Smooth-Talking Stranger Read online

  I brought in my bags from the car, changed into my pajamas, and took the baby into the guest bedroom.

  “Where is he going to sleep?” I asked, wondering what you did when there was no crib available.

  “Put him next to you on the bed,” Mom suggested.

  “But I might roll over onto him, or accidentally push him over the side.”

  “Then make a pallet on the floor.”

  “But—”

  “I’m going to bed,” my mother said, striding from the room. “I am worn out. I’ve had to look after that baby all day.”

  While Luke waited in his plastic carrier, I made a pallet for both of us on the floor. I rolled up a quilt to make a bolster between us. After laying Luke on his back on one side of the pallet, I sat on the other side and flipped open my cell phone to call my cousin Liza.

  “Are you with Tara?” Liza demanded as soon as I said hello.

  “I was hoping she was with you.”

  “No. I’ve tried calling her a thousand times and she won’t pick up.”

  Although Liza was my age, and I had always liked her, we’d never had much to do with each other. Like most of the women on my mother’s side, Liza was blond and leggy, and possessed a perpetual appetite for male attention. With her long face and slightly horsy grin, she wasn’t as pretty as my sister Tara, but she had it, the unmistakable quality that men couldn’t resist. You would walk through a restaurant with her, and men would literally turn in their chairs to watch her go by.

  Through the years Liza had managed to get access to some fast circles. She dated rich Houston guys and their friends, becoming sort of a playboy-groupie, or to put it more unkindly, a local starfucker of sorts. There was no doubt in my mind that if my sister had been living with Liza, she had been the eager recipient of Liza’s leftovers.

  We talked for a few minutes, and Liza said that she had a few ideas about where Tara might have gone. She would make some calls, she said. She felt sure Tara was okay. She hadn’t seemed depressed or crazy. Just ambivalent.

  “Tara was going back and forth about the baby,” Liza said. “She wasn’t sure she wanted to keep it. She changed her mind so many times the past few months, I gave up trying to figure out what she was going to do.”

  “Did she get any kind of counseling?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What about the father?” I demanded. “Who is he?”

  There was a long hesitation. “I don’t think Tara is all-the-way sure.”

  “She must have some idea.”

  “Well, she thought she knew, but . . . you know Tara. She’s not very organized.”

  “How organized do you have to be to know who you’re sleeping with?”

  “Well, we were both partying a lot for a while . . . and the timing’s not easy to work out, you know? I guess I could put together a list of the guys she went out with.”

  “Thank you. Who are we putting at the top of the list? Who did Tara say the most likely father was?”

  There was a lengthy hesitation. “She said she thought it was Jack Travis.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Liza gave an incredulous laugh. “Doesn’t that name mean anything to you, Ella?”

  My eyes widened. “You mean a Travis Travis?”

  “The middle son.”

  The head of the well-known Houston family was Churchill Travis, a billionaire investor and financial commentator. He was on the golden Rolodexes of media people, politicians, and celebrities. I’d seen him on CNN more than a few times, and in all the Texas magazines and papers. He and his children inhabited the small world of powerful people who rarely faced the consequences of their actions. They were above the economy, above threats from men or governments, above accountability. They were their own species.

  Any son of Churchill Travis had to be a privileged, spoiled jerk.

  “Great,” I muttered. “I’m assuming it was a one-night stand?”

  “You don’t have to sound so judgmental, Ella.”

  “Liza, I can’t think of any way to ask that question without sounding judgmental.”

  “It was a one-night stand,” my cousin said shortly.

  “So this will be coming out of left field for Travis,” I mused aloud. “Or not. It’s possible he gets this all the time. Surprise babies popping up like daisies.”

  “Jack dates a lot of women,” Liza admitted.

  “Have you ever gone out with him?”

  “We’ve hung out in the same circles. I’m friends with Heidi Donovan, who goes out with him sometimes.”

  “What does he do for a living, aside from waiting for Big Daddy to kick the bucket?”

  “Oh, Jack’s not like that,” Liza protested. “He’s got his own company . . . something about property management . . . it’s at 1800 Main. You know that glass building downtown, the one with the funny-looking top?”

  “Yes, I know where that is.” I loved that building, all glass and art deco flourishes with a segmented glass pyramid on top. “Could you get his number for me?”

  “I could try.”

  “And in the meantime, you’ll work on that list?”

  “I guess. But I don’t think Tara would be too happy about that.”

  “I don’t think Tara is especially happy about anything these days,” I said. “Help me find her, Liza. I need to see if she’s okay and figure out what to do for her. I also want to find out who the father is and to work out some kind of plan for this poor abandoned baby.”

  “He wasn’t abandoned,” my cousin protested. “A baby isn’t abandoned if you know where you left him.”

  I considered explaining the flaws in her logic, but it was clearly a waste of time. “Please work on the list, Liza. If Jack Travis doesn’t turn out to be the father, I’m going to have to force every man Tara slept with last year to take a paternity test.”

  “Why go stirring up trouble, Ella? Can’t you just take care of the baby for a while like she asked?”

  “I . . .” Words failed me for a moment. “I have a life, Liza. I have a job. I have a boyfriend who wants nothing to do with babies. No, I can’t sign on indefinitely as Tara’s unpaid nanny.”

  “I was just asking,” Liza said defensively. “Some men like babies, you know. And I didn’t think your job would get in the way . . . it’s mostly typing, right?”

  I had to smother a laugh. “It definitely involves typing, Liza. But I have to do a little bit of thinking, too.”

  We talked for a few more minutes, mostly about Jack Travis. Apparently he was a man’s man who hunted and fished, drove a little too fast, lived a little too hard. Women were lined up from Houston to Amarillo in hopes of being his next girlfriend. And from what Heidi had confided to Liza, Jack Travis would do absolutely anything in bed, and had an insane amount of stamina. In fact—

  “TMI,” I told Liza at that point.

  “Okay. But let me tell you this: Heidi said that one night he took off his tie and used it to—”

  “TMI, Liza,” I insisted.

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “No. My column gets all kinds of letters and e-mails about bedroom issues. Nothing can shock me anymore. But I’d rather not know about Travis’s sex life if I’m going to have to face the guy and ask him to take a paternity test.”

  “If Jack is the father,” Liza said, “he’ll help out. He’s a responsible guy.”

  I wasn’t buying it. “Responsible men don’t have one-night stands and get women pregnant.”

  “You’ll like him,” she said. “All women do.”

  “Liza, I never like the kind of guy that all women like.”

  After I got off the phone with my cousin, I stared at the baby. His eyes were round blue buttons, and his face was puckered with a disarming expression of concern. I wondered what his impression of life was after his first week in the world. A lot of coming and going, car rides, changing faces, different voices. He probably wanted his mother’s face, his mother’s tone. At his a
ge, a little consistency wasn’t too much to ask. I cupped my hand lightly over the top of his skull, smoothing the black fluff. “One more call,” I told him, and flipped open the phone again.

  Dane picked up on the second ring. “How’s Operation Baby Rescue going?”

  “I’ve rescued the baby. Now I’d like someone to rescue me.”

  “Miss Independent never needs to be rescued.”

  I felt the hint of a genuine smile appear on my face, like a crack in the winter ice. “Oh, right. I forgot.” I told him everything that had happened so far, and about the possibility that Jack Travis was the father.

  “I’d approach that claim with some healthy skepticism,” Dane commented. “If Travis is the sperm donor, don’t you think Tara would have gone to him by now? From what I know of your sister, getting knocked up by a billionaire’s son is the highest pinnacle of achievement.”

  “My sister has always operated from a system of logic that is nothing like ours. I can’t begin to guess why she’s behaving this way. And when I find her, I’m not at all certain she’ll be capable of taking care of Luke. When we were younger, she couldn’t even keep a goldfish alive.”

  “I’ve got connections,” Dane said quietly. “I know some people who can help place him with a good family.”

  “I don’t know.” I glanced at the baby, whose eyes were closed. I wasn’t sure I could live with the idea of giving him to strangers. “I have to figure out what’s best for him. Someone has to put his needs first. He didn’t ask to be born.”

  “Get a good night’s sleep. You’ll figure out the right answer, Ella. You always do.”

  THREE

  IT WAS A MARK OF DANE’S UNFAMILIARITY WITH babies that he had suggested, without irony, that I get a good night’s sleep. My nephew was a living, breathing sleep disorder. It was without exception the worst night I had ever spent, a series of harsh awakenings and crying and formula-mixing and feeding and burping and diaper-changing, and then after about five minutes of rest it all started again. I didn’t know how anyone could live through months of this. After one night, I was a wreck.

  In the morning I showered, turning the water up to near-scalding in the hopes that it would ease my aching muscles. Wishing I’d had the foresight to bring a more impressive outfit, I dressed in the only clean clothes I had: a pair of jeans, a fitted cotton shirt, and leather flats. I brushed my hair until it was neat and smooth, and looked at my haggard, stone-white face. My eyes were so irritated and dry that I didn’t bother with my contact lenses. I decided to wear my glasses, a pair of sensible rectangular wire-rims.

  It didn’t improve my mood when I went to the kitchen, bringing Luke in his carrier, and saw my mother sitting at the table. Her fingers were knobbed with rings, her hair curled and sprayed. She wore shorts, her legs smooth and tan, and one of the pedicured toes that peeped from her wedge sandals sparkled with a tiny crystal toe ring.

  I set Luke’s carrier on the floor at the other side of the table, away from her.

  “Does the baby have any other clothes?” I asked. “His one-piece is dirty.”

  Mom shook her head. “There’s a discount store down the street. You can buy some things for him there. You’ll need a big pack of diapers—they go through them fast at this stage.”

  “No kidding,” I said wearily, heading for the coffeepot.

  “Did you talk to Liza last night?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She thinks Tara’s okay. She’s going to make some calls today to try and find her.”

  “What about the baby’s daddy?”

  I had already decided not to tell her anything about Jack Travis’s possible involvement. Because if there was any way to ensure my mother’s interest and unwanted involvement, it was to mention a rich man’s name.

  “No idea yet,” I said casually.

  “Where are you going today?”

  “It looks like I’m going to find a hotel room.” I didn’t say it in an accusatory way. I didn’t need to.

  Her slim body stiffened in the chair. “The man I’m seeing can’t find out about this.”

  “Because you’re a grandmother?” I took a perverse pleasure in seeing her twitch at the word. “Or because Tara wasn’t married when she had the baby?”

  “Both. He’s younger than me. Conservative, too. He wouldn’t understand there’s only so much you can do with rebellious children.”

  “Tara and I haven’t been children for a while, Mom.” I took a sip of black coffee, the bitter brew eliciting a judder of revulsion. Living with Dane, I had grudgingly accustomed myself to softening the brew with soy milk instead. What the hell, I thought, and reached for the carton of half-and-half on the counter. I poured a liberal dollop into the coffee.

  Mom’s lipstick-coated mouth pressed into thin, dry ribbons. “You’ve always been a know-it-all. Well, you’re about to find out how much you don’t know.”

  “Believe me,” I muttered, “I’m the first one to admit that I have no clue about any of this stuff. I had nothing to do with it. This isn’t my baby.”

  “Then give it to Social Services.” She was getting agitated. “Whatever happens to him will be your fault, not mine. Get rid of him if you can’t handle the responsibility.”

  “I can handle it,” I said, my voice quiet. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll take care of him. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

  She subsided like a child who had just been mollified by a lollipop. “You’ll have to learn the way I did,” she said after a moment, reaching down to adjust her toe ring. A hint of satisfaction edged her tone as she added, “The hard way.”

  THE DAY WAS ALREADY BLAZING. I TOOK LUKE INTO the discount store, while he squalled up and down the aisles, writhing angrily in the ragged foam-lined infant seat that was bolted to the handles of the basket. Luke finally quieted when we left, soothed by the vibration of the basket wheels as they rattled over the rough asphalt of the parking lot.

  The outside air was roasting-hot, while the indoors’ were chilled by Arctic air-conditioning. As you went outside and inside, alternately sweating and drying, you were eventually covered in an invisible film of sticky salt. Luke and I were heated to the pink of boiled shrimp.

  And this was how I was going to meet Jack Travis.

  I called Liza, hoping she had managed to get his phone number.

  “Heidi wouldn’t give it to me,” Liza said, sounding disgruntled. “Talk about insecure—I think she’s scared I’m going to make a move on him! I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her about all the times I could have gone after him but didn’t on account of our friendship. ’Sides, she knows as well as anyone that there’s plenty of Jack Travis to go around.”

  “It’s a wonder the man gets any sleep.”

  “Jack’s upfront about not being able to commit to one woman, so no one expects it of him. But Heidi’s been seeing him so long, I think she’s convinced herself she can get him to cough up an engagement ring.”

  “Like a hairball,” I said, entertained. “Well, good luck to her. But in the meantime, how am I going to get in touch with him?”

  “I don’t know, Ella. Short of just barging in there and asking to see him, I can’t think of anything.”

  “Fortunately I have excellent barging skills.”

  “I’d be careful,” my cousin said warily. “Jack’s a nice guy, but he’s not the kind you can push around.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” I agreed, while my stomach tightened in a spasm of nerves.

  * * *

  THE TRAFFIC IN HOUSTON HAD ITS OWN MYSTERIOUS patterns. Only keen familiarity and vast experience would allow you to maneuver through them. Naturally, Luke and I got caught in stop-and-start traffic that turned a fifteen-minute drive into a forty-five-minute one.

  By the time we reached the artful, glittering structure of 1800 Main, Luke was howling and a foul smell had filled the car, demonstrating that a baby will inevitably have a dirty di
aper at the worst possible time in the worst possible place.

  I drove to the underground parking garage, the commercial half of which was completely full, and I had to drive out again. As I drove farther down the street, I found a public paying lot. After parking in one of the street-level spaces, I managed to change Luke’s diaper in the back seat of the Prius.

  The baby carrier seemed to weigh about a thousand pounds as I lugged it along the street to the building. Icy air hit me in a controlled blast as I entered the luxurious lobby, all marble and brushed steel and gleaming wood. After glancing at a glass-shielded directory of the office floors, I walked briskly by the reception desk. I knew there was no way they were going to let an unidentified woman with no appointment and no connections simply breeze through to the elevators.

  “Miss—” One of the men behind the desk gestured for me to approach him.

  “Someone’s coming down to meet us,” I said brightly. Reaching into the bag hanging from my shoulder, I pulled out the Ziploc bag containing the dirty diaper. “We had a little emergency; is there a restroom nearby?”

  Blanching at the sight of the bulging baggie, the man hastily directed me toward a restroom on the other side of the elevator bank.

  Passing the reception desk, I lugged Luke to the center of the double row of elevators. As soon as a door opened, we stepped inside along with four other people.

  “How old is she?” a woman in a smart black skirt suit asked with a smile.

  “It’s a he,” I said. “A week old.”

  “You’re getting around so well, considering.”

  I briefly considered explaining that I wasn’t the mother, but that might have led to another question, and I wasn’t about to explain any part of the circumstances that Luke and I had found ourselves in. So I just smiled and murmured, “Yes, thanks, we’re doing great.” For the next several seconds, I brooded about how Tara might be getting around, if she was healing properly after giving birth. We reached the eleventh floor, and I carried Luke out of the elevator and past the doors of Travis Management Solutions.