Woman to Woman (34 page)

Even the lift smelled of old money, Jo thought, as she stood beside Mark, checking her reflection in the darkened mirrors on either side of the lift.

“You’ll like Rex and Suzanne,” said Mark. They’re very warm friendly people.”

And very bloody rich, thought Jo, when the lift stopped at the top floor and opened onto a small hall with just one door off it. They even had their own landing. Mark pushed the bell and the door was opened by a plump dark-skinned woman in the maid’s outfit of black dress and frilly white apron that Jo thought only existed in black and white Forties movies.

“Manuela,” said Mark warmly to the woman, who managed to blush and grin at him at the same time.

“Signer Denton she grinned.

“You have not been here for a long time. We have missed you. Madam is in the drawing room.”

Jo looked around the huge entrance hall, a white oval room with three pieces of modern sculpture and an utterly stunning art deco chandelier hanging over what must be a Persian carpet. If this was the hall, Lord only knew what the rest of the place was like.

Mark took her arm and they-followed Manuela, heels tip-tapping on the marble floor, into a huge, airy room filled with paintings, enormous glass vases of exotic lilies and the sound of Mozart.

“Mark, darling.” A stunning blonde woman got to her feet and hurried over to hug him warmly.

“Suzanne, it’s lovely to see you,” he said affectionately.

“And this must be Jo.” Suzanne turned towards Jo and took both Jo’s hands in hers.

“We’re delighted to meet you,” she said earnestly.

Nonplussed by her friendly welcome, Jo smiled back brightly, immediately liking the tall, graceful woman whose hair fell in soft curls to her shoulders. She was wearing a chic caramel-coloured wrap dress and what looked like a real pearl choker around her neck. Suzanne could have walked off the couture fashion pages in Elle.

Only a faint creping around her throat and small lines around the beautiful blue eyes indicated that she would never see forty again. She looked the way Jo hoped she’d look when she was older.

“Now come and say hello to everyone. We’re all dying to meet you Suzanne said in a soft Southern accent, still holding one of Jo’s hands.

“This is Rex.” The tall, grey-haired man, who’d risen when Jo and Mark entered the room, took her hand firmly in his.

“So nice to meet you, Jo. We’re delighted you could join our little dinner party tonight. I hope you like New York.”

“How could you not like New York,” interrupted a man with the faint accent and olive skin of an Italian.

“I’m Carlo and I’m pleased to meet you.” He kissed her on both cheeks and then smiled at her, lustrous dark eyes openly admiring.

“I can see why you’ve been keeping this lady a secret, Mark.” Carlo

“I haven’t kept anything a secret, Carlo,” Mark said sharply, bending down to shake hands with a woman who was dressed in a navy linen dress and was sitting back on one of the settees.

“Hello, Margaret, how are you? I was so sorry to hear about your accident.”

“I’m fine,” said Margaret.

“I’ve just got to take care of my ankle.” She gestured at the cast on her right ankle.

“It’s just so irritating, not being able to ride, you know.”

Suzanne introduced Jo to the other members of the party, each one more charming and elegant than the last. Gold cuff links and diamond earrings glittered in the light from the Thirties up lighters on the walls. Jo knew that the clothes the women were wearing were genuine Gucci, Jil Sander and Dior.

Even their handbags had labels, Jo realised, as she caught sight of a brown leather bag peeking out from the side of Margaret’s chair. Definitely a Kelly bag from Hermes, she realised with a jolt. About four grand’s worth of handbag. It was like stepping onto the set of Dynasty. These people had serious money. They had serious jobs too. Carlo was a publisher, Margaret and her husband were in banking not behind the bureau de change counter, either Rex was in property, the redheaded woman in black velvet worked in Sotheby’s, the short grey haired man did something to do with computers and the plump woman who chain-smoked was an artist.

“I used to be involved with an interior design firm Suzanne

“I’m so busy with my charity work these days, I’ve rather let my design skills go. The last thing I did was this room.” She waved one graceful, manicured hand at the pale mint walls with their museum-load of paintings.

“It’s truly beautiful Jo replied. The paintings are fabulous, and I

love the sculptures in the hall.” That’s my husband’s hobby explained Suzanne, ‘he loves collecting things. Every time we go to Europe, he drags something back, usually something huge that takes a month to ship.”

“Champagne, madam?” inquired Manuela, who had appeared at Jo’s side with a champagne flute and a bottle of Cristal.

“Just a little Jo said. Three-quarters of a glass wouldn’t kill her. She needed it to stop her staring around openmouthed.

Her entire apartment would fit into this room.

The guests talked about stocks, shares and the shocking price of duplexes on Fifth Avenue, while Jo simply sat and listened.

Tell us about your work Suzanne said, turning to include Jo in the conversation.

“I’ve always imagined that being a fashion editor must be very glamorous. Is it?”

Since it was difficult to imagine anything more glamorous than these sophisticated New Yorkers, Jo laughed out loud.

“Not really she said. There’s a certain amount of glamour about fashion shows. But the real work often involves crawling around on your knees in a photographic studio, trying to pin up the legs of a pair of trousers on a model who’s five foot eight instead of the six-foot girl you booked!”

She kept Suzanne entertained talking all about Style with Carlo listening intently from his position across the fireplace.

Jo didn’t think he was even vaguely interested in what she was saying but, from the way his eyes were glued to her chest, he obviously fancied women with curves, even if the curves in question were pregnancy ones. She’d have loved to be able to tell him that she used to be a 34B pre-pregnancy.

At exactly half eight, Rex got up and helped Margaret to her feet.

“Dinner should be ready now, people he announced.

“I believe it’s lobster tonight.”

Everybody made appreciative noises.

“I hope you eat lobster Suzanne asked Jo suddenly.

“Of course,” Jo said with a straight face. I eat it all the time, especially with baked beans and chips.

She stood up as Carlo approached, one tanned hand held out to take her in to her dinner but, before he reached her, Jo felt Mark’s strong arm link hers.

“Won’t you let me escort you into dinner, Madame Jo?” he asked with a grin.

“Only if we’re eating lobster,” she whispered back, glad that he’d got there before Carlo.

She was put sitting opposite Mark at the highly polished round dining table, with a delighted Carlo on one side and Rex on the other.

“We’re not standing on ceremony tonight,” Rex said, handing around a latticed silver basket filled with warm bread rolls.

“Carlo, pour the wine.”

“Will you have some?” Carlo murmured, holding a bottle of red over her glass and smiling at her with hot, Latin eyes.

“No thanks,” said Jo, hoping he’d take the hint. No to wine and no to you, Carlo. The just-baked scent of the rolls filled Jo’s nostrils and made her all too aware of her empty stomach.

She ate hungrily, enjoying the Caesar salad, lobster and summer pudding, swollen with ripe berries.

It was going to be a culture shock to her stomach when she returned to Dublin and had to put up with frozen pizzas, eggs scrambled rock-solid in the microwave and lasagne from a packet.

Carlo tried to monopolise Jo during dinner, asking her to tell him about Ireland before launching into his life history, ending with the story of a particularly bitter divorce.

At that point, his eyes stopped being lascivious and looked merely sad, but Jo had enough trouble dealing with her own problems without counselling anyone else. Feeling a little heartless, she patted his arm in a sisterly manner and turned towards Rex.

The discussion ranged from the price Amanda hoped a Degas statue of a dancer would fetch, to the difficulties faced by parents of bored

English literature students. “She says she’s bored,” shrugged Ned, ‘wants to give up college and go abroad for a year. I just don’t know what to do.”

“We’ve tried everything,” added Margaret.

“I even promised to buy her a new BMW if she stuck it out for another year, but she says no.”

“Do you have children, Jo?” inquired Rex.

“No.” She grinned to herself.

“Not yet, anyway.” And when I do, they won’t be getting BMWs in return for going to college, either.

“Don’t rush into it,” shuddered the grey-haired man.

“My boys have cost me thousands of dollars, always changing what they want to major in. I tell them I never had any choice when I was their age. My family didn’t have two dimes to rub together and I had to work my way through college. I think that’s their problem, they’ve had everything handed to them on a plate.”

Jo couldn’t resist glancing at Mark. He was looking at her intently, fingers locked over his empty plate, the grey eyes locked onto hers with a frightening concentration. He was definitely thinking of Emma. Good. It would do the little cow good not to have everything handed to her on a plate for once.

If Mark got the message, that was.

“Maybe that’s the secret,” Mark commented, ‘having to work for everything. I had to, so had you, Rex. It made us fighters, it made us determined to succeed. And when we have youngsters to spoil,” he paused and grinned at Jo, ‘we spoil them. We give them all the chances we never had and more. And then we wonder why they haven’t our fire, our drive to succeed.”

Suzanne clapped.

“You said it.” she said.

“Bryony never did anything we wanted her to until the day I stopped her allowance.

“Go mad in Donna Karan, travel to Morocco and hang out on the beach,”

“Just do it on your own money”.” She smiled triumphantly.

“Bryony soon found out she couldn’t afford to pay for her own dry-cleaning. By Fall, she’d got over wanting to travel to Morocco

like a hippie. Hippies can’t buy nice clothes, eat in good restaurants and put gas in the Jeep. In fact, they can’t even insure their Jeeps!”

Everyone laughed, even Jo, who remembered what it was like to put three pounds’ worth of petrol in the car when she was broke.

“So what does Bryony do now?” asked Jo.

“She’s working in Sotheby’s with Amanda, as an assistant.”

Amanda must be the redhead, Jo thought. The pay is dreadful, but she’s being trained in the china department.

One day,” Suzanne paused and winked at Rex, ‘she may even earn half as much as Amanda.”

Amanda, a tall and stately woman in what was either a knock-off peach boucle Chanel suit or the real thing, peered over her glasses at Suzanne and shook one bejewelled finger slowly. An emerald the size of a Malteser winked in the light.

“My dears, I earn peanuts. Or at least, that’s what I tell the

IRS.”

They chattered over the cheese and then strolled back into the living room where Manuela had a huge tray of coffee and tiny forest-green china cups ready.

“Are you happy you came?” Mark asked Jo slyly.

She looked him in the eye.

“I’m having a lovely time and I’m sorry for being so childish earlier. You do bring out the worst in me.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, leaning close to her so she could feel his breath soft against her neck.

“I’d hoped to bring out the best in you.”

There was no chance to say-anything in return. They had caught up with the others and everyone was sinking back into the comfortable brocade sofas.

Jo and Mark sat beside each other on a sofa made for two.

When he leaned forward to take a cup of coffee from Suzanne, his thigh touched Jo’s. It was like the other night, she thought. His very nearness unnerved her, made her heart beat faster. The hand holding her coffee cup shook slightly.

When she’d finished her coffee, Suzanne asked Jo if she’d like to see

the view from the balcony and the study. The study is my favourite room,” the other woman confided, walking like a model down the hall.

“I decorated it like my grandfather’s study in Mississippi. He was a judge and he had hundreds of leather-bound law books. They lined the walls and gave the place such character, I always thought.”

“I’d love to have a room like this,” said Jo. Huge dark bookcases stood from floor to ceiling, while an old mahogany desk and a worn leather chair sat in one corner.

“I have a small apartment and there’s no room for any sort of office or study explained Jo, moving around the room, touching the gold leafed spines of the books, ‘but I have a dream of buying a little stone cottage in Wicklow and having lots of bookcases.

And lots of books, of course!”

“I’m sure Mark would love that,” Suzanne said earnestly.

“He certainly loves books, never stopped reading that one time he stayed with us in Colorado.”

Jo didn’t know quite how to respond, so she picked a leather-bound volume off a shelf and examined it carefully.

Washington Square by Henry James. She’d been in the real Washington Square that afternoon.

Did Suzanne think that she and Mark were an item?

Whatever had given her that idea? Jo couldn’t very well blurt out that she and Mark had shared nothing more than one dinner, one lunch and a very long, boring transatlantic flight.

She turned the pages slowly, wondering if Suzanne and Rex were the sort of people who bought books they’d never read just because they looked good.

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this,” said Suzanne suddenly.

“But when he asked could he bring you this evening, Rex and I were so thrilled. He hasn’t even so much as mentioned another woman since, well, you know …”

Jo didn’t know and she really wished she did. But she didn’t want to let the side down by asking. So she nodded sagely.