by Sally Mason
He’s looking forward to seeing his little swan starting to spread her wings.
Eric, deep in thought, starts the Jeep and turns out of the parking lot at the beach, crossing the intersection that in Santa Sofia has become known as Bigelow Bend (Darcy filling him in on the awful but side-splittingly funny tale of the runaway ice cream truck) when he nearly flattens a woman who steps off the sidewalk right in front of him.
Eric stands on his brakes and the Jeep comes to a screeching halt just inches from the woman who stares at him blankly.
He has never seen her before, and with her wild hair and pale, windswept beauty, she looks like she’s been blown off one of the Brontë sisters’ moors, not stepped out of a Santa Sofia strip mall.
14
Her name, remarkably, is Brontë.
Brontë Baines.
And when other kids were falling asleep to Dr. Seuss and The Brothers Grimm, her mother was reading her Jayne Eyre and Wuthering Heights. And even though she’d been born in the Imperial Empire (Riverside) not the seat of the British Empire, she had grown into a distracted and vague girl with a delicate and romantic disposition, at odds with the world of Twitter and Facebook an on-line dating.
Or any kind of dating.
So, fleeing by Greyhound Bus from the latest Mr. Rochester-not (a grabby traveling salesman from Gardena) she finds herself in this little town without knowing quite how she got here or what she’s going to do now.
She stepped off the bus to use the bathroom at the gas station, became distracted by a display of flowers in the little garden, and quite failed to notice that the coach had driven away with her bag in its belly.
Oh well.
These things happen to Brontë Baines.
Happen with remarkable regularity.
So, with nothing but the clothes on her back and a couple of dollars in the little cloth bag that hangs from her shoulder, she walks along the sidewalk, the breeze tugging at the long dress she wears, showing a pair of bird-like ankles ending in ballet pumps.
Following some internal GPS she steps off the curb almost in front of a jeepy thing— the driver shouting and saying something unflattering.
He roars off and she wanders across the road, pleased at the near-accident, because it got her looking where she was going, otherwise she would have quite missed the bookstore with the sheet of paper of Scotch-taped to its glass door: HELP NEEDED.
Good, this was a sign.
Well, of course it’s a sign, Brontë, you clot.
A rather untidy, handwritten sign.
No, not that kind of sign.
A sign sign.
A message, telling her that she has come to the right place.
And when she pushes open the door to the store and sets off the first few bars of “Greensleeves”, she knows this is another sign.
Standing there, inhaling her two favorite smells—books and coffee—mixed into a heady perfume, Brontë feels a sudden jolt of raw happiness.
“Morning, need assistance?”
She turns to see a tall, wild haired man, with a beautifully ugly large-boned face.
He holds a huge cream cake on a tray.
“No, but clearly you do.”
“Do I?”
He stares at her, perplexed, and she sees he has eyes blue as robin’s eggs, wide and without guile.
The tray is balanced precariously in his hands and he rights it at the last moment, stopping the cake from sliding to the floor.
Brontë points toward the door.
“The sign.”
“Ah, the sign. The sign. Yes. Yes I do.”
He stares down at the cake, and turns and sets the tray down on a small bench that is parked near one of the shelves of books.
“Do you have any experience?” he asks.
“Well, I read books and I eat cake and I love coffee.”
“Oh, okay. Great, Miss . . .?”
“Brontë Baines.”
“Brontë like . . .?”
“Charlotte and Emily.”
“Not to forget Anne.”
Brontë, impressed, says, “No, of course not.”
“I think The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is very underrated.”
Brontë is even more impressed. “Gosh, so do I!”
The man sticks out a hand and says, “I’m Billy Bigelow.”
She shakes the huge hand and this touch seems to send him into a spin—literally—he rotates 360 degrees, scratches his head, and then decides to sit.
Before Brontë can warn him, this huge wonderful man has planted his backside in the cream cake.
He shoots to his feet, twisting to see his butt.
“Oh, hell.” Then he shrugs. “Still want the job?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“When can you start?”
“Greensleeves” trills as the door opens and a couple of very tanned women in tennis togs come in and head for one of the tables in the coffee shop.
Brontë lifts two of menus from the counter—something about this man has stirred a boldness in her—and says, “Right now.”
15
Carlotta McCourt and Jenny Johnson from Jenny’s Fashions (Santa Sofia’s smartest boutique) take their seats in the coffee shop.
Carlotta, still flushed and pumped from beating the slightly younger and taller Jenny in straight sets over at the country club (the two of them pausing between points to watch the tables and bandstand and paraphernalia being delivered for tonight’s Spring Ball) looks around in the hope of spotting Darcy Pringle and her mystery man, but the bookstore is empty of customers.
A girl she has never seen before, a strange, pale creature with the face of a horse and a thicket of wild hair, comes over carrying menus.
“Where’s Darlene?” Carlotta asks.
“I have no idea,” the girl says.
Carlotta sighs. “God, how boring. That means I’m going to have to break you in.”
“Sounds painful,” the girl says, deadpan.
Carlotta searches her face for signs of insolence, but finds none.
Finds nothing, in fact.
What a blank slate she is.
Carlotta launches into a detailed description of how she wants her coffee and her croissant, the instructions so intricate and pernickety they have reduced many waitresses to tears.
But this girl writes nothing down.
“Have you got that?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see a notebook.”
The girl taps her unruly mop. “All up here. I have an eidetic memory.”
“A what?”
“What’s commonly known as a photographic memory. I forget nothing.”
“Well, you get my order wrong and you won’t be forgetting me, you hear?”
“I also have perfect pitch. That means my hearing is remarkably developed.”
“You getting fresh with me, missy?”
“Oh no, ma’am.” And she’s gone.
Jenny shakes her head. “Where does Poor Billy find them?”
“Poor Billy is an idiot.”
“What was he doing at Darcy’s house last night?”
“God, I wish I knew. But even more I wish I knew who the guy was who spent the night.”
Jenny leans forward, whispering. “Tell me about him again.”
And even though Carlotta, in the locker room at the club, had regaled Jenny with the events of last night, she describes the man again, in great and fulsome detail.
“He sounds gorgeous.”
“He was,” Carlotta says, batting her false eyelashes.
“You’re sure he didn’t slip next door with that Eric character?”
“No way. Eric went home on his little old lonesome.”
“How absolutely intriguing.”
“Isn’t it just?” Carlotta says. “Tonight is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. I would not miss it for the world.”
The girl arrives with her coffee and Carlotta, ready for battle, sips at it.
“Is it to madam’s satisfaction?” the girl says.
To Carlotta’s annoyance the coffee is perfect.
“It’s okay.”
With just the hint of a curtsey the girl is gone.
“I don’t like her,” Carlotta says.
“She’s creepy.”
“She won’t last.”
“No.”
“Nobody can take working for that bozo for too long.”
And as they watch, Billy, on a low ladder stacking a bookshelf, forgets that he is suspended in the air and steps backward.
How she does it they aren’t sure, but the weird girl (as if this were some circus routine she and Poor Billy have performed for years) rushes out of nowhere pushing a box of books and Billy steps down onto the container and then onto the floor, noticing nothing as he walks off in his usual daze.
But Carlotta notices something: she finally sees an expression on the girl’s face.
She is smiling as she watches Billy walking away.
“Ooooh,” Carlotta says. “I think Miss Downtown Abbey’s got the hots for Poor Billy Bigelow.”
“Well good luck to her,” Jenny says. “He’ll never stop mooning over Darcy.”
“No, he won’t.”
“I don’t suppose he’ll be there tonight, will he?”
Carlotta shakes her head. “No, sadly. That would’ve added even more spice wouldn’t it?”
“Mnnnn. But it’s spicy enough, Lottie.” Jenny is one of the very few permitted to call her this.
“Oh, it’s going to be a regular Five-alarm Chili.”
And they laugh and lean into one another, toothy as a couple of great whites circling in bloody waters.
16
Darcy sits at her make-up table, blinking as she applies eyeliner.
She stares at herself in the mirror, and suddenly feels drained of all vitality.
Come on, girl, she tells herself.
Come on, Darcy.
But she turns on the stool and looks at the empty bedroom, remembering all the nights she’d dressed for the Spring Ball, going back ten years, when Porter made his first million (some property coup that had resulted in a horrible condo development farther up the coast) and she’d persuaded him to bankroll the event.
Porter, if not exactly a mean-spirited man, was no philanthropist, but he’d been shrewd enough to see the benefits of the Ball: the wealthy from Santa Sofia and its sister towns gathered together in one room in the spirit of charity, and he’d agreed.
The Ball became an institution.
Each year Porter made a short, aw shucks, speech and then handed the microphone over to Darcy who had the most charming way of shaming and bullying the partygoers to part with their money.
Getting dressed had always been really sexy to her.
There’d been a ritual.
She and Porter had made love and then showered, and he’d poured them champagne as they started the business of getting ready for the Ball.
Porter so handsome in his tuxedo, coming to her to tie his bowtie and fix his cufflinks.
Darcy, radiant in one of the simple black outfits she bought each year for the Ball.
But tonight Porter is over at the Ramada Inn with his new wife, and Darcy has the sickening image of the two of them spread naked and sweaty on the hotel bed, his hand on her belly.
Darcy, dressed only in her bra and pants, jumps up from the make-up table, filled with a sudden, wild panic that leaves her desolate and disorientated.
Champagne.
That’s what she needs.
There may be no Porter this year, but there damned well will be champagne.
And so beside herself is Darcy that she quite forgets that she is nearly naked.
And quite forgets that she has a house guest as she runs down the staircase to the kitchen, to find a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator.
The sound of applause shocks her from her fugue.
A man, a ridiculously handsome man dressed in the most stylish tuxedo she has ever seen—a tuxedo that perfectly fits his tall, broad shouldered frame—stands at the bottom of the stairs, watching her, clapping his hands.
“Bravo,” Forrest Forbes says, “you make me feel overdressed.”
Darcy stares at him, catapulted out of her trance.
She shrieks and falls into the comical routine of trying to cover too much flesh with two few hands, all the while edging back up the stairs.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry, I . . .”
He widens his eyes then makes a production of covering them with his hand.
“You forgot you had company. I understand. Is there anything I can get you?”
Darcy, safely in the corridor upstairs, shouts: “Champagne. There’s champagne on ice in the kitchen. Pour us some please, I’ll be down in a minute.”
She sits back down at the mirror and shakes her head at her reflection.
“Hell, girl, you’re in a bad way.”
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
She finishes her make-up, slips on her ridiculously expensive Valentino ball gown and walks down the stairs to where Forrest Forbes waits with a glass of champagne.
“You look beautiful,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“Although I still think the earlier number was a little racier.”
“Mr. Forbes you’ll kindly erase that from your memory.”
“Not easily.” He raises his glass. “To us.”
“To us,” Darcy says and drinks her champagne.
As Forrest leads her toward the door, Darcy checks out the mirror in the hallway and she has to admit they make a striking couple.
Maybe it’s the champagne doing its mischief in her empty belly—when last did she eat?—but the image of Forrest Forbes wielding a riding crop flits across her mind and before she can stop herself she says, “Do you ride, Forrest?”
“Of course. Why?”
“No reason.”
But she’s smiling to herself as they cross to the Forrest’s car.
Are you flirting, Darcy?
Yes, she decides.
She is.
And little excitement stirs in Darcy.
Maybe tonight won’t be so bad, after all.
17
Carlotta McCourt, teetering down her driveway on stilt-like high heels, nearly falls when she sees the most gorgeous man who ever drew breath handing Darcy Pringle into the shiny new Jaguar.
So discomforted is she, that Carlotta—who hasn’t touched her vile husband in years—grabs hold of Walt’s arm to stop herself from landing flat on her face.
“Whassamadder?” Walt says in his Homer Simpson voice, even in a tuxedo looking like what he is: a fat loser.
“Nothing,” Carlotta says, retrieving her hand and using her Pilates-toned core muscles to steady herself.
But she can’t drag her eyes away from the opposite sidewalk, where Darcy and the mystery man are lit by the dome light of the car.
They are laughing and Darcy looks far too happy for a woman in her situation.
And the man . . .
God, the man . . .
When Carlotta watched him through the glasses last night she saw he was a hunk, but now, as she and Walt approach their Lexus—her slob of a husband not dreaming of opening the door for her—she can see the stranger up close and what she sees has her starved for breath.
He is tall and moves with the kind of grace that only a man skilled between the sheets possesses.
His face, as he turns to smile at Darcy, is chiseled and handsome without being pretty.
No way this guy is anything other than a far-too-desirable heterosexual male.
How did Darcy get so lucky?
Carlotta, lowering herself into the Lexus that stinks of stale cigarettes and soiled golf socks, understands her mission for tonight: find out the truth about The Tall Dark and Handsome Stranger.
18
Eric Royce hands the keys to his vintage Bentley
to the valet—Eric is a car nut and has one for every occasion—and stands a while on the lawn of the Santa Sofia Country Club, watching the last of the sun fade from the sky.
It’s a beautiful evening, and he can smell hibiscus, and even the clichéd palms look somehow exotic silhouetted against the mauve sky.
Does Eric feel awkward arriving alone for the Spring Ball?
No.
Since he was a kid, he’s had to deal with being The Outsider, and he’s learned to make it work for him, so watching the expensive cars gliding up, he tells himself that he’s Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby, observing the goings-on at West Egg through clever, cynical eyes.
And if he’s Tom, then Darcy, walking toward him on Forrest Forbes’s arm, has to be Daisy, and Forbes would have been a natural for the part of Jay Gatsby if only the damned man could act.
Which reminds Eric that he’s not here to indulge himself in faux-Fitzgeralding; he’s here to watch his best friend’s very lovely back.
“Darcy, you look gorgeous,” he says.
“Doesn’t she just?” Forrest Forbes says in that overbred voice of his.
As Darcy waves and calls a greeting to a couple who are walking up the stairs into the club, Eric puts his mouth very close to Forrest’s ear and says in his best Bronx accent, “Screw this up and I’ll have your nutsack dangling from my rearview? Hear me?”
“Loud and clear, old boy. Loud and clear,” Forbes says.
“What’s loud and clear?” Darcy asks.
“Just boys’ talk, Darce.”
But she is no longer looking at him, she’s looking across to where Porter Pringle and his young bride—a vision of loveliness, even Eric has to acknowledge—approach them up the stairs.
Forrest Forbes comes face-to-face with his natural enemy: the jock.
Even though Forrest is no slouch when it comes to physical prowess, he’s never been able to tolerate team sports.
All that sweaty male camaraderie (the joshing, the flicking of backsides with towels in the locker room) revolts him.
