Envy(16)

“All what, Dad?”

“Failing to provide a return address or telephone number. Then the telephone call this morning. His claims that the prologue was crap. Et cetera.”

She left her chair and moved to a potted geranium to pluck off a dead leaf that Maxine had overlooked. Maris had urged the housekeeper to get eyeglasses, but she claimed that her eyesight was the same now as it had been thirty years ago. To which Maris had said, “Exactly. You’ve always been as blind as a bat and too vain to do anything about it.”

Absently twirling the brown leaf by its stem, she considered her father’s question. “He wanted to be sought and found, didn’t he?”

She knew she’d given the correct response when Daniel beamed a smile on her. This was the method by which he had helped her with her lessons all through school. He never gave her the answers but guided her to think the question through until she arrived at the correct answer through her own deductive reasoning.

“He didn’t have to call,” she continued. “If he hadn’t wanted to be found, he could have thrown away my telephone numbers. Instead he calls at a time of day when he’s practically guaranteed to have the advantage.”

“And protests too loudly and too much.”

Frowning, she returned to her wrought-iron chair. “I don’t know, Dad. He seemed genuinely angry. Especially about the deputy sheriff.”

“He probably was, and I can’t say that I blame him. But he couldn’t resist the temptation to establish contact with you and hear what you had to say about his work.”

“Which I think is compelling. That prologue has me wondering about the young man in the boat. Who is he? What’s his story? What caused the fight between him and his friend?”

“Envy,” Daniel supplied.

“Which is provocative, don’t you think? Envy of what? Who envied whom?”

“I can see that the prologue served its purpose. The writer has got you thinking about it and asking questions.”

“Yes, he does, damn him.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Try and establish some kind of professional dialogue. If that’s possible to do with such a jerk. I don’t fool myself into thinking it will be easy to work with this character.”

“Do you even know his telephone number?”

“I do now. Thanks to caller ID. I checked it this morning and recognized the area code I called yesterday.”

“Ah, the miracles of advanced technology. In my day—”

“In your day?” she repeated with a laugh. “It’s still your day.”

Reaching for his speckled hand, she patted it fondly. One day he would be gone, and she didn’t know how she was going to survive that loss. She’d grown up in this house, and it hadn’t been easy to leave it, even when she went away to college. Her bedroom had been on the third floor—still was if she ever wanted to use it. Daniel’s bedroom was on the second floor, and he was determined to keep it there despite the pain involved in getting up and down the stairs.

Maris recalled Christmas mornings, waking up before daylight, racing down to his room and begging him to get up and go downstairs with her to see what Santa Claus had left beneath the tree.

She had thousands of happy and vivid recollections of her childhood—the two of them ice-skating in Central Park, strolling through street fairs eating hot dogs or falafel while rummaging in the secondhand book stalls, having high tea at the Plaza following a matinee, reading in front of the fireplace in his study, hosting formal dinner parties in the dining room, and sharing midnight snacks with Maxine in the kitchen. All her memories were good.

Because she had been a late-in-life only child, he had doted on her. Her mother’s death could have been a heartache that wedged them apart. Instead, it had forged the bond between father and daughter. His discipline had been firm and consistent, but only rarely necessary. Generally, she had been obedient, never wanting to incur his disfavor.

The most rebellious offense she’d ever committed was to sneak out one night to meet a group of friends at a club that Daniel had placed off-limits. When she returned home in the wee hours she discovered just how vigilant a parent her father was—the kitchen window through which she had sneaked out had been locked behind her.

Forced to ring the front doorbell, she’d had to wait on the stoop for what seemed an excruciating eternity until Daniel came to let her in. He didn’t yell at her. He didn’t lecture. He simply told her that she must pay the consequences of making a bad choice. She’d been grounded for a month. The worst of the punishment, however, had been his disappointment in her. She never sneaked out again.

She’d been indulged but not spoiled. In exchange for spending money, she was required to do chores. Her grades were closely monitored. She was praised for doing well more frequently than she was punished for mistakes. Mostly she had been loved, and Daniel had made certain every day of her life that she knew it.

“So you think I should pursue Envy?” she asked him now.

“Absolutely. The author has challenged you, although he might not have done it intentionally and doesn’t even realize that he has. You, Maris Matherly-Reed, can’t resist a challenge.” He’d practically quoted from an article recently written about her in a trade journal.

“Didn’t I read that somewhere?” she teased.