Roll with the Punches (21 page)

His frown was giving me a headache.

I stood up. "Look, the truth is, full manuscripts are cumbersome and cost a fortune to mail. I just didn't bother." I headed for the door. "I need some air."

James followed me outside, brightening. "Okay. Could someone have taken your idea from your synopsis and first three chapters and given it or sold it to this bestselling guy, who ran with it? Maybe he didn't even know it was a stolen idea. Plus, you should call Marcella and ask questions, just to be safe."

"But Marcella wouldn’t—" I felt icky at the thought of confronting sweet Marcella.

"I'll do it for you if you like. She doesn't know me, so she'll be off her guard. Okay?"

The bright, sunny Southern California day felt drab, even as we passed colorful mall stores. "James. She's been a respected literary agent for years. And besides, after that conference, I completely revised my book's sagging middle, and then I reworked it again in July after the Palm Springs debacle in June. The agents there wanted the whole story summarized on the first page, so I shifted the first chapter info dump to chapter two."

He patted my shoulder. "Trust me. I'll be tactful when I call her. I just wish I could help you more."

"I'm tired. Maybe I’ll just go home." I walked head down, feeling the lead weight of all my problems. No one could help me with my novel. I'd have to start from scratch. No, I'd have to put my writing on hold while I worked double shifts or two jobs to pay off my credit cards. And with Dad and Mom to juggle now, I’d be writing my next book in twenty years. By then, I'd be a stooped, gray librarian in stout walking shoes like Marla, swinging my cane at people who returned books late, telling them to mind their own beeswax. I wiped away a big, fat tear.

I looked up. We were in front of the bookstore. I sighed. "I better go in here and find my book."

But James suddenly pulled me toward him right on the sidewalk, took my face in his hands, and kissed me full on the mouth. Wahaa! Fire shot through me, and the dark movie theater beckoned, with its magical possibilities.

He breathed in my ear, "Special girl. You're better than any Foxy Jackson guy, and don't you forget it."

"How do you know he's a guy? Seen a picture?" I said, my spirits lifting fast.

He shrugged and raised perfect eyebrows. "Ah, who gives a shit?" He started running and pulled me toward the theater. But this showing of the movie, still in its first weekend, was sold out.

"Hey," James said, ever cheerful. "Let's buy tickets for the next show in two hours and walk around some. What's your pleasure?"

What could be better than two extra hours alone with James? Those extra hours in a dark theater with James and a whipped cream bottle. "Dessert," I said.

We bought our tickets, then turned down the long outside mall and walked past tasteful, colorful storefronts selling electronic equipment, tropical clothing, live pets, stupid gadgets, toys and games, pretentious cookies, and pretzels. I took his hand and felt rich in its warmth. A flower stall was right in our path, and I thought sure James would stop and get me some. Instead, he pulled me into a noisy pet store.

"Hey, look." He pointed out some large, colorful macaws who would outlive us both. "Want one?"

I shook my head. "They're gorgeous, but I kill living things, remember?"

"Hard to kill an iguana," he taunted, pointing at one.

"I'd feed it too much and it'd grow to twenty feet long and fill up the house like that dragon in the children's book."

James moved on to pet a tiny, fuzzy kitty in an enclosure. I reached in to do the same. "Soft, hmmm, Rhonda? Like—" He nudged me and wiggled his eyebrows.

I was thinking about the soft fur James probably had on his stomach, but he put his hand on the back of my neck. "This right here.”

Shivers went down to my toes. The munching guinea pigs nearby were even softer. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Where was a kitchen island when you needed one?

In the back of the store, behind glass, sleek green snakes encircled branches, all muscle and, and … I fanned myself as they evoked other imagined parts of James's body.

He touched my arm. "Want one of those? Ya can’t kill ‘em." His eyebrows waggled. "Ever.”

Something warm shot from his hand on my arm all the way to parts of me that hadn't tingled for ages. They woke up and saluted. Maybe this date was salvageable after all. "Sure," I said in a haze. "I'll take two."

James squeezed my arm. We passed a dozen darling designer puppies, alone in glass cages. It only took one shivering, sad puppy behind glass to kill my sexy mood and bring tears to my eyes again. Man, I was a regular water faucet lately. I wanted to break the glass and load those poor expensive pups into my shirt and skate off into the sunset with them. Instead, I dropped his hand and sprinted out of the store.

He caught up with me in front of the cookie store, where I'd wiped my eyes and was paying for three cookies.

"Fun pet store," he said. "That's where I bought the little shih tzu for my sister one Christmas. For a thousand bucks, I thought he'd be potty trained. Instead, he eats his poop.”

I barked, "I hate those places, isolating those poor puppies behind glass. They need petting and love and friends and running room!"

He looked defeated.

"You want one?" I held out a cookie, trying to make up for blasting his pet store.

"Nope. Too many carbs. Don't want to blow up like a blimp.”

Like me. Great. Some girls would've thrown the three chocolate chip cookies I'd just bought, well, two and a quarter at this point, straight into the trash. But not me. They were too expensive (and yummy) to toss. I wrapped them in a napkin and pretended to throw them away while secretly stowing them up my jacket sleeve for later. Of course, now I'd have to keep my arm bent until I could find a way to dump them in my pocket or purse. Looking around for a restroom to make the switch, I noticed a law office, open on Saturday in the mall. Only in Southern California.

I headed that way. "Just a sec. I need to go in there and find out how to get my plagiarism case going."

James grabbed my arm. "Oh, that can wait. Check this out." He whisked me into a chi-chi little tattoo parlor with mannequins in string bikinis on display. Their hard plastic body parts were covered with tattoos of flaming ships, waving flags, giant roses, and dripping knives. Also, Looney Tunes characters, flaming motorcycles, and Gothic words rimmed in spikes. Behind the counter, a muscular bald guy rang up a sale. He had geometric blue and green designs up one arm, skulls spewing snakes up the other, and blue barbed wire around his neck. Ugh.

I was fast collecting cookie crumbs around my elbow. I opened my purse to make the chocolate chip cookie transfer, but James turned to me, eyes bright like a kid in a candy shop. "You wanna get some ink done?"

"Well …" I held my cookie-filled sleeve and flipped through a small book of mini-hearts, flowers, and butterflies.

James said, "It's a rite of passage. Want a tiny red rose on your shoulder?" His voice lowered. "Or your breast? Or on a bun?"

I smiled. Three dates from now, I'd feel comfortable discussing this with James. Or later this evening, if I got lucky. My mouth twitched at the thought.

James took this for a sign of approval. "Great. I found a cool one, too. Do we have time?"

How long could it take to etch one of those little tiny hearts on a bicep? "Sure."

Then James raised his shirt and I jumped like an LA Laker. The colorful animals in the pet shop had been mere faint copies of the ones he'd actually let into his life—well, onto his torso. A whole vivid jungle menagerie lived and breathed on his well-built chest. There were bright green boas, red parrots, golden monkeys, orange orangutans, and blue tree frogs vying for the space between the lush, verdant trees depicted across his shoulders and chest. I could almost hear the screeches and caws echoing from one armpit to the other. A tight rope walker balanced precariously on a rope stretched between his nipples. Lower down, a wide, cerulean blue waterfall plunged into the Amazon River, on which pirate boats floated across his flat stomach.

He was right about that chocolate chip cookie. Too many of those, and the river boats would become barges, the tight rope would loosen and the walker would fall into the river full of purple piranhas that dove below his low waistband. I blushed at the thought of the deep river bottom down there—no doubt complete with eels.

"Wow," I finally squeaked out, trying to smile, that kind of smile you make when you really, really want to like something, but you just know it's going to make you queasy. Like eating squid, watching boxing, or sailing in the ocean.

But this was James. My hunk. Could it really bother me that much?

He rolled his shirt down. "Okay, look." James flipped through a catalog. "See, I'm not much into these Gothic or chain ones. I'm more like my sister. I love color and themes. Hers are elementary. Mine create whole worlds. And I've been looking for this one." He pointed at the Transamerica Pyramid from San Francisco, in three colors. "Isn't it great? I've been saving up for it." His body vibrated with excitement like I'd never seen him vibrate about anything, including me.

I said, "In the jungle?"

He turned around and pulled the shirt up high again, this time to reveal his back. I dropped my purse. The cookies came sliding out of my sleeve right onto the black and white tiled floor. Geometric Arm Guy laughed, showing a dark tooth.

James didn't notice any of this, his back bared to me. Let’s just say there was no fog on the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, and Lombard Street stretching across his broad back muscles. But I could hear the cable cars and the bustle of Fisherman's Wharf above. And right by the Exploratorium, there was an oblong space of white skin by his left shoulder blade, perfect for the pyramid.

"After this, all I need is Alcatraz." He indicated a blank spot under his arm.

"James?" I croaked. "My God. Are those all real? Where's Ghirardelli Square?"

"See this orangutan?" He bared a shoulder. "She was my first one when I was sixteen. My sister said it was okay, as long as I put them where they'd be covered by a shirt. So I could get employed, you know. I must have ten thousand dollars' worth so far. You should see my butt.”

Well, I'd been hoping to. "Great white sharks or Silicon Valley?" I joked.

"Yosemite," he said, his eyes dancing. "El Capitan and Half Dome."

I'd never had time for tattoos or piercings. To me, ink belonged on pages, not on bodies. But I'd just been a soggy blanket about the pet store, so I opted to get a tiny little rhinestone post over my left nostril. This was done in a flash, although I sneezed for twenty minutes afterward, and bled for half an hour. Then I looked out the window and saw the lawyer's office was closed.

James's young, dread-locked tattoo artist was new, so his fifty-minute skyscraper took over two hours. I sat biting my fingernails and squeaking as the squinting tattooist with the fumbly fingers kept asking for help using the machine. As the guy mopped blood off James's skin, I winced, feeling privy to some bizarre tribal ritual.

When we both staggered back out into the late afternoon sun, he checked his watch. "Oh, gee. Our movie's starting. Let's run." We ran back down the mall past all the stalls, but then he suddenly stopped at the flower shop he'd ignored earlier and bought a perfect long-stemmed red rose. He turned slowly and presented it to me.

"Rhonda, please forgive me. I shouldn't have been so pushy about your dad and your book. It's just—" The hand went through the curly hair. "I worry about you. Your brothers aren't here, and I feel responsible." Then he turned, raised his shirt and showed me his new tattoo.

"What?" I asked, uncomprehending.

The new tattoo wasn't a tall skyscraper but a gorgeous red rose, placed between Lombard Street and Fisherman's Wharf. "Won't it look cool when it heals? It'll be my permanent souvenir of our first date.”

Awww. Awww. Awww. I melted.

He reached out and grabbed me for a deep, languid, well-crafted kiss in front of God and every teeny bopper mall shopper. All my pent-up frustration found an avenue for release and I pressed my body into his and felt how powerful and hard those muscles really were. Wow. The part of my brain that had kept the visuals of the soft kitty and the gliding snake on ice all day thawed. I kissed him harder, not caring who gawked. Then I stroked his back.

"Ow," he yelped. "We're gonna miss the movie," he said through gritted teeth.

"Can you sit through it?" I asked. "Or don't you have to go home and wash that thing off a bunch and put on ointment like they said?"

James flashed me a helpless little boy look. "Yeah, probably. But you could help me with it. I'll show you my piranhas."

I debated whether the possibility of living out my kitchen-island sex fantasy with James was worth sopping up bloody, inked skin. Then I spied another large chain bookstore nearby. "Wonder if they have Jackson's book?"

"Rhonda, forget it. Let's get ice cream." He leered at me.

"James. You were right. I need to face the music." I marched past the bargain tables at the bookstore doorway, then stopped dead. Right in front of me, in pride of place on the bestseller table between Tess Gerritsen's latest medical thriller and two Nora Roberts books, was a stack of
Memory Wars
by Reynard A. Jackson. The glossy red cover had a silhouette of a stooped woman pushing a walker across the front, a dripping knife aimed at her questioning speech bubble. And splashed across the top was
REYNARD A. JACKSON
in jaunty Jokerman font.

Two people snagged copies off the stack and went toward the register.

Like a victim revisiting her recent crime scene, my whole body started to shake with fury as I approached the stack of books. What made me mad as hell, besides the fact that the letters didn't spell
Rhonda Hamilton
, was that
R
was red, not green. And a brown
E
and blue
Y
? Come on.
E
wasn’t brown, and
Y
screamed yellow. Of course, wrong-colored letters assaulted me daily, on every sign, but these wrong colors were on
my
book, like a punch in the face. I reached out toward the sacrilege, its red cover radiating the fierce, biting, clawing heat of hell.