Oh, this man with his answer for everything. “Almost two and a half years.” Two and a half blissful, glorious years.
“Why’d you get divorced?”
Because he forgot his dick belonged to me when he said “I do”? She fought an outward cringe. Even though she was glad to be rid of George, it still didn’t sting any less that he’d called her unexciting, accusing her of not making him feel like a man and only after informing her he’d had an affair. Because naturally, his new wife with the foot fetish made him feel all male all the time. Bleh.
Wanda looked down at her feet. She knew damned well she had nothing to be ashamed of, but every once in awhile, being left for another woman still left her with a twinge of inadequacy. “He was unfaithful.” She gulped, swallowing the words like shards of glass.
The wrinkles on Heath’s forehead stood out when he cocked an eyebrow at her. “To you?” His surprise rang genuine.
“Last time I checked.”
“Sucks.”
“Yeah, that was my reaction, too.”
He chuckled, letting it ripple from deep within his thickly corded throat. “Are you over it?”
How could she not be over George?There’d been a time, shortly after she’d found out about his affair with Darcy, Darcy, Darcy, that she’d thought she’d never survive without him—no matter how much she longed for something more. She’d never been alone in almost her entire adult life. She’d been in high school, and a year after graduation, she’d been married. She’d been forced to make her own way since the end of her marriage, and in the process, she’d discovered how much of her life had been all about George. Eventually, that had really hacked her off. “Yeah. Way over him. I’m not without scars, but if you’re wondering whether they involve men in general versus the act of infidelity some commit—it’s just the act of infidelity. I don’t think all men are lying, bottom-feeding pigs.” Christ. Why was she telling him something so personal? Shut. Up.
“I’m sorry.”
Now her surprise was genuine. “Why are you sorry?”
“Sometimes my gender makes me feel like I have to apologize for all of them.”
Warmth flooded her belly, unnerving her. “It’s over now. My life is better for it.”
“And your life is better with no job?”
Wanda immediately clammed up, stirring in her seat, then repositioning herself to respond with as much nonchalance as she could muster. “My life is fine. It’s not my life we have to worry about. It’s yours.”
“And that hand-happy woman with the wayward lips, Linda . . .” His words trailed off. “But I have an idea. How about we make another deal?”
Wanda sucked in her cheeks. “Look, Monty. I’m all outta doors here. I’m resigning from Bobbie-Sue. I’m in no position to make deals.”
Heath held a palm up. “Just hear me out. The only time I really need to be in Linda’s presence is on cold calls, and we’ll be with other recruits, so I’m safe. But she did make it clear I have to be certified by my supervisor on my makeup applying techniques. She also mentioned we could practice those techniques at her swinging bachelorette pad—at night—after dinner and drinks.” He gave her that “poor me” look again.
Wanda silently fumed. That fucking woman would hump a lamppost if she could get her legs around it. She was like a yippy, snippy terrier, shaking and rabid half the time, looking to mount someone’s leg the other half. Heath didn’t need any help with his technique. Wherever he’d learned to apply cosmetics, from whomever, he was pretty good at it. Linda was looking to hook up, and Wanda could hold herself fully responsible for his misery.
“So here’s my deal. Hold off for just a little bit on your resignation. Maybe a week. Teach me how to apply the makeup properly, certify me, and then I can begin to branch out on my own—without sticky lips Linda. I’m already the subject of gossip because I’m a man selling makeup, but I don’t need more, and that’s just what’ll happen if I ask to leave Linda’s group. I mean, I’ve been shuffled around enough, don’t you think?” He gave her his best sad face.
She wasn’t buying it, despite her guilt for fobbing him off on Linda. “But you don’t need help with your technique. You know exactly what you’re doing. I watched you glide over Miss Allamuchy’s face like it was a sheet of ice.”
He shook his head, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his expression serious. “Nah. I’m still iffy about the eyeliner, and I have trouble shading the foundation under the jaw.You know, so I have that seamless flow from face to neck? I figure, I could practice on you. We’ll be like girlfriends or something.” He gave her a lopsided grin.
Sure. That’s exactly what she needed. His hands. On her. Pretending they were girlfriends. Rad. She didn’t want to do with her girlfriends the kind of things she wanted to do with him. It just wouldn’t work. “I have a lot on my plate right now, Heath . . .”
He grunted. “Like what? You’re at loose ends. You don’t have a job, remember? Besides, everyone at Bobbie-Sue, aside from Linda, that is, says you’re the best. In fact, they all had a lot to say about you giving me up like I was being sold at auction on eBay.”
Her mouth became a thin line. God, those women and their gossip. “Yeah, I’ll just bet they did.” Haters.
“All I’m asking is a few hours of your time—and I think you owe me after handing me over to that viper without warning.You were going to send me some cold, sterile form letter from corporate. You weren’t even going to tell me in person that you were breaking up with me.”
Wanda rolled her eyes at him, clucking her tongue while fighting a grin. “We didn’t have anything to break.”
“Says you.You’re not the one who was broken—by Liiinda.” He drew her name out with a mock shudder on a hushed, ominous whisper.
A giggle bubbled up in her throat. “Oh, stop being so dramatic. You’re trying to make me feel guilty for something I had no idea would happen.”
“Is it working?”
Wanda blew a breath out in admission, letting her chin fall to her shoulder to hide her smile. “Yeah. Kinda.”
He rose from her couch and winked at her. It was obvious he’d gotten what he came for. “Awesome. So tomorrow, say two or so?”
Wanda narrowed her eyes, keeping her face gravely serious. “You have one week—that’s it. After that, I resign, and you’re on your own.”
He leaned over her chair, bracing his hands on either arm, and smiled that smile that made her heart tremble in her chest and her toes tingle. His breath smelled of mint and shortbread cookies; his eyes glittered with the satisfaction of once more getting what he wanted. “That’s more than enough, and I really gotta run. Night, Wanda,” he rumbled, gravelly and self-assured, whistling on his way out, and reminding her to lock the door as he left.
Wanda pulled the overstuffed pillow from behind her and pressed it to her midsection. Now she’d have to wait to resign or her certification of Heath would be no good. This was a bad idea. This was an überbad idea. She shouldn’t be spending any more time with him.
But it sure would piss off that makeup whoring Linda Fisher to see her signature on Heath’s certification, now wouldn’t it?
She smiled—wide. Ah. Good times. Good times.
Her mind forcibly turned off her thoughts about Heath and focused on what she’d been doing before he’d arrived.The Fuck It list and entry number ten. She dug it out of her bathrobe pocket, running her finger over the words she’d written.
Some might say entry number ten was overboard grudging and that very grudge was long past its prime, but it had stalked her since seventh grade—still made her squirm in embarrassment twenty years later. Though it might have seemed minor to most even in hindsight now, it had been the most humiliating moment of her school career. An event so degradingly memorable no one had forgotten it—as was evident at her fifteenth high school reunion when her whole table, including the perp of said degrading event, still making no apologies, quite kindly reminded her while they chu
ckled on their stroll down Humiliation Lane.
She’d hoped since they were adults he’d at least offer an apology. Surely at their age, her nemesis now understood the kind of impact it had on a thirteen-year-old girl. But nothing had changed—not if the guffawing laughter he’d opened wide and spewed out of his mealy mouth was any indication.
So in the spirit of cleansing and mondo regret she hadn’t picked up that spine Nina joked about much sooner in her life—this particular item seemed like a niiiice way to begin clicking off the more easily doable Fuck It list entries.
Glancing at the clock, Wanda decided she didn’t care that it was almost midnight. Entry number ten probably had a lot longer to live than she did. Thus, he’d get plenty of sleep to make up for her interrupting one measly night of it. Besides, he owed her for all the nights she’d tossed and turned—cried herself to sleep from the torment she’d received throughout her entire school career and even long after.
So payback was the bitch that was about to slap him.
Yeah. Rage against the machine and all.
But in the most adult of ways. Well, at least semi-adult.
Wanda grabbed the phone, running strictly on adrenaline with a side order of impulse, hoping this was the right number. According to her mother, the person responsible for making her seventh and eighth grade years a virtual hell on Earth had inherited his mother’s house in the town they’d grown up in. Which didn’t seem terribly upwardly mobile.
“Hello?” a sleepy, much less squeaky than seventh grade voice answered.
“Is this Warren Snelling?” her voice quivered just a smidge.
“Yes?”
“The Warren Snelling who attended Our Lady of Perpetual Aid Catholic School in Point Pleasant?”
“Uh, yeah,” was the gruff answer. “Who the hell is this?”
“This is Wanda Schwartz, and I know it’s late. I mean, you’re probably all comfy in your bed with your wife at this time of night, huh? That is, if you have a wife. Do you,Warren? Have a wife, that is?”
There was a pause, as if he wasn’t sure he should answer, and then with hesitance, he said, “Um, yeah, yeah I do.”
Her smile was sly and growing more confident by the second. “And were you all warm and comfy in your bed with her, sleeping the sleep of the guiltless?” You fucking reject. She bit her lip. There was nothing about thinking Warren Snelling was a fucking reject that was even remotely adult-ish.
“Who the hell are you again?” Ohhhhh,Warren was getting pissy, if the boom in his voice was any indication.
“Tsk-tsk. I’m so sad you don’t remember me, Warren—because I remember youuuuuuu,” she sing-songed, vaguely aware that she sounded like some crazy phone stalker. “I’m Wanda Schwartz.You remember, the ‘Schwartz has warts’ Wanda from Sister Angeline’s class? You know the one. The Wanda you terrorized every damn day at lunch for almost two years and then, in a stunning culmination of brain-cell-less shithead-dom, ripped my shirt up in front of the entire class while I was swinging across the monkey bars.” Thus, dumping half a box of the tissues she’d used to stuff her bra, because at thirteen, she hadn’t graduated from a training bra. She’d never, ever forget how awful it had been to see those white, crumpled wads of paper lying at her feet. Some must have come loose while she’d swung from the bars, and Warren had picked them up, juggling them in his pudgy hands while he’d danced around. “You remember those monkey bars, don’t you?You know, the ones you couldn’t manage to get your mean butt up on?” At thirteen, she was way past playing on the monkey bars. She’d only been swinging around on them because as part of a school program, she’d mentored some sixth graders with learning disabilities, and on that day, she’d been their “lunch pal.”
“Are you friggin’ serious? That was like twenty years ago, you dumb bitch!” Ahhh, so Warren did remember. How fun. “Are you kidding me?” His high-pitched tone of disbelief made her smile. She could almost picture him sitting up in his warm, cozy bed, scratching his big, red blockhead in confusion, his pudgy freckled face all scrunched up while he called her a dumb bitch—which Wanda knew after spending so much time with Nina wasn’t terribly creative.
Novice.
“Well, well,” was her snide response. “I see you haven’t changed much, Warren, and you’re damn right I’m friggin’ serious. Would I joke about something as awful as having boxes of tissue left on my desk in homeroom for over a year? Would I joke about the notes attached to those boxes that said horrible things like, ‘Here’s my contribution to the itty-bitty-titty committee’? You were a real doody head way back when.”
Doody head? Christ. How inspired. Did calling Warren a doody head really properly represent how much she’d hated him after he’d shown her—her boobless-ness to her classmates? It wasn’t nearly mean enough. What she needed to do here was channel Nina. But that wasn’t what this was about.
“A doody head, huh?” he growled, chuckling.
Wanda’s eyes narrowed, her temperature rising with a hard shot, but then she paused—this was about closure, settling old scores like a mature adult. “Yes. An über doody head, and I just want to say one thing. Okay, well, maybe a couple. The couple of things I should have told you when you did something so heinous to me the kids in class made fun of me for years afterward. And then, when I’m done being very unladyike, getting this monkey off my back, so to speak, you can go right back to bed.You game?”
“Game on,” he said with a tone that screamed he was daring her. Like he didn’t believe she actually had a set and never in a million would she, pathetic, meek Wanda Schwartz, take on the challenge that was Warren Snelling.
She didn’t hang around Nina just for the sport of it.
Wanda gripped the phone with a tight fist, closing her eyes and remembering every last ounce of humiliation he’d bestowed upon her, like it’d been just yesterday. “What you did to me was disgusting and degrading, Warren Snelling, you spineless, weak, mean-spirited fucktard! But despite the fact that you have the syndrome known as peanut dick, I just wanted you to know I forgive you, Warren. I forgive you for being so horrible to me I cried for nearly a year. Because people like you, bullies like you, only pick on other people because they’re insecure fuckwits. And I just wanted you to know that.” Wanda pressed the Off button on her phone and hurled it to her couch, roaring in triumph.
She was actually gasping for breath when she plunked back down on the couch. A bead of sweat had formed on her upper lip. She wiped a thumb over the corner of her mouth to remove the spittle, pressing a hand to her flaming hot cheek.
Omigod—she’d just told Warren Snelling he had a little dick and she felt not an ounce of remorse digging her pen out of her bathrobe pocket and crossing off entry number ten with zeal.
Wee doggie—she outghta let the power of Nina compel her far more often.
CHAPTER 7
Wanda grabbed Heath’s hand—a hand that held the square sponge applicator—and buffed it under her jawline, using a light, circular motion. “See?”
His fingers tilted her chin upward under the light. Their light stroke made her nipples tighten ridiculously beneath her bra. “I think I see, but I don’t know. I think this must be a man deficit.”
She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her traitorous nipples poking from beneath her teal silk shirt and scoffed, “Ohhh, don’t even play the man card now, Mister. That’s tired.You can do it if you just relax a little bit. I think the problem is you had to use a heavier hand on the Miss TransAmerica contestants. They had distinct shadows on their faces because of the facial hair. Women need less foundation. And your subject this afternoon is a woman.” She brushed his hand away and took the applicator from him, sitting up straight on the edge of the closed toilet seat. “Now watch,” she instructed, placing the square sponge at her jaw and brushing downward. “We’re blending—we’re blending,” she muttered the technique she’d repeated a thousand times since she’d begun at Bobbie-Sue.
Heath sighed his exasperat
ion. It bounced off the tiles in her small bathroom. “Yeah, yeah. We’re blending; we’re blending,” he mimicked her tone of voice. “Except when I blend, it doesn’t blend.” Heath glanced at his watch—something he did quite often in the few hours a day they spent together.
“In a hurry?” she asked as casually as she could, when in reality, she’d kill to know where he needed to be.
“Not really. Just have some stuff I need to do today.”
“Like?”
“Like stuff.” His face remained unreadable and blank, his attitude kinda jiggy, his lips a stiff line, his jaw set in a stubborn lock.
“Like house stuff?You know, scrubbing the toilets? All those annoying things we hate, but have to do?”
“No.”
Just no. Jesus, it was like pulling teeth to get him to tell her anything about himself. “Got a roast in the Crock-Pot?”
He made a face at her. “What’s a Crock-Pot?”
Hookay, then. She wasn’t getting anywhere—she was no further along than she’d been five days ago when she’d agreed to help him with his technique. No matter how casual she kept her questions, no matter how average-everyday-normal-conversation-like they were, he wasn’t biting. He kept his personal life just that—personal. Wanda slapped her hands against her knees. “How about we take a break from foundation and move on to lip liner? We only have one more day as part of our deal, ya know.”
His look was skeptical. “Do you women really do all of this every day?”
“Again, it’s what makes some of us feel pretty. I wear it almost every day.You really need to remember that when you deal with clients—Bobbie-Sue enhances your beauty. It breathes life into your skin, making it glow and allowing your best features to shine to their fullest potential while downplaying your worst. I know you’re a man, but you’re going to have to really get in touch with the sensitive side of yourself in order to pull this off. It’s like being girlfriends when you woo a client, you know? You have to treat your client as if she were your best friend in the whole world. Remember the girlfriend thing you mentioned?”
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