Fringe Benefits

by Christine Pope

  It wasn’t dusk yet, but the sun had begun to dip toward the horizon. A wash of golden light painted the house, making it look dreamy and somehow insubstantial. Palm trees sent dancing shadows across the upper floors.

  A good place to come home to, I thought, and felt a little ashamed of my dumpy studio apartment. Certainly I didn’t have anything nearly so beautiful waiting for me.

  I tried to brush the thought away as I put the car in park and shut off the engine. Although Van Rijn only had the two pieces of luggage and certainly didn’t need my help, I undid my seatbelt anyway and got out. If nothing else, it felt awfully good to stretch my legs, considering I’d been stuck behind the wheel for almost three hours.

  “Thank you again, Katherine,” said Van Rijn. He had also extricated himself and was moving to the trunk.

  “You’re welcome,” I replied, and then took a step or two toward the rear of the car. “Do you need any help with that?”

  He shook his head and sent another one of those amused half-smiles in my direction. “While jet lag has caught up with me, I think I can manage two suitcases.” As if to prove it, he easily lifted both of them out of the trunk and then shut the lid.

  “Well, then,” I said, “guess I’ll be going.” Ask me to stay, I thought. Ask me to come in for a drink, or to order some takeout, or—

  “Tomorrow at eleven,” Van Rijn said. “Nineteen forty-four Hillhurst.”

  It was a clear dismissal. “Nineteen forty-four. Got it.” I lifted my chin and forced a smile onto my lips. “Good night, Mr. Van Rijn.”

  Blue eyes met mine. His expression didn’t change, but something in that gaze made my heart give an odd little thump.

  What my own face gave away I couldn’t know, but he nodded ever so slightly.

  “Call me Pieter,” he said.

  Ten

  Van Rijn’s antique store turned out to be located only a few blocks away from the Italian restaurant he’d taken me to the night of Howard Freeman’s party. I parked my car a few doors down from the shop, realizing as I got out and locked the door that I hadn’t heard a peep out of Jonah all week, a fact for which I was profoundly grateful. Annoying as he could be, at least he wasn’t stupid.

  As if in apology for the long run of miserable heat, the weather had mellowed considerably. A brisk breeze off the ocean kept temperatures in the upper 70s. While it didn’t feel anything close to fall (or at least the sort of fall I knew), the mild air held a promise of the change in seasons. I lifted my face to the wind, feeling a sudden foolish rush of happiness.

  He’d asked me to call him Pieter.

  Maybe not the most earth-shattering of requests, but it seemed to signal some sort of shift in his attitude toward me. Why bother with that sort of familiarity if he didn’t intend our relationship to become a little closer?

  From the outside, Pieter’s shop did not appear to be very large. But the area was nice enough. A non-chain specialty coffee shop sat on the north side, and an upscale little boutique occupied the adjacent space to the south. Women with expensive-looking bags strolled up and down the street. The street looked like a parking lot for a German used-car dealer—BMWs and Mercedes and the occasional Audi lined the curbs.

  I didn’t see Pieter’s Maserati, but maybe he had a private space around back. I shouldered my own not-so-expensive purse and let myself into the store. A gentle scent of some sort of floral potpourri met my nose. I reached up to take off my sunglasses so I could get a better look at the shop’s contents.

  “It’s the flavor of the month,” remarked an unfamiliar voice, and I whirled to see a slender dark-haired man, probably a few years older than myself, standing in front of an enormous armoire and regarding me with what appeared to be an odd mixture of hostility and pity.

  “Excuse me?”

  He didn’t bother to come forward. Hands planted on his hips, he gave me a quick look up and down, but not in the sort of sexually appraising way I was used to. No, it seemed as if he were trying to catalogue my every flaw, from the floral blouse I’d bought at a discount store to the Payless sandals on my feet. I’d tried to go for the casual but nice look, since I didn’t have to go into the office. But this stranger’s appearance was perfect, right down to the crease in his dress slacks and his precise, slightly retro-’50s haircut.

  Holy crap, I thought. Is Pieter Van Rijn gay?

  This guy certainly gave every indication of being so. Now, I’m the first to admit that my gaydar isn’t all that strong (as a few incidents at bars that were mortifying to me but which provided endless amusement to Leslie had shown), but I hadn’t even gotten a flicker off Pieter, whereas this stranger seemed to revel in being a walking stereotype.

  “Katherine, right?”

  “Um, yes.” I stood up a little straighter and wished that I’d put on my one good pair of daytime sandals. At least my hair looked decent. Since I had some extra time this morning, I’d set it on rollers and given it a glam wave worthy of the red carpet. I gave it the old shampoo-commercial toss back over my shoulders and replied, “Pieter said he was going to meet me here.”

  A flash of annoyance crossed the stranger’s features as I referred to Van Rijn by his first name. “He’s on his way. He called to say he was running late.”

  Lovely. But I knew better than to let my own irritation show. “So do you run the shop…” I trailed off, hoping he’d get the hint and give me his name.

  “Max,” he said, although I got the impression he would have preferred not to tell me. “Yes, I’ve been here for four years.”

  By his tone I could tell he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t just a flash in the pan the way Pieter Van Rijn’s secretaries might be. Well, I couldn’t argue with that fact. If he were really telling me the truth. Refusing to be baited, I said, “It’s a great location. Do you live here in Los Feliz, too?” I threw the “too” in there because I wanted Max to know I possessed at least that much information about our boss’s personal life. My better nature prevented me from adding that I also knew the combo to Pieter’s security gate, neener-neener.

  Max looked even more pained, if possible. “No. West Hollywood.”

  Somehow I managed to avoid saying, “What a surprise.” Where else would a guy like him live? Hyper-groomed, super-attractive gay man living in West Hollywood? I’d have to alert the media.

  At that moment the front door opened, and Pieter Van Rijn walked in. Apparently oblivious to the tension crackling between his two assistants, he said, “My apologies for being late, Katherine. A phone call I had to take. I see you and Max have already met?”

  We both mumbled something in the affirmative.

  “Excellent. Just ignore us, Max. I thought I’d show Katherine around the shop and get her acquainted with the various styles and periods.”

  “What, she wasn’t a design major?” Max inquired, all studiedly false surprise.

  “English literature,” I said sweetly. I’d been watching Pieter and Max out of the corner of my eye, and if they’d been carrying on an affair all this time, they certainly gave no hint of it. At least, Pieter didn’t. He was as polite to Max as everybody else I’d ever seen him interact with, but no more.

  “Appropriate,” Pieter said. “As I thought I’d start in the back, with that Jacobean table. If you’ll follow me?”

  I could practically feel Max’s eyes boring into my back, but I trailed along after Pieter as instructed. It was a lot easier to ignore Max once a few cabinets had blocked him from view.

  The table in question was a massive affair with intricately carved legs. It appeared as if it could have supported three or four roasted boars with no problem, with maybe a few haunches of venison on the side. It also seemed vaguely familiar.

  “This reminds me of some of the furniture I saw in Howard Freeman’s house,” I commented.

  Pieter looked pleased. “Very good, Katherine. Most of Mr. Freeman’s furnishings are from the late Tudor or early Jacobean period.” His smile faded a bit. He moved on
to a second piece, a large upholstered chair in a similar style, although the carvings were slightly different. “And how is Jonah?”

  “Jonah?” I repeated stupidly. Where the hell had that come from?

  “It seemed you and he hit it off at Mr. Freeman’s party. I had assumed, particularly after Mr. Freeman said something…”

  I wondered what Jonah had said to his father about me…and exactly what Mr. Freeman might have said to Pieter Van Rijn. Nothing good, I guessed. Then again, since Mr. Freeman hadn’t seemed too pleased to see his son hanging around with someone he probably considered about two steps up from the help, maybe he’d like me better now that there was no danger of me getting my plebeian hands on his boy. “Um, no. That is, Jonah and I went out last weekend, but I’m not interested in seeing him again.” I added, not entirely truthfully, “I decided it wasn’t very professional to be dating the son of one of your clients.”

  “Good,” Pieter murmured, although I had the feeling he hadn’t meant for me to hear the word. In a slightly louder tone he said, “Perhaps that was wise. And now, if you’ll come with me to this wardrobe—”

  The next hour was a whirlwind of baroque and rococo and neoclassical and Biedermeier and a few other things I couldn’t quite recall. I found myself wishing I’d brought a notepad and a pen, although a video camera probably would have been more useful. Then I could have just filmed Pieter Van Rijn waxing lyrical about the various styles and had visual aids to go along with the commentary. Having him on tape so I could look at him and listen to his voice whenever I felt like it would just be an added bonus.

  It was obvious that he really did care about all this stuff. His voice took on an extra warmth as he pointed out the garlands carved into a baroque side table, or the clean lines of a cherrywood Biedermeier chair. Antiques were more than just a business to Pieter. They were also apparently his passion. And that passion intrigued me. The only other times I’d ever seen a man so wrapped up in something, sports, video games, or computers were invariably involved. That a member of the male species could expend so much energy on something besides memorizing the plays of his favorite football team back to 1976 or mastering the latest version of Call of Duty was something completely outside my experience.

  I felt a strange ache inside. It wasn’t something I could articulate. I only knew that standing there and listening to Pieter made me want to be the type of woman who could inspire a similar passion. I wanted to learn more of his world. I wanted to be someone who could somehow fit into it.

  Fascinated as I was by his lecture, after about an hour and a half, I felt my eyes start to glaze over. Sensory overload had set in.

  Pieter must have noticed, for he broke off midstream in an explanation of the Arts and Crafts movement and said, “Perhaps that is enough for now. Some lunch?”

  “That would be wonderful,” I replied. My stomach had been quietly trying to tell me for the last fifteen minutes that it needed a little more to keep me going than the piece of toast I’d eaten around eight o’clock that morning.

  “There’s a nice little bistro around the corner. We can walk.”

  I smiled in response and followed Pieter outside, trying to ignore the arch look Max gave me as we walked past. During the time I’d been receiving my crash course in decorative arts, a few customers had come in, but Max had skillfully kept them away from Van Rijn and me. I didn’t know if that was simply because he didn’t want to get in trouble for interrupting his boss, or if he worked on commission and therefore wouldn’t earn anything if Pieter ended up being the one to make the sale.

  The bistro really was just that. Of course I’d never been to Europe, but the restaurant did look as if it could have been scooped up from somewhere in the French countryside and deposited on Hillhurst Avenue. It turned out the owner (and chef) was from France. Obviously he knew Pieter, because as soon as we had seated ourselves at a patio table, the man came up and began conversing with him in rapid-fire French.

  Pieter made the introductions, this time in English, thankfully. Michel, the bistro’s owner, suggested duck confit or braised rabbit, both of which sounded a little heavy for lunch. But since I didn’t want to offend the man, and since the confit sounded marginally lighter than the rabbit, I ordered the duck. Pieter did the same, and also requested a pair of salades frisées, along with a bottle of Bordeaux. At least I recognized the word “salad” in there. As for the Bordeaux…well, it was a good thing that we’d walked to the restaurant. I’d worry about the drive home later.

  It did feel awfully decadent to sit there as Michel reappeared with the wine and two glasses. The breeze ruffled my hair, deliciously cool in the shade of the patio umbrella that sheltered me from the sun. A row of shrubs in planters protected us from the noise and sights of the street, reducing traffic to a background hum. All of the other tables were full; we’d been lucky to snag this spot.

  I watched Pieter sample the wine. He nodded in approval, and Michel set the bottle down on the table, then went back inside the restaurant.

  “So what do you think?” asked Pieter.

  “The wine is lovely,” I replied, having just taken my first sip.

  “I meant your little history lesson.”

  Oops. I tried to ignore the twitch at the corner of his mouth as I said, “It was fascinating. I took an art history class in college, but they didn’t spend a lot of time on furniture, just painting and sculpture.” I sipped at my wine again, then asked, “How did you get into it? Was it your family’s business?”

  He shook his head. “No, unfortunately. I did grow up with many lovely things around me, but my father—and his father—were in the shipping business. Shipping did not interest me, however, so when the firm came into my hands, I decided to sell it.” For just a second the pleasant expression slipped, and a look of something close to bitterness crossed his features. “Not the disposition of his legacy my father would have liked, but I had already decided to leave Europe at that point.”

  Which I had to assume would have been soon after the unknown “gold-digger” had dumped him. Again I wondered what sort of nut job would be stupid enough to walk away from Pieter Van Rijn, but I didn’t have all the facts. There could have been a million reasons besides Linda Freeman’s assertion that Pieter’s fiancée had gotten a better offer.

  “Why Los Angeles?” I asked.

  “Probably much the same reason as you.”

  Mystified, I said, “What’s that?”

  “I was tired of snow.”

  Of course he had to be teasing me, just a little. But I guessed it was silly to think he would have told me the real reason he’d come to L.A. Then again, he seemed to be extending courtesies to me that he hadn’t given his other assistants. I supposed I should be happy with that, but I still felt edgy, dissatisfied.

  Michel came out with our salads, and Pieter and I were both quiet for a few minutes as we dug into the greenery. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, but the epithet Max had used for me still rankled.

  I said, “Max called me the flavor of the month.”

  Just the barest glint of those blue eyes as Pieter regarded me from above the rim of his wine glass. “Did he?”

  “Yes. I don’t think it was a compliment.”

  Pieter set down his glass. “Max has many sterling qualities, but tact is not one of them. Since he relates well to clients and has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the design arts, I tend to overlook his shortcomings. I apologize if he offended you.”

  “He didn’t offend me,” I said at once. “But he did make me curious.”

  No reply, as Pieter simply watched me, wine glass still held in one hand.

  I asked, “Am I?”

  “Are you what?”

  The Bordeaux must have made me bold. “The flavor of the month.”

  “Have I ever treated you as such?”

  “No. But still—that is, the FedEx guy also had a few choice comments to make—”

  “Unfortunately, it is difficul
t to keep people from gossiping.” Pieter set down his wine glass and pushed his half-finished salad away with a sudden, abrupt gesture. It was the first time I’d seen him look anything but completely self-assured. “I will admit to having some trouble keeping assistants for any length of time. Let us leave it at that for now.”

  At that moment I heard Gina Stillman’s voice in my head. Tell that son of a bitch I don’t need any goddamn charity! Personally, I couldn’t think of anyone I’d be less likely to call an s.o.b. than Pieter, but maybe that was because he’d been on his best behavior so far.

  I didn’t know what to think. Usually I considered myself to be a decent judge of character, but Pieter was so far out of my experience that I didn’t have much to base a judgment on. He didn’t compare to the guys I’d dated in college, or even the junior programmers or sales types I’d gone out with after I graduated.

  There hadn’t been any grand passions, any horrendous breakups. About the worst I could claim was Colin Clark, a premed student I’d dated my junior year at MSUB. After about two months I realized he just wasn’t doing it for me, and I’d broken up with him as gently as I could. He hadn’t taken the news very well—took to loitering around the dorm and skulking near the buildings where he knew my classes were held. I found his behavior more embarrassing than anything else, but he’d irritated my roommate Jess so much that she threatened to meet him at the door with her daddy’s shotgun if she saw him one more time. After that he’d promptly disappeared.

  But Pieter didn’t seem the stalker type. Actually, if I had to slap a label on him, I’d say the evidence suggested he was more a love-’em-and-leave-’em playboy. Of course, I was basing this notion purely on the theory that he’d had some sort of involvement with his assistants, and that was why they had left. I couldn’t imagine the vitriol in Gina Stillman’s voice being caused by something as minor as a criticism of her typing speed or her telephone manners.