The Mandy Project

by Toni Blake

  Mindy gasped. “He was here? This morning? Already?” He must have come straight to see Mindy after dropping Mandy off at home. “What did he want? Did he say? Was it about last night?”

  “He just said he’d stop back by.”

  “Dear God, what could he want with me? I mean me Mindy. Not me Mandy.” She lowered her voice, murmuring to herself. “After last night, I’m pretty sure I know what he wants from me Mandy.”

  “So you slept with him again.”

  Mindy grimaced, guilty as charged. “But I really tried not to. It was just impossible.”

  “Oh?”

  Mindy nodded emphatically. “Every move I made, he thwarted. I started by wearing my tacky Marilyn Monroe dress, but he loved it. Then the maitre d’ at the restaurant subtly insulted me, but Benton leapt to my defense. Then when I tripped and fell on my face, he was there by my side, much more worried about my health than how much I’d just embarrassed him. And after that, I dragged him into the sex shop downtown, which by the way is a, a…a virtual phallus fest—” She spread her arms as if trying to encompass it all.

  “Now that I’m sorry I missed.”

  “—but he was still sweet and understanding. And even though everything I saw inside totally mortified me, he never even asked me why I took him there.” She spoke more slowly then, trying to drive her point home. “Jane, when I asked the man to steal a Lamborghini for a joyride, he did it.”

  Jane’s mouth fell open. “He did it?”

  “Okay, so it turned out the car belonged to a friend of his, but he still never even flinched when I suggested it. And when we got back to his place, he had queued up the song ‘You Sexy Thing,’ because I danced to it for him on our first date and he wanted me to do it again.”

  When Mindy least expected it, Jane’s lips quirked into a smile. “When you say dance, do you mean dance, or do you mean”—she raised her eyebrows in a wildly suggestive manner—“dance?”

  Mindy rolled her eyes. Drat it all, foiled again by her own babbling. “All right, so I stripped for him. So shoot me.”

  “You stripped for him?” Yet instead of reprimanding her, Jane broke into peals of laughter. “You stripped for him. You actually stripped. You, Mindy, the happy, sensible, I-don’t-need-a-man-I-just-like-finding-them-for-others matchmaker. This is rich. I mean, it’s perfect.” Tears actually began rolling down Jane’s cheeks as she all but threw herself on her desk in reckless, cackling abandon.

  Mindy sat calmly watching Jane crack up, straight-faced, since she had no idea what was so wildly amusing. Finally, when Jane’s crowing faded to a light giggling sound, Mindy said, “And what exactly is so funny about that?”

  “What’s funny is that I’ve finally figured you out. Your secrets are secrets no more. Your armor has more than a chink in it, my friend—it’s fallen away completely.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Jane cast a cocky, knowing smile. “You like being Mandy. In fact, I think you are Mandy.”

  Mindy’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “Think about it. Every Halloween, I invite you to a party, and do you ever do anything simple like…wear an old prom dress and come as Cinderella, stick on some white ears and a fluffy tail and call yourself a bunny? No, you go to great trouble and expense, all to masquerade as some flamboyant woman like Marilyn, Dolly, Madonna.”

  Mindy swallowed nervously. She wasn’t quite getting the point—or maybe she was just choosing not to—but admitted, “I am working on a Cher costume for this year, but only a seventies version—I’m not wearing that butt-revealing ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ video outfit. No way.”

  Jane held up one finger. “It’s my theory, young grasshopper, that you have a secret loud, flashy, devil-may-care side and that every time you dress up as someone else, you’re trying to let that part of you out. And the same thing happens when you become Mandy. Because you can go back to being Mindy the next day, it seems…safe to act wild and crazy, like there will be no repercussions.”

  Mindy had almost let herself form some of these same ideas last night, but she wasn’t quite ready to admit, to Jane or herself, that maybe she didn’t know herself as well as she thought. “Only one huge hole in that conjecture, Dr. Jane. Everything I do as Mandy does have repercussions.”

  Jane let out a derisive snort. “Not ones that you actually deal with.”

  “Oh, well, repercussions that I deal with.” Mindy rolled her eyes. “That’s another matter entirely. From now on, you should really be more specific.”

  Just then, the front door opened with a jingle and Mindy looked up to see her mother walk in, stylishly casual in a green sweater that complemented her auburn hair, a trait that ran in the family.

  “Hi there, Judy,” Jane said.

  And Mindy followed with “Hi, Mom.”

  “Good morning, Min—” Her mother stopped in mid-word, even flinching. “You don’t look well. Are you all right?”

  Mindy sighed, feeling—as usual lately—as if she’d been caught at something. “So Jane has informed me. But I’m fine, really.”

  “Mindy just had a late night, that’s all,” Jane volunteered. “She had a date.”

  Mindy scowled at her assistant, who might as well have said, Mindy was out all night having sex.

  Her mom appeared appropriately worried as she leaned slightly forward, still studying her. “I see. Well, I hope he’s…nice.”

  Mindy swallowed, feeling defensive. “He really is. You’d like him a lot.”

  Her mother broke into a smile. “Does this mean I’ll be meeting him then?”

  “Uh…” Not likely, but if you do, be sure to pretend I was twins. Mindy settled on saying, “We’ll see.”

  Unfortunately, her mother’s brow knit at the uncertainty in her voice, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “You know, sometimes I worry that my divorce soured you on the idea of commitment, marriage.”

  “No such thing,” she promised hurriedly. And before her mom could even start asking if this current guy could be the one or anything else heartbreaking and tragic, Mindy said, “So what brings you in today?”

  “I’m on my way to a hair appointment, but as luck would have it, speaking of dates, I stopped by because my bridge partner, Lois, has a son, Todd, who’s coming to town next week and she thought you two might make a cute pair. She’s hosting a—”

  Mindy decided to nip this in the bud. “No thanks.”

  “But you don’t even know—”

  “I know everything I need to, which is that one matchmaker in this family is way more than enough.”

  After all, she currently had her hands far too full with her own matchmaking mistakes.

  Benton sat at a small round table next to the window of the French pastry shop across the square from Mates By Mindy, nursing a latte. He needed to get to work. But he also needed to see Mindy. And he found it awfully suspicious that she hadn’t shown up until sometime after he’d dropped Mandy off at home.

  He’d gone straight to the matchmaking shop after leaving Mandy, hoping he’d imagined the whole red hair incident, hoping to find fiery little Mindy sitting behind her desk just waiting for new mates to match. The empty desk, however, along with her assistant’s bewilderment over where she could be, did not bode well.

  He hadn’t said anything to Mandy about the red hair he thought he’d seen because he wasn’t sure what to say. No sooner had he spotted it than she’d shifted beneath him and the glimpse of auburn had disappeared. And he couldn’t exactly go looking—although he had played with her hair a lot in hopes of revealing anything that needed to be revealed, and still no red strands had shown themselves. After a while, his mind had drifted, he’d decided he was being silly, and he’d let himself forget about the sighting and devote himself fully to spending time with her, and, of course, pleasuring her. Which he’d done repeatedly with commendable vigor. He leaned back in his chair with pride. Ah, it was good to be king.

  Well, it
was good to be king as long as you were having sex with the same woman you thought you were having sex with. That was why he’d come here, lurking across the street from Mindy’s shop. He’d awakened with doubts, still questioning what he’d seen in the dim lighting.

  He’d recalled Mandy saying Mindy dyed her hair red—and the thought had occurred to him that maybe she’d lied, maybe she’d actually been a redhead like her sister once upon a time and hadn’t wanted to admit it. After all, he’d been pretty specific when all this had started, demanding a blonde, so maybe she’d been afraid an unnatural blonde wouldn’t fit the bill. He cringed upon recalling his oh-so-rigid standards then, but he had more important things to think about right now.

  He wasn’t sure why Mindy had suddenly popped to mind upon the glimpse of a few auburn wisps—where the idea that Mandy could really, actually be Mindy had arisen from. Many people might find it rash to leap to such a conclusion. Except that—well, the resemblance was incredible. And they both had that strange blinking tendency. And sometimes, especially when she was nervous, Mandy’s voice sounded more like Mindy to him, now that he thought about it.

  None of that meant anything, of course. They were twins. From what he’d heard, twins often shared a lot more than just looks—extending into habits, gestures, facial expressions, even feelings. And he’d certainly seen plenty of twins he couldn’t tell apart, so that aspect fit, too.

  Yet still, extreme as it sounded, a lingering notion swam in his head. If she was nervous about being found out, it would explain her sneaky departure after the first time she’d come home with him. And wasn’t it true, if he chose to be honest, that something indefinable had sparked between him and Mindy before she’d fixed him up with her sister? He couldn’t pin it down, couldn’t plainly call it attraction—but she’d stayed on his mind, had some inexplicable effect on him, and there were brief instances where he could have sworn she’d felt some return sizzle, too. He’d not even fully allowed himself to acknowledge that truth until this very minute—because two people had never been more wrong for each other, and the idea of him dating her, at the time, would’ve sounded preposterous.

  Which could explain, he reasoned, feeling a bit like Sherlock Holmes, why Mindy might choose to disguise herself. What if she’d been wildly drawn to him, desperate to go out with him, but had just been too embarrassed to say so after their rocky start?

  And he was her client, after all.

  Maybe she had a rule about never dating clients since, if it didn’t work out, they probably wouldn’t trust her to find future dates for them, and if nothing else, it would just be awkward. Or maybe even considered unethical in some way—he didn’t know the matchmaker rules.

  Plus, Mindy was such a purist about the whole matchmaking business, she might think dating a client herself would sully the process. He could picture her sitting behind her desk, hands clasped atop it, spouting some such nonsense in the calm, soothing voice she used when she thought he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying.

  So maybe her attraction to him had just been too powerful to push down. Maybe it had driven her to do something totally out of character. Maybe this was all just an outrageous charade designed to let her spend time with him, in bed and out.

  Yes, the more he considered it, the more he almost thought it made sense. He was mad about Mandy, but this would certainly explain her shifting personality. And come to think of it, it would also explain why she’d been holding onto her hair for dear life last night in the convertible.

  The longer Benton turned it over in his mind, the more intent he became on getting to the bottom of things without further delay. Draining his cup, he rose from his seat and pushed through the door, then strode boldly across Hyde Park Square toward the heart-laden shop with the spicy little redhead inside.

  After passing a small auburn-haired lady on the sidewalk just outside Mates By Mindy, Benton stepped inside, his professional smile pasted on his face. He focused on the woman he’d come to see, wondering if indeed she was the same one he’d parted ways with less than an hour ago. She looked predictably cute, even if a little worse for wear. “Good morning, Mindy.”

  Her eyes flew wide. “Benton—I mean, Mr. Maxwell.” After the slightly off-kilter greeting, she relaxed a little, obviously trying to put on her professional face as well, then eased into the expected hand clasp, arms resting on her desk. “Jane told me you stopped by. I’m sorry I missed you. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about your sister,” he said, coming closer. In fact, he bypassed the chair in front of her desk, not stopping until he stood beside the desk. A tactical move.

  She peered up at him, blinked.

  “More dust?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry to hear it.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, strategically positioning himself to stand directly next to her chair, so that she had to crane her neck to look up at him.

  “You said you wanted to see me about Mandy?” She blinked twice after the question, then shut her eyes tight, as if trying to will the tic away.

  Benton reached inside his jacket, extracting the greeting card he’d picked up at the gift shop next to the pastry place. “I’m still simply entranced with her, and to show my appreciation, I brought you a—” He dropped his gaze to the card tucked inside an envelope flap, then chuckled at his own feigned forgetfulness. “Well, look at that—I bought you a card, but forgot to sign it.”

  “Oh. Well, here’s a—”

  She held up a standard ink pen, but Benton dug quickly back into his jacket to pluck out the expensive silver one Miss Binks had given him on his last birthday. “Got one already, thanks.”

  He gave another fake smile as he stooped over her desk to scrawl his name in the thank you card. At the same time, he dropped his gaze in search of her legs, thinking she might back away considering his close proximity—but damn it, they remained tucked under her desk where he couldn’t see them.

  This called for drastic measures, but fortunately he was feeling pretty drastic, desperate to know if Mindy was Mandy, or if Mandy was Mandy, and just who exactly he was so mad about.

  So as he straightened and started to return the pen to his inner pocket, he let loose of it, then juggled it, fumbling it from hand to hand, gauging each successive move precisely, until he finally managed to send it sailing to the floor—voila!—beneath Mindy’s desk. Knowing time was precious, he dropped and dove for it, mumbling, “Excuse me,” as he wedged his head under the desk, grappling for the pen between her feet.

  She finally thrust her chair backwards, rolling away from him, clearly aghast. “Mr. Maxwell, what on earth are you doing?”

  Snatching up the pen, he rose up on his knees and smiled at her. “Got it.” Then he sheepishly explained, “It’s a special pen. It has my name engraved on it. See?”

  He held it up and she looked—and he used the opportunity to drop his gaze to where he would find a birthmark if indeed Mindy and Mandy were the same person. Unfortunately, her legs were closed tight below the cute little skirt she wore, inhibiting his view. But something just as telling caught his eye.

  He raised his gaze to hers, tried to sound innocent. “What happened to your knees?”

  Mindy’s alarmed glance dropped to them, then darted back to his face as she clamped both hands over the bruises. “I fell.”

  “Nothing too serious, I hope.” He slipped the pen in his pocket without taking his eyes off her.

  She briskly shook her head and spoke with considerable speed. “Nope, this is the worst of it. Otherwise, I’m right as rain.”

  “This is really quite a coincidence. Mandy took a fall, too, just last night.” He stayed on his knees as he studied hers, despite how peculiar it surely seemed. But he wasn’t quite done investigating yet.

  After only a hint of hesitation, Mindy let out a been-there-done-that sigh, then gave her head a short shake. “Not again. You wouldn’t believe how often this happens to us.” She met his gaze, eyes w
ide. “It’s the twin thing. You’ve probably heard about twins feeling each other’s pain, or experiencing the same feelings—right? Well, Mandy and I sometimes actually copy each other’s actions. Case in point—she falls, I fall. It’s really quite eerie.”

  “Downright spooky,” he agreed.

  Time for drastic move number two. He wasn’t buying a word she said, of course, but he had to make one hundred percent certain his suspicions were correct. So, bending over her knees, he reached to move one of her hands away, then gently grasped the kneecap with his fingertips, wiggling it from side to side, as if he were her attending physician.

  He knew even before he spotted the birthmark on her inner knee that she was Mandy, though, not only because the bruise story didn’t wash, but because under any other circumstances, the Mindy he’d originally met would have already slapped him silly for touching her so forwardly. As it was, she was only saying, “Benton—uh, Mr. Maxwell, what are you…?” in a shivery little voice that told him she was probably getting aroused by his touch.

  He raised his gaze to her face, which looked panicky. “Just making sure your knees seem okay. After all, Mandy fell quite hard, so I’m sure you did, too.”

  She didn’t answer, but Benton’s work—at least his detective work—was done, thus he pushed to his feet.

  So he’d been right. Mindy was posing as Mandy—lying to him, making a fool of him, letting him fall for her under false pretenses. In response, a slow anger began to spread through him. He didn’t like being duped. And no matter how he looked at it, he should be spitting nails, spouting accusations, threatening legal action of some sort.

  But a softer part of him—the part he’d just started to uncover since meeting her—stopped to think about her motives, the same as he had back at the café. And the longer he examined it, the more he realized he was almost actually flattered. She’d gone to all this trouble, all this risk, just to be with him. She wanted him that much.

  He remained angry about the lies, of course, and he wondered just how long she intended to let this go on before being honest. Yet like it or not, despite the thick tendrils of irritation curling through him, he still found himself enamored of the woman.