Best Laid Plans (6 page)

"I still chew baby aspirin."
She exhaled a forbearing breath. "I'm a fashion designer."

"You should have gone directly
to the Parsons School of Design or the Fashion Institute of Technology,"
Lucas pointed out with succinct authority.

Amanda shoved the trunk onto the
gray-and-beige carpet, replacing its position on the blue-ticked mattress with
herself. "Sit down, Lucas." She patted a seat for him. "Since
we're going to be Siamese twins, I might as well regale you with my eight-year
life plan."

"Only eight!" He hadn't
tried to hide the mocking grin that split his features.

"To get to New York City,"
she blithely continued, "I had to pacify my parents and agree to a
two-year program at NYU. But I really don't mind. I can add some business
courses to my art, and then I'll enroll in FIT. I'll be there two years and
then," Amanda paused, licking her lips and savoring the next word,
"Paris. After that, I'll be the toast of Seventh Avenue, and one day I'll
own my own boutique, designing for a chosen few."

"I think a crash course in humility
might come in handy," Lucas countered, shaking his head at her sublime
expression.

"Why should I be humble?"
she said breezily, leaning over to snap the trunk latches and pull out a sketch
pad. "Feast your eyes, Crosse." Her long fingers reverently turned
page after page, inviting his inspection. "When I was fifteen I created
Barbie clothes that would have made Dior green with envy."

He shrugged in bewilderment.
"I'm studying law, not art or fashion or …"

"And I'm stuck with you for a
whole year!" She slammed the heavy cardboard cover closed, caught the tip
of his nose and didn't utter one word of apology.

"The feeling is mutual,
Wyatt." Lucas massaged the sting from his nostrils, watching as she
emptied the steamer. Clothes were hung in the small wardrobe in a precise
pattern, others neatly folded in the built-in bureau. Grudgingly, he had to
admit Amanda Wyatt had it all together. Eighteen and positive. She had defined
her target and zeroed in.

As a freshman, he had waffled over his
major, letting his first year go liberal arts; he had decided on law during a
fire-fight that had claimed three of his buddies. "I'll come and take you
to breakfast tomorrow and then we'll attend the orientation meeting."

As Amanda's head turned, the thick
braid slapped her right breast. "You eat breakfast for me, Crosse, and if
they call my name at the meeting, tell them I'm in the infirmary with
ptomaine."

"What!"

"I'm headed for the garment
district and a job." Her hands settled on slim hips and her eyes narrowed
in defiance. "Did you think this was, a free ride? My folks aren't paying
my way. I got a partial scholarship in art and spent the past three summers
smiling my way through half a million cheeseburgers. I need to make some bucks
while I'm here."

"Listen, brat," Lucas
towered as best he could over her formidable height, "you'd better be
ready at 7:00 a.m. sharp or you'll have to design something to cover a
black-and-blue ass!"

Amanda had stood him up for both
breakfast and the meeting. He remembered pacing a hole through the rubber soles
of his tennis shoes. When she finally returned, she was grinning from ear to
ear. He was grinning too, but it was a satanical one, motivated by thoughts of
homicide and a strong defense built around temporary insanity.

"You really take the proverbial
cake," he'd rallied. One large hand closed around her wrist, pulling her
through the doorway and propelling her sideways to the neatly made up bed.
"One day, twenty-four stinking hours on campus and you think you're in
command. I have never met - . . .you are the most…I ..." his anger made
coherent vocalization impossible.

Amanda straightened out her brown
sundress, then let her thumbs and hands form a U-shaped window. "I bet
you're a perfect specimen."

"What?"

"A forty regular," her
chestnut braid switched shoulders, "size fifteen shirt?" Amanda
opened the blue plastic bag suspended from her wrist and pulled out an oxford
cloth dress shirt. "This is courtesy of Seymour the Haberdasher."

"What?"

She shook her head and tossed him the
shirt. "Crosse, you're beginning to sound like a parrot. I thought lawyers
were articulate."

"I am very articulate when I'm
dealing with a sane person!" Lucas took a deep breath, counted to ten but
didn't get a chance to say one word.

"I'll be working at Seymour's
Shirts four hours a day and till noon on Saturday as a go-fer." Amanda's
voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I'm getting sixty bucks under
the table plus the pick of the seconds for you." A sparkling gray eye
favored him with a wink. "Seymour's cousin designs sportswear for tall
women, and every other Friday I'll be modeling for late-night buyers. I'm a
perfect size eight."

"You're too skinny." To
this day Lucas still wondered why he had ever said that!

Amanda laughed, leaned back against
the wall, a pillow snuggled against her breasts. "What a day! Lucas, it
was fantastic! Seventh Avenue is like . . . like a beehive gone berserk."

She kicked off her sandals and
arranged herself full length on the sunset-colored India-print bedspread.
"I walked through eighteen blocks filled with dress racks, trucks and
handcarts. I went through picture-perfect showrooms into workrooms of unpainted
steel, overhead pipes and a million humming sewing machines.

"Everyone was yelling and
screaming and eating. Phones never stopped ringing. At lunchtime the streets
were strangled with people." Amanda exhaled a genuine sigh of pleasure.
"It was congested, hurried and high-strung." She smothered a yawn.
"It was wonderful."

Lucas stared down at her. His anger
ebbed into oblivion. The glow on her face was more eloquent than words. Amanda
had turned the drudgery of everyday into something magic and lyrical. He found
her enthusiasm contagious. Pushing her long legs to one side, Lucas had sat on
the narrow mattress and demanded a minute-by-minute replay of her day, anxious
to embrace her fever as his own.

By the end of Amanda's first month at
NYU and Seymour's, Lucas had three new shirts and a sweater hanging in his
closet. He was also taking a lot of heat from his friends. "Nail
Wyatt?" became the byword of his dorm, but Lucas had refused to let the
locker-room mentality of his cronies put an end to a friendship that had become
almost vital to him.

Amanda had given him a validation of
his own worth and something more: courage. Not the courage he had discovered on
the battlefield, but the courage to ignore peer-group pressure and listen to
his inner conscience. She proved the perfect panacea to his cynicism; the
elixir needed to perk up the tedium that invaded his studies. Lucas found he
embraced each day with a passion; his improved grades reiterated that
assertion.

It was mid-October before Amanda's
initial bravado wore off. College proved more of everything than high school,
and her added work schedule didn't help. A child emerged. She became hesitant,
homesick, and confused. He had been there to make the transition easier. Since
he had gone through experiences similar to hers, his support gave her
confidence.

His advice was impartial, not
parental. He wasn't there to protect or censor. In talking to him, Amanda was
able to discover the answers to her own questions. They fed off each other's
stability, fears, loneliness and humor - with no strings attached.

"You are proving to be the big brother
I never realized I missed having," Amanda had said, sniffling against his
collar one cold, sleeting December afternoon. She had been desolated about not
being asked to a freshman holiday mixer. "I couldn't have dropped more
hints to Randy if I had encased them in concrete. Why do all you tall guys
prefer to date the most petite girls? It's just not fair."

"Randall Henderson is a dumb
jock." Lucas hunted through his pockets for a handkerchief. She took it
even though it was smeared with grease from the oil dipstick on his car.
"Consider yourself lucky, kid. Would you really want to spend a perfectly
good Saturday night gagging on fruit punch and stale cookies?"

"Yes." She had said it so
positively they both had laughed. Her low voice droned into his ear, her chin
settled into a comfortable niche on his shoulder. "My mother asked me that
same question about my junior prom and senior ball. I didn't get asked to them
either."

"Were there any guys with brains
in your high school?"

"Brains, yes. Height, no. I was
taller than the center on the basketball team. I was also gawky, skinny,
awkward and pimpled."

Lucas had wiped an oil streak from
her smooth cheek and made appropriate clucking noises. "Now you are a
model."

Amanda brightened considerably.
"You always say the perfect thing, Crosse. I envy your sisters." Her
eyelids closed, her lips formed a smirk that made him shift uneasily.
"Want to know a secret, Lucas?"

"Oh-oh."

"When I was twelve, I was taller
than all the boys and all the girls in my class. They picked on me and laughed
at me. I was very lonely, and moving from Army base to Army base didn't
help." Her voice had a little-girl sing-song quality. "I'd come home
from school, curl up securely on my bed and draw the ugliest clothes I could
think of for those tiny, doll-like girls to wear. I'd make believe they had no
choice but to buy the horrible designs I created, and then everyone would point
and laugh at them."

"You were a brat."

"It was therapy."

"How about some Lucas Crosse
therapy? We can gorge on pepperoni pizza and see the Bogart Film
Festival."

"Sounds infinitely better than
sour punch and dry cookies, and you are decidedly better than Randall
Henderson."

Decidedly better than Randall
Henderson
. Lucas
pushed aside the plate that held the remains of a mild, subtle red snapper. Why
was it, even twelve years later, he could still remember the name of Amanda's
first college crush? Maybe because there were so few names to recall.

Amanda had been all work and no play,
at times morbidly self-conscious about her height and lack of suitors. He had
been there to massage her bruised ego, to make her laugh. "It's nice to
have you give the older male viewpoint, Crosse."

She had been there to impart the
female point of view. She had never been impressed with his "big man on
campus" status, and he had been relieved. With Amanda, Lucas found he
never had to project a false image. He never thought of her as a coed. She was
a buddy. A neuter.

Lucas' gaze became centered on the
woman behind the speaker's lectern. Amanda was no longer gawky or skinny. She
was the best friend he would ever have. Still a buddy, but definitely not a
neuter. She was strong, healthy, competent and self-assured. The ultimate
woman.

Again the sudden richness of his
feelings began to rouse that subtle sexual tension he had experienced earlier.
Lucas relocated his emotions to Kitty. Her initial brashness had reminded him
of Amanda. Kitty was young, eager and positive but much more a social creature
than Amanda had ever been. Kitty focused on the superficial; she was not yet
mature enough to drop her social mask. Amanda had been knowledgeable enough to
realize how little flashy externals counted.

While the audience was absorbed in
the slide presentation and speech by the director of the Cancer Society, Lucas
once again retreated to an inner world. He tried to recall how their lives had
become so entwined. Most of the seniors had gradually abandoned their freshman
buddies, but his friendship with Amanda had grown and solidified. He had met
her family during their first spring break.

"What do you mean, you're not
going anywhere?" She'd frowned, stuffing another bathing suit into her
knapsack.

"Just that. I'm tapped. Busted.
Broke. I ran into a few expenses that I hadn't planned on."

"You mean you ran into Sandra
Perry, the campus barracuda." It was said with an I-told-you-so smugness
that made him blush. "Go back to your dorm and pack, Crosse. We'll cash in
my plane ticket and take the bus."

"Are you serious?"

"North Carolina is green in
March, Lucas, and bathed in sunshine." Amanda gestured toward her
frost-edged window. "New York still has snow, naked trees and gray
skies." She grinned at him. "Room and board are free. My dad will
love adopting you for two weeks. He'll teach you golf. All lawyers should play
golf. Do you know how many cases are settled on golf courses?"

He had been uncomfortable about
meeting her parents. "How are you going to explain me?"

Amanda stopped sketching and looked
at him. "Is that the reason you've been wriggling in this bus seat for the
past ten hours?" She laughed. "My parents know all about you, Lucas.
They think you've been a healthy influence on me." Her voice toughened.
"If you dare squeal about my working at Seymour's, I'll cut off more than
your supply of free clothes."

His jaw dropped. "You mean they
don't know about your job?" She gave him a Cheshire-cat grin. "Where
did you tell them you were getting your money?"