by Jill Winters
A few seconds passed before her breathing returned to normal and the panic and shock of what had just happened finally subsided.
Still shaken, she climbed to her feet. Rubbing her backside, she reached for the door to Susanna's dressing room.
It was only when she gave a cursory glance back at the stairs that she noticed something. Liquid streaked heavily down the first two steps. Abruptly, Gretchen dropped her hand off the doorknob and walked closer. She bent to touch whatever it was, finding it wet and greasy. Then she sniffed it. I'll be damned...
Olive oil?
* * *
"Good, you're still here! We have dinner plans." Susanna swept into Gretchen's office—or rather, the one she'd given her. Like everything else, it came with a price.
"We do?" Gretchen said, glancing up from this week's supply sheets, pencil in hand. "I mean... thanks for asking me, but I actually have plans."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Susanna said with dramatic emotion, "but I'm going to need you to cancel them. We've got a crucial dinner meeting with Brett tonight."
"What do you mean 'we'?" Gretchen said with a slight edge to her voice. It was past five o'clock; she was tired and irritable and her back still ached from her tumble on the stairs.
Susanna stepped closer. A gleeful smile curved her lips into a half-moon, and she lowered her voice. "I'm this close to getting the guest spot on Brett's show! Abe said that Joel was impressed with the taping the other day and the way I move fluidly through the kitchen. He thought it would be a wonderful counterbalance to Brett's kind of fiery energy."
"Really?" Gretchen said a little skeptically. Raspy, abrasive Joel Green had used the words "move fluidly" and "wonderful counterbalance"? Please. Now if Susanna had said he'd hacked out a wheezing cough of approval, that Gretchen would believe.
"Don't you see?" Susanna went on with a doe-eyed mix of naiveté and enthusiasm. "I'm on the cusp of getting what I want. And a few minutes ago, I happened to overhear Brett mention to his cousin that he's free for dinner tonight and that they should grab a bite later. I need to seize this opportunity! I know if Brett and I spend more time together, he'll realize how great we'd be as co-hosts!"
Whoa, whoa, whoa—co-hosts? What happened to a couple of guest spots? Hmm... sounded like Susanna had been dreaming bigger than that the whole time but was only now revealing it.
If Gretchen still believed that Brett was the target of a murder plot, this latest information would only confirm that Susanna had no reason to want him dead. Speaking of Misty's murder... tonight Gretchen planned to tell Rick all about her revelations—how Misty had likely been the intended victim after all, and how Ellie Galistette was sitting at the top of the list of suspects.
Now, on another note, Brett's cousin was here again? jeez, the guy needed to get a life. Abruptly she realized she was starting to sound as bitter and judgmental as Kit. Oh well, she was tired and moody, so too fucking bad.
"I need you there," Susanna begged now. "Please, Gretchen, please! If you're there, it'll seem more natural. Plus, you can keep Epau busy while I talk to Brett."
Oh, Jesus. Okay, the truth was: Gretchen hadn't made dinner plans yet. That had been an exaggeration, but a hopeful one. She'd talked to Rick earlier and they'd discussed getting together later, but he'd had to run, so he'd told her he'd call her when he got out of work. Now Susanna was looking more pathetic than ever, begging to the point of clasping her hands prayer style, and as usual, the woman seemed convinced they were Siamese in a former life.
Finally, Gretchen agreed, but with a stipulation. "All right, I'll go—but I have to be home by eight tonight."
"Eight o'clock?" Susanna echoed doubtfully. "That's too early. I was thinking we'd meet him at the restaurant around seven thirty and—"
"At eight, I have to leave," Gretchen said firmly. "Sorry, like I said, I have plans tonight."
Apparently Susanna knew when it was futile to keep pressing. So she accepted those terms, but said she would have to take care of a few things first and she'd meet Gretchen and Brett at the restaurant at seven thirty. Then she said that maybe it was better this way. Gretchen would be there to "warm Brett up" and then she could leave by eight, from which point Susanna would "close the deal." (By the way, had Gretchen mentioned that Susanna hadn't even invited Brett and his goon cousin yet? That this was all presumption on her part?)
After giving the name and address of the restaurant, she flitted off. Gretchen blew out a sigh. She was tired and she wanted to relax with Rick tonight, not his pretty-boy brother.
But then again...
This might be her one chance to talk to Brett about Misty's death. She didn't know if Rick had told him what he'd confided to her, so she couldn't be too direct about it. But maybe she could fish around...
Picking up the phone on her desk, she dialed Rick's cell number to tell him about her newest work obligations and that she would be free around nine. His phone rang a few times and then clicked to dead air—it didn't go to voice mail. She tried again, but the same thing happened. Great, now she couldn't even leave him a message. Oh, well, she'd just have to try him later.
Chapter 25
An hour later, Gretchen was sitting alone at a linen-covered table, waiting for Brett and Epau to show. Finally, after twenty more minutes of waiting, they strutted in. Well, Brett strutted. Epau moved more like a tank—powerful, stiff, unyielding, and in no rush.
As he winked at several of the women he passed, Brett even made a point to angle his head back and ogle a waitress's butt. Discreetly rolling her eyes, Gretchen thought: Hurry, Susanna—please.
"Hey, Gretchen," he said as he approached the table, knocked twice on it, winked, and then looked up at his cousin. "Epau, Cuz—remember Gretchen? You met her the other day?"
The stoic nod seemed to indicate either that he remembered or didn't give a fuck.
"Hi, guys, how are you?" Gretchen said brightly.
"Great to see you," he said, leaning down to plant a kiss on her cheek. She held back a grimace, recalling the way he'd kissed Lupe on the cheek the night before—or should she say licked.
"You, too. Um, Susanna should be here anytime now...."
"So what's up with you and my brother?" Brett asked bluntly after he took a seat across from her. That definitely caught her off guard.
She wasn't sure why she was surprised. Surely if Rick and Brett talked to each other on a regular enough basis, Rick might've mentioned that he and Gretchen had started dating.
"Oh, well..." she said, feeling a warm blush wash over her cheeks. Before she could flounder, though, Brett's cell phone rang inside his jacket. It loudly crooned a loungey beat so as to draw as much attention as possible.
"Oh, excuse me," he said, pulling it out of his pocket, glancing at the number. "Yo," he said. From across the table, she could only hear a low-pitched murmur on the other end. "I'm okay. Yup, he's here with me." Brett paused, then said, "Gretchen? What a coincidence. I'm with her right now. Yeah, right," he said, clearly imitating the caller, "it's true. What are we doing? What do you think? We're having dinner together."
Gretchen squirmed uncomfortably. Was that Rick on the phone?
And why was Brett making it sound like they were on some kind of date?
"Oh, you don't believe me?" he said. "Here she is." Then he passed the phone across the table. Gretchen took it with a questioning look, and as she brought it up toward her mouth, she asked Brett who it was, even though she knew, and then she spoke into the phone.
"Hello? Hello?" But the line was dead.
* * *
It was a dank and dreary night and the air was raw. Rick walked down the sidewalk, still thinking about the conversation he'd had with his brother only ten minutes before. Thinking about the sound of Gretchen's voice coming through the line. Irritably, he reached for a cigarette out of his inside coat pocket but then realized he was out. Fuck it. He kept walking, still trying to grasp how life had just flipped upside down and knocked him on his ass.
/> Gretchen was out with Brett? At a restaurant—having dinner, for chrissake? She was supposed to be hanging out with him tonight. They'd even discussed it before, when Rick had said he would call her once he got out of work. So why was she out with Brett? And when the hell had they made these plans?
Saved him another call, that was for sure. After checking in with his brother the shithead, he'd been planning to call her to figure out what she wanted to do tonight. There went that.
As he walked, he blocked out the noises of the honking cars and the blaring music from the pizza place to his right. The more he played back the conversation with Brett just now, the more anger that swam in front of his eyes.
Brett hadn't been apologetic about it, even though he must have figured out by their previous conversation that Rick had a thing for Gretchen.
His brother was a jackass—plain and simple—and Rick wasn't gonna forget it. But he was far more disappointed in Gretchen. His gut twisted and his jaw tightened as he thought about it. Jesus, had she been bullshitting him this whole time? Had his earlier impression been correct—that she was after his brother?
Sure, Brett was rich and famous and outgoing, but at the core he was a selfish bastard. What could a girl like Gretchen possibly have in common with him, besides cooking? She was deeper than that. Someone as shallow as Brett couldn't make her happy—couldn't she see that?
Goddamn it! Why should he care if she made herself miserable trying to chase Brett, who'd never been faithful to a girl in his life? She didn't deserve it—she'd been trying to work it both ways. Sex with Rick for the thrill of it, but the whole time, she'd had her eyes on the prize.
Rick knew Gretchen was attracted to him; he knew how turned on she'd been the last time they saw each other. He remembered how wet she'd been—practically trembling in his arms, her body strung tight but on the verge of collapse, pleading with him to touch her more, moaning in his ear, gripping his arms, bucking her hips, rubbing hungrily against his cock...
There was no doubt in his mind, they'd been halfway to a long, steamy fuck when they'd been interrupted.
So that was it, then. That was the extent. She'd finally gotten Brett's attention, and Rick would be damned if he'd let her play both angles.
Traffic moved around him like a flood of lights, ants treading water, the street flickering with all kinds of colors, but mostly he just saw red.
* * *
"Who was that?" Gretchen said again after Brett finished making small talk with the manager who'd come to the table. Followed by four people who'd wanted autographs.
"What?" he said absently, reaching for his glass of carrot juice that the waitress had just set down. It was garnished with a celery stalk, which looked equally appealing.
"Who was on the phone?" Gretchen said, getting very irritated now. "Oh. That was Brody, uh, Rick, actually," he said, just as Susanna approached the table.
"I made it here early!" she declared, taking a seat beside Gretchen. "Hi, Brett—hi, uh..."
"Epau," Brett said by way of introduction.
Before Susanna could start prattling, Gretchen balled her fists under the table and pressed on. "Um, you said that was Rick on the phone? But there was no one there when I answered." Brett just shrugged. "Well, his cell phone wasn't working right earlier when I tried to call him... so maybe it just died on him now when I got on the line?"
"Probably" was all Brett said.
Well, that hadn't exactly been reassuring. She needed to get in touch with Rick and explain about why she hadn't waited to make dinner plans with him, and why she'd been out with Brett instead. Surely he would understand, but she still needed to let him know. "Will you excuse me? I want to go make a phone call..."
Susanna just nodded and said, "Okay, but hurry back." (God, what had this woman done before Gretchen came to work for her? Oh, yeah, fire everyone else.)
She scurried to the ladies' room, where she pulled her cell phone out of her bag and checked for missed calls. None from Rick. She dialed him, bur got no answer. This time, though, his voice mail picked up, so she left him a message—explaining that she'd tried to call him a few times, but something had been wrong with his cell phone service because his voice mail hadn't been picking up, and that she'd been roped into a dinner with Susanna and Brett, bur she'd be free around nine so she would call him then.
Snapping the phone closed, she reminded herself: Just make it to eight o'clock. Then Susanna can start "closing the deal" and I can get the hell out of here. And by then, Rick will have called.
* * *
The next day was Saturday and by late afternoon, Gretchen still hadn't heard from Rick, though she'd left two messages, the final one saying, "So I guess we'll get together another night... but call me." And he still hadn't called! Nothing! It was unreal—what a jerk!
Foolishly she tried to figure out what he was thinking and why he was being distant all of a sudden. (Always a waste of a girl's time, but what the hell?)
Even if it had sounded strange to Rick when Brett had told him that he was out to dinner with Gretchen, why would Rick suddenly blow her off? Wasn't it obvious that it had to be a work thing, and if he wanted clarification, why hadn't he called her back for it?
Why hadn't he picked up his phone last night? Obviously he'd seen it was her number calling, but he still hadn't picked up.
Maybe she was overreacting, paranoid about getting blown off. After all, Rick was embroiled in a lot of stuff these days, between his job and his brother's whole so-called life-threatening situation.
God, what if something bad had happened...?
No, she was making excuses for him, slipping into the old maybe-he's-lying-in-a-ditch-somewhere line of thinking, when in fact he simply wasn't calling her back. Swallowing down a lump of anxiety, she told herself to stop worrying so much, to focus on her job—for pete's sake, hadn't that been her vow to herself when she'd taken the position at TCN? Focus on the career. Dating can wait.
Stop worrying, she scolded herself again. Rick was special. He was straightforward and reasonable and he wasn't a player... was he?
No—surely he would call soon.
If only it wasn't for that niggling doubt in the back of Gretchen's mind that told her: You've done it to yourself again.
* * *
Late that night, Gretchen was sitting cross-legged on one of the kitchen counters, with the glass cabinet door open above her and half of Marcia Rabe's spices in her lap. She was channeling her frustration—her annoyance, her all around man hate—into something productive: organizing the spices by their nuances of compatibility. (Hey, it beat eating a pie.)
She was sitting with her hair half up in a spiky messy bun, wearing green fleece pants and a T-shirt from Dana's days at Rutgers. It was pale pink with silver cursive that read: JERSEY GIRLS RULE.
Just then Dana emerged, bounding into the living room and flapping a sheet of paper in her hand. "Okay, how's this?" she said, flattening the paper down on the counter opposite from Gretchen and hopping up on a stool herself.
Surprised, Gretchen stopped juggling ten bottles of spices and set them down. "I thought you were asleep," she said.
"No, that was just a power nap. Something to help me unwind." Grinning, Gretchen commented, "You know, you're the only person I know who needs to unwind from unwinding." Then she hopped off the counter she was perched on, crossed the kitchen to look at the paper Dana had laid out for her.
"No, really. Unemployment is not as restful as it's cracked up to be," Dana said. "I looked for jobs online so long my eyes actually started to burn."
Gently, Gretchen gave her a sympathetic look. Dana really was trying to find her niche. Even if no "big break" ever came, hopefully she'd find it.
"So that's my updated resume," Dana explained, as Gretchen started to read it. "The other one didn't seem to be getting lots of replies. So I just made a few... tweaks. Now, give me your honest opinion. Don't hold anything back."
As Gretchen's eyes scanned the page,
a wisp of laughter slipped from her lips. "Dana," she said, tilting her face, leveling her cousin with a bewildered, quizzically amused glance, even though her tone had been flat.
"Yes?" Dana said, looking expectant.
Pausing for just a moment, Gretchen bit her lip, then said, "Um... this is okay, but... maybe a little unprofessional." Maybe being hugely generous.
"Meaning?" Now it was Dana's turn to tilt her head and fold her arms across her chest.
"Well, first of all, what is this?" Gretchen pointed to the middle of the page. "Under 'skills' you list Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, and Pilates."
"All true," she said, "though I see what you mean, it's confusing, Microsoft doesn't have anything to do with Pilates..." Tilting her head, Gretchen gave her a knowing smirk. "Too much?" Dana said, scrunching her eyebrows, then explained. "I was going for some levity there. You know, something to make my resume pop?"
Smiling speculatively, Gretchen said, "Yeah, I could be wrong, but I don't think potential employers are big on levity. Or sarcasm. At least on paper—in an interview it'll come off better."
"Fine, so what are they 'into' on paper?" Dana asked, quoting with her fingers. "Bland formality and blatant suck-up-ness?"
"It's a start. And what's this? Under your reason for leaving your last job you have a two-paragraph rant about your struggle to preserve your personal integrity in a man's world."
"No good?"
"No."
"Well, it works better with manic hand gestures."
Gretchen drew a big X through the whole thing. "Moving on..." Her eyes wandered down the page. "Now this part's my favorite. Under salary requirements, you have, 'Fifty K and a private jet—negotiable—but not on the jet, ha-ha.' "
"Oh, well, I can fix that," Dana said, taking the resume from Gretchen's hand and pulling her pen out from behind her ear to scratch it out and write something else in its place. "There," she said, passing the resume back.
Gretchen read it back. " 'Fifty K and Flexible—just ask my ex-boyfriend, ha-ha.' She laughed in spite of herself, then said, "You're really into this whole 'ha-ha' thing, huh?"
