A Long Hot Christmas

That’s how bad it was. Her own sisters were shopping her around to lawyers who represented leather jackets accused of software plagiarism. The cat was sounding better every minute. A calico with pretty markings. Or maybe something with long, soft hair she could run her fingers through.

She liked her life. She loved her work. All she wanted was to be the first female, and at twenty-eight, the youngest person, ever to make vice president at Palmer. Then she’d be ready to enter the next phase of her life, which would include love and happiness, a man with thick, silky hair she could run her fingers through…

She’d been quiet too long. They might assume she was thinking it over, which she certainly wasn’t. “Hey,” she said in a “let’s negotiate” tone, “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, but a man to take to parties isn’t what I need to get me out of this little slump I’m in.”

Her gaze darted to her monitor. She swiftly dragged a black seven onto a red eight, smiling when the elusive ace of diamonds appeared from beneath the seven. It was after nine at night. She was still at the office. She’d come to a stopping place at eight, unable to move forward effectively without input from colleagues who’d already left.

Even her nemesis, whom she privately referred to as St. Paul the Perfect, had gone home to his lovely wife and children. She knew he had, because he’d poked his head through the door to see if she was still there, and when he saw she was, had been forced to make up an elaborate excuse for his early departure. Some nonsense about rehearsal for the church pageant in which his tiny son had the lead role—Baby Jesus—and his daughter was head angel.

No reason for her not to go home, yet here she sat, playing solitaire.

She’d drag the ace later. “What I think,” she went on, “is get a cat and cozy up the apartment a little bit. Sheila’s sending me this decorator she says everybody’s raving about. Her name’s Yu Wing.”

Tiny shrieks came at her from the receiver. “You’re using a decorator Sheila recommended?” Charity squealed.

Being orphaned in early childhood had made Hope and her sisters unusually close. Even now, strung out from one coast to the other, they got together often, monitored each other’s activities and knew each other’s friends. Sometimes this was a good thing, sometimes not. “Yes a decorator Sheila recommended,” Hope said, feeling defensive. “She uses feng shui. Sheila swears that she…”

“Sheila’s insane,” Faith declared.

“Lana isn’t?”

There was a short silence before Charity said, “The last time I saw Lana I thought she’d matured considerably.”

“Love has made all the difference,” Faith said in her dreamy voice. Faith had always been a dreamer. She was thirty now, and Hope thought it was about time she found a man whose feet were firmly planted on this earth. Now that might make a difference.

“As it does for so many people,” Charity said. Whatever Charity’s tone indicated, it was not dreaminess. The youngest sister and the family beauty, she had a brain like a Pentium chip. She was twenty-six, and so far she hadn’t found a man—lover or employer—who was able to see past her pretty face, although Hope could hardly blame the male population for that particular weakness.

“Just because love makes some people happy…”

“Who said anything about love?” Charity said.

“We’re just talking about an arrangement,” Faith said.

“To get you through the holidays,” Charity said. “You have all those parties to go to and you hate going alone. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Lana says he does, too,” Faith said, “hates going alone, that is. Having women treat him as if he’s up for grabs.”

“So you and The Shark can go out together as protection for each other,” Charity concluded in the voice of one who is confident she has built a solid argument.

“If you like him, of course,” Faith said.

“Whether I like him wouldn’t matter, would it, if we’re just talking about an arrangement,” Hope said unwisely.

“So you’ll meet him? See if you two can make a deal?” The tiniest show of interest from Hope, and Faith moved in for the kill.

“He likes the idea.” That was Charity, sneaking up from the rear.

“You already set it up?” Now that was going too far.

“Of course not. We just gave him your number.”

“Numbers,” Charity clarified. “Home, office, digital…”

“You told him I was interested?” Hope was already halfway out of her chair, grabbing for her coat and briefcase. To hell with the ace.

“Well, sort of,” Faith admitted.

“She had to get the ball rolling,” Charity said in her reasonable way. “We knew you wouldn’t.”

“I’m cutting you two out of my will!” Hope yelled.

“You have a will?” she heard Faith say before she hung up on them.

THE NEXT NIGHT, Wednesday night, Hope was home at seven. Usually, Thursday was the only night she came home at seven, but Sheila had made the appointment with the decorator, Yu Wing, for Thursday, forcing Hope to do her Thursday routine on Wednesday.

While she wouldn’t admit it to Faith and Charity, she was pretty annoyed at Sheila for her highhanded behavior. It had disrupted her schedule and had gotten her Palm Pilot in a tizzy while she shuffled everything around.

But she was trying to be more flexible. Wasn’t that what really worried her sisters, that she was sliding into a routine that was presently going to harden like concrete until she could never break free from it?

Good grooming, to Hope, was simply part of the image she had to maintain, that of a successful corporate woman. The “routine” she followed religiously on Thursday and Sunday evenings involved a quick dinner, after which she applied a masque to her face and gave her feet a good soak in a foot spa that vibrated. While invisible hands massaged her arches, she gave herself a manicure. When her fingernails were dry, she did a pedicure, and, at last, removed the hardened masque and with it, anything resembling dirt, toxins, flaking skin and incipient blackheads.

She shed her navy suit and navy silk shell and put on a white terrycloth robe. It felt good, warm and cozy, unlike the atmosphere of her apartment. Padding into the kitchen in matching terry slippers, she ran through her collection of TV dinners and selected Chicken Marsala with pasta and green beans, which she tossed into the microwave.

It had been a big decision whether the second grooming should be on Wednesday or on Thursday. Once she’d settled on Thursday, though, it had become a habit, and she intended to tell Sheila it was pretty darned unsettling to have to…

She suddenly felt more cross with herself than with Sheila. “Stop it,” she said aloud to the sterile white-and-chrome kitchen, and the microwave answered with a “ping.”

A MIRACLE HAPPENED to Samuel Sharkey that evening. The client he was scheduled to meet for drinks came down with a virus of the tree-felling variety and Sam found himself with a window in his schedule. He had a full hour and a half before he had to meet a group of clients for dinner, time enough to get a bothersome little detail out of the way.

He’d enjoyed defending Dan Murphy against the big company who alleged that Dan had lifted a program of theirs and gotten it on the market before they did. And he’d liked the cute, funny actress Dan was dating. Lana, that was her name. When Dan had started talking about Lana, it had somehow led Sam to tell Dan about his love life, which was a vacuum. It was Dan who’d come up with the—Sam couldn’t help smiling as he searched through a stack of cards for the one with all the phone numbers on it—quirky, creative notion that The Shark needed another shark to swim with.

This woman was the perfect companion shark, Lana had promised him. Sam didn’t believe it for a minute, but he was willing to go as far as to check it out for himself.

He found the card. He dialed the office number. When he got her voice mail—a cool, professional voice, he observed—he tried her digital phone. More voice mail, same cool voice. He glanced at his watch. Seven-twenty. If she was already at home, she might not be the kind of woman he was looking for. Still, he had started it, he might as well finish it. He dialed.

HOPE ATE the Chicken Marsala without tasting it, which was probably all to the good.

Now the routine. Heavy-duty conditioner on the hair, wrap the hair up in a towel. Put on the masque. She spread the green paste on carefully. The label promised miracles, and expensive as it had been, it had better deliver. She was rinsing her hands when the phone rang.

“Hope Sumner?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Sam Sharkey. Lana West got your number from Faith…”

“Oh, yes,” said Hope. The lawyer, the one who had to make partner before he made a proposal. He was calling so soon? She hadn’t really made up her mind yet, or actually she had. She’d decided to say no.

“I have a free hour or so I wasn’t planning on. Wondered if I could come by and meet you. This is a pretty crazy idea, but I promised Dan I’d give you a call.”