household furniture and a mannequin. She had survived too many desperate months after the divorce wondering if her business would succeed another day or through another payroll or past another quarterly tax payment. She and Carrie had struggled through those bad times when each new account was cause for celebration, when she and Theresa would rework the numbers, shuffling and cutting until all the monthly bills were covered-just barely. And now, at last, when she was seeing daylight for the first time, she
Her sudden emphatic decision after days of bewildering confusion was startling at first and coldly unromantic. For a brief transient moment she felt as though she had forsaken dreams of a lifetime and a thunderbolt would strike her dead for her unorthodoxy. But she was still sitting at her desk, intact and whole a few minutes later, feeling a flush of pleasure at the prospect of emancipation. Emancipation not only from her past, from the divorce and unhappiness of those years, but an emancipation from so many of the stifling rules she'd always considered requisite to a woman's fulfillment.
She was free from the limiting strictures she carried from childhood. She was also assured now she could succeed in her business. And yes, she had to admit, she was cheerfully self-indulgent at times. Without guilt.
And if she smoked, she could have dressed in a three-thousand dollar dress to lounge in one of those ads declaring: You've come a long way, baby.
Still seated at her desk with the sound of Jason's unctuous voice grating on her memory, she decided she was ready. She was ready to negotiate her love and future happiness from a position of strength, an autonomous, self- reliant sense of self and purpose.
She would not give up her business nor her independence, and if Carey Fersten needed capitulation on either count, he wasn't the man she wanted to marry. That was the bottom line on her personal integrity. After that point was established, she'd enter the discussion about other issues like Australia, pursuing women, Sylvie and Egon's likely presence in their lives, submachine guns and counter-culture types, paparazzi, and sundry facets of the glittering film world.
CHAPTER 46
C arey hadn't called because he was trying to play by her rules. It was hard; he'd picked up the phone a hundred times that week, only to slam it down in frustration a moment later. He was short-tempered- rare for him, a man who prided himself on self-control-and everyone on the cast and crew had begun glancing at him out of the corner of their eyes as he passed, in the event they had to jump fast. And he'd apologized for his curtness more in the past few days than he had in a lifetime.
He'd promised everyone a bonus if they finished by Friday, driving them unmercifully, single-minded in his goal. Perhaps as stubborn as Molly and as self-indulgent, he admitted freely his wishes were purely selfish: He wanted her and he intended to get her. By her rules this time, but by any rules or no rules if necessary.
When the week was over, Molly's apartment resembled a hothouse for orchids and rare lilies, and the florists in Minneapolis were richer for her impetuous stand on integrity.
Carey had called the evening of the seventh day and, like a polite suitor, circumspect and well-mannered, his voice smooth as velvet, had asked her out for dinner the following night.
His knock on the door came precisely at eight.
His knock came so perfectly as the second-hand swept toward the twelve, Molly wondered if he'd stood outside her door waiting with his fist raised until the exact moment.
He was bronzed and beautiful, each silky hair on his gilded head in place, his gray double-breasted suit impeccably tailored, his white-on-white patterned shirt crisp, his Lyon silk tie soft as Southern speech, a startling magenta alstroemeria blossom in his lapel buttonhole. Perfection stood before her, and for a brief moment before he smiled he looked like a scrubbed and combed young boy ready for his first date. His smile however, conjured the familiar Fersten sensuality, and his lazy drawl further blurred the young schoolboy image. “Good evening, Ms. Darian, you're looking… splendid.” His eyes traveled in slow assessment from the top of her shiny blond head down to her green and white silk print dress to the tips of her toes and eventually back to her face. His teeth flashed white, and he winked. “As usual.”
And against all prudent admonitions to remain judicious in her response to the Fersten charm until their discussion was concluded, she couldn't help but return his grin. “Thank you, Mr. Fersten. May I return the compliment. I've never seen your hair so perfectly combed.”
“I bought a comb today as an indication of the full extent of my commitment.”
“I'm flattered.”
“Good. In that case,” he said with a smile, “my ten dollars wasn't wasted. I hope you're ready now, because I can't guarantee this veneer of perfection very long. Once I move, it may shatter.” And he shook his head suddenly, as if breaking free of the stifling ideal, his burnished gold hair rearranging itself to its familiar disorder.
He was cheerful on their way downstairs as if the past week hadn't intervened in their relationship. He filled her in on the progress of the film, as well as on Egon's current state of health. “I flew down overnight to see him day before yesterday. The doctors are running additional tests, trying to decide how to operate.”
“I'm happy he's feeling better,” Molly replied in a polite tone, but her stomach did a brief flip-flop as she visualized Sylvie greeting Carey. Even with Molly in the same room, she'd had no compunction about falling into his arms. How close had she been two days ago, with Molly a thousand miles away?
“I talked to Papa this morning,” Carey said, opening the outside door for her, “and he misses Carrie. By the way, where is she?” He had expected his daughter to greet him, since eight o'clock was well before her bedtime.
“She's sleeping over with Lucy. Lucy has a new video game they've been trying to master the last few days.”
“Does Pooh need one?”
“No,” she said too quickly, her tone as abrupt as a treaty negotiator determined not to relinquish another foot of motherland soil. Immediately embarrassed at her rudeness, she added in a more moderate voice, “Actually, she's waiting for some new model due out next fall. Maybe then.”
“I miss her,” Carey said quietly, haunted the past few days not only by his differences with Molly but by unwelcome thoughts of possibly losing his daughter.
She had no response. Carrie had been asking for her father all week.
“Where's Carey?” her daughter had asked.
“Gone.”
“Are you two fighting again?”
Molly hadn't answered for a moment, trying to formulate an acceptable reply. Although she had expected Carrie to begin one of her curious Freudian interpretations, she had merely said, “I miss him, Mom.” And she didn't sound adult at all, she sounded like a little nine-year-old girl who missed her dad.
“It was only a week,” Molly replied to Carey, a touch of defensiveness in her voice.
“You're right,” he lied. “The week flew by.”
Paradoxically, his casual reply was as irritating as a complaint would have been, and Molly took brief mental pause to consider her irrationality. Everything had been irritating her lately, she reflected, as though her world had tipped askew.
As Carey opened the garden gate, she stepped through and saw the parked car. It was small and sleek and expensive.
“No limo?” she remarked, immediately wanting to bite her tongue at the pettish insult.
“I wanted to be alone with my girl,” Carey replied, his smile ignoring the peevishness of her tone, and she was handed into the low vehicle with faultless courtesy.
Short moments later, Carey slid into the driver's seat, brought the powerful engine to life, and deftly wheeled the car out into traffic.
Molly glanced around the beautiful hand-crafted interior, its walnut dash panels waxed to a soft luster, the smell of leather mingling with Carey's faintly woodsy cologne. “This must be yours. They don't rent these in town do they?”
