Perfect Nightmare

Chapter Two

Kara Marshall’s stomach knotted as she stared at the listing agreement on her dining room table. She didn’t even try to stop herself from picking at the already torn cuticle on her left forefinger. Why bother? Though her nails were about the last thing she had any control over, she’d already pretty much ruined them. She could barely believe the low figure the agent had suggested their beautiful home was worth. When Steve saw it…

She didn’t want to think about what he would say.

A blinding flash of light jerked Kara out of her reverie.

“That should do it.” She looked up at Mark Acton, whose professional smile looked phony even as he tried to make it look sincere. “This house photographs beautifully.”

She didn’t respond, and instead looked down again at the array of forms and color brochures on the table as the agent put his camera into its case.

“I’ll just leave the papers with you,” he went on. “I can come back to answer any questions you might have when your husband is home. Do you know when that might be?”

“That’s part of the problem,” Kara said, looking up, wondering even as she spoke why she was telling this perfect stranger — one she’d already decided she didn’t like — things that were none of his business. “I don’t know when he’ll be home. He commutes to the city and sometimes stays over. In fact, he’s hardly home anymore — that’s the main reason we’re selling. Maybe I’d better just call you after we’ve talked this over.”

Acton nodded. “I’ll put these pictures up on our Web site as soon as you and your husband sign the listing.” His voice took on the drone of a rehearsed speech. “Our normal procedure is to keep the listing in-house for two or three days. If it doesn’t get sold by one of our people, I’ll put it into the Multiple Listing Service on Monday and we’ll hold a brokers’ open house on Wednesday to show it to all the agents in the area. Then we’ll have a public open house on Sunday. It’s a wonderful house. I think it will sell right away.”

Though she’d barely heard him, Kara nodded as if following every word. “Good. Okay. I’ll call you.”

Mark Acton pulled a sheet of blue paper from the pile and set it on top. “This is the schedule I just laid out for you. Please initial it when you sign the listing agreement and I’ll put everything into motion.”

Once again she nodded. “Yes, fine.”

Acton picked up his briefcase, and she took that as a cue to usher him to the door. “I’m sure you’ll be more than happy with the marketing our firm will provide,” he said.

That must sound canned even to him, Kara thought. “I’m sure I will,” she said. “Thanks for coming.”

As she stood at the door, a car pulled up in front and her daughter got out. Kara watched Lindsay wave to her friend Dawn and to Phyllis D'Angelo, who was driving. “Call me!” Lindsay yelled to Dawn, then passed the agent on her way to the front porch.

Mark Acton nodded to Lindsay, then turned to watch her as she walked up the porch steps.

Kara scowled at him, but if he saw her, he gave no sign. She forced the scowl from her brow, told herself she had to get used to it. Her daughter was seventeen now, and pretty, and men would look at her every day for the next twenty years. Then, seeing the bandage on Lindsay’s wrist, all thoughts of Mark Acton vanished from her mind. “What happened?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Lindsay said, brushing by her and into the house. She dropped her backpack on the foyer floor, and only then held out her hand for the examination she knew there was no way of escaping. “It’s just a sprain. I goofed up a flip at practice.”

“Nothing’s broken?” Kara fretted.

Lindsay pulled her hand away. “No, Mom. I told you, it’s just a sprain.” She tipped her head toward the front door. “Who was that?”

“Just an agent,” Kara said, shrugging dismissively.

Lindsay winced as if she’d been struck. “Don’t I have any say in what this family does?” she asked as she wheeled around and started toward the stairs. Though she’d tried to hide it, Kara saw her daughter’s eyes glistening with tears.

“Lindsay, wait!”

But of course, she didn’t.

When Lindsay vanished up the stairs, Kara looked again at the listing agreement on the dining room table, and had to resist the urge to pick up the forms and brochures and rip them to shreds. She didn’t want to move to the city any more than Lindsay did, but what choice did she have? Being away from Steve so much was destroying their marriage. Still, Lindsay only had a year of school left. Maybe they could find some way to work it out.

But as she unconsciously picked at a different cuticle, she knew there would be no working it out. Not only was the commute killing her marriage, but Steve’s promotion, which required him to be in Manhattan even more, hadn’t been enough to even cover the cost of the tiny apartment he’d rented. In fact, the apartment had turned his raise into just another liability.

So there wasn’t any choice; they had to move.

Kara waited long enough for Lindsay to pour out her tears into her pillow, and as she moved up the curving staircase to her daughter’s room, she realized once more just how much she was going to miss this big house. She’d helped design it, and they’d moved in two weeks before Lindsay was born. The entire history of the family was in this house. Whatever they found in Manhattan would not only be much smaller, but an abandonment of their entire past as well. Could they really do it?

She knocked twice on Lindsay’s door, then opened it a crack. “Linds? Can I come in?”

She took the silence as assent and went inside. It was a quintessential teenage girl’s room, with its neglected but not forgotten stuffed animals and Barbie dolls, new and often replaced posters of buff young men on the walls, stacks of CDs, a computer, and enough makeup to beautify half the women on Long Island.

Kara perched uneasily on the edge of the bed. As she’d suspected, Lindsay’s face was turned away, but the emotional storm seemed to have passed. Lindsay was quiet as she lay facing the wall.

“Honey?” Kara smoothed her daughter’s silky blond hair. “You know we love it here as much as you do. We’d never move if we didn’t have to. I just wish there were another option.”

“Just one more year.” Lindsay’s voice was muffled by the pillow, but her anger was still audible. “Then it won’t matter so much, because at least I’ll have finished school.”

“We can’t make it another year like this,” Kara said. “We can’t keep up both places — it’s too expensive. And your father needs us. We need him. You need him.”

“I know,” Lindsay sighed, rolling over to look at her.

Seeing the desolation in Lindsay’s eyes, and hearing the hopelessness in her voice, Kara’s heart nearly broke. The sight of those red, swollen, unutterably sad eyes bespoke every wonderful thing her daughter was — caring, dedicated, loyal. But as she eased a strand of blond hair away from Lindsay’s face and put her cool hand on the girl’s forehead, she could see a change in her eyes.

Abruptly, Lindsay sat up. “What if I move in with Dawn’s family for my last year?” she asked, her expression brightening. “I could come to the city on weekends and for holidays.” Her words tumbled out. “You know, Christmas and stuff.”

“We can ask your father, honey,” Kara said, knowing that Steve would never agree, “but I know what he’s going to say, and so do you.”

Lindsay sagged back down on the pillow, her excitement deflating like a collapsing balloon. “Yeah, I know.”

Kara took her hand. “We’ve talked about this for months — you knew it was coming.”

“I know,” Lindsay sighed, “but I didn’t think it would be so soon.”

“It’ll be fine,” Kara said, squeezing her daughter’s hand. “You’ll see — it’ll be just fine.”

But even as she spoke the words, Kara wondered how true they would turn out to be.