His Fair Lady (2 page)

Want to get coffee after class?

He tore off the note and slid it onto Red’s desk.

She picked it up, read it, then rummaged in her bag and produced another pen. She wrote something and passed the paper back to him.

No.

Mark turned the scrap over and wrote.

I’ll buy you a cookie. Or a muffin.

Once again she read his note. When her gaze lifted to meet his, Mark’s pulse picked up.

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

Rather than answer, she crumpled the scrap of paper and dropped it on the floor before turning very deliberately away.

Well, that was clear enough.

Mark turned his attention to a skinny kid named Jeremy, who seemed to have appointed himself group spokesman. He read from the handout.

“Choose an event from your past which you believe altered the course of your life. Develop a series of questions that may be used—”

Mark tuned out. His redhead continued texting as the discussion ebbed and flowed around them. It seemed she had no more interest in participating than he did.

Time crawled. His classmates debated and discussed. His redhead—he was already thinking of her as his redhead—remained oblivious.

With five minutes left before the end of class, the professor called for the end of discussion.

Thank God, was all Mark could think.

“Next time I want to see a draft of the questions you’ll use for the basis of your final projects. Be sure whatever event you choose has wider societal implications. Questions?”

Nobody spoke up. Another big thank God.

“Okay, if there are no questions, that’s it for now.”

Red closed her notebook and reached for her handbag.

Mark opened his mouth, ready to take another shot at getting her to go out with him. But before he could say anything, she stood, gathered her stuff, and dropped her phone into her bag. Except it didn’t go into her bag.

Mark watched as it fell to the floor and slid under her chair. An idea came to him then, like a gift from that same God, and he held his breath.

Apparently unaware that her precious phone lay on the floor under her desk, the redhead hurried from the room.

Mark bent down and scooped up her phone. Hopefully she wouldn’t have a password. He clicked the home button and, voila! No password.

With a few taps, he accessed her contacts and swiftly entered his own name and number. He had just relocked the phone before someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“What?” Mark looked up.

Vi stood at his elbow.

“I asked whose phone that is. Unless you now have a case with pink flowers on it.” She laughed.

“I don’t think so.” Mark forced out a laugh. Heh-heh.

“Well then, whose is it? Because it looks like it belongs to a girl.”

And that girl is not me.

This part was left unspoken, though it reverberated as if blown through a megaphone.

“The girl who was sitting next to me dropped it.”

“What were you typing?”

“Nothing.”

“I saw you.”

Caught.

“I was trying to see who she is so I can find her and give it back.”

There. That was plausible, wasn’t it? He waited to see if Vi would buy it. But she did better than that.

“I can tell you who she is. Her name’s Jodie or Julie something, and she’s a freshman theater major.”

“How do you know her?”

“She was in Dr. Feni’s office when I went over there yesterday to get my add/drop card signed.” She held out her hand. “Give it to me, and I’ll give it back to her tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“My audition is tonight. For
My Fair Lady?
Remember? You were going to pick me up afterward, and we were going out. You forgot, didn’t you? God, Mark! Are you sure you’re not really a blond?”

Heh heh. Oh brother.

He hadn’t forgotten, not exactly. But neither had he promised to pick her up afterward. She just assumed like she always did.

“My bad.” Mark ran his fingers over the redhead’s phone. “So she has an audition tonight too?”

Vi nodded. “I saw the list. She has the slot right before me, so I can give it to her, if you want.”

He did not want.

“Hmm.”

“You’re still coming, right?”

“I guess so, sure.”

Coward.

She smiled and, lowering her lashes, gazed up at him. It was her flirtatious look. Mark braced for whatever would come next.

“Any way I can change your mind about auditioning?”

“It’s too late, isn’t it?”

She took this as encouragement rather than the verbal tap dance it actually was.

“Oh, I’m sure Kierra would squeeze you in if we ask her.”

Mark let himself imagine being on stage with the pretty redhead, playing Henry Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle. He would see her every night, talk to her every night for the duration of the show, through all the rehearsals and cast parties and performances. Of course it would mean seeing Vi too, but some goals were worth a bit of blood, sweat, and tears.

“So are you going to sign up?” Vi was all smiles, positively glowing with charm and persuasion.

Mark smiled too. “I’ll think about it.”

FINALLY!

AT LAST Dr. Harrington wrapped up. She had barely closed her mouth before Josie was out of her seat and running for the door. If she could just make it to the ladies’ room she could hang out, or more like hide out, until the very cute and very persistent guy who’d sat beside her had gone on to his next class. She reached the door and tossed a look back over her shoulder.

That girl from Dr. Feni’s office, the pretty perky blonde, sidled up to dark-haired cutie and laid a possessive hand on his shoulder. No surprise there. He might have been flirting with her during class, but in the end, guys like him always went for the perky blonde over the Amazonian redhead. It was nothing to her.

Josie stopped in the ladies’ room at the end of the hall. She needed to pee and text Kyle not to bother picking her up since she wanted to hit the bookstore and the library before going home. After finishing her business, she set her bag on the counter and washed her hands.

Josie opened her bag and reached inside for her phone. But it wasn’t in the pocket where she always kept it. She rummaged around in the main compartment but came up empty.

She huffed out an annoyed breath and upended her bag on the counter. Lip gloss, mascara, a yellow highlighter, three pens, a comb, a rubber band, a pack of tissues, her wallet, two dollar bills and thirteen cents—but no phone.

Where the hell was it?

Josie squashed the panic that wanted to rise up and grab hold. She just had it five freaking minutes ago. Therefore she must have dropped it on her rush to escape from her classroom suitor. So she would just go back and find it. No big deal.

And what if he was still there?

Well, if he was, she would see him again. After all, they were in class together, so she would see him again eventually.

For the briefest moment, she allowed herself to imagine accepting his invitation for coffee. They would sit across from each other at one of those little tables out front of the Book and Bean. He would flirt, and maybe she would even flirt a little in return. Maybe they would share one of those big chocolate chip cookies.

But no, that was never going to happen. Not for her, not with him.

But he did have a great smile and really pretty eyes.

A sigh slipped out before she could prevent it.

Okay, just quit it right now
. She needed to quit mooning over some guy she could never have.

And she was mooning. She could admit it to the girl in the mirror, that girl she’d become over years of tears and effort. A girl that cutie wouldn’t want, not if he really knew her.

Tossing everything back in her bag, Josie pushed open the restroom door, and who should she find standing in the hall but the very guy she’d just been mooning over.

“Hey,” he greeted her with a wide smile. No question about it, he had to have had braces in high school. No one’s teeth were naturally that perfect.

Josie pushed the odd thought aside, packing it away with the thrill of finding him waiting for her, a thrill she refused to countenance.

“Hey.” She tried to stroll casually by him, but he reached out a hand and stopped her. In that hand he held something that looked unsettlingly familiar.

“You dropped your phone.” When she didn’t immediately reach for it, he held it out farther into her personal space. “This is your phone, right?”

She nodded and took her phone. Their fingers brushed, and Josie felt a tingle all the way down to her coral-tipped toenails.

Holy crap, but she was doomed.

“Thanks, yeah, that’s my phone.” She kept her tone casual as she tried to edge past him, but he fell into step beside her.

“You’re welcome. I know I’d be screwed without mine. In fact I lost mine last year, and I still haven’t got back all the numbers I had in there.”

Probably numbers for about a thousand girls, Josie thought before she could stop herself. Not that she cared.

“Well, thanks for picking it up for me.” She tucked the phone in her bag and quickened her pace.

And what a surprise. He picked up his pace to keep up with her.

Josie pushed open the door and stepped outside. The brilliant morning sun filtered down through trees still mostly bare but just beginning to show the first hints of green. It made her smile, this whisper of spring, even if the air was still chilly.

“My name’s Mark.” Dark-Haired Cutie was hot on her heels.

“That’s nice.” She felt like she was racewalking.

“Brrrrrrrt! Wrong answer.”

Josie stopped and stared. “What?”

“Wrong answer. When I say my name’s Mark, you’re supposed to say, ‘Hi Mark. My name’s Herkimer. It’s nice to meet you.’”

“Herkimer?” She laughed. She couldn’t help it.

“It’s just an example.” He grinned. “So what is your name if it’s not Herkimer?”

Oh, what the hell?

“I’m Josie.” She resumed walking. So did he.

“Where’s your next class?”

“I’m done for the day,” Josie said, not elaborating. She waved a mental good-bye to her library-and-bookstore plans. Oh well, she would just go home, but she didn’t want him following her there.

“Yeah? Great. How about that cup of coffee? I’m buying. You look like a double espresso kind of girl. Am I right?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe because I have a boyfriend.”

Mark shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

“How do you know? I could have a boyfriend.”

“Sure you could, but you don’t. If you did, that would have been the first thing you said.”

“Okay, you win. I don’t have a boyfriend. But I do have a job for which I’m going to be late if I keep standing here arguing with you.”

It was a small lie, but so what? She didn’t know this Mark from Adam.

“It’s not an argument. It’s a negotiation.”

“A negotiation?”

“Yeah, we’re negotiating when you’re going to let me buy you a double espresso. Heck, I’ll even throw in one of those giant chocolate chip cookies. You like chocolate chip cookies, don’t you?”

“Pfft, who doesn’t?”

“Great. Then it’s a date. Give me a call when you’re done work and I’ll meet you at the Book and Bean.” With that he turned and started to walk away like everything was settled.

She would let him go. It was the wiser choice by far. But instead she called after him. “I don’t have your number.”

“Yes, you do. It’s in your phone.” He turned and, walking backward, sent her another of those heart-stopping smiles. “So I’ll talk to you later. Have fun at work.”

Josie watched him walk away.

Mmm, nice butt.

He wanted to buy her a cookie. It was quite an offer coming from a guy who was confident or arrogant enough to just stick his contact info in her phone. Too bad she would never take him up on it.

* * * *

“I can’t believe he put his contact info in your phone just like that.” Josie’s best friend, Kyle, pirouetted around their tiny living room before collapsing onto the sagging pullout couch in an amazingly accurate imitation of a swooning Southern belle. “That is soooooo…”

“Presumptuous?” Josie left the living room and walked down the hall to her bedroom. The door to her closet stood ajar. She dragged it open and scowled at the jumble of brightly colored clothes, shoes, and accessories. What did people wear to auditions anyway?

“I was thinking smooth,” Kyle called from his place on the couch.

“Yeah, smooth as a baby’s butt,” Josie muttered. “C’mere and help me find something to wear to this audition.”

She pulled out a black sweaterdress, briefly held it up, then tossed it aside and ducked back inside the closet.

“Don’t just throw that on the floor.” Kyle joined her at the closet. He picked up the dress, put it on a hanger, and hung it up.

Josie snagged a khaki shirt from the top shelf, shook it out, and shoved her arms through the sleeves. She turned, already buttoning it, and stepped out of the closet.

“You aren’t wearing that.”

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Josie glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door.

“Nothing if you don’t mind looking like a washerwoman.”

“When have you ever seen a washerwoman?” But she was already pulling off the shirt. She dropped it on the floor of the closet.

“Wear the dress. You look sexy in that.”

“I don’t want to look sexy. It’s an audition, not the Oscars.”

“It’s the Tonys for the theater, hon, not the Oscars.”

“I know that.” Josie dove back into the closet.

“Get out of there before you make an even bigger mess.” Kyle grabbed her by the waistband of her denim miniskirt and hauled her back. “Go get us something to drink while I figure out what to do with you.”

“Don’t pick anything too dressy. I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard.” Josie went to the kitchen, grabbed two sodas from their fridge, and brought them back to where Kyle was bent over with his butt sticking out, rummaging through the cedar chest where she kept her sweaters. His shirt had ridden up. She pressed the frosty can against the bare skin of his back.