Borrowing Trouble

by Mae Wood

  “Is this our thing?” I asked. “This sitting next to each other rather than sitting across from each other thing?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess it is. I like having you next to me,” he replied, nuzzling my neck with his face before softly tugging on my earlobe with his lips.

  My inner muscles clenched as tingles spread all the way down to my toes, forcing them into tight curls. Fuck me. The thought reverberated through my entire body. Keep it together. We can at least get through dinner first.

  “You mean you like having me within easy reach,” I teased, trailing my fingernails down his thigh.

  “Something like that,” he exhaled, leaning over to lay kisses on my neck. Shivers ran down my spine and I demurred, drawing his name out to several syllables. “Fine. Let’s see how far Google led me astray on dinner and if I need to order pizza.”

  We chatted playfully over the food, which far exceeded my meager expectations. Impressive. “You made the sauce, too?” I asked as I placed an errant bay leaf on the side of my plate.

  “Yes, how could you tell?”

  “Just a hunch based on my refined palate,” I smiled.

  “No, really? It tastes good to me. Did I forget something? Too much garlic?”

  “I don’t think too-much-garlic is a thing in my world,” I laughed. “I’m surprised you can stand to kiss me. No. The sauce is very good. It’s just this,” I held up the bay leaf, which Trip eyed in confusion.

  “Rookie mistake. Bay leaves aren’t edible. You’re supposed to pull them out.” I emptied the remains of wine in the decanter into my glass while Trip continued to eat. “Truly, that lasagna was really good. I still can’t believe that was your first attempt. What can’t you do well, Mr. Brannon?”

  “Apparently convince you that I’m serious, so here I go again.” Trip set down his fork and rose from the table.

  When he returned less than a minute later, he held a small gray item. “This is for you.”

  “A remote control?”

  “It’s to the garage,” he said, placing it next to my plate. “I started clearing out space for your car this afternoon.”

  He’s giving up some bikes for me? Jesus, he does like me.

  “Look,” he continued after a pause. “I’m not asking you to move in or anything. I just want you here as much as you want to be here. Okay, I’m going to get the dessert.” He cleared our plates off the table and walked back into the kitchen.

  I silently sat at the table in the candlelit room, alternating between staring at the garage door opener and at my reflection in the darkened window while more blues tracks played softly.

  He likes me and wants me here. Like really wants me here with him.

  Trip placed the tiramisu in front of me with two spoons perched on the single white plate. “I don’t know what to say,” I whispered once he sat next to me, my hand clutching the garage door opener.

  “Just say you meant it, too.”

  “I mean it. I can’t help but mean it.”

  “Good,” he said, squeezing my knee. “Now, let’s enjoy dessert.”

  Chapter Nine

  What’s your favorite video chat app? I stared down at my phone in my hand.

  FaceTime, I tapped back. I picked my hairdryer up and switched it on, pulling a brush through my chestnut hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my phone’s screen light up with a call. I turned off the dryer and smiled.

  “Hoping for a little tele-sex before work?” I asked as soon as his face filled the tiny screen.

  “Hoping, of course. Expecting, no. I got tired of eating breakfast alone and thought this was a good solution.” He took a bite from a spoon.

  “Oatmeal?”

  “Absolutely. If something’s working, why change it?”

  “And this? Is this working?” I hadn’t laid eyes on him in nearly a week. We’d chatted a few times, but never for long and never about anything more than the general contours of our workdays, my runs, and his rides.

  “If your robe slips open about an inch more, I’m going with yes.” I looked down and realized that I was in fact streaming significant cleavage to Pennsylvania. I pulled the lapels together. “Come on, just a quick peek.”

  “No.”

  “Come on, please?”

  “Are you still in Pennsylvania?”

  “For a few more hours. After we get off, off the phone, that is, I’m headed to New York.”

  I ignored his overt request for phone sex. “So, you’re meeting with the Johnson and Bales team to talk about what to do with the Duquette situation?”

  “Yes, and I’m also meeting with some of our bankers as well. Thinking about issuing some commercial paper to finance a project Dad and I have been discussing. In fact, he’s meeting me there.”

  I tried to remember from second year of law school what exactly commercial paper was. I only knew that this meant they were talking about taking on some significant debt, so it must be a big deal. “That sounds promising. What’s the plan?”

  “I’d tell you, but I’d have to get you to sign an NDA.”

  “Seriously? You need me to sign a non-disclosure agreement to tell me?” I’m your lawyer and your girlfriend and you don’t trust me? What the hell? Okay, calm down. He’s probably got a reason.

  “Yup, as you say. So, that’s what I’ve got on tap for the weekend. A series of rousing meetings with bankers in boardrooms. What are your plans?”

  “Not sure.” I was hoping you’d come home. Or invite me to New York, I thought. But I bit back the words before they formed on my lips. “Long run. A little work. Maybe go out for drinks with some friends. Read. Not sure yet.”

  “Is that what you do with your downtime?”

  “Pretty much. Other than running, I don’t really have any serious hobbies. No cycling. No art photography. Wait, I take that back. My dad and I have a near continuous game of Scrabble going that we play on our tablets. So, if that counts, then I’ve got running and Scrabble. Wanna play?

  “Scrabble? With your dad?”

  “No, with me, silly.”

  “Sure. I haven’t played in years. Send me a link to the app you use. Should be fun kicking your ass from a thousand miles away.”

  It was like he was here. Well, almost. I miss you, I wanted to say. I really miss you. Instead, I said things like, “I’m getting ready for a 10K next month” and “Have you been to that new dim sum place on Union in Midtown?”

  “Thanks for breakfast, beautiful. Have a great day.”

  I said, “You, too. Bye,” while I thought, How is it possible that I miss you so much?

  We played Scrabble like addicts over the next few days, each jonesing for a hit of the other, sneaking in plays while checking phones during meetings. I played “quest” on a double word, further extending my lead in points over him. He countered with “suck,” accompanied in the chat window with the word “my” and a rather descriptive image created solely out of dashes and a few other well-placed characters.

  A penis. It’s like I’m dating a thirteen year old boy sometimes.

  A couple plays later, I went for it and laid down, ‘boobs,’ playing off his ‘blanket’ and forsaking a triple letter space. It was Tuesday around two o’clock in Pennsylvania and I knew precisely what I was doing.

  My cell phone rang around three o’clock in Memphis.

  Two hours? He’s up to some serious shit at work if it takes him two hours to respond to ‘boobs.’

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I know that you just skipped playing ‘mobs’ on a triple letter. You just gave up a six point differential. You are trying to destroy me.”

  “Eh, if it works,” I replied dismissively.

  “Oh, it fucking works, Marisa. It worked when I looked at my phone in the middle of a meeting with the division’s marketing director and got a fucking hard on. New rule. No body parts. None. No exceptions.”

  “You’re raging at me from the word ‘boobs’? Dude, you need to ge
t some action.”

  Am I toying with him too much?

  “I would if I could, trust me. And you’d definitely know it.”

  Nah. Not toying too much.

  “Looking forward to it. Very much so.” I twirled a pen between my fingers and leaned back into my office chair. “So tomorrow I’ve got lunch with your mom.”

  “Don’t want to talk about my mom. Want to talk about how to handle my current situation.”

  “Pretty sure you know how to handle that. I’m going to guess you’ve got about twenty-five years of experience handling that.”

  “You need to at least help because this is all your fault. What are you wearing?”

  “Really?” I looked at my closed office door. “Fine. Navy pinstriped skirt suit that’s probably a few inches shorter than entirely appropriate and getting shorter by the second.”

  “Now you’re talking.” A rap on my door startled me back into the present and I smoothed my skirt back down my thighs.

  “Yes,” I called, tucking my phone under my chin. John pushed through the door. “Hey, I’ve got to go,” I told Trip. “Talk later.”

  “You are fucking ruining me. I mean that.”

  With a laugh I ended the call and gave John my attention. We talked business. All afternoon and evening I kept checking the status of my Scrabble game. No plays. Shit. I hope I didn’t push him too hard. Come on, Trip, play with me.

  All night I heard nothing. No evening phone call. No email forwarding a wacky news story. No snapshot of something he’d seen on an early morning ride. No complaining about some idiocy that happened in a meeting. No text. And no move on our Scrabble game.

  Chapter Ten

  I pushed through the door of Joseph, the Memphis outpost of an ultra-exclusive Houston boutique, at noon on the nose.

  Here goes nothing.

  I was steeling myself for shopping and lunch with Bitsy. The world felt a little more right when I’d woken up to “apropos” laid on the virtual board and an accompanying voicemail about entertaining customers at a dinner that ran late, but one-on-one girl time with his mom meant I still felt off kilter.

  “Oh, Marisa!” exclaimed Bitsy, her brown eyes glittering with excitement. She enveloped me in a sincere embrace. “I’m so happy you were able to meet me. Come, let’s see what Josie had sent in for us.”

  Taking me by the hand, she led me through the cosmetics counters and past the shoe department to the back of the store. This woman knows how to dress. I admired her slim figure maneuver quickly though the store on tan ostrich stilettos.

  I’m totally going to steal those shoes. And the clean lines of that plum shift dress are amazing on her, especially with her bobbed hair. I wonder if she does prints or only wears solids? Maybe I should ditch prints and I could look this chic. Am I too old for the Anthropologie bohemian look outside of work hours? Is it time for me to bob my hair? Wait. This is Trip’s mother. I’m not going to turn into his mother.

  A woman clad in a smart red and black blazer greeted me with a warm handshake. “Hi, I’m Josie. So nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  “Mrs. Brannon told me all about you and the upcoming St. Jude event, but since we haven’t met before, I’ll confess, I was a little blind in ordering. I thought long for the event and mainly ordered gowns, but now that I see how tall and lean you are, maybe short? Your legs are fabulous.”

  I’m being sized up, literally, by a woman I don’t know. Yes, this is a totally normal Thursday lunch.

  “Oh, Marisa, you just have to trust Josie’s judgment. She never leads me astray. I was thinking bronze this year, but I’m in her hands.”

  “Can I get either of you a glass of wine?” offered Josie.

  “We are here on serious business, so of course!” replied Bitsy. Josie wandered off in search of the refreshments.

  Now I’m day drinking with his mom while looking at thousand dollar dresses. This cannot get stranger.

  “I asked Josie to set us up in the big dressing room.”

  Wait, now I’m changing in and out of dresses with his mother? I’m going to need two glasses of wine for this. And Trip is so going to owe me when he gets back from Pennsylvania.

  “Great,” I said with feigned happiness, taking the proffered glass of white wine from Josie. Be happy. Be polite. Try on dresses. Have lunch. Then call Erica and laugh about this until we both cry. I can do this. I can do this. I followed Bitsy and Josie to the back where a rack of dresses awaited us in a black and white room lined with mirrors.

  “So, Mrs. Brannon, I know you said bronze, and I pulled a few including this one with the black lace overlay,” said Josie, taking a straight gown with a bateau neckline from the rack. “Let’s start with this one and see where we end up. And Miss Tanner,”

  “Please, call me Marisa.”

  “Okay. Marisa, for you, I didn’t know, but Mrs. Brannon said no black.”

  But that’s my default for formal events.

  “Looking at your coloring and hair, I’m leaning towards a deep green or purple. How about we start with this Yigal Azrouël? His work is young and sassy. Plus, it’s full length, but has a great slit up the right leg so we’ll get the best of both worlds.”

  “Um, sure,” I said, setting down my now empty wine glass. Okay, courage while I try on this dress, er, “work.” It looks like a pickle. I’ll look like a pickle. “It’s really green,” I ventured.

  “You just have to trust Josie. She doesn’t let her clients look anything less than amazing.”

  “Okay,” I replied cautiously.

  “Wonderful. I’ll wait outside while you dress. I can’t wait to see.” Thank God for small favors. I did not want to stand around in my bra and panties in front of his mother.

  “Great. Let’s get you in to this. I have a good feeling. I think it will need a slip. It’s pretty body conscious and it just needs to flow without any puckering.”

  “Good thing I wore Spanx today.”

  “I know. God bless Sara Blakely. However, you really don’t need them know you.”

  I ignored her compliment and stepped out of my work clothes and, with Josie’s help, into the gown. “Well, other than you needing a strapless bra, I think we may have a winner on the first try.”

  I admired my reflection. The one-shoulder kelly green dress skimmed my body. The dress was ruched on the neckline and at the right hip, opening to a long slit up the right leg. “Okay, now step into these heels. We’ll pick perfect ones later, but let’s see it on you with the height. Is four inches too high for you? Because if you can stand it, it will really showcase the dress and your legs.”

  “It really is lovely. I would have never picked it myself.”

  Josie laughed quietly. “Well, there is a reason I have my job.”

  “Speaking of that, while Bitsy isn’t around, I want to be honest with you. I’m here with her because she invited me, but I’m just looking. This dress is lovely, but I don’t think I’ll be buying it.”

  Josie grinned at me like I was a fool. “You may not be buying it, but I’ll let you in on a secret. It’s going home with you. It’s her treat. She’s one of my best clients so if you’re going to turn that down, you’ll have to take it up with her.”

  “My boyfriend’s mother is buying me clothes?” What bizzaro world did I just land in?

  Josie nodded. “And shoes. She loves to shop and this event is a big deal to her, so my advice would be to graciously accept.”

  “I don’t feel like I’m going to have a choice.”

  “Probably not,” Josie shrugged. “Let’s go out and show her.”

  I teetered on the four-inch heels in the four-figure dress into the lounge area where Bitsy was flipping through a pile of lookbooks. “Yes. Just yes,” she declared, setting the lookbooks on the side table with a smack. “Josie, you’re a genius. Marisa, you look amazing. And I have the most perfect earrings you can borrow. They are Art Deco teardrops. We’ll sort out a bracelet later. You don�
�t need a necklace. Don’t you agree, Josie?” She paused in thought, taking me in from all angles before rendering her verdict. “Yes. This is it. That color is just perfect on you.”

  “Well, Trip does like me in green.” Again, I thought back to my handsy dinner at Folk’s Folly with Trip where I’d worn my favorite emerald dress.

  “Then it’s settled. And, Marisa, this is a present from me.”

  I’m so glad that Josie let the secret out. I’m not sure I could handle a surprise like this without some heads up.

  “Bitsy, that’s too much. I can’t.”

  “Nonsense,” she replied, waving away my polite protest. “It makes me happy to buy dresses and to have someone else to buy dresses for. Now it’s my turn. Josie, work your magic, but I doubt you can touch what you’ve done with Marisa.”

  What she’s done with me? Does she think I’m a ragamuffin? Breathe. Breathe. Thinking too much.

  With Josie’s help I slipped out of the gown and back into my gray and black color-blocked work dress and black pumps. “Josie, thank you. I don’t think I could have navigated that without your heads up.”

  “Oh, please. She’s probably your biggest fan. She called five times to make sure I had plenty of options. She just wants to make you happy.”

  “Well, she raised her son, so I’m pretty sure I’m the one indebted to her,” I admitted with a blush.

  “In that case, I hope to see you again. Anything I can keep my eye on for you?”

  “Well, I’m a Hilton Hollis fan, but he’s a little pricey for my budget.”

  “Done. I’ll call you when I have a markdown in your size that you might like.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, that’s my job. Now, let’s get to work on a dress for Mrs. Brannon.”

  I relaxed on a cushy white leather armchair while Bitsy glided in and out of the lounge in an endless stream of dresses. Trip and I silently engaged in a Scrabble battle and he bemoaned my use of ‘wet.’ Not a body part, I countered in the chat, and you played ‘suck’ earlier this week.

  With each lovely gown, I gave warm encouragement, but Bitsy just picked them apart. Josie remained upbeat and refilled my wine glass. “It can take a while,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth while making a generous pour.