CHAPTER EIGHT

Overcalling

The number of zeroes in the total estimate for my services that Jane helped me draft was enough to make my head spin.

“Don’t get too excited.” Jane had pulled out a calculator and was punching in several numbers. “The IRS gets its share, and then there’s Social Security. True, you can deduct a lot of expenses, but you’ll be more than earning that money.”

The phone rang, and I went into the kitchen to answer it while Jane continued to work on the financial angle. “Hello?”

“Ellie, it’s Roz.”

Her voice was about the last one I ever expected to hear coming through my phone line. I tucked the receiver into the crook of my neck and leaned one hip against the kitchen cabinet.

“Hello, Roz.” I tried to keep my tone as unemotional as possible. To show weakness would be to invite her to sink her fangs even further into me. “What’s up?”

“We seem to be having a little problem with your committee. Or lack thereof.”

I studied the knotty pine of my ancient cabinets. Maybe I could paint them. “Yes, they do seem to be dropping like flies, don’t they?”

“Ellie, let’s not beat around the bush. No one wants to work with you. I think it would be best if you resigned from the planning committee.”

She wouldn’t outright kick me off the committee. No, that might make her look bad. Overt acts of aggression were frowned upon in 37205. A stiletto in the back was much more the thing. Besides, if she kicked me off the committee, she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing me resign.

“I’m perfectly willing to proceed on my own,” I said, taking plates from the dish drainer and returning them to the cabinet. Maybe I could even afford a dishwasher one day.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Roz snapped. “Transportation is a lot of work, and if it doesn’t go well, the whole event will be ruined. I’m not willing to risk it.”

“You won’t be risking anything. I’ll take care of it.”

“Just like you took care of your husband?”

My fingers tightened around the last plate. That was a low blow, even for Roz. But given our history, I knew why she leveled it at me.

“I don’t think Jim has anything to do with this.” Only when it came down to my feud with Roz, Jim had quite a lot to do with it, actually.

“Look, Ellie, I’m only saying this for your own good. Spare yourself the humiliation and resign now.”

“I’m not going to do it.” I set the last plate on top of the others with a snap.

“Then you’ll regret it.”

“Are you threatening me?” I laughed. “What are you going to do to me, Roz, that hasn’t already been done?”

“You’re only making this harder for everyone. The rest of the committee will just have to pick up the pieces when you fail.”

“I’m not going to fail.”

“I lack your confidence.”

My gaze fell on the box containing my mother’s wedding dress that I had set on the little café table in the kitchen. The sight of it sent a thousand memories shooting through my mind. My mother, exhausted from a long day of seeing patients, standing at the ironing board, pressing my uniform skirt into knifelike pleats. The drawn expression around her mouth each time she balanced her checkbook. And the look of pride on her face when I had been named salutatorian of the senior class. Roz had graduated in the bottom quarter. My mother had been no stranger to hard work, and neither was I. And I wasn’t going to let Roz Crowley take away my last connection to my old life.

“I think my track record speaks for itself. I’ve put in my time on more than a few Cannon Ball committees over the last few years. If you have nothing else to say, I’m going to hang up now.”

“Don’t think this is over, Ellie.”

“It won’t be over until I finish the job, Roz.”

She hung up before I had the chance to do it first.

“Who was that?” Jane called from the dining room.

“The enemy,” I said, half-laughing but scared, too. Because Roz was right. Arranging all the transportation by myself was going to be a bear of a job, and the consequences were dire if I failed.

Jane appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Anything I can help with?”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I think this one calls for the Queen of Clubs.”

You have to overcall her,” Linda said when I repeated my conversation with Roz. Jane had gone home, leaving behind a budget to finalize for Your Better Half, and I had walked over to Linda’s house to get her advice about how to handle Roz. Linda was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for soup, and so I pulled up a stool to the bar that separated the kitchen from the breakfast room and plopped down.

“I have to what?”

“Overcall her.”

“What does that mean?”

“In bridge, when your opponent opens the bidding, you don’t want her and her partner to just run off with the contract. Especially not if you have decent cards yourself.”

“Okay.” I could sort of see the analogy, but I wasn’t sure where Linda was going with this.

“Let’s say your opponent opens 1. If you have enough high card points that you would have opened the bidding yourself, then you overcall her by bidding something higher.”

“Like I or 1 ?” I said, remembering that spades and hearts outranked diamonds.

“Exactly. If you wanted to bid clubs, because that was your longest suit, then you’d have to jump to the two level.”

“So how do I overcall Roz?”

“I think you already did. She tried to get you to resign, and instead of passing and letting her have her way, you overcalled her.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure my hand was strong enough to open. What if I can’t pull this transportation thing off?”

Linda smiled and pulled an onion toward her, which she proceeded to chop with the same efficiency she demonstrated dealing cards. “You, my friend, are in luck. Because you happen to be looking at a former chair of the transportation committee for the Cannon Ball.”

“You?” I had known Linda by reputation long before I’d met her, and with her social connections, I couldn’t imagine anyone had ever dared to give her the transportation assignment. The preparations for the Cannon Ball were so Byzantine that you couldn’t always keep up with who had done what.

“Yep. Before your time. So I can feel your pain.” She paused to wipe the onion tears from her eyes.

I was still trying to absorb this improbable information. “So what did you do?”

“I made sure that the transportation was the most memorable part of the Cannon Ball that year.”

Ten years ago had been long before I’d managed to work my way onto the guest list, much less the planning committee. “Isn’t it just a matter of making sure there are enough valet attendants and shuttle buses?”

“It could be. It usually is.” She sniffed and then paused to wipe her streaming eyes with a dish towel. “But I came up with something a little different that year. Limousines.”

“Instead of the shuttle buses?”

“The chair of the ball nearly had a coronary at the cost, but we had an open bar in the limousines. Made for the happiest ballgoers ever.”

“That’s brilliant.”

“That’s an overcall.”

“Sounds more like trumping someone’s ace to me.”

Linda stopped chopping for a moment and smiled in fond remembrance. “It was one of my better hands.”

“I could use some high card points of my own right now.”

“Remember, length, not strength.”

“Whatever that means in this situation.”

“You’ll figure it out.” Linda set down her knife and went to the sink to rinse her hands. “And we’re all here to help you.”

The next morning, after I’d made a run to Office Depot to buy a fax machine, I sent my estimate to Henri’s office. I had planned to spend the rest of the day digging up more weeds with Grace, when the phone rang.

“Eleanor? Henri.” He sounded a little miffed, and my pulse shot up. Had I offended him by sending the estimate?

“Good morning. You got my fax?”

“A piece of paper is not the same as hearing your voice,” Henri scolded, but I could tell from his tone he was flirting with me rather than expressing annoyance. “Perhaps we could meet for lunch at my apartment? Then you can see the work that is to be done. And I can give you a key and whatever else you require.”

At this point, I had to wonder if everything a Frenchman said came out sounding like a prelude to taking a woman to bed. I mean, if one of Jim’s business colleagues had uttered the same words, would they have made me go a little weak in the knees?

“Lunch sounds fine.” It sounded more than fine, actually, but I’d decided to take a cue from my new bridge group and not send any signals during the bidding phase. Especially when I wasn’t sure whether Henri was making romantic overtures to me or just being French.

“One o’clock?”

“I can be there. What’s the address?”

He told me, and I had to acknowledge that Jane was right. His apartment was in an exclusive historic building on Harding Road—more of a co-op than an apartment—and though it wasn’t too far from Woodlawn Avenue in terms of distance, it was a world away in terms of price range.

“I’ll see you then.” Once more, I set off for my bedroom in a mad scramble to find something to wear, and this time, I couldn’t rely on the robin’s egg-blue suit.

It had been so many years since I’d had to interpret a man’s romantic intentions that I was really out of practice, so as I knocked on the door of Henri’s apartment and waited for him to answer, I could feel little drops of per- spiration beading on my forehead. Over time, as Jim and I had settled into that comfortable routine/rut so common to married couples, we’d developed our own shorthand for signaling whether one or both of us was interested in getting amorous.

“Want to lose some laundry?” Jim would say with a mock leer. Or “Hey, babe, want to get lucky?” I’d ask with atypical raunchiness. It was as if both of us were protecting ourselves by hiding behind a façade of humor. How odd that two people who had been married for decades felt the need to protect their egos so carefully. But we had felt that need to cushion the sting of rejection, and if I were honest with myself, I could admit that Tiffany hadn’t been the problem. She was the solution Jim found to insulate himself from the pressures and problems of a middle-aged marriage.

Was Henri my solution? Just as that thought occurred to me, the man in question opened the door. Today, he wore a polo shirt and khakis, but casual attire made him no less appealing. I’d forgotten how tall he was. Or just how attractive the light sprinkling of gray at his temples made him look.

Again, his face lit up at the sight of me, just as it had at the restaurant. “Eleanor.”

This was business, I reminded myself. Your Better Half’s maiden voyage. I needed to keep focused on my upcoming house payment, not the knots in my stomach.

I had done my best as far as my appearance went, pulling out a pair of silky gabardine trousers and a cashmere sweater. Again, he kissed the air near each of my cheeks. Only this time, when he pulled back, his lips lightly grazed my temple, and I wasn’t sure whether he had done it accidentally or on purpose. Either way, it sent a decidedly delicious tingle up my spine.

“Hello,” I murmured, suddenly shy. While Tiffany might have only been a symptom of the problems in my marriage, she was the root cause of the sudden uncertainty that flooded my chest. Who was I kidding, thinking that Henri had any interest in me other than as an employee? I had seen him charm the hostess at Alicia’s, and he had clearly used that same charisma on Jane. Any woman who moved within range would be pelted with the same savoir faire. I needed to get over myself, as Courtney would have said.

“Please, come inside.” Henri stepped back and motioned me through the door.

I followed Henri into the empty apartment and just managed to stifle a gasp of wonder. The high ceilings and gorgeous hardwood floors were positively palatial. They were complemented by enormous windows that let in copious amounts of light. The combination living and dining area featured a beautiful marble mantelpiece beneath which gas logs burned. And though there was no furniture in sight, a small blanket had been spread across the hardwood in front of the fireplace. An elegant picnic, complete with china and crystal, occupied the space at the center of the blanket. I recognized brie, a long baguette, a bowl of grapes and oranges, and a bottle of wine chilling in a silver bucket.

“It’s beautiful. How thoughtful.”

Okay. So maybe I might have been wrong about Henri viewing me as just another employee. Unless he often sat around on (he floor enjoying a romantic picnic with his business associates. Once more, my pulse rate accelerated.

“Would you like to see the apartment before we eat?” he asked, and I nodded in agreement.

“The kitchen is through here,” he said, placing a hand at my back and leading me through an archway. I breathed a sigh of relief as we moved away from the picnic blanket and its romantic overtones.

The kitchen was, of course, state of the art and designed to make anyone with the slightest culinary bent pea green with envy. By the time I started opening and shutting cabinets to get a feel for it, I was practically chartreuse.

“Do you want to fully stock it, or just cover the basics?” I was trying, with some difficulty, to maintain a professional demeanor since Henri followed far more closely on my heels than one would expect from your average employer. His nearness set off a thousand alarm bells in my head, but since it also made my skin tingle with anticipation, I moved slowly so he could keep up.

How long had it been since I’d felt like this? I had to admit, even if it was only to myself, that I hadn’t trembled with awareness of a man like this in a very, very long time.

“Did you want to host the cocktail party here?” I continued to move around the kitchen, peeking into all the nooks and crannies as Henri moved with me.

“Yes. Would it be possible to do so in two weeks’ time?”

I turned to look at him, which proved to be a mistake. I could see in his eyes that he was clearly stalking me, albeit in a very sexy manner. If Jim had followed me around the house like that, I would have told him to knock it off.

“Two weeks will be tight, but I can do it.” I swallowed hard, both to get myself under control and to work up the courage to ask a difficult question. “Of course, it would make things go more quickly if I could charge the purchases directly to you instead of having to invoice them.”

The truth was that my new credit card limit couldn’t withstand the demands of decorating this kind of apartment, much less stocking the kitchen or throwing a cocktail party.

“Bien sur,” Henri said, and then he moved in a little closer. “I will give you whatever you need.”

I knew it was rather like a scene from a movie where the fading housewife succumbs to the charms of a practiced roue, but when your pulse is pounding in your ears and you feel alive for the first time in nine months, you don’t stop to analyze the situation.

“I’ll just make a list—” I fumbled in my purse for the pen and notebook I’d put there earlier in hopes of pulling them out with professional efficiency.

Henri took the pen and notebook from my hands and set them on the kitchen counter. “Later, ma chère.”

“Later?” I croaked.

“Yes. First….” His voice trailed off.

“First?” I sounded like a bad echo, and all I could think was that I hadn’t been kissed by anyone other than Jim in almost thirty years. What if I’d forgotten how to do it?

“First,” said Henri, bending his head toward mine and lowering his voice to a whisper, “we must eat.”

And then he smiled, smiled in a way that told me he both knew what I had been expecting and that he intended to fulfill that expectation. Just not quite yet.

I was putty in his hands. What right-thinking woman—or non-thinking as the case might be—wouldn’t have been? He led me back to the living room and we settled in on the picnic blanket. Before I knew what was happening, I had a goblet of champagne in my hand and an array of delectable tidbits on a plate in my lap.

“Try this,” Henri urged as he spread Brie on a chunk of the baguette and offered it to me. His fingers brushed mine as he handed me the bread, and I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Okay.”

The same thing happened when he refilled my champagne flute, his fingers curling around mine where they grasped the stem of the glass as he poured. Just when I thought I might spontaneously combust, Henri shifted the mood and began to tell me amusing stories of his experiences since coming to Nashville. He leaned slightly away from me as he spoke, and I was both thankful for and annoyed at the distance.

We worked our way through the bread, cheese, fruit, and, most importantly, the champagne. Then Henri excused himself to the kitchen and returned bearing a plate of tiny lemon tarts and a thermos of coffee. For the first time in months, I felt replete, as if every need had been satisfied, a feeling that all those months of binging my way through the kitchen hadn’t been able to give me. And though the fat and carbs that comprised Henri’s picnic were more elegant than my usual fare of Twinkies and Krispy Kremes, the only real difference was the company in which I’d consumed them—my own vs. that of Henri.

And so when we had finished the meal and I leaned forward to begin stacking all the plates and dishes, I was both unprepared for and yet expecting what happened next. Suddenly Henri’s mouth was inches from my own, and then his lips were against mine.

Liquid warmth washed over me, and I didn’t feel fifty anymore. No, I was as giddy as a teenager in the throes of puppy love, although the way Henri kissed me was far from innocent. The taste, the texture, and the sensations had me grasping his shoulders to keep myself from floating away on a cloud of pure joy.

How could I have let myself forget what this was like? The warmth of another person’s lips, the gentle yet firm pressure that made it difficult to breathe. The taste of wine and fruit on a man’s breath that seemed to connect me to the very earth from which they came.

“So beautiful,” Henri murmured when we came up for air. He stroked my cheek with his palm, and it was all I could do not to turn my head and nuzzle it. I’d thought that at age fifty I’d be long past such feelings, such experiences. Apparently, I’d been wrong. And I’d never been so glad to be wrong in my whole life.

“Thank you.” I could feel myself blushing like a schoolgirl.

“It embarrasses you, my appreciation for your beauty,” he whispered, moving his lips close to my ear to say the words, and the touch of his breath on my ear was nearly my undoing.

“Yes. No. I mean—”

“You American women, you doubt yourselves too much. A Frenchwoman, she takes admiration as her due. But for you…” He broke off to explore my neck with his lips. Clearly I had died and gone to heaven. My suffering over the last nine months was finally being rewarded.

“It’s not that we doubt—” I tried to object to his characterization, but I’d always been particularly sensitive to a man’s lips right where my neck curved into my shoulder. Henri honed in on that vulnerability like a heat-seeking missile.

I hadn’t seriously made out with a man since the days Jim and I used to steam up the windows of his Mustang in college, but Henri was clearly open to helping me make up for lost time. And so I let him.

Much, much later, long after any reasonable-length business lunch would have been over, I was curled up in Henri’s arms, completely oblivious to the unforgiving hardwood floor beneath me, and we were both breathing heavily. To my surprise, and relief, Henri hadn’t tried to push me past the point of some very heady kisses.

“I think I’ve violated about a million professional standards,” I said, because once the kissing had stopped, I’d been flooded with worry. I’d heard so many horror stories about mixing business with pleasure, and yet I’d been as vulnerable to it as anyone.

“Hm,” Henri said, continuing to stroke my hair. I hadn’t felt cherished in such a long time that the simple brush of his fingers against my scalp brought a sting of tears to my eyes.

“I’m hoping this isn’t your normal business lunch.” I decided humor might be the best way to ease out of the situation. “Or is this just part of your new employee orientation?”

Henri stiffened. Oops. I should have kept my mouth closed. “What are you saying, Ellie?”

I sighed. “Sorry. I’m just thinking that I should have kept things on a more professional level.”

“You are sorry for what happened?” He looked as if the mere possibility wounded him to the core. Only I didn’t think it was an act. He looked truly hurt at my regret.

“I’m not sure I can be your employee and…” My voice trailed off, because I wasn’t quite sure what to call what had just happened. “Your whatever this is.”

“Then you’re fired.” Henri smiled, and my insides did another somersault. And another. And another.

And that’s when I knew I was in deep trouble.