Sizzling

by Susan Mallery

  “That bad?” Madeline asked as Lori dug in a drawer for a corkscrew.

  “In some ways good. In others, worse.”

  The cork popped out. Madeline collected a single glass and held it out. Lori took it and poured. Seconds later she swallowed a mouthful of the tart, fruity wine and sighed.

  “Not better yet, but soon,” she breathed. “So how was your day?”

  “Fine. Quiet. I had lunch with Julie. Do you remember her? She was my roommate in college and one of my bridesmaids.”

  There had been eight and honestly, Lori hadn’t bothered to learn their names.

  “Uh-huh,” she lied. “I’m glad you got out. You can’t hang out here all the time.”

  Madeline tucked her auburn hair behind her ear and smiled. “I like hanging out here.”

  Her sister didn’t fit the stereotype of the frail soon-to-be dead. She was a little pale and too thin, but that only added to her ethereal beauty. Madeline had been born beautiful and had never gone through anything resembling an awkward stage. It was one of life’s sassy attempts at humor.

  Madeline ignored the bottle of wine—with her liver failing, she couldn’t drink. Not that she’d ever been very interested. Until recently, her sister hadn’t had to deal with very many upsets or disappointments. Lori supposed that getting a death sentence put other irritations in perspective.

  “What happened?” her sister asked. “Gloria making you crazy?”

  “Not so much. I think we had a breakthrough today.”

  “Really? How did that happen?”

  Lori explained about snapping and how Gloria had burst into tears and admitted to being lonely.

  “She’s fully capable of changing,” Lori said. “The question is, will she?”

  Madeline tilted her head. “I know you, Lori. That kind of moment with an elderly patient doesn’t send you to the wine bottle. It was something else. Something I’m going to guess is related to a certain ex-baseball player.”

  Lori groaned. “Gloria lost it with me and I lost it with him. He was going on and on about how his agent screwed up and how horrible everything is.”

  Her sister raised her eyebrows. “I’m going to guess you weren’t as supportive as he’d been hoping.”

  “Not exactly.” She took another drink of the wine. “I didn’t mention this before because I didn’t want you to think…”

  Lori paused. There was no way she could fool her sister. Madeline knew her too well.

  “I was talking to Sandy a couple of days ago. Somehow it came up that Reid had slept with both her and Kristie during their interviews.” Her anger erupted again. “Can you believe it? Right there in his office at that stupid sports bar. It’s disgusting. He was supposed to be finding appropriate health care, not screwing the staff. Does he actually have a brain, or is that a myth? Are all men like that? Is he what they aspire to? Because I think he’s a nightmare on so many levels.”

  Madeline’s green eyes were steady. “You’re upset that he slept with them and not you.”

  “I am not. Never! I wouldn’t sleep with him if…” She swallowed, then nodded slowly. “More than upset. Humiliated. I’m not like them. I’ll never be like them. Guys like Reid don’t even see women like me, which is fine. I don’t want a man like him.”

  “But you do,” her sister said softly. “You want exactly him.”

  Lori scowled. “I’m working on the problem. I’ll get over him.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t try to.”

  “Oh, please. He would never be interested in me and I can’t accept who he is on the inside. He’s like cotton candy. Dunk him in water and he dissolves.”

  “But you like him.”

  “No. I don’t like him. I despise him. I just have a powerful chemical reaction to him. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Sure it does. You’ve never reacted to a guy this way.”

  “And I won’t ever again.” It wouldn’t work. He was everything she hated in men and she was invisible to him. Oh, yeah, that was a recipe for happiness and love.

  She drew in a breath. “I told him off. It didn’t go well.”

  “He’ll recover. Besides…” Madeline pushed off the counter and smiled. “Men are inherently stupid about women. You can use that to your advantage.”

  Lori stared at her amazingly beautiful sister and knew that dozens of men had been stupid about Madeline, but they’d managed to keep their heads around her.

  “I’ll figure out a way to manage this,” Lori said. “A way to get over him.”

  “I still wish you’d try to make things work. You deserve a fling and Reid sounds like perfect fling material.”

  Lori supposed it was really sweet of her sister to think that the choice was actually hers, but before she could say anything, there was a knock at the back door.

  “Oh, good,” Madeline said, walking toward the rear of the kitchen. “She’s here.”

  Lori got a knot in her stomach. “What did you do?”

  Just then the back door opened and their mother walked in. She smiled at both women and held up two large bags.

  “I brought Chinese,” Evie Johnston said. “You’ll have leftovers for days.”

  “Great, Mom,” Madeline said as she put the bags on the counter, then hugged and kissed her mother. “It smells heavenly. I’m starved.”

  “Good. I don’t think you’ve been eating enough.”

  Evie stepped free of Madeline and smiled at Lori. “How are you?”

  “Good.”

  Lori smiled tightly as she battled both annoyance and the sense of being the odd one out. It didn’t matter that this was her house and these people were her family. Whenever she was around her mother and sister, she no longer belonged.

  Evie faced Madeline. “You look good. Are you getting plenty of rest? You’re doing what the doctor says?”

  Madeline laughed. “I’m fine, Mom. I feel terrific. Lori keeps me in line.”

  “She should. She’s a nurse, you listen to her as well. Lori, you need to take better care of your sister.”

  Lori ignored the criticism and began sorting through the boxes of takeout. She was used to her mother thinking she didn’t measure up. Years ago, when she, Lori, had announced that she was going to be a nurse, her mother’s semisober response had been, “You’ll never pass the tests to be an R.N. and you won’t enjoy emptying bedpans for a living. Try beauty school.”

  Madeline and her mother continued talking. Lori set the kitchen table and put the food in the center.

  She would be the first one to admit Evie’s life hadn’t been easy. She’d married young, gotten pregnant fairly quickly and had lost her husband to another woman before Lori, her second and unwanted child, had been born.

  Evie had lived her whole life in a double-wide trailer, taking whatever jobs she could hang on to between drinking binges. The only bright spot in her otherwise grim existence had been to have one perfect daughter.

  Madeline had been pretty from birth, an early talker and walker. She’d been popular, friendly, charming and open to the world. Lori had been none of those things and her mother had never forgiven her for it.

  Evie carried plates to the table. “Lori, you shouldn’t drink wine. You know it’s bad for you. Plus Madeline can’t have any and it makes her feel uncomfortable to see it.”

  Madeline grabbed Lori’s wineglass and set it by her place. “Mom, I’m fine with it. Lori works hard. If she wants a glass of wine at the end of the day, she should have it.”

  “It’s not right,” Evie said, then pressed her lips together.

  Lori wasn’t sure if her mother’s concern was really for Madeline or herself. Evie had been sober for nearly seven years.

  “I’ll put it away,” Lori said as she shoved the cork in the bottle, stuck the bottle back in the refrigerator. “I wouldn’t have opened it if I’d known you were coming over.”

  Evie looked at her. “I’m fine. Being around alcohol doesn’t bother me.”

  �
�Then why do you always mention it?” Lori asked.

  “Alcohol isn’t good for you.”

  “You already said that. I hardly think an occasional glass of wine means I have a problem.”

  “That’s how it starts.”

  Lori swirled her glass. “You would know.”

  “Yes, I would,” Evie told her. “I know you think I’m critical, but I’m just trying to help.”

  By telling her everything she did wrong? But Lori didn’t say that. Instead she dumped her wine down the sink.

  “I’ll get the iced tea,” Madeline said. “I made a fresh pitcher earlier today. Doesn’t that sound refreshing?”

  It was all Lori could do to keep from running screaming into the night. Her sister desperately wanted peace in the family and while Lori really wanted to respect her wishes, there was too much history between her and Evie.

  “Lori was just telling me about her day,” Madeline said as they all sat down. “She’s doing home health care for a real difficult old lady and today they had a run-in.”

  Evie turned to Lori. “What happened?”

  Lori briefly recounted some of Gloria’s more outrageous behavior and the confrontation earlier that afternoon.

  “I think she’s really going to work on changing. I hope so. Her family keeps trying and she keeps shutting them out. What a sad way for her to live.”

  Her mother continued to stare at her. “You’re telling her if she changes she gets a second chance?”

  Lori instantly saw the dangerous direction of the conversation, but didn’t know how to change the subject. “Something like that.”

  “I didn’t think you believed in second chances,” Evie said. “Or that people can change.”

  Chapter Seven

  REID FOUND HIMSELF more restless than he would have liked. It was his damn conversation with Lori and all the things she’d said to him. While most of her ranting had been crap, a few of her choice phrases had hit home.

  Admittedly it had been a poor showing of judgment to sleep with Sandy and Kristie during their interviews. But they’d both come on to him. They’d been eager, he hadn’t been busy, nobody was married, so what was the problem? It wasn’t as if they’d been bad choices to look after his grandmother.

  But no matter how he twisted the argument around and made himself out to be the good guy, the whole situation was a little…tacky.

  He was, he conceded, officially, a shitty member of the human race.

  He went downstairs to the one person guaranteed to add to his guilt—his grandmother. He found Gloria admiring a modest diamond ring on Sandy’s left hand.

  “Hi,” he said as he walked into the room. “What’s up?”

  “I’m engaged,” Sandy said as she turned toward him and beamed. “Remember that guy I told you I was seeing? He proposed. This morning. It was so romantic.”

  “Congratulations,” he said.

  “Have you started planning the wedding?” his grandmother asked.

  “Not technically,” Sandy said with a grin. “But in my mind? Sure. Now I just have to convince Steve that running off to Las Vegas is romantic. There’s a little chapel there that is so pretty. We could stay at the Bellagio. I’ve always wanted to stay at a fancy hotel like that.”

  “Then that’s what you should do,” Gloria told her as she patted Sandy’s hand. “A girl only gets married once. Or twice.”

  Sandy laughed. “Good point.”

  “Obviously this happy news could change your desire to stay here. While I would really like you to continue through my convalescence, I’ll understand if that doesn’t work out.”

  Sandy shook her head. “Are you kidding? I love my job. Of course I’m staying. I love the hours and the pay is going to mean I can afford the Bellagio.”

  Sandy laughed and Gloria joined in. Reid stared at them, not sure what was going on. His grandmother would never approve of getting married in Las Vegas and she hated people who left before the job was done. He thought about all the science fiction movies he secretly watched and wondered if the old broad had been taken over by a pod or some kind of parasite.

  Sandy chatted a little more about how wonderful Steve was, then excused herself. When Reid was alone with his grandmother, he moved close and stared at her.

  “Did they change your meds?” he asked bluntly. “Are you stoned?”

  A little of the woman he knew returned as she narrowed her gaze. “Nothing has changed about my routine. I’m completely fine and healing very well.”

  Uh-huh. “You were nice. That doesn’t happen very often.” Or ever.

  “You’re hardly around enough to know what I do.” Gloria dropped her gaze to the blankets on her bed and began smoothing them. “I’ve decided to make some changes in my life.”

  He had no idea what to say to that. “Changes like…?”

  “I’m going to be more pleasant. Easier to get along with. Less critical. It would be nice if you noticed.”

  He’d been hit by a lot of baseballs in his career, but only two had nailed him in the head. This felt a lot like that.

  “Nice, as in nice?” he asked.

  She returned her attention to him. “Perhaps you could pretend the concept isn’t completely foreign. Speaking of changing, it’s something you need to take on, as well. Your current circumstances are inexcusable. You’ve brought shame to the family name and humiliated yourself. Honestly, Reid, what were you thinking, not giving your best while sleeping with a reporter? I would think, given all your experience, you would know what you were doing.”

  Until that moment, he’d never understood the idea of wanting the earth to open up and swallow him whole. But he did now.

  His own grandmother was scolding him for not being better in bed? Did it get any worse than that?

  “I’m not having this conversation with you,” he said firmly.

  “And yet here we are. Talking.” Gloria drew in a breath. “I suspect all the accusations about disappointing children aren’t your fault. You have many flaws but being cruel isn’t one of them.”

  “Don’t flatter me now,” he muttered. “I won’t know how to take it.”

  “I don’t plan to flatter you. I plan to give you a few hard truths. How did the problem with the children happen?”

  He pulled up a chair and sat next to her bed. “I don’t know. I stay out of that sort of thing. My manager, Seth, handles all of that kind of stuff, along with booking endorsements and appearances. My accountant, Zeke, takes care of the money. He writes checks when Seth tells him to. I don’t know the details of their day-to-day operation.”

  “That’s your first mistake,” his grandmother told him. “It was one thing when you were busy playing baseball, but now you don’t have an excuse. What else do you have to do with your time?”

  Ouch. “I work at the sports bar.”

  “Based on how much time you’ve spent around here lately, I would say that job isn’t a big priority.” She sighed. “Reid, you’ve always had it easy. You’re smart, handsome and your fastball was just as powerful in the ninth inning as in the first.”

  Pod person, he thought as he stared at her. Definitely a pod person.

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “I would, on occasion, watch you play. And I learned about the game. It’s sports, Reid. It wasn’t difficult to pick up a few basics.”

  “You never told me.”

  “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  He reached out his arm and lightly touched the back of her hand. “It would have mattered a whole lot. It still does.”

  They stared at each other. For the first time in his life, he realized his grandmother had cared about him. It was good to know. A little scary, but good.

  She broke contact first. “This Seth fellow. He sounds like a complete idiot. It’s one thing to handle your fan mail and requests for appearances, but it’s another to screw it up completely. What do you know about Zeke?”

  “That he’s been in the busine
ss twenty years and that he’s totally honest. He won’t even let his clients give him Christmas presents. We’re allowed to send a food basket to the office for the entire staff, but nothing else. No kickbacks, no perks. Not even tickets to the game.”

  “Good. Fire Seth and put Zeke in charge. You aren’t going to be making any public appearances for a while. Should the need arise, I have the names of a couple of media people who know what they’re doing and they’re not idiots.”

  “You’re trying to run my life,” he said, not actually annoyed by her suggestions. He knew he had to fire Seth—he’d just been putting off the inevitable. But he was surprised she was taking an interest.

  “You can do this,” she told him. “Take responsibility. We’ll change together.”

  “This isn’t a conversation I ever thought we’d be having,” he admitted.

  Gloria smiled. “Surprise.”

  FIRST THING in the morning Reid fired Seth by phone and followed up with a fairly aggressive letter from his attorney. Seth tried protesting but quickly gave it up, which told Reid the guy knew he’d screwed up, but rather than fix it, he preferred to walk away. His next call was to Zeke.

  “You heard from my attorney?” he asked by way of greeting.

  “About Seth? Sure. About time.”

  Reid leaned back in his chair and groaned. “You knew he was a loser?”

  “He’s lazy. He does the least he can do and calls that a win. He’s in it for the money and the perks. He likes having a successful client list.”

  Which explained why he’d let Reid go without a whimper. No more baseball career and since all that negative attention in the media, not much of a potential for endorsements.

  “I told him to send me everything,” Reid said. “I’ll be forwarding a lot of it to you.”

  “You know we’ll get the job done,” Zeke told him.

  “I know. How’s the money situation?”

  Zeke chuckled. “I assume you mean yours.” There was the sound of typing on a keyboard. “Your portfolio is diversified. Stocks, real estate, a few small companies. Ballpark? One hundred and eighty-five million, give or take a few.”