Oh, hell.
Tess dove for the bottom again and swam across it, only to swallow half the pool when somebody grabbed her ankle.
Nick hauled her to the surface, patting her on the back while she choked.
“Don’t do that!” she said when she could talk. “I almost drowned.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” Nick said, and kissed her.
“I thought you left,” she said when she came up for air. “Is this come-up-to-my-bed, part two, because if so…” She stopped, distracted by the realization that he wasn’t wearing his shorts.
“No,” Nick said, pulling her against him. “This is the-hell-with-the-neighbors-but-I-had-to-get-a-condom, part one. Do you know if chlorine has any effect on latex?”
“No idea.” Tess locked her legs around him, not caring what chlorine did to latex.
“Well, let’s find out,” Nick said, and then they almost did drown.
WHEN TESS WOKE UP the next morning, there was a note on the black silk pillow beside her with a twenty-dollar bill and a key.
She looked at the ceiling in exasperation and then picked up the note. “Dear Tess,” it read. “The twenty bucks is for cab fare so you can get out of the house today, so stop scowling at the ceiling. I took some swimming-pool water with me to the office so I can snort the chlorine and think of you all day. I’ll bring dinner with me when I get home at six. I’m glad your apartment got trashed. Love, Nick.”
She cocked an eyebrow at the note and smiled. It wasn’t “How do I love thee, let me count the ways,” but it wasn’t bad at all.
She snuggled back down under the comforter and thought about her day ahead. She had to go back to the apartment to find Angela. She had to go to the police station to fill out forms on the break-in. She had to call Alan Sigler to tell him that she definitely wanted the job at Decker even if his wife did hate her. She had to stop by the Foundation and catch up on her tutoring. She had to call her mother and ask about Lanny. And then there was Gina…
She reached out for the white phone beside Nick’s bed and dialed Gina’s number, but there was no answer, so she crawled out of bed and went to get dressed. The police station wasn’t a problem, but Alan Sigler…
She spread her clothes out on the white bed in the guest room and stared at them in dismay. They were fine for the police, fine for the Foundation, fine for protesting, fine for going out for pizza, but for making an impression on Alan Sigler?
Okay, she could get by with her blue skirt. Nobody ever looked at skirts, anyway. But she had to have something classy on top. People looked at stuff like shirts and jackets and…
She put on her skirt and went back to Nick’s bedroom and opened his closet.
It was just as she expected. Racks of beautiful shirts, gorgeous jackets. Of course, they were all white and black, but robbers couldn’t be choosers. She pulled a white shirt off a hanger and read the label: Armani. “Figures,” she said, and then stopped, remembering that Angela wasn’t around to talk to. She’d go back to the apartment to look for Angela first.
She shrugged the shirt on without thinking any more about it, rolling the cuffs several times. When she looked in the mirror, the shirt was beautiful but a little too big. She went back to the closet and pulled out one of Nick’s black vests and put it on. Better. Now she looked like Annie Hall with legs. If she put on earrings, she’d look feminine enough to get away with it.
She grabbed the twenty off the bed and went to call a cab and Gina one more time.
“YOU’RE LATE, Christine said to Nick as he breezed through the outer office and into his own. “Park left you the Welch file.”
“Christine, I’m the boss.” Nick dropped into his desk chair and pushed the Welch file to one side. “I’m never late. Your world revolves around me.”
“Mr. Patterson called,” Christine said. “He wants to have lunch with you.”
“Not today,” Nick said.
“You’re kidding,” Christine said, and Nick looked up at the expression in her voice.
“No, I’m not kidding. I’m busy. Call Annalise Donaldson and make an early lunch date for today at The Levee. Call Alan Sigler and make a dinner date for tomorrow at The Levee. Find out who the landlord is at this apartment house—” he handed her a card “—and get him on the phone immediately. Then get me Thom Nordhausen at the Charles Theater for racquetball at two. That’ll get me out of a long lunch with Annalise. Reserve a court.” He stared at his desk for a moment. “What am I forgetting?”
“The law firm?” Christine said.
Nick frowned up at her. “Do you know what effect chlorine has on latex?”
“Not good,” Christine said. “Don’t do that again.”
“Remind me to have my pool drained,” Nick said. “Now go. I want those people yesterday.”
She was gone before he finished the last word.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at the Welch file.
Plagiarism.
Nick closed his eyes and thought. If it wasn’t for the partnership, he’d be running as fast as he could away from Welch. If Tess was right about the earlier story—and Tess was invariably right about injustice, because she had an instinct for injustice—then this was going to be a huge tangle.
But it might get him partner.
Hell, he’d handled huge tangles before. It wouldn’t kill him to undo another one. He thought about it for a few more minutes and then hit the intercom button. “Christine, I need to set up a dinner later this week with Norbert Welch. Get him for me, please, but I’ll talk to him.”
“You’re on for lunch with Donaldson and racquetball with Nordhausen at three,” Christine said. “I’m working on the Siglers. Ray Briggs is on line two.”
“Who the hell is Ray Briggs?”
“Landlord.”
“Christine, you are a wonder.”
“I need a raise,” she said.
TESS SPENT the entire morning at the police station, a lonely lunch hour in her old apartment waiting for Angela to come back and an hour in the afternoon with Alan Sigler in his paneled office, talking about education, the Decker Academy and the board.
“It’s really up to the board now,” he’d told her as he walked her to the door at the end of the meeting. “I’ll give you my highest recommendation, but it’s the board’s decision. And they can’t act until the end of the month. One of the old board members resigned, and we’re still screening replacements, so we won’t handle the staffing problems until the next meeting. Keep your fingers crossed.”
“Thank you,” Tess said, shaking his hand. “I really want to work at Decker.”
“I know,” Sigler said, clearly puzzled. “I’m not sure why, though. You don’t seem the type to be impressed by prestige and money.”
“I just want to teach,” Tess said, omitting to tell him she just wanted to teach at the Foundation.
It wasn’t really being dishonest. It was being tactful.
Maybe Nick was starting to rub off on her, after all.
She left the Foundation early to catch the bus home, and it dropped her off at the end of Nick’s street at four-thirty. As she walked home, she absentmindedly computed how long it would be until he got home. An hour and a half at least. Maybe two. Not too long.
She let herself into the house and changed into her sweats, relieved to be out of hose and heels. Then she wandered about the house, afraid to touch anything, missing Angela and trying not to miss Nick. It wasn’t a big house, but it was extremely white and it echoed and it seemed cold although the thermostat said seventy.
Not the kind of place Lanny would have built.
Now that’s ridiculous, she told herself. This was not about Lanny. This was about…
Lanny. Lanny and the manuscript.
She kicked off her flats and went to the phone.
“Elise?” she said when her mother answered. “It’s me.”
“Tessie?” Elise’s voice came over the wire, enthusiastic and vague as always, as if
she was really glad to hear from Tess but couldn’t quite remember who she was.
“Right, Tess, your daughter,” Tess said. “How’s Daniel?”
“Just fine, darling,” Elise said. “He’s out in the garden now. It’s almost past canning season, but you know your father—he keeps going until the ground is bare. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but I need your help. Listen closely to this because it’s important—do you remember Lanny?”
“Who?”
Tess was patient from long practice. “Lanny. Remember at the Yellow Springs commune the man who told the CinderTess story?”
“Well,” Elise began doubtfully, “yes, maybe…”
“Big guy, brown hair, brown beard, one summer in Yellow Springs. After he left, you used to read it to me at night, remember?” Tess urged her. “It was on notebook paper. In turquoise fountain pen.”
“A fairy tale?” Elise said. “With princes and speeches?”
“Right! Great. Do you still have the manuscript?”
“Of course not, darling.” Elise said. “That was almost thirty years ago. Why would I still have—”
“Who would have it?” Tess asked. “This is important, love. Think.”
“Well, I suppose somebody from the commune might. But really, Tess, you’re making a big thing out of a fairy tale.”
Tess pulled Nick’s phone directory off the shelf under the phone and flipped to the blank lines on the back page. “I need names and numbers,” she told her mother. “Anybody who might know something about Lanny and the manuscript.”
“Oh, Tess, I don’t know,” Elise said. “That was a long time ago, and we’re all over everywhere by now.”
“All right. Start with the names you remember, and if you know where they are now, tell me.”
Half an hour later, Tess had seventeen names and three numbers and a promise from her mother to try harder to remember the manuscript. “Although I don’t see why, dear,” her mother said. “It seems like a lot of trouble to go to for nostalgia. Especially when there are so many things that need fixing in the present. How did the censorship protest go?”
“Fine.” Tess briefly contemplated telling her mother about Welch’s plagiarism and then discarded the thought. Elise and Daniel would immediately organize a public protest, and as much as she’d like to see it happen, she had to admit Nick had a point. They had nothing to go on yet but her memories. She needed more people who remembered the story. And she really needed the manuscript. Which meant calling everyone on Elise’s list and asking them if they knew anyone, and then asking those anyones if they knew anyone…
Nick was going to have some phone bill.
“I’ll write soon,” Elise was saying. “I want to send you some of Daniel’s jam. It’s really—”
“Oh, I’ve moved,” Tess said. “My apartment was robbed, and it was too dangerous to stay there. I’m rooming with a friend until I find another place, but you can send anything to this address and I’ll get it.” Tess gave her mother the address and phone number. “I’ll probably be here another week or two at least.”
“Is this your friend Gina?”
“No,” Tess said. “This is my friend Nick. The Republican. But it’s okay. I’m not letting him corrupt me.”
“Ooh, yes. I remember your talking about him. Are you sleeping with him?”
“Yes,” Tess said.
“Is he good?”
Tess rolled her eyes, not really surprised. “Elise, that is no question to ask your daughter.”
“Of course it is,” Elise said. “Don’t let conventional morality blind you to what’s important in life. A satisfying sex life can be the foundation of a good relationship, and every mother wants her daughter in a good relationship.”
“With a Republican?”
“Well, that depends on the man, dear. I met some very enthusiastic Republicans in my youth.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“Is he any good?”
“The earth moves nightly,” Tess said.
“Well, then, I won’t worry.”
Five minutes later, Tess extricated herself from her mother’s distracted conversation and called Gina.
“Hey, where were you this morning?” Tess said when Gina picked up the phone. “I called twice.”
“I got it!” Gina said.
“Got what?”
“The job at the Charles Theater. And it’s not a typing job. It’s a good job. I’m a liaison! I didn’t even know what that meant an hour ago, but Mr. Nordhausen explained it, and I’m going to be talking to people about the theater and making sure stuff gets done. It’s wild! I’ve got a real job!”
“Gina, that’s wonderful!” Tess sank onto the suede couch, oblivious to the furniture in her relief. “Let’s celebrate. We’ll go out and—”
“I can’t,” Gina said, her voice growing even more effervescent. “Park’s taking me out! I called him and told him and he was really happy, and he said we should go out and celebrate. We’re even going out tomorrow, too, so I can tell him about my job after the first day!” Her voice dropped a notch. “I probably shouldn’t have called him but—”
“You called Park already?”
“I know, I’m pushing it, but I wanted him to know,” Gina said. “We talked about it all weekend, and he told me what to do in the interview and what to wear and everything. I wanted him to know, and he was real happy and said we should go out. And we’re going out!”
The happiness in Gina’s voice was so blatant that Tess lost her breath. Don’t fall for him, she thought, but all she said was, “That’s wonderful, Gina. When do you start?”
“Tomorrow!” Gina said. “Can you believe it? Mr. Nordhausen was late at first because he’d been playing racquetball, and he came in all tired. I could tell he wasn’t very keen on me at first, but then we started talking and I actually knew a lot of the theater people he kept mentioning, and by the end of the interview he said he wanted me to start right away—that I was just what the Charles Theater needed, after all.”
“After all?”
“Yeah, I thought that was strange, too, but what the hell, I got the job.” Gina’s voice rose even higher. “I did the interview and he liked me and I got the job!”
Tess laughed at Gina’s enthusiasm. “And you are going to be great at it. You’re the best thing that ever happened to Nordstrom.”
“Nordhausen,” Gina said. “Hey, where are you? I called your apartment, but the phone company says your phone is dead.”
“My whole apartment is dead,” Tess said. “It got vandalized. I’m staying with Nick.”
“Oh,” Gina said. “How’s Nick?”
“Nick’s fine. The house is a little…well, I guess it’s just not really my kind of house.”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. It’s too expensive and successful-looking. Come on, Tess. Enjoy it.”
“It’s not that,” Tess said, looking around. “I think you have to see this place to understand. To start with, it’s totally black and white.”
“No color?”
“None. I swear, I’m going to dig my old sofa pillows out of my duffel and put them on these couches just so I know I’m not color blind.” With a start she realized she was sitting on the couch and slid to the floor. “Not that I’m ever going to actually sit on the couches.”
“Why wouldn’t you sit on the couches?”
“They’re white suede.”
“You are kidding me.” Gina hooted with laughter. “This I gotta see. Okay, he’s got suede couches. What else is wrong?”
“Well, nothing. I mean, he’s darling to me, and he makes love like a god, and I’m safe and warm…” She looked around the icy splendor of Nick’s living room. “Well, fairly warm.”
“You don’t sound sure,” Gina said. “If he was the right guy, you’d be sure.” Her voice sounded sure, and that made Tess’s heart sink. Not Park, she thought. Please, not Park.
“So let’s get serious ab
out this,” Gina said. “I want you to be happy, too. What are you looking for in a man? And why hasn’t Nick got it?”
Tess stopped to think. “Actually I’m not really looking, but if I was…” She smiled to herself a little wistfully. “Well, with the manuscript and everything I’ve been thinking a lot, and I guess I want somebody like Lanny.”
There was a long silence before Gina said, “Did you ever think that maybe not even Lanny would be Lanny today? Maybe he’d be Nick.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Tess said. “Lanny would be…” What? She couldn’t imagine Lanny in the nineties. He was permanently preserved in the golden sunlight of the sixties, like a fly in amber. “You know my life was a lot easier when everything was black and white,” she told Gina.
“Maybe that’s why Nick decorates like you think,” Gina said. “Listen, I gotta go start getting ready. Park’s not picking me up till late, he has to work or something, but I want to look spectacular!”
“You already look spectacular,” Tess said, but she felt numb as she listened to Gina’s ecstatic goodbye. Please don’t let her get hurt, she prayed, but she knew it was a forlorn hope.
Eight
At seven, Nick came home with Chinese takeout and Angela.
Tess ran downstairs to meet him when she heard the door open. “Gina got the job! And I made a lot of long-distance phone calls—” Tess began. Then she saw the cat. “Angela?”
“I stopped by your apartment and there she was,” Nick said as she pulled the cat out of the deluxe carrier he’d bought for her. “Damnedest thing.”
“Right.” Tess hugged Angela to her. “How much did you give Stanley to find her?”
“Not that much,” Nick said. “I got Chinese. A double order of pot stickers.”
“I’m crazy about you,” Tess said.
Nick blinked, looking surprised and pleased. “Yeah?”
Tess buried her face in Angela’s fur. “Yeah.”
“Good. Hold that thought.” He looked down at her clothes. “You know, I really hate those sweats.”
“Don’t start,” Tess said. “I’m feeling affectionate.”
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