07 Uncorked - Chrissy McMullen Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

gasping pleasure.”
    “Just a minute,” she said, then spoke to her husband, who was, apparently, in her vicinity. “J.D., honey, send some burly guard to Mac’s house will you? I think there’s someone there impersonating her.”
    I tucked my bare feet up under my bottom against the hard wood of the chair.
    “You’re hilarious, Laney,” I said.
    “Yeah. When I’m finished with this film, I’m thinking of doing a stand-up routine in Vegas.”
    “Really?”
    “No. Mac, listen, are you all right?”
    “Of course I’m all right.” I imbued my tone with a marvelous blend of surprise and hauteur. “It’s not as if I’m languishing here alone without Rivera around to harass me.”
    “I know.”
    “I mean, he was always so high-maintenance anyway.”
    “He did bring a certain level of excitement to the picture.”
    “And now I have…” I paused. My mind had suddenly gone blank.
    “Marc,” she said.
    “Yes! Marc. He’s terrific.”
    “Isn’t he just?”
    “And brilliant.”
    “I know.”
    “And attractive.”
    “He is.”
    “And he’s sensitive.”
    She sighed. “And there lies the problem.”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I tried to sound offended, but mostly I really didn’t want to know what she was talking about.
    “I love you, Mac, but you don’t do sensitive.”
    “What? Sensitively lies at the very core of what I do. Who I am. I adore sensitive.”
    “Mac, honey, think about it. You were raised with a family whose main form of entertainment involved noisy bodily functions.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Peter,” she said. “Could he or could he not sing the national anthem with body parts other than his lips?”
    I gritted my teeth into a smile. “Well, I like to think Pete is not indicative of my family’s—”
    “And didn’t Michael have some special skill he liked to—”
    “I don’t see what that has to do with—”
    “Belching!” she said. “He could project belch. Make it seem like someone else was doing it. Usually the shy little girl that sat next to him in English, or the teacher who had just finished lunch. But I think James was the real champion in this little contest. What was his talent? I can’t quite seem to—”
    “Listen, Laney!” I snapped, then calmed my voice and drew a cleansing breath. “The McMullens may not be Illinois’s founding family, but it’s not as if we’re knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.” I thought about that for a moment, remembered my brothers cackling gleefully as they planned yet another hilarious prank, and moved on. “And even if we are, that by no means precludes me from being able to become close to someone who is articulate yet—”
    “Shadow puppets!”
    Shit!
    “He could make shadows with his hands that looked like copulating—”
    “So what!” I may have shouted the words. Fucking barbarian brothers. I hated them all. “Maybe that’s why I appreciate sensitivity so much. Maybe that’s why it touches my soul like nothing else.”
    “Touches your soul?” Her tone was Sahara dry.
    I squeezed my eyes shut. “Did I tell you Marc wrote me a poem?”
    “A poem?” She sounded increasingly dubious, bordering on disbelief.
    “Yes. It was wonderful. Soulful and eloquent and endlessly…creative.” I could almost hear the wince in her voice. “You didn’t laugh at him, did you?”
    “Of course I didn’t laugh at him.”
    “Not even a little?”
    “No!”
    “No snorting or eye rolling?”
    “Laney!”
    “What? You hate poetry.”
    “I do not hate poetry.”
    “You told me you hated poetry.”
    “I said I didn’t understand poetry.”
    “You slept through the entire free verse class in middle school lit.” See, there’s the problem with having lifelong friends. They have memories like pachyderms. “Well, those were boring.”
    “And Marc’s wasn’t?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “What was it about?”
    Oh hell! I had no idea what it had been about. It had been thirty-seven