“He’s a writer. I met him in Big Sur.”
“And?”
“A good guy. He’s English.”
“You’re holding out on me.”
“I took some pictures. I’ll show you.”
“I have a feeling a lot’s been going on that I don’t know about. Who did you see on your trip?” Maddie had told her very little from the road, which wasn’t like her, but she had been moving fast and covered a lot of ground, and hadn’t been ready to talk, so Penny hadn’t asked until now. She could see that Maddie was in good form.
“I saw my old boyfriend Bob Holland in Boston. I was thirty when I dated him. I broke it off. He turned out to be a bad guy all these years later. Worse than I would have imagined. He wasn’t a bad guy then, just ambitious. He took a lot of shortcuts to get what he wanted.
“I saw Jacques Masson in Chicago, also an old boyfriend, and a huge womanizer. He cheated on me all the time, he hasn’t changed.
“Then I went to see Andy Wyatt, the love of my life, in Wyoming. He died before I got there, but I was right about him too. His heart and soul were in Wyoming, mine were here. I saw his son and daughter-in-law and their babies.
“I met William, the writer, in Big Sur, when I couldn’t get up a steep trail at the beach with my cast. I spent a few wonderful days with Ben and Laura and the kids, and I had dinner alone with Ben for the first time in eight years. My son is a fantastic person!” she said, with eyes full of love for him and gratitude for what they shared. “Then I spent three days in Mendocino with Milagra and her guy.”
“Wait. Stop! Missing information. Her guy?” Penny looked shocked.
“Bert. He’s a commercial fisherman, they’ve been together for eight years, she’s been hiding him the whole time. He’s terrific. He may even get her home for a visit one of these days. He’s dying to see New York. He has never been here. I approve of him heartily, although Deanna won’t, for all the obvious reasons. And I guess that’s it. I saw William again after Mendocino. We went back to Big Sur for a couple of days.”
“Holy shit, you have been busy, woman. You didn’t leave a stone unturned.”
“No, I didn’t.” She looked like the old Maddie again, but an even better version, rock solid, happy, and at peace. Penny was thrilled to see it.
“So are we going to see more of William, or was it a passing fling?”
“We’ll see,” she said cryptically. “And just for the record, it was not a fling. For now, we have work to do. Where am I going after Shanghai?”
Penny took her cue and switched to work mode, but she was floored by everything Maddie had tackled and where she’d been. “Paris is on. Madrid got canceled. New Delhi is still pending, they’re not sure when they can do it. But you have a free week after Shanghai. You could do Delhi then if they confirm, or come home for a week, or go straight to Paris from Shanghai. Tell me what you want.”
“What’s after Paris?”
“Nothing right now. You come back here. Or you could do New Delhi then, if they drag their feet now. And there’s something cooking in Pakistan, but not for a while, I think. The French president wants a portrait to use for official purposes. They want him to look handsome, competent, and powerful. The Spanish royal family wanted a portrait with their daughters, but they had a scheduling problem and had to postpone it. And, we have an inquiry from Japan, but it’s nothing definite yet.” Listening to her, Maddie realized how fast her life moved once she was back at work. She had substituted everything in her life with work for so long. The void her children had left, her decision not to have a man in her life. It was going to be hard for William to keep up. She was a moving target. The challenge in their relationship would be that. Could he put up with it, and would he want to? Or would he expect her to slow down? She wasn’t ready to yet, even for him. But for now, she had a free week after Shanghai, before Paris, unless she had to go to New Delhi or Pakistan. But tentatively, she could meet him in Hong Kong, although that could change at a moment’s notice. She wondered how he would react to the constantly shifting sands of her life. That would be key. She wanted to see him. She just wasn’t sure when, or where. Her schedule was going to put him to the test, and her too. They might have hard decisions to make, both of them.
She sat down at her desk and began to go through Penny’s neat stacks in earnest. There was a tall pile of contact sheets she needed to review. She handed Penny her cameras with the digital images to print. She wanted a set of the Mendocino shots for Milagra and Bert, and the ones she’d taken of William for him, and a set for herself. Penny was the most curious to see those. And Maddie had a few sweet shots of Sean and his family to send them.
“Oh, Vogue wants you to do the cover for the December issue. You have to shoot it in September. They want your input on the model or a choice of three major actresses. They’re calling you tomorrow. And you have an appointment to get your cast off tomorrow at nine A.M. I bet you’ll be happy to get that done, although it certainly didn’t seem to slow you down.”
Maddie smiled at her. “No, it didn’t.”
By midafternoon, Maddie had finished the contact sheets, approved the bills that needed to be paid and signed the checks, approved her travel arrangements for Shanghai, and put a semblance of order back in her life. The groundwork had all been laid for her by Penny, but Maddie made all the decisions. Penny appeared in Maddie’s office doorway, as she signed the last check.
“Deanna is on the line,” she said with an ominous expression, and Maddie sighed and picked up the phone. She had to face the music sooner or later. She wasn’t looking forward to talking to her, or seeing her, after their exchanges before she left. But the tables had turned. Maddie was strong again. “Hi, Deanna, how are you?” Maddie sounded curter than she intended, and Deanna sounded cowed when she answered.
“I thought I’d come by later. Does that work for you?”
“I…uh…yes, of course.” It was the first time in years that Deanna hadn’t just shown up at whatever time worked for her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I missed you,” she said, and Maddie was struck by how subdued she sounded and wondered if something was wrong.
“I missed you too.” She felt dishonest when she said it, because she hadn’t. She had been relieved not to have contact with her for three weeks.
“What time is good for you, Mom?”
“Uh…actually, five-thirty or six would be great for me. I should have things wrapped up by then.”
“That’s perfect. I’ll come from my office when I’m finished.” Maddie hung up a minute later and stared at Penny in disbelief.