Ed Gorman: Cold Blue Midnight

Mitch never did get around to telling Jill that he loved her back.

What he did get around to telling her was that he thought maybe he should give it another try with Sara. He tried to make it sound noble. For the kids' sake, he said. 'You knowI've got to think of them first.'

Noble.

Right.

So he moved back to suburbia and they did ten months together, ten fragile months, and then one night a month ago, Sara said, after the girls were in bed, 'I met somebody.'

'You what?' He could still hear the keening wounded sound in his voice, and was both embarrassed and ashamed.

'I met somebody. Not on purpose. I mean, I wasn't looking to. It just happened.'

And he did something he had rarely done.

He went down into the basement family room and closed the door and wept. Actually wept. So hard in fact that he thought he was going to throw up. And when he was finished, he lay back against the couch and looked at all the merry crayon drawings the girls had affixed to the wall with scotch tape, and then he started weeping again.

Round two.

At one point, Sara knocked gently on the door and said, 'Are you all right?'

'Yes,' was all he said. Quietly. No dramatics. 'Yes.'

There was a round three. Around midnight. This one snuck up on him totally. He'd just gone upstairs and fixed himself a bologna and swiss sandwich and opened a can of Hamms and made himself comfortable on the family room couch for the second part of Letterman and thenbam!

And round three was worse than either of the other two because he was crying so hard he couldn't muster the strength or savvy to set down either his sandwich or beer. He held them all during this final attack of the weepies, literally crying in his beer.

Near dawn he went upstairs and got an hour and a half of turbulent sleep and when he woke up, he felt as if a dire fever had been broken. He looked over at the slender and very beautiful woman next to him and realized that just as she no longer loved him, he no longer loved her.

He was in love with that goddammed crazy photographer Coffey and she'd practically handed herself over to him and look at what he'd done to her.

He sat in the church of his boyhood, the church from which he took a sneaky agnostic comfort, and thought of Coffey, Jill Coffey. She really was sort of crazy in a lot of ways, and he realized that he could no longer put off what he'd been wanting to do ever since Sara had told him about her new Significant Other.

He was going to look up Jill Coffey and beg her to take him back.

Boy, was she going to be pissed when she saw him.

He apologized for using the word pissed and then got up and left the church.

Jill Coffey, here I come.

Ready or not.

There was nothing like sex in the office.

Everybody on the other side of his door working their butts off, phones ringing, faxes humming, elevator doors opening and closing, conferences conferencing…

And where was the boss?

Well, the boss was in his big lavish CEO-type office, looking right out on the Chicago Cultural Center, getting a BJ.

Today her name was Cini. Not Cindy, which is what he'd thought she'd said last night when he'd taken her to the Brass Pump. Cini.

C-I-N-I.

Three years in drama school, Mr Brooks. I know I can do it. I know I can.

They were never this bold till after he'd given them a few drinks. He always went to the casting sessions pretending that he was Very Concerned that they get the right actors and actresses for this Very Important Spot coming up, when what he really wanted was a new diversion. A new source for BJs.

So, pick one from rehearsals and kind of sidle her on over to the Brass Pump and if they really want to get that part…

Well, they can use their imaginations a little.

What do you think would please a handsome forty-two-year-old, very virile adman, anyway?

You want to know how virile he is, dig those framed photos of him on his African hunting trip when you're up in his office tomorrow. Sure, the colored boys did a little shooting of their own to back him up, but hey, he still brought the rhino down himself. God, he really digs that photo where he's standing with his right boot on the dead rhino's head. Is that virile or what? Who says admen aren't virile some fag who works at the NY Times?

Last night, she'd had a little spunk in her, he had to give her that. He'd called the wife and told her he was working late (she didn't believe him, of course, but it was this little dance they did every night he was out prowling), and then he'd spent about an hour and a half trying to screw this little Drama Major Who Just Knew She Could Do The Part.

And got nowhere.

Felt her up a little, but hey, that was high school.

That was also as far as he got.

Till this afternoon when he calledshe'd left her phone numberand invited her over.

'Did I get the part, Mr Brooks?'

'Hey, what happened to Eric?'

'Oh. Right. Eric. Did I get it?'

'I think so. I should know by the time you get here.'

'Is there somebody else?'

'Well, there's one other girl. She did a very good job with the lines.'

'Did you invite her up, too?'

'Yeah. But she'll be here before you. You'll be here last. That's always best.'

'It is?'

'Sure. The last person is always freshest in your mind.'

'Yeah, I guess that's right. Well, see you around five.' Told his secretary that he was expecting a young lady just at closing, and the secretary all tee-hee intercommed another secretary and said, 'Guess who's going to be having a little sex in his office tonight?' and that secretary called another secretary, who called another secretary, who called…

He knew all about it, how word got around, and he loved it, positively loved it because it was all part of the image.

Biggest new advertising tycoon in Chicago in twenty years. Pilot. Hunter. Ranch owner. Crony of NFL quarterbacks, senators, movie stars.

And one killer ass-bandit.

Everybody pretended they hated ass-bandits but they secretly admired them because secretly that's what they wanted to be. Even chicks wanted to be ass-bandits when you came right down to it.

And so the girlCinihad come up here tonight and she'd done just what he'd wanted her to do (he felt so powerful, a chick doing him that way) and now she was finished and fixing herself up.

He stood at the window and looked out at the gathering autumn dusk, the shadows falling between skyscrapers, the first faint evening stars.

She said, 'So do I get the part?'

He smiled. 'You bet.'

'Oh God, wait till I call my mom!'

He slid an arm around her. 'You going to be around your apartment tomorrow night?'

'Sorry. Got a date.' She walked back to the door and picked up her blazer. She had wonderful breasts displayed in that sheer blouse of hers. She picked up her coat.

'Anything serious, your date?' He realized that he soundedpreposterouslyhurt. No business of his how she spent her nights. But still, he felt spurned. Lonely, even.

She smiled. 'I have a boyfriend, Mr Brooks.'

'God, are we back to Mr Brooks?' He was irritated. 'And this boyfriend of yours, what would he do if he knew'

A sad smile. 'He knows you have to do certain things you might not really want to do, in order to get a certain part.'

She went to the door, put a slender hand to the knob. Last night she'd looked a little sluttish to him, but today there was a kind of dignity to her. He hated women with dignity. You couldn't push them around without a great deal of effort.

'So you didn't really want to do it?'

She looked at him. 'What's the difference, Mr Brooks? I did it, didn't I?' The gaze narrowed. 'You're not going to take the part back from me, are you? I mean, I fulfilled my part of the bargain.'