The Cinderella Deal (2 page)

Two bright eyes stared up at her from under the bush beneath her window.

“You stay right there,” she told them, and ran for the apartment door.

“Daisy?” Julia called after her, but she let the door bang behind her and ran out into the rain. Whatever it was had vanished, and Daisy got down on her hands and knees in the mud to peer under the bush.

A kitten peered back, soaked and mangy and not at all happy to see her. Daisy reached for it and got clawed for her pains. “I’m rescuing you, dummy,” she told it when she’d hauled it out from under the bush and it was squirming against her. “Stop fighting me.”

Once inside, she wrapped the soaked little body in a dish towel while Julia and Liz looked at it with equal distaste.

“It looks like a rat,” Julia said. “I can’t believe it. You rescued a rat.”

Liz hissed, and when Daisy toweled the kitten dry, it hissed too.

“It’s a calico kitten.” Daisy got down on her knees so she could go eye to eye with the towel-wrapped little animal on the table. “You’re okay now.”

The mottled kitten glared at her and screeched its meow with all the melody of a fingernail down a blackboard.

“Just what you needed. Another mouth to feed,” Julia said, and the kitten screeched at her too. “And what a mouth it is.” Julia shot a sympathetic look at Liz. “If you want to come live with me, I understand,” she told the cat. “I know you’re legally dead, but even you must draw the line at living with a rat.”

Liz glared at the kitten one more time and then curled up under the light and went back to sleep.

“A kitten doesn’t eat much,” Daisy said, and went to get food. She found a can of tuna on the shelf over the stove, stuck behind her copy of Grimms’ fairy tales, a jar of alizarin crimson acrylic paint, and her cinnamon. She took down the can and called back to Julia. “Want some tuna?”

“No. I just came over to bring you the cookies, and then I got distracted.” Julia and the kitten looked at each other with equal distaste. “You know, this is not a happy rat.”

“Stop it, Julia.” Daisy dumped the tuna onto a china plate covered with violets, scooped a third of it into a half round of pita bread, and divided the remaining two thirds between Liz’s red cat dish and a yellow Fiestaware saucer. She took the dishes back to her round oak table, dropping Liz’s red bowl in front of her as she went. Liz was so enthusiastic about the tuna, she sat up. Daisy put the yellow saucer in front of the kitten and stopped to admire the violets on her plate next to the complementary color of the Fiestaware.
Color and contrast,
she thought.
Clash. That’s what life is about.

“Daisy,” Julia said. “I know you’re going to freak when I say this, but I can loan you a thousand dollars. I want to loan you a thousand dollars. Please.”

Daisy froze and then turned to face her friend. Julia stood beside the table in the light from the stained glass lamp, looking fragile and cautious and sympathetic, and Daisy loved her for the offer as much as she was angry that the offer had been made. “No. I can make it.”

Julia bit her lip. “Then let me buy a painting. You know how I feel about the Lizzie Borden painting. Let me—”

“Julia, you already own three of my paintings.” Daisy turned back to the cat. “Enough charity already.”

“It’s not charity.” Julia’s voice was intense. “I bought those paintings because I loved them. And I—”

“No.” Daisy picked up the plate with her pita on it. “Want some tuna? I can cut this in half.”

“No.” Julia sighed. “No, I have papers to grade.” She shoved her chair under the table and looked at Daisy regretfully. “If you ever need my help, you know it’s there.”

“I know.” Daisy sat down next to the kitten, trying to concentrate on it instead of on Julia’s offer. “If you come across an easy way to make a thousand bucks, let me know.”

Julia nodded. “I’ll try to remember that.” The kitten screeched again, and she retreated to the door. “Teach that cat to shut up, will you? Guthrie is not going to be amused if he finds out you’re keeping a cat in his apartment building. The only reason Liz gets by is that she’s ninety-eight percent potted plant.”

Once Julia had gone, Daisy got down on her knees next to the table so she could look the kitten in the eye. “Look, I know we just met,” she told the cat. “But trust me on this, you have to eat. I know you’ve had a rough childhood, but so did I, and I eat. Besides, from now on you’re a Flattery cat. And Flatterys don’t quit. Eat the tuna, and you can stay.”

Daisy picked up a tiny piece of tuna and held it under the kitten’s nose. The kitten licked the tuna and then took it carefully in its mouth.

“See?” Daisy scratched gently behind the kitten’s ears. “Poor baby. You’re just an orphan of the storm. Little Orphan Annie. But now you’re with me.”

Little Orphan Annie struggled farther out of the towel and began to eat, slowly at first and then ravenously. Daisy pushed the unruly fuzz of her hair back behind her ears as she watched the kitten, and then she began to eat her pita.

“You’re going to have to lie low,” she told the kitten. “I’m not allowed to have pets, so we’ll have to hide you from the landlord. And from the guy upstairs too. Big dark-haired guy in a suit. No sense of humor. Flares his nostrils a lot. You can’t miss him. He kicked Liz once. He looks like he has cats like you for breakfast.”

The kitten finished the tuna and licked its chops, its orange and brown fur finally a little drier but still spiky.

“Maybe you’re an omen.” Daisy stroked her fingers lightly down the kitten’s back while it moved on to cleaning the plate. “Maybe this means things will be better. Maybe…”

She began to tell herself the story again, the story of her new life, the one she’d been building for the past four years. She’d given up security to follow her dream, so of course she had to face years of adversity first—four was about right—because without adversity and struggle no story was really a story. Now the next chapter would be her paintings finally selling, and maybe her storytelling career suddenly taking off too. And a prince would be good. Somebody big and warm to keep her company. It had been seven months since Derek had moved out—taking her stereo, the creep—and she was about ready to trust somebody with a Y chromosome again.

Not marry anyone, certainly; she’d already seen what that part of the fairy tale could do to women. Look at her mother. The thought of her mother depressed her, but Annie abandoned the empty plate and began to lick the dampness from her fur, and the scratchy sound brought Daisy back to earth.

Forget the prince. Stories were all well and good, but princes weren’t stories, they were impossible. Daisy had known that from the time she’d realized that her mother’s promises that her father would be back were a bigger fairy tale than anything the Brothers Grimm had ever spun out. Nobody was ever there when you needed someone.
You’re born alone and you die alone,
Daisy told herself.
Remember that. Now think of something to get yourself out of this.

Annie curled up and went to sleep. Liz licked up the last of the tuna and fell unconscious with pleasure. Daisy sat silently for a long time, staring at the patterns in her stained glass lamp.

Upstairs, Linc stretched out on his chrome and black leather couch, bathed in the cool light from his white enameled track lighting, his headache receding but his troubles intact. It didn’t help that the mess he was in was his own fault.

He’d lied.

Linc winced. He wasn’t a liar; he couldn’t ever remember lying before. But he also couldn’t remember anything he’d ever wanted as much as he wanted to teach history at quiet, private Prescott College. And he hadn’t lied about anything important in his interview for the job: his credentials were all real and impressive, and his goals were honest and good.

Linc closed his eyes. Rationalization. None of that mattered. He’d lied. The memory of his interview came back in painful detail. Dr. Crawford, dean of humanities, and Dr. Booker, head of the history department, had interviewed him. Dr. Crawford looked like a retired southern cop: big, beery, genial, with an overall air of stupidity. He wore a bow tie in what Linc thought of as a feeble attempt at an academic look. Dr. Booker needed no such camouflage. He looked as if the moisture had slowly seeped out of him over the years, leaving only a dried-up little shell behind horn-rimmed glasses. Line’s dreams of a department headship had begun when he saw that Booker was older than God.

And things had gone well at first. They’d been impressed with his credentials, impressed with his first book, published four years before, impressed with his demeanor, and just impressed with him in general. He knew he was good; he’d sacrificed for years to make sure that he was good, that he’d published in the right places and presented at the right conferences, that his background was above reproach, that he always did and said the right thing. And now the only question was, would they think he was good enough? But that hadn’t been the question. The question that Dr. Crawford, his fat lips pursing, had asked was “Are you married, Dr. Blaise?”

“No.” And then he’d seen the look on Crawford’s face: regret. Linc hadn’t made it as far as he had in a very competitive profession by being slow. “But I’m engaged,” he’d finished. Then he’d had a stroke of what at the time had seemed like genius. “Prescott would be the perfect place for us. We’ve been waiting to get married until I was established so we could raise our children the old-fashioned way.”

Crawford didn’t just thaw, he blossomed. “Excellent, excellent. Old-fashioned values. You’ll definitely be hearing from us again, Dr. Blaise.”

Dr. Booker had sniffed.

And Linc had wondered if he was losing his mind. It was bad enough that he’d created a fiancee; he’d really sent himself to hell when he’d babbled about mythical children. And the weird part was, it seemed so true while he’d been saying it. Not the fiancee part, but the idea of settling down with some elegant little woman and reproducing in a small town. The pictures had been there in his head, sunny scenes of neat lawns and well-behaved children in well-ironed shorts.
You’re pathetic, Blaise,
he’d told himself at the time.
And you lied. God’s going to make you pay for that. You’ll probably get struck by lightning.

But as it turned out, it wasn’t lightning that slugged him from behind, but Crawford. He’d been invited to speak to the faculty on his research, the standard jobtalk audition for a college position. And, Crawford had written, make sure you bring your fiancee.

Right. Linc punished himself with the thought of it and drank more beer. He deserved this. If Prescott wouldn’t take him on his own very considerable merits, he should have just let them go. There were other schools. And once he finished the book he was working on—

But he couldn’t finish the book. Not at the city university, where he was now, not while teaching three awful, mind-numbing classes. To finish the book he needed someplace like Prescott. And to get Prescott he needed a plan.

Linc shifted on the couch. He actually had two plans. One was to show up without a fiancee and probably not get the job. That one had the benefit of honesty and not much else. The other was to convince somebody to pose as his fiancee, and then if he got the job, he could tell the people at Prescott that the engagement was off. They couldn’t take the appointment back. As a plan it wasn’t great, which was why he’d put it out of his mind until three days before the interview, but as the deadline approached, it became more attractive. It beat not getting Prescott.

All he needed was a woman who was reasonably bright and reasonably attractive in a sedate sort of way who was willing to lie through her teeth and then quietly disappear. His first thought had been Julia in the apartment downstairs. They’d had a brief affair and parted friends. She would probably do it, he knew, but she’d make a mess of it. Julia was too sharp-looking and too sharp-tongued. He needed a…a wifely-looking woman. A
Little House on the Prairie
kind of woman. A woman who could lie without batting an eye.

Daisy Flattery.

No,
he thought, but logically, she was his best hope.
Stories told,
her card said, so truth was not one of her virtues. And Julia had said she was straight as an arrow, and he trusted Julia’s judgment if not her restraint. Daisy Flattery was about six inches shorter than he was, with a round midwestern body; if he put her in one of those old-fashioned flowered dresses, Crawford might go for it. Since she seemed to hate him for some reason, she’d probably have to be in desperate need of money before she’d agree to spend any amount of time with him, but she didn’t look rich. Desperation could drive a person to do things he or she would never contemplate ordinarily.

I should know,
Linc thought gloomily, and stared at the ceiling.
Make a note to call Julia about the Flattery woman,
he told himself, and then realized that he didn’t have time to make notes. It was Tuesday. He was due in Prescott on Friday. He felt dizzy for a moment, and realized it was because he was holding his breath, his response to tension for as far back as he could remember. “Breathe, Blaise,” his football coach had yelled at him in high school the first time he’d passed out during a game. “You gotta keep breathing if you want to play the game.”

He inhaled sharply through his nose and then stretched out his hand for the phone and punched in Julia’s number.

Five minutes later, Linc was listening to Julia laugh herself sick. “You told them what?” she gasped at him when she could talk. “I can’t believe it.”

“Knock it off,” Linc said. “It’s not funny. This is my career at stake here.”

“And we all know that’s more important to you than any of your body parts.” Julia snickered. “I love this. You want me to be the little woman? No problem. I’ll get one of those dweeby little dresses—”

“No.” Linc broke in before Julia could get too attached to the idea. “I need a professional liar, somebody who won’t start giggling when the chips are down.”

“Daisy.” Julia’s voice went up a notch in approval. “She’s wonderful, absolutely trustworthy.”