Fortune Is a Woman by Francine Saint Marie

just as casually as if nothing had ever happened and neither woman brought up the embrace. It was just as if it hadn’t happened.
    Oh, but it did, it did. Venus placed her hands in her lap. It sure did. She wished she could lie down somewhere soft, somewhere that smelled a trifle more feminine than Kendle’s office. Maybe in a hammock near a garden. Maybe on a devilishly hot, hot beach. She surveyed the drab, uninspiring office.
    A bed of feathers, some perfumed sheets, satin hands touching her shoulders, a kiss. These were the luxuries Venus allowed herself to dream of now, her hands folded as if in prayer. She wasn’t thinking of Soloman-Schmitt, or of the new private office she had been awarded, or of power and wealth, or of Paula Treadwell, or of the Duke of Valentine, or of princes, or of edicts and orders. Fortune had a new meaning for Venus. It had become a woman. One who should have been kissed. One who might have desired to be kissed. Or one who might have let herself be overcome and then kissed. Very likely now it was a lost fortune. She thought this afternoon: What didn’t you do, fool, that you might have, or in hindsight, that you should have?
     

Chapter 10
    Fixed in Their Ways
     
    “Queenie?”
    “Da–Edward.”
    “Have supper with your daddy?”
    Lydia was trying to break him of this queenie/daddy thing. She was too old for it. But it was an old habit and so far she hadn’t succeeded. “Daddy, what time?”
    “After work. Listen, I’ve got the deeds to the summer place.”
    They were a pair. Him obsessed with dying, converting his assets, giving them away, just in case. Her obsessed with growing old, hoarding her assets, counting her grays when no one was looking, lamenting her very skeleton. “Bring them.”
    “Bring your better half.”
    Almost eighty years old and still flirting with the skirts. “I’ll try,” she said, “if you promise to behave.”
    “Leave her home then. See you at the club, Queenie.”
    “Mine or yours?”
    “Mine, of course. I never get used to yours. The lean menu and all.”
    “Five o’clock, Edward. I can’t get away any sooner.”
    “Okay, Queenie. Five it is.” (click)
    The summer place, the family’s lake house, was boarded up, its gardens overgrown. No one had used the place in years so it made good sense for her father to want to unload it. Buildings don’t hold up well to that kind of neglect.
    Lydia was planning on renovating it, a future present to Helaine, and she had no real intention of bringing her to dinner where the sometimes forgetful Edward Beaumont might leak the secret and spoil the surprise. That left her between a rock and a hard place for the moment.
    “I can’t, Lana. I told my father I’d meet him for dinner after work.”
    “Lydia? I’ll join you then. I’m sure he won’t mi–”
    “Helaine–NO.”
    There was silence. Had she hung up on her? “Helaine?”
    “But we always dine on Thursdays.”
    Thursdays. It was Thursday. “Oh, gosh, I’m–” But she just couldn’t risk it. “Lana, I–”
    “Don’t you Lana me, Lydia Beaumont. I’m not a fool.”
    “Helaine, please. It’s my father.” She had screwed up again. Something small, but it was the second time this week. There was static on the other end of the line. “I won’t be long. I promise.”
    “Oh, fine. Isn’t that a lovely consolation? This is not a small thing, I’ll have you know. I’m…I don’t even know what…upset.”
    Helaine rarely got upset. “I’ll see you tonight, Helaine.”
    No response.
    “Helaine?”
    “Lydia.”
    “I love you.”
    “You lo–hang up the phone! You’re a cad and I’m…I’m just livid.”
    “I know. I’m sor–”
    (CLICK)
    _____
     
    Venus hung up the phone. Another irritating conversation with her mother. Another you-made-your-bed-now-sleep-in-it bullshit lecture.
    She had called to complain that Sebastion was never around. There was nothing particularly unusual about Sebastion not being around, but