Table of Contents
Title Page
Also by Michael Baron:
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - Nice Ring to It
Chapter 2 - Waddle
Chapter 3 - Delighting in Making Me Feel Uncomfortable
Chapter 4 - Some Weird Consistency
Chapter 5 - Not At All the Way I Pictured It
Chapter 6 - Quite a Piece of Real Estate
Chapter 7 - Down Came the Rain
Chapter 8 - The Same for You
Chapter 9 - Right Where I Was
Chapter 10 - Along with Everything Else
Chapter 11 - I’m Always Lucky
Chapter 12 - How’s the Turkey?
Chapter 13 - Outlined Images
Chapter 14 - Happy Dinosaur
Chapter 15 - Are We Ready for This?
Chapter 16 - More Like an Imaginary Friend
Chapter 17 - Keep the Last Few Plates Spinning
Copyright Page
Also by Michael Baron:
When You Went Away
Crossing the Bridge
The Journey Home
For T.
You’re way more fun than Spring.
Acknowledgements
Very special thanks to Terry Banker for his creative help and wise counsel. This novel never would have happened without him.
Thanks as always to Barbara Aronica Buck for the beautiful cover.
Thanks to Steven Manchester for his help with the copyediting. It’s always great for a writer to know that someone has your back.
Thanks to Danny Baror for the constant stream of great work on my behalf and to Heather Baror-Shapiro for keeping it going.
And, of course, thanks to my wife and children for their endless support.
Chapter 1
Nice Ring to It
I never claimed to have it all figured out. Boasts of that kind of clarity are best left to mystics, religious leaders, or Presidential candidates. For the most part, though, I thought I had figured out most of what I needed to figure out. At 29, I was living in a great apartment in Manhattan, hanging out in the City’s hottest places, and putting my MBA to excellent use as one of the youngest executive directors the public relations firm of Mason, Brand and Partners had ever employed. I was convinced that by the time I retired at the age of 40, the universe would remember me, Dylan Hunter, as a world-beater.
I certainly never once imagined myself to be like the man at the circus who ran around spinning plates, eventually sacrificing one to prevent another from falling. World-beaters don’t sacrifice anything. And as I settled onto my stool at the Magenta Martini that night, I had no idea that, in a matter of hours, beating the world would begin to seem a lot less important to me.
I ordered two beers, while my best friend Jim pulled a stool up to the table. “It’s a good crowd,” I said, perusing the dance floor. “Thank goodness the embargo on long skirts is still in effect. Think you can talk to the mayor about making it a city law?”
“Yeah, I’ll put it at the top of my agenda for the next time I have his ear.”
The driving rhythm of classic Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble was blaring through the speakers. It wouldn’t be long before they switched to the hotter house rhythms of post-happy hour. The Martini was our favorite hangout and the current flavor of the month in Lower Manhattan. In another hour, it would be nearly impossible to see the dance floor let alone dance on it.
“Hey, let’s get some cigars,” Jim said, as he grabbed his beer from the waitress.
“Not yet. We’re waiting for Hank.”
“Hope we’re not waiting long. My ex is dropping the boys off at 10:00. I love the long weekends with them, but it definitely cuts into my party time.”
“So, you’ll be doing stuff like watching Winnie the Pooh and going to playgrounds for the next couple of days?”
“Two of them are teenagers, D-Man. I’ll be doing things like guarding the beer and moving my Playboys to a higher shelf for the next couple of days.”
“Better you than me, Jimbo.”
“Ah, it’s not so bad. They still want to do things like play catch and watch Road Runner, so we have a pretty good time. And soon enough, they’ll be able to give me advice on my love life.”
While Jim talked about his kids, I noticed a little glint in his eye. For just a second, I thought about what it might be like to play catch with one of my own. Then a woman wearing a red mini passed our table and my priorities snapped back into focus.
“Dylan, do you mind? I hate these things.” Jim said, pointing to the light hanging over our table.
“It’s hot,” I warned.
“Hey, I’m a professional.” Jim used to be a firefighter, which meant that he thought he was qualified to reach for the hanging xenon mini spot that dangled a precarious magenta beam onto our table.
“At least you’re consistent. If a food pellet shot out of the ceiling every time you unscrewed a light bulb, you’d be overweight and smell like burnt chicken.”
Jim’s hand recoiled as he singed himself.
I chuckled at his goofiness. “Careful, you might need those fingers.”
“Ah, what’s the point,” Jim said, trying not to show that he was in pain. “My ex will just cut ‘em off and throw ‘em in the box with my silver dollar collection and my grandfather’s watch anyway.”
“Don’t you mean your cojones? Hank said, pulling up a barstool. He patted Jim on the back and flagged our waitress. “You’re unscrewing the light bulbs again? You gotta try something new once in a while.” He looked over at me. “Hey, D-Man, congratulations on the Crystal Creek bottled water deal.”
“Thanks.”
“Mr. Mason’s gotta be loving this. I hear that he and Waverly go way back.”
Jim dipped his fingers in his beer, obviously thinking that no one was looking. “Who’s Waverly?”
“Our arch nemesis and chief rival,” I said. “He usually kicks our ass, but not this time.”
Hank and I had worked together since I started at Mason Brand, and he had been there for ten years before that. We’d partnered on a number of projects, though none of them on the scale of Crystal Creek. Hank hadn’t been involved in this pitch. Mason Brand preferred building its business around the little guy. We didn’t turn down the big guys; we just didn’t go after them. When we did go after them, though, Mason brought in the first team. And as much as I loved Hank, from the day I met him, I knew that he was a second-stringer.
Jim took a sip of his beer, which I assume tasted better with the essence of crisp flesh. “What’s Crystal Creek’s deal?”
Hank and I looked at each other. I laughed. “We shouldn’t say anything.”
Hank held a hand an inch from his face. “And this is considered privileged information, but….”
I leaned toward Jim. “It’s supposed to be crystal clear water, right? Well a disgruntled employee got drunk on the job and relieved himself in one of the storage tanks. After management noticed a little discoloration in the bottling that night, they caught him, but they couldn’t fire him. He was the owner’s brother-in-law.”
“Yeah, or the owner’s wife would have had his cojones.”
I rolled my eyes at the interruption. “Thanks, Hank. Then he did it again only this time, they didn’t find out until after a call from a Boston health club. Apparently, an aerobics class noticed a salty flavor in their bottled water of choice. Suddenly, we were bidding against Waverly for Crystal Creek’s new public relations campaign.”
“That’s why I drink beer,” Jim said, as he finished his and ordered another round. “You can’t taste the pee.”
“Dylan bullshitted us into yet another big deal.”
“It isn’t bullshitting,
Hank. It’s spinning.”
“Bite my cojones. Bullshitting is bullshitting, no matter what spin you put on it.”
Somewhere along the way, Hank had picked up this habit about talking about his cojones. Or Jim’s cojones. Or my cojones. Or anyone’s cojones. Although he had a lot more experience than me, he failed to realize that Mr. Mason, our boss, didn’t want to hear about it. It was one of the things that kept him on the bench during the big games. I’d tried explaining that to him, but I think speaking the way he wanted to speak was more important to Hank than fast-tracking at Mason Brand.
“Man, that sounds great.” Jim said, paying for the beers. “I never get anything good like that.”
Hank threw out his hands. “That’s what happens when you leave the FDNY to work for the Mayor. You miss all those fun urination cases.”
Jim was also in the public relations business, but he didn’t start there. Who does? Who grows up telling their parents they want to be a P.R. man? You grow up telling them you want to be a policeman or a fireman, and Jim actually became one. Now, he advised the Mayor on spinning the city’s safety policy. That’s how he could afford the alimony, child support for three boys, and the ability to be my neighbor in Tribeca.
Hank put a hand on my shoulder “D-Man, how about we take Jimbo …”
“Shhh. I love this song, Little Wing. I love Stevie Ray.”
“Hendrix.” Jim said, spouting the word like he was on a game show.
“I know Hendrix wrote it, but this is the Stevie Ray Vaughan version.” I grabbed my beer. “I like it better. It’s got more energy.”
Jim threw a lick on his air guitar. “Energy, my ass! Who remakes a Hendrix tune?”
I let my soul soar to a blistering run. “Only the bravest. And only Stevie Ray has ever done it right.”
Across the bar, a man caught my attention. Well, actually one of his three dates caught my attention first, but then I noticed him. I nodded in their direction. “Look at that. That, gentlemen, is the absolute last thing I want to be when I grow up.”
“What’s that?” Jim said.
“See that guy? The 50-year old with the Armani rug and the three babes at his side?”
“Yeah, what about him?”
“I bet that guy has a Porsche, a Lamborghini and a monthly subscription to Viagra Tonight.”
“The problem being…?”
“Look at him. He’s pathetic. He’s old. He’s…”
“Rich?” said Jim.
“So? He’s…”
“Got three babes on his arm?” Hank said.
“You’re missing the point. At some stage, you stop doing that stuff, right? I mean if you’re still doing it when you’re his age, it’s just sad, isn’t it?”
Jim and Hank seemed confused. Since they were both more than ten years older than me, I wondered whether I was pitching this to the wrong audience.
“Look, the money’s cool, the clothes are cool, the babes are cool, and I’m sure the Lamborghini is very cool. But if I’m still hanging out in bars on a Friday night chatting up women when I’m his age, I authorize either of you to put a bullet through my temple.”
The waitress set our drinks down and snatched the twenty that Jim had taken out of his wallet. Jim told her to keep the change, but she was already out of range.
“Jeez, D-Man,” Hank said, taking a drink of his blue Martini, “where did that come from? I thought Mr. Lamborghini over there would be your hero.”
“You did?”
“Well, yeah. You don’t exactly come off as a settle down with the wife and the brood kinda guy.”
“I’m 29!”
“Lamborghini was 29 once, too.”
I shuddered and took a drink. This had obviously never come up with Jim and Hank before, but I’d always imagined that as I was about to embark on my early retirement sometime after the world was already at my feet, but before the Fortune cover story I’d have my last three or four flings and then find someone to go off into the sunset with. I never considered the current phase of my personal life to be permanent. That’s what made it so much fun.
Hank screwed up his face comically. “You wanna get married?”
Jim raised a finger. “Um, can I say something about that?”
I was getting irritated. “I didn’t say I wanted to get married. Let’s just change the subject.”
“Suit yourself. How about we change it to the subject of Billie, Amanda, and Mason’s new babe of an E.A.?” Hank nodded toward the magnificent redhead, her sternfaced friend, and the young blonde heading toward our table. The blonde peeled off before she got to us.
I wasn’t the only one who had my eye on the brass ring at the office. Billie Daniels was at least as ambitious as me. We had a lot in common. We started at the firm about a month apart, we were the same age, we each had an MBA - although hers came from Syracuse and we both had very definite career plans. If I breathed challenge like air, Billie made me hyperventilate. I was confident that a VP spot would eventually go to each of us, and so was she. We kidded about it and engaged in playful competition over who was going to get the office with the best view.
At the beginning of our tenures at Mason Brand, we had even more in common for six days and ten hours, the best portion of which we spent with our clothes off.
“Hello, boys,” Billie said, putting her arms around Jim and me. Although we weren’t like that and hadn’t been since we decided that a romantic entanglement was too complicated, her warm breath on my neck sent a tingle along my spine. “Congratulations on the Crystal Creek deal, Dylan.”
“Thanks, Billie. You remember Hank and Jim.”
“Of course.”
A thin woman with pale skin and little makeup slipped in between Billie and Jim. “Come on, Billie. If you stand too close to these Neanderthals, you’ll lose I.Q. points.”
Jim began to make chimp noises and Hank quickly joined the chorus.
“See what I mean?” She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Hi, Jimbo.”
Jim kept his response to the simian.
“Hi, Amanda,” I said. Amanda was a true Monet from a distance, and when she was up close, I never knew where to focus. She’d rarely make eye contact with me, although I attributed it to her being an attorney; always looking for a back door. We faux cheek kissed. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Pleasure as ever, Dylan,” she said.
“As ever. This is Hank and, apparently, you remember Jimbo the Monkeyman. He’s out on work release from the City Zoo.”
Jim made another monkey sound. The dating advice from his kids couldn’t come fast enough.
Amanda offered Jimbo a patient grin and then tugged on Billie’s arm. “There’s an open table,” she said, nodding across the dance floor and attempting to pull Billie along with her. When Billie didn’t move right away, Amanda headed off to stake out the table for the three of them.
Billie shrugged and offered us one of those heart-melting smiles she could call up on command. “Bye, boys,” she said, heading to their table. The three of us watched her until she disappeared in the crowd.
“Did you see that?”
“What, Hank?”
“Did you see that smile she gave you? She wants you.”
“Who?” I said.
“Billie.”
I shook my head. “Nah, that’s not what that meant. I think it’s almost like a reflex with her.”
“Well, that smile definitely got the attention of my reflexes.”
“You have a great imagination.”
“I like Billie,” Jim said. “She has a good soul.”
Hank twisted his expression again. “You saw her soul? I couldn’t get past her thighs.”
I smirked at Hank. “Billie’s the best.”
Hank cocked an eyebrow. “So I’ve heard.” I think he knew that this annoyed me because he immediately launched into our signature toast. He knew that no matter how peeved I might be, I was obligated to participate. “To babes!”
/> Jim raised his glass. “Booze!”
I lifted my drink, as well. “And season tickets!” We all drank.
“I gotta go,” Jim said, wiping his mouth with his coat sleeve. “It’s either that, or sell what’s left of my investment portfolio to pay a sitter.”
Hank stood with him. “I’ll share a cab with you.”
I looked at Hank. “You, too?”
“Yeah, the wife’s flight lands in a couple of hours and I have to go home, chill the champagne and limber up. We’re up to position number 116 in the Kama Sutra. Number 104 almost blew out my back, but if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it. Hasta la vista.”
“Hasta.”
After a few drinks, the Magenta Martini had begun to swirl with possibility. On the near end of the dance floor, next to a table and an arm’s length from a pair of orange martinis, two women danced close to the slow jazz beat of an acoustic guitar.
The attitude of the Martini was on full display, except at one dimly lit table sitting off to the side. Along the rustic brick façade, a man and woman seemed oblivious to the chaos around them. He held her hand and smiled. She smiled back beneath the pink lights and ran her fingers through her hair. A laugh. Another touch. A candlelit glimmer. While the Magenta Martini shouted mating season, they whispered of romance. I had no idea why they’d come here.
Whether it was the promise of romance or the pulse of the dance beat that had replaced Stevie Ray, I wanted to catch up with Billie and Amanda and meet the friend they’d hooked up with. Tufts of red hair just outside of the softly tinted table light called to me like a beacon. Billie wore a black gabardine and Lycra mini with a dark, sleeveless top pressed against her ivory skin and muscular arms. I couldn’t see her legs in the shadows of the table, but ever since our six days and ten hours, I knew them from memory.
Camouflaged in drab layered fabric, Amanda sat next to Billie. She really was striking in her own way, though not in any way that struck me as particularly appealing. Amanda was way too serious to find sexy. And it wasn’t exactly a turn-on that she spoke to me as though I was a bathtub ring.
Spinning Page 1
