I'll Say Anything Read online

  “Oh, I'll be there, but I'll remember. See you.” The rest of the group got a quick smile from me, I got smiles and waves in return. They weren't so bad after all. Tapping the envelope on my thigh, I exited the cooler interior of the restaurant for the arid afternoon day.

  I was now three hundred—four hundred, if Jasper drove me to the event—closer to owning my own business.

  Next stop, the dress shop.

  *

  “The Pink Frog.” I read the name again, this time in silence. Standing outside the dress shop, I stared at the large pink frog positioned over the doorway and tried to decide whether or not the tongue might lash out the second I got within range. A long, humiliating strike that might make me do something horrible, like scream. One bulging eye seemed to stare down at me, laughing at me, daring me to try it. Go ahead, I imagined the frog thinking, just take one step closer.

  A zebra striped collar encircled the beast's throat, though what that had to do with anything, I couldn't tell.

  Along the eaves of the pale building, a harlequin pattern of black and white tiles added flair, but didn't detract from the front-and-center amphibian. He faced outward, the frog did, head on to greet any shoppers. Two girls, giggling and jostling bright pink bags with zebra striped handles, hustled out the doors. They passed under the frog and the frog did not retaliate with his tongue. If it didn't get them going, then surely it wouldn't get me coming.

  Striding forward, edging as far to the side as I could, I slipped under the frog and went inside a little faster than I meant to. A sound effect greeted me to the ultra eclectic store.

  “Riiibbet.”

  Snorting a laugh, glad to have been spared an embarrassing tongue episode, and somewhat disgusted at being forced to enter such a girly domain, I paused a few feet inside to take stock. More black and white harlequin tiles decorated the tops of the walls, with bright pink accents lining tables, racks and shelves. Pink frogs sat...well. Everywhere. Some were stuffed, some ceramic, others cardboard cutouts. There were zebra purses with pink frogs on the front, mugs, t-shirts and other clothing paraphernalia related to the shop theme for sale.

  I wanted to run. Run far, run fast. Make a clean get-away. It was like one of those fever dreams, where you struggled to get as far away from the danger as you could, but your feet carried you forward, into the fray.

  Bracing myself, hoping there was a 'mature' section hidden somewhere in the back, I threaded through racks of dresses so torrid that I wanted to puke. Arriving at the counter, I waited for an employee who hurried over from stocking shelves.

  “Welcome to The Pink Frog!” she said in a cheery voice.

  I wasn't all that surprised to see zebra leggings and a big pink shirt on the pixie haired girl.

  God help me.

  “Yeah, I'm supposed to pick up a dress that Tyler ordered.”

  “Oh! Yes, so that's you.” The girl, whose name tag read Torrie, leaned over the counter and eyed me up and down. She hummed, then held up a 'be right back' finger and disappeared through a swinging door behind the counter.

  I was starting to seriously doubt my ability to follow through with the job. I couldn't even bring myself to take a close look at the selection of clothes, because I was too afraid of what I'd see. All I knew was that there was a lot of pink. Everywhere. Pink wouldn't scald my skin, and I could tolerate it for a few hours, but not if it was cut mere inches from my crotch or sported a big frog on the front.

  No way would Tyler and crew allow me to show up dressed in anything less than pure elegance, I was sure of it.

  Torrie reappeared several minutes later, a plain black garment bag in hand. She handed it across the counter by a hanger and passed across a shoe box next.

  “Thanks. Is there anything else?” I asked, encouraged by the plain bag and box. Maybe this was a friend of Tyler's—maybe even his sister—and the guys had used her access to catalogs of really nice gowns to get the exact dress they needed.

  Made sense. Made a lot more sense than anything else I could think of.

  “Nope! You're all set. Enjoy!” Torrie said with a wide grin.

  I gave Torrie a quick, half-hearted smile and toted my new belongings out the door, taking care to steer as far from the frog as I could. On the sidewalk, I dug my cell phone out of my pocket and snapped a shot of the big pink frog. I sent it to Jasper's phone with a message.

  I'm in hell. Save me.

  He wouldn't believe the place existed unless I had proof. Grinning, I tucked the phone away and headed for home.

  Things were turning out okay after all.

  Chapter Two

  “Are they out of their ever loving minds? I'm not wearing this!” I shrieked. I never shriek. I'm the girl who makes fun of other girls who shriek.

  Stepping out of the tiny bathroom, I marched the few feet it took to reach our retro kitchen, hands out to my sides in exasperation, waiting for Jasper to notice me.

  Head tipped back, he pulled a long drink of water from a chilled bottle and glanced over. Frowning, no doubt, at my shrieking.

  Then he spewed water across the floor. Laughing his ass off. Bending in half, he guffawed so hard a vein stood out in his forehead.

  When he set the bottle down and scrambled for his cell phone, I made a hasty retreat to the bathroom and slammed the door. “Jassss-paarr!” I warned. If he took a picture, I just might kill him.

  The grungy mirror over the old sink only told half the story. I stared at the white corset style top punctuated with red ribbon along the edge and down the stays. What the mirror didn't show was the tutu type skirt, with an overlay of white satin and layers of netting beneath. Small red polka dots decorated the satin, ending in red piping along the skirt's edge. It hit mid-thigh, but that wasn't the worst offense. That honor went to the fold-over ankle socks in red and the white heels I was supposed to wear with them.

  Seriously? Obviously, this was a joke. But on who?

  Suddenly, I knew.

  Flinging the door open to the chorus of Jasper still laughing uncontrollably, I picked up a small pillow from one of our two love seats (the living room was too small for full size sofas), and hurled it across the room. Jasper was the culprit of all this. He'd found the flyer and talked me into going.

  The pillow bounced harmlessly off his shoulder.

  Click.

  “Don't take pictures of me!” I demanded.

  Click, click, click. He laughed and laughed and laughed.

  “I can't believe you set me up.” I really couldn't. Well, I could. Our friendship revolved around jokes and teasing.

  Click.

  “Go ahead. Take one more picture and see what happens.”

  He held up his hands, finally catching his breath. Tucking the phone away, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, he chuffed more amusement and said, “That's the funniest damn thing I've ever seen. Whoo! Well worth it. But I gotta tell you, Fin. I didn't set you up.”

  “Yes you did.”

  “No, really. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “There is no way those guys expect me to wear this to a charity event.” Did they all think I was born this morning?

  Slouching down into a chair at the cherry red table, Jasper stretched his legs out, crossed his ankles and gloated while he stared at me.

  He said, “I promise I didn't set you up to wear that dress.”

  All the raging indignation evaporated. Jasper and I had a pact. We never said we promised anything unless we were serious. Unless we could follow through no matter what. I promise were words set in stone and we never, ever deviated.

  “But I'd like to send Tyler and his buddies a six-pack or two,” Jasper added with a deviant grin.

  Groaning, I kicked off the shoes and padded to the table. Stealing what remained of his water, I had a drink. “What am I supposed to do? Clearly this is a joke on someone—probably whoever the 'gentleman' is—and I want no part of it. I'm going to contact Tyler and call it off. Tell him he needs to find someone els
e.”

  “Look, I know you hate it, but you said he gave you four hundred bucks and that's a lot of money for a few hours of hell. Yeah? You have to go. I'll even do my part and drop you off, save you the money for a taxi and the humiliation of riding the bus.” He arched his brows and crossed his arms over his chest, mouth trembling with a suppressed smile. His jeans were grease stained from the hours he'd spent in the garage.

  “I just can't. I don't care. I'd rather take on extra shifts at the souvenir store.”

  “Do you know how many shifts you'd have to work to make up that money?”

  “Yes.” I was determined. Then Jasper got that look in his eye. The one I knew so well, the one that had gotten me here in the first place.

  “Don--”

  “I--”

  “Don't you do it!”

  “I dar--”

  “Jasper Lowe, I mean it!”

  “I dare you.”

  “You know what? You suck.” Disgusted, I swigged from the bottle and drained what remained. He could get another one from the fridge. Jasper knew I wasn't the girly type. I'm more of a jeans and tee shirt girl, prone to tomboy guffaws and a graceless swagger. How was I going to get through this? It might humiliate the 'gentleman' in question, but it would humiliate me, too. I'd never live this down.

  And I just wasn't sure four-hundred dollars was worth it.

  “You still love me.”

  “You're not allowed to say the word dare for another year,” I said, knowing as well as I sat there that I was going to go to the event in the horrid dress. Not just because Jasper dared me, but because, when all was said and done, we did need the money. If Jasper drove, we'd save that extra hundred which made the pot more appealing.

  “I'm not promising anything,” Jasper retorted and pushed up from the chair after checking his watch. “Hey, let's go out and grab something to eat. It's past six and I'm starving.”

  “Can I change first?” Affecting a whine, amused when Jasper laughed, I got up as well and went to find my favorite pair of broken in jeans with the knees blown out and my equally favorite, worn-at-the-seams tee-shirt of faded blue. Instead of the heels, I had Doc Martens on my mind.

  My most favorite pair, of course.

  *

  “Wait.”

  “No.”

  “You don't even know what I'm going to ask,” I said, complaining.

  “Yes I do.” Jasper picked up the pace of his sedate stroll and gave me the stink eye sidelong.

  Laughing, I trotted behind him and hopped up on his back, looping my legs familiarly around his waist.

  He exhaled, grumbling, but slipped his hands under my knees for support. Of course he did. No matter how much he complained about my piggyback habit, he never made me get down. With a box of Boston Baked Beans in one hand, I hooked my elbows over the tops of his shoulders and shook a few of the candies out into my opposite palm. I teased him, waving the treats in front of his nose.

  “I don't know how you can think of eating after the plate sized steak and gigantic potato you had for dinner,” he said, giving his head a careful jerk to move a shank of bangs from his forehead and to ignore the offer of candy.

  Popping the candies into my mouth, I rode along, swinging my booted feet. “There is always room for Baked Beans.”

  “Not always. Now I have to tote around an extra twenty-pounds.”

  “You love me.” I threw his earlier words right back at him.

  The Strip, a wild blast of flashing colors and lights with night as a backdrop, was bursting with activity. Cruising along the sidewalk that paralleled the road in front of a row of casinos, Jasper dodged tourists, newspaper stands and the occasional hooker. Cars crawled by on the street, forced to go slow in such heavy traffic.

  He grunted. “Maybe.”

  “Don't sound so enthused,” I teased, ever and always amused at his grunting.

  “I'd be more enthused if you used the two good feet God gave you.”

  “In a little while. I have a great view from up here.”

  “I'm gonna dump you in the gutter,” he threatened.

  “No you won't.”

  “I might.”

  Laughing, I offered him a Baked Bean. Jasper recoiled and veered hard toward a temporary chain link fence that had been erected to keep passersby away from the ongoing construction in an old casino.

  “Come on. They're good.”

  “They taste like sweetened shoe leather.”

  “They do not.” Shaking with suppressed laughter, I popped another few in my mouth. Boston Baked Beans were my 'thing'. I could eat boxes and boxes of them, no matter how full I was.

  At the next intersection, Jasper made a show of 'hoisting' me higher on his back, as if I was causing massive strain. The truth of it was—Jasper could probably have sprinted with me on his back from The Excalibur Hotel all the way downtown to Union Plaza without trouble. Okay, maybe not quite the entire six or seven miles at a sprint, but definitely at a jog. His theatrics were an endless source of amusement for me, and I continued to swing my feet as he crossed with the light. Twenty or so other pedestrians crossed with and against us, creating a small roiling sea of humanity.

  Fifteen minutes later, as we approached the busy Paris Hotel and Casino, Jasper glanced at the impressive re-make of the Eiffel Tower and said, “We should go in and bet five hundred on black.”

  Choking on the last Baked Bean, I reached a hand around to grasp Jasper's chin and swivel his face my way. Tilting my head, I made eye contact. He frowned, I frowned and then looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

  “You know the rules. No gambling...ever. We haven't worked our asses off this past year just to throw the money away.” What shocked me more than anything was that Jasper had always been the stern, strict one when it came to gambling. The 'no gambling' rule was his rule, one we had adhered to since setting foot in Vegas.

  He held my gaze and came to a stop, then slid his chin out of my grasp. “Just once. What if we double our money?”

  Wiggling to get down, I got my feet on solid cement, tossed the empty box into a nearby trashcan, and walked around Jasper until I stood in front of him. “Jasper, what's gotten into you?”

  “You can't tell me you haven't thought about it a few times,” he countered, slicing his hands into his pockets. He was so tall that he tended to stand at a slight slouch when I was in front of him so I wouldn't have to crane my neck so much.

  “Thinking about it and saying let's do it are two different things. Are you serious, or are you pulling my leg again?” Sometimes it was hard to tell. We played a lot of tricks on each other.

  “We could double our money in five minutes. One spin of the roulette wheel.”

  “And we could lose five hundred bucks in five minutes.”

  “Pessimist,” he muttered.

  “Realist,” I argued. Was I really standing there, fighting for us to save our money? The strobe flash of a camera went off somewhere to my right where tourists were snapping shots of the Tower. No one paid us any attention.

  He arched a brow and got that look on his face.

  I held up a finger like I'd seen my mother do a thousand times and wagged it in his face. “Don't. Jasper, I mean it. If we lose, we'll go home and be depressed for days.”

  He did it anyway. “I dare you to let me.”

  “You're currently banned from dares. Remember? For a year. And this isn't like our usual 'dare' situation anyway. This is beyond serious.” Aghast that he pulled the trump card, I rested my hands on my hips and searched his eyes. Jasper seemed to be brooding about one thing or another. I just had to figure out what. Maybe he was getting impatient about how long it was taking to open our own mechanic shop.

  He said nothing, only glanced past me to the casino.

  Jasper really was serious about placing a bet.

  “I can't stand at the table with you anyway.” I wasn't twenty-one yet, which meant I could walk around certain areas in a casino, but couldn't gamble and
couldn't loiter. I probably looked old enough and the chances of me getting carded were slim—but I didn't want to get asked to leave or worse, get escorted out the door.

  “I'll do it myself.”

  Twenty-one back in January, Jasper could gamble as he pleased. Angry that he'd apparently succumbed to some strange desire to throw his money at the roulette wheel, I walked away. That was it and that was all. I didn't have to say a thing, didn't have to rant or bitch.

  Two intersections later, he caught up to me and laid his arm casually around my shoulders. He said, “Thanks for being the voice of reason.”

  I said nothing. Not for another several lights, after we'd turned the corner onto a side street where his car sat in the restaurant parking lot where we'd eaten dinner. Not until we were sitting inside his beat up 1967 Camaro, which needed updating from the weathered black paint to the worn out seats.

  “You can't do that,” I said in my most serious voice, looking across the seat. “You can't throw down rules and expect me to abide by them, then suddenly change your mind. Not where the business is concerned. I'm really tripped out, I have to admit.”

  In the spill of light from the restaurant through the front windshield, Jasper's face wore a brief look of belligerence, then he rubbed his cheek and brow with one hand, as if he might smear the idea of gambling right out of his mind.

  “I'm just tired of how long it's taking to save. Sometimes, I feel like we're sitting stalemate, increasing the deposit and all the other money we need for supplies by pennies a day. That's just not enough, Fin. It'll take us ten years to open a shop.”

  Propping my elbow back on the seat, half turned to face him, I said, “It's not just pennies. It's like forty bucks a day, sometimes more when you get tipped good. And next week I have that interview at the Olympus. I'll get a job with tips, too, so I can bring in more than minimum wage. Okay? Don't lose sight of the goal, that's what you always tell me.”

  He reached across the seat and thumbed a stray lock of hair away from my cheek. On any other couple, it would have looked the height of romance. But we weren't any couple, and we were certainly not involved romantically. He was my best friend, nothing more, nothing less.