The Doll Brokers (16 page)

It was barely six-thirty. She'd eat something now, Ann decided, then she and Jonathan could head straight out to Kmart without cozying up together over breakfast. Although that would probably anger him. He didn't seem to take it well when she interfered with his meals.

She called room service and settled for fruit and coffee, then she went to take a shower.

She stripped her nightgown over her head on her way to the bathroom. Her naked reflection suddenly assaulted her from too many mirrors as she stepped over the threshold onto cold tile.

Ann hesitated, her eyes darting from one image of herself, to the next, to another. She looked like hell. Her skin was flaky and dry from too much pressurized, recycled cabin air. Her hair was
limp and her eyes were clouded. She stepped back and dropped her arms, forcing herself to look down the length of her body. How long had it been since anyone had touched her, since she'd felt any real sense of life in those limbs, inside?

Mark Twekesborough had been kind in his attentiveness, she thought. Seve Marques was a bastard and would go after anyone in a skirt. Ann looked at herself gravely, searching for something worthwhile, and came up empty. She knew she had nothing inside to give. Still, remarkably, she felt the urge for intimacy. For the first time since Matt's death, she wanted to offer herself to somebody. She longed for the give and take, the feel of a caress on bare skin.

Jonathan was responsible for this, she thought. Jonathan, with that sliding, speculative gaze that had edged toward her mouth on Monday.
Jonathan?
On one level, it seemed absurd. On another, it made her ache. Impossibly, he had made her want again. He had made her want to give all the things that had been ripped from her years ago and were no longer hers to relinquish.

“Damn him,” Ann breathed. Her voice shook. She turned away from the mirror and got into the shower.

When her coffee and fruit arrived, she still felt bruised. She settled at the table in her room, thinking once more, fleetingly, of a cigarette, then she flipped open her briefcase. Instead of going for the hidden pack, she took out her calculator and a notepad, and began running numbers.

Without Walmart, her goal of a million pieces was shattered. A ripple effect would result that would end up hurting their advertising campaign, as well as their profit margin. She didn't see any way around it. The entire project—out of necessity—would have to be scaled back or canceled.

Ann got up for her cell phone and called their advertising agency.

On the east coast, Bob Turnbull was just arriving at the office. She could tell by his aggravated tone. Nothing like being
hit with a panic call before you even sit down at your desk, she thought.

“We've got to trim back,” she told him.

“Ah, Ann.” She heard pure frustration in his sigh. Turnbull didn't like glitches. “Be reasonable. We purposely booked the television campaign this far in advance to get a jump on your competitors. Cancel or change something now and you'll never get it back.”

Ann thought about it. With so many burgeoning satellite dishes and cable companies, it was tough to build a worthwhile campaign. She
had
to spend the money to reach her target audience. Some ten or fifteen years ago there were barely four hundred half-hours devoted to children's broadcasting. It had been easy to choose the meaningful programs. Today it was more like eleven hundred hours.

“What about the billboards in subways and busses?” she asked.

“I've got a better question. What's happened since the last time we talked?”

She couldn't tell him.

There was a knock on her door. It had to be Jonathan. “Look, Bob, I've got to go,” she said. “I'll call you back later.” Ann got off the phone and went to the door, jerking it open.

“It's not even 7:30 yet!” she snapped. “Don't you ever sleep?”

His gaze started at her feet, came up over her bare legs, and slid over the silk of her robe. Ann pulled the lapels together and kept her arms crossed over her chest. His eyes finally settled on her tangled, wet hair.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“Hell of a way to answer the door. What if I had been room service?”

“He's already been and gone.”

Jonathan's brow furrowed as he stepped past her into the room. “You ordered breakfast without me? What the hell am
I
supposed to eat?”

“There's plenty of fruit left over, if you want some.”

“That's right up there with scones. I need eggs. Bacon.”

“Bad for your arteries.” She closed the door behind him.

“I'll worry about it in five years. Right now, I want furnace food for the day ahead.”

“There's a restaurant downstairs.”
Why was she arguing about food when her world was coming apart?
But somehow, she realized, it felt good. “And you're not that young. Go look in the mirror.” She twirled a finger at his temple. “You're going a little gray there. No big deal, but it shows because your hair's so dark.”

He moved off for the bathroom and Ann smiled to herself.

“You can hardly see it,” he said when he returned. “And nobody's ever complained.”

“I'm glad for you. I'm just saying that you don't need bacon. The end is closer than you think.” She picked up her coffee and drank.

“You're in a hell of a mood.” He started for the door. “Let's go to the restaurant. Put something on first.”

“You think I should? I was going to stroll in like this—or better yet, naked.”

His gaze shot back to her, heating. “Are you trying to instigate something here, Annie? Are you playing games with me?”

Things shook inside her, then steadied. She turned away. “No, I'll meet you downstairs.”

She kept her back to him until she heard the door shut. Then she spun around, hurried over to it and threw the lock. She let her breath out.

Annie.

He'd only called her that because Mark Twekesborough had. He'd made his point, though.

She threw things back into her briefcase. She wiggled into pantyhose, then chose what she wanted to wear. Make-up and an attack with the blow-dryer restored her a little. Ann added more blush and decided to tuck her sweater in to take up some of the loose space in her skirt. She'd lost quite a bit of weight, she thought, since she'd signed the deal on the doll.

By the time she got downstairs to the hotel restaurant, Jonathan had eaten. The only thing left on his plate was a sprig of parsley and a streak of something that looked like Hollandaise sauce. “You had
Eggs Benedict
?” She gaped at him.

“Canadian bacon is leaner, right?”

Ann shook her head as she took a seat across from him. “Let me finish off your coffee, then we can go.” She took his cup and poured in sugar.

Jonathan sat back and watched. “You know, I'm not going to let Felicia bury you in our family plot.”

“What?” Ann jolted.

“At least what I consume doesn't cause me physical pain. You're wrecking your stomach with caffeine.”

“You'll go first. And you won't even know about it.” Ann drank coffee and girded herself. “Okay. Let's get this show on the road.”

They left the hotel. They had a rental car and Jonathan drove. Ann turned on the radio. He changed the station.

“What's this?” she asked, recoiling from the burst of sound.

“Rock ‘n roll, baby.”

“You're doing this to irritate me. You like jazz. Blues.”

“Depends on my mood. This gets my adrenaline up for the fight.”

“What fight?”

“The one I assume we've got coming with another twelve-year-old buyer. Are you going to take his head off like you did with Byron Young? Great speech, by the way.”

“Thank you.” She let herself smile. “No. We're going to Kmart today, and that's Tom Carlisle.”

“Which means?”

“He's one of the good guys. Been around for a long while.”

“But isn't Kmart in bankruptcy?”

“They were. They've since amalgamated with Sears.”

They gave their names to the receptionist and were kept waiting for a half-hour. Carlisle finally appeared, hitting the meeting room with high energy, kissing Ann on the cheek.

“Here we go again,” Jonathan muttered.

“I'm simply irresistible,” she whispered back. It was safe to play games when a pudgy, fifty-year-old black man was watching them curiously.

“Jonathan, right?” Tom shook his hand. “I remember you.”

“We've probably met at one of those Toy Fairs, right?”

Tom laughed. “No. I think it was a Vegas golf tournament. You were terrible.”

Jonathan rubbed his jaw. “Jeez. That had to be ten years ago. I stepped in for my mother.”

“Has your game improved?”

“Not a lick.”

Tom nodded. “I like an honest man.” He looked at Ann. “What have you got for me today?”

She handed Baby Talk N Glow over to Carlisle without going through the doll's repertoire. She remembered Mark Twekesborough's startled delight when the doll had begun talking to him. Maybe Walmart had been an aberration. Today would be different.

Carlisle handled the doll, not making any comment. He touched her nose, her toes, her ears. She chatted away. But when he felt her heartbeat, his dark face seemed to shine. When the doll's own skin began to glow, he laughed out loud. “This is incredible,” he said. “How long will her battery last?”

Ann breathed again. “No less than five years. It's a new technology. We'll guarantee it on the package.”

He put his hand on the doll's heart again. “How does it do that?”

Ann remembered what she had told Seve Marques. “Magic.”

Carlisle smiled. “Meaning you're not going to tell me.”

“Right.”

“What do you want from me?”

Ann answered baldly. “A commitment for about a million pieces.”

“No, seriously.”

“How many do you think you can sell?”

“What support will you give it?”

She outlined her advertising plans while Carlisle sat back in his chair. The doll was still on his lap. He stared at her for a long moment, his face void of expression. Tom Carlisle was admired and respected by everyone in the industry but, often, he had this fugue thing going on. It was his quirk. He never bought a toy until he'd zoned out on it. He was zoning now, staring at the baby doll hard. Minutes ticked by. Ann didn't dare look at Jonathan, though she could hear him shifting impatiently in his seat.

This was good, she decided.
Oh please, God, let this be good.
The buyer was running numbers in his head. She had never known him to behave like this and
not
give them an order.

“I'm sorry, Ann, but I just can't commit right now.”

She would have sprung out of her chair if the room hadn't suddenly tilted around her. “I beg your pardon?”

“I just want to clear it with a few people first. The doll's great. She's fantastic.”

“Then what's the problem? Why wait? You never had to clear your buys with anyone.”

“Times are changing, Ann. I'm sorry. With any amount of luck, I'll be able to get back to you as soon as tomorrow.”

“I'll be in Minnesota tomorrow.” Her voice had a hollow ring. Everything was pouring out of her. All her hope. Her determination. This was unbelievable.

“Give me your cell phone number and I'll catch up with you. I need twenty-four hours.”

“Right. Of course.” She rattled her number off as he wrote it down.

She didn't remember leaving the building.

They were back at the car before her knees locked and she couldn't go any further. She gripped the door handle, holding on, looking at her own knuckles almost dispassionately. They were white.

“We're in one of those shut-up zones, aren't we?” Jonathan asked.

Ann closed her eyes. “Please. Don't joke. Not now.”

He shrugged and reached around her to open the door. Then he looked at her and felt his soul shift.

She was crying. It was nothing ugly, not devastating—not Lady Ann, he thought—but her eyes were swimming. And somehow that was worse.

“Ah, hell.” He pulled her into his arms. “Take it easy.” She resisted, swatting at him blindly, then she went limp. She was trembling to the bone.

T
hey were back in New York by Friday night after zigzagging from Chicago to Minnesota, then Detroit, and finally to New Jersey. This time they shared a cab. Jonathan found himself carrying Ann's luggage upstairs to her condo. He dumped her bags on the floor. “I guess you don't have any beer.”

“Beer?” Ann seemed confused. She looked at him while she chewed her lip. She'd been acting vague and distracted ever since the Kmart disaster.

“Beer,” he said again. “Barley? Hops?”

She kicked her shoes off. “Oh. No.” Then she added suddenly, “Damn it, I've got suits in there.” She picked up the crumpled garment bag, then, looking lost, went and hung it on the kitchen door frame. She ducked beneath it into the other room. “I have wine.”

“That's good.” He said, trying to be funny. “But is it still fermenting?”

She poked her head around the garment bag again. “What?”

“Never mind. I'll drink it. But I'm keeping my clothes on.”

She frowned. “I think that would be best.”

Jonathan wasn't sure if he had just been shot down or not.

A few minutes later she came back with a bottle of Chardonnay in one hand and two glasses hooked in the fingers of her other.
She set everything down on the glass-topped table, then stared at the wine as though she had forgotten what it was for. Jonathan crossed the room, pulled the cork out of the bottle, and poured.

Ann looked up at him. Helplessly, he thought. He had never seen her this way. The crying in Chicago had been bad, but it had definitely gone downhill from there. Now he felt a sense of shifting, unwelcome changes happening to him with this woman who was staring at him now as though she'd just lost her soul.