(60 page)

Still, he hesitated, his hand resting against her spine, his face now buried against the side of her neck. Was it Annie holding him back? Or Laurel—the fact that he didn’t love her the way he knew she loved him? He felt vaguely as if he were cheating her somehow.

“Joe.” Laurel slowly slid her hands down the length of his arms, her thumbs briefly caressing the insides of his elbows before continuing on. Now her fingers were forming cool bracelets about his wrists. She brought one of his hands up, and held it to her breast. He could feel its fullness, the tiny indented stretch marks along its underside. Her heat seemed to fill his hand and spill between his fingers.

Joe moaned and pulled her to him, this time not so gently. Together, as if in a choreographed pas de deux, they sank to their knees on the carpet. The bed was only a few feet away, but Joe couldn’t stop kissing her and touching her long enough to make his way over to it. He somehow managed to shuck off his pullover and undershirt, but each second that his skin was not touching hers seemed an agony.

“Oh, my God, Joe … look.” Laurel giggled breathlessly.

Joe felt something warm and wet sprinkle his chest. He looked down and saw tiny streams of milk arcing from her nipples. Without stopping to think, he bent and drank from her, letting her warm, sweet milk fill his mouth. It seemed almost a forbidden act, what he was doing, and yet at the same time perfectly natural. He felt her nipple tighten and grown hard against his tongue. She arched back, and made a sound in her throat halfway between a sigh and a moan. Her knees parted, allowing him to slip his hand between her thighs and feel a different, silkier

446

EILEEN GOUDGE

wetness. Below the waistband of his dungarees, Joe felt almost painfully tight. He wanted her badly … badly enough to take her right here on the carpet, beside his son’s crib.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” he asked. He didn’t want to hurt her.

Laurel nodded. “Just go slow.”

He rose and peeled off his dungarees, then drew her to her feet. Laurel seemed to unfold from her kneeling position on the floor like one of those timelapse sequences of a flower blossoming, her graceful limbs stippled with the shadows cast by the bars of Adam’s crib.

Together, they sank down on the bed. He’d expected Laurel to seem shy and inexperienced … after all, he was only her second lover… but she surprised him by reaching out at once, and stroking him with knowing hands and fingers that needed no invitation. As he knelt over her, she guided him into her.

He entered her carefully, quivering with the effort to hold himself in check. She tensed a bit, then whispered, “It’s okay. Yes, Joe. Yes. I love you. God, I love you.”

Joe thought he might explode, but he forced himself to move slowly, precisely, each stroke an agony of pleasure. A pulse throbbed in the hollow of his stomach, another in his groin, and the roof of his mouth.

When he felt he could hold back no longer, he gripped her tightly. Burying his face in her hair, which smelled of milk and baby powder, he felt her hips arch up to meet his.

Joe came with a burst that seemed to go right through his skull.

She shuddered, and he thought she was coming, too. Then he realized she was weeping. She clung to him, her chest hitching with soundless sobs.

“Laurey … what is it?” he cried, panicked. Had he hurt her? Had he disappointed her? Had she suddenly realized that marrying him had been an awful mistake?

“Oh, Joe … I’m just so h-happy.”

Joe felt himself relax a bit. While he held her and soothed her, her tears wetting his neck, her milk growing

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS 44J

sticky on his chest, he told himself, It’ll be good between us. I’ll make it good. I’ll love her. I will.

.Laurel, lying beside Joe in the dark and listening to his breathing deepen, thought, He’s mine. It seemed a miracle almost as great as giving birth to Adam, that Joe should love her, that he’d chosen her. And now they were truly man and wife. Everything was perfect. Perfect.

Except for Annie. But Annie would get over Joe. After all, she had Emmett. He was a good man, and he loved her. She’d seen it in his eyes that first day she’d met him, months ago, when Emmett had taken Annie and her to a Mets game at Shea Stadium; while everyone in the stadium was on their feet, wildly cheering a tie-breaking home run, Emmett’s eyes had been on Annie. Why couldn’t Annie, for once, stop wanting what was out of reach … and see what was right in front of her?

Laurel wanted her sister to be happy, but she felt glad that for once in her life she, Laurel, had something wonderful that Annie had no share in. Not that she meant to shut Annie out. No, no, that would be terrible. It was just that, . . well, now everything would be on her terms. Annie would visit, of course. But it would be her house, her husband, her baby.

Laurel felt a pang, and wondered if she was being selfish. Probably. But right now she didn’t care. At this moment, all she wanted, needed, was right here in this room.

RictTk

,ree

1980

A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Song of Solomon 4:12

The ma๎tre d’ led Annie to a window table in the Grill Room. Slipping into her seat, she breathed a sigh of relief that she’d gotten here ahead of Felder. The Four Seasons was too grand and austere a place to dash into with your hem flapping and your hair mussed, which she knew was how she arrived at most places these days. So although she didn’t usually care much about being seen in the right places, or about what she looked like, today it might make a difference-because today, somehow, she had to get this man to save her.

She probably ought to have brought a lawyer with her, or one of Emmett’s Wall Street buddies. What did she know about making major financial deals? If she hadn’t been such an overconfident idiot in that department, she wouldn’t even be here now.

Her heart was beginning to pound, and she found herself nibbling on her thumbnail, which she’d finally succeeded in growing to a respectable length. Annoyed with herself, she jerked her hand away and tucked it underneath her so that she actually was sitting on it.

She looked around her. The place was filling up with men and women in lookalike business suits, sober gray, navy, pin stripes, with only one woman brave enough to flaunt a huge broad-brimmed black hat and flamboyant pink scarf about her shoulders. Annie wondered if she were a movie star or maybe a designer. But where was Felder? She should have called to confirm their date. God, what if he wasn’t coming?

Dumb. Of course he was. He’d made the reservation, after all. Nevertheless, her armpits felt damp, and she had

452

EILEEN GOUDGE

to resist mopping her forehead with the elegant linen napkin arranged on her plate in a crisp white cone.

“Shall I bring you something from the bar while you’re waiting?” the ma๎tre d’ inquired.

“Perrier,” she told him. It would help settle her stomach.

She glanced at her watch, a slender gold Piaget, a present from Emmett a month ago on her thirty-second birthday. Felder would be arriving at any moment; should she have waited until he got here before ordering her drink?

Watching her waiter thread his way among the wellspaced tables, Annie grew disgusted with herself. Dammit, if she couldn’t do a simple little thing like ordering a drink without worrying, how on earth could she expect Felder to make a million-dollar deal with her?

While she waited, Annie withstood the temptation to dip into her purse for her pocket mirror and lipstick. She wanted to appear cool and sophisticated, not some little Nellie primping nervously. And, besides, hadn’t she already done enough of that at home? This morning, she’d found herself buried in a heap of discarded skirts and blouses and sweaters. Finally she’d settled on this suit, a pumpkin-and-gold weave, with a purple silk turtleneck underneath, an antique gold watch chain that she wore as a necklace, and a pair of huge dangly gold earrings, which, coincidentally, she’d bought at Felder’s. The overall effect, she thought, was businesslike, but also a bit dramatic.

Her Perrier arrived in a frosted glass with a lime wedge, and she sat sipping it, watching the four men at the table opposite hers. They were all laughing loudly. One of them looked vaguely familiar. She thought he might be a television actor. Hadn’t she seen him on Dallas?

“Miss Cobb?”

Annie looked up at the stocky middle-aged man with bristling gray hair who stood over her. Felder? How had he managed to get all the way to this table without her noticing him? Probably, she thought, because he didn’t look at all the way she’d imagined. From what she’d read in newspapers and magazines, she’d expected someone

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

453

more … well, imposing; someone exuding the raw power and charisma of the great old-time Hollywood movie moguls. All those stories about Felder’s surviving the Holocaust, arriving here from a D.P. camp, and how as a youth he’d made the rounds of the Garment District sweatshops each day, buying up remnants and selling them in his uncle’s fabric shop, eventually building his way up to a hugely successful chain of discount department stores.

Except for the beautifully fitted muted-plaid suit he was wearing, the man standing before her might have been a plumber, or a butcher, or a house painter. A bit jowly, with a shave that had missed a few spots, a nose that reminded her of the drawing of Julius Caesar in her highschool Shakespeare book. His gray crewcut was strictly army issue, and his face was as deeply grooved as a woodcut.

“Annie. Please, call me Annie.”

She started to get up, meaning to shake his hand, then discovered to her dismay that her hand, wedged under her thigh all this time, had gone to sleep. Attaining a sort of half-crouched position, she held it out like a wet rag, smiling brightly while cringing inwardly. He didn’t smile back. She hadn’t said anything but her name, and already she felt she was blowing it.

Oh, but she needed this to work. Emmett had warned her to slow down-Dolly too-but she’d gotten too caught up in her own hype, letting herself get seduced by the waterfalls and marble walkways of Glen Harbor’s new, elegant Paradise Mall.

On top of the absurd rents she was already paying on her shops on Madison Avenue and Christopher Street, and now in Southampton, she’d known she was sticking her neck out by leasing at Paradise Mall, but she was on a roll, right? Tout de Suite, expanding faster than a supernova, could do no wrong.

Or so she’d thought.

To date, less than half of the mall’s pricey, pickledoak panelled stores had been leased. And despite the monumental hype, on any given Saturday only a trickle of customers graced the marble walkways and the glass

454

EILEEN GOUDGE

elevators, or the skylit atrium with its cute icecream-parlor tables and chairs. Her ground level shop was bleeding money.

The mall business would eventually go up, she was sure, but it was taking longer than she’d anticipated. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. With the new plant in Tribeca, along with equipment and staff to run the production, accounting, shipping, and purchasing departments, she had to admit she’d overreached herself. Financially, she was perched atop a precarious sand castle that could be about to cave in.

How much longer could she go on-on top of her already hefty operating costs-paying sky-high rents, plus meeting her bank notes? Her usually mild accountant, Jackson Weathers, just last week had laid it out, pulling no punches. If she couldn’t restructure her finances, and do it fast, Tout de Suite might be going down the tubes tout de suite.

That very same day she’d read in the Wall Street Journal that Felder’s was planning to revamp by restyling some of its departments into small, intimate boutiques—including a gourmet-food section-and she’d called Hyman Felder immediately. His secretary had suggested she send samples and literature, if she had any. And then, just a week later, Felder himself had called and invited her to lunch.

“Hy,” he greeted her in a deep, almost gruff voice.

“Hi!” she answered.

“No, I meant Hy,” he corrected. “Everybody, even my stockroom boys, calls me Hy.” His voice instantly brought to mind a flood of Brooklyn memories: cab drivers and Coney Island hot-dog vendors, mustard and sauerkraut.

He eased his bulk into the chair opposite her. A waiter materialized out of nowhere. Felder ordered a Dewar’s with soda and a lemon twist.

“You’re younger than I expected,” he began. “You mind my asking how old you are?”

“I’m thirty-two,” she told him, adding with a laugh: “But it’s not the age itself I mind. What bothers me is not

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

455

knowing how I got from twentyfive to thirty-two in what feels like about two weeks.”

He chuckled. “Please, I got daughters older than you. I was around when they built the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.” He glanced at her mineral water. “You sure you don’t want a real drink?”

“Another Perrier maybe. It can wait.”

“The food here is good. Ever eaten in this place?”

“Once or twice. But I rarely get to restaurants at lunch. Usually, I just catch a sandwich or a yogurt. I’m pretty busy, Mr.-uh, Hy. If you catch me off my feet on a Sunday, it’s usually because I’m underneath some machine or other, trying to get the damn thing to work.”

He grinned. “Yeah? You good with machines? That’s kind of unusual for a nice-looking lady. Me, I’m lousy with machines. But I probably know everything there is to know about working eight or nine days a week.” He fished a mini ice cube from his drink and popped it into his mouth, sucking noisily. “You were smart to call me.”

Annie felt as if the room’s temperature had just been turned up fifty degrees. Did that mean he might seriously consider making a deal? God, east of the Mississippi alone, Felder’s had forty-two huge stores. Her plant would have to gear up to running twentyfour hours a day just to try and supply them all, but she’d be able to cover all her payments and then some.