Pink Satin

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Hmm. Your cold sounds much better,” Greer said from the depth of the white velvet chair in Marie’s office. The chair was in a safe corner, which was important during one of Marie’s tirades.

“You think I’m joking?” Marie’s office looked as if burglars had just left. Fabrics were strewn over the floor. Papers lay where they had been tossed. And the diminutive blonde was pacing, bunching papers in her hands, and pelting them into the air, her French accent thickening with her fury. “I will leave him and get a divorce and join another firm. That’s what I will do. He thinks my design is not good enough for his catalog cover?” Marie whirled and shook her finger at Greer. “You thought I would blame you, didn’t you?”

“Your negligee was beautiful, Marie-but I was the one who didn’t feel it belonged on the cover. Grant really had nothing to do wi-”

“I don’t blame you. I blame him. And killing is too good for him. Divorce is too good for him. I know exactly what he deserves.” Marie collapsed in the chair behind her desk, her golden eyes fiery with rage as she glared at Greer. “You look at my husband and you see a small, very proper man, who doesn’t even swear so much. Hah. He is not so polite between the sheets. You don’t think of Grant as a tiger, do you?”

Greer crossed her legs. “Ummm…” Not that the question hadn’t been raised before, but it was still difficult to answer tactfully.

“Well, he is. A tiger. Even two nights and he can’t stand going without. We’ll see,” Marie said fretfully. “We’ll see what a little abstinence does for him. We’ll see how long he lasts. He won’t dare ax one of my designs again. Wait a minute.” She bolted out of her chair and skimmed across the debris toward the door. “You. Wait here,” she called back to Greer.

Alone for at least a minute, Greer yawned. Marie had been ranting for the better part of an hour. For days after her first experience with one of Marie’s temper tantrums, Greer had been distraught, disturbed that Marie so freely sputtered private secrets to her, fearing that Marie and Grant were on the verge of a divorce.

Now she was used to it, and absently picked up Marie’s new teddy design from the floor where it had been jettisoned. It was simply white…only Marie had the talent to make simply white look wicked. And next to it lay a basic pair of pajamas…in a luscious coral silk, with coral satin piping on the hem and cuffs and a mandarin collar. Basic, yes. But utterly luxurious next to the skin.

When Marie didn’t instantly return, Greer automatically started to straighten up the office-at least until a whoosh of satin was plopped over her head. Gingerly, she pushed back enough of the fabric to see out.

Marie was smiling. “For you,” she said magnanimously. “You think I want that anywhere around here? Take it home and keep it out of my sight. It will fit you to absolute perfection. You know I can look at any woman and know her size. Your figure was made for it.”

“Mmm,” Greer murmured and divested herself of the pink satin and cream lace. For a moment, she stared at the negligee that had caused so much trouble, thinking vaguely that the lovely thing had been created to cause trouble. Of one kind or another. “Marie, you know I’m not the type to wear this sort of thing.”

Marie muttered something in French, which Grant had one time translated loosely as “horsefeathers.”

“Regardless, I don’t want you to give this to me, Marie. The design is wonderful, and if we could use a less expensive fabric-”

“I will never use the design again. Never. Oh, that man.” Marie, huffing, flopped back in her chair, five feet two inches of steam and energy.

“Grant loved the design,” Greer mentioned.

“He does not appreciate me. He has never appreciated me. I sent all the way to Bordeaux for that lace…”

“Which you knew ahead of time would make the negligee impossibly expensive.”

“And I told Barney I wanted satin. Not this-” She picked up the white camisole that Greer had placed on the desk and pushed it to the floor again. “Not like satin. Not wash-and-wear. I am so tired of wash-and-wear fabrics I could scream. I hate fake. Real satin must be treated like a baby; it requires a lot of trouble, a lot of time, but then! Then, when you see what it does next to a woman’s skin…”

“But that also brought up the price,” Greer reminded her gently.

Marie wasn’t paying attention. “I wanted to create something it would take courage to wear. A little daring. Real elan.”

“Would you wear it yourself?” Greer questioned.

Marie glanced at Greer in surprise. “Of course I would not wear it myself. I would look flat like a wall if I put that on. It would trail on the floor after me as if I were a little girl playing dress-up. You think I am stupid? You think I’ve kept Grant in my life by being stupid? He knows what he’s got when the lights are out, but when they’re still on, my darling, he can’t be sure. A little subtle padding, a few carefully sewn tucks, a flounce here and a bow there to distract him from what I don’t have.”

“That’s exactly why your designs are so brilliant, Marie,” Greer said soothingly, tactfully not mentioning that one didn’t divorce a man for whom one was willing to resort to such deviousness. “You have a gift for hiding a woman’s worst points and accenting her best. Exactly why we’ve been so successful. Grant was just telling Barney that yesterday.”

“Grant,” Marie scoffed. “My husband knows nothing. Nothing.” She hesitated. “He said that, though?”

“He said that.”

“I am not forgiving him for that negligee not being on the cover.”

“Of course you aren’t.” Greer unconsciously fingered the pink satin negligee before carefully placing it on the chair and moving toward the door. “He was upstairs with the girls yesterday. There was something wrong with one of the sewing machines; Rachel said it was usable, but Grant told her to forget it-that you’d find one stitch out of place. He told her you were a perfectionist…and that if she didn’t feel the same way, the door was available to her.”

“I am a perfectionist,” Marie said proudly.

“Of course you are.”

“That Rachel…she can be careless if I’m not looking right over her shoulder every minute.”

“I think that’s why Grant made a special trip up here while you were out with that cold.”

“Hmm.” Marie’s eyes narrowed as Greer took another step backward. “Take the negligee, take it, take it. Stop fussing. You know I meant for you to have it.”

“Marie-”

“Take that thing. Immediately.” Marie waved at the negligee, and then briskly stood, picked up the garment and pushed it into Greer’s arms again. As an afterthought, she reached up to press a kiss on both Greer’s cheeks in the French way. “You are a good friend. I want you to have it, and wear it for a very special man, yes? It suits you exactly. I knew the minute I thought of the design.” She added, “And when I divorce Grant, I will start my own business and you will come with me. We will make our own firm. All women. No men. Not one.”

***

Later, Greer was working in her office on ad copy, the negligee folded carefully and out of sight, when Grant paused in her doorway, nervously tightening his tie.

“Safe,” she said shortly.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Twenty minutes after that, Marie and Grant passed her office on the way out. Greer suppressed a grin. It was only three in the afternoon, yet she knew the two were leaving for the day, and not for business. Their arguments inevitably ended the same way, and Greer had no doubts that they would both come in yawning the next day.