Switched (9 page)

“I am her neighbor,” Nataniel explained.

“Neighbor.” Doyle got into Nataniel’s face. Scary. I hopped up, grabbed hold of Doyle’s arm and pulled him into the café.

“What are you up to, Tarzan?” I demanded.

“Just being friendly.”

“You had your interrogator face on.”

“This is my normal face.”

I thought about that a moment. What was his normal face? Interrogator or island café owner? Who was this guy?

Nataniel tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned. I was struck by how handsome he was, or perhaps it was his obvious concern for me that I found attractive. He was soft, gentle, kind. His eyebrows knitted together in an unspoken question. I didn’t have to be psychic to know what troubled him: Why was this American woman working as a waitress during her vacation? Why was she involved with a behemoth who worked at a café wearing a Bono T-shirt?

He was right. I mean, why?

“Let me take you to the house. No more mice.”

I was tempted even though I had my doubts about the mice, and there was still the problem of the filth.

It turned out that Maisey made the decision for me. She danced into the restaurant and spotted Nataniel like a lion spots a gazelle. “Is this my new dance partner?” She danced around us, bubbly and flirty.

“This is Debra’s neighbor,” Doyle said.

“Neighbor? Good! You can go dancing with us tonight. New club in Palma.”

“We’ve been going out every night,” I explained sheepishly.

It had been a lot of fun. I had never had such a rich social life. I had been an A student in high school, worked my way through college, and had two feet on the career path since then. In Mallorca I was living with four people, and we went clubbing regularly. Sure, I had to wait tables during the day, but that wasn’t so bad considering. And I wasn’t thinking about Jackson as much.

And what was Nataniel offering me? A house drowning in dirt and vermin where I would stay by myself to mull over my problems. No, thank you.

“You’re welcome to go out with us tonight,” I offered Nataniel.

He politely refused. I could tell he was a little sad that I had gone over to the dark side. “I will bring you your luggage tomorrow,” he said. “It is at the house.”

“I’ll bring her over to pick it up,” Doyle said in a tone that brooked no discussion.

***

That was four days ago. I hadn’t seen Nataniel since, and Doyle never took me to the house to get my luggage. Maisey kept the party going every night. She, Gunnar, Juan Carlos, and I would eat together in the evenings and then go out clubbing. My little café family had adopted me, and I had adopted Felicity’s room, wardrobe, and life.

“Donkey Breath tonight,” Maisey told me as we closed up the café for the night.

“Huh?”

“Donkey Breath. New club,” she explained. “A little far away, but it’s nobility central. My friend Sarah caught a viscount there, and you know I’m not working here for the rest of my life.” She cocked her head to the side. “Don’t you want a viscount?”

We sat down at a table inside. Gunnar brought the cutlery and glasses, and Juan Carlos handed us our plates. Doyle opened a bottle of wine and brought it to the table.

“What’s that, Juan Carlos?” Doyle demanded.

“Steak,” Juan Carlos said, pleased as punch.

“Employees don’t eat steak. I’m not Richard Branson.”

“Well?” Maisey asked me. “You don’t want a viscount? There’s been a couple earl sightings there, as well.”

“What are you going on about?” Doyle asked her.

“I think Debra needs to get out.”

“She’s been going out every night,” Doyle said, cutting into his steak. “This is coming out of your salary,” he told Juan Carlos.

“A man cannot eat only pasta,” Juan Carlos insisted. “A man must be a man.”

“You can be a man with your own money,” Doyle insisted.

Maisey waved her fork at Doyle. “Debra needs to meet a new man. She needs a little action to get past the git who dumped her.”

I wasn’t too sure I liked Maisey talking about me like that to everyone, and I was about to tell her so but Gunnar interrupted me.

“I thought the boss was giving her a little action,” Gunnar said. All chewing at the table stopped in the wake of this revelation.

“He is not!” I shouted. Well, he had. Once. Well, technically twice. But he hadn’t since then. But anyway, it was hardly Gunnar’s business, and if Doyle had told him about the bar and the action, I was going to kill him with my steak knife.

Doyle stared out into space and started chewing again. No reaction.

“Believe me, Debra,” Maisey said, always looking out for me. “My brother is no viscount.”

“Tell me about the git who dumped you.” Doyle turned to me.

“Not exactly dumped,” I lied. I had not only been dumped, but I had been dumped in front of everyone I knew, left nearly bankrupt and homeless.

“The steak is good, no?” Juan Carlos asked.

“Delicious,” Maisey agreed.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll go out to Donkey Breath with you.”

***

“Does this say Mrs. Viscount to you?” Maisey asked me. She posed in my doorway in circulation-crushing leather pants and a see-through lace camisole that almost covered her push-up bra. I looked down at my cleavage. I was half her size. Maisey didn’t exactly scream Mrs. Viscount. I didn’t picture nobility as wearing inch-long fake eyelashes and a thong that peeked over their hip-hugger pants.

“I think you won’t be lonely tonight,” I told her.

She sat down on my bed next to me. “Is that what you’re wearing?” she asked.

I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, hardly up to Maisey’s fashion standards.

“Yes, I was thinking about it.”

“Felicity has a cracking dress. Red. Tight.”

“I’ve sort of taken over Felicity’s wardrobe,” I said. “Don’t you think she’ll be mad when she gets back?”

Maisey got up and took one of Felicity’s lipsticks off her nightstand and applied it carefully to her lips. “Felicity is never coming back,” she said.

“Why? Where is she?”

“Oh, who knows?” Maisey said, putting the lipstick back. “She could be anywhere. She probably got herself a viscount.”

“But she left everything here,” I said. The room was like a time capsule, as if Felicity had vanished into thin air. There were dirty clothes on the floor. Her makeup was still there, and her birth control pills were still in the bathroom. “Who leaves their makeup behind?”

“Wouldn’t you leave everything behind if you bagged a viscount?” she insisted. “Leave it alone, Debra. Stop asking questions, put on Felicity’s dress, and go out and have a good time.”

But I couldn’t. I mean, I could go out, but I couldn’t squeeze out a good time. For the first time all week, I questioned my decision to work and live at Doyle’s café while I stayed in Mallorca. I had adopted a life that wasn’t my own. Hiding was fine, but hiding in somebody else’s skin was not. So, I was concerned for me, and it was distracting me. And more than that, I had become concerned for Felicity, even though nobody else was. Where was she? Where had she gone? Her disappearance began to eat at my insides like the aftereffects of all you can eat Buffalo wings.

***

“You’re far away.” Doyle sidled up to me at the bar.

“You said it,” I said.

“You’re not having fun. Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“Home is four thousand miles away.”

“You’re in bad shape. Let’s go.” He took my hand and tugged.

“I can’t abandon Maisey,” I said.

“Maisey abandoned you an hour ago.” He pointed toward her at the end of the bar, surrounded by a group of viscounts or Euro-trash, I couldn’t tell.

“All right. Let’s go.”

Doyle held my hand during our walk back to the café. Even at the late hour, the streets were filled with partiers. Music spilled out of clubs and restaurants, and men and women milled together, most on the make, desperate not to go back to their hotel rooms alone.

I allowed Doyle to hold my hand as we walked, but if he wanted to do another ride on the bar, I was going to put my foot down. He hadn’t shown any interest in me since we tangoed a week ago. A little casual sex is great, but casual sex at a man’s beck and call was humiliating.

“I’m going to miss this,” Doyle said.

“What do you mean?”

“Mallorca. Island life. Shorts.”

“Shorts are good,” I said. “Comfortable.”

He let go of my hand and slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me close as we walked. “
You’re
comfortable, too,” he said.

“Yes, that’s the compliment that every woman wants to hear.”

“Comfortable is good. Like an old shoe.”

“An old shoe. That’s another compliment every woman wants to hear,” I said. “If it’s so comfortable here, why don’t you stay? Why are you going back?”

“Shorts are good up until a point.”

“You mean, up until your knees?”

“Sort of. I mean, a man must have purpose,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “Like Juan Carlos and steak.”

“Exactly. I’ve had my dose of shorts, and now I need steak.”

“Sure,” I said. “’Cause a man must have protein.”

“And Mallorca is pasta primavera at best,” he said.

“Delicious, but won’t give you those bulging muscles of yours,” I agreed.

“I like how you say bulging.”

We arrived at the café, and Doyle unlocked the door. We walked toward the stairs, and I caught Doyle casting a longing glance at the bar. Halfway up the stairway, he grabbed me and pushed me against the wall. He leaned in and put his hand on the wall above my shoulder.

“So, what’s this?” I asked him. “It’s been a week, and you’re in the mood again?”

“That’s fair. I deserved that.” His face was inches from mine. Heat bounced off him in he-man waves. My body was reacting despite my best efforts to remain neutral. “What are your plans? After Mallorca, what are you going to do?”

“Is this another interrogation, officer?”

“This is polite conversation,” he said. “Curiosity. Concern.”

“Why is it important to you?” I asked. “What are
you
going to do after Mallorca?”

“I’m going back to my job as head of an anti-terrorist task force based in London,” he said. “Which often includes travel to less than desirable places. And I come back here about four times a year to take a breath. Maisey manages the café the rest of the time.”

“I’m going to Chicago in two weeks and five days, and I’m going back on the partner track, find a new place to live, and try to dig out of the financial mess I’m in,” I said.

“Different directions,” Doyle noted. “You go your way, and I go mine.”

“And never the twain shall meet?”

“Complicated,” he said.

“Impossible.”

“You’re a fine piece of ass, Debra Gregory.”

“Now, that’s a good compliment. You’re catching on, Doyle.”

And that was that. We had a nice evening alone in the apartment above the café. The rest of our little family was out in various clubs while we cleaned with the TV on in the background. Normally I find nothing charming about cleaning, but Doyle and I had a rhythm going. We made a good pair, dusting and tidying and washing dishes together.

I washed. He dried. I stripped the beds. He made the beds. We worked without the need to communicate. And there was a sense of accomplishment in the tasks. A clean counter could be measured. First dirty, then clean. Done. Success. And we did it together, which made it pleasurable. Comfortable.

Like an old shoe.

After agreeing that a relationship between us would be impossible, it would have been normal for us to relax into a friendship or ignore each other in resentment, but our understanding provoked a certain awareness, as if we were both questioning just how impossible it would really be to be involved with each other after all. I was second-guessing our conclusion, and it didn’t take a psychic to realize Doyle was doing the same.

Our washing and cleaning and tidying were accompanied by a lot of sidelong glances and more than one instance of our hands touching by accident and our bodies getting closer than needed for chores. Then I dropped a towel, and he picked it up, thrusting us into an awkward situation of us both holding the towel and gazing into each other’s eyes.

“Is it getting warm in here?” I asked.

“I’m willing to let it get as warm as you want.”

Truth is, I wouldn’t have minded getting a whole lot warmer. Doyle was good at the warmth thing. But I got the impression the warmth would eventually be accompanied by heartbreak. And I had had more than my share of heartbreak lately.

“Let’s keep it to a lukewarm,” I said finally. “That means no exchange of bodily fluids and no heavy petting. Or light petting,” I added.

Doyle agreed to my terms a little too readily, as far as I was concerned, which made me question just how interested he really was in me.

With the rest of the apartment cleaned, we were left with Felicity’s room. “I feel funny going through her stuff,” I said.

“She wouldn’t mind. She was kind of flighty. I’ll get a box; we can chuck everything.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t feel right chucking it.”

We stood in the doorway for a long time surveying Felicity’s room. “Maybe we could box the stuffed animals,” I said.

“I’ll be right back.”

Doyle returned in a couple minutes with three boxes. I took them and knelt in the middle of Felicity’s mess. I never understood grown people with stuffed animal collections. What was the attraction? She had gone old school with her collection, heavy on the teddy bears and very light on stuffed snakes, dogs, and the occasional
Simpsons
character. I filled up two boxes and lugged them out to the other room. I plopped them on the couch next to Doyle, who was watching an English comedy on TV.

“Here you go,” I said. “Can you put them in a closet somewhere instead of dumping it?”

“Sure. I have room in the pantry, but she’s not coming back,” he said, never taking his eyes off the television.

“She’s only been gone a couple of weeks.”

“She left everything behind. I’m telling you she found something better and hit the road. She’s probably enjoying herself in a posh flat in Zurich with a man named Hans.”