Shopping for a Billionaire 3 (11 page)

He leans over for a kiss.

Twenty moans
rise up
behind us.

And then—scuffling sounds.

“You know Marie will have us do Downward Dog and Cow,” someone hisses. A chorus of voices all say “Ooooooh,” followed by a whispered frenzy.
Those are yoga positions where you shove your butt in the air.

Hold on
a second…
 

“I’ll pay your class fee if you gi
ve me the spot,” says Agnes. I only know her name because the last time I was here all the other women were g
o
ssiping about her because allegedly she’s a bit of a loose woman. How you label a ninety-
year-old
woman “loose” is beyond me, but all I can think is
GO AGNES
.

When I’m ninety I hope I’m still doing yoga and that my libido cries out for a piece of a man, Viagra or no Viagra. The clitoris does not have an expiration date. The hard part must be finding a man with similar interests, a similar life timeframe, and one who isn’t in a lovely white cardboard box on someone’s mantle.

“You think you can always get everything you want, Agnes,” one of the other women hisses. “Not everything has a price.”

“Some views are priceless,” another woman sighs. “I’ll pay for two classes if you – ”

As I turn to watch the brewing fight behind us, Declan’s lips are twitching. He leans over and says, “Ten dollars says Agnes ends up leading a Senior WWF brawl back there.”

“MMA is more her style.”

“Corrine, I swear!” Agnes shouts. “You can stand there like a mule all you want and refuse to budge, but I know about your bone density levels.” Her voice carries an ominous tone.

“You wouldn’t!” Corrine
cries out
. She’s seventy-something going on fifty, with a wig from Farrah Fawcett’s day. She looks like she’s in a wind tunnel. Oh—no. That’s just really bad plastic surgery.

“I’ll nudge you just enough to fall and you have a hip that’s more fragile than
Putin’s ego.”
 

Wait a minute here. These old ladies are threatening bodily harm and broken bones so they can sit behind my boyfriend and ogle his
ass
?

I crane around behind him and take a good look.

Yep.

Totally worth it.

“Ladies! Ladies!” Declan stands up without using his hands to even touch the ground, displaying ab and core strength that makes everyone freeze, drool, and sigh at once. Someone back there might even have farted.

He holds his hands in the air, palms out, to get the group to pay even more attention to him. “Let’s make it a bit more fun, shall we?”

Mom stops her preparations, her finger about to push the button to start the sonorous soundtrack.

“If one of you can
guess
how Shannon and I met, you can win the—”

Twenty women shriek, “TOILET GIRL!”

“MOM!” I howl.

“
Don’t shake her hand,” Agnes whispers to Corrine, who stares resolutely ahead and doesn’t give Agnes a millimeter as my mom comes over to me and Declan with an
Oh, shit
look on her face.
 

“It’s such a charming story!” she says in a stage voice. “My daughter being a professional at the top of her game in business, meeting the billionaire son of James McCormick—”

“The Silver Wolf,” Corrine gasps, giving Declan the once-over with eyes like a Terminator robot from one of those movies, evaluating him for specific fleshy characteristics that meet her mission’s criteria, which I suspect involve twisting her body against his in non-standard yoga positions. “You look like him.”

“My father has a
nickname
?” he mutters, then mumbles quietly to me, “A sexy nickname? Gross.”
 

“Your father is a gorgeous hunk,” someone calls out.

“
Dad doesn’t date anyone over thirty,” he says under his breath.
 

“Oh, goody. My timer doesn’t pop for six more years,” I hiss.

He flinches, and I can’t tell if it’s from the radioactive sarcasm in my voice o
r
from the idea of my dating his father. Hopefully, it’s both.

This is
not
restorative.

“
Ladies! We’re running out of time!” Mom calls out, now back in place at her mat. She gives me a fake helpless look and mouths
What can I do?
 

More therapy,
I mouth.

She gives me a hearty thumbs-up, then leads the class through a series of warmup poses that leave me
sweatier than Mom during the height of menopause. Declan hasn’t broken a sweat. Six women are trying to share one yoga mat behind him, though.
 

S
oon we’re all on our backs, stretched out on the floor, listening to Pink Floyd. If they handed out little LSD stamps before class, this part would be even better. Instead, I hear light snoring, the high-pitched whine of someone’
s
uncalibrated hearing aid, and the sound of
E
very. Single.
W
oman getting up at least once during full-body relaxation mode to pee.

The bladder does not acknowledge
Restorative Yoga
. It’s an anarchist when it comes to
Savasana pose.
No
snooze
for you!
 

I
n the dark, “
Comfortably Numb”
comes on, and I feel something brush against my hip. Declan’s hand finds mine and he interlaces our fingers. I relax immediately at his touch, layers of tight muscle giving way,
and as his warm palm reminds me that he’s there—really there—I wonder if it is true love when you finally find someone else who thinks cilantro tastes like detergent.
 

H
is hand, fingers woven into mine like a web, goes slack, too. We’re shedding layers through touch, and maybe there’s something to this whole Restorative Yoga thing, I think, as a warm cloud of deep bliss surrounds me. Declan shifts his arm so slightly, his palm sliding against mine, and I can feel him smiling.

Sinking deeper, the world fades out and all I am is my hand, touching him, and it’s so much more than enough that I dissolve into a state of harmony that slips into a peaceful darkness.

“I hope you two die just like that.”

Mom’s words make my eyes snap open. She’s standing over me, the yoga studio’s lights on full blaze, and there are about ten other sets of eyes boring down on me.

Us. Me and Declan. I turn my head, confused and fuzzy now as I come out of my slumber, and see he’s out cold, still. A big patch of drool covers one side of my mouth and even my hair is a bit soaked at the jaw line.

“You hope we—what?”
Instinct tells me to sit up, to run away, to escape from being the focus of the yoga version of Ray Bradbury’s
The Crowd
.
 

“I hope you die just like you are, right now. So cute.” All eleven women staring at us like we’re part of some modern art exhibit sigh in unison.

Declan’s right eyebrow shoots up and he says nothing.

“You want me to
die
?” I ask, incredulous. “
In your yoga class?”
He squeezes my hand and I try not to laugh.

“No, I mean, you know, in sixty or seventy years. That you two die after a long, happy marriage and plenty of kids and you’re peaceful old people who die just like that.” Mom’s elaboration doesn’t help.

“I wanted that, too,” Agnes says. “But my husband, Jerry, had other plans.”

“How did he die?” Mom asks. But she asks as if she knows the answer already.

Agnes looks at me. “He got his hand stuck in a toilet and couldn’t get out. I was on a tour of Niagara Falls with my church group for three days and he starved to death.”

Declan groans, his body curling in a bit. He’s trying not to laugh, and he shakes,
abs rippling against his tight Lycra shirt, his ass tightening
.

“Oooo
h
, keep it up. Nice glutes,” someone says. That just makes him laugh harder. Now I sit up and let go of his hand.
For some reason, I’m jealous—jealous!—and don’t like all these people eyeing my man candy.
 

He’s mine.

“Your husband didn’t really die like that, did he?” I’m cynical enough to think there’
s
no way that story is true, but just gullible enough to worry that if I assume it’s a joke, and it isn’t, that I’ll destroy an old woman’s feelings.

“No. He died porking a retail clerk at the mall. They were on the elevator. He was a security guard. Heart attack. The man didn’t touch me for seven years and then he goes and sticks it to the pretzel stand girl.”

That makes me bark with laughter as Mom waves her hands behind Agnes and mouths
It’s true
.

Oh, hell. I can’t win.

“
I hope I die in the arms of someone I love,” Mom announces. Declan’s laughter comes to an abrupt halt, the change so distinct it makes the hair on my arms prickle. Something in Mom’s declaration hit a nerve with him, and it makes me see how little I really know about him.
 

H
e stands, fluid and graceful, then yawns. This is no normal yawn, though. It’s a lion’s roar, with arms stretched nice and high, his belly button exposed as he reaches for the sky, stretching and extending his muscles and joints. The body on display for us all is, decidedly, the nicest eye ca
n
dy ever. Fine, Swiss eye candy. Candy made from slave-free, n
i
nety-percent cacao farmed by happy rural cooperative workers working to save the whales.

“
Can I just touch him, once?” someone asks. “It’s like all those Nike ads with the sweaty, hot men come to life, within reach. I thought they were all done with trick photography. This—this is like learning Bigfoot is real.”
 

A green wave of mist covers my vision. What is wrong with me? I’m jealous of women who haven’t needed to use birth control since the moon landing.

But yes—I am.

“
Bigfoot is real, Irene,” Agnes says to the owner of the disembodied voice. “I saw it on the Discovery Channel last week.”
 

“You’re so naïve, Agnes. That show is just trick photography and some guy with too much hair on his body. My Dave was that way. The man could
g
o around the house without a shirt on and you swore he was wearing a mohair sweater. That’s all Bigfoot is.”

The two descend into bickering as Mom shoos the crowd out, thanking them for coming and talking about seeing them next week.

Declan sn
u
ggles up to me. “You like what you see?”

“Mmmm, eye candy. Zero calories and better than licking a lollipop.”

“I’ve got a lol
l
ipop you can lick.”

Mom, of course, happens to walk over to us just as he says that, and she pretends to be shocked, then pretends she heard nothing.

“So, Declan, did Shannon invite you over for Easter dinner?”

Huh? We never discussed this. Why is Mom acting like I—

“No, Marie, she didn’t,” he says slowly, not making eye contact with either of us, his body bent in half as he rolls up his yoga mat. We’re gr
e
eted with the mighty fine view of his ass, and we sigh in unison.

I elbow Mom—hard.

“I can’t help it!” she hisses.

“You better help it. It’s icky.”

“You’re right! You’re right.” She appears to take me seriously. “It is icky. I’ll stop right now.” She gives me a look that’s genuinely contrite.

“Well,” Mom says loudly as Declan turns and faces us, “even if Shannon didn’t invite you, I’m inviting you.”

His eyes travel slowly from my face to Mom’s. “When is Easter?” he finally asks.

“This Sunday!” she sputters. “In three days.” With a frown, she says, “But I’m sure you have plans with your family.”

“We haven’t celebrated Easter in
more than ten
years,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone.

“How awful!” Mom exclaims, grabbing his arm. Her eyes almost glisten with tears, and she’s truly shocked. She pauses. “Are you Jewish? Is that why?”

“No.”

The lack of additional information unsettles both me and Mom. Declan has this way of being shut off. He’s not cold, exactly. It’s more like talking with a lawyer who isn’t going to give one single additional bit of information than is necessary in court.

Except we’re not in the middle of a legal proceeding. We’re in my mother’s yoga studio, talking about a holiday where the Easter bunny and a giant ham prevail. What’s up with him?

“
Mom, if he were Jewish he wouldn’t have celebrated before. He just said it’s been more than ten years since…” I turn to him. “Since your mom died?”
 

He nods. But nothing more. He’s so…wound, suddenly.

“Will you be there?” Mom asks, her smile so sweet and warm. “We have a loud, crazy family and I’m the
q
ueen of it all. And I make a killer ham.”

“You buy it from the ham place down the street,” I say. “The kind with the crust
ed
sugar on the edge, all spiral sliced, and then she makes the sweet potatoes with little marshmallows…” My stomach growls.

He thaws. “Who can pass
that up
?” Eyes that were green tundra seconds ago warm up, and his body loosens. “Thank you, Marie. What time?”

“Two for dinner, and at three we do the
E
aster egg hunt.” Mom looks happier than Martha Stewart being told that Gordon Ramsay’s coming for dinner.

“What can I bring?”

“Your helicopter.”
She is practically jumping out of her skin with excitement.
 

“Um, I was thinking more like a bottle of wine, Marie.”
Declan wraps his arm around my waist and presses an absent-minded kiss against my temple. He smells like sweat and comfort, spices and safety.
 

“Okay, fine. The helicopter would be one hell of an entrance.”
She just doesn’t know when to stop.
 

“Where would he land it, Mom? In Dad’s garden?”