Leave it to Cleavage

by Wendy Wax

  chapter 16

  A ndie lay on the living-room couch and felt sorry for herself. Mrs. Smith had dropped off get-well balloons and a batch of oatmeal cookies, but her father was pissed off at her, her coach was pissed off at her, and the only reason everybody else wasn’t pissed off at her was that they were too busy laughing at her.

  Her right hand was propped on a pillow beside her, and she held the TV remote awkwardly in her left hand. When her father walked in to check on her, she was spoiling for a fight.

  “Hey, Andie. You need anything?”

  She kept her gaze on the TV screen, where a frustrated Wile E. Coyote was plotting yet another doomed trap for the Roadrunner.

  “Andie, I’m talking to you.”

  “No,” she grunted, not appreciating his tone. He wasn’t the one everybody was laughing at. And he wasn’t the one who wouldn’t be playing in the basketball championship—even though he sometimes acted like he was. “I mean, no, thank you,” she ground out, adding as much insolence as she thought she could get away with, given her injury and all.

  “Don’t take that tone with me,” he said. “I’m not the one who put myself out of commission with a pair of high heels.” He actually had the nerve to smile at her. “Well, at least now you have a good excuse to get out of that Rhododendron business.”

  She turned her head to meet his gaze for the first time since he’d entered the room. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you were injured in that class. I doubt anyone will expect you to continue.”

  She turned her head away and stared, unseeing, at the television. “You don’t think I’m pretty enough to be in a beauty pageant, do you?”

  “This has nothing to do with being pretty. This has to do with wasting your time.”

  “You’re not answering the question.” She flicked off the TV and turned back to face him. “Do you or do you not think I’m pretty enough to enter the Miss Rhododendron Pageant?”

  He looked like a Survivor contestant who knew he was about to get voted off. “Don’t be ridiculous, Andie. Why would you want to do that?”

  “You’re still not answering. Are you afraid I’m going to embarrass you? That people will laugh at the idea of Andie Summers thinking she might have a chance at winning a beauty contest?”

  Her father’s look turned even more wary. “You’re not seriously considering . . .”

  “Really, Dad. What is your problem with all of this?”

  He thought about his mother and the dissatisfaction winning a crown had bred. Then he thought about Miranda Smith, who’d held pretty much every small-town crown there was and ended up toting her tiara around Truro for most of her life. He wanted more than that for his daughter. “You have so much athletic and academic potential, Andie. I don’t want to see you squandering it on something so . . . so . . . frivolous.”

  “Frivolous like . . . Mrs. Smith?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you think women should be more . . . serious.” She waited a beat. “Like Mom.”

  “Well, that might not be the best example.” He was totally backpedaling now.

  Andie pictured the satisfaction on Mary Louise’s face if she were to drop out. But Jake didn’t see anything strange about the idea of her entering a pageant, and neither did Miranda Smith. She was a competitor, her father had seen to that. And she wasn’t going to be competing in basketball this year. Why shouldn’t she just shift arenas and show a few people—her father included—what she was made of? “I’m not quitting now,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not quitting. And there’s something else.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” her father said.

  “Yeah, well, I promised to make a hundred tissue-paper flowers for the Guild Ball, and I’m not going to be able to make them with my hand in this cast.”

  “I’m sure, under the circumstances, Miranda will let you off the hook.”

  She pictured ML’s face again, heard her taunt about Andie’s botched makeup. She was going to have to learn how to do it better and find a ball gown, too, if she was going to win the right to be the Ballantyne Bras contestant in this year’s Miss Rhododendron Pageant.

  “You always taught me to take my commitments seriously, Dad, and I don’t want to be off the hook.” She added a quiver to her voice. “I just need some help.” She looked up at her father and let some moisture accumulate in her eyes. She was tempted to bat her eyelashes at him, but decided to stick with the tried and true. “You’re so good with your hands. I bet Mrs. Smith could teach you how to make those paper flowers in no time.”

  “Andie, that is totally out of the question.”

  She started to cry in earnest then, squeezing big fat tears out of her eyes as she delivered the appropriate sound effects. They streamed down her cheeks and slid down the front of her shirt. Looking up through tear-soaked lashes she added the coup de grâce. “Believe me, I wish I had somebody else to ask. I’d ask my mother to help. Only I don’t really have one!”

  Her father groaned and shook his head, but even as he muttered about ungrateful children and the ridiculousness of making things out of tissue paper, she knew that she had him.

  Then he brightened and said something about “bad penny potential,” which made no sense at all. But it didn’t really matter. All Andie could think about was rubbing those flowers in Mary Louise’s face.

  Miranda wheeled her grocery cart toward the Piggly Wiggly checkout line.

  Ridiculously pleased, she contemplated her haul, which was unsullied by so much as a single fruit or vegetable. She hadn’t been this close to this much junk food since her high school graduation party.

  At the register, Grace Krump looked her up and down as she scanned in the contents of Miranda’s bulging grocery cart.

  “You got enough salt and fat here to clog up a whole passel of arteries,” she said. “Or satisfy any number of cravings.” Her eyes sparked with interest. “Why, I ate a whole gallon of chocolate chip ice cream and two grilled cheese sandwiches at eight A.M. one morning when I was carrying my Bobbie.”

  She finished bagging the items and then leaned in closer. “Of course, in my day nobody thought anything of a pregnant woman having an occasional nip. In fact, I’d like to see them doctors go without for a whole nine months.” She nodded to the beer and wine Miranda had thrown in at the last moment. “But you be careful with that alcohol, honey.”

  “But I’m not . . .”

  Grace patted her on the shoulder, and her tone turned sympathetic. “I bet if’n you told Tom about the baby he’d come on home.”

  “But there’s no . . .”

  “You take my advice now, you hear? You don’t want to be raisin’ that little one all by yourself.”

  “But there’s no . . .”

  Grace turned to offer a cheery hello to her next customer, and Miranda pushed her booty to the car, knowing the rumors were probably already flying. Ah well, she thought, as she stowed the bags in the trunk, thinking she was finally pregnant was nothing compared to what they’d be thinking when they found out Tom wasn’t coming back. She was not looking forward to the day that shit hit the Truro fan.

  At home she unloaded her groceries, put the wine and beer in the fridge, then headed upstairs to freshen her makeup and change into jeans and a sweater.

  She caught herself humming as she padded back downstairs. Stopping in mid-hum, Miranda took a long, hard look at herself in the full-length hall mirror.

  The jeans she’d wiggled into were low slung and skin tight. The sweater was an off-the-shoulder cherry cashmere that exposed a striking expanse of skin. Worse, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, and the sense of excitement she felt was clearly reflected on her face. She did not look like a woman who was going to spend an evening making tissue-paper flowers. And she definitely didn’t look like a woman who wished her husband were here to help her make them.

  This, she reminded herself sternly, was
not a date. This was a sort of mini Guild meeting; a service to mankind; a mission of mercy. She was helping a student fulfill a commitment. There would be some snacks and then the folding of tissue paper, a completely impersonal exercise that even a happily married woman might choose to engage in.

  Right.

  Miranda checked her lipstick one more time and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear before averting her gaze from the woman in the mirror—the one who was too smart to fall for a single word she was being fed.

  chapter 17

  T he roads were icy and nearly empty Monday night as Blake and Andie headed toward Miranda’s. Blake drove slowly and carefully and told himself it was the opportunity to look for clues to Tom Smith’s absence and not the prospect of spending an evening with the man’s wife that was causing this unwelcome sense of anticipation. Or maybe it was the burrito he’d wolfed down for dinner.

  When Miranda opened the front door, the very real stab of pleasure was a good bit harder to deny.

  “Come in. Here, let me take those.” Miranda took their coats and hung them in a foyer closet as he and Andie adjusted to the warmth of the house. While his daughter looked around in openmouthed amazement, he took in the still-empty dining room that had not yet been repainted, and caught a glimpse of an equally empty room across from it. A quick peek upstairs to see what else was missing was definitely in order.

  In the great room a fire blazed in a stacked stone fireplace and snacks had been set out on a low coffee table. He and Andie sank into the cushiony sofa Miranda directed them to, and Andie reached for a curl of puffed cheese as she studied the room.

  “Wow,” she murmured when Miranda left them to get the drinks. “This place looks like something in a magazine.”

  He didn’t respond, but as Miranda reappeared, he had the same thought about the woman walking toward them. Long and lean, with high cheekbones, carelessly sophisticated dark hair and body-hugging clothing, she could have stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine or out of any man’s fantasy. She moved with unconscious grace, and her clothing moved with her, the soft fuzzy sweater molded against her breasts and slipping off creamy shoulders. The hint of a belly button peeked out at him when she raised her arms to balance the tray of drinks.

  Setting a beer in front of him, she flashed her thousand-watt smile, and he caught a glimpse of cleavage as she turned, still bent at the waist, to hand Andie her Sprite. He took a long pull on his beer.

  “How’s your hand, Andrea?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t hurt too much anymore. I just can’t do anything with it.”

  “No laundry, no cooking, not much in the way of homework,” Blake added.

  Andie smiled. “If I weren’t missing out on the championship game it would be the perfect injury.” She caught his glare out of the corner of her eye and had the grace to blush.

  In the silence that followed, Miranda reached under the coffee table and pulled out a load of supplies. Blake took another long pull on his beer and studied them as Andie peppered Miranda with questions about the Guild Ball.

  It was just colored paper, wire, scissors and the like, nothing overtly threatening. He took another sip of the Corona, listening to Andie and Miranda’s chatter with only half an ear, and relaxed slightly. Once he finished this beer, folding tissue paper probably wouldn’t feel quite so . . . girlie. After all, there were pro football players who had admitted to both knitting and needlepoint, and no one had questioned their masculinity.

  “I printed out an extra set of directions.” Miranda slid a piece of computer paper printed on both sides toward him. “But it’s not all that complicated. You just . . .”

  She began to demonstrate as she talked, and Blake knew he should be paying attention. But her fingers were long and dexterous as they pulled the tissue paper from the pack, and he couldn’t help imagining the feel of them moving over his body. He took another sip of beer as she picked up the scissors and began to cut shapes out of purple and turquoise tissue paper and he discovered he couldn’t help imagining a lot of things. He was trying to rein in that imagination when she held up an intricate purple and turquoise tulip by its long wire stem and said, “As you can see, there isn’t a whole lot to it.”

  Blake nodded, a general acknowledgment intended to imply “no sweat,” but as she began the next flower, his focus shifted from her fingers to her lips. He watched them move without hearing a word they uttered, as he once again imagined the feel of them against his own. And on other parts of his body that were currently lobbying for action.

  With a flourish, she held up a white and yellow concoction that looked real enough to plant in the dirt. And then she flashed him a look that said she knew just how little attention he’d been paying and how much she was looking forward to what would happen next.

  He snorted to himself and reached for a sheet of the tissue paper she’d piled in front of him. Women might worry about printing out directions and mastering a given process; men liked to figure things out as they went along, relying on their inherently superior reasoning skills and aptitude for making things work. Besides, he thought, as he turned the paper from side to side trying to decide whether it mattered where he began, how hard could something she did so quickly be?

  An hour later Blake wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead and thought about asking for a third beer. Two mangled wads of tissue paper that bore absolutely no resemblance to flowers lay on the table in front of him.

  Andie looked over at the lumps of paper and the pieces of limp wire and frowned. “Do you need some help, Dad?”

  “No.”

  “But those don’t actually look like . . . flowers.”

  Miranda contemplated the lumps he’d created. “I don’t know,” she said. “They could be hydrangeas from another dimension. Or mums on steroids.”

  “You weren’t paying attention, were you?” His daughter’s tone was accusing.

  “Don’t be silly.” He held one of the alien plant forms up and tried to lasso it with a piece of wire. “I watched every move she made.”

  One of Miranda’s eyebrows sketched upward, then she cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Have you given any thought to what kind of gown you’ll wear for the Guild Ball, Andie? Or who you’re going to ask to escort you?”

  “Gown?” Blake said. “Escort?”

  “No to the gown. I wish, to the escort,” Andie said.

  “Wait just a minute—” Blake began.

  “I’d like to ask Jake Hanson, but he’s been dating Mary Louise.”

  “Jake Hanson?” Blake got in. “Dating? Why, he’s—”

  “Hot.” Andie’s eyes glazed over and her lips tilted upward in a smile that looked—Blake realized in horror—exactly the way her mother’s had the first time he’d made love to her.

  “He doesn’t think there’d be anything weird about me being in the Miss Rhododendron Pageant.”

  “In the Miss Rhododendron Pageant?” Blake knew he had to have heard wrong. “You told me this was just a prep thing. No one said anything about—”

  “Boys your age are usually even more confused than girls,” Miranda informed Andie, as if Blake hadn’t spoken. “They’re not always sure what they’re doing, but it’s obvious he’s interested.”

  “Oh, he’s interested all right,” Blake interjected. “And he knows exactly what he’s doing. You,” he jabbed a finger toward Andie, “are the flower. Jake Hanson is the bee. And the only thing on his mind is pollination.”

  “Dad!”

  “Don’t be silly, Blake,” Miranda said. “Not every teenage boy is—”

  “Oh, yes, every teenage boy is. It is the one driving force in their lives, the only thing they care about more than sports.”

  “Daaaddy.”

  Miranda narrowed her eyes.

  He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Teenage boys begin buzzing for only one reason. And they don’t think straight when their stingers are involved. Which is pr
etty much all the time.”

  “That is so much more than I wanted to hear,” Andie said.

  “Me, too,” Miranda agreed.

  There was a brief silence and then, “So what do you think, Mrs. Smith, should I ask him?”

  “Absolutely not,” Blake said. “Boys don’t respect girls who call them or ask them out. It’s not . . . ladylike.”

  Miranda and Andie blinked.

  “You don’t think your daughter should go after what she wants?”

  “That’s not what I said. I—”

  “I’ve seen this girl play basketball, Blake. You didn’t teach her to sit back and wait on the court.”

  “That’s different. I . . .”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Blake rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. Across the coffee table Miranda did the same.

  “I’m guessing your father hasn’t dated since the Stone Age,” Miranda said as she rose and motioned Andie to do the same. “I can at least give you some tips on how a modern woman would handle this sort of situation.”

  She led Andie toward the kitchen. With one hand on the kitchen door, she turned back to Blake. “We’re going to have a little girl talk,” she said. “Maybe you’d like to reinvent fire or drag a Mastodon back to the cave while we’re gone.” She smiled sweetly. “Or you could just mangle a flower or two in that adorable Cro-Magnon way of yours.”

  Blake let them have their laugh, but as soon as the kitchen door swung shut behind them, he headed for the stairs. He’d poked his head in the empty office and done a quick visual of the rest of the downstairs during an earlier trip to the bathroom. Now he sprinted to the upper floor, hoping he’d have time to check it out before Miranda and Andie noticed he was gone.

  Quietly, he opened the door at the top of the stairs and discovered yet another empty room. The indentations in the carpet indicated it had once been filled with heavy furniture; he assumed it had been a guest bedroom of sorts, but now it was as vacant as the dining room and office downstairs.