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“Who the hell are you?” Anna asked. “The laundry room police?”
“No, I’m a guy with no clean clothes,” he snapped back.
“Look, I didn’t think anybody else would be doing their laundry at—” she looked at the clock which was right by the sign she hadn’t read “—8:00 a.m.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize I needed to run my laundry schedule past you.”
Anna and Prince Charming had a little silent showdown. She guessed he expected her to apologize and haul a bunch of wet clothes out of a machine so he could wash some of his big, tall clothes. And perhaps she might have done that, if the man—a complete stranger—hadn’t laughed at her. Really, you don’t laugh at strangers. It doesn’t make you any friends.
His eyes were boring into hers and, tired of him, she raised her eyebrows, well aware that there were few better standoff enders than a properly raised eyebrow.
“Fine,” he said, moving to the door. “But you could be a little more considerate.”
“Jerk,” she muttered under her breath.
“Bitch,” he muttered back and she had heard it enough times that it barely even hurt.
IT TOOK ANNA four hours to do all of her laundry. Well, an hour of laundry and then three hours of folding and trying to figure out where to put all her clothes. She was able to avoid seeing Prince Charming again, which she was pretty happy about. Having cooled down, she realized she had acted childishly and didn’t look forward to having to see him.
Anna was comfortably wearing clean underwear, freshly laundered jeans and a U.S.C. sweatshirt she thought she had thrown out. At the grocery store—the second item on her agenda today—she toyed with the idea of actually buying food to cook. Then she remembered who she was and bought some staples and a lot of microwave dinners.
She was unloading groceries back at her place when the phone rang.
She cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear while she opened the refrigerator door.
“Hello,” she said, picking up the three bags of oranges she bought and dumping them onto one of the shelves.
“Anna?”
Anna stilled, the hair on the back of her neck pricked. She shut the refrigerator door and leaned against it.
“Hello, Camilla,” she said smoothly.
“How is your first day of unemployment?” her boss asked brightly.
“Fabulous,” Anna answered snidely. “I should have quit years ago.”
Camilla only laughed at Anna’s little dig.
“What do you want, Camilla?” Anna grabbed up the bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups she had bought and fired them into a cupboard.
“I’m just making sure that you are going to be at the barbecue on Monday.”
“I can’t,” Anna said quickly. “I’m busy.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You don’t know that,” Anna snapped.
“Of course I do. Your sabbatical just started yesterday.”
Anna put a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread in the fridge.
“I already told Meg you were going to be there. Marie will be there.”
“That’s a seriously low blow, Camilla.” Anna blindly shoved a quart of milk into the cupboard.
“Well, sometimes low blows are the only ones that get things done,” Camilla chuckled. “It’s a barbecue with people who love you. It’s not the Spanish Inquisition.”
“Fine,” Anna breathed. “I’ll be there.”
“Oh, Anna, I am giving you fair warning so that you don’t freak out at the picnic…”
Just those words sent a chill to Anna’s heart, those were words with trouble all over them.
“I’ve invited someone I would like you—”
“No, you didn’t,” Anna interrupted, knowing that this someone was a single man who Camilla was dying to fix her up with. “You did not do that, Camilla.”
“Well, yes, I did. He’s very nice. A doctor.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care who he is. You have meddled enough with my life.”
“It’s not like I’ve set you up on a blind date. I just invited a nice single doctor—” Camilla put a little emphasis on the doctor part “—to my granddaughter’s birthday party. There is nothing more to it than that.”
But Anna knew better. With Camilla there was always something more. She was a Pandora’s Box of more.
AFTER PUTTING all her food back in the right spots Anna was at a loss. What did unemployed people do all day? She collapsed onto her couch. She was wide-awake so taking a nap would be fruitless. She checked her watch and thought longingly of the meeting she would be attending if she were at Arsenal.
But she wasn’t at Arsenal and thinking about it would just depress her. She dug the remote control out from under her butt and decided she would discover the joys of daytime television.
A half hour later she threw the remote back on the couch and decided there was no joy to daytime television.
People, she thought, shouldn’t sleep with amnesia victims who might be relatives. It’s gross.
Anna stood up and decided to clean her apartment. She had cleaned plenty of apartments. She had picked up after her messy sister and mother, so she was no stranger to the mop and broom.
But this. This was very much beyond her. She quickly realized that what had become of her home was something best left to a professional. The basics, sweeping and mopping she could handle. It was the advanced cleaning, the things involving mildew and harsh chemicals, that were destroying her apartment. She’d already accidentally bleached part of her carpet and the paint was bubbling up from the wall in her kitchen where she had sprayed the wrong kind of cleaner.
She quickly called a cleaning service and scheduled someone to come deal with the disaster. But in the mean time, the bathroom with its sturdy tile proved to be less destructible so she tried to tidy that up.
She was on her hands and knees in the tub working at the brown stuff around the drain when the solution to her problem—no, not the brown stuff problem. The other, bigger problem. The getting a life problem—hit her. Like a lightning bolt.
What better way to thwart Camilla and this doctor than to show up with a date of her own?
She sat straight up, the toothbrush in her hand dripped onto her jeans.
She needed a date, but not just any date. She needed a man who would expect no romantic entanglements. A man she wouldn’t have to exchange small talk with or any other uncomfortable platitudes.
“Gary,” she said with a smile.
She climbed out of the tub, threw the gloves and the toothbrush in the sink and headed out the door for Gary’s apartment.
Gary was perfect as a date-on-call for several reasons.
1. He lived just around the corner in her condo complex.
2. He was a mostly out of work actor and he had viewed the wedding she took him to as a chance to be on stage, which was why halfway through the night people were expressing their condolences for the brain tumor Gary was telling people he had.
3. He was gay. There were absolutely no uncomfortable entanglements.
In a word: perfect.
Anna crossed the small stretch of grass between her unit and his with a glad heart. She was going to beat Camilla at her own game. Anna laughed a little bit thinking about how perfect this was. How truly satisfying it would be to get back at Camilla in just this exact way.
Gary had been leaving messages on her machine for the past two weeks that she had not had the time to return and she felt a little bad. But he would understand. Gary was good like that.
The light was on behind his blinds, which Anna took as an omen that her plan was going to work out okay. She stepped up on his small cement landing and knocked. She felt bad that she hadn’t seen him in so long, a few weeks anyway. He had gotten some part in a play and she, of course, was always busy, so time flew by. She smiled and knocked again, happy that she had more time to spend with Gary who was always fun.
She heard footsteps and for the first time in a while, felt a smile that wasn’t forced spread across her face. She pushed back a lock of hair just as the door opened and she felt all the blood drain from her face.
“Well, well.” Prince Charming leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his bare chest.
4
“YOU?” ANNA WAS far more than surprised. She felt oddly as though the bottom of her stomach was missing. The man who had been so handsome fully clothed was now shirtless…
“In the flesh.”
“What are you doing here?” Anna asked. Where is Gary? Is this guy a friend of Gary’s? A…lover?
“I live here.”
Anna ignored his sarcasm. “Where’s Gary?”
“Well, if you’re talking about the guy who lived here before me, he moved out two weeks ago.” Prince Charming idly scratched his chest, which of course, was hairless and perfect and distracting to Anna in a dozen different ways.
“Two weeks?” she repeated partly because she didn’t believe it and partly because his abdomen had that six-pack effect that made women want to lick men’s stomachs.
“Yeah, he got some part in a soap opera or a play or something. Listen, not that this isn’t real fun standing here watching you watch me, talking about a guy you apparently didn’t know very well, but I’ve got paint I’d like to watch dry.”
“Wait a second, Gary moved?” The message on her machine. Of course, he was calling to tell her that he got the part and was moving. Anna, as per usual, was an awful friend. Anna’s ruined dreams of petty revenge were not nearly as disappointing as the fact that she had missed saying goodbye to Gary. She ducked her head for a second feeling truly awful.
“Do you have his address or number?” she asked.
He looked at her carefully for a second, then nodded. “Just a second,” he said. He pushed away from the doorframe and turned around. As the door shut behind him, she saw a long puckered scar that ran up the center of his back toward his hairline.
The scar was shocking. Brutal and ugly against the smooth, tan skin of his back.
“Oh, no…” she breathed as he walked away. She blinked and swallowed, not sure of what she had seen. Could this be any worse?
Nice one, Anna. Why don’t you go door to door offending and alienating people? You’re off to a great start. She felt horrible. Maybe she had spent too much time away from regular people. Dealing with the sharks in the advertising world had made her intolerant. Maybe, just maybe, she was a bitch. She’d threatened to kill Andrew with chopsticks. She’d lost touch with Gary and she was rude to a complete stranger just because he caught her making a fool of herself.
She felt like she was ten years old again sitting on a playground at a new school all by herself. She remembered all the quiet, kind kids who had tried to reach out to the new girl and she had bitten off their hands because she didn’t know what to do.
He came back within moments carrying a slip of paper. Anna took it and smiled up at him ruefully. “I was really rude to you. I am sorry.” He remained silent and Anna tried again. “You caught me making an ass out of myself and it embarrassed me. I really am sorry.”
There was a tense moment between them and it seemed like his very green eyes were looking right through her. She let him do it and, when he finally smiled at her, she felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said and from the tone in his voice, Anna guessed that he had forgiven her for most of her stupid behavior. “I was pretty awful myself. We can call it even. I’m Sam. Sam Drynan.”
“Hi, Sam, I’m Anna.” She held out her hand and he shook it and, though she really couldn’t believe it, certainly never heard of it occurring in real life, electricity zipped across her fingertips and up her arm from the contact.
What the…? She looked down at her hand nearly lost in the giant paw of his hand and wondered if maybe she had stepped into some sort of Meg Ryan movie. Electric touches did not happen in Anna’s life.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” He grinned. His thumb lightly stroked the flesh of her hand and Anna’s stomach did a pleasant little shimmy.
Oh…what? That? Is he? Flirting! Anna pulled her hand out of his and he smiled warmly at her. He is! He is flirting with me!
Anna giggled and then quickly wanted to kill herself.
“No, that will be all.” She cringed. “I mean that’s all I need. Thanks.”
“Are you a professional Celine Dion impersonator?” he asked.
“No, strictly amateur.”
“Well, you’ve certainly got her moves down.” She looked at him blankly before he lightly beat his chest with his fist.
“Right.” She clapped her hands together in front of her so they wouldn’t do anything stupid like try to touch him. “Well, you should see my Michael Jackson.”
He laughed and she appreciated his sense of humor. A funny guy, she thought. I like that in a total hunk.
She stood there smiling at him, her body doing ridiculous things in reaction to just him being there. Shirtless and very handsome. Her thoughts about getting naked from the morning came back. Sam Drynan was definitely the kind of man she could get completely naked with.
“Well, um…” Anna realized she had been standing there, staring silently for several seconds. “Yes, thanks for the number and um, again sorry about earlier and…” She nodded her head and started backing off the porch. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“Okay, you don’t need anything else?” he asked, crossing his arms over that nice chest and leaning against the door frame. Anna shook her head, the power of speech suddenly abandoning her.
He lifted his hand in goodbye and shut his door. Anna started to walk back to her apartment. She stopped.
Camilla. The doctor. She sucked air in through her teeth and weighed the satisfaction of thwarting Camilla against the embarrassment of asking Sam out on a date. He was infinitely more effective than Gary. He was gorgeous and straight. More than that, he had flirted. She might be out of practice, but she wasn’t a complete lost cause.
The fact was she had nothing to lose and just imagining the look on Camilla’s face was enough to make her head back to Sam’s door and knock.
“You need to borrow some quarters?” he asked, laughing as he opened the door.
“I need a date,” she blurted. His mouth fell open and Anna wished that the ground would open right up and swallow her. “I mean, not a real date. A fake date.” His eyebrows snapped together and Anna, in a panic of regret and embarrassment, just kept digging the hole. She was the kind of person who, once she made a mistake, could seem only to make it worse. It was why she tried to never make mistakes in the first place. But here she was trying to jam both feet in her mouth. “There’s a doctor and Camilla and a picnic, well, a picnic and a birthday party…”
