by Thea Devine
“On the phone?” he interrupted me.
“I bet you could think of three things to do with a phone that have nothing to do with—” Oh my big mouth. I’m doing phone sex. “I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t leave me hanging.”
“You’re already very well hu—” I broke off the salacious sentence and disconnected. Cell phones are insidious; they’re always with you and you can’t get away from anyone or anything. And it’s too easy to get into phone sex even when you don’t think you’re getting into phone sex.
With people you shouldn’t be getting into any kind of sex with.
How did this happen? And with a grab-and-go guy.
Jed scared me all to hell, enough to want to extend The Guy Diet till winter.
No, check that. It’s not easy to diet in the summer. However, now that I was biking every couple of evenings and walking on the weekends, I was seeing some interesting results: I was feeling pretty fit and trim.
Let me tell you, there’s nothing like the feeling of your body toning and thinning. Just cut out the fast food, the fat, the frat—give it three weeks, four—and you’re strutting out the door.
Downside: the attention, which flattered, distracted and deterred you from finding that got-your-back relationship if you succumbed to it for one minute.
I should print up a T-shirt saying, I Am Not Your Hard Target.
Oh, you thought I forgot about that? I never forget anything.
Neither did Paula.
“So how’s it going with the book?”
It was just toward the end of the next week and I was feeling pretty good about the idea of a book and the fact that Jed had suggested it, too.
“I’m actually collecting the recipes so I can see exactly what I do have.” There, that sounded coherent, grown-up, respectful of the fact that Paula had encouraged me when Jed had allegedly not.
I should have known better than to be that optimistic. Paula hated the fact that The Guy Diet was working. And that I was not miserable and she was.
Do you suppose she’d write the preface to my book?
My dear friend Lo created the Grab-and-Go Diet as a blind for the fact that she wanted to grab and go through life with the man I love. I hate her.
That would sell books. If it were Paula’s guide to guys and sex.
“What do you have?” she asked curiously.
Oh, this was too much, as if Paula were now guiding the project to completion. Why couldn’t she leave it alone since she’d already caught me in the lie and likely knew it.
“A dozen recipes I’ve already prepared, tested, tasted and written up for the column. Plus another fifty ideas for more. This isn’t going to be an instant book.”
“Too bad. Grab and go definitely sounds instantaneous.”
“Well, it’s going to be grab and test and jigger ingredients and test again, and then retest again, so we’re talking minimum till the end of the year to get together enough recipes to make a book.”
“I’ll be right here to help you. I mean, what else do you have to do while you’re on this insane diet?”
“You’re not on it. You have a life to lead, places to go, guys to get laid by.”
She ignored that. “I’m willing to sacrifice to see the project through.”
I know I made a derisive sound. I know I shouldn’t have. Or said, “What, one night?”
Spiralling into oblivion here. That was not a nice thing to say. Even if true. Paula didn’t want to see about the project; she just wanted to oversee the incoming caller IDs on my cell.
I knew Paula. And I was on a slippery slope that was freezing under me even as I wondered frantically how I could stop my freefall.
She gave me a Mona Lisa smile. “How about we do takeout tonight while you re-jigger ingredients? My treat.”
Her trick, rather. Stuck on ice, having to make artificial conversation for the rest of the night. And if Jed called, please God, don’t let him.
I might freeze to death.
I exited my program as she clicked on her phone.
I DIDN’T EXPECT company.
Takeout came with take-me-to-bed. Paula had arranged for two of her recent bed buddies to bring the food and we’d all have a jolly time together playing date swap, while one or the other tried to get the willing one of us—Paula—in bed.
Too tacky.
“You can have your fly-by sex,” I offered, which I thought was way generous given the ruse to undermine my resolve. “I’ll take Skipper for a walk while you samba.”
“Oh, come on, you’re no fun.”
“You keep saying that. I think I’m lots of fun. I’m just not flirting, dating or doing takeout sex.”
“Let’s eat, anyway.”
It was a regular banquet. Had Paula really thought she’d get me fed and drowsy by nine, on my back with a missile aimed at my hard target and orgasm coming low by nine-o-five?
I didn’t think so.
“You’re no fun,” Skipper said, repeating what Paula had said earlier to me. What? Were they in cahoots or something? You bet.
He was tall, pretty good-looking in a vapid-model way. He might have been twenty-five, he certainly wasn’t a got-your-back type. He was more full-frontal assault.
“I am truly. I’m just on a Guy Diet.”
I’d gotten him out and we were walking aimlessly.
“What the hell is that?”
“I decided I wasn’t going to be a free ingredient anymore. Like tonight. So I decided no more guys for a while.”
“I’m a guy.”
“Yeah, I know.” Well, I could’ve drummed up some more enthusiasm but I wasn’t feeling the love, actually. And he was more like a brother or an eager puppy. And I was ticked at Paula.
“You mean I’m not a guy?”
“I mean, I’m serious, you’re not. Paula doesn’t think she is, but she would be in a nanosecond if the right guy wanted her back.”
Skipper grunted, “Huh?”
“Exactly.”
After a cup of coffee and explanations, we shook hands. Skipper exited stage left to subway. Heroine walked home alone. Bad-boy Bob, just leaving, gave heroine a jaunty wave, saying, “You should have stayed. That was some mind-blowing sex.”
“So how come you’re blowing out the door ten minutes after it’s over?”
Paula was fuming that I’d spoiled her doublet, and off-the-wall furious because—of course—Jed had called.
That big tent had better be made of superstretch fabric because when you start to lie, it just doesn’t stop…until you tell the truth.
Paula just wouldn’t let it go.
I buried my head in my pillows, refusing to even talk about the guys, the sex, what Skipper had said, what I had told him, what Bob thought, how inventive he was—and why the hell was Jed calling me when it wasn’t even the end of the week and the column wasn’t yet due.
Remember, we shared the bedroom, now reeking of fast-food sex, making the whole rant that much more irritating.
Didn’t she get that Jed played at everything, and was playing me, her, everybody in the process? That he didn’t have a serious relationship-minded bone in his body if he couldn’t maintain a relationship with her for more than a month?
I couldn’t let Paula get the upper hand on this. If I didn’t take it seriously, she’d become stalking girl and things could really get out of hand.
That led to the thought, why am I putting up with this?
Maybe Jed should flat-out tell her there wasn’t a hope in Hoboken that he was interested in getting back together with her.
But he already had.
So…why was I letting things get this out of hand?
5
I NEVER WOULD have thought that going to the ad agency for a day would be a relief. But there I was, in the cafeteria getting coffee and breathing a huge sigh because I was finally alone.
What I meant was, Paula wasn’t there.
I really loved Paula, and it was ob
vious she still had a thing for Jed, but this whole idea that because I’d taken myself off the market, I represented a threat to a relationship that was over four or five months ago made no kind of sense except to a crazy lady.
Paula was not crazy.
However, Paula might be desperate. And relying on the same old patterns because that was how she’d hooked up with Jed in the first place. So it seemed likely to her that somewhere down the sleep-around-while-she-waited brick road, she would find another guy like Jed.
And meantime, I’d gotten religion, I’d seen the light, and I was happy—with no guy. Paula was definitely confused by the whole conundrum. That was why she’d been so weird.
Maybe my mission during The Guy Diet was to help Paula find happiness.
Hmmm.
Conclusion: Paula should go on the diet.
Never. At least, I tried. I gave it five minutes of consideration. She’s my best friend after all, but now it’s every woman for herself.
What to do about Paula?
I never thought things would get so complicated just by my going on this diet. I never thought I’d develop such willpower. Or that not sleeping around would be so liberating.
I was now determined to see it through till the end—particularly because Paula had decided to make it more difficult for me to do so.
I would just avoid her.
So rather than going home that evening, I went to the Met. I didn’t particularly want to go to the Met, but it was a place and there was a new exhibition everyone was talking about.
And what do you think happened?
Guys. Guys happened, swarming all around, because everyone was looking for a place to meet someone that wasn’t where they used to meet people before.
Museums were so highbrow, so out of the box.
And you couldn’t get away from guys.
“Ooops, excuse me. Sorry. Didn’t mean to step on you.” Well, yes.
Hope ruled: this could be the start of something big.
I talked to a couple of guys. Nice guys. Not particularly interested in the current artistic installations. Much more interested in installing themselves in someone’s bed.
Write me up a violation—I enjoyed talking to them. I couldn’t be rude, could I?
“You’re late,” she said, as I tiptoed into the apartment.
“I went to the Met,” I told her.
“Didn’t know you were particularly fond of Impressionism.”
No, just my impressions of…oh, forget it.
“This isn’t new,” I reminded her. “This is part and parcel of the Diet—me, being independent, focused, interested in other things besides sex.”
“Right. No flirting, right?”
What, had she been spying on me?
“Just polite conversation,” I said. “No cards exchanged.” Cards were like bodily fluids now?
I went to check my e-mail instead of getting into a verbal tussle about the finer nuances of The Diet. There was a message from Jed.
Lunch tomorrow. Must do. Have to talk. Pick you up—home or office?
Must do, huh? Go away, Jed. I started to type in something scurrilous, and then I reread the message. This was a no-joke message. This was serious Jed. And this might not have anything to do with books or food or my column even.
Since I was scheduled to transcribe at the agency the next day, I posted back the address, cautioning Jed that this wasn’t allowed under Guy Diet rules, but I’d make the exception because he was in the free-ingredient column.
And of course I didn’t tell Paula.
I TOOK LUNCH from twelve to one. As I came out of the elevator and into the long hallway that led to the street, I could just see Jed beyond the revolving doors, leaning against a parked car.
I stopped for a moment because I was so taken by the sight of him outside the normal places where I had contact with him.
Like the apartment. Or a restaurant, because I think I remember double-dating for dinner one night after that famous day we met.
I’d always viewed him through Paula’s eyes. Never wondered about his side of the story. Had always pegged him as a goodbye guy.
Today, though, he came across not as the playboy entrepreneur, but as a confident, self-assured man, a calm center in the midst of lunchhour chaos, waiting with great patience for something.
Or someone.
I wished, for him, it could be the someone he was really waiting for.
Instead he got me, swinging through the doors and greeting him like an old friend.
“Where’s the nearest grab-and-go restaurant around here?”
We went around the corner to the Sixth on Seventh Café, which served a limited menu of good food really fast. We didn’t talk much, we ordered, I kept looking at him, as if I’d never seen him before.
It felt different. Serious. Bad-news serious maybe. I hated bad news.
“You understand,” I said after we’d ordered, “Guy Diet rules still pertain.”
“I remember, I’m a free ingredient and all that. And there’s no kissing.”
“Exactly. No kissing. So this is business, right?”
His expression, apart from a certain light in his deep-blue eyes, had gone utterly sober. I’d never really looked at him beyond the surface. On his own, he was charismatic, formidable even. But then, he was a Costigan, something I had tended to forget before this moment.
Frankly, it shook me up a little.
“Totally business.”
“Good.” I shook out my napkin. “So what’s up?”
“Okay, no sugarcoating. I sold the WestEnder.”
I heard the words but they didn’t quite register. “You sold it?”
“I did.”
“Oh.” There wasn’t much else to say. I had no idea what this might mean to me except the loss of an income stream.
I gathered my wits. “What exactly does that mean besides you made a lot of money?”
“It means that, for one thing. For another, nothing should change.”
“You mean, nothing will change the first day. I’ll bet my lunch, though, that inside of two weeks, everything will change. So, have you been taking all your staff out to lunch to break the bad news?”
“It’s not bad news.”
“It’s way beyond bad news. It’s…”
“It’s deeper pockets that can pay more money and expand the paper beyond where I can go with it.”
“Oh, fine. I’m happy you’re walking away with a few extra million in your pocket. What about freelancers like me, who get paid by the column inch?”
“Hey…hey, calm down. Did you hear the deeper-pockets part?”
“No,” I said angrily, levering myself up from the table.
He grabbed my hand. “Sit down, Lo.” His voice was very quiet.
I sat. I couldn’t make a scene, really. Too many people knew who he was, and now and again, the paparazzi caught pictures of him that were prominently displayed on Page Six.
Not to mention ubiquitous cell cameras. With the way my luck seemed to be going, someone had snapped me in that hellfire moment and was uploading the picture to some disreputable gossip column even as I slowly sunk back into my seat.
I muttered under my breath, then said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“And you don’t listen, either,” Jed said mildly. “Let’s eat,” he added, as the waitress came with our lunch.
How he could be so cool when I was still seething, I couldn’t fathom. This lunch alone cost what I would have been paid for a month of columns.
Then I looked at my casserole and wondered how I could do it cheaper and in under fifteen minutes.
And I looked at Jed who was watching me with the familiar intensity, and he smiled.
Nice smile. Not a rock-your-world smile, but still, I felt this little flutter of…what? It was different. It was without the scrim of Paula’s needs and jealousy between us.
I smiled back, wondering what I was doing. But that was what he wa
s like. You couldn’t not respond to him. I needed to take it calm and slow. Plus this was serious business.
As the casserole was delicious, I mentally listed every ingredient and thought about prep while we ate. Easier on the temper than excoriating him for things he had no control over in a business deal.
Of course, excluding the profit he’d made.
He ordered coffee after. I sipped it and then he asked, “Have you calmed down?”
I nodded. “Just trying to figure out how I’m going to make up that income.”
“You don’t have to. You’re going under contract and—they want a book.”
My heart stopped. “What?”
“They’re putting the columnists under contract. From you, they want to see a first-look proposal for the book we discussed.”
“Oh.” Not much I could say to that. Under contract meant way more income. By the week. Maybe an increase. An advance, perhaps even, for a book. Oh my God.
“Yeah.” He didn’t have to say much more.
“This is awesome,” I said.
“This is good for you, Lo. And it’s good for me, too.”
“You got what you wanted out of it.”
“I got most of what I wanted out of it,” Jed said. “But now that I’m not running the show, I see an additional benefit for me.”
I was curious. “Which is?”
“Now we can have phone sex.”
He was kidding.
He wasn’t.
He said the contracts had been looked over by his lawyer and would be waiting for me when I got home tonight. Any problems, his lawyer would address them. Anything else I wanted, call him.
What did he mean by that?
He was kidding about the phone sex business—wasn’t he?
“This was a very nice lunch,” I told him as we were parting.
“I’m not sure I like the idea of my continually being your freebie.”
“But I can have all the free ingredients I want,” I countered—honestly, I couldn’t help it—and, as the expression changed in his eyes, I backtracked. “Let’s just say I think of you like fiber—filling and good for the diet.”
Whoops. I didn’t mean that. Did I really say filling? Just walk away while you can. Contract legalities first, then smooth over the sex talk.
