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Suddenly the opportunity was there for the taking. She smiled. Willa would like this. “Tom, Lissa has been having a tough time. I wouldn’t tell you this if you weren’t looking for a fast answer from me, but I don’t know if she’ll be up to it.”
“What happened? I know she suddenly had to take some time off, but that’s all.”
“She has a problem. Drugs. She’s been fighting it, and is out of rehab, but she’s in the hospital now.”
“I heard she was pregnant.”
“That’s why she put herself in rehab.”
“Oh my God. I didn’t know.”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m running our show and I have some fine analysts working under my supervision. If she is up to it, of course she’d run the show.”
Tom rubbed his chin. “You know, I’m surprised the press didn’t get wind of this. They check the admission records constantly, just hoping some well-known person will check themselves in. It feeds their fires.”
Tina shrugged. “Lissa is smart. She used her sister’s name—Joan Edwards. That didn’t set off any alarms. She’s in the hospital under her own name.”
“I should send her some flowers.”
Tina smiled and reached over to put her hand on his. “I’m sure she’d love that, Tom. Just don’t let her know you know about the rehab. She’s a fighter, and we need to rally around her to make sure she feels our love right now. She wouldn’t want you to know.”
“I understand.”
As they ate and talked, Tina felt a glow of satisfaction. She’d accomplished what she set out to do. Once the major clients all heard of Lissa’s downfall, that would clear the field for her. She was nowhere near close to getting Tom to propose that she work with him directly on this project, but she would nudge it in that direction. She would endear herself to him. He was a good-looking man, and at thirty-five, her relative youth would be enough to appeal to his male vanity. She could see herself associated with him. The man had big coattails, and that was worth a lot. She’d monitor things, see how he played it.
She already knew that if he came on to her, she’d take him up on it. He might be good in bed, and if not, well, he was rich enough for an affair to be quite the adventure of its own. Half the joy of sex was the negotiations—the flirting and courting, deciding when to be cautious and when to spread your legs for the man. Maybe that was even more than half. And the rest was reaping the rewards.
# # #
“You aren’t looking very cheerful,” Joan said.
Lissa opened her eyes and stared at her sister. “Is there something to cheer about? I’ll gladly join a cheer if you can provide the reason.”
“Well, how about the fact that I’m six months clean and sober? At the meeting this morning they gave me this token and everyone clapped.”
Lissa stared at the cheap plastic chip, and the way Joan was looking at it, as if it were made of gold. Lissa’s heart swelled with hope at the sight of her sister’s pride in her sobriety. Maybe this time it would stick; maybe the dark days would be a thing of the past. “Oh, Joan, that’s fantastic. I wish I could hug you.”
“All four of you at once?”
“That’s right. All four of us want to hug you tight and tell you how wonderful that is and how proud we are.” She poked her belly. “Especially whoever is over here. I can feel the applause.”
“Seeing as I have you trapped here, tell your sister who the father is. You don’t need to keep it a secret, do you?”
“It isn’t a secret, Joan. It isn’t anyone you know, though. I met him at a conference in Switzerland.”
“Even though I don’t know him, he does have a name, right?”
“Julio Torres.”
“Is he Mexican?”
“Spanish. He’s a businessman from Barcelona.”
“Does he ever plan to drop by and see you or his kids?”
Lissa snorted. “I have no idea.”
“Wait! Have you even told him you are pregnant?”
“No. I have no idea how to do that.”
“You aren’t in touch with him?”
“No, but not because I haven’t tried.”
“What do you mean?”
Looking at her sister, she decided to unburden herself. Joan deserved the entire story. “It’s the weirdest thing, Joan. The relationship took off like a skyrocket and fizzled about as fast. I was in Switzerland for a conference. I’d met him before, but this time something wild and wonderful happened. Lights went on and we wound up spending much of our time in bed. It was glorious. I honestly believed that we both thought we had a good thing going and we would see each other again. He’d even talked about doing some work together as well. To be honest, that was almost as exciting to me as the hot sex. Well, no, it wasn’t, but anyway, it didn’t matter. None of it ever happened. I never heard from him again. I sent him emails and letters… And then I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I was curious—well, I was tearing-out-my-hair crazy— wondering why he wasn’t answering. I read a story about him at some event, so I knew he was alive and well. I sent messages to hotels I knew he was staying at. I never got his personal cell-phone number, but I used every business address to try and contact him, and never got any reply at all.”
“Strange. You’d think a man would at least have the balls to say ‘fuck off.’”
“It was insanely disappointing, for sure. I guess I misjudged him completely, not to mention how he felt about me.”
“I guess things like that can happen.” She didn’t look convinced.
“Short of tracking him down and beating on his door, I can’t think of anything to do, and I don’t seem to be in a position to do that, even if it were a good idea. So here I am.”
“Still doing everything you can to get the kids to term.”
“Which seems to be pretty much a matter of doing almost nothing, with the logical result that three incredibly healthy babies will have a mother covered in bed sores who has gone off her nut.”
“All mothers are crazy. It’s a hazard of the job.”
“I suppose it might be.”
“I take it that you are looking forward to getting back to work almost as much as having the babies.”
She sighed. “Almost. That is, if Tina Peters doesn’t manage to put me out of business before I get the chance.”
“No way that is going to happen. You have a good name. Your clients like you and need you. She might skim or wreck a few things you had going, but she can’t destroy it.”
“Good names have a limited shelf life, sis. And goodwill goes just so far. If you aren’t available when you’re needed, those sweet memories fade.”
Joan shrugged. “Well, you have to take one step at a time, just like us addicts and drunks, I guess.”
“Hey, life is always gonna be sequential.”
“I bet that’s one of the cool things they taught you at the London School of Economics.”
“Actually, I think I saw it written on a bathroom wall in a pub.”
# # #
During the taxi ride back to Lissa’s lovely apartment where she was staying, Joan let herself think about what she would do with her own life. Her counselor had suggested she start making a list of goals for herself. “Then you can start seeing which ones are reasonable.”
That was all well and good, but Joan knew she was in an odd place in her life. She’d fallen off a cliff. She’d made incredible money as a model and it was all gone. She’d blown every penny on clothes, drugs, booze, and flying to parties in Europe for more drugs and booze. She didn’t want that life back—being out of that scene was actually a relief—but finding another way to earn a living was tricky. The reality was that, other than modeling, she didn’t have many skills. What she knew was how to look good and appear elegant. She’d cut her education short to make it as a model. While Lissa had gone to school, she’d been the breadwinner in the family. Now
she was living off her sister. Even though Lissa seemed to think it was just fair payback, she felt guilty. And aimless.
She’d never minded helping Lissa through school at all. Now it seemed that supporting the family was the only money she’d earned that wasn’t wasted—it kept them a family of sorts. She’d made sure that there was always a home for them to gather at for Christmas or Thanksgiving and flew Lissa there from London.
When she was drying out, going through the horrors of detoxing and then trying to regain control of her life, it had been hard to find positives in her life to hang on to. Doing nothing more significant than staying clean and sober for another day could seem like eternal damnation, and yet that was what she had to do.
She and Lissa hadn’t been close as kids. Even when they were young, Joan wanted to party and Lissa studied. In a way, discovering modeling and the money it brought had been a problem; it allowed her to justify her lifestyle. Being seen was important. And when you paid everyone’s way, you could ignore their concerns.
It amazed her that when she fell apart, Lissa had been there for her. When their mom had died, it was Lissa who bailed her out of jail and got her into rehab. Lissa came to visit. Lissa had taken care of sorting out the details of her life—the unpaid credit card bills, subletting her expensive apartment for her, and generally making sure that when she got her head straight, she had a clear spot to stand.
They’d fought, screamed at each other, and grown closer than they’d ever been.
Slowly, agonizingly, Joan came through her ordeal, her stupidity, and got her health back. Now all she needed was work.
She was drinking a glass of water and reading a book her counselor had recommended on careers. “You could get a real estate license,” she’d said. “Attractive women sell more houses than other people.” That struck her as a possibility, so she investigated it, even chatting with several realtors. The book outlined a number of careers but none of them excited her. Maybe nothing excited her anymore. Maybe excitement was exactly the wrong thing for her. She’d chased it long enough.
A knock at the door surprised her. She was even more surprised to see that it was Anita, the woman who’d been her agent when she was modeling. “Welcome,” she said. “When I wrote, I didn’t expect more than a note saying ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
They sat, and Anita looked her over. “I wanted to see you. You sounded good, but I thought I should see how you are.”
“And now that you’ve seen?”
“You look good.”
“Should I let that excite me?”
