“Yes,” she said shakily. “Just—babies make me cry.”
“Is it because she won’t let go of your finger?”
Mazie laughed. “No, you idiot.”
He stroked the back of Annie Laurie’s hand and her grip relaxed.
Mazie gently removed her finger. “Oh—neat. Where’d you learn that trick?”
“Sisters.” Leaning down, he whispered into her ear, “Scale of one to ten, how mad are you at me?”
“It just went down to zero. Babies have that effect.”
“Chances of forgiveness?”
Mazie just smiled.
“Chances we’ll ever have any private time together?” Labeck whispered.
“One in a million.”
Emily needed her rest, so after a few more minutes, Mazie collected the boys and left. Ben followed. Their new Lego sets in hand, Sam and Joey clambered into Scully’s pickup truck, which Mazie had driven to the hospital, and immediately set to work building spaceships on its front seat. Scully was going to be picking Lego pieces off his backside for years, Mazie thought.
Ben walked around to the driver’s side, set his hands around Mazie’s waist, and lifted her into the seat. His strength and power thrilled her. Atavistic, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself. He pulled a brown paper hardware store bag out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“Everyone else got a baby day gift. You should, too.”
She dug into the bag and pulled out a pointy, hexagonal cylinder made of metal and attached to a string. It looked like the unloved ornament people hung on the back of their Christmas tree.
“It’s a plumb bob,” Labeck explained, seeing her look of puzzlement.
“Oh. Oh. So I can fix my tree house.”
“I would have gotten you sorry-I-screwed-up flowers, but every girl gets those.”
“Right.” Mazie held up the plumb bob, letting it swing, catching the light. “Who wants flowers when you can have a plumb bob?”
“Lemme see that,” said Sam, who obviously appreciated the doohickey more than his aunt did. She handed it to him. Probably she’d never get it back, but that was okay.
Labeck rested his arms on the windowsill and gazed at her. “I’m sorry I insulted your tree house.”
“No—I’m sorry, Ben. It was a stupid idea, bringing you up there. I never think before I do things. And I’m sorry for saying that stuff about—”
“Forget it, Mazie—you were right about me. I had it coming.”
“I was so worried about you. When you didn’t come back last night, I thought you were so mad you’d left for good.”
“It would take a hell of a lot more than that to keep me away.” He reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, smiling, but looking very tired. “It was five in the morning before we wrapped up at the rescue site and then the firemen invited me and some of the reporters to go out to breakfast with them. When I finally got back to your house, nobody was there, so I phoned the hospital and found out Emily had the baby.”
“I’m glad you got to see her.”
“I like babies.”
Mazie fiddled with the rearview mirror, then turned and looked back at Ben. “About this pageant: you were right—it’s totally self-indulgent on my part. I’m going to drop out.”
“No, you are not dropping out,” Ben said sharply. “I’ve been kicking myself all day for saying that stuff. That was just me being a jealous jerk. I’d be the same way if you were off building Tree Houses for Humanity. Because I want you all to myself, all the time.”
“Oh, Ben, that’s so—”
He leaned into the truck. Their lips met. Mazie closed her eyes, savoring every sweet second of their kiss.
“Eww, gross,” Sam said.
Joey made realistic retching noises.
Ben and Mazie broke apart, smiling, looking into each other’s eyes. Certain things still remained unresolved between them, but at the moment Mazie didn’t care.
“I miss spending time with you, too,” she whispered. “If you’d like, I can arrange for us to be together all afternoon.”
“Really?” His eyes lit up. “Where?”
“At the farmhouse. Just you, me, and the twins.”
His face fell. “Oh, man, did I walk into that one.”
Chapter Twenty-five
“You’re up after this number,” Channing informed Mazie. Channing was wearing a green and gold Quail Hollow cheerleading outfit, complete with short pleated skirt and pompoms on her shoes. Her talent had been an old high school cheer routine, and Mazie was surprised that Channing could still remember the cheers years later, much less perform the splits.
Channing had been first up on the talent program and now, with the lighthearted air of one for whom the worst is over, was helping with the backstage stuff—the sound system, the costume changes, the props. The pageant’s talent portion was being held in the early evening because the auditorium was booked for another event later on.
Mazie felt breathless and dizzy. She’d arrived late because Scully, who was supposed to take over twin-sitting duty, hadn’t been back on time. Having missed the rehearsal time she’d counted on, she was feverishly trying to pull on the long black skirt and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, a last-minute substitute for the burned blouse.
“Here, let me.” Holly came up behind and pulled up her skirt zipper.
“Thanks,” Mazie said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here to watch your act. Did your stir-fry go okay?”
Holly beamed. “Perfect. I didn’t chop off a single finger. I practiced that dish for hours last night. I now have a kitchenful of Szechuan chicken. You have to come over tonight and help us eat it—bring along that makes-me-weak-in-the-knees guy of yours.”
“Sorry, can’t. We’re doing the reenactment tonight. I’m going to be playing Fawn. We’re filming on the actual spot on that dead-end road where her truck was found.”
“You’re on in four minutes, Mazie,” Channing reminded her.
Oh, God—where was her keyboard? She planned to play Für Elise, and even though she’d practiced it only once, she was confident she could get through it okay—the piece sounded impressive but was actually simple enough for grade school recitals.
There was the keyboard—exactly where she’d left it yesterday, tucked away behind a theater backdrop: a battered but serviceable electronic keyboard that belonged to the school. Rolling it away from the wall, Mazie turned on the power switch. Her finger came away sticky.
Sticky?
The dim backstage light made it hard to see, but the keys seemed to be coated in a gunky, transparent film. The stuff was all over! On the keys, seeping into the innards, puddling on the floor. Baby oil? Shampoo? She tasted it with the tip of her tongue.
Corn syrup!
Pressing her fingers to the keys, Mazie attempted the opening notes of Für Elise. The sound came out muffled and clunky; the keys wouldn’t go down all the way. The keyboard was wrecked, unplayable.
Punked again! What next, a bucket of pig’s blood dumped from the rafters, à la Carrie?
“What’s wrong?” Holly asked.
“I’ve been syruped,” Mazie said.
“Your keyboard!” Holly gasped. “I don’t believe this! Okay, don’t panic, hon—we can borrow a keyboard from the band room.”
Mazie shook her head. “All the keyboards are locked up for the summer.”
Channing hurried over.
“Somebody sabotaged Mazie’s keyboard,” Holly told her.
Channing’s eyes widened. “Can’t you clean it off?”
“Not unless you happen to have some giant pancakes handy,” Mazie said.
Channing frowned as though taking Mazie’s comment seriously. “We don’t have any pancakes. But I’ll go tell my mom you need more time.”
“No,” Mazie said, “Forget it. Just cancel me.”
“Well, if you’re sure that’s what you want.” Channing turned to go.
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“She is not canceling,” Holly said fiercely. “Quick—improvise something, Mazie! What else can you do?”
“Hot-wire a car. Use a credit card to jimmy open a door. Fish change out of a sewer with gum on a string.”
“You can sing, a cappella—you’ve got a nice voice.”
Mazie shook her head. “I need music or I go flat.”
“Okay, let me think. Poetry. Recite something. What poems do you know?”
“The one with the little cat feet. ‘The fog comes in on little cat feet’—”
Holly snapped her fingers. “Do ‘Alley Cat’! Remember that tap number we did in Junior Chorus? The steps are supereasy—”
“That was umpteen million years ago!”
“Your feet retain a body memory of dance steps years later. I read that on the Internet, so it must be true. We find the music on YouTube and you tap it. Right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot—”
“No. Way.” Mazie crossed her arms across her chest.
“What’s up, you guys?” called Darlene Krumke from the opposite side of the stage, where she was wrestling her ventriloquist dummy into its costume for her act. She sniffed.
“What smells like waffles?”
“Someone sabotaged Mazie’s keyboard,” Holly said.
“Are you serious? Who?”
“Well, if you happen to see Tabitha Tritt with a bottle of Aunt Jemima …”
Darlene rolled her eyes. “That really blows. Want me to go beat the truth out of her? I’ll make her clean off the syrup with her tongue.”
“Nobody is beating anybody,” Mazie said firmly. “I’m going home.”
“Darlene, make her do ‘Alley Cat,’ ” Holly pleaded.
“ ‘Alley Cat’?” Darlene grinned. “Mrs. Weiss, right? She had every class do that dumb tap number. Come on, Maze, any idiot can do it. Right foot, right foot—”
“I’m wearing a long skirt. I’ll trip and kill myself.”
“You need leggings,” Darlene said. “Sophie Olson has leggings. I’ll go twist her arm until she hands ’em over.”
“No!” Mazie said. “No arm twisting. No leggings.”
“Ears!” Holly said. “A tail. Remember those cute tails we had in Chorus, Mazie?”
Mazie didn’t remember the tails being cute. She remembered the boys making pussy jokes.
“Shoes!” Darlene said, and they both raced off. Good. While they were gone she could slink away. Mazie began snatching up her things. Purse. Water bottle. Makeup pouch. Sheet music …
She stopped, suddenly thinking of Fawn. The mean girls had punked her, too—in fact they’d done much worse. Mazie was a lot older than Fawn had been when she’d faced down those snots—plus she had prison under her belt. Didn’t she have the guts of a scared seventeen-year-old kid? Somehow the opening plinks of “Alley Cat” earwormed into Mazie’s brain. Her treacherous feet began tapping out the steps. Right step, right heel, left step, left heel, right kick, left kick, step, ball, change.
The beauty queens from Planet Estrogen were back, ripping off her skirt, forcing her into leggings, safety-pinning a yard-long strip of fabric to her butt. The tail was a draft snake, a fuzzy tube of zebra-striped polyester fleece designed to go beneath doors.
“Ears, ears!” Holly chanted. “Hurry up with the ears, Darlene.”
“I’m stapling as fast as I can. Okay—here!”
The ears were white typing paper triangles stapled to a plastic headband.
“Why are my ears white when my body is black?” Mazie asked.
“You’re a mixed breed,” Holly explained.
Gretchen Wuntz wandered over. “What are you doing?” she demanded, scanning Mazie’s costume. “You’re not switching your number, are you? That’s not allowed.”
“Oh, go curdle some milk,” Darlene snapped at her.
Holly drew a pink cat nose on the tip of Mazie’s nose with lipstick and used eyeliner to sketch on whiskers while Darlene frenziedly forced fuzzy white acrylic gloves, probably dug out of the school’s lost-and-found, onto Mazie’s hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our next contestant is Miss Quail Hollow 2002,” Bodelle announced.
“I can’t do this,” Mazie moaned. “I don’t remember the steps.”
“Wing it,” Darlene said grimly. “Here—put on your hind paws.”
She held out white sweat socks that were probably obtained from the boys’ locker room and were none too fragrant.
“Go!” Holly yelled. “Wait—your shoes!”
Mazie crammed her feet into the French-heeled black pumps she’d planned to wear for her piano solo. The shoes had not been designed to be worn with sweat socks, and her feet felt as though they’d been jammed into pencil sharpeners.
“… Mazie Maguire, who will perform”—Bodelle squinted at the program because she was too vain to wear glasses onstage—“Für Elise.”
Channing, who was running the sound, gave Mazie a thumbs-up. The cat-on-piano opening notes of “Alley Cat” sounded, which confused the audience, who’d been expecting Beethoven. Different kind of fur, folks. Darlene shoved Mazie out onto the stage. The audience stirred, suddenly attentive, turning on their cameras. Good, bad, or mediocre, Mazie Maguire, famous felon, was Quail Hollow’s closest thing to a celebrity.
Three minutes, she thought, gluing on a big smile, feeling as graceful and catlike as a refrigerator that had for some reason decided to galumph around the kitchen. The lights were hot and she could feel sweat prickling all over her body. What if she ripped open Sophie’s leggings? Sophie had thighs like soda straws and a perky little butt that had never heard of gravity. Her leggings weren’t designed for a person whose ass was storing Butterfingers in the event of a future famine.
But Holly had been right about the body memory. Quite impossibly, Mazie’s legs were recalling the steps. Right foot, right heel, left foot, left heel, kick right, kick left, step, ball, twirl! The tail twirl was done with a hip boomp that was supposed to look sassy without being outright sexually provocative.
Mazie boomped and twirled the tail. She boomped too hard. The tail snapped its pin, slid out of her sweaty grip, and sailed like a zebra-striped flying snake into the audience.
Shocked squeals, then a roar of laughter. Tears sprang to Mazie’s eyes. She fought against panic, resisting the urge to run off the stage. Couldn’t they see she was doing her best here? Suddenly the audience began to applaud. They must have thought the tail malfunction was part of the act. Maybe she should just go with the flow? Fixing her smile in place, Mazie plunged into the second part of the routine. Two more minutes to get through …
Step ball change, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle right, kick—
Her right shoe popped off like a cork shooting out of a bottle, skittered toward the edge of the stage, and fell into an elderly man’s lap. The man shot to his feet, brandishing the shoe like a home run souvenir, and everyone laughed again. Tiny red camera eyes glowed all over the auditorium. Every wretched second was being recorded. Oh, God—wouldn’t the damn song ever be over?
Step ball change—shuffle, shuffle, shuffle left—shuffling was almost impossible when your feet were on two precariously different levels, but Mazie did her best. When it came to the kick, Mazie deliberately kicked off the other shoe, sending it sailing into the audience. Two teenage girls grabbed for it at the same time and wrestled over possession. Sock-footed now, she shuffled back toward center stage, stripped off first one glove, then the other, and flung them into the audience. The music sped up for the big finish.
Da da, ta da da, da da da dah, dee dee dum!
Ripping off the cat ear headband, she Frisbeed it into the audience, wondering how many points the judges were going to deduct from her score for what had been, in a way, the first-ever Miss Quail Hollow Pageant striptease.
Chapter Twenty-six
A horn honked as Mazie was putting on lipstick, making her hand jump so that she scribbled Fuchsia Frolic across her front teeth. Muttering a curse, sh
e flung open her bedroom window and bellowed down at the twins, who were waiting in the truck and tapping out what sounded like Morse code on the horn. “Knock it off!”
They stopped for about two seconds, then started with the beeping again. She gritted her teeth. She had to take the boys along tonight because Social Services would frown on their being locked in the cellar. Scully was with Emily and the baby at the hospital, and Gran was helping set up for tomorrow’s rummage sale at her church. Mazie had rushed home from the pageant, flung off the “Alley Cat” outfit, and pulled on the reenactment gown without taking time to shower or eat. She was hungry, sweaty, and grumpy and she had cat whiskers on her cheeks.
She tried to do her hair the way Fawn had worn it the night of the pageant, twisting it into a chignon and skewering it in place with bobby pins, but it wasn’t quite long enough. This was going to require a ton of hair spray. She reached for her Aqua Net.
Gone, baby, gone. It didn’t require the deductive skills of the CSI forensics team to figure out who’d taken it.
Mazie tossed everything she thought she might need into a bag and took the stairs two at a time, anxious to get to the truck before the imps figured out how to hot-wire the ignition. Muffin trotted across the living room with her, assuming he was invited along wherever she was going, but she gently shut the front door before he could scoot outside. Outraged, he barked loudly as she made her escape.
“Sorry, baby,” she called back. Punhoqua Swamp was no place for small aggressive dogs whose egos were bigger than their brains.
She was borrowing Scully’s farm truck, a Ford pickup with a rectangular grille like gritted teeth and a bench seat that could, in a pinch, squeeze in four people and a heifer. The truck bed rattled with posthole diggers, crowbars, shovels, baling twine, block salt, spare tractor parts … Jimmy Hoffa might’ve been back there beneath a sack of sprouting alfalfa for all anyone knew. Mazie had thought the boys would raise a stink about being dragged along to the swamp, but they seemed thrilled, probably at the prospect of collecting enough frogs to booby-trap every bed in the house.
“Why’re you dressed like that?” Sam asked, eying Mazie as she tossed her shopping bag onto the seat and shoved him over. “It makes your boobies stick out.”
Tangled Thing Called Love: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) Page 17