Charlie All Night

by Jennifer Crusie

  “So, how long have you known each other?”

  “Four years,” Joe said. “Ever since she came to the station.”

  Allie relaxed and smiled at Joe. “I was new in town and didn’t have a place to live, and he was at the station picking up the books, and his roommate had just moved out, so he said I could borrow the spare bedroom until I found a place.”

  Joe grinned. “And then she came home with me, and we talked and laughed until two in the morning, and I said, Don’t find another place,’ and we’ve been together ever since.”

  Charlie looked from Joe to Allie, and he didn’t look happy. Allie stopped smiling, wondering what she’d said that was wrong, not really caring as long as it wasn’t another major trauma to deal with. Then Charlie said, “I don’t get this. If Joe is the perfect man, why did you ever get mixed up with that clown, Mark?’

  Joe blinked at him. “I’m the perfect man?”

  “That’s what Allie says.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows at her. “I’m flattered.”

  Allied tensed. “Well, almost.” She shot a look at Charlie, prepared to jettison him permanently if he said the wrong thing.

  Joe looked at Charlie. “I’m gay.”

  Charlie relaxed and beamed at him in what looked like relief. He picked up a bread stick. “Good for you, but that doesn’t justify Mark. There must be other men in this town almost as perfect as you who like girls.”

  Allie blinked at him. She had obviously missed something there, but since it wasn’t homophobia, she didn’t care what was going on in Charlie’s brain. It was a male brain. It was probably incomprehensible, anyway. Look at Mark.

  Joe sat back. “I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t happy about Mark, either.” He turned to Allie. “Why did you pick him?”

  “I didn’t.” Allie tried to look unconcerned. “He picked me. I don’t know why.”

  “I don’t, either,” Joe said. “You’re not his type.”

  “What is his type?” Charlie asked.

  “Lisa.” Allie stuck out her chin in defiant unconcern, but unfortunately, she stuck her lower lip out farther.

  “Don’t pout.” Joe bit into a bread stick.

  “You owe Lisa, whoever she is,” Charlie told her. “She saved you from a man worse than death. You say thank you very much the next time you see her.”

  “Which should be any minute now.” Joe pointed his bread stick behind Charlie. “That’s them by the door.”

  Allie looked up in time to see Mark wave and take Lisa’s hand and tow her toward them through the crowd.

  The day from hell would never end. Well, she’d asked for it.

  Charlie evidently thought so, too. “It’s a shame Lisa’s not with you,” he mimicked. “We could all have dinner together.”

  “I know.” Allie pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and steeled herself for the mess to come. “I know. If I’d behaved like an adult, I wouldn’t have picked up Charlie in a bar and lied to Mark. I deserve this.”

  “Nobody deserves this.” Joe handed her a bread stick. “Eat. I’m with you. We can take them.”

  “Hell, yes.” Charlie relented and patted her hand. “The odds are in our favor.”

  “You in this, too? Good.” Joe handed him a bread stick, too. “We can always use another foot soldier in the fight against yuppie scum dweebs.”

  “That bad?”

  “Lisa! Mark!” Joe stood up. “I was just telling Charlie all about you.”

  Someday, Allie told herself, I’ll look back on this and laugh.

  But not yet.

  2

  Allie sat numbly while Mark beamed at all of them. “Isn’t this terrific. Can we join you?” He pulled out a chair for Lisa without waiting for an answer, and Lisa sat, giving Allie a cautious look under her lashes.

  She had beautiful lashes. Actually, Lisa had beautiful everything. No wonder Mark had wanted her instead. And there was no point in hating younger, more attractive women just because they existed. You had to wait until they did something to you to hate them. And Lisa hadn’t fired her, Mark had.

  Allie gave up and smiled at her. “Hi, Lisa. Congratulations on your promotion.”

  Lisa leaned forward, caution gone, her words tumbling out in her happiness. “It’s so exciting, Allie. I can’t thank you enough. Mark told me it was your decision-”

  Allie’s eyebrows almost hit the ceiling. “Oh?”

  Lisa stopped. “It wasn’t?”

  Allie looked at Mark as if he were fish bait. “I’m really looking forward to working with Charlie,” she lied. “Have you met Charlie yet, Lisa? Charlie Tenniel, Lisa Mitchell.”

  Charlie smiled at her and took her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  Lisa smiled back, using her lashes on Charlie this time. “Welcome to the station. You’re going to love working with Allie. She’s-”

  “So.” Mark broke into the conversation loudly, and Lisa jerked her hand back. “Where are you staying, Charlie?”

  Charlie leaned back a little. “I just got into town today.”

  Mark narrowed his eyes at Allie. “You haven’t found him a place to live? That’s not like you. You organize everybody.”

  What’s your problem? Allie thought. Jealousy?Good. He’s staying with us,” she said, and Joe choked on his drink.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mark asked him.

  “Nothing.” Joe smiled blandly. “Nothing.”

  Mark frowned again at Allie. “You’ve only got two bedrooms.”

  “Yes, I know.” It wouldn’t hurt Mark to think she was sleeping with Charlie. She looked at Charlie over the top of her glasses. Actually, it wouldn’t hurt her to think she was sleeping with Charlie. Bulky, friendly Charlie in shirtsleeves nade a nice contrast to trim, tense Mark in a suit. In fact, the more she saw Mark next to Charlie, the less she missed having him around. Sleeping with Charlie might be the logical cure for her lingering case of Mark. Sort of like using penicillin to wipe out a bad bug that wouldn’t go away.

  The analogy was certainly apt anyway.

  Allie’s logic kicked into gear, analyzing the situation, a relief after the panic of the afternoon. She wasn’t infatuated with Charlie the way she’d been with Mark. With Charlie, she could have an intelligent, well-planned one-night stand. Then her last sexual memory would be Charlie, not Mark, and she could get on with her life. The more she thought about it, the better she liked it. As long as Charlie didn’t get hung up on her, it would be perfect. And even in her short acquaintance with him, it was fairly evident that commitment was not his byword.

  Mark looked from Charlie to Allie to Joe, evidently reading Allie’s mind. “So who is he sleeping with?”

  “Me.” Allie held up her hand like a polite child, her plan now in place. “Joe gets him tomorrow.”

  “Very funny,” Mark said.

  “Not so funny for me,” Joe said. “I have to wait twenty-four hours.”

  “I don’t think that’s funny,” Mark said.

  “Neither does Joe,” Charlie said, and Allie laughed, delighted he was part of them.

  Lisa had been following the exchange, frowning as her head bobbed back and forth. “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s just a joke, Lisa.” Mark put his arm around her. “Not a very funny one.”

  Charlie shook his head. “You have no sense of humor, Mark. That’s why your relationship with Allie didn’t work, remember?”

  Mark decided to take offense, something, Allie reflected, that any sane man would have taken much sooner. “I don’t know what Allie is doing with someone like you,” Mark told Charlie. “You’re not her type. Of course, I don’t know what she’s doing with him, either.” He jerked his head at Joe.

  Allie did not take insults to any of her friends well, but especially not to Joe. “Look…”

  “I’m great in the kitchen,” Joe said. “She loves my cooking.”

  “And I’m great in the bedroom,” Charlie said. “She loves my body. Between the
two of us, Allie has it all.”

  Allie glared at them both. “Actually-”

  Mark snorted. “Allie doesn’t like sex.”

  Allie swung on Mark. “Well, actually-”

  Charlie smiled at Mark and interrupted her. “No, she just didn’t like it with you.”

  “She didn’t like your linguini, either,” Joe pointed out. “She said it was rubbery.”

  Charlie frowned at Joe. “That’s funny. She said the same thing about his-”

  “Oh, great,” Allie said.

  “Don’t be childish.” Mark stood up, almost knocking over the waitress who’d come with their salads. “Obviously, we’ve intruded, and you don’t want us. Come on, Lisa.”

  They watched him stalk across the room, Lisa trailing behind, throwing them curious looks over her shoulder.

  “Feel free to discuss my sex life at any time in public,” Allie told the two of them when the waitress had gone. “Don’t mind me.”

  “We won’t,” Charlie said around a mouthful of salad.

  “I almost feel sorry for Lisa,” Joe said.

  Allie picked up her fork and stabbed at her lettuce, shoving thoughts of sleeping with Charlie out of her mind to consider Lisa. She ate for a couple of minutes, looking at the situation from all sides. “I guess I do feel sorry for her,” she said finally. “This isn’t her fault.”

  “She ended up with your boyfriend and your job,” Joe reminded her. “She has some responsibility there.”

  “Nope.” Allie’s voice grew firmer as she grew surer. “This is Mark. Mark wanted me out and her in. And he got it. I just don’t know why.”

  Joe shook his head at her. “It’s obvious. Mark’s jealous of you.”

  “That makes no sense.” Allie waved her fork at him to end he discussion.

  “Yeah, it does.” Joe pointed his own fork at her. “Everybody at the station knows that Mark’s success is because of you. He likes to think it’s because of him.”

  Charlie stabbed another chunk of lettuce. “So, if he shoves Allie out and puts Lisa the newbie in, everyone will know that his success is-”

  “His success,” Joe finished. “Except that’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?” Charlie shoved his empty salad bowl aside and eached for another bread stick.

  “You eat like you’re starving,” Allie told him, amazed at the speed with which he’d destroyed his salad. “Don’t they feed you back home?”

  “You should talk.” He pointed to her own half-empty bowl. “I’ve seen locusts move through vegetation slower.” He turned back to Joe. “Why not?”

  Joe scooped up a forkful of his salad. “Because the only reason Mark is a success is because Allie plans out every second of his show. She even has his ad-libs on cue cards. You have to see it to believe it.”

  Charlie raised an eyebrow at Allie. “How do you manage that?”

  Allie shrugged. “There are only a dozen or so expressions that are really useful, anyway. I just pick the card that worked best. And he isn’t that bad. In almost two years, he’s never misread a cue card. Could we talk about something else?”

  “Oh, that’s talent, reading cue cards,” Charlie agreed. “You were with him for two years?”

  “Professionally.” Allie squirmed a little in her chair. “The other thing only lasted about six months.”

  “Six terrible months,” Joe added. “Thank God for Lisa, or I’d have had to kill him just to set you free. And you’re right, Al, I do feel sorry for her. She’s going to pay.”

  Charlie looked around the table for something else to eat. “Why? What did she do now?”

  “Nothing.” Joe grinned at him over his salad bowl. “Do you remember the flack Deborah Norville got when she replaced Jane Pauley?”

  “Yeah.” Charlie fished a pepper strip out of Allie’s bowl, narrowly avoiding her fork.

  “Well, that’s going to be nothing compared to what happens when the station finds out Allie got screwed. Lisa is not going to have an easy time of it.”

  Allie was afraid for a moment that Joe might have a point. She didn’t mind Lisa failing to keep Mark’s ratings op, but she didn’t want her to fail because everyone turned on her. She stared at her plate, not seeing the food. She didn’t need this. She needed all her energy to revive her career.

  Which now depended on Charlie.

  She stole another look at him over her glasses and began to really think about Charlie and the new show for the first time. Things weren’t nearly as bad as they’d seemed earlier. Charlie had potential. After all, he was intelligent. Verbal. Even occasionally funny. She could make him a star. All she had to do was study him, design a format that fit him and plug him into it. He and his mouth could take it from there, while she goosed the publicity along.

  She could have him a household word by Christmas. Three months easy, and she’d be back on top.

  She waited until the waitress had brought their dinners, and then she began her pitch. “You’re really verbal,” she told him, batting her eyelashes at him. “I like that in a man. Especially in a man whose show I’m producing.”

  Charlie stopped, his fork in midair, and eyed her cautiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Allie smiled at him, hearty and encouraging. “I’m going to make you a star, Charlie.”

  “The hell you are.” Charlie went back to his dinner.

  Allie pulled back a little and exchanged glances with Joe, who shrugged. Okay, so he’d have to be convinced. No problem. She returned to Charlie and her career. “Look, I know your show was a sort of cult hit in Lawrenceville and you like to do things your way, but you’re starting all over here in a bad time slot. And radio is not exactly a secure career, as you well know. I can-”

  Charlie pointed his fork at her. “No, you can’t. Bill should have told you. I’m temporary. I’m going to be here five or six weeks, tops, probably not that long. I’ve got places I have to be by November. And this guy whose show I’m covering, Waldo, right?” Allie nodded. “Well, Waldo’s coming back.”

  Allie frowned at him and even Joe blinked. “Waldo’s not coming back,” he told Charlie. “He’s in San Diego with his sister. Resting comfortably at last report.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Must be for a visit. Bill knows I’m just temporary.”

  “Now what’s Bill up to?” Joe asked Allie, and she shrugged.

  Charlie’s eyes went from one to the other. “He’s not coming back?”

  “Waldo shot the console his last night on the air,” Allie told him. “He said it was talking to him and wouldn’t shut up.”

  “Maybe he just needs a nice vacation,” Charlie suggested.

  “Maybe he needs to be away from stereo equipment,” Joe said. “He’s not coming back.”

  “So that means,” Allie began, ready to make her pitch.

  “So that means you’re going to be breaking in another guy in about six weeks,” Charlie told her. “Do not bother making me a hit. I’m temporary.”

  He returned to his dinner and began to quiz Joe on Tuttle, and Allie sat back and regrouped. The problem wasn’t that he refused to help her make him famous. She could do that without him. She’d made Mark a success without any appreciable input from him.

  The problem was that he wasn’t going to be around long enough for her to rebuild her career.

  Unless she hit the ground running a lot faster than she’d intended.

  Allie gave it a minute’s thought. All right, she could do that.

  And in the meantime, the news made the penicillin project a lot more possible. If he was only going to be around a few weeks, she could have a one-night fling with him without any consequences. She wasn’t used to having flings actually, but she was thirty-six. Her flinging years weren’t going to last forever. She had every intention of getting married and having children some day, and then flings would be out of the question. This might be it.

  She looked at the situation from all sides. There didn’t seem to
be any serious obstacles, aside from Charlie himself.

  “All right,” she said and began to eat her dinner.

  Charlie stopped eating and looked at Joe. “Why do I have a bad feeling about her giving in so easily?”

  “Because you’re a student of human nature,” Joe told him.

  Allie ignored them both to put her plan into action as soon as they were finished eating. “Let’s take Charlie on a tour of the city on our way home. He should see Tuttle a little before he goes on the air tomorrow night. It’ll give him something to talk about.” And I can find out what he’s interested in and plan a program on it.

  “The tour sounds great.” Charlie picked up his check. “But you don’t need to put me up. I’ve got a room at a motel. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  Not good. She needed to get to know him fast if she was going to get the show moving right away. And then there was the Fling Plan. It was going to be hard enough for her to seduce him in her own apartment. A motel room would be impossible. Allie smiled at him. “I think you should stay with us. You told Mark you were.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Who cares?”

  “Mark won’t be mad if you’re not staying with us.” Allie batted her eyes at him again. It wasn’t one of her better skills, but she was desperate.

  Charlie leaned close until they were almost nose to nose. “You know, I haven’t known you very long, Alice McGuffey, but I can tell you’re up to something.”

  “As I said, a student of human nature.” Joe leaned back in his chair to watch.

  “Joe will make waffles for breakfast if we ask him nicely.” Allie grabbed Charlie’s hand again so he couldn’t escape. His hand was broad and warm, and she was beginning to feel absolutely cheerful about seducing him. “We can talk about the station tonight. Where’s your suitcase? At the motel?”

  “Just a duffel bag. It’s in my car.” Charlie frowned at her. “I still think you’re up to something.”

  Allie tried to look innocent and guileless while she cast around for a selling point. “Joe puts pecans in the waffles.’”