The Innocents Club. Taylor Smith

Mariah noted, her nails painted blue-black. She’d been forbidden to go to school looking like that, but with school out for the summer now, Lindsay was testing limits again. Between the skin drawing, the hammered-looking fingertips and the third earring in one ear, her beautiful little girl seemed determined to transform herself into something out of Edgar Allan Poe. Why?

      Mariah turned back to the mirror, gritting her teeth. They would not fight tonight.

      From outside the flung-wide windows, the sweet, heavy scent of magnolia blossoms in the park-like condominium complex wafted across the warm evening air. But underneath that, the air crackled with the static charge of a storm brewing. July had arrived with all the restless, humid promise to which hormone-wracked youth are susceptible. Other people, too, perhaps, but not her, Mariah thought. That way lay only grief. She looked past her own reflection to her daughter’s. It was going to be a long summer, and not all the storms would be outside.

      Pulling her gaze away from Lindsay, she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. It was getting late, and she was damned if she’d stay up half the night agonizing over wardrobe choices for an assignment she’d been dragooned into. She should have said no, and not just because of the assignment. There was also the contact site: the Arlen Hunter Museum. Hunter himself had died several years back. Was his family still involved in the museum that bore his name?

      The Hunter family. Mariah grimaced. It wasn’t the family she was worried about. It was Renata. Would she be there? Well, what if she was? Why should it matter? Renata couldn’t hurt her anymore. Had no power over her unless Mariah handed it to her, and why would she do that? Simple answer: she wouldn’t.

      She studied the dress in her hand once more. It was sleeveless and front-buttoning, with a high, Chinese-mandarin collar. The shimmering cobalt silk made a striking contrast to her softly cropped blond hair and cast her smoky eyes in an unusual light. It seemed suitable enough, but living with a teenager was enough to shake anyone’s confidence in her own judgment.

      “What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

      Lindsay’s bare shoulder lifted in a dismissive shrug. She was wearing a black halter top over heavily frayed jeans. A full head taller than Mariah’s five-three, with impossibly long legs, she was fair-skinned and fine-boned, with the doe-eyed delicacy of a Walter Scott heroine that belied an increasingly headstrong nature.

      “A little fancy, isn’t it?” Lindsay said without looking up. “I thought this was a work thing. Why don’t you wear one of your suits?”

      “It is work, but it’s also a gala opening. I don’t want to look like one of the museum guards, do I?”

      Again, the shrug. “Wear what you want, then.”

      Lindsay tossed the magazine aside and flopped down onto the big four-poster bed, thick curls washing like copper-colored waves down the smooth expanse of her back. As she landed, the corner of Mariah’s eye picked up a tumbling dust bunny, expelled from under the bed by the exasperated whumphing of the mattress. She tried not to think how long it had been since the vacuum had made a house call under there. She wondered, too, how this maddeningly irritating girl could be the cornerstone of her happiness, her reason for living. Some days, motherhood felt like pure masochism.

      Giving up all hope of approval, she lay the Chinese-silk dress on the bed, by the garment bag lying next to Lindsay. Her suitcase was on the floor, and it already held most of the things she’d need for their vacation to follow. Lindsay’s own bag was packed, zipped and standing by the door of her bedroom down the hall.

      “I still don’t see why I can’t come with you tomorrow,” Lindsay grumbled. “I would have liked to see the Russian royal treasures, too, you know.”

      “I’ll take you another time. The tour’s coming through D.C. We’ll see it at the Smithsonian.”

      “Yeah, right. Next year. You could have wangled me into the grand opening.”

      Mariah shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough she had to go herself. “The invitation list was tightly controlled,” she said. “With the secretary of state and Russian foreign minister coming, the security contingent alone will take up half the hall. Anyway, this is no social occasion for me.”

      “I wouldn’t get in the way. I didn’t in Paris.”

      “That was different.”

      “Yeah, it was. Those were private meetings. This is a public opening. If I got dressed up, I’d blend right into the background. I look old enough. I don’t even get carded at R-rated movies anymore.”

      Mariah frowned. “R-rated movies? I don’t remember approving that.”

      “Mom,” she said, rolling her eyes, “everything’s R-rated these days except Big Bird. I’ve told you about every movie my friends and I have gone to.”

      Her friends included a six-foot, tank-size junior named Brent who’d started hanging around lately. Drive-in theaters and boys with shiny new driver’s licenses were bad enough, Mariah thought. Now, add R-rated movies to the long list of subjects that she and Lindsay could argue about.

      Not tonight, though.

      “The point is,” Lindsay said, “I can almost pass for twenty-something if I get really done up.”

      “That’s all I’d need,” Mariah said, rifling through her bureau, trying to find her travel makeup bag. She and David had bought the oak double dresser at a country estate auction not long after they were married. Now, for the first time in her life, she had more drawer space than she knew what to do with, and she could still never find anything. The bag finally appeared. “I don’t want to be worrying about some guy hitting on my baby girl while I’m supposed to be picking Russian brains.”

      Lindsay’s mouth rounded in a mock-pitying pout. “Aw, poor Mom! Double-oh-seven never had to baby-sit while he was spying on Dr. No, did he?”

      “Double-oh-seven, my foot. I’m just an old desk jockey who gets unchained from time to time for a closer look at the other side. Those visiting dignitaries, however, have roving eyes and hands. I’m not exactly going to blend into the background if I have to be beating them off you like some crazed fishwife, am I?”

      Lindsay blushed, confirming the general wisdom that redheads look adorable in pink. “Get outta here. You’ll be beating them off yourself in that dress.”

      Mariah was packing her toiletry kit, but she turned to her daughter with a look of mock astonishment. “Oh, my gosh, is that a vote of confidence I’m hearing? You do think the dress is okay?”

      Lindsay flipped over onto her back. “It’s fine. You going without me tomorrow isn’t.”

      “You’re coming right behind me! Honestly, Lins, I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss. It’s barely forty-eight hours.”

      “Because it’s boring here. All right? And there’s a party tomorrow night, and I’m not going to get to go to that, either! And if I don’t—” She rolled off the bed and headed for the door. “It’s not fair!”

      The walls vibrated with the stomping of her feet down the hall and the slamming of her bedroom door, and then, the stereo came on loud. Very loud. Too loud for open windows and even the most well-baffled condominium walls.

      Mariah massaged her forehead, trying to loosen the vise that was in the process of clamping down on her skull. When did the age of roller-coaster hormones end? It couldn’t happen too soon.

      She took a deep breath, willing herself to be calm. The neighbors were away. The music still had to be turned down, but she would not fight. Not tonight.

      She zipped her makeup kit and tossed it on top of the open suitcase. Then, steeling herself, she went down the hall and knocked softly on Lindsay’s door. No answer. The second rap was a little louder. Not aggressive. Just loud enough to be heard.

      “What?” Lindsay snapped from the other side.

      Mariah