Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

As much as I love Comrade Dad, I made a quick sweep of the yacht-club bar to make sure he wasn’t there before I made my move. One can never be too cautious.

A pair of elderly matrons with tight butts and champagne-colored hair brushed past in an aureole of perfumed air. The smaller of them smiled at me.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “Beautiful day.”

“Lovely,” I said, and fell in behind her. They walked out to a table on the terrace. I found a vacant stool at the bar and sat down.

The bartender in a private club is almost always the keeper of the real scoop. For the price of a drink, maybe a flash of cleavage, chances were he could be mine. As a source of information.

The bartender was at the far end of the bar from me, in the middle of what appeared to be a good joke. There was no hustle in him. I was in no hurry. I didn’t mind having a little time to figure out my opening gambit. The first problem was that drinks were being signed off to club accounts rather than paid for. I had no account. I could always ask for water.

The stool behind me changed ownership. I swiveled around and found myself eye to eye with a middle-aged man with a good tan and smooth hands, doctor hands. He was spare in his frame, in his movements, and in the smile he gave me. He pushed his sweat-stained yachting cap back on his blond head and leaned toward me.

“Nice nose,” he said. “Good workmanship.”

“Thank you,” I laughed. “I paid a lot for it.”

“Chicago, late 1970s.”

“Dallas, 1981.”

He took my chin in his hand and turned my face so he could inspect my nose from the side. “Maybe the work was done in Dallas, but the surgeon trained in Chicago.”

“Could be. Even a snake from Chicago can buy lizard-skin boots in Dallas.” I refrained from touching the itch at the bridge of my nose where once there had been a hump. A hump like my father’s. “Are nose jobs some kind of hobby for you?”

“Noses make the payments on that Bayliner tied up in slip fifty-two.” He offered his hand. “Greg Szal. I don’t remember seeing your nose around here before. Or any of the rest of you, for that matter.”

“I’ve been up in the Bay Area,” I improvised.

“What are you drinking?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He caught the bartender’s attention. “Dos Cocas, Sammy, por favor. Tall skinny ones.”

I filed the bartender’s name for possible future use.

Greg Szal sat forward so that his shoulder almost touched mine. At five-seven I am no giant. His eyes were just about level with mine.

“How come you aren’t out there racing with the big girls?” he asked. “Isn’t this the last day of qualifying?”

“Racing isn’t my thing.”

“I know what you mean. Sabots are kid boats.”

He brushed my hand with his as he reached for one of the glasses Sammy the bartender set in front of us. I couldn’t tell whether Szal was coming on to me or just being friendly. Not that it mattered. What I wanted from him was conversation, and he seemed to be a willing donor. I could worry about his intentions later.

I took a sip from my glass and smiled at him.

“I’ve only been back in town since yesterday,” I said, trying to sort out the essentials of the information Dennis the jeweler had given to Mike and me. “I haven’t connected with the Rams-dales yet. Have you seen them lately?”

“Which Ramsdale, him or her?”

“Either of them. Or Hilly. Hilly is the same age as my daughter.”

He frowned. “Your daughter goes to Rogers?”

“No,” I said, thinking fast. “As I said, we’ve been up in the Bay Area for a while. You know Hilly?”

“Sure. My son is on the club swim team with her.”

“When did you see her last?”

He was looking at me sideways, thinking about something hard enough to put a crease between his nearly white brows. I took another sip of Coke for something to do.

“How long did you say you’ve been gone?” he asked. “Quite a while.”

“And no one told you about the Ramsdales?”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up. Has something happened to Randy?”

“Something’s always happening to Randy,” he chuckled. “You know how he is. Old Ramsdale can be a royal pain in the ass, but to tell you the truth, I kind of miss him. He’s a pushy son of a bitch, but he has a good heart.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He and Elizabeth split up. It seems to me one day he was here, the next he was gone. If you really want to know the gory details, why don’t you check with information central?”

“Where?”

“Come with me.” He slid off his bar stool and waited for me to follow him.

He took me to a cluster of low sofas arranged around a massive stone fireplace. Two women about my age lounged there, feet up on a free-form granite cocktail table. They were an attractive pair, unaffected, casually dressed, obviously loaded – between them they wore enough rocks to ransom Aladdin. The taller woman, an aristocratic blonde, held a swimsuit-clad toddler sprawled across her lap. The child slept with his mouth open, dried Popsicle streaks staining his chin.

The second woman was her opposite, a small, voluptuous brunette. She was pretty in a romantic mold, dark curls, long lashes, pouty valentine-shaped lips. When she raised her manicured hand to brush a stray strand of hair from her face, I saw flecks of green fire in her brown eyes.

The pair were whispering back and forth as Greg Szal and I approached, sharing a few private nudges; curious rather than catty.

The brunette looked up at Szal through her lashes, and I saw a tremor pass through him. She saw it, too, and milked it a little.

“Greg?” she cooed.

He took a gulp of air and turned to me. “You remember my wife, Regina.”

There was something about the way she looked at me, a wry, smart-aleck appraisal, that made me like Regina Szal immediately. More steel town than steel magnolia. I offered her my hand.

“Maggie MacGowen,” I said.

“Maggie MacGowen,” Regina repeated for the benefit of her friend.

“No.” The woman shook her head. “That isn’t it.”

“Isn’t what?” I asked the blonde.

“Your name. Actually, I suppose, it is your name if you say so. But that isn’t who we decided you are.”

Regina smiled. “We were just trying to remember where we met you. I know it wasn’t PTA. Cynthia suggested John Tracy Clinic volunteers.”

I felt my face grow hot, and I knew I was blushing. There was a time everyone in town – whatever town I might have been working in – knew my face. I left network broadcasting in the mid-eighties, and being recognized on the street is getter more and more rare. Almost the only on-camera work I do anymore is promos for PBS. Even with my expensively edited nose, I feel more comfortable on the back end of the camera. I always have. Still, I am around enough so that now and then people who watch public television recognize me on some level.

I had had this who-are-you conversation and variations on it dozens of times. I did what I always do: I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled innocently.

“I was asking Greg about the Ramsdales,” I said. “He thought you might be able to help me.”

“What about them?” Regina asked.

“For starters, where are they?”

“Why?” Regina seemed skeptical. And smart.

“I want to talk to them about Hillary.”

“Is she in some sort of trouble?”

I nodded. “Big-time trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“She ran away from home,” I said. “I want to know why.”

“Are you a social worker?”

“No,” I said. “I’m a mother.”

“Well, then.” Regina looked up at her husband and batted her eyes again. “Greg, on your way out, please tell Sammy to send over another bottle of Moet. And keep them coming. We have some serious talking to do. I want to hear all about Hilly. But I have a feeling I need to be about half blind first.”