Technically, in the U.S., this is a holiday weekend (Thanksgiving was Thursday, then came Black Friday and next up is CyberMonday).
This is our kickoff to the major Christmas/New Year’s sales gateway.
The lights are going up, and red green and gold are everywhere to be seen.Because of the holidays (which involve a lot of cooking and some shopping for me), there is no new chapter of The Ex-Files.
However, I’ve put the entire 16 chapters below. No leaping from link to link today. I hope you appreciate the holiday inspired convenience.
As a reminder, this serialization of my work-in-progress novel is for the benefit of my daughter and her upcoming wedding (she’s getting close to deciding on a dress!). If you haven’t snagged a copy of The Fairy Tale Bride and still want one, it is on sale for 99 cents for the holiday. If you want updates on the wedding news as we count down to August, you can sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar to your right.
Now, please enjoy an interrupted reading of the first 16 chapters of The Ex-Files. Feel free to comment, make suggestions, or offer ideas on what makes a couple’s relationship work well…or not.
CHAPTER ONE
When I was twenty-one, I thought thirty would come in with a clap of thunder. Or at least with a surprise party thrown by my handsome and successful husband and attended by a hundred of my closest friends.
That was my goal, my dream, my vision–number one on my to do list. Unfortunately, I‘ll have to move it to the reschedule column on my day planner. I turned 30 at 4:06 this morning. Awake. And alone.
I sat up in the dark. Awake and alone. That just wasn’t in the plan at all. Happy birthday to me.
I was alone because I haven’t yet found the man who meets all ten of my rather modest requirements for a husband. I won’t settle. Mom settled, and look where it got her.
I was awake because there had been an accident on the street outside my apartment window and the screech-crunch of metal on metal, followed by shouting and sirens, drowned out the pleasant sea sounds made by my white noise machine.
Not exactly a clap of thunder, but close. 4:06 a.m. I considered calling to thank my mother. This hour of the morning was not made for hard labor. But she’s in Africa on safari and I don’t think she’ll be near a phone until next week. Besides, she’d be all too delighted to remind me I’d missed a major goal for the first time since I created my Success Timeline at age 16. She doesn’t believe in life planning (hence settling for my Dad and being stuck with him until she’d finished raising me). I did put a note to call her on the running to do list I keep on my iPhone, though.
I believe in the power of positive thinking–it got me through college with my eye on the goal, not on my tendency to run through roommates or wear out computers, keyboards and printers.
At twenty-one, with a degree and a job offer, I’d met all my scheduled goals, and could see no reason why my thirtieth birthday wouldn’t offer the same satisfaction. I pictured myself, in a close fitting wine colored suit (wine is a good color for my fair skin and red hair, contrary to those old wives’ tales), raising a glass with a sheepish smile as my husband toasted me.
I hadn’t been able to quite picture the husband–he was a tall blur in dark gray, tailored Armani whose voice rang out deep and sincere as he thanked me for the joy and organization I’d brought into his life, even while working hard to earn the Pulitzer for my articles on the lifestyles of modern women.
Crap. Happy birthday to me again. I’ve missed not one, but two major goals. I don’t have a husband. And I haven’t managed to publish even one article, never mind a Pulitzer contender, despite having submitted an idea a week to my boss. It’s not that she doesn’t like the ideas—it’s just that she thinks a staff writer can handle it better than I can, since I’m just an editor. Editing and writing have to be mixed carefully, she says, or the end result will resemble a Molotov cocktail.
At 30 years and five minutes old, I accepted that I’m not going back to sleep, so I rolled out of bed onto my yoga mat for my morning crunches. Looking on the positive side—which was damned hard to do so early in the morning–I have the wine suit, and it works as well as I’d hoped it would–I look serious, sexy and smart. Or so my best friend Emily assures me.
I’m having the surprise party, too, except that it isn’t a surprise. I knew about it a month ago because Emily is incapable of keeping a secret long enough to plan a surprise. She’s not so subtly asked my restaurant, wine and food preferences over the last few weeks—several times because she doesn’t keep a to do list. I don’t hold that against her, though, because with Emily it is best to be as prepared as possible.
When I arrive at the party, I’m ready for anything. It’s not just that she’s not a man, not my husband, or not wearing Armani. The fluttery lace of her dress suits her fairy princess nature. Because Emily is different. For example, instead of the traditional black balloons that could be bobbing about in mournful farewell to my waning youth, she has chosen pink and purple. I can’t help but be relieved that I’m not greeted with a mail-order husband and a quickie wedding. Emily knows how seriously I take my goals—although she doesn’t always understand.
So, I am celebrating my 30th in a very different way than I had planned–and trying not to be in an utter funk about it. I’m finding it surprisingly difficult, despite the sickeningly cheerful pink and purples balloons floating above the table. It’s going to be a long evening, I can feel it. At least the food and wine are good–Emily’s organized the party at Martelli’s, my favorite Italian restaurant.
Of course, just to be sure, I did leave a menu, marked with my favorites, stuck to the fridge door. It disappeared two weeks ago. Hint taken right on schedule. Now if only I could be left alone with a lovely plate of spaghetti Bolognese and a bottle of Sangiovese, I‘d be happy.
Unfortunately, Emily, knowing how much I dislike missing a mileston on my Success Timeline, is determined to make me enjoy the evening. “You must embrace your inner pink one more time, and then let go,“ she says, handing me a jeweled hatpin of my grandmother’s that she has begged from my mother—apparently before she left on safari last month. The gesture touches me. Emily is not the planner I am, but it is clear she has taken care to think of everything for tonight.
If she were not so dear to me, I would happily dip her by her toes in boiling oil just about now. I choose the balloon closest to me, which just happens to be next to my boss’s ear. Serendipity indeed. “This is for you, Emily.” I push the pin into the pink latex and the balloon pops loudly.
My boss jumps a little, but her drink does not spill. Before she can say a word, Emily shouts, “Everyone, now! Free your pink and purple!“
For a moment there is a whirl of arms and elbows and an ebb and flow of laughter punctuated by pops as the other guests use the pins by their plates to pop balloons. Emily’s eyes find mine and she grins as she hands the last balloon to my boss to pop and everyone settles speechless in their seats.
In the satisfying silence, as bits of pink and purple latex confetti decorate the floor, the table, the guests, I do not regret that some of the things on my to do list missed the big 3-0 deadline. Life can throw curves. I can adapt. Thirty-two sounds like a good age to be married.
And then Emily rolls out a cart from behind the discreet little curtain in our private dining room and my mood plummets to dungeon depths. Mold. Damp. Spiders and worse skittering through the dark recesses of my imagination. Emily has planned a surprise that somehow I didn’t manage to worm out of her in advance. And it involves her laptop and the projector ominously attached to it by a coiled white cable.
A square of bright light flickers and resolves against the whitewashed cinderblock wall. The horror of me, at five, one huge pink frill with a smile that stretched from ear to ear revealing gums and tongue and missing tooth, roots me to my chair.
My boss turns to me with an upraised eyebrow—I am certain she practices the expression in the mirror she does it so perfectly every time. Her glance catches on the bit of pink latex resting on the shoulder of her black suit jacket and she brushes it off with one elegant flick of her hand. “Well, you really did need to kill that pink, there, didn’t you Diana?” Everyone laughs but me, even though I have a frozen smile in place, as I always do when my boss reveals her utter lack of appreciation for me. Which is usually at least twice a day.
Frantically, I send eyebrow S.O.S. signals of distress to Emily. Psychic messages: No. Stop. No. No, no, no, no…no….
Apparently Emily has mistaken my horror for humor, because she hits a key on her laptop and sends the movie of me splashing into action against the white wall of the restaurant. Part of the painfully young me was obscured by a potted palm. Not enough.
How did she manage to keep this secret from me? Am I slipping? Can’t meet a major life goal or two in a timely manner, and now suddenly I can’t ferret a secret out of an open book like Emily?
I take a sip of wine and look away as the music Emily had chosen fades away and her charming traitor’s narrative begins.
“Once upon a time there lived a Long Island girl named Diana.” Everyone laughed and I had to see why, even though I knew I‘d regret it.
The pink frill had disappeared to be replaced by me in a purple toga, with a pink plastic bow slung over my shoulder. The toga was purple, I remember, because from age four to age eight I would only wear shades of pink or purple. As I watch, the little me leaps about shouting “I want to be a princess.”
With my life passing before my eyes, I want to leave the restaurant. But I can’t, because Emily is pleased with herself and I would rather sit through this humiliation than publicly crush her. My mother can be heard from behind the camera saying “A goddess is better than a princess, Diana,” before I send an arrow straight into the eye of the video camera lens.
As if the arrow had the power to collapse time, I appear at age six, in pink this time, with a big gap where I‘d lost my top two front teeth. Apparently I‘d given up the idea of being a princess for the more appealing goal of sticking my tongue as far as possible through the hole in my smile. And then I’m a shiny pink mushroom in the school play, shakily reciting my one line–”Under a tree I sit, waiting for a friend to visit.” Everyone laughs again.
Three quarters of a bottle of wine later, after a spectacle that includes a curveless 12 year old me in my first (red, not pink or purple) bikini, I wave goodbye to my mother and father as I walk away on my prom date’s arm. A curly THE END metamorphoses from pink to purple to the wine color of my favorite suit as the expose of my life comes to a close with Emily’s solemn pronouncement, “And that is only the beginning of Diana’s story.”
The End. Thank God. Time at last began to move naturally again, and the sound of the blood moving through my veins quieted. “Diana, what I didn’t know about you.” Allie, a former roommate twirled a pin between her fingertips. She’s talking to me, but her eye was on the nearest man, as usual.
“I am a woman of mystery.” I have definitely had too much wine. Allie is the roommate who stayed for six weeks and then went off with my then-current boyfriend, Brian, and my peach angora sweater. She left a note saying that we were better off just friends. I’m not completely certain whether she meant she and I, or Brian and I, but I forgave them both, even though I still miss the sweater. I’m used to losing roommates and boyfriends, but I usually manage to hang on to my favorite clothes.
I make my living in relationships. A good living, but not a great one–yet. I put together a section for The Female Eye on how to get a man, how to keep him, how to talk to him, how to get him to listen, even how to dump him when you decide you don’t want him. The irony of my job has not escaped me through the years, but never seemed so sharp as it does tonight, when I am surrounded by friends and co-workers in celebration of my birthday. My thirtieth birthday. 3-0. I’m not the only one without a date. But then, no one else at this table makes a living trying to create the perfect relationship.
If I were in charge of the world, I would have sensitive friends, who would reassure me that thirty is not old and that the soul mate I deserve is just around the corner. Since I’m not however, I smiled when my boss raised her barely touched wine glass for the first toast of the evening. “To Diana, who has become the arbiter of the Perfect Man, without having to maintain one of her own.” She sips the wine politely, but then washes it down with a belt from her—fourth—neat scotch.
Bitter, party of one. I happen to know she’ll never see fifty again, despite the deceptively good care she has taken to hide that fact. Today, however, that thought is little comfort. Business is a bitch to a woman who dares to age. I’ve been pitching high concept article ideas for an under 30 audience. Had my chance to write passed me by? Worse, would I soon be put to pasture editing the how to survive divorce and middle age articles? Is there the equivalent of Bo-Tox for careers?
A man with a paunch and a sparse brush of gray hair is still a lion. But a woman with a wrinkle–opportunities are not us. The little laugh lines around my eyes that didn’t bother me yesterday, suddenly seemed like burgeoning Grand Canyons tonight. Thank God the restaurant goes in for muted light and artful truth.
I could feel the chance to earn a Pulitzer slipping away, which was not helped when Emily rose from the table and lifted her glass in my direction. “To Diana, queen of the single lifestyle section.”
“May she reign long,” my boss added with a wave of her scotch glass. Who can tell if she means it? She might, of course. I don’t flatter myself that she loves my work–a suburbanite with an SUV and a TV that plays “Sex and the City” could do my job. No. She simply hates change. The employees who stay are the ones who realize that her “I want new! I want fresh!” really meant “I want the same thing packaged as something different.”
Even though she hasn’t given me one of the writing assignments I asked for weekly, she loves my ideas, she says. And I believe her, because she always assigns them to another writer—usually Tandy Baker, a woman with the depth of skim ice on a winter river. I even dared to ask her why, once. Can’t achieve your goals if you’re too timid to push for them. I just need the perfect idea, she says. One that only I could write…as if there is such a thing.
The crowd is unaware that my life is slowly ending before my eyes. Glasses raised to a general murmur of “Queen Diana.” One of my friends far down the table lifted her glass and laughed, “Queen of the List you mean.”
Paolo, another former roommate, snickers. “Surely you should retire those things, now that you are a decrepit old woman.” Paolo is handsome, a struggling actor who says he’s 26.
Nick—a man who has become a friend without a way station at either boyfriend or roommate–laughed and raised his glass. “To burning the list at last.” Et tu, Nick? I forgive him though. He had drunk too much, as he tended to do when forced into a large crowd of mostly women.
“Here here.” Even Emily joined the enthusiastic toast. Traitor.
“My lists keep my life organized and focused–unlike some of yours.” I didn’t want to be defensive, but it was my birthday. My thirtieth birthday. You would think someone would be kind. Of course, they had now all seen me in a purple toga and a bikini without a curve in sight.
Not content with humiliating me visually, Emily outed my deepest secret. “I understand grocery lists, to do lists and–” she smiles at Phil. Have I mentioned Emily is married? Happily too. Five years. Phil is not only a great guy, but so far he has been a great husband, too. She didn’t even have a goal, just fell into it as easily as wiggling into spandex.
Oblivious to the black currents of jealousy stirring in me, she continued. “–honey do lists. I even understand keeping a little black book of current lovers. But I draw the line at keeping a list of every past boyfriend along with how they measured up on the ‘Top Ten Qualities for a Husband’ list.”
I confess, for a moment I considered taking revenge by dragging her husband into the ladies’ room and sharing a passionate kiss. But it wouldn’t have worked. He’s not my type. Or, more precisely, he’s too exactly my type. Emily, when she is exasperated with his need for precision and order, often swears that he and I could be identical twins separated at birth if only we weren’t opposite sexes.
Everyone laughed at the idea of my boyfriend rating list, except my boss, who hadn’t heard of my infamous black book. Okay, if so many people have heard of it, it can’t really be classified as a secret, but I wish it was. At least, from my boss. “You keep a list of the old boyfriends?” She was focusing extra carefully and licking her lips, a sure sign that she was well on the way to forgetting everything that happened at the party.
I wish I could have said the same. Sometimes I blink and I see the absurdity of my life, and then it disappears in the next blink and everything seems normal and right. For example, many of the guests at my birthday party were former roommates of mine. In the five years since Emily moved out to get married, I have had many roommates. This means many people who have seen me in my sweats with no makeup, but don’t like me enough to live with me for longer than a few months at a time. I’d live alone, if I could afford it. Looking for a new roommate is almost as bad as having to White-out a missed goal.
“What else would a good Queen of Lists do? After all, they have to meet her standards don’t they? Cleanliness, honesty, integrity, earning power, sense of humor, common sense, strength, health, good cook…did I miss any? Leap over tall buildings? Outrun locomotives?” Nick. Again. Et tu tu, Nick?
“You forgot supportive.” Despite my intention to be light and breezy, my voice sounded tight. He sat back a bit sheepishly, while everyone else sat forward just a touch.
Emily pointed to the small stack of presents and said somewhat over brightly, “Never mind the past, let’s get to the presents.”
I could not help but whisper a silent thanks that Emily was the one roommate who stuck with me through college and right up until her marriage–even though right then I wanted to strangle her with my pantyhose–or stab her through the heart with the hatpin she had so thoughtfully provided.
“First,” I stood up, not surprised to find the room spinning. After all, the evening had been a roller coaster ride, complete with lots and lots of wine. “The Queen needs to visit the ladies’ room.”
Emily, finally aware that I was not enjoying this as much as she thought I would, popped up, brushing pink and purple latex confetti from her skirt. “Good idea.”
Thankfully, there was no one else to see me when I dropped onto the restaurant’s rather elegant settee of the ladies’ room and cradled my head in my hands.
“What’s wrong, Diana? Did I get the wine wrong? Nick swore you loved Sangiovese.”
“I do, Em.” So Nick had been the one to take the menu off the fridge, then. Not Emily.
“Did the balloons give you a headache? You don’t have an allergy to latex, do you? I’m sure I would have known if you did.”
“Everything is wonderful, Em.” Almost, anyway. Emily wishes she had my focus, she says so all the time. I’ve given her all the motivational books that have helped me through the years, but I don’t think she’s read them all the way through. She tries though, and one day I know she’ll find the focus she needs. It’s only a matter of time.
“Then why are you sitting here with your head in your hands?” At the moment, I wished she’d focus on someone else. I’m not in the mood to reassure her insecurities. I have to deal with my own.
“I drank a little too much wine. Just give me a minute, and I’ll be fine.” Though true, it begs the question of the horror show of my life that she just played—in front of the woman who holds my professional life in her well-manicured grip. The only worse audience I can think of is my mother—who has already lived through the live version, making more commentary than I liked.
I wanted to ask why she invited my boss in the first place. But if I did, she’d be upset that she upset me. Empathetic friends are sometimes hard to navigate around. Besides, I know why. I complained about my lack of writing opportunities. Emily’s big into the schmooze factor. She probably envisioned my boss seeing my potential and offering me a lead article opportunity. As if.
“Okay.” Emily knew there was more. She knew me too well. Which is why, before she will left me in peace, she offered one more olive branch. “Would you like some aspirin?”
Despite the fact we both know I go nowhere without a container of my own in my purse, I held out my hand. “Thank you. Yes.” Everyone is entitled to be forgiven once or twice, especially when they hang in there with you for over ten years. Apparently I’m hard to take in large doses, but small ones are beneficial.
At least that’s what Nick says. He’d be my best friend after Emily. Maybe before Emily, now that I know he’s the one who got the hint about the menu. Though, really, I shouldn’t hold it against Emily that she had to rely on Nick. Despite my help, she’s never gotten the hang of making a good to do list. It‘s her next biggest fault, after not being able to keep surprises. Although she appears to be learning.
CHAPTER TWO
When I returned to the party, no one appeared to have missed me. In fact, no one appeared to notice I’ve returned, apparently because the conversation centering around my life became engrossing without me there to defend myself. And amusing, too. The first inkling of the disaster to come came from Serena, another short-term roommate. “I found a great man from her reject list—she documented him meticulously. I think she dumped him because he didn’t floss every day.”
Everyone laughed, even the boyfriend stealer. Serena, unlike Allie, had had the decency to wait until I was done with a man to pick him up.
My boss, unfortunately, had her eyebrows drawn together—a sign of very deep and dangerous interest. This was not good. I hovered on the edge of the room trying to decide whether to break up the gossip or give it a moment to die a natural death. I have always projected a dedicated, professional appearance–no one wants to expose an unprotected belly to the head of The Female Eye. For a cowardly moment, I considered skipping out on the birthday bash and heading home to re-ink my missed goals in at the 32 year mark.
Before I could move, Nick shook his head at Serena. “I remember him. Wiry little guy with a mustache? So, does he floss for you?”
Serena actually blushed. Blushed. Over flossing. “Yes.”
“You’re still seeing him? Why didn’t you bring him?” Allie, who was always on the prowl for new blood.
Serena, who had heard about Allie from me, shook her head firmly. “He’s mine now. I don’t want Diana changing her mind.”
She was talking about Wesley—a guy I’d dated exactly once. And I hadn’t dropped him because he couldn’t floss, but because he couldn’t kiss. Evidently Serena disagreed, and more power to her. But there was no way I was changing my mind about Wesley. I’d rather get a root canal than another kiss from the man with the drill-master tongue.
“Change her mind?” My boss laughed, a bit late and entirely on her own. She stopped when everyone stared at her, and then said, “Diana doesn’t really ever change her mind, does she?”
“Maybe she should.” Serena answered snarkily, “Prince Charming could be standing right in front of her and all Diana would notice was that his suit wasn’t pressed.”
“I’ve told her a million times she’d be a lot happier if she stopped sweating the small stuff.” Allie—the girl with absolutely no detectable standards—offered a page from her own philosophy handbook. From living with her for a brief, chaotic time, I can attest that the small stuff to Allie includes thousand dollar phone bills and French men with expired passports.
“If she wants to meet that goal of hers before she shrivels up into a prune she ought to go back and check those guys out again. Maybe she overlooked somebody perfect.” I had to concede no one would ever accuse Allie of overlooking a man. But I didn’t think that lent credence to her position.
My boss tapped her finger on her lips, a sign that she has had clamped on to an idea with the fervor of a terrier. “What a good article that would make.” Her eyes drifted toward me, and before I could duck away, she called out “Diana! Just in time. Where is that little black book of yours? I want to see it.”
She never seems to know how imperious she sounds, but no one else seemed to realize it, either. They all looked at me as if they expected to see my forehead split open and the black book…well, it’s aquamarine, actually…rise on a wave of cerebral spume.
“I don’t have it.” My knees actually went weak at my lie, but once I’d told it I became committed to die for it.
I guess now is as good a time as any to confess that my boss is Olivia Wallace. The Olivia Wallace who can walk on water—at least the waters of the East River. At least according to those who live and die in Manhattan by her whim–and the current issue of The Female Eye, which are actually synonymous most of the time. I try not to use her name—much like those who avoid speaking the name of the prince of darkness. I trust her name explains why I was so willing to go to the wall with my lie.
“Of course you do.” Paolo had stopped admiring his own profile in the brushed nickel water pitcher just long enough to make my solemn resolve mean nothing at all. He turned his brilliant smile on me as if he didn’t know I would rather eat glass than show my book to Olivia Wallace. I suspected he truly didn’t know. In the game of roommate roulette I often play, I have found actors to be an oblivious lot.
“You always keep it—“ he reached over to unsling my purse from the back of my chair, and flipped open the front flap. Out fell my checkbook, a tampon, and the infamous turquoise book in question.
Actors may be too narcissistic to notice if your hem is torn when you ask them if you look okay, but they pay attention to little things just when you think they aren’t. Maybe Paolo was up for a Tootsie-like role when he lived with me? He certainly never noticed when the garbage needed to be tossed down the chute.
With a look of avid interest that would have made a pigeon drop a choice crumb, Olivia the Terrible held out her hand to him. “Let me see.”
If that wasn’t awful enough, before Paolo could oblige her, Allie leaned over the table and wrestled him for it. This was a match she won easily, as she wore a gauzy, loose blouse with a low neckline and the only thing that fascinated Paolo more than the sight of his own fabulous face is a pair of breasts swinging loose and free and close enough to touch. I hasten to add that I do not know this from personal experience, only from the close—and sometimes horrified–observation of a roommate.
Nick and I have a bet. He says that Paolo is gay. Given how easily pretty boy lost his grip on the book, I didn’t believe it. If my whole life—the rest of it that hadn’t already flashed by earlier—hadn’t been passing before my eyes, I might even have demanded that Nick pay up right then. But ten bucks wouldn’t have gotten me far enough out of town to matter.
Allie smiled at Paolo and shook her boobs—pure corn fed and non-silicone—one last time to thank him. And then she sat back, opened the book and began to read. Aloud.
Her voice was a little high pitched and girlish, but her diction was crystal clear. “Sam Jamieson. Occupation: stock broker, 5+; Age: 32, 10; Appearance: neat, a little too trendy, 4; Listens: three yawns, good eye contact, 5; Talks: too much about business, 4; Husband Potential: 5, Pass.”
“Pass?” Livvy the Terrible had been listening intently, her head cocked to one side. “Why pass? I’d have dated him.”
I don’t doubt that she would have. He was probably more her type than mine, given the boys she dragged to our office parties. In fact, she had given Paolo more than a casual glance during the long torturous evening of my birthday.
“Diana has goals to meet, she doesn’t date for fun. She won’t serial date a man who’s not an 8 or above.” Everyone laughed as Allie thumbed through the book. I confess to a madcap, Lucille Ball type impulse to dive across the beautiful arrangement of radishes and white roses to recover the book, no matter the hit to my dignity, never mind my favorite suit. Unfortunately, I did not have time to give in to it.
Allie made a little exclamation and lifted the book high. “Paolo, you’re here.”
He looked surprised—and quite a bit pleased. “I am?” He glanced at me. “Did we date?” I could almost believe he doesn’t remember his opening salvo when he arranged to move in: “I don’t date roommates.”
Before I could answer, or ask for the book back, Allie read aloud a few choice conclusions I had not intended to share with fifty of my most intimate friends—never mind she who shall not be named. “Cute. Mixes white and colors in the laundry. Job prospects shaky. JF.” She puzzled over the initials for a moment and looked up to me.
“Just friends.” I didn’t want to explain, but I didn’t want her to make up something to fit JF either.
Nick frowned at me and snatched the book from Allie’s hands. “Enough,” he said to her. To me, “I didn’t know you put your friends in here.” I knew he didn’t like the book—not since he’d read my entry for someone he’d fixed me up with once. He was of the opinion that I should, to quote, “Burn the damned thing, and send the ashes out to sea on a trash barge.”
“Just her men friends, Nick.” Allie pouted, unhappy to have her entertainment stolen from her. She leaned over, to give him a private look down the front of her blouse. “Are you in there?”
Fortunately, Nick is semi-immune, having already had a therapeutic dose of Typhoid Allie, but I could see him waver—he hadn’t had a steady girlfriend in several months.
“Of course he’s not.” With no time to waste, I crossed the room and snatched the book from him. “I met Paolo before we became roommates, a friend wanted to set us up.” This was a blatant lie, but I hoped if I talked fast enough, no one would notice. We had gone through twelve bottles of wine, after all.
Nick didn’t call me on the lie, probably because he had bigger issues. “Don’t trust me with your book, Diana?”
“Not since you last threatened to burn it.” Which is almost the complete truth. I’d hate to have him burn the book, even though I have a back-up copy—this one is neater and more organized. But I’d have hated even more for him to read the entry under his name.
In desperation, I tucked the book into my bra—where it mad an unsightly jagged lump that everyone stared at in fascination. Before anyone—including my boss, could speak, I asked, “Anyone need more wine?”
Emily jumped into action, a bottle of white and a bottle of red in either hand.
“Diana,” Olivia, dragon lady extrodinaire said with a smile, “This might make a good story. This book. What if you were to take another look at these men—you might have missed your prince charming?” Her lip curled slightly at the final words. After her last divorce, she had sworn off men for three weeks.
“I didn’t.” I grabbed a bottle of wine and filled her almost full glass myself. “Let’s toast to Emily, for a great party.” Everyone dutifully raised their glasses and drank to Emily. I took it as a good sign that Olivia didn’t notice I’d topped off her red with a white.
Emily blushed and came unhelpfully to my defense, most likely to divert the attention from herself. “Diana is very thorough, I’m sure she didn’t cross off anyone frivolously.”
“To Diana the thorough.” I lifted my glass in another toast. But though everyone willingly joined in, the subject was apparently too fascinating to be changed by a mouthful of good wine.
Allie smirked. “Well, I agree that Brian turned out to be a dud, but Serena is happy enough. How can you tell a guy is not “the one” if you write him off before you even date him?”
Since she was looking right at Paolo as she spoke, I glanced at him, too, worried that my entry might have hurt his feelings. From the abstractedly blissful expression on his face, I was certain he didn’t even remember that he was in my book. Or that I had a book.
Allie was engaged in her favorite game of footsie—no doubt she had bypassed Paolo’s knee and gone right for the family jewels. For a moment I was tempted to go over and take the delicate gold hoop in her nose and twist until it was a delicate gold pretzel instead. But then her expression changed.
When I glanced at Paolo, I saw he was smiling just like he used to when he’d eaten the last fruit on the bottom yogurt in the fridge. He was one guy who could play footsie right back, I guess. Maybe I shouldn’t have crossed him off so quickly? No. Any guy willing to meet Allie foot to foot—or wherever–in a restaurant was not my type.
Nick was definitely wrong about Paolo being gay. But he wasn’t in any mood to acknowledge that last night. He was staring at the book shaped lump under my blouse hard enough that I was afraid he’d reach in and remove it from my bra.
“I like this idea. Tandy could do a lot with it.” The normally firm headshake that accompanies this statement during a staff meeting was a little wobbly.
“Have some more wine,” I topped her up with more white until the color of the wine in her glass was just the barest of pinks.
Before I could propose another toast, Emily took charge. “Time to open presents.” She handed me a bright pink oblong with a purple bow. “Open mine first.” She didn’t say, “I think you need it.” But she thought it loudly enough for me to hear. I opened the wrapping to find a good-sized bottle of a good quality amaretto, my favorite liqueur.
“I really think we should do an article—“
“Care for a shot of Amaretto?” Normally I wouldn’t have interrupted her for fear of being told to focus my section around some horrible topic like finding the cheapest manicure in town. I had ended up with a fingernail fungus last time, when I made the mistake of taking a writer’s article too seriously. She’d had four scotches and a half glass of wine, though, so I took the risk and splashed some in her empty scotch glass. Being the birthday girl, I drank straight from the bottle, praying that the night would be a blurred memory for us all.
CHAPTER THREE
At noon on Sunday I got my first inkling that last night was not going to go away very easily. Emily waited until she has settled on my sofa with a bagel and a big Mochaberry Latte—and without Phil–before she started. “So? Are you going to take the chance to become a writer or not?“
Six extra-strength aspirin and a double-espresso hadn’t put a dent in my hangover yet. I was not ready for this conversation. Nick’s eyes were closed as he breathed in the steam from the open top of his over-sized mug of chai. No rescue there.
Briefly, I considered pleading a blackout. But Emily would just have filled me in. With embellishment. “All I heard was an offer to rehash my love life for the readership of The Female Eye.”
Emily smiled sympathetically, but shook her head. “Diana, this is the opening you’ve dreamed of. This idea is hot enough to be a cover if you play it right. And it’s all yours.” It dawned on me, reluctantly, that she could be right. As hostess, she naturally didn’t drink as much as the rest of us. As my friend, she also recognized something I missed. Or didn’t want to see. The book was mine and no one could make me give it to Tandy. I had leverage. But did I want to use it?
“How? Putting my love life on parade for the readers of a magazine devoted to women and their constant pursuit of goddess-hood? I don’t think so. Besides, she’d assign a staff writer—she said so last night.”
“She told you she’d give you an assignment when you came to her with something only you could write.” Emily gestured with her bagel, threatening my gray leather upholstery with cream cheese. “I would say this is it. Not to mention the fact that it’s cheaper than therapy and you might find out why no one ever lives up to your standards.”
Nick interjected over his mug of chai at last. “Personally, I’d rather take a close-up of myself without my stomach sucked in than revisit my past loves.“
I agreed with him, but Emily had that stubborn look that meant she has no intention of dropping the subject. “If you got this assignment, wouldn’t it mean you’re that much closer to your goal? How many ideas have you floated past her Diana? How many great ideas has she handed over to Tandy. This one you control. It’s all in your little book. Ergo, this is an article only you can write. Olivia Wallace has to give this to you.”
“Why me? Am I the only one who’s had a little trouble finding Mr. Right? I don’t see a ring on Tandy’s finger.” Tandy isn’t 30 yet, but since that argument might hurt my case, I sensibly refrained from admitting it.
Emily sighed as if dealing with a cantankerous child. “You’re the only one who’s kept such a detailed book!”
I don’t want to believe she’s right. If she is–if this is the way for me to meet my goal—can I really pass it up? Just because I would rather sit naked in a graveyard at Halloween being visited by all the famous ghosts of fiction—including Marley with his rusty chains and rotting flesh—than see any of my exes again? “I’m not even sure I think there’s any such thing as a Mr. Right, never mind an article only I can write. I’d settle for an intelligent man and an intelligent subject.”
I think of myself as very focused. Always have, ever since I was a little girl saving my nickels for a Barbie head to make up, style and curl to my heart’s content. Not that I wanted to be a hairdresser. No. My sights were set higher. But I liked the idea of trying out “dos” and looks on Barbie. Somehow it was easier to see what worked better on her disembodied head rather than on my own. Especially after I dyed her hair to match my own red shade. Could Emily be right? Was I not only potentially turning my back on Mr. Right, but also on the opportunity to write a cover article for The Female Eye?
“Why not you? Isn’t that the question you should be asking? Maybe this is your purpose? Your destiny? The reason you were born with the unnatural ability to make such comprehensive To-Do lists.” A blob of cream cheese flew off Emily’s bagel onto the floor and she leaned down to scoop it up with her thumb.
Nick’s eyes opened at that outrageous claim. “Are you suggesting she might be the Ghandi of eligible women everywhere? She should give up her privacy? For what? To convince other women to scrap their standards and settle for the nearest approximation to a decent guy they find?”
“How many people do you know who have documentation on every person they ever even thought of dating? She was born to do this. Besides, it will be fun-and if she writes it, she can make herself sound as intelligent, witty, and attractive as she wants. She’ll have to beat the Mr. Rights off with a stick.“
“Fun?“ Nick was no more convinced than I, so I let them fight my internal battle. Because ever since last night all I could think was what if I did let the right man slip away, just because he wasn’t reliable at taking out the trash?
“Well, fun in a painful, self revelatory way. Not that it is any surprise you don’t understand. The three of you,”—she had unconsciously included the absent Phil I noted—“think you can’t get serious unless the other person is perfect. Love is never about perfection, just about getting as close as possible. Do you have any idea how hard it is to live with someone who chooses to believe you’re perfect in between the disappointing moments you reveal your imperfect nature? God, sometimes it feels like having your skirt permanently stuck in your pantyhose.“ Her voice trailed off.
“Well, I don’t think you’re perfect, but I love you anyway.” I knew it wasn’t much, me saying the instead of Phil. But knowing him, he’d be saying it before dinner. The two of them were the most disgustingly compatible couple I’d ever met. “And we all know I’m not perfect. But I’m hoping when I go in tomorrow the dragon lady has forgotten that I even had a birthday. Why else would I have wasted good Amaretto on her?”
Nick groaned. “Your birthday. I forgot why it was that my brain was banging around in my skull this morning. Hang on.” Without further words, he got up and left the apartment.
I didn’t need to ask why. Obviously he had made me something. Until he returned, I could always hope it was a tasteful photo of a snowy Maine landscape. He had been to Maine just last winter.
“What do you think he made this time?” Emily reached for a poppy seed bagel, heedless of the seeds she was scattering on my sofa.
“Anything would be better than that.” I don’t need to point to the small square of mattress ticking on the wall above her head, she had seen it often enough. The square of ticking had an upper denture plate glued to it—each tooth painted a bright neon color. “The Teeth of Life,” Nick called it when it presented it to me for Christmas two years ago.
When Nick returned, he carried an oblong, jewelry shaped box, wrapped in newsprint. And a toolbox. Unwrapped.
Emily and I exchanged glances, but neither of us dared say a word. A few years ago we might have expected a nice bracelet or necklace. After nine years of living next door to Nick, we both knew better.
“Here.” Nick always grew diffident when he gave his art as a present. I considered it my practice for when I become a mother and my child brought me some hideous drawing to praise. If I ever had children, at the rate my timeline was crumbling.
It isn’t as if Nick isn’t a perfectly wonderful artist, because he is. At least, his photography is. And I have an oil painting of a blue glass bottle that he did when he was practicing with color depth in oil. I’ve told him he should do more of that. Nick says it would be easier for me to stop trying to change other people and work on myself. I know he’s only teasing, but I think sometimes he doesn’t appreciate the value of focus–unless he’s crouched for forty minutes under a bush waiting for the perfect raindrop to land and pearl on the underside of an early rosebud.
He’s got loads of talent–he could have a good job at any magazine, but he liked to work only when he needed the money. He could be good enough for a gallery show, too. But he wanted to wait until he was ready. I was beginning to believe that might be never, so I’ve asked him to will me his paintings. After all, someone should benefit from the beauty of his work besides the spiders and the dust bunnies in his apartment.
Unlike Emily, he does not like to give his gifts publicly. Probably because they reflect a very personal side of him. When I unwrapped the artfully painted newsprint wrapping paper, I found a necklace of…broken glass. “Thank you.”
I learned long ago to thank Nick for these gifts with a brilliant smile and very few words. Even an iron chain with amber, green, and clear beer bottle lips strung on it. I lifted it and held it in the vicinity of my neck, not daring to let the sharp edges brush against my skin.
Nick sighed and took it from my hands, ignoring the alarming clinking sounds his gift made when it moved. “It’s not a necklace, Diana. I made it to hang in front of your window and reflect light.” He held it up to demonstrate and suddenly I saw why he made it. The broken glass became jewel-like when the sun hit the colorful shards.
“I love it.” It felt good to know I wasn’t flat out lying.
He must have been able to tell, because he grinned at me happily and pulled out the toolbox he had lugged along with him. “I’ll hang it.”
“Great.”
As he worked, the glass splashed spots of colored light around the room. Pretty, but not very kind to a hangover-induced headache. He finished his handiwork, and like men everywhere, looked around for praise, just as a prismatic splash of light highlighted the bright turquoise book that sat on top of my bookshelf, next to my purse.
He picked it up and thumbed through it, almost casually. “Is it alphabetical?”
“Chronological.” I let him thumb through a little more before I said more. “You’re not in there.” Emily shot me a look, but I just smiled at her—briefly. Smiling hurts when you have a wicked hangover.
“I know. I was just wondering.” Liar. He continued to thumb. “How many men have you dated Diana?”
“The red stars are the serious ones, the rest I threw back after one or two dates.”
He was quiet for a moment, counting. “Seven.” He thumbs through more. “About fifty in all, but only seven serious.” He stopped on a page and began to read—to himself.
Time to stop this game, before he decided to do me a favor and burn the thing. “Nick, you can read every page, but you’re not going to find yourself.”
He closed the book, and held it up accusingly. “Some of these pages have been ripped out.”
“I beg to differ. They have been carefully cut out with a razor knife.”
“Why?”
“Because I made a mistake on the pages and needed to re do them.” I stuck close to the truth—I did spill coffee, and had the occasional tear on some of those pages. But Nick’s was not marred in any way. I just didn’t want to see the look on his face if he ever read what I’d written about him.
He put the book down and stood looking at me, as the broken bottle mobile sendt sparkles of color dancing over his rumpled white t-shirt. There’s something beautiful and intense about his dark eyes that made me glad I took the page out when I came home after my party. Then he shrugged, gathered his tools and headed out to return them to his apartment next door.
Emily barely waited until the door shut. “You have a page on Nick in that book, I—“
I bolted up and ran to the hall closet to rummage through my pocket for a moment. “Not any more. I cut it out.” I held it up. I should have burned it when I cut it out of the book. But I couldn’t make myself.
“Why?” Emily was charmingly naïve when it came to the forgiving nature of others.
“Paolo the narcissist didn’t like it, do you think Nick the best friend would?”
“Would what?” Nick had returned more quickly than either of us expected. He looked at me, with my coat still in my hands. “Where are you going?”
My hangover had slowed all functions, including my excuse-supplying facility, so I stalled him for a moment by putting my coat. “I think I need more cream cheese. You and Emily both like lots with your bagels.”
Incredibly, he bought this excuse. Probably because he had a hangover as well. “Wait. I think you have another one in your fridge.”
“Do I?”
Ever helpful, which made him somewhat easily diverted thank goodness, he rummaged through the fridge and held up the cream cheese I just bought yesterday. “Here it is.”
“So, why don’t I have a page,” he asked, as he returned with the cream cheese. Okay, maybe not so easily diverted.
Emily stood up to take a closer look at my gift. After poking it here and there a few times, she gently set the string of glass into circular tinkling motion, the light into an eye-straining dance. “Is this made of broken beer bottles?”
Her diversion worked as my had not. Nick liked to talk about his art. “I found them in the park. I figured, why just throw them away—why not turn them into something beautiful.”
“Nick, whatever is wrong with some nice glass beads from Niemann Marcus?”
“Emily, you are bourgeois.”
“And proud of it.”
“I like it.” The fewer words said around Nick the modern artist, the better.
Emily looked at it once more and laughed. “Well, at least if anyone breaks in, this will be deadly as well as pretty.”
Nick blew an air kiss at Emily. “Just like you, my love.” They dated once. Not seriously—at least not that I could pry out of them. And believe me, I tried. But whatever was between them turned into friendship rather quickly, thank goodness. We’ve been friends for years and I don’t think I’d want to go on without them.
Which is why, once food, aspirin and espresso had finally begun to ease my aching head, I tackled Emily head on. “Why isn’t Phil here?”
She had explained his absence when she first arrives. Hangover. And I had bought it, until I realized, as she stood in the window light, that her red eyes were not from drinking too much, but from crying.
Normally Phil, Emily, Nick and I have breakfast together. Sometimes Nick or I, or both of us, might add a significant other to the mix, but the four of us have been a constant since Phil first swept Emily off her feet at a Tupperware party.
Yes. A Tupperware party. They had both been roped into it by Phil’s sister—she wanted a pitcher, or a cake plate, or some such, and she quite shamelessly guilted them into coming. See, Emily is a New Jersey girl, and Tupperware parties are part of her shameful past. Secretly, she loves them. Apparently, so does Phil—he bought about $200 worth for his tiny apartment and his sister not only got her cake stand, or pitcher, but also some kind of salad spinner/storage device for her garden- (or greenhouse-, depending on the season)-grown Jersey lettuce.
Jersey lettuce that Emily and Phil usually bring to me, along with Jersey tomatoes. But today there is no Phil. And Emily has stuffed a big bite of bagel into her mouth to avoid answering me.
I waited until she finished chewing and swallowed. Before she could take another bite, I asked bluntly, “Did he leave you?”
Nick sighed. “Diana, the man has a hangover. Why must you jump to the conclusion that they’re on the verge of divorce?”
“Emily?” It’s always my first thought. Even when my friends seem happily married. I hadn’t been able to tell my mother was unhappy until the day she left my father. And neither had he. Sometimes the ones who care most are the ones who don’t know until it’s too late. I wouldn’t let that happen to Emily and Phil if I could help it.
“No.” She was as terrible a liar as she was a planner, so I was relieved to see that she spoke the truth. He had not left her. But something was wrong, I could tell that before she blurted out, “I’m thinking of leaving him.”
For a moment I couldn’t believe those words had come from her mouth. Emily was a firm believer in marriage and commitment. “Is he having an affair? Of course he was. The rat. I knew—“
“He’s not having an affair.” She sat down, at last prepared to confess. “He’s forbidden me to quit work when we have children.”
“Forbidden?” This is not a word one would associate with Phil. Tupperware party Phil, or Sunday morning breakfast Phil. He might lecture, reason, debate, but not forbid. Still, I knew the job—sympathize with Emily. “How dare he?” And then the full impact of what she said hit me. Children. “Are you pregnant?”
“No.” She crossed her arms and declared militantly, “And with that attitude, he won’t be getting close enough to try.”
“He’s just scared, Em.” Nick’s deep voice held a reassuring note. “He’ll get it. Give him a little time. Going from two paychecks to one would scare any guy as careful as Phil.” Nick knows we keep him around for a glimpse into the depths of the male psyche—what depths there are, anyway. But sometimes he showed real promise.
“Listen to Nick, Em. After all, if a man who doesn’t consider where his next paycheck is coming from until the rent is due can understand Phil, we should too.” Even though I know Nick could be so much better than he is now, I still love him. Like a friend. Not like a lover. We’ve never gone down that road and thank goodness for that. I’m not good at relationships. I’m not sure why, because, as I said before, I am focused on the goal at all times. I just don’t seem to pick guys who appreciate that. My radar seems to seek out those men who are ambivalent at best about commitment, marriage, family, picking up their socks and putting them in the hamper at the end of the day, squeezing the toothpaste tube at the bottom rather than the middle…well, all that sort of thing.
Emily wasn’t mollified by Nick’s words, however. “I’m scared, too. What if I quit work and stay home for ten years and then the prick leaves me? I’ll have to start all over again.”
“He wouldn’t do that.” Considering the number of divorced people we all know, this was an out and out lie. Still, Nick was working in empathy mode. Man-empathy mode.
In good female-empathy mode I stepped in. “Don’t say that Nick. Remember, you’re an honorary Success Sister and our motto is that men will do anything. At least he isn’t having an affair.”
“What am I going to do?” Emily really wanted to know, and for a moment I didn’t have an answer. All I could see was Emily growing waddling-fat with child, while I couldn’t even find a husband.
After a good hard swallow, I csme up with a truly lame suggestion. “You have to make him see you’re right.”
Emily’s expression registered her disgust with my useless words. And then she smiled sweetly. “I will, as soon as you make your boss see that only you can write that article.” She took another huge bite of her bagel and glared at me.
Smart enough to know Emily was a lost cause this morning, Nick smiled sympathetically at me. “Unless she’s forgotten you ever had a birthday, Diana.”
“You’re a good friend.”
Emily swallowed noisily. “Who likes to make deadly weapons into art.” She frowned at us both.
# # #
When I got into work on Monday, I could almost believe that the she-devil has forgotten all about the article idea, the book, the image of me in pink and purple. Two hours passed in blissful efficiency, as I crossed off the twenty queries I’ve decided to reject with form letters, the three phone calls to follow up about articles I’m expecting, the call to Cynna in Art, requesting a photo of a very surprised young woman, with a half smile and nothing else. As usual, she tried to convince me I wanted something else. Today, however, I am strong. I am righteous. We find a compromise.
It wasn’t until the staff meeting at eleven that I regretted I didn’t bring Nick’s gift for show and tell. I could have used it when the princess of darkness announced in front of everyone that she wanted to assign Tandy Baker to go with me to visit all of my past boyfriends as I re-rated their mate potential—for our readers, all 100,000+ of them.
“I don’t even know where half of them are.” Even as I realized with a jolt that I was telling the truth, I wondered why I never thought to update the addresses. It occured to me that my friends and former roommates may have a point about my compulsive nature.
But there was no stopping this train with a few inconvenient facts. Tandy shook back her perfectly colored blonde hair. “Don’t worry, I’ll put research on it.” She smiled at our boss as if she wasn’t afraid of her in the least. Maybe she wasn’t not. She wasn’t the brightest of bulbs—she once told me that she thought plagiarism was an overrated problem. Apparently, in her view, the writer who is quoted without attribution should recognize the compliment and not make “too big a deal out of a missing citation or two.”
“What if they don’t agree? They won’t want to be humiliated like that.” I was rapidly talking myself out of the assignment, I realized. But not the Queen of Darkness.
“Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame, don’t be naïve.”
I had toyed with Emily’s suggestion. But that was before I knew I’d have to negotiate in front of everyone. Still, it was Tandy Baker, or–“Then I want to write it.”
She frowned and stared at me as if she hadn’t ever seen me before. “You haven’t written for us.”
I remembered Emily’s words. This article will be written, I could read that in my boss’s eyes. “After all, isn’t this one article that only I can write? And didn’t you say you’d assign me a story as soon as I found that idea?”
Botox or not, she was frowning at my argument. “I found the idea.”
“It’s my book.” For a moment I flashed back to the schoolyard and endless “Does not-Does to” arguments.
I could see the slightest flare of her nostrils as we both realized I actually do hold the critical ace. “Where is it?” I felt my rush of confidence begin to dwindle.
Tandy’s cream blouse tautened on her shoulders, almost as if she was planning to race me at a sprint to whatever location I revealed. “At home.” Tandy relaxes, apparently she recognized that, for the moment at least, she was defeated.
Olivia scratched something down on her pad, looked at Tandy and shook her head. She didn’t look at me. “You can do it, then, Diana.” Unexpectedly, she turnd her head and her bright green eyes bored into me while I wished she had kept staring at her pad. “But if you screw it up, your ass is mine.”
She moved right on to new business, but I had no idea what it was. All I could see was that damn book and all those neat pages of notes. Maybe my friends are right and my list making is a demon to be exorcised. I forced myself to focus on the positive–I had my very first writing assignment, after seven years of patient work and a bucket load of planning. A simple little expose of the failures in my love life.
CHAPTER FOUR
{{THROW SOME POST ITS IN HERE}} There was a message from my mother on the answering machine when I got home. “Hi, sweetie. I’ll be back from the wilds of Africa next week and I’ve got gifts for you. Come visit on Saturday. Bring Emily and Nick if you want. And anyone else.” There was a momentary hiss of dead air and then, “Oh, happy birthday, too. Hope you had fun at your little party.”
I called Emily. “Caroline’s home from the wilds of Africa next week. She wants to see you.”
“Don’t say it that way.”
“Why not? My mother is gone for months to a jungle full of deadly diseases and wild animals and the first thing she does is invite you and Nick to her house.” Knowing it will annoy her, I add in a timely aside, “And anyone else, of course.”
“Diana, you make too much of it. She’s…eccentric.” Emily does tend to be generous, but since “anyone else” is a euphemism for Phil—a man my mother contends is not good enough for Emily—I am surprised not to have raised fireworks.
“You sound happier, are you and Phil okay again?”
“No.” She changes the subject. “How did it go? Did the dragon lady remember?”
“Enough to put Tandy on the story.”
“Diana! You need to fight—“
“I did. It’s mine.”
“You did?” Why does her voice raise like a mother chucking a reluctant toddler under the chin? “Excellent. This deserves a celebration. Your treat. I’ll have Moo Shu chicken. Give me a ten minute head start before you call Pings to place the order.” She hung up.
I did the “I’m calling Pings” rap on the common wall between my apartment and Nick’s—two short knocks, a pause, and three taps. He rapped back twice—which meant order him the usual. Since I had a big favor to ask him, I added a few spring rolls—they were his favorite, but he only ordered them when he was working and had a little cash to spare.
I wondered if Phil would come along, but Emily was alone, her arms around two bags of take out.
“He’s working late,” was the only explanation she offered when I held the door open and glanced down the hall toward the elevator.
I didn’t ask if she’d called him. I could guess she hadn’t. Maybe she wanted him to come home to an empty house and consider what that would be like. It was a dangerous game, and one I’d seen my mother play before.
“I told the delivery guy to put it on your tab—and to include a $20 tip.” She doesn’t quite look at me as she adds, “It was that really young kid who’s trying to work his way through college.”
Great. A tip to make the delivery guy from Pings happy and to ease Emily’s conscience. On my account. I thought about bringing Phil up again. But there were just things I didn’t want to know right now. I wasn’t ready for the subject of babies and or divorce. Not while I was still down one husband…one boyfriend, for that matter. Besides, I didn’t feel like playing Dear Abby. Why should Emily be happy? I wasn’t. Rotten thought, but then, I was in a rotten mood. Lucky for the delivery guy that he’d met Emily in the lobby.
Emily put the food down on the old trunk I use as a coffee table and slapped the wall to let Nick know the food had arrived. He must have been at a good break point in his work because he came so quickly I could still smell developer fluid under the floral scented hand soap. There was something compelling about that scent. I loved it when Nick worked on his photographs, loved the way he talked, the way he smelled, the idea of capturing life on a flat white square in the most vivid of dimension. I wish I could do that. But I tend to cut off people’s heads.
“What’s the occasion?”
“Diana convinced the Dragon Lady to give her that assignment.”
Nick waved away the spring roll I held out. “You’re going to do an expose of your love life in front of how many people? Are you crazy?”
Of course I was. But I wasn’t too fond of him for asking. “If I don’t, Tandy will.”
“Good.” They both knew all about Tandy and her perfect little derriere and her perfect little smile and her perfect record for getting the plum assignments from our dreaded boss. Yet Nick didn’t seem the least bit sympathetic. “Let Tandy do it—and let her use her own little black book. You don’t have to do this, Diana.”
Just before I bit into the Kung Pao shrimp on my fork, I said, “True, I could refuse, lose my job, and be like you—working odd jobs and temp employment only when our esteemed landlord needs a rent payment.”
We might have degenerated into a Kung Pao shrimp fight if Emily hadn’t chosen that moment to burst into tears.
It took us both to calm her down. It wasn’t until I fished out the chocolate bar I’d been hiding for a binge moment and handed it over that she was finally able to hiccup her way into silence. Or almost silence. “What am I going to do?”
None of us had an answer to that one, so we split the chocolate bar, turned off the lights and played flashlight tag with the beer bottle mobile Nick had made for me. We managed to laugh at the end.
I even told Nick about my mother’s summons for dinner. His face lit up. Traitor. He loves my mother’s travel pictures. And her cooking. I can understand the cooking, though, because so do I. Though she divorced my father and left a suburban lifestyle behind without much regret, she could still make a mean pot roast or meatloaf, using nothing but the easy to clean up after microwave.
“I don’t know if I’ll bring Phil.”
“You mean “and anyone else”?”
Nick frowned at me and comforted Emily with a quick hug and “It’ll be alright.” He didn’t say the same to me as he slid out the door, no longer smelling of developer but only of leftover Chinese takeout.
When the door closed on the two of them, I wondered why life always has to change just when you think you’re getting the hang of it.
# # #
I had just decided that I was going to laugh my way to a great cover article when Tandy Baker stopped by my desk. She was the current flavor of the month writer. “Liv,” as Tandy called her—while the rest of us sent smoke signals around the building to help each other avoid her–said she cut right to the heart of the heart. I thought it was more likely that she cut right to the wallet because she didn’t waste time with the heart. Or maybe she cut it out and discarded it so it didn’t get in the way of the wallet.
“How’s it going, Lois Lane?” I had expected this. But not quite so soon. The sight of her perfect butt perched on the edge of my desk brought to mind thoughts of how much damage could be done by a soda can accidentally spilling. Unfortunately, I was only drinking water.
I took a sip before answering, so that I would sound halfway authentic when I answered. “Great.”
She leaned over as if she were going to confide a secret. My breasts aren’t real. Now, that would have been interesting. But, all she said was, “Diana, if you need any help, I’m here for you.”
“Thanks, I think I’ve got it covered.” Covered. Latched. Maybe clad in anti-tank armor. Even then I wasn’t certain I could protect this story from the clammy touch of Tandy’s fingers.
“It’s such a responsibility—a cover story. How humiliating it would be if your inexperience kept you from—“ Preying on my fears, she gave a tigerish grin of sympathy.
Fortunately, I was immune. “I can handle this article in my sleep.”
“Of course you can, but I know what it’s like to have your big break looming right in front of you. I just want to help.”
Help. Right. Help break my leg? My spirit? “Great, let me get everything organized and then I’ll come to you with my questions.”
She frowned. “Well, Liv suggested I help you with the organization.”
“Do you think I need it?” Even she couldn’t say yes to that. My reputation preceded me—for once in my favor.
“Okay. But I have some good ideas I’m dying to share with you.”
“Why don’t we set up a meet for tomorrow morning—say 9?” Tandy never shows up before noon.
She consults her bejeweled PDA. “Two works better for me.”
Well, duh. “I only have 9 available tomorrow.”
With a small frown on her lips that didn’t touch the smooth skin of her forehead she tapped at the device in her hand. “What about Wednesday?”
I managed to put her off until Friday at 2—since she leaves early every Friday that she doesn’t call in sick, I think I’ve dodged that bullet for the time being. But I’ve got a deadline now—the article has to be well planned before I meet with Tandy, or she’ll take it over, just like she’s done with others countless times. I wish I could hate her for it, tell her to get stuffed. But she is a good writer, and she does have good ideas.
If only she didn’t honestly believe stealing other people’s articles out from under them only happens because she’s so good—not because she’s evil. It would be easier if evil people wore armbands so others could identify them. But they wear the considerate expressions of the truly good most of the time. Makes it darned hard to trust anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Organizing the interview seemed clear cut to me. There was not sufficient time to revisit all my ghosts, thank God. Liv wanted max drama, of course, she always wanted max drama, even for subjects like tweezing vs. shaving vs. waxing. My hunch was confirmed in the next group meeting.
“Diana, tell us what you’ve got working.”
I pulled out my working binder, and flipped through the color coded tabs until I came to blue—process. “I thought I’d drop everyone a note—“
Liv laughed—managing to convey incredulity with scorn. “Max drama is not a polite note that can be tossed in the trash can. I thought you said you could handle this assignment.”
“I planned to follow up with a phone call.”
“What fun is that? No, face to face is the only way to reevaluate a man.” She twirled her pen slowly and for a moment it felt as if my intestines were somehow hooked onto the end of that pen. “In fact, I expect your face to get very close to his face, if you know what I mean.”
I hadn’t anticipated that. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I’d been busily organizing my binder to avoid thinking about seeing the guys again. Not just seeing them, but talking to them—how does anyone know they haven’t let some ridiculous prejudice prevent them from finding their soulmate? Is it far fetched that a woman could learn to love a guy who didn’t floss if he made her a better human being? What is a better human being?
I went with the best argument I could think of. “Face to face could be expensive, some of these guys have probably moved.”
“No problem. The budget on a cover issue is good—and this one has potential, I can feel it. Will the pressure be too much? I can give this to Tandy, if you don’t think you can handle it.”
My heart sank. She was going into slapdown mode. For those of you who don’t work in a predominately female work environment, I’ll explain. Women, in the millennia of powerless pawnship years, learned to work their own hierarchy, not with the swords and fists of men, but with the cold shoulder and pointed reminder that your social status lived and died by their sufferance. I hate slapdown mode. Mot people do, unless they’re the one doing the slapdown. Although masochists might enjoy it.
Anyway, lots of people make the mistake of fighting slapdown mode head on and find themselves blinking in surprise at the astonished demurral that any offense was meant. Or slap back, leaving the one with the most elegant fingers to leave the reddest mark on the figurative cheek.
I don’t waste my time with either of those tactics. They’re not my style. I don’t need to be top dog in a power struggle, I just need to be left alone to do my thing. And having a mother who was queen of the slapdown, I’ve long ago learned that there’s only one way to win against that ruthlessly female tactic: withdraw with a non-committal comment and then do what you intended to in the first place—just like a man.
I thought strategically for a moment and then said, “Tandy isn’t going to be able to evaluate my criteria for the perfect man, Liv. But I do see your point about face to face. I think I know the perfect approach—let me go write it up for you.”
She didn’t have a clue that I’d just spiked her attempt to highjack my article…or at least, I’d put the battle off for another day—when I’d be armed with facts and able to spin my angle so fast she’d think it was hers.
That was the plan, anyway.
CHAPTER FIVE
My mother was a normal mother until I went away to college. Meatloaf and macaroni and cheese for dinner, pb&j sandwiches and carrot sticks in my lunch box. I remember vividly that my friends liked it when she had carpool duty because she drove like a fiend, looking for the extra inch of space ahead and swearing without really swearing. “Gosh darn you green car, I wanted that space.” Or “Inch forward you mother-loving sillyhead, or I’ll miss the light.”
My father didn’t like her driving style and he wouldn’t let her drive when he was in the car if he could help it. Which is probably why she served him divorce papers next to the very last roast beef she cooked him.
The roast beef lasted for a week, just as her written instructions pinned to the refrigerator had advised him. The shock went on a bit longer. At least for my dad.
Mom seemed very happy in her one-bedroom condo with the mini-kitchen. She only used the microwave because she’d vowed never to clean an oven again. She took the divorce settlement and invested it. And then she began to travel. France. England. Scotland. Ireland. Germany. Of late it had been Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Africa.
When she wasn’t traveling she did temp work to build up her traveling fund. And she took singing lessons. Dancing lessons. Piccolo lessons.
She joked, a few times, that she wished she’d signed herself up for all the lessons she’d driven me to and from. A woman in mid-life crisis is truly an alarming sight. You never know what she’ll say. Worse, you never know what she’ll do.
Like invite you and your friends for lunch and serve sushi. Sushi. Nick loved it and complimented her profusely. But then, he would. Mom didn’t even notice that I was pushing the colorful rolls from one spot on my plate to another. I couldn’t help but remember how I lamented when I was thirteen and tried to eat nothing so I could be fashionably skeletal and she would wait with her arms crossed while I took three bites of meat, five of potatoes and six of vegetable.
I think I feel more like a little girl with my mom now that she treats me like an independent adult than I did when I was a child she sheltered and loved.
There was a color brochure about India on the table. Nick picked it up. “Is this your next trip, Caroline?”
“Maybe. It’s between that and Machu Pichu right now.”
“When are you going?”
“I just got a part in my local playhouse, so probably not until the play is finished its run.”
“A part?”
“Maggie.”
“Maggie?”
“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?”
“Aren’t you a little old for that?”
Nick looked at me reproachfully. “Sounds like a challenge.”
“Oh, it’ll be fun. I always wanted to act.”
Since when? And why doesn’t she tell me these things before she does them? Give me a little time to adjust. It’s so inconsiderate.
“So, how’s work?”
“Fine.”
“She’s writing an article.” Trust your friends with your secrets and you’ll regret it. “She’s going to interview all her old boyfriends to see if she missed Mr. Right.”
There’s one thing Mom still acts like a Mom about. Marriage. You’d think, given her choices in the last ten years, she’d encourage me to live my life to the fullest. And she does. But she thinks I’d be happier with a man by my side.
I haven’t decided whether she just wants grandchildren, or if she really thinks pair bonding is still important in this day and age. She stayed married to my dad for 20 years. But her longest relationship since has been 6 months. Since the guy was only two years older than me, I have to say I was glad they broke up.
Mom says her standards can be higher now, because she did the whole wife and mother thing and she is happily menopausal. But she does want grandchildren.
“Are you seeing Paul then?” She smiled as if she knows everything, which is so annoying. “He’s the one. I told you that long ago. Maybe this time you’ll listen to your wise old mother.”
“I didn’t overlook anyone. I just have high standards.”
She frowns and clears my plate, apparently understanding that the three pieces of Sushi are never going down my throat, but she does not say a word about me wasting away to nothing.
“He’s the one.” For a moment she sounds like the Mom of old. And then she spoils it. “But I leave it to you to discover that for yourself. You’re all grown up and you don’t need a mother to nag you.”
She turned to Emily and smiles. “So, you’re one who knows better than to let a good one get away. Where is he, by the way? Business trip?”
Emily didn’t burst into tears, but she might as well have. The unhappiness vibe apparently hit one stray maternal nerve left in my mother.
“Oh honey. Don’t tell me.” She topped Emily’s saki glass. “I was married for twenty years, I know all about it.”
“It’s not so bad.”
“If I had a nickel for every time I said that…”
“Really.”
“Well, at least you don’t have kids.”
Emily did burst into tears at that.
Mom blinked in surprise, but made the leap without much effort. “Oh. Can’t you?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t want me to quit work.”
My mother might have been a lawyer if she’d stayed in the country long enough to take the courses. For all I know, she will when she’s done with acting. She leans forward, “What was your agreement?”
“Agreement?”
“Before you married? Did you both want kids.”
“Yes. Two. I thought we were perfectly compatible.”
Mom leaned back and sighed. “Then have the baby.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“He—“
“—already agreed. Your eggs are getting older.”
“Mom, Emily doesn’t want to end up divorced like you.”
She seemed surprisingly hurt for a moment, and then she snapped. “I was married until you were grown. And I was a good wife and mother precisely because I never had a career to take my attention from you, sweetie pie.”
“I appreciated it Mom.” I don’t know why I got 50s sitcom mom until I was grown, and 70s sitcom bra burner after. But I couldn’t deny Mom had been there every day when I came home from school.
“I just don’t want someone else raising my child—he doesn’t understand.”
“Of course he doesn’t. He’s a man.” You have to understand my mother does not say this bitterly, or even with disdain. She says it matter of factly, just like most people would say when asked if men had ovaries. Sometimes I wonder how my Dad never knew what she thought of him all those years. But, then again, maybe he did. The woman he replaced her with seems to think he walks on water. Of course, she’s younger than I am by two years. And well on her way to convincing him the second family he’s resisting is the fountain of youth he covets.
As I leave she hugs me. “I’m proud of you.”
“For what?”
“For going after your dream. I know you can write that article.”
“Just like you know the right man for me?”
She smiled and pulled away. “Exactly.”
I think, despite my binder of color coded notes and my tangle with Tandy I hadn’t believed I was writing an article until Mom said it.
Panic set in, but I hid it—no way would I give Mom a whiff. I was writing this.
# # #
I’d avoided Tandy successfully with my careful scheduling, but I could no longer avoid her at the morning staff meeting. I wish there was a way I could just report my progress to Liv. Although that thought was frightening in and of itself.
“What do you have for me on Project Ex Files?” Apparently this was to be the pet name for my project. I carefully avoided wincing since Liv’s sharp and beady eyes were on me.
Stan, the token male laughed. “Sounds about right for dating—something is out there, Scully.”
Something is out there alright. And its name is disillusion. I snapped open my binder, satisfied to see the rather dismayed envy on my colleague’s faces. Stan was well known for presenting his ideas on cocktail napkins while Tandy preferred her cute little laptop, which ran out of battery power and needed to be recharged, usually within fifteen minutes of her presentation.
Feeling as if I should be crowned queen of the passive aggressive subterfuge, I tapped on the flow chart in front of me. “I’ve mapped these out. Seven men. Four states. Six cities. I’ve calculated the cost of rooms, meals, and airfare.” I slid the calculation across the table. My hope was that Liv would blanch and veto the weekend get together idea.
She blanched all right, but not for the right reason, “You’ve forgotten to budget for a photographer. She scratched in a few figures on my sheet, totted up a new total and signed the request. “Okay. Good job.”
She had signed the request. I took it back with numb fingers. Tandy tried to sneak a peek, but I snapped it back in my binder and closed it tight.
“When can you start?”
Would twenty years seem like procrastination? Probably. “I’ll call the first man on the list today. But it will all depend on him.”
“You haven’t called him already?”
“No. I wanted to get the budget approved first.” Or disapproved, but since that hadn’t happened, I wasn’t about to admit my secret hope. What was so wrong about a simple dinner for two, a glass of wine to loosen old memories, an insincere air kiss at the end of the evening and back home again.
“How considerate.” Liv glared at the rest of the table in turn. “I wish all of you were so considerate of your expense account approvals.” Then she turned back to me and smiled. A chill went through me. “Feel free to go as much as ten percent over without feeling any need to worry.”
“Thank you.” It seemed like the right thing to say. Or at least better than “Are you out of your freaking mind?” Since that was a given—and better left unspoken.
“Great.” Liv focused on her next victim and I started to relax. Until she turned back to me and said negligently, ”I’ll expect your preliminary notes on the first ex on Monday.”
“Monday?”
She looked at me impatiently. “Yes. After this weekend. I know you’re new, but notes are best written out immediately, so you don’t lose details.”
“But what if he can’t do it this weekend.”
“He will.”
“But—“
Tandy sat up. “Would you like me to talk to him? I can be very persuasive.” Which was no understatement.
“No thanks.” I’d rather eat a box of nails with salt. “If The Eye is picking up the tab, he’ll be all over it.” I glanced at Liv, trying to slow things down. “The others are a different story, though. They don’t live so close.”
“You’ll figure it out. After all, you’re talking about a series of seven articles that could bring The Eye some nice notoriety.” Unspoken went the message that if I didn’t, I’d be handing my chance for a cover article to Tandy. Although Tandy wiggled a bit with anticipation. She quite obviously didn’t think I could pull it off. Little did she suspect that I lived to disappoint her.
And then, in time-delay, I heard the dreaded word Liv had uttered. “Series?”
“Yes. Didn’t I tell you? This search of yours will bring in the readers—young woman, getting desperate, wondering if she missed Mr. Right because of some feminist propaganda that she needs a man to meet all her criteria.”
“I wouldn’t say desperate.”
“Of course you will.” Liv blinked and I felt the falling sensation that comes when one is close to her and she is displeased. “Are we not on the same page here?” She glanced at Tandy, who sat forward and smiled.
“Of course we are. I was thinking curious rather than desperate, though.”
Tandy’s head was turning from Liv to me to Liv as if she were watching a tennis match. Perhaps she was. The word desperate was certainly bouncing with force back and forth, after all.
“Desperate will sell more copies.”
“Well, then. Desperate it is.” I smashed the word back into Liv’s court, conceding the game, hoping still to recover the match. I swear Tandy had a tear in her eye.
CHAPTER SIX
“So what’s so bad about the word desperate? Surely you can’t mind the series thing—you’re looking at the Pulitzer eye to eye.” Trust her to be my cheerleader, even when I needed a dirge player.
“Pulitzer? For writing articles about a desperate woman—who just happens to be me, by the way—turning over the rocks of her past relationships to see if she missed a gem among the worms? Remember, men give out the Pulitzer and it’s never going to be given to a woman writing about desperation—or menopause or PMS either, come to think of it.
She shrugged. “Fine then. It’s practice for that great article on having to write crap for your breakthrough article, then. Surely some navel lover will give you a Pulitzer for that.”
I frowned at her. “Have you ever read a Pulitzer winner?”
She shrugged. Again. Good thing she was protecting her neck from my hands. But then, she was a cheerleader, not a seer, so I shouldn’t be looking for wisdom in all the wrong places or I’d end up with crabbed hands and Tandy would run away with my article.
I decided it was time to take the spotlight off me and my non-Pulitzer worthy assignment. “Speaking of desperate, how goes the husband/wife battle over parenthood? Have you started poking holes in the old diaphragm yet?”
She looked away. I’d never seen Emily be so evasive. “What good would that do—only works if you have sex.”
I was shocked speechless for a moment. A bad thing, she still didn’t look at me, but her face turned bright red. I tried to recover. “Guess not. Oh well, it’ll be all the better when you get to the makeup sex.”
“Does that come before the divorce or afterward?” Her voice was soft, and the color drained from her face until she slowly turned to look at me. I think she was trying not to cringe. She knows how I feel about divorce. It’s fine for other people, but not for those I love. Some leftover sentiment from my parents’ bombshell split, I suppose.
I wrestled with moving to Japan and taking on an easier career—say sushi seller—since I’d be sure never to eat any of my wares and cut into my own profit. In the end, though, my pros and cons list came out a little better on the pro side—after all, I wanted to be a writer and sometimes you have to kiss a lot of toads to find your way to the prince…or print in my case. Seven toads and then I’d find a subject I cared to write about and use my clips—all seven of the wretched things.
It seemed a bearable price to pay for ambition. Until I thought of the interview coming up this weekend. I was going to have to spend the weekend with Henry. Talk to Henry. Write down what Henry said, what I said, what I thought. Worse I was going to need pictures. Which meant a photographer along to make sure that I went for the max drama the dragon lady was looking for. Oh joy.
Nick used his key to let himself in, forestalling any more questions Emily might have had for me. I stopped myself from begging him then and there to take the job. I didn’t want Emily to see my desperation. I suspected strongly that Nick would need to see the full extent before he’d agree, but I could swear him to secrecy. I knew things about him that he wouldn’t want widely known. We could deal. I hoped.
“How’s Lois Lane doing on her big scoop?” Nick might have though he was being funny. Of course, he might have been trying to save me from myself, too. He’s the kind of person who thinks selling out to the man is a big bad thing—he wasn’t born until the seventies, but his parents had him late in life, and they’d told him they’d captured his unbirthed soul at Woodstock but had waited until they had a home and two cars before they made a baby that could house that soul. I don’t think he believed them. I don’t think.
“Fine.” I didn’t even try for anything witty. I’d been trying for witty all day and I didn’t have the energy. “I think I have a way to get these darned interviews and still maintain my sanity.
“Going to send in your evil twin?”
“No.” I turned to him. It was important to me, but I didn’t know what he would say. He’d had a job recently, and although regular people would jump at the money, I didn’t know if his cupboards were bare enough. I’d heard the weird rattle, tap, bang, whir coming from his apartment of late that signaled a major bout of creativity—the avant garde kind that usually meant he’d been inspired by a dumpster dive, or a building in need of renovation.
“I’m going to get the best damn photographer in the world to make it look like I’m up close and personal, even if I’m not.”
Silence. Okay, so he’d jumped ahead to the pressing question. Should I ask it anyway? Or was he hoping it would go away before he had to say no and break my heart. Because it would break my heart to have anyone there with me but him.
The truth was that I could trust him not to catch me with spinach in my teeth, and probably not crying. I’d have to remember not to look shocked or infatuated, because he’d definitely capture those moments and blackmail me with them forever and ever amen.
I decided to try the straightforward, heartfelt approach. He hated that. “I need you. This is going to be hard enough without someone on my side.”
“Who says I’m on your side?”
That hurt. But I dismissed it. He really hated heartfelt, after all. “If you aren’t I might as well give up now. Don’t try for a writing career. Don’t try for a husband. Hell, don’t try for a life.”
“Crybaby.”
I looked him right in the eyes. I would have squeezed a tear out, if I could, but I only cry when it is highly inappropriate, like when someone yells at me or I see the price tag on a great pair of shoes. “I need you.”
“If you go back to any of them—any of them at all—I’m walking away.”
“Okay.” Go back to them? I’d rather switch the gel insoles in my athletic shoes with a bed of sharp nails.
“Don’t promise so quickly. I mean it.”
“Do you think I made a mistake and turned down some guy I shouldn’t have?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not going back to any of them, so don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll stop worrying about it when your article is written and done.”
“You and me both.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
I nervously ran Nick’s paperwork by Liv, hoping she would be in one of her sign without reading and then screech holy hell later moods. She wasn’t. She read the paperwork. Every word. “Nick?” Her brow might have wrinkled in another woman. But Liv’s brow didn’t dare.
“He’s good.”
“That nice young artist from your birthday bash?” Liv remembered Nick. Of course that shouldn’t have surprised me. He is an eligible male, after all. I suddenly feel a twinge of worry. I reassure myself with the thought that there’s absolutely no reason for their paths to cross—the weekend getaways will be out of Liv’s social sphere. For once, I’m glad.
“He’s a professional photographer.”
“Where have I seen him?”
“His photos have been in GQ and Vogue.” Advertisements in those magazines, but hey—a girl has to use whatever she can to impress. Nick’s never had a cover. I’m suddenly not sure whether he might want one. He’s always been fairly casual about it. But I’ve been that way about getting an opportunity to write an article—and look what I’m willing to do to get it. Hmm. Definitely bears further thought. If Emily is in a better mood, I might even get her take on what secret ambitions Nick might be harboring. Could come in handy in the next few months.
Friday morning I met Nick downstairs at the receptionist desk and steered him quickly to accounting to sign his contract. He didn’t read it, just as I’d hoped. Another time I might have scolded him, but today I just wanted the damn thing signed before he noticed the scope of my research had widened considerably.
He’d scrawled his artistically illegible signature on all six pages of the contract and I’d thought we were home free when who should show up—at accounting where she’d never been before—than Tandy. I suppose it is better than Liv, which would indicate an interest that Nick would not thank me for.
“What a great coup. I hear your photographer has done GQ and Vogue.”
Nick, bless his heart, opened his mouth to confess the truth.
I simultaneously stepped forward onto his foot and reached out to Tandy in an expansive gesture worthy of Liv at her most excruciatingly pleasant. “Tandy. Fancy meeting you down here in the bowels of the number cruncher’s lair. This is Nick.”
“Hi Nick.” Her eyes licked over him like a tongue over ice cream.
“Hi Tandy.” He responded with a smile so friendly I could almost believe he hadn’t heard a word of my grouching about Tandy. Traitor. Of course, I was standing on his foot.
I shifted my weight back to my own two feet—both firmly on the floor. “He’s very talented. And a friend.”
“I could always use a new photographer myself.” She smiled. “I get so many covers I have to spread the wealth, you know.”
“I’ll give him your number.” I’m ashamed to admit I dragged Nick out of there like an overprotective mother might drag a teenage boy away from an eager hooker. Not a bad comparison, actually. I decided not to indulge in guilt. It was for Nick’s own good, after all.
Nick didn’t mention my odd behavior. But he did ask, fortunately quite belatedly. “So, where do I need to be for this shoot of yours?”
“We’ll start with dinner at La Scala.”
“Start?” He raised a brow.
“It’ll be a whole weekend.”
“What?”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“No.”
“Oh.” I quickly filled him in on the plans, avoiding his eyes—which were no doubt smoking with anger as the full extent of my betrayal sank in.
“Who’s the lucky #1?” He asked at last. “I’ve always wondered who the first guy to win your heart was like.”
“You’ll have to keep wondering for a while,” I said, shuddering. “I’m going backward—starting with Henry.” A man Nick knew well. And didn’t like.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” His voice was gravelly with disappointment as he walked away without a further word.
I was ashamed at the relief that flooded through me. He was going to do it. For me. It would take me forever to make it up to him. If I ever did.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Friday evening came very quickly, it seemed, even though I was as prepared as anyone can be for ex-dating. I’d decided to start with Henry because he was the easiest. In some ways, at least. No one except Emily and Nick ever understood why I broke up with him in the first place.
“Are you sure we need to start with Henry? Couldn’t we leave him off the list?”
He’s my last serious boyfriend, he’s number one.” I wasn’t going to let Nick change my plans now. I pulled out the notebook and rifled through the sections, carefully color coded and labeled for each man: Henry was first. I had my interview questions ready and a chart listing the reasons I’d thought he might be the one—and a page of reasons why I’d decided he wasn’t.
“Holy Purple Columbine Diana! Your little black book has mutated into the Godzilla of all notebooks.”
“Just drive.”
He held out his hand.
“What?”
“I presume you have carefully mapped our course.”
“I can play navigator.”
He wiggled his fingers impatiently. I placed the carefully redlined map on his open palm.
“Let’s go then,” he said, crumpling the map into his door pocket without another glance.
I didn’t say a word in protest—all I could think of was that I would be face to face with Henry in 32.5 minutes. If Nick didn’t get lost without the use of my map. Even then, it couldn’t take us more than ten minutes to find the restaurant. My stomach tightened involuntarily. The place where Henry had proposed to me on bended knee. For just a minute I wished I smoked so I could tap out a cigarette, light it, and take a deep, calming drag.
“You look like you’re going to your execution, you know? It is only Henry. You can handle him.”
“What if I realize what a mistake I made to turn him down?”
“Then I’ll turn the hose on you until you regain your senses, of course.”
“You are a good friend.”
“The best.”
Nick must have known where the restaurant was already, because we arrived promptly, without one wrong turn and without his giving a single glance at my map.
“Sure you want to take that with you?” Nick put his hand on my notebook.
“A good article isn’t written with shoddy notes.”
“We don’t even have to go in there to write the book on Henry.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Fine.”
“You’re just the photographer.”
“And your friend.”
True. Which was why I didn’t fire him on the spot.
Henry was at “our” table. The maitre’d was the same one on duty when Henry had made his proposal. I thought it was just a minor coincidence until the waiter arrived at the table with a beaming smile and a bottle of Dom. He’d been the one who’d hailed the cab for me the last time. After I’d turned down Henry’s proposal.
Henry smiled at me as if we hadn’t ever broken up, stood up and came around the table to pull my chair for me. I had told him countless times how much I hated him to do that, but he’d never gotten the message. Always hold a lady’s chair—even if she threatened to clobber him with it—was his mantra and far be it for Henry to deviate from social niceties for someone else’s comfort.
I’d already arranged for Nick to sit at another table, hopefully out of hearing distance. But he went into ostentatious photographer poses, snapping shots as we settled ourselves at the table. Snap. Henry leaning in to kiss my cheek. Snap. Me turning so that the kiss was merely a brush of his lips on the hard edge of my jawbone. Snap. Henry officiating at the pouring of the champagne with gentle press of his palms like the Pope in prayer. Snap. Me putting my hand over my glass and shaking my head no. Snap…was I going to look like a bitch to my readers for refusing Henry’s puppy-eyed plea? Snap. Me taking my hand from the glass and allowing a bit of bubbly to be poured for me.
I take a sip, and glare at Nick. Snap. But he unwraps from the crouching pelican pose he has adopted and takes his seat at his table like a good boy.
Henry raises his glass and his eyebrows at the same time, a gentle chiding for my lack of manners in sipping before toasting. “To old friends.”
We clink. We sip. We smile as if we are strangers newly met, unaware of each other’s flaws and faults.
Henry glances at Nick for the first time. “Your bodyguard?”
“Photographer.”
“So, someone is finally letting you write for them?”
This is what I hate about Henry most. He says the cruelest things with such a jaunty air that I can almost believe he is unaware of what he is doing. Unfortunately, his words have the same shrinking effect on me regardless of his intent. I feel it now—a little shrink-wrapping squeeze to my vital organs. Thank goodness Nick can’t see it, or he’d memorialize it on film.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Henry Kingston
Stockbroker, 35
Top Score: job – 10
Bottom Score: listening – 1
I feigned distress. “You did know I was going to interview you, didn’t you? I was very clear with your secretary.” And then I felt a twinge of real distress. He’d made me communicate through his secretary. Had his secretary told him, or had she left that part out in fear he wouldn’t agree? Henry was very hard on his secretaries and they tended to last no more than a few months at a time.
He smiled, and his eyes gleamed with satisfaction that he’d worried me. “Of course she told me. I think it is splendid that your magazine is giving you a shot. I always told you that I thought you’d make a fine writer someday.”
Someday. Right.
“Great.” I took out my list of questions and set it next to my salad fork. I turned on my recorder and put it on the table between us. “Let’s get started then.”
He frowned, picked up the recorder and switched it off. “We have plenty of time for questions. Let’s enjoy dinner. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Part of the job. Fortunately, the job came with hazard pay. I’d need it for a meal that started with champagne, moved on to pate and Kobe steaks, rare. By the time we got to the Mousse Angeline, I’d rewritten my first question twice. He hadn’t answered any version of it yet. But I really wanted to know: why had he thought I would make him a good wife when he didn’t actually seem to like me?
When the waiter brought the cheese plate and Eiswein, I turned the recorder on and flipped open my notebook. “Time to pay for this dinner,” I said, keeping the recorder safely on my side of the table, guarded by the cobalt blue vase with the single orchid that sat between us. “I have a list of questions for you.”
He took a sip of his wine. “Quelle surprise. Ask me number four.”
“What?” I stared at the list in confusion. I’d already prepared myself to ask the first question.
“Shake it up a little. Don’t start with the first question. That was always your problem, Diana. You treat those lists like they’re the Ten Thousand Commandments carved in stone and unbreakable.”
Leaving the table was not an option, even though I had decided, while I tried to eat my field greens without trailing leaves between my lips as I chewed, that I had not missed seeing Henry was my Prince Charming. My orders were very specific. A weekend. Or I’d be paying for this dinner myself.
I opted for acting like Princess Charming. “Good insight. I must have been quite trying for you while we were dating.”
“You were a challenge. I like a challenge.”
“I see. Is that why you proposed? So you could be challenged for the rest of your life?”
He buttered a cracker with Brie before he answered. “That was question one, wasn’t it? Ask me four instead.”
I looked down at my notebook.
Q1: Why did you think I’d make a good wife? (Had to ask again, since he still hadn’t answered it.)
Q2: Were you surprised when I said no? (Of course he was, his jaw hung open, and he dropped the ring in my water glass.)
Q3: How long did it take you to recover from my rejection? (That one I didn’t want to know, but my boss had insisted.)
Q4: What did I miss by not marrying you?
“Okay. Four it is,” I stalled, trying to think of a new question that wouldn’t sound like I’d made it up from thin air. I sucked down my eiswein and popped a green grape in my mouth for an excuse to chew and not talk.
He just smiled, sipped his wine, and waited.
“One thing I think my readers would love to know is whether I may have missed something special being married to you. You know,” I babbled, now that I’d begun, “like breakfast in bed every morning, or a life of adventure and travel.” I forced myself to stop. If I was going to be a reporter I had to speak less and leave room for him to answer. Even if I didn’t really want to hear the answer.
He templed his fingers and his brow knit. His eyes met mine. “What are you afraid you missed?” he asked. Of course.
Being tortured with conversations like this one every day of my life. Not that I could say that. “Well, that’s what I’m here to find out.” I waited, pen poised above paper, recorder capturing the clink of silverware and whispers of other people’s conversations.
“Let me think about it.” He signaled the waiter for the check. “While we go for a carriage ride. You always liked the carriage rides.”
No. I didn’t. How could a man be so good at knowing how to frustrate you, and still not have a clue about what you actually liked to do? The smell of horse and exhaust was not at all enticing to me.
“We can’t. I got tickets for the late night show at The Comedy Corner.”
He frowned at me. “I hate stand up. Everyone thinks their personal complaints are so funny. I am not amused by people who can’t ride the subway without a guide.”
“That was one guy in one show. Not every comedian complains about the subway.” Not that Henry would know, since he walked out right after the first comedian’s first joke the only time we’d ever gone to a comedy club.”
“I’d rather go for a carriage ride, if you don’t mind.”
I did mind. But I didn’t to squabble in front of the waiter, who had brought me the bill. I tried not to squeak when I saw the total. The tip alone would be as much as the last pair of shoes I couldn’t afford to buy. Thank goodness for the company credit card. I thought of one way to persuade Henry to go to the comedy club. “This show’s been sold out for a month. I had to call in favors to get the tickets.” To be truthful, the magazine had been given two. But I’d never have scored them if I wasn’t doing this article.
“You asked me on this date, remember? You’re supposed to be find out if you should have said yes to me.” He stood up and held out his hand to help me up. I hated that. “A carriage ride in the moonlight is much more romantic than a comedy club. So say yes this time.”
Romantic. I suddenly remembered why we had dated for six months. I was a sucker for a guy who could milk a romantic moment in the moonlight. I stood up and blurted out, “I’m allergic to horses.”
“You are not.”
Nick came up behind us and snapped a picture. “Yes, she is. I’ve been witness. She’s deathly allergic to horse’s asses.”
I wanted to kiss him. I’d forgotten he was on the job, too, which probably didn’t speak much for my reportorial skills.
CHAPTER NINE
Henry ignored Nick. I remembered, then, how often he had ignored Nick. The two of them just never got along. Tough. This was my job, and they’d both have to suck it up.
When Nick raised the camera to capture Henry’s unhappy frown, I moved just enough to ruin the shot. “Carriage ride is out. I have a job to do, and Nick’s part of that. We’re going to the comedy club.” I left Henry and his now puzzled frown behind as I headed for the curb to hail a cab. I’m pretty sure I heard the snap and whirr as Nick took multiple shots.
I thought he might call it a night. Henry had trouble wrapping his mind around the thought that anyone wouldn’t think his chosen plan brilliant. I was good with having an early night. There was always tomorrow. My job was to see if I’d missed anything, not to slip back into my meek mild role as the woman who said “Yes, Henry.”
I didn’t give in to the urge to look back, but instead locked eyes with a cabbie and gave him my best “pick me up or feel the wrath of Karma” look. He shot over to the curb. A little pulse of power shot through me. I am woman, see me hail a cab.
I reached for the door handle, but Henry got there first. I stepped back to let him open the door. “Thank you.” Was I thanking him just for opening the door, or for following my plan for once? Probably both. I didn’t need him to open the door, but I didn’t mind. Why some women thought it was a man’s job to open car doors always puzzled me. It’s a car door, not an iron castle grate. I slid over to let him get in, too.
“I didn’t know you hated carriage rides.” He climbed into the cab, closed the door, and gave a crisp command to the cabbie with the address of the club. “You should have told me.”
His voice was so apologetically un-Henry like that it wasn’t until we pulled away from the curb that I registered we’d ditched Nick. I turned around to see him hailing another cab. He raised the camera to take a picture. I waved. Thank goodness for expense accounts.
The line to get into the club wrapped around the block. Henry scowled. “Are you sure you want to do this? Since you don’t like carriage rides – see, I’ve made note of that now that you told me –“ he grinned. “We could take a walk through Central Park. I know you like that. You used to drag me there every Sunday morning.”
I did like to walk in Central Park. But not at night. Still feeling the pulse of diva power, I shook my head and waved the tickets at him. “VIP.”
He leaned forward to read the ticket. “Whoa. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” He took the tickets out of my hand and slipped them in his shirt pocket. “You really did go all out for this reunion.” He stared at me as if he’d never seen me before. “I like the star treatment.”
He got out of the cab, and leaned in to help me out. I remembered what had attracted me to Henry – his confidence was like an energy cloud around him. It could make anyone in his vicinity follow his lead without question. He was exuding mega confidence with those tickets in his pocket as he strode past the people in line. Naturally, the people in line were not happy to see us go straight up to the bouncer. They’d probably been waiting in line for hours just to get the chance to grab a table up close to the stage.
I held back a little as the bouncer gave us an unfriendly stare and crossed his arms. Henry smiled widely and flourished the tickets.
I heard a few people in line groan as the bouncer’s attitude instantly turned friendly. He moved the red velvet rope to let us pass. “I feel a little guilty,” I whispered to Henry.
“That was always your problem, Diana. Guilt-induced hesitancy. Seize the day, I say.”
He frowned at something behind us and I turned to see Nick getting out of his cab. His eyebrows raised when he saw us and then he grinned as he loped over to catch up.
“Do we really need him?”
“This is an assignment. Who do you think paid for the tickets?” Technically, they had been a gift to my boss, so it hadn’t really been paid for at all. But, whatever. I could never afford this kind of treatment without an expense account. “If he doesn’t come with, all I can afford is hot dogs and a walk in the park.”
“But you planned it. And I must say you’ve done a good job so far. I can’t wait to see what you have planned for tomorrow. I’m very impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Tomorrow. Fortunately, I didn’t have to answer him. The bouncer cut Nick off, and Henry stopped speaking. I could see he hoped that Nick would be denied entry when the bouncer said curtly, “No cameras.”
I started toward them, wondering if I was going to be stuck in the club alone with Henry – and 300 comedy fans, of course.
“He’s with me, we’re on assignment for The Female Eye.” I explained to the bouncer.
He checked his list, and Nick’s temporary magazine badge. “Okay. You’re good. No pictures of the show.”
“Not a one,” Nick promised. “I’m focused on these two lovebird VIPs.”
Lovebird? He must be really mad at me for leaving him to catch his own cab.
Henry, however, was so pleased, he even smiled at Nick. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.
By the time we’d found our table, Henry’d gone back to ignoring Nick. Just before he pulled out my chair for me, he took my elbow, and leaned in for a quick kiss. “Never mind about what you have planned for tomorrow. You had me at VIP.”
I sat heavily in the chair, making it awkward when he tried to push me closer to the table. I realized what the VIP tickets meant to him. He thought I wanted him back. Crap.
Nick took that moment to snap a photo of my face. I narrowed my eyes at him in warning. He grinned a grin that told me my face was just a little too transparent for my own good.
Henry, as usual, ignored the presence of a pesky photographer. Or maybe it made him feel extra VIP, because there was a gleam in his eye that told me I’d better keep that Wonder Woman power pulse going. I’d need it to say no when it came time to say goodnight…or not.
CHAPTER TEN
I’d silenced my phone and given myself over to enjoying the performance and my VIP status – all the drinks I could want, plus a table with an unobstructed view of the comedians.
Is it horrible of me that a teensy part of me wished I could live like that forever? That I wasn’t on assignment, but had accepted Henry’s proposal and we were there for real? A couple.
I laughed at the comedian’s wry humor. She didn’t hold anything back, and she even used Henry for a punchline or two. He didn’t seem to mind, which surprised me, until I realized that he was enjoying having the spotlight on him as she asked him questions about what he did, where he lived, and what his favorite form of bondage was.
He didn’t squirm when she got laughs out of making fun of him. Maybe because he got a laugh from her when he answered the bondage question with, “Tying up a comedian’s funds in municipal bonds.”
I remembered something I’d really liked about Henry. He had a great sense of humor when he wasn’t annoyed or frustrated.
The show ended late, and Henry wasn’t a club kind of guy, so I hadn’t planned anything but a quiet nightcap and an early start to the next day.
When we stepped out into the lobby, I saw I had four texts. Two from Oliva Wallace. Two from Emily. I signaled Henry, who was chatting with someone he knew, and pointed to the phone.
Nick started to lift his camera to catch me in mid-call, but a bouncer grabbed his arm and I turned my back, hoping he’d put the camera away for a little while.
I called Emily first. “What’s up?”
“So? Did you miss the silver lining in Henry’s black cloud?”
“The evening is young,” I teased, knowing exactly what she thought of Henry.
“Are you over your two-drink limit?” She clicked her tongue at me. “Of course you are. Don’t do anything you’ll regret. The man is a worse control freak than you are.”
“Em–” My phone interrupted me to tell me I had another call. “The Dragon Lady needs me. Talk to you tomorrow. Night.”
I think she tried to protest, but I was already gone.
“Hi Olivia. I had my phone off for the performance, I’m sorry,” I began without preamble. Dragon ladies don’t like to be kept waiting.
“I just wanted to see what your preliminary thoughts are on the direction of the piece.”
“The performance was great. Dinner was delicious. Thank you so much for –”
“Diana.” One word cut through my babble. “I didn’t use the magazine’s clout to pay for a VIP evening and reserve the best suite for you to hear about food and jokes. Is the spark…sparking again?”
The question, coming from her of all people, startled me. I looked at Henry, and all the history fell away and I saw him like I had the first time I met him. A beautiful curve to his bottom lip and a smile that showed it off. The man he was talking to nodded, listening as Henry spoke confidently about whatever they were discussing. Confident. Handsome. Henry.
“Diana!”
I shook my head clear of the over-limit glass of wine and Amaretto Sour I’d consumed at dinner and the show. “I can’t tell yet.”
“Well, get to it, then.” She practically purred for a moment, before she said, “I didn’t authorize your use of the magazine’s hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton just so you could play gin rummy.”
Gin rummy? “No danger of that. We’re heading to the hotel right now. I promise if there’s any sparks left, I’ll find them.”
Nick laughed from behind me. “And stomp them out, I hope.”
I took a page from Henry’s playbook and ignored him.The spark felt warm and good and I wasn’t anywhere near ready to stomp it out. What kind of reporter doesn’t go after the story in any way she needed in order to get the whole truth?
# # #
The dragon lady had gone all out on the expenses for this piece, insisting that we spend the night in the city.
Henry was impressed, of course, when I told him where we would be staying. The spark flared hotter at his expression, which made it clear I’d surprised and impressed him yet one more time.
He didn’t ask the question I’d been too afraid to ask Olivia’s assistant when she called to inform me of the reservation: one room or two? That thought did dim the spark a little. I didn’t mind flirting with the past, but did I want to risk diving in to find the history way too cold?
When I got to the reception desk, I found out the one room or two question didn’t matter. The dragon lady’s assistant had reserved a two bedroom suite for us. With a sitting room. And three bathrooms.
Not to mention a bottle of champagne and a plate of fruit and cheeses waiting for us when we stepped into the room.
“Wow. I could get used to this treatment.”
“Not a wise idea. For any of us.” Nick snapped a few candids as we checked out the room. Or should I say rooms.
Henry tried to ignore him, but Nick’s huge lens was hard to ignore.
Henry settled for looking directly at me and speaking as if Nick’s lens wasn’t trained on him as he lifted the bottle of champagne from the bucket of ice keeping it chilled. “I think we’ve had enough photographs for the evening. Perhaps we should retire to the private portion of the evening?” He popped the champagne cork directly toward Nick’s lens.
I took the glass of champagne and clinked glasses with Henry. He tried to intertwine our arms for a romantic shared toast, but I stepped away, raised my glass, and drained it much too fast. I didn’t know if it was the heady feeling of VIP treatment, or the extra alcohol, but all I could think about was that Henry was a good kisser. A very good kisser. And I hadn’t been kissed in a long while.
Henry followed, as if he didn’t notice my hesitation. “I’ve missed you. Sometimes I think you’re the only one who ever got me.”
He leaned in and touched his lips to mine lightly. It was as if we had never broken up. My lips knew just what to do in response.
Nick took several rapid-fire shots before I could bring myself to break off the kiss.
I put up my hands to hide my face. “When did you turn into a paparazzi?”
“Just doing my job.” He flopped onto the couch with a very Nick smile of innocence. “I guess I’ll bunk here tonight. There are only two bedrooms and you each need one.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Henry said.
“No problem,” Nick said, kicking off his shoes. “I’m used to bunking down in worse places than this when I’m on assignment.”
“Nothing’s going to happen that you’ll have to memorialize on film,” I said, not really knowing if that was true or not. “You can go home, if you want.” I wasn’t sure whether I wanted him gone. But I definitely didn’t like him on the couch, looking like somebody’s deadbeat brother.
“You know me. I’m not the earliest bird in the flock. I don’t want to miss any of the early morning breakfast shots.” He waved his hand toward the big window. “The balcony will give us some great outdoor shots.”
“She’s got some great things planned for you tomorrow, too. No one can plan like our Diana.” He smiled at Henry, but then looked at me. “You’re not much of an early riser, either. You should put in your room service order now. Can you order me a goat cheese and basil omelette, with a side of bacon. And coffee.” He closed his eyes, as if he would fall asleep right there. “Lots of coffee.”
Henry looked like he was about to argue, but I picked up the phone. “Good idea. Do you still like to start with an egg white scramble and whole wheat toast?”
Henry seemed pleased that I remembered his breakfast order. As if I could forget the many times he sent back an order that dared to have a speck of yolk showing. “And orange juice.” He looked around the opulent suite. “Fresh squeezed, with a side of champagne.”
“Mimosas it is,” I agreed.
“The robes in this place are supposed to be amazing.” Henry peered into the doorway of each bedroom and paused at one. “I’ll just go make myself comfortable.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Nick mumbled from the couch.
I hung up the phone, marveling at how easily room service worked in a hotel. Even better than take out.
“Hey, stop it. This is my big break, and you’re going to ruin it for me.” I flopped down next to him.
“Do you remember this guy? He’s the one–”
“Nick. Stop. I can handle this.”
“You almost kissed him.”
“I’m over my two drink limit.”
“It was more than that. For a minute, you looked like you did when you first fell for the guy.”
“Henry’s not as bad as you and Emily make him out to be.”
“Please. You were a basket case when you were dating him.”
I squinted at him, remembering. “So you say. But was it Henry that made me that way? Or you and Emily, always criticizing him?” I was just trying to needle him, but then my question struck me as valid. Had I broken up with Henry because Nick and Emily didn’t like him?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Breakfast on the hotel balcony was just about romantic-movie perfect. Not too chilly, no splash of yellow in Henry’s egg white omelette.
Except for one persistent pigeon, and Nick, the morning foretold another great day for rekindling romance.
“So, what have you planned for today?”
Henry’s question was casual, but I tensed inside. The bar was now set so high that a sea-salt scrub and a picnic in Central Park might not elicit the gleam that had lit his eyes last night.
Fortunately, the suite’s phone rang, and I escaped without answering.
The voice on the phone was smooth, polite, and solicitous. “What time will you be requiring your picnic lunch basket delivered?”
What time? The simple decision left me speechless. What if I chose a time too early? Too late?
“Ma’am?”
“Noon.” Can’t go wrong with noon. Unless it was too predictable?
“Very good, ma’am.” Was that a hint of condescension? From the hotel staff?
Nick sat on the couch, organizing his case of lenses. “You better get ready, or you’ll be late for the spa appointment.”
“Oh ye of little cash.” I wagged my finger at him. “They’ll come to us.”
He laughed softly in appreciation of the convenience. “Sweet.” He frowned at his lenses, and swapped out one for the other. “I’ll only need this baby, then. Until we hit the park.”
“Shh.” I glanced to wear Henry sat sipping coffee on the balcony. “I haven’t told him yet.”
“Worried about disappointing him, now that he’s having such a grand time?”
“Nonsense. This is an assignment.”
He smiled. “Then why are you twisting your hair around your index finger again? I haven’t seen you do that since you kicked Henry to the curb.”
Crap. He was right. “I’m worried about disappointing Olivia if you must know.” Much safer to admit that small truth than the larger one. I’d climbed right back on the Please Henry at Any Cost Train. It was like I’d never jumped off.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, just lifted his camera and took a few snaps of me in my hair twirling misery.
“Stop that. I haven’t even showered.”
He grinned. “You should, it’s a pretty great shower.”
Nick was right. It was a pretty great shower. By the time I’d done all the scrubbing, rinsing and repeating, the bathroom was filled with steam and the two masseuses were set up in the dining room and ready for work.
Henry was still in his robe. Being a man, he had not felt the need to shower and scrub before a sea scrub massage. After all, we’d have to shower again when they were through with us.
He seemed pleased at the sight of the two well-muscled and scrub-wearing professionals. His eyes swept over the supplies they had laid out, and a tiny frown appeared between his eyebrows. “Sea scrub, hmmm, not mud?”
“And so it begins,” Nick murmured as he knelt to get the masseuses from an angle. “Hope you don’t lose as much hair as last time.”
“Sea scrub is all the rage.” This was true, but it was futile. Henry disappointed was not likely to be convinced by the opinions of others.
He waved his hand, as if to dismiss my attempt to apology – not that I’d apologized, but clearly he’d taken it as such. “Of course. I can’t complain. I’m being treated like a king.”
“Never stopped you before,” Nick murmured quietly as he moved to a new spot in the room.
The sea scrub nearly wiped away all traces of Henry’s disappointment – from my memory, at least. I tipped each of them $50, as Olivia’s assistant had instructed me to do. When Olivia got the bill for this one weekend, would she freak? Would I have to take the rest of my exes for fast food and runs in the park?
Maybe that kind of date would be a true test of whether or not the spark was real, or just VIP-treatment-induced.
After we had showered and dressed, we came out into the living room to discover that the elegantly packed picnic basket had been delivered, along with a tray of bagels, lox, and a silver coffee pot.
Henry’s eyes lit up when he saw the beautifully pink lox, but he frowned at the sight of Nick, shoving a liberally cream cheese slathered bagel into his mouth. “I think that was meant for us.”
“Diana is on a low-carb kick. She won’t eat hers.” There was something challenging in the way Nick offered the truth. After all, he could have pointed out there was enough for five people on the tray. Why did he have to bring up my new low carb eating plan?
“Really?” Henry looked at me.
“The magazine did this article on low-carb, and it seemed like a good idea.”
“I thought you were looking a little more trim. Good girl. Don’t want to let the pounds creep on as you get older.”
Nicked finished the last of his bagel and wiped his hands on a linen napkin. “You’re missing out on a great snack.” He grinned. “Isn’t free food naturally calorie and carb free?”
Henry put a thin layer of cream cheese on his bagel. It looked like onion, my favorite. “Leave her alone. She knows what’s important.” He piled lox on his bagel.
“Yes. I do.” I gave Nick a squinty evil glare and poured myself a cup of coffee.
He lifted his camera, and murmured, “Twirling.”
I untangled my hair from my index finger and fixed myself an onion bagel, with lots of cream cheese. I ignored Henry’s little sigh of disappointment.
“We’re going on a picnic to Central Park,” I announced. I didn’t care if he liked the idea or not.
His eyes lit up, though. “A picnic?” He glanced at the basket. “Packed by this place?” He smiled. “Better than a carriage ride, by far. I didn’t know you had such a romantic streak.”
I started twirling my hair again. I didn’t have a romantic streak. I had a job to do, and I’d done everything I could to create a weekend that would please Henry. And I had pleased him. So well that the rest of our relationship would be a fast slide into street cart gyros and day old donuts.
Henry had his good points, but I didn’t want to live a life of “remember when…?”
I glanced at the ornate clock that sat primly on the mahogany end table next to the couch. Four more hours. Once again untangling my finger from my hair, I lifted the basket. First, the picnic. Then, the goodbye.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“He was still a frog, even after you kissed him?” Olivia seemed disappointed.
I pointed out the obvious. “Well, if I’d found I’d overlooked Prince Charming right away, the series would be done, right? This way we can keep it going.”
A frown showed in one tiny wrinkle between her eyes that botox had missed. “I hadn’t considered that.” She looked at my copy, picked up a red pen, and crossed out the final paragraph. “Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to recap the date, pros and cons, and you’re going to wait until the end of the series to spill on which one turned into a prince when you gave him a second kiss.”
“What if I don’t find a prince at all?”
“We’ll deal with that if it comes to pass.”
“The point is to see if your standards are too high,” Tandy said, having reached the limits of her patience with me as Olivia’s star pupil. “Not to keep impossible standards.”
I would have argued, but just then Nick came in with his camera. Late, as usual. I was prepared to apologize for him, but Tandy and Olivia were all over him like he’d brought wine, chocolate and Christmas gifts all wrapped up in his completely unapologetic smile.
“Now we’ll get the scoop.” Tandy scooted closer to Nick as he sat down and connected his camera to the monitor. Pictures started clicking by, one after another. I wanted to die as Liv said, “That one. Oh yes. Good. Cover.” Every time Olivia indicated a picture that she liked, Tandy brushed her hand down Nick’s arm in congratulations. It was all I could do not to reach across the table and slap her hand away. Nick just smiled at her. Traitor.
# # #
“She was all over him,” I complained to Emily. “And he was such a … man… that he didn’t even realize it.
Nick didn’t take offense. He just grinned. “You just didn’t like the pictures.”
“I forgot about that part,” I agreed in a half-grumble. “You’d think the words would tell the story, but those pictures….”
“They told the part of the story you wanted to bury.”
I may have tried to deny his statement, but he pulled out his camera and flipped through some pictures. He handed the camera to Emily. “She was falling for the jerk all over again.”
Emily looked at the picture, and then at me. “Oh, Diana. Have you forgotten already how miserable you were with Henry?”
“He has his good points.”
“So good that you need to look at him like he’s chocolate covered bacon?” Emily turned the camera toward me.
I stared at the picture, and then at Nick. “You didn’t show this picture to Olivia.”
He shrugged. “She’d have made it the cover.”
I looked at the picture again. Me, making full on love eyes at Henry as he smiled approvingly at me in the suite. “She would have.” The thought struck me with such horror I couldn’t breathe. What had I gotten myself into? I could control the words, but the pictures? I looked at Nick. “You’re wasting your talents on this job.”
“It’s a paycheck. Let’s me pay for all the pizza and beer I can consume.” He got up to answer the buzzer and pay the pizza guy.
He hadn’t shown the picture to Olivia. I’d escaped looking like a lovesick cow on the cover of The Female Eye. This time.
As I grabbed a piece of pepperoni pizza, I said, “Thanks.”
“Hey, you got me the gig, so you’re responsible for the pizza.”
“I meant thanks for weeding out the worst picture before you showed them to Olivia. She’d fire you if she knew you did it.”
He opened a beer. “You’re my friend, Diana. It’s my job to have your back.”
Emily nodded, taking the beer from his hand. “And it sounds like you need him there to keep you from making another big mistake.”
“But I have to do a good job…”
Nick waved his pizza in the air. “You do your job. I’ll be your reverse wing man. If one of these exes gets through my defenses and yours, then he may just be the prince you’ve overlooked. Right?”
“Reverse wing man?” I thought about how easily I’d fallen back into my old feelings for Henry. “Sounds like a plan.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ryan Parker
Chef, 33
Top Score: Good with kids – 10
Bottom Score: job – 4
“Anti-wingman. Good one, Nick. But be careful. After all, Diana is awfully picky and you shouldn’t interfere if she does realize she made a mistake kicking some guy to the curb.” She smiled at me, all innocence. “Ryan’s next, right? Are you going to give him the same VIP treatment you gave Henry.”
Nick laughed. “Emily’s favorite is up next? That’s right. I hope that means I get a sample of his delicious pate. What do you have planned for good old Ryan? And how are you going to pry him away from his restaurant for an entire weekend?”
I consulted my notes, as if I needed to. “His restaurant is closed on Monday and Tuesday is a slow day, so that will be our weekend.”
Emily bounced up and down on the couch a little. “All yours for two whole days. Did that even happen when you dated?”
Of course not. The man had been married to his job, which did not fit in with my plans for a husband who shared my life, not dropped in from time to time when the restaurant business was slow.
I decided to pretend I didn’t know Emily was on Team Ryan. But how to distract her? “Any progress on the Phil front? Have you got him down to agreeing that you can work part-time with children?”
She stopped bouncing immediately, and I felt awful. But mission accomplished.
She frowned. “Down to 30 hours a week. The man is impossible. He seems to think I’m a magician, able to take care of a child in ten minutes a day.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to raise a latch-key brat who doesn’t know me.” Her voice lowered. “Or who I don’t know at all.”
I thought of her mom, who didn’t have a clue who Emily was. And mine. Who had used to be much too much into my business, until the divorce. “You’re not going to let that happen, Em. You’re going to know your children just the right amount – not over involved like my mom, or distant like yours.” I moved over to the couch and gave her a quick hug. “Phil wants that too. He just doesn’t want you to lose yourself in child rearing like his mom did.”
Emily grimaced. “You give the man too much credit. He just wants the security of my paycheck so he doesn’t have to give up any of his toys and fun for the sake of fatherhood.”
Nick watched me carefully, as if he knew I’d wanted to divert the conversation away from Ryan and wasn’t sure how to take it. “Hey. Give the man some credit. The toys and fun will change, but Phil will embrace them. My dad was king of hockey coaches when I was in middle school.”
“Okay. Fine.” Emily sat up straight. “I’ll keep working on him. When I get him down to ten hours, then maybe I’ll believe you two. Now, back to Ryan. What have you got planned?”
“Olivia said I can’t tell anyone. You have to read all about it,” I lied. Although Olivia would likely have told me that if she’d thought about it. “Have you considered waiting until the baby has arrived to have this conversation with Phil? Like Megan and Dan? They had all those fancy plans, and then along came Jacob and buh-bye when the fancy plans. They don’t seem to mind.”
Mission accomplished. Again. “Sounds great. Unless Phil does mind. And then I’m raising a kid on my own. No. I want it all settled between us before we start trying.”
Nick laughed. “Between the one who wants the Perfect 10 husband and the one who wants to be in perfect agreement about parenthood before she tries for a family, I’m wondering which of you will get what you want first.”
“Or not get it, you mean?” I challenged him. His grin was wicked and mocking, like Emily and I were trying to build sandcastles that wouldn’t dissolve in the high tide. “What do you know. You don’t plan anything.”
He laughed. “And I like it that way. You two do enough planning for all three of us.”
Emily threw a pillow at him. “Cut it out, or we’ll start planning things for you.”
“No thank you.”
“Well, Diana’s got the job planned, at least until this series is done. So I’m in charge of your love life.” She grinned. “Want to come to dinner with Phil and me Tuesday night? I have someone I want you to meet?”
He faked a sad look. “Can’t. I’m already working the camera, and the anti-wingman gig.”
# # #
Tina came by my cubicle as soon as I got in. I could tell she was worried about something. I hoped it wasn’t Olivia complaining about my expense account. “Hey. That Nick is cute. Did you ever date him? Is going to be on the list?”
“No way. He not only can’t keep a job, he only wants to work enough to keep his apartment and eat pizza. He says a real photographer stalks life and doesn’t let life stalk him.”
She grinned. “Okay then. I don’t think that’s bothering Tandy.”
“What?”
“I saw her downstairs, chatting him up while he was getting paid for last week.”
“Knowing Tandy, she was trying to find out what I was planning. She really wants to find a way to wrestle this article out of my hands and into hers.”
Tina raised her eyebrows. “I think she wants more than the byline of your article, I think she’s interested in co-opting your photographer as well. She asked him to work on that nail salon piece she’s doing” She gave me a look that let me know her smile was not meant to soften her warning.
The thought of Nick working for my current nemesis was unsettling for a moment. But then I remembered Nick’s dislike for paying work. “He does a good job, but I don’t think he’s hungry enough for money. Don’t worry about it.”
“I wasn’t talking about his photography skills catching her interest. I think she’s got her eye on Nick as potential new meat.”
“My Nick?” I couldn’t believe the words came out of my mouth. I wished them back as soon as I said them.
She grinned. “Since when is he your Nick? I thought he was best friend material and nothing more.”
“You don’t let your best friend swim in piranha infested waters.” My cover up sounded weak. “My Nick?” was a declarative sentence of the most emphatic kind, question or no. One I had no intention of making and yet didn’t know how to take back.
She laughed. “Maybe you should put him on that famous list of yours, Diana.”
“Not a chance—besides not wanting to visit that little ghost of boyfriends that could have been, I don’t want to lose my best friend. He’d never forgive me for spilling his life across the printed page. He’s a very private person, when it comes right down to it.”
“Well, I hope he’s a good enough friend to listen to you when you tell him the water’s teaming with piranha if he dates that one.”
“She hasn’t got a chance.” I hoped I was right. I didn’t relish the thought of bringing the enemy into our nice Sunday morning routine. Worse, I didn’t relish the thought of Nick being torn from my life because “she” had better things for him to do. Maybe I should do him the favor of playing anti-wingman for him, like he was doing for me. Only I might just play secret anti-wingman. Because I wouldn’t want to know if he objected to me saving him from Tandy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ryan Parker
Chef, 33
Top Score: Good with kids – 10
Bottom Score: job – 4
When it came time to report on the next stop on my personal Bad Romance tour of the past, I had to force my heart and breathing into a steady calm rhythm. Not that that fooled Tandy for a moment.
“Something wrong, Diana?” Tandy leaned in, as if to offer sympathy. Not that I was fooled.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I said briskly. I brushed off the fleeting worry that wasn’t true at the same moment I dismissed the unwelcome image of Tandy leaning in that close to Nick downstairs while he was signing out his camera equipment. He wouldn’t have told her the problem, would he? No. He was my wingman. I could trust him.
“Is there a problem?” Olivia looked at me over her reading glasses.
Feeling a little like a kid whose dog really had eaten her homework, I confessed, “Ryan isn’t interested. I’d like permission to take him off the list.”
Olivia stared at me as if I had a whipped cream mustache and she was trying to decide whether to tell me and save me humiliation, or watch me walk around smilingly unaware while she laughed at me behind my back.
Tandy opened her mouth, no doubt to offer up a knife in my back.
I didn’t give her the chance. “It didn’t work between us because he is dedicated to his job 24/7. If he isn’t cooking, he’s trying out new recipes. And if he isn’t trying out new recipes, he’s teaching underprivileged kids to cook.” The problem with Ryan wasn’t that he wasn’t amazing. It was that he didn’t have time for a relationship because he was too busy being amazing. “I don’t think I can change his mind.”
Tandy opened her mouth again. I had to admire her never-give-up spirit. I just wished she wasn’t focused on taking over my job.
Olivia cut her off this time. “You’re too sweet, Diana. Of course you can’t change his mind. But can I?” She grinned her evil grin and I felt a thrill of dread for poor Ryan. “Give me your phone.”
I handed over my phone, half hoping Ryan would refuse her, and half hoping Olivia would succeed in her attempt to get his head out of the kitchen for once.
She scrolled through my contacts and placed the call as if the phone were her own. I wondered if she thought of it as her own, since the paper paid for it as part of my job. I decided to get another phone for personal calls.
Tandy and I both leaned forward as she put the phone on speaker and held it out in front of her. Three rings. Just when I thought he wouldn’t answer, the call went through.
“Chef Parker.” His voice was familiar, gruff and sexy all at once.
Her voice was overly bright when she said, “Hello? Chef Parker? This is Olivia Wallace from The Female Eye, I–”
“I told Diana no. I told Emily no. I told my mother no. If I tell you no, will that be it? I have a restaurant to run.”
Olivia frowned, briefly silent as she calculated how to deal with him. “I’m Executive Editor, so yes, if you tell me no, that will be it. I promise.”
“Then no.”
“Of course. I understand, but I can’t say I’m not sorry. I had hoped to feature your restaurant as part of our series.”
The hitch in Ryan’s breath was audible to everyone in the room.
Olivia smiled, and waited for him to take the bait.
I was in awe.
“Feature the restaurant? Diana didn’t say–”
Olivia had him hooked, so she reeled hard. “She didn’t? I can’t believe she left off such an important consideration. She knows how important the restaurant is to you. Perhaps she was just nervous. The whole idea of revisiting exes, you know?”
“Of course.” Ryan was no pushover. He had a restaurant empire to build “What kind of feature were you thinking? Two page color spread? Cover?”
Tandy clapped her hands over her mouth to keep herself quiet. If Ryan even had a hint that there was a room full of people listening, the deal would go south, fast.
Olivia nodded at the phone. “Exactly what I was thinking, except the cover must reflect the article slant, you understand?
“Date me, date my restaurant,” Ryan said in the understatement of the year.
I could see the “I-want-to-end-this-call-now” expression on Olivia’s face changed to one of mingled shock and admiration. “Definitely a two page color spread, and a cutout in the corner of the cover. I’ll have to see if Emily will be willing to give you the full cover.”
“She will.” Ryan said confidently. “She’s a smart woman.”
Tandy sat back and gave me a dubious look.
I realized exactly what would be the perfect getaway for Ryan and I. If he thought I was a smart woman before, he was definitely going to know it by the end of our mid-week weekend.
Olivia nodded impatiently. “—of course, you know her well. It was a pleasure speaking with you. I’ll let Emily know that Tuesday is a go.”
She disconnected and handed me back my phone. “I can see why you two didn’t work out. You’re right. He’s completely committed to his work.” She smiled. “I like that in a man.”
Nick was excited about this assignment, unlike the one with Henry. He showed up without his usual semi-scowl. I’m sure it had something to do with a desperate hope for pate. But since my plan involved no opportunity for Ryan to slip on his apron, Nick was going to be one disappointed camera man/gourmand.
“Where to?” he asked as we got into the town car Olivia had sent.
“Straight to Ryan’s.”
“Will he be awake?”
“The sleepier the better,” I confessed. Chefs are notoriously late-night folks, like theatre people. “He’ll be too tired to object until it’s too late.”
“Object?” Nick started to look worried. “To what?”
I smiled. I did like the sense of power that came with my magazine connections. “You’ll see when he does.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ryan Parker
Chef, 33
Top Score: Good with kids – 10
Bottom Score: job – 4
Ryan answered his door in a loose pair of sweatpants. He looked like he had just stumbled out of bed. Perfect. I suddenly remembered why I had kept dating him for a good month past the time when I knew his score was too low to be the man for me. He could take my breath away without even trying. The man took good care of himself, and didn’t overindulge in his own treats.
“Grab your toothbrush and let’s go,” I said cheerfully. Maybe my voice was a little on the loud side, because he winced.
“Go where?”
“You agreed to be mine for two days, remember? You do want the feature and cover, right?”
Nick snapped a picture, perfectly capturing Ryan’s dawning realization that he may just have made a mistake by not asking more questions about the actual “date” instead of the restaurant feature.
“I thought we could just hang out at my place.” He was rapidly waking up. “In fact, come in. I can cook up some Eggs Benedict–”
I held up my hand to cut him off before my weakness for his cooking could get the better of me. I knew how that story ended – with me well fed, but lonely.
“My readers are looking for something a little more romantic,” I said without blinking. My readers. It had a nice sound, but I only knew of three so far – Nick, Emily and my mother. And my mother didn’t actually like the things I wrote, she just read them because I was her daughter.
Nick snapped a few pictures of Ryan grabbing his toothbrush and tossing a pair of jeans, some shirts and a sweater in his backpack. He got a few of me grinning, too. I looked like I was the one in charge. Being the only one who knows what’s about to happen does that to a person, I guess.
When we all three piled into the limo, Nick on one side and Ryan and I next to each other on the other, I slipped the driver a piece of paper with an address. It was folded, so even Nick’s nosy glance couldn’t see where we were going.
As we approached, I took out my phone and pretended to be sending a text. When the driver stopped and opened the door for us, I got a perfect shot of Nick’s face. He got a perfect – and much better – shot of Ryan’s face.
Both of them looked at me. “Sporting goods store?” Ryan asked.
“We’ll need equipment where we’re going.”
“Where’s that?”
I could see he wanted to back out.
“Where do you take a chef when you want to get him out of the kitchen?” I asked.
Neither of them answered me.
“Where there is no kitchen,” I answered myself.
Olivia’s assistant had already placed my order, so the only thing to do was to load it into the SUV that was conveniently double parked, complete with driver, at the curb.
I let the guys handle that part.
# # #
The campground was two hours from the city. I’d registered that, but hadn’t put two and two together. Two hours. Two exes on a date. Nothing to do but sit in the back of an SUV and…. Yeah.It was much too soon for any make out session. Maybe on the way home, if we were still speaking to each other.
Fortunately for me, it was a nice SUV (I’d need to thank the assistant). There was a little table between the two captain’s chairs that Ryan and I sat in. Inside the table was a deck of cards and some poker chips. The chairs swiveled, so we included Nick in the game. Poker with two people wasn’t all that exciting, and a game of War was a little too ironic for my taste.
I took out the cards and began to shuffle.
“Should we make this interesting?” Ryan asked. He’d uncovered a little fridge on his side of the SUV. He’d quickly uncapped two beers, one for him and one for Nick. I’d settled for sparkling water. It was only ten a.m. Besides, I could see I was going to need my wits about me. I’d scored a big surprise with the camping gear, but now they were onto me.
“Okay,” I answered warily, recognizing that he was fully awake and his eyes were gleaming with anticipation of revenge. He couldn’t put any chili powder in my hot chocolate this time, because there wasn’t any hot chocolate in the supplies. Just a battery operated K-cup coffeemaker, with tamper-proof K-cups. And not a speck of chili powder to be had, either, just in case.
He raised his eyebrows. “Winner gets the air mattress that doesn’t go flat.”
I had expected bigger stakes. “They’re new. None of them will go flat.”
The guys laughed in unison, which was a little bit creepy. Ryan said, “There’s always one that goes flat. Guaranteed. That’s camping.”
Nick added, with a big grin. “And there’s always one side of the tent that leaks, too.”
I protested. “It isn’t supposed to rain.”
They laughed in unison again.
I dealt the hand, hoping the cards were in my favor. I didn’t want to sleep on a flat air mattress, or on the leaky side of a tent.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ryan Parker
Chef, 33
Top Score: Good with kids – 10
Bottom Score: job – 4
“This can’t be right.” Nick had stopped the car under the biggest pine tree I’d ever seen.
“Argue with your GPS, then.” He was grinning, the rat.
I glanced at the GPS, and then back outside. I’d specified secluded when I spoke to Olivia’s assistant. She’d apparently decided to interpret that as “utter wilderness” when what I’d really meant was “private, with running water.”
Ryan opened the car door and took in a deep breath. “Reminds me of camping with the Scouts when I was a kid.” He looked at me with new respect. “I wouldn’t have thought of you as an outdoor girl.”
I opted for enigmatic. “I’m full of surprises.” One of them being that I had never been camping in my life and was already regretting my impulse. Camping had sounded romantic, with no kitchens around to steal Ryan’s attention from me. I slapped at a mosquito. I hadn’t considered bugs. Or bears.
Ryan stepped out of the car and stretched. His t shirt lifted to reveal a nice stretch of ab. How could someone who lived to make and eat food look as delicious as his Lobster Ryan?
“Not a happy camper?” Nick wasn’t fooled by my pretense for a moment.
I stuck out my tongue. “I have him to myself, no kitchen in sight.” Or for miles around. “I can make it work.”
“Good attitude,” he nodded briskly. “Why don’t you scout for a good place to dig the latrine pit, since you’re in charge, Madam Girl Scout.” He got out of the SUV and slammed his door shut before I could reply.
Latrine pit. Was he kidding? I had a sinking feeling he might not be.
Ryan and Nick unpacked our gear while I pretended to have a clue as I inspected our little isolated spot on the campground, emphasis on ground.
I stumbled upon a circle of stones with the sooty remains of ash. Our firepit, I presumed. I knew what to do with a firepit, I’d been to a friend’s Solstice bonfire out on Long Island.
“I’ll gather some sticks for the fire.”
“Make sure they’re dry,” Nick said absently, as he pulled a huge gray blob of fabric out of a box. “They won’t burn if they’re not dry.”
“Hey. I watch Survivor, too,” I joked.
“You only pay attention after the tribes merge.” He shook out the tent until it covered a good part of the ground. I had no idea how it was going to turn into a tent. Before he could ask me to help, I said, “Do you think you can handle that? You look a little lost.”
Just as I expected, both men squared their shoulders and nodded with confidence. “No big deal. We’ll have it up and ready by the time you have a fire going.”
I pretended to believe them, lest they decide they needed help after all. No way was I going to put my lack of camping skills on display for Ryan. He already knew I was incompetent in the kitchen.
There weren’t a lot of sticks on the ground, but I scavenged an armful, and headed back in the direction of our campsite – or what I thought was our campsite. Stands of trees look remarkably simiar and don’t make the best landmarks for a woman used to directions like “take a cab to the Rock and then grab the elevator to the 34th floor.”
Fortunately, years of walking around a city forested by skyscrapers, had sharpened my sense of direction and I was able to correct course according to the sounds of creative cursing coming from my camping buddies.
The tent looked like a camel down on one knee. Ryan was glaring at it with the scorn he served for sous chefs who didn’t know the difference between chop and dice.
I dumped the sticks I’d gathered into the circle of sooty stones. “Interesting shape to the tent,” I teased. “Looks like I win.”
Nick bristled. “Hey, I said we’d have it done by the time you got the fire going.”
“I’ve done the hard part. Won’t take me long to get a blaze going.”
He shook his head. “If you watched the first couple of “boring” episodes of Survivor, you’d know starting a fire isn’t easy.”
Ryan had stopped scowling at the tent and was now smiling at me with that competitive look in his eye that I remembered all too well. Usually when he looked like that, it meant he was going to spend hours in the kitchen trying to master some difficult technique that a food critic had razzed him about. “Bet you we finish first.”
I looked at the camel, and then at my neat pile of sticks. “Winner gets the best air mattress?”
“Deal.” Almost immediately their work brought the camel up from one knee.
With an air mattress on the line, I started to get nervous. I fiddled with the sticks and some dry leaves, creating something I thought should make a nice fire. If I had a match, or a lighter. Which I did not.
Neither Nick nor Ryan smoked, so I opened up the box of supplies that Olivia’s assistant had ordered. To my relief, there was a box of matches clearly marked. Thank goodness for an assistant who saw to the smallest detail, even if she had a radical definition of secluded campground.
The guys abandoned their now standing camel and came over to watch after I’d tossed five lit matches into the pile of leaves and sticks without succeeding in lighting even one curled up leaf corner.
“Are they wet,” Ryan asked. “Wet tinder won’t burn.”
“Dry,” I said testily. “I wouldn’t gather wet leaves. I know they don’t burn.”
Ryan crouched down beside me, his hand warm and steadying on my back. “I may not know tents, but I do know fire.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Let me give it a try.”
“And give up my shot at the best air mattress?”
He smiled at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. “I’ll share.”
I put the box of matches in his open palm. Maybe camping had not been as insane an idea as I’d started to think. Ryan was looking at me, talking to me. And he had no kitchen to distract him.
He did indeed know fire. He formed a little teepee of the leaves, got it lit with one match, and used that to light the rest of the sticks and leaves I’d piled up.
Nick snapped a picture, which made me realize I’d been gaping at Ryan’s rather studly competence with firestarting.
“Get a few of your camel, too,” I instructed.
They both looked at me, puzzled. I pointed to the tent. They both laughed, but Nick didn’t take a picture, so I used my cell phone to capture it for posterity. Never say I don’t know great blackmail material when I see it.
“You two wrestle that camel into a tent while I rustle up lunch.”
Ryan looked at me warily. “Maybe I should do lunch and you and Nick should deal with the camel.”
“Absolutely not.” I searched through the boxes for the picnic basket I’d specified. “You’re off duty. That’s the whole point of this weekend – you, me, a tent, a fire, and no cooking to get between us.”
“But –”
“No cooking.”
“Or what?”
“Or you lose the best air mattress to me.” I smiled wickedly. “And I won’t share.”
“I thought you liked my food.”
“Love it.” I tried not to sound accusing. “But if you recall, the reason we broke up was because you stood me up one too many times to rescue a burned Bechemel sauce. This weekend is about you and me. Not you and me and gourmet food.”
I spread out a tablecloth and laid out the food I’d ordered.
Ryan surveyed the prepackaged sandwiches, salad, cheese, fruit and the bottle of wine. “Definitely not gourmet.”
“Hey. I got this all from your restaurant.”
“You should have told me.” He sat down. “Nick, let’s eat.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Tent?”
“We need the food for strength. That is one stubborn camel.”
I laughed.
He reached for the wine. “Am I allowed to uncork it?”
I handed him the corkscrew. “I suppose that doesn’t count as cooking.” I set out plastic wine glasses. “But I’ll pour.”
Nick snapped a few shots of our feast before he settled down next to us.
All our hard work had made us hungry, and we ate pretty quickly. Ryan frowned at everything before he took a bite, and I knew he was thinking that he wished he had his personal spice drawer at hand to brighten up the taste, as he always said.
Nick had no such qualms. “Ryan, you are a great chef. I wish I could eat at your restaurant every night.” He finished his food and started rummaging through the picnic basket. “No pate?”
“No.” I glared at him. “Maybe you should gather some more fuel for the fire while Ryan and I finish the tent.”
He looked surprised, but then he glanced at Ryan, whose hand rested on my knee.
He jumped up and saluted me smartly. “Aye, aye, Captain.” He looked at the tent. “Good luck.”
I wasn’t quite sure whether he meant with the tent, or with Ryan. I was hoping for both.
Daughter and I were talking last week and she mentioned a recurring nightmare: that she forgets her vows. Naturally, I said, “Oh, have you decided what you’re going to say?”
