Bit by the Bug (Matthews Sisters 1) (2 page)

‘Oh, I should hope so,’ Mr Richmond agreed. Then, still looking at his wife, he said, ‘Well, if she wanted to sleep with him, I suppose it would be fine. A man is a man after all.’

‘Yes, we’ll leave it up to them,’ said Mimi.

Kat could only watch them in bewilderment. I’m dreaming, she thought. That has to be it. I’m in bed and I’m dreaming and in some morbid way, I don’t want to wake up. I actually want to see where this train wreck is going. No. No wrecks. End it now. Be polite, yet firm. Say no and then run away.

‘Mrs Richmond, Mr Richmond,’ Kat began as diplomatically as possible.

‘Mimi, dear, call me Mimi,’ Mimi said, smiling.

‘Vincent,’ Mr Richmond said.

‘Ah, well, OK. Mimi. Vincent.’ Kat tried to look pleasant even as she felt her face strain. ‘I appreciate the fact you want your son to have dates and all, but hiring me to be his friend maybe isn’t the best way to go about it. Have you ever thought of just having a dinner party and inviting eligible women to attend? Or perhaps a blind date? Work associate’s daughter?’

A stripper from Las Vegas? she added silently.

‘We tried those already,’ Mr Richmond said. ‘It didn’t work out and quite frankly we’ve run out of friends with eligible daughters. The boy is constantly forgetting to come to dinner and when he does he hardly says a word to any of them.’

‘That is not true. He does talk to them sometimes. He just doesn’t talk about anything interesting.’ Mimi shook her head. ‘Bugs. Who talks to a woman about bugs? I can barely get Cathy Herrington to come back for a visit. She is still convinced our house has spiders. We told her he was just talking nonsense and I assured her I had the house sprayed. I even showed her the bill as proof.’

Bugs? Kat took a deep breath, cringing on the inside. ‘He’s not in high school is he? I mean, this isn’t for a prom or anything, is it?’

‘Oh, no, of course not,’ Mimi assured her. She took a sip of her drink mumbling, ‘He’s, um, thimeehraree.’

‘Excuse me?’ Kat leaned forwards. Why was she even listening to this?

‘He’s thirty-three,’ Mr Richmond said, toying with his cufflink.

‘You want to buy your thirty-three-year-old son a girlfriend?’ Kat asked, unable to stop the blunt words of surprise. Biting her tongue had never been a strong suit, though she somehow managed before the sarcastic ‘Does
he live in your basement and collect comic books?’ came out.

‘Not buy,’ Mimi said. ‘More like hire.’

‘I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong girl for the job –’ Kat started to stand. Mimi’s look stopped her.

‘But you’re an actress,’ Mimi insisted. ‘Your mother told us you’re an out of work actress. We want you to think of it like a job.’

‘I haven’t acted since high school. It was one play in my freshman year,’ Kat answered. What had her mother been going on about now? Actress? The thought was laughable. The production had been a flop and the drama teacher had cast her as an old Chinese man. There was nothing wrong with the casting
per se
, except she was a young girl from a French-Swedish background who couldn’t do accents to save her life.

‘Oh, well I’d say that was being out of work,’ Mimi snorted, laughing so hard she jiggled her glass. Liquor sloshed over on her hand. ‘Oh, dear, well.’ She shrugged licking the drops from her skin before taking another drink. Mr Richmond’s chuckle joined hers.

‘I’m not an actress,’ Kat insisted.

‘Oh, touchy,’ Mr Richmond whispered under his breath to his wife. The woman nodded.

‘I’m a photographer,’ Kat said.

‘She told us that as well,’ Mr Richmond nodded, though he hardly looked impressed. She didn’t think he would be. This was a man who only understood business and making money. He’d have no concept of true art.

‘You just keep plucking away.’ Mimi leaned forward and pinched Kat’s cheek, smacking it soundly. ‘You’ll get there someday. In the meantime, I think this is just the perfect way to hone your acting skills.’

‘So, let’s get down to business.’ Mr Richmond fingered his cell phone, flipping it open and shut as he talked. ‘You pretend to be interested in our son. Get him to take you out a few times, maybe bring you over to our house
for dinner so we can see him with a woman who isn’t going to slap him and run away.’

‘Sundays are good,’ Mimi interjected. ‘Maybe for brunch. Oh, no, make that dinner. There is always something so elegant about dinners.’

‘Let us see that he’s actually starting to date,’ Mr Richmond continued to explain. ‘Maybe give us a chance to study him in action, see what he’s doing wrong so we can help.’

‘You know,’ Mimi gestured her hand in wide circles, ‘get his feet wet so he’s not so shy around women. You’ll be his practice date.’

‘We’re not going to be young forever,’ Mr Richmond said. ‘And he’ll have to marry someday. The Richmond name must live on. God knows my good-for-nothing nephews will never see to it.’

‘I don’t want grandchildren.’ Mimi turned to him.

‘But, you’d make a perfect grandmother,’ Mr Richmond assured her.

‘Oh, honey, you think so?’ Mimi leaned into him, puckering her lips and making little kissy noises. ‘Well, a granddaughter would be nice, after you get your heir of course. It would be great to have a girl to take shopping with me. Oh, we could wear matching little pink Chanel suits with the black patent leather trim.’

‘I just don’t think that I –’ Kat tried to interrupt their side conversation, but was again cut off.

‘Anyway, our son works all the time, just like his father.’ Mimi frowned at her husband, pouting out her bottom lip. ‘You know you do, dearest.’

‘He’s alone,’ Mr Richmond added, looking at Kat. ‘Can you blame us for wanting to see him happy?’

‘No, I can’t, but –’ Kat pulled her Fendi knockoff purse close to her hip, readying to make an exit just as soon as she could gracefully stand from the thick couch.

‘Oh, art show, you forgot to tell her about the art show,’ Mimi said.

‘Art show?’ Kat perked up. Her grip loosened on her purse.

‘At a little gallery, Faux Pas of New York,’ Mimi said, her eyes narrowing. ‘Maybe you’ve heard of it? Howard Faustino is a close personal friend. He was just over at our country house for dinner the other evening talking about how he wished he could find some new young hot talent to shoot into stardom. Know anyone who’d be interested in something like that?’

This wasn’t fair. Kat’s palms started to sweat and her heart raced. Faux Pas was only the ‘IT’ gallery in all of the United States. It was huge. It was big time. International exposure. Accolades. Artistic validation. Money.

Artists would do anything to get just a shot at being in the same room as Howard Faustino, let alone getting him to look at their work – even if it was only to tear it apart with disdain. If Faux Pas hung her photographs, she’d get any job she wanted. She’d make so much money off of one show she’d move out of her almost crappy studio apartment with the constantly running toilet and noisy plumbing. Her career, her standing as an artist, her work would have validation.

‘Just a few dates,’ Kat clarified softly, trying to control her shaking. ‘That’s all you want?’

‘Just a few dates,’ Mr Richmond repeated. ‘Three months tops.’

‘Maybe four,’ Mimi said.

‘Yes, three or four.’ Mr Richmond nodded. ‘At least for the summer.’

‘Maybe some of the fall.’ Mimi paused and said to her husband as an aside, ‘It would be great if he had a date for the annual Halloween Ball which Candace always throws. Maybe Kat can talk him into actually wearing a costume.’

‘Hmm, great idea, I didn’t think of that.’ Mr Richmond nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, until the ball. Perfect.’

To Kat, Mimi continued, ‘Get his feet wet. All we want is for him to start seriously dating.’

Kat didn’t move. It was April twenty-fifth. Halloween was the end of October. Suddenly just a few dates had turned into a little over six months. Was Faux Pas really worth it?

Hell, yes!

‘Show him what it’s like to go out and get him to talk about something other than work.’ Mimi pressed her lips tightly together and Kat wondered at the subtle gesture. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she got the feeling something was wrong with the whole picture. Either that or they were purposefully not telling her something. Mimi cleared her throat and continued, ‘Consider it his secret date training. Let him make his mistakes on you, help him and when he’s date ready, you’re done. You know, don’t run away when he’s rude or tries to brush you off or is awkward.’

‘He’s just shy around women,’ Mr Richmond said.

‘What if he’s not interested?’ Kat asked. ‘It’s possible I’m not even his type.’

‘Oh, don’t you worry about that,’ Mimi said. ‘I’m sure Vincent is just going to love you. Besides, you’re an actress. You’ll be able to give him whatever type he likes.’

‘Vincent?’ Kat asked, glancing at the man across from her with a sick feeling in her stomach.

‘Yes, our only son, my namesake and heir,’ Mr Richmond said. ‘Dr Vincent Richmond the third.’

Kat pulled the black wig off her head and dropped it on her suitcase. Scratching her scalp, she fluffed her long dark-blonde hair before giving it a quick comb through with her fingers. The locks were currently streaked with navy blue chunks and oddly crimped from the intentionally trendy mess of spikes and braids she’d worn that morning. Kat chuckled. She’d put the wig on to freak out
her mother when she met her for a late lunch in the hotel restaurant.

Falling onto her back on her hotel room bed, Kat was glad to finally have some alone time. Her room was small compared to the Richmonds’ executive suite, but at least there was some colour to the walls and bedspread – not like their untouchable, sterile white. Pastel swirls decorated the comforter and the colour was mimicked by the unobtrusive, bland landscape paintings on the wall. The mauve carpet was new, as was the cheap dresser that doubled as a TV stand.

A large mirror reflected her image back to her. She looked misplaced in the middle-class suburban family style hotel room. With her smudged black eyeliner and dark-blue glitter lipstick, she’d be better fitted to a youth hostel. Kat grinned, the overdone look was mostly to annoy her mother. At twenty-seven, she still loved getting the best of the woman. However, to be fair, after twenty-seven years of having an artist for a daughter, Beatrice didn’t seem too bothered by Kat’s eccentricities anymore. She always encouraged her daughters to be themselves.

After her meeting with the Richmonds, she’d spent all day shopping with her mother. Mostly, Beatrice window-shopped and Kat did her best to concentrate on finding the perfect photograph. If her mother knew what the Richmonds wanted with her, she didn’t let on. In fact, she seemed to be under the impression Kat was going to take some family portraits of them. Kat let her mother think what she wanted.

It was late, but she didn’t care as she reached for the phone. She needed to talk to someone – someone normal, someone her kind of normal, someone with a great voice, a way with words and a helluva sexy body.

Dialling, she didn’t have to wait long for Jack to answer. An actor by trade, Jack Knight was exactly the type of guy she needed in her life. He was vain enough
to take care of himself, narcissistic enough to have his own life and confident enough to answer the phone for a little late night fun.

‘Ugh, yeah,’ Jack’s deep voice answered, groggy with sleep and yet still adorably masculine. She could just picture his messy, shoulder length brown hair tousled about his head, his full mouth partly open in heavy breath, his lids lowered over his eyes like she’d seen them so many times. When he woke up, it always took him a few moments to come to his senses. He’d blink several times, moan softly before his green eyes would clear and a cute little perfect dimple indented his left cheek. ‘What? Who’s there?’

Kat had been silent as she waited for him to wake up. Her body stirred at the thought of him, at the memory of his bold touch. There was no love, not beyond that of a friend, but that is what made Jack so perfect for her. They didn’t have the mess of emotions between them. It was uncomplicated. It was as close to perfection as she imagined ever finding. They understood each other on an artistic level and could appreciate the fact that nothing would ever amount to the burning needs inside of them. Not just the flesh. Sex was merely an expression of their physical human natures. The burn inside them was the desire to be more than they were, the drive to make something perfect – a photograph, a scene, the one moment that would scorch the pages of history for all time. Art was their life but, more importantly, their life was their art.

‘Hey, baby,’ Kat purred into the phone, only to giggle. ‘I promised you a booty call this week.’

‘Hmm, hi booty, I was about to give up on you.’ Jack chuckled.

‘You alone, Mr Knight?’

‘You know I don’t see anyone but you.’ Jack groaned and she could hear the sound of the phone being jostled on his end.

Kat rolled over on her back, turning towards the large mirror. Stretching out her body, she looked at the long line she made on the bed, seeing it as if the mirror was a frame and she a picture frozen forever. She often saw things as if they were photographs. Lifting her knee slightly, she dropped an arm over her head and posed in a more appealing way.

‘Love me too much?’ she asked. ‘No one else compares?’

‘No one else understands me like you do, princess. All the other women I meet want something I can’t give them.’ Jack laughed.

‘Your heart?’

‘My soul.’

‘You are a soulless bastard, aren’t you?’ she teased. Jack’s loyalty was perfect. Before they’d even started fucking, they’d gone to the clinic together to get tested. They were both clean and since they always used protection there was never a risk of children. Jack didn’t fuck around on her and he had no reason to lie to her if he did. He didn’t want to contract anything and Kat couldn’t say she blamed him. It didn’t make them exclusive, but it did make them picky. Their arrangement had been that way for nearly four years now.

‘Did you call to bust my balls, Kat? ‘Cause my new director is doing the busting just fine without you helping him out.’