A Steal of a Deal (8 page)

And to think I spent all those years in and dollars on school. I could’ve saved myself, my parents, and Uncle Sam of the educational-grants-and-financial-aid fame a minor fortune and still come out the same.

“I . . . see.” I turn to Gramma. “And which is your favorite gemstone?”

Gramma holds out a snap, crackle, and popping left hand. “Diamonds, honey. They’ll never turn on you.”

This is going south faster than the
yakhni
I scarfed before the conversation ever started. “And did you buy those . . .” I shove down my dislike of ostentatious glitz and glamour, and smile. “Did you buy those awesome pieces from Shop-Til-U-Drop?”

She beams. “Sure, I did. Well, all but this one.”

Her right hand sports a goose-egg-sized pear-cut solitaire on her ring finger and a much lesser cluster on her index. She waggles the index at me. “This one’s from the
other
place. See the difference?”

You bet. As much as I hate the gaudy pieces of jewelry, the diamond quality is undeniably outstanding—except for the piece she bought from one of our competitors.

I wisely go for nice. “I’m so glad you’re happy with your purchases. Is there anything you’d like me to feature in the future?”

“Oh, honey!” Delia’s mom purrs. “You bet. I’d be happy if all you showed was close-ups of Max. He’s real eye candy, you know.”

Heat rushes up my neck and into my cheeks. There’s not much I can say to that. Max is one of the finest looking males I’ve ever seen, on-screen or off.

Aunt Weeby pounces on my momentary silence. “See, sugarplum? Everyone loves you and Max together. Just like Miss Pig—”

“Aunt Weeby!”

“Actually,” Delia’s mom says, oblivious to my indignation— righteous, you know. “I’d just as soon see Max host his own shows. Don’t ask me what he should sell, but I’ll buy it. Whatever it is.”

My stomach lurches. No one likes to hear she’s chump change, as this woman seems to think I am. So I take my seat again and resume shoveling calories down the pipeline from gullet straight to hip. I want to avoid the question that’s sure to follow at all costs.

“So where’s your stud, Andi-ana?” Delia asks.

There’s the question. Mercifully, my mouth’s full. Otherwise, who knows what my defiant tongue might’ve blurted out?

Miss Mona’s answer strikes fear in my heart. “Oh, here and there. You know. He’s a busy boy. And they
do
make the most darling couple ever, don’t they?”

That’s not a good answer—it’s a
rotten
one, in fact. I know Miss Mona way too well. She’s formidable, in every way. My gut starts up a nervous rumble. Dread puts in an appearance. I glance at the Duo. And cringe at their canary-dined cat grins.

“He’s not my anything!” I finally sputter.

“Too bad,” Delia says. “That he’s not here, that is. I woulda loved to have met him too, if he was. Just think. I coulda, like, waited to wash my hands until I got back home. I coulda gone to visit Margie’s sister at school—you know, the sisters at Zeta would just about die to shake the hand that shook his.”

That’s too gross, but in the course of channel loyalty, I eat on. Soon, they’ve had their fill of us and rejoin the men at their table.

Phew!
I’m as bloated as the next blimp. And happy to report that, not many minutes later, they stand, wave goodbye, and trot away. I relax.

But not for long. You know what’s coming, don’t you?

Not ten minutes later, the sound that fills me with the weirdest awareness I’ve ever known reaches my ears.

“There you all are!” Mr. Magnificent says.

I spin in my chair. “YOU!”

He smiles.

So does Miss Mona.

Aunt Weeby cheers.

There!
That’s
the stinky-fish scheming I’ve been sniffing all along. You knew the Daunting Duo weren’t about to take a vacation from their Cupid efforts, didn’t you? My frustration with the meddlesome seniors steams to a head and then pops.

“How ’bout that vacation I’m supposed to be taking, Miss Mona?”

500

Max winks. “Yes, it’s me. And this”—he waves—“is your vacation.”

Fight it, Andie, fight it!
I don’t want to melt at that grin. I face Miss Mona. “Why? Why would you do this to me?”

Canary feathers float from hers and Aunt Weeby’s mouths as they swap yet more looks. “Why not?” she chortles.

Yup. You know it. I’ve been had. A dull drumbeat starts up in my head—Max’s presence does that to me. And the super-awareness thing too. It’s a gift.

I grit my teeth. “Are you trying to tell me,” I ask my boss, “that
he’s
here to help the Musgroves?”

“I plan to pitch in with whatever’s going on.” Max pulls out the chair right across from mine. Rats! How’m I gonna avoid the blue, blue of those eyes now? “Who’re the Mus-groves?”

See what I mean? Rats! All of ’em. Lovable, yes, but rats, nonetheless. Well, the seniors among us are lovable. Dunno about the male.

Yet
, whispers a mischievous imp in the cobwebs of my subconscious.

No!
No way. There are not gonna be any “yets” around here. I can’t deal with relationships—I’m a total zero at the boy-girl romance thing. And with a gorgeous guy like Max? Hah!

“Well?” That very same gorgeous Max guy asks. “Who are the Musgroves?”

I blink. “Ah . . . um . . .”
Get a grip, woman!
“The missionaries we came to help.”

Under his dove-gray polo shirt, Max rolls his shoulders and flexes his biceps—very nice ones they are, too. “I can tote and fetch with the best of ’em. Just tell me what I need to do.”

What’s a girl to do? Even when I travel halfway around the world to help defenseless orphans and, to tell the truth, put some distance between me and Mr. Magnificent himself, I wind up with the man glued to my side. I hope he’s better at toting and fetching, as he calls it, than he is at rocks.

I sigh. You know exactly how much trouble I’m in here, don’t you? I don’t get it—still. Why did nutty Miss Mona, in the worst moment of her nuttiness, ever get the random idea that the S.T.U.D. needed on-screen “chemistry”? She’s known me since forever. Doesn’t she—and Aunt Weeby too— remember how lousy I’ve been at “chemistry” for them to betray me and pull out all the matchmaking stops?

A great-looking guy + Andie Adams = disaster.

At the very least, bad idea.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s their worst idea ever. I mean, until the dark day when Miss Mona suffered that particular brain burp, her flaky brand of wisdom had only led her to hire women. The Shop-Til-U-Drop Shopping Channel was the by-women, for-women, all-women network. And it worked. The channel was wildly successful. It made sense for her to hire me and for me to work for her.

You follow? Good.

So, if that’s the case, then why, oh why, when she wanted on-screen “chemistry,” did she go hire a man who could give a doofus a run for his money? And why, oh why did she then stick me with the gorgeous creature? Me! The relationship phobe. The dating dud. The chicken-hearted romance flop.

Just as I think this, my conscience, hitched at the hip to heaven as it is, puts in an appearance. It does that a lot.

Okay. So Max isn’t a doofus. And he has made a sincere effort to learn about the gems we offer our customers. But he hasn’t done a thing to shield me from his melt-me smile, his wow voice, or his oh-my baby blues.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My problem, not his. I’m a coward.

And if I don’t get a grip on myself, this up-and-down teeter-totter emotional mess is gonna be the end of me.

As the chatter flies around the table, my overactive conscience keeps up its efforts for a while longer. I study the swanky linen napkin on my lap to keep from peeking at Max.

It’s time.

I have to quit dancing around the truth. I have to be honest and face what’s bugged me most about Max from the very start. What’s made me treat him like dirt a time or two . . . or ten.

There’s way too much about Max Matthews I like.

There! I’ve admitted it.

Now what?

With my track record with men—or lack thereof—a guy like Max is way out of my reach. The last thing I need is to fall for him. If that happens, then,
BAM!
Soon enough, he’ll find a princess, and there I’ll sit with my broken heart.

At twelve, puppy love is cute.

At thirty, it isn’t. It’s not even puppy love anymore. It’s unrequited love, hard and painful, and I don’t want to go there.

Lord? What am I going to do about Max?

I glance up and notice the baby blues on me. Then the deafening silence hits me. Everyone at the table is staring at me.

Swell.
“Ah . . . did I miss something?”

They fill me in. All at one time.

The result? A Tower of Babel replay.

I catch snippets about the Musgroves and their mission. I hear about the mountain village where they’ve built a school. I hear about Kashmiri sapphires and played-out mines.

“I knew it!” I cross my arms and stare at my boss.

Miss Mona clears her throat, smiles what I call her “Queen Liz” smile, and when she has everyone’s attention, launches her speech. “As all y’all know,” she says, posture regal, expression serious—have I mentioned the woman has star-quality flair?—“I was tickled by the results of our trip to Mogok.”

When I croak, she has the decency to blush.

“True, Andrea.” Her nod can make an emperor weep. “We did have us some unpleasantness, but we bought magnificent stones, and you and Hannah filmed wonderful video of the mining operations.”

“I’m not into reruns,” I mutter.

“I’m not into Muslim guerillas,” Max adds.

“Oh, pshaw!” Aunt Weeby says. “Guerillas are people too. Why, I reckon they put on their trousers—well, those baggy things they wear like trousers—just like the rest of us do.”

Her voice sets off the
beep, beep, beep
of my Aunt Weeby– alert system.
Patience, please
, I pray. “Have you lost your marbles?”

She frowns—something she rarely does, but when she does . . . watch out, world! “Andrea Autumn Adams!”

No question. I’m in deep, deep doggy-doo. And with Aunt Weeby among us, headed for a close encounter of the Muslim rebel kind.

I sigh in resignation. Remember the sinking ship? It’s coming nearer. “Yes, Auntie?”

She sniffs—she’s an expert. “You know perfectly well my daddy’s marble collection is back home in his secretary in the parlor. I couldn’t possibly lose all those precious marbles.”

Trust me. The woman knows what I mean. Her brain just does curious things to her squishy logic when she wants to play fast and loose with it.

I waggle a finger. “Don’t go there. You and Miss Mona are just plain dangerous to my hide—and yours!”

Miss Mona laughs. “Ah . . . but isn’t it better to be . . . umm . . . unconventional and adventurous than to be boring and mindless ol’ rocking chair residents?”

Can
you
see these two pushing rockers? Me neither.

I wave my white napkin in surrender. “Okay. You’ve got me there. Just give it to me straight.” I square my shoulders. “And I don’t want the ad campaign you’ve cooked up to sell me on this latest scheme.”

In one of her hokiest and most theatrical moves, Aunt Weeby does outrage. “Why, Andie! I’ve never in my life known you to be such a stubborn, contrary creature—”

“I have,” Max says.

I glare.

He laughs, licks the tip of his index finger, and chalks one up.

I shake my head. “What’s wrong with you? Do you want to play hide-and-seek with AK-47-toting Talibans and friends?”

“Oh, Andie,” Miss Mona says. “That’s not what we’re here to do, dear. We’re just short-term missionaries and part-time tourists. The Father’s Lambs orphanage was built after the quake near the village of Soomjam in the Kudi Valley, not too far from the mines. Tourists take pictures. And videos. That’s been the plan from the start. Nothing much, really.”

See my point? There you have the Queen of Schemes, the researcher extraordinaire, the purveyor of rotten-fish-in-Denmark. No one ever said a word about the orphanage’s proximity to the mines. Never. Ever.

True, I didn’t take the time to do any research of my own, but you’d think logic—hmph! There I go again, hoping for logic when spontaneity and a sense of adventure are my aunt’s and her best friend’s overriding instincts.

So I make a winding gesture with my hand. “I suspected something like that when you insisted on dragging the crew with us instead of folks from church. But what’s the appeal? Those mines stopped producing back in the eighteen hundreds— except for occasional minor strikes, and the last one of those was in the 1930s.”

Aunt Weeby tsk-tsks. “That’s the problem with you, sugarplum. You just try too hard to strip all the fun right outta life, what with all that there serious, practical stuff. What’s wrong with a l’il ol’ adventure every once in a while? Who knows what we’ll find when we go poking in the mines?”

“Rocks and dirt is what we’ll find,” I answer. “If we’re lucky and don’t rattle the local tribesmen. They don’t like outsiders.” When the Daunting Duo’s expressions don’t change, resignation takes up residence. “All-righty, then. So what’s the plan?”

“You know, it’s a blessing we’ve come in August.” Had the woman even heard me? Apparently not. She goes on. “The weather’s about forty-five degrees below zero most of the year. But it’s summer now. Lots, lots warmer. And we don’t have to worry about snow and ice to get to the mines. Who knows? Maybe a miracle will happen, and someone will find a sapphire while we’re there. Can you imagine the footage we’d get then?”

I can imagine Miss Piggy flapping plump, pink wings overhead too.

Aunt Weeby nods. “Miracles happen every day.”

I believe in miracles: it’ll be a miracle if we leave Kashmir alive. “But what about the mission? The Musgroves? We did tell them we had come to help.”

Aunt Weeby clasps her hands together and brings them to her chest. “Isn’t God great? He’s put it all together for us. We’re going to a ruined village on the way to the valley where your sapphires are. We can mine for souls and sapphires in one of the most un-Christianized places on earth.”

We’ve got cops who aren’t sure we’re as innocent as the embassy says. We’re about to trek through some of the world’s most dangerous mountains. We’ll have to dodge Taliban-friendly, gun-toting Muslim rebels to do it. And we’re going to stay in a town that isn’t so much a town as a trash heap these days.