"Could it be you're a little taken with this Eric guy?"
Janet's mouth flew open. "You've got to be kidding."
"All I wanted to know was how Mr. Stewart behaved after having his car stolen and wrecked, and what I got was a groupie's description of Julio Iglesias."
A wave of heat washed over Janet's cheeks. "I… I misunderstood you."
"Obviously." Carol began gathering their cups. "Maybe it's a good thing the deductible was so large. It will give you plenty of opportunity to see him again."
"Seeing Eric Stewart again is the last thing I want to do."
"Are you sure?"
"I've never been so sure of anything."
Carol gave her a sly smile. "Methinks thou dost protest too much."
Shakespeare! "Couldn't you have quoted someone else?" Janet groaned, taking the tray and heading for the kitchen.
Carol laughed. "Would you have preferred Byron?"
"I think something from Poe might be more appropriate."
Carol followed her into the kitchen. She struck a dramatic pose and lowered her voice. "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary…"
"Now that's more like it." They put away the sugar and cream and washed their cups before calling it a night. As Janet left Carol and walked down the hall to her bedroom, she thought about the mistake she had made when asked about Eric. That she had described him physically instead of detailing his actions was nothing more than the result of a simple misunderstanding. Still… she was bemused that she had rattled on as she had. She had meant what she had told Carol, though. In spite of his physical attributes, seeing Eric again was the last thing she wanted to do. Besides, he undoubtedly thought her a dingbat, and she had neither the time nor the inclination to try to prove him wrong.
After dropping Janet off the night before, Eric had decided to stay in town rather than go home across the Bay to Sausalito. The house on Sea Cliff had been in his family for three generations. He now shared it with his grandparents, parents and sister on a cooperative basis. Rarely, however, were all of them there at the same time. Since his father's retirement, his parents had discovered the joys of traveling and were always off exploring some new country. His grandparents preferred the warmth of Palm Springs, and his sister, Susan, was a pilot for an international courier service and spent more time in the Orient than she did in the States. Eric stayed overnight at the two-story Tudor-style brick house whenever he was in the city late or had an early meeting the next day.
Though there weren't any meetings that morning, there was plenty to do. He had to make arrangements to have the Cobra towed over to Sam's Body Shop, contact his insurance agent and arrange to use the limousine service the firm kept on retainer for as long as it took to get the car fixed. He had used cabs the last time his car was in the shop, which had turned out to be one headache after another. Because he rarely remembered to check to see how much cash he was carrying, he was constantly arriving someplace and discovering he didn't have enough money to pay the fare.
As soon as the office opened, he called his secretary and had her shift his nine o'clock appointment to the afternoon. He then started working on getting the Cobra repaired. Two hours later he put in a call to Elizabeth Goodson to tell her there would be a slight change in their plans for the opera that Saturday.
Eric, Elizabeth and Walt Goodson, Elizabeth's husband, had been friends since first grade and, except for the years spent away at separate colleges, had seen each other on a regular basis since. Elizabeth worked out of her home as a free-lance interior designer. Walt managed the women's ready-to-wear department at Neiman-Marcus.
"Eric," Elizabeth exclaimed, her voice filled with sunshine. "What's up?"
"I called to see if I could get you to leave that shiftless husband of yours and run away with me to Fiji."
"Hmm… run away with me to Fiji. Catchy. Why don't you see if you could set it to music? Maybe we could get the maestro to include it in next year's light opera schedule."
"With you singing tenor."
"And you soprano."
"Walt could carry a sword…"
She laughed. "Not around me, he couldn't. He took half his chin off again this morning while he was shaving. It's reached the point that I don't trust him around anything sharper than his finger. Lately he's been like an accident that's just waiting to happen."
Eric cleared his throat. "Speaking of accidents…" He proceeded to tell he about the Cobra.
"Eric, that's terrible," she commiserated. "And after you just got it out of the shop. What are you going to tell your dad?"
"If I'm lucky, he'll never find out. I figure that since he's still in Japan and doesn't know I picked the car up from the first accident, all I have to do is keep my mouth shut, and he'll think the repairs took longer than first predicted."
"Sneaky."
"What he doesn't know can't affect his blood pressure." Eric glanced at the clock on the mantel. "I'd better tell you the real reason I called before I have to hang up and get going. Since I have to use a limo these next few weeks, I thought we might as well take advantage of the service this Saturday night."
"How wonderful! You mean I finally get a chance to see how the other half lives?"
Elizabeth greeted each new experience with the enthusiasm of a child turned loose in a candy store. Eric laughed. "I won't be back from Monterey until late on Saturday, so if you don't mind, I'll have the driver go to your place first. Then you and Walt can stop by Sandra's to pick her up on your way over here."
The relationship he had with Sandra Winslow was basically one of convenience. They called on each other when an occasion required a date or, like the upcoming Saturday evening, when one of them happened to have an extra ticket.
"Walt tells me you may be losing the pleasure of Sandra's company soon."
"She has until the end of the month to make up her mind whether to accept the promotion and move to Dallas. I hate to see her go, but it's a hell of an opportunity."
"Frankly, I'd welcome her leaving."
"I thought you liked Sandra."
"Oh, I do. But I figure as long as she's around, you'll never meet anyone you might become serious about."
"Trust me on this one, Elizabeth. When the right woman comes along, nothing—not Sandra, not the entire front line of the Forty-niner football team—will stand in my way. Until then, Sandra Winslow is a perfect companion—beautiful, charming, intelligent and determined not to get involved. What more could I ask?"
"How about someone to snuggle up to on cold nights?"
It was a conversation they had had, in one form or another, a hundred times before. An incurable romantic, Elizabeth was frustrated because Eric was nearing thirty-five and still unmarried. "Trust me, Elizabeth, keeping warm on cold nights has never been a particular problem."
"I was talking about something a little more permanent."
He laughed. "I'll see you Saturday." He told her goodbye, took one last look around the room to be sure he wasn't forgetting anything, and left for the office, eager to get on with his day.
Five days after she had wrecked Eric Stewart's car, Janet was back in San Francisco, expertly maneuvering a sleek limousine through the chaotic Market Street traffic. She signaled a left turn onto Van Ness, which would take her to Lombard and then to Divisadero, where she was to pick up a client. At her request, the dispatcher at Coachman Limousine Service had given her one assignment that would last the entire evening rather than three or four by-the-hour clients. Although the tips weren't as high this way, the downtime, while she waited for her group to eat dinner or attend a show, would allow her to catch up on her homework.
Even though she hadn't had to go back to the police station that week, it had been nerve-racking waiting for a call. After learning that all Detective McMillan had wanted the night he'd called was to confirm Casey's telephone number, Janet had breathed a little easier. Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the other shoe to fall while the police and
then the district attorney did his work.
As she neared Divisadero, Janet glanced at the address, which lay beside her on the seat, and calculated that the house should be up three blocks and on the right side of the street. As she made the turn, she glanced ahead to check for parking and then in her rearview mirror for patrol cars. She soon found the house, which was a light yellow California stucco and so close to its neighbors that it looked attached. It was three stories high, and the bottom level was a double garage that faced the street. With parking places as rare as the gold that had originally drawn settlers to San Francisco, a garage so large in a neighborhood such as this one could double the price of the house.
Janet pulled up to the curb, blocking two driveways and a tow-away sign. Once again, she checked for patrol cars before tucking her hair under her chauffeur's hat and heading for the front door.
A man and woman Janet guessed to be in their early thirties met her at the door. The type of pleasantries exchanged on their way back to the limousine let Janet know the evening would be a good one. She had learned she could make such judgments almost instantly from the customer's attitude toward her when she picked them up. These people saw her simply as someone doing a job, not as their servant for the evening.
After spending a few minutes showing them how to operate the television and the bar, Janet took off to pick up the next member of the party. A short time later, she was on North Point Street near Fisherman's Wharf at a high-rise apartment house that faced the Bay. As she pulled under the blue canvas portico, a uniformed doorman came over to the car. "I'm here to pick up a Ms Winslow," Janet told him.
"I'll inform her you're here."
As she waited, Janet tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, keeping time to the soft rock music on the radio. Periodically she glanced at the large glass doors, watching for a woman who was dressed as if she were going to spend an evening at the opera. When she appeared, she was wearing a shimmering silver lame dress that clung to her perfectly proportioned body like a second skin. Janet hopped out of the car to open the door.
After greeting her two friends in the car, the woman spoke to Janet. "There will be one more stop," she said, her words spoken in a deep sultry tone, a perfect accompaniment to the dress.
"Yes, ma'am." Janet had figured as much. This was not the kind of woman who went anywhere alone. "The address?"
"One-seven-two-three Sea Cliff Avenue."
Janet silently repeated the address several times to set it in her mind. It had a strangely familiar ring. She quickly searched her memory. Between her chauffeuring job and the one at the Anything Goes Agency, she had been on assignments to every corner of the city. It didn't surprise her that an address sounded familiar, only that she couldn't remember why or when she had been there before.
Cutting across Lombard, she turned up California, puzzling over her inability to recall having been to the Sea Cliff address. As she drove the forty-odd blocks and the shops gave way to houses that became more and more expensive, Janet felt her stomach tighten and her throat go dry. With sudden clarity she remembered why the Sea Cliff address sounded so familiar. It was where Eric Stewart lived.
She felt the color drain from her face. Her heart pounded heavily in her chest. This couldn't be happening. She didn't believe in coincidences, so how was this incredible one possible? Out of all the limousine services in San Francisco, and out of all the drivers who worked for those limousine services, how could she be on her way to pick up the one person in the entire San Francisco peninsula whom she had hoped never to see again as long as she lived?
And then there it was—his house—sitting in the middle of the block, a short half-circle driveway leading up to the front door. Large and stately in comparison to those surrounding it, the house exuded wealth. In San Francisco, almost every piece of property held a higher premium than any building sitting on it possibly could and Eric Stewart's house was not an exception. Sea Cliff Avenue was located on the South Bay with the Pacific Ocean on its left, and the mouth of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge on its right. The view from the homes actually located on the cliff, as Eric's was, was so spectacular that living there would be well worth enduring the legendary fog and wind.
Janet flicked the turn signal and waited for a car to pass, grateful for the few extra seconds that it gave her to think. At least one thing was on her side: wearing a chauffeur's uniform gave her a certain amount of anonymity. She had discovered a long time ago that people who rented limousines rarely paid attention to the driver.
She had delayed as long as she could; there wasn't another car in sight. Easing the limo over the curb, she pulled into the driveway. Oh, no, she inwardly groaned, looking up and seeing the door open. She wasn't even going to be allowed the time it took to walk to the front door to compose herself. Frantically she checked to make sure her hair was still safely tucked under her hat. With a firm tug on the bill, she pulled the hat as far down her forehead as it would go. Despite her rush to get ready, Eric was almost to the car before she could get out to open the door for him.
"Good evening," he said politely, his voice warm and friendly.
Janet dropped her chin, trying to block his view of her face with the shiny patent leather bill on her hat. "Good evening, sir," she replied, intently staring at his shoes.
Eric hesitated. "I don't think we've met before. No, I'm sure we haven't—you're the first woman chauffeur the Coachman people have ever sent." He held out his hand. "I'm Eric Stewart."
Why couldn't he have turned out to be one of those social snobs who wouldn't dream of introducing themselves to the hired help? She put her hand in his. The contact was electric. "Ms…Baily, Mr. Stewart." In addition to borrowing her mother's maiden name, she dropped her voice and dredged up the memory of a southern accent she had simulated years ago in a high school play. "I hope you'll enjoy your evening. If there's anything extra I can do for you, please let me know."
"Thank you, I will." He bent over to get into the car.
In her rush to end their contact, Janet closed the door so quickly she almost caught his foot. But her relief was short lived. As soon as she returned to the driver's seat, the glass panel separating her from the passenger's compartment opened. "Since we're a little early," a now painfully familiar voice said, "we've decided to stop by Jason's for a drink before the opera. Do you know how to get there?"
"Are you referring to the Jason's on O'Farrell?"
"That's the one."
Because he left the separating panel open, it was impossible for Janet not to eavesdrop on the back seat conversation as she drove across town. The gentle teasing and easy laughter told her that her four passengers were old and good friends. Just as she was lulled into thinking her fears about a disastrous evening were groundless, someone mentioned the Cobra.
Eric groaned. "If you don't mind, I would rather we talked about anything else. Between the police, the insurance agent and the repair shop, I feel like I've gone ten rounds this week."
"Well, I hope they put that stupid woman back in jail where she belongs. She's a menace." Sandra Winslow's voice was sharply disapproving.
Janet bristled. What a cretinous, unthinking thing to say. She instantly regretted every kind thought she had had about the woman in silver lame.
"I thought I explained all that to you," Eric said.
"You did. But I fully expected that by now the police would have shot that woman's crazy story full of holes. It was hard enough to believe a detective bought her story, but when you told me you fell for it, too, I was… well, frankly, I was flabbergasted."
Janet glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Eric give Sandra a silencing motion. "I guess you had to be there at the time."
It was everything Janet could do to keep her mouth shut. She tried counting to ten and then to twenty. By the time she pulled up to Jason's, she was nearing two thousand.
Later, after she'd dropped Eric and his party off at the opera and had joined the other drivers a
nd limousines that were waiting a block away, she dug her biology textbook out from under the seat and opened it to chapter seven. She was halfway through the chapter before she stopped long enough to acknowledge that she hadn't the vaguest idea what she had read. Although her gaze had swept the page, her mind had been focussed on Eric Stewart. Seeing him again had evoked a reaction wildly out of proportion to anything she would, or could, have imagined. She had thought him moderately attractive in his maroon sweat suit, but in a black tuxedo, he was nothing short of magnificent. He was one of those rare men who look completely at ease in formal clothing—someone who could dance all night and then casually discard his tie, unbutton his shirt, roll up his pant legs and stroll along a beach to watch the sunrise.
As Janet let out a wistful sigh, she caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the window and was surprised to see how vulnerable she looked. Because she was usually too tired or too busy for anything as unproductive as daydreams, it had been months since she had consciously fantasized about a man… any man. To have now chosen Eric Stewart as a fantasy object was a powerful indication of just how myopic she had become about work and school. What she needed was a good fixation on a movie, or rock star—someone safe—a person she couldn't possibly ever meet.
Two and a half hours later, Eric directed her to a late-night restaurant where the foursome had reservations for dinner. Two hours after that, she drove them home. First she dropped off the Goodsons, next the Silver Lame. While Janet waited in the car, Eric escorted Sandra to her apartment. He stayed away for what turned out to be an exceedingly long fifteen minutes. As Janet watched the dashboard clock, she tried to convince herself that the minutes seemed like hours because she was tired and hungry and wanted to go home. Her impatience, she assured herself, had absolutely nothing to do with her curiosity about what method he happened to be using to say good-night.
Part of her frustration over the long wait was due to the fact that she considered herself an astute judge of character. She had decided Sandra Winslow wasn't the right woman for Eric. Sandra was a North Pole type— someone who would decorate their apartment white on white, and have one of those organized closets in which everything had its own little cubby hole and all the shoes were lined up, their toes pointing straight out like soldiers at attention. What Eric needed was someone tropical—someone colorful and casual who would balance out his own North Pole characteristics. He had had sense enough to choose friends who were that way, why not a lover? She was unconsciously and impatiently tapping her fingers against the steering wheel, chiding herself for caring how long he took to say goodnight, when Eric suddenly appeared beside her.
A Week from Friday Page 4
