He tried a little teasing. "You still haven't told me what's in them."
She teased right back. "And I'm not going to, either."
Relief washed through him. The evening would be all right, after all. "Why not?"
Her smile turned mysterious. "A woman has a right to a secret or two."
"What does that mean?"
"Forget it. I'm not telling you now."
"When, then?"
"You'll see…"
* * *
Chapter Eighteen
« ^ »
The next morning, Lee pretended to be sick. When the alarm went off, she rolled over and moaned, "Oh, Derek. I feel awful."
He canted up on an elbow and leaned over her, his handsome face tight with concern. "What's wrong?"
"My throat's all scratchy and my head aches."
He laid a hand on her forehead. "No fever."
She tried to look miserable, even let out another moan. "I just ache all over."
"Congestion?"
"Not yet. But I really feel awful."
He said what she'd intended for him to say. "You'd better just stay in bed today."
And she—so regretfully—agreed with him. "All right. Maybe I can beat this before it really takes hold."
He got up and found her some Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. Then he put on his clothes. Before he left, he disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a pitcher and a glass. "Here. Ice water. Drink lots of liquids, okay?"
"I promise."
He set the glass and pitcher on the nightstand and then stood by the bed and looked down at her sympathetically.
"Don't kiss me," she said, playing her role to the hilt. "I could be contagious."
He felt her forehead again. "I'd still say you don't have a fever." She moaned some more and stirred around under the covers, as if her body ached so much she just couldn't get comfortable. He frowned at her in concern. "Don't get out of bed unless you have to."
"Yes, Doctor." She let out a long, sad sigh.
"I'll call you around noon, to see how you're doing."
Her pulse accelerated. Having him call her wasn't part of her scheme. "You know, as soon as I give Jack a call to let him know I won't be in, I thought I'd turn off the ringer of the phone in here. Uninterrupted rest, that's really what I need."
Derek reached for the phone and turned off the ringer himself. "I'll tell Jack you won't be in. And I'll be back as soon as I finish my rounds tonight."
She granted him a wobbly, pitiful, sick-person smile. "I'll be here."
"I'll lock the door on the way out. And tonight, I'll just let myself in, so you won't have to get up."
"You have your key?" she asked. He held it up for her to see. She'd given it to him the day after he proposed, just as he had given her back the key to his place. "Good," she said. "See you tonight."
He left at last.
She waited to throw off the covers until a full five minutes after she heard his Suburban start up and drive away.
Lee managed to get a ten-thirty appointment with someone named Margie at the Savoir-Faire Salon.
"So what can I do for you today?" Margie asked brightly, once she had Lee trapped in her big black chair with a plastic apron cinched tight around her neck.
Lee looked at Margie in the mirror. She was tiny, with unbelievably red hair cut in a very short shag. She wore a tight purple shirt and a short, tight black skirt. She could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty. With all that makeup on, who could say for sure?
Lee felt a sharp stab of apprehension. Maybe she should have called Dana or Katie and asked for their help and advice. They would at least have given her referrals to their own hairdressers.
But then they'd just want to know why she'd suddenly decided to pay attention to her looks. One way or another, they'd pry the truth from her. She'd end up detailing all of her foolish, embarrassing insecurities. They'd get her to reveal everything, to go into all the grim details—from the depressing advice her mother had given her to the awful middle-of-the-night scene with Derek's brother, where he'd said she was skinny. And needed a haircut. And not up to Derek's standards at all.
Then they'd pry from her how Derek had actually tried to make her feel better by lying to her. That he'd looked right in her eyes and told her she was beautiful.
Beautiful.
She still felt awful every time she thought of that.
Then, once they'd made her tell all, they'd defend her. They'd say she looked just fine as she was. That her mother saw the worst in every situation and that Derek's brother needed therapy. That the last thing she should do was to listen to a hopeless pessimist and a ne'er-do-well drunk.
She'd tell them that she knew they were right. And at the same time, down inside, she'd be thinking that Ina Murphy and Larry Taylor might both need counseling, but the harsh things they'd said still rang true.
And Lee intended to do something about the problem. She would make a few changes. A few … improvements. And she would do it now and get it over with, before she got cold feet and talked herself out of it.
Derek loved glamour and beauty in women. She knew it. She'd seen the women he'd chosen before he'd run into her.
Lee couldn't give him beauty.
But glamour…
Well, she could at least take a shot at it. She'd get her hair fixed and buy some makeup. She'd put on some of the new, provocative clothes she'd bought yesterday.
And she'd meet Derek at the front door looking stunning—please God—when he came home from Memorial this afternoon.
"Er … are you all right?" Margie asked.
"Why?"
"You have a sort of blank look on your face. And you didn't answer my question."
Lee met Margie's eyes in the mirror again. "What question?"
"The question of what I can do for you today?"
Lee gulped—no mean feat, with the tie of Margie's plastic apron cutting into her windpipe. "I want a total and complete makeover."
Margie's brown eyes widened. "You were so smart to book four hours."
"I expected it would take some time."
"Hmm. You'll want a shampoo and cut…" Margie began.
"…And a perm. And I want some advice about makeup. Can you do all that?"
"Hair is my department. But the salon does have a cosmetics consultant. I'll turn you over to her as soon as you and I are done."
"Fine."
"Would you like to see our manicurist, too? You could get a good nail wrap from her."
"Yes. I want long nails."
"And you know, Lee, sometimes it helps to start with a massage and mud wrap—to make you feel pampered. What would you say to that?"
Lee considered, but then shook her head. "Let's just stick to the exterior improvements, all right?"
"Whatever you'd like."
"I'd also like my hair color changed."
"To what?"
"Blond."
Periodically throughout the day, Derek found himself wishing he hadn't unplugged Lee's bedside phone. He wanted to call her, just to see that she was doing all right.
He couldn't help worrying about her. In spite of her lack of fever, she'd really seemed miserable that morning. He hoped she'd stayed in bed the way he'd told her to, and kept getting the liquids down.
The director of nursing had found a temp R.N. to cover for Lee. And the patient load that day wasn't too bad. Derek finished his rounds by four forty-five and dictated his remaining patient summaries quickly. At five-fifteen, he pulled out of the hospital's parking lot.
Halfway to Lee's place, he stopped at a café and picked up a quart of chicken soup. It was quarter of six when he let himself quietly in her front door.
"Hello, Derek."
He pushed the door shut behind him and stood there, clutching the container of soup, gaping at the strange blond woman in the tight red skirt.
Her red lips vamped a smile. "What's that?" She pointed a long, crimson nail at the containe
r in his hand.
"Soup," he croaked.
"Oh, Derek," she simpered. "You brought me soup."
That was when the truth hit him.
In total disbelief, he heard himself whisper, "Lee?"
She came sauntering up to him on red high heels. He found himself staring at her chest, which somehow, between that morning and that moment, appeared to have grown a pair of ripe, round-looking breasts.
She slipped her arms around him and tipped her face up to his. Those breasts that belonged on someone else brushed his chest. She smelled … different. Wrong. Of some musty perfume that wasn't her at all. "Surprise," her red mouth whispered.
This close, he could see the makeup, so thick on her face. She actually had shadows painted on, to make her nose look thinner and her cheekbones more prominent.
"What do you think?" she asked huskily.
He thought he couldn't breathe. "You said you were sick." It came out sounding like an accusation.
A shadow of hurt moved across her face, under all that paint. "Derek. I asked what you think of my new look."
He didn't want to answer that. No way. He accused again, "So you weren't sick, then. Right? It was all a big act."
Her lip started to quiver a little. Then it stopped. She assumed that come-hither smile again. "I wanted to surprise you."
He took her by the upper arms and peeled her off of him enough that he could meet her heavily made-up eyes. "Well. You succeeded. I'm surprised."
She stared at him for a moment and then she pulled free of his grip. "You hate it."
He knew with stunning clarity that whatever he said next would be wrong.
She stumbled backward a little, on those heels that she wasn't used to wearing. "You hate it." Her voice went shrill. "Just say it. Just tell me the truth."
"Lee—"
"Just tell me! Just say it. I want to know." So he told her. "All right. I hate it. You look like hell."
She gasped and put her hand against those too-red lips. From behind that fringe of false eyelashes, her eyes went wide, brimming with hurt.
He felt like a jerk. Why lately, with her, did he always end up feeling like a jerk? "Lee," he tried one last time. "What is going on with you?"
She blinked, took her hand away from her mouth and drew her shoulders back. "Nothing."
"That's pure garbage. Something is wrong."
"There's nothing. Really. I only wanted to please you. I wanted to try to be the kind of woman you like so much."
He let out a short, succinct expletive and then pointed the soup at her. "Look. I didn't ask you to do this. I didn't even hint that I wanted you to do this. I told you the other night what I thought of you, just as you are."
Her eyes went as hard as chips of ice. "Right. You said I was beautiful."
"And you are, damn it. Or at least, you were."
She whispered furiously, "Liar."
He felt as if she'd kneed him where it would hurt the most. He plunked the damn soup down on the coffee table and then threw up both hands. "This is a setup. No matter what I do, I lose."
"That's ridiculous," she hissed.
"No, it's the truth. Something really stinks here. Any fool could see that something's eating you, but you keep saying it's not. And now you've gone and done this … thing to yourself. And if I say it looks fine, then you know I'm lying. And if I go ahead and say I hate it, then you can call me a damn heartless creep."
He knew he'd hit a nerve with that. Her eyes shifted away. "That's not so. I told you. I only did this to please you."
"Like hell you did."
She sank to the couch then, and hung her fake blond head. And then she said the words that he knew had been hovering in the back of her mind for days now. "Derek, maybe this isn't going to work out."
He felt a great stillness then. An emptiness that echoed, down deep inside. Out of that stillness, he heard himself ask, "What isn't going to work out?"
She looked up, into his eyes. "You and me."
He wanted to grab her, shake her, shout at her. But he only said in a flat voice, "You mean you want to break off our engagement."
She was already tugging on her ring. "Yes. I do. I think it's for the best." She slid it free of that red-tipped finger and held it out to him.
He made no move to take the damn thing from her, only asked, very reasonably, "This is what you've been after all along, isn't it?"
Those perfectly arched eyebrows that someone had painted on her forehead drew together as she frowned. "No. No, of course not."
"Lee. Ever since I asked you to marry me, you've been pulling away."
"No, I—"
"Yeah. You have. And I can't for the life of me figure out why. I may have been a pompous ass until you came along, but I've done my damnedest to make a change. And the last thing I want now is for you to change. I love you, Lee. Just the way you are. Or were."
Her face started to crumple then. He could see the tears coming, though she bravely bit them back. "Oh, Derek. I—"
"What? You what?"
"I just … can't do this. I can't be what you want."
"But you are what I want. Why won't you believe me?"
"Because real life is no fantasy. Because in real life, you'll get tired of me, I know it."
"Damn it, Lee. Haven't we been through this?"
She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Yes. I know. We have."
"I told you you're no novelty to me."
"I know you did."
"But you never heard it, did you? You never believed."
She bit her quivering lip and shook her head. Derek understood then what futility really was. "You know, there's not a hell of a lot of hope for us, if you refuse to believe the things I say."
"I … I know that."
"You know it," he repeated her words, feeling weary to his core. "But still, you don't believe me."
She closed her fingers around his ring and wrapped her other hand around her tight fist. "I wish I could believe you."
"But you don't."
"Oh, Derek…" She seemed to have no idea how to go on. Instead she peeled her outer hand away and held out the one with the ring in it again. "Please. Just take it."
He looked at the damn thing. "Don't do this, Lee."
"Just take it."
"Don't give me so little credit, don't treat me like I'm not even really here. Like I'm someone you made up. Some … fantasy of yours. Someone without enough guts or substance to stick by you, someone who doesn't even know his own mind."
"I just … I can't…"
"You've said that. You've said it over and over again. And always, in the end, you found out you could."
"Not this. Not … forever. Forever doesn't last."
"That's something your mother would say. You're not your mother, Lee."
"I know that."
"I don't think so. Not deep down. It looks to me like, deep down, in the most secret part of yourself, you believe that you're just like your mother. And where does that leave me? Except to play your dear old dad all over again, and walk out on you?"
She only stared at him, pale eyes shimmering with barely held back tears. Then she looked down at the floor again.
"Look at me, damn it," he commanded.
Her head bobbed up and she met his eyes.
"I can't keep trying, Lee. Keep knocking myself out. I can't reach for you and reach for you, if you won't reach back."
"I know," she got out on a whisper.
His anger flared again. "You know. You know?"
She winced as if he'd slapped her, then she whispered once more, "I do. Yes. I know."
He stared at her, hopelessness rolling over him. At that point, finally, he ran out of anger, out of arguments, out of the will to keep trying to get through to her. He asked, softly now, "Is this really what you want?"
She nodded.
"All right, Lee. I'll give you what you want." He extended his palm. Into it, she dropped the shining circle of go
ld with its single gleaming diamond.
He stuck the thing in his pocket and left her there.
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
« ^ »
Lee's tears, so tightly held in check while Derek loomed above her, dried to nothing without falling as soon as he walked out the door.
She sat there on the sofa, her hands clasped stiffly in the lap of her tight red skirt, for the longest time.
Eventually she kicked off the silly red high heels. She stood, very carefully, the way a drunk would stand, extremely conscious of the possibility that she just might lose her balance and end up toppling to the floor.
Once she was on her feet, she aimed herself at the small bathroom in the tiny hall between her bedroom and the spare room. There, taking great care not to look in the mirror over the sink, she stripped off the red skirt and matching jacket, the black garter belt and stockings, the tiny red bikini panties and the padded bra.
She turned on the shower and waited for the steam to rise. When it did, she got under it.
She took a cloth and the soap and she worked up a lather. And then she scrubbed her face until it burned. She poured on shampoo and lathered every last bit of spray and mousse out of her hair. Then she rinsed, for a long time, watching the soap foam run down the drain. Finally she turned off the water and reached for a towel.
She dried herself roughly, scouring the drops of water from her skin. And then she got the little pair of manicure scissors from the bathroom drawer and sliced off those silly long red nails. Tomorrow, after work, she'd buy some remover and get rid of the red polish.
She froze, with the little scissors poised to cut the nail from her pinky.
After work.
Dear Lord.
How would she get through that? Working with Derek, every single day…
A small, tight sob escaped her. She sucked in air and held it.
She would get through it. Somehow. And if it turned out to be impossible, she'd examine other options.
And there was certainly no point in dwelling on it now.
Slowly, she let out the breath she was holding. She cut off the last long red nail and pulled open the drawer to put the scissors away.
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