Going Back (14 page)

“We fought all the time,” he
elaborated without prompting. Reflecting on what he’d said, he
laughed. “Constantly. About everything. But...she was one terrific
woman.”

Daphne remembered what Midge, her
fellow real estate agent, had told Brad when he and Daphne had
visited one of the houses Midge had a listing on. “In the
inimitable words of my colleague, Midge, a nice young man like you
ought to be able to find someone sooner or later.”

“Ah, yes, I remember,” he said with
a nod. His dimples took hold again, and he eyed Daphne playfully.
“Bless the woman’s heart. I feel so much better about my prospects
now. Isn’t that the park up ahead?”

“Uh-huh. There’s an empty space
between the station wagon and the Samurai. Grab it before someone
beats you to it. On a day as gorgeous as this, finding a parking
space can be a real challenge.”

Brad swerved into the empty spot,
yanked the parking brake, and switched off the engine. “Come on,
Daffy,” he said as he climbed out. “This place is teeming with
healthy-looking young people. Let’s see if we can find ourselves
some suitable spouses before sooner turns into later.”

Daphne returned Brad’s grin and
opened her door. Watching his loose-limbed stride as he circled the
car to help her out, she couldn’t help thinking that, unlike her,
he wouldn’t have any difficulty finding himself one of those
suitable spouses—sooner rather than later.

IT WAS UNANIMOUSLY decided that,
while Indonesian food made for an interesting epicurean adventure,
adventure wasn’t really what Phyllis, Andrea and Daphne were
looking for in their monthly luncheons. On the first Wednesday in
May, they decided to congregate at a new cafe Andrea had heard
about which was supposed to have tame cuisine and reasonable
prices.

In Daphne’s opinion, no salad
costing fourteen dollars, not even one featuring imported Belgian
endive, fresh capers and Dijon mustard dressing, was reasonably
priced. But she didn’t care. She could worry about money in the
future—and she undoubtedly would, once the euphoria wore off.
Today, she was determined to be carefree about the
practicalities.

During the train ride into
Manhattan, she had considered sharing her good news with Andrea and
Phyllis. But so far, she hadn’t mentioned it. For one thing, it was
still too new to her; she herself had only just received word that
morning, when Bob Battinger had called her from the Montclair
office. She wanted a chance to accustom herself to the situation
before she started talking about it to others.

For another, Phyllis was jabbering
non-stop on the subject of her relationship with Jim. Her diatribe
had begun the moment the three women were seated in the restaurant.
She had paused only long enough to order cocktails for herself and
Andrea, and again, briefly, when their entrees were delivered to
the table. But she was going great guns now, and Daphne wouldn’t
dare to interrupt her.

“Jealous! Can you
believe it?” Phyllis huffed. “He says he’s jealous because of the
way I looked at Brad at the party.
Looked
, mind you—that was all I did.
So I said, ‘God gave me two good eyes, and I have every intention
of using them.’ To which he said, ‘God gave you a brain, and I
don’t see you using that very often.’”

“Leave him,” Andrea advised. “Hand
the SOB his walking papers and kiss him goodbye.”

“It’s not so simple,” Phyllis
argued, indulging in a melancholy sigh. “I do love him, you know.
But just because I love him doesn’t mean I can’t look at Brad, does
it? You’re happily married, Andrea, and I bet you look at Brad all
the time.”

Andrea laughed. “To tell you the
truth, I’m getting a little sick of looking at him. Next Monday is
going to be the two-week anniversary of his arrival on our
doorstep, and if he hasn’t settled on a house by then, he’s
threatening to cash in his return ticket to Seattle. Why don’t you
sell him a house already, Daffy?”

“We’re getting close,” Daphne told
her friends. “He’s half the distance to making an offer on an
expanded cape I showed him. As a matter of fact, I’m supposed to
meet him at his office after lunch today, and we’re going to drive
back to New Jersey and check it out one more time. I’m doing my
best.”

Andrea laughed again to reassure
Daphne that she was only kidding. “I’m not that sick of him, yet.
He offered to move to a hotel after last weekend, but Eric and I
said absolutely not. As house guests go, he’s been terrific. Our
apartment’s neater than it’s been in months, thanks to Brad. He’s
always picking the wet towels off the bathroom floor, he washes any
dirty dishes he finds in the kitchen sink—”

“And he’s something to look at,”
Phyllis broke in. She turned to Daphne. “I know Brad isn’t your
type, Daff, but don’t you think he’s something to look
at?”

Daphne grinned and twirled her
straw through her glass of club soda on the rocks. “Sure, he’s
something to look at. So is urban blight.”

Phyllis scowled. “It’s easy for you
two to talk. You’ve both gotten to spend so much time with him
since he came to New York. You’ve gotten to gaze into those bedroom
eyes of his, and ogle his luscious body…”

“Especially his cute little buns,”
Andrea snorted. “Phyllis, if you want to make a move, make one.
Dump Jim and go after Brad. What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t know.” Phyllis sighed
again and eyed Daphne dolefully. “I don’t even know if I’d like
Brad if I ever got close to him. But he does seem to have a lot
going for him. What do you think, Daff?”

Daphne meditated. Ever since Brad
had visited her at her house Sunday afternoon, she’d been thinking
about how very much he had going for him: the gallantry, however
misguided, to have accepted full responsibility for Daphne’s
foolishness in college, the courage to force Daphne and himself to
confront their past, the sensitivity to believe that a man’s
satisfaction came primarily from satisfying his woman. That he
picked up the bath towels and washed the dishes at Andrea’s
apartment was nice; that he had bedroom eyes and a hot body was
also nice. But when Daphne thought about Brad’s most winning
attributes, she thought about integrity. Decency. Honesty. The
kinds of characteristics she looked for in a friend.

“
I think,” she remembered to answer
Phyllis, “he’s very sweet.”

“Sweet?” Phyllis shuddered. “If
he’s sweet, I probably wouldn’t like him at all.”

An hour later, after a typical
squabble over how to divvy up the restaurant bill, Daphne said
goodbye to her friends and strolled east to Madison Avenue, where
the New York office of Brad’s firm was located. He had mentioned to
her that he felt obligated to make more regular appearances at his
new office; the people he would be working with there seemed to
expect it, and he considered it good politics to show up every now
and then, even before his official start date. When Daphne had
informed him about her plan to meet Phyllis and Andrea in the city
on Wednesday, he’d suggested that she meet him at his office
afterward so they could drive back to New Jersey together. It saved
Daphne a return trip on the train, and she was looking forward to
having Brad’s company for the ride.

She was also looking forward to
selling him a house. She had a gut feeling that he’d make his final
decision on a house very soon, possibly that evening. Buying a
house could be nerve-wracking, but it was also exciting. Daphne was
pleased to think that today might be the big day for Brad—and even
more pleased to think that she’d play a part in it. She wanted him
to buy himself a house not so she could reap her commission, not so
she could settle old scores or remedy old insecurities, but simply
because she cared for him.

The afternoon was slightly overcast
but warm. Tucking her purse securely between her elbow and her
ribs, she dug her hands into the deep pockets of her loose-fitting
blazer and strolled along the crowded sidewalk, whistling.
Whistling wasn’t something she ordinarily did, but today she felt
as if her only options were to whistle or to fly—and flying,
without benefit of an airplane, wasn’t possible.

So she whistled:
the theme from
Bridge on the River
Kwai
, “Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho” from
Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs
, “I Whistle a Happy Tune”
from
The King and
I
, all the great classics of whistling she
could think of. She was happy about more than just her imminent
meeting with Brad, more than just the likelihood of selling him a
house. She was whistling because she hadn’t yet shared her good
news with anyone. It was all hers, her own secret, and she reveled
in it.

Brad’s office was located in a
foreboding modern skyscraper with exposed steel girders and
gray-tinted windows. She entered the gloomy lobby, scanned the
directory until she found the name of his firm, and rode upstairs
in the elevator.

She didn’t know much about
corporate head-hunting, but judging from the company’s lavish
reception area, she concluded that wowing potential clients was
significant part of the business strategy. The forest-green carpet
was thick and plush, the walls were covered in wallpaper which, if
not authentic raw silk, closely resembled the stuff, and the wall
behind the receptionist’s semicircular desk—which appeared to have
been carved out of a solid block of ebony—held an enormous Jackson
Pollack canvas. The receptionist appeared to be a refugee from a
modeling agency; she was young, thin, impeccably made-up and
sporting an unspeakably modern hairdo that featured spikes pointing
every which way.

Such a glamorous woman would look
absurd working in the staid suburban offices of Horizon Realty,
Daphne thought with a grin.

She crossed the reception area to
the desk, her heels sinking into the carpet with every step. “My
name is Daphne Stoltz,” she identified herself. “I’m supposed to
meet Brad Torrance here.”

The receptionist offered her a practiced smile
and signaled Brad on her intercom.

He entered the reception area
several minutes later, slinging on his blazer as he approached
Daphne in long, energetic strides. “You’re not a minute too soon,”
he welcomed her, grabbing her arm and steering her briskly to the
door. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What’s going on?” she asked in
bewilderment as they waited for an elevator.

Brad groaned. “I told those clowns
that if they wanted, while I was in the office today, I could meet
a few candidates for a new IT position. I mean, I was flattered
that they were giving me a chance to voice my opinion. Next thing I
know, they’re parading fifteen tech wizards through my office and
expecting me to do all the interviews. I thought they were going to
screen the first round and narrow it down to a few finalists before
they dragged me into it.”

“Ah, the responsibilities of
management,” Daphne said with exaggerated sympathy. By the time she
and Brad had reached the building’s ground-floor lobby, she’d begun
to whistle again.

Brad smoothed the collar of his
hastily donned jacket, then eyed her suspiciously. “What are you
doing?”

“Whistling,” she answered. More
than whistling, she was practically bouncing as she walked beside
him down the block to the garage where he’d parked his rental
car.

Brad stared at her, then smiled,
curled his fingers around her elbow and tugged her to a stop.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why are you whistling?”

“Why shouldn’t I be whistling?” she
countered.

“Why shouldn’t you be whistling?”
he echoed, considering his answer. “Children are starving in
Africa. We’re destroying the ozone layer. Terrorists are building
bombs. Three good reasons, right off the top of my
head.”

Daphne laughed. “All right, I’ll
stop.”

“Don’t stop. Just tell me why
you’re in such a good mood.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Daphne
approached the garage’s cashier booth with Brad and waited as he
slid his wallet from his hip pocket and presented the cashier with
his ticket. “Now that you’ve got me thinking about the ozone layer,
I’m all depressed.”

Brad laughed, then addressed the
attendant. “It’s a silver Toyota,” he said as he counted his
change. Turning back to Daphne, he said, “Come on, tell me. Did you
sell that million-dollar estate in Saddle Brook?”

“Upper Saddle Brook,” she informed
him. “And I haven’t sold it yet, although the virtual tour video
has been viewed more than twenty times since I posted it last week.
But if you really want to know...” She deliberately dragged out the
telling, partly to see how long Brad’s patience would last and
partly to come to terms with the fact that he was the very first
person she was going to tell. “I’ve been offered a partnership in
Horizon Realty.”

“A partnership?”

“A full partnership in the company.
One of the partners is retiring, and the other two invited me to
buy out his share of the company.”

Brad’s blue eyes sparkled with
delight. “Wow, that’s terrific!” Impulsively, he wrapped his arms
around her and kissed her cheek.