Читать книгу Mood Swing - Jane Graves - Страница 9

Later that night, Tonya pulled her Ford Fiesta to the curb in front of her house, half expecting to see Kendra Willis’s car in the driveway getting cozy with Dale’s 4 x 4, while Kendra was in the house getting cozy with Dale. But the only other car she saw was Cliff’s old Buick with the bad transmission, which was undoubtedly leaking fluid all over the driveway.

The living room blinds were open. The two men sat sprawled on the sofa with their feet on the coffee table, which meant they were probably watching Monday night football, and that irritated the hell out of Tonya. Her husband was in there drinking beer and watching the game with one of his firefighter buddies, while she sat out there with her hands clenching the steering wheel and her heart tied up in knots.

Two weeks ago, after the court proceedings, she’d given him the cold shoulder—no talk, no sex, no nothing—just so he’d never forget how pissed she was. When he hadn’t seemed to care about that, she’d gotten progressively more frustrated, until one day she lost it a little and gave him an ultimatum. She told him that if he didn’t apologize for everything he’d done and swear he’d never look at another woman again, she was going to leave. He told her he wasn’t apologizing for anything. Then he went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer and a sack of pretzels and headed for the living room, where he sat down on the sofa and flipped on a NASCAR race.

It stunned her so much that she said fine, packed some clothes, her toothbrush and her makeup and told him she’d be in the apartment over her hair salon whenever he came to his senses.

A week later, she was still there.

Go, she told herself. Drive away. Go back to your apartment and stay there until you get that apology you’ve got coming.

But deep inside she had the most horrible feeling that the week she’d already waited would turn into two weeks, then three, and then Dale would realize he didn’t need her after all and she’d go to the mailbox one day and the divorce papers would be there.

Tonya lit a cigarette and took a hard drag, forcing herself to think. Finally she decided that the house was hers, too, so of course she had a right to walk in anytime she wanted to. And she looked just hot enough tonight that she was sure to get Dale’s attention. He’d always told her he didn’t like her wearing this particular skirt around other men because they couldn’t keep their eyes off her. Maybe if she strutted through the living room, Cliff’s gaze would wander a little, and then Dale’s possessive streak would take over and he’d want her to come home. Men weren’t like women. Sometimes you had to get right in their faces to remind them of what was important.

She took a last drag on her cigarette and ground it out in the ashtray, before popping a few Tic Tacs. After checking her makeup and putting on more lipstick, she took a deep breath and got out of the car. On the way to the door, she made up a reason why she’d dropped by just in case Dale didn’t jump right up and beg her to stay. But she hoped he would, if for no other reason than that he hadn’t had sex in a week.

Unless he’d gone back for another round with Kendra Willis.

Shoving that horrible thought aside, Tonya stuck her key in the lock and opened the door. Dale came to attention right away, and when their eyes met, she smiled. Just a little. And when he sat back on the sofa, his face stoic, her heart crumbled.

“Now, don’t you boys get up on my account,” Tonya said, with just the right amount of offhanded sarcasm, as if she really didn’t give a damn about any of this. “I just came by for a few things.”

She went into their bedroom, where she found the bed neatly made. That didn’t surprise her. Whenever she told other women that Dale actually did housework, they always said, All those good looks, and he helps out, too? It had always made her feel so good to be able to give them a superior little smile that said, you bet he does, and he’s all mine.

But that wasn’t true. He wasn’t all hers. Not anymore.

She pulled back the bedspread a little and gave the pillowcases a sniff, relieved to find no evidence of Kendra’s god-awful perfume. They just smelled like Dale. She leaned in closer and inhaled again.

“Tonya?”

She spun around to see Dale leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, those big, beautiful biceps bulging.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I told you, honey,” she said, dropping the bedspread and heading for the closet. “I came to pick up a few things.”

She opened the door and blindly pulled a few sweaters off hangers, then grabbed a pair of shoes.

“Those are sandals,” he said. “It’s forty degrees out.”

“Fashion before comfort, you know?”

“Did you go to your first class tonight?”

“Of course I did. Legally speaking, I didn’t have a choice, now did I?”

“Because we’re not going to work this out until you learn to control your temper.”

“We’re not going to work this out,” she said, “until you stop screwing other women.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could yank them back. Making him mad wasn’t going to help things. A little shaky, she turned to grab another sweater.

“Why are you really here?” Dale asked.

“To get some things, like I told you. Oh, yeah. And I was thinking maybe you’d want to give me that apology I’ve been waiting for.”

“It’s the other way around. You assaulted me.”

“Yeah, and you cheated on me.”

“I’ve denied that all I’m going to.”

“And you called the police on me, too. That was really low.”

“It wasn’t the first time you’d thrown a few dishes around. Enough was enough.”

“But calling the cops?” She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t the boys down at the station house think that was a little wussy?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve all met you.”

The insult hurt more than she would have imagined. “You’re six-three, two-twenty! Like I could actually hurt you?”

“Size doesn’t matter.”

Tonya snorted. “Is that what Kendra Willis told you?”

He turned away. “Take the clothes and go.”

As Dale disappeared down the hall, Tonya felt her eyes tear up. No. Don’t you dare cry.

She sniffed a little and blinked a lot until she finally got herself under control. Then she strode out of the room with her sweaters over her arm and that stupid pair of sandals dangling from her fingers.

Damn it, damn it! How had everything gotten all turned around? She hadn’t wanted to fight with him. She’d wanted to make up with him and enjoy all the perks that went along with that. She missed his big, strong body wrapped around hers at night, his warm breath against her ear, the slow, steady beating of his heart. Just the idea of him holding another woman like that was more than she could bear.

She went back into the living room, where Dale and Cliff were whooping up a storm over a Cowboys touchdown. At the sound of her footsteps, Cliff turned around. His smile evaporated, and he gave her a look that said he hoped she wasn’t thinking about grabbing a few cups and saucers to use as projectiles.

Dale didn’t bother to look at her at all.

Tonya left the house, resisting the urge to slam the door behind her. She got into her car and reached down to start the engine, only to have her eyes fill with tears again.

Men cheat.

She’d heard her mother say that since Tonya was old enough to remember. With three cheating husbands, her mother probably knew what she was talking about. The minute you give a man an inch, she always said, he’ll take a mile.

And her mother had never given an inch. Not one.

Tonya still remembered cowering in the hall when she was seven years old, listening to her mother screaming accusations at her father. When he left for work the next day, her mother had dumped his stuff on the front lawn and changed the locks on the doors, telling Tonya that her father was gone and to quit crying because they were better off without him.

Two stepfathers came next, and the story was the same. Through it all, Tonya grew more and more suspicious of men and their motives. At the same time she would lie awake at night and imagine a forever kind of love with a man who would want her and only her. It was nothing but a fairy tale, of course, but that didn’t keep her from wanting it.

Then, when she was twenty-three, Jared had come into her life, a charming motorcycle mechanic with a line of bull a mile long. Six months into a marriage that seemed to be going along just fine, she saw his car parked at a no-tell motel on the east side of town. When she confronted him about it later, he spun some story about stopping by to see a buddy from out of town who was staying there.

Relieved, she had told the other stylists at work what had really been going on. To her surprise, they had laughed out loud. Tonya had shouted at them to shut up, telling them that Jared loved her and would never cheat on her. A week later she had dropped by his shop unexpectedly and found him and a slutty little blonde going at it on the ugly vinyl sofa in his office, and she wondered how many other times it had happened that she’d never known about. That was the moment she had come to believe wholeheartedly that her mother was right.

Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.

Eventually she’d had to tell the girls what had happened and face the humiliation. They’d acted sympathetic, but she could see that look in their eyes. You’re such a sap. Didn’t we tell you he was a cheating fool?

Tonya had walked away from that experience wondering if, like red hair or brown eyes, attracting cheating men ran in families, and for the next twelve years she believed that her dream of a forever kind of love was well and truly gone.

Then she met Dale.

She turned and looked back at the house, at Dale lounging on the sofa. No matter how big a fool it made her, she still wanted him so much she could barely breathe. She thought she’d been in love with Jared, but she knew now that she couldn’t possibly have been because he had never made her feel the hot, breathless, swooping sensation that came over her every time she looked at Dale.

But now everything was a big, fat mess. Was she supposed to listen to his lame excuses the way she’d listened to Jared’s? Defend him? Tell everyone that even though it looked bad, of course he’d never cheat on her?

If she did, she had the most terrible feeling that the joke was going to be on her again.

She wiped away her tears and started the car, intending to go to her apartment and stay there until hell froze over if she had to. She refused to be a silly little fool who went back to a cheating man as if she had no self-respect at all. Unless he apologized and promised never to do it again, Dale wasn’t going to have a chance of getting her back.

At nine o’clock the next morning, Monica sat in the lobby of Cargill & Associates, a cramped office inside a low-rent building filled with plastic ferns, walnut-veneer furniture and dollar-store art. Behind the reception desk sat a young redhead with a ring on every finger and probably a few on her toes, sipping a cup of Starbucks. On Monica’s arrival, the woman had her fill out the obligatory application. She said Mr. Cargill was tied up right now, but he’d be with her in a minute, then turned her attention back to a dog-eared copy of Cosmopolitan, moving her lips as she read about the seven ways to drive her boyfriend wild in bed.

Monica closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm her churning stomach. How in the hell had it come to this?

Thirty-two résumés, eleven job applications, four interviews and four no-thank-yous. That was how.

No. She had to stop thinking about how she’d failed so far and focus instead on how she could succeed. She knew how lightweight her résumé was, so she was going to have to compensate for her lack of skills in other ways.

She unfastened another button of her blouse and spread the neck apart, calling attention to the one asset of hers that men had never been able to ignore. She turned in her chair to allow the slit of her skirt to inch open farther. Then she pulled her shoulders back, lifted her nose a notch and assumed an air of total indifference, because the only people who got jobs were those who acted as if they didn’t need them, even though she needed this one badly. Once Cargill came out to the lobby and she had his attention, she’d slink into his office like a lioness and go in for the kill.

She heard a door open. “Ms. Saltzman?”

Count to three, she told herself. Don’t act too eager.

With a studied grace that came from all her beauty pageant years, Monica slowly turned her head for her first look at her future boss. And for another count of three, she gritted her teeth and tried not to cry.

She was used to bosses who wore raw silk and Italian leather. This guy was double-knit polyester and leatherette. He was pushing sixty, with a shiny scalp showing through an embarrassing comb-over and a hefty set of jowls tumbling over his shirt collar. If the guy happened to smile, which at the moment didn’t seem likely, she was sure he’d have tobacco-stained teeth.

He wore no wedding ring. No surprise there.

She took a deep, calming breath, reminding herself of her dwindling savings and the mortgage payment she wasn’t going to be able to make in a few months if she didn’t get a paycheck coming in soon.

She rose from her chair, gave him a dazzling smile and extended her hand. “Hello, Mr. Cargill,” she purred, like the lioness she was. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

His eyes never met hers. She was used to that from men because they were usually busy checking out other parts of her body. But when he didn’t bother looking at any of the rest of her, either, she felt a shot of apprehension.

He gave her hand a cursory shake. “This way.”

She followed him into his office, where he plopped down in his pseudo-leather executive chair.

“Catch the door,” he said.

Strike one: he was ugly. Strike two: he had no manners. God only knew what strike three was going to be. Just the thought of unleashing her feminine charm on this man was making her a little queasy.

She closed the door and took a seat. He slouched in his chair as he looked at the application she’d filled out, frowning the whole time. “It says here your most recent experience was as an executive assistant to a bank vice president.”

“That’s right.”

“You worked for him for five years.”

“Yes.”

His frown deepened. “I’m not seeing much computer experience. What programs do you know?”

“Well, Word, of course. And Excel. And maybe a little bit of PowerPoint.”

“Those are pretty much the baseline. What else do you have?”

Not a blessed thing. Her job at First Republic Bank had been to keep Jerry Womack’s calendar, make travel arrangements, answer his calls, chat up any clients who came by for meetings, order lunch and look like a million dollars.

In the past five years, while she’d been working her way toward the forty-fourth-floor executive suite where the espresso machine was the most complicated thing she’d have to run, technology had taken a quantum leap. Unfortunately, she hadn’t leaped along with it.

“What about office machines?” Cargill said. “Typing?”

She could type. Just not very well. As far as office machines, a simple phone system, a fax machine and a copier were about the only things she was sure she could handle.

If he persisted in this useless line of questioning, they were going to get nowhere.

“Let’s cut right to the chase here, Mr. Cargill.” She leaned in and folded her arms on his desk, slowing her words and letting her voice drop to a deeper register. “You and I both know that you can hire just about anyone to perform all those technical tasks. But that’s not what makes an executive assistant so valuable, is it? In the end, there’s only one qualification that’s even worth talking about.” She fixed her gaze tightly on his, giving him a smoldering look that had been known to bring men to their knees. “What you need, Mr. Cargill, is an assistant who can anticipate your every need—” dramatic pause “—and fill it.”

She nearly choked on the words, even though they were something she could easily take back later. You thought I meant what? Her words appeared to have the desired effect. He sat up slightly, his bland brown eyes widening with interest. His gaze roved over her face, dropped slowly to her breasts, hovered there for a moment or two, then rose again—every flick of his eyelashes so blatantly assessing that she knew she had him on the hook.

Five seconds passed. Then ten. And no matter how unsightly he was, she forced herself not to look away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t think you’re qualified for the job.”

Monica felt a jolt of shock, followed by a deluge of humiliation. He tossed her application onto his desk, pushed away from it and stood up.

Oh, God. He was brushing her off. How could this be happening?

“But…but I’m a very fast learner,” she said, “if only you’ll give me a chance.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I know I’m a little shy on technical knowledge, but I’m perfectly willing to—”

“Thank you, Ms. Saltzman.”

Just like that, rock bottom sank even lower.

Monica rose from her chair, feeling a little shaky, but she forced herself to thank him for his time and walk away with her chin up because she had more class than this big, blind bozo could ever hope to have.

She opened the door to his office and stepped into the lobby. Another woman was waiting there now to be interviewed, a platinum blonde who looked as if she’d cut cheerleader practice short to make it on time. And suddenly a different man was standing in Cargill’s fake leather shoes.

“Well, hello, there,” he said with a smile, practically tripping over himself to usher the woman into his office. As he closed the door behind them, Monica stared with disbelief, feeling like a wallflower at a high school dance.

“Well, she’s a shoo-in,” the receptionist said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she’s got all the qualifications he’s looking for, if you know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky he didn’t hire you.”

“Why?”

She leaned over and whispered. “Because he’s a dirty old man. I’ve got more bruises on my ass than I can count.”

When she turned back to her Cosmo, it occurred to Monica that she used to read that magazine herself when she was younger.

About twenty years younger.

During the other job interviews she’d had recently, she’d told herself that she just wasn’t pouring on enough charm to get the attention of her prospective employers in a tight job market. But now she had to face the truth: she had nothing left that even a man like Cargill would be interested in.

One of two things was going to happen here. She was going to cry, or she was going to get mad. Since getting mad had recently bought her eight weeks in an anger management course, she left the office and hurried down the hall to the ladies’ room, where she grabbed a tissue from her purse just in time to keep mascara-laden tears from rolling down her cheeks.

She turned her gaze up to the mirror, leaning in to take a closer look at herself, and maybe for the first time in years, she saw herself as she really was.

Lines she swore had never been there before fanned out from her eyes. Skin sagged slightly at her jawline. Wrinkles had crept onto her neck. She’d been coloring her hair for so long that it could be gray all over by now for all she knew. But time had marched on, in spite of all her efforts to halt it.

All her life she’d had only one thing going for her, and that was her looks. It seemed to astonish everyone that anyone so strikingly beautiful could have been raised in such a dirt-poor family. In light of that, her mother had dragged her to beauty pageants from the time she was old enough to twirl a baton. She learned how to wink at those judges long before she knew that about half of them were dirty old men who loved looking up little girls’ skirts. Because she’d always been told she was all beauty and no brains, she’d goofed off in school and skipped college, doing what a lot of beautiful but brainless girls did—she set out to marry a rich man. And she’d almost accomplished that goal. Three times. But something always happened to nip her plans in the bud.

The first man had a wife he hadn’t bothered to tell her about. The second one decided, after a three-year relationship, that it was time for him to come out of the closet. The third time around, when Monica actually had a ring on her finger, she told herself that for the Highland Park lifestyle, she could overlook her fiancé’s drinking habit. And she did, right up to the moment he got his third DUI and a judge threw the book at him. Conjugal visits during that five-year sentence just hadn’t seemed all that appealing to her.

Somehow she turned thirty-five. Then she was pushing forty. During those years, she hadn’t bothered to acquire job skills beyond basic clerical ones, telling herself that marriage was just around the corner, only to realize that the pool of wealthy, available men was drying up, at least those wealthy, available men interested in her. And she was still working in the same low-paying, dead-end jobs she had been for the past fifteen years, so her financial future looked pretty bleak.

Then, one night at an uptown bar, she met Jerry Womack, a vice president at First Republic Bank. He was fifty-four and recently divorced. As he stared at her breasts, he told her his executive assistant was leaving and Monica might be just the woman he was looking for to replace her. The next day when she went to his office to talk to him, she discovered that the job came with a bigger paycheck than she’d ever seen in her life and very few responsibilities.

At least, very few responsibilities within the confines of the office.

At first, the whole situation made Monica a little sick to her stomach. Marrying rich was one thing, but putting out to keep a job was something else.

But the money. God, the money.

Suddenly she could afford to shop at Neiman Marcus rather than sift through the junk at outlet stores. She could buy a car that didn’t end up in the shop once every three months. She could afford a condo in a decent neighborhood rather than rent an apartment next door to a guy she was pretty sure was dealing crack.

So she did it, telling herself that maybe one day she’d marry that boss she was sleeping with. A couple of times Jerry even suggested it might be a possibility. So when the bank president had retired and Jerry ascended to that position, Monica had been thrilled. Only, it wasn’t Monica whom Jerry decided to bring with him to the executive suite. It was pretty, perky, young Nora O’Dell.

You understand, Jerry had the nerve to say. It’s just business.

So she showed him some business in the form of a flowerpot right thought the windshield of his lemon-yellow Hummer. And right now, she was thinking about the fake potted palm in the corner of Cargill’s office, wondering what kind of car he drove.

No. She had to get Cargill out of her mind. This had just been a fluke. He was simply a man who needed to rescue his own aging self-image by surrounding himself with young women. And losing out on those other four interviews had simply been a run of bad luck. That was all.

She repaired her makeup and left the bathroom, telling herself that everything was going to be fine, that a new job was just around the corner. Still, it was hard to ignore the scary little ball of nerves rolling around in her stomach, the one that was telling her that finding a job was going to be a far greater challenge than she’d ever anticipated.