Susan Phillips - Match Me If You Can

She bit her lip, nodded. "That's what I thought." And then she walked away.

She had no money with her, but she climbed into a cab anyway, then made the driver wait at her house while she went inside to get the cash to pay him. Her family would be descending at any minute. She grabbed a suitcase before that could happen and began stuffing it with whatever her fingers closed around, not letting herself feel or think. Fifteen minutes later, she was in her car.

Just before midnight on Saturday, Portia got the news about Heath's marriage proposal in a phone call from Baxter Ben-ton, who'd waited tables at the Mayfair Club for a thousand years and had eavesdropped on the Granger family party. Portia had been curled up on the couch in an old beach towel and sweatpants-her jeans no longer fit-with a sea of candy wrappers and crumpled tissues surrounding her like a barbed-wire fence. By the time she hung up, she was on her feet, excited for the first time in weeks. She hadn't lost her instincts after all. This was why she hadn't been able to find the perfect woman for that final introduction. The chemistry she'd detected between Heath and Annabelle that day in his office hadn't been imaginary.

She stepped over the beach towel she'd dropped and snatched up an unread copy of the Tribune to check the date. Her contract with Heath ran out on Tuesday, three days from now. She set the newspaper aside and began to pace. If she could pull this off, maybe, just maybe, she could leave Power Matches behind without feeling like a failure.

It was midnight, and she couldn't do anything until morning. She gazed at the mess that had accumulated around her. Her cleaning lady had quit a couple of weeks ago, and Portia hadn't replaced her. A film of dust covered everything, the trash cans overflowed, and the rugs needed vacuuming. She hadn't even gone to work yesterday. What was the point? She had no assistants, just Inez and the IT guy who ran the Power Matches Web site, the one part of the business that interested her the least.

She touched her face. This morning, she'd gone to her dermatologist. Catastrophic timing, but then so was her life. Still, for the first time in weeks, she felt a sliver of hope.

Heath got drunk Saturday night, just like his old man used to. All he needed was a woman to smack around, and he'd be a chip right off the old block. Come to think of it, the old man would be proud of him, because a couple of hours ago, Heath had smacked one around real good, not physically maybe, but he'd beat the hell out of her emotionally. And she'd smacked him right back. Got him right where it hurt. As he fell into bed sometime near dawn, he -wished he'd told her he loved her, said the words she needed to hear. But he couldn't give Annabelle anything but the truth. She meant too much to him.

When he finally woke up, it was Sunday afternoon. He staggered into the shower and shoved his throbbing head under the water. He should be at Soldier Field right now with Sean's family, but as he climbed out of the shower, he pulled on a robe instead, then made his way to the kitchen and reached for the coffeepot. He hadn't called a single client to wish him well, and he didn't even care.

He pulled a mug from the cupboard and tried to work up some more indignation against Annabelle. She'd derailed him, and he didn't like it. He had a plan, a damn good one for both of them. Why couldn't she have trusted him? Why did she need to hear a bunch of meaningless bull? Actions spoke louder than words, and once they were married, he'd have shown her how much he cared in every way he knew how.

He grabbed some aspirin and drifted downstairs to his pricey, barely furnished media room so he could catch a few games. He wasn't dressed, hadn't shaved or eaten, and he didn't give a damn. As he began surfing the sports channels, he thought of the way her family had attacked him after she'd walked out. Like a school of piranhas.

"What's your game, Champion?"

"Do you love her or not?"

"Nobody hurts Annabelle and gets away with it."

Even Candace had jumped in. " I'm sure you made her cry, and she hates it when she gets all blotchy ."

Finally, Chet had said it all. " You'd better leave now ."

For the rest of Sunday afternoon into the night, Heath flicked from one game to the next, not taking in a single play. He'd been ignoring the phone all day, but he didn't want anybody calling out the cops, so he'd managed to fake his way through a conversation with Bodie where he'd pleaded the flu. Afterward, he went upstairs and grabbed a bag of potato chips. They tasted like dryer lint. Still dressed in his white cotton bathrobe, he settled into the living room's lone chair with a fresh bottle of scotch.

His perfect plan lay in shambles around him. In one disastrous night, he'd lost a wife, lover, friend, and they'd all been the same person. The long, lonely shadow of the Beau Vista Trailer Park crept over him.

Portia spent Sunday holed up in her apartment, a telephone propped to her shoulder, trying to locate Heath. She finally reached his receptionist and promised to treat her to a spa weekend if she could find out where he was. The woman didn't get back to her until eleven that night. "Sick at home," she said. "On a game day. Nobody can believe it."

Portia needed to say his name. "Has Bodie talked to him?"

"That's how we found out he was sick."

"So… did Bodie check on him?"

"No. He's still on his way back from Texas."

As Portia hung up, her heart ached, but she couldn't give in to it, not now. She didn't believe for a minute that Heath was sick, and she dialed his number. When his voice mail picked up, she tried again, but he wasn't answering. Once again, she touched her face. How could she do this?

How could she not?

She dashed into her bedroom and rooted through her drawers until she found her largest Hermes scarf. Still, she hesitated. She walked over to the window and gazed out into the darkness.

To hell with it.

With Willie Nelson on the stereo, Heath dozed. Sometime around midnight, his doorbell rang. He ignored it. It rang again and again. When he couldn't stand it any longer, he stalked into the hallway, snatched up his running shoes, and hurled them against the door. "Go away!" He stomped back to the empty living room and picked up the tumbler of scotch he'd abandoned earlier. A sharp rapping at the window made him whirl around… and stare into a vision straight from hell.

"Fuck!"

His tumbler shattered to the floor, scotch sloshing over his bare calves. "What the-"

The nightmare face ducked into the shrubbery. "Open the damn door!"

" Portia ?" He stepped over the broken glass but saw only rustling branches outside the window. He couldn't have conjured up that dark, shrouded face, which was stripped of all human features except for a pair of gaping eyes. He returned to the foyer and threw open the door. The porch was empty.

He heard a hiss from behind the bushes. "Come over here."

"No way. I've read Stephen King. You come to me."

"I can't."

"I'm not moving."

A few seconds ticked by. "All right," she said, "but turn around."

"Okay." He didn't move.

Gradually Portia emerged from the shadows onto the walk. She wore a long black coat with a very expensive scarf pulled forward around her head. She held her hand over her forehead like a visor. "Are you looking?"

"Of course I'm looking. Do you think I'm nuts?"

Seconds ticked by, and then she dropped her hand.

She was blue. Her entire face and what he could see of her neck. Not a faint bluish tint, but bright, bold, Blue Man Group blue. Only the whites of her eyes and her lips had escaped.

"I know," she said. "I look like a Smurf."

He blinked his eyes. "I was thinking of something else, but you're right. Does it wash off?"