Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [1]
The man was wearing a gray-and-blue-checked suit; the woman, a bright pink jacket with a green pleated skirt.
“Husband and wife from North Carolina,” Michael rattled off easily. “Wealthy. Own a chain of tobacco shops. He’s here on business. She came to do some shopping. Now he’s telling her that he wants a divorce.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down at the table. I let out a deep breath, then took another spoonful of sundae and let the rich flavors unfold in my mouth. “Yeah, I guess everyone gets divorced.”
Michael bit his lip. “Oh. Wait, Jane. I got it all wrong. He’s not asking for a divorce. He’s telling her that he has a surprise — he’s made arrangements for them to go on a cruise. To Europe on the QE2. It’s their second honeymoon.”
“That’s a much better story,” I said, smiling. “You get a point. Excellent.”
I looked down at my plate and saw that somehow my ice cream sundae had completely vanished. As it always did.
Michael looked around the room dramatically. “Here’s one you won’t get,” he said.
He pointed to a man and a woman just two tables away.
I looked over.
The woman was about forty years old, well dressed, and stunningly pretty. You might have taken her for a movie actress. She wore a bright red designer dress and matching shoes and had a big black pocketbook. Everything about her said, Look at me!
The man she was with was younger, pale, and very thin. He was wearing a blue blazer and a patterned silk ascot, which I don’t think anyone was wearing even back then. He waved his arms enthusiastically as he spoke.
“That’s not funny,” I said, but I couldn’t help grinning and rolling my eyes.
Because, of course, the couple was my mother, Vivienne Margaux, the famous Broadway producer, and that year’s celebrity hairdresser, Jason. Jason, the hothouse flower, who didn’t have time for a last name.
I looked over at them again. One thing was for sure: My mom was beautiful enough to be an actress herself. Once, when I asked her why she hadn’t become one, she said, “Honey, I don’t want to ride the train. I want to drive the train.”
Every Sunday afternoon when Michael and I had dessert at the St. Regis, my mother and a friend had dessert and coffee there too. That way she could gossip or complain or conduct business but still keep an eye on me, without actually having to be with me.
After the St. Regis, we would cap off our Sundays at Tiffany’s. My mother loved diamonds, wore them everywhere, collected them the way other people collect crystal unicorns, or those weird ceramic Japanese cats with the one paw in the air.
Of course I was okay, those Sundays, because I had Michael for company. Michael, who was my best friend in the world, maybe my only friend, when I was eight years old.
My imaginary friend.
Two
I SNUGGLED CLOSER to Michael at our table. “Want to know something?” I asked. “It’s kind of a bummer.”
“What?” he asked.
“I think I know what my mother and Jason are talking about. It’s Howard. I think Vivienne’s tired of him. Out with the old, in with the new.”
Howard was my stepfather, my mother’s third husband. The third one I knew about, anyway.
Her first husband had been a tennis pro from Palm Beach. He’d lasted only a year.
Then had come Kenneth, my father. He’d done better than the tennis pro, lasting three years. He was really sweet, and I loved him, but he traveled a lot for business. Sometimes I felt as if he forgot about me. I’d heard my mother tell Jason that he’d been “spineless.” She didn’t know I’d overheard. She’d said, “He was a good-looking jellyfish of a man who will never amount to anything.”
Howard had been around for two years now. He never traveled on business and didn’t seem to have a job, other than helping Vivienne. He massaged her feet when she was tired, checked that her food was salt-free, and made sure that our car and driver were absolutely always on time.
“Why do you think that?” Michael asked.
“Little things,” I said. “Like Vivienne