Woman to Woman (31 page)

She hated take-off, hated flying full stop. But taking off was the worst. At least when you were flying, you had no idea what was going on. The air-stewardesses smiled and passed out booze and the clouds were usually so thick that you hadn’t a clue how far away the ground was. Taking off, however, was so immediate and fraught with danger. You could see everything. If she looked out the window, Jo knew, she’d see the runway and Dublin airport and lots of housing estates growing smaller by the minute. She couldn’t help herself, she had to see. Big mistake. The sprawling airport had turned into a matchbox-sized arrangement and the fields were beginning to develop that patchwork look.

The plane banked slightly and Jo wondered if you were allowed to leave your seat and sprint to the toilet when the seat belt sign was still on. Her old friend, nausea, was back.

She’d have to climb over Mark Denton and the person in the aisle seat to get out, but she could do it. Or could she? Maybe she’d just breathe deeply and pray.

Are you all right?” asked Mark, putting one large hand on her clenched left one.

“No.” She was too scared to lie.

“I hate flying,” she muttered.

And I hate the window seat.”

“Let’s talk about something to take your mind off it, then,” he said comfortingly.

“Did I ever tell you how Rhona and I met?” he asked, settling himself sideways in his seat, and keeping her hand firmly gripped in his large one.

“No.” Jo didn’t feel like being humoured. She wanted to behave like a spoiled child and ignore him, make him suffer for bringing her out to lunch purely to talk about his horrible niece. She’d practically ignored him since they’d met in the airport. She’d given him a cool little smile when he’d brought her into the Aer Lingus business-class lounge where there was free tea, coffee, booze and newspapers and lots of comfy armchairs to sink into.

Mark had managed to ignore the fact that she was ignoring him and had been consistently pleasant to her, as though he was humouring a spoiled child. She hated that.

“After that, I had to give her the job,” he was saying.

“You know Rhona.”

Yes, she did. She remembered Rhona’s parting words to her which had been along the lines of, “If you fall desperately in love with Mark when you’re living the high life in New York, don’t forget that I want to know all about it when you come home.”

Some bloody hope. A why would anyone fall in love with a man when they were nearly three months pregnant with the child of another man who’d done a runner?

B how could anyone feel even vaguely romantic squashed into a jumbo on a never-ending flight to New York?

And C why would anyone be stupid enough to fall in love with Mark Denton? Rhona was mad sometimes, Jo decided.

Mark had stopped talking and was patting her hand.

“Better now?” he asked.

“Fine,” she muttered.

He ignored her cross expression and started talking again, obviously under the misapprehension that he was somehow being helpful. He kept the conversation going through the meal roast chicken and rice, with a brown-bread scone, some sort of cheesecake thing and a foil-wrapped mint chocolate which he handed to Jo only stopping while they watched the in-flight movie.

“I hate Julia Roberts,” grumbled Jo sleepily, wondering how in the hell she could be tired when it was only lunchtime.

True to form, she’d slept badly the night before, waking up in a cold sweat at three a.m. after dreaming that she’d arrived at Dublin airport for the eleven a.m. flight minus her passport, suitcase and, worst of all, her handbag.

A few minutes dozing would make her feel better. She wriggled around in the small seat, rolled up her sloppy grey sweatshirt into a makeshift pillow and closed her eyes. She woke two hours later, shocked to find that she was leaning comfortably against Mark’s shoulder, snuggled up to him cosily.

“Sorry,” she said abruptly, sitting bolt upright. She hoped she hadn’t snored or something equally awful. Richard used to say she snored in her sleep; it would be too embarrassing to snore on the boss’s shoulder.

“You missed the coffee Mark said, stretching his arms and massaging the shoulder she’d been leaning against. Oh no, she groaned inwardly. He obviously hadn’t been able to move for hours because she’d been glued to his side. He probably thought she’d done it on purpose, that she fancied him. How awful.

“I didn’t wake you because I thought you needed the rest,” he said.

“You look very pale. Anyway, the coffee wasn’t very nice. Nothing like the stuff in the office. Are you all right, Jo?”

Mark looked at her with concern in his eyes. Nice eyes, she decided. Kind eyes. It was time she stopped ignoring him and started behaving like an adult again.

“I’m fine,” she answered. As fine as you could be when you felt like a complete moron.

“Sorry about squashing your arm for so long.”

He grinned. That’s OK. Would you like some water or orange juice?”

“Water would be lovely.” She was desperately thirsty all of a sudden. Since she always wrote that drinking lots of water on the plane and keeping your moisturiser handy were vital for flying, she might as well practise what she preached.

Mark waved in the direction of the air-stewardess. An attractive redhead appeared at their seats a moment later.

“Can I help you?” she asked, giving Mark what Jo considered a very warm, come-hitherish smile. The stewardess’s eyes took in Mark’s cream polo shirt with the Ralph Lauren designer logo, his expensive Tiffany watch and the absence of a wedding ring on his strong left hand. Her smile deepened.

Mark certainly had his own quiet charm, Jo realised with a jolt. It was just as well he wasn’t her type.

She’d always gone for handsome men, the sort of smooth, chiselled-featured boys who could model Armani suits. Mark was tall, well built and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, but he was a million miles away from Richard Kennedy.

Richard was movie-star gorgeous while Mark was rugged, a hard-working self-made man to Richard’s model-boy look.

“Could we have some water?” Mark asked the stewardess before turning to Jo.

“Or do you want juice, Jo?”

“Water, thank you,” Jo said, watching the stewardess’s smile shift from admiring to professional once she realised that Mark wasn’t on his own.

You’re welcome to him, Jo felt like saying. He’s not mine.

Of course, she didn’t say anything of the sort. She sipped her water and eyed Mark surreptitiously. He was attractive really, very attractive in fact. Would it look bad if she got out her powder compact and put on some lipstick?

Kennedy airport was hot, sticky and crowded. Exhausted from the flight, Jo was glad when Mark took charge of the luggage, especially since her suitcase “was crammed with at least a quarter of her wardrobe. He lifted her case and his leather suit-carrier effortlessly onto a trolley without demanding to know why hers was so heavy and what had she brought, the way Richard always did and led the way through the crowds out to the noisy arrivals hall. It was bedlam.

People of every skin colour imaginable pushed up against the barriers like a human rainbow, anxiously watching passengers emerge and shrieking loudly in different languages when they spotted their

visitors. It was like being in Marks and Spencer on the first day of the January sales.

Jo was poked in the back by a child with a tennis racket and had her ankles bashed by someone else’s trolley as she followed Mark through the throng. The blissful airconditioned cool of the plane seemed miles away from the humid New York air.

Her white cotton T-shirt and jeans were pasted to her body.

What she wanted most in the world was to lie down in a cool room and rest, then stand under a cool shower.

She was considering flinging herself on the trolley and letting Mark push her to the hotel, when she spotted him a uniformed man in his twenties holding a sign that read, “Fitzpatrick Manhattan Hotel, Mr. Mark Denton’. Mark waved at the driver who immediately hurried over and took control of the trolley “Welcome to New York,” he said in a strong Cork accent.

“I’m Sean. Nice to meet you.” Jo could have kissed him. Sean loaded the cases in the back of the stretch Cadillac limo the hotel had provided while Jo slid onto the cool leather seats and sighed with relief.

She didn’t care if her luggage ended up in Hong Kong, as long as she didn’t have to look after it or anything else for that matter.

As Sean wove through the heavy airport traffic, Jo stretched out her legs and wondered why she’d never travelled in a limo before. Was this what movie stars felt like when they eased from airport to airport in the comfort of a luxury car, distanced from the world behind darkened windows?

There was what looked like a tiny drinks cabinet fixed into the back of the driver’s seat and she’d have loved to open it, just to see what was in it. But that would probably be as gauche as hell and she didn’t want Mark to think she was overawed by sitting in a limo. She adopted her best “I do this all the time’ expression and stared out the window. Huge American cars -raced past, gleaming Cadillacs and Buicks which would dwarf her own Golf.

Mark and Sean talked, discussing the quickest route into Manhattan with many of the city’s roads under repair. Half listening to them talk about parkways, expressways and toll roads, Jo stared at a skyline dominated by shining skyscrapers.

It was like looking at the opening credits of Dallas.

This was her third trip to New York, but she knew that no matter how many times she visited, she’d still feel that special buzz from visiting the city she’d dreamed about when she was a kid. She loved it. The sprawling city buzzed with vitality, it was alive like nowhere else she’d ever been.

She was also amazed by how much Mark appeared to know about New York judging from his conversation with Sean.

He’d never mentioned living there, but he seemed to know it so well. He talked about watching a Yankees game in Yankee Stadium was that football or baseball, she wondered? Then again, she hardly knew anything about him other than what he did for a living, how he met Rhona, why he liked fast cars and that he had an unbelievably soft spot for his niece. Oh yeah, that he could talk the hind legs off a donkey to comfort someone with airsickness.

When the limo pulled up at the hotel on Lexington Avenue, Jo clambered out of the back gratefully. Inside, the Fitzpatrick Manhattan was an oasis of calm, away from the buzz of traffic, screaming police sirens and the ever-present blaring taxi-drivers’ horns. More European than American, the hotel was quiet and elegant, with Irish accents of all varieties mingling with American ones. From the bar to the right, the sound of Christy Moore’s gentle singing drifted out on the air along with the sound of laughter.

“Do you like it?” asked Mark, who’d been watching her reaction from the moment they’d stepped inside.

“It’s wonderful, a brilliant choice.” Jo’s smile was genuine.

The idea of staying in a glorious and sophisticated slice of Ireland in the middle of New York was just perfect.

Registration was speedy and, within minutes, Jo was being shown her suite, an airy sitting room furnished with beautiful reproduction furniture, two large settees, a writing desk and a massive TV concealed in a huge armoire.

The bedroom was nearly as big, with another TV and enough drawers to hold four times the contents of her suitcase. Even more importantly, it was perfectly cool, thanks to the magic of airconditioning.

“You need a rest,” advised Mark, looking at her pale face and tired eyes. He stood awkwardly in the sitting room while she admired the bedroom and peeked into the bathroom.

“I’ll go.

If you want to have dinner with me, I’ll ring you about eight and we can go out to eat. But you might have friends you want to meet,” he added hesitantly.

“No, I’d love dinner she answered.

“Just let me crash out first.”

“We’re only here five minutes and you’re already talking American!” he grinned down at her. She’d never noticed how tall he was before, he must be six foot, nearly as tall as Tom her brother.

“I’ll call you at eight he said and was gone.

Ten minutes later she lay up to her neck in bubbles in the black and white tiled bathroom. The bath, an old-fashioned deep enamelled one, had just cried out to be used and since every muscle in Jo’s body ached, she’d given in and filled it.

So what if she was lying in a warm bubble bath in the middle of a sweltering July afternoon? Outside, New York buzzed in the heat. But inside, it was calm, serene and, since she’d turned the airconditioning up, almost chilly. The Four Seasons rippled through the air from the New York classical radio station Jo had found on the radio after much knob twiddling

She had turned the music up loud but she was amused by the idea that she’d still hear the phone if it rang because there was one in the bathroom. What a howl, she thought, picking it up with soapy fingers. Who would you ring from a bathroom phone? Hi, Mom, I’m having a pee, how are you? She just loved hotels.

When the phone rang at eight, Jo had dozed for an hour, ordered a pot of decaff from room service and dressed in her navy crepe Mandarin shirt and trousers.

“I’ll meet you downstairs said Mark.

He was waiting for her when she arrived, lounging in a wing armchair, dressed in an expensive-looking charcoal-grey jacket, pale grey polo shirt and jeans. Jo nearly did a double take. Mark Denton in jeans.”

“I even wear Tshirts sometimes,” he said drily, noticing her

“I expect that you sometimes wear a tracksuit, no make-up and stick your hair in a pony tail,” he added with a grin.

“Nothing like the elegant Ms Ryan we’re used to in Style.”

Touche,” she replied.

“And yes, I do sometimes forget to apply my make-up with a trowel. But a tracksuit?” she asked in mock horror.

“Never. I have jogging pants though, have occasionally worn odd socks because they’ve got separated in the wash, and I’ve got a pair of rather tattered leggings. Does that count?”