Midnight Madness

“I guess that’s one way of telling me I’m all wet,” said The Hammer. “But by the way, if we’re going to ride into the sunset together one day, you should call me Jack.”

3

RIDE INTO THE SUNSET together?

“So you see,” Marly said later to her business partner Alejandro, “the guy is off his gubernatorial rocker!”

They stood on the salon side of After Hours, on the zebra floor cloth and in front of a tangerine wall. The spa was funky and colorful, with Italian glass lamps, walls of all colors and a distressed concrete floor painted to look like the ocean. Every time she looked at it, Marly felt a mixture of pride and horror: she had painted it, crawling around on her hands and knees to do every lovely little blue-green swirl. Ugh. She had, in fact, driven the design of the whole place, since she’d studied art during her three years of college and had a knack for interior design.

Alejandro stretched his six-foot-four, muscular frame. A yawn overwhelmed his classically handsome face. He rubbed the day-old bristle on his square chin and sipped at a beer, his treat for passing his business school exams and squaring the books. “Oh, I don’t know, mi corazón. If I didn’t think of you as a sister, I might fall into instant love with you.”

“Be serious!”

“I am.” He rubbed absently at an uncharacteristic stain on his elegant linen pants.

Shrieks of drunken feminine laughter rolled over them, coming from the pedicure stations in the back. Marly lifted an eyebrow. “Let me guess, the Fabulous Four are here? Aren’t they early?”

The Fabulous Four was a group of women in their forties who booked their appointments together each week and got blind drunk on After Hours’ wine. At first Marly had thought it was cute. But after an entire year, it was getting a little out of hand. The Fab Four took over the place and got so loud and raunchy that sometimes other clients complained.

“They’re all going on a cruise together tomorrow,” Alejandro explained. “So they moved their pedicures—and happy hour—back to lunchtime.”

“Did they fight over you, honey?” Alejandro was often in demand for hand and foot treatments, as much as he hated to give them.

“No—when I found out they were coming, I deliberately crossed myself off the book for that time slot.” He grinned. “Now, tell me more about the governor.”

Marly frowned. “He’s feeding me lines, and I’m not going to fall for them. How many times a week do you think he tells the story of his great-great-grandfather and the mail-order bride?”

“I’ll go to bed with him,” her coworker and fellow stylist, Nicky, said with a leer. “He’s hot…for a Republican. Yeow, baby! I’d leave nothing on the guv but one of those royal-blue neckties….”

Marly shook her head at him. “I don’t think he’s bent your way, Nicky-doll. And I didn’t get the feeling he’d care much for orange spandex, either.”

“Oh, gawd.” Nicky shook his blond hair. He was like Princess Di in drag, with a California accent and a lisp. “It’s back to the Internet for me, then. Did I tell you about my date last week? Finally, finally, I thought, yay, this guy is gonna be it. He was good-looking, head to toe Calvin Klein, makes tons of money as a designer. I was ready to marry him—Even though we’d have to go to Massachusetts to do it! And then he shows up wearing those plastic food-service gloves. He wouldn’t even take them off to shake my hand! Fuh-reak, freak, freak.”

“But, Nicky,” said Alejandro. “You wouldn’t know what to do if you had a normal date. You’d have no stories to tell us and nothing to complain about.”

“So true,” said Nicky with a frown. “Do you think I should see a shrink about this?” He wandered off, one hand on his spandex-encased hip.

Marly sighed. “He makes the governor seem normal, honestly.”

Alejandro laughed. “Don’t you mean Jack?”

“I’m not going to call him by his first name. And besides, even if I was dumb enough to fall for his lines, how can I ignore the fact that he’s been seen all over the state with that debutante…you know, the one they’re expecting him to marry, like, yesterday?”

“Carol Hilliard?”

“Yeah—the one in the pastel Chanel suits and the Ferragamo shoes.”

“Nobody’s seen a rock on her finger, Marly.”

“They’re probably still excavating it, all hundred carats, from Daddy’s diamond mine.”

“Meow!” Alejandro winked at her. “What has she ever done to you?”

“Nothing,” muttered Marly. “She’s just perfect for him and I’m not. Do you know the guy had never even seen blue toenail polish before? I guess it’s not fashionable among the little debbies.”

“Marly, chica. Why does it bother you that you’re not perfect for him?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Right. That would be why you’re obsessing.”

“I’m not obsessing! I was just sharing my morning with you. A morning that happened to include a half naked governor who’s a big flirt.”

“Ooooh, is he cut?” Nicky was back again.

“Um, well, yeah.”

“Six-pack?”

She nodded.

“On a scale of one to ten, how much chest hair?”

“Five.”

“Mmm. Sounds divine. You should sleep with him.” And with that little bit of advice, Nicky disappeared to mix color for his next client.

“He hasn’t asked me!” she called after him, hands on her hips. Not that Jack Hammersmith needed to, really. She knew exactly what it meant when her body got that boneless feeling, the melted knees syndrome, the warm rushes of sensation in private areas.

“So,” Alejandro said. “You cut his hair. And you’re not sworn to secrecy, so that’s great PR for After Hours. The best, in fact. The only thing better would be for us to cut the hair of Brad Pitt or Colin Farrell. Would you get to work on that, please?” He grinned.

She heard his unspoken request. Don’t piss off the governor. We can use the cachet and the extra clients he’ll bring us.

Alejandro owned the biggest percentage of the spa and therefore owed the most money on the business loans they’d taken out. He constantly worried over finances, even though he masked the concern with his Latin charm.

She and Peggy had never told him how close they’d come to being kicked out of the retail space. He would have flunked all his business school exams or something. To reassure him, Marly said, “Hammersmith’s coming in here in a couple of days so I can do his color. I’ll have to use a private room, though—he doesn’t want to advertise the fact that he gets gray highlights to make him look older and more experienced. Isn’t that funny?”

Alejandro shrugged. “What is he, thirty-six or so?”

“Something like that.”

“You can understand it—most of the guys he’s working with in the Florida state legislature are on the far side of middle age, and he needs their respect.”

“Uh-huh.” Marly yawned. “I wish I was going to get out of here before midnight….”

“I’m sorry, mi corazón. Tell you what, dinner’s on me later. We’ll order from Benito’s. Sound good?”

“Thanks. You’re a sweetie. But what sounds good is a three-week vacation in the Caribbean. I’ve got to start limiting my schedule, Alejandro. I can’t keep going like this…. I haven’t been to see my parents in months, and as for spare time…” Spare time was a dream. And forget spare time to paint.