Spinning (3 page)

“No.”

“Yes.”

I held up a hand. “We just work together.”

Billie nodded. “Friends.”

“Acquaintances.”

Billie waved her hand bon voyage. “Two ships in the night.”

Amanda scoffed. “And an iceberg.”

“Laurel, darling,” Billie said, taking Laurel’s hand and speaking dramatically. “After a week of passion, we discovered that the world was not ready for a romance such as ours.”

I feigned modesty. “Billie, you’re embarrassing me.”

She clasped her hands together and held them close to her cheek. “I was falling madly, desperately, hopelessly in love with the D-Man. His powers…his expertise.” She turned and pointed to me. “And you…you were going to break my heart!”

Laurel threw a hand up to her mouth. “No!”

“Yes!”

“Actually, Laurel,” I added in a monotone, “she met somebody else.”

Amanda shrugged. “True. She has a very short attention span when it comes to men.”

Billie shook her head. “Every man gets just as much attention as they deserve. No offense, D-Man. And look around life’s way too short.”

The Magenta Martini swarmed with activity like an ether-scented beehive. Entering it meant acknowledging that image was everything. Hormones wafted on late-summer AC currents, which sometimes clashed and other times complimented. For the most part, the fashion was first-rate. The steady hum of conversation now appropriated the melodic
Little Wing
memories of a few drinks ago.

As usual, Billie was right. Today’s dating scene required a short attention span about as much as it took to watch “Iron Man” and not nearly as much as was required to read a Stieg Larson novel.

All of us surveyed the scene until Billie drew us back. “Dylan, how ‘bout you buy us a drink?”

“Of course.”

“Blue Agave, this time.”

“Up?”

“Definitely.”

Laurel drained her drink. “I’m in.”

“Amanda?”

“Pass, thanks. I’m working in the morning.” She got up from the table.

“On a Saturday?”

“Yes, I have a real job. See ya.” She waved over her shoulder.

“See ya,” said Billie.

“See ya,” said Laurel.

“Bye,” I said. Then I called to Amanda as she was leaving. “Hey, how’d the move go?” Amanda’s kid sister had just begun her freshman year at Cornell. Amanda
had been the primary female figure in the girl’s life since their mother had died four years ago.

“Okay,” Amanda said. “You know, my little baby’s gone off to college. We talked about Mom a lot.” Amanda’s eyes appeared on the verge of misting over. Then she shook her head and her tone sharpened. “At least she won’t be crashing at my apartment on the weekends anymore. Thanks for asking.”

“De nada.”

I caught the waitress. “Three Blue Agave up, please. I looked at Billie. “So Waverly is hiring, huh?”

“You like that, don’t you.”

Hell, yes.
“Maybe.”

“I’d like it too. It’d look good on my résumé.” She read an imaginary marquee: “Billie Daniels, Vice President, Client Relations, Waverly Media. London, Tokyo, New York, and 36 other cities.”

“Nice ring to it,” I said. “Kind of long for a business card, though, don’t you think?”

“They already mentioned it to you, didn’t they, D-Man?”

“Maybe.” I said, smiling. I had a dinner scheduled with Waverly for the next night, but I was keeping that information to myself. “And they talked to you?”

“Maybe.” She said, returning my smile. “But after the Crystal Creek deal, you’re golden.”

“You would consider leaving?” Laurel said, seeming surprised. “Mr. Mason loves you both.”

“Too bad he can’t afford both of us,” Billie said.

Mason had an eye for young talent and didn’t mind letting his best people go once they started to cost too much. “Just like the Army,” he had once told us. He said he could hire two newbies and work them like dogs
for what he would have to pay for a more polished staff member.

I sipped my beer. “Jeff Mason is a great guy…”

Billie nodded her assent.

“It isn’t personal. It’s about the money. A nest egg.”

“A ski villa…”

I looked at Billie. “Now you ski?”

“Not yet. But if I had a villa…”

“Gotcha. We’d love to stay.”

“Speak for yourself.”

I looked at Billie. “You
want
to leave?”

“I want to marry Donald Trump and lose the number to 9-1-1 during his heart attack.”

“That’s different.”

“Speaking of,” Billie said, “that could be the Trumpster over there. I’m going for a fly by…”

The waitress set down the tequila.

I picked up my shot glass. “He looks like the
Dumpster
to me.”

“Jealous?”

“Maybe.”

“Tough. See ya.” Billie grabbed her shot and flew before I had a chance to say anything.

Laurel picked up her glass and waved. “See ya.”

I watched Billie walk away. I always felt a little disoriented when she left our table to head out on the prowl. With Billie preoccupied, though, a little one-on-one time with Laurel couldn’t hurt. “What should we toast?”

“We have to toast?”

“If we didn’t toast something, we’d be alcoholics.”

“Well then.” She smiled. “Did you really date Billie?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you stop? Did she really find somebody else?”

If I had been less experienced, my mouth would have engaged without first taking inventory. Fortunately, I’d been through this many times before. “I love Billie like a good friend, but we’re incompatible. Or is it too compatible? Anyway, we could never settle down together. We’re too competitive. We each have too many clothes. We’d fight over closet space and that sort of thing. We even like the same foods. If we went out to dinner, we’d order the same thing. What’s the benefit in that?”

“Yeah, you need a little variety,” Laurel said. Her tone was either extremely suggestive, or my imagination was working overtime.

“Variety,” I said, getting caught in the tractor beam of her eyes again.

She raised her glass. “To variety.”

I raised mine and reached my other hand out to grasp hers. Her expression confirmed that I had been interpreting everything correctly. We toasted and drank, and I looked around the room one more time. “Should we?” I said.

She smiled and got up from her stool without saying another word.

We took a taxi back to my apartment. Although I lived only a few blocks from the Martini, Laurel didn’t want to walk in heels. Easing Laurel to my place was no more complicated than negotiating a locked door with a set of keys and a bag of groceries.

Dimming the lights, I put a mix of Usher slow jams on the stereo before going for a 2006 bottle of Chassagne Montrachet that I kept chilled for evenings such as these.

At first, Laurel began to sway to Usher’s mellifluous voice. Then, she noticed the dim spotlights highlighting the artwork on my walls. She adjusted the light and began to dance for me.

“I love how Usher makes me feel.”

“I’m glad you like it.” The cork left a resounding echo and I filled two glasses.

Laurel lifted her leg overhead like a ballerina, placing it flush against the wall behind her and pushing her skirt up.

“You’re a very graceful dancer.”

Laurel smiled and moved toward me. Grabbing my hand, she pulled me to the center of the room and began to circle around me. She looked so free, so extraordinary. Her arms went over her head. Kicking her leg high, she held it for a moment before reversing direction. The black miniskirt must have slowed her down because she began to unwrap it from her narrow hips.

When her skirt fell to the floor, I forgot about the wine. It spilled over my fingers. She danced close, took my hand and licked the drops from my skin. Suddenly, her lips brushed mine. She moved slowly behind me and began to unbutton my shirt. My head dropped back and my eyes rolled closed. Laurel drew her fingernails against my ribs. As the rest of our clothes landed on the floor, I became enveloped in her perfume, forgetting about everything else. No matter how many times I did this, the effect was always the same.

From deep sleep, I heard the noise again, was unable to place it in my dream, and ran my fingers along the sheet in search of Laurel. The sound came again. It took several seconds for me to recognize it as knocking on the front door.

“Do you hear that?” I said, rolling over, hoping to glimpse Laurel’s magnificent body another time. She was gone. “Laurel?” I sat up. Still naked, I grabbed my robe and walked into the other room. It was dark and quiet. Laurel’s clothes were gone.

Three more knocks came from the door.

“Just a second.” It was almost 3:00 a.m. and everyone I knew should have been in bed for one reason or another.

It’s Laurel
, I thought.
She left her panties under the coffee table or something like that
.

“Coming,” I said. I checked the peephole and the image on the other side made me forget where I was. I opened the door.

“Dylan!”

A woman in pink, orange and yellow stood there, with her arms extended. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light yet or the bright colors.

I squinted. “Diane?”

“Dylan!”

Just then, a head poked out from behind Diane and looked up at me. It was a little girl.

All the air left my body.

“Diane,” I said again, having suddenly lost access to all other vocabulary.

It wasn’t Laurel returning for more, or to retrieve something that she’d left behind. Seeing Diane’s black wavy hair and gray eyes took me back a few years to a Chicago hotel room off Lake Shore overlooking the
Odyssey
cruising Lake Michigan. That had been a remarkable handful of days.

“Dylan!”

The conversation was obviously taking a little while to develop. It was understandable, considering the circumstances. Diane Sommers from Chicago and a lifetime ago was standing at my door at 3:00 a.m., extending her arms and waiting for a hug.

Pulling her close, the memories of her perfume, her bright colors, her smile and her touch began to connect the dots until completing my vague recollection of the
past. We’d worked head-to-head on the marketing campaign all day, wrapping ourselves in each other all night.

I began to pull back, but Diane continued to hold me. Focusing neither on the drab hallway nor the bead of sweat forming on the back of my neck, I called to mind the lines in her face friendly, familiar, and yet foreign.

“Is everything all right?” I said, offering another squeeze when she refused to let me go.

“It’s good to see you.”

I had momentarily blanked out the fact that she had a kid with her. When Diane finally loosened her grip, I tightened the belt of my robe, conscious of little eyes staring up from our feet.

“Diane, it’s great to see you. I wish I had known you were coming. I would have waited up or at least put some clothes on.”

“Oh, Dylan.”

She smiled, reminding me of the reason that we’d gotten together in the first place. Everything about Diane had always seemed bright to me.

I looked down for the kid, but she had carefully hidden behind her mother. A second later, the little girl poked her head out. She seemed tired, but she still had the energy to muster a look of discernment either that, or she had to use the bathroom.

“Hi?” I said.

Diane knelt down to the girl. “This is Spring.”

I nearly followed Diane’s crouch, then remembered my robe.

“And Spring, this is Mr. Dylan.”

“Hi, Spring.”

Spring was dressed in a yellow raincoat and red boots. She had the same wavy black hair and gray eyes as Diane.
She didn’t say anything, but she seemed fascinated with my bare feet.