My Front Page Scandal. Carrie Alexander

scattered in public view was strictly against store policy. The conscientious employee part of her should be thrilled that now she could go back inside and finish up the job with no one the wiser except the night watchman.

      It would be as if putting on the dress and meeting David Carerra had never happened.

      But I’ll know. I’ll remember for the rest of my life that once I could have run off with a sweet-talking stranger, but was too chicken to take the chance.

      ON THE WAY to work the next morning, Brooke stopped off at a newsstand and bought the early edition of every newspaper she could find. She took them to a coffee shop and sat down with a double espresso. After working until two in the morning, then tossing and turning in bed when she should have been sleeping, she needed the extra jolt of caffeine.

      After a healthy swallow and a mental kick in the scaredy-pants, she paged through the first paper. Nothing. Thank you, God.

      She picked up the Insider. The trashy tabloid had never darkened a Winfield doorstep, but she was familiar with it because it had been the guilty pleasure of her mother and her friend, Reba. Primarily Reba, who considered herself an insider in the entertainment industry because she’d done some modeling in the mad, mod world of the sixties and seventies.

      Brooke found a small item on an inside page about David’s accident. DISGRACED BASEBALL HERO KISSES CEMENT. Nice.

      There were two small photos. Her stomach dropped into her shoes, but a quick scan relieved her anxiety. One showed the overturned motorcycle. The other was of David leaving the hospital with a bruised face and bandaged head, strong-arming a photographer. Brooke was a blur in the corner of the shot, mentioned only as an unidentified female companion. The intimation was that she was a pickup from his night out on the town. She might have been insulted at that, but under the circumstances she could only feel fortunate. She’d lucked out, big time.

      The remaining papers were equally unremarkable. One sports reporter speculated about Carerra’s return to the city, suggesting that he would soon rejoin the team. She wondered if that was true. David’s attitude hadn’t been reconciliatory. He’d seemed rather downbeat, in fact, except when he’d been hitting on her.

      Brooke left the papers in the coffee shop and hurried on to work. Usually she would come in late the morning after a window change, but there was a department-head meeting today that she had to attend. Alyce was worried that a vanguard of old-time employees were planning to complain again about them pushing O.M. Worthington in a new, trendier direction.

      After dropping off her bag in her office and changing from flats to a pair of designer heels, purchased frugally with her employee discount, Brooke rode the elevator to the fourth-floor executive offices. At two and three, several of her coworkers boarded.

      “The new window is lovely,” said the housewares manager, a tiny blue-haired lady who’d been at the store so long rumor said that she’d started out selling rug beaters to Victorians.

      Floyd Tibbet from accounting harrumphed. “It was a relief to see the last one go.”

      Brooke held up her portfolio of drawings. “Wait’ll you see what I’ve planned for Valentine’s.” She was usually as sweet as pie to the old-school vanguard, but this morning it gave her a perverse thrill to see Floyd’s nostrils quiver.

      The elevator thudded to a stop and the uniformed operator rolled back the gate with a rattle. Alyce Simmons was waiting. She took Brooke aside as the others rushed to grab up the best pastries from the basket on the coffee cart outside the meeting room.

      With one blink, Alyce had scanned Brooke from head to toe. Brooke thought of the head fashion buyer as a very snappish woman. Snap decisions, snap judgment, snap remarks, snap dresser.

      Alyce’s eyebrow went up. She did a wicked one-up, one-down eyebrow expression that made even Mr. Worthington take account of himself. “Late night?”

      Brooke put a hand on her hair, freshly skinned into a chignon she’d dressed with a splashy print scarf. With her hoop earrings and a stark black formfitting suit, she’d felt very retro 70s glam. “It shows?”

      Alyce blinked. “I was kidding. You look a tad tired around the eyes, but you don’t do late nights.”

      “Not that kind.” Brooke’s fingers tightened on the portfolio. “I was dressing a window.”

      “Ah.” Alyce nodded.

      “What’s the scoop?” Brooke asked.

      “More of the same. Snips and snails.” Alyce dug a stiletto heel into the marble floor. “Nothing I can’t grind out.”

      “The new windows and in-store displays should mollify them. I’m not doing anything too unusual for Christmas, either.”

      “Heaven forbid.” Alyce checked her platinum watch. On the dot of nine, she marched into the meeting room with a toss of her head. Her hair was red, almost magenta, and extremely short. She was probably fifty, but looked a decade younger.

      Mr. Worthington was already seated at the head of the table. Alyce kissed him on the cheek and swooped into the chair at his right hand, earning daggered looks from several of the blue-hairs.

      The meeting progressed swiftly, with only a minor skirmish when several of the vanguard protested Alyce’s plan to buy heavily from the lines of the season’s hottest designers. She quashed them with one upraised eyebrow and a clipped comment about who was in charge of fashion.

      When Brooke’s turn came, she updated the gathering on the Christmas windows, which had been under development for months.

      “And what’s upcoming?” Mr. Worthington asked. He peered at her through his heavy horn-rimmed glasses. “Anything to make my hair turn white?”

      The department heads laughed heartily. The old man’s hair had once been snowy white. Now not a strand remained.

      Brooke pulled out the sketches for her February windows. “We’re doing lingerie for Valentine’s Day.”

      The nearest coworker, who’d gotten a glimpse of the top drawing, let out a gasp. As a group, the vanguard leaned in for a look, scowling already. Not good.

      Only Alyce nodded approvingly.

      Brooke steeled herself to continue. Old Man Worthington was friends with her grandfather, Admiral Henry Winfield. He liked her, sort of. “As you’ll see in the drawings, my theme is Sweet Nothings…”

      3

      BROOKE was forced to interrupt her busy day to race back to Brookline to keep a lunch date with her grandparents and sisters. Henry and Evelyn Winfield were old money and old school. They couldn’t seem to grasp that their granddaughters’ careers might take precedence over a command performance at the family estate. When the invitations came down, Brooke, Joey and Katie dutifully showed up, even if that meant rearranging their schedules.

      “Where’s Katie?” Brooke whispered to Joey as soon as their grandmother excused herself to check on the kitchen staff. They were seated in the front parlor with less-than-stiff drinks—tonic water and lime.

      “She made an excuse.” Joey wrinkled her nose. “Something creative, like going ballooning at sunrise with a million-dollar client. You know how good she is at coming up with that stuff.”

      Katie was a party girl first and graphic artist second, so her flights of fancy were often true. Brooke envied that. But then, Katie was the youngest and had always been granted more license to experiment, even from their grandparents. She was indulged.

      Brooke was scolded. She’d heard the same refrain, seemingly from birth: As the oldest, she must set a proper example for her sisters by living up to Winfield standards.

      Her late father had been a Navy man, strict but loving. He’d expected achievement and obedience from all of his daughters. Her mother had tried not to apply that pressure, but since she’d also knuckled under to the Winfield rules, for the most part, Brooke had