Danielle Steel: Answered prayers

21

BY THE END OF APRIL, TWO WEEKS AFTER BRAD HAD GOTten home, Alex invited Zoe out to dinner when she came home from Brown for the weekend. She was staying with her mother, as she always did, and she didn't want to go out with him. But Faith told her that she thought she should.

“What's the point, Mom?” Zoe looked annoyed as she hung up the phone. She really wanted to go out with her friends. “He's just going to talk shit about you.”

“He's still your father. You haven't had dinner with him in a while. Maybe he's trying to bridge the gap with you.” As always, Faith was far more fair about him than he was about her. He was still continuing to poison Eloise against her mother, and Faith wanted to go over to visit her, as soon as she finished school. Their semester end was only a few weeks away. And Zoe would be home in mid-May. Faith had invited her to come, if she went to London to see Eloise.

In the end, Zoe agreed to have dinner with Alex, at a little French restaurant he had always liked. He was obviously trying to make an effort with her. She went in a dress she had borrowed from her mother, and she had worn her hair in a French braid. She looked pretty and fresh and young. She had just turned nineteen a few weeks before, and she was getting more beautiful every day. But Zoe was startled when she saw that her father wasn't alone, when she approached the table. There was a woman sitting with him. He introduced them to each other with a broad, happy smile. And Zoe thought her father looked ridiculous. The girl sitting beside him on the banquette was nearly half his age.

“Leslie, I'd like you to meet my daughter Zoe … and this is Leslie James.” Zoe guessed her to be in her early twenties, although she was slightly older than that. She was wearing a low-cut, tight-fitting dress, and she had long black hair. And although Faith wouldn't have done so, she could have told Zoe what kind of underwear she wore, if she'd been there.

They chatted awkwardly for a few minutes, and Zoe looked uncomfortable, as her father ordered wine. She realized after a few minutes that Leslie worked at his firm. But Zoe thought it was in bad taste to include his daughter on a date.

“Have you worked there for long?” Zoe asked, trying to be polite, and wishing she weren't there.

“About fourteen months. I moved here from Atlanta right before that, with my little girl.” Zoe realized then that she had a faint southern accent, and she asked how old her little girl was, for lack of anything better to say.

She hated being there at all. “She's five,” Leslie said, smiling and looking very young, as her father looked proudly at his friend. It was as though he wanted Zoe to admire her too, which had been the wrong thing to do. She felt disloyal to her mother just being with them.

“She's a beautiful little girl,” Alex added proudly, as Zoe cringed inwardly. “She's adorable.” It was obvious that her father had established a relationship with both of them.

“She's learning French. She goes to a French kindergarten. Your father thought that would be good for her.” Zoe raised an eyebrow and then controlled herself instantly. She couldn't remember her father ever being that interested in where she went to school.

“That's nice for her,” Zoe said, and took a sip of wine. Leslie had asked for champagne. And then Zoe nearly choked at what Leslie said next.

“This is kind of a special night for us,” Leslie said with a coy smile at Alex, and he looked mildly uncomfortable. But the idea of taking Zoe out to dinner with them had been his. He wanted his daughters to meet her. “It's our anniversary,” Leslie said, tossing her hair back over her shoulder as Zoe looked at her.

“Really? What kind of anniversary?” Zoe asked. It had to be a month or two, which seemed pathetic to her.

“We've been dating for a year. We had our first date a year ago tonight.” Alex looked paralyzed for an instant, and then pretended he hadn't heard. There was nothing else he could do, as Zoe stared at them both.

“You've been dating for a year?” Zoe's voice was suddenly a high-pitched squeak.

“Not really,” Alex interjected then. “I think Leslie means we've known each other for a year. We met shortly after she came to work.”

“That's not true. Tonight is the anniversary of our first date.” She looked hurt that he either hadn't remembered or didn't want to admit it, and Zoe's face went pale.

“That's interesting, since my father left my mom two months ago. I guess you guys were going out for quite a while before that.”

“Yes, we were,” Leslie smiled, and with that, Zoe stood up and accidentally overturned her wine, and it spilled across the table, as Leslie moved back to avoid getting splashed.

“I think that's disgusting, Dad,” Zoe said, looking at him. “How could you bring me here to celebrate with you? After all the things you've said about Mom, and about it being her fault, you make me sick. Why don't you have the guts to tell Eloise the truth, instead of poisoning her against Mom? Why don't you just tell her you were screwing around, and had a girlfriend for nearly a year before you walked out on her? It would be honest at least.”

Alex's eyes were blazing. He hadn't expected Leslie to give him away. She was obviously not too bright. He was totally infatuated with her, and he had had no clue that she'd do that. “Why don't you sit down and we'll talk about it,” he said quietly, while his daughter looked at him with contempt. But he was trapped behind the table on the banquette, and couldn't move.

“No, thanks. I've got other plans,” Zoe said, turned on her heel with remarkable aplomb given how shaken she felt, and walked out of the restaurant. As soon as she got out on the sidewalk, she started to run, hailed a cab, and went home. She was crying when she walked in the front door, and Faith was on the phone with Brad. He was talking about a case he was worried about, and she had told him Zoe was going out to dinner with her father. She was startled when she heard the front door slam, and Zoe ran into her study in tears.

“What happened?” Faith stopped talking to Brad to look at her. Her eye makeup had run down her face, and she looked like a little girl who'd been beaten up in school.

“He's a total son of a bitch, Mom. Why didn't you tell me about that girl? Did you know about her?”

“What girl?” Faith looked shocked. “Wait a minute … Brad, I'll call you back.” He could hear a crisis brewing, and hung up immediately. “What happened? What are you talking about?”

“Dad had a woman with him. Some fourteen-year-old tart named Leslie. She had long black hair and big boobs, and she had the nerve to tell me it was their first anniversary, and they were celebrating it with me. What a fucking disgusting thing to do. Did you know about her, Mom?”

“Sit down,” Faith said quietly, and handed her a tissue. “Wipe your face … calm down … yes, I know about her,” her mother said calmly, without volunteering more. He had finally done it to himself. It had been an incredibly stupid thing to do.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because it was none of your business. It was up to your father to tell you, if he wanted to, and I didn't think he would.” She didn't offer Zoe any of the details, nor would she.

“Is that why he left you?”

“I guess so. Maybe that, and some other things. He said he wanted a life, and was bored with me. She's a lot younger than I am, that's for sure. And probably a lot more fun.”

“She's a total moron with tits. What is he doing with her? And how could he leave you for her? How could he take me to dinner with her?” It had been the most humiliating moment in her life. Zoe had felt cheated and betrayed and used, and what little respect she'd had for her father to begin with utterly disappeared.