Chapter 10

 

"Uh-huh. Yes, got it." Daphne sat in one of Adam's padded leather dining room chairs, her bare feet propped up on another one, rapidly making notes on a lined yellow pad as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone.

Adam's invitation to stay with him during her next trip to San Francisco had turned into almost six weeks of conducting her business on a transcontinental basis. She was getting very good at it.

"Yes, the sketches arrived in perfect condition. No problems. Umm-hmm. Well, I don't think so but maybe you'd better double-check that."

She pushed a huge, short-haired marmalade cat off her notepad and then relented and idly scratched him behind the ears as she continued her part of the conversation.

"And the shelter people were pleased with the fund raiser?" she said after a minute. "That's great, Elaine. You did a fine job," she congratulated her assistant warmly. "I'm so pleased with the way you're taking charge of things."

She paused for a moment, listening. "This coming Monday," she answered, glancing at the open appointment book spread out on the table. "Flight 487...no, I'll take a taxi... plenty of time," she said airily. "Mr. Chan isn't due until Wednesday. Surely you can hold the fort alone for three more days, can't you?" She smiled to herself, amused. "Yes, I thought so."

The cat jumped off the table, bored with his mistress's halfhearted attention, and stalked away.

"Oh, and one more thing, Elaine. Tell Hiram—" Hiram was her lawyer "—that I'm sending him a copy of a partnership agreement I'd like him to look over for me."

"A partnership agreement?" Elaine said carefully.

"Uh-huh." Daphne smiled at the gray Persian who sat on the opposite end of the table cleaning herself, and then dropped her bomb into the conversation. It was something she had been intending to do for months; Elaine was more ready for the responsibility—and the reward. "It's about time I gave you a piece of the action, don't you think?"

"A piece of the..." Elaine's voice rose to a squeak. "You mean you're making me a partner?"

"Not a full partner," Daphne warned, pleased that her little surprise had come off so well. "Just twenty percent to start and—"

"Twenty percent! Of Night Lights?"

Daphne chuckled. "What else have I got twenty percent of to give away? Not that I'm giving it away, anyway. You've earned it."

"Oh, Daphne, I don't know what to say. I—"

"Well, don't say anything," Daphne advised. "I haven't got time to listen to you. Sunny'll be here any minute and I've got to get some of this mess straightened up before I leave or Mrs. Drecker will have a fit."

"Who?"

"Adam's housekeeper." Daphne shuddered. "A real neatness freak. She actually moves the furniture when she vacuums."

Elaine laughed. "Lucky for you."

"Don't I know it." Daphne grinned into the receiver. "Be sure to tell Hiram to explain the agreement to you, okay? Gotta go." She hung up before Elaine could say another word.

"Go on, Queenie," she said to the gray cat, shooing it off the table. "Go find someplace else to take your bath. You're in my way."

Quickly, she straightened the sketches and notepads spread out across Adam's dining room table, sorting them into haphazard piles according to size. She gathered up her coloring pencils with a swoop of one hand, dropping them into the earthenware mug that served as a pencil cup and then leaned down, blowing eraser crumbs off the smooth mahogany surface, not even noticing that they fluttered to the floor.

"There," she said, smacking her palms together as if to dust them off.

She picked up a coffee mug and a plate smeared with the dried remains of her breakfast and carried them out to the kitchen, adroitly stepping over the telephone extension cord, which stretched from the corner of the dining room table, across the floor, and down the hall to Adam's den. Leaving the dishes in the sink for Mrs. Drecker to do when she came in, Daphne hurried back down the hall to the bedroom.

No longer excessively tidy and impersonal—except after Mrs. Drecker had just left—the bedroom definitely looked lived in. A satin mule lay halfway between the bathroom and closet doors, a pale yellow teddy lay in a crumpled heap under the bedside table. A bright salmon-pink scarf trailed from a half-open dresser drawer and three cats sprawled across the middle of the unmade king-sized bed.

Daphne claimed long-term kinship with two of them; Queenie, the aloof gray Persian, and Mack, the fat orange marmalade so named because of his resemblance to a truck, were strays that had taken up residence in her New York apartment years ago. She had brought them with her on her last bi-coastal trip at Adam's urging because Elaine, who had been taking care of them during Daphne's increasingly lengthy absences from the Big Apple, was allergic. It had taken them less than a week to settle into Adam's house, and now they treated it as their own.

The third drowsing feline was a half-grown kitten, christened Tiger for obvious reasons, who had wandered up the front walk one foggy San Francisco night not too many days ago, begging for food. He had been fed and offered shelter for the night and, knowing a good thing when he saw it, had decided to stay.

"Don't bother to get up, guys," Daphne said, passing by the bed on her way to the closet.

Tiger slit one green eye open, yawned, and went back to sleep. The other two didn't even move.

Daphne rummaged around in the closet, shifting through the "few clothes" that were taking up more and more of Adam's rack space as she tried to find something that would be appropriate for both office hunting and a protest march. Nothing seemed quite right.

She finally settled on a pair of camel slacks, a casual ivory silk shirt, and a heavy knit wrap sweater as protection against the breezy May weather. She was just stepping into a pair of low heeled tan-and-brown spectator pumps when the doorbell rang.

"Ah, Mrs. Drecker. Finally," she muttered, trying to thread a slim tan leather belt through the loops on her slacks as she hurried toward the front door. The belt loops weren't cooperating. She came to a stop in the hallway and twisted around, trying to see what the problem was. The doorbell rang again. "I'm coming, Mrs. Drecker," she hollered as she fumbled with the belt. "Wait just a second."

And wait Mrs. Drecker would, even if it took Daphne ten minutes to get to the door. The housekeeper had her own key but she had refused to use it ever since the Friday morning when she had walked in on Adam and Daphne fixing a late breakfast—and wearing only one towel between them. Daphne couldn't help smiling as she remembered the scene.

Adam had been standing at the kitchen counter, playing cooking school instructor as he demonstrated the proper way to make a pot of coffee. Daphne, in sole possession of the towel, was making toast. Neither of them had heard the front door open—Adam had got to the part about grinding the beans—and it took Mrs. Drecker's startled shriek to alert them to the fact that they were not alone.

Adam had snatched up a dish towel and, blushing like a bride, held it in front of his hips as he sputtered an apology for being naked in his own kitchen. Mrs. Drecker, after one horrified, admiring look, had turned her back to them, her hands over her face for good measure. Daphne, giving a tiny gasp of surprise, had been convulsed with laughter.

"Oh, Adam! The look on your face!" she said, still giggling helplessly as they stumbled into the bedroom. "The look on her face! You'd think she'd never seen a naked man before. And you, backing down the hall with that dinky little towel in front of your... your privates. You looked so... so..." She collapsed onto the bed, holding her sides as the laughter shook her, making it impossible to speak.

Adam shot her a reproving look, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It isn't that funny," he said, trying to sound stern.

"Oh, yes it is," Daphne sputtered, pushing herself up to a sitting position as she struggled to get control of herself. "You looked so shocked! As if—" she wiped at her streaming eyes "—as if your virtue had been violated." The thought sent her into fresh peals of laughter.

Adam's smile broke through. "Do you think she'll quit?" he asked, eyes twinkling.

"Oh, no! Not—" she hiccupped "—not as long as there's a chance of catching you in the buff again."

"Daphne."

"You mark my words," Daphne teased. "She'll be coming in extra early from now on, hoping to catch you in—"

Adam threw a pillow at her.

The doorbell rang again, pulling Daphne back to the present. Still smiling, she finished buckling her belt and hurried across the living room to the front door.

"Mrs. Drecker," she said, starting to speak before the door was halfway open. It wasn't Mrs. Drecker. "Oh, Sunny, come on in. I was hoping it was the cleaning lady. She's late this morning." She held out her arms to the toddler who was clutching the neckline of Sunny's T-shirt. "Hello, Mollie, me darlin'. How's my favorite redhead?"

The child changed hands willingly. "Mack," she said.

"Right this way." Daphne nuzzled Mollie's sweet powder-scented neck. "Come on to the bedroom." Daphne spoke around the child in her arms, leading the way down the short hall. "I haven't quite finished dressing."

"Isn't that a little, um, elegant for a protest?" Sunny said from behind her.

"That's just what I was wondering." She tossed Mollie onto the bed. "Don't bother Queenie," she warned. "It's been years since I've been to one so I wasn't sure what the current mode of dress is."

Wordlessly, Sunny raised her arms and turned, offering herself for inspection.

Daphne crossed her arms, head tilted consideringly as she took in Sunny's olive-green corduroy pants, camouflage T-shirt and Nike running shoes. She had a tomato-red cashmere sweater tied around her waist and a diamond the size of a small ice cube on the third finger of her left hand. Her inch-long nails were painted to match the sweater.

"Is that what every well-dressed radical is wearing these days? Camouflage and cashmere?"

"What? This old thing?" Sunny picked up a sleeve of her sweater. "Strictly utilitarian."

Daphne snorted and turned toward the mirror to fasten a pair of thin gold chains around her neck. The tiny star on one nestled in the soft hollow of her throat. "I guess I'll stick with what I've got on," she said, slipping a small gold hoop into her pierced ear. "If you can wear cashmere, I can certainly get away with flannel slacks. Besides—" she fastened on the other earring "—I've got to look at some office space this afternoon."

Sunny pounced on that immediately. "Office space? What office space? Are you finally moving Night Lights to San Francisco?"

"No, I'm not moving Night Lights to San Francisco," she replied, but that's exactly what she was thinking of doing—if things worked out the way she hoped they would. And there was no reason to think they wouldn't.

She and Adam had been getting along very well these past six weeks. Their relationship was calmer than it had been eleven years ago. More sedate. No, not sedate, she thought, not liking the image that conjured up. Adult, that was the word. Yes, more adult. Adam had mellowed nicely and she had become much less volatile. They had both grown up. They were careful of each other's feelings. Solicitous of each other's opinions. Why, they hadn't had one argument in all the time they'd been seeing each other again. Not even a minor disagreement.

Was that normal, she wondered.

"So why are you looking for an office?" Sunny prompted when Daphne just stood there, staring into space.

Daphne's eyes refocused on the redhead. "What?"

"If you're not moving Night Lights, then why are you looking for an office?"

"Because, uh..." It took Daphne a minute to remember what they had been talking about. "Because I've been spending more and more time in San Francisco—" she paused, catching the look on Sunny's face "—over the last year or so." She emphasized the last few words but they caused no change in Sunny's expression. If anything, the redhead's know-it-all grin got wider.

"All right, you can just wipe that smug, silly look off your face, Elizabeth McCorkle," Daphne said sternly, hands on her hips. "I've been thinking about opening a branch office out here for the last six months at least."

"Uh-huh," Sunny snorted.

"Well, I have. I have as many customers here as I do in New York, if not more. In fact, my line sells better in California than it does anywhere else. That's why I've made so many trips—"

"Uh-huh," Sunny said again, smirking.

"And it's much closer to Hong Kong," she pointed out. "So it will save me time and money in the long run. On freight and airfare and... so forth."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, dammit, I can't just keep spreading my stuff all over Adam's house," Daphne said, goaded into admitting the truth. Or, at least, part of it. "Mrs. Drecker is threatening to quit."

"Uh-huh."

"Well she is."

"I don't doubt that for a minute. Cleaning up after you has got to be one of the worst jobs in the world," Sunny conceded. "But—No, Mollie," she interrupted herself to correct her daughter. "Don't pull Mack's tail." She glanced back at Daphne, still grinning. "But that's not the reason you're relocating your business."

"Thinking of relocating."

"Whatever." Sunny waved a manicured hand dismissively and sat down on the edge of the unmade bed to gently disengage her daughter's chubby fingers from the cat's twitching tail. "Mommy said 'No,'" she admonished the child firmly and then looked up at Daphne, her expression serious and concerned. "Is it really so hard to admit that you're still crazy in love with Adam and you'd give your eyeteeth to be married to him again?"

"Who says I want to get married again?" Daphne hedged, not bothering to deny the first part of Sunny's statement. They both knew it was true. "I'm perfectly happy with the way things are," she lied valiantly. "We have a... a modern, adult relationship and I—"

"Bullshit," Sunny said.

Daphne's eyebrows nearly disappeared into the curls on her forehead. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me. I said bu—"

"I heard what you said." Daphne inclined her head toward the child. "Mollie did too."

"Mollie's heard me swear before, haven't you, sweetheart? Quit trying to change the subject. You're no more satisfied with this so-called adult relationship than I would be."

"That's not true. I'm very satisfied with it."

"Are you?" Sunny challenged.

Daphne managed to hold the redhead's gaze for about ten seconds. "No," she said at last. "No, I hate it."

"Then why are you putting up with it? Why don't you just tell Adam that you're tired of playing transcontinental footsie and you want to get married."

Daphne sank down on the bed beside her friend, a little half laugh catching in her throat. "If only it were that simple."

"Why isn't it that simple? You love Adam. Adam loves you. Ergo, wedding bells."

"Ergo, nothing. Yes, I love Adam. I've always loved Adam. And he loves me..." Her brow furrowed up in a frown. "I think," she tacked on, plucking at the crease of her flannel slacks with two fingers. "What he actually said was that he felt something special for me," she explained, recalling the conversation they'd had that night in his kitchen. "But that's not the point."

"So what is?"

"The point is, when Adam and I got married the first time it was because I talked him into it. Remember? I wouldn't listen to any of his arguments against it. We were too young, too different. We'd be poor. But I thought nothing mattered except that we loved each other, and I badgered and coaxed and pleaded until I was hoarse." She sighed and shook her head. "I'm ashamed to admit it but I even tried using sex to get my way."

Sunny's brown eyes brightened with prurient curiosity. "Is that what finally did the trick?"

"In a backhanded sort of way." Daphne laughed softly, remembering. "Adam always thought that he shouldn't have been sleeping with me in the first place. I was only seventeen when we met, remember? And still pure as the driven snow in spite of all that smart talk about liberated womanhood and free love. I think he felt vaguely guilty about leading me down the path to wickedness." Her eyes sparkled gleefully for a moment. "Completely forgetting, of course, that the first time I practically had to push him into bed." Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. "Anyway, when I threatened to cut him off until he married me, he said he thought abstinence was a good idea." She giggled, a delicious, utterly feminine sound. "And then I spent the next three days convincing him it wasn't."

"Sounds like fun."

"Mack gone," Mollie said mournfully, standing up on the bed to lean against her mother's shoulder. Sunny reached up and absently patted the little hand that had snaked its way around her neck.

"How did that get you married?" she asked Daphne.

"When Adam realized that we couldn't keep our hands off each other he decided it was best that we get married, after all. So we decided to elope."

"And?"

"And nothing. You know the rest. We were divorced in less than two years." She shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. "Anyway, to answer your first question. The reason Adam and I are having this 'adult relationship' is because it's sort of a... a trial," she said, putting it into words for the first time.

"What?" Sunny's start of surprise sent Mollie tumbling back against the bed. "You mean like a trial marriage?"

"Yes, I guess you could call it that."

"And Adam agreed?" Sunny couldn't seem to believe it. "Old straight-laced conservative Adam?"

"We're doing it, aren't we?" Daphne responded, needled by Sunny's implication that Adam would be the one to object to such an arrangement. She was partly right; Adam hadn't actually agreed to it. Not in so many words, anyway. But Daphne told herself that was only because they hadn't gotten around to discussing or defining exactly what it was they were doing. They were living together, true, but to what end? Adam hadn't said and Daphne hadn't asked. It was beginning to tell on her.

"We both agree that there's something special between us," she said then, trying to explain it to herself as well as Sunny. "So we're taking this time to find out what it is and—"

"It's called love," Sunny interrupted dryly.

"And if it will last," Daphne went on, ignoring the interruption. "We're getting to know each other again, finding out if we can be friends as well as lovers. If we can live together without driving each other crazy. Which is exactly why I have to find some office space," she concluded, coming to her feet as she spoke. "Or this little arrangement won't last long enough for us to find out."

She put her hand out and hauled Sunny to her feet. "Come on. Pick up that child and let's go to this protest of yours before I get smart and change my mind."

* * *

There were already twenty or so people milling around in front of the research center when Sunny pulled her yellow Mercedes station wagon up to the curb. They were mostly housewife types: nicely dressed matrons and young mothers pushing strollers or holding a child by the hand, or both. There were a few earnest-looking teenagers sprinkled among the women, a few senior citizens, a few middle-aged men.

A far cry, Daphne thought, from the long-haired, jean-clad, headband-wearing young rebels she had marched with in her early protest days. Not a fanatic among them, she decided, except, of course, for the ever fanatic Sunny McCorkle in her designer combat fatigues.

"Now what?" Daphne said as Sunny turned the wheels and set the parking brake.

"Now, we pass out the signs." She gestured over her shoulder. "There's a card table back there, too, for the petition. Jason will set that up." She waved at a young man, motioning him toward the back of the station wagon. "Why don't you get Mollie out of her car seat while I get the signs?"

"Fine," Daphne agreed, twisting around in her seat to liberate the three-year-old from her safety restraints. "Looks like it's you and me, kid," she said, lifting the child into her arms as she got out of the car. She leaned against the shiny yellow hood, bouncing Mollie against her hip, and watched while Sunny organized her troops.

She was as good at it as ever. In less than five minutes the former Student for a Democratic Society had everyone, babies and children included, wearing black armbands—mourning for the deceased animals, Daphne finally decided—and marching in close-order drill in front of the medical research center. Most of the protesters carried one of Sunny's hand-lettered signs. Stop Slaughtering Our Pets and Vivisection Is Killing Puppies seemed to be the two favorites. A few carried placards with rather gruesome representations of puppies and kittens and baby monkeys who had apparently been the unfortunate victims of medical research.

It was an emotional, heart-wrenching scene—as Sunny had fully intended it should be—because no one, no matter what side of the question they stood on or how important they believed the results of the research to be, wanted to think of their own beloved pet ending up as an experiment.

Daphne certainly didn't. She had listened to Brian McCorkle argue the pros and cons of the issue with his hardheaded, softhearted wife; she had heard Adam's views on the subject and was aware of the vast amount of valuable information that animal experimentation supplied to the medical world; she even agreed that some of it couldn't have been gathered in any other way. But, still, to think of Mack or Queenie or Tiger suffering untold pain in a lab such as this? It was unthinkable.

And that was why, despite some reservations, she had agreed to come today.

"Here, let me tie this around your arm," Sunny said, wrapping a strip of black cloth around Daphne's bicep. "You, too, sweetheart." She tied another one around Mollie's plump little arm, letting the ends dangle down the sleeve of her pink sweatshirt. For the first time Daphne noticed that the front of Mollie's sweatshirt sported a grinning dog face and the legend, I Love my Dachshund. Mollie didn't have a dachshund.

"Have you no shame?" Daphne chided mildly. "Using your own child as propaganda?"

"Mollie'd love her dachshund if she had one, wouldn't you, sweetheart?" Sunny said, taking the child from Daphne's arms. She passed her along to the young man standing beside her. "Hold on tight to Jason," she urged as he lifted Mollie to his shoulders.

Mollie clutched the young man's hair with both hands. "Gid'up," she ordered gleefully.

Jason whinnied and galloped to his place in the picket line.

Sunny thrust a sign into Daphne's hands and hoisted her own. "Come on, the TV crew should be here any minute."

"The TV crew?" Somewhat reluctantly Daphne followed Sunny into the line of protestors and began to shuffle along with them. "You didn't mention any TV crew when you were talking me into this thing."

"Didn't want to get your hopes up. Jason only found out this morning that they'd be here for sure. His girlfriend works in the station's film library," Sunny informed her, flashing a grin over her shoulder. "Isn't that great?"

"Great," Daphne echoed faintly.

The police arrived before the TV crew but they were, it seemed, only there as a precaution. Aside from warning the protesters not to block the sidewalk to passersby and not to physically harass anyone going in and out of the building, the police merely watched. And waited.

Daphne waited, too, shielding her face behind her picket sign, and hoped Jason's girlfriend had been wrong. She wasn't. The TV crew arrived ten minutes later, their sky-blue van marked with the station's call letters.

At a signal from Sunny, the protesters began to chant louder, thrusting their signs into the air with increasing enthusiasm as the Minicam zoomed in on them.

"Excuse me, ma'am," a reporter said, thrusting a microphone under Daphne's nose. "Could you tell us what you hope to gain by this demonstration?"

Daphne shook her head and ducked behind her sign, pointing a mocha-tipped finger at the back of Sunny's head. "Ask her," she mumbled.

"Excuse me, ma'am..." The well-mannered reporter repeated her question, directing it to Sunny.

"We hope to arouse public concern for what's going on in that—" she gestured over her shoulder and shuddered dramatically "—that torture chamber there."

"Torture chamber? Could you elaborate on that, please?"

Sunny was glad to elaborate. Elaborating was one of her favorite things. "Helpless animals are being systematically tortured and mutilated in the name of medical research."

"Don't you think that's a bit strong?" the reporter questioned. "You make it sound like a concentration camp for animals when, in fact—"

"Isn't that what it is? A concentration camp?" Sunny interrupted, jumping on the reporter's choice of words with relish. "Tell me what else you would call it when perfectly healthy cats and dogs—children's pets—are being purchased from city pounds to be used in painful, crippling and unnecessary experiments."

"Poor puppy," Mollie said mournfully, her high childish voice clearly audible over the noise of the crowd. The reporter—and the Minicam—turned their attention to the adorable redheaded three-year-old sitting on Jason's shoulders.

"Do you have a pet, honey?" the reporter said gently, holding the microphone up to Mollie's lips. "What's your dachshund's name?" she added, taking her cue from the front of Mollie's pink sweatshirt.

"Poor puppy," Mollie repeated, her bottom lip out. "Poor, poor puppy." She was shaking her head sadly.

"Shame on you," Daphne hissed in Sunny's ear as the reporter turned to face the camera, wrapping up her story. "Teaching that child to tell lies."

"What lies?" Sunny hissed back, brown eyes wide and innocent. "All she said was poor puppy.' She didn't say she had one."

"...this is Karen Zachary, reporting live from the Hillman Medical Research Center." The Minicam was lowered, the reporter and her crew hurried back across the street to the blue van that was double-parked.

Sunny handed her placard to one of the other protesters and opened her arms, lifting Molly from Jason's shoulders. "Mommy's brilliant little girl," she said delightedly, nuzzling the child's neck.

"Poor puppy," Mollie said again, playing it for all it was worth. "Poo-oor puppy."

"Yes, poor puppy. But that's enough now, sweetheart. The cameras are all gone. Say goodbye to Jason."

"Bye, Jason," Mollie repeated obediently, throwing him a sloppy kiss over her mother's shoulder.

"Does this mean we're leaving now?" Daphne asked, following the energetic pair of redheads to the car. "That's it? Five minutes in front of the cameras is all the protesting you're going to do? Elizabeth McCorkle, I'm surprised at you."

"Why?" Sunny spoke over her shoulder as she strapped Mollie into her car seat. "I've done my part here today. Jason and some of the others will stay for most of the afternoon and try to get some more signatures on that petition."

"And just what was your part?" asked Daphne curiously, pulling open her own door as Sunny went around to the driver's side.

"Focusing media attention on an issue of vital importance," Sunny said promptly, speaking to her over the roof of the car. "By giving that reporter something more interesting to film than a bunch of people carrying signs, I've practically assured our cause a spot on the nightly news. That means public attention will be focused on this research center."

"And?"

"And maybe we can stop what's going on in there." She waved at Jason, giving him a smile and a thumbs-up sign and slid behind the wheel. Daphne scrambled into her own seat. "Now," Sunny said, gunning the engine to life. "Where shall I drop you?"