Once In A Blue Moon. Kristin James

girl?”

      “I’m fine. I’m giving Patience a ride.”

      “I see. That’s nice of you.”

      Patience, their dainty liver-and-white Cavalier spaniel, leapt lightly out of her basket and trotted over to Isabelle, wagging her tail. Isabelle bent to pet her. Patience was an extremely sweet-tempered dog who submitted herself resignedly to Jenny’s play and did nothing but walk away if Jenny unintentionally squeezed a leg or pulled an ear. Isabelle had bought her and named her for precisely that quality. Prudence, on the other hand, their large smoky gray Persian cat, made it a point to stay well out of Jenny’s way and always kept a wary eye on her unless Isabelle was with them.

      “Hello, Patience,” Isabelle murmured, giving her an extra few rubs to reward her good nature.

      Jenny cautiously disembarked from her vehicle and hurried over to her mother, holding her arms wide for a hug. Isabelle pulled her close and squeezed her. Whatever else she felt for Michael Traynor, she could not help but be grateful to him for giving her this girl.

      She had not always felt that way, of course. She had cried herself to sleep night after night when she realized that she was pregnant, almost two months after Michael left her. He had tried once or twice to call her during the summer, but she had stubbornly refused to talk to him. When she discovered she was pregnant, she had fallen into despair and she had considered finally talking to him. But he didn’t call her again, and she would not take the step of calling him.

      Instead, she had sleepwalked her way through the first semester of her freshman year, then returned home at Christmas and broke the news to her parents. Predictably, her well-to-do Southern parents had been genteelly horrified at the news. When she told them that she intended to keep the baby and raise it, her father had argued with her incessantly. He wanted her to have an abortion; he told her over and over how it would ruin her life and be a perpetual burden to her.

      To Isabelle’s surprise, it had been her mother, always the picture of frail, proper Southern femininity, who had finally said, “Oh, Harrington, hush. Of course she’s not going to get rid of her baby. Whatever are you thinking of? We’ll just have to make adjustments, that’s all.”

      The adjustments had been far worse than any of them had expected, however. Jenny had been born with a heart defect, pinched-faced and bluish. For weeks, it had been a daily struggle for her to stay alive. She underwent three surgeries in the first two years of her life and another one when she was six to repair her heart. All her life she had remained small and been slow to develop, and she had been hit hard by any childhood virus or infection. Since the final operation, she had been able to lead a fairly normal life physically, to play and even ride her bike without gasping for breath or having to stop frequently.

      However, nothing could repair the damage that had been done to Jenny’s brain in the first few weeks of her life when her weak heart had not pumped enough oxygen-rich blood to her brain. She had been slow to develop both mentally and physically, walking later, talking later and never completely achieving the skills of other children her age.

      The first few years of Jenny’s life, she had occupied all Isabelle’s time. College, her plans to act, everything had fallen by the wayside as she had struggled to keep Jenny alive and well. Once again, it had been Isabelle’s mother who had pulled her aside and pointed out that Isabelle could not sacrifice herself for her daughter, that she had to create some kind of life for herself, as well.

      Isabelle had been scared, but she had known that her mother was right. She had started in a small way by going back to college, but she had quickly realized that she was light-years away from the carefree freshmen in her classes. Finally, she had decided to move to Los Angeles and try to make it in the career she had always wanted: acting. If she could not make it, there would be time enough later to come back and build another, safer career for herself.

      It had been tough, and Isabelle knew that it would probably have been impossible without the extra money her parents had provided for Jenny’s welfare. Isabelle had had no life outside of her work and her daughter. She went to auditions; she took acting lessons; she worked part-time jobs. The rest of the time she spent with Jenny. There had been no time for men and, frankly, Isabelle had had little interest in them. She had gotten a few jobs in commercials and walk-ons in two nighttime series. Then her first real break had come: she had been hired as a daily on one of the soap operas. The response to her had been so good that her two weeks had expanded into two months and finally into a year’s contract. Then, almost three years ago, she had moved to “Tomorrows” and her current role as Jessica Connors O’Neal Randall, the town villainess.

      She had become enormously popular in the role. She had the perfect looks for the part of the local siren: thick, long black hair, vivid emerald-green eyes and a voluptuous figure. But it was her acting skills that had brought her such a devoted following. She was able to make her character not only wicked, but was able also to invest her with a sense of humor and even a hint of vulnerability that had made it possible for viewers to love her even as they hated her. Last year, when the writers had put Jessica in a life-threatening car crash in which she had lost the child she was carrying, viewers had written in, frantic at the thought that Jessica was going to die.

      Because of her popularity in the role, Isabelle was now financially secure. She had been able to buy a lovely secluded house with plenty of yard for Jenny to play in. She could send Jenny to an excellent school and pay for a housekeeper/companion for her daughter. She had even been able to pay back her parents for the money they’d lent her during her first years in L.A. But money was the only thing that had changed for them. Isabelle still had only one interest outside of work, and that was her daughter.

      She squeezed Jenny tightly to her now. “How was school?”

      “Fine. I made something.”

      “You did? How nice. May I see it?”

      Jenny shook her head. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

      “I see. A special present, then.”

      Jenny nodded. “We made it this morning. But I can’t tell you.”

      “That’s all right. I’ll see it when you bring it home.”

      Jenny nodded. “Miss Bright said, ‘Shh.’” She brought her forefinger up to her lips and made an exaggerated gesture of silence. “I don’t like it, they say. ‘Don’t talk.’”

      “Who says, Jenny? Miss Albright?”

      Jenny nodded emphatically. “Miss Bright says ‘Don’t talk,’ and I only asked... He was drawing, see, like this.” She made big circular motions with her right hand, as if drawing in air. “And he—” She pulled her hands apart as if ripping something.

      “He tore up his paper?” Isabelle wasn’t sure exactly what Jenny was talking about; she sometimes had trouble following her disjointed, repetitive way of speaking even after years of experience.

      Jenny’s dark head came down in the same hard nod. She was clearly feeling indignant. “Yes! And Miss Bright, she said, ‘Don’t talk.’ I don’t like that.”

      “I’m sure not. You just wanted to see what he was drawing, right?”

      “‘Whatcha doing?’” Jenny agreed. “‘Whatcha doing?’”

      Isabelle repressed a smile. This was Jenny’s favorite question of any-and everyone. No doubt some other child in her class had resented her asking it.

      “Well, I’m sure Miss Albright didn’t want you disturbing the other students. Apparently he didn’t like it when you asked him to let you see.”

      “He’s a poophead,” Jenny commented. Then she added, “Kevin said ‘He’s a poophead.’”

      “I bet Miss Albright didn’t like that.”

      “Uh-uh.” Jenny shook her head exaggeratedly. “She said, ‘No, no, no.’”

      “And what have you been doing since you came home from school?”