Running from Love: A Story for Runners and Lovers (17 page)

“Jude Farnsworth?” The voice was clipped, patrician.

He turned to face a woman of about his own age looking him up and down, as if he were a racehorse. She was gorgeous. Definitely lacking the wound. Would she ask to look at his ankles?

“Yes. Jordan Marshall?”

“Yes. Have you been here long?” Her large, brown eyes were rimmed with brown or black eyeliner, giving her an exotic appearance.

“About ten minutes.”

“Any luck yet?” She didn’t waste time getting to the point.

“Thought I’d stay off-duty until you arrived.”

“Tut-tut. You should have been working the room. There’s several goldmines in here.” She looked around, swinging long, dark hair that reminded him of Farrah’s. Jude’s heart panged as if he’d been unfaithful. Ridiculous. Needed to get that under control if he was going to finish
How to Marry Money
by years’ end. It was clear he was going to get a lot more mileage out of female research subjects than male ones.

Jordan Marshall was not of the demographic to which most of the guests belonged. To begin with, she wasn’t blonde. Secondly, she was vibrant, sparkling, full of sass and vinegar; most likely, the alpha girl throughout her school years.

“I’m just warming up. Shall I get you a drink?” he asked.

“Yes. Let’s go.” Cheekily she walked ahead of him, straight to the bar where she pivoted to face him, her red, pink, and orange skirt flaring out as she moved.

“Let me guess. Gin and tonic?” she asked.

“How’d you know?”

“Not a stretch in this crowd.”

He laughed, nodding in agreement. It was a choice along the lines of his navy blue jacket with gold buttons—practically a uniform at Greenwich country clubs.

“And you’re having a white wine,” he guessed.

“Afraid not.” Her eyes sparkled. He could see them snapping if she were riled.

“Something with a bit more zing?” he tried again.

“Correct.”

He turned to the bartender.

“Have you got champagne?”

“No sir.”

“Pardon me. I meant, have you got a glass of champagne for Mrs. Marshall?”

“Mrs. Marshall?” The bartender’s eyes widened. “I—uh—could you please wait one moment while I see what we have in stock?”

“Thank you, Ernie,” Jordan sang out. “You are such a darling.” She leaned over the bar and kissed the air near the bartender’s face. Blushing, he smiled stupidly at her. Then quickly, he turned to his colleague, whispering something into his ear.

“Mrs. Marshall, please take a seat. Your drink will be right out,” he told her.

Jordan more or less purred at the bartender, then turned to Jude, giving him a wicked look.

“You’re a woman of great influence, I see,” he whispered as he steered her to a corner table, out of earshot of other guests.

“That’s why you’re researching me for your book,
n’est-ce pas?”

“Yes.” He plunged right in, following her cue. “Now, tell me everything—the before, the now and the after.”

“I’m afraid I can’t venture a guess as to the after.” She looked at him quizzically. “The now is fairly confidential, too. But we can go over some points of getting from before to right before now.”

She lacked the wound, yet Jude couldn’t help liking her. He’d guess she was a tiger. No wonder she’d wound up the wife of someone on the Forbes Top 400 Richest People in America list.

“Why don’t we start with before?” he suggested.

“Before I married Charlie, I worked as a sales associate at Lilly’s on the Avenue.” She referred to Greenwich Avenue, the town’s main shopping street.

“You mean the pink and green store?” Lilly Pulitzer via Palm Beach was a signature clothing line beloved by denizens of communities such as Greenwich, Palm Beach, and Oyster Bay.

“Yes. I look good in pink and green.”

He nodded silently, not doubting her. “But guys don’t shop at Lilly’s, do they?”

“You’re right. Most of its customers are women.”

“So how’d you meet Charlie?”

“I was hired by Lilly’s corporate office to model their new spring/summer line at events around town.”

“Did you have modeling experience?”

“I told them I did, and they bought it.”

“I’d buy it, too.” The way she moved was easy, graceful. She was lithe and elastic—a poster child for the athletic, natural look Greenwich women favored.

“Right. I actually did do a little modeling in high school. Along with all the other girls in my class who participated in our annual prom preview shows.”

“Where’d you go to high school?”

“Maryland. College Park.”

“Private school?”

She gave him a look. “What do you think?”

“No,” Jude corrected himself. She was too full of life to be a private school grad. She hadn’t had all the fire bred out of her.

“Right.” The champagne flute arrived, and she took a sip, delicately holding the thin stem between slim, French-manicured fingers. Jude sensed she was 100 percent studied, a Ph.D. in the school of life. But she was fresh and zingy, too. A fun-loving woman lurked behind all that careful sophistication. It occurred to him that whatever her husband had seen in her might have been something entirely different from whatever impression on him she had thought she was making.

“So you were modeling pink and green fashions at some local event when your future husband spotted you?”

“Actually, I was wearing yellow and orange the first time we met. It was at the car show they run every summer down at the harbor,” she said, referring to Greenwich Harbor.

“The Concours d’Elegance?”

“Right. I got paid by the sponsors to be a car model and by Lilly to wear their line.”

“I assume neither knew the other was paying you, too,” Jude put in.

“Why should they?” Jordan replied briskly, her finely groomed eyebrows pointing into Vs.

Impressive. The woman clearly possessed business instincts.

“What kind of car were you exhibiting when your future husband appeared?” he asked.

“It was one I’d never heard of. A Delahaye. Convertible.”

“Huge?” He’d heard of the French car manufacturer, known for making some of the most beautiful luxury vehicles in the world in the first half of the twentieth century.

“A monster. You wouldn’t want to know how many miles to the gallon.”

Jude thought back to the trim, sleek Jaguar in the parking lot. That was his kind of car. What was his kind of woman?

“So then, what happened?”

“I noticed this guy eyeballing me, then talking to the exhibit manager who’d hired me. Next thing I knew, the manager came over and asked if I wouldn’t mind accompanying his customer for a quick spin in the car.”

“Were you fine on that?”

“I told him it wasn’t part of our agreement. I mean—what if the guy was a wacko or something? I’d been hired to show cars, not ride off in them with total strangers.” Jordan took another sip of her champagne, smiling as she apparently thought back to that first encounter. “The manager let me know the gentleman requesting a test drive was head of one of the largest private equity firms in the country. I had no idea what private equity was, but I knew it involves lots of money. Told him I’d only consent if I got 10 percent of his commission on the sale, if he bought the car.”

“You think on your feet.”

“Yup. Always have. Had to when I was growing up.”

“Why’s that?”

“My mom left my Dad for another guy when I was twelve. They moved to Costa Rica.” Jordan’s face became serious for the first time. “My dad remarried within a year, and my step-mom and I didn’t get along. I was on my own from fifteen on.”

“How’d you manage to finish high school?”

“I was popular. And proud. First I lived with my guidance counselor’s family. Then she found a family for me to board with in town. I worked at the donut shop and managed okay. Had enough credits to graduate after junior year, then took off for New York.”

“New York is no place for a young girl on her own.”

“So I found. I ended up being a nanny for a family that moved to Greenwich when their third child came along. I went with them but after a short time realized I didn’t want to be a member of the serving class in this town.”

“Go on.” Jude knew only too well what her reference points were. He’d straddled the same fine line as a child, crossing over it as an adult. But he never forgot where he came from, which sometimes got in the way of where he aimed to go. It dawned on him that Jordan had some great insights for him, not just on how to marry money.

“It was the ruling class that interested me,” she continued. “I quit the nanny job when I got the Lilly one, but the family liked me, so they let me stay in their gatekeeper’s cottage in exchange for babysitting on the new nanny’s days off. Then I met Charlie. The rest is history—
voilà!”
She gestured as if displaying a Delahaye car. A thick pink and gold bangle bracelet dangled from the wrist of one slim, tanned arm. Jude recognized the inimitable Lilly brand.

He sat back, admiring her. She was artwork. Self-invented, self-propelled kinetic art. No wonder Charlie had married her.

But she lacked the wound. Even though now he knew she had it. She’d done such a great job of concealing it from everyone that it no longer figured as part of her personality. Even with the story she’d just shared, she didn’t look in the slightest vulnerable.
Au contraire.

“I congratulate you,” Jude said, quietly. “You’ve got a lot of balls to be telling me all this. What if I go around the corner and repeat it to someone?”

“Be my guest. I never hid a thing from Charlie about where I come from. I could tell him I kill baby birds for sport, and he’d be fine with it. He told me it was love at first sight and not a thing I said or did after that first car ride together could make him change his mind.”

Was that infatuation or love? Jude knew enough to know he didn’t know the answer himself. Whatever it was, it had worked for Jordan Marshall. Splendidly.

“So how long have you been married?” he continued.

“Five years. Long enough for love at first sight to wear off, in case you were wondering.” She gave him a wry smile.

“What replaced it?”

“Mutual appreciation, mutual interests. I scratch his back, he scratches mine. Also—” She hesitated, cocking her head.

“Also?”

“I love him.” She looked straight into Jude’s eyes.

“Like I said before, congratulations.” He didn’t doubt her. He imagined her version of love might be different from his, but it appeared to work for her, so who was he to question it?

“Ready to look at some flowers?” she asked.

“I’m only interested in rare orchids.”

“I’ll show you some,” she said as she rose from her chair.

“I’ve already seen one,” he replied, enjoying the way her eyes twinkled as she took in his compliment.

Over the next twenty minutes, they toured the gardens to the side of the Field Club. A backdrop of muffled thuds accompanied them—the pleasant thwack of tennis balls lobbed by early evening tennis players. Jude had always liked the sound.

Jordan introduced him to acquaintances here and there, not hesitating to tell each one of them he was soliciting race sponsors for charity. By the end of the evening he’d amassed several more sponsorship pledges for the Lymphoma Society.

Two hours later his brain hummed as he drove home. Jordan had proven a worthy member of the Greenwich Garden Club. She’d planted several ideas in Jude’s head that would get him started on his first chapter. Best of all, they hadn’t been obvious ones.

Jordan had thought what she’d offered to Charlie had been beauty, youth and unerring social-climbing skills. But Jude saw beyond that formula. He had a hunch that Charlie had really gone for Jordan’s
chutzpah,
street smarts and palpable
joie de vivre.
Being young and beautiful had helped. But he didn’t think it was everything. He was beginning to think that what it took to marry money wasn’t entirely what most thought. It was something different and much more accessible. Something a person could develop inside him or herself. That would be the premise of his book. He would list the qualities needed, then offer some steps to develop them. It would sell millions of copies. Everyone can dream, can’t they? Even me, he thought, revving up his Ford Taurus to overtake the Jaguar ahead.

S
EVEN

F
arrah spent a quiet Saturday after getting back from Charlotte, North Carolina the evening before. She’d been on the road non-stop for the past three days, meeting with five of Meredith’s existing clients who hadn’t yet been “reached” by Alison and dropping by a few other prospects to introduce herself. Predictably, no one had wanted to see her, so she’d left her business card along with a box of gourmet chocolates in the shape of eyeballs with the office staff at each stop. It was corny, but who could pass up Belgian chocolates? She thanked God she’d spotted them in the Halloween candy aisle at the gift shop in the airport departure terminal.

Dinner with Jude in his neighborhood the following evening danced in her mind. She hoped her dating skills weren’t so rusty she wouldn’t be able to open up in their dinner conversation. And what would happen after dinner?

“It’s not what happens, it’s how you handle it,” had been her father’s motto. Her mother had shown her how that worked. As she thought back to the last year of her mother’s life, her heart swelled.

The lymphoma had progressed quickly. Farrah’s two older brothers both lived in different parts of the country: Mark was married in Denver, Sean finishing up his degree in energy conservation in California. Everyone involved had known it would be a short timetable, so Farrah had put off her first semester of grad school. Instead, she had spent the time in the hallways and waiting rooms of New York Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, driving her mother back and forth to appointments. Then, there were the final few weeks at her bedside, making arrangements for hospice care and beyond.

Beyond had arrived first.

“It’s not what happens, it’s how you handle it,” Farrah intoned, as she checked her e-mails for the second time on her way to the kitchen. Alison Keane flashed into her mind. Maybe it was both what happens
and
how you handle it; then, how you live with it afterward.