A Matter of Principal Read online

  Susan danced in, singing an off-key little song. She hadn’t combed her hair, but she was already wearing her best new pair of pink shorts and the matching flowered top, and she was carrying her sandals. “Is Patrick here yet?” she demanded the moment she came in. “I’m all ready for the party.”

  Camryn’s heart sank. She was caught, she thought, between Susan’s plans and Sherry’s. If Sherry wasn’t going to be here, that meant Camryn would have to stay at home, and if Susan couldn’t go to that damned party after all, last night’s tantrum would look like a mere April shower beside the hurricane she’d create today.

  On the other hand, it would serve Patrick right if she stayed at home and let her go with him. She sighed. Susan would probably go, and that made her feel sadder yet.

  “What plans, Sherry?” she demanded.

  “I invited a guest for brunch, that’s all. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  Relief surged through Camryn. “Of course I don’t mind.”

  “Well, don’t let it interfere with your party. Please.” It was heartfelt. “Go, and have a good time.”

  Camryn laughed. “And don’t come back too soon, right? Don’t worry, Susan and I will stay out of your way. Shall I phone before I come home to be sure the coast is clear?”

  Sherry shook her head. “No, it’s just brunch. He finally called last night. I thought he was never going to. There’s a note on your desk, by the way. I reserved a room for his mother at the end of August.”

  “Your young man from the library? Why would he want a room for—?” She stopped abruptly.

  Sherry was staring at her blankly. “Him? You thought I was waiting for him to call? I meant John Marlow.”

  Camryn closed her mouth with an effort, and then said, “Lady Marlow is coming again? Sherry...”

  “She’s not bad, really, when you get to know her.” Sherry sounded a little doubtful, Camryn thought, but determined.

  “And you’re dating her son?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. One brunch does not a relationship make. But with any luck at all...”

  “So that’s why you were so willing to brave Mrs. Marlow with breakfast last weekend?”

  Sherry nodded. “I thought for a while I was being a real moron. He thought you were pretty wonderful, but he didn’t seem to notice me at all. But on Saturday night when he brought his mother back and saw what a domestic soul I was, spending the evening playing games with Susan...”

  “Having neatly gotten Susan’s mother out of the way by sending her to the movies,” Camryn added dryly.

  “Well—you had a good time, didn’t you?” Sherry was unrepentant.

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “Not that it seemed to do any good—a whole week and he didn’t even call me. But last night when he phoned for the reservation we talked a while, and then..”

  “I get the picture. Sherry Abbott, you’re a little schemer.”

  Twin dimples flashed in Sherry’s cheeks. “Yes, I am,” she admitted. “But then, if it’s worth having, it’s worth working for—isn’t that what you always say?”

  The doorbell rang, and Susan bounced up from the floor and danced off to answer it. She came back a couple of minutes later, one small hand tucked confidently into Patrick’s, chattering. He was wearing tennis shorts and running shoes and a sweatshirt emblazoned with a university logo.

  “You’re early,” Camryn told him.

  He stared admiringly at the trays of iced buns. Camryn put one on a plate and handed it across to him. He took a bite and said comfortably, “And it paid off, too.”

  “I see the dress code is different today. Are you comfortable like that? I suppose you could ask the laundry to press a crease into your shorts.”

  “Believe me, I’d be hooted out of the house if I did. Camryn, haven’t you ever learned that the main rule of fashion is to fit into the surroundings?” He polished off the bun, licked his fingers, and looked hopefully at the tray.

  “Help yourself. I’m not going to wait on you. Is your mother the kind of hostess who would be insulted if a guest brought extra food?”

  “Depends. What are you bringing?”

  Camryn pointed to the chocolate cake that was still sitting forlornly on the center island. “I have to put it together.”

  “Who cares what Mom thinks? The rest of us will be humbly grateful.”

  Sherry wailed. “I was going to snitch a piece of that for my brunch.”

  “And show John Marlow your culinary skills? Forget it. But I’ll be happy to send Susan along on all your dates, if that would help.”

  Sherry groaned. “I know when I’m beaten.” She picked up a tray and went off down the hall with a dignified set to her shoulders.

  Patrick started on his third bun. “I have to keep up my energy,” he said when Camryn raised a questioning eyebrow. “And since I didn’t get any sleep last night... Did you sleep well?”

  “No.”

  “Good. You deserved it.”

  But she thought that he looked a bit startled that she had actually admitted it. As far as that went, she had to confess, she was a little surprised that she’d said it, herself.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There was no doubt about where the party was being held; it could be heard from two streets away. “That’s why they made it a block party,” Patrick explained. “It’s easier to invite the neighbors than it is to keep the noise down.”

  He nosed the car carefully down a narrow driveway beside a tall old Queen Anne house and through a hodgepodge of people who were milling around the back yard. The house itself looked as if it was breaking out with multi-colored measles; at various spots, paint had been splashed on seemingly at random, in a rainbow of colors. But the house looked solid and well-kept; the porches were sturdy, the roof line was straight and even, and the octagonal tower at one corner stood proudly against the summer sky, without a shingle missing from its elaborate siding.

  Camryn kept an eye out for paint cans and drop cloths, but she concluded by the time they reached the house that Kathleen McKenna had been talked out of her plan to turn the party into a house-painting session.

  “What color is it really going to be?” she asked.

  “The house? Pink and gray and burgundy, I think. Sounds horrible, but Mother insists it’ll look great.”

  Dennis McKenna met them at the door. “Patrick, you can bring this young lady any time,” he said with a grin, relieving Camryn of the cake stand. “Glad you could come, Camryn, with or without the cake.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McKenna.”

  He shook his head. “Call me Dennis,” he said. “When you say Mr. McKenna around here, you’re likely to draw a crowd.”

  “Actually,” Patrick said, straight-faced, “he’s Dr. McKenna. If you really want to make him feel that he stands out from the teeming masses, use that. It used to work very well for us kids when we were on the receiving end of a discussion of homework or chores.”

  “Medicine?” Camryn asked Dennis.

  “No. Mathematics, at the university. And feel free to ignore Patrick; the rest of us do.” He set the cake aside and dropped to one knee. “You must be Susan.”

  The child nodded shyly and clung to her mother’s hand, wary of all the confusion. But it wasn’t for nothing that Dennis McKenna had raised a family of five; within minutes, he and Susan were fast friends and had gone off to watch the volleyball tournament in the back yard.

  “I see that I wasn’t necessary after all,” Camryn said as the man and the child went out of sight. She was half-serious; she was only beginning to realize how much Susan was growing up.

  Patrick grinned. “Of course we don’t need you. I only brought you so you wouldn’t throw a tantrum at being left out.” He grabbed her hand. “Come and meet my grandmother.”

  Camryn must have looked startled. She had a sudden mental picture of a tiny old lady with white hair and a lace cap, rocking gently on the front porch and conducting a soft-voiced inquisi
tion over her tatting.

  Don’t be a fool, Camryn warned herself. Even the fondest grandparent doesn’t start investigations of her grandson’s casual friends. Patrick must just not want her to feel left out.

  “We shouldn’t have let Dad steal Susan, but I guess it will be all right. My grandmother likes to meet the parents of my dates, too,” Patrick murmured.

  Camryn jabbed him in the ribs. He jumped and looked wounded.

  The Queen Anne house had a rambling floor plan, and he led her by the hand through most of the ground level. In the dining room, Kathleen McKenna was supervising the placement of what looked like tons of food, in randomly assorted containers, on the big table. She smiled absently at Camryn and turned back to the job at hand.

  My presence here is nothing so out of the ordinary, Camryn told herself. After all, last weekend Kathleen had told Patrick to bring his friends. She liked the feeling of being accepted as Patrick’s friend, without questions.

  The front hall was paneled with a lovely, mellow old wood. The house had been well-maintained, but here and there it showed the inevitable marks of family occupation. There were scratches and nicks and dents. She found herself wondering which of them Patrick was responsible for. Had he been the one who had roller-skated down the front hall? That was certainly what it looked like, from the scratches on the hardwood floor.

  “Did you grow up here?” she asked.

  “Didn’t you see the historical marker at the end of the driveway, marking it as my first home?”

  “A brass plaque, you mean? No, I missed that,” Camryn said dryly.

  “Actually, it’s only my tiny footprints in concrete, made when they poured the new driveway. My mother figured if the stars in Hollywood could do it—”

  “The footprints may be tiny,” Camryn said to no one in particular, “but I’ll bet the ego was already inflated.”

  “I’ll have you know that I was such an adorable child that my parents had four more. That in itself is quite a recommendation, if you think about it.” He held the front door open. The center panel was a pane of glass elaborately etched with a pineapple design.

  Camryn ran a gentle finger across it. “Lovely,” she said.

  “Thank you. I picked it out myself, and bought it with my lawn-mowing money, the summer I slipped and threw a boomerang through the original one.”

  “You should have been shot.”

  “Why? Even my mother says this one’s nicer.”

  There was no old lady tatting in a rocking chair on the front porch. There was no one there at all, in fact, despite the lines of chairs pulled up invitingly.

  Most of the front lawn looked vaguely like an abandoned sand trap which had started to sprout unwanted growth, but along one side of the central walk an area had been roped off and carefully seeded, and here and there small tufts of grass were growing.

  “Looks awful, doesn’t it?” Patrick said. “My father always wanted an elegant green lawn, but as the years went on the bare spots just kept getting bigger. He thought he had it made when we grew up, but he still can’t keep the neighborhood kids from walking on his grass. There they are.”

  Off to one side of the lawn Camryn saw a group of adults. Patrick took the porch steps with a leap and started towards them.

  “Patrick, don’t you dare ruin my throw,” one of them said sharply, and he paused, holding Camryn back, while a horseshoe spun lightly through the air across the lawn and rang triumphantly as it settled around the stake.

  “Between the neighborhood kids and the senior citizens,” he murmured, “it’s no wonder Dad’s ready to give up the idea of ever having grass.” He raised his voice. “Here she is, Nell, and don’t tell me you didn’t notice. I saw you eyeing her when we came in the driveway.”

  The woman who had thrown the ringer dusted off her hands and turned. She was nearly as tall as Patrick, and solidly built, with flyaway gray hair and deep lines in her face that spoke of humor as well as pain. She was wearing blue jeans that displayed a label any teenager would have approved of, and a red T-shirt emblazoned with a slightly rude phrase.

  This was his grandmother? Patrick introduced her, and she shook Nell McKenna’s hand. Her own was trembling a little as she looked up into dark blue eyes—the same shade as Patrick’s eyes.

  “Do you play horseshoes, my dear?” Nell McKenna’s voice was low and had the texture of gravel.

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “You should. Wonderful exercise—it would build up those arm muscles. You young people are all out of condition.”

  “Nell played softball till she was seventy-two,” Patrick said. “She says she only stopped then because her doctor forced her to.”

  “The arthritis in my shoulder,” Nell said. “It was messing up my pitching arm.”

  “It’s certainly true that her earned-run average was creeping steadily upwards,” Patrick mused. “But I don’t think it had anything to do with the arthritis. We were just beating her.”

  Nell put her hands on her hips and stared at him with her eyes narrowed. Then she turned to Camryn. “Don’t you think those shorts are indecent? Running around with bare legs like that!”

  Camryn blinked at the sudden attack. Her shorts weren’t skin-tight, or cut particularly high on the thigh, and judging by the T-shirt, Nell didn’t seem the prudish sort. Besides, those jeans she was wearing were pretty snug…

  “Oh, not yours, Camryn,” Nell went on. “I’d wear shorts myself if I still had legs like yours. I was referring to my grandson’s hairy knees. They’re offensive to look at.”

  Patrick grinned. “If you’re trying to tell me to get lost so you can talk to Camryn, all you have to do is ask nicely, Nell.”

  “And say pretty-please?” She snorted. “Show some respect for your elders, Patrick, and go away. Come to think of it, if you’d really like to improve your standing with me, go talk some sense into your mother. This whole house-painting project of hers will be the death of me yet.”

  “Nothing could be the death of you, Nell. You’ll outlive us all.”

  Nell ignored him. “Now she wants to paint the whole inside, too. Says it makes sense to do it all at once, while the painters are here.”

  Patrick shrugged. “At least she’s not expecting all of us to be the painters.”

  “Who cares? It doesn’t matter to me who applies the paint; the smell of it still give me splitting headaches. And if that’s not enough, the colors she’s going to use…”

  “I’ll mention it to her,” Patrick said callously. “But you can’t expect any of us to take you seriously, Nell. What happened to your philosophy of clean living and exercise preventing all health problems?”

  “I’m not sick, I’m just allergic,” Nell called after him. “If Kathleen had any compassion at all. . .” She turned to Camryn and smiled. “Now that we’re finally rid of him—”

  “Your turn, Nell,” one of the other players interrupted, and Nell took a moment and threw another ringer.

  “That’s all the lessons you’re getting today, fellas.” She drew Camryn off across the lawn. “Besides,” she added with a smile, “I want to be closer to the house when the stampede for the food begins. Does the little person I saw in the back of Patrick’s car belong to you?”

  “Yes. My daughter Susan.”

  Nell’s eyes were bright and as inquisitive as a sparrow’s. “Divorced? Or never married?”

  “Neither,” Camryn said tautly. “Widowed.”

  “You don’t wear a ring.”

  Camryn looked at the bare spot on her finger. Her hands were clenched together, and they were shaking with irritation at Nell McKenna, and at herself for being such a fool.

  She’d spent more time thinking about that ring this morning than the rest of her outfit. After a lot of thought, she’d tugged the gold band off her finger and left it in her jewelry case, thinking that anything would be better than a repeat of last night’s mistaken identity. Well, she’d obviously been wrong.


  “I can’t see what difference it makes,” she muttered.

  “It doesn’t.” Nell said without a second’s hesitation. “Just my busybody instincts.”

  “Besides, you don’t wear a ring, either, and no one is implying that you’ve never been married.”

  Nell chuckled. It was a low rumble, like thunder in the distance. “Fair enough. Shall I take you around and introduce you to all the evidence?”

  *****

  It took Camryn most of the day to sort the rest of the McKennas out of the crowd, because Nell’s whirlwind tour of introductions was interrupted by lunch, which Nell direly referred to as a restaging of the plague of the locusts.

  Camryn was sitting on the edge of the back porch at mid-afternoon, with Susan taking an enforced break with her head in Camryn’s lap, when a young man came to sit beside her.

  He was clutching a paper plate that held a huge wedge of her chocolate cake. “I’m Patrick’s little brother Colin,” he said with a sunny smile.

  “I thought you might be. There’s a family resemblance,” she said, straight-faced. She didn’t tell him that it wasn’t dark hair and blue eyes so much as the size of the piece of cake that had told her they were related. It wasn’t fair, she thought. Not a one of them displayed an excess ounce of flesh.

  “Little brother is merely a chronological term, of course,” Colin went on. “I’m younger, but I’m three inches taller than he is, and he resents it. Anyway, I decided I should scrape an acquaintance with the pastry chef.” He dug his fork into the confection.

  “Shouldn’t you wait till you’ve tasted the cake? It would be awfully embarrassing to have to sit here beside me and eat it all if you don’t like it.”

  He grinned. “I took that precaution a long time ago. This is my third slice. To tell the truth, I’ve had this one hidden in the butler’s pantry behind the cans of spinach for a couple of hours, so nobody would get it away from me. Are you going to marry Patrick?”

  She was watching Patrick just then; he was playing three-on-three basketball in the driveway, and at that instant he leaped to intercept a pass and went down on the asphalt. She jumped, involuntarily, as if it had been she who fell, and Susan stirred with a sleepy protest. Camryn’s hand smoothed the child’s hair and then relaxed as Patrick rolled to his feet with a laugh and plunged back into the game.