Just Once Read online

  Today she would begin the rest of her life. Hokey, but true. She was on her way to being the editor-in-chief of the world’s most well-known magazine. Was she overreaching? Probably. But that was how people got where they wanted to go – by making goals and sticking to them, turning obstacles into opportunities.

  If he could hear her thoughts, Heath would call her Pollyanna, as he so often did. Or advise her to take up a career inventing T-shirt slogans.

  The twins were spending the summer with their aunt, who had just started the fashion magazine You. Heath would be Aunt Carol’s intern. He understood so much more about fashion than Hannah ever could. He’d even dressed her that morning.

  ‘You want to appear professional, not stodgy.’ Only Heath would use a word like stodgy; only Heath could make it work.

  While Hannah was pale, slightly round and tiny, Heath was tall, slim and golden. She swore her brother glowed. He had long fingers, long feet, even his long nose fit on his ‘should have been born in the Regency era’ face. Sometimes he dressed like a British lord and faked the accent. He’d never once been questioned on it.

  Heath had wrinkled his long nose at Hannah’s black skirt and white blouse. ‘Take that off.’

  ‘Take what off?’

  ‘The shirt. Too Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The girls, not Miss Jean.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means,’ Hannah had said, but she’d taken off the shirt.

  Some might find it odd – creepy even – for Hannah to do so. But she and Heath were twins. They had shared the womb, then shared a secret language. They often shared thoughts. They’d shared crushes. In fifth grade they’d both adored Tommy Savante.

  ‘This one.’ Heath pulled a deep-blue blouse from her closet.

  There was a reason Heath was the fashion intern and Hannah wasn’t.

  ‘Honestly, Hannah, what would you do without me?’

  ‘Panic,’ she’d said, which was what she always said whenever he asked.

  Up ahead loomed the headquarters of National Geographic tall and white; the windows sparkled so brightly in the morning sun Hannah was nearly blinded. She paused just to enjoy the moment. This could be the beginning of the realization of all her hopes and dreams. It would be. She wouldn’t allow it to be anything else.

  Hannah took a deep breath, then glanced at her watch. She was right on time.

  ‘Hannah!’ Julie Jones, the receptionist, greeted her as if she were both surprised and thrilled that Hannah had shown up.

  Who wouldn’t show up for a coveted internship at National Geographic?

  ‘Let’s get you settled.’ Julie came out from behind her desk. A stocky woman with a cap of ebony hair and huge, pink-framed glasses, Julie was the heart of the photography department.

  The rest of the day passed in a whirl of new faces and names, new experiences. Hannah sat in front of a light box in the editing room, with slide after slide after slide propped on the tiny shelves that made up row after row.

  In an attempt not to miss anything, a photographer took pictures of everything. Then they culled – or she did. Out went shots that were underexposed, overexposed, those that contained a view of a thumb, a knee, the ground, the back of someone’s head.

  Next, doubles were shorn to singles. Unless there was something different in the shot – another person, an unusual angle, two cats instead of one, better light, worse light, a filter – out it went.

  But woe to the intern who got rid of a slide that was not exactly the same as another. Because that shot might be the shot.

  Hannah held a magnifying loupe to her eye so she could examine the slides more closely. She thought she might go crazy if this was what she had to do every day, all summer long. Of course the photos depicted erosion in desert locales – important stuff but not exactly visually stimulating. Maybe tomorrow she’d get to examine slides of the beginning of the end of apartheid.

  ‘Please, please, please,’ she muttered.

  ‘If you think this is bad, you should see the light room at Sports Illustrated.’

  Hannah spun.

  The man standing in the doorway wearing dirty khakis and a rumpled powder-blue Oxford shirt appeared as if he’d been on a plane since last Thanksgiving. His dark hair was a jungle of curls; his eyes were roadmaps, his skin pale beneath the tan, and his four-day beard sported several patches of gray. Considering the camera bag slung over his shoulder and his presence in this office, he must be one of the staff photographers.

  ‘I … uh … why’s that?’ Hannah managed.

  ‘Sports photographers.’ He rolled his eyes, then winced. Moving eyes that bloodshot must hurt. ‘They take twice the shots we do. You never know what you might miss when Jordan’s driving to the hoop unless you record every millisecond of the event.’

  From the number of slides in this room, Hannah thought every millisecond of the last millennium had been recorded. She took an instant to be grateful she hadn’t applied for an internship at Sports Illustrated.

  As if.

  She stood, smoothing her skirt. ‘I’m Hannah Cartwright.’ She held out her hand, thankful she’d dried her palms on said skirt.

  ‘Charley Blackwell.’

  His palm was large and hard, as if he broke rocks for a living. Something her dad always said – though who would do that and why, she wasn’t sure.

  ‘Staff photographer?’

  He patted his camera bag. ‘Got it in one. You’re the new intern?’

  ‘I am.’ She was unreasonably pleased that he knew who she was. Not that it was difficult to figure out. Who else would be stuck in this room all day?

  He peered at the slides on her editing table. ‘Sediment. Lucky you.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Then you’re a saint.’ He opened his camera bag and removed a bunch of white plastic containers. ‘You wanna work on these if you have time?’

  ‘God, yes.’ She snatched them away.

  ‘You don’t even know what they are.’ He pulled out more and set them on the table.

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Well.’ He stuck his big hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders before glancing into the hall. His expression seemed woebegone. She couldn’t tell if he didn’t want to leave or he didn’t want to stay. ‘I’ll see you around.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  Charley Blackwell proved to be the most excitement she had all day.

  Heath waited for Hannah at the door that night. ‘How was it?’

  Their aunt was still at the office and would be for hours. Starting a magazine took a lot of time. From what Hannah could tell, it took all her time.

  ‘I edited pictures of dirt.’

  ‘Lucky, lucky. Anything else happen?’

  ‘Met one of the staff photographers.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Charley Blackwell.’

  Heath’s eyes widened. ‘He took the photos of the march in San Francisco.’

  ‘Which march?’

  ‘Nineteen seventy-seven. Protest against some chick who hated gays, as well as the murder of one.’

  ‘You were eight.’

  ‘Wrong was still wrong, even back then when they didn’t think it was.’

  ‘You remember a guy’s name from a photo he took way back then?’

  ‘He was nominated for a Pulitzer.’

  The photographers at National Geographic were the best of the best, but apparently Charley was even better than that.

  ‘What was he like?’ Heath asked.

  ‘He’s …’ Hannah searched for a word to describe Charley Blackwell. She meant to say fascinating or interesting or even motivational but she remembered his expression right before he’d left the editing room, and what came out was: ‘Sad.’

  Heath blinked, his ridiculously long dark lashes sweeping over his annoyingly deep blue eyes. Hannah had blue eyes, but they were much lighter, and while her eyelashes were adequate, they weren’t Heath-length and they weren’t black unless she us
ed mascara. Which Heath said girls did anyway, so why was she bitching?

  ‘Sad,’ he repeated. ‘As in …’ He held up his thumb and forefinger to his forehead in an ‘L’, international sign of the loser.

  ‘No. Gloomy-sad.’ Hannah pulled an exaggerated frown.

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘He just got back from an assignment.’

  ‘Maybe that made him sad. Lord knows there’s plenty in this world to cry about. Where was he?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow when I open the boxes of slides he gave me to edit.’

  ‘Cool. You’ll have to tell me what you find.’ Heath waggled a bottle of champagne so cheap she was surprised he’d found it in this neighborhood. ‘In celebration of our first day.’

  ‘How was yours?’ Hannah kicked off her shoes.

  ‘Fabulous!’ He punctuated the exclamation by setting the champagne bottle on the butcher’s block island with a thump, then turned with two full glasses and joined her on the couch. ‘I was a hit.’

  Hannah sipped the champagne. Horrid, just as she’d suspected.

  ‘How could you not be? What did you do?’

  ‘Got coffee, answered phones, sat in on meetings.’

  In comparison, her day had been more to Hannah’s liking. But Heath would have wilted in a small, dark room with a thousand boxes of slides. He needed light and color and people.

  He sipped his own champagne, grimaced, then slammed the entire thing, setting the empty on the basswood and glass coffee table before leaning back with his hands behind his head. ‘I met someone.’

  ‘Already?’ Hannah sipped more slowly. She didn’t want her brother refilling her drink. One glass was doable; two of this stuff would cause a splitting headache.

  ‘True love waits for no man.’

  With Heath it was always true love. He’d had his heart broken more times than Hannah wanted to remember. Because Hannah was always the one who picked up the pieces of that heart and shoehorned them back together.

  ‘Maybe you should wait a week or two before starting an office romance.’ Or maybe not start one at all. That would be her vote.

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, sis.’

  ‘You’ve never begged in your life.’

  He lifted his eyebrow – something he’d practiced when they were fifteen until he could lift one without the other whenever he wanted.

  Hannah never bothered to try. She figured the expression would make her look like she’d had a stroke, rather than arch and debonair the way it did for Heath.

  ‘I’ve begged plenty – in the right situation.’

  Hannah – who suspected she might be an eternal virgin – blushed. ‘You know what I mean. You don’t have to rush into anything.’

  ‘The early bird gets the worm.’ Now he waggled both eyebrows.

  ‘Yuck.’ Hannah punched his arm.

  Heath rubbed the area, though she hadn’t hit him that hard. ‘Seriously, Joel’s perfect for me. Tall, dark, built.’ He sighed.

  Well, she’d tried, but once Heath was ‘in love’ there was no stopping him. Thus far, he’d never been turned down. Really, what man in his right mind would turn down the young, beautiful, brilliant, amusing and clever Heath Cartwright?

  ‘Just be careful, OK?’ Hannah set her glass on the coffee table so she could take his hand.

  ‘I’m always careful.’

  ‘Condom careful?’

  His gaze flicked away. ‘Of course.’

  Her fingers tightened. ‘I’m not kidding. AIDS is—’

  ‘I know what AIDS is.’ He pulled away, stood, then refilled his champagne and drained it again.

  She knew that he did – in theory. But Heath had yet to lose anyone to the new and terrible disease.

  He would. It was inevitable. The reported number of cases in the US the previous year had reached 100,000, with 400,000 worldwide. It was an epidemic, a twentieth-century plague. And she was terrified her twin would die of it.

  ‘Please, Heath. For me?’

  Without her twin, panic would be the least of it. Their parents were … vague would be the best – the nicest – word. They both had careers that they loved and excelled in – their father worked on Wall Street; their mother was an executive editor at a publishing house.

  The twins had never lacked for anything. They’d lived a block off Central Park. They’d gone to good schools, been raised by a perfectly lovely string of nannies. They’d taken fabulous vacations with their parents – and the nanny. More importantly they’d had each other, and that was all the two of them needed.

  Really.

  Sometimes Hannah wondered if their father had been more present in their lives, would Heath have—

  No. Heath had always been the way he was and there was nothing wrong with that. No matter what anyone else – including their father – said.

  Of course Heath thought the reason Hannah was always attracted to older boys was because of her ‘daddy issues’. Hannah thought it was hardly fair of him to throw the daddy stone, considering.

  ‘I’ll be careful.’ Heath bounded to his feet. ‘I need to change. We’re meeting for a drink, and he’s already seen me in this.’

  This was cream trousers, a turquoise T-shirt and a cream sport coat with the sleeves rolled up – a scrumptious cross between Kirk Cameron and Don Johnson.

  ‘You need my help?’ Hannah asked.

  Heath just laughed and disappeared into his room. He left not long after.

  Hannah made herself a sandwich and turned on the television. While she watched Cheers she paged through the stack of National Geographic magazines her aunt had kept. Hannah had opened them before, but she’d been reading the articles, considering the layouts. She hadn’t paid much attention to the photographs. She certainly hadn’t read the bylines. Now that she did, she found quite a few of them were Charley’s. She thought the best ones were Charley’s. Maybe she was prejudiced by Heath’s words about the man, but she didn’t think so.

  The apartment door opened. Hannah glanced up, hoping Heath had returned early, Joel having been an incredible disappointment. Instead, her aunt dropped her Gucci bag and her keys on the antique Hepplewhite gaming table that stood just inside the door.

  Carol was a stunning woman. Taller than most at five-nine, she still wore three-inch heels. She was busty and built, but she chose clothes that played that down. As she’d told Heath and Hannah, she wanted to be respected for her brain and not her boobs.

  ‘She’s respected for her bank account,’ Heath had whispered when their aunt left the room.

  Carol’s first and second husbands had gone to the great husband hotel in the sky. Or Hell’s Hotel for Hateful Husbands, if you listened to their aunt. She didn’t miss them and wasn’t searching for a third. She didn’t need to. Both one and two had been loaded. Now she was.

  ‘Hey.’ Carol tossed her frosted blond hair out of her eyes.

  Hannah couldn’t recall a time she’d ever seen her aunt’s hair shift enough to cover her eyes. It was usually shellacked into an immovable helmet. Must have been a really rough day.

  Hannah set the magazine on the table, leaving it open to Charley’s most recent published photos of Siberia. ‘You hungry? I still have half a sandwich, and I’m full.’

  ‘God, yes.’ Carol kicked off her black heels, reached under her boldly printed white, yellow and black dress to yank off her pantyhose, then twisted her arm around to release her bra. ‘Ah.’ She plopped on the couch next to Hannah and took a huge bite out of the ham and cheese.

  ‘Tough day?’ Hannah asked.

  Carol chewed a bit and swallowed. ‘The usual.’

  ‘You work too hard.’

  ‘Is it work if you love it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Hannah had never worked before.

  Aunt Carol patted Hannah’s hand. ‘You will.’ Her gaze flicked to the stack of National Geographic magazines. ‘Studying?’

  ‘Can’t hurt.’

  Carol
leaned over to view the spread Hannah had been appraising when she came in. ‘Siberia?’ She gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘Terrible fashion sense.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s what they were going for here. Though if you wanted to do something about Siberia for You, I’d suggest a lot of fur.’

  Carol’s head tilted. ‘That’s not a bad idea. You sure you don’t want to work for me?’

  ‘Heath’s your man. I’d be hopeless.’

  ‘You’ll learn a lot at National Geographic. You’ll be able to work anywhere if you do well there.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Where do you want to work?’

  ‘There.’ Hannah shrugged. ‘Who wouldn’t?’

  ‘Me.’ Her aunt cast a wary glance at the photos of ice and snow. ‘That kind of stuff would give me nightmares.’

  ‘It’s interesting. Gritty, exciting, real.’ She left out important because her aunt and Heath thought fashion was important, and to a lot of people it was. Just not Hannah. Besides, she’d sound pretentious, something Heath had told her she needed to stop.

  ‘Exactly,’ Carol said. ‘I get enough “real” walking home from work every night.’

  Hannah peered at the photos again. When she lifted her gaze, Carol studied her as intently as Hannah had studied the glossy pages. ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Lives that are different from mine. Places I’ve never seen and places I have, but not in the way that he does. Dreams, disappointments, joys, heartaches. This guy is really good. I met him today. Charley Blackwell.’

  ‘He’s the best there is. Too bad he doesn’t do fashion.’

  Hannah tightened her lips to keep the ‘Thank God’ from bursting free. The idea of Charley – who’d taken such brilliant photos of so many things – circling a model wearing the latest Chanel, snapping her this way, that way and murmuring, ‘Sell it to me, baby’ made her kind of nauseous.

  ‘You don’t have a crush on him or anything, do you?’ Carol asked.

  ‘Me? Why would you think that?’

  ‘The way you’re staring at those pictures.’

  ‘I have a crush on the pictures.’

  ‘I’d just hate for you to become a cliché.’

  ‘You lost me.’

  Carol bit her lip. ‘Falling for an older man. It’s so …’