Bad Attitude

by Tiffany White

  He couldn’t help but know the effect he had on her, that he had, in fact, on any breathing woman. But for some reason he was enjoying using that knowledge to aggravate the hell out of her.

  His campaign to disturb and distract her from her baby-sitting job was going much better than hers to teach him some good sense. She didn’t think good sense and Mitch Marlowe were ever going to be on handshaking terms. He enjoyed pushing the envelope too much. And for no reason other than the pure joy of doing it.

  If the truth were told, Molly knew she wasn’t all that much different. That was the problem. She understood Mitch way too well. And sympathized with him. Not about the foolish chances he took that would sooner or later get him killed. No, what she sympathized with was his loneliness.

  All the beautiful women in the world didn’t necessarily chase away the loneliness. Not if you were lonely for a particular person.

  She had to stop letting Mitch get to her. In their game of cat and mouse she was very definitely the mouse. The trouble was, Mitch had some very tempting cheese as bait.

  Nonetheless, no woman in her right mind would want a permanent relationship with an actor, she reflected. In fact, she wasn’t sure that wasn’t an oxymoron.

  Molly also knew she’d never recover from a brief affair with Mitch. He wasn’t serious. He was only enjoying taunting her with the idea, because she’d had the nerve to agree to baby-sit him for Peter. Turning up the heat was only his latest game.

  If she played, she’d lose.

  MITCH SLOUCHED on the sofa, lighted a cigarette and inhaled. His blue eyes gazed at her defiantly, he exhaled slowly and the smoke drifted around him. Sitting there in a sleeveless, white T-shirt and second-skin biker shorts, he looked like a forbidden fantasy.

  “Do you have to smoke?” she nagged as she did each and every time he lighted up.

  Mitch groaned and closed his eyes. “Look, I’m going to quit. Okay?”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Soon.”

  “If you were going to quit, you’d put out that cigarette right now.”

  “Don’t you ever give up?” Knowing she was sensitive about her red hair and her weight, he gave in to an urge and taunted, “You know, sometimes I wish I’d been locked up with someone who was mean, lean and blond.”

  Molly cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”

  He nodded.

  “I got a news flash for you,” she countered. “I am locked up with someone who is mean, lean and blond, and trust me, it ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Touché.”

  It was her turn to play rotten. “If I had my way, I’d be locked up with someone who had more sense than a stone.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, unless it’s about my dating Sharon Stone. You do have this thing about blondes, don’t you?” Refusing to be serious, he went on, “Is that what this is all about, Red? Are you jealous?”

  ‘It’s a wonder you can fit your ego through the door,” Molly muttered, flopping sideways into a big, comfy chair. “You’re being purposely obtuse. You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said, determined to get the matter of Matthew’s death into the open. “I’m talking about your death wish.”

  “Just because I smoke an occasional cigarette, it doesn’t mean I have a death wish,” he said, putting out the one he’d just lighted. “It only means I have a bad habit. Don’t you have any bad habits, Red?”

  “I’m not talking about the cigarettes, and you well know it. They’ll kill you, all right, but it will most likely take years. Your death wish is more immediate.”

  “I do not have a death wish.”

  “What you have is a classic case of denial, Mitch.”

  “What?”

  “You’re denying your reckless and dangerous behavior since Matthew’s death the same way you’ve been denying the fact that your brother, not you, was responsible for his death. You can’t bring your brother back to life by feeling guilty. I know that. You have to let him go and start to live again.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Mitch said, his voice bleak. “You don’t know what it feels like. You don’t know how it feels to have a part of you gone forever.”

  “I know only too well what it feels like,” Molly whispered softly.

  Mitch looked at her oddly.

  “My older brother, Joey, died when I was ten,” she explained. “He was a thrill seeker like Matthew. I idolized him. Everywhere Joey went, I tagged along … and he let me. I think in some way he needed my childish worship. My parents were pretty tough on him, always demanding he measure up. My love was unconditional. We were very close.

  “He was always taking dares and it scared me. There wasn’t anything he liked better than living on the edge. I used to beg him not to be so reckless, but he’d just laugh and muss my hair.

  “He died,” she said, her voice catching, “he died in a stupid, senseless way. On a bet. He was trying to swim across the river and the current was too swift. I had to stand on the far shore and watch as the current pulled him under. I had to watch Joey

  drown, unable to save him….“ Tears escaped from

  her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry, Molly. I didn’t know.”

  “Well, now you do. Don’t make me watch again, unable to save you. I couldn’t bear it if it happened again. This time I wouldn’t survive.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Mitch’s voice was raw with pain.

  “I want you to stop. Allow yourself to feel the pain, to grieve and then to live again. Get off the suicide express.”

  Mitch looked at her with the expression of a recalcitrant teenager.

  Molly forged ahead, determined to get through the strong, tough-guy facade to the devastated man. “Don’t you see what you’re doing?” she demanded.

  “I’m not doing anything,” he said, lighting another cigarette.

  “Yes, you are. You’re trying to bring Matthew back with these senseless stunts. By being him. But you’re not him, Mitch. He was the thrill seeker, not you.”

  Frustrated, Mitch stabbed out the cigarette. “We were identical twins.”

  “Yes, you were twins who were close,” she agreed, wondering how Mitch really could bear the loss of a reflection of himself. She couldn’t show her sympathy … that wouldn’t help Mitch. “But even though you were very close, you weren’t the same person. You became an actor because you needed to express yourself in another way.”

  “You don’t know what I need—”

  “Yes, I do. You need what we all need … to be happy. To be happy, Mitch, you have to like yourself. Lose the self-pity.”

  Mitch hooted. Crossing his arms over his chest, he surveyed her so intently that she squirmed. “That’s a fine thing for you to say,” he declared.

  “Why?” she asked, fairly sure she wasn’t going to like his answer. While it was perfectly fine for her to dissect him, she wasn’t open to having him critique her. She was far too vulnerable for that, despite the tough-guy mouth she used as armor.

  “Well, look at you,” he said.

  Molly’s heart sank. “What about me?”

  “You talk about liking yourself, yet you have this thing about your red hair and curves.” Leaning forward, he said, “You’re the one who’s obsessed with hipless blondes, Molly, not me.”

  He’d touched her trigger button and she went off. “No. It’s not me who’s obsessed with hipless blondes. It’s the society we live in. You can’t be a woman alive in this time and not feel the pressure to be thinner, not feel dissatisfied with your body, no matter what shape you were born with.”

  “So you’re saying that being a hipless blonde would make you a happier person?”

  “No, because I know perfection isn’t possible. But you can’t stop the effect of being bombarded every day by the media’s message that being thin opens up the way to acc
eptable beauty as well as to personal and professional success. If you want to feel female, sexy and desired, you have to work for it—work out for it. The whole, morally superior attitude of the fitness maniacs annoys me.”

  “So don’t listen to it,” Mitch said, dismissing her qualms with a shrug.

  “That’s easier said than done,” Molly countered. “And anyway, it won’t work unless men stop listening, too. They are being conditioned just as much as women are. They are being conditioned to want one stereotype of woman instead of the wide array available.”

  She picked up a magazine and began flipping through it aimlessly. “Besides, it’s almost impossible to tune out the message, when you’re confronted with the so-called ideal everywhere you turn, from television to movies to … to magazines,” she said. The cover showed a blonde, applying makeup in her underwear.

  Mitch laughed. “Boy, you really are on a tear about this, aren’t you? Why are you so upset?”

  “Upset? Why am I upset? I’ll tell you why. It’s because the message is getting worse. It’s no longer enough just to be thin. Now you have to be toned. Soft must be replaced by hard. It seems to me there is a very deliberate campaign to make the female body more male.”

  “Not by me.”

  Molly glared at him.

  “Okay, let’s assume for a moment you’re right. Why do you suppose the culture is demanding women become less feminine?”

  Molly was abruptly aware that he was actually interested in what she thought. Was this part of his line? Was it pretense? Did she dare believe he was really interested in her? Stop it. Don’t get involved. You promised Peter. You promised yourself. Just answer his question, she told herself.

  “Well, since you asked, I think the current success of women in the marketplace is scaring the hell out of men. If you make women more like men, maybe they aren’t as frightening.”

  “I’m not scared of a real woman,” Mitch said, all movie-star confidence.

  “You have the sense of a stone, remember?”

  He let her remark pass. “Are you saying that men should be afraid of women?”

  “No, I’m saying women are starting to catch on.”

  “Catch on to what?”

  “The fact that the beauty and body requirements imposed on women are extremely time consuming, compared to those imposed on men. You add housework, which women still do most of, plus child care, and there is no way a woman can compete equally with a man.”

  Mitch folded his hands behind his head and looked at her; she saw a glint flash in his eyes. “You want to know what I think?”

  She wasn’t sure. “What?” she asked, nonetheless, letting curiosity win out.

  “I think men have more determination. Men decide to do something and they do it. It’s as simple as that.”

  “What a line of sexist garbage!”

  “You think so? Okay, then tell me and be honest. What change would you like to make about yourself that you haven’t been able to make?”

  Molly shrugged, the easy answer on the tip of her tongue—and off it before she could catch herself. “Lose ten pounds.”

  Mitch looked surprised. “I thought you didn’t buy into all that body image stuff.”

  “I don’t. But I do love fashion and I know if I were ten pounds thinner, the kind of clothes I enjoy wearing would fit better, okay?”

  Mitch grinned big time, his eyes twinkling. “And here I thought you were just a bad girl who enjoyed wearing her clothes on the tight side,” he teased.

  “Disappointed, are you?” Molly said, throwing her magazine at him.

  He ducked. “Maybe just a little. Surely you know it’s every guy’s secret desire to be seduced by a woman who’s bold enough to know what she wants. A woman who throws tradition to the winds. A woman who takes over on occasion, demanding exactly what she wants, when she wants it.”

  It was Molly’s turn to laugh, a deep, belly laugh. “And I think you’ve seen too many Kathleen Turner movies,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Uh-uh. It’s not possible to see too many Kathleen Turner movies.”

  “Let me get this right….“ Boy, either he was good at telling a woman what she wanted to hear, or he was too good to be true! “You’re saying you like a woman who is independent?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “Sexually independent, maybe. That I’d buy. But a totally independent woman? Nah, I don’t think so. A totally independent woman would probably drive you crazy.” A darn shame, too.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You’re a movie star. You haven’t got a clue how spoiled you are.”

  “Spoiled?” He looked affronted.

  “Yes, spoiled. What do you think would happen if an independent woman’s working hours didn’t necessarily dovetail with yours? Would you be willing to accommodate that?”

  Mitch winked at her. “I might.”

  “Might?”

  Mitch rubbed his hands on his Lycra-clad thighs. “Depends on how sexually independent she is—how adventuresome.”

  “You think sex is an adventure? How male of you!”

  “You don’t think sex should be an adventure?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “Oh, great! I’m locked up with one of the Hardy Boys,” Molly said with a sigh.

  “Only if you’re willing to play Nancy Drew….” he countered, visibly relishing the idea.

  Molly shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m going to change the subject back. I want to know why you asked me the question about what I’d change about myself if I could.”

  “Oh, yeah.” It was obvious he’d been totally drawn off track by the idea of her being a bad girl. “I was about to challenge you. How about it, Molly? Are you up to going one-on-one with me?”

  Oh, yes, she was more than ready to go one-on-one with him between the sheets. Her body was, her heart was. Only her head wasn’t. But two against one had her saying, “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what you’re talking about,” Molly said suspiciously, narrowing her eyes.

  “I’m talking about a little man-woman experiment.”

  “I thought so—and I don’t think so.”

  “Wait. Here’s the deal. I’ll try to quit smoking, and you’ll try to lose those pesky ten pounds you were just bemoaning having. What do you say?” he coaxed. “Let’s ties who succeeds by the time the movie wraps.”

  “No cheating,” Molly insisted.

  He nodded. “No cheating.”

  “ANGIE, DON’T ΥOU HAVE anything chocolate to eat at all?” Molly asked, her head stuck in Angle’s tiny kitchen cabinet. She’d made a thorough search of the trailer and hadn’t come up with so much as a box of Cocoa Puffs cereal while waiting for Angie to return.

  “Chocolate? I thought you were on a diet. Don’t you have some sort of man-woman challenge of the sexes going with Mitch, to see which sex is better at willpower and self-determination?”

  “I’m going to start tomorrow. Okay? Mitch doesn’t have to know. Right now I need chocolate. If I don’t get chocolate, I may have to kill someone.”

  “Let me guess who,” Angie said.

  “I’ll give you a hint.” Molly closed the cabinet door. “He’s blond, blue-eyed and famous, and his name is Mitch Marlow.”

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Angie warned with mock seriousness. “Unless, of course, you blame it on Sonny, which won’t work, since he went back on the road.”

  “I know. So if you’re really, really my friend, Angie, you’ll find me some chocolate.”

  “Will a half-eaten pack of M&M’s do?” Angie held up the rumpled packet she’d pulled from her purse.

  “You’ve saved my life,” Molly said, grabbing them. “Or you’ve saved his.”

  Tossing a handful of the colorful bits of candy-coated chocolate into her mouth, she savored the rich, melting taste
on her tongue. She closed her eyes in rapture.

  “For heaven’s sake, Molly. You look like you’re having sex … great sex,” Angie said with a ribald laugh.

  “I am. It’s called safe sex.”

  “Unsafe being—” Angie took the pack of M&M’s from her and finished it off.

  “Being next door.” Molly flopped onto the sofa. “Oh, Angie, you don’t know what it’s like, being locked up with your fantasy lover for days on end with the romantic sound of rain on the roof, endlessly coaxing … ‘Yes, yes, yes.’”

  “So why don’t you give in to your desires for him, if you fancy him so? Why keep torturing yourself with denial?”

  “Come on, Angie. I’m not like Heather. I’d never recover.”

  “From what?”

  “From being involved with him only for the duration of the film.” Molly picked up a loose sofa pillow and hugged it.

  “So who says it won’t last?”

  “Angie …”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Trust me, he’s not.”

  “He might be.”

  “Angie, he’s an actor.”

  8

  MITCH HAD DRIVEN to Stanton to get ammunition for his little war with Molly. On the return trip he was lost in reflection. The radio was off, and the windows were rolled up to keep out the steady rain. The movement of the windshield wipers accentuated his almost trancelike state as he thought about what Molly had said about Matthew’s death.

  She was right. He had to let go of the anger he felt over his brother’s death and accept it. Only then could he proceed with his life.

  The bad dreams weren’t coming as frequently. He didn’t wake up in a cold sweat anymore, seeing smoke billow from the wreckage of Matthew’s racing car … didn’t see Matthew’s lifeless body lifted from it.

  The fact that Molly had shared her own guilt over her older brother’s death had been comforting. She was right; Matthew had been more of a thrill seeker than he. Mitch wondered if people like Matthew and Molly’s brother Joey, who’d loved living on the edge, had ever thought about the pain they’d leave behind by their senseless risk taking.