jamie pursed her lips together so hard that they turned white. Grabbing her wallet, she extracted the picture of Ryan posing with her temporary tattoo. Holding it up to the woman she asked petulantly, "Do you think this should be covered up?"

The woman gazed at the picture for a moment, her dark eyes taking in the entire image. Gracing Jamie with a seductive, slightly envious smile, she said, "I think something tiny and very easily removed, perhaps in black?"

"This is by far the best I have felt all day," Jamie said appreciatively from beneath her mud mask.

After the demands of an afternoon of shopping, Catherine decided that they needed to rejuvenate their spirits, so they gratefully treated themselves to a visit at an elegant little day spa near the harbor. Long sessions in the herbal scented steam and the sauna, hour-long massages, and another round in the sauna had them sufficiently prepared for a full-body clay masque.

As Jamie relaxed on the towel-draped chaise, she had to admit that the pampering felt terrific. The masseuse was not as talented as Ryan, but her lover clearly had an advantage.
Having spent hours memorizing every square inch of your client with both your hands and your mouth had to be a big help
, she thought lazily. After the clay dried, her attendant led her into a shower where she was scrubbed from head to toe with a stiff loofah brush. When she was finished, her skin glowed and tingled, and she noticed that she felt calmer and more relaxed than she had since she left California.

Catherine was lying on one of the nicely padded chaise lounges in the spa area when Jamie joined her. She looked half asleep, but as soon as Jamie sat down, she spoke up. "Shouldn’t it be illegal to feel this relaxed?" she mumbled.

"I’ve got to thank you again for this, Mom," she said. "I haven’t been to a spa in a few weeks. And even though Ryan gives great massages, there’s something fabulous about the whole package."

"I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Dear. Are you sure you’re quite relaxed?"

"Yes. Deliciously so," she murmured.

Catherine rolled onto her side, gazing at her daughter directly as she said, "We need to have a little talk about your father, Jamie."

Her stomach flipped a bit at the mere suggestion, but Jamie steeled herself and agreed. "Sure. What do you want to talk about?" She assumed that her father had complained to her mother about their argument on Saturday at the golf club. Jamie shook her head in dismay about that little incident. She had such high hopes that spending the day with him might ease the tension that had built up between them, but the opposite had occurred. They'd fought about Ryan, as usual, and both had said things that were impossible to retract.

Catherine sat up a bit and braced her head on her open palm. She was covered in a pale pink sheet, and her skin glowed so brightly that it almost matched the color of the wrap. "I spoke to him this morning, Jamie. He’s…he’s very upset, and I’m afraid the tension between the two of you is going to fracture your relationship. I know that’s not something that you want, Dear."

"No, of course it’s not, Mother."
Just as I suspected, he wants to cause the problem and then let her try to placate me. Well, it’s not going to work this time, Daddy. This is between you and me!

"I just want to be sure that you have some understanding of his position, Dear," Catherine said soothingly.

"Umm, I think I do," Jamie reminded her. "I think it goes something like ‘Drop Ryan and everything will be fine. Oh, and if you could manage to be straight again, that would be nice, too.’"

Visibly grimacing, Catherine frowned and offered, "I was afraid that might be your view. But I think it’s inaccurate, Jamie. Do you mind if I give you my opinion?"

"Not at all," she replied with a wan smile. "Especially since you asked first. I’m a little tired of having Daddy trying to force his opinion on me."

Catherine gave her a small smile in return and conceded, "Our styles are a bit different, I admit, but I honestly think that we both want what’s best for you. I think it’s been very, very difficult for him to have you grow up so much in the last year."

"Last year?" Jamie repeated wonderingly. "What do you mean by ‘last year’?"

"The past year has been when you’ve really matured, Jamie," she said thoughtfully. "Doesn’t it feel that way to you?"

She lay back with the chaise in the fully reclined position, and after a moment she laced her fingers behind her head and lifted it a bit to make eye contact with her mother. "I…I suppose I know what you mean. It was just a year ago that Jack and I got engaged."

"Oh, no," Catherine disagreed. "That’s not what I meant, Honey. I think you started acting like an adult when you broke up with Jack."

"Well, he broke up with me, to be accurate."

"And if you had not been turning into your own person, he’d still be with you," Catherine said quietly.

Now Jamie sat up completely and stared at her mother. "What do you mean?"

"Honey, even though 20 years separate them, Jack and your father could be twins! When you first started going out with him, it honestly felt like déjà vu to me. I look at him and see the same earnest young law student that courted me so diligently."

"I didn’t know that," Jamie said quietly. "I mean, it’s obvious that they are alike in some ways, but I didn’t know their similarities were so striking to you."

"Oh yes," Catherine assured her. "And both of them treated you in exactly the same way. They both love you, and they want the best for you, but neither of them wants you to make decisions on your own. They’re both very confident, controlling men, and both of them believe that they know what’s best for you. When you started to make your own decisions and break with their view of you, they both tried their best to get you back under their control, but you’ve really stuck up for yourself. And that is the most mature thing I’ve ever seen you do, Honey. Following your own heart is what is making you an adult," she declared.

"Th…Thanks, Mother," she said with a nearly vacant look on her face. She was frankly stunned that her mother had so much insight into her relationship with Jack, and was enormously pleased that she would see her decisions as the result of mature thought rather than childish insolence.

"You’re welcome, Dear. I really do think you’ve been terribly mature through this whole process, but I want to ask you to consider something that will require significantly more maturity than you’ve already shown."

"What’s that?" she asked, leery of her mother’s preamble.

"I want you to try to put aside your anger and reach out to your father. I’m truly afraid that if you can’t take that step, it might be a very long time before you have a relationship with him." The fiercely determined look in those brown eyes told Jamie that this was something her mother had given a lot of thought to, but she didn’t like the suggestion one little bit.

"Shouldn’t he be the one to reach out to me, Mother?" she asked quietly. "He’s the one who keeps escalating the issue."

The older woman nodded slowly. "I wish he was mature enough to do that, Honey. But I don’t think he is."

Jamie looked at her very curiously and queried, "Mature enough?"

"Yes. I don’t believe he’s mature enough," she replied confidently. "He’s just childish enough to let his animosity fester until it destroys him."

"You really believe he would give up the chance to have a relationship with me?" the younger woman asked, feeling a little sick at the thought.

"Let me put it this way, Honey," Catherine soothed, "he believes he’s doing the right thing. He honestly doesn’t see this as an attempt to make you into the image he has of you. He’s certain that Ryan has some sort of unnatural hold over you. And he’s just as certain that she’s as interested in your money as she is in you."

"That’s very complimentary," she snapped with a bitter edge to her voice.

"Honey," Catherine cajoled, "please try to step back and see this from his perspective."

Jamie gave her an even look, and tilted her head just a bit to urge her mother to continue.

"Let’s look at the history here, Honey. The first time he spends any time at all with Ryan is the day you tell him you’re in love with her. He immediately finds out that she’s living with you, and that you’re planning on supporting her. She tells him that you’re going to send her to medical school or some other graduate program and that you’ll be supporting her the whole while. She doesn’t have any money of her own, she doesn’t even own a car! And then he finds out that you’ve bought her a nice Lexus. You take her to meet your trust officer, and he fans the flames by telling your father that he’s certain Ryan is trying to steal from you!"

"I didn’t know that," she grumbled. "I mean, I know that Tuck told him we were there, but…"

"That’s when he really went off the deep end, Honey. I know that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, but your father’s very cynical about people and their motivations. He truly does think that money is a prime motivator for most people, and you must admit that it looks as though Ryan is calling the shots!"