Sweet Liar

  “I wish I knew what my grandmother liked to eat,” she said. “I wish I could take her…chocolate cake or something like that, whatever she really likes, something that’s bad for her, something that I was sure that insufferable place wouldn’t give her to eat.”

  Putting his hands on her shoulders, Mike looked into her eyes. “Can I say anything to make you stay away? What if I told you that whoever tried to kill you might still be watching you and you might lead them to Maxie? I don’t think that woman’s body is strong enough to withstand an attack such as you had.”

  Samantha had thought of that and had weighed the possibilities. “How long do you think she has?”

  Mike wasn’t going to lie to her. “When I first contacted her, the doctor told me she had three months left, tops.”

  Samantha took a deep breath. “If you were she and you had had no one for many years, and now you had a chance to spend a few weeks with someone you love, would you risk it?”

  He wanted to point out that just because Maxie had left her family in Louisville twenty-seven years before didn’t mean that she had necessarily been alone since then, but he didn’t say that. In fact, remembering Maxie in that loathsome place, he wondered if maybe Sam wasn’t right and Maxie had been alone all those years. She may have run away because she was afraid of being discovered, so it wouldn’t have made sense for her to leave one place and become a social whirl and therefore highly visible elsewhere.

  “Any pictures of you naked mixed in with those photos?”

  Laughing, she moved away from him. “On a fuzzy rug when I was eight months old,” she said.

  “How about eighteen years old? Young, nubile—”

  “What does that mean? That I’m not young now?”

  Mike shrugged. “Young body, old mind. Hey! you think Maxie would like caviar? We could stop at the Russian Tea Room and get blinis.”

  Samantha was still thinking about his “young body, old mind” comment. “I would imagine she would love caviar, at least it sounds good anyway. I just hope the home doesn’t give us too hard a time.”

  When what he hoped was an inspired idea occurred to Mike, his face lit up. “You leave the home to me. I’ll see that they let her eat whatever she wants and that she’s treated very well from now on.”

  22

  It was almost six o’clock when they arrived at the nursing home. Samantha was wearing her red Valentino suit and Manolo Blahnik high heels and carrying a red Chanel bag. Now that she knew how much her clothing cost, she was almost afraid to wear it and she dreaded getting into one of those filthy New York cabs. So she asked Mike if he was maybe, hopefully, going to hire a private car again, but he told her that no, he wasn’t.

  Because of his answer, she was not prepared for the long black limousine that pulled up in front of the town house. Her mouth was still hanging open in astonishment when the uniformed chauffeur got out and she saw that he was Mike’s cousin, Raine.

  “Good evening, Miss Elliot,” Raine said politely, tipping his cap to her.

  “Get the blinis?” Mike asked, his arm around Samantha’s waist so tight you would have thought Raine was a pirate trying to kidnap her.

  “Yes, sir!” Raine said smartly, clicking his heels together, then preceded them down the stairs and opened the back door for them.

  “You’re sure you know how to drive this thing?” Mike asked his cousin, obviously doubting his ability to do so. “Frank will kill both of us if you so much as scratch it.”

  “Who’s Frank?” Samantha asked as they got inside.

  “My oldest brother.”

  Once inside the car, Samantha tried her best to sit very still and behave herself, for she was sure that women who wore designer clothes were used to stretch limos and didn’t crawl all over them exploring, but Mike laughed at her. “Go on. Frank won’t mind.”

  She opened little doors, looked in cabinets, and turned the TV on and off, then Mike sent a fax to Colorado and received one from his grandfather that said, “Michael, my boy, when are we going to meet your Samantha?”

  Wide-eyed, Sam looked at Mike for an explanation as to what his family knew about her, but Mike just shrugged in reply.

  After a while she settled back in the seat and thoughtfully looked at Raine so skillfully driving the car. She felt that she was beginning to know Mike and to understand a little about the way his family functioned. “If he’s doing this for you, what are you going to do for him?”

  “Looking over his portfolio.”

  “His investment portfolio? Why would he want you to do that for him?” She wanted to know more about Mike, for she was finding out that he was good at giving away very little about himself.

  “Because none of the Montgomerys knows anything about math.” Begrudgingly, he said, “They’re okay with words but not with numbers.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question: Why does he want you to look at his portfolio?”

  “Because I’m good at it, that’s why,” he answered, and Sam knew that that wasn’t really an answer at all.

  When they arrived at the nursing home, Mike wouldn’t allow her to get out, but made her sit in the car for ten minutes. “I want every one of them to see us,” he said, looking out the dark tinted windows through which no one could see at the faces that were peering out at them from the windows of the home.

  After a long while, Raine opened the door for them and Samantha, moving as regally as she felt alighting from such a car, walked ahead of the two men. Mike was wearing his beautiful Italian suit, and Raine, in his chauffeur’s uniform, his arms laden, looked like a bored rich girl’s dream-come-true. By the time they reached the desk, every mobile person in the nursing home had crowded into the hall to see them. Four women and two men were attached to stands with bottles hanging from them, and one woman was in a wheeled bed pushed by two other women.

  With Samantha’s arm tucked firmly in his, Mike stopped in front of the plastic-laminated counter and looked at the shapeless nurse behind it. She was obviously the person in charge; she looked so “in charge” that the words may as well have been written across her forehead.

  “We’re here to see Her Royal—” Mike began, then when he saw Samantha’s shocked face, he patted her arm. “I’m sorry, my dear, I know I keep forgetting that she doesn’t want anyone to know the truth. What name is she using now?”

  Samantha blinked at him.

  “Abby?” Mike asked. “Is that the name Her Royal—Oops! I was about to do it again. The princess will never forgive me if I reveal her secret.” Leaning across the counter, he gave the ugly nurse a look of such lasciviousness that Samantha wanted to hit him. “But I’m sure that you already know all about…ah, Abby, don’t you?”

  The woman blushed like a girl, but it lost something in effect since all the blood rushing to her face made the hairs on her chin stand upright. “O’ course. We know about the…the princess.”

  “And you’re taking good care of her, aren’t you? Not that you need to curtsy, she hates all that fuss. When one has a childhood of nurses and nannies curtsying to one, it makes one come to hate such formalities. You understand, don’t you? But—”

  “Whatever happened to the sapphire bracelet she gave her last nurse?” Samantha asked. Two could play this game. “Remember that nurse who was so nice to her?” Leaning over the counter, she smiled at the nurse in conspiracy, as though what she was saying was just between the two of them, but when Sam spoke she was loud enough to be heard to the far end of the corridor. “Her generosity is going to be the death of this family. If she tries to give any of her jewelry to the staff, would you please report it to us?”

  “W-why, yes, of course I will,” the nurse answered.

  “Now, may we see her?” Mike asked. “Undisturbed?”

  “Yes, certainly. Right away. Move it!” she snapped at a man in a wheelchair.

  With all the expertise of an experienced doorman, the nurse opened the door to Maxie/Abby’s room and closed it behind th
em.

  Abby, half asleep in her bed, looked up and had a moment’s trouble focusing. “I…I didn’t expect to see you two again.”

  Samantha had the box of pictures in her arms—in fact, she had transferred them into the hatbox that had contained Maxie’s dress—and walked briskly forward. “I’ve come to ask a favor of you. You’re the only person in the world who I can find who knew my grandmother, and I wondered if you would mind going through some old photos with me.”

  “Photos?”

  “Of my family. I know it’s a terrible imposition, but I thought you might be able to tell me something, I’m not sure what, but maybe my grandmother might have told you something about herself.”

  “Why do you want to know about her?”

  “Because I love her,” Samantha said simply. “And I think she would have loved me if she’d met me. Jubilee said we’re very much alike.”

  “Met him, have you?” Abby was starting to come fully awake.

  Stepping forward, Mike put the big picnic basket down on the edge of the bed. “She gets her nose into everything. This morning she was yelling out the window at Ornette, Jubilee’s grandson, and—”

  “Ornette is Jubilee’s great-grandson,” Abby said, then made a little face that said she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. To cover herself, she said, “What do you have in there, young man?”

  “Sidecars,” he said, removing a tall stainless-steel flask from the basket. “And caviar blinis.”

  For a moment Abby looked as though she were going to cry with a combination of happiness and regret—for she well knew that Samantha should not be there. “You two are fools, you know that?” she said softly, her remark addressed to Michael.

  “Yes, ma’am, I know that very well, but Samantha is, as far as anyone can tell, just like her grandmother. Sassy is what Jubilee calls her, and she wanted to show you her photographs, so we’re here. She had an idea that if her grandmother were still alive Maxie might like to see what she’d missed, might like to see her son and her daughter-in-law, see her grandchild growing up, and she might like to see her husband as he grew older. Think Maxie would have liked to have seen that?”

  “Yes,” Abby said softly. “She would have.”

  “Oh heavens!” Samantha said. “You’d think this was a funeral. We’re having a party! Michael, pour the drinks and roll those pancakes. And…” She hesitated. “I don’t know what to call you. If Maxie were alive, what do you think she’d like me to call her?”

  “Nana,” Abby said instantly. “I think she said that was what she wanted her granddaughter to call her.”

  “Would you mind very much if I called you Nana?”

  “I wouldn’t mind at all. Now, where is my drink? I haven’t had a sidecar in years.”

  Samantha climbed on the bed beside Abby, pulled the box of photos across her knees, and opened it, while Mike rather awkwardly rolled thin pancakes around red caviar and sour cream, then served them to the two women with crystal glasses of the cognac mixture.

  Within thirty minutes all awkwardness between the three of them was gone. After the first drink, Abby got very sloppy at saying that Maxie would like so and so. Instead, she was saying things like, “I remember that. We kept the lawn mower in that old shed. Did Cal ever tear that thing down?”

  Mike teased Samantha mercilessly about pictures of her when she was a child, laughing at one where she was obviously furious and hadn’t wanted her picture taken. Abby defended Samantha, saying she had been the sweetest baby alive.

  Refilling Abby’s glass, Mike said in the most mournful tones imaginable that, for all he knew, Samantha was still the sweetest baby alive.

  “Michael!” Sam snapped.

  But Abby took Samantha’s side. “You mean, a big, strapping hunk like you hasn’t persuaded this dear little thing to go to bed with you yet?”

  The words, as well as the sentiment, were so very funny coming out of the mouth of an eighty-four-year-old woman that Sam and Mike laughed uproariously.

  “Why does every generation think it’s invented sex?” Abby asked in mock exasperation.

  “Why don’t you tell us about sex in your generation?” Mike said encouragingly. “At least, that way, I’d be able to experience somebody’s fantasies.”

  “You’ll get no lessons from me, Michael Taggert. You’ll have to find out on your own.”

  The evening got more funny when Samantha showed pictures of herself, as promised, nude on a rug. Both Abby and Sam giggled at Mike’s heartfelt groans at Sam’s “pinup” pictures.

  When Raine entered the room, Samantha knew that the party was over and so did Abby. For a long moment, they clung to each other, Samantha’s strong, healthy young body holding the frail, weakening body of her grandmother.

  “Don’t come back,” Abby whispered. “I’m not sure it’s safe.”

  Pulling away from her, Samantha acted as though she hadn’t heard her. “I’d love to return. Thank you so much for the invitation. Are you ready, Michael?” She left the room without looking back, not seeing Mike kiss Abby’s cheek, then slip a piece of paper with his phone number and the private numbers of some of his family members on it into Abby’s hand before leaving the room.

  On the drive back to the East Side and Mike’s town house, Samantha was quiet.

  “Enjoy yourself?” Mike asked.

  “Mmmmm,” was all she answered.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Certainly. I couldn’t be better. It was great spending the evening with my grandmother. I’m just a little tired, that’s all. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”

  Mike didn’t say any more on the ride home and at the house, she went inside while he stayed outside talking to Raine. When he entered the house, Samantha was nowhere to be seen so he assumed she’d gone to bed. For himself, he was a little too wound up to go to sleep, so he fixed himself a sandwich and a beer, took it into the library, and turned on the TV.

  Samantha walked in so quietly that he didn’t know she was near him until he looked up and saw her standing there, wrapped in his bathrobe, her face shiny clean, looking about twelve years old. He could see that she had something she wanted to say to him. Instantly he turned off the television and looked up at her.

  Tentatively, Samantha sat on the edge of the couch a few feet from him.

  “Mike,” she said hesitantly, looking down at her hands in her lap. “I want to ask you something.”

  “Sure.”

  Holding tightly onto her hands to still them, she said, “I look at this house and everything in it and I know it was expensive and I know that you paid for my new clothes and you told my grandmother that your grandfather was a man of some wealth and that you could support a person.” After that pauseless sentence, she took a breath, trying to stop her heart from racing, for she was filled with embarrassment at asking for something else from a man who had already given her more than…more than was necessary.

  She looked up at him. “Mike, do you have any money? I mean, enough that you could spare some?” Her eyes were pleading and apologetic at the same time.

  “Yes,” Mike said after a moment, but not wanting to elaborate on the answer. He liked thinking that she knew nothing about his finances, because women had dated him for his money. A couple of them had gone so far as to say that they loved him when they meant they loved his money.

  “I want to ask a personal favor of you. Will you lend me some money? A few thousand? Ten at most, I think. I’ll pay you back whenever I can.”

  He tried to keep from frowning. “Whatever I have is yours. May I ask what you want the money for?”

  “I want to buy some furniture.”

  “For your apartment?” The words came out sharper than he’d meant them to as he thought of having asked Jeanne to redecorate Sam’s apartment.

  “No, of course not!” Samantha snapped, annoyed that he thought she was such a frivolous, ungrateful person as to ask him, who had given her so much, for something she didn’t nee
d. “It’s not for me, it’s for my grandmother. I want to make that dreadful room of hers beautiful. I want to buy some pictures for the walls—nice pictures—a chair and a few accessories, but I want them to be of good quality, very good quality. My grandmother used to wear Lanvin and real diamonds and real pearls.” Samantha paused for a moment then said very softly, “Maybe we could rent the furniture. She won’t need it for very long.”

  Putting his hands on her shoulders, Mike kissed her hard, a kiss that told her he was proud of her. “We’ll buy whatever you want. Tomorrow we’ll go shopping at a few antiques stores where they know my sister.”

  “Michael,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes. “I’m so afraid. I don’t want to see another person I love die.”

  Putting his fingers under her chin, he tipped her face up and looked at her in silent question, as though asking her what she needed. Then, as though he knew the answer, he opened his arms to her, not in desire but in warmth and comfort—and perhaps in love.

  Without a thought, she moved onto his lap, her body as close to his as possible as she drew her knees into her chest, his big arms wrapping about her, making her feel safe, letting her feel the very aliveness of him. She could feel his heart beating under her cheek, and when she pressed even closer to him, she thought she could feel the blood coursing through his veins.

  “Hold me, Michael,” she whispered. “Hold me tightly. Let me feel your strength, your…health.” Her voice was ragged with emotion.

  He held her as tightly as he could without breaking her bones, spreading his hands to cover her head and as much of her back as possible. In his mind’s eye, he saw what she must have seen: her grandfather slowly wasting away, gradually moving toward death, then her father eaten by the same illness, dying in her arms exactly as her grandfather had. Now she’d found her last blood link on earth, and Mike well remembered the dry, nearly lifeless skin of the woman, the grayish pallor of her. Death was hovering over Maxie, already pulling at her, trying to take her from earth—and from Samantha.