Mistletoe Over Manhattan

Perhaps just having him committed to her for the next half hour was enough.

The delights of the early morning made it even more incomprehensible when he said offhandedly that evening, 'I told a guy I knew in college I'd meet him for a drink. You don't mind if I skip out for a while, do you?'

The truth was that she minded terribly. As she fiddled with things on her desk, trying to stay busy while he was gone, the phone rang. It was Bill Decker, who spent a minute exchanging pleasantries with her and said at last that he needed to speak to Carter.

She didn't know why he would need to say something to Carter he couldn't say to her as well, but she didn't want to sound jealous or competitive, so she said, 'He's not here just now, Bill. Frankly, I don't know where he is, but-'

Bill's chuckle interrupted her. 'I think I can guess,' he said.

'Where?' She snapped out the word.

'Okay, I'll level with you. Wasn't going to, thought it might embarrass Carter, but I've been putting a bee in his bonnet about Phoebe Angell.'

'Oh?' This time she managed to smooth out her voice. 'What about Phoebe?'

More chuckles. She wished he'd choke and there wouldn't be anybody around who knew how to do the Heimlich maneuver. 'In a conversation I had with her,' he said when he apparently felt he'd chuckled enough, 'it was clear she was interested in him. I suggested he pay a little attention to her, stroke her up a little.'

'When he returns from stroking,' Mallory said, feeling cold all over, 'I'll ask him to give you a call.'

She stood absolutely still for what seemed like an hour. Then she knew what she had to do. She had to see Maybelle. Maybelle would know it was an emergency. She'd find time for her in her schedule. Mallory flung on her coat and boots and went out into the night.

'You done good, hon,' Maybelle told Carter after he'd described his encounter with Phoebe. 'You're a fine man and you did a kind thing. You followed your own conscience without hurtin' her any more than you had to. And-' she punctuated this by pointing a gold fingernail at him '-you found out what she wanted most in the world.'

Carter was amazed at how good her compliment made him feel.

'And I beenthinkin' about that All-I-Want-for-Christmas thing.'

He didn't remember telling her Mallory's name for it, but he probably had. 'All ideas appreciated,' he said.

'I think this is a good one. You could produce a movin' pitcher or a sitcom with green people in it and cast all your witnesses, that is, if they're willing to settle.'

Carter opened his mouth to explain how difficult, call it impossible, that would be, but he didn't need to explain a thing. Maybelle could handle both sides of any argument.

'But it turned out not to be setch a good idea. I talked to a movie person I know and he turned the idee down flat. The concept, he called it, didn't grab him, he said.'

Carter's mind was clicking like a computer keyboard. 'No, that idea was over the top,' he said slowly, 'but I think you've given me one that might work.'

The rest of the session wasn't as productive. Maybelle seemed determined to make him admit he was in love with Mallory and furthermore to tell Mallory he was in love with her and see what she had to say about it, while he felt that if he was in love with Mallory it was none of Maybelle's business. Nor did he intend to make himself that vulnerable to Mallory until he was darned good and sure she was going to answer back, 'I love you, too.'

While he was arguing his point, he realized so unexpectedly that it was like being ambushed in a dark alley, that it would hurt-a lot-if he decided he was in love with Mallory and then found out she wasn't in love with him. That made him mad at the world in general, and in that mood, he wasn't open to any suggestion Maybelle was likely to make.

Mallory ran recklessly up to Maybelle's door. New doorknocker. A hand scrunched up like a fist as if it were about to knock. Mallory pounded it. Richard appeared. He seemed startled to see her. She breezed right past him anyway. 'I need to see Maybelle. Just for a minute.'

'She's with a client,' he mouthed, pointing at the closed door and crossing two fingers over his lips.

'I'll wait.'

'She really doesn't like her clients to meet,' Richard said, obviously trying to edge her back out the door. 'It's a privacy thing.'

'I won't know the person,' Mallory said, persisting. 'I'm from out of town, remember? It'll be fine.'

'I think not.' Richard was getting pompous. 'Here's what we'll do. You go home and Maybelle will call you the minute she's free.'

'I can't go home,' Mallory said. 'I'm too upset.'

She heard voices close behind the door. 'Hear that?' she said. 'They're almost finished. So I'm going to wait and that's-'

The door opened, and Carter stepped through it.

His eyes widened and his skin paled. Her heart fell to her toes. 'What are you doing here?' she whispered.

'The question is,' Carter said, 'what are you doing here?'

The foyer fell into thunderous silence, but not for long. 'Oh, my gawd, I knew this was gonna happen, I just knew it,' Maybelle shrieked from somewhere behind Carter.

'I tried to send her home, Maybelle, truly I did,' Richard said, looking woebegone. 'But she's a very determined woman.'

'You've been consulting Maybelle?' Mallory said to Carter. 'But why? And how did you find her?' However startled she was to see him, she was ecstatic to know he'd been seeing Maybelle and not Phoebe.

'You were the one who dropped that card in the hall, weren't you?' Carter said, but he didn't smile, and his voice was eerily calm.

'Whoo, what a relief,' Maybelle said shrilly, scurrying out into the foyer. 'Now you both know where the other one's been sneakin' off to, no place but to right here. No harm done. Isn't that grand? Now let's all sit down and have a little-'

'I don't want to sit down,' Carter said. 'I just want to know what you were consulting Maybelle about.'

'Personal matters. Why were you seeing her?' She was merely curious. As far as she was concerned, Carter was perfect, didn't need to change a thing.

'Personal matters.' He threw the words back at her.

He'd probably been as shocked to see her as she was to see him, but she didn't know why it was making him mad. 'Oh, okay, I'll tell you,' she capitulated. 'There were some things about myself I thought I ought to change.' Would she ever have the courage to tell him that she must have loved him even back in law school and that she badly wanted him to notice she was a woman? Even if she found that courage, she wouldn't say it here. Not in front of Maybelle and Richard.

'Uh-huh,' Carter said. 'I think I know why you consulted an imagemaker. A lot of things are coming together in my mind.'

'What's comin' together?' Maybelle darted worriedly between Mallory and Carter.

'That's what the clothes and the shoes and the stuff-' Carter mimed makeup application '-and the mistletoe were all about. You asked Maybelle to change you from the woman you were into the woman who seduced me.' He shook his head, looking sad. 'I thought you were different, but you're not. You're just like all the rest.' He turned away and appeared to be leaving.

'What do you mean, 'just like all the rest'?' This was just a silly little coincidence they should be laughing about. Instead, Carter seemed to be extremely upset and she couldn't figure out why.

He paused and turned back to her. 'I thought you were starting to respect me because I was handling the depositions well, but you weren't really impressed by my legal skills. All you wanted was to get into my pants.'

'Isn't it the woman who usually says that?' Richard asked Maybelle in a hushed tone.

'Shhh,' Maybelle rasped back at him.

Carter turned on their mutual imagemaker. 'In fact, you probably advised her to flatter me, that men were so egotistical they'd believe anything.'

'No, she didn't,' Mallory said, feeling desperate. 'You did handle the witnesses well. I was being honest with you. I don't know what I did to make you so mad!'

'What's making me so mad,' he said, giving her a humorless smile, 'is being treated like an empty-headed