A Fashionable Affair Read online

  A piece of his hair was standing straight up and she suddenly recalled the way he had looked as a little boy. “Good idea,” he said. He smiled faintly. “I’ll even shave.”

  He didn’t look ghastly at all, Patsy thought. In fact, his rumpled, tousled, half-naked state was rather disturbingly attractive. Good God, Patsy thought, as she realized where her thoughts were leading her. This is Michael! Sally’s little brother! What on earth has gotten into me? She marched to the percolator with determination and began to measure the coffee. Behind her, she heard him leave the room and go upstairs.

  She was sitting at the scarred wooden table with a cup in front of her when he returned to the kitchen. His black hair was wet from the shower, and he was wearing an old pair of jeans and a plaid sport shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He went to the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat across from Patsy.

  “What time did Steven have you up this morning?” he asked.

  “He arrived in my bed at seven sharp. To keep me company, he said. Mommy had Daddy, after all, and he was afraid I was lonely.”

  He grinned. “What a diabolically clever excuse for getting into bed with a girl. I must remember it.”

  Patsy gave him an austere look. “Would you like me to scramble you some eggs?”

  “Great.” He sipped his coffee as Patsy collected eggs from the refrigerator and broke them into a bowl. He put the news on the radio, and they both listened while she cooked. When the weather report came on, Michael turned the volume up slightly. As Patsy placed a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of him, he gave her an absent-minded smile and picked up his fork, his attention clearly on the weatherman and not on her. Strangely enough, Patsy did not feel annoyed. At the moment she felt only contentment in waiting on him, and she sat across from him again and watched him eat. When the weather report was over, he switched the radio off and looked at her.

  “The eggs are good, Red.”

  Patsy felt an absurd glow of pleasure at his words. Her lips curved a little and she took a bite of the toast she had made for herself. “Did you solve it?” she asked.

  “The math problem? Yeah. At three this morning.”

  Patsy finished her toast and, putting her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her hands and regarded him gravely. Her gaze didn’t appear to disturb him at all. He finished his coffee, wiped his mouth on a napkin, and said, “Come into my study and we’ll take a look at those taxes.”

  His study was off the kitchen in what would have been the dining room in a more conventional household. It was furnished with a huge desk, which was covered with a great number of tidily arranged papers, and several walls of bookshelves. Looking around, Michael realized there was no chair for Patsy and went out to the kitchen to get her one. He set it down in front of the desk and then went around to the chair behind it. He picked up a piece of paper and sat for a minute in silence, frowning thoughtfully.

  Patsy felt a twinge of alarm. “There isn’t anything wrong, is there.”

  He looked up. “On the face of things, no. The cash receipts books and the bank statements seem okay.”

  “Seem? What is this ‘seem’?”

  “Well, I haven’t done any checking yet.”

  “What kind of checking?”

  “Checking that the checks written down in the cash books were really issued to the company indicated and in the amount stated, for one thing.”

  Patsy frowned. “But why on earth wouldn’t they be?”

  “They wouldn’t be if Zimmerman was ripping you off, sweetheart, and pocketing huge amounts of the cash he said he was buying you things like shopping-center shares with.”

  “What a rotten thing to say! Poor Fred isn’t even in his grave yet.”

  “I’m not saying he’s a crook, Patsy. For all I know, the guy is pure as the driven snow. But I won’t know for sure until I do some checking.”

  Patsy glared. “You have a nasty, suspicious mind.”

  “Mmm.” He looked preoccupied. There was a faint line between his well-marked black brows. “I’m an accountant. I’m always suspicious.”

  Patsy remembered what had happened to his father. “Well, go ahead and check,” she said in a gentler voice. “But the IRS wants to see me next week.”

  “I talked to Maginnis Thursday afternoon. He’s given you an extension.”

  “You never told me that!”

  The line between his brows smoothed out. “I just did,” he said. “Now, you tell me this ...”

  After ten minutes of relentlessly thorough questioning, Patsy was feeling a bit limp.

  “I hope the hell this Zimmerman is honest, sweetheart,” Michael said grimly, “because you are a sitting duck.”

  Patsy bit her lip. “But, Michael, I paid Fred just so that I wouldn’t have to bother about things like contracts and investments and taxes and so forth.”

  “A sitting duck,” he repeated.

  “You know how wretched I always was in math.” She looked a little subdued and very beautiful as she sat there in her pleated linen pants and matching oatmeal linen jacket. Her skin was flawless in the merciless morning light.

  He smiled crookedly. “I know.” He put the papers he had been looking at back on their proper pile. “Well, all right, I’ll do some checking and let you know how things stand.”

  Once again he was dismissing her. Patsy found that she did not want to be dismissed. She looked out the window. “The weather is beautiful,” she remarked. “You have a perfect day for whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How do you know I’m planning anything?”

  “You were glued to the weather forecast,” she pointed out.

  “I guess I was.” He moved his shoulders a little as if he felt a sudden cramp. “I just thought I’d go to the beach for the afternoon if the weather was good. Blow some of the cobwebs out of the brain.”

  Patsy had a sudden vision of a stretch of empty white sand, silent but for the sound of gulls and of waves crashing against the jetties. “The beach,” she repeated. “That sounds marvelous.” She looked at him. “Do you mind if I come too?”

  “In that outfit?”

  She looked down at her very expensive silk blouse and linen pants. “Why not?”

  He grinned. “Why not, indeed?”

  They were not quite the only ones on the beach when they arrived nearly forty-five minutes later. There was a group of teenagers playing Frisbee, and a young family whose children were digging industriously in the sand, Michael and Patsy walked along the waterline. Michael wore sneakers and Patsy was barefoot—she had left her fashionable shoes in Michael’s car. She had left her jacket as well and was wearing a sweatshirt of Michael’s over her silk blouse. They strolled for a while in silence and then Michael said, “How can anyone live out of reach of the ocean?”

  Patsy looked up at him in surprise. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  He smiled a little. “Those kids back there reminded me of us.”

  “I know. We went from digging sandcastles, to playing Frisbee, to picnics after the prom. Really, when you think of it, half our childhood was spent on the beach.”

  “Mmm. One of these days I’m going to buy a beach house. With a big porch so I can look out at the water first thing in the morning and last thing before I go to bed at night.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Patsy said dreamily. She inhaled deeply. “The smell of the salt. There’s nothing like it.”

  “Remember the time your father took us all fishing out of Freeport?” he asked.

  Patsy started to laugh. “Do I ever! Sally was the only one who wasn’t sick.”

  He chuckled. “First you’d heave over the side, then me, then you ...”

  “Poor Daddy.”

  “And Sally, the stinker, kept on catching fish after fish.”

  They had come to one of the jetties, and Patsy rested on a flat rock. It was warm from the sun. She looked up at him as he stood over her. “I
guess we’re creatures of the land.”

  “I guess so.” He sat down next to her, his shoulder almost touching hers.

  “It doesn’t seem so long ago, does it?” she asked softly. “And yet it’s vanished—that world of our childhood. Mother and Daddy are in Arizona, your folks are dead, the houses are sold.” She looked up. He was very close to her.

  “You sound awfully melancholy.” His eyes were on the ocean; his profile looked set and stern.

  On impulse she rested her face against his shoulder. She could feel the hardness of muscle under her cheek. She closed her eyes. “I feel melancholy,” she murmured.

  There was silence and after a minute she opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, an inscrutable expression in his eyes. “You are a menace, do you know that?” he said.

  Patsy sat up. “A menace?”

  “Unquestionably.”

  She stared. “What do you mean?” She recognized the expression in his eyes now—it was amusement. “Stop looking so smug,” she said tartly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you don’t. You’ve always gotten off perfectly unscathed, with no idea of the wreckage you’ve left behind.”

  “You sound like the Delphic Oracle. Are you naturally like this or do you like being enigmatic?” Her voice was too obviously calm.

  He grinned and stood up. “Come on. I came here for a walk, not to sit around on rocks being lazy.” He started down the beach and Patsy had to break into a jog to catch up with him. It didn’t occur to her that this was probably the first time in her life that she had ever chased after a man.

  “What do you mean, ‘wreckage’?” she asked after they had walked in silence for a while. She glanced at him swiftly and saw the corners of his smile. “I don’t go for married men, I’ll have you know,” she added self-righteously.

  “I never thought you did. It’s not something you can help, Red. It’s just the way you are. Wherever you go and whatever you do, there’ll always be some poor bastard breaking his heart over you.”

  Patsy stared straight ahead. “I can’t help the way I look.”

  He chuckled. “No, I suppose you can’t.”

  She put her hands into her pockets and scuffled sand with her feet as she walked. “Well, at any rate I never broke your heart,” she said a little defiantly.

  “Of course you did.” Her head snapped up in surprise and she turned to stare at him. “Me and every other boy at Central High,” he went on imperturbably. “How we dreamed about you. How bleak you made our futures seem. No other girl seemed worth our attention when there was Patsy Clark, shimmering before us like a heavenly garden of forbidden fruit.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “We learned early what it was to know the heartache of lost dreams. You made the rest of our lives seem like second best.”

  There was a long pause. “Are you serious?” Patsy asked in astonishment.

  “Perfectly serious.” He smiled reminiscently. “God, how I lusted after you when I was fifteen.” His mouth wore a faint, nostalgic smile and there was amusement in his eyes. It was as if an older and wiser man were looking back on the follies of his misguided youth.

  Patsy was suddenly extremely annoyed. “You’re being ridiculous,” she said crossly.

  “Not ridiculous,” he corrected her. “I was being fifteen.”

  “And now you’ve grown up and know better.”

  “I do,” he said peacefully. “But what about poor Don?”

  “The hell with Don,” Patsy snapped, and lengthened her stride, moving ahead of him. Behind her, she heard a distinct chuckle. It was not a sound that improved her temper.

  When he bestirred himself to catch up with her, however, he didn’t pursue the subject that had angered her so, but began to talk about something quite different. By the time they returned to his car, Patsy’s naturally sunny disposition had resurfaced. They sang with the radio all the way back to Michael’s house.

  Chapter Five

  Monday Patsy went to her first filming of a TV commercial for a camera company that had signed her to endorse its products. Contracts with big companies to represent them in advertising campaigns was the surest sign of success in modeling. They did not come along too often, and this was Patsy’s biggest contract since her sports-clothes endorsement.

  She knew the makeup artist, the director, and the cameraman from other sessions. They all got along well and the filming went smoothly.

  “It’s a pleasure to work with you, darling,” the director told her as the session broke up at about six. “You’re a professional.”

  Patsy laughed. “I’ve been doing this long enough, Doug. I feel like an old lady these days. The last magazine I looked through was filled with pictures of fifteen-year-olds.”

  “I know. They burn out, though, darling. Five, six months and they’re finished.”

  She frowned slightly. “I know. Why is that?”

  “They get spoiled, get that tough, bitchy look,” Mark the makeup man, answered. “The companies hire the kids because they want a fresh, dewy look for their products, and once a girl loses that look she’s finished. You can’t fix that hardness with makeup.” He looked at Patsy. “You’ve still got the freshness,” he said. “You can still look better than kids twelve years younger than you.”

  “Thanks,” Patsy said. “I think.”

  Mark, who knew her well, smiled. “The biggest difference between you and the kids is very simple, darling. You’re nice.”

  Patsy wrinkled her nose. “I was older when I came into the job,” she said. “And I had parents who kept my feet very firmly grounded. The rags-to-riches bit is just too much for most of these kids. They can’t handle it. You ought to have more patience, Mark. They’re really rather pathetic.”

  “They’re a pain in the ass,” Doug said rudely. “And Mark is right, darling, you are nice. I hope you last for ten more years.”

  “Hah,” Patsy said. “In two years I’ll be thirty. I’ve already lasted longer than most.” She smiled. “But it’s been fun. See you, guys.” She walked out of the studio, knowing they were watching her. What she didn’t know was that the emotion reflected in their eyes was one of pure affection.

  * * * *

  It had been a long, tiring day, and Patsy was stretched out on the sofa with her feet propped up when the phone rang. She went into the bedroom and picked it up.

  “Hello, Miss Clark?” inquired an unknown voice.

  “Yes.” Patsy’s number was unlisted and she didn’t often get calls from people she didn’t know. She frowned now, afraid she was once again hearing from the IRS.

  “I’m Bob Hellman, Miss Clark, a friend of Fred Zimmerman’s. Fred asked me to take over for him when he had his heart attack.”

  “Oh,” Patsy said. This must be the man whose name Fred had wanted to give her. “Well, it’s very good of you to call,” she said kindly, “but I’ve already gotten someone to look after my financial matters.”

  There was a moment of curiously charged silence on the other end of the line. Bob Hellman’s voice, when he spoke, sounded pleasant, however. “Oh, have you? That’s too bad. I was looking forward to working for you. And Fred filled me in on a few of the things he was doing. Would it be at all possible for me to discuss my credentials with you?”

  “I’m really sorry, Mr. Hellman, but I have definitely engaged someone else.”

  “Well, so be it,” he said genially. “Would you mind telling me who beat me out?”

  One of the things Patsy had learned in the course of a very public career was to volunteer as little information about her private life as possible. “Yes,” she said. “I would mind. It was kind of Fred to be concerned about me, and kind of you to call, Mr. Hellman. Have a pleasant evening.”

  Patsy hung up and thought no more about Bob Hellman. In fact, her mind seemed to be running rather disconcertingly on quite another accountant, but her thoughts were not finance-oriented. Michael hadn’t even suggested that she stay when th
ey had returned to his house from the beach yesterday. In fact, she had gotten the impression that he was anxious to get rid of her. She had assumed, with a gloom that was unusual for her, that he probably had a date.

  Patsy had ended up spending Sunday evening with Don. It was one thing to say Don had to go, but quite another, it seemed, to convince him of that fact. She couldn’t blame him, really. They had been going together for over a year, and at one time Patsy had fancied herself quite in love with him. He was a successful news reporter, clever, intense, and a bit of a rebel. Things had been terrific for the first six months: they liked the same things, they were good in bed, they had the same kind of humor. Then he wanted them to move in together. Patsy had had a few serious boyfriends in the years since she had moved to New York, but she had never formally lived with anyone. She loved her parents too much to cause them that kind of upset.

  She told him she wouldn’t live with him, and then, when he began to pressure her to marry him, she knew she didn’t really love him, after all. She had known that for quite some time, actually, but had been trying to hide the knowledge from herself. It depressed her unutterably, the way she always seemed to fall out of love.

  She thought about that gloomy fact now as she fixed herself an omelette and salad for dinner. “I’m just a shallow, fickle person, I suppose,” she said out loud. She sat at the kitchen table to eat, her mouth drooping tragically. Halfway through the omelette she began to feel better; she’d had scarcely a thing to eat all day. She was cleaning up the kitchen when the phone rang again.

  It was Sally. “Someone at the hospital gave Steve four tickets for opening day at the stadium,” she informed Patsy immediately. “Steve is a miserable Met fan, but he knows what fanatic Yankees his wife and brother-in-law are, so he took them. Do you want to come too?”

  “Is Michael going?”

  “Are you kidding? Michael would cancel an appointment with the president for the Yankees. Of course he’s going. You used to be a pretty red-hot fan yourself, I remember.”