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“How did she know you and Bill were once an item?”
Lana stirred the spoon aimlessly, her eyebrows drawn together. “She read my diary.”
Alex sucked on her spoon, her eyes wide. “She didn’t.”
“She did and, just watch, I’m going to get her back.”
“Why don’t you just find another roommate?”
“We both signed the lease, so I’m stuck for another eight months, but after that, I’m outta there. Meanwhile,” Lana said, holding up the ornate spoon, “I’m going to borrow her things for a while. These are her earrings, too.”
Alex leaned forward to get a better look at the copper spheres. “Nice.”
“Aren’t they? So what’s new with you?” Lana asked, fully vented and ready to listen. “I phoned you this morning for lunch, but your secretary said you were out.”
“I was running an errand on the east side.”
“Eww. Why?”
Alex took another slow bite before answering. “Ever hear of a guy named Jack Stillman?”
Her friend blinked. “Sure. Hotshot receiver for UK when we were freshmen. Don’t you remember?”
Alex worked her mouth from side to side. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Great looking, big man on campus, dated the varsity and the junior varsity cheerleading squads.”
“He sounds pretty forgettable.”
Lana laughed. “He had a perfect record his senior year—never once dropped the ball. Of course I’m not surprised you don’t remember. You practically slept at the store back then to impress Daddy, not that things have changed much in fifteen years.” Her smile was teasing. “You really need to get out more, Alex.”
“Heath and I go out.”
“That tree? Please. My blow up doll Harry is more exciting.”
Alex had heard Lana’s lukewarm opinion on Heath too many times to let the comment bother her. So he wasn’t Mr. Excitement—she didn’t mind. “To each her own.”
Lana put away another glob of empty calories. “I suppose. Why the questions about Jack Stillman?”
“He owns an ad agency in town and he’s pitching to us in the morning.”
“Well, I guess he grew up after all.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Alex said dryly. “This morning I dropped in to check out his operation and had the displeasure of meeting the man.”
Lana leaned forward, poised for gossip. “Is he still gorgeous?”
“I couldn’t tell under that heavy layer of male chauvinism.”
Her friend frowned, then her mouth fell open. “He got under your skin, didn’t he?”
Alex squirmed against the suddenly uncomfortable over-stuffed goose down cushions. “Not in the way you’re implying.”
Lana whooped. “Oh, yeah, under like a syringe.”
She sighed, exasperated. “Lana, believe me, the man is no one I would remotely want to work with.”
“So, who’s talking about work?”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Or anything else. He’s a player if I’ve ever seen one, and the man doesn’t exactly scream success, if you know what I mean.”
Lana made a sympathetic sound. “Too bad. He used to be hot.”
“I believe he still operates under that delusion.”
“So you don’t think he’ll get your business?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Well, let me know how it goes,” Lana said, standing and stretching into a yawn.
Alex frowned. “You have to go already?”
“Four-thirty comes mighty early.”
“When are you going to buy that coffee shop?”
“Maybe when I acquire a taste for the dreadful stuff,” her friend said with a grimace. “I still keep a stash of Earl Grey under the counter. I’m busy tomorrow, but let’s have lunch the day after and you can let me know how it goes with Jack the Attack.”
“Jack the Attack?”
Lana nodded toward the wall of bookshelves. “Check your college yearbook, bookworm. Goodnight.”
“Here’s your spoon.”
Lana grinned. “Keep it.”
Alex was still laughing when the door closed behind her friend, but sobered when Jack Stillman’s face rose in her mind to taunt her. The man was shaping up to be more of a potential threat than she’d imagined. She walked over to a laden bookshelf and removed the yearbook for her freshman year of college. Within seconds, she located the sports section and, as Lana had said, it seemed that Jack Stillman had been the man of the hour. Although UK was renowned for all of its team sports programs, Jack the Attack had been heralded for single-handedly taking his football team to a prestigious post-season bowl game, and winning it.
Page after page showed Jack in various midmotion poses: catching the football, running past opponents, crossing into the end zone. The last page featured Jack in his mud-stained uniform, arm in arm with a casually dressed man who was a taller, wider version of himself, behind whose unsuspecting head Jack was holding up two fingers in the universal “jackass” symbol. Twenty-two-year-old Jack had the same killer grin, the same mischievous eyes, with piles of dark, unruly hair in a hopelessly dated style. Alex smirked as she mentally compared the boy in the picture to the man she’d met this morning. Too bad he was such a cliché—a washed-up jock still chasing pom-poms.
Alex snapped the book closed. The ex-football star angle worried her. Her father was already aware of it, she was sure, and the fact that he hadn’t taken the time to enlighten her probably meant he would bend over backward to work with Stillman just to be able to tell the guys at the club about the man’s athletic accomplishments.
Anger burned the walls of her stomach, anger about the old boy’s network, anger toward men who shirked their duties but advanced to high-ranking corporate positions because they had a low golf handicap and could sweat with male executives in the sauna. Subtle discrimination occurred within Tremont’s, although she was working judiciously to address disparity within the sales and marketing division. And subtle discrimination occurred within her own family. Had she been a son, an athlete, she was certain her father would have showered her with attention, would have fostered her career more aggressively. She ached for the closeness that she’d once shared with her mother, but that seemed so out of reach with her father.
She blinked back tears, feeling very alone in the big, high-ceilinged apartment. Fatigue pulled at her shoulders, but the sugar she’d ingested pumped through her system. She needed sleep, but her bed, custom made of copper tubing and covered with a crisp white duvet, looked sterile and cold in the far corner of the rectangular-shaped loft.
Alex located her glass of wine and finished it while standing at the sink. Knowing the ritual of preparing for bed sometimes helped her insomnia, she moved toward the bedroom corner to undress. After draping the pale blue suit over a chrome valet, she dropped her matching underwear into a lacy laundry bag. From the back of her armoire, she withdrew a nappy, yellow cotton robe of her mother’s and wrapped it around her. After removing her makeup with more vehemence than necessary, she walked past her bed and returned to the comfy chair she’d abandoned when Lana arrived, covering her legs with a lightweight afghan.
But she lay awake long after she’d extinguished her mother’s light, straining with unexplainable loneliness and frustration, stewing over unjust conditions she might never be able to change. Right or wrong, she channeled her hostility toward the one person who, at the moment, best epitomized life’s arbitrary inequities: Jack Stillman. Clodhopping his way through life and having the Tremont business laid at his feet because he was a man and a former sports celebrity simply wasn’t fair.
Remembering Lana’s words, Alex set her jaw in determination. Perfect record be damned. The infamous “Jack the Attack” Stillman had already dropped the ball—he just didn’t know it yet.
4
“DON’T DROP THE BALL, JACK.”
Derek’s words from much earlier in the workday reverberated in his head. In the middle of the crisis with the IRS guy, Jack had somehow explained away Tuesday’s presence—later he’d given her a fifty dollar bill and told her not to come back—and he managed to convince Derek that he had everything under control, including the Tremont’s presentation.
Jack swore, then tore yet another sheet from his newsprint drawing pad, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it over his shoulder with enough force to risk dislocating his elbow. His muse had truly abandoned him this time. Three-thirty in the morning, with no revelation in sight. Forget the printer—this presentation would have to consist of raw drawings and hand-lettering.
If he ever came up with an idea, that is.
“Think, man, think,” he muttered, tapping his charcoal pencil on the end of the desk, conjuring up key words to spark his imagination. Clothes, style, fashion, home decor. He needed a catchy phrase to convince people to shop at Tremont’s.
Shop till you drop at Tremont’s spot.
If you got the money, honey, we got the goods.
Spend a lot of dough at Tremont’s sto’.
Okay, so he was really rusty, but at least it was a start.
He sketched out a few unremarkable ideas, but a heavy stone of dread settled in his stomach—this was not the best stuff that had ever come out of his pencil. The tight little bow of Alexandria Tremont’s disapproving mouth had dogged him all evening. The woman obviously didn’t expect much and, despite his efforts to the contrary, that was exactly what he was going to deliver. Dammit, he hated wanting to impress her…not that it mattered now.
Pouring himself another cup of coffee from a battered thermos, he raked a hand over his stubbly face and leaned back in his chair. Jack winced as the strong, bitter brew hit his taste buds at the same time a bitter truth hit his gut: He was washed up. Being at the top of his game—no matter what the arena—used to come so easily, and now he was struggling for mere mediocrity.
His college football career had been a joyous four-year ride of accolades, trophies and popularity—a young man’s dream that afforded him unbelievable perks, including as many beautiful women as he could handle, and enough good memories to last a lifetime. But for all his local celebrity and natural talent, he hadn’t even considered going pro, partly because he didn’t want to put his body through the paces, and partly because he’d simply wanted to do more with his life, to strike out and experience new settings, new people. And frankly, he’d always hated doing what was expected of him, whether it meant playing pro football or working for the family ad agency. Until now, he hadn’t realized how much he missed striving for something beyond having enough beer to wash down the native food of wherever he happened to be.
But inexplicably, the yearning that had lodged in his stomach the previous day had permeated other vital organs until he could feel it, see it, breathe it—the need to achieve. The need to make something out of nothing. The need to prove to others that he could hack it in any environment. The need to prove to himself that he still had his edge. And, he admitted with the kind of brutal honesty that comes to a man in the wee hours of the morning, Alexandria Tremont played a startling role in his reawakening. Just the thought of the challenge in her ice-blue eyes brought long dormant feelings of aspiration zooming to the surface. He hadn’t felt this alive since he was carried off the football field on the shoulders of his teammates for the last time. He wanted this win so badly, he could taste her—er, it.
The rush of adrenaline continued to feed his brain, which churned until the light of early dawn seeped through the windows. Jack discarded idea after idea, but he refused to give up hope that something fantastic would occur to him.
Around seven, and with little to show for his sleepless night, Jack heard a scratching sound on the front door. He went to investigate, stapler in hand for lack of a better weapon. To his abject consternation, Tuesday opened the door and marched inside, flipping on lights as she went. She wore an attractive flowered skirt and a modest blouse. “Morning,” she sang.
“How’d you get in?” he demanded.
She held up a Tremont’s department store credit card, of all things. “I jiggled the lock—this is no Fort Knox, sonny. You’re here early.”
“I didn’t leave,” he said, scowling. “And I thought I told you not to come back.”
“You were having a bad day,” she said cheerfully. “So I thought I’d give you another chance.” She leaned toward him and grimaced. “Oooh, you don’t look so good.”
“I know.”
“Did you finish the presentation?”
“Yes.”
“Is it good?”
“No.”
She sighed, a sorrowful noise. “Well, you’ll have to wow them with charm, I suppose.” She squinted, angling her head. “What were you planning to wear?”
He looked down at his disheveled beach clothes and shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about it, but I’m sure I can rustle up a sport coat.”
Tuesday grunted and picked up the phone. “What are you, about a forty-four long?”
He shrugged again, then nodded. “As best as I can remember.”
She looked him up and down. “Six-three?”
Again, he nodded.
“Size twelve shoe?”
“Thirteen if I can get them. Why?”
Tuesday waved her hand in a shooing motion. “Go take a shower and shave that hairy face. Hurry, and yell for me when you’re finished.”
Jack wasn’t sure if he was simply too tired to argue, or just glad to have someone tell him what to do. The Tremont’s account was lost now anyway—he would merely go through the motions for Derek’s sake.
He retreated to the bathroom in the back, grateful for the shower the landlord had thought to build. Shaving had never been a favorite chore, and it took some time to clear the dark scruff from his jaw. He checked in the cabinet on the wall, and sure enough, Derek had left a couple pairs of underwear, along with a pair of faded jeans and a few T-shirts. Derek was more thick-bodied than he, but the underwear would work. Jack had barely snapped the waistband in place when an impatient knock sounded at the door.
“You through in there?”
“Give me a second,” he called, then wrapped a towel around his waist before opening the door.
Tuesday strode in, carrying a comb and a pair of scissors.
“Oh, no,” Jack said, shaking his head. “You’re not cutting my hair.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, motioning for him to sit on the commode lid. “That wooliness has to come off. Come on, now, don’t argue.”
He stubbornly crossed his arms and remained standing.
She pointed the scissors at him. “Don’t make me climb up there. Do you want to blow this chance completely?”
Jack sighed and shook his head.
“Then sit.”
He sat. And she cut. And cut and cut and cut.
Cringing at the mounds of dark hair accumulating on the floor around him, Jack pleaded, “Gee, at least leave me enough to comb.”
She stepped back, made a few final snips, then nodded and whipped off the towel protecting his shoulders. “There, you look human again.” Tuesday exited the bathroom with purpose.
