Just This Once

by Judith Arnold

  “Keep your job? Is your job in danger?”

  Loretta shrugged. “Probably. They’ve warned us they might have to lay off someone from the production staff. I don’t know whether they mean it or they’re just making threats to keep us on our toes. But a show with Solly and his lovers—I’d be golden. They’d never fire me if I could put it together.”

  “If you lost your job, would you find work at a similar type of show?”

  “If I lost my job, I’d grab anything that paid a living wage and allowed me to stay dressed while I worked. I’m not the most employable person in the world, Josh. I kind of stumbled into this job. But I really like it—and I’m good at it. If they fire me…I’d be seriously pissed.”

  A lock of her hair slid forward, nearly dipping into her pizza, which she held just below her chin. He brushed the strands away, tucked them behind her ear and leaned back. “I bet you could talk your way into a lot of other jobs. You’re very persuasive.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Look what you’ve talked me into. Twice.”

  “That’s because you’re too easy.”

  “I’m very hard,” he argued, squaring his shoulders and deepening his voice.

  “Admit it. You’re a pushover.” She tossed the remains of her pizza into the trashcan beside their bench and gave him a challenging look. “I can’t talk my family into anything, but I can talk you into two things. That must mean something.”

  He rose, aware that she was daring him but not sure why—or why he was so eager to rise to the dare. “Maybe you caught me at a weak moment.”

  “Two weak moments.”

  “First you call me easy, and now you call me weak?” He told himself not to take her taunts seriously, but she was pushing buttons. And like an idiot—like a man, he supposed—he was responding exactly the way she wanted him to. He was easy and weak, at least when it came to Loretta.

  “Now, Josh,” she murmured, giving him a conciliatory grin. “All I said was—”

  “Weak,” he concluded. “You called me weak.”

  She must have sensed his manly pride rearing up, building into a physical threat, because she let out a little laugh that sounded like a hiccup, lurched off the bench and started to run across the plaza.

  He chased her, passing an elderly couple licking ice-cream cones, passing a young couple pushing a stroller, passing a gaggle of ballet dancers emerging from the New York State Theater, their hair smoothly lacquered against their scalps and their toes pointing outward like penguins’ feet. She raced toward the fountain, but he easily caught up with her, grabbed her and hoisted her into the air. “Who are you calling weak?” he asked, dangling her over the gushing water of the fountain.

  “No! Don’t!” she shrieked, although she was laughing.

  “Don’t what?” Chlorine-scented water jetted skyward, cooling them with mist.

  “Don’t throw me in the fountain!” Clinging to his neck, she laughed even harder.

  “How could I throw you in the fountain?” He dangled her precariously above the water. “I’m so very, very weak.”

  He pretended to lose his grip on her, and she slipped down. “Josh! Josh, don’t! You’re not weak! I swear.”

  He began to laugh then, too. His heart was beating a little too hard—from the running, the teasing, from how freaking good she felt in his arms. Slowly, pretending great reluctance, he lowered her to her feet, safely beyond the fountain’s edge.

  “Okay,” she conceded, sounding out of breath. “I take it back. You’re not weak.”

  Yes, I am, he thought, gazing into her face, her cheeks flushed and glittering with drops of water, her eyes bright with laughter. He was strong enough to be able to lift her without the slightest strain, but he was weak enough to want more than her friendship. Friendship was all she’d ever agreed to give him, all he deserved under the circumstances, but he was weak enough to resent that he couldn’t have more.

  But she kept smiling, a warm, more-than-friendship smile, and he let himself revel in her nearness. Stray droplets rained down on them, and the rush of the water whispered around them, and Josh decided that lust and guilt did not mix well at all.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Oh, come on, Loretta—don’t you want to at least sleep with him?” Donna babbled through the phone.

  Loretta heard a click indicating that someone else was trying to call her, but she ignored it. “I really don’t want to sleep with him,” she told her cousin. “He’s attractive, but we’ve got a friendship going here. I don’t want to ruin it.”

  “Why would sleeping with him ruin it? Granted, sex ruins a lot of things…” Donna paused, and Loretta heard a sharp hissing sound through the wire. Evidently Donna was lighting a cigarette. “But come on. You watched the Fourth of July fireworks with him, right? That’s practically the same thing as getting naked with a guy.”

  “It is?” Loretta hadn’t known that. Josh had joined her and half the tenants of her building up on the roof to watch the city’s fireworks display. They’d had a couple of beers—she remembered that he liked Sam Adams, so she’d bought a six-pack—and one of her neighbors had brought some speakers up to the roof and blasted music to accompany the light show. Once the final pyrotechnics arced down through the sky in glittery threads of light, she and Josh had gone back downstairs to her apartment and split a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. It had been remarkably pleasant. A very friendly evening. Sex had never entered her mind.

  Well, almost. He was a good-looking guy, after all, and she knew from experience that he could kiss, but other than that… Really, they were friends.

  This friendship thing she had going with Josh was special. She had plenty of other friends, even male friends, like Bob. Like Josh, Bob had a girlfriend, the one with the political family in Washington. Maybe Loretta’s new role in life was to be the pal of guys who got their rocks off elsewhere.

  And that was all right with her. Romance meant messes like her near-miss wedding to Gary Mancuso, or her parents’ hysteria about her old-maid status, or Nicky driving her nuts about his friend Marty. She experienced none of those horrors with Josh. No pressure, no panic, no demands. Surely a night of sex wasn’t worth jeopardizing what she and Josh had.

  She heard the click again. “Someone’s trying to call you,” Donna noted.

  “Yeah, so they can try me later.”

  “No, that’s okay, I’ve got Andrew yanking on my leg. I’ve gotta get him into bed. But listen, Loretta, don’t be a prig. A little nookie, just for fun, never hurt anybody. I know this woman, I do her hair, blond highlights, a three-step process so it takes a while. Anyway, she decided she wanted to be a virgin when she got married. And there she was, twenty-five years old and still a virgin—I’ll be right with you, honey,” Donna said in a high, sweet voice, obviously to her son. “Go find Daddy. I’ll be right in… Anyway,” she resumed her normal voice, “so this woman was twenty-five and horny as hell, but she’d made a vow to God she was going to stay a virgin until she got married. And wouldn’t you know, she said yes to the first guy who asked her to marry him, just so she could lose her virginity already. It was a terrible reason to get married.”

  “I’m not a virgin,” Loretta reminded her.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “So, does that woman have any regrets?”

  “No regrets. She got married, lost her virginity and got a divorce. She was a redhead then. That might have had something to do with it.”

  “Probably,” Loretta said. She heard the click again. “Okay, I’m getting off. Give Andrew a big juicy one from me.” She tapped the button to disconnect her from Donna and connect her with her incoming call.

  “Hi, Loretta. It’s Josh.”

  She smiled and sank into the lumpy cushions of her sofa. She’d bought it at a Salvation Army outlet on Long Island, and Al had generously rented a van and hauled it, along with all the other Salvation Army furniture she’d purcha
sed, to her apartment. Her father had offered to help with the move, but she knew he’d be griping about backaches after lifting a few cushions, so she’d said no, thanks. Nicky hadn’t offered at all. He’d thought she was crazy remaining in Manhattan after her roommate had moved out and taken all the furniture with her. “You can’t afford that apartment on your own,” Nicky had scolded.

  “Actually, I can,” she’d told him, silently adding, barely.

  “You’re crazy. You should live out here with your family.”

  “Now that would be crazy,” she’d retorted.

  Thank God Al wasn’t quite as much of a busybody, and he liked to be a do-gooder, so he’d helped her move in her new furniture. She’d bought a slipcover for the couch, which made it look better than it felt, and she used a pretty circle of beige linen to cover the nicks and dings in the surface of the small dining table she’d bought. A Japanese screen blocked off the sleeping alcove, and her parents had bought her a TV for her birthday, back when she was twenty-seven and not yet in danger of dying an old maid. The rocking chair she’d found on the street, dragged home, cleaned and polished and piled with embroidered pillows. It looked perfect, nestled into the corner by a window. Unfortunately, it was the most uncomfortable chair she’d ever sat in, so she regarded it more as décor than actual furniture.

  If only the rocker were more comfortable, she’d be curled up in it right now. Instead, she curled up on her couch. And smiled. She and Josh talked to each other just about every night, sometimes for five minutes and sometimes for fifty. If pressed, she would have been unable to remember three-quarters of what they’d talked about. It didn’t matter.

  Today’s subject apparently mattered. “I’ve got news,” Josh reported. “First, Phyllis said she doesn’t care what her lawyer says, she wants to do the show.”

  “Great!” Phyllis’s lawyer had been opposed to her appearing on the Becky Blake Show, worried that she might say something that would come back to haunt her if she had to stand trial on the assault charges. But Loretta had met Phyllis, and she was stubborn and fierce. If Dora Lee was going to go on TV and say Phyllis had pushed her into traffic, Phyllis was determined to go on TV and claim that Dora Lee was a liar.

  “And my other news is, Dora Lee was released from the hospital and moved in with Solly.”

  “She’s living with him? That must’ve yanked Phyllis’s chain.”

  “Phyllis is on the warpath. Solly sent her flowers but she’s spitting fire.”

  “We’d better get this show in the can before that fire burns itself out,” Loretta said.

  “Loretta.” Josh’s tone held a warning. “You said this was going to be a gentle exploration of passion among older people. Spitting fire is not gentle.”

  “I know, I know. And the show will be gentle, I promise. But it’ll be more dramatic if Phyllis and Dora Lee are pumped.”

  “Dora Lee is never pumped.”

  That was probably true. Loretta had also met Dora Lee—at the hospital—and found her oddly detached, almost ethereal. Her flute-like voice didn’t match her bulky body, and she smiled even when a smile wasn’t appropriate. Loretta had chalked that up to painkillers, but Josh said that even when she wasn’t on a morphine drip, Dora Lee had a tenuousness about her.

  Becky wanted this show. Harold wanted this show. Loretta had the impression they’d want the show even if Phyllis were spitting ice instead of fire, if the entire show consisted of Solly explaining that he loved both women, if the show turned into one big group hug, if Phyllis and Dora Lee decided they didn’t need Solly and instead ran off together to the island of Lesbos. Harold and Becky would especially want that show.

  “If Dora Lee’s at Solly’s place, we can interview her there,” Loretta said. “Solly wouldn’t mind, would he?”

  “Solly’s up for it. God knows why. I sure don’t.”

  “News flash, Josh: you aren’t God,” she pointed out.

  Josh laughed. “So, when do you think you’ll do this?”

  “The sooner the better. Do you want to be there for the taping?”

  “If I’m going to be there, you’ll have to schedule the interview in the evening. I work during the day.”

  “All those poor, abused tenants you’ve got to save,” Loretta teased, although she thought Josh’s work was truly noble. So many people went into law for the money. He was idealistic enough to have gone into it to change the world, at least the world of abused tenants. “Tell me, Josh, does anyone ever use the word ‘lessee’ in speech? I’ve seen it in rental contracts, but it always makes me think, ‘Lessee…can I really afford this rent?’”

  Josh laughed again. She heard a gap in his laughter, almost a hiccup, and realized she had another call coming in. It wasn’t Donna—Loretta just gotten off the phone with her.

  “Are you still there?” The call waiting clicked again, creating an odd little gap in the middle of the word “still.”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” she assured him.

  “I heard a clicking noise.”

  “It’s the FBI. They wiretap my phone all the time,” she joked, then said, “I’ve got another call. Ignore it.”

  “What if it’s important?”

  “What if it’s someone calling me on their cell phone to tell me they’re somewhere between Westbury and Carle Place on the Long Island Railroad?”

  “Good point.” Josh laughed again. “So what should we do about Phyllis and Dora Lee? Should we set up a time for you to come to Solly’s apartment to tape interviews?”

  “I’ll have my people call your people,” Loretta said grandly. “Any chance we could get Phyllis to Solly’s apartment for her interview, too?”

  “I don’t think that would be a good plan. The last time Dora Lee and Phyllis were in the same place at the same time it led to bloodshed. Speaking of which, are you going to do something about Dora Lee’s chipped tooth?”

  “I’ve got to talk to my brothers,” Loretta answered. “Has Dora Lee seen a dentist in town yet?”

  “Not that I know of. I’ll check with Solly. He said he doesn’t think she has any dental insurance. I don’t know if Medicare covers something like this. That clicking is really getting annoying.”

  Loretta didn’t mention that he’d caused similar clicking during her phone conversation with Donna. “Do you want to hang on while I find out who’s calling?”

  “Sure.”

  She thumbed the button on her phone. “Hello?”

  “Loretta? It’s your mother.”

  She should have ignored it. “Mom, I’m on another call. Can I get back to you?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” her mother said. An exaggeration; Loretta hadn’t been on the phone that long. “We want you to come out to Long Island on Sunday. Dad is going to throw some steaks on the grill.”

  “Oh, I—”

  “The boys and their families will be there. We want you to come. It’s not your birthday, so you don’t have to worry about us reminding you how old you are.”

  “Wonderful,” Loretta muttered.

  “Nicky says he and Kathy are bringing a friend. We thought—”

  “Marty? They’re bringing Marty the dentist?” Loretta’s voice emerged in a near shriek. “I’m busy Sunday. I can’t make it.”

  “Loretta, be reasonable. He’s a friend of Nicky’s. If you wanted to bring a friend to our house, I wouldn’t object.”

  “Fine. I’ll be bringing a friend,” she said, thinking fast.

  Her mother hesitated. Evidently she hadn’t expected this. “What friend?”

  “Josh Kaplan. My blind date.” Please, Josh, be free on Sunday, Loretta prayed silently.

  “Your blind date? From the TV show?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was a nice looking boy. And—what was he, a banker?”

  “A lawyer.”

  “Right. I knew he wasn’t a dentist.” Faint disapproval tinged her mother’s voic
e. “I thought he was nothing special to you.”

  “He’s very special.” That much wasn’t a lie. “As a matter of fact, Mom, I’m on the phone with him now.”

  “Oh, so that explains why you weren’t answering your phone.”

  “Yeah, well, can I call you back, Mom? I don’t want to leave him hanging for such a long time.”

  “Of course. A lawyer. Well, I guess that’s something. If you’re bringing him to our house on Sunday, I’ll have to let Nicky know.”

  “Please do. I’ll call you back, Mom. Good-bye.” She disconnected before her mother could say anything more. Then she sucked in a deep breath, sent another prayer heavenward, and tapped the button on her phone. “Josh, you still there?”

  “I finished the Times crossword puzzle while I was waiting for you.”

  “I’m sorry. It was my mother. Listen, Josh, you’ve got to do me a huge favor.”

  “Shit.” She heard amusement in his voice. “If it has to do with the Becky Blake Show, I’m saying no.”

  “It doesn’t, so you’d better say yes.”

  “Shit,” he muttered again, this time through his laughter. “What?”

  “Come to my family’s house with me on Sunday. They’re hosting a barbecue.”

  “Oh.” He sounded surprised. “Why would that be such a huge favor? Are they going to be serving pickled pigs’ feet?”

  “No, but I think the goal of this get-together was to set me up with my brother Nicky’s friend Marty, the Italian Long Island dentist. I don’t want to be set up with him. So I told my mother I was bringing you.”

  Josh spoke slowly. “As a date?”

  “I didn’t exactly put it that way.”

  “But you left her with that impression.”

  She winced and dug her bare toes into the lumpy upholstery. “I know it’s a big favor, Josh. It’s just that they’ve been trying to cram this guy down my throat—well, that sounds obscene. They’ve been trying to introduce me to him, and I don’t want to be introduced. I don’t want to be treated like a desperate spinster that my family has to rustle up Italian Long Island dentists for. So I thought, if you came with me…kind of like my beard…”