If the Shoe Fits (16 page)

“Oh, Devon. You are sadly mistaken. My bottom is utterly disappointing. My chest is too large—my stepmother even offered to give me the name of a doctor who specializes in breast reductions.”

“That would have been a tragedy of Euripidean proportions.” He was behind her and tracing his hands around her breasts, not wanting to wrinkle the fabric (well, wanting to very much, but refraining).

She leaned back into him and gave herself up to one more moment of his utter lack of disappointment. Her nipples were starting to ache. “Please, stop,” she whispered.

His hands fell away and she had to catch her breath for how much she wanted them back. She took a very deep, slow breath. “I will think about how you like me there when Jane shakes her head in dismay at the dessert trolley. Because I am going to order dessert, and I am going to eat every bite… and think of you on my lips.” She kissed him again, then went through the door to the hall landing and started down the stairs. “Wait, do you want a key or the security codes in case you want to go out?”

“Sure. Probably should. I was going to have someone from the hotel bring my stuff over, but I might as well go for a little walk and retrieve it myself.” He was leaning over the banister, shirtless, and she was looking up at him.

She reached into her purse, pulled out the single key, and reached up to hand it to him. “And I’ll turn off the security system when I leave. Wait up for me.” She winked and continued downstairs.

Her coat closet was on the same floor as the kitchen and living room. With the unseasonably cold October wind in mind, she chose a long, raccoon cape that Letitia had given her when she left Paris (telling her pragmatically that Chicago and Moscow were probably the only two places left on earth that one could wear such a thing without fear of tomato soup being hurled).

It took her longer than she thought to hail a taxi, so she was the last to arrive, even though it was still a few minutes before the reservation. Jane had left a phone message confirming that she had,
luckily
, been able to get the kitchen table at Charlie Trotter’s for the nine o’clock seating, that the Cranbrooks were not able to meet for drinks beforehand, and to be
prompt
. Sarah was always prompt, so she didn’t understand why Jane always made a point of saying so. Probably because Jane and Nelson were always early. Her father and stepmother were standing by the maître d’s podium, having already checked their coats, but the other three, Eliot and his parents, were standing there in the crowded front area of the busy restaurant, still in their coats and bumping up against one another.

Jane took one look at Sarah in that enormous, ratty old cape and nearly shuddered. Eliot Cranbrook saved the day.

“You must be Sarah.” He was obviously American, with his square jaw and easy smile and thick, sandy hair with all those sun-kissed golden highlights, but the years of living and working in Geneva had given his voice a European cadence. The only word Sarah could think of was
debonair
. She was fidgeting with the braided clasps sewn deep within the fur panels of the cape and then looked up to see him waiting attendance upon her, to remove the fur from her shoulders when she was finished.

“Vintage Fendi, is it?” he asked.

Jane blinked back her confusion, then smiled approvingly at Sarah.
So
that
was
all
it
took?
Sarah marveled.
The
attention
of
a
desirable
male?
All this time, she had thought that Jane was voicing her own strongly held and well-thought-out opinions, when in actual fact, she was merely scanning about for someone else to approve or disapprove of Sarah and to follow suit accordingly. Since Nelson James had never shown the least inclination to approve or disapprove of his only child, Jane had erred on the side of mild disapproval. It wasn’t even disapproval, Sarah had to concede; it was more that Jane took the view that Sarah was
improvable
.

Sarah made a mental note to thank Eliot for that kindness; by legitimating the beloved Fendi raccoon cape, Eliot had somehow made Jane like her a little bit. Sarah thought he might have trailed his hand along her shoulder when he took it off, then she thought she was probably just in a state of heightened
everything
from all those hours of being Devon’s plaything. Her face flushed at the memory and Eliot caught it and smiled. He
had
grazed her on purpose after all, and now he thought she bloomed like that from his slight touch.

How
professional
I
must
seem
, Sarah thought ruefully.

She shook herself free of any Devon daydreams and turned to reintroduce herself to Mr. and Mrs. Cranbrook, with whom she had apparently had dinner when she was eight.

“Penny and Will, please. Do
not
make us feel so old and call us Mr. and Mrs. Cranbrook.” It was Penny talking, which seemed to be the way of it. Will gazed lovingly at his wife of forty years and she just talked and talked.

Sarah excused herself so she could properly greet her father, giving him a brief kiss on one cheek, then leaned down to touch her cheek against Jane’s.

“Don’t you look lovely, Sarah. Doesn’t she look lovely, Nelson?”

But Nelson, despite decades—generations, really—as a successful retailer of women’s clothes, could never really give Sarah the time it took to appraise her appearance. “Quite nice,” he offered, rather effusively for him, thought Sarah. She would never know that the sight of Sarah at that moment reminded him so profoundly of his first wife that Nelson James had to look away for fear of embracing her in an emotional crush.

After an hour at the kitchen table of Charlie Trotter’s restaurant, only a truly depressed person could resist the mellow joy and bursts of excitement that punctuated the whole experience. The busy staff was in a blurry state of perpetual motion, whisking, frying, snapping paper orders, tossing aside copper saucepans. And, in the midst of it all, six lucky people were fawned over and regaled with plate after plate of gastronomical bliss. Jane had directed the seating, which must have caused her endless hours of etiquette trauma, since there was no possibility of seating Sarah next to Eliot (the whole purpose of the exercise)
and
separating husbands and wives
and
adhering to the boy-girl-boy-girl dictum.

Jane must have finally decided to forfeit the boy-girl portion of the equation, announcing with politically incorrect levity that they were going to be doing Taliban seating: the women on one side of the table, the men on the other. Sarah had Penny to her right and Eliot to her left, then her father on Eliot’s other side, Will Cranbrook next to her father, then Jane between Will and Penny.

Nelson asked Eliot to choose the wine, “Since you are the only one of us living near Burgundy these days,” and the rest was a whirl of the restaurant’s choosing.

The food came in waves and the conversation bubbled along. Eliot spoke to Sarah’s father with an open admiration that never slipped into fawning. He spoke to Sarah with an obvious knowledge of her business success and respect for what she had accomplished in such a short time, and a provocative hint of something more—or that he might wish for something more—unprofessional.

Talk about feast or famine. Would she have even acknowledged the low simmer of Eliot’s gaze two weeks ago? Was it all Devon’s doing, this ratcheted-up version of herself? Or, more likely, had this Sarah always been there, lying in wait? Whatever the chronology, and as much as she hated to be a traitor to the good, warm man who waited on Oak Street at that very moment for her to return, she couldn’t help seeing Eliot for what he was: a strong, intelligent, successful grown-up.

Magnetic.

The white Burgundy was cool and tart against her tongue. She let it rest in her mouth when she took the first sip. She thought that Eliot had been talking to her father, but he must have turned his attention to her when she was enjoying that sip (enjoying it too much) because he was looking at her with appreciative, conspiratorial humor in his eyes as she opened hers.

“A particularly good white Burgundy, no?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, after her throat made an involuntary gulping sound.
And
I
had
a
particularly
good
green
apple
earlier
today
, she thought to herself as she smiled with a little guilty grin at Eliot. It seemed men (if not stepmothers) enjoyed seeing a woman enjoy her food and drink.

About halfway through supper, Penny indicated that she was going to venture out in search of the ladies’ room and gave Sarah a nod of invitation. Sarah excused herself from the conversation she had been having with Eliot about Moratelli, the Italian leather manufacturer he’d just acquired. (Jane was in her element fawning over Will Cranbrook and didn’t have the time or inclination to censor Sarah’s lapse into professional conversation…
and
Eliot
had
started
it
, she thought peevishly.)

When Sarah and Penny were getting ready to leave the washroom, Sarah pinching her cheeks and giving her hair a quick brush in the mirror, Penny turned to look, a curious expression on her face.

“You are so much like your mother, Sarah. Your father must remark on it all the time.”

“I’m sorry?” She was flummoxed.

“You must know you take after her? Your hair, your eyes, your very…” The chatterbox was unable to grasp the right word. “… essence! I only met her a few times, but she had the same love of every little thing that you seem to have. She was easily cheered.”

Sarah stared at this woman. “It’s… I… my father never tells me anything about my mother.”

“Oh dear, have I upset you?”

“No. Well, in a good way, I guess. I can’t very well go around asking for lengthy recitations of my mother’s goodness with Jane standing dutifully by. It doesn’t seem fair… to any of us.”

Penny smiled, encouraging her to continue.

Sarah went on. “Well, it’s been fourteen years since my mom died, and it’s just such a long time. I have these wonderful memories, but they’re starting to fade from real, tangible, tactile memories—her smell, the sound of her charm bracelet coming down the hall—to my version of the recounting of the memory. Does that make sense?”

“Of course it makes sense. Let’s have lunch the next time we are both in town and we can talk all about her. Here is my card.” Penny Cranbrook handed Sarah a small white calling card with her name and telephone number on it in raised navy-blue engraved script. “It’s my cell phone, so feel free to call anytime.”

“I love how you have taken your modern cell phone ways and woven them into your refined Emily Post world.”

Penny smiled and linked her arm through Sarah’s. “See? Easily cheered. Now let’s go back to the table and enjoy the spectacle of my son falling in love with you.”

Sarah nearly tripped over her own feet, then laughed it off with a merry, if nervous, chuckle.

By eleven thirty, the kitchen was starting to wind down. The happy group of parents and adult children were rosy and riding the wave of epicurean pleasure. Jane was particularly pleased that the evening had turned out even better than she could have hoped.

The Cranbrooks and Sarah’s parents were a few paces ahead of them, on their way out of the kitchen into the main part of the restaurant, when Eliot put his hand, tentatively—just his fingertips, really—at the small of Sarah’s back.

She stopped midstride and he almost continued walking right into her, then she turned to look at him over her left shoulder and asked, “Are you touching me?”

Clearly the wine had gone to her head because she felt like she could do anything, go anywhere, and be anyone she wanted. She could turn to this strong, tall, successful man and call him out. Challenge him.

“I was thinking about it.” He raised an expectant eyebrow, defiantly leaving his hand where it was, rubbing the silk between greedy fingers.

She was still looking over her shoulder. She liked the look of his upper arms and the span of his shoulders, his muscles pulling and straining at the fine wool of his jacket. She looked up at his face. “Well, I… I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” She was an evil, cruel, hateful cur. Devon was in her house. Right now. And she was flirting… with an Adonis.

He gestured with his chin toward the front of the restaurant, where the two sets of parents were making lengthy work of retrieving their coats, sorting them out, and putting them on, to allow Eliot and Sarah a bit more time. “How about lunch tomorrow, then? I’m only in town until tomorrow night.”

“Sorry, I can’t tomorrow.”
Because
I
am
a
harlot
with
a
lover
at
home
.

“Well. I tried. Perhaps if you are ever in Geneva… or Milan?” he asked hopefully.

“I am. I mean, I’ll be in Milan in a couple of weeks, to renegotiate that contract I told you about with my own leather supplier there.” They were walking through the quiet main room of the restaurant.

“Great. I’ll meet you there,” he answered easily. Of course he could meet her in Milan if he felt like it. He was Eliot Cranbrook and he really could do whatever he pleased, not just fantasize about it after one too many glasses of white Burgundy.

Nelson was grumbling about the lateness of the hour and Jane was beaming, probably congratulating herself on her newfound matchmaking talents. Nelson and Jane had a car and driver taking them back to Lake Forest, and offered to drop Sarah off at her town house, “even though it is out of the way,” Nelson added.

“We are staying at the Drake,” Penny interjected. “It would be our pleasure to drop Sarah home. We insist.” The two limousines were warm and the exhaust curled into the cold night air.