Fool for Love: Fooling Around\Nobody's Fool\Fools Rush In (29 page)

T
RAFFIC ON THE
Fitzgerald Expressway was bumper-to-bumper, as usual. Trucks idled noisily, impatient drivers honked and Mark never got out of first gear. Light rain fell from a dismal gray sky, misting the windshield. He clicked the wipers on to the intermittent setting.

Unlike the drivers crammed onto the road with him, he was smiling. He was in his Benz-mobile, Rex in the Morning was blasting through the speakers, and his beautiful wife was beside him, sipping coffee from a travel mug. Her demure wool pants suit and her raincoat contrasted sharply with what she'd been wearing an hour ago—nothing but soap suds and warm water when he'd joined her in the shower. “I don't have time for this,” she'd protested half-heartedly, and he'd grinned and promised he'd be quick. He hadn't been, of course, and somehow she'd found she
did
have time for this, after all.

Wasn't that why travel mugs were invented? So that when the minutes set aside for breakfast wound up being spent on a far more pleasurable activity, a person could still enjoy her morning coffee before she reached her office?

“It's April Fool's Day,” he reminded her as the car rolled a couple of inches forward.

“Don't remind me.” She glanced at the radio. “Is Rex going to do anything awful this year?”

“I don't know.”

“Last year's gag backfired, didn't it?” She grinned at Mark. “I think he was kind of disappointed that things turned out so well. Everyone else at the wedding seemed so happy, but he just moped.”

“He was jealous,” Mark explained. “You broke up with him and married me. Poor bastard. I feel sorry for him.”

“You do not.” Mark felt Claire's probing gaze on him. “Rex
is
going to do something this year, isn't he? You know more than you're telling me.”

Mark guided the car ahead another inch and attempted a look of innocence. When Claire poked his arm, he shook his head. “Listen to the radio. That's the only way we'll find out if Rex has any April Fool's Day surprises on tap.”

She did as Mark suggested, eyeing the radio as she sipped her coffee. “And in medical news,” Rex said, “doctors have announced that, since most paper is made from wood fiber, it can be used as a dietary supplement. If you're constipated and tired of bran cereal, eating a few sheets of paper will solve the problem. Doctors advise people to avoid eating recycled paper, because you don't know what it's been recycled through.”

“That's gross,” Claire muttered.

Mark chuckled. “That's Rex.”

“All right,” Rex said. “How about this damp, dreary weather? Let's brighten things up with a song about sunshine.” Less than a second later, the car's
interior vibrated with the resonant opening chords of the
New World Symphony.

Claire flinched. “Dvorak?”

“Is that what that is?” Mark asked, feigning ignorance.

“On WBKX?” Claire jabbed his arm again and started laughing. “Why is Rex playing Dvorak?”

“Beats me.”

The music came to a sudden halt. “That sure doesn't sound like George Harrison singing ‘Here Comes the Sun,”' Rex said. “How 'bout we try this again. I've got Peter Gabriel here, ‘Red Rain.”' A pause, and the
New World Symphony
came on again.

“What did you do?” Claire asked sternly.

Mark coughed to keep from laughing. “Me? Why do you think I did something?”

“Because Rex would never play Dvorak. Not even on April Fool's Day.”

“He would if all the disks in his queue are the
New World Symphony.
”

“You didn't,” she admonished, this time unable to suppress her laughter.

“I took a bunch of CDs of the
New World Symphony
and stuck different labels on them, and then I put them in Rex's stack. His director is in on it. Everything he plays for the next half hour is going to be Dvorak.”

“Won't you lose listeners?”

“Nah. They'll all stick around to see how long the gag goes on, and how Rex handles it.”

At the moment, Rex was handling it by stammering. “Something really weird's going on here, folks!” he said. “I'm being attacked by Dvorak.
Let's go to a commercial—” and the largo movement of the
New World Symphony
came on.

“You are a very bad man,” Claire scolded, still laughing.

“I am a very devoted husband,” Mark defended myself. “Giving my wife her favorite music on the anniversary of the day we met.”

“Yes,” she said, this time not punching but caressing his arm. “You're a very bad, very romantic man.”

“And you love me for it.”

“I do,” she said, but he already knew that. Which was just one more reason to smile on this rainy, happy April Fool's Day.