Hand-Me-Down

Hand-Me-Down

Lee Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Thanks are long overdue to Nancy Coffey, Farrin Jacobs, Lynn Nichols, Jessica Alvarez, Helen Ross, Paula Ross and Constance Wall.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 01

CHAPTER 02

CHAPTER 03

CHAPTER 04

CHAPTER 05

CHAPTER 06

CHAPTER 07

CHAPTER 08

CHAPTER 09

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 01

The second time Ian Dunne came into my life, I was trapped under a pile of bodies, behind a sheet of plate glass.

I’d just graduated from UC Santa Barbara, my hometown school. I’d finished at the top of the middle of my class—which is the story of my life—and a week later had grabbed the bottom rung of corporate America.

I was folding men’s charcoal woolens at Banana Republic when my manager materialized at my shoulder.

“You’ve almost got it!” Jenny chirped. “First the sleeve, then over, over…” Showing me, yet again, how to fold a sweater.

I gritted my teeth, and gestured to my pile. “Mine are fine.”

“Good enough for the Gap.” Jenny smiled encouragingly. “Maybe.”

“Maybe I should do the windows instead.”

“You can’t do the windows.”

“But I want to do the windows.”

“Sorry,” she said, and scurried into the back office.

My problem was that I was assertive enough to annoy, but not enough to succeed. That’s always been my problem: I’m the uneasy medium. Pretty enough, but not beautiful. Smart enough, but not brilliant. If I were a college, I’d be a safety school. If I were a skirt, I’d be basic black.

Wren finished ringing up a sale and drifted over. We’d started work the same day, and she’d been promoted to the register by the end of the morning. I liked her despite her obnoxious competence and her glossy dark hair and clear olive skin. She smiled and neatened my sweater stack. “Jenny’s teaching you to fold again?”

“Folding’s not really my strength.” I glanced toward the front of the store. “What I should be doing is—”

“Oh, Anne, not again. She’ll never let you do the windows.”

“But I’m pretty sure that window design is my thing.” I stacked the last sweater. “I’m sort of arty.”

“You were a business major.”

“Well, arty-businessy. Anyway, I have the soul of an artist.” Since graduating, I’d been doing some thinking. It was clear I wasn’t going to make it on looks alone. Not like my oldest sister Charlotte. Nor was I anyone’s idea of a girl-genius, like my other sister, Emily. So I figured I’d be the next Paloma Picasso. Artist/designer. Of course, my dad was no Pablo, but still.

“How many art classes did you take?” Wren asked.

“Does pottery count?”

“Only if you got an A.”

“Oh. Anyway—” I lowered my voice. “Aren’t you a little embarrassed to be working here?” Wren had just graduated from Pomona.

She shook her head. “I love clothes.”

“Yeah,” I said, unconvinced. I liked clothes, too. New ones, at least. “Still. Shouldn’t we aspire to greater things than our fifty-percent discount?”

“Like a sixty-percent discount?”

“Exactly! Or, for instance…”

“The windows,” Wren finished.

I smiled. And ten minutes later, when Jenny was on the phone to the head office and Wren—in a fit of self-preservation—disappeared for an early lunch, I crammed myself into the front window with six mannequins.

An assortment of mall-walkers noticed me, and paused and pointed. Enjoying the celebrity, I gave them a queen’s wave and got to work. How hard could it be? Easy as stacking wood, I told myself—ignoring for the moment that I’d never actually stacked wood.

The official theme for the Fall windows was the stunningly original “Back to School.” I decided to stay on topic and create the Banana Republic Cheerleading Squad. Given Jenny’s level of pep, she’d have to approve.

I wrestled the first mannequin, dressed in denims and suede jacket, into a crouching position. It took some doing, as she was not at all limber, but I finally grappled her onto all fours. The second mannequin was easier, but the third required that I kneel on her stomach and roughly yank her legs. The fourth and fifth, wearing light gray sweaters and khaki cords, were male. I twisted them onto their hands and knees and turned to the sixth mannequin, a recalcitrant squad leader in a plaid mini. By the time I finished tangling with her, I was sweaty and exhausted…and had attracted a crowd.

I loftily ignored them, and arranged the first three mannequins. Easy enough. Side by side, on hands and knees—the two males on the outside, a female in the middle. I manhandled the next one on top, balanced another next to her, and stepped back to admire my handiwork. Looking good. Jenny was going to be amazed.

They say a pyramid is a totally stable structure, but I challenge anyone to prove it with cheerleading mannequins. I lifted Plaid Mini, the recalcitrant squad leader, over my head and stepped forward. Neatly avoiding the sprawled limbs of the other mannequins, I rose onto tiptoes and gently flipped Plaid Mini onto the very apex of the pyramid.

She teetered. She tottered. The crowd hushed…and the sixth mannequin settled perfectly into place!

I beamed.

The crowd applauded.

And as I curtsied, there was a knock at the window. My sister Emily. I almost didn’t recognize her. She’s sort of severe and intellectual-looking, not exactly a mall rat. Standing next to her, smiling, was a tall, blond, handsome man.

“I did it!” I told Emily triumphantly through the glass.

“What?” she yelled.

“I did it!” I gestured behind me at the pyramid. “My first window!”

“What?” she shouted again.

She turned to the blond man, and I saw him say: she says she does windows.

Emily frowned as she answered. I couldn’t hear the words, but from her expression I could tell they were pretty ripe. She’d just had her first book published—an indecipherable academic feminist treatise which for some reason had been getting press in Cosmo and Newsweek—and she wanted to be this classy, cool philosopher-queen. Not someone whose sister wrestles cheerleading mannequins in mall windows.

“Back to school!” I mouthed, as if that were an explanation.

This didn’t soothe Emily. The man turned to calm her, and I suddenly recognized him.

I said, “Ian?”

He saw the word. He nodded.

I startled backward, almost tripping on a splayed plastic hand— I grabbed an errant elbow to steady myself. The elbow joggled the barest inch and the mannequin underneath twisted slightly. I lunged to steady him—and slipped. My knee whacked Suede Jacket square in the face and she squirted out of the pyramid like a wet watermelon seed. Then Plaid Mini leapt at me from above and grabbed me in an obscene scissors-hold between her thighs. I struggled for air and popped one of her legs off— I twirled and spun as the pyramid collapsed around me in a hail of cheerleaders, and finally ended on my back, with Khaki Cords splayed on top.

The applause was louder, this time.

CHAPTER 02

Emily slammed her bag onto the table at the Coffee Bean and scowled. After the collapse of the Great Pyramid, Jenny decided it was my turn to take lunch—preferably in another state. I didn’t argue, even though Emily was lurking outside the store with smoke issuing from her nostrils. Emily is the middle sister, so she’s supposed to be mild and quiet and timid, but nobody’s ever been foolish enough to mention that to her.

“Well?” she said.

“I’ll have a mocha blended?”

Her eyebrows became an angry V. “You know exactly what I mean, Anne.”

“Oh, that,” I said with an airy laugh, gesturing back toward Banana. “That was just, y’know. So, what’re you doing at the mall?”

“Great show, Anne,” Ian said, returning with our coffees to the table. “I wanted to put out a little cup for you.”

I smiled sweetly at Emily. “And where’d you find him?”

Ian Dunne was six feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes. He was wearing green shorts, a navy T-shirt and flip-flops, and had a Santa Barbara tan—the deep bronze of the pre-skin-cancer era. He looked even more surfer-delicious than when he’d dated Charlotte in high school.

“Anne,” Emily said, as calm as the eye of a storm. “You graduated with a low B average with a degree you don’t value. You’re living with Dad. You’re barely employed at Banana Republic. You don’t have the slightest inkling of a career, a future, a—”

“I’m going back to school,” I said, cringing inwardly at the phrase.

She brightened. “To get your master’s?”

“Art school,” I said. “So Ian, how’ve you been?”

“Art?” Emily said. “You can’t draw a straight line with a ruler.”

“I most certainly can!”

“And you know nothing about art theory. If I asked you to choose between appropriationist and cultural predialectic in the structural paradigm of visual art, which would you defend?”

“Um, the first one?”

She sighed. “Who’s your favorite artist?”

“Paloma Picasso?” I said, in a small voice.

“She makes perfume.”

“And handbags!”

“Anne, you need to focus on your future—”

“I’m fine,” Ian cut in. “How have you been?”

I winced, waiting for the explosion. Emily would reduce him to paste with a handful of words. But, oddly, no explosion came. Maybe micro-celebrity was calming her.

“I’ve been good,” I said, after a short silence. “So where did you two—?”

“We ran into each other in the mall,” Emily said. “Watching you make a spectacle of yourself.”

“A spectacle? It’s not like I was strutting around in a bikini.”

“How is Charlotte?” Ian casually asked, and those three words told me everything: he was still in love with her. After all the years—her marriage, her celebrity, and her pregnancy—he was still in love.

It explained why he’d finagled an invitation to coffee with us. Emily usually wasn’t so welcoming, but she’d responded eagerly to his hints. Of course, her book was out, the early reviews were disgustingly positive, and the publication party was tonight. So she had an ulterior motive: to brag.

“Charlotte’s fine,” she said shortly, and turned to me. “I told Ian about my book.”

“Porn Is Film,” Ian said, as if reciting the title of her book proved something.

“What does that even mean?” I said. “Is Penthouse film? It’s porn. If porn is film, does that mean film is porn? Is The Bicycle Thief porn?”

Usually I can get Emily worked up and defensive about the title. It’s like bullfighting, you have to know exactly how far you can go before you get gored. As long as she sputters angrily, I’m okay. The minute she says something like “the postmodern praxis of potentiality,” I run.

This time, she simply asked, “You’re coming to the reading tonight?”

“I never miss a party.”

“Party?” Ian said.

“It’s a reading,” Emily said.

“With booze,” I said. “So it’s a party.”

“Are you bringing a date?” Emily asked.

“Of course.” I hadn’t planned to, but I sure as hell was going to now. There was plenty of time to dig up a date. It was positively…six hours away.

“Not Matthew,” Emily said.

I rolled my eyes. “He wasn’t that bad.” He was also out of town, or he’d be the first I called.

“He was worse. Good thing he didn’t even make par.”

“What’s par?” Ian asked.

“Anne never dates anyone more than three months.”

“That is so not true!” I said. “What about Kyle?”

“Four months,” she said. “And that was high school.”

“It still counts,” I said—and noticed Ian’s expression.

There was something wistful in his deep blue eyes. He was thinking about Charlotte. About tragic, doomed high school love. He knew Charlotte would be at the party, and he longed to see her. He knew she was famous, he knew she was married. He only wanted to watch her from across the room, his heart silently breaking. And, well, I know I shouldn’t have done it. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson last time: never invite Ian anywhere. But I’d learned nothing.

So I looked at his injured-puppy eyes and said, “Would you like to come?”

“To the reading?”

“If you’re free tonight?”

He smiled. “I’d love to.”

Emily fiddled with her water glass, and I thought, uh-oh. Not good, inviting Charlotte’s ex-boyfriend to Emily’s party. “That’d be…nice,” she said.

“If you’re sure,” he asked her politely.

“Of course,” she said.

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he said.

“Come or don’t come,” she snapped. “I could care less.”

“Then I’ll definitely come.”

“And I’ll definitely go,” I said. “Lunch break’s over. If I give Jenny a reason to fire me—”

“Another reason,” Emily said, as I left.

Okay, it was a mistake to invite Ian. But it wasn’t a disaster. It had been ten years since it happened, and he clearly didn’t remember.

Which was almost as galling as if he had.

Wren was fixing the window when I returned.

“Very avant-garde,” she said.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She laughed and turned back to the mannequins, sorting them out with efficient, professional motions.

“It was a popular triumph,” I told her. “The people loved me.”

“But not critically acclaimed. Jenny isn’t happy.” She straightened the plaid mini. “Who’s the guy?”

“That’s Khaki Cords.” I kicked the mannequin. “I hate him.”

“The guy at the Coffee Bean.”

“Oh, him. Ian. My sister’s ex.”

“They’re back together?”

“Not Emily’s— Charlotte’s.”

“Ah. That explains it.”

“What?”

“He’s gorgeous.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I guess, if you like the blond, blue-eyed…gorgeous type. Oh! Speaking of which— I need a date for tonight.”

“Your sister’s book thing?”

“Yeah. I was gonna go stag, but…”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded knowingly. “Ian’s going?”

“Well, I sort of accidentally invited him.”

“You have a crush on Charlotte’s ex.”

“I don’t! Not a crush. But I, um…”

“You what?”

“Let’s just say I did something really stupid, once. I wouldn’t want him to think it ruined me for guys ever since.”

“What’d you do?”

“I invited him to a party,” I said.

“I mean last time,” she said.

“That’s what I did last time, too. I don’t know what it is. I see him, I invite him somewhere inappropriate. It’s Pavlovian.”

“Because he makes you salivate.”

I ignored her. “Anyway, I need a presentable date, fast.”

“My brother would do it for ten bucks.”

Her brother is thirteen. “I’m looking for clean-shaven, not pre-shaven.”

Jenny suddenly loomed. She edged between me and the nearest mannequin, as if afraid I’d go for its throat. “You’re back,” she said.

“With bells on!” I told her, smiling gaily as if nothing had happened.

“We have to talk,” Jenny told me.

“Anne needs a date tonight,” Wren said. “She’s got nobody to take to her sister’s party.”

For a moment, I was pissed at Wren. How could she tell Jenny I needed a date? Then I realized it was a perfect distraction. Jenny was a little starstruck by Charlotte, so there was no need to mention the party was for my other sister.

“Your sister?” Jenny considered. “Well, there’s always Billy.”

Billy was one of the Banana boys. Wren and I both had crushes on him—he was a young Brad Pitt—but Wren was the absolute worst flirt you’ve ever seen. As a rule, she was competent and pretty and perfect—but when flirting she flipped a switch, and a stuttering Elmer Fudd took over her body.

“He’ll go out with anyone,” Jenny said.

“Even Anne?” Wren asked.

“Oh, thanks,” I said.

Jenny shrugged. “Why not? I’ll get him to teach you how to use the register. Then you can ask.”

“The register!” I said. That was even better than Billy.

“There’s got to be something you can do around here.”

It turns out she was right. I was a cash register genius. Born to ring. After an hour behind the counter, hitting Sale, No Sale, Taxable and Return while trying to be fascinating, I turned to Billy with a smile. “You have plans tonight?”

He grinned and shrugged. His expression said, make me an offer.

“There’s a party,” I said. “My sister wrote a book. It’s sort of a publication thing.”

“A book party?” He sounded dubious.

“There’ll be booze. Well, wine…”

“Wine?” More dubious.

“Um, yeah.” Time to swallow my pride. “And it’s at Charlotte Olsen’s house in Montecito.”

He straightened slightly, in awe. “You know Charlotte Olsen?”

“A little.”

“The swimsuit model?”

“Is there another Charlotte Olsen?”

“Not in my life,” he said.

Mine either.

CHAPTER 03

Early evening. I sprawled across the bed and painted my fingernails with Charlotte’s blue polish.

“Not that,” Charlotte said, from her palatial walk-in closet. “It’s so last season.”

“It’s Hard Candy. I like it.”

She shook her head, but didn’t push me. Charlotte never did. “Well, on you, it still works.” She rummaged in the closet and held up a satin blouse and velvet jeans in a gorgeous powder blue. “Here, these’ll match.”

“I don’t think so, Charlotte….”

“They’re Gucci.”

My jaw tightened. I loved Gucci. She knew I loved Gucci. But I had my principles. Or at least I had my single solitary principle: not to wear my sisters’ hand-me-downs. “Why don’t you wear it?” I said, with a straight face.

She was eight months pregnant, and a honker. She was wearing a black tank top, a long knit skirt and a belly like an overinflated beach ball. “Because it’s not a size seventy-two.”

“Give it to Emily then.”

Charlotte snorted. “God knows what she’ll show up in. I wish she’d let me take her shopping.” She held up a cream linen dress. “How about this?”

I ignored her. I was sticking to the white blouse and jeans I’d bought with my discount at Banana. “Speaking of Emily.” I screwed the cap back on the polish. “Guess who we ran into today?”

“Ian Dunne. She said you invited him.”

“Well, it sort of popped out….”

“She also said you were putting on quite a show dressing the mannequins. You know, if you want to dress models I can introduce you to a stylist.”

I looked at Charlotte. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not, Annie.” Her natural pregnancy-glow doubled in wattage. “And I know just the woman. She dressed me for my calendar.”

“I meant, you don’t mind that I invited Ian. And it’s exaggerating to say you were dressed for your calendar.” Charlotte was America’s favorite swimsuit model. She’d won the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue two years in a row. Her calendar sold a zillion copies and I’ve seen her naked looking more modest than she did in some of those swimsuits.

“Why would I mind about Ian?” Charlotte smiled. “Do you remember how you asked him—”

“I remember.”

“It’ll be fun to see him. I can’t wait for David to meet him.”

David was Charlotte’s husband. She’d always dated gorgeous men, because they were the only ones with the egos to think they deserved Charlotte Olsen. Then she’d met David. A shy, unassuming anesthesiologist who looked like a young Billy Crystal. It was love at first sight.

“When’s he get home?” I asked.

Charlotte glanced at the clock. “An hour. And InStyle should be here soon.”

“I still don’t know how you convinced them to shoot Emily’s book party.”

“It wasn’t that hard—The Nation did name Emily one of the ten most dangerous young minds in America.”

“Yeah, number seven,” I said dismissively, because having two famous older sisters was more than I could bear. I’d thought Emily was safely obscure, but as a new Ph.D. at twenty-seven, she’d rocked the feminist world with her dissonant thoughts on pornography. Wonderful. “Somehow I don’t see InStyle caring about dangerous minds.”

Charlotte became suddenly fascinated by the shoes she was holding. “I can’t even wear normal shoes. I have hippo feet.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Something with InStyle?”

She lowered her bulk into a velvet boudoir chair. “I had to promise People, which is owned by the same parent company, exclusive pictures of me and the baby after the birth.”

“Charlotte!” She always tried to keep her personal life out of the spotlight.

“Well, you know. For Emily. David said it would be okay.”

“For that, they should put her in the ‘50 Most Beautiful’ issue.”

She inspected the shoes more closely.

“You asked and they said no?” I said.

“Don’t tell Emily.”

“Believe me, I won’t.”

When a model breaks out like Charlotte had, agents start looking at her sisters—same genes, right? Her agency offered to test shoot me when I turned fourteen. I was tempted, despite them wanting me to lose fifteen pounds, but Charlotte and Dad said no. I sulked, but was secretly pleased. I do look vaguely—very vaguely—like Charlotte. Except in front of a camera, her light hair shines, her tawny skin glows, and her smile blinds unprepared passersby. In front of a camera, I just look like me. Plus, I like to eat.

Nobody ever offered to test shoot Emily.

Dad showed up before David or InStyle, and immediately headed for the buffet.

I knocked a taquito from his fingers. “Wait till the guests arrive.”

“I’m starving. I held off lunch for this.”

“And if Emily catches you?”

He stepped away from the buffet, almost knocking over a vase of flowers. Dad was always nervous at Charlotte’s. The reek of wealth was disconcerting—the mansion in Montecito, the garden, the pool. Actually I was a little nervous myself, as Billy would arrive in an hour and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with him. At least I looked all right. Charlotte hadn’t convinced me to wear her clothes, but she’d done my hair and makeup. She was a cosmetics genius—with me spackled and shellacked, it was obvious we were sisters.

Then she waddled into the living room on David’s arm, and I sighed. She’d made herself up, too, so we were back to looking like strangers. Even pregnant, she was gorgeous. It was rare for me to see her fully made-up, and I’d forgotten how stunning she was. Perfect bone structure, large blue eyes, and lustrous hair that was meant to be long.

“Dad’s hungry,” I said.

“I skipped lunch,” Dad explained.

David’s admiring gaze broke from Charlotte. “I’ll get a plate from the buffet.”

“Emily,” Charlotte and I said.

“Right,” David said. “There’s chips in the kitchen. Back in a second.”

“Get me a slice of cheese,” Charlotte said.

David headed off and I eyed Charlotte’s enormous stomach, realizing I hadn’t capitalized on her condition as much as I should have. She’d grown positively huge. “Sit by me,” I said, and patted the couch. If I were lucky, the InStyle photographer would get a shot of this. The caption: A grotesquely pregnant Charlotte Olsen, and her svelte, much younger sister, Anne.