Drawing Lessons Page 3

  “Maybe you’re just romanticizing a first kiss.”

  “Oh, Marie. It wasn’t just the first kiss. It was the thousandth kiss, too. Then we moved to the states and the American boys,” she sighed. “You can never tell whether they like you. They talk to you, then ignore you for a week. Call you on the phone, then at school pretend you’ve never met. With Olivier, I never had to wonder whether he liked me or not, you know? He seduced me, even though all we did was kiss. What woman doesn’t want to be seduced?”

  Wow. This was a side of Nishi that Marie had never seen. Uber-professional, ball-breaking Nishi, one of the top public relations professionals in Washington, DC, a woman who was paid to make people famous or keep them from becoming famous—depending on the circumstance—going all dewy-eyed over a fourteen-year-old boy? The woman who had helped her burn her wedding gown and dump the ashes in the Potomac?

  Then Marie sighed too. What woman doesn’t want to be seduced? Marie did. All through those long nights of the soul—otherwise known as her marriage—she had imagined a man who would want her just for herself, not for her family or her connections or her surname. Someone who would talk to her, eat with her, pick her up and carry her back to their bedroom ... all romantic crap, she knew. No one did that anymore. Hell, probably no one ever did. They were just stories made up to keep women in an everlasting state of hope.

  Well, except for Imran. He probably picked up Nishi and carried her back to bed every night.

  She looked at her best friend, who was at that very moment hoisting a now-empty bag of chips to peer inside, then shaking it. Of course, two more chips fell out. Nishi popped them into her mouth with gusto. Nishi could always pick up the world and shake it, and two more chips would fall out of what for anyone else would have been an empty bag.

  “I swear they put fewer chips in every year. One day, we’re going to open a bag of chips and there will be nothing inside. Nothing but air,” Nishi said, crumpling the foil bag in her fist. “So how are things at Witherspoon & Associates?”

  Marie shrugged. “The same as before, I guess.”

  “I can get you hired at my office. Just say the word.”

  “It’s easier to just work for my mother until I finish business school. You got to pick your battles. Plus, this way I can keep tabs on what my parents are up to.”

  “Please tell me they’re not still jonesing for a reconciliation. Does your father need Richard that badly?”

  “Well, it helps to have a family member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. That’s why DefenseTech hired him in the first place. Not to mention Richard’s Pentagon contacts, which dad would lose.”

  The Macintyres were military royalty, dating all the way back to the War of 1812. Someone in the family had fought in every war since. Marie’s parents had introduced her to Richard and their marriage had been a political alliance from the start, though Marie had fancied herself in love with the dashing junior senator. Who wouldn’t have? Richard had been the most eligible bachelor in Washington, bar none. Handsome, whip-smart, his career on a meteoric rise—and still in possession of his boot camp physique. It had been so easy to believe that Richard Macintyre was her birthright, that she’d been born to be a senator’s wife like her mother.

  Amazing how quickly one’s entire life could fall apart.

  Nishi was checking her phone for messages. “I’ve got to get back. Meeting at one. I think for Christmas I’m going to sign you up for a dating service. Since the drawing lessons aren’t panning out.”

  Marie rolled her eyes. “I’m still married, technically. The divorce won’t be final for a few more months, thanks to my parents’ attorney dragging his feet on my financial statements. They are still waiting for Richard to change his mind.”

  “Legally, you’re still married. But when your husband files for divorce because he wants to marry his mistress—who’s a gossip blogger, hello—I’d consider you no longer technically married.”

  “Excuse me, I prefer to think of her as a society and style blogger,” Marie said, using Maya Redfearn’s own tagline, “given how often I show up in the damn thing.” Richard’s mistress was the “proprietor” of the J Street Chronicle, and not above taking thinly-veiled swipes at Marie in it. Marie had assumed these public jabs would end now that Maya had what she wanted—Marie’s husband—but apparently not.

  She waved off Nishi’s legal hair-splitting. “I’m not ready for men yet.”

  * * *

  The cab pulled up to the curb, where Marie paid the driver and got out. She’d taken a cab to and from lunch with Nishi because, contrary to Hollywood filmmakers, metro went nowhere near Georgetown.

  Witherspoon & Associates was housed in a narrow brick rowhouse with a tidy little flower-filled courtyard out front. Marie unlatched the iron gate, marched up to the front door and rang the doorbell, leaning over in front of the bay window so Maeve, the receptionist, could see her. Only her mother and Maeve had keys to the place.

  The door buzzed harshly and the lock clicked open. Inside, the building was hushed and softly lit. Maeve was a well-groomed, motherly woman in her sixties. Eileen Witherspoon insisted on hiring older woman for the front desk and keeping them on until they retired. Less chance they’d be spotted dancing on tables somewhere.

  Maeve looked up at her warmly. “Your mother is still at lunch. I expect her back around two.”

  Marie winked at Maeve. “I’m sure she’ll find me if she needs me.”

  Maeve had never said a word about the divorce, simply picking up with Marie as though she had never left her mother’s employ. Too bad that couldn’t be said about all of her mother’s staff.

  She pushed open the door to her office, expecting to resume working on the report she’d been writing before lunch, only to find what looked like dozens of signs stacked against her desk, the wall, the filing cabinet. She sighed and dialed Maeve.

  “Maeve, I think all these signs were delivered to the wrong office.”

  “No dear. Your mother was very clear that they be put in your office.”

  “Buzz me when she gets in, please Maeve?”

  She flipped through the large, brightly-colored signs printed with candy canes, Christmas trees and presents. They were for her mother’s fundraiser that weekend. Every Labor Day weekend for the past three years, her mother and Richard had held “Christmas in September” at Marie’s old private school, an event that raised money for the school’s scholarship fund and collected holiday toys for needy children. Marie begged off this year, citing the obvious.

  She quickly read through the signs, scanning for typos and finding none. She restacked them against the wall and returned to the report she’d been working on before lunch. She was compiling a list of local technology millionaires, their estimated net worth, and the causes and campaigns they had supported in the past. You couldn’t have money in the DC area and expect to escape the notice of Eileen Witherspoon. In some ways, the ways that mattered, she was more powerful than Marie’s father. If you needed to shake the change from society’s sofa, Eileen was the person you called.

  At two o’clock sharp, Marie heard a light rap on her door.

  “Mother.” She stood quickly. “These signs—”

  “Just drop them off at the school Saturday morning,” Eileen directed. “Are they all there?”

  Marie’s head swung between the signs leaning against the wall and her mother, dressed in a tailored royal blue suit. “I guess. I didn’t check ... I’m not going on Saturday,” she finally managed to spit out.

  “Of course you are, dear. You go every year. Your father will be there. You’ll probably see some old classmates. It’ll be fun.”

  She looked at her mother as though the woman had sprouted a second and third head. Fun?

  “I thought Richard was going to be there.”

  Her mother waved her hand in the air, then leaned over Marie’s desk, reading down the list of names on the computer screen. “Yes. He’s in charge of the toy donation. As
usual.”

  “I don’t want to see him. I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a shrimp fork.”

  Her mother looked up from the computer screen and arched one perfectly penciled eyebrow at her.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of us to be there. The press will have a field day with this,” Marie rephrased.

  Eileen turned back to the computer. “I’ve spoken to all the reporters who have been invited. You’re the marketing director here. People will expect you to be there, and I need someone who is familiar with the school as backup. Just be nice to Richard. Maybe he’ll reconsider.” She straightened and brushed past Marie as she headed for the door. “Nice work so far, dear. E-mail it to me when you’re finished.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Marie was still back on “maybe he’ll reconsider.” “I don’t want him back, not after everything he’s done. And there will be other alumni there who know how to get to the kitchen and where all the bathrooms are. She dug her fingernails into her palms in frustration. The last thing she wanted was to be in the same room, even a very large room, with Richard.

  In the doorway, Eileen turned back to face her. “Being a senator’s wife is a privilege, Marie.”

  “A prison, don’t you mean? Can you try and look at this from my perspective, mom?”

  Her mother shot her a sharp look. “My marriage was never a prison. There was never a minute I didn’t appreciate the blessings it gave me. What kind of life do you think you’d have if your father hadn’t been a member of Congress?”

  Marie couldn’t take it any longer. Anger and exasperation churned inside her chest, then finally spilled over. “What kind of life do you think I had with Richard? Do you have any idea how many nights he never came home? I don’t recall dad just not coming home at night. And all those times you nagged me about starting a family already? That wasn’t my fault. He’s the one who didn’t want to. I tried to make things work, but it takes two to tango.”

  She shoved a stack of file folders across her desk. Her mother’s face remained impassive, expressionless.

  “So no, I really do not want to go to the fundraiser this year. It’s not like you’ll raise any less money if I’m not there.”

  “I need you to go, Marie, and that’s all there is to it. Your absence will provoke more talk than your presence.”

  Chapter 3

  Marie’s heels clicked crisply down the school corridor, past the clusters of men and women in business suits and expensive hair cuts chatting, pumping hands and exchanging cards. Whispers followed her down the hall—he got the house ... he sold her car, did you hear? ... is he still ... mistressmistressmistress—pushing her toward what waited for her at the entrance to the gym, the double fireproof doors thrown open to her mother’s realm.

  Everyone here would be poorer by the end of the evening. That was small consolation to Marie, though, for being the object of everyone’s gossip.

  With that in mind, she had dressed carefully. Slim navy sheath, yellow linen cardigan. Both colors set off the copper highlights in her hair. She had even splurged on a new hairdryer. Her hair hung in soft, loose waves around her shoulders. She needed to look professional, stable, pulled together. Not like a woman who’d been cheated on and then tossed aside.

  She took a deep breath and pointed her chin forward, clutching the toy she was donating to her chest like a shield. Richard was standing like a sentry next to the entrance to the school’s gymnasium, expertly decorated for the night by her mother’s minions. As Eileen Witherspoon’s daughter, Marie was one notch above minion status.

  Richard’s posture was ramrod straight beneath his black suit, red tie, polished-to-a-mirror shoes. His blond hair was cropped short, as usual. He smiled and shook hands with each new arrival, made a few seconds of small talk—Richard was a natural politician. But as Marie approached, the welcoming light in his blue eyes darkened to dull contempt.

  “Ms. Witherspoon,” Richard said.

  “Senator Macintyre,” she replied. She held out her hand to shake his, like all the other guests, but he ignored it. Fine, whatever.

  “What did you bring?”

  She let him pry the box away from her chest. It was the newest version of a popular video game console.

  “Nice,” he said, then added, “expensive.”

  She shrugged. How she spent her money was no longer any of his business.

  “It looks like we’re going to have a good turnout tonight,” she said, subtly reminding him of her place in the solar system. She might be his scorned wife and their families might be continuing their alliance without her, but tonight she was here as Eileen Witherspoon’s daughter and a trusted staff member of Witherspoon & Associates. For most of the guests, their loyalty lay with her mother, not Senator Macintyre.

  She hurried away from him, her heels click-click-clicking against the polished wood gymnasium floor. Inside, she stopped for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dimmer light. The ceiling and walls were draped and shrouded with long swaths of velvet and silk. Upholstered chairs and settees were grouped throughout the gym where a teenaged Marie had played basketball and volleyball, albeit not well. Attractive, twentyish waiters and waitresses in black pants and ties ferried trays of hors d’oeuvres from one small cluster of guests to another. Marie had to hand it to her mother; there were few people in this world who could transform an ordinary school gymnasium into a venue people would pay $500—plus a toy—to come to. Marie had not inherited that ability, that was for sure.

  Just off from the center of the gym was a circle of tables manned by Marines in dress blues. Marie headed there first, dropped off the video game console, then went to the bar for a drink to salve her nerves. With a cool glass of sauvignon blanc firmly in hand, she made herself look busy by perusing the long tables along the back wall. There were four tables, each filled with bidding sheets for the silent auction. Apartments for a weekend in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London. Ski condos in Aspen, Killington, Tahoe. Limousine rentals, helicopter tours, spa days. Everything beyond Marie’s budget, of course, but a girl could dream.

  She sipped at her wine as she walked slowly down the line of tables, letting her eyes glide from clipboard to clipboard. Occasionally, a particularly large bid made her shake her head in wonder. She would never have the kind of money to bid thousands of dollars on a landscape architectural consultation or a family portrait painted by renowned French artist, Luc Marchand.

  Marie stopped in her tracks. She read the bidding sheet again, to be sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. Luc Marchand had donated something to her mother’s fundraiser?

  “Bonjour, Marie,” came a low voice, barely above a whisper, behind her.

  A pair of hands settled on her shoulders, their warmth seeping right through the thin linen fabric that should have protected her.

  “Making some bids?” he said.

  She turned to look at him. Luc Marchand was sharply dressed in a slim-cut black suit, white shirt and silvery gray tie. His dark hair had been combed into submission.

  “What are you—how do you know my mother?” she asked.

  He smiled a slow, lazy smile at her. “I don’t. A friend of mine went to school here. She talked me into donating a painting. Said it would be good publicity for me.”

  “It will. Plenty of wealthy people here tonight.”

  “I was surprised to see you here. You look lovely, I might add.”

  Marie’s face flamed. “Thank … thank you,” she stuttered. She looked back at the bidding sheet. “Is that what you charge for a painting? Twenty-five thousand?” She looked down at the last of the twelve bids already listed.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Impressive. What do you charge for drawing lessons?”

  He leaned in close to her ear. “I believe your lessons were a gift, no?”

  A lick of heat raced down her spine. What was it about a French accent, she wondered? There wasn’t time to wonder long, however; just then, a
tall thin woman with a riot of dark blonde curls appeared behind Luc.

  “Sorry about that, darling,” she said. “I had to go say hello to someone and when I turned around, you were gone.”

  Marie took what she hoped was a discreet step away from Luc. She hoped, too, that her cheeks had returned to their normal color. Of course, Luc Marchand wouldn’t be here alone. Anyone who looked like he did—and with a French accent, to boot—was probably never alone.

  “I came over here to check on the bidding,” he said to the woman, “and I ran into Marie here. She is contemplating taking lessons with me.”

  So he hadn’t forgotten about his ultimatum. You can come back when you have a good reason for taking up my time. Marie extended her hand to the woman. “Marie Witherspoon. Nice to meet you.”

  “Samantha Smith,” the woman replied. “Your mother does a lovely job with this event every year.”

  Great. Luc Marchand’s date knew her mother. Is there anyone who didn’t know her mother?

  “Yes, she does. Um, excuse me, I see my father over there.” Marie was five hurried steps away when Luc touched her elbow from behind.

  “Marie. Have you figured out why you want to take drawing lessons yet?”

  She looked up at his dark eyes, the hard set of his jaw. She swallowed hard. The question had been on her mind almost constantly since last week, but she had come up with nothing more impressive than the simple desire to draw. That, and she wanted to be kissed again.

  “No, I haven’t, Mr. Marchand. I’m sorry. I’ll try to give it some thought. I’ve been bus—”

  Luc Marchand reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “No need to apologize, Marie. I was just wondering.”

  As she walked away, she was pretty certain her hair was on fire where he touched it. It took every ounce of willpower not to peek back over her shoulder at him.

  Her father didn’t smile when she joined him at the toy table, a spot that guaranteed he’d see everyone who came by as they dropped off their donation. William Witherspoon was still a slender man, even in his sixties. Judicious use of Grecian formula kept his salt and pepper hair more pepper than salt.