Fast Courting

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Yes, Nia,” he growled, “what is it you’d like to know?”

  “You’re serious?” Excitement did strange things to the corners of her lips.

  “Sure. Why not? If I see my life story smeared all over Eastern Edge I can always—” He caught himself before he said the word, but she heard it nonetheless.

  “Sue.” She filled in the blank with a shudder. “Go ahead. Say it. It certainly won’t be the first time it’s happened.”

  “Tell me about it, Nia—the thing with Mahoney. You are allowed to talk, aren’t you? I mean, I wouldn’t want you divulging any confidential information.”

  “I can talk.” She needed to talk, to somehow express her frustration. “It’s all a matter of public record, anyway.”

  “Already? I don’t recall seeing anything in the papers.”

  “It was a long time ago. If you saw something then, you would probably have forgotten it by now. Nothing came of it…then.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “Go on.”

  From the corner of her eye Nia saw the waitress approach. “Do you want dessert?” she asked in anticipation.

  “I want you to talk to me.”

  “But I need your help on this, Dan. For the sake of my review…”

  What had been a stage whisper rose to a normal speaking tone with the arrival of the waitress. Nia turned to the woman in utter innocence. “Are there any house specialties you can recommend for dessert?”

  Daniel coaxed Nia into discussion over a fresh strawberry tart and mint chocolate mousse, respectively. “What happened two years ago to get Mahoney’s dander up?”

  “I wrote an article in honor of the first anniversary of his swearing-in as mayor.”

  “Sounds nice enough…. Here,” he held a forkful of tart her way and watched as she pressed her lips around the offering; only then did he slowly withdraw the fork.

  “Mmmmm.” But was it the freshness of the tart that was so satisfying…or the innate richness of its donor?

  “You were saying… ?” he prodded.

  “Unfortunately, there was nothing terribly nice about my article. I mean, it was well written and carefully researched. But it claimed a gross conflict of interest on the part of Jimmy Mahoney.”

  All playfulness forgotten, Dan frowned. “Wait a minute. I do remember something. Wasn’t it about some piece of waterfront property?”

  “Good memory, Professor,” she quipped, impressed anew by his intellect. “As a lawyer in private practice before his election, Jimmy Mahoney was part-owner of a very large piece of prime development property. Within three months of his inauguration a huge complex was proposed for the site—a hotel, entertainment and shopping setup. The city granted the developers a significant tax break. Theoretically, it was a serious conflict of interest for the mayor.”

  “Theoretically,” he agreed. “And that’s what you reported?”

  “Very vividly…. Here, you finish this.” She thrust her mousse across the table, barely missing the rose-filled bud vase. “I’m not as hungry as I thought.”

  “Just relax, Nia. It can’t be all that bad.” He sampled the mousse as he continued. “Wasn’t there a press conference at the time, a retraction based on some misunderstanding?”

  “The misunderstanding occurred because Mahoney had failed to officially register the fact that he had divested himself of the property before taking office. The fact that he still knew the owners and the developer was a secondary issue, perhaps more a matter of poor judgment than a legal conflict of interest.”

  “You did publish a retraction.”

  “We certainly did! It satisfied him. Up until now.” As succinctly as possible, she related Bill Austen’s theory on the force behind the revival.

  A dark anger simmered in Dan’s eyes. “Isn’t that unethical—the arbitrary use of a suit like that?”

  “It’s a political strategy—and you know about strategies. He has every right in the world to do what he’s doing. It may be unfair…” As the gist of the situation hit her anew, she shook her head in dismay. “I can’t believe I’ve got to go through this again.”

  Daniel regarded her closely, his expression holding an understanding that more than justified her having discussed the lawsuit with him. Almost absently, he reached for the sterling silver pitcher left by the waitress and topped off their coffee cups. “Isn’t this kind of thing unusual for a magazine like Eastern Edge? I somehow envision it as being unabrasive.”

  “Unabrasive is often dull, and dull doesn’t sell. No, we purposely set aside one article in each issue that is an exposé, that deals with an issue that’s potentially fiery. We try to present the facts without petty name-calling; a lawsuit is the last thing we want. In the case of my article, not only were the facts erroneous— through no fault of mine—but they were far from complimentary to one Jimmy Mahoney, and he has a lot of power in this city.”

  Both brows arched, Daniel rubbed the side of his nose. “On the one hand, I can understand his being upset. On the other hand, as a public figure, he might not want to continue with a weak libel suit.”

  “I certainly hope not. If Bill’s theory is correct, Mahoney may not care about the outcome as long as the pretrial process evokes sympathy among the voters.”

  “And what’s the worst that could happen to you, Nia?” he asked more softly, coaxing out her greatest fears.

  “I don’t even want to think about it.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Tell me—what’s the worst?”

  With a deep breath, she met his gaze. “The worst would be a libel suit in which Eastern Edge was forced to pay substantial damages to Jimmy Mahoney on the grounds that his character and career have been irreparably damaged. I assume that, though the publication does carry insurance against such an eventuality, should that happen Antonia Phillips will be looking for a new job.”

  “Which wouldn’t be so terribly awful, would it?” His tone was gentle, protective in its way. Nia saw what he was trying to prove to her.

  “No, Daniel, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.” She put the possibility in its proper perspective. “But it would set my career back some.”

  “You’d rebound,” he declared with such conviction that she did feel better. “And that is the worst. Chances are it will never get to court. If Mahoney is using it for political purposes, he may not want to have it go to trial. What if he loses?” The point well taken, Nia smiled. “He may simply make a whole lot of noise about it—partly in the hope of frightening any other publication away from printing anything derogatory.”

  With a sigh, she nodded. “You’re right, Dan. Everything you say makes sense. When you say it, I do believe that it will all work out. But…there’s still going to be a mess in the process. How do I handle that?”

  Reaching across the table, Daniel covered her tensed hand with his. “You’ll keep cool and continue with your work. You’ll do whatever preparation you have to do to present your case. You’ll simply continue to do your best. Is there any alternative?”

  Nia was suddenly conscious of how much better she felt about the libel suit than when Bill had popped it on her this morning. Perhaps the shock had simply worn off. More probably, talking it out with Dan had worked off the edge. How good it was to discuss things with him—he was so reasonable, so compassionate. It had been a long, long time since she had had a man’s strength to fall back on in her own moments of weakness. Perhaps that was why she savored him all the more.

  Under cover of his palm, she turned her own hand until her more slender fingers curled decisively around his. “Thanks, Dan,” she drawled. “I needed that!” Her smile held humor…and something more. It was that same feminine aura emerging, and though the voice of experience cried out in warning, she selfishly ignored it.

  Daniel’s hand tightened almost imperceptibly. “Come on, Nia. Let me walk you back to the office.”

  They went back the way they’d come, this time more
slowly, prolonging the pleasantness of being together. Daniel took her arm and drew it through his, holding her close to his side as they walked.

  “You know that you’ve done it again, Daniel, don’t you?” Nia teased him grudgingly. If only his shoulder weren’t so inviting…

  “Done what, babe?”

  “Gotten me to talk about myself. You do it every time. I think you’ll be a counselor one day.”

  “Perhaps.” He smiled.

  “You’re very good at it. You make me feel so comfortable that I can’t seem to stop the flow once it begins.”

  “I’m glad.” He cast her a sidelong glance that held a tenderness far beyond “glad.” If Nia was enthralled with the day, Daniel was no less so.

  “I wish you would feel free to talk with me,” she began. “I really would like to learn what makes you tick. Did you always want to be a basketball player?”

  Without further ado, he talked. “I always loved the game—from the day my dad put a net up on a tree at the edge of the driveway. It wasn’t until later that I realized basketball could take me places.”

  “Such as …?”

  “Such as college, for starters. I went to Indiana on a full scholarship. Had I not gotten it, I doubt I would have been able to go on in school.”

  “Your parents must have been proud.”

  “They were. They are. Proud but stubborn.”

  They had reached the edge of the Government Center plaza and slowly headed down Tremont Street. “What do you mean?” she asked, recalling something that had puzzled her once before.

  “My father worked for the Postal Service for years; my mother taught piano. They scrimped and saved to give me everything they possibly could.”

  “You had no siblings?” She tipped her head up to his face.

  “My mother gave birth to another child—a girl—three years after my birth. The baby died after eight months. At the time it was a mystery. Now they call it Sudden Infant Death Syndrome—SIDS. Anyway,” he sighed, tucking her arm more tightly around his as though he needed the comfort of her presence, “they couldn’t quite get themselves to go through it again. So they put all their energies into me.”

  “You must have been well loved.”

  “And spoiled.” He smiled crookedly, barely disguising a certain sadness that wrenched Nia’s heart. “They doted on me…until my mother got sick. Then it was up to my father and me to dote on her.”

  “What was wrong?”

  “Nothing fatal. Simply a life’s sentence of pain. She developed crippling arthritis. My father took her to doctor after doctor, but there’s simply no cure.” Frustration gripped his features, giving them a leaner slant as she looked up at him. “She had operation after operation, this joint replaced, then that. Although she’s reached a plateau now, she’s hopelessly confined to a wheelchair.”

  “How old were you when this all began?”

  “I was a sophomore in high school. You can understand why I worked so hard to get good grades and win that scholarship. Even though it meant leaving Salem, the pride they felt made it worth it.”

  They were already a block up Beacon Street. “Where does the stubbornness fit in?” she asked, reminding him of his earlier claim.

  Daniel looked fondly at her. “You are a pusher, aren’t you?”

  “Come on, Dan. We’re almost at the office.” Of necessity, their conversation would shortly have to end.

  “OK. The stubbornness? That came when I signed my first contract and began to send money home. I quickly discovered that rather than using it on themselves, as I had hoped, they were banking every cent—to be left to their grandchildren one day.” But there were no grandchildren. Would there ever be?

  “That’s a beautiful thought, Dan, but I can understand your frustration. Were you ever able to get around them?”

  She’d never seen so cocky a grin. “Now…what do you think?”

  “OK,” she smiled, “what did you do?”

  “I went back to Salem myself and bought them a little ranch-style house in the suburbs. I stood over the workers as they installed ramps. I threw out the old wheelchair and replaced it with a motorized one. And I bought them a van, fully equipped so that they could go wherever they wanted in comfort.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Yeah,” he drawled grudgingly. “They still bank every blessed cent I send. But at least, when I see something they need, I know how to provide it.”

  “You must feel good about that.” She beamed with pride in him.

  “I do.” He smiled more gently as he met her gaze. “Now if I could only do something about those grandchildren…”

  They had reached her building, taken the elevator to her floor, and now ambled toward her office with shared reluctance. Nia felt that beyond even his patience and sympathy, Daniel had given her a greater gift today. It was a little slice of himself, a slice made all the more precious by the knowledge that very few people had ever received it. She had a friend— a very bright, handsome and sexy one.

  With a deep sigh and a thud of resignation she dropped her purse on her chair. At that moment the phone rang, but their good-byes had not yet been said. After that last statement of Daniel’s, a pregnant silence had settled over them. Though not awkward, it spoke of questions unasked, and so unanswered. Now Nia held up her finger to have Daniel wait while she quickly dispensed with the telephone call.

  It was, ironically, a call from Thomas Reiss, a Vermont author, an “eligible easterner,” with whom she had had an appointment scheduled for the following week. A conflict had arisen. Could the meeting possibly be rescheduled?

  Nia swiveled in her chair to more fully face the wall calendar. A week from the following Tuesday—one day after the Mahoney hearing. Fine. With the proper arrows from the old date to the new, she scrawled the name of Thomas Reiss in the allotted square. With a gracious “Thank you for calling, Mr. Reiss,” she replaced the receiver and turned back to Daniel.

  His eyes, however, did not budge from the array of papers and magazines spread randomly over her desktop. Following his gaze, she recalled too late the photocopies of newspaper articles, the books on sports, the self-explanatory magazine issues that, between her early morning jaunt to the library and the good graces of Christopher Daly, she had amassed.

  Feeling strangely sheepish, as though she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she began to explain. “Oh, don’t mind these—” But the words stuck in her throat as Daniel’s gaze met hers. The thunder of the blood suddenly pounding through her veins was nothing compared with the seething fury of his expression.

  His jaw was clenched, his entire body rigid. Nia instantly realized his misinterpretation. She knew what was coming. Yet she was frozen by the force of his wrath. Her friend— she was on the verge of losing him!

  He spoke with grating slowness, enunciating each word as he coated it with rage. “You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”

  In her fear, Nia hesitated a fraction of a second too long. For, having ground out his bitter message, he turned and was gone from the doorway. Stunned, she couldn’t move. The brightness of her day had fled.

  “Go after him, you dope!” Priscilla’s whisper tore Nia from her trance. Their eyes met through the fern as Priscilla repeated her message. “Go on!”

  Nia went. Dashing from the office, she was in time to see Daniel rounding the corner at the end of the corridor. “Dan!” she cried, then ran after him as quickly as her high-heeled pumps would allow. She caught up with him near the elevator. “Dan! Don’t go! You’re wrong!”

  His gaze clung to the horizontal panel above the elevator doors. “Oh, yes,” he sneered deeply, “I certainly was wrong!”

  “It’s not that way, Dan! Let me explain!”

  “Oh, you can explain all right. The question is whether I can believe you.”

  “You’ve got to! I’m not doing the feature on you. Please believe that!”

  He stared down at her with the indign
ance of a man who felt his intelligence had been insulted. “After what I just saw?”

  “Yes!” The elevator arrived. Instinctively, she grabbed his arm to stop him from entering it. “Don’t leave yet….”

  Her voice was a whisper; her eyes held gentle pleading. Daniel’s gaze shifted from the taut fingers on his arm to the expectant faces in the elevator. He stood immobile for what seemed an eternity of inner agony. Slowly the elevator door slid shut.

  “Find a private room,” he growled, taking her arm into his grasp and ushering her back down the corridor, pausing only for her to check several offices that were already occupied.

  “There’s a supply room,” she offered in a frantic whisper, fearful that he would change his mind and storm away. “It’s the only thing!”

  “Is this it?” he asked, thrusting open one of the few doors Nia hadn’t already tried. It obviously was. Switching on the light, he let her precede him into a small room filled with reams of paper, folders, writing goods, mailing material, and a bevy of other decidedly inanimate objects. That was all he wanted. Privacy.

  Turning his back on the door and leaning against it until it shut, he released her arm and crossed his own. “All right, Antonia. Talk.”

  Driven by voices of desperation within her, she faced him urgently. “I’m not using you for the feature, Daniel. I’ve already told Bill that!”

  “Then why the material on your desk?” he seethed. “It sure as hell looked like you were researching someone to do with basketball. With your supposed aversion to the game—”

  “Those were about you. I stopped at the library this morning. Chris brought in the magazines. But I wasn’t researching you for my feature.”

  “Then why, Nia? Do you take me for an utter fool? I’ve been used by the media before. I thought I’d learned to recognize a con job when I saw it. This one stinks!”

  “Bill is already finding a replacement,” she went on, fighting the hurt that burgeoned inside. “I told him I couldn’t use you. I’ve already told you that I didn’t want to do the feature. Why won’t you believe me?”