Sarah had to hand it to Nathan Sellers—the man knew how to impress. The waiting area to his offices—there was an office for himself and two more for his assistants—was a showcase of taste and wealth. The sofas were Italian leather and chrome, the walls were a faint, earthy green that held several large frame-free canvas paintings by contemporary artists. Coffee tables made of glass and stainless steel were adorned with crystal vases of fresh white roses. There was a five-foot sculpture of petrified wood in one corner, an indoor lemon tree in another. A modern glass fireplace built into one wall danced with flames.
“Sarah Young?” A tall, slender woman who moved with elegant long strides approached and held out her hand. “I’m Raina Jenstone. Mr. Seller’s vice president of furnishings. How do you do?”
The woman’s handshake was softer and less formal than Sarah expected. “I’m well, thank you. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Come into my office and we’ll talk. Is that some of your work?”
Sarah had brought a large leather portfolio case with prints of more than two dozen of her best paintings. “It is.”
“Excellent. Follow me.” Raina led the way down the hall, the soft fabric of her skirt quietly swishing around her legs. Her low heels made no noise on the plush carpet.
Raina’s office was, Sarah guessed, not nearly as large as her boss’s, but one could still play a game of tennis in here, she thought, even after it accommodated the large desk, conference table for eight, and a cozy seating area of two love seats separated by a sleek coffee table. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the Cumberland River with the Titans stadium—LP Field—dominating the horizon.
“Nice view,” Sarah said.
“I could say the same.” Raina’s smile was more appreciative than predatory, but her interest was clear.
She gestured for Sarah to sit in one of the love seats. To Sarah’s relief, Raina took the one opposite. “I want to look at your work, but I also have to be upfront with you.”
Sarah’s heart sank. Not again, she thought. She’d been through this so many times before, the I-like-your-work-but-I-just-can’t-help-you-right-now routine. She was clear-eyed about the competitive nature of her chosen field, which was every bit as cutthroat as Nashville’s music scene, but it didn’t make the hard lump of rejection any easier to swallow.
“I’m afraid Mr. Sellers can’t use any of your work right now. And I apologize for his absence. He had to fly to New York this morning rather last minute.”
“But you haven’t even looked at my portfolio yet.” Disappointed, petulant, however she sounded at the moment, Sarah didn’t care. She was devastated.
“I know, and I will. But—and this information can’t leave the room—Mr. Sellers is negotiating some very sensitive business right now with respect to his furniture chain, and it wouldn’t be prudent to contract your work at this time.”
Sarah stood, ready to make a hasty exit. There was no sense in wasting any more of her own time or Raina’s. The only good thing about this little meeting was that she didn’t have to put up with the lecherous man himself.
“Please. Stay.” Raina began flipping through the portfolio, not even looking up to see if Sarah was still standing. “Wonderful. Oh, I like that one. And in this one, the leaves of the trees are so textured, so authentic looking. It almost looks like a photograph. Gorgeous.”
Politeness inserted itself, and Sarah resumed her place on the love seat. “Thank you.”
Raina went to her desk and returned with her smartphone. “Do you mind if I take a snapshot of some of these? Nathan may want to see these at some point, and besides, I’d love to think about purchasing something.”
“Please. Be my guest.”
Sarah knew better than to get her hopes up on either account. She’d been through this enough times before, and right now, she couldn’t get out of town and to Chicago fast enough. Nashville was a place people came to dream, but the truth was, it was mostly a city of broken dreams. More artists and musicians had failed here than had ever made it, and Sarah was beginning to feel her own dream fraying at the edges. How long, she wondered bleakly, before she too gave up, the way so many other artists had? Before the mountain of rejections became too much? Money wasn’t an issue anymore, thanks to her side job with Joss. Worse than being short of money, she was beginning to realize, was being short of motivation. There was only so much patience and perseverance one could expend before the dream itself began to die. Chicago, she could only hope, was the ticket out of her funk.
* * *
Joss had close to an hour to kill before the regular weekly cardiac surgery department meeting. Entirely too much time to be idle. Because idle time led to thoughts of Chicago and Sarah, and she didn’t want to think about those two things right now, especially not together. She roamed the hall in the pediatric wing, looking for Nancy. If her friend was also free until the meeting, maybe they could grab a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.
“Ah, there you are,” Joss said, glimpsing Nancy about to enter a patient’s room.
“Come on in,” Nancy said with a sweep of her arm, “and meet my favorite patient.”
A rail-thin young black girl sat on the bed, her pajama’d legs dangling over the edge, and she looked up at Joss with dark eyes that nearly swallowed her face. She was gaunt, and her smile was like that of a plant too long without water.
“Roxi, this is Dr. McNab,” Nancy said. “Dr. McNab, this is my best girl, Roxi Stanton.”
Joss shook the girl’s limp hand and smiled, willing some happiness into the poor kid, even if for a moment. A nasal cannula, which was attached to a mobile oxygen tank, was strapped to her head. It always broke Joss’s heart to see kids suffering. It was the reason she had early on eliminated pediatrics as a specialty. Thank God people like Nancy were happy to do it.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Roxi. How are you feeling?”
Bony shoulders shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Do you have to put needles in me too?”
“Absolutely not, sweetie.” A sketch pad lay open on the bed beside the girl, a spray of colored pencils around it. “Are you an artist, Roxi?”
“She’s an exceptional artist,” Nancy answered. “And she’s going to be famous one day, isn’t that right, Roxi?”
Roxi gave another bony shrug, popped a finger in her mouth and stared glumly at her feet.
“May I see your work?” Joss asked.
The shrug was a little more enthusiastic this time. The kid was painfully shy.
Carefully, Joss flipped through the sketch pad. There were drawings of dogs, cats, a fairy with a magic wand, flowers, an angel. They were quite detailed and resembled the work of someone much older than what Joss guessed was an eight- or nine-year-old.
“Dr. Connelly is right, these are wonderful, Roxi. Do you take art lessons?”
The girl shook her head, her eyes darting up to Joss, then sliding back to her feet.
Immediately, Joss thought of Sarah and how she would love this girl’s drawings and her obvious talent. “What would you say if I brought around a real artist to visit with you sometime?”
Roxi’s eyes grew to twice their size, and Joss took it as a yes.
“Dr. Connelly, do you think it’d be okay if I brought my friend Sarah to visit Roxi sometime?”
Nancy smiled, patted Roxi’s knee encouragingly. “If her mom says it’s okay, I don’t see why not.”
“Well, it’s a date then,” Joss said to Roxi. “I’ll check with my friend. She’s going to be away for the next few days, but maybe after that, okay? As long as your mom agrees.”
“Okay.” A timid smile sprang to Roxi’s lips, but it was genuine, and it lifted Joss’s heart.
Nancy touched Joss’s elbow and led her out of the room. “Spectacular idea, Joss. I think a visit from Sarah would really lift her spirits. Maybe Sarah could bring some of her own work to show Roxi.”
“I’m sure she’ll want to do it. Is Roxi the kid you were telling me about a while
back? The one waiting for a new heart?”
“Yes, that’s her. She was admitted yesterday. She’s getting so weak, I don’t know how much longer she can hold out. Not long, I suspect. Another month or two and she may not be strong enough for surgery, even if a new heart materializes.”
“That sucks,” Joss said.
“Sweet kid too. I’m getting close to hoping for a miracle at this point.”
“Then I’ll hope with you. Got time for a coffee downstairs before the department meeting?”
“Of course, let’s go.”
The cafeteria was packed, but they found a corner near a window that looked out on Highway 431, where the pavement and the gray sky blended together, the movement of the zipping cars the only thing defining the horizon. Nashville weather in November could be schizophrenic—sunny and seventy one day, gray and near freezing the next.
“So, Chicago tomorrow, huh?” Nancy’s eyes gleamed. “Is it the first time you and Sarah are going away for a weekend together?”
The question made her blush. She hadn’t wanted to discuss Sarah with Nancy, because she didn’t want to keep perpetuating the lie.
“Nance—”
“You never did tell me the details, like how many dates you’ve been on, how you guys feel about each other. I mean to look at the two of you, it seems pretty clear to me—”
“Nance, wait—”
“—that you guys are madly in love, that you’re perfect for each other. Although I must admit, I had you pegged as being single for life, but hey, I think it’s great. Fantastic, as a matter of fact. And it’s even more perfect that she’s the artsy type, because God knows you’ve been surrounded enough all your life with the science geeks.”
It was useless to try to stop Nancy once she got on a roll like this, so Joss let her go on about how happy she was that she had found someone, how perfect Sarah was for her. When she finally paused for breath, Joss bit her lip, then plunged ahead with the truth. She couldn’t go off to Chicago with her best friend thinking she was on some kind of honeymoon. Besides, without the truth, she wouldn’t put it past Nancy and her partner Jayme to have her wedding all planned by the time she returned.
It took an uncharacteristic minute or two for Nancy to find her voice, and once she did, it cracked in astonishment. “So, she’s like, your hired girlfriend?”
“You look like you just downed a cup of cyanide. And yes, I guess you could say she’s my hired girlfriend.”
“So does that mean, like, a girlfriend in all respects, or…?”
“You mean, am I sleeping with her? Or more accurately, am I paying her to sleep with me?”
Nancy blinked. “It would be unabashedly rude for me to ask something like that, wouldn’t it? But…well, are you? I mean, how does this work?”
All Joss’s pent-up anxiety about her and Sarah exploded into a peal of nonstop laughter. Others looked at them, smiled, some even chuckled along with her, before turning back to their trays and their murmured conversations.
Nancy sat silent and stone-faced. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Fine, sorry.” It took a few starts and stops for Joss to continue. “No, we’re not sleeping together. And I’m not so pathetic that I need to pay someone for sex.”
“But you’d like to sleep with her?”
Oh Christ, Joss thought, not wanting to answer the same question she’d been asking herself for a week now. Of course she wanted to sleep with Sarah, but that was only in her mind. Sleeping with her for real would lead to far too many complications and would make her no better than some creepy, patronizing, chauvinistic rich guy who figured he could buy love and loyalty and sex from women as effortlessly as walking into a department store and cleaning out the joint. Even if Sarah wanted to sleep with her for fun and not for money, it would still be creepy and inappropriate.
“Come on, you know I’m not the type to do that,” Joss said tersely.
“Ha,” Nancy said, making a face. “Since when? Don’t you usually find a mindless, no-strings hookup at conferences?”
Her face burning again, Joss gave her friend an okay-you-got-me smile. “Sarah’s not like that. And that’s not what this is about.”
“You mean Sarah’s the type who would want a relationship, not just sex, and you’re not up for a relationship. Humph. Now it’s making more sense. I thought this whole girlfriend thing with you was too good to be true.”
The edge of condemnation in Nancy’s tone made Joss sit up a little straighter. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Sarah by being a shitty girlfriend. Because that’s exactly what would happen. I’d be the preoccupied, absentee girlfriend who can’t commit, and Sarah would wind up hurt and pissed off. And then she’d rightly dump my ass.” Sarah, Joss felt sure, was the antithesis of her mother, who had been willing to take whatever cast-off attention she could get from her mate. And if Sarah was like Madeline, well, Joss wouldn’t want her for a girlfriend.
“You know,” Nancy said, gesturing at Joss with her empty coffee cup, “that kind of crap becomes self-perpetuating. If you think you’ll never be a good partner to someone, you won’t be.”
“Thanks, Dr. Phil. It’s all moot anyway because Sarah’s too clever to ever choose me as a girlfriend.” It was only because she was getting paid that Sarah put up with being the dutiful little wife at all these boring functions. God, she thought, how did Mama ever do it? And more importantly, why? She’d never thought to question her mother’s role in her father’s life until Sarah had entered the picture.
Nancy shook her head curtly. “That sounds like a handy excuse to keep her at arm’s length.”
Joss rose, signaling that it was time for them to go. “You missed your calling, Nance, but it’s probably not too late to switch to psychiatry.”
“With patients like you, I’d go nuts.” Nancy smiled to show she was teasing, then bumped shoulders with Joss. “Try to relax in Chicago and stop being so pessimistic about women. And yourself. It could happen, you know.”
“It won’t happen, and I don’t want it to.”
It was easier for Joss to slip back into her single-for-life cocoon than to contemplate anything else. It was true that Sarah had made her poke her head out of that haven and dream for a brief moment of being half of something bigger, of being part of something that could make her feel whole in a way that medicine couldn’t quite accomplish. But to the core, Joss was a practical-minded woman. She knew that anything with Sarah outside the parameters of their arrangement was ultimately doomed. And she wasn’t one to embark on something that was destined to end in failure.
“You won’t blab my dirty little secret around here, will you?”
Nancy laughed and shook her head. “It’s more fun watching the gossipers think you’ve actually found the woman of your dreams. So yes, your secret is safe with me. But one day, I look forward to telling you ‘I told you so.’”
“In your dreams, my friend. In your dreams.”
“So,” Nancy whispered as they walked arm in arm down the corridor. “Tell me how this little arrangement with Sarah works. How much do you pay her? How much notice do you have to give her? Does she meet you at these events or do you pick her up? Do you go your separate ways afterward?”
“I feel like I’m on the stand being grilled. Forget I said you should go into psychiatry. I’m thinking law is your calling.”
Nancy laughed and squeezed Joss’s elbow. It was a relief to finally confess her arrangement with Sarah to someone.
Chapter Ten
Sarah stared out the plane’s porthole at the bar of clouds beneath them. It was a desert of snow if she let her mind believe it. Clouds should be simple to paint, but in truth, they were complex and one of the most difficult things to accurately capture with a brush. People were difficult to paint too, which was why Sarah had mostly stayed away from doing portraits. It wasn’t that she was intimidated by things that were difficult to paint, but rather that she might not do the subject justice. People were su
premely complex, and every expression was a tiny window into their multilayered world.
“You’ve been awfully quiet all afternoon,” Joss said from beside her. “Everything all right?”
It was a simple question, one that people asked in casual conversation all the time, not really expecting an honest answer. Maybe it was because it came from Joss or maybe because it hadn’t been a good week as far as her work was concerned, but the question brought Sarah to the edge of tears.
“Hey,” Joss said softly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Sarah said, retrieving a tissue from her purse and dabbing at her cheek. Nothing except very little in her life was worth a damn right now. Her career as an artist was going further and further into the toilet, no matter how hard she kept working at it. And her dating life was nothing more than a ruse. Her future looked like an endless loop of the same.
“It doesn’t seem like nothing to me.” Joss looked at her with eyes that were curiously cool and warm at the same time. They were like a blanket of grass on a hot summer’s day, grass that could be soothingly cool or pleasurably warm, depending on the temperature of the soil beneath it and the air above it. Sarah wanted to remember the particular shade of green in Joss’s eyes so she could use it in one of her paintings someday. If she ever bothered to paint again, that is.
“Thank you, Joss, but you don’t have to do this. It’s not part of the fine print.” Sarah couldn’t keep the shadow of bitterness from her voice.
“What are you talking about?”
“What I mean is, you don’t have to be my friend. And you don’t have to actually care about what I’m feeling or thinking.”
Joss’s jaw tightened and her eyes darkened, the cool/warm grass hardening to stone. “For your information, I would like to be your friend. And I’d like to help if I can. Anything wrong with that?”
Sarah shook her head, wiped the last of her tears. “No, I guess not.”
“So tell me what’s got you down?”
It was too easy to be drawn into the swirl of sharing confidences with Joss, to talk honestly and admit things that only her friend Lauren knew about her. Maybe her training as a doctor made Joss a good listener. Or maybe she really did care. Whatever it was, Sarah suddenly needed her as her salve. “I’ve been feeling a little hopeless about my career. My art.”
By Mutual Consent Page 8
