Read Online Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie - Free Book Online Page B

find the ladies’ room to freshen our lipstick.”
    All three of them looked at her with varying degrees of surprise.
    “All right,” Tess said. “Gina will freshen hers, and I’ll put some on.”
    “Right,” Gina said, gamely picking up her cue. “That would be good.”
    Tess pulled Gina up the stairs to the master bathroom in search of privacy. When the door was shut behind them, she turned to Gina. “I’m worried about you. It would be a bad idea to get hung up on Park.”
    “Look at this bathroom.” Gina drifted past the walls covered in mint green hand-painted tiles to stroke the porcelain of the huge pale green tub. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen tile without mildew before. This is so beautiful.”
    Tess ducked under one of the dozen ferns that was suspended from the ceiling and looked around, annoyed. “If this is what the rain forest looks like, I’m going to stop trying to save it.”
    “Oh, Tess.” Gina sank into the rattan chair beside the tub. “Admit it. This is paradise.”
    “No, it isn’t. You’re just confused because of the vegetation. This is merely an extremely pretentious bathroom. I bet Norbert Welch wears a sarong when he’s in here. No, that’s not right. Guys don’t wear sarongs. A loincloth.” She thought about Welch as she’d seen him pictured on the back of his last book, short, hefty and sullen, only this time in a loincloth. “Maybe not.”
    “I don’t mean just the bathtub,” Gina said. “I mean everything. Everything about the way these people live. Park took me out for a drink before we left. At The Levee.” Her voice fell, hushed, on the last word.
    “I’ve been,” Tess said, nodding. “Nick took me once. Overpriced food, obsequious waiters and really good wine. If they’d put in a drive-through, I’d consider going back for the wine.”
    “It was so beautiful,” Gina went on, not hearing her. “And everybody was so nice and there weren’t any prices on the menu.”
    “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it,” Tess said. “And they weren’t nice. They were sucking up. If you were a nobody, they’d have spat on you.”
    “Well, that’s the point,” Gina said. “I am a nobody. But when I’m with Park, I’m somebody.”
    “This conversation is taking an ugly turn,” Tess said sternly. “You are not a nobody.”
    Gina sank back slowly in the chair, drawing her fingers back and forth across the flawless porcelain of the tub next to her as she spoke. “Ever since Park picked me up, I haven’t worried about anything. I know the car’s not gonna break down, that there’s gonna be enough money to pay for the drinks, that Park’s not gonna wrestle me down on the car seat, and that it doesn’t matter that my step-ball-change is not as good as it used to be.”
    “Don’t bet on the Park-and-the-car-seat part,” Tess said, but she sounded distracted. She slid her spine down the bathroom door and sat up on the floor, trying not to tear the seams out of her crepe dress. “Are you still serious about giving up your dancing?”
    “Yes.” Gina met Tess’s eyes. “I’m done. I’m tired and I hurt. I’ve always hurt, every dancer hurts, but somehow it hurts more now. I want to settle down and find a nice job in the theater selling tickets or something, and then find a nice man and have some kids and a real life.”
    Tess leaned her head back against the door and closed her eyes. “Tell me you’re not thinking of Park as a nice man.”
    “Listen.” Gina leaned forward. “I know that marrying Park is not for me. But he is a nice man. And he’s treated me like a queen all night. I’ve never been out with anybody like him.”
    “I can believe that,” Tess said. “There is nobody like him. He’s Andrew Dice Clay with breeding.”
    “No, he’s not,” Gina insisted. “He’s nice. He’s a good person. I like him.”
    “Fine.” Tess held up her hands in alarm. “Fine. Just don’t get serious about him. Don’t count on