Underdead (2 page)

Carol didn’t say anything. She just stared at him with a goofy smile on her face, her glasses misting softly. Becky had stopped fanning herself and had settled in for the night of viewing too, planting her elbow on the table and resting her head in her palm. I pushed her elbow out from under her chin and she nearly smacked her chin on the tabletop. She blinked her kohl-lined eyes a few times and grinned sheepishly at me. “Not bad, eh?”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t—I hadn’t yet regained proper speaking powers.

“You should go talk to him,” Becky said, giving me a nudge.

“In front of everyone?” I said. “You’ve got to be joking.” My legs felt like jelly. I gave myself a shake. I was being ridiculous, overreacting. Becky was right. If this was my response to the first good-looking man I saw, I really
did
need to get out more.

“Please. There’s smart, and then there’s stupid,” Carol said, coming up for air. “You’re going to let Roger and a bunch of old gossipy biddies keep you from a man like that?”

Carol was right. It was time I showed a little backbone. “Not when you put it that way,” I said. I risked a glance back in his direction. He was watching the band, giving me a good look at his profile. It was gorgeous too.

Too gorgeous, actually. Sanity returned. I turned around more firmly in my chair.

“Go on.” Becky gave me another little push.

I didn’t budge. “No way,” I said. “There’s something wrong with him.”

“What? What is wrong with him?” Carol demanded.

“He’s boring, he’s vain, he has six wives in various countries, he lives in a yurt with fifteen Chihuahuas, he sells deodorant for a living—I don’t know, but I stand by my theory. No one can be
that
good-looking
and
have a personality.”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Carol said. “What a load of crap!”

Becky gave her a stunned look at this unexpected reversal of argument. Carol never backed off something that had been written up in
Scientific American
.

Carol continued, on a roll now. “Stop inventing reasons to avoid talking to him. If you want to forgo meeting fabulous men to sit here with the likes of us for the rest of your life, be my guest.” Her glasses had slid down her nose and she glared over the top of them at me.

“What she said,” Becky said. “Though I don’t know why you’d even care if he has
thirty
wives and
eats
deodorant for a living. You don’t need to have him around for scintillating conversation—look at him! He’s so hot he doesn’t need a personality. What do you want to talk to him for anyway?”

“Gotta love liberated women,” I muttered. “Equal opportunity chauvinism.”

Becky jiggled the empty margarita pitcher. “Now stop yer stalling and go get us another. And while you’re there, talk to the man. No, wait. You’ll chicken out. I’m going with you.”

“Oh, no, what are you doing?” I squeaked as she pulled me up from the table. Roger sent us an irritated frown and I responded with the look all females possess instinctively, the one that says “ladies’ room”. He cleared his throat and turned away. Unfortunately now I was committed, at least to a trip to the bathroom.

“If you think I’m going to just march up to him and talk to him, you’re wrong,” I said in Becky’s ear as she propelled me out of the alcove. Becky was more forward with men than I was. A lot more forward.

To my relief—and maybe just a
tiny
bit of disappointment—the man in black had disappeared. This didn’t stop Becky. She took an iron grip on my arm and steered us toward the bar through the dense band of people who sat five and six around tiny tables near the dance floor. When we reached the packed bar area, its wooden floor already tacky with spilled drinks, she paused and looked around. “Oh good, he’s right over there.”

My backbone deserted me. She gave my arm another tug, but I dug in my heels. “I don’t
think
so,” I said.

“Don’t worry.” She spoke soothingly, as to a nervous dog, “We’re just going to the bar for another pitcher. And when we get near him, I’ll just give you a little push into him.”

“Becky, don’t you dare! That is so high school.”

“Shhh.” She dropped behind me and fastened her fingers lightly on my waist.

I stopped and turned around to face her. “I mean it, Becky, don’t you dare.”

She gave a disappointed sigh. “Spoilsport. All right. Fine. Scout’s honor.” She held up her hands in a mixed gesture of supplication and Scout salute.

I sighed. “I will talk to him
later
, Becky. I promise. The second Roger’s gone, okay? I’m not that stupid.”

“All right, all right.”

“Now, can we go back to the table?”

Her dark eyebrows disappeared up under her spiky red bangs. “Of course not. We have to get that pitcher while we’re here, or Hot Man will think you came over just to get a closer look.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.”

“C’mon.” She pushed me in the direction of the bar, holding on to me as if I might do a bunk. Which I would have, had we not been boxed in by the crowd.

I ignored the man in black and fixed my attention on a random point behind the bar. It wasn’t any sort of flirtatious coyness—I was legitimately embarrassed. I mean he had caught us staring at him, and now we were heading in his direction like lovesick groupies. Well, to the bar, really, but he didn’t know that. As we were even with him, I felt Becky’s hand leave my waist to tug my arm. Furious, I ignored her and pushed forward. She gave my arm another, stronger tug. As I half turned to tell her to knock it off, I was pulled off balance and spun around. But instead of frowning down into Becky’s mischievous brown eyes, I was glaring at a man’s chest. A very nicely built man’s chest. I tilted my head up and met blue eyes, the blue of the night sky just before the sun totally disappears.

The censure for Becky died on my lips as I got lost a second time staring at the hot man.

His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, and he broke the fraught silence with a simple hello. His voice was low and gravelly with an accent I couldn’t quite place. It made my knees weak. I’ve always been a sucker for an accent
. Oh, no.
I was definitely in for some trouble with this one.

“I hope I didn’t alarm you just now,” said the man in black, “but you looked like you needed rescuing from your dinner party.”

The kitschy disco ball above the adjacent dance floor started to spin, showering him in twinkling fragments of color as if gift-wrapping him in fairy dust. I felt a giggle bubble to the surface and ruthlessly tamped it down.

“You’ve come to save me from certain-death-by-boredom? How wonderful.” I stretched out a hand. “I’m Jo. You must be Prince Charming. How nice to finally meet you.”

“Not quite.” His lips twisted briefly in a wry smile. “Will.” His handshake was good and firm.

“Jo’s an unusual name for a woman,” he said.

“It’s short for Josephine,” I admitted.
Why had I told him that?
I never told
anyone
that. Even my bank knew me as “Jo”.

The band had launched into a funky, ironic rendition of an old disco tune and the crowd around us surged with enthusiasm. I had to place a hand against the wall to keep my balance.

“It’s getting a little crowded in here,” Will said, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “Maybe we should go out to the back porch where we can talk?”

He pointed toward an open doorway at the back of the dance floor where a heavyset bouncer stood guard, but my attention was turned in the other direction.

Becky had scuttled back to our table. She and Carol were pointedly looking elsewhere and Roger was fully absorbed in whatever he was saying, but the rest of my colleagues were getting restless. Hunky Bob was pointing to the band with one beefy hand and Kendra’s new blonde highlights glinted as her head swiveled to follow. After four hours of talking nonstop sports, they’d picked
now
to run out of things to bore people with?

I gave in to the inevitable. It was one thing to be talking to Will while waiting in line for the bar, quite another to be seen leaving with him. Even if it was only to the back porch.

As I opened my mouth to decline, a strong jab pushed me off-balance and I lost my footing. Will caught me and held me upright.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, thanks…”

He was holding me at a respectful distance, but really, twenty feet was too close to this man. His beautiful blue eyes had darkened with concern and I felt a strange recklessness. My nosy, gossipy coworkers could take pictures for all I cared.

“Maybe some air would be good,” I said. The words seemed to tumble out on their own.

The crowd opened up for us as if by magic and Will steered me out into a relatively private nook another couple had vacated. The porch area was about the size of a four-car garage and enclosed by two-story tall cypress trees. It might have been claustrophobic but for a clever arrangement of potted green ficuses and red Japanese maples that divided the area into smaller, inviting alcoves. Everything was strung with those fat multicolored bulbs that had been big in the Seventies. I’m sure the effect was supposed to be ironic or retro or something, but to me it just looked pretty and festive.

I knew all this because conversation had ceased between us and I was looking everywhere but at him. We were practically alone out there, and with this man I definitely needed a chaperone. I snuck a glance at Will from under my lashes. He seemed far away, an odd look on his face I couldn’t interpret.

The silence became too much for me and I had to say something, anything—so long as it was witty, clever and engaging.

“I’m afraid I’m not very good at small talk,” I said.

Jeez.

“That’s all right, we don’t need to talk.” He gave me a lazy, slightly wicked smile that made me clutch the railing for support.

For some reason I couldn’t explain—maybe I was on auto-stupid-pilot—I did the only thing that could make it worse. I launched into a long, unnecessary explanation.

“I’ve never been good at small talk; I never know what to say. That’s why I usually avoid this sort of place. You’re not supposed to discuss anything controversial, intellectual, or personal. Pretty much anything worth discussing is taboo. Why can’t people talk about something interesting when they meet, like…” I threw up my hands. “I don’t know, what book they’re reading? Instead you’re stuck with insipid and inane topics like the weather and
that
hardly varies in Southern California. Oh, never mind,” I said, a little confused myself at how it had come out.

Will regarded me narrowly, as if I were a kitten that had suddenly sprouted horns, and took a step back.
Great.
Maybe, if I was lucky, the Earth would open up and swallow me whole.

When he finally spoke, it was the last thing I would have expected.

“If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say you will please restrict your remarks to the weather.” Then he smiled, a genuine full-blown grin. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and relaxed back against the railing.

“I see you know your Jane Austen. I suppose you saw the movie.”

“I read the book, too.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I’d never met a man—a straight man anyway—outside the occasional English teacher forced to include Austen in his curriculum, who had read
Sense and Sensibility
, much less was willing to admit to it.

“Had sisters, growing up.” He shrugged and lean muscles moved under his shirt.

“Tell me then, Jo, who finds small talk inane, have you read anything interesting lately?” He spoke nonchalantly but watched me keenly, as if my answer mattered.

All I could think of was the half-finished mystery on my nightstand and the pile of Regency romance novels I bought for a quarter at the library and hoarded in a pile under my bed for particularly nasty days. Judge me when you start teaching thirteen-year-olds.

“What genre?” I asked, stalling shamelessly.

His eyes took on a challenging glint. “I’ve been reading some intriguing works by Rousseau on the nature of society. But we can discuss whatever
genre
you like.”

French philosophy? Great.
That’s what you get for being such a babbling prude
, I told myself. No doubt it was karmic payback for my stupid theory about
his
intelligence. “Why don’t we start with Jane Austen and work our way up to solving the world’s problems.”

I half expected him to turn away in disgust, but he laughed good-naturedly and we proceeded to discuss books. As he appeared to have read everything ever written, the conversation drifted all over the place. The enclosed porch filled and emptied several times, though I barely noticed the other people. We might have talked for ten minutes or ten hours.

I was lightly lampooning his theory that Utopia could exist outside the pages of literature when the conversation took an abrupt right turn.

“Do you believe in destiny?” he asked.

It was the worst pick-up line since “Hey, baby, what’s your sign”.

I didn’t realize I’d said the words out loud until he gave a small shake of his head and said, “You misunderstand me. I’m asking whether you believe our lives are governed by fate or free will.”

I let out a breath of relief. He hadn’t turned into a freak on me, after all. “Free will,” I said, “though it’s less a well-formed philosophy than wishful thinking. If I didn’t think I had some choice in what happens to me, I wouldn’t want to get out of bed in the morning.”

In reply, he muttered something in Latin.

A light bulb went off in my thick skull. Not that I understood Latin. I didn’t. But I
was
familiar with people suddenly shifting into the dead language. I’d seen it at work a hundred times. My eyes narrowed. “You’re an English teacher,” I accused him.

“No.”

“Philosophy? History?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I just read a lot.”

“What
do
you do then?”

The laughter seemed to fall from his face, and I wondered if I had inadvertently brought up a sore subject.