Diamonds and Toads: A Modern Fairy Tale (18 page)

She shrugged. Well, she
had
ruined his
great-grandmother’s table.
I’m sorry, too.
“You’re a sorry
piece of doo.”
Damn it!

Sam surprised her. He just chuckled and said,
“Yeah, I know.” And then he turned her around and said, “Hungry?
Want some breakfast?”

At that moment, as she looked back at him and
smiled up into his warmly amused eyes, Isadora made a decision. She
was tired as hell of trying to
not
say the wrong thing.

She nodded. “Legs and Spam.”
Gross!

He gave her a confused look. “Legs? Like,
chicken legs?”

That sounded good. Not as good as eggs, but
certainly better than—
ick!
—Spam. She nodded. Maybe when it
came to food, she’d best keep up the nonverbal stuff.

* * *

“Sorry, Iz, no chicken,” Sam said and swung
the freezer door closed. “I’ve got eggs and bacon, though.” He
turned and looked at her “Will that do?”

The answering grin and nod she gave him was a
lot more exuberant than he was expecting. “Okay. Eggs it is.”

As he took out the frying pan and set about
making their food, he started to whistle. It was that same
children’s song he’d heard her humming earlier. She’d gotten to him
again. He’d fought the good fight, and almost won, until she’d told
him she loved him.

Yeah, it’d been said to him before—more times
than he could remember—at that same apex of sexual release, so he
was more than a little certain that she hadn’t meant it.

But that didn’t stop the gladness from
filling his heart every time he recalled it. Which had been about
every five minutes since she’d said it. Hell. Even while he’d
slept, he’d felt a jittery happiness in his chest. It had invaded
his dreams as well. Because she’d never said those words to him
before. Not ever. Not even when she’d surprised the hell out of him
and agreed to marry him on that Christmas Break trip they took to
Hawaii.

And he’d made love to her twice more last
night with the hope that he could get her to say it again. But she
hadn’t. Which no doubt proved that it really had been a slip of the
tongue made in the heat of the moment.

Funny, how the whole thing had backfired on
him. His scheme to get, well, not exactly
revenge
, but
justice
for the way she’d taken hold of his heart when he
was twenty-two, then stomped all over it and handed the bloody mass
of pulp back to him with a flip of her hair and a
“Who gives a
shit about you?”
smile on her face.

He knew he’d better get a grip soon, or he
was in serious danger of having his heart annihilated again. He
swept a glance over to her. God, but she was so cute. She’d changed
out of her own clothes and put his shirt on again. It made him want
to beat his chest. It made him want to put his mark on her. But
most of all, it made him want to take her again, right there, on
the tabletop where her tapered fingers wrapped around her coffee
mug.

Those fingers. Around his cock. Now.

He slid the pan of bacon off the burner and
got to her in two long strides. Then he caught her up by her waist
and kissed—attacked—her mouth, ripped the shirt off her shoulder
and massaged her breast.

“Eep?”

* * *

Isadora’s mind spun. He was going to do it
again. Make her come. How could he have this much control over her
senses? How?

He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, then
nibbled his way down her chin and neck. “What are you doing to me,
Iz? God. What do you want from me?” He slid his lips over the rise
of her breast and bit the tender flesh. “What?”

Save me, God. Save me from myself.
“Love me. God, just love me for myself.”

“I do.” He pressed his face into her neck.
“Dear God. I do.”

Her own heart tumbled then. Against her will
and in spite of the all-out fear of what would happen to her
now.

I love you too, Sam.

* * *

“Maybe we could take the ferry out to Bolivar
later. Have a picnic at the Battery,” he said much later. After the
lovemaking. After the breakfast.

“Sounds fun.”

Isadora blinked.
How’d that happen?
She tried it again. “But I want Brie and pâté.” She sat up
straight, sat forward.
Oh my god! I can talk!

Sam shrugged. “Okay.”

Her heart pounded. Was she cured? For good?
Better wait it out. See what happens.
Get in touch with the
fairy.

* * *

The fairy phone sang out
“Someday My
Prince Will Come”
while Isadora was putting on her makeup. She
pulled the Pepto-pink star-spangled phone out of her clutch and
pushed the receive button. “Hardee har har.”

“
Well, hello Dora dear. You rang?”

“Is my curse lifted? For good?”

“
Why yes, dear. I do believe it
is.”

Isadora’s heart tripped and she allowed
herself to breathe again. She whirled around and leaned against the
bathroom counter. “So—so I can go home now? Get my life back?”

There was a long pause and then:
“If
that’s what you want, then, yes. Yes you can.”

“Whoop!” She did a little jig before asking,
“Now? I can go now?”

There was no answer.

“Hello? Fairy?”

Silence.

Damn.
Isadora shrugged.
What day
was this, anyway? Wasn’t the gala at the Crystal Ballroom tonight?
 

* * *

Sam came through the entryway of the sliding
glass door into the living room with two bags full of picnic items.
“Iz, I couldn’t find—Hey!” He took a quick look in the kitchen and
dropped the bags on top of the table, then he strode down the hall.
“Where are you? Izzy?” After scanning his bedroom and bath, he went
back to the living room and looked around. A sheet of yellow
writing-tablet paper caught his eye.

He picked it up and read the one line she’d
written. Then he read it again:
It’s been fun, but must be off
now.

No salutation and no closing. She hadn’t even
signed her name.

Sam wadded the page up into a tight ball and
threw it across the room. He’d gotten the kiss-off. Again.

* * *

Isadora placed her palm over her
half-exposed, pushed-up bosom and pressed her palm against her
aching heart.
I will not feel this way. I will not feel this
way. I will not feel this way.

She took in a steadying breath and twirled
away from the mirror and faced her mother. “Do you like the
color?”

“It will
have
to do, I suppose.
There’s
nothing
else, after all, and it’s
so
last-minute.” Her mother took a long drag from her gold-tipped
black cigarette and then tipped her head back and released the gray
smoke through her red-tinted lips. As she flicked a long ash into
the silver tray on the table next to the
Louis XIV
chair she
sat in, she said, “You
realize
, do you not, that you are
only
back in my good
graces
now because of
Chas
? If it
weren’t
for his coming to my
rescue
with that
tale
of your video shenanigans being
a
well
-rehearsed joke, then you’d
never
have been
allowed
entrée
into my home
again
.”

Isadora smoothed the front of her periwinkle
blue satin gown with her hands.
So. That’s how the fairy managed
it.
She’d wondered, but dared not bring up the subject for fear
of opening up a better-to-remain-sealed can of worms.

Her mother tamped out her cigarette and took
a sip of her martini. “In any case, where
were
you the past
two days? Tell me you weren’t with that
purposeless
sluggard, Sam
Slade
, the entire time. ”

Isadora shrugged.

Her mother sat forward. “Do not even think of
starting
that
up again, my girl. I had a hard enough time
getting you to
untangle
yourself from that decidedly
inappropriate
prospect eight years ago.” She pressed her
sharply tipped red-lacquered nails to her brow. “My.
What
an
absolute
ordeal
that was.”

“Yes, mother. I know. I remember.”

“
We
are Perraults, we do
not
marry
scuba
diving
nouveau riche
cowboys, no matter
how
wealthy their
family
is. It is not
only
about money, it is about
position
as well, my girl.”

“Yes, mother. I’m aware. That’s why I came
home.”

“Well then,”—her mother tilted her head back
and swished her jeweled hand at her—“push on, push on. We mustn’t
dally
or we’ll be
late.
”

* * *

“Hello?” Sam said into the phone.

“
Hey, man. It’s Chas.”

“Yeah. What’s going on?”

“
Look, we didn’t get much time to catch up
the other evening, and I really want to talk to you about
something. So I was thinking: There’s a gala tonight in town and we
still need one more person to fill the table we bought. How about
it?”

“Will Isadora be there?”

A short pause.
“Yes. Is that a
problem?”

“No. No. Just curious.”

“
Hey. You and me—we’re good, right? I mean
you’re not still pissed at me. After all this time. Are
you?”

“We’re good.”

“
Great! So—tonight? Can you make
it?”

Sam gripped the phone so tight his hand
shook. He was a masochist. He had to be. “Yeah. Give me the
details.”

He hung up a few minutes later and fell back
onto the couch.
Okay, now what, genius?

* * *

“Champagne?”

Isadora flashed an eye at the waiter standing
next to their table and nodded. After taking a long swig of the
crisp sparkling wine, she absently scanned the gathering again and
sighed.

“Yes,” her mother said, casting her own eye
around the room, “a rather
dreary
lot. Not really
our
people, but this
is
a pet cause of
Chas’s
, so we
must
be seen.” She came in closer and said less loudly, “I
do
hope the
poulet au poivre
isn’t overdone; I
detest
dry poultry.”

Isadora swallowed down the last half of her
wine.

Her mother gripped Isadora’s knee. “Oh dear
God
. Jacinda James, that fat
fossil
, just lumbered in
with her newest
garçon de le nuit!”

Isadora smiled at her mother’s made-up
euphemism, but she couldn’t resist getting a glimpse of the woman’s
date. “Good lord! Is he on steroids? He’ll break her brittle bones
if he climbs on top of her, padding or no.” Then a stray thought:
Had Jacinda been one of Sam’s clients?
For the first time in
her life, a bolt of sheer jealousy traveled through her that had
nothing to do with envy or loss of social place, and everything to
do with possession. Unutterable terror nipped close at its heels.
Get over it! You don’t love him. You
won’t
love
him!

* * *

Sam met Chas outside the door of the
ballroom. “I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind,” Chas
said.

“No. Just running late,” Sam said as he
walked into the ballroom behind Chas.

“The meal’s just being served. Our table’s up
front in the V.I.P. section.”

As they came closer, Sam zoned in on the
redhead in pale blue.
Isadora
. And the woman next to
her,—black hair with skunk streaks of white framing her face—Eudora
Perrault, her mother.
Great.

“Here he is,” Chas said. “My surprise number
ten. Better late than never.” He turned to Sam, who, no matter how
hard he tried, could not take his eyes off Isadora. “We put you
between Delilah and her sister.”

Isadora turned her gaze to him then and for a
split second, she looked as if she’d swallowed a goat.

“Absolutely
not
. You’ll
sit
next to
me
,” her mother said. “Move, Isadora.”

“Oh, but that will destroy the symmetry,” Sam
said. He dashed around to the vacant chair next to his runaway
lover and sat down before she could get there herself.

For some reason, now that he knew how much
his presence here disturbed her, he felt impelled to torment her
more.

* * *

“Come to the
powder
room Delilah, your
coiffure
needs touching up,” Eudora Perrault said and stood
up. “You must come along, too, Isadora.”

“No thank you, mother,” Isadora said.
I’m
not in the mood for a lecture.

“Hmph.”

“I’ll be right back, darling,” Delilah told
Chas, and then rose to her feet and followed her stepmother across
the ballroom to the exit.

“So Chas,” Sam said as he wiped the side of
his mouth with his napkin, “You and I should compare notes
sometime.”

A creepy feeling crawled up Isadora’s
spine.

“Oh, yeah? About what?”

“Why, our Izzy, of course. She’s a real
wildcat in bed, don’t you agree?”

“I see a friend I need to speak with.”
Isadora nearly knocked the chair over in her hurry to flee. The
balcony! Air!

She rushed to the railing and took in several
ragged breaths.
Okay, so she’d hurt him and he wanted a little
payback. Understood.

“If it’s any consolation,” Sam said from
behind her, “Chas came real close to clocking me one good in
there.”

Isadora shrugged.

“So we’re back to that again, huh?”

“Go away, Sam.”

“I can’t. I can’t go away until I know why
you made me admit that I still loved you and then you left.”