MISTLETOE OVER MANHATTAN

by Barbara Daly

  Caught like a shoplifter with a mascara up her sleeve, Mallory tried to look less obvious. Still staring at Maybelle, she had to admit that the woman's simple black jacket looked expensive. All she could see of the blouse beneath it was the neckline of something in a snakeskin print. Nothing alarming about that.

  "And don't worry about them horns. Some of 'em fell off the critters natural-like and the other ones got what they deserved. Want some coffee?"

  Mallory hesitated. At least Maybelle hadn't offered her a controlled substance. "Do you have decaffeinated?"

  Maybelle sighed. "Another one of them. Honest to gosh, you young folks," she said, then screamed, "Dickie!" Mallory levitated straight up out of her chair, but Maybelle went on in her normal nasal twang. "Y'all stay up all night, but you're scared to death of caffeine."

  Richard reappeared. "You rang?" he said eloquently.

  "Got another one of them decaf drinkers. Perk us up a pot, will ya, sugar?"

  "It's already brewing," Richard, or Dickie, replied. He gave Mallory a look that said, "Isn't she something?" over the top of Maybelle's head. "Maybelle, I told you she wouldn't want your fully leaded stuff."

  Maybelle looked discontentedly after him as he vanished, his big frame silent as a cat's. "Nobody wants real coffee anymore," she said. "The kind that's perked on the stove and reheated 'til it's like axle grease. Now that's coffee you can sink your teeth into."

  Mallory began to worry again. Her good manners told her she had to stay long enough for the cup of coffee she'd just custom-ordered, but no longer than that, and there were a couple of things she had to get straight before she revealed anything about herself to this supposed imagemaker, who looked and sounded as if she could use one of her own. "What do you charge for your services?"

  "We don' need to tawk about that jes' yet," Maybelle said with a wave of a diamond-studded hand.

  Mallory heard a loud throat-clearing sound, then Richard reappeared, positioning himself behind Maybelle like a bodyguard. "Ms. Ewing charges one hundred dollars an hour and prefers to see new clients daily for the first week, tapering off in subsequent weeks," he intoned, sounding like a recording. "She'll see you each evening at seven and at four on weekends until further notice. A typical client can expect a fee of about two thousand dollars. Cream and sugar?" he added, circling the desk with the silver tray he'd been holding while he did his piece.

  "Black, thanks."

  Maybelle smiled. "Way-ell, there's some hope for ya."

  Mallory frowned back. There was one more thing she had to know. "What sort of training did you have for this business?" she said, trying hard to say it nicely, as if she were merely interested in Maybelle's background.

  "Training?" Maybelle cackled. "No need to worry yourself about that, hon. I got me plenty of trainin' in all kinds of things. Look at them diplomas." She cocked a thumb over her shoulder as Richard drifted out of the room.

  Mallory gripped the handle of an exquisite bone china teacup as if it were the only piece of debris at hand after a shipwreck, and she directed her gaze to the wall behind Maybelle. It was papered with diplomas in gilded frames.

  She narrowed her eyes. Diplomas could easily be faked. She had a strong feeling that the woman behind the desk wouldn't hesitate to buy diplomas by the square foot.

  "And besides," Maybelle was saying, "look at me." She stood up.

  That was the problem. Mallory was looking at her. The woman topped out at five feet, and below the elegant black jacket Mallory saw pressed light blue jeans and a pair of heeled boots that upped the definition of cowboy boots by a quantum leap. They were black, tooled in yellow and purple pansies.

  Mallory blinked, hesitated, left her saucer on the edge of the desk and stood, still holding the cup by its delicate handle. She carefully walked around the desk, narrowly avoiding being gored by a protruding horn, to join Maybelle at the wall.

  Many of the diplomas were from correspondence schools and announced Maybelle's successful completion of courses in an amazing variety of fields, from mathematics to pottery-making. "Don't pay them no mind," Maybelle said, dismissing them with a wave. The enormous diamonds in her rings sent rainbows across the high ceiling of the room. "I took them courses to inner-tain and edgy-cate myself after Hadley died. My husband," she explained.

  "I'm sorry," Mallory said.

  "I was, too," Maybelle said, "and real bored without him around to fight with." She moved on down the wall and so did Mallory.

  Here there were diplomas written in Chinese characters and a diploma from the Parsons School of Design. "You were an interior designer?" Mallory said, casting a glance back at the desk.

  "Oh, my, yeah," Maybelle said. "That was the most fun I ever had."

  "And lucrative," Mallory murmured, trying to imagine a house this woman had had a hand in decorating, trying to imagine her on the loose in China. She couldn't even speak English.

  "Way-ell, no." Maybelle looked reflective. "The money never interested me very much. But I do get bored real easy, so next I got me a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology—"

  The coffee sloshed onto Mallory's only pair of black trousers.

  "—then an MBA, so's I'd know what y'all young folks was up against in the business world. What line of work did you say you was in?"

  The psychology degree was from Johns Hopkins and the MBA from New York University. "I'm a lawyer," Mallory said, feeling humbled.

  "I may get me one of them degrees next," Maybelle declared. "Dickie's significant other? He's involved in this lawsuit with a whole bunch of other people, and I want to tell you, that lawyer's gonna make out good."

  Mallory tensed up. "Ah, what kind of lawsuit?"

  Maybelle stepped toward her desk and Mallory followed. "The craziest thing happened," Maybelle said as she settled herself down. "He's got the show biz bug, and he was going to audition for this part where they wanted a redhead—"

  It couldn't be. It just couldn't.

  "Now that we've gotten to know each other, mind if I take off this jacket?" Maybelle interrupted herself, taking it off without waiting for Mallory to answer.

  "Of course—" she looked down at the T-shirt beneath the jacket "—not." The T-shirt wasn't your customary snakeskin print. It depicted a python wrapped around Maybelle's skinny body, its head curling down over one shoulder.

  "—and the stuff dyed his hair green."

  "No!" Mallory said, breaking eye contact with the python as she realized she had something worse than snakes to worry about.

  "Oh, yes," Maybelle said, misunderstanding Mallory's explosive response. "And he's real thorough about his character development, y'know? So he didn't just dye the hair on his head, nosirree. He dyed everything, if y'all get my drift."

  Mallory, perched at the very edge of her chair, said, "You mean—"

  "I mean for a while there even his little tallywhacker was green," Maybelle said. "And I want to tell y'all he was mighty put out." She paused for a moment. "They have an apartment here in the house. The tawk gets kindly personal sometimes."

  "Maybelle, there's something I have to tell you," Mallory began. How could Maybelle help her if she had a conflict of interests?

  Maybelle leaned forward. "Well, of course you do, and here I am chattering on about stuff. Y'all came here for help. Help gettin' your man, a little bird told me. Sounds to me like a real intrestin' project."

  Silently Mallory weighed her choices. This woman might be crazy as a cat on uppers, but she did have all those degrees and all those diamonds, and she did have intelligent eyes. Why did she have to know that Mallory was on the opposite side of her housemate's lawsuit? Only because Mallory felt morally obligated to tell her. But why? If Maybelle herself were involved in the case, that would be different, but—

  While her mind went around in circles, Maybelle rattled on. "I don't know what you're so worried about. You're purty. You seem smart. Whatcha want to change?"

  Locations? Go back to the hotel and remember this experience as nothing
more than a very interesting evening? The conclusion she came to, after weighing all the evidence, was that in the course of one momentous day she'd sat on Santa's lap, she'd made herself come here, she'd faced up to a doorknocker that looked like Andre the Giant naked and she hadn't run away. She might never have this much courage again. It's now or never. "Me," Mallory whispered. "I want to change me, from the inside out."

  * * *

  5

  « ^ »

  "The wedding was a hoot," Athena said. "I had to compete with all that Eurotrash the princess runs around with and I knew there wasn't a designer on the face of this earth who would impress them, so I went down to the West Forties and bought just tons and tons of silk chiffon in a bunch of colors, and then I—"

  Maybe she's had lipo and they accidentally suctioned out her brain along with the fat. Carter forced a smile toward the gorgeous creature sitting opposite him at Le Bernardin. Athena was six feet tall and even skinnier than she'd been the last time he saw her, when she'd weighed maybe ninety-six pounds. The dinner she wasn't eating would cost him $250, easy.

  "—Fashion Institute, and he just swirled it all around me like a toga." Athena paused briefly. "Sort of like a toga, because togas are usually white, aren't they? But this wasn't—this was all those colors I picked out, so—"

  Thank you for clarifying. He tried to imagine having a conversation like this with Mallory, but he couldn't. Wonder who Mallory's going out with. Somebody she's known a long time? A family friend? A relative?

  It was true that he and Mallory had had a conversation about socks. What had that scene in the sock department been all about? She'd come prissing over to interfere in his sock purchase—like she knew better than he did how many socks he needed—and standing there, feeling pretty annoyed by her know-it-all attitude, he'd had the strangest urge to kiss her. The closer he'd gotten to her, the stronger the urge had become. He'd had to get a firm grip on himself to keep from giving her a sizzling one right there in the store.

  Then he'd gotten all upset again when she and Santa Claus had done all that whispering to each other. What, he wanted to know, were they whispering about? Did Santa Claus ask her for a date? Carter had been slouching, but this thought bolted him upright in his chair. The way the guy had come on to her—it didn't seem ethical. Santa Claus was supposed to be faithful to Mrs. Claus. Carter drew his eyebrows together.

  "When that anorexic bimbo Simonetta saw me, she screamed. Then she ran up to me and said, 'Who did that divine dress?' but she said it in Italian, and I thought she was trying to attack me for outbidding her on that apartment she wanted, so I got really mad and was about to start pulling her hair, but Fernando rushed up in the nick of time and told me what she'd said in English—"

  "Dessert?" Carter said, hoping he didn't sound as desperate as he felt.

  "Soon as I finish telling you," Athena said. "So I told her I'd found a brand-new designer and wasn't telling anybody about him until I was sure I had his absolute and total loyalty." She pursed her glossy, puffy lips into a stern line.

  "You stole her apartment," Carter said. "Don't you think you owe her a dress designer?" Good God, I'm getting into the conversation. Another ten minutes and I'll be asking her if she thinks I'm more a Brioni type or a—who is that other guy, the one with the sloppy double-breasted suits? Ambrose. Armand. That's it, I think, Ar—

  Athena stamped her four-inch spike of a heel on the floor beneath the table. It was dramatic enough to make him jump. "There was no designer," she said in a newly gritty voice. "He was just a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology. That was the whole point, that I did something really creative and knocked the lace Wolford stockings off Simonetta, and you weren't even listening."

  "I was," he protested. "He wrapped you up like a toga. I mean, the stuff you bought, he wrapped it around you like a toga of many colors." He was pretty embarrassed about his manners. When you dated around, as he did, you were bound to have one of these bored-to-catatonia nights once in a while, but you learned to act decent for the duration of the catastrophe and just not call the woman again.

  He must have enjoyed his last date with Athena or he wouldn't have called her again. Funny, he couldn't remember his last date with Athena.

  "I was gorgeous." Athena's voice went up another notch. "I am gorgeous. And you aren't paying the slightest bit of attention to me." She stood up. "I wouldn't eat your dessert if it were the last dessert anyone ever offered me. I'm going to meet Fernando at the Fressen bar. He pays attention to me." She cast disapproving eyes down as much of him as she could see. "He," she added as a final blow, "wears Armani."

  That's the guy's name, Armani. Regretting nothing but the fact that he had been rude to Athena and had forgotten a household word like Armani, Carter summoned the waiter.

  Dinner, now that he thought back on it, had mainly consisted of a lot of plates. On the way back to the St. Regis, he bought and devoured a Double Meat, Double Cheese Bigger Burger with plenty of mustard from the packets he'd stashed in his pockets.

  It was significant that he couldn't remember the last date he'd had with Athena. One thing for sure, there wouldn't be another one. Brie, now Brie was a hardworking, sensible girl, a bond salesperson on Wall Street. They'd eat steak and she'd order hers rare. Tomorrow night would go better.

  He wondered how Mallory's night was going. If Santa Claus had asked her out, Carter swore he'd report it to the store manager.

  After her lecture from Maybelle, Mallory was still feeling stubborn about the woman's insistence that she wear Carol's red jacket tomorrow. It was too sexy for the work scene, Mallory had argued. She'd buy something a little brighter in a day or two.

  However, since she'd told Carter she was going out for the evening, she'd better look as if she'd just gotten home if he came in unexpectedly. So she switched her black pants for the black skirt and the black shell for the white one and put her jacket back on. She was in the sitting room working and paying a little attention to a movie on television when she heard a keycard slice into the lock and saw the door open. Startled, she looked up. "Carter. You're home early." Just seeing him made her heart do a flip-flop.

  "You got home first." He glared at her. "Was it a great date?"

  "Just fabulous," she said with a smile she hoped would mislead him. "But I got to thinking about the case."

  "Me, too." He sounded grumpy. "I'm going to take my stuff into my room and work awhile."

  She jumped up. "You can work here. I'll go to my room. I thought you'd be—"

  "Well, I wasn't. I'm home, okay? But stay where you are."

  "No, no, I'll…" He was looking at her so impatiently she trailed off, deciding to drop it. His door slammed, and the suite fell into silence.

  Mallory lowered the volume on the movie one more increment and went back to reading the full account of Sensuous's early attempts to settle the Green case with its green complainants. It still seemed to her that her company's offer had been extremely generous. Ms. Angell had seen her chance, though, and had convinced the clients she'd rounded up that being green could be worth millions.

  As Maybelle had implied, Ms. Angell was the one who would be worth millions when the dust settled. Lawyers.

  She was a lawyer, too. What was she doing, criticizing the habits of members of her own profession? But she would not personally do what Ms. Angell was doing, and she was fairly sure Carter wouldn't, either. Of course, how did she know what Carter would or would not do?

  He hadn't enjoyed his date with Athena enough to spend the night with her, and Mallory was simply thrilled. And he'd been curious about her "date." That was even more thrilling.

  She looked down at herself. Maybe Maybelle was right. It would be pretty hard to believe she'd had a hot, intense encounter with anybody in these clothes. She was more appropriately dressed to give a speech to a kindergarten class. But the red jacket was just too, too—

  "Mallory!" A shout came from Carter's room. "Do you have a—" his door burst open "�
��copy of Lindon v. Hanson, you know, that other hair-dye case—"

  "Right here." Mallory fumbled for the printout in her briefcase. In his sock feet, with his shirt half open, Carter looked rumpled, sleepy and devastatingly desirable. She pulled out the document and with it, a half dozen sheets of paper that fluttered to the floor.

  He swept them up with one large hand. "I told Brenda to copy it to my laptop, but I guess she didn't. Or she filed it somewhere only she could find it." He'd lowered his voice to a grumble. "I don't know why nobody does anything right anymore. They just aim it and see if it flies. Hey, what's this?"

  Mallory could see what he was holding and felt deeply embarrassed, her privacy violated. "Um, that's my, ah, packing list, or wardrobe schedule, I guess you'd call it. Here's your—"

  "So that's how you do it, pack in a briefcase. 'Tuesday—black pants, jacket, black shell. Wednesday—black skirt, jacket, white shell, scarf. Thursday, Friday, Monday'—what do you do over the weekend? Go naked?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  She gritted her teeth to hide the shiver that ran through her. "Not in the wintertime. I wear the black pants with a sweater. Give me that."

  He waved her off. "'Monday—black jacket, black skirt, cream shell.' Hey, the black jacket's sure getting a workout."

  "You only need one black jacket." She viewed him coldly.

  "What if something happens to it?"

  "Nothing happens to a black wool jacket you can't fix with a little cool water."

  "Nothing?"

  "If it does, you send it out for a rush cleaning."

  He narrowed his eyes. "What if it's too much of a rush? What if, for example, something happened right now? You honestly think the hotel is going to get a jacket cleaned and back to you by morning?"

  "Well, no, but what could happen?" He was fishing in his pants pocket and, for some reason, it made her nervous.

  "Oh, maybe something like this." In one swift gesture he tore a corner off a small plastic packet and aimed the opening in her direction.