The game isn’t over until it’s over.
— Yogi Berra
They made it halfway home before Keely figured it out, but she waited until he’d parked the Corvette and they were heading up to the house before she confronted him. “You listened to the message from Aunt Mary, didn’t you?”
“That’s my brother’s car back there, at the garages,” Jack answered shortly. “Maybe we can postpone World War Three until he’s gone, okay?”
“Then you did,” she exclaimed, chasing after him after having stopped dead for a moment, until her mind engaged, sorted through Jack’s response. “You didn’t deny it, Jack, so you did. You listened to my private phone message! When, Jack? Before... or after?”
“Does it matter?” he asked, skirting the fence around the pool as he aimed himself at the back door.
“Does it—oh, for crying out loud, Jack! Of course it matters. It changes everything. Did you make love to me because you wanted to, or because it was the best way you could think of to keep me here so you can get custody of Candy?”
He turned on her, lifted a finger to her face. “I would not do that,” he said slowly, precisely.
“Sure, you would. That’s exactly what you would do,” Keely persisted, chasing after him again, catching the door as he let it go behind him, entering the kitchen.
“Hi, Jack—Keely.”
Keely looked at Tim Trehan, sitting at his ease in the den, munching popcorn out of a big blue bowl. Petra and Sweetness sat there with him, and one of the Godfather movies was playing on the DVD player.
“Hello,” Keely bit out, turning her back on him.
“What are you doing here?” Jack asked testily.
“I don’t know. If I’d known the welcome I’d get, I suppose maybe I wouldn’t have come here at all. But, bighearted brother that I am, I thought I’d personally deliver tickets to tomorrow night’s game. I’m nice that way. Besides, Mort’s coming here any minute now and wanted me here when he arrived. I think I’m supposed to convince you something’s the right thing to do. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
Keely stood, her back still to Tim, her arms folded across her belly, one foot tap-tap-tapping on the tile kitchen floor. “Get rid of him,” she said through gritted teeth, not caring if she was being as bossy as her aunt often accused her of being. “I need to kill you.”
“Hey, they’re fighting,” Petra said, and Keely turned around, glaring at the teenager. “Oh, yeah,” Petra gloated. “They’re fighting. This could be good. Tim, pass me the popcorn.”
“Jack...” Keely ground out.
“No,” he said firmly. “No, I’m not going to throw my brother out because you’ve got some stick up your—” He shut up abruptly, pulled open the refrigerator door, yanked out a can of soda, popped the top. Soda fizz ran over his fingers, dripped onto the floor.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Keely said accusingly, going over to the sink to rip off a length of paper towels, wet them under the tap. “I just washed this floor.”
“And it’s a beautiful day for baseball. This is Tim Trehan, who will be bringing you your play by play,” Tim said, holding up the TV controller as if it were a microphone. He, Petra, and Sweetness had moved from the couch to the low bar that separated the two rooms, the popcorn bowl balanced between them as they watched from the bleacher seats.
“Not funny. Go away, Tim,” Jack said, contradicting his previous statement. “Keely and I have something to discuss.”
“No, we don’t,” Keely said from the floor, where she was wiping up the spill. “I changed my mind. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, folks, they’re feeling each other out,” Tim spoke into the controller.
Keely lost it. She just lost it. She didn’t care if the entire mad Trehan gang were here, making comments, taking notes. “You did, Jack. You listened to my private phone message. You heard Aunt Mary say she’s giving me the shop. Admit it.”
“Okay, so maybe I did listen,” Jack shot back at her. “What’s the big deal? It’s no big deal. I was going to tell you... sometime.”
“He’s trying to pitch out of a jam, folks,” Tim said, as Petra giggled.
“No big deal? Aunt Mary gave me the shop, Jack, so I can sell it, go back to New York. You hear that, and then you lure me into bed. And you don’t see that as a big deal?”
“I shouldn’t be hearing this,” Sweetness said, taking hold of Petra’s elbow. “You either. Come on, let’s go for a walk or something.”
“Take him, too,” Jack ordered, pointing at his brother.
“Nice try, Jack, but I’m staying. But, hey, don’t let me interrupt.”
Jack growled low in his throat, and Keely grabbed his arm. “Just forget about him,” she ordered. “Besides, I don’t care if the whole world hears this. You’re a rat, Jack. A great big rat!”
Jack gave his brother one last look, then turned to Keely, slapping a hand to his chest. “Me? I’m the rat? Hey, I gave you an opening. I asked what the message was about, and you said it was nothing. Big nothing, Keely. Just your ticket out of here, back to the big time.”
“Somebody check the radar gun,” Tim commented from the box seats. “He’s really throwing some heat now.”
“I already have my ticket back to the big time, Jack,” Keely yelled at him. “You offered it to me, remember? Anything I want, that’s what you said. Anything to get rid of me after you get custody, right, Jack? Taking me to bed was just a little added insurance.”
“It’s a nail biter now, fans,” Tim said into the sudden silence. “And here comes the payoff pitch...”
Jack stabbed his fingers into his hair. “What in hell are you talking about? I don’t want to get rid of you, Keely. I thought you wanted to go. I thought... I thought you needed to go. Give it another shot.”
Keely pulled out one of the tall chairs at the breakfast bar, sat down before she fell down, as she felt suddenly deflated. “Well, I did. I thought did.”
Jack walked over to the breakfast bar, put both palms on the countertop. “You want to talk, Keely, we’ll talk. Tim,” he said, looking over his shoulder, “get out of here.”
“Well,” Tim said, putting down the remote controller. “That took the crowd out of the game.”
“Tim!”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
Keely kept her head down, waited until Tim walked past them, closed the kitchen door behind himself.
“Keely,” Jack said, taking one of her hands in his, “you’ve always been very upfront about what you wanted. You wanted to go back to Manhattan, give this interior decorating thing another shot. If you don’t remember how badly you wanted that, I do.”
“You wanted another shot at baseball,” Keely said, wishing he’d stop rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. She couldn’t think when he was touching her. Didn’t want to think.
“And I took it, and I learned that I was wrong, I didn’t really want it anymore. There wasn’t any burning in my gut anymore. But you haven’t had that opportunity, Keely. Do you want to spend the rest of your life wondering if you could have made it, made it to the big dance, the big time?”
“As opposed to staying here with you and Candy,” Keely said, unable to be anything other than direct, now that they finally were talking, really talking, to each other.
“We could be a way of not having to try, risk another failure.”
She lifted her head, looked at him. “Is that how you see it, Jack? How you see Candy, and me? As an excuse not to risk failure again?”
His smile was slow and very real, and she felt tears stinging her eyes. “I worried about that, I admit it,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips. “About rebounds, and proximity, and confusing gratefulness for your help for something bigger, deeper. But then, I’m a jerk. Luckily, not that much of a jerk, because I figured it out, Keely. I love you. You. But loving you, I need you to be sure, too.”
“Oh, Jack,” Keely said, sighing as she reached across the breakfast bar, cupping a hand behind his head. “I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”
“And you love me?” he asked, disengaging her clinging arms long enough to walk around the bar, gather her close.
“I love you,” Keely told him. “You big jerk, how could I do anything but love you?”
He kissed her, and Keely swore she could hear bells, just as she could have sworn she’d heard music that first time, in Arizona. But then she heard more. She heard knocking.
Jack must have heard it, too, because he broke their kiss, looked toward the hallway. “What is it, Sweetness?”
“You’ve got company, Mr. T.”
“Mort?” he asked as Keely reluctantly slid her arms away from him, took hold of his hand. There was so much more they needed to say to each other, but it could wait. She’d probably spend half her life waiting for chances to talk to Jack, waiting for some moment of peace and quiet to talk to Jack. And yet one of the things she loved best about him was that excitement seemed to follow him.
“No, sir,” Sweetness said, shaking his head. “It’s some lady and her friend. Moon Flower?”
Keely winced as Jack’s grip on her hand nearly crushed her fingers. “Cecily?” he asked.
“That’s what Mr. Morretti called her, but she told me Moon Flower. I’m sure of it. There’s somebody else, too, but I didn’t catch his name.”
“Oh, God, Jack, your cousin’s here?” Keely asked, suddenly terrified. Where was Candy? She looked up at the clock—nap time. Candy was upstairs, sleeping. She had to go to Candy.
As if reading her thoughts, Jack asked Sweetness, “Where’s Candy? Does Petra have her?”
Sweetness nodded vigorously. “She woke up kind of early, so we took her down to Aunt Sadie’s place for a visit. That’s where we went, too, when you two started... when we thought we should leave. Ms. Peters is still there, having tea with Aunt Sadie and playing with Candy. And your brother’s there, with some guy named Mort. Whole bunch of us there. I came back up here to get Candy’s pacifier and heard the doorbell. Should I go get everybody, bring them all up here?”
“No!” Keely and Jack said in unison.
“But, I thought—I’ll just ask Petra, I think she’ll know.”
“Don’t think, Sweetness,” Jack warned. “Just keep everybody away until I can talk to my cousin. Are you telling me Joey’s with her?”
“Yes, sir,” Sweetness said, already heading for the back door, a wise man who knows when he’s been dismissed. “Is that all right? I could get him out of there, if you want.”
“I’ll just bet you could, Sweetness, but no thanks,” Jack said, and Sweetness shrugged, left the kitchen. “Come on, Keely,” Jack said to her, squeezing her hand. “The timing sucks, but then, what else is new? Let’s go talk to Cecily.”
Keely hung back, more frightened than she wanted to admit. “Shouldn’t we call Jimmy? Call your lawyer?”
“Not yet,” he told her. “First we see what planet Cecily’s on today, and then go from there.”
* * *
Cecily hadn’t changed much since the last time Jack had seen her, which was, he thought, Christmas, two years ago. She was still blond, although she did have a red streak in her hair now. She was still small, prettily petite. And she was still wearing those long, flowing dresses that made her look like a great-grandmother in training.
She saw him as he and Keely entered the large, nearly empty living room, and half ran, half hobbled toward him, her heavy brown clogs scraping the hardwood floor. “Jack! Oh, Jack, don’t you look wonderful! And such a pretty house, except you really ought to think about maybe getting some more furniture,” she exclaimed, then launched herself into his arms.
“Hello, Cecily,” Jack said, looking past her to a rather tall, thin, ponytailed man of about thirty-five dressed in, it appeared to Jack, a potato sack and wrinkled slacks. “Who’s your friend?”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” Cecily trilled, taking Jack’s hand—ignoring Keely completely—and pulling him across the room. “This is Blue Rainbow, my guru, my mentor.”
“Hadley Hecuba, actually,” Blue Rainbow said when Cecily skipped away, to go hug Joey, who told her to “Knock it off, you did that already!”
Hecuba extended a hand so that Jack had to shake it. Well, he didn’t have to, but if he didn’t, Cecily would probably notice, cause a scene, and it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
“No,” Jack said quietly, dredging his memory for the facts Jimmy’s investigators had dug up in the past few days as his grip tightened on the man’s hand. “It’s Lester James Schmidt, age thirty-seven, born in Milwaukee, arrested twice for embezzlement, once for credit-card fraud, still officially married to Olivia Bertrice Schmidt, who’d love to know where you are because you’re a little tardy with the child-support checks. About five years tardy. How am I doing so far, Lester, old sport?”
Jack felt Keely squeezing his hand as she half-leaned against him and looked at her, smiled. “Those D&S guys were worth every penny, weren’t they?”
“I had no idea you knew this much,” Keely told him, obviously impressed. And, unfortunately, Jack decided, still as direct and honest as all hell. “Now tell me what good it does.”
“None, little lady,” Blue Rainbow said, leering at her. “I saw that fax from your lawyer, Trehan, and we decided to rip it up. She’s the kid’s mother and we’re keeping her. Unless maybe you can persuade us that the kid’s better off with you?” As he said this, he lifted his left hand, rubbed his thumb and two fingers together.
“Money,” Keely said as Jack all but dragged her away from Cecily’s guru. “Jack, he wants money. It’s so simple. We pay them, and they go away. Oh, thank God, I’ve been so worried.”
“Keep worrying,” Jack told her as they stood near the hallway, Jack watching Cecily and Joey as his cousins fell into what looked like a whispered argument. “One, if we give them money to go away, they’ll just come back for more money. Not that Cecily needs any, but obviously Lester doesn’t know when he’s got it good—or maybe he’s on his way out and he knows it. Cecily isn’t known for her constant heart. Two, we’ve already got Ms. Peters and the whole child-welfare thing involved here. Maybe I can buy Cecily and Lester off, but that still leaves Joey.”
Keely sighed. “I want to just go grab Candy and run away with her.”
“Can I go along?”
She smiled, laid her head against his chest. “I wouldn’t take so much as a single step without you.”
“Yes, you would. You’d take lots of steps, actually. All the way to Sadie’s house, which is what I want you to do now. Gather up Ms. Peters, Keely, and bring her back here. Sneak her into the sunroom through the outside door, and then join me again here. I’ll make sure I have the doors to the sunroom open by then, so she gets to hear everything.”
“What everything?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Jack admitted, trying not to show his own nervousness. Just be ready to go wherever Cecily and Joey and Lester take us, okay?”
“Okay.” Keely turned to head down the hallway, then stopped, turned back. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Tell Petra and Sweetness to take Candy for a walk or something. I don’t want her anywhere near here. Cecily hasn’t asked to see her, and if she does, I want to be able to say she isn’t here right now.”
Keely nodded, then left the room, and Jack followed her, grabbed another soda from the refrigerator. He watched the clock for five minutes to give Keely time to get Ms. Peters into position, then returned to the living room, opened the doors to the sunroom, and walked over to his cousins. “So, Cecily, how was Tibet?”
“Tibet? Oh, Jack, we didn’t go to Tibet, you silly. We would have, but Blue Rainbow wanted to see the sun rise over Monaco. Told me it was mystical, and it was, it was. I felt such energy there. And Princess Grace was there, you know. I saw her. Oh, she’s dead, but I saw her. Did you know I can do that now? Conjure spirits? I may write a book. I’ve got just the title—Seeing Grace. You get it? Not saying grace, but seeing her. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Cecily was being Cecily—physically here, but her brain floating somewhere in the stratosphere. Just like always. It was as if she worked at it, practiced being flaky. “Monaco, huh?” Jack said once she’d sighed, giggled, and finally shut up. “The place with the casino? I hadn’t heard that, Cecily. I just knew you were somewhere in Europe when my lawyer located you.”
“Oh, yes. The casino. Blue Rainbow has a system. I was his banker.” Cecily frowned, looked confused. “What’s wrong, Jack? You look all tense. Is something wrong? Blue Rainbow said you’d be so happy to see me, but you don’t look happy at all. And Joey’s being so mean to me....” Her voice faded away and she hiccuped, then went over to the couch and picked up a rather large canvas bag and began fishing in it until her hand emerged, clasping a blue plastic bottle of Fun Bubbles and a plastic stick with a circle at one end of it.
“What did you say to her, Joey?” Jack asked his cousin, who was in the midst of popping a small square of gum into his mouth.
“Nuthin’,” he said, sniffing. “I just told her da truth. She’s a flake. Batty. Nutso. So dat means I get the kid, and that means I get alla Uncle Sal’s money from his share of da dry-cleaning business when he croaks. He told me, told me plenty, first one to settle down, get a kid, gets the dough.”
Cecily, who’d overheard, stepped up to Joey, her angelic face screwed up not all that prettily. “Oh, yeah? Well—hic—that’s what you know, Joey. Uncle Sal said the first one who gets marr—hic—ied and settles down, has a kid, gets his—hic—his money, you big stupid, you. Nobody’d marry you, Joey, you big stupid. I’m the one who’s going to get Uncle Sal’s money.”
Please God, let Ms. Peters have heard that, Jack prayed silently, then relaxed as Keely reentered the room, nodding toward the open doors to the sunroom.
The only problem was, Keely wasn’t alone. Tim was with her, and Aunt Sadie and Mort. They had enough for two tables of pinochle, if he had card tables, which he didn’t think he did. And he wasn’t in the mood to play games.
As Cecily did a mercurial turn from whining to giggling and repeated her launch-herself-into-his-arms greeting to Tim, and Joey went to sit on the couch, obviously to sulk, Jack whispered to Keely, “What, no brass band? Mort would probably be great with any wind instrument.”
“I couldn’t stop them, Jack,” she told him. “And Mort has an idea.”
“Oh, no,” Jack said, shaking his head. “God save us from Mort and his ideas.” Then he realized that he didn’t have any ideas. “What is it?”
“You’ll see,” Keely said, looking at Lester, or Hadley, or Blue Rainbow, or Prisoner Number 55589, or whatever name the guy answered to—and he’d probably answer to Dog Dirt if there was a buck in it for him. “Why don’t you go introduce everyone while I save Aunt Sadie from Cecily, then see how close you can get them to the door.”
“You don’t want to be introduced to Cecily?”
Keely’s face went rather stiff. “No, I don’t think so. You’d have to bail me out of jail.”
“She is Cecily’s mother, Keely,” Jack reminded her.
“She gave birth to her, Jack. I’m grateful for that, but that’s as far as it goes. Look at her over there, blowing bubbles, for crying out loud. What a twit! Has she even asked to see Candy yet?”
He shook his head. “No, she hasn’t.”
Keely’s spine went very straight and she lifted her chin imperiously. “Then I definitely don’t want to talk to her.”
“You’re tough,” Jack said appreciatively.
“I’m scared half out of my mind, but don’t tell anybody,” she said, then called to Aunt Sadie to help her in the kitchen, lay out some drinks and snacks for their “company.”
Tim approached, twirling some sort of beads around his hand.
“What’s that?” Jack asked, glad to have his brother here, glad to know he’d back him up, no matter what happened.
“Worry beads,” Tim told him. “Cecily gave them to me. She’s the same old Cecily, isn’t she? Always a few bricks shy of a load. What’s she doing with those bubbles? Are we about to have a love-in or something? Unless she’s doing some weird Lawrence Welk impression, and I kind of doubt that. Oh, and did Keely tell you what Mort’s up to?”
“She told me to watch and see.”
“Sounds like a plan. So, are you two getting married? And can I be best man, or referee?”
“We don’t always fight,” Jack told his brother. “You just caught us at a bad time.”
“I know. I’m not to blame, am I? I mean, putting that rebound idea into your head?”
Jack smiled. “No, I got dumb all by myself, actually. What was that quote from Dizzy Dean? Oh yeah, ‘The doctors X–rayed my head and found nothing.’”
“I’ve got a better one. Tug McGraw: ‘I have no trouble with the twelve inches between my elbow and my palm. It’s the seven inches between my ears that’s bent.’”
“Bent, scrambled, you name it. But I’m smarter now, and damn lucky. You like her, right?”
“Hey, bro, you like her; that’s good enough for me. Just don’t think I’m going to follow you down the aisle. This twin stuff goes only so far. Uh-oh, there goes Mort. Come on, this ought to be good.”
Jack and Tim followed as Mort left Blue Rainbow—and Lord only knew what those two had to talk about—and walked over to Cecily, pulling one of his business cards from his pocket. “Ms. Morretti?” he said, holding out his card. “You don’t know me, but I represent your cousins, Jack and Tim. I’m primarily a sports agent, but I’m branching out, taking on other clients, other venues. I just cast a rather large commercial in Arizona, as a matter of fact. And I have to tell you, you have the most original face and persona I’ve ever seen. I could make you the face of the new millennium. You’re free to travel, aren’t you? Because I have this account in Europe...”
Cecily blew one more round of bubbles, then leaned forward, squinted at the card, looked up at the agent. “Mortimer Moore?” she said, looking adorably vague. “That’s a funny name.”
“Says Moon Flower Morretti,” Jack whispered in an aside to his brother, quickly coming up to speed with just what Mort had in mind. He was offering Cecily money, just to see how fast she jumped on it. Money, and a reason to make sure she wasn’t encumbered, like with a baby. Now to hope Cecily said all the right things, with Ms. Peters listening. “Ah, look, here comes the guru. Is his nose twitching? Maybe he’ll be able to explain all of this to Cecily.”
“Yes, here he comes, and with his tail pointing in the air, like a hound catching a scent,” Tim said, chuckling. “Keely told us, when she came running into Aunt Sadie’s, that she was pretty sure Cecily and her guru were after money, not custody. That’s when Mort had this light bulb sort of go off over his head. Pretty good so far, huh?”
Mort took Cecily’s arm, deftly steering her toward the open doors of the sunroom, Lester making a U-turn to follow after them.
“Now, Ms. Morretti,” Mort continued, smooth as butter. “What I’m going to propose is that you sign with me, exclusively, and together we will take the world by storm. I can see your face, that lovely face, thirty feet high, fifty feet wide, on every billboard in New York. Yes, New York, not just Europe. Revlon’s looking for a new face, you know. I had somebody else in mind, but she pales—pales—next to you.”
“There goes Keely’s other chance at a career,” Jack said quietly as Cecily looked confused, then happy, and then confused again.
“Oh,” she said, “but I can’t. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
Jack’s heart hit his toes. Cecily was going to turn Mort down because she wanted Candy. Was here to take back Candy. There was going to be a long, ugly custody battle—the very last thing he wanted for Candy, for Keely.
“I’m getting married, Mr. Mortimer,” Cecily said then, looking toward Lester. “We’re flying to Vegas tonight, with little Magenta Moon. We’re going to be a family. It’s all settled.”
Jack, suddenly optimistic once more, cocked an eyebrow at Lester Schmidt. Mort might not have been going here, but they’d arrived at a very hopeful place anyway. “Nice work if you can get it, Blue Rainbow,” Jack, said quickly, and rather loudly. “Don’t you think you might need a divorce first?”
Cecily’s blue eyes went very wide. “A div... a div—hic—vorce?”
“Here we go,” Tim said, backing up a step. “Open the floodgates.”
“Now, Cecily,” Lester said quickly as Cecily’s face crumpled up like a paper bag. “I was going to tell you.”
“Get out!” Cecily shrieked, pointing toward the door. “Get out, get out, get out! First you want me to make Jack pay—hic—pay for Magenta Moon... and then you lie to me? You’re married? You said you loved me. Go away! I never wa—hic—ant to see you again. Ever!”
“Uh-oh, Tim. I thought we were home free for a minute there, but I don’t like where this is going all of a sudden. Is she really going to dump him, try to keep Candy?” Jack asked his brother as Keely came back into the room, carrying a tray filled with a plate of cookies and some cups, and a pitcher of iced tea.
“Oh, knock it off, Cecily,” Lester shot back at her, clearly a man who knows he’s lost but isn’t about to go down on his own. “Just cut the bull, because it’s making me sick. You know I’m still married, so don’t use that to try to cut me out of the deal. You know a whole lot more than that dippy–little–me crap you try out on everyone. These stupid clothes, these stupid names you gave us. Blowing bubbles. Do you really think these people are dumb enough to buy any of this crap? Why don’t you blow those bubbles out your—”
“Zipper it, Lester, you jackass!” Cecily snapped, and Jack looked at Keely, stunned. This was his cousin? No crying? No hiccups? No Betty Boop voice rising in hysterics? Who stole his cousin when he wasn’t looking and replaced her with this steely-eyed, rough–voiced stranger? And what the hell was Lester talking about? Cecily wasn’t putting on an act. Unless she’d always been putting on an act.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jack said quietly.
“Okay, it’s family now, and I’m getting uncomfortable. I’ll see you later, everybody. I’ll be at Sadie’s until the smoke clears.” Mort, his job done—or half done, before Lester and Cecily began ignoring him—then left the room, snatching up a cookie as he went.
“He hates scenes,” Tim said, jerking a thumb at Mort’s departing back. “That’s why he invited me here today. As backup, if you go nuts over his latest idea for you.”
“Shut up, Tim,” Jack said, barely hearing him, because he was fascinated with Cecily, still working out the details of the revelation that had hit him. This look had come over Cecily’s face. Wise. Crafty. Still petite and blond and beautiful, but now more closely resembling Joey, who always looked like he had a plan—never a good one, but a plan.
“It was all her idea,” Lester was all but whining, appealing to Jack. “She dumped the kid on you because she doesn’t want it, never did, and said you were such a sap, you’d just take her, get her out of her hair. The kid cramped her style. But you didn’t know that, and she saw her chance when that lawyer contacted her about giving up the kid. First we were going to make you pay so she’d sign away custody, but then she decided she’d probably get more money from her Uncle Sal when he kicks off if she could show up with a kid and a husband in tow. I said take the money and run, that this Sal guy could live another twenty years, but she wouldn’t listen. She doesn’t want the kid. She wants the money. She went through about a million bucks in Monaco.”
“I said, zipper it!” Cecily screeched, racing at Lester, beating her small fists against his chest.
* * *
Keely sat on the floor of Candy’s room, watching as the baby, lying on her belly, tried her best to lift her rear end in the air and move forward toward her favorite rattle.
Candy tried, she really did, but then she got frustrated as her nose hit the carpet one time too many, and she began to cry. Keely scooped her up, held her close. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she said, giving her the rattle, “you’ll grow up soon enough, and be crawling, and walking, and running....”
“And driving a car,” Jack said as he leaned against the doorjamb. “And if that isn’t enough to turn both our heads gray, I don’t know what is. Let’s just keep her little forever, okay?”
Keely smiled up at him, looking closely to see if he was all right, if he had survived the afternoon without harm. “Are they gone now? All of them? I’m sorry I bailed on you, but when Lester ran out and Cecily started screaming at Joey, and Joey started screaming back at her—well, I had to get out of there.”
“You aren’t used to family fights, are you?” Jack asked, sitting down cross-legged beside her. “We had some doozies over the years. I’d sort of forgotten Uncle Guido’s temper but sure remembered it today when Joey and Cecily started going at it. I’m just sorry you had to see all of that.”
“She wasn’t anything like I’d imagined.”
“She wasn’t anything like anything I’d imagined. Silly, dizzy, airheaded Cecily. I think I liked her better that way. But it was all an act, all of it. All those years. It probably explains why Aunt Flo was always making excuses for her. Cecily, the poor little girl without a brain in her head. We all were always making allowances for her, giving her anything she wanted. Kind of blows your mind, doesn’t it?”
“Kind of makes me like Joey better. I guess he had to get a little nuts himself, just to get your aunt’s attention,” Keely said, shrugging. “But they’re both gone now?”
Jack nodded his head. “But not before both of them gave up custody. Joey’s custody of Sweetness—his contract, you know—and Cecily’s custody of Candy. Ms. Peters had all the papers for Cecily to sign, and then doctored one of them for Sweetness. Great lady, Ms. Peters. Petra says she’d get it framed for him, but Sweetness headed back to Bayonne with Joey. Petra thinks she’s talked him into going to trade school. Seems Sweetness wants to be a chef.”
“That’s nice,” Keely said, wiping at her moist eyes, for she’d noticed that Jack might be talking to her, but he was looking at Candy. Staring at Candy. “I can’t believe it’s over. Did you talk to Jimmy?”
“I did. We have to apply for permanent custody, still jump through a bunch of legal hoops, but both Jimmy and Ms. Peters say we’re in good shape. With any luck, we can officially adopt Candy in about six months. Have her name changed to Mary Margaret Trehan, the whole nine yards.”
He lay back on the floor, his knees bent, put his hands on his head. “God. It’s over. What a day. Was there ever another one like it? We had it all—the good, the bad, the really ugly. I can’t believe it’s over.”
“Da! Da-da-da!” Candy chirped, and Keely lifted her onto Jack’s stomach, so that the baby could lean forward and play I-I by pressing her head against his chest.
“Oh, God,” Jack said, wrapping his arms around Candy’s chubby little body. His eyes closed as his bottom lip trembled, and he suddenly jackknifed to a sitting position and buried his face against Candy’s curls.
Keely put her arms around both of them and began to rock, crying with Jack, then laughing with him as Candy squirmed and squealed, trying to break free of these two blubbering fools who were holding her too tight.
Jack leaned over, kissed Keely, then helped her to her feet. “You know, I can remember crying four times in my life. When my parents died, the day I announced my retirement from the Yankees, and now today. Except, today, I’m feeling wonderful. I’ve got you, we’ve got Candy, and we have a whole long, wonderful life in front of us. Two months ago, I thought my life was as good as over.”
With Jack holding Candy high against his chest, they walked toward the back stairs and went down to the kitchen, where Aunt Sadie, Petra, and Tim were sitting at the table, munching on take-out pizza.
“Let me rephrase what I said upstairs,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I’ve got you, Candy, Sadie, Tim, and one wise-mouthed teenager. My world is complete.”
“Except for Mort,” Tim said around a mouthful of pizza. “He left right after you gave your conditional okay to the deal. I think he’s going to be able to fly back to New York without a plane, he’s that jazzed.”
“Deal?” Keely asked. “What deal? Why’s Mort jazzed? Do we like it when Mort’s jazzed? Talk to me, Jack. Jack—you really have to learn to talk to me.”
“Here, I’ve got to go talk to the woman. I’m not making that mistake anymore.” Jack handed Candy to Petra, then took Keely’s hand and led her toward the back door. “I’m not giving a final yes to anything until I talk to you, but, well, darling, just like I said upstairs, all in all, it’s been a rather full day around here....”