Nancy Herkness

by Shower Of Stars

  “I haven’t been able to be a good father before this, but now I’m going to be the best papa I can, honey bunch.”

  “What did you and Mama fight about?”

  Don’s full flush came back. “It was stuff grown-ups fight about: money, a job, your papa spending time with his friends. Nothing important enough to lose you over.”

  Sallyanne looked doubtful but she was silent.

  “Should I take her to lunch now?” Don asked, looking at Charlie and Jack.

  “Certainly,” Charlie said. “You must be starving, Sallyanne.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the girl said dutifully.

  “We’re going to the restaurant at my hotel, sweetie pie. It’s got pink tablecloths and real flowers on every table. Afterward, I thought we’d go to this ice-cream store I found that has fifty flavors. If that’s all right with you?” He looked at Charlie again.

  She nodded and smiled.

  Everyone stood and walked to the door. Sallyanne still had not given the signal to let go, so Charlie knelt down beside her and silently held up their clasped hands with a question in her eyes. Sallyanne nodded and squeezed twice before she released her grip.

  Don held out his hand, and after the tiniest hesitation, Sallyanne took it.

  As they started out the door, Jack stepped in front of the newly discovered father, forcing Don to stop and look up several inches to meet his eyes.

  “I expect you to take great care with Sallyanne. Her well-being is very important to all of us,” he said with just a hint of a threat in his voice.

  “She’s my daughter. I wouldn’t let a hair on her head come to harm.” Don squared his shoulders and gave Jack just the slightest bump as he brushed past him. Jack stood like a rock, and Don was the one who bounced off from the impact.

  “Enjoy your lunch!” Charlie called, glaring at Jack. “And your ice cream!”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Don said with a tight smile, as he guided Sallyanne to his rented car.

  As soon as the car doors closed, Charlie rounded on Jack. “Major has better manners than you do! Why are you manhandling the guy when he’s seeing his daughter for the first time in seven years?”

  “I don’t trust him,” Jack said. “I’ll bet Leah McGraw had a very good reason for getting as far away from him as she could.”

  “I don’t trust him either,” Rhonda’s voice came from the doorway.

  “Does he have any kind of record?” Jack asked.

  “Just standard petty stuff: one car theft, one possession of marijuana, one shoplifting.” Rhonda shrugged. “He’s cleaner than half my clients.”

  “He’s Sallyanne’s father,” Charlie said pointedly. “He should be given a chance to live down his mistakes, whatever they were. Jack, you, of all people, should sympathize with him.”

  Jack’s brows snapped into an angry line. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  Charlie could have bitten her tongue. She glanced toward Rhonda as a warning to deflect his ire. He grabbed her by the elbow and said, “Excuse me” as he walked her quickly around the corner of the house.

  Charlie tried to free her elbow, but Jack’s grip didn’t slacken.

  “Why should I sympathize with a man who deserted his wife and child?” he ground out.

  “I didn’t say that. I said you should sympathize with people who have made mistakes in their past and want to—”

  “And just what mistakes have I made in my past?” he asked, releasing her arm but continuing to focus his ice-blue gaze on her.

  “I don’t know because you won’t tell me,” Charlie said, rubbing the circulation back into her elbow. “But whatever it is, you deserve the chance to make amends, to put it behind you. And so does Don McGraw.”

  “Some things can’t be amended. Not in my life and maybe not in Don McGraw’s.” He touched her elbow gently this time. “Sorry. But leopards don’t change their spots.”

  He spun on his heel and returned to the front of the house.

  “Dig deeper,” he said to Rhonda as he strode past her to his car.

  Charlie watched him climb in and slam the door without a backward glance.

  “Lovers’ quarrel?” Rhonda said with a raised eyebrow.

  Charlie sighed. “He’s on your side about Don.”

  “And what do you think?” Rhonda probed.

  “I think we should see what Sallyanne says about her lunch.”

  Sixteen

  “He ordered me shrimp cocktail, the most expensive thing on the whole menu! I didn’t like it so he made the waitress bring chicken noodle soup. Then I got to pick three different flavors and have hot fudge sauce on two and butterscotch on one. Papa said he thought butterscotch would go better with Denali Moose Tracks ice cream. And he was right because I tried it both ways.”

  Charlie and Sallyanne were walking on the path by the channel. The little girl could not stop talking about her afternoon with her father; she also couldn’t sit still. Don had brought his daughter back right on time. Charlie exchanged pleasantries with him at the door; when she’d explained how Isabelle was set to baby-sit the following day, Don’s face had lit up. “I’d be happy to take her after school, if you’re busy,” he said. “I found a miniature golf course I think she’ll like.”

  “She has to do her homework,” Charlie reminded him.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll make sure she does it.”

  They agreed he would meet Sallyanne and Isabelle at Charlie’s house to supervise his daughter’s schoolwork, then take her mini-golfing. They’d return to Charlie’s house for dinner. Charlie agreed because she wanted Isabelle’s opinion on Don too.

  “Did you like him?” Sallyanne interrupted Charlie’s thoughts.

  “Yes.” The truth was, she wasn’t entirely sure, but had no precise reason for her sense of unease. He was unfailingly courteous, clearly determined to win his daughter’s affection, instantly agreeable to whatever arrangements were made on Sallyanne’s behalf… “And more important, he likes you. That’s what I really care about.”

  “Jack didn’t like him,” Sallyanne said.

  “Jack’s just waiting a little longer to make up his mind,” Charlie replied, even as she thought, she sees everything.

  Charlie let her head fall back against the black leather seat of the limousine. Rhonda and Jack had infected her with their nebulous doubts about Sallyanne’s father. After she had approved the mini-golf outing, she straggled all afternoon to keep their bias from influencing her own judgment. Her eyes drifted closed. He was very polite when he dropped her off. She tried to pry them open again. She needed to decide how to behave toward Jack tonight at the party. She should also think of a contingency plan if Stephen Askegaard’s design was totally unsuitable….

  She went to sleep.

  “Miss, we’re here.”

  Charlie startled awake. The limo was parked in front of Atelier Askegaard. She blinked her eyes rapidly. She had been dreaming that the dress was black fishnet and nothing else… Maybe she could just tell the driver to head straight for Saks? “It was only a dream,” she told herself, and climbed out of the long black car.

  Stephen himself met her at the door.

  “You look terrified,” he said, tilting his head. “I believe I’m offended.”

  “No, no,” Charlie said. “I’m just not a…fashion person.”

  He smiled. “We’re about to change that, aren’t we?”

  “I guess so,” she said, following him to the dressing room.

  Once again she was instructed to strip down to her bare skin, but this time she was given a short black silk robe to belt on. The fabric was very slippery and she felt precariously covered. However, no one paid the slightest attention to her concerns as she was passed from the hairdresser to the manicurist to the makeup artist in rapid succession. Finally, she was led back to the platform where Stephen held absolute power.

  He walked around her, appraising the work of his cohorts.

  “It’ll do,” he said.r />
  “I wouldn’t know,” Charlie commented. “No one’s let me look in a mirror.”

  “And no one will until the last detail is in place.”

  “Is my opinion of any importance at all?”

  “Would you tell Shakespeare how to write a play?” Stephen asked.

  “Oh fine,” Charlie grumped, “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “A very good idea. Now off with the robe,” he said, smoothly pulling the end of the sash loose.

  Charlie grabbed at the black silk as it slid open.

  “Hey, this is all I’ve got on!”

  “And we can’t put the dress on over it, can we?” Stephen asked reasonably, as he slid the robe off her shoulders.

  Three black-clad women carried in a white cloth bag. A fourth assistant draped a white cloth over her head and face, “to protect your hair and makeup,” she said.

  “Arms up,” Stephen’s voice commanded. “Now here. Now down. Now step into these shoes.”

  Charlie heartily welcomed the slide of fabric over her naked skin. The shoes felt stiff across her toes but were bare from there back.

  “Hand out.” Something metallic slid onto her wrist. “Let’s get that ring off.”

  “No,” Charlie said, closing her fingers into a fist as someone tried to slide off her wedding ring. “It’s a meteorite so it goes with the theme of the party.”

  Stephen laughed. Cool fingers reached under her head cloth and fastened earrings on her earlobes.

  “All right, lift the cloth,” Stephen’s voice came again.

  Charlie blinked in the sudden wash of light, and gasped as Stephen slowly turned her around.

  The reflection in the triple mirror was a stranger, a woman who walked into a crowded room and started a current of whispers, a woman who announced the winner of “Best Picture” at the Academy Awards, a woman who treated royalty as her equal.

  It certainly wasn’t Charlie Berglund.

  “You’re a wizard,” she breathed.

  Stephen looked pleased but unsurprised. “Exactly. Now walk a bit.”

  Charlie took two steps and gasped again. Stephen’s creation was a long, deep blue column of velvet that flowed over one shoulder and left the other exposed. It fit like a second skin down over her hips, then curved outward toward the hem. A long slit up the side showed a flash of leg when she moved.

  Even more extraordinary were the flashes of light. The dress was embroidered with silver and crystal beads in swirling galaxies, blazing suns and shooting stars that glinted to life with the smallest gesture or breath. The bracelet was a vortex of stiff, silvery wires studded with diamonds that seemed to orbit her wrist. More diamonds on long silver wires cascaded from her earlobes. The heels of her Lucite mules gleamed with scattered crystals.

  “I look like the Milky Way!”

  “You look magnificent,” Stephen said. “The upswept hair and the heels add to the drama. What do you think of the earrings?” he asked, turning to his assistant. “Too much?”

  “They’re a bit over the top but I like them.”

  Stephen pursed his lips for a minute, then waved his hand. “They stay. And the security is very tight so she doesn’t need a bodyguard.”

  “A bodyguard?”

  “That’s a million dollars in diamonds and platinum you’ve got on,” Stephen explained. “But they’re insured.”

  Charlie looked at her wrist in horror. “Jeez, I hope I don’t lose any.”

  Stephen was conferring with someone else and didn’t answer. In a moment, a tiny, jeweled handbag shaped like a space shuttle was put in her hand.

  “A touch of whimsy,” Stephen said airily.

  “I like it,” Charlie agreed, examining it at eye-level.

  “That’s worth another million.”

  She nearly dropped it. “Take it back. I’ll worry about it all night.”

  “You can give it to Alina here if you get tired of holding it. She’ll be at the party to make repairs if necessary.”

  Charlie smiled at Alina before approaching Stephen to say in a low voice, “I feel a draft. Do you think I could have a pair of matching panties to wear under this?”

  “Absolutely not!” he said in horrified tones. “It would ruin the lines of the gown.”

  “I can’t go to a party and meet people with no underwear on,” Charlie said through gritted teeth.

  “Trust me, you won’t notice it after an hour or so.”

  Stephen looked at his watch. “We’ve got fifteen minutes. Has she got her lipstick? Absorbent tissue? Perfume atomizer?”

  “It’s all in the space shuttle.”

  “What about cab fare?” Charlie muttered.

  “It won’t fit,” Stephen said without missing a beat. Then he gave her his brilliant smile. “You’ll be the star of the evening, my dear. Now let us show you how to get in and out of the limo without crushing your gown.”

  Then Charlie was alone in the limousine, sitting like a statue to avoid ruining the lines of her dress.

  As the limo eased around the comer onto 81st Street, the giant globe of the Hayden Planetarium glowed blue-white within the glass cube of the Rose Center for Earth and Space. Huge models of Jupiter and Saturn hung in motionless orbit. Light blazed out onto the surrounding trees, reflecting on the procession of sleek black cars disgorging their passengers in front of the arched entrance.

  Even as she admired the dramatic effect, Charlie braced herself for the evening ahead. She reviewed her instructions on exiting the car as it glided to a stop in front of the glass doors. Sliding carefully over the leather seat as the door swung open, she swiveled her legs out before looking up. Instead of the driver she expected, Jack stood with his hand held out to help her maneuver out of the car.

  “Oh! Hello, Jack,” she said, putting her fingers in his.

  He pulled her firmly to her feet, tucking her hand in at his elbow.

  “Hello, Charlie. Smile for the cameras.”

  Jack’s smile was pure, easy charm. Stephen had warned Charlie not to talk when the flashbulbs were going off, so she fixed her face in an expression of delight and kept silent no matter what questions the press called out. She even looked up at Jack as though he was God’s gift to women just to give the photographers a different pose.

  All the while Jack was moving them slowly toward the doors. As they reached them, he held up his hand and said, “This is my wife Charlotte Berglund,” in answer to the most popular inquiry.

  “Stephen Askegaard designed my dress,” Charlie added to address the second most-asked question.

  Then they were inside, crossing a polished black floor flecked with silver.

  “Nice dress. I see your designer decided this was a theme party,” Jack said under his breath.

  Charlie had no time to answer as Jack introduced her to the first knot of guests, but she felt as though he had slugged her in the stomach. He thought her beautiful dress looked like a costume.

  Once again he introduced her as his wife. People’s faces reflected a spectrum of emotions from surprise to speculation. As they moved through the crowd, a ripple of turned heads and whispered comments preceded and followed them. Charlie held her head high and accepted best wishes and congratulations as though she were a happy new bride. Inwardly, she wondered if it would be possible to grind her Lucite heel into Jack’s patent leather-covered arch without anyone else noticing.

  He looked magnificent, of course. His salt-and-pepper hair and his smile gleamed under the lights. The shawl-collared tuxedo made his shoulders look even broader and his height more imposing. His black silk tie and cummerbund were shot through with metallic threads that picked up tiny sparks of light as he moved. Charlie spotted crisscrossing Widmannstatten structures on his studs and cufflinks, and seethed: he was wearing a costume as much as she was!

  She tried to ignore the frisson of pleasure she felt when he laid his hand on the small of her back in a gesture of possession. He left it there until they encountered Miguel who looked d
ownright menacing in a black tuxedo worn with a black T-shirt underneath.

  Charlie was thrilled to see a familiar face and greeted Miguel with effusive delight.

  “Ah, ‘she walks in beauty, like the night,’” he quoted, raising her fingers to his lips.

  Charlie glanced toward Jack. His shit-eating grin had vanished completely.

  “I’ve got to speak with the director,” he said. “Take care of her until I get back.”

  Charlie watched his back as he disappeared into the crowd.

  “Jack never did like Byron,” Miguel said by way of apology.

  “Byron’s not the problem. He doesn’t like my dress.” Charlie sighed.

  “Then he’s gone blind.” Miguel held her hands out from her sides and gave her a thorough scrutiny, ending by shaking his head. “The man’s clearly a lunatic. Or maybe he likes the dress too much.”

  “Maybe he’s just tense because it’s an important night.”

  “Maybe. All the heavy hitters are here except one.”

  “Curt Vandermade?” Charlie guessed.

  “Yeah. He’ll make an entrance right before the unveiling. He likes to create a stir.”

  As Miguel pointed out interesting guests, Charlie admired the party. The partygoers circulated in the Hall of the Universe, swirling around its color-coded exhibits on galaxies, stars and planets. Some stopped and studied the exhibits, but most were there to see and be seen. The giant globe of the planetarium hovered over all of them, looking like a space ship just touched down on Planet Earth. White-jacketed servers circulated offering drinks and food. No one in this group was expected to go find their own sustenance, Charlie thought. The clink of glasses, the hum of conversation and the notes of a classical piece being played by a string quintet mixed and reverberated against the glass and metal walls and stone floor.

  Jack materialized at her side from the darkened Hall of Planet Earth behind them. He slid his arm around her waist, resting his hand on her hipbone. She was suddenly very aware that only a thin layer of velvet separated his fingers from her skin.

  “I want to introduce you to some old friends of mine,” he said, moving her down into the crowd. “Thanks for baby-sitting,” he said over his shoulder to Miguel.