Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [35]
“Michael, I have to ask,” I blurted. “I’m sorry, but I have to. Are you going to go away again?”
Michael paused, and I felt my head filling with extreme pressure, as if my ears might pop. Then Michael took my hand again and smiled kindly.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Jane. I . . . I miss you already,” he said.
Thirty-nine
I HAD A FAINT SENSE that it was morning, and that I was waking up, and that something about my life had changed dramatically. Then I remembered Michael, and my eyes opened wide. Please, God, let it not have been just a dream, I begged silently.
Feeling fragile, like glass, I slowly turned my head toward my bedside table. There was my white gardenia, the one Michael had given me yesterday.
I touched the flower to make sure it was real — it was — and then I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. It hadn’t been a dream.
So this is how “happy” feels, I thought. The energy, the automatic smile. This is what it’s like to look forward to the day, to believe there could be good things coming. It was a new and different feeling.
Out in the kitchen, I poured myself a large glass of orange juice. My answering machine was blinking urgently at me, and I drank my juice and hit the Play button before it had a heart attack.
“Jane, it’s me. What can I say? I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I feel just awful about the car thing in Brooklyn. Call me and —”
Erase.
“Jane-Sweetie, I think it was a tad cavalier of you to skip lunch. I didn’t get to give you your kiss. And you know, Karl Friedkin is vitally important to —”
Erase.
“Jane-Sweetie, I was just thinking about that fourth-scene entrance in Thank Heaven. I don’t know what Hollywood hack you got to write this screenplay —”
Erase.
I didn’t bother with the other nine messages. I just pressed the Erase button.
I took a shower, letting it run colder than usual. The cold was invigorating, and I felt so alive, skin tingling, blood pumping. As I dried off, for once my eyes didn’t avoid the full-length mirror. You know, I wasn’t half-bad. My skin was fresh and rosy. My wet hair was thick and healthy. Was I overweight? Hell, no. I was voluptuous, with a woman’s curves. This is what a woman looks like, I told myself.
I slipped on pale purple silk panties and walked to the closet, already knowing that I wouldn’t be wearing any of my usual black skirts and shirts today.
I slipped on my favorite pair of soft, comfy, faded jeans. I pulled on a white blouse that I’d always liked. I hooked an old cowboy belt around my waist.
Now I was carefree and happy, comfortable in my own skin, for maybe the first time since I was eight years old.
Just before I left the apartment I held the gardenia to my face and smelled it.
Then I slipped on my new diamond ring and headed for the office.
Forty
“HERE ARE YOUR MESSAGES. Here is your coffee. And that jackhammer-like noise is the sound of your mother’s high heels coming down the hall.”
My secretary, MaryLouise, handed me a mug with a History Boys movie logo on it. I had loved the play and the movie, so there was hope for Thank Heaven, right?
“Mmm. Thank you. This is delicious,” I said, taking a big gulp of coffee.
“Good. I figure when they kick me out of here I can go work at a Starbucks.”
“Maybe both of us,” I muttered. “Baristas forever.”
I began going through the stack of messages. Not surprisingly, the vast majority were from Hugh, and his slimy agent, and his sleazy business manager. The three of them had managed to generate eleven separate calls. They could kiss my denim-clad butt.
“I didn’t even bother giving you the messages from — ” The door flew open in the middle of MaryLouise’s sentence. Vivienne was standing there in full fury.
“Your mother. And may I present her now.”
Vivienne stood with both hands on her size-two hips.
It took all my self-control not to say, “Are you ready for your close-up, Miss Desmond?”
First, she gave me my morning kiss.
Then, it started.
“It is almost