Eye of the Tiger

by Melanie Greene

  "On it." He pulled out his phone and told it to search for menus as he followed her down to the living room. He started to put his wine glass on the side table but came up short. It wasn't there. "Where's everything gone?"

  Natalie glanced up from where she'd curled herself into the cushions. "Everything?"

  "Yesterday I thought all those throw pillows on the bed were just shoved aside, but I didn't see them today either. And the spare room has bare walls, and there's nowhere to put my wine."

  "Put it on the sofa table."

  "Okay, I understand there is actually a flat surface that can hold it. Just not the flat surface I expected." He handed over the phone so she could add her menu items to the cart. "Does your house have a poltergeist?"

  Her crooked canine caught her bottom lip as she refused to answer.

  "Maybe the furniture is sentient?"

  "No. Relax, Evan. It's not a ghost. Do you believe in ghosts?"

  He shifted his jaw. He wasn't going down that road. "I don't believe in haunted houses."

  "Listen to you obfuscate." She gave him back the phone. "I was staging the Bryant's house, and needed some decor to make the photos look better. I'll bring it all back after the open house on Saturday."

  "Thirty-five minutes until dinner. Do you do that a lot?"

  She shrugged. "Sure. It's SOP. Sometimes we place bets."

  "Explain." He sat and she stretched out to rest her feet in his lap.

  "Say I'm going to a realtor's open house for one of Patti Robertson's listings. I'll bet Ricardo that Patti's gilt mirror and fern terrarium will be in the house. He'll counter with her Queen Anne side chairs."

  "What do you win?"

  "Bragging rights, mostly. Sometimes a round of drinks. If we both get it right, we have to send Patti's listing to clients and prospective clients until someone takes the bait. First one to schedule a showing wins."

  "I had no idea real estate was such a cutthroat sport."

  "Ha, ha. I will say, I didn't know I had a competitive streak in me until I got into this business. Fallout from being an only child. Mom always let me win."

  Evan said, "I hated board games growing up. Even things that should have been based more on luck, like Chutes and Ladders, never went my way. And when my parents insisted on the others giving me a fair shot, they did it while making a lot of noise about not upsetting poor little Evan, or offering me blatant and patronizing deals. If I took them up on their offers for an extra roll of the dice or discount Get Out of Jail Free card, they would exchange these knowing looks and say things like, 'The real second-place winner is Alice.' Jerks." He hadn't thought about those hours sitting around the coffee table with his siblings in a while. Once he'd aged enough to hold his own against them, they'd been holiday visitors instead of residents in the Lee home, and board games had taken a backseat to time in the kitchen or playing with the babies.

  "Remind me to challenge them to a game of Whoonu someday. I have mad stealth skills at Whoonu."

  Well, it was an opening. "How would you feel about that someday being next month?"

  Her foot twitched, but otherwise she didn't betray any surprise. "Your turn to explain."

  He started massaging her instep. She spent her time with clients in heels, and was a sucker, he'd found, for a foot rub. "Next month is the twins' birthday, and we're all meeting in New Orleans for the weekend to celebrate. My folks, all the siblings and spouses, the kids. And you, if you want. I know it's too much. I can come up with an excuse."

  Her eyes were closed, and Evan studied her expression. It was hiding everything. "Would we have to do organized activities, or is this more of a free for all?"

  "There's a party, of course. Saturday night, but otherwise people go their own ways except some meals. I promised to take Marcus and Jane to see the insect museum, which Laurel and Rowan might want to get in on. If they do, Danny or DJ is coming with me, because their kids are bonkers." Rambling. He kept rambling. "I love them, but managing two four-year-olds in a room full of preserved beetles? No, thank you."

  "You'd take all those kids but not Lizzy?"

  He was impressed she'd tabulated his nieces and nephews. "Excuse me, it's Lizzy who won't go. She's at an age when associating with her sister is beneath her, and that means no associating with Marcus, either. Certainly not for something as gross, she claims, as a bug museum."

  "More fool her. The Insectarium is amazing. Did you mention the butterfly garden? It doesn't hold a candle to the one at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, but it's sweet."

  "Hang on." He pulled up a link and texted it to Lizzy, along with a note that he wouldn't make her eat any crickets if she came with him. He started to type 'them' but backspaced, not wanting to leave room for interpretation, even in his own mind, that Natalie would be part of the bug-watching crowd. Correcting his aim to set his phone on the sofa table instead of the missing side table, he said, "So what do you think? What excuse should we use to get you out of this overexposure to the Lee family and all of its offshoots?"

  She sat up, shifting her feet to the ottoman so she could lean against him. "I guess I'd better go along. What if someone arranges a moonlight cemetery tour or a ghost walk through the French Quarter? You'd be all scared, and Ben would sneak up behind you and shout, 'boo,' and you wouldn't have anyone to protect you."

  She could be so snide. He kissed her. "I never said I believe in ghosts."

  "No, Bruiser, you sure didn't. You sure didn't say one way or another."

  The best defense being a good offense, or so his football-obsessed niece claimed, Evan took advantage of the fact that she'd tossed her bra towards the laundry room on her way downstairs. When the delivery guy arrived with dinner, she had to huddle under her throw blanket to keep her voluptuous flesh away from public view, but she didn't ask him any more about his beliefs about the supernatural.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "It's not such a big deal. Y'all need to relax." The gang was eating at Rachel's place, and before they even got past the antipasti, they opened fire with questions about her and Evan.

  "You took him to our gym," Gillian said. And yes, she had. He was month-to-month at his, and it wasn't convenient once he moved. So she'd gotten him a visitor's pass. When he acted like it was natural for the two of them to go in together for a workout, she sucked it up--'it' in this case being her gut--and joined him on the treadmills. She racked up three miles before Gillian came in for kickboxing and caught them. Her plan to sneak off while Gill was busy was thwarted by Evan's enthusiasm to join the class. At least he paid for everyone's smoothies afterwards, when they were a sweaty, exhausted trio.

  "He is living with you. In your house," Serena said, as if this was a news flash and not something that had happened weeks before.

  "Well, see, some of us don't mind when people rearrange our furniture," Natalie said, earning a glare in reply. Serena and Dillon's relationship had weathered a blowup over a desk, and gotten stronger because of it, but Natalie didn't have the same issues about controlling her environment. Her issues, she well knew, centered around her mom. "Oh, so guess what he said the other day. I was on the phone with Elaine and he got home from work and asked if I wanted him to make some dinner. So she gets all flustered, asks me why I haven't cooked for him. Asks if I fixed my hair and reapplied lipstick recently. Freaks when I say I'm in pajamas, like she's never heard of Pajama Mondays before."

  "Have we ever heard of Pajama Mondays?" Rachel asked. Serena shook her head.

  "Well, I only call it that to Mom. It's a contest against myself, and it's dumb, but okay. Since I don't usually have client meetings on Mondays, I try to stay in my jammies all day. I win if I don't end up getting dressed for any reason."

  Rachel snatched up Hannah from the headlong run she was making to the table. "What's the prize?"

  "Pancakes for dinner, or a bubble bath. Or both."

  Gillian nodded her approval. "So which did you get on Monday?"

  "Evan made me pancak
es and eggs. But no bath." She pulled a lascivious face for effect. "We showered instead."

  "I bet your mom called you five times in the next twenty-four hours," Serena said.

  "On Tuesday, she brought a lasagna over and set the oven timer so it was done right after Evan got home. I had to nuke my portion an hour later. I was ranting about it all, and Evan asked why I was convinced I had to change the way Elaine sees the world, instead of just accepting that our perspectives were different."

  Gillian's stink eye was epic. "I've told you that no less than ten times. In those exact words, and in permutations, and every time, you've said, in effect, 'I hear you, but I have to do this my way.' So. I might have to k-i-l-l you after Hannah's in bed. You've been warned."

  "I can call Mary Lynn over to put her down now, if you need," Rachel offered. Mary Lynn lived next door to Rachel, and often filled in the gaps in Rachel's child care schedule.

  Natalie refilled wine glasses. "No need for violence. I'm baiting you. I know you've said it before. You all have, in your own ways. Excuse me, permutations." She was going to report Gillian's vocabulary back to Evan. He would be enchanted.

  "When did you turn into such a trickster?" Rachel asked.

  "I know when," Serena said. "It was about ten minutes after she started sleeping with her tiger. Now that they're living together, expect daily pranks."

  "First of all, he's not my tiger. That game is about permanence, and this is temporary. Second of all, why can't I just have fun? Don't I deserve a little fun in my life? Does it have to have a greater meaning? I'm just enjoying the--" she glanced at Hannah, busy stuffing triangles of cheese and cantaloupe in her mouth, "the s-e-x and the limericks and the fact that coffee is waiting for me when I wake up. When this ends, I'll get a programmable coffeemaker and move on."

  Rachel had covered Hannah's ears. The toddler shook her head to escape her mom and said, "Tiger says grrrr."

  Serena laughed. "You can say that again, Monkey. And Aunt Nat says grrrr, too. Do you think Aunt Nat is a tiger?"

  It was hard to glare at Serena when Hannah was giving her such a serious, considering look. "Monkey," she said, and pinched up another piece of cheese.

  Gillian's expression echoed Hannah's. "Does Evan have pets?"

  "No."

  Gill nodded, still thoughtful. Too late, Natalie remembered confessing that Chris and Evan each had three of the qualities she'd rolled for in the fortune teller game. At the time, she hadn't known anything about Evan's pets. Or how well he would fulfill the promise of her 'sexytimes' tiger. She would have to maintain that Fiona didn't count in the sibling tally, and hope he didn't get a sports car, or her friends would stop believing her about the impermanence of their relationship.

  She braced herself for Gillian's next words, but they surprised her. "Can we hear one of the limericks?"

  "Not even when Hannah's asleep," she answered, before thinking about it.

  Rachel's hands reached out as if she needed to cover her child's ears again. As if Hannah's were the ears burning just then. Evan had slipped a limerick into the pile of notes next to her home computer, scrawled across the backs of three of her stapled-together business cards:

  When I see you look down at my cock

  I lose my ability to walk

  I pause in mid-stride

  Till the hardness subsides

  And clear my throat 'fore I can talk

  And that was one of his milder ones. She loved her friends, but the thought of them seeing his words made her squirm, and not in the same way the poem had. Gillian pressed her lips together, but when she and Serena glanced at each other, both ended up snorting out their merriment.

  "Evan Lee was a man from Nantucket," Gill said.

  "Shut yourself."

  "If you continue along those lines, Gillian Linette Bellamy, you're doing all the dishes," Rachel said.

  "Nonsense. I'm putting Hannah Banana to bed. Tiger Woman here can do the dishes."

  "I like these plans," Serena put in. "Rachel and I are going to watch Netflix while y'all get on with it."

  "Can't we finish our dinner first? I picked up a pear cake from Dacapo for dessert." She'd also bought a loaf of Evan's favorite strawberry quick bread, but the way the others were acting, she was glad she'd left it in the car. "Someone change the subject. Are you ready for the fall semester, Gill?"

  Sidetracked, Gillian launched into the latest tale of campus politics, and Natalie relaxed. She'd wash all the dishes from their joint meals for the rest of the year, if it guaranteed her friends would stop looking for meaning in the affair she and Evan were both determined would remain meaningless.

  His siblings were blowing up his phone. Again. Mom shared the news about Natalie coming to New Orleans, so cue the buzzing of incoming messages every forty-seven seconds.

  Chloe: Can you get the woman to a hair salon before she bombs all my birthday photos?

  Ben: OUR birthday photos, baby sister.

  Chloe: You're the baby here.

  Alice: You're both babies. And I'm not saying so just because you're judgy about Evan's date.

  Ben: C's judgmental. I'm just pointing out that she's not the only one with a birthday coming up.

  Evan: Natalie's not going to ruin your precious pictures. She couldn't.

  Chloe: Gross. You sound as besotted as Mom. Way to suck up to the parents, BTW.

  Danyal: Come on, be fair. Evan wouldn't move in with the woman just to make Mom and Dad happy.

  Evan: Thanks.

  Danyal: I'm guessing there are other...advantages for him.

  Alice: Ew. I changed hundreds of his diapers. Don't go there.

  Ben: We ALL changed hundreds of his diapers. News flash: he probably doesn't use that body part just for peeing anymore.

  Danyal: I stopped changing him after that time he peed in Chloe's face. Hey, C, remember when Evan peed in your face?

  Ben: Ha. I do.

  Alice: We all do.

  Ben: Classic.

  Chloe: At least he never puked in my bed. You should warn Hair Woman about that when we meet her, Ben.

  Evan: You're all going to need to shut up now. And her name is Natalie.

  Ben: Touchy, touchy.

  Danyal: That's what she said.

  Alice: Gross.

  Ben: Ha.

  Evan: You're all four gross. Grow up.

  He silenced his personal cell and turned on Natalie's television. It was Saturday; she was showing houses. He felt off-kilter, and not just because Danny pinpointed his reasons for moving. Mom and Dad's happiness, his own carnal pleasures. And Nat's. They weren't dishonorable reasons, but he was uncomfortable knowing the truth would make them look askance. Combined with all these daytime hours alone at Nat's, he was thrown. Her house was tidy and bright and a hell of a lot more comfortable than his functional but impersonal corporate housing. Here, his commute was good, the neighborhood was interesting, and he enjoyed access to her big TV and well-stocked kitchen.

  Still, hours of agenda-free downtime made him restless, and he was all the more skittery because doing things like hunting through her bathroom cabinets for the bite cream or scrolling through the shows on her DVR made him feel like he was snooping. He doubted she'd mind his watching one of her dozens of home improvement shows, but he found a standup special to stream while surfing for birthday gifts for his unworthy siblings.

  Shopping led Evan to turn circles in the middle of her office, scanning for an envelope or piece of paper that might have her address. He didn't know her zip code. Rather than rifling her drawers, he put his research skills to work. He found it at the city's appraisal district and copy-pasted it into the shipping window of his shopping cart. Despite his attempts at efficiency, he hadn't cleared out of her property tax record without noticing her house's value. It was a byproduct of his job to notice numbers, especially ones in bold. No matter how he argued it was public information, he felt slimy for looking it up.

  By the time she got home, Evan had thrown himse
lf into food prep as a way to soothe his conscience. Natalie glanced around the kitchen. "What's all this?"

  "Veggie kebabs for tonight, and I seasoned some chicken for the freezer." He looked at her. She had thunked her lime green hand bag on the console table as she walked in, but her posture was entirely upright and professional. He dismissed the idea of sending her picture to Chloe. It was none of his sister's business that Natalie could be so photogenic. "Are you around for dinner tonight?"

  She was shaking her head, but said, "Yes. I mean, I don't have anything scheduled. I wasn't expecting you to cook, though."

  "Grill. I don't cook, I grill. Like a stereotype."

  "Remind me to pick you up one of those 'Barbecue King' aprons."

  "And send a picture of me in it to your mom so she knows I'm in my place."

  She stepped out of her heels and left them the at the base of the stairs. "That reminds me. I'm detailing my car tomorrow. Want me to wash yours, too?"

  He froze, because he was smart enough to not chop veggies while indulging in vulgar fantasies about Nat and sun and skimpy clothes and suds. "Can I watch?"

  "Embracing all the stereotypes tonight, are you?"

  "Sorry, was I drooling? I meant to say I would be delighted to help you wash our cars."

  "That won't work. You have to take the picture." He leered; she laughed. "For my mom. Instead of sending her pictures of you grilling, I'll send her one of me working on the cars."

  Evan nodded, detailed plans for a photo shoot firm in his mind. He forced his attention back to the kitchen. Gesturing wide with onion and knife he said, "You could photograph me chopping instead of grilling, Let her see all these veggies so she knows we're not making atrocious food choices."

  Sliding onto a barstool, she leaned against the counter and watched him spear peppers and mushrooms. "If I let my mom know you're cooking again, she'll be over here at four p.m. Mondays through Thursdays for the foreseeable future."

  "What, we have to fend for ourselves on the weekends?"

  "Well, she likes to go to services on Friday nights. But I bet she'll stop by to put a casserole in the oven before heading to the synagogue, if you play your cards right."