The Body in the Boudoir (4 page)

Josie hadn't reported any other “mysterious” incidents like the postcards, and the only thing Faith suspected was that the girl might be lying about her age. Her sophisticated appearance made her look in her midtwenties, but coming into work in a rush one day, her hair loose and no makeup, she didn't look a day over eighteen to Faith. She was in the States on a student visa, she'd told Faith, and put down that number and her passport number on her work application, filling in her age as twenty-two. Faith hadn't actually seen either the passport or the visa, she realized, not very professional on her part and now awkward to request. The health club would have checked everything out, though, she suddenly thought in relief. Maybe she and Josie were making too much of the postcard business. Maybe someone in her family collected stamps and wanted British ones. And maybe the moon was made of green cheese . . . or Parmesan.

She had time to shower before meeting the others at the restaurant. As she headed toward the bathroom, the intercom buzzed.

“Yes?”

“It's Tom. Happy Valentine's Day. I, well, I thought I'd bring you a card in person. You're in Four-A according to the mailbox I'm looking at.”

“You're here? Downstairs?”

Of course he is, stupid, he's talking to you on the intercom! Faith chided herself as she pressed the button to release the lock on the front door.

She glanced quickly around the apartment. It was a studio—her goal was to be in a one-bedroom prewar building with a doorman, a gas cooktop, and an electric oven in the next year or two. This had been a good choice, however. She'd been attracted by the windows that looked straight out to the park. The fact that she had to transform her sofa into her bed every night was a small price to pay. The shoe-box size also meant minimalist furnishings—two bookcases from IKEA, an ottoman that opened for storage, and a glass-topped Noguchi coffee table, plus a small chest of drawers from her aunt Chat, who'd recently moved out of the city. Everything was tidy, no dishes in the kitchenette's sink. She opened the door at his knock.

Tom Fairchild stepped in and held out a red envelope. As she reached for it, he pulled her into his arms.

“You're totally insane, do you know that?” she said after a while.

“Not totally. Maybe slightly.”

“How long can you stay?”

“I have to leave tonight—or very early tomorrow morning.”

“You're totally insane, do you—”

He cut off the rest of her sentence with a kiss.

She came up reluctantly for air. “Let me take your coat.” His coat was a light raincoat, all anyone needed. So far 1990 had been the warmest year on record in New York history, but Faith had the feeling that this was a man who'd be wearing a sweater in a blizzard. The raincoat was a nod to the light drizzle that had been creating a dreamlike, but slightly damp, mist all day.

Tom sat down on the sofa. “I like your apartment. Compact. And great view. You said you'd be finished after some luncheons, so I can take you someplace great for dinner, right?”

Most of the “someplace great” places for a Valentine's dinner had been booked for weeks, but Faith knew a spot where she could always get in.

“There's a nice French bistro on the Upper East Side, Le Refuge. I could call them. My parents practically live there, so I'm sure they'll squeeze us in somehow. It's not the most happening place in town, but the food is good and you can have a conversation.”

“Sounds perfect. A conversation is just what I had in mind.”

Faith picked up the phone.

“They can seat us at nine. Is that going to be too late for you?” She'd covered the receiver with her hand. “What time is the train?”

“No train this time. I drove. Quicker, and I can leave when I want.”

He
was
insane, she thought, and made the reservation. Driving all this way? Most of her friends didn't even own cars. Who needed one in the city?

“I saw a liquor store on the way here,” Tom said. “How about I pick up something appropriately sparkling for the day?”

Orange juice and champagne were the two things always in Faith's fridge, but she wanted to shower and pull herself together. He could also swing by Zabar's, the ultimate food emporium, to pick up a few tidbits to go with the bubbly. In
The Seven-Year Itch
Marilyn Monroe dipped a potato chip into the bowl of her champagne glass, and salty things did go well with the wine, salty things like caviar, but they'd skip both the chips and the roe for now. Besides, her glasses were flutes—hard to get a chip in. She'd call over and put a slice of their chicken liver pâté, a heart-shaped Coeur du Berry fresh chèvre, and a baguette on her account. Proximity to Zabar's had been another deciding factor in picking this apartment.

He left and she called Josie, who was not at all surprised at the cause for the change in plans.

“I figured something was up when the dozen long-stemmed American Beauty roses didn't arrive this morning for you at work. See you tomorrow, late?”

Faith didn't answer the all-too-obvious question and just said good-bye.

By the time they had to leave for their reservation, the rain had stopped. Faith pointed out her parents' apartment from the cab window on the way across town.

“That's where I grew up.”

“We should drop by and wish them a happy Valentine's Day on the way back,” Tom suggested.

“Whoa, cowboy,” she said. “First of all, they go to sleep following, and sometimes during, the ten o'clock news and would be certain there was a major calamity if I appeared after that hour. Also, don't you think meeting my parents is rushing things a bit?”

“I understand about disturbing them, but as to the rest, no, I don't think so at all.”

At Le Refuge, Faith was greeted with delight and they were ushered into the pretty back room furnished with Country French antiques. She decided to save room for an entrée and dessert, but suggested Tom try the gratinéed oysters over blanched leeks. When it arrived, smelling heavenly, he urged her to take a bite and she recalled the test a friend advised when judging a possible mate. “Ask to try what he ordered, and if he says, ‘If you wanted it, why didn't you order it yourself ?' skip coffee and cross him off your list.”

Tom proved to be a champion sharer, offering more bites of the stuffed lamb loin he'd ordered. In return, she gave him some of the salmon from her plate—the red wine and shallot sauce a departure from Hollandaise. By the time dessert arrived—poached pears with vanilla and praline ice cream, and a Valentine's special, a heart-shaped, oversize profiterole with plenty of dark chocolate sauce—they had placed both dishes in the center of the table.

“Coffee here—or I can make some at my place. You'll need it for the drive back,” Faith said.

“Definitely your place.”

Out on the sidewalk it felt more like May than February and they walked up 82nd Street to Fifth Avenue and somehow kept going across the park instead of hailing a cab. He'd taken her hand as soon as they'd left the restaurant and she thought that this was what people meant when they said their hands fit perfectly together.

Oh, Faith, she thought—not for the first time that evening. What was happening to her?

Back at the apartment, where he already seemed quite at home, Tom loosened his tie and watched as she ground the beans and made coffee in a French press.

“You're the real deal. You've probably never had instant in your life, and that's all I know how to make.”

She shuddered slightly. The thought . . .

He took his coffee the same way she did—strong and black. She offered to make more. He refused. The room was very quiet. So quiet she could hear cars outside on Central Park West, a siren in the distance.

“I don't want to leave you, Faith,” he said, taking her in his arms.

“I don't want you to go either, but it's a long drive.” She stroked his hair, such nice hair.

“I mean I don't want to leave you ever. The French call it
coup de foudre
—love at first sight. I never believed in it until I saw you at Phil's wedding. I literally felt as if lightning
had
struck. You said when I got here tonight that I was insane and I think I am a little bit—blissfully mad. I can't stop thinking about you. Well, what I'm trying to say . . .”

He kissed her, a long, hard kiss that left her breathless. She felt herself giving in to a passion she had never felt before for anyone. She was falling, tumbling, the room was spinning—and she didn't want it to stop.

“Here,” Tom said. “This is for you.”

He took a small box from his inside jacket pocket.

“Go ahead. Open it.”

She sat up and took off the lid. It wasn't wrapped. Inside there was a watch.

“Try it on. I hope it fits—and I hope you like it; it's an old one.”

The watch was an elegant gold Longines on a mesh bracelet.

“Oh, Tom, it's beautiful. You shouldn't have . . .”

“Yes, I should have, now put it on. It's wound.”

Faith turned the watch over, examining the craftsmanship, and then as she realized there was something more, much more, she brought it closer to her eyes, reading the words engraved on the back.

WILL YOU MARRY ME?

“I
think I'm engaged,” Faith whispered. Tom was sound asleep.

After lying awake for what seemed like hours, she'd called her sister, who, like the city, never slept.

“What do you mean you think you are? How can you not be sure? And why are you whispering?”

“I have company. Is Phelps there?”

“Nope. He wanted to put in some time at the office after dinner, but back up. It's the guy from Massachusetts, right? I mean there and the being-engaged stuff.”

After meeting him last month, Faith had given Hope a few brief facts, omitting the most important entry in Tom's CV.

“Yes to both.”

“Okay, has he passed the food test?”

It was Hope's friend who had created it.

“With flying colors.”

“Good. But, sweetie, isn't this all a little sudden?”

Faith looked over at Tom. Light from the window streaked across his face.
Coup de foudre,
he'd said. This wasn't first sight for her, but second or third or whatever sight—one she had started to realize that she never wanted to lose.

“It's hard to explain. I know it sounds like I'm rushing into this, but I'm pretty sure he's the one.”

“Then what you have to ask yourself is whether you can imagine being with him every day for the rest of your life and its corollary, not being able to imagine being with anyone else.”

There it was. The thought that had been keeping her up, tossing in the wee hours, despite her physical fatigue from the full workday. The thought that she'd phrased in any number of ways ever since he'd given her the watch. Yes, she could imagine being with Tom forever, and no, she didn't want anyone else. All the other men in her life paled in comparison, receding into distant memory as she looked at the face she wanted on the pillow next to her now and always.

“I'm taking your inability to answer coherently as a yes, et cetera.”

Hope should have gone into law, Faith thought fleetingly before the matter at hand crowded everything else out.

“Now this is very important, Fay. Has he actually proposed?”

“Yes, on the back of a watch.”

“What!”

“It's a very nice one. Vintage Longines. Gold. He had ‘Will you marry me?' engraved on the back,” Faith said defensively.

“And you said yes? Otherwise quite a pain to get off, although I suppose he could save it for another prospect.”

Hope was nothing if not practical.

“I said yes, but.”

“Yes, but what?”

“But I'd have to come spend some time in Aleford. That's where he lives. It's not far from Boston, though.”

The moment she'd seen the words and heard Tom say them aloud, she knew she was betrothed to him—knew she had probably loved him from the start as well—but she just couldn't take the plunge without testing the water.

“Can't he move here? What does he do anyway? You never said. You're talking about giving up a thriving business, although you could start it up again someplace else, but, Fay, are you sure? Leave New York!”

An impediment, but this wasn't the biggie. Faith took a deep breath.

“I don't know how to say this, but, Hope, he's a minister.”

“Like Dad! And Grandpa? You mean he has a church in this Aleford place? You'd better be crazy about him, because you have definitely gone crazy. I thought we had an agreement.”

“I know. Believe me, I've thought of nothing else since we met. How was I to know he'd come into town to perform the ceremony? He'd changed his clothes before the reception.”

“Definitely not fair. Call me when he leaves. We have to talk.” Hope lived on the Upper West Side, too, but in a considerably larger apartment across from Lincoln Center with not only a full retinue on the ground floor at the door but an indoor pool on the top floor with a killer view of the city.

When push came to shove, there was no one like a sister, Faith thought a few hours later, after seeing Tom off, reluctantly on both their parts, and he'd come back once for what was supposed to be a quick kiss and wasn't.

She made coffee, something she seemed to be doing with greater frequency lately, and put out what was left of the cheese and pâté. Hope was always hungry, the result of an extremely irregular eating schedule. She was touched that her sister was going in to work late—it was already six
A.M.
—in order to stop by.

The two had always been close. Faith couldn't remember life without Hope, and they made a nice pair, although Jane had never dressed them at all alike. Faith was a blue-eyed blonde, her thick hair curved below her chin. Hope's chestnut hair was shorter and she'd inherited the Sibley deep green eyes. Tall and slender, they still shared clothes.