Hysterical Blondeness (15 page)

If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in mine arms.

Shakespeare

Patricia was thinking that their
week-long girlfriend fest and celebration of her big Monday sale and her impending bonus was wearing thin. She had a slight buzz from the glass of Chardonnay she and Pinky had indulged in over at the Cove yet again. She giggled thinking of Pinky hemming all crooked for the rest of the day. At least it was Friday.

She hummed as she straightened chains, and Madam let her, smiling at her and nodding her
head several times. Apparently, her golden status lasted at least for the week of the sale.

Patricia thought about going to Brett’s after work. The drive in with Pinky had been in silence after Patricia told her she was once again going to the Nordquist house and Pinky would have to bus home—again. But then both of them had been morning-impaired and not too chatty.

She thought of the great chicken broth she’d stashed in a cooler in the car. Paul always kept stock ready to go in their freezer. She’d been spoon-feeding it to Brett all week.

It felt disloyal for her to feed Paul’s broth to poor Brett, but it
was
an emergency. A guy could only eat so many things with his jaw wired shut, and since all of his party buddies had deserted him, she was the only remaining friend he had at the moment. Brett was starting to appreciate that.

Poor Lizbeth. Pregnant. Or had she planned it to trap Eric? Had Lizbeth tried it out on Brett first? Patricia hadn’t had the nerve to ask Brett straight out. Truly, he’d looked miserable enough at the news that Eric was going to marry Lizbeth.

She also hadn’t let her mind play with the
idea it might be Brett’s baby—but on that thought her hand brushed a roll of gold bracelets. They slipped off the display and clattered against the glass shelf.

Madam looked up and gave her an eyebrow, but returned to her smile.

The person Patricia should ask was Lizbeth. Maybe she’d try to corner her on her break.

Speak of the she-devil, as Patricia raised her head from repositioning a dozen gold bracelets, Lizbeth stood right in front of her. She was dressed in pale green, which brought out her hazel green eyes and made her look even more beautiful. Although she did look a little green around the gills, as well as slightly stressed out.

“Hello, Patti.”

“Lizbeth, what brings you to our little corner?” Patricia carefully replaced the last bracelet, then closed and locked the glass case.

“Is Mandy in today?”

“No, she took a three-day weekend,” Patricia answered.

Lizbeth looked hesitant for a moment, as if she weren’t sure of her best move.

“Congratulations on your engagement, Miss
Summers.” Madam descended from the loft and leaned into the conversation.

“Thank you, Madam. News travels fast around here, doesn’t it?”

“Virginia in bridal is a friend of mine. We often work closely together.”

“Of course.”

“Yes. Now, can I have Patricia show you that marquise diamond? I have two beautiful settings, a horseshoe shape in fourteen carat that shows it off to perfection, and another with a bit more pizzazz.”

Patricia eyed Lizbeth. She saw that the temptation to look at the possibilities was overcoming her loyalty to Mandy.

“Sure. It can’t hurt to look.”

Madam stepped in the back room for a moment, then brought out a rolled-up cloth. Patricia had seen these before. All the loose stones were stored by size and cut in these rolls.

With a long pair of tweezers Madam plucked a beautiful and very large marquise-cut diamond out of the pile of sparkling stones. She put it on a tray with a little edge around it and let Patricia show it to Lizbeth. “I’ll pull the settings and be right back.”

“That is one gorgeous rock, Lizbeth.” Patricia sort of slipped and got a bit too familiar. Good thing Madam didn’t hear her.

Lizbeth laughed. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, no doubt about it. And that goes double for me right now.”

Patricia couldn’t just lean in and ask her if it was Eric’s baby, now, could she?

“Lizbeth.” Patricia spoke in a low voice. “It is Eric’s baby, isn’t it?”

Lizbeth glanced up from her diamond loupe. She looked white as a sheet. There was a long pause. “It’s definitely a Nordquist, that’s for sure.”

“Here we go,” Madam said as she reappeared. Patricia could tell Madam sensed the electricity in the air. Madam chose to focus on the diamond ring instead.

“Patricia, let me show you something.” She crowded in next to Patricia and brought out the two settings. With great skill she tweezered the diamond into place so it rested between the prongs that would eventually hold it in place.

The stone looked to be about three carats, as far as Patricia’s still-untrained eye could tell. The setting was a polished gold, a very wide,
modern, and striking affair. Lizbeth slipped it carefully on her finger, holding it over the velvet tray in case the stone popped out. It looked to Patricia like Lizbeth had done this before. “
Skilled with diamonds
” always looks great on a girl’s résumé. Lizbeth had amazing nails. They were just the perfect length and she had a French manicure.

“Let’s try it in the other one,” Lizbeth said.

“You try it, Patricia.” Madam handed her the tweezers.

The Chardonnay aside, Patricia felt an odd calmness come over her. She let Lizbeth take the ring off, then popped the stone out of one setting and into the other. The second setting was all glitz with a row of pavé diamonds down each side to frame the marquise in its own little nest of glittering side highlights.

Lizbeth slipped it on her finger. Her hazel green eyes glinted with delight. Patricia had to admit, it was pure Lizbeth.

“What’s my girl got on now?” The male voice surprised her, and apparently Lizbeth as well, who jumped like a cat.

“Eric, you surprised me.” Lizbeth got all smooth and lovey-dovey.

He came up beside her, put his arm around her, and kissed her cheek. “That was the idea. The girls upstairs in lingerie said you were jewelry-shopping.”

“Ratted out by my own people,” Lizbeth joked.

“How are you, Patricia?”

This was possibly the first time Eric had addressed her head-on. He didn’t live at the Nordquist house like Brett did, and the party was something they all just never mentioned again. The rich were so good at that sort of thing.

“Fine, Eric, just fine. Congratulations,” Patricia answered, nodding toward Lizbeth.

“I’m one lucky man.” He gave her a squeeze.

Honestly, Eric seemed like a nice enough fellow. He had finer features and a slighter build than his brother, although he had given a good right punch to Brett’s gut. Eric was the banker in the family, and somehow Patricia could see that it was a better match for Lizbeth, which was a very good thing.

“That’s quite a ring, sweetheart.” He looked at the sparkling mass of diamonds on her finger.

“It would be just this this one ring. It would
be my engagement ring and my wedding ring both.” Lizbeth looked at Eric with her big green eyes.

“Well, that would be a bargain, wouldn’t it?” Eric beamed. He was hook-line-and-sinkered where Lizbeth was concerned, no doubt about it, which was also a very good thing. Patricia felt a twinge of jealousy.

Lizbeth kissed Eric on the neck.

“Let’s me and Madam have a little chat.” Eric motioned to Madam and they went over to the pearl corner together.

Patricia was sure that Eric had some kind of God Almighty discount and was a shrewd bargainer to boot. She was left with Lizbeth, who had an excited flush on her cheeks.

“Looks like you’re going to get your ring,” Patricia whispered low to her.

“I could faint. Seriously. This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned,” she whispered back.

“It’s a divine ring,” Patricia agreed.

“It could support me for a year if he ever dumps me.”

Patricia gave her an eyebrow. “Don’t think like that. You and Eric are going to be fine.”

Lizbeth looked at Patricia with an expression somewhere between pity and solidarity. “Listen to me, Patricia. Brett and Eric are grossly competitive. Brett is the worst. This is your perfect opportunity to play that card. Brett would do anything to steal his brother’s spotlight. Even get married sooner.

“S-sooner than Christmas? That’s, like—less than two months,” Patricia stammered.

“Do you want to marry Brett?”

Patricia hesitated. “I just didn’t picture myself as in a hurry, no offense.”

“I’m just saying, there are windows of opportunity that speed things up for us women. It’s up to us to recognize them. Either that or wait for years for them to make up their tiny little male minds. Neither of us is getting any younger. Aren’t you almost thirty?”

Patricia was speechless. Lizbeth was obviously much more skilled at recognizing and
creating
these windows of opportunity than she was.

Eric and Madam finished wheeling and dealing and returned to them, breaking up their blonde-to-blonde moment.

Patricia had never felt so blonde in her entire
life. She looked into the oval countertop mirror and stared into the face of blondeness.

“The ring is yours, my dear.” Madam patted her hand. “I can have the stone set by tomorrow afternoon. I’m so sorry, but you must part with it for just a day.”

Lizbeth slipped the ring off her finger and carefully placed it in the velvet tray. Then she turned to Eric and gave him a big, wet, full-body kiss. The kind that melts a guys eyebrows and makes him say yes to anything. The kind of kiss only a blonde could dish out.

“Fasten your seat belts, we’re in for a bumpy ride.” The funny stewardess was doing her Bette Davis imitation. Paul immediately thought of his girls and their movie obsessions.
All About Eve
was one of their favorites. He leaned back and thought about some of their weekend film festivals held in the living room via the local Blockbuster video store. The Hitchcock festival had been his favorite.

“Can I get you a cocktail before we have to lash everything down?” A very pretty flight attendant leaned over his seat. She was flirting, for sure. Her sleek blonde hair was pulled into
a ponytail that reminded him of a palomino horse.

“No, thanks, just ginger ale.”

She smiled and shrugged. He’d have to get used to saying “No, thanks” to pretty women.

He patted his jacket pocket to be sure the ring was still in place. The security people had given him minor crap about it, but then thought it was quite funny and had a good laugh.

All it took was him having a moment of confession with his grandparents to realize he was ready to ask Patricia to marry him. He’d probably been ready for a long time, but it took the whole blonde bombshell and the Brett fiasco to bring it to the surface. How well he’d deluded himself up to this point!

But now, with his grandmother’s engagement ring in the original white satin box, safely in his pocket, he was more than ready to pop the question.

Just how he was going to do that was a serious dilemma. He felt surprisingly nervous about the whole thing.

Paul looked out into the dark night aglow with the lights of the city. As they traveled east, the lights faded and stars became visible. He
imagined a life with Patricia. He imagined intimate dinners at Carmine’s downtown and great film festivals in their own living room, the two of them cozy on the sofa, and holidays, and taking her back to New York to meet his grandparents.

Then he imagined waking up beside her and taking her in his arms and making love to her. He could not imagine that picture with anyone else he’d ever known.

Blonde or brunette, Patricia was the one. Paul was absolutely sure of that.

Brett was holding court in the upstairs TV room of the Nordquist mansion surrounded by remotes and beer bottles. Football blared on the surround sound and Patricia offered him another spoonful of broth.

He was terribly distracted; there was no doubt about that. She could tell because he didn’t even move his head to catch a big touchdown between the Washington State Cougars and the UW Huskies. He just stared at her with his Nordic blue eyes.

Those eyes looked both scared to death and angry at the same time. Something she would
imagine his eyes might have looked like during his trip from the balcony to the lawn. This amused her. Marriage was just as scary to Brett as a fall off a twenty-five-foot balcony.

She was perched on the edge of a brown leather ottoman with her tray of soup next to her. Her less-fat self looked pretty good in the low-cut snug red sweater she’d changed into, and her slimmer hips had fit into a very cute black skirt with a flounce at the bottom. She’d put on red lipstick and was feeling very good about how she looked.

Her black shoes had the new pointed toes, and even though they pinched they looked extremely high-style on her feet. She thought she fit in pretty well at the mansion, for a change. Even Mrs. Nordquist had made a comment and had thanked her for taking care of her son.

His mother apparently had no personal inclination to attend to Brett’s needs and had hired a full-time nurse to take care of him during the day. The nurse always looked like she wanted to hug Patricia when she got there.

The nurse told Patricia to buzz her in the kitchen if Brett needed any medication, and not to let him medicate himself because he was a bad
judge of his dosage. She was also supposed to try and limit his beer intake, but not to call if he had silly whims because she was playing poker with the kitchen staff.

Patricia blotted Brett’s chin with a napkin. Poor baby.

Brett grabbed the remote and put the taped football game on pause. Then he pulled her close. She let the spoon clatter into the soup bowl. “Oh,
Brett
, you’ll hurt yourself.”

He gave her a hungry kiss, which was a little difficult with his jaw wired shut. Patricia sat up and noticed the red lipstick smeared on his face.

“Look at you, you’re all marked up.” She tried to get some of it off with the napkin.

He made some comment, but not much came out from between the wires and the teeth.

“What is it, Brett? Do you need something?”

He motioned for her to bring him paper and pencil, which she found close by. He had already written “beer” several times and “need pain drugs” once.