Way to go, Lil. Low profile, remember?
“You,” she gulped, “that is, you were just…” She pointed across the street before her frantic gaze swiveled back to me. “And now you’re…” She pointed and swallowed again. “Just like that.”
I remembered flipping through channels earlier before resorting to the vacuum. “I’m an illusionist. Like that Criss Angel. You know, the magician guy.”
“But I thought you were a matchmaker?”
I smiled. “Actually, I am. I’m just an illusionist in my spare time. And since we’re on the subject of dating—”
“We are?” she blurted.
We are. I sent the silent message. Not that she would get it. Unless her hatred of men had turned her into a card-carrying lesbian, or at least a bisexual.
She stared blankly back at me. A good sign or a bad one, depending on how one looked at it. I decided to go for the positive. She wasn’t reading me, which meant that she still liked men—even if she did think Lorena Bobbitt should be the first woman president.
“Meeting people these days is so difficult, it’s no wonder so many hook up with total losers,” I offered.
“They’re all losers.”
“The majority, maybe. But there are those rare few worth their weight in gold: men who’ll serve you breakfast in bed and rub your feet, men who won’t fart in bed or hog the remote control.”
“Really?” She looked as if I’d told her the world was flat and born vamps really did volunteer for community service.
“You bet. You’ve just been fishing in the wrong pond. You need a guide. Someone to bait your hook and cast your line.” I handed her a card. “That’s where I come in. An attractive woman like you shouldn’t be having coffee all alone.” I eyed the untouched cup sitting on the table.
“Oh, I wasn’t having—I mean, yeah. I was sucking up the coffee.” She nodded vigorously, freaked that she’d been about to blow her cover. “Um, I can’t leave the stuff alone.” Right. One glance into her frantic gaze and I knew she hated coffee as much as her ex. Their first date had been at the Espresso Bean and she still couldn’t set foot inside the place without threatening someone with bodily harm.
I smiled. “You should find someone who shares your passion for, er, coffee.”
“I should, shouldn’t I?”
“You’re attractive. In the prime of your life. You deserve more than a cheating ex.”
“I do, don’t I?”
“There’s more to life than being someone else’s gopher.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them, but she didn’t seem to catch the slip that I was onto her, or that I saw much more than the average, fabulously dressed hottie. “You could be having fun, instead of running all over New York playing Magnum PI for your mother.”
“I could, couldn’t I?”
“Call me and I’ll hook you up,” I told her. “Guaranteed.”
Excitement lit her eyes as she stared at the card. Her expression faltered as she seemed to think. “Is it really expensive?” She shook her head. “Because I’m on a tight budget right now.” Mr. Ex had taken her to the cleaners and stuck it to her royally, the poor thing.
“Actually, I’m running a special right now for coffee lovers who have their own cameras.” I was so lame. But I’d had a sleepless day and my brilliance was running on fumes. “A free profile, plus two prospective matches, provided, of course, that you bring your camera to your first appointment and take a few pictures for Dead End Dating. I’ve been meaning to add some visuals to my Web site.” What can I say? I wasn’t on empty yet.
“Deal.” She smiled and I smiled.
I turned and headed up the street, and this time, no one followed.
I dropped off the jacket and scarf to Nina at the Waldorf. In return, she gave me several pamphlets for the hotel and a confirmation for booking the wedding date.
Next stop? Jack and Mandy’s place.
Ten minutes and a scary cab ride later (were there any other kind in the city?), I climbed the steps of Jack’s brownstone. I rang and he buzzed me up. I was just about to knock on the apartment door when it whooshed open and I found myself staring at a round, chubby, pink-cheeked face.
“Harriet?”
“Good evening, Miss Lil,” the old woman told me. She wore the usual starched black dress and pressed white apron. She sported a tiny black cap atop her short, silver hair. “Lovely to see you.”
Harriet was my mother’s personal maid. She was a zillionth-generation descendant of the actual au pair who had cared for my mother when she was a child. My mother treasured Harriet almost as much as her collection of rare Chanel perfume bottles. My mother couldn’t live without her.
Until, apparently, now.
“What are you doing here?” I asked the old woman.
“Helping out Mr. Jack.” She smiled again and motioned me in. “Have a seat. Can I get you a spritzer? Club soda? Glass of blood?”
“I…uh, no.” My gaze shifted to Jack, who lay sprawled on the sofa, the remote control in his hand. On the coffee table in front of him sat a stack of his favorite magazines (GQ and Maxim and even a few copies of the rare Aristocratic Vamp), two bottles of the most expensive, imported blood on the market, an extra pillow, and a brand-new iPod with docking station. “Mom sent all this stuff, didn’t she?” He nodded. “And Harriet, too?”
“I’m supposed to take it easy,” Jack told me. “And Harriet’s here to make sure that that happens.” He grinned. “I still can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“That Mom finally came around. She’s accepted Mandy and now she’s trying to make it up to me for acting like such a lunatic.”
“That,” I nodded, “or she thinks you’ve caught a rare bacteria and need 24/7 medical assistance.”
He frowned, despite the fact that Harriet had handed him a glass of his favorite blood type and even tucked a napkin under his chin. “What are you talking about?”
I wasn’t going to say anything. Take it to the grave, I told myself.
Then again, I wasn’t actually going to the grave and eternity was a really long time to perpetuate a lie. Even more, it was much too long to watch Jack laze around and be pampered. Been there, done that (Jack was the youngest boy of the bunch and the most spoiled).
“I might have mentioned something about your condition,” I told him.
“I don’t have a condition.”
“No, but let’s suppose you did. I might have mentioned it to her to emphasize the fact that you actually need Mandy. For more than just sex.”
“I do need Mandy for more than just sex.”
A few months back, such a statement from Jack would have totally wigged me out. Since Mandy had come on the scene, Jack had turned into a decent guy and I’d stopped waiting for someone to jump out and yell “You’re being punked!”
“I know that and you know that, but Mom doesn’t get it. What she does get is that you’re her baby boy and your livelihood is being threatened.”
“She gets that?”
“She didn’t at first, what with you being a Super Vamp and all, but then I explained that this bacteria is something new and rare and only affects Super Vamps. Now she gets it.”
“In other words, you lied to her.”
“For a good cause.” I told him about her hiring me to match him up, and he nearly spurted a mouthful of the red stuff back out at me.
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked as Harriet rushed over to dab his chin. “She hired you?” He pierced me with a stare.
I nodded. “She even paid a rush fee.”
“What a cold-hearted bitch.”
“She was desperate,” I blurted. Wait a second. What did I just say? Was I actually defending the obsessive, overbearing Jacqueline Marchette? “She felt like she had no choice.” Uh-oh. I was. “You’re her son. She thought she was doing what was best for you.”
“Breaking up my relationship with Mandy is not what’s best for me. It never will be. I lo
ve her. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love her. Hell, I never even knew such a thing existed.” He pushed to his feet. “This is going to stop.”
“I already stopped it. Mom’s through gunning for Mandy. The wedding is on. Just appreciate the cease-fire and relax.”
“If she tried once, she’ll try again.”
“Maybe not.”
“And maybe you’re delusional.” He shook his head. “I have to do something. Right now. Before things get worse.” His gaze collided with mine.
“Tell me you’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do.”
He nodded. “I’m going to give her the old heave-ho.” He reached for his cell phone and waved it at me. “It won’t be easy and it won’t be pretty, but I’ll just have to deal with the fallout. She has to know that she can’t just stick her nose in whenever she feels like it. She has no say in what I do or don’t do. Not now. Not ever. And I’m going to tell her so.” He glanced at the cell phone before shifting his expression to the massage table set up in the dining room. “You bet your ass I’m going to tell her.”
“Just as soon as your session with Hans?”
He nodded vigorously. “Just as soon as my session with Hans.”
“Wimp.”
Twenty-one
“I can’t believe we’re here,” John commented as we stood at the entrance to the main dining room of The Lady of the Sea, a small charter ship that offered dinner and dancing and a spectacular view of the Hudson at midnight.
Several television cameras had been set up around the large room, each manned by a man or a woman wearing a headset and a microphone. The frantic producer stood a few feet away, a clipboard in hand as he eyed the crowd and checked off arrivals. The finalists (fifty, to be exact) mingled here and there, drinks in hand, awaiting the arrival of Manhattan’s most wanted bachelor. Near the bar, a big-band trio played an instrumental version of “Disco Inferno.”
“But we are.” My nostrils flared and I drank in the aroma of too much perfume, lots of hair products, and an overabundance of nerves. “For whatever reason,” one that still eluded me, “we made the cut just like everyone else.”
“Not we as in you and me. We as in me and my girls.” He cupped his chest. “La Perla had to special order this time and I almost didn’t get them today. I’m not lopsided, am I?”
I eyed him from head to toe. He was wearing a navy blue silk dress with cap sleeves and an Empire waist and silver sandals. My gaze ventured back north and stopped on the area in question.
“They’re perfectly even, and even bigger than the last time. Did you gain a cup size?”
John grinned. “I figure these babies are what got me this far, so the bigger the better.” He arched his back. “They’re a little heavier than I first thought.”
“Think of them as a safety measure. They’ll make nifty flotation devices if we hit an iceberg.”
“We’re on the Hudson. There are no icebergs.”
“Then you’re good to go if we hit a Dumpster or a dead body.”
I checked my stash of business cards, eyeballed a few prospects that I was particularly interested in—attractive, successful women desperate enough to try a dating service should they get booted off tonight—and waltzed into the dining room, John following in my footsteps.
We mixed and mingled for the next half hour. Then the producer herded everyone into a group near the doorway. The musical ensemble launched into an instrumental of “There she is, Miss America…”
The doors opened. A round of applause erupted, followed by a collective murmur of excitement.
I took a few steps back, determined not to be caught in the stampede (we’re talking fifty women, biological clocks ticking, and one elegible man), and sized up the man who appeared in the doorway.
Mr. Weather was so handsome and rich and full of himself (I’m a vamp, I can tell these things) that I actually wondered if he’d been stranded on a lavish French estate as a child and raised by a pack of born vampires.
Think Tarzan, but with a black Gucci suit rather than a loincloth.
He was tall and tanned, with blond hair and green eyes, and a smile dazzling enough to charm a city full of viewers.
John nudged me. “He’s kind of cute.”
“Don’t tell me the ta-tas are going to your brain?”
He shrugged. “Since when is it a crime for a man to appreciate another man’s appearance? It’s not like I’m going to touch the guy. Hell, I’m not getting within five feet of him. No sirree. Unless,” he added, “I have to. I’ve got a job to do, after all. And, well, duty calls.”
Um, sure.
I made a mental note to phone Rosie ASAP and get her on board with my Match-Up-John-Schumacker project before he stopped worshipping from afar and started asking for hair how-tos and clothing tips.
I watched as Mr. Weather floated into the room, his trademark smile firmly in place, his eyes gleaming with a predatory light, along with just the right amount of humility, as he drank in the harem of attractive women.
A production assistant followed hot on his heels, arms overflowing with long-stemmed red roses. Manhattan’s most wanted smiled, plucked a rose from the bunch, and handed it to the first woman he met. He repeated the process with each encounter and the minutes started to creep by.
After ten minutes and three contestants, I gave up watching the ritual and retrieved a glass of wine from the bar. I know, I know. Hello AA. But I needed something to keep me from going off the deep end while I waited my turn at a rose. I tried talking to a few of the other women, but all attention seemed fixed on the man making his way through the dining room.
While John homed in on his fraud suspect (at least that’s the excuse he’d given to make a beeline for the bachelor of the hour), I finished off my first glass and retrieved another, and traded standing for a seat at a small table in the far corner. I was in the middle of my third glass, snapping my fingers to an off-key version of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight,” when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Hi, there.” The voice was deep. Smooth. And oh, so irritating. I’ve been around five hundred years, ladies. That means I’ve heard every pick-up line, seen every suave move. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t one to be schmoozed very easily, which is why I’d given up one-night stands in favor of finding my soul mate.
I turned, our gazes locked, and the facts ticked off in my head.
Mark Williams. Loaded. Liked looking in the mirror. Loaded. Liked looking at his hair. Loaded. Liked admiring his pecs. Loaded. Liked eating in five-star restaurants and admiring his butt. Loaded. Liked having his teeth bleached. Loaded.
He smiled, obviously expecting me to fall all over him to make the next cut. But I hadn’t wanted to make this cut, so I narrowed my gaze and stared at his mouth. “Crowns or veneers?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve obviously had a lot of dental work. Did you cap what was there or go for a new set?”
He looked stunned for the space of three heartbeats before his expression eased into another smile. “You’re the funny one.”
“Excuse me?”
“I liked your tape.”
“You did?”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Pinto beans,” he snorted. “That was a good one.”
I know. Mr. Weather snorting, but there it was. Loud. Sincere. And in total contradiction to my raised-by-vamps theory.
“You have a wonderful sense of humor.”
“I do?”
He nodded, and when he smiled, his expression seemed softer and more genuine. “I’d love to talk to you some more, but I’ve got to spread myself around.”
“No, no. I completely understand.”
“Maybe we can hook up later? You know, catch a few minutes to really get to know each other. Just the two of us.”
“Definitely.” My hand closed around the rose he handed me and I actually felt a tiny thrill of excitement.
He liked me.
N
ot that I wanted him to like me.
That was the point. I was clearly sending out my do not like me vibe, yet here he was, slobbering all over me and begging me to meet him later. (All right, already. I know that’s not exactly what was happening, but I’m the one giving the recap and I say he was definitely slobbering.)
I so had it going on.
Too bad he wasn’t a certain made vampire who hunted tongue-eating criminals for a living.
The thought stirred visions of Ty, and I quickly went from feeling hyped up to feeling totally icky. Particularly when we all sat down to dinner and I was forced to push around a plateful of grilled salmon and wild rice.
I picked and forked and even pretended to eat a few bites that I quickly spit into my napkin using my ultrafast reflexes and the occasional, “Look! Mr. Weather just lost his pants!”
I watched John’s Adam’s apple bob and my own hunger stirred. I definitely should have had more than one glass of AB positive before I’d left the house.
Gathering my own control, I tamped down on the urge and sucked down yet another glass of wine. I’d made it through dinner and was drinking in the aroma of chocolate cake with raspberry sauce when John elbowed me.
“Lookee, lookee! She’s dancing.”
My attention shifted to the microscopic dance floor and the tall blonde swaying provocatively in the center. She wore high-heeled suede boots, an ultrashort black dress, and a seductive expression that stated very clearly what she was feeling at the moment, and—lemmetellya—it wasn’t pain.
Beside me, John was going nuts. He kept lifting his clutch and mumbling into the clasp.
“Indigestion,” I blurted when the other women at our table stared pointedly at him. “She takes pills, but nothing seems to work. Her doctor suggested she try meditation to help with the pain. The purse is her focal point. That’s it,” I rubbed his back. “Focus. Chant. There you go.”
Since John was competing with dessert for everyone’s attention, our tablemates quickly scarfed down the explanation and turned their attention back to scarfing down the chocolate cake.
Stop acting like an idiot. I sent the mental thought, but he wasn’t looking at me and so I had to resort to another Super Vamp technique. I popped him upside the head.
Your Coffin or Mine? Page 13