Simply Irresistible

by Rachel Gibson

  “Hey, that’s not nice,” Georgeanne complained, but she really didn’t take offense; it was the truth.

  “But never in a million years would I have guessed John Kowalsky. My God, Georgeanne, the man is a hockey player!” She pronounced the last two word with the same horrified disdain usually reserved for serial killers or used-car salesmen.

  “I know that.”

  “Have you ever seen him play?”

  “No.” She looked down at the pillow in her lap and frowned at a brown smudge on one corner. “Although occasionally I have seen sports clips on the evening news.”

  “Well, I’ve seen him play! Do you remember Don Rogers?”

  “Of course,” she said as she picked at the spot on the linen pillow. “You dated him for a few months last year, but you dumped him because you thought the amount of affection he afforded his Labrador was very peculiar.” She paused and looked back up at Mae. “Did you let Lexie eat in the living room tonight? I believe there is chocolate on this pillow.”

  “Forget about the pillow,” Mae sighed, and ran her fingers through the sides of her short blond hair. “Don was this incredible Chinooks fanatic, so I went to a game with him. I couldn’t believe how hard those guys hit each other, and no one hit harder than John Kowalsky. He sent one guy somersaulting through the air. Then he just kind of shrugged and skated off.”

  Georgeanne wondered where this was going. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “You slept with him! I can’t believe it. Not only is he a jock, but he’s a jerk!”

  Secretly Georgeanne agreed, but she was becoming slightly ticked off. “It was a long time ago. And besides, being that you reside in a glass house, let’s not throw stones at each other, shall we?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that any woman who slept with Bruce Nelson has no right to judge anyone else.”

  Mae crossed her arms over her chest and sank back farther into the couch. “He wasn’t that bad,” she grumbled.

  “Really? He was a wormy little mama’s boy, and you only dated him because you could push him around-like all the guys you go out with.”

  “At least I have a normal sex life.”

  They’d had this same conversation many times. Mae considered Georgeanne’s lack of sex unhealthy, while Georgeanne felt that Mae should practice saying the word “no” a bit more often.

  “You know, Georgeanne, abstinence isn’t normal, and one of these days you’re just going to explode,” she predicted. “And Bruce wasn’t wormy, he was cute.”

  “Cute? He was thirty-eight years old and still lived at home with his mother. He reminded me of my third cousin Billy Earl down in San Antonio. Billy Earl lived with his mama until she took her final journey, and believe you me, he was as twisted as a piece of taffy. He used to steal reading glasses just in case he developed astigmatism. Which, of course, he never did, because all my people have perfect twenty-twenty vision. My grandmother used to say we should pray for him. We should pray he never developed a fear of cavities in his teeth or people with dentures wouldn’t be safe around Billy Earl.”

  Mae Laughed. “You’re full of it.”

  Georgeanne raised her right hand. “My lips to God’s ear. Billy Earl was a nut ball.” She looked back down at the pillow in her lap and ran her fingers over the white embroidered flowers. “Anyway, you obviously cared for Bruce or you wouldn’t have slept with him. Sometimes our hearts do the choosing.”

  “Hey.” Mae patted the back of the couch with her hand to get Georgeanne’s attention. When she looked up, Mae said, “I didn’t care for Bruce. I felt sorry for him, and I hadn’t had sex in a while, which is a really bad reason to go to bed with a man. I wouldn’t recommend it. If I sounded like I was judging you, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

  “I know,” Georgeanne said easily.

  “Good. Now, tell me. How did you first meet John Kowalsky?”

  “Do you want the whole story?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay. Do you remember when I first met you, I was wearing a little pink dress?”

  “Yes. You were supposed to marry Virgil Duffy in that dress.”

  “That’s right.” Years ago Georgeanne had told Mae of her botched wedding plans to Virgil, but she’d left out the part about John. She told Mae now. She told her all of it. All except the private details. She’d never been a person to talk openly and freely about sex. Her grandmother had certainly never discussed it, and everything she’d learned, she’d learned from a health class at school, or from inept boyfriends who either hadn’t known or hadn’t cared about giving pleasure.

  Then she’d met John, and he’d taught her things she hadn’t thought were physically possible until that night. He’d set her ablaze with his hot hands and hungry mouth, and she’d touched him in ways she’d only heard whispered about. He’d made her want him so much, she’d done everything he’d suggested and then some.

  Now she didn’t even like to think of that night. She no longer recognized the young woman who’d given her body and her love so easily. That woman didn’t exist anymore, and she didn’t feel there was any reason to discuss her.

  She skipped over the lurid details, then told Mae of the conversation she’d had with John that morning and of the agreement they’d reached at his houseboat. “I don’t know how things are going to work out, I just pray Lexie doesn’t get hurt,” she concluded, suddenly feeling exhausted.

  “Are you going to tell Charles?” Mae asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered as she hugged the pillow to her chest, leaned her head against the back of the couch, and stared up at the ceiling. “I’ve only been out with him twice.”

  “Are you going to see him again?”

  Georgeanne thought of the man she’d dated for the past month. She’d met him when he’d hired Heron’s to cater his daughter’s tenth birthday. He’d called the next day and they’d met for dinner at The Four Seasons. Georgeanne smiled. “I hope so.”

  “Then you better tell him.”

  Charles Monroe was divorced and one of the nicest men Georgeanne had ever known. He owned a local cable station, was wealthy, and had a wonderful smile that lit up his gray eyes. He didn’t dress flashy. He wasn’t GQ gorgeous, and his kisses didn’t set her eyebrows on fire. They were more like a warm breeze. Nice. Relaxing.

  Charles never pushed or grabbed, and given more time, Georgeanne could see herself becoming involved in an intimate relationship with him. She liked him a lot, and just as important, Lexie had met him once, and she liked him, too. “I guess I’ll tell him.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to like this news one bit,” Mae predicted.

  Georgeanne rolled her head to the left and looked at her friend. “Why?”

  “Because even though I abhor violent men, John Kowalsky is a stud boy, and Charles is bound to be jealous. He might worry that there is still something between you and the hockey jock.”

  She figured that Charles might get upset with her because she’d told him her standard lie about Lexie’s father, but she wasn’t worried he’d be jealous. “Charles has nothing to worry about,” she said with the certainty of a woman who knew for a fact that there wasn’t even a remote possibility she would ever become romantically involved with John again. “And besides, even if I were so delusional as to fall for John, he hates me. He doesn’t even like to look at me.” The idea of a reunion between herself and John was so absurd that she didn’t waste any brain power giving it a second thought. “I’ll tell Charles when I have lunch with him on Thursday.”

  But four days later, when she met Charles at a bistro on Madison Street, she didn’t get a chance to tell him anything. Before she could explain what had happened with John, Charles hit her with a proposal that left her speechless.

  “What do you think about hosting your own live television show?” he asked over pastrami sandwiches and coleslaw. “A kind of Martha Stewart of the Northwest. We’d slip
you into the Saturday twelve-thirty-to-one time slot. That’s just after Margie’s Garage and right before our afternoon sports programming. You’d have the freedom to do what you wanted. You could cook one show, and the next you could arrange dried flowers or retile a kitchen.”

  “I can’t retile a kitchen,” she whispered, shocked clear down to her beige pumps.

  “I just threw that out as an idea. I trust you. You’ve got natural talent, and you’d look great on television.”

  Georgeanne placed a hand on her chest, and her voice squeaked when she said, “Me?”

  “Yes, you. When I talked it over with my station manager, she thought it was a great idea.” Charles gave her an encouraging smile, and she almost believed she could go in front of a television camera and host her own show. Charles’s offer did appeal to the creative side of her, but reality interceded. Georgeanne was dyslexic. She’d learned to compensate, but if she wasn’t careful, she still read the words wrong. If she was flustered, she still had to stop and think about which way was left and which was right. And then there was her weight. A camera was supposed to add five pounds to a person. Well, Georgeanne was already several pounds overweight, add five pounds to that, and not only would she appear on TV reading words that didn’t exist, but she’d look fat. Plus there was Lexie to consider. Georgeanne already felt horrible for the amount of time her daughter spent in day care or with sitters.

  She looked into Charles’s gray eyes and said, “No, thank you.”

  “Aren’t you going to think it over?”

  “I have,” she said as she picked up her fork and speared her coleslaw. She didn’t want to think about it any longer. She didn’t want to think of the possibilities or the opportunity she’d just turned down.

  “Don’t you want to know how much it pays?”

  “Nope.” The government would take half, and she’d be left looking like a fat idiot for half of what she was worth.

  “Will you think about it a little longer?”

  He seemed so disappointed that she said, “I’ll think about it.” But she knew she wouldn’t change her mind.

  After lunch he walked her to her car, and once they stood beside her maroon Hyundai, he took the key from her hand and fit it into the lock.

  “When can I see you again?”

  “This weekend is impossible,” she said, feeling a little guilty that she’d never gotten around to mentioning John. “Why don’t you and Amber come over next Tuesday night and have dinner with me and Lexie?”

  Charles reached for her wrist and placed her keys in her palm. “That sounds nice,” he said as he moved his hand up her arm to the back of her neck. “But I want to see you alone more often.” Then he touched his lips to hers, and his kiss was like a nice pause in a busy day. A relaxing ahh, or a dip in a warm pool. So what if his kisses didn’t make her crazy? She didn’t want a man who made her lose control. She didn’t want any man’s touch to turn her into a raving nymphomaniac ever again. She’d been there, done that, and she’d been burned big time.

  She touched her tongue to his and felt his quick intake of breath. His free hand found her waist, and he pulled her closer into his chest. His grip tightened. He wanted more. If they hadn’t been standing in a parking lot in downtown Seattle, she might have given him what he wanted.

  She cared for Charles, and in time, she could see herself maybe falling in love with him. It had been years since she’d made love. Years since she’d given herself to a man. When she stepped back and looked into Charles’s heavy eyes, she thought it might be time to change that. It might be time to try again.

  Chapter Nine

  “Hey, look at me!”

  Mae glanced up from the carefully folded napkins in her hands as Lexie ran by dragging a pink Barbie kite behind her. Her denim hat with the big sunflower in front flew off her head and landed on the grass.

  “You’re doing great,” Mae hollered. She set down the napkins and stood back to view the picnic table with a critical eye. The ends of the blue and white striped cloth fluttered in the slight breeze while Lexie’s Chia Pet sat on an overturned bowl in the center of the table. The grassy pig wore little sunglasses cut out of poster board, and a bright pink scarf had been tied around its neck. “What are you trying to prove?” she asked.

  “I’m not trying to prove anything,” Georgeanne answered, wedging a tray of salmon-asparagus bundles, smoked-bluefish pate, and rounds of toast on one end of the table. For some reason, a small porcelain cat sat in the middle of the tray licking its paws. On the cat’s head was a pointed hat made out of yellow felt. Mae knew Georgeanne well enough to know that there was a theme to this picnic somewhere. She just hadn’t figured it out yet, but she would.

  She moved her gaze from the cat to the variety of food she recognized from jobs they’d catered the week before. She recognized the cheese blintzes and the loaf of traditional challah bread from little Mitchell Wiseman’s bar mitzvah. The crab cakes and checkerboard canapйs looked like they’d come from Mrs. Brody’s annual garden party. And the roasted chicken and baby back ribs with plum sauce had been served at the barbecue they’d catered the night before. “Well, it looks like you’re trying to prove to someone that you can cook.”

  “I just cleaned out the freezer at work, that’s all,” Georgeanne answered.

  No, that wasn’t all. The artfully arranged and carefully polished tower of fruit hadn’t come from work. The apples, pears, and bananas were perfect. The peaches and cherries had been meticulously positioned, and a blue-feather bird wearing a paisley cape looked down from a perch high atop a mound of shiny green and purple grapes. “Georgeanne, you don’t have to prove to anyone that you’re a successful woman or a good mother. I know you are and you know it, too. And since you and I are the only grownups around here that count, why kill yourself to impress a bonehead hockey player?”

  Georgeanne looked up from the crystal duck in a muumuu that she’d placed beside the canapйs. “I told John to bring a friend, so I don’t think he’ll be alone. And I’m not trying to impress him. I certainly don’t care what he thinks.”

  Mae didn’t argue. Instead, she grabbed a stack of clear plastic glasses and set them on the table next to the iced tea. Whether intentional or not, Georgeanne had set out to impress the man who’d dumped her at Sea-Tac seven years ago. Mae understood Georgeanne’s need to prove she’d made a success of her life. Although she did think the designer brownies Georgeanne had molded into the shapes of dogs was going a bit too far.

  And Georgeanne’s appearance was a little too perfect for a day at the park, too. Mae wondered if she was trying to convince John Kowalsky that she was as perfect as June Cleaver. Her dark hair was pulled up on each side of her head and held in place with gold combs. The gold hoops in her ears shined, and her makeup was flawless. Her emerald green halter dress matched her eyes, and her pink fingernail polish matched her toenails. She’d kicked off her sandals, and the thin gold ring on her third toe gleamed in the sun.

  Just a little too perfectly put together for a woman who didn’t care if she impressed the father of her child.

  When Mae had first hired Georgeanne, she’d felt a little drab standing beside her, like a pound mutt next to a highbred poodle. But her self-conscious feelings hadn’t lasted long. Georgeanne couldn’t help being a glamour queen any more than Mae could help feeling most comfortable in T-shirts and jeans. Or wearing a pair of cutoffs and a tank top like today.

  “What time is it?” Georgeanne asked as she poured herself a glass of tea.

  Mae looked at the big Mickey Mouse watch strapped to her wrist. “Eleven-forty.”

  “We’ve got twenty minutes then. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t show.”

  “What did you tell Lexie?” Mae asked as she dropped ice cubes into a glass.

  “Just that John might come to our picnic.” Georgeanne raised a hand to her brow and watched Lexie run with her kite.

  Mae reached for the tea pitcher and poured. “Might come to you
r picnic?”

  Georgeanne shrugged. “A girl can hope. And besides, I’m not convinced John will really want to be a part of Lexie’s life forever. I can’t help but think that sooner or later he’ll get tired of being a daddy. I just hope it happens sooner than later, because if he abandons her after she’s come to care for him, it will break her heart. You know how protective I am, and of course, something like that would bring out my bad temper. I’d naturally feel compelled to retaliate.”

  Mae considered Georgeanne one of the genuinely nicest women she knew, except when she lost her temper. “What would you do?”

  “Well, the thought of putting termites in his houseboat does hold a certain appeal.”

  Mae shook her head. She was fiercely loyal to both mother and daughter, and she considered them her family. “Too slow.”

  “Running him down with my car?”

  “You’re getting warmer.”

  “Drive-by shooting?”

  Mae smiled, but dropped the subject as Lexie walked toward them, dragging her kite behind her. The little girl collapsed on the ground at her mother’s feet, the hem of her denim sundress riding up to her Pocahontas underwear. Clumps of grass were stuck to her clear jelly sandals.

  “I can’t run no more,” she gasped. For a change, her face was clean of cosmetics.

  “You did a real good job, precious darlin‘,” Georgeanne praised. “Would you like a juice box?”

  “No. Will you run with me and help get my kite in the air?”

  “We’ve talked about this. You know I can’t run.”

  “I know,” Lexie sighed, and sat up. “It hurts your boobs and it’s tacky.” She shoved her hat back on her head and looked up at Mae. “Can you help me?”

  “I would, but I don’t wear a bra.”

  “Why not?” Lexie wanted to know. “Mommy does.”

  “Well, Mommy needs to, but Aunt Mae doesn’t.” She studied the little girl for a brief moment, then asked, “Where’s all the goop you usually wear on your face?”