Robert Drake III managed to ditch his senior partners, Smith and Gillespie, by telling them he had a meeting in town with an old college buddy. The college buddy was conveniently going to pick him up right here on Main Street.
It was an outright lie, but he had no intention of riding back to Connecticut with them in the firm’s black Lincoln Continental. Smith and Gillespie gave him the hives. In his nightmares, he looked into a mirror and found himself wearing plaid boxer shorts, one of Smith’s club ties, and Gillespie’s mallard cuff links.
Bobby stopped going by Robert because that name stood for several million dollars, which embarrassed him. His surname, Drake, he pretty much had to live with, but he shunned the “III” because he felt that those three numerals stood for pomposity, not simple birth order.
Bobby just wanted to be a regular guy, which was hard when your family owned a third of the state. He’d really rather have been born a member of Aerosmith than a member of the Blue Book, and it seriously got in his way when it came to women.
Bobby had been chased by herds of coltish debutantes all his life, and found this frustrating in the extreme, since they usually had all the sex appeal of a hitching post. He was completely unembarrassed to admit that he was a big fan of the Sleazy Nasty Babe. But your average Sleazy Nasty Babe took one look at his Gucci loafers and careful side part and laughed her ass off before running in the opposite direction.
It wasn’t Bobby’s fault that he hadn’t owned a pair of blue jeans until he was a sophomore in college. Like most guys, he just wore what he found in his closet, and he’d never found such an item there.
Like most guys, he stripped in front of the shower and threw his clothes on the floor. He had no concept of what happened to them next—they just disappeared into that mysteriously ether populated by the laundry fairies, who returned the clothes to his closet once they were clean.
It wasn’t Bobby’s fault that he’d only just learned to fill his own car with gas. The tank just always got magically topped off, so there had been no need for him to learn.
Bobby was a regular guy who just happened to have grown up in irregular circumstances, but nobody else would acknowledge that. He hated being called ‘sir’ by men twice his age. It made him feel like a phony. He hated being fawned over because of his surname. Most of all, he hated working for his father’s law firm, but it was a family responsibility, and Drake’s didn’t shirk those.
Since Bobby had worked thirty-six hours on Saturday and Sunday, he decided that he was taking the rest of this sunny Monday off. He wanted to enjoy the scenery of beautiful downtown. He’d just amble down Main Street and sniff around the flora, since the foxy fauna in Joe to Go had already caught his eye.
The foxy fauna had a belly ring that triggered the most feverish and unholy thoughts in him. It had glinted behind the Danishes, winking and teasing, beckoning to him across the cinnamon swirl coffee cake. Above the belly ring was a tiny cotton T-shirt, black as sin, and that holstered two magnificent mouthfuls of lovin’.
Below the belly ring was a delicious expanse of creamy skin snugged into low-riding boot-cut jeans. And when he’d found an excuse to go to the trash can on the far wall, he saw those chunky dominatrix-heeled boots. Those had him throwing away his sugar packets and dumping only the torn top edges into his coffee. He’d had to fish them out, and during the process had burned his finger while staring at her mouth.
Those red, plump lips were curved into a mocking grin, and it took him a moment more of finger-sucking to realize that she was laughing at him.
This was bad. This indicated that his chances of a date with her were about as likely as the survival of an ice sculpture at Satan’s wedding.
He kept on looking at her anyway, during the process of getting replacement packets of sugar and putting them into his coffee.
She had huge dark eyes that turned up slightly at the outside corners, and a perfectly sculpted nose. Tanned skin and sexy, wispy chin-length hair proved a further study in contrasts.
“Did you want anything else?” Shed asked the question with no inflection.
Bobby blinked. Why, yes. You, bent over the Danish case. “Um…no, thank you.” He’d taken the tray of six Styrofoam cups out to the car, and they’d gone to Miss Amelia’s meeting. But he thought about her the whole way, while Smith and Gillespie were chastising him for not making the chauffeur go in for the coffee.
Now he walked down Main Street, hands in his pockets, and thought about how to get his chosen Sleazy Nasty Babe to talk to him. God, was she hot!
He wanted more than ever to be just a regular guy, and wished he had a fairy godmother to give him a pair of glass loafers for the ball. Truth be told, they sounded damned uncomfortable, not to mention dangerous, but if they ‘d get him a date, he’d risk ‘em.
Since he’d scoped out the fauna already, he turned into The Rose, Main Street’s florist shop. There he took his time hand-selecting a dozen different exotic flowers and having them arranged in a crystal vase.
When it came time to fill out the delivery information, he asked for help.
“I don’t know her name,” he said to the plump man with glasses behind the counter “But she works across the street, in---“
“Joe to Go,” the guy finished for him.
Bobby stared at him. “How did you know?”
“Buddy, you ain’t the first to fall for Jubilee, and you won’t be the last. We get at least a couple of poor slobs in here every week with the same idea.”
Bobby didn’t know whether he was more irritated at being called a ‘poor slob’, or at not being original. “I see,” he said. He supposed it was too late to cancel his order, since it was staring him in the face, tied with a huge red bow. He’d signed the card simply, “An Admirer.”
If Jubilee—he brightened, since he now knew her name—got flowers at least twice a week, he wondered what she did with them. He decided to hang out and watch.
“Would you mind delivering them for me now?” he asked politely.
“Sure. And I bet you wanna stay right here in the shop so you can see her inhale the scent of them and clasp them to her chest, then read your romantic card and dance around her shop. Ain’t gonna happen, I’m tellin’ you. But okay. I’ll go schlep them to her now.”
“Thank you.” Bobby watched as the man crossed the street with his offering and pulled open the door to the coffee shop.
He went up to the counter, exchanged a few words with Jubilee, and handed her the flowers.
The first thing she did was untie the bow and give it back to him. Interesting. Then she yelled something into the back of the shop, and whipped the whole bouquet out of the vase. She laid it on the counter, poured the water out of the crystal, and gave it back to the florist as well.
They chatted for a few moments while she dismantled the arrangement, pulling the flowers apart and putting each into separate glass bud vases an employee brought her.
Jubilee placed one of these on top of each of her twelve café tables, tossed the greenery, and that was that.
The florist waved good-bye and walked back across the street with the vase and the bow. “She always gives me back the vases and the bows for reuse,” he said cheerfully, as he came back into his store. “A real sweetheart.”
“Yeah,” said Bobby. A real sweetheart. “Well, I appreciate it.”
“No problem. See ya.”
Bobby thought about demanding the vase, since he’d just paid 120 dollars to decorate Jubilee’s tabletops, but what would he do with it anyway?
Disconsolate, he left the shop. He’d have to come up with an entirely different plan. Where the hell was your fairy godmother when you needed one?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marie burst through the door of Joe to Go, her hair flying wildly behind her in her rush.
“Hoo boy,” Jubes said. “What’s the matter?”
Marie’s hands shook as she put them on the counter. “I need protein to stave off an attack of hypoglycemia, and then anything decaffeinated with lots of chocolate in it. I’ve had a really bad day.”
“I’m sorry. Sit down and tell me all about it.” Jubilee put a ham-and-cheese croissant on a plate for her and passed it over. Then she pumped chocolate syrup into a tall cup, started the espresso machine, and got some crushed ice ready in another tall cup.
“I’m going to be stuck with the Mountain Jerk in my class! I got steamrolled this morning by one old lady, three lawyers, and Lehnsherr. Miss Amelia drew up a diabolical proposal…”
“Lawyers,” muttered Jubilee. “That’s where the suit with the hangdog eyes came from.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I had another psycho guy send me flowers from The Rose today.”
Marie sighed. “You know, if I didn’t adore you, I’d have to detest you. At least you don’t walk around with a fake Swedish accent, saying ‘Don’t hate me because I’m bee-yu-ti-ful.”
Jubilee made a face at her. “I’m not going to dress in a potato sack and wear a bag over my head because of wacko men.”
“Of course not. And hey, look on the bright side: Your tables have never been lovelier. Is that a bird of paradise?” Marie gasped. “And look at those orchids. This guy spent a fortune.”
“Yep, and it gave me the creeps immediately. They all do—that’s why I dismember the arrangements. Sending flowers to someone you don’t know is just weird.”
“Some women would describe it as charming, Jubes.”
“Nope. It’s an entirely unoriginal way of saying, ‘Hey, baby, I wanna get in your pants.’”
Marie blew out her breath. “You personify the word cynical.”
“Come on! What else could it mean?”
“Maybe that the guy would like to get to know you better.”
“Yeah. Meaning take me to dinner, liquor me up, and then get into my pants. My pants are size four for a reason: I don’t want anyone in them but me.”
“Jubes, there’s a seven-letter word missing from your vocabulary, and I think you should look it up in the dictionary. It’s r-o-m-a-n-c-e.”
“Haven’t you heard? Romance was invented to fool women into a lifetime of slavery.”
Marie stared at her. “Whoever got to you sure did a job of messing you up.”
Jubilee finished blending the iced mocha she’d created for her friend, poured it into a plastic cup, and snapped a lid on it. She pushed it across the counter. “I am not,” she said, “messed up. I’m practical, and I call it like I see it. That’s all. So tell me why you’re stuck with the jerk in your class.”
Marie pushed a straw through the lid of the cup and took a long, grateful swallow of mocha. She slid her left hand across the surface of the table and with her right, she smoothed back her hair. Then she explained just how neatly Amelia Xavier had boxed them in.
“Ha!” said Jubilee. “So she’s having a great time pulling all your strings. She’s a helluva puppeteer.”
“I can’t teach with that louse in my classroom,” Marie wailed.
“Sure you can. All you need is a few tips from me. Cruelty to Men 101—it’s my specialty.” Jubes wiped down the counter for the fiftieth time that day. “Where’d this ‘louse’ word come from? My great-aunt doesn’t even say that.”
Marie grimaced. “Louse,” she repeated. “You know, like cad, or heel, or scoundrel—but worse, because it’s a pestilent insect.”
Affectionate laughter bubbled up in Jubilee’s throat. “You’re something else. Like you’re stuck in an eighteenth-century novel. Repeat after me: jerk, dickhead, asshole, or bastard.
Her friend made a face at her. “Louse,” she said again. “What’s so outdated about that? They still exist.”
“I know. My brother caught ‘em at school. But nobody uses that as an insult these days. Trust me. I’m up on the hip insults. So repeat after me: dickhead. Come one, you can do it.”
Marie shuddered. “Now there’s an image. I’m not saying that! Jerk or bastard I can handle, but that’s it.”
Jubilee nodded. “It’s a start.”
“Are you done improving me for the day? Is it my turn? I’ll bet anything that velvet Elvis is still on your wall.”
“Hey! That’s a classic.”
“And the seventies platform waterbed? Is that a classic, too?”
“It’s comfortable. I like sloshing to sleep every night.”
“Enough said. I’ll update my speech patterns when you update your tacky décor.”
Jubilee laughed “Deal.”
Marie fell silent while she sucked down the confection of caffeine, sugar, and fat. Jubilee frowned at each of the exotic blooms on her café tables. Every single flower was different, and had been carefully chosen. Their fragrance had melded with the overriding aromas of freshly grown coffee beans, steamed milk, and the dizzying array of baked goods.
She stared, bellicose, at a lovely hibiscus the shade of new love, tinged with joyous yellow. The petals were generous, open and vulnerable, glowing in the afternoon sunlight. The golden-tipped stamens extended foolishly, tiny hopeful male stalks for which Jubilee had little patience. Yet the sheer beauty of these particular flowers seemed to get to her.
Marie suppressed a smile. “What planet are you on?” She asked.
“Huh?” Jubes blinked. “Oh—just spacing out. Long day.”
“Hmm. Well, I think you should give the Flower Man a chance.”
Jubilee rolled her eyes. “I don’t go out with men who wear suits. Or fancy loafers with miniature horses’ bits attached to them. Where would you even go with a person like that? The opera? I’m not about to listen to some cat-strangling diva vibrate my belly ring right out of its hole.”
Marie had to laugh, but she eyed Jubes with concern. She hadn’t dated anyone since she’d met her. Why not? Marie sensed a well of pain behind Jubilee’s blasé attitude, but her friend had never confided in her.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
another chapter, as promised. I wanted to give some reading time to the supporting cast as well. :)
Chapter End Notes:
a couple of weeks ago i was watching an episode on tv of the x-men cartoon from the nineties. it involved jubes meeting bobby for the first time. So their relationship in this fic is spun from my concept of them in that ep. I can see it working. It's different from the norm, but it works (for me).