Nancy’s Theory of Style (14 page)

When they went downstairs to the garage,
she handed him the keys. “Remember to drive on the right side of the street.

“Certainly, Madame.”

“You’re being formal with me again.”

“It’s the best policy when we’re out. I
would hate if anyone made false assumptions.”

“How could anyone say anything bad about
us, Derek? Our association is all innocence and light, isn’t it?”

He opened the passenger door for her,
just as Todd had done on their first dates. “As you say in your Theory of
Style, Madame, appearances are everything. Let us give the appearance of
propriety at all times.”

She slid into the seat and looked up at
him. “You read it then. What did you think?”

He didn’t answer until he’d gotten in
the car. “Most entertaining and illuminating. I shall use your advice as a
guide to life. I’m reconsidering the Windsor knot, and still attempting to
calculate my ideal trouser style based on the algorithm you provided.”

“You need someone else to take your
measurements because they must be precise. Although I think your trousers
always complement your body divinely,”
Nancy
said. “I want it to be more useful than Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which
shouldn’t be difficult since most of us get dressed every single day, and only
infrequently enter into battle.”

“Some would say that clothes are armor.”

“Sometimes they are. Bring back my
notebook tomorrow, and we’ll work on it in our free moments.”

They took an indirect route because
Derek refused to ignore no left turn signs, but they soon arrived at a run-down
warehouse with a faded For Lease sign hanging sideways from a post. “That’s it!
That’s it!”

He parked in the broken asphalt parking
lot, and they walked toward the weathered building. Seagulls above cawed
sharply, and the salty wind whipped
Nancy
’s
hair and made her skirt swirl around her legs. She was all goosebumpy, but it
wasn’t the chill – it was the feeling that this was right.

They circled around the building, which
stretched from the street all the way back to a pier, but the dirty windows
were too high for them to see through.

“Isn’t this just perfect?” she said
excitedly. “I need a better view.” They were on the side of the building, away
from the street. Across the parking lot was an old shack of a coffee joint, but
Nancy
didn’t
think anyone could see them. “Give me a step-up. I’ll just take a peek.”

Derek squatted down gracefully so the
knee of his black pinstripe trousers didn’t touch the dirty ground, and held
his hands together.
Nancy
slipped off her shoe and put her foot in his hands. Derek lifted and she
stretched upward, trying to reach the window.

She was experiencing all sorts of very
interesting sensations at the intimate contact with her assistant and the
thrill of discovering the warehouse. “Higher, Derek.”

He raised his hands further and she was
so close to the window.

“Just a few more inches.” She gripped a
narrow ledge farther up on the wall and pulled herself up. This move caused her
foot to slip out of Derek’s hands. She hung from the ledge and tried to decide
if holding on was worth cracking all her fingernails. It wasn’t, she thought as
she lost her purchase on the ledge.

Then she felt his arms around her
thighs, her skirt rumpling upward.

They fell at an angle,
Nancy
tumbling atop Derek, and her head
bashing back against his chest with considerable force. He yelled, “Shit!” and she
said, “Sorry!” and he said, “It’s okay,” and she said, “Are you okay?” And he
said, “Are you okay?”

They were trying to get up. She hopped
on the foot with the shoe, holding onto him for balance, and that just sent him
backwards again. She fell so that she was atop him, her face against his. He
had a peculiar expression.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Only my dignity and likely my suit.”

“I’ll pay for the cleaning,” she said. She
became aware of contrasting temperatures on her hindquarters. The breeze was
cold on her upper thighs, but her bottom was wonderfully warm. Which made sense
when she realized that Derek’s large firm hands where gripping the flesh on
either side of her thong.

A wolf whistle and a hoot came from the
direction of the coffee shack. “Nice ass!”

Nancy
leaped up, stepping on Derek’s arm accidentally
and this time his expression clearly communicated pain. “Ow!”

“Sorry!” She pushed down her skirt, almost
wishing that she’d followed her mother’s advice that a lady’s panties should fully
cover her posterior. Her face was hot, and the men standing by the coffee shack
were laughing.

She stomped across the asphalt lot to
the shack and Derek followed.

One man in a dirty cook’s apron was
grinning. “Fancy panties! Coffee’s on the house for you, hon.”

“I am not your hon, and what I could
really use is a ladder.”

“I’ll do you one better. Wait a sec.”

Another man, who was wearing a serge
mechanic’s jumpsuit, said, “Do I know you?”

“I certainly doubt it,”
Nancy
said. “My car is serviced at the
dealership, which offers appointments 24 hours of the day.”

“Not you,” the mechanic said and looked
at Derek. “Dick, right? You ever go to Malloy’s? What are you doing all pimped
out?”

Derek shook his head and said in clipped
tones, “I don’t believe we’ve met, sir.”

“Sir!” the mechanic laughed a little, and
then he pointed a finger toward Derek and said, “I’m good with faces. I’ll remember.”

“Derek is my assistant,”
Nancy
said defensively. “He’s
from
England
.”

“
Oooh
,
England
!” said
the mechanic, flapping his hands and eliciting laughs from his pals.

The cook came out of the shack swinging a
large ring of keys. “I’ll let you in. I keep an eye on the place so squatters
don’t move in. Or artists,” he said the last word with a sneer as he led Nancy
and Derek across to the warehouse.

“I appreciate it. I’m thinking of
renting the place for an event.”

“An art fair?” he asked suspiciously.

“No, a fundraiser for the
Barbary Coast
Historical
Museum
.”

“That place still around? I went there
on a field trip in sixth grade. I used to want to be a pirate.”

“Pirates had such fabulous clothes,”
Nancy
said. “I’m
Nancy
. And you are?”

“Aldo,” he said. “Here we go.” He opened
the heavy lock on the door and pulled the tall door open.

The trio walked into the enormous
warehouse. Dust motes floated in the beams of light that streamed down from
windows that reached to the impossibly high ceiling. The stained, cracked
cement floor stretched out forever.

“It’s bigger inside than it is outside,”
Derek said and began to snap photos with his phone’s camera.

“You watch ‘Doctor Who,’ too?” Aldo said
with a grin. “Back in the day, they used to assemble cars here, just rolled
them down the assembly line and shipped them off.”

“How can a place like this be empty?”
Nancy
asked. “Real estate
is still valuable here.”

They walked the length of the building,
their footsteps echoing in the vast hollowness.

Aldo said, “It’s a historical site so
you know how that is. No one can tear it down or do any serious remodeling, so
it just sits and rots.”

“It’s perfect.” She looked at Derek and
said, “What do you think?”

“Madame’s taste is infallible,” he said
with a smile as he took a photo of her.

When Nancy and Derek returned to her
apartment, she called the warehouse’s management company to ask about renting
the space. The man she talked to said he’d run some numbers and get back to
her, but he thought they could work something out.

Nancy
was elated. “We should celebrate! We
could go out and have champagne and dinner – on me.”

“Thank you, but I’m already engaged.”

“If it’s
Prescott
, invite him, too.”

Derek frowned momentarily and
Nancy
thought, it isn’t
Prescott
. It’s Mel. She felt bad because
she’d liked
Prescott
,
and they had seemed so compatible.

Derek said, “I can make a call…”

“No, don’t! Another time. You go have
fun. Oh, and here are the keys to the apartment. So you can come and go during
the work day if I’m out.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Good evening,
Mrs. Carrington-Chambers.”

After he left,
Nancy
moved restlessly around the apartment. Maybe
she should cut back on the caffeine. Someone knocked on her door and she
thought Derek must have changed his mind and come back. She rushed to the door
and opened it.

It wasn’t Derek.

Her cousin, Birdie, stood there in a sable
coat over a taupe dress and red heels. Throwing her arms around
Nancy
, she said,
“Nanny-goat!” and gave her a kiss on each cheek.

Birdie smelled of cigarettes, Shalimar,
and cinnamon gum.

When
Nancy
stepped away from her, she said, “Birdie!”
 

“Binky Winkles was leaving downstairs as
I arrived. I love that she still calls me Girl Carrington. You remember my
angel, Eugenia.” Birdie turned toward the hallway and said. “Eugenia, say hello
to your Auntie Nanny.”

That’s when
Nancy
saw the tiny creature standing back in
the hallway. Her faded sepia brown hair was cut into a ragged pixie, and she
was wearing a hideous “Little House on the Prairie” ruffled, plaid pinafore and
red galoshes.

“Hello,” the child said almost inaudibly.

Birdie swept by
Nancy
, into the apartment, and looked through
the doorway into the living room/workspace. “My sister said you’d done it up
like Barbie’s Dream House, but it looks beautiful. You’ve always had a way for
arranging things.”

Nancy and the child followed as Birdie
went to the kitchen and opened the buttercup yellow refrigerator. “All you’ve
got is water, milk, and coffee beans. I’m famished!”

“The vodka is in the freezer and the
champagne is in the chiller. Would you like a drink?”

“Vodka neat with an olive,” Birdie said.
“Eugenia will have water. French or Swiss, whatever is most suitable for a
child.”

When
Nancy
brought out the drinks, Birdie and her
daughter were in the living room. Her cousin was perched on the edge of the
sofa, one slim leg flung over the other, her foot pointing gracefully. The child
sat on the sofa close to Birdie, dangling her feet.

Birdie took a sip and said, “Very nice,”
and then opened her handbag and took out a red and gold box of cigarettes and a
gold lighter.

Nancy
said, “You can’t smoke in here, Birdie.
The smell will get in all my things.” She thought that Birdie shouldn’t smoke
near the child. Eugenia looked unhealthy, with a grayish look to her
translucent skin, dull hair, and dark bluish circles under expressionless eyes
the color of fallen leaves.

Birdie shrugged an angular shoulder and
put the cigarettes away. “You need some art on these walls. I’ll send you
something. The light is excellent for a large piece above the mantle,” she said.
“I saw your mother the other day. I think she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

“I had dinner with her recently and she
was absolutely fine,”
Nancy
said. “I heard the news about your friend, Leo. I’m sorry.”

Birdie looked down at her cocktail and
said, “He was a remarkable man. Such a loss.” She sighed and looked melancholy
for a moment.

“How long are you here?”

“I haven’t decided. I met the most incredible
Greek man in
Nairobi
,
Yannis. We had a spectacular time traveling through
Kenya
. You must go as soon as you
possibly can. Words cannot describe the twilight on
Lamu
Island
.
I had to wear a headscarf, of course, but Yannis said that I looked as
mysterious as a sphinx.”

Nancy
felt obligated to say something to the
child holding the glass of water. “Did you see any elephants or giraffes?”

The girl regarded her solemnly and said,
“I saw a cow.”

Birdie laughed, a delicious, captivating
laugh, and said, “Oh, I didn’t take her with me! She stayed on a farm with
friends near
Woodstock
.
They’re all very organic this and slow movement that. They make their own
clothes and gave her that charming little frock.”