CHAPTER TWELVE
Jo’s fingers tightened their grip on the seat’s armrests and she swallowed deeply. For the tenth time in five minutes she wished she’d never watched that bloody movie about the plane crash in the Andes.
She hated take-off, hated flying full stop. But taking off was the worst. At least when you were flying, you had no idea what was going on. The air-stewardesses smiled and passed out booze and the clouds were usually so thick that you hadn’t a clue how far away the ground was. Taking off, however, was so immediate and fraught with danger. You could see everything. If she looked out the window, Jo knew, she’d see the runway and Dublin airport and lots of housing estates growing smaller by the minute. She couldn’t help herself, she had to see. Big mistake. The sprawling airport had turned into a matchbox-sized arrangement and the fields were beginning to develop that patchwork look.
The plane banked slightly and Jo wondered if you were allowed to leave your seat and sprint to the toilet when the seat belt sign was still on. Her old friend, nausea, was back.
She’d have to climb over Mark Denton and the person in the aisle seat to get out, but she could do it. Or could she? Maybe she’d just breathe deeply and pray.
Are you all right?” asked Mark, putting one large hand on her clenched left one.
“No.” She was too scared to lie.
“I hate flying,” she muttered.
And I hate the window seat.”
“Let’s talk about something to take your mind off it, then,” he said comfortingly.
“Did I ever tell you how Rhona and I met?” he asked, settling himself sideways in his seat, and keeping her hand firmly gripped in his large one.
“No.” Jo didn’t feel like being humoured. She wanted to behave like a spoiled child and ignore him, make him suffer for bringing her out to lunch purely to talk about his horrible niece. She’d practically ignored him since they’d met in the airport. She’d given him a cool little smile when he’d brought her into the Aer Lingus business-class lounge where there was free tea, coffee, booze and newspapers and lots of comfy armchairs to sink into.
Mark had managed to ignore the fact that she was ignoring him and had been consistently pleasant to her, as though he was humouring a spoiled child. She hated that.
“After that, I had to give her the job,” he was saying.
“You know Rhona.”
Yes, she did. She remembered Rhona’s parting words to her which had been along the lines of, “If you fall desperately in love with Mark when you’re living the high life in New York, don’t forget that I want to know all about it when you come home.”
Some bloody hope. A why would anyone fall in love with a man when they were nearly three months pregnant with the child of another man who’d done a runner?
B how could anyone feel even vaguely romantic squashed into a jumbo on a never-ending flight to New York?
And C why would anyone be stupid enough to fall in love with Mark Denton? Rhona was mad sometimes, Jo decided.
Mark had stopped talking and was patting her hand.
“Better now?” he asked.
“Fine,” she muttered.
He ignored her cross expression and started talking again, obviously under the misapprehension that he was somehow being helpful. He kept the conversation going through the meal roast chicken and rice, with a brown-bread scone, some sort of cheesecake thing and a foil-wrapped mint chocolate which he handed to Jo only stopping while they watched the in-flight movie.
“I hate Julia Roberts,” grumbled Jo sleepily, wondering how in the hell she could be tired when it was only lunchtime.
True to form, she’d slept badly the night before, waking up in a cold sweat at three a.m. after dreaming that she’d arrived at Dublin airport for the eleven a.m. flight minus her passport, suitcase and, worst of all, her handbag.
A few minutes dozing would make her feel better. She wriggled around in the small seat, rolled up her sloppy grey sweatshirt into a makeshift pillow and closed her eyes. She woke two hours later, shocked to find that she was leaning comfortably against Mark’s shoulder, snuggled up to him cosily.
“Sorry,” she said abruptly, sitting bolt upright. She hoped she hadn’t snored or something equally awful. Richard used to say she snored in her sleep; it would be too embarrassing to snore on the boss’s shoulder.
“You missed the coffee Mark said, stretching his arms and massaging the shoulder she’d been leaning against. Oh no, she groaned inwardly. He obviously hadn’t been able to move for hours because she’d been glued to his side. He probably thought she’d done it on purpose, that she fancied him. How awful.
“I didn’t wake you because I thought you needed the rest,” he said.
“You look very pale. Anyway, the coffee wasn’t very nice. Nothing like the stuff in the office. Are you all right, Jo?”
Mark looked at her with concern in his eyes. Nice eyes, she decided. Kind eyes. It was time she stopped ignoring him and started behaving like an adult again.
“I’m fine,” she answered. As fine as you could be when you felt like a complete moron.
“Sorry about squashing your arm for so long.”
He grinned. That’s OK. Would you like some water or orange juice?”
“Water would be lovely.” She was desperately thirsty all of a sudden. Since she always wrote that drinking lots of water on the plane and keeping your moisturiser handy were vital for flying, she might as well practise what she preached.
Mark waved in the direction of the air-stewardess. An attractive redhead appeared at their seats a moment later.
“Can I help you?” she asked, giving Mark what Jo considered a very warm, come-hitherish smile. The stewardess’s eyes took in Mark’s cream polo shirt with the Ralph Lauren designer logo, his expensive Tiffany watch and the absence of a wedding ring on his strong left hand. Her smile deepened.
Mark certainly had his own quiet charm, Jo realised with a jolt. It was just as well he wasn’t her type.
She’d always gone for handsome men, the sort of smooth, chiselled-featured boys who could model Armani suits. Mark was tall, well built and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, but he was a million miles away from Richard Kennedy.
Richard was movie-star gorgeous while Mark was rugged, a hard-working self-made man to Richard’s model-boy look.
“Could we have some water?” Mark asked the stewardess before turning to Jo.
“Or do you want juice, Jo?”
“Water, thank you,” Jo said, watching the stewardess’s smile shift from admiring to professional once she realised that Mark wasn’t on his own.
You’re welcome to him, Jo felt like saying. He’s not mine.
Of course, she didn’t say anything of the sort. She sipped her water and eyed Mark surreptitiously. He was attractive really, very attractive in fact. Would it look bad if she got out her powder compact and put on some lipstick?
Kennedy airport was hot, sticky and crowded. Exhausted from the flight, Jo was glad when Mark took charge of the luggage, especially since her suitcase “was crammed with at least a quarter of her wardrobe. He lifted her case and his leather suit-carrier effortlessly onto a trolley without demanding to know why hers was so heavy and what had she brought, the way Richard always did and led the way through the crowds out to the noisy arrivals hall. It was bedlam.
People of every skin colour imaginable pushed up against the barriers like a human rainbow, anxiously watching passengers emerge and shrieking loudly in different languages when they spotted their
visitors. It was like being in Marks and Spencer on the first day of the January sales.
Jo was poked in the back by a child with a tennis racket and had her ankles bashed by someone else’s trolley as she followed Mark through the throng. The blissful airconditioned cool of the plane seemed miles away from the humid New York air.
Her white cotton T-shirt and jeans were pasted to her body.
What she wanted most in the world was to lie down in a cool room and rest, then stand under a cool shower.
She was considering flinging herself on the trolley and letting Mark push her to the hotel, when she spotted him a uniformed man in his twenties holding a sign that read, “Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel, Mr. Mark Denton’. Mark waved at the driver who immediately hurried over and took control of the trolley “Welcome to New York,” he said in a strong Cork accent.
“I’m Sean. Nice to meet you.” Jo could have kissed him. Sean loaded the cases in the back of the stretch Cadillac limo the hotel had provided while Jo slid onto the cool leather seats and sighed with relief.
She didn’t care if her luggage ended up in Hong Kong, as long as she didn’t have to look after it or anything else for that matter.
As Sean wove through the heavy airport traffic, Jo stretched out her legs and wondered why she’d never travelled in a limo before. Was this what movie stars felt like when they eased from airport to airport in the comfort of a luxury car, distanced from the world behind darkened windows?
There was what looked like a tiny drinks cabinet fixed into the back of the driver’s seat and she’d have loved to open it, just to see what was in it. But that would probably be as gauche as hell and she didn’t want Mark to think she was overawed by sitting in a limo. She adopted her best “I do this all the time’ expression and stared out the window. Huge American cars -raced past, gleaming Cadillacs and Buicks which would dwarf her own Golf.
Mark and Sean talked, discussing the quickest route into Manhattan with many of the city’s roads under repair. Half listening to them talk about parkways, expressways and toll roads, Jo stared at a skyline dominated by shining skyscrapers.
It was like looking at the opening credits of Dallas.
This was her third trip to New York, but she knew that no matter how many times she visited, she’d still feel that special buzz from visiting the city she’d dreamed about when she was a kid. She loved it. The sprawling city buzzed with vitality, it was alive like nowhere else she’d ever been.
She was also amazed by how much Mark appeared to know about New York judging from his conversation with Sean.
He’d never mentioned living there, but he seemed to know it so well. He talked about watching a Yankees game in Yankee Stadium was that football or baseball, she wondered? Then again, she hardly knew anything about him other than what he did for a living, how he met Rhona, why he liked fast cars and that he had an unbelievably soft spot for his niece. Oh yeah, that he could talk the hind legs off a donkey to comfort someone with airsickness.
When the limo pulled up at the hotel on Lexington Avenue, Jo clambered out of the back gratefully. Inside, the Fitzpatrick Manhattan was an oasis of calm, away from the buzz of traffic, screaming police sirens and the ever-present blaring taxi-drivers’ horns. More European than American, the hotel was quiet and elegant, with Irish accents of all varieties mingling with American ones. From the bar to the right, the sound of Christy Moore’s gentle singing drifted out on the air along with the sound of laughter.
“Do you like it?” asked Mark, who’d been watching her reaction from the moment they’d stepped inside.
“It’s wonderful, a brilliant choice.” Jo’s smile was genuine.
The idea of staying in a glorious and sophisticated slice of Ireland in the middle of New York was just perfect.
Registration was speedy and, within minutes, Jo was being shown her suite, an airy sitting room furnished with beautiful reproduction furniture, two large settees, a writing desk and a massive TV concealed in a huge armoire.
The bedroom was nearly as big, with another TV and enough drawers to hold four times the contents of her suitcase. Even more importantly, it was perfectly cool, thanks to the magic of airconditioning.
“You need a rest,” advised Mark, looking at her pale face and tired eyes. He stood awkwardly in the sitting room while she admired the bedroom and peeked into the bathroom.
“I’ll go.
If you want to have dinner with me, I’ll ring you about eight and we can go out to eat. But you might have friends you want to meet,” he added hesitantly.
“No, I’d love dinner she answered.
“Just let me crash out first.”
“We’re only here five minutes and you’re already talking American!” he grinned down at her. She’d never noticed how tall he was before, he must be six foot, nearly as tall as Tom her brother.
“I’ll call you at eight he said and was gone.
Ten minutes later she lay up to her neck in bubbles in the black and white tiled bathroom. The bath, an old-fashioned deep enamelled one, had just cried out to be used and since every muscle in Jo’s body ached, she’d given in and filled it.
So what if she was lying in a warm bubble bath in the middle of a sweltering July afternoon? Outside, New York buzzed in the heat. But inside, it was calm, serene and, since she’d turned the airconditioning up, almost chilly. The Four Seasons rippled through the air from the New York classical radio station Jo had found on the radio after much knob twiddling
She had turned the music up loud but she was amused by the idea that she’d still hear the phone if it rang because there was one in the bathroom. What a howl, she thought, picking it up with soapy fingers. Who would you ring from a bathroom phone? Hi, Mom, I’m having a pee, how are you? She just loved hotels.
When the phone rang at eight, Jo had dozed for an hour, ordered a pot of decaff from room service and dressed in her navy crepe Mandarin shirt and trousers.
“I’ll meet you downstairs said Mark.
He was waiting for her when she arrived, lounging in a wing armchair, dressed in an expensive-looking charcoal-grey jacket, pale grey polo shirt and jeans. Jo nearly did a double take. Mark Denton in jeans.”
“I even wear Tshirts sometimes,” he said drily, noticing her
“I expect that you sometimes wear a tracksuit, no make-up and stick your hair in a pony tail,” he added with a grin.
“Nothing like the elegant Ms Ryan we’re used to in Style.”
Touche,” she replied.
“And yes, I do sometimes forget to apply my make-up with a trowel. But a tracksuit?” she asked in mock horror.
“Never. I have jogging pants though, have occasionally worn odd socks because they’ve got separated in the wash, and I’ve got a pair of rather tattered leggings. Does that count?”
“Of course.” He slid an arm under her elbow and they walked to the door. It felt nice to be accompanied, to have a man escorting her out, even if it was only for show. Richard’s absence made her feel so alone most of the time, as if she’d never have someone to hug and kiss again.
They walked slowly south along Lexington Avenue and Jo tried to forget her troubles and savour the sense of being somewhere totally different from home. The traffic jams of the afternoon were a thing of the past and now the streets were almost quiet by comparison, large sedans cruising along sedately with only the bright yellow cabs roaring up and down the streets at high speed.
The Fitzpatrick Manhattan was in an affluent area of Manhattan. Park Avenue was just one block over while Fifth Avenue was only another two blocks away. Welldressed people walked along the streets, rushing the way all New Yorkers did. But they avoided eye contact as they walked.
That was the big difference between many American big cities and Dublin, Jo felt.
On Jo’s last visit, Rhona had filled her so full of warnings on being mugged or staring people in the eye in case they turned out to be complete weirdos, that Jo had been in a constant state of anxiety. She’d even carried the ubiquitous ‘mugger’s wallet’, a purse containing
a few dollars to give to any prospective muggers until she’d relaxed and stopped worrying.
Now, walking at a leisurely pace with Mark she’d swear he was walking particularly slow for her, as if he knew she didn’t have the energy to walk quickly she wasn’t even slightly nervous. He knew New York, she felt safe with him.
“Here we are Mark announced, stopping at a brightly coloured cafe on a street corner. The Starlite Xpress Diner. He peered in the window at the board behind the chrome bar and read out the menu: “Arnold Schwarzenegger Burger, Dolly Parton Sandwich … Oh look, Jo. You can have a Cindy Crawford hot dog!”
“Probably lettuce and a minuscule bun.” Jo laughed, taking in the customers sitting at small tables with paper cups, cans of Coke and styrofoam burger boxes.
“I just thought you’d like to experience dinner in a genuine New York diner,” Mark said with a deadpan expression.
“And it’s only six dollars each.”
Jo eyed him speculatively. Was he kidding? Or was he serious? She didn’t know. If he wasn’t joking, he could have told her they were going casual and she’d have dressed accordingly. She certainly wouldn’t have wasted her lovely and very comfortable navy outfit on the Starlite Xpress Diner.
“Right.” she said, with a firmness she didn’t feel. Men. She’d never understand them. Mind you, Mark was so well off it was probably a thrill for him to eat in a diner instead of a ten-pounds-a-starter restaurant.
“Let’s eat.”
He took pity on her.
“Jo, you are so gullible. I’m joking.”
“Pig!” she declared, giving him a light slap on the arm.
He laughed and grabbed the hand that had slapped him. Jo felt a shock of electricity shoot through her at the touch of his hand. She would have pulled her hand away, but his grip was so firm, firm and warm.
“I’m sorry. Forgive me.” His grey eyes glittered and the corners of his mouth turned up into a disarming smile.
Silhouetted against the lights of the diner, he looked like a great big bear of a man. Jo had the strangest desire to feel those big arms wrapped around her. Get a grip, Ryan!
“You looked so lovely and dressed up, I just couldn’t resist teasing you,” explained Mark with a grin.
“I’ve actually had the Bill Clinton Burger here, and it was lovely but, like all his meals are reputed to be, absolutely huge. I couldn’t finish it.
We’re going somewhere much nicer than this.”
“What could be nicer than this?” demanded Jo in mock amazement.
“I’m mad for a Dolly Parton Sandwich but I hope they’ve got curried chips on the menu.”
“Curried chips! You can’t be serious!”
Jo tried to look offended.
“I love them, especially with onion rings and battered sausages. Oh yeah, and mushy peas.”
There was me thinking you were one of those types who live off crisp breads remarked Mark.
“I’ve never had to diet,” explained Jo.
“Never used to, anyway,” she added ruefully, thinking of how she’d been eating for three, never mind two, most afternoons when the morning sickness wore off.
“Come on, then,” said Mark.
“I’m starving.”
He tucked her arm under his and they walked on.
Jo felt a spark of excitement ripple through her body at his touch. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to slip one arm around his waist and feel him pull her in close as they walked.
This could not be happening, she thought. She was three months pregnant with one man’s child, an absent man at that, and here she was getting all love struck over another one. Her boss into the bargain. Had jet-lag completely scrambled her brain?
“You’ll love the restaurant we’re going to,” Mark promised.
“It’s like stepping into a scene from Wall Street. The whole place is full of business types in button-down shirts and braces and women with those hard-looking hairdos. All they do is talk about shares, stocks and deals.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No, the men really do wear braces. And bow ties sometimes.
If you were into stock-market espionage, you could learn something here. Well, probably not,” he conceded. The tables are so close together that all the business types know that what you say in Smith and Wollensky’s at half nine at night will be around the city by the time the Dow Jones opens the next morning. So they probably talk in code.”
“It sounds marvellously high-powered,” said Jo in delight.
“It is.”
Smith and Wollensky’s was jam-packed by the time they walked in the door, but an advance call from the Fitzpatrick’s concierge meant that they’d skipped the queue. A table would be ready by nine, the maitre d’ assured them. Jo and Mark squeezed through the people crowded up against the long bar, managed to grab one bar stool for Jo, and ordered drinks.
“I always forget that they don’t measure spirits in this place said Mark with regret, looking at the massive vodka the barman was pouring into a solid glass tumbler.
“It’s like Spain,” Jo said. They don’t seem to have measures there, they just keep pouring until you say stop. If you don’t know the rules and don’t say stop,” she continued, ‘every drink is a hangover waiting to happen. I remember the first time I went to Spain, it was a press trip when I worked with the Sunday News,” she explained, ‘and the entire party spent four days fumbling for aspirin in the morning after the previous night’s party.”
There’s a real drinking culture to journalism, isn’t there?”
asked Mark in a slightly tense tone.
“Is getting drunk all the time part of the scene?”
Jo took a sip of her orange juice and stared at him. He looked stiff, anxious, worried somehow.
“Well, it used to be, years ago. We spent a lot of time in the pub when I started in journalism. Everyone drank a lot more than they do now.” Why was she justifying it? She’d had every right to be drunk and silly if she wanted to. She was only twenty-one at the time, for God’s sake!
“Why do you want to know?”
“No reason,” Mark said quickly, staring at her bottle of orange juice
as if he was memorising the ingredients. He picked up his drink and drained it.
“I think you’re right. I’ll stick to orange juice too. Do you want another one?” he asked.
The penny dropped. Mark thought she was off the booze because she’d been an alcoholic. What a howl! She’d certainly been to enough press receptions where people got pie-eyed, but she’d never been stupid about drinking. It had been years since she’d been plastered. In fact, she could remember precisely the last time it had happened.
“Mark,” she said hesitantly.
“I’m not an alcoholic, I’m not on the wagon, you know. When I started off in journalism, the only people I hung around with were journalists and they all drank like fishes. But not any more. I think we all got sense,” she said, thinking of how the office booze-ups had changed nine years previously. Cirrhosis of the liver had finished off one of the paper’s most talented reporters, a man famous both for his addiction to Scotch and his brilliant investigative journalism.
His death had shocked them all and they drank his health in one five-hour binge at the funeral. Jo said goodbye to the days of non-stop partying at that moment.
“I like wine and an Irish coffee now and again, and that’s it,” she said firmly.
“Well, good champagne is nice, but only if it’s good stuff, not the champagne cider they try and palm you off with at some press receptions.”
Mark stared at her intently. Jo considered the options for a moment should she tell him the reason why she wasn’t drinking? Or should she keep it to herself and have him constantly wondering why she wasn’t joining him for a glass of wine?
No, she decided. She’d keep her pregnancy to herself. Even though Rhona was an excellent editor who’d juggled pregnancies, Caesareans, teething and first days at school along with an incredibly demanding job, Mark mightn’t have the same faith in her doing it like that.
“I have this stomach problem, too much acid,” she improvised quickly.
“I can’t drink when it flares up because alcohol makes everything
worse. But I’ll be fine in a few weeks.” “I’m sorry to hear that you’re sick Mark said, sounding concerned and relieved at the same time.
“You should have told me you weren’t well, I would have got someone else to come to New York.”
“And there was me thinking that I was the only one who could help make the deal,” Jo said in mock misery.
“I think I’ll go home now that I find I’m expendable …”
“No you won’t,” said Mark quickly.
“I’m sorry. You are vital to the deal. I just didn’t want to think that you came because you had to, because I’d ordered it,” he finished slowly. He turned away from her and raised his glass at the barman.
“Another screwdriver and an orange juice,” he commanded.
He didn’t turn back, he kept facing the bar as though he was fascinated by the bottles lined up against the back of the bar.
The change in the atmosphere was palpable. It was as if he’d decided to close himself off, to put up the cool and aloof Denton facade again.
He thought she’d come because he was her boss and his word was law. Maybe it had been like that at first, she reflected. Of course it had. But now, everything was different.
She liked him, liked the warm and funny man who’d been kind enough to keep her mind off her fear of flying, the man who’d noticed her pale face when they were pushing through the airport and had taken care of her luggage. None of these things were the actions of a boss. They were the actions of a friend. She’d worked for him for three years and it was only in the last week that she’d got a glimpse of the sort of person he really was. It was suddenly vitally important that he understood that.
“Mark.” Jo reached out and touched his shoulder, feeling the soft fabric of his jacket under her fingers. Cashmere, she realised, her fashion editor’s instincts coming to the fore.
He turned and his grey eyes stared into her dark ones.
“Nobody made me come,” she said softly.
“I wanted to, and I’m glad I did because I’m really enjoying myself.”
He smiled, the tiny lines around his eyes crinkling up again in a way that Jo was finding unsettlingly sexy.
“Good.” Was it her imagination or was his voice deeper than usual?
The moment was charged with emotions. Jo didn’t know what to say. He held her gaze, then his focus shifted and he stared intently at her face, eyes moving over her flushed cheeks, full lips painted in a burnished bronze colour, eyes fringed with chocolate-coloured lashes.
“Your table is ready, sir.” The slight, Italian waiter broke the spell and they both came to their senses again.
“This way.”
Mark gestured for Jo to go first and she followed the waiter, weaving through a maze of small tables, turning sideways to pass between the gaps where diners had pushed their chairs out from the tables.
She was thinking so hard about the tall man walking behind her, and hoping she looked all right from the back, that she nearly cannoned into another waiter with a tray of shellfish held high above the crowded tables.
“Sorry.” she apologised, stepping aside clumsily. In an instant, Mark’s hand was on her waist, steadying her. It was like being touched by a burning poker, her flesh felt scorched by his touch.
“Madam,” said the waiter as he reached a table for two at the back of the restaurant. He held out Jo’s seat and she sank into the chair. Across the table Mark smiled at her, but said nothing as the waiter handed them menus and a wine list.
The waiter reeled off a list of specials, but Jo heard none of it. Although her eyes were fixed on the waiter’s face, her mind was racing back over the last few minutes, wondering exactly what had happened, what unspoken tension existed between them. She gazed down at the menu blankly.
“What do you think looks good?” asked Mark.
Choose something quickly, she thought. Scallops, yes, she’d have scallops. And melon and Parma ham for a starter.
The melon and scallops,” she said quickly.
The scallops are off the menu, or so the waiter said,” Mark pointed out gently. Jo felt herself blush, a warm flush of colour rising up her
cheeks. It was like being fifteen again. “Did he? I mustn’t have been paying attention she answered.
“Maybe I’ll have the grilled sole.”
“That sounds great,” Mark said. He flicked his wrist and the waiter appeared. Jo marvelled at his ability to summon people instantly. It was his presence, she decided, that made people jump to attention.
When the waiter had been dispatched with their orders, Mark leaned forward with his elbows on the table.
“We haven’t talked business all day he remarked.
“I know we should just enjoy ourselves, but we better discuss our strategy for talking to these people on Tuesday.”
Jo felt herself shrink in her chair. So that was it. The moment was over. Obviously the spark of electricity she’d felt between them had been one-sided. Or else he wasn’t interested and had decided to talk business to make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea. The boss didn’t mingle with the staff. She could take a hint.
“What sort of strategy did you have in mind?” she said coolly, determined to prove that she could be just as businesslike as he. If Mark Denton wanted to give her a message, she’d show him what a fast learner she was.
After dinner, they walked back to the hotel in silence.
Unaccountably tired, Jo could think of nothing more to say.
They’d discussed business tactics for over two hours and she was tired of talking about the importance of readership surveys and ABC market share.
She just wanted to close the door of her suite and slap herself for being stupid enough to think there could be anything between her and Mark.
This time he didn’t take her arm. They walked several feet apart. When they reached the hotel, he stopped on the footpath.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” he said abruptly.
“I don’t think I can sleep yet.”
“Fine!” she answered, not even looking at him, but gazing at the leather shop across the road as though something amazing in the window had suddenly caught her eye.
“Do you want me to call you for breakfast?” he asked.
“No!” she said sharply.
“I think I’ll have a lie-in and then wander down to the Village and Chinatown to the markets.
I’m sure you’ve lots of things to do, you don’t want me tagging along with you.” Her voice was harder than she’d intended it to be. But she couldn’t help herself. She felt hurt, bruised by his sudden indifference and the way he’d turned the evening around. He’d changed it from a magical, electric moment into a cold business meeting.
If he thought she was going to follow him like a puppy, desperate for attention, he’d another think coming.
“Fine.” he said crisply.
Jo marched into the hotel without looking back. In her suite, she threw her handbag onto the desk and picked up the TV remote control She flopped onto the huge settee, kicked off her shoes and put her feet up with relief. Damn Mark Denton. Damn him to hell. Who did he think he was giving her all sorts of enigmatic looks and then treating her as if she were his bloody secretary, someone who’d come along to do his bidding? He was a pig, just like all men. Just like Richard.
She flicked through the shopping channels, CNN, a late night chat show, the bizarre Manhattan Cable TV and some rubbish with a Barbie doll-style nurse taking the pulse of a patient transfixed by her bosom. Jo watched the show for a moment, waiting for the requisite handsome doctor to come in and tell the nurse he loved her, despite the fact that he’d married her half-sister, slept with her mother, whatever. She hated American soaps with a passion. Nobody in them ever looked like normal people, all the women had plastic smiles, plastic boobs and twenty-inch waists.
She felt her own waist, remembering when she had been just as slender as the women on the TV. At nearly three months pregnant, her body had changed only a little but the extra inches on her waist felt so noticeable to Jo. With careful dressing, she didn’t look pregnant at all. Only someone with hawk eyes like her mother or Rhona would guess her secret. But she was hungry so often that she knew she’d start
putting on too much weight if she wasn’t careful.
She still swam twice a week and had been doing step aerobics at the gym. But all those chocolate biscuits, Twixes and ice cream had to go somewhere.
She changed channels again. Goldie Hawn was standing on a yacht screaming at Kurt Russell. Overboard, Jo realised happily. She loved that film. There was just one thing missing.
She picked up the phone.
“Could you send up a pot of tea and, er … do you have any chocolate biscuits?” she asked.
“Chocolate chip would be lovely, thank you. You have shortbread ones made in the hotel? They sound great too.”
Jo awoke in a cold sweat at half eight. Even the soft cotton sheets felt damp and she sat up in the bed, dazed by her dream. What had she been dreaming about? Mark, that was it.
She’d been in a hotel bedroom with Mark Denton, a room decorated with crimson wall. hangings and with a four-poster bed in the middle, scarlet and gold muslin curtains hiding the bed from prying eyes. She could just about make out lots of people trying to look behind the curtains, men in striped shirts with braces and bow ties.
And she and Mark lay on the bed, half wrapped up in silk sheets, his naked body curled around hers. He’d been kissing her, stroking her belly and telling her he couldn’t wait for the baby to be born. She was naked too, she had been able to feel his skin burning into hers, his hands roaming all over her body … Oh my God, what a dream.
She pushed back the covers and went into the bathroom, her puffy-eyed and tired face showing the after-effects of a troubled night’s sleep.
She wet a white face cloth under the tap and gently wiped her hot face. You look awful, she told her reflection. Her lustrous dark hair was greasy at the roots, her skin was flushed and wrinkled from the way she’d been sleeping on creased sheets and her eyes were puffy from a mixture of jet-lag and dehydration.
Tea, that’s what she wanted. It mightn’t improve her face, but it would make her insides feel better. She wrapped the hotel’s fluffy white bathrobe around herself and phoned room service. She could get used to this type of thing.
Fifteen minutes later, she had showered and washed her hair. A gentle knock at the door signalled that breakfast was ready. A freckle-faced young man with a broad smile and a broader Belfast accent carried a heavily laden tray into the room and left it on the coffee table. Jo, who was never quite sure how much to tip, gave him three dollars. She hoped that was enough. Thanks. Enjoy your breakfast,” he said with another smile.
Sitting comfortably on the settee, Jo turned on the TV and listened to the news as she lifted the silver lid from a huge Irish fried breakfast. It smelled beautiful and she hadn’t had to cook it herself. Perfect. She poured herself a cup of decaff, buttered some hot brown toast and tucked in. Why were you always ravenous the morning after a big meal? she wondered, munching toast. Well, she hadn’t been eating breakfast much lately. Jo stopped mid-munch. She wasn’t sick, didn’t feel even vaguely nauseous, for the first time in nearly three months. She was thrilled. Of course she’d read that morning sickness could disappear as quickly as it had arrived, but she had begun to think that she’d always feel sick. Yahoo!
After breakfast she dressed quickly in jeans, a white Tshirt and a periwinkle-blue cotton sweater, put some money into a small leather bum bag and hung her sunglasses on the neck of her sweater. New York on a clear, sunny Sunday morning was quiet and relaxed. Only a few bright yellow cabs drove down Lexington Avenue, mingling with the light traffic speeding up to Central Park or down to the book shops and coffee houses in the Village.
Jo walked for a few blocks, savouring the sun on her face and the feeling of warmth on her skin. Two welldressed New Yorkers strode past her, arms full of newspapers and brown delicatessen bags.
Everyone rushed on the east coast, thought Jo, watching a young man glide past silently on rollerblades, overtaking a cruising taxi.
Taxi!” yelled Jo, waving her hand in the air. The car stopped and she sidestepped a fat pigeon who’d been scurrying around on the pavement ahead of her.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” she said to the driver, a pale-skinned man with dark hair and a skinny moustache.
“Fifth Avenue and 82nd.”
He looked at her uncomprehendingly. She tried it again, slower and more clearly.
“Sure. I know!” said the driver in a heavy foreign accent.
“Fifth Avenue. I get you there!”
The cab lurched off and immediately picked up speed, dodging traffic recklessly. Now that he knew where he was going, he was going to get her there in double-quick time.
Hopefully, alive. Just my luck to get one of New York’s novice taxi-drivers, thought Jo, sitting well back in the tattered seat and wondering if a quick novena would save her from death by automobile accident.
Somebody was watching over her, definitely. She emerged from the cab outside the Met feeling decidedly shaky. The driver grinned manically when she handed him a ten-dollar bill and drove off rapidly.
Once inside the gallery, Jo headed for the European galleries where the early Flemish paintings she loved hung. She’d never been in the gallery before, even though she and Richard had planned to spend two days there the last time they’d been in Manhattan. Somehow they’d ended up spending all their time with Richard’s friends listening to jazz in smoky clubs in the Village and had never got around to doing any of the things she’d wanted to do. But she knew exactly where to go now thanks to her guidebook. So did lots of other tourists.
Even early on a Sunday morning, a large group of Japanese tourists walked along staring blankly at the museum signs before consulting their guidebooks. The Met was so big there was no way to see everything in a few hours. People did what Jo was doing and just
picked one or two things they had to see, hoping to absorb as much as they could before everything began to blur.
After two hours staring at Van Eycks and Brueghels, Jo was weary and her stomach was rumbling.
She bought some postcards of her favourite paintings on the way out and dithered about buying two pretty Manet prints she wanted to frame. It would be too difficult to lug them around all day, she decided finally. They’d either get bent or she’d leave them behind somewhere. She could always come back and get them during the week.
The cab ride to Greenwich Village was uneventful, mainly because the driver knew where he was going and wasn’t trying to break some sort of land-speed record.
It was nearly lunchtime and the small pavement cafes on Bleecker Street were full of people enjoying Sunday brunch and reading newspapers. Jo bought a New York Sunday Times and wondered how she’d ever read it all in one day. It weighed nearly as much as her handbag and that was saying something. As a couple left a table outside a chic coffee shop, boasting every sort of coffee under the sun, Jo quickly dumped her paper on the white metal table and sank into a chair.
Within fifteen minutes she was tucking into a soft bagel spread with velvety cream cheese laced with morsels of smoked salmon. It was wonderful to sit in the sun, sipping her fragrant coffee and watching the world walk by. But Jo she couldn’t help but feel a little sad, sitting on her own while everyone and their granny seemed to be in pairs. There “Were couples everywhere, couples laughing and talking with their arms draped around each other or couples simply holding hands. She found a tissue in her bum bag and blew her nose, remembering the last time she’d been in New York. It had been Richard’s birthday, the day before they flew home, and they’d had a marvelous lunch in the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. Then they wandered around the shops, stopping off to spend an hour in
Bloomingdale’s where Richard dragged her, giggling, into the lingerie department. He’d whispered all the erotic things he was going to do to her as she picked out a selection of sexy, lacy bras and knickers.
Typically, he’d got bored quickly. By the time she’d actually decided what to buy, Richard had vanished into the camera department and she ended up paying for the underwear herself. When he took off the coffee-coloured silky bra set later, she’d forgotten that he hadn’t actually bought it himself.
They’d done every crazy, romantic thing you could do in New York and even visited the Empire State Building. They stared down at the city from the windy eighty-sixth floor and held hands. Richard laughed that they were recreating Sleepless in Seattle.
“No, it’s An Affair to Remember,” she’d argued.
That had been over a year ago. Everything had changed so much since then. Jo gently laid a hand on her belly, as though she could feel the baby’s heartbeat with her fingers. She wouldn’t have turned back the clock for anything. Maybe she had Richard then, but now she had something much more precious. Her baby.
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed writing her postcards in the late afternoon sun when the phone rang. It was Mark.
“Hello,” she said coolly.
“Did you have a good day?” he asked.
“Marvellous,” she replied.
“I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a few hours this morning. I wanted to try out Robert De Niro’s restaurant in TriBe Ca so I could write a funny piece about it,” she said airily, ‘but I didn’t get that far. I might go down later. Then I read the New York Sunday Times, well, read a bit of it, in a coffee house in the Village.” Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, she thought defiantly. Your employee wasn’t moping in her room, dying for you to bring her out. She was enjoying New York and its rich cultural life.
So there.
“That sounds great.” He sounded unmoved by the bite in her voice.
“I’m going to dinner with some friends of mine on the Upper East Side
this evening. I wonder if you’d like to come It’s OK if you’ve something else organised. I just didn’t want to leave you going to dinner on your own.”
Jo didn’t know what to say. She’d been thinking he didn’t want anything more to do with her and now he was asking her out to dinner with some friends. She would never understand this man. For a moment, she considered saying no.
Then she thought of the alternative.
Dinner on her own in a strange city was something she’d never enjoyed, although she’d tried it often enough when she was a news reporter for the Sunday News. She’d found that a single woman invariably got the worst table in any restaurant.
Returning to the hotel to have a drink in the bar afterwards was out of the question unless you liked strange men chatting you up.
She’d spent enough of the day on her own, Jo decided firmly. She needed to get out. Who knows, she told herself, an evening out with Mark could even be mildly enjoyable.
When the taxi drew up outside a tall, elegant apartment building off Madison Avenue, Jo was very glad she’d decided to dress up and wear the hand-painted chocolate brown Mary Gregory dress. The whole place reeked of wealth and opulence.
She stared at a vast marble entrance hall, not one but two doormen in green uniforms with gold frogging and what looked like an antique table between the two lifts in the hall.
Even the lift smelled of old money, Jo thought, as she stood beside Mark, checking her reflection in the darkened mirrors on either side of the lift.
“You’ll like Rex and Suzanne,” said Mark. They’re very warm friendly people.”
And very bloody rich, thought Jo, when the lift stopped at the top floor and opened onto a small hall with just one door off it. They even had their own landing. Mark pushed the bell and the door was opened by a plump dark-skinned woman in the maid’s outfit of black dress and frilly white apron that Jo thought only existed in black and white Forties movies.
“Manuela,” said Mark warmly to the woman, who managed to blush and grin at him at the same time.
“Signer Denton she grinned.
“You have not been here for a long time. We have missed you. Madam is in the drawing room.”
Jo looked around the huge entrance hall, a white oval room with three pieces of modern sculpture and an utterly stunning art deco chandelier hanging over what must be a Persian carpet. If this was the hall, Lord only knew what the rest of the place was like.
Mark took her arm and they-followed Manuela, heels tip-tapping on the marble floor, into a huge, airy room filled with paintings, enormous glass vases of exotic lilies and the sound of Mozart.
“Mark, darling.” A stunning blonde woman got to her feet and hurried over to hug him warmly.
“Suzanne, it’s lovely to see you,” he said affectionately.
“And this must be Jo.” Suzanne turned towards Jo and took both Jo’s hands in hers.
“We’re delighted to meet you,” she said earnestly.
Nonplussed by her friendly welcome, Jo smiled back brightly, immediately liking the tall, graceful woman whose hair fell in soft curls to her shoulders. She was wearing a chic caramel-coloured wrap dress and what looked like a real pearl choker around her neck. Suzanne could have walked off the couture fashion pages in Elle.
Only a faint creping around her throat and small lines around the beautiful blue eyes indicated that she would never see forty again. She looked the way Jo hoped she’d look when she was older.
“Now come and say hello to everyone. We’re all dying to meet you Suzanne said in a soft Southern accent, still holding one of Jo’s hands.
“This is Rex.” The tall, grey-haired man, who’d risen when Jo and Mark entered the room, took her hand firmly in his.
“So nice to meet you, Jo. We’re delighted you could join our little dinner party tonight. I hope you like New York.”
“How could you not like New York,” interrupted a man with the faint accent and olive skin of an Italian.
“I’m Carlo and I’m pleased to meet you.” He kissed her on both cheeks and then smiled at her, lustrous dark eyes openly admiring.
“I can see why you’ve been keeping this lady a secret, Mark.” Carlo
“I haven’t kept anything a secret, Carlo,” Mark said sharply, bending down to shake hands with a woman who was dressed in a navy linen dress and was sitting back on one of the settees.
“Hello, Margaret, how are you? I was so sorry to hear about your accident.”
“I’m fine,” said Margaret.
“I’ve just got to take care of my ankle.” She gestured at the cast on her right ankle.
“It’s just so irritating, not being able to ride, you know.”
Suzanne introduced Jo to the other members of the party, each one more charming and elegant than the last. Gold cuff links and diamond earrings glittered in the light from the Thirties up lighters on the walls. Jo knew that the clothes the women were wearing were genuine Gucci, Jil Sander and Dior.
Even their handbags had labels, Jo realised, as she caught sight of a brown leather bag peeking out from the side of Margaret’s chair. Definitely a Kelly bag from Hermes, she realised with a jolt. About four grand’s worth of handbag. It was like stepping onto the set of Dynasty. These people had serious money. They had serious jobs too. Carlo was a publisher, Margaret and her husband were in banking not behind the bureau de change counter, either Rex was in property, the redheaded woman in black velvet worked in Sotheby’s, the short grey haired man did something to do with computers and the plump woman who chain-smoked was an artist.
“I used to be involved with an interior design firm Suzanne
“I’m so busy with my charity work these days, I’ve rather let my design skills go. The last thing I did was this room.” She waved one graceful, manicured hand at the pale mint walls with their museum-load of paintings.
“It’s truly beautiful Jo replied. The paintings are fabulous, and I
love the sculptures in the hall.” That’s my husband’s hobby explained Suzanne, ‘he loves collecting things. Every time we go to Europe, he drags something back, usually something huge that takes a month to ship.”
“Champagne, madam?” inquired Manuela, who had appeared at Jo’s side with a champagne flute and a bottle of Cristal.
“Just a little Jo said. Three-quarters of a glass wouldn’t kill her. She needed it to stop her staring around openmouthed.
Her entire apartment would fit into this room.
The guests talked about stocks, shares and the shocking price of duplexes on Fifth Avenue, while Jo simply sat and listened.
Tell us about your work Suzanne said, turning to include Jo in the conversation.
“I’ve always imagined that being a fashion editor must be very glamorous. Is it?”
Since it was difficult to imagine anything more glamorous than these sophisticated New Yorkers, Jo laughed out loud.
“Not really she said. There’s a certain amount of glamour about fashion shows. But the real work often involves crawling around on your knees in a photographic studio, trying to pin up the legs of a pair of trousers on a model who’s five foot eight instead of the six-foot girl you booked!”
She kept Suzanne entertained talking all about Style with Carlo listening intently from his position across the fireplace.
Jo didn’t think he was even vaguely interested in what she was saying but, from the way his eyes were glued to her chest, he obviously fancied women with curves, even if the curves in question were pregnancy ones. She’d have loved to be able to tell him that she used to be a 34B pre-pregnancy.
At exactly half eight, Rex got up and helped Margaret to her feet.
“Dinner should be ready now, people he announced.
“I believe it’s lobster tonight.”
Everybody made appreciative noises.
“I hope you eat lobster Suzanne asked Jo suddenly.
“Of course,” Jo said with a straight face. I eat it all the time, especially with baked beans and chips.
She stood up as Carlo approached, one tanned hand held out to take her in to her dinner but, before he reached her, Jo felt Mark’s strong arm link hers.
“Won’t you let me escort you into dinner, Madame Jo?” he asked with a grin.
“Only if we’re eating lobster,” she whispered back, glad that he’d got there before Carlo.
She was put sitting opposite Mark at the highly polished round dining table, with a delighted Carlo on one side and Rex on the other.
“We’re not standing on ceremony tonight,” Rex said, handing around a latticed silver basket filled with warm bread rolls.
“Carlo, pour the wine.”
“Will you have some?” Carlo murmured, holding a bottle of red over her glass and smiling at her with hot, Latin eyes.
“No thanks,” said Jo, hoping he’d take the hint. No to wine and no to you, Carlo. The just-baked scent of the rolls filled Jo’s nostrils and made her all too aware of her empty stomach.
She ate hungrily, enjoying the Caesar salad, lobster and summer pudding, swollen with ripe berries.
It was going to be a culture shock to her stomach when she returned to Dublin and had to put up with frozen pizzas, eggs scrambled rock-solid in the microwave and lasagne from a packet.
Carlo tried to monopolise Jo during dinner, asking her to tell him about Ireland before launching into his life history, ending with the story of a particularly bitter divorce.
At that point, his eyes stopped being lascivious and looked merely sad, but Jo had enough trouble dealing with her own problems without counselling anyone else. Feeling a little heartless, she patted his arm in a sisterly manner and turned towards Rex.
The discussion ranged from the price Amanda hoped a Degas statue of a dancer would fetch, to the difficulties faced by parents of bored
English literature students. “She says she’s bored,” shrugged Ned, ‘wants to give up college and go abroad for a year. I just don’t know what to do.”
“We’ve tried everything,” added Margaret.
“I even promised to buy her a new BMW if she stuck it out for another year, but she says no.”
“Do you have children, Jo?” inquired Rex.
“No.” She grinned to herself.
“Not yet, anyway.” And when I do, they won’t be getting BMWs in return for going to college, either.
“Don’t rush into it,” shuddered the grey-haired man.
“My boys have cost me thousands of dollars, always changing what they want to major in. I tell them I never had any choice when I was their age. My family didn’t have two dimes to rub together and I had to work my way through college. I think that’s their problem, they’ve had everything handed to them on a plate.”
Jo couldn’t resist glancing at Mark. He was looking at her intently, fingers locked over his empty plate, the grey eyes locked onto hers with a frightening concentration. He was definitely thinking of Emma. Good. It would do the little cow good not to have everything handed to her on a plate for once.
If Mark got the message, that was.
“Maybe that’s the secret,” Mark commented, ‘having to work for everything. I had to, so had you, Rex. It made us fighters, it made us determined to succeed. And when we have youngsters to spoil,” he paused and grinned at Jo, ‘we spoil them. We give them all the chances we never had and more. And then we wonder why they haven’t our fire, our drive to succeed.”
Suzanne clapped.
“You said it.” she said.
“Bryony never did anything we wanted her to until the day I stopped her allowance.
“Go mad in Donna Karan, travel to Morocco and hang out on the beach,”
“Just do it on your own money”.” She smiled triumphantly.
“Bryony soon found out she couldn’t afford to pay for her own dry-cleaning. By Fall, she’d got over wanting to travel to Morocco
like a hippie. Hippies can’t buy nice clothes, eat in good restaurants and put gas in the Jeep. In fact, they can’t even insure their Jeeps!”
Everyone laughed, even Jo, who remembered what it was like to put three pounds’ worth of petrol in the car when she was broke.
“So what does Bryony do now?” asked Jo.
“She’s working in Sotheby’s with Amanda, as an assistant.”
Amanda must be the redhead, Jo thought. The pay is dreadful, but she’s being trained in the china department.
One day,” Suzanne paused and winked at Rex, ‘she may even earn half as much as Amanda.”
Amanda, a tall and stately woman in what was either a knock-off peach boucle Chanel suit or the real thing, peered over her glasses at Suzanne and shook one bejewelled finger slowly. An emerald the size of a Malteser winked in the light.
“My dears, I earn peanuts. Or at least, that’s what I tell the
IRS.”
They chattered over the cheese and then strolled back into the living room where Manuela had a huge tray of coffee and tiny forest-green china cups ready.
“Are you happy you came?” Mark asked Jo slyly.
She looked him in the eye.
“I’m having a lovely time and I’m sorry for being so childish earlier. You do bring out the worst in me.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, leaning close to her so she could feel his breath soft against her neck.
“I’d hoped to bring out the best in you.”
There was no chance to say-anything in return. They had caught up with the others and everyone was sinking back into the comfortable brocade sofas.
Jo and Mark sat beside each other on a sofa made for two.
When he leaned forward to take a cup of coffee from Suzanne, his thigh touched Jo’s. It was like the other night, she thought. His very nearness unnerved her, made her heart beat faster. The hand holding her coffee cup shook slightly.
When she’d finished her coffee, Suzanne asked Jo if she’d like to see
the view from the balcony and the study. The study is my favourite room,” the other woman confided, walking like a model down the hall.
“I decorated it like my grandfather’s study in Mississippi. He was a judge and he had hundreds of leather-bound law books. They lined the walls and gave the place such character, I always thought.”
“I’d love to have a room like this,” said Jo. Huge dark bookcases stood from floor to ceiling, while an old mahogany desk and a worn leather chair sat in one corner.
“I have a small apartment and there’s no room for any sort of office or study explained Jo, moving around the room, touching the gold leafed spines of the books, ‘but I have a dream of buying a little stone cottage in Wicklow and having lots of bookcases.
And lots of books, of course!”
“I’m sure Mark would love that,” Suzanne said earnestly.
“He certainly loves books, never stopped reading that one time he stayed with us in Colorado.”
Jo didn’t know quite how to respond, so she picked a leather-bound volume off a shelf and examined it carefully.
Washington Square by Henry James. She’d been in the real Washington Square that afternoon.
Did Suzanne think that she and Mark were an item?
Whatever had given her that idea? Jo couldn’t very well blurt out that she and Mark had shared nothing more than one dinner, one lunch and a very long, boring transatlantic flight.
She turned the pages slowly, wondering if Suzanne and Rex were the sort of people who bought books they’d never read just because they looked good.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” said Suzanne suddenly.
“But when he asked could he bring you this evening, Rex and I were so thrilled. He hasn’t even so much as mentioned another woman since, well, you know …”
Jo didn’t know and she really wished she did. But she didn’t want to let the side down by asking. So she nodded sagely.
“Rex and I were very worried about him. He’s never missed visiting us for Thanksgiving since we met him in Boston all those years ago. And last year he just called the day before and said he couldn’t come. We
really missed his company. He’s such a fascinating man, but then, what am I telling you that for, Jo. You already know! Anyway,” Suzanne patted Jo’s hand, ‘we’re so glad he’s got over it all, and so glad that he’s got someone as wonderful as you. And I can tell he loves you, just from the way he looks at you.”
“You can?” asked Jo faintly.
“You bet. Just remember to ask us to the wedding!”
It was nearly half four on Wednesday afternoon when Mark and Jo finally left Mademoiselle Inc. The heavy white door, with MI emblazoned on it in gold, slammed behind them as they walked onto 39th Street after two hours of negotiating.
The director of the Mademoiselle chain of shops was eager to work with Style and their in-house designer was even keener, thanks to Jo’s praise for his beautiful designs.
The New York traffic was building up into rush-hour proportions and Jo sighed with exhaustion as she realised they hadn’t a hope in hell of getting a taxi. But she hadn’t reckoned on Mark’s ability to whistle up a cab as well as any New York doorman.
“I think that went pretty well,” commented Mark, slamming the taxi door and dropping his briefcase onto the seat beside him.
“You were brilliant, Jo. You really impressed them and telling Marco that his designs were, what was it, “… a breath of fresh air into the jaded world of fashion”, clinched the deal!”
“I’d have told him he was the new Karl Lagerfeld to get everything signed and get out of there. Thank God it’s all over Jo said fervently.
“All this wheeling and dealing is exhausting. And I don’t think I could have managed another cup of herb tea, no matter how many fashion supplements they were going to advertise in.”
“I thought you liked that stuff Mark said, astonished.
“You certainly drank enough of it.”
Jo looked at him incredulously.
“I was trying to be polite. Have you ever seen me drink anything that smelled like boiled socks before?”
Mark burst out laughing.
“You never cease to amaze me, Ms Ryan.” His eyes gleamed with amusement.
“I’m beginning to wonder what else you’d do to clinch a deal. Marco certainly liked you and I’m sure Tony wouldn’t have turned down an intimate dinner date if you’d asked him nicely.”
It was Jo’s turn to laugh.
“I might stand a chance with Marco, but I think you’d be more Tony’s type.”
“Damn,” said Mark quickly.
“You mean I missed the chance of a date? You could have told me. He was just my type.” He flicked his head in a camp manner and did his best to pout. He never stopped surprising her.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said, ‘make a detour to Bloomingdale’s to drop me off and I’ll ring Tony and tell him you’re willing to meet him but only if he brings you to a gay biker club, all right?”
“Maybe not,” grinned Mark, patting her knee.
“I’ve gone off gay biker clubs since PVC became fashionable. Everyone’s doing it and I prefer leather. Anyway,” he said, leaning forward towards the driver, and adopting his normal voice, “I want to do some shopping myself. Bloomingdale’s,” he told the cab driver.
“I want to buy a present for my sister. It’s her birthday next month and I’d love to get her something really nice. Will you help? I hate shopping,” he admitted.
“Of course. What were you thinking of getting?”
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be asking you,” he pointed out.
Silk scarves were out because Denise already had loads of scarves. That’s what I usually buy her,” admitted Mark sheepishly.
“I never know what she’d like.”
He might not know what Denise would like, but he certainly had very fixed ideas about what she wouldn’t like, thought Jo after half an hour trailing around Bloomie’s, where he vetoed every suggestion she made.
Perfume, jewellery, handbags and a glorious chenille jumper in a mulberry shade had all been rejected and even Jo, steadfast shopper that she was, was getting tired.
“I’ll tell you what, Mark, I want to have a look around myself, so why
don’t you potter around and think about what you want to buy Denise and meet me back here in three quarters of an hour, right?” Before I kill you, she added silently.
Jo spent a blissful half an hour riffling through racks of Donna Karan, Prada and Emporio Armani. She hadn’t enough time to try anything on and, since she didn’t know how strapped she was going to be for money with the baby, she decided to keep her credit card firmly in her handbag. It wasn’t easy. Being a cash less fashion editor in Bloomingdale’s was like being a chocoholic with wired-up jaws in Cadbury’s.
Next time, she promised herself, taking one last look at a beautiful jersey dress that would look perfect on her. She was passing the children’s department when she stopped abruptly.
They probably had the most divine baby clothes in the world:
just a quick look wouldn’t delay her too much.
Everything was so pretty, she thought, stroking the soft fabric of a tiny denim pinafore. There were even socks to match, tiny soft blue ones with miniature denim bows on one side. They’d look so beautiful on the baby, if it was a girl… “I thought it was you.” Mark was beside her, leaning over to see what she’d picked up.
“I came looking for you because I assumed I’d have to drag you out of the premises once you’d got into a clothes-buying frenzy. You buying presents as well?”
The little socks felt so soft, so lovely. For some bizarre reason, Jo suddenly felt sad, felt like sitting down on the floor of the baby department and sobbing for herself and her baby, a baby with no daddy.
“No.” she mumbled, shoving the socks blindly at the rack they’d been on.
“Not presents.”
He caught up with her by the perfume counters. One large hand on her arm stopped her from rushing out the door.
“What’s wrong, Jo? Did I say something wrong?”
“It’s not you,” she sobbed.
“It’s me.”
“Do you want to try some Poeme?” interrupted a heavily made-up saleslady armed with a huge yellow bottle of perfume and a fixed smile.
“No thanks said Mark, putting an arm around Jo.
“Not you, sir. The lady.”
“No.” he snarled.
“Come on Jo, let’s go.”
“I’m sorry,” Jo sniffled.
“I’m so sorry. It’s just the baby, the baby’s making me all mixed up and sad.”
“Baby. The baby?” repeated Mark in amazement.
“I’m having a baby and Richard has left me she mumbled.
Then she leaned against his jacket and cried as if her heart would
break.