by Nic Tatano
“I, uh, guess you two know each other.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Old boyfriend?”
“Dear God, no. One of my best friends tried to fix me up with him. He’s her cousin.”
“Oh.” Long pause. “You two don’t seem very … compatible.”
“Ya think?” I snapped. He backed up a bit. “Sorry, Scott, he just pushes my buttons.”
“I understand. I’ve had a few women in my life who did the same thing. Still want to go to lunch?”
“Absolutely. Just make sure it’s a place that serves liquor.”
***
I leaned back and let the sun warm my face. The casual outdoor café was a perfect choice: the weather was spectacular, too nice to be indoors. The light breeze made the white tablecloths flap gently. The place was packed, our table was right next to the sidewalk, an ornate black wrought-iron fence separated us from the pedestrians. The constant foot traffic made me feel more secure since my friends weren’t around to run interference for me.
Not that I felt I needed any.
Scott seemed to sense I needed to lighten up and had fired up his sense of humor big time after my altercation with Vincent: telling jokes, making me laugh, helping me focus my attention on the cats instead of myself. I still ordered a big glass of wine when we got to the restaurant and my blood pressure had taken a slow, comfortable trip down to a normal level.
Speaking of comfortable, I had that feeling about him as well. I mentally reviewed my instructions from my mentors.
-Only lunch. If he asks you to spend the day, go to a festival, whatever, you’re busy. Tell him you’d love to but you have plans.
-If he asks you out for the following weekend, be non-committal. Tell him you don’t know what your schedule will be because everything changes in the news business. Ask him to call you later in the week, then see if he actually does. Men who say they’ll call and do not is a red flag!
-Take mental notes for us, as we will review things with you Sunday afternoon while things are fresh in your mind.
All this was beginning to remind me of those over-protective parents who bubble-wrap their kids. But I understood they just wanted the best for me as our meals arrived. He went for bacon cheeseburger while I chose the spinach quiche. (I really wanted a burger as well, but I was now petrified of eating anything with my hands in public. And the stress from the altercation with Vincent would’ve made me tear into the thing like a grizzly ripping open a salmon.)
“You eat here a lot?” I asked, since he had picked the restaurant and it was my first time.
“About once a week. I live down the street. Since I work out of my house, it’s a nice place to meet clients. Food’s great and very reasonable.”
“I guess I haven’t asked you what you do for a living.”
“I haven’t asked you either.”
Ah, good sign. He really had no idea. “You first.”
“I’m an independent financial consultant. I know that sounds pretty vague, but I work with clients who need to maximize the assets of their companies. Help them cut the waste and figure out how to get more bang for the buck.”
“Sort of an efficiency expert?”
He shrugged. “In a roundabout sort of way. How about you?”
“Television reporter for Channel Six.” Most men were impressed by my job, and the reaction was always the same. Wide eyes, look of surprise. Wow, you’re on TV.
Not this time. “Oh, that sounds interesting. I don’t watch much television other than sports, so I’ve never seen you. Sorry.”
“No big deal. Lots of people are turned off by news these days. Too much death and destruction.”
“Are those the kinds of stories you do?”
“No, I’m an investigative reporter. It’s kind of old fashioned, and not many stations do it any more. But I like exposing corruption, righting wrongs.”
He smiled. “Well, then, you’re making the world a better place. I’ll have to tune in this week. What time do your stories run?”
“I’m generally live on the set for the five o’clock show, then they air the re-cut story at six.”
“Well, I’ll DVR the five, then. What are you working on now?”
“Just got a lead from Councilman Jagger. I can’t tell you much, but there’s something fishy going on with the books.”
“Isn’t there always with politicians?”
“True enough.”
“Sounds like you have a really interesting job, Belinda.”
“Yeah, I’m blessed in that I love my work. And it’s something different every single day.”
The conversation flowed easily, with no “dead air” as we call it in broadcasting. The topics ranged from work to cats to travel to movies. It turned out we both love science fiction, cruises, the Mets, pro football and driving with the top down through New England when the leaves change. I wished it were October instead of June, and looked forward to the breeze whipping through my hair instead of hitting the bun of steel like a wind shear.
There were no red flags. Non-smoker, only had one beer at lunch, never married (and I was wanting to assume there were no kids, but these days you never know). At one point our knees brushed under the table and I felt a definite rush of adrenaline.
I tried to keep myself from drooling over his burger as the quiche was tasty but not very filling. We split a piece of raspberry cheesecake (well, I ate most of it) as the clock approached two. I felt my pulse kick up a notch. Would he want to do something else this afternoon? Ask me out for the weekend? Simply say he’d see me next week when we could scoop litter boxes together?
I noted there was one piece of cheesecake left on the plate. He must have noticed me licking my lips, so he gently pushed the plate toward me. “Last bite’s yours,” he said.
“Well, if you twist my arm,” I said, as I swooped in with my fork to scoop up every last bit, then had to remind myself not to shovel it in. I savored the rich cheesecake and tart berries as he tossed his napkin on the table, waved to the waitress and mouthed the word “check.”
“So,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
Not having any idea where he was going, I kicked back in my own chair. “So,” I replied, smiling as I locked my eyes on his.
He exhaled deeply, then looked up at the sky. “This is probably a stupid question, but I suppose I have to ask it eventually.” He looked at me and leaned forward. “A girl like you has gotta be attached, right?”
***
“So,” said Serena, holding her ever-present yellow legal pad, “upon receipt of said invitation to a ballgame, your reply was … ”
“Exactly what you told me to say. That I worked in a very fluid business and there was no way to know what night I’d be free or if I was working this weekend.” I smiled as I leaned back in one of the teak Adirondack chairs on her patio. The breeze was strong on the twentieth floor of her building, but the traffic noise was negligible at that altitude. She took notes while Ariel walked across the gray slate and refilled everyone’s margaritas from a tall glass pitcher. Roxanne was leaning against the patio’s red-brick wall and I noticed her studying my face like never before. “What?”
“You got that starry-eyed look. Like a teenager in love for the first time. I got the fifties song playing in my head.”
“I just felt a connection with this guy. We have a lot in common.”
“Hmmm,” said Ariel. “Let me guess, every time you said you liked something, he agreed?”
I nodded. Big smile. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
Serena shook her head as she put her pad down on an end table. “Oh, shit. It’s the Celine Dion scenario.”
“I was afraid she might run into that,” said Ariel. “We should have gone over it with her in our previous lessons.”
“What the hell are you guys talking about?” I asked.
“When a man first meets you he’ll agree with everything you say, and like everything you do,” said Ariel. “It�
��s his way of getting closer to you, even if he is lying through his teeth.”
“Okay,” I said. “So how does Celine Dion figure into this?”
“Well,” said Roxanne, “most men would rather get a hot needle through the eye than sit through one of her concerts. But if yesterday you had said that you liked Celine Dion, he would have agreed, just to make you think you have everything in common.”
“So you’re saying he’s lying about all the things he likes?” I asked.
“Not necessarily,” said Serena, “but it’s likely that at least some of the things you find appealing actually make him physically ill. Was he specific about anything, like his supposed interest in sci-fi?”
“Not really. He said he loved it since he was a kid.”
“So ask him a Star Trek question,” said Ariel. “You’ve been to enough conventions to determine if he’s a Trekkie or not.”
“Trekker. We do not approve of the term Trekkie.” All three shook their heads. “And why are you guys raining on my parade? I finally meet a nice guy who’s polite and cute with no red flags—”
“No apparent red flags,” said Roxanne. “You traded in your glasses for rose-colored contacts.”
“You haven’t even met him yet! And you’re all finding things wrong with him before we even go out!” I playfully thrust out my lower lip into a pout. “Bunch of big meanies.”
Ariel walked over, crouched down and wrapped one arm around my shoulder. “We’re just being careful, Wing Girl. You don’t want to get hurt and then have to get Roxanne to go over to his apartment and kick his ass, do you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
Serena reached over and patted my hand. “You’re too precious to us. Besides, we’ll find out if he’s for real when we meet him Saturday night before you go out. If he gets our seal of approval, you’re good to go.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Remember, we haven’t met this guy yet,” said Serena. “We still have peremptory strikes, just like when I pick a jury. Except in this case our strikes are unlimited.”
“So you guys seriously want to check him out before we go out on a date?”
“Yes,” they all said at once.
“And do I have any say in this at all?”
“No.” Another stereo response.
“Look,” said Serena, “just tell him to join us for cocktail hour before the game. We’ll use the Will and Vincent codes, and then off to the game you go.”
“Why don’t you just come with us?” I said sarcastically, then turned to Serena. “Maybe you can borrow a polygraph from the DA’s office and interrogate him about Captain Kirk.”
“We’re rooting for you, really,” said Ariel. “And I must say I do like the choice of a baseball game for a first date. It’s casual, out in the open, and it’s not like he’ll be expecting anything as he might after taking you to an expensive candlelight dinner.”
“Yeah, what a romantic evening,” said Roxanne. “A subway ride on the number seven train to Flushing. Every woman’s dream.”
CHAPTER TEN
So thanks to the discussion of the Celine Dion scenario that damn annoying song from Titanic was stuck in my head (just what I needed in the newsroom on a Monday morning), and it brought back memories of the night in the theater when I yelled “Just sink the damn boat!” about three hours into the endless movie. I got applause from all the men in the theater, in case you were wondering about the reaction.
Usually I brought my work home with me on the weekends, but since my extreme makeover was now like a second job, I resisted the temptation to check out what Councilman Jagger had given me. But now I was back on the clock and the zip drive was in my trusty laptop, which was never connected to the Internet, since I had no desire to be hacked by the competition. Or any of the other reporters in our newsroom, many of whom would steal a story in a heartbeat. Sad that we work in a business where we ask the public to trust us while we throw complete sets of cutlery at co-workers behind the scenes. And I hate to say this about my own kind, but the females of the species are the worst. Harry says “women will eat their young” for a chance at the anchor desk, and it was proven true the last time we had an opening.
Anyway, my eyes were glazed over at the seemingly endless pages of numbers on the screen when a body slid onto the corner of my desk.
Harry.
He gently placed a large Cadbury chocolate bar in front of my laptop and my eyes lit up. This was Harry’s form of an apology, as he knows I’m a chocoholic and Cadbury is my brand of choice. It’s nice that he’s old school as a man as well as a journalist, knowing flowers and/or candy are the old standby when you’ve pissed off a woman, since he’s done it a lot. Not that it’s helped through his four marriages, since unfortunately he hasn’t mastered the art of knowing when he’s pissed off a woman.
“I wasn’t mad at you,” I said, grabbing the bar and unwrapping it. “But I’ll take it. Thanks, Dad.”
“Jenna gave me a little lecture on the care and feeding of women who change their appearance.”
“That why you’ve been divorced four times?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never been good at lying. My last wife asked me if her jeans made her ass look fat, and I said, ‘No, your fat ass makes your ass look fat.’“
“Ouch.” I broke off the corner of the bar and popped the chocolate, savoring the smooth cocoa that ran down my throat.
“Wife number three threw a lamp at me when she changed her hair and got this God-awful perm. She looked like a friggin’ poodle.”
“What did you say that time?”
“You paid for that?”
I leaned back in my chair and smiled at him. “Glad to know I’m not the only one in the room with no social skills.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Cupcake. I meant as a reporter you have to be—”
“Actually, you were spot-on, Harry. I really never learned to be a girl.”
“Well, you sure as hell look like one now.” He reached over, stole some of the chocolate and looked at my laptop screen. “This what Jagger gave you?” He bit off a piece of chocolate.
I nodded. “Might as well be hieroglyphics. I’m gonna need help deciphering all this.”
“If that’s the case, you know who to call.”
The color drained out of my face as I broke out in a cold sweat. A bale of cotton instantly filled my mouth as I sat up straight. It was the only person in the world I truly feared. I shook my head. “No, Harry. Please don’t make me.”
“You know if there’s something fishy in those books she’ll find it.”
I grabbed my old-fashioned Rolodex and started frantically spinning it. “I’ll find someone else. I know plenty of people—”
“Not as thorough as her.”
I spotted a business card that might help, pulled it out and held it up in front of him. “How about my friend at the SEC?”
Harry shook his head and stood up. “Suck it up, Cupcake, and walk down the hall.”
My heart rate kicked up and I knew it wouldn’t slow down until I got it over with.
I was off to see the Inhuman Resources troll.
***
The Inhuman Resources troll is ironically named Glenda. I say ironically because she’s anything but the good witch.
I’m not sure who first called her a troll, but she looked the part. The woman wouldn’t even need a Halloween mask with that hooked nose. About five feet high and wide, Glenda wore a permanent scowl on her forty-year-old round face, which was accented with a hairy mole on her chin. Her beady dark eyes glared at you from under the bushy unibrow. She was currently dressed in the summer dowdy collection, featuring a bulky black sweater buttoned up to her many chins. Her office was a ten-by-ten windowless room with bare white walls and no pictures on her desk. And it was always freezing in there.
The photographers in the newsroom despised her. Frank said she lived under a bridge near a toll booth on the Garden State Parkway and reached
up to snatch small children while their parents were looking for change. Steve contended she had little red circles all over her body from where men had touched her with ten-foot poles.
I gently tapped on the open door to her office, standing rigid like a kid summoned to the principal’s office. She looked up from her paper-covered desk, and I wondered if she heard my heart slamming against my chest.
“I thought you’d be here sooner,” she said, in a heavy German accent that sounds like a female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s only inevitable after you changed your … look.” She leaned over her desk and pulled a form from a bin marked “sexual harassment”. “Come and fill these out—”
“I’m not here to file a complaint.”
She frowned, looked disappointed. “If you don’t it will keep happening.”
“No one’s harassing me.” I slowly tiptoed into her office, nearly knocked over by the scent of her cheap perfume in which she had obviously bathed. “I was wondering if I could borrow your attention to detail skills to help me on a story.”
She furrowed her unibrow. “You want my help on a story?”
God, it was hard to breathe. It was like a damn potpourri factory exploded in there. “I’m working on a piece about a government agency possibly cooking the books. And I know your expertise on finding accounting errors is unsurpassed.”
“I’m pretty busy.”
Oooh! I’ve got an out! “That’s okay. I can take it to someone else.” I spun around and headed for the door.
“I’m busy, but I can find time to take a look.”
I turned back to face her. “Really, I don’t want to burden you—”
She put out her hand, palm up. “Give me what you’ve got.”
I handed her a copy of the zip drive and filled her in on the story. “I appreciate your help on this.”
She nodded. “Is this story for today?”
“No, I’m just beginning to research it. Might be weeks or even months.”
“Okay. I’ll look at it and get back to you by the middle of next week.”
“Thanks, that will be fine,” I said. I turned and headed out the door, breathing in the fresh air of the hallway and thinking I needed a big glass of wine even though it was ten in the morning.