The Kiss Test (18 page)

I groaned and opened one eye to peer at the desk a few feet away. There rested the hand of Elvis still clutching his microphone. A wax hand. I had reached out for help from a lifeless statue. Of the King. And in return for breaking my fall, I’d defaced him. De-handed him. I was an unfit Elvis fan.

“There’s nothing mentally wrong with me,” I assured the officer with a sigh. “Please just let me go. I’m dizzy, that’s all.”

“She’s dizzy, all right,” came a voice from a few desks down. “Disrespecting the King and all. That’s as bad as ripping the Crown of Thorns from our Lord on the Cross.”

Again I groaned. I was interred in a building with a hundred men and women, natives of Memphis, who’d been weaned on “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Devil in Disguise” and thought anyone who spoke ill of Elvis was a blasphemer.

Okay, so I accused Chris of the same on occasion, but I
knew
he didn’t like Elvis. I, on the other hand, loved him. But having broken the hand from the “Sincerely Elvis” exhibit’s prized display, on loan from a wax museum in Ohio, I was not to be believed when I professed my love. I needed more drastic measures.

“You like Elvis?” I peered up at my captor, who was now standing over me, scratching his white undershirt through the gaps in his buttons.

He snorted. “Whatcha think?”

“So, how about if you let me go without having to make a phone call, and as soon as I get back to New York, I’ll mail you my…” I closed my eyes and thought fast. What might I have in my collection that would prompt a big burly cop to let sweet little innocent me go free without having to call Chris for help? “I have a ticket to the movie
Roustabout
from 1964, and it’s signed by Elvis. I’ll send it to you. Just let me go.”

Officer Potbelly narrowed his eyes at me. “You tryin’ to bribe me, little Yankee girl?”

“No!”
Geez. Just bury me now.
I really and truly thought I had used up all my bad luck for this lifetime—or at least for this year. But, no. It just kept coming. “Really, Officer, I’m not trying to bribe you.” Maybe the truth would work. “You see, I came to Memphis with a friend. A friend who thinks I need a keeper, that I’m helpless. And I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right. I mean, I really
don’t
need a keeper. I don’t need help getting back to our hotel. I just need a taxi.” Taxis don’t count as help. You have to pay them for their services. They aren’t doing you a favor by coming to pick you up at the police station. The cab driver isn’t going to lecture you for weeks with, “See, you
can’t
take care of yourself.” A cab driver will just drop you off at the entrance to the hotel, accept his fare (along with a hefty tip, of course, because I’d be so blasted grateful not to have been found needing help) and be on his merry way, with my best friend none the wiser.

“Sounds more like you need a shrink. Maybe that friend is righter than you think.” He headed back around his desk with a disapproving look. Picking up Elvis’s hand he shook it in my direction. “And this here hand tells me I’m right. Now make that phone call, little girl.”

Okay, dammit. I’d been called “missy” by the old lady in the museum—whose fault this whole thing was anyway, what with her grinding that osteoporotic pelvis in my direction one too many times—and now “little girl” by a cop who smelled like cigars and stale beer.

I sat up straighter and fought the dizziness to give him a stern look. “Why do I have to make a phone call? I’m a grown adult. I’ve agreed to make restitution with the Elvis museum.” Which was going to pretty much cost me most of my savings account. “And, I’m not being held on any charges. I should be allowed to leave under my own power.”

“Yeah, well, some prissy little New York princess said the same thing last year after causing a disturbance down on Beale Street one night. We let her pretty little butt go home under
her
own power, and she got mugged on the way back to her hotel. Her rich daddy sued the pants offa us for not making her call him to come get her.”

“Well, I don’t have a rich daddy, so no chance of that happening in this case.”

“Ya got your own cellular phone or ya want to use the pay phone down the hall? I wouldn’t recommend that one highly, cause some joker who used it this morning turned out to have that kissing disease that makes ya real tired. We Lysol’d it, but I don’t know as I trust that stuff.”

I cringed and slowly pulled my cell phone from my pocket. Glaring at it, I tried to out-think my captors. Maybe I could pretend to call Chris, and then be really, really annoying to the officers until they let me go just to get me out of their hair. Or, maybe Chris wouldn’t answer his phone. He was very possibly, after all, in an airplane high above Memphis at this very minute.

I looked around the room. All officers seemed hard at work, including mine. He was back on the phone, seemingly uninterested in my phone call angst. Maybe I could make a break for it. Slowly I stood and, when no indication of noticing me was forthcoming, I turned and took a few steps toward the door. I swayed a bit and reached for the wall, tip-toeing another step or two before I got busted.

“Where ya think you’re going, little girl?”

I spun around to show my displeasure at being treated like a, well, a little girl. “You know, I have a name, and it isn’t ‘little girl’. Don’t you think you should treat people with a little more respect?” Unfortunately my sternness diminished somewhat when I had to grab the wall to keep from falling on my face.

Officer Potbelly (okay, maybe that wasn’t too respectful on my part, either, but I wasn’t saying it to his face) pushed himself up from his rickety desk chair with an ominous squeak. “And don’t you think you oughta do what yer told and make that phone call before I lock you up for real?”

“You can’t lock me up,” I replied, squaring my shoulders and giving my hair a menacing toss. “I haven’t been charged with anything.”

My opponent crossed the few feet between us and glared down at me. I flinched, half expecting him to poke me in the chest and thrust his pelvis at me like the last person who’d gotten this close to me had. Instead he just put his hands on his hips and leaned closer. “I’m gonna charge ya with bein’ a pain in the ass in a minute and throw ya in solitary. Now sit that annoying little butt onto that bench and start dialing.”

Knowing it was useless to argue any further, unless I wanted to be banned from Memphis for life, I sank down onto the bench and did as I was told.

It took Chris an hour and a half to get to the police station. By the time he arrived, I’d been lulled into a near coma by the sheer boredom of sitting on that hard bench with nothing to do but watch Officer Potbelly and his coworker, Deputy Dog, whose flat face and heavy jowls reminded me of the St. Bernard Chris owned when we were kids.

“I cannot
believe
you’re in jail.”

My eyes flew open to meet the gaze of one very angry Christopher Treem.

“I’m not exactly
in
jail,” I replied. “Not in the most technical sense of the word anyway.” I rose slowly from the bench, turning toward the officer who had, in the last two hours, to my shock and surprise, consumed twelve cups of coffee—he had his own pot on a counter behind his desk—three sandwiches, an entire bag of Doritos and seven glazed donuts. I kept my finger poised over my cell phone key pad, expecting to have to dial 911 at any moment. He was either his cardiologist’s favorite patient or his worst nightmare.

“Thanks for the, uh, entertainment,” I offered generously to the officer. “It was such an honor and pleasure to be in your company the past few hours.”

The officer rose from his desk and approached Chris, reaching out a friendly hand. “I’ve got to hand it to ya, son. You’re a brave, brave man. If this was my woman, I’d have left her here at least until tomorrow.”

Chris narrowed his eyes at me. “The thought crossed my mind, as the plane I was supposed to be jumping out of was touching down on the runway, with me still in it. Two hundred and fifty
nonrefundable
dollars poorer than when I went up.”

I cringed at the acid bite of his words. I’d obviously hear about this for the next three weeks…if not for the rest of my life. I suppose, in some very small, really insignificant way, I probably deserved it. However, I had no intention of admitting fault. The pelvic-thrusting granny had that squarely on
her
shoulders.

“Well, yer a good man,” Officer Potbelly said, and then leaned close to Chris and whispered loudly enough to be heard all the way across the station. “What’s her problem anyway? She can’t stand up. She’s mouthier than hell. And, well, she attacked poor Elvis.”

“I didn’t attack him!” I protested. “I told you, I was trying to get away from the crazy woman in the museum and Elvis startled me.”

Officer Potbelly circled his right ear with his index finger and nodded knowingly at Chris. “Some kind of mental condition then?”

I watched the wheels of Chris’s brain turn for a moment while he contemplated what to tell the officer. “Don’t you dare tell him I’m crazy, Christopher Treem, or it’ll be the last thing that ever comes out of your mouth.”

“See?” Officer Potbelly waved his hand at me and tossed Chris a look of concern. “She’s volatile. She crazy or what?”

Chris looked from me to him and back again before sighing. I knew that meant his conscience wouldn’t let him lie to the officer about my mental condition. “No, she’s not crazy.”

“See?” I gloated. “Not crazy.”

“If you’re sure about that.” The cop sent him a wary look.

“No, not crazy,” Chris repeated. “Just insanely jealous.”

“What?!” I blurted.

“Jealous?” The officer scratched his potbelly in confusion, the way some people scratch their head.

Chris nodded. “Insanely. She’s dizzy because she has a concussion, which she got while trying to wrestle a woman I’d been trying to get into my bed for
six
months.”

“I did not!” I punched Chris in the arm, a move diminished by a wave of dizziness, making me clutch his arm instead to steady myself.

“See?” Chris pointed to my hand on his forearm, as if that explained everything. “She got so wild she fell down the stairs. Knocked herself silly.”

“That’d explain it, all right.”

“It explains nothing,” I shot at the cop. “It’s all a complete lie. Well, not about falling down the stairs. But, I wasn’t fighting with anyone.”

“It’s so sad, really.” Chris patted my hand in a conciliatory manner until I smacked it away. “She’s got complete amnesia about the event.”

I shut my eyes and blocked out the world. It was a lost cause. My story would never be believed, so why defend myself? Chris would make me pay for disturbing his play day, and Officer Potbelly was a gullible victim. Why me?

“Well, you can take her if you want,” the officer said to Chris. “I’d keep an eye on ’er though, so’s you don’t have to pay money to get ’er outta jail next time. This one’s free, but she’s pretty unpredictable.”

I opened my eyes. “There won’t be a next time. We’re leaving Memphis the day after tomorrow.”

“Sure you don’t want to move that up a day? Although, I don’t doubt you could cause trouble in nearly any town you’re in, little girl.”

I simply growled and pushed Chris toward the door. It was most definitely time to leave. As we passed Officer Potbelly’s desk, I paused and picked up Elvis’s hand.

“I, uh, don’t suppose I could keep this as a souvenir? Seeing as how I have to buy an entirely new wax figure for the museum.”

The officer just glared at me.

I set Elvis’s hand back down on the desk with a sigh. For a moment I’d thought I might end up with the most unique Elvis collector’s item ever.

“After you.”

“No, after
you.
”

Another day later, the ice was melting. It’s hard to be cooped up in a vehicle for hours a day without talking. And, admittedly, there’s something about a Jeep with the top down, and the constant friendly waves from every other Jeeper on the road. It’s hard to maintain wave-silence without feeling like a jackass.

This leg of our journey was a direct shot from Memphis to Las Vegas. Had it not been for the interview and my mother’s wedding, I’d have loved to take more time, maybe go to New Orleans. After all,
King Creole
was shot there. Much to my disappointment, however, the Elvis portion of my trip was mostly over. Somehow I felt cheated, seeing how the last few stops had been ruined by Chris’s constant nagging.

We drove six hours a day, not really pushing ourselves. After two days of silence, we were both going nearly crazy. The silent treatment is very difficult for those of us who thrive on socializing.

Finally, unable to stand the silence any longer, I slammed closed my Elvis trivia book. I hadn’t bothered to torture Chris with it since leaving Memphis.

“What’s the matter with you?” Chris asked, with a sidelong glance. “Elvis lost his charm? Or have you finished studying for Trivial Pursuit, the Elvis Edition?”

“Neither.” I stowed the book under the seat and surveyed the scenery. Every mile we drove took us that much closer to the fun of Vegas—or the torture of the wedding. I chose to focus on fun. I reached up and gave my Elvis bobblehead a poke, making him jiggle around on his perch on the dash. “I miss Elvis. Can’t wait for Vegas. We’re staying in the Elvis and Priscilla honeymoon suite.” I poked Elvis again, just for fun.

Chris frowned. “That is so demasculinating.”

I laughed. “Is that even a word?”

“If not, it should be, and the first linguist who catches sight of Elvis on the dash of a Jeep will coin it in a heartbeat.”

“What’s so bad about Elvis?” I asked.

“Elvis isn’t manly.”

“Manly? What isn’t manly about him?” I poked the bobblehead again. “I mean, check out that pelvic motion. Any man should be jealous.”

Even Chris had to laugh at that one, relaxing into the conversation a bit. “Maybe the motions are to be envied, but heck, I can do that.”

“Can you?” I teased, waggling my eyebrows at him. Three days without our banter had been almost scary. Like someone turned the light off in my world and I couldn’t find the switch.

“Have you ever done that? To impress a girl, I mean.”

“I plead the Fifth.” His laughing eyes did the telling, though.

“You have!” I gave his shoulder a shove. “You’ve done Elvis impressions in the bedroom. Oh my God!”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to. I know you better than anyone.”

Chris gave me a sideways glance. “Do you?”

“Sure.” I settled back in my seat and gave a big wave at an oncoming Jeep, since Chris was watching me and not paying attention. I didn’t want them to feel left out of the fraternity. And, suddenly, I felt like being friendly again. “You love women, preferably lacking in the brain department and making up for it with boobs like watermelons.”

“Hey!”

I held up a silencing hand. “I’ve not even scratched the surface of your psyche, mister. You’re fanatical about dangerous sports, which is the modern-day equivalent of the warrior mentality. You can’t
fight
and still be civilized, so you fight nature in the form of gravity and/or speed, in order to maintain your warrior status in the world.”

“Warrior? Who uses words like that anymore?”

“Women love warriors. They’re dangerous, yet chivalrous. Trustworthy, yet unpredictable. Look at how women fall all over themselves to be around you. It’s your warrior image.”

“Gee, I thought I was just outrageously hot and sexy.”

I laughed. “Yeah, well, that too, but mostly it’s the warrior image.”

There was no comment from the driver’s seat, and after a minute I glanced over to see what had Chris’s attention. He was staring at me with an odd look on his face.

“What?” I asked. “Do I have something hanging out of my nose?”

“You think I’m hot and sexy?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean—” I waved a hand and went back to watching the scenery out the windshield. “You don’t need me to tell you that. You have women crawling all over you.”

“But
you
do?”

“Only in the same way I think athletic guys are hot and sexy. Jocks, athletes. Those are my kinds of guys.”

“And yet, again and again, you have relationship after relationship with geeky suits.”

I chuckled, picturing Kevin in his daily work suit. Before that there was Lance, who worked in finance…and wore a suit. And Terrance, the law student, didn’t wear one too often in school, but he was well on his way to becoming a full-time suit.

“I guess I have picked a lot of suits, huh? Maybe that’s been the problem.”

“You think? All those tight-assed—”

“Whoa!” I laughed. “They weren’t that bad.”

“The heck they weren’t.” Chris glanced at me again. “Permission to speak freely?”

I snickered. “Sure. Totally off the record.”

“Your taste in men sucks.”

“Good thing you don’t have to sleep with them then, isn’t it?” I stuck my hand out the top of the Jeep and waved at an oncoming Wrangler. “You’re slacking off on your waving duty, Chris.”

“I’m serious. You say you’re attracted to jocks, guys you’d totally have stuff in common with, and yet you keep going out with guys who do absolutely nothing for you.”

“Kevin did stuff for me.”

“Name one thing. Not counting sexual favors, which I highly doubt he was all that good at anyway.”

I frowned. Well, crap. Sexual favors had been exactly what I was thinking of. Kevin could be quite generous in the bedroom. Of course, usually I was generous first. So what
did
he give me? There had to be something. He provided a roof over my head—probably not what Chris had in mind. He provided companionship, though it was probably only payoff for the sexual favors, considering I’d discovered he hated just about everything about me.

What the heck had I gotten out of the relationship I wasted the last two years on? Pretty much nothing, obviously, if it took this much effort to think about it.

“Well?” Chris poked. “Can’t think of anything, can you? And what about Rance?”

“Lance.”

“See, I can’t even remember his name, so he must not have done anything for the relationship.”

I laughed. “Whose relationship? Yours and his or mine and his?”

“Either one. He wasn’t much better than Kevin.”

“Lance ran with me.”

“One step up from Kevin then, but what else did he do for you?”

Once again I thought about it until I felt my brain cells would explode from the effort. Lance provided a warm body in bed, companionship, someone with whom to take turns emptying the dishwasher and to pay half the rent.

“Not a damn thing.” Chris finished my thoughts for me, just in case I didn’t come to the same conclusion he did. “If any of them gave you anything, you’d still be with them. So, if you’re not going to marry a guy anyway, why don’t you at least go for guys that turn your crank?”

“Guys like you, I suppose.” I rolled my eyes.

“Guys who turn you on. Make you drool. Get you hot.”

“Well, that leaves you out.”

Chris glared. “Forget that you find me sexy and hot. I just mean, if you claim to be attracted to guys who are jocks, warrior guys, then go for them. Stop picking suits. Don’t pick guys for their stability and safety. Pick a dangerous guy.”

“I don’t pick guys for stability and safety. I can take care of myself.” With the exception of the weeks following a head injury. “I picked them because…”

“What?”

I shrugged. “I really don’t think you should be giving advice when you aren’t exactly getting close and cozy with anyone for more than one night at a time. It’s kind of like getting relationship advice from my mother the divorce queen.”

“I just haven’t found the right girl yet.”

I pushed some wildly blowing hair behind my left ear and leaned toward him, so I could look into his face and know if he was putting me on. “So you’re telling me, if the right girl came along, you’d stop sowing your wild oats and settle down?” If this was true I was going to die of shock. It would be like saying, if the right woman came along, Adair would go straight.

Chris shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

I flopped back in my seat. “I don’t believe you. You can’t have spent the last fourteen years banging every woman in sight trying to find Ms. Right.”

“What the hell else did you think I was doing?”

“Being a guy! Being the Christopher Treem I know. Lovin’ ’em and leavin’ ’em. You weren’t interviewing them all for a permanent job.”

“Not all of them,” he agreed with a chuckle. “I didn’t have any illusions about Candy’s qualifications for Mrs. Treem.”

“Well, thank God for that. You marry anyone like her and I’ll put the bullet through your heart myself.”

I turned to stare out the passenger window, still stunned. Here I’d thought for all these years that Chris was just like me. Marriage-phobic. And now I find out that he’s not? It was almost too much to take.

What would I do if Chris got married? It wasn’t as if just any woman would accept the fact that her husband’s best friend was another woman.

Where would that leave me?

I chewed my lower lip a minute before I finally spoke. “Do you think our closeness has affected our relationships?”

“How so?”

“Have you ever had problems with anyone you’ve dated because of me? Like Julie the other night. She wasn’t too happy about finding me in your apartment, even with you lying about who I was. Has that ever happened before?”

Chris shrugged. “Not really. Guess I haven’t dated anyone long enough for you to become a problem. At least not a problem for them. You seem to have a knack for being a problem for
me
lately.”

“Highly amusing.” I smirked back. “The women in your life probably accept my presence merely to stay in your bed. But, I’m serious. Do you know I once broke up with a guy who forbid me to see you?”

“Seriously? Who?”

“Remember Joel?”

“The actor?”

“Yeah.” Not a suit, but I didn’t bother to point that out, since the moment had passed.

“We went out a few times, and then once we met by accident at Jeffrey’s. Not on a date or anything. I was there with you.”

“Like every Friday night.”

“Yeah. Like the Friday night I met him. But this time he went ballistic, freaking out, accusing me of cheating on him with you. I dumped him.”

“You dumped a guy for me?”

I looked at him like he was nuts. “Are you kidding? For one thing, I’m not going out with a guy who tells me what to do. But, we’ve been friends forever. Why would I date someone who tried to tell me we couldn’t be friends anymore?” This wasn’t such a hard concept to believe. Unless—“Would you throw me over for some girl?”

“No.”

He didn’t sound very convincing to me. “Not even if she was Mrs. Right?”

“Of course not.”

I stared at his profile, trying to read his mind. He’d just told me that he planned to get married someday, which totally blew away all my previous assumptions about my best friend. So how did I know he wasn’t keeping something else from me? What if he met the woman who matched him perfectly? Who held Chris’s interest for more than a date or two? A woman who passed the Kiss Test. And, the
Bed
Test (if there was one I wasn’t privy to). What if he met the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with?

What would happen to me?

I guess, in the most platonic sense,
I’d
always expected to be the woman he spent the rest of his life with. What if I were replaced?

Suddenly I didn’t feel so well.

Chris finally turned and looked at me. “What?”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

He just grinned that disarming grin. “That’s one of the things women find so fascinating about me. I’m unreadable. Dangerous. Warrior-like, as you so poetically put it.”

Charm didn’t work on me this time. I felt like the rock my world was built on had crumbled.