Kitabı oku: «All About Evie», sayfa 2

I performed a victory happy dance, giddy with excitement and relief. Eight days far and away from the city that no longer considered me an asset. Eight days to contemplate my future, padding my bank account in the process. Pam’s misfortune was my blessing.

Ignoring my comical jig—a routine that used to amuse him—Michael glanced at his watch, the phone. “You’ll be stepping into the shoes of a free-spirited newlywed.”

“A comedic role. My specialty.”

“Except we’re not talking eccentric kook.”

“What are we talking?

“Think Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday.”

The mental image was crystal clear, the irony priceless. “Ditsy ex-showgirl?”

He smirked. “You’d need to provide your own wardrobe. Miniskirts, microshorts, crop tops and stiletto heels. A Wonderbra wouldn’t hurt.”

It never did. Since I was dead set against a boob job, I owned several bust-enhancing brassieres. On occasion I’ve been hired to portray a zaftig, although usually zany, character. As a freelance entertainer I often provide my own costumes, although in this instance it struck me as odd. A low-budget production show? On a cruise ship? Maybe it was an interactive murder mystery or improvisational theater like Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.

I started to ask specifics but was sidetracked by Michael’s cocky expression. Clearly, he expected me to back down. Clearly, he thought he knew me, which he did. Familiarity used to make me feel special. Just now I felt predictable, boring and somewhat ill.

My self-esteem plummeted by the nanosecond. The need to escape Michael, this town, my life, was excruciating. I shrugged. “So I’ll have to flaunt my body. I don’t have a problem with that.”

“Since when?”

“Since today.” This was it. Time to ‘fess up. I waited until he turned his back in search of his briefcase. “Just so you know, I flashed the execs at the audition.”

He snapped the lid closed. “What do you mean, you flashed them?”

“They were looking for T & A, so I showed them T.”

He smiled. “Yeah, right.” Shaking his head, he leaned over, signed on to the Internet and speed-typed an e-mail.

I squelched a smug retort. I wasn’t the only predictable one in this room.

Case closed, I thought, as he signed off AOL, snagged his briefcase and shooed me toward the door.

“What time am I expected at the airport?” I asked, more than happy not to elaborate on the botched audition.

“In three hours. You’ll have to haul ass. I’ll call you on your cell with details.” He followed me out the door, down the stairs and onto the buckled sidewalk.

I glanced over my shoulder, cursing myself for wanting to impress him even as the words left my mouth. “You won’t regret this, Michael.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” he said as we moved toward separate cars, separate lives. “It’s Arch.”

Chapter Three

THIRTY-SEVEN MINUTES later I was packed and on my way to Philadelphia International Airport.

Arch, it turned out, was my contact. Arch Reece. An acquaintance of Michael’s, although not once in the fifteen years that we’d lived together had he uttered the man’s name. Michael hit the highlights of the gig during a cell phone call as I sped west on the Atlantic City Expressway. Details were minimal and cryptic.

“Arch has your ticket. He’ll be waiting for you at American Airlines.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Today? I’m not sure.”

Cryptic statement number one.

“Don’t worry about it, Evie. He’ll approach you.”

“How will he know what I look like?”

“I e-mailed your head shot, along with a brief explanation about Pam. Be sure your phone’s charged. You always forget and—”

“It’s charged,” I grumbled. So I forgot once in a while. So what? My world, unlike Michael’s, did not revolve around phones and the Internet.

“He’s not going to like the last-minute switch,” he said, blowing over my snippy tone, “but he’s desperate and he trusts me and I trust you. You’re anal when it comes to nailing a gig.”

“Gee, thanks.”

My sarcasm garnered an exasperated sigh. “That was a compliment.”

Actually, it was. Michael respected my work ethics. He considered me a rarity. He’d told me so hundreds of times over the years. I wish every performer was as conscientious as you, Evie.

Too bad you can’t retire on stellar ethics, I thought moodily. Although rebelling hadn’t secured my future, either.

My cheeks burned with contrition. Even though my anger was righteous, I regretted my rash behavior. A spotless reputation tarnished in one bonehead moment. Flash. Poof. Tah-dah! Optimistic professional turns into cynical hoyden. It felt scary. Like I’d contracted a mysterious disease.

Like the me I knew was dying.

If I wasn’t me, the girl who brightened people’s lives with a skit, song or dance, who was I? All my life, I’d felt as if I’d been put on this earth for one reason. To entertain. Even when my marriage crumbled, I still had purpose.

“Are you all right, hon?”

No. My world was falling apart, and my jaw hurt due to some hearty teeth grinding. I opened my mouth as little as possible for fear my jaw would lock. “I’m peachy.”

I squeezed the steering wheel, punched the gas. Must. Escape. Town. “So about Arch.”

“He’ll prep you for the job before you board the ship. When he relays specifics, just remember I warned you.”

Cryptic statement number two.

Suddenly I wondered about the outrageously high but wonderful salary quote. “Meaning?”

“There’s a small level of risk.”

“Define risk.”

“Just follow Arch’s directive implicitly, otherwise…”

A pregnant pause raised the hair on my arms. “What?”

“Never mind. Just don’t deviate from Arch’s script and everything will be fine.”

“I thought there was no script.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Not really.” Approaching a toll booth, I eased left and zipped through the EZ-Pass lane, my imagination soaring. “Oh, jeez, Michael. Is this a variety act? You said I’ll be playing the free-spirited newlywed. Is Arch the daredevil groom? Is he going to saw me in half or shoot an apple off of my head?” Visions of Folies Bergère sashayed through my head. “Please tell me this doesn’t involve a rhinestone G-string and sequined pasties!”

He snorted. “As if you would bare your breasts for art.”

I smirked, slowing from seventy to sixty-five. The last thing I needed was a cop on my tail. I couldn’t afford the time or the ticket. “You think you know me so well.”

“I know I know you.”

“Because you lived with me for fifteen years?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning I’m predictable. Boring.”

“Meaning you’re a creature of habit. Jesus, Evie, what’s gotten into you? I’ve never known you to pick a fight.”

“I’m not—”

“On second thought maybe this gig is a blessing in disguise. Time away and a change of scenery can do wonders for the soul.”

He was worried about my soul? About me? Just as my blood started pumping with old, mushy feelings, his phone blipped with an incoming call.

“I’ve got to take this, hon. It might be Sasha.”

Cold resentment replaced the warm fuzzies. What was left of the professional me bid Michael a pleasant goodbye. The new cynical me, her voice growing ever louder, mentally shouted, screw you, you traitorous bastard.

The bastard called back three minutes later. His tone was clipped. “You flashed your tits for half a dozen execs?”

“And I didn’t even get any beads.” This time it was me who hung up.

ONCE I CROSSED the Walt Whitman Bridge I spent the rest of the drive navigating heavy traffic. Two accidents on I-95 South, a bumper-to-bumper nightmare. Finding an opening in the airport’s economy parking lot proved difficult. After driving up and down several long aisles, I spied a space. Finally. Yes!

As I pulled into the tight space—why don’t people park between the appropriate lines?—it occurred to me that I should contact the client to let him know I was on the way. Yes, it would be close but I’d make it.

Except…I didn’t have Arch’s number. Michael hadn’t given it to me and I hadn’t asked. He did say he gave Arch my number, intimating he would call me…which he hadn’t. What if he’d refused to take me on as a substitute for Pam? Although if that were the case, Michael would’ve called me. My phone hadn’t rung, so…

Oh, no.

I rooted through my purse, snagged my cell phone, and…Crap! No juice. Surely, I hadn’t…

But of course I had.

I’d forgotten to charge it last night. This was all Michael’s fault. He’d jinxed me.

Bastard.

I hurriedly plugged the phone into the cigarette lighter. Come on, come on.

Meanwhile, I climbed out of the idling car, dragged my supersize cherry-red suitcase off the backseat and positioned it by the driver’s door. With my luck, check-in would charge extra for being overweight. Not me, the suitcase. It couldn’t be helped. The zipper on my second suitcase busted, so I had to cram everything into Big Red. Thank goodness it was one of those expandable jobs. Something I’d spied on QVC. Still, it weighed a ton. Again, not my fault. I’d packed for two. Me and my alter ego—the ditzy, sexpot newlywed.

Cursing the brisk temperature, I plopped back down in the driver’s seat and powered on my cell. I punched speed dial to retrieve my messages. There were four. Three from Arch. One from Michael. I ignored Michael, who only ranted that Arch was trying to get in touch with me.

I searched my purse for a pen. Settling on an eyeliner pencil, I relistened to Arch’s last message and scribbled his number on a fast-food napkin. Gosh, he had a sexy voice, and that accent—British? Scottish? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but, yum.

Heart racing, I punched in his cell phone number.

He answered on the first ring. “Where the bloody hell are you?”

As far as greetings went, I’d heard better. “The airport parking lot. Economy. I’m so sorry, Mr. Reece. As you know, I didn’t have much notice and there was an accident—”

“You, too? Bollocks. Are you all right?”

I blinked as a transport shuttle breezed by, hoping another was directly on its tail. The economy lot was a good five minutes from the actual terminal, and that’s after you actually got on the minibus and hit the highway. “What? Oh, no. Not me. I wasn’t involved in an accident. I was delayed by one. Two actually. Traffic was a mess and then parking…I didn’t think I’d ever—”

“Ms. Parish.”

“Yes?”

“The plane, our plane, boards in twenty minutes. I need you here, yeah? Now.”

“Right. Of course. No problem.” Great. I was botching this gig before it even began. “I’ll be there in—”

“What are you wearing?”

“Excuse me?”

“I know what you look like. I need to know what you’re wearing,” he said in that Sean Connery-esque accent. “My wife has a distinct style.”

“Why does my style need to complement your wife’s?”

“You are my wife.”

It took a minute to sink in. “I’m playing your wife?” A fantasy reared. Bulging biceps. Rippled abs. A delicious accent to boot. Evie and the hunk.

“I thought Stone told you—”

“He did. I mean, he said I’d be playing a ditzy newlywed. He just didn’t specify that you’d be playing my husband.”

“Now you know, Sugar.”

Flirty, too. I quirked a brow, grinned. “Gotcha, honey.”

“That’s your name,” he said, and my smile slipped. “Sugar Dupont. My alias is Charles Dupont.”

I wasn’t sure which was more disconcerting: my name, Sugar, for cryin’ out loud, or the fact that he’d called a stage name an alias. Must be a foreign thing. “Charles and Sugar Dupont. Got it.” I glanced at my phone, noted it was somewhat charged, pulled the plug and cut the engine.

“I’m an eccentric novelist and you’re a Vegas showgirl. Retired.”

“Me or you?” I asked, lest he think I wasn’t paying attention. More and more this was sounding like an improvisational murder mystery. The kind where you mill about all day with the patrons, only you’re in character the entire time. One of the cast members kicks the bucket and it’s the patrons’ job to determine the identity of the killer. I’d acted in a few of these over the years and they were always a hoot. “Which one of us is retired?”

“You, Sugar. I’m merely in between books.”

I knew he wasn’t flirting but, between the low timbre of his voice and that accent, he had a devastating effect on my libido. It had been aeons since I’d felt this sexually charged. Please, I thought, as I looped my purse and Lucy tote over my shoulder and abandoned the car, let him be in his mid-thirties at least. No way could I fool around with a twenty-year-old, but a guy in his thirties? A gorgeous Brit, Scot—whatever—with a hunky body? I’m pretty sure I could get down and dirty with a slightly younger man, especially if he had a mature outlook on life. “Are you by chance my roommate?” Buzzing with anticipation, I locked the car door and pocketed the keys.

“As we are married, it would make sense, yeah?”

I pumped my fist in the air. Yes. Smiling, I grabbed my bulging suitcase and, juggling tote, purse and phone, dragged Big Red toward the shuttle vestibule.

“Are you on your way yet?”

“Yup. Should be there in—”

“What are you wearing?”

Back to that. I glanced at my shuffling feet. “Lime and pink-flowered sneakers, khaki capris and a limegreen T-shirt. Although, you can’t see my T-shirt because of my coat—a pink trench. Oh, and I have an aqua wool scarf wrapped around my neck.”

After a long pause he said, “You call that sexy?”

“I call it comfortable.” I’d be spending the next couple of hours on a plane and then transferring onto the ship. Who gets sexed-up to travel?

“Sugar Dupont is an ex-showgirl. A fun-loving exhibitionist.”

“I know. Michael told me. I packed appropriate costumes for when I’m onstage.”

“In this business, the world is our stage, Ms. Parish. You’ll be on the moment you meet me at check-in. This is a round-the-clock performance. If you have a problem with this, tell me now. I cannae afford—”

“No problem.” I did a one-eighty and raced—as much as one can race when lugging one hundred pounds of luggage—back to my car. I couldn’t afford to lose this job. I would not, could not face working a nine-to-five. Then there was the flashing incident. Must. Escape. Town. “I’ll call you back in two minutes.”

I severed the connection before he could argue, whipped open the bulging suitcase right there between my car and the blue van parked next to me. I rooted out a Sugar Dupont ensemble and hunkered down in my backseat for a quick change. I’m no stranger to quick changes, but usually these occur in a dressing room or a curtained, or at least darkened, space backstage. Wiggling in and out of clothes in the backseat of my compact four-door, in broad daylight, was a new experience.

I traded my baggy khaki capris for tight black capris. My funky, flowered sneakers for stiletto, fruit-garnished sandals. I sank lower in the seat, whipped off my T-shirt and pulled on a formfitting halter top—also featuring a fruit motif. I shifted and glanced in the rearview mirror.

Bra strap alert!

Sugar may be an exhibitionist, but I’d be damned if she was a fashion disaster. I needed to trade the bra I was wearing for a strapless push-up—which was somewhere in my suitcase, which was lying open in the parking lot. I unhooked my bra with one hand, eased open the back door and, just as I reached for my suitcase, the halter top came undone and fell down revealing my breasts, nips to the chilly March wind. Before I could cover myself I heard a little boy say, “Look, Daddy. I see bubbies.”

Mortified, I looked up to find a family of four loading into the blue van parked in the adjacent space. I smiled—what else could I do?—yanked up my top and knotted the ties behind my neck.

The father grinned, hefted the little boy into a toddler seat then rounded to the driver’s side. The mother scowled while buckling in her daughter.

Thirty seconds later they were gone, and I still fussed over details. I finger-teased my hair—sexy-tousled—doused it with hair spray and shoved on a pair of Jackie O sunglasses. Big, round and black, the Gucci knockoffs concealed a good portion of my face but they were trendy and fun and, in my estimation, screamed showgirl on holiday. No offense, Mrs. O.

Lastly, because I refused to catch pneumonia, I pulled on a red cashmere shrug. Not appropriate outerwear considering the temperature, but at least my arms would be warm. Since the cropped sweater was sexy tight, I didn’t figure Arch would object.

Satisfied that I looked the part, I hauled my butt and luggage back toward the vestibule—a precarious task while balancing on four-inch stilettos. Nervous laughter bubbled in my throat as I anticipated falling into a hole to China or getting hit by a clown car. This entire day qualified as a segment on Saturday Night Live.

I didn’t call Arch back until I’d claimed a seat on the shuttle chugging toward the terminal. “On my—” gasp, cough “—way.” I used my free hand to dab away the sweat on my upper lip. In between gulps of air—I really need to start exercising—I described my new attire.

“Brilliant,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Sugar?”

I squeezed my tingling thighs together and applied red lipstick—Sugar struck me as a Cajun Crimson kind of gal—one-handed and without the aid of a mirror. God, I was good. “Yes?”

“A bit of character profile here.” He paused, and I waited with bated breath. “You’re crazy aboot me. Cannae keep your hands off of me.”

If he looked anything like what I was imagining—a beefed-up James Bond—that wouldn’t be a trial. Getting paid to grope a sexy stranger? Talk about your dream gig. I tried my best to sound nonchalant, bored even. “So what do you look like, Charles? I don’t want to paw the wrong guy.”

He chuckled, a husky rumble that made my stomach flutter. “Ever see the flick Some Like It Hot?”

I snorted. “Only a bazillion times.”

“Brilliant.”

“I’ll say. Can Billy Wilder direct, or what?”

“Brilliant is slang for excellent, love.”

And love was slang for baby, hon, doll—some sort of endearment. Where was a Bridget Jones lingo guide when you needed one? “Right,” I said with conviction. I’d catch on quick enough, quick study that I am. “So is that the gig? Are we doing a stage reenactment of Some Like It Hot?” I chucked the lipstick and powdered my nose. I’d have to tease my hair higher and unload an entire can of hair spray if I had to cop Marilyn Monroe’s helmet-head. “Wait. Marilyn played Sugar Kane, not Sugar Dupont.”

“I was drawing a comparison of myself to Tony Curtis.”

I snickered at the memory of Curtis and Lemmon in fishnets and heels, disguised as Josephine and Daphne, the homeliest members of an all-girl band. “You’re in drag?”

“Not today. Visualize the part in the movie where Curtis assumes the role of the oil tycoon.”

“Meaning you look like a nearsighted yachting snob?” Even with those goofy pop-bottle glasses, Tony had looked adorable. Okay, so we’re talking geeky. More stuffed shirt than superspy. The nerd and the showgirl. Works for me. My overactive imagination had me seducing Arch much as Monroe had seduced Curtis in a steamy scene on a stolen yacht.

Brilliant.

“Bang on,” he said in that bone-melting accent. “With a slight variation.”

The shuttle neared the American Airlines departure area and my pulse accelerated. I squinted out the window, searching for a young Tony Curtis. Did this mean Arch had full lips and big, moony brown eyes? “The shuttle’s curbside,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as breathless as I felt. “I need to sign off so I can grab my bags.”

“I’ll be waiting just inside the doors,” he said, skepticism lacing his tone. “You’re sure you’re up to this? Seriously, Evie, it’s important that you play your part convincingly at all times, yeah?”

After I got over the thrill of hearing him say my real name, I remembered what Michael had said about a level of risk, and realized that I still didn’t fully understand what I was getting into. Assignment? Alias? I should probably bail.

Three thousand dollars and eight days to reevaluate your life. And, if you’re lucky, a hot fling.

What would Michael think if he knew I was contemplating a lusty romp? Would he care?

He wouldn’t believe it. I’d never had a meaning-less fling in my life. You’re a creature of habit, Evie.

Resentment and conviction propelled me to my feet. “There won’t be any screwups,” I said as I gathered my luggage. “Lucky for you, Arch Reece, I’m one hell of an actress.”