by Wendy Wax
More like a Dear Abby, then, with Gloria Steinem tendencies? Though that description came a lot closer to the mark, Olivia didn’t come out and say so. Between bites, she bobbed and weaved, trying to duck both the pigeonholes and pitfalls. And all the time, she thought about the decision T.J. would be making.
She was waiting for the question about how Tampa, the city where Liv Live had been born, compared to Atlanta, when the tone of the interview began to change.
They’d just finished their Caesar salads, and she was in the middle of dipping a hunk of crusty Italian bread in seasoned olive oil, when her companion brought up the one name guaranteed to kill her appetite.
“Atlanta Leisure named your colleague, Matt Ransom, Bachelor of the Year again this morning. As a therapist, what do you think makes him so appealing to women?”
He stared at her expectantly, his sheep’s clothing beginning to slip, but Olivia was busy sorting through her real feelings for a socially acceptable response.
“Well,” she hedged, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my listeners, it’s that there’s no accounting for what women find attractive in men.”
“So, you don’t find the host of Guy Talk attractive?”
Unfortunately, only a blind woman could get away with calling Matt Ransom unattractive. Olivia tried not to squirm as her brain reached into its memory banks to replay her first glimpse of Matt years ago at WZNA. Then, as now, he was movie star handsome. In fact, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor George Clooney. Though taller and broader, Ransom possessed the same close-cropped dark hair going gray at the temples, the same brown eyes under thick dark brows, and the same sort of perfectly chiseled features over a square-cut jaw.
Personally, Olivia found him too good-looking, too argumentative, too egotistical . . . too . . . everything. Eight years ago in Chicago he’d ground every one of her romantic illusions into dust, but this hardly seemed the time or place to say so. “I didn’t say that.”
“Do you think he deserves the title ‘Bachelor of the Year’?”
Olivia took a sip of water and swallowed. Matt Ransom was thirty-six going on twenty and wouldn’t recognize a committed relationship if it bit him on the . . .
Olivia looked up, caught the feral gleam in the reporter’s eye, and knew how Little Red Riding Hood must have felt.
“I honestly can’t think of anyone who deserves the title more. Mr. Ransom brings a whole new meaning to the definition of bachelorhood.”
“And the sniping on air and in interviews? What’s the problem with you two?”
She cocked her head and squinted at the reporter. You mean, besides the fact that I’m a trained therapist dealing with interpersonal issues that impact my listeners’ lives, and he’s a seat-of-the-pants rabble-rouser who explores burning issues like why women can’t fathom football?
Or how about the fact that working with him again dredges up memories I’ve spent eight years trying to bury, and today I found out that one of us is about to knock the other off WTLK?
Olivia managed a smile. “Just a little on-air hijinks. Mr. Ransom’s show draws a large male audience; mine is predominantly female. Sometimes there’s some . . . banter. It doesn’t mean anything.”
The reporter grinned and gleefully shed the last stitch of sheep’s clothing. “So you weren’t bothered by the article in which he referred to you as”—the wolf actually looked down to check his notes—“ ‘an insurgent in the war between the sexes’?”
Olivia slipped a last crust of bread into her mouth and tried not to choke on it. She chewed carefully for a moment before speaking. “Well, I was somewhat surprised that Ransom acknowledged there was a war on when his side is losing so badly. I’m even more surprised that a man who admits to frequenting bars named after female body parts knows what the word ‘insurgent’ means.”
“But you’re not upset that the host of Guy Talk named you Killjoy of the Year? Or that a good twenty minutes of his show last night featured callers laying odds on how long it’s been since you last had sex?”
Olivia felt her jaw drop at this latest affront. She covered by dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin and reminding herself that some questions didn’t deserve answers. Since signing on at WTLK ten months ago, she’d been very careful to keep her interaction with Matt purely professional, but the Bachelor of the Year obviously felt no such compunction.
“Do you have a rebuttal for Mr. Ransom or his listeners?”
Olivia continued chewing her food carefully and forced herself to think. Not too long ago, a reporter had asked her to sum up a woman’s greatest obstacle to happiness in five words or less, and she’d made headlines by doing it in one. “Men,” she’d said.
Then she’d rethought her answer and added the word “sex.” Those two subjects, and her willingness to tackle them on the air, had sent her ratings soaring.
Olivia had no intention of being railroaded into making a remark she’d regret. Nor did she intend to let Matt Ransom destroy her again—personally or professionally. If she kept her head, she could come out of this interview with her dignity intact and maybe even an advantage in the coming battle.
“No comment, Dr. Moore?”
Olivia set her napkin on the table and pushed her plate gently away. She met the wolf’s eyes and raised a queenly eyebrow in return, speaking clearly and calmly for the benefit of the small tape recorder sitting on the table between them.
“While I have great respect for Mr. Ransom’s show— what little I’ve heard of it—if he ever decides to tackle weightier subjects like real life and relationships, I might be able to help him out.”
The wolf’s fangs disappeared into a pleased smile. He stopped eating, picked up his notepad, and started scribbling.
Olivia knew when to make an exit. Slipping her purse over her shoulder, she thanked her host for lunch, slid her chair back from the table, and stood. Pausing with her hands on the back of the chair, she nodded toward the notebook and tape recorder and flashed her best smile. “I do hope you’ll feel free to quote me on that.”
“This is Guy Talk, where a guy can be a guy. And it’s 11 P.M. on a Freefall Friday, which means no topic and no rules. Give me a call at 1-555-GUY-TALK. I always have an opinion. It’s a guy thing.”
Switching his microphone off, Matt Ransom leaned back in his chair, put his long legs up on the table in front of him, and clasped his hands behind his head to wait out the five-minute commercial break. With just an hour to go before midnight, the station was close to empty, which made it just the way he liked it.
Two minutes later, he tossed a Nerf ball at the basketball hoop duct-taped to the wall and smiled when it swished through. He shot the next one left-handed, the one after that with his eyes closed.
Satisfied, he reached for the mug of lukewarm coffee more from force of habit than from a need for caffeine. He was a night owl, always had been, and preferred working late, when things were looser and less structured.
At one minute until air, he made a few notes about a topic for next Monday’s show and let his thoughts wander to the previous night’s program. He’d begun by posing the question, “Why can’t men and women share a TV remote?” planning to segue into a discussion of the elemental differences between males and females, a topic custom-made for his particular brand of humor.
Instead, the show had digressed into a trashing of couples’ counseling, which had led to another caller’s caustic evaluation of therapy in general, which had ultimately led to the topic of WTLK’s very own Dr. Olivia Moore.
Even he, who normally had no problem following the flow, had been a little surprised at how quickly her name had come up and how strongly his callers, mostly male, felt about her. In loud voices they objected to her pro-female stance and the male bashing that often accompanied it, but they couldn’t seem to stop talking about her.
He was fairly certain he wasn’t the one responsible for bringing up Olivia’s sex life, or the imagined lack of one. But o
nce the subject was raised, he’d had a devil of a time getting off it. He winced as he remembered the jokes and innuendo.
Almost as bad as his callers’ fixation with the earnest Dr. Moore was the way they kept trying to get him to rehash and counter her advice. Hell, even if he had the least bit of respect for or belief in counseling, he had no interest in providing it to his listeners. He was in the entertainment business, and his show was designed for mental stimulation—not rehabilitation.
At ten seconds to air, he hunkered deeper into his seat and took one last shot at the hoop. The coffee had grown stale, and his aim was faulty. The digital clock on the wall provided his countdown, and on cue, he said, “This is Guy Talk, where a guy can be a guy. I’m Matt Ransom.”
“Hey, Matt.”
Matt recognized the deep drawl of one of his regular callers, a long-haul trucker who’d picked up his lifelong nickname as a linebacker for the University of Georgia Bulldogs. “Hi, Dawg. How ya doin’?”
“Not so great. My girlfriend, JoBeth, wants to get married.”
“Aw, hell, Dawg. This is not Relationships Anonymous.”
“I’m sorry, man, but I’ve got to talk to somebody.”
“Can’t we talk about football? Or maybe the relative merits of owning versus leasing a vehicle?”
“I need some help here, Matt. JoBeth’s been listening to that Dr. Olivia. I need somebody on my side.”
Matt looked to his producer, Ben, for assistance, but the coward refused to look him in the eye. A check of his monitor showed only one caller waiting. There wasn’t a commercial break in sight.
“All right, all right. What seems to be the problem?”
“Well, I don’t think there is a problem. But JoBeth keeps going on about her biological clock. Says it’s time to settle down and start a family.”
“Why don’t you just tell her you need some time? I’m sure she doesn’t want to rush into anything. How long have you been dating?”
“Three years.”
“Three years? Good Lord. How long does it take to figure out whether you want to be with somebody?”
“That’s what she said. And aren’t you the one to talk? How many times have you been named Bachelor of the Year, now, Ransom?”
“A few.”
Dawg snorted. “Not exactly settling down and making any life-altering commitments yourself, are you?”
“Nope.”
“How come your girlfriends aren’t calling in on that show to complain?”
“Because I don’t give them anything to complain about. I’m honest. I tell them right up front what they can expect, namely a good time, but I don’t pretend I’m offering anything more than that.”
“And that works for you?”
“Always has. Let me put it this way, Dawg: Real guys need to be real clear. Then there’s no problem.”
“Well, it’s a little late for that now. JoBeth’s a fine woman and all, but I’m just not ready to do the marriage thing again.”
“I hear you, Dawg. But I’ll tell you, it’s a whole lot easier to say that up front instead of later in self-defense. You’ve put yourself in the middle of a classic no-win situation. Whatever you do now, you’re pretty much screwed.”
Matt terminated the call and glanced at the clock, relieved to discover it was almost time for a commercial break. He took one of the holding calls, listened to some more less-than-macho whimpering, and dumped the rest, signaling Ben he was ready to move on.
This was what came of telling men they were supposed to have a sensitive side; it made them wimpy. He didn’t like it one bit.
At long last Matt heard the strains of his theme music. He needed this break, and when he came back on the air he wasn’t going to allow any more whining. Matt looked through the small plate-glass window, glared at Ben on general principle, and then leaned in to the microphone. “This is Guy Talk . . . not Dear Abby. If you’ve got something manly to say, give me a call. It’s a Freefall Friday.”
At the all-clear signal, Matt stood, removed his headphones, and headed out of the studio. He made it past the control room, down the corridor, and through the security door before slowing down. The last two days were enough to spoil a man’s good time. First, T.J. had to go and share his budget dilemma with him, and now his audience was trying to turn him into some kind of Donahue. Sheesh.
As far as Matt was concerned, the best relationships were every bit as uncomplicated as he’d said. Two people got together, they enjoyed each other’s company, and they moved on when it stopped being fun. If you didn’t get too close, no one got too hurt. He’d been living that philosophy successfully all his adult life, with the exception of one long-ago assault on his heartstrings, and he saw no reason to reconsider that philosophy now.
He stopped in front of a publicity photo someone had tacked up on the bulletin board and studied Olivia Moore, Ph.D. Funny how completely she’d managed to intrude into his life, once again. Not only was her show beginning to change the face of his own, but according to T.J., Olivia was now the competition. One of their shows could go.
He narrowed his gaze and contemplated the likeness more closely. She’d grown sleeker, more sophisticated, but physically Olivia hadn’t changed much since Chicago. Her cheekbones still angled dramatically upward on either side of the straight, slightly pointed nose, while her lips remained too full for the determined chin underneath. Her silky blonde hair fell straight to the shoulder like it always had, and her wide-set green eyes continued to glitter with wicked intelligence.
And she still turned him on without even trying.
Matt poured himself a last cup of hours-old coffee, zapped it back to life in the microwave, and headed toward the control room, his mind full of Olivia. When the time came for T.J. to make his choice, he’d be strangely sorry to see her go.
Yep. He’d miss her all right. He’d also miss the surge in listener response that resulted every time he ruffled her feathers on the air.
3
JoBeth Namey sorted through the basket of dirty clothes on the laundry room floor. Spinning the washer’s control knob, she started a stream of hot water and propped up the lid of the machine. Then she added a cup of liquid detergent and watched the water turn sudsy before feeding the contents of the basket into the washer one article at a time.
Dawg’s T-shirts were as industrial-sized as the man who wore them, and so were his jockey shorts. JoBeth dangled a pair of white cotton briefs above the soapy water, blushing as she remembered how urgently she’d tugged them off him the night before. A sigh escaped her at the memory of his lovemaking and the contentment she’d felt cradled in his arms afterward—a contentment that had disintegrated when she awoke to overhear him discussing her on the air with Matt Ransom.
JoBeth felt a fresh wave of humiliation and an equally unwelcome pang of despair. Earl Wayne Rollins II was not the first man she’d ever had a relationship with, but she’d assumed he’d be the last. She loved him, that was the hard, cold truth of it, and he kept saying he loved her. But the ticking of her biological clock had begun to drown out those words of love.
She wanted . . . Lord, she wanted children and a family of her own. Not the empty keeping-up-appearances sort she’d grown up in, but the real thing fueled by real feelings and emotional commitment. Being forced to lobby for a marriage proposal made her feel like an article of clothing destined for the clearance rack—not worth the original, retail price.
JoBeth dropped the lid on the washer and bent to pull a load of blue jeans out of the dryer.
“JoBeth, you downstairs?”
Silently she pulled clothes out of the dryer and folded each one in turn, carefully separating hers and Dawg’s into neatly stacked piles.
Dawg came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. His touch, as always, was surprisingly gentle for such a big man. “Mornin’, sweetheart.”
Normally she would have turned, gone up on tiptoe, and pressed her body up against the solid wall of Dawg Rollins’
s chest, but today she held herself stiff.
“What’s wrong?” He nuzzled the back of her neck and locked his forearms together just under her collarbone. In a minute he’d be slipping his fingers under her pajama top and making her tingle all over again. “We don’t have anywhere we need to be just yet. Why don’t you come on back to bed?”
Holding her body rigid, she pulled away and turned to look up into the rugged angles of his face. He had a good ten inches on her and close to a hundred pounds, but she refused to feel small. Righteous indignation bubbled in her veins, and she enjoyed his start of surprise when she placed a hand in the center of his chest and pushed him back a step.
“You have got more nerve than the whole state of Texas.”
Golden-gray stubble covered Dawg’s cheeks, and his blue eyes shone with good humor. He actually smiled.
“You went on the radio last night and told the whole of Atlanta that you don’t want to marry me.”
His smile fled.
“How do you think that makes me feel?”
“Well, now, I—”
“That was a rhetorical question, Dawg. You are not supposed to answer.”
“But, JoBeth, I—”
“I’m in love with you. And you keep saying you’re in love with me.”
“I am, JoBeth. You know I—”
“No.” She pointed a finger at him, cautioning him not to speak. “Don’t you dare say it right now. I’m tired of hearing words that go nowhere.”
“But JoBeth, honey . . .”
She stopped him with a look.
“I’m forty-one, Dawg. I can’t keep hanging around while you think this through. Who knows how many good eggs I have left?”
Dawg opened his mouth as if to speak, but now, when she yearned for a response, no words came out. They just faced each other in the overheated laundry room with the sounds of the washer and dryer underscoring the silence that stretched between them.
His blue eyes turned apologetic, and he looked almost as miserable as she felt. Realizing she was close to tears, she ducked under his arm and escaped upstairs. Yanking on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, JoBeth swiped at her eyes and reflected on the irony of her situation. Four years ago she’d walked away from a marriage proposal because she couldn’t settle for a man who didn’t make her pulse pound or her heart race.