Chasing Rainbows A Novel

THIRTEEN


“QTS AYWW BT VTTWYUE NEYIJU, HSN BT NEZD AYNE ZINESUYXUD.”

-KTWWZNN

Why I agreed to go back to the mall with Diane, I’d never know. After all, the last time she’d gotten it into her head to improve my life through shopping, I’d ended up on the receiving end of a lifetime ban.

Minor details aside, Diane promised me today would be life-changing.

A doubt or two...or ten danced through my brain as we headed out the front door.

“I really don’t think this is necessary.”

She waved her hand dismissively, effectively silencing me with a simple gesture.

“What if I can’t afford this?”

Another wave. An added shush.

“But I don’t think--”

Wave. “Shh.”

“What if--”

Wave. “Shh, shh.”

“Maybe we should--”

“Hello.” Diane’s voice dripped sensuality, her comment quite apparently directed elsewhere.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Please don’t let her see Number Thirty-Six. Her Bernie-needs-a-love-life campaign would kick into the stratosphere if Diane ever spotted the new neighbor.

But it turned out the object of Diane’s attention wasn’t Number Thirty-Six at all.

“Morning Mrs. M.”

“Morning, Freddy.” I gave a quick wave to my on-again, off-again landscaper.

The day was freakishly beautiful for January, and he’d no doubt decided now was as good a time as any to thin out the gardens.

His wrinkled chinos, hooded blue sweatshirt and scuffed work boots made him look more like an Old Navy model than the guy responsible for keeping the weeds at bay.

I pressed my palm to Diane’s back, shoving her pregnant girth toward the car.

“Sorry to hear about you and Mr. M,” Freddy said.

I smiled and shook my head. “That’s life, but thanks.”

Diane planted her heels and ground to a stop, staring back over her shoulder to where Freddy worked, pulling dead sections out of the front flower bed.

“He’s checking you o-ut.” Diane stretched the last word into two syllables.

“No, he’s n-ot.”

“Please,” She whispered as we climbed into her car. “He asked about Ryan. He’s trying to get a read on the situation.”

I rolled my eyes. “The only thing he’s trying to get a read on is whether or not he’s going to lose a client. I could be his mom.”

“Only if you had him when you were ten.”

I had to admit the guy had the most stunning gray eyes I’d ever seen. Yet, in all my years of talking to Freddy, I’d never sensed the certain...something...I sensed in Number Thirty-Six.

As best I could tell, Freddy was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, but still well below the bottom range of my potential dating pool.

Diane and I slammed our respective doors, but she failed to start the ignition, shifting her focus to Freddy’s taut backside instead.

She lifted her sunglasses and arched one brow in his direction. “You know, the whole older woman, younger man thing is in nowadays.” She turned the key and her minivan hummed to life.

“Oh, that’s me all right. Sexual trend-setter.” I yanked the seatbelt across my chest.

“I believe the official term is cougar.” Diane enunciated clearly as if she suspected the entire concept might be over my head.

She suspected correctly.

“So not me. Can we go now please?”

When we reached the mall, Diane headed straight for the most expensive anchor store.

“You do remember I’m unemployed, right?” I asked.

“That’ll change.” She gave a dismissive wave.

What was up with her and the waves? Had the pregnancy hormones morphed her into royalty?

She grabbed my hand and dragged me across the parking lot and into the store, making a beeline for the shoe department. Apparently, she’d run a reconnaissance mission before she’d picked me up.

“There.”

She pointed to a display of lush, leather boots. The type that hugged your legs and gave you curves even if you’d never possessed a curve in your life.

I, however, had never worn anything sexier than snow boots. Granted, they had sported fluffy collars and tassels, but they couldn’t hold a candle to these babies.

These boots screamed sex. Loud and clear. S--E--X.

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head and scanned the area for the nearest emergency exit or restroom. I’d take either.

“Try them on.” She waved to a sales clerk as she ignored my pleas for mercy.

Before I knew what hit me, Diane had pushed me against a bench. The back of my knees hit the seat and I went down like a house of cards.

The sales clerk wasted not a moment. She piled boxes next to me on the bench and on the floor to either side of my legs. As she worked, Diane wrenched the clogs from my feet.

“Careful. Those are my favorites.”

Diane wrinkled her nose and turned to the clerk. “Anything in red? Let’s start there.”

“Red?” I squeaked. “You expect me to wear red boots.”

She thinned her lips and tipped her head to one side. God help me, there was a lecture coming.

“Do you want to feel alive?” Her eyebrows arched.

I nodded.

“Do you want to feel powerful?” Her brows snapped together.

I nodded again.

“Do you want to feel sexy and desirable?” She nodded, and I kept nodding, having learned to fear this side of her in first grade.

At this point, even the clerk was nodding.

There was no way in hell I was making a clean getaway.

I held up a single finger. “One pair. One.”

Diane clapped as if Marc Jacobs had died and left her his entire spring collection.

The clerk carefully unwrapped first one red boot and then the other. Having always been a sucker for the smell of leather, I clutched one to my chest and inhaled deeply.

Oh, my.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat and slipped my foot into the boot, savoring the fit and feel of the soft leather as I pulled up the zipper, slowly guiding it to the spot where the boot stopped just below my knee.

Diane clutched one hand to her chest and sighed. The clerk thrust the second boot into my lap.

Once I’d stepped into the second, I pushed myself to my feet and took note of the moment.

The sleek style caressed my legs, the smell of new leather left me dizzy, and the red color oozed vitality. I, however, found myself totally incapable of walking a straight line in three-inch heels.

“You’ll get used to them,” Diane said.

This time Diane and the clerk gave dismissive waves in unison.

I’d managed one lap down along the benches to peek in a mirror and was headed back to where Diane and the clerk stood waiting, when Diane gasped. Loudly.

My heart jumped into my throat and I scurried toward her--a move that was neither easy nor pretty. “What? Is it the baby?”

“No.” She shook her head, eyes wide, and tipped her chin none too subtly toward the men’s side of the shoe department. “That guy’s checking you out.”

I flashed back on her earlier comment about Freddy. “You have some serious checking-me-out issues.”

But when I stole a glance at the gentleman in question, he was checking me out. Matter of fact, he smiled and gave me a quick nod.

I tripped over the edge of the mirror then somehow managed to steady myself against a rack of sling-backs. An odd sense of lightness washed through me. The fact I’d caught some stranger’s attention rocked me to the core.

I boldly decided to test the theory, walking from one mirror to the other, adding a little sway to my hips as I went back and forth. Back and forth.

My admirer stood his ground, not stepping away until I’d sank back down onto the bench.

I could see only one way to handle this situation. After all, the boots obviously possessed magic powers.

I looked up into the sales clerk’s eyes and smiled. “I’ll take them...in every color you’ve got.”

We left Nordstrom’s weighed down by four pairs of boots and my clogs. I’d put the red boots to immediate use and proudly strutted along with my purchases. Yet, even the challenge of balancing several heavy bags while wearing heels didn’t prevent what happened next.

I stopped abruptly outside the window of a hair salon and studied the trendy, sleek-looking women inside as my own explosion of curls reflected back at me in the glass.

Thoughts of Dad’s cryptogram messages danced through my brain, mixing with Diane’s challenge to feel alive.

My common sense dulled by the smell of leather and the nagging desire to change my life, I walked inside and asked for a new look. Even worse, Diane found what she termed the perfect style in a folder of photos.

Lost in the moment, caught up in the promise of a new me, I told the stylist to go for it.

Forty-five minutes later, the new me staring back from the mirror was not the sleek, sexy woman I’d envisioned, but rather a young boy with a really bad haircut.

“Holy sh--”

“Short.” Diane yelled. “Fabulous.” She clapped her hands, apparently wanting to spare the stylist my true reaction.

Red splotches, however, had blossomed all over her face. She might be putting on a good show, but deep down, she knew she was about to suffer a slow and painful death at my hand.

Sure, the haircut had been my idea, but every woman knew drastic hair choices were not to be made while high on the power of new boots. Diane’s role should have been to talk me down from the ledge. Instead, she’d not only helped me climb up, she’d pushed me over.

Hell, she’d driven me to the mall.

There wasn’t a court in the state that wouldn’t find her guilty of abusing the laws of friendship.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, fighting the urge to gather up the discarded clumps of hair and run screaming toward the nearest wig maker.

“It’s sassy,” Diane said as we headed for home.

I shot an evil glare in her direction. “Don’t you dare tell me I look sassy, or cute, or hip, or whatever other bullshit you’ve got up your sleeve.” I leaned over the console to make sure she heard me clearly. “I look like a prepubescent boy. So not what I was going for.”

Diane’s lips quirked into a smile, but she quickly pressed them tight.

“I saw that.” I sank back into my seat, arms crossed.

“What?” she asked.

“You smirked.”

“Gas.” She patted her stomach. “Awful heartburn today.”

Her voice faltered on the last word and a burst of laughter slipped across her lips.

My only response was to narrow my gaze, hoping the sheer intensity of my sulking would intimidate her into silence. No such luck.

“Here’s what I’m thinking.”

That particular phrase, when uttered by Diane, had always signaled impending doom.

She’d spoken the words once in junior high, moments before we’d been arrested for climbing through the window of an abandoned estate home--an estate home inhabited only by ghosts--or so she’d thought.

She’d uttered the phrase again on the day we doused our heads in peroxide and spent ten hours on the beach in the blazing July sun.

I’d fallen for the phrase later that same day when she convinced me over-the-counter hair color would correct the resultant day-glow orange hair I’d shoved up under a ball cap.

If I remember correctly, my hair had finally settled into a deep shade of lavender.

History had taught me to pay attention when Diane had one of her ideas. Doing anything else was just plain stupid.

“Start over again from the beginning,” I said, knowing I’d already missed part of her spiel.

She frowned, shot me a glance, then refocused on the road.

“Speed dating,” she said.

Speed dating? Wasn’t my speed separation, speed grieving, and speed baldness enough to hold me for a while?

I pressed a finger to my left eyelid to still a sudden twitch. “No.” I spoke the word forcefully and with conviction. Diane never missed a beat.

“I’ve already signed you up.” Her tone grew bright and cheery, as if the higher and faster she talked, the less likely I’d be to grab the wheel and crash her van into the curb.

“You what?” The few hairs left at the base of my neck pricked to attention.

“Signed you up.” She maneuvered the minivan into my driveway. “You start next week. New Year, New You.” Again with the hand wave. “All that good stuff. You’ll like it, you’ll see.”

“Like it?”

She nodded, blinking a half dozen times in rapid succession, a sure sign she realized just how close to snapping I was.

I pushed open the passenger door, gathered my bags and climbed out. I took great satisfaction in the fact the entire neighborhood rattled when I slammed the door shut.

Diane’s smile had grown by the time she lowered the window and leaned to shout out at me. “Your welcome packet should be here any day. You’re going to thank me, you’ll see.”

I stooped down to speak through the window, dropping my voice to a low growl. “If you’re so freaking excited about speed dating, why don’t you go?”

“Please.” She sat back against her seat, patted her belly with her right hand and wiggled the ring finger of her left hand in my direction. “I’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

I pointed at my head. “Like I won’t?”

“Sassy,” she called out, but I was already in motion, headed straight for the safety of my house.

I was completely focused on whether or not I’d ordered anything from the hair re-growth infomercial I’d seen a few nights earlier, when the most wonderful sound captured my attention.

The heels of my new boots clicked sharply against the front walk.

Alive. Powerful. Sexy.

I smiled.

My hair might look like shit, but from the knees down, I was hot.

A long, low whistle stopped me in my tracks, but a strange sense of disappointment slithered through me when I spotted the source.

Freddy.

Who had I hoped for? Number Thirty-Six?

“You look incredible, Mrs. M.”

Even though the sun had begun to slip, a sheen of perspiration covered Freddy’s forehead and a smattering of dirt clung to his arms where he’d peeled off his sweatshirt and worked in his snug-fitting T-shirt.

I shook my head and laughed a bit, wondering if I had enough cash to give the guy a big tip. “Thanks,” I called out as I pushed open my front door and stepped inside.

It had been a long time since anyone had told me I looked incredible.

I stole another glance at Freddy as I shut the door.

Diane might have been wrong about most everything today, but she’d been right about one thing.

My landscaper was one fine specimen of the male gender.

I fought the urge to channel Demi Moore and focused on a more urgent matter.

Speed dating.

I muttered expletives and planned Diane’s demise as I climbed the stairs, headed for my bedroom. When I caught my reflection in the hall mirror, I froze, my homicidal thoughts going silent.

What would I think if I didn’t know me? If I saw me on the street? Or at the mall?

I didn’t look half bad...if I squinted hard enough.

Maybe Diane had been right.

Nah. I shook my head, sneaking one last glance at my reflection as I stepped away.

Even if she had been right, admitting so would only result in additional interventions. She’d already breached the worlds of skin care, footwear, hair and dating.

I shuddered to think what might be next.

Lingerie? Alcohol consumption? Sugar intake?

What Diane didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. Hell, it couldn’t hurt me. Any more of her interventions and I might lose the ability to recognize myself.

I stretched to catch my reflection in the mirror over my bureau.

Maybe, just maybe, not recognizing myself wasn’t such a bad thing.

Maybe it was exactly what I needed.

And maybe, Diane had known that all along.

o0o

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”

-Colette