The Balance Thing

by Margaret Dumas

  “Friday? You have to stay in Atlanta all week?”

  “No, but apparently my life won’t be complete without stopping in Baton Rouge and Chicago.” At least, that’s where I thought I was going. I’d have to check the itinerary lurking in my e-mail inbox again to be sure.

  Josh gave me one of those heartfelt sighs. “Okay, Friday. But this weekend you’re all mine.”

  “Deal.” The only thing I’d have to do for WorldWired over the weekend was make sure I stopped off at home to pick up my passport. Because the following week I was scheduled for Frankfurt.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING in Germany?”

  Connie’s voice sounded tinny and far away. That, and annoyed.

  “I’m working. How did you get this phone number?” I wasn’t even sure of the hotel’s name, let alone its internationally complicated phone number.

  “From Josh. Did you know about Phillip?”

  “Phillip?” Connie had woken me from a fairly sound stupor and I was a little fuzzy. Perhaps that had something to do with the Oktoberfest party my hosts had taken me to the evening before. It’s possible they’d spent the day giving me oodles of precious information about the European markets, but I’d never remember it. Because when the meeting ended they’d encouraged me to destroy most of my brain cells in an overcrowded beer hall. I glanced at the clock. Three in the morning. I’d only been in bed an hour.

  “Phillip Hastings!” Connie said sharply. “Did Vida tell you?”

  Alarm bells went off in my head. And they didn’t mix well with whatever I’d been drinking out of those gigantic mugs. “Tell me what?” I must have blocked out entire days of the English wedding disaster because now I couldn’t remember if Connie knew about Phillip and Max or not.

  “That he’s coming!”

  “Oh.” I sank back into my pillow. “Is that all?”

  “Is that all?” Connie’s words dropped like ice chips. “You knew my brother-in-law was coming for a visit and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Actually, I didn’t know,” Not the exact date, anyway. “What’s the big deal? He’s a nice guy.”

  “He’s my brother-in-law!” Connie wailed. “He’s going to expect to stay with us!”

  Oh, I got it. “You mean he doesn’t know you left Ian.”

  “Finally! Now do you see why I’m upset?”

  Actually, no. But I didn’t dare say so. “Don’t you think Ian might have mentioned the separation to him?”

  “Of course not. Ian thinks this is just postwedding jitters.”

  Postwedding jitters? Ian clearly had an advanced degree in denial. “Okay, then he’ll tell Phillip that. No problem.”

  Connie latched on to the thought. “Do you think so? Because I’d hate for Phillip to think—or for his family to think—that after that huge wedding and everything and after they went to so much trouble with all the parties and everything—”

  “Listen, Connie,” I really needed to learn the German word for “aspirin.” “If you’re so worried, why don’t you just move back in with Ian while Phillip visits? He can’t be staying long, and it’s not as if there isn’t a precedent for shams where you and Ian are concerned. I mean, after that whole phony English estate wedding—right down to the fake vicar, for God’s sake, and—”

  And then I realized what I was saying. And who I was saying it to.

  “What?”

  I really needed to learn the German words for “Oh, shit.”

  >>SHE’S NOT speaking to me

  I read Vida’s message with no surprise.

  <
  >>we’re all guilty—we knew

  It was the first time Vida and I had connected since I’d unleashed Connie’s fury. I still hadn’t spoken to Max, although I had gotten one terse e-mail in response to the panicked message I’d left on his machine.

  From: maxie@doctormax.com

  To: bMansfield@worldwired.net

  Subject: Fuck!

  She’s on a rampage. If you’re a smart woman, you’ll stay in Europe.

  —M

  Now I could at least gather a few more details from Vida.

  <
  >>she’s mainly mad at Ian

  >>but since she already wasn’t speaking to him

  >>we’re caught in the crossfire

  <
  >>Max says she’ll get over it

  <
  >>when are you coming home?

  <
  <
  >>if we can

  >>but don’t count on it

  I didn’t.

  SATURDAY WAS SCHEDULED for the studio. Josh would be putting the finishing touches on the new Vladima Webisode, which would have its premier at ComixCon, and I needed to finish organizing the distribution for the first flood of Vladima comic books. Which would have been doable if I hadn’t slept through the entire day.

  “Did you drug me or something?”

  It was six o’clock in the evening before I staggered down to the studio from Josh’s loft upstairs. The place was dark, except for the dim glow of a computer screen in Josh’s office. There wasn’t a minion in sight.

  He didn’t answer, so I tried again. “Is Jeremy around? We were supposed to go over the Web promos. Have we got any stats on the e-mail circulation? Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  “You’ve been lying to me.” Josh didn’t look up from his work.

  “That’s what I do. I’m in marketing.” I sank into a chair. “Is there any coffee?”

  “Becks.” Something in his tone got my attention. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “What?” I sat up with a sick feeling. Had I missed a deadline? What had I forgotten about that was now going to mean a ruined ComixCon debut? Or had Connie come by looking for blood?

  Josh stood up suddenly, seemed about to say something, then just muttered and left the room.

  Okay, not good. I followed him to the break room, where he started making coffee, still muttering and still not looking at me.

  “I get it, Josh, I messed up. Just tell me what it is and I can fix it. Don’t be angry.”

  He slammed a prerelease V-mug on the counter with a crash. “Jesus Christ, Becks, I’m not angry with you!”

  I blinked.

  “Okay, maybe I am angry with you.” He blew out a breath and ran his hands through his hair. “What the hell is going on with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you told me you were getting plenty of sleep on the road, which was clearly a lie, and then you spent the whole night last night thrashing around and talking in your sleep.”

  “I talked?”

  He nodded grimly, and I had the horrible feeling he was about to tell me what I’d said. What could I have said?

  “You’re fired,” he told me.

  “I’m what?”

  He shook his head. “That’s what you kept saying—‘You’re fired’ and ‘Now boarding,’ and a bunch of other gibberish I couldn’t understand. What the hell is going on? What are you doing all day that’s giving you nightmares?”

  I swallowed. “I’m just doing my job.”

  His expression hardened. “Well, I don’t like what it’s doing to you.”

  I felt cold suddenly, and sounded it when I answered him. “Well, forgive me if I disturbed your sleep last night.”

  He moved toward me, his voice harsh. “This isn’t about my sleep. This is about your sleep—or lack of it. And about the way your hands have been shaking for the past week. And about how you don’t seem to want anything other than caffeine and alcohol these days. When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

  “Stop attacking me!”

  “I’m not attacking you, I’m worried about you! Can’t you tell the difference?”

  “Well, who asked you to worry about me? I’m fine! I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.
And if I’m so hard to be around these days, I’ll just get out of here.”

  I spun around for the door and would have made a seriously dramatic exit if I hadn’t gotten dizzy and stumbled.

  Josh caught me by the elbows. “For Christ’s sake, Becks, you’re a wreck. I know you want to think you can do everything, but you can’t keep living out of suitcases and doing God knows what for WorldWired, and then expect to come back here and have the energy to run everything like you’ve been off relaxing at a spa.”

  He forced me into a chair and I waited for the room to stop spinning. “Josh, I may be tired these days, but I haven’t been dropping the ball. We’re completely on schedule for ComixCon, and—”

  “Fuck ComixCon! This isn’t about ComixCon!” He brought his fist down on the table.

  I jumped up. “Stop yelling at me!”

  “I’m not yelling!” he yelled.

  We glared at each other for a moment, then he took a deep breath. “Christ, Becks, I’m just trying to tell you I’m worried about you. If you want to keep doing whatever you’re doing for WorldWired, that’s your choice. But if it means you can’t help out with Vladima anymore, just say so. I’d rather deal with that than deal with you killing yourself.”

  Suddenly he was the one who looked exhausted.

  “Josh, don’t worry. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I—”

  He grabbed my hand. “Will you please stop saying that? Would you please stop telling me you’re fine and everything’s fine, and it will all be fine!”

  “Josh, I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I just didn’t want you to think you had to…”

  “To what? To worry about you? To try to make things easier for you? To help you?”

  I looked at him, and what I saw made me want to kick myself. “I’m sorry,” I said again, and not just as a reflex this time.

  “I know.” He shook his head. “I love you, Becks, but you’re a damn difficult woman to take care of.”

  I nodded. “I don’t like being taken care of.”

  “No shit.” He looked at me.

  “Hang on a minute.” Something just caught up with me. “Can we rewind a few lines? Did you just say you love me?”

  He met my eyes. “God help me.”

  The room started to spin again. Or maybe it wasn’t the room. Maybe it was the whole world. So I took the only sensible action I could. I grabbed the man who stood in front of me and held on as if my life depended on it.

  Maybe it did.

  Thirty-five

  Did you say it back?” Vida had let me get through almost an entire phone call filled with excuses about why I hadn’t seen her over the weekend and halfway through my whole you-won’t-believe-what-Josh-said story before she demanded an answer.

  “Well…”

  She groaned. “Tell me you said it back.”

  “I—” The truth was, I didn’t quite remember. “It’s all kind of a blur.”

  “Becks!”

  “Well, he did catch me a little off guard,” I snapped. “I mean, one minute he’s yelling at me and the next—”

  “Stop! If you tell me you didn’t totally fall into his arms right there on the spot, I’m never speaking to you again.”

  “Vee—”

  “And I was already never speaking to you again because of the Connie thing.”

  “Have you talked to her? What’s happening?” Connie hadn’t returned any of my calls on Sunday. I hadn’t had a word from her since I’d let it slip about Ian’s subterfuge at the wedding—which I completely blamed on Oktoberfest and the evil Germans who’d dragged me to it.

  “Don’t change the subject. How did you leave things with Josh?”

  She was my best friend, but I balked at telling her the details. About how we’d just clung to each other silently in the studio for a while. About how he’d carried me—carried me—up to his loft. About everything he’d said, and the very, very good things he’d done afterward.

  “Becks!”

  “We left things, um…nicely.”

  “Oh my God. You’re impossible. Did you at least—”

  “He took me to the airport this morning.”

  That stopped her. At least for a few seconds. “You let him?”

  “Not only that,” I told her. “I liked it.”

  “Becks! This is huge!”

  I HAD LIKED IT. And it was huge.

  I never let people take me to the airport. I hate it. I hate that they’re doing me a favor. I hate that I have to make conversation with them all the long way there, and keep telling them what airline I’m on because they always forget and have to circle the departures level forever after they’ve missed the right turnout. And I have to be cheerful about that, even though it means I won’t have time to stop at Starbucks before getting on the plane because this person is taking time out of their life to get me to the damn airport.

  I’d much rather just pay an anonymous cabbie who does this for a living, doesn’t care if I want to spend the time in the taxi thinking about everything that I have to do once I get wherever I’m going, and who knows when to turn to get me to the right drop-off zone.

  But Josh had woken me up early that morning, taken me to my place, and made coffee while I threw things out of last week’s suitcase and into this week’s. And then we hadn’t even discussed it. He’d taken me and it hadn’t felt like a gigantic thing, and the conversation hadn’t been forced, and he’d known better than me what flight I was on, because he’d printed my itinerary out from my e-mail while I’d been in the shower.

  It had been…nice.

  “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

  It was Tuesday and I was talking to Max. “Boston.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I work for a living.”

  Actually, I hadn’t done any work in the two days I’d been there. The Boston office was in an uproar because a power outage on Monday morning had thrown everyone’s schedules into chaos. I’d spent the day dealing with hysterical graphic artists who were completely stressed out over their deadlines because of the precious time they’d lost the day before, and I still hadn’t seen their new and allegedly brilliant technodemo.

  Max wasn’t impressed. “Have you even seen your own office yet?”

  “No, but I’ve seen my paycheck,” I told him.

  “Money isn’t everything.”

  “You haven’t seen this paycheck.”

  I heard him take a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s not why I called.” He paused. “Vida told me something interesting about you.”

  “I’ll just bet she did.” I knew I couldn’t tell Vida something as gigantic as Josh saying he loved me and expect her to keep it to herself.

  “So…” Max said. “You’re happy?”

  “I think so.”

  “Try to commit to it,” he urged.

  “Max,” I asked. “Would you tell me if you thought I was just being date-lazy? I mean, Josh is the one who’s kind of pursued me, and I’d hate to think I was just into him because…are you still there?”

  “I’m still here. And if I knew where Connie was, I’d slap her silly for ever putting that stupid date-laziness theory in your head.”

  “So you don’t think that’s it? With Josh?”

  “Becks, from the bottom of my jaded and cynical heart, I don’t think that’s it.”

  Which was an enormous relief. I mean, I may be delusional on occasion, but if my friends share the delusion…maybe it isn’t a delusion after all. I decided to change the subject while things were still going so well.

  “So nobody’s heard from Connie yet?”

  “I had to promise her assistant I’d give her free Botox before she’d tell me that Connie was still alive and coming into the office. She just isn’t returning my calls. Or Vida’s.”

  “Or mine,” I told him. “I wonder what the hell she’s thinking.”

  “I’VE DECIDED TO TAKE IAN BACK.”

  No “Hello.” No “Sorry I’ve been
making you all worry about me.” No greeting whatsoever. Just a phone call at two in the morning and an announcement.

  “Connie! Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  She sighed with impatience. “I’ve decided,” she said slowly, “to take Ian back.”

  “That’s…great.” I struggled to sit up. Josh had talked me into an elaborately comfortable position involving four pillows when I’d called him earlier, and it was a little hard to extricate myself while dealing with what apparently was not a nervous breakdown from Connie.

  “You sound great,” I told her.

  “I’ve decided to interpret the entire wedding episode as an endearing attempt to please me. When you think about it, it was actually quite sweet of him to go to all that bother.”

  Well, yes, in a pathological kind of way.

  “And now that I’ve adjusted my perspective,” she went on, “there’s no reason why we can’t make a fresh start.”

  “Uh-huh,” I agreed in what I hoped might pass as a supportive-friend tone. “Of course. Connie, where are you?”

  “Home.”

  “I mean…”

  “Home as in my home with Ian. Although you wouldn’t recognize the place. Honestly, a few weeks on his own and he’s living like a bachelor again. Would you believe I found a pizza box in the living room? And it wasn’t even empty.”

  “Is Ian there now?” Because she probably wasn’t going to win him back with comments like that. But where else would he be at midnight?

  “He’s in China.”

  “China?”

  She sniffed. “On business.”

  I got a very bad feeling. “Connie.” I wasn’t quite sure how to phrase the question. “Does Ian know you’ve taken him back?”