Cheating at Solitaire (Cheating at Solitaire 1)

"Where's Harvey?" Julia asked abruptly. She picked up her cell phone and held it toward the windows as if there, in the middle of Manhattan, she might not have a signal. "Has Harvey called you?"

"I'm sure he'll call."

"I want my credibility back, Candon. I want it back, and I want it back now."

"We don't know it's been damaged. Let's look at the numbers and see."

"I don't care what the numbers say." She stood and slammed the newspaper, photo up, onto the table in front of him. "A picture's worth a thousand words."

***

Lance's eyes were starting to adjust to the dark shades that he didn't dare take off. He'd passed no fewer than ten newsstands, each one overflowing with pictures of him and a woman he barely knew. After the third person congratulated him on "getting some of that," he'd darted into a market and bought cheap sunglasses and a NY baseball cap. But even in the elevator alone, Lance couldn't remove his disguise. He didn't like the person he'd become overnight. That morning, his grin was on every newsstand in America, but Lance didn't feel like smiling.

The elevator doors opened to reveal the usual purgatory outside the office of Poindexter-Stone. Eager actors lined the walls, so Lance pulled the cap lower and turned up the collar of his jacket and tried to bolt toward the door, hoping to fly by so quickly that none of his compatriots could aim and fire. He wasn't ten feet away from the elevator when he heard the first whoop.

"There he is, the man of the hour."

"Way to go, Lance!"

"Don't forget the little people, man."

"Does she have a friend?"

Lance should have had a smile and a comeback for each bit of locker-room banter, but all he could think of was reaching the door and strangling Richard Stone. He hurled himself into the office, slammed the door, and pressed his back against it as if trying to stem the tide of "atta boy" that flowed from the other side.

Tammy must have called in sick, or quit, because she wasn't there. If not for the calendar on the wall, Lance might have sworn it had been twenty years since he'd last set foot in that room. Everything looked a little bit different and a little bit the same, especially the woman who was on the phone, reading Tammy's magazine, looking exactly like the receptionist's future self. Unlike Tammy, this woman bolted to her feet at the sight of Lance, sliding her office chair back so quickly that it rolled into the table behind her and knocked over a stack of foam cups and left a pot of thick coffee sloshing like toxic sludge.

"Oh!" she stuttered. "It's you!"

Lance quickly glanced at her left hand. No ring. This woman was single and, he guessed, a Julia James disciple. How, he wondered, were women taking the news that their crown princess was off the market, thanks to him?

He eased toward the woman and took his cap off, for politeness' sake. The sunglasses, however, he kept on. "Is Richard here?" he asked, not quite recognizing his own voice, as if he'd somehow put a disguise on that, too.

"Where is he? Where's my golden boy?" Richard Stone virtually leapt into view like a Broadway extra—the only thing missing was the jazz hands. "Come here, you beautiful boy. Is this kid photogenic or what?" He pulled a tall stack of newspapers from her desk, and holding one toward Future Tammy, he asked, "I mean, can this kid take a picture? Look at those teeth. What do we have here—braces, caps?" He stepped toward Lance and tried to look in his mouth like a trainer inspecting a Thoroughbred.

"I need to talk to you," Lance said, slapping Richard's hands away.

"Great," Richard said, oblivious to the tension in Lance's voice. "Gotta strike while the iron is hot. Glad to see you get it." He stepped toward the filing cabinets and the hallway behind them. "Babe," he said to Future Tammy. "Hold my calls."

Richard Stone's office was surprisingly clean. If it had been two days earlier, Lance would have taken that as a sign of professionalism, and he would have ignored the mayhem of the hall and the lobby. He would have convinced himself that his career was going somewhere. But in the last twenty-four hours, he had developed the perspective he needed to see Richard and his office for what they really were—sparse and empty.

"Take a load off." Richard walked behind an enormous desk and sat down. But Lance didn't take the seat in front of him. He didn't move at all.

"Your legs broke?" Richard asked, impatience creeping into his voice. "Sit."

Lance stayed standing. "Whatever you started yesterday, you need to find a way to stop it."

"Excuse me?" Richard asked, jerking his head like he'd had water in his ears and hadn't heard correctly. "What did you say?"

"They're lies. Take them back," Lance said, growing stronger.

"Take them back? I hate to break it to you, Romeo, but this isn't second grade."

"She's a nice woman," Lance shot back. "We shared a cab and bought some toys, and now she's suing my ass!"

Richard stood, but with his small stature, standing behind the enormous desk made him appear even less powerful. "Are you growing a conscience on me?" he cried. "It's a tuna-fish world, and I'm offering you filet mignon, and you're growing a conscience?" He held up a stack of movie scripts and shuffled through them like a deck of cards, flashing the cover sheets as if asking Lance to pick a card, any card. "You see the names on these? You see the parts I have for you?"

The roles and projects that passed before Lance's eyes were, in a word, legitimate. Not B-level films or infomercials. Far better actors had started with far less. It would take one, just one . . . Lance felt himself reach for a script, but then he snapped back into the moment. "It's over. No deal."

"You don't even know her," Richard cajoled.

"Uh, yeah," Lance snapped. "That's kind of the point."

"This is America. Land of the tabloid. Home of E! Entertainment Television. There's no such thing as bad publicity! She owes you. You"—Richard pointed a Vienna sausage-shaped finger at Lance—"owe me."

When Lance turned to leave, Richard yelled out, "I can get you a baked potato to go with that steak." Lance took another step. "You're doing her a favor."

Lance wheeled and yelled, "You don't even know her!"

With eyebrows raised in the ultimate portrayal of irony, Richard said, "Neither do you." He sank back onto the throne of Poindexter-Stone and continued. "A buddy of mine in the book business just called. Her stuff is flying off the shelves, single-day sales records all over the place. Rumor has it they're gonna ink a seven-figure deal this afternoon. All because of our little project." "I don't believe it!"

"Oh, believe it," the little man said. "Thanks to you, she's Cinderella."

***

The temperature had dropped, and the weather forecasters predicted that a late-spring snowstorm could blow in overnight. But when Julia wrapped a scarf around her head, it was as much to keep hidden as to keep warm. She pulled her hands into the hot-pink mittens Cassie had given her for Christmas, so when her cell phone rang, she had to struggle to flip the tiny device open and say hello.

"Julia?" the soft voice asked, and she almost couldn't make out her own name amid the noises of the city.

With her hands cupped around her ears, she replied, "Yes?"

"Julia, dear, it's Francesca." Then a mental image popped into Julia's mind to match the voice on the phone. Harvey's Francesca, the delicate, beautiful woman who had been her agent's world for more than forty years.

Julia darted into an apartment building alcove, ignored the stares of the doorman, and listened closely.

"Dear, I got your messages. ..." "Francesca, I've got to talk to Harvey. Could you ..." "No." Her response jolted Julia. "No, dear, that's why I'm calling. Harvey's in the hospital."

Hospital?

"He went to get the paper this morning and had a heart attack at the newsstand."

Shock forced Julia against the wall. She leaned against the glass doors, not caring about the mitten print she was leaving on the pristine glass. "Francesca"—she stumbled for words— "I'm so sorry. Is he ..." How do you ask a woman this about her husband? Julia wondered. "Is he . . ."

"He's resting. The doctors say that's what he needs after surgery. No visitors," she added quickly. "By the way, dear, congratulations."

"Oh, Francesca—"

"It's a lovely picture. Harvey was clutching a copy when . . . the paramedics saved it for him."

When this is over, Julia thought, I'm going to need a very good shrink.

Back on the street, Julia began a list of reasons she shouldn't walk in front of a bus. Harvey wasn't a young man. In a city full of walkers and joggers and yoga-ers, she'd seen him break a sweat while heading to the bathroom. It was ridiculous to think that she had caused his heat attack. Then she rounded a corner and passed a newsstand, and her own heart nearly stopped beating.

Her cell phone rang, and she opened it quickly, anxious for news.

"Hi." It was a voice she recognized immediately. Surely he wasn't calling her. Surely no one in their right mind had given Lance Collins her private number. "Hello?" he said. "I was calling for Julia—"

"There is no way you are calling me."

"We need to talk."

She snapped the phone shut.

On the street in front of the Ritz, there were no reporters in sight, but Julia sensed them lurking like zits under the surface of her skin. She quickened her step almost to a jog, then she slowed instinctively. The last thing she needed was a picture of her running in pumps on the front page of the next day's papers, the headline: JULIA JAMES RUNS TO LOVE! or DON'T HURRY LOVE! or STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE! The potential plays on words were endless. She wasn't about to give any pun-happy junior editor an easy gem to print in eighteen-point font.

She made it inside and to the elevator, and pushed the button. Button lights up; this is good, Julia thought. Elevator doors open, good. Turn left. Fumble with key. Not good—who created these cheap little plastic card things? Red light. What does the red light mean? She tried the card again. Another red light.

A door behind her opened and closed. A voice cried out, "Oh, my goodness!"

A fan, Julia thought. Of all the times and all the places . . .

She plunged the card into its electronic lock once more.

"I heard the news and I . . ." The woman behind her struggled for words. "It's just. . . you've always meant so much to me and . . ."

Red light.

"... new hope. Such an inspiration. I mean, if you can find love, then anyone can."

Hey! Julia forgot about the lock momentarily. I think I'm offended, she thought, suddenly feeling like the Quasimodo of the self-help section.

She knew she should begin a one-woman PR campaign in the hotel hallway, but at that moment, all she really wanted was to be on the other side of that door.

"I'm sorry, but..." she started, when, to her amazement, she felt the door handle turn, opening from the inside. Stunned, she turned and came face-to-face with Lance Collins.