“You look pretty good yourself.” Kate was wearing a black sable coat over the Dior suit, with heels almost as high as Julie’s. Together they made an impressive pair, and photographers from Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily took their photograph as they walked in. All heads turned for an instant, and every man in the area stared at Julie. She looked sexy and young and chic.
Julie helped herself to a glass of champagne as a tray was passed around, and observed the scene shyly. She had always been less confident than her mother and older sister, and it had comforted her growing up to be a twin. She had relied on Justin to protect her and speak for her. And being dyslexic made her less sure of herself than her siblings. And socializing without Justin as an adult was still hard.
Kate introduced her to a few people she knew, and half an hour later they went in to dinner, which had been set up in the Egyptian wing. There were smoky gold tablecloths, and Tiffany had provided gold china, which looked striking on the tables. And with Julie’s exotic look with her tight red dress, dark hair, and bright red lipstick, she fit right in.
They were seated at a table of ten, with two fashion editors Kate knew vaguely across the table. There was a well-known curator of the Met seated next to Kate, and a younger man next to Julie who had come with a date. He seemed to have no interest in his companion once he spotted Julie, and engaged her in conversation as soon as he sat down. He worked for a large corporation, and said he had moved to New York two years before. He had lived in Chicago and Atlanta before that, and was really enjoying New York and the people he had met since he arrived. His date was pale and blond, and was talking to a man on her other side.
“My name is Peter White,” he said with a warm smile, a few minutes after they sat down, and Julie introduced herself. She was so deeply engaged in her design work in the fashion world, he was the kind of man she normally never met. She seldom went out, and when she did it was with people she worked with, or other designers or artists. She never had a chance to meet young corporate men, and she wasn’t sure what to say to him. He carried the conversational ball for her, and had her laughing after half an hour. She was enjoying the evening, and drank just enough wine to relax, but not too much. She didn’t mind an occasional evening of excess, but not when she was out with her mother at a major event, and this was just that.
By the time dessert was served, she and Peter felt like old friends.
“Do you come to the Met a lot?” he asked her. He was very well dressed and very polished, and seemed like he’d be comfortable in any setting, and he looked strong and athletic. He had told her he was a big sports fan, and loved going to football and hockey games.
“I only come here with my mother,” Julie said honestly, in her soft smoky voice that men thought was sexy and enchanting. She was striking and exotic looking with her dark hair, white skin, and big brown eyes. “I don’t go out a lot. I work long hours.”
“That sounds intriguing.” He smiled at her and she laughed.
“Not very. I’m a designer.” She mentioned the brand and he looked impressed.
“You must be very talented.”
“Not really. I’ve been drawing clothes since I was a kid. I liked drawing better than school, so I did it as a job as soon as I could. I went to Parsons School of Design.”
They were still talking animatedly when the dinner ended, and he lingered to chat with her for a few more minutes until his date finally turned her attention to him again, and Kate turned to Julie. She had noticed Peter talking to her all evening, and didn’t want to interfere. He was good-looking and seemed intelligent, and was mesmerized by Julie.
He said goodbye to Julie as his date pulled him away to introduce him to someone. She had a strong southern accent and seemed cloying as she slipped her hand into his arm and glued herself to him, and Julie whispered to her mother.
“Can we go yet?”
“In a minute. You looked like you were having a good time with your dinner partner.”
“He was fine,” Julie said noncommittally. She didn’t want to get her mother started about her needing to meet men.
“What does he do? Did he tell you?” Kate asked her.
“I don’t know. He’s some kind of corporate executive. He’s lived in New York for two years, and he likes hockey games.” Kate laughed as Julie summed up two hours of conversation in two sentences. He had disappeared into the crowd by then with his date. And a few minutes later, Kate and Julie left. The party was winding down. But in spite of her resistance to evenings like that, Julie looked like she’d had a good time and so had Kate. The curator she sat next to had been fascinating. And they talked about the evening on the way downtown.
“You should keep that dress. It looks terrific on you,” Kate complimented her.
“Thanks, Mom. I like it a lot. I might even wear it again sometime.”
“You should. And it made a big hit with your dinner partner. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you.”
“I think he was just bored with his date. He didn’t talk to her all night.” Kate had noticed that too.
“Maybe he liked you better,” Kate said, and Julie smiled.
She dropped Julie off at her apartment and watched her go in, and then had the cabdriver drop her off in SoHo. She had a message from Bernard when she got home, but it was too late to call him. It was five in the morning in Paris. And by the time he got up, she’d be asleep. The time difference was hard to manage sometimes, so he sent her a lot of emails and texts. He was due in New York in two weeks, and Kate was looking forward to it. She missed him. She was pleased that the evening had been a success, and that she had gotten Julie to join her. It was good for her self-confidence to have a man riveted by her. And Peter White certainly had been.
—
Julie was startled when Peter White called her at the office the next day. She had mentioned the firm she worked for but was surprised that he remembered.
“They told me you’re the head designer,” he said when she answered, flustered. She hadn’t expected him to call her.
“Well, I guess I am…sort of…we all do the work here,” she said modestly. The designer who owned the brand got all the glory and acclaim, but Julie and her design team did all the work.
“Don’t be so humble. I really enjoyed the evening last night because of you. I’m calling to see if you would like to go to a hockey game with me tomorrow night. It won’t be as glamorous as last night, but hockey games are a lot of fun, if you’ve never been to one.”
“I went to a couple with my brother. He used to love them too.”
“Older brother or younger?” He was curious about her.
“Neither. Well, older, technically, by five minutes. We’re twins.”
“How fascinating. I always wished I had a twin brother.”
“It was great. I hated it when he went to college, and we didn’t go to school together anymore. We’re still best friends.”
“Does he live here?” Peter asked her.
“No, Vermont. I go to see him whenever I can, when I’m not working.” She was much more timid on the phone than she had been the night before. Being dressed up and out with her mother was like playacting. Now he had entered her real life, which was different.
“So how about the game tomorrow? Any interest?” He sounded hopeful.
She thought about it for an instant while he waited for her answer. “I’d like that. Thank you very much.”
“Dress warm,” he said, seeming protective of her.
“I know.” She giggled and sounded very young.
“Where should I pick you up?” She gave him her address, and told him she’d be waiting outside. She never had strangers to her apartment now that she lived alone. “Where is that?” he asked, puzzled. The street didn’t sound familiar to him.
“On the Bowery, downtown.” It was the kind of seedy, arty, eclectic neighborhood she liked. “Where do you live?”
“East Seventy-ninth Street, uptown, near the East River.” It
was where most successful people like him lived, on the Upper East Side. All of her family and friends lived downtown in SoHo, Tribeca, the East and West Village, the Meatpacking District, and her artist friends in Chelsea, and many in Brooklyn. It was a whole other world from his.
“Do you mind coming downtown?” she asked, feeling guilty for making him come so far to pick her up. “Or I could meet you at Madison Square Garden. I’ll just take the subway uptown.”
“Of course not.” He was shocked at the suggestion. “I’m happy to pick you up.” And then he asked her for her cellphone number and email, in case he needed to get in touch with her when he was on the way. “See you tomorrow, Julie,” he said, excited to see her again. She wondered what had happened to his date of the night before, and if she was important to him. But it didn’t look like it, and he had spent the whole dinner talking to her and was taking her to the game. She called her brother and told him about it, and Justin was happy for her. He couldn’t remember the last time she had a date, and he assumed Peter was an appropriate person if she had met him at the Met with their mother. He told her to have fun before they hung up. Julie was smiling to herself about it as she went back to work.
—
When she went to the game with Peter, Julie had even more fun than she’d had at the Met. She wore black jeans and her favorite combat boots, a black parka, and a big white angora sweater, and her dark hair was down and framed her face. She wore very little makeup and looked even younger than she had on Monday night. They ate hot dogs and popcorn and ice cream at the game, and she asked for cotton candy when the vendor walked by and Peter laughed.
“Okay, I have to ask you. How old are you? Will I go to jail for being out with you?” He was laughing when he asked the question. She looked like such a kid, and had put a white knit cap on at the game. And her face was covered with cotton candy when she answered, with a pink spot on her nose and chin.
“I love cotton candy.” She grinned at him. “I’m thirty. Why?”
“You look a lot younger. Especially tonight without the sexy dress and high heels.” He teased her about her combat boots, which were her favorite shoes, and he said he loved that she could go from one extreme to the other and was totally at ease at a hockey game, and screamed as loud as he did when the Rangers scored a goal. They were playing the Bruins, there had been several fights on the ice already, and it was a heated game. He told Julie that he loved being there with her, and that his date from Savannah, his companion at the Met, had always refused to go with him. He seemed delighted Julie had come, and fit right in.
“How old are you?” she asked him, equally interested. She liked him. He was smart and respectful and fun to be with. She felt safe and at ease with him. And he had old-fashioned manners, the way he treated women.
“I’m thirty-four,” he said, as the Rangers scored another goal and they both stood up and screamed. The Rangers won the game, and neither of them were hungry afterward after all they’d eaten, but he took her to a bar he knew that looked like an English pub, and they had a glass of wine, and talked for a long time.
The conversation was more relaxed than it had been at the Met. It made a difference that they were wearing jeans, and had been eating hot dogs and screaming for two hours. This was much more real. He told her that he came from a small town in Iowa and had two brothers. His parents were still married, and his father was the CFO of an insurance company, and his mother had stayed at home with them. He was the oldest child, had gone to the University of Iowa, and business school at Northwestern, and had been in the corporate world ever since. His brothers had remained small-town boys, and were both married and had kids. Although they were younger, they had been married for years. “I prefer a big city. My brothers think I’m crazy. They came to visit me here and hated it. I know that’s hard to believe. How can anyone hate New York? I love it here.”
“So do I,” she said with a broad smile. “My brother moved to Vermont and I thought he would hate it, but he loves it. He lives there with his partner.”
“Male or female partner?” he asked boldly, but she didn’t mind.
“Male,” she said simply. “They’re having a baby in August.”
“Are your parents okay about it?”
“My father died when I was six,” she said matter-of-factly. “And my mother is worried. She thinks it’s a lot of responsibility for them. I can’t even imagine having kids yet.” It was a lot of information for Peter to digest at once, but he had asked and she was candid with him. She was very much her own person, and even though she was shy, she was totally open about who she was, and he liked that about her too.
“It must have been hard growing up without a father,” he said sympathetically.
“I think it was harder for my brothers. But my mother always made it okay for us. It bothered my twin brother sometimes. But my mom is terrific. She was a very hands-on mother, even though she had to work.”
“What does she do?”
“She runs a high-end resale shop. And actually she just started an offshoot of it on the Internet. I think it’s going to do really well,” Julie said proudly. Peter could tell how close she was to her family—far more than he was to his. He only went home now once a year, if that, for Christmas. And if had a good excuse, he skipped it entirely.
They had a second glass of wine and then he took her back to the Bowery in a cab, and she apologized for taking him so far out of his way. But he insisted he wanted to, and sounded as though he meant it. He kept the cab while he walked her to the door of her building, and she was glad he didn’t pressure her to come up. She wouldn’t have liked that. It was much too soon, and apparently he thought so too.
“Let’s do it again soon,” Peter said before he left her. “Not necessarily a hockey game, but dinner…something…I’ll call you. Tonight was great.” She thought so too.
She thanked him and he hugged her, and once she was through the door, he hopped in the cab, and they drove off.
She took the stairs two at a time in her combat boots, and let herself into her apartment. She had a text from Justin as soon as she walked in. She answered him even before she took off her hat and coat.
“How was your date?” he asked her.
“Teriffic,” she wrote back, and as always she wrote it with one “r” and two “f”s. Spelling was not her forte. Justin smiled when he saw it. And he was pleased she’d finally met someone she liked and had fun with on her date. He wanted her to be as happy as he was.
Chapter 12
When Bernard returned to New York, he stayed for ten days this time. He took a room at the Four Seasons, as he had before, but he stayed with Kate. It was fun doing things with him in New York, and they were both busy. He went to meetings with firms he was interested in investing in. And she was swamped with online sales, and she had to add items to their website almost every day. Their brand-new Internet business was already a huge success, and she could hardly keep up with their sales.
They ran into Liam one day when they went to a farmers market in the West Village, and he looked surprised to see them together. He called Kate about it the next day.
“Is something going on with you and Bernard?” he asked her, seeming confused and surprised, and she decided to be honest with him. She never lied to Liam, she just hadn’t been ready to tell him yet. But their romance was as successful as her online business. And she and Bernard both felt as though they’d been together for years.
“Yes,” she confessed. “We had dinner here a couple of times. And it started in Paris. I was going to tell you. It’s still kind of new.” Although it didn’t feel it. And Liam cut to the chase.
“Is he married?” He had assumed that he was, wedding band or not.
“What makes you ask that?” She was startled by how astute he was, and wondered why he had asked the question.
“Frenchmen his age usually are. Unless they’re widowed. They never get divorced. Or very, very few.” Bernard had said as much himself.
“So he says. And yes, he’s married, but he and his wife have an ‘arrangement.’ They’re legally married, but lead separate lives, and have for years.”
“That’s what they all say,” Liam said skeptically. “And then you find out that they’re more married than you thought. Kate, be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt.” It sounded like a bad idea to him.
“Neither do I. But it seems to be true in his case. We went out every night in Paris, and he stayed with me. He didn’t go home to her.”
“Maybe she was away.”
“Or maybe he’s telling the truth. That’s a possibility too.” She was mildly annoyed at Liam for being such a cynic and raining on her parade. “Can’t you be happy for me? I haven’t had a man in my life in years.”
“I just want it to be the right one. Not some smooth operator who breaks your heart. Would you want this for one of your daughters?”
“Of course not. But I’m not a kid. And I think he’s an honest man,” she said defensively.
“In business, I’d agree with you. I don’t know about the rest.”
“We’ll see.” But she was having a great time with him. And she introduced him to Julie when she came to the store to help Kate upload merchandise photos to her website.
“I like him, Mom,” she said when he went uptown for a meeting, and promised to be back in time to take her to dinner that night. “He’s nice.”
“I think so too,” Kate said, smiling at her.
“Is it serious?” She wanted her mother to be happy too. She was seeing a lot of Peter White. He was the kindest man she’d ever met, and the most polite. He had kissed her, but she hadn’t slept with him yet. He was very respectful of her and didn’t want to rush.
“It’s not serious yet,” Kate answered. “He lives there. I live here. But for now it seems to work.” But there was no question in Kate’s mind. She was falling in love with him rapidly, more so every day.
“Would you ever move to Paris?” Julie looked worried when she asked her, and Kate shook her head.
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