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“No problem,” he smiled, making him look super-plus dishy. “Listen, believe it or not, I don’t know too many people here. I was wondering, would you like to go somewhere maybe and get a drink or a cup of coffee?”

“Who? Me?” Ruby looked over her shoulder, assuming he was directing his question at some gorgeous starlet who had just sashayed into view.

“Yes,” he said.

“Oh, that is so kind of you and I’m very flattered, but actually I’m here with my chap.”

“Well, your
chap
is a very lucky guy, that’s all I can say. Nice to have met you” He was inviting her to fill in her name.

“Ruby. Ruby Silverman.”

“Nice to have met you, Ruby Silverman.” He held out his hand, which she took.

“You, too,” she said.

As he turned to go, he was accosted by Joan Collins. “David! Dahling!”

He offered Ruby a final pleading look.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ruby smiled, nodding good-bye to David.

Tingling and positively giddy with excitement, Ruby went to find Chanel and Bridget. “Omigod,” she cried, “I was asked out by David Schwimmer. Can you believe it?”

“You’re ’aving me on,” Chanel said.

“No. Honest. I think Saturn’s change of direction could be starting to affect me after all.”

“Are you sure he’s not that one from
ER
?” Bridget said, draining yet another glass of champagne. “Oooh, look, is that Madonna over there? Now, if anybody needs a good hiding, that brazen hussy does. I ask you, what decent Catholic girl flaunts herself in her corsets and brassiere? She’ll end up burning in the fires of hell, she will, but not before she’s developed a nasty chill on her kidneys. Has the woman never heard of vests? If you ask me, that Guy Bitchie needs to take her under control. Now then, where’sshe gone? Oh, there she is.” Before anybody could stopher, Bridget had disappeared into the crowd.

“Leave ’er,” Chanel said, smiling. “Why don’t we let ’er enjoy her moment in the spotlight.”

Ruby nodded.

Chanel picked up her champagne flute. She looked thoughtful. “You know, me and Craig would never ’ave got Alfie if it ’adn’t been for you. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to thank you.”

Just then Fi appeared. She looked stunning in a pale blue silk Vivienne Westwood dress. Ruby gave a comedy wolf whistle. Fi responded with a giggly twirl. Then she sat down next to them at the bar and scooped up a handful of nuts. “I’ve just got to get something inside me to soak up all the champagne. If I don’t, I’m going to keel over.” She turned to Chanel. “I heard what you were saying just then. You’re right. Quite a few things wouldn’t have ended up as happily as they have if it weren’t for Ruby.”

“Oh, stoppit, both of you,” Ruby cried, turning scarlet.

But it was true. Frustrated and sad as she was that she couldn’t get Baby Organic off the ground, she would always be proud that she’d been responsible for Jill McNulty and Tom Hardacre receiving their just desserts.

Before she and Sam flew off to New York for Josh’s retrial, Ruby, Hannah, Sam and the two other foreign doctors who had been implicated in the surrogacy scam sent separate letters to the hospital’s chief executive. A couple of weeks ago they were invited to attend a meeting with the board of governors. This was followed by several more and eventually resulted in the hospital conducting a lengthy, but secret internal inquiry into the surrogacy affair.

Hardacre, who, as Ruby had suspected, was the only doctor involved in the surrogacy business, had the arrogance and effrontery to deny everything and threatened to sue the hospital for slander, but Jill and the two midwives involved were much more easily intimidated and cracked under interrogation from hospital bigwigs. Naturally they implicated Hardacre. He, Jill McNulty and the midwives were duly sacked for “gross misconduct.” None of them would ever work in the medical profession again.

Jill had left Hardacre. She had never been a particularly enthusiastic accomplice and had only taken part in the surrogacy affair because she was infatuated with him and he had bullied her into it. The last Ruby heard, Jill was atoning for her sins working on the checkout at Wal-mart.

Even though Tom Hardacre had been sacked, Ruby couldn’t help thinking that he had got off lightly. His medical career was over, but unlike Jill, he had his substantial “immoral earnings” to fall back on. Ruby was so outraged by this that she didn’t sleep properly for weeks. Then, one night as she lay tossing and turning she came up with an idea.

The following morning, after getting Hardacre’s phone number from one of the hospital governors, she phoned him. When Hardacre heard it was Ruby on the line, he tried to hang up.

“No, please don’t put the phone down. You see I’ve just had this brilliant idea.”

“Really,” Hardacre replied, his tone flat with disinterest.

“Yes. I think you should make a very large donation to the hospital. I’m sure they would accept.”

Hardacre roared with laughter. “Why on earth would I do that?”

“Let’s put it this way: I’m not sure how much money you’ve made out of your surrogacy business, but I’m certain your services didn’t come cheap. It also wouldn’t surprise me to discover that you received all payments in cash.”

He was silent for a few moments. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting you haven’t paid a penny in tax since you started up this business. I am also suggesting that if you don’t give St. Luke’s all the money, I fully intend to report you to the Inland Revenue.”

“I see.”

“I thought you might.”

A week later, a quarter of a million pounds was deposited anonymously into St. Luke’s bank account.

The governors decided to put the donation toward building an eating disorders unit at St. Luke’s, as well as spearheading a national campaign to educate women about the dangers of dieting during and right after pregnancy. Ruby couldn’t help thinking it was poetic justice for Hardacre’s money to end up helping to build an eating disorders unit.

It wasn’t long before all fifteen of the Hollywood stars who had used surrogates sent threatening letters to St. Luke’s via their attorneys, saying they would sue for libel if the story was leaked to the press and they were named in the affair. The hospital agreed on the understanding that they make a “voluntary” contribution to the eating disorders unit and paid any outstanding money owed to their surrogates. They all coughed up.

“W
HO ARE YOU
looking for now?” Fi said to Ruby, who was casting her eyes around the room again.

“Sam. He seems to have disappeared. I haven’t seen him for ages. I think I might go and look for him.”

Ruby stood up and straightened her skirt. “By the way, Fi, I couldn’t be more happy for you and Saul. He was brilliant tonight. Nobody deserves a break more than he does. He’s worked so hard for this.”

“I know. I’m so proud of him.”

Ruby gave her friend a kiss and a tight hug. “I won’t be long. If Sam shows up, tell him I’m looking for him.”

R
UBY THOUGHT
S
AM
might be outside on the terrace, but he wasn’t. In fact the terrace was practically empty. A light drizzle was starting to fall and people were wandering back inside.

The spitting rain didn’t bother her. She was happy to enjoy the silence for a few minutes. She sat down at one of the tables and breathed in the smell of fresh summer rain on London pavement. Having resisted it all evening, she reached into her bag and took out her phone. She wanted to check her voice mail. Maybe the venture capitalist chap she’d had a meeting with yesterday about investing in Baby Organic had changed his mind.

She dialed her voice mail. Nothing. No change there, then.

“Hey, what are you doing sitting all alone in the drizzle?” It was Sam. He was coming toward her, his face full of concern. “You OK?”

“I’m fine. Actually, I’ve been looking for you. When I couldn’t find you, I decided to check my voice mail.”

“No news from this financier you saw yesterday, I take it?”

She shook her head.

Still looking concerned, Sam pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down. “Sorry I disappeared. Buddy called. Irene has persuaded him to retire. He’s selling the pickle business.”

“You’re kidding. That business is his life.”

“I know, but he’s not getting any younger. I think he realizes deep down that the time has come to sell up.” He paused. “Ruby?”

“What?”

“Do you believe in miracles?”

She laughed. “I’m not sure. Of course, Chanel would probably say that miracles don’t happen to Capricorns.”

“Is that so?”

Sam took his phone out of his pocket and tapped out a number. “Hey, Buddy, I’ve got Ruby here. Let me put her on.”

Ruby frowned. “Why does Buddy want to speak to me?”

Sam handed her the phone. “Why don’t you find out?”

“Hello, Buddy. How are you?”

“Lousy, thank you for asking. My wife has forced me to retire. Do you know how many years of my life I spent in the pickle business?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Fifty-seven! Fifty-seven years, man and boy.”

“Don’t lie,” Irene was squawking in the distance. “It was forty-two. You always have to exaggerate everything. Ever since I’ve known you, you have to exaggerate.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Anyway, Ruby, here’s the thing: I may be retired, but I’m still a businessman and I’m looking for a new project. Sam told me about this business venture you’re trying to get off the ground. Sounds like a great idea. How’s about I loan you the money you need?”

“You want to invest in Baby Organic?”

“Why not? Organics are the future. You’d have to be a schmuck not to see that.”

“It’s a sweet offer, Buddy, and don’t think I’m not grateful, but I’m determined not to borrow money from friends. If the business went belly up, you’d lose your investment and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Ruby, listen up. One thing I’ve learned from fifty-seven years in the pickle business”

“I thought it was forty-two years.”

“Fifty-seven, forty-two. It was a lot of years and what I learned in that time is that in business you can’t make decisions based on what-ifs. Business is all about taking risks. I’m prepared to take a risk on you. The question isare you prepared to take a risk on borrowing from a friend?”

Ruby sat, processing, the phone pressed to her ear. “I’m not sure. You see, my last investor was a member of my family and she ended up wanting to control everything”

“I have no interest in controlling anything. After all, what does an old man like me know about babies?Take the money. You’d be doing me a favor. You’d be easing my conscience. I still feel guilty about the way I encouraged Sam to lie to you. And I know you’ll make a success of the new business.”

“Look, it really is very kind of you, but I’m still not”

“Please?C’mon, what do you say?”

She looked at Sam, who was frantically mouthing at her to accept Buddy’s offer.

“OKyou’ve got a deal, but if something goes wrong, I swear you’ll get back every penny you put in. That’s a promise.”

“And if, as I suspect, youcorrection, wemake a killing, I’m expecting a substantial share in the profits. Do we still have a deal?”

She hesitated. Then: “OK.”

“Good girl. You’ve made an old man very happy.”

“And an old woman,” Irene piped up in the background.

“Thanks, Buddy.”

“My pleasure, darling. My pleasure.”

Ruby handed Sam back his phone. “You set this up, didn’t you?” she said half smiling, half accusing.

“I admit I brought your problem to Buddy’s attention, but it was his idea to help you.”

She screwed up her face.

“What?” he said.

“Look, it’s not that I’m not grateful. I am, but I can’t have you stepping in to rescue me every time my life gets difficult. I need to be able to sort things out on my own. It means a lot to me.”

“Ruby, for crying out loud. Why are you so stubborn? You’ve spent the last few months sorting out everybody else’s lives. You uncovered the surrogacy scandal. You helped Hannah. Chanel wouldn’t have gotten to keep Alfie if it hadn’t been for you. St. Luke’s wouldn’t have gotten the quarter of a million if it hadn’t been for you”

“My mother wouldn’t have given birth in an airport if it hadn’t been for me.”

He laughed. “OK, there is thatCome on, Ruby, ease up on yourself. Please don’t change your mind about taking Buddy’s money. You deserve it.”

“OK,” she said eventually, “maybe you’re right.”

“I
am
right.”

“What can I say other than thank you and that I love you?” She reached up and kissed him on the lips.

“And I love you, too.”

Her face broke into a grin. Then she tilted her head heavenward. “So, Saturn finally gave me a break. Who’d have thought?”

“Saturn? I’m not with you. What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing,” she giggled. “Private jokeCome on, we ought see where Bridget’s got to. I’m meant to be keeping an eye on her.”

They didn’t have to look far. While Ruby had been on the phone to Buddy, a band had set up and started playing with Bridget as their vocalist. “Omigod,” Ruby gasped, “she must have insisted on doing a turn.” She stared at Bridget, who was standing on a table top, her bra outside her dress, singing atrociously out of key and gyrating for all she was worth. “Like a vir-ir-ir-ir-gin, touched for the very first time,” she squawked. Even more surprising was that everybody in the room had gathered round her and they were all clapping and singing along.

“Like a vir-ir-ir-ir-ginCome on Madge, you brazen hussy!” she yelled to Madonna. “Up you get and join me.”

And she did.

Also by Sue Margolis

Neurotica

Spin Cycle

Apocalipstick

Breakfast at Stephanie’s

Original Cyn

Don’t miss Sue Margolis’s other novels:

NEUROTICA

SPIN CYCLE

APOCALIPSTICK

BREAKFAST AT STEPHANIE’S

ORIGINAL CYN

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BREAKFAST AT STEPHANIE’S

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ORIGINAL CYN

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“Elizabeth Arden?”

It was the third Saturday before Christmas and Stephanie Glassman, resident pianist at the Oxford Street branch of Debenhams, was sitting at a white baby grand on the ground floor, playing “Winter Wonderland.” She couldn’t have looked less Elizabeth Ardenlike if she’d tried. Unless, of course, Miss Arden used to celebrate the festive season by dressing up in a tacky Mrs. Claus Christmas outfit, which included a fur-trimmed thigh-high skirt and Teutonic blonde wig with plaited Alpine shepherdess-style earphones.

As she carried on playing, Stephanie looked up from the keyboard and saw a bulky, tweedy woman standing at her side. She was weighed down with carrier bags, and her face exuded faint desperation and the urgent need of a large gin. Stephanie had been at Debenhams for two weeks now and the haunted, get-me-out-of-here Christmas shopper look was one she had come to recognize only too well.

“I’m looking for her Perpetual Moisture,” the woman panted, desperation rising. “It’s for my sister-in-law in Stoke Poges. She swears by it. Lord knows why she bothers. Got a face like a fossilized custard skin. Harrods and Selfridges have both run out. Of course, if I had my way the poisonous old boot would get a box of Newberry Fruits and a Jamie Oliver video and be done with it.”

While the woman paused for breath, Stephanie gave her a warm, sympathetic smile.

“The Elizabeth Arden counter is just over there.” She nodded. “Behind Dior.”

“Right, well, if they haven’t got it I think I’ll plump for a foot spa. That way I can always live in hope she might electrocute herself.” Stephanie thought it best to remain noncommittalat least regarding the electrocution bit. “A foot spa’s always useful,” she said. “Or gardening gloves and a pair of pruning shears, maybe.”

With that the woman huffed off toward the Elizabeth Arden counter and Stephanie segued into “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Being Jewish, Stephanie’s family didn’t do Christmassomething for which she knew her mother, Estelle, had always been eternally grateful. The spring cleaning, shopping, baking and fish frying frenzy of Passover was enough to send her racing for the Valiumwithout having to cope with Christmas as well. Stephanie, on the other hand, had always rather resented the family’s lack of Christmas celebrations.

Traditional as they may have been where Passover was concerned, her parents weren’t particularly observant. For a start, they ate nonkosher food. When she was a kid they went out for Chinese dinner nearly every Sunday night. Her father was a ferocious advocate of cha siu pork, believing its medicinal qualities to be infinitely greater than those of chicken soup. Her grandmother, who usually accompanied them on these jaunts, refused to touch the pork. On top of this she always insisted on going through what Stephanie called her preening ritual, whereby she painstakingly picked out all the pork and prawns from her yung chow rice and piled them up in her napkin.

Christmas was like pork. You could “have it out”like the turkey lunch at the Finchley Post House, even the midnight carol service at The Blessed Virgin down the road (her mum loved the tunes)but on no account was it to be brought into the house.

As a child, Stephanie ached to take part in all the Christmas excitement and always felt jealous of her non-Jewish friends. Each year at junior school, just before they broke up for the holidays, all the kids in her class (except her, David Solomons and the Qureshi twins) would stand around in groups, busy competing about what they were getting for Christmas and having impassioned debates about whether Father Christmas really existed or whether the fat old bloke who delivered presents was just your dad dressed up.

She could still remember walking home from school on those dank December afternoons. It was teatime and in all the non-Jewish houses, the tree lights were being switched on. Every so often she would stop and stare at the twinkling windows, feeling she was peering into a never-never land. Ordinary houses, with their boring tarmac drives and UPVC window frames, became enchanted fairy grottoes. Her eight-year-old heart quite literally ached not just for Santa and the pillowcase of presents, but for the tinsel, the Christmas tree baubles, the crackers, the ritual of leaving mince pies outside for the reindeerthe sheer wondrous, sparkling magic of it all.

Of course she had Hanukkah, which happened around the same time as Christmas, but it wasn’t the same, lighting a few pathetic candles and getting a fiver pressed into your hand by some whiskery old aunt.

When she gave birth to Jake, two and a half years ago, she promised him three things: her unconditional love and support, that she would never allow him to own a motorbike while he lived under her roof, and that he would have a childhood full of brilliant Christmases. Although this was his second, it was the first he was old enough to appreciate. As a result, Stephanie’s living room ceiling was thick with paper chains, streamers and balloons. In the alcove next to the fireplace stood a garish, overdressed, six-foot-tall Norway spruce, whichsince there was no husband or boyfriend to do it for herStephanie’s father, Harry, had insisted on schlepping back from the greengrocer’s around the corner, on the strict understanding it was to be referred to as a Hanukkah bush. Deciding that she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Stephanie agreed.

S
HE LOOKED DOWN
at her watch. Almost three. Time for her break. Although she loved Christmas, she loathed her Mrs. Claus getup. What she hated even more was walking through the store wearing it. She didn’t mind the short skirt so much because it showed off her longand even if she did say so herselfshapely legs, as did the long stiletto-heeled boots she’d been given. No, what she loathed was the earphones wig. It made her look like that woman in
The Sound of Music
who, having been handed second prize at the Salzburg Music Festival, refused to stop bowing.

Women who noticed the earphones tended to smile in sympathy, but blokes always made some kind of smart remark. “Can you get the football on ’em, then?” Yesterday a shaven-headed youth in a Manchester United football shirt, loitering suspiciously with his mates by the watches, had yelled out: “Whassit like shagging Santa, then?”

“Not that good, actually,” she’d replied, grinning. “He only comes once a year.” Ho bleeding ho.

What worried her most about being Mrs. Claus was the thought of being seen by somebody who knew her, such as her parents’ rabbi, or an ex-boyfriend, or perhaps some girl from school she hadn’t seen for years and who now looked like Gwyneth Paltrow and was in mergers and acquisitions. It wasn’t just the costume she would have to explain away. Far more important was why, more than ten years after leaving university (English, honors) and a successful stint at drama schoolnot to mention her great singing voiceshe could aspire to nothing more elevated, careerwise, than a temp job as a cheesy, piano-playing Mrs. Claus in a middle-market chain store.

Stephanie finished with a quick burst of “Jingle Bell Rock” and then stood up. The place was teeming with the fraught and the frazzled. A few feet away, a middle-aged couple seemed to be having a major fight about driving gloves. Then: “Coooeee.”

Her heart sank to her stiletto boots. It had finally happened. Somebody had recognized her. OK, she could always say her dad played golf with Mr. Debenham and she was just helping out because the store’s regular piano player had come down with Ebola.

She turned toward the voice. Instant relief. It was only the tweedy woman bent on electrocuting her sister-in-law in Stoke Poges. She was holding up a Debenhams carrier bag.

“Mini carpet bowls,” she cackled. “Byeee. Merry Christmas!”

“You too.”

Stephanie gave her a small wave and watched the woman disappear into the crowd. She was just trying to work out whether she had time to go to the loo and get to the toy department to buy Jake his main presenta Bob the Builder tool belt, on which she was entitled to a 20 percent staff discountwhen she saw someone even more embarrassing than Rabbi Nodel.

She recognized Frank Waterman at once. Dark, swept-back hair, eyes the color of conkers, just a hint of well-tended stubble. They’d been in
Cabaret
together at the Nottingham Playhouse, six or seven years back. Stephanie had been in the chorus and he’d played Cliff Bradshaw, the romantic lead. During their time together, she developed
the
most almighty crush on him, but nothing ever happened between them. They exchanged hellos at rehearsals, went drinking with the same gang after the show, but since he was so resoundingly A-list to look at and always had stacks of women (not to mention a couple of blokes) sniffing round, she’d never plucked up the courage to flirt with him.

The show had been on for a couple of weeks when the message filtered down to London that the production was particularly excellent and a theater critic from one of the broadsheets turned up. He raved about the show and Frank’s performance in particular, saying he possessed that indefinable quality common to all great actors and that celebrity undoubtedly beckoned. Frank had never looked back. These days, he was the Royal Shakespeare Company’s rising starand she was Mrs. Claus with earphones.

Now he was coming her way, but since he was busy chatting to the woman with him, Stephanie was pretty certain he hadn’t noticed her. Plus it had been years since they’d last met and it wasn’t as if they’d had much to do with each other back then. Chances were that even if he saw her, he wouldn’t recognize her. Nevertheless she sat back down on the piano stool and buried her head in her music book.

“Steph?” Bugger. OK, play it cool. Do not let him see you’re flustered. She looked up and forced her mouth onto full beam. “Frank? Frank Waterman?”

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “I knew it was you. I said to Anoushka”glorious cheekbones, Fulham highlights“I’m sure that’s Steph from
Cabaret
. God, it must be what, four, five years ago?”

“Nearly seven.”

“No. As long as that?”

“Yup. Time flies.”

“God, doesn’t it? So, you’re Mrs. Christmas.”

He was looking at the wig and smiling. Her hand sprang self-consciously to her left earphone. “A bit Heidi, I know.” A smirk of agreement from Anoushka. “Still, it’s only until Christmas Eve. Pays the bills.”

“But what about the singing? Don’t say you’ve stopped. You had such a fantastic voice. You were into blues and jazz, if I remember. Ella, Peggy Lee, that sort of stuff.”

“That’s right.” She was gobsmacked. Utterly astounded that he remembered. He turned to Anoushka. “One night in the pub when we were touring, Steph got up and sang My Melancholy Baby.’ She was outstanding. Had us all in tears.”

“Really?” Anoushka said with a brief, polite smile.

There was a moment’s silence. “Wow, stunning earrings,” Stephanie said to Anoushka, noticing the glistening pinkish-red stones. “I love rubies.”

“They’re pink diamonds, actually.”

“Anoushka designed them herself,” Frank said. “She runs her own jewelry business.”

“Oh, right.” Stephanie nodded. Then the penny dropped. Anoushka didn’t run a mere business. It was a full-frontal corporate empire. “God, of course, you’re Anoushka Holland. I read that piece about you in last month’s
Vogue
. Didn’t your company just get bought out by Theo Fennell for eleven million quid?”

“Eleven point five,” Anoushka corrected. Having been put in her place, Stephanie didn’t quite know what to say next. Frank picked up on her awkwardness.

“So,” he said to Stephanie, “are you still singing?”

“Yes. I do a couple of gigs a week at the Blues Caf in Islington. And I’ve had the odd bit in
Chicago
and
Les Mis
. Nothing major, though.”