She's The One

by J. J. Murray

  “I won’t.”

  “Vincenzo wanted a camera in Pietro’s cabin, two, actually, just in case there were some sparks between Katharina and his brother.”

  Walt closed his eyes. “The other one is over his bed.”

  Fish nodded.

  “And that switch turns both cameras on.”

  “Yeah. Now you know all my secrets.”

  Walt shook his head. “Do I?”

  Fish sighed. “Okay, okay. I was the one who drank the last Coke. It wasn’t Pietro.”

  “Is that all, Fish?”

  He crossed his heart. “I swear it is.”

  Walt stared harder. “Fish?”

  “Okay, okay, damn.” He motioned Walt to follow him to a dark computer monitor. “Now don’t think I’m a freak, okay?” He turned on the monitor.

  At first, Walt didn’t understand what he was seeing. “It’s a … No. You’re auctioning off Katharina’s tiger stilettos?”

  “They weren’t hard to find, I mean, all I had to do was rewind the tape and run out to the spot while you were sleeping. I thought about going for the sunglasses, but the risk was too great. But the amazing thing was, I wasn’t getting much interest until I added the phrase ‘slightly soiled.’ And then … Look where it’s at now.”

  “Unbelievable,” Walt said. “There’s actually someone out there who is willing to pay you two thousand dollars for a muddy, ruined pair of Katharina’s shoes?”

  “‘Slightly soiled,’ “Fish said. “I can only imagine the fetish this person has, but who am I to judge?”

  Walt laughed softly. “Fish, I take back some of the things I’ve said about you. There’s actually someone out there who is sicker than you.” A movement on the big screen caught his eye. “Bianca made it to Vincenzo’s.”

  “Volume up …”

  “You’re about to be fired,” Vincenzo said, taking her coat and setting it on a plush sofa next to a woodstove.

  “How do you know?”

  “Fish called to tell me that Katharina found your stash.”

  Bianca continued to the little kitchen. “Oh. How?”

  Vincenzo smiled. “You tell me.”

  Bianca stared at the ceiling, her eyes dancing. “Oh no. I must have left a shiny silver wrapper sticking out from the mattress. Oh, darn, I should have been more careful. What do you have to eat?”

  “Is that all I’m good for?” Vincenzo asked, opening the small refrigerator and taking out a box of ham-and-cheese Hot Pockets.

  “Well … yes.” Bianca opened the wrappers and placed two Hot Pockets into the microwave. “But this time, I’ll cook for you.”

  “Oh, thank you.” Vincenzo felt so alive whenever she was around that he couldn’t keep his feet still. “You’d make a good diva.”

  “Please don’t curse me like that. I’m normal, remember?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Bianca waited for the bell to ring and took out the Hot Pockets, handing one to Vincenzo. “You can have the bigger one.”

  “They’re both the same size.” He nodded to the round and modern kitchen table. “Shall we?”

  “Oh yes.”

  He sat and looked into her gray-blue eyes. “So, how do you want to play it?”

  Bianca took a careful bite, steam rising from the corner of the Hot Pocket. “It really depends on how she plays it, right?”

  Vincenzo squawked his walkie-talkie. “What’s Katharina doing now?”

  “Acting as if nothing has happened,” Walt said. “Now she’s moved to the chair in front of the fire and is drumming her nails on the table.”

  “Did she eat anything?” Vincenzo asked.

  “No … Fish says it’s because Katharina doesn’t like granola.”

  Bianca shook her head. “She is practically starvingin there. She must have some reason.” She grabbed Vincenzo’s forearm across the table. “For more ammunition, maybe? Am I insured against granola bar damage? Now I’m scared.”

  Vincenzo put his hand on top of hers. “You can’t show fear when you go back. She’s probably going to try to catch you in a lie.”

  Bianca took a bigger bite. “Maybe if I bring her something really good to eat, she’ll forgive me. And then I’ll quit.” She slowly released her hand that was under Vincenzo’s hand.

  “Uh, Walt, have Fish zoom in on Katharina’s face and tell me what you see.”

  “Very scary,” Walt said. “Her jaw is set. Wait. Fish just turned up the volume. What’s that? Fish says we’re hearing her teeth grind.”

  “Yikes,” Bianca said. “I’m about to walk into the proverbial buzz saw.”

  “Talk to you in a few, Walt,” Vincenzo said, and he set the walkie-talkie on the table. “I think you are definitely about to be fired, Bianca. Try to quit before she can do it, okay?”

  Bianca nodded and finished her Hot Pocket.

  “Are you ready?”

  Bianca set her own jaw. “I think so.”

  “Nervous?”

  Ow. She relaxed her jaw. “I’m relieved, actually. I finally get to say the lines I’ve been rehearsing in my head since I started working for her.” She looked at her hands. “Will you be watching, Vincenzo?”

  Vincenzo waved at a widescreen monitor on a little TV stand. “Sure. I, um, I’ve been watching you the last couple nights.”

  “You have?” Bianca whispered.

  Vincenzo nodded. God, that is a sexy whisper. “Um, yeah.”

  “Have you been watching me sleep?” she whispered again.

  Vincenzo’s heart beat a little faster. “Um, I usually say good night to you.”

  Bianca’s eyes softened. “That’s sweet. Do you have any ideas for me, direttore?”

  Vincenzo nodded. “Okay, um, well … We’re going for passion here, okay?”

  Finally, Bianca thought. It took him this long to flirt back. “We are?”

  Vincenzo stood. “Yes. We, um, we are. Lots of passion. We want her to explode. We want her to go off. We want her to lose it completely.”

  Bianca felt warmer all the way down to her toes. “Reckless abandon, huh?”

  “What the hell are they talking about?” Fish asked.

  “I think some major flirtation is going on here,” Walt said. “‘Passion. Explode, go off, lose it.’ Maybe it isn’t flirtation at all. Maybe it’s seduction …”

  Vincenzo’s hands started to sweat. “Um, yeah. Complete, total, reckless, howling-at-the-moon abandon.”

  “Oh, come on now!” Fish cried. “He’s old enough to be her cool uncle, the one who lets her drive the Jag.”

  “I think it’s sweet,” Walt said.

  “He’s robbing the cradle.”

  Walt sighed. “She’s a consenting adult, Fish.”

  “She’s just a kid.”

  Walt nodded. “So is he. At heart. He has young eyes like his father and his grandfather. You have to have young eyes in this business. That’s what she sees when she looks at him.”

  Bianca’s toes squirmed uncontrollably in her boots. He’s not flirting anymore. He’s pawing at me with his words, undressing me with his phrasing, licking me with his sexy brown eyes. “How loud should I be?”

  Vincenzo was afraid to wring his hands for fear they would drip onto the floor. She’s tempting me with her pouting lips, drawing me into her web with her gray-blue eyes, luring me to my heavenly destruction with her cute little dimples. “How loud do you want to be?”

  Oh, so now he’s playing it cool and turning it back on me? I’ll show him. “I want it to echo off the mountains.”

  So do I! “I want that, too, Bianca. Um, I’ll, um, save you some movie-theater butter popcorn.”

  “You will? Why?”

  “I mean, after you quit, you have to go somewhere.”

  He knows where I’m going, and I know where I’m going, but I have to make sure. “I thought you said I could go to Pietro’s and hang out with Walt and Fish after I quit.”

  “I knew she liked me,” Fish said. “Too bad you�
��re married.”

  “Hanging out is not getting busy.”

  Fish laughed. “It can be. It’s your night to monitor Katha-rina’s snoring, anyway.”

  “That was before, Bianca.” Vincenzo looked outside at the torrent of snow. “Will you look at that snow!”

  Bianca locked her eyes with Vincenzo. “So pretty.”

  “Yes, so pretty.”

  “Ha!” Walt cried. “She blushed!”

  Fish typed a few commands and zoomed in. “No, no. It was the glow thrown from the fireplace onto her face.”

  Vincenzo turned away. “So you would rather go hang out with them than … Yeah. Maybe you should.”

  “Yes!” Fish cried. “If that’s what the boss said, that’s what you’re gonna do.”

  * * *

  “Do they have popcorn?” Bianca asked.

  “I’m sure they do,” Vincenzo said sadly.

  “Popcorn like yours? Popcorn that gets real big when it gets hot?”

  Fish blinked.

  Walt blinked.

  “Okay, she blushed before because now he’s blushing,” Fish said. “Damn. Passed over for some damn popcorn.”

  Walt patted Fish on the back. “Guess it’s still just you and me, pal.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait.”

  Vincenzo felt a stirring in just about every part of his loins. “Um, yeah. My popcorn is very, um, puffy. It, um, it gets real big. Bianca, after you quit, I would like you to come back here. It’s a much shorter walk, you might even be able to follow your own footsteps, it’s snowing heavily, you’re not wearing any socks or long underwear—”

  “How do you know … ? Oh, right. You know about that whole scene.” She moistened her lips. “So you know about my …”

  “Boxers?”

  He knows! “Well, you would know better than Katharina why I wear them. They’re so comfortable and they keep things ventilated down there.”

  Vincenzo could make no reply.

  Bianca stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I may have to shorten my tirade a little.”

  “Play it for all it’s worth, Bianca,” Vincenzo said.

  “I’ll do what I have to do.”

  “He’s so wooden,” Fish said. “He ain’t smooth at all.”

  “That’s how most men are when they’re being seduced by wood nymphs.”

  “Wood nymphs?”

  Walt rolled his eyes. “I read a lot of Greek mythology.”

  Bianca kissed Vincenzo’s other cheek. “Leave the light off, okay? I just want to see the glow of the fire.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll just have to adjust the contrast a little,” Fish said. “No sweat.”

  “We’re not going to watch!”

  Fish stretched his arms over his head. “You know, I think I’ve gotten my second wind. I’ll mind the monitors tonight. You go talk dirty to your wife.”

  “I don’t talk—hey! Do you have a camera in my room?”

  Fish laughed so loudly that he nearly fell out of his chair. “No, Walt, I don’t. I was just messing with you, and now I know it’s true. You still do that?”

  “I’m away from home a lot, so … yeah.”

  “Walt, I hardly knew ye.”

  Walt sighed. “She’s out with friends tonight, anyway, so … We’ll both mind the monitors.”

  Fish nodded. “I knew you couldn’t walk away from this.”

  “Ciao,” Bianca said, slipping into her coat.

  “Ciao, bella.”

  Bianca was halfway out the door when she walked right back in. “I’m supposed to bring her dinner.”

  Vincenzo shrugged. “How about a Hot Pocket?”

  “Or half of one. Yeah. One with little ragged bite marks in it.”

  Vincenzo shuddered. “How about a frozen one?”

  “That’s cold.” She kissed him lightly on the lips this time. “You’re pretty smart.”

  Vincenzo took another Hot Pocket from the minifridge and handed it to Bianca. “Make sure you drop it on the table in front of her. I want to hear the echo down here.”

  “But it might thaw out by the time I get there,” she said. “My hands are so sweaty now.” She grabbed his. “So are yours.”

  Nice, soft, strong hands …” Um. Yeah.” I’m fourteen again! “You better go.”

  Bianca bit her lower lip and looked up, but didn’t let go of Vincenzo’s hand. “Yeah. Ciao. Again.”

  Vincenzo looked down at their hands. “Ciao, bella. Again.”

  “They are so cute,” Walt said.

  “Nauseating,” Fish said.

  Chapter 23

  Bianca had but one thought as she raced through the deepening snow: I hope he doesn’t mind my funk later because I haven’t had a bath in four days!

  After missing the bridge, finding it, and getting lost for a few tense minutes, Bianca first found Pietro’s cabin by a glow in his window. After reorienting herself, she aimed through the snow and stumbled into Katharina’s cabin, busting in and slamming the door behind her.

  Katharina jerked her head to the door. “What took you so long?”

  Bianca dropped the Hot Pocket onto the table.

  It thumped loudly twice.

  “What the hell is that?” Katharina asked.

  “It’s called a Hot Pocket,” Bianca said, removing her coat. “It’s what average, ordinary, normal, skinny people like me eat. But you wouldn’t know anything about it since you haven’t been grocery shopping in probably fifteen years. Normal people sometimes even use coupons so they can get more for their money at the grocery store.”

  Katharina blinked several times.

  “Really. You know, coupons? You cut them out?” Bianca warmed herself in front of the fire. “Anyway, I’m so sorry, Miss Minola. I know it’s not what you wanted, but it was all I could find on such short notice way up here in the middle of the middle of nowhere. I’ll just fry it up in the pot. Oh my! Look at the gunk in there. All that crusty oatmeal might not come out, but that’s okay. Hot Pockets are sealed in plastic.”

  Bianca nearly stumbled on her way to the bathroom carrying the pot. She made a face in the mirror and rinsed out the pot for less than five seconds. “I am shaking so bad,” she whispered. “I can’t believe the things I’m babbling. Did you hear the thunk? It was so loud that it scared me.”

  Bianca raced to the fireplace and hung the pot over the fire, dropped the Hot Pocket inside—plastic, cardboard sleeve, and all—and sat in the other chair. “It shouldn’t take too long, Miss Minola.”

  Katharina continued blinking. The child is on drugs. But I can’t let that keep me from what I have to say. “Are you gaining weight, Bianca?”

  So that’s how she’s going to play it. Bianca examined her butt. “Maybe. It must be the air up here. I did eat a lot of that stew, that cereal, and that oatmeal. I guess it’s all just sticking to me.”

  “Uh-huh.” Katharina breathed evenly. “I thought you barfed your guts out the other day.”

  “Oh yes, big chunks, too,” Bianca said. “Some of it went back down, though. I hate when that happens. Up it comes and then—nope! Back to the cauldron. Be careful when you’re out picking berries, okay?”

  What has this child been smoking? Katharina thought. And why didn’t she bring any for me?

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Minola?”

  Katharina almost forgot her rage. When she felt for the wrapper hiding under her leg, her rage returned. She tossed the shiny wrapper onto the table. “You can explain this.”

  “Granola? Where did you get granola? I’d kill for some granola right now.”

  * * *

  Walt sighed. “She’s fantastic.”

  Fish sighed. “She’s also in deep trouble.”

  Katharina stood. “Would you? Would you really kill for some granola?”

  Bianca smiled. “I might.”

  “What about some raisins? Would you kill for raisins, too?”

  Bianca didn’t bat an eye. “
Only if they’re fresh and juicy and sealed in a plastic bag so the grizzly bears can’t get at them.”

  Where has this assertive child been hiding? Katharina thought. I like this Bianca. She has spunk and personality! She has fire! She’s not mousy—she’s the cat! But, I still have to reprimand her. I am, after all, her employer. “You’ve been holding back on me for more than just clothes, Bianca.”

  “And you’re the biggest bitch who ever lived, Katha-diva Bologna.”

  “Yes, sports fans!” Fish said in his announcer’s voice. “We have a catfight brewing here tonight! Oh, and it’s gonna get rough. In this corner, the challenger, Bianca-dunk. In this corner, the champ-een, Katha-diva Bologna. Zooming in on the combatants!”

  Walt said nothing.

  She isn’t telling me anything that I don’t already know, Katharina thought. Though it kind of hurts to hear it coming from the person who gave me her draws. “So I’m a bitch.”

  “You have no equal, Katha-diva.”

  Katharina began to circle toward Bianca. “Uh-huh. That is true.” She tapped the table with her four remaining good nails. “Your Hot Pocket is burning, Bianca.”

  Bianca eased to her feet and edged toward the fireplace. “No, thanks. I already had a few. That’s your Hot Pocket burning.” She sniffed the air. “And melting. It must be the plastic. And if you’re lucky, another mouse or a bat will fall into the pot to spice it up even more, give it a wild, gamy flavor.”

  Katharina smiled. “Uh-huh. I see. Um, what are you trying to tell me here, Bianca?”

  “I’m not trying to tell you anything, Miss Bologna. I think I’m stating my views very well.”

  Such a sweet, innocent, stupid child. “You know I have a knife, right?”

  Bianca smiled. Thank you for this opening! “That knife is as dull as your life by now.”

  “Whoa!” Fish said. “Nice cut!”

  “That had to hurt,” Walt said.

  Katharina stopped circling. “You think my life is dull?”

  “I don’t think it,” Bianca said. “I know it.”

  Katharina put both hands on the table. She had almost had enough. “You know something?”