Whole Lotta Trouble

by Stephanie Bond

  As if anyone in Manhattan actually baked. It was another thing she loved about the city: Domesticity was defined by how many times a week one watched Trading Spaces.

  “Kara,” she said when she stepped up to the table, “that was…great.”

  “Yeah,” Kara said, cutting a wedge of cake with a fancy serrated knife. She dropped the piece upside down onto a Styrofoam saucer before handing it over. “Too bad Ron wasn’t here to see it.”

  “Er, well…I’m sure he knows about it.”

  Kara looked past Tallie and seemed to hesitate until their last coworker left the room, then her attention snapped back. “I hear that Ron gave you Gaylord Cooper.”

  Tallie’s mouth was full of dry cake. She chewed, then swallowed painfully. “I don’t think ‘gave’ is the right word. I’m overseeing his manuscript until Ron returns.”

  “That assignment should’ve been mine.”

  Tallie blinked. “I don’t know what you expect me to say, Kara. The decision was Ron’s.”

  Kara rolled her eyes. “And we all know that he’s been checked out lately.”

  Everyone had a theory about why Ron had taken time off, but Tallie refused to indulge in water cooler talk where her boss was concerned. Kara, however, who had contacts in the human resources department, was a more credible, albeit disliked, source. Tallie pretended to be absorbed in her next bite of cake. “Do you know why Ron took a leave of absence?”

  The corners of Kara’s mouth jumped. “I might.”

  Tallie waited for clarification, but Kara simply adopted a superior smile. “Let’s just say that any decisions that Ron made before he left are subject to change.”

  Tallie’s stomach contracted, the sickening sweetness of the cake only irritating it further. But she knew when it was time to speak up for herself. “Kara, I will be editing Gaylord Cooper’s manuscript.”

  Kara stabbed the remaining chunk of cake with the elegant knife and twisted it, gouging a hole in the beautiful icing. “We’ll see about that.” Then Scary licked her fingers and stalked out of the room.

  Chapter 9

  Wearing opaque sunglasses, Felicia settled into a comfortable chair with a bottle of Water Joe in a café across the street from the entrance to the Green Globe Spa. The Green Globe Spa was the choice of the rich and famous and the wannabes, like Jerry Key. One of his celebrity clients had gotten him into the invitation-only health club, and Jerry had managed to maintain his connections even after his celebrity client had dumped him for a more tony agent. She checked her watch. If memory served, Jerry normally scheduled a one-hour massage, so he should emerge, rejuvenated and horny, in about ten minutes. She leaned her head back and eased the muscles in her forehead to allow the painkiller to continue to diffuse the knot of pain behind her eyebrows.

  Being in love with Jerry was killing her.

  She sighed and considered phoning Tallie to see how her blind coffee date had gone. She should have called her last night and made her promise to wear something nice—knowing Tallie, she’d gone out of her way to look dowdy, to try to downplay her petite, natural beauty. It was as if she was challenging men to look past her contrived frumpiness to see the bright, savvy, career-minded woman that she was. Tallie denied her femininity and seemed irritated if the men she dated tapped into it. She was so afraid of turning into her mother that she over-compensated by cutting men out of her life the minute they got too close. Tallie was in denial about how lonely she was, which was why she buried herself in her work.

  But, Felicia had to admit, being lonely was better than this emotional roller coaster she’d been riding for the past year. Her head knew that Jerry was a jerk, but her heart just couldn’t seem to catch on. His escalating flirtation was enough to make her crazy, but by sending the nude photo of her, he’d crossed the line.

  The door to the spa opened and out strolled Jerry Key, blond, tall, and fashionably thin, a man bag over his shoulder for his necessities, like his camera cell phone with global positioning system or whatever techie options were available. The man prided himself on owning the latest and greatest electronic equipment, from lap-tops to stereos. He had teased Felicia about her penchant for retro, from her vinyl collection and the old turntable she played them on to the big-button phone in her bedroom.

  As always, her pulse increased at the sight of him, doubly so with the anticipation of confronting him. She stood and screwed the lid onto the bottle of caffeinated water. She was stowing the bottle in her purse when she realized that someone had joined Jerry on the street—a woman. Frozen, she watched as the two embraced, then shared a full-on kiss. Their meeting, it seemed, wasn’t accidental. Felicia removed her sunglasses and bumped her nose against the window, flabbergasted. It couldn’t be. But if the woman’s long red coat wasn’t enough to prove it was Suze Dannon pressed against him, the big red hat sealed the deal. And from their collective body language, it wasn’t the first intimate kiss they’d shared.

  Felicia covered her mouth with her hand, unable to believe her eyes. Hurt, anger, and, yes, jealousy squeezed her chest painfully. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that Jerry hadn’t taken lovers since their breakup, but seeing him with someone else…someone she knew…a client of his…an author of hers. Her mind raced. What should she do with this information—confront them, or keep quiet?

  Jerry walked to the curb and hailed a cab, then helped Suze into the backseat. With one arm on the open door, Jerry stopped and scanned all around. For a split second, he seemed to look directly at her. Felicia jumped back from the window, her throat constricted. Then Jerry climbed in, and the cab pulled away. Felicia glared at the receding car; she had a feeling they weren’t going back to Jerry’s office to discuss strategy on the current book.

  Feeling sick to her stomach, she dropped back into the seat she’d vacated, trying to get her mind around what she’d seen and the ramifications of the affair.

  “Thanks, Jag. See you next time.”

  Felicia heard the words spoken behind her, and for a few seconds she couldn’t figure out why something had clicked in her head.

  Jag?

  She turned to see a man at the counter. He was holding a package and was waving to someone who had just walked out the door. She lunged to her feet and ran to the door, opening it in time to see a tall, wiry man in a messenger uniform jump on a bike, bounce into the street, and pedal away.

  “Wait!” she yelled. “Jag, wait!”

  But her words were carried away by the bitter wind. Improvising, Felicia hailed a passing cab and swung into the backseat. “Follow that bike messenger!”

  The cabbie turned around. “Is this a joke?”

  She glared. “Am I laughing? Get going, and don’t lose him!”

  The taxi vaulted into traffic, and she stuck her head through the plexiglass sliding window between the seats to help keep the messenger in sight. “He turned right,” she said, pointing. “There. There he is!”

  The cabbie darted in and out of impossibly tight spots, causing her to dig her fingers into the seat. Then they were caught at an agonizing traffic light and she was sure they’d lost him.

  “Sorry,” the cabbie said with a shrug. “Do you want me to take you somewhere else?”

  Fraught with disappointment, Felicia looked around to get her bearings, then she spotted a familiar bicycle chained to a sign about a half block away. “I’ll get out here.” She glanced at the meter, tossed the man enough for a good tip, and hopped out into the brittle air. Picking up her trailing scarf, she shouldered her bag and jogged down the sidewalk as fast as her high heels would allow. Her lungs hurt from the cold, and she turned an ankle dodging pedestrians, but she kept going. When she was a few yards away, “Jag” walked out, unchained his bike in a two-second sweep of his arm, and swung his long, Lycra-enclosed leg over the seat in preparation to take off again.

  “Jag! Jag, wait!”

  He turned his head and frowned past her.

  Felicia waved her free arm. “Wait! I need to talk t
o you!”

  He lifted his wraparound sports glasses and focused on her, his confusion and annoyance unmistakable. In another second, he’d be gone, and she was running out of breath.

  “Jag…package…delivered…Omega…Publishing!”

  At least she had his attention. She jogged up to his bike and gasped for breath. “I…need…to talk…to you…please.” She removed her sunglasses and blinked up at him.

  Beneath the rim of his helmet, his eyes narrowed, then he lifted his gloved hand. “Hey, I remember you—you’re the editor, right?”

  She nodded, her teeth chattering despite the warmth she’d generated beneath her coat from her impromptu sprint.

  He gave her a sardonic look. “If memory serves, you weren’t very talkative before—why the change of heart?”

  Felicia’s face was freezing, so a pained look wasn’t a stretch. “I’m s-sorry if I was sh-short with you, I was having a b-bad day. The package you d-delivered to me—can you help me f-find out who sent it?”

  “We require a return address.”

  “It was b-bogus.”

  He frowned. “Well, then sure, if you still have the bar code on the envelope.”

  She nodded eagerly. “I do. B-back at my office.”

  He removed his sunglasses, reached into the kidney-shaped bag hanging at his hip, and pulled out a slip of yellow paper. “Using a phony return address is serious business. Customer service will want to report—”

  “No,” she cut in, then hesitated before angling her head. “I was hoping you could look into it f-for me. It’s a…pr-private matter.”

  He squinted. “Look, lady, if someone is threatening you, then you need to call the police.”

  She lifted her chin and maintained level eye contact. He had hazel eyes, sparkling and clear. His face was chiseled, his cheeks and nose ruddy from windburn, his mouth shiny with some kind of balm that she suspected was necessary year round. She wet her own parched lips and submitted to another bout of chills. “Then you w-won’t help me?”

  He pursed his mouth and, after considering her up and down, sighed. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll look into it if you get me the bar code number.”

  She smiled in between her chattering. “Th-thank you. How do I get in t-touch with you?”

  He scratched his chin. “Got something to write with?”

  She nodded and dug in her purse for a pen and paper, then wrote down the number he recited. “Is th-this your cell phone number?”

  “It’s my everything number,” he said. “If I don’t answer, leave a message and I’ll be paged.”

  “Okay.”

  He shook his head, looking perplexed. “How did you find me?”

  “I saw you at a café a few blocks back.” She welcomed the warmth of a flush on her cheeks. “I had a cab follow you.”

  He laughed in earnest this time, a deep, hearty noise that sent a white cloud of breath into the air, then he nodded toward the street. “I have to get to my next stop.”

  She stepped back to give him plenty of room to maneuver the bike into the street between two parked cars. Then he looked over his shoulder. “What’s your name again?”

  “Felicia. Felicia Redmon.”

  “Nice name.” Then before she could ask his, he was off, pumping his legs, bent low over the handlebars.

  Struck with envy over his freedom, Felicia stood shivering until he disappeared into the traffic, then stepped to the curb and hailed a cab back to her office.

  “Phil Dannon called,” Tamara offered as she passed by.

  Felicia walked into her office and closed the door behind her, then shut the window blinds. Poor Phil.

  Poor Felicia. From the bottom of one of her desk drawers, she withdrew the envelope containing the photo, dismayed to find that the first half of the bar code had been torn off—purposely? It was a form of self-torture, but she removed the picture and stared at it, flooded anew with cold shame. She swallowed hard and returned the photo, then dialed the number the bike messenger had given her. After a few rings, it rolled to voice mail.

  “Hey, this is Jack Galyon. Leave a message.”

  Jack Galyon. At the beep, she left her name and the partial number from the envelope, with instructions to call her direct number when he had information. What she would do with it was another matter.

  She reburied the envelope in a drawer and downed another Imitrex. The only thing that could replace the image of the nude photo in her head was the image of Jerry and Suze locked in each other’s arms and hurrying off together.

  Her hatred for Jerry Key was now borderline pathological.

  Chapter 10

  Tallie held her breath as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. The stench was getting worse—she hoped Mr. Emory tracked down the source soon. When she’d first moved in three years ago, a couple of rats had died in her bedroom wall. She’d heard their frantic scurrying, which had slowed painfully over time, until it had finally stopped all together. And then the smell had set in…. Mercy. Mr. Emory had told her that by the time he got a crew there to tear down the drywall, the dead critters would be dust. Instead, he’d given her a can of lemon air freshener and arranged to have twenty-five dollars taken off her rent that month.

  Rats—dead or alive—were an aspect of city life that she could do without, and one she didn’t dare share with her mother, or she’d never hear the end of it. She burst into her apartment and gasped for fresh air, getting a lungful of funky carpet and dirty laundry air instead.

  She winced and decided on the spot that it was warm/early/safe enough for a run—anything to postpone dealing with the mess. The soonest the cleaning service could squeeze her in was Friday morning. Sometime between now and then she had to…straighten up.

  She flipped through the mail, wryly noting the peach-colored pickup slip from the post office for a parcel from M. Blankenship—the promised early birthday gift from her mother. Something domestic, no doubt, destined to join other well-intentioned gifts from her mother stacked in the closet: the electrostatic duster with a 20-foot telescoping arm, the box of oxygenated cleanser, the miracle mop with a quick-change scrubbing head. Alas, a trip to the post office would have to wait until Saturday morning.

  Tallie peeled off her gloves, and when she shoved them into her coat pockets, she found Keith Wages’ ball cap. Turning it over in her hands, she worked her mouth back and forth, her chest filling with renewed wonder over her close brush with danger, and admiration over how he had sprung into action. She conceded disappointment that he hadn’t called her at work sometime during the afternoon, if just to say that the incident was obviously a bad omen and they should simply leave well enough alone. It was for the best, she told herself—she couldn’t picture herself dating a cop. She had nothing but the greatest admiration for men in uniform, but just a few minutes in Keith’s macho company had left her feeling so…female.

  With a frown, she dropped the soiled cap onto the coffee table. He probably hadn’t even missed it…probably hadn’t given her a second thought since he’d ridden off in that cruiser.

  She shed her stained coat, then rooted around until she found her running shoes and enough clothing to keep her warm. Holding her breath against the odor in the hall, she walked out and locked all three dead bolts, then ran down the stairs. When she pushed open the door leading outside, darkness was pressing upon the city. She inhaled cold air and indulged in a good full-body shiver to warm herself, then jogged onto the sidewalk and set off.

  The first half-mile was always the hardest for her. She wasn’t a natural runner, not very efficient, and not very fast, but as exercise went, running was cheap and it went by faster than a video. Plus she always felt more connected to the city as her feet hit the concrete, brick, and tile of the eclectic sidewalks of Chelsea.

  Tallie turned her head slightly to the right. Tonight, however, she wasn’t alone. Behind her, loud, heavy footsteps sounded—running feet not shod in running gear. Her heartbeat picked up, reverbera
ting in her ears. This was the same stretch where she’d been mugged last summer. There was no oncoming pedestrian traffic to lose herself in, and the warehouse storefronts were dark. A lone car coasted in the lane next to the sidewalk. Probably lost and looking for street signs, but a possible ally if need be. She patted her jacket pocket for the personal alarm she carried with her but winced when she remembered removing it when she’d tossed this jacket on top of the laundry pile last night. The irony was too much—her mother’s warning that an untidy life was dangerous to one’s health might just prove to be true.

  “Hey!” a man’s muffled voice sounded behind her. A ploy to get her to slow down—that scam had been circulated on the Internet. She picked up her pace, lengthening her stride and leaning forward. To her dismay, the footsteps behind her also increased in intensity. About fifteen yards back, she guessed, and closing. In her head she rehearsed the self-defense moves she’d learn at the YWCA: Scream No! then go for the soft tissue points—eyes, nose, neck, nuts. “Eyes, nose, neck, nuts,” she murmured. “Eyes, nose, neck, nuts.”

  She reached the intersection, and the light was in her favor to turn right and cross. Bounding into the crosswalk, she heard the car rather than saw it and realized in a horrible split second that the cruising driver didn’t see her. In a surreal, out-of-body experience, she had a vision of herself outlined by the car headlights blazing on high beam before she went flying backward. She landed on her back with a thud that jarred her teeth and stalled her lungs. Starbursts appeared behind her eyes, and pain ricocheted through her head.