Lady Be Good

by Nancy Martin

  “Actually, a beer sounds perfect.” If Mama wasn’t watching, why not? Grace laid her borrowed suit jacket over the nearest chair and followed his lead by unbuttoning the sleeves of her blouse to roll them up.

  Luke closed the refrigerator with his hip and turned, the bottle of beer in his hand. He hesitated.

  Grace finished rolling up the right sleeve of her shell pink silk blouse and looked up. Luke was staring.

  He collected himself. “Uh, that’s pretty. I didn’t—I mean, you look different without your jacket. Nice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I like your hair, too. Not hidden under that wild hat of yours. Maybe I shouldn’t have made that promise about your virtue,” he said with a grin.

  The Chanel suit was one of Nora’s vintage finds--tailored and trim, and probably a bit stiff looking. Nora had taken Grace seriously when she said she needed to be made over into Dear Miss Vanderbine. The pink blouse was her own, though, and comfortable. Maybe even a little sexy. Pale pink was her best color, for it softened the corn silk blondeness of her hair and enhanced her own blue eyes.

  Until now, maybe Luke hadn’t really noticed her appearance at all. As long as he wasn’t looking at her like a sex object, Grace struck a pose, lifting one foot to show off his sock. “The socks make the outfit, don’t they?”

  He smiled, but there was new curiosity in his eyes. “How come you’re not married? You’re what? Twenty-eight, twenty-nine?”

  “Thank you, but I’m thirty-one. I had a close call once.”

  “What happened?”

  Lightly, Grace said, “My mother disapproved.”

  “You always listen to your mother?”

  “She’s Dear Miss Vanderbine. Everybody listens to my mother. And, believe me, it’s hard to say this, but she has an annoying habit of being right most of the time.”

  Grace didn’t explain there had been a few years when mother and daughter rarely spoke. But recently she’d come to appreciate Mama’s many good qualities in spite of her sometimes tank-like approach to parenting.

  Grace finished rolling her other sleeve and took a moment to wash her hands at the tap. “Plus, I’ve been busy.”

  “Yeah, I know how that gets. Busy isn’t always good, though.”

  They stood together at the counter, building sandwiches. Luke made himself a tower of ingredients stacked high with lettuce and cheese, then pulled a pair of glasses from a shelf. Unceremoniously, he passed Grace her beer. He poured himself a tall glass of milk, drank half of it down, then filled the glass again before returning the carton to the fridge.

  Instead of looking for napkins, he tore a couple of paper towels from the roll on the counter and handed one to Grace. Then he crooked his head and carried his plate into the breakfast room. Obediently, Grace followed.

  He flipped a switch, and a brilliant chandelier suddenly filled the room with golden light. He skidded his plate across the gleaming table. With a remote control, he switched on a wall-mounted television and tuned it to a hockey game, no sound.

  “Gotta catch the score,” he explained. “Now that football season is over, I’m obsessed with hockey.”

  This was not going to be a formal dinner with three kinds of wine and demitasse spoons, Grace noted.

  She hadn’t seen the small fireplace until she turned the corner. Luke tinkered with a gas lever, and in a moment a whoosh of flame sprang up around some cut lengths of wood that had already been laid in the grate. Despite the tall windows overlooking a snow-swept back yard, the big breakfast room felt almost cozy.

  But not exactly homey—not compared to Mama’s house, jammed as it was with mementos and hand-me-downs. While Luke dusted off his hands and slid his tall frame into a chair, Grace glanced around the room to try to gauge Luke’s personality by his surroundings. The house was spectacular and very beautiful, she decided, but it lacked the touches that would make it a well-loved home. The cozy, crackling fire was deceptive. This was Luke’s frat house, but she guessed he wasn’t emotionally attached to it.

  The chandelier over the table included a paddle fan. From the fan dangled a string, and on the end of the string somebody had tied a very large piece of jewelry. A man’s ring.

  Grace caught the ring in her hand. It was almost the size of a golf ball and featured diamonds around the edges. Surely not real diamonds. But she looked closer. Yep, real diamonds. “What is this? And what’s it doing here?”

  “Uh, that’s my Super Bowl ring. I guess I shouldn’t leave it hanging around.”

  “Not if it’s worth what I think it’s worth.”

  “It’s probably worth more than that,” he said sheepishly.

  “You’re not keeping it in a place of prominence, exactly. Why not?”

  “I haven’t gotten around to that, I guess. So it ended up here.” He batted the ring playfully, and it swung on its string. “I’ll get a nice box or something eventually.”

  Putting his important ring into a frame and finding a place to hang it was probably the kind of thing his wife might have done for him. But she was gone, and the ring was being downplayed.

  “Did you design this house?” Grace asked when they were both hungrily eating their sandwiches.

  He shook his head, mouth full, elbows on the table. “Nope. My ex picked the architect. She supervised the building, bought the furniture. She took most of that when she moved out, too.”

  “Can I risk being impertinent again and ask why she left?”

  “You’re worried about that impertinent part, aren’t you?” He grinned and shrugged. “In football, there are two reasons why marriages break up. Either he’s screwing around, or she wants more—more money or more class. Mandy stayed until I broke my leg. That’s when my career started looking iffy, and my salary got cut by half. When the money tightened up, she—well, she’s a decorator now, the classy kind. She loves buying stuff, but now she does it for other people.”

  Grace disliked the word “classy.” And his ex sounded as if she was far from it.

  Grace wanted to know more—especially how he felt about his wife’s departure, but she didn’t feel she could pry that deep.

  So instead she asked, “Why did you quit playing? The broken leg?”

  “Kinda. I worked my way back and played another year after the break, but the truth is, I got old,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “The young defensive players were kicking my butt.”

  “Younger than you? They must have been right out of college.”

  “Yeah, that’s how it works. These days, nobody sticks around after the past due date gets printed on his helmet. It was my time. If I’d stayed any longer, I was going to get a worse injury. And I hate that stuff. Rehab’s a bitch.”

  “Do you miss playing?”

  He pretended to take time to chew his food, but she could see him mulling over how to answer the question. Finally, he swallowed and said, “I miss it a lot. More than I thought I would. I miss the guys, the action, the fun, the sense of working together toward a goal. Being retired’s a bore by comparison.”

  “What do you do now? You said something about car washes.”

  “Yeah, another player and I bought a couple of car washes, then a couple more, and a few more after that. It seemed like a safe place to put our money, you know? So we don’t blow it in Vegas. I always liked machines, so I’m the one who goes to fix something if it’s broken. He takes care of the office. It’s working out okay, keeps us out of trouble. But it’s not exactly lighting my fire. Don’t get me wrong, I do a lot of community stuff. There’s a kids’ charity I hang with twice a week, playing basketball. Summer sports camps, too, and a military veterans group. You know. Stuff. I’m busy all the time. But …”

  Grace sipped the beer. With the sandwich, it tasted delicious. “Do you have a girlfriend? Did you go … screwing around?”

  He smiled. “After my wife, yeah, I fooled around a little. Maybe a lot. Why not? But that’s not the cure for what ails me.”

 
“Maybe you should get a cat. Or one of those big, slobbery dogs.”

  He laughed. “Do I look lonesome?”

  “A little.” Grace crunched a carrot stick. “You want to go back to playing.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m too old for it.” He almost sounded convinced. “I’m ready for the next thing, but I haven’t figured out what that is. You’re lucky you’ve got the book thing going.”

  “I am,” she agreed.

  Luke measured her with a steady look. “But?”

  “But nothing.” Grace decided to skip telling him about the pressure to succeed and re-invent herself as Dear Miss Vanderbine or risk spoiling her mother’s expectations. “I was in a rut in my old job. This is a fresh start for me. I wish I was better at it, that’s all.”

  “You look like you were born for it.”

  “You didn’t hear about today’s television disaster.”

  Luke looked curious, so she told the story while he ate his sandwich. By the end, he was choking with laughter.

  Grace found herself laughing, too and pounded him on the back. She said, “So you can see why my confidence isn’t topnotch right now. I don’t make a good impression on the audience when I’m standing on a chair flashing my underwear.”

  He shook his head, still chuckling. “In some circles, showing your underwear is considered a good start.”

  “Not my circle,” she said promptly.

  He quit laughing and studied her for a second. “Got a guy in your life?”

  Grace picked up her sandwich and shook her head. “No time for that.”

  “You’re funny, though,” he said. “Really funny. Not to mention smart. And you look great, especially when you’re not all buttoned up. I can’t believe you’re not making somebody happy.”

  “I guess I’m trying to make myself happy first.”

  Grace could have said more. She’d spent her whole life being the quiet daughter of the famously flamboyant Caroline Vanderbine, dowager of American etiquette, and she’d forged a career in the magazine world. But then came the Kip fiasco.

  A ridiculous name, Kip, but Kenworth Ivan Peers sounded even worse. They’d met in college. Grace admitted she got into the prestigious school because of her mother’s celebrity, but Kip firmly denied his admission had been due to his Philadelphia Main Line family’s good name. For the two of them, dating turned into an engagement at graduation when Kip accepted a job as a New York commodities broker in his uncle’s firm and Grace luckily landed an entry-level job at the magazine. They moved into together in a Manhattan apartment—one subsidized by Kip’s family—and both of them began to work like crazy. Long hours, nights and weekends. Toward the end, Kip even took business trips over holidays, and Grace tried not to imagine he was taking a vacation from her with other women.

  But then Grace’s brother died, and Mama asked Grace to share being Dear Miss Vanderbine. When Grace agreed and started to re-write the etiquette book, Kip had not been pleased about her new career when his seemed stalled. He started rolling over and going to sleep every night, leaving Grace to stare at the ceiling and wonder if he’d lost interest in her. For three months, there was no sex, no romance. Not even a dinner date.

  It was Mama who suggested a solution.

  “Dump him now, dearie. Give back the ring. Who wants to go through life with a man who can’t handle your success?”

  To realize she was the object of Kip’s resentment was a big blow. But when Grace gently confronted him about it, Kip blew up and left. It was the ultimate way of withholding his affections.

  Grace eyed Luke the Laser as he wolfed the last bites of his sandwich and licked a trace of mustard from his thumb. She suspected he wasn’t the type to withhold anything from anyone.

  A phone rang somewhere in the house.

  Luke checked his watch. Without moving from his chair, he said, “That’s my dad calling to check in. He never has much to say, but he likes to call.”

  “Go ahead and answer him. Don’t mind me.”

  “Nah, it’ll just be the same conversation we had a couple of days ago. I’ll call him back when I’ve got something to tell him. He was a big fan of Jake Kendall’s, by the way.”

  The phone rang four more times and stopped. Grace set down her sandwich and used her napkin to dab crumbs from her mouth. “About Jake,” she began.

  Luke shook his head to cut her off. “I have a big mouth sometimes. Forget I mentioned his gambling.”

  Grace didn’t doubt Jake Kendall had a gambling problem. She was surprised to hear that a professional athlete let himself get in trouble that way, though. She sincerely hoped it hadn’t gotten him killed. And yet … .

  In his pocket, Luke’s cell phone began to play Born to Run, and this time he pulled it out to look at the screen. He recognized the number.

  He pushed back his chair. “I need to answer this. Sorry. It’s a charity thing I’m supposed to do in a couple weeks. The organizer is calling me about details.”

  Grace waved. “Go ahead. I should check with the airline again.”

  “Thanks.” Luke got up from the table and walked away. “Yeah?” he said into his phone. “Hey, Tracy. How’s that pole-dancing class going for you?”

  Laughing, Luke took his cell phone down the hall and into his den, leaving Grace to wonder if he really was talking to a charity organizer or an exotic dancer.

  Grace pulled out her own phone and looked at the screen.

  But she didn’t look up airline flights.

  Instead, as she nibbled her sandwich, she began Googling Jake Kendall.

  5.

  The breakfast room got chilly in spite of the fireplace, so when Grace finished her sandwich, she rinsed both their plates and tucked them into the dishwasher, then put the food back in the fridge. Kitchen tidied, she took her phone into the living room. She flipped on a light that revealed a sea of sofas gathered around a very large, undoubtedly expensive rug with an intricate pattern. No doubt Luke’s ex-wife left it all behind because it was too large to fit into any room smaller than a dancehall.

  Grace sat on one of the sofas and wrapped up in a woolly throw. She pulled her feet up under her and researched Jake Kendall’s death. She didn’t learn much she didn’t already know, except a Philadelphia sports writer also hinted that Jake’s untimely demise had happened just as his gambling problem was about to come to light. The writer speculated that Jake would have immediately lost his job quarterbacking for the Eagles.

  She found a photo of Jake and Emma Blackbird in the same newspaper. They were attending a fancy occasion, both laughing and looking very glam in evening clothes.

  Grace could hear Luke’s voice down the hall. He was still on the phone.

  She decided to try calling Nora again. She dialed and listened to Nora’s phone ring a while before her away message came on.

  After the beep, Grace said, “Nora, you must still be looking for Emma. I wish I could be there to help. I’ll come tomorrow, I promise, but my plane was canceled tonight.” She paused, absently massaging her toes through the borrowed sock, then she decided to blunder on. “Listen, I’ve met somebody, and we got to talking about Jake. Jake, Emma’s husband? The guy I met knew him. I know this is probably out of left field for you, but did you know anything about Jake’s gambling? How bad was his problem? Was it sports bets? Who did he do that with? Do you know? I’m just wondering. Don’t worry. It’s just me free-associating. Talk soon.”

  She ended the call, and that’s when she realized Luke was standing in the doorway.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Sorry, was I not supposed to come in here?”

  He took a pace forward and stopped as if not trusting himself to come closer. “I mean the phone call. Who were you talking to?”

  “Nora. I left a message.” Grace held up her phone as if it might show who she had telephoned. “What’s the problem?”

  “You were talking about Jake.”

  “Well, yes. I wa
s just asking--”

  “I know what you were asking, I heard you. Are you nuts?”

  Grace was suddenly glad to be on the other side of the sofa from him. His blue eyes snapped, and his grip on his cell phone was nearly tense enough to crush it. And he looked bigger than ever, too. “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t just make accusations about him to anyone.”

  “I wasn’t--”

  “And you can’t ask questions about who he was gambling with.”

  Grace scrambled to her feet, fear forgotten, her temper starting to sizzle, too. “Why on earth not?”

  “Because they’re dangerous people, that’s why! He wasn’t buying lottery tickets. He was betting big money with people who break your legs if you don’t pay up.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Who’s being ridiculous?” Luke’s voice rose as he came around the sofa. “Don’t you get it? Jake was probably killed. And now you’re asking questions about him!”

  Grace held her ground. “Nora’s not going to tell anybody. I was just--”

  “These aren’t people with good manners, holding their tea cups with their pinkies sticking out. They are bad dudes who break kneecaps if you make a late payment. And worse. As worse as it gets. You shouldn’t be blabbing about this stuff.”

  Hotly, she snapped, “Don’t presume to tell me what subjects I can discuss with my friends and family, please.”

  Her sharp comeback made him pause. “Do you trust them to keep their mouths shut while somebody breaks their fingers?” Stubbornly, Luke said, “This is serious, Princess. Don’t be stupid.”

  At that, Grace stalked past him, heading for the breakfast room. “Did you call your ex stupid? Because that might have contributed to her departure.”

  “I’m not calling you stupid. Not exactly.” Luke trailed her. “Some caution would be smarter, that’s all I’m saying. You need to be careful about who you talk to about this.”