Judith McNaught - Remember When

Diana had been invited to model one of the donated items to be auctioned, and having previously agreed to do it, that was an honor and ritual that she couldn't now reject without bringing even more gossip down on her head. Diana knew that. So did Spence and Corey.

"Finish your drink," Spence insisted. "Two more swallows."

Diana complied because compliance was easier and she needed to conserve all her strength to face the evening's ordeal.

Knowing how concerned Diana always was for his comfort, her grandfather deliberately tried to divert Diana's attention from her plight by bringing up his own. Running his finger around the starched collar of his tuxedo shirt, he said, "I hate wearing this damned monkey suit, Diana. I feel like a damned fool every time I have to put one on."

Diana's grandmother gave him a reproachful look. "Stop cursing, Henry. And your tuxedo looks very nice on you."

"It makes me look like a damned penguin," he argued.

"All the men are wearing tuxedos tonight."

"And we all look like penguins!" he countered grumpily, and to stop her from arguing about that, he turned to a more pleasant subject and looked hopefully at Diana. "I think we should do another issue featuring organic gardening. Organic gardening is always popular. What do you think about that, honey?"

Diana couldn't seem to concentrate on anything except the ordeal that loomed in front of her. "That's fine, Grandpa," she said, even though they'd featured organic gardening twice already that year. "We'll do that," she added absently, which made her mother and her grandmother look at her in amazement. "I'd better go and sign out that necklace," Diana said reluctantly. "It's a good thing I'm not in a spending mood tonight," she added with a lame attempt at humor. "First I forgot my purse and had to go back for it." She lifted up her small, oval Judith Leiber evening bag to illustrate. "Then, when I got here, I couldn't tip the parking attendant because I discovered I forgot to take any money with me. All I have is a driver's license and compact in here. Oh, and I remembered to take lipstick. But I brought the wrong color."

Everyone smiled at her predicament as she turned to leave—everyone except Rose Britton, who continued to stare at Diana's retreating form, her forehead wrinkled in a thoughtful frown. Finally she turned to the others and announced in a dire tone, "I think Diana has finally reached her limits, and I'm worried about her."

"What do you mean?" her husband asked.

"I mean that she has been acting very strangely," Mrs. Britton said in her blunt voice, "and she was doing it before Dan dumped her."

"I haven't noticed anything strange, Mother," Mrs. Foster said, wincing at her mother's choice of descriptions for what Dan did.

"Then let me give you some examples. Diana has always been the most organized, methodical, punctual, dependable person on God's green earth. Every Friday, at seven-thirty a.m., she has a massage and then a manicure, and every Thursday afternoon at four p.m., she has a meeting with the production staff." She paused to make certain that everyone was in complete agreement with what she'd said so far, and when she saw that they were all listening attentively, she presented her proof: "Two weeks ago, Diana forgot her massage appointment. The following week, she forgot about the production meeting and forgot to tell her secretary that she'd scheduled an appointment with one of our bankers instead! I know, because her secretary called me at home, looking for her."

Spence suppressed a grin at what he regarded as needless concern. "Everyone forgets an appointment now and then, particularly when they're very busy, Gram," he said reassuringly. "According to what Corey has told me, Diana has been under intense pressure trying to run the magazine and implement expansion plans and still stay ahead of the competition. Given all that, an unimportant thing like a massage and manicure would be easy to forget."

"Two months ago," Gram added doggedly, "she also forgot my birthday party!"

"She was working late at the office," Mrs. Foster reminded her mother. "When I called her there, she rushed right over."

"Yes, but when she got here, she'd forgotten my present!—and then she absolutely insisted on going to her apartment to get it."

"That's not unusual for Diana, Gram," Corey said. "You know how considerate she is and how much thought she puts into the gifts she buys for people. She insisted on going back to get your gift because she was determined to give it to you on the right day."

"Yes, but when she got to her apartment, it took her nearly an hour to find my present because she couldn't remember where she'd put it!"

Doug exchanged a look of masculine amusement with Spence before he said, "That's because she probably bought it for you a year ahead of time, Mrs. Britton. Last August, I bumped into her at Neiman's and she told me she was doing her Christmas shopping."

Corey smiled. "She always makes her Christmas list out in August and finishes her shopping in September. She says everything is picked over after that."

"She always comes up with perfect gifts," Doug put in with a reminiscent smile. "Last year I gave her a five-pound box of Godiva chocolates and a bottle of champagne, but she gave me a cashmere scarf that I'd mentioned liking. I'll bet that when she found your birthday gift and brought it over, Mrs. Britton, it was exactly what you wanted."

"It was a box of cigars!" she informed him.

Doug's eyes narrowed in sudden alarm, but Mr. Britton only chuckled and shook his head. "She'd ordered the cigars for me, to give me on my birthday. She always wraps her gifts as soon as she gets them, and she just grabbed the wrong present because she was in a hurry to get back to your birthday party."

Mrs. Britton shook her head, refusing to be pacified. "A few weeks ago, when Diana got back from that big meeting with our printers in Chicago, she took a cab straight from the airport to the office."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Her car was at the airport. If you ask me, she's been working much too hard for much too long," she said flatly.

"She hasn't had a vacation in at least six years," Mrs. Foster said, feeling guilty and more than a little concerned. "I think we ought to insist that she take a month off."

"Diana is okay, I tell you, but she ought to have a vacation, just on principle," Grandpa pronounced, concluding the worrisome discussion.

The official press area was cordoned off with a velvet rope on the far side of the mezzanine above the lobby, not far from the ballroom where

the auction items were on display. In keeping with his promise to Unified's public relations department, Cole presented himself to the members of the press and did his best to look delighted to be there. He said he would grant brief interviews to the local reporters from CBS and ABC, then posed for pictures and answered routine questions for the reporter from the Houston Chronicle and the local stringer from USA Today.

The ABC interview was the last. Standing beside Kimberly Proctor, with the round light of the Minicam aimed straight at him like an unblinking Cyclops, Cole listened to the attractive blonde enthuse about the one-hundred-year history of the White Orchid Ball and some of the traditions behind the auction; then she waved the microphone in his face. "Mr. Harrison, we've all been told by the committee that you've donated the most valuable of all the items in tonight's auction. Just how much is the Klineman sculpture worth?"

"To whom?" Cole countered dryly. Privately, he'd always thought the modernistic piece was a monstrosity, but he'd bought it at a bargain and now it was worth five times more than he'd paid.