As You Wish

by Jude Deveraux

  “You mean get a paycheck, dental, that sort of thing? I don’t. Bert Cormac believes in family—or that’s what he says. To him that means I do the work of three employees and never receive acknowledgment or pay. And certainly not any thanks.”

  Olivia was looking at her in disgust.

  But Elise was smiling. “That silk shirt you have on is Italian and retails for over a grand. And the stones in that necklace are real. I think you’re compensated.”

  Kathy gave a slow smile. “I am my father’s daughter.”

  At her tone, Olivia snuggled into the couch. “I think I’m beginning to like you, Kathy Hanran. So Ray was told to return from his business trip and he called a girl from Brooklyn to be his date.”

  “Exactly,” Kathy said. “And I found her in the restroom crying. Not to be catty, but she should have cried. She looked horrible! She had on a purple polyester dress with a set of rhinestone jewelry that came from the Dollar Store. Literally. And her hair! Ghastly. But Ray had given her three hours to get ready—which included buying a dress—and she’d done the best she could.”

  “Why didn’t she say no?” Elise asked.

  Olivia spoke before Kathy could. “I have a feeling that when Ray turns on the charm it’s almost impossible to say no to him.”

  “You’re right,” Kathy said. “The first thing I did was get her out of that public restroom. I had a key to Dad’s office and I kept a box of cosmetics in his bathroom. I thought I’d take a shot at repairing her face. I couldn’t fix that dress, but I could get rid of the purple eyeshadow.”

  Kathy drank more wine. “I think I should add something about that night. I thought I had a boyfriend, Larry. We’d met a couple of months before and he was so attentive that he’d almost blocked Andy out of my mind.”

  “I take it Andy is the unattainable one?” Olivia said.

  “The one who never looked at me. His office was near Ray’s so I hung out nearby every time I went into the city. I was hoping that Andy would notice me. But he never did.”

  When Olivia glanced at Elise, Kathy understood. “Let me guess. Ray told you I was near his office because I had a crush on him.”

  Elise and Olivia nodded.

  Kathy gave a little laugh. “I do know my husband. Anyway, that night I was feeling great, full of love for the world, so I wanted to help the girl. She was short, so I had her sit on the bathroom counter while I fixed her face and we began to talk.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Ray won’t let me break up with him.” Dolores was sniffing. “I’ve tried. He agrees but then he shows up at my door and...” When she shrugged, the hideous dress nearly fell off her bony shoulders. She was only about five feet tall and didn’t weigh a hundred pounds. Next to Ray she looked like a lost child.

  Kathy was using a Q-tip to remove the mascara from under Dolores’s eyes. “Ray is like my dad. He wants to win, no matter what the prize.”

  Dolores looked surprised, as though she couldn’t believe someone like Kathy could know him so well. “That’s Ray, all right!”

  Kathy began to replace the eyeshadow with four shades of brown, blending each color into the other. “What Mom and I used to do is figure out a way to make Dad do what we wanted him to. You need to make Ray stay away from you.”

  “How do I do that?” Dolores looked like she was going to start crying again. “I’ve yelled at him. Slammed doors in his face. There isn’t a name I haven’t called him. But it doesn’t matter what I say because he does this thing to my ear, then it’s panties gone. It’s like they just drop off of me.”

  Kathy’s eyes were wide.

  “Now you’re shocked. I better leave.”

  “No!” Kathy said. “I’m not shocked. I’m jealous. I wish my boyfriend did that.”

  Dolores sighed. “That’s the way it always is. You want what Ray gives me and he wants me to be elegant and refined, like you are. You think any people who match ever get together?”

  Kathy stepped back to look at her work. Much better! “Not that I’ve seen. Just to be clear, my boyfriend’s parents think I come from low-class working stock. To them, I’m one step up from being the garbage collector’s daughter. They’re surprised that I don’t eat peas with a knife.”

  Dolores laughed. “You’re nice.”

  “I try to be. What if you and I do something so awful that Ray has to break up with you?” Kathy wiped the red rouge off Dolores’s cheeks and put on some peach-colored blush. “Is there someone else at home who you like?”

  “Yeah. Donnie. But he’s seen me with Ray so he’s too scared to get near me.”

  “If this works, invite me to the wedding.”

  * * *

  Kathy looked back at Olivia and Elise. “We made a plan to wait until Ray was on the far side of the room, then she’d spill her drink on me—it was club soda—and she’d bawl me out. It almost failed because when Dolores said I looked at her like she was the garbage collector’s daughter who eats peas off a knife, I choked up. I had to leave the room so nobody would see me laughing.”

  “If all that worked so well, what made you cry?” Elise asked.

  “I...” Kathy took a breath. “This is a difficult memory to go back to.”

  “And my story was easy for me? Leaving Alejandro? Hearing him tell me I still needed to make up my mind? That I should—?” She broke off at Olivia’s look. “Okay, sorry. But you need to confess.”

  Nodding, Kathy took another drink of her wine. “I’d left my clutch in my father’s bathroom so I went back to get it.” She looked at Olivia. “Have you ever had a single moment in your life that changed everything?”

  “I have,” Olivia said. “Someone asked me to go to Richmond and I said yes. When I got back, the man I loved with all my heart was gone. I didn’t see him again for over forty years.”

  “Oh.” Kathy paused, blinking as she thought about that. “I guess you do know. I was in the bathroom when Larry—who I thought was my boyfriend—came in with Felicity, Cal’s girlfriend. She was—”

  “Wait!” Olivia said. “Who is Cal? And how old is he?”

  “Calvin Nordhoff, management director. He’s about the same age as Ray, I guess. Dad says he couldn’t have a company if it weren’t for Cal keeping everything in line. He’s the balance between the flamboyance of Ray and the rock-hard stubbornness of my father.”

  “One man who can balance the two of them,” Olivia said. “The third leg of a stool. Remove one and it collapses. Interesting.”

  Kathy blinked a few times. “I never thought of it that way, but I guess you’re right. The truth is that I’ve never known exactly what Cal does. I always had the idea that he disapproved of me. The boss’s daughter sticking her nose into every department. I avoid Cal whenever possible. Anyway, Felicity was like everything I feared in one very skinny body. She used to look me up and down in a way that made me want to hide in a closet.”

  “Why were Larry and Felicity in your dad’s office?” Elise asked.

  Kathy sighed. “Funny how, even after years, things can still hurt.” She looked up. “They were in there to have sex on my father’s big, gaudy show-them-I’m-the-boss desk.”

  She paused a moment. “I knew Felicity was a lawyer and so was Larry, but I didn’t know they’d gone to school together. I certainly didn’t know they’d lived together in their freshman year. But then, there were lots of things I didn’t know about Laurence J. Winbeck the Third.”

  Kathy took a moment before going on. “As soon as I heard them and knew what they were about to do, I knew I should show myself, but I was fascinated. I didn’t watch, but I heard it all. I had no idea Larry had so much energy in him. He’d always seemed too fastidious for down and dirty sex. But what they did was hard and fast—unlike any sex he and I’d ever had. It was over quickly, but it was like the whole place was full of steam. I stood inside the bat
hroom with the door half-open, lights off, and my heart was pounding.”

  “That must have been difficult for you to see the man you were dating with someone else,” Olivia said.

  “Yes and no. I think maybe I was jealous but not in the normal way. First, there’d been Dolores with her panties falling on the floor, then Felicity getting slammed on Dad’s desk. I was jealous of what the women were getting and I wasn’t. When would I get that kind of mindless passion?”

  “That’s what I wonder too.” Elise’s voice held sadness along with the anger.

  Kathy looked at Elise in sympathy. “Before today I would have thought someone as thin and beautiful as you are would have it all.”

  “Me too,” Elise said. “When I married Kent, I thought—”

  Olivia cut her off. “I want to know what happened in the office.”

  Kathy let out her breath. “Things got worse. They lay on the carpet and began to talk.”

  “Yes, talk is worse,” Olivia said. “What did they say?”

  Kathy shook her head. “Everything was all about me.”

  * * *

  “Are you going to do it?” Felicity asked. “Are you really going to work up the courage to marry your fat, bland, but oh-so-rich girlfriend?”

  “Sure. Another six weeks and she’s mine. But then, I have to, don’t I? My dad owes too much money to old Bert Cormac for me to back out.”

  “Don’t give me that crap! You wouldn’t sell your soul for your old man. You want the house and the car and the easy job you’ll get by watching that walrus walk down the aisle. Looking forward to your wedding night?”

  “Cut it out.” Larry sat up. “Kathy’s nice. She’s as naive as a child but she’s okay. She’s terrified of her father, but then so am I. It’ll be a good marriage. Not exciting, but stable and secure.”

  “And you’ll have a few office affairs to satisfy your lust and—”

  “Hell no I won’t!”

  “You’re trying to make me believe that you’ll be faithful to that...that wimp of a whale?”

  “I meant that I’m not going to have an office. About four years after the I dos, I plan to have some injury that’ll make it impossible for me to sit at a desk. I already have a doctor who’ll sign a certificate for me. I’m going to spend my life at the country club.”

  “And in the girls’ locker room?”

  “Now you’re understanding,” he said.

  “Any chance your great big gold mine will throw you out and go to court? I wouldn’t want to go up against Bert Cormac in a courtroom!”

  “Not a chance. Kathy’s so love-starved that all I have to do is smile at her and she comes running. Isn’t that like you and Cal?”

  Felicity laughed. “Not quite. Cal is a hard case to crack.”

  “But you’re working on it?”

  “I guess. He’s not somebody who shares his innermost thoughts. I don’t know anything about his past, but the sex is good, so I’ll hang around awhile longer.”

  When someone tried to open the outer door, Kathy gasped. “We better get out of here,” Larry said.

  “Wait! I heard something from that bathroom.”

  Kathy held her breath as the door rattled again.

  “It’s nothing. Get your shoes and let’s go out this way.”

  After they left, Kathy stepped into the office and opened the door to her father. When she braced herself for his sharp comment, she realized she was “terrified” of him. He was so loud and aggressive that she and her mom just gave in to him. It was easier.

  But her father didn’t snap at her. He looked at her for a moment, frowned at what he saw, but he said nothing. When he stepped away, he bent down and picked up a bracelet off the floor. “Looks like someone was in here doing something they shouldn’t.” He tossed the bracelet to her, then went to the far side of his desk and picked up some papers.

  Kathy stood there looking at the bracelet, knowing it was Felicity’s. How had she not seen the truth about Larry? She wished she could tell her dad what had happened and how it hurt her. She’d like to curl up on his lap and have him hug her and tell her that everything would be all right. But Bert Cormac wasn’t a snuggle type of father—and he’d tell her she was a fool for wanting Larry in the first place.

  “Mind if I break up with Larry?” she asked.

  Bert gave a snort. “And save me from someday having to support the lazy bastard?”

  Kathy drew in her breath. If her father had seen that about Larry, who else had? Were other people laughing at her? She was the Wimpy Whale. Maybe she should write a children’s book with that title.

  When her father looked up at her, he wasn’t wearing his usual expression of impatience.

  For a moment, she thought she saw sympathy in his eyes.

  Kathy gave a little nod, then left the office, closing the door behind her.

  As she got into the elevator, she realized that it hadn’t all hit her yet. What she’d seen and heard weren’t quite in focus. How did she handle it? Did she walk away and cry out her hurt? Or did she confront Larry and say that she’d seen what he’d done?

  But Kathy didn’t feel like crying. Maybe there was more of her father in her than she’d thought because all she felt was anger. Rage. It flowed through her like lava.

  And that red-hot anger was making her stand up straight, and oddly, she felt rather calm.

  Larry had been planning to entice her into marrying him. For her father’s money. And neither he nor Felicity seemed to think Larry wouldn’t be successful.

  Those two had called her “nice.” “Love-starved.”

  Cal and Felicity were on the dance floor. They were a good-looking couple. Cal was tall and handsome in his tuxedo and Felicity was elegant in her designer dress. She was looking up at Cal with stars in her eyes. No one would guess that just minutes before her legs had been wrapped around Larry’s neck.

  With a smile, Kathy made her way through the dancers. She was the boss’s daughter so they stepped aside.

  When she reached Cal and Felicity, they stopped dancing. Cal looked at her in such a patronizing way that she wondered what she’d ever done to make him dislike her. Felicity looked Kathy up and down, her upper lip curving in distaste.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Kathy said in her sweetest voice as she held the bracelet on the tip of her finger. “You left this on the floor of my father’s office when you were screwing Larry. You know, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I think you should have the mole on your left butt cheek looked at. It could be cancerous.” Kathy smiled. “But I was glad to see that you two are enjoying the party so much. Good night.” Turning, Kathy walked away, and the dancers—who’d heard it all—parted like the Red Sea.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “And that’s why you were crying,” Olivia said.

  “Yes. Ray missed the whole thing of me with Cal and Felicity. Ray had put Dolores in a cab, then he went somewhere and had a couple of drinks. He’d never admit it, but I think he was looking at his life. By the time he got back to the party, I’d come down off my high and was hiding out in the office upstairs and having a good, long cry. Ray came upstairs to get some papers, saw me, and...” She shrugged.

  “Sex?” There was hope in Elise’s voice.

  “No. He raided the office kitchen and made us a big ice-cream sundae that we shared. I think that was the night he decided to quit holding out for a romance and settle for someone who could help his career. Whatever his thoughts, we were married six months later.”

  “And you settled too,” Olivia said.

  “I took what was offered. But in my own defense, I never thought that our marriage would be less than...than real.” She gave an embarrassed smile. “I think Dolores’s words were in my head. Maybe I wasn’t to get the romance I’d dreamed of, but I did think I would get Ray’s passion.”r />
  She paused. “But it didn’t happen. After the marriage, Ray and I got along well. He complimented me lavishly on my knowledge of the business, and he discussed every account with me. He was respectful and courteous.”

  “What about the personal side?” Olivia asked.

  “There were kisses and some fondling, but nothing else. I told myself that Ray was practicing being a gentleman. He’d said he wanted me to teach him what I knew about the social graces.” Kathy put her hands over her face. “But I kept remembering Dolores and her panties. I thought that once we were married that it would change, that Ray would unleash the fire inside him. On me.”

  Elise said, “Me too. I believed that marriage would make Kent and me equals. No more of his ‘older brother’ act.”

  “I thought those were beliefs of my generation,” Olivia said. “I thought that you kids knew better than to believe that ancient myth of marriage solving problems.”

  “No,” Kathy said. “We don’t know any better. Haven’t learned anything.”

  “I certainly haven’t,” Elise said. “Hey! This was all years ago, so what happened to everyone? Especially to the floor gymnasts.”

  “Including Andy the unattainable,” Olivia added.

  Kathy shook her head. “You can never predict the future. I guess I believed it was the 1890s and that my exposure of Felicity’s tryst would get her thrown out of society. But it elevated her. People said, ‘Oh, you naughty girl, Felicity,’ then laughed.”

  Kathy took a breath. “Larry got back together with his old girlfriend, whose family is so rich they make mine look poor. I recently heard that he had an accident and hurt his back and can no longer work for his father-in-law.”

  When Elise snickered, Kathy couldn’t keep from smiling. “Andy, the man I wanted, eventually asked Cheryl from accounting to marry him. She’s about my size and they have two kids now.”

  A bit of a laugh escaped Olivia.

  “My favorite is that Felicity went to a doctor about her mole. Last year she and the doctor got married.”