But stepping away from her is almost painful.
8
She ditches the jacket of the dress for a scarf. It’s not bad, but it’s not the kind I’d choose for her—but there’s no time to worry about that now.
Shoes are what we have to worry about.
The cabbie gets us to Saks in what has to be world-class time. I grab Bailey’s hand and we hurry inside. I have no idea where women’s shoes are located. I’ve been here before, but only to buy shirts and ties for myself and sometimes Christmas or birthday gifts for my mom and sister. Pocketbooks. Perfume. Jewelry. And, okay, jewelry a couple of times for women I was dating. And, yes, some lace undies. Lingerie, women call that stuff.
But shoes?
No way.
A clerk tells me we want the eighth floor. The elevator takes us up—and as we step from the car, I hear Bailey make a little sound you can only call a moan.
I can’t blame her.
We are facing a sea of elegance.
I start moving.
Bailey stands still.
I reach back, clasp her hand and all but drag her forward. A saleswoman glides towards us. She’s middle-aged, perfectly put-together, all smiles, and when she reaches us and says “Good evening,” I’m not the least surprised that the words are delivered in plummy British tones.
“Good evening,” I answer.
“How may I help you?”
Her gaze sweeps over Bailey and pauses at the shoes on Bailey’s feet. I can almost hear the lady’s eyebrows shoot into her hairline. Her next stop is at the hem of Bailey’s dress.
Uh oh.
I see half a dozen dangling threads at the hem I created half an hour ago. So does our saleswoman. The job now is to keep Bailey from seeing them as well.
“We need a pair of shoes,” I say.
“Flats?” asks the Pretender to the British Throne.
“Heels.”
“Matthew,” Bailey says quietly.
I squeeze her hand. “Really high. Black. Or whatever you think will go best with my, ah, my fiancée’s dress.”
“I’m not—”
I squeeze Bailey’s hand again. “As quickly as possible, please. “
The woman motions us to a pair of chairs. Bailey sits and our salesclerk removes the right shoe from Bailey’s foot. She reaches for one of those measuring things. Bailey waves it away.
“I’m an eight,” she mumbles, as if the number is shameful. The work of Violet the Victimizer, I think, and I smile encouragingly at the clerk as I ease into the chair next to Bailey’s.
“Eight,” I say. “With what do you call them? Spiked heels.”
Bailey starts to speak. I clasp her hand and bring it to my mouth. Just as I’d hoped, she falls silent. At least, she’s silent until the Queen Mum walks away.
“Matthew,” she hisses. “I won’t be able to walk in heels like that. And telling that woman that I’m your fiancée…”
“You’ll walk just fine. And tonight is all about getting comfortable with each other, remember? We might as well start here.”
Bailey catches her bottom lip between her teeth. She does that a lot. How come I never noticed it before?
“Comfortable is one thing. But engaged…”
“Okay. We’ll stick with that we’re just dating.”
“I wouldn’t bring a man I was just dating to a wedding.”
“People do. All the time. What’s it called? A plus one.”
“This is a family function, Matthew. I wouldn’t bring a plus one to a family function.”
She’s right. She wouldn’t. Women do, but Bailey isn’t women, she’s Bailey, and she wouldn’t take a casual date to a family wedding.
But that’s just the point, I think, and that’s what I say.
“But that’s just the point, remember? We want Violet to think we’re involved.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
“About what?”
“About pretending we’re, you know, we’re involved. It’s one thing to fool Violet—but we’ll be fooling my mom, too. I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do.”
She’s going to back out. And, dammit, I don’t want that to happen. I’m committed to this little charade. I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying her. And, really, who can it harm?
I say that to Bailey. Not the part about enjoying it. Hell. Or about enjoying her. I tell her that if she seems happy next weekend, her mom will be happy. It’s logical, but she looks unconvinced.
“It’s not as if we’re going to claim we’re engaged or anything,” I say, and before she can answer, our saleswoman is back. She has three boxes. She sits down before Bailey, who has already kicked off her shoes.
“Let’s see what we have,” the Queen says, and she says it gently, as if she knows this is going to be important and maybe even traumatic.
She opens all the boxes.
Bailey gasps. I shoot a glance at her. The expression on her face is the kind a guy hopes to see when his lady gets her first glimpse of his equipment. Women certainly have weird reactions to shoes. I mean, I’ve always heard they do, but this is reality TV at its best.
There’s a pair of black suede things. Pumps, I think you call them. A pair of dark blue, what, sandals? Yeah. Sandals. Open back, open toes, straps around the ankle. And another blue pair, but this blue is the same color as one of the stripes on Bailey’s dress. They’re nothing but heels and narrow straps, and they look as if they’re made of butterfly wings.
The heels on all of them are the kind that make men have wicked dreams and all of a sudden I begin to understand Bailey’s gasp.
I also understand why she’s shaking her head and I’m nodding mine.
“Just try one pair,” I say.
The saleswoman holds out one of those butterfly wings. Bailey slips her foot in. The shoe goes on easily. So does its mate. There are a couple of straps to close and then The Pretender to the Throne sits back.
“See how they feel when you walk,” she says.
When Bailey walks? I can hardly breathe, just looking at her sitting next to me. She’s an amazing sight. Those endless legs. Those delicate shoes. Those icepick heels…
But she’s not moving.
I rise to my feet. Hold out my hand.
She shakes her head. “I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can.” My voice is a little hoarse and I clear my throat. “Come on. Walk with me.”
Gingerly, she takes my hand and stands.
I move forward. So does she. She wobbles a little. I slide my arm around her waist. We take another couple of steps. She’s a little more steady now. And she’s moving differently. There’s some hip action I never noticed before. She looks up at me. I tell her she’s doing fine. We head for a mirror and when she sees herself, she gives a breathless little laugh.
“Wow,” she says.
That just about sums it up.
My girl is spectacular.
My PA, I mean.
We pivot. Walk back to the saleswoman, who cocks her head and looks at me.
“What do you think, sir?”
I can’t tell her what I think. It’s X-rated because what I think is that those long, endless legs of Bailey’s belong wrapped around my waist. Instead, I take out my wallet and hand over a credit card.
“Which pair?” she asks.
“We’ll take all three,” I say, and, despite Bailey’s protests, we do. Bailey keeps on the butterfly wings and the store will deliver the other shoes, plus the ones she was wearing, to her apartment tomorrow.
Our salesclerk smiles, and I suspect it has little to do with the four-figure sale she’s just made. It’s a smile that turns her from the Queen Mum into Mary Poppins, and I smile back.
“Thank you,” I say, and then we hurry to the elevator, Bailey swaying a little, and that sway is sexy as hell. When we reach the ground floor, I reach for her hand and I get jabbed in the side with her pocketbook. It’s big enough to hold a week’s wo
rth of groceries. How come I didn’t notice that before?
I tug her towards a display of tiny, glittery purses. A saleswoman beams at us.
“Matthew,” Bailey says in a warning whisper, but I ignore her.
“May I help you?” the saleswoman purrs.
I look over the display. Time’s racing by. We’re already late, very late for our reservation.
“We’ll take that one,” I say, pointing at a small silver thing with a long strap.
“Matthew,” Bailey says, “I don’t need—”
“And that scarf. The blue and silver one.”
“Matthew!”
I turn to her, smile and say, “Now, sweetheart, you know how much I love to give you pretty things.”
Bailey damn near bares her teeth. The saleswoman beams and hands the purse and scarf to me. I pull off Bailey’s old scarf and drape the new one around her shoulders. Then I grab her pocketbook and empty it onto the counter. Stuff pours out. A comb. A lipstick. A wallet. Two things that are either hairclips or medieval torture devices. A small hairbrush. A phone. A tin of breath mints. A box of cough drops. A notepad. Two pens. A nail file. A folded up section of The New York Times. A ring of keys surely sufficient to open every door in Manhattan.
I dangle the keys in front of Bailey. I recognize our office key and I snap it off the ring and drop it into the little purse.
“Which one’s for your apartment?”
“The silver one. But—”
I drop it into the purse too, along with the phone, the comb, the wallet and one—just one— tissue. Everything else, including the old scarf, goes back into the old handbag. I hand over my credit card, give the saleswoman instructions to pack up the old pocketbook and have it delivered to Bailey’s apartment tomorrow.
Then we’re in the taxi again.
“You just spent three thousand four hundred and ninety eight dollars,” Bailey hisses as we head into traffic.
“Three thousand four hundred and ninety eight dollars and forty-three cents,” I say. “Or have you forgotten I’m hell with numbers?”
“I’ll pay back every cent.”
“Forget it.”
“Forget it? FORGET IT? Do you honestly think I’d let you spend that much money and not repay it?”
“Consider it a bonus.”
“O’Malley Design and Construction doesn’t give bonuses.”
“It does now.”
“Mr. O’Malley—”
“We’re not going to debate this. I’m the boss. I’m in charge. I get to decide if we offer bonuses or not. Understand?”
She shakes her head. “What I understand is that you’re crazy!”
Maybe I am—but I’m having fun.
And maybe I’m lying to myself, but despite Bailey’s words, there’s a glint in her eyes that says maybe she is, too.
9
We arrive at the restaurant and we are, of course, late. Very late.
But as I said before, James, the owner and chef, is a guy I’ve known for a long time. When I give the maître d’ my name, James comes out to greet us. He tells the maître d’ to seat us at a table near the big gas fireplace that dominates the room. It’s a coveted spot, not just because of the fireplace but because of its privacy, and I thank him.
“My pleasure,” he says.
We exchange some polite words and then he waves away the maître d’ and tells us about the evening’s special dishes. I listen with half an ear. Mostly, I watch Bailey. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are bright. There’s a lovely little curve to her lips.
She’s enjoying this place.
I hoped she would. That’s why I chose it. It’s the kind of restaurant she can name-drop to Cousin Violet—The Manhattan Corner is very well known—but mostly I figured she would like the atmosphere, that she’d feel comfortable here. And from the look on her face, I made a good choice.
James clears his throat and I realize he’d stopped speaking a couple of minutes ago.
“Thank you, James,” I say. “Just give us a couple of minutes, okay?”
He smiles, assures us that there’s no hurry and that he’ll send over our waiter and the sommelier. The waiter arrives with menus, the wine guy with the wine list.
I look at Bailey. “Any idea what you’d like for dinner?” I ask, before I choose a wine.
She blinks. “I don’t…Why don’t you order for me, Matthew?”
I don’t think a woman’s ever asked me to do that before. It gives me a good feeling. Not that I think we should go back to the days when men ordered for their women, but there’s something special about having that kind of trust put in your hands.
And, hell, I’m making ten times more out of this than it deserves.
It’s probably just because this is a good first step. I mean, we agreed that we have to get comfortable with each other in public. Couples who are, well, couples behave differently than men and women who are just friends or who work together, or even couples that are dating.
In fact, we need to develop a vibe, something that hints at depth and—please let me not hyperventilate—possible permanency.
I’ve never been in that type of relationship, but I know that’s the only thing that will mean anything to Violet the Vile and, more to the point, it’s what will make Bailey’s mother a believer. Bailey and I will know we’re breaking up after the wedding, but nobody else will.
Well, we won’t be breaking up.
I mean, there won’t actually be anything to break up…
Fuck.
We just need to pull this off, and that means behaving a certain way. That I haven’t participated in what people call a relationship doesn’t mean I’m not observant.
I’ve noticed how people act.
So I smile, close the menu and tell the waiter we’ll have the veal and—
“Not veal,” Bailey says quickly. “I don’t eat veal. Do you know what veal really is? How they raise it? What they—”
“No veal,” I say. “We’ll have the salmon. And—”
“As long as it isn’t farmed. Farming is such a nice-sounding word, but the truth is that—”
Bailey falls silent. She’s looking at the waiter. The waiter and I both look at her. Color rises in her cheeks, but her voice is strong.
“…the truth is that they’re raised in confinement. And they’re fed chemicals. And—”
“What would you prefer?” I ask.
She does it again. The teeth. The bottom lip. Is she determined to drive me crazy?
“Anything,” she says blithely. “Your choice.”
Oh-kay.
I think of the stuff we ate last night. Lasagna. Pizza. Pad Thai. Nachos. So she’s not a vegan or a vegetarian, she’s just, what, environmentally aware, if that’s the current term, and I think it is.
I look at the menu again. I think back to the specials James mentioned. Something about a porterhouse for two. That seems safe enough…No. I’m pretty sure the place serves Kobe beef and a little voice in my head whispers that ranchers or whatever you call them who raise Kobe cattle give the animals massages to make sure the meat will be tender when they’re, uh, when they’re, uh, harvested…
Jesus Christ. No more Kobe beef for me. And, man, I am lost here.
“We have a lovely Eggplant Parmigiana,” the waiter says into the yawning silence.
Eggplant. Purple on the outside. Green on the inside. No food should be purple, and only lettuce should be green.
But Bailey is looking at me. I try not to shudder.
“Amazing,” I say briskly. “That’s exactly what I was going to suggest.”
* * *
The eggplant turns out to be okay.
It’ll never replace prime rib, but it’s edible. Maybe it’s even good. I can’t tell, because I’m too caught up in conversation with my PA. Politics. A comedy skit on SNL it turns out neither of us understood. Nothing big, but it’s fun to talk with her and I don’t really pay much attention to the food, even when we get t
o dessert.
Which is, mercifully, not a problem.
Maybe our waiter clued his boss in, because James brings our dessert himself, no questions asked: two glorious dishes of something he calls Strawberry Chouf, which turns out to be a melt-in-your-mouth pastry filled with gelato and strawberries, all topped with whipped cream.
“Umm,” Bailey sighs at the first bite, and when she licks a tiny crumb off her top lip, I have to look away.
“So,” I say briskly, “you like classical music.”
She nods. “Especially orchestral stuff. You know. Symphonies.” She hesitates. “But I like other kinds too.”
“For instance?”
“Eric Clapton. He’s amazing.”
We agree. He is. What’s equally amazing is that after a little more prodding, she admits she likes Neil Young. And Bonnie Raitt.
I get the crazy feeling this is the kind of thing she doesn’t tell many people. One secret deserves another, so I admit that after my folks took me to a July Fourth concert in some park out on Long Island when I was maybe twelve or thirteen, I went online and downloaded The 1812 Overture.
“Tchaikovsky,” she says with delight.
“Yeah. You know it?”
She laughs. “I can play it!”
I laugh along with her. “What? The cannon part?”
She makes a face. “Very funny. No, not the cannon part. But the rest…I played the flute when I was in school.”
I can see it. Hear it. She’s the perfect girl for an instrument that makes such soft, sweet sounds. Hey, I’m not a complete barbarian. I know what a flute sounds like.
“Do you still play?” I ask.
“I haven’t. Not in years.” She does the teeth-into-the-lip thing. “But I still have that flute, packed away somewhere.”
It’s time for an obvious joke. A reference to the flute. The skin flute. Except, I don’t want to make jokes like that. Not with her. Not involving her. Instead, I pour us some more wine—I ordered Montrechat, did I mention that? I pour, and I tell her that in my salad days, I was hell on guitar.
The F-Word: A Sexy Romantic Comedy Page 8
