Match Me if You Can (22 page)

P
ortia hit the Enter key on her office computer to sort the data file. This time she’d searched by hair color, which was stupid because hair color could change from one week to the next, but surely someone lurked in her data bank whom she’d missed, someone who’d be perfect for Heath, and she kept envisioning a blonde. She winced as the aggressive whine of a power saw cut through the Sunday afternoon quiet. Non-union laborers were remodeling the office overhead, and the intrusion grated at her already frayed nerves.

Heath had taken off for the weekend with Annabelle Granger. Portia had gotten the news from his receptionist, a woman she’d befriended several months earlier with front-row seats at a Shania Twain concert. Portia still couldn’t quite absorb it.
She
was the one who spent weekends with important clients: Vegas jaunts, Wisconsin winter excursions, lazy afternoons at one beach or another. She’d thrown wedding showers and baby showers, attended bar mitzvahs, anniversary parties, even funerals. Her Christmas card list had over five hundred names on it. Yet Annabelle Granger had spent the weekend with Heath Champion.

The power saw emitted another abrasive screech. Generally she stayed away from the office on Sunday afternoons, but today she’d been more restless than usual. She’d begun the morning with mass in Winnetka. When she’d been a kid, she’d hated going to church, and in her twenties, she’d given it up altogether. But about five years ago, she’d started attending again. At first it had been a business tactic, another way to make the right contacts. She’d targeted four upscale Catholic churches and rotated among them: two on the North Shore, one in Lincoln Park, and one near the Gold Coast. But after a while, she’d begun to look forward to the services for reasons that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with the way the knots inside her unraveled as the familiar words of the liturgy washed over her. She still alternated churches—God helped those who helped themselves, didn’t he?—but now her Sundays had become less about business and more about the possibility of peace. Not today, however. Today the serenity she needed so desperately had eluded her.

She’d met some acquaintances for coffee after mass, socially prominent friends from her brief marriage. How would they react if she introduced them to Bodie? Just the thought made her headache worse. Bodie inhabited a secret compartment in her life, a sordid, perverted chamber she could never let anyone peer into. He’d left two messages on her machine this week, but she hadn’t returned either of them, not until today. An hour ago, she’d given in to temptation and dialed his number, then hung up before he could answer. If she could get one good night’s sleep, she’d stop obsessing about him. Maybe she’d even be able to stop worrying so much about Heath and the feeling that her business was falling apart.

The power saw shrieked again, drilling through her temples. Before her marriage, she’d had her share of affairs. More than a few of them had brought her unhappiness, but none of them had degraded her. Which was what Bodie had done last week. He’d degraded her. And she’d let him do it.

Because it hadn’t felt degrading.

That’s what she couldn’t understand. That’s why her insomnia was growing unmanageable, why she hadn’t been able to unwind during the mass, and why she’d forgotten last week’s weigh-in. Because what he’d done had felt almost tender.

The columns on the computer monitor swam before her eyes, and hammering replaced the sound of the power saw. She had to get out of here. If she were still mentoring, she could have met with one of the women. Maybe she’d stop at the health club, or call Betsy Waits to see if she wanted to meet for dinner. But instead of doing either of those things, she returned her attention to the data on her screen. She had to prove to herself that she was still the best, and the only way she could do that was to find Heath’s match.

The hammering turned to rapping, but not until it had become louder and more insistent did she realize it wasn’t coming from overhead. She left her desk and made her way into the reception area. She was still dressed in the short, off-white Burberry jacket and Bottega Veneta slacks she’d worn to mass, but she’d kicked off her shoes while she worked, and she moved soundlessly across the carpet. Through the frosted glass, she made out a man’s broad-shouldered form. “Who is it?”

A tough, flat voice replied. “The man of your dreams.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and told herself not to open the door. This wasn’t good for her.
He
wasn’t good for her. But a dark, dissonant chorus overcame her willpower. She turned the lock. “I’m working.”

“I’ll watch.”

“You’ll be bored to tears.” She stepped aside and let him in.

Muscle-bound men usually looked better in workout gear than street clothes, but not Bodie Gray. His chinos and tailored French blue shirt fit his body to perfection. He gazed at the reception area, taking in the cool green walls and Zen-like furnishings, but saying nothing. She refused to let him play another of his silent games. “How did you know I was here?”

“Caller ID.”

She should never have called him. She cocked her head. “I hear your lord and master has gone off for the weekend with my rival.”

“News travels. This place is nice.”

The neediest part of her lapped up his feeble words of praise, but she remained outwardly impassive. “I know.”

He gazed toward the reception desk. “Nobody handed you a thing, did they?”

“I’m not afraid of hard work. Women competing in business need to be tough or they won’t survive.”

“Somehow I can’t see anybody giving you too much trouble.”

“You have no idea. Successful women are always judged by a different standard than men.”

“It’s your breasts.”

She’d never had a sense of humor about sexism, and she was shocked to feel herself smile, but his cocky, unrepentant machismo was difficult to resist.

“Show me the place,” he said.

She did. He poked his head around the parchment screens, took in the quota charts she kept on a wall of the break room, asked questions. She heard the faint sound of Spanish as the workers decided they’d tortured her enough for today and left by the back staircase. She needed to know more about Heath’s weekend away, but she waited until she led Bodie into her private office before she broached the subject.

“I’m surprised Heath didn’t make you go with him this weekend. Apparently you’re not as indispensable as you like to believe.”

“I get a few days off now and then.”

“I came in today because of him.” She gestured toward her computer. “Little Miss Granger can wine and dine him for all she’s worth, but I’m the one who’ll find his wife.”

“Probably.”

She perched on the edge of her desk. “Tell me about the women he’s dated in the past. He’s not very forthcoming.”

“I don’t want to talk about Heath.” He moved to the window, gazed out at the street, then pulled the drapery cord. The panels closed in a soft whoosh. He turned back toward her, and his eyes—so pale and remote they should have turned her to ice—felt like a warm balm to her shriveled soul.

“Take off your clothes,” he whispered.

T
he week after the disastrous Wind Lake retreat, Annabelle immersed herself in work to keep from obsessing over what had happened. The Perfect for You Web site was up and running, and she received her first e-mail inquiry. She met separately with Ray Fiedler and Carole, who weren’t going to be a love match but had learned something from each other. Melanie Richter, the Power Matches candidate Heath had rejected, agreed to have coffee with Shirley Miller’s godson. Unfortunately, Jerry was intimidated by her Neiman’s wardrobe and refused to ask her out again. A few more senior citizens arrived at her door, taking up too much of her time and doing nothing to improve her bottom line, but she understood loneliness, and she couldn’t turn them away. At the same time, she knew she needed to think bigger if she intended to make a living wage. She examined her bank account balance and decided she could just afford to throw a wine and cheese party for her younger clients. All week, she waited for Heath to call. He didn’t.

On Sunday afternoon she was listening to vintage Prince on the radio while she unpacked some groceries when her phone rang. “Hey, Spud. How’s it going?”

Just the sound of her brother Doug’s voice made her feel inept. She envisioned him as she’d last seen him: blond and good-looking, a male version of their mother. She stuffed a bag of baby carrots into the refrigerator and flicked off the radio. “Couldn’t be better. How are things in LaLa Land?”

“The house next door just sold for one-point-two mil. On the market less than twenty-four hours. When are you coming out to visit again? Jamison misses you.”

“I miss him, too.” Not exactly true, since Annabelle barely knew him. Her sister-in-law had the poor kid so overscheduled with play dates and toddler enrichment classes that the last time Annabelle had visited, she’d mainly seen him asleep in his car seat. As Doug rattled on about their fabulous neighborhood, Annabelle imagined Jamison showing up on her doorstep as a twitchy, neurotic thirteen-year-old runaway. She’d nurse him back to mental health by teaching him her best slacker tricks, and when he grew up, he’d tell his children about his beloved, eccentric Auntie Annabelle who’d saved his sanity and taught him to appreciate life.

“So get this,” Doug said. “I surprised Candace last week with a new Benz. I wish you could have seen the expression on her face.”

Annabelle glanced out the kitchen window toward the alley where Sherman sat baking in the sun like a big green frog. “I’ll bet she loved it.”

“I’ll say.” Doug went on about the Benz—interior, exterior, GPS, like she cared. Once he put her on hold to take another call—shades of Heath. Finally he got to the point, and that was when she remembered the main reason Doug called. To lecture. “We need to talk about mom. Adam and I’ve been discussing the situation.”

“Mom’s a situation?” She opened a jar of Marshmallow Fluff and dug in.

“She’s not getting any younger, Spud, but you don’t seem to recognize that fact.”

“She’s only sixty-two,” she said around the sweet gob. “Hardly ready for a nursing home.”

“Remember that health scare she had last month?”

“It was a sinus infection!”

“You can minimize it all you want, but the years are catching up with her.”

“She just registered for windsurfing lessons.”

“She only tells you what she wants you to hear. She doesn’t like being a nag.”

“You could have fooled me.” She tossed the dirty spoon in the sink with more force than necessary.

“Adam and I agree about this, and so does Candace. All the worrying Kate does about you and your …Why don’t we just come right out and say it?”

Why don’t we not?
Annabelle screwed on the lid and shoved the jar in the cupboard.

“This anxiety about your fairly aimless lifestyle is putting a strain on her that she doesn’t need.”

Annabelle ordered herself to let his dig pass. This time she wouldn’t let him get to her. “Mom thrives on worrying about me,” she said semicalmly. “Retirement bores her, and trying to manage my life gives her something to do.”

“That’s not the way the rest of us see it. She’s always stressed.”

“Being stressed is her recreation. You know that.”

“You’re so clueless. When are you going to figure out that holding on to that house is a headache she doesn’t need?”

The house. Another vulnerability. Even though Annabelle paid rent every month, she couldn’t escape the fact that she was living under Mommy’s roof.

“You need to move out of there so she can put the place on the market.”

Her spirits sank. “She wants to sell it?” As she gazed around at the shabby kitchen, she could see her grandmother standing next to the sink as they did the dishes together. Nana didn’t like messing up her manicures, so Annabelle always washed while she dried. They’d gossip about the boys Annabelle liked, about a new client Nana had just signed, talking about everything and nothing.

“I think it’s pretty clear what she wants,” Doug said. “She wants her daughter to step up to the plate and live responsibly. Instead, you’re freeloading.”

Was that what they called the rent money she barely managed to scrape up every month? Still, who was she kidding? Her mother would make a fortune if she sold this house to developers. Annabelle couldn’t take any more. “If Mom wants to sell the house, she can talk to me about it, so butt out.”

“You always do this. Can’t you, just once, discuss a problem logically?”

“If you want logic, talk to Adam. Or Candace. Or Jamison, for God’s sake, but leave me alone.”

She hung up on him like the mature thirty-one-year-old she wasn’t and promptly burst into tears. For a few moments she fought them, but then she grabbed a paper towel, sat down at the kitchen table, and gave in to her misery. She was tired of being the family outcast, tired of coming up short. And she was afraid…because no matter how much she fought it, she was falling in love with a man who was just like them.

By Monday morning, Heath still hadn’t contacted her. She had a business to run, and as much as she might want to, she couldn’t roll over and play dead any longer, so she left him a message. By Tuesday afternoon, he hadn’t replied. She was fairly certain her Oscar-winning performance had convinced him at the time that he’d only been her sex therapist, but more than a week had passed since then, and he seemed to be having second thoughts. It wasn’t in his nature to back away from confrontation, and sooner or later he’d contact her, but he’d want their showdown on his terms, which would put her at a disadvantage.

She still had Bodie’s cell number from the day they’d spent with Arté Palmer, and she used it that evening.

A
n early morning jogger clipped past as she wedged Sherman into a miraculously vacant parking space a few doors down from the Lincoln Park address Bodie had given her the night before. She’d set her alarm for five-thirty, a fine time for Mr. Bronicki and his cronies to hop out of bed, but hell on earth for her. After a quick shower, she’d slipped into an acid yellow sundress with a corset-structured bodice that made her feel as though she had a bust, run a little styling gel through her second-day hair, dabbed on eye makeup and a slick of gloss, and set off.

The coffee she’d picked up at a Caribou on Halsted warmed her palm as she doubled-checked the address. Heath’s house took her breath away. The free-form glass-and-brick structure, with its dramatic two-story wedge of windows angling toward the shady street, somehow managed to fit in with its neighbors, both the exquisitely renovated nineteenth-century town houses and the newer luxury homes built on the narrow, expensive lots. She walked down the sidewalk, then turned into a short brick path that curved to a carved mahogany front door and rang the bell. As she waited, she tried to refine her strategy, but the lock clicked and the door swung open before she’d gotten too far.

He wore a purple towel and a scowl, which didn’t go away when he saw who’d come calling at 6:40 in the morning. He pulled the toothbrush from his mouth. “I’m not here.”

“Now, now.” She shoved the coffee into his free hand. “I’m starting a new company called Caffeine to Go Go. You’re my first customer.” She slipped past him into the foyer where an
S-
shaped staircase curved to a landing above. She took in the tumbled marble floors, the modern bronze chandelier, and the foyer’s only real furnishing, an abandoned pair of sneakers. “Wow. I’m totally awestruck but pretending not to be.”

“Glad you like it,” he drawled. “Unfortunately, I’m not giving tours today.”

She resisted the urge to run her fingertip over the dab of shaving cream that clung to his earlobe. “That’s all right. I’ll look around while you finish getting dressed.” She gestured toward the stairs. “Go on. Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“Annabelle, I don’t have time to talk now.”

“Squeeze me in,” she said with her snarkiest smile.

The toothpaste had begun to bubble at the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. His gaze slid over her bare shoulders down to the fitted bodice of her sundress. “I haven’t been avoiding you. I was going to call you back this afternoon.”

“No, really, take as long as you need. I’m not in any hurry.” She waved him away and headed toward the living room.

He grumbled something that sounded blasphemous, and, a moment later, she heard his bare feet padding upstairs. She peeked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of a glorious pair of shoulders, a naked back, and a purple towel. Only when he disappeared did she return her attention to the living room.

Morning light splashed through the tall wedge of windows and dappled the pale hardwood floors. It was a beautiful space just begging to be lived in, but except for the gym equipment sitting on blue rubber mats, as empty as the foyer. No furniture, not even a sports poster on the wall. As she took it in, she began to see the room as it should be: a massive stone-topped coffee table sitting in front of a big, comfy sofa; chairs upholstered in spicy colors; splashy canvases on the walls; a streamlined CD cabinet; books and magazines strewn about. A kid’s pull toy. A dog.

With a sigh, she reminded herself that she’d ambushed him this morning so they could get past their weekend at the lake. The old adage of being careful what you wished for sprang to mind. She’d wanted people to know that Heath had signed with Perfect for You, and the word had spread. Now, if she lost him as a client, everyone would assume she hadn’t been good enough to keep him. Everything rested on how she handled herself this morning.

She passed through the empty dining room into the kitchen. The counters were clear, the stainless-steel European appliances looked unused. Only the dirty glass in the sink signaled human habitation. She was struck by the notion that Heath had a place to live, but he didn’t have a home.

She returned to the living room and gazed through the windows toward the street. A piece of the puzzle that made up the man she’d fallen in lust with settled into place. Because he was always on the move, she’d missed the fact that he was basically a loner. This unfurnished house brought his emotional isolation into focus.

He reappeared wearing gray slacks, a midnight blue shirt, and a patterned necktie, everything so perfectly pulled together he could have stepped out of a Barneys ad. He tossed his suit coat across the weight bench, set down the coffee she’d brought, and shot his cuffs. “I wasn’t ditching you. I needed some time to reassess, and I’m not apologizing for it.”

“Apology accepted.” His frown didn’t bode well, and she quickly shifted gears. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out better with Phoebe at the lake. Despite what you might think, I was rooting for you.”

“We had half a decent conversation.” He picked up the coffee.

“What happened to the other half?”

“I let her push my buttons.”

She’d have enjoyed hearing the details, but she needed to get rolling before he started looking at the watch peeking out from under his shirt cuff. “Okay, here’s the real reason I’m here—and if you’d called me back, I wouldn’t have had to bother you. I need to know if you said anything to anybody about you-know-who. If you did, I swear I’ll never speak to you again. I told you in the strictest confidence. Truly, I’d die of embarrassment.”

“Tell me you didn’t barge in here to talk about Dream Boy.”

She pretended to fidget with her ring, a turquoise Nana had bought in Santa Fe. “So do you think Dean might like me?”

“Gosh, I don’t know. Why don’t you wait till study hall and ask your girlfriends?”

She tried to appear offended. “I’m looking for the male perspective, that’s all.”

“Get it from Raoul.”

“We’re over. He was screwing around on me.”

“Like everybody in town didn’t already know that?”

Okay, they’d had their fun. She sank down on the edge of the weight bench. “I know you think Dean is too young for me…”

“Your age is only one item on a bullet list of calamities waiting to happen if you don’t get past this. And I haven’t seen Lover Boy, so your secret is safe. Are we done yet?”

“I don’t know. Are we?” She rose from the bench. “The thing is…I’m afraid you still might be dealing with some emotional issues from the retreat, which, I’m sorry to say, is making you seem a little girly.”

“Girly?” A dark eyebrow slashed upward.

“Only one woman’s opinion.”

“You think I’m being
girly
? You, the queen of Annabelle Junior High?”

“You haven’t returned my calls.”

“I wanted to think about it.”

“Exactly.” She advanced on him, working up a righteous head of steam. “Obviously you’re still conflicted about my night of sexual liberation, but you’re too macho to admit it. I should never have taken advantage of you. We both know that, but I thought you were okay with it. Apparently you’re not.”

“I’m sure this’ll disappoint you,” he said dryly, “but I wasn’t traumatized by your rape and pillage.”

“I respect you for holding on to your pride,” she said primly.