Loe raamatut: «Adding Up To Family»

Chapter One

“Mrs. Parnell? This is Steve Holder,” the deep male voice on the other end of the phone said.

Celia recognized the name. Steve was one of her sporadic clients, making use of her services whenever he suddenly found himself without a housekeeper. Although she didn’t remember all her clients, she remembered the ones who were special, and Steve Holder’s case was. A widower, he was struggling to raise a preteen daughter on his own.

And Celia had just been thinking of him.

“Steve,” she said with pleasure. “How is everything?”

“Not good, I’m afraid,” he replied honestly. “It happened again.”

Celia didn’t have to guess what he was talking about. The young aerospace engineer wouldn’t be calling her just to shoot the breeze or talk aimlessly. He was far too conscientious about how he used his time—and hers—for that.

“I take it that you’ve had another housekeeper quit?” There was no judgment in Celia’s voice, only sympathy. She knew Steve to be a very personable man. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, the housekeepers he employed seemed to have no staying power. She suspected that it had to do with his daughter. Incredibly intelligent, the ten-year-old was becoming increasingly difficult to handle.

She heard Steve sighing as he answered, “Yes.”

Since she needed the information to update her files, Celia tactfully asked, “May I ask what happened?”

Steve had to admit that at least this housekeeper, who had lasted longer than the others, had a viable excuse for leaving. “Mrs. Pritchett’s daughter just had a baby and Mrs. Pritchett is moving to Seattle to help her take care of the new addition. She already told me that she didn’t think she’d be coming back,” he added.

“Was it a girl or boy?” Celia asked.

He wasn’t a people person and had to pause and think for a minute before he could answer the question. “Girl,” he finally said.

“That’s lovely,” Celia said with genuine feeling. “But that does leave you in an immediate bind, doesn’t it, dear?”

He appreciated how direct the woman was. No polite beating around the bush. He restated his position. “Well, I can have you and your company clean my house once every two weeks, and Stevi’s going to school right now, but I do need someone to cover the hours when she’s home and I’m still at work.”

“She’s going to school?” Celia repeated, surprised. “But it’s summer.”

“I know. Stevi’s going to summer school. She wanted to take some classes so she could get ahead. It was her idea, not mine,” he added quickly, before Mrs. Parnell could accuse him of robbing his daughter of her childhood. He was pleased she wanted to learn, but had to admit that he was really beginning to miss his little “buddy.” Stevi had begun to change on him in the last few months.

“My daughter’s suddenly gone serious on me, Mrs. Parnell,” he confessed. “She doesn’t even want to be called ‘Stevi’ anymore. She’s ‘Stephanie’ now. And I’ve got this feeling that those fishing trips we used to take might just be a thing of the past.”

Steve took his work very seriously. These outings he used to take with his daughter were what he’d looked forward to, a way to wind down. And now it appeared that this might be changing.

“Not necessarily, Steve. Your daughter could just be broadening her base, not shifting her focus,” Celia pointed out. “Ten-year-olds have been known to change their minds a great deal at this age.”

He could only hope, Steve thought. “Could I talk you into becoming my housekeeper?” he asked wistfully.

Steve knew it wasn’t possible, but if it were, having the woman as his housekeeper would be an ideal solution.

If he could put in an order for the perfect grandmother, it would be Mrs. Parnell. He was beginning to feel as if he knew his daughter less and less these days, but he was fairly certain that Stevi—Stephanie, he amended—would get along very well with her.

“I would if I could, Steve,” Celia answered kindly. “But I’m afraid my company keeps me very busy these days. Otherwise—”

“I know,” Steve said, cutting her short. He didn’t want the woman feeling that he was serious. “I just thought I’d give it a shot.”

Celia knew he was attempting to politely extricate himself from the conversation, but she detected an underlying note of bewilderment and even sadness, now that she listened carefully. She didn’t think she remembered ever hearing him sound down before.

“Steve, I wouldn’t give up on the idea of finding a decent housekeeper just yet.” She recalled the visit she’d had with Bonnie Reynolds the other day. An idea began to form. “I just might have the perfect person for you. Let me get back to you—”

“Wait, there’s more,” he said, wanting to tell her something before she hung up. “I mean, I do need a housekeeper, but she’ll need to be more, as well.”

“Oh?” Celia wasn’t altogether certain where this conversation was going and if she’d be able to help once it got there. She waited patiently for him to continue.

Steve hesitated. “I don’t know how to put this, really.”

“Words might be useful, Steve. Just start talking. I’ll do my best to try to figure it out,” she promised.

An intelligent man, he wasn’t accustomed to being out of his element. But he definitely was now. Taking a breath, he started doing exactly as she suggested.

“Well, as you know, it’s been Stevi—Stephanie and I for the last six years. Despite the demands of my job, I’ve been able to manage finding a lot of quality time with my daughter. We’ve done everything together. Everything from fishing to tea parties to baseball games and ‘Aliens and Astronauts’—”

“‘Aliens and Astronauts’?” Celia questioned, puzzled. As the grandmother of three, including one teenage boy, she made an effort to keep up on the latest trends in games, but this was a new one.

“It’s a video game,” Steve explained. “It’s Stevi’s—Stephanie’s favorite. I am having a really hard time remembering to call her that,” he complained. “Anyway, suddenly, without any warning, she’s switching gears on me.”

“By asking you to call her Stephanie,” Celia said knowingly.

“That’s part of it,” Steve admitted. “The other part—the bigger one—is that she suddenly seems to be growing up right in front of my eyes.”

“They have a habit of doing that,” Celia told him wryly. “I think it might have something to do with the daily watering,” she added, tongue in cheek.

Distressed over what was going on in his life, he barely realized she was trying to lighten the mood.

“What I’m trying to get at is that all of a sudden, Stevi’s got these questions I don’t know the answers to. I mean, I know the answers, but I just can’t—I just can’t...” He trailed off helplessly.

“I understand, Steve,” Celia told him kindly. “Your daughter’s at a crossroads in her life. It’s an admittedly delicate area and sometimes a young girl just needs to talk to another woman, no matter how close she is to her father.”

“Yes!” Steve cried, relieved that she understood what he was attempting to clumsily put into words. “I need someone who knows how to cook, who’s neat, and most of all, for Stevi—Stephanie’s sake, I need someone who is understanding and sympathetic. Someone who my daughter can turn to with all her unanswered questions and be comfortable doing it. I know it’s a lot to ask,” he confessed with a sigh. “And I don’t mean to be putting you on the spot like this. To be honest, I’ve been considering the possibility of perhaps sending Stevi to boarding school.”

“Boarding school?” Celia repeated, surprised. She couldn’t think of a worse idea. She had a feeling his daughter would wind up feeling rejected if he did that. “Have you spoken to her about it?”

“No, not yet,” he admitted. “But I thought that it might be best for her, all things considered.”

Celia wanted to tell him how bad she thought that idea was, but managed to refrain. Instead, she tactfully suggested, “Why don’t you hold off on that, Steve? Let me see if I can find someone for you who could fill that bill, before you decide to do anything rash.” Realizing that he might think she sounded judgmental, Celia softened her words by saying, “I’m assuming that you really don’t want to send Stevi away.”

“No,” Steve confessed, “I don’t. But she needs more than me right now. She’s got questions about, well—” he dropped his voice “—bras and boys and the changes her body’s going through that I can’t figure out how to address without embarrassing both of us. Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Mrs. Parnell?”

“Completely,” she assured him. “Do me a favor, Steve. Hold off doing anything permanent for now. Don’t start calling any boarding schools just yet. Worst comes to worst, I’ll fill in as your housekeeper for a few days and be there for Stevi when she comes home after summer school, so you won’t have to worry about her. I’m sure we can resolve this situation to everyone’s satisfaction.”

She could almost hear the weight falling off Steve’s shoulders.

“You are a lifesaver, Mrs. Parnell,” he told her with genuine enthusiasm and gratitude.

“It’s all part of the service, Steve,” Celia replied warmly. “One way or the other, I’ll be getting back to you,” she promised, before hanging up.

The moment she terminated her call to Steve, she was back on the phone, calling first Maizie Sommers, who was the unofficial leader of their informal group, and then Theresa Manetti.

She informed both women that she needed to have an emergency meeting with them.

* * *

“Okay, we’re here,” Maizie announced, as she and Theresa walked into Celia’s house later that afternoon. Because she spent a good deal of her time driving from place to place, Maizie had swung by Theresa’s catering business and picked her up before coming to Celia’s. Theresa had been making last-minute changes to a menu for an anniversary party that she and her company were catering tomorrow afternoon. “So, what’s the big emergency?”

“I need to run something by you,” Celia told her friends.

“And you couldn’t do this on the phone?” Maizie asked. “Celia, we went over conference calls. Are you still having trouble with that?”

Celia shrugged. “I’d rather see your faces when I talk.”

“Uh-oh. Is this something we should be sitting down for?” Theresa asked, taking a seat at the dining room table.

Friends since the third grade, the three women had gone through all life’s major events together—weddings, births, deaths—and supported each other through the good times as well as the bad.

“Maybe you had better sit,” Celia said. “It’s nothing bad,” she added quickly. “But this might take me a little time to explain.”

Waiting until Maizie was settled, as well, Celia finally sat down and began talking. “You know how one of us is usually approached by either a parent or a friend to find someone for their son or their daughter, or maybe even friend, and then we all sit around this table and brainstorm, trying to find the perfect match for that person?”

Maizie studied her friend, wondering what was behind this. “You’re preaching to the choir, Celia. Where are you going with this?”

“Fair enough,” Celia agreed. “I could be clearer.”

Theresa laughed. “You think?”

“I had a friend,” Celia started. “Actually, she’s the mother of one of my employees. Anyway, she asked me to find someone for her daughter.”

“All right,” Maizie said. So far, this sounded no different than anything they normally undertook. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s not a problem exactly,” she replied. “I actually think that I came up with the perfect person for her...” Her eyes swept over her friends. “I just wanted to run this choice by the two of you before I make the introduction.”

“So run it by us,” Maizie encouraged, waiting for her to get to the heart of the matter. Celia didn’t usually have this much trouble making up her mind.

“He’s a single dad and his daughter’s at an age where she’s starting to ask those kind of questions,” she said. “He told me that he needs a competent housekeeper, as well as someone to field such questions for him.”

“And this employee of yours, you think she’s a match for this single dad?” Theresa inquired.

“Well,” Celia began cautiously, “he’s an aerospace engineer and she graduated MIT at age eighteen.”

“Wait a minute. I don’t understand,” Maizie protested, trying to make sense out of the scenario. “She graduated MIT at eighteen? No offense, Celia, but what is she doing working for you?”

Celia smiled. “I know. It sounds strange, doesn’t it?”

“Not if she’s in the witness protection program,” Maizie quipped.

“She’s not. She’s just kind of conflicted. When Becky first came to me,” Celia said, filling her two friends in, “she said she was looking for something ‘different.’ She felt burned out and she just wanted something that wasn’t mentally taxing to do, something that made her feel as if she’d accomplished something basic and simple at the end of the day.” Celia smiled. “Like cleaning a bathroom.”

“Well, that’s basic and simple, all right,” Maizie agreed.

“Anyway, my point is that I think they have a lot in common and could help one another,” Celia concluded. Again, she looked from Maizie to Theresa, waiting to get their take on the situation.

“Any red flags?” Maizie murmured.

“Not that I can see,” Celia replied honestly. She’d gone over their backgrounds a number of times before Theresa and Maizie had gotten here. “Personally, I think they’re made for each other.”

“Well, if that’s what you think, it’s good enough for me,” Maizie said. “Theresa?”

She nodded. “We’ve all gotten good at this,” she told her friends. “I trust Celia’s judgment.”

Maizie totally agreed. “And if she’s right, we’ll all get the credit,” she said with a satisfied chuckle. She put her hand on Celia’s shoulder. “Have a little faith in yourself, hon. We do.”

“All right, then,” Celia declared, getting revved up. “I’ll call Steve tomorrow and tell him that I have a housekeeper for him.”

Maizie beamed. “It’s settled, then,” she stated. Then the corners of her mouth curved even more. “You know, ladies, since we all came rushing out here and settled this so quickly, how do you feel about a game of cards?”

“You mean play cards without talking shop?” Celia asked.

“You know, it just might be unique at that,” Theresa speculated.

Playing cards had always been their excuse for getting together and brainstorming. Usually one of them would have been approached by a parent, and brought that candidate to the table to be discussed and pondered over until the right match was discovered.

“What will we talk about?” Theresa asked innocently.

Maizie laughed, shaking her head as she took out the deck of cards she always kept in her purse. “We are three intelligent women, each with a thriving business and a whole tribe of grandchildren. If we can’t find something to talk about other than the love lives of some strangers, then the world is in a very bad state,” she told them.

“Don’t forget all those successful matches we’ve managed to set up and bring together. As I recall, we’re batting a hundred,” Theresa said.

Maizie smiled at her as she began to shuffle the cards. “A thousand, dear. The correct term for that is that we’re batting a thousand.”

“But we haven’t brought together a thousand matches,” Theresa protested.

Maizie sighed as she rolled her eyes. “Never mind, dear. The point is, we’ve been exceedingly successful, and even if our streak ends today, we still have all those happy matches to point to.”

“Why should our streak end?” Theresa asked. “We’re very good at what we do. There’s no reason to think we can’t go on doing this for the foreseeable future.”

“You’re right,” Maizie agreed. “We might very well be doing this for as long as we draw breath.” She paused for a second, looking at her friends. “Okay, ladies, no more talking. Let’s play cards.”

“Right, like that’s going to work.” Theresa smirked. “If I know you, you’ll be talking until the day you’re six feet under.”

“You think that’ll stop her?” Celia asked with a laugh.

“No, you’re right,” Theresa agreed. “Probably not.”

“Play!” Maizie ordered, doing her best to keep a straight face.