himself a hearty brunch-a nice omelet, perhaps-Mexican-style with plenty of salsa. Or, if his sweet tooth was in charge, French toast made with that cinnamonraisin bread he liked so much.
There was a reason Riley could feel optimistic about his plans for the weekend, in spite of the recent catastrophic changes in his household’s population and routine. The truth was, ever since the incident in the kitchen on Tuesday evening, it had been apparent that Summer was doing her best to avoid him. And doing a pretty good job of keeping the children and animals and their associated debris out of his way as well, with the help of the crayons and the lint roller, and a few other things she’d since added to the list-such as powdered pet deodorizer, and something in a spray bottle that seemed to work magic on the revolting puddles Peggy Sue habitually threw up on the carpets, almost always where Riley would be sure to step in them in his stocking feet. In fact, except for the samples of their artwork that now decorated the refrigerator and most of the windows in the kitchen and garden room, he saw little of the children. In the mornings, Summer contrived to keep them busy upstairs in their suite of rooms-showering, coloring or watching cartoons on television-until Riley had left for work. He had no idea how they spent their days, and truthfully, hadn’t given the matter a lot of thought. In the pool, he imagined. He did have a vague idea they might be constructing themselves some sort of hideaway out in the backyard. Summer had asked him about it, and since it seemed to him a relatively harmless way for the children to occupy themselves, as long as nothing already in existence was altered or destroyed in the process, he’d given his okay. But he’d seen no signs of such a project, and had heard nothing more about it since.
In any event, by the time he arrived home, which was customarily around eight o’clock in the summertime, Summer would already have fed her brood and hustled them off upstairs once more, leaving a place set for Riley at the table in the morning room, and his dinner on the counter, neatly covered with aluminum foil. He told himself he was pleased with this arrangement. The forced cohabitation was working out very well. And if it suddenly seemed unusually lonely to be dining, as he’d always done, with only Mozart for company, he told himself it was just as well, and much better for the health of the attorney-client relationship.
The first part of Saturday went according to plan. Riley retrieved his newspaper, stopped in the kitchen long enough to pour himself a cup of coffee and retired with both to his study minutes before he heard the first thump on the stairs. He had worked his way through the national and local news and was well into the business section when he heard a timid knock on his door. Lowering the paper to his desktop, he let the glasses he’d recently begun to wear for long, uninterrupted bouts of reading slide onto the tip of his nose, frowned over their tops and said, “Yes? Come in…”
The door opened silently, and the boy, David, stuck his head tentatively around it. “Hi,” he said, his eyes shifting to one side.
“Hey,” said Riley, and waited.
The boy’s eyes slid to the other side of the room. “Mom said to ask you if want some breakfast. She’s makin’ blueberry waffles.”
“Waffles, huh?” In spite of himself, Riley’s mouth began to water. “Uh… sure Tell your mother yes, thank you. That sounds good.”
The boy’s head disappeared, and a split second later came a bellowed “Mom, he said yes!” Riley picked up his newspaper.
Alerted by subtle changes in air currents, or a sixth sense, perhaps, he lowered it again to find that, instead of leaving and closing the door behind him, David had entered the room and was wandering silently, gazing around him in apparent awe. Riley watched him over the tops of his glasses, saying nothing.
Presently David sighed, craning his neck to take in the bookcases that filled the entire wall behind Riley’s desk from floor to ceiling, and said, “You sure have a lot of books”
“Mmm-hmm,” said Riley.
“Did you read all these books?”
“Most of them, yes”
David’s head swiveled and his jaw dropped. Then, lifting one shoulder in a belated attempt to look unimpressed, he sniffed and said, “I like to read books.” His gaze slid wistfully back to the shelves. “Maybe… you could let me read some of yours sometime.”
Riley coughed and harrumphed. “Oh, well, I don’t know about that These are probably too grown-up for you. I don’t think they’d be very interesting…” Then, to his astonishment, he heard himself say, “Now…I might have some books upstairs you’d like.” He rubbed at his unshaven chin and regarded the boy’s solemn but hopeful face. Damn, the kid did look like his mother… He cleared his throat. “How old are you?”
“I’m nine-almost ten.”
“Think you’re old enough for
Instead of answering, David heaved another sigh. “Mom reads us stories. She read us
Once again, Riley found himself with nothing to say. After a moment David shrugged and went on with his artfully aimless exploration, head tilted to one side like a potential buyer in a not-very-interesting art gallery. When he’d made a complete circuit of the room, he put a hand on one hip, gave Riley a sideways look and inquired with a poor attempt at nonchalance, “Don’t you have a computer?”
“I do,” Riley responded with a nod. “I keep it at my office.”
“Oh.” David’s eyes shifted as he tried hard to hide his disappointment. “How come?”
“I keep it there because my secretary is mostly the one who uses it.”
“Oh.” The boy’s shoulders sagged, then hitched upward in another of those brave little shrugs. “I used to have a computer when we lived in California. My dad used to play with me all the time.” He turned suddenly, his face alight with an enthusiasm overpowering enough to carry him right to the edge of Riley’s desk. “You can do really cool things on a computer, did you know that? There’s all kinds of stuff, especially if you have a CD-ROM drive. Like, I had this encyclopedia, you know? And-oh, yeah, there’s Puzzle Wizard-I really like that one, there’s all kind of neat puzzles you can solve. And there’s games, too. My dad gave me a whole bunch of games one Christmas-Battle Beast, Mech Warrios-only Mom wouldn’t let me play with most of ’em. She said they were violent and gross, and she made my dad take ’em back. She was pretty mad at him.”
“Hmm,” said Riley, who was only half paying attention. He was watching, out of the corner of his eye, the evil- looking creature that had just slunk around the edge of the door-which David, naturally, had neglected to close. The boy’s monologue faded to a background hum; the focus of Riley’s attention had narrowed to the cat’s silent progress toward him across the Persian rug. The last thing he saw before it disappeared behind his desk was the moth-eaten tail held aloft like a plume waving over the head of a rather seedy potentate.
Riley felt himself tensing up. Where in the hell was the beast now? More important, what was it doing? A moment later, he had his answer. There came a horrid scratching sound and what felt like about a dozen needles pricking him in the legs. Something heavy landed squarely in the middle of his lap. Riley gripped the arms of his chair and pressed himself backward as the cat, her expression disdainful, casually sniffed his chest and then turned herself around, managing to trod heavily on some sensitive parts of his anatomy in the process. A loud wheezing, grinding noise began to emanate from her as she slowly stretched herself out and placed her front paws on the desktop. After carefully sniffing out the area, she swiped Riley several times in the face with her tail, then hauled her hind half stiffly up and onto his newspaper. There she crouched, staring intently at the door.
Riley had heard David’s mother calling but was holding his breath to avoid inhaling cat hair and couldn’t answer. While he sat frozen, not breathing, her advance guard, the dog Beatle, came dashing headlong through the narrow gap in the door, caught sight of the cat on top of the desk and skittered to a halt The cat lazily arched her back. The dog gave a yelp and scampered back the way she’d come, while the cat placidly arranged herself like a mildewed stole across Riley’s newspaper.
An instant later, Summer stuck her head through the door. The smile on her lips vanished like the sunlight when a cloud gets in the way, and she closed her eyes and softly breathed, “Oh, Peggy Sue…” She pushed the door wide and started forward.
Riley let his breath out and held up a hand like a traffic cop, stopping her there. He rose, one eye on the drift of cat hair that scuttled across his desk, blown by the breeze she’d made, and said briskly, “Never mind-I was done with it, anyway. David mentioned waffles?”
She stepped quickly back, giving him a lot more room than he needed. Oh, yeah, she was avoiding him, all
