Brenda Novak - A Husband of Her Own

“Remember when you taped up that Playboy centerfold inside my locker our senior year?” he asked, out of nowhere.

His comment took Rebecca off guard. She didn’t know how to respond. If she said no, they’d both know she was lying. If she said yes, they’d be back on adversarial ground. “It was just a joke,” she said, mumbling slightly in hopes he wouldn’t pursue the conversation.

“Someone reported me to the principal before I even knew it was there and I got suspended for three days.”

She adjusted the water temperature. “Three days? That’s not so long.”

“It was during finals,” he added dryly.

She stretched her neck, hoping he wasn’t going to recount their other shared experiences. “Those were crazy days.”

He made a face. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want? An apology? It was years ago.”

“Thanks for the sincere remorse.”

Remorse. Rebecca was too apprehensive for remorse. The prospect of touching her childhood nemesis was causing an odd reaction in her body. She was trying to convince herself it was revulsion, but sweaty palms and a racing heart weren’t the most indicative symptoms.

Wetting his head, she poured shampoo into her palm and began to work it through his hair. She told herself to stick to the same routine she gave all her clients—a thorough ten-minute head massage, followed by a gentle raking of the scalp with her nails. She was a professional, after all, with a background in massage therapy, and he was paying for her services.

But somehow she couldn’t maintain any emotional distance. Having Josh right there, so accessible and pliable beneath her hands, changed the whole experience.

Feeling a stab of guilt for having such a strong reaction to him—in spite of her engagement—she cut the massage short and quickly rinsed his hair. Then she slapped on some conditioner, nearly spraying him in the face when she went into rinse mode again.

“What’d I do now?” he asked as she sat him up so fast she nearly gave him whiplash.

“Nothing,” she said, tossing a towel into his lap. “Why?”

He swiped at the water that was running down from his temples and dripping onto the cloak. “That was some shampoo. I’ve never seen anyone snap into fast-forward like that.”

She smiled to cover the craziness inside her. “Well, you know me.”

He raised his brows. “Somehow you always manage to surprise me.”

“YOU KNOW, IF WE TOOK a little more off the top, we’d make the most of the cowlick you’ve got right here,” Rebecca said.

Josh shifted his gaze from the look of expectation on her face to his own reflection. One of Rebecca’s hands held up a section of his hair, the other clutched a pair of scissors. “Are you setting me up?” he asked.

That cowlick had been a nightmare for him when he was a kid. His mother had waged her own personal war against it, usually armed with a jar of Dippity-do. Up until the time he was six or seven, she’d plastered his hair to his head, making him look more like a young executive than a first-grader. Fortunately it hadn’t taken him long to learn how to compensate for her efforts by visiting the bathroom before class and using the sink to rinse his hair. His bangs always stuck up once they dried, but he hadn’t minded that. What he’d minded was the perennial “wet look” and the way his mother had constantly licked her fingers and combed his hair down, even in public.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “It’s only hair. If I botch it too badly, you can always shave your head.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“Come on, don’t be a wimp. Bald is in. And I’m not going to mess up. I have my reputation to consider.”

“Your reputation is what frightens me.”

She sent him a pointed look, and he couldn’t help smiling. After the shampooing incident she’d calmed down a bit and seemed to be hitting her rhythm. But when it came to Rebecca, nothing was ever the way he thought it would be, so he had no idea how long the peace might last.

“Do what you think is best,” he told her, even though it went against his better judgment to give her so much freedom. Especially when he remembered the time she put gum in his hair while he and Randy were having a sleep-out in the yard.

He chuckled as the clippings from his hair fell all around him.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I was just thinking about that time you snuck over and—”

“Never mind.”

“Wait,” he said. “I was just going to see if you remembered putting gum—”

“No.”

Obviously she didn’t want to discuss the past, but that incident and several others, while horrific enough at the time, seemed pretty funny now. Couldn’t she see how immature and stupid they’d been? “Don’t want to take a walk down memory lane, huh?”

“Not with you.”

“Why not? You have to admit some of that stuff is funny.”

“Hilarious,” she grumbled. “Only no one seems to remember what you did.”

“What’d I do?” he asked.

“You know what you did. Quit playing the innocent.”

“At least I feel bad about my terrible behavior,” he replied.

“I’ll bet.”

She was right, of course. He didn’t feel any worse than she did. She’d pulled pranks on him; he’d pulled pranks on her. After so many years, there was no way to sort out blame—and the thought of even trying to do it bored him. He didn’t care anymore. So why didn’t they just forgive and forget? They were both adults, with separate lives to lead. Yet every time he passed Rebecca on the street or saw her somewhere like Jerry’s Diner, he got the feeling they had unfinished business between them.

Probably because of that night over a year ago—even though nothing had ultimately happened. He’d gotten Rebecca to go home with him. He’d even managed to remove her clothes, along with most of his own. Then his brother had come home and at the slamming of the front door, she’d suddenly scrambled to her feet, dressed, grabbed her purse and hurried off. He’d been two seconds away from the best sex of his life, so crazy for her he almost begged her to stay. Except he’d known it wouldn’t do him any good. It was as if she’d suddenly come out of a trance and realized who she was with. After that, she didn’t want him anywhere near her.

But his preoccupation with Rebecca was just an ego thing, he assured himself. Something to do with conquering her at last. She was the girl in school who thumbed her nose when he passed in the halls or booed when he threw a touchdown. He’d wanted to make her a believer. That was all. He’d only come today hoping to put all that behind them so they could finally achieve neutrality.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy with Rebecca. She held too much against him, even though he’d never set out to make a real enemy of her. For a few years when he was a kid, he’d thought it fun to torture girls by putting spiders in their hair or chasing them home from school with a craggy old stick he claimed to be one of his dead grandmother’s bones. But his grandmother hadn’t even died at that point. And Rebecca had never been intimidated by that kind of stuff, anyway. The one time he’d put a spider in her hair, all the other girls had screamed, but not her. She’d calmly scooped it up and set it gently on the ground. Later she’d dredged up a garter snake and slipped it down the back of his shirt when he wasn’t looking. He’d liked snakes, so that part was actually kind of cool. What wasn’t so cool was that a girl had beat him at his own game.

Still, he’d always liked Rebecca’s toughness. She was different from the other girls. More stubborn. More prideful. He’d never seen determination on a person’s face like he’d so often seen on hers—usually when they were competing in some way. He knew how badly she hated to lose, but she’d never let him see her cry. If he beat her at something, she’d jut out her chin and tell him he’d had a stroke of luck. Or she’d challenge him again. Sometimes he let her win just because he was tired of being goaded to give her another chance.