Cymbal-clashing Middle Eastern music suddenly boomed out over the sound system. A woman wearing a sequined brassiere and low-slung, transparent harem pants writhed out from behind beaded curtains. Circling the room to music that sounded like snakes uncoiling from a basket, she undulated her way toward Mazie and Ben. Her black hair came down to her butt—extensions, Mazie was willing to bet—and she reeked of patchouli. She zeroed in on Ben, working her hips for all she was worth, tiny bells around her waist clinking in counterpoint to the music. Her body was ferret-flexible, and as the music reached a crescendo, she arched her body in an incredible back bend that nearly landed her head in their neighbors’ hummus dip, while tilting her pelvis to Labeck’s eye level. Subtle as a carny barker—get a load of this!
Luckily Ben’s corneas were held to his skull by stretchy optical nerve fibers. Otherwise, his eyeballs would have fallen out and rolled around the table like grape garnish. Was he breathing hard, or was that just Mazie’s imagination? No—that was definitely a chest heave she’d just observed!
Finally the dancer corkscrewed herself back upright and, bathed in male applause, hootchy-kootchied back through the curtains. Ben’s eyes receded into their sockets and he turned to look at Mazie, smiling a bit sheepishly.
That was when the two middle-aged women barged over, giggly and tiddly, obviously one Moroccan-style ice cream drink over the line.
“ ’Scuse me,” said the first woman, who wore a daffodil yellow pantsuit, “but you’re that Benjamin Labeck, the Sexiest Man Alive, aren’t you?”
“Well, she thinks so,” Ben said, indicating Mazie, trying to turn the thing into a joke.
“Would you mind autographing this?” The daffodil woman held up a napkin, while her friend, in a lilac-colored suit, studied Ben as though he were up on a movie screen and she was about to choke on her popcorn.
“No problem,” Ben said. “Got a pen?”
Distractedly, the women fluttered their hands, then turned to Mazie with apologetic, lipstick-smeared smiles.
“Here you go.” She fished her favorite felt-tipped marker out of her purse—acid green, with a narrow point—and offered it up to Ms. Daffodil Suit.
No sooner had they left than three other women took their place. They were younger, in their twenties, skinny, and definitely not pantsuited. One of them—with long auburn hair and jeans slung even lower than the belly dancer’s, stepped on Mazie’s knee in her eagerness to get at the Sexiest Man Alive, the sharp spike of her gladiator heels gouging into Mazie’s thigh, slicing through her pantyhose.
“Ouch!” Mazie yelled.
No one noticed.
Least of all Ben, who had at first seemed annoyed at the interruption, but now appeared to be enjoying the attention. No grudging monosyllabic answers for his fans, Mazie noted—he was turning on the full Bonaparte charm. The woman with the rear-cleavage jeans snatched up Mazie’s green marker and scribbled down a phone number on a napkin.
“Don’t mind me,” Mazie said loudly. “I’ll just blend in with the furniture here.”
That seemed to be perfectly acceptable to Ben’s fans.
Someone’s large handbag clunked Mazie’s head.
Someone pocketed her marker.
Someone with a husky voice said she liked Ben’s handcuffs, that she was into bondage, too, and that Ben should look for photos of her all trussed up on Facebook. Their food didn’t come because the female kitchen staff had abandoned their posts to ogle the Sexiest Man Alive. The auburn-haired woman was in back of Ben now, her hair drizzling all over his neck, her boobs giving him a back massage as she leaned over his shoulder to stick the napkin in his shirt pocket.
“Ben?” Mazie raised her voice. He didn’t hear her. Couldn’t even see her. Didn’t give a damn about her.
Suddenly it was all too much. The passion party and now this! Was this what the rest of the night was going to be like—maybe the rest of their lives? Being ignored by Labeck while he was pawed over by adoring fans?
Enough was enough.
Lurching to her feet, Mazie pulled down her skirt, worked the pins and needles out of her cramped legs, and stalked out of the restaurant. The outside air felt blessedly fresh and cool. A stiff breeze had sprung up, bringing tidings of rain. Thunder rumbled to the west. The predicted storm was rolling in right on schedule.
Walking in a skirt and heels in a rainstorm wouldn’t be smart.
Who cared? It felt wonderful to move. The wind buffeted her body, bringing up goose bumps on her bare arms. A fast walker, Mazie had covered two blocks before a flash of lightning startled a yelp out of her. Thunder cracked, and the heavens opened. Rain fell in gobs and torrents. She could have huddled in a doorway or under an awning, but the rain felt good on her body, a warm shower washing away her sweat, her makeup, and a little of her anger. She kept walking, crossing Broadway, Jefferson, Jackson—and then a car zipped to the curb just ahead, beeping its horn. It was a green Jetta. It was Ben.
Mazie kept walking.
Ben got out of the car and dashed over to her.
“What’re you doing?” he yelled. “Get in the car.”
Mazie zigzagged around him.
He flung up his arms. “You want to walk. Fine. Both of us can get drenched.”
Chin up, eyes straight ahead, Mazie continued to walk. The sidewalk was slippery now and she had to watch where she put her feet in her useless, slick-soled shoes.
“I don’t know what point you’re supposed to be making, but could you do it in the car?” Ben had to yell to be heard over the downpour.
“I’d rather walk.”
“If you didn’t like the restaurant, you could have said so. All of a sudden I looked up and you weren’t there—”
“Oh, great observational powers.”
“I thought maybe you were in the can. I had to ask someone to go in and look for you—”
“One of your fans, no doubt.”
“Then I had to scramble around paying the bill—”
Mazie whirled around and stood hands on hips, glaring at him, knowing her hair was plastered across her face like clumps of seaweed and her mascara had streaked down her cheeks, but at the moment she was too furious to care. “What bill? You had a gift certificate, remember? Besides, they never brought the food.”
Catching the guilty look on Ben’s face, Mazie hissed, “You got your dinner, didn’t you? What—did the harem girl peel your grapes and hand-feed you?”
“The food came—which you would have known if you’d stuck around. But it went to waste because you ran off like a miffed teenager. You could have waited in the lobby, but that wasn’t dramatic enough, was it? No, Mazie Maguire has to go plunging out into this damn typhoon and then I’m supposed to chase her.”
“That’s—”
“It drives me crazy when you do stuff like that! Running out into the street where you’re going to get hit by a bolt of lightning. How smart is that?”
“So now I’m stupid!”
“I’m talking to you underwater—so yeah, stupid covers it.”
“I’m stupid, and I’m too boring to have a conversation with, and I work at a low-paying job, and I have a prison record. Why do you even bother with me?”
Lightning exploded across the sky. They were standing at the highest point of Wisconsin Avenue, with Lake Michigan visible to the east, the lightning illuminating a roiling mass of thunder clouds.
“This is all about that Sexy thing, isn’t it?” Ben growled. “Look—I didn’t ask for any of that. You think I enjoy it?”
Mazie brushed waterlogged hair out of her mouth. “You told five million women you were available! Man about town. Looking for Ms. Right. No main squeeze.”
“I never said any of that. You want to know how all this happened? My buddy Bob sent my name in to the program as a joke. I didn’t know anything about it.”
“You said you hadn’t met the right woman yet. What am I, a placeholder?”
“I never said that.”
&nbs
p; “Really? What’s this?”
Reaching over, Mazie snatched the Sirocco napkin out of the breast pocket of his shirt and dangled it in front of him. Scrawled on it in her own green marker was, HEY, SEXY GUY—CALL ME—TAWNI! It was followed by a phone number and a row of little green hearts.
Ben looked at the napkin, which was dissolving in the rain. “I didn’t know it was in there.”
“Tawni’s the redhead who wrecked my pantyhose.”
“Huh? Half the time I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Because you don’t pay attention,” Mazie yelled. “Not to me, anyway. With other women, you’re all eyes, ears, and streaming drool.” Tears prickled behind her eyes, but she refused to give in to them.
“So I’m not even supposed to look at other women? You think you should have this choke hold on me and have the right to control who—”
“Choke hold!” Mazie choked on the word. “Is that what it’s been like going out with me? I’m holding you back from seeing other women?”
“No. It came out wrong. Dammit, Mazie—”
“It came out exactly how you meant it.”
Mazie rummaged frantically through her purse. Her hand closed around the Stanley sure-grip pliers. Ben’s eyes widened when he saw it. He tried to grab the pliers, but Mazie was fast and rain-slick and he could only use one hand because the other had instinctively shot down to protect his groin.
“Mazie—don’t do anything rash—”
Rash—hah! He hadn’t seen rash!
Snick!
The pliers bit through the Love Links. First one, then the other. They dropped off, clanking faintly on the wet pavement.
“There!” Mazie was dizzy and panting, unsure why she’d felt the need to do something so pointless. It was just—a symbol. The closing ceremony of their personal Olympics. “Consider yourself un-choke-holded! You’re free at last! Go look for Ms. Right! Make crepes for every Suzette in the metropolitan area. Do whatever you like, just as long as I never have to see your conceited … self-centered … blockheaded … Canadian redneck self again!”
Had she missed anything? That was the trouble with hurling invective at someone when you were mad. You didn’t think of what you should have said until an hour later. Stomping to the curb, Mazie leaned into the street and waved. A taxi veered over, screeching to a halt in front of her.
It was the first thing that had gone right all day. She got in and was about to slam the door shut when she remembered something, stuck her head out, and yelled, “Also nearsighted!”
Chapter Six
What was wrong with that woman?
Mazie had gone psycho, no doubt about it. Fruit loops, around the bend, PMS, postal, bonkers, nuts. She was jealous just because he was getting a little attention from women? Much as he hated to admit it, Ben had kind of enjoyed being fawned over by his fans in the restaurant. There was still enough of that teenaged geek Bonaparte Labeck deep inside that he got a thrill when females of any description came on to him.
But that was no reason for Mazie to go batshit. She was his girl. Didn’t she know that?
He hadn’t gone out with another woman in months. Not that he’d stopped looking at women. Or fantasizing about what they’d be like in bed. But Mazie was the one he wanted to be with. When he managed to find time between his job, hockey, and work on the indie films.
But Mazie understood, didn’t she? It wasn’t as though this was the first week in their relationship when everything was new and shiny. He and Mazie had settled into a comfortable routine. Ben liked routine. He liked knowing what to expect. He liked feeling that his life was stable. Balanced. Under control. That was the trouble with Mazie. She was unpredictable, disorganized, and ruled by emotion rather than logic. She was the kind of woman who would, on the spur of the moment, haul him away from the TV, where he’d settled in for a comfortable afternoon of beer and football, and drag him outside to build a snow fort—which had been a whole hell of a lot of fun once he got into it, he admitted—but the point was, he’d planned on watching the game. Mazie never planned anything. She was the kind of woman who stormed out into a rainstorm and created a public scene in the middle of the sidewalk—and what kind of woman carried pliers around in her purse, anyway? A crazy woman, that’s what kind!
But she was also the kind of woman who’d showed up for every one of his hockey matches this season, cheering madly and flashing a hand-lettered banner with his name on it. That wasn’t all she’d flashed. At his last game, she’d unbuttoned her jacket and raised her sweater when he’d skated by, giving him a peek at those dynamite boobs. They’d worked like an adrenaline pump; he’d scored a goal half a minute later.
A week later, just thinking of those flashing breasts aroused him.
Well, he wasn’t going to think about it, because his gonads had a way of taking over his brain, and he was, above all, a rational person. He was also a hungry person. Thanks to Mazie’s tantrum, he’d never gotten to finish his meal at the restaurant. No, that wasn’t quite right, he remembered; Mazie hadn’t yelled at him in the restaurant. She’d been asking him questions about how hockey practice had gone and he’d felt too grumpy to do more than grunt answers. Then all those women had started coming over and he’d lost sight of Mazie, who—now that he thought about it—had sort of been trampled in the rush.
Still, that was no excuse for her to go running out in the storm. Ben was soaked to the skin by the time he got back to the car. The temperature had dropped and his clothes felt cold and clammy. His socks were squishy inside his new shoes, which were leather and couldn’t just be tossed into a dryer. Things were getting too weird. He was tired, body and soul. He usually liked his job, but now the prospect of going out to film some feel-good story about an Elvis-shaped potato left him feeling been-there, done-that, who-cares?
What he would love, Ben realized, was to go fishing. He wanted to find a quiet spot in the middle of a lake, turn off his brain, catch a mess of trout, and fry them up. He remembered a lake he’d seen when he’d been filming a story in northern Wisconsin. Lake Namakagon, which the locals claimed had the best bass fishing in the state.
He could ask for time off. He’d spent so many of his weekends on overtime assignments that the station owed him a couple weeks of vacation time. If his boss okayed it, he could be at the lake at this time tomorrow.
Why not? He phoned Walt Beyers, the station manager, who told Ben to go ahead—take some well-earned free days. And bring him back some perch.
Ben’s spirits revived. He should call Mazie, let her know he was going to be gone. It would also give her a chance to apologize for how she’d acted. Yeah, he’d phone her and she’d say she was sorry, and when he came back they’d have great makeup sex. Nothing like a little blowup to put the spice back into the bedroom.
He dialed Mazie’s number.
Chapter Seven
“Do not pick up that phone,” Magenta warned.
“But it’s him,” Mazie pleaded.
Magenta held the phone out of her reach and they had a brief wrestling match while Muffin danced around them, barking excitedly.
“Give it here,” Mazie squawked. “I need to apologize to him.”
“No, you don’t. Guy Psychology 101: if you apologize, you’re admitting you were wrong. And the guy accepts that and thinks he doesn’t have to do a damn thing to fix it.”
“But—”
The ringing stopped. Mazie glared at Magenta.
“Okay,” he said, folding his arms. “Explain what you did that calls for an apology.”
“I got jealous. I walked out of the restaurant in a huff.
“When those women came up to Labeck, did he pull you to your feet, wrap his arms around you, and introduce you as his fiancée?”
“No, but—”
“Don’t believe any of that ‘I don’t want the attention’ bullshit. There’s not a guy alive who wouldn’t enjoy having women flinging themselves at his feet. If you seriously want to scar
e off predatory women, you introduce your fiancée. Girlfriend is just a challenge; fiancée has got chops.”
“But I’m not his fiancée. Ben doesn’t want to get married.”
Magenta gave her a searching look. “Well, what about you? Do you want to get married?”
“No.” Mazie wiped off the mascara blobs under her eyes. “Yes.” A beat. “Maybe.”
“You’re too focused on Ben Labeck,” Magenta said. “Why don’t you ask yourself what you really want?”
Magenta was Mazie’s best male friend. He was also her dog sitter, landlord, fashion guru, and yenta. He owned the building, including the boutique he’d named for himself. He lived in the apartment above the shop and rented the flat behind the store to Mazie at a rate far below its fair market value. He was tall and high-cheekboned, with short dyed-black hair spiked like a sea urchin, hazel eyes made larger with eggplant-colored eyeliner, and perfectly conditioned, subtly bronzed skin. Once upon a time, in a place called Saskatoon, Magenta had been Wally Pfluge, an insurance agent living in a suburban ranch house, married, and miserable. He’d gotten divorced, come out of the closet, and moved to the United States. Refusing to live one more moment with a name he thought sounded like an off-brand anti-diarrhea medicine, he’d changed his name to Magenta, one of the characters in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Tonight, he’d taken one look at Mazie’s woebegone face when she’d shown up on his doorstep and hauled her into his apartment. He’d peeled off her wet clothes and shoved her under a hot shower. When she’d finally emerged, he’d wrapped her in a fluffy robe and sat her down on his sofa. He’d made her a hot lemon tea and a tuna and pickle sandwich. Brokenhearted or not, Mazie had discovered she was ravenous. The sandwich was gone in fifteen seconds. Then she’d poured out her whole vile day into Magenta’s sympathetic ear.
“You know what your problem is?” Magenta shoved the Kleenex box closer to Mazie. “You’re too available.”
The Sexiest Man Alive Page 4
