The Setup Read online

  On a rare half day off from the firm, he’d come home early to take Emily out for a game of tennis and then perhaps to dinner, if she didn’t have too much homework. But before he could make his announcement, Emily had waylaid him in his den. She was holding up one of the portable phones and announcing that “Uncle Blake” wanted to speak with him.

  An uneasy feeling had rippled through him, telling him that he was going to be less than thrilled in the next few minutes. The feeling increased when Emily pressed the speakerphone button. Instead of retreating and letting him talk to Blake alone, she’d hurriedly told him the reason for both the call and her excitement.

  Faced with their collusion, Jefferson was far from happy. So far that he needed a road map to make his way back.

  His eyes darkened, as did his expression.

  Emily held fast to her courage. Seeing her father angry was not a common occurrence. The last time he’d looked like this was when her English teacher had given her an unsatisfactory grade that her father felt was purely subjective. Not one to back down when he felt he was right, he’d gone to the school to straighten the matter out and had managed to get a third party to read the essay. Emily’s grade had been upped from a C to an A-minus.

  That had been good. This, she was worried, might not turn out so well.

  She cleared her throat and repeated what she’d told him. “I said Uncle Blake found you a date for when you fly down to Tulane for the frat reunion.”

  Jefferson ignored the cordless receiver she was holding out to him. “First, I’m not flying down to Tulane for the reunion. We’ve already been through that,” he reminded her. “And second, even if I was going down for the reunion—which I am not—I don’t need anyone to find me a date—”

  “Well, you certainly aren’t finding any yourself, are you, Jeffy?” The voice over the speakerphone interrupted.

  Jefferson frowned, looking at the offending phone. Blake was the only one who had ever called him anything but his full name. Normally, he tolerated it, perhaps even liked it, because it reminded him of a happier time when his life with Donna was still very much ahead of him instead of part of the past.

  But right now, being addressed as “Jeffy” irritated the hell out of him. “That’s because I’m not looking, Blakey,” he shot back.

  Emily decided that if they tag-teamed, she and Uncle Blake might be able to outmaneuver her father and wear him down until he surrendered. “Uncle Blake says that he’s got tickets for the two of you—you and your date—to attend a performance art event.” She tried to look confident, but inside she felt as if all her bones were crossing imaginary fingers.

  “Performance art,” Jefferson repeated as if it left a sour taste in his mouth. “Just what the hell is performance art?”

  Emily waited a beat for her godfather to say something. When no sound emerged from the telephone, she quickly jumped in. “It’s when—”

  Jefferson waved his hand. Whatever it was, it sounded flaky and he had no patience with anything flaky. He was a rock-solid, button-down corporate lawyer who considered eating a steak with hot sauce daring. “Never mind. I don’t need to know because I’m not going.”

  “Sylvie will be disappointed,” Blake’s loud, disembodied voice told him, purposely sounding mournful.

  Jefferson frowned at the telephone. “I’m sure she’ll get over it, whoever Sylvie is.”

  “Sylvie Marchand,” Emily volunteered. Blake had given her a complete rundown before they’d joined forces to break the news to her father. She liked the woman already. She only prayed that when the time came, Sylvie Marchand would forgive her for fibbing on the application form. But that had been out of necessity. On paper, her father sounded deadly dull. Emily had a feeling no one would have been willing to go out with him. And he deserved the very best.

  Which was what he was going to get if she had anything to say about it.

  “She’s your date, Dad.”

  He looked at his daughter and knew she meant well. But this was not something he was prepared to do for her. He wanted his life to remain uncomplicated, the way it had up until now. “She is not my date. I don’t want a date.”

  Emily pressed her lips together and looked at him. A thought she’d never entertained before suddenly occurred to her and her eyes widened as it sank in.

  “Dad, are you—you know…” Her voice trailed off as she found herself momentarily at a loss. But this was her father and she loved him. If she was going to do right by him, she needed all the facts. There was nothing to be gained by backing off. She just might need to revamp her plans. Taking a breath, she shot the question out. “Dad, do you like men?”

  He looked at the receiver his daughter was holding and thought of the man on the other end. “Right now, only to go ten rounds with. And no, I am not ‘you know,’” he informed her.

  She offered him a sunny smile. The one he could so seldom resist. “Then why not go? Dad, this is a chance of a lifetime. You’ll be sorry if you miss it.” She paused. “How many reunions can you go to before people start dying?”

  At sixteen, Emily thought everyone over the age of twenty-five was old. He knew that, but still, he had to admit he didn’t exactly like the thought that his daughter was beginning to view him as having one foot in the grave.

  There was a simple way to counteract that. He could act like a younger man.

  Easier said than done.

  Jefferson looked at her for a moment, then indicated the phone. “I don’t like you two going behind my back this way.”

  “We wouldn’t have to if you were more agreeable.” Blake’s voice rose in defense of their actions. “Emily and I only have your best interests at heart, Jeff. Right, Emily?”

  “Right,” she agreed heartily, then looked at her father. “Please, Dad? Please go to this reunion. Please see this lady that Uncle Blake found for you.”

  She blinked once, staring up at him with eyes that he could never resist, never truly say no to. When it came to Emily, he was a pushover.

  With a sigh, Jefferson nodded. “All right, you win. I’ll go.”

  He began to bend over to fish the invitation out of the garbage, where he had thrown it last night after tearing it in several pieces to ensure that it wouldn’t reappear on his desk.

  With a grin, Emily blocked his effort, pointing to the desk. When he moved toward it, he saw the invitation lying there again, taped together like a badly wounded war veteran. A war veteran now on the mend, with every hope of making a full recovery.

  Picking the invitation up, Jefferson shook his head and then smiled. “I guess if you’re this determined to see me go to this reunion, it’s the least I can do.”

  Overjoyed, Emily threw her arms around his neck as Blake, overhearing, shouted, “Good man, Jefferson!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  AT THIRTY-FIVE, VIBRANT, redheaded Sylvie Marchand had an incredible zest for life. At one time a budding artist with considerable promise, she’d been around the block more than once. That block had led her to places like New York, Los Angeles and Paris, and along the way to several passionate, satisfying, relatively long-term relationships. The last of which, with a fading rock musician named Shane Alexander of the now defunct rock group Lynx, had actually been less satisfying than torrid and brief.

  But it was this last relationship that had yielded her greatest treasure and joy in life: her three-year-old daughter, Daisy Rose.

  Far from souring or jading her, the events of those earlier years had just made the third of Anne and Remy Marchand’s four daughters aware that life had to be grabbed with both hands and, above all, savored. Those same events had also taught her what they’d taught Dorothy of Oz fame: there was no place like home. And family, if you were lucky enough to have one, should always come first.

  Which explained why Sylvie now found herself back in New Orleans after all this time. She had returned home a year ago to run the art gallery that was attached to her family’s hotel, and she and her oldest sister, Ch
arlotte, who was now general manager of the Hotel Marchand, had been here when their mother, Anne, suffered a heart attack four months ago.

  The event had all but floored Sylvie, bringing the glaring truth of mortality to her doorstep. Her beloved father, Remy, had died all too young, in a tragic car accident four years ago at the age of 61. That had been difficult enough to weather, but Sylvie had never thought that anything could happen to her mother.

  Anne Robichaux Marchand had always been an unstoppable force in Sylvie and her sisters’ lives. Years ago, Anne and Remy had been in the right place at the right time and taken over a hotel whose owner had fallen on hard times. The hotel, which they’d renamed Hotel Marchand, was actually the successful marriage of four town houses. With Anne’s guidance and Remy’s culinary abilities, the hotel became a four-star establishment. Tucked away just east of Jackson Square in one of the original blocks of the French Quarter, the hotel gave welcome shelter to tourists who flocked to New Orleans, especially during Mardi Gras season.

  As far back as Sylvie could remember, her mother had been a workaholic, a type-A personality whose batteries never seemed to need recharging. After her husband died, Anne only became more driven, more dedicated to the hotel. The heart attack had stopped her cold, but Anne insisted she needed to get back to work. There was a second mortgage on the hotel and Anne was afraid that business might drop off if she wasn’t there to oversee everything.

  Charlotte was convinced that the only way their mother could be persuaded to back off a little from her intense workload—and probably from working herself to death—was if she knew that her daughters were taking over the family business.

  So Charlotte, who was already entrenched in every aspect of the hotel’s inner workings, stepped in to their mother’s position as general manager and sent out the call for Renee and Melanie, who had returned dutifully, if not completely eagerly, to the fold. Melanie brought her culinary skills into the kitchen of Chez Remy, the restaurant their father had made famous, while Renee, who had been a PR executive and producer at a mid-size studio in Hollywood, set about making sure the hotel retained its four-star rating.

  As for Sylvie, well, her talents had always been in the arts. Not that many years ago, she had dreamed of becoming an artist herself. For a time, it had seemed she was on the right track. She’d been lucky enough to have a few minor shows of her work in a small gallery in New York, where she’d led a bohemian life and was willingly contemplating starving in some garret, preferably in Paris, for her craft. But her life had taken a different direction after a visit to Renee in Los Angeles. Sylvie had found work designing sets and had begun her short-lived affair with Shane. She’d still been living in L.A. when her mother had called and asked her if she would run the art gallery.

  Sylvie had spent exactly a day debating whether to uproot her life again. She’d “talked” the decision over with a wide-eyed Daisy Rose at the playground, knowing full well that her little girl was going to say yes if it meant being close to her grandmother.

  So, Sylvie had returned to New Orleans, the place that represented home in her dreams, and she had adjusted to her new, very respectable position. Running a gallery was not exactly the direction she had once seen her life going in. But it did allow her to stay very much involved with the art world and local artists, whose work she put on display in the two-story gallery.

  Besides, she mused as she stood on the ground floor, just shy of the gallery’s street entrance, overseeing the removal of several crates from a truck, the focus of her world had completely changed since she first left New Orleans. Then life had been all about her. She’d focused on her dreams, her path, her future. In Los Angeles, despite religiously practicing good birth control, she had become pregnant. And swiftly found herself abandoned.

  After spending eight months lamenting her pending loss of freedom, she had found herself falling in love with the tiny baby she’d pushed out into the world after an excruciating fourteen hours of labor. With Daisy Rose in her arms, Sylvie had left the hospital knowing that she no longer had the luxury to be a reckless kid. Not when this perfect little being was depending on her.

  So, she’d grown up. Sort of. But not completely. Her bohemian streak was still alive and well and thriving within her.

  Her older sister Renee approached through the hotel entrance, waving a paper at Sylvie, and announced that it contained the profile of her prospective “date.”

  Sylvie stopped mid-gesture. She’d been about to signal the brawny, overweight trucker to put the crate against the wall. The gallery’s parquet floors had just been buffed to high gloss and she wanted to make sure that neither of the two deliverymen tracked in any more dirt than necessary.

  “Date?” she repeated, staring up at the strawberry blonde whose willowy figure she secretly envied. “What date?”

  “Ms. March,” the trucker mumbled into one of his two chins, abbreviating her surname as he struggled with the crate. It was obvious that he wanted to be back in the truck and on to his next destination.

  “Put it over there.” She gestured toward the wall farthest from the front entrance. “I just need you to take the tops off the crates and then you’re done.”

  Her announcement was greeted with relief by both men. The truckers made her think of bulls in a china shop. There were several delicate sculptures displayed in the gallery, and the truckers were accidents looking to happen.

  Renee shifted, blocking Sylvie’s view of the crates. “We thought that maybe it was time you had a little break in your life, Sylvie. You’ve been pretty driven these past few years.”

  Funny, Sylvie thought. Driven was the last word she would have used to describe herself. But then, so would mother, and here she was, enjoying that role most of all.

  The taller of the two truckers brought her a clipboard with a crinkled yellow sheet to sign. She paused for a second to read it over and make sure she was signing for five paintings and not for the delivery of some East Indian elephant.

  “We?” she asked, putting pen to paper and signing with a flourish. “Just who’s ‘we’?” She surrendered the clipboard and pen to the trucker, who tore off a copy for her and handed it back. “Certainly not Mother.”

  “No,” Renee agreed, moving out of the way as the truckers ambled out the front entrance, pushing a huge dolly before them. “Not Mother. The rest of us. Charlotte, Melanie and me,” she added for good measure.

  For the first time, Sylvie glanced at the paper in Renee’s hand. It was from a dating service. God, how very button-down. Had it come to that? she wondered. Did she need to be matched up with someone via a computer? It wasn’t all that long ago she would just wander into a gathering of people, select someone she wanted to get to know and make eye contact. Nothing more was necessary. Now she’d been reduced to a collection of statistics input into a database.

  The very thought sent chills zipping up and down her spine and made her want to grab her child and her paint box and flee.

  Instead, she remained where she was, the irony of Renee’s words bringing a hint of a smile to her lips. “So you think I need a little break. I find that kind of amusing, coming from the non-social three.”

  The street entrance door slammed shut, signaling the departure of the truckers. The three crates stood with their tops removed, waiting for their contents to be lifted out and displayed. Ordinarily, nothing would have kept Sylvie from it. The paintings inside had been sent over from a museum for a limited time. But for the moment, they took a back seat to what was unfolding before her.

  A dating service?

  What in heaven’s name were her sisters thinking?

  She shook her head, looking at Renee. “I don’t exactly see the three of you kicking up your heels, either.”

  Renee stiffened ever so slightly. Love was something she had personally given up on. Most men she met wanted her solely as a decoration, arm candy to reinforce their own machismo. When they realized that there was an iron butterfly beneath the soft-s
poken words, they quickly bowed out. She had become weary of having her hopes dashed and her heart used as a hockey puck. At thirty-seven, she’d never married and had come to the conclusion that she would remain that way.

  But she had no children, and Sylvie did. It was time for her younger sister to get busy and start looking for a father for Daisy Rose. “One pair of heels at a time, Sylvie.”

  Sylvie pressed her lips together to keep her smile from spreading. “Meaning you’re next?”

  Renee deliberately ignored the question. “I think this guy’s a pretty good match for you.” She pointed to one of the lines that listed interests. “Look, he likes the same kind of music you do. Hard rock.” She pointed to another line. “And he says here that he likes taking chances.” Renee glanced at the paper to make sure she got the wording right. “Thinks that life is a challenge—”

  “It’s a challenge, all right,” Sylvie couldn’t help murmuring under her breath.

  Sometimes maybe too much of a challenge, she added silently. Growing up, she’d thought that the child had the hard part. Now she knew it was the parent who shouldered the worries and responsibilities. There were times when she wondered how much longer she would be able to go on doing this impossible balancing act. Life seemed to be filled with hundreds of tiny battles and even tinier victories.

  For instance, last night she’d had the first decent sleep in over a week. Daisy Rose was just getting over a bad cold, one that seemed to kick into high gear like clockwork every night after midnight. Last night was the first time in eight days that the little girl had fallen back to sleep after waking up only once.

  Tiny victories, she thought again.

  “A fun challenge,” Renee emphasized, bringing her back to the present.

  Sylvie noticed that Renee had that smile on her lips, the one that used to drive her crazy when they were kids. Not quite superior and just a little smug, as if she was privy to something that younger sisters weren’t allowed to know yet.