Judy Baer - The Whitney Chronicles

“You look lovely,” he complimented me.

Anything was an improvement over this afternoon.

“I hope you like French food,” he said as we entered a darkened cavern lit with flickering candles. I nodded, but he probably couldn’t see me in the shadows. He led me, stumbling, to our table. I’ve never been good about entering a movie theater after the feature’s begun, and this was no different. Blind as a bat was not how I’d wanted to start the evening.

My eyes finally grew accustomed to the dimness, and I began to appreciate the opulence of my surroundings. Even more, I prized the play of light and dark on Matt’s features that made him appear craggy, manly and very French. I pinched my thigh as my hand rested on my lap. Was this for real, or had the masseuse sent too much blood to my brain?

Matt and the waiter had a spirited conversation in French. I knew he was ordering our meal, because I heard the only two French words I know—escargots and pâté. Snails and liver, the two things I was most terrified of as a child. When he took my hand, however, and looked into my eyes, I decided that eating bottom feeders and giblets was a small price to pay to spend an evening with this man.

I was pretty pulled together for the encounter, if I do say so myself. My hair went the direction I’d aimed it, my dress still fit after dinner and even though I hadn’t anticipated a show of affection, I didn’t burst out laughing when he kissed me. It was just a gentle peck on my forehead, but I hadn’t expected it (fantasized, maybe—expected it, no). If I didn’t get a single client nibble this trip, it still would be a roaring success.

Clients. Falling under Matt’s influence almost made me forget why I was here. I retrieved voice messages and wrote notes to every potential or current client in the hotel to confirm our appointments, took a steamy bath that used up all the bath bubbles in my little complementary basket and oiled my cuticles.

Lord, thank You for safe travel, my job, my family and my friends. I pray for our country’s leaders and for those people I read about in the headlines of the newspaper. Sometimes the haunted eyes of those hurting people stay with me for days. I may be flippant at times, but I know for sure that believing in You is a life-and-death issue. I ask that You touch the heart of every unbeliever so that they may know You as I do.

And, although it seems a pretty shallow request compared to the last, I pray for wisdom. I’m thirty years old and falling under my mother’s questionable influence. She wants me happy but she also wants me married. Is there a fabulous, Christian man out there for me, Lord? And when You send him, will You put a big label on him, please, so I don’t miss him?

With thankfulness that I have You to talk to,

Whitney

October 7

Today was a blur. I had breakfast, morning coffee, late-morning coffee, lunch, early afternoon coffee and late-afternoon coffee with clients while intermittently checking on the booth. The rest of the time I spent in the bathroom relieving myself of all that coffee. I drummed up enough business, however, to keep Harry happy into the next century. I feel a bonus coming on.

I found time to buy souvenirs for everyone, including the most spangled, outrageous T-shirt I could find—studded with rhinestones and in electric blue. Kim will love it, especially since I got a baby-size one for Wesley in the same color. I looked for a long time before I found something for Mom and Dad and finally settled on matching T-shirts that said His and Hers. Each has an arrow pointing across the shirt, supposedly to the person standing alongside you. It will give them something to do, trying to figure out if they have their arrows pointed in the right direction. I didn’t recall until later that there have been a number of recent examples of Dad’s trying not to claim Mom at all. Hopefully she’ll start leaving that little battery-operated fan at home when they wear the shirts.

Unfortunately, the evening did not go as smoothly as the rest of the day. I’d forgotten how territorial men could be, mostly because it never happens to me—until Eric and Matt faced off in the lobby outside the show.

While waiting for Eric near the exit, I was surprised to see Matt also approaching.

“Whitney, I know this is spur of the moment, but I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner at Spago? Sorry I didn’t ask you sooner, but my schedule…” Matt held his hands out helplessly. “I’m sure it’s been equally busy for you today.”

“Hiya, Whit. Ready for dinner?” Eric gave Matt the once-over, and his eyes narrowed.

“Eric, I’d like you to meet Matthew Lambert. Matt, this is Eric….”

I explained as best I could that Eric and I had made plans on the plane. Matt said, “I understand. It was nice to meet you, Eric,” and if he’d just stopped there, we’d have been okay. Unfortunately he added, “At least we had last night together” in a breathy voice that made Eric’s eyebrows go straight up into the thatch of sandy-brown hair tumbling over his forehead.

I didn’t know Eric had a jealous bone in his body. Apparently he has quite a few, and Matt managed to bruise them all. For the rest of the night, he studied me like a bug under a microscope, as if amazed that I had enough pheromones to attract anyone but him.

There were a dozen roses in my room when I returned and a note from Matt saying “Sorry we couldn’t talk business tonight—catch you later.” Later, room service arrived with a large pepperoni pizza. “From somebody named Eric,” the waiter said. “He told me he wanted you to have this in the morning because he knows cold pizza is your favorite breakfast.”

How could I ever choose between two men who know me as well as that?

October 9

Not one moment to myself today. My bladder is feeling flabby from being stretched to the max. Had most of a pot of coffee for breakfast and didn’t get to the ladies’ room until noon. Oh, the pain.

I leave the hotel tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. No time to see either Matt or Eric again. It’s probably for the best. I can’t face either one quite yet, since I have no idea what’s going on in their minds—or in my own.

October 10

Up at 3:30 a.m., in the air at seven, into the office by eleven, manic by lunchtime. No one could accuse me of not jumping right into an office frame-of-mind upon my return.

Mitzi gave me a dirty look as I entered, as if I’d been on vacation instead of working 24/7. Betty peered at me through those half-glasses middle-aged people who insist they don’t really need glasses use and told me in an accusing tone that I’d let mail stack up on my desk. And the cruelest cut of all, Bryan, sadist that he is, produced a large, heavy bond envelope addressed to me in calligraphy scrolls and embellished with a wax seal and one of those “Love” stamps that sell by the millions around Valentine’s Day and during the bridal season.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, Bryan,” I ordered, immediately out-of-sorts, “or I’m going to ask you to be my escort to this wedding. Then you’ll be the one having to dance with Whitney dressed as a human omelette in egg-yolk yellow satin and dyable shoes straight from the Marquis de Sade collection.”

Fear flickered on his face and he tried to retrieve the wedding invitation, but it was too late. He’d already made my shortlist of potential escorts.

Why couldn’t my friend Leah Carlson, who’d worked with the rest of us in this office until she’d earned parole, have had her bridesmaids wear something black and slinky? Wasn’t that the fashion now? Of course, Leah had an insecure streak, and in order to make sure that, as the bride, she was not outshone by anyone else, she’d made sure the rest of us looked utterly ridiculous, with puffy sleeves and large straw hats laden with silk flowers, ribbons and probably a resident parakeet. The only thing that cheered me about this designer fiasco was that Kim was also in the wedding, and she insisted that she looked even worse in yellow than I did. Misery does love company. So do women who are forced to look like chubs of butter rolling down an aisle.