The Better Woman (21 page)

‘Already dressing the part,' Sarah commented, noticing a new Armani tie around his neck.

He looked sheepish. ‘I'm trying to disguise my cheap suit with a flashy tie, but I'm sure they have me sussed – those guys spend so much on clothes, they make me look like a street urchin by comparison.'

Sarah laughed. Tim was far from a street urchin. In fact, business attire really suited him. In the mornings, when he was getting ready for work, he went around the apartment in his white shirt, tucked in at the waist, open at the neck. The plain white emphasised his dark hair and eyes. Sarah, in the midst of her own morning routine, often found it impossible not to sneak surreptitious glances.

Rob Spencer, one of the foreign exchange dealers who was
designer-clad from head to toe and would have been good-looking if he wasn't so conceited, came over and slid his arm around Sarah's waist.

‘Where are you going after here, Irish?'

Sarah gave him a polite smile as she pointedly removed his arm. ‘Home.' Then she added, in case he hadn't got the message, ‘On my own.'

He smirked. ‘Playing hard to get – cute.' He leaned close to play his trump card. ‘How about lunch at Bakka's next week?'

She hadn't heard of Bakka's but she could guess what it was like. The dealers were food snobs of the highest degree, patronising the city's trendiest restaurants, trying to outdo each other in securing the very best table.

She shook her head. ‘I have a boyfriend.'

Rob frowned in puzzlement. ‘What's that got to do with anything?'

Genuinely baffled, he swaggered off and soon he was hitting on another, more receptive girl.

Sarah rolled her eyes to Tim. ‘Please don't turn out like him. Maybe your new Armani tie is the start of a terrible change . . .'

Tim stamped his feet. ‘These are firmly on the ground,' he assured her, then drank back his beer. ‘Come on, Sarah, I'm suddenly bored. Let's get out of here.'

Denise was the only one of the group who noticed when they left.

Sarah ran to the phone when it shrilled through the apartment early on Sunday morning.

‘Sarah!' It was Nuala and she sounded very excited. ‘Guess what?'

‘You've won the lotto?'

‘I wish. But nearly as good. Colin and I got engaged last night.'

Sarah was floored by the news. A noticeable silence stretched down the line as she tried to gather her wits.

‘Congratulations.'

God, that sounded feeble. Surely I can do better?

Nuala didn't seem to notice anything amiss. ‘Oh, you should see the ring, Sarah. It's a cluster of tiny diamonds. Colin got it in Keane's . . .'

Sarah only half listened as her friend gushed on about clarity and carats.

Colin's all wrong for you
, she wanted to shout.
You can't marry him
.

She was vaguely aware of Tim coming out of his room. His hair tousled and Levi's hung low on his hips, he walked down the hall towards the kitchen.

‘Of course, you'll be my maid of honour . . .'

Sarah couldn't think of anything more two-faced than signing her name to the marriage certificate. Didn't the maid of honour have to at least
like
the groom?

‘When's the big day?'

‘Christmas. Imagine if it snowed – a white wedding!'

‘Isn't that a bit soon?'

‘Why wait when you're sure?' Nuala was quick to respond.

When Sarah hung up the phone, she knew she had no hope of going back to sleep so she headed for the kitchen. There she found Tim pouring boiled water into a cracked mug.

He paused to ask, ‘Want one?'

She nodded and sat down at the white plastic-top table. ‘Did the phone wake you?'

‘No, I've been waking at the crack of dawn for the last week. Was it Kieran?'

Sarah rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘Some chance.'

Truth be told, she had thought it might be him when she'd dashed out of bed. But she should have known better. She'd almost felt like a liar when she'd told Rob Spencer that she had a boyfriend. Did a phone call every few weeks constitute a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship?

‘No, it was Nuala. She's got engaged!'

‘Jesus!'

Sarah grimaced. ‘I know! I can't believe it either. Colin doesn't like going out, or doing anything that involves spending money. He can hardly hold a conversation, for God's sake. He'll squeeze the life out of her.'

‘Have you told her what you think?' asked Tim, sitting down at the other side of the table. Sarah had an unhindered view of his toned chest with its pale skin and sprinkle of dark hair. Disconcerted, she averted her eyes.

‘No way. Even though she's my closest friend, I feel I have no right to run down her boyfriend.'

Tim sipped his coffee, his eyes more broody than usual. Sarah had a feeling that the conversation was about to turn personal.

‘Would you give an opinion to a friend who asked for it? Say, what if I asked you outright what you thought of Louise?'

‘Don't.'

‘I am.'

‘Oh, Tim,' Sarah sighed. ‘Let's not start this. What I think doesn't matter.'

‘It matters a hell of a lot more than you think, Sarah,' he said darkly. ‘Louise and I are on the verge of breaking up. It's because I –'

He stopped at the sound of movement from the lounge area. A few moments later a bleary-eyed Charlie leaned his shoulder against the kitchen's doorframe.

‘Feckin' impossible to get any sleep in this gaff,' he declared. ‘First the phone, then you two gabbing away . . . Is that kettle still hot?'

Louise moved out the following week. Tim, wisely, made himself scarce and went off somewhere with Charlie. Sarah, feeling sorry for the other girl, knocked on the door of her bedroom to ask if she needed any help.

‘Not from you,' was her caustic reply.

Sarah didn't rise, understanding that Louise needed to lash out at someone. Clothes were strewn across the bed and Louise folded them roughly before placing them in her suitcase.

‘I'm really sorry about you and Tim,' said Sarah quietly.

‘Sorry?' Louise stopped folding to spit out, ‘God, you've some cheek.'

Sarah knew she was hurting but her animosity seemed rather extreme. ‘Excuse me?'

‘He's all yours now,' said Louise in a brittle voice. ‘I'm sure you'll make a lovely couple.'

Sarah frowned. It seemed that Louise had got her wires crossed somewhere.

‘You're wrong –' she began.

Louise cut her off. ‘Stop acting like Little Miss Innocent. You've been stringing him along for years, pretending to be his friend, making him fall for you.'

‘Tim
is
my friend,' Sarah told her, her voice clipped. ‘Nothing more.'

Louise laughed bitterly. ‘God, you must think I'm really
stupid. Now, get out of here and leave me alone.'

Sarah did as Louise bid and clicked the door shut. Seeing the splatter of rain on the window, she grabbed her raincoat and stomped down the stairs.

Have I been stringing him along?
She pulled up her hood.
Is Louise right?

The rain was cold and Sarah walked with her chin burrowed into her chest, down West 3
^rd
Street, left along Mercer and then back through Waverly. Her sneakers squelched through puddles and damp seeped into her socks. Peggy came into her thoughts and a lump caught in her throat.

‘
Jesus, Mary and Joseph
,' Sarah could hear her say. ‘
Get in out of the rain before you catch your death
.'

Sarah ducked into a café and ordered a latte. The waitress gave her a big smile, the kind of smile that Sarah used to give when tips made up the sum total of her pay packet.

As Sarah sipped the weak coffee, she finally admitted the truth to herself. She had known for a long time that Tim was a little bit in love with her. She couldn't, however, figure out how she felt about him.

The onset of the cold weather brought many obvious changes to New York: the big old trees lost their rich greenery, the morning air cut like glass down Sarah's throat, and the city was lit up in all its glory when she left the office in the evenings.

Sarah was also struck by other, more subtle changes. The commuters became faceless, their features hidden by the raised collars of their heavy overcoats. And it seemed like the dark evenings brought with them an increased propensity for violence, the atmosphere in the subway tense with wary glances between the passengers. Yet the most disturbing difference was the homeless: hundreds more than the summertime, congregating on the street corners, some with scrawny dogs, some with cardboard signs reading,
I'm hungry and homeless. Help me
.

At work Sarah was focused. She updated the deals on the computer as quickly as possible each day so she could go to where all the excitement seemed to happen: the trading floor.

‘Anything I can help with here?' she'd ask Denise. ‘It's quiet downstairs.'

Sometimes Denise would allow her to call the brokers to confirm the deals. Sarah appreciated her trust. Because she was a director, Denise handled only the biggest deals, some in excess of ten million US dollars. Sarah returned her trust by taking extreme care on the phone.

Sarah was constantly propositioned with drinks, lunches and dinners. Whoever it was always made a point of mentioning the establishment he wanted to take her to, as if the name alone would make her swoon. Most of them were married or engaged. Sarah wondered if the wives and girlfriends had any idea how faithless their men were.

Time and time again she told them she wasn't available, that there was a boyfriend back home. Her morals were a source of bafflement to them and she started to question herself. Was she the crazy one to stay true to Kieran? When had he last called her? Last told her that he missed her? He hadn't written a single letter. Not one.

Tim was a personal dilemma of another kind. With Louise's departure, their easy friendship had developed an edge. They were often alone in the apartment as Charlie worked antisocial hours. If Sarah looked too long, she'd catch an odd expression on Tim's face. As if he was holding something back. Something that would change things forever if said out loud. Something she wasn't ready to hear.

Nuala's wedding became the new benchmark for Sarah's return home. As the weeks counted down to December, the trees became completely bare, the daytime bitterly cold, and the homeless even more prevalent. Sarah couldn't pass them.

‘What did you do that for?' Grant Forbes, Tim's boss, asked incredulously when he saw her drop a coin into a beggar's polystyrene cup.

‘Because he's homeless.'

‘He's homeless because he's too lazy to get off his ass and get a job,' Grant declared. ‘And it makes it all too damned easy when people like you give him cash for nothing.'

Sarah, disgusted, quickened her pace and caught up with Tim. They were all on their way to a club, the usual Friday night out where the cost of a cocktail would feed the beggar for a couple of days.

Once in the club and propped with their expensive drinks, the traders began to talk about the subject matter at the fore of their minds: the annual bonus. With the end of the year approaching, speculation had begun in earnest.

‘If they don't pay me three hundred thousand, I'm going to Merrill Lynch . . .'

Sarah's mouth gaped when she overheard the enormous sums of money these young men, some only a few years older than her, expected to earn.

‘That bastard better not get paid more than me . . .'

Rivalry fuelled their greed. It seemed that no matter how big the bonus, it would not suffice if it was less than someone else at the same level got paid. Sarah wondered what was on their shopping list. How much would they whittle away on designer clothes and eating in the city's best restaurants? How much would they spend on sensible things like real estate or other investments? One thing she was sure of, after Grant's callous attitude to the beggar, little of the money would go to charity.

Much later on that night, when he had finally tired of talking
about his bonus, Grant whispered in Sarah's ear. ‘How's Mother Teresa?'

‘Fuck off.'

His breath was warm as he slurred, ‘Come on, let's go somewhere quiet.'

‘Fuck off,' she repeated again.

Grant, oblivious that she despised him, stroked his hand down her waist-length hair.

He cocked his head to one side. ‘Forget Mother Teresa – I'm going to call you Rapunzel.'

Sarah pointedly removed his hand from her hair and went to find Tim.

Grant's comment goaded Sarah into getting her hair cut. She chose Fred's Hair Salon simply because she passed it every day on the way to work. When she saw the inside, with its old- fashioned décor along with two elderly ladies sitting under dryers, she quickly turned on her heel to leave.

‘Hold on.'

A hand gripped her arm, its long talon-like nails stained with dye. Her gaze moved up to the hand's owner, a middle-aged man with bleached hair and a sun-bed tan. She presumed he was Fred.

‘I was mixing dye out the back when you came in. Sit over here.' He propelled her towards a seat and then ran his talons through her hair as he assessed its thickness and condition. ‘This style is medieval – you look like Rapunzel.'

Sarah bristled. ‘That's why I'm here – I want something more modern – something that says “don't mess with me”.'

‘How about colour?'

‘What's in?'

‘Streaks – I could do a few blonde ones down the parting.'

Sarah shot a worried glance at the old ladies and prayed that Fred knew how to do more than blue rinses.

‘Okay.'

He shampooed and conditioned her hair without making any further conversation.

Across the room, one of the old ladies croaked, ‘It's getting hot under here.'