Читать книгу At Her Beck and Call - Dawn Atkins - Страница 7

IT WAS EARLY EVENING when Autumn entered the Copper Corners High auditorium to check on Jasmine, who was at the first rehearsal of the pageant. The job Jasmine had designing costumes would pay for her daughter Sabrina’s nearby summer camp since the burlesque revue Autumn and Jasmine were in together was on hiatus for the summer.

Jasmine was fired up about the two friends spending quality time together, but her real purpose for being here was to spend time with her new guy—Mark Fields, brother to Heidi and Mayor Mike.

From close to the stage, Jasmine spotted Autumn and hurried down the aisle carrying a bolt of fabric. “So? Did you get the job?” Jasmine asked, when she was close.

When Autumn nodded, Jasmine whooped, threw down the fabric and hugged Autumn so fast and hard that Autumn accidentally bit her own tongue. “That’s so fabulous!” Jasmine said, then leaned back. “Hey, aren’t you happy about it?”

“Yeth. Bery ha-y,” Autumn said over her aching tongue. Except she was queasy about how she’d gotten the job. She’d caught Mayor Mike in a lust daze and worked it.

Use what you got had always been her philosophy, but using the sex angle had felt like selling out her new self—the woman who got ahead with her brains, not her body.

The idea made her head hurt. Or maybe it was the French braid that she’d pulled so tight her scalp ached. She’d changed into more casual clothes, but had forgotten to let down her hair.

Or maybe it was her reaction to Mayor Mike’s lust. She’d felt an answering response that had turned her insides to liquid.

Ridiculous. The man was her boss. Completely off-limits, even if she had time for sex. Which she hadn’t since she started school.

“So what have you been up to?” Jasmine asked.

Besides seducing the mayor into hiring me? “Not much. I unpacked, did some housework, fed the pets.” They’d scored free rent in exchange for doing light housekeeping, watering the plants and taking care of the owners’ two cats, freshwater fish tank and a terrarium of turtles and lizards.

“I gave the chuckwalla some meal worms.”

“Gross.” Jasmine scrunched up her nose.

“Everybody has to eat. Though I don’t get the Huffmans. Why spend so much on creatures that couldn’t care less?” The Huffmans had bought piles of toys and elaborate hideout towers for their two cats. The fish tank was jammed with plastic plants, a castle and tunnels, and the lizards and turtles had a tiny creek, decorative boulders and miniature hollow logs in their terrarium. The care instructions filled two typed pages.

“I’m sure the animals love them back,” Jasmine said.

“With brains the size of kiwi seeds? How much love can there be?”

Jasmine shrugged. “The cats are affectionate.”

“When there’s food involved, sure.” Though Autumn respected a cat’s self-sufficiency. If you took care of your own needs, you never got disappointed. “How about you? You’re here for the read-through, right? And did you get Sabrina to camp okay?”

“Yes. She made a friend right away. The girl brought the same Bratz doll to camp.”

“That’s a relief.” Autumn worried about Sabrina, who was eleven, pretty and bright, but fought a weight problem, social awkwardness and puberty, which had her giddy with joy one minute, steamrolled by depression the next.

Jasmine tended to gloss over Sabrina’s troubles, but Autumn connected with Sabrina—they shared a sense of isolation—and she listened in, advised where she could and felt good that Sabrina saved up her tales of triumph and agony for “Auntie Autumn.” Autumn loved that. It made her feel like family. Jasmine said Autumn was Sabrina’s aunt of the heart, as opposed to her real aunts who were too flaky and selfish to be much support to their niece. Or their sister, for that matter.

“Camp will be good for her,” Autumn said. “Fresh air, physical activity, new friends.” Summer camp had been one of Jasmine’s more sensible ideas. She had a tendency to overspend on Sabrina, though the budget Autumn had helped her with had encouraged her to be more thrifty. Jasmine thanked Autumn over and over for the college savings account that was slowly building.

Jasmine leaned on Autumn for financial advice, support at work and help with Sabrina, but she held her hands to her ears whenever it came to romantic issues.

This latest was the worst. Mark Fields got a walking-into-walls crush on Jasmine after seeing her perform a few months ago. Two short visits and some phone calls later and Jasmine had declared him Mr. Forever.

This worried the hell out of Autumn. Jasmine fell in love too fast and the breakups devastated her. She’d spend days in bed sobbing, blackout curtains in place, leaving poor Sabrina to fend for herself. Autumn always felt so helpless when her friend suffered. And she wanted to kick the shit out of the scumbags who caused it. Each time, Jasmine made Autumn swear: Never let me do that again. I mean it this time.

Easier said than done. Jasmine was too much of a romantic. Why couldn’t she just accept lust for what it was and not dress it up in a ball gown of love and parade it around?

During the month in Copper Corners, Autumn hoped to help Jasmine ease back into reality—the way you gently guided a sleepwalker back to bed—before things went bad. She worried about Sabrina, who did not need another father figure to disappear as soon as the affair cooled. Which it likely would.

“You have time for dinner?” Autumn asked her.

“Dinner? Uh, well I—” Jasmine blushed “—I’m kind of waiting for Mark. He plays the town founder, Josiah Bremmer. It’s the lead. So he’s got to be here for the reading.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“You don’t mind,” Jasmine said. “Really?”

“I’ll grab something at the diner. I want to make it an early night anyway. Maybe I’ll study.” Now that she’d forced Mike to give her the job, the jitters had started up. Working for Copper Corners would not be as simple as tracking the receipts at the strip club for Duke. She would be accountable for the entire town’s finances. There were budgets to wrangle and Lydia’s complex software to figure out.

She didn’t dare screw up. She needed the mayor’s recommendation for her class and her résumé. Plus, she’d practically strong-armed him into hiring her. Her pride was at stake.

“How’s this going?” she asked Jasmine, nodding toward the lit stage, where people stood talking, scripts in hand. Two young guys banged away on a rickety-looking covered wagon, while two girls painted saguaro cactus onto a backdrop of a pink-and-orange desert sunset.

“They’re waiting for Mark to start.” Jasmine sighed like an obsessed fan.

“It looks fun.” Autumn loved the feel of the theater—the bright-white lights, the black-painted stage, the smells of wood and linen and paint and pancake makeup. She’d discovered the glory of it when she got a part in a high school musical, but that was an old story that had ended all wrong.

She felt similarly when she performed in the three-woman burlesque revue with Jasmine, who did their costumes, and Nevada Neru, their choreographer. The revue had opened last year to rave reviews and had drawn steady crowds all season. She loved the excitement, the magic, the rapt faces of the audience. When she performed she felt so alive.

She enjoyed the revue better than straight stripping, she’d concluded, because they were a team and their dances were more complex and told a story.

“There’s the director, Sheila,” Jasmine said, pointing to a blond woman who was gesturing dramatically as she talked to the actors on stage. “She wants to meet you.”

“You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“That you’re a stripper? No. I promised I wouldn’t.”

“Good. And no telling Mark, either.” Autumn had been off the night Mark saw the revue, so, if Jasmine kept her promise, Autumn could remain incognito while she was here.

“You’re safe,” Jasmine said in a stage whisper. “No one knows that inside the chest of an ordinary accountant beats the heart of a man-killing pole dancer.”

“And let’s keep it that way,” Autumn said.

“I don’t know why it’s such a big deal. Sheila thinks it’s great that I’m a stripper. She auditioned to be a Vegas showgirl, you know.”

“You give people too much credit, Jasmine. Strippers scare the hell out of women and turn men into slathering beasts.”

“What the hell is slather? Is it sweat or drool?”

“You’re ignoring my point.”

“Whatever. How does the mayor seem as a boss?” Jasmine asked, doing it again.

“It’s too soon to tell.” Heidi had described Mike as everybody’s big brother, and in just the few minutes it took Autumn to fill out payroll papers, she’d seen that. Mike had taken several calls that all ended in him offering some kind of help, then headed out to discuss a property dispute between two ranchers.

“I wonder what’s keeping Mark?” Jasmine looked up the burgundy-carpeted aisle toward the auditorium door, practically quivering in anticipation.

As if on cue, the door opened and two men entered—Mike and a guy who looked like a smaller version of him carrying an armload of books.

“There he is,” Jasmine breathed.

Autumn enjoyed what she could see of the night sky through the doorway before it shut. One nice thing about a tiny town—its few lights didn’t interfere with the darkness so the sky could show off all its stars, millions of tiny pin-pricks in the velvet vastness. The big sky almost made up for the small minds.

The brothers loped toward them. Autumn was annoyed to realize that watching Mike approach had her holding her breath.

“Well, hello,” Mike said. He seemed surprised to see her there. “This is Autumn Beshkin, Mark. She’s taking over for—” He turned to his brother, who was busy staring at Jasmine.

“Missed you,” Mark whispered.

“Me, too,” Jasmine said, looking at him as though she wanted to swallow him whole. They’d seen each other the night before. How could they miss each other?

“Give her the books,” Mike muttered, elbowing his brother in a way that showed he was annoyed, too.

“Books? Yeah, sure.” Mark extended his armload. “Here’s the town history, some Web sites and stuff on old mining towns.”

“Thank you, Mark. So much.” You’d think he’d given her an orgasm.

“That’s a lot of reading,” Autumn observed.

“I want my costumes to be authentic.”

“Don’t you have to get up there?” Mike said to his brother, nodding toward the stage.

“Yeah,” Mark said, his eyes glued to Jasmine.

“The director’s heading over here,” Autumn said, rolling her eyes. She caught Mike doing the same. She hoped it was because of how silly these two were behaving and not because he disapproved of Jasmine.

“There you are, Mark!” Sheila chirped. “We need you on stage. If we can pry you away from our costume designer here.” She smiled indulgently at them both. Already Sheila knew about the affair. So much for discretion.

Sheila turned to Mike. “What brings you here, Mayor? Are you interested in a part, too? I think we could fit you in if—”

“No, no. Please. Just want to be sure you have what you need, Sheila, for the production.”

“So far, so good. I’m thrilled to have a real costumer. I’m still pinching myself. Plus the president of the Chamber of Commerce as our star? I’m simply stunned by my good fortune. Simply stunned.”

“We all are stunned.” Mike shot his brother a look. “Considering how busy the guy is with his real estate business and his town committees.”

“Oh, he’s very, very busy, all right.” Sheila winked and she clearly meant an entirely different kind of busy.

Mike frowned. “So the budget is fine?” he asked Sheila, obviously to change the subject.

“You have enough money for the fabrics, Jasmine?” Sheila asked.

There was a pause while Jasmine seemed to descend from her pink cloud. “Hmm? Oh, uh, yes. I’ll have sketches soon. This is my friend, Autumn Beshkin, Sheila.”

“So pleased to meet you,” Sheila said, shaking Autumn’s hand with both of hers. “We’re so grateful to have your talented friend with us. Aren’t we lucky she had time to do our pageant?” She turned to the brothers.

“Very lucky,” Mark said, looking moonstruck.

Good freakin’ Lord. Autumn caught Mike’s look. He seemed to feel the same as she did.

“So, shall we get started? Hmm?” Sheila sang, holding out her arms to shoo Jasmine and Mark before her like baby chicks.

“Let me know if you need anything else, Sheila,” Mike said.

“Count on it,” Sheila said, the airy music gone from her voice. Beneath the sugary gratitude was a woman who would kick ass when necessary. That made Autumn smile.

Mike turned to her. “Like I said, this festival’s big—one-five-oh. Sesquicentennial, though everyone says ‘Huh?’ when you use that word. Big budget, fancy pageant and a full festival.”

“And you’re in charge?”

“That’s what they tell me.” He spoke as though it was a burden, but she could tell he wouldn’t have it any other way.

She understood. Nevada and Jasmine sometimes accused her of running the revue when she filled in the gaps. Her official job was promotion and scheduling, but she did what needed to be done. “I’m here to help however you need me.”

“Yeah.” In the cool dimness of the auditorium, he gave her that look again. Saw right into her. She’d never felt that before with a man and it startled her. For a second, she seemed to be floating in a pale version of Jasmine’s pink cloud. Weird.

Mike seemed to jolt back to normal himself. “So, have you eaten?”

“Not yet, no.”

“How about I treat you to dinner? We can go to Louie’s if you like Italian. Yolanda’s Cocina, the diner down the street, has Mexican food. Got a write-up in Tucson Weekly, mostly for the kitschy artwork.”

“The diner sounds good,” she said, ignoring the steady buzz of attraction in her head. This was not a good idea.

She needed to eat, didn’t she? And the better she knew the mayor, the easier it would be to give him what he wanted at work, right? She could ferret out job details. Sure.

And enjoy his wry smile, intense eyes and nice smell….

Lord, she was acting just like Jasmine.