“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His hand came down hard on her shoulder and she dropped the phone. “Get into my office!” he barked. She grabbed the plastic gumdrop tree—none of them moved—and shoved it in his face. Startled, he relaxed his grasp. “What the hell!” And she took off for the door. She had it partway open when he threw himself against it, overturning the coatrack. She started screaming. It was the only thing to do.
“Shut up! Shut up!” he yelled at her, reaching toward her to cover her mouth. She shut up. The notion of that big sweaty palm on her lips made her gag.
“Who are you and what are you doing here? Who sent you?”
She was trapped. Please, please let it be that the receptionist was just going out for a sandwich.
She wanted to say nobody had sent her, but she also wanted him to think all five boroughs knew where she was. She concentrated on thinking how to get away.
Yet she had to be sure. “Nathan. You could say Nathan sent me,” she said in a firm voice.
“Nathan?” He looked shocked. “How do you know . . . Jesus,
at her, opened the door, and pushed her out. “Just get out of here—and don’t come back.”
She was at the parking lot, light-headed with relief, when he came running after her, red-faced, panting. He still looked sweaty, even in the cold. There was a pad of paper and a pencil in one hand. Damn. Her license plate— or rather, Mother and Dad’s. All she could think of to do was to keep going so he wouldn’t know which car was hers. It was a municipal lot and almost full. He couldn’t stand outside in these temperatures without a coat for long. She kept walking. At the corner, she looked over her shoulder. He was taking down the numbers of every car in the lot. “Don’t worry, Mrs.
Brown,” he yelled after her. “I’ll find out who you are.
Don’t worry, you bitch! I’ll get you!” She ducked around the corner and into a card shop.
Thirty minutes later, with several packages of Christmas cards she doubted she’d get time to send, she went back to the lot. He was gone. She drove off in the opposite direction from the real estate agency and, as she’d been doing since she was so unceremoniously shown the door, ran through what had just happened.
Of course he must have heard her pick up the phone.
She’d have to get better at “overhearing” conversations if she was going to be good at this. Or maybe he hadn’t bought the whole act. She doubted this, though. She hadn’t done anything to raise his suspicions that she was anything other than what she appeared—a lady looking for a house.
Absentmindedly, she put on the tape again, but she wasn’t in the mood for medieval merriment. She decided to check her messages. She had to bring the car back, but the evening was free. She supposed things would even out, yet so far the business had been mad
rushes followed by enervating doldrums. Still, she reflected, if she was busy all the time, either Emma’s major problem or Faith’s fledgling business would suffer. Every silver lining has a cloud. Since when had she begun to think in cliches? Especially such tired ones.
Tired. That was it. She hadn’t had much sleep lately.
She reached for the car phone she was sure her father didn’t know existed and called her machine at home first.
“Faith, darling. This is absolutely the last message I’m going to leave. Altman’s will be an office building or whatever horrendous thing they’re planning to do with it before we get there for lunch. I’ll see you and Hope at Chat’s party and we’ll make a date then. I positively refuse to talk to this machine again.” Faith could picture her grandmother’s face. Amused indignation or indignant amusement. Added to tolerant bemusement and bemused tolerance, these made up the major portions of Mrs. Lennox’s emotional repertoire.
“Got a gig tonight yourself, or can we catch Connick? Call me?”
It was Richard. Faith felt happy. That was unusual lately. Worried, fatigued, frightened, yes—but happy was in short supply. What was going on? It had been a while since a man’s voice had caused this kind of reaction. She knew she was interested in him, but was she getting
drop? Or was he talking to a disgruntled home owner who was getting close to putting a contract out on Todd himself—or switching brokers—because Todd wanted him to drop the price of his house to move it? Wanted to push someone, a woman, into making an offer?
Yet Faith couldn’t try to get things clearer in her own mind by picking Richard’s brains. She was back at the Midtown Tunnel and plunged down the ramp.
Yes, she’d go out with Richard, but she wouldn’t be able to tell him a thing. Any hint of what was going on in her life and it would be “soon to be a major motion picture” time. Any reporter worth his or her salt would react the same way. It was in their genes. But yes, she’d see him tonight. Yes.
Richard couldn’t meet her until nine, which was fine with Faith. Garden City had left her feeling drained, more relieved than frightened now. She was at the stage where she was imagining all the things that could have happened to her and hadn’t. She wanted to take a long, hot bath and a long, warm nap—under the quilt Emma had left on the couch.
The phone rang. It was her sister. She sounded upset. A highly unusual state for her. Faith remembered with a pang that she had never called Hope to arrange a time to have dinner with Phelps. Maybe she should ask if they were free tonight? They could come to the Algonquin afterward. No, scratch that thought.
“It’s about Phelps—”
“I know. I’m really sorry I didn’t get back to you about dinner, but it’s been crazy.”
“No—or rather, I mean yes. Let’s have dinner together sometime. But he just called, and I’m in a
quandary about what to do. This kind of thing has never happened to me before.”
It sounded like she needed more than simple advice to the lovelorn.
“What’s wrong?”
“Probably nothing. It’s just that Phelps has the chance to invest in—”
Faith interrupted again. It was getting to be a habit.
“He wants to borrow money?”
“Yes, rather a lot of money.”
“This is an easy one. A no-brainer. You know the golden rule. Never loan money to men, especially the ones you’re dating.”
“I know, I know. But it’s a short-term loan. With interest. His lawyer will draw up the papers.”
“This sounds like more than ‘rather a lot’ of dough!
What does he need it for?”
“He has the chance to get in on the ground floor of a terrific new software company. It all makes sense, except—”
“Except he doesn’t have the money and wants to borrow it from his girlfriend.”
There was silence on the other end. Faith didn’t know whether Hope was enjoying the appellation or pondering her decision.
“Look, sweetie, I’m not just being flip. Think about it. You loan him the money and he can’t pay it back. This places a strain on the relationship and you break up. You loan him the money and he does pay it back, but he’s always aware he was dependent on you for his new good fortune or whatever. Men don’t like that kind of feeling, so you break up. Now there is also the possibility that your lighthearted refusal to loan him any money—Mother always said never do
things like this; you can even hum a few bars of that other classic, “Mama said there’d be days like this”—will cause him to break up with you, too. But you’ll still have your money and will have saved even more on Doritos,
