This time, the machine picked up after two rings, and his mother continued, “Betsy unrolled a sketch she bought at some charity auction in Indiana. It’s signed ‘Mercer,’ and she wanted to know if it was mine. Is this your handiwork? Are you starting to pick up your art hobby after all these years? You can’t just sign your work ‘Mercer,’ dear. I’m Mercer. And if you intend to—”
Again the machine cut her off, and Christian continued to paint, although Bianca sat up with a contemplative expression. The third time the phone rang, Christian’s death grip on the brush was a clear sign of his internal fury. Bianca narrowed her eyes.
“If you intend to try your hand at art again, then I insist you join me in New York and find someone to study with, Chrissie.” Christian was startled when Bianca jumped to her feet and crossed the room to the desk, unplugging the phone as his mother was saying, “Your technique has always been—”
“That’s better,” Bianca said when his mother’s voice was cut off. She glanced around with a frown until she spotted the stereo, and after pawing through his CDs, selected one and put it in. The room resounded with the first notes of Chopin, and Bianca lowered the volume a notch, then appeared to be satisfied. She turned to stare at him. “You look hot. I’m sorry to interrupt you again, but I’m getting us both some water. Is there anything else you need from the kitchen?”
“No, thanks,” Christian said.
Bianca started to leave, then turned back and reached for his cell phone, examining it until she figured out how to turn it off. “Keep painting,” she ordered and left the room.
Christian looked at the canvas and, after a few seconds, reached for a different brush and went back to work.
27
He’s a Magic Man, Mama
Vienna practically collapsed into the chair, thankful to finally be away from work and sitting in Die Mondeklipse Weingarten. Immediately after being seated, she ordered a glass of wine without the slightest bit of guilt. She knew she should have stayed at Drayden’s through her lunch break to make sure her plan was carried through to fruition, but she had faith in her boys. Besides, she’d come up with the plan. Wasn’t that enough?
Her wine arrived, and she took a grateful sip before ordering a pastrami on rye. She was famished. She’d been working nonstop for six hours because of the ongoing Planter’s Day Sale and still had to return for another several hours of work. Vienna hated working during sales and cursed herself for not quitting beforehand, as she usually did. But the Planter’s Day Sale had crept up on her. She blamed Natasha. If she hadn’t been so focused on taking care of Derek and saving him from Natasha’s evil clutches, she would have found another job by now.
Vienna allowed herself to admit that being offered a promotion played a small part in her decision not to leave Drayden’s sooner. She still hadn’t accepted or declined the offer. It was far too busy in the store for anyone to follow through and force an answer from her. Not until the sale was over, which gave her another week or so to make up her mind. Or to find another job.
Vienna sipped her wine and looked at her watch. Christian should be at Drayden’s keeping an eye on Women’s Shoes so Derek could carry out his part of the plan without interruption. She’d bribed one of the boys in Shipping to hold off that day’s shoe delivery until the middle of the day. She rolled her eyes, remembering how difficult it was to persuade him to leave the boxes in the middle of the sales floor, since it would put him at great risk of incurring Natasha’s wrath. It had cost her forty dollars, but it would provide the diversion Derek needed to do his deed. With Christian there to make sure everything went off without a hitch, she was fine to actually sit down for a few minutes and rest her aching butt. She closed her eyes and began to massage one of her feet.
“I’d be glad to do that for you while you enjoy your wine.”
“Cart Man,” she said without opening her eyes. She leaned back in her chair, extended her leg, and felt two strong hands move her foot into his lap. She sighed as he began to rub her instep. “You don’t know how good that feels.”
“I hear that slaying dragons is rather hard on the feet,” Cart Man said.
“Did I say dragons? I meant deer. One big-mouthed Deere in particular,” Vienna said.
She opened her eyes and found Cart Man smiling appreciatively at her. She smiled back but shook her head in amazement at the same time. Even though they’d had a few conversations here and there, he was still a stranger, and she couldn’t believe she was letting him rub her feet. She chalked it up to the wine, which she assumed was beginning to go to her head.
“I didn’t know it was deer season,” Cart Man said.
“It’s open season on Our Miss Deere,” Vienna said.
“So the deer has a name,” Cart Man said. “Give me your other foot, please. Thank you.”
“Please don’t tell me you know her. I’d hate to have to poison you or something if you tried to interfere.”
“It wouldn’t work. I know my poisons. Don’t forget my mother’s birds. Don’t worry. I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Cart Man assured her. “I have no intention of interfering in whatever you’re doing. However, if I can be of any assistance, please let me know. I love a good prank. Besides, if my helping you would expedite things and free you to go out with me—”
“I’m a big girl,” Vienna interrupted. “I can handle things on my own, thank you.”
“That was never in question,” Cart Man said, still smiling. When her sandwich was put down, he offered, “Should I give you the full treatment and feed you?”
“After you touched my feet? I think not,” Vienna said and took a hearty bite of pastrami on rye.
As she chewed, Cart Man said, “Now that your mouth’s otherwise engaged, let me tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to going out with you. How beautiful I think you are. How much I love that tiny mole near your eye and often think about it before I fall asleep at night. How just being able to humbly rub your feet for you gives me more pleasure than you’d ever imagine.”
Vienna was suddenly glad she’d ordered pastrami, since it required a lot of chewing and gave her time to formulate a tactful response to Cart Man’s words. She wondered how long she could get away with chewing. Maybe if she chewed long enough, he’d just go away. But she had only a half hour, ten minutes of which had already gone by, and she couldn’t be late returning for work or Meg would probably kick her ass.
Cart Man was grinning again. Vienna studied his teeth, which were perfectly straight and gleaming white, and she wondered if he’d worn braces. Even sitting down with her foot in his lap, he looked tall. His skin was flawless, save for a small scar near his eyebrow. She imagined that he’d been a rough-and-tumble sort of youth who probably got into all sorts of trouble. She wondered what path had led him to the mall, how he’d ended up behind a cart, and if he was ambitious enough to want more from his life.
She was somewhat ashamed to realize that she was embarrassed at the idea of going out with Cart Man. There was a caste system in Mall of the Universe, a fact she couldn’t deny. Everybody knew it. The people who worked in the hotel and the anchor stores were at the top of the pyramid. Next came the smaller boutique employees, then the attractions staff, and after them, the food court workers. Somewhere at the bottom were the Cart People and the mall’s service staff. The different groups never associated with one another. Vienna wouldn’t even consider having lunch with a food court employee, or “foodie,” as they were commonly known. She would never see a movie with one of the parking attendants. She was always polite to everyone in the mall. Friendly, even. Which invited them to be nice to her in return, offering gossip and information as needed. But she never associated with them after hours.
Still chewing, she regarded Cart Man with trepidation, resisting the urge to look around and make sure nobody she knew was watching them. She was reminded of DeWitt and how he’d made her feel about herself. How petty her job really was, and how unnecessary it sometimes se
emed to spend every dime on designer this, that, and the other thing.
But in spite of his station, Cart Man was extremely appealing. She liked the way the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. She figured it meant that he laughed a lot. Vienna decided she could use a little more laughter in her life. That was why she liked Davii so much. And Derek.
As she finally swallowed, Cart Man said, “I’ve taken up enough of your time for one day.” He gave her foot a firm squeeze, gently placed it on the floor, and rose to leave.
“Wait!” Vienna exclaimed, dropping her sandwich on its plate. She saw crumbs falling to the floor from her blouse as she jumped up and felt a little foolish, but she didn’t care. “I don’t know how strict your work schedule is, but I have another break later. Probably in four hours. It’s just a half hour, but we could do something.”
“I was hoping for dinner and a movie,” Cart Man admitted.
“I can’t promise anything like that for a while. We’re in the middle of a hellish time at work, and I’m working longer hours. In fact, I need to get back now.” She riffled through her purse and dropped some money on the table, then picked up her sandwich and said, “I hate to eat and run, but I’m a busy career gal and all that. So what do you say? Meet me in four hours on the Earth level outside Drayden’s?”
Cart Man bowed slightly and said, “I’d be honored to spend any amount of time with you.”
Vienna felt flushed as she walked back to Drayden’s. She felt like she had a secret, which made her happy. She loved anything clandestine and sneaky. Which reminded her of her other furtive duties. She pitched the remaining half of her sandwich into a garbage can before running into Drayden’s. After punching back in at the time clock, she meandered slowly through the stockroom, hoping to encounter Derek and assess the status of Operation Deere Slayer. But she saw only Tremaine, one of the stockroom associates, who was loading stacks of shoeboxes onto a shelf.
“You got a shipment this late in the day?” Vienna asked.
He stopped his work, wiping sweat from his brow. “Yeah. Can you believe it? The stupid Shipping dude left the carton on the sales floor, too. He must have been new or something. Anybody with half a brain knows you don’t do that. Of course, the bitch took it out on me.” Vienna didn’t have to ask who he meant. “Somehow it was my fault. She started yelling at me, but I cut her off, saying, ‘Don’t worry, Miz Natasha! I put dem boxes on duh shelves fo’ you real good! You don’t need to whup me!’ That shut her up. Haven’t seen her for about an hour, in fact.”
Vienna smiled, then asked, “Have you seen Derek?”
“Nah. Not for a while. He must be on break or something.”
Vienna thanked him and walked away, assuming that everything was going according to plan, since Christian and Derek were both gone. She returned to her counter to find Meg at her most hostile, growling something about the world being filled with bitches and how Bianca had gone home because of a stomachache. Vienna had little time to wonder if the two were related, because their counter was swamped with women wanting the Gifts with Purchase that came with buying different Lillith Allure combinations.
Vienna hated sales because they attracted the worst possible customers: tightwads who wanted everything for nothing, who didn’t care about Drayden’s stellar customer service, and most of whom were downright rude. Enticed into the store by deep discounts, they couldn’t understand why nothing in her department was marked down, and she heard herself repeatedly explaining that cosmetics and fragrances never went on sale; discontinued items sold at the normal price until they were gone; they’d run out of free samples by the third day of the sale; and the Gift with Purchase came only when a customer spent a certain dollar amount.
Four hours later, a beleaguered Vienna was relieved by the Cosmetics manager so she could take another break. She’d been yelled at, had generally been hassled by everyone, and had even had one customer throw a compact at her head when Vienna told her that it wasn’t on sale.
Cart Man was waiting for her outside the Drayden’s entrance. When he saw her weary gait, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and didn’t want to move. Ever.
“Those women are all insane,” she said. “It’s makeup, for God’s sake. I’ve never been that aggressive over a tube of lipstick in my life. Or anything.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Cart Man said. “You strike me as the kind of woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.”
“Well, yeah,” Vienna agreed, carefully extricating herself from his arms. “But I’d never spit at anyone. Someone actually spit at Meg. Can you believe it? I need a drink. Let’s get the hell away from this joint.”
Moments later, they were sitting in the courtyard outside the planetarium, each sipping an ice cream float paid for by Cart Man. He’d insisted on buying them and called them therapy. Vienna had to admit that she felt soothed by the taste of the vanilla ice cream mingling with the sharp carbonation of the soda. It reminded her of riding her bike in the summertime as a little girl, collecting discarded bottles from the side of the road so she could redeem them at the drugstore in exchange for an ice cream soda or a candy bar. Suddenly she wanted a Mars bar, too.
She realized Cart Man was staring at her, which made her blush. “I was just having a sense-memory moment,” she explained. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m wondering what you’d rather be doing,” Cart Man said.
“I’m right where I want to be,” Vienna said.
“I don’t mean now,” Cart Man explained. He seemed to rethink what he’d just said, and amended, “Maybe I do. I mean with your life. I don’t want to offend you, but I think you’re a whole lot smarter than the average cosmetics salesperson.”
Vienna laughed and said, “I’m not offended. But I can’t speak for my co-workers. Some of them are quite dedicated to the world of cosmetics. It’s not a bad job. It can be fun sometimes. But to answer your question, no, it’s not what I want to do with my life. I guess I’m in a holding pattern. Trying to figure it all out. But I know I won’t be doing it forever. How about you?”
“Same here. I know I’m low man on the totem pole in this mall. But I don’t mind. This is a fun place,” he said, looking around them. “I don’t know how many times I’ve circled this mall, and I always see something new. New people, new stores, you name it. There’s magic all around us.” He looked at Vienna again and said, “I know I’ve tried this before, but would you please have dinner with me tonight?”
Vienna realized that he was right. There must be magic in Mall of the Universe. It had made Derek appear out of thin air. It had found Davii a fabulous new life. It made funny things happen when she was bored. But how much of that was her own doing? Or fate? Regardless, she couldn’t deny the magic that was happening between her and Cart Man. She resisted the voice screeching inside her head—her mother’s voice—that said, A white boy? You know what that got you last time. Divorced, that’s what!
“I’d love to,” Vienna said and happily sipped her ice cream float.
A few hours later, she was looking at Cart Man’s face in the warm glow of candlelight and decided she’d never seen anyone more handsome. His eyes danced, matching the candle’s flame as it sputtered and flickered like an angel dancing on the head of a pin. She stared into his eyes as she sipped red wine from a paper cup and attempted to twirl spaghetti onto a plastic fork. They both laughed when Cart Man’s forkful of pasta stubbornly unwound midway to his mouth and seemed to leap from his fork, plummeting to the floor like a suicide victim.
“This seemed more romantic in the planning stages,” Cart Man said apologetically.
Vienna shifted on her stool, leaning across the surface of the cart to pat his arm, and said, “It’s fine. Really. This is nice. I love the mall after hours. It’s so quiet in here.”
Cart Man opened one of the drawers in his cart and said, “Let’s see if you’re telling me the truth.
Ah. Here we are.” He held up a ring with a large oval stone and beckoned for Vienna’s finger. He slid the ring on and said, “Mood rings never lie.”
“I’m going to ignore the implication that I’m untruthful. Instead, I’ll silently wonder about your trust issues,” Vienna said, holding up her hand and watching as the stone turned a murky blue. “I haven’t seen one of these things in years. I used to wonder how they work.”
“They’re magic,” Cart Man said and laughed when Vienna rolled her eyes.
“What does blue mean?”
“Is it dark blue, or just regular?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Vienna said.
“Let’s see,” he said and took her hand. They leaned over the cart, heads almost touching as they examined the ring. “Blue means you’re calm.”
“I’m definitely calm,” Vienna agreed, although she also felt a little nervous. She didn’t know if it was her rapid heartbeat or the silly ring, but she felt half her age. She tried to remember her first date, but it seemed like a hundred years ago. What was the boy’s name? Frank something? They’d gone to see a movie, and she remembered being annoyed that he hadn’t tried to kiss her. She looked at her hand, framed by Cart Man’s, and liked the way they looked together. His hands were warm and comforting. She wanted him to kiss her. She succumbed to her true feelings and said, “Maybe I’m not as calm as I thought.”
Cart Man frowned playfully, pretending to study the ring more intently, and said, “Yes. I see what you mean. This is definitely dark blue. Romantic.”
“That sounds about right,” Vienna said.
“Passionate,” Cart Man said, staring at her.
“Yes,” Vienna confirmed, nodding when he leaned forward.
“Happy,” he whispered, his face inches from hers.
“Definitely,” she said. When he kissed her, she was ecstatic. Her entire being was focused on the moment, carefree and satisfied.
“I hope this is okay,” he said, his hand on her cheek, thumb lightly brushing her lips. She nodded, and he asked, “Would you like to see my place? I’m not pushing. I’m not suggesting that we—”
Someone Like You Page 28