My Fair Gentleman

by Jan Freed

  Allie unpeeled the meat from her skin and spun in a circle, searching for something large enough to wipe the glee from Emily’s face. There, by the stacked bleachers! Kim’s half-eaten peach, just oozing slimy pulp. Lunging forward, Allie scooped up the fruit and grinned. She’d fire the last shot and rule!

  Still in a crouch, she turned on the balls of her feet and watched the three girls scatter with panicked yelps. Emily threw up her hands and dashed for the double doors—a bid to steal base.

  “I don’t think so,” Allie yelled, winding back her arm just as the doors opened from the outside. Emily slipped out and Sarah Sokol walked in. But the “ball” had already been released.

  Hard.

  It smacked Sarah right between her size-C cups and clung there, squished and drippy, before plopping to the floor. Her shocked blue eyes looked down at the orange splat on her chest and lifted up much narrower than before.

  “You little bitch!” she yelled, her fair complexion turning red. “You did that on purpose.”

  “Hey,” Allie protested, “I thought you were—”

  “Did you see what she did, Tommy? I told you she was dangerous, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

  With dawning horror, Allie realized that the tall blond boy stood watching the scene from the door.

  “She throws as hard as a boy.” Sarah’s chest, the one fate had sprinkled with fairy dust, magically expanded and angled toward the door. “I’ll probably have a huge bruise.”

  “Oh, puh-leeze,” Holly muttered, moving up next to Allie.

  Sarah’s head snapped around. “You shut up! You’re as butch as she is. You’re all a big joke, the way you act like every play, every game, is so-o-o important. Just wait’ll Coach sees this gym. We’ll see what he thinks about his pets then.”

  Allie saw Tommy’s bluebonnet gaze scan the gross mess on the floor and lift to the corn chips in Kim’s hair, the pickle slice on Holly’s shoulder, the…Oh, God, was there something on her cheek? She touched her skin and silently groaned when her fingertips came away yellow. Mustard, from the bologna Emily had thrown.

  Wishing the floor would swallow her whole, Allie realized Kim had moved up to her left side.

  “And what’ll you say when Coach asks what business you two had going into an empty gym?” Kim asked slyly.

  Allie’s gaze collided with Tommy’s. Of course. He’d brought Sarah here to make out. The truth was there in his eyes, along with…embarrassment? No way. If he knew how much Allie hurt right now, he’d laugh. Or worse, feel sorry for her.

  Sarah tossed her golden hair. “I’ll tell him we heard you animals tearing up the gym and came in to check it out.” She plucked at her stained T-shirt. “Once he sees this, your ass is grass, Tucker.”

  How could someone so pretty smile so ugly?

  “Keep workin’ at it,” Sarah added. “And you might even grow up to be a bigger loser than your dad.”

  Allie’d never gotten so mad so fast in her life. Years of sprinting for pop flies went into her race for Sarah. The blonde never had a chance, although she squeaked and skittered ratlike toward Tommy.

  Allie grasped the back of Sarah’s T-shirt, yanked the girl close and spun her around, then gripped her wrist in an unbreakable hold. “I warned you never to bad-mouth my dad again, didn’t I, Sarah?”

  Sarah cast a pleading look at Tommy. “Help me, please.”

  “You know what happens to girls who don’t know how to talk nice or keep their lying mouths shut?” Allie held the other girl’s wide gaze, easily restraining her weak tugs. “They get their mouths plugged up, that’s what.”

  Still holding Sarah’s wrist, she bent down, scooped up the mangled peach and shoved it into Sarah’s gaping mouth.

  The girl sputtered and pitched her head, spitting out the fruit and screeching out her rage. Allie stood back and grinned.

  “What’s going on here?” a deep voice asked from the doorway.

  Coach Harrison walked into the gym, followed by Emily and Tommy. Sarah teared up instantly, looking pitiful and abused with orange mush all over her face and the skin on her wrist glowing red.

  Allie met her friends’ sympathetic eyes and knew a grass ass was the least of her worries.

  “Well? I’m waiting for an answer. Why is Sarah crying?”

  Allie’s throat closed up. Heat flooded her cheeks. She’d acted like a bully, the butch Sarah had accused her of being. But the one thing Allie had never been in her life was a coward.

  “Coach,” she rasped. Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Coach, I—”

  “Sarah slipped on the floor and fell on a peach, Coach Harris. She’ll be fine in a few minutes.” Tommy’s beautiful blue eyes never wavered from the older man’s skeptical gaze.

  Sarah began making choking noises, as if unable to gasp out a protest past her crying.

  “C’mon, Sarah, let’s go get your face cleaned up. Then we’ll come back and help straighten up this mess,” he promised, sending Allie an apologetic glance that made her heart pound. Draping an arm around Sarah’s shoulders, he led her rather forcefully out the door.

  When Allie turned back to face the coach, the look on his face warned of serious punishment. It probably didn’t help her case any that she couldn’t stop smiling.

  JOE SHIFTED his pinched neck against the sink basin of Etienne’s Hair Salon and winced. Instantly the tepid spray of water against his hair stopped.

  “Is that too hot, sir?”

  He cracked open his eyelids. The shampoo girl’s silver blond buzz cut made her look damn near bald. Her dark eyes, cigarette burns in a white sheet of a face, peered down with friendly concern.

  “It’s fine,” he assured the hovering face. “Has anyone ever mentioned how much you look like—” Instinct stopped him short. She probably wouldn’t appreciate being compared to Casper.

  “Sinead O’Connor?” she supplied helpfully.

  Thank you, Lord. “Yeah, that’s the one. I guess you hear that a lot, huh?”

  She nodded with cute Casper shyness and started the water again. He drew a relieved breath, stinging his nose and fumigating his brain cells in the process.

  No wonder the employees in this place looked dead. Whatever hair products they sniffed each day should be locked up with cans of spray paint. Neon art, black and silver walls and blaring alternative rock music gave the salon a futuristic feel. He should’ve put his foot down and gone to Harvey’s Barbershop.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Tucker, you seem awfully tense. Try and relax. Watch a little MTV.” She waved a dripping hand at a tilted monitor mounted on the wall. “Who knows? You might even enjoy yourself.” Unaware she’d repeated Catherine’s earlier words, the girl looked into his suddenly narrowed glare and squeaked.

  Water flooded his ear canal. He jerked away, wrenching his neck in the guillotine basin.

  She dabbed his ear with a towel and blushed a becoming flesh tone. “I’m s-so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, doll. I won’t melt.”

  Giving her his best smile, he let his eyes drift shut on her dazed expression and plotted revenge against Catherine, the real culprit of this entire disastrous afternoon.

  Enjoy himself, ha!

  The diabolical woman had led him into a hushed boutique reeking of leather, scented candles and that fancy coffee served in thimble cups. She’d explained her mission to Friedrich, the sales assistant from hell, who accepted the challenge with fanatical determination.

  Joe grimaced, remembering endless changing of clothes. Constant tugging of pleats, cuffs and lapels on his person. Humiliating discussions of his “swarthy” complexion next to colors named after various fruits. And to top it off, a final bill that, even split fifty-fifty with Catherine, was more than he normally spent on clothes in an entire year.

  He’d suffered through it all with stoic resignation, his hair shirt for revealing his lustful urges to Catherine. But forcing him into this—this salon, for cripe’s sake—was by Go
d the final degradation! He sure as hell wasn’t paying for half of this torture, no siree.

  Blunt fingertips massaged shampoo against his scalp in soothing circles, then moved down to his neck. A pleasant citrus smell clouded the sink. His rigid muscles relaxed.

  “I knew you’d enjoy Mary’s shampoo,” a familiar voice crowed, blasting his eyes wide open.

  Catherine sat in the black vinyl chair next to him wearing a smug smile and those white shorts from the carnival, the ones that showed off her long curvy legs. Her loose black T-shirt had molded close each time she’d reached toward a high clothes rack.

  When Mary began rinsing the shampoo from his hair, he gratefully closed his eyes.

  “Bet you wouldn’t have gotten a free massage from that old barber you go to in Littleton,” Catherine said.

  “You’re right. Harvey would’ve given me a shave and a haircut, the sports channel and a look at the latest centerfold—all for only twelve bucks, thank you very much. What’s this place costing you?”

  “Humph. Disgusting.”

  “Well, if it’s so damn expensive—no offense, Mary—what did you bring me here for?”

  “I didn’t mean that the cost is disgusting. I meant that gawking at a centerfold in a barbershop is disgusting. Actually, juvenile is the better word. Why do grown men do that?”

  He thought a minute. “Because we can?”

  Water flooded his ear canal.

  He glared up at Mary, who, far from apologizing, nudged him upright and proceeded to test the root strength of his hair with a dry towel.

  “Why do women get so bent out of shape at men admiring their bodies?” he grumbled. “It’s a compliment.”

  “A compliment?” Catherine’s eyes glinted dangerously.

  You are one dumb jock, Tucker.

  “For the record, Joe, women don’t get bent out of shape when men admire our bodies. In fact, there’s nothing we like better. It’s when you drool over siliconed, liposuctioned, fuzzy-focused, air-brushed photographs that we get a little crazy. Our natural bodies can’t possibly live up to those unnatural standards.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to.” Personally he preferred soft yielding flesh over nippled grapefruits hands down—so to speak.

  “Right,” Mary muttered, draping the towel over his shoulders and tugging a comb none too gently through his hair. “That’s why twenty extra pounds kept me home Saturday nights, while guys just as overweight as me had steady girlfriends.”

  Her bitterness startled him, since her black smocked figure was petite and trim. “Well, you obviously did something about your weight. You look great.”

  “Yeah, I did something.” She finished combing his hair and exchanged an enigmatic look with Catherine, trapping Joe between currents of emotion he didn’t understand.

  “Did you make an appointment yet?” Catherine asked.

  The young woman bleakly shook her head.

  “He’s expecting your call. He’ll work out a fee schedule you can handle.”

  “I’m…scared.”

  Catherine rose swiftly, rounded the chair and enfolded the younger woman in her arms. Her thigh pressed against Joe’s knee, channeling her compassion and strength to him as surely as it did to Mary.

  “You can beat this thing, Mary. Tell you what, why don’t we go into the back office and make that call together?”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now. The first step. How about it?”

  Joe felt Catherine’s thigh tense as the silence stretched.

  “All right,” Mary relented. “But you have to talk to him first.”

  “Deal.” Catherine pulled away, her smile a rising sun in the artificial landscape. She took Mary’s arm and walked a few steps before stopping to look over her shoulder.

  “Oh, Joe? Robert said to send you to his chair when Mary was through. It’s the third station from the front entrance, remember? Trust him. You won’t be sorry.” On that cryptic note, she led Mary through a door beyond the last sink.

  Deep in thought, Joe got up and wandered into the main salon, barely noticing the admiring glances from beneath curlers and snipping scissors throughout the room. He found the right chair and sank into a casual sprawl, nodding at the approaching man Catherine had introduced earlier as Robert.

  Tall and pale, wearing baggy black trousers and a muscle-molding gray T-shirt that belied his indolent manner, Robert nodded back. His black ponytail was longer than Catherine’s.

  “All set to get started?” he asked.

  Joe hesitated, then decided what the hell. “Can I ask you a personal question, Robert?”

  The hairdresser’s world-weary gaze traveled from Joe’s crossed sneakers to his shaggy hair, gaining interest along the way. “Ooh, those are my favorite kind.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JOE HELD Robert’s gaze, sending an unoffended but firm message to forget that line of thinking.

  The hairdresser sighed and pulled a square of silver fabric from the bottom drawer of his station. Shaking out the folds, he whirled the cape with matador grace over Joe’s chest and shoulders and fastened it behind his neck. “What’s the question?”

  “Do you know what’s wrong with Mary? Medically speaking, that is.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Catherine is worried about her. That makes me care.”

  After a long measuring look, Robert said, “Mary is bulimic. Not that anyone around here knew it. When she started losing weight about six months ago, we all wanted a copy of the diet she was on.” He ran ten fingers through Joe’s thick dark hair, lifting the varying lengths with an expression of growing horror. “Who cuts your hair, dear? Weed Eaters R Us?”

  “Harvey’s Barbershop.”

  Rolling his eyes, Robert plucked a comb and scissors from his top drawer and set to work. “When Catherine was here for her last appointment, I walked in on her trying to convince Mary to start therapy. You could’ve knocked me over with a sneeze, but apparently Catherine had spotted the signs of bulimia right off.”

  “She got Mary to make some kind of appointment today,” Joe admitted. “I guess it was for counseling.”

  Robert smiled, comb suspended, and shook his head. “That lady is something else. She’s helped half the employees at Etienne’s work through personal problems at one time or another. That’s why this bet you’ve got going is so great. We all have a list of clients to send Catherine once her practice is open.”

  Damn, did anyone not know about this secret bet? Joe glanced to his right at a row of caped customers and the stylists attending them. Gazes skittered away. Scissors and blow dryers suddenly swarmed above heads.

  “Oh, don’t worry about us spilling the beans. We wouldn’t dream of ruining Catherine’s big chance. No one deserves a break more than her—” Robert pushed Joe’s shoulder with two fingertips “—but I guess you know that. You’re helping her more than anyone.”

  “Yeah, I’m helping,” Joe mumbled.

  Helping to confuse her, stirring up embers her fiance hadn’t touched with a five-inch pole. Six inches, tops. Still, she seemed content enough with her upcoming marriage.

  So why was he playing with fire? Because, like looking at a centerfold, he could?

  He faced his actions head-on, not liking what he saw. Such behavior was not only disgusting and juvenile, it was selfish as hell. Catherine was the one who’d get burned in the long run. And she deserved better. She deserved her big chance.

  A fine mist of liquid hit Joe’s face.

  He sucked in his breath and glared at the plastic spray bottle inches from his nose. “Dammit, man, are the employees in this place licensed to use water weapons?”

  “Temper, temper,” Robert scolded as he set the bottle down and picked up comb and scissors. “You were daydreaming, and Catherine asked me to give you the inside scoop on a few VIPs who’ll be at the party. They’re clients of Etienne’s Hair Salon.”

  “Masochists, are they?”

  “I sho
uld be so lucky. No, I’m afraid they’re pretty tame, but they do have their little quirks.”

  “Anything I could use in a social conversation?”

  “Probably. But let’s get one thing clear, big guy. I don’t mind your using information to play a harmless role. But if I find out you’ve hurt one of my clients or Catherine, especially Catherine—” he pointed the scissor tips at Joe’s torso “—then your liver is shish kebab.”

  Joe looked into cold gray eyes and was glad Catherine had this guy on her team. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Robert flashed a wicked grin and began the rhythmic comb-snip, comb-snip of his trade. “Now then, let’s start with Mrs. Brad Prewitt, of Prewitt Oil and Gas. Her first name is Laura, and she’s absolutely gaga about her show dog; Treats it better than she does Brad, from what I can tell. Just let her know you’re canine friendly and she’ll love you forever.”

  “No sweat. I like dogs.” Wagging tails. Paws on shoulders. Playful woofs. “What breed is it?”

  “A miniature poodle. White. Fits in her purse. It has some fancy name, but Laura calls it Puff.”

  Trembling bodies. Painted toenails. Shrill yaps.

  The snipping stopped. “Now, now. Puff is a dog. You said you liked dogs.”

  “Marshmallows with legs don’t qualify.”

  “Oh, spare me your threatened manhood and pay attention to the guest list.” The scissors chattered back into action, spitting alarming quantities of hair in all directions. “Mrs. Michael Kendall, of Kendall Electronics, will be there, bunions and all. Martha’s having orthopedic surgery a week after the party. She’ll probably be cranky as hell standing around in high heels, so I’d avoid her if I were you. Or invite her to sit.”

  Sounded like a good plan to Joe.

  “Now Mrs. Dusty Black—her husband is general manager of a top radio station in Houston. Anyway, Dawn’s a real gem. She’s chairing a November ball benefiting hospice facilities for AIDS patients. Imply you’ll sponsor a table and she’ll claim you as her first cousin.” Robert paused and shook his head. “Trash that thought, I wouldn’t want you to mislead her about something that important.”