“You won’t,” Bob said with certainty. “Now call that real estate woman and make an offer before the place is snapped up by some doctor or lawyer looking for a summer house.”
Amanda hesitated only a moment. Hope was fluttering in her heart like a bird rising skyward; for the first time in two months she could see herself as a happy woman. With a shriek of delight, she bolted out of her chair and dashed for the telephone, and Bob and Marion laughed until they had tears in their eyes.
The real estate agent was delighted at Amanda’s offer, and offered to bring the papers over to Seattle for her to sign. They agreed to meet Monday morning at Amanda’s office in the Evergreen Hotel.
When Amanda was off the phone, she turned to her parents. “I can’t believe you’re doing this for me—taking such a chance—”
“A person can’t expect to win in life if they’re afraid to take a risk,” Bob said quietly.
Amanda went back to the table and bent to hug each of her parents. “You’ll be proud of me,” she promised.
“We already are,” Marion assured her.
On Monday morning Amanda arrived at work with a carefully typed letter of resignation tucked into her briefcase. In another two weeks she would be rolling up her sleeves and making a start on her dream—or, at least, part of it.
She flipped through the messages on her desk, sorting them in order of importance, and at the same time looked into the future. The house she was buying was hardly more than a mile from Jordan’s place. She was bound to meet him on the highway or run into him in the supermarket, and she wondered if she could deal with that.
Even after two months Amanda ached every time she thought of Jordan. Actually encountering him face-to-face might really set her back.
There was a rap at the door, and Mindy stepped in, smiling. “You look pretty cheerful today. What’s going on? Did you and Jordan get back together or something?”
Amanda opened her briefcase and took out the letter of resignation, keeping her eyes down to hide the sudden pain the mention of Jordan had caused her.
“No,” she answered, “but I’ll be leaving the Evergreen in a couple of weeks—I’m buying that house I wanted on Vashon Island.”
“Wow,” Mindy responded. “That’s great!”
Amanda lifted her eyes to meet her friend’s gaze. “Thanks, Mindy.”
Mindy’s brow puckered in a frown. “I’ll miss you a lot, though.”
“And I’ll miss you.” At that moment the intercom on Amanda’s telephone buzzed, and she picked up the receiver as Mindy left the office. “Amanda Scott.”
“Ms. Scott, this is Betty Prestwood, Prestwood Real Estate. I’m afraid I’ve been delayed, so I won’t be arriving in the city until around noon. Could we possibly meet at Ivar’s for lunch at twelve-fifteen? I’ll have the proper papers with me, of course.”
Amanda automatically glanced at her calendar, even though she already knew she was free for lunch that day. She probably would have eaten yogurt in her office or gone to the mall with Mindy for fast food. “That will be fine.”
After ending that phone call, Amanda went to the executive manager’s office suite and handed in her resignation. Mr. Mansfield, a middle-aged man with a bald head and an ulcer, was not pleased that his trusty assistant manager was leaving.
He instructed her to start preliminary interviews for a replacement as soon as possible.
Amanda spent the rest of the morning on the telephone with various employment agencies in the city, and when it came time to meet Mrs. Prestwood for lunch, she was relieved. It wasn’t the food that attracted her, but the prospect of a break.
After exchanging her high heels for sneakers, Amanda walked the six blocks from the hotel to the seafood restaurant on the waterfront. The sun was shining, and the harbor was its usual noisy, busy self.
Mrs. Prestwood, a small, trim woman with carefully coiffed blond hair and tasteful makeup, was waiting by the reservations desk.
She and Amanda shook hands, then followed the hostess to a table by a window.
Just as Amanda was sitting down, she spotted Jordan—it was as though her eyes were magnetized to him. He looked very Wall Street in his three-piece suit as he lunched with two other men and a woman.
Evidently he’d sensed Amanda’s stare, for his eyes shifted to her almost instantly.
For a moment the whole restaurant seemed to fall into eerie silence for Amanda; she had the odd sensation of standing on the bottom of the ocean. It was only with enormous effort that she surfaced and forced her gaze to the menu the waitress had handed her. Don’t let him come over here, she prayed silently. If he does, I’ll fall apart right in front of everybody.
“Is something wrong?” Betty Prestwood asked pleasantly.
Amanda swallowed and shook her head, but out of the corner of her eye she was watching Jordan.
He had turned his attention back to his companions, especially the woman, who was attractive, in a tweedy sort of way, with her trim suit and her dark hair pulled back into a French twist. She was laughing at something Jordan had said.
Amanda made herself study the menu, even though she couldn’t have eaten if her life depended on it. She finally decided on the spinach salad and iced tea, just for show.
Mrs. Prestwood brought out the contracts as soon as the waitress had taken their orders, and Amanda read them through carefully. Lunch had arrived by the time she was done, and in a glance she saw that Jordan and his party were leaving. He was resting his hand lightly on the small of the woman’s back, and Amanda felt for all the world like a betrayed wife.
Forcing her eyes back to the contracts, she signed them and handed Mrs. Prestwood a check. Since the owner was financing the sale himself, it was now just a matter of waiting for closing. Amanda could rent the house in the interim if she wished.
She wrote another check, then stabbed a leaf of spinach with her fork. Try as she might, she couldn’t lift it to her mouth. Her stomach was roiling angrily, unwilling to accept anything.
She laid the fork down.
“Is everything all right?” Mrs. Prestwood asked, seeming genuinely concerned.
Amanda lied by nodding her head.
“You don’t seem very hungry.”
Amanda managed a smile. Was Jordan sleeping with that woman? Did she visit him on the island on weekends? “I’m just getting over the flu,” she said, which was at least a partial truth. She was probably coming down with it, not getting over it.
Mrs. Prestwood accepted that excuse and finished her lunch in good time. The two women parted outside the restaurant with another handshake, then Amanda started back up the hill to the hotel. By the time she arrived, her head was pounding and there were two people waiting to be interviewed for her job.
She talked to both of them and didn’t pass either application on to Mr. Mansfield for his consideration. One had obviously considered herself too good for such a menial position, and the other had an offensive personal manner.
Amanda’s headache got progressively worse as the afternoon passed, but she was too busy interviewing to go home to bed, and besides, she couldn’t be sure the malady wasn’t psychosomatic. She hadn’t started feeling really sick until after she’d seen Jordan with that woman in the dress-for-success clothes.
At the end of the day Amanda dragged herself home, fed Gershwin, made herself a bowl of chicken noodle soup and watched the evening news in her favorite bathrobe. By the time she’d been apprised of all the shootings, rapes, drug deals and political scandals of the day, she was thoroughly depressed. She put her empty soup bowl in the sink, took two aspirin and fell into bed.
The next morning she felt really terrible. Her head seemed thick and heavy as a medicine ball, and her chest ached.
Reluctantly she called in sick, took more aspirin and went back to sleep.
A loud knocking at the door awakened her around eleven-thirty, and Amanda rolled out of bed, stumbled into the living room with one hand pressed to her aching hea
d and called, “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” a feminine voice replied. “Mindy. Let me in—I come bearing gifts.”
With a sigh, Amanda undid the chains, twisted the lock and opened the door. “You’re taking your life in your hands, coming in here,” she warned in a thick voice. “This place is infested with germs.”
Mindy’s pretty hair was sprinkled with raindrops, and her smile was warm. “I’ll risk it,” she said, stepping pastAmanda with a stack of magazines and a box of something that smelled good. She grimaced as she assessedAmanda’s rumpled nightgown and unbrushed hair. “You look like the victim in a horror movie,” she observed cheerfully. “Sit down before you fall down.”
Amanda dropped into a chair. “What’s going on at the office?”
“It’s bedlam,” Mindy answered, setting the magazines and food down on the table to shrug out of her coat. “Mr. Mansfield is finding out just how valuable you really are.” Her voice trailed back from the kitchenette, where she was opening cupboards and drawers. “He’s been interviewing all morning, and he’s such a bear today, he’ll be lucky if anybody wants to work for him.”
Amanda sighed. “I should be there.”
Mindy returned from the kitchenette and handed Amanda a plate of the fried Chinese noodles she knew she loved. “And spread bubonic plague among your friends and co-workers? Bad idea. Eat this, Amanda.”
Amanda took the plate of noodles and dug in with a fork. Although she still had no appetite, she knew her body needed food to recover, and she hadn’t had anything to eat since last night’s chicken soup. “Thanks.”
Mindy glanced at the blank TV screen in amazement. “Do you mean to tell me you have a chance to catch up on all the soaps and you aren’t even watching?”
“I’m sick, not on vacation,” Amanda pointed out.
Mindy rushed to turn on the set and tune in her favorite. “Lord, will you look at him?” she asked, pointing to a shirtless hero soulfully telling a woman she was the only one for him.
“Don’t listen to him,” Amanda muttered. “As soon as you make one wrong move, he’ll dump you.”
“You have been watching this show!” Mindy accused.
Amanda shook her head glumly. “I was speaking from the perspective of real life,” she said, chewing.
Mindy sighed. “I knew that rascal would be fooling around with Lorinda the minute Jennifer turned her back,” she fretted, shaking her finger at the screen.
Amanda chuckled, even though she would have had to feel better just to die, and took another bite of the noodles Mindy had brought. “How do you know so much about the story line when you work every day?”
“I tape it,” Mindy answered. Then, somewhat reluctantly, she snapped off the set and turned back to her mission of mercy. “Is there anything you want me to do at the office, Amanda? Or I could shop for you—”
Amanda interrupted with a shake of her head. “It’s enough that you came over. That was really nice of you.”
Mindy rose from the couch and put her hands on her slim hips. “I know. I’ll make a bed for you on the couch so you can watch TV. Mom always did that for me when I was sick, and it never failed to cheer me up.”
With that, Mindy disappeared into the bedroom, returning soon afterward with sheets, blankets and pillows. True to her word, she made a place for Amanda on the couch and all but tucked her in when she was settled with her magazines and the controls for the TV.
Before going back to work, she made Amanda a cup of hot tea, put the phone within reach and forced her to take more aspirin.
When Mindy was gone, Amanda got up to lock the door behind her, then padded back to the bed. She was comfortably settled when the telephone rang. A queer feeling quivered in the pit of her stomach as she remembered seeing Jordan in the restaurant the day before, felt again the electricity that passed between them when their eyes met. “Hello?” she said hopefully.
“Hello, Amanda.”
The voice didn’t belong to Jordan, but to Mrs. Prestwood. Amanda could pick up the keys to her house at the real estate office whenever she was ready.
Amanda promised to be there within the week, and asked Mrs. Prestwood to have telephone service hooked up at the house, along with electricity. Then she hung up and flipped slowly through the magazines, seeing none of the glossy photographs and enticing article titles. She was going to be living on the same island with Jordan, and that was all she could think about.
By the time Amanda recovered enough to return to work, half her notice was up and Mr. Mansfield had selected a replacement. Handing her her final paycheck, which was sizable because there was vacation pay added in, he wished her well. On her last day, he and Mindy and the others held a going away party for her in the hotel’s elegant lounge, and Bob, Marion and Eunice attended, too.
That Friday evening, Amanda filled her car with boxes, one of which contained Gershwin, leaving the rest of her things behind for the movers to bring, and boarded the ferry for Vashon Island.
Since it was cold and dark in the bottom of the ship, she decided to venture upstairs to the snack bar for a cup of hot coffee. Just as she arrived, however, she spotted Jordan again. This time he was with his daughters, and the three of them were eating French fries while both girls talked at once.
Amanda’s first instinct was to approach them and say hello, but in the end she lost her courage and slipped back out of the snack bar and down the stairs to her car. She sat hunched behind the wheel, waiting for the whistle announcing their arrival at Vashon Island to blast, and feeling miserable. What kind of life was she going to have in her new community if she had to worry about avoiding Jordan?
In those moments Amanda felt terribly alone, and the enormity of the things she’d done—giving up her job and apartment and borrowing such a staggering sum of money from her parents—oppressed her.
Finally the ferry came into port, and Amanda drove her car down the ramp, wondering if Jordan and the girls were in one of the cars ahead, or one behind. She didn’t get a glimpse of them, which wasn’t surprising, considering how dark it was.
When Amanda arrived at her new old house, the lights were on and Mrs. Prestwood was waiting in the kitchen to present the key, since Amanda had not had a chance to pick it up at the office. The old oil furnace was rumbling beneath the floor, filling the spacious rooms with warmth.
Amanda wandered through the rooms, sipping coffee from the percolator Betty Prestwood had thoughtfully loaned her and dreaming of the things she meant to do. There would be winter parties around the huge fireplace in the front parlor—she would serve mulled wine and spice cake with whipped cream. And in summer, guests could sleep on the screened sun porch if they wanted to, and be lulled into slumber by the quiet rhythm of the tide and the salty whisper of the breezes.
There were seven bedrooms upstairs, but only one bathroom. Amanda made a mental note to call in a plumbing contractor for estimates the next morning. She would have to add at least one more.
Amanda’s private room, a small one off the kitchen, looked especially inviting after the long day she’d had. While Gershwin continued to explore the farthest reaches of his new home, she went out to the car to get the cot and sleeping bag she’d borrowed from her stepdad. After a bath upstairs, she crawled onto the cot with a book.
She hadn’t read more than a page, when Gershwin suddenly landed in the middle of her stomach with a plop and meow.
Amanda let her book rest against her chin and stroked his silky fur. “Don’t worry, Big Guy. We’re both going to like it here.” The instant the words were out of her mouth, though, she thought of the jolt that seeing Jordan and the girls had caused her, and her throat tightened painfully. “You’d think I’d be over him by now, wouldn’t you?” she said when she could speak, her vision so blurred that there seemed to be two Gershwins lying on her stomach instead of one.
“Reoww,” Gershwin agreed, before bending his head to lick one of his paws.
“Love is hell,” Amanda w
ent on with a sniffle. “Be glad you’re neutered.”
Gershwin made no comment on that, so Amanda dried her eyes and focused determinedly on her book again.
The next morning brought a storm in off Puget Sound. It slashed at the windows and howled around the corners of the house, and Gershwin kept himself within six inches of Amanda’s feet. She left him only to carry in the boxes from the car and drive to the supermarket for food.
Since she’d prepared herself to encounter Jordan, Amanda was both relieved and disappointed when there was no sign of him. She filled her cart with groceries, taking care to buy a can of Gershwin’s favorite food to make up for leaving him, and drove back over rain-slickened roads to the house.
The tempest raged all day, but Amanda was fascinated by it, rather than frightened. While Gershwin was sleeping off the feast Amanda had brought him, she put on her slicker and a pair of rubber boots she’d found in the basement and walked down to the beach.
Lightning cracked the sky like a mirror dropped on a hard floor, and the water lashed furiously at the rocky shoreline. Amanda stood with her hands in the pockets of her slicker, watching the spectacle in awe.
When she returned to the house half an hour later, her jeans were wet to her knees despite the rain garb she wore, and her hair was dripping. She felt strangely comforted, though, and when she saw Betty Prestwood’s car splashing up the puddle-riddled driveway, she smiled and waved.
The two women dashed onto the enclosed porch together, laughing. Betty was only a few years older than Amanda, and they were getting to be good friends.
“There’s an estate sale scheduled for today,” Betty said breathlessly when they were in the kitchen and Amanda had handed her a cup of steaming coffee. “I thought you might like to go, since you need so much furniture. It’s just on the other side of the island, and we could have lunch out.”
Amanda was pleased that Betty had thought of her. Even though she had a surplus of funds, thanks to her own savings and the loan from Bob and Marion, it was going to cost a lot of money to get the bed and breakfast into operation. She needed to furnish the place attractively for a reasonable price. “Sounds great,” Amanda said, ruefully comparing her soggy jeans and crumpled flannel shirt to Betty’s stylish pink suit. “Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll change.”
Daring Moves Page 14
