Striptease. Alison Kent

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СКАЧАТЬ but one or two of these extended vacations.”

      “Hear, hear,” Melanie seconded.

      She pulled the last of the wrapping from her box as, with a twist of her mouth, Sydney went on to add, “And now that Ray has popped the question, I’m calling dibs on the second—”

      “Lauren! This is absolutely gorgeous! Oh, Syd, I’m sorry. But this…” Melanie really hadn’t meant to shriek, or to cut off the boss, but she’d opened Lauren’s gift and…and…this was totally unreal! “I can’t believe it. I know this sculptor, and you spent way too much money.”

      “No, I didn’t,” Lauren stated, as Melanie turned the frosted-glass figurine over and around in her hands. “I found it in a tiny antique shop. A secondhand place. I don’t think they knew what they had. But I knew you had to have it.”

      The female nude was sculpted in the style of Lalique. The piece was absolutely exquisite, the woman kneeling with her hands spread over her belly beneath her bare breasts, her head tossed back and her eyes closed.

      Yet it fit in the palm of Melanie’s hand. “You know I’m going to kill myself if I break this before I get it home.”

      Lauren grinned. “If it made it safely all the way from Ireland, I imagine you can make it from here to Midtown.”

      The rest of the women got up to see the delicate piece of glasswork, oohing and aahing in appreciation, though no one could possibly value the representation the way Melanie did. “This is going to look so good in my shadow box.”

      “Do you have nude men in your shadow box?” Poe pinned her black-marble-and-marcasite brooch to the collar of her jade-green silk blazer. “Or do you prefer women?”

      Melanie refused to jump at Poe’s bait. “I know this may come as a shock, but I really do know what to do with a penis.”

      “I don’t know, Mel.” Chloe got in line behind Poe to give Lauren a hug. “Things might’ve changed since last time you had one. Evolution moves faster than you do when it comes to the mating process. You’re putting in way too many hours at the office to have a love life.”

      “Chloe’s right,” Poe unexpectedly added. “All work and no foreplay leads to burnout.”

      “Very funny,” Melanie said, though it wasn’t funny at all because the conversation had brought Jacob Faulkner and his, uh, attributes to mind, and she’d thought about him too many times already since the wedding. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll wait for Sydney to get married before I go postal on all of you.”

      Her joke fell curiously flat. Looking at the serious faces all around, Melanie realized her friends were truly concerned. How ridiculous! She was fine, though a bit disillusioned.

      Her partners seemed to have forgotten the percentages of perspiration and inspiration demanded by success. Besides, someone had to sweat out the declining e-tail market. She, for one, had financial obligations to meet.

      Sydney broke the strained silence first. “All right, ladies.” She glanced around the room. “Now that everyone has thanked Lauren properly and been brought up to date on Mel’s familiarity with the male anatomy, I need to give you an update on the documentary in which we’ve been selected to participate. I’ve had the lawyers go over all the release forms, contracts, yadda, yadda, and the ball is finally in motion.”

      Kinsey groaned. “Please, Syd. Do we really have to go through with this? I’m not the least bit photogenic and would really prefer not to share that fact with all of America.”

      “All of America?” Chloe shook her head. “Sugar, you are way too optimistic. It’s a series on female entrepreneurs, remember? We’ll be lucky to show up on PBS.”

      Sydney waited for the silliness to subside. “The producers have contracted a local production company to work with the show’s host, Ann Russell. She’ll be meeting with each of us over the next few days and setting up her schedule for interviews in the office and for the at-home segments, as well. Any questions?”

      Sigh. A local production company. Yes, there was more than one. But there was only one best. And even that one had more than one cameraman. But once again only one best. And Melanie knew that when it came to gIRL-gEAR, Sydney Ford never settled for less.

      Melanie’s good-mood balloon deflated. She’d known two months ago that the man was destined to cause her grief. She just hadn’t thought the probability of working with Jacob Faulkner again would come so soon. And what had Sydney said? At-home segments?

      She rubbed her thumb over the smooth, frosted glass in her hand. “Who’s contracted to do the filming?”

      “Avatare Productions.”

      Lauren jumped to the edge of her seat. “Hey, they did my wedding video. Excellent choice, Syd. Anton and I finally watched the tape Sunday afternoon and the edits were amazing. Brought tears to my eyes, seeing it all as if it was happening again.”

      “I didn’t choose them but after witnessing the crew in action at the wedding and reception, I did suggest to the producers that they request the same cameraman who ran the show.” Sydney frowned. “I never did catch his name.”

      “Jacob Faulkner,” Melanie said, and all eyes turned her way.

       2

      SITTING BEHIND THE DESK in her black-and-white office and feeling uncharacteristically frustrated, Melanie flipped through the catalog of gift items left by the sales rep who’d stopped by the office this morning. The list of possibilities she’d jotted on her legal pad was decidedly short.

      She’d promised to get back to him within the week, but knew it wasn’t going to happen. Just like last year, her gOODIE gIRL gift line wasn’t hurting for product. What she was desperate to find was merchandise for gIZMO gIRL’s electronic stock.

      Affordable, practical and, yes, admittedly trendy items. So many of the gIRL-gEAR Web site visitors were teens with no source of income save for an allowance or baby-sitting money or, at the most, what they earned working after school for minimum wage.

      And Melanie was having the worst time pinning down workable inventory. Her target price bracket meant sales reps offered her cutesy with no substance or functional with no style. She wanted it all. Her customers, no matter their age or earnings, deserved it all. And, she admitted, the challenge of providing it was one of her favorite parts of the job.

      Not every girl was completely appearance or fashion conscious, yet plenty were—and were turned off by any design that hinted at boring practicality. And even if there was no consensus on what constituted cool, the pressure to conform was still hard to escape.

      Melanie had been lucky in that her own early ventures into geekhood had met with moderate peer acceptance. Though she’d promised her two best friends that she was just as excited as they were about cheerleading, she’d ended up blowing off too many practices and had been kicked off the squad.

      Her girlfriends had thought she was out of her mind, preferring to spend her time in the career center’s computer lab, but the guys she’d hung with thought she was cool, if a little bit weird. Most were fairly weird themselves, outcasts and loners, but smart as hell. Ambitious, too. She’d liked that about them. Liked it a lot.

      She’d СКАЧАТЬ