by Belva Plain
“I don’t know. Lillian—that’s her name, Lillian Anderson—was very mysterious. We’ll be having a late lunch, so I probably won’t get home before six. I’m leaving a roasted chicken in the oven for you and Katie for dinner tonight.”
–—
“I want to write a series of Laura McAllister books,” Lillian announced through a stream of cigarette smoke. She used a black cigarette holder, the frames of her outsized eyeglasses were black and so was the headband that held back her blond bob. She was very dramatic when she spoke. “I am going to make us both a fortune, and you’ll be a household name!”
“You want to write a book about me?”
“I want to write one with you—and it’ll be more than one book. Essentially they’ll be an extension of your how-to column, but for an upscale reader. The books will be hardcover with all the bells and whistles, including tons of gorgeous photography featuring you demonstrating how to make finger sandwiches, or regrout a bathroom, or whatever. I’ll collaborate with you on the text.”
“But I’m not an expert on doing those things. I write my columns for a few hundred readers who know I don’t have any training. I just suggest what works for me.”
“That’s the point, dear! You’re Everywoman. You’ve never been to a culinary institute but you can cater a wedding—and bake and decorate the wedding cake. You’re not a professional gardener, or a professional decorator, but you do all of that as well. And you are able to explain it simply, so other women can do it too.” Lillian stubbed out her cigarette. “The way I see it, these books will really be about a lifestyle, Laura. A gracious one that is slipping away. If people want it today they have to pay a professional to do it for them, and most folks can’t afford that. But you’re offering them a way to create some of it for themselves.”
Laura’s mind flashed back to her grandmother’s house. “It was so generous,” she said softly. “That’s what we all remember. There was so much generosity and care.”
“In those old-fashioned homes our mothers ran? Is that what you mean?”
“And our grandmothers. That was how they said they loved us, with the meals they cooked, and rooms they decorated, and gardens they planted.”
“Gardening and generosity—I never thought of it like that.”
“Neither did I before this minute.”
“So, I’m getting the feeling that you’d like to work with me on this?”
“Yes. I want to.”
“Thank God! Because I’ve already sold the idea to Crescent Publishing.”
“Crescent Publishing? They published a book by my husband’s college professor.”
“Yes, they’re a classy outfit. And now they’re trying to break into the more popular market. They’re very excited about you.”
–—
“My first book will be titled Laura’s Weddings,” Laura told Phil. “I’ll teach my reader—doesn’t that sound grand? ‘My reader.’ ”
“Very grand. Go on.”
“I’ll teach her everything she needs to know to put together an at-home wedding. I’ll show her how to make her own invitations and arrange her flowers, and there will be several chapters on picking a menu and recipes. I’ve even got a pattern for a little pouch to hold the birdseed the guests will throw at the bride and groom.”
“Why are you starting with a book about weddings?”
“Because I’m going to be doing Steve and Christina’s.” Steve had finally asked the ever-so-patient Christina to be his wife. “They’re getting married the second week in June so the timing for the book couldn’t be better, and all the photography for the illustrations can be done in my house because the wedding will be in my ballroom, and I’ve built a brand-new kitchen for the catering portion of the business in the basement, so—”
“Hold on. You’re telling me you managed to convince Steve to let you put his wedding in your book?”
“It’ll really be about me and what I do.”
“But still, this is Steve we’re talking about. It took him forever to ask Christina to marry him because he hates fuss.”
“Yes, but I promised him that all the publicity would mention that he works for a not-for-profit organization that can always use donations, and he didn’t mind so much.”
“You are a manipulative woman.”
“I prefer the word persuasive.”
“You bribed him.”
“I had to.” Laura laughed. “I wanted him to agree. Lillian says the book will be much more personal and appealing if the wedding I’m planning is a family affair.”
“Oh, I understand that—but you’re still manipulative.”
–—
Laura hadn’t realized how much preparation went into the publishing of a book; it seemed to her as if Lillian was sending her daily notes about chapter headings and the correct way to spell “genoise.” But the real work on the project, as everyone liked to call it, couldn’t begin until a photographer was chosen.
“I know just the man,” Lillian said. “He’s amazing. You’ll adore him and he’ll make you and the wedding look like a million bucks. I’ll set up lunch for us.”
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you,” Laura said.
She waited for two weeks without hearing a word.
“Maybe this whole book was just a figment of my imagination,” she joked to Robby.
“That would make me feel a lot better about Crescent Publishing” he said. And he wasn’t joking.
“Really? It would?” She tried to keep the edge out of her voice.
“Come on, Laura. They publish serious educational textbooks. Not tips for the happy homemaker. But I guess even a publishing house like Crescent will do anything to make a dollar.”
“I’m sure you didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
He had the grace to be ashamed. “I’m sorry. I just can’t help remembering when I was the one who was going to write books. Important ones about civilization and the history of mankind, fool that I was.”
“There’s still time …”
“For what? I’ve been away from my real work for so long I don’t even remember who I was.”
“You could go back to school … maybe now it would be easier because there’s less pressure. I can support us.”
Why do I keep trying? Because I feel so sorry for him. And I’m tired of feeling sorry for the man in my life.
“Oh yes. That would be the final humiliation, wouldn’t it? You already support us, my darling. I couldn’t have afforded that fancy new car you bought—”
“I needed it for the business … when I drive to appointments with clients—”
“That’s not the point,” he said as if he were talking to a child who wasn’t very smart. “On the miserable salary I make—and don’t think I ever forget for one minute that I owe my job to your brother’s charity—I could never compete with you.”
“Robby, we’re a couple. There’s no competition between us.” But that was a lie, and they both knew it.
Robby turned away. “I’m just saying, don’t be surprised if wiser heads have prevailed over at Crescent Publishing, and that’s why you haven’t heard from this hack writer they’ve assigned to you or the photographer you’ve never met. They could have decided the book isn’t up to their standards and they’re not going through with it.”
Even though Laura knew he’d just said it to be unkind, it rattled her. She tried calling Lillian Anderson, but the woman’s answering service said she wasn’t available. She started to call her editor at Crescent Publishing, but then she decided that would seem like she was worried about the project—which she was by then, but there was no need to let anyone know that. And then she had something more important than her book to worry about.
–—
“What are you talking about, Robby?” she demanded. It was a couple of days after their conversation about Crescent Publishing, and Robby had come home from work even though it was the middle of the morning. “What do you mean, yo
u quit your job at the museum?”
“I couldn’t do it anymore—okay? I couldn’t keep on taking orders from Leland Barker’s crew of rich, smug bastards.”
“So you just walked out?”
“They think because they’ve managed to make a lot of money it means that they are qualified to tell me what to do. Well, they’re not. I’m the archaeologist, Laura. I’m the professional!” He was shouting, defending himself, but his voice was close to cracking. In spite of all his anger, he was scared. And his pride had been hurt.
I’m so tired of feeling sorry for him.
But she couldn’t seem to help it. “What are you going to do now?” she asked more gently.
Instantly, his eyes lit up. “I have an idea. You were the one who suggested it, really.”
“I did?”
“You said you’d support us if I wanted to go back to school. Well, I’m not going to do that, I’m finished with university life, it’s too political, and too cutthroat. But I know I could write that book I always dreamed of.”
“You want to write a book?”
“I know I haven’t always followed through when I said I was going to do something. And maybe I didn’t try as hard as I could have to please Leland Barker. I never wanted to work at the museum, that was your brother’s idea—and yours. But this is different, Laura. This is something I really want to do. Just give me six months, and if I don’t have half a manuscript in shape to show to a publisher, I promise you I’ll take any job you want me to.”
If she didn’t say yes, he was going to be miserable. And he was going to make her life miserable. He’d hang around the house all day long while she tried to run her business and plan Steve and Christina’s wedding and work with Lillian. If Lillian ever bothered to return her calls.
“Don’t give yourself a deadline, Robby. Take as long as you need.”
–—
Robby rented a small office for himself in town. He said he couldn’t write at home, because Laura’s catering business caused too much confusion and noise. He was up and gone every morning by eight. When he’d worked at the museum he had waited around so he could drive Katie to school, but that was now Laura’s job.
One morning, she awakened a half hour late. She grabbed an old corduroy skirt and a faded sweater, pulled them on and, not bothering to put on hose, jammed her feet into a pair of shabby loafers before running downstairs to make Katie’s breakfast and take her to school. When she returned, she headed for the kitchen. Normally when she was cooking or doing anything around the house, she wore a coverall. She had several of them, which she’d designed and sewn herself, all in bright colors and cut to flatter a figure like hers with her long slender legs and small waist. Laura liked to look pretty when she was working.
This morning, having gotten a late start, she didn’t bother to change her clothes but went straight to work rolling out the pâté brisee for the mushroom tarts she’d be serving at a cocktail party later in the week. But just as she was getting started, Molly scratched at her knee, asking to go outside. The dog was old now and didn’t see well, so she often got lost, and preferred to have a human companion when she ventured out of the house.
“All right, all right,” Laura said. She popped the dough into the refrigerator. “I’ll come with you.”
It was one of those early days in spring that can break the heart. The sky was turquoise blue, deep, yet clear enough to see through, with little puffs of white cloud scattered over it. The sun had warmed the ground, and green shoots were starting to poke up from under the mat of dried brown lawn left by winter. Underneath the old oaks that lined the driveway leading up to the house, the violets and lilies of the valley were preparing to flower, and in Laura’s gardens a few early crocuses and daffodils were sending out tentative blooms.
Laura led Molly down the steps of the wraparound porch and onto the grass. The old dog sniffed the air with a grunt of approval, and suddenly, without warning, began to run. The house was far back from the road and Molly would tire long before she reached it, but Laura kicked off her shoes and chased after her anyway. The brittle grass pricked her bare feet, her hair was flying and so was her skirt, and for a moment she was sixteen again and the only care she had in the world was deciding which of three smitten young men she’d choose to escort her to the spring dance.
“Molly, you demon, enough!” she called out, laughing. The dog stopped her mad dash, and laid down, panting happily, as Laura ran up and sat down on the grass beside her. Molly began rolling around on the warm earth in ecstasy.
“Oh, that must feel good,” Laura said. “If I could, I’d join you.”
“Me too,” said a masculine voice behind her. She whirled around to see a man standing in the sunshine.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m Nicolas Sargent. I’m the guy who’s going to be taking your picture.”
Chapter Seventeen
His hair was black and it was curly; stray tendrils of it fell onto his face. That was the first thing Laura noticed about him. That, and his eyes, which were not brown, as she would have expected in a man with such dark hair, but a light color, somewhere between green and blue. They were fringed with lashes that were almost too long for a man. He wasn’t handsome in a conventional sense—his features were too craggy for that, and his mouth was too wide. But there was such intelligence in those green-blue eyes. He was dressed like a teenager, in blue jeans, a T-shirt and work boots, with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder.
He was shading his eyes from the sunlight. And he was staring at her. She wondered how long he’d been doing that. Without thinking, she pulled her skirt down to cover as much of her bare legs and feet as she could. He shook his head slightly as if to clear it. “Lil didn’t tell you I was coming this morning?” he asked. His voice was deep, with a slight huskiness to it.
“No.”
“I should have known! She’s been rewriting an article she did, and when she’s working like that she shuts out everything else. I bet you couldn’t get her on the phone either.”
“No.”
“Lil’s talented, but she can be flaky.”
“I see.”
I’m a grown woman with a child and a husband and a business. It’s absurd for me to be tongue-tied.
“I wish I had known you were coming,” she said, and looked down at herself. “I’m not exactly dressed … this isn’t the way I dress for a business meeting … when I’m meeting someone for the purposes of business.”
Idiot!
“Yes, I was hoping for the coverall,” he said. “The one Lil says you wear when you refinish the floors while baking bread and—I think she said you also parted the sea at one point?”
“No, no, I just walked on it.”
And now she was flirting with him like a schoolgirl. As if she weren’t pathetic enough sitting in the dirt in her old clothes with her windblown hair and her bare feet. But he was smiling, and his green-blue eyes were sparkling. He was enjoying this. Enjoying her. It had been such a long time since a man had … “Lil makes way too much of what I do,” she said.
He stopped smiling. “I think I’ll judge that for myself,” he said seriously. And when he was serious, those green-blue eyes could send a shock wave through to the inside of your bones.
She stood up. “I need to bring Molly inside,” she said. She grabbed the dog’s collar, and she and Nick walked back up the hill, stopping briefly so she could retrieve her shabby shoes. When they reached the house, he opened the kitchen door for her, and she went in with Molly in tow, being careful not to let herself accidentally touch him. Which was ridiculous.
She served him tea, the quintessential old lady’s drink, as benign and boring as the color beige, and brought him into her office in the living room to drink it. The kitchen would have been too informal.
“How long will we be working together?” she asked, all business.
“That depends on you. According to Lil I’m to document every phase of your work on the wedding f
rom beginning to end.”
“There’s always some last-minute job to do right up until the day of the wedding.”
“Then I’ll be in your life for the next three months.”
Three months. He’d be coming to her home, and he’d be “in her life,” as he’d put it, for the next three months.
–—
Laura didn’t see Nick for several days after that initial meeting. He had other assignments he was finishing, and she had other jobs she was working on, in addition to Steve and Christina’s wedding. When he finally came back, he was scheduled to shoot pictures of her empty ballroom and terrace. Since the wedding dinner would take place in the ballroom and the cocktails would be served on the terrace, he’d get shots later of Laura decorating these areas and setting up the chairs, tables, buffets and wet bars that would be needed. Lil, who had reemerged from her seclusion and was now working with Laura again, had explained all of this.
Even though she wouldn’t be in any of the pictures Nick was taking on the first day, Laura had pulled her hair up high on her head, so it fell into a shiny mane down her back, and she’d worn her prettiest coverall in her favorite shade of pink.
Nick arrived in his car, and behind him two assistants—a boy and a girl—drove a van that was loaded with equipment. It hadn’t occurred to Laura that he probably wouldn’t come alone. She told herself that she should have known.
Nick and his helpers began unloading big boxes made of wood and metal from the back of the van. Inside the boxes were cameras, lights, cables, toolboxes, gels, light filters and a whole array of gauzy white screens and umbrellas that, Nick told her, were used for shadowing and depth. This somewhat cryptic statement was the only thing he said to her all morning; he went straight to work and soon he was totally absorbed in what he was doing.
He was all over the ballroom: climbing ladders, hanging lights, setting up his shots, working for some specific vision that he alone could see. His assistants—they had finally introduced themselves as Diana and Jeff—bantered with him as they followed his orders skillfully and quickly. Often they seemed to know what he was going to want of them before he asked for it. Diana particularly seemed to be able to read Nick’s mind. Laura watched her and wondered if she was more than an assistant to him. She wasn’t a pretty girl, exactly. But she had a quick smile that was delightful, and it was clear Nick relied on her more than Jeff. Telling herself that was none of her business, Laura left the ballroom and went to her desk. She had her own work to do.