After Hours Bundle (35 page)

“Stop it, Marly,” he said, his voice tight. “You know I'm not like that. You know my values aren't like that.”

“Do I know it?” She stared at him.
The master and the slave girl, huh? That little fantasy cuts a bit too close to the bone.

“Christ, I don't even
want
to run for reelection.” He threw up his hands and turned his gaze on his mother. “You should run. I've said it before. You'd be a brilliant governor.”

She laughed dryly.

“I'm not kidding,” said Jack.

Mrs. Hammersmith began to twist her wedding bands, and then stopped, caught fidgeting again.

“You ran our household like a well-oiled machine. You could run the state with your eyes closed.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“You speak fluent Spanish and would be perfect to liaise with Latin America…whereas I stumble through the language with a crutch and a pocket dictionary and a phonetic teleprompter.”

Benito danced in with a tray holding their salads and put an end to the conversation. Marly put her napkin back in her lap, intrigued by the new topic.

“Fresh pepper? Parmesan for the Caesar?” When he'd tended to everyone's needs, he disappeared again.

“You have a law degree,” Jack said to his mother. “You have all the connections I have, and you've been instrumental in the campaigns—both Dad's and mine. What's stopping you?”

“We're straying from the subject,” said Mrs. H. briskly.

He gave a good-natured laugh and shook a finger at her. “No, we're straying from
your
subject. We're talking about spin—what could be better spin than
Working Mom Runs the State?
”

Marly chimed in. “Oh, I like that!”

“This restaurant is very nice,” Jack's mother said, ignoring them both with a charming smile.

“Is it Dad who's stopping you?” Jack asked.

She put down her fork. “No. It's my son, the incumbent and the stronger candidate. Keep in mind that this isn't only about you or me. It's about what's good for the party. Now, how's your salad?”

“Just peachy.”

Marly glanced at her watch and realized that she was already two minutes late for her next client. “I'm so sorry, Mrs. Hammersmith, but I've got to get back to After Hours. I have a customer waiting.”

Jack's mom nodded. “That's all right. And I do apologize if I upset you, Marly. I've just been in this racket for a long, long time. Please believe that I only have your best interests at heart.”

Marly extended her hand. “I know that. Thank you. Jack and I…have some things to discuss.”

He stood up politely as she rose—his manners had been bred into him from the time he could crawl. It was one of the things she loved about him, but also one of the things that made her conscious of all the differences between their backgrounds.

She wondered what Jack would do if he ever faced her mother's noodle surprise. It was a far cry from lobster ravioli. Or her roast? He'd probably hand-carry it for Fuzzy to the center of the guest bed and lay it on a napkin for him. Maybe he'd even say grace.

Dad would think Jack was a smooth, smarmy politician and Ma would be struck mute, strangled by sour grapes but mesmerized by his looks.

“It was very nice to meet you, Mrs. Hammersmith. Enjoy your lunch—and if you're ever in the neighborhood and need a haircut, come see me.” Marly smiled at her and walked to the door. Then she turned and added, “And by the way, I'm a pretty good judge of character, too, and I think you'd make a fabulous governor.”

M
ARLY POKED
at the dry, icky sushi pieces in the plastic takeout container in front of her. The cooked imitation crab in the center of the rolls didn't look in the least bit appetizing.

She sat on one of her oversize cushions opposite Peggy, who'd come over for a glass of wine and who looked equally unimpressed with the sushi.

“How can you eat that stuff?” Peggy asked with a shudder. “Raw fish…
eeeuuww.
”

“This contains no raw fish,” Marly said. “And besides, when it's really fresh, spicy tuna or salmon or eel is to die for.”

“Yeah.” Peggy took a sip of her wine. “To die for, writhing in pain with food poisoning or a vicious attack from some microbial organism.”

Marly rolled her eyes and changed the subject. “So, Troy is in New York, you said?”

Her friend nodded. “Putting in orders for the new sporting goods store. He's been so excited about it, like he's planning Christmas morning for an entire city or something.” She grinned. “It's the first time he's ever gotten to control his future one hundred percent. As a football player and then as a coach, he was always answering to someone else and could be traded or fired on a whim.”

Marly nodded and put the lid back on her tray of sushi. She just wasn't hungry. “What I don't get, Peg, is how your love life is going so well after you stranded the guy naked in the After Hours mud bath!”

Her friend stared into her wineglass sheepishly. “Well, though I thought I was pretty clever at the time, you know it wasn't my proudest moment. Let's just agree to forget that, okay? Tell me what's going on with Governor Jack.”

Marly grimaced, got up and stuck the sushi in her refrigerator. She came back into the living room with the other half bottle of chardonnay and plunked it down on the floor in front of them.

“Governor Jack is a trip. He's funny, he's hot, it's the best sex of my entire life—yes, including Arnie-the-drummer-from-the-band-that-will-remain-nameless.”

Peg's eyes widened. “You're having the best sex of your life with a Suit? And a
Republican
?”

Marly nodded, tongue-in-cheek. “Yeah, can you believe it?”

“So where do you think this is all headed?”

“If he has his way, it's headed toward me in a twin-set with a fat pink bow on my head, gazing adoringly at him in front of a sea of people.” Marly pulled a floor pillow toward her, flopped onto her stomach and shuddered.

“Fat pink bow…no! What, you're going to be his Betty Boop on the campaign trail? I forbid you.”

“You'd better get ready to alligator-wrestle his mama, then. She's got it all worked out.”

Peg's expression became militant. “Ve haf vays of dealink vith Evil Mothers. Troy can kidnap her, I'll give her sciatica and you zap her with the poodle perm. Maybe over pluck her eyebrows and dye them orange, too.”

“But she's not evil,” Marly wailed. “She's very nice. She was just being realistic. If the media finds out Jack and I are an item, the shit will hit the fan. It calls attention to his bachelor status and morals, plus it takes the focus off him and his leadership skills and puts it on me, the
hippie hairdresser.
”

Peg stared at her. “Oh, I get it. Sex with a bow-head is more moral?”

“Well, I'd look sweeter under a bow or a velvet headband. More proper and wholesome.”

“Marly, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”

“Well, the alternative to the twin-set and bow is to be the Top Secret Slut-Behind-the-Scenes. Does that play better, when it comes out?”

“Maybe you should find another boyfriend. This sounds like a lose-lose situation.”

“That's what I'm thinking. Maybe a nice, low-key fertilizer salesman or John Deere rep.”

“Go with John Deere. Wasn't that guy who murdered his wife and unborn child in fertilizer sales?”

“Good point.”

Peg poured herself some more wine. “You?”

Marly shook her head. “No. I've got to figure out exactly what I'm going to say when I break up with Jack. And I've got to do it soon, because there are already little sound bites on the news about him gearing up for the campaign trail, and whether or not the Democrats will have a strong enough candidate to beat him.”

“I don't want to drive home,” Peg said, looking sleepy and comfortable. “Can I sleep over tonight?”

“Sure. You can help me rehearse.”

 

M
ARLY TOSSED AND TURNED
all night in her bed, got up several times and stared with envy at Peg, who was gently snoring away on the floor in her living room. Then she went back to the bedroom and thrashed around some more, visions of Jack swimming through her mind.

We need to talk. It's not you, it's me. You're a very special person, but…

I think we should see other people. I love you but I'm not
in
love with you. We just don't have anything in common. I don't think I can give you what you need….

All of these lines had been running through Marly's head for hours when the phone by her bed rang the next morning. “Hello?”

“You're going to break up with me, aren't you?” Jack's voice spoke into her ear.

“What?” she said, appalled. “Uh…no! Why would you think that?”
I'm going to kill you for blindsiding me like this! All night I rehearse, and you catch me off guard?

“I put myself into your cute little rubber flip-flops, Marly. I tried to choose between being transformed into a Stepford Wife or being swept under the rug like a shameful secret, and neither appealed to me very much. I thought, ‘Hey, it's easier to get rid of the pesky guy, even if he's handsome, charming and great in bed.'”

“Modest, too,” she couldn't resist adding.

“Mmm. So I said to myself, I said, ‘Jack, dude. She doesn't want your money, she's not the single-strand-of-pearls type, and—though it's tough for a man to admit—there are bigger penises out there. She's going to ditch you and wash her hands of the problem.' Am I right?”

It's not you, it's me.
“Why—why would you think that?”

“I just told you,” he said patiently. “So here's the deal. You're not going to sing my swan song until we've had a chance to see each other again and talk.”

“I'm not?” Marly was nonplussed. “I mean, no, of course not! I had no plans to…”
God, could you just make a cup of coffee appear magically in my hand? This is so unfair!

“I'll get down there as soon as I can, okay? And you have to promise to hear me out. I have to warn you, I can be very persuasive.”

Like I didn't know that already? As if I'd
normally
end up in bed with a nut who picked my photo out of a magazine and fixated on me in a totally unhealthy way?

“Jack, like I said, I don't know where this is coming from—”

He chuckled in her ear. “Save it, honey. You're not as good at snowing people as I am. I've had years of experience.”

She held the phone away from her ear and stared at it, almost shrieking in frustration. He was several steps beyond intuitive—in fact, he was almost creepy. Was Jack Hammersmith the first
psychic
Republican governor?

“So I'll see you soon, okay?” he said. “Promise you'll think about me. And don't wear any underwear.” This sentence was followed by a dial tone.

Marly clutched the phone for a long moment, staring at it, and then banged it against her forehead. Heat bloomed all over her body and someone—gee, who?—had flipped the On switch to her erogenous zones.

How could she want to sleep with him and murder him in the same exact instant? What was wrong with her?

Maybe it truly is me, not you….

 

T
HE
F
ABULOUS
F
OUR
, fresh from an expedition to Miracle Mile, brought all their shopping bags into the salon with them to show off their new duds. And, to Marly's horror, Denise brought a bag of cheese popcorn and a chilled ring of shrimp with cocktail sauce in the middle.

Within forty-five minutes, they'd finished off two bottles of chardonnay and created utter chaos inside After Hours. Marly came out from the back to find Suzette
standing
in the chair at her station, modeling a clingy, new Herve Leger dress and shaking her booty for Nicky, who applauded.

Denise had draped three other outfits over Nicky's chair and swayed slightly as she asked everyone in earnest whether she could still get away with wearing a chartreuse micromini at her age.

Marly squinted at it, the color giving her a headache. But since Denise had had about fifteen years surgically removed from her body, she allowed faintly that yes, Denise could get away with it.

Marly helped Suzette down from her chair before she fell and impaled herself on a hot curling iron. But she turned to find Rebecca with five shoe boxes open all over the pedicure area, twinkling her toes in a pair of $795.00 Sigerson-Morrison stilettos. Dear God, if there was the tiniest puddle and she slipped, lost her balance…

“Alejandro!” she called.
I need you to lock up these women.
“Come and see the fashion show, sweetie.”

He must have recognized a note of panic in her voice, because he emerged from the spa's office right away and moved in masterfully to dance Rebecca out of danger, compliment her new shoes and whip them off of her so he could wrestle her into a pedicure chair.

“But, darling,” she said with a giggle and another slurp of wine, “I don't need a pedicure. I just had one two days ago.”

Alejandro picked up one of her feet and smoothed a big hand over it. “They are a little dry,
mi corazón.
”

She appeared to slip into a coma at his touch—most women did. Then she picked up her glass again and purred, “Whatever you say, Señor Manos.”

It was his least favorite nickname, but Alejandro smiled stiffly and began filling the pedicure basin with warm, scented, bubbly water.

Marly bit her lip to keep from laughing. Looked as if the White Knight was going to be pushing back her cuticles for a while.

The fourth of the Fab Four, Natasha, was focused almost entirely on the shrimp and cheese popcorn, which made things really hard on her manicurist. A wilted popcorn blossom floated in her soak bowl, and a shrimp tail swam among the nail polishes to the right on her table.

Natasha had also found an ingenious solution to the problem of how to drink wine while getting a manicure: a straw emerged from her glass.

If this hadn't been going on in
their
salon, Marly would have found the whole situation funny. She exchanged a helpless glance with Alejandro as she exclaimed over the ladies' fashion finds.

She, Peggy and Alejandro had marketed After Hours as a preparty hot spot for beauty treatments…so they had to put up with a little partying. No way around it. But jeez! All they needed at this point was for a bunch of guys to meet every week for poker and massage.

“Bite your tongues!” hissed Peggy when they said this to her. Then she assumed a thoughtful expression. “But if Marly keeps dating Jack, soon we might be hosting legislative sessions here, with three-martini lunches.”

Marly is not going to keep dating Jack, no matter what he says.
No way was she welcoming a herd of senators and their aides into the spa. Her imagination ran away with her and she imagined a week-long filibuster….

As the Fab Four consumed another two bottles of wine over the next two hours and scattered smelly shrimp tails all over the place, she forced herself to focus on the fun salsa music and her clients' hair. Just ignore them…but she couldn't help worrying. It was getting late and the Fab Four's car keys needed to disappear before one of them decided that driving was a great idea.

Peggy had gone home, Nicky got off at eleven, and she and Alejandro were due to close together. One of them counted out the registers while the other cleaned up.

A whispered conversation with Nicky revealed that he had a date, so he couldn't stay. Marly decided to go ahead and call a cab for the ladies. When it arrived, they'd shepherd them into it with all their shopping bags; they could pick up their cars in the morning after sleeping off their hangovers.

But when the cab got there, confusion reigned. “I didn't call a cab,” said Rebecca, sounding affronted. I'm fine to drive. Did you call a cab, Natasha?”

Natasha answered in the negative. “Suzette?”

Nope. And Denise hadn't, either.

“We don't want a cab,” they announced in unison. “Send it away.”