by Lucy Hepburn
They reached Thirty-Fourth Street more quickly than she had anticipated, thanks to Will’s constant stream of sudden left turns into narrow alleyways and anonymous side streets. Christy breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“We’re on Thirty-Fourth! Thank you so much, Will,” she gushed. “I’ll call you after I’ve picked up Bouvier.”
“Tell her Uncle Will says hi,” Will replied, adopting a gooey, mocking tone. “Say Uncle Will thinks she’s gorgeous any old way her nails are, and she shouldn’t have to change herself for anyone.”
“I’m going now,” Christy giggled. Christy loved that he was trying to cheer her up. She hung up and looked out of the window as the cab glided along West Thirty-Fourth to the entrance of the salon . But then she saw something that made her sit up with a start.
The salon was closed.
Garish striped blinds were drawn over the windows and doors, and a ‘Sorry we’re closed’ sign hung crookedly below the gold ‘Nifty Naylz Pet Salon To The Stars’ sign. She was too late.
“I do not believe this,” she wailed. “Toni—it’s closed!”
She looked around frantically and noticed a tall, familiar figure a little farther up the street, clipping down the sidewalk on vertiginously high heels.
“That’s Talia Popova!” she shrieked. “Stop right here!”
The driver hit the brakes hard. Toni jumped and clutched her knee. The driver shook his head and tutted. “Hey, sweetheart! You trying to finish me off? I got a pacemaker fitted, you know!”
“I’m so sorry, but I have to get out here, like, right now!” She rummaged in her bag for her wallet as the driver maneuvered the car to a safe place by the sidewalk. Thrusting a handful of notes at Toni, she mimed for him to pay the fare as she ran out onto the sidewalk.
“Thanks! Got to catch that woman!” she shouted at Toni and the driver, pointing to the statuesque figure. “She’s getting away!”
“Story of my life, sweetheart,” the driver deadpanned as Christy broke into a run.
She ran as fast as she could, realizing with a despairing groan that her five-foot-two frame was a grossly unfair match for Talia Popova’s endlessly long Russian limbs. But fortunately, a crowd of schoolchildren chose that moment to leave a building and walk in twos toward the subway station, blocking the path of everyone else, including Talia. Christy, exhausted, finally reached her and tapped her shoulder, just as she was about to move off again.
“Excuse me!” she gasped, darting around until she was face to face with the woman.
Talia Popova, blonde with razor-sharp cheekbones, clearly thought she was being mugged. Instinctively she clutched her purse close to her and adopted a rigid, furious posture, which only softened a tiny bit when she realized who her assailant was.
“You!” she cried through beautiful, gritted teeth. “You were late. And now I am late.”
“I’m so sorry,” Christy gasped, “but I had an emergency. Is Bouvier…oh!” Christy had been poked in the ribs—hard—and she was amazed to discover that it had been Talia Popova who had poked her. “Hey!” she gasped. “What was that for? This isn’t Facebook! You can’t just poke people like that!”
“Yes, I can,” Talia snapped, looking down her long nose at Christy. “Out of my way. Taxi!” She was waving furiously at Christy’s taxi. “Wait!”
“But, Bouvier. I need to get her. What have you done with her?”
Talia Popova fluttered her hands dismissively. “Bouvier? No matter Bouvier, I am late for Ms. Lopez.”
Despite everything, Christy’s eyes widened at the name. “Ms. Lopez? You don’t mean—the Ms. Lopez?”
“Who else would I mean?” the Russian woman smirked. “And Ms. Lopez has the platinum service, your Mrs. Kramer only the gold. So, now I get in this cab.” They had reached the cab. Toni, who had been leaning in the driver’s window paying the fare, stood up and turned to see who the woman was who was talking in such a loud voice.
Immediately a strange transformation came over Talia Popova. The moment she caught sight of Toni’s face, she stopped dead, thunderstruck. Her arm, which had been waving furiously at the taxi, fell to her side and her strong, pale jaw dropped open.
Toni, in his shades, seemed used to this reaction. He looked kindly at Talia and smiled. It was a little like the effect Toni had had upon Brigitte back at the Brooklyn apartment complex, only multiplied by about one hundred. Christy, meanwhile, looking from one to the other in complete bafflement, couldn’t think what was happening.
“Toni Benetti,” Talia croaked, looking as though she was about to pass out.
The taxi driver, meanwhile, bored with wondering whether the woman was going to get in or not, slapped his steering wheel, shook his head, and drove off.
“You know him?” Christy couldn’t believe her ears.
Toni kissed Talia’s hand. “Have it your way,” he assured her. Christy wasn’t quite sure what that slogan was all about, but Talia seemed pleased.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” Talia breathed. And then she unleashed a barrage of Russian syllables. Their meaning was clear to Christy, even though her Russian was as good as her timekeeping skills today: Talia was starstruck.
“Okay, you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on,” Christy demanded, looking sternly at them both.
“What do you mean?” Talia, a little recovered, looked at Christy in surprise. “Everyone knows Toni Benetti where I come from! He is a supermodel. Huge in Russia. And also in Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia.”
“Really? Toni, that’s amazing!” But not surprising, she thought afterward. His arrival in the States made more sense already—he must have come to break into America, having already conquered Eastern Europe. She’d had a feeling he seemed too intelligent just to jump on a plane on a whim. Toni signed the scrap of paper that Talia had pushed into his hands.
Talia squealed like a teenager when Toni handed her the autograph. “Thank you so much,” she gushed. “If there is anything I can do for you while you are in the United State of America, please—”
“Well, Talia, there is one thing…” Christy saw her opportunity to rescue the situation—and Bouvier—and took it.
“Oh, of course!” said Talia, quickly catching on to Christy’s meaning. “Shall we get lovely Bouvier now?” And with that, she took Toni’s arm and began to walk back to her salon, looking all around her, obviously hoping to be spotted by somebody she knew.
“Huh, so all of a sudden the Ms. Lopez can wait, can she?” Christy fumed under her breath as she trailed along behind the other two.
They got back to the drawn blinds of the nail salon, and she could hear Bouvier barking before Talia had even gotten the door unlocked. Furious staccato yelps were piercing the air. Christy began to feel uneasy. While not exactly her ideal pet, still, Bouvier was usually a good-natured little Pomeranian. Something was wrong.
“Wait here, I get her,” Talia urged, suddenly evasive.
But Toni simply followed her inside, and Christy followed, too. The barking doubled in volume as soon as they entered the salon. Christy looked around. There were grooming tables, little bathtubs, and all kinds of doggie cosmetics and accessories, but no Bouvier. Her barking was coming from behind a door at the rear of the salon. With a sigh of resignation, Talia opened it, and Bouvier, still yapping furiously, came hurtling out as though shot from a cannon.
“Stop him!” Talia yelled. “Before he runs into the street and gets splatted like a pancake!” Christy just had time to slam the front door before Bouvier made it outside to an almost certain demise under a truck. Quickly she grabbed the little dog and stood up triumphantly.
Toni was standing, hands on hips, looking in disgust at the place where Bouvier had been locked up.
“A broom cupboard?” Christy breathed. “You shut Bouvier in a broom cupboard and left her alone?”
The little dog was inconsolable, wriggling and yapping in Christy’s arms. It took a f
ew moments before Christy saw that her tiny claws had been lacquered in a vibrant shade of crimson, with glittering little rhinestones set into the polish. Teamed with her fluffy white coat, the effect was startling.
“Poor doggy,” Christy soothed. “What have you had to go through to be to be fabulized like this?”
As she glowered at the woman, Toni suddenly began speaking to Talia in words she didn’t recognize but knew weren’t Italian. Could he speak Russian? Whatever it was, Talia could understand what he was saying and wasn’t enjoying it. She tried to defend herself, speaking loudly, tapping at her watch, and pointing at Christy, but Toni was having none of it. He replied by gesturing to the cupboard and then to little Bouvier, who was getting more and more worked up in Christy’s arms. Toni’s language may have been Russian, but his body language was Italian through and through: the arm-waving, the dramatic emotion…
Roger’s phone went off in her pocket. Christy, clutching Bouvier closer still, struggled to wrest it from her bag and answer it.
It was Will. “Sounds like you got the dog,” he said.
Christy could tell he was smiling. She also couldn’t believe that only a few hours ago she’d classed him as ‘uptown’ and arrogant. Now his voice was smooth and comforting, and it sent a shiver of happiness through her.
“Yup, thanks to you getting us here in the nick of time. Ooh, Bouvier, that hurt!” Bouvier’s little sparkling claws dug into her neck as she tried to reach the phone to lick it. “Ewww, don’t lick the phone!”
“I am not licking the phone, however snazzy it is. But I’m not judging, if that’s what you’re into.”
“Not you!” Christy giggled. “The dog. She’s trying to hear your voice.” Sure enough, Bouvier really seemed to be craning her tiny neck upward to listen in on the conversation. And she stopped barking.
“Well, of course she is,” Will replied. “I have that effect on women.”
“You do?” Christy laughed. “Who knew?”
“Everything go okay?”
“Okay might be an exaggeration,” Christy told him. “We got here just after the owner shut the salon, and she’d locked poor Bouvier in a broom cupboard and left for the day.”
“No way.” Will sounded genuinely shocked.
“Yup. We just got here as she was walking away, and she wasn’t going to stop for anyone. Until luckily, she recognized Toni. After that, she was putty in his hands.”
“What do you mean, she recognized him? I thought he was new to the city?”
“Oh, he is, but apparently he’s a supermodel. Can you believe it?”
“A what?” Will spluttered.
“He’s a model—I must have told you?”
“You didn’t,” he said tersely. “You said something about an agency, but I thought you meant a job agency of some kind.”
“It is a job agency—for models! Anyhow, according to Talia Popova—”
“The Nifty Naylz pet incarcerator?”
“The very same! She told me he’s, like, really famous in places that end in ‘onia.’ I’ve never heard of most of these places, but one of them was Russia, and even I’d heard of Russia, and that’s where Talia’s from, and she says he’s very famous there. Now he’s come to try his luck at agencies in New York. Anyway, what do you think of that? Hmm? Will?”
“Good luck to him. It’s pretty tough out here in the modeling world.” The words came out in a flat monotone.
“Not Toni, the dog. In a broom cupboard?”
“Is that guy you’re hanging out with really a supermodel?”
Christy could tell that Will was rattled by the thought. “Uh-huh. And I don’t think he needs the luck, he’s…well…how would I describe him—”
“Take your time, please. I can’t wait for this.”
“Drop-dead gorgeous, I guess, is about the best description I can think of under pressure. You know, the kind of guy that women cry themselves to sleep over.”
She looked at her companion, still shaking his head and haranguing Talia about her dog neglect. He really was quite extraordinarily beautiful—even when furious.
Then she realized something else: his beauty had no effect on her whatsoever. But talking to Will, on the other hand—now that was definitely giving her goosebumps.
“Will?” she said, making her voice as low and sexy as possible. “Are you jealous?”
She held her breath as the silence on the other end of the line grew longer and longer. She suddenly wanted to say something else to dilute the situation but couldn’t think what. Bouvier, held close to her chest, began wriggling and whimpering again, and after a few seconds had broken back out into full-blown barking. Christy struggled to soothe the dog as her cheeks grew pink with embarrassment—had she read too much into his warm tone? Had she blown it now, as far as their friendly relationship went?
“I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about,” Will said eventually as Bouvier, hearing his voice, yipped with pleasure and then became quiet once more.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Christy said with feeling. And then, changing tack to get past her silly comment, “Right, cap’n’, where to next?”
“That’s the spirit!” Will said, his voice returned to normal.
“Oh, and one more thing, Will?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you could stay on the line and keep talking? Because, much as I hate to admit it, it looks as though Bouvier only stays quiet when she can hear your voice.”
She heard him laugh. “It’s like I said, Christy, I have that effect on women.”
Christy was starting to agree.
Chapter Twelve
CHRISTY
2:55 p.m.
2:00 p.m. Pick up Mrs. Ledger’s car – Fifty-five minutes late.
2:30 p.m. Pick up Mrs. H’s item from photoshoot – do later…when?
3:30 p.m. Collect Mrs. Ledger from the clinic – running late.
Christy didn’t know how Toni had done it, but by the time they left the salon a few minutes later, she was holding not only a check for a full refund of Bouvier’s manicure, but also a second check, made out to the Animal Rescue Sanctuary, for a gratifyingly large sum.
Will, still on the line, was unimpressed when Christy relayed the good news to him. “That’s the least she should have done,” he said. “How much is the check for?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Huh, I’m sure I could’ve got one hundred out of her.”
“Oh yeah?” Christy replied smoothly. “I didn’t know you spoke Russian.”
“Don’t you have to pick up Mrs. Ledger now?” Will sidestepped the question, making Christy giggle.
“Oh, yes, so I do. But first I need to collect her car; it’s parked a few streets away.”
“So, is Mrs. Ledger not capable of driving herself home?”
“Not today, Will. Poor Mrs. Ledger had another eye lift yesterday; there’s no way she’s driving anywhere for a while.”
“Another eye lift?” Will repeated as little Bouvier, still nestled into Christy’s neck, whimpered with pleasure at the sound of his voice. “How high does she want her eyes to be?”
“I’m afraid so,” Christy admitted. “This will be her third.”
“I know a woman like that. Let me guess: getting on in years, finds it difficult to smile, or frown, or show any emotion using her face.”
“That’s her.” It was a perfect description of Mrs. Ledger. She was a nice old lady, but she had a poker face a gambler would kill for—it never showed a thing. “Whoa, wait a minute, you don’t know her, do you?”
“You mean Grandma?”
“What?” Christy nearly dropped the phone.
Will laughed. “Ha! Gotcha again! Of course I don’t know her. Go on.”
Christy rolled her eyes and continued. “She had her first about six months ago, and she loved the result
so much that she went in to have her eyes lifted even further. But it was a bit of a disaster; she looked like a baddie out of Batman—”
“Ouch. Poor woman.”
“I know! So this is the corrective stage, when, hopefully, everything will go back to how it was after her first procedure. What a waste of money.” Christy looked around and realized she and Toni were at an intersection. “Hey, Will, which way now? We’re at the corner you told me about.”
“Okay, hang right, then walk four blocks straight, and you’re there.”
“Got it, thank you. Anyhow, Mrs. Ledger’s eyes will be bandaged up—she’s not going to be able to see a thing. I’ve got to get her, and her Mercedes-Benz, safely home.”
Bouvier was wriggling again, making little whimpering noises as she tried to get closer to the phone.
“That’s great that she’s got you, Christy,” Will went on, “but I wonder why she was so unhappy with herself that she went for cosmetic surgery?”
As if by magic, Bouvier was once again in doggy raptures at the sound of his voice. Christy gave her a disapproving look. Then she said, “You really care about people, don’t you, Will?”
There was a short pause before Will answered. “I guess so. I made people my business. I think I just get a buzz out of working them out. And matching them to roles and functions within organizations—it’s satisfying…but kind of boring to listen to, so I won’t subject you to it.”
“Not at all!” Christy exclaimed, realizing that not only was his voice having a good effect on Bouvier, but she was also enjoying their chat. “We’re both in the business of making people happy, aren’t we?”
“Probably,” Will replied thoughtfully. “It’s kind of a nice way of looking at it.”
Christy looked up at Toni, all set to say something apologetic about her rudeness in staying on the phone so long, but he, as usual, was rapt in his wonder at the big city.