Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [71]
Sixteen TO BE HONEST, candid, whatever, it wouldn’t have been the first time something like this had happened to Michael, mostly on his sabbaticals, but sometimes during work stints as well. After all, he was able to make choices, he had a life, and he wasn’t impervious to beauty. What he said to Claire was “Actually, I live right across the hall.” Michael’s place was a sublet, fairly tidy and nicely furnished, the apartment of an anthropology professor at NYU who was in Turkey for the semester. Michael had a knack for finding great apartments, another perk of the job. “Your turn to talk,” Claire said, curling up on the sofa. She tucked her long legs under her and didn’t pull her skirt down to cover her knees. She patted the cushion next to her. “Come. Sit. Tell me everything.” Michael sat, and Claire traced one finger down his cheek. “Who is she? What happened? Why are you available? Are you?” Michael laughed, mostly at himself. “Funny you should ask. There was someone, sort of. I los
Seventeen AT 7:15 AM, I, the boss’s daughter, was the very first one in at ViMar Productions (with the exception of the mail boy, a tap-dancing British teenager, who I think was actually living under the sorting table in the mail room). It was 4:00 in the morning in Los Angeles, so I could send only e-mail and voicemail there. But it was noon in London, and that meant I could connect with Carla Crawley, the production head of the London company of Thank Heaven. The play was an even bigger hit in London than it had been in New York. The sets, the actors, everything was better quality over there. “Jane, I’m so glad you called. We’re having a slight problem. Seems that Jeffrey doesn’t like the new girl we’ve cast.” Jeffrey was Jeffrey Anderson, the British heartthrob who was playing Michael. “Jeffrey says he doesn’t relate as well to this new little girl. But believe me, Jane, the girl is brilliant, a real heart-tugger. Best of all, she’s eleven years old, but looks eight, so she can talk
Eighteen AT 9:00 SHARP, my personal assistant, MaryLouise, showed up at the office. MaryLouise: totally honest, totally sarcastic, with the toughest, thickest Bronx accent this side of the Throgs Neck Bridge. “Morning, Janey,” she said as she dumped a pile of mail and phone messages on my conference table. “You get Employee of the Month again.” “Morning,” I said. “I know. I am totally pathetic, aren’t I? Please don’t answer that.” I started going through the phone messages, placing the “fires — must be put out” in one stack, the “smoldering — keep an eye on” situations in another stack, and finally the “call if you feel a need to punish yourself” slips in another stack. “By the way, the lights aren’t on yet in Godzilla’s office.” MaryLouise cracked her gum loudly. “You know Vivienne gets her hair touched up at Frédéric Fekkai on Tuesday mornings.” “You mean that neon yellow with pink undertones isn’t natural?” MaryLouise snorted. “You need coffee?” Before I could answer, I heard two un
Nineteen MICHAEL HAD NEVER done anything like this — not even close — but that morning he’d trailed Jane at a safe, non-nutjob distance as she walked from her apartment to an office building on West 57th Street. He wasn’t sure what he was doing; he knew only that he felt compelled to do it. On 57th Street, he immediately recognized the building as the place where Vivienne had housed her production company, and apparently still did. Oh, Jane, don’t go in there! Not into the lair of the Wicked Witch of the West Side! She’ll trap you with her dark arts! But in Jane went. And then, against his better judgment, so did Michael. What are you doing? he thought, and he nearly said it out loud. This is the time to walk away. Right now, right here.