Читать книгу Pencil Him In - Molly O'Keefe - Страница 11

AT 6:30 A.M. ON THE FIRST DAY of her unemployment, Anna was eating one of the oranges from her office while she stood in front of her shut closet door, contemplating what was going to be behind that door. Two months ago her washing machine had broken down and she had stopped doing laundry except for the things that could be dropped off at the dry cleaners. Which was why she was now wearing a dark blue silk suit.

When the machine broke, she had called for someone to repair it, but that required her being home to let the guy in. Which, of course, had been impossible in the middle of the week. And considering her sometimes twenty-hour days, she could forget about hauling herself to the laundry room. So, for two months, instead of washing her underwear, she’d bought more on the internet.

Behind that closet door Anna guessed there might be close to a hundred pairs of dirty underwear. And blue jeans, Anna thought suddenly remembering that she actually owned some of those.

Anna popped another segment of orange in her mouth and considered getting a cleaning woman. After all, Camilla had one. And, Anna realized this morning as she looked around her place for the first time in what was probably months, there were things in her apartment covered in a thick fur of something that might be dust. She remembered that she had contemplated a cleaning woman a few months ago, but she just never had the time to straighten up before someone could come over to clean. Besides, Anna was not a big fan of a stranger being in her house, touching her things. So she had put it off and put it off, until like most things in her private life, she had forgotten all about it.

Perhaps she should invite Camilla over to watch her sweep the dust out from under her bed. Surely, that was life-getting at its best.

Putting the last segment of orange in her mouth she threw open the closet door and stood still in the small avalanche of dirty clothes that rolled out onto her feet.

“I wondered where those went,” Anna said, looking down at a pair of khaki pants that she hadn’t seen in months. “I thought I threw that out.” She picked up an old U.S.C. sweatshirt that was stiff with whatever was growing on it. “Gross,” she muttered and quickly dropped it.

Standing ankle-deep in clothes that had been stagnating in her closet Anna guessed that her first real effort in getting a life would be laundry.

She had a small plastic hamper, which was ridiculous in the face of all of her dirty clothes. Even her gym bag was too small. With a resigned sigh, she pulled her giant roller suitcase off the top shelf, put it on the floor and began shoving clothes into it. Halfway through, Anna started breathing through her mouth.

When all of her clothes were in the suitcase, she felt pretty good and decided there was nothing wrong with a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup for breakfast. After all she was unemployed. She didn’t need to worry about getting a healthy breakfast.

After laundry, she would have to tackle the grocery store.

In the back of the closet, Anna found some laundry detergent. So, with her suitcase, a mouthful of chocolate and laundry soap that hadn’t seen daylight in two months, Anna set out to find the building’s communal laundry facility. She had been given a tour when she moved in. That was the last time she had seen it.

Before walking out the door she remembered quarters and grabbed the jar she kept on her dresser that was filled to overflowing with change.

Anna’s apartment complex was huge, much bigger than she’d ever realized. There were pathways that seemed to go on for miles. Buildings she never knew existed were nestled in small hills and valleys that were actually quite pleasant, or would be if Anna wasn’t wandering around in high heels dragging a heavy suitcase filled with dirty laundry. Her hand was beginning to cramp around the change jar, so she switched hands with the laundry soap and tried to drag the suitcase in her soap hand. For a few minutes it was okay, then that hand started to cramp. So she rearranged everything again.

Anna walked around lost for fifteen minutes, but finally she found the laundry room. After the bright sunlight, stepping down the small cement steps into the basement facilities was like stepping into a cave. It was cool and smelled like every laundromat she had been in with her mother and Marie over the years. That strange combination of detergent, fabric softener and cigarettes.

Anna looked around and noticed that all of the washing machines were open.

“Excellent,” she mumbled. She unzipped her suitcase and began filling the washing machines with armloads of laundry.

Whoever lived in the apartment directly above or perhaps to the right of the laundry room apparently loved Celine Dion and seemed to have a hearing problem. Anna could hear the singer clearly through the wall and as she dumped soap and clothes into every washing machine she started bobbing her head in time. She wasn’t a huge fan of the woman, but she played on the radio every ten seconds.

And she recognized the song currently playing and sang along—Celine Dion style, adding some chest pounds for the hell of it. And for the moment, Anna didn’t mind at all being unemployed. She was busy, she had some tasks, there was an agenda and it was early. After the day she had had yesterday she would take what she could get.

Walking back to her suitcase and the jar of coins, she saw a sock she had dropped on the floor and she bent to pick it up. She twirled with a little flourish in time with the music and pitched the sock toward the last open washing machine. It went in and because she was in a good mood and the air smelled clean and no one was in the room, she lifted her arms turning her silly dance into a victory dance.

“Excuse me?”

Anna screamed, startled and whirled toward the deep voice behind her. “Holy…” she breathed, her hand at her chest. “You scared me.”

A man was standing on the step leading into the small laundry room. He was backlit by the bright sunshine and in the relative darkness of the room she couldn’t see him clearly. But she saw he was big. Tall and wide. Not fat.

“Sorry,” the man said and though Anna couldn’t see his face, she guessed he was smiling. He sounded like he was smiling. He was a big, wide, smiling man. Anna felt her day improve a little more.

“No problem,” she said as her heart rate went back to normal. “I…well, I thought I was alone.”

“Obviously,” the guy said.

Obviously? Anna thought, her brows snapping together before she reminded herself that he could see her. What the hell does that mean?

“The dancing gave it away,” he said and Anna ridiculously felt herself blush. He should have ignored that. Pretended he didn’t see her dancing around to some teenager’s music. Polite people pretended they didn’t see people do embarrassing things. “The singing, too,” he added with a chuckle.

Wow. He’s laughing at me. A few choice words about spying and the difference between polite and rude rose to her tongue. Then, tall wide man stepped out of the doorway into the laundry room and Anna’s brain shut down.

Oh. My. God. Anna thought. He was easily the most handsome man Anna had ever seen in real life—short blond hair, green eyes that even in the darkness of the laundry room seemed to glow. He looked down at his laundry then up at her and his eyes seemed to touch her and she felt the strange chill of awareness creep up her back and across her chest. He was still smiling and she could see it all there in his green, green eyes.

Her heart, usually so strong and steady, went ka-thunk.

All the rest of him—the bones, the skin, the stubble across his chin and cheeks, even the veins on his arms that every woman on the planet absolutely adored—combined to create some kind of Prince Charming. This man was what her mind would conjure up when she was a little girl and her mother read fairy tales to her and her sister. When the hero came cruising up on a white horse he looked like this guy.

She had forgotten all about that, but as she looked at him it all came back to her and she smiled.

His eyebrows lifted and the look in his eyes changed from merry to uncomfortable. “Hi.”

Oh, God, stop staring, Anna told herself. “Hi.” She smiled stiffly and turned away, feeling dumb.

Great, she thought as she grabbed her jar of change. Prince Charming. Wonderful. Fairy tales, what is wrong with me? The man laughed at me.

“Are you using all of the machines?” he asked as Anna shoved quarters in the washers. Anna shut the lid on the last one, put in a small fortune in coins and glanced around the room at all the washing machines quietly chugging away.

“Looks like it.” She walked over to her suitcase and threw the detergent and the jar of coins into it.

“You didn’t leave one open?” he asked and Anna looked up sharply at his tone. That tone was not a Prince Charming kind of tone and the look in his eyes was not nearly as merry as it had been a moment ago.

“I’ve already started all of them,” she told him. “You could come back in—” she looked at the digital read out on the first machine she had started “—fifteen minutes.”

“Since I’ve never seen you here before I am going to guess that you didn’t see the sign.”

He gestured with his thumb to a sign on the wall that she hadn’t seen.

“Of course I’ve seen the sign,” she huffed.

“Well, then you know.” He obviously didn’t believe her. Smart-ass, Anna thought. “You should leave one machine open.”

“Who the hell are you?” Anna asked. “The laundry room police?”

“No, I’m a guy with no clean clothes,” he snapped back.

“Look, I didn’t think anybody else would be doing their laundry at—” she looked at the clock which was right by the sign she hadn’t read “—8:00 a.m.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize I needed to run my laundry schedule past you.”

Anna and Prince Charming had a little silent showdown. She guessed he expected her to apologize and haul a bunch of wet clothes out of a machine so he could wash some of his big, tall clothes. And perhaps she might have done that, if the man—a complete stranger—hadn’t laughed at her. Really, you don’t laugh at strangers. It doesn’t make you any friends.

His eyes were boring into hers and, tired of him, she raised her eyebrows, well aware that there were few better standoff enders than a properly raised eyebrow.

“Fine,” he said, moving to the door. “But you could be a little more considerate.”

“Jerk,” she muttered under her breath.

“Bitch,” he muttered back and she had heard it enough times that it barely even hurt.

IT TOOK ANNA four hours to do all of her laundry. Well, an hour of laundry and then three hours of folding and trying to figure out where to put all her clothes. She was able to avoid seeing Prince Charming again, which she was pretty happy about. Having cooled down, she realized she had acted childishly and didn’t look forward to having to see him.

Anna was comfortably wearing clean underwear, freshly laundered jeans and a U.S.C. sweatshirt she thought she had thrown out. At the grocery store—the second item on her agenda today—she toyed with the idea of actually buying food to cook. Then she remembered who she was and bought some staples and a lot of microwave dinners.

She was unloading groceries back at her place when the phone rang.

She cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear while she opened the refrigerator door.

“Hello,” she said, picking up the three bags of oranges she bought and dumping them onto one of the shelves.

“Anna?”

Anna stilled, the hair on the back of her neck pricked. She shut the refrigerator door and leaned against it.

“Hello, Camilla,” she said smoothly.

“How is your first day of unemployment?” her boss asked brightly.

“Fabulous,” Anna answered snidely. “I should have quit years ago.”

Camilla only laughed at Anna’s little dig.

“What do you want, Camilla?” Anna grabbed up the bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups she had bought and fired them into a cupboard.

“I’m just making sure that you are going to be at the barbecue on Monday.”

“I can’t,” Anna said quickly. “I’m busy.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You don’t know that,” Anna snapped.

“Of course I do. Your sabbatical just started yesterday.”

Anna put a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread in the fridge.

“I already told Meg you were going to be there. Marie will be there.”

“That’s a seriously low blow, Camilla.” Anna blindly shoved a quart of milk into the cupboard.

“Well, sometimes low blows are the only ones that get things done,” Camilla chuckled. “It’s a barbecue with people who love you. It’s not the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Fine,” Anna breathed. “I’ll be there.”

“Oh, Anna, I am giving you fair warning so that you don’t freak out at the picnic…”

Just those words sent a chill to Anna’s heart, those were words with trouble all over them.

“I’ve invited someone I would like you—”

“No, you didn’t,” Anna interrupted, knowing that this someone was a single man who Camilla was dying to fix her up with. “You did not do that, Camilla.”

“Well, yes, I did. He’s very nice. A doctor.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care who he is. You have meddled enough with my life.”

“It’s not like I’ve set you up on a blind date. I just invited a nice single doctor—” Camilla put a little emphasis on the doctor part “—to my granddaughter’s birthday party. There is nothing more to it than that.”

But Anna knew better. With Camilla there was always something more. She was a Pandora’s Box of more.

AFTER PUTTING all her food back in the right spots Anna was at a loss. What did unemployed people do all day? She collapsed onto her couch. She was wide-awake so taking a nap would be fruitless. She checked her watch and thought longingly of the meeting she would be attending if she were at Arsenal.

But she wasn’t at Arsenal and thinking about it would just depress her. She dug the remote control out from under her butt and decided she would discover the joys of daytime television.

A half hour later she threw the remote back on the couch and decided there was no joy to daytime television.

People, she thought, shouldn’t sleep with amnesia victims who might be relatives. It’s gross.

Anna stood up and decided to clean her apartment. She had cleaned plenty of apartments. She had picked up after her messy sister and mother, so she was no stranger to the mop and broom.

But this. This was very much beyond her. She quickly realized that what had become of her home was something best left to a professional. The basics, sweeping and mopping she could handle. It was the advanced cleaning, the things involving mildew and harsh chemicals, that were destroying her apartment. She’d already accidentally bleached part of her carpet and the paint was bubbling up from the wall in her kitchen where she had sprayed the wrong kind of cleaner.

She quickly called a cleaning service and scheduled someone to come deal with the disaster. But in the mean time, the bathroom with its sturdy tile proved to be less destructible so she tried to tidy that up.

She was on her hands and knees in the tub working at the brown stuff around the drain when the solution to her problem—no, not the brown stuff problem. The other, bigger problem. The getting a life problem—hit her. Like a lightning bolt.

What better way to thwart Camilla and this doctor than to show up with a date of her own?

She sat straight up, the toothbrush in her hand dripped onto her jeans.

She needed a date, but not just any date. She needed a man who would expect no romantic entanglements. A man she wouldn’t have to exchange small talk with or any other uncomfortable platitudes.

“Gary,” she said with a smile.

She climbed out of the tub, threw the gloves and the toothbrush in the sink and headed out the door for Gary’s apartment.

Gary was perfect as a date-on-call for several reasons.

1. He lived just around the corner in her condo complex.

2. He was a mostly out of work actor and he had viewed the wedding she took him to as a chance to be on stage, which was why halfway through the night people were expressing their condolences for the brain tumor Gary was telling people he had.

3. He was gay. There were absolutely no uncomfortable entanglements.

In a word: perfect.

Anna crossed the small stretch of grass between her unit and his with a glad heart. She was going to beat Camilla at her own game. Anna laughed a little bit thinking about how perfect this was. How truly satisfying it would be to get back at Camilla in just this exact way.

Gary had been leaving messages on her machine for the past two weeks that she had not had the time to return and she felt a little bad. But he would understand. Gary was good like that.

The light was on behind his blinds, which Anna took as an omen that her plan was going to work out okay. She stepped up on his small cement landing and knocked. She felt bad that she hadn’t seen him in so long, a few weeks anyway. He had gotten some part in a play and she, of course, was always busy, so time flew by. She smiled and knocked again, happy that she had more time to spend with Gary who was always fun.

She heard footsteps and for the first time in a while, felt a smile that wasn’t forced spread across her face. She pushed back a lock of hair just as the door opened and she felt all the blood drain from her face.

“Well, well.” Prince Charming leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his bare chest.