Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Jennifer Skully

  She reached down for the lighter she used on her scented candles. Zachary’s eyes widened at the flame, bulging as she held it to one frothing lacy leg.

  The material didn’t burn, it melted, emitting an odor so foul, her eyes stung. Harriet screeched and threw it at him. “It’s polyester. It’s goddamn polyester. You couldn’t even buy silk or real lace. You cheapskate. You asshole. You pig.”

  Her head throbbed, then pounded so fiercely she was sure she’d popped a vessel.

  “Get out. Get out. Get out.” Chanting, until she didn’t have a breath left. A frying pan, she needed a frying pan to bash him over the head. Better yet, a knife to cut off his balls.

  He scuttled out the door like the terrified little mouse he was, taking with him the reek of cheap perfume.

  Harriet burst into tears.

  For about two minutes. Then she dried her eyes, stuffed the three boxes back into the bag, massacring the delicate tissue paper, and walked to the window.

  His Nissan was still parked beneath the streetlight.

  Window open, she leaned out, then flung the bag as far as she could. Splat went the chocolate, crack went the dime-store cologne. The teddy ended up at the curb in a mud puddle left by Mrs. Murphy’s son when he’d washed his mother’s car that evening.

  Screw Zachary. Screw T. Larry. And screw Madison who would have looked perfect in that stupid pink teddy.

  Everybody loved Madison. Everyone thought she was sweet and perky and wonderful and cute. Everything Harriet couldn’t be even if she downed a year’s supply of diet pills and turned bulimic. It wasn’t about their weight difference. Men would buzz around Madison like good-for-nothing drones whatever she weighed.

  If Zachary had made love to Madison on the conference room table, the next day he for darn sure wouldn’t have pretended nothing happened. No, he would have asked Madison out and paraded her on his arm through the office as they left. Together.

  Her blood boiled and her sinuses ached. Harriet had seen him slinking over to Madison’s desk for his daily dose of Reese’s cups. Reese’s hah! His daily dose of sweet, perky, wonderful and cute was more like it.

  How would Zachary feel about Madison if she wasn’t perky all the time? How would everyone at Carp, Alta and Hobbs feel about her without the perk?

  Harriet smiled to herself.

  She’d give Madison’s perpetually perky persona a shake-up.

  ZACHARY STUNK like a whorehouse.

  And he’d blown it again.

  He stared at the grubby teddy in the street. Harriet would have looked luscious in that pink teddy, good enough to eat. Not that she’d ever realize that herself. And he knew he wasn’t man enough to show her how truly beautiful she was.

  He should have told T. Larry those gifts were all wrong for Harriet. But T. Larry, being older and wiser, said chocolates, perfume and lingerie would help Zach slip right back where he wanted to be. In Harriet’s bed, between Harriet’s thighs, tongue in Harriet’s succulent mouth.

  He’d have Harriet, and he’d have his job, because surely Harriet would drop the suit.

  But Harriet wasn’t like Madison. She wasn’t fun loving, easygoing or sweet as the dickens. She wasn’t quick to laugh at herself or swift to forgive. He’d never know a moment’s peace. He’d be forever patching the holes she put in the wall. She was a powder keg, and boy, she’d just blown sky-high.

  Yet he still wanted her. Badly. Physically and emotionally. As if her tirades tripped a switch in him.

  It was an odd game he’d watched his folks play, though at the time he hadn’t understood. Zach now wondered if his dad picked fights just for the making up later, when he’d given his son ten bucks to disappear to the movies for the evening.

  Come to think of it, the night he’d made love to Harriet, they’d been arguing over something on the AMI return. With the bright color flaming her cheeks, the glittering light in her eyes and her agitation, he’d been like a rock then, too.

  Damn. Maybe he was one of those guys who had to beat a woman up to get off. Maybe he was into S and M. Maybe he should be locked away where he couldn’t hurt anyone.

  Maybe. At least he didn’t feel like a total ghost anymore.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “THESE ARE THE WORKPLACE rules you want me to type up?”

  “Our sexual harassment protocol.”

  Madison held the handwritten document gingerly in her fingers. “T. Larry, I think you might get sued over your rules.”

  He cocked his head. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “They’re not well-defined.”

  “They’re totally self-explanatory.”

  “You ought to hire a Human Resource professional to handle this, T. Larry.”

  “There’s not a thing wrong with that list.”

  “No sex in the office,” she read.

  Someone, sounding suspiciously like Anthony, snorted on the other side of her cubicle wall.

  “Succinct and to the point.”

  “You haven’t defined sex.”

  “Sex is sex. Everyone knows what it means.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “There’s foreplay. There’s manual manipulation. There’s oral—”

  He screwed up his face in distaste, at least she thought it was distaste, and held up both hands. “Madison, please.”

  The guffaws next door shook the fragile wall.

  “The rule stands as written. Anthony, get back to work,” he called over the wall. “Don’t you have a client to see?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then get out of here. But be back by eleven.”

  “Yes, sir.” But the sputtering went on.

  Madison kept reading. “No remarks concerning attire.”

  “What’s wrong with that one?”

  “What if someone accidentally left their zipper undone? How can you tell them if you can’t comment on their attire?”

  “That’s covered in the next rule. No looking at zippers. No looking at breasts. No looking period. You see, no one will even notice then.”

  She huffed, skipped number three since he’d already covered it, and moved to rule four. “No remarks concerning body parts.”

  “You can’t find anything wrong with that one.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Which means there’s nothing wrong with it. Type up the list for the eleven o’clock meeting. And I want a laminated copy to be posted on the copy room door and in both restrooms.” He stopped, then added, “Please.”

  “What about rule number five?”

  “Madison—”

  “No dresses or skirts above the knee.”

  His shoulders sagged. He shook his head with a pained grimace on his mouth. “That was the hardest one to write.”

  Not to mention that the rule was sexist. “But I’ll have to buy a whole new wardrobe.”

  “I know.” Then he brightened. “But you can still wear yesterday’s outfit. That reached to midcalf.”

  She shook her head. “T. Larry, are you going to tell us exactly what Harriet’s suit is about?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll find out when I type up your letters or whatever.”

  “Do I have to get the dictionary to show you the meaning of the word confidentiality?”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  He glanced over the row of uniform cubicle walls. “You won’t have to.”

  She tried a different tact, anything to get rid of that pained, hollow glaze in his eyes. “Is there anything I can do to help you, T. Larry?”

  “Stay away from Harriet and make sure your skirts are…” He leaned over her desk and looked at her thighs in her short red skirt. “At least twenty-five inches long.”

  “I meant was there anything I can do to help you personally through this trying time?”

  He went stock-still, staring at her with the most unreadable expression. Then he shook himself, and his gaze cleared. He eyed her red skirt and her tight red-and-white striped sweater. “
Don’t wear sweaters that are extra small or smaller.”

  The phone rang before she could ask why, besides the obvious. “Carpel, Tunnel and Syndrome.”

  “Is that you, beautiful?”

  Richard. Her heart skipped a beat, and she chanced a look at T. Larry. Oops, that was a mistake. He glowered and knew, just by the fact that she’d looked at him, who it was.

  She turned her back, wrapped her hand around the receiver and lowered her voice. “I really can’t talk now.”

  “But—”

  “T. Larry’s got something he needs me to do right away.”

  “Is he standing there?”

  “Yes. He needs me. Gotta go.”

  “But—”

  “Later. Ba-bye.” And she hung up. It was rude, but T. Larry was upset, and she just couldn’t enjoy a phone call from Richard with T. Larry all out of sorts like this. She looked at him. Ooh, mucho big-time glower now. “Ah, you were saying?”

  He clasped his hands, squeezed, his knuckles cracking. “I don’t trust him, I’m going to watch every move he makes, and I’m not going to let him do a damn thing to you.”

  Madison had a feeling T. Larry had more than one meaning.

  HARRIET ENTERED the conference room ten feet tall in her peacock-blue power suit. Then she sat, her feet barely reaching the floor, and the effect was lost. Still, her shoulders were squared, she had a don’t-mess-with-me glint in her eyes, and a Harriet the Militant glare punctuated her face.

  The rumors had buzzed in the halls, the bathrooms, the copy room, the file room and through the phone lines. As though the ink had somehow leaked off the pages of Harry Dump’s complaint, everyone knew what Harriet claimed occurred in this very conference room.

  Poor Harriet. Poor Zachary. Poor, poor T. Larry who would have to clean up the mess.

  Mike, Anthony and Bill sat like peas in a pod across from Harriet. ZZ Top sat three chairs down and six inches from the table, eyes front and center, gaze awkwardly avoiding the surface of the conference table. The chairs were filled, the overflow lined the walls. Receptionist Rhonda hovered by the door, for easy escape if Harriet whipped out her Uzi and started blasting.

  T. Larry took his usual spot at the head of the table, his back to the window, and his eyes on the door for latecomers. There were none. No one would dare.

  Liberally applied drugstore perfume tickled Madison’s nose as she passed out T. Larry’s new Sexual Harassment Protocol. The odor didn’t emanate from Harriet. She exuded an expensive yet subtle scent designed to cloud a man’s mind rather than beat him over the head like a club. Madison kept sniffing. Leaning over Zachary to plunk down a copy of the rules on the table in front of him, Madison almost fainted from the strength of his less than manly cologne.

  Paper rustled as everyone began reading.

  A soft noise. T. Larry’s head popped up. “Who said that?”

  No one spoke. The noise came again.

  A gentle “Oink-oink-oink.”

  Someone snickered. Someone else stifled a giggle. Madison realized she should have added another rule. No denigrating pig noises. This was exactly what she’d been trying to tell T. Larry. No list of rules could be specific enough to safeguard Harriet. Somehow every good thing a person tried to do for her backfired.

  T. Larry banged his fist on the table. Everyone jumped, the pig grunts evaporated and the laughter faded. “That’s enough.”

  Oh, she did adore a take-charge man.

  “You have the rules. Obey them. Or you’re dust.”

  He had such a way with a good colloquial expression. Surely Richard effected this same stunned silence in a courtroom.

  T. Larry blanketed the group with a laser-sharp, all-inclusive, thunderous scowl. No one uttered a word. “The first infraction earns a verbal warning, the issuance of which shall be documented in your file. The second, I write you up. And the third violation—” again, his gaze blasted the assemblage “—you’re fired. Except for rule number one.” He glanced down at his memo, then shot Madison a glower. “I mean number five.”

  She’d changed the order, listing them with increasing severity, the most important, in her opinion being T. Larry’s first rule, no sex in the office, so she’d put it last. Though she couldn’t do a thing about his wording. Sex still wasn’t defined properly.

  “Number five, you’re terminated on the spot.” He narrowed his focus on ZZ Top and Harriet.

  Goodness, he was tough. She’d never seen him quite so firm. A spark of awareness licked Madison’s spine.

  “Meeting adjourned.” They all rose like automatons. Harriet’s face stony; Zachary’s shoulders slumped; Mike, Anthony and Bill with their hands over their mouths. Rhonda scurried out ahead of everyone.

  “Zach,” T. Larry barked.

  ZZ Top turned, his red face stark next to the peacock-blue of Harriet’s jacket.

  “In my office. Now.”

  Power fit T. Larry like a tailored suit. Madison leaned forward, lips at his shoulder. “Does the T stand for Terminator?”

  ZZ and T. Larry disappeared behind closed doors.

  Voices buzzed amid the cubicles like a nest of angry hornets.

  Harriet stopped at Madison’s desk. Her gaze flicked from Madison’s short skirt—the one she wasn’t allowed to wear after today—to her sweater stretched over her breasts—the sweater she’d have to replace with something blousy—to the four-inch heels on her feet. There’d been nothing about shoes. Wonderful.

  “Don’t worry. He’s not going to fire you no matter what you do, say or wear.” Harriet’s venom hit Madison full in the face.

  Madison wiped it off as if it were spittle and tried to be supportive. “I’m sorry about everything, Harriet.”

  “Sorry? It’s because of you.” Harriet could be so pretty when she wasn’t sneering like that.

  “What do I need to change to make it better?” Madison reached out to touch Harriet’s arm, retracting it at the last moment when Harriet tensed.

  “You could die, that’s what you could do. Eat shit and die.”

  Oh my. Harriet was a little angrier than she’d realized. “Maybe I could talk to Zach for you.”

  The sudden office hush screamed around them. Harriet’s eyes narrowed viciously. “You go near Zach, and I’ll—” She stopped, backing off, her face an odd shade of blue as if she’d choked on a chicken bone.

  “Harriet, I want to help you.”

  “You won’t be able to help yourself when I’m done with you.”

  Harriet’s malevolence chilled her insides. “What have you done, Harriet?”

  “Oh, you think it’s just T. Larry and Zach in that suit, don’t you? Well, you’re in there, too. And when I’m finished with you, you won’t have your pretty little clothes or your spiky little shoes or your cute little car. You won’t even have a dime to perm your hair and paint your nails.”

  Talk about in your face, this time Harriet did leave a spray on Madison’s cheeks. Then she stalked down the hall, her legs stubby in her flat shoes—goodness, wasn’t that a disturbingly catty thought—and slammed through the reception door.

  The place erupted, everyone talking at once. Madison ran to the restroom to see if her flesh had been flayed from her body.

  MADISON’S DISCOMFORT from her earlier run-in with Harriet the Harridan was still apparent by the time their date rolled around.

  Her lips were a brilliant red on her pert, but troubled face. Damn. Lipstick. Not a good sign. Her stretchy dress hugged every curve and rode up her thighs no matter how much she pulled it down. Laurence decided then to forget about Dick the Prick’s call. After all, Madison cut Dick off pronto. Besides, she was with him now, not Dick. Her perfume enveloped him in the confines of his immaculate Camry, overpowering the vanilla deodorizer he’d installed beneath the dash.

  “I heard about your conflagration with Harriet.”

  Madison made a noncommittal noise.

  “Are you okay?” Laurence insisted.

  “Mmm.”
Committal this time. She was most likely emotionally all right. But was she physically safe from Harriet?

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She turned those emerald eyes on him, now filled with just a hint of hurt. “Does my hair look like it’s permed?”

  He hadn’t a clue, except that he couldn’t envision Madison without her bright titian curls. They were as much a part of her as her green eyes and succulent lips. “No, it doesn’t look permed. And what does that have to do with Harriet?”

  “Nothing.” She tugged down the hem of her dress. It sprang back. He snapped his eyes to the road just in time to slam on his brakes before he hit the car in front. His hand shot to Madison’s shoulder, holding her in place as the car rocked forward.

  “I really don’t think your hand on my chest is going to stop me flying through the windshield.”

  His fingers had managed to find the soft upper swell of her breast instead of her shoulder. He gripped the steering wheel once more. “Sorry. Automatic response.” More than she knew.

  “You’re such a dad, T. Larry. Very protective.”

  Dad. Brother. What about lover? Didn’t she ever think about that? “What happened with Harriet?” The question sounded sharper than he intended.

  Madison didn’t flinch. “She seems a bit…upset.”

  “That’s a mild way of putting it.”

  “You didn’t tell me she’d named me in her suit.”

  He’d wanted to save her the consternation. “It doesn’t matter. I’m handling the problem.” Which sounded irritatingly like what he’d said to Ryman. “Don’t worry.”

  Zach had failed miserably in the first attempt. Laurence, of course, had a backup plan, though he’d conceded to a day’s cooling-off period before they acted again.

  “I just don’t know how to help her.” Madison heaved a sigh Laurence felt throughout his body.

  “Help her?” The thought was ludicrous. Harriet didn’t want anyone’s help.

  “She’s so misunderstood.”

  “Harriet?”

  “This wouldn’t have happened if we’d been more sympathetic.”

  “Are we talking about Harriet the Harridan here?” Against his better judgment and intentions, he started to boil. Harriet treated Madison abominably. “She’s envious, Madison. You could wear sackcloth, and she’d still be jealous.” He struggled to find the least nasty comment. “Harriet simply doesn’t know how to…laugh.”