Skinny Dipping

by Connie Brockway

  “I work out.” He bounced her up higher in his arms. He didn’t seem to be straining and his heart against her side wasn’t pounding too heavily and he wasn’t all red in the face. So, he probably wasn’t about to stroke out. That was good. Still—

  “Come inside until the news is over; then you can go.”

  “The news?” he said. “Hey. I have my dignity, too. If I come in, I’m staying more than twenty minutes.”

  He had a point. Not a good one, however. He wouldn’t ever have to face her neighbors. “We’ll see,” she allowed.

  He dipped forward and planted a deep kiss on her mouth, twirled halfway around, and backed into her apartment, kicking the door closed behind them. Once inside, he stopped and looked around. She followed his gaze, trying to see the apartment through his eyes.

  It would look cheap. Not cheap as in slatternly, but cheap as in warehouse-clearance-sale affordable. Unsurprising, since that’s where she’d gotten the cranberry-colored, microfiber five-piece living room suite (sofa, chair, ottoman, coffee table, and lamp). A crocheted rug was heaped at one end of the bean bag chair a former tenant had left behind. It had some crumbs on it. Across the back of the armchair were strewn a half dozen of the couture dresses Ozzie had insisted she take and try on before making her final decision about what to wear tonight. The price tags still dangled from the sleeves of a few.

  He’d also insisted she take the accessories that went with each dress, and these, shoes, jewelry, scarves, and even a faux fur shrug, were piled on the love seat. She hadn’t worn any of them. After all, she’d been given orders to wear Grandmother Charbonneau’s redesigned pearl and diamond necklace, which was just about as much glitz and glam as a woman could pull off in one sitting.

  In the corner, Grandmother Olson’s oak pedestal dining table acted as her desk, adorned with a laptop computer and a Bubble Jet printer. Writing tablets, magazines, and books overflowed the area next to it. Ceiling-tall twin bookcases she’d found at a garage sale flanked the single picture window. As well as books, they held useful things including a hair dryer, an unopened bag of tube socks, and a mini-microwave still redolent of last night’s popcorn. Opposite the window was the crowning glory of the room, a forty-inch flat-screen plasma television.

  Mimi loved television. It was her one vice, watching the drama surrounding a fictional cast of characters unroll on a weekly basis, their problems all tied up, their mysteries solved in an hour or, at most, a season. It was an extremely satisfying way of conducting life.

  Of course, up at Chez Ducky she didn’t need—wrong word—didn’t care to watch television. Aside from the fact that they wouldn’t get any decent reception even if she did haul one up there, there were other things to do and a cast of real people who interested her every bit as much as those on Heroes or House.

  “Nice,” Joe said. He didn’t sound like he meant it.

  She looked again. It wasn’t cluttered, it was comfy, she told herself. Sure, it needed vacuuming and dusting, but what home didn’t? “You can put me down now.”

  “Thank God.” He dipped and set her on her feet, straightening, with one hand going to the small of his back. “I gotta do more stretching in the morning.”

  “You didn’t have to stand there holding me. You could have put me down as soon as the door was closed.”

  “After that smart-ass comment about my knees buckling? Are you kidding? I had to uphold the honor of men over forty everywhere. I couldn’t suggest it. You had to.”

  “Men really are at the mercy of their testosterone, aren’t they?” she asked wonderingly.

  He nodded.

  “Do you ever grow out of it?”

  He shook his head. “Doubtful. I was thinking of trying to impress you by pounding my chest but realized I’d probably start hacking.”

  Nothing was guaranteed to make Mimi’s pulse jump faster more than a handsome, masculine, self-effacing guy. “Poor old geezer. How about I get you—”

  From inside her purse, her cell phone began playing a muffled version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” She had the cell programmed to play the song when she was receiving calls from Uff-Dead clients. “Dang.”

  She generally didn’t work at home—Ozzie had tax reasons for keeping his employees on-site—but on occasion, when they were short staffed, she’d have calls forwarded to her cell. Assuming she’d be back early from tonight’s party, she’d done so tonight in exchange for the loan of Ozzie’s gown. Befuddled by spiking sexual hormone levels, she’d forgotten.

  “Work. I usually don’t do this from my home.” She shrugged apologetically. She held a finger to her lips, signaling for him to stay mum, and opened the cell.

  “Hello. This is Miss Em. Have you pre-entered your credit card information using your telephone’s number pad?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t be talking to you if I hadn’t already been approved, would I?” a young woman replied.

  “Hello, Jess.” This was Saturday. Jess called only on Mondays. Something must be up. “What can I do for you this evening?”

  “You can tell me what Mom thinks I should do about Neil. He’s my boyfriend.”

  Boyfriend? This was new. “Tell me about it.”

  “He might be moving in here with me. We’ve been going out for a while now.”

  “For how long?” she asked.

  “Three weeks.”

  “That’s not very long,” Mimi cautioned.

  “What the hell do you know about it?” Jessica exploded. In the weeks since Mimi had answered Jessica’s first call, true to her prediction, Jessica had become her client-cum-problem. She’d play nice until Mimi, or rather Jessica’s mom, said something she didn’t like—which included pretty much everything—and hang up, only to call the next week.

  “Nothing. Not a thing.” She caught Joe’s eye. He was regarding her a little oddly, but then it was an odd profession.

  “Let me ask you something. Are you seeing the woman I told you about? Have you talked to her about this, too?”

  Mimi—and Jess’s mom—had been urging the girl to look for a good counselor. One who, they hoped, did not see any contraindication in letting Jessica have the occasional air-clearing talk with her mom’s spirit.

  “Yeah,” came the sullen reply. “She’s damn expensive! She says I got issues.”

  “Really?” Mimi tried to sound surprised. “Well, I’m glad you’re willing to pay. Believe me, it’s money well spent,” Mimi said, anticipating a blissfully Jessica-less existence.

  “Yeah, great, but I didn’t call to talk about my…about her. I want you to ask Mom what she thinks about me and Neil moving in together. I think he’s going to ask me soon, and while I really don’t care what Mom thinks, I figured I ought to give her a chance to bitch, seeing as how she enjoys it so much. She must really miss that. Hold on.”

  Somewhere in the background Mimi heard a young man’s voice calling, “Where are you, Jessie? You said you’d be right back and I’m lonely and the DVD is stuck again. Can you fix it?”

  Mimi heard the distinctive sound of a hand covering a mouthpiece and, through it, Jessica replying in a voice Mimi had never heard her use before, “I’ll be right there, Neilly!

  “I gotta go,” Jessica whispered into the phone. “Find out from Mom what she thinks about Neil.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll call later.” Jessica hung up.

  “I can’t wait,” Mimi muttered, closing her cell. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot I was, ah, supposed to work tonight. I didn’t think I’d be at the party long, so I signed up for the graveyard shift.” She grinned at her own wit. He didn’t. “Get it? Graveyard shift?”

  “Maybe I should go.”

  “No,” she said hastily. “Most calls don’t start coming in until after two. You know. People can’t sleep. They get themselves all twisted up with regret and recriminations….” She shrugged in a “who can tell why people do what they do?” gesture.

  He looked downright uneas
y.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t ask your dead aunt Nettie what you were like as a little boy.”

  “I don’t have an aunt Nettie.”

  “It was a joke.” Crap. He was definitely uneasy with her profession. “How about something to drink? I have pop, water, beer…”

  “Thanks. I could use a beer.”

  She started toward the kitchen.

  “That’s quite a television,” he said as she entered the tiny kitchen. “You must like television. A lot.”

  “The picture’s incredible. You have to see it to appreciate it. The control’s on the dining room table. Try it out,” she called as she opened the small refrigerator. She ducked down, peering over the stacked Tupperware containers for the last couple of bottles of Pete’s Wicked Ale she’d stashed and wondered whether animal crackers went with beer.

  Joe liked to think of himself as nonjudgmental. Spending two decades in international business working with cultural differences and personality types from across the spectrum, he’d had to be. But as he walked toward the oak table in Mimi’s apartment, he wasn’t so sure.

  No two ways about it, Mimi’s profession threw him off balance, and Mary Werner’s comments about her sister’s obvious—and apparently very recent—success at that job, especially in light of how Mimi didn’t receive any money from her mother, kept picking away at his comfort level. Sure, he’d ignored the uneasiness when he’d offered to take Mimi home. He’d ignored it when he’d leaned down to kiss Mimi good night. And he’d ignored it when their kisses exploded into passion. But as soon as that phone had started playing, his misgivings had come rushing back.

  The stack of couture dresses with their outrageous price tags, and boxes of shoes and other expensive accessories of similar quality, did nothing to diminish those misgivings. Neither did that incredible pearl and diamond necklace. None of it jibed with the bargain basement decor, unless she’d recently come into a windfall. Or somewhere earned a bonus. Maybe she’d channeled Bill Gates’s grandpa. Maybe she had—what would she call it?—a live one on the hook.

  He hated to entertain any such suspicions about her, but he was a realist, and everything he saw and had heard about her pointed to this as being the most reasonable explanation for what he saw. Except how much reason could enter into an explanation when you were talking about a mystic or ghost whisperer or psychic or whatever she was? Added to which, someone like her was completely out of his sphere of experience. He was floundering in his attempts to figure her out. Fraud? Or odd? Was there another choice?

  “Having trouble?” she called from the kitchen.

  “What?”

  “With the television. Use the POWER button, not the ON button. The ON just toggles from cable to antenna. I’ll be there in a jiff.”

  The remote. Oh, yeah. He bent over the dining room table but didn’t see it, so he started moving some of the piles of papers and found it lying—He stared.

  The remote was lying on top of a picture of Prescott holding a small moth-eaten-looking dog. Which made no sense. Prescott was horribly allergic to dogs along with ninety percent of everything else in the world.

  He picked up the photograph and his gaze fell on the picture beneath it. It was another one of Prescott, in different clothing but with the same dog. He picked this up, too, and beneath it found another picture of his kid.

  What the hell was going on here?

  Mimi Olson had mocked Prescott’s “lodge” and called Prescott pathetic. She’d pointed out his lack of friends and his isolation. She’d also pointed out how rich he was. And Prescott was infatuated with Mimi.

  Who could be more easily taken advantage of than Prescott? And who would be a better candidate for the “live one” he’d already suspected was hanging from Mimi’s hook? If there was a hook. Please, let there not be a hook.

  Maybe there was another explanation for why Mimi had printed out a dozen pictures of a misanthropic millionaire who had a crush on her. He just couldn’t think of any. He raked his hair back with one hand. He realized he was making a rush to judgment but…but Prescott was so damn naive in so many ways.

  “Still can’t figure out the remote?” Mimi backed into the room carrying a tray containing a couple bottles of beer, a box of Ritz crackers, and a plastic tub of something in a weird shade of orange with purple ripples running through it.

  “Yup. That’s right,” she chirruped, noting the direction of his gaze. “Port wine cheddar spread.”

  He had no idea what that was. “Oh.”

  She set the tray on the table and handed him a bottle of Pete’s Wicked Ale. She lifted her own. “Here’s to”—she puzzled a second before her face cleared—“letting the good times roll.”

  When he didn’t lift his beer bottle, she reached over and clinked the bottom of hers against his, then raised it to her lips.

  “Whatcha got there?” Mimi asked, nodding at the papers in his hand.

  He held them out and said in very measured, very careful tones, “Pictures of Prescott. What are you doing with them?”

  She lowered her bottle and tilted her head to look sideways at the papers in his hand. Color washed up her throat and tinted her cheeks. “Oh. Those. Prescott sent them.”

  “Why?”

  “I asked him to.” Her gaze flitted away from meeting his. “I mean, I didn’t ask him to send so many, but—”

  “Why?” Years of self-control stood him in good stead. His voice sounded reasonable, calm, not much more than curious, if a little insistent.

  “Why?” she echoed. She shrugged. “Because he wanted to. I think he’s lonely. I printed them off the e-mails he sent. Some of them are sorta cute. I think he uses a self-timer to get into the shot.”

  She leaned over the table and spread out the remaining pictures across the surface, selecting one and holding it up. “See? Kinda cute, right? Not the dog, of course. The dog is not cute. The way Prescott is holding the dog is cute. You can see he’s trying not to look sappy about the mangy mutt, but he is. Your son, I’m afraid, is an easy mark.”

  Easy mark? “Why does Prescott want to send you pictures of himself?”

  That got her full attention. She was standing close, bent over the table, and now she turned her head slowly. He could see every tiny line at the corners of her eyes, the way the curls in her hair spiraled, the skin across her breastbone where the sun had permanently stained it tan.

  He could also see the moment she realized the implications of his questions. The muscles in her neck tensed. “Why do you think?”

  He ignored the question, gesturing toward the dresses lying across the back of the chair and the boxes on the seat cushion. “Looks like you recently came into some money.” He tried to sound nonchalant. He failed and he knew it. “You win the lottery or something? Win big at the casinos?”

  “I don’t gamble.” Her voice was icy. “Why don’t you put into words what you’re thinking, Joe?”

  “You know what I’m thinking.”

  She waited a long minute, her eyes never leaving his, before answering. “I found that dog before I left Fowl Lake this summer. I was going to drive it to a shelter, but Prescott showed up and said he’d take it. I asked him to send me a picture of it because”—for the first time, she looked sheepish—“because I didn’t know if he’d take good care of the dog.”

  Joe looked at the pictures in his hand. Now that she’d drawn his attention to it, he realized that every single picture showed not only Prescott but the little mongrel. The tightness in his chest loosened incrementally. “Why would Prescott offer to take a dog? He’s allergic to dogs.”

  She’d stepped back, her easy manner notably absent. “I don’t know. He’s your son. Why don’t you ask him?” She picked up her cell phone and shoved it against his chest. “Do you need his number?”

  If he was just sending her occasional pictures, why would she have Prescott’s unlisted number? “You know his cell number?”

  “You don’t?” she countered.


  He was floundering. He couldn’t find his objectivity. He was used to forming quick but astute opinions. Not here. He didn’t trust his own judgment. He was acting like a boor, a fool, a foolish boor. She wouldn’t tell him to call Prescott if she had anything to hide. And who knew why Prescott kept the dog? Probably to impress her. After all, he seemed to think of her as a sort—

  She’d put the bottle back down next to one of Prescott’s pictures, and his gaze followed the motion. This picture had been taken in the lodge. In the background, on the fireplace mantle, Joe could clearly see a framed picture of Karen and Prescott. His unwilling gaze snapped to the stack of expensive clothing. She still hadn’t told him how she was able to afford the expensive dresses and jewelry. He wanted to shut up but he wanted to know even more. Had to know.

  “Did you tell Prescott you could get in touch with his mother’s spirit? Are you pretending to receive messages for him from her?”

  She’d been mopping up the sweat ring left by the beer bottle on Prescott’s picture, but that stopped her. She straightened.

  “I think you should go now.” Though her expression was cool, her voice quiet, her eyes were filled with hurt.

  “I have a right to know. I’m his father. He’s vulnerable and I don’t want him to be hurt.”

  “No, you don’t have the right to know,” she said. “And you’re asking because you don’t want him to be bilked by a fraud because that would make him look gullible, and in your book, that’s worse than being hurt.”

  “That’s not true,” he said stiffly.

  “Isn’t it? Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. But let me set your mind to rest. No. As far as I know, Prescott doesn’t have any idea what I do or who I am. And that makes him leagues ahead of his father in what he does know.”

  “You can’t be angry because I asked you if you offered your services to my son,” Joe said, stung. She wasn’t being rational.

  “Yes, I can.” Her lips were stiff, her skin ruddy. “You accused me of exploiting Prescott’s love for his dead mother for cash. I didn’t. I don’t. Now, good night. Good-bye.”