“Nines fine. Dana.” Her voice dropped to a hissing whisper. “Bradleys here.”
“Oh. Okay, Ill let you go, then. See—”
“No, no. What am I supposed to do with him?”
“Gee,Zoe , I dont know. What do you want to do with him?”
“Nothing.” Her voice went up a notch before lowering again. “I dont know how this happened. Hes out in the living room playing video baseball with Simon, in a suit.”
“Simons wearing a suit?” Dana tucked her tongue in her cheek. “Boy,thingsre pretty formal at your house.”
“Stop it.” But she laughed a little. “Hes wearing a suit. Bradley. He came to the door with a stepladder, and before I knew—”
“With a what? What for? To clean out your gutters? That was not a euphemism, by the way. But, come to think of it, itd be a pretty good one.”
“He gave it—the stepladder—to me—to us—” she corrected quickly. “For the painting and stuff. He thought we could use it.”
“That was nice of him. Hes a nice guy.”
“Thats not the point! What am I supposed to do with this chicken?”
“Brad brought you a chicken?”
“No.” There was helpless, hooting laughter over the line. “Why would anyone bring me a chicken?”
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
“I have chicken breasts defrosted, for dinner. What am I going to do with them now?”
“Id try cooking them. Jeez,Zoe , relax. Its just Brad. Throw the chicken in a pan, rustle up some rice or potatoes, whatever, add something green and toss it on a plate. Hes not fussy.”
“Dont tell me hes not fussy.” She went back to the hissing whisper. “We dont do cordon bleu in this house. I dont even know for sure what cordon bleu means. Hes wearing anAudemarsPiguet . Do you think I dont know what anAudemarsPiguet is?”
It was fascinating, really, Dana decided, to realize her old friend Brad turned a sensible woman likeZoe into a raving lunatic. “Okay, Ill bite. What is anAudemarsPiguet and is it really sexy?”
“Its a watch. A watch that costs more than my house. Or damn near. Never mind.” There was a long, long sigh. “Im making myself crazy, and its just stupid.”
“I cant argue with you about that.”
“Ill see you tomorrow.”
Shaking her head, Dana hung up. Now she had one more thing to look forward to in the morning. And that was hearing all about howZoe and Brad handled a chicken dinner.
But for now, she was switching gears. She was going to try out her tub book and a long, hot, soaking bath.
Chapter Five
SHE decided to make the bath an event. The first pure luxury of unemployment. Might as well celebrate it, Dana told herself, as cry over it.
She went for mango for that tropical sensation, and dumped a generous amount of the scented bubble bath under the running water. She lit candles, then decided a bottle of beer didnt quite measure up to the rest of the ambience.
Already naked, she headed into the kitchen, poured the beer into a glass.
Back in the bath, she anchored her hair on top of her head, then, for the hell of it, slopped on some of the hydrating facial creamZoe had talked her into.
It couldnt hurt.
Realizing she was missing an important element, she went out to flip through her CDs, found an old JimmyBuffett . Time to go to the islands, she decided, and with Jimmy already nibbling on sponge cake, she sank with a long sigh into the hot, fragrant water.
For the first five minutes she simply basked, let the hot water, the scents, the absolute bliss do their work.
A big white ball bearing Joans irritated face bounced down a long incline, slapping into rocks, picking up grit. The face took on a shocked expression as it rolled straight off the edge of a cliff.
A bouncy blond ponytail followed it. Tension oozed away, drop by drop.
“Bye-bye,” Dana murmured, well satisfied.
She roused herself to rinse away the facial cream with a washcloth, and reminded herself to put on some moisturizer when she got out of the tub.
She frowned at her toes, turned her head this way and that. Maybe it was time for a pedicure, ending it with some sassy, liberating color suitable for the recently unemployed and the soon-tobe entrepreneur.
It was coming in damn handy having a stylist for a friend and business partner.
Ready for stage two, she decided, and picked up her book from the edge of the tub. With a sip of beer, the turn of a page, Dana slipped into the story.
The tropical setting, the romance and intrigue, perfectly suited her needs. She drifted along with the words, began to see the deep blue shine of the water, the sugar-white sparkle of the sand. She felt the warm, moist, air flutter over her skin and smelled the sea, the heat, the strong perfume of the lilies potted on the wide veranda.
She stepped offsunbaked wood and ontosunbaked sand. Gulls cried as they wheeled overhead, and the sound of them echoing was a kind of chant.
She felt the powdery grit of the sand under her bare feet, and the teasing way her thin silk wrap fluttered around her legs.
She walked to the water, then along its edge, basking in the beauty of the solitude.
She could go wherever she wanted, or nowhere at all.
All those years of responsibility and work, of schedules and obligations, were behind her now.
Why had she ever thought they mattered so much?
The water rolled toward shore, foamy lace at its edges, then waltzed back into its own heart with a sigh. She saw the silver flash and leap of dolphins at play, and beyond, so far beyond, the delicate line of the horizon. It was perfect and peaceful and lovely. And so liberating to know she was completely alone.
She wondered why shed ever felt compelled to work so hard, to worry, to care about what should be or had to be done, when all she really wanted was to be alone in a world of her own choosing.
A world, she understood without any sense of surprise or wonder, that she could change with a thought or on a whim.
There was no heartache unless she wished for it, no company unless she created it. Her life could spin out— color and movement and quiet and sound—like the pages of a book that never had to end.
If she wanted a companion, she had only to imagine one. Lover or friend.
But really, she needed no one but herself. People brought problems, responsibilities, baggage, needs that were not her own. Life was so much simpler in solitude.
Her lips curved with contentment as she wandered along the sickle curve of beach where the only footprints were hers, toward the lush green shade of palms and trees heavy with fruit.
Cooler here, because she wished it to be. Soft, soft grass beneath her feet, sprinkles of sunlight through the fronds overhead, and the sharp, bright flash of birds with feathers the rich colors of jewels.
She plucked fruit from a branch—a mango, of course— and took the first sweet, juicy bite.
It was chilled, almost icy cold, just the way she liked it best, rather than warmed by that streaming sun.
She lifted her arms, saw they were tanned a smooth and dusky gold, and when she looked down she grinned to see her toes were painted a bold andcelebrational pink.
Exactly right, she realized. Thats exactly what I wanted.
Her mind began to wander as she roamed through the glade, watched goldfish dance in a pool of clear blue water. She wanted the fish to be red as rubies, and they were. Green as emeralds, and they became so.
The wonderful flash of bright color in the water made her laugh, and at the sound of it, birds— more jewels— glided into that perfect bowl of sky.
This could be her forever place, she realized, changing only as she wished it to change. Here, she would never hurt again, or need, or be disappointed.