“Are you going to drive barefoot?”

“Do you mind?”

“Georgia's boyfriend got a ticket for driving barefoot.”

“Who's Georgia? Your mom's old friend Georgia?” he asked in the next flashing moment. “What boyfriend?” he asked immediately, as though he were guardian to a minor. Had Molly had boyfriends, too, although she'd denied it? Relax, Fersten, he cautioned in the next millisecond. This is not the middle ages. She is not your exclusive property. Oh, yeah? his possessive instincts dissented. Remember, these are liberated, progressive times, the logical voice inside his brain declared. And sense and sensibility lasted another millisecond. “What boyfriend?” he testily repeated.

“Her lifeguard boyfriend.”

“Lifeguard boyfriend-as in beach lifeguard?”

“He's a little young for Georgia, Mom says.”

She had looked at another man; he'd kill him. With Molly he had never been dйgagй; irrationally possessive was closer to the mark. “How old is he? What's his name?” A trial lawyer couldn't have been more decisive.

“His name's Scott. He's eighteen.”

He had to repress the urge to gasp, and immediately reminded himself that equality existed between the sexes, as well as between age groups. And if he was honest with himself, he had been known to escort a starlet or two in that nubile age group. Although he hadn't been sober at the time. “Has your mom dated Scott?”

“Mom?” Incredulity lit her wide eyes.

Immediately Carey's world righted itself. “She didn't date Scott.”

“Mom doesn't date anyone. She's too busy, she says. Georgia says she's too uptight. Mom says Georgia had more leisure time, and when she has more leisure time she'll ask for an introduction to Mark. Mark's cute.”

“Who's Mark?” His voice had that cutting edge to it again.

“Scott's friend.”

“Another lifeguard?”

“I think so; he has a really great tan.”

“I can see I got here just in the nick of time,” he murmured in a tone very close to a growl. For a man who had prided himself on never experiencing jealousy, the green demons had surrounded him and were coming in for the kill.

“What?”

“We have to get out of here or you're going to be late,” he improvised, the unknown Mark assuming a prominent position on his black list.

“You don't have to worry, you're cuter than Mark.” Dressed in her pink denim pinafore, flowered blouse, lace-trimmed anklets, and pink leather hightops, Carrie looked too freshly angelic to be so perceptive. But she'd read the convoluted chaos of his mind, and after his first start of surprise he immediately thought, What a darling child. It wasn't simply that she was his daughter, she was darling in general. And he told her so after he thanked her for the compliment.

He did drive to school barefoot. Carrie asked questions nonstop, and when she paused for breath occasionally, he asked questions of his own. He wanted to know everything about his daughter, everything he'd missed in the years she'd grown up without him. And when she ran up the steps of the school, he watched her until she disappeared into the building, awed that he had a child, a precocious, beautiful, healthy child.

While Molly spent her day downstairs in the office, Carey spent his time on the phone handling some of the editing preliminaries long-distance. But it was awkward and erratic, frustrating for him and for his crew.

“We need you here, Carey,” Allen said. “I can transfer some of the calls, but not all of them. And when you operate the way you do-with no assistant directors-it all grinds to a standstill, boss.”

“Ask me if I'm happy here in this apartment,” Carey replied, immune to the mild censure.

“Don't have to. Bunnies of happiness are bouncing down the wire to me. The fights at the preliminary edits are reaching flash proportions, though. Hope you can make it back soon. Wishing you the greatest, boss, no offense, but when are you coming back?”

“William and Jock are at each other's throats I take it.”

“You know their divergent creative impulses,” Allen said with sarcastic emphasis. “They're about to name weapons.”

“Shit. Do I have to do everything?”

“You always have.”

Carey sighed resignedly. “Okay, I'll come back tomorrow morning. Arrange for Jess to be ready to take off at nine.”

“Great! No offense, boss,” Allen quickly added.

“One more thing.” Carey hesitated.

“I already sent her back to L.A.”

Carey grinned. “That must be why I pay you so well.”

“We try, sir,” Allen replied with mock modesty, “to earn our princely stipend.”

Dinner that night was orchestrated by Carrie, newly christened “Pooh” to avoid the confusion of their names. Winnie the Pooh was her favorite stuffed toy from babyhood, and when the discussion turned to their similar names, the decision was simple.

“Some people call me Charles,” Carey had offered in the event Carrie preferred her name.

“I want a nickname,” his daughter declared from her spot between her parents in the front seat of the car.

“Should we discuss this?” Molly asked in that parental tone that always reminded her immediately after hearing her voice of a child psychologist dealing with a firebug toddler.

“I want a nickname. I want Pooh like a cousin to Winnie.”

Molly looked at Carey over their daughter's head and lifted one brow in inquiry. “Sounds good to me,” he said, his smile amiable.

“No discussion?” Molly had a tendency to over-verbalize. Carey, on the other hand, made decisions swiftly with a minimum of words. Apparently, his daughter did, as well. “Are we agreed?”

“Is this a town meeting?” Carey teased.

“Call me Pooh.”

“It's not a town meeting,” Carey declared with the faintest of smiles, experiencing instant bonding with his determined young daughter.

Carey had never seen a Chucky Cheese; the din was overwhelming. With the musical life-size toys and the raucous shouting of scores of children, conversation was impossible. So they ate their pizza while the decibel levels of a rock concert exploded around them. When they'd finished, Pooh took Carey into the game room next door. He was astonished with her expertise on the machines that lined the walls and formed aisles in the center of the enormous room.

“You must come here often,” he said, watching her coordinate two levers with superb reflexes as a careening car went down the computer-style mountain road without crashing into a losing score on the screen. “You're pretty good.”

“There's games in the hotel down the street from us. Mom lets me go there sometimes.” Her concentration was focused on the lighted screen. “Wanna try?” She had accepted Carey with a casual friendship he found endearing, and he marveled at the assurance she exuded. She seemed to take the changes in her life in stride.

“I'll play this one next to you so you can keep racking up your score. Wouldn't want to upset the record you've got going.” And for the next few minutes, father and daughter coordinated hand and eye, and set the machines humming.

Carrie ran out of tokens first, and she calmly surveyed Carey as he decimated a space army on the colored screen battle field. “You're pretty good yourself,” she said with the calm delivery he found so surprising in a young child. Highlighted by the fluorescent green from his game screen, her pale hair framed her face in an ethereal, surreal quality, like an underwater image. The other-worldly image was so vivid, it took him a moment to respond to her question. “I had lots of practice,” he finally said, remembering another surreal world of black violence and red death, remembering the base camps in Vietnam where playing the machines filled the endless morning hours when you were too hung-over to drink. He'd lived on Coke and Hostess Ho Hos those mornings, and had become proficient at the machines. For the next hour he and Carrie tested the two rows of electronic games nearest the dining room, enjoying a camaraderie based on mutual skill.

As they drove home, Molly said, “A person could feel like a third wheel real easy with you two pinball wizards doing your stuff.”

“Teach you how,” they both said in unison, and then laughed at their simultaneous response.

“I don't have time, although,” Molly said with a smile, “I'd be thrilled to learn, otherwise.”

Father and daughter looked at each other and raised their dark eyebrows. The dual effect was a devastating mirror image, and Molly wondered for the dozenth time why she hadn't realized Carrie's paternity years ago. They were so alike: pale-haired, dark-eyed and with smiles that began as grins, then grew into laughter. They'd have to tell her soon, she thought, but not tonight. It was too sudden. She wanted them to get to know each other better before the major announcement was made, although there was no denying their compatibility.

“Mom, you know you hate those games.”

“I never said that.”

“Did so.”

“Well, I suppose I might have said it's not my favorite type of amusement.”

“Right after Ping-Pong, you always said.”

“She doesn't like Ping-Pong, either?” Carey inquired in mock affront.

“Hates it,” Carrie replied with finality. “Mom's not much good at any games,” she added, matter-of-factly, in the way young children had of explaining adult idiosyncracies.

“Oh, your mom likes some games,” Carey said, catching Molly's gaze over their daughter's head.

“She does?” Carrie asked, her dark eyes intent on Carey. “What?” In her memory, her mother had rather systematically rejected all games, period.

And while Molly blushed, Carey replied, “Big people games.”

“Oh, you mean like bridge and backgammon?”

“Don't you dare,” Molly quietly warned as Carey's grin widened.

At her mother's warning, Carrie's gaze went from Carey to Molly and back again. “You mean mushy stuff,” she declared.

“Could we change the subject?” Molly said, not as unflappable as her daughter.

“What do you want for your birthday, Pooh?” Carey inquired, angelic innocence prominent in his expression.

Carrie's interest was immediately diverted. “How did you know my birthday's coming?”

“Er-” the twinkle in his eyes was boyish and lighthearted, reminding Molly of the young man she'd once known before the “international director persona” had taken precedence. “Your mom and I discussed your birthday last night.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Carrie's head swung back toward Carey. “Can you get me a date with Chachi from Happy Days?”

“Charlotte Louise, for heaven's sake!”

“Something smaller, huh?”

“I'm sorry, Carey, I thought I'd taught her some manners.” Molly's apology was part rueful but only mildly serious; after nine years she was familiar with her daughter's frankness.

“Hey, it's all right. I asked her, and it doesn't have to be small at all, Pooh, only not Chachi just yet,” he said with conspiratorial delight. “I don't think your mom would approve of you dating. Why don't you make a list when you get home and we can avoid the frown forming on your mother's face.”

Tardily remembering her manners, Carrie said, “You don't have to buy me anything. I mean, if Mom-”

“I want to buy you a present, and your mother doesn't mind. Do you?” he said with unmistakable emphasis.

Molly sighed, knowing she was the only voice of moderation between father and daughter's cheerful insistence. “No, I don't mind, but I'd like Carrie to-”

“Remember her manners. Okay. Make the list a polite list, Pooh,” he said kindly, “and everyone will be happy.” It was going to be an incredible, exhilarating experience to go birthday shopping for his own daughter. Something like a bona fide twenty-four-carat gold miracle. And after all the tragedy of birth defects he'd seen in the offspring of his platoon members, a beautiful, healthy daughter of his own was heart-stopping jubilation. As she sat between them with her hands in her lap, he quickly surveyed the five perfect fingers on each of her hands and thought of Denny's baby boy who was missing all the fingers on one hand. Then a swift perusal of her Reebok-clad feet assured him no deformities existed. Lloyd's baby girl had had six operations on her clubfoot before she was three. And Carrie was free of the other birth defects attributed to Agent Orange too. Thank you, God.

Why them and not me? The question silently looped through his mind… Why, why, why? Maybe he'd been in the hospital when his platoon had been most heavily sprayed; maybe the damn purple heart had saved him from the moonscape they'd all talked about at Ashau when they'd bathed in the bomb craters. Or maybe pure luck had kept him out of the most toxic areas just sprayed for “mosquitoes.”