Changes of Heart

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “My goodness,” Denise replied, “don’t worry. You’re hardly the first woman in the world to call Zachary Dorn difficult. Now, let’s see,” she continued, flipping through her notes, “tell me about your plans for Ramona and how you’re getting on with dear, sweet-tempered Madame…”

  The meeting lasted until three-thirty, when Melina rushed off to her appointment at Ramona. Janie saw Denise out and then sorted through the stack of messages that had piled up during the interview.

  “Did you tell Melina about this call?” Janie asked Tina, holding up a pink slip. It recorded a long distance number, no name or business given, but with the words “Urgent. Call Immediately” rendered out in Tina’s round, careful hand.

  “I tried,” Tina explained, “but she told me she was too busy. To have you handle everything.”

  “Did it sound like a business matter or something personal?” Janie asked, as usual not quite sure if Tina understood what she was saying.

  “It was important, the woman said,” Tina replied with conviction. “She sounded upset, nervous. She said to call right away.”

  “A woman, not a man,” Janie replied. When Tina nodded her head, Janie asked, “But did she want to speak only to Melina … or did they say anyone could call back?”

  “I don’t know,” Tina began helplessly. “I don’t remember. Was I supposed to ask? Did I make another mistake? Ms. Bliss said she would fire me on the spot if I…”

  “No, no,” Janie reassured her, “don’t worry. You did just fine. I’ll call back and see what I can do.”

  The phone rang six times, and Janie was about to hang up when a female voice answered, the accent deeply Southern.

  “Hello,” Janie replied, “I’m calling from Bliss & Penrod. Someone at this number called earlier leaving an urgent message. I was wondering if I could be of any help?”

  “And just who are you?” the woman demanded shrilly.

  “Janie Penrod. I work with Melina.”

  “And where’s she?” the woman retorted. “She too important these days to come to the phone?”

  “No, of course not,” Janie answered, trying to keep her patience. “She’s out at a meeting. I’m only calling because I thought maybe I could help. What was your call in reference to?”

  “It was in reference to the fact that Melina’s ma has died,” the woman stated, “and we were hoping that she would drum up the decency to get down here for the funeral.”

  “Her mother?” Janie demanded. “But that’s not possible. Melina’s an orphan. She doesn’t know who her people are.”

  “Ha!” the woman cried. “Is that the story she’s handing you folks up there? Well, let me tell you maybe that’s what she wishes. But it sure ain’t so. I’m her older sister, for heaven’s sake. I helped change her diapers when she was a kid. I think I should know.”

  “Oh…” Janie murmured. “I’m terribly sorry. I’ll have Melina get back to you immediately. Really … I’m so … sorry about your mother.”

  “Well, I’m sure that’s more than Melina will be,” her sister replied bitingly.

  “I’ll … I’ll have her call you,” Janie replied, uncertain how else to respond to the woman’s raw anger, “as soon as she gets in.”

  It was after seven. The rest of the staff had gone home. Janie heard the elevator door swish open and Melina’s muffled steps on the carpet.

  “You still here?” Melina said as she pushed through the doors and saw Janie. “Lord, I’m beat. Madame was in her element this afternoon, chewing everyone out. But she liked the final boards, so at least we’re okay. Anything new here?”

  “No,” Janie replied. “But … Melina … I have some news. I think you better sit down.”

  “What?” Melina demanded. “What is it?”

  “Here, sit,” Janie said, getting up and pushing her chair forward. “I mean it.”

  “Janie, honestly,” Melina answered, but when she saw Janie’s expression, she felt a sudden rush of concern. She did as she was told, perching on Janie’s chair and declaring, “You’re being awfully dramatic, honey. Now what the hell is going on?”

  Melina didn’t say anything for several seconds after Janie told her. She looked down at her perfectly manicured hands that were resting in her lap. Recently she’d changed to a French manicure, liking the simpler, classier look of the sheer polish against the white crescent tips. She spread her palm out against her dark green gabardine skirt, pleased with the effect. Then she let her thoughts turn, ever so carefully, toward the news about her mother. Dead. Actually, physically dead after all these years of willing her to be. And her sister—which one? Melina wondered—calling her. She hadn’t thought of any of them for so long, and yet she suddenly recalled, as vividly as if she’d seen it just that morning, the macramé tea cozy that used to hang on a plastic hook by the stove. Such a silly, ugly, inconsequential thing, and yet with that one memory Melina could feel the floodgates straining with the weight of her long-suppressed, unhappy past. She looked at her fingertips again and shook her head sadly.

  “You know, Mama would have thought paying seven dollars for a manicure an outrageous expense.” Melina sighed. “She worked so damned hard, and yet I can’t once remember her buying anything pretty for herself.”

  “So, it’s true?” Janie asked gently. “You do have a family after all? Why … why did you lie to me, Melina?”

  “Oh, for a million reasons, honey,” Melina countered. “Because I hated the dreary little town I came from. Because I despised my father and felt only disgust for my mother and sisters. Because I wanted to be different. I wanted to be better. Didn’t you ever want to change, Janie? Didn’t you ever wish you could remake yourself? Well, that’s what I wanted. That’s what I’ve done. And the funny thing is, I somehow guess I came to believe my own story. Lordy, to think my mama’s actually been working away in that shitty little backwater all these years. It just breaks my heart. It just seems such a waste. Poor woman, she probably died of boredom.” Melina turned and saw Janie and really focused on her for the first time since she sat down. “I’m shocking the bejesus out of you, aren’t I?”

  “Actually, no,” Janie told her honestly. There were a lot of parallels between Melina’s and her own past that Janie was finally beginning to see. And there were also plenty of similarities in their current motivations. Is that what caused them to work so well together? Because they were both trying so desperately to invent themselves? For the first time in many weeks, Janie felt a wave of the kinship that had initially drawn her to Melina. She smiled across at her.

  “What I’m wondering is,” Janie continued, “what you’re going to do now? Despite your reasons for leaving, shouldn’t you go back for the funeral?”

  “It’s odd,” Melina told her. “It’s not really even a matter of should I go or not … I think I actually want to go. I want to show them all how different from them I’ve become.” Melina sat in silence again for a moment, then added, almost to herself, “Or, is it that I want to reassure myself I really am?”

  Chapter 24

  The next day, with Melina en route to South Carolina for her mother’s funeral, Janie finally found the privacy and nerve to call Zach from the office. She thought she had prepared herself, but she still felt a guilty twinge when Louella’s nasal voice announced, “Good afternoon, Dorn & Delaney, how may I help you?”

  “Zachary Dorn, please.”

  “Who may I ask is calling?”

  “It’s a personal matter.”

  “I still need to inform Mr. Dorn to whom he will be speaking,” Louella retorted haughtily, though Janie was now convinced Louella knew perfectly well who it was.

  “May I just speak with him, please?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t possibly interrupt Mr. Dorn without a good reason. He’s a very busy man these days and—”

  “Oh, for chrissakes, Lou, it’s me,” Janie began to explain, but suddenly she was cut off. After a few
seconds the line clicked, and Janie heard the drone of a dial tone. She hung up, disgusted. A few minutes later her phone rang.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Zach. Sorry about Lou, as I’m sure you know, she’s not the forgiving type.”

  “At least she had the courtesy to give you the message that I’d called,” Janie replied. “I was beginning to think I’d have to start raising carrier pigeons or something.”

  “Actually, Michael was at reception when you phoned,” Zach told her, “and he overheard the whole thing. She had to admit to him why she’d been so rude. We both got a good chuckle out of it.”

  “So, you’re still laughing,” Janie observed. “That’s a positive sign. I was wondering if you and Michael were even talking to me. I guess … you are?”

  “Why shouldn’t we be?” Zach answered blithely. “Just because you’ve plundered our client list with more force and ruthlessness than the Visigoths did when they sacked Rome, wouldn’t that be small-minded of us?”

  “I can’t tell if you’re furious, Zach,” Janie replied, “or having me on.”

  “Both,” Zach admitted. “Quite honestly, I’d given up on your calling me. And for various reasons I decided it would be inappropriate for me to call you.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve been thinking about you,” Janie went on.

  “Obviously,” Zach observed dryly, “enough anyway, to figure out how to steal my clients.”

  “You are mad,” Janie said, registering the depth of his anger for the first time. She’d gotten out of the practice of reading Zach’s tone of voice: half the time, she recalled now, he meant the polar opposite of what he was saying.

  “Murderous,” Zach told her, “but not necessarily with you. I—and Michael, too—are willing to hear your side of the story. I’m ready to listen … and forgive. If, that is, you admit that you were suckered into it by Melina. What do you say? Is it story time yet, Janie?”

  “I was hoping we could meet,” Janie countered. “I want to explain everything to you, Zach, but it would be so much easier for me if I could do it in person.”

  “Why should I care about making it easier on you?” Zach demanded testily. Then with a sigh, he added, “But what the hell, promise you’ll buy me dinner and maybe I’ll show up.”

  Janie suggested a new French bistro-style restaurant on lower Fifth Avenue, and they agreed to meet there that evening. When Zach hung up the phone, Michael, who had ben sitting quietly across from Zach listening intently to the conversation, observed, “Well done. You made it sound like you were doing her a favor by seeing her tonight. You came across good and pissed.”

  “But I am,” Zach told him, leaning forward and massaging his temples. “Though really not at Janie. I’m just furious with her blindness. Why can’t she see that Melina’s nothing but a hustler? A manipulator? Melina couldn’t make it without Janie, I’m sure of that.”

  “I don’t know,” Michael replied carefully, standing up. “And I’m not sure I care. All I want to make sure of, Zach, is that we keep the door open to Janie. Obviously, she’s doing some damned nice work. Madame and Alain wouldn’t be nibbling at Melina’s hook unless there was something pretty tempting on the line. Keep close to Janie. Let her know, without pushing it, that she still has a home here. If things ever fall through down there … well, who in hell knows?”

  Zach had decided beforehand that he would be late. He’d saunter in fifteen or twenty minutes after the agreed meeting time to find Janie waiting for him—nervous and uncertain. But, as things turned out, though he was sure he had set himself a leisurely pace for the twenty-block walk downtown, he somehow arrived at the restaurant first and was ushered to a spacious corner table at the back of the room. The restaurant, for years a dilapidated fabric showroom, had been completely and impressively remodeled to replicate a French bistro. Faded duotone posters of Montmartre lined the walls. The floor was tiled in blue and beige squares. In the bar area, the booths were furnished with old metro benches, the art deco wrought iron detail still intact.

  The bar was doing a land-office business. The clientele was comprised, Zach decided, of after-hours overflow from the recent downtown business boom. Young architects were standing cheek-to-jowl with up-and-coming ad execs; pretty secretaries shared counter space with primly dressed corporate lawyers. They all seemed so well-groomed and confident to Zach. So healthy. Good-looking. He saw a tall, red-haired beauty making her way through the crowd. All he could see of her was a swirl of hair and a tantalizing suggestion of hips and legs, and yet he knew—from the quick turning of male heads that followed in her wake—that she was a knockout. He watched her legs emerge from the crowd, eyed with approval the long confident stride and the hug of a tightly knit skirt against perfectly shaped thighs. He glanced away as she neared the back of the room, not wanting to stare at her like some oversexed fraternity pledge.

  “Zach,” the woman said, sliding into the seat next to his. “I’m sorry I’m late. But I guess I just lost track of time. Have you been waiting long?” She stashed two shopping bags under the table by her legs.

  “Janie,” Zach said stupidly. “It’s you.” He regarded her with a kind of awe, still not quite sure that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. He leaned over and, starting from her ankles, let his gaze travel slowly up her body: her slim, long legs … the luscious curve of hips … a delicate suggestion of waist … and then the firm, unabashed jutting of full breasts … the creamy rise of her throat … to the face he knew so well. But even that had changed. Everything was now at once more dramatic and more fragile: the arch of feathery eyebrows above the gray-green mist of her gaze, the perfectly sculpted cheekbones and nose, the lips—how in the world had he never noticed before?—full and achingly soft. He thought of the night they had slept together, of how lovely she had seemed to him even then. Somehow he had known, somehow he had sensed, that this woman before him now had always been Janie. But it was like waking up from a dream and finding the dream still going on—that the beauty he promised Janie she possessed should suddenly appear to him in actuality.

  “You look…” he said, stumbling over the words, “terrific.”

  “I know,” Janie replied, sounding just as shocked as Zach felt. “I guess I didn’t realize how much weight I’d lost. My mind has been on so many other things. And then, late this afternoon, I had a little time to kill and decided to go shopping. My God, Zach … I’m a size eight! I … I just couldn’t believe it. Look at this skirt.” Janie ran her hand along the sheath of green knitted cotton. “I’ve never even dreamed of wearing anything like it before. But the saleswoman said it fit me so well and, you know, it really did. You don’t think it’s too much?” Janie demanded, suddenly anxious and turning to him for reassurance. “I’ve been getting a lot of … stares.” Janie hadn’t been paying attention to it, but lately men had started to look at her in a new way. Where before, their gazes would wash over her—on rare occasion slide back for a quick second take on her face—now she felt the heat of their intensifying interest.

  Janie would blush and glance uncomfortably away, as nervous as a teenage girl just blossoming into womanhood. She’d been a wallflower, a nobody, another unnoticed single woman for so many years … it seemed a miracle that this could be happening to her now. It was Alain, she told herself, who had made it all possible. Without knowing it, he had given her a dream to hold onto and then, in the last few weeks, he had offered her other, tantalizingly real incentives. More roses had followed the book. And just that afternoon, he had telephoned from Paris.

  “Melina’s not here,” Janie had told him when the call had been put through to her line.

  “It was you I really wanted to speak to,” Alain had informed her smoothly. Was he telling the truth? A part of Janie really didn’t care. If it was a lie, it was too sweet to resist. “I just wanted to make sure you were still coming. It’s been so long since we last spoke. Did you get the flowers?”

  “Oh, yes,” J
anie had replied, “and the book. I was going to thank you when I saw you. The gestures … were so very kind.” She knew the words were awkward, but then she had no idea what he had meant by the gifts.

  “Yes … gestures,” Alain had replied. “They’re all we really have, aren’t they, to say what we cannot say?”

  Janie had been mulling over that cryptic statement all afternoon and still could not come up with a satisfactory explanation for what he had meant. It didn’t matter. In another two days she’d be with him again—walking the corridors of his estate, touching his things, seeing his private world as she had dreamed of doing for years. She would have a full week to study him, to breathe the air he breathed. She felt warmed by these thoughts, her face aglow with anticipation.

  Zach studied her quietly: the beautiful, dreamy expression was not unlike some Degas ballerina backstage staring off into the stage lights. She was transformed, he realized, freed at last from the drudgery of her weight. She seemed ready to take wing, to start a new life. She had somehow found the courage to do what he had been telling her to do for years now. So why was he so angry with her? What was it in him that made him want to turn her back into what she had been?

  He could feel a new energy, a quickness, a shine. He could sense the whirring anticipation of flight. And he was, he realized with a stab of guilt, not so much angry with her … as afraid. In some unvoiced proprietary way, he had let himself believe that she belonged to him all these years. He had always considered himself her best advisor, her staunchest champion. Hadn’t he always seen that she could be a beauty? Hadn’t he always promised her that she could become whatever she wanted, that it was all within her grasp? Of course, he told himself bitterly, but what did any of that matter now that she could see it so plainly for herself?

  “You do think it’s too much,” Janie announced, interrupting his thoughts.

  “What?” Zach demanded, then continued somewhat sarcastically, “Oh that? No … it’s fine. Just a little different. I’ve become so accustomed to thinking of you swathed in fabric, it’s a bit alarming to find you stripped down to the quick.”