First Sight

by Danielle Steel

  “Sorry, Timmie, I can’t make it,” Zack said, sounding vague, in response to her invitation that he drop by that night after she got home. His answer reminded her again of their separate, independent lives. He was not a devoted boyfriend, desperate for her to come home. He had a life of his own. And so did she.

  “That’s too bad,” Timmie said calmly. She was used to answers like that from him. They saw each other when it suited them, and they were free. And Zack had been spoiled by women who pursued him constantly. He rarely put himself out for anyone, although the relationship with Timmie was ego food for him. He liked telling people he was dating Timmie O’Neill.

  “I’m going to San Francisco to see a guy I was in a play with a few years ago,” he explained. “He just called me. I didn’t know you were coming home.” She hadn’t called him earlier to make plans with him. She had intended to call him when she got home. And he didn’t offer to cancel his San Francisco trip for her. She suspected it was his small revenge for her not taking him to Europe with her. He had to make the point.

  “That’s too bad. It sounds like we’ll just miss each other. Maybe I’ll see you in the airport,” she said light-heartedly. She didn’t take his rejection seriously. She wasn’t desperate to see him either. It just would have been nice after four weeks.

  As she listened to him, she was aware of the difference between her conversations with him, and those she’d had recently with Jean-Charles. It wasn’t just a difference in intelligence, but in interest in each other and common ground. Even after dating Zack for several months, and sleeping with him, there was no deep connection between them, and probably never would be. She already felt far more connected to Jean-Charles, which seemed odd to her.

  “I’ll see you when I get back,” Zack said breezily. “I’m just going for two days. What are you doing this weekend? Going to Malibu?”

  “Maybe. Depends how I feel. I just got out of the hospital a few days ago,” she reminded him. It was like talking to a stranger after a month away, and in many ways he was.

  “Call me if you go out there. I’m coming back Saturday. You can get me on my cell phone. I’ll be driving back from San Francisco. Let me know your plans.” She knew he’d be less enthusiastic about seeing her if she was in Bel Air. She knew all of that about him. He loved weekends at the beach with her, and he knew she hated going there alone.

  “Have a safe trip home,” he said easily.

  “You too,” she said, feeling sad as she hung up. Sometimes, in spite of her resolve not to get too deeply involved, she couldn’t help wishing Zack was more. It would have been nice to come home to someone who loved her and really cared.

  She finished dressing and left the hotel a few minutes later, half-hoping that Jean-Charles would call to say goodbye again, but of course he didn’t. There was no reason for him to do that. He had said goodbye to her the night before, and discharged her as a patient. She wondered if he had opened the gift by then, and if he liked it. She hoped he did.

  She left tips at the concierge’s desk, tipped the bellmen and doormen as she left, and then Gilles sped her through Thursday-morning Paris traffic on the way to Charles de Gaulle. He checked her bags for her when they got to the airport, something David always did for her when they traveled together, and she got a rolling cart for her heavy bag. After her recent hospital stay, the walk through the terminal seemed unusually long, but she wasn’t in pain. She was just a little more tired than usual, and a VIP ground attendant found her at the gate and escorted her onto the plane and to her seat in first class. Everything had gone well.

  She settled into her seat, took out a book to read, accepted some magazines from the flight attendant, laid her head back against her seat, and closed her eyes. She felt as though she had been gone for years. The unexpected surgery had only added a few days to the trip, but she had actually been in Paris for more than two weeks. As much as she loved it there, when she wasn’t sick, it was going to be good to get home. She was sure there were stacks of work waiting for her in her office. She had a million decisions to make about the following year’s lines. They were talking about introducing yet another fragrance, and she had some new cosmetic ideas. Her mind was whirling as the plane took off, and half an hour later, she fell asleep, and slept for the first five hours of the trip.

  When she woke up, they served her dinner, and she watched a movie, turned her seat into a bed, snuggled under the comforter, and slept the rest of the way to L.A. The purser woke her as they were about to land.

  “Madame O’Neill?” He gently touched her shoulder, and when she heard the male French voice, for a moment she thought she was back in the hospital and it was Jean-Charles. And then she saw where she was. He asked her to put her seatback in an upright position, and she saw through the window that they were coming in to LAX.

  She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and combed her hair, and got back to her seat just in time for them to land. As soon as they were at the gate, she was one of the first off the plane, with her heavy alligator bag in hand. A VIP service agent took it from her as she stepped off the plane. She passed through immigration quickly with nothing to declare. The few things she had bought had gone home with Jade, or been sent straight to L.A. She hated wasting time in customs, so rarely brought anything in with her.

  As she came through the doors from immigration, she saw Jade waiting for her. Timmie’s driver was outside. Jade took the heavy alligator bag from the agent, and escorted her through the airport, explaining that David would have come but he had too much work.

  “I don’t need two of you to get me home.” Timmie smiled at her, after giving her a hug.

  “How do you feel?” Jade had noticed that she looked slightly thinner, and very pale. Suddenly her fair skin seemed almost translucent in contrast to the red hair.

  “I feel okay,” Timmie said, surprised herself at how well she felt, and how wide awake after the long trip. But she had slept most of the way. She almost always did.

  “I felt so terrible that you got sick. I really wanted to come back.”

  “You didn’t need to. I was fine. I had a very good doctor, and they took great care of me at the American Hospital. After the initial shock, it was a pretty decent rest, although not exactly what I had in mind.” She looked like her old self as she strode across the airport with her assistant at her side.

  “You’re so brave,” Jade said admiringly. “I would have totally freaked out, getting sick in a foreign country, and having to have emergency surgery. I’m about two years old when I get sick,” Jade said sympathetically, looking slightly embarrassed as Timmie laughed. She was happy to see Jade again, and be back in her familiar surroundings and routine. It was actually going to feel good to be in her own bed in Bel Air, despite the luxuries of the Plaza Athénée. This was home, and it was great to be back.

  “I was about five,” Timmie confessed. “I don’t think anyone loves getting sick away from home. All things considered, it went okay. The doctor was excellent. He held my hand.” She smiled.

  “They would have had to sedate me for the whole ten days,” Jade said, as they crawled through packed freeways. The traffic was fierce, which was familiar too.

  “So what do we have planned?” Timmie asked, and Jade told her about the meetings she’d scheduled for her for the following week. She had tried to go easy on her since Timmie had been sick. By normal standards, and to ordinary mortals, the schedule she’d planned would have sounded like way too much. To Timmie, it was a breeze, or usually anyway. She had the energy of ten people when she was in top shape, and she hoped she’d be back there soon. She couldn’t tell after the long flight. For her, on Paris time, it was after midnight. It was going to take a few days to get over the distance, the surgery, and the trip. But she felt surprisingly well. She was planning to catch up on her desk the next day, and go to Malibu for the weekend, more than likely with a stack of work.

  They chatted easily the rest of the way into L.A.
, and at the last minute, Timmie decided to stop at the office first, before going home. There was no one waiting for her there, and she wanted to get a look at her desk, to size up the force of the avalanche waiting for her return.

  “Are you sure you should?” Jade asked with a look of concern. “Shouldn’t you rest?” But this was Timmie they were talking about. No mere human, who would want to go home, shower, unpack, and go back to sleep. The dynamo that was Timmie O’Neill, and who had been taking it easy for ten days, was about to leap to her feet. Jade could smell it, as Timmie laughed and insisted she was fine. She looked it, and was obviously in good spirits.

  The office complex that housed the headquarters of Timmie O was in the fashion district in downtown L.A., and encompassed five buildings and a warehouse, where they cleared imports before shipping them out. There were additional warehouses several blocks away, a factory in New Jersey, and textile mills and factories she had bought abroad years before, mostly in Malaysia and Taiwan. She was negotiating to buy another plant in India. And as they drove up in front of the building that housed Timmie’s offices, she looked around her and beamed.

  “Welcome home,” Timmie said softly to herself, glad to be back to her normal life. She felt strong and solid here. She always knew what she was dealing with, had a firm hand on all aspects of her empire, and enjoyed running the show. In the past dozen years, it had replaced all else in her life, and she knew without a moment’s doubt that this was what she did best. There was great comfort in knowing this was something she did well. Running her vast conglomerate of lines, labels, and companies never frightened her, in fact it made her feel safe. It was the rest of her life that had always brought her pain. This never had. Right from the beginning, Timmie had discovered herself and her own capabilities and immense talent through her work. In recent years, the personal side of her life had always been lacking and never failed to hurt. She no longer allowed herself to think of it anymore. As long as she stayed focused on work, she was fine. Jade could almost see her come to life as she walked through the door, like a flower that had been watered. She seemed to grow as she took the elevator to the third floor. They weren’t expecting her officially, but they had been warned. David had told them she would probably come in on the way home, and as usual, he was right.

  Timmie walked into his office a moment later with a broad grin. “So, did you miss me?” she said as she gave him a warm hug, and he did the same, with a broad grin. Like Jade, he had been worried about her. But they had followed her orders, and stayed on to complete the meetings in New York.

  “I sure did,” he said, as he stepped out from his desk. “That’s the last time we leave you anywhere. You had us worried sick.”

  “It was no big deal,” she said, brushing it off, and suddenly Paris seemed like it was on another planet, as did her surgery, and even Jean-Charles Vernier. He didn’t even cross her mind, although she had seen him constantly for nine days. Now all that was gone. She was back in the magic kingdom of Timmie O, which she ran so well, and for which she lived. She had become, once again, the person he had met when she first got sick, the one he didn’t approve of, who lived only for her work, and was willing to sacrifice all for it, including her health, even if finally at great price. This was who she was.

  “Don’t give me that,” David scolded her. “A ruptured appendix is a big deal. You could have died.”

  “No such luck,” she teased. “I’m too mean to do something like that. So what’s hot? I haven’t seen my desk. Warn me, before I have a heart attack when I walk in.”

  “Nothing much actually,” he reassured her. “I put out a lot of fires today, but even they were small. We have a problem at the factory in Taiwan, I gave you a report on it, and you should have it on your e-mail, but even that’s no big deal. I think I worked it out. You can read it tonight. The fabrics we ordered from Beijing all came in, so did the knits from Italy. They’re already in New Jersey. Actually, I can’t think of a thing for you to worry about, although I know you’ll find something,” he laughed at her, happy to see her again. She was like a big sister to him, a mentor, and the person he admired most in the world.

  He admired everything she did, and had for the past six years, since she had discovered him and taken him under her wing. She had taught him everything he knew about the business. She was a perfectionist, meticulous about every detail, had her finger in every pie, was a genius at marketing, knew her audiences, and had a design sense that just wouldn’t quit and never had. It was no small wonder that she was the most important woman in the industry. All that really mattered to her was her work. The world of Timmie O was now her child, and she groomed it, loved it, fixed it, scolded it, protected it, and held it dear to her heart.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Timmie said as she left David’s office for her own. Jade was waiting for her there, with a cup of tea, and her work and messages in neat stacks. There were files, brochures, faxes, sample boxes, and a thousand other things on her desk. And like a Chinese puzzle she loved to do, she sat down and began sorting it out. She was still sitting there at seven o’clock, with Jade next to her. They had gone through nearly everything by then, and there was a huge stack she was planning to take home and read that night. It was as though she had never left. Timmie had never looked happier. She was back in her element. And work was her favorite sport. She was Olympic class.

  An hour later, Timmie was still at her desk, with her assistants near at hand. “I don’t want to be rude,” Jade said cautiously, shortly after eight o’clock. She didn’t mind working late with Timmie, she almost always did, except when she had something special happening, like an important date, then Timmie let her go home. But Timmie almost always lost track of time when she was at her desk. She looked up at Jade then, as though slowly floating back to earth when her assistant spoke. “It’s nearly five in the morning for you. Maybe you should go home.” She had had surgery after all and Jade was concerned. Timmie acted as though she had forgotten, which for the past several hours, she had.

  “Yeah … sure …,” she said, looking distracted, pulling something out of a fabric sample book that had caught her eye. “I slept on the flight.”

  “You’ve probably been up for close to twenty-four hours. You need to go home and rest.” Jade often mothered her, instead of the reverse, and it touched Timmie’s heart.

  “I know … I know … I’ll be through in a minute … I just want to look through one more file.” She was like a child who wouldn’t leave a game to be dragged off to dinner, or bed, or the bathtub. Her work was addictive for her, and always had been. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. But she finally put the last file in the stack at eight-thirty, gathered them up in her arms, and Jade followed her out of the building. Timmie’s driver was still waiting, and had been there for five hours. He was used to it, he drove her often, although she was extremely independent, and drove herself most of the time. But for airport runs, big parties, and major public events, she generally used a driver.

  They dropped Jade off on the way, although she had offered to go home with Timmie. And at nine-fifteen Timmie was home, at the house in Bel Air. The driver carried her bags upstairs for her after she turned off the alarm. She turned on the lights and looked around. She felt as though she had been gone for ages, and the house looked prettier to her than she remembered. Her living room was beige, stark, and extremely open and airy, with striking modern paintings on the walls. She had a de Kooning, a Pollock, and an Oliveira. She had one of the early Calder mobiles, and a Louise Bourgeois sculpture in the corner. The room was simple, elegant, and very soothing. Her bedroom was white, and the kitchen was blue and yellow.

  She had bought the house when Derek left her. She had wanted to put the past behind her, and successfully had for the most part. There was a photograph of her son on the bookcase, and she never explained it to people who came to the house and didn’t know her well. It was rare that anyone asked her about it. Her assistants knew not to, the men w
ho came and went in her life had little interest in a photograph of a four-year-old. They were more interested in the oval pool, the hot tub, and the sauna. She had a full gym set up in an upstairs bedroom and seldom used it. She got her exercise walking on the beach in Malibu, and hunting for shells. The gym always seemed too sterile to her, but others used it. Zack did whenever he stayed with her. And she had a big deck outside the kitchen where she liked to eat breakfast. It was the perfect house for her. She had an office, a dining room, a guest bedroom, a fabulous sound system, and enormous closets. She walked out to the kitchen now, opened the fridge, and stared inside it. The housekeeper had stocked it when Jade called her. Timmie realized she was too tired to eat, closed the door, and poured herself a glass of water. She took a shower, put on her nightgown, went to bed, and then lay there, wide awake. It was eight in the morning in Paris, time for breakfast. And for the first time since she’d left, she thought of Jean-Charles and wondered what he was doing. She wondered if he’d liked the watch, or would exchange it for something else.

  She was awake for hours, and then started reading the files and reports she had brought home from the office. By the time she fell asleep, it was noon in Paris. Her work was done. It was three o’clock in the morning in L.A., and her bed seemed suddenly enormous. It seemed to have grown while she was away, as she lay staring at the ceiling, wondering why Zack had gone to San Francisco the day she got back. She wondered if it was truly a coincidence or if he’d done it on purpose, if he was still angry that she hadn’t taken him to Europe. She finally decided it didn’t matter as she drifted off to sleep, her mind a blank, her red hair fanned out on the pillow. Her eyes closed, and the last thought that wandered through her head as she fell asleep was of Jean-Charles Vernier in Paris. And for a strange, fleeting instant, she could feel his hand in hers. It was a warm, comfortable sensation, imagining him in the room beside her, even here, back in L.A. She wondered if she’d ever see him again. It seemed unlikely now that she was home, back in her own world.