By Design (4 page)

Emmie slouched across her desk at work, the heel of her hand mashed into her cheek to keep her head propped up. Her night on the sofa hadn’t been very restful. At all. Of course, she could have reclaimed her bed. She could have moved Kyle if she’d tried hard enough. She could have made
him
sleep on the couch. She even could have woken him up and sent him home, no matter what the time of night. But she hadn’t. Sometimes she wondered if she even knew
how
to make demands on other people. Maybe she could ask Trish to give her a few lessons in assertiveness.

Right now, however, her only goal was to stay awake without the assistance of caffeine. Wilma never let her make a pot of coffee unless there were clients in the office, and though he was out at the moment, she didn’t even think of disobeying. The most daring thing she could do was to allow herself to slouch like this—Wilma would have murdered her on the spot if he saw her looking so unprofessional. He was worse than a headmistress at a finishing school. Sit up straight, don’t chew your nails, smooth your hair out, be more polite, speak proper English, act like an adult . . .

Emmie’s eyelids drooped. She rolled her shoulders and tipped her head to the left, then to the right to keep herself awake. She wished Wilma didn’t insist on having classical music playing in the office—it wasn’t helping. She had to do something, get herself moving. Was there any pressing work to be done? Nothing that couldn’t wait, said her drowsy brain. Maybe if she just shut her eyes for a moment . . . just one teeny-tiny moment . . .

The clanging noise reverberated in Emmie’s head like a fire alarm. She lurched up and glanced around wildly. Had she actually let her head rest on the desktop, even for a split second? Then she realized the fire alarm hadn’t gone off—it was just the antique brass bell over the door of the shop, and it was far quieter than it had seemed through the haze of her impromptu nap. When Emmie first brought Wilma the bell, which she had found at a flea market one weekend, he had dismissed it as tacky, but she had convinced her boss that customers would like being greeted by its quaint, friendly jingle instead of an electronic sensor’s beep. Now, however, she hated the thing; she never thought it could scare her half to death like that.

She tried to calm her thumping heart as she rubbed her blurry eyes. Yes, someone had come in and was standing by the door. But there was no screaming. That meant it wasn’t Wilma. A man, but taller than Wilma. And definitely quieter, she noted.

“Can—can I help you?” she stammered.

“Er, I hope so, yes,” the man said, in a melodious baritone that woke Emmie up completely. She’d never had her nerve endings put on high alert by a mere voice before (unless she counted the negative physical reaction she had whenever Wilma spoke), but she felt a distinct tingling now. “I’m looking for . . . John, is it?”

The man came closer to her desk; Emmie did her best to smile. She suddenly realized the side of her face was wet, near the corner of her mouth. What . . . ?
Drool? Dear God.
She’d have preferred it if someone had shot her and the dampness was blood instead. Blood was dramatic; drool was just pathetic. Emmie tried to subtly wipe it away, and she heard a faint
tick
as something landed on the desk. Her earring? She looked down. A paper clip. A paper clip had been
stuck to her face. Good grief!

The man was now standing directly opposite her, his hands in the pockets of his relaxed, low-slung jeans, his pose bunching up the bottom of the tweed blazer he wore over an open-necked white cotton shirt. Emmie let her gaze travel upward. She had a bad feeling this person before her was going to be extremely good-looking. She felt her face get a head start on the inevitable blush.

Oh, just great,
she thought as she tried to unobtrusively rub the spot on her cheek where there might have been a paper clip imprint. He was definitely hot. But not unrealistic, male-model-type hot. No, this guy’s look was even better. He was . . . realistically hot. Nice build—solid, she noted, but not massive—nice shoulders, friendly face. Black hair, a tad longish, gracefully going to gray at the temples and brow . . . and then her gaze locked onto the man’s blue eyes, and she found herself unable to look away. She had never seen such blue eyes in her life. Not the shocking iciness of light blue eyes—no, his were a deep, rich shade with a depth she could easily fall into. He smiled politely, and the blue eyes were suddenly caressed by the most charming crow’s-feet Emmie had ever seen.

Silence. Emmie stared, and the man’s smile became a bit strained as he tried to sustain it for too long. More silence. Now it was getting stupid, Emmie realized. She fought to find her voice, but failed. Finally the man spoke again.

“John . . . Wilman?” he prompted gently. “This is his place of business?”

“John . . .” Emmie finally snapped out of it at the sound of her boss’s name. “Yes! John! Wilman! Yes! Of course! You’re in the right place!”

She wished with all her heart she could stop bellowing enthusiastically like a game show host. Trying to show a little more class, she stood up and smoothed out her skirt. “Welcome to Wilman Designs. How can I help you?”

Realistic Hottie’s polite smile faded and he gazed at her blankly. “I’m looking for John Wilman,” he reminded her.

“Right! You said. John. That’s my boss!” she said in a singsong voice that horrified her.
Where did that come from?
She had lost control of herself completely. “Uh . . .” Emmie rifled through the papers on her desk as if she could find Wilma there, then leaned toward her computer, frantically jiggling the mouse to make the screen saver disappear. Staring at the computer gave her the opportunity to get her head straight. She tucked her hair behind one ear and brought up Wilma’s calendar. “He’s, uh, out right now . . . obviously. He should be back in . . . about an hour.”

“I see.”

More silence. Emmie froze, staring at the calendar, even though it wasn’t going to change and wasn’t going to summon Wilma through the door to end this excruciating awkwardness. The density of the silence pressed on her. She forced herself to look at the man again. To her surprise, he was smiling again, but differently this time. He was looking downright amused, in fact, his blue eyes twinkling and a grin playing around the corners of his perfect lips. It was such an intimate look that she felt a blush rising in her cheeks again. What was he grinning at? Did she have more office supplies attached to her face? She imagined herself bristling with thumbtacks and plastic Post-it arrows that read “Sign Here,” and she resisted the urge to run her hands over her face, hair, and neck to brush them off.

She needed to get a grip. “Would you care to wait?” Emmie gestured toward the ornate furniture by the door—a bit spokesmodel-y, but refined, she hoped. “I can get you some coffee or tea or whatever.” Okay, now a random teenager had taken control of her speech. One step forward, two steps back, apparently.

“No, thank you,” he demurred, and Emmie felt her stomach drop with a ridiculously overblown feeling of disappointment. “I’ll stop by another time.”

Was it her imagination, or did Realistic Hottie give her the once-over before his polite, neutral smile took over and he started to walk toward the door?

Emmie found herself desperately trying to regroup to keep him there. “Uh . . . did you want to make an appointment?” He opened the door. “Leave a message, a business card . . . ?” He shut the door behind him. “Marry me?”

And he was gone.

 

“So Cinderella didn’t even leave a glass slipper behind?” Trish asked as she dashed around her kitchen, preparing dinner. Emmie dodged out of her way, protecting the glass of merlot Trish had graced her with as soon as she had stepped through her door.

“Not a thing. Just a whiff of manly perfection in his wake.”

“New brand of cologne?”

“Ha. Funny, you are.”

“Talking like Yoda, you are. This guy must have done a number on you.”

Emmie’s eyes glazed over. “He was so hot . . .”

“Clooney hot?”

She made a face. “Pfft. Clooney’s overrated.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Well, this guy was hotter.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Oh, it is—believe me.” She sighed. “I’m being ridiculous.”

“Well, I think it’s great,” Trish countered, stirring a big pot of something on the stove with a long-handled wooden spoon.

Emmie snorted into her wine. “Oh, yeah, I know how your mind’s working, missy. In your head, you’ve already got me broken up with Kyle and married to Mr. Manly Perfection.”

“Mm, just engaged. So we can have plenty of time to plan the wedding.”

“Oh, stop.” Emmie laughed.

“Ooh.” Trish made a face, turning to her mid-stir. “Was he married?”

Emmie thought about it. “You know, I don’t know. He had his hands in his pockets—”

“Pervert? Or chronic ‘adjuster’?”

“Ew! Neither! It was just a casual pose. Looked really good on him,” she murmured, losing focus once more as she pictured Realistic Hottie standing before her again.

Trish looked amused through the steam rising up from the various pots and pans on her stove top. “Sounds like luuuuuvvv to me.”

“Please.” Emmie dismissed her friend as she absently swirled the little bit of wine left in her glass. “But . . . I’ve gotta admit, I sure hope he does stop back in like he said he would.”

“And then you’ll jump on him?”

“Yes
indeed
.”

“Can I check my e-mail on your computer?” Emmie asked, finishing a piece of candy Trish had produced from her secret stash at the back of the cupboard over the refrigerator. “Looking at that tiny screen on my phone gives me a headache.”

“I thought your dad gave you the headache.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot I already had one.”

If Emmie stopped and thought about it, she would have found it very telling that when something stressful happened in her life, she always sought the company of her best friend instead of her boyfriend. But Emmie didn’t want to stop and think about it, so she just took comfort in the chaos that permeated Trish’s house. She sat back and let the constant noise wash over her—the TV blaring, Trish yelling at her younger son, Logan, to stop narrating the war he was putting on with his action figures at absolute top volume, the steady
thump, thump, thump
of the clothes dryer in the laundry room—and her mind was finally in neutral.

Until she thought about her dad. After two weeks in the tropics and then a bit longer to regroup at home, Pa Brewster had finally surfaced and called his little girl that morning, all kinds of cheerful, as though he hadn’t betrayed her mother’s memory by gallivanting on the beaches of Saint Lucia with dark-skinned native girls younger than his daughter, downing tropical drinks with umbrellas in them, and turning beet red with an equatorial sunburn. Emmie’s imagination had been running wild ever since he sent the postcard, so even if he had gone to a sedate resort and spent the entire time dressed in seersucker shorts, black socks, and padded sandals, playing euchre with old men named Salvatore and Myron, she’d never believe it till he produced photos as evidence.

So, working on a low boil in advance, Emmie had agreed to meet her father for lunch. He had been late (surprise, surprise), and she had been ready to blow when he finally marched into the diner, exclaimed, “How’s my girl?” and awkwardly bent his six-foot frame to peck her on the cheek.

But she just plastered on a weak smile and said, “Hi, Dad. How was your trip?”

“Wonderful!” he exulted, sliding into the booth and immediately starting to fiddle with the silverware and paper napkin. His white hair was set off by his new, deep tan (no sunburn for him, Emmie noted). “Beautiful place. You should go there sometime. The food is unbelievable. And did you know—”

Emmie cut off the impending travelogue with an exasperated, “Dad!”

“What?” Bob’s bushy white eyebrows crept up toward his thick thatch of hair. “What’s the matter?”

Emmie sighed. “Nothing. Never mind.” She picked up her phone and ran through her bookmarked sites to distract herself until her irritation abated.

“Don’t take that tone with me, missy,” he admonished, making Emmie feel like a teenager. “Whatever you’re upset about, you might as well spit it out. And put that toy down and look at your father when you speak to him.”

She sighed again. Yep, the regression was complete. Hello again, fifteen. “It’s just . . . why didn’t you tell me you were going, instead of disappearing and then sending a postcard?”

Her father’s eyebrows traveled higher up his forehead. “I didn’t think you’d mind, Emmaline.”

“Well, I did,” she snapped, and immediately regretted it.

It was times like these that she missed her mother the most. Because she would have handled her father much better. Jennifer wouldn’t have bitten his head off like Emmie just did; she would have patted his forearm with a calm but cautioning “Now, Bob . . .” and the man would have immediately rethought his position.

Then again, if her mother were here, she and her dad wouldn’t be having this conversation.

A waitress appeared beside their booth, and her father asked for a cup of coffee. Emmie told her father she didn’t have much time left for lunch and ordered a salad. As her father read the menu quickly and chose an omelet, Emmie hid behind her phone again.

Circle-O loaded, and she thought about all her old classmates with their perfect lives on display. She’d bet anything their parents didn’t ignore the anniversary of a loved one’s death. Heck, she’d bet that nobody in their families had even died yet. They probably all still had both their parents and all their grandparents, artfully arranged around an elaborately laden dining room table like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Bob Brewster sat back and studied his daughter. “I didn’t forget the date, you know. That was why I went.”

Now she did put the phone down. “What!”

“I can’t sit around at home, staring at the walls. You think I don’t do that enough as it is?”

“So you ran away.”

“No!” he protested. “Emmaline, I loved your mother—you know I did. But she’s gone, and I’m still here.” Her father sighed, looked away. “When your mother died, I was ready to curl up and die, too. And there were times I wished I had. But after a while, when I got up each morning and realized I wasn’t going anywhere, I started to see things differently. Do you understand that?” She sat still, her insides in a muddle, surprised that he was able to say this much. “It’s just . . . I don’t
feel
old. Okay, maybe first thing in the morning, when it takes me a few minutes to get out of bed.” He chuckled ruefully. “But up here”—he tapped his temple—“twenty-two, maybe. I want to see what else this life has to offer while I’m still ‘with it’.”

Please don’t talk about senior-citizen sex, please don’t talk about senior-citizen sex,
Emmie prayed silently.

“And,” he continued pointedly, “I want to be around to see my little girl get married and give me grandchildren!”

Emmie rolled her eyes. Why was it that, when children grew up, parents only measured their worth in terms of the number of grandchildren produced?

The waitress set their food in front of them, and Emmie stared down at her salad. Sliced hardboiled eggs stared back up at her. She sighed and picked up her fork. She wanted to be angry at her father. She really did. But—and she hated to admit this—what he said made a certain amount of sense. If this was what it took to make him feel better about still being here when his wife wasn’t, who was she to begrudge him that? Didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

“How’s that man Kyle of yours?”

Oh, that was inevitable. Emmie started poking at her salad. “Same,” was all she’d offer. “Good,” she lied, then dodged with, “Tell me about Saint Lucia.”

 

That session with her father was enough to drive her to the sanctuary of Trish’s house after work to let her best friend talk her down. Because Trish was so darned good at it.

Trish leaned her dining room chair on the two back legs to see into the living room. “Justin!” she barked. “You on the computer?”

“Yeah.”

“Doing homework?”

Pause. “Yes?”

“Liar. Let Aunt Emmie use it.” She plonked the front legs of her chair back onto the carpet. Emmie started to protest, but Trish whispered, “I think he’s got a girlfriend. Lots of instant messaging lately. Let him get off the computer for five minutes—” She interrupted herself with a bellow, “Get
off
, Justin!” then continued calmly, “So he can do something healthy, like play violent video games.”

Once Justin had moved on to blowing up aliens on the Nintendo, Emmie checked her work e-mail through her Web access. She didn’t really care if Wilma had left her any after-hours messages, nor whether a vendor or client urgently needed anything, but lately she’d been wondering if Realistic Hottie might contact Wilma by e-mail. A long shot, sure, but she was desperate, as there had been no sign of him since that first time he’d stopped in.

Out of a burning desire to find out
something
about Realistic Hottie, Emmie had decided to see if Wilma knew him. She made what she’d hoped sounded like an offhand comment to her boss while she and Wilma had been inspecting some custom-made wallpaper for blemishes.

“Somebody stopped in looking for you the other day while you were out,” Emmie had ventured in her best casual voice as she scanned the wallpaper. She felt braver when she didn’t have to meet Wilma’s eyes.

“Really?” Wilma murmured, running his finger down a line of scrollwork. “Who was it?”

“That’s the thing—he didn’t say.” She felt Wilma eyeing her suspiciously.

“And you didn’t
ask
?”

Heading off yet another lecture about office etiquette, Emmie said quickly, “I asked him if he wanted to leave a message or if he had a business card, but he just . . . left.” Wilma said nothing. “Tall guy? Dark hair with a little gray?” Hot as all get-out, she didn’t add. She braced herself for a snide comment about how she’d noticed his looks but had forgotten to get his name, but it didn’t come. Wilma rolled up the wallpaper with quick flicks of his wrists.

“No idea,” he said. “But if we lost a new client thanks to your—”

“He said he’d stop in again.”

“Oh, they always say that,” he growled with a curl of his lip.

Emmie sighed and let the subject drop. If he wasn’t an acquaintance of Wilma’s, he probably had been a potential customer looking for a design consultation, and it really was Emmie’s fault that they’d lost a client because she was too busy drooling, both literally and figuratively, to get his name and contact information.

 

Now a quick look at her work e-mail, with only three new messages, all from current clients, only left her disappointed. Shocked at how down in the dumps she suddenly felt without a message from a man she didn’t even know, she stared at the computer for a few more minutes, just so she could compose herself before Trish could catch a glimpse of her unhappy face.

She switched to her home e-mail account. She found the usual batch of spam, a shipping confirmation for some clothes she’d ordered . . . and a notification from Circle-O. It said she had a message from a friend waiting for her on the site. She clicked on the link and, sure enough, there was a little glowing envelope.
Odd,
she thought. Trish still refused to join Circle-O, especially after Emmie regaled her with stories of their much more fortunate fellow alums (although Trish swore most of them were lying—or at least exaggerating), so who could be contacting her?

Emmie clicked on the envelope, which unfolded with an animated flourish. “Ho-ly . . .” she muttered.

Trish came up behind her, and Emmie could feel the heat of Trish’s coffee mug close to her shoulder as her friend leaned in to look at the screen. “What is that?”

“I,” Emmie announced dramatically, “have been invited. To a holiday cookie party. At . . . Juliet Winslow’s.”

“OoooOOOOoo,” Trish cooed appreciatively. “Aren’t we special!”

Emmie read the details quickly. “Actually, no, I’m not. Looks like it went out to every single alum from our graduating year who’s on Circle-O. Or . . . wait. It went to all the
females.
Gee, that’s not sexist at all.”

“You’ve
got
to go.”

“You’ve
got
to come with me.”

“Ohhh, no!” Trish protested, then added demurely, “I wasn’t invited!”

“Nice try, Emily Post. It’s only because you won’t join Circle-O. If you had, you’d be the lucky recipient of this choice invite, too.”

“Oh well. You’ll just have to go without me and tell me all about it afterward.” Before Emmie could insist, Trish held up a hand and exclaimed, “No, no, no! Don’t try to convince me! I wouldn’t
dream
of crashing such an exclusive event.”

“You totally suck.”

“I know.” But she didn’t look the least bit remorseful.

“Come
on
,” Emmie wheedled. “Don’t make me go into the lion’s den alone.”

“What lion’s den? If Juliet was the nicest person on the planet back in high school, she’s probably even more saintly now. I don’t think you have any reason to be worried about her.”

“Yeah, but . . . but . . . what about the Popular Girls?”

“They’re
adults
now—professionals, wives, mothers, blah, blah, blah. Not snooty high school bitches.”

“When snooty high school bitches grow up, their meanness is distilled into its purest, most lethal form,” Emmie whispered fearfully. “Don’t you watch
Real Housewives
?”

“Oh, nobody’s going to be mean to you,” Trish scoffed. “Come on, you’re nice, cute, successful . . .”

Emmie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’m a slave to a temperamental queen of an interior designer who wears a dead squirrel on his head. How in the
world
does that translate into a success story?”

“You’re a survivor, for one thing—how many of those other women would be able to last one day, let alone four years, working for Wilma?”

“This isn’t making me feel better.”

“All right.” Trish tried another tack. “Then lie. Or, rather, shade the truth. You
know
all those folks did.” Trish waved her hand at the Circle-O site. “So . . . you’re a fabulous up-and-coming interior designer, and you’re just about to start your own business. And you’re in a long-term relationship. Never mind that the guy’s a doof—they don’t need to know that part. See how it works?”

“You still think Kyle’s a doof?”

“Don’t you? And don’t change the subject.”

Emmie slouched, rested her chin on the back of the desk chair, and turned doe eyes up to her friend. “Scared.”

“Don’t be. Think of this as an opportunity to strut your stuff. And to bake ten dozen cookies.”

“What!”

Trish laughed. “Missed that part, did you? What do you think a cookie party is, anyway?”

“You go to somebody’s house and sit around eating cookies?”

“Obviously you’re not a housewife and a member of a neighborhood committee, like
moi.
You bake ten dozen holiday-type cookies and everyone takes a few of each kind home. Oh—and you have to print a bunch of copies of the recipe, too, to share with everyone.”