Read A Date You Can't Refuse Online

Authors: Harley Jane Kozak

A Date You Can't Refuse (42 page)

“But I could have.” I started to cry.

“I should hope so. It means you have a life wish and not a death wish.” She looked over my shoulder. “One more time around the block!” she called to Simon.

“You don't understand,” I said.

“No, I'm stupid that way,” she said, straightening my shirt and un doing one button. “So explain it to Simon. He'll understand. It's probably some spy thing you two have in common now. Along with everything
else.” She did the thing with her eyebrows, going up and down fast, signaling something very significant.

“I don't want to talk about that. You said Simon doesn't know anything about that.”

“The baby? That's right, sister. Just you and me and Joey and Dr. Hurwitz and a couple of lab technicians and four of the nurses. Nobody else.” She rooted around in her purse. “And I purposely haven't brought it up, because if there's one thing I know, it's that a baby's no guarantee of anything, especially happy endings for grown-ups. It's just one more damn thing to fall madly in love with.”

“If it even survives,” I mumbled. “After what I put it through.” My resolve was crumbling, my longing for Simon growing.

“What you put it through is nothing compared to what it's gonna put you through. You just wait till middle school.” She pulled a huge handkerchief out of her purse. “Hang on to this in case you throw up again. Here he comes. Simon!” she called and gave a whistle that could have hailed a cab in Manhattan, three thousand miles away. “Go get him, honey,” she said and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

The Bentley pulled up to the curb. The passenger-side window went down, along with the music he'd been listening to. Opera. And there sat Olive Oyl. How despicable, using the dog as bait to lure me in. Hadn't she been through enough? And why did she look so happy?

“So,” I said, pointedly not getting in. “Is this car yours? Or is it just part of the cover story for Daniel Lavosh, Agent on the Take?”

“It's mine, but only as long as I stay with the bureau.”

I let the implications of that hang in the air.

“And the penthouse on Wilshire?” I asked. “Is that yours?”

He shook his head. “It belongs to the company.”

“Where do you live?”

“Mandeville Canyon.”

“What part?”

“Mango Way.”

“Apartment?”

“House.”

“Nice?”

“Small. I've been working on it. Putting in an extra room.”

“For what?”

“A n artist studio. For a friend of mine. She does greeting cards.”

“I didn't know you could build rooms. Like, with a hammer and nails?”

“There's a lot you don't know about me,” he said, snapping his fingers at Olive Oyl, who obligingly lumbered over the front seat into the back. “And probably one or two things I've yet to discover about you.”

“Baby, you don't know the half of it.”

“So let's take it from the top,” he suggested. “Start over.”

I stood on the sidewalk and looked around.

The month of May had slipped away while I'd lain in a hospital bed, and most of this day was gone as well. The morning fog had long since burned off, June gloom giving way to an afternoon suitable for surfing and picnics and kite flying. Relentless happiness. The fog would roll back in by midnight, but now people were heading home to fire up barbecues and open bottles of wine or driving to Dodger Stadium with their tops down. Olive Oyl sniffed the air through the back window, gathering information, smiling the way dogs do.

It was too much. I had no defenses against such optimism.

“Okay,” I said. “But this time around I drive.”

The look of fear that passed over Simon's face was gone in a second, but not before I'd seen it. I laughed for the first time in a week.

“Gotcha,” I said, and climbed into the passenger seat and turned up the music. Simon put the car in gear.

And away we drove, westbound on West Third Street, off into the sunset.

Acknowledgments

My brother Joe Kozak inspired a large part of this story, with his knowledge of and passion for faraway places, and I owe him, as always, a big debt of gratitude. Nancie Hays cares deeply about getting the firearms right; William Simon is the go-to guy for things you don't even want to know about; D.P. Lyle is the last word in poison; and Dr. Barry Fisher is always good for the corpse questions. My Russian-speaking friends include Lera-in-the-Ukraine, J. Renée Stuart, and Yevgeniya Yerekskaya-Pozzessere—
spasibo
, all. Michele Martinez, Rick Steinberg, and Marcus Wynne generously shared their knowledge of government agencies but are not responsible for any inaccuracies found in my story. Agatha and Rugi Aldisert and Kathy Kouri gave me the insider's view of i Madonnari; Holly Gault helped with chalk; Karen Olson helped with something I can't remember if I can reveal or not; Rob Aldisert spoke Italian with me; Sharon Fiedler knows where all the bodies are buried at Tiffany & Co.; Hawk Koch and David Rosenbloom lent me their filmmaking expertise; and Joel Roberts really is the media trainer to the stars. Thanks to David Mize of Santa Monica Chevrolet, to Ian Tansley and to Ash Reid, who will talk anyone into fuel-conversion, given half a chance. Thanks finally to Dr. Terence Kite of Pepperdine University. I couldn't have written this book without my friends. That's always
true, but some years it's truer than others. My seven brothers and sisters and their families, Gregg Hurwitz and Delinah Blake Hurwitz, Patty and Robert Flournoy Brian and Elizabeth Kuelbs, Laura Hogan, Jenny Aldisert, Lisa Aldisert, Sandy and Jim Brophy Alessandra Brophy Leah Goodman, Carolyn Clark, David Dean, DawnMarie Moe, Beth Karish, Victoria Vanderbilt and Tom Chaney Margaret Winter, Cynthia Tarr, Hayley Andrus, David Corbett, Bob and Pat Crais, Kim Terranova, Anja Kubertschak, Jon McCormick, Madeira James, Tara Fields, Mary Anne Cook, Janet Hamilton, Heather Graham, Alexandra Sokoloff, the Killer Thriller Band, the Slush Pile Players, Patricia Waldo, the Book Club moms, the Yoga moms, Cath Carper, Writers Group (Bob, John, JB, Linda, Sharon, and Jamie), Space 7 in Alaska, Charlaine Harris, Laurie King, my TLC Blog sisters, Nancy Martin, Sarah Strohmeyer, Elaine Viets, the aforementioned Michele Martinez, and, especially in the middle of the night, Kathy Sweeney, helped me more than I can say. Thanks to all TLC commenters; to Gavin Polone; to Laura Swerdloff; to my kind and talented editor, Stacy Creamer; and my beautiful agent, Renée Zuckerbrot. And to Audrey, Louie, and Gia, for whom words aren't enough.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations,
places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Harley Jane Kozak

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of
The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.broadwaybooks.com

BROADWAY BOOKS
and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal,
are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kozak, Harley Jane, 1957-
A date you can't refuse / Harley Jane Kozak. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Shelley, Wollie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women artists—Fiction.
3. Commercial artists—Fiction. 4. Greeting cards industry—Fiction. 5. Dating
(Social customs)—Fiction. 6. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3611.O75D34 2009
813′.6—dc22
2008028888

eISBN: 978-0-307-58871-5

v3.0

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