“I’m not answering mine, only yours,” Teddie answered as if any of this made sense. “Are you ladies on your way?”
“We will be shortly. Is everything set up?”
“Most of it. I’ll put the finishing touches on our plan while you do the hair thing.” Excitement infused Teddie’s voice. “This is going to be fun.”
“And the other thing? Have you had time to work on that yet?”
“I’ve made some calls, but no one’s gotten back to me yet.”
“How can they when you’re not answering your phone?”
He laughed. “You have me there.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I said it and meant it. That was precisely my hang-up. One rather huge pothole in the rocky road to love.
“I’m working very hard at making myself indispensable.”
“Are you going to give me back my phone?”
“I’d pay you good money to take it off my hands,” Teddie said. “It rings incessantly—I have reams of messages for you. How do you handle it?”
“I have the patience of Job.”
He laughed as if I were joking. “See you in a minute.” Then he rang off.
Despite my best mental efforts to override it, my heart picked up its pace at the prospect.
SAMSON’S occupied a ziggurat at the end of the Bazaar. It boasted a stair-stepped stone exterior with various trailing plants cascading from each step, most of them in riotous bloom. The ziggurat looked like it had been disassembled in some remote jungle, then reassembled for our pleasure in Vegas. Which was, funny enough, the truth. The Big Boss had found it in ruins in some obscure South American country. Money changed hands, an international incident had been doused—most likely with a great deal more money—and, voilà, one genuine ziggurat on the Las Vegas Strip.
Cascading waterfalls framed the fourteen-foot-tall, rustic wooden doors, which were decorated with huge brass rings for door pulls and a bar that could be lowered to secure the doors against invading hordes—which was superfluous since Samson’s never closed and was rarely invaded. The doors stood open, inviting me into the front lobby where gorgeous young women waited to satisfy my every beauty need.
I felt the frisson of excitement before I registered a presence at my elbow. I didn’t even have to look to know who it was—Teddie. My body clearly wasn’t listening to my brain where he was concerned. “Hey.”
“How’d you know it was me?” He circled my waist with one arm and pulled me to him. Teddie had traded his sweatshirt for a fitted, collarless cotton shirt. He still wore those damned blue jeans that made it almost impossible to resist running my hands over his ass or sticking them in his back pockets, which, while a bit more subtle, was almost as good. Apparently, I had blown right by pathetic and was now completely hopeless—a new low.
“You told me you’d meet us here,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Right.”
With both of my hands on his chest, I pushed him away. “Would you behave? We’ve given the grapevine enough to talk about for a while.”
“They all talk about you anyway,” said Miss Patterson, who stood off to the side waiting patiently with a grin on her face.
“You’re no help. I’ll remember that comment when it’s time for your next raise.”
She didn’t seem fazed. I was losing my touch.
I shot her a look as I straightened my shirt and brushed a hand down my slacks, hoping against hope that straightening the outer would straighten the inner. It didn’t work.
A young woman wearing a very short, off-the-shoulder toga cinched at the waist with a golden rope greeted us. “Ms. O’Toole, Linda is ready for you both now.”
Long blonde hair, perky breasts, dimple-free thighs, an unlined face, she looked about sixteen and made me feel old and ugly. While nobody short of a skilled surgeon could do anything about the old part, I was counting on Linda to solve the ugly part. I nodded to Miss Patterson. “You go first, but a word to the wise about Linda. She can be a bit abrupt—rude even—so don’t let her scare you.”
Blinking, her eyes wide with fear, she said, “I could use some moral support here.”
“You go on. I’ll be right there.”
For once Miss Patterson did as I asked without a sardonic comment. I watched as she disappeared around another waterfall into the salon where Linda waited to work her magic. I turned to Teddie. “What’s the plan?”
“Linda said she needed about two hours—she said you didn’t have the patience for more than that.”
I shrugged. Beauty wasn’t really my thing.
“Meet me at the Palace at two. They’re closing the store for us.”
“You know Miss Patterson’s size and everything?”
Teddie stepped in close to me, and leaned in, his mouth close to my ear. He didn’t touch me, but it seemed as if I could feel every inch of his body with mine. “Lucky, my love, I’m an expert in two things. One of them is women’s clothing.” His seductive tone left no doubt as to what he considered his other area of expertise.
My body tingled all over. Teddie seemed determined to work us through the alphabet—and to make sure I was a wreck by the time we got to Z. His plan was working.
He had almost made it out the door when my brain returned to minimal functioning. “My phone?”
He waved it at me. “I’ll keep it. You relax. Don’t worry, if the building burns down or the SWAT team bursts through the front doors, I know where to find you.” Then he disappeared into the crowd.
A young Samson look-alike appeared at my elbow. Samson’s was famous for its army of namesake look-alikes. I could hear The Big Boss’s voice in my head: “A beauty salon is a place for ladies, so let’s give the ladies what they want.” Apparently women wanted an army of young, buff males to do their bidding. I had no argument with that.
Tall and sculpted, this young Samson sported a mini toga that looked as if it was designed to cover the essentials and nothing more. A brass ring circled one bicep. Gladiator sandals graced his feet, the straps winding around his calves. He had long dark hair and an otherwise completely hairless body. At least as far as I could tell—and that was pretty far, given his lack of clothing. I wanted to ask him if he’d been lasered or waxed, but thought better of it.
“Miss, would you like a mimosa?”
I looked at his tray laden with tall fluted glasses. I thought about Teddie. “One? Hell no, I’ll take two.”
I’D polished off the first and was half done with the second when I found Miss Patterson already seated in Linda’s chair. Tapping her stilettoed foot, Linda, a trim, natural blonde with sharp features arranged in an ever-present frown, stood behind Miss Patterson surveying her in the mirror. Occasionally she would pick up a lock of Miss Patterson’s mop of frizzy, mousy brown hair suffused with streaks of gray and shake her head, tut-tutting.
I continued sipping my mimosa. Hands clutching the arms of the chair in a white-knuckled grip, Miss Patterson looked paralyzed with fear. Both of us were smart enough to know one didn’t disturb the master while she was thinking, so we remained mute.
Finally, Linda stepped back and clapped her hands, shattering the subdued quiet.
I darn near dropped my glass. Miss Patterson looked ready to bolt.
A bevy of assistants materialized at Linda’s summons. She gave them hurried, unintelligible instructions. They disappeared as fast as they had come.
“I know what you need,” Linda announced. “You will like it.”
Before Miss Patterson found her voice, a Samson appeared at her elbow and led her away. She threw a questioning look over her shoulder. I gave her a reassuring nod. The poor woman looked like a wide-eyed tourist seeing Vegas for the first time—awestruck, overwhelmed, but excited.
“Now you,” Linda announced. “Take a seat.”
I gulped the last of the mimosa, depositing the empty glass on the tray of a passing Samson, and did as I was told. Linda didn’t scare me—much.
“You’re a mess,” Linda declared as she surveyed my hair.
“That’s why I’m here. Make me feel good about myself.”
She nodded and tapped that stilettoed foot.
How could she stand in those things all day? Ten minutes in them and I’d offer up every secret I knew. Now there’s a market as yet unexplored by Jimmy Choo—torture and interrogation. I waited while Linda thought.
“God, I live for challenges like this,” she announced after a minute or two of careful observation. “Do you have any particular desires as to what I do with . . . this?” She motioned to my hair and looked as if she’d taken a bite of something awful.
“Whatever you want.” I said it calmly, my resolve fortified by multiple ounces of champagne diluted only slightly with orange juice. I needed a new look to match the new me I hoped to be.
My pronouncement clearly startled the hair-meister. Her eyes grew just a smidgen wider. One corner of her mouth lifted briefly—or maybe I imagined that part. “Really?”
I nodded and snagged another mimosa from a passing Samson. “No weird colors or asymmetrical cuts—other than that, consider me your blank canvas.”
The next hour and forty-five minutes passed in a flurry of activity—washing, dying, cutting, styling—even a stop at the makeup artist while my color set. The only time I almost lost my nerve was when Linda brought out the scissors. I shut my eyes while she worked her magic. She took my hint and turned me away from the mirror.
Sometimes Linda chatted while she worked, sometimes not. Today was one of her chatty days.
“How’s your life going?” she asked as she took a big snip. “You have a different glow about you.”
“Same ol’, same ol’.” A big lock of newly dark hair fell into my lap.
“I’m not sure I believe that, but I’ll let you off the hook.” She took another snip. Another lock of hair fell in my lap.
“I am going to have some hair left, right?”
“A strand or two. So, anything new about Lyda Sue?”
“You knew her, too?” That girl really got around.
“Not well. I used to run into her at Carne.”
“Really?” I tried to keep my voice in a conversational tone. “What was she doing there?”
“What almost everyone does there—trying to find another couple interested in switching.”
“Really?” I squeaked. So much for the conversational tone.
Linda didn’t seem to notice. “The bar at Carne is the place local swingers look for action. I only saw her there a couple of times, both of them within the last two weeks or so. She was always with a tall, dark and handsome type who had the whole aw-shucks cowboy thing going.”
I grabbed my bag and pulled out Dane’s picture. “This the guy?”
She tapped it with her comb. “Yeah. Real smooth, that one.”
“Did they ever find any action?”
“Didn’t notice.” Linda went back to her snipping.
“Did they want to switch with you and your husband?”
“Us?” Linda laughed. “Hell, Joe would kill me if I even thought about doin’ it with another guy. And he knows I’d Bobbitize him if he ever put his weenie where it shouldn’t be. The bar is our local watering hole.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, but all I could see was Linda with a huge knife chasing poor Joe. Then a picture of Dane and Lyda Sue together. For Dane’s sake, when I had dinner with him, I hoped the knives were kept out of my reach.
“Almost done,” Linda announced.
Every now and then I caught a glimpse of Miss Patterson in passing. Each time she was clutching a mimosa in one hand and a Samson in the other.
Finally, it was time for the unveiling. I sat in Linda’s chair, my eyes closed. I felt her turn me so, when I opened my eyes, I’d be looking at myself in the mirror. I could hear Miss Patterson in the chair next to me. I assumed she also had her eyes closed and was facing the mirror.
“Voilà!” Linda announced.
I opened my eyes. For a moment I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me. The rat’s nest of overprocessed blonde hair had been replaced by a cloud of soft, shiny, medium-brown curls with golden highlights. A few tendrils drifted across my forehead, drawing attention to my eyes. I’d forgotten they were such a deep blue. The understated makeup accentuated my cheekbones. Where had they been hiding? While not stunning, I was actually . . . pretty.
Who knew?
“Wow.” Words longer than three letters had momentarily abandoned me.
Linda smiled. She was standing between Miss Patterson’s chair and mine. With a satisfied nod, she crossed her arms and stepped aside.
Miss Patterson was radiant. Gone were the gray and the granny curls. She now sported a sleek, blond style that took a decade off her appearance and made her eyes look as big as salad plates. She reached up and touched her face, a smile tickling her lips. Her eyes glistened.
She looked at me, but she didn’t have to say anything—I knew exactly how she felt. “Linda,” I said. “I know you charge a king’s ransom, but you are worth every penny.”
She nodded, acknowledging the compliment. “I just let out the real you. You’ve been fighting with yourself for years, Lucky.”
So how come everyone knew that but me?
PUTTING my clothes back on felt like donning somebody else’s old coat. I kept looking at myself in the mirror as I dressed. Everything about me was different—the old didn’t quite fit anymore.
Although she didn’t say so, I could tell Miss Patterson felt the same way. When she emerged from the changing room, she looked like a teenager dressed in her mother’s clothes.
After I paid, and added generous tips for everyone, I grabbed her elbow and steered her out into the Bazaar. Instead of turning toward the hotel, we took a right, heading deeper into retail-land.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“The makeover isn’t yet complete.” We stopped in front of the Palace. A large closed sign hung in the door. I knocked.
Miss Patterson hung back. “I can’t afford this place.”
“No worries. We’re getting the Ted Kowalski discount. He’s one of their most important customers.”
She looked doubtful, but after a saleswoman opened the door, she stepped inside with me.
Designed to provide each customer with the royal treatment, the Palace was every inch a retail oasis. From the deep couches scattered liberally around the cozy space, to the small café in the corner, to the ever-present sales staff that bordered on obsequious, the Palace provided a customer-centric shopping experience. None of the store’s inventory was on display. Instead, the customers—or as the staff referred to them, the clients—took a seat on one of the lovely sofas. The staff then brought out various, carefully selected items, one at a time.
I sank into the nearest couch, pulling Miss Patterson down with me. This wasn’t exactly my normal shopping experience either. Sitting there was like waiting for a show to begin. I half expected the lights to dim and the music to start.
Instead, Teddie appeared dressed in a rather risqué gown. Iridescent, beaded and practically see-through, it was reminiscent of the stuff Bob Mackie used to design for Cher in her heyday. He started to pirouette then stopped in his tracks. He walked over to me and extended his hand, a smile splitting his face. His eyes locked on mine like a tractor beam.
Nervous as to what he thought of my new look, but powerless to resist, I let him pull me up. He turned me around in front of him. When I again faced him, he stepped in close, and very tenderly kissed me.
I’d never been kissed by a man in a dress before. I think I liked it. I’m not sure what that meant.
“You look fabulous,” he whispered. He led me to a mirror. “Look at the you you’ve kept hidden behind that wall of feigned indifference. You blow me away.”
Blow him away? For sure I liked that.
I lost myself in our reflection—me in my pants, Teddie in
his dress, and for some odd reason, nothing about us struck me as unusual.
Miss Patterson cleared her throat. “You guys are attracting some attention.”
She was indeed correct. A small crowd, their noses pressed to the glass, lined the storefront. Teddie stepped toward them and turned slowly for their perusal. His performance elicited cheers and an occasional wolf whistle.
The show was on.
As he strode by me on his way to the changing room, he winked and asked, “How do you like my dress? Think it’ll look good in the show?”
I pointed to his chest. “You don’t have the right equipment to really take advantage of the design.”
He looked down then grinned. “I left my boobs at the theatre.”
“At least you know where yours are,” I said as I surveyed my own inadequate cleavage.
He laughed then ducked around the corner. “I’ll be right back. Just let me change.”
The minute he left, the parade began—dresses, pants, silky tops—all in a riot of color. Tentative at first, then warming to the fun, Miss Patterson pointed to the ones she liked, and waved her hand dismissively at those she didn’t. She even wrinkled her nose at a particularly offensive pantsuit.
Arms crossed and a serious expression on his face, Teddie watched as he leaned against the wall. All the original selections had been his. He had a wonderful eye.
Finally, Miss Patterson had narrowed her items down to about twenty. After she made her selections, Teddie grabbed her hand, pulling her with him around the curtain to the dressing rooms.
I took full advantage of the intermission. Up to this point, lunch had consisted of champagne and orange juice—not exactly the meal of champions. I wandered over to the café tucked discretely in the corner of the shop behind a counter sporting a few barstools in front, and snagged a sandwich and two Diet Cokes. I returned quickly, settling back in my place on the sofa and promptly inhaled half the sandwich. The other half was for Miss Patterson.
Teddie appeared from behind the curtain and, like Ed McMahon introducing Johnny Carson, mimicked a drumroll, gestured toward the curtain and said, “Heeeere’s Miss Patterson.”
Wanna Get Lucky? Page 16
