Hysterical Blondeness (11 page)

The potato stopped to talk to a flamingo. Now that was more like it. As she came closer, something about that flamingo looked familiar. She was a short thing, but for her long neck and head swaying above. Her legs were pink and graceful, with little fake bird feet over her shoes.

A mad scientist had his back to her and was chatting with the flamingo, too. His hair was sticking straight up and died with a green tinge.

Wait, that flamingo was
Pinky.

“Pinky, is that you? Thank
God
.”

“Jean Harlow, my most elegant creation, I’m sure you know Dr. Bender.” Pinky gave her a veiled grin through the thin pink net that covered her face.

The mad scientist turned around and looked Patricia over carefully. “My heavens, it’s quite striking, isn’t it?”

“Dr. Bender, what are you doing here?” Patricia was stunned to see him out of context in his white coat and green hair.

“Dr. Bender went to college at Stanford with Brett, did you know? He’s actually a friend of the family.” Pinky patted Dr. Bender’s shoulder with her wing.

Patricia got an odd chill. Hopefully, Dr. Bender would keep her secrets.

He must have seen the concern wave over her. “No worries, we have that doctor-client confidentiality going, Patricia. I’m just here to relax.”

“James is a film buff, Patti, can you imagine?”

Pinky seemed pink with delight. “That’s so great Dr. Bender. Pinky and I go to the Grand Illusion at least twice a month.” Patricia smiled and watched Pinky with Bender. It was cute,
particularly in a flamingo costume. The potato was talking to a pirate and a flapper. The Flapper was old Oreo teeth herself, so the Pirate must be…“Paul?”

He turned around. “Oh, Patricia, you remember Dani, don’t you?”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Dani did a little flapper move. She looked snockered. At that moment the waiter showed up and handed them all fresh champagne flutes with strawberries floating in them. Dani squealed and tossed hers back rather quickly.

Patricia raised her eyebrow to Paul. Paul shrugged. “Let’s find the buffet table and soak up some of this champagne, shall we?” he suggested.

“We’ll catch up.” Pinky waved.

Paul put his arm around Dani, then around Patricia’s shoulders, which felt oddly comforting. His blousy pirate shirt showed off his great chest. It continued to amaze her how Paul’s physique was so attractive. She could feel the strong muscles of his arms as they walked together.

Patricia got the oddest flash of wanting Dani to flapper herself off into a nice corner for a nap. She gave herself a mental boot in the head. She
and Paul had resolved this thing. Bringing up the deliciousness of their lovemaking would only make her crazy. Besides, she had other plans.

The buffet table was resplendent with food and whimsical displays, including carved pumpkins that had smoke curling out of their mouths. She swigged down the rest of her champagne and took up a plate.

As they moved down the line, Dani in front, her in the middle, and Paul behind, he whispered in her ear. “Where’s Brett?”

“We arrived in the limo and he just sort of vanished. I guess he had to show his high school friends a car or something. They yammered about cars the entire time at the Met and on the drive.”

“You stopped at the Met Grill?”

Patricia leaned his way and spoke quietly. “I was just an accessory to the fact.”

“Patricia, you’ve got to stop this drinking binge you’ve been on.”

She turned to face him and showed him how extremely displeased she was that he was ordering her around. “Shut up, Paulie, you aren’t my keeper.”

He glared back at her. “Well, someone better start, because you are out of control.”

She was so mad she couldn’t think of any nasty thing to say back. She slapped a big piece of roast beef on her plate.

Dani looked at them and smiled, her little feathered headband bobbing to the music. She obviously didn’t hear their conversation.

“Didn’t you get partying out of your system in college?” His voice sounded quite harsh.

“No, I studied for four years. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You’re spoiling my fun.”

“Grow up, Patricia. Brett is a class A party boy. He’s only dating you to make Lizbeth jealous. He only wants to toy with you until she caves in and takes him back. He has no intentions toward you that don’t involve a roll in the sack.”

This he decided to tell her in the buffet line? Patricia felt the anger well up in her. “I’m in love with him,” she hissed.

“Then you are a foolish girl, Patricia Stillwell.”

His words stung. She knew it was all true about Brett and Lizbeth, but she didn’t want to
hear it at this particular moment. She’d wanted to keep her illusion in place for this night of fantasy. Patricia put her plate down on the long table between the ranch dip and the crudités. “I thought you were my friend.” She swung around and stalked away from him.

“I am,” he called after her. “Friends tell each other the truth.”

“Geez, Paulie, that was harsh.” Dani hiccupped.

“Don’t call me
Paulie
,” he snarled.

“Sorry, sweetie, it just rubbed off.” She laughed and threw her body at him as best as she could with both of them holding buffet plates. “Rubbed off, see?” She shimmied and her fringed dress shimmied with her.

Paul gave her a gentle push away. “Let’s get you some food, shall we?” He loaded a few things on her plate while she wasn’t looking.

“Oh, screw you. You’re just no fun tonight. I’m going to find a new playmate. I saw a very cute prince over by the fireplace. Ta-ta, grouchy.” She flitted off toward the large black marble fireplace that could be seen from the open French doors of the dining room.

He was just glad he’d put some protein on that plate. There would be one less completely blotted girl to worry about. She’d sure gotten a head start on the champagne before he’d arrived. He watched her fringe sway as she walked. Damn, she was a fine woman. Too bad he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in her.

That prince was Eric Nordquist. That should be interesting. The younger brother of Brett was holding court. Paul noticed Lizbeth in a Cleopatra costume. She had a dark brunette wig on, but it was her, all right. Great makeup. Very thin fabric. She was a regular jewel of the Nile. Lizbeth looked pretty chummy with Eric. Wow, maybe she’d changed brothers. Eric looked at Lizbeth with a very hungry, adoring look.

“Oh God,” Paul said out loud. He watched through the doorway as strange things began to unfold like a bad Greek play. Brett came in holding his bourbon, or actually
not
holding it well—it sloshed while he walked. It looked like he just slowly, casually crossed the room to his brother, but as he approached, the volume of their conversation got very animated and loud.

Then he saw Patricia follow him over. This couldn’t go well. Paul left his plate on an end
table and got his pirate self ready for a fight.

“You son of a bitch, you think you can move in on her?” Brett slurred his speech and got right up close to his brother Eric. His pirate hat hit Eric’s crown.

Eric pushed him backward. Brett stumbled.

“Oh, shut up, Brett. You certainly made it clear you weren’t interested in a commitment. That means I’m free to date
whomever
I
like
.” Lizbeth sounded very loud and bawdy, particularly on the last few words.

It was very obvious to Paul that of all the tipsy blondes in the vicinity, Lizbeth was the absolute tipsiest. She was three-sheets-to-the-wind drunk and still swilling champagne cocktails.

“Not my own brother, honey. This isn’t a family deal.”

“Screw you, Brett. You’re an ass. She can do whatever she wants.” Eric had wisely set his drink down.

“Brett, don’t.” Patricia had come up behind Brett and taken his arm. “She’s not worth it.”

Paul’s adrenaline shot up. That probably wasn’t the best thing to say on Patricia’s part. He kept walking toward the trouble. She may be mad at him, but he couldn’t let her get hurt.

Brett shook her off his arm. She stumbled backward. Cleopatra-Lizbeth took one step toward Jean-Harlow-Patricia and slapped her in the face. Patricia regained her footing despite the slap, and gave one directly back to Lizbeth. A very loud, smacking comeback slap. Jean Harlow would have been proud.

Brett the pirate grabbed his brother the prince by the fancy collar and dragged him a few steps away from the fireplace. Prince Eric punched Captain Brett in the stomach. Brothers always knew the best place to hit the other brother. Brett started to collapse. His pirate hat fell off. Lizbeth forgot to hit Patricia back and leaned to Brett, who was doubled over. Good thing that sword was fake.

Paul took this opportunity to get Patricia the hell out of there. He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. Brett regained himself and took Patricia’s other arm. Lizbeth grabbed Brett.

The two pirates were locked in a tug-of-war for Patricia, so of course Paul did what any man would do—he gave Brett a good punch in the nose. Blood gushed. Brett let go of Patricia.

Paul held on to Patricia, who started to struggle against him. He swung her around and
threw her fireman-style over his shoulder. She was so surprised she couldn’t even start beating him on the back with her fists for at least a full thirty seconds.

Paul bounded up the sweeping staircase with her on his shoulder. Her weight loss was quite evident at that moment—he’d picked her up a few times in the past. She was a light package tonight.

“Put me down!” she screamed.

Paul heard laughter from the main floor as he ascended the stairs with Patricia. He’d been to this house before, at another party. There was a main landing almost like a reception room that opened out onto the second-story balcony. Some fresh air would do her good. The French doors were open and he walked out into the darkness with her, then set her down.

As soon as her feet hit the floor, she slapped him in the face. “
Bastard!
” she screamed.

Paul felt his face where her dainty little hand had left a burn. My, wasn’t she the slapping little wench tonight. It made him smile. She raised her hand, to repeat the slap, he assumed.

He grabbed her and pulled her close, crushing his lips to hers. Her sweet, rose-petal lips tasted
like champagne and honey and he devoured them. He devoured her like he had the night they’d made love, but with even more passion. Because now he knew he was in love with her.

She fought him for a moment, but he held her tight. Then she softened, and melted into his kiss. He ran his hands over her silky satin bare back, and pulled her into him even deeper.

He slid one hand up the side of her hip and across the slippery white satin dress, then brushed against her breast gently. She gasped. He wove his fingers into her blonde hair and kissed her again, his deep desire for her crushing into her mouth, exploring and tasting her.

He had wanted this again for so long it made him ache. The darkness surrounded them and for just a moment there was nothing in the entire world except her. She made that sound he loved and for one tender moment she touched his face gently as he kissed her.

“I love you, Patricia,” he whispered in her ear. His heart ached as he said the words.

Then he felt her stop, then push him away. He took a step backward and saw her eyes glittering with tears.

As all things that happen without warning,
what happened next was so shocking it surpassed all the sensations Paul was already engulfed in and changed their entire experience in a blinding flash of fateful insanity.

A strange flock of people descended upon them in that very dark, secluded corner of the Nordquist house. People who were running, yelling, punching, and shoving; Egyptian girls and pirates and princes and flappers and a very familiar flamingo. Paul even thought he heard a dog barking somewhere in the mix.

And in that little slice of darkness, in the middle of complete chaos and drunken drama, his moment of confession and passion was lost to the sound of one lone descending scream going over the stone railing of the second-story balcony.

O mischief, thou art swift to enter in the thoughts of desperate men!

Shakespeare

Amid the screams and darkness
and horrible rushing of people, Patricia was haunted by two things: one was the sound of someone’s body hitting the ground below, the other was Paul’s words, which still stung her heart with emotion.

The only thing she could actually think clearly about was the overriding question: Who fell? Her eyes had grown accustom to the dim light and from the glow of the landscape accents below she could see the back of someone laying
face-first on the lawn. A black cape had settled over the person’s head, so she couldn’t be sure which pirate it was.

Pirate! Not
Paul
. It couldn’t be Paul. He had been kissing her. He had been whispering in her ear. But it could be, because he’d let go and then all the people had rushed in and someone had been fighting and screaming and, oh my God,
it could be Paul
. She turned to run downstairs and smacked head-on into Pinky in her flamingo suit.

Pinky grabbed her. “It’s not Paul,” she said.

“Thank God.” Patricia leaned against her friend. Then it slowly crept over her that if it wasn’t Paul, it was Brett.

“Brett?”

“I think so,” Pinky answered.

Patricia looked around her at the people still standing on the balcony. Lizbeth was crying hysterically, clutching the doorframe dramatically. Dani was looking over the edge of the balcony, hand to her lips, trembling with shock.

“Come on.” Patricia took Pinky’s hand. They made their way down the stairs and through the crowd. She got as close as she could to Brett’s impact site. She could hear him moan. The posi
tion of his body was not anywhere near normal.

Wait, he
moaned
! He wasn’t dead…yet.

By now the sound of an ambulance siren could be heard in the distance.

Dr. Bender was talking to Brett, close to him on the ground. He used his mad-scientist stethoscope several times, pressing it gently to Brett’s back.

Next to them, on his knees, was Brett’s brother Eric. “I’m so sorry, so sorry, Brett? Brett?” Brett’s mother and father were standing there, the father holding the mother away. She was crying.

Paul appeared at last, along with the emergency personnel, who ran across the outside lawn guided by Lurch the butler. They went to work on Brett immediately. Paul helped clear everyone away. He looked into Patricia’s eyes with a haunting intensity. He didn’t ask her to move.

Patricia turned away while they put all the collars and straps and boards together. Then came the sound of Brett being moved, which was the most awful sound she’d ever heard, even worse than the sound of him hitting the ground.

Once he was on the board, they carried him to the ambulance. He had all sorts of head stabilizers and neck braces on, but Patricia ran
next to them all the way to the driveway. She leaned toward him just as they were about to lift him into the ambulance.

“I love you, Brett. You’re going to be okay,” she called. What a lame thing to say. It was obvious from what she saw that he had at least a broken leg.

In the aftermath of the ambulance screaming away, she felt completely numb. Pinky found her and led her to where the Volvo was parked. Paul was already in the driver’s seat.

They exchange no look, no words. Patricia climbed in the back seat with Pinky, whose flamingo head stuck out the top of the sunroof. Pinky put her feathered wing around Patricia. They drove down the long paved driveway of the Nordquist estate, stately rhododendrons on either side of the road creating dark green shadows.

“Take me to the hospital,” she demanded.

Without a word, Paul turned the car toward the entrance to the highway that would take them to Bellevue General Hospital.

Hard as had been to leave Patricia at the hospital alone, Pinky had to get out of her flamingo costume. Paul had made sure Patricia had cab
fare. Their exchange had been awkward. He’d wanted her to come back with him, but knew she wouldn’t. He also made sure she had her cell phone tucked in that tiny beaded purse. He made her understand he would be calling if he didn’t hear from her by ten-thirty.

Back at the house, he and Pinky were nervous as skittish cats. “Unzip me, please.” Pinky held up her wings and turned her back to Paul. “What a hell of a party.”

“Why were you with all those people, Pinky? What happened anyway?”

“Honestly, I’d seen you take Patricia upstairs and when Brett and his brother went in for round two Lizbeth went completely nuts. She went from calling Brett names to throwing her arms around Eric, then Brett, then she swore she was going to yank all of Patricia’s hair out. When she headed up the stairs at a full run, Brett went after her, then Eric after Brett. I followed to try and warn Patricia.”

“What a scene.” Paul helped Pinky climb out of her costume.

Pinky left the room to get to the bathroom after being trapped in her pink prison. Paul made two cups of tea from the hot water he’d
turned on when they’d returned. It was an old habit of his, coming home and turning on the kettle for tea for his girls.

He brought Pinky a smooth, fat white cup of steaming green tea with ginger. They sat across from each other, holding the hot cups in their cold hands.

“What happened out there on the balcony, Paul?” Pinky looked him straight in the eye.

“Are you sitting here asking me if I pushed Brett off the balcony? As much as I despise the guy, it wasn’t me. I thought maybe it was you.”

“Attempted murder is best
not
attempted in a flamingo costume.” She smiled weakly and took a sip of her tea.

“Maybe it was just an accident,” Paul said.

“Maybe not. Whatever it was, it was done in a moment of temporary insanity and alcohol-induced stupidness. I guess that’s why these rich boys have limos—so they don’t have to concern themselves with driving anywhere, seeing as they drink half the day away.”

“It catches up with you eventually.”

“Most of us learned that somewhere around eighteen, or maybe as late as twenty-one, if we were delayed in our ability to score beer.”

“What does Patricia see in Brett, Pinky? I can’t understand it.”

“The stuff that dreams are made of,” Pinky answered. “And what about you and Patricia on that balcony? That was very Rhett Butler of you, my dear, carrying her off and up the stairs like that.”

Paul answered as vaguely as possible. “Whatever happened, it shifted quickly back into Brett’s corner.”

“Oh yeah, dropping off a balcony really trumps a kiss for attention-getting tactics.”

“He didn’t throw himself off there on purpose, Pinky.” Paul, despite himself, laughed.

“True. I wonder if anyone helped him over. Enough people would have liked to see him out of the picture, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t you think it was just an accident?”

“I guess. Dr. Bender said Brett probably survived because he was so drunk. The drunk, it seems, bounce better.”

“And you and Dr. Bender hit it off? This is the guy who turned our Patricia into Jean Harlow?”

“He’s a research scientist. He’s just doing his job.” Pinky smiled. “Let’s stick to
your
love life. What now?”

“Things will work out however they are supposed to. You can’t force love.” Paul got up and untied his cape.

“This from the man who carried a girl up the stairs over his shoulder. Well, I can tell you that a wise move on your part would be to pack up some regular clothes for Patricia and drive back to the hospital.”

“I’m way ahead of you on that one.” Paul walked over and left his tea in the kitchen. “Help me grab some jeans and a sweater for her and I’ll head out.”

Pinky was very helpful and got a change of clothes together for Patricia while Paul washed up and got out of his pirate duds.

As he got in the car, he looked back at his house with the amber and green Frank Lloyd Wright–style stained-glass windows flanking the front door. The glowing porch light shone golden over the entryway and the landscaping lights added another layer of beauty to the darkness. The house was so welcoming, but partly because of who lived there.

Until now. Things were going to be very different now. It was obvious that Patricia had chosen Brett. He had to deal with that. Was he
so selfish that he’d make her life miserable because she’d chosen another man?

He loved her too much for that. But standing by and watching her with Brett was going to kill him.

At the same time, she probably never needed him as much as she did now. How did life get so complicated?