The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal Page 11

  Pippa came bounding out of the bathroom, squeaky-clean and dressed in a pair of colorful Rainbow Sparkle pajamas. Adam excused himself and went in to shower himself. When he was done, I spooned the stir-fry over a bed of white fluffy rice, crisp Asian cabbage, succulent chicken, sweet bell peppers, and a spoonful of ginger-flavored gravy. While Pippa prattled on about her plans to paint the dollhouse, Adam listened, his expression pleased.

  After cleanup and a way-too-long game of Monopoly, Adam herded Pippa into bed for her nightly bedtime story. Since it felt hot in the house, I fished out my curriculum development books and brought them out to the patio. I scribbled down ideas to teach the subjects Pippa struggled with using Macy's theories of teaching through everyday work.

  At last Adam came outside and placed his nightly offering of a beer on the picnic table in front of me.

  "Thank you," I smiled up at him.

  "You're welcome."

  He settled into the opposite bench and waited for me to speak. He did that, I'd noticed, tended to listen and let other people do most of the talking. I flipped though the textbook, trying to get up the guts to speak my mind. Adam finally broke the ice.

  "Pippa seems quite taken by her new friend Emily and her horse."

  "Yes," I said. "Emily welcomed her right into her circle."

  Adam took a sip of beer, his expression thoughtful.

  "Her mother was like that. Always went out of her way to make sure nobody ever felt left out."

  "Julie asked after you," I said. "Maybe you should look her up once your divorce is final?"

  Adam stared past me, his expression wistful.

  "It was never me she was interested in," Adam said softly. "I was just a way to get closer to my brother."

  Ouch. That must have hurt….

  "She said Jeffrey never gave her the time of day?"

  That cloud of grief which lurked perpetually beneath the surface caused Adam's chiseled features to soften.

  "My brother was, how shall I say this, full of himself? We might have been twins, but Jeffrey took after my father."

  There. That's your opening…

  "About your father," I said. "I … uhm … something came up and I think we need to talk about it."

  Adam's expression instantly grew wary.

  "You know those are the four most deadly words in the female vocabulary?"

  "What words?

  "We need to talk."

  A long, awkward silence hung between us, disturbed only by the buzzing of mosquitos. I clutched my textbook to my chest, drawing strength from the printed words which talked about the importance of a child's self-esteem. Awkward, or not, this topic wasn't about to resolve itself.

  "Pippa told me something this week," I said. "Something which got her pretty upset. I just … kids … sometimes their understanding of events are skewed?"

  Adam scrutinized me. I had his undivided attention.

  "Go ahead."

  "We ran into Ralph Evans at the library," I said. "Your neighbor from diagonally across the river."

  "I know who he is," Adam said. "Ralph is a good man."

  "Ralph told Pippa her grandpa would be proud of her," I said. "Only instead of making her happy, she told me your father once ordered her off his land?"

  Adam's breath exploded in an angry hiss. He lurched up from his bench like a stalking tiger and paced towards the edge of the patio to stare down towards the river. He kept his back turned so I couldn't see his face, but from his clenched fists and the way his shoulders rose and fell with every breath, Adam fought to control his emotions.

  "I didn't think she was old enough to remember." Adam's voice sounded so tight I thought it might crack. "My mother begged me to make the first gesture of peace, so I brought her out here when she was three years old. It was the first, and only time I ever let that bastard see my daughter."

  I waited for him to say more, but whatever bad blood had driven Adam out of town had not been purged by the mere fact of his father's death.

  "Tell me about him," I said softly to Adam's back. "I can't console her if I don't understand the truth."

  I thought for a moment he might go back into the house, but then he sat down and grabbed his bottle of White Rabbit beer and pretended to become intently interested in the label. I waited until the silence grew so deafening I thought it might explode.

  "My father was the strong, silent type," Adam said at last. "He was tougher than nails, more stubborn than a mule, and unforgiving; oh, God, the man never forgot a slight! He was your typical outback station owner, reared in the deepest, driest part of the outback desert. To him, the only thing that mattered was the land this station was built upon. He was furious when I chose a career in the oil extraction business."

  "How did he die?"

  "He had a bad ticker." Adam tapped his fingers on his chest. "Three weeks after the army came to tell him my brother was missing in action, he dropped dead. Boom. Just like that. Gone."

  "Do you miss him?"

  Adam took a sip of beer, gathering his thoughts as the brew slid down his throat. He held the bottle at chest level and swished it around.

  "No," he said. "My father and I never got along."

  We sat there in silence, only the chirp of crickets and the distant howl of a dingo breaking the intensity of the moment.

  "Why did your father take it out on Pippa?"

  "He hated her because he hated Eva."

  "Why?" I asked. "What did your wife do that was so wrong?"

  Adam's eyes darkened to an intense stormy navy blue. Just for a moment, I felt the way I had when my Gitano grandmother read my palm, as though Adam could see me and I, in turn, could see straight inside of him. A seething, boiling cauldron of anger roiled beneath the surface of Adam's deceptively passive exterior. Whatever bad blood had gone down between Adam and his father, he wasn't about to talk about it to me. I decided to change the subject.

  "Pippa reads above her age level," I said, "but her math skills leave a lot to be desired. With your permission, I'd like to try some non-traditional teaching methods to catch her up."

  "Be my guest." Adam's words were crisp and terse. "I'm a geological engineer. As far as I'm concerned, a kid needs math to survive."

  "Why didn't her mother bring her to a tutor? You obviously have the means?"

  Adam snorted.

  "You mean why didn't -I- bring her to a tutor?"

  "I didn't mean to imply…"

  "Yes, you did!" Adam's words came out like a feral growl.

  That's twice my normally even-tempered employer had snapped at me tonight. I gathered up my notes and closed them into my textbook. Adam grabbed my hand before I could escape.

  "Rosie, I'm sorry."

  The angry, frightening version of Adam disappeared. He looked so vulnerable that, had the table not stood between us, I probably would have hugged him.

  "I don't care what bad blood went down between you and your father," I said. "The only thing that matters is to protect Pippa now."

  I placed my other hand on top of the one which had a death grip on my wrist. After a moment, Adam recognized he held my hand. The skittish man who danced around me like a wild brumby stallion let go and retreated back behind his wall. He deflected the conversation back onto neutral ground.

  "So, why haven't you looked up your father?"

  "I did," I said. "I visited him once in Spain."

  "Why didn't you stay with him?"

  My lip trembled as I wrestled with telling him the awful truth. Adam had told me his deep dark hurtful rejection. Now it was time to reveal mine.

  "He married a Gitano woman who's only four years older than me," I said. "He tried to make me feel welcome, but with a brand-new wife and three brand-new children, my father no longer has any space in his life for me."

  "Do you miss him?"

  "Yes. But when he returned to the old country, he also chose to return to the gypsy religion."

  Adam raised an eyebrow, his expression somewh
at bemused.

  "That sounds kind of romantic, to run away and join the gypsies?"

  "It's not," I snorted. "They have all these weird purity rituals, straight out of the book of Leviticus."

  Including being banished from the house as an 'unclean thing' every time I got my period.

  "Really?" Adam said. "I thought all gypsies were wild and wonton?"

  "Hardly," I laughed. "They think we are the ones who are gadje!"

  "Gadje?"

  "Impure. It's the term they use to describe all non-gypsies. Either you follow the Romanipen. Or you are shunned."

  "So why didn't you stay?"

  I toyed with the binding of my textbook. When my Gitano grandmother had read my palm, she'd prophesized I would return to Australia and marry a man who carried a crown. It was the Xalbadora matriarch's refusal to accept me as part of the family which finally drove me out of my father's house.

  "My Gitano grandmother said I was gadje," I said softly. "I guess that means Pippa and I have a lot in common."

  We finished our beer in silence, with only the crickets interrupting our separate musings.

  Chapter 11

  Not too far from the center of town sat two large edifices of Nutyoon's importance, the municipal airport, and the fairgrounds where a sign proclaimed it was home of the Australian Camp Oven Festival. I found the entrance easily enough and navigated the empty grass parking lot to where a half dozen utes pulling horse trailers sat parked in front of a long, low wooden building.

  "Here we are," I said cheerily.

  Pippa bounded out of the Falcon, leaning back on her heels as she hobbled painfully along in her expensive John Lobb riding boots. I was positive she'd outgrown them since horseback riding camp last summer, but Pippa swore they didn't pinch her toes. Sometimes, you just need to let a kid experience the pain before they'll admit you were right.

  "I brought your shoes if you want to change, nipper," I called to her disappearing blonde pigtails.

  No answer. Pippa had already ditched me.

  I locked my purse into the boot, and then stared down at my own unremarkable brown loafers. I should have worn my Dubliners, but this was Pippa's chance to meet Emily Peterson's friends, not insert myself into a little girl's pony club. Did they even have pony clubs for big girls if you weren't born into one of the well-heeled families who grew up riding the Equestrian Australia competition circuit? I'd been given a taste of that world thanks to my father and, once he left, the horse he'd trained to carry me there, but once my mother killed Harvey, not only had I lost my furry best friend, but also my reason for existing.

  I caught up with Pippa at the edge of the outbuilding that served as a shelter for some of the exhibits. She stood, her small hands bunched into fists, as she peeked around the corner with an apprehensive frown. In the field beyond, eleven boys and girls of every size and age rode a variety of horseflesh ranging from a small piebald Shetland pony to a magnificent chestnut horse that looked to be a purebred Hanoverian. In the middle rode Emily Peterson on her stock horse Polkadot, her auburn curls sticking out from underneath her riding helmet, comfortable within the setting of her friends.

  "What are you waiting for?" I asked Pippa.

  Pippa's shoulders slumped in her fancy black velvet riding jacket, far too hot for the weather.

  "What if they don't like me?"

  "Of course they'll like you."

  "The girls at the riding camp didn't like me," Pippa said. "They said I was a little baby."

  I opened my mouth to make a snarky comment and paused when I saw real tears now welled in my young charge's silver-grey eyes.

  "Emily likes you," I said. "And now she wants to introduce you to her friends."

  "Maybe she's just doing that because her mother made her?"

  What was I supposed to say? No? Julie Peterson suggested this playdate so Pippa could meet Emily's friends. Sure, I hadn't been on the other end of the phone to hear Emily's response when Julie told her Pippa was coming, but nothing I'd seen of Emily's behavior so far indicated the girl felt obligated to let Pippa tag along.

  "Just be yourself, nipper. Even if you only say hello to the other kids, Emily will be glad to see you."

  Pippa's lip trembled. The unshed tears caught in her white-blonde eyelashes, just waiting to collect enough moisture to fall.

  "But what if they tell Emily not to like me," Pippa said. "Then I'll have no friends at all."

  "Why on earth would they do that?"

  "That's what happened at the riding camp last summer," Pippa said. "Mommy made them bunk me with a girl from school, but then the other kids said I was a baby, so she decided she didn't like me anymore."

  "Then that girl wasn't a real friend," I said. "It happens sometimes. You trust somebody, and then you realize you shouldn't."

  "Has that ever happened to you?"

  "Yes," I said. "I almost got married, but then he turned out to be a jerk."

  "That's a big people problem," Pippa said. "Did you ever have a friend turn on you like that?"

  I never really had all that many friends.

  "I guess not," I said. "I had my horse. And then I had a few friends who I rode with."

  "But I don't have a horse," Pippa said. "When I went to the riding camp, all of the other girls had their own horses but me! I had to ride the horses owned by the camp."

  "Isn't that what most girls do at a riding camp?" I asked. "Ride the camp horses?"

  Pippa frowned.

  "The day-campers did," Pippa said. "But none of the overnight girls wanted to associate with them because they didn't know what they were doing."

  "Did you know what you were doing?"

  Pippa's lip trembled.

  "No."

  I glanced over my young charge, dressed from head to toe in the most expensive riding gear her oil-baron grandfather's money could buy. Adam hadn't bought this getup, of that I was certain. While he dressed tastefully, he wasn't the type to go for frivolities.

  "Did you try to pretend you knew what you were doing?"

  The tears finally fell.

  "I just wanted them to like me!" Pippa sobbed.

  Her slender shoulders shook with misery. I threw my arms around her and pressed her face into my shoulder.

  "Listen, honey. The secret to making people like you isn't to pretend you know everything, but to try your hardest, and ask for help if you don't know."

  "I tried that," Pippa said. "But Mommy insisted they put me in the group with the girls from the right families."

  By right families, I suspected that meant wealthy. Oh! How Pippa's mother sounded so much like my own!

  "The only right family is the one that treats you kindly," I said. "And the only right friend is the one you can always count on."

  "But Mommy has lots of friends," Pippa said. "She always got angry at Daddy for not being more sociable."

  Oh. So that was the problem? Pippa wasn't the glowing badge of motherly social validation her mother expected?

  "Do you know how many friends -I- had growing up?" I asked.

  "Lots?"

  "Two," I said. "My best friend Sienna. And Harvey, my horse. All the rest I considered friendly acquaintances."

  "I don't have any friends at all."

  This wasn't the first time Pippa said such a thing, and I suspected it wouldn't be the last.

  "Emily is a friend," I said. "A new friend, so you always have to watch to make sure they'll turn into a good friend. But you don't have to pour out your heart to every person you meet. Just be nice, and if they're nice back, maybe you can get to know them better? Do you think you could do that for me? Just introduce yourself and be nice?"

  "What if they're not nice back?"

  "Then we'll leave," I said. "A bad friend is worse than no friend at all."

  Pippa's lip trembled, but her chin rose into a determined look which reminded me a bit of her father. What was it Julie had said? When Adam liked somebody, he tended to get helpful.

 
Pippa stared down at her too-tight riding boots, horrifically expensive, probably costing $6,000 dollars.

  "These don't fit me," she said.

  I smiled and reached into the bag with the water bottles, the snacks, and Pippa's sturdy lace-up school shoes.

  "Give me your riding jacket and your boots," I said, "but I insist you bring your helmet in case you get to ride."

  Within moments I had the riding boots sticking out of my backpack and Pippa was dressed like any normal kid except for her riding jodhpurs which, except for the designer label, didn't look all that much different than a pair picked up at the local saddlery. We walked together to the edge of the field and waited until one of the other parents acknowledged our presence.

  "Oh, hello," a tall, blonde-headed man held out his hand. "I'm Ed. Ed Colbert. That's my daughter Sarah on the Hanoverian."

  I vaguely recognized having seen the man somewhere in the town center, dressed in a suit which stood out in a town such as Nutyoon. I placed his age at around thirty-five, and while he was dressed more casually today, his clothing was not the type carried by the local outfitters. His daughter, Sarah, rode an expensive heavy breed, but the way she sat in her saddle was anything but professional.

  "How long has Sarah been riding?" I asked.

  Ed gave me a sheepish grin.

  "Only two and a half months," Ed said. "I signed her up for pony club in the hopes she might learn to ride him."

  Six more parents came over and shook my hand, one who I'd met during Linda Hasting's goat cheese and vegetable delivery circuit. I introduced them to Pippa, who seemed to thrive on being the center of adult attention, and answered the usual questions about how I'd come to be hired by the long-lost Bristow son. I learned Emily and the older kids rode their horses here from their houses, but some of the younger kids commuted from further afield.

  Pippa watched as the green-vested girls and boys put their ponies through their paces, her expression a blend of unabashed envy and longing. Most of the kids rode English style, but a few of the kids owned western gear. The pony club team leader, an older woman in her mid-forties, was a competent rider and, after a while, announced it was time to take a break. Emily broke out into a gallop and stopped just short of the place where we stood.