Sweet Revenge

nicely, you just have to give him an extra tip. All the girls are wild about him, but I think he might be of another persuasion.”
    “Episcopalian?”
    Humor danced in her eyes. Her Phil had always been a devil. “Yes. Now …” Settling back with her tea, she smiled. “Tell me all about your vacation. I hope you didn’t drink the water. You hear such foul things about it. Did you have a good time?”
    He thought of crawling through ducts, hiding in closets, and of making love, leisurely love with Adrianne. “It had its moments.”
    “Nothing quite like a winter vacation in the tropics. Istill remember when you flew me down to Jamaica in the middle of February. I felt decadent.”
    That had been a side benefit of the de Marco heist, “And kept the natives restless.”
    “I thought I behaved like a very proper British matron.” Then she giggled. If there was one thing Mary would never be, it was matronly. “I’m thinking of taking a cruise myself. Perhaps the Bahamas.” She spotted Chauncy, the fat slug of a cat she’d adopted years before. Before he could leap on the tray she poured cream into a saucer for him. “That lovely Mr. Paddington’s invited me.”
    “What?” Brought back with a thud, Philip stared at her. Beside them, the cat lapped greedily. “Run that through again?”
    “I said I was thinking of going to the Bahamas with Mr. Paddington. Chauncy, you’re such a pig.” Soft-hearted, she dropped half a cake on the saucer. He took it in one pounce.
    “Go on a cruise with that oily old lecher? That’s ridiculous.”
    Mary debated having another cake herself. “Mr. Paddington’s a very respected member of the community. Don’t be a noodle, Phil.”
    “I’ve no intention of seeing my mother ravished on the high seas.”
    “Oh, my—what a lovely thought.” Laughing, she leaned over and patted his hand. “In any case, dear, you wouldn’t see. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you? I hope it’s a woman.”
    He rose, impatient with tea and cakes, to stalk the room. As always, Mary had loaded a Christmas tree with whatever ornaments struck her fancy. There was no theme to it, no harmony of color. She had everything from plastic reindeer to porcelain angels. Philip pulled off a bit of tinsel to run it through his hands.
    “It’s just business.”
    “I’ve never seen you walk the floor over business. Could it be that sweet girl I spoke with on the phone? Phoebe Spring’s daughter?” When he snapped the string of tinsel in two, Mary all but rubbed her hands together. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”
    “There’s nothing wonderful about it, so you can stopsmelling orange blossoms.” He came back to slump in the chair. “What are you smiling at?”
    “I think you’re in love. Finally. How does it feel?”
    He scowled down at his feet, more than a little tempted to kick the cat. “Rotten.”
    “Good, good. That’s just how it should feel.”
    Unable to do otherwise, he laughed. “You’re always a comfort to me, Mum.”
    “When can I meet her?”
    “I don’t know. There’s a problem.”
    “Of course there is. So there should be. Real love requires problems.”
    He doubted if love of any kind had a two-hundred-and-eighty-carat diamond and a pearl beyond price to deal with. “Tell me what you know about Phoebe Spring.”
    “Oh. She was glorious. There’s no one today who can compare with her, the glamour, the—presence.” Just remembering made her sigh. She’d had dreams of her own about being an actress, a star. Then there’d been Philip, and she’d settled for selling tickets to films rather than being in them. It never occurred to her to regret. “You know, most cinema stars now look like ordinary people—a bit prettier perhaps, a bit sleeker, but so could anyone with a bit of fuss. Phoebe Spring was never ordinary. Wait, I’ll show you.”
    She was up and moving quickly into another room. Philip heard her rummaging, shifting boxes. Something thudded. He only shook his head. His mother was an obsessive collector, a saver. There had always been bits of colored glass, old swatches of material, shelves of salt shakers, a drawer of old movie stubs.
    In Chelsea the windowsills had been lined with little plaster animals. Pets hadn’t been allowed, so in her usual way Mary had compensated. He could still remember her laboriously clipping and pasting pictures of everyone from the royal family to the latest film god. They’d replaced the traditional