Virtually Mine: a love story (3 page)

“Ever been in love?”

Charlie’s expression changed as he
considered the question. He realized that he had been very much in love. Then,
just as suddenly, Charlie’s brow furrowed with uncertainty. “With somebody? You
mean at the same time as that person was in love with me?”

Samantha nodded. “Mm-hmm.” She had a
talent for making Charlie feel just as absurd as he realized he sounded.

His face fell. “Then no,” he admitted.

Samantha studied Charlie for what seemed
an eternity, never breaking that penetrating gaze of hers. It seemed to pierce
right through him, like she had some kind of sci-fi superpower. “You’ve never
been with a woman. Have you?”

For the first time, Charlie straightened
his back defensively. “Now, see...here’s the thing about that.
 
I’m pretty sure a, uh, response to that is
not—due respect of course—it isn’t a prerequisite for permanent full-time
legitimate hire. And please, please assure me that this company is entirely
legitimate, because I already promised my dad that it was.”

Samantha smiled knowingly. “You’ve never
even pursued a woman, have you?”

Charlie shifted on his feet. “See, I’ve
really been planning to, I just—”

She sat back. She massaged the nape of
her neck, continuing to assess him. “Plenty of pent-up unrequited emotion to
draw from. Over a decade of latent longing...
 
Okay.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “Okay?” As soon
as he’d asked, he realized that he shouldn’t have. He knew that Samantha
Raznick was not a woman to repeat herself. When she’d made up her mind, that
was that.

“You’ve got two weeks,” Samantha allowed.
“Tech maintenance is still priority, but you can try operating for the balance
to thirty hours. Pull your weight and I bump you to full time, after which I
would, of course, expect you to dump the apartment managing job.”

Charlie couldn’t believe it. “You won’t
regret this,” he promised, still trying to convince himself that she wouldn’t.

“Stirring ardor toward your comelier
female counterparts can exact a personal toll,” Samantha warned. “So, when it
comes to regretting this decision, the question is: Will you?”

♥   
♥    ♥

Kate
pulled her jacket closed as she hurried along the block to Dustin’s bungalow.
The sun had gone down, but the night air wasn’t the only thing giving her a bit
of a chill.

Over
dinner, M.J. had said something that kept rattling around in Kate’s head. She
had floated a not-so-subtle hint that Kate could do better than Dustin. Kate
never saw herself as being better than anyone else, so she had quickly risen to
Dustin’s defense. Sure, Kate was aware of their differences, but Dustin was
still a great guy. She liked to think how their strengths and weaknesses
balanced each other out and made them an even better couple.

As
she walked along, Kate thought about the many ways that Dustin had found a
place in her heart. He was sweet and playful and fearless. He was always
calling, popping with ideas for fun things that they could do. Dustin had given
her a sense of belonging there, something she really appreciated whenever she
got homesick. Mostly, she thought about how he’d encouraged her to get past her
doubts and have faith in herself. So, it seemed only fair that she should set
her worries aside, and have a little faith in him, too.

Determined to prove M.J. wrong, Kate
knocked on Dustin’s door. His bungalow was a tiny place—one room with a postage
stamp kitchen and a bath. She’d helped him find it and fix it up a bit with
garage sale chic.

“Coming!” Dustin called from inside. It
was reassuring till he opened the door, and a quizzical expression crossed his
face. “Kate, hi. Didn’t we say we weren’t going to work tonight?”

“You did, ” Kate started, “but I was
thinking... I just...ahh... Okay, forgive the sentence fragments, but
cards-on-the-table here. Maybe I just thoroughly read this wrong, so tell me if
I’m just spaced but is there any chance... Are you thinking you want to see
other people?”

Dustin tipped his head, a look of
confusion on his face. “What...do you think we should?”

“I don’t,” Kate clarified. “But with
today and the whole thing with Wissy...”

Checking behind him, Dustin quickly
closed the door over and whispered, “Oh! Right, right. I meant to tell you.
Soon as she gets me going with this casting director, I’m totally passing the
favor on to you.”

Following Dustin’s train of thought could
be challenging. As endearing as he could be, he wasn’t the crunchiest chip in
the bag. “Dustin, why are you whispering?”

“Because Wissy’s here. We’re gonna
rehearse,” he explained with an innocence that Kate knew extended well beyond
his ability to act.

“She’s here?!” Kate blurted. The words
came out just as Wissy opened the door carrying two wine glasses in one hand.

“Oh. Hi, Kate,” Wissy leaned coyly toward
Dustin. “Dusty—now, what do you think? I brought red or white. I know it’s
going with salmon, but I don’t mind breaking the rules.”

“Red’s great,” Dustin replied.

With that Wissy waltzed back in toward
the kitchen. “Almost ready,” she cooed.

Dustin turned back to Kate. She could see
that, clearly, he just wasn’t getting it. “She’s cooking for you?”

“Yeah, great, huh?” Dustin beamed. “Love
salmon.”

“And she brought wine? Dustin, this is a
date,” Kate protested.

“No, it’s not,” Dustin insisted. “It’s
not a date unless a guy says it’s a date, and I promise. I didn’t say that.
This is work. And I told you I’ve got to get at least some kind of something going
on with her if the scene’s going to fly.”

Unable to mask her fears, Kate pressed.
“That would be the rampantly gaga, smash-face scene you were going to do with
me?”

Again, Dustin tipped his head. He always
did that when things weren’t quite computing. “Kate, I’m really starting to
wonder about you.
 
I mean, I can handle
this acting thing. But you... You really gotta learn to split the personal
stuff from the work.”

Kate absorbed his words, incredulous. “I
need to... You think I...” Shaking her head in disbelief, Kate continued. “You
know what? You’re right. Maybe we should see other people because, no, I can’t
handle this. You want to go
work
with Wissy? Then go ahead. Do what you
have to do. Why let the good thing we’ve had going for the past three months
stand in your way?”

Grinning broadly, Dustin grabbed Kate for
a stunningly oblivious hug. “Thanks, Kate! I knew you’d be cool with this.”
With a wave, he hurried back inside and closed the door.

Crushed, Kate just stood there staring.
Hot tears sprang to her eyes as she finally replied, too softly for Dustin to
hear. “Who said I was cool with this?!”

There was something about ice cream that
had always comforted Kate growing up. It reminded her of happier times, when
she and her Mom would walk to the Crozet Mennonite dairy where they churned
five different flavors by hand. Kate’s choice would always depend upon her
mood, a pattern Kate’s mom had pointed out to her. When things were going
great, Kate would pick strawberry. She’d congratulate herself with butter pecan
or peach. But now and again, there were those times when nothing consoled her
like the heaviest artillery of all: full-fatted chocolate.

It had been years since Kate had eaten
ice cream. She’d sworn off dairy, in fact. Still, three thousand miles from
that Mennonite store, Kate reached into the freezer case at her Santa Monica
grocer. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it would have to do. Kate pulled out a
pint of Rocky Road and closed the door. Her mind wandering to visions of
whatever sizzling dish Wissy was serving up to Dustin, Kate reopened the
freezer case and switched the pint for two half gallons.

♥   
♥    ♥

Wearily,
Charlie approached his apartment door. Taped under the
Manager
sign was
a folded note that said:
Charlie...Help!!!
It was signed,
Mrs.
Teasdale, apartment 305
(as if Charlie’s memory were every bit as
challenged as his somewhat eccentric tenant’s).

Mrs. Teasdale was never shy in her usage
of exclamation points, or about expecting help far above and beyond the normal
duties of an apartment building manager. Whether her roof was caving in, she’d
heard some noise, or if she’d just forgotten how to reset her clocks, the widow
Teasdale was an equal opportunity punctuator.

Sometimes, it seemed that Mrs. Teasdale
was just lonely. So, Charlie went and sat with her when he had time. Charlie
knew what it was like to be lonesome, and besides, visiting older folks was
another one of those things his dad had always encouraged him to do.

So, visit Mrs. Teasdale, he did. As her
cats popped their claws on her furniture unhindered, he’d help her find
whatever was lost in her all too cluttered apartment. There was an up side to
visiting Mrs. Teasdale, Charlie realized. She’d serve him chamomile tea and
ginger snaps, then chatter his dateless Saturday nights away.

Charlie inserted his key and opened his
apartment door. There were three additional notes that had been shoved
underneath. Two more were from Mrs. Teasdale, looking much the same as the
first. Charlie’s heartbeat went double-time when he saw that the third note
(with nary an exclamation point) was from his next-door neighbor. All it said
was:

So sorry to bug you at work.
 
~ Kate

She’d buttoned the message with a
conciliatory smiley face, the lips drawn kind of crinkly in the middle before
curling up at the ends. In the seclusion of his bachelor apartment, Charlie ran
an affectionate finger across the spot where Kate had written her name.

“You don’t bug me, Katie,” he murmured, a
soft smile on his lips. “Well, you do...but not at all in a bothery kind of
way.”

♥   
♥    ♥

Kate
slumped on the sofa, numbly downing ice cream with a tablespoon, straight out
of the carton. The phone rang repeatedly, but Kate couldn’t bring herself to
pick up the call. She just stared, even when she heard her mother’s voice,
leaving a message.

“
Hi, Sweetie. Daddy and I are going to
bed, but I’m just so happy for you and Dustin and I thought maybe I’d catch you
in
.”

“
Hi, Baby.
” Kate’s dad, Wally,
chimed in from the background.

Her mom’s voice broke a bit. She finished
her message half giggling. “Yeah, sorry we missed you, but—Wally! Wally, quit.
You know how kids hate to hear this kind of thing! Let me just—” Her mom barely
returned her attention to the call. “Anyway, Honey, nightie night!” A torrent
of laughter from both followed, long before the phone disconnected.

Kate’s parents had that wonderful kind of
relationship, still playfully amorous after all these years. Usually, Kate
found these peeks into their love life encouraging. They had exactly what she
wanted, no doubt. But on this particular night, their togetherness only
hammered home how dejected and alone Kate already felt.

M.J. emerged from her room, her arms
piled high with laundry. “You gonna be okay while I’m out?”

Kate removed the spoon from her mouth and
stuck it into the ice cream carton with a sigh. “Yeah, I’ve got, like, a
jillion fat grams here to keep me company.” She tried to smile, though tears
streaked.

Balancing her load precariously, M.J.
opened the door to leave, just as Charlie had his hand raised to knock, a
toolbox in tow.

M.J. checked Kate’s mood warily, and then
turned back to Charlie. “Charlie, hi. Maybe it’s not the best...”

Charlie looked past M.J. to Kate’s
tear-stained face and quickly sized up the situation. “Is this a bad time? It’s
a bad time.”

“Well...” M.J. began.

“No, come in, Charlie,” Kate managed. “We
need the sink back.”

M.J. flashed Kate an ‘
are you sure
?’
glance.

“I’m fine,” Kate retorted. “Look at me,
how fine I am.”

Entering, Charlie stopped in his tracks.
Seeing the ice cream, Charlie whispered to a departing M.J. “Is that dairy?
That’s dairy.”

With that, Charlie spun to leave, but
M.J. pushed him back inside, just before she scooted out and closed the door.

Suddenly alone with Kate and completely
unsure how to behave, Charlie slinked past her, toward the kitchen, filling the
awkward air the best he could. “I’ll just... Trust me. You won’t even know I’m
here. It’s an extraordinary facility I seem to have with...all women,
actually.”

three

♥

U
nder
normal circumstances, unstopping a garbage disposal wasn’t as engaging a task
for Charlie as it was on this particular night. It wasn’t so much about the
mechanical challenge that the job presented as it was the opportunity it
afforded for time with this specific tenant.

Charlie
wasn’t given to crushes. He knew they were an exercise in futility. But from
the moment M.J. had brought Kate in as a roommate, something had done
somersaults inside of Charlie. It happened every single time he saw or thought
of her.