Hysterical Blondeness (13 page)

“Help yourself. You don’t need it, do you, Pinky?” Paul glanced at Pinky.

“I believe my date has wheels of his own.” Pinky made a grand gesture. “So have at it. Before you know it, Brett will buy you your own,” Pinky said.

“Why would he do that?” Patricia turned to look at Pinky.

“Depends on how nice you are to him.” Pinky smirked. “I’m sure he’d love to reward you for being a faithful girlfriend. And if you’re
real
nice, it’ll be an expensive car!”

“Thanks for the support, Pinky. You’re a real live Halloween witch today,” Patricia said.

Pinky stood up from the table. “First rule of best friends. Listen to the wisdom of those who know you well. And you are ignoring all our good advice, Patricia. You’re blondeness has gone to your head. Brett is only going to hurt you. It’s like a blinking neon sign that only you can’t seem to see. Well, hey, Patsky,
BLINK, BLINK, BLINK
!”

“You want everything to go
your
way.” Patricia gripped the back of the sofa. “Not long ago you understood my goals.”

“Goals? I won’t even address that. What about your self-respect?”

“Self-respect can be damn lonely. We both know that. And since I have turned into a crazy blonde, I might as well use it before I fade back into invisibility.”

“Just be careful what you use it
for
, Patricia. And when you are done, I hope you have friends left to pick up the pieces when Brett kicks you in the teeth.” Pinky stomped out of the room. After many stomping footsteps, her door slammed downstairs.

Patricia felt her head pounding. “I’m right, you know. Women only have a short span of years to attract the right man.” What a stupid thing to say to Paul.

“There are other schools of thought on that,” Paul said quietly.

“Can’t one person in this house just support me in pursuing my dreams?”

“We do support you, Patricia. But sometimes we might not agree with you. I’m beginning to see something about how life gives us these paths, and if you take one and it’s extremely difficult and chaos surrounds every step, then it might not be the right one. It’s like a big hint.
Then you take this other one and not that it’s totally easy, but things just fall into place all around you like some roadside orange-vested guide with a big wand saying,
Yes, go this way!
Do you get what I mean?”

“Oh, how very Zen. Yes, I get you, but I can’t tell the difference between those two yet.”

“That’s the hard part.”

Patricia paused and took a breath. Her voice softened. “Thank you for the offer to go to New York. I hope we all get to go there soon. Are you going to see your family while you’re there?”

“I wouldn’t miss one of my Nana Costello’s meals for anything. And since I’m on the other side of the world now, she’ll roll out the red carpet. Prodigal grandson and all that jazz.”

“It’s cool you have a family like that.”

“I know. I don’t take that for granted.”

“My sisters are okay, but my parents, well, you know, I’ve told my sad tale. You two have been a great family to me.”

“Things are coming to a crossroads, aren’t they?” Paul said.

“I think so. I have to go pretty soon. Thanks for being you, Paul.”

“The gumbo will be waiting for you when you get back,” he said.

She got herself out of the room without any further discussion. All that talk about paths really made her think. Patricia felt like a window of opportunity had opened for her and it wouldn’t remain open for long.

In the dressing table mirror her hair was still cool blonde. She’d been watching it carefully, having taken her last pills, wondering if it would suddenly turn back.

When she’d visited Dr. Bender, some of the other people had developed darker roots, but they had started their course of experimental drugs earlier than she had.

Sometimes she thought she saw a shadow of brunette in there, but then her eyes would play tricks on her and it wasn’t there at all.

Everyone treated her differently now. Before, at work, only a few people in the store even knew she existed. Now the guys all eyed her and the women stared when she passed, checking out her outfit and makeup as most women do to really beautiful women.

Really
beautiful
? She wouldn’t go that far, but she had changed. The whole color of her life had changed, and sometimes when she thought of things she did, she wondered why she did them. It was almost like the drug had affected her inhibitions along with her hair color. Talk about a deadly combination, the weakening of your former conservative self paired with a whole new look. Blonde and dangerous.

She brushed her hair into smooth curls. She looked good in colors she hadn’t thought of before. Like pale blue and soft beige and white. Patricia applied some lipstick, wiped it off, and tried another color. She wanted to look her best for Brett. She went for a light bronze color to go with her whole pale and beige look.

Her friends were probably right. She didn’t belong in Brett’s world. But this would be the only time in her life to test that fact out for herself. She had to know just how far she could get before Brett found her out for the imposter she was: a quiet brunette masquerading as a daring blonde.

Did my heart love ’til now? Forswear it sight, for I never saw true beauty till tonight.

Shakespeare

Food tasted better in New York.
Jazz sounded better in a Miles Davis New York way. Nathan’s hot dogs tasted better, and best in the world came from the Coney Island stand. He and Pinky had agreed on that. Pizza was better at Frank’s in the Bronx, and Manhattan had the best deli food in the universe.

He’d love to keep this job forever just so he could keep traveling back to New York and Milan and all the places he loved to go. He had to
get Patricia back here and show her everything he loved about the city.

Honestly, his job was easy. He had an eye for goods and was well trained by his grandfather in the art of navigating around the Garment District.

Paul took the hot dog from the vendor and squirted a great deal of mustard down the length. He bit in and let the nostalgic taste run around his head. Sometimes the simple things stayed with you longer than the fancy ones.

He supposed it had made sense for his father to follow the career trail to Microsoft in Washington State, but how they could have ever moved away from their families and this place was hard to understand.

Maybe his father had been putting some distance between him and his own father. Paul knew Pops was pretty ticked that his only son hadn’t gone into the family business manufacturing coats. But his dad had been a geeky intellectual guy and loved his computers. At least his aunts had loved the coat business, so hey. Pops got his family-footsteps moment.

And Paul knew it made Pops so happy when
he came to town, the grandson who picked up that “rag business” gene—so they said. He knew his grandparents doted on him. It was good to be the doted-on brother. Nick got that from Mom because he was a little slow and Mom tended to overprotect him as a kid. He and Mitch were equals in the eyes of the parents, so that left the grandparents to dote on him.

Nick had Jenny now and Paul knew that was a great partnership. Jenny was supportive of everything Nick did. Really, Nick was doing the best of any of them. He was a terrific builder and he was in his element in the Northwest with the construction boom still going strong.

Paul finished his hot dog and went for a walk around town. He didn’t have appointments till tomorrow and he wanted to enjoy the city as much as possible while he was here. He had a few hours till dinner at Nana and Pops’s house.

Nana Costello would want to know every bit of gossip about every member of the family. When’s the wedding with Jenny and Nick, when is Mitchell finishing college, and of course when, oh, when was Paulie going to get married? How were Pinky and Patricia?

Paul thought about Patricia’s new blonde hair. He thought about telling Nana about it, but she might not approve of the experimental drug thing. He thought about talking to Pops about why he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Patricia.

Their advice was important. And it was important that he get Nana and Pops to tell him their own history. How they’d been orphans from Florence in World War II and brought over to the United States together as children. How they’d ended up living on the same block with different adoptive parents, through the Catholic Church.

It was so amazing how they’d never forgotten each other and went through school in the same neighborhood, always watching out for each other. Childhood sweethearts of an even more touching variety than usual.

Their story pulled at him. There was something about the feel of the city and how many stories like theirs were floating in the air.

He should really get to work and write it, and soon, because they weren’t getting any younger.

Every time he’d been back to New York, twice a year now at least for the last five years, he’d
been more and more fascinated with the stories Nana and Pops told him. Maybe it was time to do something about it. He had writing skills; he was the logical person to do this. Then it would be there, written and in place for his children and their children. If he ever had any children.

Paul stared up at the murky sky of Manhattan. The November chill was on. He pulled his coat zipper higher. At least in the Northwest they’d figured out coats. A North Face jacket could really do a lot more for you against the Manhattan chill than his dad’s old wool overcoat used to do.

Paul thought about his mother’s parents, both gone now. Which just went to show how people slip away so quickly and quietly, taking their stories with them.

He looked into the warmly lit interior of a French café as he passed. There was a couple sitting next to the window having an argument. But just before Paul stepped out of their sightline, the man reached over and put his hand on the woman’s. Then she looked at him and leaned over to kiss his cheek.

Paul kept walking. He needed to start making some stories of his own.

He stopped in front of an antique store window and peered in at a mint-condition Barbie lunch box. Oh my God, it was the 1962 black-vinyl-with-ponytail Barbie. Pinky had been searching for this very lunch box for the last three years, haunting eBay and some of her other lunch box sites on the Internet.

He pushed open the door and an old-fashioned shop bell tinkled to signal his entrance. A dapper-looking old gentleman with a bow tie sat behind the counter with a tray full of watches in front of him. He was tinkering with a gold pocket watch. “Hello,” he said.

Paul nodded to him and tried to act cool. Pinky had taught him how to just hover around whatever it was you wanted with a calm air so they didn’t mark you as a sap who would pay any price for the object of your desire.

He spent a few minutes poking around, then picked up the lunch box. Wow, a hundred forty bucks. That was steep.

“Are your prices negotiable?” he held up the lunch box for the guy to see.

“Can you imagine a child’s lunch pail for all the fuss?” He had cool old Jewish accent.

“My housemate has quite the collection.”

“Bring it here,” he said.

Paul made his way to the man’s counter spot and put the box down. He poked around, opened it up, and looked at the tag. “What’ll you give me?”

“A hundred?”

“Hundred twenty.”

“Hundred ten,” Paul countered.

“Sold.” The man slapped the counter good-naturedly.

Paul pulled out his wallet.

“So this housemate, why don’t you just marry her instead of live in sin?”

Paul cracked up laughing. “She’s just a pal. I actually have two women I live with.”

“Oh, like that
Three’s Company
show.”

“Yes, just like that.” Paul notice the owner talked about the old show like it was still running. Well, probably on some retro station it was still running.

“One of them must be good enough to marry, right?”

“Yes, one of them is.” Paul stopped with his credit card in midair and couldn’t believe what he’d just said.

“See?”

“She’s seeing someone else.”

“So what? You live with her. Get the upper hand. You can push this other guy right out of the picture. You gotta go for it when it’s right. I’m Sid, by the way.”

“Paul Costello.” He shook Sid’s hand, then handed him his Visa card.

“Like the Abbott and Costello fella? Are you related?”

“No, my grandfather had a coat factory. Costello Coats, remember?”

“Oh yeah, pretty big back in the old days, then they retired, yes? And the daughters took over.”

“Yes. My grandparents live in the old neighborhood still.”

“You tell them hello from Sid.” Sid handed Paul his business card. “But you can’t go home with a gift for one girl and not the other. What does she like? The one you are going to marry?”

The one he was going to marry. Very funny. Brett Nordquist seemed to be first in line for that honor. But he was right about the gift. How stupid of him. He had to bring Patricia a gift back, too. Not just handbag samples. “She likes
photography, books, movies? Old things,” Paul answered.

“Jewelry. All women love jewelry.”

“True.” Paul followed Sid to his jewelry case. His eye caught one particular piece that seemed to shout Patricia out at him. It was a vintage amber and gold necklace that would no doubt make Patricia swoon. Those where her favorite colors.

He thought of her hazel eyes. Her original eyes, before the contacts. He loved those eyes, glasses and all. The necklace would bring out her eyes. If she’d stop with the blue contacts, or at least change to clear.

Sid went to his register and rang up Paul’s sale, then used the swiper to run the credit card. “I’ll wrap this up nice for you. And you know what? Here’s how to get that girl. Ask her to marry you. That works every time. Ask me, I know, that’s how I got my wife Rose. And she’s a gem. How many years you’ve lived with these two?”

“Five.” Paul wasn’t sure what made him keep telling old Sid the details of his life.

“That’s longer than some marriages these days. You know her already, so what are you waiting for?” Sid waved his hand at Paul.

What
was
he waiting for? “God, I don’t know. I need to think about it, I guess.”

“Think? No man should think about marriage. Otherwise they always think
no
, then they end up alone in an old-folks home. My Rosie told me that.”

Sid handed Paul the lunch box all wrapped in tissue, and the necklace in a pretty box, carefully placed in a paper bag with the shop’s logo on it.

“Here you go. Promise you’ll think about the girl. If you think too long, the other guy will get her for sure. And maybe that’s not so good, right?”

“Thanks, Sid, I’ll think about that.”

“Don’t think too long.”

Sid waved him out the shop door. Paul stepped into the cold.

Shit. Some old guy in an antique store all the way across the country hit it right on the head. He knew why he kept thinking about Patricia, dreaming about Patricia, and worrying all the time—he was so in love he could hardly stand it. He wanted her to be his, just his, forever.

Paul stalked down the street, angry with himself. He’d probably loved Patricia for a long time and been too much of an idiot to see it.

It had nothing to do with her being blonde, and all this time he’d been beating himself up for having fantasies about her since she turned blonde, like he was a shallow dude who only liked her for her new look. But the truth was his feelings were already there, just lurking in the background. She’d just brought them up to the surface when she’d turned stark raving blonde and pulled him into her bed one night.

Patricia tried on the prettiest necklace she’d ever seen. It was a one-carat trillian-cut diamond pendant clad in a platinum setting that hung from a platinum chain. Diamonds really were a girl’s best friend, especially if you got commission on the sale.

“That’s lovely on you,” the gentleman said.

“Thank you. You can see just where the pendant would hang on your…lady friend.” Patricia phrased things carefully in fine jewelry.

“My wife.” The man’s eyes twinkled in amusement.

“Your wife, of course. And here are the matching earrings.” She drew out a black velvet board and pulled the earring box out of the case with two very sparkly trillian diamond earrings
nestled against the black velvet box. Black velvet was good for jewelry. She felt a little giddy for a moment, thinking of the amount of the sale if he took everything, pendant and earrings. A very sweet sale. She felt Madam subtly keeping an eye on her.

“A very special holiday present, isn’t it?” She turned the box into the light and let the stunning stones pick up their maximum sparkle. “Would you like a closer look?” Patricia offered him a loupe to look through and magnify the stones. “These are particularly nice stones, with no visible flaws even under magnification. That’s hard to find in a stone this size.”

She felt him hesitate for a moment, so she leaned forward and unfastened the chain from behind her neck, then laid it out on the board for him to see. He smiled, then reached over and took the loupe to examine the entire set.

Patricia saw one of her blonde hairs on the velvet, stuck in the clasp of the chain. As she swiftly pulled it away, she thought just for a moment that the very tip of it was darker, right by the root. She felt a tingling flash of fear, then covered it up with a smile. “See how the plati
num setting makes it look like no setting at all? It just looks like a floating diamond, doesn’t it?”

“Very lovely,” he said. His gaze rose up from his close examination of the diamonds and back to Patricia. “And she deserves it for putting up with me all of these years.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Thirty years this Thanksgiving.”

“That is truly an accomplishment.”

“More on her part than mine, believe me.” The gentleman smiled softly. “Wrap them up pretty for me, won’t you?”

A soft but audible buzz went around behind her. Madam stepped up beside her and thanked the gentleman. “We’ll have these done up for you in no time. Patricia can complete the details.” She swept the jewelry into her hands and scurried up the stairs while Patricia took possession of the man’s credit card. Now let’s hope it went through, she thought. It wouldn’t be the first time a shopper’s desires had exceeded their credit card limit.

“Thank you, Mr. Watkins, I know your wife will be thrilled.”

The card was swiped, and the approval code
flashed on the screen. Kind of like the winning lottery numbers. She wrote the code down and turned with a smile for him to sign the charge slip. She was trying not to dance a jig behind the counter. He signed it with flair, and seemingly without any regrets. By the time they’d finished their transaction, Madam returned with two beautifully gift-wrapped boxes.

“Happy Holidays, Mr. Watkins.” Madam handed the boxes to Patricia, then held out their special black bag while Patricia slipped the two items in. Patricia walked out from behind the counter and handed the bag to Mr. Watkins, who then departed with a pleasant nod. Patricia went back through the swinging gate to stand next to Madam. Damn, that was one good sale.

Madam waited till he was out of sight, then clasped Patricia’s hands between her own and
did
that little jig. It was so funny to see the dignified Madam with her little tiny feet tap-dancing on the carpet. Patricia noticed Madam had on little red shoes with straps, like dancing shoes.