Kara Lennox - Tame An Older Man

"Hah. You should have heard me at Wyatt's last night. I told him my GPA, my SAT scores, even my IQ. I didn't hide any smarts under any bushel. I did just what Jane Jasmine advises-and Wyatt laughed at me."

Elise and Phoebe looked at each other again.

"What kind of numbers are we talking about, here?" Daisy asked cautiously.

Phoebe realized she'd never told her best friends the whole truth. They knew she was going to school, they knew she was studying biochemistry. But that was the most she'd told them. So she spilled it. Everything. And when she was done, they just stared.

"You're a genius?" her friends said together.

"See?" Phoebe cried, thoroughly frustrated.

"See what? You probably scared the poor man to death," Elise said. "Yes, men like smart women. But Jane Jasmine aside, I can see how a man, any man, might be a little frightened by a woman with enough IQ for two people."

"You scared us," Daisy added. "And before you get all defensive, it's not just because you're blond and pretty. I'd be surprised if Jeff or Frannie or anyone I thought I knew suddenly revealed a hidden side of him-or herself."

"Wyatt was probably just surprised," Elise said. "He'll get used to it."

No, he won't , Phoebe thought, because she wasn't going to give him the chance. She'd been insane to allow anything to develop between them. He would never be able to think of her as anything but a former-actress-turned-makeup-artist.

"Maybe so," Phoebe said noncommittally. "But meanwhile, I'm having fun. Jeff and I are just kidding around. He thought having a TV star on his arm might impress those snotty coeds. So just let us have our fun, okay?"

Elise and Daisy sighed together. "Okay," Elise said, "but be careful. Don't shoot yourself in the foot."

It was all Wyatt could do to fix himself a bologna sandwich for dinner. Today's show hadn't gone very well-too much boring chitchat, not enough happening. Kelly and Kurt weren't speaking to each other-again. And Phoebe wasn't speaking to Wyatt. The tension on the set had been thick enough to churn.

He took his sandwich and headed out to the balcony to catch the last of the day's warmth before the desert cool set in. That was something he was still getting used to in Phoenix. It could be a hundred degrees during the day, even in April, but at night it got downright cold.

As he set his plate on the patio table, he made a quick visual check of Helen's plants to make sure all were thriving. His gaze fell on the cactus, the one that had jabbed Phoebe and sent her flying into his arms.

It wasn't blooming. He'd been sweet-talking it for weeks, despite how foolish it made him feel to converse with a plant. And still no blooms.

The sound of guitar music drew him to the railing. Someone was having a party down by the pool. He peered through the fronds of the concealing palm tree and caught a glimpse of a small group-then his eyes bugged out. He saw not one, but two platinum blondes. One of them was Phoebe, and she wasn't wearing that conservative tank suit she usually wore to swim laps. This suit was shiny and blue-and skimpy.

A wave of jealousy washed over him. She'd sure never worn that suit in front of him.

The wave resolved itself into a tyrannosaurus rex chewing on his insides when he saw Phoebe sit beside Jeff, the pool guy, and casually drape an arm around him. It certainly hadn't taken her long to find a replacement, he thought uncharitably.

Would she sleep with him tonight? The thought made Wyatt so furious he wanted to climb down the palm tree, charge into the midst of that party and throttle Jeff until his teeth rattled. But that was hardly fair to Jeff. He was a victim, just as Wyatt had been.

He glanced back at the cactus, sitting there all innocent-like. Mocking him and his obsession.

"To hell with you, stupid cactus! Just don't bloom. See if I care!"

"Halloo up there!"

Startled, Wyatt thought for one panicked moment that the cactus was talking back. When the greeting was repeated, he looked around, then down at the source of the voice. He could just see Frannie on her patio, waving at him. Normally she wouldn't have been able to spot him, but he'd been leaning so far over the railing trying to get a better view of Phoebe that Frannie couldn't have helped but notice him.

"Hi, Frannie," he called back.

"You want to have our own party?"

"Pardon me?"

"I figured since those Jersey blondes were ruining both our love lives, we could hang out together. Misery loves company. "

Jersey blondes?

"Come on down. I'll put on a pot of coffee."

She disappeared before he could tell her he didn't drink coffee. He decided he'd better go down there and explain that his misery didn't need any company, thanks very much. But if she needed a shoulder to cry on, he supposed he could oblige. Frannie was a very nice woman and a very good friend of his grandparents.

He finished his sandwich on the way downstairs.

Frannie greeted him at the door still in her swim-suit, but she'd thrown a matching long skirt over it. Apparently she'd been at the pool party and had chosen to abandon the festivities. But she wasn't wearing her usual cheery smile.

"I don't drink coffee," he said by way of greeting.

"Oh, that's right, you're the orange juice kid. I'll get you some. "

"That's really not-"

But she'd already flown into the kitchen. Her movements reflected a kind of quiet desperation.

One of her cats, a small calico, wrapped itself around Wyatt's ankles. Absently he picked it up and scratched its head. The cat purred contentedly in his arms. Too bad women weren't this easy, he mused grimly. He couldn't just scratch Phoebe on the head and expect her to be happy. She also expected him to read her mind and to not even blink when she suddenly revealed her head was full of physics and higher math instead of lipstick shades.

Frannie returned with a big glass of orange juice. "So what happened with you and Phoebe?" she asked point-blank. "Why is she out there flirting with Jeff when you're up in your apartment alone?" She led him into the dining room, shooed a cat off a chair, and offered the seat to him.

He wished he had an easy answer. "She had expectations of me which I failed to meet," he said diplomatically. "I didn't show appropriate respect for her life goals."

"Wyatt. You made fun of her goals? What goals does Phoebe have, anyway? Does she want to get back into television or something?" Frannie got out a pack of playing cards and absently shuffled them.

"She wants to be a biochemist."

Frannie laughed.

"See?"

She immediately sobered. "You mean, really?"

"Uh-huh. What's your story?"

Frannie's face scrunched into a scowl. "It's Blondie's mother, Olga. She doesn't look like anybody's mother."

Wyatt silently agreed. Moms ought to look like-well, more like Frannie.

"She didn't waste ten minutes getting her hooks into Bill, and it was all over but the crying."

"Bill chose her over you? I don't believe that."

"It's true. And why couldn't you believe it? She's thin and gorgeous, just like Phoebe-and does she flirt! 'Oh, Bill, that's so clever how you're mending that crack in the sidewalk,'" she said in a flawless imitation of Olga's peculiar Danish-Jersey accent. "She did everything Jane Jasmine said not to, and it worked like a charm. Bill was all over her."

"I'm sure he was just being polite."

"Laughing like a hyena at her jokes and adjusting her swimsuit strap for her is more than polite."

"Ah."

"There's only one thing to do," Frannie said.

"What?" Wyatt had to admit he was so desperate at this point he would cling to any strategy Frannie could think of.

"Do you know how to play canasta?"