"If you want them, you'll have to buy them." She looked through Joanna as if she weren't there.
Joanna turned and stormed out of the store. For the past hour and a half she'd been feeling slightly invisible, but the deli clerk's rudeness was the last straw.
She'd been jostled in the liquor store without so much as an "Excuse me." In the bookstore a woman pushed ahead of her in line as if Joanna's business couldn't possibly be as important as her own. When a man in his sixties called her "ma'am," Joanna had to battle down the urge to kick him in the shins.
It was a compliment to her artistry with makeup that the disguise, improvised as it was, had been so successful, but all she could think about as she let herself into the lobby of the Carillon was the monstrous coffee stain that was spreading across the front of her raincoat.
Great afternoon, she thought as the elevator creaked its way down to the basement. Not only was her self-esteem a few pegs lower than before, but she had left the deli without her quart of milk and now she faced the drudgery of the laundry room.
Perhaps Cynthia had the right idea after all. Maybe growing old gracefully was an outdated notion. Maybe it was better to kick and scream against time, then when all else failed, take a young lover and flee to Greece where they understood the splendors of older women.
The elevator shimmied to a stop and Joanna hurried through the corridor to the laundry room. Greece and a handsome cabana boy certain beat an evening with a box of Tide and the promise of coffee with Cremora.
She glanced at her watch. Ten to five. At least the laundry room would be empty and she could wash and dry her coat before the hordes descended upon it later.
The TV was on, as always, and the end of The People's Court echoed through the cavernous room. Joanna slipped out of her coat and was about to pop it into one of the empty machines when she heard a low rumble.
She turned and her breath caught. A man of about thirty-five was sprawled in one of the brightly-colored chairs the Carillon's misguided management had strewn through the laundry room like overstuffed Easter eggs. His right leg, encased in a cheerful art-deco cast, rested atop a big stack of magazines.
His eyes were closed, his arms folded behind his head. His shaggy dark brown hair was shot through with reddish highlights and looked as if he'd forgotten to comb it that morning. The low rumble she'd heard was probably an Upper West Side snore.
Joanna tossed her raincoat into the washer and added detergent. Staring at a sleeping man seemed an invasion of privacy but she couldn't help herself. If those chiseled cheekbones and that strong, well-defined jawline were any indication that was one human being who would age beautifully.
Maybe she'd have time to race upstairs, scrub off the old-age makeup and get back to the laundry room before the spin cycle. She reached for her house keys but they slipped from her soapy fingers and clattered to the floor.
"Damn," she mumbled, bending down to fish them out from between two bouncing Whirlpools. The keys were just beyond reach. She got down on her knees, face pressed against one of the machines, red wool cap drooping over her eyes, and pushed her arm farther into the space between the washers.
Five more seconds, she thought. Five more seconds and she'd beat a hasty retreat to the super's office and beg for help. She'd rather be embarrassed in front of a grizzled, grimy Stanley any day than be caught in her sweatpants and kinky makeup by this male Sleeping Beauty who –
"It's not that I don't enjoy the view from here," a male voice said, "but I think you could use a little help."
Let it be Stanley, she thought. Let it be Stanley or the man in 920 with the earrings or the woman in the penthouse with the glandular problem. Let it be Jack the Ripper, but please don't let it be the man with the broken leg and a cast straight out of the Museum of Modern Art.
"If you toss me my crutches, I might be able to help you find whatever you're looking for."
Joanna groaned and stood up. She couldn't wait to see his face when he discovered that the view he'd been enjoying belonged to none other than Mother Time.
Chapter Three
The woman with the red wool cap turned around and Ryder almost fell off his chair. He covered his mouth and coughed in an attempt to mask his surprise.
The woman eyed him warily. "My keys dropped down there." She pointed between the two bouncing baby Whirlpools. "Your arm will never fit."
He was no Arnold Schwarzenegger but she was right. He leaned over and picked up one of his crutches. "Take this. Maybe you can fish them out."
She smiled at him, quite a remarkable smile for a woman well into her golden years. He wondered if it was the result of good genes or brilliant dentistry. Either way, the smile was irresistible and he smiled back.
"You young men are smarter than I thought," she said, crossing the laundry room in a few long strides.
Ryder laughed. "Resourcefulness isn't the sole property of the over fifty-five set." He handed her the crutch. Her eyes were incredible. They were the vivid blue-green of the Caribbean on a sunlit day, starred by lashes that –
Damn! He stopped his line of thought cold. She was old enough to be his grandmother.
As if on cue, the woman limped slightly as she went back to the washing machines. Arthritis, he thought, watching her. Probably flared up when she least expected it.
A busted leg was no excuse for not helping her. He grabbed the other crutch and boosted himself from his chair.
#
The man was thumping his way toward her, and Joanna buried her face between the washing machines as she fished for her house keys.
Don't come too close, she begged as he did exactly that. If he saw her glossy black hair peeping form the red wool cap, she'd be toast. The improvised makeup job was adequate for quick glances, but it was hardly professional enough at this stage to withstand scrutiny.
"Maybe I can lift the end of the washer and give you more leeway," he said.
He leaned over next to her and Joanna barely suppressed an urge to pull the cap down over her face. Her arm was wedged between the washers and she wiggled the crutch around on the floor until she heard the clink of metal as it found the keys.
"Success!" She pulled back and drew the keys out with the tip of the crutch. "You're a lifesaver!"
She stood up, ready to bolt for the door, when she noticed a funny look in his hazel eyes. No wonder! She was moving faster than a jackrabbit on speed.
You're eighty years old, Joanna. Slow down!
"Our meeting was serendipitous, son," she said, calling upon her one semester of actor's training years ago. "I would have had to face Stanley's wrath had it not been for you."
The marvelous-looking stranger tipped an imaginary hat. "My pleasure."
Joanna turned to leave but his hand on her arm stopped her.
"Can I ask a personal question?"
Oh God! Here it comes. She nodded; she didn't trust her voice.
"Do you practice yoga?"
She stared at him. "What?"
His lean and angular face reddened. "I've – uh, I've never seen a woman so agile at your – "
She laughed, despite herself. "At my advanced age?"
"I was trying to find a better way to phrase it."
"Be blunt, my boy," Joanna said, jingling her keys for emphasis. "Say what's on your mind. One of the greatest benefits of old age is having the privilege to say what's on your mind."
A roguish twinkle danced in his eyes. "And you're extending that privilege to me, Mrs. -- ?"
"Hayes," she said, pulling her late grandmother's name out of thin air. "Kathryn Hayes. And, yes, I'm extending that privilege."
"Mrs. Hayes," he said, his grin wicked and wonderful, "you are a beautiful woman."
This was getting stranger by the second.
"And you, dear boy, are a charming liar."
"If we bottle your secret, we could make a fortune."
"No secret," she said, edging toward the door. "I smoke, drink, and have my way with elderly ge
ntlemen twice a week." That had been the real Kathryn Hayes's personal prescription for longevity.
His laughter was full and hearty. "That's a regimen I can deal with."
She arched a brow. "You fancy elderly gentlemen also?"
"Sorry to disappoint you," he said, eyes twinkling, "but I'm one hundred percent straight."
She made a show of looking him over, something she would never have tried as Joanna Stratton. "A healthy, red-blooded American make," she said. "As I live and breathe. . ." Anything less would have been a terrible waste of manpower.
"You're a sharp woman, Kathryn Hayes," he said. "I like you."
"Old doesn't mean dull, my boy," she said airily. "You remember that."
#
Kathryn Hayes disappeared down the corridor in a fragrant cloud of Giorgio before Ryder had time to frame a witty retort. For a full ten seconds he stood balanced on his crutches, trying to figure out exactly what the hell had happened there.
She was the most fascinating, witty, and guilelessly charming woman he'd met in months. Hell, in years. The five minutes spent in her company left him elated and energetic and wishing she'd been willing to linger in the laundry room a little longer.
He couldn't remember the last time a woman had instantly, totally captivated him that way. Was it Ingrid in Sweden a few years ago when he was on an extended vacation? Or Pamela in London, whose upper-class witticisms had fascinated him almost as much as her top-drawer face and form?
The only thing he was sure of was that the woman in question didn't wear heavy-duty support hose or have grandchildren old enough to be his contemporary.
"You need a long rest," he said out loud as he maneuvered back toward his chair.
A hell of a long rest.
#
Three hours later Rosie Callahan handed Joanna a glass of Campari and soda and sat down opposite her. "You've been staring at me all night, Joanna. Do I have spinach between my teeth?"
"Sorry, Rosie." Joanna put down the glass. "I'm thinking of taking on a small assignment and I –" She stopped. How do you tell a statuesque eight-year old ex-burlesque star that you're studying her face to gauge the patterns of aging? "Benny Ryan made me an offer I can't refuse."
"Great money?"
"Great challenge." She shifted position on the sofa, feeling suddenly awkward.
"Is it a government secret?"
"Hardly that. It's a commercial for a bank. The camera will follow one man as he waits in line for a teller."
"Not terribly interesting, Joanna."
"It spans fifty years."
Rosie laughed into her drink. "Reminds me of Chase when the social security checks come in at the end of the month."
Joanna relaxed. "Now you get the idea. It's up to me to age the character in ten-year increments."
"And that's why you've been staring at me all night."
"Guilty. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable."
"Hell, no, child, you didn't make me uncomfortable at all. I was afraid my bridgework was slipping and you were too polite to tell me." Rosie leaned forward in her chair. "Look all you want. There's eighty years of living on this face."
Joanna uncoiled herself from the couch and knelt on the floor by Rosie, tilting a lampshade so more light shone on the older woman's face.
"Any nips and tucks?" she asked, touching Rosie's lined cheek with an index finger.
"Not a one," Rosie said "By the time I left burlesque, I'd carved out a decent niche as a comic actress." Her smile was rueful "Comic actresses don't need the jawlines of a Roman statuette."
Cosmetic surgery, lightly undertaken, was one of Joanna's pet peeves. She'd seen too many lovely actresses left with permanently anaesthetized upper lips or ugly keloid scars where incisions failed to heal properly. That kind of fast-food mentality when it came to beauty both saddened and appalled her.
There was beauty in a face weathered by time as Rosie's had been, a beauty that no surgeon's scalpel could duplicate. The network of lines surrounding Rosie's deep brown eyes, the permanent smile creases, the furrows in her brow all formed a living history.
"How are you going to do it?" Rosie asked as Joanna noted the faint pattern of age around Rosie's nose and cheeks. "I don't think Revlon has anything in its bag of tricks to help you."
Joanna resumed her seat on the end of the couch and sipped her Campari. "Do you remember when I did the special makeup on that Grade-Z sci-fi movie a few years ago?"
"The one Cynthia had the bit part in?"
"We used a special latex formula to build the heads for the Venusian mind readers. I think the same formula can help me take a thirty-year-old through the different stages of aging."
"It may not be as easy as you think," Rosie said. "Even now I'm shocked when I look in the mirror and see an old lady looking back at me. From year to year, the changes are so subtle, you don't even see them and then one day – pow!"
Joanna thought about Holland and her own mother, Cynthia – two women whose lives revolved around the appearance of the latest grey hair or laugh line. "Some women see it even when it's not happening," she said dryly.
"Aging's not Cynthia's problem," Rosie said She and Cynthia's mother had been close friends from childhood. "Vanity is. She spends more time with a mirror than any woman has a right to. She's been like that since she was a little girl."
How well Joanna knew. She had grown up mesmerized by her beautiful mother, watching hour after hour as Cynthia studied her reflection in the dressing table mirror and did her utmost to improve upon perfection.
Where other little girls played with Crayolas and finger paints, Joanna had a palette of jewel-tone eye shadows and tubes of lipstick in crimson and vermilion and soft pink for her experiments with color.
Joanna and Rosie talked of Cynthia for a while, taking bets on how long her romance with Stavros, the Greek god, would last.
"And what about your social life?" Rosie asked, refilling their glasses. "It seems to me you've been spending quite a few nights home alone."
Joanna grinned into her drink. "I'm on a sabbatical, Rosie. I thought you knew that."
"A sabbatical from work, not love. You should be spending your nights dining and dancing, not reminiscing with aging burlesque queens."
Joanna thought about the last man she'd felt even a glimmer of serious attraction toward. "I'm afraid dining and dancing is a far cry from true love. Quite frankly I'd rather spend the evening with you."
"My condolences," Rosie said. "I'd have turned you out on your ear if Bert were in town."
"Rosie!" Joanna's voice registered both amusement and shock. "What about female solidarity? The value of sisterhood? Feminism and all the other – "
"Ah, you youngsters! Didn't anyone ever tell you you can't curl up in bed at night with rhetoric?"
The idea of Rosie curling up in bed with the cherubic Bert Higgins made Joanna giggle.
"You're surprised."
"A little," Joanna admitted. "Though, knowing your wicked past, I'm sure I don't know why I would be."
"I haven't told you the half of it, miss."
Joanna had no doubt that the other half would be enough to curl her hair. "Am I old enough to hear it?"
"Probably not. Although if Ryder had shown up tonight, I would have entertained you both with some of the tamer stories."
"Ryder?"
Rosie's face was studiedly bland. "Oh, didn't I tell you?" I had invited another guest for dinner."
Joanna sat up straighter. "A male guest?"
"Quite ahandsome male, if I do say so."
"What does Bert think about the competition?"
"Bert has no competition. I invited Ryder for you."
"And where did you meet this Ryder person?" Rosie had been known to meet the strangest people in the unlikeliest places. She could be setting Joanna up with the fourth in line at a soup kitchen or the president of a major bank.
"In the elevator about a month ago. Around the time my winter boots disappeared
."
Cynthia had told Joanna about these mysterious disappearances that had been plaguing Rosie the past few months. An occasional waylaid social security check, misplaced groceries, a string of random items missing from her apartment. Rosie added up the facts and claimed hararssment. Everyone else, Joanna included, felt the redoubtable Rosie Callahan was beginning to show signs of her age.
Rosie pointed toward her new living room drapes. "He helped me put the cornices up and we became fast friends."
"Is he the Carillon's chief handyman?"
"Lord, no! He moved into the Jensens' old place. 11E with the balcony and the art deco mirrors." Rosie had lived at the Carillon for more than fifty years and was a veritable encyclopedia of Carillon facts and fantasies. "I hear it went for a pretty penny."
That came as no surprise. When the Carillon made the conversion from rental building to co-op, prices had been astronomical. Joanna's mother had taken advantage of the insider's rate and had purchased her own two-bedroom place for a price just this side of obscene.
Rosie was one of eleven tenants over age sixty-five who were protected by City law; they could be forced neither to buy nor to move. Legislation, however, could not protect them from the landlord's wrath. Rosie, the original agitator, had been trying to convince the tenants to band together and demand fair treatment, and in the past few weeks her Coalition of Tenants for a Fair Deal had been growing steadily more vocal.
"Did he know he was being set up with a blind date?"
Rosie gave her a withering glance. "I may be old, Joanna, but I'm no fool. Matchmaking is a delicate art."
Rosie usually had all the finesse of a tractor trailer when it came to affairs of the heart. She probably scared the poor man back into his apartment for the next decade.
"So what does this moneyed stranger do for a living, anyway?" If she knew Rosie, he was probably a lawyer Rosie had wooed over to her cause.
"I have no idea. He seems to stay home a great deal." She told Joanna about the big Rolls-Royce limousine that showed up each morning at ten and the suave English banker type who visited the Carillon's newest resident.
Playing for Time Page 3
