by John Saul
With one more glance at the photograph, Alison followed Lexie back to the other side of the terrace, where the crowd had gathered, and wished she didn’t have to stay to meet Conrad Dunn or anyone else.
All she wanted to do was go home.
RISA HAD a moment of déjà vu when she approached Conrad Dunn, who stood with his sister Corinne, quietly receiving the murmured condolences of his guests. Was it possible that it hadn’t even been a week since she had stood in line to greet him in a different hotel at the Dunn Foundation banquet with his wife at his side instead of his sister?
“Risa!” A wan Conrad took her hand warmly and kissed her cheek. “So good of you to come.”
“I’m so terribly sorry about Margot,” Risa said.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“You remember Lexie Montrose, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Conrad nodded to Lexie, then his eyes shifted to Alison. “And who is this?”
“My daughter, Alison. Alison, this is Conrad Dunn.”
Conrad took Alison’s hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”
“It—It’s nice to meet you, too,” Alison stammered, instantly certain she’d said the wrong thing, but having no idea what the right thing might have been. She felt herself blushing, then breaking into a cold sweat of embarrassment.
“Is your husband here?” Conrad asked Risa.
Now it was Risa who blushed. “I’m afraid not,” she began. “We’re—well, we—”
“They’re separated,” Lexie Montrose said softly when it became clear that Risa was just going to go on stumbling.
“Oh,” Conrad said, his voice shifting from the impersonal tone of social platitudes to something much warmer. “I’m so sorry. I hope it won’t be permanent.”
Risa bit her lip. What was she supposed to say? But again—and to her own further mortification—Lexie jumped in again.
“It will be,” Lexie said. “Some things can’t be fixed.”
Risa felt her embarrassment deepen, but this time it was Conrad Dunn himself who stepped in to rescue her.
“Then we’re all in mourning today,” he said softly, and turned to Alison. “I’m so sorry—it has to be hard for you.” His gaze shifted back to Risa and he put a hand on her shoulder. “If there’s anything I can do, please call.”
“I’ll be fine, Conrad,” Risa said. “And today we’re here for you.”
Conrad smiled at her, and then his tired eyes moved on to the next guest in line.
“YOU CERTAINLY SHARED a lot of personal information that wasn’t necessarily yours to share,” Risa said as the three of them walked the few blocks back to her car.
“Hey,” Lexie said, dismissing her words with a wave of her black-gloved hand. “He’s single now, and so are you, and in Beverly Hills there is no such thing as a decent interval.”
“As I recall,” Risa said coolly, “last week you were the one who talked about getting divorced the minute Conrad was ‘back on the market,’ as you so graciously put it.”
“And I could be,” Lexie said, refusing to rise to Risa’s bait. “But he doesn’t have eyes for me.” She paused to let the meaning of her words strike home. “I think you should call him, just like he said.”
“Are you kidding?” Alison demanded. “He’s creepy—the whole thing was creepy. What they did to his wife’s face—I mean, it was like they were trying to make her look like she was still alive! And all those photographs! She was beautiful, but it was all fake, like you said, Lexie. She didn’t look like that at all until she met him!”
“Oh, sweetie,” Risa said. “He’s not creepy. He’s just a plastic surgeon, and fixing faces is what they do. And Conrad is not only a very good plastic surgeon, but a very good man as well.”
“Maybe so, but you still don’t need to call him,” Alison replied.
“Okay,” Risa said, giving her daughter’s shoulder a squeeze. At this point, she knew there wasn’t a man anywhere that Alison wouldn’t resent, but if Lexie was right, she wouldn’t have to call Conrad Dunn. If Conrad wanted to get in touch with her, he already knew her number.
If Lexie was right.
But of course she couldn’t be, given that Conrad Dunn wasn’t even over the shock of his wife’s death yet, and wouldn’t be for many weeks to come. Still, just the thought of hearing his voice on the other end of the telephone gave her more pleasure than she’d felt since the night Michael had moved out.
Perhaps, after all, there would be life after her divorce was final.
Part Two
NEW BEGINNINGS
7
One Year Later
ALISON SHAW PUT HER LUNCH TRAY DOWN ON THE TABLE IN HER usual place—a place that hadn’t changed by even a single chair since last year—but glared at Cindy Kearns before sitting down. “I don’t even know why I’m sitting here,” she said, picking up a fork and jabbing angrily at the limp lettuce that was supposed to be a “garden-fresh salad.”
“You mad at me?” Cindy asked, a tiny forkful of macaroni and cheese pausing halfway to her mouth.
“That was a private message,” Alison said coldly. “It was personal, and now the whole school knows.”
“Knows what?” Anton Hoyer asked around a mouthful of his hamburger.
Alison threw a “don’t you dare” look at Cindy.
Cindy blithely ignored the look. “Alison’s mom is marrying Dr. Conrad Dunn,” she said.
“Who?” Anton asked, looking blankly from Cindy to Alison. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
Cindy rolled her eyes. “He’s only like the most famous plastic surgeon in the world,” she declared. “Don’t you know anything?”
Anton ignored her tone. “So her mom’s marrying a doc. So what?”
“So she’s moving to Bel Air and she’s transferring to Wilson Academy.”
Anton’s eyes widened. “Wilson? That’s a great school. You can go anywhere from there. Harvard, Yale—you can practically pick it!”
“That’s not the point,” Alison said. “I like it here.”
“UCLA is, like, four miles from my house,” Lisa Hess, the fourth of their lunch table regulars, chimed in. “And most of Bel Air’s even closer. Your new stepdad will probably buy you a car for your sixteenth birthday and you can come visit us. It’s no big deal.”
Cindy sipped a Diet Coke through a straw. “A car,” she sighed. “In what, two months?”
“Plus which,” Lisa went on, leaning across the table and dropping her voice so no one but her three friends would hear, “you can get as much plastic surgery as you want—for free!”
Alison could barely believe her ears. She was being dragged out of school in their sophomore year, moved out of Santa Monica, and getting stuck with a stepfather she didn’t even like, and all they could talk about was colleges, cars, and plastic surgery? “I don’t want any plastic surgery,” she snapped back at Lisa, “and I don’t care where I go to college, and I don’t like Conrad Dunn.”
A momentary silence dropped over the table at Alison’s outburst. Then Anton grinned mischievously. “You’ll all please note for the record that she didn’t say anything at all about the car.”
“And I don’t want a car,” Alison added, but felt a blush giving her away.
“See?” Anton said. “She’s turning the same color red her new Porsche will probably be.”
In spite of herself, Alison giggled. “I hate red,” she said. “If I get one, I want white. And not a Posrche. Maybe one of those little Lexuses.”
“Well, at least we know she can be bought,” Lisa said. “And stop worrying about the guy your mom’s marrying. Nobody likes their stepparents at first. Give the guy a chance—he didn’t do anything wrong.”
Alison shook her head. “It’s not that. There’s just something about him.”
“Oh, come on,” Cindy said. “I’ve had two stepdads, and at first I really hated the newest one. But he turned out to be pretty cool—in some ways he’s even better than my re
al dad.”
“Nobody’s better than my dad!” Alison snapped.
Cindy pulled back in exaggerated alarm. “Jeez! Nobody said anything about your dad.”
“And it’s not going to be all that bad,” Lisa put in, realizing just how upset Alison was. “You can have a big sixteenth birthday party and introduce us to all those Wilson Academy guys. And you can take us all for a ride in your new car.”
“After you introduce me to all those hot Wilson Academy girls,” Anton countered.
Alison shook her head. “But I like our house in Santa Monica, and I like going to school here, and I don’t want to move.” She sighed heavily. “I just don’t want things to change.”
“No,” Cindy said, her voice turning dead serious. “What you really want is for your parents to get back together, but that’s not going to happen.”
Alison knew Cindy was right, but she also knew she wasn’t ready to accept that fact.
“Your dad’s happy,” Cindy continued. “And even if he weren’t, he wouldn’t be going back to your mom. He’d find another guy. So don’t you think your mom should be happy, too? In two years you’ll be going to college somewhere. What’s she supposed to do? Just sit around by herself, having passed up true love with the most famous plastic surgeon in the western world just because you didn’t want to move five miles? Grow up, girl—it’s not like it’s the end of the world. It’s not even like you’re going to Kansas or something. It’s Bel Air, for God’s sake! If you want to stay here so bad, I’ll tell you what—we’ll just swap places, and you can live in my room and walk to school and I’ll move to Bel Air and go to Wilson and drive the car over to see you every single weekend. How’s that?”
The way Cindy put it made Alison feel like a complete idiot. “I’m being a real jerk, aren’t I?” she asked, half hoping nobody would answer, but knowing that Cindy, at least, would. But instead it was Lisa who spoke.
“Only about half a jerk, and so what? If it was Cindy, she wouldn’t want to move, either. As for me, I’m looking on the bright side—maybe you can get me a discount on some new boobs.” She pulled her sweater tight and looked dolefully down at her flat chest. “And God knows Anton here could use a nose job.”
“And Mr. Dryer could use a chin,” Anton whispered as their history teacher walked by.
“And Mrs. Hoffman!” Cindy put in. The principal’s baggy eyes, double chin, and sagging jowls were legendary enough that behind her back everybody called her the shar-pei. Even Alison started giggling.
“See what good you could do in the world?” Anton asked.
“Oh, all right,” Alison said to Cindy. “Maybe I have been a jerk. But you still shouldn’t have blabbed.”
“I’m sorry,” Cindy said. “I didn’t think it was such a big deal, since everybody was going to know sooner or later.”
The bell rang and everybody grabbed their lunch trays, shoved them onto the racks, and headed to their next class.
Everybody except Alison.
She sat for a moment longer, considering everything that had been said.
Her parents really were not getting back together.
Bel Air really was only a short drive away.
Her mother did deserve to be as happy as her father was with Scott.
And while it was still true that she didn’t like Conrad Dunn anywhere near as much as she liked Scott Lawrence, so what? Lisa was right: in two years she’d be off at college anyway.
So maybe, after all, it was no big deal.
And one thing was for certain: nobody liked a crybaby or a whiner, and she wasn’t about to turn into one.
Alison took a deep breath and decided that, all things considered, she was pretty lucky.
Things could be a lot worse.
RISA SHAW TURNED slowly in front of the three full-length mirrors, admiring the fit of the pale yellow silk suit from every possible angle.
“That is perfect,” Lexie Montrose declared, echoing Risa’s own unspoken verdict on the outfit. “Buy it.”
Yet Risa still cocked her head and looked again. Even though the suit was, indeed, perfect for her going-away outfit after the wedding reception, its price tag still gave her pause. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you do,” Lexie urged. “Buy it and let’s go have lunch.”
The saleswoman smiled at her as she rehung Risa’s rejected dresses. “You look beautiful.”
“And looking beautiful is getting to be very expensive,” Risa said. “Given that this is the second time around for both of us, I think we should be a little more conservative.”
“It’s a suit!” Lexie said. “What’s more conservative than that? You’ll wear it a thousand times.”
“I was talking about a more conservative budget,” Risa said. “The wedding dress costs as much as Alison’s first year of college tuition will.” She took another turn in front of the mirror. “Still, I love it.”
“Then buy it,” Lexie decreed. “It’s not like you’re broke—you’re a Realtor, for God’s sake! One commission and you’ll pay for the whole wedding ten times over. Except that Conrad’s paying, remember?”
Risa sighed, knowing that arguing with Lexie was useless, especially when both of them knew Lexie was right. Besides, the suit needed no alterations at all, which Risa decided was a sure sign she was meant to have it. She nodded at the saleswoman. “Okay, I’ll take it. Can I pick it up on our way back from lunch?”
Lexie jumped up from where she’d been sitting. “Perfect timing,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I made reservations for us at The Grill.”
RISA PICKED at her small salad, the only entrée she could allow herself if she wasn’t going to gain any weight between now and the wedding. “I’m going to have to do an hour on the treadmill just for this,” she said, glowering at Lexie’s lean body, into which a dozen escargots were fast disappearing. “I can’t afford to gain even an ounce and still fit into that slinky wedding dress.”
“It’s worth it,” Lexie said, blithely downing another snail dripping with garlic and butter. “The dress is a stunner and you look fabulous in it. Makes me want to get married again.”
Risa set down her fork and sipped her iced tea. “What I really want,” she said slowly, “is to know for certain that I’m doing the right thing. It’s barely been a year since Michael moved out and Margot died. What if Conrad and I are really only on the rebound? What if this is all a terrible mistake?”
“Don’t be silly,” Lexie said, airily waving her fork and splattering butter on the tablecloth. “You’re way past the puppy love stage. You know what’s real and what’s not. Michael’s happy with Scott, and you and Conrad have found each other. You should be counting your blessings instead of wondering what may or may not go wrong in the future.”
“It’s not just me,” Risa sighed. “It’s Alison, too. Saying she’s not happy about the marriage is an understatement.”
“Alison will come around,” Lexie assured her. “You’ll see. Conrad will make a fabulous stepfather.”
“Maybe so, but even after almost a year, she still doesn’t like him. What if she never warms up to him?”
Lexie finally put her fork down and leaned forward, both her voice and her expression turning serious. “Take it from one whose been there a few times, Risa. Kids can take a long time to get over a divorce. Alison might be refusing to meet Conrad halfway just because she thinks it would be disloyal to Michael, or because she thinks if you don’t marry Conrad, you and Michael will get back together again. But she’ll come around. Besides,” she added pointedly, “Alison will be off to college in two years, making her own life. Are you willing to give Conrad up for two years with your daughter, and then a lot more all by yourself?”
Risa frowned, still unconvinced.
“Okay, then try this,” Lexie went on, leaning back and picking up her fork to stab the last escargot. “Ask Michael to talk to her. You two are still on good terms, right?”
Finally Risa smiled. “
‘Good terms’ doesn’t quite do it justice. Who’d have thought he’d turn out to be my best friend? Best male friend,” she quickly added as Lexie started to put a hugely hurt look on her face.
“Thank you,” Lexie said. “I’d have hated having to sling a snail at you right here in public.”
“But you’d have done it,” Risa archly observed. “Anyway, it’s weird how once I realized that Michael’s leaving truly didn’t have anything more to do with me than the fact that I’m a woman, I stopped being mad at him. And it’s impossible not to like Scott—if he was straight, I might have fallen for him myself.” She paused. “If I hadn’t been married to Michael, of course.”
“All right, all right, I get it,” Lexie interrupted. Not being on speaking terms with any of her own ex-husbands, she wasn’t about to listen to Risa extolling the virtues of the man she’d divorced less than a year ago. “So Michael’s a saint, and Scott’s a regular Mother Teresa. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to set Alison straight, you should pardon the pun. And for God’s sake, eat something. After the wedding, Conrad can give you back the perfect figure with a little liposuction.” She raised an envious eyebrow. “You’ve got it made, girl.”
Risa finally smiled. Her head had been clogged with wedding plans since the night Conrad proposed over dinner at Spago, presenting her with an emerald-cut diamond, and since then the only problem had been Alison’s dark disapproval of what she’d decided to do. But maybe Lexie was right—maybe she should have Michael talk to her. At least it was worth a shot.
“So what’s in your bouquet?” Lexie asked, determinedly changing the subject from Alison back to the wedding plans.
“Don’t know,” Risa said, her smile spreading into a grin. “Henrik is going to surprise me.”
“You trust a wedding planner to make that decision on his own?”
“I do,” Risa said. “He found the designer and dressmaker for me, and you should see what she’s sketched for Alison. And every time I think up something to worry about, Henrik has already taken care of it.”
