Free Hysterical Blondeness by Suzanne Macpherson

shouldn’t have eaten and the way she’d wiped her eye after eating it that resulted in a streaming, watery downpour. Some smooth date she was.
    Except Brett didn’t really know this was a date,which came in handy when Lizbeth inquired about the purpose of their lunch.
    Brett seemed quite pleased with himself after that, and since she’d departed he’d paid special attention to Patricia the tearful yet bold.
    And Lizbeth seemed to believe the whole NFL tie promotion meeting b.s. But the truth was they hadn’t talked about the ties for most of lunch.
    What they’d talked about was Brett’s college days at Stanford, his privileged childhood, and apparently Brett’s favorite topic besides himself, Lizbeth.
    Lizbeth this, Lizbeth that, Lizbeth and I are seeing other people now. Somehow that didn’t quite ring true, what with her causing a minor scene in Via by stomping through the entire restaurant and burning eyeholes into Patricia’s head. Wow, if looks could kill, she’d be flat on her face in her Cobb salad.
    But, of course, Brett had lots to talk about regarding his own life, because it was so much more interesting than the rest of the little humdrum people around him. She could hardly blame him, and she egged him on to tell her more, more, and more. Knowledge was power when it came to man-woman relationships.
    For instance, now that she knew he’d gone to Paris last spring (with Lizbeth, of course) she could try out a few French phrases on him.
    But he didn’t remember much of his traveler’s French. Lizbeth had seen to the translating. She was better at it, apparently. Maybe when you wore the fancy French lingerie it just rubbed off on you, because she certainly couldn’t have studied it.
    Geez, here she was making blonde assumptions again. Just because Lizbeth was stunning and blonde didn’t mean she was dumb. And when Brett dumped her for good, she’d have no trouble at all finding a new boyfriend.
    Patricia smiled at Brett, who was still going on about something, and patted her eyes with her napkin again. If she took out the contacts, she’d be blind as a bat.
    “That’s so interesting, Mr. Nordquist,” she said.
    “Call me Brett. All my friends do. Patricia, right? Can I call you Patti?”
    Patricia had always abhorred that particular nickname but oddly felt it suited her new look. “Sure,” she said.
    “Are your eyes better?”
    “I’m all better now. I really must get back to work. If you want to get a tie flyer into the next billing cycle, I’ll need to get this up to advertising. So have you decided to go for it?” How brave and assertive she sounded. Like she cared about the ties at all. She only cared about the door those ties opened—to Brett.
    “Of course.”
    Patricia started for her purse, a little off-center from having a glass of wine for lunch. Good thing she was a public-transportation-to-work girl. She pulled out her debit card cleverly disguised as a credit card.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Paying for my lunch.”
    “And deprive me of a tax deduction? Please. We’ll just put this right on my expense account.”
    “Well, thank you very much.” Patricia smiled. Ah, the power of an expense account. Just think what being married to a department store mogul would be like. She faded into a shopping spree fantasy. Oh, clerk, please put that on Brett Nordquist’s expense account, and order me six more place settings. It was better than dessert, which she had wisely declined.
    Brett signed the bill the waitress brought over and rose to leave. “Shall we?”
    Just that easy. Sign and leave. Patricia slid from behind the table, gathering her skirt edge as it rose up her thighs. She looked up to see Brett getting an eyeful. There was quite a bit of thigh there to fill his eye. That part hadn’t exactly melted away.
    But Brett didn’t seem to mind. She smoothed herself as she rose.
    “Thank you for lunch, Mr. Nordquist.”
    “Brett, remember?” He held out his