Playing For Keeps

Joanna shoved the patio door shut and marched her little overwrought self across the kitchen. “I never said I was playing along. Beside, I’ve got a party to set up,” she said, yanking out bags of Bob the Builder plates and cups she’d stashed in the cupboard where she kept the extraneous kitchen crap she’d accumulated over the years. “I’ve got no time to waste standing around watching the man slobber all over you. Especially as I’ve seen that act before.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What? That I’ve never seen men drool over you? Not that it bothers me, I’m certainly used to it after all these years—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Karleen grabbed a package of plates from her and attacked the plastic wrapping like a lion gutting a wildebeest. “Whose benefit did you think that was for? It wasn’t my attention he was trying to get, you idiot!”

For the tiniest sliver of a second, something totally insane and irrational—hope, maybe?—shoved aside the annoyance that was even more insane and irrational. “You know, you really need to start eating more. I hear the brain’s the first thing to go.”

Karleen grinned. “Somebody’s pi-issed.”

“I’d have to care to be pissed. Since I don’t—” she ripped open one of the other packages of plates and slammed them onto the counter “—I’m not. And wipe that smirk off your face.”

“Jo, Jo, Jo…don’t you know that flirting with one woman in order to make the other one jealous is the oldest trick in the book? How many of these suckers you want opened?”

“All of them. Okay…just for the sake of argument, let’s say that’s what he was doing—”

“Aha!”

“That was hardly worth an aha. Especially as I was about to point out this oh-so-mature behavior would attract me why?”

“Because he’s hot, he’s giving out all the right signals—”

“To you,” Joanna pointed out, unwrapping napkins.

“—and you’re deprived. And I told you, the flirting with me business was just a ruse. Since you had your back to him the entire time, you couldn’t see that he kept looking over to see if you were reacting.”

Joanna jerked up her head, which earned her one of Karleen’s smug smiles. Okay, so she felt about twelve, but she felt…kinda tingly, too. Alive. Like maybe there was something to look forward to.

Damn.

“Sounds like a perfect fit to me,” Karleen said, which effectively blew the tingly feeling all to hell.

“And in case you’ve forgotten—are there boxes of candles in one of those bags?—I was married to a man whose idea of a formal social event is a keg party. Why on earth would I be even remotely interested in somebody who would use one woman to get another one? Let alone someone who spent a good chunk of his life spitting, throwing a ball and adjusting his package? Activities, by the way, I don’t find particularly endearing in males over the age of three.”

“Never mind how incredible he looks without his shirt.”

“Yeah, well, if memory serves, Bobby looks pretty damn good without his shirt, too.” Joanna pulled the first of the two cakes Bobby’d dropped off earlier—one chocolate, one vanilla—from the bottom of the fridge and set it on the bar. “Trust me. After a while, it’s not enough. Even you know that.”

Marginally deflated, Karleen climbed up onto one of the stools flanking the bar and slit open a package of candles with one lethal hot-to-trot red nail. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. You care how these go on the cakes?”

“Not a bit. And I know I’m right. On this, at least. Next time—if there is a next time—I’d really like a man, you know? Not an overgrown boy.”

“Aha.”

“What now?”

Karleen waved a peppermint-striped candle at her. “You know what your problem is? You see every guy you date as potential husband material.”

Joanna gave her a look.

“Okay, so I’m being theoretical. But I’m just saying, should the earth shift on its axis and you ever do date again, you’ve gotta go through at least one gap guy before you can even begin to think in terms of wedding bells.”

“A gap guy.”

“Sure. You know. Someone to bridge the gap between husbands.”

“I take it we’re talking about sex here?”

“Honey, I’m always talking about sex. Not that it’s a bad thing if they can hold up their side of the conversation, as well as other things, for more than five minutes at a time. But it’s not crucial.”

Joanna laughed. “You’re nuts.”

“No, I’m perfectly serious. Think of it like…a sherbet to cleanse your palate between courses.”

“You mean, something fruity?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Be serious.”

“Hey. You’re the one comparing men to sherbet.”

“Something light,” Karleen said, delicately inserting a candle into the frosting. “Insubstantial. A little tart, maybe, but nothing that’ll ruin your appetite for the real thing. Listen, honey, I may not be any good at marriage, but I am an expert at surviving the wasteland between them. Hell, in three years? I’d’ve gone through three or four by now. Raspberry, lemon, pineapple…”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“I take plenty of vitamins. Why do you think God invented pool boys?”

Joanna sighed. Notwithstanding that tingling business a few minutes ago, so Dale was good-looking. And, okay, he seemed like a nice guy. And maybe it had been a dog’s age since one of those had crossed her path. Still…

“I don’t know, Kar…” She moved on to making hamburger patties for the grill, kneeing aside the hopeful dog as she idly mused that, after three years, she still hadn’t gotten used to not having to take off her wedding ring so it wouldn’t get mucked up. “Someone to just…tide me over?”

“Is that a sparkle I see in your eyes?”

“Only reflecting the insane glint in yours.”

“Look…” Karleen’s lips moved, counting each candle before she turned her attention to the second cake. “Who told you to watch your back around Heather Sanchez our sophomore year, huh? And who made you let Eric Stone know you were available to go to homecoming? And what a night that turned out to be, right?”

“Never mind that I nearly died from embarrassment when my mother found the condoms in my purse.”

“And who told your mother they were hers so you wouldn’t get in trouble?” Joanna speared her with another look. “Okay, so maybe she didn’t believe me. But what I’m saying is, have I ever steered you wrong? I mean, yeah, we’ll have to think of some reason for you to see him again, but that shouldn’t be too hard. You have kids. He has a toy store.” She shrugged. “Not even you can deny how neatly everything’s falling into place.”

Joanna slapped a meat patty onto the growing pile on the plate beside her. The dog whimpered and leaned heavily against the lower cabinet. “Watch me.”

“For crying out loud, honey—the Olsen twins could be grandmothers by the time someone comes along who meets all your criteria. But hey, if you wanna sit around and watch your hymen grow back, what business is it of mine?”

“If that’s supposed to cheer me up, you’re failing miserably.”

“All I’m saying is,” Karleen went on, “if you deliberately pick someone you know is wrong for you, you won’t be tempted to think of him as husband material. No pressure, no expectations…what could be better than that? So, here…” She reached across the counter for her purse, pulling out what looked like a compact. “You better take this.”