Ask Mariah Read Online Free PDF Page A

can't tell us apart. Especially when we dress the same."
    "But you'll know who we are, because you're our mommy," Rose said with a quiet intensity that wiped the smile right off Joanna's face.
    "I'm not your mother, Rose, but I'd like to be your friend. Do you think we could be friends?"
    "How come you don't want to be our mother anymore?" Rose asked in confusion.
    "She's your teacher," Michael said firmly. "Rose -- "
    "It's okay," Joanna interrupted as Rose began to sniff. The last thing she wanted to do was start another round of crying. She turned to Michael. "Why don't you go now? The girls and I will work this out."
    "Are you sure?" Michael asked, but he was already backing toward his car, sensing freedom.
    No, she wasn't sure. But she had a feeling she would have an easier time dealing with the girls alone than with him. "We'll be fine. Say good-bye to Daddy, girls."
    Rose and Lily waved, but they offered no loving words of departure. Nor did they hug him or give him a kiss. Strange, Joanna thought. One minute they didn't want to leave him, and the next they seemed happy to turn their backs on him.
    "Mariah was right," Lily said to Rose. "She told us to go to school, remember?"
    Rose nodded in agreement.
    "Who's Mariah?" Joanna asked as they walked into the school together.
    "She's a lady in a crystal ball," Lily replied.
    "Oh." That seemed to explain everything.

Chapter Three
     
    Michael was still thinking about Joanna Wingate when he parked his car in the subterranean garage beneath the Embarcadero Center in downtown San Francisco. The woman's resemblance to Angela was incredible. For a second he'd felt as if he'd seen a ghost.
    Although he saw Angela in his daughters' faces, they were children. Lily and Rose reminded him of the Angela he'd met when he was a mere boy and she was just a child. But this woman, this Joanna Wingate, had to be close to Angela's age, which made the similarity startling.
    Still shaking his head in bewilderment, he reached for his briefcase and the set of blueprints he had picked up at the printer. The upcoming ritual of work pleased him. He wanted to forget what he had just seen. He wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong. But as he boarded the elevator for the sixteenth floor, he knew something was definitely askew.
    Who was Joanna Wingate? Why had she suddenly appeared in his life now -- now that he had gotten used to Angela being gone, when he had begun to think that the girls would give up their crazy fantasy that Angela was coming back.
    Stepping off the elevator, he walked toward the double glass doors that led into the offices of Lawton, Hill and Cox, his home away from home for the past nine years. He had started out at the bottom of the heap in the prestigious architectural firm, working at a drafting table in a tiny cubicle with no windows.
    He now had an office that overlooked the Bay Bridge. Instead of working on small parts of big jobs, he had become a project leader, overseeing five other architects and numerous support staff in the design and construction of high-rise office buildings.
    As he stepped through the doors of his office, he breathed a sigh of relief. The thick burgundy carpeting that sank beneath his feet and the rich look of brass and glass felt right. He knew what to expect from his job, from his coworkers, and from his clients. His business life was predictable, and he was always in complete control.
    "Michael, we need to talk," said Jackson Cox as he walked out of the conference room.
    Jackson, one of the senior partners in the firm, was a short, balding man with a frenetic personality. He smoked cigarettes almost as fast as he talked, and his eyes darted constantly around the room as if he didn't want to miss the latest happening. Jackson was their marketing man, the one who went after the big jobs, the driving force behind Lawton, Hill and Cox's rise to the top.
    "What's up?" Michael asked as Jackson kept pace with him down the long hallway.
    "Gary