LITMIR.BIZ

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it reminds me of the Christmas when I wanted a red ten-speed Bianchi bike and found a five-speed Schwinn under the tree.”

      She made a startled little noise that might have been the word Oh, and looked crestfallen.

      He said, “I’ll tell you what. You bring Cameron to the party, and we’ll see what happens. I’ve never really talked with her. All I know is she broke Carl Moosegow’s wrist.”

      “He grabbed her in a bar!” Mary Anne exclaimed. “And not on the arm, either. She’s studied martial arts. It was a case of ‘no mind,’ like Bruce Lee used to talk about. She just reacted as she’d been trained to do.”

      “I’ll be careful where my hands stray,” said Graham, who had counseled female clients on maintaining boundaries—and dealing with men who did not observe them. “By the way, are you trained in martial arts?”

      Without a word, she spun away, grabbed her purse and left the office.

      Graham grinned as he watched her go…and exchanged a look with the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, who grinned right back.

      

      HE HADN’T LET HER do something nice for him, and Mary Anne was unsure whether “It’s the thought that counts” applied to good deeds required to activate love potions. A simple solution would have been to agree to go to the party with him, but Mary Anne didn’t like him, so how could that have been doing him a good deed? She couldn’t have gone with him, though. Because of Cameron. Cameron liked him, and Mary Anne didn’t want to hurt Cameron.

      Objecting to the idea of putting more effort into the love potion project, yet unwilling to simply abandon it, she took a gift certificate for Pizza Hut pizza that she’d won at the high school’s kickoff carnival and slipped it into Graham’s In tray. After that, the only thing to do was mildly discourage Cameron’s interest in Graham, play down any possibility that Graham actually liked Mary Anne herself and prepare to slip Jonathan Hale a love potion.

      

      “DO I LOOK OKAY?” she asked Cameron on the night of the engagement party. “Do these jeans make my butt look big?”

      “You have an excellent butt,” Cameron replied matter-of-factly. Blessed with a figure that Mary Anne, for one, believed was the answer to every man’s fantasies, Cameron had absolutely no interest in discussing Mary Anne’s figure flaws. “And your clothes are cool. You look like a model.”

      Low-rise flare jeans, baby T-shirt and her favorite hat. She also wore her favorite moss-green wrap sweater coat.

      In her handbag was the precious vial she’d bought from Clare Cureux.

      Tonight was the night.

      Taking her turn in front of the mirror, Cameron babbled, “Jonathan asked Paul to play for the party but I told Paul he couldn’t, because if he’s there I have to pretend we’re together.”

      It was a situation Mary Anne still couldn’t get her head around, but all she said was, “And so he turned down the gig?”

      “Oh, sure. That’s not usually part of our agreement, but he knows how badly I want to go out with Graham.” After a moment, she said, “Besides, he knew he could get a different gig tonight. He just told Jonathan he was booked, and then he got a gig—so he was.” She changed the subject. “Do I look okay?”

      Mary Anne scrutinized her cousin. Cameron was dressed up, for her. She wore a low-backed brown dress and clunky platform shoes. She looked sexy and great and had probably spent a total of six dollars on the ensemble. “You’re an eleven,” Mary Anne told her, blowing her a kiss. “He’s lucky you’re coming, but you’ll get to see for yourself what he’s really like.”

      Cameron gave a mischievous grin that showed her chipped front tooth, an anomaly in her otherwise perfect bite. “Graham Corbett, here I come!”

      Mary Anne decided that if Graham tried to flirt with her tonight instead of her cousin, she would pour a drink on him.

      

      THE PARTY TOOK PLACE in the Embassy Ballroom, which occupied the entire floor above the radio station in the Embassy Building. Mary Anne had learned that the landlord was letting the engaged couple use it as a gift to Jonathan Hale, a tribute for his work for WLGN.

      Before they headed upstairs, Mary Anne said, “Want to use the ladies’ room?”

      “Sure.”

      Mary Anne opened the radio station’s glass door. The recording booth was occupied by two indie kids prerecording a music program. She gave them a wave as she and Cameron headed past the rows of desks and computers to the restrooms.

      “There’s Flossy!”

      “Yes.” Mary Anne didn’t even steal a glance at the desk Graham claimed as his at the station—or the white rabbit sitting on top of it. “Let’s not talk about it.” Cameron, of course, was privy to the steps Mary Anne had taken to activate the love potion. Well, except all the details of her failure to set him up with Cameron. She’d confessed to her cousin only that the Pizza Hut gift certificate had been “simpler.”

      Cameron remarked, “If you didn’t hate him so much, I’d think you liked him.” She wasn’t talking about Flossy, now.

      “Ha-ha,” said Mary Anne, without interest or humor as she marched into the ladies’ room.

      Angie Workman stood alone before the sinks, leaning forward on tiptoe in her stiletto heels to apply red lipstick to her wide mouth. “Oh, hi. It’s Mary Anne, right?”

      Besides being impossibly tiny, with a figure to die for, Angie had wonderful hair. It was very thick, very curly and platinum-blond…true blond. In contrast, her eyebrows and eyelashes were so dark they looked fake. Regrettably, she held her hair back with barrettes in a style that showed zero imagination. Her dress was a synthetic blend, white with autumn leaves, and her stilettos were also white. A part of Mary Anne, which she acknowledged as mean-spirited and extremely jealous, thought, Hello, it’s October! You don’t wear white shoes in October.

      If Angie knew nothing about fashion, the fact had obviously made no impact on Jonathan Hale. With a lurch of her heart, Mary Anne saw the diamond on Angie’s delicate left hand.

      Mary Anne held out her own hand. “Yes, and you’re Angie. It’s nice to meet you. This is Cameron McAllister.”

      “I so admire your radio essays,” Angie told Mary Anne with obvious sincerity. “I wish I could write something like the things you say. I listen to you every week. My favorite one was the one about the Civil War cemetery—about the brothers who fought on different sides of the conflict.”

      “Thank you.” Mary Anne’s emotions were mixed. She felt proud and happy because of Angie’s words. And yet she planned to steal Angie’s fiancé. She could tell that Angie was obviously a nice person, one of those deeply genteel people that the West Virginia mountains sometimes produced. A twinge of shame ran through Mary Anne, and she remembered Clare Cureux’s warnings. How would Jonathan’s falling in love with Mary Anne impact Angie? What if being jilted was the kind of thing Angie couldn’t get over?

      Now Angie turned to Cameron. “And everyone says such good things about your work at the women’s center. My friend Rhonda says you’re an angel to those women.”

      All delivered in a West Virginia twang that seemed the pinnacle of charm.

      Cameron smiled politely. As Jonathan’s fiancée excused herself to return to the party, Cameron glanced at Mary Anne.

      “I know,” Mary Anne said. “She’s sweet and adorable.”

      Cameron said, “Maybe. But I’m not an angel.”

      

      JONATHAN WAS DRINKING a Frog’s Leap cabernet. Mary Anne discovered this in a brief moment of conversation with him as she sipped her own merlot. She managed to tell him how nice she thought Angie

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