City Chicks

Chapter 3

Three

“That’s your Evan?” Cassie exclaimed.

“Well,” I said diplomatically, not looking up from stirring every last sugar crystal into my tea, “not anymore.”

“Don’t be obtuse. You know what I mean.”

I sighed over my plate.

“Yes, unfortunately I do.”

Cassie chugged the remains of her triple shot café Americano. I set my teaspoon on a napkin and lifted the sweet tea to my lips. I could almost hear the gears creaking into motion in her mind.

“Didn’t David—”

“Yes,” I preempted.

“Oh.” She removed the lid and licked the watered-down droplets of coffee. “And wasn’t Jon—”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Grabbing my teaspoon off the table, she swirled it around the bottom of her cup, scooping up the last half-ounce sitting in the crease. “And Tad—”

“Yes!” I plunked my glass on the table with a resounding clack. “Yes, David and Jon and Tad and Richard. All gay. Can we just establish that fact and move on, because this is not exactly my favorite topic of conversation.”

I tried—really, I did—never to lose my temper. But I was at the end of my tether. Four gay exes was bad enough, but now the one straight guy in my recent romantic history was passing himself off as gay on national TV. I was not exactly in a restrained mood.

Shocked by my outburst—a rarity she had only witnessed one other time in our fourteen years of friendship—Cassie stared at me, lip gloss-less mouth agog. Her bright blue eyes sparkled and I knew she was thrilled by my emotional exhibition.

Cassie was the sort who though it wasn’t healthy to keep anything bottled up inside—which may explain why she’d always had a tough time hanging onto a job for more than a few months. She’d been waiting years for me to pop my cork.

“Lord, Cassie.” I gingerly rubbed my pounding temples, desperate to quell the ache that had begun the moment Evan Riley walked into my office. “I’m sorry, I just can’t—”

“Whoah! Don’t apologize.” She waved off my explanation. “You have every right to be upset.”

That didn’t dilute my guilt. I had no reason to yell at her when she was only trying to be supportive.

“I mean if even one of my exes popped out of the closet before my eyes,” she continued in the rapid-fire, New Yorker way she always did, “I’d punch him in the nose. Knock his little gay lights out. You two were so serious, Evan could’ve had the decency to call or—”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. She was missing the most important point. “Evan isn’t gay.”

Taken aback, she blinked three times and froze. “What do you mean he isn’t gay? He’s on a gay makeover show and—”

“I don’t care if he’s the LGBT poster child. Evan Riley is not gay. He cheated on me with another woman.”

Despite his slightly-too-fashionable taste in clothing, Evan had been all man in our relationship. He watched football. He talked about cars. He was a thoughtful and considerate lover. And if he hadn’t started cheating on me with some bimbo from his fledgling design firm we would be halfway to the altar by now.

He’d even confessed to the affair.

But there was a more recent reason to believe he was faking. “He denied our relationship.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when the rest of the cast saw we were already acquainted and asked how we knew each other, he lied.”

Cassie leaned in conspiratorially. “What did he say?”

“That he had decorated my shop.”

She blinked. “He did.”

“Yes, but he implied that our relationship was purely professional.” In truth, it had started out personal and become professional when I needed an interior designer for my shop—I couldn’t have afforded one otherwise. “Don’t you see? Why else would he deny our past? He wants to hide the truth from the producers. He must be getting a pretty good deal for himself and his firm with this show. He’d have a lot to lose if he was inned. They’d probably fire him on the spot.”

“Bethany, sweetie, maybe he’s just—”

“No. Evan Riley is heterosexual.” I grabbed my purse from the floor and pushed out of my chair. “He’s faking gay. And I’m going to prove it.”

“Have you worked in retail apparel before?”

The too-young girl with blue hair and a silver hoop through the fullest part of her bottom lip shook her head, jangling the mass of jewelry decorating her left ear.

“No, but I used to work at this shop in the Village that sold latex bondage costumes and studded dog collars.”

Not precisely the same clientele that patronized my shop. Mentally wording my response, I carefully nudged the stack of applications into a neat pile.

“Thank you for interviewing—” I checked the name on the application “—Tegan. I have your application and should make my decision by the end of the week.”

The left side of her mouth pulled back in a smile-smirk. “Yeah, whatever.”

As she walked out the front door I released a sigh of relief. That was the fourth interview of the day. They had all been equally unsuitable.

One barely spoke above a whisper. Another knocked over two displays on her way to the counter. And another could only work from eight to ten in the morning to fit around her meditation schedule.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected any less for putting up a Help Wanted sign in the window. The foot traffic in this part of SoHo was either affluent shoppers with no interest in something as demeaning as gainful employment or neighborhood residents on the bizarre side of artistic with little experience in upscale retail.

Trying not to bang my head on the glass countertop in frustration, I reached beneath the register and pulled out the Yellow Pages. Flipping to the Employment Agencies section, I thumbed through looking for a firm that staffed retail.

There was no other option. Time was running out and I needed to train a full-time employee/manager before the show went into production. I had already closed the store three mornings this week to order samples for the pilot wardrobe. What good was this opportunity to promote my shop for free if it went under in the process?

Starting next week I would need to be at the studio from eight to five, Monday through Friday for two weeks straight. If I didn’t have a reliable employee by then, Walk-In Closet was sunk.

The doorbell jingled, and I looked up from perusing the tiny print.

“Chris,” I exclaimed, his familiar handsome face welcome after the stream of strangers that had been dropping off applications all morning. “What brings you into my neck of the woods?”

His face broke into a genuine smile, with little craggy laugh lines around his eyes and dimples in his cheeks.

Le sigh.

In the few days we’d known each other, Chris and I had become fast friends. He called daily to bounce off ideas for his segment of the pilot. I called to complain about the mass of emails and phone calls I’d had to field—Trevor had been right about the offers and samples and bribes, but he’d underestimated the volume. Chris and I had met for lunch or coffee several times, usually near the studio.

He had become a regular presence in my life.

One I only wanted more of. In all the wrong ways.

“Wanted to check out my favorite girl’s place of business.” He moseyed into the shop, his long-legged strides bringing him to the counter in three steps. “Nice digs.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

His arm slipped around my waist in a comforting embrace.

I laid my head on his broad shoulder. “Hope I can keep her afloat.”

He leaned down to look me in the eye. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,”—I extricated myself from his embrace and returned to the phone book—”if I can’t find someone to run the shop, she’ll either close or I’ll have to quit One Straight Guy.”

Chris scowled, distinguished worry lines forming between his brows. “Neither.”

“What?” I asked distractedly as I found a staffing firm that fed from the Fashion Institute. Surely their students knew their way around a retail shop. I jotted down their number on the pink pad next to the register.

“I choose neither option,” Chris continued.

“Me too,” I agreed. “But I may not have a choice.”

“I’ve got it!” He clapped his hands together in an excited outburst.

The joy in his clear blue eyes instantly filled me with spontaneous hope. “Got what?”

“The perfect solution. Here, give me the phone.” He took it from me before I could hand it over.

Quickly dialing a number without uttering another word, Chris winked at me as he waited for an answer.

“Hey, it’s me,” he said familiarly. “Can you come to Walk-In Closet, at the corner of Prince and Wooster, right away?” He paused, listening. “Just come already. I’ll be waiting for you.” He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Just hurry. Love you, too.”

My heart plummeted. Yes, I knew Chris was gay. Yes, I knew I had less than no chance. But still, knowing there was someone he loved on the other end of that line drove the nail home in my heart.

Le sigh again.

Chris closed the phone book and threw away my note with the Fashion Staffing phone number.

“Your salvation will walk through that door in under five minutes.” He looked extraordinarily proud of himself. Dimples deeper than I’d ever seen them. “While we’re waiting you can show me around.”

His joy was infectious, I couldn’t stop grinning as I gave him the ten cent tour—including the disaster area that was the back room. I had just tripped over a carton of cashmere socks, sending me flying into Chris’s sturdy arms, when the doorbell jangled.

“Ah,” he sighed like a Chinese monk, “interrupted by salvation.”

A woman, foot impatiently tapping on the parquet floor, stood waiting by the counter. Fully expecting to see Chris’s boyfriend, I was shocked to find a woman waiting. If a dinosaur had walked into my shop and asked to try on a pair of size thirty-six stilettos I couldn’t have been more surprised.

I shook my head. She was a customer. I was about to tell Chris that salvation must be late when he jogged forward and swung the woman up in an embrace.

In return, the woman kicked him in the shins.

“Ow, Kit,” he cried, dropping her and bending over to rub his injured legs. “That hurt.”

“Good,” the brunette replied. “Why did you order me down here? You dating the owner, or something?”

“This is the owner.” His voice was tightly laced with warning. “She’s the wardrobe consultant on the show.”

“Oh,” Kit said, then added with feeling, “Ohhhh.”

I wondered at this strange interchange, but stopped short when Chris turned to me and made his introductions.

“Bethany, meet my angelic baby sister, Katherine Marie.” Throwing a glare her way, he continued, “Kit, this is Bethany Lange.”

His sister. Of course! The resemblance was obvious. Same dark curls, same clear blue eyes, same dimpled cheeks. But there was a little more of a hard edge to Kit than her brother could ever claim.

This was a woman who could—and would—kick butt without conscience.

A good person to have on your side, but heaven help anyone who wasn’t on hers.

We met halfway, shook hands, and exchanged confused looks. Neither of us knew what exactly was going on. The cryptic nature of men defied the bounds of gender.

“Bethany’s looking for a full-time sales associate to run the shop while she’s working on the show. Interested?”

Kit looked from her brother to me and back again. “This is about a job?” She smacked him hard on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you say so? I would’ve pulled on something more presentable than jeans and a T-shirt.”

“Actually,” I interjected, “I carry the entire line.”

Following the wave of my hand, Kit eyed the Thalia Rose display. I only had one tee left in the same pale teal she wore—and an extra small at that—and had been waiting weeks for a restock shipment. Clearly, she had an eye for trends.

Her face relaxed into a dazzling smile, another feature she shared with her brother.

“Miss Lange, I—”

“Please, call me Bethany.”

“Okay, Bethany.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “I worked at a retail chain for six years after college, earning my way up to associate manager. Three months ago, when upper management basically confessed that I could never climb any higher in the ranks without upper management experience, I quit. Can’t stand hypocritical catch-22’s. I know how to run a*****e; everything from stocking to managing shipments to working the sales floor. If you need someone to rely on, I’m your girl.”

What a sales pitch. If she could sell clothes half as well as she sold herself, the shop would be out of inventory within a month.

Bottom line: I was desperate, she had the qualifications, and I trusted Chris.

“When can you start?”

Rather than answer, Kit leapt forward and pulled me into a joyful hug. “You won’t regret this.”

Over her head of brunette curls, I met Chris’s proud eyes. He smiled in silent thanks—as if I were doing him a favor rather than the other way around. No, I shook my head, and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“I don’t want a dozen,” I argued into the phone. This was like arguing with a tree stump. “I want one. Just one. Medium. In gray.”

Lord, I’d been on the phone for an hour. After scouring catalogs and websites and magazines in my studio office I had finally found the perfect jacket for Adam to wear in the pilot. Dove gray. Surf-inspired with a skater twist. Simple, stylish, and 100% cotton twill. Perfect for Adam’s edgy-but-polished personality.

If only the man from the surfwear company would let me order one. Instead, he insisted on sending me a dozen. For free. I insisted I only wanted one, though the free part was entirely acceptable.

Finally, giving up, I said, “Fine, send a dozen. But only one will be worn on the show.”

“Excellent, Betty,” he drawled, sounding like a Southern California stereotype.

With only the greatest restraint, I stopped my face just inches from colliding with my desk. A lady does not walk around with a big red impact splotch on her forehead.

“Tough day at work, sugar?”

Yes, but it just got a whole lot better.

“Hello, Chris,” I managed with a resilient smile.

He moved his long-legged form across my office and fell into one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Tell me all about it.”

“Well, let’s see ... We start shooting the opening montage for the pilot next week and so far you’ve each got about half a wardrobe.”

His blue eyes glittered with mischief when he asked, “Which half?”

“For you? The bottom.”

“That’s okay,” he assured me. Then proceeded to lift up the front of his navy blue sweater, revealing his sculpted abs. “I have a fabulous chest.”

Lord, I knew it. We had a fitting session the day before and I’d gotten to know Chris’s body in almost every intimate detail. There wasn’t a single inch I hadn’t drooled over or dreamed about.

How on earth a chef—a profession rumored to have the highest obesity rate of any field since taste-testing was virtually a job requirement—wound up with the body of an Olympic swimmer, I had no idea.

It was a cruel, cruel joke on the unsuspecting heterosexual female population of the planet.

“Put that six-pack away,” I teased. “There are ladies present.”

He lurched out of his seat and spun in a head-first survey of the room. “Where?”

“Very funny. Shouldn’t you be out hunting down the perfect wine or ordering fresh goat cheese from Outer Mongolia?”

“They don’t have goat cheese in Mongolia,” he replied as if I’d been serious. “Most of their dairy comes from sheep or mare’s milk.”

Hmmm. Interesting. But not relevant.

I rolled my eyes—not a ladylike reaction, but one I surrendered to often.

“You are such a food geek.”

Chris grabbed a pad of sticky notes off my desk and threw it at my head.

“Deny it all you like.” I returned my attention to the towering stack of catalogs. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

To my great surprise, he let out a plaintive sigh.

“I know. Kit’s been trying to get me to broaden my interests for twenty-five years.”

“Isn’t she twenty-six?”

“Yeah, but for that first year she couldn’t talk.” He leaned back in the chair, arms folded behind his head and face softened in blissful memory. “I miss the peace and quiet.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.”

His eyes snapped to mine, clearly hoping I wasn’t serious.

I rolled my eyes again and thumbed through glossy pages full of polos and dress shirts. “Did you come in here just to bother me,” I asked in a bored tone, “or did you have a particular reason?”

“Oh yeah.” He sat forward in his seat and leaned his elbows on the desk. “Wanna go out tonight?”

My heart nearly leapt out of my chest.

Every fantasy of the last few days exploded like fireworks in my brain. Going out—on a date—with Chris—tonight. Images of chocolate sauce and whipped cream filled my mind.

For about half a second.

Then I remembered ... Chris was gay.

Double drat.