Mistletoe Over Manhattan

2

MALLORY DIDN’T OPEN her office door again until she’d heard her suitemates leave for the day. By that time she felt she’d successfully compartmentalized every facet of her life, including Carter, who’d gone into a read-only-don’t-touch file. And there he would stay, at least until she had to face him in person at the airport in the morning. By morning, she’d be herself again. Under control.

Dressed for the cold winter night, she caught a cab on LaSalle, which slipped and slid as it carried her through the velvety darkness. The streetlamps cast a golden glow on the snowflakes that misted the air and iced the streets. Christmas trees soared high within the lobbies of the commercial buildings she passed, and when she reached the more residential areas, glittered festively through the windows of brownstones and apartments.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” the cab driver said.

Resisting an alarming urge to sing, “everywhere you go,” back at him, Mallory said, “We just had Thanksgiving.”

“That’s Chicago for you. Start on Christmas and Hanukkah while we’re still living on turkey leftovers.”

“We are mere tools of the commercial establishment,” Mallory said, sighing even as her spirits rose in anticipation of her parents’ pleasure in the gifts she’d already gotten for them—a new, state-of-the-art laptop for her mother, which she’d asked her brother Macon to select and load with the most up-to-date software, and a fully accessorized riding lawnmower for her father, which would enable him to keep the lawn in Oak Park groomed to military standards.

“You got that right,” her philosophical driver agreed, nodding. “No love in the presents anymore, just money.”

Money. She’d spent a ton of money on those gifts. But, she argued with herself, she’d also spent a ton of time deciding what might please them most.

Still, it was something to think about, and she had plenty of time to think while the taxi driver told her a heart-wrenching story about the Christmas his great-aunt gave him a sweater she’d knitted with her own two hands, and on the day after Christmas, had passed on, leaving her memory behind in perfect cable stitch.

She gave him a generous tip when he dropped her at her high-rise in the Carl Sandburg Village in Old Town. When she stepped through the door, she found her apartment, as always, silent, warm, spotless and perfectly neat, just as it should be and would be, unless she drifted unknowingly into senility—still living in this apartment.

A grim resignation came over her as that thought went through her mind, but this wasn’t the time to attack and disarm it. She put her black leather briefcase on the desk in her home office off the kitchen, lining it up precisely beside the desk pad. Today’s mail went beneath the mail that had arrived while she was stoically enduring her vacation. First in, first out. That was the rule.

Go through mail.

Pay bills. Respond to invitations and requests.

Read and throw away or file everything else.

This list, an excerpt from one of her mother’s books, popped into her mind. No wonder the surprise encounter with Carter had thrown her completely off balance. She’d gotten in too late the night before—and had been too traumatized by warmth, sand and the mandate to relax—to follow her customary mail routine. A happy life, her mother asserted in every book, was a series of learned habits, or routines. And if you ever veered from one of your routines, it was the first step toward a downward slide into chaos and misery.

As always, her mother was right. She’d veered, her mental state was in chaos and she was miserable. So the mail would be her top priority after she finished her homecoming routine. No more veering.

As she slid a black leather glove into each pocket of her black cashmere coat, her gaze fell to the rectangular box on top of the stack. It was a complimentary copy of the latest Ellen Trent book. Just what she needed at the moment—a quick refresher course.

She hung the coat in the foyer closet, her black cashmere scarf tucked under the collar, and centered her black hat on the shelf directly above it. With her snow boots drying in a special snow-boot box just outside the front door of the apartment, she carried the black flannel bag that held her still-gleaming Soft ‘N’ Comfy pumps to her bedroom.

The pumps were black, too, as were the snow boots. Why didn’t she have anything—red?

It’s always best to stick to basic black in cold-weather climates and beige for warmer environments.

Another quote from a book of her mother’s. That explained it. It didn’t explain a peculiar knot of rebellion that rolled through Mallory from her scalp to her toes. She did have something red. Wine. She went straight to the kitchen and poured herself a glass, then went back to the office to start her mail routine.

She swished the wine around in the glass, admiring its color and examining its rim, sniffed it, analyzing its bouquet, then took a totally undiscriminating gulp. The warmth cascaded down her throat, startling her into staring at the glass in her hand, unable to imagine how it had gotten there. Wine and paperwork didn’t go together. Everybody knew that, at least everybody who preferred a balanced checkbook. See what she’d done? She’d veered again! What was wrong with her, anyway? Nothing a dose of her mother’s wisdom couldn’t cure. She ripped open the box that held the new book.

Efficient Travel From A to Z was its predictable title, and clipped to the front was a sheet of notepaper with her mother’s letterhead. The message was typed: Compliments of Ellen Trent.

None too warm and motherly. Inside was a letter, also typed, but a little more warm and motherly.

Dearest daughter:

This one’s a compilation of all my travel tips plus a few exciting new ideas! Hope they help you remember Ellen’s Golden Rule: Efficiency is the key to a happy life.

Mother

Not finding a hug anywhere in the message, unless “dearest” was meant to be one, Mallory scanned the table of contents: “Beauty in a Baggie,” “Carry On,” “Delete, That’s the Key”—these chapter titles sounded familiar and had probably appeared as articles in women’s magazines. But “Returning to Serenity,” which cleverly filled two alphabet slots, was new. Mallory opened to that chapter.

Leave your paperwork in order.

That was already tops on Mallory’s to-do list.

Don’t leave any dirty laundry behind.

Well, of course not. Her dry cleaner opened at seven. She’d drop off her resort clothes on the way to the plane tomorrow morning. The dry cleaner would charge an exhorbitant rate for washing and pressing her clothes, but she didn’t have time to do laundry in the basement of the apartment building, and rules were rules.

Clean your refrigerator thoroughly, and pay special attention to the crisper. A rotten vegetable will spoil your return to hearth and home.

No problem there. She hadn’t been home long enough to put anything in the crisper.

Check the expiration date of your perishables—boxed, canned, frozen and refrigerated foods and over-the-counter drugs—and throw away those items that will expire while you’re away.

Mallory stared at the page, briefly considering the possibility that her mother had at long last gone over the edge. But millions of women bought these books, women who pursued the same kind of happiness her mother enjoyed, that Mallory relied upon and took comfort from.

Give your itinerary to a close friend or family member.

This brought her up short. If she called her parents, the conversation would take hours. Her mother would put her through a verbal checklist, and they might get into a fight over the expiration date thing. She had friends. Close friends. The friends with whom she’d taken the St. John’s trip, for example, who’d stared at her in disbelief when she’d announced her intention to come home early. They’d tease her mercilessly if she told them she’d traded sun and sand for sin and sex with Carter Compton.

Her head jolted up from the book with a snap that almost left her with whiplash. She was going to New York on business, not to engage in sin and sex.

She suddenly remembered she had a brother in New York she could send her itinerary.

It wasn’t surprising she was just now remembering that Macon was in New York. Macon was the sort of person whose location was vague, not so much a brother as a cyber-brother. He communicated with the family by e-mail. He sent Internet birthday cards and gifts he’d ordered online. Occasionally he came home for Christmas, but more often, he spent the holiday monitoring some public or private computer system. Macon was a computer ace. He lived and breathed computers, had since he met a keyboard and experienced love at first byte.

From time to time, their parents took a notion to make sure he still existed in the flesh. After their last trip to New York, Mallory’s mother had reported that he was dressing better these days. But then, it was hard to believe he could be dressing any worse.

She dialed his number. Predictably, the phone rang once and a message came on. “Trent Computer Consultants,” Macon’s familiar voice droned. “I’m not here. E-mail me at macontrent, all one word, at trent dot com.”

“My brother the robot,” Mallory muttered.

Whose sister isn’t a woman, she’s a lawyer.

The similarity was too great. Getting up from the computer after e-mailing Macon to tell him they should get together in New York, she felt exhausted. She’d better pack before she found herself checking the expiration dates on the box of crackers and tin of smoked oysters she kept on hand as an emergency hors d’oeuvre. She turned to the chapter entitled “Carry On.” She didn’t really need to look at it. This chapter she knew by heart.

CARTER COMPTON WRAPPED his fingers around his most recent cup of coffee, took a sip and made a face. It was the worst coffee he’d ever tasted—okay, except for the last cup he’d made for himself. He’d had to resort to the vending machine in the basement, since the staff in the firm’s lounge had gone home hours ago.

He put down the cup and picked up his pen, flipping it back and forth between his fingers. He figured if he worked until nine, he could pick up a pizza on the way home, eat it while he packed and be in bed by ten. His secretary had ordered a car service to pick him up at six-thirty in the morning. That left no time to think. Just the way he liked it.

Something had caused an atmospheric disturbance today. He’d thought his atmosphere had become as dependable as the sunrise and no longer vulnerable to disturbance. Not being able to pin down what had caused it was more disturbing than the disturbance itself.

He had a feeling it was something about Mallory.

The Sensuous files on the Green case had occupied him for several hours. Mallory being all business, she’d probably want to discuss the case during the flight, and he wanted to sound as if he’d given it some thought.

His life was crawling with women, and here he was, trying to impress Mallory. He guessed he’d never feel secure enough about his professional expertise to get over the early days, when he’d had to pull out all the stops to change people’s impression of him.

He got up, stepped over to the big windows of his office and looked out at the glitter of Chicago. Christmas lights already. In the posh suburb of Kenilworth where he’d grown up, his parents had always had the biggest, most beautiful florist-decorated Christmas tree in the neighborhood, if you could call a tree that had a recognizable theme a Christmas tree, and if you could call the collection of huge houses on large acreages a neighborhood. Under that tree were mountains of presents, everything he wanted plus things he didn’t know he wanted. And, always, a tiny box from his father to his mother, containing a diamond slightly larger than the diamond he’d given her the year before.

He’d been a spoiled rich kid, an only child who didn’t know the meaning of rules. With every advantage life could offer, instead of making the most of them, he’d run wild. He’d lost his driver’s license twice for speeding, had totaled three sports cars—somehow, he couldn’t imagine how—without hurting anybody. He’d done enough damage to end up getting accused of things he hadn’t done. His parents had had to post bail for him when he was arrested for burglarizing a neighboring house. He hadn’t, but he couldn’t blame the police for suspecting him. Stealing and drugs were about the only two things he hadn’t experimented with.

Oh, yes. He’d never gotten a girl pregnant, which he saw as something of a miracle—the miracle being that his father had deposited a huge box of condoms on his dresser every Friday morning.

Good grades would only have ruined his high school reputation. He’d played football, but the coach was a diplomat used to dealing with the rich parents of spoiled rich kids, and as long as the team made a decent showing, he didn’t impose many rules, either.

So Carter had managed to get into Northwestern University in Evanston by playing football. There the coach had made him quit smoking, drinking, eating junk food and staying up all night with the cheerleader of his choice to prepare himself for the game the next day. But nobody found out how smart he was until he took the LSATs before applying to law school.

One look at his scores, and the University of Chicago Law School had snapped him up. What they didn’t know was that he didn’t know how to study, and that’s where Mallory had turned his life around. He couldn’t remember exactly how it had happened, just that he’d called her, admitted he was floundering and asked for her help. And she’d been his unofficial, unpaid tutor. He’d never even taken her out for dinner. He’d been afraid to ask.

Did she remember what a dolt he’d been?

Carter frowned. He’d better do a little more work, get familiar with the details, have a few intelligent questions to ask Mallory and, even better, a couple of intelligent comments to make. In short, he’d better get off this nostalgia trip and focus on the damned files.

THE PHONE RANG JUST as Mallory finished packing the flexible wardrobe her mother had been claiming for years would get a woman through anything for any length of time. True to form, when she finished, she actually had room to spare.

“Mallory? Carter,” said the caller.

It was like a tummy punch, that deep, warm voice. “Hi, Carter.” She kept hers cool as a waterfall. That was just how great an impact her mother’s books had on her. A short session with that practical, unromantic voice had returned her to her normal, sane self. She would be fine on this trip.

“I’m calling with a question,” he said. “Why pea-green? Why not just green?”

Mallory blinked. “Well—” She was confident there was a reason, but the sound of his voice, the very fact that he’d called, was making inroads on her normal, sane self. It was maddening. “There are numerous shades of green, lime-green, forest-green, Kelly-green…”

“Would you be less upset if your hair were lime-green instead of pea-green?”

“Um. No, I suppose not.”

“Then the use of ‘pea-green,’ which has a negative connotation, instead of just ‘green,’ which is more neutral, is a deliberate attempt on the part of the plaintiffs to make the green sound as disgusting as possible.” He sounded triumphant.

“But I just said it wouldn’t matter if—”

“Just something to think about. Okay. See you at the gate tomorrow.”

“Okay, I’ll—” But he wasn’t there anymore. It was the first time he’d called her since law school, and all he’d wanted was to discuss the impact of pea-green over plain green on a potential jury.

She whirled to stare at herself in the mirror. She might not be gorgeous, but why, exactly, didn’t her colleagues think of her as a woman? Forget the colleagues. Why hadn’t Carter ever seen her as a woman?

She had to admit she looked none too sexy with her teeth clenched together. She whirled back, and her gaze fell on her suitcase. She still had room. What could she take that was a little more exciting than black and more black and a touch of white?

With frantic fingertips she went through the sparse collection of clothes in her closet, wondering why she bothered. She knew what she owned. More black, more white, a small navy grouping and the thrill of one gray suit and one beige. No surprises were hiding in there.

It was too late to go shopping, but not too late to call her friend Carol the Consummate Clotheshorse down on the fifth floor. Carol had flown back early from St. John’s, too, for a reason their friends understood, to make a raid on Marshall Field’s post-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas sales racks. She’d have something old she’d be willing to loan.

“Carol,” she began, “I’m going to New York.”

“Mallory the Jet-setter,” Carol said. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Mallory clenched her teeth. “It’s business,” she said crisply. “I was wondering if I might borrow one extra jacket from you.”

“Anything,” Carol said fervently. “If you’d wear something besides a suit and midheel orthopedic pumps, I’d give you rights to my whole closet. All my closets,” she corrected herself. “What kind of jacket did you have in mind?”

“Something that goes well with black,” Mallory said, floundering in the alternatives and also realizing this wasn’t the first time a friend had commented on her penchant for suits and dowdy shoes. It was just the first time it had upset her.

A dangerous thought ran through her mind. Herself in a low-necked, scarlet top, and Carter’s fingertips edging the cleavage, then dipping beneath the fabric…

She stammered the words out. “I was thinking…red.” There. She’d veered again. It was getting easier each time. Not processing her mail, then wine, now red.

“Ooh,” Carol said. “I’ve got a red jacket that would look great on you. I’ll bring it right up and hang it on your doorknob. I know you’re busy packing.”

Mallory was already having second thoughts, but a red jacket seemed like such a tiny veer that it hardly seemed worth worrying about. “Thanks, Carol. I’ll return the favor as soon as possible.”

“You can return it right now. Do you have any stamps?”

“Of course.” She had every staple of everyday life in bulk, just as the efficient woman should. “I’ll leave them on the foyer table. And Carol?”

“Um?”

“May I leave you a copy of my itinerary?”

“Sure. But you said New York. Just tell me where you’re staying.”

“The St. Regis,” Mallory said, “but there’s more information than that. Flight numbers, who to call just in case….”

“And the suit you’d like to be buried in,” Carol said with a sigh Mallory had also heard from more than one of her friends. “I’ll wait fifteen minutes before I bring up the jacket.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had taken on a new tone. “You’re going to love this jacket.”

Did Carol’s voice have a sly edge, or was she imagining it? She hadn’t been imagining it, a fact she learned when she unhooked the red jacket from her doorknob.

Mallory looked it over, and then, dismayed, tried it on. Had she gained weight? She and Carol had always been the same size. But this jacket hugged her waist, pushed up her breasts and flared out over her hip-bones, ending much too soon to hide her rear end, which Mallory felt was the best reason to wear a jacket.

Carol had undoubtedly meant well, but Mallory was sure she could never bring herself to go out in public in this jacket. Still, she didn’t want to appear ungrateful. She folded it in the “Ellen Trent fold” and used it to fill the empty space in her roll-on bag. If this insane craving for red lasted, she’d buy a proper blazer in New York.

She closed her mother’s book and held it in her hand for a moment, then slid it into her suitcase. Having it with her would be like wearing garlic to ward off illness or holding a cross to shield herself from the devil.

The devil being Carter.

CARTER DRUMMED ON HIS desktop with the pen he held the same way he used to hold a cigarette. He’d thought the pea-green query had been a good question for Mallory, but he could tell from her hesitation that she’d thought it was a damned silly question and she would probably have said so if she weren’t such a well-brought-up girl.

She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was all woman.

Feeling as if he’d regressed ten years, he threw everything into his briefcase and went home to his Lake Shore Drive apartment. It was a mess. He was glad to be leaving it, and his cleaning service would deal with it before he got back. He’d forgotten to pick up the pizza and had to order one in. It didn’t arrive until he’d finished packing, so he ate it in bed while he watched the news. He reflected that he still had that spoiled rich kid inside him, and every now and then, he had to let him out.