by Susan Wiggs
Even Melanie, who was so cool she made ice cubes shiver, sighed audibly.
Elaine felt curiously exposed, running into Tony again like this. The past was behind her for a reason—so she wouldn’t have to look at it. Straightening her shoulders, she was determined to hide her vulnerability and brazen it out.
She made the introductions in the smooth, polished way she had perfected over the years, and with a little laugh that completely covered everything she was feeling, she said, “This is Tony Fiore, who broke my heart back when we were in college.”
“Yeah?” Jenny aimed a blatant invitation at him. “He’s breaking mine now.”
“I broke your heart?” He grinned, incredulous. “Very funny, Elaine. I did you a favor.”
She gulped down the rest of her drink. Could he really believe that?
“So spill,” Mel said. “You two were an item?”
“We dated like...three times,” Elaine said blithely.
Jenny gave a low whistle. “For most guys, that’s a long-term relationship.”
“So what are you collecting for?” asked Bobbi, squirming in her seat.
“Kids’ hockey league,” Tony said. “It’s a pet project of my division. We fund coaching and ice time in all five boroughs.”
Elaine wasn’t surprised. Hockey used to be his life. It was supposed to be his future, his career. She couldn’t help wondering about him as she studied this new, different Tony who hadn’t changed a bit, who still set her heart on fire. What was his life now? Expired licences and shoplifters?
“What can we do for you?” Melanie asked.
That entrancing smile never wavered. “Anything you can spare. It’s Christmas Eve,” he reminded them needlessly.
“That’s great that you’re helping out inner-city kids,” Jen said.
“It’s an outstanding idea,” Elaine announced.
“Thanks. I’m sorry to say, funds are low this year. We’re going to need a miracle to keep the league going.”
“You ought to have a gala.” Jenny beamed at him. “Trust me, we know about this stuff. We’re publicists.”
He looked blank.
“We are responsible for getting our clients’ faces in front of the press, or getting their products mentioned in magazines as the hot new must-have. That sort of thing,” Elaine said. “I’ve never heard of your organization. You should do some PR for exposure. It would increase your contributions tremendously. Trust me, I know the benefits of PR.”
“Yeah? What do you charge?” When she didn’t answer, he grinned. “I can’t afford you. Anyway, the time I put in is just as important.”
Everyone went for their bags. It struck Elaine that she hadn’t always hated Christmas. Sure, her self-disciplined approach to life had never allowed her to indulge too freely in the frivolities of the season. But, now that she thought about it, she once loved the warmth and joy of the season, the sentimental music and the spirit of generosity that took over even the most miserly of individuals. When had that hardened into annoyance and exasperation?
Watching Tony, she knew precisely when. It began the night he’d let her down. Right then had begun a slow erosion of the spirit. Hope had deflated, giving way to bleak reality. She’d begun to view the world through the eyes of a cynic. In the most holy of seasons, she saw greed instead of generosity, phoniness instead of sincerity. She’d learned to expect the worst of people and she was never disappointed.
Hiding her troubled thoughts, she rummaged deep in her handbag, sifting through gear she toted everywhere but the shower.
No wallet.
She frowned and rummaged some more, searching for the smooth leather case stuffed with plastic cards and folded bills.
No wallet.
“Something’s wrong here,” she muttered. She dumped the contents of her purse on the table, then put them back one by one. She felt Tony watching, and realized he had focused on her key chain, the one with the silver skate. It had been a gift from him, years ago, the only thing he’d ever given her. So what? she thought. Let him make what he would of it. She knew why she carried it.
As she sifted through the clutter on the table, a sinking feeling plummeted through her. “Somebody stole my wallet.”
chapter four
“You’re in luck,” Melanie said, gesturing at Tony. “We got a professional right here.”
“It was the elf, or maybe the panhandler,” Elaine said, jumping up.
“You were with an elf and a panhandler?” asked Jenny. “Honey, you really do need to take some time off.”
“I dropped everything right in front of him and he must have grabbed it.” Elaine headed for the door.
A hand on her shoulder stopped her. “Don’t be in such a hurry.” Tony’s voice was the same slow, intimate murmur that used to melt her knees.
“What do you mean?”
“Your friend’s got it.” He nodded in Bobbi’s direction.
“Bobbi?” Confused, Elaine turned back to the table.
Bobbi’s face hardened, and suddenly she looked like a stranger, not the sister Elaine had brought into her heart. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bobbi said.
“That spare wallet you’re holding,” said Tony.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Melanie grabbed Bobbi’s pashmina, which had pooled in her lap, and there lay Elaine’s red leather wallet.
“What is this, a joke?” asked Jenny.
“Harsh,” Melanie muttered under her breath.
“I was only kidding,” Bobbi said, her voice a nervous octave higher than normal.
Elaine felt as though she had been punched. This was Bobbi, whom she’d rescued from sandwich-cart-girl obscurity; Bobbi, who was her best friend in the world. “How could you?”
Bobbi shot to her feet. “How could I what? Wear your stupid clothes and go to your stupid parties in places I can’t afford? Kiss up to your stupid clients?”
“I thought we were friends,” Elaine said, her senses growing numb from shock—but not numb enough.
“Just because you put me in a pair of Pradas and gave me a cell phone doesn’t make me your friend. What gives you the idea that any of us are friends? My salary barely covers the rent on my crummy downtown walkup. For that I should be grateful? Ha. For that, I should go drown myself in the East River.”
“Well, that’d save you on the rent,” Jenny pointed out.
“Hush up. You just want to marry someone important, and Melanie snorts everything she earns up her nose.” As her voice rose, the genteel Southern accent turned twangy and raucous. She turned on Elaine. “They only keep you around because you grew up on the Upper East Side and you have connections. Don’t ever mistake that for liking you. They’re using you every bit as much as they’re using me.”
“Don’t listen to her, Elaine,” Melanie said. “She’s obviously a nutcake.”
“No, maybe I’ve finally had enough,” Bobbi snapped. “You think this has been a picnic for me?”
“Actually, yes,” said Elaine, thinking of yesterday’s shopping excursion to BCBG.
“You would,” Bobbi said, dramatically tossing her pashmina over her head and around her shoulders, Mary-in-the-manger style. “I wish I were dead.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” said Jenny, but Bobbi was already walking away, leaving a wreckage of hurt and confusion in her wake.
“She’s toast,” Melanie sputtered. “She’ll never work in this business again.”
“She’ll never get so much as a dinner reservation again,” Jenny swore. “She’d better go back to Bubba Mills, Carolina, or wherever she came from.”
“I have no idea what came over her,” Elaine said. “I told her I’d give her an advance tomorrow.” But she wanted to fly home tonight, she reminded herself.
Tony still stood there, watching imp
assively. As a cop, he probably witnessed meltdowns and exploding relationships all the time.
“Forget her. Forget what she said.” Melanie handed over the purloined wallet. “She has no class.”
Elaine forced herself to seem calm as she extracted a bill from her wallet and pushed it across the table toward Tony. “For your cause. And thanks for...getting my wallet back.”
He recorded the donations on the clipboard while the Marley tune wailed from the speakers.
Elaine withered inside. How had her life turned out this way? How had she wound up getting dropped by her so-called boyfriend on Christmas Eve, and getting stolen from by her best friend? Not to mention the Christmas Eve Tony had stood her up. Truly, this night was her own personal Bermuda triangle.
Could this sort of lousy luck somehow be her fault? Elaine forced herself to consider it. Bobbi was trash. She was disloyal, and yet Bobbi’s tirade lingered in Elaine’s mind like a morning-after hangover. To Elaine’s horror, her ex-friend’s words held an eerie ring of truth. Were Jenny and Melanie her friends, or did they just act that way because they needed Elaine for them to get ahead in business?
Her hand shook a little as she tucked the wallet away.
“Sorry about your friend,” Tony said with genuine sympathy. Those brown eyes, so sincere, penetrated all the sturdy barriers she’d constructed around her heart. With just one look, he could remind her that life didn’t have to be this way. “Really, I’m sorry. I saw her lift the wallet from across the room.”
So he’d seen her first. He’d been watching her. Elaine tried to figure out how she felt about that. “Um, thanks again,” she said. Suddenly she found herself terrified of him walking away. But he would, of course. That’s what everyone had been doing all her life. There had been a time when she’d thought he was different, but that had only been wishful thinking. Oh, she wanted him to stay. She wanted him to sit down and tell her that her life wasn’t as awful as it seemed, that she’d just hit a speed bump. She wanted him to explain why he’d filled her head with dreams, then disappeared.
He stepped back as though to move on to the next table, but Elaine put out her hand to stop him. “Hey, not so fast.” She scooted over in the booth. “Join us, Tony. We’re not letting you leave.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m about ready to turn in my numbers at the ice rink for the day, anyway. Thanks to you ladies, I’m looking fine. I’m just sorry your friend’s not so fine.”
“Yeah. Are you okay?” Melanie asked Elaine. “I know you thought the world of Bobbi.”
Elaine burned with self-loathing over her foolishness. She was supposed to know better than to give her heart. Hadn’t she learned that lesson? “I guess I should associate with a better class of people.” She could hear echoes of her mother in the statement and cringed inwardly.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Melanie said. “She had us all fooled, every one of us. What a day you’re having, Elaine. First Byron, now this.” She turned to Tony. “We usually have a sense of humor about these things. With a clientele like ours, we need it.”
He leaned toward Elaine with genuine interest. Just as he had years ago, he managed to make her feel as though she mattered. “So she was a client?”
“No, we invented her,” Jenny said. “It was Elaine’s idea.”
“She started out as a transplant from a mill town in the South,” Elaine explained, “selling sandwiches from a cart in our office building while trying to get an agent. We fixed her up, and before you knew it, she was clubbing with the Fixtures and Jade, wearing stuff from boutiques no ordinary human can afford, featured in magazines, that sort of thing. Everyone wanted her. She was the new cover girl on the block.”
Melanie whirled a candy-cane swizzle stick in her drink. “It was a pure display of power.”
“Just call us the three Dr. Frankensteins,” Elaine said.
“Scary,” said Tony.
Elaine tried to figure out why her career seemed so trivial as she explained it to him. Maybe it was because she’d had such big dreams back when she had known him. She’d wanted to travel the world, report on matters of international importance, make a difference in people’s lives. Yet now her world consisted of high-end power shopping, over-the-top event planning and puff-piece press releases. Making a difference meant changing the color of her manicure.
“So anyway, we were counting on her tonight,” Melanie was explaining to Tony. “We needed her to land a big account.”
“On Christmas Eve?”
“That’s what’s so great about this job. Work is as much fun as play,” Elaine said with forced brightness. But her comment rang hollow as apprehension clutched at her stomach.
“I have a brilliant idea.” Jenny covered Tony’s hand with hers. “You have to come tonight. It’s a fabulous event put on by Elaine’s family. The—”
“St. James affair,” Tony finished for her, then grinned at her surprised expression. “I live in Brooklyn, not in a cave.” As he slowly and charmingly removed his hand, the message was clear. He would not be condescended to.
“I’m sure Tony has plans,” Elaine felt obligated to say. And why wouldn’t he? Just because he didn’t wear a ring didn’t mean he wasn’t married. She arranged her mouth into a lighthearted smile. “I bet you have some sweet Italian girl waiting for you at home. Toys to put together for your kids.”
He lifted the corner of his mouth in a half grin. “Hey, if I had that, I wouldn’t be out in the cold today.”
“I always figured you’d marry young and have a big family,” she said. Even if he was still single, he was definitely a family man. She’d always known that about him.
“I’m not so old, and I still plan to have kids. You know how much family means to the Fiores.”
She still remembered the warmth in his voice when he’d told her about his family. They were a loud, unwieldy Italian bunch that had lived in the same brownstone neighborhood for generations. She’d never met them, of course, but in her mind she carried a picture of Mama Fiore in a ruffled apron, stirring a kettle of puttanesca sauce on an old-fashioned kitchen range. She was definitely not the sort of woman who would leave her youngest son unaccounted for on Christmas Eve.
“So what do you say, Officer Friendly?” Jenny prodded.
Say yes, Elaine caught herself silently urging. How strange that she could still believe, even after all that had happened, that there was something special about Christmas Eve.
“I guess I could stop by for a while,” he said.
Her heart took a leap before she could remind herself not to let it matter. But the fact was, it mattered a lot. She had the absurd feeling that he was rescuing her. She’d never liked her parents’ annual affair. Overdressed people eating tiny hors d’oeuvres and talking about nothing while jockeying for position in front of the society column photographers.
This year, the event would improve somewhat, given the infusion of youthful energy and imagination of her partners. But to Elaine, it would always be excruciating. Having Tony present could not possibly make the night any worse. In fact, he might just make it better.
chapter five
Elaine began to doubt her naive sense of hope a short time later, when she stood on the curb, nearly turning into a Popsicle while trying to flag a taxi. At the same time she talked on her cell phone, trying to fill the void left by Bobbi. Axel liked supermodels, but, so far, all the SMs she knew were busy tonight. Maybe he’d bring his own, she thought, stabbing another number into the keypad.
The marauding carolers had migrated to the other side of the street, but she could still hear happy strains of “Joy to the World” above the throaty sound of traffic and the distant chimes of an old-fashioned church. Larry the elf was a liar. He’d promised magic and miracles, but things had only gone from bad to worse. And into the middle of everything had walked Tony Fiore, stirring up emotions sh
e’d worked years to bury.
The number was busy. Exasperated, she hung up and scanned the avenue. Through a thickening curtain of snowfall, not a single available cab appeared.
Christmas was for the birds, she thought, scowling at a moon-eyed young couple walking arm in arm past glowing shop windows. Christmas was nothing but a commercialized excuse for people to knock off work early and overeat. Who needed that?
Spying a taxi half a block away, she made a desperate bid for it. Relief flooded her when it pulled alongside the curb. She pulled open the door, welcoming a waft of heat from the interior of the car.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a woman and a boy on crutches appeared. Some unthinking impulse nearly made her ignore them and get in. At the last second, she realized what that would make her and backed off.
The boy glanced in her direction, his sweet round face lit with a smile, before carefully folding himself and his crutches into the taxi.
“Thanks,” said his mother, a harried woman in a plain cloth coat. She carried one of those humiliating clear plastic purses the retailers made clerks carry in order to control employee theft.
Elaine called herself a pushover as she handed the driver a bill to cover the fare.
“Thank you,” the woman called. “Merry Christmas, and God bless.”
Elaine gave a nod, then stepped from the curb and scanned the roadway for another taxi. There was none in sight. She envisioned herself standing here, freezing to death, while everyone else hurried away to celebrations and family gatherings and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Who would miss her? she wondered forlornly. Who would even notice she wasn’t around anymore, that she had turned into a curbside ice sculpture for the pigeons to land on?
Irritated, she tried to get Zora on the phone. Zora was the hardest-working modeling agent in town, but her voice mail picked up. What was wrong with everyone? You’d think a national holiday had been declared.
A black sedan pulled alongside the curb and the tinted window slid down. “Need a lift?” asked Tony Fiore.