Free A Dress to Die For by Christine DeMaio-Rice Page B

many hours as he needed.
    “Did you set your phone to remind you to do your physio?”
    “You’re changing the subject.”
    “I’m fine. We have a scheduled conference every night. Have a little faith in me.”
    “I have faith in you. But the fake dress, that’s what I worry about.”
    “Would you shut up about that already?” She elbowed him affectionately. As annoying as he was, she enjoyed the fact that he knew her flaws.
    “I want you to go next time. You’re driving blind until you do.”
    She looked away. She was terrified of Asia. It was just a big blob of color on the map. A totally different world. Different language. Different culture. She felt as if the laws of physics somehow didn’t apply there. The fact that her fears were both unfounded and unreasonable didn’t make them any less real. “I can’t leave Sartorial,” she said.
    They pulled up to the terminal.
    “Ruby’s going to want to move more out of there,” he said. “Sartorial’s going to need you to go.”
    “I don’t want to be away from you.”
    He shook his head. “You’re lying to me or yourself.”
    She was about to get into a huff over it when he kissed her, and she fell into it, because he was going away and she already missed him.
    She watched him walk through the revolving doors. She loved seeing him walk because he was an embodiment of unselfconscious grace. He checked his watch, glanced back once, waved, and disappeared.
    “Where we going?” the cabbie asked.
    She touched Jeremy’s keys in her pocket. “North Fourth and Bedford.”
    “Williamsburg?” the cabbie asked. “Brooklyn?”
    “Please.”
    **
    The cat was away.
    But that didn’t mean Laura intended to run around with any man on earth besides Jeremy. Nor did it mean there were flirtations or drunken debaucheries on her horizon. It did mean her nights were free, and she intended to enjoy them as much as possible before the other enjoyments returned in ten days.
    Stu had stopped bike messengering completely so he could work as a full-time journalist. He seemed to have a heightened awareness of Laura’s temporary freedom. Their brief attempt at dating, which had been curtailed by Laura’s work schedule and his move to an heiress named Tofu, had left them with unresolved feelings that she was willing to let go of in light of the fact that she had Jeremy.
    So on Jeremy’s first night away, while he was on a plane, Laura sat with Stu at Binge, the most austere bar in Williamsburg with three things on the menu and little in the way of visual stimuli besides soft, ever-changing lighting. “Sheldon Pomerantz denied everything,” he said. “Right up until the subpoena. And the state won’t disbar him. His clients are rallying around him. By the way, your buddy Barry Tilden still has him on retainer.”
    After Laura, AKA “the Mouth,” had described Barry Tilden’s problem with a certain drunk model the day she and Sheldon had met, Sheldon decided he could help Barry with lots of things. Barry had retained him before André, Gracie’s killer, had even been arraigned.
    Unfortunately for Barry, Stu had released his New Yorker article about Laura’s investigation into Gracie’s murder, and he had changed the subject of the piece. The story was less about the murder and more about Sheldon and Gracie’s shady dealings with officials in the Apparel Workers Union. Jeremy had been relieved that the thing took more of a criminal turn and less of a lascivious one, which would have focused on Jeremy’s nine-year affair with Gracie.
    “Well, of course, he denies it,” Laura said, finishing her first gin-and-something. “What did you think he was going to do? Wave his hands around and say, ‘Hundreds of manufacturing jobs are gone because of me! Whee!’ I mean, you’re almost naïve.”
    “Honesty. It’s all I want.”
    “Good luck with that.”
    “Ruby told me about your father’s letters. Lala. Cute.”
    She sneered. “Cute, my ass. The more I’m