of people just hanging, Cin. For them, cocktail hour starts right after the soaps.”
Wrapped in a white terry-cloth towel, Cindy stared into her clothes closet. It was too early in the season to wear the light fabrics. (Besides the fact that it was way too chilly outside.) However, it wasn’t heavyweight wool weather, either. That left her with several options.
Option one:
Her midweight, sleeveless black gabardine dress. Always appropriate dinner wear, but way too sexy for a business meeting with a superior, let alone a man who worked with her father. Now, she could wear her black blazer over the dress. That would certainly tone it down. But the jacket was a more bluish-black while the dress was more greenish-black. Which never made sense to her; why black came in so many different shades.
Option two:
An olive-drab skirt suit, which looked great with her red hair. But it was militaristic in style, replete with spangles and epaulettes. She had to be in the right mood to wear it. Tonight, she didn’t feel like WACing it.
Option three: her last selection.
A single-breasted navy pantsuit—good cut around the hips, not too tight around the ass, no plunging neckline. It said, I am all business so don’t even think about it. Maybe it was even a little unfriendly. She supposed she could gussie it up with a scarf.
Except that she hated scarves.
There were women who were naturals with them, tossing them over their shoulders in a carefree serape manner or winding them like jeweled chokers around the neck. She, on the other hand, never could get the damn things to sit properly. On her, scarves always looked like weather wear rather than stylish accessories. Besides, with her red tresses, she had to be careful with multicolored objects.
She unhooked the plain Jane pantsuit from the closet pole and regarded the sedate outfit. It would suffice. To accent it, she’d wear a simple gold chain around her neck and gold stud earrings. Definitely nothing about that ensemble could be deemed inappropriate. Not that she thought that Scott had ideas, but men were men. Even old men were men.
She gave herself a final toweling, then put on her undergarments. Next came the pants, which fit nicely, even a little loose. Well, that was a nice surprise.
She slipped her arms through the jacket and began to button it. She was shocked to find it pulling across her chest. She took off the blazer and checked herself out in the mirror. Her boobs hadn’t gotten any bigger, but her underlying chest musculature sure had. Her shoulders had also widened.
She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before. Probably because she wasn’t a preener. She checked herself out only when necessary, which meant before dates. And they hadn’t happened for a while. Not that this shindig with Scott was a date, but at least it was dinner outside the house with a man who wasn’t a relative. She accredited the change in her physique to a regimen of weight lifting and exercise, including a daily workout of a three-mile jog, fifty push-ups, and two hundred crunches.
So the blazer stretched across her chest. No big whoop! She just wouldn’t button it. Except now she’d have to wear something under the blazer. Her blouses would probably pull, too. So that left her with sweaters. Most of them were too thick and too casual to wear with a suit. Except she did have one black-ribbed turtleneck.
Did black go with navy?
Alas, she thought. Cursed with a pathetic sense of style. If only she had been brought up with a mother who knew about these things. A mother who knew how to knot scarves and how to coordinate separates and just what shade of lipstick would work.
Her mother was just as fashion-blind as she was. Mom’s attire consisted mainly of cotton caftans or peasant blouses worn with ruffled skirts. Her jewelry was almost always chunky bead necklaces or Southwestern sterling-and-turquoise numbers. Cindy never understood why her mother dressed in such a shapeless manner, since she had a nice trim figure. When Cindy had been heavily into psych, she once had told her mother that wearing loose clothes was akin to denying sexuality. Her mother—also into psych—had said she liked sex just fine (If you want confirmation, go ask your father. Yeah, right!), and her choices had more to do with comfort.
Cindy put on the turtleneck. It was tight, but it would suffice. The blazer, of course, softened her protruding bustline. In midsized heels, she stood a svelte five ten, one hundred forty-five. She regarded herself in the mirror. All she needed were sunglasses and a two-way squawk box, and she could have been typecast as a Fed.
She smoothed some blush over her cheekbones, and covered her lips with something gooey and shiny. Rolling her shoulder-length tresses into a knot, she then pinned her hair up with a butterfly clip. She slipped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and went out of the bedroom. Just as she was about to lock up, she tossed a final glance around her living room.
Her eyes landed upon the mantel, staring at it longer than necessary.
Because something struck her as off.
She walked over to the fireplace and studied the knick-knacks perched atop the ledge. There was a bud vase, a small Waterford crystal clock (a birthday gift given by her stepmother, Rina), a dozen miniature porcelain animals (her childhood collection), and several pictures of her parents in silver frames.
That was it!
Hannah’s picture was missing. Cindy’s eyes scanned the area until they lit on the coffee table. There sat her six-year-old half-sister, a boisterous smile plastered over her little mug. She picked up the silver frame and restored the photo to its rightful place.
How’d it get on the coffee table? Cindy knew she hadn’t touched it since she had set it on the mantel.
Or maybe she had moved it when she had last dusted.
God, when was the last time she had dusted?
She checked the clock that read twenty to seven. Even if she were lucky with traffic, she’d barely make it to the restaurant on time.
She’d deal with the picture later. After locking the bolt securely, tugging on the knob to make sure everything was buttoned up, she left her apartment, bolting down the three flights of stairs.
Maybe Oliver had moved the picture last night. Maybe he had walked over to her mantel and picked it up, walking around with it as he waited for her. Then, when he went to put it back, he had forgotten where it belonged.
Which really didn’t make sense. All he had to do was look at the mantel and see the other photographs.
She looked around, checked over her shoulder, then unlocked her car. Sliding into the driver’s seat, she immediately locked the car. She took a final glance around before she started the motor.
Maybe Oliver had been walking around with it, then had put it down quickly when she had come into the room. Because he hadn’t wanted her to catch him looking at her personal stuff.
Now that made some sense.
You know how it is. You’re alone in a strange place; you get curious and start touching things you shouldn’t be touching. Then the person comes in and you don’t want him or her to see you snooping.
She started the engine, let it idle, then took off. After a block, she checked her
