'You'll think of something,' Clare assured her blithely. 'Just don't start talking about computers and those algorithm things you're always going on about.'
'But that's what I'm comfortable talking about,'
Allie argued. She glanced back to her reflection and shook her head. 'I've been doing a lot of thinking this past week . .. OK, I went off the deep end over Kevin and started getting a lot of silly ideas about getting married and all that stuff. I went crazy for a little while, but I'm sane now. I really think I should start looking for another job. Despite everything, the Institute did give me a good reference, and I won't have much trouble finding something else. My career is my future, and I need to concentrate on that. I'm not the marrying kind.'
'Don't be such a coward!' Clare enjoined. 'You said you were going to find a place to rent around here and stay for the summer. Don't chicken out now.'
'Can't you see that all this,' she gestured to her image in the mirror, 'is just a waste of time? Suppose some guy does become attracted to me. I can't play the dumb blonde for the rest of my life! What's going to happen when he finds out I've got an IQ of a hundred and ninety-four? He'll drop me flat, because men just don't want to be around women who are smarter than they are. I know from experience.'
'Would you stop being such a pessimist? If he's in love with you, it won't matter.'
'Love conquers all?' Allie asked cynically; however, on seeing Clare's distressed look, she sighed remorsefully. She supposed it wouldn't hurt anything to play along with her friend for a few weeks. Kevin had taught her a valuable lesson, so she knew better than to take anything that might result from Clare's scheming too seriously.
'OK, Clare,' she said at last, smiling faintly. 'I'll give it a try.'
It was just possible that Clare had invited the Seventh Fleet to her barbecue, Allie decided, gazing about the steam-filled kitchen in wonder. Certainly, judging from the amount of food her friend was preparing for the event, that would be a logical assumption. And all the pots, pans and assorted paraphernalia didn't even include the enormous salmon that was baking on the grill outside!
'Are you sure I can't help you with any of this?' Allie asked, gesturing somewhat helplessly with her hands. She felt guilty about letting Clare carry the entire burden of preparing the food for the party but her own culinary skills were limited.
'Everything's under control. I just have to wait for stuff to cook.' She brushed her hand across her heat-flushed cheek and grimaced. 'Maybe you could watch things for me while I go and freshen up, though. I'm glad the weather has turned out warm, but this hot kitchen has turned my make-up into a blob of grease.'
'Just tell me what you want doing.'
'Not much of anything. All you have to do is make sure nothing boils over or burns. I'll only be a minute.' When Clare reached the door, she paused and looked back over her shoulder to Allie. 'If Greg comes in from mowing the lawn before I get back, tell him to come and get changed. Knowing him, he'll greet our guests in his ratty old cut-offs if we don't nag him.' She turned to leave, then once again turned back. 'Oh! I forgot the salad dressing. The recipe is on that card by the blender. You can throw it together for me, can't you?'
She was out of the room before Allie could respond. Reluctantly, Allie went over to inspect the recipe card lying on the counter. When she'd offered to help, she'd been thinking along the lines of opening cans or something, maybe peeling some vegetables. She could handle that. Keeping things from burning and actually preparing things requiring a recipe weren't her strong points. As her eyes skimmed the list of ingredients for the dressing, she wished Clare had let McDonald's cater for this affair.
However, once she started measuring and pouring things into the blender, Allie discovered following a recipe wasn't that hard. Cooking was a lot like chemistry—only it was easier to measure things in cups and tablespoons than moles! She was actually enjoying her unfamiliar task when Greg came in, and she blithely sent him off to change, confident she could finish the dressing without any hang-ups.
That was perhaps overly optimistic. Having added a final carefully measured teaspoon of salt to the concoction in the blender, Allie put the lid on and pushed down the button that would turn it on. Nothing happened. She checked to see that the machine was plugged in, then lifted off the lid and peered down in frustration at the undisturbed liquid. Damn, things had been going so well, too.
She suddenly realised that the radio that had been playing softly in the background was now silent. Looking along the appliance-loaded counter-top, she realised that the 'on' lights had gone out on the crock-pot and the automatic coffeemaker.
Well, she might not know much about cooking, but electricity was another matter. Her switching on of the blender must have caused an overload and tripped the fuse. She turned off the crock-pot and coffeemaker, then realised she would have to get Greg or Clare to tell her where the fusebox was located.
At that moment, the front doorbell chimes resounded in the silent kitchen—the first of Clare's guests had arrived. Knowing Clare and Greg were busy, she realised she should go and admit them. However, her troublesome feet were rapidly turning to ice as she was assailed by stage-fright. It was going to be difficult enough meeting all those strangers with Clare beside her to ease the introductions. She simply couldn't meet them alone!
When the doorbell sounded a second time, Allie's eyes roamed around the kitchen somewhat desperately. They came to rest on the door leading to the basement stairs. Electrical panels were usually located in basements! Escape beckoned. Although disgusted by her cowardice, Allie none the less headed for the door and shot down the stairs.
It took her only a few moments to discover the fuse panel located a few feet from the base of the stairs. She spent several minutes inspecting the array of switches, even though the tripped switch was obvious at a glance. It wasn't until she heard muffled voices and footfalls coming from the kitchen overhead though that she forced herself to stop procrastinating. She pulled the offending switch to reset it, slightly startled by the sudden increase in the noise coming from overhead. However, refusing to allow herself to use that as an excuse for continuing to hide in the basement, Allie went back up the stairs.
She found Clare and Greg in the kitchen with another couple and, on first impressions, it seemed that everyone was talking at once. Hesitantly, Allie slipped into the room and made for Clare's side.
She never reached it.
'Allie, there you are!' Clare announced as she spotted her. When everyone turned to look at her, Allie self-consciously came to a halt in the centre of the room.
'I tripped the fuse when I turned on the blender and was just downstairs resetting—' The sentence came to an abrupt end as Allie recognised her friend's male guest. It wasn't difficult. She'd know that scowl anywhere!
'You!' the erstwhile rescuer thundered. 'I should have guessed!'
Allie cringed slightly. That angry tone of voice wasn't exactly unfamiliar, either. Eyeing him warily, she noticed that he looked sort of odd. He wasn't dripping rain as he had been the other day, but he looked kind of... speckled. Puzzled, Allie stared at him more closely. Funny little white gobs of something were splattered over the front of his dark brown sports shirt. The same substance decorated his bronze face and even the front strands of his night-dark hair.
'I ... er ...' Allie stammered in confusion as he glared at her, rendering her unable to pull her eyes away from his. It was a relief when Clare handed him a towel and he used it to wipe his face, momentarily diverting that furious gaze from her. She seized the opportunity to switch her attention to Clare. 'What happened?'
'Don't worry about it,' Clare soothed, dabbing at the man's shirt-front with a paper towel. 'It wasn't really your fault. It was an accident.'
'Yes, but what happened?'
Clare's ministrations had turned the little white blobs on the shirt into unattractive dark circles. 'I think I've only made things worse,' she commented to her guest, ignoring Allie's question for t
he moment. 'Greg will lend you a fresh shirt and I'll put this one in to soak.'
'Clare, will you please tell me what happened?' Allie demanded.
Clare disposed of the paper towel, then said, 'It really wasn't your fault.' Allie gave her a frustrated look. If that were true, then why did Clare keep repeating it, and why did that man keep looking at her as though he wanted to strangle her? The other woman continued, 'It's the silliest thing, really. I guess you forgot to switch the blender off before you went down to reset the fuse. The lid wasn't on it, so when the power came on again the dressing ...' She gestured expressively with her hands. 'Unfortunately, Linc was standing right next to it and got in the way.'
Automatically, Allie's eyes swivelled to look at him. The angry scowl had faded and he now wore a look of resignation. 'As Clare said, it was an accident—not your fault,' he admitted on a sigh.
Allie felt herself shrinking inwardly from his patronising regard. He was accepting that it was an accident, but an accident due to her stupidity. He obviously thought that she didn't have the intelligence that God gave a goose. Since Clare had advised her to adopt the image of the dumb blonde, maybe she should have been gratified, but instead she only felt humiliated.
Without further ado, Greg took the other man off to find him another shirt. Allie felt a great deal more comfortable upon his exit and turned to Clare, apologising, 'I'm really sorry about the mess, Clare. I'll get it cleaned up for you.'
'I can take care of it,' the older woman assured her. 'I've got some things to look after in here anyway. Why don't you take Elaine out on to the patio and get her something to drink?' When Allie smiled hesitantly at the other woman in the room, she exclaimed, 'I guess I forgot about introducing you. Elaine, this is my friend Allie Smith. Allie, this Elaine Colridge.
That was Linc Summerville who was just here.'
Allie remembered her earlier conversation with Clare, and wondered if this was one of the women who was 'chasing' Linc Summerville. If she was, Allie figured she needed her head examined. Personally, she had decided to run the other way if he ever looked in her direction—not that that was very likely to happen.
She was a little surprised by her sudden upsurge of curiosity on meeting one of his girlfriends, though. She was further surprised to discover that Elaine Colridge wasn't at all the type of woman she would have expected him to pick as a lover. When—and why—had she started speculating on his taste in women?
Regardless of that, Elaine still wasn't what she was expecting. Allie's mental image had been of a cool model type, dripping sophistication and chic. Elaine Colridge was remarkably ordinary. Her mousy brown hair, cut in a nondescript style, framed her pale, plain face. What should have been her best feature—large, luminous brown eyes—somehow seemed to dwarf the rest of her features and made her look a little like a cocker spaniel.
Physically, Elaine was very slender, with a boyish figure clad in a dark navy trouser-suit which managed to look staid despite its casualness. In comparison, Allie felt like an overblown rose in her gay peasant outfit with her carefully made-up face and 'sex-kitten' hairdo. As Elaine half turned to speak to Clare, Allie was conscious of just how incredibly flat the other woman was, and self-consciously crossed her arms over her ample bosom, so blatantly displayed by her low-cut blouse.
'Are you sure I can't help you with anything in here?' Elaine was asking Clare.
'Not at all. Everything's under control. Just go out with Allie and relax on the terrace. I'll be able to join you in a couple of minutes,' Clare responded, and Allie sent her a curious look. Despite her friend's smile and pleasant manner, Allie could sense Clare's dislike of Elaine. It seemed odd, since Clare usually got on well with just about everyone. Besides, Elaine seemed too innocuous to arouse enmity in anyone. Why, she even got along well enough with that beast Linc Summerville to let him escort her to a party!
'As long as you're sure,' Elaine said charmingly. 'Perhaps I could slip this salad into the fridge until dinner, though.' She walked to the counter and started to open a large brown paper bag that was resting near the blender. 'I know you said we didn't need to bring anything, but I fixed a little something because it didn't seem right to come empty-handed.'
Tugging on the paper, Elaine exposed her 'little something'. It was a fruit salad, although that description didn't do justice to the work of art Elaine had prepared. Balls of melon, pineapple chunks and a myriad other exotic fruits resided in a hollowed-out half-shell of a water-melon. The edges were serrated and decorated with lemon slices. As Allie watched, Elaine reached back into the bag to withdraw several long sticks with squares of paper attached and placed them upright along the centre-line of the 'ship'.
'It's beautiful, Elaine,' Claire said stiffly. 'You shouldn't have gone to so much trouble.'
'It was nothing,' the other woman assured her airily. She went to the fridge and opened it to peer inside. 'Oh, dear, do you think there's going to be room in here for it?'
Clare joined Elaine in front of the open fridge before she could start removing items, saying grimly, 'I'll clear a space.' Clare set about removing the salads and relish trays that she had prepared earlier and were crowding the interior of the refrigerator, and Elaine looked over to Allie.
'I think maybe I should go have a look at Linc's shirt. Greasy stains like that can be a real problem to get out, so the sooner it's dealt with, the better. I'd hate to think the shirt was ruined. Linc's not much of a bargain-hunter when it comes to buying clothes, and that shirt was brand new.'
She walked from the kitchen, leaving Allie overburdened with guilt. Maybe it hadn't been her fault that Linc's shirt had been covered in dressing, but she had been indirectly responsible. It certainly didn't help her conscience to find out it had been a new, expensive shirt.
When Clare had the refrigerator set to rights again, she took out a bottle of wine before slamming the door.
'Let's have a drink,' she suggested. 'After an encounter with Elaine, I always feel I need one.'
Allie hadn't been exactly comforted by the other woman's references to Linc's shirt; however, she couldn't understand Clare's animosity. As she accepted the glass of white wine from her friend, she' asked, 'Don't you like her? She seems pleasant enough, and it was good of her to bring that salad. She must have gone to a lot of trouble.'
'That salad,' Clare said sourly, taking a large swallow of her wine and pulling a face. 'Everything I fixed is going to look like yesterday's leftovers now. The group we socialise with used to have a lot of pot-luck dinners, but after Elaine joined us we stopped. Most of us are pretty good cooks, but we don't have the time or energy to waste fussing in the kitchen. Every time we had one of those dinners, Elaine would show up with some work of art that made our efforts look like the dog's dinner. Maybe we're just vain, but we got awfully tired of being upstaged.' She lifted her glass again, drained it and set it aside. 'You'd be doing a real service to the women in my circle if you'd snaffle Linc away from her. We're all dreading the idea that he might go so far as to marry her and we'd be stuck with her for the rest of our lives!'
As Clare started cleaning up the splattered dressing from the counter-tops, Allie sipped her. wine in silence. Take Linc away from Elaine? What a joke! Even if she wanted to, she wouldn't have a prayer. She glanced over to her friend. Of course, Clare didn't know about her first run-in with Linc. She had kept the details of that first meeting to herself, merely explaining that she had run out of petrol on the way to her friend's house. It had been too humiliating to recount.
She sighed as she put her wineglass aside and picked up a cloth to help Clare clean up. Her friend would find out soon enough that Elaine had a clear field with Linc as far as Allie came into it.
CHAPTER THREE
twilight was deepening into night when Allie slipped from the crowded living-room out on to the terrace. Most of Clare's guests had retreated inside at sunset, chased in by mosquitoes and the cooler night air. However, the house had seemed stuffy after a few minutes, pr
ompting Allie to go back outside. She skirted the few groups of hardy souls that had lingered on the terrace, making for the far corner where the terrace wrapped around the side of the house.
Leaning against the railing, she stared out into the night, enjoying a moment of solitude. Playing the role of the dumb blonde for Clare's friends had been easy, mainly because she hadn't had to act. There hadn't been much choice but to murmur inane comments when she hadn't a clue about the subjects under discussion, she mused. She knew nothing about fishing or hockey or the price of strawberries. She rarely watched television, never read novels. Until tonight, she hadn't realised how narrow her interests were. When she'd worked at the Institute, conversation at the social gatherings she had attended had invariably centred on 'shop'—computers, mathematics, science. Even with Kevin, the talk had seldom strayed to less erudite topics.
She had enjoyed the evening, though. To her amazement, Clare's scheme seemed actually to be working. While Allie had never been exactly a wallflower at gatherings, people had tended to treat her with a certain deference, a certain reserve. It was almost as if they were a little afraid of her, intimidated by her noted intelligence.
Tonight, though, she felt she had been accepted wholeheartedly by Clare's friends, by the women as well as the men. Several of them had suggested future meetings for lunch or shopping. As for the single men in the group—a tiny smile tugged Allie's lips. Her ego was purring like a well-fed cat. She'd never been treated to that kind of attention before, fussed over, catered to. She wouldn't have been female if she hadn't lapped it up. It had even taken a bit of strategy just to slip away alone for a breath of fresh air. She could have had her pick of escorts.
At that moment, Allie felt a strange prickling sensation along the back of her neck. Perhaps she hadn't managed to evade her suitors for a few moments, after all. Slowly she turned to look behind her. Unnoticed by her, Linc Summerville had also come outside and was now leaning against the corner of the house, watching her. His scrutiny was unnerving, and Allie eyed him cautiously. He hadn't been one of the circle of admirers that had surrounded her most of the evening, although she supposed she couldn't blame him. His two previous encounters with her had proved inauspicious, to say the least.
Foolish Deceiver Page 3