by Shirley Jump
All those if onlys had been lived by Diana. Sarah had made sure her little sister got to experience everything—dates, proms, parties—even if that meant Sarah was the one waiting up at home instead of doing the same thing. Or working insane hours to help pay for Diana’s dreams.
Their father had worked hard all his life, but a cop’s salary only went so far. As his wife’s illness worsened, he became less attentive to the holes in the family budget, so Sarah went to work, adding what she could to the family coffers. Never telling her father, just quietly taking care of them all.
Which meant her life had been put on hold for so long, she’d forgotten what it meant to have one outside of work. Working a job that paid well but that grated on her conscience on a daily basis. Sarah Griffin needed a change—and she’d thought that bringing home the Frederick Ks would be the first step.
Kinda hard to take any step at all only wearing one shoe.
“Diana, you promised,” Sarah said, returning her attention to the problem at hand—what to do about Dad. “You can’t just back out on that because it’s inconvenient.”
Her sister winced. The truth had hit its mark. “I can’t drop everything just because you’ve decided that Dad has overstayed his welcome. I mean, I have a job, friends—”
“And what, I don’t?” Sarah said.
Diana bit off a laugh. “Sarah, I don’t want to be mean, but seriously, you have all the social life of wallpaper. I’m out every night. I can’t be babysitting Dad.”
“I’m out, too. More nights than I’d like to be.”
“Yeah, writing about how other people are living their lives. That doesn’t make you a social butterfly.”
Sarah brushed off her sister’s words. The magazine paid her to cover those events. So what if doing so left her little time to do anything more than watch and write? She was the one who was being responsible. Doing her duty as a daughter, letting her father stay with her for the last few weeks. “I’m doing my job, sis. Something I’d be able to focus on more if you stuck to your promise. Dad won’t be staying long with you.”
Okay, so Sarah couldn’t really promise that. Martin Griffin had already been in her apartment—him and his godawful ugly recliner—for over a year. After their mother had died, Martin had wandered around the empty, quiet family home for several months before Sarah finally convinced him to put it on the market. He wasn’t good at living on his own—he had spent far too many years on the police force and was more used to male camaraderie than to running a house. He forgot to eat dinner, forgot to transfer the wet clothes to the dryer, forgot to put the basket in the coffeepot. Sarah had stopped by twice a day, worried he’d hurt himself one of these days, and finally she’d just suggested he move in with her. Her father, for all his grumpiness, seemed to enjoy living at Sarah’s, and tried to help out in his own way. Not necessarily the way Sarah wanted, but she loved her father and had enjoyed him living with her.
Still, she wanted her independence. The freedom from worrying. She’d worried for years—about the house, about her father, about her sister and mostly about her mother—and the responsibilities weighed so heavily on her shoulders, she was surprised she wasn’t stooped over. It was Diana’s turn to be the responsible one. To take some of the burden from Sarah.
Except Diana didn’t want any responsibility and never had. Maybe Sarah had made a mistake in being so indulgent with her little sister.
The lipstick went back in her sister’s purse, replaced by a travel hairbrush and a hand mirror. “I’m in the middle of planning the Horticultural Society Charity Ball. It’s my first big job out of college, and it’s super important, Sarah. I don’t have time for this…distraction.”
Sarah didn’t mention that the “job” her sister spoke of was a volunteer position, given to her by her boyfriend’s mother, who chaired the Horticultural Society. Her sister had yet to find employment she could stick with longer than a few weeks.
“That distraction is your father.” Sarah shook her head. “I swear, we are not related.”
“Let him stay here. He likes you better anyway.”
Sarah glanced over at her sister, but Diana was immersed in sweeping her bangs into a soft C shape. “Diana, he loves us both equally.”
Diana snorted. “I have two dogs, Sarah. And I definitely like one better than the other.”
“We’re his children, not his pets. Family ties run much deeper than flea collars.”
Diana arched a brow. “But, Sarah,” and now her voice dropped into a whine, “you’re good at dealing with Dad. I don’t even get along with him.”
“What better way to build a relationship than by having him move in?” Sarah gave her sister a smile. A firm smile.
“I’d rather buy him tickets to the next Mets game.”
“Sorry, sis, but it’s your turn.” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. “You might have trashed my career today, but I’m not letting you get out of this, too. At the end of this month we’ll get him moved over.” They’d had this same argument just thirty minutes ago—and look where it had ended up. With Diana picking up the thing closest to her and pitching it out the window.
Sarah refused to budge this time. For too long, she’d acquiesced at the cost of her own plans. The day she’d walked out of the office with the Frederick Ks impulsively shoved into her tote bag had been the day she’d decided she would stop being the responsible, dependable one. If she didn’t put her foot down now and demand that those around her change, then things might never move past where they’d been, and that wasn’t an option.
Except now she was too worried about finding that damned shoe to do anything but be responsible.
Diana sputtered out one last protest. “But—”
“No. It’s settled. I’m not having this discussion anymore. If I ever find that shoe—” And Sarah was beginning to despair of ever seeing it again, but she couldn’t think of that right now or she would go insane. “—I’ll be working nonstop at the magazine. This is my big break. Dad hates to be left alone, and you know how he gets if no one is here to be with him.”
“I can’t. I have—”
Sarah crossed to her sister. The sight of the shoe spiraling out the window came back to her mind, along with years of frustration. She met Diana’s gaze and held her ground. “You have family who needs you, Diana. That’s all there is to it.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Diana said, her voice low and quiet.
Was everything okay with Diana? The familiar worry, which she had felt for so many years, during which she’d been as much mother to Diana as sister, sprang to life in Sarah. Her confident, beautiful little sister rarely betrayed vulnerability or weakness. She had always been, as people said, a “handful,” a spitfire. And yet, a sense of melancholy seemed to be painted on Diana’s features. “Diana, are you all right?”
Sarah reached for her sister, but Diana rose, tucked the brush and mirror back into her purse, then headed for the door. “If Dad moved in with me, it would be a disaster. Please, Sarah. Let him stay with you. It’ll be easier all around.” For a second, Sarah considered relenting. To release Diana from a duty she didn’t want. Then her sister said the words that made Sarah solidify her resolve. “Face it, Sarah. You’re the one we all rely on. You’re the only responsible one in the family.”
“I don’t want to be,” Sarah said to her sister’s retreating form as Diana left the apartment. “Not anymore.”
Caleb Lewis propped the shoe on the top shelf of the credenza behind his desk, then sat back in his chair and stared at the slender red stiletto he’d found that morning. Size 7, sleek in all its crimson curves and sporting a racy T-strap design. The thing had literally dropped from the sky, practically into his hands. What were the chances?
It had to be a fake. Couldn’t be the super-secret, big hush-hush prototype for Frederick K’s much-anticipated shoe line. Ever since he’d opened his doors, women had been buying every dress, blouse and skirt that the hot-shot rising Bost
on designer made. They’d stood in line for hours just for a chance to buy a cocktail dress. Nearly come to blows over the launch of his cashmere sweaters last fall.
Frederick K was the hot shiny new toy in the fashion industry, and LL Designs had been trying to play catch-up ever since. Caleb had taken over his mother’s company a little more than a year ago, when LL Designs was at its height of popularity. And immediately after he’d seen Frederick K come on the scene and steal away their business, one design at a time, like a mouse nibbling at a piece of cheese.
In that time, the stakes had risen. Hit by a hard economy, a decrease in couture spending, and the additional competition, Caleb had been trying to resurrect the business for months. But he lacked his mother’s eye for women’s designs, and everything the rest of the designers had come up with lacked that LL Designs spark. Caleb couldn’t say what was missing, only that the products just weren’t the same.
Hell, nothing had been the same since he’d taken over for his mother, stepping into a position he had no business filling. At the time, the options had been almost nil. Lenora had been here one day, then fighting for her life the next. Without the company founder at the helm, the employees had gone into a panic. The only option was to fill the CEO position with someone who cared as much about the company as Lenora. It was supposed to be a temporary fix until he could afford to hire a CEO.
It hadn’t been long before Caleb realized how much he cared about the company wasn’t enough to offset his lack of experience. Nor did it help the company run effectively and profitably. He should have been smart and hired a new head designer, at the very least. But as the company funds dwindled, the dollars for any additional staff disappeared. At the time, Caleb had thought he could handle it.
After all, this was just dresses and blouses. How hard could it be?
Apparently plenty hard, and not at all the kind of thing a former marketing director could do. He knew all about how to sell the product to the consumer—the problem he had was creating a product consumers actually liked.
This spring’s fashion shows were the make-or-break-it opportunity for LL Designs. Either get the public’s attention this year or close the doors of the decades-old fashion house. And admit that he had singlehandedly run his mother’s life’s work into the ground. If she knew what had happened to her company…well, it was a blessing that she didn’t.
Way to go, Caleb. Want to blow up a small village while you’re at it?
“That isn’t…” His assistant Martha Nessbaum stopped by his desk, and put a hand over her mouth. He hadn’t even heard the older woman come in—that alone showed how distracted he’d become in the last few weeks. Caleb Lewis, who had always been on top of the smallest detail in his former career, was clearly losing his focus. “Is it?”
“Maybe,” Caleb said. “It sure fits the leaked description.”
“Can I touch it?”
“Martha, it’s a shoe, not the Hope diamond.”
Martha shot him a you-don’t-get-it look. “This isn’t just a shoe, Caleb, it’s…sex on a heel.”
Caleb chuckled. He hadn’t expected his sixtyish, lion-at-the-door assistant to say that. “Women and shoes. Once researchers figure out how to cure cancer and how Stonehenge was built, I’m sure they’ll get right to work on that mystery.”
“How did you get hold of it?”
“Someone lost it.”
“What do you mean someone lost it? Who would do that?” Martha’s gaze narrowed. “You didn’t break into the Frederick K factory and steal it, did you?”
He laughed. “No. I’m not that desperate.”
Yet. How long until he was? LL Designs employed four hundred people. Four hundred people who counted on him to pay their mortgages, send their kids to college, put food on their tables. It wasn’t just the thought of destroying Lenora Lewis’s legacy that ate him up at night—
It was the thought of all those people standing in the unemployment line. Because of him.
For the thousandth time he wondered what insanity had made him think he could handle running this company. Hell, he could barely handle his own life. He’d made enough mistakes to fill a cruise ship. Maybe if he had—
No, he wasn’t going to think about that. Water under the bridge—water that still churned in his gut with regrets.
Martha reached out and picked up the slender crimson heel. She cradled it in her palm as gently as a newborn kitten, and, he swore, nearly breathed in the scent of the leather. “It’s beautiful. Absolutely—” She gasped, then turned the right side toward him and pointed at a slight scuff mark. “Oh, my God. What happened here?”
“An unfortunate meeting with concrete.” The damage looked as if it could be buffed out, but either way, it didn’t matter to Caleb. He wasn’t photographing the shoe, or selling it or wearing it. Just using it for his own purposes.
The idea had come to him almost from the minute he picked up the Frederick K stiletto this morning. He’d been in such a rush to get to the meeting with the venue he was using for Fashion Week that he’d nearly missed the discarded high heel. But the flash of red drew his eye, and he found himself stopping, partly out of curiosity, partly out of some weird sixth sense that told him the forgotten shoe wasn’t some Goodwill cast-off, but rather something big. Very big.
Before he even picked it up, he recognized the trademark black striped underside that marked every Frederick K design. Then the scribbled autograph of the designer, sewn into the leather base. An F, a squiggle, then a K. The man could have been a doctor, given the disaster he made out of his own signature.
Before he could think about what he was doing, Caleb had tucked the shoe into his jacket, called a cab and headed to his meeting. Someone was undoubtedly missing this shoe—
But Caleb sure as hell wasn’t missing this opportunity to one-up the shark threatening to send LL Designs to the bottom of the crowded, competitive fashion ocean. People were counting on him to keep this ship afloat, and by God, he’d do that.
Yeah, but how? the little voice in the back of his head asked. He couldn’t let his employees down. But most of all, couldn’t let his mother down. She might not be aware of what was happening with the company, but he held on to the thought that maybe someday she would be back, and if she returned, she’d want to see that he had been a good steward of her legacy.
“So…now that you have the elusive Frederick K shoe,” Martha said, “what are you going to do with it?” She clutched it to her chest, as if she couldn’t part with the right-foot treasure.
Caleb leaned forward and pried the stiletto out of Martha’s hand, then put it back on his shelf. “Keep it. And then rush an even hotter design into production. We’ve been talking about launching a line of shoes for years, and we got all geared up to do just that before the bottom dropped out of the industry. I think now’s the time. This just fell into my lap—literally—and it’d be insane not to take advantage of it.”
“You’re finally going to take that leap?” Martha’s smile widened in approval. “It’s about damned time.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. It probably is.”
“And for what it’s worth, your mother would be proud.”
The words sent a sharp pang through Caleb. Proud. Would she be?
Caleb’s gaze landed on the painting of his mother that hung on the far wall. The oil likeness had captured a younger Lenora, not the woman he knew now. A constant smile curved across her face, and her platinum-blond hair was piled on top of her head in a loose chignon, the same one she’d worn nearly every day, half the time with a pencil stuck in the knot. She seemed to be looking down on him and patiently waiting for him to pull off a miracle.
To do the right thing.
He closed his eyes, unable to look at her image another second. The right thing. Did he even know what that was?
“Proud?” Caleb said, looking away from his mother’s image. “Of what I’ve done to her company? Of how I’ve nearly ruined a lifetime of work in a little over a
year?”
Martha leaned in toward him, her expression stern. “You got on the back of a wild elephant when you took the reins of this company. I know it’s been difficult, but you’re doing a better job than you think. And now…” She pressed a hand to her chest and the smile returned. “…you’re taking a risk. Jumping off into the great unknown. That’s the kind of thing Lenora did.”
He hadn’t thought about launching a shoe line as repeating his mother’s brazen business antics. If that was so, then maybe this was the ticket to relaunching the company into a successful orbit.
“What are you going to use for designs?” Martha asked.
He toyed with the heel of the shoe. It was truly a work of art, all sleek lines, with a deep V at the toe and a T-strap edged in gold metallic. “I was thinking of letting Kenny try his hand at a couple—”
“Don’t. He doesn’t get shoes. I should know, I’m a girl.” Martha smiled. “An old girl, but one who still loves her shoes.”
Martha had a point. The problem was, talented designers weren’t exactly in great supply at LL Designs. Just before his mother stepped down, the company had lost two of the best on staff, then another two as the economy had dragged the once-profitable company down. And the inspiration for the company, the one with all the ideas, was too ill for consultation. Maybe forever.
Somehow, Caleb had to do this on his own, and do it better than he had been doing for the past year. “Maybe I’ll have to hire some outside help,” he said, though he still didn’t know how he could afford that. Caleb rose, scooping up the shoe and his BlackBerry. “Either way, I’ll figure it out.” The weight of every decision he made hung heavy on his shoulders. Was this shoe—and the company’s entry into footwear—the miracle he needed? Maybe. Though a whisper of doubt told him if he didn’t fix the problems he was having with the collection as a whole, footwear wasn’t going to resurrect LL Designs, either. “I’m going to pop over to Smart Fashion and see if I can get any buzz on the Frederick K collection.”