Читать книгу Change of Life - Leigh Riker, Leigh Riker - Страница 9

“Y ou sure don’t look like any grandmother I ever knew,” Nora heard Johnny say as soon as the restaurant hostess had shown them to their table, “including my own. Both of them.”

She struggled not to blush at the compliment.

“You think so? Really?”

“Character is my business, Nora. I’m thinking—” he assessed her for a long moment “—Sandra Bullock for the part.”

“She’s only forty.”

She felt grateful for his flattery, but Nora had lived on a roller coaster of emotion for the past two days, obsessing over Savannah and Johnny’s surprising news. Sometimes she found herself smiling at the prospect, then fighting the urge to run and look in her mirror for any obvious signs that Mark Fingerhut could be right. This morning she had called Johnny to arrange one of their regular brunches, and seized the chance to get away from herself.

Besides, she owed him something. The other night when she and Savannah had done their happy dance all over her living room, Johnny had stood there with a somewhat puzzled expression. What are they screaming about? She’d seen that male look on his face but, considering his emotionally deprived background, she hadn’t known how to include him then. Almost shyly now, she pushed a small jewelry box toward him.

But Johnny hadn’t finished. With barely a glance at the box, he left it where it was.

“Fifty is the new forty,” he pointed out.

“How about thirty? Could you see me as, say, Catherine Zeta-Jones?” She was teasing, yet Nora felt cheered. “I’d certainly like to think so, and it’s true women do take better care of themselves these days. Preventive maintenance.” If only Nora could do a better job of that, but there were always other people who needed her. Maggie, for one. And now there would soon be a little one to cuddle. Still, she couldn’t resist saying, “In theory, you realize, I’m too young to be a grandmother.”

Johnny had the audacity to laugh.

“Too young? Savannah said last night that she has no idea how we’ll get all those candles on your cake next week.”

Nora choked on her Bloody Mary.

His grin grew. “It’ll be a conflagration, a forest fire raging out of control.”

“I’d rather ignore it.” She waved a hand, dismissing the topic of her upcoming birthday. Dismissing the unattractive bouts of ambivalence she’d suffered for the past few days. “Johnny, seriously. My birthday aside, I can’t wait to dispense hugs and kisses, read stories, and even bake Christmas cookies for your child, not that I intend to put on a frumpy apron while I’m doing it.”

“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? Savannah won’t give birth for six more months.”

“I like to be prepared.” In fact, she’d done just that before she met Johnny for brunch. Thanks to a friend who owned a beautiful shop in the Silver Sands Mall, she’d been able to get the gift ready for him on time. This would be her way of making Johnny feel like an even bigger part of the celebration and their family. Idly, he spun the gift box in the center of the table. He still hadn’t opened it.

“Please,” she said.

But Johnny had lost his smile. “I can’t quite believe it myself, you know. We’re having a baby.” He shook his head. “Do you realize that less than a year ago I was still living with Savannah’s best friend? Trying to get Kit on track in her life while I neglected my own? Keeping her kid from turning into a future juvenile delinquent in that crazy household? Not to mention that mother of hers…” He rolled his eyes over Kit’s demanding parent. “Now Kit’s back in school to finish her degree, Tyler’s still a great kid, I’m with Savannah and she’s—we’re—pregnant. Just call us The Incredibles.”

Nora reminded him of something else. “A year ago Savannah was pining away over you, fretting that you’d never see how right you were for each other. You didn’t know that? Well, she did. She was working for that awful temp agency—until I finally persuaded her to take a few clients of mine.” Before the second round of hurricanes, Nora thought, before her workload diminished. “But you forgot the rest.” She felt a fresh glow of approval for her future son-in-law. “You love Savannah with all your heart. And it’s a big heart, angel.”

This newly revealed side of his personality thrilled her, because Johnny had been the king of suppressed emotion for most of his life. Savannah had opened him like a can of beans, and in Nora’s view the change was all to the good. For his benefit, as well. No, especially for his benefit.

Johnny hadn’t had the best upbringing, she knew. His father had abandoned his mother early on, leaving her to raise their son by herself, and even after she’d married then left Wilson (she’d been his second wife), it had been hard going. When Savannah came home the first time, dragging Johnny like an abandoned cat, Nora had immediately taken him in. Their bond remained fierce, like a mother tiger with her cub, like Johnny’s with Savannah, and Nora felt lucky to share that.

He didn’t even try to wiggle out this time. “Sure, I love her,” he said. “What’s not to love?”

Nora blinked. “You love me, too. Admit it.”

“Yep. I do, angel.” He used her favorite endearment, still without smiling, and Nora’s inner alarm system went on alert. Despite this enjoyable brunch, Savannah was conspicuously absent today, and Johnny hadn’t bothered to explain why. “Savannah would have liked to hear me say that,” he added.

“Is she all right?” Nora asked. “Feeling well, no problems now that she’s expecting?”

Johnny frowned. “She’s a little under the weather. Especially in the morning. Apparently, it’s my fault.”

Nora smiled but she couldn’t bear for Savannah to be ill. “The women in our family don’t get morning sickness. She shouldn’t, either. I’m joking, of course. I do worry about her. Still, she has plenty to do with the Larson job I gave her to design their family room and sun porch. The contractors haven’t exactly been cooperative.”

His green eyes brightened. “You wouldn’t admit to having morning sickness if you were hung over the bathroom bowl like a Christmas ornament every day. And I bet you’d be wearing your best three-inch heels with a string of pearls.”

She couldn’t help answering his faint smile. “So true.”

Johnny moved the jewelry box closer to his plate. But he left it there, and leaving him room, Nora attacked her eggs Benedict. At the luncheon with Starr, or for the past two days, she hadn’t been able to eat a bite. Today she felt ravenous. She knew Johnny didn’t easily accept gifts—or love, at one time. She didn’t know anyone, however, who needed it more.

“So,” he said, addressing his vegetable frittata, “what’s new with you? We didn’t have time the other night to talk. But Savannah told me you’ve lost some more clients.”

Nora sighed. And thought of Starr Mulligan. “Starr keeps horning in on the rest of my people. I’m sure she’s feeling the pinch, too, with so much hurricane destruction everywhere, but this morning my first phone message was from a woman in Royal Palms. I’ll see her late this afternoon. Starr and I are battling over the chance to redecorate her ten-thousand-square-foot home. Do you have any idea how much money I’d lose if I don’t win this job? Which, yes, I do need.”

Johnny named a figure. Very close to accurate, in Nora’s estimate.

“How did you know that?”

He shrugged. “I listen to Savannah. She’s considering your latest partnership offer in Nine Lives. Royal Palms would be pretty good dough, Nora. Better than the first screenplay I sold to Wade Blessing for his initial Razor Slade film.”

“You can’t be serious. You earn a ton of money.” Wade Blessing, the actor, was Hollywood’s newest Arnold Schwarzenegger—before he decided to save the state of California from the governor’s office. Wade’s continuing action films about a mercenary with a heart of gold could be too graphic for Nora’s taste, but that didn’t matter to Johnny’s bottom line.

“I said the first one. Wait until Wade sees my new script.” He grinned. “I’m gonna hold him up like a stagecoach bandit.”

A few months ago, after Johnny had walked out on Kit Blanchard and she had turned to Wade on the rebound for a while, the two men had suffered hard feelings, but they had since repaired their friendship.

“I thought you were writing something different.”

“That, too,” Johnny murmured, looking embarrassed. “It’s what Stephen King calls a ‘toy truck’ project. Just for me right now.”

“Johnny, it will be a movie. Tell me. When it gets released, the whole world will see it. How private can that be?”

He looked even more uncomfortable.

“Yeah. I know. But that’ll be Christmas a year from now at the earliest. I figure I’ll be too busy changing diapers to notice the public reaction. Or the reviews. I don’t want to talk about it. Wait until wide release.”

When Johnny picked up the jewelry box, obviously as a diversion, Nora held her breath. Embarrassed in turn, she fussed with her napkin, waiting for him to at last remove the wrapping paper from the gift. Would he like it?

“I may have overstepped my bounds with Starr,” she admitted, returning to their earlier conversation about her own career to distract herself. “We had a run-in recently, and I may have made an impulsive remark or two about that potential client I mentioned, Geneva Whitehouse.”

“Earl Whitehouse’s wife?”

Nora felt a twinge of unease. “Yes. Do you know him?”

“Only by reputation. He’s a pretty big developer in this area. He built a few of the houses in my compound at Seaview. Didn’t you do some work for him a while back?”

“Briefly,” Nora said, not wanting to discuss Earl Whitehouse, who, despite his stellar standing in the community, was not one of her favorite people. “We were talking about Starr. She and I seem to bring out the worst in each other. Now I wonder if at our monthly business luncheon this week she decided to retaliate for what I’d said.” Had Starr’s pointed reaction to Nora’s hot flash been exactly that? Payback?

Johnny gauged her expression. “Then why not cut her some slack? You might even come to like her.”

Nora doubted that was possible, but she didn’t say so. And maybe he was right. She and Starr had struggled with each other long enough, and it was up to Nora—always the ready helper—to take the first step. Then she saw that Johnny had removed the paper, lifted the top of the box and pulled out the gift.

“Uh, Nora.” He choked up, and she saw him swallow. “This is for me?”

“It won’t suit anyone else, angel.”

He slipped the eighteen-karat gold signet ring on his finger. And stared at it. The fine script flowed across its surface, caught the light streaming through the restaurant windows and shone on the one simple word. Five letters that Nora had hoped might mean the world to him.

Johnny’s voice was thick. “Sometimes you break me up.” Then his gaze met hers, and his smile beamed. “Thank you. You sure know how to get a guy.”

The gold ring’s inscription read simply: Daddy.

Riding on a wave of euphoria long after her brunch with Johnny, Nora decided to take his advice to see Starr that afternoon before Nora met with Geneva Whitehouse. With luck, they, too, might reach some kind of rapprochement.

First, Nora swung by Nine Lives, Inc., where she found a pile of mail waiting on her desk. Her longtime client, Leonard Hackett, one of her most lucrative accounts, was also in her office. Typically, he didn’t look well.

Most of the mail was routine, with the exception of an invitation to a charity dinner in Fort Walton Beach for the Heart Association, and ordinarily she didn’t mind Leonard’s unannounced visits. But why was he here?

Nora tried to listen but, bent upon her meetings with Starr and then Geneva, her mind refused to take in the details. In her experience, it was always better to empathize with Leonard’s latest bout of severe hypochondria than to try talking him out of his newest ailment. All she needed to do was make soothing noises.

“I tell you, I’m not long for this world. It will be almost a relief.” Leonard slumped in a chair across from her. “I’ve been ill for years.”

“Clearly, it’s taken a toll.” His neurosis had definitely shredded her nerves and, suppressing a sigh, Nora lifted her gaze from the charity invitation to give him her best look of sympathy.

“I see you’re letting your hair grow,” she said, hoping to distract him.

Leonard ran a hand over the top of his head where a barely visible fuzz had sprouted. She’d never cared for his—so Leonard had believed—trendy baldness. Now, his gleaming skull struck her as preferable to the gray-brown stubble that took its place.

“I won’t need to maintain my looks,” he murmured. “I only dropped by—with the utmost effort, I might add—to say goodbye.”

Nora’s heart lurched. “Leonard, don’t be ridiculous.”

Needing to discharge her nervous energy, she jumped up from her desk to pour a glass of water from the silver carafe on the sideboard. She held the Waterford tumbler out to Leonard.

“Here. Drink. I have whiskey, if you’d prefer.”

“Not good for my liver. My function is marginal, you know.”

Nora did sigh then. Leonard frequently tried her patience to the breaking point. Others might laugh at him, but she kept trying in her usual way to—what, save him from himself?

Dutifully, obviously stalling, he took a few sips of water, then set the glass aside. On her cherry end table. Without a coaster. Nora whipped one in the shape of a seashell from the drawer and smacked it down.

“Please, Leonard. No rings.”

He stretched his legs out, then crossed them at his bony ankles. If he had ever been the playboy he imagined himself to be, Nora hadn’t seen it. To her, he was more like Greta Garbo in drag, playing Camille.

Still, everyone had his illusions, and she maintained a certain fondness for Leonard. He could irritate her to distraction, but he had gobs of inherited money which he didn’t mind spending on the houses, condos and co-ops he’d purchased with astonishing regularity over the years.

It was a neurotic cycle, Nora suspected. Leonard became “ill,” he managed to survive the deadly disease, then bought himself a new place to live like a fresh lease on life. She had to admit the very notion of his leaving this earth now, after years of threats to do just that, would make her weep.

On second thought, she couldn’t continue to agree with him.

She tried to cheer him up. “Your color’s good today,” she pointed out. “That navy polo shirt makes your eyes look even more, um, blue.” Actually, they were almost colorless, but Nora wouldn’t be unkind—one reason, she supposed, why Leonard kept showing up without an appointment. He must know he could count on Nora for support. “If I don’t miss my guess, whatever illness you contracted during your weekend in the Caymans must be encountering all those little antibodies by now. I’d say that by tomorrow—”

Leonard shifted. “I’ve talked to Starr Mulligan.”

Uh-oh. Here we go. This was the real reason for Leonard’s latest impromptu visit. The rest had been a cover-up.

Nora’s voice chilled to the temperature of the water in the silver carafe crammed with ice on the sideboard. “I see.” He had, as usual, engaged her sympathy for his current illness, taken advantage of her kindness. Now he would tell her the truth. Nora didn’t want to hear it.

“Starr?” she said, already rethinking her earlier intention to make amends.

“I wasn’t expecting her when she turned up at my condo yesterday afternoon. I was napping, trying to preserve my strength, and not properly dressed to entertain.”

“Starr brings her own show with her.”

“Yes, well.” Leonard cleared his throat. “I think you should know she plans to underbid you on the design for my new house.”

“You bought another house? So this medical crisis—” she circled a hand in the air “—was just a ruse.”

If he’d purchased yet another home, Leonard intended to live for a while. That was good news. Yet he’d almost put one past her and Nora’s focus sharpened. If he hadn’t been her most constant client for the past fifteen years, if she didn’t need him now, she’d feel tempted to throw him out.

“I didn’t bid on your job, Leonard. I didn’t know about it.”

He adopted a contrite expression like a basset hound. “Can you possibly forgive me?”

“I’m not sure. How did Starr learn about this property in the first place?”

Leonard looked away. “Her cousin is a Realtor. He’s, uh, my Realtor.”

“I never knew that,” Nora said.

“He mainly handles commercial property. I wasn’t even in the market when he phoned to tell me he had this marvelous listing at Impressions right near Seaview.”

“Charming.” Nora didn’t mean the gorgeous new development at the shore, a few miles from Destin, and not far from the other planned community where Johnny owned a beach home. “You’ll be too far from the pharmacy,” she informed Leonard, “and the mall. And probably from the water.”

“I can practically walk from my kitchen into the Gulf.”

“I see,” Nora said again. If her life kept going this way, she wouldn’t need to worry about her presumed perimenopause. She’d have a stroke. “So you’ve gone behind my back, bought a marvelous new home—and Starr has great plans for it.” Nora couldn’t help the next words that came from her mouth, Maggie’s long-ago teachings aside. “Well, congratulations. When she fills the place with hideous pseudo pre-Columbian art and charges you a fortune, please don’t call me.”

Leonard sounded like a little boy. “Nora.”

She pressed her fingers to her forehead, easing the frown that wanted to form. Her latest Botox injections were supposed to be at their peak effect, and her forehead shouldn’t show a ripple, like the surface of an unused swimming pool in the sun.

She took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m hurt, Leonard.”

How could Starr steal her most lucrative and ever-present client? Just as she wanted to take Geneva Whitehouse? What would Nora do without Leonard? It seemed worse than her usual question: What to do with him? He had been the pain in her ribs for years, but she was, well…used to him. He had his gentler side, and until now a certain loyalty, although it wasn’t showing today.

“It’s a beautiful house,” he said in a soft, tempting tone.

And with that Nora realized she’d been played like a fine Stradivarius. Leonard had made the hackles rise on her neck, made her forget Mark Fingerhut.

She rubbed her imaginary frown. “You were trying to tempt me. The problem is, I’ve never provided estimates on your ‘projects’ before. If you can’t give me carte blanche this time, then by all means realign yourself with Starr Mulligan. I hope you won’t be sorry.”

Like a hermit crab, Leonard scuttled in his baggy khakis across the office to seize her hand. “Please, Nora. I do value your input.”

“I refuse to be manipulated.” She withdrew from his cold grasp. “I thought we were friends,” she added in a gently scolding tone and, ignoring his hangdog expression, ushered him out the door.

She knew Leonard’s taste in home decor. She would simply redo his new quarters in a month or two. For twice the price.

For the time being, she decided to let him squirm.

As for Starr, they would talk, all right. But there would be no truce.

By the time Nora got to Starr’s office, having needed an hour to gather herself after Leonard’s betrayal, she learned that Starr had left for the day. Disappointed, Nora drove to her last appointment in the very upscale Royal Palms subdivision on the outskirts of Destin. Ready to do some serious arm-twisting, she found the slim, almost petite Geneva Whitehouse waiting—but also, quite unexpectedly, Starr Mulligan.

Nora gritted her teeth, determined to keep her mouth shut until the right opportunity arose to confront Starr in private. Even her latest perfidy wouldn’t cause Nora to lose her cool. In grim silence, she trailed Geneva and Starr through the house, expressing the proper oohs and ahhs here and there over Geneva’s treasures. Geneva, who appeared to be the very epitome of the trophy wife, wanted a new showcase for several of her valuable collections, and Nora and Starr both offered their suggestions.

At a ceiling-high, antique glass-fronted cabinet in the wide hallway, which had a gleaming black walnut floor, Geneva paused.

Peering over her shoulder at the lighted étagère, Nora saw a large number of handblown glass bowls, perfume bottles, and paperweights. A vast amount of gold and silver mixed with crystal sparkled on every shelf. Nora identified Lalique, Orrefors, Waterford—and was that vintage Tiffany?—before her gaze caught on a stunning slender, heart-shaped vase that stood out from the rest.

“That is a gorgeous piece,” she murmured. “Very unusual.” The light struck and then ricocheted off the cobalt and ruby inside through a swirl of clear glass, creating a rainbow across the dark floor.

“Obviously expensive,” Starr said.

“Who’s counting?” Geneva smiled, showing a row of very white—and probably fully porcelain-crowned—teeth. Nora guessed she was in her early forties now, but everything about the woman appeared to be perfect, including her youth, or the illusion she had managed to sustain. “It was a present from my husband right before we became engaged,” Geneva told them with a loving smile. “His promise, he said then, of our future.”

“And you certainly have that,” Nora murmured.

Even so, this cabinet was a relatively minor possession. So was the vase, which Nora assumed held a more sentimental price tag. The rest of the house was a monument to expensive taste and extravagance, from the lush sofas with goose down cushions to the brushed nickel-framed paintings on the silk-papered walls. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on the redesign job. As soon as she got home, she would draw up her plans. Something a shade less traditional, she envisioned, a tad more lean and contemporary to complement the obvious bling that Geneva appeared to treasure.

Almost twitching, Nora waited until Geneva drifted off into the kitchen. Should she use cherry or alder wood for the new cabinetry? While she pondered the choices, Nora and Starr were alone for a moment, and Nora spoke her mind.

“How dare you?”

Starr arched an obviously waxed eyebrow. There wasn’t a stray hair, or even a hair on her head, out of place. Her bland expression didn’t alter, not even a blink. “I beg your pardon. Haven’t you heard of capitalism, free enterprise?”

Nora clenched her teeth. “In other words, it’s every woman for herself.”

“If you mean Leonard Hackett, we competed, you lost.”

“And you feel entitled to steal my clients from under my nose?”

In response, Starr looked pointedly at Nora’s beak. She’d never felt especially proud of her nose. A trifle too long, a bit narrow, it would appear in her mirror to be a classic slash of a blade, but with just a slight bump over the bridge. That might work on a man, on Johnny for example, or Heath Moran.

The thought of Heath gave her a twinge of regret. In spite of her best intentions, after Johnny and Savannah had left the other night Nora had given in and called him, needing some kind of affirmation that she was still a reasonably attractive woman. But Heath hadn’t answered his telephone. Maybe he had his reasons, and Heath had decided she was right about the difference in their ages.

Would Nora also inherit her mother’s flabby underarm gene, her spreading cellulite? She could already imagine her breasts becoming a sad ski slope under her raw linen blouse, which by now had turned into a mass of wrinkles.

“Starr, darling.” She repeated Starr’s word from the luncheon. “Let me give you some advice.”

“Unsolicited, as always?”

Nora smoothed her blouse. “I don’t know who scheduled these two meetings at the same time, but I can guess. Wasn’t Leonard enough? No,” she answered her own question, “you had to call Geneva, and when you learned I would see her today, you ‘dropped by’ a few minutes earlier. Of all the nerve. If I were you I’d make some polite excuse and leave.” She indicated Geneva, who was opening and closing the doors to the immense pantry only a few feet away. “You can put in your bid another day.”

“Another day and you’ll have contractors all over this place.”

“Just tell Geneva—”

“What? That I’m the better designer? Most of the Florida Panhandle already knows that.”

Nora felt her blood pressure surge. After her recent near brush with a cardiovascular event, she needed to keep calm. No more of those unanticipated…flushes.

She would maintain control if it killed her. Of her temper. And her body.

“You’re not going to rile me, Mulligan. Don’t even try.”

Nora whirled around, intent upon charming her soon-to-be client and nailing down the deal. Her mind spinning with ideas, she started toward Geneva.

Starr charged after her.

When she jerked Nora around, pulling her arm almost out of its socket, Nora had no choice but to freeze in place. Starr glared at her.

“I want this job. I intend to have it. One way or another.”

For a few seconds, Nora stared her down. Then with a cool look of dismissal, she pulled her arm free and continued on into the kitchen. She didn’t care whether Geneva heard her or not.

“Someone will die first,” Nora muttered.