Читать книгу: «One True Love?»

1

“I’M LEAVING YOU,” Corinne Weatherby exclaimed.

She slammed the door behind her, leaning against it as if the power of her own words had thrust her against the door. She spotted the second door open on the other side of the office and winced. She’d forgotten about the filing room. She crossed the room and slammed that door, too, for good measure. And in case the man sitting behind the office desk hadn’t heard her, she repeated, “I’m leaving you, Brendan. I mean it this time.”

Not looking up from his busy task of bouncing one silver ball against another on the same pendulum, Brendan waved off her statement. “You’re going on vacation, Corinne. You’ll be back in two weeks.”

With a toss of her flaming-red curls, Corinne explained the situation to him. “Not two weeks. A lifetime. I’m leaving you symbolically.”

This time Brendan did look up at her with his soulful blue eyes. She almost caved until she realized it was confusion she read in those eyes and not anguish over her departure. “Does that mean you’re not really going anywhere? Is this some kind of meditation thing?”

She closed her eyes and summoned patience. Maybe her true love wasn’t the brightest of men, but he was hers. Or at least he would be after they’d played out the script. She had practically written the whole plot in her head. Every line was committed to memory. Every piece of choreography had been rehearsed a thousand times in her mind. So far everything was on cue…except for the second open door. But there were some things that Corinne simply could not predict.

Pulling a bit on the length of her tiny grasshopper-green skirt—an atypical length for her but the chosen costume for this particular farewell scene—Corinne positioned herself accordingly to show off her shapely, albeit short, legs. Just a taste of what he was going to miss. “What I meant to say is that although I will be back in two weeks, when I return, figuratively, I will be dead to you.”

This time Brendan was motivated enough by her words to stand. He sauntered over to where she stood with her back still against the door to the filing room. In the few steps it took to reach her, Corinne could see the transition in his face.

The man was like a chameleon. He adapted his expressions perfectly to the current situation. For this confrontation he brought out the big guns: the cute, cuddly-boy routine.

He sure knew how to play rough. She was a particular sucker for this one. Had he gone with smooth and seductive, she might have stood a better chance.

No. No, she told herself firmly. She had to be strong. Cuddly-boy face or no, this was their future she was fighting for. Corinne shored up her defense system.

But it was so hard. The soft blond hair that was perfectly trimmed, the wide-open blue eyes framed in a face golden from more than a few hours spent at the tanning salon, and the pouting mouth that had made her knees buckle more times than she could count, all added to the package. Today he had chosen a powder-blue shirt, which highlighted his eyes and coordinating dark-blue suspenders. Those suspenders made her want to pull on them until they snapped against his gym-hardened pecs. Not to cause him pain or anything. Just because she thought it might be fun. Yes, this man was her destiny. This man was her one true love.

If only he would wake up and smell the donuts.

“Babe, what do you mean you’re going to be dead to me? I’m still going to want to see you when you get back.”

Such sincerity. Such caring. Such bull. Corinne knew him too well to believe his words. What she needed to do was show him how awful his life would be without her. “Stay with me, Brendan. I said you’re going to be dead to me. Which means the only place you will see me is in the lunchroom.”

“But why, babe? We have had a good thing going. And I think we’ve got some unfinished business,” he said slyly.

He was talking about the other night when she had kicked him out of her condo before they made it to the bedroom. Corinne was a modern woman. She was perfectly ready to go to bed with the man she knew to be her destiny. But she wanted it to be perfect. Perfect meant that when she went to bed with Brendan, he would stop going to bed with all the other women. It was sort of her rule. Until he was ready to make that commitment, the door to her bedroom would remain locked.

“Can you honestly tell me you’re ready to give up the others?”

“Others?” he asked in that innocently boyish tone he had mastered.

Corinne sighed. “The others, Brendan. The other women.”

“If that’s what you want…”

For a moment Corinne’s hopes were raised, but then a name flashed behind her eyes and she remembered what had started her off on this particular script in the first place. “Ah-hah!” she shouted, as she thrust her index finger into his impossibly firm chest.

“Ah-hah what?”

“You told me the other night that you were going to stop seeing all the other women. You said you wanted to commit to me. Then I had to hear about Marjorie from human resources from Sally in administration. Marjorie from human resources? I mean, really.”

Brendan immediately went for the innocent face. Not that he could fool her. Corinne knew each of his faces too intimately. She’d studied them. As a student of theater and acting she had from time to time graded his expressions. It was why they were so perfect for each other. He couldn’t fool her. He couldn’t charm his way out of messy situations with her. Once he understood that she knew him for who he was but still loved him, she was sure he would come around to her way of thinking.

Or at least almost sure.

Reasonably sure.

Pretty darn sure.

“Honey, Marjorie and I are just friends. So we went out for a couple of drinks. We were with a bunch of other people from the office.”

“Like who?” This was his fatal flaw. He could be a smooth liar, but he could never back up a lie once he began it. Oh, Brendan, is there anyone else on this planet who could love you? Corinne didn’t think so.

“Like…like…uh…uh…Relic was there!”

Corinne actually had to laugh. Although her script did call for a stoic face and a resolute manner throughout the entire breakup scene, this was too funny not to chuckle. “Matthew Relic was at the bar with you and Marjorie from human resources? I don’t think so.”

“No, really, he was,” Brendan continued futilely. “You can ask him.”

She shook her head sharply. “Brendan, Matthew and I are friends. If I ask him, he’ll tell me the truth.”

“Oh.” The man deflated before her eyes. But he was quick to rebound. “Sweetheart, babe, you know you’re the only one I really care about.”

It was the emphasis on the word care that got her. It always did. “I know you care about me, Brendan, but I want more.”

“And I want to give you more,” Brendan said with a smile, while he brought his hands up to cover her petite shoulders. “You deserve the best, honey. I know that. What kind of fool do you take me for?”

“I don’t think you’re a fool, Brendan. But you have to understand I can’t go on this way. The other people in this company are laughing at me.”

“But you always like to be the center of attention,” he volleyed.

“I like to be the center of attention when I put myself there. I don’t want anyone else to do that for me. Now for the last time, are you going to stop seeing other women?” Here it comes, she thought, the big finale to scene one.

Brendan shoved his hands deep into his suit pockets, then quickly took them out and smoothed out the wrinkles he had made. He shuffled his feet and looked to the ceiling for what Corinne could only assume was divine intervention. “It’s just that you know how I am, babe. I can’t help it if other women need me. I mean what about the man shortage? If I give up all the others, I’ll be contributing to it rather than helping it. That’s just not the kind of guy I am.”

He actually thought he was being noble. Corinne couldn’t stop the pain in her heart. Not that she hadn’t predicted exactly this outcome, but still, it took her a moment to compose herself. The touch of wetness to make her eyes look that much shinier would not be difficult to fake.

“Fine. But know this, Brendan. I’m the only woman you know who has seen the real you and has still managed to fall in love with you. You’ll never get from them what you could have gotten from me. Once I come back from this vacation, you’ll know what it means to be truly alone.”

BRAVO! Bravo!

Matthew Relic cheered silently from his current prison—the filing-room closet attached to Brendan’s office. Obviously, Corinne hadn’t seen him in here when she slammed the door, and Golden Boy must have forgotten that he had come in to get one of the client folders a few minutes prior to Corinne’s grand entrance. The polite thing would have been to inform them both of his presence rather than eavesdrop on their private conversation. But before he could stop Corinne—or Rinny as he liked to call her—she was off and running. No, the best thing he could do, he’d decided, was to sit and wait her out. Besides, there were worse things than being stuck in the filing-room closet listening to Rinny let the Golden Boy have it.

Absently, Matthew rubbed his chest and thought to himself that there were much worse things. In fact, all things considered, he had the best seat in the house. Corinne always knew how to play the scene. And he’d been waiting for this particular breakup for some time now. Once Brendan was out of the way, he would finally have his chance. This time he was going to take it.

In the last few months, since he’d recovered from the bullet wound that had put a hole in his lung, Matthew Relic had learned two important things about himself. One: he was in love with Corinne Weatherby. Two: he would never again put off until tomorrow what could be done today. Life was precious. If that punk in the convenience store had taught him anything it was that.

Yes, he was definitely in the right spot at the right time. After Rinny was done dumping Golden Boy, she would need a shoulder to cry on. More than likely, the shoulder of someone who had a few extra tissues handy.

Matthew patted his breast pocket. He normally kept three tissues there. Today he believed he had four. A good thing, too, since Rinny tended to be extra watery.

He sat and waited for the rest of the scene to play itself out. She’d already given him the soulful goodbye. After that she would wipe the tears from her eyes. Then she would hold up her chin and carry her five-foot-nothing frame out of his office. She might turn dramatically for one final glance to show him what he was giving up, then in another second he would hear a slam signaling her departure and his release from the filing-room closet.

One. Two. Three.

Nothing.

Damn. She must be holding the dramatic pause too long. He counted again.

One. Two. Three.

Still nothing. Something must be wrong.

“I’VE GOT to go to the can,” Brendan announced before Corinne could storm out of his office. Darn it, she had taken too long to wipe her tears in an attempt to save her eyeliner. She watched while he strolled out of the office and when she glanced down at her hand she could see the traces of brown eyeliner on her finger.

“Darn it,” she shouted. “That wasn’t in the script.” She didn’t even get to do the sultry look back. How was he supposed to spend the next two weeks pining for her, if he didn’t have the sultry look back to remind him of all that he was missing? Well, she could only hope that the perfect suit, the ultimatum and the teary declaration of love would be enough to sway him to the right side of her particular force. What choice did she have?

This was the man she had fallen in love with. And since she’d been a girl she’d always believed there was only one true love for everyone on this planet. Once a person found that true love she had to grab him and hold on to him, because if the relationship failed, the couple was doomed to walk the earth in tragic loneliness forever. Or at least until eighty, when most people forgot about love and concentrated on soft food.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

That was odd; Brendan’s office door was open. Who would be knocking? And why did it sound as though it was coming from behind her? Corinne whipped around and realized that the knocking was coming from the filing-room door.

“Ugh!” she growled as she threw open the door, utterly humiliated that she had an uninvited audience. That particular scene was supposed to have been a private show. “Matthew! What are you doing in there?”

He glanced down at the folder in his hand. “Uh, working.”

“You bastard! You heard every word, didn’t you!”

Since Matthew wasn’t a great liar, he shrugged his shoulders and told her, “Yeah.”

“Ugh! You don’t even have the common courtesy to lie about it!”

“What’s to lie about? You broke up with Golden Boy. I’m happy for you. You should have done it a long time ago.”

“What do you know about it?” she hissed. “And if you heard the whole thing, then you will answer this question…”

“No, I wasn’t out with Brendan and Marjorie from human resources last night. I’m Ole Relic, remember?” It was a nickname the others in their small company had dubbed him. Certainly, not the most flattering of names but Matthew had to agree it was rather accurate. He usually went to bed before ten on weeknights. He often did extra accounting work on the weekends. And on those rare occasions when Rinny could coax him out for happy hour, he only ever had one beer. Heineken. He liked the imported stuff. In summary, he was a C.P.A. who habitually carried extra tissues in his pocket. The very opposite of excitement and perhaps a little older than his thirty-three years would indicate.

“That rat!”

“Exactly,” he agreed.

“That scoundrel!”

“Absolutely.”

“That poor pathetic lonely man.”

“What?”

Rinny reached out to touch his arm. She was a toucher. It was one of the things he loved about her. “Don’t you see? He hides behind the lies because he doesn’t think he has a choice. Deep down, he is this insecure boy who needs the presence of multiple women in his life to make him feel like a man. Virile. Get it?”

All Matthew got was that the guy she had just described sounded like a putz with a small…putz. “So where did he go?”

“He went to the, uh…the gentlemen’s room.”

Poor Rinny, probably not the way she planned it. “Did you even get to do the sultry look back?”

“I beg your pardon?” she asked, mildly offended.

“Come on, Rinny, it’s me. When you used to visit me in the hospital you always flashed me the sultry look back right before you said good-bye. That look would follow me into my dreams. It’s a classic.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied convincingly.

Matthew just shrugged his shoulders. In an effort to change the topic, he asked, “So, where are you going on your vacation?”

This topic made her slightly more chipper, and she put aside her pique. “Two fabulous weeks on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Sun. Sand. And single,” she finished on a slightly more depressing note. Visions of honeymoon couples frolicking about on the beach danced in her head. “I’m sure it will be mag.”

“Yeah. Mag,” he repeated. “What exactly does that mean?”

Poor Matthew, Corinne thought. She didn’t know how it was possible, but he was even more lost than she was at this moment. Seeing his tie askew, she absently reached a hand up to the knot to tweak it straight. As she did, she studied the tie and the plain white shirt he wore with it. “It certainly isn’t this tie. Really, Matthew, you’ve got to do something with your wardrobe.”

He looked down at the tie she was arranging. “It’s my favorite.”

That made her snort. “And you need a haircut,” she said, running her hand along his neck to corral the few stray hairs that lingered. His rich brown hair, a color he obviously didn’t enhance, had always made her jealous. When he started to squirm, she pulled her hand away and thought that Brendan’s hair was always perfectly groomed. He had a standing appointment with a stylist once a week.

Her name was Sherry. Sherry, who also happened to dance at a strip club for extra money on the weekends.

Corinne couldn’t prevent the frown that she felt forming on her lips. She hated to frown. It always showed off the faint wrinkles at her mouth.

A tiny knock sounded behind them and they both turned to the open door.

“Is the coast clear?”

Corinne’s assistant and good friend Darla poked her head into the office. The plump woman with the warm smile and bright eyes looked at Corinne expectantly.

“It’s clear,” Corinne told her.

“Well?”

“It didn’t exactly go according to script.”

“She didn’t get to do the sultry look back,” Matthew told Darla.

“Oh no. But that’s, like, your heavy hitter. It’s right up there with the playful pout.”

“I do not have a playful pout. Or a sultry look back. You’re both making this up.”

They exchanged a glance that was all too easy to interpret, but Corinne didn’t have the energy to fight them. “I just don’t understand. Where did I go wrong?”

“Cheer up,” Matthew said, bucking her on the shoulder. “And stop thinking about Brendan. You never know. You might meet some fabulous man and have a wild vacation affair.”

She lifted her left eyebrow into a perfect arc over her eye. “Don’t be ridiculous, Matthew. I am a one-woman man. One-man woman. Oh, you know what I mean.”

Although, the idea did have a little merit. If she could send back pictures of her and some handsome stranger to her buddies in the office to view, and say Darla happened to accidentally drop one or two on Brendan’s desk, well then that might be just the thing to push him over the edge. And if that didn’t work, she could always literally push him over an edge!

“Uh-oh. I know that look,” Darla warned, studying her friend’s suddenly diabolical expression. “And it usually means involving me in one of your plots.”

“Scripts,” Corinne corrected. “And it does. I’m thinking about a whole new approach. What about jealousy?”

“You’re always jealous,” Darla reminded her. “You know, because Brendan’s always messing around with other women behind your back?”

Corinne scowled at her alleged friend. “Not me. Him. What if I set out to make Brendan jealous? Of course, given my deep and abiding love for him, it would be almost impossible for me to flirt with another man…”

“You mean like what he’s doing now with Marjorie from human resources?”

Matthew pointed to the scene just outside the door. Brendan was bending down to pick up a pencil Marjorie had accidentally tossed into the middle of his path, the whole time keeping his eyes pinned to her protruding breasts.

Matthew was amazed. “How does he manage to follow the conversation when he’s got his eyes glued to her…”

Corinne shot him a menacing glare, and he quickly closed his mouth.

The bastard. The poor pathetic lonely…Nope, sometimes Brendan could be just a bastard. Corinne crunched her teeth together and squared her shoulders. She was going to be damned before she was made a fool out of by Marjorie from human resources. Calling upon all of her training, she focused on making herself taller with larger breasts. It was a visualization technique her seventh-grade acting teacher had taught her, and it had stayed with her ever since. Visualize yourself as you want to be seen and people will see it, too.

“Go get ’em, tiger.”

“Give him hell,” Darla added.

This from her cheering section. With the regal air of a queen she stepped out into the hall. Cubicles lined up along the hallway were filled with not-so-busy customer service representatives who had been enjoying the Marjorie and Brendan Show. Now that Corinne had added herself to the mix, the scene took on a whole new tension.

The question was, how did she want to play this particular act? All fifty employees of the small company knew about her on-again, off-again relationship with Brendan. Most thought he was playing her for a fool, but that was because they didn’t understand him. Now here she was with her newest competition, who, if it was at all possible, was wearing an even shorter skirt than hers. The woman must have had her legs genetically engineered. It was the only explanation.

So did she go for catty? Explosive? Sorrowful and betrayed? Better yet, it was time for the old standby. She would play the bigger person. Not an easy task, considering she was playing the scene with an Amazon.

As cool as lemonade in summer, she strolled up to the couple standing too close together for company etiquette, and nodded her head. “Marjorie. Brendan. See you both when I get back.” Enough said. She continued her march down the hall and out the door.

She didn’t hear it, but she felt Matthew and Darla’s applause accompany her all the way out the door.

IT WAS TOO EARLY for it to be hot. April was supposed to be about cool temperatures and soft breezes. But in New Jersey, when the humidity started to spike, anything was possible. Oh well, Corinne decided philosophically as she shucked her grasshopper blazer and noted the sweat stains, all the better to get her acclimated to the weather in the Bahamas. Still, it would have been the cherry on top to leave New Jersey while the weather was lousy for her two weeks of fun in the sun.

Dropping her suit into the dry-cleaning bin, Corinne checked the suitcase open on her bed one more time. Sundresses. Long flowy skirts. Strategic hip wraps. Three bathing suits. And SPF40 sunblock. For a redhead, frolicking in the sun did have its down side and its name was freckles.

The phone rang, and Corinne skipped through her condo to get to the kitchen before her answering machine picked up. When she missed the call by one ring, she decided she really was going to have to get another phone for her bedroom. But, since the only jack available was used for her modem, another phone also meant another line.

“Damn, I hate these things. Pick up dear. It’s your mother.”

Corinne cringed and considered playing not at home. She held her breath and waited.

“Damn it, Corinne, I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing. Now pick up the damn phone.”

Damn was her mother’s favorite word. She said it was because back in the fifties it was the only swear word they would let a woman say on film. It sort of became one of her trademarks—the sultry eyes, the husky voice and the fact that she said damn before almost every line. The first few times it could be highly effective, but after the tenth or so damn, it started to lose its impact.

Knowing there was no way out, she picked up the phone. “Hello, Mother.”

“Ah-hah, I knew you were there,” Grace Weatherby said as if she had uncovered some dark and diabolical plot.

“I was in the bedroom,” Corinne explained, not like that meant anything to her mother, who had only seen her condo once. And even that had been just a glimpse.

“I have tragic news. It’s absolutely damning!”

Corinne waited.

“Your sister is refusing to go to the damn Cannes Film Festival. Can you believe it? I’ve told her, her only hope of winning an Oscar is if the critics start to see her as a serious actress. And she refuses to listen to me.”

Serious actress. Myra? Corinne didn’t think so, not when her last film had starred an alien and the film before that a ten-foot gorilla. “Myra is a Hollywood box-office star. Maybe she’s content with that.”

If you asked Corinne, Myra would have been content as a toll taker. Blessed with her mother’s flaming-red hair and endless legs and her father’s fine cheekbones and green eyes, she was destined to be Hollywood’s girl for however long the ride would last. And, of course, the Weatherby name didn’t hurt. But Myra’s heart was never really into it.

“The money isn’t enough. Damn!” her mother exploded. “How long have I tried to instill in all of you that a Weatherby has won an acting award in each generation? Your father for best actor, me for best supporting actress, and even your brother managed to walk away with a Tony.”

“And there was my plaque for employee of the month,” Corinne added with her tongue in her cheek.

“Yes, of course,” her mother agreed.

Corinne could almost hear her mother struggling to recall what it was that she did for a living.

“Darling?”

“Yes, Mother?” Corinne knew what was coming.

“What exactly do you do for a living?”

She was twenty-seven and had been working as a financial controller for the same company for the last six years. However, her mother chose to block such horribly dull thoughts as finance from her mind. So, each time Corinne mentioned her work, Grace would always have to ask the inevitable.

“I’m a controller, Mother.”

“Oh, yes.” Her mother sighed, even though Corinne knew she had no clue as to what that meant. “And do you still live in that…state?”

“Obviously, since I’m the one who answered the phone.”

“Don’t get fresh with me, young lady.”

“Haddonfield is a nice town. And New Jersey is a fine state, Mother. It has mountains and beaches…”

“Please,” her mother interrupted. “New Jersey is just that damn place right after you leave New York and are on your way to Hollywood. Anyway, the reason I called was to have you call your sister and tell her she must go to that damn festival.”