Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [13]
So that pretty much convinced me.
As the movers were taking my Biedermeier dresser out the door, Vivienne had admitted a partial — and only a partial — defeat. “We’ll try it for a few months, Jane-Sweetie. And when it doesn’t work out, you can sublet it and come back.”
No matter how much I might come to hate my new digs, I would not be moving back. Not even if I cried myself to sleep in my lonely pillow every night. It would still be my pillow in my apartment, and no one would be walking in on me to ask which earrings went with what outfit.
Vivienne had then decided to make the best of it, in her own way. When I was away on a two-week business trip, she had completely redecorated my new place. I came back to my private little haven to find that my bedroom and living room were white on white, just like hers. The kitchen, which I used exclusively for reheating take-out food, was equipped like a restaurant: professional stove, warming ovens, two dishwashers, the glass-door Sub-Zero refrigerator with the pretty display lighting. There was a lone container of fat-free yogurt showing through the glass.
I’d been too overwhelmed to undecorate or redecorate the redecoration. But I had managed to add my own touch: a photo of my mother, my father, and me, when I was very small. We were in Greece, standing at the foot of the Parthenon, and we were actually smiling. Had we ever really been that happy as a family, even for that one day? Even for an instant? I liked to believe that we were.
So I’d hung the photograph in the front hall. My mother had spotted it immediately on her next visit. She’d sniffed and said, “If I give you one of my lesser Picasso drawings, would you consider replacing that sentimental trash?”
Every time I came home and looked at that photo, I smiled.
But not tonight.
A little tight from the drinks at Babbo, hurt because of Hugh’s continuing thoughtlessness, and guilty about eating too much, I switched on the hallway light and looked at that happy family at the Parthenon. But for some reason, it didn’t make me feel any better.
The answering machine in my bedroom told me I had three new messages.
I pressed the Play button. Come on, Hugh. Redeem yourself. Tell me you’re in the hospital. Cheer me up.
“Jane-Sweetie. Where on earth are you? Are you there . . . listening? Pick up, darling. Come on, pick up. I just had the most brilliant thought —”
I pressed Erase and moved on to the next message.
“This is a reminder from The Week magazine. Your complimentary six-month subscription —”
Erase again.
One last message. It was my old college roommate.
“Jane, it’s Colleen. Are you sitting?”
I sat on the edge of my bed and eased my shoes off.
“Okay, here’s the rather unexpected news. I’m getting married. After Dwight and I divorced, I thought I would never meet anybody else, or want to. But Ben is great. Honestly. Cross my heart! Wait till you meet him. Never been married, works as a lawyer here in Chicago. The wedding is September twelfth, and you have to be a bridesmaid. I’ll try you again tomorrow. Hope everything’s going okay with you, too. I love you, Jane. Oh yeah — I’m writing short stories again too. Yippee! Hope you’re well.”
I was happy for Colleen, I really was. All she’d ever wanted was to write fiction and raise a family, and now she was getting another chance at both. Yippee, indeed. I was happy for her. Really. Mostly.
I walked into the bathroom and took off my eye shadow and mascara with those little “non-oily hypo-allergenic” eye pads. I washed my face with Caswell-Massey almond soap. (“If it was good enough for Jackie Kennedy,” my mother had told me, “it’s good enough for you.”)
Then I climbed into bed and clicked on my laptop. I began making contract notes for my movie. I would forward them to Vivienne’s attorney tonight, and then he could draft a formal legal proposal to send to Karl Friedkin.
An hour later, I shut off the computer. I was too tired to think straight and