A camera wasn’t capable of capturing the magnitude of the man. It couldn’t reveal his appeal. The dignity in his shoulders or the integrity in the way he held his head. It missed the way he bent to hear all that Rex was saying, as if there were a value to each word spoken to him. It couldn’t catch the fluid step and easy carriage that made him seem so open and approachable. Or the astute light in his eyes that gave away his intelligence and understanding. A camera couldn’t see all the dimensions of the man, couldn’t give the man’s picture his spirit. But Sydney saw it. And she could feel it. Maybe that was why she couldn’t meet his gaze directly.
There was a brief, awkward hug between them, though neither one was inclined to show affection for the other. But it seemed expected—if for no other reason than to show their good sportsmanship.
In an unspoken, mutual agreement they reserved any personal discussion until after Rex Swann had wished them better luck on their next date, asked them to keep in touch, and then prepared the studio and television audiences for a commercial break.
A small swarm of employees gathered about Rex to powder his nose and brief him on the next segment of the program, while the young man in the headset motioned Tom and Sydney off the stage.
“That was great, folks. Really great,” he said, handing Sydney a sealed envelope. Looking at her more directly, he added, “No wonder you didn’t want to go on. I’d want to forget the whole thing ever happened too.”
Neither contestant commented.
Sydney felt as if she were a robot. She walked. She talked. She smiled. There were thoughts in her head, but none of them had anything to do with her actions. She signed the voucher, shook hands with the young man in the headphones, and said good-bye before it occurred to her that she shouldn’t be taking the money. She had no intention of going out on another date with Tom.
“I, no, oh, wait,” she called to the young man, waving the white envelope. He walked around a corner and didn’t see or hear her. “Nuts.”
“What?”
In another involuntary movement she looked at Tom and abruptly realized that they were alone.
For a man who had mastered the art of hiding most of his fears and concerns, he was a bust at masking his anger. Where his eyes had once held the warmth and happiness of a summer sky, they now held the cold, chilling bleakness of winter.
“I, ah, I shouldn’t have signed for this money. I shouldn’t have taken it,” she said, faltering, her breath coming in short anxious bursts.
“Why not? You shouldn’t pay for a date you don’t want,” he said. Again, she looked into his features to find the gentle, laughing man she’d come to know and care for, the man she’d hurt—but he wasn’t there.
“I am right, aren’t I?” he asked, although it wasn’t really a question. “What was that out there? An act to show the world that in spite of the fact that we had the world’s worst first date, you still think I’m someone worth dating? Some pretense to spare me embarrassment? Or have you changed your mind about what I do for a living?”
“No. I ... it’s not that. I needed to talk with you.”
She’d dialed his home number a hundred times in the previous two weeks, only to hang up before the connection was made. Just as many times she’d hoped to bump into him somewhere. She’d needed to talk to him so badly, so many times. And now that she could, the words she’d prepared and practiced seemed dull and inadequate.
“I did want to see you again,” Sydney finally said.
“On a date?” He was stunned.
“No. But I wasn’t sure what would happen if I said I didn’t want to go out with you a second time. I mean, I didn’t know if you’d leave the studio and I’d never see you again, or if we’d have another opportunity to talk. I ... I’ve been wanting to apologize to you.”
“For what?” His angry tone didn’t waver. It was as if she’d committed so many crimes against him, he wasn’t sure which she was referring to.
“For the way I behaved at the police station. For not understanding about your profession. I ... it was the one thing you asked for on your video, understanding, and ... I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”
Lips that she knew could be outstandingly kissable, that could transport her to a land of cloud castles and knights on white steeds, were hard and unforgiving as they parted and then came together again determinedly.
“We do need to talk,” he said thoughtfully. His voice was quieter but still brittle and tight with his ire. He wasn’t about to give her amnesty. Not yet anyway. Nor could he afford to allow himself to feel hope. She wasn’t exactly throwing herself into his arms.
The envelope in her hands caught her attention. She held it up to him. “I could buy us both a fifty-dollar cup of coffee,” she said, lamely trying to lighten the atmosphere between them.
He eyed the envelope for a second or two and then shook his head as he took it from her.
“Dinner. Tonight. After our first date, we owe ourselves a last date, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know, Tom,” she hesitated. “Do you really think that’s such a good idea? Aside from our personal differences, the gods don’t seem to like us much.” A soft, nervous laugh escaped her. “In fact, I think they’re out to get us.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
She shrugged. She wasn’t sure what she believed anymore.
“It seems as logical as everything else I’ve been thinking lately,” she admitted, knowing instinctively that despite his anger and all that had passed between them, she could still trust him with her thoughts and emotions. “I’m really confused.”
“Good,” he said, more pleased with her bewilderment than with her apology. “Tonight at seven, then. I’ll pick you up. Home or office?”
“Home,” she said, and then hastily added, “But I could meet you somewhere.”
“Too complicated. We tried that the first time, remember?”
“Having you pick me up didn’t work out too well either.”
“Didn’t it?” His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her, then he quickly glanced at his watch. “Look,” he said, in an immediate hurry. “I have to go. Be ready at seven and—well work it out then. Dress casual.”
“My address—”
“I’ve driven past your apartment building a hundred times in the past two weeks. I know your address by heart.” He started to walk away. But before he’d gotten very far, he turned and retraced the six or eight steps between them.
“The last time we said good-bye, we forgot this part,” he said, as he cupped her face with his hands and settled his mouth on hers.
He gave her a pent-up kiss. One he’d been saving for two weeks. Hard, long, and deep, it was a kiss that had had time to ripen and mature. Its flavor was enhanced with passion and need, tangy with its demands. After her initial surprise, Sydney began to savor the kiss, tasting and relishing with gusto, until she grew weak.
“I felt cheated out of that,” he said, his voice raspy, his lips still close to hers. She nodded her agreement.
By the time she could force her eyes to open, he was halfway to the exit. He passed Judy in the hall, and she turned to watch him walk away.
“Well, he left grinning, so he can’t hate you all that much,” Judy said, approaching Sydney with an appraising eye. “So how come you don’t look any happier?”
“He’s picking me up at seven o’clock tonight. We’re going out again.”
“That’s great!” She took a second look at Sydney. “That is great, isn’t it?”
“Ask me tomorrow ... if I live through it.”
Nine
IN WHAT SEEMED TO Sydney like only ten minutes, it was seven o’clock. The first time she’d waited for Tom to arrive, the minutes had crawled by. This time, they were whizzing through space like bullets, coming closer and closer to the fatal moment when he would ring her doorbell.
She’d been dreading that moment all afternoon. The more she thought about it, the more she wished sh
e hadn’t agreed to go out with him. She simply should have apologized for embarrassing him at the police station and for hurting his feelings, she told herself as she fine-tuned her makeup.
She smoothed down the tight-fitting bodice of the sundress she’d chosen to wear over her slim figure, hoping that Tom wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of her, and praying that a second date with him wouldn’t turn out to be the mistake of her lifetime. She slipped on a short matching jacket and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue—remembering his kiss, craving another, and already regretting the ones she’d missed out on.
“Whoa, mama, look at you!” she heard Judy say when she emerged from the cloister of her bedroom, where she’d spent every second dressing and redressing and redressing again since they’d arrived home from the studio. Her friend shimmied her shoulders and wagged her brows. “If this is the way you dress for a date you’re not looking forward to, remind me never to double-date with you and someone you’re crazy about.”
“Too much?” Sydney asked. She looked at the dress ambivalently. She was perfectly willing to change into something drab and depressing.
“No. It’s perfect. You’ll knock him dead.”
Sydney looked horrified.
“For crying out loud, it’s a figure of speech,” Judy said, her tolerance for Sydney’s self-imposed misery obviously growing thin. “You’ve got to stop this. Think of him as a man, not a mortician. There’s more to him than just his job. You said so yourself. You spent twelve straight hours with him and never once guessed what he did for a living. You didn’t even talk about his job because you had so many other things to talk about.”
“Yeah, like how we were going to survive the night,” Sydney replied sarcastically.
“That was a fluke. It’ll never happen again. Tonight will be calm and peaceful.”
“Dull, you mean. And then we’ll run out of things to say and start talking about our jobs ... Oh, why did I agree to do this?” she wailed, flopping down on the couch beside Judy like an old dish rag. “I just should have said I was sorry and run away.”
“I really hate to sound like somebody’s mother, but—” July raised her voice and whined the words—“running away is no answer.”
“There is no answer.”
“Sure there is,” her friend insisted. “Go out with Tom and see if it’s still like magic. If it is, then think of a way to work things out. If the magic is gone ... well then, it’s gone. You won’t have to drive yourself nuts anymore.”
Judy was a down-to-earth, straight-thinking person, not unlike Sydney most of the time—which was why they got along so well. At that moment more than ever before, Sydney was grateful for her friendship.
“You’re right.” In a concise, linear manner Sydney plotted the course of the evening. “I’ll go. I’ll apologize, and he’ll be understanding. He’ll be patient and try to explain his job to me. I’ll get a clearer picture of what it is exactly that he does as a mortician ... and then I’ll throw up in his lap. He’ll get angry—madder than he was this afternoon—and hell start calling me insane or emotionally disturbed. I’ll be offended. I’ll call him a ... a mortician, and he’ll be insulted. He’ll stalk off and leave me stranded with the tab at the restaurant. I’ll call a cab, and it’ll be over.”
A defeated Judy threw up her hands in exasperation, but didn’t have time to speak before the doorbell rang. Sydney groaned.
“Stop that,” Judy said, smacking her friend’s arm with the back of her hand. “Give it a chance.”
Walking to the door, Sydney admitted to herself that she had no other choice but to give the feelings she had for Tom a second chance. While her mind was playing devil’s advocate, her heart was firmly set on loving Tom. Where her brain could detect and foresee insurmountable complications arising from the gulf that existed between her nature and his career, her heart vacillated blissfully between not caring and optimistically looking for a bridge that would span the gap between them. And although her thoughts could cause her chest to become heavy and her stomach to ache, her emotions ruled and motivated her.
Expecting to see Tom when she opened the door, Sydney gasped in surprise at the sight of a man dressed in black livery, cap in hand.
“Sydney Wiesman?” he asked in a detached but pleasant voice.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Ghorman has sent a car for you. I’m Wakefield, your driver.”
“Oh, this I’ve got to see,” Judy said, jumping up from the couch to the door in one swift motion.
Not knowing what to think or how to feel, Sydney took a firmer hold of her purse and followed the driver.
Judy’s giggles and ludicrous facial expressions had little effect on her. She still had reservations about going. Why had he sent a car for her? Wasn’t he as eager to see her as she was to see him? Was it a show of power? Had something happened to him? Was it an insult? Or was he trying to impress her, hoping to revive the feelings of affection they’d shared on their first date?
She remained silent until they emerged from the building.
“That’s not a ... a ...” she stammered, at the sight of a long black limousine parked at the curb.
“A hearse?” Judy supplied the word for her.
“But ... but ...” Sydney was too stunned to speak.
Judy, however, had no difficulty understanding her. “Will you relax? The family rides in the limousine. You have to be able to sit up and breathe to ride in the limousine.” She motioned for the perplexed driver to open the door. Giving her pal an encouraging headlong nudge into the back of the limo, she slammed the door closed before Sydney could turn around and get out again. Bellowing from the other side of the tinted window, Judy added, “It’s you, Sydney! You were born to ride in a limousine.”
Sydney seriously doubted it, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do, short of throwing a hysterical fit—which she refused to do. She was determined to see Tom and finalize their relationship one way or another. And if the mountain wouldn’t come to her, she’d have to ride to the mountain in a black limousine. That’s all there was to it, she decided firmly, actively avoiding the driver’s curious glances through the rearview mirror, wishing the interior wasn’t as black and solemn looking as the exterior.
Some thirty minutes later, Tom’s face passed briefly through Sydney’s field of vision, and then she heard him say, “What’s the matter with her? What happened?”
“I don’t know, sir,” a male voice replied. “She looked okay when we left, but she kept muttering things like ‘I wish it were white,’ ‘I can do this,’ and ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’” He shrugged. “I tried talking to her, but she kept on muttering, and after a while she stopped and got all glassy eyed. That’s when I called and asked you to meet us here. I wasn’t sure of what to do for her.”
Tom bent and peered into the limo at Sydney. “Help me pry her out, will you? I think she’ll be okay once she’s out in the open and gets some fresh air.”
With the driver pushing from one side and Tom pulling from the other, they managed to get her to the door.
“Come on, sweetheart. You’re okay,” Tom said, coaxing her through the opening. “This wasn’t such a hot idea, was it?”
Like a zombie, she stood up beside the limousine, staring at the top button of Tom’s white shirt, hearing but not thinking or feeling. Mental and emotional shutdown had been her only defense against her overactive imagination and her overreacting senses.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my fault. I should have guessed you’d connect a black limousine with—” he paused as he caught sight of the driver, who was standing several feet away and taking in the scene with less concern than curiosity.
“Thanks, Wakefield. She’ll be fine, so you can take off now. I’ll take her home myself.” His dismissal left the driver no alternative but to tip his hat and bid his employer a good evening before he drove away.
“There. It’s gone now,” Tom said, turning his attention bac
k to Sydney.
They were alone in the parking lot above a private marina in Alamitos Bay. A breathtaking sunset was at its peak. The Supreme Artist had fused fuchsia, gold, and blue in a unique and perfect fashion, a once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-seen-again spectacle—but neither of them seemed to notice.
“Sydney, look at me,” Tom said, touching her face, soothing her with hand and voice. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d feel safer if I didn’t come to pick you up, and a taxi seemed out of the question, so I ... look at me, Sydney.”
Her eyes moved slowly in his direction, taking on a slow light of recognition.
“Bright pillows,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Bright pillows.” Her tongue grew more limber with the exercise. “It’s all black. Bright-colored pillows would help.”
Tom laughed, both in relief and at what was apparently her last rational thought before her mind had closed up shop.
“You know, I think you’re right,” he said, making a mental note to have all the interiors of his limousines redecorated. “Black is depressing, and the last thing in the world we need more of is depression. Whoever said that in keeping with decorum, everything had to be black?”
“Not me. Those silver-gray limousines are nice too,” she said, closing her eyes and trying to clear the fuzziness in her head. She felt at a distinct disadvantage having to spend her first few moments with Tom regrouping her senses. But of all the people in the world to be at a disadvantage with, Tom would always be her first choice.
She had great faith in Tom’s understanding and patience. From the moment she’d shared her secret with him, he had been nothing but compassionate. Tested by betrayal, anger, and pain, his integrity had never faltered.
“What’s this?” she asked when she began to take note of her surroundings. She felt Tom’s arm loop around her waist as he turned her toward the sunset and the flotilla of seagoing vessels below.
Asking for Trouble Page 10
