But it was too late. The yellow Caddy was impossible to miss.
She turned to get a closer look. Her blue eyes got very wide. “Keeley?” She started backpedaling, and fast. Guess she wanted to get out of slapping range.
Just then Will came loping out of the Minit Mart with a bottle of beer in each hand. He saw me, he saw Paige. And he didn’t miss a beat. He swung into the driver’s seat, leaned over and kissed me passionately, directly on the lips, forcing his tongue into my mouth.
Startled, I tried briefly to push him away, but he just pulled me closer, almost into his lap.
At last he released his hold. “Miss me, baby?” he asked, giving me a furtive wink. Now I caught on. It was showtime. And Paige was the audience. I nuzzled his neck. “Take me home, lover,” I said loudly.
“Disgusting!” Paige snapped. And she flounced off into the Minit Mart.
He waited until she was inside and then eased me off his lap and the car into reverse.
“Not bad for a small-town girl,” he said, shooting me a glance. “Or did you learn to kiss like that in New York?”
“None of your business,” I said, edging shakily back to my side of the front seat. “Crap! Nobody works the kudzu telegraph like Paige Plummer. It’ll be all over town by the time I get home,” I said. “Keeley Murdock’s got a new man.”
“That bother you?”
I had to think about it. “My reputation’s already shot. I guess this couldn’t make matters any worse. What about you? Won’t it bother you to have people assuming we’re a couple when we’re not?”
“I don’t give a damn,” he said.
“What if your woman hears about me?”
“She won’t.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t actually know my name,” he said. “Yet.”
15
I took a long sip of beer and considered this new information. “She doesn’t know your name?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “But that’s about to change.”
“This isn’t some Internet dating service thing, is it? Did you meet her on a porn site or something?”
“Get real,” he said, looking annoyed. “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.”
“I’d love to hear it,” I said. “How exactly do you know this Stephanie person?”
Will took a swig of his own beer. “About a month ago, I was home watching television. The Braves had a rain delay, and there was nothing else on television. I was channel surfing, and I switched over to APTV—you know, the public television station?”
“This isn’t Hooterville, Will. I know all about public television. I never miss Antiques Roadshow.”
“They were having their fund-raising telethon.”
“Lord,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I can’t abide those things.”
“It was that or The Dukes of Hazzard,” Will said. “So I started watching. You know, just seeing if they’d reach their fund-raising goal. The program that night was called BarberShop America! It was like the Super Bowl of barbershop quartet competitions.”
“Barbershop quartet contests?”
“Live from Indianapolis,” Will said. “Grown men dressed in matching outfits. Women too.”
“And you watched this for how long?”
“I kept switching back to the Braves game, but it was a hell of a storm. The public television folks would show some of the contest, then they’d cut back to the telethon, and they had these deadlines. You know, we need to raise twenty thousand dollars in the next fifteen minutes, or you’ll never see Masterpiece Theatre again.”
“They can keep Masterpiece Theatre,” I said tartly. “I am so over all that Upstairs, Downstairs crap.”
“They had volunteers in the studio, answering the phones and taking people’s pledges,” Will said. “And the cameras would scan the phone banks, and they kept showing this one woman. Her phone never stopped ringing.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Stephanie.”
“I didn’t know that was her name,” Will said. “At the time.”
“You couldn’t take your eyes off her,” I said, my voice all breathy and girly.
He gave me a look.
“She was wearing some kind of red top,” he said. “Everything around her looked gray and old, and there she was, like a, a…”
“Rose among thorns? Daisy on a pile of cowshit?”
“I called the television station, and when I got through, I told them I wanted to make a hundred-dollar pledge. But the guy who answered was this old guy. So then I called back, and I think I got the woman who was sitting next to her. But I couldn’t just hang up, so I pledged another hundred bucks.”
“Two hundred dollars, and you still couldn’t get her on the line?”
“When I called back the third time, I told the clown who answered the phone that I only wanted to talk to the woman in the red top. He said it was against station policy.
“Then I told him I had a two-thousand-dollar pledge, but I’d only make it to her.”
“So they put you through to Stephanie.”
He nodded his head, smiling at the thought of it.
“That’s when she told me her name. She’s a lawyer. Everybody who was answering the phones that night was a member of some lawyer club or something. And I was watching the television as I was talking to her, and she smiled when I told her about the two-thousand-dollar pledge. It got to me, you know?”
I took a swig of beer and nodded, trying to look noncommittal, even though this was one of the creepiest stories I’d ever heard.
“She said it was the biggest pledge anybody had gotten all night,” Will said. “And something just came over me. I’m not like this. Not usually.”
I nodded again. I glanced casually over at the door to the shop, and wondered how long it would take me to jump out of the car, run to the door, open it, and lock it behind me. I decided not to make any sudden moves, in case it set him off.
“You think I’m deranged,” Will said.
“Not necessarily,” I lied.
“Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” he asked.
“I fell in love with Jon Bon Jovi when I was thirteen,” I admitted. “But the most I ever did was skip school to go to Atlanta to buy tickets to the concert. And I was thirteen at the time. I mean, don’t you think this is all a little…extreme?”
“I’ve never done anything like this before. Not in my life. Not ever. But sometimes, things just happen. A light goes on in your brain. And it’s flashing ‘She’s the one. She’s the one.’ ”
I laughed. “With Bon Jovi, it was more like my brain was flashing ‘OMIGOD. He is so hot. He is so hot!’ ”
“But you skipped school to buy the concert tickets. That was pretty extreme for a little kid,” he said.
“I guess.”
“What about A.J.?” he asked. “How did your relationship with him evolve?”
“That’s totally different,” I said. “I’d known A.J. forever.”
“And one day you just decided to date?”
“I don’t care to discuss A. J. Jernigan with you,” I said, trying to sound aloof. I was damned if I was going to disclose the drapery seduction scene to Will Mahoney. Not that it was in any way comparable to this loony crush he had on a woman he’d never met.
“Doesn’t matter,” Will said. He took the last sip of beer and tossed the empty bottle in the backseat. “She is the one. I’m not insane. We have a date next week. And if all goes as planned, there will be an engagement by Thanksgiving.”
I threw my bottle in the backseat alongside his. The two bottles clinked companionably.
“You really are insane,” I told him. “I’d be shirking my professional duty as a licensed interior designer if I didn’t tell you so. But tell me something. How in the hell did you get a date with this woman if she doesn’t know your name?”
“Very simple,” he said. “I called the station’s director of development. Told him I�
�d already pledged twenty-five hundred dollars for the current fund drive, and that I’d round that amount off to an even five thousand if he’d arrange an introduction to one of his volunteers. And then we talked. We’re having dinner next Wednesday night at Bones.”
“Isn’t that called pimping?”
“It’s called good business,” Will said.
“What if you hate her?” I asked. “What if she has hairy knuckles and thick ankles and halitosis and VPL?”
“She’s perfect,” he insisted. “And what’s VPL?”
“Visible panty line,” I said. “You’d think somebody in the intimate business would know about something like that.”
“I’m new to intimates,” he said. “But I’m a very quick learner.”
“It’s your money,” I said finally. “And it’s a free country. But think about all you’ll be out if this plan of yours bombs. You’ve bought an old house, and already spent like twenty-five hundred bucks. And for what? If she thinks you’re a creep, or if she already has a boyfriend or something, you’re busted. All that effort, and you got nothing.”
“That’s not really true,” Will said. “I’ll still have the house, which I intend to restore. And think about all that other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“All the loot I got for supporting public television. A tote bag, the BarberShop America! four-CD compilation. The official BarberShop America Live! DVD. And don’t forget the stainless steel BarberShop America! travel coffee mug.”
“Wow. What a bonanza.”
He turned to face me, and stuck out his hand. “We’ve got a deal, though. Right?”
I shook. “Sure. I guess your money spends as good as anybody else’s. And the house has wonderful potential. It’ll look great in our portfolio.”
He handed me a business card. “You can reach me at the office in the morning. Just tell me what time you want to meet the architect over at the house, and I’ll set it all up. Anything else you need in the meantime?”
“Don’t guess so,” I said, opening the car door.
“I’ll be back in town on Monday,” he said. “Can you have something ready for me by then?”
“A bill,” I said. “For our first consultation.”
“Fine,” he said. “Bring along your proposal too.”
He tooted the horn as he drove off in the yellow Caddy.
My mind was a whirl of details as I unlocked the studio door. It wasn’t until I was inside, with the door locked behind me that I noticed all the lights were on. The air in the room smelled different. Flowery.
A huge bouquet of lilacs sat in the middle of my desk. And sitting in the chair behind my desk was a tall, elegant man dressed in a black and cream paisley satin dressing gown. His bald head shone in the overhead light.
“Austin!” I cried. “You nearly scared me to death. What are you doing in here this time of night?”
“Slumming,” he said lightly. “But let’s get down to details, Keeley Rae. Who was that divine hunk of manhood in the yellow pimpmobile out there? And what were you doing swapping spit with him in the parking lot at the Minit Mart?”
“Paige called you?”
“Don’t be absurd. Paige knows how thick we are. She called her mama. Her mama called Janice Biggers. Janice called A.J.’s cousin Mookie. And Mookie called me.”
“In the space of ten minutes.”
He gave me a broad wink. “Actually, it was more like five. I had to cut the lilacs and make myself presentable. So here I am. Now dish!”
16
He calls himself Austin LeFleur, and he owns Fleur, the florist shop right next to ours. Nobody knows or cares whether that’s his real name, and he loves being a man of mystery.
Two years ago Austin bought the florist’s business from his eighty-two-year-old second-cousin, Betty Ann, and like me, moved into the apartment above the shop. Of course, when Betty Ann owned it, the shop was called Bouquets by Betty Ann, and it specialized in pretty much what you’d expect from a near-blind eighty-two-year-old who chain-smoked three packs of Camels right up until the day Porter Briggs from the Briggs Mortuary drove his ambulance around the block to pick her up after her third, and fatal, heart attack.
Austin and I clicked the same day we met, and have been friends ever since. He has a key to our shop, and I have the key to Fleur. And although he’d only been living in Madison for two years, he’d already firmly established himself in local social circles. He’s on the Historic Madison Foundation and the Madison Arts Council, and belongs to my daddy’s Rotary Club.
Right now he was fussing with the vase of lilacs on my desk and giving me his famous, all-knowing, once-over.
“You got any food over at your place?” I asked, avoiding his eyes. “It was salmon loaf night at Daddy’s. I’m starved.”
He gave me an enigmatic smile. “I might. I very well might have a little something over there. Something chocolate, perhaps.”
“Good. Let’s go over to your place.” I headed for the front door.
“Not so fast, sister,” he said. “First the dish, and then the dessert.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I protested. “He’s a client. That’s all.”
“Do you play tonsil hockey with all your clients?” he asked, raising one well-tweezed eyebrow. “Maybe that explains your business success.”
“My business sucks right now and you know it,” I said. “Anyway, you know all the gossip in this town is blown way out of proportion.”
“Are you denying the kiss took place?” he asked. “I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but Mookie claims she has a double source. And you know she’s usually very reliable about these things.”
“Unless she’s fallen facedown into a margarita fountain,” I said. “Who are you going to believe, Mookie or me?”
He shook his finger and tsk-tsked me. “See, you’re still not denying that there was a clinch. Are you?”
“It was nothing,” I said, my face getting hot. “We were just yanking Paige’s chain. And it wasn’t my idea, anyway. I just sort of went along for the ride.”
“You rode him?” Austin shrieked and then dissolved into what can only be called a fit of the giggles.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “Look, either feed me some chocolate or go home and let me go to bed.”
“With whom?”
I turned toward the back staircase. “Okay. G’night.”
“All right, all right, all right,” Austin said. He stood up and tightened the belt of the dressing gown.
“I like that,” I said. “Where’d you get it?”
“It was Betty Ann’s,” he said. “Frankly forties, don’t you think? There are jammies to match, but the top’s a smidge tight across the chest, and of course, the bottoms don’t quite meet a gentleman’s needs, if you know what I mean.”
“I never saw Betty Ann dressed in anything remotely like that dressing gown,” I said. “In fact, I don’t think I ever saw her dressed in anything that wasn’t one hundred percent polyester.”
“It must have been a gift or something,” Austin said. “Never been worn.”
“Well, if you ever get tired of it, throw it my way,” I said, following him through the studio and out our back door. We stepped into the alley and made a quick left. The screen door to Fleur was propped open with a brick, and the inner door was ajar.
“Don’t you ever lock up?” I scolded.
“I was just over at your place. Anyway, it’s Wednesday night. Nobody’s gonna come around and try to knock over a florist’s shop. What are they gonna do—pluck my pansies?”
“You should be more careful,” I told him. “Don’t you read The Citizen? Somebody stole a wheelbarrow and a fertilizer spreader from the hardware store last Sunday morning.”
“Kids,” Austin said airily.
I inhaled deeply as I followed him into his workroom, breathing in the smell of fresh-cut flowers. He’d done the whole place over after Betty Ann went to her
maker. Betty Ann’s old Pepto-Bismol pink walls had been replaced with a washed green and gold Tuscan villa paint treatment. Austin had installed stainless steel shelves and bins, and painted the old concrete floor to look like aged quarry tiles. Stainless steel buckets of water held bunches of perennials and wildflowers he bought from local gardeners, and a walk-in cooler held the more delicate roses and exotics he imported from around the world. There was nary a gladiolus or a carnation in sight.
He opened the door of the cooler and stepped inside for a moment, coming back out with a white cardboard box. My mouth started to water when I saw the Karen’s Bakery logo on the box.
“Gimme,” I said, reaching for the box, but Austin held it over my head and walked quickly toward the stairs that led to his apartment.
“Not so fast,” he said. “First a little wine, then a little chat, then, maybe, if the dish is high octane, I will share with you.”
“Just tell me what’s in the box,” I asked. “Brownies? Chocolate mousse cake? Espresso bars?”
He turned and waved the box under my nose. “Goo-goo clusters,” he said. “Could you just die?”
I moaned. Karen Culpepper opened her bakery and catering shop three years ago, and all of her desserts were my downfall, but her version of a goo-goo cluster, which she only makes very occasionally, is my absolute all-time favorite. Big old clusters of peanuts and pecans, drizzled with warm, bourbon-infused caramel, and coated with dense layers of imported milk chocolate. They probably have eleventy billion calories, but I don’t care. Give me a goo-goo any day.
Austin switched on the light in the large airy room that served as his living room/dining room/kitchen.
“You painted again,” I said. “It’s fabulous.”
The last time I’d been up here, Austin had been in his Miami Vice mode. The walls had been lime green with tangerine trim on the windows and moldings, and a washed papaya pink on the ceiling. He’d placed huge pots of palms and flowering citrus plants in front of the windows, which he’d swathed in filmy sheers, and all the furniture had been slipcovered with turquoise linen, which he’d sewn himself.
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