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Of course. Ms. Ewing had noticed the view, the reason the small apartment was so expensive. All the chairs faced it. Her bed faced it. It didn’t matter how you furnished an apartment when you had a view like this one.
Hope was so surprised she jolted backward when Maybelle’s hand pressed against her forehead. The hand was dry and as bony as the rest of the woman. “You could make yourself sick in a place like this,” Maybelle said in a hoarse whisper. She frowned. “You don’t feel feverish. You been havin’ any of them psychological problems?”
“No,” Hope snapped. “Look, Yu Wing, I mean…”
“Just call me Maybelle.”
“Look, Maybelle, all I want is to make this place a little cozier, make it look a little more lived-in.”
“It will, hon, when you start living in it.” Maybelle’s voice grew softer, lost its shrill quality. “I bet you hate coming home, am I right?”
Hope stared at her.
“Well, don’t you worry about it no more, because Maybelle’s going to fix everything.”
How? Rope and tie it into submission? “Of course I would need an estimate from you before we enter into any sort of agreement,” Hope said. Recalling one’s purpose in engaging in a dialogue was a good way to keep from getting rattled. “Or perhaps you’d rather I gave you a budget.”
“Whatever,” Maybelle said with an airy wave of her hand. “We’re not to that point yet. Let’s see what I can do for a couple hundred dollars first. Mind if I take some pictures?”
“Yes,” Hope said. The cool, serene African head on the stand in one corner had cost as much as she earned in a month. The huge bowl, a piece of glass art, was worth almost as much. Good investments, both of them. For all she knew, this insane woman was here to case the joint.
Maybelle wouldn’t have a problem getting the bowl out, either. All she had to do was wear it over her hair. Then she could put the Stetson on the African head and…
“Please sit down,” she invited Maybelle. Remembering one’s manners—that was another good way to fight down rising hysteria. “May I get you a drink?”
“Sure,” Maybelle said. “Some coffee’d be real tasty about now with bedtime coming up.”
“Decaf?”
“Not if you’ve got the real stuff.”
Hope headed for the kitchen to start a small pot of Hawaiian Kona, trying not to breathe the fumes in case they were enough to keep her awake. When she got back to the living room with Maybelle’s cup of deadly insomnia in hand and a glass of sparkling water for herself, she found her new decorator circling the room.
Hope fell into step behind her. It was interesting the way they circled a while before they chose seats. Last night Sam Sharkey had done the same thing. The few times she’d entertained, her guests had done it, too, as though they were looking for a more comfortable spot from which to enjoy the view.
Just now, she was feeling a quite surprising need to make Sam comfortable. But not necessarily to enjoy the view. Something unfamiliar pinged inside her.
She quickly sat down, arbitrarily choosing one of the squishy taupe chenille armchairs and perching uneasily on its edge. Back to business. “Where exactly did you get your training?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“A correspondence course,” said Maybelle. She deposited her cup on an end table. “Give me a hand with this, hon.” She seemed intent on dragging the other armchair across the room where it faced the door with its back to the view.
Hope closed her eyes briefly, then hurried to help, just to save the floors. A correspondence course interior designer. Her sisters were right. Sheila was crazy, and if she ever saw her again, which she never intended to, she’d throttle her. “How did your interest in decorating come about,” she said faintly, lowering her side of the chair to the floor. Thank goodness she hadn’t signed anything yet.
“Well,” the woman began when she’d settled into the chair, “first off, I was stuck down there in Texas on my husband’s family ranch when he up and died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hope murmured.
“Don’t be,” Maybelle assured her. “It was him or the bull and the bull had a hell of a lot more character. Cuter, too, in his way.” Her gaze grew thoughtful.
Hope’s mouth formed an O. Her eyes sought out the phone on the end table beside her. How fast could she dial 9-1-1? She was already reaching for the receiver when the phone rang. She grabbed for it. Maybe the police were calling to warn her that a madwoman was on the loose.
“Hope? Sam.”
“Sam?” Hearing from Sam wasn’t on today’s agenda. In fact, she’d assumed Sam would hear from her, not the other way around. That way she would have been prepared for the sound of his voice. This way, she hadn’t been, and she was annoyed by the stab of heat, the sudden heaviness in the pit of her stomach. She locked her knees tightly together and sat up very straight. “We’re scheduled to talk next week, I believe. I entered it in my Palm Pilot and synchronized it with my desktop calendar. The decorator is here now, so…”
“This’ll just take a minute. It’s an emergency.”
He didn’t sound as if he were dying, unaided, on a lightly traveled road. Hope drew her brows together. “What kind of emergency?”
She’d spent her hypothetical lunch hour—ten minutes eating yogurt and an apple at her desk—trying to imagine having sex with him as a purely therapeutic measure. “Have sex twice and call me in the morning if you’re not better.” And she’d decided—maybe. Or maybe not.
Out of the corner of one eye she watched Maybelle shaking her head and tsk-tsking. Meanwhile, Sam was delivering a staccato message into her left ear.
“The firm’s executive partner is having a dinner party tomorrow night. One of the guests met his Maker this afternoon. The partner’s wife is deeply moved, but she’s committed to the party. The problem is two empty spaces—the widow’s not in a party mood—at a table set for sixteen at two-hundred-fifty dollars a plate.” He paused. “Are you following me?”
“Closely,” Hope said. “The caterer’s going to charge for sixteen regardless. As a junior member of the firm you have to fill those two spaces.”
“You’re familiar with the system.”
“Intimately.” In fact, that was one of the reasons she might actually need Sam, or even better, somebody like him who didn’t mention sex in their first meeting.
She had to admit she’d like it if this new man, the one who didn’t mention sex in their first meeting, had a voice like Sam’s. It was warm and deep, and it rolled over her like a soothing wave, although the way he sounded now was more like being in a stinging shower.
Maybelle wasn’t in her chair any longer. Hope paced around with the phone until she sighted her in the bedroom, exploring the apartment uninvited and still tsk-tsking.
“Will you fill one of those spaces?”
“What? Oh.” She refocused on Sam. “Is this important to you?” She’d read the books, gone to retreats, attended seminars at company expense, and she knew what questions to ask. She’d almost said, “Is this a step toward your goal?” but somewhere in her head she heard the echoes of her sisters’ exasperated sighs.
“Real important. The boss’s wife is after me.”
“Your hostess tomorrow night?” She was pretty impressed with herself for following the conversation. Maybelle was in the kitchen now, thumping the walls, looking for joists.
“So far she’s only managed to signal me by wiggling her eyebrows and running her tongue over her lips. But those big Connecticut estates have pool houses, conservatories, butlers’ pantries. Imagine what could happen if I said yes to her. Imagine what could happen if I said no to her.”
“Screwed,” Hope said. “Either way. You, I mean, not her. I mean…” She was glad he couldn’t see her blush. Maybelle did, though, and gave Hope a knowing look before she trotted into the bathroom, brandishing a wrench.
“Will you come? Be my bodyguard?”
Hope could tell his problem was a serious one. So was hers. She had to get back to Maybelle before the woman started disassembling the plumbing. “Okay, I’ll help you out. We’ll call it a trial run.”
“Pick you up tomorrow at five.”
“Five o’clock? In the afternoon?” Even Maybelle faded from her mind. Hope did her best work after five.
“Lots of traffic on Friday. Long way to Connecticut. Party starts at seven. Can’t be late.”
She thought about it. “Okay, then. Pick me up at the office.”
He was silent for a second. “It’s black tie.”
“No problem,” said Hope.
“Five.”
“The 48th Street entrance.”
“I’ll be there.”
It was sort of a relief knowing she could delay coming home tomorrow. What was it with this apartment?
What was it with Maybelle and all that tsk-tsking? “Sorry for the interruption,” she said, settling down again and feeling relieved when Maybelle followed suit. “Let’s see, we’d gotten past the bull…”
“Yeah. Anyhoo,” Maybelle said, picking up the thread without difficulty, “I got right bored that first winter after he was gone, what with nobody to fight with and only three channels on the television. But one morning I was watching this arithmetic program, Geometry, they call it—”
Hope’s eyes widened.
“You know, one of them college courses they do on TV? Anyway, right after that they was advertising these University of Texas—” She pronounced it “Tegzis.” “—correspondence courses and I sent off for the catalog. Whoo-ee, what a lot of junk you could learn without setting foot off the ranch!”
Hope felt her brain whirling in slow ellipses. Getting a little closer to Earth, then spinning way out into space. “So you sent off for a Geometry course.”
“Calculus. I’d pretty much gotten the hang of Geometry and the catalog said take Calculus next.”
“Oh.”
“Then a course in lit-tra-chure.”
“Contemporary American literature?”
“Nope, Mid-yeeval. You know, them sexy Canterbury Tales? Whoo-ee, they sure made me wish I had Hadley back for a long weekend. Then I said to myself, ‘Girl, your hands are way more bored than your head.’ And that was the truth, what with the ranch hands doing the outside work and their wives coming in to clean and cook. So I took a beautician course.”
“A correspondence course in hairdressing?” The ellipse lengthened dramatically.
“Yeah. Well, that was a bust, with nobody but the sheep to practice on. The ranch hands’ wives wouldn’t let me get anywhere close to them with my shears. But I can do my own hair real good,” she said cheerfully. “Saved me many a penny, let me tell you.”
“I can see that,” Hope murmured. “How long did it take you to finish all those courses.”
“Almost six months! Them courses was hard!” Maybelle’s gaze shot over her shoulder, then flitted from one corner of the room to the other. “Honey,” she said suddenly, “have you got an extry mirror I could hang over there on that wall?”
“Mirror? Well, no, all the mirrors are sort of attached to things, or doing their various…”
“No matter. I’ll bring some by tomorrow.” She frowned. “Don’t want to wait long, though. Anyways, next thing I did was try my hand at making dishes and stuff. Old man Abernathy brung the kiln out to the ranch in his big truck and I did that until the ladies got to complaining about dusting all the new crockery. Then landscape design, but I couldn’t get nuthin’ much to grow out there in West Texas but cactus. This place sure could use some greenery,” she added.
Hope wondered if Maybelle could be trying to hypnotize her. This was the most outrageous—at least the most different—face it, the most interesting conversation she’d had in ages. And she didn’t have to say a word, just listen to Maybelle’s chirping voice, which went so well with her chicken-like appearance. She could listen to Maybelle and think about Sam Sharkey. She was going out with Sam tomorrow night. No, not really going out with Sam, just accompanying Sam, protecting him from the boss’s wife, but still…
“…feng shui,” she heard Maybelle say.
Hope switched gears.
“And I said what the heck is that? So naturally I had to find out. And you know what I found out?” The question was clearly rhetorical, because Maybelle forged on. “If I’d known all that stuff before, Hadley and me might of got along a sight better.”
“How.” It wasn’t a question, just a polite murmur. How could anybody get along with this idiot savant? Poor Hadley must have thought he’d died and gone to everlasting steam heat turned way up by the time the honeymoon was over. He’d apparently been desperate enough to engage in combat with a bull. Didn’t that say something about the mood the man was in?
“That’s what I’m going to show you, hon,” Maybelle said with another of those abrupt softenings of her usual shrillness. She shot up out of the armchair, shouldered a brown leather purse that reminded Hope of a feedbag and got the Stetson twirling on one finger. “Can I have the run of the house for a coupla weeks?”
Absolutely not! Hope got up, too. “First I really do insist on having an—”
“—estimate. Budget.” Maybelle sighed. “Honest to gosh, if you yuppies could get your minds off money for a split second…”
She was moving rapidly toward the door with Hope in her wake. “…and credentials,” Hope said firmly. “Was the correspondence course the end of your professional training?”
Maybelle spun. “Lands no! I spent two years in Chiner and Jap-pan learning everything they had to teach me, then I come up here and got me the kind of degree you young folks understand. The Parsons School of Design. So don’t you worry none about my credentials.”
“Well. Okay, here’s a key.” The voice that uttered those utterly reckless words was strange, yet familiar. It was her own voice. That’s why she recognized it.
Hope promised herself she’d call the insurance company first thing in the morning. Have an art appraiser out. Determine the current value of the African head and the glass bowl. Adjust the insurance accordingly. And when this nonsense was over, she’d hire a proper Manhattan decorating firm to undo the damage.
She would never see Sheila again.
And tomorrow night she was going out with Sam Sharkey.
A little thrill shot straight down through the center of her body just thinking about it.
SAM GUESSED he’d been looking for a brown-haired woman with green eyes and a face to match.
As he stepped out of the luxurious Lincoln he’d hired for the evening, he scanned the crowd surging through the doors of the office building into the blustery wind of December and didn’t find anyone who fit that description. The woman who waved and stepped briskly toward the limo was something else again.
“Hope?”
She smiled. “Am I late?”
“Right on time.”
First thing, her face wasn’t green. Of course he hadn’t really expected it to be. He wasn’t prepared, though, for creamy skin or full, glistening lips, for the even thicker, darker lashes that framed her eyes—still green, thank God. And her hair. Why had he thought it was brown? Must have been wet. This woman had hair the color of copper pipe.
Maybe she’d dyed it to match her product.
Under a thick, soft-looking cape, she was wearing a tuxedo. So was he, but the only similarity was their satin lapels. Hers had a short skirt, for one thing, and some kind of low-necked black-lace top under the jacket instead of a white shirt and bow tie. And the jacket poofed out at the top and in at the waist in a way that almost made him forget the reason she was with him in the first place.
For a second he felt like somebody had gut-punched him.
He slid into the car first and let the driver help Hope in beside him. He helped her shrug off the cape—cashmere, by its feel—and pretty soon she was showing him a pair of long, long legs with smooth, slender knees in sheer black stockings. Something bubbled up inside him that was supposed to simmer, covered, for another five years or so, until he really got his feet on the legal ground.
The next thing she was showing him was a laptop. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, perching it carefully on top of those pretty knees. “I was into something important when I realized it was time to change jackets.”
“Be my—” he paused to clear his throat “—guest. I brought work along, too.”
Even before he got to that last line he was looking at her profile, at a big emerald earring on a really cute ear that had a thick bunch of shiny hair tucked behind it, at slim hands with long fingernails painted a sort of ginger-peachy color that matched her lipstick, fingernails that went tap-tap, tap-tap-tap on the computer keys.
