Kiss the Girl (4 page)

Nixie smiled
, warmed by the concern in his voice.  “Don’t worry about it, okay?” 

“You pay me to worry. 
You’re a brand
, Nixie.
  Little girls look up to you, and if you eat like crap--
”
 

The warmth faded abruptly and Nixie cut him off
.
 
“
I’m actually learning to cook.”

“Seriously?”

She
bristled
at the deep skepticism in his voice.  “Seriously.  In fact, I’m m
aking a lasagna right now, so--”
  Nixie broke off in horror.  “The onions!  Damn it!  I have to go.”

“
What?
”

She hung up on him, threw the phone toward the
couch
and raced into the kitchen.  She seized up the smoking pan and dumped its crispy black contents into the sink.  She flipped on the faucet and the gush of water vaporized the instant it hit the million-degree pan.  The smell of damp, incinerated onions wafted through the entire apartment.

At least the smoke alarms didn’t go off this time, Nixie thought.  That was something, right? 

The stove smirked at her.
 
Take
zat
, you
ee
ns
olent
dog!  You
eensult
to zee noble art of cookery!

“That was rude and unnecessary,” she told it.  “My last onion, too.”

Maybe she should run out and get another. 
It was early yet
.  She could still have
lasagna on the table by nightfall
.  She glanced at the window.  An ugly drizzly snow
pelted
against the pane, obscuring her view of
the Potomac.
  She shivered just looking at it.  She wasn’t going out again.  

She supposed she could run upstairs and ask Elizabeth Dole for a loaner onion.  Surely, all the work she and her
mother
had done for the Red Cross was worth an onion?  But no, that would mean explaining to the
former
president of the Red Cross that she’d abandoned humanitarian work in favor of murdering innocent onions
on a nightly basis
.

Yeah, that conversation could wait.  Maybe the woman across the hall had an extra onion.  That was a nice, normal thing to do, wasn’t it?  Borrow an onion from a neighbor?  So what if that neighbor happened to be the most senior female Senator in DC.  It was still normal. 

Nixie wandered toward the front door.  Even her bare feet sounded loud in the generic emptiness.  Aside from the cathedral ceilings and the mean stove, she could easily imagine herself in a hotel room.  Nixie was across the hall and knocking on the door before she realized it, sucking air into her lungs like she’d just been released from prison.

The Senator herself opened the d
oor, an earring in one hand, cell
phone in the other.  She barely glanced at Nixie, just waved her in and went back to the phone call.

“I want six more votes in my pocket by morning, Jack.  I don’t care who you have to sleep with to make it happen.  You’ve never been fussy.  Enjoy yourself, darling.” 

Nixie pushed the door shut behind her and followed the woman’s back through the foyer and into the living room.  It was a mirror image of her own apartment, structurally, but where hers could have been furnished by Beige Incorporated, the Senator’s place breathed like a living thing. 

The walls were such a rich café au
lait
that Nixie was tempted to taste them, and plump cushions roosted on the leather couch like funky velvet birds.  Chunky sculptures and draped tapestries in the same jewel tones as the Senator’s signature suits added just the right note of sophistication.  The collection of spindly houseplants at the window made Nixie smile.  They
were gasping
almost
audibly for water.  She’d bet anything they had been gifts, plunked in front of the window to expire quietly.

She followed her into the kitchen, noting the normal, serviceable range.  No gigantic, temperamental beast of a stove for the Senator from Indiana.  Nixie’s respect for the woman grew
. 
Nixie watched her
drop her phone onto the desk
and clip her earring back into place. 

“So, Nixie Leighton-Brace,” she said with a smile.  “I’d heard you were squatting next door.”

Nixie smiled back.  “I hadn’t thought of it that way until I saw this place, but yeah.  I think I have been.”

“Brenda Larsen,” she said, extending a delicate hand.  Nixie tried not to crush it.  “What can I do for you?”

“I’m hoping to borrow an onion.”

The Senator’s perfectly drawn brows lifted.  “Is that code for something?”

“No, ma’am.”  Nixie laid one bare foot on top of the other and
admired
the older woman’s ability to carry off her trim suit the color of ripe eggplants and the matching three inch heels.  “I actually need an onion.  I burned the last one.  My stove doesn’t care for me.”

The Senator pursed her lips and walked back out into the living room.  “Is that why this place smells like a bad Indian restaurant every night?”

“Probably.”  Nixie trailed after her, enveloped in the cloud of expensive perfume she left in her wake.  “Sorry about that. 
Did I mention my stove hates me?
”

The Senator disappeared into what Nixie presumed was the bedroom.  Surely she didn’t keep her produce in there?  “
Your stove
?” the Senator asked, her voice muffled.  “
Why are you cooking
?  Don’t you
make have your hands full enough fronting
Leighton-Brace’s Charitable Giving branch?”

“I used to.”  Nixie wandered over to the window, drawn by a particularly crisp ivy.  It shot a handful
of
brown, star-shaped leaves to the floor at her approach, an SOS from a desperate plant. “I quit.”

The Senator emerged from the bedroom in a rustling sapphire-blue ball gown.  “
Why
?”

“
I’m exploring a new direction
.”  Nixie eased closer to the ivy.  “Wow, are you
trying
to kill these plants?  I’ve seen wetter soil in the Sahara.”

The Senator frowned.  “What?  Oh, those.  I’m not trying to kill them, no.”  She thought a moment.  “Though I can’t say I’ve been trying to keep them alive, either.”  She turned
,
present
ing
the half-done zipper at her back
to Nixie.  “
A little help?
”

Nixie stared at the woman’s back. 
It wasn’t the first time a total stranger had asked her to perform a
n oddly intimate service. 
P
eople Nixie had never seen before
often
viewed her as an old friend
after having read about her in newspapers and magazines
her
whole li
fe
.  She didn’t think this was the case with the Senator, though.  The Senator was as much a public figure as Nixie was
, but where Nixie still had the occasional twinge of claustrophobia, the Senator had
apparently
embraced her lack of personal space
to the point of asking
near-strangers to zip her dresses
.
 

Nixie
pulled up the zipper with two fingertips.  She had no doubt the woman was a formidable opp
onent on the Senate floor, but l
ord she was tiny.  Nixie could probably pick her up and throw her a couple yards if necessary.

“Fancy,” Nixie said as she threaded the hook and eye at the top of the zipper.  “Dolce and
Gabbana
?”

The Senator smiled over her shoulder.  “
Alexander McQueen
.”  She clipped a twisty bracelet studded with what looked like genuine sapphires to her wrist.  It matched the glitter peeking through the perfect wings of honey-blonde hair over her ears.  She
studied her reflection
in the giant framed mirror on the wall and her mouth curved in satisfaction. 

“No necklace?”
Nixie asked.

The Senator turned to check her rear view.  “Oh, heavens, no.  My neck still has a few good years left.  Let them see it.”  Her smile went sly.  “A woman’s bare throat can be very alluring.  Don’t over decorate, dear.”  She turned away from the mirror and focused on Nixie.  “Now, what’s this nonsense about an onion?”

“I was making lasagna and got distracted by a phone call.  The onion didn’t make it.  I was hoping you’d spot me a new one.”  She gave her a winning smile.

“Do I look like a woman who keeps onions on hand?”

Nixie squinted at her.  She looked sleek, powerful, vibrant.  “Um, no.  You don’t.”

“Good.  Because I’m not.  And neither are you.”

“Excuse me?” 

The S
enator advanced on her and Nixie edged closer to the ivies.  “Do you want to know what you look like to me?  You look like a second generation activist with a world-class publicity machine and an approval rating my colleagues and I would kill for.  You look like a young woman sitting on one of the most famous faces and fortunes in the world and suddenly doing nothing with it.  If this is an identity crisis, let me clear it up for you.  You’re Nixie Leighton-Brace.  You don’t need a new direction.  You need to get back to work.”

Nixie picked at the ivy.  “I just wanted to come home.”

“And this is it?”  The Senator studied her.  Nixie tried not to squirm.  “You feel at home here?”

She thought of the echoing, empty apartment across the hall.  “I will,
”
she said, but her eyes slid away from the Senator’s skeptical gaze.
  “Do you even own a watering can?
” she asked.
 
“
These poor plants are killing me.”

“In the kitchen, I think.  Under the sink.”

Nixie was filling the watering can when the Senator appeared in the doorway.  “My cab is here. 
There’s a key in the basket by the front door. 
Lock up when you’re finished with the plants, hmmm?”

“Oh, are you sure?  I can always come back later
--”

“Are you kidding me?  Your tender little heart would be torn to shreds imagining my plants gasping their last all night.  Weed and feed all you like.  Just remember to lock up.  And think about what I said.  We’ll talk again.  Soon, I think.”

Then she was gone, leaving Nixie with nothing but some dying plants and a vague dissatisfaction.  And no onion, damn it.

She filled the brass watering pot at the sink, then wandered back into the main room.  She’d spent a happy twenty minutes drenching the parched plants when the front door opened.  It wasn’t the Senator, she knew immediately.  No perfume, no greeting
, no
clickety
-clack of pencil-
thin heels
.