Free The Proud and the Prejudiced by Colette L. Saucier Page A

and Jack didn’t figure
out she’d been eavesdropping.
    “Oh, yes, it’s ladies night,” Eileen sang out,
“and it’s eighties night. Yes, it’s eighties night, and the mood is right.” She
came up beside Alice, with arms raised and snapping in time to her improvised
song, and bumped her hip against Alice’s, and Alice had no choice but to bump
back.
    As Eileen continued to sing, melding her own
lyrics into a medley with “we need the bump – gotta have the bump,” Alice
laughed as they bent their knees and bumped harder until Peter’s door opened
wide, and he and Jack stepped out into the hall just in time to see the tail
end of their performance.
    “So I gather you’ll both be there tonight?” Jack
asked.
    “Wouldn’t miss it!” Alice’s words rolled out with
her laughter. “You coming, Jack?”
    “Yeah, Giselle invited me. Sounds like fun.”
    “So, Miss McGillicutty,” Peter said, amused
skepticism in his tone and flickering on the corners of his mouth, “you enjoy
this eighties music.”
    Alice flared her eyes at him in challenge. “Sure,
why not? Eighties music is awesome. I might even dress up like Madonna.”
    He tilted his head and arched his eyebrow. “With a
cone bra?”
    “No, that’s nineties Madonna. I’m talking about
eighties Madonna, with the lace gloves and rosaries.”
    “I think Madonna is in her eighties by
now.”
    “It’s just for fun. I guess you wouldn’t understand.”
    Jack glanced at his watch then tapped Peter on the
shoulder. “We need to go if we’re going to pick up Winnie.”
    “Yes,” Alice said. “You wouldn’t want to keep
Winnie waiting. I’ll see you tonight, Jack,” she called out over Peter’s
shoulder.
    “I’ll see you there as well,” Peter said before
turning to go, and a chill rushed over Alice. Then Peter looked back at Eileen.
“Oh, and, by the way, it’s ‘We Need the Funk’ – not bump – and it’s from the
seventies, not eighties.” Then he walked away, with Alice stunned, speechless,
and frozen in place.
    “C’mon, Alice,” Eileen said. “We need to go, too.”
    “Crap! Why the hell is he coming? I
specifically heard him tell Jack that he hated the eighties. He called it a
‘deplorable waste of an evening.’ I can’t believe he’d change his mind.”
    Eileen smiled at her friend with brows raised.
“Oh, can’t you, now?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Mmmhmm. Go ahead, play coy with me. He changed
his mind when he found out you were coming.”
    Alice rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. He
despises me for turning him into Sienna’s brother. The only time he even speaks
to me is to criticize. He has nothing but contempt for me and everything to do
with the show.”
    “If you say so,” Eileen said, her intonations like
notes on a xylophone.
    “For an actress, you don’t sound very convincing.”
     
    *****
     
    Duran Duran poured out from the glittering dance
floor as Eileen and Alice walked in to the nightclub, late as usual. Most of
the cast and a few members of the crew were already there and had claimed several
tables near a large circular booth. Where he sat. With her .
Winnie had her arms crossed and stared away from, well, everything, petulance
painted on her face as heavily as her make-up. The flashing lights danced on
the sweat beaded on Peter’s forehead, and his expression dripped with boredom
as he scanned the room. Then his gaze landed on Alice, and their eyes locked.
She hated her own circulatory system for rushing blood into her cheeks. Damnit,
does he have to look at me with those movie star eyes?
    Eileen freed her from his spell by seizing her
arm. “Alice,” she yelled over the music but directly into Alice’s ear, making
her cringe. “Let’s go get a drink.”
    “Yes!”
    Jack and Giselle were chatting together at the bar
when she and Eileen walked up, and they stood and hugged as if they hadn’t just
been together a few hours before.
    “How has the music been?”