How to Trap a Tycoon(72)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

As if in anticipation of her dark arrival, no lights had been lit inside the townhouse she shared with her mother. Which was odd, Dorsey thought, because when she’d come home to eat lunch and change clothes that afternoon, Carlotta had been hip-deep in cleaning out closets, and it had been clear that she would be shoulder-deep by nightfall. And even cleaning out closets, her mother had, as always, looked elegant and sublime, dressed in Ralph Lauren blue jeans and chambray shirt, her platinum hair tied back with a Laura Ashley scarf.

In spite of her melancholy humor, Dorsey smiled at the memory. How on earth had she turned out so differently from her mother? She supposed that was one of those mysteries of the universe that no one would ever be able to solve.

"Carlotta?" she called out to the house at large.

"I’m up here, Dorsey!" came her mother’s reply. "In the attic!"

Well, that would explain the absence of light, she thought. No telling how long Carlotta had been up there.

Contrary to her mood, Dorsey did deign to switch on a Tiffany lamp as she dropped her backpack onto the plum-colored velvet sofa. Then she made her way across the living room—as posh and feminine as Carlotta’s bedroom was, with purples replacing the pinks—and up the stairs. She paused beneath the rectangular opening in the hallway ceiling above. The stairs had been unfolded into the corridor, and a faint yellow light spilled down over them.

"Hel-loooo up there," she called.

There was a rustle of sound in response, then her mother’s head appeared over the opening. "Come on up. You’ll never guess what I found when I was cleaning today."

Without hesitation, Dorsey pulled herself up the collapsible stairs and found her mother sitting on the attic floor with a flurry of dust motes dancing around her. The minute particles caught and refracted the pale light from a single na**d bulb overhead, giving Carlotta the appearance of an enchanted maiden encircled by fairies. Baskets and trunks and cartons containing no telling what surrounded her, and familiar pink lacquer boxes sat open on the floor in front of her.

"Oh, wow," Dorsey said with a smile as she crossed to where her mother sat. "You found my old Barbies."

Genuinely delighted by the discovery—and not just because it gave her something to focus on besides Adam and Lauren and Lindy and disaster—she sat down beside her mother and ran a finger through the thin film of dust that coated one of the bright-pink box tops.

"I can’t remember the last time I looked at these," she said wistfully. Oh, to be a little girl again, she thought, and have to worry only about which plastic shoes to put on Barbie’s rubber feet before she went out adventuring with Skipper and Christie and Ken.

"I remember," Carlotta said. "It was the summer before you started seventh grade. You put them away just before junior high school, because you insisted you were much too old for things like Barbie."

Dorsey nodded, her smile broadening. "That’s right. I remember. I was just so mature at twelve."

"I, of course, thought you were being silly, because no one is ever too old to play with Barbie."

"These days, I’m inclined to agree with you," Dorsey said, picking up one of the dolls to run a finger over the smooth nylon hair. Carlotta had dressed the doll in an elegant, sapphire-colored evening gown, which Dorsey immediately began to remove.

Her mother gaped softly at her. "You? Ms. Feminist? Playing with Barbie? I thought you’d be one of the ones flaying her for her unbalanced, bulimia-inducing figure."

Dorsey waved a hand negligently before her, then reached for an outfit to clothe the now na**d doll. "There are a lot of reasons for women to have eating disorders," she told Carlotta. "But Barbie isn’t one of them. I mean, do you ever remember me as a little girl looking at Barbie and saying, ‘Gee, I wish I had enormous hooters and a tiny wasp waist and tippy-toe feet like Barbie does’?"

"Not once," Carlotta confessed.

"Exactly," Dorsey concurred with a fierce nod. "It was the clothes. Nobody gets that. The clothes and all the adventures we used to send Barbie on. Remember?"

Carlotta laughed. "Oh, yes, I remember. I was always sending my Barbie off to Rio de Janeiro and Monaco and St. Moritz to meet movie stars and princes. Or," she added, holding up a GI Joe dressed in commando black, "to meet GI Joe, who was off on leave. You, on the other hand," she continued, "were always sending your Barbie off to logging camps and rain forests to fight deforestation or to Amnesty International conventions."

Dorsey laughed, too. "My Barbie had a social conscience."

"Whereas my Barbie had a good time."

Dorsey glanced up at her mother, who had put down GI Joe to dress her own blond Barbie in a peach-colored peignoir set. "Carlotta?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure I wasn’t switched at birth with some other, princessy, baby that should have been yours?"

Her mother looked up at her and smiled. "I’m absolutely positive. Once you emerged from inside me and they put you in my arms, I never once let you out of my sight."

Dorsey smiled back. "Truly?"

"Truly."

"Thanks."

"You’re welcome, dear."

They said nothing more for a moment, only sat in comfortable silence dressing, undressing, and redressing their dolls. Then, out of nowhere, Dorsey announced, "I lost my job today."

Carlotta’s hands hesitated on her doll, and she glanced up at Dorsey. "At Drake’s?" she asked.

Dorsey nodded but couldn’t bring herself to meet her mother’s gaze. "Though the one at Severn , I’m sure, isn’t far behind." Quickly, so she wouldn’t have to think about it for very long, she added, "I lost Adam Darien, too."

Her mother said nothing for a moment, then asked, "What happened? Did you two get separated at the El?"

Dorsey shook her head sadly. "No. I think the two of us got separated before we ever even found each other."

She heard Carlotta sigh softly. "Do you want to start at the beginning? Or should I just keep asking questions until the whole messy story comes pouring out?"

Dorsey did meet her mother’s gaze then, and before she could stop herself, the whole messy story did indeed come pouring out. She told Carlotta about what had happened in Lindy’s office, about Lindy’s findings and Adam’s reaction—or lack thereof—about her employer’s threat to press charges and sue, about how Lauren Grable-Monroe—and Dorsey—were going to be crucified for the public’s entertainment.