by Petrova, Em
One of the cheerleaders, a Bambi or something close to that, made me an offer for later. I said sure but didn’t mean it, then had to fight my way through the crowd to reach my seat.
Instead of two empties next to me, there was only one.
She was sitting there, looking around expectantly, nervously. And my gut went into spasms. I nearly turned and bolted in the other direction but manned up and approached just as the bell rang and the players flooded onto the court.
I sank next to her and asked the first thing that came into my head.
“What are you doing here?”
Chapter Eight
Tay
Tip-off.
Carson goes for the easy layup, rimmed and out.
Crappy ball handling.
Hopefully they’re just still warming up…
It looked to be a long night, otherwise.
The Neanderthal in jeans and trainers and a faded turtleneck still sat half-turned, one eye on the action, the other on me. Waiting for an answer to his question: what are you doing here?
Up until he’d plopped down like a petulant toddler pissed off because somebody invaded his personal space, I’d been tickled pink to get the pass from Cordie.
“Robbie gave us game tickets, dearest, but David has other obligations for tonight. And you know me … basketball? Really?” And my best friend laughed and tucked the slivers of cardboard into my satchel, along with the envelope and debit card that were my get out of jail free passes should ‘life interfere’.
Had there been a teleportation device in that goody bag, I’d have used it to go drown myself in the East River.
Asshat.
The fan next to me screeched something rude. No surprise there. She wasn’t known for her demure manners when not in front of the camera. Blondie’d have been the perfect companion for Robert van Horn: nasty, foul-mouthed, insensitive, and, in short, a prick. I was tempted to ask the celebrity deb to switch seats but cringed at the invective that might rain down on me for not knowing my place.
What was my place, anyway?
Oh wait … let me guess.
Sitting, shattered into a million bazillion teensy emotional bits, watching a team that couldn’t buy a basket, and wishing I’d never met the man reaching tentatively for my hand, the hand clutching the satchel to my flat bosom like a wizened old street lady.
Blondie bounced once, twice, and hipped me closer to Rob-the-Rat, jostling my hold on my belongings and allowing the slick fabrics to do what they did best: let everything flow downhill.
When my bag hit the floor, I did what every woman does: clenched my thighs so tight that nothing and no one was invading the triangle of protection with my vagina at the apex and my size tens double-teaming all I owned in the world.
When things go slo-mo, that usually means I’m in the zone … or I’m in trouble. It looked like door number two as the double D’s careened against my elbow, Miz Survival Celebrity’s gifts braced muscle to silicone. Rob leaned around me from the other side, creating a Taylor O’Brien sandwich, and I had the premonition that what he was after wasn’t any of my body parts.
Even I wondered what would happen if he tweaked the prominent nipple stressing the bad girl’s tube top.
A groan from the crowd signaled a time-out while the coach and his assistants vied for the honor of disemboweling the showboater wreaking havoc on the court. And not in a good way.
Rob deserted me in favor of penetrating the seven foot wall of bodies, using the sports drink jockey to carve a path toward the coaches. Then, faster than I could think grab your bag and run, the chime sounded and the barricade of bodies split in all directions at once.
With a seat bounce, I disengaged from full body contact with the chickadee next to me, opening that spot for Rob to enjoy her special fruits and leaving me to wallow in despair and count the minutes until I could make my getaway.
Cordie’s little brother surprised me. He didn’t take the opening, instead he claimed the empty seat to my left. It was a deliberate move. I knew that because he paused and stared from Blondie to the seat, to me and back again.
His mouth did that odd uptick, giving him a naughty, devilish look, as if he knew all my dirty little secrets.
Leaning down, he stroked an errant bit of hair off my cheek and swiped it behind my left ear.
Mouthing, “Thanks,” he settled, face forward this time, but his right hand still crept across my thigh to where I clenched the inseam with righteous fervor, opening a slight gap in my legs, enough for him to curl his hand over top of mine.
Drowning myself would be superfluous. Instead I was going to pass out from all my blood rushing to where he pressured my palm into my own flesh, an act that was so far from erotic I’d have labeled it painful torture except for the sting of skin gone aware: of him breathing, of his heat, and the nearly overwhelming sense of surrender he requested.
Then demanded.
And, just like that, it was gone again. In its place was a footlong dog with mustard and onions and chili that he pressed into my palm, leaving me to jostle napkins and a cardboard holder to keep the mess from landing in my lap.
Clearly I was out of practice.
Rob wrinkled his nose but accepted the light beers and nailed them in place between his thighs. Sighing with satisfaction, his head swiveled, following the action, while sucking down chunks of New York City’s finest cuisine.
In another life, my mom taught me how to eat like a lady, lessons I’d filed away for future use. This wasn’t one of those times. Being courtside was akin to participating in a full body contact sport, what with the pushing and shoving and fans doing whatever they do when they aren’t happy.
The hot dog was as close to heaven as I was going to get. I chowed down, licked my fingers, swiped at my lips and then made a dive at Rob’s chin when the contents in his mouth spewed out in riotous glory as he yelled obscenities, cobbled together in new and very creative ways.
The handful of napkins was barely adequate for the monumental mop up task on his mouth and chin. The seriously dense five o’clock shadow looked to require a sander and a roll of paper towels to make a dent in the mess. First things first: I relieved him of the beers, setting them on the floor out of harm’s way. There wasn’t much left since he’d chugged his and started on mine, but there was still enough liquid remaining to threaten me with the prospect of hauling his sorry butt off to the Laundromat after the game.
Popping up and down like a cork on steroids, he didn’t make the cleanup job any easier. When the buzzer sent the troops scurrying for the locker room for half time, the man simply up and ran off, following the throng and abandoning me to a wad of greasy chili and a gut full of confusion.
I knew he was a sports journalist and that the odds were good he was covering the game. But that little fact still hadn’t prepared me for the man’s total immersion in the process, something that piqued a wee green-eyed jealousy, that he could be such a part of the game, leaving me clearly on the sidelines with no stakes in the proceedings.
As my dad used to say, you ain’t got a horse in that race, girl.
My studies, my cousin Sam’s faith in me, Cordie and the Fink’s generosity assuring me that I got a fresh start and a shot at following my dream … even with all of that going for me, it didn’t add up to palming the knubby surface of a basketball, sweaty, straining, shoving my way through a web of bone and sinew, going one-on-one as I lobbed a breakaway from under the net…
Nothing, absolutely nothing came close.
One of the team lackeys, a cute kid with stars in his eyes, came by with a garbage can so I did a quick sweep of my area and gave him a nod of thanks. Blondie trundled up the steps, probably in search of the ladies room which would be packed. I had a better option.
Gathering my satchel, I wound my way through the milling crowds and ducked out the same exit the team had used. There was a ladies room off to the left so I followed my nose and eased into the relative peace and quiet of the small space. With
relief I scrubbed the remains of Rob’s meal off my hands and tidied the braids that were showing signs of wear and tear. I wasn’t looking forward to dismantling the work of art, but my scalp cried out for a good scrubbing and the muscles around my eyes had that botox’d appearance, the thin skin yanked smooth and glassy.
Mom’s genes had graced me with deepset eyes and sharp cheekbones while Pop had ponyed up an aquiline nose and thin lips. I could pass for white, though I seldom felt the need. I was what I was.
With a sigh and a last glance at my reflection, I did the quick debate: stay or go?
Cordie had warned me about her brother, that he was all about the job, making up for rookie mistakes and miscues with an aggressive, domineering style that earned him respect among his peers, and no small amount of interest from the sports celebrities he interviewed or skewered when he saw fit.
And he seemed part of a dying breed of men with a nose for news and the smarts and determination to ferret out the truth, even when the truth hurt.
“He comes over like a dumb jock, sometimes, but he isn’t. Trust me, Tay. He’s got his eye on the prize.”
“What if he recognizes me…?”
“Not to worry, dearest, there’s no story unless you say there’s a story.”
So he likely wouldn’t miss me. In fact, he probably wouldn’t even return to the seat when the second half started.
Why was that like a kick in the gut?
It had been a lot of years since I plied my way around the underbelly of the Garden. Hiking my bag onto my shoulder, I trudged with slow, faltering steps toward what I thought might be an exit onto Seventh Avenue, ignoring passing security guards and maintenance workers scurrying to attend to their duties.
The thought of finding my way home burdened with my new windfall brought me up short. One reason I’d said yes to taking the ticket was the niggling hope that Rob might volunteer to take me home again, depositing me on my doorstep so I didn’t have to confront the perils of what waited on the streets in the dark.
Pausing to lean against the tiled wall, I never heard him approach.
“Hey. Where are you going?”
He wore that accusatory look that guys get when their plus-one opts to duck and run rather than spend another minute being ignored or treated like an intruder.
What are you doing here?
At the risk of insulting Cordie, I decided on the white lie. “I’m, uh, not feeling too great. Thought it best to go home,” going for whiny and pathetic and hunching my shoulders in an effort to make myself smaller.
He wasn’t buying it.
With a glare, he spat out, “Wait here,” but reconsidered and started over, “…no, follow me.”
I meant to say I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me, love to Cordie, but instead I skimmed over the other option, why, and went directly with, “Where to?”
“I need to get my stuff.” He was already hauling ass, his and mine, with a death grip on my forearm, back in the direction I’d just come from.
From the anticipated ‘fine, see you, hope you feel better’, the man went in a totally different direction, velcroing me to his side and striding fast enough to get me huffing and puffing.
He pushing into a small room with lockers and extracted what looked like a laptop and some other items, including a leather jacket and a wool scarf.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
Seriously annoyed, he muttered, “What does it look like?” Shrugging into the jacket, he wrapped the scarf around his neck a couple times and once more yanked me into the hallway.
I objected with, “You can’t leave,” but clearly he could and intended to. “I don’t need you to see me out.” Out, as in out of the Garden, reserving in that little well of hope-springs-eternal a prayer that ‘out’ wasn’t out-of-his-life because from the scowl on his face, that’s exactly what it looked like.
Ignoring me, he shoved me unceremoniously through an exit and into anther maze of tunnels and rooms that had me totally turned around in no time. We finally came to an emergency exit where he stopped and pointed, indicating I should leave.
Mumbling, “I’m sorry,” I walked with my head down, fighting tears.
“Wait, what?”
“I said, I’m sorry.” My feet grew roots and my brain went girly, turning to mush, so I spewed, “I didn’t mean to … to interfere in your…”
His what? His job? His life? His shot at a cheerleader and a warm body for the night?
It was a train wreck, with me the only passenger.
“Cordie asked if I wanted to go, ’cause she said David had a thing th-this evening,” and I got to gulping air which was never a good look on me but once started ole number eighty-seven wasn’t shutting up for hell or high water. “I can’t go anymore, being broke ’n all, and I like, I like, I…”
I don’t recall him setting his laptop down, or pulling the straps off my shoulder and pinning me against the wall with his hands on either side of my head, so close I imagined his thumbs stroking the lobes and his tongue following the tendon in my neck that was stretched to the point of pain.
Time stopped, my heart stopped, but my mouth kept going. “She thought it would be nice if we spent more time together.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Cordie never said that, but it was everywhere implied.
Leaning in, close enough to make it hard to pass that debit card between our bodies, I felt his knee nudge my thighs apart, gently right, left, right again. Tapping at the fleshy inner muscle until my wicked will caved and spread in a wanton harlot’s welcome.
Filling the space, he closed the distance to nothing, until the jacket’s cold metal buttons indented with cruel precision through the thin fabric of my jersey top.
Damn my pride, but I wanted him to back off and stop teasing me and to stop pressing his chest into mine with his face so close I saw double…
Double dimples, double dark scratchy stubble and a whisker soft full lower lip in an aggressive pout, double everything, including double trouble.
I said, “Ow,” somewhere in my throat and reached up to shove him away, but before I could brace against his chest, he pinioned both hands tight on the wall, in a vise-grip of all male dominance, locking my wrists and my resolve into a no man’s land of will she, won’t she.
She would, if only he’d say the magic words.
Brushing his tongue with exquisite gentleness across my own trembling lips, he whispered against the breath I finally exhaled, “Let’s get something to eat.” He handed me my bag and inquired if I had a coat.
Churlish and vaguely disappointed, I muttered, “Yeah,” and ached to follow with ‘then what’ but lacked the chutzpah for the truth, so I put on my coat and waited for him to make the next move.
He took my elbow and guided me outside, straight into a stream of foot traffic, neon lights and road noise.
At the corner, I asked, “Where to?”
“Let’s eat first, then we’ll see…”
Chapter Nine
Rob
The last thing I wanted was a crowded bar, rabid sports fans and televisions blaring out stats and scores and effing know-it-all commentary from effing talking heads. To say I was seriously pissed wasn’t even close, and I had yet to consider how it was going to feel when my editor flayed me alive and hung me from the tiled ceiling in the newsroom.
We’d curried favor for weeks to get that interview: me, the editorial staffers, even Jackson himself stepped in to make it happen. I was set to go on ESPN on Sunday morning, on a plum panel assignment with a few competitors, all of us disinclined to play nice with big talent and even bigger egos.
We all had livers ruined with rumors and late nights off the clock. And it was worth it. Most times.
Just not tonight.
The sonofabitch had held court, with the blessings of his agent and manager, right outside the locker room, giving a five minute sound bite to a group of rabid fans and late night newshounds that spilled everythin
g we’d hoped to mine in front of a canned audience.
One of the assistant program managers had stood, like me, slack-jawed and teetering on the edge of an aneurysm, muttering, “Fuck me,” and something about cancelling the show or slitting his wrists. Maybe both.
Then she, the one I was having trouble keeping my hands off for God only knew what reason, decided to up and leave without so much as a word.
Except … I found her and it pissed me off even more because she looked like I felt. Sad, alone, lost. And apologizing, like it was her fault or something.
Crap, I lost it. I would have taken her, then and there, but that wasn’t how it was gonna be, not with her.
Calm down van Horn, get your shit together and stop acting like some savage.
She asked ‘where to’…
My first choice was to get falling down drunk. And why not? I wasn’t going on any show, there wasn’t going to be another notch on my notebook with a journalistic coup. If I was lucky, very lucky, I’d just be demoted back to junior status.
The new suits had been all up in our collective faces about this score. It’d been my baby from the get-go. The fact the asshole had done an end run around the lot of us wasn’t removing the responsibility for losing what would be the story of the week.
My editor was a lot of things but supportive wasn’t one of them, not when retirement was years out in a business dying under the weight of too much competition and too few resources. Given a choice, him or me…
I’d do the same. But that thought didn’t make it sit any easier in my gut.
Where to?
Habit had led me to the door to a local mediocre watering hole with crap food and sticky floors.
Growling, “Not here,” I steered Taylor back toward 33rd and Eighth and a high end deli catering to the theater crowd and tourists with deep pockets and a taste for the exotic.
I liked my eateries on the grungy side, well-used and abused, with greasy food and lots of it. This Jewish deli wasn’t that. It was clean, bright and chromatic, with desserts displayed in a glass enclosed roundabout, and tasteful wood wainscoting between the walls of windows overlooking the endless stream of traffic.