The Long Good Boy (15 page)

I heard Betty bark.

“I mean, think about it. The strength of a man and the determination of a woman.”

I heard a huge crash coming from upstairs.

“Why are they there?” he asked. “What's up?”

I looked toward the stairs and wondered that myself.

“They stopped by to give me some advice, about the job. No big deal.”

“Be careful, Rachel. No matter what they say, these women, they don't know dick about anything. They did, they wouldn't be leading the lives they do.”

“Right you are.” I thought dick was
exactly
what they knew, but I didn't feel like arguing over semantics when I had guests waiting.

“Listen, Rach. I have some bad news. I spoke to the boys today, and they really want me out there for Thanksgiving. I know we talked about spending it together, but—”

“No, no, it's okay. Hey, they're kids. They miss their dad.” I picked up the empty wine bottle, held it over my glass, and gave it a shake. “Don't give it a second thought.”

Another crash, a smaller one this time, as if someone had thrown a shoe and the other party had failed to catch it. Theirs or mine? I wondered.

“I can always spend the holiday with my girlfriends,” I said into the phone. Of course, at the time, it was just a private joke. I had no idea that what I was saying would turn out to be the naked truth.

“I've got to go,” he said. “I just pulled into my client's driveway, and she's standing in the doorway. I'll call you as soon as I'm finished here. Just be careful.”

“Promise,” I whispered, putting down the phone and heading upstairs to where the laughter was.

18

It's for a Date, I Confessed

For the second day in a row, I was on the main floor at Saks Fifth Avenue, pretending to select a handbag because the leather goods department offered me a decent view of the perfume counter. Yesterday I'd chosen a tiny lime green Prada bag, something I definitely couldn't afford and would have absolutely no use for were it given to me. What did women put in these mini bags—what my mother's mother used to call “mad money” and a set of house keys? You couldn't get your cell phone in here, your PalmPilot, or even some makeup for a quick touch-up, and the only way you could have an extra tampon with you is if you were willing to let the whole world see it bulging out of your fifteen-hundred-dollar purse.

There'd been a work number for Frances Ann Mulrooney in her husband's file, and when I'd called, I knew I'd gotten lucky this one time. She worked at Saks, in the perfume department. No, they wouldn't call her to the phone unless it was an emergency, but yes, they'd take a message. I declined to leave one. They declined to mention she had Wednesdays off. At least, that's what I was hoping, that she hadn't been here all day because it was her day off. If she was down with the flu, this case was going to take even longer to solve, and my clients were getting impatient.

I would have been happy to take my chances with her imported virus, were that the case, had I only been able to think of a plausible story that would get me into her apartment. I couldn't. But I did have one prepared for Saks, and if I had to say so myself, it was a doozy. I was hoping she'd buy it; I really needed to be able to offer my clients some actual facts when I met them later in the day.

I was examining something more sporty and lots cheaper than the little green Prada bag this time, but still more than I'd spend. In fact, I thought, unzipping the Coach bucket, what was wrong with pockets? Sure, your stuff made unsightly bulges in all the wrong places, but that seemed a small price to pay compared to the price of a handbag at Saks, three-seventy-five for the one in my hand. But then there was a reason to check out the Chanel display, and my handbag shopping came prematurely to a halt.

I walked across the aisle and stood opposite her, waiting for her to notice me, the only saleslady I'd seen old enough to be Mulrooney's wife, her little brass name tag telling me I'd guessed correctly. She was a fair-skinned redhead, her large body packed so tightly into the staid black dress she wore and the foundation garment beneath it that she looked sausage-like. I couldn't see her legs, but I expected if I did, I'd see support hose and nun's shoes.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her smile changing nothing but her mouth.

“I don't know,” I told her, already in my Improv 101 mode. “I was thinking …” I lowered my eyes.

“Of purchasing a scent?” she inquired. Her broad hand still held the bottle of perfume she'd been trying to put away, the nails short, neat, and shellacked with one of those clear polishes that just make them shine. Her wedding band, which probably hadn't been off since it had been placed on her hand some twenty years earlier, was a plain gold dome with a patina of scratches. Perhaps it had been passed down a generation or two.

“Yes. I was thinking of purchasing a scent.” Eyes still down.

“Do you have a brand you prefer, something you usually wear, or will it be something new this time?” A slight lilt, as if she'd come over from the old country when she was still a girl.

I sighed. “It's for a date,” I confessed, leaning ever so slightly forward. “My first.”

“Well, surely you—”

I lifted my left hand and wiped at my right eye with my fingers, so that she could see my wedding band.

“I mean, my first since—”

“Oh, I
am
sorry.”

“It's not that long, but some of my friends …” I shrugged. “Well, this one friend, she said she knows this really nice man, but I don't feel ready. I don't even know what people wear now, I mean, dating. I …”

I looked up, into her green eyes, displaying my strongest talent, lying to decent human beings who are going about their lives honestly and would never suspect such treachery from a perfectly normal-looking stranger.

“Well, scent is the ideal place to start.” She patted my hand quickly and respectfully. “It's a real confidence booster.” She reached under the glass counter, put the bottle she was holding down, and picked up another. “Chanel Number Five. You can't beat it in an emergency like this.” Her smile was professional, like her outfit, but I was starting to see something else, something that encouraged me to rush even more quickly down the road to hell. She opened the bottle, tipped it enough to wet her finger, then ran her finger along the back of her other hand, offering me that hand to smell.

“It's lovely.”

She smiled. “It's not for nothing that it stays so popular. Do you want to try it on your hand? Your own body chemistry will alter the scent of any perfume, though I've never met anyone who couldn't wear Chanel, not a single soul.”

“What on earth should I wear?”

She looked stunned, then perplexed. I wondered if I'd gone too fast.

“Oh, well, there are so many designers represented here. I'm sure someone upstairs could help you with that.”

“I'm terrified.”

Frances touched my arm, and this time she let her hand stay for just a moment longer. “I know,” she said. She looked around, then back at me. “It's difficult.”

“It was very sudden. I mean, it was unexpected. There was no preparation, and I …”

She nodded.

“Do you have anyone to talk to? Anyone at all?”

I shook my head. “My friends, well, they mean well. But they don't know what it's like, so they don't really know what to say. And it seems to me, they don't want to hear anything, either. It just makes them frightened to realize that something so terrible could happen to anyone. One moment you're a have, the next a have-not.”

“I lost my Patrick recently,” she said.

“Oh, I'm so sorry. Now look what I've gone and done. I shouldn't have …” I looked down at my hands, both flat on the glass of the counter. “This is so inappropriate. I can't apologize enough. I'm usually in better control, but you're so easy to talk to that …”

“Well, and how were you to know that you'd found someone else who'd had the same misfortune? What are the chances?”

“Still, I'm so sorry I—”

Frances interrupted. “I go to this group, other women who have also …” She reached into her pocket and took out a white handkerchief with lace trim, but she didn't use it. She only held it tightly in her hand. “Other women in the same boat, as we say,” sounding now as if she'd just gotten off one.

“And it helps?”

“That and the job. Without this, I don't know where I'd be.” She looked around again and took out another perfume for me to try. “Are you working?”

I shook my head. “There was a little money, some insurance, but I absolutely need to find a job. I feel totally foolish for something else now.” I pointed to the bottle of Chanel. “I'm sure I can't afford …”

Frances leaned forward. “Don't you worry about the purchase.”

“But now I've wasted your time,” I said.

“And do you think that everyone who stops by this counter buys a bottle of Chanel? Don't you give that a second thought. But the job, think about that, that's essential. The worst thing you can do is stay at home. The very worst.”

“Might there be anything here?”

Frances nodded. She picked up a little pad and wrote down a woman's name, and where the personnel office was, tearing off the page, folding it in half, and handing it to me.

“They're hiring now for Christmas. It's temporary, of course, and it might even be part-time, but if you do well, there's always a chance for something permanent after the season. There's always a lot of movement among the younger employees.”

“I don't know how to thank you.”

“Never mind that. It'll do you a world of good.”

I insisted on buying the smallest bottle of Chanel toilet water—an unfortunate description, but as Frances Ann said, it would give me confidence for my interview as well as my date. I promised I'd take her to lunch if I got a position at Saks, the only truthful thing I'd said to her so far. Her cheeks flushed a lovely pink. She told me she'd like that. Then she was all businesslike ringing up the sale, except for the part where she let her hand touch mine one last time when she handed me my change.

“I hope it all works out for you,” she whispered, picking up the sample I'd tried and returning it to the cabinet below. I thanked her again and headed for the elevators.

19

She Wants Those, and I Want These

I got to Jeffrey early and started browsing, wondering what LaDonna could have been thinking, asking me to meet her here so that she could outfit me for the stroll. I poked inside a red leather jacket, trying to find the price tag, doubling what I thought it would be and still being off by half. How would I possibly have any money left for drugs if I paid these prices?

I was in the shoe department, holding a little number made of two thin snakeskin straps, a feather, a thin sole, and a heel the height of the twin towers, when I heard LaDonna entering the store, her voice so loud that I wasn't the only one who turned to stare. To make things worse, when she spotted me from the entranceway, she gave a center-stage wave and a loud yoo-hoo. Now everyone turned to stare at me. I couldn't believe the number of people there to do it. With tiny leather skirts at eleven hundred dollars and shoes running five hundred and up, you'd think the place would be empty. Instead, it looked like Toys R Us two days before Christmas.

“Oh,” she said, hand on her fake chests, “those are divine. Have you tried them on yet?”

“Please.” I showed her the price tag.

“Never mind all that. I just need to know your size.”

I screwed up my mouth to ask why, but got yanked by the arm instead and shoved onto a backless padded leather bench so that I could slip on the little number now in her hand. LaDonna was feeling no pain.

“I can't walk in shoes like that,” I complained.

LaDonna flapped her hand at me. “You learn.”

“Where are Chi Chi and Jasmine?”

“You just pay attention to what's in front of your nose, Miss Thing. Now, which of those there
could
you walk in? And don't go picking out your usual.” She used the snakeskin shoe as if it were a pointer, aiming it at me, and then over her shoulder at God knows what. “No one's going to buy you're real, girl, you wearing jeans and Reeboks, one of your boyfriend's sweaters, and that long sheepskin coat covers all your ass-ets, no one can see what they're about to purchase.”

I smiled and pointed to a pair of red platform ankle straps. I always wanted to try on a pair anyway. Suddenly, I felt walking wouldn't be a problem after all. Hell, I had to, I could do a triathlon in them. Having just been employed by Saks Fifth Avenue to sell socks through the holiday season, part-time, was making me feel as high as LaDonna apparently was.

“Guess what?”

LaDonna, sitting next to me, her long legs crossed, leaned closer.

“I found Mulrooney's wife. I made contact with her.”

LaDonna looked as if she were going to speak, then changed her mind, holding up her huge paw and curling her pointer at the young clerk, a cute young guy in a pristine white shirt, his dark hair gelled so that it looked wet.

“We needs our feets measured up,” she told him, her mind on the task at hand. “She wants those,” she said, pointing to the red ones, “and I want these.” She elevated the strappy one with the feather.

I turned out to be an eight. Still. And LaDonna was practically off the scale. The clerk apologized when he came back, handing me the platform number and saying he was so sorry, but he didn't have the snakeskin number in LaDonna's size. Would she like, perhaps, to see something else? He had, in fact, a box with him, one big enough you could bury a dwarf in it, assuming you had one you needed to bury. He said he'd found something for her, something in lizard. Lizard's cutting edge, he told her. It's very now. Could she use green? he wondered.