Mary Clark - Nighttime Is My Time

"Younger?" she had shouted. "For God's sake, Alison, I'm thirty-eight. The mother in the series has a twelve-year-old daughter. And I look good. You know I do."

"Don't yell at me," Alison had shouted back. "I'm doing my best to convince them to keep you. As for looking good, between laser-surgery and botox and face-lifts, everybody in this business looks good. That's why it's so hard to cast anyone as a grandmother. Nobody looks like one anymore."

We agreed to come to the reunion together, Laura thought. Alison told me that, according to the list of classmates who'd responded yes, Gordon Amory would be here, and apparently he just bought into Maximum. She said that he had enough influence to help me keep the job, assuming he could be convinced to use his power.

She had pushed and pushed Alison to call Gordie right away and make him force Maximum to accept her for the role. Finally Alison had said, "First of all, don't call him Gordie. He hates it. Second, I was trying to be tactful, something as you well know I rarely trouble to be. I'll say it straight. You're still beautiful, but you're not much of an actress. The people at Maximum think this series could turn out to be a real hit, but not with you in it. Maybe Gordon can change their minds. You can charm him. He had a crush on you, didn't he?"

The bellman had gone down the hall to fill the ice bucket. Now he tapped on the door and came back in. Without even thinking, Laura had already opened her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. His fervent "Thanks so much, Ms. Wilcox," made her wince. Once again she had played the big shot. Ten bucks would have been plenty.

Gordie Amory had been one of the guys who'd had a really big crush on her when they were at Stonecroft. Who'd have guessed that he'd end up such a big shot? God, you never know, Laura thought as she unzipped the garment bag. We should all have a crystal ball to look into the future.

The closet was small. Small room. Small windows. Dark brown carpet, brown upholstered chair, bedspread in tones of pumpkin and brown. Impatiently, Laura pulled out the cocktail dresses and evening suit she'd carried in the garment bag. She already knew that she'd wear the Chanel tonight. Go for glitter. Knock them dead. Look successful, even if you are behind in your taxes and the IRS has a lien on the house.

Alison had said that Gordie Amory was divorced. Her final advice rang in Laura's ears: "Look, honey, if you can't talk him into using you in the series, maybe you can get him to marry you. I understand he's mighty impressive. Forget what a nerd he was at Stonecroft."

"Anything else I can do for you, Dr. Sheridan?" the bellman asked.

Jean shook her head.

"You feel all right, Doctor? You look kind of pale."

"I'm fine. Thank you."

"Well, you just let us know if there's anything we can do for you."

At last the door closed behind him, and Jean could sink down on the edge of the bed. She had jammed the fax into the side panel of her shoulder bag. Now she grabbed it and reread the cryptic sentences: "Jean, I guess by now you've verified that I know Lily. Here's my problem. Do I kiss her or kill her? Just a joke. I'll be in touch."

Twenty years ago Dr. Connors had been the physician in Cornwall to whom she had confided her pregnancy. He had reluctantly agreed with her that involving her parents would be a mistake. "I'm going to give up the baby for adoption no matter what they say. I'm eighteen, and it's my decision. But they'll be upset and angry and make my life even more miserable than it is," she had said, weeping.

Dr. Connors told her about the couple who had finally given up hope that they would have their own child and who were planning to adopt. "If you're sure you're not going to keep the baby, I can promise you they will give it a wonderful, loving home."

He had arranged for her to work in a nursing home in Chicago until the baby was due. Then he flew to Chicago, delivered it, and took the baby from her. The following September she began college, and ten years later learned that Dr. Connors died of a heart attack after a fire consumed his medical offices. Jean had heard that all his records were lost.

But perhaps they weren't lost. And if not, who found them, and why after all these years is that person contacting me? Jean agonized.

Lily-that was the name she'd given to the baby whom she'd carried for nine months and then had known for only four hours. Three weeks before Reed's graduation from West Point and hers from Stonecroft, she had realized she was pregnant. They had both been frightened but agreed that they would get married immediately after graduation.

"My parents will love you, Jeannie," Reed had insisted. But she knew he was worried about their reaction. He admitted that his father had warned him about getting serious with anyone until he was at least twenty-five. He never got to tell them about her. A week before graduation he'd been killed by a hit-and-run driver on the West Point campus who'd been speeding along the narrow road on which he was walking. Instead of watching Reed graduate fifth in his class, General, now retired, and Mrs. Carroll Reed Thornton accepted the diploma and sword of their late son in a special presentation at the graduation ceremony.

They never knew they had a granddaughter.

Even if someone had salvaged the record of her adoption, how would he or she have gotten close enough to Lily to take her hairbrush, with long, golden strands of her hair still caught in its bristles? Jean wondered.

That first terrifying communication had contained the brush and a note telling her to "Check the DNA-it's your kid." Stunned, Jean had submitted strands from the lock of hair she had kept from her baby, along with her own DNA sample and strands from the brush to a private DNA laboratory. The report had unequivocally confirmed her worst fears-the hairs on the brush had come from her now nineteen-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Or is it possible that the wonderful, caring couple who adopted her know who I am, and this is a buildup to asking me for money?

There had been a lot of publicity when her book about Abigail Adams became a best-seller and then a very successful film.

Let it be only about money, Jean prayed as she stood up and reached for the suitcase that it was time to unpack.

Carter Stewart threw his garment bag on the bed. Besides underwear and socks, it contained a couple of Armani jackets and several pairs of slacks. On impulse he decided to go to the first night party in the jeans and sweater he was wearing.

In school he'd been a scrawny, untidy kid, the child of a scrawny, untidy mother. When she did remember to throw clothes in the washer, as often as not she was out of detergent. Then she'd toss in bleach, ruining whatever garments were in the machine. Until he started hiding his clothes from her and then laundering them himself, he'd gone to school in slightly soiled or freakish-looking attire.

Being too dressed up when he first met his former classmates might bring on remarks about how he used to look. Now what would they see when they looked at him? Not the shrimp he'd been most of the high school years but now of average height with a disciplined body. Unlike some of the others he'd spotted in the lobby, he had no gray strands in his full head of well-barbered dark brown hair. His ID showed him with shaggy hair and his eyes almost shut. A columnist had recently referred to his "dark brown eyes that suddenly flicker with a hint of yellow flames when he is angry."

Impatiently he looked around the room. He'd worked in this hotel the summer of his junior year at Stonecroft. He'd probably been in this dumpy room any number of times, carrying room service trays to businessmen, to ladies on a tour of the Hudson Valley, or to parents visiting their kids at West Point-or, he thought, even to trysting couples who were sneaking away from their homes and families. I could always spot those, he thought. He used to smirk and ask those couples, "Would this be a honeymoon?" when he brought up their breakfasts. The guilty expression on their faces had been priceless.