A Fashionable Affair (7 page)

“They’re a pain in the ass,” Doug said rudely. “And Mark is right, darling, you are nice. I hope
you last for ten more years.”

“Hah,” Patsy said. “In two years I’ll be thirty. I’ve
already lasted longer than most.” She smiled. “But
it’s been fun. See you, guys.” She walked out of the studio, knowing they were watching her. What she
didn’t know was that the emotion reflected in their
eyes was one of pure affection.

* * * *

It had been a long, tiring day, and Patsy was
stretched out on the sofa with her feet propped up when the phone rang. She went into the bedroom and picked it up.

“Hello, Miss Clark?” inquired an unknown voice.

“Yes.” Patsy’s number was unlisted and she didn’t
often get calls from people she didn’t know. She
frowned now, afraid she was once again hearing from the IRS.

“I’m Bob Hellman, Miss Clark, a friend of Fred Zimmerman’s. Fred asked me to take over for him
when he had his heart attack.”

“Oh,” Patsy said. This must be the man whose
name Fred had wanted to give her. “Well, it’s very
good of you to call,” she said kindly, “but I’ve
already gotten someone to look after my financial
matters.”

There was a moment of curiously charged silence
on the other end of the line. Bob Hellman’s voice, when he spoke, sounded pleasant, however. “Oh,
have you? That’s too bad. I was looking forward to working for you. And Fred filled me in on a few of the things he was doing. Would it be at all possible
for me to discuss my credentials with you?”

“I’m really sorry, Mr. Hellman, but I have defi
nitely engaged someone else.”

“Well, so be it,” he said genially. “Would you
mind telling me who beat me out?”

One of the things Patsy had learned in the course
of a very public career was to volunteer as little
information about her private life as possible.
“Yes,” she said. “I would mind. It was kind of Fred
to be concerned about me, and kind of you to call,
Mr. Hellman. Have a pleasant evening.”

Patsy hung up and thought no more about Bob
Hellman. In fact, her mind seemed to be running
rather disconcertingly on quite another accountant,
but her thoughts were not finance-oriented.
Michael hadn’t even suggested that she stay when they had returned to his house from the beach yes
terday. In fact, she had gotten the impression that
he was anxious to get rid of her. She had assumed,
with a gloom that was unusual for her, that he
probably had a date.

Patsy had ended up spending Sunday evening
with Don. It was one thing to say Don had to go, but
quite another, it seemed, to convince him of that
fact. She couldn’t blame him, really. They had been
going together for over a year, and at one time
Patsy had fancied herself quite in love with him. He
was a successful news reporter, clever, intense, and
a bit of a rebel. Things had been terrific for the first
six months: they liked the same things, they were
good in bed, they had the same kind of humor.
Then he wanted them to move in together. Patsy
had had a few serious boyfriends in the years since she had moved to New York, but she had never
formally lived with anyone. She loved her parents
too much to cause them that kind of upset.

She told him she wouldn’t live with him, and
then, when he began to pressure her to marry him,
she knew she didn’t really love him, after all. She had known that for quite some time, actually, but
had been trying to hide the knowledge from her
self. It depressed her unutterably, the way she
always seemed to fall out of love.

She thought about that gloomy fact now as she
fixed herself an omelette and salad for dinner. “I’m
just a shallow, fickle person, I suppose,” she said out loud. She sat at the kitchen table to eat, her mouth drooping tragically. Halfway through the
omelette she began to feel better; she’d had scarcely
a thing to eat all day. She was cleaning up the
kitchen when the phone rang again.

It was Sally. “Someone at the hospital gave Steve
four tickets for opening day at the stadium,” she
informed Patsy immediately. “Steve is a miserable
Met fan, but he knows what fanatic Yankees his
wife and brother-in-law are, so he took them. Do
you want to come too?”

“Is Michael going?”

“Are you kidding? Michael would cancel an
appointment with the president for the Yankees.
Of course he’s going. You used to be a pretty red-
hot fan yourself, I remember.”

“I still am,” Patsy said instantly. “I’d love to go.”

“It’s Thursday afternoon.”

Patsy mentally canceled a lunch with a movie
agent. “Fine.”

They made arrangements to meet at the stadium
and Patsy hung up. Her mood of depression had
quite vanished and she went to bed in a decidedly
cheerful frame of mind.

* * * *

The weather was perfect for opening day. Steve
had been given tickets for one of the boxes, and
Sally and Michael were in heaven.

“I can’t believe you grew up on Long Island,”
Steve grumbled good-naturedly as he listened to
his wife. “Long Islanders are supposed to root for
the Mets.”

“Anyone who knew Mr. Melville rooted for the
Yankees,” Patsy informed him kindly. “It was a
matter of sheer survival.”

Michael, who had been looking around the sta
dium, turned to his brother-in-law and grinned.
“The Mets stink,” he said simply.

“They have some good, young talent this year,”
Steve defended his team loyally. “I think they’ll do all right.”

The public-address system crackled and then the
announcer boomed out a welcome to the fans. The stadium was quite filled for a midweek afternoon,
and Patsy found herself smiling with pleasure. All
four of them were wearing slacks and sweaters. The
men had taken their jackets off, but Sally and Patsy
still wore theirs. The April sun was warm but there was a spring chill in the air.

“I haven’t been to a ballgame since high school,”
Patsy said in surprise.

The visiting team was being introduced and
Michael turned to her. “You probably haven’t been to one since Dad took us all for Sally’s sixteenth
birthday.”

“You’re right. That’s the last time I was here.”
She looked around as well. “It’s changed.”

“Here they come!” Sally cheered, and seconds
later the announcer started to introduce the home
team.

“Batting first and playing second base,” the loud
speaker boomed, “Joe Hutchinson.” They all
applauded vigorously and Michael threw in a whis
tle for good measure. The second and third batters
were introduced and then came the announcement
the whole stadium was waiting for.

“Batting fourth and playing center field,” the
announcer shouted, and the spectators rose as one
to their feet,
“Rick Montoya!”

Sally shrieked, Patsy shouted, and Michael let out
a sort of yodel that Patsy instantly recognized from bygone days. The ballplayer they were all so loudly
saluting jogged onto the field, tipped his cap, and
then flashed his famous grin at the fans. They
yelled back louder than before.

“The guy hasn’t even swung his bat yet,” Steve
said.

Michael sat down. “Watching Montoya swing a
bat is sheer poetry,” he remarked to Steve. “Even
the Mets might win if they had him in their lineup.”

“And he’s so
gorgeous,”
Sally added. “I think he
was smiling right at us.”

“Were you applauding his skill or his pulchri
tude?” her husband asked.

Sally grinned. “Both.”

“I need a beer,” Steve said, and Patsy giggled.

It had been a perfect day, Patsy thought two
hours later as the game moved into the ninth
inning. She had forgotten what vociferous fans the Melvilles were. She had forgotten, too, what tremendous fun a baseball game could be.

“Good God,” Sally mumbled a little acidly, “here
comes the TV camera again. I’ve been afraid to
blow my nose all afternoon.”

“The camera is not focusing on you, Sal,” her
brother said unkindly.

Sally stared at him, affronted, and Steve put an
arm around her shoulder. “That’s all right, Babe.
Patsy may have a TV camera following her about
like a shadow, but what does she know of the bino
mial theorem?”

“Not a damn thing,” Patsy answered cheerfully.

“A beautiful thing, the binomial theorem,”
Michael put in. “Sheer poetry.”

“It is not,” Patsy said positively. “Wordsworth is
poetry. And Yeats. Not the biniminal theory—or
Rick Montoya’s swing, either.”

Michael winced as if in acute pain. “Binomial, Patsy. Not biniminal.”

“Whatever,” Patsy said sunnily, and smiled. It was her best smile, the one that usually reduced
men to quivering jellies at her feet.

Michael said blandly, “The camera is thataway,”
and went back to watching the game.

Patsy stared at his faintly hawk-like profile and
inwardly fumed. He had been much nicer when he
was younger, she thought.

The Yankee pitcher retired three men in a row in
the top of the ninth and the game was over, the
Yankees winning three to one. As they left their
seats, Michael and Sally absorbingly discussed the team’s prospects for the coming season, while Patsy
and Steve walked behind them, chatting casually.

“Where did you park your car?” Steve asked
Patsy as they reached the sidewalk.

“Nowhere,” Patsy replied. “I took a cab.”

“A cab?” Steve frowned. “You’re never going to
find another taxi in this crowd.”

Sally had overheard the last part of this exchange.
“We’d run you home, Patsy, but I promised the
baby-sitter we’d be back before six. If we delay any
longer, we’re going to hit the rush.”

“That’s okay, Sally. If I can’t find a cab, there’s
always the subway.”

“The
subway,”
Steve said darkly. Like all suburbanites he held the view that the subways were only
slightly less dangerous than Beirut under siege.

Michael laughed. “Not everyone who rides the
subway is inevitably raped or murdered,” he said to
his brother-in-law. “However, to soothe your jangled nerves, I will drive Patsy home.”

“So chivalrous,” murmured Patsy, who hadn’t taken her car precisely because she wanted things
to fall out this way.

“Sometimes I even astonish myself,” he replied.
“Come on, my car is this way.” After a round of
thanks and promises to call soon, Patsy left the
Maxwells and followed Michael to the lot where he
had left his car.

Traffic around the stadium was heavy and it took
them quite a long time to get out of the Bronx and into Manhattan. Michael didn’t say much; he had turned on the radio and appeared to be listening to
the music. Patsy rested her head against her seat
and watched him drive. His car had a standard shift
and he let the clutch in and out automatically,
changing gears with easy competence, his mind
clearly on something else.

“When you traveled,” he said abruptly, “who
made your arrangements—plane fare, hotels, so
forth?”

She stirred slightly. “Fred, of course.”

“You went on vacation last year to Africa?”

“Yes. To the Serengeti game preserve. Then I
spent some time in Egypt.”

“Mmm. And Fred made all the arrangements?”

“Yes.” Her brown eyes looked troubled. “Why
are you asking me this, Michael?”

He changed the subject. “Do you have a bank
account in the Cayman Islands?”

“Of course not!” She was beginning to sound
impatient. “Why on earth should I have an account
there? I’ve never even
been
to the Cayman Islands.”

“The Cayman Islands operate a banking system
not unlike Switzerland’s.” His voice was expression
less. “No names are used—only numbers. You can
stash quite a lot of money in a numbered bank
account, and there’s no way the IRS will know it’s
there. You’re supposed to report the account, of
course, but very few do.”