Gossip by Beth Gutcheon Page A

in early from lunch one day soon after and found one of my best customers in a dressing room with Marylin.
    I said, “Mrs. Rawson, I’m so sorry—did we have an appointment?”
    She looked embarrassed, and her eyes met Marylin’s in the mirror. Who said snippily, “She just happened to pop in, Loviah, and you weren’t here, so of course I offered to help.”
    I thanked her and withdrew. I went to check my book immediately to be sure I hadn’t forgotten a date with her. Then I went to check Marylin’s book, and saw C. C. Rawson in ink for the hour I usually take lunch.
    I was furious. I did something I never do: called my friend at his office. He wasn’t in and I didn’t leave a message, but I was pretty sure his assistant knew my voice, and I was embarrassed I’d done it. One of my appeals for my friend was that I was “always a lady,” and a lady does not make her beloved a subject for gossip among his staff. I called Dinah and said I was mad enough to spit hot nails and she said, “Come right over.”
    She took me to her gym and we swam laps. It was marvelously therapeutic. Then we sat in the steam room like oriental pashas. I kept my towel daintily wrapped around my waist, but Dinah had hers around her beautiful strong dark hair, magnificently at ease with her gleaming naked body in spite of its increasing heft. Where does a person get that kind of confidence?
    The steam room was empty except for us, and I fumed about Marylin, her oppressive perfume, her underhandedness, and her smutty jokes, which her ladies seemed to love. “I hope she tells Mrs. Rawson the one about why dogs lick themselves,” I said darkly, and Dinah hooted and said, “Why don’t we ask her for a sleepover and get her bra wet and put it in the freezer?” One way or another she got me laughing. Then we got giddy and couldn’t stop, especially when we discovered what the steam had done to the hair spray in my helmet hair. I might as well have slept in chewing gum.
    It was Dinah’s idea that I should go out on my own. “You have friends who will back you,” she said. “Frankly, I have friends who will back you.”
    â€œYou do? Why would they?”
    â€œBecause you’re very good at what you do, you stupid nit. And because not everyone wants to shop at Saks Fifth Avenue. Some people want more privacy. And they don’t want to wear all the same labels their friends wear. At a department store you’ll always be only as good as the buyer. Why not be your own buyer?”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œThink of the look on Marylin’s face when you tell her,” she said. Oh, she is so good at knowing people’s weaknesses.
    â€œWhat do I know about running a business?”
    â€œAnd you’re too dumb to learn?”
    I remember feeling that Dinah was going to tell me to jump off a cliff and I was going to do it. She likes action. She likes it when things happen and she gets to watch. And I like to please her.
    I jumped.

Chapter 9
    E ven I knew how badly Grace Metcalf wanted a dog. Or a cat, but her mother was allergic to cats. Her father loved animals but was certainly going to be no help in taking care of one, and Avis didn’t see how a nine-year-old . . . ten-year-old . . . eleven-year-old could take care of raising and training a puppy and walking it at all hours by herself, even if Grace was unusually responsible for her age.
    Since she’d become a full partner with Gordon Hall, Avis traveled a great deal. “I’m so sorry, darling. I hate to be away from you,” she would say, kissing Grace good-bye as she headed for the airport to fly to Dublin, or Amsterdam, or Basel. It wasn’t ideal, but it was challenging work, which she welcomed, and she needed the money, since Harrison had lost the last of his investment clients.
    Victor Greenwood was collecting Old Masters with a vengeance