by Kara Lennox
Phoebe knew her mother's advice flew in the face of everything Jane Jasmine recommended—honesty, maturity, and no game-playing. But she had to admit, a vengeful part of her wanted to make Wyatt suffer. Proving him wrong about his assumptions would be the best revenge. But since she couldn't run out and win a Nobel Prize, she had to resort to some other method of avenging her wounded pride.
Anyway, what had Jane Jasmine done for her lately? Hiding her light under a bushel had worked just fine. But the moment she was honest with Wyatt about her abilities, her intellect and her ambitions, all hell had broken loose.
"And what's my second mission?"
Olga smiled, cracking her drying mask. "Make him jealous."
"With whom?"
"Anybody who's younger, handsomer and richer than him."
Phoebe didn't know anyone handsomer or richer. Younger, she could manage.
Well, why shouldn't she? she reasoned. Her heart was broken. She was entitled to behave like an idiot for at least one afternoon.
Phoebe blew on her nails to dry them. "Okay, Mama, you've sold me. You make up the margaritas, while my nails dry. Then we'll hit the pool and have a party."
Olga grinned, causing a big hunk of dried green glop to fall into her lap. "You are my daughter."
Twenty minutes later, Phoebe and Olga were parked in loungers by the pool, an ice chest between them containing a blender full of frozen margaritas. Normally Phoebe didn't sun herself. There was nothing that would age skin more rapidly than too much sun. But she couldn't exactly swim laps in the ridiculous blue lamé suit. One false move and she could be arrested for indecent exposure.
A few others had joined them—Elise and James, Daisy, Frannie, and a young married couple from the second floor who'd just moved in.
"Phoebe, that's a … an interesting new suit you have there," Daisy said quietly.
"My mother's idea. Don't mind me, I've gone completely around the bend."
"Does this have something to do with Wyatt?" Daisy asked perceptively.
Phoebe felt herself blushing. "I'm through with Wyatt. He thinks I'm a bimbo."
"And you're trying to prove him right?" Daisy arched an eyebrow at her.
"I'm just having a little fun. Anyway, he'll never even see this," Phoebe said, indicating the brief suit. "He'll work until midnight, like always."
"Wrong. I saw his car in the lot when I came home a while ago."
Phoebe's stomach flipped. Well, she decided, he wouldn't have any reason to come down here or even look down here. His balcony was shrouded by the big palm trees, anyway.
"Addy." Olga thumped Phoebe on the arm. "I mean, Phoebe." Olga struggled to use Phoebe's newer name when they were around others, mostly to avoid confusion. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "There aren't any single guys here. How are you going to make Wyatt jealous?"
"Easy." She nodded toward the far end of the pool, where Jeff was cleaning out one of the pool skimmers. He wore short cutoff jeans and a tank shirt, emphasizing his tan and his biceps.
"Oh, he's a cute one," Olga said almost reverently. "But not exactly rich, I'm guessing."
"Young and cute is the best I can do on short notice."
"So what are you waiting for? Go get him."
She would, after she finished her margarita, Phoebe vowed silently. She must be crazy, contemplating an open flirtation with Jeff. She might just scare him to pieces. But she had no doubt the gossip would fly. Though Wyatt wouldn't witness her flirtation himself, someone would mention it to him. The Mesa Blue grapevine was healthy.
"Wait a minute," Olga said. "Who is that?" She surreptitiously nodded toward the edge of the courtyard. That's when Phoebe spotted Bill, patching a crack on a concrete walkway.
"That's Bill White, our super."
"Ooh, la-la, he's a handsome devil."
"Mama, no. Don't even think about it. He's spoken for."
"Oh, nuts. Married, huh?"
"Well, no…"
Olga's eyes lit up. "Engaged?"
"Not exactly."
"Then he's fair game."
Phoebe put a hand to her forehead. There was no stopping Olga when she was like this. She only hoped the fragile state of Bill and Frannie's new romance could withstand the onslaught.
Olga straightened her bathing suit and patted her pouf of short, white-blond hair, which was almost the same shade as Phoebe's.
Phoebe drained her drink, set down her plastic tumbler and decided to make her own move. She got up from her lounger and slunk over to where Jeff was working diligently.
"Hi, Jeff. Watcha doing?"
"Cleaning the—" He looked up, and his eyes bugged out. "Oh, hi, Phoebe. New suit?" His voice cracked slightly.
Phoebe sat down on the edge of the pool and dangled her feet in the water. "Yeah. Like it?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Want to join the party?"
"You want me to?" He looked at her, earnest and a little doubtful, and Phoebe realized she couldn't trifle with his affections. Jeff was a nice kid, and his flirtations seemed meaningless, but it wouldn't be fair to encourage him under false pretenses.
"Look, Jeff, it's like this. I'm trying to make a certain guy jealous."
"You mean Wyatt?"
How was it that everyone knew there was something between her and Wyatt? She thought they'd been rather discreet.
She saw no point in denying it. "Yes."
"You mean he did something stupid like blow you off?"
It hadn't happened quite that way, Phoebe recalled with a twinge of conscience. In fact, she was the one who'd walked out. "He treated me like I was dumb," she said. "You don't think I'm dumb, do you, Jeff?"
"Hell, no, Phoebe. You're a damn rocket scientist."
Phoebe recognized a calculated line when she heard one. He probably did think she was dumb. Everybody did. When one had more than a passing resemblance to Malibu Barbie, it just came with the territory.
"So is it okay if I flirt with you? With the firm understanding I don't mean anything by it?"
Jeff's eyes lit up. "Are you kidding? It'll be great for my reputation. There are a couple of girls around here I wouldn't mind making jealous." He nodded toward the shallow end of the pool, where two college-age women were lounging, trying to be aloof. Phoebe had invited them to join the party, but they'd declined.
"Then put that skimmer back together and come get a margarita."
He frowned. "You all didn't bring glass out here, did you?"
Phoebe laughed. The pool was Jeff's true mistress. "Nope. Just plastic." She took his hand and led him back to the crowd. "Mama, pour this hardworking man a—" She realized her mother's lounger was empty.
"Over there." Daisy indicated with a nod.
Phoebe looked. Olga was chatting with Bill, and she was in full-coquette mode. "Oh, shoot," Phoebe muttered. She glanced around for Frannie but didn't see her.
"Mama!" Phoebe called, trying to distract her. But Olga didn't budge. "Olga!" she called louder. Maybe her mother was trying to pretend she didn't have a daughter Phoebe's age. Olga glanced over.
"Come meet Jeff." She linked her arm playfully in Jeff's. He grinned and slid his arm around her, enjoying his role.
Olga waved and nodded, but she wasn't budging from Bill's side. Bill, for his part, was talking and gesturing and laughing, and when Olga touched him lightly on the arm, he leaned toward her.
Bad body language, Phoebe thought. Her only consolation was that Frannie wasn't around to witness Bill's behavior. She wondered where Frannie had gone.
She got Jeff a drink herself, handed it to him, then leaned up to whisper in his ear. "Laugh like I just said something hilarious."
He laughed, then whispered back, "Now you laugh."
She did—but before she could do more, Elise and Daisy appeared on either side of her, each grabbing an elbow. They practically dragged her away.
"What do you think you're doing?" Elise said.
"Are you crazy?" Daisy asked at the same time, the
n added, "This is so unlike you."
"You mean that I'm acting like a complete airhead?"
"No, that you're throwing yourself at Jeff," Elise said.
"Just living up to everyone's preconceived notions," Phoebe mumbled.
"What did that brute Wyatt say to you?" Daisy asked fiercely. "Just say the word, and I'll beat him up. "
The picture of petite, feminine Daisy going toe-to-toe with six-foot-one Wyatt made Phoebe smile. "Nothing much. He just laughed at my dreams and couldn't believe I was smart enough to be a scientist."
"The ogre," Elise muttered.
"Okay, so he's a miserable cockroach," Daisy said. "What are you trying to accomplish here?"
Phoebe sighed. "Maybe I'm just tired of fighting who and what I am. I'm sick of downplaying my looks and trying to get people to respect me for my brain."
Elise and Daisy looked at each other, obviously perplexed, then back at Phoebe. "Phoebe, dear," Elise said. "I don't know how to break this to you, but you've never tried to impress anyone with your brain. We know you're smart. But you do tend to downplay that side of yourself."
"Hah. You should have heard me at Wyatt's last night. I told him my GPA, my SAT scores, even my IQ. I didn't hide any smarts under any bushel. I did just what Jane Jasmine advises—and Wyatt laughed at me."
Elise and Phoebe looked at each other again.
"What kind of numbers are we talking about, here?" Daisy asked cautiously.
Phoebe realized she'd never told her best friends the whole truth. They knew she was going to school, they knew she was studying biochemistry. But that was the most she'd told them. So she spilled it. Everything. And when she was done, they just stared.
"You're a genius?" her friends said together.
"See?" Phoebe cried, thoroughly frustrated.
"See what? You probably scared the poor man to death," Elise said. "Yes, men like smart women. But Jane Jasmine aside, I can see how a man, any man, might be a little frightened by a woman with enough IQ for two people."
"You scared us," Daisy added. "And before you get all defensive, it's not just because you're blond and pretty. I'd be surprised if Jeff or Frannie or anyone I thought I knew suddenly revealed a hidden side of him—or herself."
"Wyatt was probably just surprised," Elise said. "He'll get used to it."
No, he won't, Phoebe thought, because she wasn't going to give him the chance. She'd been insane to allow anything to develop between them. He would never be able to think of her as anything but a former-actress-turned-makeup-artist.
"Maybe so," Phoebe said noncommittally. "But meanwhile, I'm having fun. Jeff and I are just kidding around. He thought having a TV star on his arm might impress those snotty coeds. So just let us have our fun, okay?"
Elise and Daisy sighed together. "Okay," Elise said, "but be careful. Don't shoot yourself in the foot."
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^ »
It was all Wyatt could do to fix himself a bologna sandwich for dinner. Today's show hadn't gone very well—too much boring chitchat, not enough happening. Kelly and Kurt weren't speaking to each other—again. And Phoebe wasn't speaking to Wyatt. The tension on the set had been thick enough to churn.
He took his sandwich and headed out to the balcony to catch the last of the day's warmth before the desert cool set in. That was something he was still getting used to in Phoenix. It could be a hundred degrees during the day, even in April, but at night it got downright cold.
As he set his plate on the patio table, he made a quick visual check of Helen's plants to make sure all were thriving. His gaze fell on the cactus, the one that had jabbed Phoebe and sent her flying into his arms.
It wasn't blooming. He'd been sweet-talking it for weeks, despite how foolish it made him feel to converse with a plant. And still no blooms.
The sound of guitar music drew him to the railing. Someone was having a party down by the pool. He peered through the fronds of the concealing palm tree and caught a glimpse of a small group—then his eyes bugged out. He saw not one, but two platinum blondes. One of them was Phoebe, and she wasn't wearing that conservative tank suit she usually wore to swim laps. This suit was shiny and blue—and skimpy.
A wave of jealousy washed over him. She'd sure never worn that suit in front of him.
The wave resolved itself into a tyrannosaurus rex chewing on his insides when he saw Phoebe sit beside Jeff, the pool guy, and casually drape an arm around him. It certainly hadn't taken her long to find a replacement, he thought uncharitably.
Would she sleep with him tonight? The thought made Wyatt so furious he wanted to climb down the palm tree, charge into the midst of that party and throttle Jeff until his teeth rattled. But that was hardly fair to Jeff. He was a victim, just as Wyatt had been.
He glanced back at the cactus, sitting there all innocent-like. Mocking him and his obsession.
"To hell with you, stupid cactus! Just don't bloom. See if I care!"
"Halloo up there!"
Startled, Wyatt thought for one panicked moment that the cactus was talking back. When the greeting was repeated, he looked around, then down at the source of the voice. He could just see Frannie on her patio, waving at him. Normally she wouldn't have been able to spot him, but he'd been leaning so far over the railing trying to get a better view of Phoebe that Frannie couldn't have helped but notice him.
"Hi, Frannie," he called back.
"You want to have our own party?"
"Pardon me?"
"I figured since those Jersey blondes were ruining both our love lives, we could hang out together. Misery loves company. "
Jersey blondes?
"Come on down. I'll put on a pot of coffee."
She disappeared before he could tell her he didn't drink coffee. He decided he'd better go down there and explain that his misery didn't need any company, thanks very much. But if she needed a shoulder to cry on, he supposed he could oblige. Frannie was a very nice woman and a very good friend of his grandparents.
He finished his sandwich on the way downstairs.
Frannie greeted him at the door still in her swim-suit, but she'd thrown a matching long skirt over it. Apparently she'd been at the pool party and had chosen to abandon the festivities. But she wasn't wearing her usual cheery smile.
"I don't drink coffee," he said by way of greeting.
"Oh, that's right, you're the orange juice kid. I'll get you some. "
"That's really not—"
But she'd already flown into the kitchen. Her movements reflected a kind of quiet desperation.
One of her cats, a small calico, wrapped itself around Wyatt's ankles. Absently he picked it up and scratched its head. The cat purred contentedly in his arms. Too bad women weren't this easy, he mused grimly. He couldn't just scratch Phoebe on the head and expect her to be happy. She also expected him to read her mind and to not even blink when she suddenly revealed her head was full of physics and higher math instead of lipstick shades.
Frannie returned with a big glass of orange juice. "So what happened with you and Phoebe?" she asked point-blank. "Why is she out there flirting with Jeff when you're up in your apartment alone?" She led him into the dining room, shooed a cat off a chair, and offered the seat to him.
He wished he had an easy answer. "She had expectations of me which I failed to meet," he said diplomatically. "I didn't show appropriate respect for her life goals."
"Wyatt. You made fun of her goals? What goals does Phoebe have, anyway? Does she want to get back into television or something?" Frannie got out a pack of playing cards and absently shuffled them.
"She wants to be a biochemist."
Frannie laughed.
"See?"
She immediately sobered. "You mean, really?"
"Uh-huh. What's your story?"
Frannie's face scrunched into a scowl. "It's Blondie's mother, Olga. She doesn't look like anybody's mother."
Wyatt silently agreed. Moms ought to look like—
well, more like Frannie.
"She didn't waste ten minutes getting her hooks into Bill, and it was all over but the crying."
"Bill chose her over you? I don't believe that."
"It's true. And why couldn't you believe it? She's thin and gorgeous, just like Phoebe—and does she flirt! 'Oh, Bill, that's so clever how you're mending that crack in the sidewalk,'" she said in a flawless imitation of Olga's peculiar Danish-Jersey accent. "She did everything Jane Jasmine said not to, and it worked like a charm. Bill was all over her."
"I'm sure he was just being polite."
"Laughing like a hyena at her jokes and adjusting her swimsuit strap for her is more than polite."
"Ah."
"There's only one thing to do," Frannie said.
"What?" Wyatt had to admit he was so desperate at this point he would cling to any strategy Frannie could think of.
"Do you know how to play canasta?"
* * *
"What happened to Frannie?" Phoebe asked, when she finally was able to get Bill alone.
Bill looked around the crowd, which was starting to thin now that evening had set in. "Gee, I don't know. Haven't seen her in a while. She probably went to feed her cats or something."
Phoebe doubted that. Bill hadn't taken his eyes off Olga all evening. Such behavior was bound to be noticed.
"Maybe I should go look for her."
"That's a great—"
"Oh, Bill, there you are," Olga said, sauntering over with yet another drink in her hand. She'd had way too much.
"I noticed another crack in the sidewalk," Olga said. "Maybe you should fix it while you've got your tools out. I just love watching a man work."
Bill's eyes lit up. "I'll just do that." Phoebe sighed. Maybe she'd better go find Frannie and see what was up. She packed up the ice chest, said her good-nights and went upstairs. Then she threw on a long T-shirt over her suit and headed back down.
"Come in," Frannie called cheerily, when Phoebe knocked.
Phoebe entered. Frannie didn't sound upset. That was good. She found Frannie in the dining room playing cards. With Wyatt.
"Oh, it's you," Frannie said, sounding supremely disappointed. She threw down her cards in disgust. "Oh, Phoebe, how could you?"