Vida and Rosa watched Tommie for a moment. She was awkward and scared at first, but the photographer was first-rate and after a while she relaxed.
“I didn’t realize how much I miss this,” Vida said. “The smell of hair spray, clothes rustling, the sound of cameras being loaded with film, or shutters opening and closing, the slap of equipment falling, sitting still in a chair while someone pampers me, doing my hair and makeup, and bringing me bottles of cold water.”
“I thought you said you didn’t miss it.”
“I lied.” Vida smiled. “I can’t do it any longer, and I suppose it’s true that we miss what we used to do when we can no longer do it.”
Vida’s condition prevented her from vigorous activities. Her rare form of osteoporosis meant she could break a leg running through an airport. When she fell off the runway, it was the final straw for her career. She had to quit the road. She tried doing small jobs that required little in the way of movement, but they weren’t satisfying. Luckily, she discovered designing. She’d thrown her heart into it.
“Vida, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She looked directly at Rosa. “It’s only because this is going on here. I probably wouldn’t have thought about it if I weren’t here to see it. And there are other compensations.”
Rosa watched her closely. Vida looked as if she had a secret.
“What?” Rosa asked.
“Mike asked me to marry him last night.”
Rosa jumped up and turned to her friend. “Vida, that’s wonderful.” A strange array of feelings went through Rosa as she bent down and hugged her friend. “I can’t believe this.”
“It’s hard for me to believe, too. I’ve been in love with him since puberty. I suppose he finally figured out he was in love with me, too.”
“Have you made any plans? Set a date?”
Vida shook her head. “We both want a short engagement, so I suppose we’ll be doing something fairly soon.”
“You have to let me know. No matter where I am I’ll come back for the wedding.”
“You bet your boots you will,” she agreed. “You’re going to be my maid of honor.”
“Great,” Rosa said. “I’d be hurt if you hadn’t asked me.”
“After all the time we’ve spent together, who else could I choose?”
“Rosa, I’m ready for you now.” The photographer interrupted them.
Both women turned to face the photographer. Rosa gave Vida a smile and moved to the spot where she was to stand. She wore a white gown made of an elasticized material. It clung to every curve of her body. Over it was a red lace coat that billowed out as she walked. The photographer took note of the way the material moved and snapped several frames as she walked.
Rosa raised her arms and let the breeze flow freely through the fabric. When she reached the center where Tommie stood, she turned the girl around and the two stood back to back. Photo after photo was taken.
“All right, let’s have Rosa alone,” he said.
The gallery of people around the shoot watched as she moved forward, backward, lifted her arms, sat down, stood up, twirled around. As she moved, the photographer moved, too. Like a fencing match, they parlayed about each other, stepping in and out of sword range, as he angled his camera at her and she performed her routine in front of him.
“She is so good,” Tommie said to Vida, who had left her chair and was standing on the edge of the photographer’s space.
“These two have worked together a long time. Don’t worry. It will come to you.”
“I feel good in the dress.” She turned all the way around as if she were modeling for Vida.
Tommie wore a royal blue ball gown made of satin. The lines were simple, a fitted bodice with small straps that crisscrossed in the back and continued down the wide skirt to the hem. It was one of Vida’s designs for her new fledgling company. The only adornment to the dress was a row of semiprecious stones that followed the shoulder straps and the path to the floor of the gown. It retailed for a small fortune.
“You look wonderful,” Vida told Tommie. At the same time, the makeup artist came over and repaired a little of Tommie’s makeup.
“You’re doing fine,” Vida assured Tommie. “But you better go and change. They’ll be ready for you again soon.”
Rosa watched what was going on beyond the photo area. She saw Tommie and Vida smiling at her before Tommie turned and went into the small trailer that was brought in as a changing room. Rosa wondered where Adam was. When Vida told her she was engaged, Rosa’s thoughts immediately flew to him. She envied her friend. For the outside world, Rosa’s life looked glamorous. And it was, but lately she hadn’t felt fulfilled by her work.
Vida basked in her design work. Rosa loved her camera. They were both growing older. It was time for people like Tommie to take over. Rosa’s contracts were still the highest, but she had enough money to last a lifetime. And then there was Adam. He changed her life, too. When she left the Valley, she’d take regrets with her. Regrets that she wasn’t able to pursue their relationship to its natural end. She admitted that end was somewhere around fifty or sixty years in the future.
“Rosa, what are you doing?”
She snapped back to the present. She hadn’t been paying attention to instructions. “Sorry, I was thinking of the mountains.” It wasn’t a total lie. Adam was a metaphorical mountain. There was so much about him she didn’t understand, yet so much she knew.
“It’s time for the next outfit. And I need Tommie now.”
Rosa moved toward the trailer. Tommie came out as if on cue. She’d changed into a casual pair of tan safari shorts that came to her knees, where they were met by a long pair of sheer white stockings. Her top was sleeveless, an over-the-head concoction of ruffled material. The contrast worked and looked great on the young girl. Her youthful exuberance would surely be captured on the film.
Rosa had just pulled the door of the trailer open when she saw the truck coming up the road. Immediately she recognized it as Adam’s. Instead of doing what she should, changing clothes for the next segment, she went running off toward the approaching vehicle.
The truck led a dust trail. Adam stopped and got out as she made her way to him. He opened his arms and Rosa flew into them. Her mouth found his and he kissed her as if he were a man returning from war. He’d been away, speaking to a private investigator and setting in motion his plan to verify Joel’s story.
“I missed you,” Rosa said, unguarded.
“I missed you, too.” He pushed her back but didn’t release her. He looked her up and down. “You look good enough to eat,” he said with a leering smile on his face.
“Well, don’t. It would be a three-thousand-dollar meal.”
“Ouch,” he laughed.
“How did you like Simon?”
“I think he’s competent. I gather your family has used his services several times.”
Rosa nodded. “He found the birth mother of two of my brothers and our adoptive mother’s biological daughter.”
“That’s a mouthful. Want to run that by me again?”
They started walking toward the changing trailer. Adam kept his arm around Rosa. She liked the way she felt with him holding her.
“Two of my brothers are really brothers.”
He looked at her with a frown.
“That means they are biological brothers. Same parents. One of them never gave up on finding his birth mother. He searched for her for over thirty years. Then he hired Simon Thalberg and several months later Simon found her in a nursing home.”
“That’s wonderful. What a story.”
“That wasn’t the story. Finding Stephanie made the news, but you know about her.”
“Simon found her, too?”
She nodded. “In a very short time. She’d registered at the center for missing children and he found her. She’s now married to one of my brothers.”
“One of the two biologicals?”
Rosa laughed. “I kno
w it’s weird language. Most people who are not adopted never use the terms biological or adoptive, but we need to somehow distinguish between them when we’re talking.”
They had reached the trailer.
“I have to change now.”
“How’s Tommie doing?”
Rosa had one foot on the bottom step of the trailer. She turned and looked at Tommie in the limelight of the camera. “Just look at her. She’s having fun. And from the way the photographer is continually snapping pictures without giving instruction, he likes what she’s doing.”
Tommie had a big smile on her face. She was running and jumping, acting like a playful teenager. The pictures were going to look great and Rosa was sure Crawford would get them into a high-end teen magazine. After that Tommie would be on her way. And it wouldn’t hurt Vida’s design company, either.
Rosa kissed Adam and disappeared into the trailer. Ten people must have grabbed her, dressed her, repaired her makeup, found her shoes, and got her back onto the spot where the cameras would snap picture after picture of her in a new outfit.
Rosa couldn’t wait for the day to be over. Adam watched from the director’s chair. Her thoughts were on him. She smiled at the camera, but her happiness was due to the man watching her. Temporarily Rosa had put leaving out of her mind. The morning after Joel’s arrival, when Adam had brought her home, she’d been depressed at the change in their circumstances. Yet his lovemaking that morning had told her he wanted her around for a long time. The words didn’t come from his mouth and Rosa refused to think further than one day at a time.
She turned around, glancing over her shoulder as the camera snapped. She wasn’t looking at it, however. Her eyes had just captured Adam’s. She read the look on his face and wondered if it matched her own. The shutter clicked and her image was recorded for posterity.
No modeling job Rosa had ever worked on went as smoothly as the one today. Even when everyone was a professional, there were screwups, people who weren’t in the mood that day, people who didn’t like the way they looked or were dressed, or even personality clashes between crew members. And of course there were the prima donna models. Rosa was glad Tommie’s initiation into what she thought would be her career was an easy one.
“All done,” Vida called, standing up as Tommie came running over and hugged her.
“This was great,” she said. “I had a wonderful time. Is it always this much fun?”
“Not always,” Vida answered honestly. “But you can always make it fun for yourself.” Tommie was too enamored from her first day to hear the underlying warning in Vida’s words.
While every job had its drawbacks, Rosa wouldn’t have made another choice of a career if she could go back. She would still be an engineering major in school. She’d thought she might be able to do something with it when she finished modeling, but she didn’t think that way any longer. She had enough money to last her if she never worked again. So modeling had freed her to do whatever she wanted to do in the future.
“Rosa, I can’t thank you enough for letting me do this.” Tommie hugged Rosa, too. “If nothing happens with the pictures, I appreciate what you did for me.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about continuing,” Rosa told her. “Crawford thinks you’re going to be a good model.” They both glanced at Rosa’s agent, who didn’t often attend her shoots, but had come to this one.
“I better change clothes,” Tommie said. “These are beautiful.” She looked down at herself. “But I have to give them back.”
“Don’t worry, Tommie.” Adam spoke for the first time since the end of the session. “One day soon you’ll be able to afford to keep them.”
“I hope so,” she said, and waved as she headed for the trailer.
“She’s probably going to call her girlfriends and tell them everything that happened before she can get out of those clothes,” Adam said.
Rosa nodded.
“We’ve created a monster,” Vida said. The two women laughed.
“But she’s an awfully good monster,” Rosa pointed out.
Rosa slipped her arm around Adam’s waist. She liked being anchored to him.
Adam drove Rosa home. The low-sitting car wouldn’t have made it up the mountain to the shoot. Mike, Vida, and Tommie had picked her up. Adam stopped the truck in front of her house. He came around and opened the door. Rosa slipped from her seat into his arms.
“I don’t know why you went to the trouble of putting your clothes on,” Adam said, pinning her between him and the truck’s open door. He pulled her into his arms and spoke against her mouth. “I’m only going to take them off you.”
“I couldn’t very well get past all those people without them,” Rosa moaned. “But think how much fun it will be getting me out of them.”
“You are a wicked woman.”
“Only when I’m with you.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
She shook her head. She should have been dead on her feet. A day like today would usually leave her wanting a long bath and an early night, but she felt energized.
“Good,” he said.
“Why?” she asked. “What have you got planned?”
“You’ll see.”
Pulling her arm through his, he led her to the door. Rosa smelled buttercream the moment she walked inside. The smell took her back years, to her ninth birthday. Her brothers baked the cake and the smell was delicious. The icing was delicious, but the cake was raw inside and burned on the outside.
“You baked a cake?” she asked.
“Candles,” he corrected.
For a moment, she didn’t understand. “Oh, you bought candles.” She looked at the several lighted jars around the room.
“Now you’re going to go upstairs and take a bubble bath while I fix us something to eat.”
She smiled as he walked her to the steps. “I could get used to this pampering.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Then he patted her on the behind and sent her up the stairs.
Rosa walked slowly, keeping her eyes on Adam. He watched her, too, until she reached the bathroom door and disappeared inside. One of her dresses hung from the shower rack. “I guess I’m supposed to wear this,” she said to herself. It was the dress she’d bought in Butte the day Adam had taken her there.
Rosa smiled at the memory of that day. They had disliked each other then. He was only trying to help Vida, keeping her from driving. But the truth was, they were both putting up barriers, hiding their feelings even from themselves.
Turning on the taps and pouring bath salts into the tub, Rosa found several candles had been left on the shelf of the tub. She lit the candles. Their scent immediately mixed with the bath salts and a pleasing fragrance filled the room.
Stripping, Rosa pulled her hair up and anchored it on top of her head. Then she lowered herself into the hot water. Tension she wasn’t even aware of eased from her muscles. She let the water wash over her, making her weightless as her arms floated freely to the surface.
A soft knock had her looking at the door. It opened and Adam came in carrying a glass of wine. He smiled and set it on the tub’s lip. No words were exchanged. None were necessary. Rosa spoke with her eyes and her heart. She picked up the glass and tasted the sweet wine.
“You look beautiful there,” Adam said.
“Join me,” she offered.
“How I would love to,” he said. “But if I did we’d never get to dinner.”
“I can wait,” she told him, her voice several notes lower than normal. Her eyes were steady, and she didn’t hide their meaning. She wanted him here and now.
“Hold that thought,” he said as if he could read her mind. “We will get to it.”
He left with a smile. Rosa had never been so bold. She knew her time was short and she wanted Adam, but the summer would be ending soon. Taking a drink of her wine, she relaxed in the hot water, and when it cooled, she got out and dried herself. Taking the dres
s into the bedroom, she spent several minutes lotioning and perfuming her body. Then she slipped into the fundamentals of underwear and covered herself with the dress. It was red, scarlet actually, and it still fit as if it were made for her.
Rosa thought she’d never have an occasion to wear the gown in the Valley. And while she didn’t expect to go anywhere other than downstairs, this was an occasion. She opened the bedroom door and started a slow walk along the catwalk. Her heels clicked on the wooden flooring. Adam looked up at her. He’d changed from the khakis and polo shirt into a dark suit and white shirt. The lights had been lowered and only the candles posed any illumination. He was gorgeous.
The expression on his face told her he appreciated her, too.
He met her as she descended the stairs. He kissed her lightly on the mouth, a promise of more to come. Rosa submitted her own promise.
“I thought I could picture what you’d look like in that dress, but I was wrong,” he said. He pushed her back a little and admired every bit of her. “My imagination is not that good. You look like a queen.”
“I could get used to compliments like that.”
“You will,” he promised.
“The food smells great,” Rosa said, hiding her confusion over his comment. “What are we having?”
“Mademoiselle, to start we have champagne framboise garnished with fresh raspberries. This will be followed with a fresh lobster bisque on an island of lobster mousse and continued with bouchée of escargots and morel mushrooms in a cognac-roasted garlic cream sauce and chives. Then—”
“Then? There’s more?” Rosa asked.
“Ah, mademoiselle, a meal is to be enjoyed.”
Rosa laughed at his mock French accent.
“We will go on with the salad course, a chiffonade of Boston lettuce with Belgium endive and hearts of palm. This is enhanced with an arugula balsamic vinaigrette. To clear your palate for the main course, an interlude of passion fruit sorbet with a splash of passion fruit liqueur.”
“I get it. If food doesn’t work, use liqueur,” she teased.
Adam smiled, but continued with the menu. “The main dish, maigret of duck Martiniquaise with caramelized leg confit and banana tempura in a Caribbean rum sauce. I trust you will love it.”
Last Night's Kiss Page 18
