Glamour (13 page)

“Helen’s not here because she went on vacation, with the family.They planned a surprise trip for her. She wanted to cancel it for you. I told her to go, but I thought you’d be in Washington a while longer, I guess.” She looked guilty. “She said it’d only be a week. . . .”

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m glad she went,” Jane said. “I can look after myself.”

Sally put Jane’s bags in the car and they climbed in. “Tell me everything,” she said.

“Nothing to tell.” Jane laid her head back against the headrest as Sally pulled smoothly out into traffic. “We read the will and they told me what my options were.”

“So . . . it wasn’t good?”

Jane shook her head. “ ’Fraid not.”

Sally glanced across at her.

“He left you nothing, hon?”

“Some personal effects. I can’t bear to keep them, so I asked they be donated to charity.” Jane’s voice had a clear, cold determination to it that tore at Sally’s heart; she had seen her friend throw up walls like this before, a crab scuttling back under her shell. “He was in debt up to the eyeballs, but the embassy got a lawyer who made sure they won’t attach to me, as I’m a minor.”

“Which means they have to look after you. . . .”

“They refuse to pay for Miss Milton’s.”

There it was. Sally’s worst nightmare. Split from Jane forever. Their threesome broken up.

“That’s bull,” she exclaimed. “If they won’t pay for you, we will. Daddy will, I promise you that.”

Jane reached over and squeezed her hand.

“Sally, I love you for that.” Tears started to prickle in both girls’ eyes. “But I can’t go back there, don’t you see? There’s no money coming in. Without Daddy’s salary, how am I going to pay for college? I can’t go to Oxford or Cambridge—I’d need money to support myself. And once I hit eighteen, they wash their hands of me.”

“Oh, Jane.”

“They offered me a small place in Washington in a not-great area and the last year at a local private school. I said no way. Murder capital of America.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Stay right where I am. Consuela will be with me till her wages run out. And then, I guess I’ll go get a job. And an apartment.”

“But you’re not a legal adult. And without a degree what kind of job can you get?”

“I’ll work something out.”

Jane sounded definite about that. But Sally could hear the tears lurking just under the bravado.

“Y’all can come and live with us,” Sally suggested.“The maid and you.We’ll pay her wages . . . you can have a guest bungalow. It’s what they’re there for. Daddy won’t mind. . . .”

“Thanks, honey.” Jane smiled at her gratefully. “But I want to see if I can figure something out for myself. I want to rely on myself. Does that make sense?”

“You always were ornery,” Sally said, but she did understand. Jane had always had that fierce pride, as long as she’d known her. Her father’s final abandonment meant she would need to try to stand up for herself. “Come on. We’ll go get a nice long lunch somewhere.”

“Sounds good,” Jane said.

Eventually, Sally dropped Jane off at her place in Malibu. Consuela was not there; not expecting Jane back this fast, she had bunked off to her brother’s house in the Valley. Jane did not mind in the least. She let herself in, switched off the alarm, and went to run a bath.

It would take her a week, just for the basics. Finding out how to get her things from Miss Milton’s, without setting foot in that hellish place ever again. She did not want to see the sneering faces of her enemies, or worse, have to hear their fake sympathy. She wanted to research what it would take to get her declared an adult, better yet, a naturalized U.S. citizen. Some of her father’s colleagues could help with that one. Jane was selfishly glad Helen was away for a little while. She was shell-shocked, and although she wanted to make a fresh start, sort out her life, for a few days she needed to recover. She wasn’t sleeping, and her appetite had gone.

You need some R & R, she told herself, then smiled grimly at the American turn of phrase. Sally was there for her, and she loved her all the more now, but Jane wasn’t sure she could take staying with Sal, enduring her bubbly, preppy optimism, seeing her with her own loving family. It would hurt far too much. No, Jane wanted to be out here, near the beach, to pull on her sneakers and run till she felt like throwing up, to walk by the sea, try to stay sane, numb out the pain.

Thomas Morgan had never loved her. He had abandoned her to nannies, and then to school far away in Los Angeles. But Jane had never stopped trying to impress him. And she’d hoped, maybe when she was an adult, so near, so near, she could have gone to Washington, been an academic in a think tank, even a diplomat....

If only she’d had time.

I could have made Daddy love me, Jane thought, desperately.

But there was no time. And he had abandoned her again, this time for good.

Exhausted, she put her head on her knees and wept.

Sal went over to Jane’s house every day that week to check on her. Her friend scared her; Jane was withdrawing deeply: sitting on the beach for hours, staring out to sea, or keeping herself frantically busy researching citizenship and her emancipation. Gossip didn’t interest her, clothes didn’t interest her. She flatly refused to go to a club or a rock concert, or even a ball game.

But Sally kept trying. She wanted to help Jane, and besides, it was pretty tense at Green Gables. Daddy was having some kind of business trouble, and he hung round the house with a face as red as a tomato, sweating and cussing as he went through his papers. He was drinking too much, and worked later and later hours. It made Sal uncomfortable. She’d rather be in Malibu, working on helping Jane.

“It’s Friday,” Sally said, finally, with a sense of relief. “Helen’s coming home.”

“She’s not there yet. I left a message.”

Sally had, too.

“Let’s go see. Maybe they just got back.” Anything to get Jane to take a ride; sitting in Malibu stewing in her grief was not good for her.

“Okay,” Jane agreed, looking at Sally with bloodshot eyes. She did want to see Helen again. And she was intelligent enough to see what her friend was trying to get her to do. “Let’s go.”

They pulled up outside the Yannas’ compact little house; Sally looked at it with interest, never having been there before. There was a car parked in the driveway. They smiled at each other—Helen was back.

Jane looked forward to seeing her friend. She was reassured by the modesty of the house; Helen Yanna’s parents must be reaching to send her to Miss Milton’s, just as her father had. Who knew? Maybe Helen’s dad could do with a bookkeeper.

“You stay here,” Jane suggested tactfully. “I’ll ring the bell.”

Sally was wearing one of her typical short skirts, just off the knee, with a sexy pleated kick to it, and an outrageous tight white T-shirt that played up her glorious breasts and golden skin. Somehow Jane assumed that her own plain black trouser suit would be more reassuring to their friend’s parents.

She climbed out and pressed the buzzer; there was the sound of footsteps, and a young girl wrenched the door open. She was pretty and slight, not more than ten, Jane guessed.

“Are you Jasmine?”

The little girl nodded, eyes wide.

Jane offered a hand. “I’m Jane Morgan, Helen’s friend from school. Is she in?”

“Helen’s never coming back,” Jasmine said, and her eyes brimmed with tears.

CHAPTER 5

“Excuse me?” Jane asked, bewildered, but an adult figure filled the door, a stocky, bearded man, and he was gazing at her very coolly.

“Mr.Yanna—I was just telling Jasmine that I’m Jane, Helen’s schoolfriend. Is she about?”

“No.”

Jane tried again. Maybe his English wasn’t too hot.

“It’s just that she hasn’t been answering her phone, and we wanted to—”

“My daughter is not here anymore. She has gotten married.”

He obviously wasn’t joking.

“I—I don’t quite understand. We went to a party last week together.We thought she was on holiday. . . .”

“No holiday. Honeymoon. She decided to get married to her second cousin Ahmed and they have gone back to Cairo to set up house,” Helen’s father replied flatly. “She may not be back here for many years.”

“But she didn’t say anything to us.”

“A wedding is a private family matter,” Ali Yanna said. “If she wishes to call you, she can.”

Jane digested this.

“If she speaks to you, will you tell her Sally and I would like to talk to her?” Jane asked.

He shrugged. “Good-bye, then.”

The door closed.

Sally wound down the car window and poked out her head.

“What happened?”

Jane got back in the car, her face troubled, and motioned for Sally to drive off.

“He said she left the country. Got married to some distant relation and left for Cairo.”

“You’re messin’ with me. She was going on vacation.”

“Apparently while she was out there, she decided to get hitched. I don’t think her father approves of us, Sal. He didn’t seem to want to talk.”

Sally’s face was a picture of dismay.

“That
can’t
be true. She never said a damned thing to us.”

“Mr. Yanna told me it was a private family matter.” Jane chewed on her lip. “I know Helen. . . . Still waters run deep, but I don’t think she would do that.”

“She’s been hanging out with us long enough to get her some street smarts,” Sally said. “She knows our numbers. Guess we’ll just have to wait for her to call.”

“I guess so.”

“Oh, man,” Sally breathed. “It just hit me. I’ll be all alone at school now. No you and no Helen. I don’t want to go back.”

They both contemplated Julie Manners and Maureen Smith.

Don’t,” Jane said, boldly. “Sal, just don’t. Get your dad to pay for a private tutor, or go to a different school.You don’t have to take that. I wouldn’t.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Sally said wearily.“I should think about it. But that’s about all the change I can handle for one day.” She grinned at Jane. “We still got each other. Let’s go get some coffee.”

“So.” Paulie Lassiter shook his head. He was getting worked up. Here in the Century City offices of his extremely high-priced corporate lawyers, he was surrounded by suits, and not one of them was coming up with any damn solutions!

“What do we do? We gotta fix this.” His stare said,
You
gotta fix this.

“I don’t know, Paulie.These accounts . . . they’re fiction.”

“Fiction!” he snorted. “Three accounting firms signed ’em.”

“Yeah, but your CFO was cooking the books.”

“I told you, I fired the sonofabitch.”

“That won’t do it.” Lionel Javits, head of the lawyers, pushed his horn-rimmed spectacles up on his nose. “You have to notify the feds . . . the SEC . . . the regulatory authorities. The stock is going to go through the floor. Jack Lessing is going to jail.”

“Damn right he is,” Paulie snorted, as the lawyers exchanged looks. “My concern now is to save the stock. Nobody’s selling, not while this is going on.”

Ugh. He hated delegating. A month away to look at a new field, some possible strikes in northern Canada, and what happens? His asshole executives cook the books. Paulie Lassiter was an
oilman,
not a damned accountant. Billion-dollar company and he was having to do every little thing himself. He mopped his brow, struggling with his breath. Anger was not his usual emotion.

“Paulie, they already did. Most of your board, even the non-execs. They’ve been quietly dumping stock for the last eighteen months. It’s your workers who are going to be ruined.” Javits paused. “And if you haven’t been selling, then it doesn’t look good for you either.”

“But at least it proves you’re honest,” a junior suit piped up brightly. “
You
won’t be going to jail!”

Javits glared at him.

Paulie glanced outside at the bright blue sky. It seemed such a normal day in L.A. How could everything look normal when his world was coming apart?

“That
can’t
be right,” he explained patiently. “We’re not some paper company, not some pyramid scheme of a crooked trader on Wall Street.We got
assets
. Oilfields. Six in Texas, one in Ghada, maybe a new one in Canada . . .”

“Doesn’t cover the expansion into natural gas . . . the pipeline in Kazakhstan that was smashed by terrorists.Your corporate policy was breached.”

“Not enough security.”

“And four of the Texas fields have dried up.”

“Lassiter Oil’s been trading pretty much on its reputation. And some fancy footwork.”

“Your executives have been living pretty high on the hog, Paulie.”

Well, he knew
that
.

“But the money was there,” he said weakly. His heart started thumping. A picture of his wife, doing the breakfast cooking herself, chattering about Sally’s party, floated into his vision. How the hell would he explain this to her? He’d never disappointed Mona.

“No, it wasn’t, Paulie,” Lionel Javits said gently.