well.” The idea made him uneasy. “You don’t need to expose yourself to public curiosity this way, Eve. You certainly don’t need the money, or the publicity.”
“My dear boy, I’m not doing this for the money or the publicity. I’m doing it as I do most things, for the satisfaction.” Eve glanced toward her agent. She knew Maggie well enough to see that the wheels were already turning. “Call her agent,” Eve said briefly. “Make the pitch. I’ll give you a list of my requirements.” She rose then to press a kiss to Paul’s cheek. “Don’t scowl. You have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
She walked with perfect poise to the bar to add more champagne to her glass, hoping she hadn’t started a ball rolling that would ultimately flatten her.
Julia wasn’t certain if she’d just been given the world’s most fascinating Christmas present or an enormous lump of coal. She stood at the big bay window of her Connecticut home and watched the wind hurl the snow in a blinding white dance. Across the room, the logs snapped and sizzled in the wide stone fireplace. A bright red stocking hung on either end of the mantel. Idly, she spun a silver star and sent it twirling on its bough of the blue spruce.
The tree was square in the center of the window, precisely where Brandon had wanted it. They had chosen the six-foot spruce together, had hauled it, puffing and blowing, into the living room, then had spent an entire evening decorating. Brandon had known where he’d wanted every ornament.When she would have tossed the tinsel at the branches in hunks, he had insisted on draping individual strands.
He’d already chosen the spot where they would plant it on New Year’s Day, starting a new tradition in their new home in a new year.
At ten, Brandon was a fiend for tradition. Perhaps, she thought, because he had never known a traditional home. Thinking of her son, Julia looked down at the presents stacked under the tree. There, too, was order. Brandon had a ten-year-old’s need to shake and sniff and rattle the brightly wrapped boxes. He had the curiosity, and the wit, to cull out hints on what was hidden inside. But when he replaced a box, it went neatly into its space.
In a few hours he would begin to beg his mother to let him open one—just one—present tonight, on Christmas Eve. That, too, was tradition. She would refuse. He would cajole. She would pretend reluctance. He would persuade. And this year, she thought, at last, they would celebrate their Christmas in a real home. Not in an apartment in downtown Manhattan, but a house, a home, with a yard made for snowmen, a big kitchen designed for baking cookies. She’d so badly needed to be able to give him all this. She hoped it helped to make up for not being able to give him a father.
Turning from the window, she began to wander around the room. A small, delicate-looking woman in an oversize flannel shirt and baggy jeans, she always dressed comfortably in private to rest from being the scrupulously groomed, coolly professional public woman. Julia Summers prided herself on the image she presented to publishers, television audiences, the celebrities she interviewed. She was pleased by her skill in interviews, finding out what she needed to know about others while they learned very little about her.
Her press kit informed anyone who wanted to know that she had grown up in Philadelphia, an only child of two successful lawyers. It granted the information that she had attended Brown University, and that she was a single parent. It
listed
her professional accomplishments, her awards. But it didn’t speak of the hell she had lived through in the three yearsbefore her parents had divorced, or the fact that she had brought her son into the world alone at age eighteen. There was no mention of the grief she had felt when she had lost her mother, then her father within two years of each other in her mid-twenties.
Though she had never made a secret of it, it
“My dear boy, I’m not doing this for the money or the publicity. I’m doing it as I do most things, for the satisfaction.” Eve glanced toward her agent. She knew Maggie well enough to see that the wheels were already turning. “Call her agent,” Eve said briefly. “Make the pitch. I’ll give you a list of my requirements.” She rose then to press a kiss to Paul’s cheek. “Don’t scowl. You have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
She walked with perfect poise to the bar to add more champagne to her glass, hoping she hadn’t started a ball rolling that would ultimately flatten her.
Julia wasn’t certain if she’d just been given the world’s most fascinating Christmas present or an enormous lump of coal. She stood at the big bay window of her Connecticut home and watched the wind hurl the snow in a blinding white dance. Across the room, the logs snapped and sizzled in the wide stone fireplace. A bright red stocking hung on either end of the mantel. Idly, she spun a silver star and sent it twirling on its bough of the blue spruce.
The tree was square in the center of the window, precisely where Brandon had wanted it. They had chosen the six-foot spruce together, had hauled it, puffing and blowing, into the living room, then had spent an entire evening decorating. Brandon had known where he’d wanted every ornament.When she would have tossed the tinsel at the branches in hunks, he had insisted on draping individual strands.
He’d already chosen the spot where they would plant it on New Year’s Day, starting a new tradition in their new home in a new year.
At ten, Brandon was a fiend for tradition. Perhaps, she thought, because he had never known a traditional home. Thinking of her son, Julia looked down at the presents stacked under the tree. There, too, was order. Brandon had a ten-year-old’s need to shake and sniff and rattle the brightly wrapped boxes. He had the curiosity, and the wit, to cull out hints on what was hidden inside. But when he replaced a box, it went neatly into its space.
In a few hours he would begin to beg his mother to let him open one—just one—present tonight, on Christmas Eve. That, too, was tradition. She would refuse. He would cajole. She would pretend reluctance. He would persuade. And this year, she thought, at last, they would celebrate their Christmas in a real home. Not in an apartment in downtown Manhattan, but a house, a home, with a yard made for snowmen, a big kitchen designed for baking cookies. She’d so badly needed to be able to give him all this. She hoped it helped to make up for not being able to give him a father.
Turning from the window, she began to wander around the room. A small, delicate-looking woman in an oversize flannel shirt and baggy jeans, she always dressed comfortably in private to rest from being the scrupulously groomed, coolly professional public woman. Julia Summers prided herself on the image she presented to publishers, television audiences, the celebrities she interviewed. She was pleased by her skill in interviews, finding out what she needed to know about others while they learned very little about her.
Her press kit informed anyone who wanted to know that she had grown up in Philadelphia, an only child of two successful lawyers. It granted the information that she had attended Brown University, and that she was a single parent. It
listed
her professional accomplishments, her awards. But it didn’t speak of the hell she had lived through in the three yearsbefore her parents had divorced, or the fact that she had brought her son into the world alone at age eighteen. There was no mention of the grief she had felt when she had lost her mother, then her father within two years of each other in her mid-twenties.
Though she had never made a secret of it, it
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