Cheating at Solitaire (13 page)

Next to Julia, Caroline put her fork down with a clank. "Have I told you about my new Swiffer?

It's just amaz—"

"I'm not sure I really need to buy a place." Jason sliced through Caroline's words as if she didn't exist. He was holding Nina's hand, looking deeply into her eyes.

"Jason, it's a
great
time to buy," Julia exclaimed. "I hear Owasso is nice. Why don't you move to Owasso?"

"Has anybody seen the new Remington exhibit?" Caroline blurted. "I hear it's—"

"Owasso is completely on the other side of town!" Nina jumped in.

Caroline picked up the basket on the table and said, "Who wants bread?"

"I realize that," Julia said, glaring at her best friend. "The
distance
might be good. It might make it easier to
move on"
she finished, brandishing her fork until Lance covered her hand with his, hoping to stop her from leaning across the table and taking out one of Jason's eyes.

"Sunken treasure!" Caroline yelled, and everyone at three tables turned to her. "I saw the most interesting documentary about sunken treasure," she said, and spent the rest of the main course retelling it in detail without even pausing for breath until their plates were cleared and the emcee announced that people had just five minutes until the silent auction closed.

The crowd began to stir while dessert was being served, and Lance noticed the noise level in the room creep a little higher as the free booze started to mix with the heart medication that was, no doubt, filling two-thirds of the tuxedo pockets in the room. Nina and Caroline slipped off to feel the drapes. Jason excused himself to go call a customer. Steve was at another table, consoling a client about some loophole that Congress had just closed, leaving Lance and Julia at the table alone when the band eased seamlessly into more danceable music.

Lance looked at Julia, the gorgeous curve of her neck, the look of concern she wore for everyone she loved. He realized he had been acting for most of his adult life, but he didn't know who to be right then. Maybe it was Wally's old tuxedo, or the grandeur of Sycamore Hills, but he was having a very hard time acting like himself. He started to ask her to dance, but then drew back, suddenly unsure of his line.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a royal-blue vision floating toward their table.

"Julia, darling," Miss Georgia said, distressed. "No one's dancing. These events are marked as complete and utter failures if no one dances. Come," she said, taking Julia's arm. "You and Lance have to dance. When people see you, they'll join in."

"Oh, Evelyn, I don't really think—"

"Julia,
please,"
Miss Georgia pleaded. "Please, do this for me."

Julia looked at Lance. "Do you want to dance?"

He rose and said, "I thought you'd never ask."

Before she could recant, he led her onto the dance floor and pulled her into his arms.
Ob, man,
he thought,
she smells good.
When he felt the soft skin on her back, he thought,
She feels good,
too.
Then he stepped on her toe.

"Sorry," he muttered, but Julia just smiled.

When the band changed tempo, they found their rhythm. Lance breathed her in, stealing little glances as Julia looked into the crowd. "Julia," he whispered. He felt himself get tongue-tied. "I liked the pork."

She raised her eyebrows and said, "Good. They have great chefs here."

I liked the pork?
Lance berated himself as they fell into awkward silence. "I hate Jason," he said, grasping for common ground.

At this, Julia exhaled and momentarily dropped her cheek onto his shoulder. "Promise you won't let me kill him. Just promise me I won't end up in jail twice in one week."

Lance laughed, and with his old smile, his old confidence returned. Their steps became more fluid, and soon they were floating across the floor. When he spun her out and smoothly back into his arms, he told her, "I'm an old-fashioned guy, Julia. I'd be more than happy to do the killing for you."

"You're not just saying that to get on my good side?"

"No, I hate him."

Julia smiled, and she looked like he hadn't seen her look since that first day in the cab, as if she was comfortable in her own skin, certain of where she was going. For the first time since they'd arrived in Oklahoma, Julia looked at home.

On the ride back to her place, Julia let Lance drive. He had taken off the tuxedo jacket and loosened his tie, and as they drove down the gravel road, she studied him in the glow of the dashboard lights. He looked like he belonged on a billboard in Times Square, or in a cologne commercial. He seemed too perfect to be real. So when they reached the house, Julia hurried inside, anxious to be tucked safely in bed before the clock struck twelve and she turned back into a pumpkin. "I'm going to bed," she said.

"You are? It's not even that late," he protested, and she knew he was right. Ro-Ro's events were always of the early-bird variety; it was still before eleven.

"I'm exhausted, really. Just make yourself at home and . . . "

The phone rang. Julia, too exhausted to think clearly, answered it. "Hello?"

"Julia, honey, Richard Stone here. How's our boy?"

Julia froze; the night came to a grinding halt. Lance read her gaze as she stared at the receiver.

He took the phone from her hand and killed the line.

"It was Richard Stone," she said numbly. "He wanted you."

"You didn't tell him I was here, Julia," he said. "But you
are
here. You're in my house. It's going to look like—"

"Julia." He spun her to face him. "Things are okay. Okay? Look at me. How much property do you have here?"

"Almost five hundred acres. I rent it. I mean, I let my dad run cows on it."

"How many roads are there to the house?"

"Just the one, the main one. There's a county road on one side, but other than that, we're landlocked."

"Okay, good. We're on private property as long as we're here. The press can't come near us. We can call the sheriff if we have to, but they can't set foot on your property."

His arms were on her shoulders. His voice was soft but strong when he said, "No one has proof we're together, but they're probably coming to get some."

"Yes."

"This changes things," he said. "I know."

WAY #15: Don't let little things get you down.

It's important to keep life in perspective. Comments from people who don't know or
understand you should never make you question your own worth. After al , you are the
world's greatest expert on yourself.

—from 707 Ways to
Cheat at Solitaire

The clock on the bedside table kept ticking—not an unfamiliar sound. But that night, the cards didn't seem to soothe Julia's mind. She wrapped her arms around her knees and tried not to think about the man in the bedroom down the hall. She tried not to imagine the headlines that would swell as soon as the tabloids learned that he was in her house, sleeping under her roof.

Reporters and photographers were certainly on their way, so Julia pulled the cards back together and slipped them into their cardboard box, knowing the situation wouldn't change, no matter how thoroughly she shuffled.

She pulled on a robe and slippers and moved quietly into the hallway, past the closed door of Lance's room. The shades on the window in the upstairs landing were drawn so tightly that not even the moon crept into the dark house, yet she feared turning on a light, as if, right then, men with telescopic lenses were perched in the limbs of sycamore trees, trying to invade her home. She trusted the smooth surface of the mahogany banister to guide her down the stairs.

When she reached the foyer, she turned into a small room, slid the big double doors as far as they would go, and sealed herself away from everything beyond the four walls of her home office. She went to the desk where her computer waited, pushed the button, and heard the machine chime to life.

Her house might be four miles from the nearest neighbor, its walls might be thick, the woods might be dense, but Julia knew chaos could intrude on these comfortable borders. She had returned home to block herself off from the outside world, but her career was still going on without her—
out there.
The sales figures Candon had given her that day at the Ritz were
astronomical.
He'd known how those sales would translate into income. As the Windows icon flashed on the screen, Julia looked around her study with its broken shelves and cracking walls and asked the room itself, "Does it
look
like I'm in it for the money?"

Surely the momentum is bound to swing,
she told herself as she typed in the URL for Amazon.com and wondered if she was the only writer in history to hope that her sales ranking had plummeted.

It hadn't.

Next, Julia directed the browser to an Internet search engine. She held her breath as she typed

"Julia James" and "Lance Collins" into the query field and clicked
Go.
Soon she found herself looking at results one through twenty of 250,000. To make matters worse, the banner at the top of the screen said that she was the most searched-for item of the week.
It's official,
Julia thought.
I am utterly and completely Googled.

She clicked on the first link and read until the words were burned into her mind.

WHAT WILL WOMEN DO NOW? THE NEW STATE OF SINGLE
by a columnist at a national daily that had weather predictions, box scores, and a place on the lobby counter at every hotel in America.

With bestsel ing author Julia James
off
the market, single women, psychologists, and cultural
analysts are al asking the same question: Wil single ever be the same?

From the time
Table for One
debuted five years ago, Julia James has been the face of the
single woman. But since she and boyfriend Lance Col ins were photographed on a New York
street in the shot heard around the world, fans and critics alike are cal ing her career into
question.

"She's a fraud," says Maria Snider, who once chaired the Albany, New York, chapter of the
Julia James Appreciation Society. "I paid my twenty-five bucks," she says, holding up a copy
of the runaway bestsel er
707 Ways
to Cheat at Solitaire.
"I bought it looking for a role
model, but what I got was a phony. I want my money back."

But few share Snider's point of view. In the Albany chapter of the JJAS alone, splinter groups
have formed. Some, like Snider, long for the Julia of old. But most see this new chapter of
their heroine's life as a testament to the power of true love.

Competing picket lines formed outside a bookstore in Chicago today, the "pro-relationship"

faction brandishing signs and
GIVE LANCE A CHANCE
T-shirts. Others, like Snider, ral ied behind
cries of:
"Table
for one, not table for two. Lance, we have no
use for you."

Controversy or not, sales for
107 Ways to Cheat at
Solitaire
have been described by one
industry insider as "mind-blowing."

"These are the same arguments about women's role in society we have seen since the end of
the Second World War," said Peter Frisco, professor of Women's Studies at Columbia University. "Rosie the Riveter started it. Julia James is simply bringing it into the next century."

But the debate rages on. Has James abandoned her feminist credo, or has she simply
fol owed her heart to another lifestyle choice? If this is the end of Julia James, this man wants
to know what women wil do without her on bookstands or in magazines tel ing them how to
live. Without Julia, women may have to trust some other lifestyle guru—or, Heaven forbid,
their hearts—to guide them.

"Thanks for coming," Lance said as he opened the door to Nina and Caroline. "I didn't know who else to call."

"What happened?" Caroline said. "You sounded upset on the phone."

"She's still up in her room," he said. "She won't come down. I didn't want to go in there, but

. . . " He whispered, "I think she's crying."

Caroline and Nina took in quick, sharp gasps.

"I shouldn't have gone in, should I?" he asked, feeling utterly out of his league.

"Oh, good night, no!" Nina exclaimed. "Z don't even want to go in." She gave Caroline a shove toward the stairs. "You go, C. You're her sister. She won't hurt someone who's lactating."

Caroline batted Nina's hands away and turned to Lance. "What happened?"

Lance moved to the club chair, and Nina and Caroline took seats on the couch. He ran his hands through his hair and said, "I'm really not sure. My agent called and asked for me. She hung up on him, didn't tell him a thing, but he pretty much knew I was here."

"So that sent her over to the dark side?" Nina asked.

"No, that's the thing. She was fine when she went to bed. Well, not fine really, but okay. When I came downstairs this morning, those doors were open." He pointed toward the study. "And I haven't seen her yet today."

Nina got up and went into the study, and Lance and Caroline followed through piles of books and past broken-down shelves. The windows had the aged look of old glass, a prism distorting the occupant's view of the world. The walls were covered with peeling paint and layers of old wallpaper that rippled from years of heat and humidity. The ceiling bore the stains of a room that has lived too long beneath a leaky roof. Everything smelled of neglect.

Caroline wrinkled her nose, "I don't know how she lives like this."

"Don't look at me," Nina said, throwing up her hands. "I stayed with her through nine months of decorating hell. I have more than paid my dues."