Blessing in Disguise by Eileen Goudge Read Free Book Online Page B

damnit, why couldn’t there be umbrellas in the stand instead of some stupid arrangement you had to tiptoe around?
    “Ben ... darling, is that you?” Mom’s voice drifted toward them, hopeful and lighthearted.
    Hannah winced. Why did Mom just assume it was Ben? Ben had moved out ages ago—Mom only liked to pretend he still lived here. It should have been the other way around, Hannah thought. If Hannah had her own apartment, Mom wouldn’t even notice she was gone. Hannah Gold, the Amazing Invisible Daughter. She hadn’t minded so much when Daddy was here, because he’d always been so happy to see her, as if there was nobody on earth he’d rather be with.
    But now Daddy had Grace.
    And she had ... who? Conrad?
    All her talk at dinner, but she still wasn’t so sure how Conrad felt about her. Oh, he was big on all the stuff that went with liking someone; he could go on for hours about all the reasons they should go to bed together. But that was just sex. Not necessarily the same as wanting to be with her.
    “Tell her I just dropped you off, that I couldn’t come up,” Ben said in a low voice against her ear. Hannah saw that he wasn’t taking his coat off.
    “Tell her yourself,” she said. He was getting all the attention, and he didn’t even want it.
    “Han, give me a break. ...” In the dim hallway, she could see Ben’s eyes narrowing. He darted an anxious glance at the track-lit entrance to the living room.
    Hannah fought back her resentment. Yeah, okay, so Ben didn’t have it that easy, either. Mom leaning on him all the time, refusing to give up her subscriptions to the Met, her chamber music series, ABT, and just expecting Ben—no, pressuring him—into escorting her to every opera, concert, ballet. Not to mention the charity affairs and dinner parties. Sometimes, Mom didn’t even tell people he was her son, Ben had confided to her. Almost as if she wanted everyone to think he was her date.
    “It’s me, Mom!” Hannah called out, adding sotto voce to her brother, “You’re off the hook.”
    “Thanks,” he mouthed, backing out the door.
    In the living room, Hannah found her mother, dressed in a black wool-crepe sheath with an Hermés scarf swirled over one shoulder, sunk into the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. She was balancing an open book of upholstery samples across her smoke-stockinged knees. As she glanced up, the light from the cloisonné floor lamp beside her made her hair glow, a blend of honey and buttered maple. Hannah knew that it cost her maybe a hundred and fifty dollars a month at Recine to make it look like she’d been born with it.
    “Hi, sweetie,” Mom said distractedly as she went back to poring over her samples. “How was your evening?”
    “Fine,” Hannah lied. “How was yours?”
    “Good. Did I tell you who I was having dinner with? He’s a client, a divorced investment banker with loads of money and, better yet, absolutely no idea what he wants. I’m doing his entire apartment. Sixties off Fifth prewar. Lots of paneling, zero light, so I was thinking ...” She flipped a page, fingering a square of cabbage-rose chintz.
    Hannah waited, hoping against hope that this time would be different. Just once, why don’t you ask me what I think? Not just about upholstery samples, but how she felt about the divorce, and Daddy having a girlfriend, and ... oh, school, and what college she might want to go to, and even Con, especially Con.
    More than anything, Hannah longed for her mother simply to hold out her arms to her, and hug her the way Grace was always hugging Chris—whenever he would let her, that is.
    But what did she know about Grace and Chris, really? Aside from tonight’s dinner, she’d only been dragged along on a handful of so-called family outings—apple-picking up in Pawling, and the few times they’d gone to the movies and caught a bite to eat afterwards. And, yeah, the night Daddy had gotten them all tickets to a Mets game. That time, even Ben had come