She used her remote to unlock her car door, and Jon quickly moved to open the door for her. As she moved forward to get in, he stepped in front of her, effectively blocking her way and leaving her with no other recourse but to look up at him.
“How difficult will it be for me to penetrate your shell, Miranda? To get past that outer wrap and into the sweet and the succulent?”
“I guess you’ll have to keep trying to find out,” she replied smoothly. “And in the meantime, thank you for the pomegranate. I enjoyed it.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to wipe the juice off your chin.”
“I could use a napkin as easily as you can.”
“But I wouldn’t have done it with a napkin,” he said with a wink as he stepped back, holding the car door open for her. “And Miranda…”
She turned to him once she had settled in to the driver’s seat. “Yes?”
“I’m really glad you decided to bowl with me.”
Chapter 9
The next Tuesday they would be practicing the salsa, and Miranda wanted to wear something that corresponded with the sexy Latin dance. She chose a red long-sleeved, off the shoulder blouse and an ankle-length fringed Aztec pattern skirt in royal blue and red with gold thread woven into it that she normally relegated to summertime use but was still suitable for late September…even if she had to wear a coat over it. She found a pair of sheer red panty hose and put on her red pumps, and for the finishing touch, she wore her hair loose with gentle curls. She had to admit that she looked quite fetching.
“Wow!” Chelsea said when she went upstairs for a glass of ice water before leaving. “You look fabulous!”
“Thanks, Chelsea. We’re going to be dancing the salsa tonight.”
“Cool! And here I was thinking you’d just be doing that old-fashioned waltzing. You’re dressed perfectly for the salsa. That’s one dance I wouldn’t mind learning. People always look so sexy when they do it. And I’m glad you wore your hair loose. You can toss it over your shoulder like the Latina women do.” Chelsea did a few steps that resembled more of a cha-cha than a salsa and tossed her thick blond locks over her shoulder.
Miranda didn’t bother explaining to her landlady that her hair, like that of most black women, tended to be dry and that she only exposed her ends to the air on rare occasions. “I don’t know about all that,” she replied dubiously.
“How’s your partner?”
“He looks better to me every time I see him,” Miranda admitted.
“Has he asked you out yet?”
“Not beyond having a drink with him, but he’s made it clear he’d like to be involved on a social basis beyond just dancing and bowling. It’s tricky, Chelsea. We both work for the same company, even though I’m at the rehab center and he’s at corporate. The bottom line is, they’ve got a strict no-dating policy, and if we start going out and people find out about it we can both lose our jobs.”
Chelsea shrugged. “Yeah, but if you work in two different locations, who’s going to know the difference? Unless you have the bad luck to run into somebody from Human Resources while you’re out together.”
Miranda put her glass down. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Don’t think about it. Just let nature take its course. Funny thing about nature, Miranda. It doesn’t care what your cultural or ethnic background is. It just does its thing. So my advice is to freshen your lipstick, lose your inhibitions and go and dance like there’s no tomorrow.”
Soon after arriving at Hot to Trot, Miranda discovered that she wasn’t the only female class member who’d dressed with a Latin influence for tonight’s salsa dancing. Most of the women, even the fifty-something Margie Amundsen, had sprung for flowing hair, scoop or off-the-shoulder necklines, with lip and cheek color a little more bright than usual and heavier eye makeup.
Miranda held her breath for reasons she didn’t quite understand as she passed through the doors of the studio. She hung up her coat. Because she wanted something to cover her otherwise bare shoulders, she’d loosely knotted a black knit shawl over her chest. She kept it on as she greeted everyone and offered sincere compliments to the other women. When she was seated, she untied her shawl. A collective murmur of appreciation sounded as the other dancers expressed appreciation of her festive appearance, with Jon, she noticed, staring openly at her cascading hair and bare shoulders. Miranda had the sensation of standing before him naked. She looked down nervously, worried that her suddenly tight-feeling nipples might be visible through her strapless bra. It relieved her to see that her secret remained safe…
But she didn’t know for how long.
The steps of the salsa came easy to Miranda and Jon, so much that Gina and Anthony joked that they should put them on staff. Once more they were asked to demonstrate for the class, and while their moves weren’t anywhere near as polished as those of the instructors, they did quite well. Miranda felt her hair flying as Jon twirled her, and in one long sequence their hands remained clasped as they took turns twirling, in front of them, behind their backs, over their heads. The brief seconds they spent dancing apart, Jon held his palm flat against his midsection while his feet moved to the rhythm. Their moves were so frequent that they barely had time to make eye contact, but they spoke to each other in other ways…the rolling of hips…the clasping of hands…the steps they took that required them to be parallel to each other or with him standing close behind her.
Everyone asked if they had salsa danced before, and both she and Jon said no. Jon explained to them that he’d been raised in the world of dance.
When class was over he helped her into her coat, taking it upon himself to remove the ends of her hair that had been covered by the coat. He twirled a strand around his finger. “Mmm, smells nice. It reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what it is.”
Miranda smiled as she turned around to face him. “That’s my new shampoo and conditioner. I thought you might like it. It’s pomegranate scented.” Then she turned and proceeded out the door, knowing he followed.
They walked in silence toward her car, moving slowly as if by prearrangement, and she knew that if he invited her for a drink she would accept.
But he walked to her car without issuing an invitation. Instead he opened her door after she unlocked it with her remote and said before she got inside, “I can’t let you go without telling you how lovely you looked tonight, Legs,” he said. “I want you to know I could hardly take my eyes off you all night.”
A delicious warmth spread throughout Miranda on this cool autumn evening. She barely noticed the glare of headlights as their classmates left the parking lot. All she was cognizant of was how close Jon stood to her, his lips mere inches from hers, to the point where she could feel his warm breath on her face. But yet he seemed content to put her in her car instead of trying to prolong their time together.
“Thank you,” she said softly. She decided to take an aggressive stand. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked me to have a drink with you now that class is out.”
He reached out, slipping his hand between her hair and the back of her neck. He massaged her skin and looked into her eyes. Miranda stared back, her lips parted, her inhalations and exhalations deep, dimly aware of the last car in the lot driving away.
“I’m not interested in having a drink with you, Miranda,” he said. “What I want is to take you home with me, and tonight, with you looking the way you do, I’m not interested in anything less.”
Miranda suddenly felt lightheaded. His face was so close…and moving closer. She raised her chin and closed her eyes, and the next thing she knew her lips were touching his. He ran his tongue over her lips, lingering in the slightly open space between them in the friendliest of invasions. She opened her mouth and let him in, and he swirled his tongue around hers.
She wanted it to go on forever, and was terribly disappointed when he ended it and stepped back. He’d been so close to her, it was as if they’d been lying on a bed that had somehow been pla
ced upright.
Jon held the door open, cueing her to get behind the wheel. With a deep breath, she took the signal. “Good night, Miranda,” he said softly as he closed the door.
She didn’t reply; he wouldn’t hear her through the closed car door. Instead she started her engine and watched as he took long strides toward a metallic gold Chevy Equinox parked on the street. His shoulders had a dejected sag to them.
Team play at the league started two nights later, at which time Miranda, Jon, Jae, and their other teammates chose a name for their team…the rather bawdy title of Four Broads and a Jon. The name fit the rowdy nature of the league, the bulk of whom were middle-aged bowlers in their forties and fifties, with one youthful-looking gentleman visibly startling Miranda when he casually mentioned that he was eighty-two. She’d put his age in his late sixties, seventy tops.
Age did nothing to diminish the group’s appetite for an off-color joke. One night a wiry senior citizen, an employee of the alley, went down the lane to reset the pins when the automated system failed. Everyone held their breath as he awkwardly straddled the parallel grooved tracks on which the bowling balls were returned, which was the only way to get down there without using the dangerously slippery oil-slicked lanes. When he was nearly back, continuing to balance himself in an awkward lopsided, wide-legged stance to prevent falling, someone shouted, “All right, Frank, that’s the way to spread ‘em!” which met with howls of laughter.
Part of the reason for all the raucous behavior could be attributed to the alcohol being consumed, mostly beer, but cocktails as well. The lone bartender at the central bar near the snack bar stayed busy serving the two leagues who bowled the early shift Thursday nights, their league and its twenty teams plus a smaller all-female league.
Miranda’s somewhat rusty bowling skills quickly improved with regular play, and she found herself looking forward to seeing Jon on Thursday nights as well as Tuesdays. Jae, Jill, and Christine were all experienced, high-scoring bowlers, and Jon, about whom Miranda thought a sport hadn’t been invented that he wasn’t good at, usually beat all of them. Attired in the red polo shirts that Jill, who worked for a printer, had designed, Four Broads and a Jon soon became established as one of the leading teams in the league.
“Gosh, that Jon is handsome, isn’t he?” Christine confided to her one night while they were chatting about non-bowling related topics. “I love my husband, but if I were ten years younger and fifty pounds lighter, I swear, I’d consider having an affair.”
Miranda smiled. Jon did have that affect on women; he certainly had her giving it a lot of thought, especially after that scorching kiss Tuesday night. “I guess if the two of you happen not to show up on the same night, I can presume you forgot about those years.”
“The years I can forget.” Chris patted her midsection, which protruded slightly. “The pounds I can’t. I don’t think my husband has anything to worry about. Besides, I’m not Jon’s type.” She gestured with her chin toward the centrally positioned bar. “She is.”
Miranda turned to see Jon standing slightly behind the bar, laughing and talking with a brunette she didn’t recognize, probably a member of the women’s league who used the lanes on the far side of the alley. The woman was quite pretty, if a bit young, probably in her early twenties. She wore her hair long and straight, with bangs that needed a trim. Miranda had been disappointed at the rather cavalier way he treated her tonight, despite the passionate way they kissed just two nights ago. She was more aware than ever of the sexual tension that flowed between them, but he seemed to have forgotten all about it.
A whole month had passed since they had that drink while she waited for the auto club to send someone to change her tire. She had no idea how he spent his weekends…or with whom. She wondered if he’d given up pursuing her in favor of someone else, someone who had no employer restrictions against dating him. By now the high temperature hovered around the mid to high forties, and at night it dipped into the thirties, sometimes lower than that. There’d already been snowfall in the northern part of the state. Winter was just about here.
She noticed that while she, Jae, and the other women on their team left following the third game, Jon always lingered. As Miranda drove home she found herself wondering how long he stayed and what went on.
The next week she had the chance to find out. Brian dropped by the bowling alley at the start of the third game, and after he made his way across the lanes to greet his many friends in the league and to buy a beer from the bar, he planted himself in one of the built-in swivel chairs in front of their lane and proceeded to be a cheerleader for their team.
Miranda stood poised with her ball, waiting for the person on her left to throw out their ball before moving forward and gracefully drawing her arm back and then forward, allowing the ball to fall from her fingers. It sped down the center of the lane, curved slightly to the right, and knocked down all ten pins.
She threw her arms up in happiness at having scored a strike. The way she was throwing out her balls this game, this would be her highest scoring game yet, one-fifty or maybe even one-seventy-five. That was in keeping with the scores of the others.
She turned and accepted congratulations from Jill, Chris, Jae, and Brian. Jon was nowhere to be found, and she felt disappointment that he missed her strike. But it was also his turn to bowl, and etiquette of the game dictated that everyone be present when their name came up on the monitor.
“He’s probably at the bar,” Jill said.
“Time to get the ladies man away from the ladies,” Miranda commented dryly.
“I’ll find him,” Brian offered.
Jae glanced over at where Jon stood at the bar, chatting with not one, not two, but three of the women in the league. “Oh, he’s just enjoying the attention. What man wouldn’t?” She looked at Miranda, a slight smile on her face, as if she were enjoying some inside joke. When she spoke again it was in a soft voice only Miranda could hear. “But I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I think Jon’s pretty enamored of you.”
“I think he just wants me to give him the same attention that he gets from every other unmarried woman here…and from some of the married ones, too.”
“And you’re able to resist him? Even while you’re dancing? I’m impressed. Some of those dances they teach are pretty intense, like the tango.”
Miranda didn’t want to comment on how heavenly it felt to be in Jon’s arms when they danced together, and how the longing for sex seeped out of her pores like oxygen, but decided it wouldn’t hurt if she asked Jae what she’d been wondering but didn’t want to ask anyone, not even Jon. She spoke as softly as she could in the noisy environment. “You know, Jae, I was always curious. Why does management have that no-fraternization rule in effect for employees at different levels?”
Jae leaned in conspiratorially. “Nobody really knows for sure, but they announced the new policy right after they fired the CFO, a sexy, good-looking guy in his forties with a wife and kids. The rumor mill was working overtime, and the consensus is that he started a rumor that they were going to have to lay off ten people, not on the basis of seniority but on the basis of job performance. The consensus was that several women who had seniority but were kind of sleepwalking their way through work went to him and ended up having sex with him in hopes of keeping their jobs. The sad part is that they were never in any danger of being laid off in the first place because none of it was true. They’re making money hand over fist, believe me.”
Miranda smiled. “Since you do the balance sheets, I guess you’d know.”
“But nobody really knows for sure what happened,” Jae concluded, “since they let the CFO go and any women who might have slept with him aren’t talking.”
“So management didn’t want high-ranking employees to feel they could sexually intimidate people under them,” Miranda mused.
“Yeah.” Jae paused. “Is that why you and Jon haven’t gotten involved outside of this and your dancing?”
“Part of it,” she admitted. “I went through a lot of expense to move here and take this job, Jae. I can’t jeopardize it for an affair.” An affair that won’t lead to anything except a kiss-off come spring…
“I can understand that. But if it makes you feel any better, Jon is the only one from the office I told about the league, and I don’t see anyone from work here, so I’m pretty sure you’re safe.” Jae paused. “He seems willing, and, if you don’t mind my saying so, so do you.”
Miranda had no reply. At that moment Jon came rushing back, apologizing profusely. Miranda admired his tall form as he focused, then took a few steps forward, bent, and with his trademark masculine grace swung his arm back and then forward, knocking down nine of the ten pins. He followed it up with a spare with his second roll, then promptly returned to the bar and his admirers. Miranda noticed with a sinking heart that this time he was talking with the brunette from last week. He certainly appeared to be enjoying himself, and why wouldn’t he be? The woman looked like a young Demi Moore. Would he be taking her phone number, taking her to dinner tomorrow night? she wondered unhappily.
A Kiss of a Different Color Page 8