Forsaking All Others Read Online Free PDF Page B

Her favorite word, which made Allison grimace, was “nice.”
    “Hey, nice studio,” Vivien said immediately upon entering. “Hey, nice boots! Wheredja get them? I got a pair’s kinda like them but not as nice. Those’re really nice.”
    Allison cringed. Most of the models she worked with were intelligent, upbeat, many of them students on their way to professional careers in another field, helping themselves through college with the money they earned modeling. Vivien Zuchinski was definitely the exception to the rule.
    “Hey, ah, what’s the guy look like? Is he a fox, I mean, you know, ah, has he got a nice bod?”
    “Very nice,” Allison answered dryly. “Almost as nice as yours, Vivien.”
    “Hey, really? I like a guy with a nice bod.”
    It was all Allison could do to keep from rolling her eyes. “Have you got a bathing suit?”
    “Oh, yeah, sure, got a bunch of ’em, nice ones, too.”
    “Would you mind bringing them along when you come?”
    “Sure, you bet.”
    “The girl in the book wears a blue bikini.”
    “Hey, no sweat! I got this really nice blue bikini,bought it last summer when this lifeguard up at Madden’s kinda started givin’ me the eye, you know? And I figure I’d just put on a little show for him and come out on the beach with a different bikini every day, but I only had five and I was gonna be there for six days, so, gol, what was I s’posed to do?” She flipped her palms up at shoulder height, hopelessly. “So I find this nice blue bik—”
    “Vivien, bring them all, would you?”
    Vivien was too much of a stereotype to be believable. She hung a hand on one hip, threw Allison a wide-eyed look of innocence, and answered, “Oh, sure . . . yeah, sure thing.”
    “Then I’ll see you Thursday.”
    “Yeah, sure. Where’d you say you got them boots again?”
    By the time Allison had gotten rid of Vivien she wondered if she’d made a mistake hiring her. Allison stood with hands on hips, shaking her head at the door through which Vivien had left, then glanced down at her own high-heeled boots and said to herself, “Nice boots, hey.”
    T HE following afternoon Allison was standing disgruntledly with a broom and dustpan in her hand, spilled sand around her feet, when Rick Lang showed up with air tanks, flippers, hoses, and pipes.
    “Hi.”
    She looked up, surprised, realizing in a flash how glad she was to see him again. “Oh, hi . . . oh, you brought them!” She dropped the dustpan, wiped her hands on her thighs, and came eagerly toward the door.
    “Where do you want this stuff? It’s kind of heavy.”
    She motioned toward the wall, sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. “Thanks. At least that’s one thing that’s gone right today.”
    “Have you got troubles?” He noted the sand, then her disgusted face. She noted his same old jeans and letter jacket, not at all the kind of clothing a guy wears to turn a girl’s head.
    “Have I ever.” She glared at the mess. “I’m thinking about flying us down to Florida to do these shots! Except I think Vivien Zuchinski would drive me crazy before we got there.”
    “Vivien didn’t turn out to be what you wanted?”
    “Vivien’s . . .” Allison searched for the proper word and turned a sardonic smirk his way. “Vivien’s . . . nice .”
    He eyed the upward tilt of Allison’s lips as she enjoyed some private joke. When she smiled, her eyes smiled with her mouth. She was dressed in off-white corduroy trousers with some kind of stylish, little army-green rubber shoes with bumpy white soles and long tongues and laces. They looked like something a socialite might wear duck hunting. Cute, he thought,taking in her modish hooded jacket and turtleneck sweater. Again she wore the sunglasses, pushed high up on her head.
    “What’s wrong with Vivien?”
    “Nothing!” But there was a smirk of sarcasm in the quick word as she flipped her palms up innocently, then repeated, “Nothing. She has a terrific face and a