She stood upright from the door where she'd been leaning, and Rick's jacket fell to the ground. They both dove for it. Christie got it first, handed it to Rick, then spun around to look into the shop window they'd been oblivious to just moments before. Behind her, she could hear Rick hastily shrugging his jacket back on.
The window held a display of expensive-looking antique furniture. "I love the Victrola," she said, amazed at the normalcy in her voice.
"Probably a reproduction," Mr. Arboghast's voice said behind them.
Whew. It didn't get any closer than that. Christie turned, and there the boss stood with his wife. Both of them were smiling benignly. No sign that either one had seen anything amiss. "What are you kids doing out here?" Mr. Arboghast said.
"Window shopping," she said.
"You picked out a great place, Ed," Rick said. "It sure beats the Ramada Inn last year."
"Oh, Francis gets the credit for that." Mr. Arboghast patted his wife's hand, tucked through his arm.
"I told him about it," she explained. "I was here for a luncheon this summer."
As the small talk went on, Christie had time to calm down and start mentally kicking herself for her stupidity. Finally Mr. Arboghast walked away, his wife on his arm.
"It's windy out here, Rick," he called back over his shoulder. "You should give the lady your jacket."
Christie stood next to him, staring into the shop window until the boss was out of earshot. Rick had to hand it to her for a quick recovery. After that embrace, he'd forgotten the store was there. Even now, he didn't think his heart rate was back to normal. Whether that was from kissing Christie, or from the close call afterward, he wasn't sure.
When Ed was safely out of earshot, Christie said, "I imagine it would look better if we went back in separately." She turned around without so much as looking at him, and headed back toward the banquet room.
"Christie, wait." Rick fell into step beside her. Those high heels were making remarkably good time for someone who was trying to be so casual. Why was she in such a hurry now? They hadn't gotten caught, and it was a little late to cover up. "Christie, it's not like we killed someone."
"Isn't it?" She kept walking, eyes straight ahead.
Whoa. Time for a little perspective here. "Listen to yourself for a second. And slow down." They were covering the cobblestone sidewalk much faster than they had coming the other direction, and they both needed to get a grip before they went back into that room.
"Don't you see, Rick?" She was trying to sound conversational, as if they were talking about the weather. In case someone was eavesdropping behind the shrubbery? "What would have happened if he'd gotten there a little sooner?"
He honestly wasn't sure. "Well, it wouldn't have been good. But I don't think we would have been sent to the gallows. Maybe a written reprimand?"
"The first thing in my personnel file after my W-2 form."
Ten minutes after kissing him until his legs nearly quit, all she could think about was her own neck. The trouble was, he was thinking about her neck, too, and the way her perfume had smelled. If their embrace had just come from the heat of the moment, it was taking a long time to fade.
But he could be as practical and cold-blooded as she was. "Now, hold on," he said. "You're not the only one with something at stake here."
"No. But who's going to come off worse?" Christie stopped and turned so suddenly he almost stepped on her foot. The look on her face was one of desperate, unadulterated panic. "You've been with the company what, five years? And you're a man. I'm a woman who came out of nowhere a couple of months ago. Some professional. They'd never take me seriously again."
The words had a certain logic to them. "You've thought about this." When? he wondered. Ten minutes ago, he'd been doing anything but thinking.
She started walking again. "I can't believe I was so stupid."
Now, that was a little insulting. But she'd made her point. It would look worse for her, and she couldn't afford that. If that wasn't enough to make him stick to company rules and keep his hands to himself, nothing was.
They crossed over the little wooden bridge, where things had begun so innocently half an hour before. Just a little moonlight stroll between friends. Yeah, right. As if he couldn't have seen this coming. She was right. It had been a mistake. A big, fat mistake, and the sooner they put it behind them, the better.
They walked the rest of the way to the banquet room in silence. Before he opened the door, his ego still smarting, Rick couldn't resist one parting shot. "Christie?"
"What?"
"If you're concerned about the way things look, you might want to fix your lipstick."
Momentarily pleased by her horrified look, he went inside ahead of her.
It had been a snappy line, but Rick had plenty of time to regret it in the next two hours. Sometimes a clever quip wasn't worth the trouble it caused.
Both of them sat at the table where the rest of the jocks had already settled in. Anything else would have looked out of place. Rick watched as Christie sandwiched herself next to Yvonne, apparently trying to sit as far away from him as possible. She wound up straight across from him, and he was sure that wasn't what she'd had in mind. Instead of avoiding him, she was in a spot where the opportunities for eye contact were endless.
It was quite a view, actually. Christie's troubled expression wasn't enough to detract from the way she looked in that green dress. It brought out the green in her hazel eyes, which looked achingly soulful whenever they met his by accident. So she did have a heart. His annoyance faded. Before guilt could take over, Rick replaced it with self-justification. All right, so he'd started it. He just hadn't expected her to transform herself into a siren for the night. Maybe that was why he'd lost his head. Easy enough to blame it on the dress.
Except that Yvonne, on Christie's right, was wearing a black dress every bit as stunning. And Rob's date, on her left, was wearing something so silver and sequinny it was practically blinding. The one Rick couldn't stop looking at-try as he might-was the redhead in the middle. She may have recovered more quickly under the eyes of the general manager, but now she looked sicker than she had when she left the room earlier.
But if it was keeping up appearances she cared about, he was giving her that in spades. He chatted and laughed his way through dinner, barely aware of what he was saying. Detachment. It was an old sur vival mechanism. It was how you got through an air shift the night after your wife left you. It was how you avoided getting seriously involved with anyone in all the years after that. Until the one woman you had absolutely no business getting involved with came along and-
"My first live broadcast," he said, "was for this little station in Lancaster. A Fourth of July fireworks display. And the entertainment before the fireworks-I swear I'm not making this up-was an eight-year-old boy in a gold lame Elvis suit ..."
He wasn't the only one looking at Christie. Rob was doing it too, although Rob's eyes always got around, date or no date.
"...the kid's lip-synching to songs on a CD boom box..."
Rick threw another quick glance at Christie. She didn't seem to notice Rob's stare, but she wasn't looking at Rick, either. Or eating her chicken.
"...so of course the power goes out on the boom box..."
Out of the blue, Yvonne asked, "Is that a new fashion statement, Rick?"
He looked at her blankly, then glanced down. The little pink blossom, now slightly crushed, was still tucked into the buttonhole of his lapel. Across the table, Christie looked aghast, as if Yvonne had pointed out a bleeding corpse on the floor at Rick's feet.
"Just a souvenir from outside." He shrugged. "They're growing all over the place out there."
But he left it in his lapel for the rest of the night.
'Tis the season to...work like a dog.
Before I make up the schedule for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I'm looking for fulltimers and part-timers willing to volunteer for some of these hard-to-fill shifts. I'm hoping to fil
l as many slots as possible on a volunteer basis before I'm forced to do the dirty work of assigning them.
Those who volunteer will be rewarded, not only in the next life, but also with a comp day off. And I promise, I'll remember you when it's time to make up the next holiday schedule.
Thanks in advance. And Merry Christmas. Rick
Christie wondered if the "Merry Christmas" was meant to be sincere or satirical. She also wondered if she was trying to be a martyr when she signed up for the Christmas Eve shift.
She stepped behind the counter in the on-air studio, ready to trade sides with Rob the way they always did. Tonight it felt different. "We're doing this at the wrong time," she said. Rob had taken the afternoon shift on Christmas Eve day, while Christie had signed up for 6 P.M. to midnight.
Rob looked up at the ceiling. "Too bad there's no mistletoe in here."
"In your dreams." If he only knew the trouble she'd let herself get into, without any mistletoe.
"Oh, well. Merry Christmas." Rob started to move past her as usual, then paused. "You're not sad, are you?"
He wasn't as shallow as he looked. "A little," she said. "Just trying not to feel pathetic."
He really wasn't so bad. In the course of their fiveminute nightly encounters, Christie had actually come to like Rob quite a bit. If she'd ever taken him up on one of his lighthearted passes, she still wasn't sure what he'd do, but he never pushed it. It was more of a running joke than anything else.
"I know how you feel," he said. "Sometime it's tough being single at Christmas when you don't have any family in town." He put his jacket on over a bright red sweater.
"You're on your way to a party, aren't you?" she said.
"Yeah, well. No point being miserable alone."
True to his word, Rick had added Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" to the play list, along with a healthy helping of traditional carols. And from 6 P.M. on, Christmas music was all they were playing.
Christie took a few phone calls from people to see how they were spending their Christmas Eve, but the calls were sparse, and most of them were from people who were alone. Those were too depressing to air. She did have some fun doing something she'd always wanted to do: broadcasting updates of Santa sightings in the sky as he made his way toward California from the East Coast. But there was no denying that working on Christmas Eve was a proposition ripe for self-pity.
She hadn't seen Rick since the party. She'd made sure of it. It was easy enough to do, just by sticking to her normal, assigned work schedule. She hadn't seen him, but she'd had endless one-sided conversations with him in her mind. Sometimes she blamed him for everything. Sometimes she admitted to her part in the kiss, but before she knew it, she was admitting to a whole lot more, and they dissolved into another heart-melting clinch. Telling him off was safer, even if it wasn't any more realistic. But no matter what scenario she chose, Christie could never quite imagine what Rick would say, aside from pointing out that they hadn't killed anyone.
No matter what Rick said or didn't say in those imaginary conversations, it didn't matter. The bottom line was still the same. They had to go on as if none of it had happened, because it could never happen again. She'd known that going in. But now, in hindsight, it was a high price to pay for a few minutes.
A few incredible minutes.
A lush version of "Silent Night" ended with a flourish of strings. As the last chord faded, Christie thought she heard the sound effect of sleigh bells. On "Silent Night?" She frowned and started the next song. The jingling persisted. Christie turned down the volume on the monitor speakers.
It was coming from out in the hallway.
Before she could go out to investigate, the studio door opened, and Rick walked in. Christie raised her hands to her face, not quite believing what she was seeing. He was wearing a fuzzy red Santa hat and shaking a two-foot string of Christmas bells. The hat lopped over to one side; his grin was faintly embarrassed. She couldn't help but laugh.
"Special delivery," he said. Rick brought his other hand from behind his back to set a fair-sized gift bag on the countertop between them, next to the guest microphone.
She recovered from laughing and lowered her hands from her face. The one thing she wasn't going to do was fall all over him. But she had to admit, he'd cheered her up.
"Merry Christmas," he said. He reached across the counter and dropped the Santa hat onto her head. "This looks better on you than it does me."
She stared at the bag on the counter, where cartoon reindeer danced on a red and green background. "I didn't get you-"
"And why should you? Here, I'll help you open it. It wouldn't be a good idea to shake this package." He lifted a shallow glass bowl out of the bag and set it on the countertop.
Inside was a turtle, like the ones from Rick's apartment. Christie blinked, quickly. She knew he was going for just the right level of absurdity. She wasn't going to get all gooey about it.
"It's sweet," she said. "Thanks."
"Very low maintenance, too. I thought about saddling you with a twenty-gallon tank of tropical fish, but it was too heavy to carry."
She smiled, but she couldn't look at Rick. Instead, she studied the little green turtle, marching resolutely on a wet rock at the bottom of the bowl with nowhere to go.
"What's his name?" Rick asked her.
Christie hesitated for half a second. "Bing."
"I should have known." She could feel him watching her face.
Just in time, she realized her song was ending. Hurriedly, she cued the next one, grateful for the interruption. She had no idea what to say next.
"Nice job on the Santa reports," Rick said. "Your news training is coming in handy."
"Thanks." That was safe to talk about. "That's why I picked this shift."
"I was betting on either sainthood or masochism. How are you spending your Christmas tomorrow?"
"Turkey dinner at my girlfriend Alicia's. The one who rescued me the morning after my car broke down." That seemed eons ago. "Aren't you going anywhere?" On the posted schedule, he'd put himself down for the Christmas afternoon shift.
"I decided to wait for the weekend. My folks are about five hours north of here. There'll be less traffic, and this way I'm around if anything comes up at the station." And, Rick admitted to himself, it gave him a chance to deliver Christie's present. Now, he braced himself for the hard part. "I haven't seen you around the station lately."
"I had a lot of shopping to do."
"That's fine. No one expects you to put in all the extra time you've been doing. I'd just hate to think anything I did was keeping you away."
Christie looked up at him, and Rick could see her fighting to keep her expression guarded. She wasn't very good at it. And darn it, she was biting the corner of her lip. Rick tried to stay focused on her eyes.
He'd opened the subject. No going back now. "Christie, about the other night." Rick took a deep breath, leaned his palms on the counter, and prepared to launch into the most elaborate set of half-truths he'd ever come up with.
"Let's just forget about it," she said.
He nodded. "Okay. But first, I owe you an apology. I got carried away, and I imagine I've made things pretty uncomfortable for you." He gripped the counter a little harder, glad it was there between them. In spite of what he was saying, there was nothing he would have liked better than to grab her again and kiss her, right now, and he couldn't let her know that. Ever.
There were times when over ten years of experience performing came in handy.
"Don't worry about it." Christie shrugged. "I guess we both got a little carried away."
She was learning. Already, she was getting better at her nonchalance. Rick was still pretty sure it was an act. But so what if it wasn't? More power to her.
He could have quit while he was ahead. Instead, he took another deep breath and drove a few more nails into his coffin. He had to kill any interest on her side, because he didn't trust himself. "There's an ugly truth about men," he said.
"We have a hard time remembering what `platonic' is." Sure. Blame it all on his male programming. He knew better. "The thing is, you're a valuable employee, and I wouldn't want anything to jeopardize that. I know what this job means to you, and I was way out of line. It won't happen again."
"Fine," Christie's eyes were devoid of expression now. "We're both grown-ups, right?"
"Right." He shouldn't have put the Santa hat on her. The oversized cap hung almost over her eyebrows, giving her a waifish look. She would have hated the idea of being seen as a waif. If she only knew. Rick could picture her under the Christmas tree-his Christmas tree-wearing that hat, wrapped up in a soft robe, waiting to open their gifts. And that could never be.
"So," he said, "can we get back to where we were before?"
"Sure," she said. But Rick knew the damage had been done. He'd done more than start something they couldn't possibly finish, or even mess up a working relationship. He'd lost a friend.
He reached over one more time to tweak her Santa cap. He caught a flash of hurt in her eyes, and knew he had to leave it there. It was for her own good.
"Enough said." Christie made the gesture of turning a key over her lips and tossing it away over her shoulder. An appropriate gesture in more ways than one.
On Christmas morning, Christie opened the presents under the small tree in her living room. Most of them were from her family in Colorado. A few days ago at work, Yvonne had given her a funny little pin with musical notes, decked with glitter and surrounded by feathers. That made two people at work she owed presents to.
She called her mother. Hearing the familiar voice, always full of love and concern, Christie almost broke down and told her everything. She remembered calling home from summer camp when she was ten years old, crying because some of the other kids had gone swimming without her.
Today, instead, she said "I love you," thanked her mother for the sweater she'd sent, and said everything was fine. Christie knew Mom wasn't buying it, but with true motherly wisdom, she didn't press. She'd always been good about things like that.
Still, the call did her good. By the time Christie hung up the phone, she'd made up her mind: It was time to grow up.
Love on the Air Page 9