by Karis Walsh
“Come sit by me,” David, the group’s cellist, said, with an exaggerated wink in Brooke’s direction when Tina came into the living room. He scooted over to make space between him and his partner Jonas. “I want to hear every detail about the evening you spent in a pub with Jan. You know we’re all rooting for you two crazy kids to get together.”
So Brooke was enlisting accomplices in her matchmaking battle. Tina could only think of one way to end the war. “The bar’s called O’Boyle’s,” she said as she sat on the couch next to David. “Jan came with her friend Chloe…”
*
Tina tapped her fingers impatiently on the table at O’Boyle’s, out of rhythm with the jazz combo playing on the small stage. She hoped the directions she had given Andy and Brooke were sufficiently convoluted, but her knowledge of Spokane was too limited for her to be sure. She was fairly certain she had them circling the airport on the way to the pub, and she’d have to count on traffic to buy her some time. Only a week after her visit to Seattle, they had called from just outside Spokane, on their way to a hotel. A last-minute wedding cancellation had given Andy a rare weekend off, and the two of them had decided to spring a surprise visit on Tina and Jan. Surprise inspection was more like it. Tina stood up and waved the moment she saw Jan step through the door.
“Is everything okay?” Jan asked as she shrugged out of her coat and sat across from Tina. “Your message sounded very dramatic, but when you wanted to meet in a bar…”
“Drink this, and then I’ll explain,” Tina said, sliding a shot glass filled with amber liquid in front of Jan.
“What is it?” Jan sniffed the glass and took a small sip.
“Oh my God. It’s a shot of whiskey, not tea with the queen. Just drink it.”
“You’re acting crazy,” Jan said, but she drank the whiskey in several gulps, stopping to cough after each one.
“Really? And you claim you went to college?” Tina asked with a laugh. “I’ll have to teach you how drink a shot someday, but we don’t have time now. Brooke and Andy are on their way here to surprise you.”
“Oh, how nice,” Jan said, setting the glass on the table. “I haven’t seen them since last Christmas when—”
“They think we’re dating,” Tina said. Might as well get right to the point. Jan looked at her with an expression of shock and disbelief. Should have gotten her two drinks, not just one. Tina pushed her own shot of whiskey toward her.
“Why would they think that?” Jan asked, gulping down half. Her shot-drinking ability was improving.
“I might have told them…Stop looking at me like that and let me explain. I saw them when I was in Seattle, and Brooke wouldn’t stop asking about us. So I had a great idea…” It had seemed like one when she was in a different city. Faking a relationship with Jan when they were a few hundred miles apart was easy. Sitting next to her and discussing a relationship? Distracting, to say the least. She should feel claustrophobic. Instead, she felt…tempted. And scared as hell. “Instead of fighting her on this, I let her think we’re going out.”
“You lied? You know how Brooke is. She’ll never let this go—”
“Would you talk less and drink more so I can explain? The way I see it, if we keep refusing to be set up, she’ll just keep pushing harder. But if we date for a few weeks, and it doesn’t work out, she’ll know we tried and will finally let us be. Brilliant plan, isn’t it? I’m a genius.”
Jan didn’t look convinced. She took another sip of Tina’s drink. “So how long do we have to keep this up?”
“I wasn’t expecting them to come over this weekend. I figured we would have had our fake breakup before we saw them in person again. You know Brooke. For all her meddling, she does want to make people feel comfortable. She’ll go out of her way to keep us apart if she thinks we’re heartbroken over a failed relationship.”
“Have you ever been heartbroken at the end of a relationship? How sad can you be after knowing someone two days?”
“Very funny. Fine, we’ll wait at least a couple weeks before you break up with me. That’ll teach me a lesson, after all these years of playing the field,” Tina said. She pulled her glass out of Jan’s hands and finished it off. She had been a mass of confused thoughts since Andy had called her a few hours earlier. The idea of pretending to be Jan’s girlfriend for a few hours had seemed uncomfortably appealing. Planning their breakup was more disconcerting than she liked. Telling Jan about the idea? Terrifying. “I should have ordered more of these.”
Jan flagged down a waitress and ordered more whiskey. “So, what’s our story?” she asked after the waitress left, their two empty glasses on her tray.
“The details are the same. Drinks in the Peacock Room, here, Coeur d’Alene…” Tina said, trying to remember the details she had given Brooke. “But we kissed.”
“When we were playing pool,” Jan said.
“When we were on the pier,” Tina said at the same time. She pictured Jan leaning over to take a shot. “Yours is better. I should have gone with that.”
“So…” Jan prompted.
“So? That’s all I said. We made out on the boardwalk, and we’re sort of dating. But it’s all so new, we’d been hesitant to share our news until Brooke and the others dragged it out of me in Seattle. Eventually we’ll fight and break up. Then we’re free,” Tina said. Where were those drinks?
“We made out in public? Romantic,” Jan said with a snort. “No wonder we’re breaking up.”
“Okay, I gave you a chaste peck on the cheek, then ran to a florist in Coeur d’Alene and bought you a dozen red roses and a heart-shaped box of candy. Last night we sat on the porch swing and held hands. Better?”
“You should have said it started here in the bar. I would’ve made out with you then. Hypothetically.”
Tina’s mouth was suddenly dry. Jan’s voice was casual, but her expression was anything but. Over and over, Tina had imagined their game of pool ending differently. It never occurred to her Jan might have done the same thing. She pictured Jan in bed, naked between the sheets, moonlight filtering in through her curtains…thinking of Tina. Touching the places Tina wanted to touch. Eliciting the responses Tina wanted to hear and smell and taste. Tina blinked, pushing aside the image of fantasy-Jan trembling under her touch and trying to focus on what the real Jan was saying to her.
“So tonight we’re expected to act like we’re…” Jan hesitated. “Dating?”
“Lovers,” Tina said.
“At what point does Mr. Roper come in?” Jan asked. She paused while the waitress delivered their drinks. “Something bad is going to happen. I’m not good at ad-libbing like this.”
“Well, we don’t have time to rehearse,” Tina said. She had been watching the door and saw the moment Brooke and Andy came in. “Here they are. Sweetie.”
“Did you call me sweetie?” Jan asked as she took both drinks from the waitress. “Can I change that, or did you already tell Brooke?”
*
“I’ve been warned you’re a pool shark,” Andy said as she chalked her cue.
Jan racked the balls and wished she had drunk more of Tina’s whiskey. After the first awkward moments when Andy and Brooke arrived, she had relaxed and started to enjoy what felt like a simple evening with friends, laughing and catching up on the news from Seattle. She had almost forgotten Tina’s ridiculous ruse until Andy had suggested a pool game. As if she and Brooke were trying to separate the happy couple and grill them individually. “I’ve been called a hustler, but we don’t need to bet any money on the game.”
Andy looked at her with that intense grin Jan had seen before. “Are you calling me chicken?” she asked, slapping a twenty on the table.
“Hey, if you want to lose your money,” Jan said, waving off the rest of the sentence. “Why don’t you break.”
The balls broke evenly, but nothing dropped. “So, you and Tina are dating,” Andy said, leaning against the corner of the table while Jan lined up her shot.
“Yeah,
” Jan said. She smacked the cue ball with too much force. She sank the fourteen but had no second shot. “Stripes,” she said as she tapped the nine and buried the cue ball.
“Clever,” Andy said, walking around the table and looking at her options. “And when did this start?”
Something in Andy’s tone made Jan wary. She had to admit she wasn’t the most spontaneous of people. Sitting at the table with Tina’s arm across the back of her chair had been easy enough. Comfortable, while the three of them talked, even though she was overly conscious of Tina’s closeness. But, now, when she was expected to make up details under Andy’s all-too-perceptive gaze? Jan was about to break and tell all their secrets. Only Tina’s occasional glare, from where she sat at the table with Brooke, kept Jan from cracking completely.
“It was during a day trip we took to Lake Coeur d’Alene. We were on the boardwalk, and she kissed me. It was so romantic,” Jan said, realizing it sounded dull, and not very romantic, when she spoke in such a monotone. The actual walk they took, etched into her memory, had been anything but boring, anything but chaste. Holding Tina in her arms had affected her more than she cared to admit. The bland lie was easier to deal with than the truth.
“Sounds like poetry,” Andy observed, her eyes on the pool table.
“My heart skipped a beat, and I heard a choir of angels,” Jan said as Andy sank the three on a lucky shot. “Are we allowing slop?” she asked. “You didn’t call the shot, and I know you were aiming at the five.”
“Seems to me, we’re letting a lot of things slide tonight,” Andy said. She dropped the six ball in the corner pocket. “You know I love Tina, but I have to admit she’s a player. How’d you manage to capture her heart?”
Jan dropped the twelve in a side pocket with a decisive smack after Andy missed a shot on the four. She peered down her cue stick at the thirteen. “Just lucky, I guess. How’re you managing without her in your quartet?”
“Oh, we’re doing quite well. Our temporary second violinist will be a fine replacement if Tina decides to stay in Spokane. Since she’s so in looooove.” Andy drew the last word out for several syllables before she started laughing.
Jan missed her shot by a wide margin and stood up, frowning at Andy. “What, you don’t think I’m attractive enough for someone like Tina?”
Andy shrugged. “I think you’re stunning. And exactly the kind of woman Tina needs,” she said as she sank the one but only grazed the two, leaving Jan without a shot. “I just find it hard to believe she realizes it.”
“Well, she does,” Jan said as she sank the ten in an impossibly tricky bank shot. She struggled to find a way to express her pretend relationship with Tina to this woman who was so obviously in love with Brooke. Andy would see right through any lies she told, so she stuck with the uncomfortable truth. “She makes me feel sexy, and it’s all I can do to keep my hands off her whenever we’re together,” she said, sinking the nine on her second try at it. The fifteen followed right after. “And she challenges me to be more than I am. To be spontaneous and relaxed and living in the moment.” The thirteen dropped into a corner pocket, nearly followed by the cue ball since Jan hit it so hard. Luckily, it caught the edge of the pocket and caromed back toward the center of the table. “And I can’t stop thinking about her, even when I’m supposed to be in class or at the store or talking to someone else.” Jan knocked in the eleven.
“Well, you’ve convinced me,” Andy said with a low whistle. “It just seemed pretty convenient that you and Tina suddenly started dating the minute she came to Spokane. After spending two years refusing to be in the same room.”
“What can I say? We finally had a chance to get to know each other.” Jan wondered if she was laying it on too thick, especially since they’d need to break up soon. And believably. “But we are such different people, and like you said, Tina’s a player. Who knows how long this will last?”
Andy shrugged. “Who knows?” she echoed.
Jan tapped her cue stick near a side pocket. “Eight ball right here, and you stop hounding me about Tina. You can even keep your twenty.” She hit the cue ball against the edge of the table and it angled back to the black eight, tapping it gently into the designated pocket.
“Nice,” said Andy. “All right. You and Tina are a cute couple, and I don’t have any doubts about your relationship. Plus, you can have the money. You earned it.”
Tina and Brooke walked over to the pool table as Jan was pocketing her money. Tina draped an arm around Jan’s shoulders. She had been spending the evening trying to look like Jan’s girlfriend without being more physical than she thought either one of them could handle. No hands roaming beyond arms or shoulders, and definitely no kissing. She remembered the boardwalk and the feeling of Jan’s arms around her. She stood close for Brooke’s benefit but held herself stiffly, so her body barely made contact with Jan’s “Did you win, sweetie?” Jan glared at her and she tried again. “Honey? Sweetheart?”
Jan finally laughed and playfully pushed Tina away. “My students call me Ms. Carroll. That’ll do.”
“Okay, teacher,” Tina said in her most seductive voice as she scooted closer to Jan. She didn’t mind a chance to play along with one of her fantasies. “How can I earn some extra credit?”
“Do we really have to listen to this crap?” Andy asked.
“Oh, I think it’s cute,” Brooke said, her arms looped around Andy’s neck. “It’s nice to see them so in love.”
Tina looked at her suspiciously. She had seemed to drag the word out longer than necessary. Jan tugged on her arm, distracting her.
“Why don’t you and Andy play this round,” Jan said to Brooke. “Babycakes and I will go get drinks.”
“Babycakes?” Tina asked once they were standing at the bar. “Are you serious?”
“Shut up,” Jan said. “They know we’re not dating. At least Andy does. And if she knows something, Brooke does, too.”
Tina tapped her fingers on the counter as she watched her two friends playing pool. They seemed more interested in playing with each other than actually making effective shots. “I thought Brooke seemed kind of funny when we were talking. I expected her to be happier because she had finally brought us together, but she barely talked about it. But they don’t—”
Jan took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “If you say they don’t know we know they know, I am walking right out that door,” she said in a threatening voice. “What are we supposed to do now?”
Tina shrugged, pushing against Jan’s hands and feeling a strange sense of comfort in their weight. Jan increased the pressure for a brief moment, a gentle squeeze, before letting go and breaking the connection. “We go back to the pool table and take them for all the cash they have on hand,” she said, giving Jan a swat on the rear. “That is, if you can concentrate on pool with me around.”
Jan picked up two of the drinks the bartender put in front of them. “I think I proved how little you distract me during our last pool game,” she said.
“During the game, yes,” Tina said, moving into Jan’s space. And not just because Brooke and Andy were looking their way. She ran her fingers through Jan’s silky hair and watched it drift back against her cheek, her neck. “But what about later that night when you were alone? Was I a distraction then?”
Jan’s blush confirmed Tina’s suspicion. Jan had been as turned on that night as she had. Jan opened her mouth as if to answer, but she closed it again without saying a word and walked away, leaving Tina to take care of the other drinks. And the tab.
Chapter Eleven
“You’re early,” Jan said when she cracked the door the next morning and peered around it at Tina. She had been planning to meet everyone for lunch, and having Tina show up on her doorstep—before she had even gotten dressed—wasn’t her idea of a great start to the day.
“Well, good morning to you, too, snuggle bunny,” Tina said, taking a paper cup of coffee out of the carrier she was holding and passing it through th
e narrow opening.
“Ugh, those pet names of yours are getting worse,” Jan said. She took an appreciative sniff of the vanilla-scented coffee, but she wasn’t about to be bought with caffeine. She kept the door open just enough to show her face. “Thanks for the coffee, and I’ll see you later.”
She was about to shut the door when her dad walked up behind her. “Who are you…Oh, hello, Tina.”
“Hi, Glen,” Tina said. “I brought you a cup of coffee, but your daughter won’t let me in.”
“That’s because she’s still in her pajamas,” he said.
“Dad!”
She turned her attention away from the door for just a moment, and Tina took advantage of the opportunity to push her way inside. “You won’t hear any complaints from me,” she said as she handed Glen his coffee and the newspaper from the front porch.
“I didn’t think I would,” he said as he accepted Tina’s offerings. “Thank you, my dear. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Jan crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Her boxer shorts and tank top felt insignificant under Tina’s gaze. The flimsy material seemed to disintegrate when Tina merely looked at her, leaving her naked. Too exposed. “Okay, you delivered your coffees. Now go, and I’ll see you at lunch. Or are you waiting for a tip?”
“I wouldn’t mind one, but we don’t have time for that right now. There’s been a change in plans.”