Birthday Girls

by Jean Stone

  The last, the most difficult, was Abigail.

  “The first thing you’ll need is a new identity,” Kris said.

  “How’s she going to do that?” Maddie asked. “Her face is known all over the world.”

  “Leave it to me,” Kris added. But she did not want to elaborate on her plan.

  Devon and Claire lived on the opposite side of Central Park from Kris—the west side. Sunday afternoon, Kris arrived at their one-hundred-year-old townhouse armed with fat, chocolate-chunk cookies and a tub of double-fudge ice cream. Food was always a good icebreaker with her agent, and this was one adventure Kris couldn’t begin without him.

  Claire greeted her at the door with a warm smile, a hug, and “What a surprise!” Leading Kris down the narrow hallway out to the patio, she chastised her all the way. “We don’t see enough of you,” Claire scolded. “The kids are growing up so fast while their godmother is traipsing all over the world.”

  “I know, I know,” Kris said. “Where are they?”

  “Kristine is at a birthday party—can you believe she’s almost ten? Tyronne is at his friend’s working on their science project, and Jarrod is playing basketball.” As Claire said Jarrod’s name she looked back at Kris and widened her eyes, which told her she hoped Jarrod was playing basketball. She opened the patio door and gestured toward Devon. “He’s all yours.”

  “My God,” Devon said as he set down the Times. “I didn’t think you surfaced on Sundays.”

  “Be nice,” Kris said, handing the ice cream to Claire and dropping the cookies on the white wrought-iron table. “I brought food.” She settled on the floral-print cushion of a willow chair and looked around the patio. The late afternoon sun warmed the concrete; the scent of autumn crispness was in the air. The muted sounds of traffic and life—city sounds—floated over the tall wood fence that shielded them from the world.

  “I’ll get coffee,” Claire said. “How about hazelnut?”

  “Great,” Kris said with a nod, and Claire, the perfect hostess, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, disappeared. Kris wondered what kind of mother she herself would be … if she would have a bright, fun kid like Kristine or Tyronne, or if she would end up with a troublesome one like Jarrod.

  “So,” Devon interrupted her thoughts, “what’s the big favor?”

  She blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “You wouldn’t drop by—announced or otherwise—unless something big was up. Unless you needed something.”

  Kris crossed her legs and looked down at the hem of her jeans. It was always so hard to find size 2’s that reached below her ankle—thankfully, the short brown suede boots took the curse off her too-long legs. “That’s my Devon. Right to the point.”

  “So? What’s up?”

  She tipped back her head and let the sun warm her cheeks. “Nothing special. I have a new idea for the next book and I need to do some research.”

  “Don’t tell me. Lexi Marks meets a literary agent.”

  Kris laughed. “No offense, Devon, but I’m afraid your world is not exciting enough for Ms. Marks.”

  Claire returned with a mug of steaming coffee. “Is this business, or may I join you?”

  Devon reached out and patted her arm. “Business first, okay, honey?”

  “Only if you don’t let Kris get away. I want her to see what I’ve done with the media room.”

  “The media room?” Kris asked.

  Devon laughed. “The den of the nineties. Kids today call it a media room.”

  Kris tried to smile. Well, she thought, that’s one thing I suppose I’ll learn if I have a kid … if it’s at all possible.

  Claire went back inside and left Kris and Devon alone. “So what’s the idea?”

  “I haven’t worked it through yet. But I need to know how it can work. I want a character to disappear. Change her identity. New name. New credentials. That sort of thing.”

  “Jesus, Kris, that’s been done a thousand times.”

  “Not by Kris Kensington.”

  “Still, it’s nothing new.”

  She turned her chair to face him. “I’ve already said I haven’t worked it through yet. But I need to talk with someone who can tell me how it’s done.”

  Devon reached into the bag and pulled out a cookie. “How would I know?”

  “You probably wouldn’t. But I thought with your old contacts …”

  “You mean the guys from the old neighborhood?”

  Kris smiled. It was no secret that unlike Kris, Devon had been raised in the tenements of Harlem, that Devon knew what was what and who was who: knew then, knew now. For the most part, his contacts weren’t merely friends. They were his family—his extended family, as he was to her.

  “Can you help me?”

  The lines on his brow deepened. Slowly he chewed. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “I don’t like the idea, Kris. I don’t think it will work.”

  “Trust me.”

  “You can’t afford another Escape to Ellis Island.”

  Kris winced. Escape to Ellis Island had been the first book of hers that had bombed. Unfortunately, the publisher had given her a six-figure advance. Unfortunately, the publisher did not do likewise on the book that followed. And the huge drop in sales had reflected it. It had taken three more books—and four more years—for Kris to prove her bestseller talents again. Equally unfortunate was that Ellis Island had been all her idea, one that Devon had not liked. “Too dark,” he’d said; “not uplifting.” Apparently her readers agreed. But Kris had not felt like being “uplifting” when she was working on the manuscript. Her mother had died the summer before, and her father the following spring. If anything had been dark, it had been Kris’s heart. Unfortunately, it had come through in her work.

  But Ellis Island was then and this was now. And this wasn’t about unmarketable ideas. It was about Abigail, though Devon would never know. She straightened in the chair and looked squarely into his eyes.

  “I’m sure I could find another agent to help.” She steadied her chin, she steadied her gaze, to let him know she wasn’t kidding.

  “It’s that important?”

  “Like I said. Trust me.”

  Devon sighed. “Sometimes I wonder how I ever got myself hooked up with you.” He took another cookie. “Okay. No promises, but I’ll do my best. I have a friend who does some work for the FBI. The witness protection program.”

  Her insides tingled. “No shit.”

  “No shit. Now have a cookie, or I’ll eat them all along with my words.”

  She only stayed for an hour. After Kris left, Devon remained on the patio, wondering what she was up to this time. He didn’t believe for a minute that she wanted to have a character disappear.

  Kris had done enough research in her life—by meeting people, studying books, and simply through observation—that she could have figured out what she claimed to need without his help. No, Devon thought. Kris is definitely up to something.

  He sighed and lit a fat cigar—the kind that Claire would never allow him to smoke in the house. Claire—his wife, his mate. He wondered if Claire was ever suspicious about Kris and him, if she ever doubted their relationship of business-not-pleasure. Then he shifted uncomfortably on the flowered cushion, puffed a long, rich puff, and wondered if Kris had any idea what it was like for him.

  Kris had expected that Mo Gilbert operated on the streets, that she’d find him sequestered in the rear booth of a dark, seedy bar on 110th Street. She did not expect that he would have an office suite beyond the huge waterfall off the marble atrium in the Fifth Avenue building where she lived. She also did not expect that Mo Gilbert, Devon’s long-time friend, would be white.

  But the white-haired man was as white as they come—as was the entire decor of his office in which she now sat on Monday morning while he talked on the phone, while she tried to avert her eyes from his face, which was not only white but also good-looking.

  She had not called Abigail to tell her
about the meeting. She’d decided to wait and see first. Patience, she thought now, is such an insufferable virtue.

  She crossed her legs and wondered if Mo Gilbert had a wife, and what it would take to get him to help her make Abigail’s wish come true.

  Finally he hung up.

  “Ms. Kensington,” he said, folding his hands on the glass top of the desk. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

  Kris watched his gaze drift to her legs. She smiled, glad she had worn the black St. John knit dress that some people might think needed a couple of extra inches in length. Some people, perhaps, like Abigail.

  “Devon said you are doing some research.”

  She leaned forward and made a tent of her long, coral-polished fingernails. “I have a character who needs to change her identity. Devon suggested you might be familiar with how I can make it happen.”

  “I can’t imagine why he would think that. As much as I hate to disappoint you, I am an insurance investigator, not a cloak-and-dagger specialist.”

  She reached into her leather bag and pulled out an envelope, from which she extracted two five-hundred-dollar bills. Leaning forward, she set them on the desk in front of him.

  He looked at the bills, then back at Kris. Slowly, Mo Gilbert stood and tucked them in the pocket of his Brooks Brothers suit pants. “Perhaps we should take a walk around the atrium. You might enjoy seeing the renovations Mr. Trump has made to the place.”

  Two hours later, up in her penthouse, Kris stood in the shower, lathered her tingling, satisfied body, and reminded herself to thank Devon for the introduction. She mused that after she became a mother things would be different; she would never, after all, even think of entertaining men in her bedroom with a white-lace nursery in the next room. But for now, there was no need to change.

  Exhilarated and happy, Kris decided to catch a train. Maybe she could find Abigail at the health club and tell her in person of their date with Mo Gilbert tomorrow.

  She stepped out of the shower and toweled off. Looking in the steamy mirror, she resolved that before leaving there was one phone call she needed to make. One phone call, for herself.

  “You’ll never get me into one of those thongs,” Maddie growled at Abigail. “My ass would never forgive me.”

  “You won’t say that when you’ve shed thirty pounds and your thighs are firm,” Abigail responded as she pulled on her leotards and tied back her hair.

  Maddie glanced around the mauve-and-gold locker room that looked more like the lounge at a spa. They were at the most exclusive health club in Westchester; Andrew had blocked off his afternoon for Abigail and her needy friend. She’d expected that he would have come to the manor, but Abigail said she had always preferred to go to the club, preferred to feel a part of the real world—the world that perspired. Maddie mused at the thought that if this was what Abigail called real sweat, she was going to have a difficult time in her new life.

  “Well, I know one thing,” she said, tugging a long, gray T-shirt over baggy sweatpants. “It’s hard to trust anyone who wears Spandex.”

  “Maddie!”

  “It’s true, Abigail. Put an average woman in Spandex and she stops walking and starts prancing.”

  “Excuse me, but I’m wearing Spandex.”

  “I never said you were average.”

  Abigail sighed. “Well, I’m about to see if it’s possible.”

  The idea of Abigail living as a commoner was as alien to Maddie as the thought of a thong up her butt. “Have you thought it all out?” Maddie asked. “Like how you’ll live? What you’ll do for money?”

  Abigail zipped up her bag and tossed it into a locker. “Let’s not talk about it here, okay?” she said with a wink. “The walls have ears, and Andrew is waiting.” She strutted across the thick carpet toward the door marked “gym.”

  Maddie stretched out her T-shirt, sighed, then ambled off after her, waddling toward her dream.

  Andrew was merciless. He was muscular and hard and incredible great-looking. And he was merciless. Maddie had done endless reps on an unending number of weight machines, hiked on the treadmill, climbed up the stair machine. It seemed as though she’d been working out for weeks. It had only been forty-five minutes.

  “We’ll start you off slow,” the merciless master had announced. “Build up your endurance.”

  But Maddie’s muscles already ached. The back and the front and the armpits of her T-shirt were soaked; her calves throbbed, her shoulders hurt. And she wasn’t certain, but she thought she might be getting another damn headache. After bicycling what seemed like from Westchester to Manhattan and back, she begged for a break. “I’m old and I’m fat,” she whined. “And I do not need to fit into a size 6 by tonight.”

  Andrew smiled. “Rest for ten minutes. Then I’ll meet you in the aerobics room.”

  Maddie slumped down on the thick blue mat and looked over at Abigail, who merrily continued her bicycle trek without a drop of perspiration on her face.

  “No pain, no gain,” Abigail said as she slowed her peddling and then alighted from the bike, her thong still firmly in place, not swallowed up by the cleavage of puckery cheeks. She joined Maddie on the mat. “This will be worth it, Maddie. You’ll see.”

  Maddie turned her back against the wall of mirrors. Her reflection made it difficult to believe that anyone, let alone Parker, would ever want Maddie Daniels in their life. “He’s the only man I ever loved,” she said, then snorted, “hell, he’s the only man who ever loved me.” She did not mention her father because that kind of love, of course, had been different.

  “Well, this is the first step.”

  A young, Spandex-clad woman pranced past them. Maddie thought of Sharlene. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked Abigail.

  “No. I think what’s crazy is to not go for what you want. It’s taken me too many years to realize that.”

  “Kris has always known it. Kris has always done exactly what she’s wanted.”

  “Don’t say anything bad about me; I’m right behind you.”

  Maddie and Abigail turned. Slim, gorgeous Kris stood there, looking as if this was the last place she needed to be. “Gee, if I’d known working out was this easy, I’d have done it long ago.” She sat down beside them.

  “Very funny,” Maddie said. “My body’s been to hell and back and you make jokes.”

  Kris laughed. “No jokes. I’ve come all the way up here bearing good news. We’ve got our man.”

  Abigail frowned. “What?”

  “Our man. You and I have a date tomorrow morning with the man who’s going to give us what you need,” she said to Abigail.

  Abigail gasped. “So fast?”

  “Hey, I do my job.”

  “You mean …” Maddie began, then the warning look from Abigail stopped her. “Right, I know. The walls.”

  “I have a meeting with Larry at my office tomorrow. Downtown,” Abigail said.

  “Schedule him for after ten.”

  “But …”

  Kris smiled. “Excuse me, but I believe you’re still his boss.”

  Abigail nodded. “Right. So where are we meeting this man?”

  “You’re not going to believe this. The Staten Island ferry.”

  Maddie laughed. “God, how very Mike Hammer.”

  “Let’s hope,” Abigail said with a slow breath, “that he’s half as good.”

  Just at that moment Andrew appeared again. “Maddie?” he called. “I believe you have a date in the aerobics room?”

  Maddie groaned. “Well, girls, I’m off to more torture.” But as she stood up a slight spinning swirled in her head. She leaned against a treadmill, wondering if she’d really see her dream come true or if she’d be dead before fifty after all.

  She did not die. After leaving the health club Maddie took the long way home, past the synagogue where she and Parker had been married. She stopped the car at the curb and stared at the tan brick building, remembering the ceremony, remembering the guests and the rabbi
and the bird seed stuffed in silk roses, remembering the future she had been so excited about.

  She remembered the way he had held her hand. She remembered the way he had kissed her lips and pledged his love. Right there. In front of God and everyone.

  And now, it could happen again.

  There, on the steps, she could stand once more with Parker. They would wear formal white this time, not jeans and long beads.

  And they would have two witnesses—Bobby and Timmy: Bobby, short and sturdy like Parker, with Parker’s wit and Parker’s charm; Timmy, squat and quiet, within himself. Timmy, the photographer, like her. The boys would be dressed in tuxedos with red carnations in their lapels, which they would hate but would wear to please her.

  Sophie would wear aqua, of course, because it looked prettiest with her snow-white hair. And Maddie would have Abigail prepare the food. That would please Sophie and would temper any misgivings her mother might have.

  Taking the camera from her bag, Maddie carefully removed the lens cap and aimed at the synagogue. It did not matter that no people stood there as yet.

  Click.

  She slipped the camera back into her bag and realized she’d have to remind herself that, like her other “personal” film, she must not let Timmy develop this roll. She didn’t need her son asking questions.

  Abigail couldn’t believe she was wearing sunglasses and had a huge scarf wrapped around her head. As she tiptoed up the ramp onto the Staten Island ferry, she felt as though she might as well be wearing a sign that read “Woman traveling incognito.” Thankfully this was New York City, where no one cared. Jackie Onassis had walked around for years in sunglasses and a scarf and was only noticed by those on the lookout. But no one would be looking for Abigail yet, because no one would imagine that she’d have any reason to hide.