She froze.
That vibrating silver woman was Phoebe. She’d piled her blond hair into some kind of cone-shaped beehive, wore a push-up bra that was more push-up-and-out, and those red lips were probably stopping cars a mile away. No wonder guys were craning their necks to look at her. She looked like a silver-sprayed slut.
Phoebe looked over, her gaze sliding right past Ellie.
She doesn’t recognize me in my glam goth finery.
Bill wouldn’t recognize her, either, not immediately anyway. If only she’d remembered to get his cell phone number, she would have called him and bypassed all this. But she didn’t have his number, didn’t know anyone who did, and she wasn’t dumb enough to attempt a surprise visit on the set.
Tommy finished reciting the rules.
“Thanks, I’ll be sure to follow them.” She glanced down at the list. “How long before I’m on?”
“You’re last, number sixteen, so forty-five minutes or so.”
She’d spent the afternoon watching burlesque videos on You Tube, practicing the shimmy, several struts and a move called “shakin’ the front porch, shakin’ the back porch.” She’d always done well in dance, which she’d studied in high school and college, so she had a reasonable confidence that she’d pull this off.
Static crackled over the speakers. “Testing, testing.” The woman’s voice had the easy, polished tone of a radio announcer. “Can everybody hear me?”
“No!”
“Turn it down!”
“Will you marry me?”
She laughed. “Lively group! We’re working on some technical issues, so bear with us. Meanwhile, my name’s Didi. I’ll be announcing the acts, playing the music and being the bad guy who’ll yank anybody or anything that’s X-rated off the stage. So keep it sexy, not X-y! Other than that, I’m here to make sure you all have a good, good, good time at our Good Vibrations contest!”
People clapped and whistled.
Ellie looked around. No Bill.
“Our contest will be starting momentarily,” continued Didi. “If you brought your own version of ‘Good Vibrations,’ please leave it with Tommy, the cute Deadhead who’s managing the sign-ups. Otherwise, I’ll be playing the Beach Boys’ version. Contestants will be judged on ingenuity, creativity and ability to keep the beat. Couples win double points! Have fun! Contest starts in five minutes!”
AS FAR AS BILL was concerned, there were no excuses for being late, unprepared or sloppy.
Tonight he was guilty on two counts.
He strode through the festival crowds, past flashing lights, food vendors, endless barkers’ enticements—“Step right up! Everybody’s a winner!” He’d left the set shortly after seven, still answering questions on his cell as he walked across the beach toward the festival where he was supposed to meet Ellie at the Good Vibrations contest, hoping she hadn’t given up on him.
Although maybe she had hours ago. Problem was, he was the kind of guy who didn’t take the word no for an answer. Or asshole as an ending.
He heard the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” song before he saw the sign. Closer, he saw dozens of people milling about, laughing, drinking, some dancing.
Through a break in the crowd, he saw a couple on the stage, both dressed in red T-shirts rubbing each other’s backs in time to the music with what looked like industrial-sized vibrators.
He strolled through the crowd, looking for Ellie. Walked past a guy playing “Good Vibrations” by rubbing his fingers around water-filled glasses, another practicing the tune on his harmonica. But no Ellie.
Finishing a loop around the small stage, he approached some hippie-dude sitting with the sign-up sheet.
“Has an Ellie Rockwell signed up?”
“Ellie?” He trailed his finger down the list of names. “No Ellie. Sorry, man.”
“Mind if…” He took the list, started scanning. “El Queen of Evil?” Couldn’t be anybody else.
“She’s here.” He bobbed his head. “Last act.”
For the first time in hours, Bill smiled. “Do acts hang out in a special place?”
“No, everybody just hangs till they hear their name.”
“Well, if you see her, tell her I’ll be standing—” he looked around “—next to the guy with the glasses of water.” Easy landmark.
“Sure, dude.”
As Bill worked his way through the crowd, a woman’s voice announced over the speakers, “Let’s give a hand to our next contestant, Bingo Huttner and his harmonica!”
Bill positioned himself next to the guy with the water glasses, who was creating an ethereal mix of pitches by rubbing the rims.
“You’re going to play ‘Good Vibrations’ on those?” he asked.
The man stopped, looked up. “No, I’m going to play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto Number Two in C minor.”
Man, he sure had a knack for pissing off people today.
“Bill?”
A woman, looking like a sexy Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, stood in front of him. Her voice was familiar. That spiderweb tattoo peeking over the top of her corset was even more familiar.
“Ellie,” he murmured, shaking his head from side to side in rare wonder. “What have you done…”
His gaze traveled down the long fishnet gloves, the black-and-red corset that offered up two creamy mounds, the ruffly skirt bunched high like a curtain over a show of legs in black fishnet down to her…thongs?
“Bill?”
He looked up, fighting a grin.
“Are you laughing at me?”
He scratched his chin, not wanting to put his foot into it again. She’d already walked away once today. “I was amused at the fishnet and thongs, that’s all.”
Her deep purple lips twitched. “I’m wearing them so I can walk, silly.” She held up a plastic bag. “The stilettos are in here.”
A hot thrill jagged through him as he remembered her in those shoes, quickly cooling when he caught the intensity in her eyes. Anger? Disappointment? Her makeup was like a mask, making him dependent on what he interpreted in her eyes.
“I’m sorry about what happened today,” he murmured. “And being late tonight. Sullivan wanted another meeting after shooting stopped, and by the time I left the set, I had no idea how late it was.” He held up his wrist. “Lost my watch today.”
“Bill!” squealed a female voice. A shapely flash of silver bounced to a stop in front of him. “Remember me?”
Only a man who didn’t like women wouldn’t have looked at her jiggling breasts, unencumbered by a bra. If he hadn’t seen the line of her sleeves, he’d swear she’d been spray painted with silver.
Obviously she’d seen what caught his eye because she gave them an extra shimmy. “It’s me. Phoebe.”
“Right.” He started to turn back to Ellie when Phoebe tugged on his arm.
“Hey!” Locking her eyes on his, she spread her red lips into a smile that had sex written all over it. “Guess what I am?” she whispered.
“Phoebe, I don’t have time for this—”
“Oh,” she said, turning serious, “I almost forgot that Sullivan asked me to give you a message.”
He frowned. “I just talked to him fifteen, twenty minutes ago.”
“Actually, it was Curtiss who called me a few minutes ago, had a message from Sullivan.”
Curtiss was her boss, so it made sense he’d call her. “So, what is it?”
She leaned forward, the movement pressing a silver-sprayed breast against his arm. Those red, wet lips whispered huskily, “He said you have to guess what I am.”
“What?”
She made a brrrr noise with her mouth. “I’m a vibrator!”
He shook her off his arm, feeling pissed at himself for falling for such a dumb come-on. That “Sullivan asked me to give you a message” line was very good, very cunning. Everybody on the set knew Bill would say “how high?” whenever Sullivan said hop.
Those red lips moved closer. “Want to be my Good Vibrations part
ner?”
He stepped back. “I already have a partner.”
But when he turned to Ellie, she was gone.
THE QUEEN OF EVIL was royally pissed off. And hurt. And disappointed. She regretted she’d spent all those hours this afternoon practicing and preparing for this effing contest.
And she’d never have announced her intention to jump his bones if she’d known there’d be another woman’s breast planted on them.
When Phoebe lured in Bill with that line about Sullivan having a message for him, Ellie decided to book. The day Sullivan needed to call a silver-sprayed vibrator to get in touch with anybody was the day Phoebe ran her own telecommunications company.
Bill was too smart to fall for that. Or too whipped by Sullivan. Either way, Ellie hadn’t wanted to waste another millisecond of her time there, so she’d wandered down the midway to this quiet picnic area next to a closed concession stand. Besides a couple making out at a far table, she was alone.
Which was good because she felt as though she was going to cry.
Blinking back tears, she set the bag next to her on the seat. “Great,” she muttered to herself, fishing in the plastic bag for the hand mirror. If she cried, her face would end up looking like a Rorschach test. Finding the mirror, she squinted into it at her shadowy reflection. Too dark to really see.
She tossed the mirror back into the bag, then looked up at the man in the moon. “What do you think Bill saw when he looked at me tonight? I think he didn’t like the Ellie he saw.”
So, it was the cliché beach babe, blond, tanned look that he desired, not the Ellie underneath. She felt a little silly reaching that conclusion since, if she were totally honest with herself, she’d known it the moment he first talked to her after the audition. After all, when he’d seen her goth that first day in the parking lot, his only interest in her had been if she’d move her car.
He doesn’t accept the real me.
For a hard moment, she hated the man she’d held in her heart all these years.
“You know you don’t believe that,” said a male voice.
She jumped.
A man leaned against the concession stand, puffing on a pipe. Odd to see someone at the festival dressed in a businesslike white jacket and pants, although his bald head and mustache fit right in. She guessed he owned this stand, and was probably enjoying a quiet smoke at the end of the day.
You know you don’t believe that? Oh. He’d obviously overheard her self-pitying whine about Bill not liking what he saw in Ellie tonight.
He strolled to a nearby table, the thick, sweet scent of pipe tobacco in his wake, and hitched his foot onto the seat. A cloud passed over the moon, and in the milky darkness he looked almost otherworldly. Like a ghost.
She shook her head, amused at her imagination. If he looked otherworldly, she could only imagine what she looked like.
A roar of laughter billowed from the Good Vibrations contest.
“Sounds like they’re having a good time,” he said.
“Hmmph.”
“But you’re having a bad time.”
“Yeah, well, it’s been one of those days.”
“Want to talk about it?”
She snorted a laugh. He probably meant well, but the last thing she wanted to do was talk about her problems to a total stranger. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
She gathered her bag, stood, looked around. She didn’t want to walk back down the midway, which would take her right by the Good Vibrations contest. The last people she wanted to see were the breast-slinging human vibrator and what’s his name.
Unfortunately, the midway was the only way.
“You wouldn’t happen to know another route out of here besides the main one, would you?”
He tapped the bowl of his pipe against the table as he shook his head. “You’ll have to walk through it, can’t walk around it.”
Like that was a lot of help. “Okay, well, thanks.” She turned to leave.
“If it’s worth fighting for,” he said, raising his voice, “then fight the good fight.”
She looked back, frowning. “What?”
“Cinderella doesn’t make it home before midnight, but that’s not the end of her story.”
Somebody else had said those exact words…this man couldn’t be…Magellan?
No, Magellan had that Jimmie Buffett clothes thing going. Plus, this man was too low-key. He’d probably been in the audience that day, then tonight overheard her whining to the man in the moon about Bill and he’d remembered Magellan’s “message from the spirits” to her.
Although seemed odd he’d remember it word for word….
“I need to take off, too.” He lowered his foot, looked up at the moon. Emitting a yawn, he stretched his arms. Something sparkled on his hand.
She recalled Magellan’s pinkie ring, the blue sapphire.
As he started walking away, she called out after him.
“Wait!”
He paused, looked back.
“Your ring…is it sapphire?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding pleased she’d noticed. “It’s the stone of destiny.”
The exact same words Magellan had whispered to her. No one else, not even Bill, could have heard that. As strange as it seemed, he had to be Magellan.
“You want to know your destiny, don’t you?” he asked.
All she could do was stare, tongue-tied. She’d hoped that Magellan would say something to validate another dimension, that spirits really did whisper messages, yet she’d walked away disappointed.
But tonight, the way he’d seemed to read her thoughts, appear out of nowhere, even use the very word—destiny—that she’d thought about in conjunction with Bill just a few hours ago, well, this was it. She was open, ready for the mystery to be unveiled.
She nodded her head, her heart racing.
“Your destiny is…Gonzo.”
Gonzo?
Had he said Gonzo?
The guy was a nut.
She watched him prop the pipe back in his mouth and stroll away.
She really didn’t need any more of this beach-vacation time, thank you. Much saner to pack up and go home, get the coffee shop ready for the big move.
Another blast of applause and yells. She turned toward the Good Vibrations game, steeling herself for the walk past the activities, dreading what she might see. How she’d love not to be walking alone. What sweet revenge it’d be to have Bill see her in the company of some mammoth-sized hunk, his beefy arm wrapped protectively around her, his face darkly Byronic, his attitude edgy and wild like a Lou Reed.
She sighed, starting walking.
If only there really were a Gonzo.
13
MINUTES LATER, Ellie neared the Good Vibrations contest. She slowed down, eyeing the midway where it curved past the crowd of people. Unless she wanted to crawl behind game booths and trespass vendor stands, she had to walk the walk.
Maybe if she slouched, kept her eyes on the ground, she’d look smaller, less obvious.
She did so, staring down at sandy beach littered with cigarette butts, bottle caps, tossed ride tickets. Somebody jostled past, shoving up against her so hard, she nearly lost her balance.
She straightened, angry. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” A few people looked back. Someone laughed. She suddenly felt pathetic, being angry at someone and not sure who.
Worse, she felt as though she’d given away her power.
Not just because some stranger had thrown her off balance, but from a lot of things these past few days. Because she’d changed her looks to please people, to get a job as an extra. Because she’d stayed that way to keep Bill interested, then switched back to test him. She’d spent so much energy worrying and being afraid if she’d be accepted, she’d lost her sense of self.
Ellie Rockwell was better than this.
She’d survived a father’s desertion, parented a mother and prevailed as a businesswoman. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d met the challenge ea
ch time, and in doing so learned power took many forms…from money to knowledge to sometimes simple charm. That’s why she got the Queen of Evil tattoo, because she believed that character had been misunderstood. The Queen of Evil, she’d tell people, wasn’t evil, she was powerful.
Cheers erupted from the contest.
Ellie adjusted her crown, smoothed a hand down her skirt. She’d faced worse in her life. Pulling back her shoulders, she headed down the walk.
The Queen of Evil was back.
“WE’RE HAVING A BIT of technical difficulty,” announced the female voice over the speakers. “So we’ll be taking a short break before our last contestant, El Queen of Evil.”
Bill, standing at a taco truck across the midway, jerked his gaze toward the Good Vibrations contest. “Jimmie, she came back.”
Jimmie stopped pouring hot sauce into his taco. “How do you know?”
He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the contest. “They just announced her act.”
“El Queen of Evil?”
“Not sure why they added the El, but yes, that’s her. How could you forget the tattoo?”
“Didn’t forget it.” Jimmie smiled. “I just don’t memorize every detail about Ellie, but then I’m not the one who’s in love with her.” He took a bite of taco.
He thought Bill was in love with Ellie?
With a nervous laugh, he stood, fished in his pocket for change. “Hey, I talked your ear off because I’ve been frantic trying to find her. Doesn’t mean—”
“That you love her?”
“Yeah, something like that,” he muttered. He pulled out a wad of bills. “So, what do I owe you?”
“You know, when you talked my ear off, you talked about a lot more than just looking for her.” He swiped a napkin across his mouth. “You talked about her eyes. Fishnet. Her shoes…”
Shock Waves Page 11