![Repairman Jack [05]-Hosts](https://fs.collectorofbookboyfriends.com/467131/thumbs/152x264/repairman-jack-05-hosts.jpg)
arc.
Fifteen minutes of fame? Screw that. He'd do a network hour with Charlie Rose, be on all the talk shows. He'd be the man to know, the guy to be seen with, his name would pop up in gossip columns, his face a regular on "The Scene" page of New York Magazine as he's spotted attending film premieres, gallery openings, and literary receptions, and don't forget parties in the Hamptons where his dalliances would be mentioned in the "Sunday Styles" section of the Times .
Dalliances… oh, yeah. Those models and starlets just throw themselves at famous writers and journalists. No more worrying about relationships, everybody will want to know Sandy Palmer.
But first he'd have to find the guy.
That sobering reality brought him back to earth. This was not going to happen by itself. He had some work ahead of him. Hard work.
Out on the street Sandy flagged a cab. He'd already decided to splurge on a taxi home. He didn't think he could handle another subway ride tonight.
7
Jack knew it was her the moment she stepped through the door.
He'd been sitting in the Chelsea's intimate, marble-tiled lobby on an intricately carved sofa situated between the equally intricately carved fireplace and a metallic sculpture of some sort of jackal sitting atop an undersized elephant. He'd spent the waiting time admiring the vast and eclectic array of art festooning the walls.
The Chelsea had been a fabled haunt of artists and entertainers for decades, and nowadays most of them seemed to own clothes of only one color: black. So when this woman in beige linen slacks and a rose sweater set stepped through the door she stood out among the leather and lingerie habitues as much as he did. Her head was down so he didn't see her face at first, but the style of her curly honey blond hair and mature figure jibed with the voice on the phone.
Then she looked up and their eyes met and Jack's heart stuttered and missed a beat or two.
Kate! God, it was Kate !
Her voice, that little laugh—now he knew why they'd sounded familiar. They belonged to his sister.
Kate looked as stunned as Jack knew he must, but then her shock turned to something like fear and dismay.
"Kate!" he called as she started to turn away. "My God, Kate, it's me! Jack!"
She turned toward him again and now her face was more composed but hardly full of the joy one might expect at seeing her younger brother for the first time in a decade and a half.
Jack hurried up and stopped within a foot of her, staring.
"Jackie," she said. "I don't believe this."
Jackie… Christ, when had he last heard someone call him that? The word sundered an inner dam, loosing a flood of long-pent-up memories that engulfed him. He'd been the last of three kids: first Tom, Kate two years later, and Jack eight years after her. Kate, the natural nurturer, had half-raised him. They'd bonded, they'd been pals, she'd been the coolest person he knew and he'd fairly worshipped her. And then she'd gone off to college, leaving a hole in his ten-year-old life. Med school and pediatric residency after that. He remembered her wedding day…
Most of all Jack remembered this face, these pale blue eyes, the faint splash of freckles across the cheeks and nose, the strong jawline. Her hair was shorter and faintly streaked with gray; her skin had aged a little with a hint of crows feet at the corners of her eyes; and her face was a bit fuller, her hips a tad wider than he remembered, but her figure wasn't that much different from the one that had kept the boys calling all through high school. All in all his big sister Kate hadn't changed much.
"I don't believe this either," he said. "I mean, the odds are…"
"Astronomical."
He felt they should kiss, embrace, do something other than stand here facing each other, but they'd never been a huggy clan, and Jack had dropped out of his family and never looked back. Hadn't spoken a word to Kate in fifteen years. Until tonight.
"You look great," he said. And it was true. Even with
Fifteen minutes of fame? Screw that. He'd do a network hour with Charlie Rose, be on all the talk shows. He'd be the man to know, the guy to be seen with, his name would pop up in gossip columns, his face a regular on "The Scene" page of New York Magazine as he's spotted attending film premieres, gallery openings, and literary receptions, and don't forget parties in the Hamptons where his dalliances would be mentioned in the "Sunday Styles" section of the Times .
Dalliances… oh, yeah. Those models and starlets just throw themselves at famous writers and journalists. No more worrying about relationships, everybody will want to know Sandy Palmer.
But first he'd have to find the guy.
That sobering reality brought him back to earth. This was not going to happen by itself. He had some work ahead of him. Hard work.
Out on the street Sandy flagged a cab. He'd already decided to splurge on a taxi home. He didn't think he could handle another subway ride tonight.
7
Jack knew it was her the moment she stepped through the door.
He'd been sitting in the Chelsea's intimate, marble-tiled lobby on an intricately carved sofa situated between the equally intricately carved fireplace and a metallic sculpture of some sort of jackal sitting atop an undersized elephant. He'd spent the waiting time admiring the vast and eclectic array of art festooning the walls.
The Chelsea had been a fabled haunt of artists and entertainers for decades, and nowadays most of them seemed to own clothes of only one color: black. So when this woman in beige linen slacks and a rose sweater set stepped through the door she stood out among the leather and lingerie habitues as much as he did. Her head was down so he didn't see her face at first, but the style of her curly honey blond hair and mature figure jibed with the voice on the phone.
Then she looked up and their eyes met and Jack's heart stuttered and missed a beat or two.
Kate! God, it was Kate !
Her voice, that little laugh—now he knew why they'd sounded familiar. They belonged to his sister.
Kate looked as stunned as Jack knew he must, but then her shock turned to something like fear and dismay.
"Kate!" he called as she started to turn away. "My God, Kate, it's me! Jack!"
She turned toward him again and now her face was more composed but hardly full of the joy one might expect at seeing her younger brother for the first time in a decade and a half.
Jack hurried up and stopped within a foot of her, staring.
"Jackie," she said. "I don't believe this."
Jackie… Christ, when had he last heard someone call him that? The word sundered an inner dam, loosing a flood of long-pent-up memories that engulfed him. He'd been the last of three kids: first Tom, Kate two years later, and Jack eight years after her. Kate, the natural nurturer, had half-raised him. They'd bonded, they'd been pals, she'd been the coolest person he knew and he'd fairly worshipped her. And then she'd gone off to college, leaving a hole in his ten-year-old life. Med school and pediatric residency after that. He remembered her wedding day…
Most of all Jack remembered this face, these pale blue eyes, the faint splash of freckles across the cheeks and nose, the strong jawline. Her hair was shorter and faintly streaked with gray; her skin had aged a little with a hint of crows feet at the corners of her eyes; and her face was a bit fuller, her hips a tad wider than he remembered, but her figure wasn't that much different from the one that had kept the boys calling all through high school. All in all his big sister Kate hadn't changed much.
"I don't believe this either," he said. "I mean, the odds are…"
"Astronomical."
He felt they should kiss, embrace, do something other than stand here facing each other, but they'd never been a huggy clan, and Jack had dropped out of his family and never looked back. Hadn't spoken a word to Kate in fifteen years. Until tonight.
"You look great," he said. And it was true. Even with
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