by Julia London
“Shit,” Michael said.
“You’re on your own, pal,” Jack said. “I’m not getting in the middle between you and any of your female acquaintances. Marian! Pick up your feet and run!” he shouted at one woman who was strolling through the roped hopscotch.
Michael sighed and peered across the ropes field. Damn it if Leah and her three pals weren’t looking at him now. They burst out laughing when he made eye contact, then shot forward at once, their heads together, talking and clearly enjoying themselves.
Okay. No more playing around. Leah didn’t have to accept his apology—shit, she didn’t even have to hear it. But she had to believe this about him—his pride was at stake now.
He knew what he had to do.
At the end of the workday, Michael walked out to his car, rolling his eyes for every Bye, Double-Oh-Seven! and Where are you going, another Mission Impossible? HA HA. Everyone was a goddam comedian. He slid into his T-bird, stuck his Blackberry in the hands-free set, and dialed a number he hadn’t dialed in a couple of years.
Chapter Eight
LEAH made it all the way to the 405 before she pulled into a convenience store and pressed her forehead to her steering wheel, her eyes tightly shut. He looked so good, he sounded so good. And every time he looked at her, all she could think of was sex. The really fabulous sex she’d only experienced with Michael. No one else could do it like him.
This was really all so unbelievable—all the times she’d thought and dreamed about Michael, and now here he was, walking around, pretending he’d been some super-secret spy.
What really hurt is that during the day, she’d catch sight of him and see something as familiar as an old pair of pajamas, and her heart would swell, and she would find herself longing for those days.
But then she’d remember that he was trying to convince her that he had dumped her because he was a spy, of all the ridiculous, stupid things he might have said—and she smashed any feelings that were trying to rear their ugly heads like bugs.
She found little satisfaction in the fact that everyone was calling him James Bond and making really crude jokes about his Mini-Me.
It didn’t matter, because the bottom line was that whatever was going on with Michael, Leah was going to have to put their past solidly behind her. It was the only way she’d make it through two months of production with him. She had to make it. Last night, she had contemplated quitting— but she’d quit because of him before, and it had cost her a career. She had never recovered professionally from her meltdown, and she’d be damned before she’d let him take that from her again.
She lifted her head, pushed her hair from her eyes. “Still . . . it’s so weird,” she said aloud.
She got out, walked into the store, and got a soda. When she returned, she turned the key in the ignition. The engine made a strange chugging sound, then nothing. “Oh man,” she muttered, and got out to pop the hood.
BRAD arrived a couple of hours later in his VW van. That was one good thing about having him as a roommate—he did know a thing or two about cars. He had her up and running in about fifteen minutes, and Leah bought a six-pack and brought it home for him. They ended up on the back porch—which was actually a concrete slab in a postage stamp of a yard, surrounded by cinder-block walls. Her lopsided origami peacock joined them, complete with a smoke stuck in its beak, courtesy of Brad, who clearly had no appreciation for fine arts.
Brad had gotten a tiny part in an indie horror film, and was happy that, even though he’d play a spewing ghoul, his face would not be covered with a mask.
To celebrate, Brad put some chicken on a rusty barbeque pit. While the chicken grilled, he went over his lines with Leah, practicing the spewing ghoul part in the backyard until Leah was laughing so hard she could hardly stand up. They had just finished the last of the beer and the chicken when the phone rang. Brad answered and handed the phone to Leah.
“Who?” Leah mouthed.
Brad shrugged. “Some guy named Rex.”
Rex. Rex. She’d known a Rex in New York, Michael’s friend . . . wait just a damn minute. Not him, too.
Leah grabbed the phone from Brad and slipped inside through the patio door. “Hello?”
“Hey Leah Kleinschmidt, it’s Rex Anderson. Remember me?”
How could she forget Rex? He had a boat, and she and Michael used to hang out with him and his flavor-of-the-month girlfriend off Long Island on the weekends. “Of course I remember you!” she exclaimed. “How long has it been? Five or more years?” she asked, in spite of knowing full well just how long it had been.
“At least that long. So how’s it going out there in L.A.?” he asked jovially. “Do you miss Broadway?”
Leah slid into a chair at the scarred kitchen table. “A little. So I suppose you heard that from our pal Michael, huh?” she asked, unwilling to discuss the precipitous decline of her career since she’d last seen him. “I’m guessing you called to tell me that good ol’ Mike was a spy, right? And since it seems like all his friends were involved, I bet you were a spy too, huh?”
Rex chuckled. “You were always a firecracker. Mikey warned me you still were. Well here it is, doll—I did call to tell you that Michael was a spy, or as we like to call it, an operations officer. Me, too. Now the difference between me and him is that Mike isn’t a spy anymore. He left the agency, but I’m still with them. I’m in Langley now, and if you want to check that out, you can call the number I am going to give you. It’s the CIA, and when they answer, you will ask for me, and they’ll put you through.”
Leah snorted into the phone.
“Just try it,” Rex said with a laugh. “It’s true. Mike and I, we had some close calls in the field. And after a really close one, our cover was pretty well blown, so I came back home and took a desk job. But Mike, he thought the last one was just a little too close for comfort and decided to get out for good. That’s when he hooked up with Jack Price.”
“What sort of close calls?” Leah asked, squinting suspiciously at a front door desperately in need of paint.
“Now, Leah, those details would just bore you.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked, spying Brad’s laptop on a chair. She hoisted it onto the table and opened it, then punched the power button. “Just try me. I’m not the least bit bored. In fact, this is the most entertaining conversation I’ve had in a while. Oh wait, I stand corrected. The most entertaining conversation I’ve ever had was just yesterday, when Michael told me he was a spy. That was classic.”
“I wouldn’t kid you, Leah. I have no reason to. And I wouldn’t lie for him, either,” Rex avowed.
“So let me get this straight, Rex,” Leah said as she waited for the laptop to boot. “Do you seriously want me to believe that you and Michael were spies? International covert operatives? And those Sunday afternoons we were sailing on your boat, that you were playing a role?”
“No, of course not. On Sundays, we were pretty much who we were. Just a couple of guys having a good time with a couple of hot babes.”
“You mean me and your half-dozen hot babes,” Leah muttered as she Googled the CIA.
“Hey—I confess, I have issues,” he said with a laugh. “I still do.”
“You and your pal both, apparently.”
“I can’t speak for Mikey.”
Leah didn’t say anything—she was reading the mission of the Clandestine Service on the CIA Web site.
“You’re looking at the Web site, huh?” Rex asked.
That startled her, and Leah reared back, looked at the phone in her hand for a moment before putting it back up to her ear, then suddenly dipped down, looking under the table. “How did you know that?”
“Don’t freak out—there isn’t a camera anywhere. I heard the Windows music when you turned it on.”
Leah sat up and frowned. Was she honestly going to believe this? “So . . . so Michael asked you to call me and tell me that he was really a . . .” —she could hardly say it— “an operations officer or whatever you s
aid?”
“That’s exactly what I am telling you. Look, for whatever reason, it’s really important to him that you know the truth. Hell, I haven’t even heard from him in two years—I didn’t even know how to get hold of him. I’m glad he called, because there was some stuff I wanted to tell him, but the point is, you are important enough for him to come out of the closet, so to speak.”
For once, Leah was speechless. It was one thing for Michael to hand her some lame excuse, but quite another to rope in a couple of friends. “Okay,” she said, nodding. “If I believe you—and I’m not saying I do, but if I did—then what was the story in New York?”
“We’d been out of the country for a long time,” Rex said easily. “We got called back to New York to do some consulting. But after being out of the country for a couple of years, New York was like Disneyland. And then Mike met you. I don’t think he ever meant it to go so far.”
Leah’s gut clenched. That’s what Michael had said that night in New York. I am sorry, I should never have let it go this far.
“But girl, he had you under his skin, and apparently, he still does,” Rex was saying. “Unfortunately, at the time, there were some things he hadn’t quite finished, and he knew that it was going to break eventually. I guess it took a little longer than what any of us anticipated, but when it did, he had to book,” Rex explained.
“But he worked on Wall Street,” Leah argued.
“He said he did. But if you think about it, you only saw his office once. Every other time he met you in the lobby. Let’s just say he borrowed an office to show you one day, and that was all it took.”
Damn. If that was true, that was good—she’d only seen his office once, on a day his secretary . . . “But what about Donna, his secretary?” Leah demanded. “She answered the phone every time I called.”
“Calls were routed through Washington.”
“What about his boss?”
“Bill. He called every Sunday.”
“No, that was his dad.”
“No, that was his boss. Michael doesn’t have a dad. At least not one he knows about. He has no family—he was orphaned, grew up in foster homes, and it was his boss that called on Sundays.”
Leah obviously needed to go lie down because she really was beginning to believe the spy story. Not that she didn’t have some pretty strong doubts—somehow, a huge guy conspiracy was a lot easier to swallow than an outlandish tale of spies. But could Michael really talk two friends into going along with it?
She continued to chat it up with Rex, throwing him a couple of curve questions to catch him in a lie. Rex handled each one flawlessly.
She sat at the table a long time after she hung up, staring at the CIA Web site, trying to absorb this strange little twist in the history of her life. All right, so what if she did believe it? It didn’t really change anything . . . did it? Of course it didn’t change anything! It was just a curious and unusual turn of events in something that was really ancient history and had absolutely no effect on her now. No matter why he left, she could never forgive the way he left.
She just had to keep reminding herself of that.
Subject: Re: Spies and Other Stuff
From: Lucy Frederick
To: Leah Kleinschmidt
Time: 10:34 pm
Rex Anderson! Oh gawd, he was so CUTE! So you really think the spy thing might be true, huh? I guess it could be—if you think about it, there’s really no reason three grown men would lie about it, even if they are friends. And there’s nothing for M to gain from lying about it—it’s not like you’re going to get back with him. ROFLMAO!! You’re not, right?
Subject: Re: Re: Spies and Other Stuff
From: Leah Kleinschmidt
To: Lucy Frederick [email protected]>
Time: 7:48 pm
God, NO! He could get down on his knees and BEG and still there’d be no way I’d go back. Who cares, anyway? I mean, think about it, he’s telling me that he dumped me because he was a spy but he lied about being a spy. The obvious question is, what else did he lie about? Maybe the whole damn thing was a lie. Anyway, I do not want to go back there, I really honestly don’t, so please let’s not talk about it anymore.
So listen, the buttercup yellow dress you attached in your e-mail this morning? You know, the one you said was gold but was so yellow that it made me want a fried egg? If that was supposed to be a joke, I’m dying here . . .
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Spies and Other Stuff
From: Lucy Frederick
To: Leah Kleinschmidt
Time: 10:56 pm
Would you PLEASE adjust the color on your computer screen? That was gold! Sheesh!
Subject: Men of Mystery
From: Jack
To: Mikey
Time: 10:57 pm
Yo, we’ve got a problem. Nicole doesn’t want someone named Amy on her side and has apparently convinced the producers Amy should be moved, which means we have to retrain about four women. Can you show up at 8 tomorrow for that? Other than that, just wondering how the spy angle is working for ya.
Chapter Nine
WHEN Michael arrived the next morning, he was surprised to see Leah was one of the women switching battlefield positions. She and Jack were already going through some of the moves.
As she ran through a new obstacle course, Michael got Jack over to the side and asked, “Of the twenty women you had to move around, you had to choose her?”
“I had to,” Jack said, watching her closely. “She’s one of the best we have and easiest to retrain, and we have to get one of them trained on the rooftop-to-rooftop leap.” He glanced at Michael from the corner of his eye. “Don’t worry. I won’t let her hurt you.”
Michael snorted.
When it came time to do the rooftop-to-rooftop leap— which was really done with cranes and ropes and mirrors for the viewing audience at home—Michael moved to help Leah up.
She gave him a quick, thin smile. “That’s okay—I can do it.”
“It’s not as easy as it might look—”
“Really,” she said, cutting him off. “I can do it.” Michael raised his hands in the air and stepped back, and Leah scrambled up and away from him.
A moment later, she went tumbling off the tightrope, her fall stopped by a harness around her waist and legs. She hung there like a sack, bouncing up and down, her eyes as wide as saucers. Below her, several women had arrived at work and were peering up at her, asking each other what she was doing.
Michael strolled up to where she was bouncing; her head level with his, only upside down. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. It’s a little harder than it—”
“Shut up, Michael.”
He nodded. “Okay . . . but I think you should pull your shorts down. People are beginning to talk.”
She almost killed herself trying to do that, squealing and bouncing and twisting while the other women laughed.
Michael couldn’t possibly have been more entertained.
“Man,” Eli said, walking up to stand next to Michael as Leah bounced. “That really sucks.”
Michael nodded and smiled up at Leah, who gave him a murderous look.
“So we’ve got another small crisis,” Eli said as they watched Leah struggling with her shorts. “You know the gal who’s always got a problem?”
“Tamara?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, Tamara. She started this thing about how a particular rope fiber—which we just happen to be using—has been proven to cause skin rashes in some people, and the next thing you know, half the soccer moms are up in arms. Someone has an audition for a commercial and can’t allow her hands to have a rash, and another one said she is extremely sensitive to certain fibers. Lemme ask you,” Eli said, turning to face Michael for a moment. “Have you ever once in your life thought ab
out what kind of fiber is in anything? We will never transform these women into believable soldiers.”
“They aren’t supposed to be soldiers. They are supposed to be women who think they’re soldiers. They’re supposed to be a little clumsy.”
“A little?” Eli snorted. “We’re lucky nobody has died yet.”
“It’s all going to work out,” Michael tried to reassure him, but Eli stubbornly shook his head. “Give it a rest, Pollyanna.”
“Ex-cuse me, is someone going to help me down?” Leah shouted.
Eli sighed and climbed up to untangle her safety ropes. Michael caught her when she came down. She landed a little shakily, grabbing Michael’s arm to right herself. But then she smiled up at Eli, one of those beautiful, nut-cinching smiles that only Leah could summon, and she laughed, and her hands were suddenly moving, pointing at the rope ladder and the cranes with both hands as she explained how she had fallen.
That was something Michael had always admired about her—she had that ability to shake off anything . . . or at least he was sincerely hoping she still had it.
After the guys got her out of the harness, Leah trotted over to the awning. Michael followed her.
She obviously didn’t notice him—she bent over a cooler, fished out a bottle of water, then stood up and did a weird little backward hop when she saw him. “Oh, hey,” she said.
“Are you all right?”
“Me? Sure,” she said, nodding a little too enthusiastically.
Michael couldn’t help it—he kept seeing her bouncing on the end of the harness and laughed.
She continued to drink her water for a moment, then lowered it and said, “What?”