Hex and the Single Girl (23 page)

“What a coincidence!” said Emma.

“I’ve had these images in my head for days,” said William. “I’ve spent most of today painting this one.” He held up the red picture of Daphne as a flame. “Do you know who the woman is in this picture?”

“A model?” she asked.

“It’s Daphne Wittfield. The woman I just hired to do the advertising for ArtSpeak.”

“She must be a friend of Victor’s.”

“Victor, who is, according to Ann, a close friend of yours.”

“Another coincidence!” said Emma.

“Explain to me how a photograph dated seven days ago could be the exact image that popped into my head three days ago. I thought this image belonged to me.”

“Do images belong to anyone, really?” asked Emma rhetorically.

“Yes. They do,” said William. “These belong to Victor Armour. They have his sticker on them. What I want to know is: Why do you have prints? How did the pictures get into my head? And what do you and Daphne Wittfield have to do with each other?”

Feeling rather foolish now in her nightgown, Emma opened her mouth to lie and paused. She’d been lying and hiding and disguising herself for their entire relationship. If they were to go forward—and Emma put herself out on the thin limb of admitting she wanted that—William had to know everything about her. The telegraphopathy, The Good Witch, Inc. Her connection to Daphne.

So Emma told him. She started at the top, and kept going until she’d hit bottom. Throughout the telling, William listened, asking relevant questions, showing nary a hint of anger or betrayal or hurt.

When Emma finished, she said, “That’s it. The truth. No more lies between us.”

“Daphne said she was in love with me?” he asked. “I’m shocked to hear it.”

“I only take on clients with the purest intentions.”

“Oh, her intentions were pure,” said William. “But they weren’t about love. Fifteen thousand is a drop in the bucket of the ArtSpeak ad budget. You say she art-directed these shots?”

“Victor and Daphne collaborated.”

“Does Ann know about all this?”

“None of it,” she said.

“May I keep this one?” William held up the red photo of Daphne.

“Take,” said Emma.

“So let me get the timeline straight here,” he said. “You slept with me on the same day Daphne paid you off?” Emma nodded. “How could you betray your client like that?”

“She betrayed me,” said Emma, knowing for sure now that Daphne used her to get the ArtSpeak job.

“Daphne paid you in full, with a bonus,” he said. “She kept up her end. Your ethical lines are a bit blurry, Emma.”

She felt panic rise in her throat. “If you look at it logically, all of my choices make perfect sense.”

“Leaving me in the hotel room yesterday,” he said. “What was the sense in that?”

“I was jealous and confused,” she said. “It was rude and thoughtless and I’m sorry.”

“Are you lying now?”

“Don’t be an asshole,” she said.

“You’re not a Good Witch,” he said. “You thrive on deceit. You say everyone is out to swindle you, but you’re the one tricking other people for a living. Have you ever considered the feelings of the men you manipulate? I can tell you, as one of your simple-minded dupes, I don’t like it at all. And what of your clients? Women you lure into a false sense of hope with your sneakery. And then you absolve yourself of responsibility when the relationship falls apart?

This is using your power for good?”

“The greatest good,” she mumbled.

“You’re lying to yourself,” he said.

“Dozens of my clients have gotten married. I still get Christmas cards from some of them. And,” she added, “
Sneakery
is not a word.”

He said, “I really liked that old lady in the rose garden. I even bought myself a dozen red roses the next day to remind me of her—you. But that was a lie, too. You and I haven’t shared a single honest moment.”

“Yesterday in the hotel room,” she said, daring to move closer to him to see if he would resist. She reached out her hand.

“Don’t touch me,” he said.

Emma drew her hand back, scalded by the rebuke. “What about our connection?” she asked.

“I’m breaking it,” he said, and then he walked out of the door.

He’d been searching for someone he didn’t want to flee from, just as she’d been searching for someone who wouldn’t flee from her. As his footsteps in the hallway collided like steel balls in her ears, Emma realized that she honestly loved him—and that he honestly despised her.

She flopped on the couch in her sexy black cutie-pie outfit. She’d bought roses the day after their garden talk, too. To remind her of him. He’d told her that night he went berserk when lied to. She had fair warning, but she couldn’t stop piling on the bullshit.

Emma would have found it amusing (were it not so miserable) that she’d been paranoid (what she accused Jeff of being) about being cheated (her bugaboo), all the while, she’d been cheating other people left and right (make that wrong): her targets, her clients, William. She’d cheated herself, certainly. What’s more, her ethical lines had been deemed blurry.

“Great!” she said. “Now I have to rethink my whole fucking existence.”

All at once, Emma got a throbbing head, a roiling stomach, stabbing back pain, and a dull ache in the center of her being—one that couldn’t be cured with an over-the-counter remedy. She took whatever she could find in her medicine cabinet, got in bed, and tried to sleep, her slippery smooth thighs rubbing together, reminding her of what William would not be touching tonight or ever again.

Chapter 23

"Y
ou look bad,” said Deidre at Oeuf the next morning, Friday, Halloween Eve. “I was going to say ’different,’

like you got laid or something. But then I saw you up close.”

“Coffee, black. Eggs, charred. Toast, burnt,” said Emma, hiding in her biggest, blackest sunglasses, hair in a tight ponytail, black turtleneck and black trousers.

“Don’t tell me,” said the waitress, playfully holding out her hand. “Give me a hit.”

“No more hits,” said Emma. “I’m rethinking my whole fucking existence.”

The waitress retracted her arm, miffed. “This is a family restaurant, “she said. “Watch your language.”

Emma glanced around the place and at its three gay couples and two single middle-aged female diners. “Have you seen Victor?” she asked. He was already fifteen minutes late. And she’d had the decency of showing up early,

meaning ten minutes late.

“Nope,” said Deirdre.

Emma’s appetite had left her along with William Dearborn last night. “I’ll wait.”

She didn’t have to wait long. Two minutes later, Victor strolled in. He was also in black up to his mandible, as if they’d called each other. He saw Emma and said, “You look positively morose.” To Deirdre, he said, “And you are gorgeous. I’ll have the usual. Eggcept, make it sausage instead of bacon.”

“That
is
the usual,” said Deirdre.

“You have an eggceptional memory.”

“Do something with her,” said the waitress, pointing her pencil at Emma. “She’s frightening the customers.”

“Okay, what’s up?” asked Victor, now settled in his chair, his arms folded on the table in front of him. “You look different, by the way.”

“Is what we do wrong? Are we making impossible promises to the clients and duping the men?”

“A crisis of consciousness?” he asked. “That is so unlike you, Emma.”

“Have I been lying to everyone—including myself?” she asked.

Victor shook his head, “We dupe the men. We make promises to the women. And sometimes the duping and

promising turns into a lasting love both parties are grateful for. Sometimes it doesn’t. The men are no worse for the effort. And the women are out money they can afford to spend ten times over—and do, at Barney’s—any day of the week. Your intentions are honest. You work hard. You have no reason to question yourself.”

“There is one reason,” she said. “William Dearborn called me a bad witch and accused me of sneakery. In hindsight, I see that it wasn’t a good idea to tell him about Daphne’s case.”

“Why the hell did you do that?” said Victor, shocked she’d break confidentiality.

“I had to,” she moaned. “We had sex. It was great, and that freaked me out. Flailing in confusion, I was honest with him. And let me just say, the truth is
not
all it’s cracked up to be. I should have stuck with anorgasmia.”

Victor’s eyes, meanwhile, had bugged.
“You had sex with William Dearborn?”
he whispered reverently. “Was he amazing? Can I touch the hand that touched his…wait a minute. You had sex—like a normal person? Dearborn didn’t run away screaming? And what is ’sneakery’? Is that like buggery? Those mad Englishmen. They have all those

mysterious words.”

Emma shook her head, then dropped it into her hands. “William is only part English. He’s a barmy half-Brit. The rest of him is sane, stubborn American,” she said. “He found your photographs of Daphne in my desk. I had to explain. He liked the pictures, by the way.”

Victor squealed. “I’ve just died,” he said. “Tell me his exact words.”

“He said, ’They’re good.’”

“Was it the composition or the technique?”

“He liked the art direction.”

“Did you tell him I did it?”

“I said you and Daphne collaborated,” she said. Seeing his fallen face, she added, “You did collaborate!”

“I hate your truth kick,” he groused.

Deirdre appeared with their plates. Emma looked down at her breakfast. As requested, the toast was blackened. Hard, dry, overheated, tasteless, useless, and unappetizing.

I am that toast,
she thought.

The eggs looked okay, but Emma wasn’t hungry anyway. Victor, meanwhile, could have a steel girder lodged in his skull and still manage to eat.

Emma took a sip of her hot, black coffee. Then she said, “I have enough cash for a couple months to think things over.

I need a change. I might shut down The Good Witch, Inc. Try to find a normal job.”

Victor said, “Remember the success stories.”

“The women of New York will be better off without me, “said Emma, removing her glasses to rub her eyes. “I’ll think of something to do. Besides hand holding.”

“But that’s what you do best,” said Victor, taking hers. “I hate seeing you like this. Dearborn is wrong. You do help people. His ego was dented, and he took it out on you. And that pisses me off. Who does he think he is? Dearborn is a fucking idiot! He was lucky to be in the same room with you. You’re more gifted than ten of him. I’m starting to question everything I’ve thought about that shithead. He’s a fraud. A sham!”

Victor’s phone rang. He answered. “Hello? Yes?
Yes, sir!
Yes, sir! I’m flattered. I’m honored. Yes. One hour. I can’t tell you what this means to me. Yes, okay. Bye, and thanks!” He hung up, eyes aglow.

Emma said, “Speaking of the fucking idiot, fraud, sham?”

Victor stared moonily at the phone. “It was him,” he said. “William Dearborn. He’s doing an art book. He needs to hire an art director. Emma! He wants to talk to me about it!”

Emma asked, “Did he mention a publisher?”

“Ransom House,” said Victor.

So Hoff had gotten his book deal with William after all. When had he managed that?

“I’ve got to go,” said Victor, leaving a ten on the table. “I have to be at Dearborn International in one hour.”

“You’ll be wonderful, Victor,” said Emma. “As long as you don’t make any puns.”

“My puns are my charm,” he said. “You’ll be okay?”

“No,” pouted Emma.

Victor said, “Ann’s probably heard the whole story by now. Which means she knows I obscured the truth a bit.”

“Will she be angry?” asked Emma.

“Probably. But she’s forgiving, and I didn’t lie to her about
me.
I lied to her about
you.
”

“I cause indirect deceit,” moaned Emma.

“Why don’t you go to the bank and count all your new money?” he suggested. “That’ll cheer you up.”

A bright idea. “I will,” she said.

“What do you mean the check’s been cancelled?” asked Emma, ripping off her sunglasses.

“According to my screen,” said Mr. Cannery, bow tie yellow today, “The check was cancelled at nine o’clock this morning, before it cleared. But for depositing a cancelled check, we will have to deduct sixty dollars from your account for processing.”

“But you said that you hadn’t processed the check,” said Emma, in a rage.

“We’d only just begun,” said Mr. Cannery.

Emma groaned. “Now that song will be stuck in my head for days.
Thanks a lot.
”

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Hutch. But you’re overdrawn again. You have only three days before the next mortgage payment is due. Bet you’re glad for the extra day now.”

Emma got the feeling Mr. Cannery, who got off on the green stuff, also got off on a customer falling into the red. “Can I get a short-term loan?” she asked.

He shook his head gravely. “We could give you an annuity, but you’d have to turn over your property to us. And since, forgive me for saying so, it’s likely we’ll take possession in the next few days anyway, I doubt anyone here would bother doing the paperwork.”

Emma’s amber eyes blazed with fury. Mr. Cannery leaned back in this chair and held up the elbow of self-defense.

“I’m just the messenger,” he said defensively.

She stormed out of the bank and flipped open her cell phone. She frantically dialed Daphne’s work number.

“Ms. Wittfield is not here,” said Natasha. “She’s in Times Square overseeing the billboard unveiling.”

“What billboard?”

As if reading from a press release, Natasha said, “Twenty stories, two hundred feet high, the biggest billboard in history, of Marcie Skimmer for SlimBurn diet pills. The unveiling is at noon. But I wouldn’t go if I were you.”

“Lunchtime crowds?”

“Ms. Wittfield got a call first thing this morning from William Dearborn. He fired her. Ms. Wittfield blames you, and she’s been cursing your name and spitting on the carpet,” she said. “Which I have to clean up. And let me tell you, my mother didn’t scrub toilets for eighteen hours a day so I could grow up to blot spittle.”