by Elaine Fox
Chances were, if she sat here long enough, Steve would come out and find her.
What would he say? How would he explain? And more important, how would she react? Would she buy his excuses like she had with Martin all those years?
She had to think. She knew she would come to work tomorrow and find evidence of a new break-in, so she had to figure out how to respond.
Slowly she stood up and crept back to her apartment, suddenly more tired than she could bear. She’d figure this all out tomorrow. She’d deal with the new break-in tomorrow.
She’d decide what the hell to do about Steve tomorrow.
“I’m going to talk to her, Dana,” Steve said into his cell phone, standing on the steps of the Library of Congress. It was a relatively mild day for winter and the sunshine felt good. “I’m just going to wait until after the weekend.”
“Why?” she countered in her characteristically blunt way. “You’re only going to agonize and work out speeches and water it all down until you say nothing at all.”
She had part of it right, he had to admit. He had been agonizing and working out speeches.
“You don’t understand,” he said, watching three suited men in black overcoats get out of a black sedan and walk toward the Supreme Court building. “The restaurant’s booked. We’re just coming off of a hellish night. And Roxanne’s still getting up before dawn to bake all the damn bread. I don’t think springing the idea that I’d like to take apart a corner of her kitchen would go over very well right now. Especially considering there’s probably nothing there anyway.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Dana said. She was obviously in the van with her kids. Her language was way too clean to believe she was alone. “I’m not talking about your darn historical discovery or theory or whatever it is. I’m talking about your feelings, Steve. When are you going to talk to her about your feelings, you repressed clod?”
Steve sat down on the top step and leaned his backpack on the step below. “I was thinking I’d do it at the same time,” he said, his head in one hand. “In my own cloddish way.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
A car horn sounded in the background and Steve wondered if in her vehemence she was driving erratically.
“Should we get off the phone until you get where you’re going?” he asked.
“They weren’t honking at me. Tell me what you mean by doing it at the same time. You want to put your feelings in a historical context? Tell her your heart’s been hidden all these years and you found it behind the freezer in her kitchen?”
“Hey, that’s good. I should be taking notes.”
“I’m serious, Steve,” she said. “I don’t want you opening up that bag of candy. That’s for Daddy. You had yours in the store, remember?”
Steve lifted his head, squinting in the sunlight. “What?”
“Sorry, Steve, hang on a second.”
Below him, he could hear water cascading over Neptune’s statue in the fountain at the front of the building. A family of tourists stopped to look at it and the young boy raised a hand and said, “Ooh, look at the snake, Daddy!”
Steve thought about the box of rubber snakes and smiled. Dana had claimed that proved Roxanne had feelings for him. Nobody was that creative or went that far out of her way to prank someone unless they cared about him.
On the phone, Dana’s voice achieved a tone Steve was glad she wasn’t using on him, so reminiscent was it of their mother’s. “Do you want me to stop this car, Justin? Because I will stop this car and take that away from you. Put it back in the grocery bag. Now.”
Steve pictured his nephew’s mischievous face and smiled. The kid had spunk. He was the only one in the whole family who wasn’t scared to death of Dana when she got mad.
“What I’m saying is,” Dana said—and Steve waited to see who this was relevant to, him or Justin—“You’ve never talked this way about a woman before and I don’t want you talking yourself out of what you’re feeling for her. You’re much better off just striking while the iron is hot.”
“Are you talking to me or Justin?”
“Justin is much more emotionally mature. He knows to say ‘I love you’ when he feels it, don’t you, sweetie?”
In the background Steve heard Justin singing, “I love you, Mommy! I love you, Mommy!”
“Great,” Dana said, laughing, “now look what you’ve started.”
“I didn’t bring up the L word.”
“See?” she exclaimed. “That’s just what I’m talking about. Can you not even say it?”
“Dana, I’m going to talk to her. I’ve already said this a dozen times. My plan was to tell her about my discovery, then couch it in a kind of teamwork way.”
“Teamwork?”
“Yeah, you know, if I find this valuable thing, of course it will be yours. I just want to use it in my book and then it will create success for both of us, or something like that. Stressing the ‘both of us’ part.”
“Oh Steve,” Dana said, her voice deadly serious and somewhat pitying. “That’s just awful.”
“Well it’s not so easy, Dana. If I tell her about the hidden staircase, then tell her how I feel about her, she’ll think I’m buttering her up so I can dig in her basement. Same problem if I tell her about my feelings, then tell her about the hidden staircase. The way I figure it, it has to be at the same time.”
“That makes it seem like you think they’re equally important.”
“No, no, I had it better than that. It’s written down in my notes someplace.”
“Oh yes, be sure to bring your notes.”
Steve put his head back in his hand as a chilly breeze kicked up. “Dana, if we talk about this any more I’m going to have your voice in my head when I talk to her and I won’t be able to say anything.”
“No, that’s good. I’ll tell you what to say.”
He laughed.
“I’m serious. It’s very simple. Just say…” She paused. “Did I tell you you could open those Pop-Tarts?”
Steve shook his head. “Well, that’s good, but that’s not really the point I’m going for.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said.
In the background Justin sang, “Mommy said ‘stupid’! Mommy said ‘stupid’!”
“Quiet, honey.” To Steve she said, “You just say, ‘Roxanne, I’m in love with you.’ Simple as that.”
“Yeah, right.” He scoffed. “I thought I’d say something more like ‘I’d like to see more of you’ and ‘Maybe we could go out on an actual date sometime.’”
Dana sighed elaborately. “Jeez, Steve, don’t go overboard or anything.”
“Dana, if I go in there and say ‘Roxanne, I’m in love with you,’ she’ll laugh at me.”
“No she won’t.”
“Yes she will.”
“Then why are you in love with a woman who would do such a thing?”
Steve thought about that. Because she wouldn’t do such a thing. She wasn’t mean. And she did care for him, he was fairly certain. So why was he so afraid of what she’d do?
He cleared his throat. “Look, she could have any guy she wants. She’s gorgeous. And—”
“And she wants you. It’s obvious. The woman has, what, two discretionary hours a week and she chooses to spend them with you? Come on.”
“I’m convenient.”
Dana clucked her tongue. “See, there again, I have to ask. If you believe that, why do you feel so strongly about her?”
“I don’t know.” He grabbed his backpack and stood up. “And I’m getting more confused by the minute. But right now I really have to go. If I don’t get this research done today, I’ll have to wait until Monday.”
“No word from that editor you wrote to?”
“Nothing.” He fought back the now-familiar despair. It had been weeks since he’d sent that letter.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll let you go. But here are my last thoughts to you. First, you need to figure out what’s
more important to you, the girl or the evidence for your book. If it’s the girl, all you need to do is tell her you love her. That’s what she wants to hear. Trust me.”
“Whatever you say.”
They hung up. Steve stood on the steps and looked up at the Library of Congress. He’d been working on this book for three years. It was the key to his future plans—he couldn’t give that up for a girl he just met a couple months ago, could he? That would be idiotic.
But could he really put the book ahead of Roxanne? Ahead of the most amazing woman he’d ever met—who, inexplicably, seemed interested in him?
Was this really an either/or question?
No, he thought, but Dana was still right. This wasn’t just a case of knowing what Roxanne wanted to hear. He needed to make a decision. What did he want to say?
Did he want to tell her he loved her?
He closed his eyes a brief moment, seeing Roxanne’s sad, tired face from the night before, and answered the question with unexpected ease.
Yes, God help him, he did.
He arrived back home with just enough time to change and get down to the bar. Apprehension fueled his energy and he couldn’t help worrying that his impression last night about a turning point, when she hadn’t wanted comfort from him after the dinner fiasco, would prove correct. After all, what else could that mean, if not that she was pulling away from him? He was nothing to her but a convenience is what he thought it meant, but he hoped he was wrong.
He let himself in to the bar and saw Sir Nigel in the dining room fussing with tablecloths and moving silverware around. Rita came through the doors from the kitchen, tying her apron around her waist.
“Hey, Stevie,” she said, impish smile breaking across her face upon seeing him.
“What’s up, Rita?” He tried to sound lively as he made his way around the bar to the service end, but he felt like a kid on the day his oral report was due. He was so sure something bad was going to happen, he couldn’t act naturally.
“Nothin’.” She approached the bar. “Don’t you love this place now? It’s so pretty here. And I love that there’s no more smoke.”
He smiled at her. “You love it here, huh? Well, who would have thought?”
She laughed. “I know, it’s weird. But I do. By the way, I took a message for you earlier. Some chick called on the house phone. I wrote it down on a napkin.”
Rita was about to sit on a bar stool when Sir Nigel spoke.
“Miss Rita, could I have a word?” He crooked a finger at her.
Rita turned to Steve and rolled her eyes. “The prime minister calls,” she said in a lousy British accent.
Steve laughed and punched the cash button on the register to make sure there was money in the drawer. Yep. He pushed it closed and turned to shelve the rack of clean glasses sitting on the cold chest.
She was here, he was sure. She was always the first one here. He thought about going back to the kitchen for something, maybe he was in need of lemons or some other kind of garnish. But he was well stocked, another thing he’d accomplished last night in his insomnia.
Things were pretty calm as the crew set up, everyone moving quietly in the wake of last night’s trauma. Just before five thirty, when the doors opened, Roxanne came out of the kitchen to the service bar.
He turned and smiled at her, taken aback again, as he sometimes was, by how beautiful she was. But she did not return it.
“I need a pitcher of ice water,” she said softly, looking toward the dining room.
“Sure,” Steve replied in a voice too jovial to be real. If she knew him at all, she’d recognize that voice as rampant uncertainty.
“I remember!” Rita called from the dining room. “It was some woman who said she was an editor—Susan something. I put it on the liquor shelf next to the register.”
Steve glanced at Rita, then back at the liquor shelf, where a cocktail napkin lay with Rita’s big loopy writing on it. An editor? As in, a book editor?
“Thanks, Rita.”
He grabbed a pitcher and looked at Roxanne, who was looking into the dining room.
“Anything else I can get you?” he asked. “Coffee? Tea?” The end of the joke—Me?—died on his lips as she settled her dark eyes on him.
“No,” she said firmly.
Something was definitely up, he thought. Dread curled in his stomach and the cocktail napkin was forgotten.
He filled the pitcher with ice and used the soda gun to fire water into it. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
“Fine.”
Oh God. He knew that ‘fine.’ There wasn’t a woman alive who hadn’t perfected the nuance of that.
“Roxanne,” he said low, bringing her the pitcher, “what’s wrong?”
She looked away again. “Nothing.” She took the water, then added, “I’ll talk to you later.”
There was nothing reassuring in that statement, and Steve was tormented by it the entire evening. Though he tried to forget about it, write it off as part of her terrible mood from the night before, he knew it wasn’t that. He knew, somehow, that whatever shit was about to hit the fan was coming straight for him.
The night was busy again, but he felt as if he dealt with it efficiently. He was getting used to this crowd and their brand of drinking. The white-haired gentleman was back, as he always was—the man Steve privately referred to as Red Top because he always had to call him a Red Top Cab—and Steve took particular pleasure in serving him this evening, knowing Sir Nigel was annoyed every time he poured the man another drink.
About halfway through the evening, Steve realized that in his distraction he’d forgotten to tell Roxanne how the cat had gotten into the kitchen. He’d secured the downstairs hole as much as possible last night, but she still needed to block the upstairs one. If she came out again he would tell her.
But she didn’t come out. Despite the fact that he found himself stealing glances at the kitchen doors more and more often, he knew Roxanne would never emerge from them. No, she’d made it a point to try not to come into the front room when customers were present. He’d called her on it once, telling her she should come out more often, rather than less. That if people knew the place had such a young and beautiful owner it would get even more popular. But she’d slapped that idea down quickly enough. She seemed annoyed when anybody mentioned her looks, asserting that she would never use her appearance to try to increase business.
By the end of the night, he was exhausted and wired, as usual, but it was all tinged with apprehension. So when Roxanne emerged after the waitstaff had left and it was just the busboys mopping up the kitchen floor, he knew the other shoe was about to drop.
“Hey.” He stopped wiping down the bar and came toward her, the towel still in his hands. “You look tired. Is everything okay?”
She stood stiffly at the end of the service bar, not meeting his eyes. “I am tired. I’m always tired.”
“I know. It’s been crazy. But I thought tonight went pretty well.”
She nodded. “Comparatively.”
“Listen, Roxanne, we don’t have to talk here, or even at all tonight if you’re too tired,” he said, thinking for a moment that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t about him. “Or I can come up later, if you want, and you can unload your troubles on me. I’ll even rub your back.” He tried a smile.
Her eyes flashed up to his and he knew he’d made a mistake.
“Look, Steve,” she said, and then paused for so long he had time to think he should leave, now, before she said whatever it was she was about to say.
Because it wasn’t going to be good. He could see from the look on her face that it was not going to be good.
But he was too late to save himself.
“You and I both know,” she began, taking a deep, seemingly fortifying breath, “that it’s a bad idea to mix business with pleasure. I’ve been worried about this for a while now, and I’ve decided it’s just not working.”
For Steve, all the air left the room
, as if he were in an airplane and a bomb had gone off.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
He knew what she meant. He knew exactly what she was getting at. She was done with him. Through. Finished. But what he wanted to know was why. What had happened that made her change her mind about him?
“I mean, we’ve had a nice fling.” She swallowed. “And it’s over now.”
“A nice fling,” he repeated. All he could do was stare at her, the bar towel now balled up in his hands.
“That’s right.” Her gaze turned steady, and her face was hard. Resolved, like a general demoting him to a private. “We got what we wanted from each other and now we’re done.”
“We’re done,” he repeated. Then, “We’re done,” in a more conversational tone, anger, disappointment and disbelief warring within him. “Well, that’s good to know.”
She didn’t move. “I think you knew that it would happen sometime.”
He shook his head, holding his hands up in exaggerated innocence. “I didn’t. Really. So thanks for the update.”
He should ask her why, he knew. He should sit her down, drag it out of her, see what this was all about. But he couldn’t bear to hear her tell him that she just didn’t feel anything for him. Couldn’t bear to hear the words he’d said to so many others coming back at him.
Instead, he reacted with anger. Sheer, petulant, frightened-of-his-own-feelings anger. “Anything else, boss? Want me to clear out so you don’t have to look at your mistake anymore or what?”
“You don’t have to go,” she said quietly. “Unless you want to.”
He didn’t hear the question in her voice. Just the suggestion.
“Oh I want to.” He threw the towel onto the floor. Then he laughed. Throwing in the towel, as literally as possible. “I want to be as far away from here, and you, as possible.”
He rounded the bar and let the service door slam down behind him.
She gave him a penetrating look. “Do you really?”
He stood as close as he dared and stared her down. “You bet I do.”
