Second Chance (16 page)

And much to Fiona's horror, the girls reluctantly accepted the idea that she would come with him, and John actually begged her to stay at his apartment for the weekend. She knew how important it was to him. It was one of those hideous sacrifices Adrian had spoken of, which made all the difference, so she agreed to do it. And it was almost as unpleasant as she had expected.

The girls hardly spoke to her, and when they did, they were supercilious and bitchy, but at least they tolerated her being there, which was an improvement. Mrs. Westerman damn near poisoned her with a curry so spicy it nearly killed her, and much to John's horror and disbelief, she “accidentally” let Fifi out of the kitchen, and the dog made a beeline straight to Fiona's left leg this time, and took a chunk out of her left ankle, instead of the right one. This time she only needed four stitches. Adrian looked at her in total astonishment when he saw her on Monday morning.

“Again? Are you insane? When are they going to put that dog down?”

“I thought John was going to kill the housekeeper. He screamed so loud that both girls were crying, and she threatened to quit. I may have to get a stun gun the next time the girls come to visit.”

“I hope they don't come often. Did he fire the housekeeper?”

“He can't. The girls love her.”

“Fiona, she's trying to kill you.”

“I know. Death by fatal curry. I still have heartburn from it. Thank God the dog is too short to go for my throat, otherwise she would. I just have to make the best of it. I love him.”

“You don't have to love the dog, his housekeeper, and his children.”

“That's a much bigger challenge,” she confessed, and John was once again mortally embarrassed. It had been a pretty ghastly weekend, and he had been having a lot of stress at the office. Fiona had been busier than she'd been in months. The whole magazine seemed to be going crazy. People had quit, the format had changed, the new ad campaign was causing problems and had to be redesigned, which was yet another of John's problems, as well as hers. A photographer had sued the magazine. A supermodel had OD'd on a shoot and damn near died, and attracted a huge amount of negative publicity. Fiona was coming home at ten o'clock every night, and traveling more than she ever had. She made three trips to Paris in one month, and the following month she got stuck in Berlin for two weeks, and then had to fly right back out to Rome for an important meeting with Valentino. John complained that he never saw her, and he was right.

“I know, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. I don't know what's happened. I can't seem to get things calmed down. Every time I solve one problem, I get hit with another.” But his office was no calmer than hers was. The agency was changing hands again, and it was causing him huge problems. And in April, one of his daughters told him she was pregnant, and had an abortion. She blamed him, and said that if he hadn't married Fiona, she wouldn't have been so freaked out, and wouldn't have been careless with the boy she slept with. It was ridiculous to blame him, but John somehow felt guilty and blamed himself, and indirectly, when he had too much to drink one night, he blamed Fiona, which shocked her.

“Do you really believe that? That Hilary's abortion is my fault, and the pregnancy?” Fiona stared at him in disbelief.

“I don't know what to believe. We upset the hell out of them. And dammit, Fiona, I never see you.” He was most unhappy about that.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I feel like I'm living with a flight attendant. You come here to change clothes and pack another suitcase. And take off again. And I'm stuck here with your fucking dog and that half-naked lunatic who runs around in a gold lamé Speedo when I come home from the office. I need a little more sanity around here than I'm getting. I need to come home to a normal house, with all the stresses I have at the office.”

“Then you should have married a normal person,” she snapped back at him. The things he had said to her had been hurtful.

“I thought I did. I can't live with all this chaos.”

“What chaos?” She hardly entertained anymore. Her salons had dwindled down to nothing, because she didn't want to upset him. And she promised to tell Jamal to keep his clothes on. She had told him that before, but whenever she wasn't around, he did what he wanted. But there was no harm in it, and he was a sweet man.

Adrian noticed how furious she looked when she came to work one morning, and she told him about it. She and John had just had yet another argument about Jamal.

“I told you you'd need to compromise. Buy Jamal a uniform, and tell him he has to wear it.”

“What difference does it make? Who cares what he wears when he vacuums?”

“John does,” Adrian said sternly. “And what did you do about the closets?”

“I haven't had time to do anything. I've been on airplanes for three months. I haven't had a break, Adrian, and you know it.”

“Well, you'd better do something. You don't want to lose him.”

“I'm not going to lose him,” she said confidently. “We're married.”

“Since when did that give anyone a guarantee?”

“Well, it's supposed to,” she said, looking stubborn. “That's what the vows are supposed to mean, isn't it?”

“Sure, if you marry a saint. With humans, the warranty may run out. Fiona, people get impatient.” He tried to warn her.

“Okay, okay, I'll give him a closet. What does he need a closet for anyway? He left most of his clothes at the apartment. Along with his wife's, and that portrait of her I hate. We had an argument about it the other day. He wants to bring it to my house, so the girls feel at home there. For chrissake, why in God's name would I want to live with his wife's portrait?”

“Compromise, compromise, compromise!” Adrian wagged a finger at her. “He has a point. It might make his kids like you better. You can put it in their bedroom. You don't have to see it.”

“I'm not turning my house into a shrine to his late wife. I can't live like that either.”

“The first year is always the hardest,” Adrian said calmly, but that was because he wasn't the one compromising. But neither was Fiona. She wanted to keep everything as it had been, and every time John moved something, or changed something, she had a fit when she came home from the office. And she told Jamal not to let John change anything. So they had a huge fight when she was in L.A., supervising a shoot of Madonna. John had been putting some of his books in the library, and Jamal wouldn't let him. John had called her in L.A. and threatened to move out if she didn't call Jamal off. It was the first time he had done that, and she was frightened and told Jamal to let him do whatever he wanted. Jamal had argued with her on the phone, that she had told him not to let John change anything, and she nearly got hysterical screaming at him, and told him to just do what she told him and not make more problems. Jamal called her in tears that night and threatened to quit, and she begged him not to. She wanted familiar people, places, and things around her. And suddenly everything was changing. She had two stepdaughters she couldn't stand, and a man who wanted to make his mark in her life, and had a right to. But after a lifetime of doing things her way, and controlling her environment, she felt every change he wanted to make like an assault on her person. Even seeing his books in her library unnerved her slightly. He had put some of hers on a top shelf, to make room for his own.

It was as though they were constantly at each other's throats these days, arguing and shouting and accusing. Mrs. Westerman had threatened to quit, John was thinking of selling the apartment, and his daughters were outraged. And if he did sell it, Fiona knew his daughters would come to stay at her place. And whatever happened, she was not willing to take the dog. She had threatened to put it down if he brought it to her house, and he had said something about it to Hilary and Courtenay, and now they hated her more. It was an endless vicious circle of misunderstandings and misquotes, and raw nerves, and constantly stressful situations, for all concerned.

In April, things took a dramatic turn for the worse, when John told her he was organizing a dinner party for a new client. He wanted to do it at Le Cirque, in a private room, and asked Fiona to help. His secretary wasn't good at that sort of thing, and it seemed reasonable to him to ask Fiona to give him a hand. All he wanted her to do was book the room, choose the menu, order the flowers, and help him with the seating. He had to invite several people from the agency, and at least one member of the creative staff, and it was a somewhat awkward group. He knew the client fairly well, but had never met his wife, and he trusted Fiona's judgment about the details, and how to seat the party. The client was an extremely dour man from the Midwest, and about as far from Fiona's world as you could get.

The first thing Fiona did was insist they have it at her house. She said it would have a more personal touch, and be considerably less stuffy. She insisted it would put everyone at ease, rather than doing it at a restaurant, which seemed more impersonal to her, although they both loved Le Cirque.

“I always do business dinners here for the magazine,” she insisted, and John said he was uneasy about it.

“The people you entertain for the magazine are a lot different. You've never seen anyone more uptight than this guy. And I know nothing about his wife.”

“Trust me. I know what I'm doing,” she said confidently, determined to redeem herself for the stress of the past months. “I'll treat them like visiting dignitaries. I'll get my caterer to do it. If you want, we can do fabulous French food like Le Cirque.”

“What about Jamal?” he asked nervously. “This guy was the head of the Republican Party in Michigan before he moved here. I don't think he'd understand a house man in harem pants, and I don't want him to think we're weird.”

“He has a uniform. I'll make him wear it. I promise. I'll threaten his life,” she reassured him, and meant it. She had bought him a proper butler's uniform after she'd married John, anticipating an evening such as this, and she had wanted to be prepared. He'd never worn it yet, but she knew it fit him. She had made him try it on, and had had it tailored for him. She called the caterers the next day, the florist, ordered fancy French food for the menu, and exquisite wines. She was going to serve Haut-Brion, Cristal, Cheval Blanc, and Château d'Yquem for dessert. She was determined to make up for all past sins that night, and was absolutely certain everything would go fine. She was leaving nothing to chance.

The day of the dinner party, she had a major crisis at the magazine, and two of her best editors threatened to quit over a layout that hadn't gone well and Fiona had been forced to pull. She had World War III in the office, her secretary announced that she was pregnant, and threw up all day. And Adrian was out with the flu. She had a massive headache herself by midafternoon, which was threatening to become a migraine. As soon as she got home, she took a pill she found in her medicine cabinet in an unmarked bottle that someone had given her in Europe. It was relatively mild and had worked before. Everything was in control. And half an hour before the dinner party, the caterers had everything in order, Jamal was wearing his uniform, the table looked beautiful, and the crystal and glass shone. And when John checked it all out before the guests arrived, he looked relieved and pleased. The table looked like a layout in a magazine. It was perfect, and the food smelled delicious.

The guest of honor and his wife arrived right on time, in fact they were five minutes early, which Fiona found slightly unnerving. She was just zipping up a plain black dress when the doorbell rang, and John hurried downstairs. She put on high-heeled black satin pumps, and a pair of big coral earrings. She looked so simple and respectable, she barely recognized herself, as she glanced in the mirror and went down to join their guests. She still had the headache, but was feeling better since she'd taken the pill, and she smiled warmly at John's client, when John introduced her first to Matthew Madison, and then to his extremely uptight wife. Neither of them looked as though they had cracked a smile in years. The rest of the guests took a little of the stiffness out of it as they arrived one by one. There were to be ten guests in all, and with Fiona and John, it made twelve.

Jamal passed the first plate of hors d'oeuvres, and everything went fine, just as Fiona felt her headache returning with a vengeance. John's obvious concern over the evening didn't help, and she felt stressed just watching him. He wanted everything to be perfect, and it was. Fiona decided not to take another pill for her headache. She quietly asked Jamal for a glass of champagne instead. And by the time she finished the glass, it seemed to help. She went to put some music on to add some atmosphere, and smiled to herself. She hadn't given a dinner party as proper and restrained as this in years. Or ever. She liked things livelier and more fun, and definitely more exotic. But she wanted to do everything just the way John had asked her to, and she had.

It was when Jamal passed the hors d'oeuvres the second time that she saw John signal her and point to him, and she couldn't understand what he was saying. He was frowning at her ferociously, and then glancing at Jamal's feet. And then she saw that along with his black trousers with the satin stripe down the side, and the proper black tux jacket, white shirt, and bow tie he had worn, he had added a pair of gold and rhinestone high heels after the party began. She recognized them immediately, they were hers. She followed him into the kitchen and told him he had to take them off.

“Why aren't you wearing proper shoes?” she chided him as they stood whispering in the kitchen, and he looked at her innocently and shrugged.

“They hurt.”

“So do those. I get blisters every time I wear them. Jamal, you have to take them off. John is having a fit.”

“I hate men's shoes, they're so ugly,” he said, looking unhappy.

“I don't care. Tonight is important. Change your shoes.”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I threw them away.”

“Where?”

“In the garbage.” She pulled the top off the garbage can, and there they were, with oyster shells, two empty cans of caviar, and half a tomato aspic that had gone wrong lying on them. There was no way he could wear the shoes. She was about to suggest John's, but his feet were nearly four sizes larger than Jamal's.