Arm Candy

She laughed, which she hadn’t done in quite some time. It wasn’t a good laugh, though, and she thought of the many, many times she’d told Owen straight out that she had no intention of stepping over the line with him. “He has selective hearing. And don’t tell me to file a suit. I’ve thought this through and I’m going to bail when the time is right.”

“I figured. You’re nothing if not thorough.”

“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

“Make that thorough and paranoid.”

She smiled. “When this is all over, I’m going to buy you the most decadent meal in Manhattan. You say where and when.”

“Deal. Now let me go see what I can do.”

“Go!” She hung up, then leaned back in her chair, consciously relaxing her shoulders as she sank into the kidskin leather. Glen would come through, she had to believe that. If not, she’d just plain hire someone from an escort agency. She’d heard of it being done, although she’d never met anyone who’d used the service. But she hoped she didn’t have to resort to that. This was too important.

A knock on the door brought her back to the business at hand. “Come in.”

Marla Scott, Jessica’s assistant, walked in, her arms filled with magazines. She came over to the desk, put them down carefully, then rubbed her hands together. “I’ve marked all the ads. Check out The New Yorker. There’s a column raving about the budget and our conspicuous consumption. It’s great.”

The stack was huge, and this was only the beginning of the blitz that would blanket newspapers, radio and billboards across the city. By the end of the campaign there wouldn’t be a man, woman or child in the country who wouldn’t know about the New Dawn line.

Marla sat down in the chair across from Jessica. “So are you up to your elbows?”

“Yes, but talk anyway.”

“Okay,” she said, flicking a strand of her long red hair away from her face. “So I went out with this John person last night. The one from the Starbucks? Who got the last oat scone?”

Jessica remembered. Poor Marla. Shy as a butterfly, and so lonely. She was the best assistant Jessica had ever had, completely on top of the job, no nonsense, but also generous and funny, and she had the absolute worst luck with men. “He’s the tall one, right? NYU?”

Marla nodded. “Lookswise, scrumptious. Datewise, disastrous.”

“No.”

“Yes. He took me to a play. Off-off-Broadway. More like performance art, really, with this one woman complaining about her period while this other woman pretended to masturbate. It was very high on the yuck factor.”

“It wasn’t his fault it was terrible.”

“True. Very true.”

“So?”

“So it turns out the woman pretending is actually his ex-girlfriend, only by the time we’re backstage schmoozing with the cast and fans, they’re not so ex, if you know what I mean.”

“What?”

“Complete with kissage. I mean, they moved behind a poster of The Vagina Monologues, but I could still see them all over each other.”

“Oh, God.”

“He didn’t even pay for the taxi home.”

“Bastard. He deserves someone who pretends to masturbate onstage.”

“My sentiments exactly. Only…” She looked down at her lap, to the hunter-green skirt she loved so much. “…he made me laugh at dinner. And I was so…I don’t know.”

“Yeah.”

Marla smiled purposefully. Adamantly. “No big. I’ll just keep, you know, trying. Never give up. That’s my motto. Not till you’re old and toothless and have all the cats that can fill an apartment.”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

“Probably not. But it’s good that I’m not allergic. To cats, I mean.”

Jessica shook her head, and wished she had something akin to a social life where she might be able to meet someone right for Marla. But since her entire entourage consisted of Glen, who was gay, her mother, who lived in Cincinnati, and her landlord, who made an art out of complaining while not actually doing anything, there didn’t seem to be much hope.

“If there’s not anything else,” Marla said, “I’m going to call the Zephyr agency and double-check on the models.”

“No, that’s good. Thanks.”

Marla stood up, and headed for the door. But before she went out, she turned back. “Do you think we have a chance of getting Shawn?”

Jessica leaned back in her chair. “Who knows. We’re certainly offering him enough money.”

“Can you imagine? Shawn Foote in the same room? I’d get all swoony, I just know it.”

“He may be hunky, but he’s just a guy.”

Marla leaned her head to the right and quirked her lips. “Just a guy? I think not. He’s…he’s…”

“The Uberhunk. I know.”

Marla nodded. “I’ll report back.”

Jessica looked down at the spreadsheet on her desk and forgot all about male models, dating fiascos and even her own personal problems. Seconds later, the world outside her office could have crumbled and she wouldn’t have noticed.

DAN CRAWFORD WAS at sixes and sevens. Which was an interesting expression he’d just looked up on his computer. Seems it came from an old French game called Hazard, and had something to do with difficulty in shooting dice. But knowing what the term meant didn’t help the situation. He had to make a decision, and neither of the two immediate options appealed all that much.

Okay, so he could take the job in Botswana. He liked Africa, and hadn’t been there for almost fifteen years. It would be a challenge, and the company, an international trading firm, had been after his consulting services for a long time. But it would mean a commitment of almost a year, which seemed excessive.

On the other hand, he could partner up with Zeke on the Baja 1000 race, but that would mean a whole hell of a lot of training, getting the car up to specs, moving down to L.A. until the race, and, of course, being with Zeke, who was a great guy unless he got too drunk, which he did whenever he raced.

Dan’s gaze moved next to the fireplace, to the glass cabinet where he kept his mementos. The large second-place trophy from the Baja three years ago taunted him. Then he looked at the bookcase, at the pile of papers and articles he’d collected, everything from the psychology of racing to the topography of Baja. Damn, he’d put in a lot of man-hours on winning. So why wasn’t he more interested? Zeke wasn’t that bad. And if Dan supplied the booze, he could maybe rig it so his buddy couldn’t get so much of it.

He got up from his desk and walked over to the window. From the fifteenth floor he could see the bookstore on the corner, Villard’s Books, big, independent and as quirky as his own tastes. The staff there indulged him and his projects, the more obscure the better. In fact, between the New York Public Library, Villard’s and the Internet, he could research anything to his heart’s content.

Maybe he’d go down now, browse through the travel section, have a cup of coffee. Come up with something new to discover, or as his mother would say, bury himself in a new obsession.

He headed for the bedroom, but before he made it there, he got buzzed from the lobby. Crossing to the door, he answered the intercom. “Yeah, Jimmy? ”

“Someone to see you, Mr. Crawford. Glen, uh, what’s that?”