Midnight Touch Page 12

  Through the corner of his eye, he saw Kate dig a credit card out of her scuffed wallet and hand it to the salesgirls. Then she followed him outside.

  “Don’t put Wendell’s words into my mouth!”

  “Same family. Same attitude.”

  “That’s so unfair! What is your problem?” she shouted.

  “I don’t have a problem,” he retorted.

  “Yes, you do. You’re full of attitude right now, just because I won’t let you buy me something. You are so…” She searched for words. “You’re over the top! It’s like you don’t know boundaries or limits. You’re too big, and you’re too gorgeous and you’re too persuasive. You’re too good a lover, and you’re too macho and you’re just too much!”

  He just stared at her, the crazy woman. She stood there in the green velvet dress with only one shoe on, her hair flying every which way. Sparks shot from her eyes and spots of red burned high on those miraculous cheekbones. She was furious and he didn’t understand why.

  “New Englanders are understated, and we don’t like taking extravagant gifts. I won’t apologize for it! You, on the other hand—you’re like a tall, dark, handsome steamroller. I have one lousy cup of coffee with you and before I know it I have a pig, and a screaming orgasm and a leather miniskirt! You’re just…out of control.”

  Alejandro grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her roughly. Then he said, “That’s a load of mierda. You’re just upset because you’re too under control.” And then he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Chapter 14

  I am not too under control! I’m engaged in releasing my inner rebel. I just don’t always know where to start. Kate looked at all the shopping bags rattling against her in the back of a cab and felt ill. I bought all this fancy stuff, didn’t I? I left Boston and moved all the way down here by myself. I have a pig in my condo. I am working on being Just Kate. And when I get up the nerve, I will dance on that damned table, too. It just has to be the right time and place.

  Alejandro was a jerk. He’d walked away and left her by herself in retail hell, hadn’t he? In the company of those tiny, bosomy creatures who would look chic and sexy even if garbed in white kitchen trash bags with banana peels on their heads.

  He’d abandoned her to their evildoing, which included dragging her to the custom cosmetics place next door, of all things! Yet another tiny, bosomy creature on spindly heels had chattered at her rapidly in Spanish while she custom-blended gook in a bottle for her face. Then she’d attacked her with it, as well as with various brushes, vials and pencils. She’d smeared colors not found in nature onto Kate’s face and charged her close to four hundred dollars for a whole bag of makeup that she would never remember how to use.

  By the time Kate had staggered in her new clothes and new face to the waiting taxi, she was shell-shocked. The three tiny señoritas smiled and waved, having had the time of their lives. Kate just felt exhausted.

  She picked up her car and drove home, horrified when a trucker honked his horn at her and a college kid in the lane next to her whistled and then waggled his tongue between two fingers. “Sicko!” she yelled.

  When she arrived at her condo she waved at old Mr. Landry, who lived on her floor, and bent into the back of the Mercedes to fish out her shopping bags.

  She heard a sickening crunch of metal on metal and pulled her head out to find that old Mr. Landry had driven his Bonneville right into another parked car.

  Kate tottered over on her high heels to make sure he was okay. He glared at her, his lazy eye rolling up into its socket. “Get away from me. This is your fault, missy!”

  She gaped at him. “My fault?”

  “All gussied up like a five-hunnert-dollar hooker. What’s a man to do, huh? Mincing around, a-lookin’ like you kin suck a golf ball through a garden hose—”

  “Mister Landry!”

  “Your fault, I’m a-tellin’ you.”

  “Tell that to your insurance company.”

  “I will!”

  She gaped at him. “Don’t you ever speak to me again, you disgusting old fart.” Kate whirled and stalked back to her car. Unbelievable.

  Laden with her shopping bags, she stormed the main door of her building in her high heels and tottered past the concierge desk. The uniformed attendant behind it called out. “Madam? I’m sorry but you’ll need to check in here, please.”

  She turned to face him. “Kevin, I live here.”

  “M-Miss Spuh—Spinney?” He stared. “Is that you?”

  “In the belly-shirted flesh.” She grinned.

  “Wow.”

  “Thanks, I think.” She turned and continued to lug her bags toward the elevators.

  “Uh, Miss Spinney? I hate to even ask you this, but there was a complaint lodged from your own phone number about you. Something about a pig?”

  She stopped and turned her head. “Oh, Kevin.” She laughed. “A pig? In my unit? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  After her brief elevator ride, Kate stumbled into her condo and dumped all of her bags. Gracious came out immediately, squealing and grunting and bouncing up and down on her stubby front legs. Kate looked at her sadly and dropped to the floor to kiss her little snout. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “Oh, how touching,” Wendell said, emerging from the guestroom with his signature smirk. It faded immediately, to be replaced by a look of horror when he saw her face and new clothes. “Katydid? Is that you under there, or has J Lo taken over your body?”

  Kate stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Like it? This is the new me.”

  His lip curled. “You look like South Beach trash.”

  She should have known better than to expect a positive reaction, but she was hurt anyway. “Pretty expensive trash.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever the budget, you’re channeling ‘available.’ Grandfather Spinney and Aunt Cornelia would have a coronary if they saw you like that.”

  “Like what? In clothes that fit?”

  “Those don’t just fit, Katy. They display your goods like they’re in a shop window.”

  “Why is that such a crime? I’m not even thirty.”

  “Did your Latin stallion put you up to this? What’s next? Bleached hair, double-E knockers and lips the size of a pool raft?”

  “Why do you have to be so hateful all the time, Wendell?” She turned away from him and got Gracious a couple of grapes out of the refrigerator.

  He had the nerve to look offended. “Hateful? I’ll tell you what’s hateful—letting your greasy pimp of a sex toy throw your own flesh and blood out of your home. Choosing him over me.”

  Her jaw dropped open and she had to take a moment to compose herself. “Wendell, I didn’t do any such thing. You pushed Alejandro—and me—to the limits of human tolerance. If he hadn’t removed you, I would have. And stop calling him rude names.”

  “What’s hateful,” Wendell continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “is forcing a family member to live with a disease-carrying, flea-ridden slab of walking bacon.” He eyed Gracious with malevolence. “Speaking of her, you owe me four grand.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That F-ing barnyard animal pissed in my suitcase!”

  Kate put a hand up to her mouth.

  “It soaked my suit, my folded custom shirts, my handmade shoes, my extra set of Pratesi sheets, and quite a few other things.”

  She bit back a wild cheer.

  “And don’t tell me to wash them and forget about it. I’m not wearing pig pee, and I’m not sleeping in it, either. So unless you want your little antics with the greaseball broadcast to the board and the family, you’ll be sitting down right now to write me a check.”

  Like hell! Fury engulfed her, and she couldn’t even speak to him. Kate scooped up Gracious and stalked to her bedroom, then slammed the door.

  In private, she gave the pig a dazzling smile and danced across the room with her. She kissed the top of her fuzzy porcine head. “So that’s w
hy you didn’t need to go out that night. Good job, Miss Piggy! You go, girl. Or, uh, I guess you went.”

  The pig squealed, and Kate gave her three more grapes and a dried apricot from a bowl on her dresser. She thought about how much she did not want to give Gracious back to her owner. She sighed and kicked off the infernal black peep-toe heels.

  Alejandro was not a jerk. If not for him, she’d never have met Gracious. And he was a saint in comparison to Wendell.

  When she heard the door slam, she assumed that her cousin had left her in peace for the time being. She fantasized about calling the police to remove him permanently…but even though he was obnoxious, black-mailing scum, he was family. She didn’t think she could actually call the cops on him.

  She padded around her condo gathering the pig’s things. She hauled the bags of food and litter down to her car first, casting a look of dislike at old Mr. Perv-Pants, who was arguing with a police officer and the owner of the parked car he’d run into. She popped her trunk and dumped the supplies into it. She was closing the trunk when Landry said, “There she is, right there. Now you look at that ass and tell me you wouldn’t-a wrecked yourself, officer.”

  Christ Almighty. Kate pushed her sunglasses farther up her nose and ignored them as both men turned to stare at her. She walked calmly back into the building, but not before she heard the officer say, “I certainly see your point, sir.”

  Maybe I should go back to my baggy khakis! Kate was torn between outrage, amusement and utter embarrassment. But it was also just a tiny bit thrilling to have caused an accident, even for a nasty old geezer with a freaky eye and a toilet mouth. She’d definitely never caused an accident before. Kate treated them to an extra little wiggle before she disappeared into the freight elevator. Kiss it, boys.

  She decided to wait half an hour before bringing out Gracious, so that old Mr. Landry would be gone. Kate turned on the radio and found some salsa music. Then she dragged her shopping bags into her bedroom and put her new things away in the closet.

  She looked at herself in a mirror, twisting her mouth. Screw Wendell. She looked great, if she did say so herself, but she didn’t look like her.

  The custom cosmetics girl had applied her new makeup with a trowel, and giving in to her Boston upbringing, Kate blotted off half the lipstick. Then she stared at her eyes. They looked huge, dark and mysterious, but they also reminded her uncomfortably of those camouflage fatigues that troops wore in combat. Gray, olive, brown and army-green. And she wore so much mascara that it was a miracle she could blink.

  It had to come off. Kate stripped out of the belly shirt and the stretch jeans, and turned on the shower in her bathroom. “C’mon, Gracious!” she called. “Time for a bath. I can’t return you smelly, and I have it on the best authority that I look like South Beach trash or a ‘five-hunnert-dollar hooker.’”

  Once Kate had washed them both, dried them both and applied a little less makeup to the best of her ability, she called Alejandro’s house. “Rude Yankee, here. Today, you get a free pig if you’ll buy an apology.”

  After a pause he laughed, and she sagged in relief. She’d refused to acknowledge how much his anger had bothered her.

  “I should apologize first, Kate,” he said. “I can be a little hardheaded at times.”

  “Hey, you have to wait your turn, sport. I get to sell you on mine first.”

  He chuckled. “Okay. What model and make of apology? What are the special features? Do they include dinner and dancing? Complimentary thong panties?”

  Damn. That was the one thing she’d forgotten to buy. You couldn’t wear big cotton underpants with anything she’d bought today, that was for sure. However…Spinneys didn’t wear butt floss. It just wasn’t done.

  “The apology might encompass dinner, but the thong is not included. Dancing is negotiable.”

  Alejandro sighed. “I don’t know about this. You were awfully cruel to me, and all I did was try to buy you an outfit.”

  “You drove off and left me, sport. With two beautiful Columbian sadists who clearly understood the meaning of shampoo heiress, and milked it to the limit. My credit card company has already called to ask about the break in spending patterns. I believe they thought that some criminal mastermind was outfitting his entire harem.”

  “I dunno,” he mused. “I’m still feeling awfully mistreated.”

  “They dragged me to a custom cosmetics establishment where they made my face look like a freakin’ color wheel. And don’t forget about the free pig. You are going to accept this apology or I will jam it down your throat with my scruffy old loafers, got that?”

  “Kate, mi corazon. May I offer a piece of unsolicited advice?”

  She sighed. “Oh, please. I’m sure I couldn’t possibly live without it.”

  “You should never apply for a job with the United Nations, or accept a post as ambassador to anywhere. You have no tact or finesse.”

  “Thank you. Now can I bring the pig over, or not?”

  “I will welcome you, the pig and the apology with open arms,” Alejandro said. “But…I am still lobbying for the thong.”

  AN HOUR LATER, after a brief stop back at Miracle Mile at a boutique that sold a bottomless variety of butt floss, bras, lacy teddies and naughty nighties, Kate parked her Mercedes outside Alejandro’s small, neat house in Coconut Grove.

  Her new Brazilian lace thingie—what the hell was it called? A tanga?—had wedged itself right where she didn’t want it, and something in the matching apricot lace bra was digging into her spine.

  She got out of the car and let Gracious out, too, scratching her on the head. “The way that horrid woman acted when I brought you into the shop! It’s not like you’re a cockroach, now is it, baby?”

  Gracious squealed and dug her snout into the grass.

  “Can you believe I had to swear to spend a thousand dollars in there just so she would let you stay? What was I supposed to do, let you suffocate in the car? And now I have butt floss in every color.” She hoped her inner rebel was happy, because Just Kate was actively afraid of blisters where the sun didn’t shine.

  She stomped as well as she could—it was, admittedly, hard to stomp in four-inch heels—onto Alejandro’s porch and hammered on the door.

  “Do I look like trash? Like I could suck a golf ball through a garden hose?” she demanded when he opened the door.

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon? What did you say?” He stood there barefoot, in jeans and an open white shirt. “And what did you do to your eyes?” He began to laugh.

  “What do you mean, what did I do to my eyes? I used makeup. I lined them and used shadow like the girl said I was supposed to,” she said crossly. “And an old pervert in my parking lot had an accident with a parked car. He says it was because of me, that I looked like I could suck a—”

  Alejandro pursed his lips and cocked his head at her.

  “—golf ball through a garden hose.”

  He shook his head. “Maybe a jelly bean,” he said. “Or a Tic Tac. Only the best of professionals could attempt the legendary golf ball.”

  “He said I looked like a pro! Like a five-hundred-dollar hooker. And it’s all thanks to you.”

  “How old was this guy?”

  “At least eighty.”

  “Then that was a true compliment,” Alejandro noted, “since rates have skyrocketed since his time. I’d say personally that if we fixed your eye makeup, you could be a two-thousand-dollar hooker.”

  “Really?” Kate’s eyes widened. Then she glared at him. “Why did I consider that a compliment, even for a moment? You have a very strange effect on me, Torres.”

  He grinned and took Gracious’s leash from her. “So here’s my bonus pig. Where’s my apology?”

  “You don’t get one now, since you insulted me.”

  He sighed mournfully. “I didn’t. I just explained to you that it’s a compliment.”

  “No, you’re saying I look cheap!”

  Alejandro’s eyes widened. “Yo
u think two thousand dollars is cheap? Oh. Well, you are a shampoo heiress. I forgot.”

  “Gaaaaaah!”

  “Care for a drink?”

  “Yes. I think it’s the only way I can tolerate you.” She looked around her, at Alejandro’s things and his decor. He had a modern brown leather couch set into a steel frame, lots of plants that he actually kept alive, and a huge magical-realist painting on one wall.

  It depicted a woman and a boy on a flying rag rug, while another woman in a pink smock sucked them towards her with a hairdryer. She stood outside of a house, the door open behind her and filled with cheerful yellow.

  Alejo saw Kate looking at it and smiled. “Tia Carlotta, my mother and me after my father died. The Gabriel Garcia Márquez version of us, anyway.”

  Kate felt the oddest urge to walk into the painting. She couldn’t understand it. “What’s the symbolism of the hairdryer? And why does it operate in reverse?”

  “Tia Carlotta and my mother started a beauty salon after my father passed on,” Alejandro said quietly. “I used to help there after school and on Saturdays. In the painting, Tia summons us with the hairdryer. Toward a new life.”

  “I love the whimsical style.”

  “I am glad you like it. That painting will always hang somewhere in my home and in my heart.”

  Kate looked around some more. The floor was a pale, neutral tile, with Peruvian woven rugs here and there. A large fountain played softly in one corner.

  She followed him into the kitchen, which was modernized with stainless steel appliances. But a large stone mortar and pestle dominated one counter, the ancient tools incongruous among all the shiny machines.

  Alejandro made her a drink called a mojito, which was made with crushed mint leaves, about a pound of sugar and a great deal of rum. One sip of it and her eyeballs did figure eights in her head.

  He laughed. “That will get you in the mood for dinner and dancing later.”

  “Later? It’s already eight o’clock.”