Slightly Irregular (4 page)

I heard the giggle again. It wasn’t from the daughter. Maybe she had a friend over.

Isabella rolled her eyes as the sound got closer. I looked past Isabella, expecting to find another child.

Wrong.

Very wrong.

A goddess of a woman dressed in a strapless red Prada gown came around the corner giggling into her champagne flute. Tony was right behind her, looking dapper and handsome in a tux. His eyes met mine. He scanned me up and down as all the humor drained out of his face.

I took in his uncomfortable expression, the woman dangling from his arm, and then replayed the invitation in my head:

“Are you free Saturday night?”

“What do you need?”

“You.”

“E-excuse me?”

“I have tickets to
The Magic Flute
tomorrow night.”

“Nothing like a Saturday night with Mozart.”

“Is there any chance you’re free tomorrow night. I know it’s short notice, but
—”

“Short notice is fine.”

“Great. Can you be at my place at about six?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks, Finley. See you tomorrow night.”

Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.
He’d never actually asked me out. I wasn’t his date. I was the freaking
babysitter
.

Laughter fades; humiliation is forever.

“Finley, meet Pepper.
Pepper
, Finley.”

The statuesque woman put down the champagne and dangled an arm in my direction, making it impossible for me not to notice the gazillion-carat tennis bracelet on her wrist. Well, I had one thing on her: at least I didn’t have a name better suited for a parakeet.

“My pleasure,” I lied, shaking her hand. “Excuse my attire, I hurried here from a private cocktail party on the island.” Kinda true, I’d had a glass of wine at my place. And I did live on the island.

The date stealer’s artificially plumped lips lost a little of the curve in her superior smile.

“Have you seen
The Magic Flute
before?” I asked, fake sincerity dripping off each syllable.

“No.” She tightened her grasp on Tony’s arm. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“It helps if you understand some German. The Queen of the Night’s “Der Hölle Rache kocht in Meinem Herzen” is an amazing piece. It requires a range of a high F6—a true rarity on the scientific pitch notation.”

I ignored Isabella’s muffled, slightly choked laugh.

“We’re seeing an English version at the Kravis,” Tony supplied, steering the statue toward the door. “I should be back by midnight. Is that okay?”

I nodded. “I don’t turn into a pumpkin until two a.m.”

“Night, Izzy,” Tony said as he placed a kiss on the top of his smiling daughter’s head. “Behave.”

“Always,” she said, with teenage boredom. As soon as Tony and his arm candy left, Izzy glanced at me and grinned broadly. With one earbud dangling from her purple-encased iPhone, she slowly shook her head. “You like totally slammed her, and she didn’t even know it. I’m going to have to try that on Lindsey Hetzler.”

“I didn’t slam her.”
Much.
“I was just making polite conversation.”

“Right,” Izzy said, placing one hand on one budding hip.

“Who’s Lindsey?”

“The queen bitch of the eighth grade.”

“Are you supposed to use that kind of language?”

She shrugged. “Only when my dad can’t hear me.”

I tossed my clutch on a chair, noticing the decor for the first time. Midcentury modern. My guess was original Herman Miller. Unlike me, Tony didn’t impress me as a knockoff kinda guy.

“Welcome to the 1950s,” Izzy said on an expelled breath. “I hope you like chrome and molded plastic.”

“Not so much,” I admitted as I tossed my pashmina on my clutch.

“Me either. But my dad had a decorator do this. It’s what happens when you tell some stranger you are all minimalist and junk.”

“So what do you want to do?” I asked, spying a fifty-two-inch flat screen in the adjacent family room. Hopefully, my charge was a TV freak and I’d be able to use the computer I saw sitting on a bisymmetric glass-and-walnut table while she vegged out in front of the massive TV.

“He said you liked board games.”

“He?”

“The friend of Dad’s. The hot guy with the black hair and blue eyes. He works with you guys,” she prompted. “Liam.”

“When did you talk to Liam?”

“He set Dad up with that lanky chick. He’s the one who suggested my dad get you to babysit. Not that I need a babysitter. My dad still treats me like I’m three instead of thirteen.”

That bastard
. “Tonight was orchestrated by Liam?”

Izzy smiled. “You look seriously pissed.”

Pissed didn’t begin to describe the fury boiling in the pit of my stomach.

“You can leave. We can tell my dad something like you had a major family thing or some other excuse.”

“Oh no. We’re going to play board games until we get freaking carpel tunnel syndrome from throwing the dice.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

Four hours later Izzy was kicking my butt at Scrabble. Again. The kid was like a thirteen-year-old dictionary. I thought
I’d finally gotten the best of her when I’d placed “camphors” on the board. What does she counter with? “Benzoxycamphors,” for a flipping point total of 1,593. Apparently, it’s some sort of chemical, but I had to Google it. I felt totally outclassed. Especially when we moved on to Trivial Pursuit, the Pop Culture Edition. She kicked my butt in that too, so quickly that I tossed in the pie-shaped pieces when she was beating me four to one.

“How are you at eBay?” I asked.

“But eBay isn’t a board game.”

“It’s better than a board game,” I insisted as I swiped the Scrabble tiles into their brown cotton bag and folded the Trivial Pursuit board. “It’s a real competition. No benzoxycamphors bullsh …
stuff
. I’m a master, and I will dazzle you with the finer aspects of the Web site.”

“I like shopping,” she said, grabbing a cute Coach purse from a bar stool and pulling a matching wristlet from inside. From that, Izzy produced a credit card with her name imprinted on it. Somehow I knew she had a higher credit limit than I did and probably wasn’t even close to maxing it out. Yeah, well, I had PayPal Buyer Credit.

I stood and shook my foot, which had fallen asleep during hours of sitting cross-legged on the floor. Silently, I added that to my list of reasons to find some way to make Liam’s life miserable. No, not miserable. Unbearable. Painful. Excruciating.

“Have a log-in?”

She shook her head. “Nope. But I can set one up.”

“Are you allowed to shop online?”

“I’m allowed to do anything but date,” she whined.

“Tell me what you like.”

Izzy’s head dropped to one side, and she pinched her lips together. “There’s a dance at school in a few weeks. Everyone says Lindsey Hetzler does a solid color theme, so I guess I’d like something totally not that.”

“Betsey Johnson,” I said with confidence. “Her new teen collection has an adorable pink bunny dress.”

“What’s that?” she asked, skeptical. “I don’t want to look like a bunny.”

“Come here.” I quickly typed in the URL and showed Izzy the dress. “There’s a pretty bow accent in the front, and it’s short, which will show off your long legs.”

“But it’s strapless. My dad will have a coronary.”

“So we get a chiffon sweater and you just leave it on until you get to the dance. He’ll never know.”

“Then let’s buy it,” she said, passing me her credit card.

“No, no, no. We look for it on eBay and save a ton of money.”

“But I don’t have to save money.”

Jealousy washed over me. “But if you save on the dress and the sweater, you can buy the perfect shoes and a purse and still not spend as much as full retail. It’s called shopping smart.”

“More like shopping cheap. What if it’s been worn?” she asked, her nose scrunched.

“Then you have it cleaned. What size are you?”

“A two, I think.”

Now I was majorly jealous and feeling chubby in my size four. I satisfied myself with a mental reminder that she wasn’t done growing yet. “Create a log-in, and let’s get to work.”

We found the dress and the sweater, and I showed her how
to place an initial bid, then clued her in on the finer points of eBaying. The dress was a “buy it now,” but instead of the full price of four hundred twenty-eight, Izzy got it for three hundred eighty-nine. The sweater was more of a bargain. Gently worn and offered at half of the normal two hundred thirty-eight. Izzy would just have to watch the site in two days to make sure she wasn’t outbid at the last second. “To be extra careful, do you have a laptop in addition to this desktop?”

“Yeah.”

“Log in on both computers just in case one has a hiccup in the last minutes of the auction. Now for accessories.”

“This is pretty cool,” Izzy said. Her tone was now soaked in enthusiasm, and the snarl had morphed into a smile.

Freaking took long enough.

Once we’d theoretically saved her a bundle, we went looking for shoes and found a killer pair of kitten-heeled gladiator sandals with an adorable feather accent. Of course I practically commanded her to buy the matching hobo bag, insisting that it was necessary to stash the sweater she needed to fool Tony into thinking she was wearing a more modest dress. Unfortunately, neither was on eBay, so she had no choice but to buy them off BetseyJohnson.com, where she paid close to six hundred dollars for the accessories. To make up for the extravagance, I showed her my favorite funky online jewelry store, where she found a necklace and earrings to complete her look.

“That was seriously fun,” Izzy said as she took pages out of the printer and clipped the images like paper dolls.

“And you’re sure your father won’t get pissed? I can’t afford to lose my job.”

“If he does, I’ll play the mommy card.”

I watched her, finding it hard to keep my jaw from dropping. The girl obviously had no respect for the dead.

“Get over yourself,” she groaned, obviously reading the expression on my face. “It’s hard to mourn someone you don’t even remember. I was like eleven months old or something when she died. But everyone thinks I should have like issues or whatever.”

As cold as it sounded, the girl’s logic was flawless, and if anyone could understand that feeling, it was me. We left the computer area and sat on the hideously ugly—in my opinion—mustard yellow sofa with chrome armrests. I sat at one end, kicking off my expensive shoes and tucking my legs under me. Izzy did the same with her fuzzy slippers. She looked so comfy dressed in fuchsia Victoria’s Secret Think Pink sweatpants and a pair of spaghetti-strap tanks. The bottom one was also fuchsia, while the top one was a pale pink. With her jet black hair, even darker brown-black eyes, and flawless olive complexion, she was stunning. Tony would have his hands full when she got older. No wonder he didn’t want her to start dating.

“Do you have both your parents?”

I shrugged. “Not sure.”

Izzy’s Brooke Shields-like brows pulled together. “Huh?”

“My mother’s alive. My birth father is a wild card.” I’d just told an underage virtual stranger more than I shared with most of my adult friends. Great, when did a thirteen-year-old girl become my confidante?

“Did you lose touch? Lemme guess. He married someone else and like tossed you aside.”

I shook my head. “Nope. As far as I know, he has no clue I exist.”

“Wow. That’s like beyond weird. Ever try to find him? You know, Google him or something?”

Again I shook my head. “Don’t know if it’s Mr. Finley or Mr. Anderson.”

“Has to be Finley. Why else would your mother name you that?”

“Finley
Anderson
Tanner.”

“Wow, that
is
weird. And it spells ‘fat.’”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for pointing that out.”

“It’s better than Pepper,” she said with unchecked disdain. “I mean, like what kind of parents name their kid after a spice?”

“How long has your dad been seeing her?”

“Counting tonight?”

I nodded.

“Twice.”

“Think it’ll get serious?”

“Only if her IQ goes up like a hundred points. I think my dad just needs to get laid.”

“Izzy!”

“Oh, c’mon. Like you aren’t thinking the same thing.”

“Yeah, but I’m not his teenage kid.”

“Haven’t you ever gone out with a hot guy just for the sex?”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

She laughed. “You’re like all blushing and stuff. Which
so
means you have.”

I glanced down at my acceptable Liz Claiborne watch. “It’s almost midnight. Do you have a bedtime?”

Izzy groaned. “It’s Saturday night.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have to go to bed at a certain time.” As evidenced by the third yawn she’d swallowed in the past three minutes. “Besides, how will it look to your dad if he comes home and you’re still awake? He’ll think I’m a failure.”

“Whatever,” she said, standing. “Wanna see my room?”