Market Street by Anita Hughes

Author:Anita Hughes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

12.

Cassie got the message her mother wanted to see her at the end of a long day. There was less than three weeks until the grand opening, and she had been working back-to-back twelve-hour shifts. New crises landed on her desk every morning.

The cheese maker in West Marin ran out of chives. The mushroom crop in Inverness was washed away by a spring storm. The handmade chocolate sculptures melted under James’s pinpoint lighting.

Alexis also worked tirelessly. Every time Cassie rode the escalator upstairs she ran into an army of women, weighed down by red Fenton’s boxes. Alexis introduced Cassie to girls from her book club, the members of her makeup class, the women in her Asian cooking seminar. Alexis was usually leaning on the counter, wearing a form-fitting dress and four-inch heels. She sported a different accessory each week: a stack of gold bangles, a hat from Philip Treacy’s new collection, and the items flew out the store.

Alexis created a Facebook page for Fenton’s, and a Twitter account, which became her obsession. She flitted from department to department, rapidly texting about new arrivals. By lunchtime twenty women would appear at the counter, fighting over the latest Chanel powder blush or Pucci scarf.

Cassie listened to her mother’s message twice, wanting to ignore it until morning. She was looking forward to swimming fifty laps and sitting down to one of Pia’s delicious meals. But Diana had broken her toe playing lawn croquet at the Breakers. She was confined to her apartment and frantic to hear about the emporium’s progress.

Cassie checked her reflection in the elevator mirror on the way up to Diana’s apartment. Her mother couldn’t complain about her wardrobe. Alexis was teaching her to dress like the heir to Fenton’s. Today she wore a James Perse dress with Chanel ballet slippers. A ruby clip held her hair back, and she carried a Burberry clutch.

She took a deep breath before she knocked on her mother’s door. She still hadn’t told Diana that Alexis was running Fenton’s. In her mother’s eyes, Alexis was the sixteen-year-old who persuaded Cassie to skip school to attend Neiman’s annual sale. Cassie remembered the fuss when the headmistress found the Neiman’s bags stuffed in their lockers.

“Good evening, Maria. How is my mother?”

“Like bull in a china shop,” Maria groaned. “She follow me around with her own duster. When she going back to work?”

“Darling, thank God!” Diana appeared in the doorway. She wore flowing silk pajamas and satin slippers. Her hair was brushed smoothly to her chin and she had replaced her cigarette holder with an ivory cane.

“I didn’t know you needed a cane.” Cassie frowned. “Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

“A lovely gentleman in Palm Beach gave me the cane as a present.” Diana hobbled to the conversation pit. “I want to hear everything. I’ve had James on the phone and he said you’re doing a marvelous job.”

“Axel is creating a new line of floral arrangements for Fenton’s. Miles Cavendish is baking a red velvet cheesecake for the grand opening, and Vanessa Getty is going to cut the red ribbon.

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