Nothing Personal (3 page)

“OK, I’ll bite.” Desiree noticed with a bit of pride that she wasn’t out of breath after the steep climb up the
Filbert Steps. “What are they?”

Javier turned and saw her looking over the
hedge. He set the zigzagging piece of white—plastic? onto the flagstones of his patio as Philip did the same. Whatever the things were, they matched.

“Our new dining chairs,” he explained. “Aren’t they fabulous?”

“Uh . . .” Now that he’d told her, she could see it. “Very . . . modern.”

He laughed. “You have no
appreciation, baby girl. Come sit in one. They’re comfortable, I promise.”

“One sec.” She pulled her keys from her purse, opened her French doors and set her laptop bag and her purse
on the kitchen floor together with the pink plastic bag containing her dinner, picked up on the way home from her favorite Chinatown hole in the wall. Locked the door again, then lifted the latch on the gate connecting her garden to the boys’ and went on through.

She sat gingerly on the shiny white surface, bounced experimentally, felt the material give.
No arms, of course. Arms must be out of style. “All right,” she conceded. “They’re surprisingly comfortable. But they’re still . . .”

“Modern,” Javier said. “Of this millennium. We have four more. Come see how fabulous they look with the table.”

“Yup,” she said when the guys had carried the chairs through the sliding glass doors, set them with the others around the ebony dining table with its metal edging. “Those are some chairs, all right.”

“Hopeless,” Javier sighed. “But I have to say—gorgeous new skirt.” He waved her into one of the new . . . she guessed she really did have to c
all them chairs--as he and Philip took two others. “Donna Karan, am I right?”

“You know my weakness,” she admitted, sticking her legs out in front of her and toeing off her shoes
, wiggling her bare toes luxuriously. “Big meeting today. First time with Mr. Alec A. Kincaid.”

“Excuse me. I’m just catching my breath,” Javier said,
pounding on his chest and then fanning himself extravagantly with one brown hand. “Is it hot in here, or is it just him?”

“What’s the
A
for, anyway?” Philip asked with a good-natured grin across the table for his partner.

“Alpha,” Javier said firmly.

“Alasdair,” Desiree said through her laughter. “Alexander Alasdair Kincaid. Sounds like the laird, doesn’t he?”

“Close enough for me,” Javier agreed. “How hot in person? Are we talking jalape
ño, or habanero?”

“Oh, haba
nero,” she said. “Absolutely.”

“But it’s hands off, right?” Phi
lip asked. “We being professional here?”

“Also absolutely. Anyway, I’m not much for standing in line. Or rolling down the assembly line
, more like. Being processed and moving on.”

“Ouch,” Phi
lip agreed. “So, not a prospect. Anybody else on the horizon? Hot date tonight?”

“Not hot, warm, or otherwise. Lots of work to do anyway. I’m going to be flat-out for a while here.”

“How about breaking for Bette Davis in a couple hours?” Philip urged. “We’re doing ‘Now, Voyager’ for our Friday night flick.”

“With popcorn. And extra
butter,” Javier tempted. “Plus Pink Lady apples. Your favorites. Bought them just for you.”

She smiled. “Wish I could. But no. I’m looking at
office space this weekend, and . . . oh, gosh, so many other things too. I’d give you the list, but it’s just way too boring.”

“Not going to be too busy to take Anthony and Cleo next week, are you?”
Philip asked as one of the Siamese who had been rubbing around the three pairs of ankles jumped into Desiree’s lap, submitted regally to her stroking hand. “Because Cabo’s calling our name.”

“Are you kidding? Cat-sitting’s the highlight of my upcoming social life.”

Javier sighed. “You’d better get moving on that, because I tossed that bouquet to you on purpose, baby girl. You’re obligated now.”

“I am not. It wasn’t even a real bouquet.”

“It was a perfectly good centerpiece, and I used it on you. It’s been six months. I’m counting on you to pull it out here, and so far, you’re disappointing me sadly. How many times have we set you up in the past year?”

“
Mmmm . . . four,” she decided.

“And how many second dates have we had?”

“Hey. One of them I did,” she argued. “But then I got busy. And I’m busy now.” Besides, hanging out with a couple could make a person feel so . . . lonely, and she didn’t need to feel any lonelier.

She got up, reluctantly dumping the cat off her lap in the process
, bent down to collect her shoes from beneath the table. “Cool chairs, guys. And say hi to Bette for me.”

She used the gate again to pass through into her own little patch of paradise, the patio laid with sandstone flags, surrounded by greenery both planted and potted in terracotta containers, all of it shielding her from the sight of the locals and tourists who used the stairs outside her carved wooden gate as a shortcut, or a workout, or just a scenic walk. Gnarled wisteria vines as big around as her wrist climbed both sides of the arbor that would provide shade, along with the delicate scent of their drooping blue-purple flowers, to her small teak table and chairs when summer came again.

She unlocked her
multi-paned French doors, turned one antiqued bronze handle and stepped into the kitchen, the blue hand-blown glass diamonds winking in the pale sunlight, faithfully providing their accents within the diamonds of copper-colored tiles that made up the backsplash of her small but functional kitchen.

No wiggly white chairs in he
r dining room, or anywhere else either, she thought as she passed through the compact dining area and on into the living room, with its single floral-patterned couch in faded shades of pink, green, and white, the non-matching pair of upholstered antique side chairs. Her bare feet sank into the comfy wool rug that extended nearly to the edges of the narrow-plank hardwood floor, almost to the point where it met the richly detailed molding that she’d repainted twice now to keep its white gloss pristine.

Her cottage,
all 900 square feet of it, was where she indulged her traditional side, her feminine side. And her feminine side had better stay confined right to this spot, she reminded herself sternly, passing through into her bedroom, with its pale green walls and more white molding at floor and ceiling, unzipping her skirt and hanging it in her neatly organized closet, unbuttoning her blouse and putting it into the mesh bag hanging over the door for hand-washables.

She pulled on her favorite pink fleece sweatpants and a V-necked white T-shirt, went into the bathroom to get rid of her makeup and get comfortable
in preparation for a solid evening’s work before her meeting with the realtor tomorrow. Flipped the switch and experienced the delight she felt every single time the two small chandelier wall fixtures on either side of the ornate oval mirror blazed out in twinkling, shining crystal. Even after four years, she still got the same kick out of it all. It was girly, and it was over the top, and she loved it.

Her hair had remained completely under con
trol, she saw with satisfaction as she pulled the pins out and allowed it to fall around her shoulders in glossy waves. And so had she. She’d come a long, long way from Chico, and from that blistering summer day when she’d first met Alec Kincaid.

Snap.

“Hey!
Sno-Cone girl!”

Desiree looked up from the smudgy newsprint of the oversized test prep book,
blinking behind her glasses, and turned quickly to the rectangular serving window of the Snack Shack. She’d been so engrossed, she hadn’t heard the group approach.

It was the blond guy, she saw with a sinking heart. Sticking his head through the window, into her space, giving another snap to his fingers. With a bunch of the others behind him. The last people she’d have chosen to encounter again today. She could feel the color rising in unsightly blotches up her chest, into her cheeks as he recognized her and the smirk formed. She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye.

“What can I get you?”
To sustain you in your preparations for your promising career in urinal maintenance.

“Hot dog,” he said. “And a red
Sno-Cone.”

She nodded, picked up the tongs to put a bun into its paper boat, pulled the metal handle of the steamer door open and tried not to notice the hot, moist air that rushed out,
doing its bit to contribute to the hot, sticky atmosphere that had her curls plastered to the back of her neck and patches of damp showing on the back and under the arms of her tank top. The little fan on the back counter blew the hot air around, but that wasn’t helping much. She slipped the dog into its bun and closed the door.

“Everything on it?”

“Everything but onions. You never know who’s going to want to kiss me.” Another loud laugh, echoed by the girls along with a “you wish.”

Desiree ignored it all, scooped relish, sauerkraut, and grated cheese, and handed the container across the counter. Packed crushed ice into the cone and pumped syrup with an efficiency born of two months of practice. Accepted his money and made change, still running the PSAT question through her head.

The math sections were easy, the reading comprehension not too bad. She even felt fairly confident about the writing. But the grammar stuff was still stumping her sometimes, and that had her worried. She only had a couple more weeks of summer vacation left, and her work schedule wasn’t leaving her enough study time. A new school, three AP classes . . . She had
to get through the whole book before school started. She
had
to. Because she needed a good score on that test.

The blond guy took his change, wiped his hand ostentatiously on his swim trunks, and murmured, not quite softly enough, as he moved to the ketchup and mustard dispensers and allowed one of the girls to take his place at the serving hatch, “Whoa there,
Chewie.” Which elicited a couple more stifled giggles from the girls.

In
many respects
Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary are very similar characters,
but
Bovary
has
the most spirit
and determination.
No error.

Desiree focused with all her
own determination on the sentence. Was something wrong with it? Or was it a “no error”? It sounded OK. She got Sno-Cones for the two girls, trying and failing to suppress a flash of envy at the cute sarong skirts they’d coordinated to their bikinis, while she continued to ponder. She gave the open book, spread carefully over paper towels on the counter beside her, a furtive glance as the second girl turned away.

Then
he
was at the window. The hottie.

“Hi,” he said. His chest looked even better up close, tanned and smooth. He brushed back a lock of straight dark hair that was falling over one bright blue eye, his white smile seeming to light up the cramped space. Desiree was uncomfortably aware of her own impossible hair, frizzing up now from her swim, the steam in here. Of the makeup she wasn’t wearing, because it would have melted right off, and she wasn’t that good at putting it on anyway. Of her sweaty forehead and upper lip, the
green-striped ribbed tank and khaki shorts she’d bought from the end-of-summer clearance rack at Walmart. Both hanging on a figure that remained resolutely boyish, even though she’d turned sixteen in May.

“How’re you doing?” he went on. “Don’t pay any attention to Danny,” he said in a lower voice. “He can be kind of a jerk at times.”

She felt her color rise even higher. She’d been pretending he hadn’t heard either time, since he hadn’t laughed with the others. No chance of that now.

“What can I get you?” she asked. She couldn’t do anything about her blush or the sweat, but she wasn’t going to look beaten, not if she could help it.

“Hot dog, please. With everything.”

He leaned nonchalantly against the edge of the window to watch as she prepared it for him, spotted the book on the counter. “Studying?”

“Yeah. The PSAT.”

“You’re going to be a junior, huh? You new? I haven’t seen you around.”

“New this year. How about you?” she asked boldly.

“Just graduated. I’m working this summer, just like you. Day off today, that’s all.”

She handed him the dog. “Two ninety-five.”

He gave her a few bills, tossed the nickel and another dollar into the jar labeled “College Fund.”

“Thanks,” she said with surprise. High school kids rarely tipped.

“No problem. Working outside in summer is hard, I know. Not from personal experience,” he grinned. “But my brother’s doing
yardwork. He keeps telling me how much harder it is than my cushy spot.”

“Harder than this too,” she agreed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, the grin gone now. “I’d say this has its moments.”