“You know what I mean, son?” His father thumped him on the back. “You can always tell the bitter spinsters, huh?”
“Sure, Dad.” He grinned. He and his dad had little in common, but every now and then he felt the father-son bond, even when he couldn’t agree with much that came out of Seth Wellington III’s mouth.
“You need to find out what her problem is.” Seth Wellington III punctuated this pronouncement with sharp jabs of his stick on the sidewalk.
“I need to?”
“You or I or whoever. Find out her problem with Aimee. With life. With her hormones. Whatever it is. We’re announcing Aimee as spokesperson tomorrow afternoon and we need her to back off before the reopening next week. Before those commercials launch. Media will be swarming.”
“I doubt we’ll be able to stop her. I think it would be unwise to get involved.”
“Gotta get your feet dirty sometime, son.”
Seth turned to him with narrowed eyes. “Meaning?”
“Wade into the muck, wrestle in it, get a mouthful and see how it tastes. You’re an observer, son, always have been.”
A slow burn started in Seth’s gut. Damn it, he’d given up the life he wanted to live for his father’s passion and his father’s dream and his father had the balls to criticize him for it?
He swallowed the temptation to light into dear old dad and concentrated instead on the last few yards remaining before they could go their separate ways.
“All right.” His father’s tone softened, all the apology Seth would ever get. “But I think she needs to be dealt with one way or another.”
Dad was right. But in ways he would never suspect. “If we contact her, we risk antagonizing her further.”
“Nonsense. She can’t go much further before she’s liable for slander.” He chortled and rubbed his hands. “Possibly we could nail her with a lawsuit. I’ll check into it.”
Seth shook his head. “She’d make public our attempts to shut her up. Then the board looks as foolish as Aimee.”
They reached the bottom of Joy Street. At long last. Seth’s father stopped and turned.
“I doubt that, Seth. Everyone has a price. You need to find out what this woman’s deal is, find out what she wants.” He reached forward and jabbed Seth’s shoulder. “And then, son, all you have to do is find some way either to give it to her or convince her she’d be much happier without it.”
9
December 15
OH GOODY. I CAN HARDLY contain my delight today. Seriously. Someone hold me down before I start gamboling about my apartment.
Aimee Wellington is going to write a novel!
Finally, finally, dear fans, we will all be able to read about—I quote—“like…my life, but not really.”
This is good! This is wonderful! Fans of fiction should be rejoicing everywhere at the chance to be able to read about, like…her life, but not really. At long last we can stop suffering through the tepid tedious prose of the masters and read a work by this woman, who is clearly a brilliant wordsmith.
For your reading pleasure, I quote again some choice pearls. “It’s going to have some, like, adventure and some stuff like that, you know, danger…and yeah, maybe even probably some sex in it, too.”
Followed by rapid girlish giggle and extended hair toss.
Followed by your blogger’s rapid greenish gargle and extended cookie toss.
But wait! There’s more! All those of you who stupidly bothered graduating from an institute of higher learning and/or have wasted time and money on the clearly ludicrous step of studying creative writing, who have slaved feverishly over your brilliant works only to encounter rejection after rejection or a lukewarm sale with a low advance that barely earns out, rejoice! Because there’s more for you to choke on!
Ms. Wellington’s advance is reputed to be…wait for it…
God, no, it’s such a travesty I can’t even bring myself to write it.
Way, way too much.
A dollar-fifty would be too much. The publishing world is bestowing an advance of six—count ’em and weep, fair readers—six big fat figures that would do the world so much more good donated to public schools, with instructions that kids be taught not to read crap like Aimee Wellington’s book.
Which, incidentally, she wanted titled “Aimee Aimée” (“ay-mee, ay-may”), which means Aimee Beloved, which means this blogger is heading for the toilet once again because one cookie toss simply wasn’t enough.
NEWS FLASH: Through an exclusive and utterly fictional arrangement with her publisher, we are able to excerpt her novel right here, right now, for those too curious to wait until it’s on the shelves.
Chapter One.
In which I am, like, born and everything.
So I was completely born on June nineteenth? Icky stuff, you totally don’t want to hear about that. And then my mother dressed me in this really cute outfit. And I was like so, so adorable and I know because I totally have pictures to prove it. And the silver spoon is right there in my mouth, too, because Daddy put it there for my very firstest picture ever! Which is right on this cute little page.
Wait, I’m bored, that was so much work, can I go shopping now?
Chapter Two next time. Until then, get real!
KRISTA PICKED A BOX of kids’ breakfast cereal off one of the lower shelves at her neighborhood Stop & Shop. The sugariest stuff was always there, bang at eye level for nagging little ones trailing mom.
Krista wanted to propose a “cranky consumer” column to Woman’s Week magazine, and what better place to start than in the cereal aisle? A small serving of some of these horrors contained a full tablespoon of sugar, nearly half the calories of the meal. Why not just sell vitamin-fortified sugar cubes and be done with it? She could start with cereal, then move on to the trend of disguising candy bars as healthy snacks and…She glanced to the side, registering an intruder.
Um, hello? Stranger danger?
A very, very large man, dressed mostly in black leather, had come up to stand next to her, way too close, not moving, and though her glance barely took him in, she had the distinct impression he was staring at her.
Unhappiness.
Too big for John Smith, plus his visual was provoking a negative ten on the bubbly attraction scale, which John’s wouldn’t.
She moved a step to the right, closer to cereals that promised to taste like a bowl full of cookies. And what mother in her right mind thought kids confusing meals and sweets was a good idea?
The man took a step to the right also and stood. Still close. Still silent. Still staring.
This was registering high on a different scale than bubbly attraction—the creepy creep scale.
She turned briskly and brandished the box between them, looking directly at him. To her surprise, his bearded face was mild and pleasant, his eyes dark and intelligent. The kind of guy you’d ask to wear the Santa suit at the Christmas party. “One of your favorites?”
He shook his head scornfully. “Too sugary.”
She smiled and pointed past him. “All-Bran’s down that way.”
“Not sugary enough.”
Well, then. She gave a thin smile and took three steps to her right this time, grabbing a box of cereal that promised to taste like a bowl full of donuts.
The large male body also took three steps to his right. Okay, now she was scared, Santa or no Santa. She turned again and took a step back. “Are you following me?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
“You Krista Marlow?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No.”
“Right.” He put beefy hands on meaty hips, which made his arms and chest look even larger. “What do you have against Aimee Wellington?”
Crap. Double crap. An obsessed Aimee fan. She didn’t have time for this. Nor did she relish the idea of her lifeless body being found here clutching two cereal boxes she wouldn’t be caught dead buying any other time. “Not a thing. Why?”
“Then why ar
e you printing such garbage about her on your site?”
“What site?” For God’s sake, get lost, big guy.
He moved a step closer; she barely managed to stand her ground, clutching the boxes to her body like shields.
“Don’t play stupid. Why are you so insistent on taking her down?”
A mom and her kids came down the aisle, giving Krista courage. Didn’t thugs have some mom-and-children code of honor? He wouldn’t kill her in front of them. Would he? “Because she is exactly as necessary to our cultural and spiritual well-being as this cereal is to the growing body of a child.”
Ha! That would stop him.
He shook his head, and Krista was struck again by how mellow he seemed in spite of his terrifying bulk. She didn’t get the feeling he was wound up and dying to use his fists. A gentle giant? “She’s just a kid.”
“Then she should leave the grown-up stuff to the grown-ups.”
He glanced at her cereal boxes and raised an eyebrow. “Uh…”
She wanted to roll her eyes. No matter what she said, she was going to sound like a guy claiming he bought Playboy for the articles. “It’s for a column.”
“Right.”
“On how people are losing their taste for anything of quality because they’re being force-fed crap by marketing and publicity machines.”
His eyes narrowed. He got the connection. Definitely not a dummy. “Aimee is having fun. She’s hurting no one.”
“What about all the people who deserve what she has through talent and a lot of extremely hard work and years of paying their dues?”
His expression cleared. “Is that what this is? You know someone like that?”
Bingo. She shrugged, but she had a feeling she’d been outed by her own zeal. Though if he knew enough about her to find her in a grocery store—shudder—he probably knew a whole lot about her. And Lucy. And was probably toying with her right now. “Maybe.”
“Look. I know she’s had a lot of stuff easy that other people want. But she’s had it tough, too. Money isn’t everything. She’s…” His face softened. “Searching. She’s still trying to figure out who she is, apart from being a Wellington. It’s hard because, being a Wellington, she has to go through the searching we all do—trying things out, making mistakes, trying something else—in public.”
“She doesn’t have to do it in public.”
He shook his head as if Krista was too stupid to live, and she wished he was small enough to beat up. “Did you ever have a part in a high school play? College? What was the last one you did?”
She had to think. “Anita in West Side Story.”
“And how good were you?”
“Merely adequate. But that’s my point. High school or college theatre is an appropriate arena for that level of trying out, but—”
“You’re telling me if some big shot had come up to you back then and said, hey, you’re fantastic, we want you to star in our Broadway-bound show, you would have said no, sorry, I don’t believe I’ve completed enough years of study to perfect my craft? At eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty-one?”
She blew out a breath, imagining the moment, able to picture her excitement perfectly. “No. Probably not.”
“But somehow Aimee’s supposed to have that kind of perspective.” He scrunched his lips in disgust. “Just think about it. And go easy on the poor kid. She’s crying every night because of the shit you say about her.”
He turned and walked past her, pausing to grab a box of Shredded Wheat ’N Bran, glancing at Krista’s sugarcoated sugar. “This is her favorite.”
And a perfectly timed exit at the end of the aisle.
Ouch.
She stayed where she was for several minutes, ignoring curious glances from other shoppers, making sure Mr. Black Leather had plenty of time to pay for his healthy cereal and leave.
She couldn’t say she was anxious to see him again.
Then she put her cereal back on the shelves and scooted out of the store, dropped a quarter in the Salvation Army bucket as she did every time she passed and started walking back down Cambridge Street toward Charles.
The air was cold and gray and damp; her mood plummeted to match. By the time she got home, it had started to sleet, a stinging, freezing, wet mess. Ho ho ho.
Perfect. Matched her mood.
Her apartment seemed dark and airless. She couldn’t get the image out of her head of Aimee Wellington crying. Over something she’d said.
She pulled up her e-mail. Note from her editor at the Sentinel. Note from Lucy. Note from a college friend.
She pulled up her Hotmail account, the address she’d given John Smith.
Nothing. That made three endless days since their date at the Ritz on Monday and not a word from him.
Great. Just dandy. Never mind that her life had veered from thrills to satisfaction to loneliness and finally the threat of despair without him. But what did she expect from a fantasy lover? E-mails every hour?
Actually after their extraordinary date in the hotel room, the incredible ease and intimacy of their conversation and the passion of their lovemaking, she’d expected to hear from him soon, yes. By now she’d been reduced to her list of maybes. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he was out of town. Maybe he’d lost her e-mail address.
Maybe he wanted to be gone.
Well, fine. She’d be better off without him and those memories driving her crazy, keeping her up at night. The pain would subside. The feelings weren’t real, they were based only on her ideal of who he could be.
Never mind that she’d connected with him on a more real level than any man she’d ever been with.
She turned on the TV, grabbed a bag of organic blue-corn tortilla chips and flopped down on her couch.
Nothing on. Soaps, local news, more local news and…
Whoa. She sat up straight, staring at the screen. Aimee freaking Wellington. At a press conference. Could Krista’s day get any weirder?
No one answer that. Next to Aimee, a guy who looked extremely familiar. He was just stepping down from the microphone—where had she seen that face before?
Aimee got up to the podium, and Krista studied her, crunching chips thoughtfully. She was young. Very young. Reading some prepared statement about how glad she was to be representing her family’s stores. All the while looking as glad as if someone had stuck her full of pins.
Interesting. Krista wasn’t going to start feeling sorry for her yet, but this was definitely…interesting.
Aimee turned the microphone back to the gorgeous guy next to her. He started speaking, but the announcer took over immediately, wrapping up the commentary on the company’s announcement. New look, new image, blah blah blah.
Krista stared at the man at the podium, still talking under the drone of the announcer’s words. He was so familiar. She had seen him or someone that looked like him…where?
For the second before the shot switched back to the studio, he turned toward the camera and she got a glimpse of his face at a different angle that placed him immediately.
She bounced back against the couch, chip halfway into her mouth. No way. No way! Must be someone who looked like him. Exactly like him. Freakily like him.
But for a crazy second she was positive he was the water-spilling guy in the booth behind her and Lucy at Thai Banquet two weeks ago. The guy who’d turned her inside out with a look. The guy who had fled the restaurant immediately after she’d spotted him. Aimee’s stepbrother, Seth.
Seth Wellington, sitting right behind her table while she and Lucy had talked about relationships and Christmas and Krista’s personal sexual fantasy. Ack!
Wait a second. She crunched her chip slowly…slower…stopped. Add to that the big guy today in the grocery store and this all started feeling very, very wrong. Where and who else? How many other times?
She swallowed her mouthful and closed the bag of chips, appetite gone.
Either she was getting extremely paranoid or the Wellington clan was keeping very close tabs o
n Krista Marlow.
LUCY SWIVELED BACK and forth in her office chair. If she was really going to do this, now was the perfect time. Her boss, Alexis, was out of the office in some important afternoon meeting. Most of her flunkies were out with her, including Josh. Lucy’s area was empty. A lot of the rest of the staff was still at lunch. No one would disturb her or make unexpected demands on her time. She could make this happen exactly the way she wanted it to go.
So.
She’d lain awake most of last night and the night before that trying to figure out what to say, how to ask him. Worrying over the wording, worrying over possible responses.
Enough worrying, enough being so Lucyish. The situation was becoming desperate and she needed to act.
She pulled up an e-mail, unable to dispel the surreal feeling that this wasn’t really happening, that she hadn’t really been pushed to this point. And yet, if it helped dispel the boredom, helped eliminate the rut…
If this affair could only do that, then it was the best idea she’d ever had.
Would he be angry she was after an affair with him? Think she was crazy? Or—the part that scared her most—not be willing to risk it?
She tabbed past the To field, too nervous to put in his name yet in case she hit Send by mistake before she was ready. She’d done that once with a strongly worded e-mail to a girlfriend in an abusive relationship, changed her mind about sending it and instead of hitting Delete, made a horrible finger slip it had taken her a long time to apologize for. This way she’d have every opportunity to chicken out if she lost her nerve. Which could happen.
Yikes. She was a mess.
Why wouldn’t she be? She didn’t exactly initiate affairs every day. And she couldn’t help feeling her entire future happiness rested on this decision and its outcome.
How to begin?
Hi.
Well, that was auspicious. A real attention grabber for sure. Now what? She closed her eyes, thought of Krista and her mystery man. Krista didn’t sit around analyzing forever. She saw, she wanted, she went. Exactly what the love doctor ordered. Lucy craved that kind of excitement, that secret thrill of the forbidden. Things with Link were so stale now, it had been way too long since she’d felt that vitally alive.
All I Want… Page 13