Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [38]
“Good,” Jane said. “What’s his name? He won’t tell me.”
“Michael,” answered Michael.
“Michael what?” Vivienne asked.
“Just Michael,” Jane said, and then she pushed the button to summon the elevator.
“Oh, like Sting or Madonna.”
“That’s right,” said Jane serenely. Michael could tell that Vivienne was burning for more information, but if Jane didn’t want to indulge her, he certainly wouldn’t.
“Ready for lunch?” Michael asked Jane.
“Starving.”
“Jane, you just got here,” said Vivienne. “We have meetings and phone calls — and this thing with Hugh is not settled.”
“Okay, bye,” Jane said sweetly, as if she hadn’t heard her.
The elevator doors whooshed open, and she and Michael stepped in.
As the doors closed, Michael said, “We almost didn’t make it out of there alive, Bonnie.”
“Almost, Clyde. But we did. Don’t look back. She’ll turn us into pillars of face powder.”
“I’ll try not to,” said Michael.
Forty-three
IF I COULD TAKE one experience in my life and make it last forever, I’d choose the moment that I saw Michael waiting for me in the reception area of my mother’s office.
Not seeing him at the St. Regis for the first time.
Not walking up Fifth Avenue with him.
Nope. It would be the moment at the office. Because that meant he was real. And it made everything else real: Yesterday at the St. Regis. Our museum field trip. The gardenia that he gave to me. It had all actually happened. Which probably meant there was a Santa Claus, an Easter Bunny, a George Clooney.
“Let’s get far away from here,” I said to Michael.
“Okay. Where would you like to go?”
“Paris. Except I have to be back for a two o’clock meeting.”
“Then Paris is probably out. Let’s grab a cab, see where it takes us.”
Michael snapped his fingers . . . and a cab stopped for us. Interesting.
“What was that?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Honestly, Jane, I don’t know. I’ve always been able to do it.”
Ten minutes later we were walking around the West Village. First we stopped at a favorite of ours from the old days, Li-Lac Chocolates, at its new location on Eighth Avenue. I was so happy that it was still around. We bought chocolate truffles. Michael said it was “for after lunch.” I told him that he couldn’t tell me what to do anymore, and I ate one before we’d even left the candy store. So did he.
“Copycat,” I said.
“The most sincere form of flattery.”
We walked to Hudson Street and went into a store that sold nothing but amazing, antique cast-iron banks, like the kind in which you put a coin in a dog’s mouth, then press a button, and the dog’s tongue flips the coin into a juggler’s hand.
“Jeez,” Michael said. “This bank costs nine hundred and ninety-five dollars.”
“Money’s no object,” I said grandly. “Would you like it?”
“Don’t go showing off, rich girl,” he said. But he looked pleased, and then right there in the middle of the store he pulled me into his arms and held me close, not speaking. At that instant, I knew exactly what I wanted out of life: this. This feeling, this happiness, this embrace.
We ate lunch in a delightful French restaurant that was called, simply, French Restaurant. Sitting there, eating chicken and pommes frites, drinking wine, we talked, and talked freely, easily, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Us. Being there together as man and woman. Or woman and whatever Michael was. An angel?
We had lifetimes to catch up on. I told Michael about my four years at Dartmouth, where I was the only person in the entire school who refused to ski. He laughed when I confessed that the week I graduated, I joined a religious cult. Weight Watchers.
Michael said, “You don’t need Weight Watchers, Jane. You look great. You’ve always looked great. Don’t you know that?”
“Honestly,” I said, “no. I’ve never known that.”
I actually didn’t tell Michael everything. Even though I told him all the best stories about what it was like to work for Vivienne, I didn’t mention the success of the stage play Thank Heaven. Or that we were going to start shooting a movie about a little girl and her imaginary friend. Who just happened to