“Mother, I am very tired. If there’s a point to this, I wish you’d get to it.”
“Actually, I was hoping we could have dinner one night this week.”
“Sorry, I’m booked up,” he said without bothering to take so much as a glance at his calendar. When it came to spending an evening with his mother, his calendar was always full. He thought she’d taken the hint and given up on masterminding some tender reunion long ago. Apparently he’d been wrong.
“You’re all tied up with that new young woman, I suppose, the one I’ve seen you with on the cover of all the tabloids lately,” she said.
Jason was beginning to get the picture. His mother was concerned that he might be about to disgrace her. Nothing less would have stirred her up enough to track him down at this late hour.
“Her name is Callie Smith,” he pointed out. “I’m sure that’s not too difficult for someone with your social skills to recall.”
“Why does every conversation we have disintegrate so quickly?” she asked as if the answer actually mattered yet totally eluded her.
“Maybe it’s because I find your motive in calling suspect.”
“I was only hoping that we could get together for dinner so that I could meet the new woman in your life. Is that so unusual?”
“For you, yes. Your motherly concern is about twenty years too late. Or are you simply interested in checking her pedigree? I can save you the time. I doubt you’d approve, and frankly, I don’t care whether you do or not.”
Harriet Walters Kane Pennington sighed heavily at that. “You’ve never understood me, have you, son?”
“Oh, I think I’ve understood you only too well. I suggest we don’t rehash my opinions at this late date. As always, Mother, it’s been a pleasure. Do check in the next time you have a spare minute in your busy life.” He hung up before the conversation could slide any farther downhill.
Every now and then, he tried to recall the last time they had had a civil chat. He was pretty sure it was on the day she’d tried to explain that she was leaving his father because he was holding her back. Although she’d been very earnest, as if she’d wanted his approval for her actions, Jason hadn’t really understood what she meant at the time.
Only when he’d witnessed his father’s slow decline into sorrow and depression and his mother’s quick grab onto the social coattails of New York investment banker Franklin D. Pennington had he fully understood her desertion. She’d had social and political ambitions far beyond being a plumber’s wife or even mayor of their small Virginia town. The indulgent Pennington had been able to give her everything she’d ever dreamed of, including a sufficient campaign war chest to run for any office she chose. She was currently a representative to the New York General Assembly.
Since his father’s death, Jason hadn’t actively fueled his distaste for his mother’s ambitions. His sole blatant screw-you message had been delivered the day he’d outbid her for those Monets she’d wanted so badly. It had been a sweet victory, but he still didn’t feel they were even for all the pain and suffering she’d caused both him and his father.
As for her sudden fascination with his social life, hell would freeze over before he would ever introduce her to Callie. Not that Callie couldn’t hold her own against a barracuda like his mother, but why should she have to, especially when his mother’s opinion mattered so little to him?
He sighed as he considered what a pair they were. Callie’s relationship with her own mother might be vaguely dysfunctional, but his with the Honorable Mrs. Pennington was the stuff that made psychoanalysts rich.
* * *
The lines on the pages of the script were blurring. Callie had been memorizing her scenes for the next day for what seemed like an eternity, but she couldn’t seem to get them. Maybe it was because she had too many other things on her mind.
Terry’s latest threat, for one thing. Her own upcoming trip to Iowa City, for another. She still hadn’t mentioned the latter to her mother. She glanced over and found Regina thoroughly absorbed in answering yet another stack of Terry’s fan mail.
“Any more surprises in there?” she asked, gesturing toward the letters.
Her mother glanced up. “You mean like that odd note you found the other day?”
“Exactly.”
“I really don’t understand how a thing like that could happen to a boy as nice as Terry. The world’s a crazy place these days.”
“You’re telling me,” Callie agreed. “If you do find another threat, you’ll tell me right away, won’t you?”
Regina regarded her worriedly. “You’re not getting mixed up in this, are you? Callie, you’re not a policewoman. Stay out of it. Let a real policeman handle it.”
“Terry refuses to tell a real policeman.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
Callie realized too late that she’d walked right into a trap. Clearly her mother hadn’t guessed about Terry and Neil’s relationship, or if she had, she hadn’t realized it might be a secret they wouldn’t want revealed.
Callie settled for explaining that it could mean bad publicity for the show, which was an understatement if ever there was one.
“Nonsense,” Regina said. “What’s more important? A TV show or protecting a nice young man?”
“I think Terry might pick the show.” To say nothing of his own career, she added to herself.
“Well, he’d be wrong. I doubt even your friend Jason would agree with that. Does he know about this?”
“No.”
“Well, why on earth not?” her mother demanded with indignation. “It’s his network. Seems to me he’s responsible for what goes on around there.”
Jason would probably see it that way, too, but Callie had been sworn to secrecy. She would honor Terry’s request as long as the danger didn’t go beyond receiving a few obliquely threatening letters and an occasional hang-up phone call. The pranks on
