The Accidental Human

by Dakota Cassidy

  “We do take credit cards.”

  “Don’t have one of those either.”

  No credit card? Who the frig didn’t have a credit card in this day and age? Only men who lived in their mother’s basements, that’s who, and men like that were prime pickin’s for serial killers in the making.

  Now she was becoming crazy suspicious, and it left her edgy—but once more, she worried, if his intent was anything but innocent, he’d react—maybe badly. Definitely not so fly. So she kept her Bobbie-Sue persona in place. Light, airy, and noncommittal—just like the manual told all good reps to. As if she had something he wanted, and if he didn’t want it—someone else would.

  Wanda took the last dish from him and gave him a smile of sympathy while she dried the plate and put it into the cupboard above her head. She didn’t want to rile him if he was some kind of lunatic grooming her for the kill by making himself useful and doing the dishes.

  Clearing her throat, her plan was to keep her voice even and drama free. “I understand, but unfortunately, in order to become a representative, you have to purchase the starter kit. So I guess this is where we say good-bye.” She smiled placidly—though her stomach dived as she watched the shift of the hard plane of his jaw—and waited for him to make a hasty exit, which was a typical reaction for those who didn’t truly want to invest in making color auras their profession of choice. The starter kit was expensive, but for Wanda, it’d been an investment she’d never regret.

  Her start with Bobbie-Sue had been rocky at best, but she’d worked her tail end off, and it’d finally paid off. So, buh-bye now. Mentally, even if he was cute and had a ba-donk-a-donk to rival all others, she’d dismissed him, hoping he’d leave with less attention than he’d come.

  But alas, no. That’d be too easy.

  Heath remained where he was, taking the dish towel from her and drying his hands on it. He folded it and buffed her silver faucet before placing it exactly where she put it when she was done cleaning her kitchen. Rolling his sleeves down, he buttoned each cuff. Then he did the stare thing again, cutting into her line of vision, grabbing onto her eyeballs, and refusing to let them go. “How about we make a deal?”

  Like Monty? Lord. “A deal?”

  “Yep.”

  Okay, she couldn’t take it anymore. She was alternately ooked by the idea that all he wanted to do was snag a woman and intrigued as all hell about why he wanted to sell makeup—and maybe a little afraid he had some diabolical plan to whack her. But seeing as the spine she’d acquired dealing with Marty and Nina was in its rightful upright position, she asked, “Can I just interject something here?”

  He nodded. “You can.” His words were straightforward, but it was almost as if he were allowing her to speak, giving her permission, and it pissed her off.Which made the path she took next way easier.

  “Don’t you find this just a liiiittle creepy?” She held her thumb and forefinger together to emphasize her point.

  His eyebrows, a dark brown in contrast to his hair, mushed together. “Creepy?”

  Onward ho. “Uh, yeahhhh. I mean, I don’t want to state the obvious again, but you’re a man. A man who wants to sell cosmetics. Forgive me for being so brash, but if you were, say me, a woman, wouldn’t you find that a little creepy?”

  He suddenly grinned, further maddening her because it was so unguarded and, well, fabulous. “Maybe, but I can assure you I’m anything but creepy. Jobless maybe, but not even a little creepy.”

  Again, Wanda waited to see if he’d offer up a viable reason for just why he was jobless and not so creepy, but he kept his lips sealed.What did a guy, who was well dressed, well mannered, and so well spoken want to sell makeup for? He looked like he was Harvard-educated and spent his days sunning off the coast of some Caribbean island, smoking expensive cigars and dating women named Bipsy, ten years his junior. Not to mention, his suit wasn’t cheap. Wanda knew her designers like the Pope knew a good sermon in Latin, and his jacket alone cost more than her new bedroom set. “And that’s all you have to say?”

  “I didn’t realize when I came to this party that divulging my personal life was part of applying to Bobbie-Sue.” His jaw clenched upon finishing his statement, his stance growing more rigid.

  Again with the arrogant, overconfident jazz. Though honestly, she might have gone just a smidge too far. Crap. Next he’d be screaming that discrimination thing, and above all else, although Bobbie-Sue herself wasn’t exactly beyond reproach after what’d happened with Marty, the company’s reps were expected to behave accordingly. So Heath had effectively shut her down. Fine. She had a buttload of stuff to clean up before she could even consider going to bed, and she was tired of pussyfooting around.

  Although she’d learned a thing or two about confrontation from Nina, she still sucked at it, unless pushed. She was much better at pacifying everyone and everything. Her sigh held resignation. “Okay, then tell me what kind of deal you want to make. I’m all ears.”

  Heath folded his arms over his wide chest and stared at her dead on. “If I get, say, twenty people to sign up for the starter kit in a week, which will, if my calculations are right, make you a helluva lot of money due to the percentage you rake in, you take a portion of your percentage and buy the starter kit for me.”

  Wanda’s mouth dropped open. Twenty starter kits in a friggin’ week? That was impossible. They were five hundred bucks apiece. Both she and Marty, on their best months had only sold six or seven, and that was so rare it was like actually still owning your original set of boobs these days.

  No way could he sell twenty starter kits, and even if he did, most likely more than half of the women who bought them would back out within a couple of days. Bobbie-Sue had a five-business-day grace period. More often than not, once the hype ended after a meeting, giving the potential rep time to think about how tough it could be to sell door-to-door, they backed out. She didn’t need a psychic to tell her that—it was statistically pretty sound.

  He clearly read her disbelief. “All I’m asking for is seven days of your time. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll never hear from me again. Promise.” He crossed his finger over his heart and paused for a moment, expressing a strange look of irony, then directed his steely gaze at her once more.

  Woooooow. He had nice eyes. They looked like they could swallow you up and consume you just by a mere glance. He had dark lashes that fringed them, thick and long, and a thin scar by his left eye.

  Wanda found herself holding her breath. This was ridiculous. She didn’t have the kind of time it would take to drag his ass around on cold calls, door-to-door, while she trained him for what would essentially be for free. She had a business to run and customers to deal with and . . . and well, stuff.Yeah, she had stuff.

  Oh, you’ve got stuff, all right. You’ve got some big stuff.

  Right.There was that stuff. Stuff she didn’t want to think about right now, because it made her stomach dive and her heart throb with anxious beats against her ribs.

  Think of the Bobbie-Sue legacy you’ll leave in your wake if you manage to tame Neanderthal Man, Wanda. You’ll make Bobbie-Sue history.

  On the other hand, it was definitely a challenge, and a diversion she could use right now, because facing the truth was just too much for her to wrap her head around. But still . . .

  “Wanda?”

  She regained her focus and found herself mesmerized by the fullness of his bottom lip. “Yes?”

  “Whaddya say?”

  No matter how delish he was—her patience was waning, worn thin by his persistence. A persistence she just couldn’t figure out. This made no sense. Why would a strapping, healthy male, especially one as good looking as he was, want to sell makeup? “But you don’t have any idea what’s proper protocol, and there are a million techniques to learn that you have to be certified in. We have rules at Bobbie-Sue. You can’t do that in just a week. It took me a month to really grasp the Bobbie-Sue concept, and even then, I struggled.” Christ, how she’d struggle
d. “Most reps don’t hit the streets for at least that long, and even then, they’re raw at best.”

  He rocked back on his heels, jamming his hands into his pockets. “I think I’ve proven I’m a pretty fast learner. I mean, was it me, or wasn’t I right about the redhead’s color junk—”

  She rolled her tongue inside her cheek before saying, “It’s wheel. Color wheel or color aura, and that’s exactly what I mean. You can’t use words like goop and junk when referring to Bobbie-Sue! It’s degrading to call it goop. Bobbie-Sue’d have a chicken if she could hear you.”

  He emitted a sigh with an edge of irritation to it. “Whatever. Look, I’ll call it whatever you want me to, but I don’t think you can deny I was right about that woman’s color aura, and she was definitely paying very close attention.”

  So close they could have become one entity.The trollop. “Okay, I won’t deny you have mad color skills, but it isn’t just about picking the right color for your clients. It’s about nurturing their inner goddesses, knowing when a woman’s feeling Pristinely Peachy or maybe she’s more in a Whipped Bittersweet Dark Chocolate mood. It’s about answering phone calls when a client has a big event and she’s stumped on what color dress to wear with her new Iced Cotton Candy Lipstick.”

  Heath didn’t falter. “I can do that.”

  Cheerist, he was tenacious, and if his arrogant attitude was meant to test her—good on him. He’d get an A. “No, you can’t. You don’t even have a phone! Wasn’t that you dumping quarters into the pay phone earlier today? How do you expect to be able to help those in color crisis if you don’t even have a way to communicate with your clients? Bobbie-Sue is very hands-on. We’re very committed to making sure our clientele are nothing less than one hundred percent satisfied.You can’t satisfy a client if you’re punching quarters into a pay phone.”

  “Color crisis? Are you serious?” His face fell for just a moment. Now she had him by the short hairs.

  “As a diehard Cubs fan.”

  “Women actually experience what you call a crisis because of makeup? Isn’t that a little—how can I put this without insulting you? Extreme?”

  Wanda clucked her tongue in disdain. “And there it is again. Do you really expect me to donate my time to you when in your small, male mind, you can’t imagine a woman might have a problem crop up that has to do with her appearance? How we feel about ourselves, how we look, sometimes hinges on just the right pair of shoes—or the right shade of lipstick. It can make or break you. And I’m just going to throw this out there—men don’t seem to mind that so much, do they? It’s what attracts you Neanderthals to us most of the time. You know, the chase, the hunt—the inevitable capture? Most of you wouldn’t be chasing us if we were perusing bars in our footed jammies and curlers, now would you?” God, he was infuriating. How could he possibly sell something as intimate as makeup to women with his attitude? It was untoward.

  And she’d called him a Neanderthal.

  Very Bobbie-Sue-ish.

  Heath shrugged his wide shoulders with indifference. “I dunno. I like footed pajamas.”

  Wanda’s eyes narrowed with disgust for his attitude. “You know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean, and I swear on your curlers, I’ll keep my knuckles off the ground.”

  God, what a fucknut. She was fragile today, and although this debate might be what some would call invigorating—she’d plumb had enough. “I just don’t—”

  But clearly, there was just no deterring him. “Look, I’ll take the literature home and read it. I’ll read all the rules and Bobbie-Sue regulations, absorb them like a sponge, and sell, sell, sell. Doesn’t the sound of change clinking around in your pockets make your Bobbie-Sue heart do a backflip?”

  Wow, he got cockier by the nanosecond. Yet there was a tone in his voice, an urgent one, if she was hearing correctly, that couldn’t be dismissed. And Jesus H., she was tired. She got the distinct impression that if she kept lobbing roadblocks at him, he’d find a way to pick them up and hurl them back at her. Wanda pinched her temples, running a soothing finger over the throbbing pulse at the side of her head. “Okay. Fine. Deal. But if I give you the signal, you shut up.”

  “The signal?”

  She slapped a hand against her thigh in exasperation. “See? You don’t even know there’s a signal. It’s for when you need to shut up and let me take over the pitch. You think you’ve got this all in the bag, but there’s a whole lot you know absolutely nothing about.” And it gave her great satisfaction to point that out to him. So neener, neener, neener. But he wiped her smug smile right off her face with his next words.

  First, he grinned. Deliciously, decadently grinned. Then he waved a verbal white flag. “I promise to learn the signal and shut up when I’m supposed to. So deal?” He held out his large hand to her, waiting for her to take it.

  This was nucking futs, but she stuck her hand in his anyway, biting the inside of her cheek when the warmth of it made her forearm tingle. “Deal.”

  Obviously, that was all the confirmation he needed. Heath pivoted on his heel, dragging his suit jacket from the chair, then stopping to grab a cracker from the tray that was still on the kitchen table. He smeared a healthy dollop of her cheese log on it and popped it into his mouth, crunching the cracker with relish. “You make one helluva cheese log,” he said before brushing his fingers off and heading for her door, letting it close behind him with a soft thud.

  Wanda cocked her head, confusion disjointing her thoughts, leaving them half finished and scattered, while she stared at her living room door. She’d just agreed to help pay for his starter kit if he pulled off what would amount to turning water into wine.

  Her lips became a thin line, but she shook it off and moved to the drawer where she kept a tablet of paper. She ripped a piece off and wrote “Things To Do Tomorrow” on it. Number one on that list was submitting Heath’s application to Bobbie-Sue, for all the good it would do her. Number two was to look into a starter kit for Heath. Number three was . . . She threw the pen down. Her entire list consisted of things that had to do with Heath.

  Heath, Heath, Heath.

  He’d never be able to pull it off. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even show up—which was just as well, because if this had been some batshit way to have a group of women at his mercy, he could forget it. Maybe he was one of those guys who liked to paint women’s toenails or secretly liked to wear women’s clothes and makeup?

  Relief flooded her. She was being silly. He’d go home, realize that his success tonight was just a fluke, and go look for another venue to pick up women, forgetting all about Bobbie-Sue Cosmetics.

  Game over.

  HOLDING the Bobbie-Sue book balanced on his thigh, Heath Jefferson sat on the edge of a cot that was made for efficiency, not comfort. “So, my man, Archibald, I think we have this job-search thing in the bag, if you’ll just hold still so I can practice. Jesus, Arch. Quit making faces.” Heath had decided practice made perfect, and in order to make this makeover deal perfect—makeovers being what the Bobbie-Sue women used as a staple to woo new clients—he’d use Archibald as his guinea pig all night long if he had to in order to get it right. He’d be the makeover queen, er, king before this was over.

  A derisive snort came from the cot adjacent to his own. “Oh, sir, I believe you’re sorely mistaken if you think the path to earning an income even close to the one you once possessed will be had by selling”—he chuckled with unabashed, maniacal glee—“cosmetics. Certainly you could have found something more, how should I say this? Never mind, I’ll just say it—manly. Perhaps next you’ll find yourself the head of women’s lingerie, eh, Heathcliff?”

  Heath grunted back at him, cupping his jaw to take another swipe with the sponge applicator at the dark line of Archibald’s five o’clock shadow, then working to minimize the sag in his old friend’s chin. “Stop moving your face. It’s all in the shading, but if you keep moving the hell around, I’ll never get the right coverage. Now, do you have a bett
er solution to our dilemma, Archibald? It’s not like jobs are falling out of trees and landing in our laps, buddy. We don’t have degrees or educations worthy of making more than minimum wage. Need I remind you? We’re in dire straits here.”

  Archibald let out a sigh of revulsion, his shoulders slumping while he fought to stay still. “Indeed, I need no reminder of our straits. I do, however, question the sanity of this latest venture of yours. Need I remind you, you have absolutely no experience in the sale of anything, let alone, ah, womanly things?”

  “No, you don’t need to remind me, Arch. I know where we stand. We’re fucked.” Heath heard the rustle of Archibald’s jacket, a jacket he staunchly refused to take off for fear it’d be stolen and sold for hooch. It was the distinct sound of disapproval at the fact that he’d used profanity, which was strictly frowned upon by his longtime manservant as evidenced by the firm, thin line his lips became. “Look, friend, we need jobs—soon. I don’t care what kind of job it is, so long as we can get our hands on some cash. It’s not like we’ve got offers coming out of our asses.”

  “There is the car, sir . . .”

  Heath held up his hand to stop Archibald from going down that road. “The car wouldn’t buy us a Slurpee at the 7-Eleven, and the watch, before you mention it again, was given to me by someone who was a good friend, not to mention, it’s old. So it’s not up for discussion—ever. Any money we’d make from them wouldn’t last long anyway. We’d still need jobs. So end of story. Now, really, Arch, do you want to live like this forever? And if you keep yak-king, I’ll never get the application of lipstick, which, by the way, is the bow and crowning glory on your Bobbie-Sue package, right.”

  Archibald frowned, the wrinkles on his forehead standing out against the dim light pouring in from the small window across the vast room. “I daresay, no, sir. In fact, I’m certain I don’t wish to live like this for the remainder of my years. The stench here is just dreadful.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out the perfectly folded handkerchief he always carried with him. Pushing Heath away, he placed it over his nose and inhaled deeply.