Tam shook her head, crying softly. “You can’t—it’s too far away.”
“My grandfather goes to Saigon all the time. My mom sends him pictures I color, and my dad says we can go see him sometime. We’ll come see you, too.”
“Okay,” Tam said, perking up. “Can you speak Vietnamese?”
Rebecca wasn’t sure what her friend meant, so Tam demonstrated, speaking a few sentences in her native tongue. Her father said they would have to stop speaking French when they were together and speak Vietnamese instead, so she could practice.
“It sounds pretty,” Rebecca said.
Tam smiled. No one had told her that before.
Her American friend jumped down off the bed and started poking around in Tante Annette’s things. She wasn’t really Tam’s aunt, but she said she didn’t like being called Madame Reed because it made her feel like an old woman. Tam adored her. She never criticized any of the children, just let them roam free in the gardens and the fields around the mas. Tam had heard Papa say Annette left them alone because she was bored and couldn’t be bothered with anyone’s needs except her own, but Tam didn’t believe that. Tante Annette was always patient and nice.
“Oooh,” Rebecca said, “look, Tam.”
With her grubby hands, Rebecca dumped out a soft, red bag onto the bed, and a pile of colored stones rolled onto the white spread. White, yellow, green, blue, red, purple, black—Tam giggled. “They’re so pretty!”
Rebecca carefully counted them; there were ten in all. “Do you think Tante Annette will let us play with them?” she asked.
Tam shook her head. “She’d be mad at us if she knew we were in her bedroom.”
“Oh. Do you want to dig worms with me?”
“No, thank you.”
With a shrug, Rebecca skipped out of the room, and Tam was again overwhelmed with loneliness and the fear of returning to a home she didn’t know or understand. She bit down hard to stop herself from crying and fingered the colored stones. She wished she could have them to remind her of Tante Annette and the mas. If she just asked…but no, Tante Annette would never say yes. And even if she did, Papa wouldn’t let Tam accept a gift she’d asked for.
Fresh tears warmed her eyes. Tante Annette had so many beautiful things. Papa said Vietnam was a poor country and they couldn’t expect to have as much as the Winstons did; it wouldn’t be fair to their countrymen who didn’t always have enough to eat. Tam tried to understand.
But she couldn’t bear to return the sparkling stones to the drawer where Rebecca had found them. Making her decision, she quickly stuffed them back into the velvet bag and ran to the caretaker’s house, to her tiny room next to the herb gardens, where she hid them.
“Tam, Tam,” Rebecca was calling excitedly.
Tam was certain her new friend had seen her and she’d have to give the stones back, but Rebecca ran into the caretaker’s house with the longest, fattest worm Tam had ever seen.
“Isn’t it cute?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes, it is,” Tam said, feeling much better.
Two
Boston, Massachusetts
Thirty years later
The waiter for the unhappy vice president of Winston & Reed brought him a second perfectly mixed martini and silently whisked away the empty glass of his first. A thin, gray-haired, punctilious man, Lee Donigan had a low threshold of tolerance for two things: doing someone else’s dirty work and being kept waiting. Rebecca Blackburn had managed to trigger both sources of irritation in one day.
He tried the martini. Excellent. He welcomed its soothing burn. It was his own fault he was stuck with this unpleasant task. He should have investigated the possibility that the award-winning graphic designer his public relations director had hired to revamp Winston & Reed’s corporate look was one of the Blackburns. He had assumed a Boston Blackburn wouldn’t have the gall to take on an assignment with his company. One should never assume.
Particularly, he’d learned the hard way, with a Blackburn.
And especially this one.
A flash of color, a burst of energy—both compelled Lee to look up. Rebecca Blackburn caught his eye from across the busy restaurant and waved, ignoring the maître d’as she made her way to his table. Her electric personality seemed to light up the lunchtime crowd atop the forty-story Winston & Reed Building. In the few times he’d met her, Lee had observed that Rebecca was the kind of woman who never cooled off. She was always on, always moving. When her subtle, grab-from-behind beauty was added to that compulsive energy, the result was one unforgettable woman. Her high cheekbones, strong eyebrows and chin and straight nose provided the drama in her keenly attractive face, the rich, unusual chestnut color of her chin-length hair complementing the pure creaminess of her skin. Lee found himself hoping she was too professional to unleash her temper on him. That she had one he didn’t doubt for a second.
She swept into the chair opposite him, a panoramic view of Boston Harbor under a clear May sky at her back. Lee’s table was the best in the house. His office was just two floors down. He enjoyed working in what was commonly referred to as Boston’s boldest and most luxurious building. He intended to keep his job, even if it meant doing for Quentin Reed what the president of Winston & Reed wouldn’t do for himself.
“Sorry I’m late,” Rebecca said.
There was nothing apologetic in her tone or her expression, and Lee’s moment of guilt drowned under a fresh wave of irritation. The woman had to have known she was provoking just such a lunch as today’s when she bid for the coveted design job with Winston & Reed. She should have restrained herself.
“But,” she went on, “I’ve never been asked to lunch with a vice president who didn’t mean to fire me.”
Fresh words from a damn artist, Lee thought. Her eyes—a vivid, clear blue—met his just for an instant before she smiled and put her water glass to her coral-dusted lips. She looked every inch the stylish professional in a pumpkin-colored jacket over a black skirt—probably, if Lee could believe hall gossip, something she’d picked up for a song at Filene’s Basement. She could afford to shop wherever she liked. Lee had to remind himself that Rebecca Blackburn was a very wealthy woman. She wasn’t going to starve.
He noticed the gold dragons hanging from her ears. They demonstrated her renowned irreverence, her Blackburn independence. Even if they’d been three-dollar costume pieces—and they weren’t—they would have told Lee Donigan that she wasn’t one of them. She stood apart from everyone else at Winston & Reed. She didn’t belong. And she knew it.
He decided not to bother mincing words with her. “You’re right,” he said. “We have to cancel our contract with you, Rebecca.”
“Whose idea?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
He motioned for the waiter and nodded to Rebecca to order, not caring that he was rushing her. She was the one who’d shown up late. She ordered the broiled scrod and a salad, and he made it two. The two martinis had curbed his appetite.
“I’ll have mine to go,” Rebecca said as the waiter started to leave.
The poor fellow looked dumbfounded. “To go?”
She graced him with one of her most dazzling smiles. “Please.”
Lee silently cursed Quentin Reed for being such a pusillanimous jerk he couldn’t tell a woman he’d known since childhood to quit playing games with him and get the hell out of his company.
“I gather you don’t even