Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance)

by Juliet Rosetti

  She’d morphed through the years. In the earlier photos, she had dull brown hair and a protruding stomach. As time passed, she’d become blonder and shapelier, her cheeks hollower, her boobs bigger, her lips poutier, her wardrobe more flamboyant. Maybe that explained her personality: there was an ugly duckling quivering inside that swanlike exterior. Belinda Wernke claimed Rhonda was bipolar. Some days she was Ms. Happy-Happy-Happy, lavishing praise on everyone and buying coffee and doughnuts for the entire staff. Some days she’d bite your head off if you disagreed with her. And some days she’d keep her door closed, put her head down on her desk, and sob for hours, exhausting the office’s supply of Kleenex.

  I raised my antennae as Rhonda settled into her desk chair, trying to sense her mood.

  “Well, sit,” she said, nudging a chair and sending it rolling in my direction. “You’ve been on your feet all day.”

  I sat. The chair made a farting noise.

  Rhonda whipped a sheet out of her printer and flourished it. Reading upside down, I saw it was the Hottie Latte evaluation I’d emailed earlier. “You made this lingerie café sound like jolly fun. I heard they do lap dances for ten bucks.”

  If a Persian cat could talk, it would sound like Rhonda. Low pitched and growly, with undertones of sardine. Yes, I’m soft and beautiful, the voice said, but I can disembowel you with a swipe of my claw.

  “No. It’s legit. Imagine Starbucks married to Victoria’s Secret.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.” She tried to scowl, but the skin between her eyes was so paralyzed with botulism toxins that her frown muscles didn’t work. Instead, her mouth drew downward, an inverted U I’d learned to dread.

  “Figurative language.”

  “You’re telling me these bimbos aren’t doing blow jobs in the back room?”

  “No, they’re waitresses. They dress like that to get bigger tips.”

  “I saw on TV that some church people are picketing the place.”

  “You know what they say. All publicity is good publicity.”

  She looked at me blankly. “I never heard that.”

  Rhonda was a shrewd businesswoman, but there were vast holes in her cultural knowledge. She was bright and personable, with the glib self-assurance of a television talk-show hostess and a brassy charm that drew in swarms of clients. With potential customers, she radiated charisma, fetching them coffee, fawning and flattering, working for the sale with the energy and persistence she’d once employed in her days as a door-to-door encyclopedia saleswoman. She’d never gone beyond high school, but she had enough blue-collar work experience to give her street cred with the car czars, mufflershop magnates, taco-stand tycoons, and other self-made millionaires who made up the bulk of her clientele. She spoke their language, understood their problems, and knew how to get them to part with their money.

  “Actually,” Rhonda purred, “I liked your review. It was really smart and funny. You’re good at this job, Maguire. Lots of positive responses from my customers. We ought to get you more assignments.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.” I tried not to show how much the compliment pleased me, because I loathed the way I was hooked on the heroin of Rhonda’s praise. When something is scarce, it increases in value.

  Her desk phone rang. She raised an imperious finger to indicate that she wasn’t done with me yet and picked up. Whatever was being said on the other end of the phone wasn’t making her happy.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “Of course I paid that bill. Your accounting department must have made a mistake.”

  She listened again, then cut in. “Listen have your people show up at eight sharp tomorrow night, unless you want to show up on my website as Rip-off of the Month.”

  Even six feet away, I could hear laughter at the other end of the phone.

  She slammed down the phone, flung herself back in her chair, and swung her legs up on her desk. “Well, that’s just great. I am now officially up shit creek without a paddle.”

  “What happened?” I averted my gaze, not wanting to accidentally glimpse her day-of-the-week undies.

  “The bartending service for my cocktail party just cancelled.” She drummed her fingers on her desk.

  “Gee, that’s too bad.” Hard to feel sorry for someone throwing a party you’re not invited to. I got up and started to leave.

  “Wait,” Rhonda said. “Uhh … Mazie?”

  My heart sank as I turned around to face her. She always called me Maguire. First names were used only when she needed something.

  “How would you like a chance to earn a little extra money?”

  “You mean work at your party?”

  “As a waiter. Easy stuff. Handing out drinks, that kind of thing.”

  “I don’t know …”

  Before agreeing to anything, I promised myself, I’d get the money up front.

  Because I didn’t trust Rhonda Cromwell any farther than you could squirt a spray of her La Demoiselles perfume.

  Chapter Five

  Never mix vodka with charcoal fluid.

  —Maguire’s Maxims

  Rhonda’s house was on Cumberland Avenue in Brookwood, a quiet, tree-lined street with wide lawns and old-fashioned globe streetlamps. It was a white-frame, two-story architectural gem with a sweeping wraparound porch that conveyed the impression of an ocean liner at sea. According to office scuttlebutt, Rhonda had wrestled the house away from her ex-husband in their divorce settlement.

  Rhonda answered the door, looking nervous and flustered. “Hurry up and get dressed,” she snapped. “Your uniform is in my home office—last room down the hallway.”

  I halted in the entryway. “You didn’t mention a uniform.”

  “Of course you have to wear a uniform. You’re a waiter, so you dress like a waiter. You need to set out the canapés, open the wine, and pour it in glasses. Start with the expensive stuff, but switch to the cheaper label in an hour—these people guzzle it like it’s Kool-Aid. Circulate through the crowd, keep the wet bar stocked. Oh—and get outside and move those leaf bags off the curb. It looks like I’m expecting garbage pickup.”

  This was the point where I should have told Rhonda where to stick her leaf bags, but they wouldn’t have fit under her outfit. She was wearing a strapless, jade-green beaded dress that squished in her waist, fitted over her rear like shrink-wrap, and flared out at the hem. She looked like the Chicken of the Sea mermaid. The dress was way too over-the-top for a cocktail party, but would have been just the ticket to wear to the Porn Star of the Year Awards.

  Rhonda’s office was a closet-size room at the rear of the first floor—probably once a maid’s quarters—with a computer, printer, and fax machine sitting atop a battered old desk. The waiter’s uniform hung over the back of an office chair. Stripping off the perfectly party-worthy but understated black stretch top and black skirt I’d planned to wear, I changed into the waiter gear. The pants gapped at the waist and the shirt was so over-starched it crackled. The vest fit all right, but the bow tie was a pain in the butt. I struggled with it, trying to wrestle it into a spiffy Pee Wee Herman–type bow before giving up and tying it into a bow that looked like it belonged atop a birthday present.

  I pulled my hair into a chignon, tweaked out waiflike tendrils, and gobbed on rathair mascara that extended my lashes half an inch. If I had to wear an ugly uniform, I was at least going to look like a female in an ugly uniform.

  The front doorbell rang just as I emerged from Rhonda’s office. Muttering about people too cloddish to know that an eight o’clock invitation meant nine o’clock, Rhonda tottered off to answer it, taking mincing geisha steps in the knee-binding skirt. Everybody seemed to arrive at once, and suddenly the house was bursting with people.

  For the next two hours I was frantically busy, circulating with heavy trays, keeping the canapés and petit fours freshened, taking people’s coats, giving them directions to the bathroom, and wiping up spills. Meanwhile Rhonda threw herself into being the perfect hostess. Animated, la
ughing, drawing the wallflowers into conversation, managing to be everywhere at once, she sparkled like the Christmas tree in her parlor. Usually, at affairs like this, wives feel left out, but Rhonda managed to keep the enemy genders mingling to avoid the usual cluster of sports-talking guys at one end of the room and clumps of bored women at the other. The fact that Rhonda’s kissy-kissy charm was as fake as spray-on tan didn’t make it less impressive.

  The partygoers were two-fisted drinkers and were snapping up the canapés like hungry trout lunging for flies. By eleven o’clock we were running low on the goat-cheese-stuffed mushrooms and the lemongrass salmon. Hurrying to the kitchen for refills, I reached into the fridge for the last tray of canapés. At this rate, I’d have to start smearing Cheez Whiz on Ritz crackers. As I bent to retrieve the heavy tray, someone brushed up next to me.

  “Here—that’s heavy. Let me help.”

  I turned. A movie star took the tray out of my hands. He was straight out of central casting—“Get me a Pierce Brosnan type!”—and had eyes the color of a Wisconsin lake, a wide, sensuous mouth, a straight nose, and a full head of wavy, black hair touched with silver at the temples.

  I managed to close my mouth, hoping drool hadn’t run down the front of my dress.

  He smiled. “I’ve been watching you ever since I got here, trying to get a chance to meet you. I’m Jared Kennison.”

  “I’m …” Who was I again? “Mazie.” We shook hands. My eyes flashed down to his left hand and back up again at the speed of a blink. Ringless.

  “Are you Rhonda’s daughter?” he asked.

  “No relation.” And if Rhonda heard him say that she’d rip out my fifteen-year-younger DNA, helix by helix. “I’m the hired help. Can I get you something? A drink? Ice?” I wanted to plaster the ice over my own burning cheeks. My blush was spreading like a poison ivy rash.

  “What I really wanted was an introduction to you.”

  He leaned back against a row of cabinets, frankly studying me. He had the uninflected baritone of a network news anchor, and I almost expected him to say: “While the American economy sank farther into recession, Congress today passed a resolution declaring November National Cranberry Month …”

  He was wearing a navy sweatshirt, black trousers, and dark sneakers, not ordinarily cocktail-party garb, but Jared Kennison could have worn flippers and a wet suit to Buckingham Palace and made the guys in tuxes look like slobs.

  I didn’t trust good-looking men. The first handsome man I’d known had turned out to be a serial adulterer, the second one had tried to burn me alive, and the third … well, the jury was still out on Ben Labeck.

  Rhonda hobbled into the kitchen, mermaid tail dragging. “Get out there and restock the bar,” she growled at me. “We’re out of lemon slices and the bourbon—”

  She stopped dead when she saw Jared Kennison.

  A flicker of something crossed Rhonda’s face. Shock? Wariness? Do-me-now-on-the-kitchen-counter lust? Or had I just imagined it?

  Jared nodded at Rhonda, flashing his Chiclet choppers. “Hello, Rhonda. Just happened to be driving past, saw the cars, thought I’d crash your party. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Their eyes locked, and I tried to figure out what was going on. Was Jared Rhonda’s ex-lover? Current lover? Guy she’d picked up at the gas station? Was she going to skewer me with the olive fork for talking to him?

  Rhonda pasted on a smile, revealing a smear of lipstick on her left canine, and batted her tarantula-leg lashes. “You can crash my party anytime, stud. Mazie, don’t just stand there, get him a drink.”

  He held up his hand. “I’m good.”

  “You’re supposed to mingle, not stay hidden back here with the hired help.”

  Thanks a lot, Rhonda. Nice to know I was on a level with the ice-making machine.

  Picking up the tray of canapés, I muscled my way back out to the living room. Tipsy drunks stepped on my feet. Sloppy drunks spilled drinks on me. Someone was banging out “Heart and Soul” on Rhonda’s piano. Then the front door opened, swirling in a welcome whiff of cool, fresh air, and Ben Labeck walked in to the party.

  I experienced the same kind of heart swoop as when the Six Flags roller coaster tops the first peak and starts its downward hurtle. Labeck was with Aspen Lindgren. How could I have forgotten? Aspen had mentioned Rhonda’s party yesterday, but I’d tucked it away in the Don’t Wanna Think About It compartment of my brain.

  Feeling like the little match girl with her nose pressed to the shopwindow, I gazed at Labeck. Even in a two-day beard and grubby clothes, he looked good. Tonight, clean shaven, in dress shirt, tie, and dark-gray suit, he exuded sexiness in waves nearly visible to the naked eye. He wasn’t classically handsome like the movie star. His ears were slightly too big and his nose went down where it was supposed to go up, but he had the grace of a natural athlete, he seemed completely at ease in his own skin, and there was a tantalizing spark in his dark eyes that made women think of bedrooms, boudoirs, and bondage fantasies.

  Ben’s baptized name was Bonaparte, a family name from a distant Parisian ancestor. No, not the guy with one hand stuck in his jacket and the fixation on conquering the world—this Bonaparte was French Canadian–Ojibwa, born in a small town on the Quebec side of the USA-Canada border. He’d gone to college in Wisconsin on a hockey scholarship, where his interest in photography had led to a part-time job at the university’s TV station, and afterward to a full-time cameraman’s job with a Milwaukee television station.

  I dragged my eyes off him because people can feel when they were being stared at, and I didn’t want him to suddenly turn and spot me in my ugly waiter uniform. Rhonda was eyeing Labeck as though he were a big, fat, charbroiled T-bone and she had a steak knife in her hands. Somehow, she contrived to shunt Aspen aside without actually elbowing her in the kidneys, and detached Labeck like an expert roper cutting a calf out of a herd.

  Damn, she was good!

  Soon she had Labeck all to herself, trapped in an armchair by a plate of canapés, a glass of wine, and her own leg, blocking his exit like a tollbooth gate. She did that thing males of all ages seem to fall for. No, not oral sex. Get the guy talking, pretend he’s the best thing since satellite radio and go, Why you big, strong, clever thing, you! Pretty soon the guy is caught like a fly in a molasses spill.

  I went back to work, trying not to watch Labeck and Rhonda. People were getting louder and more boisterous, shouting to be heard above the din. The noise and heat were giving me a headache. My arms ached from carrying the heavy trays, and my wispy tendrils had gone from gamine to bedraggled. The piano player switched to a Billy Joel medley and was playing it badly.

  Walking out of the kitchen with a fresh tray of drinks, I skidded on something slick. Oh, gakkk! Someone had ralphed all over the hallway floor. I swallowed hard, stifling my gag reflex. I was not getting paid enough to deal with this! This was one of the life situations that demanded magic. I wanted to be Harry Potter, pointing my wand at the mess, muttering “Scourgify,” and watching the puke vanish.

  Since the closest thing I had to a magic wand was my mascara wand, I dealt with the mess using a mop and bucket. Cleaning up the barf left a damp film on the floor. When some drunk slipped on it and broke his stupid neck, Rhonda would blame me for it. So I squatted down with a wad of cocktail napkins and began blotting the wet floor.

  “Mazie?”

  I looked up. And broke out into flaming pustules of embarrassment. Ben Labeck, who’d somehow managed to break free of Rhonda’s stranglehold, was standing there in the doorway, taking in the mop, the mess, and me.

  I closed my eyes, clinging to the fantasy I’d cultivated during the past six weeks, the one in which Labeck spies me in an elegant restaurant. I’m wearing a low-cut, slinky black dress, diamond earrings, and Stuart Weitzman shoes. George Clooney is whispering in my ear, begging me to blow the joint with him, but Labeck, driven mad with jealousy, rips me away from Clooney and…

  “You’re not falling asleep down t
here, are you?” he asked.

  Opening my eyes, I aimed my gaze toward Labeck’s kneecaps. “Oh, hi,” I said, shooting for nonchalance, but betrayed by my voice, an octave above Minnie Mouse’s.

  Labeck squatted down next to me. Our shoulders touched and I felt an electric shock go through me. Grabbing a wad of napkins, he started swiping at the floor.

  “Stop that,” I snapped. “You’ll get your pants dirty.”

  “Was this in your job description?”

  I snatched the globby napkins from him. “You should get back to your date. If you bring her home late, she’ll be grounded.”

  He laughed. “Aspen isn’t that young. She just started at the station and I’m teaching her the ropes.”

  “How totally unselfish of you.”

  “Mazie … look, is there someplace we can talk?”

  Talk? He wanted to talk? I wanted to yank him by the necktie, pull his face down to mine, and demonstrate exactly how much I’d missed him. I wanted to say all the things

  I should have said before I’d let him drive off to Big Sky Country. I wanted to fling my pride to the wind and beg for another chance.

  Labeck stood up. He took my hands and hauled me to my feet, his eyes dark and serious. “Mazie…,” he said.

  “Uh-huh?” I scarcely dared breathe.

  “Do you …”

  There were a million ways this sentence could end. Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? Do you want me to dump Aspen so we can get back together? Do you want to come back to my place for a round of passionate makeup sex?

  I waited impatiently. I could have rattled off Hamlet’s soliloquy in the time it was taking his Adam’s apple to bob up and down.

  “… smell smoke?” He sniffed. Raised his head and sniffed, like a dog scenting fresh garbage.