If the Stiletto Fits...

Garnet pursed her lips. “That’s a good philosophy. Now, about the messages…I promise to e-mail them if he’ll take a look at this computer and those weird exclamation points.”

Her head still spinning from the tangents they’d veered off on, Lily glared down at her receptionist. “If that was the problem, why didn’t you just tell him that?”

Garnet glanced from side to side, then leaned forward and whispered, “Don’t tell anybody, but he kind of intimidates me sometimes.”

Lily could definitely relate. She and Garnet were talkers. James was most certainly not. She figured Garnet felt the same way she did—quiet people made her nervous. Dead silence was a space she was obligated to fill. “Okay, well, let’s see what we can do.”

“You’re going to help with the computer?”

“Hey, I did all this stuff on my own before you two got here.” Admittedly not too well, but she’d managed. She leaned toward the phone. “Let’s start with the voice mail. I’m extension one, James is extension two. When you need to forward a call to his voice mail you press this button, then this one.” Lily demonstrated with a pointing finger.

“And when I need to forward a call to you?”

She’d actually told most anyone she could think of to call her cell when they needed to get in touch with her. “Same thing, just press this—” She stopped and considered the phone pad and its myriad similar-looking buttons. “How about color-coded labels? Blue for James, pink for me.”

Garnet grabbed her arm. “Oh, that’s perfect.”

They spent a few minutes finding labels, cutting them into two small sections, then coloring them with Lily’s sketching pencils. Now that the buttons on the phone were colors instead of numbers, she could only pray Garnet would get things right. She couldn’t afford to piss off James and lose his host of office skills.

“Now for the e-mail.” Lily eyed the computer with innate distrust, then closed her eyes and pressed the spacebar. When she opened them, the dancing shoes had disappeared, and the main screen was in view. She double-clicked the e-mail program—and who, exactly, had come up with that redundant system?—then waited while the computer did whatever it did to accept mail.

A yellow caution sign with an exclamation point popped up in the middle of the screen. Lily stepped back. “Yikes.”

“Told ya.”

Lily linked her fingers behind her back. “Let’s just—” She scooted away from the computer. “Let’s just not touch this anymore. I’ll, uh…go tell James.”

“Better you than me.”

As Lily slinked away from Garnet’s station, she noted the receptionist had found an emery board and was filing her nails—hard at work as usual. Lily poked her head around the door frame to James’s office, told him about the problem, then darted to her workroom. She had designs to go over.

She spent the next several hours evaluating the sketches she’d made for the Spectacular. One designer wanted her signature color to be bright orange—a hue Lily could relate to—so she’d come up with orange dots, stripes and checks; orange patent leather, bows and wraparound straps; and, finally, orange logos of the designer’s crest.

After approving the sketches with her signature, she stretched her arms over her head. She had a lukewarm date to prepare for. Maybe she should get to it. She liked cute designer Brian Thurmond, but she considered them more friendly colleagues than about-to-connect lovers. She’d befriended him a couple of weeks ago at a fashion show, since she understood what it was like to want so badly to succeed, but still be floundering. And connections were gold in the fashion business.

She couldn’t find a ton of enthusiasm for the night out, though. He’d spent most of their last date trying—a little too obviously—to convince her to get him into the Spectacular.

She was on her way out the workroom door when Garnet called down the hall, “Li——ly!”

“I’m right here,” she said as she ground to a halt in the foyer. “We have an intercom, you know.”

Garnet smiled over her shoulder. “Oh. Forgot. Line one. It’s your sister.”

Suppressing a groan, Lily picked up the extension on the foyer table. “Hi, sis, you just caught me on my way out.” Well, she was going out—in about two hours, after she showered, redid her makeup, dressed and snacked.

“Out with who?” her older, bossier and nosier sister asked.

“A guy.” She knew her sister would never settle for that, so she added, “A fellow designer.”

“Do things look—” She broke off as something crashed in the background. “Jack Jr., get out of those cabinets!”

“Maybe you should check on him. I could let you go…”

“No, he’s fine. I was going to ask if things look promising between you and this guy.”

“I’m not going to marry him, if that’s what you mean.” Giving up the single life in the city wasn’t going to happen anytime soon—if ever.

“Lily, you really need to get busy. You’re twenty-eight, you know. When I was twenty-eight—”

“I know. You’d been married for eight years and had two kids already. I’m not you, Karen,” she added quietly.

She sighed. “Sorry. I’m nagging again. That’s my job.”

Lily smiled, relieved her sister wasn’t going to push. Neither of them were very good at understanding the other, but they were family, and that meant something that time, distance and differences in lifestyles could never erase. “And you do it well.”

“Thanks for the shoes, by the way. Though I pretended I didn’t know when Mom asked how much you charge customers for the ones you sent her.”

“Wise move.”

“And what was with that extra pair you sent me? The shiny black ones? The heels are way too high. Where in the world would I wear something like that?”

Her sister had great legs, but Lily wasn’t sure anyone but Karen had seen them in the last ten years. And Lily couldn’t think of anything more depressing than to not have anyplace to wear a great pair of new shoes. “To dinner with your husband.”

“In Redwood? Get real.”

“Then wear them for Jack around the house.”

“With what? Jeans and a sweatshirt?”

“Nothing.” She giggled. “I bet I get a thank-you card from Jack.”

She spoke with her nieces and nephews—two of each—and promised to plan a trip to Iowa to see them as soon as the Spectacular was over. Even though she wouldn’t have her sister’s life, she did enjoy visiting her nieces and nephews. Even when she didn’t fix her hair, makeup or wear designer clothes and shoes, they just adored her because she’d play Chutes and Ladders for hours on end.

As she hung up the phone, Lily said to Garnet, “I’m gone for the day if anybody asks.”

Garnet smacked her gum as she played solitaire on the computer. “Okay. Have fun.”

She walked down the hall, then through the door into her private apartment. She had a beautiful space on the twentieth floor that she’d separated into two areas for her offices and apartment. The building had a great uptown address, plus amenities like a small gym, concierge desk and uniformed doorman. Even James had been impressed with the space and had rented an apartment in the same building on the sixteenth floor.

As Lily walked into the den, she passed by the plush seating group covered in plum-and-gold fabric and headed toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that dominated one wall. The sun was just setting, and Manhattan lights were flicking on like fireflies. Soon the suits and briefcases would be replaced by glamorous gowns and bags. The shoppers would become diners. The nightclubs and bars would spring to life, keeping time with the endless pulse of the city.

Just as it had earlier, happiness moved through her. She really had a remarkable life. She didn’t have a two-hour commute from the outskirts of the city anymore. She didn’t even have to get dressed if she found inspiration in the middle of the night. She had great friends, a challenging career and she’d achieved a level of both creative and financial success that most people would envy.

So, if—every once in a while—she felt as if her life was missing something, she managed to find a project, a new friend, a shopping trip or a party to fill it.

She’d dreamed of this life ever since she was five, and her grandmother had taken them all on a trip to the city. They’d seen a Broadway play, done the tours of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and all the rest. It had been the most magical five days of Lily’s life. She’d come home with a snow globe and the statue inside. She’d gone to bed every night staring at it and wishing for the day she’d finally become a New Yorker.

Waving off the small, lingering slice of emptiness, Lily strode into her bedroom, which she’d decorated in calming creams and golds. Her favorite piece in the apartment was her cherry, four-poster bed. A decorator had helped her pick out a plush duvet and lots of pillows in various sizes and shapes, then hung white fabric along the railings between posts, so she could literally close out the world if she wanted.