The Misconception (25 page)

“I’ll miss you too, pumpkin. But don’t worry. I’ll wait up,” Jax said loudly, leaning down to plant a quick kiss on her lips. “Robert, you make sure she orders milk and eats something healthy.”

Before Marietta could comment, Jax turned and disappeared into her townhouse. Marietta composed herself, turned to Robert and tried a dignified smile, ignoring his stricken, frightened look.

“Are you ready?” she asked brightly.

MARIETTA WAS GOING to kill him.

On second thought, death would be too good for Jax after the way he’d scared poor Robert half to death. Surely she could come up with something worse, Marietta thought as she pounded on the door to his townhouse. Such as Chinese water torture, although she wasn’t exactly sure what that entailed and didn’t have time to research it now.

Marietta had expected to enjoy a relaxing meal at a fine restaurant, but Jax’s performance had ruined that. Robert had pulled up to the drive-through window at a fast-food restaurant, where he’d insisted on ordering skim milk and a flavorless salad for her while he’d gulped down a greasy cheeseburger that made her mouth water. Then he’d brought her home.

She hammered on the door again, bypassing both the doorbell and brass door knocker. She wanted to pound on something and Jax’s head wasn’t available. Why wasn’t he answering? Barely an hour had passed since he’d scared away the first date she’d accepted in eons. She was pretty sure he was home, because his Maserati was parked curbside, lights shone through the windows and she could hear the television through the door.

Couldn’t he hear her? Or was he trying to avoid her until she cooled down? As though she were going to cool down any time soon. In desperation, she tried the doorknob and found that it twisted freely in her hands. She shoved open the door, his privacy be damned.

The inside of his townhouse was the mirror image of hers, but a world apart. Whereas she delegated the room just off the entranceway as an elegant dining area, he’d made it into a weight room. Stainless steel machines filled the space, which explained a lot about his physique but was curious for a businessman who spent so much time on the road.

She walked deeper into the townhouse, past so much leather furniture a look at the place would give a cow incentive to learn how to sprint. She stopped dead when she spotted the Baby Grand piano, then approached the instrument with incredulity.

The sheet music on the stand was open to “The Pajama Game.” She fingered through the sheets behind it — “Oklahoma,” “West Side Story,” “Hello Dolly.” Relief rushed through her. Music had been ringing in her ears for weeks, which she’d suspected was a malady similar to tinnitus, only slightly, very slightly, more melodic.

She never would have guessed, in a million moons, that the he-man next door had a weakness for show tunes.

Leaving the piano behind, she approached what she suspected was the family room. The closer she got, the louder the television became. She could make out people cheering over some atrocious pop music and wondered what on earth he was watching.

Jax sat with his back to her on a leather chair, his feet up on a coffee table, his big hand wrapped around a coffee mug. He hadn’t changed from his shorts and T-shirt, so he resembled Adonis at rest. At the moment, Adonis’s attention was focused on an oversized television screen.

She got ready to lambaste him, but what she saw on the screen struck her speechless. Three shapely woman in skimpy costumes danced around a muscular masked man who wasn’t wearing much at all except a sleeveless, leg-baring piece of crimson spandex. The audience was going wild.

She couldn’t hear much of the accompanying sound track over the screams, but she was positive she caught the word “Studmuffin.”

The camera backed up for a panoramic shot. Thousands of people surrounded what looked like a postage-stamp sized ring. Marietta blanched, recognizing what she was seeing. Professional wrestling. The man who wanted to claim the child inside of her was watching professional wrestling.

One of the nearly naked bimbos on screen jumped into the big wrestler’s arms and kissed him. She thought she heard Jax mutter, “Oh, brother,” but couldn’t be sure because the chorus of the song was coming through clearly now.

He’s a studmuffin, he’s a studmuffin, he’s a studmuffin.

Not able to take any more of the sexist propaganda, Marietta propelled herself into the room, directly into Jax’s line of vision. She put up a hand, palm forward.

Jax gaped at the woman in front of his television screen and dropped his mug. Marietta! Coffee splashed onto the front of his t-shirt, but he barely noticed as he made a wild grab for the remote control on his coffee table and clicked it.

His VCR switched off. The Secret Stud disappeared from the screen, replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger repelling a bullet with his bare hand. Since Marietta looked like she wanted to kill him, he hoped she didn’t have a gun. Unlike Arnold, he wasn’t schooled in the art of bullet repellency.

He pressed another button on the remote control, and the picture went black. But it was too late. He was sure Marietta had seen the Secret Stud swaggering up to the wrestling ring. The question was, had she recognized him?

“What was that?” Her voice was sharp with suspicion.

He cleared his throat. “Arnold the Invincible?”

“No, before that.” She narrowed her variegated eyes, and he wondered again how much she had seen. “Were you watching professional wrestling? On
videotape
?”

Jax squirmed, only now aware that the front of his shirt was soaked with coffee. The truth was that he’d been watching a taped broadcast of one of his matches so he could learn from it and improve his performance, but he couldn’t very well tell her that.

“I
like
professional wrestling,” he said.

“It figures,” she muttered.

He reached for his sweatshirt, which was draped over the back of a nearby sofa and mopped up some of the coffee on his lap and the leather chair. “What do you mean, it figures?”

Marietta shook her head in that maddening way of hers. “It figures you would be attracted to television programming that panders to one of man’s basest urges.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re going to make pro wrestling about sex, too?”

“I was going to say violence, which, by the way, begets more violence. There’s a growing body of research that indicates watching violent entertainment is linked to subsequent aggression.”

“If that’s true, maybe I should get you to watch a sexy movie with me. Would that beget sex?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“How can I take you seriously when you say things like that? Pro wrestling isn’t popular because it’s violent. It’s popular because it fulfills society’s needs for archetypes. You have your villains, and you have your heroes. And you have a stage where good triumphs over evil in the end.”

“That wrestler you were just watching. That studmuffin.” She said the word with heavy disdain. “I suppose you’re going to tell me he’s a hero.”

“Of course he’s a hero.” Jax looked down at the floor. “He’s somebody men and women can look up to.”

She let out a laugh. “You’re kidding me, right? How could anybody look up to somebody who bills himself as a stud? You know where the name comes from, don’t you?”

Reluctantly, he shook his head.

“A stud is a horse kept for breeding purposes,” she said.

She was getting in so many digs that he couldn’t resist one of his own.

“Kind of like what you advertised for in human form when you decided to get pregnant?” he asked.

She ignored him, which he’d noticed was her standard response when she didn’t have a good comeback.

“This wrestler who’s billed as a studmuffin is an anti-hero is an extreme example of a sexist he-man, somebody who sets women’s lib back fifty years,” she said. “No wonder the man wears a mask. He’s probably ashamed to show his face in public.”

Jax stomach pitched, because it was exactly the view he feared she’d take. Exactly the view, in fact, that he took. But along with apprehension came aggravation. She was commenting on something about which she knew absolutely nothing. If she’d watch a pro wrestling match clear through, she’d understand it took tremendous athletic skill and strength to pull off the show.

“That man is a fine wrestler, not to mention an outstanding athlete,” he said.

“Yeah, right. It takes a lot of talent to display your body for the pleasure of female viewers before pretending to slam somebody else into the mat.”

“You don’t ever watch pro wrestling, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Because if you did, you’d appreciate the skill it takes to slam somebody into a mat.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try to convince me pro wrestling is real?”

“Of course it’s real, in the sense that any form of entertainment is real. The wrestlers are
supposed
to put on a show, but it’s an extremely physical, demanding show. If they’re not in excellent physical condition, they’re going to leave the ring in a stretcher.”

“Then the studmuffin you just had on screen better keep a robe handy or he’s going to be awfully embarrassed when he gets to the emergency room. Either that, or awfully popular.”

Jax took a breath, strangely hurt by her flippancy. “Did you barge in here to argue with me about pro wrestling?”

“I didn’t barge in. You didn’t answer the door, and it was unlocked. I came in here to talk about what you did to Robert.”

Jax leaned back in his chair, blew out a breath, mentally preparing himself for Round Two of their argument. “Ah, Robert. What exactly did I do to Robert?”

“You scared him to death by implying that you were my. . . my. . . lover!”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve been your lover.”

She ignored that, of course. “Then you had the audacity to tell him I was pregnant.”

“You mean the same way you had the audacity to accept a date with another man when my child is growing inside you?”

She stammered, but nothing came out of her mouth.

“Don’t bother arguing with me, Marietta. What you did was plain wrong. I don’t know what kind of moral system you subscribe to, but in my world pregnant women keep company with the men who got them pregnant. In case you’ve forgotten, that happens to be me and not Ichabod Crane.”

Her eyes widened. “Did you say Ichabod Crane?”

He nodded, although he hadn’t expected her to latch on to that part of his answer. “Nobody really knows what Ichabod looks like, of course, but that professor fits the description. Lanky, pasty-faced, a schoolteacher.” He suddenly realized why she’d asked. “You think he looks like Old Ich, too, huh?”

“What I think is immaterial. And his name is not Ichabod. It’s Robert Cormicle.”

“Whatever. The point is that you had no business making a date with him.” He got out of his sticky chair, picked up the empty mug off the floor and moved toward the kitchen. He put the cup in the sink, wet a wash rag and wiped off his shirt, which only made it wetter.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” She’d followed him, as he’d known she would.

“Of course I’m serious. I don’t know what you were trying to prove tonight, but it wasn’t fair to either me or Ichabod.”

“Robert,” she corrected.

“Any fool who took a look at the guy clutching those roses could tell he’s got a thing for you, the same way any fool could tell you’re not romantically interested in him.”

She pursed her lips, and he suspected she was trying to come up with a way to contradict him. But he already knew her well enough to realize she wouldn’t consciously lie. Claiming she had the hots for Ichabod would be a whopper.

“That’s because I’m not romantically interested in anybody,” she said.

He blew a breath out through his nostrils and took off his now-sopping shirt. “Oh, excuse me. Let me rephrase in words your biological mind will understand. Any fool could tell you’re not sexually interested in Ichabod.”