Wife for a Day

S
amantha Jones' beat-up
Volkswagen Bug was one perfect place to cry. It was small, confining, and with all her worldly possessions packed inside, it hugged her like a warm pair of grandmotherly arms.

She should have known Mr. Antonio would fire her if he caught her napping in the back room at Antonio's For Men. But she'd been so tired—tired of sleeping in the bug, tired of working too many hours for people who didn't appreciate her, tired of trying to earn enough money to pay off Johnnie Russo—so tired that she hadn't cared if she got caught. All she'd wanted to do was sleep.

Sam sniffed back a tear as she concentrated
on the blurry, palm tree-lined road and the cars whizzing by her slow-moving bug. She willed herself not to think about being unemployed. She didn't want to think about Johnnie, the money she owed him, or the fact that “Jaws,” as Johnnie was affectionately known in loan-shark circles, had painted her a very vivid picture of what would happen if she didn't abide by the terms of their contract, which expired in four weeks and two days.

She didn't want to relive all that had happened five months ago. She needed to watch the road, to think about what she was doing now, but the memories flooded her thoughts. In the space of six horrid days, she'd lost everything: years of savings, her pride, and the most cherished person in her life—her mama.

How easily she could see Mama lying in the hospital, her cheeks sunken, dark circles surrounding her eyes. Sam remembered holding her mother's frail fingers, wishing some of her own energy for life could seep through her mother's skin; but she'd already lost the will to go on.

The doctors at the county hospital, where the poor and downtrodden were treated, said they'd done all they could possibly do. Surgery had repaired her internal injuries, but the
chaplain told Sam the doctors couldn't do anything for an injured soul.

Sam had refused to listen. She'd already used her savings looking for a doctor who'd give her some positive news, so she'd gone to Graham Welles, an acquaintance who'd once said he'd move the sun and the moon for her. But Graham had added an addendum when Sam needed him most: he'd give her anything, but he wanted her in return.

Sam remembered the rage in Graham's eyes just before she'd run away from his home. She fingered the scar on her jaw, remembering the flash of his diamond ring when he'd struck her across the face. She'd nearly sold her soul to Graham Welles, but at the last moment she'd realized that wouldn't save her mama. Nothing could bring back the life that had been wasting away for years.

Later that night, the chaplain came again. The somber man walked into the hospital room not too long after Mama had died. He'd offered a prayer for Mama's soul, telling God that Felicity Jones might have been a prostitute—his voice lowering to a whisper when he uttered the word—but she'd had a heart of gold. He'd put a comforting hand on Sam's shoulder, and then he'd talked with her about options, emphasizing cremation because it was the cheapest way to go.

Sam could remember the look of shock on the minister's face, when she laughed and told him, “My mama's entire life has been scattered on the wind. I don't care how much it costs. I don't even care how I get the money, but my mama's going to have a place where she can put down roots, a place she can live forever, even if her final home is nothing more than a few square feet of dirt and grass.”

That's when Johnnie Russo had come into the picture.

She stopped at an intersection when the light turned red and wiped a tear from her eye.
Johnnie Russo
. She shook her head at her foolishness. She was too street-smart to go to a man with a reputation like Johnnie's, but she'd tried borrowing from the bank, from friends, from high-rate loan companies, and heard the same refrains everywhere she turned: your credit's not good enough; you have no assets; sorry, Sam, but I'm just as broke as you are. Johnnie hadn't cared about assets. He said he trusted her, and she'd fallen for his sympathetic line, which shifted dramatically right after the funeral, when he'd told her the initial payment was due in a month. The first late charge would be a broken arm.

She'd stayed in Southern California long enough to make the first installment on the
loan, and then she'd run away from Hollywood, from an acting career that had gone nowhere, from friends who'd been nothing more than acquaintances, from memories of her mother's tragic death. She thought she could start again in West Palm Beach, the town where she'd grown up.

But she'd finally destroyed any chance for a new life when she'd stolen the sewing machine from Mr. Antonio a few minutes ago.

A horn blared behind her, and Sam shifted into first and the bug crept up the road. She wished she could shift thoughts as easily, but the sewing machine was in plain view, and her guilt couldn't be pushed aside. She hadn't planned to steal it, but the opportunity had jumped at her when she was heading out of Antonio's For Men with the last of her belongings. She shouldn't have answered the phone—that was Mr. Antonio's job. She shouldn't have told the concierge from the Breakers that Antonio's would be honored to provide a tux for Jack Remington, the wealthy owner of the Remington Steakhouses. She'd planned to give Mr. Antonio the message, but when she'd interrupted him and the client he was working with, he'd made it perfectly clear he never wanted to hear from her again.

Stealing had been foolish—
and
wrong. But she'd promised the concierge that the job
would be done and done right, and he'd assured her that Mr. Remington would be generous with his tip—a tip she desperately needed. Her justification for turning into a thief was skewed, but what was done was done.

She sighed, glancing down at the sewing machine sitting on the floorboards. Hopefully, Mr. Antonio wouldn't notice it was missing before she had a chance to return it. Hopefully, he wouldn't notice the credit-card receipt for the Armani tux she'd sold until it was too late. Hopefully, he wouldn't find out that she'd gone to the Breakers to alter that tux, because he'd told her time and time again that special jobs could only be handled by an expert—himself.

Well, she was an expert, too. Mama had taught her how to hand-stitch doll clothes when she was a child, and Sam had fashioned outfits from scraps of fabric the Salvation Army volunteers had given her when she and Mama had gone to the shelter for meals. She'd thought she was a pretty good seamstress until she met Sydney Bowes, the flamboyant drag queen she and Mama had lived with for nearly a year. He'd taught her the fine art of alteration, something he'd mastered to make his six-foot-one frame look stunning in size twelve sequined gowns.

Mama had taught her about love and trust, the importance of proper manners and being good, while Syd taught her practical things like which thrift stores stocked the fanciest clothes and how to dicker with the owners to get the best deal. He'd told her that diamonds might be a girl's best friend, but a stunning pair of shoes and confidence are
the
most important fashion accessories.

“You can be anything you want to be, as long as you have confidence,” Syd had told her, and Mama had often echoed his words.

Sam was twelve when Syd came into her life and fourteen when he died of AIDS. He was the closest thing she'd ever had to a father, and she'd loved him nearly as much as she'd loved Mama.

Sam laughed, thinking about Mama and Syd. They were misfits living in a world that shunned their lifestyles. They were bold, daring, and claimed they didn't care that people laughed behind their backs. But Sam knew better because she was like them in so many ways. On the outside she was confidence personified; on the inside, beneath the bravado, was an insecure, lonely woman who'd been looking for a place to belong, but so far had fit in nowhere.

She already knew she didn't fit in at the Breakers. She'd been thrown out at the age of
ten, when she'd crashed a wedding reception just to see how the rich people lived. Getting kicked out again was something she couldn't afford.

Pulling over to the side of the road, she tilted down the rearview mirror and took a good look at flushed cheeks and dark circles under her tear-reddened eyes. She felt like a two-bit crook
and
looked like a bedraggled waif. She'd be lucky to make it into the lobby, and even if she did get that far, she was bound to scare away Mr. Remington before she had the chance to earn a tip.

She licked the tissue in her hand and wiped away the smudged mascara and eyeliner, then dug in her tote bag for a compact and applied powder that was a shade too dark. It had been perfect in California, when she'd had the time to play in the sun. Here in Florida, where she'd worked all day and part of the nights in Mr. Antonio's sweatshop, it wasn't right at all. Still, it covered up the circles.

Lipstick came next. Cherry red wasn't her most becoming color, but the samples had been free, and she'd run out of her own shade two weeks ago. She fluffed her hair, doing the best she could with her curls, then reached over the seat to grab the black Versace sandals—lethal four-inch stilettos—that she'd found hidden behind a pile of Hush Puppies
at How Tacky, a thrift store in West Palm Beach. They were perfect with her lacy white Kmart camisole and her How Tacky Donna Karan suit, things she'd bought because Mr. Antonio had insisted she wear fine, well-tailored clothing at work.

Mama and Syd had always told her that she should look her best, no matter what. And right now she needed to look like a million bucks. She was strong. She was going to get her desperately needed tip, and she wasn't about to let the Johnnie Russos and Mr. Antonios of this world knock her down.

Adjusting the mirror so she could once again see the oncoming traffic, she put the car into gear, and the VW sputtered up Royal Poinciana Way, passed the golf course and lush gardens, and came to a dead stop in front of
the
hotel on Breakers Row.

“
You don't belong here
.”

The voice came from out of her past, the voice of the man who'd ushered her out of the hotel years ago, but she shoved it aside.
You do belong
, she told herself.
You can be anything you want to be
.

Right now, she wanted to be Cinderella. She wished her fairy godmother would appear, wave her wand, and turn her Kmart camisole and her How Tacky rich-lady ensemble into something casually elegant, so she'd at least
look
like she belonged at the exquisite hotel. She wished the magic wand would wave over her orange VW bug and turn it into a gold Ferrari, too, because at the moment it looked like a battered pumpkin.

And…she wished the valet leaning toward her open window would wipe the grin off his face. “Good afternoon. You must be from Antonio's,” he said, glancing at the sewing machine on the floor. “The concierge told us to expect you.”

Oh, good. Now they're going to send me to the delivery entrance
. Well, she wasn't going to wait for something that humiliating to happen. She pulled a few precious dollar bills from her tote bag and slipped them into the young man's hand. “I won't be here long,” she said hastily. “If you'll help me get my things out of the car and tell me how to get to the Flagler Club, you can park the car.”

There. Direct, assertive, and confident
. She took a deep breath and pretended she had just as much right to be here as anyone else.

Within seconds a bellman had the black garment bag and the gray-plastic carrying case that contained the portable sewing machine out of the car, the valet ground the gears as he drove away in her bug, and she looked like every other rich person walking into the grand and imposing lobby.

The bellman escorted her to the elevator, but she insisted on going the rest of the way alone. She wanted to soak in the opulence, to feel, for just a little while, like she was one of the millionaires who were as plentiful as sand in Palm Beach.

Of course, Jack Remington, the man whose tux she'd come to alter, wasn't your run-of-the-mill Palm Beach millionaire. She'd read about him once and knew he was a big-time rancher somewhere out west, that he owned a string of steak houses that served Remington beef, fine wine, and rich desserts, and that he had a much-married socialite sister who lived in Palm Beach and owned a big old mansion on South Ocean Boulevard.

She'd never seen a picture of Jack Remington, but rancher, to her, conjured the image of a tobacco-chewing cowboy with dusty clothes and a sweat-stained hat. She couldn't envision him wearing the tux she was going to fit on him or, she thought cynically, tipping any more generously than Max Stuyvessant or Chip Chasen, who'd ignored her yesterday afternoon when they'd left Antonio's with their perfectly tailored ensembles.

Still, she remained hopeful.

The bell chimed, and the elevator doors slid open. An arrangement of lilies nearly as big as the room she worked in at Antonio's greeted
her. Shrugging the garment bag high on her shoulder, she gripped the handle of her sewing-machine case and confidently stepped into the Flagler Club. The concierge had been expecting her. He smiled, as if she were a real person—not a servant—and following his explicit instructions, she headed straight for Jack Remington's suite.

Raising her hand to knock, her knuckles stopped a few inches from the door when she heard a deep, irritated voice rumbling inside the room.

“Damn it, Arabella. Couldn't you have waited another week to call it quits?”

She could hear someone pacing. Jack Remington, more than likely, and he sounded like a bull ready to charge.

“I'm not going to argue with you,” he said, his voice calming somewhat. “I know we haven't talked much in the past month, but—”

His words were cut short, and silence permeated the room. Sam held her breath, afraid the man on the other side of the door would know she was lurking outside. Finally, he spoke again. “Keep the ring,” he said abruptly. “Keep the fur and the Jag. If I'm half the son of a bitch you claim I am, you deserve a hell of a lot more.” His voice trailed off, and then he laughed. “Your timing couldn't have been better, Arabella. You knew my promise
to Lauren. You knew this would break my sister's heart, and you knew hurting her was the only way you could hurt me.”