"Yay-yuh," Maybelle drawled. "And there was somethin' a little threatnin' about these here teeth." She parted her lips to grasp tiny white incisors. "We had 'em filed down some. I told him if he looked less vicious he might act less vicious." And then she was right back to her obsession. "Course, I realize this woman you're talkin' about would be waitin' 'til after the trial-"
"There's not going to be a trial," Mallory cut in.
"Hold still," said the makeup artist.
"Course there's not gonna be a trial, but jes' supposin' there was a trial, she'd want to wait 'til after, but Kevin's tellin' me she says it's permanent."
"She has caps," Mallory said through closed lips. "That's the problem."
"But why'd she open her mouth and throw back her head?" the makeup artist persisted.
"Because," Mallory whistled through her teeth, "she was dyeing her hair red-"
"You can open your mouth now."
"-dyeing her hair red for the part of Annie Ado in a community theater production of Oklahoma, and she took a sudden notion to rehearse 'I Can't Say No.'"
"Thanks. I feel better knowing."
"What about the caps?" Maybelle was sticking to the topic.
"You can whiten teeth but you can't whiten porcelain caps," Mallory said.
"Way-ell, I'll be danged," Maybelle said. "Sure am glad the president has all his own teeth."
"There," said the makeup artist, "look at yourself."
Mallory had to admit the colors were subtle. The Be Prepared Pink kit had instantly struck a chord with her. The only thing she minded was that a lot of the kit had been transferred to her face, layered on top of moisturizer, concealer and brush-on foundation. She felt filled and frosted like a cake.
Buying them-she would hate that, too, when the time came to reimburse Maybelle. But her eyelashes were the worst blow. "People will think they're fake," she hissed to Maybelle, not wanting to hurt the makeup artist's feelings.
Maybelle sighed. "Oh, hon, you are nearly hopeless. You really are. But if you think I'm giving up on you, forget it. We're going to hit on something that makes you feel sexy, and that's all there is to it."
Mallory turned slowly to face her instead of the mirror. "What did you say?"
"Why, that's all this is about. You're as cute and feminine as you can be. I'm just lookin' for something that will make y'all feel that way."
"But I-"
"How'd y'all get to be like this anyhow?" Maybelle went from exasperated fellow-woman to counselor in a split second. "I don't usually get into the Freudian stuff, but I'm thinkin' in your case it might be intrestin' to know how you got your idea of what a woman was s'posed to be."
It stunned Mallory. Slowly she reached deep into her voluminous handbag, the handbag of an efficient woman who believes in Being Prepared. Carter had found her credit card before he'd gotten down to the bottom, where for some reason she'd been carrying her mother's latest book. In case she needed it, she supposed, and she needed it now. She pulled it out and thrust it at Maybelle.
"Read this," she said. "It will save us a world of time."
"Goody, bedtime readin'. Who wrote it?" Maybelle said, holding the book away from her, apparently to see it better.
"My mother."
"That should be intrestin'. Thanks, hon, I'll read it for sure. Here's your makeup." Although Mallory hadn't seen money or plastic change hands, the salesperson had produced a bag filled with makeup, which Maybelle handed to Mallory. "Go home and hit this guy with your new face. See what happens. Let's meet here again tomorrow night. We seem to be doin' better here than we do at the office." She frowned. "It maybe them horns. The president looked a little scared when he saw 'em, too. Maybe I need me a less fancy desk."
And she was gone. She hadn't worn the llama coat tonight. The coat that was slowly receding up the escalator looked more like panda bears sewn together. Mallory watched until the last sliver of pansy-tooled boot vanished, then turned back to the makeup artist. "Don't I need to pay you for these?"
"Oh, no. It's taken care of."
"I can't let her go on buying things I'll have to pay for later," Mallory said, losing her natural need for discretion in the panic that set in. "I don't know the price of anything I've bought in the last two days. I could be bankrupt and not even realize it."
"Oh," the girl said, dismissing this idea with a wave of a perfect frosted-copper-tipped hand, "don't worry about it. Let Maybelle have her fun."
"I can't help liking her," Mallory said even more desperately, "but there's a limit to how much fun I can afford to let her have."
Now the girl actually laughed. "You may end up not paying for anything," she said.
"What?"
"You don't know about Maybelle, do you?"
"She has many, many diplomas," Mallory said grimly.
"She has many, many sections of Texas land, too," the girl said. "She inherited them when her husband died."
"How big's a section?"
"How would I know?" the girl said. "But it's a lot of acres, and some of them are right outside of town. In fact, they kind of sneak into the town. Pretty far into the town." Her grin was widening, and now she was just a cute, nice girl who was really, really good with makeup.
"Which town?"
"Dallas."
"Ah-h-h."
"Yeah, and the ones out in West Texas where Maybelle actually lived were so full of oil they weren't good for much else." She giggled.
"Oil," Mallory breathed out another "ah-h-h."
"I'm talking a lot of oil. Maybelle said it got 'right depressin' livin' with the smell.'" The girl laughed outright. "I told her that was the kind of depression I didn't need Wellbutrin for."
"So I guess she has a charge account here, and she just"
"The salespeople get a little orientation session on Maybelle when they start working at Bergdorf's," the girl said. "Maybelle takes, we add it up and send it up to bookkeeping, bookkeeping talks to her accountant and her accountant sends money. Everybody's happy."
Mallory was reduced to muttering inanities like, "I see. Uh-huh. Umm." She thanked the girl for the information and was pulling herself together to drift away when the girl said, "I put some instructions in the bag. I'm not sure you were paying attention while I was doing your face."
"Thank you," Mallory said. "I wasn't."
"Well, don't worry. Any problems, come back to me. I can fix the little stuff,Maybelle can fix the big stuff."
"You really think so?"
A mysterious expression settled over the girl's face. "I'll bet you a Pink Pearl lip gloss when that president she's counseling gets reelected."
8
Feel sexy. Mallory was still obsessing on the idea as she took the escalator up from the cosmetics level to the first floor. There she paused, thinking, making a plan. Until that magical moment she began to feel sexy inside, how was she going to make any headway with Carter? Maybe she needed a prop, just the way Carter needed that pen to worry between his fingers as if it were a cigarette. She walked slowly toward the front doors on Fifth Avenue, thinking what that prop might be, and remembered the mistletoe she'd admired on the Christmas floor at Bloomingdale's. Bergdorf's would surely have mistletoe, too.
Mallory found the elevators and went to the eighth floor, stepping out into another fantasy world of heavily decorated trees on which everything was for sale, trees and all. And there, hanging in a doorway, was a ball of mistletoe that was, if anything, bigger, greener-and more expensive-than the mistletoe at Bloomingdale's.
A few minutes later, she owned a ball of mistletoe. Seen from a different perspective, she owned something from Bergdorf's she'd actually paid for.
As soon as she stepped through the door of the suite, she discovered that she and Carter also owned a Christmas tree. It was a tiny, live tree in a beribboned terra-cotta pot, and someone had placed it on the small round table they could use for dining if they ever dined in. She assumed it was a special holiday courtesy of the St. Regis until she noticed the gift card.
"From a friend," it said. "May your Christmas wishes come true."
Probably one of Carter's women, she thought despondently. It smelled nice, though. Her mother's trees didn't smell at all. Nothing in her mother's house smelled of anything but bleach, ammonia or baking soda, the thrifty housewife's cleaning supplies. The Christmas tree, dutifully put up one week before Christmas and taken down on January 1, was, of course, fake.
She wondered what Maybelle would make of her mother's book. She'd know soon, because anything Maybelle thought was bound to come out of her mouth, and sooner rather than later.
With a sigh for what might have been, she lined up her new makeup on the marble counter in her bathroom and opened the mistletoe box. The ball of greenery came with its own little hanger, so she dragged a chair over to reach the archway that led to her bedroom door.
Then she hesitated, thought a minute, playing out the scene in her head. It would look too obvious if she backed him up toward her own bedroom door, so instead, she dragged the chair over to the arch that led to his bedroom door.
Who said she didn't need to travel with a tool kit? Newly grateful for her mother's wisdom, she went to work. It wasn't easy to install the hanger in the woodwork, and it was entirely possible the hotel would charge her for damages, but she reminded herself again that for the moment, money was no object.
It looked beautiful up there, and with the tree, the suite had taken on a wonderfully Christmassy air.
Now she could focus on the case until Carter came home. Assuming she could see through her eyelashes.
"Interest rates are falling, the after-tax spread between munis, corporates and treasuries is narrowing dramatically and I personally feel this trend is going to continue."
"Uh-huh," Carter said. He was having sweetbreads tonight at a downtown restaurant-Chanterelle-because Mallory's sweetbreads had looked good the night before. These were the best he'd ever eaten. Brie's conversation, on the other hand, was not lighting his fire.
"We're expecting some very attractive new offerings from municipalities across the country. Highly rated, Carter, and in your tax bracket-" she frowned with apparent concern "-you really should be thinking of investing in them."