Sleeping with Beauty Page 3

  Jana had taken it upon herself to fix her best friend up with the occasional athlete, newspaper reporter, or franchise executive. This was not a bad thing, in theory. Jana knew the kind of guy Lucy went for and came through like a champ. The problem? The only ones who called her back were the recent Russian athletic imports, who spoke next-to-no English but were very willing to let her do their laundry and fix them breakfast in the morning. Or the vertically challenged Washington power execs who thought that having an almost-six-foot woman on their arm—even a mousy, fashion-challenged klutz such as herself (she was the anti–Heidi Klum)—somehow compensated for their, uh, shortcomings.

  It wasn’t like she was looking for wedded bliss. Or even a seriously committed relationship. But it would be nice on the nights that Dave was in town to have someone else to rely on as a movie-and-coffee date. Sex was optional, though preferred. Of course, there was Grady, providing he wasn’t working. Except he always was.

  He’d become a think-tank genius for some government setup, in charge of creating God-only-knew-what kind of technological wonders. Lucy had asked him for details once, but with his typical deadpan humor, he’d spouted the very tired “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you” line. With anyone else, she’d have rolled her eyes. Only, where Grady was concerned, well, she still wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t been telling her the truth. Of course, macho as all that sounded, the bottom line was, whatever he did for their government, he was doing it in a lab. Hardly James Bond. More like Q.

  Not that he didn’t socialize in between designing fountain pens that were actually poison darts or nametags that secretly harbored powerful zoom lenses. He jogged and played racquetball—two activities he’d invited her to participate in a total of once. Her insurance through the school system just wasn’t that broad-ranging, and his first-aid skills were negligible. Apparently his mad-inventor genius didn’t extend to devising a racquet that magnetically attracted the ball to it, thereby rendering skill and coordination a noncompetitive factor.

  Grady dated, but he didn’t talk about the women in his life much. Still, she and Jana knew they existed. You could always tell when Grady had gotten laid. He sprang for the pizza and the beer at their quasiregular get-togethers. But he still didn’t talk about them. Probably because he’d so wittily eviscerated every guy Lucy had ever dated, that he didn’t dare. But she and Jana suspected that if he ever got serious, they’d know, because he’d bring her to one of their get-togethers. That’s how they’d met Dave. It was like introducing your intended to family. They each had their own families, of course—in a manner of speaking, anyway—but the opinions that truly mattered would always be one another’s.

  Lucy considered it a blessing that, despite his critiques, Grady never offered to fix her up. She’d met several of his coworkers over the years. Bam! candidates they were not.

  But Grady came through for her in far more important ways. He’d long since stopped having to rescue her, of course. Well, not counting that time two Thanksgivings ago when she’d been craning her neck to get a look at the new frozen-food guy and ended up plowing her grocery cart into the carefully arranged display of pumpkin-pie filling, condensed milk, and canned cranberries. Grady had managed to calm the store manager down and get the hunky frozen-food guy to put a bag of frozen limas on the lump that had sprouted so becomingly on her forehead. Truly her hero, that Grady, even if the frozen-food guy had turned out to be more interested in getting Grady’s phone number than hers. But really, most of the time she hardly ever needed rescuing. Physically, anyway.

  In the words of the great Mick Jagger, Grady was oftentimes her “emotional rescue.” The best thing about him was that she knew with absolute certainty he would stop whatever he was doing, possibly jeopardizing national security, to be there for her if she really needed him.

  Of course, her parents were more than glad to fix her up, and did, with painful frequency. It seemed beyond their academia-saturated comprehension that their nice, well-educated, and respectably employed twenty-eight-year-old daughter wouldn’t fall for “a catch” like American alumnus and department head Hugh Wadell. A forty-two-year-old divorced anthropology professor with alternate-weekend visitation rights. She supposed it was her fault for not making a romance match while her parents were still going through the staff roster of single men in their thirties. She loved her parents dearly, but unlike her mother, she didn’t feel the urge to order wedding invitations simply because the guy in question could complete the Sunday Post crossword in pen. If these were her choices, she’d rather stay solo, bam! or no bam!

  It was just, sometimes it got a little depressing that the guys who called her back weren’t the ones that sparked her. And the ones that did spark her didn’t even look in her direction, much less ask for a phone number. Not that she hadn’t put herself out there. But the result of her attempts? She could write a book on “I’m Hot, and . . . Well, You’re Not” letdowns:

  “You’re such a nice person, I know the perfect guy is out there for you.”

  “I wish I was the one for you, you have so much to offer the right man.”

  “It’s totally me.”

  “You’re so together and, well, I guess I still have some growing up to do.”

  And her personal favorite:

  “You understand me better than anyone I’ve ever met. Let’s stay friends, okay?”

  She understood, all right.

  But was it so wrong of her to want what she wanted? To be honest, and very possibly shallow, she wanted to experience, at least once in her life, a night of wild, out-of-control, down-and-dirty, multiple-condom sex. With a sober partner who called her by the right name. And no coats on the bed. Or other drunken party guests.

  What she wanted was a guy who was as turned on by her as she was by him. At this point she’d be happy with missionary position and an orgasm, as long as both parties were still in the same room for Part A and Part B.

  Did that make her pathetic? Desperate? She didn’t think so. A girl could dream, couldn’t she? Fantasize? Hallucinate?

  Then the reunion invitation had arrived. The very same day she’d tossed Glass Slipper into her shopping cart. Who could have guessed that one innocent little postcard and a makeover magazine would start a chain of events that would turn her entire life upside down. Or at the very least, the last two weeks of her summer break.

  Lucy opened the magazine to the “Inner Beauty Boot Camp” article she’d marked with the reunion postcard. They promised miracles.

  So what if she decided to go to the reunion after all? Maybe what she needed to get her head on straight was to take this opportunity to go back and revise past history, beginning with getting the attention of a rumored-to-be still-single Jason Prescott. Well then, a miracle was exactly what she needed.

  Fate had long since given up sending her signs. So, probably, had God.

  It was time she took matters into her own hands.

  Chapter 2

  How is it that Debbie Markham still manages to come across petite and blonde on an e-mail loop?” Lucy straightened from her hunched position behind her friend’s shoulder. She didn’t want to read any more reunion posts.

  “You’re just projecting,” Jana told her, stuffing the last of her Sun Chips in her mouth. “For all you know, she’s turned into a leather-skinned tanning-bed junkie with overprocessed highlights, saggy tits, a flabby ass, and married to a balding, nearsighted CPA who likes it when she wears that leopard-print nightie he bought her at Marshall’s for Mother’s Day.”

  Lucy’s smile was decidedly unkind as she clasped her hands beneath her chin. “Do you think?” Then her shoulders drooped. “Nah. My karma would never be that good.” She sighed and balled up her sandwich wrapper. “But I appreciate the visual, so thanks for that.”

  “I live to serve.”

  “I still say you should consider writing fiction. You’re a natural.”

  “Right. Then you’d give it to your mother, who would
delight in desecrating it with her beloved red pen.”

  “My mother loves you.”

  “Me, yes. My work, not so much. I get enough of that kind of love from my editor, thanks.”

  Jana was probably right. But then her mother, much like the rest of the Harper clan, really wasn’t a sports person. Lucy brushed crumbs off her shirt and slid from her perch on the computer-lab table. Instead of reading about the exaggerated exploits of a group of people she’d once loathed and had long since ceased to care about, she should be using her remaining summer break time to put her classroom in order. “I guess I’m just not a loop person.”

  “Truer words,” Jana agreed, having been the first one to point that out two weeks earlier when Lucy had signed up on a whim after they’d received their invitations from the reunion committee, complete with information on how to join the reunion group on Yahoo! Thankfully she didn’t rub it in. But then, the look on her face precluded that necessity. “You’ve become a first-class lurker, I’ll give you that. Most entertaining lunch breaks I’ve had in years. Of course, anything beats the hell out of listening to that insufferable asshole Frank belch out his latest know-it-all opinions on the Redskins, the Wizards, the Capitals, the effect of the Cold War on American sports, the dawn of the solar system—”

  “You’re just pissed because his column got picked up for syndication.”

  “Damn straight I am. His columns are pompous and arrogant, not to mention out of step and uninformed. And I don’t care if his father once played for the Senators. It’s not like he’s an effing sports guru just because his dad had a .341 career batting average and came within one season of tying DiMaggio’s record.” She lobbed her wadded-up trash at the small wastebasket beside Lucy’s desk, missing by a wide margin, despite being less than two feet away. It was a good thing Jana only wrote about sports.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said, “but can he consistently miss an easy two-pointer with his fanny wedged in a third-grade desk? I think not.”

  Jana sighed and let the front legs of her chair thump back on the tile floor. “True. My wrist action sucks and my release is all wrong. I shoot like a girl.”

  Lucy lowered her chin and shot Jana a look. “Please don’t tell me you bribed Dave into trying to teach you how to play hoops again.”

  She shouldn’t give her friend a hard time. It was sad, really. Jana was a die-hard jock, always had been. Maybe it was the very lack of any kind of continuous male influence in her life, but she’d been hooked on sports as long as Lucy had known her. From the time she could read, she devoured the sports section of the Post and every issue of Sports Illustrated. ESPN’s SportsCenter was her version of CNN.

  Jana could tell you the starting lineup for any team, college or pro, in any of the major sports. She could whip out stats, debate the merits of the most complex coaching strategy, and pretty much wipe the floor with you in terms of predicting draft choices and win-loss records well before the season started. Any season. She worshiped sports. All sports.

  She was just completely inept at actually playing any of them.

  But it didn’t stop her from trying. Bless her heart.

  Lucy, quite happy with her status as an avowed—and therefore injury-free—couch potato, said, “He’s a hockey player, Jana. How many times—”

  “A hockey player with excellent eye-hand coordination. The man can routinely stop a puck flying at him over eighty miles an hour, while wearing skates and more pads than the Michelin Man. You’d think he’d be able to teach me how to sink a simple layup.” Jana frowned. “I tried hockey, remember? It’s too many things at once. Skating and trying to stay upright and trying to hit a ball with a stick? I can’t do any of that individually yet, much less combined. So I went for something more straightforward.” She pointed her Snapple bottle at Lucy. “And, more important, something that can be played in sneakers and shorts. Put the ball in the net. It just shouldn’t be that hard.”

  After a “there, there” pat to Jana’s shoulder, Lucy went back to unpacking school supplies. One thing she loved about her best friend was that, while Jana might be quick to boil—a much-hated redhead cliché that she nevertheless owned up to—she simmered down just as fast. “I agree with you, if it makes any difference,” Lucy offered. “About the syndication thing. I like your columns. You’re not condescending, and you have the kind of style and energy in your writing that can make even fellow uncoordinated losers like me read the sports page. Well, a column of it, anyway.” She glanced over her shoulder at Jana, who’d turned back to the computer terminal. “Of course, you’re no Christine Brennan, but—”

  “I have deadly aim and a whole box of Crayolas within easy reach,” Jana reminded Lucy, never looking away from the screen as she casually clicked through posts.

  Lucy snorted. “Deadly aim. Right.”

  “All I have to do is aim for the chalkboard and I could nail you in the back of the head with no problem. Trust me.”

  Lucy grinned and went back to stocking tempera paint and brushes in the locking overhead cabinet, well away from the ever-questing fingers of her next batch of heathens. She’d given up on the honor system last year after coming back from a quick hallway consultation with the principal to find Billy Cantrell drinking Sunshine Yellow, straight up, no twist. Fellow classmate Doug “The Instigator” Blackwell had convinced him it would make him fly. Doug was her prime candidate for the first student ever busted in Meadow Lane Elementary for selling a controlled substance. Billy would probably be his first customer.

  “So, should we unsubscribe?” Jana’s finger hovered over the DELETE button.

  “No!” Lucy almost dumped a whole carton of Sky Blue in her efforts to get to Jana before she could act.

  “Whoa there, hoss,” Jana said, laughing. “What’s up with that? Did we not just agree that reestablishing any kind of umbilical relationship with these people is detrimental to our psychological health? Not to mention our hard-won self-esteem?”

  Lucy vainly attempted to reclaim what was left of her dignity. “That doesn’t mean we have to stop anonymously enjoying ourselves at their expense, right? I mean, they did that to us for years, right to our faces. Come on, Grady’ll be here soon. You know he’ll make you laugh. Besides, it’s only for a few more weeks.”

  “Six,” Jana corrected, then her gaze narrowed. “You are not still considering actually going to the stupid reunion, are you?”

  Lucy waited a beat too long in answering. She hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Jana about the appointment she’d already set up at Glass Slipper, Inc. She needed to do that. The last two-week session of their special miracle camp started this weekend. Someone had to water her plants.

  Jana swore beneath her breath. “Didn’t we take enough abuse at the hands of these people? Are we such gluttons for punishment that, ten years later, we want to give them another shot? Why would you even consider putting yourself in that position?”

  “Maybe I’m holding out hope that Debbie Markham really does have flabby tits.”

  “Ass. Saggy tits.”

  “Works either way.”

  “Don’t jump off topic here.”

  “Why are you drilling me about this? What are you writing, an article or something?”

  “Hmm, maybe I should,” Jana said, tapping a finger to her chin. “How about: ‘Gearing Up for Your High School Reunion: A Full-Contact Psychological Sport, Not for the Timid.’ ”

  Lucy squeezed herself into the seat next to Jana. “Maybe the whole point of going back is to prove we’ve progressed beyond allowing others to define ourselves.” That sounded pretty good, she thought. She almost believed it herself.

  “There is nothing wrong with mocking our pretentious, overzealous, label-conscious classmates in the sanctity of your empty classroom. Considering it’s like a million degrees outside, this is the best lunchtime sport going. But why ruin the fun by giving them a chance to reciprocate?” Jana clicked through the messages posted since their last lunch get-togeth
er, skimming for something juicy they could pounce on. “You know, I thought we were on the same team here. Unified in our conviction to let the overbearing assholes inflict themselves on one another while we go out and do something less painful, like getting matching root canals. Why the sudden change of heart?” Then her fingers paused on the keys, before quickly clicking back to the previous message. “What in the what what?” Jana pushed her glasses up and leaned closer to the screen. Then turned an accusing glare at Lucy.

  Who suddenly pretended a great interest in the last dregs of her Diet Coke. Dammit, why hadn’t she just let Jana unsubscribe when she had the chance?

  Redheads, as it happened, made the best glarers. They’d known each other for over twenty years now and Lucy still was not immune.

  Lucy fidgeted, which was hard to do, wedged as she was in the tiny desk/chair combo. “What?” she finally asked, feigning complete innocence even though she knew she was already busted. She set her empty can on the desk. Where was a good stiff belt of Sunshine Yellow when you needed it?

  “Jason Prescott, is what. And you damn well know it. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? My God, I’m surprised every other freaking post isn’t about the golden boy coming home. Fatted calves are probably being slaughtered as we speak.”

  “It’s been ten years. I’m pretty sure ‘the golden boy’ statute runs out somewhere by sophomore year of college.”