Underneath It All

“I’m not dying my hair.”

“Do you want to disappear or don’t you?”

“Yes. But…” He stared at the box. “If I wear Miss Clairol, I might as well pierce my ears and wear pink golf shirts.”

Bart snapped his fingers. “Now, that’s a great—”

“Forget it.”

“Listen, here’s some advice from a once potentially great actor. If you want to become a character, you step into his shoes and into his skin.”

“And into their hair dye. Yeah. I’ve got it.”

“It’s not just his hair. It’s the whole persona. What we’re doing is building a character. Who is this man who’s going to appear in Seattle? We’ll start with the hair and see where it goes.”

A woman glanced at them curiously and then picked up a box with a picture of a blonde on it.

Darren stood there surrounded by women’s hair-styling products, wondering how his life had ever come to this. Finally, he pulled out his wallet and handed Bart a twenty.

“You’re buying it.”

Two hours later, they were at Bart’s place and his damp hair was now brown. Darren couldn’t believe how it changed his appearance. His skin tone seemed lighter, his eyes darker.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Bart, who was getting right into this dye-your-hair and dress-up thing. “You really are a computer geek, and you’ll be living in Silicon Valley north, so why not dress like one? It’s the perfect disguise.”

“What, you mean wear plastic pocket protectors and plaid weenie shirts?”

“Too much?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay. The trick is to keep people’s attention off your face. I’ve got some black thick-framed glasses from when I played Willy Loman. They’d be perfect. The hair, baseball caps, those will help. But I’m thinking wild shirts like boarders wear. Loud, casual and cheap.” His buddy laughed and then clapped him on the back.

“Geek chic.”

Darren snorted. But he kind of liked the idea. Who’d look for him under a loud shirt? He’d never owned such a thing in his life.

“Okay,” he said, knowing he couldn’t pass up this opportunity to escape being marriage bait and at the same time follow his private dream. “I’ll do it.”

“Great.” Bart dug in a drawer for a pair of kitchen shears. “Now, hold still,” he said, and picked up a lump of Darren’s still-damp hair.

“I paid two hundred bucks to have my hair cut two weeks ago,” Darren informed his old buddy.

“Welcome to the world of—hey, what are you going to call yourself?” Bart asked as he started cutting.

KATE MONAHAN SAT AT HER kitchen table with her calculator and her monthly budget. She had the pleasant feeling of being ahead of her target.

She’d worked a lot of extra shifts to get here, but knowing her investment account with Brian’s bank was growing, and that soon she’d be able to follow her life-long dream and enroll in teacher’s college, had her beaming.

She heard the broken cement at the end of the duplex’s driveway rattle as a car rolled in. The landlord was too cheap to fix the drive, or much else, but the rent was reasonable so she didn’t complain. She wondered if this could be the new tenant moving in upstairs, and got up to look out the window.

She hoped it would be someone as friendly as the last tenant, Annie.

Kate went to the kitchen window and peeked out. Well, it was a guy moving in. Annie had been a fun-loving flight attendant—a girl after Kate’s heart—and the house had been more like a single home than a duplex. But Annie had been transferred to Denver. Somehow, Kate didn’t think this guy and she were going to be watching old movies together and sharing bowls of popcorn, or borrowing shoes and jackets.

He got out of a nondescript beige compact that had seen better days and glanced around as though suspecting he might have been followed.

The guy was tall, and he stretched his back as though he’d been driving a long time, pulled off the baseball cap he wore low over his eyes and scratched his scalp. He had dark brown hair in a cut his barber ought to be ashamed of, glasses with thick black frames on a pleasant, strong-boned face. He looked sort of familiar, though she was certain they’d never met. But it was hard to concentrate on his face when he was wearing such a wild shirt. Bright red, with big white flowers. The shirt was open to expose a white T-shirt that was soft from many washings. He wore creased cargo shorts and navy flip flops.

Shoving the cap back on his head, he popped open the trunk and pulled out a computer keyboard and a cardboard box with computer-type stuff sticking out and started toward the outside stairs that led up to his suite. Suddenly, he stopped, his gaze focusing on her kitchen window.

Her hair. It must be her wretched hair that had caught his attention. She’d thought she was hiding behind her curtains, but obviously he’d caught sight of her.

Well, she’d have to introduce herself now.

She opened the kitchen door and stepped out. “Hi,” she said, with a friendly smile.

He nodded. Not smiling. Not speaking. Looking at her as though she might be an assassin sent to kill him. Oh, great. He looked like a cross between a California surfer boy and a computer nerd, and was paranoid to boot.

He stepped past her and kept going toward the stairs. “I’m Kate,” she said. “I live downstairs. If you need anything—”

The upstairs door opened and then slammed shut.

3

OH, NO. Kate groaned when she saw the note taped to the washing machine. Now what?

“Occupant of Apartment B,” the note was headed.

Plunking her overflowing laundry basket on the floor, Kate ripped the scrap of paper from under the tape. The sight of the cramped black scrawl annoyed her even before she read the note.

Occupant of Apartment B,

Please don’t leave your clothes in the washer.

Thank you.

D. Edgar. (Occupant of Apartment A)

“Now, what’s his problem?” Kate grumbled, her words echoing off the gray cement walls of the duplex’s laundry room.

Glancing around, she quickly spotted the problem and uttered a cry of distress. On top of the dryer was a tangled, limp mess of pink and white. She recognized the remains of her brand new satin camisole, which had started life a sexy deep red. The camisole snaked around a pair of formerly white men’s briefs that blushed furiously at the intimacy.

Just before breakfast she had carefully put the camisole on to wash in cold water and mild soap. Occupant A had obviously thrown in his clothes without checking that the washer was empty and cranked up the hot water.

And goodbye to last month’s clothing treat.

Kate held the limp, twisted fabric up to her body and sighed. The pitiful remains of the camisole hardly covered her full breasts. It had shrunk as well as run, ruined beyond hope.