The Marriage Merger

by Leiber, Vivian

  When Sam had dropped her off at Gascon’s parking lot after a quick shopping trip for the perfect party dress, he had kissed her on the cheek.

  There wasn’t really any need for more practice at romantic kissing.

  And the high five that they ordinarily gave each other when saying goodbye seemed not quite enough to acknowledge their conspiratorial closeness.

  How could their relationship ever be the same? And yet, how could it be any more intimate when Sam regarded her as a friend—and not even a close enough friend to do him a favor without expecting something in return?

  I’m going to have to leave Barrington and Phoenix when this is over, Patricia thought with sudden, heartbreaking clarity. To stay would be too humiliating, too raw.

  And to one day watch him make another woman Mrs. Sam Wainwright would be too painful.

  Unless, by some miracle, he came to know how deeply she felt and he did a one-eighty on his feelings. Unless she succeeded at showing him that she was the woman for him. She tugged at the sleeve of his shirt, sniffing the slight scent of him. The memory of that scent would live with her long after she returned the shirt.

  “Patricia, are you listening?”

  “Sorry, Mom. What were you saying?”

  “I called last night because I’m thinking of taking a weekend to fly in to see you. I assumed you’d be home by seven o’clock on a Friday night. Even if the rest of the world dates.”

  “Mom!”

  “And then I called back at eight o’clock, and then eight-thirty... You know, Patricia, for all your skills in language and diplomacy and all the traveling you did with me and your father, I’m surprised you’re not more adventurous in your social life. But I hope last night means you’re catching up.”

  “What weekend are you thinking of?” Patricia asked, wearily deflecting her mother’s lecture.

  “Next weekend.”

  “Sure, I don’t have any plans.” Patricia gulped. She’d still be officially engaged—Rex wasn’t leaving for his world cruise for two weeks. It wouldn’t help to have her mother around. “Mom, I forgot. I’m really busy at work.”

  “What about the weekend after that?”

  Patricia did some quick calculations.

  “I don’t think so. Maybe a little later—toward fall.”

  “You’re more busy with this new friend than you’d like to admit.”

  “No, Mom, I’m not busy with him,”

  “That’s all right. Say what you want. But I’m a mom and I know what’s going on. I’m happy for you. I’ll call back in a few days and see if there’s a convenient time I can come. Au revoir! And as I hear these teens say, ‘Go for it’!”

  As Patricia let the phone slip back to the receiver, the garment bag with the retirement-party dress, her briefcase and the previous day’s mail fell to the floor.

  “I’m not a ‘go for it’ kind of person,” she told her empty apartment

  Oh, yes, you are, a small voice inside her said. What was that word Cindy had used—hussy? Maybe just a little. Maybe just for Sam. Now she just needed a little follow-through. After all, she said yes to Sam’s proposal, however businesslike he meant it. Not quite as forward-thinking as the sixty percent of women in the Arizona Republic poll, but not like the four percent who considered it wrong for women to take the initiative in a relationship.

  “I guess I am a ‘go for it’ person,” Patricia said. “At least when it comes to Sam.”

  And she squared her shoulders, picked up the garment bag and briefcase and went to the bedroom at the back of the apartment.

  Turning the radio on to the most provocative music she could find, she figured she had just over six hours to daydream and to turn herself into the most glamorous, beautiful woman Sam had ever seen.

  Because there was a spark of something when they kissed—maybe she was the only one who felt it because she was a virgin, more sensitive to these things. But if there was a spark, surely it could be ignited to flame.

  And if she failed, and if Sam simply gave her a high five and a “thank you very much” at the end of their engagement, at least she’d know she tried her best to win the heart of the man she loved.

  Chapter Eight

  Adjusting the cuffs on his white pleated formal shirt, Sam caught himself whistling a romantic Harry Connick, Jr. ballad.

  “Sam Wainwright, you’re losing your mind,” he told the mirror. “This is business. Business. Business. Business.”

  On the dresser was his list. He had made a list for every Barrington party he had ever attended. Even after fifteen years he didn’t trust himself to remember all the people who needed a pat on the back and the new hires he needed to make introductions for.

  He reviewed tonight’s list:

  1. Compliment the VP from Texas on getting the Dallas Barrington Spa up and running two months ahead of schedule.

  2. Congratulate Lucas Hunter in the legal department and his wife, Olivia, on their pregnancy.

  3. Bring together Kyle Prentice from the New Product Division with the manager of the Key West facility—Key West is looking for some help from NPD.

  4. Congratulate Sophia Shepherd on her new position as Rex III’s assistant (has she seen him?). Formally introduce her to Mike from the mail room.

  Sam puzzled over entry number four. Then he remembered that the young man who delivered the mail to his office twice a day had specifically mentioned that he thought Sophia was a dish but that she seemed hesitant about talking to him.

  Sam usually limited his party list to things that would help the corporation—playing matchmaker wasn’t on his job description. But Mike seemed awfully nice and Sam couldn’t help wanting to lend a hand.

  “Why am I doing this?” he asked aloud. “Have I turned into Cupid?”

  He was supposed to be thinking corporate. In fact, the little reminders that he set up for the party paled compared to the most important corporate task he had set before him this evening: introduce Patricia to Rex as his fiancée.

  This goal was so important, so vital to his future that he crumpled up his list and threw it away. His job was everything to him, more than the paycheck or even the prestige or the satisfaction he got from being the best at what he did.

  No, his job was an affirmation that he wasn’t just a dirt-poor barrio boy. He had overcome every obstacle—poverty, a public school that didn’t have enough money to buy books, the temptation of gangs that recruited from his playmates, the long hours working two part-time jobs to get through college.

  He fingered the framed letter on the wall over his dresser. It was sixteen years old, smudged on the letterhead, creased twice so that it would have fit into a business-size envelope. But it was more precious to him than any masterpiece.

  It was his letter from Rex II welcoming him to the Barrington family. “You have a fire inside you, the kind that makes a man do great things. You’re going to make me proud, Sam, as proud as I am of my own son who is just your age but has never been tested by circumstances the way you have. I would be honored if you would take a position in our company—if you do, I assure you that the sky is the only limit to your ambition and hard work.”

  When Sam had received that letter, he had shouted so loudly that his neighbors had dialed 911—the neighborhood was not unfamiliar with violence. He had had to explain to the police and to the crowd that gathered outside his one-room apartment that he had gotten his dream job.

  Everything Sam did he did to make Rex proud of his decision to hire him. Sam was first in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night. He went to Rex’s tailor with his first paycheck and to Rex’s custom shirt store with his second. Sam cultivated a taste in wines, Navaho art and Colonial Spanish interiors—just like Rex II.

  In fact, Rex was the reason he had found Melissa Stanhope so attractive—she was from a good family, was beautiful and very cultivated. And yet Rex II was also why Sam had broken up with Melissa—Rex II felt his wife, dead now for fifteen years, had bee
n his soul mate. Sam knew that he and Melissa were so different that he could never even grow to describe her that way. She wasn’t a soul mate, she was a trophy.

  What would Rex think of Patricia as a fiancée? Sam wondered as he pulled on his black tuxedo jacket and patted down the sleek lapels.

  She was beautiful, friendly, hardworking, utterly without a mean bone in her body. What a contrast to Melissa. In fact, Sam thought as he walked downstairs, Rex II would say that Patricia was made for him.

  Sam paused at the Mexican altar table in the center hall. He had been looking for his keys but now keys didn’t seem so important.

  Patricia made for him?

  This charade had gone too far.

  “We’re not talking about a real fiancée,” Sam said.

  He swiped his keys from the table, flipped on the security system and headed out into the blazing heat. As he got into his car, he wondered if this deception was a terrible idea.

  He could, he should, he would tell Rex that he had broken up with Melissa. That he had no fiancée, no girlfriend, no prospects of marriage.

  But the focus tonight should be on Rex, not on Sam’s marital status. And if Patricia on his arm made Rex happy and convinced that Sam was still a good hire, then so be it.

  Sam drove down Lonesome Trail Drive to pick up Patricia. As he approached her apartment building, he felt unaccountably happy. He even bought flowers from a vendor who walked between cars at the intersection of Missouri and 23rd Street.

  Sam handed her the flowers first thing when he entered her apartment.

  “Here,” he said gruffly. “Don’t know why I got them. Put them in water.”

  Patricia suppressed a smile.

  “Are they for me?”

  Sam shrugged.

  “It’s an advance thank-you for all you’re doing tonight.”

  Patricia took the flowers to the kitchen and put them in a vase. Flowers were flowers. It was a start.

  She came back out into the living room. As unadventurous as she was in her social life, Patricia had a taste for the exotic in her furnishings.

  A leather-and-teak Zulu bed from Africa dominated the room, but it was complemented nicely by a gilded bamboo temple throne from Bangkok and a woven rattan chaise from Egypt.

  These starkly elegant pieces were softened with huge pillows and neck rolls made from white matellase fabric Patricia had shipped from a tiny shop in Switzerland near the boarding school where she had spent her middle school years.

  “Remember? My parents were diplomats,” she said, putting the flowers on a table in front of the window. “So my apartment looks a little like the United Nations.”

  “It’s very nice,” Sam said, and then he gave her the once-over, twice, as she twirled in front of him. “You look great, Patricia. You’re going to be the belle of the ball.”

  For the retirement party, Patricia had chosen a more conservative dress than she had worn the evening before. Her dress was a pale green chiffon that hugged her breasts and draped in a handkerchief hem at her ankles. Gascon had taught her how to make a French twist and although strands fell around her pale bare neck, she had managed to corral most of her thick mane. She had followed Gascon’s makeup suggestions to a T—even wearing an icy pink lipstick that made her lips look full and pouty.

  “Wow,” Sam said simply.

  Patricia had never liked having a small apartment, but housing prices being what they were in Phoenix, this cramped one-bedroom was all she could afford. But for the first time in six months, Patricia blessed skyrocketing rents, profit-oriented landlords and even the international clutter that she had accumulated in twenty-nine years as a diplomat’s daughter.

  When Sam stood up, he was close. So close that her breasts just grazed the pleats of his crisp, white shirt. Only a thin pale line of gray surrounded the deep dark circle of his eyes. He held his hands out at either side as if almost, almost ready to embrace her.

  She took a chance, a big one, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  “For practice,” she said huskily, with every smidgen of sophistication she could muster.

  He didn’t say a word, didn’t shy away, didn’t even remind her that they had already done some practicing.

  Instead, he swept her into his arms and kissed her. Really kissed her. As if to show her how it was really done.

  And he did.

  Her willing mouth surrendered to his lips, to his tongue, to his teasing of senses that she hadn’t even known she possessed. His hardness was pressed against her abdomen and if this was practice, the main event both frightened and excited her.

  When he relinquished her, it was several seconds before either one of them recovered enough to speak.

  “I’m sorry...” he started to say, but she put a finger to his lips. Those beautiful, strong lips that were still wet with her color and her touch. “For practice,” he said at last.

  “For practice,” she agreed.

  They both knew that if they left her apartment now they’d arrive at the party on time and not fashionably fifteen minutes late. Still, when Sam offered her her tiny white beaded evening bag, she didn’t say a word.

  Instead, she thought with emerging joy—there was something there, something in our kiss. He feels something. Something that might become love if I can just be the woman he wants me to be.

  Although Barrington Corporation events were generally held in Barrington quarters, the Phoenix Barrington was a small, intimate spa and utterly too cozy for a party as large and as lavish as Rex’s retirement, one that included every employee, from the high-powered vice presidents to the busboys at the Barrington restaurants. Luckily, the manager of the Phoenician had gotten his start in the resort industry at Barrington Corporation and had closed his hotel’s finest restaurant, Mary Elaine’s, so that it could be used for the evening.

  After dropping off the car with the valet, Patricia and Sam hurried over the bridge of the Necklace Lake, pausing only to admire the honest-to-goodness pearl tiles of the Mother-of-Pearl Pool. They said hello to several people from the accounting department who had gathered early for a drink at the Thirsty Camel Lounge. Sam looked slightly baffled when Rachel, an accountant for the department, offered a toast to his engagement

  “He works so hard, he forgets his personal life sometimes,” Patricia said, slipping her arm into the bend of his elbow.

  Several people laughed, a few nodded sagely.

  “Honey, I have to watch myself,” Sam said with mock solemnity. “Some people will think you’re not joking.”

  After remembering to congratulate Rachel and Nick Delaney on their recent wedding, Sam told Patricia they should get to the party.

  The restaurant was twinkling with gold candles and beautiful white orchids. The panoramic view of the valley was beautiful this evening. Mildred Van Hess stood at the door with Rex—she looking especially radiant in a beige silk pant suit

  “Well, Sam, my man, it’s good to see you,” Rex II said, holding out his hand for a high five. “And this... But this is Patricia, your right-hand man—well, woman—in Personnel. It’s always wonderful to see a beautiful woman, but I was hoping to meet your fiancée tonight.”

  Patricia looked up at Sam. He hesitated. Would he ’fess up?

  “You are meeting her,” he said at last, putting his arm around Patricia’s waist. “Rex, may I introduce the future Mrs. Sam Wainwright”

  Patricia held out her carefully manicured hand to Rex II. The older man’s eyebrows knitted together and Patricia suddenly remembered the encounter outside Sam’s office. Did Rex remember?

  “I never knew,” he said. “I never saw you two together—except, of course, in professional circumstances.”

  “We were trying to be discreet,” Sam said. “These days, it’s particularly important for Personnel directors to set a good example.”

  “Well, you were discreet. So much so I never suspected. Did you, Mildred?”

  “I saw them together,” Mildred said. “On Aleja
ndro Street.”

  “Did you really?” Sam asked with utmost casualness.

  She nodded fiercely.

  Sam wondered if she guessed the truth. She was always very smart, seemed to soak up knowledge about the company, its people and its place in the world. But she never knew about his engagement to Melissa. He was sure of that...

  “Mildred, she’s perfect for him,” Rex said, fairly bubbling. “She’s a real beauty, isn’t she? And nice, too. You can tell they go together like...like, what’s that famous song I’m thinking of?”

  Noticing that Rex hadn’t let go of Patricia’s right hand, Mildred took the younger woman’s left hand in her own. She glanced at the diamond. “Like love and marriage.”

  “That’s right!” Rex exclaimed. “That’s the song. Love and marriage, marriage and love, go together like a hand and glove...” he sang, elbowing Sam in the ribs.

  Sam smiled tightly. Rubbing his palms together, Rex asked, “So when’s the big date?”

  Chapter Nine

  “Big date?” Sam asked, perplexed.

  “Your wedding,” Mildred prompted archly.

  Sam looked at Patricia. She ducked her head. They were going to get caught...

  “The sooner the better,” he said just as Patricia jerked her chin up and announced, “We haven’t set a date yet.”

  “Hope you agree on other things,” Mildred said, snagging a champagne glass from the tray of a passing waiter.

  “You lovebirds have to decide soon,” Rex counseled. “Can’t let love slip out of your fingers. Love and marriage, wish I could remember that song, go together like...what was it again?”

  “Hand and glove,” Mildred said. She craned her neck to look over Sam’s shoulder. “Rex, you’re so excited about this party and it’s just getting started. Look at all the people who’ve come to celebrate with you. Why don’t we talk to the couple later about their wedding plans?”

  Patricia bobbed her head in agreement.