by Elaine Fox
“Calvin is a gentleman, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring your gutter mentality into my house.”
“Actually it’s your gutter mentality, Mother. I meant dessert as in pie, not—”
“That’ll be enough of that.” She held up a hand. “Now, what is it you’re looking for?”
Truman moved to the closet and rummaged through his old suits, slacks, dress shirts, and polos. He’d moved them here after giving up his own house to live in Southeast. He reached the back of the closet and pulled out a garment bag.
“Just this,” he said.
This time it was his mother’s turn to look intrigued. “Your tuxedo? What on earth do you need that for in that tenement you call home?”
“I’m going to a dog and pony show,” he said, thinking sourly of the pretentious posturing he was sure would be going on at Rock ‘n’ Roll.
“A dog and—Have you still got that wretched dog? I thought you said you were only keeping it temporarily.”
He shrugged, unzipping the bag and inspecting the contents to make sure everything was there. “I thought so too, but now I’ve changed my mind. It looks like Folly’s here to stay.” In so many ways, he thought.
He hadn’t wanted to resort to his old wardrobe, but the idea of wearing, and paying for, a rented tux seemed not just unappealing but wasteful. For one thing, he needed to conserve his meager cash. For another, he had no desire to wear a polyester tux left over from the Carter administration, which is what he thought most of those rentals looked like.
“I know you’re not going to wear that Armani tuxedo for a dog, Truman Fleming. Now tell me what you’re doing. Have you got a date?” She gave him a sly smile. Much like the one he’d given her, he was sure.
“It’s not a date. It’s a job. I’m doing some security work.” It wasn’t a lie.
“In a tuxedo?”
“It’s an undercover job,” he said pointedly.
“Ah.” She nodded sagely. “This must be the dangerous undercover work you sent poor sweet Heather away from.”
He glanced at her, saw the knowing look in her eyes and couldn’t stop a low laugh. “Really, Mother, did you honestly think that would work? How desperate do you think I am?”
“Pretty desperate,” she said, “judging by the looks of your apartment. Are you at least playing security for a woman?”
He gazed at her, gave her the smallest smile and nodded once. “Yes, it’s a woman. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.”
He zipped the garment bag back up and headed for the stairs.
“Is it a woman you’re interested in?” she asked, following him back down the hall.
“I told you, I’m not going to tell you any more.”
“Is it the woman Heather saw in your apartment?”
He stopped on his way down the stairs and looked back up at her. “Now I see what you liked so much about Heather. She’s a blabbermouth.”
“Well, she was blonde. And I know how much you like blondes. You haven’t answered my question.”
He started back down the stairs and stopped by the door. “What question?”
“Is the woman you’re working security for the same woman who went to your apartment that night?”
“Don’t you have a date coming?” he asked, opening the door and glancing down the driveway toward the street.
She leaned forward and looked around him. The street was empty. She gave him an irked look. “That wasn’t nice. Now answer my question and I’ll let you get out of here.”
He grinned. “I hate to break it to you, Mother, but you’re not actually stopping me.”
“Truman…”
“All right, yes. It’s the same woman.”
His mother’s brows rose and she nodded. “Aha. Very interesting.”
“Not really.” He stepped onto the porch and swung the garment bag over his shoulder.
“I have a feeling about this,” she sang.
He trotted down the front stoop and opened the door to his truck. “How can you have a feeling about it? You don’t know anything about her. She could be a hundred years old and ugly.”
“Not according to Heather.”
Truman shook his head and laughed. “Well, I’m glad Heather found her attractive. I’ll pass it along if it seems appropriate.”
“Truman!” she scolded, but her eyes were laughing.
“Have fun on your date tonight, Mother.”
“And you on yours,” she countered.
“It’s not a date,” he said out the window.
“Whatever you say, dear.” She smiled.
Truman started the truck, the noise making any further conversation impossible. He waved, she blew him a kiss and he pulled out of the driveway, pausing to let the gates open.
He wondered if Marcy would resist him if she knew he came from all this. Something inside him thought he knew the answer, but it wasn’t the one he wanted to believe. So he put the car in gear and drove decisively away.
If he was going to get her, he thought, he was going to get her without the trappings of his family’s wealth. Otherwise he’d never believe she wanted him, and him alone.
15
Friday, November 15
WORD-A-DAY!
ALIEN: n., foreign, extrinsic to a thing’s fundamental nature; extrapolated, one who could not possibly understand or become an essential part of one’s life
Marcy was nervous. Truman was picking her up in fifteen minutes and her stomach kept crawling into her throat.
Did she believe his story about Heather? Was she a fool to think he could be trusted? Was she judging him with her head or her hormones?
She paced in front of the mirror, paused long enough to look at herself in her red velvet gown, then continued on past toward the dressing table. She was dressed appropriately for a fancy party, she thought. She was ready to rub elbows with others in her field.
Where she was getting confused, though, was whether she was dressed appropriately to be going out with Truman.
But even that was not completely right. While she wished she could wear something like she’d worn to the benefit ball—that killer black dress that had prompted such gratifying appreciation in Truman—she knew for a party amongst colleagues she had to be more conservative.
So, she told herself, she was fine. It didn’t matter that her dress was conservative.
What she really ought to be worried about was Truman’s attire. He said he knew what black tie meant, and she had mentioned the fact that a tuxedo was required. Should she have been more specific? All she could do now was pray to God he didn’t show up in a powder-blue high-school-prom-style tux.
She stopped again in front of the mirror. She looked all right, she thought. The dress was from Neiman Marcus and plenty expensive enough to impress those who cared about such things. And there’d be plenty of people there who cared about such things, she knew. So what was she so wrought up about?
Truman, she thought, forcing a deep breath into her lungs. She was in a knot because of Truman. Because this felt like a date, not an arrangement with a bodyguard.
She sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands.
She wanted it to be a date. She wanted Truman’s jaw to drop and his eyes to pop out of his head when he saw her. She wanted romance with a capital ‘R’with him but she couldn’t let herself even hope for it.
His life was too different from hers. They were on opposite trajectories. What she kept falling back on, however, was that they didn’t need to be. Truman could be so much more. He could find a better job, ensure a better future, and she had to believe he’d be happier doing it. He just had too much to offer to live in a rat’s nest and work as a laborer for no money.
He should network tonight, she thought, standing up and moving to the dressing table. There’d be plenty of people there who could help him find a job. Maybe something in sales, or marketing. In a tuxedo, he’d look as suitable for certain positions as anyone else in the r
oom. She’d try to steer him to some of the right people, she thought. He had to want something more for himself. Everyone did, didn’t they?
A knock sounded on the door and Marcy jumped so drastically she dropped the bottle of perfume she’d just picked up. Fortunately it was a spray bottle so it didn’t end up all over her bedroom floor.
She picked the bottle up and set it on the table. Then she took a slow, deliberate breath—deep in and long out—and walked down the hall.
She unlocked the bolt, slid the chain from its track, and opened the door.
The sight of him nearly knocked the breath clean out of her.
He wore a black tux, classically tailored, that looked like it was made for him. His hair, while still long, was neatly combed, and he had obviously shaved that evening. He stood with his hands folded in front of him and a wide stance as if he were on the deck of a ship.
He looked incredible. Like a model. Like an ad for Mercedes. Like the Aramis Man.
Marcy was speechless.
He gave her a short bow, his striking gray eyes smiling as he passed her to enter the apartment.
“One bodyguard, at your service,” he said, his gaze streaking down her body in the red velvet dress.
Marcy pushed herself to respond. “Is that a rental?” She reached one hand out to finger the material of his tux.
“What kind of question is that? I could ask you the same thing, you know.”
Marcy blushed. “It’s just…” She held a hand, palm up, toward him. But the question was rude and she didn’t feel like having her manners corrected by Truman Fleming. “You look great,” she finished lamely, if sincerely.
“So do you, Miss Paglinowski.”
She suddenly wished she had some wine or something to drink to ease her tension a little. But she hadn’t wanted to do anything that would make this look like she thought it was a date.
They stood in awkward silence a minute before Tru said, “Shall we go?”
“Sure. Yeah, we should go.” She glanced around for her purse, realized it was in the bedroom—blushed at the mere thought of her bedroom—and excused herself to go get it.
Once there, she sat down on the bed a second. Her heart was beating a mile a minute and her mouth was dry. Her skin felt electrified, as if her nerves were reaching out to be touched by him, and she wondered if testosterone had some sort of magnetic quality that could pull her to him even against her will.
She was as nervous as she’d ever been with a guy. And she was usually only nervous when she was interested in someone. Very interested. In fact, the last time she remembered feeling this way was on her first date with Stephen Howe, her junior year in college. She’d been in love with Stephen Howe since she’d been a freshman and they’d ended up dating for two years.
So the fact that she was nearly incapacitated with nerves for Truman Fleming was nothing if not portentous.
What, exactly, did she feel for him?
Or rather, what did she want from him?
She closed her eyes and couldn’t answer, not in words, not even in her head. But her racing heart told the whole story.
Marcy picked up her purse and joined him in the living room. He turned when he heard her heels on the hallway floor and smiled as she entered the room.
A rush of longing rose within her. He could be her dream man, standing there in a tux in the middle of her living room. Of course, he could have been her dream man standing naked in the middle of her living room too.
“Let’s go,” she said brusquely, grabbing her coat from the hall closet.
They left her apartment and rode down the elevator in silence. As they made their way to the parking garage, Marcy fished her keys out of her purse and handed them to him.
“Would you mind driving?” she asked. “I hate driving in these heels.” She swept her skirt up a few inches to show him the spike heels.
She didn’t want him to think she wanted him driving because this was a date. No, it had nothing to do with the image in her head of how he would look pulling up to this party behind the wheel of her car instead of his rattletrap truck.
“Trusting me with the Lexus,” he mused. “My, we have made great strides, haven’t we?”
“If you’re going to get all sentimental about it, give them back.” She held her hand out for the keys.
“No, no. I’m all right. I just like to acknowledge these little landmarks as a sign of ongoing progress.”
“Progress?” she repeated. They stepped into the garage and their words began to echo.
“Yes. Progress toward you trusting me.”
“And you being trustworthy?”
“I’ve always been trustworthy,” he said.
She looked up at him and he smiled down at her.
Her heart lurched.
She’d parked in the corner, near the stairwell, so the area was dimmer than the rest of the garage. But as they approached she was sure she saw someone duck behind a nearby van.
She froze in her tracks and looked up at Truman. He’d stopped too and his eyes were riveted to the van.
“You saw him too?” she whispered.
He glanced down at her and nodded. Then he put one hand on her arm, warming her even through the coat, and said, “Why don’t you go back to the lobby? I’ll pull the car around and pick you up at the front door.”
She glanced nervously between him and the van. Nobody was getting into the other vehicle and there were no sounds of footsteps or movement of any sort. Whoever was there was hiding. No doubt about it.
Fear slunk into her chest and coiled like a snake in the center.
“I should stay,” she whispered back. “What if something happens to you?”
His lips quirked and his eyes smiled down at her. Chills ran up her spine.
“Don’t worry, doll. I know how to take care of myself.”
She gave him an irked look. Serve him right if he did get beaten up. “Fine. I’ll wait upstairs.” She stalked off back toward the door to the lobby.
Truman walked slowly but surely toward the van, stopping when he got to within a couple yards. He pushed his hands into his pockets.
“You can come out now, Arthur,” he said. “She’s gone back into the building.”
Some shufflings and a little sniff came from the other side of the van.
“I know it’s you, Arthur. I saw you.”
A second later Arthur, all dressed up and smelling of cologne, emerged from around a concrete pillar.
“What’re you doing here?” Arthur asked, his face a mask of belligerence.
“I’ll tell you what I’m not doing. I’m not hiding in a parking garage, lurking near the car of a woman I admire who happens to live in this building. What are you doing here, Arthur?”
Arthur crossed his arms over his chest, his feet splayed wide, and continued to give him a hostile glare. “I thought you said you wasn’t goin’ out with her. I thought you said you was givin’ up.”
Truman frowned. “I was. In fact I did give up. But she, ah, she needed me. For something. But this wasn’t part of our deal, Arthur. Remember the deal we made at your house? How is your mother, by the way?”
Arthur looked at the ground and scuffed one shoe against an oil stain on the cement floor. “She’s a wright.”
“That sure was a good dinner we had that night. And I thought we had a good talk. How come you lied to me, Arthur?”
Arthur looked up, angry again. “I didn’t lie. You did. And I don’t remember no deal. You told me you was givin’ up on her, givin’ me a clear shot. That’s why I wanted to be sure she wasn’t your girlfriend or nothin’. I didn’t wanna be steppin’ on any toes. But now here you are, with her. I think you’re steppin’ on my toes now, Harley.”
Truman looked around the garage, then back at Arthur in his black, three-piece suit. “We were both supposed to give up. That was the deal, Arthur.”
“If that was the deal, then you broke it too.” He jabbed a fat finger through the ai
r toward Truman, the kind of motion that usually poked one in the chest but Arthur was too timid for that, Tru knew. “’Cause here you are. But I still don’t remember no deal. I remember you givin’ up and tellin’ me I had a clear shot. That’s what I remember. This ain’t fair.” He looked at Truman’s tuxedo. “That’s a nice suit,” he said finally.
Truman tilted his head. “Thank you. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything about giving you a clear shot. I think I would have remembered saying that.” He studied Arthur’s face, noting the mottled red color on his cheeks and what there was of his neck. “Arthur, were you by any chance in the parking garage at Marcy’s office about a week ago?”
The red in his face got deeper and his head sunk lower. His chin was resting on his chest as he worked his shoe around the oil blotch again.
“What were you thinking?” Truman asked, though not in a rough tone of voice. “Did you knife her tires to scare her?”
“No,” Arthur protested, like a kid who’s been accused of doing exactly what he did. “I just wanted to give her a ride home. Get a little alone time with her, ya know.”
“And you thought that by slashing her tires…what? She’d realize your affection for her?”
“No. If her tires all gone flat then she’d need a ride home, wouldn’t she, smart ass?” he asked, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
Truman’s brows lowered. “Art, didn’t you think she’d be suspicious? I mean, she comes out, her tires have been flattened, and there you are ready to give her a ride home. She’s pretty smart. Don’t you think she’d put two and two together?”
Arthur hung his head again. “I know. I suddenly thought a that when she came out the door. I was tryin’ to come up with something to tell her what happened, you know, so she wouldn’t think it was me, but I didn’t get no chance. She was with some other people and they give her the ride home I wanted to give her.” He poked one of those fat fingers at his own chest with the words.
“Arthur, she thought you were threatening her before,” Truman said reasonably. “Remember, I told you that? I don’t think she’s ready to trust you for a ride home, even if you could have somehow convinced her you didn’t slash her tires.”