Angora groaned. “Men are such pigs—why do we want one?”
She scowled. “Who says I do?”
“You don’t want a family of your own?”
“Maybe. Someday.” The last two items on her life list came to mind, but that little part about the sperm contribution posed a bit of a problem.
“Someday? Roxann, do you realize that at our age we’re already considered high-risk for pregnancy?”
Her own gynecologist had said the same thing on her last annual visit. Blah, blah, blah.
“The way I see it, we have another good year left to find a husband, then one year of decent sex before getting pregnant. If we can get pregnant at our age. Our eggs are getting old, you know. With every month that passes, we’re becoming more barren.”
“Stop.”
Angora sniffled. “Maybe it’s not important to you, but I always pictured myself with a little boy and a little girl. I’d never want an only child because it’s just too much… “
“Pressure,” Roxann supplied.
“Right. But Uncle Walt never pressured you.”
“No.” That would’ve required being attentive. “But I think most only children realize that the expectations of the family ride on their shoulders.” If she didn’t make her life matter for something, the Beadleman name would be remembered as a flirtatious mother who’d met an untimely end and a drunkard father who would probably meet his Maker while stretched out in his recliner.
Angora sighed. “That kind of pressure can make you do crazy things, all right.”
“Like marrying a man just to make your mother happy?”
She hadn’t meant to hurt her, but Angora closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. “Or turning your back on men to become a martyr for abused women?”
Roxann was so astounded at how closely Angora’s assessment had matched her own, that she had no choice but to lie. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Really? So you’re open to having a man in your life? To getting married?”
Suddenly she was reminded of the upside of traveling alone—you didn’t have to answer irrelevant questions. “I, uh… suppose. I really don’t think about it much. If it happens, it happens.”
“Oh, now see—that’s a myth. Nothing ‘just happens.’ You have to help things along.”
“To what end?”
“Well… to happily-ever-after, of course.”
“You were jilted at the altar yesterday, and you still believe in happily-ever-after?”
“Well, sure. What else is there?”
“How about ‘contentedly-ever-after’?”
“Can you be content without a man?”
Roxann nodded. “I am content without a man.” Eighty-four percent true.
Angora sighed. “Then you’re a stronger woman than I am. I couldn’t stand it, working with scared women all the time, moving around, changing jobs, having no money, being alone.” Another sigh. “You’re so brave.”
She frowned. “Thanks.”
“I mean it. It takes guts to chuck your education and go out on a limb for people you don’t know and might never see again.”
She frowned harder.
“To sacrifice your own happiness so that—”
“Okay, Angora. You’re making me blush.”
She sighed again, with more drama. “I thought by now I would have done something with my life, and now I’m starting over.”
“Have you been working for the museum all these years?”
“Yes, and it’s dreadful. They treat me like I’m an idiot.”
“So why do you work there?”
“Well, Ms. Valedictorian, after graduation, I didn’t have as many options as you did. Not much I could do with a degree in art history—even Daddy couldn’t find a place for me in the hotel business—so the museum job seemed promising. By the time I realized it was a dead end, I had met Trenton and wanted to be near him and his family.” Her laugh was hollow. “I guess I am an idiot. I was never smart, like you. Of course you know that.”
Except a high IQ did not a smart person make. If she was so smart, for instance, why had she brought Angora with her on the lam? Right now the woman was sitting there waiting for a nugget of brilliant advice.
“You can’t make someone love you,” Roxann said slowly. “You’re only responsible for your own feelings and actions.” She’d counseled hundreds of women with those same lines.
Angora lifted her head. “You know, you’re absolutely right.”
Encouraged, she continued. “Isn’t there some small part of you that’s relieved you didn’t marry Trenton?”
“No, I was really looking forward to marrying a rich man and living hundreds of miles from my parents.”
So much for magic words.
“I’m not like you, Roxann. I want it all—a husband, a home, kids. I can’t be happy helping other people live their lives.”
It was a good thing that Angora withdrew a foot-long emery board from her purse and began sawing on her nails, because Roxann was speechless over the backhanded compliment. Everything Angora had said was true—she did chuck her education, work with scared women, move around, change jobs, live frugally, and was, for the most part, alone. And she did help other people live their lives. So why did a lifestyle that had once seemed noble and romantic sound downright bleak when someone else described it?
And worse, Angora truly believed that her cousin had sacrificed a man, a home, and a family so that she could devote her life to others. But in truth, she was starting to feel resentful of her thankless job, and of the string of needy women who stood between her and her own happily-ever-after.
Roxann went cold remembering the eerie message on her computer screen. She was a fake, going through the motions of benevolence with an empty heart. She was counting on the gratitude of the forlorn women she aided to fill the void in her gypsy life, which wasn’t fair, or even reasonable.
“Are you okay?” Angora asked. “You look a little green.”
“Still a little hung over,” she lied.
“Would you like for me to drive?”
It had taken Angora eight attempts to get her driver’s license. “No, I’m fine. Why don’t you take a nap?” Now that the confrontation with Dee was over, Angora was limp, and yawning between every sentence. Plus Roxann wanted to be alone with her own thoughts—not a good sign ten miles down the highway on a proposed two-week road trip.
“No… I want to stay awake,” Angora said, but her voice was groggy. She put her purse behind her head and leaned back. Her eyelids fluttered. “So you don’t fall asleep… at the—”
The nose job took over and the snoring set in. Roxann shook her head and wondered again what she’d gotten herself into. And at the worst possible time. She adjusted the rearview mirror, alert for a tail, but few cars were on the neighborhood roads of Baton Rouge at this hour. Besides, even if Frank Cape followed her, he’d probably give up when he didn’t find her at her father’s.
Her father…
She’d never forgive herself if something happened to him because of her sleazy associations. She pulled into a drive-through and bought a large coffee, then punched in her father’s number on her cell phone in the event he had cut his fishing trip short. But as she expected, his answering machine picked up, and she felt compelled to talk to him in person.
When the teenager handed her coffee through the window, the hot liquid sloshed over the side, and the incident in the diner with Capistrano came to mind. If he hadn’t come in that day, and if she hadn’t been fired, she would’ve taken her normal lunch break to run home and drop off groceries or something, and might have been at the apartment when Frank Cape dropped by. She shivered. Not that she owed the detective anything for his interference.
She sipped the coffee, checked the rearview mirror, and steered Goldie onto the access road leading to the interstate. Angora hadn’t moved a muscle, unless you counted her snoring muscles. NPR was the best she could get on the old AM ra
dio, so she settled in for a lively discussion on growing herbs. And after an hour’s education on soil, sun, and plant selection, she was tempted to give up Rescue to grow rosemary and sage in her spare time. In fact, the placid announcers made it seem as if world peace could be achieved if everyone just pruned their peppermint periodically.
At mid-morning her father finally answered his phone. Roxann hadn’t realized just how worried she’d been until his telltale rasp rattled out over the line.
“Hello?” He sounded winded, as if he had just walked in.
Her heart swelled with a dozen emotions. “Hi, Dad.”
“Roxann—where are you? There’s a policeman sitting in my driveway.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“Capistrano. Said you were in some kind of trouble.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, Dad.”
“Then why is he here?”
“It’s complicated, but he was out of line for following me.”
“Sherwood said you had somebody with you last night.”
“Angora.”
At the mention of her name, her cousin’s snoring stopped and she lifted her head. Great.
“I thought your cousin was getting married this weekend.”
“She was. I mean, she was supposed to.” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “It’s a long story. I’ll call you in a few days and explain everything.”
Angora squinted at Roxann.
“Meanwhile, tell Detective Capistrano that I’ve gone back to Biloxi.”
“Are you in danger?” her father asked.
“I’ll be fine. Really.”
He sighed heavily. “This is how you use your education? Play cat and mouse with unsavory characters?”
She swallowed hard, trying not to feel like a little girl who’d misbehaved. “I’ll call you, Dad.” With much remorse, she pushed the disconnect button and turned a cheerful smile in Angora’s direction. “Feeling rested?”
“Yes.” Angora stretched. “What was that all about?”
“I called my father to let him know we’d stayed at his house last night.”
“Who is Detective Capistrano?”
“Nobody. Hey, is that a mall?”
Angora was nothing if not easily distracted. “Yes! Take this exit—we’re going to spend some money.”
“I don’t have much cash,” Roxann warned. Actually, she had fourteen dollars and twenty-two cents in her purse, which wasn’t even leather.
Angora pshawed. “Who needs cash when I have Trenton’s gold card?”
“I didn’t hear you say that.”
Chapter 11
Angora stood behind Roxann and stared at her cousin’s reflection. Envy threatened to surface, but pride over the wardrobe makeover she’d supervised won out. “You look marvelous.”
Roxann’s brown eyes cut to her in the mirror. “I look ridiculous.”
Angora sighed—nothing was more exasperating than a beautiful woman who failed to recognize her physical potential. How many times had she heard Dee say that the family cheekbones had been wasted on Roxann? And one of her most mortifying memories was having the plastic surgeon draw on her God-given piggish nose with a black marker based on a picture of Roxann that Dee had produced.
“It’s my mother’s nose,” Dee had insisted, “and it should have been yours.”
After her jaw had been broken and reset, and her teeth straightened, she and Roxann could have passed for sisters, except for the hips and the hair. Her own true color was a mousy brown, but Dee had been so determined that everyone think she was a natural blonde, Angora’s hair had been lightened since kindergarten.
“You just need time to adjust to your new look,” Angora assured Roxann. “You’re going to knock his socks off.”
“Who?”
“Whoever.”
Roxann scoffed, but Angora noticed the subtle change in her demeanor as she turned sideways and perused her whip-slim figure in brown leather pants, pink blouse, and high-heeled ankle boots. She was thinking about someone.
Roxann tugged at the waistband. “These pants are tighter on me than on the animal that wore the hide.”
Angora grinned and turned to the clerk hovering in the background. “We’ll take this outfit, and all the rest.”
“Angora, I can’t let you buy all these things for me.”
“Why not? After all, you rescued me.” She waved Trenton’s gold American Express card. “No limit.”
She handed over the card with a flourish. Bankruptcy was too good for Trenton after what he’d done to her. Although now with Darma Walker’s money, along with her dead husband’s, it would take more than a shopping spree at a sub-par department store to make an impression on him. Or to relieve her own anguish.
The rage that had hovered just beneath the surface since yesterday made her skin prickly and hot. She hated Trenton all the more for giving her what was probably a permanent nerve rash. Unable to restrain herself, she clawed at the itchy skin on her neck with the frenzy of a lapdog. Trenton didn’t deserve to live happily ever after, not after destroying her life, the miserable, lying beast. And to think she’d saved herself for him, had been willing to dedicate her life to him, all because Dee had promised that he was the one for her.
“We can get some ointment for your hives.”
She stopped mid-scratch at Roxann’s voice, feeling like a ten-year-old. “I’ll be fine,” she said, straightening, but panicked for a few seconds, trying to remember where she was—sometimes her mind took her to another place.
“Angora?”
Racks of clothing, bad carpet, three-way mirrors—oh, yes, the department store. She manufactured a smile for Roxann, then disguised her raw neck with a quick flip of the collar of her new silk blouse. “Next stop—hair and makeup.”
Roxann blanched. “Huh?”
Instantly cheered, Angora hooked her arm around her cousin’s shoulder. “When we’re finished, no one will be able to recognize you.” At the sudden serious expression on Roxann’s face, she added, “Not that you look bad now.”
“No, you’re right,” Roxann said slowly, smoothing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I could use a new look, at least for a little while.”
Ah, so Roxann did want to impress someone—Dr. Carl? She couldn’t blame her—the man was outrageously male. She had harbored a crush on him, too, but things hadn’t turned out quite the way she’d hoped. Still, it hadn’t stopped her from fantasizing about him, wondering what it would be like to lose her virginity to him. Keeping her knees closed for the frat boys she dated had posed no problem because none of their fumbling kisses had piqued her interest.
But her senior year she had found a tree-shaded bench across from the building that housed Dr. Carl’s office. From her shielded vantage point, she munched on celery and cauliflower and watched him eat lunch on the steps of his building every day that the weather permitted. His routine never varied. At noon he would emerge with a brown bag, then eat a delicious-looking sandwich, a little bag of chips, and a bottle of juice, all while reading the newspaper. Not that he ever got much reading done, since every girl who walked by stopped to chat, or at least said hello. He would smile politely and nod while chewing, seemingly unaware that he had them all in a lather.
Okay, so she had been in love with him. Every night she would mentally rehearse crossing the street and engaging Dr. Carl in a conversation so witty and entertaining that he would instantly realize they were destined for each other. Except the next day she would sit munching her Dee-directed baggie of raw vegetables, paralyzed in self-loathing while braver and more slender girls were rewarded with his magnificent smile.
Then one day Roxann had happened by Dr. Carl’s eating place, with a paper or something for him to look at. Angora had watched, burning with jealousy, as he had actually invited her cousin to sit. His delicious-looking sandwich had gone uneaten while they discussed the paper, heads together. He had talked and gestured with animation, and Roxann
had hung on to every word, scribbling notes.
After that, Roxann had appeared with more regularity, producing one paper after another that seemed to need his input. He had tolerated her cousin’s company like the good and kind man he was, but surely he knew that Roxann had slept with many men, that she wasn’t wholesome like Angora.
She and Roxann hadn’t lived together for a couple of years at that point, but still saw each other when she needed help with an assignment, or studying for an exam. Angora never mentioned the lunches she witnessed, or that she knew Roxann was in love with him. She couldn’t afford to alienate her cousin—she needed her help to graduate. So as always, she’d kept her mouth shut and pondered why good girls finished last.
Angora ground her perfect teeth. She was soooo tired of being a good girl.
“Earth to Angora.”
She blinked Roxann into view. “Um, sorry.”
Roxann angled her head. “Are you okay? Maybe we should find a hotel and relax, watch a movie. You had a rough day yesterday.”
She wanted to scream, My life is one long rough day, but the genuine concern in Roxann’s eyes stopped her, and a familiar push-pull of emotions churned in her chest. One minute she wished Roxann had never been born, the next minute she coveted her approval. God, it would be so easy to hate Roxann—seemingly the source of all her problems, yet seemingly the solution to all her problems. Absent for long stretches of time, but there when Angora needed her most. Affection surged in her throat, and the fierce animosity ebbed as quickly as it had flowed. “You’re just trying to get out of having your colors done.”
“My colors done? What’s that?”
Angora rolled her eyes. “Let me take care of everything.”
To her surprise, Roxann was like an obedient, if wary, child, submitting to her ministrations at the makeup counter, and later, as Angora helped Steve the hairdresser select shoulder-length extensions to match the blue-black strands of Roxann’s stick-straight hair. She did complain that everything was taking too long, and yelped when her eyebrows were tidied with hot wax, but otherwise acquiesced. An hour later when Steve turned Roxann around in the chair, the transformation was truly remarkable, and this time, Angora couldn’t stem the flood of envy.
Got Your Number Page 10
