by Sally Mason
“It’s just those damned press people from the studio in L.A. wanting to know if Gordon will be available for interviews before the premiere on Friday. I’ve given them his schedule at least ten times.”
“Why don’t you go home?” Belinda asks.
Jane shakes her head.
“There’s too much for me to do. The perils of being bicoastal.”
“Nothing that won’t keep until tomorrow. I’ve got it. Scram.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You’re an angel, Belinda.”
“Yeah, yeah,” her assistant says, and as the girl exits the office to attend to a ringing telephone Jane has a flash of her with her middle finger raised as the elevator doors closed on her in the lobby of the building where the Blunt Agency had once had its offices.
How things have changed in the last eighteen months.
Sometimes Jane still feels she needs to pinch herself to make sure it’s all real.
She gets her purse and blows Belinda a kiss as she passes her desk, her assistant blithely lying that Jane is in a meeting for the rest of the day.
She exits the office and closes the door, still getting a kick when she sees the neatly lettered sign: THE JANE COOPER AGENCY.
She takes the elevator down to the lobby and steps out in the beauty of a New York spring sunset, the first time she hasn’t worked late into the night in weeks.
Her good mood isn’t at all dampened when she hails a cab and hears the lush intro of “Dream a Little Dream of Me” coming from the driver’s radio.
Whatever power the song once had is long gone.
And, for just a moment, when she thinks of what happened with her ex-fiancé, it is with relief, not regret.
Tom Bennett, finally stumbling in his frantic tap dance, has swapped his button-down Brooks Brothers for an orange jumpsuit—doing five years in Upstate New York for dealing cocaine.
Then all thoughts of the past are washed away by the glorious light and the pleasurable expectation of arriving home.
Home which is no longer in the Meat Packing District but on the Upper East Side.
In an apartment paid for by Ivy.
Jane tips the cab driver and walks into the lobby, the doorman holding the door open for her.
“Evening, Mrs. Rushworth.”
“Evening, Tony,” she says, heading for the elevator.
She has slipped easily into this happily schizophrenic state: Ms. Cooper at work, Mrs. Rushworth at home.
Dare she say it?
The best of both worlds . . .
Jane lets herself into the apartment and pauses to let the elegance of the rooms and the spectacular view wash over her.
She hears her father’s voice: It’s a long way from Hicksville, baby.
“Sure is Daddy,” she says out loud. “Sure is.”
“Jane?”
Gordon calls to her and she crosses the living room, walks a little way down the corridor and pushes open the door to his office.
He looks up at her from his computer.
“You’re early.”
“Perks of being the boss.”
She bends to give him a kiss.
“How are you doing?”
“Steady as she goes,” he says.
Gordon is woefully late on delivering the third episode of the Suzie Ballinger saga.
The sequel to Ivy—Hometown—was a massive success when it was released six months ago and the publishers were keen to coincide the release of the third book with the premiere of the movie.
That is not to be.
Not that anybody is going to risk upsetting their cash cow by being overly judgmental or demanding.
“Come on, Gordy,” Jane says, “be honest. You haven’t written a thing today have you?’
“Well . . .”
“You’ve been yakking endlessly with Suzie. Admit it.”
“She has been particularly verbal today.”
He stands, laughing, and takes Jane’s hand, leading her down the corridor into the gaily decorated nursery where their six-month-old daughter, Suzie Jane Cooper Rushworth, sits in her playpen, under the watchful gaze of her nanny.
“Hi, Mariel. How has she been?”
“Oh, gorgeous of course, Jane.”
As she lifts her daughter from her playpen a shaft of golden light from the sinking sun sets fire to her soft curls and Jane is left breathless at the sheer beauty of their child.
Standing at the window holding Suzie she looks up into Gordon’s eyes.
“Happy?” he asks.
“Egregiously. Excessively. Ludicrously.”
He laughs and bends and kisses her as the light fades behind the skyscrapers and the moon, full and ripe with promise, rises over the Manhattan skyline.
THE END
Also by Sally Mason
Rent A Husband: A Romantic Comedy
Gone Hollywood: A Romantic Comedy
