Valentine (4 page)

Jill. As he worked, he remembered the night they’d met, almost a year ago now. The crowded, noisy dance club on Seventh Avenue South, the hot spot of the moment. She was wearing a short, tight red dress. She sat at a tiny table near the strobe-lit dance floor, smiling around at the room as her friend, Tara Summers, danced with her date. Jill was alone: he’d ascertained that immediately. She was sort of nodding her head in time to the deafening music bursting from the sound system as she sipped her drink. He later learned that Tara had coerced her into coming.
Tara—a television actress, as it turned out—was apparently on a one-woman campaign to find boyfriends for both of them. But he wouldn’t find that out that night: all he knew was that she was briefly alone at the table, and that she was beautiful.

He’d edged his way through the crowd to stand beside her chair. He was preparing to ask her to dance when fate intervened. A boisterous man bumped into him, and his drink spilled on the front of his shirt. The man was loudly apologizing when he heard the soft giggle, and a cocktail napkin hovered in front of his face. He looked down to see her holding it up.

“Here,” she said with a lovely smile. “I think you could use this.”

They both laughed as he wiped his shirt.

“Thanks. It sure is crowded in here.”

“Yes. And they all have drinks in their hands.”

“Dangerous.”

“Apparently.”

This got them both laughing again. He leaned down, extending his hand. “Nathaniel Levin. Nate to my friends. I owe you one.”

Still grinning, she took his hand briefly in hers. “Jillian Talbot. Jill to my friends.”

He stared. “Not Jillian Talbot, the author!”

Her eyes widened as she blushed. Then she laughed again, a low, musical sound. “Guilty, officer.”

He smiled, his face a picture of surprise. “I just read your new book! It’s terrific! I mean, no kidding!” Then he reddened. “Oh, God, that sounds like such a line—”

And they were both laughing again.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she said. “So, what do you, um, do . . .?”

“I’m an artist. A painter. Would you like to dance? I mean, well, it
would
help me dry my shirt. . . .”

“Oh, all right. I don’t want you to catch a cold. . . .”

They laughed as he led her out onto the packed dance floor, and as they danced, and later, as she introduced him to Tara Summers and her date. They’d sat close together at the tiny table, and he’d finally gotten up the courage to invite her to his very first show at the Henry Jason Gallery on Spring Street. He was careful to invite her friends as well.

She had come to the opening party at the gallery. That, he supposed now, was his first official date with Jill.

Jill . . .

Omigod,
Jill!
He glanced swiftly down at his wristwatch: twenty to seven. He was supposed to be there in twenty minutes. He looked back at the canvas and back at his watch, commanding himself to put down the brush and move.

He was out the side door to the hallway, up the stairs, and in the shower when the phone rang. Dripping,
he lunged out of the cramped bathroom into the cramped living room/bedroom and retrieved the phone from under the pillows of the unmade Castro convertible, where he’d last stashed it.

“Nathaniel Levin Studio,” he gasped into the receiver.

“Hello, Nathaniel Levin Studio,” came the crisp, humorous reply. “This is the office of Jillian Talbot, Author. We have a date for dinner, remember? Or has your Muse ensnared you for the evening?”

“No, honey, I just lost track of the time. I’m on my way.”

“It’s okay if you want to work, Nate. But I
did
finally get Tara to agree to—”

“Good. Doug will arrive on schedule for her inspection, or I’ll know why. I’m on my way.”

“You already said that—oh! Pick up some Pinot Grigio on your way over, but just one bottle; I’m not drinking these days.”

“Right. I’m on my way.”

“Stop saying that! Besides, haste will not avail you. You’re in the doghouse, my friend.”

“Huh?”

“There’s the little matter of a certain greeting card and a certain
sinister
phone message—oh, never mind. But I did
not
appreciate your sick, deviant sense of humor, especially if it was aimed at my new novel.” He heard her laughing as she tried to be severe.

“What? What the hell are you—”

“Forget it. I’ll scream at you later. You’re on your way, remember?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m on my way.”

He replaced the receiver and stood for a moment, staring down at it. Then, with a shrug, he jumped back into the shower.

Seven minutes later he emerged from the entrance next to the gated storefront in a thick fisherman’s sweater and black jeans under his favorite bomber jacket. He donned a scarf and driving gloves, then pulled his gleaming black motorcycle helmet over his head. The roar of the powerful engine briefly startled the other residents of the block, not one of whom, he was convinced, spoke English. Ukrainian, mostly—if Ukrainian was a language. He glanced around at the Russian—oops,
Ukrainian
—restaurants and markets that made up the rest of his neighborhood, chuckled, and took off up First Avenue in the direction of Ninth Street.

Four minutes later—after much bobbing and weaving and dodging taxis and crosstown buses in the freezing winter streets—he leaped from the Honda in front of her building, locked it securely, chained both wheels, and dashed down to the comer of Hudson. He bought wine at the liquor store, along with a pricey brandy for dessert—or the Dating Game, as he’d come to think of it. Then, taking a deep breath,
he sprinted back down the block to arrive on her doorstep at the stroke of seven.

He pushed open the door and reached for the buzzer, unaware that he had been watched from the moment his motorcycle had roared into the street, oblivious of the eyes that studied him as he went inside and the door swung shut behind him.

“Well, if that isn’t the damnedest thing,” Nate said.

“Yes,” Jill whispered.

The two of them were sitting in the living room, staring down at the bright pink envelope. After a moment of silence, he reached down and picked it up. He held it rather gingerly as he inspected it, front and back.

“New York postmark,” he said. “Dated yesterday. American Greeting Company—God, Jill, it’s two weeks to Valentine’s Day. There must be a zillion of these things in every card shop and drugstore in America.”

“Yes,” she repeated. She leaned back against the couch and took a deep breath, willing herself to think clearly. Joke, she told herself. It’s obviously a joke. Lighten up, Talbot. But, if not Nate, then who . . .? She watched as he removed the card and studied it.

“‘I’m watching you,’” he read, and his dark brows came together as he frowned. “You don’t suppose Tara—”

“Of course not!” she cried. “This is New York, Nate. A violent crime is committed against a woman about once every twenty minutes. Maybe an extremely stupid
man
would think this was amusing, but no woman would even consider it.”

He raised his hands in defense. “All right, all right. It’s just that you said the voice on the answering machine might have been a woman—”

“It might have been
anyone
,” she said.

Then, as the import of her words registered, they looked at each other, eyes widening. There was a long pause.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “John Hinckley.”

“Now, Jill, let’s not jump to anything,” he said quickly. “It’s just some kind of—I don’t know, but it’s just a card.”

“What about the phone message?” she asked, leaning closer and taking his hand in hers.

He squeezed. “You didn’t recognize the voice?”

“No. Whoever it was went to a lot of trouble to disguise it. God, I shouldn’t have erased it!”

Nate leaned forward, and she noticed that he was studying her face as he spoke. “I think I read somewhere that nine times out of ten you know these people. Any ideas?”

She lowered her gaze to the card on the table, shaking her head. “No. Not really. At first . . .” She shook her head again. “No.”

“Come on, Jill,” he insisted. “At first, what?”

She took a breath and looked up at him. “At first, I thought it might be my stepfather.”

She watched as his eyes widened again. Then the doorbell rang.

In one swift move, Jill snatched up the card from the coffee table, thrust it in the drawer of the end table next to the couch, and headed for the dining area. “That’ll be Tara. Answer it, will you? And not a word about any of this.”

Nate nodded and went to the door as she cleared the dinner plates and glasses from the table and hurried into the kitchen. The plates went into the dishwasher and the glasses into the sink as she heard the light laugh that always announced her downstairs neighbor’s rather theatrical arrivals.

“Nate, darling! I’m here, as instructed. How nice of you to provide me with my very first blind date! Is he here yet? Do I look all right? And where on earth is our very own
femme des lettres?
Oh, don’t look so perplexed, dear; they’re just rhetorical questions.”

Jill was already laughing as she came out of the kitchen to greet Tara Summers, taking in the stunning sight: the revealing white dress and the long, long, tawny mane of hair that was the envy of every housewife in America Monday to Friday afternoon from one-thirty to two o’clock. Jill had met the actress
in the elevator shortly after both had moved here, and they had instantly liked one another. Now Jill considered her neighbor to be one of her closest friends.

“Hello, Tara,” she said. “My, for someone with an unmentionable disease whose husband just left her for another woman, I must say you’re looking very well.”

“Oh, please!” the actress shrieked as Nate led her over to the couch. “I’ve told you a thousand times not to watch that trash. Besides, that disease is no longer unmentionable. Not on daytime TV, at any rate. Hell, half the time we’re not even wearing any clothes. . . .”

Jill laughed again as she sank onto the couch beside her friend. She was still laughing a few minutes later, when Doug Baron joined them.

Doug was a tall, dark, handsome type with an easy grin and a quiet disposition that immediately attracted Tara’s attention. Nate had met him a couple of weeks earlier at the gallery where he would soon be showing his new paintings, and they had become pals. Tonight was the first time Jill was meeting him, and she wasn’t sure what she thought of him. She took in the string tie and snakeskin boots, the ponytail and the two-day growth of beard and the earring and all the other accoutrements of the hip, downtown scene she’d never quite warmed up to. What
is it? she wondered. There’s something rather
intense
about the way he looks at everyone. . . .

“So, you’re a photographer,” she said, handing him coffee and brandy. “What sort of pictures do you take?”

“Oh, all kinds,” he drawled in his slow, vaguely Southern accent. “Landscapes, cityscapes—I just did a series of portraits—”

“Nude portraits, or so he told me,” Nate informed the women, grinning.

“Oh, dear,” Tara muttered. “You’re not one of
those
photographers, are you?”

Everyone laughed. Jill watched the handsome man with the deep brown eyes, waiting for his reply.

“No,” he said, smiling around at them all. “Most of my models were men, and I don’t use that ‘I’m a photographer’ line to get women out of their clothes.” He turned to the actress next to him on the couch. “Actually, I haven’t been dating lately, period. I—I’m a widower, you see, and I haven’t really thought much about . . .” He trailed off with a shrug and a little smile.

Jill immediately relaxed. A widower: that explained the faraway quality that had initially disturbed her. She glanced over at Nate. He caught her eye, communicating that this was as much a surprise to him as it was to the two women. Then she watched, amused, as Tara immediately transformed
herself from the soignée actress to the role she’d played two years ago in summer stock, Maria von Trapp in
The Sound of Music
.

From then on, everything went smoothly. Jill served the pecan pie and ice cream, and the brandy and coffee were steadily poured. Nate told some of his favorite awful jokes, and Tara became such a perfect combination of girl-next-door and nurturing maternal type that Jill half expected her to break out in a rousing chorus of “The Lonely Goatherd.” By the end of the evening, Doug and a delighted Tara had made a date for dinner, Nate had indicated with elaborate hand signals that he would spend the night, and she had completely forgotten about the card in the end table drawer.

At last their friends were dispatched, Tara to her apartment directly below Jill’s and Doug to wherever it was that he lived. It was snowing again outside, and she and Nate lingered on the couch, holding hands and watching the gentle flurries outside and discussing the romantic possibilities between Doug and Tara. After a while, they got up and went into her bedroom. As usual, she left a light on in the living room.

She did not lower the shade on the front window.

He watched as Jillian Talbot stood up, took Nate by the hand, and led him away toward the bedroom
at the back of the apartment. Then he lowered the binoculars, switched on the lamp next to the armchair he’d pulled over to the window, and opened the fresh pack of Marlboros.