by Joyce Armor
She crossed to the TV and turned down the sound—the ancient black and white appliance didn’t even have a remote control—and returned to her desk. Nervously, with trembling hands, she reached down, grabbed her tan leather purse and dug out her cell phone and a piece of paper from her pocket. There might be no going back after this. Was she ready for that? For God sakes, it’s just a phone call. Get over yourself. She looked back at the stairwell, trying to control her breathing, and then quickly, before she could change her mind, punched in a number. Her heart was racing so loudly she thought surely they would hear it upstairs. She nearly jumped and shrieked when someone answered her call. Could it be this easy?
“Uh, yes, may I speak to Brian Morgan please?” She shifted in her seat, unable to get comfortable. She felt like she was sitting on nails. “Oh. Do you know if he was a 21 dealer at Caesar’s Palace about five years ago?” Yes, that would be way too easy, wouldn’t it? “Oh. Okay, I must have the wrong number. I’m sorry to disturb you. Thank you.”
She ended the call, crossed a name off the list—that one was an accountant—looked back at the stairwell and keyed in another number. It was a little bit easier the second time.
“Hello, I’m trying to reach Brian Morgan.” She almost gasped. “It is? Did you deal 21 at Caesar’s Palace five years ago?” Her face fell. “Oh. No. I’m looking for someone else. A different Brian Morgan. Sorry to have bothered you.” A chef at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Then it occurred to her. Maybe he had gotten out of the casino business. Maybe he was an accountant or a chef. Stranger things have happened.
As she ended the call, Chantella strolled in from the packing area. “You’re doing it. Good. Did you track him down?”
Ellie looked kind of embarrassed. “No, and I don’t know what I’d say if I did. He’s probably married, with a boatload of kids, and gloriously happy.”
“If he has a boatload of kids, he’s probably divorced and unhappy.” Chantella leaned against Roger’s desk, twisting the hair on the side of her head that wasn’t shaved. “Hey, we’re out of the Jack Johnson DVD and the Ozzy Osbourne buttons. Oh, and we’re running low on most of the issues of ‘Wonder Wart-Hog’ and some of the ‘Zap’ comix.”
Ellie made a note of those shortages. “Got it.” She nearly grinned, for some odd reason. You’re in a weird mood today. When she accepted the position at Full Court Press, after calling out of the blue for a communications position, it became obvious early on it was just a stop-gap post. She wasn’t prepared to enjoy herself as much as she did. “When you get a chance, make me a list of which ‘Zaps’ we need. And ‘Wonder Wart-Hog,’ too.”
“I’m on it,” Chantella nodded, looking unconscionably good in her pale pink, lacey tank top and skintight black leather pants, and turned to go.
“Chantella?”
She turned back.
“Did you know Wesley was the one right from the start? I mean, you two seem so perfect for each other.”
The young woman smiled kind of dreamily. “Yeah, I did, actually.” Then she seemed to straighten up. “Although I knew it when I met my ex, too. Franco didn’t seem like a psycho at the time.” Now she became thoughtful. “This is different, though. Wesley is so…so Wesley.”
Ellie smiled. “Yeah. He is.”
Thirty minutes later, Ellie was checking inventory in the packing room with her clipboard as Wesley and Chantella packed orders when Roger led Russell, carrying his carton in front of him, into the room.
“Ta-da!” Roger announced, throwing his arms out.
The three employees looked at him blankly.
“I found him! It’s Muskman!” Roger beamed.
Ellie, Wesley and Chantella had never seen him so happy, yet they looked skeptical. Russell set down the carton and put his hands on his hips, assuming the Muskman pose.
“This is Russell Owens,” Roger said. “I guess you’ve met Ellie…This is Chantella and Wesley.”
They mumbled polite greetings.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Russell said to the young couple. Ellie watched him closely to see if he thought they were odd or evil or anything, and he just had a friendly look on his face. So not the judgmental type apparently.
There was an odd silence. Ellie tried to lighten up the weird atmosphere. “Any luck with your comics?”
Russell smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t want to sell them anyway. Really.”
He did have a look of contentment about him, like he was happy in his skin. What would that be like, to have everything figured out? She couldn’t even imagine.
“I told Russell he could probably ride to Vegas with you, Ellie,” Roger said. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
She felt a moment of panic that she couldn’t explain. “Well, gee, I, um…”
Russell smiled, seeming to look into her soul. “I just thought it would be better to carpool.” Why did that translate in her mind to: “I just thought it would be better to lay you down in your back seat and ravage you like there was no tomorrow.” Still, there was no way she could legitimately refuse.
“Uh…yeah, I guess,” Ellie said, trying not to sigh. “Sure…okay. Yeah. I mean, why not, right? Stop talking, Ellie. Just button it.
Roger giggled. He actually giggled as he nudged the singer. “Do it again, Russell. C’mon.”
Russell assumed the pose again. “Who knows what passion lurks in the hearts and minds of men and especially women…Muskman knows.”
Even Chantella and Wesley smiled at that stellar rendition. Ellie smiled too, and if she was honest with herself, she recognized the excitement and dare she think it…sexual tension between her and Russell Owens. So what if he was a player? You like to play, don’t you? Maybe he would just be a little fling. Or a big fling. And maybe he would be something more. A lot more. It was almost as if a dam had burst. Yeah, a big honkin’ sexual dam. She was tired of holding herself back, of being too judgmental and too picky. This could be a very interesting road trip, even if she’d had to be bullied into it. She couldn’t help smiling, hoping the smile was her mysterious one and not the dopey one.
* * *
The next day, Dee sat at her Brother sewing machine in her sewing room, which was also partially packed with boxes and piles of material strewn across an off-white, purple flowered sofa. As she worked on a brown, furry Muskman costume, Russell leaned over her shoulder.
“Can you hide the zipper?”
“Yes, dear. Explain to me again who this character is?”
Smiling almost dreamily, Russell leaned against the closet door, crossing his arms. “Muskman was a counterculture superhero, sort of the hippies’ answer to Superman and Batman. He was a mild-mannered gardener by day…”
Dee stopped sewing and looked thoughtful. “Why do you suppose the superheroes’ alter-egos are always mild-mannered? I mean, why aren’t they wild and crazy? Or ADHD?”
“You got me there, Ma. I never really thought about it. Anyway, at night our mild-mannered gardener became Muskman, who went out into the world to right the wrongs of the heart.”
“Then they should have called him Duskman.”
Russell laughed. There was no question where he got his sense of humor. Dee diligently went back to working on the costume. She had real talent, and it was coming together nicely.
“Now that you’re retired and you won’t be ruling the grocery world anymore, you should write a book, Ma. You’ve always had such a unique outlook on everything. It would be great. I know it.”
“I doubt if I have the patience to write a book, Russ, although I could tell you stories that would curl your hair. There’s lots of conflict in the grocery world. You’d be surprised. I could call it ‘Rhubarbs.’ Go on with your Muskman story, honey.”
He moved some bolts of material aside and sunk into the battered but super comfy sofa. He’d sat there numerous times over the years, listening to his mom dole out sage advice while she sewed, on subjects ranging from impossible chemistry tests to athletic contests
to nervous first dates. And zits. And friends that disappointed. An emergency birds-and-the-bees talk after he’d been caught kissing Kathleen Bickley when he was nine. He was sitting on this couch when she told him his father was dying. She didn’t see the memory cloud his eyes before he recovered and leaned forward. He smiled.
“Muskman was into love, not war, and he was funny. He had musk glands in his armpits that emitted pheromones that made people fall in love. Or at least lust. He wasn’t big and muscular but a regular Joe. That was part of his appeal. The Muskman comics were rarely violent. He used his brains and sense of humor to overcome villains.”
“I see, dear.”
She sighed almost sadly.
“What’s wrong?”
“I hope you find love, Russell. It’s my greatest wish for you. And nobody deserves it more than you do. I couldn’t ask for a better son. Your dad and I had a 47-year honeymoon. And they were the best 47 years of my life by far.”
He leaned back on the couch, crossing one leg over his knee. “I know, Ma. You set a great example.”
He couldn’t tell her that his parents had set the bar too high. He finally came to realize he would never be able to find the perfect or even the near-perfect mate. He’d thought Amy was the one, right up until the time he told her he wouldn’t be able to make her 21st birthday party because he had long since committed to entertain at a bar mitzvah. When begging and pleading didn’t work, she went psycho on him, screaming and ranting and calling him all sorts of foul names. Ironically, he had already bought a ring and was planning to propose to her after the bar mitzvah. Even though she had apologized again and again, the horse was already out of the barn on that one, especially when he remembered other little red flags of impatience and intolerance. It was extremely painful at the time, but later he realized how close he had come to making a monumental mistake, and it scared him, more than he would even admit to himself.
Then there was Carla, pretty, intelligent, confident and way too type A Carla. And she was kind of a know-it-all, which would have driven him crazy in the long run. After one or two other ill-fated “normal” romances, Russell had decided to go the other way, to look for fun with ideally big-boobed women who didn’t even have to have an I.Q. as far as he was concerned. He always made it clear right from the start that he wasn’t in it for the long haul. It was all about the here and now and having a good time in the moment. Anyway, he was still young, only 29. He had plenty of time if he ever decided he wanted to settle down. At this point, he couldn’t imagine it.
Dee stopped sewing again and gave him her serious look. “You know I’m very proud of you, my handsome son.”
He felt a warmth all the way down to his toes. She was always complimentary of him. There was no question that she loved him, but it felt particularly good to know she was proud of him, especially since he wasn’t cutting records or performing on national TV.
Dee was about to say something else but stopped for a moment before shifting gears. “I just want you to be happy. I mean, really happy.”
“I am happy. Really happy.”
She looked doubtful. “I am,” he insisted stubbornly. Wasn’t he?
“More than anything, I want you to find your soul mate.”
“Not to worry, Ma. I was just with a soul mate last night.”
“Russell Carter Olshevski.”
He smiled the smile that melted her heart and thought about that “soul mate.” She was a lifesaver. If he was completely honest with himself, Russell would admit he was more than a little uncomfortable at the thought of driving all the way to Las Vegas with Ellie Lambert. She was too much like the “real” women he had bombed with. Flirting was one thing but no sirree, he wasn’t going there again. You didn’t have to hit him over the head with a 2 by 4.
* * *
Roger and Bonnie were burrowed into the down-filled baby-blue quilt on their queen-size waterbed when their alarm buzzed. After a moment, Bonnie’s freckled hand eased from under the covers and patted several spots on the nightstand before she reached the snooze button. Then she groaned. Roger struggled to a sitting position, scratching his head, his wispy, thinning hair reaching almost to his shoulders. “You want coffee or tea?”
“I hit the snooze button. We have six more minutes.”
“You’re fighting the inevitable.”
“Yeah. The story of my life.” She struggled to a sitting position and tenderly flattened out a rogue clump of his hair. “I’m kind of freakin’ about this trip. Are you sure you’re up for it? Maybe we should skip it and you should have the surgery now.”
She had tried every which way to get him to change his mind about the surgery. It hadn’t worked before and it wouldn’t work now. If he could put the surgery off forever, he would. He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “My heart isn’t going anywhere. The doctor said a couple of weeks wouldn’t matter.”
“That’s not exactly what he said, Roger, and you know it. He said it was your life and your decision.”
He grabbed the bottom of her flimsy, sleeveless nightgown and lifted it over her head as she raised her arms, helping him. Tossing it across the room, he grabbed an ample breast and squeezed gently. “Same thing.”
She sighed and snuggled in closer to him. “Hardly.”
“I’ll have the surgery when we get back, as scheduled. You know, if it’s my time to go, speeding up the surgery won’t help.”
“It’s not your time,” she said ardently, kissing him passionately before pulling back and looking at his beautiful nakedness with all the love she had for this dear man. “And I mean it, buster.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he smiled. They truly had lived a charmed life, and he could not be more grateful. Oh, they’d had a few challenges along the way, the fire that destroyed their first warehouse, the health scare with their son, the deaths of their parents and a few friends. And through it all they had supported each other and grown closer.
By outward appearances, people might presume Bonnie wore the pants in the Neff family. In her youth, in particular, she had had a forceful, my-way-or-the-highway personality, which could still be daunting, but she had softened over the years. Roger, on the other hand, was born mellow, but he was all man. Although they may have started out as a case of opposites attract, they both had grown more toward the center over the years. Whatever their formula, it worked for them, and he was no more under her thumb than she was under his. It was a true partnership, in business and at home.
They had managed to stay true to their values and raised two children, a son and a daughter, who had grown up to become responsible adults. If their son was a little too conservative for their taste and their daughter refused to contribute to the overpopulation of the planet by having children (aka grandchildren), they were both good people and not too terribly embarrassed anymore about their aging hippie parents. Their jobs, not their hearts, took them to other cities. Still, the family got together once or twice a year, and it wasn’t uncomfortable as it was with some families. Love abounded.
This particular morning, Roger and Bonnie made love slowly, reverently but passionately, pushing each other’s sexual buttons as they had many, many times before. It might take a little longer these days to get to the end, but the quality of the act had gone up as far as they were concerned. It was all about the journey now, not the destination. Several minutes later, as they cuddled, she looked up at him. Uh-oh. He knew that look. He almost laughed. It was her schoolmarm look.
“I still think you should tell the kids. Seriously, they deserve to know.”
They’d been over this repeatedly, and he wasn’t about to budge on this either. His body. His life. His decision. “I will, Bon. Not yet, though,” he said. “We’ve talked this about to death, haven’t we? They’ll just worry and hover. You know I hate that.”
She sighed, rolled him over and sat on his thighs. “I’m about to hover again right now.”
“Aren’t you concerned about my heart?”
“Don’t you worry about a thing, my love. I’ll take care of your heart.”
Chapter 4
As Ellie drove her black Chevy pickup toward Full Court Press on the day of the big rendezvous for the drive to Las Vegas, she chatted with Toni hands-free. That allowed her to adjust the crotch on her green cargo shorts. She still couldn’t believe she had chosen fashion over comfort for this lengthy trip. It was so totally unlike her.
“Are you on Blue Tooth?”
“Yes.”
“Good, we can talk,” Toni said. “Why aren’t you riding with Bonnie and Roger, like you did last year? Rob,” she laughed. “Let go.”
She didn’t want to picture whatever was happening between Rob and Toni. Like you don’t suffer enough being single in a world of endless happy couples. “Am I disturbing you?”
“No, my horny husband is. Go on.”
Ellie explained that her bosses had too much crapola to take this year. Wesley and Chantella were also transporting a bunch of stuff. Ellie was just supposed to take whatever didn’t fit in their vehicles. “Then I agreed to take Russell Owens, the guy Roger hired to play Muskman.”
“Is he viable?”
“Geez, Toni, is that all you ever think of?”
“That viable, huh?”
Ellie felt her cheeks turning pink, embarrassed even though no one could see her. “Yeah, he is kind of cute. Did I tell you he was the piano-bar entertainer at Em’s on my infamous date night with Gawayne? I think he might be attracted to me, too. I was kind of getting that vibe. He’s not drop-dead handsome. I don’t trust those lookers anyway. And he is cute. Very cute, in fact. I don’t know, there’s just something about him. I guess you really have influenced me. I feel open for this. I can’t believe it. I’m excited.”