What Lies Beneath

by Andrea Laurence

  Adrienne hugged the woman again. “Yes, ma’am,” she said before slipping out of the car. She stood on the curb and watched the town car merge back into traffic and disappear down the block.

  She was a little sad watching Pauline drive away but was glad to know they’d keep in touch. If she couldn’t have the man she loved, at least a relationship with Pauline and George was more than she had before the accident.

  Slipping the key from her pocket, she unlocked the door and headed up the four flights of stairs to Gwen’s apartment.

  Twelve

  Adrienne’s homecoming to Wisconsin was not nearly as grand as her party in New York. Frankly, it was depressing, but it was a reflection of her life and the turn it had taken. Her aunt Margaret picked her up at the train station. They had never been very close; Aunt Margaret hadn’t liked Adrienne’s mother, so of course Miriam’s daughter was tainted as well.

  When Adrienne came out of the train station, Margaret was waiting in the snow with her station wagon, a frown drawing deep wrinkles into her face. Just as when she’d called on Monday, there were no tears of joy to see her alive again. Not even a hug. Only a complaint about the traffic and that Adrienne’s train had arrived at rush hour.

  All the way home, Margaret talked about the hassle and expense of arranging her funeral. Adrienne figured she was mostly irritated because she’d gone to all that trouble for a person whose death gained her nothing.

  As they pulled up to her house, she saw Margaret look at the place with a touch of disgust in her eyes. Adrienne had seen the muddy, uprooted For Sale sign in the back of the wagon when she got in. Margaret’s mood was probably tainted by the fact that she wouldn’t get to move into Adrienne’s house now that she was miraculously alive. She’d always eyed the place with envy when Adrienne’s father was alive and had pressed Adrienne to sell it to her after he died. She’d probably put her own place up for sale and started planning her housewarming party before she’d begun the funeral arrangements.

  Fortunately, Adrienne had never bowed to her aunt’s pressure. She’d kept it and had a place to come back to. It was the only home she’d ever known. Her tiny apartment in New York hadn’t qualified. The penthouse with Will had never felt right to her. Only this place, with her childhood memories of her parents, could put her at ease.

  Once she stepped out of the wagon and into her own driveway, she was no longer in need of her aunt’s assistance. After Margaret drove away, she went inside and immediately started getting her life back. First were the necessary calls to “reverse” her death, and with a little quibbling and a lot of paperwork, her checking accounts and credit cards were reactivated and her utilities were turned back on. Then she cleaned the house from top to bottom to rid it of three years’ worth of dust.

  After that was done, Adrienne was left with the daunting task of starting her new life back in Milwaukee.

  She supposed she should look for a job, but her heart just wasn’t in it. She’d gone to school and worked hard to be a fashion designer. She could easily pick up seasonal work with Thanksgiving days away and Christmas quick on its heels, but selling clothes at the mall for minimum wage seemed like a waste. Adrienne wasn’t broke now that she could access her money. A month’s worth of living expenses in Manhattan could keep her for three or four in Wisconsin, where her house was paid off and her car was almost too old to insure.

  Looking at what she had, she decided to put off the inevitable for two months to let herself get acclimated and work through the crippling emotions that slowed most of her activities to a crawl. She would lose any job she got if she stopped folding clothes and started to randomly cry in the middle of the store. And there was still the risk of that. At first, she thought she’d shed every tear she could for Will Taylor in the private roomette headed for home. But every now and then her mind would stray and the pain in her chest would grow so acute that the only thing to relieve the pressure was more tears.

  To combat it, she kept herself busy. If she couldn’t think of Will, she couldn’t wallow in the grief of everything she lost. The boxes she’d shipped from Manhattan before her flight were sitting in the living room, untouched. Inside were all the unsold clothes she’d designed for her boutique. She carried each piece upstairs to her mother’s old sewing room and hung them on the large aluminum clothing rack.

  This, she decided, would be her new workroom. It already had most of the supplies she needed from the days she’d spent working on things in high school and during breaks from college. Using her mother’s old sewing machine had always seemed to bring her luck and motivation.

  Really, just sitting in the room where her mother worked was inspirational to her. The collection she began at the apartment with Will came to an end as quickly as their relationship. She knew she needed to do something different. Adrienne needed an outlet for all her emotional energy, and the new pieces she envisioned in her mind would be it. Her work was often the best therapy. It had gotten her through her father’s fatal heart attack several years back, and it could get her through this.

  Gathering up her papers and pencils, she sat down at the worn dining room table and started designing a new collection. One that would remind her of the happy times she spent with Will before everything went wrong.

  The color palate was easy to determine. There were a couple blouses and skirts in the warm fall colors of their walk through Central Park. A burgundy leather jacket with dark brown palazzo pants that reminded her of the décor of the Italian restaurant where they had their first date. To accent the collection, a short, sassy sweater-dress in the shade of the pale pink roses he brought her. Then, as a finale piece, a full-length gown in the same soft, blue-gray color as Will’s eyes.

  It took her days. She even worked through Thanksgiving without realizing it because her aunt never called to invite her over. When it was done, she had a stunning thirty-piece collection ready and waiting for her to bring it to life on the dress form. A mountain of fabric dominated the floor of her living room in anticipation of weeks of construction.

  In time, Adrienne had fairly successfully buried her grief in her work. The pain of losing Will had faded to a dull ache she’d learned to ignore until she lay alone and cold in her bed each night.

  When the phone rang one afternoon, she was busy at the sewing machine. She wasn’t prone to get many calls, so she ran to the cordless and answered, breathless. “Hello?”

  “Hello. Am I speaking with Adrienne Lockhart?”

  “Yes,” Adrienne sighed. The woman’s voice sounded familiar, but the odds were that it was a reporter who’d been in touch calling back for more details to add to her feature. While most of her family and society had ignored her since she came home, she got the occasional phone call from reporters in New York who were writing about the mixup and the untimely demise of society darling Cynthia Dempsey. Adrienne usually had very little to say and told them she couldn’t remember the weeks she’d lived as Cynthia. It was easier that way. She didn’t want to say or do anything that might cause the Dempseys or Will any additional pain.

  “Adrienne, this is Darlene Winters with Trend Now magazine. I don’t know if you remember speaking to me at the party or not.”

  “I do, yes. It’s so nice to speak with you again.” Nice was an understatement. Her heart was pounding in her chest so loudly she almost couldn’t hear the woman on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to keep our appointment.”

  “Completely understandable, although it’s the first time I’ve been stood up by someone who miraculously recovered from amnesia. I have to say it’s a fascinating story. I’ve been following it in the papers.”

  Adrienne felt a touch of elation slip away. Was she just calling to use their acquaintance to get the inside scoop? “It isn’t as interesting as it sounds.”

  “Honey, I saw you and Will Taylor dancing. You can tell the papers whatever you like, but I know a juicy story when I see one. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

&
nbsp; Spying a nearby chair, Adrienne slumped down into it. If Darlene had good news for her, she wanted to be sitting down. Likewise if it was bad news.

  “I know you probably think I was only interested in your work because of who I thought you were. I have a lot of young designers clamoring for my attention, so—true—it did make me take notice when I otherwise might not have. But I’ve found myself thinking about your designs since you’ve left. I never got to see the rest, and I’m quite disappointed.”

  Adrienne wasn’t sure what to say. She’d FedEx Darlene whatever she wanted. All she had to do was ask. “I appreciate the interest. It’s a huge compliment.”

  “You deserve it. Listen, are you aware of the charity work we do here at Trend Now?”

  She was ashamed to admit she wasn’t. “No, but I’d love to hear more about it.”

  “Well, every year around this time we put together a charity fashion show. All the proceeds go to support art and design education in our local public schools. It’s called the Trend Next show to help us grow the next generation of fashion designers. In the show, we feature four up-and-coming designers. It’s a smaller collection, ten looks from each one, but it’s great exposure for them. After the show, we also select one designer to be featured in a five-page spread in Trend Now.”

  It was a good thing she was sitting down. The pounding of her heart had stopped along with her breathing. She was frozen stone-still, waiting for Darlene to say the magic words. She had to say them. There was no other reason for her to call, right? That would just be cruel.

  “We usually make our selections months in advance to give the designers time to work. But this year, one of our designers has fallen seriously ill and had to drop out of the show. I know it’s short notice, but I wanted to offer you the chance to take his place.”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  Darlene stumbled for a moment over her sudden response. “Are you sure? It’s in two we—”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “It could be tomorrow and I’d say yes.”

  “Well, all right, then. I’ll have my office overnight you all the show’s information and paperwork you need to sign. The show will be Saturday the fifteenth, so I’ll see you there with your ten fiercest looks.”

  “Thank you for this opportunity, Darlene.”

  “Knock ’em dead. Bye, now.”

  The phone sat silent in Adrienne’s hand, but she couldn’t move her thumb to hang up. She was showing in New York at an event sponsored by one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world. The exposure potential was incredible. And if her collection were chosen for the magazine…

  Perhaps her career wasn’t over quite yet. Maybe the pain and suffering of surgeries, fractured bones, broken hearts and shattered dreams would be worth it if in the end she could make something of the mess.

  Adrienne hurried downstairs to the dining room, where her sketches were scattered across the table. There were thirty designs and not a single one existed off the page yet. She could work in some of the pieces she’d already made, but it might not be cohesive enough. She started sorting though, axing the labor-intensive knitwear and pulling out the ten items she thought would make the most impact, the last being the blue satin gown. Even ten pieces would be a challenge. It would mean working nonstop for two solid weeks, but she would do it.

  She had to.

  * * *

  “Mr. Taylor?” His assistant, Jeanine, popped her head into Will’s office. “Mr. Dempsey is here to see you.”

  Frowning, Will took a big sip of his coffee. He figured eventually it would come around to this meeting. The one where the e-reader deal would finally fall through. He’d managed to avoid George for a few weeks, probably because George was avoiding him, too. They’d seen each other at Cynthia’s funeral, but, unexpectedly, it had turned into a circus.

  Cynthia’s lover had shown up, wailing and throwing himself over her casket. It hadn’t taken long for people to figure out who he was and turn to Will with mixed expressions of bewilderment and pity. George and Pauline were horrified by the scene, but her father, at least, didn’t look surprised. Apparently the deteriorating state of their relationship was public knowledge, despite how hard he’d tried to hide it.

  After that debacle, Will had buried himself in work and Thanksgiving festivities with his family. But now all that was behind them. There was nothing but frantic Christmas shopping over the next few weeks, of which he was sure George Dempsey did very little.

  “Send him in.”

  George came through the door, his suit looking a little larger than normal on him. The man was in his sixties, but today was the first time Will had ever thought about his age. He looked every year and maybe a few more. He had bags under his eyes, his wrinkles were more prominent with the loss of some weight, probably due to stress. Losing Cynthia must’ve taken a larger toll on him than Will had imagined.

  “George, please, sit down.”

  With a curt nod, George settled into a chair. “How are you faring, Will?”

  Truth be told, he was miserable, but not because of Cynthia’s death. His feelings for her had died long before she did. But he did feel horrible about her death. No one deserved to die like that.

  “I’m hanging in there. I think it’s going to be a struggle to get through the holidays.”

  George nodded. “Pauline doesn’t quite know what to do with herself. She started to decorate for Christmas, then kept having to stop because she’d run across something that reminded her of Cynthia and she’d start crying. Cynthia was always so busy, it just seems like she’s working late and will call any time now. Then you remember again.”

  Will understood the feeling. His apartment had been a ghost town. He kept walking into his place at night expecting Adrienne to be there. To hear the excited thumps of her bare feet as she ran to greet him at the door. To see her sitting at the kitchen table with toast and tea. He had very quickly gotten used to having her there with him.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Will.” George eased back in his chair. “This e-reader project we’ve been working on has a lot of potential.”

  Which is why I’ve decided to sell to the highest bidder and you’re out, Taylor.

  “Which is why I’ve decided we should go forward with it.”

  Will’s eyebrows shot up, his surprise plainly obvious to anyone who chose to look. “What about blood and family and all that?”

  George shrugged. “Cynthia is dead, Will. Emma is sixteen, and I’m not about to marry her off to seal this deal. As much as I like working with family, there’s no one I know that can make this as big a success as you can. This is the technology of now. It needs to go forward. We’ve got everything in place to do that.”

  Will wasn’t quite sure what to say. George had been adamant about this from the beginning. The turn of events was surprising, to say the least. “Thank you, sir. I’m glad to hear you’re still interested in working with us.”

  “I am because you’re a good guy, Will. You stuck it out with Cynthia and took care of her even when you and I both know you were on the way out. Then you tried again to make it work, even if it was with the wrong woman. That’s the kind of dedication and loyalty I look for in a business partner.” He paused, his expression softening in a way Will had never seen before. “You were almost my son, Will. And that’s good enough for me.”

  Flustered wasn’t even the right word to describe Will’s state of mind, but he held it together. They chatted for a while about trivial things. Then he thanked George, promised to have his office send over the final paperwork later in the week and walked him out.

  The rush of success-fueled adrenaline shot through his veins as if he’d been pulled back from a precipice. He knew this project was going to launch the Observer into the same peer group as the Times. He could feel it in his bones.

  Will wanted to celebrate but slumped back into his chair instead. The victory was sadly hollow without Adrienne there to celebrate wit
h him. Despite the suspicion and pain he couldn’t put aside, when it came down to it, she was the one he wanted to kiss and take out for a night on the town with endless champagne. And she was gone.

  Suddenly Will’s tie felt too tight.

  His office had been his retreat since Adrienne left. He’d worked more hours than ever, avoiding their empty home and the feelings he couldn’t face. Now the walls of his spacious office were closing in on him. He didn’t want to be here a second longer. Without even shutting down his laptop, he got up from his desk and walked out.

  “Mr. Taylor?” Jeanine questioned when he started down the hallway.

  “I’m going home. Reschedule anything on my calendar. Dan’s in charge.”

  Will didn’t wait for her response. He didn’t want to be here right now. He hailed a cab on the curb and headed back to the apartment.

  When he finally walked in the door, he had his mail clutched in one hand and his overcoat thrown over his arm. He stood in the entryway, hoping the restricting feeling in his chest would abate now that he was away from work, but it didn’t. And he knew why.

  Frustrated, he yanked off his tie and tossed everything onto the bed as he entered the bedroom. The bed was made and had been since the day Adrienne left. Being in it without her had felt odd, so he’d returned to sleeping in the guest room.

  Something felt off. He’d been fighting the feeling for weeks, but he was too stubborn and hurt to seriously consider what was really bothering him. Their fight in the bathroom kept replaying in his head each night as he tried to sleep. The expression of fear and heartache on her face. How she’d tried to explain something he hadn’t wanted to hear.

  He stopped outside of the master bedroom closet. He’d slammed the door shut in a fit of rage after Adrienne left the apartment and hadn’t gone in there since then. Will hadn’t gone into her workroom either. There were too many memories locked inside.

  Twisting the knob, Will pulled open the door and walked in. The neatly hung rows of clothing were the same, the boxes of priceless footwear lined up as always. The only thing out of place was a piece of clothing on the floor. He bent down and scooped up the discarded blouse. Stitched into the collar was a tag that read Adrienne Lockhart Designs. Just as she’d tried to tell him.