Paz shoved about a week’s worth of bras underneath her bed and lifted the teal shirt off the lampshade she’d tossed aside carelessly last night. Jeez, she was really a slob. Maybe when she got filthy stinking rich she could afford a maid.
“Are you coming to my show?” She plucked at her bejeweled skirt.
Her first and only attempt at making clothes.
Skirts were supposedly so easy to make.
Lie.
She’d had to undo the stitching four times before she felt certain she wouldn’t zip it up and have a wardrobe malfunction.
Namely having the stupid thing fall down around her ankles when she stepped off her elevator into the lobby of her swank
Chicago
digs.
Though swank was
sorta
stretching it.
She wasn’t sure the 500 square foot broom closet she currently called home could ever be considered swank, but she had a great address in the hippest part of town and with any luck, she’d be moving to that penthouse suite after tonight.
“We wouldn’t miss it.” His voice was warm, reassuring, and Paz couldn’t help but smile. She loved her brother. “But Todd told me to ask you now, because we both know how you get when you’re talking about your art.”
“No I don’t.” She tossed the pillow away, fiddling with the large cream flower on her black cable knit sweater.
“
Pfft
. I didn’t even have to tell you how you act and you’re already defending it. So answer, sis. I’m not growing any younger.”
“Fine.”
She stood, grabbing her purse and wallet off her green distressed thrift store night stand. “I’ll go butt face. But I won’t promise to like it, so there.”
“You don’t have to like it, but you do have to visit Madam Pandora’s tent with me. Bye!”
“What?” Her brows dipped, but all she heard was the buzz of an empty line.
Rolling her eyes, she patted her flat blunt bangs and took a deep breath, ready to face her future. Her stomach nosedived. Well, unless she had to puke first.
***
The
Chicago
fairgrounds were magical at night. Neon lights lit up the park like a fireworks display. Crowds clamored from one red and white pinstriped tent to the next. Buttery scent of popcorn wafted in the air, tickling her nose.
“
Mmm
, I’m hungry,” Paz groaned when her stomach growled.
Todd’s expressive light brown eyes twinkled merrily as he hugged her against his broad chest. A good foot taller than her, with chestnut brown hair, and tanned good looks. Gorgeous and so her type, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was totally off the market.
“On me then,” he
said,
voice light and carefree. “A treat for my favorite artist…”
Richard gripped Todd’s waist, dark brown eyes glowing merrily, rich mocha skin gleaming shades of bronze beneath the neon glow of the Ferris
Wheel
.
Perpetual black cowlick shading the corner of his left eye.
“The only artist you know,” he finished, digging into Todd’s chest.
Todd clamped onto Richard’s hand and kissed the knuckle. A look passing between them that made Paz’s knees turn to jelly. What would it feel like to have someone look at her that way? Not that she was old, only 27, but still, long enough to crave what she’d never known.
There’d been passion, maybe some toe curling moments with past boyfriends, but nothing that had ever stuck beyond month six. Maybe she was cursed.
But she’d sold all ten of her paintings. She smiled, biting her bottom lip… well on her way toward that maid she’d always dreamed of. So maybe not that cursed.
“Okay, I’m so
gonna
barf if you guys keep looking at each other like that.”
Todd smirked, patting her head like she was a dog.
So not cool.
She gave him the evil eye. “Not a dog, Todd. Go get me my popcorn,” she clapped her hands, “and make it a large.
With butter.
Momma’s got a serious hankering from some greasy fat tonight.”
Todd saluted and winked. “Anything for you, baby?”
Richard shrugged.
“Trying to watch my
carbs
.
Whatever you have I’ll share.” Then he sighed, a silly
mopey
I’m-so-incredibly-happy kind of sound and again Paz couldn’t help feeling like the third wheel.
“I love him,” Richard whispered, like he wasn’t even really saying it to her.
She nodded, tucking his cowlick back. “I know. Aren’t you sure you’d rather me,
yanno
, be home and stuff tonight? I mean, this is your one year anniversary. Why in the world would you want me here? Shouldn’t you be bow-
chica
-wow…
”
Richard tugged on the end of her thick black hair.
“Hey, ouch!”
Paz slapped his hand away.
“You’re disgusting.
And no.
He loves you as much as I do. Besides, Madam Pandora’s
awaits
.”
A cool rush brushed against Paz’s legs. She was wearing thick stockings, and had traded in the killer pumps for a more ankle friendly pair of sparkling silver flats, but she probably should have grabbed a thicker jacket.
Even with the sweater underneath, she was still starting to shiver.
She grumped. “Why do you want me to go there so bad? What is it anyway?”
Glancing around, Paz frowned. The carnival was definitely as creepy as she’d expected it to be from the sound of the name.
Diabolique
, made her think of devil. Coming from a strict Catholic upbringing, anything to do with Mr. Red, Bad, and Evil still made her skin get the creepy crawlies.
Not to mention the carnival was just strange looking. Aside from the garish striped tents, and neon lights, the rides were all black.
Thick, dark black.
Blending into shadow if not for the lights affixed to the rides.
At first she’d had a mini heart attack when they’d bought their tickets, thinking maybe this night wouldn’t suck so hard after all. The man selling them behind the booth had been hot. No scratch that, he was way hotter than hot. Which sounded really lame, but how else could she describe the panty melting smile of his straight white teeth. The artfully arranged blond surfer hair, like liquid gold the way it’d gleamed beneath the light. And his face, oh man… she couldn’t paint something so pretty.
High cheekbones and hard square jaw, dimples when he’d grinned.
But then she’d looked at his eyes--glowing green eyes--and something inside her had shrunk away from letting him touch her when he’d handed her the change. She’d been pretty sure those hadn’t been contacts.
And what was even weirder about this carnival was that everyone one looked just
like
him. Well, not
just
like him. But everyone working here was hot.
Uber
,
smokin
’, ‘I’d sell my firstborn to have wild monkey sex with you’ kind of hot.
And they all had strange glowing eyes.
Which seemed to
phase
Todd and her brother not at all.
“Hello!” Richard snapped his fingers, making her jerk. “Did you hear a word I said?”
She grimaced. “Umm…”
He gripped his forehead. “That’s a no. I said,” he stressed
the ‘d’
, “that I want you to go because Brody and Luke came here last night and they said they got their fortunes told and it came true.”
Paz snorted. “Oh
my gosh
, that’s ridiculous. You do know that’s stupid, right? They’re all quacks out here.”
He looked hurt, and then annoyed. Richard shoved his hands into his jean pockets. “You’re coming and I don’t want to hear boo about it.”
“Boo about what?” Todd planted a peck on Richard’s cheek.
The effect was instantaneous. Richard smiled, leaning back into Todd’s large chest.
“
Mmm
, popcorn.”
Paz reached with greedy fingers for the steaming brown paper sack Todd handed her.
“Yummy, yummy, yummy.
Love,” she plopped a warm, buttery kernel in her mouth and groaned, “
love
, love, popcorn.”
Richard grabbed one out of her bag and tossed it at her nose. She swatted at it.
“And you say I’m weird. At least I’ve never written an ode to my food before.”
She stuck out her tongue.
“So are we going?” Todd asked, taking a bite out of his fried
twinkie
.
White cream oozed out the side and Richard moaned.
“Fried
twinkie
, Todd?
Cruel.”
Todd laughed.
Richard rolled his eyes. “My baby sister insists Madam Pandora is a quack.”
“You know what,” Todd said, and then took another
bite,
Richard swallowed hard, brown eyes wide as he stared at that
twinkie
like it was his lover.
Paz knew her brother was drooling,
twinkies
were his kryptonite. Todd was cruel. Which was probably why she loved him so much, he made her brother suffer.
As he should.
“I totally thought so too, but then when Luke told me what she said, you can’t fake that.”
Wrinkling her nose, Paz nibbled on a piece of popcorn. That’d gotten her attention. “What happened?”
Growling, Richard stole the last bite of
twinkie
from Todd’s fingers and popped into his mouth with a so-there look.
Smirking, Todd licked his lips. “She told him that he’d forgotten to pay his electric bill and that when they got home the power would be off.”
Snorting, feeling pieces of kernel jam in her throat, Paz coughed and then chuckled, wheezing around the bits still caught in there. So lame, she’d expected maybe Madam Quack would have said they’d be struck by lightning, or their dog would be run over.
Electric bill?
Get serious. She wiped tears from her eyes, ghost of a laugh still on her tongue. “Duh, she works for the power company after hours.
Totally doable.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “Paz, I came to your art show. Now you’re coming with us.”
Shoulders slumping, she licked the buttery goodness off her tongue. “Richard, seriously, that sounds so lame and I don’t want to blow ten bucks on something like that.”
Todd and Richard shared a glance. A wordless conversation passing between them that always made her both jealous and happy. She wanted that so bad, it was a desperate yearning in the pit of her gut, the depths of her heart. But she couldn’t deny how happy it made her to know her brother now had it. He deserved it.
Though she’d die before ever telling him that.
“We’ll pay,” they said at the same time.
One dark hand and one light hand gripped her elbows, steering her (willing or not) toward Madam Quack’s tent.
“Ugh,” she groaned.
Ten minutes later she was staring into the deep lavender eyes of the most gorgeous woman she’d ever seen. Midnight oil black hair, smooth alabaster skin, and the plumpest red lips that would have made even Steven Tyler green with envy.
Add to that that Madam Quack wasn’t wearing a gold
lamay
turban, purple silk robe, or looking into a crystal ball. Paz felt totally out of her element--hard to laugh at someone when they looked as sane and gorgeous as Madam Pandora did.
The tent was low lit a dark red, casting strange undulations upon the tarp walls. Paz gripped the wooden arms of the plush, floral patterned chair she sat on.
Pandora (because Paz refused to think of her as Madam Pandora any longer) sat in front of her, long legs crossed. Sparkling black cocktail dress draping like bats wings to either side of her. Red lips pursed and staring at Paz with an intense gleam in her strange colored eyes.
“Your brothers want you to be happy.”
Paz licked her lips. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, especially considering Pandora had very likely seen them drag her inside, ordering Paz to stay put or the popcorn got it.