by Marni Bates
“Oh, will you look at that!” she cried out, clasping her hands together so that all of her rings clinked musically. “My little Janie has a beau! And such a handsome one too! I can see why you’ve been so picky now, Janie dear. I bet you had your sights set on this one.”
“Uh, no, Mrs. Blake. No sights whatsoever.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I suppose it is more romantic that he picked you out from the crowd, but I don’t see anything wrong with making the first move. Although to be fair, when Frank and I got started, I let him think he was steering the dates.” She winked. “But we went to my favorite restaurants.”
“Uh, that’s nice.”
I probably should have come up with something better to say, but I’ve never known how to handle Mrs. Blake when she gets going on a subject that interests her. The worst was back in middle school when she regularly asked if my “monthly visitor” had paid me a visit yet. I couldn’t say, None of your business because that’d be like yelling at Julie Andrews. Or being mean to Betty White.
“Frank is your husband?” Scott asked.
“Oh no. I had three of those before we got together.” She winked again, but this time it was directed at Scott. “Frank was my partner.”
Scott turned his grin on her—the one that had propelled him onto The Smithsonian’s elite staff team in a week while I went virtually ignored for three years. “He must have been a very lucky man.”
“Aren’t you the charmer!” Mrs. Blake declared. She might be eccentric, but she’s always been astute when it comes to people, which was why I had expected her to give Scott a much cooler reception. I hoped it was because she wanted to like whomever she thought I was dating.
Not that we were dating. Obviously.
“The two of you make the sweetest couple. Why, it’s just like my psychic told me! I asked her about you the other day, Janie. She said you were in store for a fabulous romance. About time, if you ask me.” She beamed while I forced myself not to wince.
“I guess Annette has, uh, finally gotten something right,” I lied. I couldn’t believe I was saying it, especially to Mrs. Blake. But if I didn’t produce a boyfriend soon she was going to start creating online dating profiles for me. The woman gives a whole new meaning to the word “persistent.” So I ignored the startled look Scott shot me as I slid my arm around his back. He tensed momentarily and then relaxed into the halfway hug as if he had expected it all along. As if he had always known it was only a matter of time before I’d be unable to resist his appeal.
Yeah, right.
Although it did feel really nice to have his body pressed against my side. I decided not to focus on that part.
“Yep, Scott’s my boyfriend.” I tried not to choke.
“And Janie’s my little ray of sunshine.”
I wanted to step hard on his foot again. It may have been my lie, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to be having fun at my expense.
“I’m so happy, I’m at a loss for words,” I said, mentally adding, except for words like “discomfort” and “irritation.” “So . . . did Annette mention anything new about lucky number four?”
“Number four?”
Mrs. Blake smiled at Scott and went into an explanation I’d heard a hundred times.
“I met my first husband in college back when we were both impetuous and full of joie de vivre. Then he took a corporate job that started sucking all the joie out of my vivre. The divorce was perfectly civil, and I met my second husband in a library. We were both reaching for a copy of Pride and Prejudice.” She sighed gustily. “My favorite. The two of us were together for fifteen years.”
“What happened to him?” Scott looked so interested in her story, I couldn’t tell whether he was putting on a good show for an old lady or whether he found her as enjoyable as I did.
“Oh, we divorced too.” She shrugged and waved her hand dismissively. “It was wonderful while it lasted, and we’ve stayed very close friends. He actually introduced me to Frank years later. But that was after William.”
“William?”
“Now he was a mistake, but a wonderful learning experience nonetheless.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Never marry someone based solely on the sex.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Scott said, clearly struggling to keep a straight face.
I wanted to drop my arm the instant she mentioned sex, but Scott just squeezed my shoulder and pulled me closer. “Especially with this one. She’s a tiger.”
Okay, that was taking it too far.
Mrs. Blake looked at us speculatively. “The two of you are just darling. Working together on the school newspaper . . . and is that a camera you’ve got there, Scott?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ma’am. The guy was definitely pulling out all the stops to charm her. Which technically he didn’t have to do since it’s not like the two of us were actually dating. He could just wander the shelves and send her a vaguely friendly nod. After all, he was really only there to discuss the next move for our story.
“How wonderful! You should take some photos of me! Now wouldn’t that be a hoot and a half. Just give me a moment to get gussied up and I’ll be ready to go.”
Mrs. Blake is something of a diva.
“That’s really not necessary,” I protested.
“A lady should always freshen up her lipstick for the press.”
“Sure. Fine. But we’re not taking photos for the press. I’m straightening the shelves today.” I gestured around the store. “I’ll just see if anyone needs help first.”
Mrs. Blake beamed at me. “Such a hard worker, our little Janie. I don’t know what I’d do without her.” She patted her golden-blond hair, which retained its shape due to her liberal use of hair spray. “Now why don’t you show your new beau the memoir section?”
The memoirs reside in a hidden little alcove at the very center of the maze of bookshelves, so it’s usually deserted—unless people use it for a semiprivate romantic interlude. Mrs. Blake and I had taken to calling it the make-out memoir section, or M.O.M.S. for short. It seemed appropriate, given that most of the women we caught mid-lip-lock were members of the PTA.
I did my best to pretend that my boss hadn’t suggested I go make out with my fake boyfriend.
“No, that’s okay. Not for us, thanks. Uh, time for me to work. We’ll be in the kids’ section.”
I yanked Scott away from her before she could be any more explicit with her suggestions.
It was only when we safely reached the kids’ section that I could slump against a wall and close my eyes. “Just . . . Don’t. Say. Anything.”
“I don’t see why you’re so concerned. She doesn’t exactly strike me as frail.”
“I never said she was.”
“Then why were you so nervous? Afraid she wouldn’t approve of me as your new beau?”
I shook my head slowly. “Okay, first of all, never say ‘beau’ again. Secondly, that whole pretend-dating thing never happened. Erase it from your memory. Now.”
“I don’t know, I might be your cosmic destiny.” Scott smirked as he leaned toward me.
“Forget the psychic stuff too. The closest that Annette Lovegood has ever come to predicting the future is guessing which one of her cats is meowing for kibble. Mrs. Blake mainly goes there to be supportive.”
“So why does she ask about your love life?” His grin widened. “Does Janie have trouble finding a date?”
“Don’t call me Janie. Can’t we just pretend the last few minutes didn’t happen? I only lied to stop Mrs. Blake from trying to fix me up with her best friend’s grandson,” I admitted. “Not because I think there is anything wrong with my preference to remain single.”
Well, I guess preference isn’t quite accurate. Did I want a boyfriend? Sure. But it’s not like you can pull up to a drive-through and say, Hi, I’d like to order one boyfriend. Smart, sweet, and funny with a lot of physical attraction. Yes, fidelity is important to me. And I’d like friendship on the sid
e. Two bucks? Perfect. I’ll just pull up to the window.
Not so much.
Although it’s entirely possible that the primary culprit behind my permanent single status was my inability to tell when guys were flirting. Kenzie and I even turned it into something of a game. I’d walk her through an incident to check if there were any “flirty vibes” I missed. And then she usually rolled her eyes and said, No, the maintenance guy was not flirting with me when he was changing a lightbulb in the library.
My mistake.
“Sounds like good little Jane Smith isn’t getting many suitors.”
I crossed my arms defensively. “What, are we in the eighteen hundreds or something?”
“No gentleman callers for you.” His green eyes shone with a mocking glee.
I gritted my teeth. This was ridiculous. I didn’t have to justify myself. I didn’t have to stoop to his level and continue the conversation.
“Maybe I’m not interested in gentleman callers.”
Where had that come from?
He straightened and raised an eyebrow. “So, female callers, then?”
I considered how to react for the briefest of moments before I stepped forward and bit my lip provocatively the way my sister did back when she was dating her Notable boyfriend Jeff.
“If I kissed a girl . . .” I let my voice trickle down to a whisper and moved even closer. “I wouldn’t mention it as a cheap ploy to turn you on.”
“Uh. Okay.”
It appeared I had been able to temporarily short out some of his brain cells.
Score one for me.
“I’ve got work to do.” I picked up the books that were lying on a kiddie table and let my body brush lightly against his. Okay, so I was power tripping. But it’s not like I get to rub shoulders with really hot guys every day. And maybe I was feeling a bit defensive over my lack of a love life. Telling myself that my worth wasn’t determined by male interest was easy—believing it was harder. Especially now that Kenzie and Corey had entered serious relationships while I sat at home every night.
My friends had fallen in love, and I hadn’t even experienced good old-fashioned lust yet. Well, maybe a few mild cases, but nothing major.
And it was definitely in my best interest to use all the leverage I could get with Scott.
Only this time, I guess I oversold my hand. Scott swiveled so that the parts of me that were barely brushing him before were definitely touching now. I felt a spike in my heart rate, and this time it had nothing to do with a football player hunting me down for vengeance.
“Why, Grammar Girl, are you trying to seduce me?”
I instantly pulled back, but I still couldn’t resist grinning. “Who, me?”
He only narrowed his green eyes as if I were a puzzle where none of the pieces fit together properly. That beat being dismissed as predictable by a long shot.
“Now what would good little Jane Smith know about something like that?” I asked, throwing his own words back at him and widening my own blue eyes to look as innocent as possible. I picked up another book and playfully whacked him with it. “I need to work. Don’t you have an ego to polish somewhere?”
He pulled out his camera and snapped a photo of me before I could object. Then he looked down at the screen. “Hideous. Really terrible. You look like—”
I laughed and waved the book menacingly. “Watch it.”
“No, I think we’ve got a real winner for page one right here.”
In that moment I really wanted to pretend that I’d never overheard his conversation with Lisa Anne.
But I couldn’t.
Scott Fraser had already stabbed me in the back once before—I wasn’t going to let him do it again.
Chapter 13
Work was fine.
I cleaned up the kids’ section, made a beverage run to Starbucks, and assisted customers until the store closed—all of which I accomplished with a certain photographer snapping photos behind me. Scott was good about backing off when customers needed help. He even distracted a little boy with a LEGO spaceship while I gave his older sister some book recommendations.
But it wasn’t like we shared our life stories while shelving. For someone who willingly agreed to shadow me for hours, Scott wasn’t exactly a fountain of information about himself. Maybe because he was so focused on his photography. He kept making adjustments to get the perfect shot, but by the time the click came I was a knot of tension. All the scrutiny made me self-conscious. So I flinched and winced and repeatedly pointed out that working at a bookstore wasn’t exactly front-page material.
But every time I asked why he had decided to come in the first place, he shrugged and gave me more directions. Turn left. Look right. Gaze a little higher up. Higher. Got it.
He fired out the orders while I did my best not to cower behind a book.
Still, it was only when Mrs. Blake insisted he take photos of us together that I grew seriously apprehensive. Mrs. Blake would never pose and let the matter drop. She’d demand copies and then tack them up in the tiny room that served as the employee lounge. And no matter how badly the pictures turned out, they would go right next to the one of Mrs. Blake hugging her granddaughter, Joy, who had recently gone goth and now refused to smile. The sight of Joy’s sullen face staring back at me from the fridge always creeps me out.
Nevertheless, I was stuck waiting for Mrs. Blake to refresh her lipstick while Scott debated the merits of various locations within the bookstore.
“Stand over there,” he directed me as he stared through the lens of his camera. “Actually, move more to the right. Closer to the historical fiction. No, wait, never mind.”
“Okay, stop. Put down the camera,” I ordered. “Mrs. Blake is going to make us shoot it in the memoir section. Might as well spare yourself the trouble and just wait.”
He lowered the camera. “What’s so special about the memoir section?”
“Look, it’s just a thing. Mrs. Blake is going to demand we take the stupid photos in the M.O.M.S. She thinks it has romantic powers.”
“Because she finds moms romantic?”
I couldn’t help grinning at his obvious confusion. “No, that’s our private acronym for the memoir alcove.”
“Okay. So what does it stand for?”
No way was Scott going to drop it now. And if I didn’t supply him with the answer, he’d ask Mrs. Blake. And she would have no trouble giving him all the details. That would be far more awkward in the long run.
“Make-out memoir section,” I mumbled.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“Make-out memoir section!”
He smirked. “Mrs. Blake wants you to kiss me.”
“No,” I corrected. “Mrs. Blake wants my boyfriend to kiss me. And since I don’t actually have one of those, she’ll just have to live with the disappointment.”
“Sounds like you’ll be the one disappointed.”
Somehow I didn’t think my fledgling flirting skills were ready to handle that comment. So I chose to ignore it.
“Look, we’ll go to the memoir section—”
“Make-out memoir section,” Scott interjected. “It’s usually best to refer to a place by its full name.”
“We’ll go there, take the stupid photos, and be done with it. And these shots have to be good because the fridge is scary enough already. Joy’s picture makes her look possessed . . . although that may have been beyond the photographer’s control.”
“Did you just say something mean? I thought comments like that were prohibited for good little Jane Smith. Big step for you, Grammar Girl.”
“Shut up, Scott.” I paused dramatically. “Clearly, I must no longer have a problem being mean. And I’ve got two fistfights to prove it.”
He shook his head, and I knew he wasn’t buying it. “One of those fights was with me, Grammar Girl. Doesn’t count.”
“Sure it does! I kicked your ass.”
Maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say. Scott instant
ly straightened.
“I had your arm behind your back! If that’s your idea of kicking someone’s ass, then you seriously need some professional help.”
“I could’ve gotten out of it,” I lied. “No problem.”
“Oh, really?” Scott set down his camera. “Want a rematch?”
“No, I’m good.” I backpedaled.
He stepped closer. “I’m fine with picking it up where we left off. I believe it was your right arm I had immobilized.”
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up!”
Never before had I been so grateful to see Mrs. Blake. She wrapped one ring-laden hand around Scott’s arm and tugged him through the maze of the store. Right to the make-out memoir section. As if the proximity to all those true love stories would compel Scott to grab me and commit some massive display of PDA.
So not going to happen.
Still, I wondered what Kenzie would say if I mentioned the flirty vibes Scott had been sending earlier. She’d probably burst out laughing and tell me to get my imagination under control. Too bad Mrs. Blake hadn’t responded that way.
“I’m just so excited,” she declared, before puckering her lips into a pout for the camera. “Annette Lovegood always says that the sensitivity of the universe sometimes jumbles her predictions. But she also said that I would have a passionate intrigue after a loved one formed a stable, meaningful relationship.” She did a quarter turn and put a hand jauntily on her hip. “Maybe now my next good one will show up.”
“And this would be number five?” Scott asked as he adjusted his lens.
“Lucky number four. It’s all about having the right order of husbands. See, I had a mean one, then a nice one, then a mean one.... Time for another nice one!”
I’d already heard this before, so I wisely kept my mouth shut.
“What about Frank?”
Mrs. Blake repositioned me into a better pose before answering. “Oh, Frank doesn’t count. Mean one, nice one, only counts if you marry them. It’s a technicality, sure, but I like it. Now with Janie here—”
“So, uh, did Annette comment on anyone else’s love life?” I interrupted, wanting to keep the conversation as far away from me as possible.