High Heels and Holidays

Chapter Sixteen

Maggie barreled into the foyer of the building ahead of everyone else, still trying to come to grips with the obvious. The obvious that should have been obvious from the beginning. And not one obvious, but two.

Obvious One: She never should have gone to bed with Alex. Twice. She most definitely shouldn't have taken up his invitation to call him darling in front of Steve. But that was just all too, too bad. Mistake or not, and even though he drove her crazy half the time, she was keeping him.

Obvious Two: She was walking around with a target on her back. The object of a deranged killer, because un-deranged killers don't send rats to people. A nut job was after her, and he'd already killed poor Francis Oakes. Knocked him senseless and then strung him up like a chicken in one of those grocery store windows down in—"Daddy?"

Evan Kelly stood up slowly from the lobby couch, his smile bordering on sickly. "Hello, pumpkin," he said quietly, then sort of held out his arms, sort of didn't ... leaving the option of hugging him or just standing there gawking at him up to Maggie.

Who stood there and gawked at him.

"Is something wrong? Mom? Is something wrong with Mom?"

The graying, slightly built man held out his hands—to ward off Maggie's fears, she supposed. "No, no, pumpkin, your mother is fine, just fine. Well, as fine as a woman can be when she's just discarded her husband of nearly forty years."

"She did what? She threw you out? Ohmigod. How ... how long have you been here?"

"I ... I'm not sure," her father answered, looking both frazzled and distracted. "A little over an hour? I told that fellow over there I was here to see you, but he didn't know where you were. Why?"

Maggie needed a target, that's why. It was stupid, but either she exploded over something or she'd start thinking about how she'd suddenly become a sort of pseudo-orphan, a child of divorce ... and, not unimportant to consider, a woman who was soon going to have her father bedding down in her guest room and her lover sleeping across the hall. The whole thing stank from any angle she wanted to see it from.

"Paul!"

The part-time doorman looked up from his copy of Guns And Ammo and blinked at her. "Huh?"

"You left my father sitting down here for over an hour? He told you who he is, I know he did. Why didn't you let him into my condo?"

Paul, who was a manly man, an imposing, dangerous figure, but only in his dreams, got off his stool behind the podium and hitched up his uniform pants. "Couldn't do it, miss. Against the rules. Can't be too careful who you let upstairs, you know."

"Was it against the rules a couple of weeks ago when you let those robbers into—hell, I don't remember his name. You helped the crooks carry out a wide-screen TV, for cripes sakes! But my father? Oh, no, not my father. What? He's got the look of a criminal? He's got a dangerous glint in his eyes behind those bifocals? Maybe he's carrying concealed Metamucil? You have got to be the worst—"

"Mr. Kelly, what an unexpected pleasure," Alex said, deliberately walking between the cringing, clearly terrified doorman and Maggie the Terrible. "Maggie neglected to tell me you'd be visiting the metropolis."

Maggie deflated. What was the point, anyway, except to delay the inevitable. "Mom threw him out," she told Alex, then headed for the elevator. "Come on, let's all just go upstairs and figure this out, all right?"

"Hello, Mr. Kelly," Sterling chirped, just entering the lobby in his usual happily oblivious way, Socks right behind him. "Do you remember me? Sterling. Sterling Balder. You and I had the drumsticks on Thanksgiving. Oh, and this is my friend, Argyle Jackson. Socks, say hello to Maggie's father."

Socks stepped forward, extending his hand. "We've met once before, I think, sir, when Maggie first bought the condo. Good to see you again, sir."

"Yes, thank you." Evan Kelly smiled weakly, and then turned to Alex, who had already secured the man's one small piece of luggage. "What is he wearing? Is he in a Broadway show of some sort? He walks the street like that?" He shook his head. "I don't understand New York."

Maggie grinned at Socks, who for the first time that evening seemed to believe he might want to cover his crotch with his hands. "Come on, Dad. I'll make you something to eat—I've got lots. Oh," she said rather inanely, she knew, as everyone piled into the elevator and the door slid closed on Socks, who waved good-bye with only one hand, "But I don't have any puffed rice ..."

Fifteen minutes later, with everyone settled in Maggie's living room, all of them watching Evan Kelly spoon potato salad into his mouth, she finally asked for details, even though she didn't want to hear them.

"You know your mother can be ... well, difficult," Evan told her with a weak smile. "And determined. Most certainly determined. When she gets an idea into her head, there's no getting it out again."

"I've wondered where you acquired that particular trait, my dear," Alex said from his perch on the back of the couch as he lifted a glass of wine to his lips.

"Right," Maggie shot back at him, but quietly. "She's down, very nearly out, so hey, here's an idea—why not stomp on her? Thanks, Alex—just what I needed, to be compared to my mother."

Sterling was clearly upset over the entire matter. "You allowed her to banish the master from his own hearth? Oh, sir, excuse me for being so blunt, but you really shouldn't have countenanced that. I am a bachelor, I admit, and probably designed to remain so, but my own father gave me copious advice on the rights and privileges of a gentleman. One of those rights, sir, is the assurance of his own chair by his own fireside. Oh, and a female as companion and helpmate. But, sir, not in charge. Never in charge. I think you should be best served to return home right now and assert your rights."

Maggie had joined Alex behind the couch. "Part of me agrees with Sterling," she told him, "while the modern woman in me wants to tell him he's a chauvinist pig who ought to remember he's now in the twenty-first century. The last part of me, of course, is laughing its butt off at the idea that Dad would ever stand up to Mom."

But, it would seem that Evan Kelly agreed with Sterling. "It's as much my house as it is hers, isn't it? Not that it belongs to either of us," he added, the spine he'd momentarily straightened somewhat collapsing again against the soft cushions. "She's probably already called Tate, and told him all about his horrible father, and demanded that Tate call me and tell me never to darken his door again."

"Tate really owns the house, remember? Scoring points with Mom and Dad for being the good son, while at the same time using the house as a great investment that's going to make him big bucks someday," Maggie reminded Alex. "And, since my big brother has made an art out of playing one parent off the other for as long as I can remember, Dad probably has it right. Which leaves Dad to—"

"Move in with his favorite daughter?"

"Oh, Alex," Maggie said, sagging against him. "We've got to do something to get those two lovebirds back together."

"Because you are a possible target for a killer and your father could somehow become an innocent victim?"

Maggie frowned, suddenly remembering what, only an hour earlier, had been the biggest problem in her life. "Oh, right, that, too. I was thinking more of the idea that Dad would be here all the time ... and Sterling's across the hall with you all the time ... and I know I said we shouldn't do what we did, but let's get real here, Alex, okay? Nobody only takes two bites of an apple."

"I adore it when you try to avoid speaking frankly on what should be a simple subject for two people who have so recently been intimate."

Maggie winced, barely holding back from clamping a hand over his big mouth. "Would you shut up?" she growled at him. "I write that stuff—I don't say that stuff. I most especially don't say that stuff with my own father sitting on the other side of the room. Cripes, Alex ..."

Evan Kelly swallowed down another mouthful of potato salad, having already explained that his wife had shown him the door before dinner, and looked at Maggie. "I don't know how she knew."

Maggie's eyes nearly popped out of her head—they actually hurt as she looked at her father. "She knew? She knew what, Dad?"

"About Carol, of course," Evan said, leaning forward to put down his empty bowl. "I was listening on the extension when she called you to tell you about Carol. That's why I knew I could come here. I knew you'd understand."

"Well ... well, you guessed wrong, Dad," Maggie heard herself say, then winced, because she certainly wasn't helping her dad here, was she. "I mean, I understand that Mom can be ... difficult. But to have an affair? After forty years? That is what we're talking about here, right? An affair? With ... with a little chippie named Christine—I mean, Carol."

"Feeling a tad confused, my dear? Allow me to clarify for you. Christine would be the left –tenant's little chippie."

"Shut up. That was not a Freudian slip," Maggie told him, then left him and returned to the couch, to sit down facing her father. "Are you going to divorce Mom and marry this Carol person? Because, hey, I'm fine with that. I mean, I'm grown, I'm gone—I have nothing to say about what you guys do. Although Maureen's probably going to figure out that that leaves her to take care of Mom, and she's either going to run away to join the circus or double up on her happy pills." She raised her hands. "But, hey, that doesn't matter, either. Your life, your decision. Tate will have a cow—that could be fun—and Erin? Hell, talk about ducks and backs."

"Excuse me? Maggie, you're really upset, aren't you?" her father said, clasping his hands together on his knees. "You left us, all of you, except Maureen, who probably should have. What does it matter what your mother and I do? I love Carol, Maggie, and your mother knows it."

"Oh, God, you weren't supposed to say that," Maggie told him, rubbing at her stinging eyes. "You were supposed to ask me to help you get back with Mom. You've been married forever. You've got four kids. You ... you have a history. You can't be in love—you're married. This is just a ... an infatuation. Some midlife crisis thing. Why can't you just go home, buy a silk shirt and a gold neck chain, maybe a red sports car, and forget about this Carol woman?"

"Pardon me for interrupting your litany of suggestions, but Maggie? Your message light is blinking," Alex told her. "Perhaps messages from your mother? She may be worried about your father?"

Maggie jumped to her feet and leveled an accusing finger at her father. "Yes! Yes, that's what it is! You left her all alone, and she doesn't know where you went, what you're doing, how you are—all that stuff. She wants you home, Dad. You two can work this out, you'll see. Counseling! Yes, that's what you need—counseling." She looked at Alex. "Hit the button, okay, and turn up the volume."

Alex inclined his head in agreement and pushed the appropriate button on the answering machine a second before Maggie's brain kicked into Slightly More Rational Mode and she realized that her mother hadn't left a "nice" message since answering machines had been invented.

There were three messages. All from Alicia Kelly.

Message One: "Tell that no-good philandering tomcat that his clothes are on the back porch where the neighbors won't see them."

Message Two: "Evan? I've closed all our joint accounts. You're now as fiscally bankrupt as you are morally depraved."

Message Three: "Margaret, inform your father that he has a dentist appointment tomorrow at two."

Well, at least the woman had been succinct.

Maggie, in a move born of desperation, latched on to that third message. "Aha! You hear that? She's worried you'll miss your dental appointment. She cares."

"Maggie, sweetings, let it go," Alex told her, putting his hands on her shoulders and gently guiding her toward the hallway. "Your father looks tired. I suggest you let me help you prepare the guest room for him, and we'll all revisit the situation in the morning."

She dug in her heels. "We can't do that, Alex. I'm a target, remember? You're the one who reminded me. I can't take the chance of exposing my dad to danger. I'll get him a room somewhere." Ducking out from under Alex's hands, she returned to the living room. "Dad, I'm going to get you a hotel room, all right? Just until we see how things go once Mom calms down."

Evan Kelly got to his feet, which wasn't that imposing a sight, as he and Maggie might both be slightly built, but they were the Lilliputians in a family of near giants, his own wife topping him by a good three inches, as a matter of fact. "Margaret, I don't think you heard me. I love Carol. I am not going back to your mother. Not unless she apologizes."

Maggie shook her head, just to make sure her brains hadn't come loose and might rattle around inside her skull. She didn't usually take her mother's side in anything—she'd never taken her mother's side in anything—but this one hit her somewhere in the "we're fellow females" place where she lived. "You love this Carol person, but you want Mom to apologize? For what?"

"I'm not very good at this, am I? I don't really love Carol. I just said that. I lied. I'm sorry."

"Okay ... I think. And you just said that to Mom, too, right, lied to her, too? But why should Mom be the one apologizing?"

Evan lowered his head, fairly whispering his next words. "She had an affair with Walt Hagenbush. Ten years ago. She told me all about it on our wedding anniversary, three months ago. She told me she needed to confess what she'd done because—well, I'm not quite sure why. I think it's her menopause, truthfully. She hasn't been handling it well. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that nothing has been the same for us since she told me."

Maggie sucked in three breaths before ever breathing out again. "Mom—my mother —had an affair? Oh, that's just ridiculous. Who'd ever—no, scratch that, that isn't nice. But, seriously—who'd be that brave? Walter who? With Mom? Alex, I think I need a—"

"A brandy, I agree," Alex said, already heading for the drinks table. "Sterling, for reasons I don't care to delve into too deeply at the moment, you also would seem to be in need of a small restorative."

"Yes, thank you so much, Saint Just," Sterling said, taking a large white linen handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing it at his forehead. "Our poor Maggie. We've never had a divorce in the family, have we? It's all so ... so sordid."

Actually, as far as Maggie was concerned, it all was beginning to seem pretty stupid. Her mother had committed the worst sin in marriage. Not having an affair, although that was pretty bad, but telling her husband about it ten years later. Ten years! Who the hell cared, ten years later?

Well, her father, obviously. He'd stewed, he'd simmered, and then he'd gone out and found Carol, the chippie. She said as much. "So you went out and found Carol to get some of your own back on Mom, right?"

"Just so I could say that I'd had an affair, too, yes," Evan agreed as Maggie dedicatedly nursed the snifter of brandy, hoping for numbness to set in somewhere besides her lips and molars.

"So did you? Or did you just tell Mom that you did?" Maggie grimaced as she looked at Alex. "And do I really want to know the answer to that question?"

"No, my dear, I don't think you do. I also believe that you do not want to insinuate yourself between your mother and father in this matter, also a point toward keeping your knowledge as minimal as possible."

"Too late, Alex—I'm already going to go to my grave thinking about my mother and some ... some Walter, Alicia Kelly, checking into a by-the-hour motel. God."

"I should be going," Evan said, getting to his feet. "I called ahead and have a room at the Marriott waiting for me, but I felt sure your mother would try to contact me here. And don't worry about money, Maggie. I've maintained a MasterCard account in my own name for several months now. I do watch Dr. Phil now and then, you know. Cheaters have to be up to all the tricks. But your mother must know more of those tricks than I do, because she found me out, didn't she? Perhaps I wanted her to?"

"Oh, God," Maggie said a few minutes later, once Alex had put her father into a cab and come back upstairs. "I knew we were dysfunctional—but who could have imagined any of this? And you want to know the worst? It's Christmas. Who do I go to for Christmas? Mom or Dad? Hey, do you think I can just send them both cheese trays and stay home? I mean, there's got to be a pony hiding somewhere in this pile of—oh, never mind."

"Maggie, shame on you," Alex said, heading for the door once more. "As I recall the thing, you have an appointment with Dr. Bob in the morning. What do you say I meet you at his office at ten, at which time we'll be off to Greenwich Village. Oh, and then a visit to your friend, Felicity, to learn if she, too, received a rat in the mail."

"I suppose we have to do that, huh? Tell Faith, that is. And Jonathan West, too. I don't trust Lover Boy to take us seriously on any of this. Jeez, love makes people weird, doesn't it? Steve used to be a good cop who never thought about the political end of a case, even broke rules when he felt the need. He's probably thinking about his future now, with Christine in the picture. And Dad used to be a good—never mind. Go home, Alex. I think I'm going to have a pity party, and I don't want you to see it."

"I could stay," he said quietly.

She blinked back tears, nodded. "I know. But not tonight, Alex. You know," she added, trying to smile, "you can make a perfect hero, but you can't make a perfect life. Only in fiction, you know? It's why I write happy endings. I like happy endings ... but I don't see one here. Not right now."

He'd barely closed the door when Maggie was wishing him back, but she didn't go after him. She was too used to being on her own, working things out for herself.

Except she hadn't really been alone. Not since puberty, according to Sterling. Alex had been ... had been her imaginary friend.

Now he was her for-real lover.

Speaking of lovers ... both her parents had taken lovers.

And Rat Boy was still out there.

What a mess.

"Time to play Snood," Maggie said out loud, heading for her computer and what she knew would be at least two hours of mindless Snood shooting.

When she woke up the next morning she was on the couch, the almost empty brandy snifter still balanced on her stomach, and she could hear her alarm clock buzzing down the hall in her bedroom.

"Dr. Bob!" she said out loud, and ran to take her shower, grab an iced cinnamon-and-sugar Pop-Tart, and head for the psychiatrist's office.

Five minutes into the hour-long session, she was wishing she'd overslept and missed the appointment.

"Well, now, Margaret, this is an upsetting situation your parents have put you in, isn't it? How do you propose to deal with it, hmm?"

Maggie reached for her second tissue of the session. "Isn't that what you're supposed to tell me? Isn't that why I pay you the big bucks?"

"I'm not here to solve your problems for you, Margaret."

"Yeah, you got that in one," Maggie muttered into the tissue, then blew her nose. "But I don't know what to do. He's on one side, she's on the other—and I'm smack in the middle. I'm taffy, that's what I am, being stretched in two directions at once."

"Oh, that reminds me," Dr. Bob said, reaching down on the side of his desk and coming up with a small blue box tied with a silver ribbon. "Here you are, Margaret. I'm giving out sugarless fudge this year, except to my bulimics and anorexics, of course. They'll receive autographed first editions of my new book—well, the one that's just come out in paperback, that is. Oh, would you like one, Maggie? Instead of the fudge, you understand. Although I did tell you it's sugarless, correct? I know you're on a diet."

Maggie just let that one roll over her, one more problem in her life, and one she didn't have time for right now, thank you. Good old cheerful Dr. Bob should just be happy she hadn't as yet reached for a cigarette. Yet being the operative word, because she was teetering on the brink.

"Can we get back to my mom and dad? I'd call the sibs—my siblings, that is—except I already know how each of them will react, and it won't be good. I want to help Mom and Dad, I really do. I just ... I just don't want to get involved, you know? That's selfish, isn't it?"

"Self-preservation, Margaret. It's in our nature, and perfectly understandable. But let me help direct you, as you're clearly conflicted. For the moment, your parents are finding their own way, reacting in their own way, and they both deserve the time and space to do just that, without interference. Your job, if you'll think of it that way, is to be supportive but nonjudgmental."

"Kind of hard to do that with Mom on the phone every three seconds and Dad living here in New York."

"True," Dr. Bob said, leaning back in his oversize leather chair. "You are on the horns of a dilemma, aren't you, my dear?"

Maggie held up one finger as she chuckled in what she hoped was a rueful way. "Oh no, that one doesn't work for me anymore. You pity me, I do a knee-jerk stand-up riff for me and say it's not all that bad. I have a great career, lots of friends, a nifty condo, cup more than half full, yadda-yadda. The old self-esteem bit. But it won't work this time, Dr. Bob. And you know why? Because my life is a mess on so many levels, that's why. Someone's out to kill me. Did I mention that?"

Dr. Bob, who had been scribbling something on a yellow legal pad, slowly turned his head to look at her from beneath his thick eyebrows. "Really," he said in that hugely irritating neutral voice of his. "And how long have you thought someone was out to get you, Margaret?"

Maggie actually picked up her purse and opened it, began to search inside for a nonexistent pack of cigarettes, before she stopped herself. "Not out to get me. Out to kill me. Oh, cripes, never mind. It's nothing for you to worry about."

"Because Saint Just will protect you, hmm?"

Okay, now she really wanted a cigarette. "You know what, Dr. Bob? One of us needs a shrink. What do you mean, Saint Just will protect me?"

"There's an ethical question here, I believe. But as I never registered him as a patient, and he most certainly didn't pay for my time ... yes, I think I'm safe in telling you this, Margaret. Your Saint Just was here the other day."

"My Saint Just," Maggie repeated, getting that Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole feeling again. "Here. As in here here? To see you? You've got to be kidding. Why?"

Dr. Bob shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I can't allow myself to go that far. But he was here, and he does seem to enjoy being referred to as Saint Just. And he is most definitely quite protective of you. And, while he seems rational, I must tell you, Margaret, the man appears to be laboring under an illusion. One of ... well, very nearly omnipotence, I'd say. Very self-assured, extremely confident. Bordering on arrogant, I'd have to say, although totally charming."

Maggie grinned. She couldn't help herself. "Yup, that sounds like Alex."

"And you see nothing odd in that, Margaret? That your cousin should have cast himself in the role of your imaginary character, your fictional hero? And, as we both know from recent events that have reached the media as well as been discussed between us in this office, the man seems to have a penchant for embroiling himself in ... adventures."

"He's not the Lone Ranger on that one, Dr. Bob. I'm in those adventures, too, remember?" Maggie said, beginning to bristle a bit. "And none of them were our fault. Things just ... they just seem to happen to us, that's all. Kirk, for one, was certainly not my fault. Like helping Bernie when she found her first husband had come back from the dead to die in her bed. And don't tell me it was our fault that someone went apeshit at that romance convention. Oh, and England? We just happened to be there, that's all. I mean, come on, like it was my idea to discover that guy swinging from his neck outside my window? And look at Rat Boy, for crying out loud. I sure didn't ask him to send me a dead rat, or that stupid poem threatening to kill me—or at least hinting at it. Who would ask for that sort of—"

Dr. Bob held up his hand, stopping Maggie in mid-rant. "You're serious, aren't you, Margaret? Saint Just—that is, your cousin Alex—was serious? There's someone possibly out to kill you?"

"Finally! Yes, someone may be out to kill me. One guy is already dead—Francis Oakes. The police are on it—well, sort of—and I'm being very careful, but yes, I'm feeling like I have a target painted on my back, and it's not a nice feeling to think that someone could actually wish you dead."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"How do I feel?" Maggie searched for words. "Angry. Confused. Vulnerable." She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "Mortal."

"Ah, yes, I understand," Dr. Bob said, carefully placing his pen on the yellow pad and giving Maggie his full attention. "We are all mortal, aren't we?"

"Most of us," Maggie mumbled under her breath, then nodded. "I don't like to think about that. More than anything, that's what's got me going, I think. Thinking about that, that is. I ... I don't think about that. Dying."

"But when you do?"

Maggie looked up at the psychiatrist. This wasn't why she'd come here this morning. She'd come for some magic answer about her parents. "I don't know. I think ... when I think about dying I think that's okay, because it would be the end of the world and everyone else would go out with me. That's not too crazy, because when I ... die, my world would end, so that would mean the world is sort of over, right? For me, at least, even if it does go on somewhere else. I mean, think about it. They killed JFK, for one, and the world didn't stop. We'd just like to think it couldn't go on without us."

"So, in your mind, you're making a fiction of fact, a fiction that makes you comfortable with the idea that, just maybe, you're indispensable to the world?"

Maggie considered this for a moment. "Yeah, okay. Hey, like they said, whatever floats your boat." Then, growing more and more uncomfortable, she went on, stealing from something Bernie had once said to her, "Besides, I figure I'm going to go in my sleep at one hundred and three, with a young stud sleeping beside me."

Then honesty won out. "No, that's not true. I'd be too self-conscious about my wrinkles to let a young stud near me. I think I'd rather have my M&M's and a cigarette, to tell you the truth. The one hundred and three, however, still stands."

"You're avoiding facing what you feel and fear, Margaret, and in your usual way, with an attempt at humor."

"I wasn't funny? I thought the M&M's and cigarettes were kind of funny," Maggie said, then gave it all up as a bad job. "Why are we talking about dying? I sure don't want to talk about dying."

"You know, Margaret, it is often a comfort to know that one will be leaving something behind when he or she dies. Something of themselves. Some mark that proves that, yes, they were here."

"Well, I do have my books. I'll be leaving my work behind." Maggie had a quick thought about Francis Oakes, the recently deceased Francis Oakes. That had been his legacy, a few books. A few very forgettable, probably out-of-print books. And wasn't that a cheery thought?

"Yes, of course, your marvelous books. Is that it, Margaret? Perhaps you'd want more. Something more personal? Children, perhaps?"

Maggie blinked. "Children?" She thought about Alex and his, their, special circumstances. Here's your daddy, sweetheart—he's not really real, I made him up, but we're just going to run with that, okay? Wasn't that just swell. Man, talk about a way to screw up the next generation! "Children ..."

Dr. Bob pushed back his French cuff and looked at his watch. "Well, that's it for this week. Same time next week, or would you rather go back to our usual Monday morning sessions?"

"Wait a minute," Maggie said as the good doctor pushed on the arms of his chair as if to stand up. "That's it? I'm to be sympathetic but neutral with my parents, someone might be out to get—kill me, so I should think about what I might leave behind if he does? That's it? Oh, and the sugarless fudge," she said, getting to her feet. "Can't forget the fudge, can I. No, Dr. Bob, I will not see you next week. I think we need a break. Maybe even a clean break. Children? Yeah, just what I wanted to think about. Merry Christmas!"