The Setup

by Marie Ferrarella

  He didn’t mean to look at Blake when he said that, but there it was. Blake might be the one whose social book was bursting at the seams, with a different woman coming into play each month or so, like the changing faces of pinups on a calendar, but he’d had the richer life, Jefferson thought. He was the one who had experienced real love.

  And, most importantly, he’d had a family. Blake had only ticket stubs from the various trips he’d gone on, the various clubs he’d visited, the various functions he’d attended. Things like that might have eaten up Blake’s time, but they didn’t create the kind of memories that Jefferson would have wanted for himself.

  “You’re only forty-seven years old, for crying out loud, not a hundred and forty-seven.” For a moment, Blake’s attention seemed to be drawn away by the smile of a blonde, two stools over, who was wearing a very fitting, very small black dress, but then he brought his focus back to Jefferson. “It’s not time to lie down in the coffin yet.”

  Jefferson noted the way Blake was eyeing the blonde. Trying to meet and strike up a conversation with a stranger held absolutely no appeal for him. “You act as if I don’t do anything but sit in a corner and stare at the walls. Most days, I’ve barely got two minutes to rub together.”

  Blake made a disparaging sound as he dismissed Jefferson’s objection. “That’s work.”

  “That’s purpose,” Jefferson countered. Besides, he liked his work. It was useful and necessary. Industry would grind to a halt without corporate lawyers. The business world would dissolve in a sea of squabbles and heated arguments over rights and infringements.

  Blake spread his hands, not in surrender but as if widening the playing field. “All I’m saying is, have a little fun before you can’t. You’re still a decent looking guy—”

  Jefferson laughed, taking another sip of his drink. “Thanks.”

  “Hey, we all can’t be studs like me.”

  Jefferson had a feeling that Blake was speaking only half tongue in cheek. It didn’t bother him. When they were younger, it was Blake who had always attracted the girls. But then, Jefferson had been the one who’d gotten the only girl who counted.

  “The point is,” Blake continued, “you came down here, we’re going to have a fantastic time at the reunion, and you’re going to have a terrific date tomorrow night with Sylvie.” He paused, as if preparing to drop a bombshell. “Her family owns this hotel, you know.”

  As if that would make a difference to Jefferson. When he married Donna, he’d also taken on her school loan. Wealth, or lack of it, had never mattered to him.

  Jefferson smiled, amused. “So now you’re turning me into a gigolo?”

  Instead of denying it, Blake laughed. “Hey, it’s as easy to love a rich woman as a poor one.”

  Jefferson’s chunky glass met the top of the bar abruptly. He stared at Blake in disbelief. Just what was it that his friend and daughter were plotting? “Love? Who said anything about love? Aren’t you getting way ahead of yourself here?”

  Again, there were no denials, no backpedaling. The look on Blake’s face was enigmatic. “Just leave yourself open to the possibilities, Jeff. Sylvie sounds like she could really open up your eyes—not to mention your pores.”

  Pores. As in the old wives’ tale that having sex cleared up your skin. That was definitely a lot more than he had signed on for. “My pores are just fine, Blake.”

  “Oh?” Blake made no secret of scrutinizing his friend’s complexion as he asked, “When was the last time you were with a woman?”

  Jefferson was aware that Leo was back in their area. The taciturn man appeared to be listening as he prepared two mai-tais, even though he never raised his eyes from the blender.

  “I’m with women all the time,” Jefferson replied matter-of-factly.

  But Blake shook his head. “I’m talking one-on-one, Jeff.”

  “You’re talking too much,” Jefferson retorted. He made an impulsive decision. No, it was the right decision, he amended. Saying yes in the first place had been impulsive. “Look, I think I’m going to cancel. You and I can spend tomorrow night catching up, instead,” he suggested, then grinned. “I figure the way you live, that should take about a week.”

  Blake was having none of it. He wasn’t about to let his friend bail out. “I’ve always hated one-sided conversations. Besides, didn’t I tell you? I’m going to be busy tomorrow night.”

  This was the first Jefferson had heard of it. Blake had promised to be available every day of his stay in New Orleans. That was part of the deal. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, attending that performance art function at the gallery in the Warehouse District.”

  “The one I’m attending,” Jefferson said, purely for clarification.

  “Yes. I know the woman who’s running it. As a matter of fact—” his grin nearly split his dark, handsome face “—I’m dating the woman who’s running it.”

  Jefferson could only shake his head. He had long since lost track of the number of women that Blake had dated. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  Blake pretended not to hear. “And, as it turns out, Sylvie Marchand is one of her closest friends. So you see, Jefferson, you have to go or I’m going to have a miserable time.”

  Jefferson set his empty glass on the counter. Leo materialized, seemingly out of nowhere, a fresh drink in his hand. It was a carbon copy of the last one, right down to the number of ice cubes. About to decline, Jefferson changed his mind and nodded. Leo slid the drink on to a napkin and ushered it into the space the first drink had occupied.

  “Miss Sylvie’s good people,” he told Jefferson. “Treat her right.” The words almost sounded like a warning. The next moment, he’d moved to another part of the bar.

  Slightly unnerved, Jefferson looked at Blake, trying to pick up the thread of their conversation before the bartender had made his comment. “I don’t see the connection.”

  Blake obligingly spelled it out for him. “Maddy’s not going to be happy if her friend gets stood up. Especially since I was the one who made the arrangements in the first place.”

  “You?” Jefferson’s dark eyebrows drew together in a disapproving line. “You set me up with that kid? Did you get a look at her before you did this?”

  “She’s not a kid, she’s a woman. Gotta watch those terms, lawyer man.” Blake pretended to look around him. Jefferson noted that he made eye contact again with the blonde in the abbreviated black dress. “Around here, that kind of talk can get you castrated. Fast. Anyway, when Emily said she wanted to send in your application to an online dating service, I told her to hold on to her money. That I knew someone who did that sort of thing for a living. I persuaded her—”

  “Her?”

  “My friend who owns the matchmaking service, Gloria Conway,” Blake clarified. Jefferson was trying to get all his facts straight. Blake could only smile. You could take the man out of the law firm, but you couldn’t get the law firm out of the man. “Anyway, I persuaded Gloria to let me take a look at the applications she had—”

  But Jefferson wasn’t finished with that part of it yet. “Isn’t that unethical?”

  A lawyer himself, Blake had never been the stickler for ethics that Jefferson was. The way he saw it, the two of them provided the yin and the yang of every situation, and balance was the key. “All’s fair in love and war, Jeffy, you know that.”

  No, Jefferson thought, there was nothing fair about love or war. And tomorrow night, he was determined, was going to be neither. But this discussion they were having could go on all evening. He might consider himself the more able lawyer, but Blake was the pit bull when it came to winning. He’d been that way on the tennis court and in any kind of competition.

  Taking a long sip of his drink, which was no longer fiery but oddly soothing, Jefferson surrendered. “Okay, I’m not going to have any peace until I go along with this.”

  Victory always made Blake magnanimous. “You’re not going to regret it, Jeffy.”

  He didn’t know ab
out that, Jefferson thought. An uneasy feeling at the back of his neck told him he was walking into uncharted territory, a terrain with hidden sinkholes scattered throughout.

  One wrong step and he would be in way over his head.

  MADDY O’NEILL PUT DOWN the end of the table that she was carrying and pushed a strand of short, black hair out of her eyes. She stared at the woman on the other end of the table. “You met him?”

  “By accident. He was checking in, I was on my way out. The front desk lost his reservation.” Sylvie shrugged, sending the shoulder of her blouse sliding down. “So I had David give him the Jackson Suite.” She looked at Maddy intently. “Are you going to carry your end, or is the table just going to levitate into place?”

  With a sniff, Maddy picked up the table and resumed walking backward in small, measured steps. “You gave him the Jackson Suite?” she marveled. “You mean that delicious room that’s supposedly an exact replica of the one Andrew Jackson shared with his wife before she died?” Deciding that this was as good a place as any to set down the first of three long dining tables, she lowered her end again. “Okay,” she instructed with a nod.

  Sylvie was all too happy to comply. “What do you mean, supposedly? I went through a lot of trouble to research that. It is an exact replica. Except for the paintings, of course. Those are mine.”

  Maddy crossed to the rear exit to retrieve the next table. “Yours? As in from the hotel gallery?”

  “As in from my own brush,” Sylvie corrected. When Maddy looked at her, she added, “I offered to help update some of the rooms—on a very limited budget—and wanted to add a personal touch.” Bracing herself, she picked up the end of the second table and they began walking back into the gallery. “I’m very proud of that room.”

  “It’s a gorgeous room.” Maddy glanced over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t going to bump into the first table. “You’ve got a lot of talent, Sylvie, although I never pegged you for the research type.” Reaching their destination, she put down her end. “But then, I never pegged you for the mother type, either, and you seem to be doing a beautiful job in that department.”

  Nothing made Sylvie prouder. Or happier. The satisfaction that came with being a mother had been a total surprise to her, like discovering one last, hidden present beneath the Christmas tree after all the torn wrapping paper had been cleared away.

  “In a way, I think we’re raising each other,” she told Maddy. “Daisy Rose is raising me as much as I’m raising her.” Her thoughts drifted from the room, sifting through the wealth of memory fragments that made up her life with Daisy Rose.

  They crossed the room together to bring in the last of the tables. “Ever hear from that loser father of hers?”

  “No, and I’m grateful for that.” It was a lie. Sylvie had heard from him, or would have if she’d answered the phone. Shane had called her twice in the past two weeks, leaving messages that he wanted to talk to her. Out of the blue, after all this time. Well, he might want to talk to her, but she didn’t want to talk to him. Ever.

  The two women worked silently until the final table was in place.

  “Having Shane in Daisy Rose’s life would mean nothing but trouble,” Sylvie said, frowning. “He’d probably hit her up for cash if he could.”

  “Never knew what you saw in him.”

  Maddy could be counted on for brutal honesty, and this time she was right. “From this vantage point, I’d have to agree with you. I guess you just had to be there.” She thought of the first time she’d seen the lead guitarist for Lynx. He’d blown her away. Shane Alexander seemed to become one with his instrument, with the music. “He was pretty hot stuff when he and the band were at the top.” Her smile was rueful. “I got him just as he was on his way down. He needed reaffirmation and I needed to be needed, I suppose.”

  Maddy brought out one of the tablecloths she intended to use tomorrow night. Sylvie took an end, and together, they brought the cloth down over the table like a giant scarlet parachute descending to earth.

  “He was one hell of a good time in bed. Unfortunately, out of bed he was pretty useless.” She didn’t like to think of herself as naive, especially at that point in her life, but she’d actually believed, for a very short time, that Shane loved her. She had had a rude awakening. “And then when I realized he had an intimate relationship with every single bottle in Southern California, not to mention every female over the age of eighteen, I split. He brought new meaning to the words shallow and narcissistic.”

  Maddy was all sympathy. “Hasn’t he tried to get in contact with you?”

  Biting her tongue to hold back the urge to share, Sylvie shook her head. “Not even once.” Which, she told herself, would have been the truth had Maddy asked the question two weeks ago. “I sent him a card, care of the band, to let him know when Daisy Rose was born, and another on her first birthday, but he never acknowledged receiving either.”

  “Did he even know he was the father?” Maddy asked.

  Sylvie laughed shortly. “Oh, he knew all right. His exact words at the time were ‘Get rid of it.’” She tossed her head, summarily dismissing all thought of the man. “As far as I’m concerned, Daisy Rose might as well have had a test tube for a father. It probably would have been better that way for her, when you come right down to it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Some good came of her having Shane as a father,” Maddy theorized as she took out the second tablecloth. “For a little thing, she’s got a very pretty voice.”

  Sylvie beamed with pride. Daisy Rose loved to sing to her dolls. “Certainly didn’t get the ability to carry a tune from me. Hopefully, though, she’ll be artistic.”

  Maddy was a firm believer in people making their own choices in life. Her parents never would have foreseen her becoming an artist. “Don’t go making plans for her just yet. She might surprise you and be some kind of scientific genius.”

  Once they’d covered the third table, Sylvie began to bring over the folding chairs. “I don’t want a genius, just a happy kid. That’s part of the reason I came back, so that she could grow up with her family around her.” She supposed she sounded overly sentimental, but there was nothing wrong with that. Sentiment had an important place in her world. “I grew up with a hell of a supportive family. I want Daisy Rose to experience that support, too. It fosters a sense of well-being.”

  “She might get that from having a father,” Maddy tactfully pointed out as she dragged over the first of many chairs.

  “Maybe. But I’m not about to put out an all-points bulletin looking for one,” Sylvie assured her.

  Leaving Maddy to handle the chairs, she went to the crate she’d brought with her. Inside were two paintings from the Hotel Marchand gallery, both by Louisiana artists—her contribution to tomorrow night’s event. She’d brought them over personally to assure their safety, and she knew Maddy had hired extra security.

  “I won’t say that I’m not open to the idea,” she continued. She was always open to life. “But if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I don’t need a man to complete me.”

  Maddy slid a chair beneath the table. “You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.”

  Sylvie gave her an incredulous look. “You? You’re one of the most ‘complete’ women I know.”

  Maddy grinned. “Maybe so, but nothing beats a warm body next to yours when you slip into bed.”

  “I’ve had my share of warm bodies. The concept is highly overrated.”

  Bringing over two more chairs, Maddy stopped to look at her quizzically. “Then why are you going out with this guy tomorrow?”

  One by one, Sylvie carefully leaned the paintings against the wall where she thought they should be hung. “Because I’m flexible. Because Charlotte, Melanie and Renee will get on my case if I back out. And because, after seeing him, I think he’s kind of cute, although he’s definitely not what I envisioned. I thought I was getting Johnny Depp and this guy’s more like Gregory Peck. Now, I’ve always liked Gregory Peck,�
�� she qualified, “but Johnny Depp really gets my pulse going.”

  Instead of opening up the next two chairs, Maddy just leaned them against the table. “Did you ever see Duel in the Sun? Gregory can be a real bad boy, too.”

  “I’m not out for a bad boy,” Sylvie interjected, then added, “I don’t really know what I’m out for. But Jefferson Lambert is definitely not my type.”

  “What do you mean? According to his application, you and Jefferson have a lot of things in common.”

  “When did you see his application?” Was it posted in the town square? Or had Charlotte just run off copies for the world at large?

  “Blake showed it to me.”

  “Blake?” She wasn’t familiar with the name. Maddy went through men like a person with allergies went through tissues during hay fever season.

  “My newest honey,” Maddy explained. “Tall, dark, handsome. Rich, I think.” Her eyes fairly gleamed as she went over his good points. “He’s coming here tomorrow night. As it happens, he’s friends with your guy.”

  Sylvie stiffened slightly. That sounded much too personal. Much too confining. “I don’t have a ‘guy.’”

  “Okay, your temp,” Maddy corrected with a laugh. “Anyway, Blake and Jefferson go way back. They both went to school here. Tulane,” she added. “They were fraternity brothers. That’s what Jefferson is doing down here in the first place. There’s this big fraternity reunion taking place this week.”

  Somehow, Sylvie couldn’t quite picture the man she’d met earlier being hazed and washing a walkway with a toothbrush. He had too much dignity for that.

  But then, she reminded herself, she had no way of knowing what he’d been like as a college student.