He stopped, and Tess watched him, ready to disbelieve everything he said but feeling sorry for him at the same time in spite of herself.
“And she opened the door,” Park said finally, “and she was just…beaming at me, and I thought she’d won the lottery or something, her smile was that big. I asked what happened, and she said…” Park swallowed again. “She said, ‘You’re here.”’ He blinked at Tess. “‘You’re here.’ That’s all it was. That big goofy smile just because I was there. Nobody ever smiled like that at me before.”
Tess leaned back in her own chair, newly sympathetic, but still fed up with how self-centered he was. “And that’s when you knew you couldn’t leave her—when you realized she loved you,” she said derisively. “Well, terrific, Park, but that still leaves Gina out in the cold.”
“No,” Park said. “That’s when I knew I loved her.”
Tess eyed him skeptically. “Because she gets a big goofy smile every time she sees you?”
“No,” Park said. “Because I get the same big goofy smile every time I see her.”
Park’s face creased into a big goofy smile at the thought, and Tess closed her eyes and groaned. “Don’t do this to me. I was doing much better hating you. Now I have two of you to take care of. Oh, hell.”
“What am I going to do?” Park asked. “Gina won’t even talk to me.”
Tess could hear Nick’s voice saying, Stay out of it. Well, the hell with him. It was his fault they had two twits for kids. She straightened her shoulders and looked Park in the eye. “All right, here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’re going to call Corinne and tell her you’re not engaged. Then you’re going to go see Gina and invite her to dinner with us all tonight.”
“Dinner with my father?” Park said appalled. “He’ll be awful to her. I can’t do that to her.”
“Are you serious about loving her?” Tess demanded.
“Yes, but—”
“Well, she’s going to have to meet your parents sooner or later,” Tess said. “And under the circumstances, sooner is your best bet. It’s only a matter of time before your father gets you engaged to Princess Di.”
“He’ll be awful to her,” Park repeated. “And my mother…Oh, God, my mother—”
“You’re just going to have to stand up for her,” Tess said. “Gina’s going through hell, and she’s not going to believe you’re serious about her unless you announce it in front of your parents. You owe her.”
Park swallowed. “All right.” He pulled the phone toward him again and punched a button that connected him to his secretary. “Get me Corinne,” he said into the receiver and then looked at Tess.
“Good start,” Tess said.
When Park finished breaking off his nonengagement, Tess called Gina.
“Listen to me,” she said. “Park is coming over. The engagement was a mistake. He needs to talk to you. Let him in.”
“You made him do that!” Gina cried hysterically. “I told you not to get involved. You can’t make him love me. Stop it.”
“Gina, think for a minute. You know how I feel about Park.” Tess avoided his eyes as she spoke. “Why would I try to get you two back together if he didn’t want that, too? He loves you and he’s miserable you got hurt, and he’s on his way to your place, so let him in.”
“He loves me?” Gina said woefully.
Tess covered the mouthpiece and said, “Go,” to Park, who shot out of the office. “He loves you,” she said back into the mouthpiece. “Go wash your face and put on some makeup. We’re all going to dinner.”
TESS STILL HAD half an hour to kill before Nick was due back, and she spent it exploring his office. It was all brown leather and wood instead of black and white, but it had the same varnished look that everything Nick owned had. The nobody-lives-here look. When she moved around to sit in his desk chair, she saw that even the photograph on his desk was framed in tooled leather.
Her attention caught, Tess took a closer look at the photograph. Whatever she’d expected to find on Nick’s desk, it wasn’t this.
The picture was the snapshot of them—muddy and disheveled—that she’d had back at her apartment, and she marveled at his keeping it on his desk since he looked like hell in it. Really attractive hell, but the absolute antithesis of the perfect image he flaunted for his clients. She picked up the picture and stared at it again, remembering how much fun they’d had that day. How much fun they always had. She traced Nick’s face with her fingertip, loving him so much she smiled just because his picture was in front of her. If only he was always like that, smiling and relaxed, instead of insatiably chasing that damn partnership. Maybe Nick could change and maybe their kids wouldn’t be twits. Park loved Gina. Anything was possible.
She sighed and looked again at herself in the picture. She had a smudge of dirt on her cheek and she looked about ten. That’s probably what her kids would look like without Nick’s genes to balance hers. She scowled at the picture, cataloging her deficiencies. Her hair was standing straight up and her face was dirty. She was wearing no make up and she was laughing with all her teeth showing.
Tess frowned at the picture, suddenly struck. She did look ten. Ten with crow’s feet, but ten just the same.
Or maybe eight.
“Christine?” she called, and Christine appeared in the doorway. “Hi, I’m Tess.”
“That was my guess,” Christine said. “I’m very pleased to meet you. What did you do to Park?”
“Fixed his life,” Tess said. “Tell me, was this picture of me on Nick’s desk when Norbert Welch was here?”
“Yes,” Christine said.
“Do you think Welch saw it?”
Christine paused for a nanosecond. “He moved around a lot when he was in here. He saw it.”
Tess looked at the picture and slowly shook her head. “I’ll be damned. I will be damned. I never thought of this.” She put the photograph down and asked, “Can I make a long-distance call on this phone?”
“Certainly,” Christine said. “Press nine to get an outside line.”
Five minutes later, Tess had Elise on the line.
“Concentrate darling,” she told her mother. “This is important. Remember when I asked you about Lanny?”
“Of course I remember,” Elise said. “I’m not senile.”
“Right. I’m sorry.” Tess tried again. “Somebody else was looking for that manuscript and he found it. What I couldn’t figure out was how he found it. But then I thought, what if this guy knew Lanny, too? What if he was in the commune with us when Lanny wrote the story? So I want you to remember if there was another guy around that summer. Shorter than Lanny. Fatter. Maybe a little older.”
“Well, there were a lot of men in the commune, dear.”
“This one’s name was Welch,” Tess said. “Norbert Welch.”
“No,” Elise said slowly. “I don’t remember anyone by that name.”
“Damn,” Tess said. “I was sure this guy had recognized my picture and that’s why he invited me to his party—to see if I’d remember the story. It was too big of a coincidence otherwise. The commune and me and Lanny and the story…How could Welch have—”
“The only Welch I remember was Lanny,” Elise said.
Tess dropped the photo. “What?”
“Lanny Welch,” Elise said. “He was the only one. No Norbert.”
“Lanny’s name was Welch? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask. And I didn’t remember it until you said the name. We didn’t use last names much. Is it important?”
“Yes. Thanks, Elise.” Tess hung up in a daze. Lanny Welch? A brother of Norbert’s maybe? But then why had Norbert recognized her picture if he wasn’t at the commune? She punched a button on the intercom. “Christine? Is Norbert Welch’s real name Norbert Welch?”
“Yes,” Christine said. “Norbert Nolan Welch.”
Tess blinked. “Nolan?”
“Nick just called,” Christine said. “He’s on his
way in. He said to tell you he’s sorry you had to wait and he hopes you’re not bored.”
“No,” Tess said, trying to digest what she’d just learned. “I’m not bored.”
Nolan.
Lanny.
Norbert Welch was Lanny.
The office swung around and then righted itself as she tried to decide how she felt about that, about how Lanny’s greatest enemy was Lanny himself, about how Lanny had betrayed everything he believed in and everything she believed in, too, about how her quest to save a long-lost friend ended in losing that friend forever. Lanny wasn’t dead, but he might as well have been.
He was Welch.
But somehow, once she’d absorbed the enormity of the fact, that wasn’t where her mind wanted to go. It wanted to think about Nick. Nick and that partnership. No matter how she felt about that damn partnership, it was vital to Nick and it rested on Welch. And now she had Welch right where she wanted him. Welch wanted to run for office as a conservative, but she could tell the world he’d been a radical in the sixties, that he’d written the fairy tale he was making fun of and had meant every word of it at the time. His snotty little book wouldn’t seem nearly as funny if people knew he’d written the fairy tale in the first place. It didn’t seem like much to her, but it would to Welch because it would make him look foolish. All she had to do was say, “Don’t publish that book or I’ll tell the world about Lanny and CinderTess,” and she had him. Everything was in place, and the book wouldn’t be published.
And Nick wouldn’t get the account, because without the book there was no contract to negotiate.
She looked at it from every angle she could for the next fifteen minutes, and from every angle it looked the same. If she stopped the book, she stopped the partnership. If she didn’t stop the book, she was sacrificing everything she believed in for Nick’s partnership.
Hello, Mrs. Jekyll.
“Oh, damn,” she said, and Nick heard her as he breezed through the door.
“What’s up?” he said, dropping his briefcase on the desk. “No, don’t tell me now. We’ve got five minutes before we have to be at the restaurant. What the hell are you wearing?”
Tess looked down at her T-shirt and miniskirt, momentarily distracted. “I just grabbed something,” she said. “Gina—”
“Oh, great,” he said. “And we’re having dinner at The Levee. Christine!”
The secretary appeared in the doorway. “You bellowed?”
“Did you replace that jacket?” Nick said, not taking his eyes off Tess. “If you cover up that god-awful T-shirt, the skirt won’t look too bad. Good thing you’ve got great legs.”
Christine faded out of the room and then back in, handing Nick a suit box. “Donna Karen, navy pin-stripe,” she said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Tess froze, looking at the box.
“Warn me about what?” Nick said, but Christine was already gone.
“What’s in that box?” Tess asked in a strangled voice.
Nick handed it to her. “A suit jacket. You’ll look great. Put it on and let’s go.”
“I have a suit jacket. A great navy jacket. I love that jacket.”
“This one is better.” Nick snapped his fingers at her and moved back toward the door. “Move it, babe.”
“No,” Tess said, and Nick froze at the edge in her voice and then turned to face her. “You took my jacket,” she said coldly. “I told you not to, and you took my jacket.”
“Tess, it was moth-eaten and it looked like hell,” Nick said. “What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that it was my jacket, and you didn’t like it so you threw it out. And you’re doing the same thing to me.” Tess thrust out her chin. “You’re throwing me out. You’re turning me into Mrs. Jekyll. Be quiet, be polite, don’t get involved. I listened to you and almost let Park and Gina screw up their lives. I know you want me to stay out of things and just look decorative, but I can’t, Nick. I can’t live in designer clothes with my hands tied behind my back while everything goes wrong around me. Today I had to explain to Gina why I stood by and let Park lie to her, and somehow ‘Nick asked me not to get involved’ didn’t quite satisfy either one of us.”
“She found out?” Nick said, appalled.
“Park’s dad told the society page his son was marrying Corinne.”
“Oh, hell.” Nick closed his eyes and tipped his head back a little before he looked at her again. “So now what?”
“I fixed it,” Tess said. “Park’s introducing Gina to his parents tonight at dinner.”
Nick looked at her as if she were insane. “Oh, great, you fixed it all right. That’s great. That’ll impress Welch.”
“Welch has his own problem,” Tess said. “Me.”
Nick stopped, wary. “Tess, I told you if you waited until after dinner—”
“You’re always telling me,” Tess said. “Now I’m telling you. There are things that are wrong in my life. And I’m going to fix them. And if you can’t deal with that, then you can’t deal with me. You’ve got to take me as I am, or not take me at all.”
“Is that an ultimatum?” Nick asked, his jaw tight.
“Pretty much,” Tess said. “I tried it your way. I can’t do it. So this is it.” She swallowed once, and when Nick didn’t say anything, she put the suit box down on the desk and opened it. The jacket was beautiful. She took it out and shook it once but then was distracted by something else in the box. She dropped the new jacket on the desk and pulled back the tissue paper. “Well, good for Christine,” she said, and pulled her old jacket from the box. She shrugged into it not looking at Nick. “We’d better get a move on. We’re going to be late for dinner,” she said, and then she looked at him, defiant in her tattered tweed.
Nick opened the door, stone-faced, and followed her out.
Twelve
They were late to the restaurant, and Kent and Melisande and Welch were already seated. Tess could see them through the archway, a little triumvirate of privilege and arrogance, and she thought about how rude she wanted to be and how ineffectual rudeness would be. Nick had taught her something. Tact. Diplomacy. Underhandedness. She was going to charm the socks right off Welch and then attack him when he was well fed—just like taking a pig to the slaughter.
“If I’m going to behave all night, I need a drink,” Tess said.
“Get me one, too,” Park said behind them, and Tess turned to see Gina standing blankly beside him, her eyes red from crying, her face slack with fear.
“Gina?” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Gina said. “I’m perfectly fine. Everything’s going to be fine. I’m ready to meet Park’s parents. Really I am. I’m fine.”
“I’m not,” Park said. “Get me a drink. We took a cab, so drunkenness is not a problem.”
“Gina, honey?” Tess asked.
“I’m fine,” Gina said again. “Can I have some gum?”
“No,” Tess said.
“Oh, hell,” Nick said.
THE SEATING ARRANGEMENTS could have been better, Nick thought as he surveyed the situation. Somehow they’d ended up with the Pattersons on one side of the big round table, staring across at Park and Gina who had Welch on one side and him and Tess on the other. Park winced under his father’s gaze like a sinner on Judgment Day with a few things to explain about the little ethnic woman by his side who was obviously not Radcliffe material, while Gina sat, dazed with terror, across from Melisande, a woman who was never amused and often appalled. And clearly, Melisande had never had as much to be appalled about as she had now. In desperation Nick gestured to the waiter.
“Bring wine,” Nick told him. “Any wine. Now.”
“Very good, sir,” the waiter said.
Kent Patterson smiled tightly. “The Chateau Rothschild, Dennis.”
“Very good, sir.”
Kent Patterson commandeered the menu. “I’ll order for us all.” He didn’t see Welch roll his eyes as he began. “We’
ll start with the gravlax and pumpkin soup,” he said, relaxing as he exerted authority. “And then the goat cheese and endive. It’s very good. Remarkable, really. Then the Muscovy duck, and for dessert crème brûlée.”
“Very good, sir,” Dennis said to Kent.
“Steak,” Welch said. “Rare. Baked potato. And a bloody Mary.”
“Henderson is not going to be pleased,” Tess said to him.
“Henderson is not going to know,” Welch said to her. “Unless you rat on me.”
“I should for your own good,” Tess said. “Somebody should tell the truth and save you from yourself.”
Welch looked startled by her tone, but then Kent spoke to him and he looked away.
“What’s going on?” Nick whispered to her as Dennis arrived with the wine.
“The dinner party from hell,” Tess said. “You may want to leave now. It’s going to get ugly.”
Then Kent turned away from Welch and caught sight of his quivering son. He picked up his glass in disgust and drank his wine.
Melisande looked down her long nose at Gina without blinking and drank her wine.
Gina shook visibly and drank her wine.
Park sighed and drank his wine.
Tess looked at Nick, and they both drank their wine.
“So Park tells me you’re a Democrat,” Kent said to Tess. “That must make for some interesting conversations with Nick.”
“Oh, a few,” Tess said.
“Democrats,” Welch snorted, but he watched Tess with the same rapt attention he always gave her, only this time a little more warily than usual.
Kent smiled at Tess patronizingly. “So is it true that politics make strange bedfellows?”
“Really, Kent,” Melisande said with cold distaste.
“Bedpersons,” Park said, and everybody stared at him.
“What?” Kent asked.
“Bedpersons,” Park said again. “Tess would prefer bedpersons. It’s nongender-specific.”