“Sure.” He reached for it, catching his finger on her key ring wedding band. “Sorry. You wearing that to remind you of something?”
“Yes.” She slung her purse under the counter and sauntered to the back, humming The Second Time Around under her breath.
The twin wardrobe boxes contained mostly clothes from the nineteen-eighties’, one of her least favorite fashion periods. There were a few pieces from the sixties and seventies. She shook out a leopard print faux-fur jacket. “Nice.” She’d owned one exactly like it in maybe 1967? She’d worn it until it fell apart.
For a second, she considered putting it aside and buying it for herself. No, the Jen who wore faux-fur was dead and buried. Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words under the circumstances. She closed her mind’s eye to the ever-present video looping through her brain. “Get to work, woman.”
She’d filled one of the empty racks with newly tagged pieces when Michael called her to the front. The onrush of customers kept them both hopping for the next two hours. The crowd slowed to a trickle around two-thirty.
Jen eased off her Escada heel and massaged her aching foot. “I never appreciated how hard it might be to stand on your feet for several hours.” Actors got regularly scheduled breaks. “Can I look through your shoe rack?”
“Help yourself.” Michael raised his hands over his head, then folded into a forward bend. ‘I always wear running shoes. Between here and school and rounds, I log a lot of miles.”
“Rounds?” She limped toward a pair of Nikes which looked to be her size.
“Yeah. Pre-med. It gets worse when you become a resident. There’s some kind of law you have to go three years on two hours of sleep a night to be a doctor.”
“That’s terrible.” The Nikes were a tad big, but with socks? She slipped a pair of socks printed with ladybugs over her stockings. Much better. “My feet are saved. Put these on my tab.”
“If you watch the store, I’ll grab us a couple of Subways. What kind do you like?”
“No idea. You choose. Do they have iced tea?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take a large.”
Jen sat on the tall stool behind the counter, elbows on the glass, admiring the pretty display of costume jewelry. A wicker basket held a jumble of rings. Through the paste stones, she spotted the outline of a white petal. She pulled it free. A white daisy ring exactly like the one Lance gave her when she did her first London play. As You Like It. They hadn’t begun to date yet. It was more of a gift to an almost sister. But she’d cherished it. Daisies had been a favorite of hers ever since.
Lance had been so embarrassed by not having a ring for her. Although why he thought she’d care about a silly thing like a ring? Her eyes filled. Images of people holding hands and jumping, and the black tower crumbling to dust flashed through her mind.
“Time enough to choose a ring when we go back,” she said aloud. If they got back, her inner voice of doom said. She shut it off by fitting the daisy ring on her hand above the key ring. “Yes. Lance will approve.”
The door tinkled. The young girl in the doorway stopped dead when she saw Jen behind the counter. “Where’s Michael? Who are you?” Her rather pretty eyes rimmed with black eye shadow were definitely shooting poison darts.
Michael’s girlfriend, perhaps? She’d look better with less rouge. Jen spread her hands in the universal gesture for peace. “He went out to get us lunch. Can I help you?”
“You can get out from behind the counter,” the girl snapped. She spotted the daisy ring. “Did you pay for that?”
Jen took it off. “Not yet. I was just—”
“Stealing it.” The girl pulled out her phone. “I’m calling Michael.”
She must be the missing clerk. “You do that. And ask him to get a sandwich for you while you’re at it.”
The girl swayed; put a hand out to grasp the counter.
The scarlet on her cheeks? Fever. Not rouge. “Take it easy.” Jen came out from behind the counter. “You need to sit down. You’re Lisa, right?”
Lisa nodded, her eyes not losing a single poison dart.
“Looks to me like you’ve still got the flu.”
“I’m fine!”
“Right. Well, why don’t you sit behind the counter? Michael should be back soon.”
Lisa slowly slid behind the counter. The child either had a huge crush on Michael, or she was desperate for Christmas money. “Try not to breathe on anything,” she added under her breath.
Jen busied herself, straightening the morning tumble of magazines. Time Magazine from the week after the Trade Center caught her eye. Her mind froze. With shaking fingers, she replaced it on the correct shelf. “Want something to read?” she asked Lisa. “There’s a Vogue magazine here from 1963. Looks a lot like today’s fashion.”
Lisa ignored her.
Michael came in balancing a cardboard container with two huge drinks and a bag of sandwiches.
Lisa stood on wobbly legs. “Michael, I read on Facebook your mom went to Sacramento to help your brother. Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because you were sick.” Michael placed the back of his hand on her forehead. “You still are. You’re burning up, Lisa. I’m sending you home.”
Lisa’s headshake of denial ended in a fit of coughing.
“How’d you get here?”
“I drove.”
“Well, you’re not driving home. Call your mom.”
“She’s at work.” Mascara-dyed tears dribbled down the girl’s face, leaving raccoon markings. Poor child. Jen would have died at Lisa’s age if a boyfriend had seen her like that.
Michael looked at Jen helplessly. “She can’t stay. I hate to leave you, but I have to take her home.”
“Go. I’ll be fine.” As long as she could remember the American money system. “Cash or check, right? If there’s anyone I can’t handle, I’ll tell them to come back in an hour.”
Michael gazed longingly at the sandwich bag.
“Take them with you. I’m not hungry.”
“Thanks, Jen. I owe you big time. Come on, Lisa. Let’s get you home.”
Jen sipped the iced tea while she finished sorting magazines. As long as she was sitting on the floor she might as well do some stretching. She pulled back her hair with a clip so it wouldn’t get in her way, then arched her arms over her right leg and brought her face to her knee.
The bell tinkled. “Anyone here?” a husky voice asked.
Company. She rose from the floor, ready to put on her best sales manner and froze. She knew the face under the tousle of blonde curls as well as she knew her own. This was not possible. Right, Jen. Like everything else in the past few days has been so possible.
Sylvie squeaked. “Oh my paws and whiskers, you look just like my best friend, Jennifer Kni . . .” Her eyes fixed on the tiny flower tattoo, usually hidden by Jen’s hair. “Jen? I thought you were dead!” She rushed to Jen and hugged her with all her strength. “I haven’t seen you since —” She pulled back and shook Jen. “Why didn’t you call me? Everyone thinks you died. How could you be so cruel? Where have you been?”
The tiny thread of hope the computer was wrong and somewhere, the Now-Time Jen and Lance existed, disintegrated. She would never have let her best friend think she was dead.
Jen removed Sylvie’s hands from her shoulders. “Would you believe total amnesia?”
Sylvie shook her head, never taking her eyes off Jen’s face.
Jennifer took a deep breath. “Well then. How about some iced tea?”
Chapter 22
Jen sighed. “Of all the gin joints in all the world—”
“She drops into mine.” Sylvie appropriated Jen’s iced tea. “Do you have any idea of the shock you gave me? If I had a weak heart I’d be dea
d at your feet. And then what would you do?”
“Hide the body, I suppose.” An unfortunate choice of words. The last thing she wanted to think of was dead bodies. Jen rushed into speech. “You look fabulous.” If she didn’t know to the day how old Sylvie was, she’d have put her in her early thirties. “What brings you out to Hollywood? Work, I hope?”
“I’m in a series for HBO.” Sylvie studied Jen’s face for a moment, traced the fine lines bracketing Jen’s mouth with the point of a shell-pink nail. “You could use a little work. Very slim role pickings for older women. I’ll give you the name of my plastic surgeon. Esmail’s a miracle worker.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t care how many lines she had. The thought of someone using a knife on her face gave her goosebumps. “So, work’s good?”
“Let’s talk about you. Where have you been? How could you not let me know you were alive after —” Sylvie’s voice broke. “I still dream about it. That cloud of . . . rolling toward us. Running down the street. I thought you were right behind me.”
Jen’s heart raced. “What on earth were we doing anywhere near downtown? And why were we up so early? That’s so not me.”
“You don’t remember? Truly?”
“No.”
“You poor dear.” Sylvie offered Jen the tea. “PTSD. A lot of people had it after that day. But they . . . But you? Where did you go? How could you let everyone think you were dead?”
Jen pressed her lips tightly together to keep the truth from spilling out. She always told Sylvie everything. Well, almost everything. “Tell me what happened.”
Sylvie sank onto on the cherry-striped Queen Anne sofa, pulling Jen down with her. “We had a breakfast meeting with Sun films. They wanted to talk about both of us doing a remake of Private Lives. New York adored us.”
Sylvie must have replaced Joan as Sybil, the ingénue. Poor Sylvie. It was a thankless part. “I’m sure you were fabulous. Go on.”
“Well, yes. We all were. It was a marvelous production.” Sylvie stared down at their intertwined fingers. “Jen, it’s hard to think about that day.”
“Please. I need to know what happened.”
“They wanted to meet us at Windows on the World at the Trade Center and you refused because you hated heights. So they changed it to the Stage Door Deli, which was somewhere downtown near the Hilton Millennium. I remember complaining why couldn’t they stay near the theatre district so we wouldn’t have to get up so early? And you said the Millennium was a very nice hotel. I asked how you knew that and you wouldn’t tell me. You just gave me a ‘Cat’s-got-the-cream’ smile.”
How odd it was being a stranger to herself. Why had she known anything about a downtown hotel? “Go on.”
“We were in the taxi, having a good grouse about the Hollywood mentality, which considered breakfast a perfectly reasonable meal for a business meeting, when our taxi swerved and hit a pole.” She shuddered. “The sound of metal crumpling and the glass shattering. Horrible. You screamed. Well, we both did. I caught myself on the safety strap. I think you must have hit the divider because there was blood running down your face. Some passerby opened the door and asked if we were all right? And then the noise. That terrible noise and people running toward us. The huge cloud rolling behind them and you ran toward it. You were screaming something I didn’t understand.” Tears streamed down Sylvie’s face.
Jen handed her a tissue from the rose-decorated tissue holder on the coffee table. Sylvie’s recounting added to the nightmare scenes from the footage on the History Channel replaying in her mind. She felt tears streaming from her own eyes. They held each other and wept.
Sylvie pushed away first. “I’m all right.” She dabbed her eyes. The tissue came away spotted with black flakes. “Sephora promised me this stuff was waterproof. I want my money back.”
Jen tried to smile. “I’ll go with you. We’ll beat them up together.”
“I tried to follow you, but the crowd pushed me the other way. And then . . .” Sylvie’s voice broke. “I never saw you again.”
Jen was silent, throat aching. Had her brain been injured in the crash? Why would she have run toward the disaster?
The doorbell tinkled. Jen and Sylvie both jumped up. A lady with a crying toddler attached to her leg wheeled in a canvas stroller. “Brandon, be good for mommy and mommy will get you an ice cream.”
“Toy,” sobbed Brandon. He wiped his nose on his mother’s dress.
“Eew. And this is why I don’t have children,” Sylvie said sotto voce.
Jen straightened her shoulders and walked forward. Helping a customer felt so beautifully normal. “There are some children’s toys in the back corner on the right. Can I help you find anything?”
“I’m looking for a gift for my mother-in-law. She collects old kitchen things. China. Glass.”
Jen hoped her expression didn’t look as blank as her mind felt. Kitchenware? Kill me now.
Sylvie, bless her, morphed into the perfect saleslady. “I know what you mean. Mothers-in-law can be so difficult to shop for. Why don’t you let my associate, Miss Prim, show your son the toy section, and I’ll help you find the perfect gift.”
Sylvie was equal to any role. Jen reached for the toddler’s sticky fingers, trying not to wince. “We’ve got lots of toys. Come see.”
She huddled with Brandon as he tried to decide which Ninja Turtle he wanted. Jen knew their names. Kathryn had gone through a Ninja Turtle phase. “Leonardo looks lonely,” she said. “I think you should take him home.”
Brandon wiped his still dripping nose on Michelangelo.
“Right.” She held out her hand for the other turtles. “Let’s go see your mum.”
“I can’t believe we have a James Sadler teapot. I would have bought it myself, but it’s yours now. Your mother-in-law will be delighted.” Sylvie handed Jen a house-shaped teapot. “Wrap it up, Miss Prim.”
Jen smiled at the women. “Brandon’s fallen in love with Michelangelo.”
“No,” the boy screamed. “Leonardo!”
“I’m going to throw him in as a gift,” Jen said. She checked the price tags on the ninja turtles. “How does twenty-five dollars for the team sound?”
The baby in the stroller wailed.
The mother shook her head. “I don’t think . . .”
The toddler and the baby wailed in concert.
How do mothers do it? Jen bent to see a rosebud mouth open in a sleepy wail. “She’s lovely.” The baby held out her arms. Jen gave her one of the turtles. The baby started sucking on ends of Raphael’s red bandana. “She’s adorable. They both are.”
The woman’s anxious look melted into a smile. “I’ll write you a check.”
The family left, the door tinkling shut behind them.
Jen and Sylvie breathed a mutual sigh of relief.
“Miss Prim? Really?”
“My character name in The Corner Shop. Lovely play. I did it in Chichester.”
“You are never at a loss, are you?”
Sylvie stuck her nose in the air. “I pride myself on my ability to jump into any role at a moment’s notice.”
Jen giggled. “Do you remember back at LAMDA when we first met, Mr. Fish saying you talked through your nose?
“Yes. I went weeks holding a finger under my nose, determined not a breath of air would escape, only to discover what he meant was I wasn’t talking through my nose. It’s hard being from Liverpool. We always sound like we’ve got a cold in the head. Nobody ever cared a fig the Beatles talked that way.”
“The Beatles weren’t playing Ophelia.”
Sylvie groaned. “I hated Ophelia. Dewy, die away wimp. I would have told Hamlet to sod off and get some counseling.”
Jen laughed.
Sylvie frowned. “Never mind ‘Do you rememb
ers’ about LAMDA. You changed the subject on purpose. I want to know what made you play dead all these years? We—all of us—were devastated. What happened?”
This must be how the rabbit felt when the hounds closed in at a hunt. What could she tell her without making their situation worse?
The shop bell jingled. Michael entered with a sandwich bag and a large cup of iced tea. He looked from her to Sylvie. “Everything all right?”
Saved by the bell.
Chapter 23
Lance found Jeremy walking the bank of computers, bending to listen to their hum, spraying the green motherboards with compressed air, and rearranging the wires.
“You look like a demented scientist.”
“I’ll give you the demented part. Did you get the license?”
“Yes. And we did the deed.” Lance knew he was grinning like a fool, but he felt too good to care. “Congratulations. You’ve now got me back as a brother-in-law.”
Jeremy straightened up, massaging the small of his back. “What about the wedding of her dreams?”
“Jen vetoed it. She said we had a big wedding the first time and look where it got us? Your sister is very superstitious. Oh, and I owe you a key ring.”
“Key ring?” Jeremy picked up a green memory board from the litter of parts scattered on the worktable. “I’m not going to ask.”
“If you need more RAM or more hard drives, I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t know what the hell I need.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Trying to avoid the fact I have no bloody idea what to do next.”
“You’ll think of something.” He didn’t care how long it took Jeremy. He had Jen and that was enough. He had every confidence Jeremy’s giant brain could get them where they needed to be. “You know the machine works. It’s simply a matter of time.”
Maybe This Time (A Second Chance Romance) Page 11