It had to be you | Page 6

bordered the estate had been
enclosed by shady residential streets.

As a child Phoebe had spent little time living in the stately Tudor home that sat among
the oaks, maples, and walnut trees of the western suburbs. Bert had kept her in a private
Connecticut boarding school until summer, when he sent her to an exclusive girls' camp.
During her infrequent trips home, she had found the house dark and oppressive, and as
she climbed the curving staircase to the second floor two hours after the funeral, she
decided that nothing had happened to make her alter her opinion.

The condemning eyes of an elephant illegally bagged during one of Bert's African safaris
stared down at her from the maroon-flocked wallpaper at the top of the staircase. Her
shoulders slumped dispiritedly. Grass stains soiled her ivory suit, and the sheer nylons
that sheathed her legs were dirty and torn. Her blond hair stuck out in every direction, and
she'd long ago eaten off her peony-pink lipstick.

Unbidden, the face of the Stars' head coach came back to her. He was the one who had
picked Pooh off the casket by the scruff of her neck. Those green eyes of his had been
cold and condemning as he'd handed the dog over to her. Phoebe sighed. The melee of
her father's funeral was another screwup in a life already full of them. She had wanted
everyone to know she didn't care that her father had disinherited her, but as usual, she had
gone too far and everything had backfired.


She paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, wondering if her life might have been
different if her mother had lived. She no longer thought very much about the showgirl
mother she couldn't remember, but as a lonely child she had woven elaborate fantasies
about her, trying to conjure up in her imagination a tender, beautiful woman who would
have given her all the love her father had withheld.

She wondered if Bert had ever really loved anyone. He'd had little use for women in
general, and none at all for an overweight, clumsy little girl who didn't have a high
opinion of herself to begin with. For as long as she could remember, he had told her she
was useless, and she now suspected that he might have been right.

At the age of thirty-three, she was unemployed and nearly broke. Arturo had died seven
years ago. She had spent the first two years after his death administering the touring
exhibits of his paintings, but after the collection went on permanent display in Paris's
Mus�e d'Orsay, she'd moved to Manhattan. The money Arturo had left her when he'd
died had gradually disappeared, helping to pay the medical expenses of many of her
friends who had died from AIDS. She didn't regret a penny. For years she'd worked in a
small, but exclusive, West Side gallery that specialized in the avantgarde. Just last week,
her elderly employer had closed the doors for the last time, leaving her at loose ends
while she looked for a new direction in her life.

The thought flickered through her mind that she was getting tired of being outrageous,
but she was feeling too fragile to cope with introspection, so she finished making her way
to her sister's bedroom and knocked on the door. "Molly, it's Phoebe. May I come in?"

There was no answer.

"Molly, may I come in?"

More seconds ticked by before Phoebe heard a muted, sullen, "I guess."

She mentally braced herself as she turned the knob and stepped inside the bedroom that
had been hers as a child. During the few weeks each year when she had lived here, the
room had been cluttered with books, food scraps, and tapes of her favorite music. Now it
was as pin-neat as its occupant.

Molly Somerville, the fifteen-year-old half sister Phoebe barely knew, sat in a chair by
the window, still dressed in the shapeless brown dress she'd worn to the funeral. Unlike
Phoebe, who had been overweight as a child, Molly was rail thin, and her heavy, jaw-
length dark brown hair needed a good trim. She was also plain, with pale, dull skin that
looked as if it had never seen the sun and small, unremarkable features.

"How are you doing, Molly?"

"Fine." She didn't look up from the book that lay open in her lap.


Phoebe sighed to herself. Molly made no secret of the fact that she hated her guts, but
they'd had so little contact over the years that she wasn't certain why. When Phoebe had
returned to the States after Arturo's death, she'd made several trips to Connecticut to visit
Molly at school, but Molly had been so uncommunicative she'd eventually given up.
She'd continued to