by Jenny Jacobs
• • •
Greta smoothed the pink silk dress over her flat tummy and looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the dressing room wall. Refined. Polished. Sophisticated. Tess, staring over her shoulder, was a somewhat discordant element with her wayward curls and jangling bracelets, not to mention the brightly patterned outfit she was wearing. Greta sighed. She’d been shopping at the same clothing boutique for years. She wore the same size she always had. Her traditional, elegant style hadn’t changed much, either. Simple, classic, timeless.
She was sick of it. She wanted something tight-fitting, low-cut, and short. In electric blue.
She shook her head. She did not. That was merely an infantile response to a trying day.
“That looks nice,” Tess offered.
Nice. Greta resisted the impulse to shred the material with her bare hands. She repressed a low growl of frustration.
“I hate this color,” she said, despite the fact that she owned at least three outfits of the exact same shade. Or possibly because of it.
“At least I’m not asking you to wear a bow on your butt,” Tess soothed. Her attempt to be diplomatic brought an unwilling smile to Greta’s lips. It wasn’t something Tess attempted very often. “Since it’s just you and Belinda, I don’t care what you wear,” Tess went on to say, making a gesture with her hand that encompassed the shop — and possibly all of the shops in the entire city — outside the dressing room. “I really don’t care. Just try to avoid clashing with the bride.” She offered this last with her trademark grin. Since the bride was wearing an ivory confection she’d made herself, clashing with her would require a deliberate effort.
“Does Michael look gorgeous in his tux?” Greta asked wistfully, her mind moving automatically to the groom, who most definitely wasn’t going to clash with the bride. She could just imagine him, tall and lean, looking fit and handsome, smiling that devastating smile at Tess. Though Greta had always known she and Michael were destined to be friends, she understood his romantic appeal perfectly. Michael had required Tess’s healing skill, not hers, but every now and then she wished — well, she wished there was a man who would wear a tux for her. An image of Ian rose in her mind.
She immediately crushed the thought as an unworthy aberration. She wished no such thing. Not at all. She was overtired and imagining things. Clearly she hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night. Fatigue, not loneliness, explained her out-of-sorts feeling this morning. Her life was perfect. She absolutely would not allow it to be otherwise.
“What is it, Greta?” Tess asked, putting a hand on Greta’s arm. It had been the two of them for so long, since they were children. Then they had both married badly, but they had seen each other through. Now Tess was getting married again and changing everything. Nothing would ever be the same —
To Greta’s horror, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away as quickly as she could and sniffed discreetly. Really, she was being more ridiculous today than she’d been the last ten years combined. When had change ever bothered her? Life was change. Otherwise you grew stagnant and boring.
“Greta?” Tess asked again, squeezing her arm.
“It’s been just us for a long time,” Greta said, meeting Tess’s eyes in the mirror. “I think I’m trying to adjust.” It was hard to admit, but at least she was now under enough control not to burst into tears.
Tess understood, bless her. She nodded solemnly. Tess trying to be solemn was about as effective as Tess trying to be angry, but the fact that she tried made Greta’s spirits lift a little. “When I had Belinda, that didn’t mean you and I stopped being a team or a family. She added to us, she didn’t subtract or divide. Marrying Michael is the same. We’re still just one family. We have Michael now, that’s all.”
Tess spoke earnestly and despite her upset, Greta couldn’t help the smile that formed on her lips. “I wonder what Michael would say if I asked you to share.”
“Oh, come on, Greta,” said Tess, abandoning understanding compassion for give me a break, a transition that did not ordinarily take her this long to achieve. “You know he loves you. And you like him better than any other man in your life.”
There were no other men in her life, so that was easy enough. But it was true, Greta did like Michael. She always had. She’d known him for several years before Tess had detonated in his life and completely reorganized it for him, and in that time they had developed an affectionate, meaningful friendship. In some ways, Greta knew him better than Tess herself did. She probably loved him, or as close as made no difference.
“Still, it changes things,” Greta said, much as she hated to admit her unhappiness to Tess. She shouldn’t feel this way, when Tess was so happy. Or at least she should hide it better.
“I know it changes things.” The give me a break tone was still in evidence. Then Tess gave her a mischievous smile and said, “Now you don’t have to look after me anymore.”
“I never looked after you before.” This was one of their several long-standing arguments and bringing it up was a sign of how worried Tess was despite her teasing tone.
“Sure you did,” Tess said, making a minute adjustment to the neckline of the dress Greta was trying on. You should never try to pass off substandard workmanship when a seamstress was in the room, Greta thought, seeing Tess’s frown and knowing it was not for her but for the dress. “And now Michael looks after me,” Tess went on. She was perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation while offering a hands-on critique of a dress design but Greta found it distracting, so she flicked Tess’s fingers away.
“And you look after him,” Greta supplied.
Tess nodded. “And we all look after Belinda. Wait, I’m getting myself confused.”
“How hard is that?” Greta said, rolling her eyes and immediately feeling better. Tess didn’t take offense but started to laugh. At least one of them wasn’t a stuffy old curmudgeon.
“My point is, you feel like you’re on your own now because Michael and I are getting married.”
“I do have more free time now,” Greta admitted, trying to put a positive spin on the situation. “And I do worry less about you.” It was true, though not perhaps entirely fair, that she worried less about her sister now. But that hadn’t made Greta any happier, somehow. Because Tess no longer distracted Greta from her own difficulties, she was able to focus completely on her own life and not be entirely pleased with what she saw. Not to mention that now she saw the contrast between Tess’s life and her own more fully, if not painfully. Tess’s life was full, with plenty of love and laughter. And dogs. You couldn’t forget the dogs. People (and canines) needed Tess, but Tess didn’t need Greta anymore. No one needed Greta anymore. Not that Greta would have admitted under torture that her work was not enough to completely fulfill her.
“Maybe you should adopt a dog,” Tess suggested, as of course she would, laughing as Greta recoiled at the very thought. It was very well for Tess to have a menagerie. But a pet for Greta? Tess thought a pet was the solution to Greta’s problems? When Greta was lonely, it wasn’t a Shih Tzu that was going to help. “I know, I know, the filthy things track dirt all over and leave fur everywhere,” Tess said. “How about a cat?”
Greta’s outrage died. She had a vision of a fluffy, brilliantly white angora kitten curled up on the pillow next to her on the bed, purring while she worked, daintily eating an occasional treat from Greta’s fingers. The attractiveness of the vision alarmed her. She was turning into a cat lady.
“I don’t need a pet, for heaven’s sake. I’m not an aged aunt worried about outliving her usefulness.” That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Tess and her wedding stirred up all kinds of uncomfortable feelings that Greta had sensibly repressed for many years. She should never have started talking about it. The best way not to stir things up was to let them be.
“What about the dre
ss?” Tess asked, wisely changing the subject.
Greta gave the pink dress a critical glance in the mirror. She would do — and had done — anything for Tess, but did that extend to wearing an elegant pink dress to her wedding? Did she look like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn? Or was that just her imagination, too?
“This dress is going to be fine,” she said firmly. She peeled it off and handed it to Tess, who carefully hung it up on the padded hanger. Greta stepped into her taupe pantsuit again and immediately felt better.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” Tess said. When Tess was the sensible one, Greta knew she was in trouble. “You hated this dress ten minutes ago.”
And she’d hate it ten minutes from now, but that wasn’t the dress’s fault. “It’s just me,” Greta said with a sigh. “I loathe most things at the moment.” Weddings, pink dresses, men who wanted to hire her to design their new homes.
“You sound like you need a vacation.”
“I’ve had plenty of time off. I don’t need time off. And I don’t need a pet, either.” That seemed to cover everything.
“Then what do you need?” Tess asked, as if it were a simple question that could be answered with a simple solution.
Her treacherous brain responded with a flash of memory: Ian Blake’s gray eyes registering his approval of Greta. I’m not so old I couldn’t appreciate having someone think I’m beautiful and enchanting, too, she thought but absolutely refused to say out loud. She was thirty-five, and had been for several years, but she kept herself in good shape and though this college town was filled with gorgeous twenty-year-olds, she didn’t think she came off too badly in comparison. She knew her appeal wasn’t just physical. She was also intelligent and had interesting work that put her in touch with all kinds of people. All that had to count for something. But somehow men didn’t look at her the way they used to. The image of gray eyes with crinkles around them, cropped black hair, and an arrogant swagger returned to her mind. Sure, he found her attractive.
Grr.
“I need to get back to work,” she said lightly and hoped Tess would drop the subject. She checked her appearance in the mirror. Not a hair out of place. Of course not. She squared her shoulders and made her way out of the dressing room, Tess at her heels. Tess handed the dress to the shop assistant. “No decision,” she told the woman, and Greta didn’t correct her. Maybe she’d feel more kindly toward pink on another day. Or maybe she’d find something wonderful and surprising when she least expected it.
Right.
“Do you have anything planned for tonight?” Tess asked as they stepped out of the boutique into the crisp fall air. Crowds of shoppers milled along the sidewalk. No one was in much of a hurry and no one seemed to care that Greta had work that needed immediate attention. She still couldn’t quite grasp how Tess had shanghaied her from the command center and brought her here to try on dresses in the first place. Shouldn’t she have protested a little more effectively?
They joined the sauntering ranks. Saunter was Tess’s favorite speed, though it sometimes drove Greta mad. “Do you want to come over for dinner?” Tess asked, then added, “We could watch a movie afterwards,” as if that were an enticement.
“Finding Nemo?” Greta asked, knowing that was Belinda’s favorite movie. She knew Michael would come over too and he and Tess would snuggle on the sofa and look at each other with those revolting gazes of adoration that no non-participant should ever have to witness. Belinda would sit comfortably ensconced between them, belonging, beloved. Greta couldn’t quite see where she would fit. In the armchair across the room?
“We could watch something for grown-ups after Belinda goes to bed,” Tess coaxed.
“I appreciate it, but no thanks. I do have a lot to get done today. Then I think I’ll take a long bath and go to bed early. I’ll sort myself out, Tess.” She gave her sister a hug as they reached the parking lot. It wasn’t Tess’s fault that Greta looked at her life and coveted it, an act that Greta would have scoffed was entirely impossible just six months earlier. How could she be jealous of Tess? Tess deserved every good thing. Even if she didn’t, her daughter Belinda deserved a loving family and a daddy who doted on her, and that was exactly what she was getting.
“We’ll be around if you change your mind.”
“Thanks,” Greta said, knowing she wouldn’t change her mind. She never did, when she set her mind on a course of action. Except, of course, when Tess talked her into it.
Chapter Three
“What is this monstrosity?” Greta asked, tapping the photo Tess had printed from her digital camera. Greta reached for her glasses on the nightstand. Putting them on, she confirmed that she was really seeing what she thought she saw: a monstrosity. She shuddered and took the glasses off.
The mattress dipped as Tess plopped down next to her. Hadn’t Greta taught her how to sit in a lady-like manner? But Tess had ignored that lesson, as she had most lessons and indeed most things that mattered to Greta.
Tess leaned over her shoulder to look at the photo that was currently giving Greta frown wrinkles. The furrowed brow was a very bad habit and the moment she became aware she was doing it, Greta immediately stopped. In principle, she was not opposed to Botox, but she could just imagine trying to explain to Tess why she could no longer form facial expressions. Tess would never succumb to the lure of such medical intervention. She thought wrinkles were a sign of a life well-lived. Just wait until she starts sprouting crows’ feet, Greta thought. Then we’ll see.
“That,” Tess grinned, bumping Greta with her elbow, “is exactly what you think it is. It’s an enormous rough-hewn table from Thailand. Ian wants to use it in the dining room.”
“Over my dead body!” Greta exclaimed, dropping the photo as if it might contain a contagious monstrosity virus. She gave Tess a suspicious look. When had her “Colonel Blake” become “Ian”? He’d probably been invited over for dinner, too, and unlike Greta had shown up to enjoy the fun and now everyone was on a first-name basis.
What if they were all in collusion together? Greta didn’t know what they were colluding about, but as any paranoid person knew, motive was the last thing to be worried about when uncovering conspiracy theories.
“I’m just the messenger,” Tess said, though she seemed to find entirely too much enjoyment from the process of delivering the news.
“This needs to be chopped into kindling,” Greta said, flicking the photo away with a superior fingernail. Tess fielded it and tucked it away in the folder already inscribed with the client’s name. “He’ll be entertaining, hosting dinner parties for business executives, university leaders, well-heeled clients, maybe even diplomats. He can’t possibly believe that — that thing — is an acceptable surface upon which to serve a meal.”
“He seemed pretty sure about it,” Tess said, doing nothing to hide her smile or take this outrage seriously. “He wants it to be the centerpiece of the dining room.”
Greta peered over the top of her laptop. Oh, now Tess was just goading her. “I have seen many gorgeous pieces come out of southeast Asia,” Greta said with measured patience. “That is not one of them.”
“I think he identifies with it.”
“Rough-hewn and thick?”
“Just sayin’.”
He couldn’t be serious, could he? Greta pressed fingers to her throbbing temples. A headache already, and she hadn’t even spoken to the man today. He couldn’t really expect her to make that thing the centerpiece of his dining room. Even she would be hard-pressed to make such a design work. She nibbled on a fingernail, a habit she had broken herself of years ago. On the other hand, when was the last time a design had actually challenged her? She’d spent the last few years developing elegant, timeless rooms and she was very proud of them. But when all of the pieces started to fall into place too easily, a person (Greta, anyway) got bored. She certa
inly wouldn’t be bored trying to figure out how to make this work while not destroying her reputation as a designer.
“I can’t possibly — I need to see this thing in person.” On seeing Tess’s smug smile, she added, “Maybe I can accidentally set fire to it.”
“He’s got everything over at Public Storage,” Tess said. “You do remember that arson is not only illegal and unethical, it’s also a really bad business practice?”
“A woman can dream,” Greta said. “Is he using the one on 23rd Street? Have him meet me there at two this afternoon.” She reached for her planner to pencil it in, as if she might forget such a meeting.
Tess raised a brow. “Phone’s right by your elbow,” she said, as if it was sheer laziness that prevented Greta from calling him herself.
“I told you my terms for taking on this project,” Greta reminded her. “If I have to put up with him for half an hour this afternoon, you can call him to make the arrangements.”
“He’s not that bad. He appreciates me,” Tess said, picking up the phone.
Of course he did. “All those years traveling in foreign lands,” Greta speculated. “Women like you don’t scare him.”
• • •
The overhead door rolled open. Greta could not avoid immediately seeing the monstrosity, her attention unwillingly drawn to it, like a wreck by the side of the road. It was, in fact, worse than the picture of it had suggested.
“What made you think this was a good idea, Ian?” she asked. She couldn’t bring herself to continue calling him “Mr. Blake,” not when he kept referring to her as “Greta,” as if they were chums. She didn’t want him to take her calling him “Ian” as a sign of friendliness, but there was a greater risk that continuing to call him “Mr. Blake” would confuse him. He might think she admired him or something equally unlikely. Therefore she would call him “Ian” and firmly — very firmly, if she must — squelch any attempt on his part to move towards greater friendliness.
