Tame An Older Man

Chapter 13

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?"

"What happened to Frannie?" Phoebe asked, when she finally was able to get Bill alone.

Bill looked around the crowd, which was starting to thin now that evening had set in. "Gee, I don't know. Haven't seen her in a while. She probably went to feed her cats or something."

Phoebe doubted that. Bill hadn't taken his eyes off Olga all evening. Such behavior was bound to be noticed.

"Maybe I should go look for her."

"That's a great-"

"Oh, Bill, there you are," Olga said, sauntering over with yet another drink in her hand. She'd had way too much.

"I noticed another crack in the sidewalk," Olga said. "Maybe you should fix it while you've got your tools out. I just love watching a man work."

Bill's eyes lit up. "I'll just do that." Phoebe sighed. Maybe she'd better go find Frannie and see what was up. She packed up the ice chest, said her good-nights and went upstairs. Then she threw on a long T-shirt over her suit and headed back down.

"Come in," Frannie called cheerily, when Phoebe knocked.

Phoebe entered. Frannie didn't sound upset. That was good. She found Frannie in the dining room playing cards. With Wyatt.

"Oh, it's you," Frannie said, sounding supremely disappointed. She threw down her cards in disgust. "Oh, Phoebe, how could you?"

"How could I what?"

"Invite that she-devil mother of yours into our home, then throw her at my Bill! After I worked so hard to get him!"

"But my mother's only here for-" Phoebe saved her breath. Frannie ran from the room sobbing. Three cats trotted after her down the hall. A door slammed.

"Well, that didn't go too well," Wyatt said. "Sounds like the Jersey Blondes are breaking hearts all over the place. What happened to Jeff?"

Jersey Blondes? "He threw me over for someone younger."

"Lot of that going around."

"Oh, Wyatt. I am not interested in Jeff," she felt compelled to say. She wasn't into playing games, no matter what her mother advised.

"Could have fooled me."

So, he'd seen her performance, despite the fact that he'd never joined the party. "You were spying on me from your balcony," she concluded.

"You were cavorting in public for all the world to see. I could hardly help noticing your behavior-or your new swimsuit."

"I was humoring my mother. She bought it for me."

"That figures."

Phoebe instantly felt protective. "Don't say bad things about my mother. She's very sweet, just a little misguided."

"Sounds like she's a home-wrecker."

"Bill and Frannie aren't married. And let's not forget, Bill had a hand in this. He could have discouraged my mother, but he didn't."

"She looks like you, so who could blame him?"

Phoebe wasn't certain if she was being complimented or insulted. But the next moment she realized it was the latter.

"How do you and your mother manage to get your hair exactly the same shade? It's uncanny."

"I'll have you know, I'm a natural blonde!"

"How could I know that? You wouldn't let me turn the lights on."

"Ohh!" She was so startled by his rudeness that that was all she could manage for a few moments. Finally she summoned the wherewithal to leave. "I hope you and Frannie have a wonderful evening together!" She slammed the door behind her.

"Mama, don't scrunch up your face like that," Phoebe said. "You'll end up with white creases."

"I can't help it," Olga said, trying to relax her face as Phoebe applied foundation to it. "And I think you might have just accused me of having wrinkles."

They were in a guest dressing room on the "Heads Up" set. As if Phoebe weren't cranky enough, given how her life had been going lately, she had to make up a total of eight women this morning-and the first, Olga, had a ticklish face.

Everybody was mad at her. Neither Wyatt nor Frannie would talk to her. Elise and Daisy didn't exactly shun her, but they weren't behaving like the most loyal of friends. They blamed her for throwing away what she had with Wyatt, and every time either of them tried to talk to her about it, she ended up just changing the subject because she couldn't make them understand how deeply Wyatt's ridicule had cut her.

Her mother was talking to her, but barely. They'd had a huge fight the night after the pool party. Olga had painstakingly explained that she hadn't realized Bill's girlfriend was Frannie, that neither Frannie nor Bill had given her the slightest indication they were together, so she hadn't seen the harm. Bill had made her feel feminine and desirable, even if the flirtation hadn't gone anywhere.

Phoebe had responded by telling Olga she would be Jane Jasmine's most spectacular failure. She'd immediately apologized, but Olga's feelings had been hurt. They'd been walking on eggshells around each other ever since.

Even she and Richie had argued. She'd forgotten she was supposed to take notes yesterday for a class Richie had to miss, and she'd skipped it.

Frannie and Bill also weren't speaking to each other.

Even Kelly and Kurt weren't talking, which had nothing to do with Phoebe, except she was beginning to feel like her entire life was a minefield.

Olga giggled, causing Phoebe to smear her eyeliner. "Mama!"

"Sorry, sweetie. I can't help it. Remember when you were little and I used to make up your face for dress-up? You used to giggle and say it tickled."

"I was five years old." She blotted away the mistake and started over. "Those were fun times, though," she admitted, grasping the olive branch Olga had extended. Her mother had instilled in her a love for cosmetics, grooming and pretty clothes. She still loved all those things. But her attraction to such frivolities had caused people to assume her head was empty of anything weightier.

Phoebe finished with Olga and sent her to the Green Room to wait. A seemingly endless stream of women followed. Phoebe found herself trying to guess which ones were the ones who'd succeeded in finding Mr. Right, and which ones were still looking. By her sixth makeup job, she'd figured it out. The ones who'd found mates weren't the prettiest or the thinnest or the youngest. They were the ones who carried themselves with a quiet confidence. Their smiles were genuine, and they didn't express concern about whether the TV camera would add ten pounds.

They liked themselves, and they didn't give a rat's ears what anybody else thought of them. One of them mentioned she worked in nuclear medicine. She was no dummy, and she didn't hide the fact. In fact, she wore horn-rimmed glasses that made her look like a librarian. Yet she was quite attractive in her own way. It was her smile, and the twinkle in her eye.

"Oh, my, you've made me look like a movie star!" the woman exclaimed when she regarded the final results in the mirror.

"The studio lights will tone it down some."

"I wasn't complaining. My fiancé will be in the audience, and I can't wait for him to see me like this!"

Phoebe's final pre-on-air task was to do Jane Jasmine's makeup. She looked much as she did in the publicity picture printed on the back cover of 2001 Ways to Wed. She was about forty-five, Phoebe guessed, and she wore her dark hair in a no-nonsense, short and curly style. Her skin was flawless but her features were too sharp for her to be considered a classic beauty. She even had a few gray hairs, which she didn't bother to color.

"I'm not sure whether I should shake your hand or punch you out," Phoebe joked as she settled Jane into the chair and tied a smock over her.

"Oh?"

"One of my best friends is engaged because of your book. My other best friend is alone and completely miserable, despite having dutifully followed your advice."

Jane was immediately sympathetic. "Results sometimes take a while. Do you want me to talk to her?"

Phoebe shook her head. "I tried to get her on the show, but she wouldn't do it."

"So how about you?" Jane asked. "Did you read the book?"

"Cover to cover. Just for my friend, though."

Jane nodded wisely. "Not looking for a husband yourself, huh?"

"No. But then this man came along-"

"-when you least expected one. I'll bet you were quietly going about your business, engrossed in your own highly interesting, well-directed life, and there he was."

"Well, yes."

"That is precisely my primary message. Men flock around when you work on yourself as a person, when you focus on your own goals and dreams." Jane smiled. "Although, I'm guessing you've never had a problem with men not flocking."

"Don't smile, please… Oh, I manage to scare them off one way or another, but usually it's intentional."

"Not this time?"

Phoebe shook her head, fighting back the sting of tears. "First off, he saw your book on my shelf and assumed I was husband-hunting."

"Uh-oh."

"We got over that, finally, but then I got up the nerve to open up to him and share my dreams and goals, and, well, it was just awful. He laughed."

"What kind of dreams and goals?" Jane asked.

Phoebe was still nervous when it came to honesty about her career aspirations. But she forced herself to say it. "I'm going to become a biochemist and start my own cosmetics company."

"Oh, that's marvelous! But I know why the guy laughed."

"Because he thinks I'm dumb?"

"Because you surprised him, that's all. You'd better get used to the fact that no one thinks of a beautiful, blond TV star when you say 'biochemist.' You also made him nervous, honey. Your looks are intimidating enough. Combine that with brains, and you're one scary package. The man would have to have quite a strong sense of self-esteem to stand up to that."

"Wyatt doesn't lack self-esteem," Phoebe murmured.

"You mean Wyatt Madison? The producer?"

Phoebe wanted to sew her lips shut. "Yes."

"You're in love with him?" Jane asked gently.

Phoebe nodded. She did love Wyatt, and she had for a long time. She just hadn't wanted to admit it to herself.

"So what did you do when he laughed?" Jane seemed fascinated with the whole thing-like an avid biologist dissecting a frog. And Phoebe found herself wanting to spill her guts. She supposed that was what made Jane a good therapist.

"I got mad. And I left. And I… It sounds so stupid now. I put on a blue lamé swimsuit and flirted with a twenty-two-year-old."

To her credit, Jane didn't criticize.

"And what did Wyatt do?"

"He got mad, too."

"Uh-huh."

"And he thought I bleached my hair."

Jane gasped. "The wretch. Forget him. I'm sure there are lots of men out there who would assume, without you telling them, that you're a natural blond."

Phoebe had to laugh at herself. "It was the way he said it, but never mind."

"Honey, if he laughed at you, it was because you've been hiding your intellect from him, so your announcement surprised him, that's all. You're the one who didn't make him understand. Sit him down and calmly make him understand who you really are. If he can't love that person, then fine, you gave it your best shot. But don't throw a good thing out the window just because he reacted badly the first time you let him see what was behind those pretty blue eyes."

Phoebe was silent after that, digesting what Jane had said. Maybe she'd overreacted to Wyatt's less-than-perfect behavior. Maybe, she thought, she'd deliberately let the budding relationship self-destruct. Because maybe, deep down, she didn't feel worthy of a man like Wyatt.

Wyatt watched his show unfold like an orchid-or maybe a Venus flytrap, he amended. This was certainly the most sensational show he'd ever done-leaning toward Jerry Springer. He'd vowed he would never resort to melodrama or faked fistfights to attract viewers, but the conflict evolving on the set was all too real. Riveting, but it made him uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable especially because he could see Phoebe on the opposite side of the stage, watching intently. She was concerned about her mother, he realized, as well she should be. Jane Jasmine did not pull her punches.

"You're afraid of something, Olga," Jane said. "I can tell by the colors you wear, the way you hold yourself, even the way you smile. You're hiding the real Olga Phelps. You are so afraid of someone seeing the real you that you have to hide behind this glamorous persona. You have no trouble getting a first date, I bet."

"No, none at all," Olga said with a brittle smile. "But after one or two dates the guys disappear into the woodwork."

Olga's smile faded. "After they get to know me, I guess."

"No, that's not it. They can't get to know you because you don't let them. They try to crack through your veneer, and you probably turn the conversation right back to the man."

"You say in your book to show an interest in the man's work," Olga said defensively.

"I said cultivate an interest. Learn about it so you can have meaningful conversations. That doesn't mean constantly stroking his ego and treating your own goals and interests as insignificant."

Olga suddenly burst into tears. "But I don't have any goals and interests. Except to get married. That's all I've ever wanted."

Jane reached out and squeezed Olga's hand. "We're going to work on that."

Wyatt kept his gaze on Phoebe. She had one hand over her mouth and the other tightly wrapped around herself, as if she had to physically restrain herself from coming to her mother's rescue.

"What do you like to do," Jane asked, "that has nothing to do with men?"

"Well," Olga said in a halting voice, "I make wreaths. I brought one with me today, but the producer wouldn't let me bring it on."

Kelly interrupted. "Let's have a look at this wreath!"

"After this commercial break," Kurt put in. He and Kelly had started holding hands during one of Jane's mini-counseling sessions. Wyatt suspected something she'd said had resonated with them.

They cut to commercial, and Kelly immediately let him have it. "Wyatt! Why didn't you let Phoebe's nice mother bring her wreath onto the show?"

Wyatt threw up his hands. "Fine. Never mind that it has nothing to do with anything we're talking about. Bring on the wreath."

He turned away and bumped right into Phoebe.

"Sorry," they said together. Then they just looked at each other for a long, searing moment.

"Phoebe!" Phyllis called. "We need touch-ups." With a nod to Wyatt, she scurried onto the set, powder and brush in hand. He thought she'd been about to say something to him, and he wondered what that was.

Wyatt fetched the wreath, giving it a closer look on the way back to the set. Olga had made it for Phoebe, he realized. It held a dozen or more tiny mementos of Phoebe's life-all related to her TV career. Apparently Wyatt wasn't the only one to have pigeonholed Phoebe.

"Fifteen seconds," the director announced. The set buzzed with frenetic activity, then the cameras rolled again.

"I made it for my daughter," Olga explained, when Jane asked about the wreath. "She played Vanessa Vance on 'Skin Deep,' if you remember that show."

"And she's backstage," Kelly said, practically bubbling over. "Can we bring her on?"

The audience clapped. A few of the men whistled and made catcalls.

Wyatt died a thousand horrible deaths. His show was veering off course like a sailboat in a hurricane. He was going to throttle Kelly-she knew better than to stray from the script. And Phoebe… Where was Phoebe, anyway?

She had disappeared.