LUCA

The face Luca had the cosmetician create for Charlotte was the face of a well-kept woman, refined, just as he had imagined. And he noticed that as soon as she looked in the mirror, she sat straighter. She used her manicured hands with a kind of care he never saw her take before. When she smiled at him, he wanted to reach out and touch her. There was something in the way she turned her head, something feminine and masculine at the same time that unmasked her, revealing a face infused with such unexpected beauty it made him take an extra breath.

On the seventh floor they bought a red linen sheath with padded shoulders and cap sleeves.

Charlotte planted her hands on her hips and said, “I’m starting to look like Cece.”

He’d never seen her arms bare before. It surprised him how muscled she was, and her legs; under the baggy brown trousers she had a great pair of legs.

“What’s your shoe size?”

Charlotte glanced down at her feet. “Seven,” she said.

“Don’t undress yet. Give me the rest of your cash. I’ll be right back.”

He roamed the other floors and picked out a pair of gunmetal gray high heels and shimmery pantyhose, a matching Kelly bag, a string of gray freshwater pearls the size of grapes, and some chunky silver bracelets.

As he watched the sales girl ring up the jewelry, the images he’d spent all day banishing returned to burn in the back of his mind. In a low-slung bank manager’s ranch house on the opposite coast a family sat in mourning. People were talking in hushed tones about what a good man the deceased was, how he had mentored fatherless boys. Yes, those were the words they would be using. How he had driven them home from their Scout meetings and their baseball games, how he had taken them out for ice cream and hotdogs, how he had made those boys lick ice cream off his hot dog. Luca laughed as he stepped onto the elevator at the thought that he’d gone from purchasing ice cream and hot dogs for Randy to buying thousands of dollars worth of designer clothes for Charlotte.

He carried the packages back to the seventh floor. He found Charlotte sitting on a stool in the dressing room where he’d left her. She looked disconsolate. He held the packages out. “Here,” he said. “Accessorize.”

She slipped her feet into the shoes. Luca fastened the pearls around her neck. She slid the bracelets over her wrists.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now let’s pay and get you out of here before you have a nervous breakdown.”

“I can’t do it,” Charlotte said.

“Too late. You already have.”

“I can’t put my old clothes back on again. I’ll look like a like a clown wearing some socialite’s head.”

Luca laughed at her.

“Time to dust off your credit cards.”

“What credit cards?”

She had no credit cards. Luca couldn’t believe it. He asked one of the saleswomen to call a manager. He explained their situation and gave the skeptical woman Bradley Aronson’s office number. While they waited he surveyed the racks and selected several more dresses, and some fitted pants and tops to show off Charlotte’s figure. When the manager returned she was smiling.

“How can I be of help?” she said.

Luca put his arm around Charlotte’s waist and smiled his most engaging smile.

“What floor is lingerie on?” he asked.