Gran dancing now. It made her smile—and blink away unshed tears. There. That was better.
Gran was right: you had to sound convincing to be believed—especially by yourself.
It did work. Cat knew it worked. At least in cases of misery—and in cases where the outcome was up to her.
If theme songs weren’t one hundred percent foolproof it was because one time she’d been a fool and dared to believe in something she had no control over. Warbling “Whistle a Happy Tune” had got her through making new friends at her new school and in the Girl Scout troop. “Climb every Mountain” had helped her through swimming lessons and eighth grade speech. “Put on a Happy Face” had forced her to smile through teenage angst.
And if “Some Enchanted Evening” had failed her, it wasn’t because there was something wrong with the song. There had been something wrong with the man.
She’d loved. But her love had not been returned. So she’d learned her lesson.
That was all behind her now. Now she had Adam who really did want to marry her, who smiled indulgently and shook his head and called her “Little Mary Sunshine,” though sometimes she wasn’t entirely sure he thought her sunshiny attitude was a good thing.
Adam was a banker, a very serious banker. Cat didn’t mind serious. She didn’t mind that he was a banker. It meant he was trustworthy. Dependable. The right sort of man to start a family with.
And more than anything Cat wanted a family.
She flexed her shoulders and tried to ease the kinks out of them. Bascombe mewed and poked his head between the two front seats. She wondered if he sensed that they were coming home. He’d been born on Balboa Island, had spent the first two years of his life there. They were south of Los Angeles at last, heading toward Newport and the beach. It was past one in the morning now and she was tired. Her only stop had been for gas in King City. Now she yawned so widely that she heard her jaw crack.
“Almost home,” she told Baz. But the moment she said the words her stomach clenched, because once again the memories came flooding back, reminding her of the days she’d thought that Gran’s old house would become her home again, that she’d marry and raise a family there.
And now—now it wasn’t. She wasn’t.
“Don’t go there,” Cat warned herself.
Because every time she did, she thought about Yiannis Savas and she grew hot and flustered and mortified all over again. Everything in her wanted to turn around and head straight back to San Francisco. For more than two years, she’d done exactly that—stayed well away from him.
But this time she couldn’t because Gran was counting on her. She had to suck it up and act like the grown-up woman she was, and forget all about the airy-fairy fool who’d had her head in the clouds—or in the song lyrics—that had only brought her pain.
Determinedly she turned on the radio and tuned in the heaviest metal she could find. Baz hissed in protest.
“Sorry,” she said, but he couldn’t have heard her over the noise.
No matter. She needed it. Usually when she came down to visit Gran she tried to time it for when he was out of the city or, better yet, out of the country.
But this time she feared her luck wasn’t that good.
When Gran had called she’d said Yiannis had brought her to the hospital. He was wonderful to her, of course. As always Gran couldn’t say enough good things. Yiannis was “so thoughtful. So helpful. Taking care of everything until you get here.”
What “everything” meant had not been specified.
“But I know you’ll help him when you get here,” Gran had said confidently.
The words had made the skin on the nape of Cat’s neck prickle. Help Yiannis? Not likely.
Whatever needed doing, she would do it herself. She would step in, take over, and that would be the last she would have to see of him. Fine with her. And she suspected it would be fine with him, too. Yiannis wouldn’t want her around “getting ideas” the way she had the last time, would he?
Her cheeks started to burn again.
“I told him you’d help,” Gran had said firmly when she hadn’t replied.
Cat wasn’t going to say what she was thinking. It wasn’t the sort of thing you said to an eighty-five-year-old woman on her way to surgery the next morning. So Cat had made noncommital noises that could be construed as agreement.
“Couldn’t be bothered to stay and see you settled in?” She did say that and it sounded about right. Yiannis wasn’t one for commitment. Even the two hour variety.
“He just got back from Malaysia last night. He’s exhausted. He needs his rest.” Gran always managed to think the best of him.
But Cat had snorted. She knew Yiannis worked. But she also knew he played. Hard. Mostly what she saw Yiannis doing was playing—chatting up women. Charming them. Rubbing suntan lotion on their backs. Kissing them. Making them fall in love with him.
Then moving on to the next one.
Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
Poor Yiannis, she thought, annoyed. Yes, he might be exhausted. But she was willing to bet that if he was in his bed right now, he wasn’t sleeping.
When she finally drove onto the island, the streets were deserted. Even the bars were closed. And while it ordinarily took ages to navigate Balboa’s crowded main streets to get to Gran’s, now she was pulling up to park in just a few minutes. All the lights were off at Yiannis’s house on the front of the lot. But in the back, above the garage, there was a light on in Gran’s living room. Apparently Mr Savas had left the light on for her.
Grudgingly, Cat gave him one point for that.
She opened the car door and, in the unaccustomed silence, could hear the sounds of waves breaking against the shore. Getting out, she stretched, working the stiffness out of her cramped muscles and breathing in the damp sea air. Then, still rolling her shoulders, she opened the back door and reached in, scooping a cat up into each arm.
She carried them past Yiannis’s house, through the small garden and up the stairs to the apartment. Then she opened Gran’s door and shooed the cats in. Then she went back for her suitcase. Lugging it up the stairs, she tried to imagine when her grandmother would be able to climb them again.
Or if she would.
Something else she didn’t want to think about.
Finally she reached the small porch, shoved open the door and heaved the suitcase inside. The cats loped toward her, then wove between her ankles, purring and meowing.
“Food,” she translated and fished a can and their bowls out of her suitcase. While they were eating, she filled the litter box that Gran kept for their visits. By the time she finished Hux and Baz were back, looking for more food.
“Tomorrow,” she told them sternly “Now just chill out and let’s get some sleep.”
They
