The Girl in the Face of the Clock (9 page)

“Great girl. Fabulous.”

“Everybody is crazy about her,” Elinore rattled on, “works for this nonprofit, with the environment and all. What time's your flight?”

“Ten-thirty,” said Jane, removing Elinore's hand from her sleeve and resisting the urge to break the woman's wrist in the process. Other diners were looking up from their food in annoyance with looks that said, “Go, already.”

“You're going to think about what I said, aren't you?” said Elinore as Jane began walking away. “Aren't you?”

Jane shot a frozen smile over her shoulder and practically knocked over a table as she made her way to the door.

“Call me when you get back,” shouted Elinore across the room as Jane escaped into the night.

She promised herself that it would be a long, long time before she saw Elinore King again.

“The captain has turned off the ‘fasten your seat belt' sign,” said the soft voice of the stewardess over the loudspeaker. “You are now free to move around the cabin if you like.”

“It's what's called a lighthouse clock,” said Perry Mannerback happily. “The dial is rather like that of an old-fashioned alarm clock, but it sits under this high glass dome atop a cylindrical mahogany base. The whole affair is a few feet tall and looks like a lighthouse, hence the name.”

Jane smiled. Perry had been talking nonstop about the clock they were flying out to see since he had picked her up this morning. This was the third time he had described it for her, but it was impossible not to get drawn into his excitement. Judging from the beatific look in his eyes right now, Jane was willing to bet that he was getting ready to tell her again about the clock's maker, Simon Willard, who had belonged to a family of clockmakers in early nineteenth-century Massachusetts.

Jane was dressed in comfortable clothes for the long flight, jeans and a long-sleeve cotton rugby shirt. Perry had on his usual dapper outfit: black blazer, gray slacks, robin's egg blue vest. His only concession to comfort was the ascot he wore in lieu of a tie. Jane had never seen anyone in real life wear an ascot. On Perry it somehow looked natural.

They were seated at the front of the first-class cabin. Perry had taken the window seat and made “vroom-vroom” noises during takeoff. Jane had sipped her complimentary orange juice and enjoyed the wide reclining seat, about as far from the cramped contraptions in coach as a La-Z-Boy was from a bicycle seat. Two paperback Shaw plays were stashed in a carry-on bag under the seat in front of her, but Jane had the feeling that between Perry Mannerback's clock lectures and the in-flight movie, she wasn't going to have much chance to read. Maybe she'd try after the layover that the plane was scheduled to make in St. Louis.

“The lighthouse clock was Simon Willard's last invention and is quite rare,” said Perry excitedly. “It was a terrible flop actually, the Edsel of clocks, but now everyone wants one. There's even one in the White House. Did I tell you about the Willards? There were plenty of great British clockmakers running around during Georgian times, you see, but in America such artisans were rare and the Willards were the absolute tops. They were a whole family of clockmakers. There was Simon—who also invented the banjo clock, of course—Benjamin, Ephraim …”

“Well, hello there, what a coincidence, what a surprise,” shrieked a voice like fingernails on a blackboard.

Jane looked up in amazement to see the bloated form of Elinore King standing in the aisle beside her, smiling like a hyena.

“What are you doing here, Elinore?” Jane demanded, unable to believe her eyes.

“Perry Mannerback, isn't it?” said Elinore, ignoring Jane, reaching her hand over to Perry, who had stood up politely. He might be an eccentric screwball, but his manners were impeccable.

“Remember me, Elinore King? I was Janie's dad's art dealer. I sold you that painting, remember? The big one with the naked girl and the clock?”

“Oh yes, indeed,” said Perry, shaking her hand. “I remember very well. We talked about the fleeting nature of existence. Most interesting. And then you gave me that special thingamajig. What was it called? Oh, yes. The discount.”

“What are you doing here, Elinore?” asked Jane again, through clenched teeth.

“Well, Janie, after we talked about my daughter in Seattle the other night, I got so lonesome I decided to fly out and see her,” said Elinore breezily. “It's been ages since we've had a visit, and I just love her to pieces. This was the only flight I could get at the last minute. All the direct flights were sold out weeks ago. Of course, I always fly first class, it's the only way to go. But I want to talk to Perry. Perry, it's so amazing to run into you like this. I was just thinking about you. You saw this, didn't you?”

Elinore passed over a copy of Sunday's
New York Times Magazine
, which she had been holding behind her back. It was opened to a half-page reproduction of his painting, the seated nude on the staircase with Grandmother Sylvie's handless clock between her legs.

“No, I didn't,” Perry said, taking the magazine, and pulling out a pair of half-moon reading glasses from his inside pocket with which to study it better. “Why, that's my painting. This is fabulous!”

“It's a story all about Aaron and his art, and the big show they're having at the what-do-you-call-it museum in San Francisco,” screeched Elinore cheerfully. “And about me, of course.”

Jane rolled her eyes. This was too much, even for Elinore.

“You see? Here's a picture of me, standing right next to Aaron during my show,” said Elinore, turning the page to a large black-and-white photo of Jane's father and the Elinore of eight years ago, with a dazed-looking Gregory King in the background (in the caption he was identified only as Mrs. King's husband). “Of course, this is when I was young and beautiful, but I hope I'm not completely so terrible now.”

“No, not at all,” said Perry, leafing through the rest of the article with evident delight. “I didn't realize that your father was such an important artist, Jane. Did you read this?”

“I read it,” said Jane evenly. The way Elinore had managed to get herself quoted throughout the piece, it sounded as if she had found Aaron Sailor one morning in a melon patch and then taught him how to paint.

“It's an incredible story, isn't it, Janie?” said Elinore. “The same critics who were spitting on Aaron's work when I had my show are now going crazy. I'd love to tell you all about it, Perry, about why your painting was such a great investment. That is, if you don't mind, Janie.”

“I really don't think Perry is very interested in art,” said Jane.

“No, no, that's all right, Jane,” said Perry. “I wouldn't mind hearing.”

“Hey, here's an idea,” said Elinore. “Janie, why don't you and I trade seats for a little while, so Perry and I can talk? That way I can tell him the whole story.”

“Elinore …”

“Oh, look how protective she is of you, Perry. You know, you're so smart to hire Janie. She's a great girl, a fantastic girl. So can I sit down? I don't want to impose or anything.”

“Not at all,” said Perry Mannerback. “That is, course, if it's all right with you, Jane?”

“That's right, Janie,” said Elinore. “If you don't want to move, if it's too much trouble or something, you just say the word. I'll just go right back to my seat. No problem. I'll be okay, really I will.”

Jane opened her mouth to protest, but realized instantly how petty and childish it would seem. Elinore had completely outmaneuvered her.

“Fine,” said Jane in a quiet voice, standing up. There was no shame in walking away from a fight that you could not win. She would gain nothing by throwing a temper tantrum in front of Perry.

“I'm just back over there,” said Elinore, pointing at an empty seat several rows behind them in the spacious first-class cabin. “Next to that handsome young man with this divine British accent. He's very nice, some kind of stockbroker or something. Maybe I can get him to ask you out on a date when you're in Seattle.”

“Isn't Janie such a doll?” Elinore was saying as Jane grabbed the bag from under her seat and stomped away. “You should have seen her when she used to come home from college on the holidays. She was so cute with the stories of her little boyfriends and her drama club stuff …”

Jane plopped down into Elinore's seat several rows back. She reached into her bag for the paperback copy of
Candida
. She opened the book, closed it just as quickly, and stuffed it back into the bag. Then she sat with her arms crossed in front of her, seething.

“I could simply kiss you,” said a bright British voice at her side.

“What?” snapped Jane, looking over angrily into a pair of large blue eyes. The man in the seat next to her was a gangly, slightly goofy-looking fellow in his mid-thirties. He had a thick mop of reddish hair that was long overdue for a trim, about a million freckles, and a twinkle in his eye.

“I said, I could simply kiss you,” he repeated. “Or kiss you in a more complicated fashion if you prefer. I certainly owe you something for rescuing me from that horrible woman. She's been talking at me since I sat down, and I have no idea what she was saying. I think she wanted to sell me a subscription to the
New York Times
.”

Jane's new seat companion pointed to the floor between them. In a Bergdorf Goodman shopping bag were at least twenty copies of the same
New York Times Sunday Magazine
that Elinore had brought over to show Perry. Jane felt some of the venom run out of her.

“I hope you didn't buy anything,” she said.

“Certainly not,” he replied with a lopsided grin. “I have pretty good instincts about people. My instincts in this case wanted to give her a whack with a cricket bat on the old brainpan. Is she a friend of yours?”

“I know Elinore, but she's no friend.”

“I'm Valentine Treves. It's nice to meet a fellow redhead.”

“Jane Sailor,” Jane said, looking around, then blushing crimson when she realized he was talking about her. He was dressed in gray slacks and a sweater. An expensive leather briefcase was on the floor in front of him.

“How did you happen to get tangled up with such a character?” he asked with an easy laugh.

“She's something I inherited from my father.”

“I understand perfectly. I got a hammertoe from mine.”

Jane glanced at his big blue eyes, his unruly hair, his goofy smile. He was not her type at all. But pretty adorable. It was a good thing she had sworn off men.

“Elinore said you were a stockbroker?”

“Not really,” he said. “I'm with a financial services company. My actual title is Vice President of Special Acquisitions, but I do a bit of everything. Strategic planning. Finance. Poetry.”

“Poetry?”

He wasn't going to recite, was he? Was he an actor, too?

“Tell me three words. Any words you like.”

“Ambushed,” said Jane, craning her neck and trying to see what was happening between Perry and Elinore. “Witch. Murder.”

“Give me just a minute,” said Valentine, taking a small notebook out of his pocket and a silver pen. He began scribbling furiously, then tore out the page and gave it to Jane. She had to read it three times before she could believe it.

“How did you do this?” Jane finally asked, astonished. “You just sit down and it comes out in rhyme and everything?”

“It's just a peculiar little talent I have. Not very practical. I hope you don't think what I wrote was too personal. I had to go where the words you chose took me.”

“I'm very impressed,” she said, trying to hand it back to him.

“No, it's yours,” said Valentine, shaking his head, smiling at her. “My gift.”

“But I couldn't.”

“You'll have to. Unless you'll take a kiss instead.”

“Don't you want to keep a copy?”

“No. I wrote it for you.”

Jane finally had to smile back.

“Thank you,” she said, folding the sonnet carefully and putting it into her pocket. “I'm flattered. I suppose you write a lot of these. Impress lots of women.”

“Not so many,” said Valentine. “Women these days are more impressed that I'm in financial services. Poetry isn't very romantic any more, I'm afraid, except to us diehards. What about you? What do you do?”

“I'm a bodyguard-assistant.”

“Indeed? Are you guarding and assisting some specific body, or can anyone apply?”

Jane ran a hand over her Raphael Renaissance Red locks.

“Elinore's probably boring my employer to death even as we speak.”

“Who is he, I wonder?” said Valentine, scrunching together his eyebrows in exaggerated thought. “Gangster? Politician, perhaps? Famous movie star?”

“Just a businessman. His name is Perry Mannerback.”

Valentine Treves sat forward with a start.

“Did you say Perry Mannerback?
The
Perry Mannerback?”

“Yes,” said Jane. “Why? Do you know him?”

“Well, not personally,” sputtered Valentine. “I know
of
him of course. He's a very prominent individual. Captain of industry and all that. You're really his bodyguard?”

“Bodyguard-assistant,” said Jane, surprised at how impressed he was. It was easy to forget Perry's importance in the world after you had eaten a few dozen gummy bears with him.

“However did you get into that, I wonder?”

Jane sat back and began to tell him. She told him about her own peculiar little talent and about her work in the theatre. She told him that she had taken the job with Perry as a summer lark, not wanting to get into the complicated story of her father. Valentine listened, asking questions, making wry comments and funny observations. After a while Jane grew less self-conscious and found herself laughing.

Half an hour later, they were happily arguing about whether Richard Rodgers wrote better music with Oscar Hammerstein 2
^d
or Lorenz Hart (Jane voted for Hart), when Elinore King appeared in the aisle, smiling like a socialite who's just had sex with her worst enemy's husband.