High Heels and Holidays (4 page)

“You know what I mean, Alex. I . . . I just can't afford to go where you seem to think we might be going. You weren't here four months ago. How do I know where you'll be four months from now? And don't give me that
evolving
thing again, okay? I know you're adapting well . . . very well, to being here.”

“Making myself more real, just as I said, and thus more permanent,” Alex said, trailing the side of his finger down her cheek, using its tip to raise her chin so that she had no choice but to look at him.

“Oh yeah, that works,” Maggie breathed, swallowing yet again. “But—”

“Maggie,” he interrupted almost kindly. “Let's consider this, all right? If I, as you say with depressing regularity, were to
poof
back out of your life—”

“How I hate that word,” she said, watching his mouth.

“And I agree. But if I
were
to poof, would you rather be left with memories—or regrets?”

She shifted her gaze to his eyes. “You're such an arrogant bastard.”

“Yes, I know. The perfect Regency Era hero.”

“Living in the twenty-first century on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,” Maggie pointed out over the buzzing in her ears. “Alex, I don't know if I can take that chance.”

“But you want to,” he said, his smile gone now. “You want to be daring. You want to not think, but to make that last great leap of faith into the unknown. You long to know, just as I do, if our two halves make a whole. If what we need to be complete, both of us, is at this very moment literally within our grasp.”

“The . . . the thought has occurred,” Maggie admitted, sliding her hands up the front of his sweater. Cashmere. He liked the feel of cashmere. He liked the feel of fine things. He was a sensual man. Would he like the feel of her?

“Saint Just? Is Maggie all—oh, a thousand pardons, Saint Just. I didn't realize you were romantizing,” Sterling said from the door.

“Some people's kids,” Maggie mumbled in an attempt at humor as she stepped completely away from Alex. From temptation. “I'm much better now,” she told Sterling. “But you know what? I'm also starving. What do you say we leave this mess and go out for something to eat? Alex?”

“Certainly, my dear,” he said smoothly, just as if they both didn't know what had been about to happen if Sterling hadn't showed up. “I must admit that I, too, am famished.”

Maggie shot him a quick look, trying to decide if what he'd said had some sort of double entendre in there somewhere, then decided she was overreacting. “Famished, huh?”

“Exactly,” Alex said, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “I believe I could happily nibble on you all night.”

“Oh, okay, so I wasn't wrong, and shame on at least one of us. And that's a lousy line, by the way.”

“I know. It was the best I could conjure up at the moment, however, as I admit to being under some considerable stress. You will forgive me, and allow me to try again some time?”

“Bite me,” Maggie said, just before she winced. She was so used to saying that when she ran out of comebacks, but this time? This time it was a very bad choice. “Pretend I didn't say that.”

“Never,” Alex said, then, gentleman that he was, he went off to retrieve her coat.

Chapter Three

“H
ide me,” Bernice Toland-James pleaded plaintively as she swept past Maggie and into the condo at ten the next morning, then stopped dead five feet inside the living room. “Christ. Who does your decorating, Maggie? Salvador Dalí in his melting clocks period?” She pushed a heap of gold garland onto the floor and collapsed her long, slim, liposuctioned and nipped-and-tucked frame into one of the flowered couches in a cloud of scent.

Maggie was all-American Girl, with a heavy dose of Irish coloring and cleverly streaked honey-colored hair that was her one vanity. She rarely wore makeup and seldom thought about clothing beyond whether or not it was comfortable. In fact, her usual at-home uniform was pajamas that only sometimes matched. Bernie, on the other hand, was Victoria's Secret runway, and as long as her plastic surgeon kept his magic touch, visually stunning.

“I'm not done yet,” Maggie said defensively. “But the tree is up and decorated—see? My pride and joy.”

“Very nice,” Bernie said, peering at the tall, pre-lit tree now covered in a lovingly collected assortment of individual gold, crystal, and burgundy ornaments, as well as enough carefully placed multicolored silk poinsettias to make Martha Stewart proud. “If she shows up, I can stick a poinsettia between my teeth and hide in it.”

“So much for my hard work.” Maggie picked up the garland and tossed it in the general direction of one of the opened boxes. “And there you go again. Hide? Why? And she who?” She wrinkled her nose. “Whom?”

“Felicity,” Bernie told her, reaching into her overlarge Fendi purse and pulling out a full-size box of tissues. She snatched two tissues and lustily blew her nose, for all the publisher of Toland Books had gotten out of her trip across the pond was a rotten English cold. “She's on a rampage.”

“Faith?” Maggie said, as she refused to call her onetime friend Felicity. The one, happily the only, Felicity Boothe Simmons.

Not that Maggie had anything against pseudonyms. But she hadn't demanded that her supposed closest friends stop calling her Maggie and begin calling her Cleo, even in private, just because she'd hit the
NYT
. Momma pin a rose on me! Jeez. “So why's our Ms. Boob-Job on a rampage this time?”

Bernie scrunched up the used tissues, pulled a plastic bag from the Fendi, and the tissues joined a bunch of their similarly abused mates. “I read that this is supposed to be more hygienic—and this purse cost the earth so I don't want to get it soggy. There is that, too,” she explained as she zippered the bag shut. “I love it when you call her that, by the way. Someday she's going to knock someone out with one of those things. She asked my advice, I told her a C, like me, so naturally she went for the double-D. Woman has no sense of proportion. And she fell off the
Times
, that's why. And I mean
all
the way off, even the extended list. Only three weeks. Then again, considering the boobs, maybe she
bounced
off the list. Oh, God, that was lame—blame it on the head cold.”

“Not even the extended list? Really?” Maggie said in some glee, then frowned and repeated more sympathetically, “Really? Ah, that's too bad. Only three weeks, huh? Bummer. Poor Faith, she must be absolutely devastated.”

“Oh, please, you'll be drooling in another minute. Naturally, it's entirely my fault. I didn't print enough copies. I didn't do enough promo, certainly not enough radio. I should have sent her to more cities on her tour, found a way to get her on the
Today
show—like that was going to happen, but ever since you were on last year, she's had a bug up her backside about it. Hell, I would have sent her to the moon if I could have—I mean, you've never been there, she could beat you to it. Think how proud she'd be, up there in orbit. And how blessedly quiet it would be down here.”

“Wow, you're in a good mood.”

“I have a headache. That book is a headache.
Destiny of Desire
was a stinker out of the gate. I knew it, she knew it. The title doesn't even fucking make sense.”

Maggie nodded, still attempting to feign sympathy for Faith. “Well, it happens after eight books in the same series.
Moment of Desire
.
Night of Desire
.
Season of Desire
. On and on. Sooner or later, you run out of good words. And plausible plots,” she added under her breath.

Maggie and Faith went, as the saying goes, way back. Back to when they were both struggling authors fighting the often losing battle of the mid-list. Then, just as Maggie's first alter ego, Alicia Tate Evans, had bit the big one, Faith had rocketed to the big time as Felicity Boothe Simmons, newly crowned queen of the historical romance novel, and the friendship had gone from equals to that of the Big Star only occasionally deigning to smile in the peon's direction.

But when Maggie had hit as Cleo Dooley? Hit much larger, higher, and harder than Felicity Boothe Simmons? That's when Faith had turned flat-out mean. As a matter of fact, if Maggie hadn't recently saved Faith's life in what she still considered a moment of insanity, the two women would meet only when it was impossible for them to keep their distance. Like at conferences, and the annual Toland Books Christmas party.

“Oh, I just had a thought. Are you going to continue Kirk's Christmas bashes, Bernie?” she asked, thinking unfondly of Bernie's recently deceased ex-husband. Hell, he'd come within a hair of becoming deceased in her own apartment . . . a fact Maggie tried not to dwell on.

“No, no more parties. We're still in negotiations over the sexual harassment suit last year's Santa brought against us,” Bernie said, pushing her hands through her wild, flaming mop of expensively cut and colored hair.

“Against you, you mean,” Maggie pointed out, grinning.

“Hey, a stripping Santa should be prepared for the occasional grope. We're sending out hams to everybody. Legal suggested it. Damn!”

Bernie reached into her bag yet again, this time coming out with her cell phone, which she held at arm's length so that she could read the caller ID, because she might still look mid-thirties, but the illusion had yet to notify her eyes of that fact. “Felicity. Sure, like I have a death wish,” she said, dropping the phone back into the purse. “You know, now that I think of it, she'll probably call here next, if she hasn't already. I had to tell the office where I was going, just in case my battery died. We're in the middle of a three-day auction for some nonfiction about global warming, or maybe it's that shrinking rain forest business? Some hot-button topic. Anyway, Felicity might call here.”

“Here? Oh, thanks, Bernie. Remind me that you're getting coal in your stocking this year,” Maggie said as, sure enough, her phone began to ring, at just about the same moment Maggie changed her mind, thinking it might be fun to talk to poor de-
Times
'd Faith.

“Let the machine pick up.”

“Oh, I don't think so. I've been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long time. Besides, she's being nice to me lately. That's gotta stop—she's so fake and sugary she makes my teeth hurt. Ready?” She waggled her eyebrows at Bernie, and then snatched up the phone, smiling as she looked at the caller ID. “Hel-l-l-o-o-o?” She grinned at Bernie. “Oh, hi, Faith, how are you? Really? Oh, my gosh, Faith, homicidal is never good. You want to know if Bernie's here?”

Bernie reached for the table lamp beside her and lifted it threateningly. With most anyone, that would be a threatening gesture, but that's all it would be. Bernie was another matter, and Maggie really did like that lamp.

“No, Bernie's not here. We just got back from England yesterday morning on the red-eye, you know. She's probably at home, catching up on her sleep. Did you try her there? Oh, okay. Gee, Faith, you sound a little . . . agitated. Is something wrong? Can I help? I mean, anything I can do, you know that.”

“You've got a mean streak, Maggie Kelly,” Bernie whispered, replacing the lamp. “I love it—now quit while you're ahead.”

Maggie put her finger to her lips, and then held the receiver with both hands as Faith spilled her tale of woe. “Oh, man, Faith, that sucks,” she said at last, dancing in place. “Only three weeks? Wow.” It was time to plant a seed in the fertile soil of Faith's insecurities. “So, hey—you're afraid Bernie's maybe going to drop you?”

Bernie groaned and buried her head in her hands.

“Know something? Me? No, of course I don't know anything, Faith. Don't be ridiculous. My goodness, you're a major talent. Some people would say you've had a good run, and you should maybe just be happy about that, but that's just silly. I mean, maybe I've heard a
rumor
or two about some new up-and-comer Bernie's nuts about—but who listens to rumors, right?”

Maggie replaced the receiver and rubbed her hands together as she returned to plop herself down on the couch facing Bernie, resisting the urge to stick a finger in her ear to make sure it wasn't bleeding, that Faith hadn't ruptured an eardrum when she'd slammed down her own phone. “I think that went well. And now I don't have to worry about her showing up here with a Christmas present, as I'm pretty sure she's probably gotten past that saving her life business. Man, I didn't know Faith even
knew
that word.”

“If I had children I'd want them all to be just like you,” Bernie said as her cell phone began to ring again and both women ignored it. “Hey, not to put a pin in your Christmas spirit, but did you hear about Francis Oakes?”

Maggie had a vague recollection of a long ago Toland Books Christmas party and a small, rather timid man with suede patches on his worn tweed blazer and a terminal case of menthol breath. “Francis? Sure. What about him?”

“He's dead, that's what's about him,” Bernie said, getting to her feet. “You have anything nonalcoholic around here? I'm taking some kind of sinus pill that's dried up all my saliva and my mouth feels like a suburb of the Sahara. You know, if I could treat this cold the way I usually do. . . .”

“You'd be back in rehab,” Maggie said, following Bernie to the kitchen. “So, how did Francis die? He wasn't that old, was he?”

“In his mid-forties, I'd say. Thanks, kiddo,” she said, accepting a cold can of soda and popping the top. “Poor guy just never quite got it together, you know? Kirk took an interest for a while, but we all remember how fickle Kirk was—oh, let me count the ways. Anyway, Francis sort of faded away at Toland Books a couple of years ago. According to the obituary, he lived near CUNY, in one of those student-clogged apartment buildings—making ends meet by writing term papers for undergrads, I'll bet. Anyway, it must have all gotten to be too much for him, and he committed suicide last week. My secretary clipped the obit and left it on my desk. Not that I could do anything about it. By the time I saw the clipping this morning Francis was already flying freight on his way back to Minnetonka or somewhere.”

“You're such a caring person, Bernie,” Maggie said as they sat at the kitchen table, Bernie dying for a drink, Maggie wishing she had a cigarette. “Suicide, huh? I wouldn't have thought Francis Oakes had the guts to remove a splinter, yet alone kill himself. What else was in the obituary?”

“That's it. Mourners pay by the inch now, you know, like they're fucking buying ads—sorry, I can hear my friend Johnnie Walker Red calling me a lot today.”

“Tell me about it,” Maggie said, reaching into her jeans pocket and pulling out her nicotine inhaler, the plastic tube whose end was beginning to look as chewed as her pencil erasers had when she'd been in the third grade, trying to master long division. “Mr. Butts keeps singing love songs to me, too. Ever notice that nobody ever gets addicted to broccoli? But broccoli could be bad for you, right? We could stop selling it in public places, tax it, write editorials on the dangers of secondhand broccoli breath—”

“Oh no, you don't. No riffs on the antismoking Nazis today, Maggie. I'm walking a fine line here. Now, you asked me a question. No, there wasn't anything in the obit but the basics. Poor, forgettable Francis. But, hey, that's the way it goes. Unhappy people are even more unhappy around holidays. Everyone knows that. Francis just decided he couldn't face one more lonely Christmas, I suppose.”

“I guess so,” Maggie said, sighing. “I should call Steve, tell him I'm home, and maybe he'll come over tonight. I'll ask him if he can get us some more information.”

“To what end, Maggie? Writers sometimes commit suicide. They drink, they smoke, they kill themselves. It comes with the job. I could probably name at least a dozen who pulled the plug on themselves, right off the top of my head.” Bernie leaned over the table. “You're feeling happy, right? No problems, nothing worrying you?”

“Funny,” Maggie said, immediately thinking about her father and his little chippie. “My mother called yesterday. There was something in the newspaper about our little adventure in England. She was
not
amused.”

“Tough on her,” Bernie said, hefting the soda can as if toasting Maggie. “Sales of your Saint Just novels have been going through the roof ever since you've been getting into the tabloids. Another month, another murder. The reading public is eating it up, Mags. Hey, do you suppose we could work good old Francis in there somehow?”

“You're a ghoul, Bernie.” Maggie leaned her forearms on the table, the better to look around the corner of the kitchen and down the hall leading to the living room. “I've got to start locking my door again. Hello? Who's there?”

“It's only us, Maggie,” Sterling called out moments before appearing in the kitchen, dressed for a noonday stroll in beautiful downtown Siberia. He had a heavy brown corduroy coat buttoned up to his neck and topped by a thick knitted yellow scarf, red mittens, and a red knit cap on his head—complete with a huge yarn pom-pom on top. They'd stopped at a small store after their dinner last night, and Sterling had instantly fallen in love with the hat. “Some of the boys have invited me to go to the park with them. Isn't that nice?”