Someone Like You Page 3

  “Sure. Sign here, then add your employee number and extension.” While Vienna signed, Jeanine asked, “Was it a bad divorce?”

  “No, it was fabulous! We sang Gershwin tunes throughout the whole hearing. My divorce was sold out for weeks.” Seeing the sales associate’s discomfort, she quickly apologized and added, “I don’t think divorces are ever good.”

  “I shouldn’t have pried,” Jeanine said.

  “It wasn’t all bad,” Vienna said offhandedly. “I got to keep my car and the money from selling the house.”

  “What did he get?” Jeanine asked.

  “He got to live,” Vienna said. When Jeanine laughed, she added, “I didn’t think that was fair, but who am I to question a judge?”

  Walking through the mall on her way home, Vienna watched the people around her and wondered if their lives had turned out as planned. She tried to ignore all the couples walking hand in hand, but there were too many of them. People came from all over the world to visit Mall of the Universe, and they seemed to do it in pairs. She tried to avert her eyes, but everywhere she looked she saw them. Then she ran into a woman and said, “Excuse me. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” the woman said. “Do you regularly get manicures? Would you like to try our new hand cream? It’s great for problem cuticles.”

  Vienna looked around in horror, finally realizing what had happened. She wasn’t paying attention and had run into one of the Cart People.

  “No. I just got a manicure. I don’t need anything,” Vienna said quickly and tried to get away. Before she could, the other Cart People saw her, grabbed samples from their carts, and began moving toward her.

  “Isn’t this hat great?”

  “Do you need sunglasses? We have the latest styles!”

  “These earrings would look fabulous against your neck! They’re stainless steel.”

  Vienna felt like the town tramp with a broken heel in a slasher flick as hordes of zombies moved in for the kill. She swung her Drayden’s shopping bag to ward off the Cart People, screamed, and ran for her life.

  By the time she got home, Vienna was extremely annoyed. The scads of people in love ticked her off, but her own feelings of inferiority bothered her even more. Not to mention the Cart People. She slammed the door to her apartment, threw her shopping bag into her room, and headed for the refrigerator.

  “You’re in a mood,” Davii observed as he turned to look at her from their sofa. Though their apartment was fairly large, the kitchen, dining area, and living room had no walls, so Davii and Vienna could carry on a conversation even though they were in separate rooms. “Rough day in the kohl mines, dear?”

  Vienna shut the refrigerator door and said, “Why don’t we have any decent food? Do we have any cupcakes? I want cupcakes.”

  Davii turned off the television and said, “You threw out all the junk food last week when you went on fad diet number five this year.”

  “That was stupid. Why didn’t you stop me?”

  “Ever try to stop a moving train?” Davii asked. “This can’t be about cupcakes. What’s wrong?”

  “Why can’t it be about cupcakes?”

  “Because that would be insane,” Davii said.

  “Technically, it would be obsessive. Actually, it’s more compulsive behavior,” Vienna said.

  Davii patted the cushion next to him and said, “Come on, Vienna. Tell me all about it.”

  Vienna made a big show of exasperation as she crossed the room to sit down, but inside she was grateful. She wanted to talk to someone. Someone other than a sales associate at Drayden’s. “I hate people,” Vienna said after she sat down.

  “No, you don’t,” Davii said.

  “Okay. Just people in love.”

  “No, you don’t,” Davii repeated. “You hate that you’re not in love.”

  “No, I don’t,” Vienna retorted. “What I hate is people who watch talk shows and think they know everything there is to know about psychology. I’m upset because my husband left me.”

  “Your husband didn’t leave you. He had an affair.”

  “Same thing,” Vienna said. “He left me sexually.”

  “The sex is always better on the other side of the fence,” Davii stated. “So this bad mood is all your ex-husband’s fault?”

  “Isn’t everything?” Vienna asked.

  “I meant—”

  “I know what you meant,” Vienna said. “I was just using humor as a shield. I’m in a bad mood because a sales associate at Drayden’s brought up my divorce while I was shopping.”

  “How did that come up?” Davii asked. “Did she ask, ‘Would you like to try on that dress? What size are you? An eight, or a divorcée?’”

  “I’m a six,” Vienna lied emphatically. She told Davii what happened in the store, then said, “It’s not so much the divorce that’s bothering me. It’s the fact that it’s been two years since it happened and I’m still in the same place I was then.”

  Davii looked puzzled as he said, “I thought that all happened in Bloomington.”

  “Not literally,” Vienna said with an exasperated sigh. “I mean figuratively. Emotionally. Davii, I haven’t been with another man since Kevin.”

  “I live in the same apartment. You don’t have to convince me.”

  “Hey! I could be like you and have quickies all over this mall. You don’t know what I do outside our apartment.”

  Davii rolled his eyes and smirked, his silence saying more about Vienna’s character than words ever could. They’d lived together for almost two years, and Davii was the only person that Vienna trusted with her secrets. If she had an illicit fling, Davii would be told. He knew that she had problems trusting people, especially men. She knew that he felt sorry for her, though he’d never say that out loud. Davii understood that Vienna was a romantic woman who grew up with notions of princes on horses who would rescue her from her bedroom window in Gary. Now that she lived with Davii on the eighth floor of the Galaxy Building, she wasn’t sure the princes would be able to reach her.

  Davii said, “Don’t underestimate the power of a good quickie. It could be just what you need.”

  “Do you see me disagreeing?” Vienna asked. “Davii, I bought lingerie today after work. Do you know how depressing it is to try on lingerie, look at yourself in the mirror, then realize you have nobody to wear it for?”

  “You could wear it for me,” Davii said.

  “Honey, that’s even more depressing,” Vienna said with a good-natured laugh. “I’m better off wearing it for myself.”

  “At least then you’re more likely to have an orgasm. I can’t guarantee the same results as your right hand.”

  “I’m left-handed.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I just want a man who respects me,” Vienna said. “A man who won’t give up on me would be nice, too.”

  “So you haven’t given up on love?” Davii asked.

  “No. But don’t let that get around. Unless you happen to run into Lenny Kravitz.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Davii promised. He fingered one of Vienna’s curls and said, “I’ll bet Lenny would love a woman with braids.”

  “With red extensions woven into them?” Vienna asked hopefully.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Davii repeated. “By the way, how is that friend of yours from work? Darren?”

  “Derek?”

  “The guy you brought by the salon?”

  “That would be Derek,” Vienna confirmed. “He’s all right. I guess. I haven’t had much time to talk to him. He’s been in seminars learning how shoes are made.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” Davii said dryly.

  “No more fascinating than learning about lipstick and mascara. Anyway, once we’re settled into our new jobs—”

  “You’ll quit and get a new one,” Davii interrupted. “You’ve had thirty different jobs in two years. All in this mall, too.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite that many. Besides, if I hadn
’t quit that job at the Fabric Mart, I wouldn’t have gotten a job as a receptionist in your salon, and I wouldn’t have met you. My job-hopping paid off, so lay off.” Vienna suddenly thought to ask, “Why are you asking about Derek?”

  Davii examined his cuticles and said, “I don’t know. You’ve never brought a co-worker to meet me before, so I was curious.”

  “Not to mention he’s cute,” Vienna added.

  “Yes. There’s that. Is he single?” Davii asked.

  “No. It’s not like I was presenting you with a gift.”

  “Should I let that stand in my way?”

  Vienna paused in thought. Finally she said, “I don’t know enough about his relationship to answer you, but I don’t think he’s looking for a rendezvous in the parking garage.”

  “Who says that’s what I’m looking for?” Davii asked.

  Vienna eyed him a minute, then said, “All this interest on the basis of one brief meeting?”

  “I’m good at reading people,” Davii said. “It goes with my job.”

  “Speaking of your job—”

  “You only keep me here for your hair,” Davii said. “Let’s get started.”

  3

  Kept Boy

  When Derek’s parents had sat him down the summer before his senior year of high school and asked what he planned to do after graduation, he certainly hadn’t blithely responded, “I want to be a kept boy!” Nor had that been his ambition while he was growing up. He hadn’t been sure what he wanted to do, but he knew he had a college fund. He assured his parents that lots of people started college without a set plan, found out what they were good at, then made their decision.

  In due course, he went north to Terre Haute and Indiana State University. It was only a hundred miles from home, but that was far enough to be an inviting new world for him. He loved his parents, but they could be a little smothering. They’d married in their late twenties and tried unsuccessfully for fifteen years to have a child. His mother initially thought he was a symptom of early menopause.

  He didn’t mind having parents who were the age of some of his classmates’ grandparents. His father’s tool and dye business provided a comfortable living. If he didn’t get everything he wanted, like a car, at least his parents hadn’t lived beyond their means or inflicted him with the messy divorces and child custody fights he saw all around him.

  But George and Terri Anderson were also nobody’s fools. When they saw his lackluster grades at the end of his first college semester, Derek was warned to show improvement or continue his education while living at home. They knew what he was capable of, because he’d made good grades in high school. They were sure, and correctly so, that the only subject Derek had focused on was Party 101.

  What they didn’t know was how enthusiastically he’d embraced the chance to be openly gay in a place where he found like-minded and able-bodied men. He wouldn’t have called himself a slut; he didn’t have to, since his friends said it for him.

  Derek heeded his parents’ warning and finished his freshman year with a much-improved grade point average. Thus he was allowed to return to Cromwell Hall—his parents were still reluctant to approve off-campus housing—as a sophomore. A year wiser, he kept his grades up for two more semesters, but he’d despaired of ever figuring out what he wanted to be when he grew up. He’d fulfilled all his general requirements, and it was time to narrow his field of study.

  He’d been pondering that on his last day as a part-time employee at Drink for Your Health Juice and Smoothie Bar. Business was slow, since finals were over and students were beginning their mass exodus to hometowns, beaches, or summer jobs. Most of his friends were already gone. Derek had only a few things left to pack and a few precious days of freedom before his father came to get him for a boring summer of helping with inventory and shipments at Anderson Tool and Dye.

  After his last customers left, he was desultorily wiping down their table, trying to ignore that year’s song-that-must-be-played-until-everyone-hates-it. He glanced through the plate glass window and his heart skipped a beat when he spied one of Indiana’s scenic wonders: a man bending to lock his bicycle. He was wearing Lycra cycling shorts, and while they showcased his ass to good advantage—and for that matter, his package, when he turned around—they also appealed to Derek’s weakness for great legs.

  The cyclist’s legs were long, muscular, tanned, and covered with hair sun-bleached to nearly white. Derek was practically drooling about his powerful thighs when the man opened the door to the shop and stopped short on the threshold.

  “I’ll give you twenty dollars if you’ll change the radio station,” he said, brushing his sweat-soaked hair back with one hand.

  “I’ll do whatever you want for nothing,” Derek said brazenly, then darted behind the counter and changed the station. He met the cyclist’s intense blue eyes and said, “What else?”

  “Strawberry lemon smoothie. Large.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” Derek asked.

  One corner of the man’s mouth twitched, and he said, “Is there something else you’d recommend?”

  As if channeling some turn-of-the-century floozy from an ice cream parlor, Derek said, “Most of my customers appreciate my finesse with a banana.” He grabbed one from the counter and, keeping his eyes locked on the cyclist’s, began to unpeel it.

  “I usually like something more tart,” the man said, playing along.

  Derek shrugged and said, “Then I may as well eat this.”

  He proceeded to slide the banana between his lips, provoking a reluctant laugh from his customer, who asked, “When do you get off?”

  Derek slowly drew the uneaten banana from his mouth and said, “That depends on you. The shop closes at six.”

  “I’ll be back at six,” the cyclist said, turning to leave.

  “Aren’t you going to satisfy your craving for something tart?” Derek asked.

  “That depends on you,” the man said, mimicking Derek, and kept walking.

  Derek sighed with longing as he watched the cyclist cross the street and unlock his bike. Derek didn’t really believe he’d be back, but at least he’d be a good fantasy on boring summer nights in Evansville.

  Derek’s boss, Tyrone, a hippie throwback who’d dropped out of Indiana State in the seventies, came in before six to write out his final paycheck and lock up. Just as Derek stepped out of Drink for Your Health, his Mystery Date wheeled up to the curb in a silver Jaguar convertible. Derek didn’t even hesitate before stepping into the car. It was only after they pulled away that it occurred to him that he knew nothing about his companion, not even his name, beyond how appealing he looked in biker shorts.

  Derek scrutinized him while he drove. His hair, fine and straight, looked blonder now that it was dry. In spite of his deep tan, there were no faint lines around his eyes, which made Derek guess he wasn’t that much older, definitely under thirty. He was clean-shaven and wore no jewelry except a watch with a silver band. His black jeans, black leather lace-up boots, and crisp white linen shirt made Derek feel frumpy in his khaki shorts, faded T-shirt, and sneakers. He was grateful that Tyrone hadn’t expected him to wear something like the bright orange uniform shirt he’d worn in his previous job as a fry cook.

  Without turning his head, the man said, “Now can you tell me my sun sign, my favorite color, and what brand of toothpaste I prefer?”

  “You could tell me your name,” Derek suggested.

  “Is it customary for an abductor to provide details like that?”

  “I’m Derek Anderson,” Derek volunteered.

  “Hunter,” the man said, which drew only silence as Derek contemplated whether that was his first or last name.

  Derek also wondered why they were driving toward Indianapolis. “I hope my parents can find a good photo for my milk carton shot.”

  Hunter laughed but offered no more information, so Derek faced forward and considered the consequences of his heedless flirting. When they took the exi
t for Mall of the Universe, his worry evaporated. Maybe Hunter just wanted to take him to the retail mecca of the Midwest and buy him some decent clothes.

  They drove to the outside entrance of the Hotel Congreve. If Derek was in for a one-nighter, he’d be doing it in style. They got out of the car, and Derek watched as Hunter tossed his keys to the uniformed doorman with a nod. Since the Hotel Congreve was way beyond Derek’s means, he had no idea whether it was customary for a doorman to also act as a valet. However, both men seemed to know what they were doing, so Derek just shrugged and followed Hunter into the opulent lobby, noticing how heads turned to watch as they strode toward the elevator. Hunter seemed oblivious to the stir he caused. Once the elevator doors cut the two of them off with a soft whoosh, Derek watched as Hunter punched some numbers onto a keypad.

  Then Hunter turned to him and said, “Let’s see what that mouth does with something other than smart-assed comments and bananas, shall we?”

  Derek felt Hunter’s kiss all the way down to his toes. It left him swooning like the heroine in a romance novel. The next few hours were a blur, because Hunter was a sensational lover, without inhibitions. They didn’t do anything Derek hadn’t tried before, but he’d never done it all with one man. Especially a man with Hunter’s skill.

  Later, Hunter watched with an amused expression as Derek polished off a massive room service order. He’d given Derek a silk robe to wear. Since Hunter was a larger man than Derek, he had to roll up the sleeves to keep them out of his waffles, which made him feel like a kid. Hunter didn’t help matters when he said, “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “That explains your appetite.”

  “Why, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.” Hunter patted the bed. “Come back here.”

  Derek dropped the robe and joined him under the sheets, game for another session if Hunter was. But Hunter’s amorous mood had faded. He lay quietly against a stack of pillows, smoking and absently rubbing Derek’s skin, which looked milky white compared to Hunter’s.