I'm Your Man (4 page)

I opened my eyes again when I heard our flight attendant say, “Here are your—”

Just then we encountered turbulence and the plane began shuddering violently. I watched as the flight attendant stumbled and our drinks flew out of his hands and onto the woman across the aisle. She woke up with a yelp when the ginger ale and ice covered her lap, then she screamed in alarm as the Bloody Mary oozed over her head.

“Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We've run into some turbulence. Please buckle your seat belts and refrain from moving about the cabin.”

“Now he tells us,” I said.

“I'm so sorry,” our flight attendant whimpered, while the saturated woman ignored our captain and unbuckled her safety belt. She stalked toward the rest room and the flight attendant followed, still apologizing.

“That poor woman,” Sheila said.

“I hope the cyanide doesn't eat through her skirt,” I said. “What were we talking about?”

“Your ex-wife. Where is the
stunning
Sydney these days?” Sheila asked, injecting the adjective with enough venom to fatally poison half of our fellow travelers.

“In Italy. Procuring artists for her gallery or some such nonsense. She'll be back in a couple of months, I think.”

“Oh, no,” Sheila said, obviously doing the math in her head.

“Uh-huh. While we're in Eau Claire for your wedding—”

“The hag from hell could be there, too,” finished Sheila with a frown. “Doing everything in her power to make your visit the most miserable experience possible. Our best man won't be in best spirits, that's for sure. I'm sorry, Blaine. But hey, there probably won't be a wedding anyway, since I'll be too busy and Josh will be so infuriated that he'll leave me. And you won't have to worry about me, so you can focus your energy on battling Sydney, the hound from hell.”

“Hag from hell,” I corrected.

“You said she's a bitch, not a hag,” Sheila reminded me.

“Tomato, tomahto,” I responded in a singsong voice.

“Please don't say tomato or tomahto when that woman gets back from the rest room,” Sheila implored. “I don't understand why Sydney's still milking you for money. From every horrifying account I hear, she has one of the most successful small galleries in Chicago.”

“She enjoys making me sweat,” I said. “She's just like her father; they both love power. She has a little power over me, and she luxuriates in reminding me of it.”

“If you could just be honest with your parents—”

“You know why I can't,” I said. “My mother.”

Again I watched Sheila bite her lip. I knew what she wanted to say, and the problem was that I agreed with her. For as long as I could remember, my mother had used her health to avoid anything unpleasant. I was convinced that most of her maladies were imaginary, but she'd had a mild heart attack after my divorce from Sydney. That, at least, hadn't been faked, and my father and brothers placed the blame squarely on me. If my family found out I was gay, and anything happened to my mother . . . As estranged as I was from them all, I would never forgive myself.

“How are your brothers?” Sheila asked, seeming to read my mind.

“I think Shane is having an affair with a waitress,” I said. “As for Wayne, who knows?”

Giving their sons rhyming names had been the only “cute” thing my parents had ever done. In fact, it baffled me that, as staid and unapproachable as they were, they'd managed to produce offspring. I'd always hoped that in one of the many deathbed scenes my mother enacted to her guilty and captive audience over the years, she'd confess that I was the result of some midlife indiscretion. It would explain so many things.

Both of my brothers worked for my father at Dunhill Electrical, a fate I'd managed to escape. Since I'd be twenty-eight in May, I calculated that Shane must be forty-two. Being a married father of three hadn't slowed him down any. Even though I thought his wife was shallow and self-absorbed, I found his serial adultery disgusting.

As for Wayne, he was eleven years older than me. Though I was the one they called “the accident,” I tended to see Wayne in that category. Actually, I saw him as a sociopath waiting for the right moment to rain down destruction on Eau Claire. For as long as I could remember, he'd had a rifle and a Confederate flag in the back of his pickup truck, though to my knowledge, no ancestor of ours had ever been south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Wayne was a conspiracy theory buff. If they hadn't already arrested the Unabomber, I'd have been happy to turn
my
brother in for questioning. He had to be guilty of something.

“It's not easy, Blaine. I understand,” Sheila said softly.

“Oh, hell, there are worse things than coming from a dysfunctional family. At least we had money. And they put me through college so I could get away from them. At any rate, you and I have been friends for a long time. I understand your frustration about your wedding plans. But this could be a bad time to ask Lillith for favors, and timing is everything. If there's anything I understand, it's when and how to pitch an idea. Trust me and be patient. Don't give up on me, or Zodiac, just yet.”

Sheila turned a warm smile in my direction and said, “I won't. I'm sorry for being so demanding when you're still dealing with—” She saw me cringe and stopped herself from mentioning my breakup with Daniel. Before I could say anything, she continued, “As far as Zodiac goes, even if things don't work out my way, I'll be there for you. You know that, Blaine.”

We spent the rest of our flight in silence. I assumed Sheila was brooding over Josh and their elusive wedding. I was envisioning a product called Milk of Amnesia. It could settle my stomach even as it helped me forget my ex-boyfriend.

Ex-boyfriend. That description for Daniel didn't seem real. In any case, he was still Sheila's best friend. I knew that if Daniel was in my position, he'd do whatever he could to help her work things out with Lillith so she could have her wedding. He nurtured his friends with the same painstaking care he gave the plants and flowers in his garden.

I sighed and tried to figure out a way to present Sheila's need for a leave of absence to Lillith Parker and Frank Allen. It might help me silence the Daniel voice-over in my head that was scolding me about the importance of friendship.

S
heila's situation was uppermost on my mind while we rode to the offices of Lillith Allure Cosmetics. I also wondered why I'd been summoned to Baltimore by Ms. Parker. The message relayed to me by my executive assistant, Violet, was cryptic, to say the least.

“I don't know, Blaine,” Violet had said. “All Lillith said was, ‘Now is the time for removing clutter and putting things in the proper order.' Then she informed me that she needed to meet with you immediately and asked me to book you a flight to Baltimore.”

I could only guess what Lillith's idea of
clutter
and
proper order
were, and what they meant to our business arrangements. Obviously it had to do with some nonsense read to her by an astrologer or a gypsy fortune-teller. However, despite the carnival of mystic charlatans traipsing in and out of her offices, Lillith Parker was a shrewd businesswoman sitting on top of a multimillion-dollar industry. I had no doubt that, all karma aside, her main interest was running the well-oiled machine that was Lillith Allure Cosmetics.

“Why do I always feel like Dorothy walking down that long corridor on her way to see the wizard whenever I come here?” Sheila said during our elevator ride to Lillith's office.

“Hey. A mere hour ago, you said I was the wizard.”

“No,” Sheila stated. “I said you were the man behind the curtain pulling the levers.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “I'm the humbug.”

“You said it. Not me,” she said, following her words with a giggle.

When we arrived at the eighteenth floor—the numbers one and eight added together equaled nine, which represented the number of planets in the solar system—Sheila and I departed the elevator and greeted Barbara, Lillith's assistant.

“Perfect,” Barbara said, looking at her watch. “You two are right on time. I'll take you into Lillith's office, but we have to be quiet. She'll be finishing up with her last appointment.”

“Maybe we should wait,” I said cautiously, not wanting to upset the harmonious balance of Lillith's appointment calendar.

“Are we seeing her together?” Sheila asked.

“Yes,” Barbara answered. “Follow me. It's okay.”

Barbara led us into Lillith's cavernous office and quietly shut the door behind us. French doors opened to a sitting room, where Lillith was seated on a Victorian fainting couch posing for a photographer. Her dark, graying hair was twisted on top of her head in a chignon and held in place by a jeweled comb. Although her face was slightly equine, long with pronounced cheekbones and jutting chin, she had a regal beauty. Her brown eyes were accented by the shimmering brown of Zodiac's Aquarius eye shadow, and her lips were rouged in the deep red from Zodiac's Leo line.

As Lillith turned her face to the left and the photographer's shutter started clicking again, I whispered to Barbara, “Is this for a magazine?”

“No,” Barbara whispered back. “She's having her aura photographed. She does it periodically to monitor changes. We can often predict how our fiscal quarters will turn out based on the color of Lillith's aura.”

I could see Sheila, standing behind Barbara, suddenly bite down on her fist to keep from laughing out loud. Feeling as though I had now heard everything, I merely said, “I see,” and watched as Lillith rose from the settee and thanked the photographer.

“I think she's ready for you now,” Barbara said, turning to leave the office. “Good luck.”

“Ah,” I said, “but Barbara, you know there's no such thing as luck.” She snickered softly and winked before shutting the door behind her.

“Blaine. Sheila,” Lillith said, striding toward us with an outstretched hand. “It's so good of you both to cooperate with my busy schedule and see me today. I'm sorry about the short notice, but you know how it is. Please sit down.” As Lillith sat behind her desk and began opening a few folders, Sheila and I situated ourselves in two ornately carved chairs, each with dragon heads protruding from the armrests. “Sheila,” Lillith went on, glancing over what looked like a memo, “Barbara informs me that you have issues with your Zodiac contract.”

“Yes,” Sheila said somewhat meekly. “Sort of.”

Lillith looked up from the memo, arched her eyebrows, and looked down her nose to where Sheila met her line of vision. “Sort of,” she repeated. “That must be a business term that I've yet to encounter. Be that as it may, Sheila, I adore you as if you were my own child. I want you to know that I have your best interests at heart. I know you're well aware that I prefer to conduct my business affairs one-on-one without the interfering energies of lawyers, agents, and the like. So first of all, thank you both for bringing yourselves and nobody else.”

Unsure of what to say, Sheila and I answered in unison, “You're welcome.”

“I'm unclear what the dissatisfactory nature of your contract might be, Sheila,” Lillith continued, dropping the memo in favor of a red stone, which she began rubbing with her fingers as she spoke. “Whatever it is, I sense that it's of a personal nature. Am I correct?”

“I guess it is,” Sheila slowly agreed.

“I'm sure it is,” Lillith said, smiling as she dropped the stone on her desk. “My astrologer recommends business before pleasure today. Therefore, Sheila, please allow me to conduct business with Blaine before we attend to your personal issues.”

Sheila opened her mouth, perhaps to protest that her contract was indeed a business-related issue, but she sighed instead and answered, “Sure, Lillith. Should I leave while you talk with Blaine?”

“No, my dear. Our interests, our jobs, and our energies are all connected,” replied Lillith. She turned her brown eyes to me and said, “Blaine, the time has come for me to remove clutter and restore balance to my company.”

“Yes. My assistant relayed that message to me,” I said. “But what does that have to do with me? As far as I know, things are going well for Lillith Allure and Zodiac.”

“Be that as it may, for some time now, I've been wanting to make changes within our company. As Saturn has entered Virgo, it's time to remove the clutter and business will improve.”

“Exactly what is this clutter that you keep referring to?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

“Breslin Evans Fox and Dean, of course,” she said with a half smile. I tried to remain passive as I felt my stomach churn in horror. My hands began strangling the dragon heads on the arms of my chair as Lillith went on. “In the long run, I'll be making a move to benefit Lillith Allure. I want to cut out the middle man, so to speak. Breslin Evans Fox and Dean are getting the boot. They're the clutter.”

“Who's taking over your advertising? Who are you going to find that's better than our company?”

“I think Lillith is looking to hire you,” Sheila guessed.

“Exactly,” Lillith said. “I'm willing to break my contract with Breslin Evans Fox and Dean, and pay whatever fee I have to, if you'll quit and work for me. I want you to run an in-house ad department. It's more cost-effective for the company, so I'm going to do it whether or not you take the job, Blaine. It's your call.”

“What about Frank?” I asked. “How does he fit into this?”

“Perhaps that's what I mean when I say restore the balance. Wouldn't you say that Lillith Parker is the big number in the Lillith Allure equation?”

I stared at her, thinking of all that Frank had done for me. It would take more than the expense of my Manhattan lifestyle, not to mention the bottomless pit that was Sydney's blackmail, to make me betray the goodhearted soul of Frank Allen. Although I knew it might be professional suicide, I heard myself saying, “If you're planning to push Frank out, I'm afraid I can't be part of your team, Lillith.”

She picked up her seer's stone—I flinched inwardly, remembering how Daniel loved to call it her Sears stone—and stared into it. Her face was calm, as if I hadn't rejected her offer.

“Blaine, you understand me so little, but I'm glad that I understand you so well. If you'd said anything else, I'd have been disappointed. I want your kind of loyalty. Frank has become a friend as well as my business partner over these last two years. I can't imagine going forward without either of you.” I exhaled, and she finally smiled, then continued. “After consulting with my advisors, I understand that it's best if we relocate our base of operations to Manhattan. Frank agrees. That's going to be expensive, and we'd like to cut costs in other areas. I can double what the agency is paying you and still save money.”

“I want to stay with you, Lillith,” I said. “But I have two requests.”

“Indeed?” The hand on the seer's stone became still.

“We have to stop shooting our print ads so close to deadline. It's awful for the morale of everyone involved. It builds resentment and jacks up our ad prices. It may be astrologically sound, but it's bad business. And at least this year, we need to double up on the Cancer and Leo campaigns, because Sheila needs a rest afterward. She's hardly going to be our fresh-faced, healthy spokesmodel if we work her half to death.”

I could sense Sheila leaning forward to grip her dragon heads.

“Gracious, Sheila, why do you pay your agency twenty percent when Blaine is doing their work?” Lillith asked. “Here I thought you simply wanted time off for something so frivolous as your wedding.”

“You knew?” Sheila asked.

“I had three of my most reliable psychics do a reading for you, dear. Better make it July, not June. We'll shoot the Cancer, Leo,
and
Virgo campaigns between now and then, which will give you all of July to marry, honeymoon, and, er, rest, as Blaine says. So, do we have a deal?”

“I thought you said it was business before pleasure today,” Sheila said, giving Lillith her most dazzling smile as she stood and held out her hand.

Lillith took it then turned to me and asked, “Blaine?”

“I'd like to see everything on paper, but my tentative answer is yes,” I said.

“I'll leave all that to you, Frank, and the attorneys,” Lillith said. “Now if you two will excuse me, I have a shiatsu session scheduled.”

I felt like we should back out of there bowing, but we managed to leave with our dignity. At least until Barbara winked at us outside the door and gave us a thumbs-up. Both Sheila and I laughed with nervous relief.

“Josh is going to be so happy,” Sheila said. “I mean, he wanted June, but to get the whole month of July! We can have a real wedding and a real honeymoon! Blaine, would you really have made your employment contingent on what Lillith would do for me?”

“You heard me say it,” I reminded her.

She threw her arms around me and said, “I'm sorry for being so vile to you on the plane. You're my best friend in the whole world!”

She was wrong. Daniel was her best friend in the whole world, but he still had enough influence over me to make me put her happiness before my business concerns.

“Hey, would you mind flying back to New York solo?” I asked. “There are some things I'd like to take care of here. I need to see Frank.”

“Not at all,” she said. “I could practically fly back under my own power right now. I don't need Lillith's psychics to know I'm going to have a
great
night with Josh.”

I hugged her at the elevator. When the doors closed and I could no longer see her beaming face, I glanced at my watch, sure Frank would still be in his office.

Unlike Lillith, Frank didn't keep his desk between us when his secretary Phyllis ushered me in to see him. I never had to worry about the position of the moon when meeting with Frank, who operated on a normal schedule and took Lillith's astrological beliefs with a grain of salt. The only charts Frank was interested in were net gains and customer demographics. I admired his sound business practices, but I also appreciated his amiable approach to the people who were part of his business. After several years of his support and belief in my work, I felt an almost familial connection with him.

He enthusiastically shook my hand and guided me to his leather sofa, sitting down next to me. As I always did in his presence, I felt relaxed and unworried, as if we were sitting on a porch swing drinking lemonade, while we went over the reasons why Lillith's offer was a good one for me.

“It's not as bad being in the same office with her as you might think,” Frank assured me. “In fact, there's fun to be had trying to anticipate what hocus pocus might be part of any given day. And she's a damn shrewd businesswoman, with terrific ideas.”

“I agree with you there,” I conceded. “I just never thought you'd move to Manhattan, Frank.”

“It's all been downhill since Kenosha,” he said with a smile. “Baltimore, New York. Six of one, half dozen of another. Rowdy and I get back to Lake Michigan for R and R whenever we can.”

Rowdy was Frank's yellow Labrador retriever and his constant companion since his wife's death a few years before. Frank seemed to be satisfied with that arrangement, although I was sure there must be women who pursued him. Not only was he a gentleman with a good sense of humor, but he wasn't bad looking for a man in his late fifties who'd lost most of his hair. In fact, I thought the bald look worked for him. But I'd never heard him mention anyone special in his life, except his son, who did something at the Pentagon, and Rowdy.

Thinking of Frank's dog reminded me of Dexter, my cat, and I made a mental note to call Violet and ask her to check on him in my absence.

“Oh,” I said, “if I accept Lillith's offer, there's no way I can go anywhere without Violet. I can't function without her.”