by Anita Hughes
“There are some good songs about Chicago, it must be a great town.”
“Very funny.” Cassie stood up and walked to the fridge. Her muscles ached and her throat felt dry. She took out a pitcher of lemonade and filled a glass with ice.
“I knew he was in love with you.” Alexis nodded wisely. “He was practically carrying a sign.”
“I said no.” Cassie poured a glass of lemonade.
“Did you take time to think about it?” Alexis dunked her sandwich in a glass of milk.
“There’s nothing to think about.” Cassie sat at the table. “I can’t just pick up and move.”
“You were about to move,” Alexis replied. “You were apartment hunting.”
“In San Francisco! I can’t abandon the emporium even if I wanted to be with James.”
“Do you want to be with him?” Alexis clasped her hands together and leaned her elbows on the table.
“You’re not Dr. Phil.” Cassie frowned. “He’s lovely to be around. But I can’t leave my mother and the emporium. I promised to keep an eye on Isabel this summer.”
“If you didn’t have those commitments, would you go?” Alexis prodded.
“I do have them!” Cassie stood up and paced around the room. “I can’t add quitter to my résumé.”
“Cassie, no one would call you a quitter. You’ve launched the emporium. It’s wonderfully stocked; you’ve created great relationships with the suppliers. Someone could take it over.”
“My mother has been waiting for me to join Fenton’s since I was six years old.”
“Your mother wants you to be happy,” Alexis said.
“She tried to set me up with a millionaire playboy.” Cassie grinned. “She doesn’t want me to be an old maid. It would be bad for her image.”
“Then she’d approve.” Alexis nodded. “She loves James. I think she has a secret crush on him.”
“It’s too soon.” Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know how I really feel about him. I’m not going to pick up and move cross-country. What if he sings in the shower, or puts Tabasco on his eggs?”
“Carter sings in the shower,” Alexis mused. “He actually sounds a lot like Sting.”
“I think I should spend some time alone. Get my own apartment, work at Fenton’s, keep my feet on the ground.”
Alexis drummed her nails on the table. “You don’t want to end up a member of the Spinsters. They are the cattiest women at social functions.”
“I’m not going to be a Spinster.” Cassie giggled. “Maybe I’ll join one of your book clubs or take cooking classes at night. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make a soufflé.”
“You can’t make love with a soufflé.” Alexis ate the last bite of bread and washed it down with milk.
“Life isn’t sex and shopping,” Cassie retorted.
“It is about trying to be happy,” Alexis said slowly.
“I don’t need a man to make me happy. Aidan made me unhappy. Aidan broke my heart.” Cassie drained her glass. Suddenly she felt tired. She wanted to climb in bed, pull the comforter over her head, and sleep.
“Don’t run away from the possibility of happiness.” Alexis swept breadcrumbs from her lap.
“You and the fortune cookies!” Cassie pushed her chair back. “I don’t need any more advice, I’m going to bed.”
* * *
When Cassie came down to breakfast the next morning, Alexis was already at work. She left an invitation to a cocktail party Princess Giselle was hosting to save the baby whales.
“Since when has Princess Giselle had an interest in whales?” Cassie called Alexis on the phone. She propped the phone under her ear and stirred a pot of oatmeal on the stove.
Cassie woke up feeling guilty for snapping at Alexis. She remembered how Alexis took her in when she appeared at her door, sopping wet and burning up with fever. Alexis allowed her to stay for months, encouraged her to swim in her pool and sit in her steam room. She listened to Cassie and never criticized Aidan until the marriage was truly over.
Cassie spooned the oatmeal into a bowl and thought about James. She missed his smile, and the easy way he carried himself. She pictured him leaning out of the cable car, crooning a verse of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” and giggled. He seemed to enjoy himself and it was contagious. She felt lighter when she was with him, like a college coed.
“Whales swim under the Golden Gate Bridge and they get stuck in the bay,” Alexis explained. “Boats have to turn them around and lead them back out to sea. It’s a real problem.”
“It sounds like a noble cause.” Cassie looked out the window. She knew she should go to work. She had dressed in her favorite Pucci dress and sling-back sandals and brushed her hair back with an enamel clip. She wanted to be excited about going into Fenton’s, about driving through the city on a warm summer day. But sitting by herself in Alexis’s kitchen, thinking about Aidan and James and her mother, she was tempted to lock herself in Alexis’s entertainment room and watch The Wedding Planner and The Proposal.
“Giselle has cultivated some of the city’s more eligible bachelors,” Alexis replied. “You should come.”
“I don’t want to meet men.” Cassie sighed.
“If you’re not going to Chicago with James, it doesn’t hurt to show your face. Fenton’s is catering it. You’ll be supporting your own store.”
“I’ll think about it, if I don’t have to wash my hair that night.” Cassie added milk to the oatmeal. She poured in brown sugar and added sliced strawberries.
“Where are you? I’ve been here for hours. Karen Caulfield just bought out the Chanel boutique. Her husband is the venture capital king. Carter used to have his poster on the wall in college. We should have lunch and celebrate.”
“I’ll be in soon.” Cassie stirred the oatmeal. It smelled delicious, like vanilla and berries, but she couldn’t make herself take a bite.
“You can’t sit at home and watch old movies,” Alexis admonished her.
“How did you know?” Cassie laughed.
“I’ve known you since kindergarten,” Alexis replied. “Come to work and I’ll buy you a vanilla custard, with whipped cream.”
“Okay.” Cassie put the milk in the fridge and took the bowl to the sink. “I’m coming.”
“Good girl.” Alexis smiled. “I’ll be waiting.”
* * *
Cassie discovered a huge bouquet of flowers on her desk at the emporium. There were a dozen pink roses, puffs of baby’s breath, several graceful water lilies, and clusters of pink and white chrysanthemums in one of Axel’s signature crystal vases. The card read simply: “Keep talking to the flowers.”
“Wow, you must be good in bed.” Alexis whistled. “I only get arrangements like that if I perform certain acts I studied in The Tao of Sex.”
“They smell lovely.” Cassie walked around the desk.
“You look as pale as one of those actors in the Twilight movies.” Alexis studied her critically. “Are you sure you don’t want to race to the airport, meet James at the gate, and fly off into the sunset?”
“No.” Cassie giggled.
“I’ve always wanted to do that.” Alexis picked a rosebud and slipped it in her hair. “It looks so cool in movies. Let’s have lunch and I’ll distract you with details about Giselle’s party. It’s Friday night and it’s going to have an ocean theme. There are going to be goldfish in goldfish bowls on the tables and women are asked to wear blue.”
“I hope you’re not serving salmon.” Cassie laughed, following Alexis onto the escalator.
“A gorgeous Valentino just came in that would fit you perfectly: turquoise silk with a lace slip. I’ll bring it down so you can see it.”
“I didn’t say I was coming.” Cassie shook her head.
“You didn’t say you weren’t.” Alexis got off the escalator and waited at the café to be seated.
* * *
After lunch, Cassie began to feel better. The emporium was busy and customers stopped
her to tell her how delighted they were with the produce selection.
“I can’t get such sweet heirloom tomatoes anywhere else in the city,” a perfectly coiffed brunette cooed, carrying her Princess bag to the escalator. “You’ve made shopping fun. And I love the cooking demonstrations. I wanted to take Andre Blick home.” Her laugh tinkled like a dinner bell. “But my husband wouldn’t approve.”
Cassie worked straight through until five o’clock, talking to suppliers, making sure every counter was stocked with fresh merchandise. She spent an hour creating a display of picnic foods: bunches of grapes, pots of Brie, stone wheat crackers, and loaves of French bread. She arranged them on a round table with a picnic basket and a checkered tablecloth. She found herself glancing at the escalator, half expecting to see James, his hands shoved in his pockets, coming to see her.
Her cell phone rang as she was studying projections for June and July. The graphs were rising steadily higher. A selection of pre-made entrées packaged in Fenton’s signature red boxes was flying out the door. Cassie had begun a home delivery service that was popular with women who couldn’t fit food shopping into their social calendars. She and Alexis invented a smoothie made of organic blueberries, raspberries, and vanilla milk and named it the Fenton’s Fizz.
“Did you get my flowers?”
Cassie smiled at the sound of James’s voice. “They take up half the desk, but they are beautiful.”
“I had a great time, Cassie.”
“So did I.” Cassie plucked a sprig of baby’s breath.
“I’m leaving on Saturday. I wanted to see if you changed your mind about my invitation?”
Cassie looked around the room teeming with shoppers. “I’m sorry, James. I’ve had too much change. If we could take it slowly…”
“I’m sorry, Cassie. I can’t do long distance.” He paused. “I talked to my landlord. If you want the apartment, it’s yours. I’ll leave the rugs and the sketch of the Bay Bridge.”
Cassie smiled. “I think I will take it, it gets beautiful light.”
“Would you like to go to dinner Friday?” James asked.
Cassie took out a long-stemmed rose and laid it on the desk next to the baby’s breath.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“I don’t want you to remember me eating Chinese and McDonald’s. I want to take you somewhere fantastic: Michael Mina’s or Fleur de Lys. We can go dancing in the Starlight Room. It’s my last night.”
Cassie saw Alexis getting off the escalator carrying a blue silk dress. “I have plans Friday night, James. I’m sorry.”
20.
Cassie rode the glass elevator to Princess Giselle’s penthouse, nervously clutching her evening bag. She hadn’t wanted to go to the cocktail party but Alexis had insisted earlier that evening.
“Carter is coming home next week and you’re moving to your apartment, where you’ll spend the rest of your life drinking hot cocoa and talking to your cat.” Alexis knocked on Cassie’s door on Friday evening.
“I don’t have a cat.” Cassie sat by the window flipping through an issue of Architectural Digest.
“Since when did you become interested in interior design?” Alexis picked up the magazine suspiciously.
“There’s an article about Emerald.” Cassie blushed.
“You need distraction!” Alexis threw the magazine on the bed. “It will be our last girls’ night. I hung the Valentino in your closet. Come look at it, Cassie, it’s orgasmic.”
The Valentino was Italian silk with a cutout back and antique ivory buttons. Alexis had paired it with delicate Miu Miu sandals and a matching turquoise evening bag.
“It is gorgeous.” Cassie touched the silky fabric.
“You can’t be in the same room as that dress and not want to show it off. It’s un-American. Let’s go Cinderella, I promise I’ll get you home by midnight.”
Princess Giselle’s apartment took up the entire fortieth floor of the St. Regis. Cassie had read about it in magazines. It had 360-degree views of the city and two thousand square feet of patios. The floor-to-ceiling windows made you feel as if you were standing in the clouds. The bay glittered in the distance and the whole city lay at your feet like a board game.
“Whatever you’ve read, be prepared for something better,” Alexis said as they waited for the elevator doors to open. Alexis wore an aquamarine lamé minidress and gold sandals. Her hair was curled into a bun and secured with a diamond chopstick. Her lips were painted pale pink and she wore no jewelry except for diamond earrings. “Giselle has added her personal touch to the furnishings. It’s a cross between Louis XIV and Andy Warhol. You’re going to love it.”
The living room was buzzing with women wearing silk cocktail dresses and metallic sandals. Men sporting Italian blazers and suede loafers gathered at the bar that stretched across one wall. The floors were polished wood and the ceilings were so high Cassie had to crane her neck to admire the chandeliers. Signed Andy Warhol prints of Marilyn Monroe hung on the walls, and a twelve-foot gilt mirror stood by the window.
“I didn’t know people lived like this.” Cassie didn’t know where to turn. There were leather conversation pits and clusters of sofas covered in ivory velvet. Giant palm trees divided the room and bookshelves were lined with first editions. A glass coffee table held gold chess pieces and there was an original Rodin statue in the corner.
“Giselle says the whole apartment could fit into a wing of her palace in Liechtenstein. But the interior is nothing compared to the view.” Alexis walked to the sliding glass doors.
Cassie followed her outside and caught her breath. The sun was setting and the sky looked like it had been sprinkled with confetti. The hills were pieces on a game of Chutes and Ladders. The mansions in Presidio Heights were figures on a Monopoly board.
Cassie could see the dome of Grace Cathedral and the narrow streets of North Beach. They were so high up, it was as if someone had pushed the mute button. The honking cars, the people chattering on cell phones were silent.
“This is why the rest of the country hates us.” Alexis stood at the railing. “San Francisco has the most amazing view and California weather. You don’t get this in Chicago.”
“I’m fine, Alexis.” Cassie smiled. She leaned on the balcony, watching the lights turn on below her. She could see the flags waving at the Mark Hopkins and the department stores clustered around Union Square.
“There are a few people I’d like you to meet. Greg Pruitt is here. He was San Francisco magazine’s May cover boy. He’s a partner in a venture capital firm and gives half what he earns to charity.”
“I’ll stay away from young philanthropists for now.” Cassie shook her head. “But I am hungry.” She realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch and the view was suddenly making her dizzy.
“Let’s go inside.” Alexis walked across the patio. “Giselle ordered the jumbo prawns and the steak tartare. I don’t know where you get the cherry tomatoes but they are sweet as candy. And the avocado salad is to die for.”
As they entered the living room, a woman wearing a pale blue dress fitted like a Grecian column called to Alexis. “I must introduce you to my cousin, Chantal. She just arrived from Paris and is all alone. I told her you speak perfect French and know the city.”
Alexis squeezed Cassie’s hand. “I smell an American Express card, I’ll be right back.”
Cassie stood alone at the bar, picking at a bowl of pistachios. Her dress felt too tight and her feet hurt. She debated ordering a glass of champagne but she was afraid it would give her a headache.
“Can I get you a drink?” A man stood beside her. He had dark curly hair and green eyes. He wore a white shirt, dark brown slacks, and a thick gold chain around his neck.
“I don’t think so, I haven’t eaten yet.”
“A beautiful woman should not be without a drink in her hand.” He flagged down the bartender. “It is like looking at an unfinished Renoir.”
Cassie accepted the glas
s of champagne and took a sip.
“My name is Jorge. I am a friend of Giselle’s from Marbella.” The man extended his hand. His hands were tan and he had a gold ring on his little finger.
“I thought Giselle was from Liechtenstein.” Cassie frowned.
“Europe is a small place, we all know each other.” Jorge shrugged. “And we get bored of the same faces. Giselle was smart to come to America. I like California very much, especially the women.” He moved closer to Cassie.
“I’m happy to hear that,” Cassie replied uncomfortably. She moved along the bar but Jorge followed her.
“Perhaps you can show me the rest of the apartment? The living room is so exquisite, I can only imagine the bedroom.” He put his hand on Cassie’s.
“I’m sorry.” Cassie blushed and took her hand away. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“I’m sure whoever it is will wait for such a beautiful woman.” He draped his arm over her shoulder. “We won’t be too long.”
Cassie pulled away and hurried across the room. She tried to catch Alexis’s eye, but she was talking animatedly with two elegantly dressed women. Cassie sat down in one of the conversation pits and lay back against the cushions.
“Can I get you a drink?”
Cassie jumped, thinking Jorge had followed her. She turned and saw James, wearing a blue linen shirt and white pants. His hair was brushed over his forehead and his cheeks were smooth as if he had just shaved.
“What are you doing here?” Cassie stood up.
“Alexis invited me. Don’t throw me out; this place is the Taj Mahal. They should charge admission.” James grinned.
“I was thinking of leaving myself, but Alexis is wooing international clients.” Cassie sat down on the leather love seat.
“You look gorgeous.” James sat on the armchair opposite her.
“I was just propositioned by a Spanish playboy. He wanted me to show him the bedroom. He didn’t think it would take long.” Cassie tried to laugh. “Not a very promising pick-up line.”
“I hope you said no.” James smiled like a schoolboy.
“I ran away. If he looks for me, you’ll have to hide me.”
