by Jane Heller
“Let’s sit in the sunroom,” I said after I’d finished giving her the tour.
“All the rooms are beautiful, Tara. You did a great job with the decorating.”
“Thanks. I used Norman Scott.”
She looked at me blankly. I explained that Norman Scott was the interior designer whose work was on the cover of the previous month’s Architectural Digest.
“Stuart must be doing well,” she said with a tiny tremble in her voice.
“He’s doing fabulously, thanks. And he’s so supportive of my book. Even with all his responsibilities running Lasher’s—”
“He’s running Lasher’s now?”
“Practically. He and Jimmy.” Okay, so Jimmy was running the place and Stuart pretended to. Amy didn’t have to know that.
“Well, speaking of work, I’ll have to speed this up a little if I’m going to get back to the office for my afternoon meeting.” She pulled out a notepad and pen. “Why don’t you tell me how you came up with the idea for the book, Tara.”
I did my spiel about the radio show and how the book’s theme sprang from it. “It struck me how women really need advice on how to feel beautiful, how to pamper themselves, how to live with a sense of peace as well as style.”
She nodded and scribbled and appeared to be interested.
I went on to give her numerous examples of how I, personally, created a simply beautiful environment in my home. Actually, I probably gave her too many examples, because she had stopped writing at one point and was just staring at me. Had I overloaded her with information? Overwhelmed her with tips on bathing in lavender and color-coding one’s paper clips and using finger bowls at dinner parties, even casual ones? Or was she just hungry?
“Let’s see if our lunch is ready,” I said, remembering what a good appetite she always had. When we were teenagers, it drove her nuts that I’d eat the same burgers and fries that she did and yet I wouldn’t gain a pound, while she—Well, what can I say? She sort of went porky in eighth grade. It’s all in the metabolism, I guess.
We continued to talk about the book over the poached salmon Michelle had made for lunch. Amy seemed to have revived. She actually complimented me on the meal and looked more relaxed than when she’d arrived.
“So Stuart really plays the violin and reads you poetry and lets you give him a pedicure?” she asked, picking the sprig’s of dill off of her salmon and relegating them to the side of the plate. Apparently, she didn’t appreciate the simple beauty of garnishes.
“Oh yes,” I said. “He’s an incredibly sensitive man underneath that Brooks Brothers suit. Very romantic. We’re about as happy as two people could be.”
“How nice,” she said in a tone that made me think I’d gone a little overboard on the Stuart stuff, particularly since it was shortly thereafter that she announced that she had to leave.
“Is it because I hit a nerve?” I asked, genuinely sorry I’d spent so much time on him. I honestly didn’t mean to rub salt in her wound, only to present my book in the best possible light. “Should I have kept my mouth shut about Stuart?”
“No. He’s your husband. You devoted a whole chapter to him in the book. I can’t ignore his existence, as much as I’d prefer to.”
“I understand.” I patted her hand. “You know, I wondered how this would go today. You and I. Here together. Just the two of us. It’s been a long time coming. Too long. I’ve missed our little talks. I hope this will be a new beginning for us.”
“A lovely sentiment,” she said, yanking her hand out from under mine and rising from her chair, “but I really do have to get back to the city.”
“Right.” I tried to keep up with her as she walked briskly out of the room. “It just occurred to me, though, that we never got around to talking about you.”
She stopped in her tracks, seemed disoriented momentarily (perhaps she was lost; my house must have been a maze to her, compared to her little apartment), but then recovered. “Next time,” she said, and moved toward the foyer.
I trailed after her again as she headed out the front door. “But what about your special man?” I asked.
“What special man?” she said. By this point, she was inside her car and I was draped over her open window.
I smiled. “Hello? Did I get you so caught up in my book that you forgot about your fiancé? You told me about him when we met on the street, remember?”
“Oh, of course,” she said with a shy giggle. “Silly me.”
“Well, tell me about him. What’s he like?”
“What’s he like?” She paused. “Well, he’s just the best. Not only exceptionally bright but gorgeous, too. Oh, and funny.” She laughed, holding her sides, as if suddenly reminded of one of his jokes. “And he’s so loving. So giving. So full of compassion and sensitivity. I’m ecstatic, as you can see.”
Now I was the one looking wistful. Was she ever lucky to have found a guy like that. He sounded like Superman, for God’s sake. A far cry from the Superjerk I was married to.
She stuck her key in the ignition. “Now, I’ve got to get going.”
“But you haven’t told me about the wedding. It’s in just a few months, isn’t it?”
“Yes, practically around the corner.” She checked her watch. “Oops. I really do have to go.”
“In a sec. Tell me what kind of event you’re planning. Big? Small? Indoors? Outdoors? Come on, Amy. I need details.”
“Details?” She looked confused, or was it conflicted?
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Not wrong, just a little tricky. I can’t give you details because—Okay, here’s the deal. My fiancé and I have been keeping a low profile. More than low, actually. Invisible. We haven’t told a single person at L and T that we’re seeing each other. So I’m asking you to keep our secret. Will you do that? Please?”
She was asking me to keep her secret. Wow. Apparently, I had done such a great job of warming her up toward me that she was trusting me with confidential personal information. Good work, Tara!
“I won’t say a word,” I assured her, then asked why the hush-hush. She explained that L and T had a policy against coworkers getting married or even dating. “In this day and age, they have a policy like that?”
“Yes,” she said as she started the car. “It’s hard to believe, but they do.”
“Well,” I said over the engine noise, trying to show solidarity with her and sympathy for her predicament, “it must be horrible to have to carry on a relationship in secret.”
“I bet it wasn’t so horrible for you and Stuart.”
The minute the remark had slipped out, it was obvious from her eyes—they went wide with surprise—that she was taken aback by her own boldness and wished she’d shut up. As for me, I was stunned. She had been the picture of restraint all afternoon long, but now she had exposed her true colors. The woman still hated me. She still hated me for stealing Stuart and would go on hating me for the rest of our lives. And yet, if she was so “ecstatic” over this fiancé of hers, why was she clinging to her hatred of me? If he was so brilliant and funny and gorgeous, if he loved her and she loved him and they were getting married in six months, why was her anger still so vivid, so pervasive? Why hadn’t she moved on even a little bit? When you’re really, truly happy, you mellow out, don’t you?
Or was it possible that I’d misheard her because of the noisy car? I think she needed a new muffler or something, for it was making a terrible racket.
“Sorry. I didn’t catch that. What did you say?” I asked, practically shouting. Might as well give her the benefit of the doubt. A word here, a word there. It was possible that I’d misunderstood.
“I was just saying thanks again for the lunch,” she shouted back, then stepped on the gas and floored it.
No, I heard her correctly the first time, I thought as I watched the gravel fly up. You don’t tear out of someone’s driveway unless you’re in a big hurry to get away from them. So the question was, Why was she in suc
h a big hurry to get away from me? Was it really because she still hated me for stealing Stuart? Or was it because her relationship with her fiancé wasn’t quite as cozy as she made it out to be and she was afraid I’d figure that out?
24
“Can I talk to you a minute?” asked Jimmy Lasher. We had all gathered at his parents’ house for dinner and had just finished dessert. Stuart was in the kitchen, probably grabbing the very sizable ass of the Lasher’s maid, while the rest of the family had scattered. Now his brother was steering me into the den, clearly hoping to have a private conversation with me.
“Sure, Jimmy. What’s up? You look upset.”
“I’m not happy.”
“Is this about Stuart?”
“What else?” He shrugged, as if my husband had brought him a lifetime of grief. “Look, Tara. I don’t want to burden you with our business headaches, especially since your own career is on the upswing, but has Stuart mentioned any problems at work?”
“No. Why? What’s going on?”
“Who knows what’s going on inside that mind of his. I was hoping you’d be able to enlighten me.”
“Not unless you give me more information, Jimmy.”
“Okay. One of our employees met with me about a week ago and said Stuart had told him to mislabel a truckload of melons.”
I squelched a laugh. Melons? He was looking as if someone had died, and we were talking about melons? “Mislabel them how?”
“By stickering them as organic when they’re not.”
“Why would Stuart ask this employee to do that?”
“To jack up the prices. We can charge the customer fifteen percent more for the organic stuff.”
“But that’s fraud, Jimmy. Stuart comes up with ludicrous ideas from time to time, but he’s not a criminal.”
“I know, and I’m not implying that he was cheating the company. I think he was just trying to prove his worth to us. If profits increased and he had something to do with the increase, he’d feel like he’d contributed. That’s my guess anyway. What’s yours? You live with him. Has he been acting differently? Is everything okay at home?”
I hesitated. Jimmy was no fool. He was aware of his brother’s flaws. But he loved him, and I didn’t want to disabuse him of that love. “Everything’s fine at home,” I said. “I agree with your theory about this. He must have wanted to puff himself up by adding to Lasher’s bottom line.”
Jimmy nodded. ‘Then we’re probably talking about a one-time thing, as opposed to a pattern. No harm done.”
“Good, but what about the employee who tipped you off about the melons?”
“I handled that. I gave him a nice raise and a pat on the back and had him sticker the melons the way they were supposed to be stickered. End of story.”
“So you didn’t read Stuart the riot act?”
“Not the riot act. It’s touchy between us, Tara, because he’s my big brother and I hate to show him up. I just told him to keep his hands clean, and he said he would.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “And I’ll stick closer to him, Jimmy. Spend more time with him. We can’t afford a scandal, any of us, so you can count on me to do my part.”
He gave me a hug. “I was hoping you’d say that. Stuart won the lottery when he married you. I love Peg more than anything, but she’s innocent, naïve, not real savvy in the ways of the world. You’re different, Tara. You’re a realist. You cut right through the crap and see things as they are, then deal with them, accept them. I admire that. Especially now that Stuart’s misbehavior has taken a potentially tricky turn. As you put it, we can’t afford a scandal. It would kill business at Lasher’s.”
“Not to worry. I’m on top of it.”
And I was. I followed Stuart around as if I were glued to him, treated him with civility, acted more like a wife than an adversary, kept an eye on him. When we took a quick trip to Bermuda, for example, we swam together and played tennis together and went shopping together, and while I’d be overstating it if I said we enjoyed each other’s company, we managed. I was so conscientious about my duties that I wasn’t the least bit tempted by the hunky specimen who was taking care of the pool that weekend. He’d flirted with me—not an unusual occurrence when you look as good as I do—but I didn’t even allow myself a single stolen kiss. I’d always been too careful to engage in any extramarital activities. Besides, I wasn’t as promiscuous as Stuart, nor did I need the validation from other men, and so I figured I’d just bide my time over the coming years, just keep things going either until I did get a divorce or Stuart died. The point was, I was still young and I knew deep down that I wouldn’t be stuck with him forever, so why not play the game and let the clock run out?
It was in this new spirit of partnership that I suggested we invite Amy and her fiancé for dinner. Stuart said he loved the idea.
Unfortunately, Amy was less enthusiastic. Our telephone conversations about the book were extremely cordial, but whenever I brought up the subject of the four of us having dinner, she demurred. Her excuses were always the same—that her fiancé was too busy and that she was paranoid about someone from L and T finding out about them—and she wouldn’t commit to making a date. Typical Amy, dragging her feet when she didn’t want to do something. What intrigued me was why she didn’t want to come for dinner with her fiancé. Even if she hated me, I was her author now, her prized author at that. Wasn’t she supposed to court me, not avoid me?
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t want me to meet him,” I said after she rebuffed me yet again.
“He’s busy,” she said. “Extremely busy.”
“Stuart’s busy, too, but he makes time to eat. So come on. Bring him up here and I’ll feed him. You’ll see. It’ll be fun. For once, you two won’t have to sneak around. You can even hold hands at the dinner table.” I laughed. She didn’t.
“I’m just curious, Tara. Why do you care so much about meeting my fiancé?” she asked. “It’s not as if you and I are best friends anymore.”
Ouch. I don’t know why her words stung like a son of a bitch. Of course things had changed between us. I wasn’t stupid. But when she actually articulated her feelings, I was transported right back to the humiliation of Stuart telling me she’d only picked me as her maid of honor to humor me. Because we weren’t best friends anymore.
And so, before I could stop myself, the tears welled up, the result of a sudden and spontaneous wave of hurt. Damn, I hated when that happened. I prided myself on my steely demeanor. I didn’t cry a lot, but it always seemed to be Amy who caused it when I did.
“I wanted to have you and your fiancé to dinner so I could show you I’m here for you,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I wasn’t there for you when you were engaged to Stuart, but I’d like to try again with your new man.”
“That’s very sweet, Tara, but why don’t we just continue to work on your book and leave the men out of it?”
“Leave the men out of it? So is this about you’re not being comfortable seeing Stuart?” I said. “You still care about him, is that it?”
“No! It has nothing to do with Stuart. I don’t still care about him, believe me. It’s about my fiancé and how busy he is, as I’ve already told you.”
I wasn’t buying it. Either she was still pining for Stuart and wouldn’t admit it or she was afraid I’d steal this fiancé the way I’d stolen the last one and that history would repeat itself. Yeah, that was probably it. Or maybe there was something about the fiancé that she was hiding—like he wasn’t the stud muffin she claimed he was. Maybe he was a shrimpy little thing with bad skin and bad hair and she didn’t think he was impressive enough to trot out in front of me. Or maybe this fiancé wasn’t a he at all. Maybe he was a she and we were talking about a lesbian relationship. Too many maybes, so I kept fishing.
“You’re sure the reason you can’t come for dinner has to do with your fiancé and not Stuart?” I asked.
“For the hundredth time, yes, Tara.”
&nb
sp; “Well, then maybe the next question should be, Is there a fiancé?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I’m beginning to wonder if he exists, since you’re so tight-lipped about him. You’ve never even mentioned his name. Or her name, for that matter.”
“Her name? I don’t—”
She suddenly cut herself off in mid-sentence, told me there was a crisis with an author, and put me on hold. My guess was that she was flustered and stalling, trying to decide whether to admit she was gay. After a few minutes, she came back on the line.
“Did this author crisis have anything to do with Tony Stiles?” I said, sort of as a taunt. Recently, she’d told me she handled his publicity and I’d gushed about him. He was Stuart’s favorite mystery writer. Mine, too.
“No,” she said, as evasive as before.
Didn’t think so. Go on, Amy. Tell me the truth about your so-called fiancé, and let’s move on. It’s not as if I’m homophobic, for God’s sake. So you’ll bring her up for dinner instead of him. Who cares?
“But since you mentioned Tony,” she went on after clearing her throat, “I might as well tell you the truth about him.”
“Great. I love gossip. Is he going out with a famous actress or something?” Obviously, she was still ducking me about her fiancé, but she wasn’t off the hook. Not yet.
“No. He’s going out with me.”
I laughed, more out of confusion than anything else. “You and—So you’re like—what?—traveling together on one of his book tours?”
‘Tony and I are getting married. He’s my fiancé, Tara, the one who’s always so busy.”
I think I actually choked on my own spit. I certainly coughed, gasped, something. Tony Stiles, the best-selling and best-looking writer in America, was Amy Sherman’s fiancé? I was blown away. Totally shocked. How had my old pal, smart and pretty and principled though she was, managed to snare a catch as big as that?
“I can’t get over this,” I said after several seconds. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
