Tangled Thing Called Love (19 page)

Mazie waved to the right side of the auditorium, then to the left. She smooched her fingertips and winged kisses through the air; but she was only really aware of one person. Ben Labeck rose to his feet. She could still feel his kiss on her lips. Their eyes met and had multiorgasmic sex and moved to Bali. She winked at him. She reached the end of the runway, struck a pose, held it. The butterflies in her stomach flew away, her heart lightened, and suddenly she was having fun. She flashed a full-fledged smile, a knock-’em-dead-in-the-cheap-seats smile, the smile of a woman showing off for the man she loves.

Check it out, Ben Labeck
.

A turn sideways, hand cocked on hip.
You like this?

A pivot and a sassy smile flung at him over her shoulder.
How ’bout this, big boy?

Then a strut back up the runway as the crowd noise rose from polite clapping to admiring applause to wolf whistles.

Sexist. Demeaning. She ought to feel ashamed for taking part in a charade that objectified women, but she didn’t feel shame; she felt a little smug. She knew she’d nailed it out there, performed the pageant equivalent of pitching a perfect game.

Holly went on after Mazie, and her makeshift sarong was a tremendous hit with the audience. She mouthed a
thank you
across the stage at Mazie. The younger queens had their moment in the spotlight, and finally the ordeal was over. Bodelle thanked everyone
for coming, the lights went up, the curtain came down, the audience began making its way out of the auditorium. And someone screamed.

Chapter Twenty-two

The scream had come from the teachers’ lounge. Holly and Mazie clattered down the hall on their high heels, discovered a bottleneck in the lounge doorway, and elbowed their way through.

The scream had issued from the throat of Tabitha Tritt-Shimmel, who was gazing at the gown Magenta was holding up, one hand clapped to her heart, the other to her mouth.

Tabitha lowered her voice, and in tones ordinarily reserved for witnessing apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whispered, “That’s a
Jovani
.”

“Here’s a lady who knows her labels,” Magenta said, beaming.

“It looks like it’s made out of magic cobwebs,” murmured Ashley Dorfmann, who was still young enough to think in Disney princess images.

The gown was blue, but
blue
was inadequate to describe its color. It was pale snow blue at the top, shading into a radiant azure in the bodice and intensifying to a knockout cobalt from thighs to hem. Its bodice was mother-of-the-bride modest, with long, snug sleeves and a boat neckline, but its back was cut in a vee, designed to expose every vertebrae. It abandoned its straight lines at the knees, where it burst into feathery ruffles like ocean waves. Exquisite filigree beading coiled up the bodice like silver seaweed.

“Try it on, babycakes,” Magenta said, smiling at Mazie.

She shook her head. “It’s not me.”
Me
was an end-of-season, off-the-rack bargain from Younkers department store.

“Oh, come on, Mazie—we’re all dying to see you in it,” Darlene said. “I’ll help you with the zippers.”

Darlene and Mazie squeezed into the bathroom, holding the dress between them, trying not to let it brush against germy surfaces.

“I bought the Jovani at a couturier auction,” Mazie heard Magenta explaining on the other side of the door. “I knew right away I had to have it, but it wasn’t in a size I could sell to my regular customers—”

“Who are your regular customers?” Darlene asked.

“Mostly drag queens and transvestites,” Magenta said.

A thrill surged through the room. Nobody in Quail Hollow had ever seen a drag queen or transvestite—it was a whiff of big-city sin and sophistication that would provide Quail Hollow its Friday-night fish fry topic for years.

“When I heard Mazie was going to be in this pageant I was over the moon,” Magenta said, and Mazie could picture him fanning his face. “I have always been
mad
for pageants. I used to watch the Miss Canada contest back home in Saskatoon, and naturally I had to pretend to make fun of pageants, being a boy and all. But secretly, I wanted to be up there, walking the runway, blowing kisses, accepting a bouquet, and wielding a scepter. It wasn’t until I finally reclaimed my inner girl that I started entering pageants.”

“Are all drag queens, like,
gay
?” Sophie Olson asked.

“Oh, no—not at all,” Magenta said. “There are straight, bi, and transgender drag queens. We all just share this fascination with beautiful gowns, glitz, and glamour.”

Mazie was grateful for Darlene’s help with the dress. The zippers were tricky—there was one that zipped from mid-butt to waist and another that zipped from hip to armpit. It was a very snug fit, and if she ate a single chocolate chip she was not going to be able to pull the gown over her hips.

Darlene held the bathroom door, did a Vanna White
ta-da
, and Mazie strutted out to a chorus of oohs and aahs.

“You look scrumptious,” Magenta said, kissing her cheek.

“It really brings out your blue eyes, Maze,” Holly said. “Give me credit here, guys—I’m trying hard not to be jealous.”

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” said Gretchen Wuntz, still working hard at earning the Miss Most Detested title. “Mazie didn’t actually buy this dress herself, is that right? Don’t the rules say we’re not allowed to accept gifts?”

Tabitha scowled at her. “Give it a freakin’ rest, Gretchen.”

Well, that was surprising, Mazie thought. Tabitha was not 100 percent evil after all. She returned to the bathroom and changed out of the gown, again with Darlene’s help. Holly handed in her jeans, shirt, and shoes and Magenta took charge of the gown, carefully placing it back into its padded garment bag.

“Maybe I should stash the dress into a bank vault for the night,” Mazie said when
she emerged from the bathroom, feeling like Cinderella returned to her rags and cinders.

Gretchen pounced. “Oh, no, you don’t! The rules say that once the gowns are brought in, they stay on the premises until—”

“Yeah,” Ashley Dorfmann chimed in. “Why should Mazie Maguire get special treatment?”

“It was a
joke
,” Mazie flared. “I wasn’t really going to rent a bank vault. Look—I’m putting the gown here with everybody else’s on the rolling rack, okay?” She had an odd sense that history was repeating itself here; that she had made enemies without intending to, and that she was in some inexplicable way turning into Fawn Fanchon.

It didn’t help things when, a few minutes later, Bodelle came in with a printout that listed the scores for the swimsuit competition and Mazie’s marks turned out to be the highest. An undercurrent of hostility seethed through the room.
For Pete’s sake—this whole thing is no more meaningful than a greased pig contest
, Mazie wanted to shout, but she kept her mouth shut, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself.

Magenta began to gather up his things, preparing to leave. “Thank you—for everything,” Mazie told him, giving him a heartfelt hug. “Sure you won’t change your mind and stay at the farm overnight?”

He rolled his eyes. “Attack turkeys, Irish grannies, and your nephews? No thanks, sweetie—I’ll take my chances with the sybaritic pleasures of the Marriott. I’ve got to drive back to the city early tomorrow—Friday’s always my busiest day.” He gave her a pat on the rear. “You looked fantastic tonight. Bonaparte couldn’t take his eyes off you. You two need to get back together.”

She kissed him. “You’re right, as usual. And I have plans for later.”

*  *  *

Ben waited for Mazie in the school’s lobby, inspecting the athletic trophies and photographs in the display case, scowling at the photos of the football team from the year Mazie had graduated, wondering whether any of these no-neck bozos had dated her. Behind him, he heard Mazie’s quick, light footsteps, and turned, smiling. “Drive you home?” he asked, twirling his car keys around his fingers.

“This is like high school,” Mazie said, “when a cute guy would ask me home after a basketball game.” She slipped her hand in his. “Care to walk me to my locker?”

“You remember your locker?”

“Sure.” She led him down a hallway lined with science labs. “This is it—number 432. I had it all four years.”

“What were you like back then?” Ben asked. “I bet you were a cheerleader.”

“Pep band. Newspaper. Nerdy stuff. Oh—and girls soccer.”

His eyebrows rose.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Mazie said, laughing. “Whose leg did I have to break to get on the team?”

“Okay. Whose leg?”

“Nobody’s. They wouldn’t let Suzy Mertz play because she was six months pregnant.”

“Isn’t that discrimination?”

“When opportunity knocks, you answer the door. What about you? I picture you as this major jock and class president and Prom King, surrounded by gaggles of girls.”

Ben snorted. “I went to an all-guys Catholic high school. St. Paul’s. I was a hockey jock, but I was too shy to be any kind of big wheel.”

“You were
shy
?”

“The only place I wasn’t shy was on the ice.” He wrapped his arm around her waist. “I was really unsure of myself around girls. A girl I liked made fun of my big ears, so I started wearing a stocking cap all the time and got a reputation as a weirdo.”

“Ben Labeck—shy, insecure weirdo? Next you’ll be telling me you played the glockenspiel in the polka band.”

They talked about their high school experiences in the car as they drove back to the farm, and Ben was amazed to discover how similar they’d been—both of them bright and high-achieving but a little shy and insecure, unsure of their place in the pecking order.

When they arrived back at the Maguire farm, the house was dark and quiet.

“Looks like everyone’s in bed,” Ben said, coming around to open Mazie’s door, keeping an eye out in case there were any thug turkeys lurking around.

“It’s so nice out,” Mazie said. “Want to go for a walk?”

“Sure,” Ben said, although what he actually wanted to do was drag Mazie upstairs to his bed. “Planning to show me the back forty?”

“I’m going to show you my tree house. Bring a flashlight, okay?”

Tree house. This had definite possibilities. A warm, starry night that smelled like honeysuckle and Mazie with a lustful glint in her eyes. The image of her bending over that chair in the teachers’ lounge made him so hot and hard he could barely walk. Holding his hand, Mazie led him through an apple orchard to a huge tree that even Ben, with his limited knowledge of nature, could tell was not an apple tree. They stood beneath it, looking up. It might be some kind of oak, Ben thought—it looked ancient, with a massive trunk; thick, gnarled limbs; and leaves that made a rustling sound like torn crepe paper.

Mazie turned on the flashlight and pointed to some crooked pieces of wood on the trunk. “Look—here are the rungs. It was really hard nailing them on because this is Bur oak, about the toughest wood in the world. Want to go up?”

Ben already was
up
, but he followed Mazie as she climbed the rungs, enjoying the wonderful sight of her ass moving just above him. They came out through a hole in a flat platform about eight feet off the ground. It was surprisingly large—built out of scrap lumber and nearly the size of a living room.

“This is the deck,” Mazie said, a little breathless. “My dad offered to help me build the tree house, but I wouldn’t let him. Later I found out he was redoing my work every night after I’d gone to bed, driving the nails in straight and reinforcing the boards.”

“This place is great. I always wanted a tree house when I was a kid.”

She pointed to what looked like an overgrown doghouse on one side of the deck. It had a warped door that swung on rusty hinges and a single crooked window. “That’s the actual house.”

“Mazie’s Tree House.”
Ben read the faded words in yellow paint.
“No Boys Allowed.”

“I’m making an exception for you.”

Ben had to bend double to get through the door, and once he was inside, he had to crouch to avoid hitting his head. It was dark in here, lit by moonlight filtering in through a hole in the roof, spattering the room in a pattern of dancing leaves. Mazie pulled him down and he felt something soft and woolly on the floor.

“You’ve got a blanket in here?”

“I brought it up my first day here, figuring I’d need a place to get away from the twins.”

The house was just the right size for a small girl, but cramped for two adults. The boards creaked. “Is this thing stable?” Ben asked nervously.

“Of course.” Mazie fit herself against him, their bodies forming an S-curve in the cramped space. “I built it myself. I guarantee my work.”

She looked beautiful in the pale, wavery light. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. She opened her mouth to his. They kissed for a long time, then Ben moved his mouth down to the tender spot just beneath her jaw.

“Mazie?” he whispered. “Will this tree house hold up when I start—”

“It’ll hold.”

Ben’s breath caught as she unbuttoned his shirt and slid her hand across his chest, his abdomen, and still lower, to a spot that got his undivided attention.

“Ouch!”

She snatched her hand back. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, baby. Mosquito.” He slapped his back. “Listen, honey—I hate to ask, but—”

“The tree house is braced with two-by-fours. It’s strong enough to survive an earthquake.”

“No, I mean—are you still, uhh …”

“On the pill?” She kissed his shoulder, instantly turning the spot to fire. “Yes.”

“Good. Oh, God, good.” He found her mouth and twined his tongue with hers. He wouldn’t have thought it possible to be any more turned on, but he was, every cell in his body quivering, supersensitive, primed for action.

“What about you?” Mazie whispered.

“Me? I’ve been good. Tempted, but true.”

“Those beautiful starlets—”

“Couldn’t hold a candle to you.” Trite, but not bad for the spur of the moment. He stopped any further talk by kissing her as he shoved her shirt up, unhooked her bra, and took her breasts in his hands. They were full and firm, and the nipples hardened beneath his fingers. They made him insane. He sucked them, first one, then the other, loving the way
Mazie arched up into him, loving the way her breathing became rapid and shallow, loved knowing he was arousing her.