That Boston Man

by Janet Dailey

  The following afternoon, as she was leaving for the day, she passed Ralph Polasky in the hall. He'd been out on assignment all day and was just coming in to write up the story.

  "What are you trying to do?" was his greeting. "Make a name for yourself?"

  She laughed, guessing he had seen the story with her by-line in the morning edition of the newspaper. "Jealous?" she teased. The elevator doors were just closing, and Lexie hurried to beat them. "Don't work too hard, Ralph," she mocked as she slipped inside the elevator.

  The good mood didn't last long. Her roommate Ginger was at their apartment when Lexie arrived home. She was still in the thralls of indecision about spending the weekend with her boyfriend, Bob. Lexie simply couldn't sympathize with her roommate's dilemma, but it was the only subject Ginger wanted to talk about. She discussed it fixing dinner, after dinner, and while washing the dinner dishes. By then, Lexie's patience had worn out and she exploded.

  "I don't care what you do, Ginger!" Her hands were on her hips, a damp dishtowel clamped in her fingers. "Either make up your mind or shut up! I'm tired of hearing about it!"

  Her roommate's guileless face was incapable of concealing anything. The hurt expression that Lexie had inflicted transformed Ginger's and tears glistened in her eyes. The expression on Ginger's face made Lexie think of a puppy that had just been scolded severely. Without uttering a sound, Ginger turned from the sink and dashed to her bedroom.

  "Damn," Lexie breathed, and tossed the towel on the kitchen counter. She felt like an insensitive brute and was angry for feeling guilty at speaking the truth.

  Ginger remained in her bedroom for the rest of the evening. Twice Lexie walked to the door to apologize and make peace. Each time she was kept from knocking by the realization that Ginger was indulging in a childish sulk and by the feeling that she had been in the right to demand that Ginger make up her mind.

  The next morning Lexie was dressed and walking out the door when Ginger finally came out of her bedroom. Lexie paused wondering whether she should make a comment about the previous night or let the matter rest.

  Finally she chose the middle ground. "The coffee is made. I'll see you at work," she said as she walked out the door.

  She didn't see Ginger again until midmorning, when she glanced up to find her roommate standing in front of her desk. Rouge had been applied to pale cheeks with a heavy hand, and Ginger's eyes seemed unnaturally bright.

  "I've decided that I'm going to Cape Cod with Bob this weekend. I thought you'd like to know." Ginger's announcement had a defensive, almost challenging, ring to it.

  "Bob will be happy to hear that," was the only comment Lexie made.

  Personally Lexie thought her roommate was making a big mistake, but she kept it to herself. Ginger was already aware that she didn't like Bob. There was no need for Lexie to voice her disapproval and put more of a strain on their relationship.

  "What time will you be off work tonight?" Ginger asked after a second's hesitation. "I thought I'd fix a pizza."

  "That sounds good," Lexie replied, accepting the peace offering. "I don't think I'll be late. I'll let you know if it looks like I will be."

  "Okay. Talk to you later." Ginger walked away, her mouth curving into a fragile smile at the truce she had achieved.

  With a sigh, Lexie turned back to her typewriter. There were some girls who simply had to learn the truth about certain men the hard way, and Ginger was one of them, she decided. Luckily she hadn't. She'd known about it since childhood.

  "There you are, Lexie." Shari Sullivan's familiar voice interrupted Lexie's thoughts. "Just the person I was looking for."

  She glanced up in surprise. Although she often stopped by Shari's office, the older woman rarely, if ever, came to hers. Lexie had always suspected that it was a case of status. When a person had their own column, less established reporters were to call on them and not the other way around.

  "You were looking for me?" She said with some curiosity.

  "Yes, I was." Shari glanced over Lexie's shoulder to read the partially written story in her typewriter. "Do you have a few minutes or are you under a deadline for this piece?"

  "I almost have it wrapped up. I can spare a few minutes," Lexie said. "What is it?

  "Your comment about Rome Lockwood created quite a sensation." Shrewd eyes steadily held Lexie's puzzled look.

  "My comment?" Lexie repeated.

  "The one I quoted in my column the other day about Rome Lockwood not being man enough to keep one woman satisfied," Shari reminded her.

  It had completely slipped Lexie's mind. "Oh, yes," she said, nodding. "I'm glad for you that you got a lot of response from your readers."

  "Believe me, I did, honey." A faintly smug smile curved the scarlet mouth. "I was at a cocktail party last night and everyone was murmuring about it. The remark was positively fantastic. It titillated everyone's interest."

  "You said it would."

  "Mmm, yes." Shari dismissed that as being too obvious to warrant a comment, "What I need now is another quote like that to keep generating the interest."

  "You mean, from me?" Lexie laughed faintly. "I'm sorry. I wish I had a ready supply of them at my fingertips, but that one came strictly out of the blue."

  "Surely you can come up with another," the blonde coaxed.

  "Honestly, I wish I could, but bright quips just aren't my line." She shook her head apologetically, half-amused by Shari's persistence.

  The columnist wasn't deterred. Sitting in the straight-backed chair beside Lexie's desk, she took out a pencil and notepad from her oversized handbag.

  "I won't give up so quickly. Rome Lockwood is news any time and when people mention his name, they're going to mention my column in the same breath," Shari insisted with the tenacity of a bulldog. "Tell me something about the women he's seen with," she prompted.

  There was a helpless shrug of her shoulders as Lexie tried to comply. "I don't know anything about them. They're just your usual assortment of your wealthier society girls, jet-setters, Bryn Mawr graduates and all that, with an occasional model thrown in to add color."

  "Why do you think he's so popular? Why is he regarded as such a catch?"

  "You said it yourself. He's handsome and rich and single. Of course, without the money, he wouldn't be as sought after as he is," Lexie qualified.

  "Without money, what would he seem to you?" Sharie questioned.

  "The modern-day equivalent of a gigolo, probably," she answered, and Shari's pencil flashed across the paper.

  "He's regarded by many as an excellent businessman." Shari glanced up from her jottings.

  "Really? All he does is manage the family's holdings. His father made all the money. The only thing Rome Lockwood has to do is spend it," Lexie returned caustically.

  "I'm told that he's very astute about making investments," Shari appeared to argue with the assertion.

  "No doubt you were told that by the businesses Rome Lockwood has invested in. They aren't the ones to accuse him of making unwise investments, are they?"

  "Being a feminist as well as a political reporter, what do you think his views are regarding women's liberation and equal opportunity?"

  Lexie couldn't resist smiling at the question. "I'm sure he believes in equal opportunity. Although I imagine his version of it is that he'll go out with a blonde, brunette or redhead." Her telephone rang and Lexie missed the flashing smile of satisfaction from Shari as she answered it. "This is Lexie Templeton."

  The classily dressed blonde rose from her chair, saying to Lexie in a pseudo whisper, "Thanks a lot. See you later," With a wave of a be-ringed hand, Shari left her to take the phone call in private.

  If it hadn't been for one of the other staff members, Lexie wouldn't have known that Shari had quoted anything of their conversation in her column. She was one of those newspaper reporters who never reads the newspaper. But her comments regarding Rome Lockwood were primed, meted out as tidbits over the following ten days, thus ensuring Shari of dai
ly readers anxious to see if she said anything about Rome Lockwood.

  After a few days Lexie's comments about the man became a source of gossip even within the newspaper. A few members of the staff thought she was going too far, but mostly the reaction was just good-natured ribbing that Lexie took in stride.

  The little café next to the building housing the newspaper office was crowded when Lexie entered it a little past noon. There were a lot of familiar faces among the diners since its nearness made it the logical luncheon place for reporters.

  "Hey, Lexie!" one of the reporters who usually worked the police beat called. "What's the latest word about Rome Lockwood?"

  She just smiled and shook her head, redgold curls dancing about her neck. "You'll have to read Shari's column and find out for yourself, Hank. I'm not going to give you any exclusive."

  The others at his table laughed and began talking among themselves. Lexie's attention had already been diverted back to her original problem, finding an empty chair in the crowded restaurant. Then she saw a man motioning her to join him—Gary Dunbar, a feature writer for the paper and a quiet man she had dated and lunched with often in the past. She made her way across the room to his table and the empty chair opposite his.

  "I was about to decide I'd have to order a sandwich to go and take it back to the office." Lexie slid into the chair with a grateful smile. "Thanks for letting me join you."

  He half rose politely out of his chair as she sat down. A lock of baby-fine brown hair fell across his brow and he self-consciously pushed it back into place. There was a gentle strength in his tanned yet faintly ruddy features and Lexie was suddenly reminded of how much she liked him.

  "I was going to stop by your desk to see if you were free for lunch," Gary said.

  The waitress stopped, handed Lexie a menu, and automatically filled the cup in front of her with coffee before hurrying on. "It's probably a good thing that you didn't," Lexie replied, opening the menu to glance at the list of food she almost knew by heart. "I was tied up on the telephone. If you'd waited for me, we wouldn't have found a place to sit."

  "It's usually full during the lunch hours," he agreed.

  A plate of hamburger and fries was set in front of him and the busy waitress turned to take Lexie's order. "I'll have a bacon and tomato sandwich, no lettuce, butter instead of mayonnaise, on white bread not toasted," she requested. With a curt nod, the woman was gone and Lexie returned her attention to Gary. "Go ahead and eat," she prompted. "Heaven only knows how long my order will be in the kitchen, and there's no sense in letting your food get cold."

  Gary hesitated, then reluctantly began to eat his sandwich. Between bites, he said, "You're really creating quite a stir around town."

  "You mean about Lockwood?" She sipped at her coffee.

  "You're being pretty hard on the guy, aren't you?"

  "I just call it the way I see it," Lexie shrugged, indifferent to the vague criticism in his words, then smiled, "Besides, it sells newspapers."

  "And makes a name for Shari Sullivan, who already possesses an inflated sense of her own importance to journalism," he remarked.

  "She works hard at her career and has for some time." As far as Lexie was concerned, she was stating a fact and not defending her friend. "She's earned the right to some recognition." A plate was set in front of her by a rushing waitress. "Just a minute," Lexie called her back and returned the plate with its sandwich. "I don't want the bread toasted."

  The waitress accepted it with a grimace of impatience and a look that said Lexie was being fussy.

  "Do you know, I've never had the nerve to do that?" said Gary, a wry smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  "Do you mean send food back when it wasn't the way you ordered it?" Lexie questioned.

  "I never have," he admitted.

  "As long as I'm buying the meal, I'm going to get what I pay for," she declared firmly.

  "You should."

  Within minutes, the sandwich was set before her, this time made the way she had requested it. By that time Gary was finished with his meal, but he had another cup of coffee while Lexie had her lunch.

  "What's on your agenda this afternoon?" he asked.

  "I have to go straight from here back to the office to write up the Senator's press conference held this morning," she answered. "Nothing new—just the usual promises. He's coming up for re-election. How about you?"

  "I have an interview at one-thirty with a woman who's being hailed as the new Grandma Moses. She's eighty years old and sounds like a character," Gary explained. "I talked to her on the phone. She seemed more full of life than I am at one-third her age."

  "Does she live here in Boston?" Lexie had finished her sandwich and was sipping at a fresh cup of black coffee.

  "No, in Concord."

  Her eyes rounded into sapphire nuggets. "It's nearly one now. You'll be late if you don't hurry."

  He glanced at his watch in surprise, irritation thinning his mouth. "I lost track of the time."

  Both luncheon checks were lying together on the small table. As Gary reached to pick them both up, Lexie tried to beat him to them.

  "Don't worry about that, Gary," she insisted. "Lunch is on me today."

  "No, I'm buying." Both checks were in his hand as he straightened from the table. "I invited you to join me, remember?"

  "You've bought my lunch the last three times." She didn't mention that they had lunched alone only three times. "It's my turn—I'm a liberated lady. It's all right for me to buy a man's lunch."

  "Not this man." Gary slipped a tip under his plate for the waitress.

  Impatience with his attitude flashed through her. "You always told me that you treated women as equals."

  "With certain exceptions," he joked, missing the warning glitter in her eyes. "One of them is letting a woman buy my meal."

  "If that's the way you feel, we'll go Dutch," Lexie argued stubbornly.

  "Lexie, I don't invite a girl to join me and then make her pay for her own lunch." His ruddy complexion was steadily darkening with embarrassment. "Come on, now. You're making a scene."

  Compressing her lips tightly together, Lexie stifled the rejection she would have liked to make and managed a stiff and ungrateful, "Thank you for lunch, Gary."

  "That's better." He winked and started toward the cash register. "Let's get together this weekend. I'll give you a call."

  Lexie didn't respond. She wasn't absolutely sure that she would take his call when it came. This little episode had made a gigantic black mark in her mind against him, one that wouldn't be easily erased. Because Gary had just evinced a deep-seated belief in the double standard for men and women.

  Never a drum-beater, Lexie was still very definitely a liberated woman. She simply didn't go around preaching of the inherent inequalities in modern-day society. It was incidents like this one that brought her feelings boiling to the top.

  "Men," she muttered.

  "You said it, honey," the waitress paused beside her table with a coffee pot in her hand. "More coffee?"

  "No thanks."

  "It seems like you can't live with a man and you can't live without one," the waitress commented.

  "There are times when I think I could," Lexie stated. "Live without one, that is."

  "A piece of advice from one working girl to another. If you can find someone to buy your lunch, don't argue, just hand him the check."

  Lexie just smiled and nodded, but she could never do that. It went against the grain. Gary worked, too, and his budget was probably just as tight as hers. It was only stupid male pride and an equally stupid code of standards that kept him from letting her pay for his meal.

  In theory, most men were all for equal rights for women. But practice…The whole thing infuriated Lexie, but she had long ago learned to control her temper.

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  Chapter Two

  THE WHOLE LUNCHEON SCENE left a bad taste in her mouth. Lexie tried to push the memory to the back
of her mind, but it kept drifting into her thoughts. Her inability to concentrate on the story she was writing rankled.

  The notes in her tablet weren't stringing together into a story the way they normally did. In the last hour, since she had returned from lunch, she had spent more time staring at the typewriter and the notes, than putting words together to form sentences. It was disgusting and irritating.

  "Would you tell me where I might find a Miss Alexandra Templeton?"

  Lexie's desk was toward the front of the room and she heard the inquiry being made of one of the employees near the door. The male voice was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. Sighing at the interruption, she turned in the chair to confront the visitor.

  "Lexie!" the fellow employee called as she turned. "There's someone here to see you."

  An amazing hush seemed to spread across the room. Lexie recognized the man walking toward her desk at about the same time that everyone else did, and the blood froze in her veins for one stunned second. She watched Rome Lockwood cover the distance between them with a curiously graceful economy of movement. There was a relaxed arrogance about him; he was tall and lean, exuding a male presence that drew every eye in the room.

  Tension rippled through her. Lexie knew why he was here to see her. If she didn't, the hard black look of his gaze would have informed her that it wasn't a social call. When he stopped in front of her desk, no disarming smile was offered to alleviate the chiselled firmness of his mouth.

  Lexie would have been less than honest if she didn't admit that the sight of this tall, dark exceptionally good-looking man stirred her pulse. But what was true for a man was true for a woman. You could be physically attracted to someone without liking him or what he represented.

  As he towered in front of her desk, Lexie was aware of the raking scrutiny of his gaze, tearing her features apart from the curling thickness of her golden auburn hair to her smoothly sculptured chin. It left Lexie with the sensation that she had been dissected as analytically as a frog in a laboratory, thoroughly, without an organ missed.