Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(32)
Author: Jennifer Echols

After she hung up, she considered the implications. Her mother would want her to stay for dinner at the hotel after the bridge session. Strangely, Quentin seemed to have passable table manners. There had been no table when he’d stood in the kitchen to eat breakfast, but he’d chewed with his mouth closed. She called Quentin’s cell phone.

He sounded like he was standing in a blender full of margaritas. “Are you in your car?” she asked. She only became more confused when he said yes. They had made their ill-fated trip to the firing range last night in Martin’s truck, with Martin driving. She’d concluded Quentin was the Cheatin’ Heart without wheels. “Are you driving?”

“No,” he said.

“Who’s driving?” she asked in a panic. He’d better not be with Erin.

“The guy I hire to drive me.”

Oh. “But in your car?”

“Well, in the car I hire to go with the driver.”

Right, the car service he’d mentioned several times. Sarah was exasperated. She was trying to put together the puzzle of the Cheatin’ Hearts, but he was hiding the pieces from her. “Quentin, why don’t you drive yourself?”

“Because I don’t have a driver’s license.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t need one when I’m hiring someone to drive me.”

“You’ve been rich for two years,” Sarah said. “How did you get around before that?”

“I lived on the bus line.” He paused, then said, “Good morning, sunshine,” and laughed and laughed until she laughed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just hate it when you hold out on me.”

“I understand,” he said, still holding out.

“Why aren’t you recording my album?” she asked.

“That’s where I’m headed.”

“Really? Then where have you been this early in the morning?”

“Fishing.”

She sighed. He was so friendly and open, mostly, but when he chose to close down, it was like talking to a wall. “Quentin,” she said, “I don’t want to cancel our date tonight—”

“You’d better not,” he warned her.

Suddenly she was aware that she was standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror. She slid her thumb slowly across her nipple. Shuddered. Reached for her bathrobe.

“I don’t want to,” she repeated huskily, “but something’s come up. I have to play bridge. You can still go with me so Erin thinks we have a date, but you’ll just be sitting there while I play bridge. Is this too uncool for you? Would it ruin you if a photo ran in the Cheatin’ Hearts Death Watch that showed you with me while I played bridge?”

“Unless I’m at one of my usual bars, or in the town where I grew up, I don’t get recognized. We’re careful to keep our hats on when we’re performing.” Slow on the uptake, he asked, “Bridge, the card game?”

If she didn’t tell him the whole story, he’d keep asking. She lay on the bed and hugged herself into a ball. “About four years ago, my dad retired, and he and my mom set off on a bridge tour of the United States. I never understood it myself. I guess some retired couples have their RVs, or their gardens, or their grandchildren, and my parents had bridge. Then, about two years ago, my dad died of a heart attack.”

Quentin was saying he was sorry, but Sarah didn’t want to hear it, only wanted to get this story out and over with. She interrupted him, “And then my mother started her solo bridge tour of the United States. I know what she’s doing. She’s looking for my dad. You’ll hear her. She has a different partner every time, and every one drops tricks or passes her forcing bid. She wore her poker face at the funeral, didn’t shed a tear. I know this is it. This is the tears. This is her sick style of mourning. She left so fast that I had to clean up her house after the wake.”

Sarah was spilling this story maniacally. She forced herself to take a deep breath before finishing slowly, “My mother never comes to see me. She hardly ever goes home. We usually see each other at Christmas, but not last year. I was in Rio.”

“So, you’re her bridge partner for a few hours,” Quentin said, accepting casually, which Sarah appreciated.

“It doesn’t even make that much sense,” she admitted. “Beulah has been her partner for the whole tournament, even though the very first morning, Beulah put Mom in slam missing two aces. I’m sure you’ll hear all about this, too. But Mom’s made a commitment to Beulah until the end of tonight’s session, and she won’t break it. Besides, she and I had a little altercation when I was thirteen, which I won’t get into, and I swore I’d never be her partner again.

“No, I have to go to the partnership table and get paired with someone. There are a few normal people. And some people who eat paste. And some hardcore people like my mother. Luck of the draw.”

Quentin said, “I play bridge.”

“You do not.”

“I play all the games.”

You sure do, Sarah thought. She arranged to pick up Quentin for the bridge tournament that night. Then she called her mother back. “Now, listen, Ethel. This band is worth millions of dollars to Manhattan Music, and therefore, it’s worth my job to me. Please remember that when you foil me.”

“You could always get a job at the Fairhope Country Club,” her mother drawled elegantly. “They need a public relations expert. Their Cobb salad is an absolute shame.”

Sarah tapped one fingernail on her phone in irritation. Yesterday she’d handled the New York Times and Vanity Fair, but she couldn’t handle her own mother.

“I’m just joshing, sweetie,” her mother finally said. “Stop tapping.”

“Do not josh me about this. If you want me to play bridge, you have to help me keep up the image to Quentin that I’m a tough New Yorker.”

“And I’m supposed to be a New Yorker?”

Her mother was right. That was ridiculous. “I’ve never specified that I grew up in New York City. I could hail from somewhere else in the area. Maybe Schenectady.”

“Gracious, how do you expect me to pull that off? I’m bound to slip up and order a glass of iced tea. Couldn’t you move us to Louisville, or Richmond?”

“Richmond doesn’t exactly have that hard rockin’ edge I was looking for.”