Only Forever

by Linda Lael Miller

  Vanessa gazed directly at her cousin. “How do you know about Nick?” she broke in.

  “I saw him,” Rodney answered with a shrug. “I go out with his sister Gina sometimes.”

  Vanessa blushed, remembering that she was wearing Gina’s jumpsuit and wondering if Rodney recognized it. “Then you know him?” she speculated.

  Rodney shrugged again. “You could say that, I guess. I’ve been on a few family picnics—when that tribe heads for the island, it’s like some kind of Italian exodus.”

  Vanessa swallowed a weary giggle. “The island?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  The mischievous look in Rodney’s eyes said she’d failed roundly. “Nick owns a big Victorian house in the San Juans,” he answered.

  “Don’t you ever read the tabloids? He’s famous for the parties he gives.”

  A picture came into Vanessa’s mind, the image of herself walking into Parker’s condominium on Maui, planning to surprise him by arriving for their vacation a day ahead of time. She’d surprised him, all right—along with the Polynesian beauty sharing his bed.

  Her thoughts turned to the storm of that afternoon, and the searing, crackling lightning. Vanessa felt betrayed.

  The fiery gentleness of Nick’s lovemaking had eased many of her doubts about him, but now she realized that the patience and caring he’d shown had probably been nothing more than pretense. If he liked to party and play the field, a relationship with her wasn’t likely to change him any more than it had changed Parker.

  Every self-help book on the market was screaming the message that men are an as-is proposition, once a rogue, always a rogue.

  Vanessa put her hands over her face, her appetite gone.

  “Van?” Rodney sounded worried. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

  Vanessa got out of her chair, carried her sandwich to the counter, wrapped it carefully and tucked it into the refrigerator. Although she didn’t say a word, she was shaking her head the whole time.

  Rodney’s chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back. “I said something wrong, didn’t I?”

  “No,” Vanessa said, unable to meet her cousin’s eyes, “you brought me to my senses, that’s all. I’d forgotten that a jock is a jock is a jock.” She paused at the base of the back stairway, her hand resting on the banister. “Good night,” she said.

  Words, Vanessa discovered, did not make it so. The night was not a good one, and the morning showed every sign of being worse.

  4

  The porcelain statuette of a Grecian goddess toppled precariously when Vanessa bumped into it, and it would have shattered on the studio floor if Mel hadn’t been so quick to grab it.

  Paul Harmon signaled from off-camera, and Vanessa was grateful for the respite.

  “Are you all right?” her friend and employer asked, when she left Mel to sell the goddess unaided.

  Vanessa drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. She’d been a klutz all morning, crashing into props and sales items, saying nonsensical things, getting prices and details wrong. She splayed her fingers and shoved them through her hair, thus spoiling the coiffure Margie in Makeup had spent twenty minutes styling. “Let’s just say I’ll be glad when this day is over.” She sighed loudly.

  Paul grinned. “Nick?” he asked.

  Vanessa squared her shoulders. What egotists men are, she thought. One of them comes along and screws up your life, and all his friends think what a guy. “Nick who?” she countered coolly, turning around and marching back on camera.

  An elderly lady from Tucson, calling in to order the statuette for her daughter, was on the air. “I’ve got all my credit cards up to their limits, but I can’t help myself,” she enthused. “I just had to get Venus for Allison. She’ll love this for her bathroom.”

  Distracted, Vanessa forgot the cardinal telemarketing rule and said worriedly, “Maybe you shouldn’t buy anything for a while. After all, there will be other statues, and you’ve worked hard to build up your credit….”

  Mel looked at Van as though her nose had just grown an inch and elbowed her aside. “Vanessa’s kidding, of course,” he boomed in his best it’s-me-and-you-against-those-guys-who-charge-high-prices voice. “This is a unique piece of art that would grace anybody’s bathroom.”

  Paul was signaling again, but this time he didn’t look quite so friendly. When Vanessa reached him, he took her arm and squired her into the makeup room, where fast-talking Oliver Richards was being prepared to go on.

  He glanced up at the monitor to let Vanessa know he’d witnessed her gaffe and wriggled his eyebrows. Since the day he’d made a pass at her and she’d set him straight, Oliver had taken pleasure in every setback she suffered, be it major or minor.

  “Good work, Van,” he said. “Keep this up, and we’ll all be in the unemployment line.”

  Paul gave the former sportscaster a dark look. “Go out and take over for Mel. He’s got a dental appointment and has to leave early.” Oliver immediately left.

  Vanessa lowered her head, braced for a lecture. “My mind hasn’t been on my work this morning,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Paul sighed. “This kind of thing happens to everybody at one point or another,” he reasoned. “One thing is a given—the board isn’t going to be pleased about that little speech you just made. Van, what possessed you to do that?”

  “I told you, I wasn’t thinking.” Vanessa looked up at her friend, feeling defensive. “Besides, what I said was true, even if it wasn’t a good sales technique. There are a lot of people out there running themselves into serious debt so they can put statues of Venus in their bathrooms.”

  “And I should pity the wretched masses and shut down the cameras?” Paul shot back, annoyed. “Is everybody supposed to do without the convenience of home shopping because a few people can’t control themselves?”

  “I didn’t say that!” Vanessa cried.

  Just then Nick walked in, looking reprehensibly handsome in gray slacks, a navy blue sweater and a charcoal sports jacket.

  “What are you doing here?” Vanessa demanded.

  “I’m going out to lunch with a friend,” he answered calmly, his eyes dancing with amusement.

  “We agreed not to see each other again until Friday,” she reminded him.

  “You’re not the friend,” Nick replied in reasonable tones. He looked over her head at Paul. “Ready to go, old buddy?”

  Vanessa’s face was flushed, and she turned away to hide it. “I’m due on camera,” she muttered, striding purposefully toward the door.

  “Try not to put us out of business before your segment’s over,” Paul called after her.

  Although Vanessa was seething inside, she smiled at America and at Oliver Richards when she stepped back onto the set. A rowing machine had been brought on as the next item to be featured, and Oliver beamed as an idea came to mind.

  “The lovely Vanessa Lawrence rejoins us, folks,” he announced. “Just in time to demonstrate the rowing machine.”

  Determined not to lose her composure, Van kicked off her high heels and sat down on the machine’s seat, trying to be graceful as she tugged the straight skirt of her cashmere dress modestly over her knees.

  Despite the blinding glare of the studio lights, Vanessa was painfully aware of Nick’s presence as she rowed and chatted with customers from all over the country. He’d lingered to watch her make a fool of herself in front of Middle-America.

  By the time her replacement arrived, she had developed a megaheadache, but Nick was nowhere in sight when she left the studio complex to drive home.

  Upon reaching the house, she felt better, and, seeing Rodney’s car in the driveway, she decided to drop in to see if he was settled into the apartment over her garage.

  Music was blaring through the open door when Vanessa reached the top of the stairs, and she was smiling when she knocked.

  “Come in!” cried a feminine voice.

  With a slight lift of one eyebrow, Vanessa went inside.
A lovely dark-eyed girl, dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt, with chocolate-colored hair tumbling to her waist, was sitting in the middle of the living-room floor. She was breaking a thread with her teeth, a tangle of lamé and sequins resting in her lap.

  Rodney arrived from the kitchen, carrying two cans of diet pop, just as Vanessa was about to introduce herself. He took over the task with admirable grace. “Van,” he said proudly, “this is Gina DeAngelo. Gina, my cousin and landlady, Vanessa Lawrence.”

  “Hi,” Gina said, holding out a hand.

  Vanessa was charmed. After returning the greeting, she sank into a chair. “What is that?” she asked, referring to the fabric Gina had been working with.

  “It’s Rodney’s costume,” the girl answered, holding up a blue lamé tunic. “He’s got a new act. Why don’t you show her, Rod?”

  Rodney blushed. Despite the fact that he earned his living, as well as his tuition, by working as an exotic dancer, he was shy. “No way,” he answered.

  Gina let the subject drop, smiling at Vanessa. “You’re dating my brother,” she said, her brown eyes twinkling.

  Vanessa sighed. “I wouldn’t exactly say—”

  “It bothers her that he used to be a pro athlete, like her first husband,” Rodney put in, speaking as though Vanessa weren’t there.

  Gina shrugged prettily. “To each her own,” she said.

  Vanessa felt called upon to say something positive about Nick. “Your brother is the most self-assured person I’ve ever met,” she remarked.

  Gina shrugged again. “He’d face down the general membership of Hell’s Angels without batting an eye,” she said, “but let him get sick or hurt himself and he goes to pieces. Last month he cut his finger chopping vegetables for a salad, and you’d have thought there’d been a chainsaw massacre.”

  Vanessa laughed. It was good to know the idol was human with feet of clay, she thought to herself. But then she remembered his reputation and the parties he was allegedly so famous for and decided he was probably too human. Her expression sobered.

  “You look so sad,” Gina said, exhibiting her brother’s propensity for perception. That she could read minds was evident when she went on. “Nick is a really nice man, Vanessa. And he’s mellowed out a lot since the old days.”

  Vanessa was not comforted, nor could she help drawing certain correlations between Nick and Parker. They were both attractive, sought-after men. While finding Parker in bed with another woman had been devastating, she knew that if history repeated itself with Nick, she would be shattered.

  Somewhat awkwardly she told Gina that it had been nice to meet her, made an excuse and fled.

  As usual, the light on her answering machine was blinking when she let herself into the house. Dreading more of Parker’s nonsense, she nonetheless played back the messages.

  The first call was from her grandmother, who wanted to know if she and Rodney would be coming to Spokane for Thanksgiving and Christmas that year. The second was from a local television station, where Vanessa had put in an application just before Paul had hired her to be on the Midas Network.

  Her heart practically stopped beating, she was so excited. In the middle of Parker’s diatribe on how the divorce had been a mistake, she rewound the tape and listened again. She hadn’t imagined it; Station WTBE was interviewing potential hosts for a new talk show and they wanted her to come in to see them.

  Vanessa had to take three deep breaths before she was steady enough to return the call. When the producer’s secretary answered, her voice elevated itself to a squeak.

  The secretary was patient. “What did you say your name was again, please?” she asked.

  Van closed her eyes, rehearsing her answer. The way things had been going that day, there was every possibility she’d get it wrong. “Vanessa Lawrence,” she managed to reply at some length.

  “Would a week from Friday be convenient for you?”

  Any day would have been convenient, but Van knew better than to make herself sound desperate by saying so. “That would be just fine,” she said coolly.

  “Two-thirty?” the secretary suggested.

  “Two-thirty,” Vanessa confirmed, frantically scribbling the date and time on the cover of her telephone book even though the information was emblazoned in her mind for all time.

  The moment she’d hung up the receiver, she dashed breathlessly up the rear stairs and into her sparsely furnished bedroom. There, she slid open the closet door and flipped on the light, looking for the perfect outfit, the clothes to convince the producers of Seattle This Morning that their search for a host was over.

  Soon the bed was piled high with dresses, suits, skirts and blouses—none of which quite met Vanessa’s specifications. She had just decided to head for the mall when the telephone rang.

  Her cheerful hello brought a burst of blustering frustration from Parker.

  “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “Yes…” Vanessa sighed. “Parker, I don’t have time to tango right now, okay? Something really important has come up, and I’m going out.”

  “You’ve got a date with DeAngelo, I suppose,” Parker immediately retorted. “I could tell you a few things about that son of a—”

  The pit of Vanessa’s stomach twisted. She wasn’t ready to hear the things Parker would say about Nick, not yet. “I’ve got to run,” she interrupted, almost singing the words, “’Bye!”

  The telephone started to ring again almost immediately after she’d hung up, and it was still jangling away when she dashed out of the house without turning the answering machine on.

  Five hours later she returned with a raw silk suit in a shade of ice blue. There was a Corvette to match sitting behind Rodney’s battered sports car in her driveway.

  Memories of the way she’d behaved in Nick’s apartment combined with a not-so-instant replay of the words they’d exchanged at the studio to make her cheeks hot. The man didn’t know the meaning of the word Friday, she fretted. Well, maybe it was just as well that he was there. Now would be as good a time as any to tell him that they shouldn’t see each other anymore.

  She unlocked the back door, let herself in and waited. Nick was obviously up in Rodney’s apartment, passing the time of day. In a matter of minutes he would realize that she was home and appear on some flimsy pretext.

  Twenty minutes passed with no sign of Nick. Vanessa had put away her new outfit, changed into jeans and a flannel shirt and even brewed herself a cup of tea when she finally heard an engine roar to life in the driveway.

  He was leaving without even saying hello!

  Incredulous, Vanessa raced through the house to peer out one of the front windows. Sure enough, Nick was backing the Corvette out into the road, Gina beside him and, as far as Vanessa could tell, he didn’t even glance in her direction.

  “I’m becoming obsessive,” she told the cat, who had come to steer her back toward the kitchen.

  Sari made her usual noncommittal comment, and Vanessa gave the animal supper before setting aside her pride and going outside to climb the stairs to Rodney’s apartment.

  “Hi,” he said, looking surprised to see her.

  Vanessa took in the very abbreviated cowboy costume he was wearing, raising an eyebrow.

  “I was just practicing a new number,” he told her, sounding defensive.

  His cousin smiled. “Speaking of numbers, I wonder if you’d mind giving me Nick’s?”

  Rodney eyed her curiously, then shrugged. “Sure, I’ve got it here somewhere. Are you going to ask him out or what?”

  “That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?” Vanessa countered.

  “Touchy lady,” drawled Rodney as he riffled through his burgeoning address book. “Here it is,” he said, scrawling the number onto a piece of scrap paper and holding it out to Vanessa.

  She took it, thanked him and left with as much dignity as she could manage.

  She gave Nick plenty of time to get home, systematically building up her courage as she w
aited, and then dialed his number. It was an irony of sorts that she got his answering machine.

  The message she left was simple and to the point. “Nick, this is Vanessa. I don’t think we should see each other anymore, and that includes dinner on Friday. Goodbye.”

  It was a long evening for Vanessa, spent with the nervous expectation that Nick would either call or drop by, demanding an explanation for her decision. As it happened, neither the telephone nor the doorbell rang once.

  The rest of the week and following weekend was peaceful, too.

  On Monday morning, Margie complained about the shadows under Vanessa’s eyes as she applied her makeup. “Keep losing sleep like this, kid,” the cosmetologist warned, “and you’re going to look like Rodney Dangerfield.”

  Despite everything, Vanessa laughed. “The beginning of another lovely day,” she said.

  Just then, Oliver Richards dashed in and switched the channel on the monitor from the Midas Network to a popular national talk show. Vanessa stiffened in her chair as she saw the handsome face of her ex-husband fill the screen. She’d forgotten all about Parker’s guest spot.

  The program had obviously been in progress for a few minutes, and Parker was smiling boyishly at the applause of the predominantly female audience. “I’m happy to say that Van and I are getting back together,” he said. “This time I’m going to be the best husband any woman ever had.”

  The paper cup in Vanessa’s hand dropped to the floor, coffee and all.

  “Tell us a little about your ex-wife,” the program’s famous host prompted, watching Parker with a certain speculation in her eyes.

  “It’s all in the book,” Parker answered proudly, and, to Vanessa’s abject horror, he held up a copy for the whole world to see.

  Vanessa hadn’t expected the book to be published for weeks, so her first shock was compounded by a second. “Oh, no!” she cried.

  Oliver, standing beside her chair, was wiping Van’s coffee from his pants legs with a wad of tissue.

  Parker looked directly into the camera, a besotted expression on his face. “I will say this—I love you, Vanessa. And I forgive you for all the times you’ve…hurt me.”