The Cinderella Deal - Jennifer Crusie [4]
Little Orphan Annie struggled farther out of the towel and began to eat, slowly at first and then ravenously. Daisy pushed the unruly fuzz of her hair back behind her ears as she watched the kitten, and then she began to eat her pita.
“You’re going to have to lie low,” she told the kitten. “I’m not allowed to have pets, so we’ll have to hide you from the landlord. And from the guy upstairs too. Big dark-haired guy in a suit. No sense of humor. Flares his nostrils a lot. You can’t miss him. He kicked Liz once. He looks like he has cats like you for breakfast.”
The kitten finished the tuna and licked its chops, its orange and brown fur finally a little drier but still spiky.
“Maybe you’re an omen.” Daisy stroked her fingers lightly down the kitten’s back while it moved on to cleaning the plate. “Maybe this means things will be better. Maybe …”
She began to tell herself the story again, the story of her new life, the one she’d been building for the past four years. She’d given up security to follow her dream, so of course she had to face years of adversity first—four was about right—because without adversity and struggle no story was really a story. Now the next chapter would be her paintings finally selling, and maybe her storytelling career suddenly taking off too. And a prince would be good. Somebody big and warm to keep her company. It had been seven months since Derek had moved out—taking her stereo, the creep—and she was about ready to trust somebody with a Y chromosome again. Not marry anyone, certainly; she’d already seen what that part of the fairy tale could do to women. Look at her mother. The thought of her mother depressed her, but Annie abandoned the empty plate and began to lick the dampness from her fur, and the scratchy sound brought Daisy back to earth.
Forget the prince. Stories were all well and good, but princes weren’t stories, they were impossible. Daisy had known that from the time she’d realized that her mother’s promises that her father would be back were a bigger fairy tale than anything the Brothers Grimm had ever spun out. Nobody was ever there when you needed someone. You’re born alone and you die alone, Daisy told herself. Remember that. Now think of something to get yourself out of this.
Annie curled up and went to sleep. Liz licked up the last of the tuna and fell unconscious with pleasure. Daisy sat silently for a long time, staring at the patterns in her stained glass lamp.
Upstairs, Linc stretched out on his chrome and black leather couch, bathed in the cool light from his white enameled track lighting, his headache receding but his troubles intact. It didn’t help that the mess he was in was his own fault.
He’d lied.
Linc winced. He wasn’t a liar; he couldn’t ever remember lying before. But he also couldn’t remember anything he’d ever wanted as much as he wanted to teach history at quiet, private Prescott College. And he hadn’t lied about anything important in his interview for the job: his credentials were all real and impressive, and his goals were honest and good.
Linc closed his eyes. Rationalization. None of that mattered. He’d lied. The memory of his interview came back in painful detail. Dr. Crawford, dean of humanities, and Dr. Booker, head of the history department, had interviewed him. Dr. Crawford looked like a retired southern cop: big, beery, genial, with an overall air of stupidity. He wore a bow tie in what Linc thought of as a feeble attempt at an academic look. Dr. Booker needed no such camouflage. He looked as if the moisture had slowly seeped out of him over the years, leaving only a dried-up little shell behind horn-rimmed glasses. Linc’s dreams of a department headship had begun when he saw that Booker was older than God.
And things had gone well at first. They’d been impressed with his credentials, impressed with his first book, published four years before, impressed with his demeanor, and just impressed with him in general. He knew he was good; he’d sacrificed for years to make sure that he was good, that he’d published in the right