The Denver Cereal (32 page)

Frederic shook his head.
“Bring me what you have.”

Mike went off to the
apartment for his jeans. When he returned, Valerie was wearing a
brown pencil skirt with a jacket. The brown was just a shade
lighter than her dark hair. She was so beautiful that he had to
stop to catch his breath.

“
Wow.”

“
Wait until you see the
gowns,” Frederic said. “This is our first attempt at an
off-the-rack line. It’s nice, yes?”

“
Yes,” Mike said. “What
does that mean, off-the-rack?”

“
It’s a line that can be
sold off a rack in a store,” Frederic said. “My father retired and
needed something to do. This was his idea. So, we’re trying women’s
clothing in the fall and men’s in the spring. Maman wants to create
children’s clothing as well.”

Mike nodded again as if he
understood.

“
These are the jeans?”
Frederic asked. “Can you put them on?”

One after another Mike put
on his jeans while Frederic watched. Finally, he shook his head. He
said something in French and Max came over.

“
He wants to know if we
can get you some other jeans,” Max said to Mike. “Where did you get
these?”

Mike shrugged. “What’s
wrong with them?”

“
They’re too small,” Max
said.

“
They fit the waist,” Mike
said. “I just deal with the leg thing.”

“
That’s why they rip right
here.” Max pointed to rips near the crotch of Mike’s jeans. “I’ll
keep a list. We already have undergarments. Jeans are easy.
Levis?”

“
Yeah. But they can’t be
too big. They fall off me.”

Speaking very slowly, Max
said, “Frederic will tailor them. That’s what he does.”

“
Oh,” Mike said. “Sorry,
this is all . . .”

Mike stopped talking when
Valerie turned around in the gown. He put his hand over his heart
certain it had stopped beating. Valerie caught his look and
smiled.

Max tapped his
arm.

“
Frederic brought a tux
for you. He had to guess at the size. He thinks it’s too small. Do
you have a tux you wear when you drive?”

Mike nodded. Frederic made
a motion with his hand.

“
We’d go back there, but
you were . . .” He said a word in French.

“
Frightened,” Max
translated.

“
Oh, come on,” he
said.

One by one, Mike tried on
his clothing while Frederic shook his head and spoke in French to
Max. To Mike’s surprise, Frederic liked some of his favorite shirts
and pants. Before he could figure a pattern, they had exhausted his
closet.

When they returned to the
living room, Valerie wore a pant suit. Claire spoke in very rapid
French while Alex translated. Valerie looked over at him in
desperation. He slipped his arm over her shoulder.

“
What’s going on?” he
asked.

“
Claire just asked Val to
be her exclusive media representative,” Alex said.

“
Exclusive . . . What?” Mike asked.

“
That’s spokesmodel to
you! I think Val’s a little overwhelmed. She looks great in the
clothing. But there’s a Ramon . . .?”

“
You look so much better
than in anything he’s put you in,” Mike said. “Let’s ask Jen. She’s
still in town right?”

Valerie nodded, “She’s
setting up
Oprah
.”

“
Oprah?” Claire said. She
nodded. “That would be very good for us. This line is not expensive
but well made. For the everyday woman who wants to
look . . .”

“
Classy,” Alex finished
Claire’s sentence. “Where’s Jill? Claire thought Jill would be
perfect too, but she disappeared.”

“
She went back upstairs,”
Mike said. “She’s painting and wanted to finish the trim before
Mass.”

Alex and Claire spoke in
rapid-fire French for a moment.

“
Can you get Jill, Mike?
We think she would look great, too.”

At the mention of Jill,
Valerie lit up.

“
We could both be
spokesmodels?” Valerie asked.

“
Two exclusive media
representatives?” Alex frowned.

“
Oui
,” Claire said as if it was obvious.

While Valerie hesitated to
hurt someone’s feelings, in this case Ramon’s tender designer
feelings, she loved to spread good fortune. And Valerie loved Jill.
Mike smiled at the change in her and kissed her nose.

“
Call Jen, and I’ll get
Jill.”

Valerie nodded.

How much I need to know

Jill had just finished the
last of the bathroom trim when Mike came up the stairs. According
to Mike, some people wanted to see her wear some French clothing.
Jill washed the paint off her hands and ran a brush through her
hair. She was certain she would get down there and they would say
something like, “Oh paint-in-your-hair girl? Yeah. We didn’t mean
you.”

But Jill would do anything
for Mike.

And he had asked, so she
followed him down the long stairs from Jacob’s apartment. Sandy
knocked on the side door just as she got to the bottom of the
stairs.

“
I lost track of the time.
I’m sorry,” Jill said to Mike. He held her in place so she couldn’t
retreat upstairs. “Sandy’s here to pick me up for
breakfast.”

Sandy took one look at
Jill’s nervous flutter and asked, “What’s going on?”

Mike nudged Jill into the
Castle living room.

“
We want to see how Jill
looks in some clothing,” Alex said. “Claire thinks she’ll be
perfect as a spokesmodel with Val.”

“
I apologize.” Jill
blushed. “I lost track of time. We go to
breakfast . . .”

“
I’d offer to make
breakfast, but you can ask Mike,” Alex said. “You don’t want to eat
what I might make.”

“
I’ll make it,” Sandy
said. “I’d like to.”

“
Let’s make breakfast
together,” Delphie said from the kitchen door.

“
You’re so much prettier
than me, Sandy. Why don’t you be the spokesmodel?” Jill
asked.

“
No way,” Sandy said.
“I’ve had enough pictures taken of me to last a lifetime. Plus,
they want you.”

“
Come on, Sandy,” Delphie
said. “Let’s see what we can come up with.”

“
We’re doing this early so
everyone can get to Mass,” Mike said. “I’ll call Meg. If we eat
here, you can try on some stuff and have breakfast and get to
Mass.”

“
Come on, Jill. It’s
pretty fun,” Valerie said.

Valerie took Jill’s hand
and led her over to a stack of clothing. Every time Jill looked up
there were more people in the Castle living room. Of course, Megan,
Tim, and Steve had gone to school with the Hargreaves. And the
Hargreaves seemed to multiply in front of her. Alex and Max were
joined by their brother, Colin, and sisters, Erin and Samantha.
Even Candy knew the Hargreaves. Then the spouses, boyfriends, and
children arrived.

The usually silent Castle
was filling with noisy, talking-all-at-once, Catholic siblings,
spouses, children, and even more people from France.

Jill thought her sanity
would be restored when Katy arrived. On the heels of Katy’s
arrival, Claire Martins’s husband and other children arrived. It
was love at first sight for Katy and Claire’s five year old,
Camille. Katy only wanted to be with Camille. The little girls
played together in a corner of the room.

And Jill tried on
clothing.

Claire would take a
measurement or say she liked one thing or another. This woman
remained convinced that Jill was going to model for her. But Jill’s
high school French only went so far. From what she could make out,
they were going to pay her to wear these beautiful
clothes.

And pay Katy. Claire
Martins wanted Katy to join Camille in modeling their children’s
line.

Having had enough of the
noise and chaos, Jill made her escape. She set down the last of the
outfits, checked on Katy, then slipped through a hidden stairwell
to Jacob’s apartment. She was almost to the top of the stairs when
she heard someone behind her. Turning, she saw Alex Hargreaves
looking up the stairs at her.

“
Escaping?” Alex
asked.

Jill nodded.

“
Can we come?”

Max’s identical face
appeared over Alex’s shoulder.

Jill laughed. “There’s
only cereal up here. I think they’re having breakfast in a
minute.”

“
Is there coffee?” Alex
asked.

Jill nodded. Max pulled
the door closed.

“
You don’t want to be out
there with all of . . .” Jill started.

“
We don’t,” the twins
responded in unison.

Jill waved, and they
followed her up the stairs. Alex set to work on coffee while Jill
and Max set up cereal on Jacob’s table. Jill had spent most of her
life intimidated by the rich and powerful Hargreaves in general,
and independent Alex in particular. In the twin’s funny company,
Jill began to feel a little more normal. They even helped her
finish painting the apartment. In fact, they insisted on helping
her.

Sitting in Sunday Mass,
Jill felt as if she was a totally different person than she was
last week. Last week, she felt like little mousey, trampled-on
Jill. This week, she felt as if she was exactly where she was
supposed to be.

She just wasn’t sure where
that was.

~~~~~~~~

“
You’re not going to
Mass,” Sam said.

Valerie was standing in
the middle of the Castle living room. Her eyes flitted back and
forth from a stack of beautiful clothing to the gorgeous hanging
gowns. She was trying to decide what she wanted to try on next when
her father came in.

“
I’ve avoided it for all
these years. I’d hate to break my record.”

“
When does Jake wake
up?”

“
Three or four o’clock.
Jill called this morning and he was still out.”

“
They’re releasing him
today?”

“
That’s what the doctor
says. We’ll know more when he wakes up.”

Sam nodded. He sat down on
one of the couches.

“
Wedding today,” he
said.

“
Why do you bother?”
Valerie asked.

Looking over at her, he
sighed. He shook his head and picked a chocolate-brown sweater
tunic from the pile. Valerie took the sweater from him and pulled
it on.

“
That’s very nice,” Sam
said. “It’s a good color on you.”

Valerie looked at herself
in the full-length mirror Mike had brought from their apartment.
She rotated back and forth in the mirror, then sneered at
herself.

“
Since we talked, I’ve
debated with myself about how much I need to know about you and
your . . . wife.”

“
Tiffanie.”

“
Her.”

“
And?”

When Valerie spun around
to him, Sam chuckled to himself. Valerie’s face mirrored Celia’s
“you’re in big trouble Mister” face.

“
I agreed with your
mother’s plan, but I didn’t really think it through,” Sam
said.

They said together,
“Typical man.” They laughed.

“
She was so sick, Val. Not
even Jake realized how sick she was. And she was adamant. She
wanted out of that pretentious house. She wanted to finally live in
central Denver. We’d owned this house
for . . .”

“
You owned this
house?”

“
Own. Yes. We bought it
right before you graduated from high school,” Sam said. “Celia
loved this house and wanted to find a place Delphie could live and
walk to work. Delphie never had two pennies to rub together. So we
bought it. We were going to move but were afraid it would be too
much for you at college and Jake in high school.

“
She got so sick so fast.
It was like walking off a cliff. After almost a decade, all of a
sudden she wasn’t going to survive the year.”

Sam’s eyes welled. He
shook his head and looked away. Valerie busied herself with trying
on another outfit while he regained his composure.

“
I did whatever she
wanted. Sell the house. Done. Get a divorce to split up the
company. Done. Marry Tiffanie. Done. But leave Celia’s side? Not a
chance. We moved in here together. I worked to reformulate the
company. She wanted me to transform the company from single-owner
to a board of directors, and . . . I worked fourteen
or fifteen hour days. Not even Jake knew I was here every night.
Then she died, and . . .

“
I woke up one day about
two years later and . . . Jake was at college. I
didn’t remember taking him. You were an actress. And I was married
to Tiffanie.”

Valerie sat next to her
father. She held out her hand and Sam took it.

“
We had this arrangement
for Briana. Tiffanie would drop her off at the office almost every
night. You’ve met Briana? She’s really a wonderful little girl. I
don’t know how I did it but I was Briana’s daddy. Tiffanie and I
had lunch three times a week or so. We’d talk about finances. She
set up society functions, nights at the country club, stuff like
that. Just like when she was my secretary, I did what she told me
to do, then returned to the Castle at night.”