The Thrill of It All

by Christie Ridgway

  She had him wrapped around her little finger, Magee had to admit that as he sank onto the sofa cushions. But he wasn’t the only one. When Anna P. ordered Felicity to sit down, too, she also obeyed.

  Her face was flushed again, though, as she threw him a glance. “GetTV,” she said, gesturing toward the screen. “I send Aunt Vi production tapes every once in a while since she can’t get cable in Half Palm.”

  He looked back at the screen. It was Felicity, all right, a city-Felicity, wearing a white shirt, a tight, bilious-green knee-length skirt, and a pair of chunky-heeled sandals. Despite the constricting outfit, she was curled up on an armchair and proceeded to smile at and chat with the camera as if they were best friends.

  “Don’t you hate worrying about losing your cell phone? Have you ever mixed yours up with someone else’s?” She launched into a story about mistakenly trading cell phones with another woman on a Friday night and being plagued all weekend with calls from a personal trainer, a dog trainer, and a gravel-voiced man calling himself Sir John who’d promised to train her.

  “But look! The must-have solution!” From a table beside her, she whipped out a piece of jewelry that she flashed for the camera with perfectly manicured fingers. “Cell phone charms! You can personalize your phone to signal your mood, your current dating status, or even your beverage of choice.” The camera zoomed in on the charm, a tiny margarita glass.

  As she waxed on about how to order—“try our keep-it-simple payment plan!”—Magee still couldn’t believe such items existed or that any sane person would bother with them.

  Still…“Hey, does that set come with a shot glass?” he couldn’t resist asking.

  She tried sneering, but there was something about her girl-next-door features that couldn’t make it stick. Instead, it slid into an embarrassed frown. Laughing to himself, he settled back on the couch, content to have her televised image yak him right out of his unwelcome yen for her.

  And if the cell phone charms hadn’t proved they were from two different galaxies, the battery-operated ice cubes she featured next were evidence aplenty. Holding up a boxful of them in “Age of Aquarius” colors, she went about convincing the viewers they were a “must-have,” too, for the next “must-do” party. His jaw gaped when she mentioned that the last time they’d been featured on her All That’s Cool Afternoon, they’d sold twenty-six thousand units.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said aloud.

  She shot him a glance, trying again to paste on that sneer. “GetTV reaches over eighty million American homes and is the fastest growing and most popular TV shopping network. It’s a retail phenomenon.”

  “Phenomenon? You must mean felony. Because what you’re doing is highway robbery.”

  “This from someone who last night sent over two young men who robbed me of my dignity and my cheese fries.”

  He wanted to snicker, but didn’t. “Seriously, dollface, you’re selling some seriously trivial…stuff.” On the screen, she was presenting the next product, and this time he had to snicker. “‘Glammed-up’ rubber gloves? I rest my case.”

  Household gloves, the thick rubber kind that his mother wore when polishing silver. But at the wrists of these pairs were bands of bright-striped fabrics that were then fringed with ruffly lace or pastel pom-poms. No longer utilitarian, they were just plain ludicrous. Not to mention that they cost thirty-five bucks, plus shipping and handling.

  But something happened as he watched Felicity go through her shtick. She shared a laugh at how far a woman might go to make housework fun. There was an offhand comparison to Cinderella’s slippers. Then she giggled as she slid them on and then again as she made the tassels dance while pretending to dust the chair. Without even the smallest warning prick, her enthusiasm infected him.

  So when her televised self asked, “Wouldn’t your mother or other woman in your life get a kick out of these?” he couldn’t help but picture his own mom and her delight in something so whimsical.

  Thirty-five bucks wasn’t bad for a pair of Cinderella gloves that she’d use and smile over every time she did.

  That’s when it hit him. He turned his head to stare at Felicity. “You’re a witch. I almost pulled out my wallet. For rubber gloves.”

  She smiled, full of smug cheer. “Dressed-up rubber gloves. That’s what shopping is all about, you see—identity. More specifically, about transforming it. New lipstick, a special outfit, it’s a way of becoming a newer, improved version of ourselves.”

  “Yeah, but that’s just surface—”

  “Grammy!” Anna P. suddenly yelled out. “It’s the part about Grammy and Uncle Billy.”

  The—guilty?—expression flashing over Felicity’s face refocused Magee’s attention to the television. On the screen, she was hawking those flaky light cubes again. In that engaging, between-you-and-me manner of hers, she told the audience that her Aunt Vi had livened up a recent gathering she’d hosted by using them to ice down the drinks—of the members of the George Bernard Shaw Society.

  Magee turned his head to look at Felicity, his gaze sweeping past the tall stacks of People and National Enquirer sitting in a corner, each topped by a tortoise-shell cat. “George Bernard Shaw?”

  “A playwright,” Felicity answered shortly. “In the first half of the twentieth century.”

  He was glad he accepted the insult silently, because then he didn’t miss hearing that her Uncle Billy had used the lighted cubes in his highball glass to illuminate his way up the wine cellar steps when the cellar’s light had burned out.

  Magee knew for a fact that the only vintages that interested Billy were the fresh ones from Amstel, Budweiser, and Busch. What he didn’t know was why the hell Felicity had fictionalized her family. But the answer was just minutes away. Though her Cool Afternoon ended, the tape kept rolling as she popped out an earpiece and unclipped her microphone.

  People crossed back and forth, removing merchandise, wheeling cameras through. Felicity struggled with the earpiece wire caught on the collar of her shirt. Then a man carrying a clipboard strode up to her, the lights gleaming against his blond hair and glinting off his slick-leathered loafers. Richie Rich all grown up.

  Oh, now it was clear who Felicity’s bogus background was meant to impress.

  With the microphone off, Magee had to read the relationship through body language. Richie leaned in, Felicity stilled. The tangle untangled, they stayed close. Richie smiled, Felicity licked her lips. Richie touched her hair, she ducked her head.

  Magee wanted to puke.

  It was why he hurried out of the house, pausing only to pass on the piece of news he’d brought with him. “By the way, dollface, you’d better give your good friend Richie Rich a call and tell him to postpone your next TV show. You can say your Uncle Billy spent too much time cataloguing his wine collection last night so your car won’t be ready this afternoon like he promised.”

  Felicity returned to the Bivy that night. What else did she have to do with herself? That she was on the lookout for Ben made Aunt Vi feel better, and that would appease Felicity’s conscience when she returned to L.A. the following day.

  And if she took Magee out of the picture—and she’d X’d him out completely!—she had to admit she got a kick out of the anonymity the place afforded her. Without her GetTV image to worry over, she was free to dabble in the hedonistic play of the climbing crowd.

  So, knowing that this was her last chance, she played darts and she played pool. When a man with a long sideburns and a loopy grin asked her to dance, she didn’t consider refusing.

  To the beat of Pink’s “Get the Party Started,” he unbuttoned his shirt so that the tattooed snake on his chest undulated with his movements. Laughing out loud, she pulled the tails of her own man-tailored shirt from her tight high school jeans. Then, knotting the shirt beneath her breasts, she rotated her hips like a belly dancer.

  Her partner fell over, overcome by admiration—or perhaps too much beer—and stayed flat on the dance floor until
one of his buddies dragged him off by the shoulders. They exchanged disappointed finger waves.

  In need of fortification, she twirled herself toward her table on the edge of the small dancing area. Her glass of water sat where she’d left it, but her plate of nachos and her glass of wine—both barely touched—were gone.

  The climbers were unabashed moochers.

  Shaking her head, she scooped up her purse and headed toward the bar. Though she’d yet to see Magee, now she came face-to-face with the bartender, Peter. But even remembering how he’d creeped her out the night before with his near-death talk didn’t stop her from smiling at him.

  He smiled back. “You look like you’re having fun.”

  “Oh, I am.” She slid onto a stool and rested her elbows on the bar. “Leaving Half Palm puts me in a happy mood.”

  He slid a napkin and a glass of wine in front of her. “Your family will be sorry to see you go.”

  Her smile faded. “I’ve done what Aunt Vi asked!” She’d asked people about Ben. Not one had seen him recently, but no one seemed concerned about him, either.

  Meaning they knew the Charms as well as she did.

  “I’m off the hook,” she told Peter, lifting her wine glass. And almost free of them for good, she thought, smiling at her reflection in the mirror over the bar.

  Hmm. Her lipstick looked a bit smudged. She started to reach into her purse, then stopped.

  Tonight she didn’t have to be perfect. Her mood bubbled again.

  “Hey, there.” A handsome twenty-something stepped up to lean against the bar beside her. “I haven’t seen you around here before. I’m Duke.”

  Felicity took a big swallow of wine and gave him an even bigger smile. “Of course you are. And I’m…” She hesitated, glancing over at her smudged-lipsticked, knotted-shirt, and too-tight jeans reflection. “I’m Lissie.”

  That’s exactly who she was tonight. Fun-loving, wild-living Lissie. Well, not too wild, just wild enough to let darling Duke buy her a drink. And fun-loving enough to let him regale her with boastful accounts of his climbing adventures.

  She propped her chin on her fist, devoting her attention to the young man. “Fascinating, just fascinating,” she said, her voice booming into a sudden quiet. Looking around, she realized the music had been turned off and that the room’s attention was riveted on the TV screen mounted overhead.

  Felicity glanced up at it, just as Magee’s face appeared there, leaner, stubbled, and sunburned. Then she saw a close-up of Simon, followed by more close-ups, strangers to Felicity, but obviously other members of their climbing team.

  The sound of a door banging open jerked everyone’s gaze from the TV to the other side of the room. A man stood there, backlit by the overhead lights in what appeared to be a small office. “Turn the goddamn music back on,” a hoarse voice—Magee’s voice—barked out. Then the door slammed shut.

  Bob Marley started up a Jamaican rhythm. Felicity looked back to the TV screen just as the program’s title rolled across: From Daring to Disaster.

  “That’s him,” Duke said. “The Lucky Bastard.”

  She flicked a glance back at the slammed door. “Exactly how did he come by that nickname?”

  Duke pulled his stool closer to her, as the pounding music drowned out the sound coming from the television. “The way I hear it, if you climbed with the Bastard, you came back alive.”

  Felicity grimaced as her stomach dipped. “And exactly how dangerous is this sport you people like so much?”

  Duke shrugged. “Define danger. We’re a wuss culture. There’s helmet laws and seat belt laws and laws about how hot to cook hamburgers. Regular soap isn’t good enough, now it has to be antibacterial.”

  Felicity struggled to find something inherently wrong with disease prevention. She was still speechless when Peter rolled up and paused.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  No. She wanted to recapture her earlier mood. She wanted to think of herself shaking the sand of Half Palm off her feet as she sped away from it instead of thinking of that hoarse bark in Magee’s voice.

  “Just trying to understand this climbing thing,” she said. Her gaze drifted up to the television screen, where a line of brightly bundled figures struggled through thick snow. “I don’t think I get the appeal.”

  “It’s different for different people,” Peter said. “Getting close to nature. The physical challenge.”

  A head popped around from the other side of Duke. It was the dread-locked guy she’d run into the night before. “And don’t forget the chicks, man. The chicks love guys who can kick danger’s ass.”

  Peter grinned. “And then there’s the chicks. The chicks love guys who can kick danger’s ass.”

  “Magee said something about the angles and the independence,” Felicity remembered.

  “He would.” Peter nodded. “That’s a lot of what it is for him, I suppose.”

  “How so?” Not that she cared or anything.

  “In many ways climbing is a game you play all alone inside your head. As for the angles—that’s what Magee is brilliant at. He has a master’s in applied mathematics and he looks at the rock like a problem he has to solve.”

  “Oh.” The guy to whom she’d explained chicanery and George Bernard Shaw had an advanced degree in math. Then her mind skittered back to him emerging from that back office. “And, uh, he’s not the busboy here, is he?”

  Peter’s brows rose. “No. We’re co-owners of the Bivy. Magee’s also a partner in a climbing store—”

  “The Wild Side?”

  He nodded. “And he has another partnership in a rock gym in Palm Springs.”

  “Oh.” Oh, terrific. She slid off her stool, trying to think how often and how else she might have insulted Mr. Masters-in-Applied-Mathematics. “I think I’ll just pop into his office and tell him goodbye.”

  After she extended a gracious apology. It was the least she could do, right? Then she could leave town in the morning, all loose ends neatly tied up and tied off forever.

  The “Come in” he rasped out after she knocked on the door wasn’t welcoming. Felicity entered anyway.

  At a long wooden desk, he sat with his back to her, his lean body slumped in a black leather chair, his elbows resting on its arms, his chin resting on his fisted hands. His gaze was trained on a small television set sitting on one corner of the desk. The current program: From Daring to Disaster.

  Somehow she wasn’t surprised.

  Shutting the door behind her muffled the heavy beat of Shaggy’s rap remake of “Angel” and highlighted the thick quiet in the small office. “You’re watching with the sound off,” she said, because she had to say something. It wasn’t clear he was aware she was in the room.

  He didn’t look around. “I know what happens.”

  “I don’t.” She didn’t know what made her say that.

  But it got his attention. He flicked a glance at her over his shoulder, then went back to staring at the TV screen. “Short version: Eight went up Alaska’s Denali—aka Mt. McKinley. Seven made it down.”

  Not knowing how to respond, she kept her gaze on him and off the television. He watched the program in silence for another moment, then lifted his hands to rub his face. “God, I hate the fucking snow.”

  Her heart squeezed, and she rushed toward the television. “Then let’s turn it off.”

  He barred her way by simply straightening his leg and resting the heel of one beat-up boot on the desk. “Let’s not.”

  “You said you know what happens.” She leaned over his outstretched knee toward the TV’s off button.

  Twisting the chair toward her, he snagged her around the ribs. When she struggled, he put his foot back on the floor, then pulled her onto his lap, keeping her there with his forearm around her waist.

  “But you said you didn’t know.” His breath was hot against her ear as he turned the chair to once more face the TV. “And here’s the perfect opportunity to get the whole story, up close and v
ery personal.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I watched you on television this morning, didn’t I? Turnabout’s fair play.”

  His arm was immovable and his mood angry, but it was clear he couldn’t bear to turn the program off. And she wondered if he also couldn’t bear watching it alone, and that was why he was holding her against him.

  “Here’s Simon and I off on our summit bid. Look at those faces. Grins literally frozen on. Simon’s blowing kisses to Anna P. and Ashley, in case you can’t read lips.”

  Felicity squirmed, but he just tightened his arm. “Now it’s several hours later and here’s the team, trying to raise us on our radio phones. The weather’s deteriorating and they want to warn us, but we don’t respond. It’s because I dropped mine and Simon can’t reach his—not when he’s carrying me because my ankles are broken.”

  She stilled. “You broke your ankles?”

  He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “But Simon makes it back to camp the next morning, see? He’ll gather a team to go up and bring me down from the bivy where he left me. There—there I am, about twelve hours later.”

  He looked like his own corpse, his complexion gray beneath the sunburn. His lips—his wonderful, thrilling lips—cracked and swollen. Her heart slammed inside her chest and she put both hands over the arm he had around her because she needed to feel that he was warm. Alive. “Magee,” she whispered, turning her head toward his.

  He tried directing her face forward again. “Look, look. You don’t want to miss this, dollface. It’s Simon heading down the mountain, while I stay back because I’m barely conscious. See him? He’s waving again. That damn Aussie, always trying to hog the limelight.”

  “Magee.” Though his arm had loosened on her waist, she didn’t move and she didn’t look away from his face. The bad-boy’s voice was hoarse and his dark, dangerous eyes were bleak. His gaze never wavered from the television screen.

  “Watch, Lissie, because that’s the last anyone will ever see of him alive,” he said, his voice getting raspier by the second. “Damn Aussie. Goddamn Aussie who shouldn’t have saved me. Goddamn fucking Aussie who shouldn’t have died.”