Bird of Paradise Read Free Page B

is Monday. Monday
Marsh.”
    “Monday?” she asked as she gave his hand one
of those little feminine squeezes that women thought passed as a
handshake. Her blue eyes suddenly grew round with surprise. “Your
name is Monday?”
    Adam ground his teeth and nodded.
    “Monday Marsh?”
    The muscles in his jaw
locked. He nodded again. “ The Monday Marsh?” The woman’s voice was loud,
strident, filling the whole dam airplane. His stomach tightened and
wadded up into a tiny lead ball. People around him started to
murmur his supposed name, turning in their seats to look back at
him. He tried to make himself relax. If the muscles in his jaw
tightened any more, his teeth would crack. “The Monday Marsh who’s
on the radio? You’re that Monday Marsh?”
    “Yes,” he said, his voice as cutting as
razor-edged gravel on bare fee. “I’m that Monday Marsh.”
    “Wow!” the woman said under her breath, her
eyes alight with wonder. “I can’t believe you’re sitting next to
me. I listen to you all the time! I love your show! It’s the best
sex advice I’ve ever heard! That time you told the couple in L.A.
to bring in her sister to explore the dynamics of a ménage à
trois—that was such good advice! I loved your descriptions of the
stuff they should do! I tried it with my boyfriend and his
roommate, and it was the best sex I’ve ever had. You’re going to
Mystique for the show! Are you the sex consultant or something? Are
you giving classes? Do you take private students?”
    Adam ignored the hand caressing his thigh.
“Yes, I’m going to Mystique, no, I’m not the consultant, and no,
I’m not offering classes. I’m a”—he ground down another layer of
enamel as he spat out the word—”contestant.”
    “He’s a contestant!” the woman sitting in
front of him told her seat partner. Both women eyed him avidly.
Adam had sudden and complete empathy with every celebrity who had
ever felt hounded by the public. “Would you say it for us? You
know, the thing you always say on your show!? The woman asked.
    “Yes, say it,” Teri begged,
her hand squeezing and caressing his leg through the thin linen of
his pants. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable at the looks he
was getting, worried that Teri’s hand would go roving. He’d never
been the focus of so many women’s attention—hell, he’d never been
the focus of any woman’s attention aside from Brittany. She was his first and
only girlfriend. He’d never even thought about another woman until
she’d left him a few months ago.
    “Monday Marsh? The nipple guy! Hey, many,
say that thing you say,” a man two rows ahead stood up and called
back to Adam.
    “Say it, say it, say it!” The chant started
up out of nowhere but quickly gained volume as word of who he was
pretending to be passed among the passengers. Teri licked her lips
as her hand slid toward his groin, her eyes sending him a blatant
message of invitation.
    “Say it, say it!”
    Adam squirmed in his seat, unwilling to take
the pretense any farther, unsure of how to stifle the attention he
was receiving. He opened his mouth to yell out the truth, to end
the farce before it went any farther, but a sharp pinprick of cat
claws on his ankle reminded him why he was there.
    “Say it! Say it! Say it!”
    He disengaged Jesus’s claws from his sock,
standing with reluctance to face the planeload of chanting people.
From where Sally sat in the far rear he could see her smiling a
mocking smile at him.
    “Say it!”
    He straightened his shoulders.
    “Say it!”
    He lifted his chin.
    “Say it!”
    He sighed, and looked out into the faces of
strangers, men and women he’d never met before, men and women who
were gathering from around the country to participate in a
six-week-long television show with the goal of finding someone
special. Where had his life gone wrong? How had it all come down to
this moment? He held up his hands for quiet. Instantly the voices
were hushed, the silence expectant, a