Hysterical Blondeness (6 page)

“A girl can dream.” No kidding. She caught her reflection in the glass case and still felt a zing of shock seeing her hair so very, very blonde.

Brett gestured toward the entrance of Via. “Let’s dream of lunch, I’m starving.”

Fairy tales can come true
, she hummed to
herself. Having lunch with Brett, oh yes, she was having lunch with Brett. Maybe a buzz would go around the room.
Who is that woman having lunch with Brett? That one, the blonde?
Since no one even knew she existed before this, they would hardly know who she was.

Paul could hardly believe his eyes. He’d barely sat down and ordered and his gaze had fallen on Patricia,
his
Patricia in an intimate booth for two with Brett Nordquist. What the hell was she doing having lunch with the boss?

That snot-nosed, shifty-eyed, smarmy son of a bitch, he was leaning her way, clinking his glass against hers, probably lying his head off about something. Like Brett had even known Patricia was alive before today. What had changed?

Then it struck him again that she looked amazing in her blue dress, with her new, shockingly blonde hair.

Paul shook his head. Why, oh why did her hair color change the way he thought about her? She was the same old Patricia, quirky and full of spit and vinegar, able to quote great works of literature at the drop of a hat.

His Patricia, who always thought the best of
everyone. But sometimes Patricia was so naïve. Did she know that Brett Nordquist had been dating Lizbeth Summers for over a year now? Did she know Lizbeth had put out the ultimatum on Brett? No ring, no ding? No more private lingerie showings till he came up with a giant Nordquist-sized rock for her finger?

And did she know Brett had been bargaining for more time?

Paul thanked the waitress for her quick delivery of his lunch and tried not to look their way. After all, it was none of his business if she wanted to date the devil.

Speak of the devil…here came Lizbeth. Paul turned his face into the shadows and pretended to eat his seafood linguini. Oh God, he hoped Patricia remembered some of that self-defense he’d taught her.

The click click clicking sound of Lizbeth’s heels was sharp against Via’s parquet wood floor. Each click made Paul jump a little. He was damn glad she wasn’t his girlfriend. What a temper on that woman. Paul braced himself to come to Patricia’s defense.

From what he could gather without actually getting up and listening, words were being
minced, diced, and handed out. Paul put his hand on Patricia’s shoulder. Patricia smiled. Lizbeth cocked her pretty blonde head and removed her hands from her hips. No food was thrown, and no water splashed in anyone’s face. Lizbeth, apparently satisfied, turned on her heel and departed.

Of course, she left a wake of gossip trailing her like a sexy, sleek speedboat shooting the waves across Puget Sound. One of those fiberglass jobs.

Paul poked at his linguini for an interminable amount of time, ignoring Patricia and the scumbag. He finally realized he’d lost his appetite. He signaled his waitress for a check. His waitress was very nice, and on another day he might have applied his suave Italian self to getting to know her better and perhaps scoring her phone number. Today, he just paid.

When the receipt came back it had her name and phone number and a little smiley face written on it. She winked at him and flounced away. Now, here was a girl who would take his advice. She’d shown no hints of making stupid decisions when she’d recommended the linguini. He took her number and tucked it in his suit pocket.

One more glance Patricia’s direction only made him crazy again. He watched her get all flirty with Brett. Then she looked like she was crying. She dabbed at her eyes with her white linen napkin. He couldn’t let idiot Brett make her cry. Paul geared up to head over there. But then she raised her head and laughed a big Patricia laugh.

Paul shook his head again. She was just laughing and flirting.
His
Patricia didn’t do that stupid flirt thing. Hadn’t they had long talks over a microbrew beer-tasting on the deck this summer about not putting on a false face in their never-ending search for the right mate?

After all, perfect mates had to accept you the way you were, didn’t they? Paul closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. He was all mixed up. He wanted to rush over there and pull Patricia right off that slick red leather bench seat and drag her out of here, kiss her hard, and make her forget all about Brett. For a moment he pictured her captured in the executive elevator, her warm red lips giving in to him.

He closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. All he could think about was running kisses up her neck and into that blonde fluffy hair of hers.

He had to stop. This was one of his best friends and one of his housemates. He rubbed his forehead and dismissed the runaway fantasy.

When he looked up, the cute waitress was looking at him funny. She was a redhead, a nice solid redhead. He should focus on someone like her and forget his temporary insanity with blondes. Well, one blonde in particular. The new, improved Patricia the blonde.

Things are often spoke
and seldom meant.

Shakespeare

Damned contacts. Tears kept
welling up and leaking down her face. Of course you can’t expect to get a good set of contacts in less than an hour. That’s like the fast food of contacts. They were
Want fries with that?
contacts.

Perhaps it was the garlic bread she shouldn’t have eaten and the way she’d wiped her eye after eating it that resulted in a streaming, watery downpour. Some smooth date she was.

Except Brett didn’t really know this was a date,
which came in handy when Lizbeth inquired about the purpose of their lunch.

Brett seemed quite pleased with himself after that, and since she’d departed he’d paid special attention to Patricia the tearful yet bold.

And Lizbeth seemed to believe the whole NFL tie promotion meeting b.s. But the truth was they hadn’t talked about the ties for most of lunch.

What they’d talked about was Brett’s college days at Stanford, his privileged childhood, and apparently Brett’s favorite topic besides himself, Lizbeth.

Lizbeth this, Lizbeth that, Lizbeth and I are seeing other people now. Somehow that didn’t quite ring true, what with her causing a minor scene in Via by stomping through the entire restaurant and burning eyeholes into Patricia’s head. Wow, if looks could kill, she’d be flat on her face in her Cobb salad.

But, of course, Brett had lots to talk about regarding his own life, because it was so much more interesting than the rest of the little humdrum people around him. She could hardly blame him, and she egged him on to tell her more, more, and more. Knowledge was power when it came to man-woman relationships.

For instance, now that she knew he’d gone to Paris last spring (with Lizbeth, of course) she could try out a few French phrases on him.

But he didn’t remember much of his traveler’s French. Lizbeth had seen to the translating. She was better at it, apparently. Maybe when you wore the fancy French lingerie it just rubbed off on you, because she certainly couldn’t have studied it.

Geez, here she was making blonde assumptions again. Just because Lizbeth was stunning and blonde didn’t mean she was dumb. And when Brett dumped her for good, she’d have no trouble at all finding a new boyfriend.

Patricia smiled at Brett, who was still going on about something, and patted her eyes with her napkin again. If she took out the contacts, she’d be blind as a bat.

“That’s so interesting, Mr. Nordquist,” she said.

“Call me Brett. All my friends do. Patricia, right? Can I call you Patti?”

Patricia had always abhorred that particular nickname but oddly felt it suited her new look. “Sure,” she said.

“Are your eyes better?”

“I’m all better now. I really must get back to work. If you want to get a tie flyer into the next billing cycle, I’ll need to get this up to advertising. So have you decided to go for it?” How brave and assertive she sounded. Like she cared about the ties at all. She only cared about the door those ties opened—to Brett.

“Of course.”

Patricia started for her purse, a little off-center from having a glass of wine for lunch. Good thing she was a public-transportation-to-work girl. She pulled out her debit card cleverly disguised as a credit card.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Paying for my lunch.”

“And deprive me of a tax deduction? Please. We’ll just put this right on my expense account.”

“Well, thank you very much.” Patricia smiled. Ah, the power of an expense account. Just think what being married to a department store mogul would be like. She faded into a shopping spree fantasy.
Oh, clerk, please put that on Brett Nordquist’s expense account, and order me six more place settings.
It was better than dessert, which she had wisely declined.

Brett signed the bill the waitress brought over and rose to leave. “Shall we?”

Just that easy. Sign and leave. Patricia slid from behind the table, gathering her skirt edge as it rose up her thighs. She looked up to see Brett getting an eyeful. There
was
quite a bit of thigh there to fill his eye. That part hadn’t exactly melted away.

But Brett didn’t seem to mind. She smoothed herself as she rose.

“Thank you for lunch, Mr. Nordquist.”

“Brett, remember?” He held out his arm for her.

“Brett.” She walked beside him, giddy with herself.

“Now, you just let me handle the advertising department on this one. I’ll get the whole thing set up. All you have to do is gather up those ties. I’m sure Ken in the men’s department won’t have any trouble with letting you steal his floor stock.”

“Okay, but I’m perfectly capable of taking care of those details.” Patricia was a little surprised at Brett’s takeover.

“Don’t you worry about all that. And we might
have to get you an assistant. How have you managed to fill all these orders by yourself?”

What was she, a delicate little flower of womanhood? “We do take on extra help during the holidays, Brett.”

“Let’s just put one on early this year to give you a hand. I predict this promotion could be very big.”

“Thank you, I hope it will. We should talk about reorders.”

“Sweetheart, I’ll have it all packaged up and sent over to your office. You know, a girl as pretty as you should be working on the sales floor, not cooped up in a little office in the basement.”

“It’s close to shipping.” Patricia must be wine-affected for letting Brett call her sweetheart. But wasn’t that what she’d always wanted?

“Where would you like to work?”

Quick, who makes the most commission? she thought. It had to be either furniture or jewelry. The highest-ticket items in the store. Or maybe handbags. Those suckers were high-cost. Then again, Paulie might feel weird about her working there.

“Fine jewelry,” she blurted out. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, after all.”

Brett gave her a strange, sharp look. Not the reaction she was looking for. Then he suddenly got all cozy with her as they reached the executive elevator. “I’ll look into that,” he murmured.

Patricia was a little confused, even without her glass of Chardonnay. She’d just brought this big promotion idea to him, and now he was talking about transferring her to another department? Gee, she kind of liked hiding out in her little catalogue office away from the madding crowd.

What now? She stayed quiet as she felt his hand on her back, guiding her into the elevator. She had a strange flash of him being the kind of guy who liked to “guide” a woman in bed. She hated that hand-on-the-back-of-your-head feeling.

In the elevator she noticed he was staring at her. He pushed B for basement. She must get a ride home out of the deal.

“You’re hair is quite unusual. You must be one of those real blondes.” He was staring at her.

“As real as they come,” she said.

“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

Oh man, Paul was making chicken cacciatore. Her third-favorite meal. A departure from meatloaf Monday.

“You’re very pretty, you know?” Brett moved closer to her.

She wondered if he was going to kiss her. He bent in closer. She could smell his Eu Sauvage cologne. A shiver of mind-tingling proportions ran over her body. She leaned back against the wall and tilted her face up in his direction. A kiss on the lips by Brett Nordquist? Wow.

The elevator door opened on B. Damn fast elevators. When the doors opened all the way, there stood Paul. Brett straightened up. He gave Paul a very guy-thing look.

Paul turned a very interesting shade of red. It was hard to see under his recently acquired tan from his last buying trip to Italy, but Patricia knew it was there.

“Miss Stillwell, just the person I was looking for.” Paul reached into the elevator and grabbed her by the arm. “We really must talk about that red Prada bag in the Christmas catalogue. We’re having some problems with distribution.” He dragged her out of the elevator.

She turned briefly and waved to Brett. “Thank
you again,” she said. Paul reached in the elevator and punched seven, the executive offices. “Thanks, Brett, I’ll take her from here.”

The doors whooshed closed in front of Brett’s surprised face.

“Geez, Paulie, boss
interruptus
there.” Patricia squiggled away from his grip.

“Since you’re just frittering away your extra-long lunch, we’ll add a quick cup of espresso to that. You look drunk.”

“One glass of wine.” She shrugged.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you alcohol can impair your judgment?”

“My mother told me too many things,” she snapped.

“Well, you should have listened.” He took her arm again and headed her toward the stairs. She assumed he was heading them to the coffee bar situated across the walk from Via back up on six.

“You are being a twit, Patricia. Brett Nordquist is an egotistical self-involved blowhard.”

“Egotistical and self-involved are the same thing.” Patricia skip-walked to keep up with Paulie.

He kept a hold on her. “Did you know that
he’s been dating Lizbeth Summers for over a year?”

“So what?” Patricia was being snotty now. Paul was being a big macho Italian pain in the butt.

“She wants a ring, and he won’t give it to her. They’re in some weird standoff right now.”

“Sounds like the end is at hand. If he really loved her, he’d want to marry her.”

“Oh brother. Who would have figured you for a Pollyanna?”

“That’s me, sunny side up.” Patricia trudged up the last stair.

“Did he ask you out on a date?” Paul asked.

Patricia was surprised he’d guessed. “None of your beeswax. What are you anyhow, my brother?”

He kept herding her toward the escalator and guided her on like a kid. She’d jerk away from him, but with the small amount of tipsy she was experiencing she’d probably take a header down the escalator, so she let him hold on to her while they switchbacked up more floors.

“I’m going to get some coffee into you and sober you up. Did you eat anything for lunch, or just make a fool of yourself instead?”

“Shut up, you big Italian sausage!”

“Great comeback, Patricia. Italian sausage.” Paulie laughed at her.

They got off on the sixth floor and he steered her to the Java Jive. Paul put her in a chair and ordered two espressos and an espresso brownie for each of them.

“Damn it, Paulie, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m dieting. You put this brownie thing in front of me and I’m a weak-willed chocoholic.”

“Eat up. You need sugar.” He set their tiny white cups and saucers down beside the brownies, then sat across from her.

“Now, listen. Drink that, and listen. Brett is most likely just using you to make Lizbeth jealous.”

“Maybe he’s sick of her and wants a change.” Patricia took a big bite of her brownie.

“Oh, come on, this is Lizbeth Summers we’re talking about.”

“Maybe she bored him to death.”

“You’ve got brownie bits on your lip.” Paul took a napkin and dabbed her lower lip. He stared into her eyes. Then he got all flustered and moved to drink his espresso.

Patricia stirred two teaspoons of sugar into hers. It always tasted like medicine to her, but
she loved the buzz. And a teaspoon of sugar helped the medicine go down. Two did an even better job. She sipped some of it and shuddered. “Whoa. Strong today.”

Paul had gotten very quiet and just sort of glared at her while he drank his espresso.

When the caffeine hit her system, she started to feel sympathy for Paul and his supposed mission. “Paulie, I’m sorry, I know you’re just trying to protect me. But I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. And I hate to tell you this and break all your illusions about me, but
I actually have a thing for Brett.
” She whispered that last part because they weren’t completely alone, and after all, he was their boss.

Paul groaned and rubbed his forehead.

“Not only that, I don’t care if he’s using me to make Lizbeth jealous. It might be my only chance with him. Up until this blonde point in time Brett didn’t know I existed.” Patricia sat back and picked up the rest of her brownie. She hoped Paul understood her. “And by the way, I won’t be home for dinner. I have a date with Brett.”

Patricia remembered she hadn’t answered Brett’s question, being sucked out of the elevator
by a rampaging Italian. She’d have to call him and accept.

His head was pounding and he wanted to strangle her. Either that or he wanted to kiss her. What the hell was he going to do now? She refused to see reason, and he was getting more confused by the moment.

He ate his brownie in three bites and tossed back the last dregs of his espresso. Then he sat back and watched her taking little pinches of her brownie as if that would give it less calories. He’d seen her do that before—pinch at desserts and eat them with her fingers, slowly.

He’d talk to Pinky. That’s what he’d do. Pinky could fix anything. He’d tell her to stop altering vintage dresses and making her look so delicious. No more helping with the makeup and giving her those luscious lips. And were her eyes blue now? Dinner with Brett. That was tragic.

“Chicken cacciatore,” he said. “Your third-favorite?”

“Sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. Would this all wear off when her hair changed back to its normal color?
Would she stop throwing herself at Brett then? He just wanted things to get back to the way they used to be. Just the Three Musketeers and their cat facing the world each day. He wanted to wind the clock back on Patricia—to her pre-blonde self.

Paul heaved a sigh. “I’ll save you some leftovers,” he said.