Читать книгу Bombshell - Lynda Curnyn, Lynda Curnyn - Страница 7

“When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”

—Jean Harlow

It amazed me to discover my relationship with Ethan was only as strong as the latex between us.

“Oh, God,” he said as he looked down at me, just moments after what I had assumed was his orgasm. But what I had taken for a look of euphoria on his face turned out to be utter panic.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, gazing down at where he kneeled between my legs. He was studying me in a way that made me feel vaguely embarrassed, despite the fact that we had been dating six months and were, by most standards, in a relationship.

“It’s…gone,” he said with disbelief.

“Gone?”

“The condom. It’s disappeared. Inside you.”

Alarmed, I immediately sat up.

“No, no, no—don’t move,” he said, squinting down at me as if about to perform surgery.

With a sigh, I swung away from him, slid off the bed.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“To get it out,” I replied, heading for the bathroom.

A sudden calm descended over me, probably because Ethan was panicking so much, I didn’t feel the need. But once I was in the bathroom alone, I was scared. I sat down on the side of the tub and, a bit frantically I’ll admit, investigated. I was relieved, momentarily, when I fished out the errant bit of latex. And horrified when, upon closer examination, I discovered the damning tear.

I leaned back against the tiled wall, the “what ifs” whirling through my mind. And I discovered, with something resembling surprise, that my chief reason for alarm—the possibility that Ethan and I—that is, the idea of a baby—was not so…alarming. I was thirty-four years old. I was a Senior Product Manager for Roxanne Dubrow cosmetics and made damn good money. I had a somewhat posh one bedroom on the Upper West Side. If I wasn’t ready now…

Okay, so it wasn’t perfect timing. I was about to start work on Roxanne Dubrow’s next big campaign, which I was hoping would lead to bigger things for my career. And then there was Ethan. Things were going just fine between us, but a baby? I tried to imagine Ethan, with his pinstripe suits and wire-rimmed glasses, cuddling a child. At first, the image was a bit peculiar. All I could come up with was the look of disgust on Ethan’s face as the imaginary child upended its breakfast on his Italian silk tie. But then I mentally put Ethan in a T-shirt and jeans, set him in a lush suburban backyard tossing a ball to a tow-headed little boy and, suddenly, a warmth swept through me, taking me by surprise. I could do this. If I had to.

In this quasi-calm state I returned to the bedroom. Ethan sat up on the bed, looking at me with anticipation. Though he was still naked, he had put his glasses on, and I felt a sudden urge to laugh. What was it about a naked man in glasses that looked so surreal? I wondered as I flopped down on the bed beside him, a kind of gleefulness swimming inside me. Then I looked up at Ethan’s handsome, well-chiseled face, studied his usually cool gray eyes and saw the panic still frozen there.

“Well?” he said, staring down at me.

Oh, right. The condom. I remembered the issue at hand. The issue that up until ten minutes ago might have caused me the same kind of terror I saw in Ethan’s eyes.

“I found it,” I said, gazing up at his usually adorable face and suddenly realizing how very much like a hamster he looked when he was nervous, all pursed mouth and squinty eyes. I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow to hide the smile that threatened to tug at my lips. After all, I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t worried. I was—in a fashion.

I gathered myself together. Then confessed. “It was…torn.”

“Torn?”

I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Down the middle.” Then I shrugged, as if to say, These things happen.

I felt him lift off the bed, heard him pad out of the bedroom, then across the living room. Knew when he had reached the bathroom with all the damning evidence in the faux marble wastebasket I kept there. “Oh, God,” he said again.

I was surprised at how quickly the hurt stabbed at me. I knew we hadn’t planned this. It wasn’t something we discussed while sharing moonlit walks and cozy little dinners at all the best restaurants New York had to offer. Yet, I never expected Ethan to react as if I’d just passed him a venereal disease. Just what, exactly, was so horrifying about the idea of us having a child?

By the time he came back to the bedroom and stood before me in all his bespectacled naked glory, I was angry.

“What do we do?” he said.

“Do?”

“Maybe you should…rinse or something.”

“Or something,” I replied, my voice thick with sarcasm.

“Hey, isn’t there that pill? What’s it called again? It’s just for emergencies like this,” he began, his face filled with a frantic hope. “Yes—the morning-after pill. How do we get our hands on something like that?”

The hamster suddenly morphed into a rat. I wondered what I had ever found so incredibly handsome about Ethan Lederman the Third, as he called himself whenever he got pompous after a few martinis.

Then his face changed, as if he remembered something. That something quickly became apparent when he kneeled next to me on the bed. “I’m sorry, Gracie, I didn’t mean…it’s not that I didn’t want…that is… We can’t have a baby together. I can’t. It’s just not part of the plan….”

But it was too late. The wall had risen up, thick and unyielding. And I did the only thing a self-respecting woman could do.

I threw him out.

“You broke up with him?” Lori said, gawking at me from her desk just outside my office.

“Not exactly broke up,” I replied. I instantly regretted sharing this bit of news with my admin, who had inquired about my Saturday night date with Ethan the moment I walked into the office. With a shrug that I hoped made my indifference obvious, I had blithely replied, “He’s history.”

Now I realized that I had opened myself up to a conversation I didn’t want to have. Trying to deflect Lori away from the subject that had caused her perky little features to go slack with shock, I placed the bag I carried on her desk. “Guess what I brought us?” I said, pulling out one of the two giant muffins I’d bought. “Your favorite—chocolate banana chip,” I continued, setting it before her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, barely acknowledging the muffin, which I had spontaneously decided to pick up this morning. Things at work were so hectic lately, I’d decided we could use a treat. The powers-that-be at Roxanne Dubrow, the family-owned cosmetic line we all slaved for, had been calling meetings two and three times a month, all in the name of a new product line and—hopefully—higher profit margins. Though my boss, Claudia Stewart, was under the most pressure, as she was supposed to come up with the next Big Idea, Lori often took the brunt of the workload, as Claudia and I had been sharing her ever since Jeannie, Claudia’s own assistant, had gone on maternity leave. I sometimes felt guilty. After all, Lori was twenty-three years old and made a third of what I made—and probably a quarter of what Claudia made.

“So what happened?” Lori asked, jumping up and going to the coffee machine to make a pot.

I sighed, dropping my pocketbook onto an empty chair and sliding off the light jacket I wore as a concession to the surprisingly cool September morning before I headed for the hall closet to hang it up. What could I tell her? That I realized Ethan was a selfish bastard who cared nothing about anyone but himself? That there was a possibly—albeit a remote one—that I was carrying this cretin’s child? That the very idea of sharing anything grander than body fluids had nearly caused dear Ethan to lose the filet mignon he’d dropped a wad of cash on at dinner all over the Italian loafers he’d parked under my bed?

She was too young for the truth. It would only disillusion her. And since I firmly believed a woman needed some illusions in order to have any sort of romance in this fine city, I lied.

“He got a job offer,” I improvised, “in Fiji.” A smile almost curved my lips as I tried to imagine Ethan, with his pasty white skin and perspiring brow, weathering a tropical climate. What had I ever found attractive about him anyway?

“Do they even have accounting firms there?” Lori asked, bewildered.

“He’s, uh, he’s going private.”

“Oh,” she said, still studying me. She turned away to the coffee machine, but I could sense that the wheels were still churning in her head. Pulling the now-full coffeepot off the warmer, she filled two mugs and handed me one. Hoping to make my escape with my muffin and my sanity, I thanked her for the coffee and stepped toward my office door. But her next words stopped me.

“He didn’t ask you to go with him?”

I paused in my doorway, realizing I was getting in too deep with this story meant to keep me from getting in too deep. “He, uh, he wanted to make a clean break,” I said, realizing how much more accurately those words applied to me. “You are the queen of the pre-emptive breakup,” Claudia was fond of telling me, commenting on my knack for ending it all succinctly with my man of the moment before said man could do the deed himself.

This answer seemed to satisfy Lori, for she sat down at her desk and began thoughtfully picking a chocolate chip off the top of her muffin. Still, the sight of her concerned frown filled me with unease. I crouched down by her desk and looked up at her. “You okay?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’m fine. I just thought you and Ethan were, like, meant to be.” Then she blushed, causing a strange ache to fill my chest. “I guess I’m just a dopey romantic, huh?” She forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. Eyes in which I found myself searching for all those emotions I couldn’t somehow muster up myself about Ethan.

Thankfully, Claudia stormed in at that moment, preventing me from pursuing any dangerous thoughts. I could tell by the way Claudia blew past us with barely a glance that she was not in a good mood. Which didn’t bode well for Lori…or me.

I decided to take the bull by the horns, and after giving Lori’s hand a quick, comforting squeeze, I abandoned my breakfast on her desk and headed for Claudia’s office, which stood opposite mine.

“Hey,” I said, as I stood in the doorway. Claudia had already tossed her coat onto the low black sofa that lined one wall and was scrutinizing herself in the mirror that lined the other. The way she was studying her tall, pencil-thin, black-clad figure said she wasn’t satisfied with what she saw, although she looked like her usual well-kept self. “How did spa-ing with the bigwigs go?” I asked. Claudia had just come back from an exclusive spa in Switzerland, where, while sipping flavored waters and sitting half-naked, she attended meetings to decide the fate of Roxanne Dubrow cosmetics. Though the company prided itself on being able to attract an older, wealthier client, sales had recently begun to wane. So Dianne Dubrow, CEO and daughter of the company’s founder, had decided that a week at a Swiss spa brainstorming with all her top execs would result in a brilliant new direction for the company—or at least a well-pampered upper management.

But Claudia apparently didn’t feel very well-pampered. Smoothing a newly manicured hand over her long, dark hair with dissatisfaction, she stepped behind her desk, glared hard for a moment at the sleek black surface before looking up.

Her eyes roamed over me, taking in my blouse, my flared pants, my pointy-toed pumps, as if assessing their worthiness. It was the kind of once-over I could never get used to, despite the fact that she did it fairly regularly. It was as if Claudia were measuring me to make sure I met the high fashion standards of the illustrious firm of Roxanne Dubrow. Or at least to see if I were someone worthy of taking on as a confidante, even a friend, as Claudia was wont to do, especially when things weren’t going her way.

“There should be a four-letter word for beauty,” she said finally.

“Tell me,” I said, sitting down in the chair across from her desk and preparing to hear about whatever brave new innovations the executives at Roxanne Dubrow had decided upon.

She sighed, gazing out her window and studying the generous glimpse of skyline it afforded. “They’ve chosen the new face for Roxanne Dubrow,” she said, turning to face me once more, “and she’s sixteen.”

“What?” I asked, completely confused. Roxanne Dubrow cosmetics were devoted to the mature woman. As in: edging toward forty. In fact, Priscilla, the model who was last year’s face, was a bit too young at age twenty-five. “I don’t get it. How are they going to pull off ‘Beauty beyond thirty’ with a sixteen-year-old?”

“That’s just it,” Claudia replied. “Roxanne Dubrow is creating a new image. A new, younger image.” She sniffed. “I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they replace us with sixteen-year-olds. After all, who better to tell a woman how she should look than someone with a Ph.D. in benzyl peroxide?”

“Hmmm…” Studying Claudia’s frown, I wondered if perhaps the younger image worried her on a more personal level. With her dark eyes and the shiny brunette hair she dared, at age forty-two, to wear longer than shoulder length, Claudia was a beautiful woman. But she was incredibly age-conscious.

“So tell me what that child was sniveling about out there,” Claudia continued, confirming my suspicions. Ever since I had hired Lori fresh out of college a year and a half ago, Claudia had taken an immediate dislike to her. A dislike that seemed to have nothing to do with her work and everything to do with the fact that Lori was younger than Claudia had probably ever been.

“Oh, boy trouble,” I said vaguely.

“Poor girl,” she replied sarcastically. “Did Dennis the Menace discover someone else while playing in the sandbox?”

Knowing Claudia was about to take her anger at the top brass at Roxanne Dubrow out on Lori, I decided to sacrifice someone a bit more thick-skinned. Myself. “I broke up with Ethan.”

This got an eyebrow raise. “Pourquoi, darling? Do tell.”

“I discovered what a self-absorbed jerk he was.”

This got a laugh. “Oh, Grace, don’t tell me it took you—how long have you been with him, six months?—to figure that out?”

“Yeah, well. I must be getting soft in my old age,” I replied.

She studied me for a moment, then a savage smile creased her well-lined lips. “Alas for Ethan. Another hapless victim of Grace’s axe.”

“Stop that,” I replied, worried that she might be right. I quickly did a mental checklist of my most recent dating history. Before Ethan there was Drew, who was as utterly eligible as Ethan had appeared to be, but just as emotionally unavailable, I had discovered. Like Ethan, Drew had only lasted six months. In fact, six months might be my record since Kevin, my college boyfriend, whom I’d kept around for a solid two years before giving him the boot. I had been pretty brutal back then, too, I thought, cringing at the memory of how I had dropped every T-shirt, cassette tape and pair of boxer shorts Kevin had ever left at my place in the hall outside his dorm room, just moments before graduation. The truth was, I had an intuition for when I thought a guy would break up with me, and I never, ever let a man get the better of me. The only time that had happened was with my high school boyfriend, who had thrown me over for a cheerleader in a vain effort to win more votes for homecoming king. Still, he hadn’t gotten away without enduring a few cutting barbs from me in front of the entire football team. Because even at the tender age of sixteen, I had a knack for laying a man low.

“It’s not like he didn’t deserve it,” I muttered now, then realized there was no way in hell I could reveal to Claudia the cause of my breakup with Ethan. Because even though, statistically speaking, there was only a minute chance that last night’s incident could have resulted in pregnancy, I didn’t want to give my boss any food for thought. Losing her assistant to baby fever was hard enough. Having her Senior Product Manager go on maternity leave during Roxanne Dubrow’s next major marketing campaign would be nothing less than betrayal in Claudia’s eyes.

Fortunately, she had her own beef against Ethan. “He used too many hair products. What was with that Brylcreem look he sported to dinner that night?” she said, referring to one of the few times I had put my sharp-tongued boss and my well-groomed boyfriend in the same room together.

“I think he was going for Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro.”

“He looked more like Pee Wee Herman on his latest adventure.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “He had more facial moisturizers in his medicine cabinet than we carry in our winter product line.”

“There is nothing worse than a man with more beauty products than a woman.”

“Nothing,” I agreed, laughing harder, until Claudia’s office was echoing with the sound of our mutual glee.

Until I remembered that there was one thing worse than a man addicted to skin care. And that was no man.

“I’m never going to have sex again,” I said with a sigh.

“Please. As if a blond bombshell like you has ever had to worry about that,” she said.

She was right, I realized as I stood to leave her office a short while later. With a glance in the mirror on my way out the door, I felt my courage return. There I was, Grace Noonan, blond, busty and single for about the sixth time in as many years. Was it because a five-foot-nine-inch blonde with a 38-C chest and legs up to her eyebrows could afford to be choosy? Or was it because I couldn’t afford not to be?

I got my answer when I found myself in the foyer outside Claudia’s office once more, watching in horror as Lori struggled to swipe away the tears that were gushing from her eyes.

Alarmed, I rushed forward, crouching beside the chair where she sat, her thin arms folded against her narrow frame. “Lori, honey, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m s-so s-sorry, Grace,” she sputtered. “I just thought, you know, that some people were meant to be together.” She burst into a fresh avalanche of tears that I found, frankly, bewildering. But not one to turn away a fellow female in distress, I took her hand in mine.

“Lori, honey, it’s okay. Things with Ethan and me…were kind of going nowhere anyway,” I began tentatively, “We’re both…very different. There was no way it would have worked.”

Lori snuffled, then raised her gaze to me. “I thought…I thought he was the…one,” she said, and then, as if the very thought that Ethan Lederman the Third wasn’t Prince Charming destroyed her, she released a fresh torrent of tears.

Though I was surprised at this sudden display of emotion over a man who couldn’t even remember my admin’s name, although she had fielded enough of his daily phone calls to me, I wrapped my arms around her.

And as I rubbed a comforting hand over her back, I wondered if maybe I had jumped the gun with Ethan. After all, I never did let a man get the best of me in the whole breakup scenario, which often left me alone on more Saturday nights than I cared to count. But as I listened to Lori babble into my now-tear-stained silk blouse about true love and soul mates, I began to suspect her lamentations might not be about me and Ethan. She lifted her head, gazed at me with reddened eyes and said, “I know it’s only been a year and a half, but I really thought he was the one….”

Now I was positive this watery display had nothing to do with me and Ethan. After all, we had only been dating six months.

“What’s going on with you and Dennis?” I asked, honing in on her.

“Oh, Gracie, he’s applied to graduate school. In…in London! I know it’s something he’s wanted, like, forever, but I thought—well, I just don’t know what’s going to happen to us!”

As I pulled Lori back into my embrace for a soothing hug, I felt a depth of yearning I had not known for a long time. For the kind of love that could break hearts. For the courage to even seek it.