The Rana Look

by Sandra Brown

  Ruby and Trent both found that highly amusing, and they laughed heartily. “Football summer camp,” Ruby explained. “Didn’t I tell you that Trent is a professional football player?”

  Rana, embarrassed, smoothed her napkin back in her lap. “I don’t believe you did.”

  “He plays with the Houston Mustangs.” Ruby beamed proudly, laying her hand on her nephew’s muscled arm. “And he’s the most important player. The quarterback.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t you like football, Miss Ramsey?” Trent inquired. He was a trifle piqued that she hadn’t recognized him. Nor had she seemed suitably impressed to discover that she was sharing dinner with a man touted by some sportswriters as the finest quarterback in professional football since Starr and Staubach.

  “I don’t know very much about it, Mr. Gamblin. But I know more now than I did.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I know that the players go to summer camp.”

  His mouth split into a wide grin. Miss Ramsey had a sense of humor. The next few weeks might not be too taxing after all. In fact, he didn’t remember when he’d enjoyed such a relaxing dinner. He didn’t have to work at impressing his aunt. She already thought he hung the moon. Any charm he sent in Miss Ramsey’s direction was equally certain to be appreciated. No effort was required there either. For the first time in years, he could be himself in the company of females, and it felt good.

  “How is your shoulder, Trent?” Ruby turned to Rana to explain. “He has an injury that refuses to heal properly. A shoulder dislocation.”

  “Separation, Auntie.”

  “Sorry, a separation. His doctor recommended that he get away from his circle of friends and suspend his other activities so his shoulder would have the rest it needs to heal before training camp. Right, dear?”

  “Right.”

  “Is it painful?” Rana asked.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. Only when I overexert myself.”

  He frowned as he recalled his last appointment with the team doctor. “The damn thing just won’t get any better, doc,” he had complained. “And you know it’s got to be completely well by training camp.”

  He had gnawed on his lip. If he had another season like the last one, the coach would be scouting for younger and better talent.

  Trent wasn’t fooling himself. He was thirty-four. His retirement from professional football was imminent. But he wanted one more good-no, great-season. He didn’t want to retire a broken-down, banged-up failure who caused people to shake their heads sadly and say, “He’s lost it, but he just won’t admit it.” Deep inside him, he knew he hadn’t lost it. He wanted to get his shoulder in shape and retire in a blaze of glory. Then he’d go gracefully. Not until then.

  “Don’t come whining to me, Trent,” the doctor had said. “Tom Tandy told me you pulled that shoulder again playing tennis. Tennis, for heaven’s sake! Have you lost your mind?”

  Trent winced as the doctor’s capable hands explored the tender muscles. “I needed to brush up on my ground strokes.”

  “Bull. I know what kind of strokes you were brushing up on. Tom also told me you were servicing the club’s woman pro… and I don’t mean on the tennis court.”

  “With tattling friends like Tom-”

  “Don’t blame this lecture on him. Look, son,” the Mustangs’ doctor had said, pulling up a stool and speaking to Trent earnestly, “that shoulder is never going to heal if you keep on going the way you have been. Sure, this is the off-season, and you’ve earned the right to raise a little hell. But training camp is just a few weeks away. Which is more important to you, next football season or the swinging-single’s life? Which would you rather be, a Super Bowl quarterback or a superstud?”

  Trent had called his aunt that afternoon.

  It had been the right decision, he thought now as he leaned back and sipped the coffee Ruby had poured into his china cup. He probably did need the rest, the earlier hours, and regular meals that this sabbatical in Galveston promised. Aunt Ruby certainly wasn’t boring. He still had fond memories of his childhood visits with her.

  He looked speculatively at the other woman at the table. Miss Ramsey might even prove to be amusing, if she ever lightened up. Maybe he could prod her along.

  “What do you do to support yourself?” he asked abruptly.

  “ Trent! How rude!” his aunt admonished. “Didn’t that sister of mine teach you any social graces? You’ve been around those barbarian teammates of yours too long.”

  “I want to know.” His smile was disarming. “Why beat around the bush? If Miss Ramsey and I are going to be… living together, don’t you think we should get to know each other?”

  His dark eyes had swept down Rana’s body, leaving a tide of heat. Rana wished she hadn’t felt it. For some unexplainable reason she had been relieved to learn that he wasn’t seeking cover from a sticky divorce, though that didn’t rule out the possibility that he was married.

  She had even felt a twinge of pity for him as an athlete who was obviously worried about his future. She knew enough about the world of professional sports to know that such injuries as shoulder separations could mean the end of a career.

  Now, however, when he was looking at her with that familiar “I could eat you for breakfast, little girl” look on his face, her compassion evaporated and her previous aversion returned. With it came her resolution to keep out of his path.

  “I paint,” she said succinctly.

  “Paint? You mean pictures or walls?”

  “Neither.” She sipped her coffee, creating what she hoped was an irritating delay. “I paint on clothing.”

  “Clothing?” he asked with a deadpan expression.

  “Yes, clothing,” she said, staring at him through the blue-tinted lenses of her glasses.

  “She’s ingenious,” Ruby contributed with affected gaiety. She had so hoped her nephew could bring out Miss Ramsey, but during the course of this first meal, her hopes had been dashed. If anything, Miss Ramsey had retreated further into her shell. She seemed to be hiding behind her eyeglasses, shrinking inside her oversized ugly clothing, withdrawing even further behind a veil of secrecy and privacy. “You ought to see some of her creations,” Ruby continued, undaunted. “She works too hard at it, though. I’m constantly after her to get out more. To mingle with people her own age.”

  Trent hadn’t taken his eyes off Miss Ramsey. “You do your work here?”

  “Yes. I’ve turned the sitting room of the apartment into a studio. The lighting is good.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.” He stretched his long legs far out in front of him. His knee bumped into hers beneath the table; she quickly pulled hers back. “How do you paint on clothing? What kind of clothing? What do you use?”

  She smiled, pleased with his interest in spite of herself. “I buy surplus garments and textiles in warehouses, then hand-paint original designs on them.”

  He scowled with skepticism. “There’s a market for such, uh, clothes?”

  “I can afford to pay my rent, Mr. Gamblin,” she said tartly. She shoved back her chair abruptly and got to her feet. “It was a wonderful dinner, as usual, Ruby. Good night.”

  “You’re not going to your room so early?” the landlady asked, distressed over Miss Ramsey’s sudden mood swing. “I thought we all might have a cup of tea in the parlor.”

  “Excuse me tonight. I’m tired. Mr. Gamblin.” She gave him a cool nod before stalking from the dining room.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Trent muttered. “What bee got up her-”

  “ Trent, don’t be crude!” Ruby interrupted. “Wait! What are you- Where-”

  Heedless of his aunt’s surprised sputtering, he stood, tossed down his napkin, and left the table with the same angry urgency Miss Ramsey had displayed only seconds before. His long legs covered ground faster than she could. He caught up with her just as she reached the stairs. “Miss Ramsey!”

  His voice carried with it the imperiousness of a
drill sergeant. She stopped with her foot poised on the second step and turned around.

  Before she could prevent it, he had her right hand firmly enfolded in his. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you how glad I am to find myself in your delightful company.” Regardless of his seething anger, he spoke in dulcet tones. No woman walked Out on Trent Gamblin. “Enchanted, Miss Ramsey.” Lifting her hand, he pressed his mouth to the back of it.

  She tried to hold in her gasp but failed. She felt as if she had been punched in the middle. Aftershocks rippled through her. Snatching her hand away from his, she spoke a frosty good night and haughtily retreated upstairs.

  Trent was still smiling when he returned to the dining room. “I don’t like the gloating expression on your face, Trent,” Ruby said sternly.

  He resumed his seat and poured himself another cup of coffee from the silver pot. “Miss Ramsey might act like a prickly old maid, but she’s still a woman.”

  “I hope that you won’t do anything indiscreet or treat Miss Ramsey with anything but the utmost respect. She is a dear girl, but treasures her privacy. In all these months, she hasn’t divulged any personal information about herself. My guess is that there’s a great sadness in her history. Please don’t provoke her.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” he said with a smile that was anything but sincere.

  Since his aunt had always adored him, she didn’t question his earnestness. “Good. Now, be a sweetheart and come into the kitchen with me while I clean up. I want to hear everything that’s been going on in your life.”

  “Even the raunchy stuff?”

  She giggled and squeezed his chin between her fingers. “I want to hear the raunchy stuff first.”

  Trent followed his aunt into her kitchen, but his mind was still on Miss Ramsey. What the hell was her first name, anyway He had noticed, in spite of her clothes-clothes that a bag lady would be ashamed to wear-that she had a remarkably graceful, fluid walk. Her posture was proud. The hand he had so arrogantly kissed might have been Unmanicured, but it was dainty to the point of fragility. For some reason, despite the rough skin and the faint smell of paint and turpentine, he had enjoyed kissing it very much.

  **********

  Upstairs in the bedroom of her apartment, which took up the east side of the second story, Rana undressed. She had avoided mirrors in the last six months, but she looked at herself carefully now. The cheval glass stood in one corner of the antique-furnished room, so she could see her whole image reflected.

  She had left New York weighing one hundred and ten pounds. Stretched over her five-foot-nine-inch frame, the flesh had been thinly distributed. Thanks to Ruby’s culinary arts, not to mention her nagging, Rana had gained almost twenty pounds. By any other standards, she was still thin. To herself, she looked fat. Her hipbones no longer protruded from a concave abdomen. Her breasts had become rounder, softer, far more feminine.

  The extra poundage was also evident in her face. The cheekbones made legendary by photographs published in the world’s leading fashion magazines didn’t seem so pronounced, now that the cheeks beneath them had filled out.

  She took off the unnecessary eyeglasses. Those topaz-green eyes that had lured hundreds of thousands of women into buying eye-shadow collections with names such as Sahara Sands and Forest Gems stared back at her. Artfully made up, they were spectacular. Even without makeup, their slanting almond shape was distinctive and arresting. Too arresting not to be camouflaged by tinted glasses if she wanted her identity to remain a secret.

  She forced her lips into a smile. Her teeth were going crooked again. Her mother would fly into a tizzy if she could see them. How much money had Susan Ramsey spent straightening Rana’s teeth? Yet without the retainer Rana had been advised to sleep in every night of her life, her four front teeth were stubbornly overlapping again.

  Picking up a hairbrush, she swept back the heavy strands hanging on either side of her face. She shook her head, as she had been taught to do. There it was, the Rana Look. A mane of dark red hair framing an exotic face. A blurred, diluted version, true, but a glimpse that brought back painful memories.

  Even now she could feel the agent’s tobacco-stained fingers pinching her chin as they jerked Rana’s head this way and that to capture certain angles. “She’s just too… too exotic-looking, Mrs. Ramsey. She’s lovely, but… foreign. Yes, that’s it. She’s not all-American enough.”

  “You’ve already got all-American models,” Susan Ramsey said with disgust. “My Rana’s different. That’s what makes her an undiscovered treasure.”

  No one, not the appraising agent, not the yawning photographer, least of all her mother, noticed Rana wince. She was hungry. A cheeseburger came to mind, and the thought made her mouth water. No sense in torturing herself. She would be lucky to be allowed low-calorie dressing on her lettuce salad if she got lunch at all.

  “I’m sorry,” the agent said, gathering the glossy eightby-ten pictures of Rana into a messy stack and handing them back to Susan Ramsey. “She’s a beautiful girl; she’s just not for us. Have you tried Ford? Eileen did very well with Ali McGraw, and she had dark hair and eyes.”

  Stuffing the pictures back into a large portfolio and roughly taking Rana by the arm, Susan had marched out of the office. In the elevator, she marked that agent’s name off her long list. “Don’t worry, Rana. Everyone in New York can’t be that blindly stupid. Please stand up straight. And next time will you please try smiling a little more?”

  “I’m slouching because I’m weak with hunger, Mother. I had one slice of melba toast and a half a grapefruit for breakfast. We’ve walked miles. My feet hurt. Can’t we stop somewhere, sit down, and eat?”

  “Just a few more interviews,” Susan said absently as she scanned the remaining names on her list.

  “But I’m tired.”

  Susan ushered Rana Out of the elevator when it reached the lobby floor. “You truly are selfish and self-centered, Rana. I got you out of that unfortunate marriage. I sold my home to get the money to bring you to New York. I’m sacrificing my own life for your career. And this is the thanks I get. All you do is whine.”

  Rana didn’t say what she was thinking, that the modeling career had been her mother’s idea, not her own, that it had been Susan’s desire to sell their house in Des Moines and move to New York, and that the marriage had been unfortunate because of Susan’s constant meddling.

  “Our next appointment is in fifteen minutes. If you stop dawdling, we’ll be there five minutes early. That’ll give you time to repair your makeup. Please remember to smile. You never know when a smile or a sexy glance will pay off. One of these agents is bound to see your potential.”

  The agent who finally did was Morey Fletcher. His office wasn’t at a prestigious address. He was overweight, gruff, disheveled, balding. His name was far down on Susan’s list. But he looked past the mother and saw the nineteen- year-old girl hovering in the background. His stomach did somersaults, and it wasn’t because of the corned-beef sandwich he had had sent up from the deli downstairs. If a jaded professional like himself could be moved by that face and those eyes, he reasoned that John Q. Public would be too.

  “Sit down, Miss Ramsey.” He offered a chair to the girl first. Surprised, she collapsed in it and immediately slipped off her shoes. He smiled, and she smiled back.

  Within two days a contract had been drawn up, repeatedly examined by Susan, and eventually signed. That was the beginning.

  Just thinking about the months that followed made Rana weary. Her shoulders slumped. Her head dropped forward and her hair swung down to hide the classic cheekbones again.

  She pulled on a ragged T-shirt to sleep in and padded to the window. If she listened closely she could hear the incessant waves of the Gulf of Mexico rolling toward the shore a few blocks away. Cicadas and crickets made their shrill racket in the thick branches of the trees. The novelty of these sounds still intrigued her. They were so different from the city sounds that had filtered up to the thir
ty- second-story window of her Upper East Side apartment. She much preferred this quaintly furnished bedroom to the stark modernity of her professionally decorated apartment in New York. The peacefulness of it was something she would always treasure.

  Except that tonight, she wasn’t so peaceful.

  She discovered her restlessness as soon as she slipped between the sheets. Her mind kept returning to the man who now lived across the hall from her. He so fit the stereotype of the macho man that he was laughable. Strange, though, she mused, she didn’t feel like laughing.

  She was relieved on one account-he hadn’t recognized her. Of course his reading material probably ran more toward Sports Illustrated than it did to Vogue. Miss Ramsey hardly looked like the model in the cosmetics commercials on television. And no one would expect the elusive Rana to turn up in a boardinghouse in Galveston, Texas.

  He had his nerve, kissing her hand that way. He’d done it out of sheer spite. How was she going to stand living under the same roof with a man who had such an inflated ego?

  She would ignore him, she decided.

  But she was already listening for his tread on the stairs and wondering what he was doing. Aggravated with herself, she punched her pillow and erased Trent Gamblin from her thoughts. But as she drifted to sleep, she was thinking about his smile and how attractively it rearranged his entire face.

  And on the back of her hand lingered the burning sensation left by his lips.

  Two

  She almost stepped on him when she pulled open the door to her apartment late the next morning. He was stretched out on the floor of the hallway doing push-ups.

  “Oh!” She flattened her hand against her leaping heart.

  He bounced up. “Good morning.”

  Her first impulse was to scurry back into the safety of her apartment and slam the door, shielding herself from the temptation to feast her eyes on his nakedness.

  For all practical purposes he was naked. Only a pair of brief nylon running shorts stood between him and indecency. They, however, tested the perimeters of what could be considered decent. The elastic waistband rode well below his waist… well below his navel, in fact. Soaked with perspiration, the trunks clung to his skin as though they had been plastered to his body.