I stir my soup in a smooth and measured way, savoring her deliciously white-hot glare.
Six
Francine
* * *
Lizzie arrives with her shapeless prairie dress.
“Oh my god!” I am just laughing, imagining showing up at a fancy restaurant in that.
“It would serve that asshole right!” Mia says from where she’s lying on the couch throwing M&M’s up and catching them in her mouth. She misses one and it bounces across the floor.
Kelsey grabs the bag from Mia. “No more M&M’s for you.”
I take it and hold it up on its hanger. “I don’t know. It’s neither pretty nor stylish,” I say.
“Somebody thought it was pretty and stylish at some point,” Lizzie says.
“Did they, though?” I ask.
“The Amish, maybe,” Tabitha says.
“Eye on the prize!” Noelle says, coming out with my red print wraparound. “This is what you wear. This is your prettiest and most stylish dress. It looks gorgeous with your hair.”
“Why should I look good for him?” I take the hanger with the red dress.
Mia grins from the couch. “You shouldn’t.”
“Right? He’s decided to push me around just because he can? And now I have to wear a nice dress for him? Screw that!”
“I get it. He’s a jerk and it’s not fair, but you need to focus on your goal,” Noelle reminds me, playing the voice of reason. “You need to do what it takes to make this tour happen.”
I sigh. “I know, I know…”
“But what fun is that?” Mia taunts from the couch, ever the devil’s advocate.
“Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise for your knee,” Kelsey says. “Tell him to buzz off and divorce him on your own terms. I mean, a ten-city overseas tour with that knee…”
“Pullllease!” I point the finger of hypocrisy at Kelsey. “You’d go on the tour of your dreams with this knee in a minute.”
“Doesn’t make it a good idea,” Kelsey says.
I sniff, though in truth, I’m sometimes terrified that I’ll be busted for hiding this injury and get kicked off the tour, and everything I’ve worked for and dreamed about goes up in smoke. Other times I’m terrified that I’m too good at fooling them, and I don’t get kicked off the tour, and my knee will blow out in Croatia or something and I’ll be alone in a medical center where I don’t speak the language, alone with my crumbled career.
“Does he think you’re going to fall into his bed again with this whole wife pretense?” Lizzie asks. “Do you think that’s his secret hope?”
“No way. Sleeping with me is the absolute furthest thing from his mind.”
“Disagree,” Kelsey says, tossing M&M’s into her own mouth now. “Sleeping with you is on the mind of nearly every hetero man who meets you, Francine.”
“And you did get married,” Noelle says. “You’re sure there’s nothing there?”
There was something on my side, but that’s not what she’s asking. “He was drunk. I’ve seen drunk people eat fish eyes and dive into empty pools, you know? Anyway, the man I saw today is only interested in pushing me around. He was like, ‘power trip? Yes, please! A chance to make Francine sing for her supper? Yes, please!’”
Lizzie folds her arms. “He wants to toy with the pretty dancer.”
“Something like that,” I say.
“Wife locked away in a gloomy chalet in the Swiss Alps,” Mia says. “What does that say about you that people would think, yes, a mentally enfeebled wife locked away in a Swiss chalet, yeah, that seems like a thing Benjamin Stearnes would do.”
“It’s a step up from the attic,” Noelle says hopefully.
“Hold up,” Lizzie says. “Do you know Janice Schembechler? Isn’t she on the first floor?”
“I think she’s in 106,” Kelsey says.
“Isn’t she in the ‘Sound of Music’ weekend sing-a-long thing in the arts theater thingy by the river?” Lizzie asks.
“Are you proposing I deprogram him with mid-century musicals?” I ask as Lizzie heads out the front door without explanation.
“Noelle deprogrammed Malcolm with videos of our apartment building,” Mia says.
“I think Noelle deprogrammed Malcolm with her magical pussy,” I say, and Noelle promptly hits me over the head with an India print throw pillow.
I drape the prairie dress over the couch and examine the pretty red dress. “And who are these legions of gold diggers going after him? What’s up with that?” I ask.
“Well, he is a handsome, rich billionaire,” Kelsey says, popping another M&M into her mouth under Mia’s fake glare.
“They can have him,” I say. “Here’s a guy who eats alone at a restaurant, and he has employees who sit nearby whose entire job is keeping people away from him? And they act all nervous when they fail him, like he’s gonna lock them up in some gloomy Swiss chalet along with his enfeebled wife? And his old co-worker needs the tiniest favor, and he’s all, You will obey me now?” I shake my head. “The gold diggers can have him.”
“But you’ve decided to play along,” Noelle says. “Because you want him to cooperate. And you’ll go on your tour and it’ll be so amazing.”
Lizzie bursts back in, clutching a bundle of fabric. “We have to promise to have this back by Sunday but...” Here she unfurls a dress.
I press my fingertips to my lips, eyes wide. “Oh. My. God.”
It’s not just any dress. It’s got gathered cap sleeves. A lederhosen pinafore, all very Swiss Alps meets Sound of Music meets St. Pauli Girl.
“Imagine walking into the restaurant wearing this!” Lizzie exclaims. “Does it look Swiss or what?”
Mia claps. “Evil!”
“No!” Noelle is laughing. “Timeout! You cannot!”
“With all these rumors about him keeping his wife locked up in a Swiss chalet?!” Mia says. “Oh my god you have to wear it!”
“Think of your tour,” Noelle says. “You can’t take chances.”
“He said stylish and pretty,” Lizzie reiterates. “Were those not his words?”
“Yes! Those were his words,” I say. I’m grinning. I feel…excited. Happy. “This is definitely stylish. And it’s pretty. We had an agreement, and he can’t say I’m not holding up my end. And it would teach him a lesson for pushing me around and making me play his doting wife!”
“You guys, it’s not like people in Switzerland wear dresses like that,” Noelle says. “People in Switzerland wear completely contemporary outfits.”
“But a wife trapped in a Swiss chalet by Billionaire Bluebeard might just be forced to wear such a thing,” Mia says.
“I can’t imagine people really believe that rumor,” I say.
“People believed that Richard Gere put gerbils up his butt,” Mia says. “People love to believe weird things. They probably think it’s some kind of a fetish. Maybe Benny was deeply affected by a bottle of Swiss Miss hot chocolate as a child. With that cartoon Swiss girl. It happens.”
I take the dress from Lizzie and hold it up to myself. “I really shouldn’t,” I say. “I really, really shouldn’t! But if I did, I’d need to walk into the restaurant with something over it, like a coat or a wrap so that I could pull it off for a big reveal. Because Benny would never just take me into a restaurant wearing this.”
“Brilliant!” Mia says.
“It’s pretty. It’s stylish. And best of all, it’ll make him sorry,” Lizzie says. “I’d say that’s a pretty good dress.”
“Fuck with the bull, you get the horns,” Mia says. “And if you make Francine be your fake wife, you will get some free-spirit fun in your face.”
“Is it just me or does that just sound the slightest bit dirty?” I ask.
“He’s not gonna like this,” Noelle warns. “This is not what Benny had in mind, and you know it. Maybe this is not the right time for fun.”
I hold up both dresses, heart pounding like mad. I should be angry and upset about this whole thing
, but I imagine his sullen gaze, and something lifts in me.
And weirdly, for the first time in months, I’m not horribly stressed out about my knee.
I wait under the canopy outside our building.
A night out is the last thing I need after a grueling day of classes and rehearsals; my usual nighttime routine is sewing pointe shoes while soaking my feet in ice, followed by a salad and then toe and ankle exercises.
But then Benny’s sleek gray limo slides up in front of the building and I’m just grinning.
A limo. How perfect! Because who can forget his snarky comments about the limo guys I used to date in Vegas?
Not me!
I’m wearing one of my favorite spring coats, a bright red number with black embroidery along the collar and around the buttons. It has a black belt, and I love it to death. And it perfectly covers the Sound of Music/St. Pauli Girl dress.
I tighten the belt, feeling excited and just a tiny bit nervous as Benny’s driver comes around to the back and pulls open the door.
Benny’s in there. The half of him that’s facing me is so deeply shrouded in shadows, I can barely see his expression. His profile and the outer edges of his white collar are outlined in a pale glow by the streetlights behind him, along with a sprinkling of dirty-blonde whiskers on his cheeks.
I slide in next to him and the door closes behind me, shutting us up together, me and the shadow side of Benny. Though, he’s all shadow side, apparently. A nerd in wolf’s clothing. But more—the wolf has totally taken over the antisocial nerd, chewed it to pieces.
Still, I can’t quite hide my grin. Benny in a limo. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
“What’s so funny?” he demands as it lurches out into the honking cacophony of traffic.
“A limo is funny,” I say.
He stares down at his phone with a harumph.
“I seem to recall a certain somebody calling it a low-self-esteem mobile,” I tease.
“I seem to recall a certain somebody who enjoyed the billionaire trappings at one point,” he says.
“Well, like you say, people change,” I tell him. “I’m just not that into billionaires these days.”
“You’re not?” he asks.
“They just don’t work for me,” I say.
He doesn’t reply, just scrolls darkly.
“And here you are, riding in the hated limo. How’d that happen?”
“It happened because only imbeciles continue to operate on information that’s ten years old. As it turns out, when you’re a business owner like I am, a limo is a tool that aids in client management, client acquisition, and a host of other functions.”
I’m still smiling. There’s no way I’m letting him slip out of this. “Do you ever wonder if people watching you drive by are just scowling at you?”
“As a matter of fact, that’s how I measure this limo’s mileage. Scowls per gallon,” he says coolly, barely bothering to look up. “This one gets five scowls per gallon. I’m hoping to upgrade to seven in the near future.”
I suck in a breath. He didn’t use to be like this! He was sullen and antisocial, yes but he’s added a snarly and acerbic dimension to his personality.
I study him discreetly, wondering about that night together. What possessed us to get married? Aside from my shameful behavior, I remember vague flashes of scenes. Us talking excitedly in some dark cavern of a bar. Feeling excited out on the strip.
I want to ask him, but I’m a little afraid to.
Did I confess something embarrassing to him? Like my fascination with him and his gangly hands and gorgeous lips? Or other inappropriate things I would sometimes think about him after he made it clear he was off-limits?
“What?” he grumbles, feeling my attention upon him.
“So…is this the first time you’ve met these people?” I ask, like that’s my big concern.
He grunts something that is clearly a yes in the direction of his phone.
I swallow. Maybe I’m just part of the furniture to Wolf Benny. Maybe I’m just another tool in client management—limo, contract, annual holiday gift, wife.
I sit back and fold my arms, feeling even happier about my dress.
If the back of his limo is like a small living room, we’re sitting together on the main couch. There’s a pull-down tray between us that currently holds a crystal tumbler of what is probably horrendously expensive scotch or whiskey.
Across from us is a smaller seating area, and right in the middle of the two seating areas is a console that is like a small coffee table, except it has a screen set into it.
According to the screen, Pandora is running the current musical selection—something soft and ballad-y—Radiohead, if I’m not mistaken. I remember him liking alt rock of that era. All except Dave Matthews Band. I smile at the memory of him leaping across Beau Cirque set pieces to get rid of a Dave Matthews Band song during lighting blocking. As head of AV, he exerted fanatical control over the music as well as the lights. And he so hated Dave Matthews Band. I never understood why. I always liked them.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
He gives me a look. “Don’t screw this up.”
I give him a pouty little frown. “I’m not the one conscripting a fake wife for a business dinner.”
“Real wife.” He goes back to his phone. “My actual wife.”
I snort. “A little hard to forget.”
He gestures at the small door that forms the base of the fancy limo coffee table. “Beverages. Help yourself. It’ll be a while.”
I pull on the discreet handle and it turns out to be a luxurious mini fridge, complete with lots of snacks and beverages, including, much to my delight, a couple of mini cans of zero-sugar black cherry carbonated water and chilled glasses. “Don’t mind if I do,” I say. “Don’t mind if I do at all.”
I never drink sugary stuff when in rehearsal mode. When you’re doing seven-hour days of dancing—ten if there’s a performance—you have to manage your energy.
When I’m done pouring, I toss the can into a discreet compartment with a recycling logo. This place is like a cockpit, except way more high tech, and definitely more luxurious, and it smells woodsy and spicy like him, not that I’m keeping track.
“So who are these personages that we’re going to be dining with?” I ask.
“It’s the president, vice president, and a few of the operating officers from a company called Arcana Protech,” he says, not bothering to pull his gaze from his phone.
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s an international conglomerate based in Rio de Janeiro, with offices in Dallas,” he says to his phone. “They’re all about industrial engineering. The Texans we meet tonight may act like they are in charge, but it’s actually one of the Brazilians who makes the decisions. A woman named Juliana.”
“And Juliana wants to buy your company, which makes little machine-cleaning microrobot thingies.”
“Somebody’s been doing her homework,” he mumbles, scrolling onward.
“A girl likes to know who she’s married to,” I say. “So when the robot takeover happens and artificial intelligence exterminates all of the humans, will your microrobots be like tiny little Renfields? Obediently shuffling after our overlords while catching and eating flies?”
“Machines create human leisure,” he says. “We humans are the overlords of technology.”
“Somebody needs to re-watch the Terminator franchise,” I say.
He simply grunts.
“Is there anything else I should know? Don’t you think it would be customary for me to be up on this stuff?”
“You don’t bother yourself about the business. You’re deeply infatuated with me. That’s what our marriage is based on.”
“Deeply infatuated,” I tease.
“Deeply.” He looks up at me now. His face is in shadows, but his eyes are burning out at me. In a rumbly voice he says, “You can’t get enough of me. Something
just comes over you whenever I walk into the room. Though I have to say, a man has his limits, Francine.”
I snort. “Omigod. Can’t even.”
He doesn’t smile, of course, but I can feel the jerky pleasure radiating off him in waves.
“We met in Vegas doing Beau Cirque, of course,” he says. “We’re both extremely private, and very independent in our pursuits, not always on the same coast. Best to stick close to the truth.”
“Right, of course, this all really sounds like we’re sticking with the truth.”
The car slows. Benny glances at the console thing—the picture on the console changes from the Pandora display to a map and an address.
“Are we there?” I ask.
“Picking somebody up,” Benny says. “Aaron. He works with me.”
I nod, thinking about the Wikipedia article on him. Benny founded his company with his friend, James, and the two of them brought on this lawyer, Aaron. Benny figured out the inventions, James figured out the whole business side of it, and Aaron did the legal stuff. James was hit by a car a few months back on Thanksgiving weekend—he was on his bike. It was a hit and run—they never caught the guy. Now it’s just Benny and Aaron.
I can hear the driver getting out up front. I suppose everybody who rides in this car needs the door opened for them.
Does Benny miss James? Were they friends or was it just a co-worker thing? Benny is such a loner, I can’t imagine him being really close friends with anybody, but he’s so different now. I want to ask him, but he doesn’t seem to want to communicate whatsoever with me.
The door opens and a stout man with a thick pelt of brown hair, a thick little mustache, and wire-rimmed glasses slides into the seat across from us.
“Aaron. Francine,” Benny says, because he can’t be bothered to do a proper introduction. His phone pings and he’s back tapping and scrolling.
Aaron eyes me in a way I don’t love, and his smile isn’t exactly friendly, either. In fact it’s not hard to imagine that disdainful little mouth ripping apart a feather pillow. Lizzie told me that Aaron has a reputation for playing hardball.
Just Not That Into Billionaires Page 5
