“What am I up to?” Grace asked. Lillie made it seem like she was planning a hostile takeover. The new clients had reached out to her, not the other way around.
“You and Dakota seem to be spending a lot of time together. You went to Smorgasbord last week—”
“Smorgasburg.”
“Whatever the name of the place is, you two went out together last week and now you’re sexting each other on your phones.”
“I think you mean texting.”
“I know exactly what I mean, but do you?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You’ve always said you’d never date a client—”
“Dakota and I aren’t dating. I took her to lunch to thank her for the business she sent my way and we exchanged a few text messages after I reached out to her to let her know the fabric for her suit has been ordered. That’s all there is to it.”
Lillie reached for the ringing telephone. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck,” she said before she answered the incoming call, “I’m going to slap a sailor shirt on it and call it Donald. Thank you for calling Henderson Custom Suits. How may I help you?”
While Grace waited for Hart Stephens to arrive, she tried to figure out why she had grown so defensive when Lillie accused her of dating Dakota. Accused. That was too strong a word for what had taken place, yet it was the only one that seemed to fit.
What was it about being romantically linked to Dakota that put her so on edge? Dakota liked women; so did she. What was the problem? Simple. Because Dakota wasn’t like any woman she had ever met. And she was definitely nothing like the women she had chosen to date.
Grace had told Lynette she was looking for someone real. Dakota felt—and looked—more like a fantasy.
“Someone else’s fantasy because she certainly isn’t mine.”
Lynette’s friend Karin taught music at a public high school in the Bronx. Not the sexiest job in the world, but it was one Grace could relate to. Perhaps it was time to find out if she could relate to Karin as well.
She picked up her phone and looked up the number Lynette had given her weeks ago but she had never bothered to use.
“Hello, this is Karin Oliveira.”
Grace’s breath caught. Karin’s voice was melodic, apropos of her profession. “Hi, it’s Grace Henderson.”
“Lynette’s friend? I think she said you were a tailor or something like that.”
“I am, yes.” Grace detected a slight accent. She couldn’t tell what kind, but she definitely wanted to hear more. “As you probably know, Lynette thinks you and I should meet. If you feel the same way, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee sometime.”
Whether the response took a few seconds or a few minutes, waiting for a woman to respond to a question as fraught with potential heartache as “Will you go out with me?” always seemed to take forever.
“I’m busy tonight,” Karin said, “but how about tomorrow? My niece has a soccer game in Seton Park at ten a.m. She’s only seven years old, so she and her teammates don’t do much scoring, but they’re a lot of fun to watch.”
“I’ll bet.” Grace never thought she’d willingly spend a Saturday morning watching a bunch of little kids running around a soccer field, but she thought it seemed appropriate. She had been running in circles for years. It would be nice to watch someone else do it for a while.
“I’ll bring the coffee if you bring the doughnuts.”
“I think that can be arranged.”
“Great,” Karin said with what sounded like genuine enthusiasm. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“How will I recognize you?”
“Just look for the crazy Brazilian in the Neymar jersey yelling at the referees for missing what she thinks are obvious calls. That would be my sister. I’ll be the one sitting next to her holding two cups of coffee. How do you like yours? Black or with a touch of cream and sugar?”
“Are we still talking about coffee?”
When Karin laughed, she sounded like a singer running the scales. “I like you already.”
Grace felt the same way. If the date went as well as the phone call, her dry spell might be coming to an end.
“I’ll be damned,” she said to herself after she ended the call. “I think Lynette finally got it right.”
Chapter Eight
Dakota had sand in places she wished she didn’t. After she finished the second and final day of her swimwear shoot, she gingerly made her way across the beach and stepped into the outdoor shower. The water was cold, the spray stinging, but it got the job done. As the photographer’s assistants held up towels to protect her privacy from the gawkers lining the beach, she stripped off her clothes and tried to rid herself of all the beach sand that had managed to find its way inside her dirt-caked board shorts and surf shirt. All the clothes she wore during photo shoots were comped, which meant they went home with her instead of the designer at the end of the day. High-end was always better than off-the-rack, and it was infinitely more so when it was free.
Mike Burnett, one of Dakota’s favorite photographers, sauntered over to her after she turned off the shower. “You’ve really been on top of your game this week. I got some really incredible shots of you. I think the client is going to love what we’ve captured.”
“I hope so.” She sluiced water from her hair, grabbed a beach towel from one of Mike’s assistants, and wrapped the towel around her to ward off the chill. Despite the warm temperatures, goose bumps had formed on her skin. Why, she often wondered, was the water at the beach always colder than it was anywhere else? “I’d hate to think we did all this work for nothing.”
“Not a chance,” Mike said. “I’m really looking forward to the wedding shoot tomorrow. Laird threw out an idea that has me intrigued. It would mean twice as much work, but it would also result in twice the exposure.”
“Laird usually lets the creative team do its own thing. Why is he offering his opinion now?”
Mike glanced toward the water, where Sophie and Ruben were reenacting the famous kiss between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. Like most remakes, it paled in comparison to the original. Probably because it seemed more like a planned publicity stunt than a spontaneous act. “I think she might have put a bug in his ear.”
Dakota had figured as much. “What did she suggest?”
“It’s borderline genius, if you ask me. Most wedding shoots focus on the bride because the women who buy the magazines like to fantasize about wearing those gorgeous dresses. Since same-sex marriage is legal in the US now, it makes perfect sense to focus on a gay couple as well as a straight one. We could do one layout with you and Gisele as the featured couple and one layout with you and Sophie walking down the aisle. In tuxes, of course. I wouldn’t dream of asking either one of you to break out the taffeta.”
Dakota had to admit the idea was a good one, even if Sophie had come up with it. “Have you pitched the new scenario to the client?” she asked as Sophie signed autographs for the gathered onlookers.
“Laird did first thing this morning.”
“And?”
“They flipped for it. They pride themselves on being ahead of the game, and this layout will fit in perfectly with their brand. Everyone else is on board. What do you say? Are you in or out?”
Dakota didn’t want to do twice the work for half the pay. “Would it mean more money?”
“Naturally. Laird’s in the process of negotiating the fees right now.”
“Then count me in.”
“You two are going to look so hot together,” Mike said after Sophie joined them. “I can’t wait to capture your heat on camera. I’ll see you tomorrow at the location.”
“So this was your idea?” Dakota asked Sophie after Mike left to oversee the packing of his camera equipment and Ruben went to check on the status of the upgrade he had requested for a larger room. As if the spacious suite he and Sophie currently occupied wasn’t big enough. Dakota wasn’t a size queen. As l
ong as the bed was comfortable, her room could have the surface area of a postage stamp and she wouldn’t care. Sophie and Ruben obviously didn’t share her point of view. Or was Sophie throwing her weight around to see how much leverage she had with her new agency?
“It was one of my better ones, don’t you think? I knew I’d get you in bed one way or another. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
Sophie moved closer, infringing on Dakota’s personal space. Dakota was tempted to take a step back, but she refused to give ground. Literally and figuratively. “Just remember one thing: I get to be on top.”
“For now,” Sophie said. “For now.”
* * *
On Saturday morning, Grace tried to feign enthusiasm as she watched the tiny members of two ten-and-under girls’ soccer teams fight for possession of the ball in the second half of a scoreless contest. The players were enthusiastic but not very skilled. Neither team’s goalie had faced any serious pressure from the opposition all day. The real action was taking place on the sidelines rather than the field as overenthusiastic parents tried to live vicariously through their offspring. Grace might have found the scene amusing if it weren’t quite so sad.
“Are you having fun?” Karin asked.
Grace didn’t want to lie, but being truthful could prove problematic. Even though the chances of her and Karin seeing each other again after today were mediocre at best, she didn’t want to hurt Karin’s feelings.
At first glance, Karin seemed perfect for her. She was gainfully employed, smart, funny, and drop-dead gorgeous. But her sharp wit, self-deprecating sense of humor, long black hair, dark brown eyes, tawny skin, and dazzling smile couldn’t make up for the fact that she hadn’t stopped talking about her ex since Grace had claimed the seat next to her in the crowded bleachers. If Grace downed a shot every time Karin said her former lover’s name, she would have been wasted well before halftime.
“I kept trying to convince Antonia to come to the games,” Karin said, reaching for another doughnut hole Grace had bought from a bakery on nearby Riverdale Avenue, “but she always found something else to do.”
Karin’s sister, Mariana, stopped haranguing the game officials long enough to turn her vitriol on Karin. “You and Antonia broke up because she’s a crazy bitch who can’t be trusted. And you’re still too hung up on her psycho ass to let go. Was the sex that good or what?”
Grace sipped her cold coffee and tried to make herself invisible as Karin and Mariana’s assorted friends and family members who were sitting within earshot whooped like a modern-day Greek chorus. Grace hadn’t experienced anything remotely like it since high school when crowds of bored teenagers hungry for excitement would surround a pair of reluctant combatants and egg them on to fight. She cast a quick sideways glance at Karin to gauge her reaction to Mariana’s comments. Karin looked as mortified as Grace felt.
“Watch your language, Mari.” Karin pointed to the team bench located a few feet away. “The kids can hear you.”
Mariana clicked her tongue against her teeth. “My kids are the ones who taught me to curse in the first place. You’re just mad because you know what I’m saying is true. Are you going to spend time with the woman sitting next to you, or are you going to keep talking about the one who dumped you? For someone with a college degree, you can be really stupid sometimes.” She turned back to the game. “That was a hard foul, ref! That kid deserves a red card, not a yellow! Throw her out!”
“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Karin said. “Mari means well, but she gets a little carried away sometimes. Antonia shares the same trait. She and Mari are too much alike. That’s one of the reasons they never got along. I know how to handle them, though, because I deal with hotheaded students every day. Is your family as passionate as mine?”
“My sisters and I used to get into some knock-down, drag-out fights when we were younger, but we grew out of it. As Desmond Tutu once said, ‘Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument.’”
“That’s a good saying. Antonia collects inspirational quotes, but I don’t think she has that one. Let me text her and see.”
“The two of you are still in touch?”
“Oh, yes,” Karin said, typing a long message into her cell phone. “As a matter of fact, we talk more now than we did when we were together. I can’t wait to introduce you to her. I think she’ll like you as much as I do. We should have dinner sometime. What are you doing next Friday night?”
“Um, I’ll check my calendar and get back to you.”
If she didn’t have anything else planned, she’d make sure to come up with something. This date was even more disastrous than the last one she’d gone on. And that was saying something.
She tried to find an escape route, but all the exits seemed to be blocked. Whenever she’d found herself in this situation in the past, she would text Lynette and ask her to call her on her cell phone so she could make an excuse to leave. That tactic wouldn’t work this time because Lynette was the one who’d gotten her into this mess in the first place. She couldn’t ask her sisters either because neither Hope nor Faith would ever let her live it down. Lillie and her parents were off-limits for the same reasons—because she wanted them to think she had enough on the ball to be able to solve her own problems.
Only one name came to mind. It was a long shot, but she was fresh out of options.
As Karin launched into a long-winded story about her and Antonia’s most memorable date, Grace slipped her phone from her pocket, texted Please call me ASAP, and fervently hoped her message would not only be received but heeded.
Chapter Nine
Dakota yawned as she waited for Mike to finish uploading that morning’s photos from the memory card in his digital camera to his computer.
“Late night?” he asked as the progress bar slowly scrolled across the screen.
“Early morning.”
She had been awake since the ass crack of dawn because Mike wanted to take advantage of the morning light for the first set of shots. She was never up that early unless she was just heading home after a fantastic night out on the town, but she was following someone else’s schedule this week, not her own.
She had caught a quick nap after she stumbled from her hotel room to one of the two courtesy vans waiting to take everyone to the luxury resort that had been selected to provide the backdrop for this morning’s photo shoot. After a bumpy ride across town, she had fallen asleep again after she settled into the makeup chair. The makeup artist in charge of perfecting her look had smeared what felt like half a tube of Preparation H on the bags under her eyes before he finally pronounced her camera ready. She had been on the go ever since.
She wanted to crawl back into bed and spend the rest of the day making up for the three hours of sleep she had missed out on, but she had another photo shoot scheduled for this afternoon. Fortunately, Sophie had more than enough energy for both of them. Sophie picked her up whenever she started to drag. Sometimes literally.
Dakota and Sophie had shared the same runway before, but they had never teamed up for a print layout. Despite Dakota’s initial misgivings, she thought the morning’s shoot was turning out well. Instead of jockeying for prime position like she was prone to do at fashion shows, Sophie was behaving like a consummate professional in front of the camera.
Dakota had expected Sophie to try to make herself the center of attention since the storyline behind the shoot was her idea, but her poses accentuated Dakota’s rather than overshadowing them. Mike had made suggestions from time to time, but he hadn’t needed to say much. Dakota called it being in the zone. When one move flowed effortlessly into the next with no hesitation in between. And Sophie was right there with her, playing off her last pose and anticipating the next one.
“Come take a look at these,” Mike said after the upload was complete. “I knew you guys would be hot together, but these pictures are practically melting my monitor.”
Dakota looked at the screen. Even in their unpolished state, she
could tell the photos were some of the best she had ever taken. “What can I say? You bring out the best in me, Mike.”
“No, I think it’s pretty obvious you bring out the best in each other. I was just there to capture it for posterity.”
“See?” Sophie said. “There’s enough room for both of us at the same agency after all.”
“Perhaps,” Ruben said, looking over Sophie’s shoulder to peer at the screen, “but there’s room for only one at the top.”
And despite Sophie’s assurances that she was a team player, Dakota knew her rival wouldn’t be satisfied until she was the last one standing.
“Wardrobe has your next set of outfits ready,” Mike said. “Get changed, and I’ll see you in thirty.”
Sophie, with Ruben in tow, headed to one dressing room. Dakota headed to another. Her phone buzzed as a flock of wardrobe assistants helped her exchange one designer tuxedo for another. She knitted her brow in confusion as she read Grace’s text. Please call me ASAP. What did that mean?
If there was a problem with the fabric Grace had ordered for her suit, they might have to start from scratch. Unless Grace put a rush on the next order, there was no way she’d be able to make a suit in time for Dakota to wear it to Brooke’s wedding.
“Give me a minute, guys. I need to make a phone call.”
“But—”
“I’ll make it quick. I promise.”
She ushered everyone out and closed the door so she could talk in private. Grace answered on the first ring.
“Hallelujah,” Grace said with almost palpable relief before her voice took on a more businesslike tone. “I mean, this is Grace Henderson. How may I help you?”
Dakota felt like she was missing something. “It’s Dakota. You texted me and asked me to call you, remember?”
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