Man Trouble Page 5

  “Where do you spend your vacations, then?” Fiona asked.

  “Here,” Jake said.

  “But that would make it so difficult to get away from your work,” Fiona said.

  Jake nodded. He saw no problem with that.

  Fiona leaned toward him.

  “You must be…desperately…in need…of relaxation,” she said meaningfully. She inhaled, and her cleavage rose toward him like a quivering bowl of strawberry Jell-O. Alarmed, Jake stepped backward, and felt hands seize him from behind.

  “Jake!” Amanda slid one arm around his waist and placed another one on his chest, attaching herself to his side in a proprietary manner. “Y'all looked so friendly over here. I thought I'd better come and say hi.”

  “Quite,” Fiona murmured frostily.

  The two women looked each other up and down, and it occurred to Jake that a boat might not be such a bad thing. It didn't need a custom-built casino, or 400-thread-count sheets, or gold-plated bath taps. It just needed to be able to float, and to anchor far, far away from shore. Most importantly, there needed to be no women on it at all.

  “Who is that?” Amanda said suddenly, focusing on a point past Fiona's shoulder. Jake followed her gaze. Despite the crowd on the terrace, it wasn't hard to guess who she was talking about. They were not the only ones staring.

  A woman was standing in the frame of the open French doors, facing the crowd. She had paused there like a living portrait, arranged with one foot forward, one hip thrust slightly out, shoulders back, and hands raised elegantly as if she were welcoming everyone to her own soiree. She had platinum-blond hair styled into a shining, shoulder-grazing curtain, and her eyes were concealed behind smoky silver sunglasses. She wore a candy-pink dress that was tight enough to display a very ample chest and a tiny waist. Her legs were long, her heels were high, and she seemed to be planning to stand in the doorway indefinitely.

  Just behind her were a frosty-looking woman and a small, brown-haired man wearing a rumpled seersucker suit and horn-rimmed glasses. As Jake watched, the small man poked the extraordinary blonde in the back and whispered something in her ear. The blonde unlocked herself from her pose, stumbled slightly, collected herself quickly, and strutted out onto the terrace.

  Fiona muttered something under her breath that ended with “…real, then I'm the bloody Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “Pink is so last season,” Amanda added in a similar tone.

  Jake said nothing. He was no expert on real versus fake, and he had always liked women in pink. The stranger was the sort that the paparazzi would love, and she was exactly the type of woman he was known to take to very public places. But in light of his current situation, she was about as appealing as a loaf of moldy bread. The last thing he needed in his life right now was another flashy diva.

  His mother had been chatting with a Palm Beach realestate agent, but as Jake glanced over, he saw that Cora had excused herself and was headed for the blond stranger. To Jake's surprise—and instinctive alarm—she greeted the woman warmly, as if they knew each other. He hoped that this was not the next of his mother's attempts to manage his personal life. Did this Jayne Mansfield clone also come from a “good family”?

  Apparently so, because Cora was now beckoning him over. With a sense of moving from the frying pan into the fire, Jake walked over to join them.

  “Darling,” said his mother. “I knew that you wanted a chance to personally welcome our latest celebrity. Sandra, this is my son, Jake Berenger. Jake, dear, this is Sandra St. Claire.”

  “How do you do?” the blonde said, extending her hand. Jake took it, shook it, and—as he had done many times before—tried to look as if he knew who this person was.

  Cora's eyes narrowed slightly. She had an uncanny ability to read his mind. “Sandra tells me that this is a working vacation for her,” she said pointedly. “How exciting to think that her next best-selling novel might be written at Gold Bay.”

  The older blonde cleared her throat, and Sandra jumped. “These are my friends,” she said quickly. “Elaine Newberg and Carter McKee.”

  “Charmed,” said Elaine Newberg, offering her fingers to him. She looked vaguely familiar, in a socialite sort of way.

  “Have we met?” he asked.

  Her smile was approving. “No,” she said, “but you may have seen me on Oprah.”

  Jake doubted that very much. “That must be it,” he said. “You're a novelist, too?”

  Elaine laughed a silvery laugh. “Good heavens, no,” she said, “I am a relationship consultant. I specialize in teaching women how to leverage their natural potential in order to maximize their worldly success.”

  Jake looked blankly at her. “Great,” he said.

  Elaine patted him on the arm. “One should always say ‘yes’ to success,” she said. “Men understand this instinctively. Women must be taught.”

  Carter McKee was squinting at him with the pop-eyed intensity of a scientist observing a new species of beetle. “I heard that you windsurf,” he said suddenly. “Sandra does, too. She loves it. She has a lesson scheduled for tomorrow morning.”

  Sandra's glossy pink mouth opened suddenly, and then closed again. Jake noticed that her hands had clenched into fists at her sides. She wasn't the chatty type, it seemed. She was shy, perhaps, which would explain her strange awkwardness and the affectation of sunglasses at dusk. Then again, no shy woman would wear a dress like that. She didn't look like someone who loved to windsurf, but then, she didn't look like someone who wrote books, either.

  “How advanced are you?” he asked her.

  “I don't know,” Sandra said in a voice as tight as her dress. She looked at Carter. “How advanced am I, would you say?”

  “You show great promise,” Carter said. He looked at Jake. “Her lesson is with Rico. Tomorrow. At ten A.M.”

  Jake frowned at the man, wondering who he was. Sandra's agent? Her husband? He was a strange-looking candidate for either position. “Rico is a good teacher,” he said, resisting the urge to glance at his watch. It was still an hour before the close of business in Los Angeles, and he needed to make a call to the architect who was designing the new golf course. He nodded to the group and made his excuses.

  “Enjoy your lesson tomorrow,” he said to Sandra. “The bay is calm in the morning, but there should be some good wind by ten. I'm usually out there myself at about that time.”

  Sandra nodded. “Somehow, I'm not surprised to hear that.”

  “Molly! Be reasonable,” Carter implored, following closely on Molly's heels and stopping every few feet to pick up glittering bits of Sandra St. Claire as they were shucked off onto the cottage floor. The silver stiletto sandals had gone first, followed by the sunglasses and the dangling earrings. “I really think that ‘total failure’ is too strong a term.”

  “Okay,” Molly said, stopping. She reached up to yank on the blond wig, which was secured to her scalp with no less than thirty metal pins. “How about ‘utter fiasco'?”

  “Negativity is a no-no,” Elaine said, bringing up the rear. “Whiners are never winners, my dear. Let's focus on the good. We've accomplished an introduction.”

  Molly exhaled hard. Her heart was pounding, and for some strange reason, she felt as if she were about to cry. “I knew it,” she said. “You can dress me to look like Jake Berenger's ideal woman, but he still won't find me attractive.”

  “You don't know that for a fact,” Carter protested. “Maybe he was just…preoccupied.”

  “Ha! It's me, don't you understand? It's me. I tried to warn you, Carter. I don't know how to do this.”

  Carter looked horrified. “Are you crying?”

  “No!” Molly said hotly. She wasn't. Her eyes were still watering from her earlier attempt to put on the blue contact lenses. She had never worn contacts before, and in the process of inserting them, one had rolled under the bathroom sink and the other had become cemented to her eyeball. She still had one blue eye and one brown eye by the time they were due
to leave for the party, and they had been forced to use a pair of Elaine's sunglasses as camouflage.

  “It's going to be fine,” Carter insisted. “Trust me, this can't fail. It's science.”

  “I don't think you know what you're talking about,” Molly said. “And what was that crazy thing about windsurfing? I don't know how to windsurf! I trip over my own feet on solid ground. If I go out there tomorrow, I'll look like an idiot. Again!” She felt a sense of desperation that bordered on panic. Why had she ever agreed to come on this trip? She had known all along that it was a terrible idea. At least it wasn't too late to quit and go home. Carter could take his stupid plan and his stupid project, and find someone else to—

  “That does it,” Elaine said suddenly. “Carter!”

  Her brother looked wary. “What?”

  “Go somewhere else. No, I don't mean into the other room. Go to the beach.”

  “But it's dark,” Carter said.

  “Then go to the gift shop,” Elaine said. “Go to the hair salon. Go anywhere, but don't come back for an hour. Molly and I are going to have a talk, and I intend to tell her things that are not meant for male ears.”

  “But I—”

  Elaine gave him a look that Molly didn't see. She did see Carter's response, though, and it was immediate. He stepped backward, toward the door. “I feel a sudden craving for fresh air,” he said. “And scotch. I think I'll go to the bar.”

  When he was gone, Elaine turned to look at Molly. She shook her head. “Wrong,” she said, sounding irritated. “All wrong. I should have known better than to let Carter tell me that this was a simple matter of physical appearance. Do you know what your problem is, my dear?”

  “Yes,” Molly said. “My problem is that I'm stuck on an island with two people who want to tell me what my problems are. Beyond that, I don't care.”

  “Oh, but you do,” Elaine said. “You care very much. Why did you agree to come on this trip?”

  “To help Carter,” Molly said.

  “But you've already convinced yourself that this project is doomed. That's no help to Carter, and it's no help to you, either.”

  “That's totally unfair,” Molly said indignantly. “I'm doing my best. It's not my fault that I can't—”

  Elaine sighed. “You have no idea how fortunate you are that I'm here. Now sit down, and let me take that wig off.” She moved to stand behind Molly, pulling out the hairpins with careful hands, collecting them into a neat pile. “There is a terrible mountain called ‘I Can't,'” she said, “and a beautiful valley called ‘Can't I'! The time has come, my dear, to decide where you would rather live.”

  “Excuse me?” Molly said. Her scalp was beginning to tingle as the pressure of the pins eased.

  “I want to teach you something that has nothing to do with enhanced bosoms and the rest of that scientific foolishness of Carter's,” Elaine said, and then lifted one finger warningly. “Now to be sure, I am not discounting the importance of good grooming. We all have a personal obligation to be our best selves. But I can tell you right now that charm does not come from the chest.”

  “Tell that to Jake Berenger,” Molly said.

  “Nonsense. It's you and Carter who need to be told. If this plan is so brilliant, then why wasn't it an instant success? Why aren't you out there, right now, sipping champagne with a handsome billionaire? I'll tell you why. All of the bleach and the padding in this world won't help you if you don't know how to sparkle from within.”

  “You have got to be kidding,” Molly said. She stood up, lifted the wig off of her head, and dropped it on the couch, where it fell into a sullen lump like a yellow Pekingese. “Look, I know the old cliché about needing to love yourself first, but I'm perfectly happy with myself, and this conversation is really not necessary.”

  “Oh?” Elaine said. “Happy? So happy that ten minutes ago you were almost in tears? Why were you so upset?”

  “I wasn't upset! It was the contact lenses. My eyes—”

  “I'll tell you why,” Elaine continued. “For reasons known only to you, you have been afraid to try to be an attractive woman. But that shameful brother of mine actually managed to convince you that his silly disguise would magically turn you into a femme fatale. It didn't work out quite that way, did it?”

  “No,” Molly said. “It definitely didn't. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed.”

  “Your worst fear seemed to come true,” Elaine continued dramatically. “You thought that this proved that you weren't attractive to men, even when you tried”

  Molly gritted her teeth. “I'm feeling very jet-lagged,” she said. “Good night.”

  “My dear,” Elaine said loftily, “I cannot help you if you refuse to listen. I am trying to tell you something very important. All of this”—she gestured at the shreds of Sandra—“means nothing. You haven't tried yet. Trying means putting your heart into the attempt. You have not been brave enough to try at all, and so you have no basis whatsoever for judging yourself a failure.”

  Molly scowled at her. If Carter's sister thought that it didn't take effort and bravery to put on the Sandra outfit and face the world, then she could go to hell. “I did my best,” she said coldly. “When Carter comes back, tell him that I'll give his plan one more chance. One. That's all. And if tomorrow turns out to be another disaster, then I officially quit.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Jake knelt to clamp the mast onto his windsurfing board. It was quarter to ten in the morning, and he had spent the past hour on the phone, having a heated “discussion” with the two most senior Berenger Corporation board members: Walter Cronin and Stanley “Skip” Leavenworth, both stuffy white-haired fogies, one the retired CEO of a major development corporation, the other a retired CFO of a major bank. Walter had called in a huff, with Skip conferenced in, to read Jake selected passages from that morning's Wall Street Journal, which had featured an article headlined, “Wall Street Questions Value of Berenger Bonds.” In it, a prominent analyst was quoted as saying, “Berenger Corporation has borrowed a great deal of money by issuing corporate bonds over the past few years, but Jake Berenger seems more interested in playing with Hollywood blondes than in paying interest on his bonds.”

  “Jake,” Walter had said officiously, “you do understand what this means…?”

  “That it was a slow news day?” Jake asked. He took exception to Walter's tone. He was not a misbehaving trust-fund grandson, and did not appreciate being lectured like one.

  “This is becoming a serious image problem, Jake,” Walter said. “We can't afford to lose more investor confidence. We'll be discussing this at the next board meeting.”

  He let the mast fall to the sand, straightened up, and ran a hand over his forehead, exhaling hard. Walter's pompous tone still echoed in his ears. A serious image problem, Jake.

  Yeah, Jake thought. No kidding, Walter. Thanks. Apparently, he had misjudged the severity of the situation. Cora had been right to worry. Always listen to your mother, he thought. Wear a warm sweater, eat your vegetables, and don't underestimate the subversive power of the fucking tabloid press. Titillating articles in the Daily News were one thing, but when the sniping reached the level of the Wall Street Journal, it meant that his bad press was going mainstream.

  The glare from the sand was making his head ache, and he realized that he had left his sunglasses at the villa. He had bolted out of there after the phone call, trying to avoid Amanda, who had been pointedly and repeatedly mentioning her intense desire to learn to scuba dive. He dragged his board higher on the sand, getting it away from the surf. There were usually a couple of extra pairs of glasses in the boathouse, and he could borrow one from Rico for the next hour.

  “Where did you find a pink wet suit?” Molly asked Carter. Her cheeks were burning, and she was glad for Elaine's silver sunglasses, because they allowed her to pretend not to see the stunned stares that followed her as they walked across the pool terrace and down the wide steps toward the beach. One man actually dropped
his newspaper as she passed his chair. His wife, in the next chair, picked it up and whacked him with it.

  “I know a girl who works for Mary Kay,” Carter said. “They gave them away as prizes last year. She said that I could have hers. She's more of a dry-land kind of person.”

  “So am I,” Molly said. “How am I supposed to take a windsurfing lesson dressed like this? The wig? The shoes? The chest? What if my stuffing comes loose? If I move too much, one of these pads is going to slip. I don't think this is going to work.”

  “You're right,” Carter said reluctantly. “Okay. I'll figure something out.”

  “Aren't you supposed to have this figured out already?” Molly asked. “Isn't this supposed to be scientific?”

  They passed the pool bar, where a busboy was clearing empty glasses from the tables. He looked up, saw Molly, and clutched his heart. She lifted her fingers in a tentative wave, and he waved back, smiling beatifically at her.

  “Creativity is the eternal flame burning at the heart of science,” Carter said. “Many a scientific breakthrough has been the result of a spontaneous burst of divine inspiration. I am hoping for one of those myself, at the moment.”

  “Right,” Molly said. “Keep me posted.” Everyone was still staring at her. Had it been like this last night at the cocktail party? The contact lens fiasco had ensured that she hadn't seen much at all.

  “Hurry,” Carter said. “We need to catch Jake before he goes out on the water.”

  “I can't hurry in these shoes,” Molly protested, but Carter had seized her by the arm and was pulling her along the path. She clomped after him toward the boathouse.

  The path became a low wooden walkway that continued down the sand toward the water. The boathouse was built alongside it, a small building with a thatched roof, it housed racks of scuba gear. On the sand next to the walkway was a collection of brightly colored water toys, from surfboards to kayaks to—Molly saw with trepidation—windsurfing equipment.

  Jake was standing by the wooden counter, talking to a young man wearing the white polo shirt and bronze-colored swim trunks of the Gold Bay waterfront staff. Carter released Molly's arm, and she tried to breathe evenly and slow down her pounding heart.