Kitabı oku: «A Perfectly Imperfect Match», sayfa 2

Lucky for her that her needs were few and her tastes were the exact opposite of extravagant, she thought, making short work of the leftover Chinese food.

Chapter Two

“So, how did it go, Jared? Were you able to reach Elizabeth to make the arrangements?” Theresa Manetti’s melodic voice asked early the next morning when, bleary-eyed and semiconscious, he’d managed to pick up the phone receiver on his second attempt.

The caterer had caught Jared Winterset completely off guard. He’d been up late, working on an ad campaign that needed some serious last-minute revamping and fueling his flagging energy with bracing black coffee, which could have walked off on its own power at any time. Consequently, he wasn’t firing on all four cylinders this morning when he answered his phone.

Jared liked the woman. His path had crossed Mrs. Manetti’s because, in his line of work, he occasionally had to throw a few parties for his clients. Someone had given him her card a couple of years ago, along with a glowing recommendation that turned out to be right on the money. Theresa took pride in her work and had a personal stake in every affair she catered. The food, he could honestly say, was incredible.

Over time, they struck up an easy friendship. She was like the doting aunt he’d never had and he valued her input. It was Theresa who had given him the name and phone number of the violinist he hadn’t been able to reach last night.

He wondered now if possibly the two were related. Why else would Theresa be calling at this hour to find out how it went?

“No,” he answered. “She wasn’t home. I tried to leave a message on her answering machine, but that didn’t work out too well.”

Rather than just letting it go at that, Theresa surprised him by wanting to know, “What happened?”

For the second time in two minutes, she’d caught him off guard.

“Bad connection,” he answered. Okay, so it was a lie, he thought, but he really didn’t feel like going into the fact that he’d hung up midmessage after becoming tongue-tied and unable to articulate even the simplest of thoughts.

Instead of making a second attempt at leaving a coherent voice mail, Jared had decided to just try again another time. His hopes were that the future call would get him in contact with a human being rather than an irritating recording announcing that no one could take his call at the moment, but to please leave a message after the tone.

The sad truth was that answering machines left him somewhat disoriented, and if not exactly flustered, certainly not at the top of his game. After all, he was an ad executive who had great people skills according to his annual evaluations at the firm, not to mention the input given to his superiors by very satisfied clients. But, despite all that, there was no getting away from the fact that he just didn’t feel right talking to a machine—in this case, the answering machine.

Jared would have been the first to admit that inanimate objects held no interest for him. That was the main reason why, other than when the necessity for extensive research arose, he spent next to no time online. He had no overwhelming desire to look up old acquaintances or strike up new friendships via the internet.

He was and had always been a one-on-one kind of a guy and he liked it that way just fine. It was what made him so good at ad campaigns. He made them seem as if they were speaking solely to each person in the audience.

“But you’ll try getting in touch with her again?” The way Theresa asked the question, it was as if his answer was a foregone conclusion.

“Well, I’m going to be kind of busy for the next few days,” he told her. There were still a great many details about the celebration to iron out, not to mention that he had several clients’ hands to hold through a rough time. “I’ve got an idea,” he told Theresa. “Why don’t you just make the arrangements for a band for me?” he suggested. “I mean, you’re already handling the catering and you’ve always done a bang-up job with that.”

No, no! You’re not getting the point, Theresa thought in frustration. Frustration she managed to completely hide from the intended target of all this effort.

Maizie, one of her two dearest friends in the whole world, had called her the moment she’d left the doctor’s office, telling her about Dr. Stephens’s daughter. Maizie had put both her and Cecilia, her other friend, on high alert. Between the three of them, she was certain that they could find someone for Dr. Stephens’s daughter.

Theresa had gotten lucky first. But nothing ever went smoothly, she thought now.

“I’ll do anything you want me to with food, Jared, but I think that you should be the one to select your parents’ music,” she suggested tactfully. “After all, you’re the one who knows what they like—”

Actually, he didn’t have a clue as to what his parents liked to listen to. He vaguely remembered that when he was a child, his mother used to like to play old show tunes—but he didn’t know if she still did—and as for his father…Off the top of his head, he couldn’t recall if the old man favored one style of music over another.

“Probably the same thing you like” was his best guess.

This wasn’t going to be as easy as their last effort to pair up a couple, Theresa thought. But she was nothing if not a study in quiet determination. People, it was her firm belief, were much happier in pairs than alone.

“Be that as it may, Jared. I know that I would be touched if my son was personally involved in all the preparations for my thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. Trust me, mothers are funny like that,” she added as her closing argument.

Before he could jump in with another rebuttal, an idea came to her. “I happen to know that Ms. Stephens will be playing at Paragon Studios today. She’s part of a small ensemble recording the background music for this romantic-comedy series, More than Roommates. Why don’t you drop by and give her a listen?” She paused. “That way you can hear her perform in person and that’ll help you make up your mind about the pluses of having live music at your parents’ party.”

It sounded reasonable, but there was one thing wrong with her suggestion. “I can’t just waltz onto a sound-stage,” Jared pointed out. He didn’t know all that much about the mechanics of taping a show, but he did know that.

If he thought this was over, he was mistaken, Theresa thought with a tinge of triumph.

“Not most studios,” she agreed. “But you can this one. The director’s an old friend of mine. I’ll give him a call and I know he won’t mind you coming in—as long as you just observe.”

The woman had an answer for everything. Jared felt as if he’d just gotten in the path of a hurricane and been swept up. He laughed, surrendering. “Fine, you get the okay, and I’ll go listen—but it’ll have to be in the late afternoon,” he stipulated. “I have to be in the office today.”

“No problem. These things run over,” Theresa assured him, recalling what little she did know about tapings. “I’ll call you back with details,” she promised.

He shook his head as he hung up. Maybe the woman was right. He’d hired Theresa on a number of occasions, and he fully respected both her work ethic and her opinion. Besides, she was around his parents’ age. She would know better than he what would please them. They’d probably like having a live band.

He smiled to himself. This was something his sister, Megan, hadn’t thought of when she left him with a list of things to follow up on—just before she went off on that extended cruise with her husband.

Megan was going to be surprised at his intuitiveness, he thought. She didn’t have to know that the suggestion had come from the caterer.

However, he had no way of knowing that Theresa and her friends, Maizie and Cecilia, had banded together to form a matchmaking group that had been dubbed “Matchmaking Mamas” by one of their children. All three women were successful businesswomen in their own right, but making matches for their children and their friends’ children was where their hearts really lay.

And so far, they had a perfect record.

Theresa had no intention of having that streak be broken.

The friend Theresa called the moment she hung up with Jared wasn’t the director she’d mentioned—it was Cecilia, her other dear friend and comrade-in-arms. Cecilia was the one who knew the director on the sitcom. The company Cecilia owned provided cleaning services, and she personally oversaw the cleaning of the director’s sprawling mansion twice a month.

Favors were called in and within twenty minutes, all arrangements were made. Jared would be allowed onto the set for the taping.

Theresa called back and cheerfully informed her young client that “All systems are a go, Jared.”

“Excuse me?” Preoccupied with the account that had kept him up, he wasn’t sure what the woman was referring to. Juggling his phone as well as his house keys, he was trying to shrug into his jacket as he made his way out the door.

Theresa patiently spelled it out. “Ted Riley, the director of More than Roommates, said you could come onto the set anytime after four today. That’s when they’re taping the final take of the background music for the episode.”

One arm punched through a sleeve, Jared stopped putting on his jacket, and glanced at his watch. He had a meeting with a client at noon. With any luck, it would be wrapped up by four. That meant he’d be free to drive over to Paragon Studios. If he recalled his geography, Paragon Studios was only approximately two miles away from his client’s offices.

“Okay, since you’ve gone through all this trouble, I’ll swing by and give that woman a listen.” And then he laughed as he put his arm through the second sleeve. “You do know that you should join the U.N. and use your powers of persuasion for good, don’t you, Theresa?”

Tickled, she laughed lightly and said, “That’s exactly what I am doing, Jared. I’m using my ‘powers’ for the greater good.” Your good—and Elizabeth’s, she added silently.

Jared didn’t question her any further. He just assumed the woman was referring to helping him with the arrangements for his parents’ celebration.

Elizabeth shifted ever so slightly. She could feel the handsome stranger’s eyes on her.

She’d noticed him immediately, although he’d obviously tried to be unobtrusive when he’d slipped onto the set ten minutes ago. He’d stood off to the side as gaffers, cameramen and other technical pros scurried about, just barely managing to keep clear of the very small area where the ensemble was playing.

He’d tried to go unnoticed, but a man who looked like that wasn’t the kind who exactly blended into the scenery. Tall, with straight black hair and near-perfect angular features, not to mention wide shoulders and a trim waist with slim hips, he looked as if he should have been in front of the camera, not off to one side behind it.

Why was this dashing gentleman watching her play so intently? Was her fingering off? Or was there something wrong with the way she was dressed?

But even as the questions occurred to her, she knew that the answer to each was no. She was wearing the same kind of attire that the other musicians had on, and her fingering hadn’t been off since she was five.

Was he another technical adviser? Someone associated with the studio who wanted to make sure that money wasn’t being wasted on musicians who couldn’t hold a note?

She knew that a lot of the music for programs these days was of the prerecorded variety, just artfully melded by one person in a sound booth to avoid the expense of having a six-piece ensemble supply live play.

“And—it’s a wrap,” the director finally declared. Vibrant just a few seconds ago, he looked weary now and incredibly relieved to be wrapping up a shoot that had taken longer than he’d anticipated.

“Thank you, people. You can go home now,” he announced, waving them off the set.

The moment she started packing up her instrument and the sheet music, the handsome observer began to make his way toward her.

“Excuse me.” The deep, resonant voice was polite as he tried to get her attention.

The moment he opened his mouth, she was struck by a feeling of déjà vu. That voice was familiar. Where had she heard it before? Elizabeth wondered.

But the next moment, she nixed the thought. How could his voice sound familiar? She’d never met the man. She definitely would have remembered meeting someone who looked like him.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d heard his voice somewhere before. On a commercial perhaps? Elizabeth stopped packing up her violin in its case and gave him her undivided attention.

“Yes?”

Theresa hadn’t mentioned that the woman was a knockout as well as talented. He found he had to struggle to maintain his train of thought. “Are you Elizabeth Stephens?”

Definitely a familiar voice, she thought. But where had she—?

“Yes,” she answered, her curiosity piqued.

Jared decided to treat this like an ad campaign and plunged right in. “Theresa Manetti suggested that I get in contact with you.”

Elizabeth shook her head. She had no idea who he was referring to. It certainly wasn’t the name of someone who had hired her to play before. She had each and every client’s name and number memorized.

Raising her head, Elizabeth looked the man straight in the eyes—noting that they were a knee-numbing light green.

“I’m afraid I don’t know who that is,” she told him.

He had to have her confused with someone else, she decided—then immediately backtracked. The man knew her name, so he couldn’t have her confused with someone else. But who was this Theresa Manetti, and why was she sending this man to her?

“Really?” Jared asked, somewhat confused himself. “She speaks very highly of you.”

And then it hit her—why his voice sounded so familiar. It was the same voice she’d heard stumbling on her answering machine last night. He was the incomplete call that had abruptly ended in midsentence.

Her eyes pinned him in place, daring him to deny what she was about to say. “You called me last night.”

Instead of denying it, he surprised her by owning up to the botched call. “I did.”

“But you hung up,” she pointed out.

He looked slightly chagrined, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and unable to pull it out, or even come up with a plausible reason why his hand was there in the first place.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized.

Face-to-face, he could easily make up an excuse as to why he’d terminated the call. Power failure, a dropped signal—there were myriad reasons for him to choose from. But he didn’t see the advantage of beginning what would only be a very short association—his parents’ anniversary was in three and a half weeks—with lies and excuses.

So he told her the truth. “I’m not very good when it comes to talking to answering machines,” he confessed.

“I noticed,” she acknowledged, then laughed softly. “Just between you and me, I’ve got the same problem. If you call in person, I can guarantee that I pretty much could talk your ear off. But if I find myself on the other end of some robotic-sounding recorder, I go completely blank.”

Her summation of the problem amused him. “Nice to know I’m not alone.” He became aware that the director was looking expectantly in his direction. “I think we’re in the way here,” Jared said.

Now that he’d met her, he wasn’t so keen on pulling the plug on the music anymore. He looked around the soundstage, but there didn’t even seem to be the hint of a vending machine around.

He looked at her. “Is there somewhere we can go where we can talk?”

Though she told herself she was letting her imagination run away with her, Elizabeth felt her pulse kick into high gear.

She inwardly chided herself for getting carried away. The man obviously meant he just wanted to talk to her about her playing abilities, not because he was as drawn to her as she was to him. Someone who looked the way this man did was either married, spoken for or extremely busy socially.

“Well, you could walk me to my car,” she suggested. “Other than that, I think there’s a coffee shop about a block away outside the gates,” she told him, trying to picture the place.

He glanced at his watch. He just wanted to make sure that he didn’t lose track of time. He had an early meeting tomorrow and he needed to have some rough drafts of the new campaign for Getaway Resorts done before then.

“Ordinarily, coffee would sound great, but I’ve already had twice my quota today…and if I have any more, there’s no way I’m going to get any sleep tonight. Maybe I should just walk you to your car.”

She nodded, surprised at the sliver of disappointment that seemed to slice through her. She told herself she was behaving like an adolescent, but somehow, that didn’t seem to change her feelings.

“Walking it is,” she declared dramatically, then lowered her voice as if she were part of a stage performance. “Although I should warn you, I didn’t exactly park close.”

Elizabeth led the way out of the soundstage, taking a side door marked Exit.

The darkness enveloped them the moment they came out.

“As a matter of fact,” she went on to say, “if you didn’t have time to get in your morning run today, this will probably make up for it—and then some.”

Her comment bemused him. “What makes you think I run?”

She looked at him as if the question didn’t even really require an answer. “This is Southern California. Everyone always claims to be into all kinds of exercise out here. Running was the first thing that came to mind.”

Also, a body like yours doesn’t come from a mail-order catalog, she added silently. He made her think of Michelangelo’s David—except more so.

“Do you?” she asked out loud. When he looked at her somewhat quizzically, she added, “Run?”

“Only when I’m late getting somewhere and the car doesn’t work,” he quipped. He had no idea what made him share the next piece of information with her. “I’ve got an elliptical trainer in the garage that guilts me out every night when I park my car inside.”

“That’s simple enough to avoid,” she told him, then suggested, “You could try parking your car in the driveway instead.”

He saw the twinkle in her eyes, and laughed. He liked her sense of humor. “Sounds like a plan,” he murmured.

As the sound of his laugh wrapped itself around her, Elizabeth caught herself returning his smile.

Chapter Three

“So,” Jared said once they stepped outside Paragon Studios, “where’s your car?”

“You can’t see it from here, but it’s that way,” Elizabeth told him, pointing in the general direction. “We’re going to have to walk a little bit before you can see it.”

Jared shook his head. He’d thought she was exaggerating before. Obviously not. “You weren’t kidding about your car being parked far away.”

She stopped and looked at him. Taking the man on a forced march was not the way to win over a potential employer. “If it’s too far for you, you really don’t have to walk me to my car.”

He laughed and waved away her words. “Just an observation, Ms. Stephens, not a complaint. The way I look at it, the exercise will do me good.” They resumed walking, stopping only to get out of the way of a car that was pulling out. “But seriously, why did you park so far away from the actual soundstage?”

Most of the people he knew tried to find a space that was close to their destination, not park in the next county.

“The first time I came here, I found that the parking spaces that were near the building were either reserved, or already taken. I didn’t want to waste time driving up and down the aisles, looking for someplace that was relatively close, so I just took the first space I saw when I pulled in.”

Megan could stand to learn a lot from this woman. “I bet you get a lot more Christmas shopping done with that philosophy,” Jared speculated. His sister spent half her time cruising the lots, looking for that one perfect spot that just happened to be right in front of the mall entrance.

“I don’t know about my philosophy having anything to do with it, but I’m usually done with Christmas shopping in November.” Glancing over at him, she noted that Jared looked as stunned as if she’d just told him she had superpowers.

“You’re kidding,” he said incredulously. “November? Really?”

She nodded. “That’s right,” she confirmed, then decided that maybe an explanation was in order. “That way, I can take my time, and then enjoy the season instead of dashing madly about, looking for some picked-over last-minute gifts that people may or may not like.” But there was also a more practical reason for her spreading out her shopping season. “Besides, December is one of my busiest months. People seem to like violin music more when there’s a Christmas tree involved.”

Her phraseology amused him, but he pretended to take her comment seriously. “Must be the smell of pine,” he quipped.

Elizabeth nodded, mimicking his overall tone. “Must be.”

He liked the way her mouth curved ever so slightly as she was trying to keep a straight face. Liked the smile in her brilliant blue eyes. Since they had a ways to go before they reached her car, Jared decided to use that time to find out a few things about this attractive blonde.

He started with an easy question. “How long have you been playing the violin?” he asked her.

She knew the exact moment she had started playing in earnest, but for simplicity—and because the story wasn’t one she shared with someone she’d just met—she said flippantly, “Sometimes it feels as if I were born clutching a violin in my hands.”

“Must have been a really rough delivery for your poor mother,” he deadpanned.

The mention of her mother—even in jest the way this obviously was intended—always brought a sliver of pain piercing her heart.

Though her mother was gone by the time she had entered kindergarten, Elizabeth had a handful of memories that she treasured and hung on to for dear life. One of those memories involved listening to her mother playing the violin for her father.

It was shortly after her mother’s death, in an effort to try to cheer her father up, that she picked up her mother’s violin and began to play it. She managed to miraculously recall the way her mother had stroked the bow over the strings while fingering them. What resulted might not have been ready to be heard in any concert hall, but at least it didn’t sound as if she was scraping her nails against a chalkboard.

Immensely touched and even more impressed, her father signed her up for violin lessons the very next day. To that end, he also gave her mother’s violin to her to use during her lessons.

Elizabeth could remember regarding the violin nervously. To attempt to play it once in order to cheer up her father was one thing, to suddenly become the keeper of this precious instrument was quite another. And quite a responsibility.

She recalled looking up at her father and asking, “Daddy, are you sure?”

“Very sure,” he’d told her firmly, then added the words that completely won her over. “Your mother would have wanted you to have it.”

Entrusted with this sacred duty, Elizabeth had taken loving care of it, taking great pains to keep the violin in top playing condition. When it finally had to be restrung, she retained the original strings, putting them carefully into an envelope and tucking the envelope away in her jewelry box, something else that she’d inherited from her mother.

Jared noticed the serious expression that had crossed her face. Noticed, too, that she had suddenly become very quiet.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, thinking this sudden change in her attitude was his fault. “Did I say something wrong?”

Elizabeth shook her head. He had nothing to do with the thoughts that were going through her head. Her mother had been gone for twenty-one years, but there were times that it felt like only yesterday.

“No,” she told him softly. “I was just thinking.” That was an open-ended sentence, begging for more of an explanation, and she knew it. But for the moment, she didn’t feel like going into it. She had no desire to either unload, or to make him feel uncomfortable and guilty for raising the subject of her mother, however innocently, since she had passed on.

“About…?” he prodded.

“Nothing of importance,” she finally said. “This violin belonged to my mother, and I was just worried that I might have nicked it earlier,” she lied. “I’m sorry, you probably think I’m obsessing.”

“Not at all. Perfectly normal to want to take care of a beautiful thing,” he said.

He was being kind, she thought, finding herself more and more drawn to this handsome, likable man.

“Your mother used to play?” he asked her.

Elizabeth felt pride swelling within her. “Like an angel.”

But even as she said it, it occurred to Elizabeth that she was spending too much time talking about her personal life. While friendly, she didn’t usually open up this much about herself. It was definitely time to change topics.

“So, what’s the occasion?” she asked him brightly.

She’d switched gears a bit too fast, she realized when he looked at her quizzically and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I’m assuming that you don’t want to hire me to serenade you outside your bedroom window. So, what’s the occasion?” she repeated.

For just a second, Jared allowed himself to dwell on the scenario she’d just drawn for him. The very idea of her playing her violin just for him outside his window both amused him and—in an odd sort of way—aroused him.

He realized he was letting his mind wander while she was waiting for a response. “My parents’ thirty-fifth wedding anniversary is coming up in a little more than three weeks. Why, does that make a difference?”

“Absolutely. The occasion always makes a difference,” she told him. “There’s a different mind-set involved in playing for a couple who’ve been together for thirty-five years than, say, playing at a wedding where the couple is just starting out. And both require different preparations than setting up to play at a high school graduation party.”

“Get to play for many of those?” he asked, amused. When he’d graduated high school, he’d hung out all night celebrating with his friends. He didn’t even remember he had parents until the following morning.

“You’d be surprised at how many indulgent parents live in Beverly Hills,” she answered. And then a question hit her. “Was that my audition?” she asked, seemingly out of the blue. “Back there, in the studio,” she clarified, nodding back toward the building now in the distance.

It was starting to make sense. “You really should signal when you’re switching lanes like that. Otherwise, a person could get whiplash,” he said drily. “As for your question, I don’t know if I’d call it an audition, but the woman who gave me your name thought it might be a good thing to hear you in action, so to speak. I liked what I heard,” he was quick to add. “I should have realized that I would since Theresa speaks so highly of you.”

There was that name again, she thought. Who was he talking about?

“Theresa,” Elizabeth repeated, her tone all but inviting him to add a surname to the woman’s given one.

But when he did, she was no more enlightened than she’d been before. “Theresa Manetti.”

Elizabeth did a quick mental run through her client list. The woman’s last name didn’t ring any bells. As far as she knew, she’d never dealt with a Theresa Manetti when it came to making arrangements to play at a party or a gig.

Moving over to one side in order to avoid stepping on a rather fat wad of bubble gum, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I just don’t remember this woman.”

He thought that odd but pressed on. “She was the one who told me where you’d be working this morning and set it up so that I could come down and hear you play for myself.” He shrugged. “Actually, although she didn’t say it in so many words, I got the feeling that she really wanted me to meet you as soon as possible.”

“Huh,” Elizabeth murmured to herself. She still wasn’t getting an image in her head. “Did this Theresa Manetti happen to tell you where she heard me play? I’m pretty good about remembering the people who hire me, so I’m guessing she might have heard me at one of the little theater groups in the area.”

For all she knew, the woman could have just been part of one of the audiences, but if that were the case, how did this Manetti woman know her name or her schedule? This wasn’t making any sense to her.

Jared, meanwhile, had been sidetracked by something she’d just said. “You play for theater groups, too?”

She wasn’t sure if he was impressed, or just surprised. In either case, the answer to his question was the same.

“Yes.”

He was undoubtedly wondering why she didn’t stick to a single venue. Aside from variety being the spice of life, there was a far more basic reason behind her working all these diverse jobs.

“It takes a lot of gigs to stitch together a living,” she told him honestly. “Unless you’re a world-class musician who can pretty much write your own ticket, you have to scramble to find work anywhere you can. And I really do love show music,” she confided. “As a matter of fact, I’m playing at the Bedford Theater this weekend. They’re doing Fiddler on the Roof. It’s their final weekend,” she informed him. “I can leave you a ticket at the box office for this Sunday if you’d like to come.”

He didn’t want to inconvenience her, or ask for special treatment. “You don’t have to do that,” he protested.

She laughed at his protest. “Are you kidding? The more bodies, the better. It’s a known fact. Musicians always play better to a packed house,” she said with a wink.