“Something had to pull them in and the paintings I had weren’t doing it.”
“They were very good paintings,” Johanna said in a voice that was reminiscent of the past. She sounded, he thought, less world-weary for a moment, as if she had dropped the burden of the emotional luggage she was carrying. He loved her loyalty. And damn it all, he still loved her, after all this time. “The people there just had no taste, that’s all.”
“You always were loyal.” Except when it mattered most, he thought. But then he couldn’t have blamed her. She hadn’t known. Would it have mattered to her if she had? Would she have stayed? It was something he intended to find out this time around.
He saw her face cloud slightly and knew somehow he had said the wrong thing.
“Yes, like a faithful puppy dog.” She raised the glass to her lips and took a long, healthy sip. “That was always my shortcoming.”
“Loyalty is never a shortcoming.”
“It is if you use it to bury yourself, to chain yourself to something that’s dead and gone.”
He had promised himself not to push only a few short minutes ago. His promise only lived long enough to wait while the entrees were served and the waitress left once again. “Did he hurt you that badly?”
She tensed. Sympathy would reopen wounds and she wanted them sealed. “Joshua, I didn’t come here to unload my problems—“
“Then we’re no longer friends?”
“Of course we are.”
“You always used to tell me what was bothering you,” he said patiently.
“The things that bothered a nineteen-year-old silly girl are light years away from the woman you see here.”
“You were never silly.”
His smile made her feel warm and that made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want warmth, she wanted only to work. Her romance with Tommy had been short, sweet and healing. But it also had its limitations. She had known the ground rules ahead of time, had known that there was no future and in knowing, couldn’t make plans, couldn’t make dreams that would ultimately crumble in her hand. Something in Joshua’s eyes told her that she didn’t have the grace of that kind of limitation here.
She switched directions. “Are you married, Joshua?”
It came out of the blue and he wondered why she was trying so hard to divert the conversation away from her. “To my work. To the gallery.”
“No girlfriend in the wings?”
He thought of the women he knew, the pleasant, temporarily satisfying merges of bodies that lasted the night or the week. “No.”
She kept her eyes on her plate, afraid to look into his eyes, afraid of what she would see there. “How is it that someone as wonderful as you isn’t spoken for?”
“The obvious joke about ‘just lucky, I guess’ doesn’t apply. I’ve always wanted a home and family.”
This time, she did look up. She heard a trace of loneliness in his voice. “Yes, I know.”
“But there was never anyone who qualified.”
“Flunked the test, did they?” she teased.
“Something like that.”
None of them were you, he added silently. It wasn’t that he was obsessed with her so much as she had provided him with a guideline, a ruler that no one else he had met afterwards could match up to. Yes, she was beautiful, but it wasn’t the kind of ice beauty that he had seen time and again. Hers was the kind that lingered on the mind and left a warm, pulsating appreciation. It brought sunshine into his life.
But more important than beauty, she had compassion. There wasn’t a person in need that she could turn her back on, even when they were going to college. She continued to have a soft heart. He had followed her life through the magazine articles. She was always heading some charitable fundraiser. It seemed to Joshua that she looked like she could use a little charity herself right now, of a comforting nature.
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“Jocelyn and I are staying at the Plaza Hotel. Jocelyn’s my—“
“Daughter, yes I know.” He saw the question enter her eyes.
“I didn’t introduce you in London, did I?” No, she had been with Tommy at the time. Mary had taken Jocelyn out for the day, she recalled.
“You forget, I can read.”
She nodded and pushed away her plate. Her appetite was gone. “The newspaper stories.”
All this was causing her pain, he thought, damning Harry to hell. “How serious is it, really? For Harry.”
She wondered why he had singled it out that way. She hadn’t told him about her pending divorce. He probably guessed, though. He could always read her like a book. “He could go to jail.”
“For how long?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Too long for him.”
“Have you left him, Johanna?”
She raised her eyes to his and he saw the tears shimmering there. He cursed Harry for putting them there and himself for raising them.
“Yes.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” Maybe, he thought, instead of cursing Harry, he should be grateful to the man for being such an ass. If he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t be getting this second chance to win Johanna.
She shook her head, brushing a tear away with her fingertips. “I always get sentimental over ham and swiss crepes.” She mustered a grin. “Know of any vacant apartments?”
“In New York? Have you tried the obituaries?” he joked.
“Still that tough, eh?”
“Depends on what you’re looking for.”
“Cheap,” she said quickly. “And close to the gallery.”
He grinned, hoping to put the serious moments behind them, for the time being at least. “There’s my apartment.”
He was rewarded with a smile. “Seriously.”
He snapped his fingers. “Foiled again.”
“Thanks, Joshua.”
“Is that a general ‘thanks’ or a specific one?”
“Specific.” Her voice softened to a whisper. “For being here, for being my friend. For not asking too many questions.”
“So much for the interrogation. Always one jump ahead of me, aren’t you?”
“Never.” she laughed.
“Eat your crepes and we’ll see what we can do about your living arrangements.”
To her surprise, she found that she was hungry again. Being around Joshua had always been good for her.
Chapter Thirty
“You know, Johanna.” Joshua leaned back, sipping his wine, rolling an idea over in his mind. “I think I might have a place for you to stay after all.”
She brightened. “Oh?”
“How would a loft suit you?”
Disappointment followed in the wake of hope. A loft was out of the question. “It would suit me beautifully, but that’s a bit too rich for my blood these days.” She hated the way that sounded, so small, so niggardly, but she had to think of costs now.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be able to manage fine on your salary.”
“Where is the loft? Rhode Island?”
“No.” Joshua finished his wine before he continued. “As it happens, the man I was visiting in London is still there. C’mon,” he rose, peeling off a few bills and throwing them on the table, “let me make a phone call and see if Elton has any objections to a beautiful woman living in his loft while he’s out, soaking up European influence.”
He ushered her out of the restaurant, passing a buxom redhead on the way.
The woman raked him over with her eyes before she asked, “How was it, mon cheri?”
Joshua kissed his fingers and threw the kiss to the winds. “Wonderful, as always, Veronica.”
The woman beamed. “Always a pleasure, Joshua.”
She looked, Johanna thought, as if she would have liked to extend her pleasure to include Joshua as the main course. She wondered if Joshua had ever been involved with the good-looking woman.
The crisp autumn air felt invigorating after the satisfying meal. Going with fe
eling, Johanna slipped her hand into Joshua’s.
Joshua looked down at their linked hands. So natural, so right. He felt a smile growing from his very core and spreading out to include every part of him.
They walked into the gallery and Joshua had her sit down as he looked up Elton’s mobile number. Anticipation began to hum through her veins as she listened to Joshua talk to someone on the other end. Two wrong numbers and a connection that terminated in the middle followed before he finally was able to communicate with the owner of the loft. It lasted all of five minutes. Elton trusted Joshua implicitly and if Joshua vouched for Johanna, that was good enough for him. Besides, it would be nice to defray the cost of rent if at all possible.
When he hung up, Joshua turned to her, a satisfied look on his face. “The place is yours for six months. Maybe longer. Elton never estimates his time properly. He works slower than he thinks.” Joshua pulled out a set of keys from the center drawer of his cluttered desk. Handing them to Johanna, he gave her an address on Broome Street.
She rolled the address over in her mind. “That’s three blocks from here.”
“Exactly. The only thing that Elton likes better than painting is eating. He likes to be within smelling distance of Veronica’s Restaurant. Has a passion for crepes, it seems. And Veronica has a passion for him. It works out to everyone’s benefit.”
She reached for her purse. “Does he want a check now—?”
“We can take care of all the details later. Details never bothered Elton. He goes for the grand picture. Besides,” Joshua grinned, “I don’t see you running off in the middle of the night.”
Johanna thought of the address. She wouldn’t have to waste any precious time commuting. That would give her more time with Jocelyn. And her painting. “This is absolutely perfect.” She clapped her hands together. Hers for six months. Six months in which to get settled and find a real place of her own. It was too good to be true. She knew in her heart that coming to see Joshua was a good idea. She just hadn’t realized how good.
Joshua let his eyes roam her face. Right now, she looked every bit as young as she had all those years ago. “Yes, I always thought so. It’s not much and Elton wasn’t the greatest at keeping house—he hated housekeepers—but it’s yours.” He mentioned a ridiculously reasonable price.
This was even better than she had hoped for. “You can’t rent a phone booth for that in New York.”
“Attribute it to my persuasive charm.” He sat on the edge of the desk. “Elton owes me a favor. I unloaded a particularly hideous painting of his and got a damn good price for it.”
A place to stay. Somewhere she could call home. Relieved, Johanna kissed Joshua’s cheek. “With you an hour and you’re already indispensable in my life.”
He wanted to take her hand, but didn’t. “I plan to be, Johanna.”
For a moment, his tone had her hesitating. “Joshua.”
Slowly, the smile slipped away from her lips. “I think you should know something.”
“Yes?”
“I’m dead inside.”
With Joshua, it might be different she thought, then realized that she was only chasing rainbows. It was supposed to have been different with Harry and it hadn’t been. It had been hideous. It was a man who had made her believe that dreams came true, he made her believe that forever could be beautiful. And it was a man who had destroyed it all. As long as Joshua stayed her friend, he wasn’t really a man. She felt his reaction to her and was afraid of it. She didn’t want another male-female relationship. She wanted to remain free.
“Then moving in might be hard for you,” he said lightly.
She appreciated the change in tone, in topic. She was being paranoid. Joshua wouldn’t want anything from her. He was just being a friend. He was being what she needed. With a laugh, she answered, “I’ll manage. When do you want me to start?”
Right now. “Tomorrow too soon?”
“Not soon enough. I’ll see you at—?” She had no idea when the gallery opened its doors.
“Nine’ll be fine.”
“Nine it is. Goodbye. And thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
“Why not?”
He saw the apprehension enter her eyes yet. Like a horse that had been whipped, he thought. It was going to take time. And patience. “In the dictionary, under slave driver, it says, ‘See Joshua.’”
She relaxed. “I can handle it.”
Johanna walked out, feeling very accomplished. She had landed a job and a place to stay all in one afternoon. Since the plane had touched down yesterday, she had been worried about both things. It turned out to be so simple, Johanna felt almost guilty. It hadn’t been nearly as hard as she had feared.
No, the hard part was going to be adjusting, she thought as she took a cab back to the hotel. Adjusting to making it on her own.
Johanna leaned back in the cab. The same scenery passed her window as on the trip to Soho, but this time, she didn’t see. Her driver was talking steadily, something about the baseball play-offs, but she wasn’t listening. The afternoon had left her in a state of wild euphoria. Thank God for Joshua, she thought. He had made the solution to almost all her problems seem so simple.
“We’re moving,” she announced to Jocelyn breathlessly as she swept into the suite.
Jocelyn scrambled up on the sofa, rising up to her knees. “To California?” she asked excitedly.
“To Soho.”
“Where’s that?”
“You’ll find out, my love. You’ll find out. Oh, it’s going to be wonderful.”
“For you,” the girl grumbled, sitting down on her heels on the sofa.
Johanna cupped Jocelyn’s chin in her hand and raised it until their eyes met. “For us,” she corrected.
There was no dampening her enthusiasm. She had a job, an apartment, a future. Everything was going to be just fine.
They checked out of the hotel within the hour and arrived at their new home. On the trip over, Jocelyn had grown progressively more morose about the prospect of actually living in New York, away from her friends, away from the sunshine, to reside in a city she considered “gross.”
Jocelyn stood in the doorway and looked around critically, unwilling to move, as if taking a step into the apartment would bind her to stay. It was a huge room. It was only one room.
“Where’s the rest of the rooms?”
“This is it.”
“What a dump!”
Johanna deposited the remainder of her suitcases just inside the door, too tired to do anything more. “Auditions for Bette Davis are being held next Thursday, not today, kid.”
Jocelyn stared at her. “Huh?”
Johanna dismissed the question with a shake of her head. “You had to be there. Before your time, Jocey.”
Jocelyn glared. “So’s this place.”
It needed help, that was true. Joshua’s friend might have been kind and a successful artist, but as a housekeeper, he left much to be desired. Such as a vacuum, a dust rag and all the cleaning essentials that would have helped to make the loft liveable. Still, the place was tremendous and more than she had hoped for.
Jocelyn refused to enter. “Are you sure we won’t catch anything if we stay here?”
Johanna spared her one look, then went back to planning things out. “No, but we will if we linger out on the street.”
“Why can’t we go back to the hotel?”
She deposited one suitcase on the huge round bed in the center of the room. That would have to be moved, she decided. At least while she lived here. “I checked us out.”
“Check us back in again.”
“Hotels cost money, my love, and though I know you have no concept of it at all, it takes a lot to afford the Plaza Hotel.”
Sensing defeat, Jocelyn took one tentative step inside the apartment. “What does this place cost, ninety-nine cents?”
Johanna laughed and shook her head. “Spoken like a true spoiled child of the times.”
>
“I wanna go home.”
“This is home,” she said firmly.
Jocelyn was determined to hate it and she did. “This is a dump.”
“You’ve already done that line.” Johanna took a few essentials out of the suitcase.
“Please, Mom?” Jocelyn placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder in mute supplication.
“Honey.” Johanna turned, taking her into her arms. “I know this is a big adjustment for you. It’s no picnic for me either.”
“Then why are we doing it?”
“Because we have to.” She kissed the top of Jocelyn’s head.
“Why can’t we go back to Beverly Hills and wait for Dad?”
“Dad’s going to be gone for a long time, honey.” Johanna ran her hand through her daughter’s silver blond hair. “And I’ve got to earn a living.”
“You can’t earn one there?”
It was too difficult to explain and she was too tired. Maybe it was the coward’s way out, but for now she’d take it. “No. It has to be here. I’ve already got a job and Aunt Mary knows of this great private school that you can go to.”
“School?” Jocelyn pulled away, hostility building in her voice. “I have to face school here, too?”
She dug deep for patience. “Why not? They have schools in New York.”
“Oh God, Mom, new people—“ Jocelyn looked absolutely horrified. She covered her mouth with her hands and looked as if she was going to be sick.
Johanna knew what it meant to be the new kid on the block. It wasn’t easy. “They only stay new until you meet them.” Easy for me to say, Johanna thought.
Jocelyn sank down on the circular bed. “They’ll hate me.”
“Why? I don’t think you’re horrible.”
“You’re my mother. You’re supposed to say that.”
“Nope.” Johanna sat down beside her. “Nowhere in the mother manual does it say I have to say that. It says I have to feed you and clothe you until age eighteen, but nowhere does it say I have to say that you’re not hate-able.”
“Is that a real word?”
Sapphire and Shadow (A Woman's Life) Page 23