The Mandy Project

by Toni Blake

  Thinking quickly, he clutched his stomach. Mindy wasn’t the only one who could put on a good act. “Just a bit of flu or something.”

  “This time of year?”

  He sighed. “Sometimes things bring you down when you least expect it.”

  “Perhaps you should see a doctor.” Concern etched itself across her face.

  “I’ll be fine, Miss Binks.”

  “Well then, shall we get started?” Percy asked. But Benton didn’t miss the look of awareness—or was that amusement?—dancing in Percy’s eyes as they shifted back and forth between Benton and his assistant.

  Nor did he miss the baleful expression on Malcolm Wainscott’s face as the dapper young man craned his head to moon adoringly at Miss Binks. Out of recently acquired habit, Benton took a stab at seeing if his attempt to connect them had accomplished anything. “Let’s begin with Malcolm and Miss Binks. How are your portfolio status report meetings progressing?”

  Malcolm peered earnestly at his boss. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for entrusting me with that responsibility, Mr. Maxwell.”

  For giving me time with Miss Binks, he meant. “Don’t mention it, Malcolm. You’ve earned it.”

  “And I, for one, think it’s been very productive.”

  The younger man’s eagerness wrenched a small smile from Benton, his first in two days. Then he switched his gaze to his stalwart assistant. “And Miss Binks? Are you in agreement?”

  Miss Binks hesitated, then dropped her gaze slightly. Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good. Upon finally raising her eyes to Benton, she sighed. “It’s nothing against Malcolm—he’s a wonderful worker and quite informed, but…I’m afraid I don’t find this new arrangement productive. In fact, it’s quite counter-productive.”

  Stunned, Benton raised his eyebrows to silently say, Go on.

  “When I examined the reports with you, it was an efficient one-step procedure. Now, I meet with Malcolm, then I write a report about the reports, forward it to you, remind you to read it, and answer any questions you have. Surely you can see the wastefulness.”

  Benton tilted his head. He felt lousy for Malcolm, both personally and professionally. Miss Binks made him sound like a thorn in her side. “Well, Miss Binks,” he said, “I’ll take your concern under advisement and get back to you.” Then he widened his gaze to encompass the rest of the table. “Let’s move on. Percy, how are the budget adjustments coming?”

  Everyone in the room seemed to breathe a small sigh of relief as Percy began rambling his budget assessments in the long-winded manner Benton welcomed more today than ever before, since he really wasn’t in the mood to lead the troops. As Percy droned on, Benton thought about Malcolm and Miss Binks. His assistant had just made several things clear. The news of Benton’s new relationship hadn’t dimmed the torch she carried for him. She wanted nothing to do with Malcolm and remained as blind as ever to his affections. And sadly, what she’d said was true—Benton had taken a system that worked and turned it terribly inefficient, all in the name of love.

  So what was the point? Why was Benton trying so hard to bring them together when the effort seemed doomed to fail?

  And why had he let himself start believing in something so whimsical and romantic as love anyway? When he’d met Mindy, he hadn’t even been sure it existed. Now, he knew it was real, but he wished it wasn’t. He wished he’d simply left well enough alone and dealt with finding a wife by himself.

  Damn, he needed to shake off this depression, forget about his ill-fated attempt at love and start acting like himself again. And he shouldn’t delay it even an hour more.

  Benton Maxwell III didn’t let emotions rule him. Oh, sure, they might play a part in his life—he was only human—but the man he’d been before his misguided visit to Mates By Mindy knew how to keep his feelings in their proper place.

  And Benton Maxwell III didn’t make a fool of himself, either.

  Well, not more than once, anyway. The little redhead might have him down, but he wasn’t out of the game entirely.

  Out of the game with her, yes. Her, he never wanted to see again.

  But this whole mess had started because he wanted a wife. He’d thought it would be nice to find love in the same place, but that had turned out to be a more complicated endeavor than he’d expected. Things went more smoothly when he didn’t let sappy, idealistic nonsense cloud his judgment.

  Bringing Miss Binks and Malcolm together them together had clearly been a lost cause from the beginning. You couldn’t force something that wasn’t there. Yet you could accept circumstances as they were and make the most of them. And you could look a gift horse in the mouth one too many times. Benton wasn’t going to do that anymore.

  When the meeting concluded, he began doling out assignments to each person at the table, speaking with vigor and outlining goals, and as they all sat up a bit straighter to meet his gaze, it was clear they could see the old Benton was back. As he finished with each employee, he excused them and moved to the next.

  “Malcolm,” he said upon working his way around to the young man, “Miss Binks is right—I’ve created unnecessary work for her by asking you to review the status reports, so we’ll scrap that idea for now. But come to my office at three o’clock this afternoon and we’ll discuss other ways to expand your responsibilities.”

  He ignored the disappointment in Malcolm’s eyes as his apprentice slowly pushed back his chair and exited the room—and then he flicked his gaze to Miss Binks, the last remaining staff member.

  “Miss Binks, are you free for lunch today?”

  She looked stunned, understandably. The two of them rarely shared a meal outside the occasional group gathering. “Is there some…urgent business matter to discuss?”

  “Urgent, yes. Business, no.” He tilted his head and peered meaningfully into her eyes. He could learn to do that, learn to appreciate Miss Binks—Candace, he should start calling her Candace—for what she had to offer. “It’s about the relationship I mentioned to you last week.”

  “Oh?”

  Benton saw no reason to mince words. “We’ve parted ways. I think getting out of the office and talking to someone, talking to you, will be just the thing to get her out of my system.”

  “Ice cream?” Jane asked gently as she and Mindy settled on a bench in Hyde Park Square on their lunch break. “I’ll buy.”

  Mindy clamped her fists on the wooden seat on either side of her, eyes downcast. “That’s sweet, Jane, but no thanks.”

  Jane raised her eyebrows hopefully and spoke as if addressing a toddler. “Mint chocolate chip, your favorite. Oooh, yummy.”

  But Mindy shook her head and injected great drama into her words. “I can never eat mint chocolate chip ice cream again. It reminds me too much of him.”

  Jane smirked lightly. “No offense, Min, but you enjoyed hundreds of ice cream cones before Benton. Why not eat up and let it remind you of those times? Better yet, why not let it remind you of that first day you met him and didn’t like him, the day you nearly dropped it on his shoes! That was funny, wasn’t it? Let’s just pretend you still don’t like him. How about it?”

  Jane smiled hopefully, nodding enthusiastically at her own suggestion, yet Mindy could only frown in reply. “Jane, I love him.”

  Jane frowned, too. “That’s a bad attitude.”

  “Huh?”

  “Remember the old Mindy, the love-isn’t-for-me-I-just-like-creating-it-for-others Mindy? I say you bring her back. She was fun. And she got into a lot less trouble. She was right—who needs a man?” Jane dragged a dismissing hand down through the air. “Not Mindy. Mindy’s perfectly happy with her friends, her cat, her business. Mindy’s one cool, confident chick who does not need a silly man messing up her life.”

  However, Mindy shook her head emphatically. “No, you were right, Jane. I do need a man. Or at least I want him. It’s just the way you said—I need him for companionship, and fun, and sex. And love. Maybe I hadn’t quite realized it, hadn’t quite admitte
d it to myself, but I fell in love with Benton, and it was the happiest time of my life.”

  “When you weren’t miserable.”

  Mindy shrugged. “Well, yeah. But the rest of the time, when I forgot about being a crazed, lying lunatic on the loose, things were…dreamy.”

  “All right, Patty Duke, back to earth. I know you’re hurting right now, I know it feels like a huge chunk of you was ripped from your body and mauled before your very eyes, I know you think you’ll never be happy again—but you will. How do I know this? Because I had my heart broken once upon a time, too, and I thought I’d never recover. But then Larry came into my life, and look at me now. I’m as happy as a frazzled, middle-aged housewife can be!” She smiled, and Mindy tried to smile back, appreciating Jane’s friendship.

  But it was just too soon to feel happy again, and maybe it would always be too soon. Maybe Jane was wrong. Maybe that big mauled chunk of her would always be missing. Love, it turned out, was powerful stuff, more so than she ever could have imagined without experiencing it firsthand. She’d never known an emotion that could lift her to such heights of elation, then send her plummeting to such a low, painful place. She felt as if her heart had been cut open and left to bleed.

  “I should close the shop.”

  “If you want to go home,” Jane said, “I can stay until five.”

  Mindy shook her head. “No, I meant, I should close the shop down. For good. I have no business handing out instructions on people’s love lives. And since I can’t be disbarred for my disgraceful actions, I should just do the responsible thing myself. Shut it all down. Close it up. Let people find each other the way they have for centuries, by chance.”

  Next to her, Jane released a long, drawn-out, put-upon sigh. “Mindy, Mindy, Mindy. Why, my friend, did you open this shop in the first place?”

  Mindy considered the question, and thought it was actually a good one, all things considered. “Well, I suppose it didn’t make much sense in a way, did it? I’m the product of divorced parents and until just a couple of weeks ago, I never believed I’d find love myself. But even though I’ve had reason to doubt love, you know I’ve believed in it anyway, believed it was real and that it mattered. Even if not for me. Plus, as you know, I just have that knack for finding people who go together.”

  “That reminds me, Stacy Hennessey called to thank you for helping her out on Saturday. Her date with Greg went great, they really hit it off, and they’re seeing each other again tonight. I could practically see her glowing through the phone lines.”

  Mindy smiled, pleased—as ever—to hear one of her clients had had a happy encounter because of her matchmaking skills. The moment Greg had come into the shop last week, she’d just known he was the guy she’d been waiting to match with sweet, quiet Stacy.

  Then she remembered everything she’d just been saying about why she’d opened Mates By Mindy in the beginning and gave Jane a point-taken look. “Fine, you’re right, I won’t close the shop. But I really do feel horrible about Benton. And not just because I love him, but because I did a rotten thing to him after he trusted me with his love life. And he even paid me for it, too. At the time, I thought he deserved it—but I was so wrong, Jane.”

  “Well, maybe you’d feel better if you returned Benton’s money. Maybe you feel like a prostitute or something.”

  Mindy rolled her eyes. “Dr. Jane, back on the air.”

  Jane shrugged. “Just a thought. Forget I said anything.”

  Yet Mindy let out a long, conceding sigh. “Cut him a check after lunch and I’ll write a note to go with it.”

  A week later, Mindy still hadn’t shaken off her depression. She’d thought when Benton got her check, along with her sincere letter of apology, maybe she’d hear from him. She hadn’t. Apparently, he’d moved on with his life. That made one of them.

  She sat on her couch, watching a copy of Casablanca borrowed from her mom, nibbling on what remained of the mint chocolate chip ice cream he’d brought to her house. Okay, so she’d been wrong when she’d told Jane she could never eat it again—she had a real weakness for mint chocolate chip. And an even bigger weakness for Benton, it seemed, since she just couldn’t erase him from her mind.

  She kept hugging her big foam finger, remembering when she was his sexy thing. She thought longingly of the French maid costume she’d never get to wear for him, of all the cars they’d never steal together, of all the restaurants she’d never get to embarrass him in.

  When The End flashed in black and white across the screen, she flipped off the TV, ditched the empty ice cream tub in the garbage can, and looked for Venus, who seemed to be avoiding her. The cat could probably sense her despair; either that, or she’d gotten tired of the constant hugging. It was when the cat had started going AWOL a few days ago that the big foam finger had taken her place in Mindy’s needy arms. Finally locating Venus, Mindy picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, thinking about how Benton had even changed his kitty-hating ways for her once upon a time.

  Lowering the cat to the bed, she spied her half-sewn Cher dress tossed in a pile of costume rubble—she hadn’t had the heart to work on it since the breakup. Then she spotted a certain blond wig and thought about how she had changed when wearing it, how it had somehow energized and empowered her to be a slightly different, slightly edgier, slightly wilder woman. The mere memories conjured up a little of that energy inside her now—the first burst of anything positive she’d felt in days.

  But then, of course, she remembered everything that had happened to destroy that power and energy, and she let it depress her all over again.

  She couldn’t go on like this. Jane kept telling her so, and she knew it, too. Even her own cat had turned on her.

  She’d screwed up her life by letting Benton Maxwell fall in love with her, but she’d screwed it up much worse by letting him fall out of love with her.

  Picking up the blond wig, Mindy studied it, then turned toward the mirror, but she didn’t put the wig on. Instead, she simply looked at her reflection and asked herself a question.

  In the same situation, what would Mandy do?

  Chapter Ten

  “Jane, I’m a nervous wreck!”

  “Here, try this on. It’ll look good with those black jeans you bought.” Jane shoved a clingy top of turquoise blue in Mindy’s direction.

  “Oooh, you’re right.”

  They’d decided to meet at the mall in Kenwood to take Mindy’s mind off what she planned to do tonight. The only problem was, each time she got nervous, she bought something. They both toted shopping bags in each hand, and all of them belonged to Mindy. If things went well this evening, she’d have tons of new clothes to wear on future dates with Benton. And if not, well, she’d be well dressed and alone. Which she supposed was better than being poorly dressed and alone. At a moment like this, she had to hang onto any positive thoughts that came her way.

  Because tonight’s endeavor was very risky, and might well fail.

  Benton had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that his thirty-fifth birthday was coming up, and that two friends were throwing him a party at O’Reilly’s, a pub just north of downtown in the trendily rehabbed Over-The-Rhine neighborhood. “Second Saturday in June,” he’d told her. He’d also admitted that a party at a bar might not normally sound like fun to him, but that she’d opened his eyes to taking life a little less seriously.

  Well, today was the second Saturday in June. And when she’d called O’Reilly’s to make sure the party was still on—without ever identifying herself, of course—the guy who’d answered the phone said the festivities started at eight, but the serious fun began a little later…whatever that meant.

  So Mindy had chosen to make a bold move, a totally Mandy move. She was attending Benton’s party tonight, where she intended to tell him she loved him and wanted to marry him, too. She was going to go for it—throw caution to the wind and just do it! Like Mandy would.

  Hence the nervousness currently eating her alive.r />
  And since she was going as herself, not her evil twin, and since Benton had never seen her as herself outside of Mates By Mindy, what she chose to wear actually seemed relevant. It would be her personal statement about who she really was. That was how she and Jane had justified the shopping spree.

  She exited the dressing room a moment later in the turquoise top and black jeans, one hand on her hip as she sashayed across an imaginary fashion show runway. Jane waited until Mindy pivoted to face her before speaking. “This is good.” She nodded and pointed, directing her finger from Mindy’s shoulders all the way to her ankles. “This is very good. In fact, this is tonight’s outfit.”

  “You think?” Mindy thought so, too, but wanted to hear Jane’s reasoning.

  Jane kept nodding. “It says confident but not brash. It says stylish but not over-dressed. Most importantly, it says, ‘I didn’t labor over this outfit. It’s just what I happened to pull out of my closet this morning.’ It’s perfect.”

  “All right then. Sold, to the panicky redhead in the corner.”

  Just as Mindy was about to slip back into the dressing room, Jane gasped. “Oh, look! A whole rack of discount bikinis!”

  Mindy turned to see Jane holding up two small scraps of gold and brown cheetah print—but she shook her head. “I don’t need a new suit. I have that black one-piece I bought last year.” Jane, she had discovered, was great at finding things she thought Mindy should spend money on.

  “One-piece, schmun-piece—you need a fun piece. A fun two-piece, that is.” Jane jiggled the hanger, making the bikini dance.

  “I’m not that big of a pool girl. I freckle.” Mindy rolled her eyes. “Besides, where on earth would I wear that?”

  “Well, if things don’t work out with Benton, you could take a trip. To the beach. Where they have cute lifeguards. You could fake a drowning.”

  “Jane, I’ve had enough faking to last me a lifetime.” She put her hands on her hips. “And are you saying you don’t think tonight will go well? You don’t think I should do it?”