Strapless (14 page)

“We can't afford a live model.”

“Mannequin, then.” She paused for another breath. “Or
would we be better going with a multiethnic look? Lots of mannequins. You know. Irish, English, Scots, Italian, German…along with the Asian angle. Kind of highlight Australia's melting pot quality.”

Walt studied his empty desktop. He flicked a glance around the office, his gaze landing on a hazy water color of New York harbor, then glancing off a desk picture of his wife before her last illness. Something he never talked about. Darcie sometimes forgot he was a widower. He settled a look on her.

“What else?”

She didn't know. Suicide?

“Uh, um…”

“You don't have a plan written down. Do you?”

“No, but I think well on my feet.” She stood up.

“Get me something by five o'clock. Something great.”

“You don't like what I just told you?”

“I love it,” he said.

Darcie drifted from his office, Greta Hinckley forgotten. Merrick Lowell temporarily eclipsed. Dylan Rafferty…she'd talk with him tonight.

Phone sex. You had to love that, too.

Giving herself a mental high-five, she floated back to her cubicle.

“Damn, but I'm good!”

 

Darcie worked late. She took the ten-fifteen ferry home, then couldn't find a cab. By the time she arrived at Eden's apartment building on the Palisades, it was almost midnight. Exhausted, Darcie barely noticed that Julio wasn't on duty in the lobby when she passed.

Scarcely remembering what night of the week it was, she punched the elevator button and rode upstairs, yawning. Tuesday, that was it. A week after Sydney. Would Walt like her concrete ideas? It had taken Darcie the rest of the afternoon to get them down on paper. Then, after his initial comments, she'd slaved through dinner—wonton soup and a bag of fried noodles delivered from the
Chinese deli on the corner—to revise her proposal, the only person on the sixth floor until nearly ten o'clock.

If she'd seen Merrick tonight, she might have been forced to make some decision about their new “relationship.” But since she hadn't seen him, especially after Dylan's call, she wouldn't hate herself in the morning.

Oh, God. Dylan.

Jamming her key in the lock with sudden haste, Darcie let herself into the duplex. Intent on getting to the answering machine, the first thing she saw was Sweet Baby Jane blinking sleep from her eyes at the top of the foyer steps.

“Evening, SBJ.”

The cat showed her teeth in a snarl.

“Well. If that's how you want to play…”

She'd been trying to treat the cat with kid gloves for days. Patting her on the head. Chucking her under the chin. But nothing helped Darcie where the evil feline was concerned. Not even last night's full can of turkey and giblets dinner before bed. Jane had vomited the rich food all over the carpet, and Darcie wasn't certain she had fully removed the stain from her grandmother's precious new possession.

Face it, she thought. “You hate me. Don't you?”

Shuffling sounds from the upper level caught SBJ's attention—and Darcie's. Her grandmother appeared on the landing, then smiled. Guiltily. Why did she look guilty?

“There you are, dear. I thought I heard you come in.”

Eden's cheeks turned pink. She was wearing a silk wrapper—circa 1972, Bonwit Teller, Darcie guessed—a filmy nightie underneath, and scarlet nail polish on her toes. They were usually bare. And so was Eden, who preferred to sleep nude.

“Company?” Darcie murmured.

“You wicked girl.”

“Me?”

“You would call attention to my visitor. We won't disturb you.” Eden swirled around to head back along the upstairs hall. “Have some coconut cream pie. It's in the
fridge.” She stopped. “Oh, your man in the Akubra called.”

“Dylan?” Who else.

Darn. Lost in her work, she'd forgotten for a time—how could she?—and now she'd missed him. He would think she was avoiding him.

“What did he say?”

Her tone softened. “His little lamb is doing fine.”

“Me?” Darcie asked again.

“No, that's not right. He said
your
little lamb. I think he meant a sheep.”

“Oh. Darcie II.”

Eden pattered down the hall. “He has a marvelous voice, dear.”

Darcie agreed. He had marvelous everything. Maybe she'd judged their lack of suitability too quickly. “I may be going back to Australia, Gran.”

“I thought you should.”

With no further explanation, Eden disappeared into her bedroom—from which Darcie heard, when she tried to avoid Sweet Baby Jane's flying claws and danced by in the hall, the unmistakable sounds of…definitely…lovemaking.

“Julio?” Darcie called, unable to resist.

“Sí…”
he gasped.
“Señorita.”

“Welcome to the club.”

Eden sang out, “You
wicked
girl.”

“Me?”
Darcie said, giggling. And went on into her room.

She slammed the door shut on Sweet Baby Jane—nearly catching her tail in it. My grandmother, she thought. Eighty-two years old. Hot as a silicone-enhanced Las Vegas showgirl. It was enough to make Darcie—alone in her bed without Dylan's voice to warm her after all—feel an emotion as strong as Greta Hinckley's threat of revenge.

“I do not believe in envy,” Darcie muttered to herself.

 

She didn't believe in envy, but she did need to sleep.

It wasn't Gran keeping her awake nights, she told her
self. In the past three nights Darcie hadn't slept, and she could no longer blame jet lag for her bleary mornings.

By Friday Dylan still hadn't called.

Caught up in work at Wunderthings for Walt, she'd missed Dylan's phone sex date on Tuesday night. Wednesday and Thursday she'd spent lying on her bed, listening to Eden and Julio in the other room again. Earplugs were becoming a distinct possibility. For the fourth night in a row, she sprawled across the wide mattress and wished the telephone could let her off the hook.

Maybe he was giving her the business. After all, she'd stood him up the other night after his first call to the office. After “dumping” him in Sydney.

Her track record with men wasn't getting any better after all.

Merrick Lowell, either. Since his separation from Jacqueline, they no longer needed to rendezvous only on Mondays, but neither would Darcie meet him at the Grand Hyatt. They met in public now.

Why make it into anything more?

She didn't know what to do with the new Merrick, the wounded Merrick. Still, they were talking now, a little, and that was different.

As for Dylan…she blotted out an image of him.

Mr. Right hadn't materialized.

Darcie blanked out another vision, of Eden with Julio.

She even managed not to think about Claire, with Peter the Great. Or not.

No more waiting for the phone like a weepy teenage girl, she thought. No more envy of her own grandmother. She was back where she belonged. For now. For now, at least…

“You're seeing him again?” her sister Annie asked by phone the next night.

“Don't tell Mom.”

“You know what she thinks about New York. And unless Merrick puts a ring on your finger, she'll think the same of him.”

Darcie pleaded into the phone, “Annie, don't say a word. Promise.”

“Is he good?”

She didn't answer.
Who knows?
She couldn't remember. A recent downturn in the stock market—it went up, it went down, Darcie thought, why get excited?—had Merrick stressed out, and his divorce made things worse. Or was she imagining the change in him?

Why didn't she feel any better today?

Annie wasn't helping, even when she changed the subject.

“You need to tell Mom that you're willing to room with me.”

But I'm not.
“She'll never allow it. Not with Gran.”

Annie laughed. “No, an apartment of our own.”

“Look, Annie. I'm busy at work—frantic now that Walt has me refining the Sydney project design, which he changes every day. I don't have time to look for an apartment and I'm happy enough where I am.” Wasn't she?

“Listening to her with Julio every night?”

“Not every night. He works.”

“What kind of life is that, big sister? Schloffing back and forth to Manhattan on the ferry—”

“Schlepping.”

“—living with your
grandmother?
We'd have such fun fixing up a place. I'd get a job—something—and we could party every night.”

“I don't want to live in a sorority house, Annie.”

Her sister had been party girl of the year at Smith four years running, but she could almost hear Annie shaking her head now.

“You've been with Gran too long.”

Darcie smiled. “She swings better than I ever could, believe me.”

“And it's depressing you. I can tell. You need to be around younger people—like me—you need to be free and wild in New York.”

“You talk like that and Mom will never let you leave Cincinnati.”

“Oh, yes, she will. I'm wearing her down. Dad, too. All I need now is for you to—”

“Contribute to the delinquency of my baby sister? I'd never live down the shame. Mom and Dad—”

“Will relax if I'm with you. I won't be any trouble.”

“Like a rogue elephant on a rampage?” Darcie sighed. “I can't talk about this now, Annie. I have to go.”

“Are you meeting Merrick at the Hyatt?”

“Not tonight.”

“Is your Aussie calling?”

Thanks for that reminder.
“I doubt it.”

“Phone sex,” Annie said with a wistful sigh, then disconnected the call.

Wistful herself, Darcie lay back on her bed, and when she'd promised she wouldn't, waited for the telephone to ring.

As if she were Greta Hinckley. Without any life at all.

“A
nother night with Merrick, dear?” Gran's dry tone followed Darcie along the upstairs hall to the steps.

“It'll leave you and Julio the apartment to yourselves.”

“I'd rather have you home.”

Uh-oh, Darcie thought. Here we go again. Like another cue that this Wednesday evening wouldn't turn out well, Sweet Baby Jane wound around Eden's slim ankles, twined between Darcie's feet like a bobbin weaving cloth, and all but tripped her down the stairs—not an accident, Darcie felt sure.

Avoiding Jane's claws, she skimmed down the steps in front of Gran.

“Merrick's taking you to dinner?”

“And a movie,” Darcie murmured. “Last week we went to a play.”

“His son's third grade pageant? That's hardly Broadway, Darcie.”

“No, an off-off-Broadway thing. But I've seen his son's picture from the pageant. He looked really cute dressed like a turnip.”

In the center of the room, Eden whirled. “How could
one possibly dress like a turnip? Much less look appealing.” Clearly, she wanted a fight.

“Julio dresses like a doorman…and you seem to find him fetching. That dark-brown uniform, those fake gold epaulets, braid hanging everywhere.”

“That isn't the part of Julio I like to see hanging.”

Darcie arched a brow.

“Well, not hanging exactly,” Gran said. Was that a faint blush in her down-dusted cheeks? She patted her newly tinted hair. No apricot tonight. She looked more like a russet apple.

Darcie didn't respond about Julio. “I won't be late,” she told Eden.

“So it's just a quickie? He's a premature ejaculator. I knew it.”

“Gran!”

“Do I shock you?”

“Only every time you open your mouth. What would Mom say?”

Gran bristled. “If she knows what's good for her, she won't say squat until next Christmas. Do you know how many telephone calls I've had from that woman this week?”

Darcie silently groaned. Annie.

“Four,” Darcie guessed.

“Ten. Three of them last night. She interrupted Julio and me right in the middle of the most
delightful—
”

“I get the picture, Gran.” Darcie tried not to shudder. Like Merrick, Julio was far from her idea of a dream man. “What did Mom say?”

“She threatened me. If I didn't know better, I'd tell you that woman can see through fiber optics. Straight along the telephone wires from Cincinnati to Fort Lee. She told me if I didn't mend my ways, she'd have your father come see me. I always knew she was nosy, but it was as if she sat down right on my bed while Julio and I—”

“Please don't tell me she's putting Annie on a plane.”

“Judging from the loud wails in the background, no.
Your sister may be fighting the good fight, but she hasn't won yet.”

“You wouldn't want two of us in the apartment. Would you, Gran?”

“It won't come to that.”

Darcie didn't quite know what that meant. Nothing new for her these days—at home or at work. She gathered her coat, her gloves, her tote bag and started for the entryway, Jane hissing at her heels. If she hurried, she could catch the next ferry to Manhattan.

“When is Merrick's divorce final?” Eden's question stopped her cold. Darcie wouldn't escape this evening, like most others lately, without the rest of her grandmother's lecture.

“We don't discuss it.”

“You should, Darcie. Make the most of your life, not the least.”

“Merrick Lowell is not the man I'm going to marry.”

“And how well he knows that.”

What do you want from me?
At first, she'd assumed he was single but afraid of commitment; then she'd learned he was already married. Now, separated, he seemed too depressed to talk about another potential walk down the aisle. Or was that more naiveté on her part? “I probably couldn't live with him anyway,” she added.

“I should say not. You're wasting your time.”

“You met him once.” Wishing Eden would drop the subject, Darcie danced away from Sweet Baby Jane's flashing teeth. “He thinks you had the hots for him.”

“Darcie Elizabeth Baxter, that's absurd. I'm twice his age.”

“And then some,” she murmured. “What about Julio?”

Eden smoothed her candy-apple hair. “He's not that much older than Merrick.”

“How old?”

“Forty-one, two.” She was lying. He must be younger.

“Gran, you're twice
his
age.”

“Ah, but love conquers all.”

“You're in
love
with Julio?” Eden didn't answer. “I
thought he was just another of your boyfriends. Wait until Mom hears this.”

“My relationship with Julio Perez is my…affair, so to speak.” But Eden didn't smile, either. “He and I get on beautifully—in bed and out. Which is our business. Ours alone.”

“I couldn't agree more. So is mine, with Merrick.”

Gran's mouth thinned into a disapproving line.

“I'm well past childbearing, Darcie. It hardly matters whether Julio and I marry or spend the rest of our lives sleeping together. You, on the other hand…”

“I'm not ready to get married. To anyone.”

She sighed. “If you hadn't turned off that Aussie hunk—”

Gran scored a point. Bull's-eye.

Darcie stiffened. She felt terrible quarreling with her grandmother, but, “I did nothing to ‘turn off' Dylan Rafferty. He said he'd call, but he never did. His choice. I fail to understand how I could possibly ruin a relationship that a) never existed, b) isn't right for me and c) is probably the worst mistake of two weeks I ever made in my life.” No matter how good they felt.

“You're pining for him.”

“I am not ‘pining'!”

“Then call him. Or would you blithely sacrifice a chance for a reasonable romance? Merrick Lowell's only relationship, I might add, has been with himself. Since birth. He's a narcissist. I won't tell you again, Darcie, that man is simply using you.”

“You just told me.”

“He'll hurt you again in the end.” Eden looked exasperated. She reached out a hand to tuck a strand of Darcie's hair behind her ear, a placating gesture. “You're wearing that mutinous look. You inherited it from your mother. But I'm quite serious, dear. If both Claire and I have told you that you deserve better than Merrick Lowell, why won't you at least listen?”

“Because he—he—” She couldn't find the words to defend him, or herself.

Eden turned thoughtful, another bad sign. “Julio has an adorable nephew. I think you should meet him. His name is Juan—Juanito, to the family—and he—”

Just her luck. Before Darcie could shut the front door behind her on a dramatic statement, Sweet Baby Jane took a chunk out of her ankle. She hoped she didn't regret the yelped words, or the decision.

“I think I should look for my own apartment!”

 

“Jane, after all, is a big drawback to our living arrangement.”

And Annie had a point, Darcie told herself, also for the hundredth time. So did Merrick. A few days later she flipped through the Sunday paper to the real estate section. “What sense does it make to live with your eighty-two-year-old grandmother?”

“There's a whole world waiting,” Annie said through the receiver that Darcie cradled between her neck and shoulder. “Full of men. You know the saying, ‘Girls just want to have fun.'”

Darcie sighed. Her last evening with Merrick hadn't improved once she left Fort Lee.

Forgetting all about Annie, Darcie rattled the open newspaper, folded it into a quarter width as if she were on the crowded ferry or a commuter train with other paper-readers jammed close. Occupy as little space as possible, urbanites. Dylan could probably spread a newspaper over hundreds of acres if he wanted. But lately in Gran's apartment, Darcie felt like an interloper prying into Eden's “affair” with Julio, listening—though she never meant to—through the bedroom walls at night.

Ugh.

Taking up too much room.

It didn't help that Gran's sex life seemed far superior to Darcie's, which had become nonexistent.

But did they have to fight about it?

In the past twenty-four hours neither of them had spoken to the other. Her fault? Poor Julio had become their go-between, their interpreter—and his English wasn't that
great. If Eden was waiting for Darcie to apologize, to take back her threat to move from the duplex, she would wait until she turned 164.

Had Darcie outstayed her own welcome?

Running a finger down the column—Furnished Apts./East Side—she gave a sigh. Either the rent seemed too high (all rents in New York were too high) or the advertised space sounded dreary. Sometimes both.

“Darcie,” Annie whined in her ear.

“I'm reading.”

“Anything good?”

“No. And Mom hasn't said you can come to New York.”

“I think she's weakening. Look for some place big enough for both of us. Oh, and no tenements. No dangerous neighborhoods.”

Hmm. That seemed almost worth the sacrifice to keep Annie in Cincinnati.

“A quote from Mom?”

Her gaze went blank on the real estate pages. Was she nuts to even consider this? Annie was a slob, while Gran was one of the neatest, hippest people she knew. Darcie regretted her angry outburst, yes, even her threat. But to stop hearing Julio and Eden in the throes of passion? To quit waltzing around Sweet Baby Jane? To decorate her own place…have parties…walk to work? She wouldn't have to ride the ferry again, unless she decided to visit Eden.

Once they weren't angry with each other anymore, that is.

A flash of sadness arced through her.

Maybe it was time to strike out on her own. More than time. She imagined Eden Baxter would be happy to get her duplex—and her privacy—back. Surely there was some logical order to be found in her own life.

And who knew? In the city Darcie might meet someone totally unlike Merrick—or Dylan Rafferty.

Hey, Matilda…

 

In her own apartment the next Thursday, Claire Spencer held on to the last of her temper.

“I'm sorry, Tildy. I can't continue this charade.”

From beneath her fluffy red bangs, Tildy gazed at her blankly. “Charade?”

Claire reached into the bassinet where Samantha was squalling at a decibel level in the upper reaches of human hearing. Frantic, her heart pounding, Claire lifted the baby into her arms and gently rocked her until Sam's limbs stopped flailing and her rigid spine relaxed. “Shh, Mommy's here. You're fine.”

“I only put her down for a minute, Mrs. Spencer.”

Claire frowned. “I walked into this apartment more than
five
minutes ago. No one heard me—of course you didn't. Sam was crying too loud. I changed my shoes, put on a pair of jeans…and she's still crying.”

“It's good for her lungs,” Tildy said lamely, brushing hair from her eyes.

“Well, it's not good for mine.” Claire's heart felt squeezed in her chest. “I'll write you a check for the whole week. But I want you to leave. Now.”

“My references…”

“Tildy, if I were you, I'd go to computer school. Or take bartending lessons. Anything but child care, especially with a newborn.”

Tildy's thin mouth set. “Babies can be difficult.”

“Yes. I know. So can parents,” Claire muttered, then jerked Tildy's coat from the nursery's buttery-yellow giraffe rack trimmed in coral-pink.

“I need the pay, Mrs. Spencer.”

Tildy's whine set her teeth on edge. Her now hard green eyes frightened Claire but she wouldn't let it show.

“You are a lucky young woman. If I followed my worst instincts, I'd be on the phone to the agency. I thought I was hiring a competent, caring stand-in so I could return to my career. Instead, I've spent every moment at my office biting my nails, twining my hair until it snaps off in my fingers…
worrying
that some terrible mishap has befallen my only child!” Claire finished in a loud, spiraling tone
that made Samantha's face squinch tight again. Her tiny body quivered. Claire was a breath away from screaming when she marched from the cheerful room. If she didn't leave, she would not only communicate her tension further to her nine-week-old daughter; she might strangle Tildy Lewis.

Claire strode into the living room, jiggling Sam in one arm and crooning to her while she searched with her other hand through Peter's desk for the checkbook. Her heart still thumping, she bent to scrawl her signature on the form. Tearing off the check, she shoved it at Tildy.

“I've added a small bonus to tide you over until you get another job. I pray it won't be as a nanny.”

Claire had no sooner shut the door behind Tildy—with a shaky sigh of relief—when the bell rang. Thank goodness Peter hadn't been home yet to talk her out of firing the girl. Swearing under her breath, not with her usual creativity because of Samantha's presence, she yanked open the door again.

Darcie stood there, gaping. “Who was the red-faced girl I just saw stalking down the hall?”

“My ex-nanny.”

“She looked barely out of diapers.”

“Umm. That's where it starts.” Claire held the door wide. Then took another look at Darcie's face. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Darcie tried but when she leaned to greet Samantha, Claire saw tears in Darcie's eyes. Samantha chortled.

“My daughter may not know a female disaster when she sees one, but I do. In fact, I am one. Now that I've ditched her nanny, before guilt overwhelms me for ruining someone's life, let me hear about your day.”

“Oh, Claire.”

She carried the baby back to her bassinet, turned on the dolphin mobile that hung above it, and listened for a moment to the chime of its nursery tune. “‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider.'” Then Claire went to the kitchen, retrieved a half
bottle of merlot from the refrigerator and poured it equally into two balloon glasses.