Driven To Distraction: Driven To Distraction / Winging It

3

THE FOLLOWING MORNING Barrett was scientifically sure that his distraction over the woman next door was finished. She had suffered some fit of embarrassment over the chicken crumb issue the night before and fled the scene shortly thereafter. So the aberrant curiosity was done, and now he could get to work. He spread out his paperwork on the patio table and dove into a year’s worth of data on water levels.

“You are so ugly, you’re cute,” a feminine voice announced from the other side of the hedge.

He looked around to see if she was talking to him. Apparently Stacy was working with another dog. Instantly that image of the pink spandex filled his mind instead of the tree snails and comparative numbers. Then the T-shirt about being a queen that overwhelmed two small but interesting-just-the-same breasts came into mental view. He’d only noticed them because the words any differently were scrolled across them in big, loopy letters. The snails were long out of his mind by the time he remembered her legs and the cute white sneakers she wore.

Uh-oh. She was distracting him again. Time to go in.

He started gathering up his papers when she yelled, “Don’t you run off on me!”

He froze. A rustling in the bushes caught his attention. For a moment, he hoped it was Stacy and then realized that as small as she was, even she couldn’t be pushing her way through the hedge.

One of the ugliest dogs he’d ever seen emerged, shook itself and pranced over to him. It looked at him the same way Barrett was looking at it, as though thinking, What the heck is that thing?

The dog was possibly a Chihuahua, with tufts of beige hair sprouting from its ears and tail. Otherwise, it looked nearly bald. Its brown buglike eyes never left him.

“Elmo! Where’d you go? I didn’t mean it, honest! You’re not so ugly. Just a little…beauty-challenged.”

When Elmo turned toward Stacy’s voice, Barrett took the opportunity to scoop him up and walk over to the hole in the hedge, the dog held out at a distance. Then he took a full minute to watch her look beneath her chaise longue and in a children’s pool that was situated under a palm tree. She was wearing blue spandex shorts today, and another T-shirt with words on it that he couldn’t read. Totally unbidden came the image of the thong underwear she said she wore.

Elmo started wriggling in his arms, and he realized he’d gotten off track again. He pushed the dog into the hole. “Over here, Stacy.”

She lifted her head and traced his voice to the hedge. “Oh, my God, Elmo, you can talk!”

“Uh, no, it’s me, Barrett.” He angled his face next to Elmo’s as she neared the hedge. “I’ve got your underwear over here.” He blinked, realizing what he’d said. “Dog, I mean.”

“Did you say underwear?”

“No, I didn’t say underwear.”

She gave him a speculative glance and headed over. “I knew the dog wasn’t talking, by the way. And speaking of, what are you doing with my dog? I thought you didn’t like them.”

“It came over to visit. I’m sure it would like to go back now. And it’s not that I dislike them.”

Their hands tangled as they exchanged the dog, who was wriggling like bacteria under a slide. She hoisted him under her arm and peered down. “I know, you’re afraid of them.”

“Uncomfortable.”

“And babies.”

“Pardon?”

“And you’re afraid of babies.”

“I’m slightly more uncomfortable around babies than I am dogs.”

She let out a quick little sigh. “Thanks for returning Elmo.”

They stood there for thirteen seconds before they cleared their throats and said simultaneously, “Well, I’d better get back to work.”

Another five seconds passed until she said, “See you.”

“I see you, too.” He rolled his eyes. Why did this woman have him tongue-tied?

Then she was gone, and that was a good thing, because he really had to get back to work. Before he’d even reached the table, Elmo had returned. It was looking at him in an odd way, with its head tilted. What did it want? Why was it back? Then it jumped up on his lap and continued looking at him with those bug eyes. With a frog-quick tongue, it licked Barrett’s chin.

“Stacy,” he called, avoiding another assault. “Get it off me, please.”

“Coming.” She appeared around the corner of the house with a leash in hand. Today her yellow T-shirt said Madness Takes Its Toll. Please Have Exact Change. “He’s not an it.” She tilted her head and studied Elmo, who was lapping at the air Barrett exhaled. “I’ll be darned. I think he likes you.”

He handed the dog to her. “But he doesn’t even know me.”

She laughed at that, just a quick giggle actually. Still, making her laugh, though he had no idea how he’d done it, sent a flood of warmth through him.

“Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” she asked, rubbing her cheek against the top of Elmo’s head.

“The sensation of falling in love, or romance in all its various forms, can be explained scientifically. I did a report on it in college. Feelings of euphoria are produced by natural stimulants in the brain—dopamine and norepinephrine. It’s all hormone driven, all geared for the sole intent of propagating our species. The euphoric feeling of falling in love is simply a chemical reaction that can be broken down into—”

“Forget it!” She lifted her hand as though to physically stop the words from leaving his mouth. “I don’t want the magic of falling in love to be ruined by technicalities. Wait a minute.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not afraid of romance, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Uncomfortable with it?”

A loud horn honked three times out front before he could respond. The challenge faded from her face. “Tanya,” she said. “The parade has started.”

“Arlene’s niece?”

“The one and only.” Stacy clipped the leash on Elmo and set him on the ground. The scrawny dog tried to get to Barrett, its little legs flailing when it hit the end of the leash. “She always honks her horn when she comes into Sunset City. This time she’s honking for you.”

“Be still my heart.”

That got an interesting look from Stacy—and a smile. They headed around the side of the house and met up with a pretty woman in jeans so tight, if she sneezed, they’d probably disintegrate. Her thick blond hair was tied back with what looked like a belt that belonged in a car engine. Her blue shirt was smeared with grease.

“Hey, Stacy. You must be Barrett.” She took a moment to survey him, and her voice shifted an octave lower. “Aunt Arlene said you might need a thrust angle alignment. Want to show me where your shimmy is?”

“I need a what?” Barrett said.

“His shimmy is just fine,” Stacy said. “I mean, he doesn’t need to put his car in your garage…if you know what I mean.” She lowered her chin and stared at Tanya meaningfully.

“Oh, I get what you mean. You already have a garage in mind.”

“Exactly.”

Tanya’s eyes narrowed. “Nita’s bagged him, hasn’t she? Dang, she’s fast.” She handed Barrett her business card, letting her fingers linger against his. “If you want me to lube your ball bearings, give me a call sometime.”

Barrett cleared his throat. “My ball bearings will keep that in mind.”

“Cute.” She winked, clucked her tongue and hopped in her tow truck.

“She called me cute. After you called the snails cute, I don’t think that’s much of a compliment. And what did she mean, Nita’s bagged me?” he asked. “Who’s Nita?”

“Oh, you’ll meet her soon enough.” Those words came out from between gritted teeth. “And never mind the bagging. Look, I suggest you lock your doors for the rest of the day. Don’t answer the phone or doorbell.” She tugged on Elmo’s leash. “Come on, boy.”

STACY STALKED back to her house and tried to continue working with the recalcitrant Elmo. For some reason, the little weasel was completely enamored with Barrett. He kept glancing longingly toward the hedges and whimpering. “He doesn’t do dogs,” she said in a low voice. “Or babies. Or even romance!” Perfectly good reasons not to be interested, if she needed more than the disparate intelligence factor. So that swirling feeling inside her at the thought of him must be the ovulation countdown. She had a deadline for her project, too.

It was hard to actually imagine herself as a mother. Particularly a single mother.

Forget that part. Just think about the baby part.

She hadn’t started converting the second bedroom into a nursery yet. She didn’t want to alert the neighbors. But she knew exactly what it was going to look like—bright yellow, the flowers-with-faces theme she’d seen at the department store.

Elmo made the dash to the hedge once again, yanking her out of baby daydreams. She tried to grab the end of the trailing leash, but weasel boy was gone before she could reach it. Then she heard a soft oof from the other side, and then, “You again, huh?”

He probably thought the same thing whenever he saw her. With resignation, she walked around the hedge to the backyard where Barrett sat at the table with all his notes, charts and his laptop computer…and Elmo sitting on his lap, his insanely long tongue flicking toward Barrett’s chin. Barrett was shrunk back as far as the chair would allow.

“I’m officially renaming him Weasel Boy,” she said. “He does look a bit like a weasel, doesn’t he? You know, I haven’t seen that dog take to anyone in the whole time he’s been at the Humane Society.”

Weasel Boy gave up on the licking and curled up on Barrett’s lap, an enviable position to say the least. She only let herself dwell on that particular fantasy for a moment before she realized he’d said something. “What?”

“How long has he been at the shelter?”

“Five months. The problem is, when people come in looking for a dog, they want pretty or cute. Weasel Boy is the cute kind of ugly that baby birds are. And snails. He won’t come to anyone, hardly eats, whines all the time, looks lost…” She tilted her head. “Well, until now.”

Barrett studied the dog. “Why is he in there?”

“God supposedly told his owner to join the Peace Corps. Weasel Boy had been with him since he was a puppy. He took it hard, naturally. Dogs bond with their pack leader, their owner. He does seem to adore you for some odd reason. Not that you’re unadorable, because you’re not. Are. Not that I think you’re adorable. Or that you’re not.” If only she had some mashed potatoes she could stuff into her mouth. “Anyway, that dog obviously adores you.”

After trying to make sense of her senseless barrage of words, Barrett tilted his head at Weasel Boy. “I’ve never been adored before.” He picked him up and handed him to her. “Nevertheless, I must relinquish him to your custody.”

“You’ve never been adored?” she asked.

“Well, in third grade there was a girl who called me adorable all the time. Then again, I was a couple years younger, the smallest kid in class. She stopped adoring me when I got an A and she got a C, so I don’t think that counts.”

She took Weasel Boy from him. He’d never been adored, not really. How sad, how…wait a minute. She’d never been adored, either. Better not to dwell on how sad and pitiful it was.

“So what other kinds of things do you research? All kinds of critters?”

“I’ve only been studying—” he smiled “—critters since I got my PhD in biology a couple of years ago. My father is professor and chairperson of the department of biology at the University of Miami. I thought that field might be interesting.”

“So you went and got a PhD in it, just for something to do?”

He missed the sarcastic tilt to her voice. “Right.”

“What about before that?”

Too bad he wasn’t geeky-looking. A man that smart shouldn’t be gorgeous, shouldn’t look so good in blue jeans and a wrinkled blue cotton shirt that set off his eyes. A man who looked like that should be dumber than a box of hair. It just wasn’t right.

“I got a BS in mathematics and studied time.”

“Time? How does one study time, exactly?”

“I worked with a team on leading-edge research on an optical time standard that relies on laser light and a single atom of ytterbium.” He was really getting into it, using his hands and everything. “We needed to find something with a regular motion, like the pendulum on a clock. What we used was the movement of the laser’s light wave. The trick was, of course, to make sure the light was oscillating at a precise frequency. Enter the ytterbium atom, which worked wonders by absorbing the light of a defined frequency. Now that was magic. Once we…” He took in her expression. “I’m boring you again, aren’t I?”

“Sorry. You’re talking to three-point-oh grade average, no college here. You lost me after the first ytterbium.”

Barrett leaned forward, and she caught a scent of woodsy aftershave. “Don’t apologize.”

“So you studied time for…a time, and then what?”

“Then I got bored with physics and got a degree in botany.”

She would have disliked him on principle except there wasn’t a trace of pretentiousness in his voice. As though that’s what everyone did.

“So, botany’s your thing.”

“I lost interest in that and switched to biology.”

“Ah…I see.” Not. “So biology is your chosen field then. Tree snails for now.”

“I work on various short-term projects. Keeps things interesting.”

“Sounds like you get bored easily.”

“I just haven’t found what I’m looking for yet.”

“I used to feel that way, too.”

He looked genuinely interested. “What did you do to remedy it?”

She almost wanted to tell him about her plans, but with his baby fears, he wouldn’t understand. “I changed what I wanted.” Or at least she thought she had, but looking into those eyes of his, she realized she hadn’t convinced all of herself that she didn’t want a man in her life. She pushed herself to her feet. “Come on, Weasel Boy, let’s leave the scientist dude to his work. See you.”

He smiled. “I see you, too.”

She smiled back and started to carry Weasel Boy around the hedge to her yard.

“Howdy, Stacy.” Jack Nelson walked around the side of the house. “No wonder no one was answering the door. Just wanted to introduce myself to our temporary resident.”

He aimed his perfect white smile at Barrett. “I’m Jack Nelson, king of Sunset City.”

Barrett dutifully walked from the table and accepted Jack’s outstretched hand. “King?”

“No need for formalities. I stopped requiring people to curtsy years ago. Hear you’re a frog doctor. Pretty interesting. I used to wrassle alligators myself.”

Between being a fighter pilot and a professional surfer, Stacy thought, but held the words. Let him indulge in his harmless fantasies. At least his were more harmless than hers.

“Tree snails,” Barrett said.

“Mighty fine eating, them. Well, gotta go. Duty calls, as you’d imagine it does with someone in my position. Stacy, remember, taxes are due beginning of the month.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Sorry you didn’t get that job. Seems like you got enough going on here to keep you busy, though. Heck, don’t know what we’d do without you. Well, I’ve gotta go have a talking with Nita. Seems she’s been playing her bunny music too loud again.”

“Bunny music?” Barrett asked.

“Hip-hop,” Stacy clarified.

Jack nodded to Barrett. “Glad you got to meet me.” And then he was off, humming a jaunty tune as he walked away.

“He said you didn’t get the job.”

Word traveled fast, as always. She waved that away, as though it didn’t matter. “That job I applied for at the dog grooming salon…”

“You’re not disappointed then?”

“No…well, a little. Mostly in that it’s the fifteenth job I’ve applied for over the last year, and not one of them has panned out. But, like Jack said, I’ve got a lot here to keep me busy.”

“Jack, the king of Sunset City who collects taxes.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s his little fantasy. We indulge him. He only collects a quarter a month. In January he throws a big Christmas party with the money.”

“January?”

“All the Christmas stuff is on sale then.”

Barrett seemed to contemplate all this. “Are the people here considered…normal?”

“Define normal.”

“Conforming to the standard type. Usual. Not abnormal—”

“I didn’t mean for you to actually define…oh, never mind. Normal is relative. If I were hanging around with your supersmart scientific friends, I’d probably consider them abnormal. See what I mean?”

He was considering her in that speculative way. “I understand. Interesting, this relativity. My only real gauge as to what people are like outside my own circle is my sister. She’s a housewife with four children. The things she’s concerned with are beyond my level of understanding. Entering sweepstakes with insurmountable odds of winning. Spending hours clipping coupons and consulting sale fliers to spend the saved money on gas driving all over town. Do you know, she’ll spend an hour on her hair to make it look like it did when she woke up?”

Stacy laughed, even though she’d done all of that. “Is your sister normal? I mean, not supersmart like you?”

“She’s of average intelligence, like my mother.”

“So, you get along with your sister then?” Watch it, Stacy. You’re getting your hopes up.

“Get along…I suppose we do. We don’t have much to talk about, though. I bore her with my latest research, and she bores me with talk of every detail about her offspring. It’s amazing what amazes her. Every tooth lost, every word spoken. The first time they use the pottie is a big celebration. That is, after all, the normal progression of a human being.”

Oh, boy. Well, it wasn’t like she cared, right? “You’ve obviously never had to change a diaper.” His horrified look gave her her answer. “Where’s your mother?”

“She’s doing a stint on a cruise ship as a blackjack dealer. We get a postcard from her every week.”

Postcards reminded her of Florida tourists, which reminded her of pink flamingos, which reminded her of something else. She glanced at her watch. “Oh, shoot! I didn’t realize how late it is. I’ve got a workout class to teach in ten minutes.” She looked at the dog. “Which means I don’t have time to take you back. Guess you’re staying the night.” She caught herself mid-sigh. “Well, guess I’ll see you around.” Better not to see him at all. He didn’t get why a mother would celebrate every achievement her child made, something Stacy hoped to be doing on a regular basis soon.

Barrett asked, “Would you like to come over for dinner? I’ve got plenty of food.”

Say no, you’re busy, you’re not hungry, you gave up food! “Sure.” Maybe he just wanted to ditch some of that awful food. “Why not?”

Why not, indeed. She could think of a few reasons offhand. Let’s see, gorgeous guy who was out of her league brainwise. Didn’t have a clue about committing to a direction in life. Afraid—no, uncomfortable around dogs and babies. Got bored easily, and when he did, he just went right out and got himself another degree.

She trudged through the too-high grass and knew she was a bigger dummy than she’d ever suspected because she still couldn’t wait to see him again.

4

“HE’S A HOT MAMA,” Nita said as the class did a second set of bicep curls.

“A man can’t be a hot mama,” Frieda said. “It’s against the laws of nature.”

Nita chuckled. “I’m against the laws of nature. And I’ll be personally checking that man out tonight.” The petite woman looked at odds with herself, a lascivious grin coupled with her graceful movements.

Ernie, the only male in class, grinned. “I won’t even have to use my sonic ear to hear what’ll be going on.”

Nita rolled her eyes. “You’re such a dirty old man.”