by Bird, Peggy
Blake continued to try to wiggle the palm and other fingers in under the arm of the chair.
“No one informed me of the hazards of the job before I signed on to be Ulysses Uno.”
“Ulysses? You mean this finger actually has a name? In all my years here I never realized he had a name.”
“The student body just recently voted for the name,” Blake said flatly. “It beat out Uriah quite handily.”
“I bet it did.”
Alex had already settled in her chair, crossing her legs, making her short outfit look even shorter and accenting her shapely limbs. “Look, I’m finally a cheerleader,” she said arms spread upward. “I don’t think I was ever one before. Was I?” She looked at JJ questioningly.
JJ shook her head. “No. No, you never were.” Alex sat up taller in her chair and straightened her shoulders. JJ couldn’t help but notice how proud she was.
“We debut Saturday afternoon at the football game,” Blake said proudly. He had finally given up trying to sit. “Are you going to the game?”
Not waiting for an answer, Blake took Ulysses’ head from JJ’s desk, held it to his side as if it were in a military helmet, fingernail facing JJ, and stood next to Alex. He glanced over at the love of his life, dressed in such a tantalizing costume. JJ read his face and had no question about what the pair would be doing when they arrived home tonight.
Chapter 21
“Do you hear that?” Kenn asked as he and JJ walked down the hall toward their classroom for the second session.
She nodded. “Sounds like it’s coming from our room — and it doesn’t sound good.”
The moment JJ walked into the doorway she discovered how “not good” it was. It was like a bad science fiction movie: The Attack of the Fans.
“JJ, sign my book!”
“Sign mine first; I need to get to class!”
About 30 coeds, all armed with pens and one of JJ’s novels, swarmed around her like bees around a hive. The group pushed Kenn aside to get as close to the romance author as possible. Three to four young women at a time stuck books and pens in her face. Even if she’d wanted to sign the books, she couldn’t. The wall of girls (at least that’s what it seemed to her) kept pushing her back. JJ was at a loss at what to do. What if they start tearing my clothes off? No, they wouldn’t do that. Would they?
At first, Kenn only watched the bizarre scenario. It wasn’t every day a history professor got treated like a rock star. After a few moments, he stepped in to quell the riot. Maneuvering the eager coeds away from the door by squeezing himself between JJ and several of the students closest to her, JJ finally was able to enter the room. Then Kenn announced that she would be delighted to do a book signing at the Physics Café at 3 P.M. “Ladies, as much as Dr. St. Clair would love to take time now, we do have a history course to teach.”
JJ looked at him nodding her approval and mouthed “Thank you.”
He winked at her and she thought her heart would melt. Then she chastised herself for having that reaction. He is not my knight in shining armor. Book signing? 3 P.M.? Physics Café? Alex and Blake sat up straighter in their front-row seats, looked at each other and immediately whipped out their cells phones — presents from JJ who figured it was wise to try to stay in contact with them as they roamed the university. Each of them texted furiously, then discreetly stashed them away, and redirected their attention to the front of the classroom.
Some young ladies weren’t pleased with being put off, but Ken assured them they would get individual time with JJ at the signing. Curiously, many of the students who accosted her were not even taking her course; those who were reluctantly took their seats.
“That was quick thinking on your part,” JJ told Kenn once the front of the room cleared. “Now, all I need is a partner to join me at the signing to keep the peace. You seem to be perfect for the job.” She wasn’t quite sure why, but she had a lingering, if baffling, need for him to join her. But she knew his thoughts on romance novels and their authors, and she was sure he wouldn’t be a part of such a frivolous undertaking.
“Sure,” he answered immediately. “I’d love to. But only under one condition.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
“I finally get to buy you that coffee I offered when I met you at that book signing.”
That disastrous meeting had all but faded from her memory. Chuckling, she answered, “I guess it’s only fair. I was pretty hard on you that day.”
Alex was especially attuned to the teachers’ conversation. She wrapped her arms around her love and gave him a spontaneous and long kiss. “Did you hear that sweetheart?” she whispered in his ear. “They’re going to the café together.”
“Yeah, those two and more than two dozen young women wanting her autograph. That’s a romantic date.”
• • •
Alex and Blake followed on Kenn’s invitation. (Like they weren’t going to tag along anyway?) When the foursome arrived at the Physics Café, they were stunned. A line straggled out the door. It looked as if the café were giving something away.
The four of them wound their way through the crowd.. Alvin ran up to them. “It’s about time you got here,” he said, looking directly at JJ. “I thought I was going to have a riot on my hands.”
Astonished, Kenn looked around. Every booth and table was filled with young ladies holding one of JJ’s books.
“But I can’t complain,” Alvin added. “They’re all buying something. This is going to be the best day yet for the store! I just wish I would have known you’d planned this.”
JJ explained that it wasn’t planned. “There were fewer than 30 students in the classroom when I agreed to this. I don’t know how all of this happened.” She surveyed the crowd and out of the corner of her eye saw Alex guiltily shove her cell phone in her pocket.
“I just texted the other cheerleaders,” Alex said. “They all love your books and — ”
“It’s not completely her fault,” Blake said quietly. “I texted the men’s pep squad and they spread the news to their girlfriends and others.”
“Well, good work guys,” Alvin said. “JJ, I’ve got you all set up here at this table. I’ll bring three more chairs for the rest of you. And order anything you want, all four of you. My treat.”
JJ looked at Kenn as they strode over to the table. “That means you still owe me a coffee. I’m going to make sure you pay up, professor.”
“I’d be honored to buy such a renaissance woman not only coffee but a quiet meal as well. And I emphasize quiet.”
Alex nudged Blake in the ribs. “Ouch! What was that for?” Kenn looked at the two. JJ glared at them. “They’re getting closer to becoming a couple, did you hear that?” Alex whispered. “Hopefully, that means we’re getting closer to going home.”
“Not before Saturday’s game!” Blake seemed genuinely panicked. “We’ve got duties here. Friends here.”
Alex looked appalled. “What do you mean? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it happened before Saturday?”
Seeing her hurt and genuine disappointment, Blake immediately agreed. “Of course it would, sweetheart. But one date — one proposed date — doesn’t make a romance. We still have our work cut out for us.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“And then that’s assuming that’s why we’re still here. I haven’t stopped thinking of methods to get us home.”
“That’s what worries me,” Alex said softly.
• • •
Alvin approached Blake and Alex before they could take their seats.
“Excuse me, but could I speak to you for a moment?”
Blake raised his eyebrows. “Me?”
“Yes,” Alvin reassured him. “I’d like to talk to both you and Alex.” Blake shrugged as both he and Alex slowly rose from their seats. “Do you think we’re in trouble?” Alex whispered.
“I’m not sure, love. But he doesn’t look too upset, just serious.”
The café owner led them
to the kitchen. While not extremely quiet, the location did provide some privacy from the crowd. “Do you think you can duplicate that text marketing success you had with this event?”
“Text marketing?” For a moment, Blake had no idea what he was talking about. Then it hit him. “You mean texting a group of people to plan the creation of an apparently spontaneous event?”
“Exactly!” Alvin exclaimed. He waved his hands as he talked. “If you even think you can, I’d like to hire you both as the café’s new marketing team. My partners and I are too busy actually running the café to get heavily involved in the marketing. But if you could produce this type of result, even once a month or so, I’d see to it that it was worth your time and effort.”
Blake and Alex stole excited glances, each nodding yes. “Of course! There’s really nothing to it,” Blake said, straightening his shoulders back and thrusting his chest out slightly. “A piece of pie!”
“That’s cake, darling. A piece of cake.”
“Great! Ted! Simon! Got a minute?” Alvin motioned for Alex and Blake to join him as he walked over to two men standing across from each other at the workstation. Simon was putting croutons on a Three Geeks Salad as Alvin approached to make introductions. “Blake and Alex have agreed to do our marketing work,” Alvin said.
“That’s great! You guys have a real gift for marketing.” Simon passed the salad off to a food runner who was waiting to deliver it. Then he examined the Philadelphia Experiment Cheesesteak. “Laura, it’s ready to be de-particlized,” he said.
Laura, slim, short with dark-hair pulled back in a pony tail, took the sandwich from him, placed it on the small work area in front of her, and picked up what appeared to be a large water gun.
“What’s that?” Blake asked.
“That’s our de-particlizer. We use it on every Philadelphia Experiment Cheesesteak. We named the sandwich after the movie. You know the one where the government attempted to de-particlize an entire aircraft carrier in World War II. One minute the ship was there; the next moment it was gone.
“Ted created this gun in his junior year of college. It’s obviously not strong enough to make an aircraft carrier disappear. Heck, it even has problems making onions vanish. But sometimes we get lucky. We turn it on the sandwich, and it’s supposed to de-particlize the onions. It just doesn’t always work when we want it to. If you get a sandwich without onions and they reappear while you’re eating it, you get a free cappuccino.”
Alex appeared a bit wary of the contraption, but Blake walked right up to the employee using it to get a closer look. “Any chance of trying this baby out?”
“Sorry, no! It takes very specialized training to handle this baby. It’s a very sensitive piece of scientific equipment.”
Laura finished de-particlizing the sandwich and placed the gun down. The onions didn’t disappear. “I’m going to run this out now,” she said.
Blake immediately picked up the gun and began wielding it about in all directions. “Blake!” shouted Simon and Alvin simultaneously. They both ran over to disarm him. “That’s not a toy. You could do serious damage with that thing,” Simon said.
Alvin grabbed it from him clicking the safety lock in place.
“Sorry! It looks cool!”
“I’ll get you two a couple of lattes to start you off,” Simon offered, clearly a little shaken. “Why don’t you go out and sit with JJ and Professor Cooper?”
• • •
It seemed like JJ was signing her name in record time. Yet, through it all she kept smiling. In fact, the event appeared to energize her. Kenn watched her with a bit of a smile on his face.
He leaned over to Blake and said, “She appears to love doing this.”
Blake nodded. “It’s probably the ultimate honor for an author. To know that readers enjoyed your creation,” Alex said.
Kenn nodded thoughtfully, as if the idea had never occurred to him before.
Alex and Blake busily began talking about how they could create events for the café. They didn’t appear to notice how closely the two professors were sitting or how that block of ice that had surrounded them was quickly melting.
Chapter 22
“Ahem. Are you too busy to stop for a moment?” Kenn stood at the doorway of JJ’s office, hands in his pocket, rocking on the balls of his feet. She was behind the desk reviewing her conspiracy book for the next class session.
“Never for my partner in conspiracy … I mean teaching.” JJ smiled up at him. A warm flush engulfed her body. Yeah, it’s good to see him. “Come on in and sit down.”
She closed the book, leaned back in her chair, and put her hands behind her head. Kenn readily stepped in and sat in one of the receiving chairs in front of her desk.
Their team-taught class was progressing better than JJ could have predicted, especially considering her original opposition to it.
Not only that but she felt she personally enjoyed Kenn’s company. She had already acknowledged her sexual feelings for him. And now she discovered she liked him as a person, which opened up a whole other can of worms in her book. Sexual feelings she could easily blame on hormones. But to like him as a person constituted a deadly combination. She should know. She was the romance author. This may open the way for —
“Look what I snagged,” Kenn waved two tickets in the air.
“Elton John and Billy Joel in concert? On the same stage, at the same time?”
“No!”
“Tickets to see Paul McCartney, then?” she teased.
“Not quite. But there is some form of music involved.”
“Okay, I give.”
“This Saturday’s football game against Ohio College at Defiance.”
JJ held up tickets of her own. “They look remarkably similar to these?” The pair laughed. Every instructor at the university received a minimum of two tickets with the instructions to attend as their professional life depended on it.
“Even though you have tickets of your own, and at the chance you may have already asked the man of your dreams to go with you, I’m going to stick my neck out … ” Kenn paused, pursing his lips. Then with what seemed like the speed of a Tommy gun in one single breath: “Would you be kind enough to accompany me to the football game Saturday afternoon?” He released a long and slow exhale.
He looked into JJ’s eyes then ran his hand through his hair. “Of course, if you already have plans for the game …”
“I’d be honored to go,” she said quickly, fearful that she sounded a bit too eager.
His rigid body relaxed some. “Great! Is it okay if I pick you up at one o’clock? The game starts at two. That should give us more than enough time to fight the crowds to get in.”
JJ laughed. “Are we talking about the same football game? The team I thought we were going to see hasn’t won a game in five years. What makes you think there’s going to be a crowd?”
“A rich alumnus donated a jumbotron for the stadium. This game is the first time it’s going to be in use. And the promise is to pan through the audience to discover who’s there.”
“That just might be more interesting than the game itself.” Then JJ furrowed her eyebrows and asked, “Who would waste money on a losing team with such an extravagant purchase?”
“A former member of the football team.”
“Ahh!”
• • •
Alex and Blake got home shortly after JJ.
“Did you see the look on Craig’s face?” Alex asked.
“I did, indeed. It was priceless.”
“JJ, we’re home.”
“Out here on the front porch,” she answered. She had on her lap a scrapbook of photos from her marriage to Geoff. Alex and Blake sat down on the patio chairs on either side of JJ. She smiled at them as they rambled on about the events of their day.
“Something wrong, JJ?” Alex ventured, not wanting to poke into anything too personal, but sensing her need to talk. Blake quietly excused himself.
“Nothing,
really.”
“You’re looking awfully sad for someone who has no problems. Well, I guess you do have some problems, like the two uninvited fictional characters that have invaded your life. And the dreaded Cooper, of course.”
JJ laughed. “The dreaded Cooper is part of it,” she confessed, “but not in the way you think.” Alex shifted her weight in the patio chair she had eased herself into as JJ was talking. “You’ll be pleased to know that Kenn and I are going to the football game together Saturday.”
Alex immediately jumped up, ran over and hugged her. “That’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I’m so glad for you two.” Then she paused and looked down at the writer. “But you don’t seem so happy. Still not sure he’s got it to be the hero in your personal love story?”
“Actually, quite the opposite. I find that with everyday I’m more attracted to him. Not only is he sexy, but he’s turning into a great friend, too. What more can you ask out of a man?”
“Exactly,” Alex said, straightening her shoulders. “You taught me that.”
Alex looked at the scrapbook.
“Feeling guilty?” Alex had spoken JJ’s fears aloud. It was all she could do to nod her head yes.
Alex knelt down beside her. “JJ, I know you didn’t write a late husband into my background, so there’s a part of me that doesn’t have a clue about the pain you’re feeling now. And I know I’m only a two–dimensional character from a romance novel.”
JJ sniffled and giggled. “You’ve become far more than a two-dimensional character, Alex. At least to me. You’re a vibrant young woman and an excellent friend.”
“I’m going to try to offer you some advice from my limited background, which incidentally includes your previous two books and several other romance novels I’ve read since I’ve been in your world. You deserve to get on with your life. You can’t hide forever behind the covers of your book. You can’t live forever on the same pages as your characters. Just as we cut loose from you, so to speak, by popping out of our book, you too need to poke your head out of your self-imposed book and look around.”
