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Fashion and clothes were the final frontier for Christine, but unlike the starship Enterprise she never intended to explore it. Fully aware of her shortcomings, she knew it would be far more possible to join Star Trek's virtual voyages than actually get a grasp of what seemed so easy for other women. She'd bet she could separate silk from cotton—soft-rough; wasn't that the difference?—but that was all. Fabrics were…fabrics, and shoes were…shoes. She had needed a half an hour seminar on pumps and peep toes and sandals only to mix them all and conclude that she simply lacked that kind of memory. It just couldn't register.
Still, even a fashion-illiterate person like her could notice that something was strange about Cassie that morning. Her wild hair, which usually fell in waves down her back, was restricted into an elaborate French braid like the one she'd worn the time she'd had that unfortunate meeting with a gallery owner a few months ago. She was wearing the gray dress she'd worn at her favorite aunt's funeral a couple of years ago and if that wasn't enough, she was wearing flats!
That for Cassandra was monumental. Unless she was at home or within twenty yards of her apartment she never wore flats. Christine would always remember how embarrassed the three-inches-shorter-than-usual Cassie had looked when she'd caught her at the deli nearby her apartment in her two-toned ballerinas. Ballerinas—what an adorable name for shoes!
Shaking the memory away, Christine concentrated on her friend. Cassie looked uncomfortable even though she was the one who had requested the meeting. Her eyes looked around Kepler's apartment, not with the expected curiosity, but rather as if wishing for someone to save her.
Kepler wouldn't be the one for sure. He had spent the night with Olek and Dan and Christine had already texted him about Cassie coming over. No Radek or Kepler would suddenly appear to end Cassie's mysterious misery. Christine stared at the teapot she'd prepared and the biscuits on the matching plate. The world was crashing all around her—she'd have to go back to BDS with some serious decisions made by tomorrow—and she was playing house in Kepler's apartment. She needed some of Cassandra's magic in her life. The woman had always had a gift for adding a whole, unique perspective to every situation. Perhaps, Kepler did not have to go to extremes to find Spencer. Perhaps Raoul was not such a lousy piece of….
"I need to make a confession," Cassie suddenly burst out. "I have something to tell you, that I meant to tell you—" She looked small in the armchair, tiny. Cassie was all crazy hair and high heels, confidence and vitality. Now all these were either gone or shaded.
"When you broke up with Kepler, I mean before you got together…after the night with Radek, when Kepler was not returning your calls—" she was struggling and it was Christine's turn to feel uncomfortable. She couldn't reveal Kepler's double identity to Cas without his consent. How could she explain all this mess using only fragments of the truth? "I called Raoul. I know I overstepped my—"
"You did what?"
"I'm so sorry, JC, but you were so distraught with everything going on. I was worried for you. You were tormenting yourself—"
"How dare you?" Christine snapped at her. That last phrase bit her hard. Kepler had used it, too, to excuse his coming back into her life after Phase I. Was she really so self-destructive that everyone wanted to save her from herself? "I'm not a child, Cas. What did you tell Raoul?" Her voice was harsh.
"I'm sorry, JC. I was mad at Kepler and the way he was treating you—"
"What did you say to Raoul?"
"I know what I did was wrong—"
"What did you tell him? Honest to God, Cas, if you said anything about Kepler and Phase II—" Cassie flinched at her tone.
"I would never harm you." Cassie's glistening eyes blinked to hold back the tears. "I told him you were tired, burning the candle at both ends for him. You were doing two jobs at the time, working more than sixteen hours every day—"
To avoid thinking of Kepler and her betrayal with Radek. Betrayal must be the key-word these days.
"You are the reason Raoul removed me from the evaluation process." Everything made sense now.
"I'm sorry, JC. You were exhausting yourself. Do you remember how you were those days?"
She refused to answer this madness. Christine stood up from her seat on the couch and walked to the kitchen area. She grabbed the tray from the table and brought it to the living room with her.
"How ridiculous is that, Cas? Calling Raoul? My boss! Perhaps you don't know how it works when you have a boss—" She started placing the teapot and her cup on the tray. Their "tea session" was over. A clear hint Cassie refused to take, as she grasped her cup with both hands and brought it closer to her bosom. "Who do you think you are? My mother? Not even my mother would have the right to act like this. Just who do you think you are, Cas?"
"I'm your friend, JC." Her voice was barely audible. Cassandra's face was red, matching her hair as she struggled to hold back the tears. Christine knew that was quite a fight for her but at the moment she was too angry to care.
"I can't believe you did this! You caused my losing my position, you meddled with MY WORK, and you played with Kepler's chances to be accepted into the program."
"Kepler would have found a way to be accepted if he had wanted to—"
Christine narrowed her eyes at Cassandra. "How do you know he's not interested in Phase II anymore?"
"Dylan told me. He said Phase II is over for him and Kepler."
"Dylan!" Christine exclaimed the name, feeling her ire building.
"Please, JC. I only did it for you. I know it was stupid but I was so mad at Kepler for the way—"
"Stop! Don't say another word. Nothing that happened before or after justifies such an…interference," she struggled to find the right word, "that's not a friendly intervention, that's sabotage! I could have lost my job!"
"Sabotage? Come on, JC. You know I had the best intentions in mind. Why would I want to sabotage you?"
Christine sank onto the coffee table in front of the couch. Was she exaggerating? Was she aiming her frustration with Spencer towards Cassie? She didn't know but at the moment she wasn't calm enough to evaluate her emotions. All she knew was that she was too angry to think straight.
"Unless you think I'm so jealous of you and I want to sabotage your success. Because I swear, JC—" Cassie's voice broke and a tear slipped from her eye but she quickly wiped it with her thumb.
"No, I don't think you're jealous of me. Why should you be? Your life is your 'work of art'." There was irony in her voice but also honesty and Cassie knew that. "You just don't understand how the rest of us feel about boring, mundane stuff like jobs, work relations. You've seen Raoul three-four times in parties and gatherings and you think you're entitled to pick up the phone and talk to him about my job. Why? Because you had a nice conversation about art or music or whatever…. Do you know what happens out there, Cassie? Do you know the balances one should maintain in a work environment in order not to appear overambitious or lacking ambitions or weak? You think I'm forgetting myself over my microscope but it doesn't work that way. There are politics—"
There, she was using the "P" word herself. Was she maturing? Why did it feel bitter in her mouth? Was she turning into Raoul? She wanted to tell everything to Cassie, she had meant to tell her everything at least about Raoul's betrayal but now she couldn't. How could she trust her again? She shook her head in disbelief.
"What you did…. It's unbelievable, unacceptable…unforgivable."
"Yes, I've committed the three 'un-' crime." Cassie seemed to have regained her composure.
"It's not a joke. I could have lost my promotion."
"I know what I did was wrong but you know I had only good intentions. And I know I'll never do something like that again. As I know that Kepler would be more forgiving."
"What do you mean? Kepler would have been frantic. He doesn't trust people and he has a very good reason for that. If your friends treat you that way—" Her voice faded.
"Kepler was more tolerant and more forgiving."
"Kepler knows?"
"Dylan knows which means Kepler knows." It was a valid conclusion. "I think he wanted me to tell you myself."
"I can't believe this!" She didn't know what to think.
"So…you forgive me?"
"I don't know, I need time." Now, she sounded like Kepler. "Why are you telling me this now, Cas? Why not earlier?" Or never? She knew that was an option, too.
"The blond rat forced me to do it."
"Dylan?"
Cassandra nodded.
Unwillingly, Christine felt a smile forming on her face. "That's not an endearment, Cas. That's not even cute." She moved to the sofa, suddenly feeling tired.
"Who says he's cute? He's damn sexy. That's all he is."
She knew there was more to this story but she wasn't ready to go back to the way things had been with Cassandra. Her anger was more numb now but it was there. She didn't care about Cassie tormenting Dylan or their sexual frustrations.
"Kepler was the one who contacted me to come back after your father's funeral."
"He knew where you were?" She should be surprised, but lately her life was full of surprises.
Cassie nodded.
"There is an agency much like the ones that rent houses only they don't rent the houses. They let you live in the house or the apartment without paying rent but you have to pay the bills etc. You have to keep everything as it is and mend any problems that appear. That way the house is cared for."
Christine frowned, not knowing the meaning of all this.
"Only, you are not a tenant. You don't have tenant's rights. When the owner comes back or needs to use his property you have to evacuate the house on twenty four hours' notice. Unless you have an understanding with the owner and he gives you a week or something."
Christine still did not understand.
"The first time I left my apartment, the woman who owns it gave me that twenty four hours' notice. I had to gather my stuff and leave. I always knew it would happen but the first time is never easy."
Christine remembered the wallpaper with the roses in Cassandra's bedroom. She knew she didn't like it but she never considered changing it either.
"Where did you go?"
"To Manchester. I stayed with my aunt for a while. I found a job as a temp. The woman who owns my apartment was pleased with the way I kept it. She's an octogenarian who comes to London once, twice a year—she lives with her daughter and her family in southern France—so she now sends me a few days' notice. I know she also has a son who works in the City but he's not married." Christine could imagine the elderly woman spilling her guts about her family to Cassie over tea. Cassandra had that effect on people. "She said she liked that an artist lived in her apartment."
"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you come to my apartment?" For some reason Christine felt more hurt now than she did before.
"It's not a matter of trust, JC. I never told any of my friends. I used these periods to take all kind of jobs to support myself the rest of the year. You know I can't make a living from my art." There was shame in her declaration.
"But why…there is no shame in working—"
"I never said that! It's just that if you start having a full-time job you don't have time for art. Not as much as you need. And if you start working and everybody knows about it, then you are a tour guide for wealthy couples visiting Florence, a curator's assistant, a secretary, a waitress, whatever, with some artistic hobbies. They'll never look at you the same. Art is a sport for the rich."
Christine could not quite grasp the concept of this even though Ben came to mind. Her father's writing was considered a hobby by his colleagues at work. Perhaps occupation did define people more than she realized.
"So you didn't want your friends to look at you as something other than an artist?"
"This is who I am, JC. I'm no secretary. I'm no painter of children's bedrooms. I'm not a teacher. I have the right to say that I am an artist and make people believe me. It's not a hobby. It's what I think about night and day."
"But I'm not an artist. I'm not in the group of your artist friends. Why didn't you confide in me?"
"I couldn't stand you looking at me the way you're looking at me now. I was practically homeless, JC. Any sane person would tell me to grow up, find a full-time job and suck it."
Christine shook her head but didn't say anything. She didn't know whether she would speak to Cassie like that. She wasn't certain that she wouldn't.
"I was practically homeless, JC. No one likes to admit that."
Christine recalled Kepler's words. As a teenager, before Lenny, he used to wear a hood and ride the subway at nights. He never allowed himself to fully fall asleep, afraid of the passengers but also for another reason: he had told himself that unless he slept there or on the streets he wasn't homeless. He was a traveler.
"Where do you stay when you can't go to your apartment?"
"Usually at my aunt's, before she died. Or at Lin's. I left her place because she's away and I don't want to stay in the house with Ken. It'd be awkward. Dylan has let me crash on his sofa until she comes back." And Cassie was back in London because of her. Christine felt a pang of guilt. "I usually prefer jobs that deal with that kind of problem, too. The best was on a cruise ship. I gave drawing lessons to passengers while touring. It was super cool, if you excluded the children's yelling."
JC found herself smiling at the comment. It was typical Cas.
"Why not at my place, Cas?" When she had had one. She remembered the huge apartment Kepler had rented for her. If he hadn't broken the lease yet….
"I don't care what my family thinks of me, JC, and you know it. I do care about my friends' opinions. My family already thinks I screwed up and frankly I don't give a damn. I don't care if my father hears I have financial problems. I think I find a guilty pleasure in it. Showing him that both his children are equally screwed up. That it's his recipe that's a fiasco, his seed."
"Cassie, you know this is nonsense."
She smiled humorlessly.
"I know it but he doesn't. That's why it's so good."
Christine snorted but said nothing.
"Not what you expected as my deep, dark secret for vanishing, is it?" Cassie asked after a while, sipping her cold jasmine tea. Her eyes were serious before they sparkled with a glint of mischief. "What did you expect? A mysterious lover? A secret group of conspirators? Spy stories and dark, evil villains? This is real life. Those things don't happen to people like us."
You wouldn't believe it, Cas. You wouldn't believe it even if I told you.
"Do you know what they say about truth? That it's supposed to cleanse you, make you feel better and all that crap?" Cassie threw the spare key Dylan had given her on the elaborate ashtray he used for keys and coins; it sat beside a retro-looking desk calendar that was always set on the right date.
She walked to the guest bathroom—larger than the main bathroom in her apartment—and washed her hands with punishing deliberation. He followed her and leaned against the doorframe expectantly.
Cassie dried her hands and stood in front of him, silent. She frowned meaningfully until he stepped aside to let her pass. She was still in the corridor leading to the spacious living room when she felt his hand on her arm. Cassie stopped and allowed him to turn her to face him. She was pissed at him and it showed on her face.
"Cassandra—" Dylan's voice was soft as he cupped her shoulder. He towered over her but it didn't feel weird. She felt protected. Dylan was strong but not dangerous, tall but not intimidating. After being on edge all morning Cassie took a deep breath to send fresh tears away. Emotions and sex buddies were an unacceptable combination. Not only against the rules but risky. She hated her sudden need to touch him just for the comfort of it. She prevailed over it with an effort.
"Honesty is essential in relationships," he repeated his earlier words in a wise tone.
"Yep, it's liberating and all. Well, do you want my opinion about it?"
He nodded with a ghost of a smile on his face. She wanted more. She wanted dimples.
"Bollocks! That's my honest opinion about honesty." She was almost pouting but she got what she wanted. A full set of dimples.
"It can't have been that bad, Cassandra." Why did he keep using that soft tone? Didn't he know they couldn't do anything before she moved from his apartment?
"It was worse." Her tone was serious. Or at least she hoped it was.
"Do you want me to kiss it to make it better?" He was teasing her! That blond rat who had threatened to rat on her, the one who had caused the most horrible argument with JC in all the years of their friendship, had the nerve to tease her.
"So, you are that kind of a doctor—" Her irony made him flinch. His hand fell from her shoulder. Damn. She was losing her touch. What did she say that ruined it? "A kiss wouldn't be completely against the rules, I guess."
It would, a small voice shouted inside her head but it was so small that its shout was less than a pathetic whisper.
"You've mastered this game. You know better." New dimples appeared, evoking her grin. His hand moved to her nape as he slowly bent his head to cover the distance. "Your skin is so white, like milk—"
"Does it turn you on, Mr. Vanilla?"
"It does." His voice was not as husky as she'd like it to be, "and these freckles…they're like cinnamon peppered on your skin."
Damn! She had forgotten her makeup.
"It suits the vanilla," she replied with a confidence she didn't really feel.
"Milk and cinnamon," he said as if talking to himself. "So a kiss would be all right for now?"
"Just a kiss though." She wanted to make it clear that was all they could have for the time being. "Let's do this right—" She pressed her hand to his chest to stop him. "Stay here."
She fled to the room where she had left her shoes and her suitcase. It was filled with boxes, as if a moving company used it for storage. Cassie hurriedly toed off her flats and walked towards her black polka-dotted peep toe pumps. On second thought, she chose her platforms. Dylan was a tall guy. No need to hurt his neck with the first kiss.
"Just a kiss," she repeated when she found him leaning against the corridor wall.
"Just a kiss," he confirmed with a lopsided smile.
And so they kissed.