It had to be you | Page 7

send birthday and Christmas presents, however, along with occasional
letters, all of which went unacknowledged. It was ironic that Bert had disinherited her
from everything except what should have been his most important responsibility.

"Can I get you anything? Something to eat?"

Molly shook her head and silence fell between them.

"I know this has been tough. I'm really sorry."

The child shrugged.

"Molly, we need to talk, and it would be easier on both of us if you'd look at me."

Molly lifted her head from her book and regarded Phoebe with blank, patient eyes, giving
Phoebe the uneasy feeling that she was the child and her sister the adult. She wished she
still smoked, because she was in desperate need of a cigarette.

"You know that I'm your legal guardian now."

"Mr. Hibbard explained it to me."

"I think we need to talk about your future."

"There's nothing to talk about."

She pushed a wayward blond curl behind her ear. "Molly, you don't have to go back to
camp if you don't want to. You're more than welcome to fly to New York with me
tomorrow for the rest of the summer. I've subleased an apartment from a friend who's in
Europe. It has a great location."

"I want to go back."

From the pallor of Molly's skin, Phoebe didn't believe her sister enjoyed camp any more
than she had. "You can if you really want to, but I know what it's like to feel as if you
don't have a home. Remember that Bert sent me to school at Crayton, too, and packed me
off to camp every summer. I hated it. New York is fun during the summer. We could
have a great time and get to know each other better."

"I want to go to camp," Molly repeated stubbornly.

"Are you absolutely sure about this?"


"I'm sure. You have no right to keep me from going back."

Despite the child's hostility and the headache that was beginning to form at her temples,
Phoebe was reluctant to let the issue pass so easily. She decided to try a new tack and
nodded toward the book in Molly's lap. "What are you reading?"

"Dostoyevski. I'm doing an independent study on him in the fall."

"I'm impressed. That's pretty heavy reading for a fifteen-year-old."

"Not for me. I'm quite bright."

Phoebe wanted to smile, but Molly had delivered the statement so matter-of-factly that
she couldn't. "That's right. You do well in school, don't you?"

"I have an exceptionally high IQ."

"Being smarter than everyone else can be as much a curse as a blessing." Phoebe
remembered the trauma of her own school days when she'd been brighter than so many of
her classmates. It had been one more element that had made her feel different from
everyone else.

Molly's expression never altered. "I'm quite grateful for my intelligence. Most of the
other girls in my class are dolts."

Despite the fact that Molly was acting like an obnoxious little prig, Phoebe tried not to
judge her. She, of all people, knew that Bert Somerville's daughters had to find their own
way of coping with life. As an adolescent, she had hidden her insecurities behind fat.
Later, she had become outrageous. Molly was hiding behind her brains.

"If you'll excuse me, Phoebe. I've reached a particularly interesting section, and I'd like to
get back to it."

Phoebe ignored the child's obvious dismissal and made another attempt to convince her to
come to Manhattan. But Molly refused to change her mind, and Phoebe eventually had to
concede defeat.

As she got ready to leave the room, she stopped at the door. "You'll call me if you need
anything, won't you?"

Molly nodded, but Phoebe didn't believe her. The child would eat rat poison before she'd
come to her disreputable older sister for help.

She tried to shake off her depression as she headed back downstairs. She heard Viktor on
the living room telephone with his agent. Needing a moment alone to collect herself, she
slipped into her father's study, where Pooh was asleep in one of the armchairs that sat in


front of a glass-fronted gun cabinet. The poodle's fluffy white head shot up. She sprang
from the chair, her pom-pom tail wagging, and raced across the carpet to her mistress.

Phoebe sank to her knees and gathered the dog to her. "Hey, sport, you really did it today,
didn't you?"

Pooh gave her an apologetic lick. Phoebe began to retie the bows that had come undone
at the dog's ears, but her fingers were trembling, so she abandoned the effort. Pooh would
just work them loose again anyway.

The dog was a disgrace to the dignity of her breed. She hated bows and rhinestone
collars, refused to sleep on