Just This Once

by Judith Arnold

  “Literally.”

  “—but they’re not going to get any more screwed up than they already are.” He raised himself up so he could see her. “Are you kicking me out?”

  How could she kick him out? He looked as worried as she felt, as apprehensive, as passionate. She doubted he was falling in love with her, but she was more than falling, she was plunging, tearing through the atmosphere like a malfunctioning spaceship and watching her protective heat shield burn away. Nothing he could do or say would keep her from crashing.

  His hand crept lower, and she knew she couldn’t kick him out. Not with fingers like his. Not with eyes like his. Not with his shy, bewildered smile and his mouth capable of performing wonders, and his hard, lean body with its perfect complement of hair. A stronger, wiser woman would kick him out, but she’d already admitted to herself that she was a fool.

  Resolving to worry about the damage later, she dug her fingers into his hair and pulled him down to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kate had abandoned sunflower seeds for wedges of pineapple, which she’d brought to the production team room Monday morning in a Ziploc bag that failed to contain their cloying tropical fragrance. Bob arrived with a jumbo Frappuccino. Gilda arrived with bottled water. Loretta arrived with a headache.

  “What happened to you?” Bob asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Big weekend, huh.” He was so chipper she wanted to smack him.

  “Can we get started?” She turned plaintively to Gilda. “I’ve got some new kind and gentle ideas for the show.” In fact, she’d been inundated with ideas over her coffee that morning. Ideas for the show had flooded into her mind, as if to fill the vacuum left behind by Josh’s absence. Most of the ideas had been stupid: people who talk in their sleep, fanatics who write hundreds of letters to the editor every week. One idea—sex between friends—had seemed downright toxic. But a few of them had been keepers. “How about women who create their own clothes out of non-traditional materials?” she suggested.

  Bob pretended to gag. “Oh, God, where’s my cyanide pill?”

  Ignoring him, Loretta went on, directing her comments to Gilda. “How about diets that really work? You know that show’ll get ratings.”

  “As if such a thing as a diet that works actually exists,” Kate snorted, then popped a chunk of pineapple into her mouth.

  “How weather affects our moods.”

  Bob faked a noisy yawn.

  “The hidden costs of sleep deprivation.”

  “That’s a good one,” Kate said, perking up. “Just looking at Loretta, I can see the costs of sleep deprivation written on her face. Not quite hidden, are they.”

  Loretta scowled. She looked bad, but not that bad. So she hadn’t gotten more than maybe thirty minutes total of sleep last night. She’d thought about sending Josh home, but she wouldn’t have slept any better without him in her bed, so she’d let him stay—and they’d wound up going at it all night long. As Josh had said, the damage had been done—and as he hadn’t said, but they’d both understood, they were never going to get naked in each other’s company again. So they’d taken advantage of their one idiotic night together and made love until they were beyond exhaustion, until the sheets were damp, until Loretta believed she’d be walking like a cowboy for the rest of her life. Josh had arisen at six, claiming he needed to go home so he could shower and put on a suit for work. She’d remained in bed for another hour, trying to gauge just how much damage had been done.

  More than Josh knew. She loved him—the bastard—and he had a girlfriend. She was disgusted with herself and furious with him. We’re in trouble, aren’t we, he’d said, and she’d lain awake, her eyes stinging, and calculated exactly how much trouble she was in.

  “Not bad,” Gilda said, crossing to the white board and jotting down Loretta’s ideas. “With the sleep deprivation one, we could get a medical expert on the show for expert commentary.”

  “And people who’ve suffered due to sleep deprivation,” Kate suggested.

  “Like Loretta,” Bob added, then sent her a quick smile. “We could show mangled cars from accidents caused by folks who fell asleep at the wheel.”

  “Yuck,” Kate grunted.

  “That would increase the scuzz factor,” Gilda observed. “We could do something tasteful about sleep deprivation. It would appeal to both men and women.”

  “As opposed to a show about women who design their own clothes out of—what non-traditional materials?” Bob muttered. “Tin foil? Duct tape?”

  Gilda surveyed what she’d written on the white board. “I’ll take these ideas to Becky. They’re good, Loretta. You’re inspired today.”

  “What happened this weekend?” Bob asked, sounding genuinely curious.

  “Nothing.”

  “You come in here looking like shit and full of good ideas. This is not you, Loretta. It’s the exact opposite of you. You usually look good and are full of shitty ideas.”

  “You know, if I wind up getting fired, I’ll really have to force myself to miss you,” Loretta retorted.

  “I’m the one who’s going to get fired,” Kate predicted. “I haven’t had a good idea since I stopped eating grasshopper pie. Now there was a diet that didn’t work.”

  “As for now, though, Loretta—” Gilda crossed back to the table and flipped through her notebook “—you’re scheduled to go out with Becky this afternoon to tape interviews with Solomon Hischbaum and Dora Lee Finkelstein.”

  “They want me there?”

  “Becky’s going to need you with her. She’s never done this kind of field work before.”

  Loretta almost blurted out that she’d never done it, either, but she decided to project herself as professional and competent. Such an attitude might buy her a few points when it was time for Harold to pick someone to cut from the payroll. “Glenn Santos will be your cameraman,” Gilda continued. “The three of you will be heading over there this afternoon, once we’re done with post-production on today’s show.”

  “What is today’s show, anyway?” Bob asked after taking a sip of his Frappuccino. A tuft of white foam clung to his upper lip. “What kind and gentle show is she taping today?”

  “Men with body-image problems.”

  “That was my idea,” Kate remembered, beaming. “Maybe I won’t get fired, after all.”

  “Oh, and one other thing,” Gilda said, homing in on Loretta. “Becky wants you and your blind date to tape a follow-up show.”

  “No.”

  “She’s gotten lots of positive feedback on the original show. Not just from Harold, but from fans. They loved it. They want you and—what was his name? John?”

  “Josh.” His name emerged from Loretta on a faint groan.

  “Right. You and Josh. They want you to come back and tell what happened on your blind date. And afterward.”

  “Nothing happened,” Loretta said rather too vehemently. She realized the other three were staring at her, and she subsided in her chair and took a deep breath. One not so hidden cost of sleep deprivation was that her nerves were frayed and exposed. She lacked the energy to disguise her mood. “Really, nothing happened. We had a pleasant time and saw the worst play in the history of Western drama. But there were no sparks.” Like hell there weren’t. Last night she and Josh had generated enough sparks to ignite conflagrations in drought-ravaged forests from here to California. And if she went on TV, the world—or at least that portion of the world addicted to the Becky Blake Show—would see for themselves just how many sparks were arcing between them.

  “Becky and Harold think it would make a terrific show, either way,” Gilda insisted. “You and Josh appealed to the audience.”

  “Let her fire me,” Loretta said, too tired to argue. “I’m not going to do it.”

  “Great,” Bob said, giving Loretta an encouraging poke in the arm. “Let her fire Loretta.”

  “We’ll discuss it further,” Gilda anno
unced, pursing her lips. “Meanwhile, be prepared to visit your friend Mr. Hirschbaum this afternoon.”

  ***

  “What do you mean, you’re leaving?” Anita asked.

  As long as she stood blocking his office door, Josh wasn’t leaving. He loosened his tie, which featured a pattern of tropical fish. Melanie had sent it to him shortly after she’d moved to Opa-Locka. He’d thought wearing a gift from her today would help him straighten out his head. Instead, he’d felt as if the tie were a noose, choking him.

  He met Anita’s disapproving gaze. “It’s three,” he said. “I’m supposed to be at Solly’s by three-thirty. I’ve finished scheduling depositions for that Haitian family whose landlord keeps threatening to get them deported, and I’ve reviewed the settlement papers for the Branford Arms case. I’m getting my job done, okay?”

  “Well, don’t bite my head off, hey? Do I look like a jalapeno to you?”

  “If you were a jalapeno, I definitely wouldn’t bite your head off. Jalapenos make me sick.”

  “You’re a grouch today, Joshua. Very testy. You know what I tell my son when he acts this way? I tell him, no more video games.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Josh promised.

  “You didn’t sleep well, right? I can tell. Shadows under your eyes, and that nasty temper.”

  “My temper is fine!” he exploded, then sighed. Even loosened, his tie pressed into his windpipe. Melanie’s extended reach, he thought. She’d make him pay for last night by strangling him long-distance with this Sea World tie.

  Anita entered his office, frowning as she studied him. “What, you got problems with your love life?”

  “My love life is fine, too,” he lied. Christ. He’d gotten home at six forty-five that morning, showered, changed into business clothes and stared at his computer, all set up on a work table in his bedroom. There would probably be a note from Melanie among his emails. She hadn’t left any texts or messages on his phone last night, so she’d likely have sent him something via the computer, an electronic epistle informing him that her bones had melted into sludge from the heat.

  Why bother checking his email? He could save time and effort by simply killing himself with the tie. Loretta. Guilt. He was in deep shit.

  “Would you like this tie?” he asked, waving the tails at Anita, two strips of turquoise silk with manta rays and marlins and sunfish floating across them. He doubted the tie would choke Anita. If Melanie had imbued it with black magic, its voodoo properties would attack only him. “Look, I’m sorry about my temper. I’ve got to go. Everything is under control.”

  Anita shook her head and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Joshua. I think you’re in trouble, but what do I know? I’m just your partner, your friend, someone who cares about you.”

  “I promise I’ll stay away from video games,” he said, scooping his jacket from the back of his chair and following her out of his office.

  He caught the subway uptown and emerged from the station near Solly’s building to discover that a warm drizzle had begun to leak from the low, gray clouds. It matched his mood, which—as bad as Anita had considered it—was getting worse by the second. He suspected Loretta was going to be at this taping, and she was the last person he wanted to see.

  No, that wasn’t true. He did want to see her. Desperately. The way he’d seen her last night, and yesterday. The way he’d seen her at her parents’ house and his mother’s house, with her wry humor and her determination, her refusal to knuckle under to her family, her insistence on following her own heart.

  He wasn’t being fair to Melanie, he wasn’t being honorable, but damn it, if he followed his heart it would lead him straight to Loretta. All the loud weeknight bashes, all the Gloria Estevan CD’s, all the mysterious friends and dinner parties Melanie had been hosting didn’t justify the fact that while she was away, he’d fallen for another woman. If he hadn’t slept with Loretta last night, it might have taken him a little longer to figure this out. But after last night…

  Christ. Merely thinking about seeing Loretta at Solly’s apartment gave him a hard-on. He was so hot, just from the knowledge that he’d be in her presence in a few minutes, that he half expected the raindrops to hiss as they struck his skin.

  But he couldn’t let Loretta know he still wanted her. Last night had been a one-shot deal. Well, maybe half a dozen shots—he hadn’t been counting—but not the start of something big. They’d both agreed to those terms, and he’d better not forget it.

  Steeling himself, he marched down the street to Solly’s building, identified himself to the doorman and gained entry. Riding the elevator, he prayed for the air conditioning to cool him down. He was here not to see Loretta but to hold Solly’s hand. A favor for a friend, that was all.

  A favor necessary because Loretta had conned him into this whole stupid show about passionate senior citizens.

  Solly responded to his doorbell almost immediately. “Oh, Josh, thank God you’re here,” he said, ushering Josh inside. “It’s a madhouse.”

  Not quite a madhouse, but the living room was a bustling scene. The cameraman who’d filmed his blind date with Loretta was there, a large camera balanced on his shoulder and coils of black cable covering the floor at his feet. Becky Blake waltzed out of the bathroom, her face cosmetically polished and her hair buoyantly blond. Dora Lee sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a skirt and an embroidered cotton sweater, her right leg propped up and encased in a molded plastic brace. Her mouth was open, and she was prying her lips apart to display her teeth to Loretta, who nodded sympathetically. “That’s really small,” she assured Dora Lee, then glanced over toward Solly to see who had arrived. She flashed Josh a brief, noncommittal grin and turned back to Dora Lee. “It looks like a chip, not a crack. That’s a very easy repair. They just fill it in with some porcelain. The trick is to get the porcelain to match your tooth enamel. But it’s not a big job at all. Not like a cap or a crown.”

  “It feels funny, is the thing,” Dora Lee said modestly. “My tongue just keeps wandering over there. Like this.” She demonstrated, sliding her tongue over her front uppers.

  “Well, once it’s fixed that won’t be a problem.” Loretta straightened up, shot Josh another hesitant smile and then addressed everyone. “Okay, I think we should get started. Solly, I’m going to need you to leave the room. We’re going to have Becky interview Dora Lee alone first, and then interview you alone, and then we’ll see about getting you two together.”

  “What are you saying? I’m an exile in my own home?” Solly asked. He attempted a smile, but his eyes churned with worry.

  “Just for a few minutes,” Loretta assured him. “Could you wait in another room? Would that be really bad?”

  He shrugged. “I could go in the den. I’ve got the entire Seinfeld series on CD, I could watch one. Josh, you come with me. We’ll watch an old Seinfeld, okay?”

  Josh didn’t want to watch an old Seinfeld. He wanted to watch Loretta, who spoke with such authority and seemed so marvelously in control. He didn’t feel the least bit in control, and he resented that she was apparently suffering no aftereffects from last night.

  But he’d come here for Solly, and if Solly wanted him to watch Seinfeld reruns…well, what were friends for? Reluctantly, he followed Solly into the apartment’s second bedroom, which had been converted into a den. Solly fussed with his TV for a few minutes, mumbling about the episode in which George’s fiancée had died from licking the glue on the envelope flaps. Josh wandered to the doorway and peeked out into the living room.

  Becky sat on a chair next to Dora Lee. The cameraman stood about ten feet away, with Loretta positioned next to him. She’d armed herself with a large spiral-bound pad, which she held up so Becky could read something on it.

  “Is the lighting okay, Glenn?” Loretta asked the cameraman.

  “Lighting’s fine. I’m gonna need the lady in the wheelchair to speak a little louder, though.”

  “Can you do that, Dora
Lee?” Loretta asked. “Can you speak a little louder?”

  “I don’t know.” Dora Lee sighed heavily. “I have a broken leg.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t affect your voice,” Loretta said, her tone gentle.

  “And my tongue. It just keeps going to that tooth.”

  “Well, do your best.” She held the pad higher and Becky began reading from it in her effervescent voice.

  “Here it is,” Solly called to him from the depths of the den. “The one where George’s girlfriend drops dead. A very funny episode.”

  Josh nodded but remained where he was at the doorway. “Other than your leg and your tooth, Dora Lee, how do you feel?” Becky asked, while Loretta scribbled furiously on the pad and then flipped it over for Becky to see.

  “Other than my leg and my tooth, how should I feel?” Dora Lee responded.

  Becky’s smile hardened. “Now, you’ve said Phyllis Yellin pushed you into a car.”

  “I haven’t said it,” Dora Lee corrected her. “It’s what she did.”

  Loretta scribbled some more, and held the pad up. “Why do you think she did it?”

  “Why? Because I cook for Solly. She doesn’t like I should cook for him.”

  “You think she pushed you into a car because you cook for Solly?” Becky blurted, not bothering to read the cue card Loretta had written for her.

  “She wants Solly all to herself. She can’t stand it that, God forbid, he might like my cooking.” Dora Lee flicked her tongue over her front teeth. “It feels funny,” she explained, then added, “I’m a better cook than Phyllis.”

  “If she were in the room right now, Dora Lee,” Becky read off the pad, “what would you say to her?”

  “I would say, ‘Go away.’”

  Becky’s expression implied that she considered Dora Lee’s answer reasonable. Josh did, too. His gaze drifted back to Loretta, her hair thick and slightly frizzy, her shoulders, arms and fingers in perpetual motion as she simultaneously absorbed Dora Lee’s statements and jotted new questions for Becky to ask. She was amazing.