Authors: Nina Howard
“You’re drunk,” he said.
“You’re not,” she answered.
“Let’s get you home. I can give you a ride.”
“Can’t I drive?” She asked, cracking up at her own joke.
“You’re hilarious with a few cocktails in you,” Mike observed.
“Oh, there’s more than a few in there. Do you drink martinis Mike Towner?”
“Not on the job,” he answered, trying to straighten her out and send her to the sidewalk. “Maybe a walk would be good for you.”
“You just want to follow me home,” she wagged her finger at him.
“All part of the job,” he said. She started walking, but was having a bit of trouble with the gladiator shoes. “I don’t know how you can walk in those things sober, let alone hammered.”
“I’m not hammered. Just happy. You may be right about those shoes.” She sat down on Susan’s front lawn and unraveled the complicated lacing of the sandals, without much luck .
Mike bent down and took over. “Jesus, you need an engineering degree just to figure out how these things come off. There you go,” he said as he freed her foot. He took a minute to rub her foot, now free of the shoe bondage.
“Mmmm, you have magic fingers,” she said and she closed her eyes.
Mike moved on to the other shoe, and slipped it off. He thought better of it, but felt compelled to rub the other foot. Victoria threw her head back and relaxed even more.
They could hear voices coming to the door and they both froze. Without saying a word, Victoria picked up her sandals and she and Mike ran down the street and around the corner. By the time they stopped, they were both breathing heavily and were laughing.
“Could you imagine how my new friends would take it if they saw you giving me such amazing ‘foot’ right on Susan’s lawn? I’d be the talk of the Kindergarten mothers.”
“I’m sure you already are,” Mike said.
“Thanks!”
“Really, do you think they’ve ever come across someone so sophisticated, beautiful and mysterious? I’m sure they’ve all been dying to get a closer look at you.”
“Do you think I’m sophisticated and beautiful?” She tried to point her finger at Mike, but ended up putting her entire hand on his chest.
“I’m not a Kindergarten Mom. I don’t think it matters what I think,” he said, cautiously avoiding the real question. “I can say with authority, though, that you are truly mysterious.”
“I’m easy to read,” she said, putting her other hand on his chest. She leaned in to kiss him. He hesitated, and pulled back.
Victoria was never one to take no for an answer. She leaned in farther, up on her tiptoes, inhaling the fresh soapy smell of him for a brief instant. It was she who kissed him. She put her arms around his neck, and kissed him with short little kisses. He held still under her kisses until suddenly, passionately, he kissed her back.
She was surprised how good it felt to be in his arms. How good it felt to kiss him.
“Mike,” she whispered. “Oh, God.”
“ViVi,” he whispered back. She stopped, and pulled away.
“ViVi? Is that the name of your first wife?”
He smiled at her, loving the fact that she was jealous. “It’s what I’ve called you from day one. V.V. Victoria Vernon. I think it suits you.” He went back to kiss her again, but she was hung up on the name issue.
“ViVi. What’s wrong with Victoria?”
“Victoria sounds, so, I don’t know, so snooty.”
“I am snooty,” she insisted.
“You’re not snooty. Not anymore.”
Victoria pulled away. Not anymore. She had worked so hard to become Mrs. Victoria Vernon of Park Avenue, New York City that it made her sad to think that she was gone. Was that life never coming back?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I meant it as a compliment.”
She pulled out of his arms, suddenly sober.
“You know, I’ll take you up on that ride if you don’t mind.”
CHAPTER 18
Precariously balanced on a rickety chair and an old steamer trunk, Victoria tried to reach the top corner of the window of the thrift shop. One of the most satisfying aspects of her new job was dressing the windows. She had always appreciated the windows of her favorite stores in New York. Barney’s was known for their cutting edge displays. Victoria’s favorite was the Andy Warhol Holiday display. Where else could you get your fix of fashion and art on the sidewalk? Bendel’s was much more subdued, but no less creative. The Louis Vuitton store did an amazing display with neon tubes - not a handbag in sight. To a New Yorker, fabulous windows were expected. In Tenaqua, they were non-existent.
She had scoured the store and gathered her ‘finds’. She was working around a camping theme, as she had found a tent in the back room that had been dropped off ages ago, although nobody knew what to do with it. She collected every green shirt in the store and scattered them on the floor like grass. Small purses worked as rocks, with which she used to surround the fire. The fire itself had stumped Victoria, then she cleverly strung about eight pairs of red shoes together, and hung them from the ceiling. And now it was with the textbook vintage desk fan that she found herself in the corner of the window, trying to create a wind source.
She could feel the trunk slipping out from underneath her, and knew that there was nothing she could do to stop it. In what seemed like slow motion, she fell with a giant thud, right in the middle of her fire of shoes. She let out a cry that would make a sailor blush, only to hear Elise gasp.
“Victoria!” she called.
“Don’t worry - I’m okay,” Victoria called back.
“Please, watch your language. This is a family store,” Elise answered.
Really, no need to worry about me, Victoria thought as she started to pick herself up. I’m fine.
The curtain opened slightly and she heard a familiar voice. “My, aren’t we graceful.” It was Mike.
“You saw that.” It was a statement.
“It’s my job.” He stepped into the window to help her up.
“I’m fine,” she said, not wanting to get too close. She wanted to pretend that last night had never happened.
“It’s a good thing you have me around. You could really hurt yourself one of these days,” Mike said. “Last night you almost lost it to a pair of eight inch sandals --”
“Four inch. And let’s just forget about last night.”
“I saved you. Twice. Don’t I even get a thank you?
“Fine. Thank you. Happy now?” They were standing so close to each other in the small window, she could feel his breath on her. For a split second she wished she had a mint. He didn’t move. She wanted to break the moment, but couldn’t pull herself away. There was a knock at the window, which broke the moment for her. Martha Morrison was waving frantically at both of them. Victoria felt like she was a caged animal at the zoo. Or the headliner at a freak show.
Martha was a vision in head-to-toe black leather. Even though it was June and fairly warm, she looked like she had just left a dominatrix convention. Her black leather (Victoria was convinced it was pleather) jacket was zipped down to
there
, showing her too-tanned cleavage. Martha excitedly headed into the store, and Mike didn’t waste any time heading out of the front window to see Martha. You would have thought that they were oldest, best friends.
“Mike! How are you?” Martha gushed. Her pencil-thin pants whistled as she pranced through the store to grab him by the shoulders and pull him in for a big hug and an air kiss. The zipper on her jacket seemed to slip lower and lower with each movement. Before Mike had a chance to respond, Victoria emerged from behind the curtain, wiping her dusty hands on her trousers.
“Hello, Martha,” Victoria said with substantially less enthusiasm than what Martha had just showed Mike.
Martha kept her arm on Mike’s shoulder. “Vicky!” Each time she said someone’s name it was with a high-pitched squeal. “Were you window shopping?” Martha cracked up at her own joke. “Seriously - what are you doing here?”
Victoria bristled at the question, though a few weeks ago she would have asked herself the same question. “I work here,” she said as she mustered as much pride as possible. “In fact, I was just redoing the windows.”
Martha cocked her bright blonde head and smiled. “Oh, I think that’s great!” She gave Victoria the kind of encouragement one would give to a kindergartner with a finger painting. She looked around at the cramped store. “This is a great place.”
“It really is,” Victoria wasn’t going to get into it with this bimbo. “Too bad we’re fresh out of all our pleather. I can keep my eye out for some if you’d like.”
Martha almost snorted. Her well-preserved face formed a perky sneer. “Thanks, but I’m good.” She turned her attention to Mike. “You don’t work here too, do you?”
Mike laughed and gave Martha a winning smile. “Oh, I just stopped by to give -- Vicky -- a little help.”
Martha ran her hand up and down Mike’s bicep. “I bet you could help with a lot of things.” She stopped for a moment, as a realization popped into her head. Victoria could see it register on her face. “What do you do, anyway? Do you work around here?”