Paradise

by Judith McNaught

  Behind her, shoppers were searching through the racks of silk peignoirs. On the balcony across the store from where she stood, the men’s lounge wear department was doing a brisk business in bathrobes. She heard the voices, and the music, and the constant hum of computerized cash registers churning out sales tickets, but she felt nothing. Overhead, the store’s paging system began to chime—two short bells, a pause, then one more; it was her paging code, but she didn’t react. Not until someone actually spoke directly to her did she manage to move. “Do you work here?” an impatient shopper demanded.

  Did she work here? With an effort Meredith dragged her mind into focus. “I mean,” the woman continued as she thrust a peignoir at Meredith, “since you aren’t wearing a coat, I assume you do.”

  “Yes,” Meredith replied. For today, she worked here.

  “Then where will I find the sale peignoirs in your ad? This one is $425.00 and the ad in Sunday’s Tribune said you had them for $89.95.”

  “Those are on the fifth floor,” Meredith explained.

  Her paging code sounded again, and still she stood there—not certain whether she was saying good-bye to the store, her dreams, or merely tormenting herself.

  The third time the page sounded, Meredith reluctantly walked over to the counter near the bathrobes and dialed the number for the store’s main operator. “This is Meredith Bancroft,” she said. “You paged me?”

  “Yes, Miss Bancroft. Your secretary says it’s urgent that you call your office.”

  When she hung up, Meredith glanced at her watch. She had two more meetings scheduled for that afternoon—assuming she could make it through them as if everything were normal. And even if she could, what was the point of putting herself to the trouble of doing it? Reluctantly Meredith called Phyllis’s extension. “It’s me,” she said. “You had me paged?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry to bother you, Meredith,” Phyllis began, and from her sad, uneasy tone Meredith assumed that the meeting her father had called to announce his temporary successor was over, and the news was already out. “It’s Mr. Reynolds,” Phyllis continued. “He’s called twice in the last half hour. He says he has to talk to you. He sounds awfully upset.”

  Meredith realized Parker had apparently heard the news too. “If he calls again, please tell him I’ll get back to him later.” She couldn’t bear his sympathy right now without breaking down. And if he tried to tell her this was somehow for the best . . . she couldn’t bear that either.

  “All right,” Phyllis said. “You have a meeting with the director of advertising in a half hour. Do you want me to cancel it?”

  Again Meredith hesitated, her gaze roving almost lovingly over the frenetic activity all around her. She couldn’t bear to just walk out—not with the Houston deal still up in the air and several other projects still needing her attention. If she worked hard for the next two weeks, she could complete much of her work and get the rest of it ready to be turned over to her successor. To leave things in a mess—to leave without taking care of some of her projects—was not in the best interest of her store. Her store. Hurting Bancroft’s was like hurting herself. No matter where she went or what she did, this place would always be a part of her and she of it. “No, don’t cancel anything. I’ll be up there in a little while.”

  “Meredith?” Phyllis said hesitantly. “If it’s any consolation, as far as most of us are concerned, you should have been given the president’s job.”

  Meredith’s laugh was short and choked. “Thanks,” she said, and hung up the phone. Phyllis’s words of support were sweet, but just now they didn’t do much to lift her heavy spirits.

  30

  Parker glanced at the ringing telephone in Meredith’s living room, and then at her. She was standing at the window, looking pale and withdrawn. “That’s probably your father again.”

  “Let the answering machine take it,” Meredith replied with a shrug. She’d left the office at five o’clock, and by then she’d already refused to take two calls from her father and several more from reporters who were eager to ask how she felt about being passed over for the presidency today.

  Her father’s voice crackled with fury as soon as her recorded message was finished: “Meredith, I know you’re there, dammit. Answer this phone! I want to talk to you.”

  Sliding his arm around her waist from behind, Parker drew her against him. “I know you don’t want to talk to him,” he said with sympathetic logic, “but he’s already called four times in the past hour. Why not talk to him and get it over with?”

  Parker had insisted on seeing Meredith to lend her moral support, but all she wanted was to be alone. “I don’t want to talk to anyone right now, especially him. Please try to understand. I’d really like to be . . . by myself.”

  “I know,” he said with a sigh, but he remained where he was, offering silent sympathy while Meredith stared listlessly out the window into the darkness. “Come over to the sofa,” he whispered, his lips brushing her temple. “I’ll fix you a drink.” She shook her head, declining the drink, but she walked over to the sofa and sat in the circle of his arms. “Are you certain you’ll be all right if I leave?” he asked an hour later. “I have some things I have to do if I’m going to leave tomorrow, but I hate to go when you’re in a mood like this. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving and you’re not going to want to spend it with your father as you’d planned. Look,” he said abruptly, coming to a decision, “I’ll cancel my flight to Geneva. Someone else can give the address to the banking conference. Hell, they won’t notice—”

  “No!” Meredith burst out, forcing herself to display an energy she didn’t feel as she stood up. In all the pathos of the moment, she’d forgotten Parker was supposed to leave tomorrow for three weeks of meetings with his European counterparts and to give the keynote address at the World Banking Conference. “I’m not going to throw myself out of a window,” she promised with a wry smile, sliding her hand around his neck and giving him a gentle kiss good-bye. “I’ll have Thanksgiving dinner with Lisa’s family instead. By the time you come back, I’ll have made new career plans, and I’ll have my life back in order. I’ll finalize the arrangements for our wedding.”

  “What do you intend to do about Farrell?”

  Closing her eyes, Meredith wondered briefly how anyone was supposed to deal with so many complications, setbacks, and disappointments. In the face of today’s crushing revelations, she’d actually forgotten that she was still married to that loathsome, impossible—“My father will have to agree to stop blocking Matt’s rezoning request. He owes me that much,” she added bitterly. “When he does, I’ll have a lawyer contact Matt and offer him that as a peace offering.”

  “Do you think you can handle the wedding arrangements when you’re feeling like this?” he asked gently.

  “I can and I will,” she promised, forcing enthusiasm into her voice. “We’ll be married in February—on schedule!”

  “There’s one more thing—” he added, cupping her cheek in his palm. “Promise me you won’t commit yourself to a new job until I get back.”

  “Why not?”

  Drawing a long breath, he said very carefully, “I’ve always understood why you’ve insisted on working at Bancroft’s, but since you can’t anymore, I’d like you to at least give some thought to making a career out of being my wife. You’d have plenty to do. In addition to running our home and entertaining, there’s civic and charitable work—”

  Overwhelmed by a despair beyond anything she’d known in years, Meredith started to protest, and then gave up. “Have a safe trip,” she whispered as she pressed a kiss on his cheek.

  They were partway to the door when someone began determinedly pressing the buzzer from the lobby in a jaunty, familiar rhythm. “That’s Lisa,” Meredith said, filled with guilt at having forgotten their dinner date and frustration because she wasn’t going to be permitted the solitude she desperately needed. She pressed the button that unlocked the security door on the bottom floor, and a minute later
Lisa marched into the apartment wearing a determinedly cheerful smile and carrying containers of Chinese food. “I heard what happened today,” she announced, giving Meredith a brief, hard hug. “I figured you’d forget our dinner plans, and I figured you wouldn’t be hungry,” she added, putting the cartons on the polished surface of the dining room table and shrugging out of her coat, “but I couldn’t stand the thought of you spending the evening alone, so here I am—want me or not.” Pausing to glance over her shoulder, she added, “Sorry, Parker, I didn’t know you’d be here. I guess the food will stretch.”

  “Parker’s just going,” Meredith told her, hoping the two of them would forgo their usual verbal sparring. “He’s leaving tomorrow to attend the World Banking Conference.”

  “How fun!” Lisa said dramatically, turning a dazzling smile on Parker. “You can compare techniques for foreclosing on widows with bankers from all over the world.”

  Meredith saw his face freeze, saw his eyes narrow with fury, and she was dimly aware of feeling surprised again that Lisa’s jibes dug that deep, but at the moment her own problems outweighed all else. “Please, you two!” she warned, looking at the two people she loved and who struck sparks off each other. “Don’t bicker. Not tonight. Lisa, I can’t eat a mouthful of food—”

  “You have to eat to keep your strength up.”

  “And,” Meredith continued determinedly, “I’d rather be alone—honest.”

  “Not a chance. Your father was pulling up across the street just as I came up.” As if to confirm that, the buzzer began to sound.

  “He can stay down there all night for all I care,” Meredith said, opening her apartment door for Parker.

  Parker swung around. “For God’s sake, I can’t leave yet if he’s down there. He’ll expect me to let him up here.”

  “Don’t do it,” she told him, fighting to control her emotions.

  “What the hell am I supposed to tell him when he asks me to hold the security door open for him?”

  “Allow me to offer a suggestion, Parker,” Lisa replied sweetly, tucking her hand through his arm and marching him toward the open door. “Why don’t you just treat him like any poor sucker with a dozen kids to support who needs a loan from your bank—and tell him no!”

  “Lisa,” he said between his teeth, yanking her hand off his arm, “I could really learn to hate you.” To Meredith, he added, “Be reasonable, the man is not only your father, we’re also involved in business.”

  Plunking her hands on her hips, Lisa gave him a bright, daring smile. “Parker, where is your spine, your character, your courage?”

  “Mind your own goddamned business. If you had any class, you’d realize this is a private matter and you’d go wait in the kitchen.”

  The rebuke had a surprising effect on Lisa; normally able to take as much as she gave, Parker’s statement caused a humiliated flush to stain her cheeks. “Bastard,” she said under her breath, and turning on her heel, she headed toward the kitchen. As she passed Meredith, she said, “I came here to console you, not upset you, Mer. I’ll wait in the kitchen.” In the kitchen, Lisa angrily brushed away the tears stinging her eyes as she snapped on the radio. “Go ahead and rant, Parker,” she called, and gave the volume knob a hard twist, “I won’t hear a word.” From the radio came the sound of a screeching soprano weeping vociferously while performing an aria from Madame Butterfly.

  In the living room, another long, demanding blast from the lobby buzzer joined the shrieking din of the soprano’s plaintive wailing, and Parker drew in a harsh breath, torn between the urge to break the radio and strangle Lisa Pontini. He looked at his fiancée, who was standing a few feet away, too immersed in misery to notice the deafening racket, and his heart softened. “Meredith,” he said gently when the buzzer went silent, “is that really what you want me to do—refuse to let him up here?”

  She glanced at him, swallowed, and nodded.

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Her father’s furious voice as he stalked into the room brought them both lurching around in surprise. “Goddammit! It’s a hell of a note when I have to sneak past the security door with another tenant! What is this, a party?” he demanded, raising his voice to be heard above the opera blasting from the radio. “I left two messages with your secretary this afternoon, Meredith, and four more on your answering machine!”

  Anger at his intrusion banished her exhaustion. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

  He flung his hat onto the sofa and jerked a cigar out of his pocket. Meredith watched him light it and stoically refused to comment. “On the contrary,” he snapped, clamping the cigar between his teeth and glowering at her, “Stanley turned the presidency down. He said he didn’t think he could handle it.”

  Too hurt by their earlier meeting to feel anything at this news, Meredith said matter-of-factly, “So you decided to offer it to me?”

  “No, I did not! I offered it to my—the board’s—second choice, Gordon Mitchell.”

  That piece of painful information hardly touched her. She shrugged. “Then why are you here?”

  “Mitchell turned it down.”

  Parker reacted with the same surprise Meredith felt. “Mitchell’s ambitious as hell. I’d have thought he’d be dying for a shot at it.”

  “So would I. However, he feels he can make a greater contribution to the store by remaining in merchandising. The well-being of Bancroft’s is obviously more important to him than personal glory,” he added with a pointed look at Meredith that silently accused her of self-aggrandizement. Brusquely, he finished, “You’re the third choice. That’s why I’m here.”

  “And I suppose you expect me to leap at the chance?” she retorted, still so hurt by what he’d said to her earlier that she couldn’t feel elated over what he’d just told her.

  “I expect you,” he said, his face turning an angry, alarming red, “to behave like the executive you seem to think you are, which means putting our personal differences aside for the time being so that you can take advantage of the opportunity you’re being offered!”

  “There are other opportunities elsewhere.”

  “Don’t be a fool! You’ll never have a better chance to show us what you can do.”

  “Is that what you’re giving me—a chance to prove myself?”

  “Yes!” he bit out.

  “And if I do prove myself, then what?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Under those circumstances, I’m not interested. Get someone else.”

  “Goddammit! There is no one as qualified as you are to do it, and you know it!”

  The words burst from him in an explosion of resentment, frustration, and desperation. To Meredith his reluctant admission was infinitely sweeter than any ordinary praise. The excitement she’d refused to feel before began to build inside her, but she struggled to sound nonchalant. “In that case, I accept.”

  “Fine, we’ll discuss business at dinner tomorrow. We have five days to go over pending projects before I leave on my cruise.” He started to reach for his hat, intending to go.

  “Not so fast,” she said, her mind snapping into sudden focus. “First, but not most important, there’s the matter of an increase in salary.”

  “One hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, effective one month after you move into my office.”

  “One hundred seventy-five thousand dollars a year, effective immediately,” she argued.

  “With the understanding,” he angrily agreed, “that your salary returns to what it is now if—when—I come back from my leave of absence.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And,” he added, “You’re to make no—repeat, no—major changes in policy without consulting with me first.”

  “Agreed,” she said again.

  “Then it’s settled.”

  “Not quite—there’s one more thing I want from you. I intend to devote myself completely to my work, but I have two personal mat
ters that I also have to take care of.”

  “What are they?”

  “A divorce and a marriage. I can’t have the latter without the former.” When he remained rigid and silent, she walked forward. “I believe Matt will agree to a divorce if I can offer him an olive branch—the approval of his zoning request—and the further guarantee that there’ll be no more interference in his private life from our end. In fact, I’m almost certain he will.”

  Her father studied her with a grim smile. “Do you really think so?”

  “Yes, but you evidently don’t. Why?”

  “Why?” he said, sounding amused. “I’ll tell you why. You said he reminded you of me, and I wouldn’t settle for such a puny offering. Not now. Not anymore. I’d make him regret the day he ever tried to thwart me, and when I’d accomplished that, I’d drive a bargain on my terms—a bargain he’d choke on!”

  The words sent a chill of apprehension up her spine. “Nevertheless,” she persisted, “before I agree to take over, I want your word that he’ll have his zoning request approved as soon as he petitions again for it.”

  He hesitated, then he nodded. “I’ll attend to it.”

  “And you’ll also give your word not to interfere in anything else he does if he’ll agree to a swift, quiet divorce?”

  “You have my word. Parker,” he said, bending down to retrieve his hat from the sofa, “have a good trip.”

  When he left, Meredith looked at Parker. He grinned at her as she said softly, “My father couldn’t say he was sorry or that he was wrong, but conceding to everything I asked for was his way of making amends. Don’t you agree?”