Robin Kaye Bundle

by Robin Kaye

  Gina had taken a sip of her martini and choked when she heard that. After she stopped coughing, she wiped the mascara from under her eyes and held up her finger to stop him from saying whatever it was he was about to say so she could get her hysterical laughter under control. After taking a few calming breaths, she looked him in the eye. “So, you’re learning to cook and clean. Hmm. I can’t imagine why unless maybe you suddenly got the hots for Martha Stewart?”

  “No.”

  She patted his chest. “Honey, I’m happy for you. I’m sure your next girlfriend will appreciate it. But I told you before—you shouldn’t have bothered for my sake. I’m not interested.”

  “Hold on, when you broke up with me you said it was because I wasn’t relationship material.”

  “You’re not. Well not for me. You’re cute and sweet, kinda like Tom Hanks in that old movie Big.”

  “He played a child in a grown man’s body.”

  “Exactly.” She looked at her watch and downed the rest of her martini. “I’ve got to run, but thanks for the drink. It was nice seeing you again.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What did you expect, Rich?”

  “I thought you’d give me another shot at least. Come on, Gina. I have this dinner thing Friday night. Come with me. It’ll be fun.”

  “A dinner thing?”

  “Yeah, it’s a charity dinner with my dean and his wife. You know. Dinner, dancing. It’ll be a good time.”

  “So that’s what this is all about.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You don’t want me. You just want a date.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I really wish I could help you out, but I’m kind of seeing someone.”

  “You are?”

  “Annabelle introduced me to him actually.”

  “Annabelle?”

  “Yeah, I gotta run. I’m late as it is. Good luck with your dinner. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding someone else to go with you.”

  Rich stood and helped her with her coat. He just nodded, and she reached for him and gave him a hug. “Bye, Gina.”

  He sat back down and watched her leave—along with every other guy at the bar. Rich wondered if she’d always dressed like that—loud enough to cause an accident. It had been two weeks since he’d seen her, and he’d spent just about every free minute with Becca who couldn’t be more different. When Becca wasn’t wearing those God-awful ratty clothes, she dressed with a quiet, sophisticated sexiness that if put up against Gina would make Gina look almost garish. Now that he thought about it, Gina probably wasn’t the right girl to take to the benefit dinner. The right girl was right under his nose the whole time. Becca. Now if only he could figure out how to talk her into going with him.

  Rich just needed a plan. He’d make dinner to thank Becca for all her help, and after a bottle of wine or two, when she was all happy and relaxed, he’d ask her if she would do him a favor. After all, it was only one dinner. Dean Stewart would like Becca. The only glitch that Rich could see was that Becca really didn’t like him. Although after she got over his burning up all her lingerie, she seemed to dislike him less. Either that or she just got tired of talking about it. With any luck and—knowing Becca—a lot of begging, she’d go to the dinner with him.

  Rich remembered Becca said she liked salmon so he stopped by the fish market on the way home. He wasn’t sure how much to buy, but after getting advice from the guy behind the counter, he had enough for dinner for two along with a foolproof recipe written on a piece of butcher paper.

  Thankfully, the cashier had overheard his conversation with the fish man and took pity on Rich reminding him to purchase a few lemons. She even suggested making a side dish, which would never have occurred to him. She took him by the arm down one of the grocery aisles and pointed out a bag of yellow-colored rice that she said was easily prepared in the microwave. Rich could definitely handle a microwave. He thanked her while she rang up his sale and asked her if she had any other advice. She suggested that he stop at the vegetable stand next door and buy the ingredients for a salad, maybe some fresh broccoli, too, which she told him could also be cooked in the microwave. The woman was a Godsend, and if she wasn’t old enough to be his grandmother, he would have asked her out to the damn dinner.

  Rich juggled the packages and unlocked the door to the apartment. Tripod was waiting for him like he did every night. Tripod jumped off the couch and meowed as he hopped beside Rich to the kitchen. He shook his head. The cat sounded like he was carrying on a conversation and doing all the talking.

  Tripod had an entire vocabulary of distinctly different yowls and meows. Short, clipped ones that Rich swore sounded like they had a question mark behind them, snarky, more guttural yowls to show displeasure, and he’d even heard a snort or two, as if the cat were laughing at him—not that he hadn’t given him plenty to laugh at.

  If Becca went to the dinner with Rich, he could let it slip that they were living together, which wasn’t even a lie. There was no need to tell his dean it was only a temporary arrangement. That would prove that he’d settled down. After all, he’d never lived with a woman before. Heck, he’d never even come close. With most of his relationships, he tried to keep women out of his apartment. Not only because he’d have to have his cleaning lady over before his date, which wasn’t worth the hassle or expense since he could just go over to his date’s place, but because it made things much easier after the relationship ended.

  He still had nightmares about the one time he’d made the mistake of giving his key to a woman. A few weeks after they’d stopped seeing each other, Rich had come home to find her waiting naked in his bed. A difficult thing to explain to the almost naked woman he’d been working hard to get into said bed. Actually, since woman number one had fallen asleep waiting for him, Rich technically succeeded in having two women in his bed at one time—every guy’s fantasy. Unfortunately, his fantasy quickly proved to be a nightmare.

  The memory sent a chill up his spine as he removed the rubber band from the bouquet of flowers he’d bought. He stuffed the stems in a vase he found above the refrigerator, pulled the hose from the sink, and squirted some water into it. The flowers didn’t look too good. He probably should have bought one of the arrangements already in a vase. They sure looked better than his, but he had his arms full of packages and wasn’t sure he’d make it home without dropping something.

  He took out the directions the fish man had given him. It said to use a Pyrex pan. What the hell was a Pyrex pan?

  He grabbed his phone. It was good to have a chef on speed dial. “Vin, it’s Rich. Man, you gotta help me out.”

  “What happened? You burn down the apartment again?”

  Rich put the wine in the refrigerator to chill and got himself a beer. He wedged the phone between his ear and shoulder while he popped the top off the beer. “Shit, does everyone know about the fire?” He held the phone, tipped the beer up to his lips, and took a swig. Thankfully, he’d finished swallowing before Vinny stopped laughing.

  “Of course. What are you, nuts? Remember that wedding reception in the church basement? The maid of honor’s dress caught on fire when they served flaming cherries jubilee, and the band started playin’ the “William Tell Overture” while she ran around screaming like a banshee?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yours ain’t as good, but it’s close. Especially when I tell them that all your girlfriend’s bras and undies were in the drier.”

  “Becca’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Sure, that’s why you were washing her lingerie. What man washes a woman’s panties if he ain’t getting into them?”

  “Becca was just teaching me how to do laundry, Vin.”

  He snorted. “God, that makes the story even better.”

  “Anything I can do to help.”

  “So, if the place ain’t on fire, what the hell are you callin’ me for? I gotta get ready for the dinner rush.”

  “I need to know what the
fuck a Pyrex pan is.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m making dinner for Becca, and it said to cook the fish in a Pyrex pan.”

  “You know what a lasagna pan looks like? It’s thirteen by nine, usually clear glass, but I got one from Corning that has pretty blue flowers—”

  “Stop, for Christ’s sake. I know what a lasagna pan is.” He had one on the counter he was supposed to give back to Aunt Rose.

  “What kind of fish you makin’?”

  “Salmon. The fish man told me a foolproof recipe. He said any idiot could make it.”

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  “You just stick the fish skin side down in a greased pan. What kind of grease am I supposed to use?”

  “You got that cooking spray?”

  “How the fuck do I know?”

  “Well, look in the cabinet next to the stove. If it ain’t there, try lookin’ over the stove.”

  “Is it yellow with a red top?”

  “Bingo. Just spray it on, don’t forget the sides.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Then what?”

  “He said to slather the top of the fish with mayonnaise like frosting a cake. I’m supposed to make sure I cover all of the fish showing and then sprinkle the top with onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, and dill. Then just bake it at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. He said it’ll get so you can flake it with a fork.”

  “That ain’t Italian.”

  “No, but it’s easy. And with any luck, it’ll be edible. Right now that’s the best I can hope for.”

  “Why don’t you just bring her here? Mona’s been dying to get another look at her.”

  “Vin, I’m trying to impress her.”

  “You sayin’ my cookin’ ain’t impressive?”

  “No, I’m sayin’ I’m trying to impress her with mine.”

  Vinny let out a low chuckle. “Yeah, well, good luck with that. You got anything else you wanna ask before I get back to work?”

  “No, not that I can think of.”

  “See, I told you you should’a come to work for me when you were a kid. If you had, you’d know how to cook good Italian food like me. But no, instead you went and stole a car.”

  “You’re right. I should have gone to work for you.”

  “Okay, if you get into trouble, just call. I can send Sonny over with some salmon all cooked, maybe you can like, you know, pretend you made it or somethin’.”

  “Vin, she’s not dumb.”

  “Right, well, call me if you need help.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. What else do I gotta do? It ain’t like I got a restaurant to run or anything.”

  Rich laughed and disconnected the call.

  Becca stood in the trendy West Side gallery and watched the woman who worked there examine her business card as if she were checking a fake ID. The snob factor of the gallery was evident by the accent, dress, and degree of angle on the woman’s surgically photo-shopped nose. After hitting three West Side galleries on her list, Becca suddenly realized that styles of facial features like the little pert ski-jump nose and the pouty lips were becoming an honest-to-God trend. What would Victoria Hyde-Taylor do if the fat-lipped look ever went out? Do cosmetic surgeons do lipectomies?

  Becca kept the smile on her face as she handed Victoria the last of her application CDs in the hand-decorated case she’d created last night. The cases were pieces of modern art. “On here I’ve included my art exhibition application form, resume, jpegs of my work, PDFs of several articles, and brochures from past shows.”

  “I see.” Victoria looked down her short ski-jump nose at the CD case.

  “What is your typical response time?”

  Victoria shrugged her shoulders. “You’ll hear from us if we’re interested.”

  Becca was tempted to take back that CD case; it was beautiful and would probably end up along with her CD in the circular file as soon as the door closed behind her. “Well, thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you. Have a nice day.” Becca didn’t wait for Victoria’s response before leaving. She stopped at the Starbucks on the corner and drowned her sorrows in a Venti Caramel Macchiato on her way home. She needed to change out of her trendy artist clothes into her construction worker outfit and get over to the brownstone.

  Between her gallery visits and dealing with the constant problems at the brownstone, Becca was in a shitty mood. It didn’t help that Rich told her he had a date with Gina. At least the construction guys were fucking up royally so she had someone to take her bad mood out on. Worse than that, Annabelle seemed to know that Rich had a date with Gina too, and got a real kick out of mentioning it to Becca repeatedly. It was all she could do not to spit, but she wasn’t about to let Annabelle know that Richie was growing on her.

  She was woman enough to admit, if only to herself, that she didn’t hate him anymore. Maybe she’d go as far as to say she liked him. He was a nice guy, and he was cute, especially when he got embarrassed every time he messed up. And what woman wouldn’t like a guy whose first thought in a fire was to find and save her cat? Heck, she’d even admit that she turned to mush when she saw him sitting there holding on to her snarling cat and looking so ashamed and embarrassed. She had to pretend to be mad at Rich just so he could save face. Men had such fragile egos. If she told him not to feel bad, it would have driven him nuts.

  When she turned the corner and saw the fire engine, she had kind of freaked out. The knowledge that Rich was almost definitely in the apartment turned her blood to ice. Visions of Rich burnt or overcome with smoke filled her head as tears filled her eyes. She’d been in full panic mode when the firefighter stopped her while she was sprinting into the brownstone and assured her no one was hurt. She’d heard what the firefighter said, and she still had to practically sit on Rich to assure herself he was still alive and well.

  So, even though it was no surprise to her that he was growing on her, she was still floored by the lightning bolt of sheer jealousy that shot through her when he oh-so-casually said he was going out with Gina. She told herself that it was human nature to feel a little jealous. After all, she and Rich had spent every night together cooking, cleaning, laughing at his foibles, and watching TV. They’d become friends kind of. Now he was off drooling over Gina who hadn’t so much as called him in the last two weeks. Becca stopped herself. She didn’t know that for a fact, but she was pretty sure Rich would have told her if Gina had called. If not, Annabelle certainly would have.

  Annabelle sure had a great time rubbing Becca’s nose in the fact that Richie had a date, and Becca hadn’t had one in two years. Like she needed reminding.

  Maybe she should think about getting another cat. One who’d be more cuddly than Tripod. That shouldn’t be so hard to find. Hell, probably most of the big cats would fit that description. She figured she’d turn into one of those eccentric old women like Leona Helmsley who would leave money in her will to her nieces and nephews as long as they took care of her cats. Even one of the construction workers referred to Becca as the Queen of Mean today. Maybe she was channeling old Leona.

  Becca grumbled as she unlocked the door because she dropped the DVDs she picked up to watch tonight. She kicked the door open, tossed her purse on the table, and bent to collect the movies when she realized she wasn’t alone. Someone was in the kitchen, and she knew it couldn’t be Rich since whatever was cooking smelled really good. Maybe his mother or Aunt Rose had the key and wanted to surprise him? Or, oh God, what if Gina was cooking?

  Becca didn’t remember him saying she should make herself scarce, but then she was half asleep, and she had a hard time hearing what he said with the blood rushing though her ears after he dropped the G-bomb. She grabbed her purse and was halfway out the door when Tripod screamed at her.

  “Shhh…”

  Rich came out of the kitchen looking like something right off the pages of her Porn for Women Calendar. She just wished it was the XXX one she had st
ashed where no one could find it.

  “You’re home.”

  All he was missing was the “honey.” She was speechless. He didn’t look upset. He looked happy to see her. What the hell was going on?

  “I called Annabelle to see what time you left. I made dinner and didn’t want the fish to overcook.” He looked at his watch. “It’ll be done in about ten minutes if you want to change. You look like you had a hard day.” He took her messenger bag off her shoulder. “Can I get you a glass of wine?”

  “What?”

  Rich tugged her jacket off, and she was too stunned to stop him. “If you hurry up, you can get a nice hot shower. You have sawdust all over you.” He gave her a shove toward the bathroom.

  Becca saw the dining room table had been set. There were even flowers. Ugly flowers, but flowers all the same. “Look, Rich. I can see you have plans, and I don’t want to intrude. I can just go back to Annabelle’s and hang there.” She craned her neck to see if Gina was anywhere near; she wasn’t in the kitchen. Oh, God, maybe she was already in the bedroom.

  “Becca, I cooked dinner for you. I’m making salmon, your favorite. I think it’s going to be good. Come on, you could at least try it.”

  “What? I thought you had a date with Gina.”

  “Well, yeah. Afterward I stopped at the store to pick up something for dinner. Now hurry up and get into the shower, I don’t want you to get sawdust all over the food and then complain about my cooking.”

  He pushed her into her bedroom. She really did need a shower, so she took off her clothes and threw on her robe. When she stepped out, Rich shoved a glass of wine in her hand and told her he’d started the water. She had seven minutes before the fish was done. He gave her another shove and closed the door behind her.

  Becca took a short shower, which left her two minutes to dress. What does a girl wear when her friend who happens to be a guy cooks dinner and even brings her ugly flowers? She always got a kick out of wearing her scruffy clothes around him, just to tick him off. Then she remembered the way he seemed unable to keep himself from touching her when she wore her cashmere sweats—not that she was going to wear them again, that might look as if she wanted him touching her, which she definitely didn’t. But she could dress a little nicer.