York, the Renegade: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Iris Johansen

  I can’t stop giggling, and try sounding out a dirty version of the “Monday’s Child” poem, until I realize that Wednesday’s child is “full of woe.”

  I finish the email, only trembling a little.

  To: 100474@metrolink.com

  From: librariansdeweyitbetter@villagemail.com

  Subject: Wednesdays Only

  I’m certain you’ve filled the position, but it’s late (or very early) and I’m intrigued despite the judgment I should possess staring into the second half of my third decade.

  My IM handle is “lieberries” on villagemail.

  When I send it, my breath comes out in a whoosh and my heart is pounding in my ears. I don’t really expect him to answer, but I open my villagemail account anyway and turn my laptop’s volume up so I can hear the IM chime. I can’t quite work out why I answered him.

  Sure, he’s pretty, and maybe I’ve gotten a little comfortable with things, or maybe the insomnia is getting the better of me. It’s been a long day that has stumbled into a sad and quiet morning. I can’t stop thinking about stupid things. My dad’s arm around my mom’s shoulders while she takes pictures of the Alaskan coast. Will and Shelley kissing in their tiny urban goat shed, their homemade cheese in their old beer fridge. I look at my thumb, where the sliver has made it red and swollen.

  I pull my T-shirt over my bare legs. Sit up straight and try to think straighter. Practically speaking, meeting a MetroLink stranger for anything, but especially kissing, is not entirely safe. I touch my throat, where a blast of heat burns in the hollow.

  Is it really something bad to have a life that’s safe? To wear skirts at a sensible length, to let a friend walk you home from the bar, to meet a man for coffee in a busy diner days before you’re alone with him on your stoop?

  I look at his picture, how his cuffs bunch at his forearms.

  While I value my contentment, I do apparently have a little fight left—for adventure, for capital “R” romance, for the certain cures that Shelley teased me about—somewhere deep in my lizard brain. At least the part that, say, motivates happy sea turtles to leave their familiar waters and heave themselves up on the scary beach and lay eggs. Not that my eggs have anything to do with this.

  I resolve to at least lean back against the pillows and rest before I have to get ready for work, but as soon as I set the laptop on the nightstand, my IM calls out.

  In the quiet room, my gasp sounds totally Victorian.

  When I spin the screen toward me, the IM box is as real as can be, and the handle is no one I recognize.

  GearTattoo: I haven’t filled the position. Still interested?

  I kind of laugh/choke. I toggle back to his picture.

  lieberries: I’m not sure. You’ve done this before?

  GearTattoo: Yes.

  Oh God.

  lieberries: A lot?

  GearTattoo: Three other people. Is that a lot?

  lieberries: Well, your proposition is unusual enough that one person might be considered a lot.

  GearTattoo: So what intrigues you about my proposition?

  I worry the hangnail on my thumb, my hands shaking, thinking about how to answer that. If this were a fancy online dating-site date, I might cheat toward wit in answering his question. But this is not a fancy “98% match” date. This is a man who wants to make out with a stranger once a week during his lunch hour and asked for it, directly, on MetroLink. Surely I can be just as direct.

  lieberries: In your picture, you’re very beautiful.

  GearTattoo: Do you like kissing?

  I think about my married friend’s husband. About the kind of man who would ask for this and nothing else. About safe kisses on front stoops at reasonable hours.

  lieberries: Yes, I do. Are you married? Involved?

  GearTattoo: No, there isn’t anyone. If someone entered the picture while we were meeting, if you want to start meeting, I would miss a Wednesday.

  lieberries: And we would “part as strangers.”

  GearTattoo: Yes.

  lieberries: So you care about fidelity in this? Do you want to know if I’m married/partnered/involved?

  GearTattoo: I care about it for myself. I don’t feel like I can ask the same of you. If you were single, I admit I would feel better, but you’re not obligated to share anything with me.

  It seems to me that he is being very miserly with himself. I can touch him wherever I want, but he stays in chaperoned territory. He keeps himself for me, while I could be married with three kids.

  I also feel weird that we diverted into an establishment of ethics over something stated pretty plainly in his ad. I wonder again, what is it that he needs?

  Recently, I was helping a high school student in our tutoring program with an essay on chivalry, and we got into a pretty interesting discussion about how chivalric code, a kind of objectification of the purity of loving a woman, has sort of devolved into “chivalry,” which we agreed was the sexist objectification of regular manners. I really don’t want GearTattoo writing odes to my dropped hankies.

  lieberries: Is this something more to you?

  GearTattoo: What do you mean?

  lieberries: Than just kissing. Like a self-denial or temptation fetish or something?

  He doesn’t immediately chime back. I am starting to get nervous when he finally responds.

  GearTattoo: I don’t think so. I’m drawing a boundary around it, but it’s not the boundary that interests me, just the kissing, losing an hour to it. It doesn’t bother me if you can do that with me and be with other people, too, I’m just not made that way. Making out loses its escape if I’m thinking of someone else.

  Fair enough.

  lieberries: Where do you do this?

  GearTattoo: Do you know where the teahouse shelters are?

  Celebration Park was built to honor the 150th anniversary of our midwestern city, and the planning committee divided it into sections based on the countries of the world in a sort of essentialist, theme-park way. The teahouse shelters are in the “Asian” section of the park and consist of small picnic tables with a carved pergola over each one. They’re visible throughout the park, but afford the idea of privacy when sitting inside one of the pergolas. He’s thinking of safety, my comfort, again.

  lieberries: Of course.

  GearTattoo: I’ll meet you at the shelter closest to the bank of water fountains this Wednesday at noon. My first name is Brian.

  lieberries: You don’t want me to wear a blue scarf or carry an umbrella or something?

  GearTattoo: I’ll assume the strange woman addressing me by name is you. Certainly, wear and carry what you would like, though.

  I snort at that. I do realize that he hasn’t asked for a picture or description, or anything like that.

  lieberries: It’s just that I have a decent picture to go by, to find you and decide this. Don’t you want a picture from me? What if I’m not your type? Won’t that sort of defeat the whole idea of losing an hour to great kissing?

  GearTattoo: I’m not worried. Librarians dewey it better.

  I laugh, for real, at that. Finally, there seems to be something kind of sexy seeping into our strange chat. Maybe it’s just my own realization that I’m doing this, and it’s already Tuesday morning. Anticipation of my own daring.

  lieberries: And I guess, if it’s awful, you just aren’t there the next Wednesday.

  GearTattoo: Or you aren’t.

  lieberries: Or I’m not. Good night (good morning?), Brian. BTW, my name’s Carrie.

  GearTattoo: Good night, Carrie.

  I snap my laptop closed. It seems impossible, but suddenly I am drowsy. When I close my eyes, I can hear the streetlights under my window start to snap off, one by one.

  Read on for an excerpt from Cassie Mae’s

  Friday Night Alibi

  Chapter 1

  I’m naked in the same room with Alex Finnigan. This is so not good for business.

  Of all the places I thought someone would first see the
fully grown boobs, I definitely didn’t picture the girls’ locker room at one of Georgia’s many Christian Country Clubs. But here we are. Alex must have some kind of superpower that pops off deadbolts because I could’ve sworn I locked up.

  “Kelli Pinkins.”

  Not even a quiver in his voice. He must be used to seeing bare chests. Why should I be any different?

  “What do you want?” Yes, I’m confident too. I don’t even reach for a towel, just continue rinsing the shampoo from my hair. It’s just business with him, after all.

  He chuckles and sits on one of the benches, kicking his feet up against a locker. “The usual.”

  “And it couldn’t wait till after I’m done getting the stench of tennis sweat off me?” I shut off the water and ring my hair out. Guys and their impatience. He better be paying me extra since he got a look at the goods.

  “I kinda need it ASAP. Brianne’s expecting me at seven.”

  I sigh and wrap a towel around me, then push his legs out of the way to get to my locker.

  “You know that’s going to cost you. Short-notice packets are double.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Of course it’s fine. It’s always fine with every person in need of my services. They’ve got the money, and if they want to get that lovely thing called a “trust fund” when they turn twenty-one, they need me.

  Their alibi.

  One thing about Sundale, image is everything. If your churchgoing, button-down, I’m-going-to-run-a-charity-for-sick-kids son or daughter doesn’t live up to all of that, bye-bye trust fund, hello working at Dairy Queen. And heaven forbid they want to date someone outside of our perfect little community. There goes your college money. Sorry guys, that’s not what Mommy and Daddy had envisioned for you.

  But once that trust fund is signed over, that’s when the standing up to the ’rents starts. Since money is everything after all.

  And true love, of course. But not till after you’re twenty-one. Just how it is. I didn’t make the rules.

  It’s a good thing I keep spare packets in my purse. I’ve needed them way more than I thought I would, but it’s all good. One packet equals two hundred bucks. Cha-ching!

  “Okay, how long are we talking about?” I ask, opening my locker and digging through my bag for the red emergency folders.

  He kicks his feet back up. “Till midnight. So around five hours.”

  Two hundred bucks for five hours? I’m making bank on this deal. And he’ll pay it. Alex and Brianne have reached that part in the relationship where I’m needed almost every weekend. Mr. and Mrs. Finnigan are going to start thinking him and I are getting it on … well, they would if I wasn’t so dang good at my job.

  I pull out the bright red envelope with the words “Alibi number 7: Movie Marathon.” Good thing I spent last night prepping all the emergency packets. They’re my moneymakers, so I run out all the time since most of my clients don’t know how to plan ahead. The blue envelopes are for my clients who pay me weeks in advance. Yeah … those packets are pretty much covered in dust.

  “This should cover you, Cinderella.”

  He rolls his eyes and yanks the packet from my hand. “You’ve got it memorized?”

  “Yup. And my own copy as well. We watched funny, yet tasteful comedies and you were a perfect gentleman. And since you’ve ‘been with me’ for the last three Fridays, before you left, you gave me a very platonic kiss on the cheek. It rocked my world.”

  He chuckles, standing and tucking the envelope in his back pocket. The epitome of “good guy,” he’s got on a button-down shirt, rolled sleeves to his elbows, and of course it’s tucked into his khakis. His hair is combed over, but it’ll be messed up in a few hours, and that shirt will be crumpled in the middle of Brianne’s floor. Ah, the price some people pay for love. Cliché as it sounds, I mean it literally.

  “Thank you, Kelli.” He gives me that “rockin’ ” kiss on the cheek.

  “Ahem …” I put my hand on his chest and push him back. “Don’t thank me. Just pay me.” I wave my fingers to emphasize my point. No getting emotionally involved. If I actually start caring about the people I’m helping, I may lower my prices. Or start helping them for free. Yeah, that’s not happening.

  He laughs again. “All right.” As he takes his wallet out of his back pocket, I take the opportunity to make sure my towel is still covering all of me. He got one look. He’s not getting another.

  “You said double?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The two bills—from a stack of about fifteen—crinkle in my open hand and my smile widens.

  “Pleasure doing business with you.” I nudge him in the arm before I tuck the bills in my purse. Now that the money part is over, I can joke around. “Now go have fun. Tell Brianne I say, ‘What’s up?’ ”

  “Will do.” Then without warning, he wraps me in a hug. Awkward … “Thanks again, Kel.”

  He must have it bad. It really is a shame Brianne isn’t Mom and Dad approved. She should be. She’s way nice and supercute, but she’s also a “hippie” child. Her parents are the ones who go around stark naked while they mow the lawn and get the mail. The ones who believe sexuality is something to be experimented with. And Alex, being part of the tightwad Christian community that is Sundale, has better luck telling his parents he decided to date a fish. Poor guy.

  Crap. Must not get emotionally invested here. I wiggle out from his hold and shrug. “Just doing my job.”

  * * *

  Friday nights are usually spent locked in my room playing online videogames, headset and all. Don’t call me a nerd or a loser or anything, because while I’m exploding fictional heads off and trash talking to strangers, keep in mind I got paid two hundred bucks tonight to do exactly this. So I’m blowing raspberries at anyone who judges me.

  Since I can’t be seen anywhere—I’m supposedly having a movie night with Alex—I stock up every weekend. (Protocol for the successful alibi.) I’ve got a mini fridge in my room, ’cause yes, I’m rich. Not just me, but the fam. Everyone who lives in Sundale is on the verge of ga-zillionairism. Another thing that plays in my favor as an alibi. I’m not sure if anyone who lives here knows how not to live off their parents’ money. Even after they’ve started at the university. Anyway, I’ve got a fridge stocked full of all the stuff I’ll need, and I’ve got my own bathroom so I don’t have to pee in a jug or anything, and I’ve got enough books to fill a library, enough videogames to stock up a GameStop, and enough movies to … well, you get my point.

  Also, it’s lucky I work at the local Christian bookstore, which is closes early on Fridays, so I don’t ever have to worry about taking time off.

  Why do I work when I obviously don’t need the cash? Well, it’s nice to do something other than go to church, play tennis, and hang out in my room. That, and I’m a bit of a bookworm, and I won’t say no to a discount, even if I don’t need it. And—probably the most important factor—in order for my “business” to be successful, I have to be the good girl. Parent approved. So the prim and perfect Kelli Pinkins who works at the Christian bookstore, plays tennis at the country club, and goes to church every Sunday, has “perfect influence” written all over her.

  I do it all ’cause I totally give my clients what they pay for. And it’s really not a big deal. I mean … I do go to church because I believe in it, not just ’cause I have to. I love tennis. And I do like working at the bookstore. Nice way to pad the pocketbook for college. Not talking tuition since good ole Mom and Dad will take care of that as long as I don’t become a hooker or something. Don’t have to worry about housing because where am I gonna find a place sweeter than the room I’ve got? No, I’m talking for when I travel the world. Set off and see all the places I want to, and Mom and Dad never take me to. I’m hoping alibi money and bookstore money (aka, my own well-earned cash) will have me in Europe by Christmas—and then until I get my own trust fund.

  I just found a way to be myself and make money off of it. Win-win.


  “Okay, you think you’re going to creep up on me? I’m standing right behind you.”

  This guy I’m playing against really doesn’t know what he’s doing, but still, he’s the only one on Xbox Live close to my age—or at least he says he’s close to my age—so I may as well teach him a lesson or two.

  Plus, he’s not bad company, considering I’ve never officially met him. I guess it’s easier to talk to people you don’t know about life’s crap. He knows all about my alibi stuff, since I started logging on three years ago and while kicking his butt in HALO, we talk about why we’re the only people alive who don’t do things on Friday nights.

  His army man turns around and I point the rifle right in his face. “Any last words?”

  “How about … Don’t shoot?”

  I laugh and push RT, blowing his character’s head apart.

  “Whoops, finger slipped.”

  He chuckles, it’s kind of like this guttural thing, like he was drinking at the same time. “All right, another round?”

  “Sure, but I need a pee break.”

  “ ’Kay. Back in ten.”

  I pull off the headset and stretch out on the bed before hopping into the bathroom. I’ve had three Cokes already tonight. Way over my limit. This guy probably thinks I have the world’s smallest bladder. It’s like I drink a can, then empty it almost immediately.

  I’m doing gunfire sound effects as I wash my hands, then pounce back into my room, ready for round two. But someone is sitting on my bed. Her long brown hair covers her shoulders and her back where her shirt doesn’t, and her big baby doll eyes blink as a smile tugs at her mouth.

  “Whatcha doin’?”

  Running at my best friend full speed, she screams as I hit the bed and swing my legs up on her lap. “What’s up, my Sades? Use the window again to get in here?”