Birthday Girls (13 page)

Maddie now realized that Abigail must definitely have hit menopause. It was the only answer that made any sense. She tried to sound compassionate as she asked, “Have you seen a gynecologist?”

Abigail whipped around. “Don’t blame my hormones, Maddie. I’ve hated every minute of my life for years. Most of all, I hate the damn ‘empire’ I worked so hard to create. Now I’m going to do something about it.”

It was difficult to believe that Abigail was serious. She had done so much with her life, had touched so many people. How would millions of women react without Abigail Hardy in their kitchens each week? How would Sophie react? Maddie wanted to ask if there would be reruns, but somehow that didn’t seem appropriate. Still, the thought of no longer having to endure the dinner-of-the-week was not unappealing.

Kris stood and moved over to Abigail. “I say go for it, girl. What the hell, we only live once.”

“Thanks, Kris. I knew I could count on you.”

Maddie wondered what Betty Ann would have said, in her cherub-like, childlike way. “Maybe you should take it a step at a time,” she replied, trying to sound encouraging. “Start with a separation from Edmund. Cut down on your work schedule. Travel. Something less … drastic.” Her words sounded thin. She traced the curves of the paisley brocade on the sofa.

“I don’t think you get it, Maddie. This isn’t like a diet.
I’m not trying to wean myself off chocolate. If I’m going to do this, I’ve got to do it. Sever the ties. All of them.”

“Including divorce?” Maddie asked.

“Sorry, Maddie,” Kris said. “Sometimes that’s what it takes to move on.”

But Abigail was shaking her head. “No. I’m not going to get a divorce.”

“What then?” Maddie asked.

“I’m going to disappear. And you are going to help me fake my death.”

Kris whistled. “Holy shit, you’re serious.”

Abigail raised her chin. “Very.”

“You can’t do that,” Maddie protested. “You can’t just drop off the face of the earth and make people think you’re … dead.”

“It’s the only way. My life is too complicated. Untangling the business alone would be a nightmare. And it could take years.”

It hadn’t taken years for Parker to “untangle” Maddie from
Our World
. A few swipes of the pen on the dotted line and—presto—she was out. Of course, the magazine had still been in its infancy. Or course, there had been no profits to make it look valuable. Of course, Maddie had been stupid.

“You two are the only ones I can trust,” Abigail continued. “No one but the three of us can know the truth. Maddie gets her ex-husband, Kris gets her baby, and I get … out. It’s all or nothing. Do we have a deal?”

Maddie chanced a glance at Kris. Kris grinned back at her. So Abigail
had
had an agenda. Now they knew. “When do you plan to do this?”

“Not until your wishes have come true. Unless, of course, either of you changes her mind. I, for one, won’t.”

The irony did not escape Maddie. Here she was, trying to get her life back, and here Abigail was, trying to throw
hers away. As for Kris, well, who knew about Kris. Next week she’d probably be off in Bora Bora and forget the whole thing.

“So,” Kris asked, “where do we start?”

“Maddie made her wish first, so let’s begin with her.”

“That should be easy,” Kris said. “Men are my speciality.”

Folding her hands in her lap, Maddie wondered which one of them was the craziest.

By the time
a second bottle of Cristal was gone, a plan for Maddie was under way.

“Well start with your looks,” Kris said. “Off goes the hair.”

“But Parker likes my hair long.”

“Maybe he did twenty years ago, but, girl, you look like a leftover hippie.”

“And your clothes,” Abigail added. “Dear God, Maddie, where do you find those clothes? I’ll take you shopping. Of course, you’ll want to lose some weight, too. Firm up those thighs. Get rid of that stomach.”

She knew that the next thing Abigail would say was the dreaded word “exercise.”

“Andrew will help get you started.” Andrew, she added, had been her personal trainer for years. She also mentioned that Maddie’s makeover would be her treat. “What’s money if you can’t blow it on your friends?”

“Oh, Abigail, I don’t know …”

“It’s all about attitude, Maddie,” Kris said. “You’ve got to feel the part to play the part. Make him believe you’re something worth having.”

“I can’t compete with Sharlene. She’s twenty-nine.”

“But she doesn’t have your smarts. Or your sons. Don’t forget them. They’re your ace in the hole.”

“But she’s his wife!”

Kris shrugged. “I’ve never known that to be a problem.”

They spent
the next morning perusing the Manhattan Yellow Pages for sperm banks, as casually as if they were searching for theater tickets or take-out Chinese.

Huddled in the solarium over pots of coffee, croissants, and Abigail’s overflowing ashtray, they bypassed the full-page ads that boasted “in and out” service and took Visa and American Express.

“I might as well go to England and have myself cloned,” Kris said.

“Maybe you should,” Abigail answered. “At least you’d be sure of what you’re getting.”

They decided that one of them would go with Kris for moral support. Maddie hoped it didn’t have to be her. She withheld a comment that it might be better for Kris to find a man of her own, not the sperm of some unknown donor. She wanted to ask “What about love?” She wanted to ask about family values. But she held her tongue, not wanting to piss them off. After all, they were going to help her win Parker back. They had promised.

The last
, the most difficult, was Abigail.

“The first thing you’ll need is a new identity,” Kris said.

“How’s she going to do that?” Maddie asked. “Her face is known all over the world.”

“Leave it to me,” Kris added. But she did not want to elaborate on her plan.

Devon
and Claire lived on the opposite side of Central Park from Kris—the west side. Sunday afternoon, Kris
arrived at their one-hundred-year-old townhouse armed with fat, chocolate-chunk cookies and a tub of double-fudge ice cream. Food was always a good icebreaker with her agent, and this was one adventure Kris couldn’t begin without him.

Claire greeted her at the door with a warm smile, a hug, and “What a surprise!” Leading Kris down the narrow hallway out to the patio, she chastised her all the way. “We don’t see enough of you,” Claire scolded. “The kids are growing up so fast while their godmother is traipsing all over the world.”

“I know, I know,” Kris said. “Where are they?”

“Kristine is at a birthday party—can you believe she’s almost ten? Tyronne is at his friend’s working on their science project, and Jarrod is playing basketball.” As Claire said Jarrod’s name she looked back at Kris and widened her eyes, which told her she
hoped
Jarrod was playing basketball. She opened the patio door and gestured toward Devon. “He’s all yours.”

“My God,” Devon said as he set down the
Times
. “I didn’t think you surfaced on Sundays.”

“Be nice,” Kris said, handing the ice cream to Claire and dropping the cookies on the white wrought-iron table. “I brought food.” She settled on the floral-print cushion of a willow chair and looked around the patio. The late afternoon sun warmed the concrete; the scent of autumn crispness was in the air. The muted sounds of traffic and life—city sounds—floated over the tall wood fence that shielded them from the world.

“I’ll get coffee,” Claire said. “How about hazelnut?”

“Great,” Kris said with a nod, and Claire, the perfect hostess, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, disappeared. Kris wondered what kind of mother she herself would be … if she would have a bright, fun kid like Kristine or Tyronne, or if she would end up with a troublesome one like Jarrod.

“So,” Devon interrupted her thoughts, “what’s the big favor?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You wouldn’t drop by—announced or otherwise—unless something big was up. Unless you needed something.”

Kris crossed her legs and looked down at the hem of her jeans. It was always so hard to find size 2’s that reached below her ankle—thankfully, the short brown suede boots took the curse off her too-long legs. “That’s my Devon. Right to the point.”

“So? What’s up?”

She tipped back her head and let the sun warm her cheeks. “Nothing special. I have a new idea for the next book and I need to do some research.”

“Don’t tell me. Lexi Marks meets a literary agent.”

Kris laughed. “No offense, Devon, but I’m afraid your world is not exciting enough for Ms. Marks.”

Claire returned with a mug of steaming coffee. “Is this business, or may I join you?”

Devon reached out and patted her arm. “Business first, okay, honey?”

“Only if you don’t let Kris get away. I want her to see what I’ve done with the media room.”

“The media room?” Kris asked.

Devon laughed. “The den of the nineties. Kids today call it a media room.”

Kris tried to smile.
Well
, she thought,
that’s one thing I suppose I’ll learn if I have a kid … if it’s at all possible
.

Claire went back inside and left Kris and Devon alone. “So what’s the idea?”

“I haven’t worked it through yet. But I need to know how it can work. I want a character to disappear. Change her identity. New name. New credentials. That sort of thing.”

“Jesus, Kris, that’s been done a thousand times.”

“Not by Kris Kensington.”

“Still, it’s nothing new.”

She turned her chair to face him. “I’ve already said I haven’t worked it through yet. But I need to talk with someone who can tell me how it’s done.”

Devon reached into the bag and pulled out a cookie. “How would I know?”

“You probably wouldn’t. But I thought with your old contacts …”

“You mean the guys from the old neighborhood?”

Kris smiled. It was no secret that unlike Kris, Devon had been raised in the tenements of Harlem, that Devon knew what was what and who was who: knew then, knew now. For the most part, his contacts weren’t merely friends. They were his family—his
extended
family, as he was to her.

“Can you help me?”

The lines on his brow deepened. Slowly he chewed. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I don’t like the idea, Kris. I don’t think it will work.”

“Trust me.”

“You can’t afford another
Escape
to
Ellis Island
.”

Kris winced.
Escape
to
Ellis Island
had been the first book of hers that had bombed. Unfortunately, the publisher had given her a six-figure advance. Unfortunately, the publisher did not do likewise on the book that followed. And the huge drop in sales had reflected it. It had taken three more books—and four more years—for Kris to prove her bestseller talents again. Equally unfortunate was that
Ellis Island
had been all her idea, one that Devon had not liked. “Too dark,” he’d said; “not uplifting.” Apparently her readers agreed. But Kris had not felt like being “uplifting” when she was working on the manuscript. Her mother had died the summer before, and her father
the following spring. If anything had been dark, it had been Kris’s heart. Unfortunately, it had come through in her work.

But
Ellis Island
was then and this was now. And this wasn’t about unmarketable ideas. It was about Abigail, though Devon would never know. She straightened in the chair and looked squarely into his eyes.

“I’m sure I could find another agent to help.” She steadied her chin, she steadied her gaze, to let him know she wasn’t kidding.

“It’s that important?”

“Like I said. Trust me.”

Devon sighed. “Sometimes I wonder how I ever got myself hooked up with you.” He took another cookie. “Okay. No promises, but I’ll do my best. I have a friend who does some work for the FBI. The witness protection program.”

Her insides tingled. “No shit.”

“No shit. Now have a cookie, or I’ll eat them all along with my words.”

She only
stayed for an hour. After Kris left, Devon remained on the patio, wondering what she was up to this time. He didn’t believe for a minute that she wanted to have a character disappear.

Kris had done enough research in her life—by meeting people, studying books, and simply through observation—that she could have figured out what she claimed to need without his help.
No
, Devon thought.
Kris is definitely up to something
.

He sighed and lit a fat cigar—the kind that Claire would never allow him to smoke in the house. Claire—his wife, his mate. He wondered if Claire was ever suspicious about Kris and him, if she ever doubted their relationship of
business-not-pleasure. Then he shifted uncomfortably on the flowered cushion, puffed a long, rich puff, and wondered if Kris had any idea what it was like for him.

Kris had
expected that Mo Gilbert operated on the streets, that she’d find him sequestered in the rear booth of a dark, seedy bar on 110th Street. She did not expect that he would have an office suite beyond the huge waterfall off the marble atrium in the Fifth Avenue building where she lived. She also did not expect that Mo Gilbert, Devon’s long-time friend, would be white.

But the white-haired man was as white as they come—as was the entire decor of his office in which she now sat on Monday morning while he talked on the phone, while she tried to avert her eyes from his face, which was not only white but also good-looking.

She had not called Abigail to tell her about the meeting. She’d decided to wait and see first.
Patience
, she thought now,
is such an insufferable virtue
.

She crossed her legs and wondered if Mo Gilbert had a wife, and what it would take to get him to help her make Abigail’s wish come true.

Finally he hung up.

“Ms. Kensington,” he said, folding his hands on the glass top of the desk. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

Kris watched his gaze drift to her legs. She smiled, glad she had worn the black St. John knit dress that some people might think needed a couple of extra inches in length. Some people, perhaps, like Abigail.