CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

One Down, A Lifetime to Go

Nick joined us as we piled into the car. I’d never seen him be so invisible. I’d hardly noticed him in the soup kitchen. He’d helped serve food for an hour, but the rest of the time he’d wandered and stayed out of the way. We’d been so busy I hadn’t had time to think about what kind of footage he was capturing.

He hooked his seatbelt, put his head back, and closed his eyes. His camera was cradled in his hands. Obviously, he did not want to talk. I realized he had made none of the little asides to me he usually made during a shoot.

I squeezed his knee, once, quickly, in apology. I’d meant to shake Clay up with the visit to the soup kitchen. I hadn’t realized what it might mean to Nick. He didn’t open his eyes and I made a mental note to apologize to him later. After I was done with Clay.

The car moved forward and I looked at Clay, struggling to think what to say. “What did you do with the dress?”

I have no idea why I asked. I really didn’t want to know. I assumed he trashed it, but knowing Clay, he could have framed it as a lesson to his next — more malleable— pupil. Or brought it to his next remedial common man tutorial to find out how a man should react when the woman he’s asked to marry him leaves him a Dear John note written on an expensive dress.

“I gave it to Marta. She seemed to think she could rescue it somehow.”

Marta. The housekeeper. How fitting. “I’m glad it went to someone who would appreciate it, then.”

“With her dark coloring, that blue wouldn’t be nearly as stunning as it would have been on you. Natural redheads should always wear blue.”

“I like variety. And I did not like that dress. I told you so before you bought it, while you bought it, and after you bought it.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I think I went a little shrill on the last word.

I didn’t add, “and after you insisted I wear it to our engagement party.” Instead of putting on the dress, I had put on jeans and a well-worn t-shirt, rummaged through Marta’s housekeeping cart for a laundry marker, and left my Dear John dress where he would be sure to find it — on his pillow.

I hadn’t looked back. The lap of luxury isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. All that softness and insulation can make you forget what it’s like to feel things.

When we went over the familiar bridge, Clay showed a tiny sign of surprise — he actually turned his head to stare out the window, as if to figure out where we were going. “Brooklyn? You’re taking me to Brooklyn?”

“They have a happening art scene there, or haven’t you heard? Probably no businesses to flip upside down and shake the profit from, I’m afraid to say. But you can survive a weekend without doing business, right?”

There was absolutely no concern about the lap of luxury at the Habitat for Humanity site, which was buzzing with people who looked like they knew what they were doing. I’d always meant to participate. Brooklyn wasn’t really that far away, but most days it seemed like another planet.

I checked in with the bossy little Latina woman with the yellow hard hat. Sophia. She gave Nick a grumpy glance, but didn’t say anything about blurring faces. There was no shame in the people working here.

Like Willa, she was unimpressed with Clay and his billions. Billions didn’t get things done in her world. Sweat, labor, and power tools were what she trusted.

Clay tried the sleeve rolling move to gain her trust.

Sophia stopped him before he had his left his sleeve half way up. “Mr. Pierce. Stop. You’ll ruin that nice shirt. Take it off.”

“Take it off?” Clay repeated the words as if they were in a foreign language.

“Off.” Sophia wasn’t used to having to repeat herself. Obviously. She started unbuttoning the shirt and had it off of him before either of us knew what was happening.

As we watched, both of us gaping, Sophia neatly folded the shirt. “Manny!” she called.

A young man of about sixteen, who had been hovering nearby, appeared at her side. He wore a tool belt that threatened to slip off and take his pants with it. “What you need, Ms. G?”

“Get Mr. Pierce a t-shirt.” She handed him Clay’s good shirt in a neat bundle. “And put this somewhere where it won’t get ruined.”

Clay stood there shirtless for a moment. I admired his carefully maintained musculature and manscaping, even while I wondered if I’d just done exactly what Olivia was afraid I would do — make an enemy of Clay Pierce, III.

Sophia stared at him, her lips curving up into a reluctant smile. She patted his bicep. “Good. I know just where to put you, Mr. Pierce.”

“And where is that?” Clay took the Habitat for Humanity logo t-shirt that Manny brought him and pulled it over his head. It mussed his perfect hair. For the first time, he looked human. Vulnerable.

Sophia patted his bicep again. “Where I can put that gym muscle to use, of course.” She stepped back, challenge sparking in her eyes. “Unless you don’t think you can handle lifting something besides barbells?”

My heart did a flip flop, first in fear and then in amazement.

An answering spark appeared in Clay’s eyes. I was pretty sure his answer came completely unscripted by his common man files. “I can handle anything you can throw at me, Ms. G.”

She cocked her head and studied him critically. “We’ll see.”

Nick, of course, captured it all.

My understanding was that Tina had managed to wangle funding for an entire condo unit reno from the budget. I had to get her something to thank her when this was all over. Too bad I couldn’t afford a trip around the world. She deserved it. Although, maybe, if I asked her to arrange it, she could manage to make it happen on a shoestring budget.

<<>>

“These shots are marvelous.” Olivia flipped through the photos on her screen, marking and setting aside more than I’d ever seen her choose before. “We can use this one for our man of the year issue. And this one for our top bachelor list.” She looked up at me. “However did you get Clay Pierce to take off his shirt.”

I laughed. “Thank the project foreman. She took it off of him herself.”

Olivia smiled politely, as if she thought I was exaggerating. And then she flipped to the shot where Sophia was unbuttoning Clay’s shirt while he stood there staring down at her. The expression on his face was revealing.

Tandy leaned in. “My goodness. That’s hot. It could make the cover of a romance novel. Sexy female foreman unpeeling the shirt from billionaire hunk.”

She gave me a fake look of pity. “That had to hurt. Seeing your ex look at some stranger like that.”

I stared at the picture. It probably should. But it didn’t. I’d put my feeling more in the amazement range.

But it seemed wrong to say so when Clay was already looking more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him look in all the time I’d known him. “Can’t fight chemistry, can we? When there’s a spark, there’s a spark. And my spark with Clay went out a long time ago. For both of us.” If he’d ever had it. He’d certainly never looked at me the way Nick had captured him looking at Sophia.

Tandy clearly did not believe I was not devastated at losing the billionaire. She must not have read my draft, where I went into my blue silk Dear John moment and how I would do it all over again…but with something that could be dry-cleaned out of the dress.

“Nicky,” she said breathlessly. “You do know how to capture spark.”

Nicky? Since when had she begun to call him Nicky?

“He certainly does. Sparks sell magazines.” Olivia pointed to Ellie, who was in charge of the web campaigns that went with the print issues. “We’ll put this one on the web. How is traffic?”

Ellie flipped open her notebook. “Growing. We had 10,000 hits this week. Readers seem to be intrigued by the idea of revisiting exes.”

Olivia tapped her long elegantly polished nail on the photo of Clay and Sophia. “How can you use this shot to get us to a million hits next week?”

Ellie studied the photo for a moment and then rattled off suggestions. “I could run a caption contest. We could give out prizes — maybe some Habitat for Humanity t-shirts? Free subscriptions?”

Tandy frowned. “Nothing big?”

Ellie vetoed the idea with a shake of her head. “Most of our readers will participate just for the fun of it.” Her eyes lingered on the picture of the shirtless Clay.

Olivia nodded as she processed the idea. “Do it. That will be just in time for our Henry issue drop. Kicking off the series with strong sales will help everyone.”

She looked at me. “Diana, I have to admit, I’m impressed. I wasn’t sure you could handle such a big job for your first assignment, but you’ve proved yourself. I look forward to seeing your next idea, once we wrap this one.”

“Thanks.” I could say no more. Olivia gave compliments out with the rarity that Haley’s Comet revolved around the earth. Each bit of praise came like the tap of a double-edged sword. Olivia expected more from anyone she praised. And everyone else in the room started thinking about how to bring you down.

I glanced at Tandy, to gauge exactly how much she hated me. She had her phone in her hand and her eyes on Nick. Who also had his phone in his hand. They were texting each other.

<<>>

“Texting,” I complained to Emily. “And he doesn’t think he’s being a traitor.”

Nick didn’t take offense. He just grinned. “I thought you wanted me to work more. Tandy offered me work.”

“I do want you to work more,” I agreed in a half-grumble. “But does it have to be with Tandy? And when did she start calling you Nicky?”

“Nicky?” Emily shuddered. “You never let anyone call you Nicky except Diana’s mom.”

He folded his pizza in half and rescued dripping cheese with his finger before answering. “I never let anyone but Caroline call me Nicky before. Now I do.”

Emily sat up. “Oh my God. You’re seeing her.”

“What?” I looked at Nick. No way. I would know —

He nodded, a short sharp bob. “She’s kind of fun, when she’s not trying to railroad Diana out of an article.” His expression indicated a certain mulish refusal to be ashamed he was giving aid and comfort to my arch rival.

“Are you kidding me?” I put my piece of traitor’s pizza back in the box.

“Hey, I’m not the one who dated a billionaire robot control freak. What the hell were you doing with him anyway?”

“Clay’s not so bad.”

He imitated a robotic voice, “No, he had a good side.” Then he switched back to normal Nick-speak tinged by a touch of disbelief. “But that doesn’t mean you should date him. Get engaged to him. Can you imagine if you had married him?”

I refused to imagine making such a huge mistake. “I didn’t get engaged. Technically I broke up with him before the engagement was official.”

“You did that a lot.”

“Did what?”

“Broke up with guys right before you got engaged.”

“Not that many.”

Emily looked at me in surprise. “Clay. Alejandro. Henry. Ryan never asked you to marry him because he was already married to his restaurant.”

“That’s three out of four so far. Is there anyone else on your list who asked you to marry him and was rewarded with a break up?”

“Dawson. But he didn’t mean it, and we didn’t break up after he proposed.” Not right after, anyway.

He laughed. “So you’re like the runaway bride, only you run before the engagement?” He added, “And, for the record, I think Dawson swings for the other team, so that wedding was never happening.”

“Dawson only proposed because his father wanted him to get married. He told me so. He didn’t want me to feel like it was an ultimatum or anything. And the proposals weren’t my idea.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But you had to know they were getting close to proposing. So how was it that neither Henry or Clay suspected you weren’t eager for the ring on your finger? Didn’t you give them any clues?”

I didn’t want to think about it. How did anyone know they wanted to get married until the proposal? I had thought I did. Not that I’d confess that to Nick while he was playing judge, jury and executioner. “You make me sound capricious. But here’s a question for you, since you’ve met Henry and Clay and worked with Alejandro. Do you think I should have married any of them?”

That shut them both up for a second. Emily finally said, “No. But it does make me wonder. I can’t see either Henry or Clay proposing if you’d given them the signal that you weren’t ready. Phil didn’t propose to me until he was sure I’d accept.”

“We know that. He ran it by us before he ran it by you.” I smiled. “Maybe that’s how I’ll know. I’ll run the idea by the two of you and you’ll give me your blessing?”

Nick challenged me. “Would that make a difference to you? How could we ever tell you we thought a guy wouldn’t break one of those commandments of yours? People slip up.”

I looked at him, remembering the string of no commitment women he′d dated. “I’d know if a woman was right for you.”

He grinned. “You just want me to stop seeing Tandy.”

More than he could possibly no, but I wasn′t going to admit just how much the thought of him with Tandy bothered me. “Well, yes. But I think I’d know. Just like I did with Emily and Phil.”

“Just like you thought you did.” Emily put her pizza down and hugged her knees to her chest. Her sadness tugged at me. I wanted to fix it, but I didn’t know what to do.

Nick wasn’t letting go of the subject. “Clay. Ryan. Henry. Alejandro. Dawson. Did any of them have a shot of measuring up to your standards? Does anyone?”

His accusation stung and I jumped to my own defense when Emily remained silent. “I don’t have standards for friends, only boyfriends.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Emily hugged her knees harder and Nick put down his pizza.

“Then why am I in trouble for dating Tandy? She’s fun. Unlike you lately, Ms. I-want-to-fix-your-life.” I’m your friend, not your boyfriend. Remember — I’m not one of your little blue book statistics. Or am I?”

“No,” I started to protest.

Emily interrupted. “Tell him the truth, Diana.”

“What?”

“Show me.” He held out his hand.

I reached under the chair cushion and took out the little blue book. “Here. See for yourself.” I glared at Emily. Why was she trying to hurt me? Hurt Nick?

She said evenly. “Give him the page you cut out.”

The idea struck me with such horror I couldn’t breathe. What was happening? I looked at Nick. “You’re wasting your talents working with Tandy. But it’s your life. You’re my friend, and that isn’t going to change because you’re dating Tandy. I don’t dump friends. Only boyfriends. Change my nickname from Queen of Lists to The Runaway Girlfriend. I won’t argue. Why can’t we leave it at that?”

He balanced his slice on top of his beer can and stood up. “Friends have each others’ backs. They don’t evaluate them on a ten point scale of impossible perfection.” He didn’t wait for a reply, just took his pizza and beer and left.

Emily and I stared at each other. Before I could process the idea of Nick stalking out, Emily asked, “Is there a list of commandments for friends?”

“You know there isn’t.”

“So, if I divorce Phil…you won’t dump me?”

“Of course not.” I tried to hug her, but she stepped away. “Emily. You know me. You are my best friend. You and Phil are going to be fine.”

She teared up. “Phil isn’t willing to come to your mom’s for dinner with me.”

“Fine. If you’re not all made up by next month, you get me in the divorce agreement. I’ll pay for the lawyer to write it in all legal. I promise.”

“Maybe.” She hugged me weakly. “But it is strange that you have such high standards for boyfriends and none at all for friends.” She snorted. “Or roommates.”

“I do have standards for roommates. They have to pay the rent. And no smoking.”

“True. But Paolo is living proof you don’t insist on the rent standard.” We laughed, but then she got serious again. “What if you’re wrong? What if I do get divorced and you never talk to me again? I know how you feel about divorce.”

“I just wouldn’t. Is there anything I could do to prove it to you?”

She considered for a moment, and then she nodded her head sharply. “I want you to burn that book. But first, I want you to show Nick his page.”

“Why?” How would that prove anything?

She looked at the door to my apartment. The one Nick had stormed through minutes before. “Because it’s out there. Between you. He’s been acting weird since your birthday.”

“Couldn’t I just burn everything. Wouldn’t that stop the weirdness?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t think it would. He knows you did have a page on him, even if you cut it out. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t seem to be able to do anything right lately.”

“It’s going to be okay.” I said, but I’m not sure either of us believed me.