An Invincible Summer (Wyndham Beach), Mariah Stewart [best classic novels TXT] 📗

No.” Maggie shook her head again, this time more emphatically. “Grace even asked her if Jon had ever ‘gotten mean’ with her, and Nat laughed in her face.”

“Did you like him?” Emma asked.

Maggie blew out a long breath and thought before she answered. “He could be charming, and affectionate to Natalie, and he was always polite and well mannered. Art always said I’d never be satisfied with anyone either of the girls chose, but that’s not true. I liked Zach. Loved him.” She laughed ruefully. “And we know how that turned out.”

“It sounds as if Natalie has good reasons for not wanting Jon to be in Daisy’s life,” Emma said.

“And I imagine she’s still angry about the way he reacted when she told him she was pregnant.” Liddy tossed a few grape tomatoes onto her plate.

“‘Never wanted a kid, not about to have one now. You want it, you’re on your own.’ Can you imagine a man saying something like that to a woman he supposedly had been in love with for three years?”

“No. And you don’t know what else went on that she hasn’t told you about,” Liddy pointed out. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want him around Natalie or Daisy if he’s using drugs.”

“Of course I don’t. I still think he has the right to know he has a daughter, but that’s not my call.”

“Which reinforces what we’ve been trying to tell you about Jess, Liddy,” Emma pointed out. Liddy acknowledged the remark with a slight nod but didn’t comment. “You just don’t always know what your kids are thinking or what’s going on in their lives.”

“I just hope Nat isn’t going to regret her decision someday. Daisy is going to have questions about her father at some point.”

“Those are her decisions to make. Natalie’s an adult and she’s going to do what she wants. I’d be happy if I could talk my son into coming home more than two or three times a year and staying for more than a long weekend.” Emma drained her glass, then twirled the stem between her fingers.

“Well, when one is an international rock star, one has certain obligations,” Liddy said, the hint of a tease in her voice.

“Yes, to everyone except one’s mother.” Emma made an exaggerated pouty face.

“You know, the whole rock star thing still tickles me.” Maggie grinned. “Little Christopher Dean, who used to take music lessons at the house next door, has his name on a band and his face on album covers all over the world.”

“It’s crazy, right?” Emma laughed. “My sweet little boy now stands on stage and sings while girls throw their panties at him.”

“Girls still do that?” Liddy asked. “I thought that went out with Tom Jones.”

“Tom Jones is still around, and I’ll bet women still toss their underwear at him,” Maggie pointed out.

“Chris flew me to Los Angeles last year when the band kicked off their tour, and he plunked me right in the front row,” Emma told them. “You wouldn’t believe the things that went whizzing past my head. Everything from lacy bras to paper airplanes with phone numbers written on the wings to condoms. Also bearing phone numbers.” She paused. “Not sure if the bras had writing on them.”

“How’d you know their phone numbers were on the condoms?” Liddy asked.

“Someone swept them all up and piled them in a big bowl in the dressing room afterward, where I saw them. Oh, and hot tip: You’re thinking about writing your number on a condom wrapper? Use a pen. Sharpies smear.”

Liddy nodded. “Good to know.”

“Well, I can’t say I blame the girls for being excited. Chris was an adorable little boy, and he’s handsome as sin now. Okay, maybe underwear and condoms are a bit much.” Maggie recalled the sweet little towhead who used to pull her girls around the block in his red Radio Flyer wagon when they visited in the summers. “Of course, Natalie has all the band’s CDs. She’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that she and Chris Dean, the lead singer of DEAN, were childhood friends, and that she used to call him Chrissy.”

“Oh God, till my dying day, I will still see the look on Harry’s face when Chris told him the name of the band was DEAN in capital letters.” Emma’s face reflected mock horror. “He was mortified. Told Chris the use of the Dean name, in any form, was absolutely forbidden.”

“Unseemly for the son of the bank president to be the lead singer in a rock band,” Maggie noted, “and so much more so for that band to carry the family name.”

“Exactly. Oh, the arguments that ensued. Neither of them would budge an inch. You both know Harry wanted Chris to follow in his footsteps. He wanted him to go to Harvard, like he had, and his father and grandfather had, but Chris was having none of it. That boy knew what he wanted to do from the time he was eight years old, and it had nothing to do with banking.” She grinned and added, “Except maybe banking his royalty checks once the band caught on and he actually started getting paid.”

“I remember you telling me how the two of them would argue,” Maggie said. “But with all due respect to Harry’s memory, Chris seems to have done quite well for himself.”

“Maybe too well. He makes an indecent amount of money, and I’m not sure what he does with it all. Not that he has to report his financial dealings to his mother, of course.” Emma leaned close to one of the platters and cut a slim wedge of brie, which she topped on a cracker. “I just hope he’s investing well. He can’t play rock star forever.”

“Are you kidding?” Liddy laughed. “Have you heard of the Rolling Stones? The Who? Rod Stewart? Eric Clapton?”

“Of course. But I didn’t give birth to any of them, so I don’t care what they do with their money or their lives. But my point was, I hope he’s planning