Starting from Scratch (3 page)

H
er feet hurt.

Elisha kicked off her shoes the moment she walked across the threshold and shut the door. She loved the way high heels made her legs look, hated the way they made her feet feel. Like she was in training to become an early-Christian martyr.

One hand propped up against the wall, she massaged the bottom of her right foot with the toes of her left. It helped. A little. A hot bath would help even more, but she was way too tired for that.

The limo ride from the hotel back to her Park Avenue apartment had been swift enough, given the hour and the lack of traffic, but it wasn't fast enough to suit her. Elisha was bone tired, and, as happened once every few years or so, completely talked out.

Not to mention that she was feeling fat. The food that had been served tonight had been particularly good. She'd lost count of how many tiny offerings had found their way from the various trays into her mouth.

She sighed, shaking her head. If she wasn't careful, she was going to have to go looking for another little black dress. One in the next size up. That would put her, where? In size ten? Twelve? She couldn't remember. What she did remember was, at one point, she'd been a size six. She had the clothes to prove it. They were all nestled together on one side of her walk-in closet, patiently waiting for the day she was going to return to the small body she'd once had.

The one she'd taken for granted until it wasn't there anymore, she thought with a self-deprecating smile.

She'd gotten to her present size one snack at a time an eternity of snacks ago.

Elisha looked down at her torso, irritated with her own lack of willpower. Well, irritated or not, she couldn't do anything about it tonight. Bending down, she picked up her shoes. Wound up and exhausted at the same time, she knew she needed to get to bed. Tomorrow was another workday.

“Today,” she corrected herself. “Today is another workday.”

It was a little after midnight. Cinderella hours, she mused. Almost the first to arrive, she had been one of the last to leave, packing off not only Sinclair into his limo, but Rocky into his, as well. It was her Girl Scout training coming to the fore again, she supposed. She'd always been a stickler for detail, and although the marketing department had been the ones who'd arranged for the party to herald Sinclair's latest thriller, she had still wanted to make sure everything went off without a hitch from start to finish.

Besides, she had a hunch that if she left anytime before Carole Chambers rode her broom into the sunset, the woman would manage to undermine her in some fashion or other. She knew it was what Carole hoped for—to stand on Elisha's twitching carcass.

Maybe someday she'd allow that to happen, when she was ready to take her final bow and slip away from the fast-paced world of publishing, but not anytime soon. Until then, she was going to have to keep one step ahead of the likes of Carole Chambers.

Maybe two and a half steps.

God knew she'd certainly hate to lose her standing at Randolph & Sons. This was who and what she was, an editor who loved books. An editor who loved her job—for the most part—every exhilarating, mind-numbing, exhausting moment of it.

She was lucky enough to like the authors she worked with. Some, like Sinclair Jones, needed a lot of care, but they were worth it. The man was like the grandfather she'd never known. Others, like Jack Lewis, all but went into hibernation, emerging out of their cave every eighteen months or so, holding a brand-new offering over their heads.

Everyone had their own style and she was flexible enough to bend and work with them all. She had six well-known, first-tier authors, not to mention about ten or so writers who turned up occasionally, bringing her ideas or manuscripts that worked only half the time and even then, needed help.

That was when she'd roll up her sleeves, burn the midnight oil and completely live up to every aspect of her title of editor. She guided, molded, cut, suggested and, at times, added. She had no set style of her own, but, like a comic impersonator, could mimic voices with aplomb. The written voice of an author. She could make things flow when they were choppy, make them flow with such dexterity that often the writer would comment that they hadn't known they were that good. One of Elisha's gifts was that she was so clever at what she did, she could make writers believe that the words had actually come from them and that they'd simply forgotten they had written the passage. It happened all the time.

And so it went. Her authors garnered accolades and she garnered a feeling of satisfaction, of a job shamelessly well done, not to mention collecting a very nice paycheck, which was deposited electronically into her checking account twice a month.

On her way to the bedroom, dragging her wrap behind her, Elisha stopped for a moment by the large bay window, drawn by the view. She never tired of it. By day it was impressive. By night, awe-inspiring.

Her apartment was located on the twenty-second floor of the Avery Building and situated so that it had a breathtaking, almost panoramic view of the city. At night the lights below twinkled through the glass like so many diamonds scattered at her feet.

Elisha took in a deep breath and then released it again, slowly. She thought of each light as representing a family, or, at the very least, a life in progress. If some part of her felt just the slightest bit sad because there was no one at her side to share this with, to slip his arm around her shoulders and pull him close to her, she refused to acknowledge it.

She'd never been one to dwell on the negative.

The positive side was that she had this and it was hers to enjoy.

Her eyes were drawn to the red light.

The flashing light reflected in the window was almost hypnotic. She stared at it for a few seconds, watching it pulse, before she realized that the light was coming from behind her rather than from some dwelling below.

Turning, she saw that the red light on her answering machine was blinking rhythmically like the eye of an asymmetric cyclops.

The sight pulled her back into the real world.

The sigh escaped her lips before she was completely conscious that the sound had come from her. She really was very tired.

Dutifully, she went over to the telephone on the counter that separated the living room from the alcove that was her den. Elisha stared down at the answering machine for a long moment.

Ordinarily, she would press the button that enabled her to retrieve her messages. But it had been a very long day. She didn't want to make it even longer. So rather than play the messages that she was way too tired to attempt to listen to and digest, she repeatedly pressed a button on the center of the receiver. The action yielded the telephone numbers that her caller ID had registered. She knew that if there was a message from Sinclair or from one of a handful of other writers who were considered hot properties she was going to have to answer it.

Like it or not, panic or a minor crisis would be involved, both of which she would have to handle because that was her job.

Scanning the numbers, she breathed a sigh of relief. From the looks of it, a total of three calls had come in while she was attending the book party. Two were labeled “out of area,” which, more than likely, meant they had either come from telemarketers or one of her credit-card companies, hoping to convince her that they were offering her a deal she couldn't refuse.

The one that came between the two “out of area” calls had an area code she was familiar with and a phone number she knew by heart.

Henry.

She knew for a fact that she had mentioned the book party tonight because she'd invited him to come along. Her younger brother must have forgotten. That was so like Henry. A thousand things on his mind and he could only keep track of nine hundred and fifty.

Henry and the girls were the only family she had, now that both her parents were gone. Her brother was undoubtedly calling to invite her over for dinner the way he did at least once a month. Ever since his wife, Rachel, had died. In the beginning, she'd invited Henry and the girls over to her apartment, but for her, cooking meant opening a frozen package and sticking it into the microwave. And Henry didn't particularly like eating in restaurants.

So they had begun taking meals at his place. Henry did the cooking. Henry did everything he set his mind to. He always had.

She was proud of the way he'd soldiered on these last five years, never missing a beat. Not that he had much choice in the matter, really. He had two daughters to raise, Andrea and Beth. Andrea was fifteen and Beth was ten. And both were a handful in their own way. Between seeing to their needs and his job, Henry was left with very little time to spend on self-pity.

Still, she knew other men might have folded under the stress. Not Henry. He overcame every obstacle. Her brother was one of the good ones and, although he was four years younger than she was, he was one of her heroes.

Not that she would ever tell him.

She looked at the urgent blinking light again and shook her head.

“Sorry, Henry, not tonight. I'm just too damn tired to listen.”

Because if she listened, she might feel compelled to return the call and then who knew what time she'd finally make it to bed. And she had to attend an eight o'clock meeting with the Japanese publisher that handled their reprints. The man wouldn't take it very well if she fell asleep in the middle of one of her own sentences, or, worse yet, in the middle of one of his.

“I'll give you a call tomorrow, Henry, I promise.” And then she paused, remembering. “Today, later today,” she amended. “I'll give you a call then.” Giving up all attempts at being lucid, she mumbled, “Whenever.”

Elisha yawned and her throat began to cramp up. All that talking, she thought, quickly massaging the area. Stifling another yawn, Elisha left the living room and made her way to the master suite located at the rear of the apartment. There was another room, just as large, located at the top of the short flight of stairs. It could have just as easily served as a master suite, but she'd opted to use the room as her office and tonight, she was glad she'd made that particular choice. If she'd had to face the stairs tonight, she knew she would have wound up sleeping on the sofa.

Making it into the suite, Elisha let her shoes slip from her fingers and shed her dress. She left it where it fell. Completely disregarding her panty hose, she crawled onto the bed.

With her last ounce of energy, she started to wrap the comforter around herself. She was asleep before she finished.

“H
i, Elisha, it's me, Henry. Didn't you get my message?”

Elisha pressed her lips together as her brother's voice on the other end of the line penetrated the wall of Monday-morning fog around her brain.

Stalling, she looked at her business phone as a multicolored ribbon of guilt dragged through her like the tail of a kite that refused to catch an updraft and soar. She'd finally gotten around to playing her brother's message the morning after the party, listening to it as she moved around the room, getting dressed and thinking about what needed to be done at work that day.

She'd forgotten ever hearing the message the second she'd stepped outside her apartment and locked the door.

That had been four days ago.

“Yes, I did.” She quickly followed up her admission with, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” before Henry could upbraid her.

Not that he actually ever would. Henry was the sweetest, most easygoing human being to ever traverse the earth. She couldn't remember a single instance when he'd even raised his voice, much less lost his temper and gotten angry. That just wasn't Henry.

The most he did was level a slightly reproving look in her general direction. That was it, just a look and not even an annoyed one. Even so, because it came from Henry, the closest being she'd ever known to merit sainthood, she was ready to run off and purchase seven hair shirts, to be worn simultaneously in an attempt to atone for whatever transgression she'd committed.

But she didn't have time to purchase any hair shirts today. The workday was only a matter of three hours old and it was already one for the books. One of those days when she couldn't draw a deep breath, much less two in succession, quick or otherwise. Back-to-back meetings, with an errant author who was going to be a month late with his already once rescheduled book sprinkled in for good measure.

Henry always gave her space and waited for his sister to say something more before he spoke himself. When she didn't immediately follow up her apology with a tentative date or anything remotely close to a new date, he felt free to continue with the reason for his call.

“All right,” he allowed patiently, “it's a little too late for you to come over for Sunday brunch, seeing how it's Monday. How about tomorrow?”

She glanced at her calendar and saw that it was buried beneath a three-ring binder stuffed to the gills with notes. But then, she really didn't need to look at the page. It was another day filled with meetings. “For brunch? I can't make it—”

“No, brunch would be a little hard for me, too. And the girls have school. I meant dinner.”

Elisha smiled to herself. Her brother's voice was in direct contrast to hers. She always sounded as if she'd just finished running a marathon, while his voice sounded as if he felt confident that he had all the time in the world. Each word he uttered was given the respect of clear enunciation and recognizable cadence. She didn't know how he did it, or how they could be related for that matter. But she was glad they were.

She did want to see him. She always enjoyed their visits. Quickly, she began to assess the situation.

There were several assorted piles on her desk. Manuscripts cohabited with incoming mail, several catalogs she'd brought from home in the vain hope of glancing through them during one of her so-called breaks, and three books by Albert Mann that she'd picked up God only knew when. The thought behind the last was to see whether or not the author might be a good addition to their prestigious stable. She'd heard that Mann wasn't happy with his present publishing house and now might be the time to begin wooing. If he was worth the effort.

She sighed. All these things, and others, contributed to making up an almost insurmountable wall around her, cutting her off from the world at large and any pleasure that wasn't somehow, directly or indirectly, attached to work.

Which meant that she was going to have to turn her brother down, much as she hated to.

“Tomorrow? Henry, I'm sorry, but I'm swamped. I really can't.”

“When do they let you come up for air?” There was no sarcasm in his voice. Henry wasn't capable of it. But he was protective and she knew he was only thinking of her when he asked the question.

“How does New Year's 2010 sound? You can be my date if you're not married again by then.”

Instead of a comeback or teasing banter, there was a long pause on the other end.

Damn, was this a bad day? Had she trod on his feelings again? Since Rachel had died, Henry had devoted himself almost exclusively to the girls and to his job. And to her when she could squeeze him in. Dating just wasn't something that entered into the picture, even when one of his well-meaning neighbors tried to set him up with someone. He politely but firmly turned them down, thanking them for the trouble they might have gone to on his account. He wasn't interested in looking for someone to share his life and his bedroom with.

They had that in common, Elisha thought, except that they had arrived here by different routes. He'd had the near-perfect marriage to the near-perfect woman and didn't want anything to detract from that memory. She, on the other hand, had had relationships so far removed from perfect they had a completely different area code. She was out of the game because she was tired of looking.

Her brother was a different matter. She was hoping that, in time, because he had so much to offer, Henry would find someone. Lord knew he deserved to achieve some measure of happiness on that level again, even if it wasn't completely perfect this time. Henry always seemed to bring out the best in everyone. She had no doubt that her brother could have married the Wicked Witch of the West and in no time at all the woman would have voluntarily transformed so that her personality rivaled that of the Good Witch of the North.

“No,” he told her quietly, “I can pretty much guarantee that I won't be married by then.”

There was something odd in his voice. A note of sadness that she hadn't heard coming from him in over five years now. Except when he spoke of Rachel.

Was he going through a bad patch?

Her ribbon of guilt grew into a sash. Maybe she could just call in sick tomorrow. The next moment, she vetoed the idea. If she called in sick, like as not, Rocky would turn up at her door after hours with a container of homemade soup from the deli that he frequented. And then he'd be annoyed because she'd lied to him.

Mentally she brushed aside the scenario. “Is something wrong, Henry?”

This time there was no pause, only assurance. Assurance that came so quickly, it didn't reassure her at all. “No, nothing's wrong.”

Something
was
wrong, she thought, concerned.

“Henry,” Elisha began, determined to coax her younger brother out of whatever stoic realm he had selflessly slipped into.

As quiet as she was animated, Henry shouldered every problem in silence. He had ever since he had been a small boy. She was certain that couldn't be healthy for him. More than that, she was afraid that someday he would explode, or implode or whatever the term for it was when you kept everything inside until there was no room for anything else.

The upshot in either case was that he'd be ripped apart. Definitely not something she was willing to risk. More than anything else, even though he was younger, Henry was her rock. He always had been. Henry was the one constant she was sure of, no matter what else went on around her.

But today being what it was, with fire drills and fires going off all around her, Elisha got no further than saying his name before the buzzer on her desk squawked loudly like a goose in heat, demanding her attention. Just the way everything else on her desk demanded her attention, she thought darkly.

Exasperated, edgy, she dragged her free hand through her hair. She felt as if her brain was the center of a taffy pull and it was being yanked in every conceivable direction, keeping her from focusing, from making progress in any direction at all. There was just too much work and not enough her.

One thing at a time, Lise. One thing at a time. Do what you can, as you can.

It was a mantra she silently recited to herself when she felt utterly overwhelmed by all the things she had to do.

She hated cutting her conversation with Henry short, but she needed to get going. The buzzer was to remind her about the meeting in the conference room that she was supposed to be attending in less than ten minutes. “Henry, my life is stuck in the fast-forward mode at the moment and I can't even access ‘play,' much less hit it, so I don't have time to be patient and try to get this out of you by subtle probing and questioning. I'm going to ask you one more time. Is anything wrong?”

This time, his voice sounded a little sunnier than it had a moment earlier. “Only that I don't get to see you as often as I'd like.”

She laughed dryly. “Now, why can't I get a guy to say that to me?”

There was a certain amount of give-and-take between them. There had been since they were both too young to cross the street alone. For the sake of the game, he played along. “I'm not exactly chopped liver, Lise.”

“You're not a guy,” she deadpanned. “You're a brother. That doesn't count.”

The laugh was short, but it brought a warm feeling around her heart. “Thanks a lot.”

He sounded better now, she decided, relieved. Probably whatever she thought she'd heard in her brother's voice was just a product of her own exhausted imagination. Henry was fine. Henry was always fine. It was the first axiom of her life.

The buzzer squawked again, louder if possible, despite the fact that there was no volume control on it. She frowned at it as if it were a living entity, subject to hurt feelings.

“Look, I've really gotta go, Henry. I promise I'll see you soon—at least before the next millennium. Give my love to the girls.”

And with that, she hung up. The buzzer was squawking for a third time. The rest of her life was calling.

It didn't occur to her until later that she hadn't made arrangements for dinner.