First Sight (45 page)

“Why did you do this?” Jade asked her, looking horrified. She wasn’t sure she wanted children, and surely not at Timmie’s age, with a married man she was never going to see again. Jade couldn’t think of anything worse.

“I’m having it because I love him,” she said simply, “even if I never see him again, and he doesn’t know. I loved him enough to want his baby. That doesn’t change, just because he doesn’t have the balls to leave his wife. And I did it because of Mark. I buried one child. I couldn’t give up another one. This one is a gift. I’m keeping the gift, even if Jean-Charles is gone for good,” she said as she wiped her eyes, and David gave her a hug.

“You have a lot of guts, Timmie,” he said gently. He had always known that about her, and he was touched. “I think he should know. It’s his kid too. I honestly think he loves you. It just took him longer to get out than it should have.” He was willing to concede that, but not much more.

“Bullshit,” Jade snapped. “He was never going to leave his wife. They never do.”

“Some do,” David said staunchly. But he had written her the check on their bet anyway. And she had bought the Chanel bag she wanted. She was wearing it every day. David was sorrier than ever that she had won. For Timmie’s sake, not his own.

He gave her another hug, and they went back to their offices. Timmie went back to work at her desk. She had three more months till the baby was born. And an entire life to live without Jean-Charles. She couldn’t imagine it. She knew she would never love anyone again as she had him, nor wanted to. He truly had been the love of her life. And now he was gone for good. It was her worst nightmare come true.

Chapter 22

For the two weeks before they left for Paris for the ready to wear shows, their offices were painfully quiet. Timmie rarely spoke, and they tiptoed around her. She worked late, kept her office door closed, and her houses felt like tombs. She went to Malibu once and couldn’t stand it. She went to St. Cecilia’s and told Sister Anne what had happened, and she told Timmie she would continue to pray for a happy resolution, and reminded her she had the baby to look forward to, which was beginning to seriously show. The nuns were excited for her, and the children patted her belly. They asked if the baby had a daddy, and she said it didn’t, just like many of them, and they thought that was okay. Sister Anne hugged her when she left and said she’d be praying for her.

Timmie looked at her sadly and said it was too late for that, for Jean-Charles anyway.

“It’s never too late for prayer,” Sister Anne said cheerfully. Timmie just shook her head as she left.

She had Jade get a bunch of loose smocks for her, some big floppy unstructured jackets, and she designed a few herself, cleverly draped, so she could at least get through the shows without having news of her pregnancy hit the press. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it after that. It was hard enough now. She just had to hold out for a few more weeks, and then she could relax, and go into hiding in L.A. She was trying to keep this as quiet as she could. It wasn’t going to help to have every fashion journalist on the planet trying to guess who the father was. She was grateful that no one knew about Jean-Charles. It turned out to be a blessing in the end. She was also nervous about running into him while they were in Paris, but there was no reason why she would. She’d be busy with her show, and would have no free time to go out, roaming around the city she had always loved.

David was still adamant that Timmie should call him herself and tell him about the baby. But she stonewalled him whenever he said it. He almost wished he had the guts to call him himself, but he had to respect the wishes of his employer, even if he thought she was wrong.

“The baby has a right to a father,” he told her once, and she shook her head.

“I didn’t. And I turned out okay.”

“That’s different. You had no choice.”

“I don’t want him in my life or the baby’s because he feels sorry for us, or considers us a duty. If he’d gotten out of his marriage, that would be different. He didn’t. So we’re on our own. I’m not going to be some guy’s cast-off mistress with an illegitimate kid. I have more pride than that.” She bridled at the thought, and looked as miserable and bereft as she felt.

“May I remind you, he didn’t cast you off? You cast him off. You even lied to him and told him there was someone else. You ended it. He didn’t. And you packed a hell of a punch on the way out.”

“He would have ended it eventually. He didn’t want to see me. It was only a matter of time before he told me he wasn’t getting out of his marriage.” She was sure of that now, without a doubt. Jade had been right.

“You’ll never know that now, will you?” David said harshly. But he got nowhere with Timmie, or even Jade, who insisted Timmie was doing the right thing, although she and her architect had just gotten engaged. She was all in favor of love, but not with married men. She said, and believed to her core, that they were all a dead end.

Their show went well in New York, and they went to Milan and London after that, as always. And when they got to Paris, David could see easily that Timmie was not only exhausted but depressed. Her usual excitement over being in Paris was nonexistent. She did what she had to do, to set up the show, was relentless about the fittings with the models, as always, but never left the hotel, and ate dinner in her room every night. She went nowhere, and was anxious not to be seen. She was still covering her secret with her smocks and draped tops, but it was getting harder and harder to conceal what was under them. The baby had grown visibly on the trip, and her belly looked huge to them whenever she was in her room in her jeans and took off the cleverly draped tops she had made, which still hid everything, though barely.

David had a feeling that she was afraid to run into Jean-Charles anywhere in Paris. And whenever she finished working, she scurried back to her room like a mouse. They suggested going out to dinner to her several times, and she always declined and told them to go out without her. She was tired anyway.

For some reason, the Paris show was more difficult than it usually was. Everything had gone smoothly before, but this time in Paris the moon was in feces, as Timmie put it. Everything that could go wrong did. Two models got sick, a third went to jail for getting caught selling cocaine at a party. Their florist in Paris screwed up and got their order wrong, and then couldn’t produce what they needed. The runway had what looked like three speed bumps in it, and if they left it that way, the models would be breaking their necks in towering high heels on a slippery surface with bumps. Timmie said she didn’t care what it took, or how much, they had to fix it by Tuesday. And last but not least, the lighting kept failing and blowing out everything in the room. While they were trying to fix it, a light bar fell, hit a technician, and broke his shoulder. It felt as though they were cursed.

“Shit,” Timmie said with an exasperated look, as they waited for the models to show up for rehearsal. Five were late so far, and one had arrived drunk. And the seamstresses weren’t through making the adjustments from the fittings. “Can anything else go wrong here? I’m expecting a herd of elephants to run through the room any minute.”

“Some shows are like that,” David said soothingly, but this one had been tough.

“Not in Paris, for chrissake. Oklahoma maybe. We can’t look like fools in Paris. The press will kill us,” Timmie said unhappily. She had looked miserable since they arrived. It was agony being in the same city with Jean-Charles and not seeing him. It ate at her night and day.

Their run-through the day before had looked like the Marx Brothers, and Timmie had insisted on a final rehearsal, even though the lighting wasn’t right, and the speed bumps weren’t out of the runway yet. They had managed to get rid of one, but there were two more to deal with. “What were those guys thinking when they built it? They must have been smoking crack,” Timmie said, looking aggravated. She had been on everyone’s back for days, and she could hardly wait for the show to be over. She wanted to go home and put her feet up. She hated being in Paris now. All she could think of was Jean-Charles, and when she walked into the living room of her suite where she had fallen in love with him eight months before, it made her cry. But she said nothing to the others. She didn’t have to. They could see it. All she wanted was to get the show behind her and go home the minute it was over.

They were ready for the final rehearsal at four o’clock. The lighting was almost right, but not quite. Close enough to proceed, Timmie decided. All the models had turned up, and the clothes were finally ready. She hadn’t eaten all day, and had been going through lollipops by the case, to keep going. And then one of the light bars went out again, and she climbed up on the runway herself to take a better look at it from below.

“Watch out it doesn’t hit you,” David said, only half-joking, as it literally began to fall from the ceiling, and Timmie took a step backward to avoid it. She managed to duck, but at the same time she fell backward over one of the remaining speed bumps on the runway, and fell flat on her back on the floor as everyone gasped and then rushed to her. Only David and Jade knew she was pregnant, but she had taken a hell of a fall, enough to frighten everyone around her. He wasn’t sure if she’d hit her head, but she looked dazed and gray when he got to her.

David knelt down next to her and looked into her eyes. She was lying flat on her back and hadn’t moved yet. She was winded. “Hey … are you okay? … Talk to me …” She looked up at him and seemed a little out of it for a minute as everyone stared at her and David left her with Jade.

“No doctor,” she whispered to her assistant. “Don’t let them call a doctor.” Jade nodded, but she had a feeling she knew what David was going to do, and she couldn’t leave Timmie to stop him. Timmie looked frighteningly pale, and when she tried to sit up, she was dizzy and let out a shout of pain when she tried to stand up. Her ankle was swelling to the size of a balloon as she grimaced and leaned against Jade. “I think I twisted it,” she said, and collapsed into a chair, while one of the light techs went to get her some ice, and an assistant manager showed up to check on her. Someone had called him, and he offered to call the hotel doctor. Timmie emphatically declined. She insisted she was fine, but didn’t look it.

“Maybe you broke it,” David said, looking worried, when he returned. He didn’t dare ask her about the baby, and he had seen her rub her stomach. “I think you should go to the hospital,” he said, as Jade ran to tell the models there had been a delay and they would start the rehearsal in a few minutes. The assistant manager went to report to the general manager then. He knew just how important Timmie was and it was obvious that she was hurt.

“I’m fine,” Timmie said, and tried to stand up again. “Let’s get started,” she said, looking like the ghost of Christmas past.

“You’re crazy,” David said, as she struggled to organize the rehearsal, looking like she might faint. Twenty minutes later, Timmie turned and much to her horror, she saw Jean-Charles standing a few feet away, observing her. Her worst nightmare had just happened. He was there. She had no idea who had called him, but someone had. She looked at David, and he turned away to say something to Jade, and avoided Timmie’s gaze. Jean-Charles didn’t look happy either. As soon as she saw him, Timmie looked panicked. And for a minute she looked as though she really might faint. Jean-Charles made her sit down and put her head between her legs, and when she sat up again, she looked at him with a tortured expression.

“I don’t need a doctor,” she said firmly, “but thank you for coming. I’m fine. Just a little winded.” He had already looked down and seen the ankle. And was taking her pulse while he listened.

“It looks broken,” he said, and then bent to look at the ankle, while Timmie looked frantically at David. But he would not help her escape him. This was fate doing its job, in his opinion. With a little help from him. “You need to go to the hospital,” Jean-Charles said quietly. This was the first time they had seen each other since April, and it was visibly painful for both of them.

“I don’t need a hospital. We’re about to start rehearsal.”

“I think we’ve had this argument before.” Jean-Charles looked as miserable as she did, when David interrupted.

“I’ll deal with the rehearsal. It’s just a run-through, for chrissake. You get that ankle looked at.” He helped Jean-Charles get her to her feet before she could object, and she pulled her draped top around her and fluffed it. She looked chic but deathly pale, and she couldn’t take a single step on the ankle. They produced a wheelchair from somewhere while she argued with both of them to no avail. And the manager looked relieved to see a doctor on the scene.

“I’ll drive you if you like,” Jean-Charles said drily. He had been at his office when David called him and he had come immediately.

“I can take a cab,” she said, avoiding looking at him. Her heart was pounding just knowing he was there. She didn’t want to see him, or be in a car with him. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Just feeling his presence made her heart ache. She knew she would be in love with him until the day she died. She didn’t want to see him again. She had already resigned herself to losing him. That had been hard enough. Seeing him was worse. She would have been angry at David for calling him if she weren’t in so much pain. David’s guilt for making the call was all over his face. But he knew he had done the right thing. Someone had to step in, for both their sakes and the baby’s. So he had.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Jean-Charles said practically. “I don’t mind. I have to see a patient at the hospital anyway.” She said nothing, and one of the light techs rolled her through the lobby and out the front door as Jean-Charles followed.

The doorman brought his car around, and Jean-Charles helped her get in. She was obviously in a lot of pain and nearly cried while he did it. She was trying to be brave.

“Sorry,” he apologized, and they said nothing to each other on the drive to the hospital in Neuilly. It brought back old memories for her, as she avoided looking at him and stared out the window. The ankle was killing her, but she said nothing. And she was relieved to feel the baby kick her. At least it was still alive. And then finally Jean-Charles said something to her. “I know this is awkward for both of us. I’m sorry you got hurt.” He looked as handsome as ever, and she tried valiantly not to notice. She just wanted the ride to end.