Turn Up the Heat

“He’s gorgeous.”

“Now we’re talking.”

“And from what I can tell, available.”

“Even better.”

“So what do I do next?”

“Take him cookies.”

Candy stopped on the sidewalk and burst out laughing. “Do what now?”

“Cookies. A plate of homemade cookies says, ‘Hello and welcome to the neighborhood. I’m Candy and I can bake. What’s more, in bed I can cook. Let’s get married.’”

Candy snorted and kept walking. “Oh, that’s subtle.”

“That’s how I got Ron. All the other women after him dressed like bimbos and acted as if all they brought to the table was sex and permission for him to spend millions on them. On our first date, I brought to the table a bag of sugar-oatmeal cookies I baked. He never saw what hit him.”

“True enough.”

Abigail had grown up in West Allis, one of five boisterous siblings in a house without enough love or money, and had decided the latter was more important, therefore she got herself engaged to the first gazillionaire she could find. He ducked out—the infamous Valentine’s Day non-wedding—but she married the next one, Ron Glucklich. They lived in a mansion overlooking Lake Michigan with a three-car garage the size of Candy’s house. Until the start of her pregnancy four months earlier, Abigail was always rushing off to this or that country, resort, beach, et al, and was hardly ever around long enough for her house to feel like home, at least as Candy saw it. Now that Abigail had finally stopped throwing up, she and Ron would be off again soon, to Jamaica. Candy wouldn’t want her life for anything.

Okay, maybe for a month. Or two. Abigail didn’t have to dress up and pretend to be Sexy Glamour Girl, she lived it.

“Where are you?”

“On my way to meet Ralph.” She stopped outside the restaurant entrance. “I’m here, in fact. He’s probably thinking by now that I’m not going to show.”

“My, my, you are certainly rolling in men.” Abigail sounded wistful. “Those were the days.”

“Like you’d trade what you have now?” She snorted. Though there were times Candy suspected Abigail missed having the kind of love Candy had found with Chuck, she and Ron got along well and were both thrilled about the coming baby. “I’ll let you know how it goes. What are you doing tonight?”

“Ron’s traveling. I’m going to hang out, watch TV and try not to eat Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Those miniature ones are so cute you think they don’t count, then you reach the end of the bag and realize that’s a whole day’s allotment of calories and none of them were good for the little one.” She let out a groan of exasperation that couldn’t hide her joy. “This baby-making is a major responsibility.”

“Worth it, though?”

“Oh, yeah.” She sighed blissfully. “The little nugget has me already. I’m a goner.”

“I knew that about you.” Candy grinned over a twinge of envy. Abigail was finally looking out for someone other than herself. That was worth grinning over. The envy … well, Candy had thought that by now she and Chuck would be married and starting a family, too.

“So go. Have fun. I’ll fret about calories and you have wild sex.”

“We’ll see.”

“Oh, and I was serious about baking Neighbor Guy cookies, Candy. Make those chocolate chunk ones I nearly gained forty pounds on once I stopped wanting to throw up every hour. He’ll fall like bricks.”

“Will do.”

“And call me the second you’re done with the Ralph-date. If he doesn’t get a stiffy at the sight of you, he’s gay.”

Candy giggled. “Thanks, Abby. I promise I’ll call right away.”

She clicked off the phone, tucked it in her bag, and felt suddenly faint with nerves. She’d have to walk into a bar full of people who would take one look and make all kinds of assumptions about her character. Same for the other dates, yes, but this character seemed so false …

She squared her shoulders and strode into the bar, trying to act as confident and sexual as she knew she looked. No backing out now.

Inside, she gritted her teeth against the rush of warmth and noise, and made herself look around. Ralph was pretty hot in his picture, though Marie said he’d put on a few pounds.

A huge man lumbered toward her. Much taller than she expected. A regular elephant bull. He’d put on, yes, a few pounds. No, several pounds. And shaved his head. And added an earring. And grown one of those soul patches which made Candy itch for a razor. He looked like David Draiman, the lead singer of the band Disturbed, minus the giant, scary lip ring. “Candy?”

“Yes. Ralph. Hi.” She stuck out her hand with a bright smile, forgetting she was supposed to smolder, then tried to smolder, but probably looked like she had something in her eye.

This was a mistake. What had been natural with Abigail, and even with Justin, was foreign and ridiculous with this intimidating mountain of a person. A person she didn’t know, a person to whom she was broadcasting messages about herself that weren’t true.

“Well, we-e-ell.” He gave her a long, slow once-over that was like getting rubbed with used engine oil. “You are one very hot woman. Am I in luck or what?”

What. Candy kept her smile going, tried to arrange her body in a suitably seductive pose, feeling naked, a ludicrous pretender.

She wanted to go home, change into sweats, bake those cookies, deliver them to Justin and spend the evening consuming them in his kitchen over coffee and conversation. What kind of sex kitten did that make her?

Not one. By the end of this evening Ralph would find that out. And who knew what Justin would say to the cookies if they were delivered by a woman in baggy fleece?

Candy should have listened to Chuck who knew her better than she knew herself. Sexy Glamour Girl was only part of her personality in her dreams.

Marie walked down the stairs into the Cellar at Roots Restaurant, her favorite after-work place for a drink and occasionally a reasonably priced and excellent dinner. The restaurant was located in the up-and-coming Brewers Hill neighborhood where Marie had bought a small fixer-upper Victorian. She’d hired a friend to do renovations on the cheap, resulting in a cozy, colorful home that said “Marie” everywhere one looked, and which Marie adored. She and her ex-husband, Grant, had lived in a beautiful Tudor in Whitefish Bay on the east side by the lake, a place she’d decorated the way she thought a wife should decorate a house for her husband. After the divorce, while she’d wanted to stay in Milwaukee where she’d lived all her life, she needed to live somewhere that felt like a new start. Here in Brewers Hill, she wasn’t constantly running into Grant or his new hot-young-babe wife, nor did she risk encountering mutual friends with their tsk-tsk sympathy. This part of the city had come to feel like hers.

“Hey, Marie, how are you doing this evening? What’ll it be today?”

“I’m fine, Joe.” She sat in a tall chair at the long wooden bar set under a dimly lit canopy of tangled brown metal, evoking roots, for obvious reasons, and grinned at the handsome young bartender with the eyes of a doe, the mouth of a young girl and the body of an Olympic swimmer. “Let me see. How about a Prufrock tonight?”

“You got it.” He grabbed the bottle of pear vodka which he’d mix with gin, chartreuse and a splash of sour mix at lightning speed. Cellar cocktails were inventive and changed with the seasons. Never a dull moment.

Marie looked around the room, white lights strung in a scattered pattern from the bar overhang, early patrons sitting at some of the tables already, many more to come soon she knew.

“Here you go, one Prufrock.”

“Thanks, Joe.” She unfolded the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, dreading the world’s depressing news, and took a sip of the icy liquid, fruity and not too sweet. Mmm. Her favorite way to unwind at the end of a long day, especially at the end of a long week. Sometimes a lonely person came in, a close or distant neighbor, or someone needing escape to a place with delicious food, great service and a restful view over the Milwaukee River to the city skyline. If that person was in the mood to chat, Marie would have company. Sometimes during the week Joe wasn’t too busy and she’d talk to him—or listen more like it—but most of the time she enjoyed sitting in the bustle of a thriving business within walking distance of her house, indulging in a pleasant buffer between the hectic work day and the emptiness of her home.

She’d adjusted pretty quickly to not being married, but going home to an empty house—even an empty house she adored—still felt hollow and unsatisfying, though after the trauma of her divorce, and the initial joy of her subsequent freedom, she wasn’t looking for a replacement husband yet. If she weren’t violently allergic, she’d get a pet. Pets loved you no matter what, didn’t criticize, were always supportive, and never left you for a younger version.

Halfway through her drink, while Marie skimmed articles in the business section, a dark suit sat down three chairs away.

That guy. He was here often when she was, more predictably on Fridays. She peeked around her paper for the enjoyment of a surreptitious eyeful. He was delicious. Mid-forties, classically handsome, solidly built, with short salt-and-pepper hair and dark brown eyes, very George Clooney-esque. Sometimes he came alone, sometimes with a woman—seldom the same one twice. Many times he didn’t leave alone, even if he came in that way. Women fell with such regularity that Marie found herself tempted to interview him and find out how he worked. She imagined he lived somewhere in Brewers Hill, though she’d never bumped into him anywhere but here.

She’d love to sign the guy up for her site, put his picture on the home page, Look what you can find here, but clearly he didn’t need help finding company. And if his behavior was anything to go by, he was more into quantity than quality, which wasn’t the type of man she’d foist on anyone looking to date seriously. Like Candy, who insisted she was out there for fun, but wasn’t, not really. Marie hoped she was having fun with Ralph tonight.

Another sip of her drink and she sat, considering. How about matching this man with someone who wasn’t looking to date seriously? Like Darcy? He could be the lure Marie needed to get Darcy to take a first step toward admitting she wanted a serious relationship, too. She was much more firmly in denial than Candy. One way or another Marie would wear down her defenses. After all, the urge to merge was basic human nature, no matter what the level of commitment. Though clearly this clone of George Clooney—George Cloney?—was more about urge than long-term merge. At least until he met the right woman.