“Fine, but I expect you to answer the same questions,” I insisted, still waffling as to whether I should fabricate an entire alternate universe for myself.
He conceded the suggestion with a slight nod and promptly posed the first question. “Single or something else?”
“Single.” That, at least, was woefully true.
“Same,” he concurred, with a sly grin.
“Last serious relationship?”
I had to think a minute. “Three years ago.”
“Two,” he countered, sipping his drink.
“Work?”
Trial by fire . . . “Austin Museum of Art.” I thought it sounded sufficiently cosmopolitan and comfortably vague, and I figured “spy in training” would skew the next seventeen questions.
“Entrepreneur.” Very interesting. I just might have some follow-up questions of my own.
“School?”
“Brown, BA in art history.” I was becoming fast friends with the little white lie.
“UCLA, BS in physics, UT MBA.” Impressive.
“Perfect. Now for the good stuff.”
“Favorite Hitchcock film?”
“Charade.” The irony was my little secret.
“The best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made?” His grin was cocky.
“Honestly?” This was a shocker—and even more ironic. “North by Northwest, then,” I said truthfully.
“Rear Window.” He grinned. “I drew the line at carting a camera in here.”
“The wheelchair was a nice touch. And the tag-along Grace Kelly even better.”
He leaned in, his eyes shifting left and right, clearly not trusting our self-imposed privacy. Unable to resist any sort of secret, I met him halfway. “I met her outside and convinced her to walk in with me—even got her to push the wheelchair.” He winked mischievously. Made me wonder about his plans for me. And mine for him.
“Very crafty,” I said, impressed, flirting ever so slightly behind the swing of my hair.
“So why not Audrey Hepburn?” He had a knowing look in his eye, which had my nerves crackling.
“Is this one of the twenty?” I said, stalling. Truthfully I think I would have had an easier time with Audrey. More wide-eyed wonder and shy ingénue. I’d likely have spent the evening lurking in the kitchen with the girls.
“Absolutely.”
“I can’t blame Audrey—I might not have been able to resist a sixty-year-old Cary Grant either, but I’d much prefer a younger version. So my choices were Grace Kelly or Eva Marie Saint.”
“If you’d come as Grace Kelly, I might have bumped into you outside instead.”
“True, but if you had, would you be talking to me right now?”
“I’d like to think so, but maybe not. Excellent decision.” He raised his glass and downed the contents just as Will made the rounds with a blood-red cocktail and Syd served a portobello mushroom salad drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette and paired with a wafer-thin piece of herbed focaccia. Mine was shaped like a butcher knife, his a pair of sewing scissors—classic Hitchcock murder weapons. The Pop-up Culture chicks had achieved an impressive level of creepiness, aided considerably by their cat-burglar costumes, the heavy shadows in the room, and the element of surprise.
I carefully sipped my drink, eyeing the focaccia. I tasted pomegranate, felt the quick trail of heat from the vodka, and focused on settling the nerves in my stomach. Damn if I didn’t feel like an operative, finessed, via some tech-savvy cohorts, into a critical situation to play a part and steal away before my cover was blown. But nobody was parked outside in a van, talking into my earpiece. I was playing this all on my own. I spared a quick thought for Ethan, but tamped it ruthlessly down. He would never approve.
“Reading between the lines . . . should I assume you’re on the hunt for a modern-day, Austinized Cary Grant? Should I be flattered?”
A little smile tugged at the corners of my mouth, and all at once, I felt quite the vixen. Leaning my elbow on the table, I propped my chin on my hand and looked past the centerpiece, at Mr. Jake Tielman, through lowered lashes. “Hard to say. Technically you found me, but I let you drag me along. And now it’s just the two of us. . . .” I slid my lips into a long, slow smile, starting to get the hang of things. Less was definitely more. Conversationally speaking.
I took my time with a slow perusal, squelching the self-consciousness as he watched. He was obviously pulling off charming, seeing as I’d let myself be cornered by a cute Jimmy Stewart in old-fashioned pajamas. And I suspected there was a great deal of sexy just below the surface. It occurred to me that I needed to wrap things up or risk sending the wrong message.
“Would you say you make a worthy comparison?” I flicked one eyebrow teasingly up.
“In some ways,” he granted, setting down his fork and fingering his cocktail glass.
“Any of the good ones?” I pressed, completely amused with myself and him. I was all but oblivious to the homage going on around us. All but those damn birds.
“What are the good ones? Charm? I’d say I’ve got a bit of that, more if I try. Rugged, manly good looks? I’m obviously relatively secure in my mojo, or I wouldn’t be out in the city in my pajamas—even if it is Austin. Charisma? I’m guessing that’s the only reason you’re sitting here right now. And oh yes, virility. I’d say that’s a question that will have to be answered on its own.”
I was full-out grinning now, I couldn’t help it. He was crunching into his focaccia, looking confidently insecure, as if he knew who he was but couldn’t guess if I’d drawn the same conclusion. Far from being finished playing hard to get, I figured he deserved a little thumbs-up. It was just good sportsmanship.
I tipped my head down and bit my lip. On any other night, my ingrained shyness would have been calling the shots, but tonight flirty seduction was the name of the game. “It looks as though I’m sitting in exactly the right spot,” I said, edging out a wide close-lipped smile.
It wasn’t long before Will and Oli sidled up in their catsuits, purveyors of Linzer cookies served facedown, the jam from the cut-out “windows” smearing bloodlike on the stark white plates, a nod to the classic Hitchcock Rear Window. They brought coffee too, steaming hot in old-fashioned diner cups.
We were quiet for a minute, letting the coffee and our flirtation cool off a little bit. Jake glanced at his watch—his very expensive-looking watch—glinting in the candlelight.
“It’s closing in on midnight. . . . I’d offer to drive you home, but we both know the logistics of that would be crazy. It’s a shame we aren’t staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel.”
Seeing my eyebrow shoot up in curiosity, he quickly added, “That’s the Cary talking . . . remember To Catch a Thief? The man could work an angle.”
“He worked it better in North by Northwest,” I countered. “He ended up sharing her train compartment.”
“The man is a legend.”
I sipped carefully and felt the zing of caffeine spiral through my blood, causing trouble. I tamped it down with strict instructions from a certain high school teacher who had to be in her classroom by seven-thirty A.M.
“How about,” I offered slowly, “I give you my number and you can call me when you think we could work something out.” Even I didn’t know what I meant by that, but it felt suitably vague and surprisingly seductive. It was also possible the evening was getting to me—that I was on sensory overload and needed to get back to the Bat Cave to regroup. I reached into my purse for the little pad of paper and pen I’d intentionally planted there and dashed off the memorized burner phone number, folding the paper in half, very for-your-eyes-only.
This was the perfect moment to slip out and away, keeping to the shadows, but I’d let my emotions come into play: I wanted one of those Linzer cookies, and I wasn’t leaving without one.
While Jake Tielman was eyeing my phone number, and me over the top of it, I slid a delicate cookie off the plate sitting between us on the table and indulged in a tiny bite, letting the b
uttery crumb dissolve on my tongue as a flurry of powdered sugar fluttered down around me. My cover was undeniably blown—it was literally impossible to be taken seriously as a femme fatale, not to mention a spy, with a dusting of powdered sugar covering your person. I used my napkin and subtly licked my lips, not wishing to get the flirtation started all over again, but evidently I wasn’t thorough enough.
I was easing myself into the good-byes when Jake reached almost negligently across the table, cupped my chin in his hand, and brushed his thumb slowly and deliberately over my upper lip before letting his fingers slide away. My heart pounded and my breathing slowed, and as our eyes met, I wondered how best to respond to this seductive development.
James Bond’s MO was not an option—I wasn’t ready to seduce him just yet. As a woman with a secret and a flair for the dramatic, I decided to play it cool . . . cagey . . . and leave him wanting more.
Reaching for my bag, I got slowly to my feet, bent at the waist in my high heels and pencil skirt, licked a bit of moisture onto my lips, and slid a marginally wet kiss across his cheek. Hampered by the wheelchair, he was slow in scrambling to his feet, and I was three steps on my way to the door, calling back over my shoulder, “You have my number.”
I skipped half the way to my car, thrilled with the evening’s success—even the powdered sugar had led to a whopper of a cliffhanger. I couldn’t wait to “go rogue” all over again. And I was definitely going to need a theme song.
My phone didn’t ring until I’d switched back to normal and was settled in on the couch, ready to delve into the mysteries of the Trailer Park Journal all over again. My real phone, that is, not the burner. I’d hidden the burner at the bottom of the bowl of Dum-Dum lollipops on my coffee table. I figured it was Ethan asking for a favor or wanting to remind me not to leave too many Internet browsers open on my classroom computer. But a tiny little girlish part of me wondered impossibly if, just maybe, it was Jake Tielman, itching to say good night. It wasn’t either one of them. Syd had dialed me up, wanting to know why I’d left in such a hurry.
“You didn’t get sick, did you? Tell me that’s not what happened. Was it having to eat poultry with those creepy-ass birds draped from the ceiling? For the record, I voted against that.”
“No, Syd,” I assured her, my eyes falling closed on a wave of tiredness, “it wasn’t food or décor-related, but those creepy-ass birds didn’t make it easy. I left because it was almost midnight, and I need to work tomorrow.”
“Yeah, okay, I get that,” she said. “So what’d you think? How’d we do on the homage?”
“Stellar, Syd. Honestly. It was creepy, and sexy, and super stylish. I loved how only half the guests came in character—it made things quirky and interesting. Even more than they already were. Seriously, it was awesome. Was there anyone there from The Chronicle?”
“I think maybe one dude, and then a food writer for the Statesman.”
“It’s gonna be a great write-up,” I said, hoping to wrap things up.
“And what about you, showing up in that dress?! Hot damn, Cate . . . or should I say, Cat? What happened with the guy? The two of you were very private over in the corner by yourselves.”
“We flirted shamelessly. I’m sure you and your minions got an eyeful. But I came home alone. He went home with my phone number. We’ll see.”
“This is going to be really good for you, Cate. I feel it.”
“Could I ask a favor?” I begged.
“Name it.”
“Could you not mention the alter ego to anyone?” Specifically Ethan, but honestly, I didn’t want the gossip getting around, particularly back to the high school. It would be so much worse this time around. Being a teacher with a juicy secret was a little bit thrilling. Having the secret get out . . . not so much. My face was clenched, waiting for her response.
“It’s in the vault, baby! Oh! Gotta go—apparently I’m supposed to be helping clean up.”
Letting out an all-encompassing sigh, I dropped the phone and focused on my quirky and interesting journal. I tapped the end of my pen on the cover in a quick, nervous tattoo. Far from being turned off by the inexplicable element of the journal, I was in awe. Nervous awe. The world was full of weird and unexplainable phenomena—who was I to question it? I’d never understood the city’s annual Spam festival either, but I wasn’t out there investigating SPAMARAMA. For all I knew, the end pages could be concealing a computer chip with a transmitter—but that was kind of creepy, and right now I was full up on creepy.
Clearly, someone was sending me messages. The trouble was that now I wasn’t sure what to write. This could be important stuff. What if . . . what if I didn’t use the right words? What if the journal couldn’t work its magic because it couldn’t parse my stream-of-consciousness jots into something useful? Crap. Well, I was just going to have to wing it and hope for the best. I was too tired for much more than that anyway.
Rolling my shoulders and then stretching my neck, I feinted once and then let her rip.
So . . . I did it. I played the part. Tonight I was a flirting femme fatale, and I rocked it. But I’m not sure I accomplished anything other than giving my phone number to an eligible entrepreneur. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work. The message in the journal, I gotta admit, was unexpected, and I’m not sure I totally clued in on its underlying meaning. Unless it was hyping the book’s “bonus features.” I’m new at this. . . . I figured I’d be on my own with the dress, just having a sexy little adventure, but a chance at secret agent status is a little bit of perfection.
Obviously, I have some questions, namely, who’s calling the shots, and what’s at stake? Am I like a spy? Some sort of operative testing out developmental spy gadgetry? How did you find me? The Trailer Park was an interesting choice, but you took a risk—Ethan was there (and Courtney too, earlier). So can I tell anyone, or is this strictly need-to-know?? Adding an element of mystery to my open-book lifestyle might be nice for a change. While I might eventually like to confide in Ethan, as far as I’m concerned, he hasn’t earned it yet. He’s being very close-mouthed about something. . . . I just haven’t figured out what it is yet. So secret is fine with me.
What’s next? I’m up for anything and everything, just so long as it’s legal (that’s slightly negotiable) and I can do it after school. I assume all communications will go through the journal. I’ll check in tomorrow. Bye, Charlie! (I promise I won’t do that again.)
I tipped the journal closed again, freshly irritable over Ethan’s surprise news. An entire week?? I’d need to have this secret identity thing down by the end of it . . . at least the secret part.
With a sudden flash of curiosity, I whipped the book back open again, wondering if my message had been read and answered.
It hadn’t. But in fairness, I had asked a lot of questions. And probably my success as a virgin operative needed to be vetted somehow. I could wait.
Chapter 6
Utterly dependable, Ethan had worked his IT magic, getting my e-mail back online. I had to admit, dependability was an attractive quality in a man; overprotectiveness, not so much. I sat at my desk on my lunch break, reading through the e-mails that had just popped up in my in-box. There were three from concerned parents, one wishing to confirm that her child would not be reading any books that might have even brushed up against the possibility of getting banned.
I paused with a forkful of salad halfway to my lips and inhaled slowly, tipping my eyelids down, channeling inner calm. I did not want to get sucked into an e-mail smackdown. I could not educate these parents on my own, and neither the school officials nor the school board would thank me for trying. I typed back a brief response that I hoped would set her closed mind at ease that her child’s mind would, at least on my watch, remain uncorrupted by controversial literature.
There was also a staff meeting reminder for tomorrow afternoon, which I confirmed was on my desk calendar and typed into my phone, a request for volunteers to sponsor a Model UN team (no thank
you), and an invitation to a leadership conference hosted by the local arm of the teachers union (pass—two years in a row was more than I could take).
Courtney’s e-mail I saved for last, figuring it would put a smile on my face to carry me through the afternoon. A can of Orange Crush from the school vending machine could only do so much.
C—
The party was sparkly and glamorous and carried on long past my bedtime. Maybe I had stars in my eyes . . . or maybe I just can’t spot ’em like I used to. I spent the evening—well, the moments I wasn’t putting out mini-flares—flirting with a gorgeous Robert Pattinson type at the bar. We had quite the little seduction going. Until a second Rob Pattinson type sidled up and stole him away from me.
I do realize I never had him, but it felt like I did. After that, I was done. I went home, defeated and alone. I think I’ve sworn off men—for now. I could be talked back in by the right guy, but honestly, I’m not convinced he even exists. I’ve decided to wait for Mr. Darcy to saunter into the Driskill and sweep me off my feet with a single haughty stare. You can be proud of yourself for corrupting me.
And since I need to start hanging around the Driskill a little more, to improve my odds, what do you say to an after-hours ghost hunt? Don’t think about it—unfurrow your brow before you get wrinkles—just say yes. We’ll use my office as a command center, I’ll see if we can get into room 525, and we’ll test out my new ghost-hunting gear. Sound good? Tuesday at seven fifteen? First rule of ghost hunting is “Don’t hunt alone. ”
Wear comfy clothes and quiet shoes. See you then,
C
Her new ghost-hunting gear? I could only imagine. Reading between the lines, I should prepare to look and act ridiculous and hope that no one I know sees me. Seeing as I didn’t have any plans for Tuesday night, it looked like I was free for a little ghost hunting. At the very least it was the perfect excuse to dress like a ninja. With luck it might tide me over.
Austensibly Ordinary Page 6
