Still sobbing, a rejected Eileen gathered herself up from the floor of the designer kitchen in the Donovan home. In spite of the fact that neither of them had the grand southern breakfast she promised Stan and her now-runaway daughter, it wasn’t all that difficult to manage to get Eileen to down a neat double shot of nerve soothing libation.

“Well Mother Eileen, to hell with breakfast. What’ll it be? Beefeaters or Bombay Sapphire?” A topless Stan brought in a couple of personally monogrammed Waterford snifters from the ornate tiffany glass and brass knobbed cabinets above the black and gray marble countertop, and set them down on the bar as he slid his silk-trousered lower half onto the white leather bar stools. His chest muscles heaved everytime he made the slightest move. And his mother in law took in every ripple from his nipples to his low-belted navel.

“Always liked it when women have good taste. Stan shifted in his seat. “My question is what the hell happened with your daughter, taking off like she did on the fly? That, to me, is just plain selfish!”

With all of her dignity pretty much down the sewer, Eileen joined her son-in-law at the bar. Oh how she wished she was just a few years younger!

“Why did she just bolt Stanford? Why, it just boggles my lil'' ol'' mind as to how she could do this to me! . . . Just make my goodies blue, son.  It matches my mood.”

“Well,” replied Stan as he skillfully released his posh potions that he liked to call ‘his other woman in a glass’ “if you don’t mind my saying, you did sort of just jet in here without proper warning. Your stepdaughter really never did warm up to you very well, did she?

“Oh, c’mon Stanford!” Eileen paused, slurping her designer gin. “Are you trying to say that because I’m not exactly like Daniella as far as appearance goes that we have this, so called thing that she’s unwilling to deal with? A lot of darker children have white mothers.”

Then Eileen belts out a pitiful excuse of a Bette Middler imitation: 

Am I bluuuuuue? Am I bluUUUUUUUUe.
Ain''t these tears in these eyes tellin'' youUUUUUU?
 
Stan cuts his eyes in her direction, doing all he can to not lose his liquor over his mother-in-law''s not-yet-ready-for-Showtime-at-the-Apollo performance. “That’s not what I mean at all. Mother Eileen. I mean like, damn it ain’t like I’ve never been around my share of white women, with my career and all. . . know what I mean?”

"You mean that one woman, what was her name?"

"Gina"

"Yes, the one Dani almost left you over," Eileen continues sipping her blue mood enhancer serendipidously. "I seriously doubt Gina with all her superficial nature would never do something like that to you!” Eileen became indignant, waving her glass of toward the ceiling and spanning the palatial lushness around her with her eyes.

“I mean, what woman in her right mind would leave all of this?”

Stan balked, “That’s was a long long time ago!. We did have this chemistry goin’, I won’t deny that on my dyin’ judgment day, but that’s all it was. . . just a body connection deal, you know. . . boody-licious call if you don’t mind my saying so.”

 Eileen responded like a sheep waiting to be sheered. She just looked admirably at  her son-in-law’s upper physique. “Please, just call me, ‘Mom.’ I feel so close to you being able to talk to someone about my daughter since I’ve been gone so long. You know your father in law once went to school to be a minister even though his own snooty indigo-blood Brit family wanted him to become some kind of Earl, or something.”

Eileen sucked her crimson-coated lips as she crossed her legs with one knee peeking out from under her robe.  “I never did understand those English traditions. Maybe that’s why his family absolutely hated me? Can you imagine people touting to be so blasted proper that. . . oh,  refill please?”

 Stan was amazed at how fast his non-drinking wife''s step-mother downed her drink. “Well, if you think you can handle it, . . . ‘Mom’. Stan gave her the bottle.

Oh, now see, that’s what I mean by being a gentleman, Umm! This is delicious!. . .” Eileen took another swig of the Bombay. Then she bravely belted out a curtain call: 

Oh, am I blue? Well, I bet you would be, too, if each plan with your man done fell through-woo-woo-wooooo! Thank ya very muuuuuch! 

There they were, in the house not missing Daniella at all. An animated pair belting out a chorus of prize winning roll-on-the-floor laughter, both of them spraying out their drinks all over the counter top and each other like a bad reality show.

"Lovely Eileen" Stan smirked raising his signature snifter. "Bring it on, Whitney! Dammit all, now look at what you done did! Spittin'' good hooch all over my chest!

Eileen, still engulfed in slightly tipsy laughter responded, "Ah-ehehe, ooooo my son my son, you have no idea what I’ve learned to handle all of these years. . . and quite well too. I’m a survivor," then she raised her glass in what anyone else would see as a woman soon to be out of control.

“Hey hey! I’ll drrrrrrink to that!” Stan hailed, and he and Eileen raised their glasses with a clink as the morning sun began to meld into what they soon would discover as a most revealing noon. But their moment of verbal pleasantry was cut short by the ringing of Stan’s cell phone.

*****

The jet touched down at 6:19 p.m. Dani was finally back on British soil. How long has it been? She tried to forget those days when she was raised in the orphanage against her father’s will. His family would have nothing to do with a granddaughter who was the illegitimate child of a black housekeeper that she never even got to know.

Over the intercom the pilot thanked the passengers for traveling British Airways. She wasn’t sure what would await her when she went to the private hostel that was the last known residence of Walter Dixon. But it was a start.

“Shilling for your thoughts, Dani?”  her row companion inquired. She and Simon spent the trek across the Atlantic getting to know each other better, at least on a friend to friend basis. They exchanged reasons for why they were each making the trip overseas. It was as if destiny was calling both of them in perfect coordination when it came to timing events these past 48 hours.

As she checked her passport and rechecked her hotel reservation on her PDA, Daniella reflected on the past few, serene hours with her most congenial cabin-mate.

“We’re hitting a bit of turbulence, best buckle up” said their first class red-headed attendant who seemed more Irish than British.

“Well, Dani, guess it’s not going to be such smooth sailing after all. What is it you said, something about your father?”

“Yes, this ride is a bit bumpier than I''m used to. Just overdue for a visit. It’s been about five years.”

“Why so long?”

 “Oh, it gets kinda personal.”

“I used to be a counselor before I became a businessman”

“Really?” Dani was more than superficially impressed.

With nothing but a five-hour time difference between herself and her troubles, she told Simon everything, which isn’t usually her nature but Daniella felt such a strange attraction to this man. She told him everything about her being a foster child. She told him everything about her college years. And she even told him everything about her husband back in the states, Stanford Ulysses Donovan about his career, his financial holdings, his promotions. . . at least as much as she knew.

Simon raised a brow, creating a slight crinkle his smooth olive-toned forehead, then his hand stroking his complimentary salt and pepper goatee, he began to recall--hopefully not letting on to Dani -- about a retired private citizen in Herrington whom, at one time sought majority stock control of Lennox Securities LTD. After all, his lovely travel companion talked about her husband''s interest in acquiring a number of financial investments. But the competitor’s name wasn’t under the name “Donovan.” He couldn’t figure just then, but that was part of his reason for going to England on ASAP notice.

"I’ve got to investigate a critical matter" said Simon. "Usually I let my attorney’s handle it, but with recent emails I’ve received, I can’t risk letting someone else handle this."

Dani wondered why a man like Simon Rose, someone who really didn’t want to be spotlighted in society as they knew in Herrington and all of the southeast U.S., would be wanting to know exactly whom, or what might be a threatening element to take control of one of his major financial fountains.

 Their conversation was fluid. But she remained mum about she and Stan being a celibate married couple. Some things just were not convenient to tell. Daniella felt Simon would think she was weird, or weak, or just plain selfish. And to be too revealing was to let someone into a very private place where she would no longer have any control. Daniella had to maintain control!

They exited the ramp into the terminal. Daniella cleared customs without a hitch. Simon gave her his business card for his office in the Lake District. But she learned he grew up in an area called Hampstead Garden. She recalled their robust verbal intercourse. . .

“Hampstead Garden?” Daniella was gap mouthed? “How did you come to move from such a diverse area and end up in all of southern USA?”

“I was actually studying to be a minister back in the late 1950s after I finished Catholic school here in London. I grew up in the Garden. Somehow I think I was quite lucky because, well, all money talk aside, we just lived together as a village regardless of the class where we were born.”

“Gee,” Daniella sighed while starring out the window as if looking towards home again thousands of miles in her memory. “Sounds a lot different than Fox Brook.”

“Indeed" Simon said.
"As a matter of fact Dani, the only reason I chose to do business and reside in Fox Brook after I finished business school at Columbia was to try and reform the attitudes of the community. America’s south has so much glamour, and at the same time, so many scars from injustice to people who gave back so much, unnoticed. That’s one of the reasons I feel obligated to sponsor the artwork of a new talent.”

"You mean, what was his name, Cresent?"

“Absolultely! Simon’s voice almost went into a hallelujah chorus when he turned directly to face Daniella. His eyes highlighted whenever he seemed to talk about Cresent Moon, just like they did when she and Simon first met on Primo Thursday at the Lennox.

“His work is like his name. Glowing. Poignant. Often he''s shrouded from his own natural genius by the darkness of archaic attitudes from the people around him. Jealousy is a real shrew sometimes, you know?”

“Oh, . . . yes. I do know.” Dani had a quick glimpse about that patronizing woman who was hopefully in her past. . . the one who loved to send scratch and sniff panties to her emotionally distant husband-in-name-only.

It was getting late. Simon had a car reserved, waiting at Heathrow in the VIP reception area. “Dani, I’m headed into town for the night, can I offer you a ride?”

“Oh, no!” Daniella insisted. No way could I impose” as she worked to cover her desire to spend as much time with this man as possible. “I’ll just charge a cab with my . . .

“Call for Daniella Dixon at the Securities Desk at Gate 14, Urgent! Respond at once please! Daniella Dixon at the Securities Desk at Gate 14!”

The announcement repeated itself a third time.

Oh my God!” Daniella froze in thought.  “Stan! He must have found out. . . oh for the love of. . .”

Simon broke her silent panic. “Dani, why would someone be calling you like this? You said no one knew you were coming to London, am I right in my suppositions?”

“Well,” Daniella paused for a moment, looking Simon in the eye with the most helpless of gazes. “I guess I didn’t plan as well as I thought.  I. . . oh Simon I feel awful! I have no idea what they want. I mean, my passport cleared and I hate to impose on your business but...”

“Nothing more need be said. Let’s find out what the matter is.” Simon extended his right hand towards her. She took it. And once and for all, she knew that there was something more to this man. The senses never lie.  Together, they hastened to Gate 14. And together, the landing in London was soon to become another unplanned launch of fate for the investigative Simon Rose. And it would be even more exploratory, for the desperately-seeking Daniella Dixon Donovan.

Sat. Dec. 10: “Altered States”

© 2005, cynth''ya lewis reed
all rights reserved.