Gayle Roper - Caught In The Act

“Of course I didn’t. I’m here doing an audit on Bushay Environmental, and it’ll take weeks at the very least.”

I planted my fists on my hips. “Your company sends you here, and I’m supposed to believe that indicates undying affection for me?”

“I campaigned for this assignment,” he said earnestly.

He reached for my hand, and I suddenly saw him as a giant vacuum cleaner, ready to suck me up and spit me back into the past. The image terrified me. I dodged him, leaned over and filled both arms with Whiskers, who immediately began to purr.

Jack either didn’t understand my move or made believe he didn’t. He kept on talking as if he always reached out and found nothing, as if it didn’t matter that I preferred a cat to him.

“Amhearst isn’t exactly a desirable location,” he informed me. “It’s out here in the western edge of Chester County miles away from anything.”

I scowled at him as if he’d insulted me. I liked Amhearst, and part of its charm was its rural setting. And Philadelphia was only an hour away, for heaven’s sake.

As usual he missed my reaction. I used to wonder if his lack of response to how I felt was a power play designed to get his own way, or if he was just too dense to see what was in front of him. As I watched him in my living room, I decided he was just dense. That idea made me sad.

“I asked to be sent here instead of Atlantic City and a casino audit.” He reached over Whiskers and touched my cheek. “I gave up a plum assignment, and all for you.”

Atlantic City in December didn’t sound all that plum to me. Cold, damp, depressing.

Jack continued to recount his campaign for the Bushay job, trying to convince me of his ardor. “‘You’ve got to send me to Amhearst,’ I told Mr. Proctor. ‘I want the Bushay job even though it means weeks away from home to complete it.’” He smiled impishly. “I didn’t tell him about you.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow as Whiskers jumped out of my arms.

“But I knew you were my reason.” He reached for me again. “My girl.”

I dodged his grasp again by grabbing my coat from the clothes tree in the corner and throwing it over my shoulders. “Well, I may have been your reason for coming here, but I’m not sure I’m your girl anymore.”

And I walked out. I had absolutely no place to go, but I knew I’d never again have such a wonderful exit line. And six years of no commitment was a long, long time, no matter how you looked at it.

As I finished my tale, Jolene eyed me with something like admiration. “So where’d you go?”

“To The News. Where else?” I crunched more Romaine.

“Was he there when you got home?”

“I didn’t get home until ten-thirty, and Jack can’t stand waiting for five minutes, let alone five hours.”

Jo’s eyes widened. “What did you do for five hours?”

Suddenly I felt embarrassed because I knew what her response to my answer was going to be. I cleared my throat. “I had a date.”

“What?” she shrieked, just like I knew she would. She started to laugh so hard I thought she’d choke on her eggplant. “This guy moves all the way from Pittsburgh for you, and you go out with someone else? Merry, my estimation of you has jumped off the charts. You are a wild woman after all.”

My mind tried to comprehend me as a wild woman, but the idea was as impossible to grasp as a soap bubble from a wand was for a child.

“You’re so lucky,” she said. “I haven’t had anyone chasing me in years.” Her lovely brown eyes looked forlorn beneath her brown bangs.

“Of course not. You’ve been married.”

She shrugged carelessly—which said volumes about her view of marriage. “But I’m not married now.”

“True and false. You’re not divorced, either. Maybe you and Arnie will get back together yet.”

Again the careless shrug. Poor Arnie. I hoped he wasn’t pining for her because it looked like he’d waste away to nothing before Jolene returned.

She mopped up the last of her eggplant with the last of her bread. “So what did Curt say when he heard Jack was here?”

I concentrated on corralling the last of my salad. “He doesn’t know yet.”

“What?” She laughed until I thought for sure her mascara would run.

I looked at her sourly. Clowns in the center ring didn’t give the laughs I did. “I plan to tell him next time I see him.”

Her smile was a mile wide. “You’re afraid to tell him.”

I stuck my chin in the air and gave my version of her snort. I wasn’t about to admit she was right.

“One thing I want to know,” Jolene said, making one of her patented changes of topic. “How can someone who looks so much like a football player be an artist?”

I smiled, picturing Curt’s dark curly hair and glasses and shoulders so broad he could block an entire movie screen at thirty paces.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he told me recently.

“No, you’re not,” I said in something like panic. “We hardly know each other. Love takes time to grow.” I knew because my mother had told me so all my life.

Still, when he looked at me a certain way, my knees buckled, I had trouble breathing and my heart barrumped in time with the Minute Waltz.

“Things between Curt and me are fragile,” I told Jolene. “New. Too new. I don’t know how to tell him.”

I must have looked as disconsolate as I felt because Jolene patted my hand. “It’ll work out. Don’t worry.” She grinned at me. “Just keep me informed, you hear?”

We took our checks to the cashier by the door. Jolene eyed me while she waited for her change.

“You didn’t tell Curt about Jack. Did you tell Jack about Curt?”

I made a big deal of buying one of those little foil-wrapped mints.

She snickered. “You’re better than any movie I ever saw, girl. And I want to be around when they meet.”

Perish the thought!

“I have to visit the ladies’ room,” she said. “Come on.”

I followed her into the cozy, well-lit room, admiring her black leather and faux-fur coat and black boots. The lady had style if not class.

I looked at myself in the huge mirror over the sink. My short, thick, spiky black hair was drooping a bit as usual. I wet my fingers and ran them through it, trying to wake up the mousse that was supposed to keep it sticking up in what the beautician had assured me was a very stylish do when she cut off my almost waist-length hair back in August.

Sighing, I gave up on my hair. I stared instead at the Christmas candle sitting on the vanity.

Christmas. My first in Amhearst, and I was facing it with some excitement (two men) but also with much misgiving. For the first time ever, I wouldn’t be with my family for our warm and wonderful celebration. No fat Christmas tree with Grandma Kramer’s heirloom angel gracing the top bough. No hot mulled cider that Dad tried to foist on everyone. No marvelous turkey smells and no Aunt Sissy’s famous pumpkin pie.

Jolene would have a warm, cozy family Christmas with hugs and presents and all that stuff. She wouldn’t sit alone all day, staring at her cat. That would be me.

Every time I thought about my holiday solitude, I suffered mild depression. As a result my little apartment on the first floor of an old carriage house sported only a wreath on the door. I hadn’t gotten myself a tree or put electric candles in my windows like everyone else in Amhearst. Of course I now had a silk poinsettia sitting on an end table.

It was my job that prevented a trip to Pittsburgh and home. I had only Christmas Day off, if being on call means “off.”

“Someone has to be available in case a big story breaks,” said Mac, my editor at The News. Then he grinned. “I guess you’ve drawn the short straw, Merry.” He didn’t even feel sorry for me.