Kara Lennox - Tame An Older Man

"Addy? I thought I heard something out here. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mama," she answered, trying to sound normal. "I just couldn't sleep."

"Baloney. That boyfriend of yours has done something to make you cry. I always know when my baby is upset." Olga came and sat on the edge of Phoebe's lounger, moving Phoebe's legs aside to accommodate her. "Tell Mama what happened."

"Wyatt isn't my boyfriend."

"Of course he is. You're not telling me you stay out until all hours of the night with some casual date, are you?"

"How do you know what time I got in?"

"Mothers have super-trained ears. You'll learn all about it when you have your own babies."

Right now, babies seemed about as far from Phoebe's reality as a trip to Pluto. She wanted babies, she realized. Daisy's plight had gotten her thinking about children in the abstract, but now she realized she really did want one or two, or a dozen. She could even see their faces. They had dark, wavy hair and gray eyes.

"Did mean ol' Wyatt Madison hurt my baby?"

Phoebe nodded miserably. Olga would worm the truth out of her one way or another.

Abruptly Olga stood and grabbed both Phoebe's hands. "Stand up."

"What? Why?" But she did as her mother requested. Olga immediately sat down in the lounger herself, then pulled Phoebe into her lap. "Mama! I'm three inches taller than you and ten pounds heavier!"

"Fifteen. I've been on a diet. Sit in my lap like a good girl. We haven't been close in so long, not since you went away to L.A."

Since Olga bad her arms around Phoebe like vice clamps, she had no choice but to relax and give in to her mother's sudden spurt of maternal instinct. She laid her head on Olga's breast, just as she'd done when she was a child.

"What did he do?" Olga asked gently.

"He thinks I'm stupid."

"Nonsense. Who would think that?"

"Only everyone I meet. I got so used to projecting this ditzy blonde image when I was in Hollywood, and now, no matter what I do, people just assume I'm dumb. I thought Wyatt was different, but…"

"But what?"

"You should have seen his face when I told him I was studying biochemistry. I might as well have told him I'd joined a voodoo cult and wanted to sacrifice a chicken in his living room."

"Well, honey, I could have told you that. Men are intimidated by brainy women."

"I couldn't let him keep thinking I was hanging out at the university to pick up men."

"You could have told him you were studying home economics."

Phoebe sighed, and Olga stroked her hair. Olga just didn't get it.

"Of course, that's not what Jane Jasmine would recommend."

Phoebe sat up. "You've read the book?"

"A few chapters. I thought, if I'm going to meet the author on national television, I ought to read her book. Besides, it was just sitting on your bookshelf."

"What do you think so far?"

"Some of it makes sense, I guess. I know she's right about one thing."

"What's that?"

"No man's going to love you if you don't love yourself."

"I do love myself," Phoebe groused.

"Me, too," Olga said, without a lot of conviction. Phoebe suspected they shared the same problem, though. They might love themselves, but they were both very, very afraid the rest of the world wouldn't. So they hid. Olga played dumb and helpless; she played the vamp; she played the carefree widow. And Phoebe played to the blonde stereotype. She also played like she didn't want or need a man.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

Phoebe wasn't sure how she made it through work Monday. To be sure, Wyatt stayed out of her way. If he had anything to say to her, he sent Phyllis or one of the crew. But she was very, very aware of his whereabouts all day long. And every time she saw him, it felt like an ice pick in her heart.

By the time the show was over and she was packing up to leave, she felt sick to her stomach. And she never got sick.

She drove to the university but skipped her last two classes, almost unheard of for her. She would have to get a copy of the lecture notes from someone later. She didn't think she would be able to focus on anything tonight, anyway.

When she got home, she found Olga in the living room surrounded by several shopping bags from Phoenix's smarter department stores. She wore what had to be a new, fashionable shorts outfit and gold, high-heeled sandals.

"Addy! You're home early."

"Not feeling too good," she said, collapsing onto the couch.

"Well, of course not. You've just had a major tiff with your honey. But I've got the cure for that."

Oh, no . Phoebe just raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"First, I bought us both sexy new bathing suits." She whipped two scraps of shiny lamé out of one of the bags.

Phoebe laughed. She couldn't help it, in the face of Olga's relentless good cheer. "Mama, you must be kidding. I'm not wearing pink lamé."

"Then you can have the blue one." She tossed the incredibly brief suit onto Phoebe's lap. "We'll take a pitcher of margaritas down to the pool and catch a few rays. But first-"

She opened another bag and pulled out several bottles and tubes. "Beauty treatments all the way around. I had this dream once that I'd come to Phoenix, and you'd get me into that ritzy spa you worked at for free."

"Are you kidding? My former boss didn't give anyone a free ride." But Phoebe was drawn to the beauty products despite herself. Just researching her future competition, she told herself. She opened up a popular brand of "miraculous moisturizer" and sniffed it. "Nothing but lanolin, lecithin, and maybe a bit of corn oil."

Olga wrinkled her nose. "You're kidding. I paid seventeen dollars for that jar."

"I could whip it up in my kitchen for about ninety-eight cents."

Olga seemed fascinated. "What about this one?" She handed Phoebe a bottle of toner. Phoebe observed the color, then sniffed. "Mostly alcohol, probably some witch hazel, stearyl ether and glycerin. And food coloring."

Olga grinned. "You're really learning something at that school of yours. Do these products even work?"

"Yeah, sure. But this one will dry out your skin," she said, holding up the toner.

"Ewww. So what do you recommend?"

Phoebe grinned, suddenly feeling a bit better. If she'd known it would be this easy to impress her mother, she'd have done it a long time ago. "Let me show you."

Twenty minutes later they both had their faces covered with Phoebe's avocado, yogurt and honey mask, and Olga was doing Phoebe's nails in a hot pink. "So what are you going to do about your producer sweetie?" Olga asked.

Phoebe sighed. "Nothing."

"Nothing! Are you sure you're my daughter? This is war, Addy. You've got to go on the offensive. Your first mission is to hang out by the pool in that swimsuit and completely ignore him."

Phoebe knew her mother's advice flew in the face of everything Jane Jasmine recommended-honesty, maturity, and no game-playing. But she had to admit, a vengeful part of her wanted to make Wyatt suffer. Proving him wrong about his assumptions would be the best revenge. But since she couldn't run out and win a Nobel Prize, she had to resort to some other method of avenging her wounded pride.

Anyway, what had Jane Jasmine done for her lately? Hiding her light under a bushel had worked just fine. But the moment she was honest with Wyatt about her abilities, her intellect and her ambitions, all hell had broken loose.

"And what's my second mission?"

Olga smiled, cracking her drying mask. "Make him jealous."

"With whom?"

"Anybody who's younger, handsomer and richer than him."

Phoebe didn't know anyone handsomer or richer. Younger, she could manage.

Well, why shouldn't she? she reasoned. Her heart was broken. She was entitled to behave like an idiot for at least one afternoon.