Spin (19 page)

“No cosmos?” Mrs. Lovey said, sounding
confused.

I stood beside the huge marble island, an
array of fresh fruits and syrups and mixers arrayed in front of me
in a tempting manner. Mrs. Lovey stood on the other side of the
island, rooting through her purse, in a rush to find her keys so
she and Olivia could go pick up their dresses. Olivia leaned, pale
and beautiful, against the counter, vicariously enjoying my attempt
to steamroll her mother.

“But Jane,” Lovey said, “I just
assumed
we’d serve cosmos. We always serve them.”

Olivia caught my eye and nodded, then shook
her head fast and silently.

I smiled benignly. “Never assume, Mrs.
Lovey. I have something better than cosmos.”

“But everyone likes cosmos,” she complained,
purse in hand.

Olivia’s head shook again. Mrs. Lovey looked
around and she stopped.

“People like anything you put in front of
them,” I told her. “Let’s wow them.”

She examined me, half-convinced by the word
alone. “How?”

“Blueberry-pear daiquiris,” I said
confidently. “And a few other of my secret recipes.”

“You have secret recipes?”

“Very secret.”

She hesitated, then said, “Fine,” and buried
her nose back in her purse. “If you can wow me, then you can have
your drinks.”

Easy-peasy. Mixed drinks were my specialty.
Well, making them. I didn’t drink them much, except to taste. I
knew a perfect
everything
just by thinking it through. Some
people have a mind’s eye; I have a mind’s tongue. And much as I
stayed away from consuming alcohol, I loved mixing drinks. I had
about four different recipes I wanted served at this event. David,
my flair bartender, was driving up, he knew my drinks inside and
out, these were awesome flair drinks, and he was going to rock them
at the huge and showy portable bar Finn had secured for me at the
cost of a few…well, whatever. It cost me, on my knees, and I asked
to pay again.

Mrs. Lovey found her keys with a cry of
triumph and began shooing Olivia down the marble hallway to the
front door.

Olivia gave me a significant look as she
floated out, murmuring, “No cosmos, my mother gets too drunk,” as
she wafted away behind her mother.

“Oh, and Jane?” Mrs. Lovey called over her
shoulder. “If Mr. Dante or either of his partners comes by, they’ll
want one of the paintings. Please let them have it.”

I followed them out to the front room.
“Pardon?”

Mrs. Lovey waved her hand at the line of
paintings and sketches that marched down the back wall of their
huge living room.

“You want me to give a painting to Mr.
Dante?” What sort of relationship did they have, anyway?

Mrs. Lovey waved her hand. “Or one of his
partners. Any of them might come.”

Partners?

“For Swampyre,” she added the vaguely
ominous non sequitur.

“Swampyre?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
It made me think of swamps. “Which painting?”

“Probably the Renoir,” she said as she
clicked the keys to her car. I heard the dim sound of her car
engine starting up outside as I tried to assimilate this shocking
news. There was a painting by Renoir? In this house?

We had to get it out before the party.

“What is Swampyre?” I asked.

She pursed her lips, perhaps wondering how
her event planner could be so stupid. Oh, the things I could tell
her. “I thought you and Mr. Dante knew each other.”

“We do.” I turned and stared at the wall.
The works of Old Masters and artists the Sandler-Rosses were
banking on becoming new ones marched along the long back wall,
showcased by spotlights that were turned off right now. It was an
impressive collection of oil and water.

“Well, Jane, he and the Murphy brothers own
Swampyre,” Mrs. Lovey said.

That didn’t sound good.

Mrs. Lovey turned to the front door. “I
don’t know when Peter has arranged for the deal to be finalized,”
she said, “so it may not be done until next week or even the one
after, but in case someone from the company were to show up
inquiring after a painting, I wanted you to know, of course.”

Of course.

“So, Swampyre does paintings?” I asked
skeptically.

“They do everything.”

In what capacity did one
do
a
painting, I wondered.

She sighed. “Loans, Jane. They do
loans.”

I raised my eyebrow at the paintings.

“Short-term, security-backed loans.”

I raised my other eyebrow. That sounded
familiar.

She opened the door with an exasperated
sigh. Morning heat poured in. “Must I spell it out? Pawn, Jane.
It’s high-end pawn. Do you understand?”

I stared at the paintings, my heart beating
fast as she and Olivia went out the door.

Sure, I understood.

I was dating a pawnshop guy.

And Finn hadn’t thought to mention it.

Before the door shut, I heard Olivia and
Mrs. Lovey speaking to someone, and the distant hum of a lawn
mower. But it was all dim beneath my racing thoughts.

Finn owns a pawnshop.

Sure. Why not? It’s a good thing, I told
myself, and anyhow, what did I care? What did it matter what he did
for a living? He wasn’t a criminal, after all.

Anymore.

I knew what kind of person he was inside,
right? That’s all that mattered.

Right?

I just was numb, that was all. Stunned.
Confused.

Many reasons for the omission flitted
through my mind. I didn’t like any of them. The reason I liked
least was the one that ran,
he doesn’t think I can handle
it.

Maybe he’d looked straight through to the
center of me and thought he’d seen the truth.

Maybe he had.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I
got.

What a relief. It was so much easier being
angry than all the other things I’d been feeling.

The anger might have even prepared me for
Mr. Peter J. to walk through the door.

I MOVED MECHANICALLY to the kitchen and my task of
creating a wow daiquiri. I had no idea how much time passed between
Mrs. Peter J. walking out the door and Mr. Peter J. walking in, but
it passed without me noticing.

I was bent over the blender, cocooned in the
meditative activity of sight-measuring ingredients and slicing
fruit, entirely unprepared for the flaccid nether regions of Mr.
Peter J. to slide across my bottom just as I was adding the
superfine.

I jerked around. Sugar sprayed everywhere. I
stared in shocked at Mr. Peter J. standing an inch away. Less than
an inch.

He delivered the thousand-watt smile. “Hi,
Jane.”

“Oh, hi, Mr. Sandler-Ross.”

“Peter, Jane. It’s Peter.”

“Sure.” I sidled closer to the countertop.
“Just testing out some drink recipes.”

He barely glanced at the fruit. “You’re
doing good work I hear.”

“Thank you.”

“How do you like it out here?”

“It’s kind of hot,” I murmured, trying to
circle the island counter to get away from him without appearing to
be circling the countertop to get away from him.

“You’re pretty far from home,” he said,
following me.

“Not too far,” I murmured vaguely.

“Dodge Run is a couple thousand miles from
here, isn’t it?”

I stilled.

He smiled at me. “I’ve looked into you,
Jane. You didn’t think I’d just bring someone into my home, around
my wife and daughter, pay her all this money, trust her
recommendations, and not do my research, did you? I’ve researched
you.”

My heart went cold.

“Your father was the mayor of Dodge Run. For
a while. Then your mother went into the mental hospital and your
father melted down. He trashed a few things on the way—police cars,
people’s faces, the tax laws. He spent some time in a federal
prison, didn’t he? Was it fraud?”

I held perfectly still, like a deer hiding
in the woods. Except for the tremors through my body, which made
the blender full of daiquiri in my hand shake.

He circled the countertop. “You’ve risen
above all that, though, Jane. You came from trash, but you made
something of yourself.” He slid his hand across the counter as he
came closer. “I know the type. Grew up in it myself. Just lucky to
be here, right? No fucking way.” He shook his head, his face
flushed and angry. “You made it on guts and smarts. I admire
that.”

“You do?” The words came out low. The
blender was shaking harder.

He nodded and dropped his hand off the
counter to hang beside my hip. “I know, because you’re a lot like
me.”

“I’m nothing like you,” I whispered.

He laughed. “People like us, we push and
push and we
make
things happen.” His hand touched my
hip.

“Y-you’re a bully.” I had to push the words
out.

He laughed again. “Sure. We get what we
want.”

I froze like I’d been filled with ice. Oh my
God. He was right. I’d worked so hard not to become my mother, I’d
turned into my
father.

“No,” I said. I think. I could hardly hear
now. I think the word
trash
made me partially deaf. But I
could feel his fingers on my body. I heard his words in my mind. I
felt sick.

I wasn’t a bully yet; I was a steamroller.
But it was coming. I could see it like in a crystal ball. My
sterile, glossy, empty life, a path of unexpected success with a
line of flattened obstacles behind me. No people to bother me,
nothing to slow me down.

And Finn? I was going to leave him behind
too. I saw it now. I’d visit and visit, I’d hope it was enough,
pray it was enough,
make
it enough. I’d push and push and
push and…Finn would leave me. Because it wouldn’t be enough, not
for him, and whatever we were building would wither like everything
else in my life had.

And Finn knows it.
I suddenly
understood. That’s why he didn’t tell me. He thought I couldn’t
handle it. Thought I wouldn’t. He’d thought I’d walk away.

My mind was a confused scramble, words
pushing out words, slashed images of me and Finn, where you put a
pawnshop owner on a map, flashes of fear exploding like fireworks
over it all.

“—people like us…do what needs to be…seize
an opportunity…untold rewards…did I mention my company’s fundraiser
next year in DC—”

And there it was, my future being handed to
me, just like I’d wanted.

His fingers slid to my back, and his
erection pressed up against my stomach.

“No,” I whispered, unable to move.

“No? To
me
?” Something mean entered
his voice. “You should be careful about spending too much time with
men like Finn Dante, Jane. He’ll never get you where you want to
go. People like that are just where we left them, behind us, in the
trash.”

My hand, almost without conscious direction
from my brain, lifted, and I dumped the entire blender of blueberry
daiquiri overtop his well-groomed, fat head.

Yep, almost entirely without conscious
thought.

The blueberry-pear concoction slithered down
his Brioni bespoke suit coat and onto his pants, which were now
concealing a hard-on. I stared at it in horror.

I saw my career take wing. It was still
salvageable, though. All I had to do was—

Peter J.’s gaze snapped up from his
blueberry-dripping pants. “Fucking Dante.”

“I-it wasn’t fucking D-Dante.” I swallowed.
“It was fucking me.”

Fury flushed his face. “You fucking white
trash
bitch
,” he snarled and stepped toward me.

I lifted the shaking blender and whacked him
upside the head with it.

Yeah, anything but that.

He hollered in pain and staggered backward.
His chin was bleeding.
Assault with a Deadly Blender
, I
could see the résumé entry now.

He touched his chin with his fingertips and
brought them away with a splotch of blood. The weapon, the mixing
jug, was still in my hand.

I wrenched my fingers open. It dropped like
a rock, smashing onto their Macassar ebony floor and shattering
into a thousand glittering bits.

We stared down at the glassy, fruited
carnage. Silence fell. From outside, a lawn mower could be clearly
heard.

Then we heard high heels come
rat-a-tat-tatting down the marble hallway that led from the front
door.

“Jane?” Mrs. Lovey’s voice called out.
“Jane, what was that?”

My whole body shook.

Mr. Peter J. and I stared at each other for
a frozen second.

“Clean it up,” he hissed and turned for the
door.

Too late. Lovey walked in.

She stared at her event planner, covered in
powdered sugar, and her husband, his fifteen-thousand-dollar suit
weeping blueberry juice and rum, with a deflating hard-on in his
pants and a shattered blender at his feet.

Mr. Peter J. pointed at me.