City Chicks

Chapter 9

Nine

“The pajamas,” Chris blurted as he backed away, his hand clutched against his chest and his eyes blinking furiously. “Soft. Silk.” Blink, blink. “Fabric.”

I nodded.

He blinked.

“I should, um, change,” I stammered.

Drat. I never stammered.

Not out loud, anyway.

He blinked.

Chris didn’t seem ready to speak anytime soon, and I needed to get out of my pajamas as quickly as possible—wait, I didn’t mean that how it sounded. I needed to change into something less, um, suggestive as quickly as possible. Either way, I turned tail and hurried to my room. And closed the door sharply behind me.

Don’t be even stupider—er, more stupid?—I told myself as I pulled on a knee-length, denim pencil skirt. Chris was gay. Gay. With a capital G and a cable show.

I was misinterpreting, overreacting to the situation. My modesty was ridiculous. If I strutted around wearing nothing but heels and pearls, Chris wouldn’t bat an eye. He couldn’t possibly care what went on behind my bedroom door. Not while I changed. Not the rest of the time, either.

Not that anything noteworthy had happened in my bedroom in several long, long months.

“Grrr.” Frustration consumed me.

What was I thinking, getting involved with a gay reality show? With my dating track record, it was a recipe for institutionalization. I must have been paying for the sins of past lives. I must have been a very, very bad person.

“Grrr!”

“Um, Bethany?” Chris asked hesitantly. “Is everything alright?”

I had to stifle another growl. “Yes,” I bit out as I tugged my pearl-buttoned, winter white cardigan over my head. “Just fine.”

“I—” He paused—and, I could imagine, blinked. “Were you growling?”

He’d heard that?

“Will you think I’m certifiable if I say yes?”

The briefest hesitation before, “Of course not.”

But his hesitation said, Hell, yeah.

“Then no,” I said. “I wasn’t growling.”

“Oh, okay then.” He sounded amused, and I was relieved.

Setting a pair of low-heeled, camel-colored slingbacks on the floor, I stepped into the shoes and secured Great Gram’s watch around my wrist below my charm bracelet.

Pulling the door open, I opened my mouth to call out, “Ready to go.”

But Chris was standing in the doorway and I crashed right into him. His hands came up to steady me, grabbing me just below my shoulders and holding me firmly upright and several inches away. Thankfully, the soft layer of cashmere insulated better than whisper-light silk.

There was no sign of the shock that had rendered him speechless minutes earlier. His friendly self was back with a bright smile and shining eyes.

“Great.” His gaze dropped to my feet. “Can you walk in those?”

“In these?” I twisted one foot to the side to examine the modest inch-and-a-half heel. “These are child’s play. I’m Southern, honey. I’ve worn heels since before I could stand.”

“Okay then, let’s go.”

“I just have to grab—” My phone started ringing before I finished.

Following the sound to my bedroom—where I’d dropped it when I saw Chris out the window—I checked the caller ID. Evan? Why was he calling me?

And why hadn’t I deleted his number from my phone?

Um, ah, well. “Hello?”

“Bethy, it’s Evan.”

Duh. “Yes, Evan?”

Even when we’d been dating for months, he still felt the need to identify himself. That should have been my first clue that the relationship was doomed.

“Do you remember the name of that Italian place we went to on our first date?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You know, that little underground place with the candles dripping down over the Chianti bottles.”

Had our rocky history suddenly evaporated? Was I supposed forget the fact that he’d crushed my heart and was perpetrating a grievous fraud on the American public? Were we magically best friends again?

“Evan, I—”

“Do you still have your cork?” he asked, his voice laden with remembrance. “I have mine.”

His reminiscence triggered a flood of memory. Of a romantic night full of promise and fantasy. We’d popped the cork on a Pinot Noir and sipped the night away. By the time they kicked us out at two a.m. we had finished a second bottle. As mementoes of our first date, we’d each taken one of the corks.

“No,” I lied. “I shoved it down the disposal.”

“Oh.”

Evan grew quiet.

And I felt a little ashamed of my cold response.

Until I remembered that he’d broken my heart.

“Noli’s.” I opened my nightstand drawer and closed my fingers around the cork. “On Mott Street.”

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

It was only the sharp memory of his betrayal and his secret girlfriend that kept me from relenting.

“Sure.” With a click, I ended the call. Turning to Chris, smiling bright, I asked, “Ready?”

He shook off a confused frown. “Yep. Let’s go shopping.”

“Your husband, he cook?”

The ancient Chinese woman eyed me with much speculation, as if I was a failure of a woman if my man had to do the cooking.

“He’s not my husband,” I explained.

“Your boyfriend, he cook?”

I smiled patiently. “He’s not my boyfriend, either.”

Her sparse brows lifted skeptically.

Leaning in, I whispered, “He’s gay.”

Eyes wide, she stared openly a Chris as he examined a shelf of canned goods—the labels were in Chinese, but the pictures looked like spiky sea urchins.

The entire shop looked like it had been transplanted directly from downtown Shanghai. Heavy incense clung in the air. Bundles of dried herbs and flowers hung from the ceiling. Strings of Feng Shui-ing mirrors and the bodies of smoked poultry filled the storefront window. I chose to stay on the other side of the tiny store, next to a pen of chickens so fluffy they looked like pompoms in the making, and told myself they were being sold as pets.

One snowy white hen tried to leap into pecking distance, intent on the charm bracelet dangling from my wrist. I nicknamed her Chicken—cleverness was not my strong suit.

The woman shook her head. “No gay. No gay.”

She was obviously attracted to shiny jewelry. The chicken, not the old woman.

“Yes,” I replied. “He is.”

“Stupid girl.” With a huff, she threw her hands up in surrender and stomped away, muttering to herself in a stream of unflattering-sounding Chinese.

Lord, how I wished she was right.

Even after three hours of traipsing across Manhattan and back, hunting for obscure ethnic groceries and gourmet food markets, Chris looked as yummy as a Peach Cobbler with vanilla ice cream and extra cinnamon. Neither of us mentioned my little pajama-induced indiscretion, though I swore I could still feel his tingling touch on my wrist.

I jumped as Chicken flung herself at the cage wall, grazing my wrist in her determination. I jerked my hand out of reach. I was not about to lose a lifetime of charms to a fashion-obsessed chicken.

Chris turned to me, cans in hand. Seeing my hands empty, he asked, “You’re not getting anything?”

“Oh no,” I assured him. “I’m all stocked up on eye of newt and tongue of bat.”

His face lit up. “They have newt eyes? Where?”

My face fell. Maybe Chris was emotionally unbalanced. Or maybe he was into the occult. Or—

“I’m kidding, Bethany. Kidding.”

Um, ah, well. “I knew that.”

Chris laughed, and his untroubled joy warmed over me. Then I was laughing too, at myself, at him, at the ironic nature of life.

“You’re a nutty gal, Bethany Lange.” Chris wiped at the tears laughter had squeezed from his eyes. “Nuttier than a fruitcake.”

“You’re pretty fruity, yourself,” I teased back.

He froze and stared at me. I realized what I’d said, shocked at my unintended pun. I was ready to apologize until Chris doubled over, laughing.

The Chinese woman glared at us and shook her head.

Was she giving us the evil eye?

I had a silly feeling that, as soon as we left, she would do some Chinese Voodoo cleansing ritual. Probably with choking incense fumes, ancient mystic chanting, and the sacrifice of an innocent—

The woman’s small brown eyes darted to the cage. Following her gaze, I saw Chicken leaping with tireless energy, desperate to reach my charms. Chicken shook her head, blowing the silky feathers out of her face for a second, and stared at me with intent black eyes. Pleading. Begging.

I looked from Chicken to the woman.

Back to Chicken.

Back to the woman.

A picture of Chicken, her little throat sliced and a flood of red coating her beautiful white feathers, popped into my head.

Without thinking, I turned and lifted Chicken from the pen, ignoring Chris’s bewildered look as I announced, “I’m taking the chicken.”

Chris paid for his pickled garlic, dried seaweed, and canned abalone—ew. I shelled out nearly eighty dollars for my four pound chicken. Apparently this was an imported chicken and the price included airfare from China.

“What are you going to do with her?” Chris asked.

I looked down at Chicken. “I don’t know.”

The chicken lay content in the brown paper bag the woman had given me. Compared to the other way she might have been leaving the store—in butcher paper—maybe she realized this was a better way to go.

Or maybe she thought that if she went home with me she’d have a chance to get hold of my charms.

Then again, she was just a chicken. Maybe she didn’t know any better.

As I shifted my purse to get a better hold on the bag, Chicken stood up, flapped her wings in a startled attempt to fly away. Of course the bag was too small for her wingspan and she just ended up smacking her wings against the paper, making me almost drop her.

Chris held the door open for me. “Then why’d you buy her?”

For a second I debated whether I should tell him the real reason—he already thought I was a total nutcase. But I didn’t have another reason. I mentally smacked myself upside the head, trying to remember that it didn’t matter what Chris thought of me. We would only ever be friends.

Friends didn’t need to be reassured of each other’s sanity. Shared lunacy only strengthened a friendship.

As we walked out of the store I started to tell him about what I had seen—er, imagined. One of the dozens of mirrors spinning in the front window caught my eye as I walked past. In it, I saw the reflection of the Chinese woman.

She smiled like someone for whom things had worked out exactly as planned.

Looking down at Chicken, I wondered what the New York City Health Code had to say about chickens living in apartments.

“Is that dinner?” Randy flopped onto the sofa, eyeing the cage in the corner of the room.

After separating from Chris, I had gone to a big pet store on the way home and—shockingly enough—they had a complete line of chicken supplies. At least the clerk had claimed they were chicken supplies ... they might have been for really big parrots or something.

Chicken now clucked and pecked contentedly in a roomy cage with a floor of shredded newspaper that she seemed intent on clawing into a big pile in the corner.

Kit, close on Randy’s heels, approached the cage.

“Looks kinda scrawny.” She poked her finger between the wire before I could warn her. With a yelp, she jumped back as Chicken pecked.

“That,” I explained, “is Chicken. My new pet… chicken.”

“A pet chicken?” Randy watched me, eyes wide and jaw dropped. “You freaked out when I brought home an ant farm in third grade.”

He was wise not to mention the garter snakes.

At the kitchen counter, I dipped the stainless steel scoop into the bag of pellets and carefully poured the sweet smelling feed into the ceramic bowl inside the cage. A few pellets spilled out onto shredded newspaper, but Chicken quickly dug them out. “Yes, well, I didn’t have a choice. She was about to be sacrificed.”

Head tilted and brows scrunched, Randy stared at me like I’d dyed my hair purple. Then, as if deciding I was far too convoluted to decipher, he shook his head and reached for the remote.

Kit turned to me. “Ready for tonight?”

“For what?” I watched Chicken approach the bowl slowly, hesitantly. She pecked at the food, testing it. She must have found it satisfactory because she stepped right up and dove in.

“The stakeout.”

My head snapped up and I darted a glance Randy’s direction. What had Kit told him?

“Don’t worry, Sis,” Randy assured me as he flipped through the few channels of my basic cable. “I’m all for you outing the bastard.”

I wasn’t sure having Randy’s full-fledged support was such a good thing.

He looked at me. That mischievous grin spelled trouble.

“Or would that be inning?” His blue eyes looked me over once. “Shouldn’t you be dressed in black?”

I grabbed the nearest object—a book on chicken-rearing—and flung it at his head. Drat, I’d always had terrible aim.

“I don’t own black.”

Randy shrugged, picked the book up off the floor, and set it on the coffee table. The sounds of SportsCenter came on the television and his attention on me evaporated.

“Men.”

“Don’t I know it,” Kit agreed. “Now, shouldn’t you get ready?”

“What’s to get ready? I don’t even know what we’re doing.”

“We’re staking your guy out.”

“He’s not my guy.”

“Fine.” She waved a dismissive hand at me. “We’re staking your ex-guy out.”

“I don’t think so.”

Kit stepped toward me, her jaw set and determination blazing in her eyes.

I backed away. “Listen, Kit. Last night was a mistake.”

She continued her advance.

“I was drunk.”

By moving to the right, she maneuvered me in the opposite direction.

“Vulnerable.”

I glanced at the front door, but Kit moved lightning fast to block my path. She must have played sports in high school. Maybe basketball. Or soccer. Those were quick reflexes.

“We can’t do that again.”

“We can,” Kit said, advancing faster. “And we will.”

“No, we—”

As I spoke, Kit herded me into my bedroom, closing the door behind us.

“Bethany. This is your chance—a chance for all women everywhere—to get irrefutable proof that your ex is a two-faced, cheating, deceiving louse. He deserves to be inned for the sake of all humanity. Don’t let him profit from any more of his lies. He cheated you once; don’t let him cheat you again.”

Something dark and desperate shone in her eyes. Something that told me she took Evan’s betrayal as something deeply personal. And as I watched her watch me—hope mingling with her despair—I knew I had to do whatever it took to prove the truth. For Kit. For me. For any woman who had been or was about to be deceived. I had to stop the lies, if only in this one instance.

“You’re right, Kit,” I agreed, laying my hands on her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”

Her face lit up. “Great!”

I headed for my closet to change out of the cardigan and pencil skirt I’d worn out with Chris. Kit followed, peering over my shoulder as I searched the stack of shelves on the left for the one pair of jeans I owned.

“You really don’t have any black,” she commented, a touch of awe in her tone.

“I’m not in mourning,” I explained.

“I didn’t think anyone could live in New York and not have a wardrobe of black, black, and more black.”

Aha! I found the jeans. The soft denim brought back memories of home and my teenage days working at Calbert’s Restaurant—a appallingly hillbilly establishment where they threw—actually threw!—fresh rolls across the room to the customers. I could almost smell the fried okra and sorghum molasses. My body shuddered involuntarily.

Those were the days before Daddy moved us to Atlanta.

Those were memories best forgotten.

“I am almost certain”—I returned my attention to Kit, distracting myself from the memories—”there is nothing in the Manhattan water that turns clothes black.”

“I know,” she said, still gawking at my mostly-pastel wardrobe, “but I just thought—well—jeez, Bethany, you are an anomaly.”

“Thank you.” I selected a crisp white t-shirt from the stack and headed behind the Chinese screen in the corner to change. “I think.”

“I mean,” Kit said, “I’m not a Goth or anything—”

I slid down my zipper and shrugged out of my dress.

“—I don’t even wear black often, really—”

Stepping into the jeans, I pulled them up over my hips. They still hugged my curves like they were made for me.

“—it makes my hair look blah—”

The t-shirt smoothed down my hair as I tugged it into place.

“—but I still have tons of black,” she finished.

I emerged from behind the screen, tousling my hair back into shape. My bare toes curled into the plush oriental carpet that covered most of the room as I crossed to the full-length mirror on the closet door.

Kit joined me, staring blatantly at my reflection.

“Holy crap! Bethany—” She smacked my shoulder, nearly sending me tumbling. “—you’re a sexpot. Why don’t you dress like this all the time?”

“Like what?”

“Casual. Basic.” Her hands fluttered up and down in an encompassing gesture. “Hot.”

I shrugged, but turned to evaluate myself in the mirror anyway. Casual had never been my style. Even in high school I’d leaned more towards formal. Classy. Ladylike. Senior year I was voted “Most Likely to be First Lady” because I wore a pink pillbox hat to the College Fair.

The casual girl in the mirror was unfamiliar. The simple cotton t-shirt clung to her, stretching across the smooth roundness of her chest and skimming over the flat plane of her belly. Soft blue denim, frayed at the hems from countless washings, fit loosely from her waist to her knees before flaring into a subtle-but-sexy bootcut—I’d never gone in for the skinny line. Her hair, a blend of caramel, honey, and golden tones, hung past her shoulders in carefree, bed-rumpled waves. Somehow completing the picture and making it all the more sexy were her bare feet, cotton candy pink polished toes wiggling under the unaccustomed scrutiny.

Lord, I was hot.

Getting into the full swing of casual style, I dug around my closet for my sole pair of sneakers. They were remnants of my early days in the apartment when I’d spent most of my free time painting, plastering, and tiling—not activities suited to pumps. Buried beneath a pile of extra blankets—even after nearly fifteen years I was still not accustomed to Northern winters—the sneakers looked practically new. Still as bright white as the day I’d bought them, the only signs of use were smudges of dirt on the insoles and one dot of mint green paint, a la my kitchen.

As I laced them up I remembered how much fun I’d had refinishing the apartment. Implementing Evan’s designs. It had been a long time since I’d worked with my hands. Suddenly I felt the need to get dirty.

Maybe I could take up pottery.

Squaaaawk!

“Aaack!”

The screeching cry of human and poultry echoed through my closed door. Oh dear Lord.

“We’d better go save Randy from the chicken,” I said, knotting my laces into quick bows and heading for the door.

“Don’t you mean save the chicken from Randy?” Kit asked.

I faced her as I reached the door. “You would think, wouldn’t you?”

“You know,” Kit mused as I turned to leave, “if you keep looking this good, you might tempt Evan into dropping the pretense yourself.”

She smiled as she said it, so I knew it was a joke. But as she pushed past me to rescue man and fowl from each other the idea settled in and wouldn’t leave.

Hmmm. If nothing else worked, that just might—

“Get that feathered monster—aaack!”

“Bethany,” Kit shouted, “you might want to—”

“I’m coming,” I said. But the thought of tempting Evan back into the closet just wouldn’t go away.