One More Time

by Deborah Cooke

  Her expression was guarded though, all the words of the previous night still between them.

  “It’s not early to start if you never stop.” Matt saluted her with his glass and drank.

  The stud du jour slipped past Sharan, gave Matt a nod, then ducked out the back door. He started to whistle when he was a dozen steps away, but Matt and Sharan didn’t look away from each other.

  Sharan swallowed, looked at the floor, then met Matt’s gaze again. “There was a time,” she said softly, “when I loved you more than anything or anybody. And you know, even though you left, there was something to be said for just having ever felt that way about someone.” She tilted her head to study him. “Why did you come here? Why did you have to steal that from me?”

  Matt shook his head. “I didn’t mean to. I thought…” he gestured as words failed him. “I thought that we could pick up where we left off.”

  Sharan shook her head. “But we’re not the same people anymore. You know that as well as I do. There’s something in there that’s still the same, but a lot of other stuff has shaped us since.”

  He looked into his glass, knowing she was right.

  She moved to stand in front of him, perfume and her own scent engulfing him. Her voice was unsteady. “I could still love you,” she said, then shook her head. “But we’d have to start again.” She raised her gaze to his and something in him twisted at the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “The question is, could you still love me?”

  She stood there, trembling and vulnerable, the woman he’d once believed to be tough and resilient and certain to succeed. He lifted one hand and touched her jaw, and she looked away, her tear splashing on the back of his hand.

  “Why did you stop painting?”

  She shook her head, lost for words.

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m no good.” Her tears started to flow. “No, I’m not good enough. That’s the truth.” She stared at him and he saw the depth of her wound, then the words began to fall from her lips in a torrent. “I’m not daring enough or talented enough or visionary enough and when push came to shove and I had my chance, I just couldn’t offer anything good enough. I failed.”

  “You make it sound so final.”

  “It is final. It’s over! I’m going to be painting fucking palm leaves for the rest of my life because I don’t know how to do anything else!” She glared at him, moving away from his hand. “And I can’t even manage to get into bed with a man who comes thousands of miles to me. Failure, Matt. I’m a failure!”

  She spun away, but he caught her elbow to halt her. On impulse, he pulled her into his arms. He was shocked by how she melted beneath his caress. She was crying, he could taste her tears, and he caught her closer, finding familiarity in her embrace if not passion.

  “You need to paint,” he told her with low urgency. “You need to try again.”

  “No, no, I don’t think so.” She tried to pull away from him as well as his suggestion. “I don’t know what to paint…”

  Matt caught her chin in his hand and compelled her to look at him. “Yes, you do. You know what to paint. You can only fail if you quit.”

  She blinked and he knew he had her. She swallowed and looked toward the dining room and all those stacked canvases. “I’m not sure.”

  “I am. You have talent. We both know that. Now all you need is luck and hard work.”

  She smiled then. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.” He smiled at her. “I’m looking for the same thing, if it’s any consolation.”

  She studied him for a long moment and he wondered what she saw that made her sober. Then her gaze slipped to the clock. “Hey, I’ve got to go to work.” She darted toward the bedroom, pausing to glance back, yearning in her eyes. “Will you be here tonight when I get home?”

  “Do you want me to be?”

  She smiled crookedly, as if she’d heard a joke. “Yes,” she said, her smile turning impish. “I’d like to talk.”

  Matt looked around the kitchen. He thought of his phone call with Leslie and deliberately tried to shut the door on his past. Nobody had ever promised him that he could get the good stuff for free. Sharan wasn’t who she had been, but neither was he. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t find at least friendship together.

  “No guarantees,” he said.

  “Where were you getting those all these years?”

  They smiled at each other, then Matt cleared his throat. “Any requests for dinner?”

  “No. Whatever you want to make.”

  It was long after Sharan had left that Matt realized she hadn’t said anything about dessert.

  And that that was okay with him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Leslie thought she strode into the department with some verve, though her confidence faltered when Charlotte MacPherson gasped at the sight of her. When Charlotte scampered away in the direction of Dinkelmann’s office with nary a greeting, Leslie figured she was due for a visit from the great man.

  Might as well get the scolding over with. She unlocked her office door without spilling her coffee, dumped her books and booted up her computer.

  She had, predictably, a zillion emails to download.

  Give or take.

  No surprise there, since she’d pretty much forgotten to check it for the week. She wasn’t exactly a Luddite, but could never remember that email was one more place to check for correspondence.

  It often seemed like one more place to find work.

  Leslie adjusted her glasses and sifted quickly through the notes from students—she thought of them collectively as pleas for clemency of one kind or another—stuffed the two messages from Dinkelmann into a separate folder for later viewing, did the same with the condolence messages from friends and associates, and was left with two messages.

  One was from her brother-in-law, the devil himself. She could tell, not just by the j.coxwell of his address, but by the fact that the server was the district attorney’s office. She clicked to open it, bracing herself for a bomb of some kind.

  The message was typical of James.

  “Call me at your earliest convenience, please.”

  That polite terse imperative was followed by a telephone number, presumably his cell phone. His message was only half an hour old and she disliked the sense that she was being commanded to do anything. Rebellion roiled within Leslie, but she wasn’t prepared to drop the box Social Niceties.

  It matched Keeping Up Appearances so well, after all.

  She might as well get this over with, too.

  James answered immediately, as if he had known exactly when she would call. After cursory greetings, he got right to the point. “Have you talked to Matt lately?”

  Leslie found herself bristling. “Yes, why?”

  “How did you find his attitude?”

  Leslie preferred to not answer that. “Why do you ask?”

  James sighed. “Because I’ve had a call from the Chief of Police in Rosemount—”

  “Me, too. I thought he reached Matt.”

  “I spoke to him afterward. He didn’t think Matt was taking his suggestion of counseling very seriously.”

  Leslie bit her lip, not wanting to reveal what Matt had told her about his inclinations.

  “And I had a call from Zach last night. He thinks Matt is cracking up.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for one thing, Matt has refused to defend Zach. He told him to solve his problem himself.”

  “That’s past due, I’d think,” Leslie couldn’t help noting.

  “Maybe so.” She heard the smile in James’ voice. “But Zach said that Matt was angry…

  Leslie felt the need to interrupt and defend Matt. “But you know, Zach does have a tendency to be irritating. And maybe he’s just annoyed that Matt isn’t doing what he wants him to do.”

  “And so Zach is calling names in order to prompt me to do something instead,” James mused. “That would be consistent with the past. Zach has
a hard time accepting that his way isn’t the only way.”

  “Funny how the youngest of you would end up thinking himself the crown prince.” The words were out before Leslie could stop them, although she didn’t usually say such things aloud. She clapped a hand over her mouth, wondering what had gotten into her lately.

  Oh right. She’d dropped that Family Diplomat box.

  To her surprise, James laughed. “You’re right. Although the youngest is sometimes the most indulged.” He sobered then. “How are you doing with my mother, by the way?”

  “I think we have a ceasefire,” Leslie found herself saying. “Certainly she and Annette have come to some kind of agreement, which makes life easier.”

  “Don’t tell me that either of them compromised?” James feigned shock and Leslie found herself smiling. It was easier to talk to the shark than she’d expected. “They’ve got more in common than just their looks.”

  “Here I thought it was just the poodles.”

  There was a beat of silence, one that told Leslie that James didn’t know what she was talking about. “What poodles?” he asked carefully.

  “The girls, of course. Your mother’s new wards.” Then, just because she seldom had a chance to leave James with anything to think about, Leslie did. “Oh, gotta go. Give my best to Maralys and the kids. Have a good weekend.”

  James sputtered incoherently as he never did, and Leslie indulged herself a good chuckle after she hung up the phone.

  Maybe she should bite her tongue less often.

  It might, at the very least, make life more interesting.

  * * *

  “Score one for the good guys!” Naomi said, appearing so suddenly in Leslie’s office doorway that Leslie jumped. “Ha! I knew you wouldn’t be able to just step aside and let him have his way.”

  Leslie spun in her chair, a little bit spooked by Naomi’s jubilant manner. “Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

  “Be serious. The whole department is talking about the lecture you gave your third-year students yesterday.” Naomi punched her fist skyward. “Yes! Crabcake Coxwell says ‘no’ to higher grades for less work. Crabcake Coxwell says ‘no’ to full participation marks for just registering for her class.” Naomi perched on the credenza, nearly launching an avalanche of books and papers when she did so, her eyes sparkling. “Damn! I wish I could have been there. You were kicking some lion-ass!”

  Leslie felt a little bit sick. Why hadn’t she remembered to check her contract for those possible reasons for termination? It wasn’t as if she’d had anything else on her plate this week. “Surely not everyone is talking about it.”

  “Everybody. Even over in Classics, they’re all over it. You’re major hero material.” Naomi snapped her fingers. “Hey, you want a triumph, I can fix it right up. No problem.”

  “I’m not sure I really need a triumphant procession into the department right now.”

  “Department? No, I’m talking about an entry into the university, out in the streets, cheering fans, the whole bit.”

  The idea made Leslie laugh. “Even you can’t fix that.”

  “But I’d try. Seriously, Leslie, I admire you. Standing up to Dinkelmann when you have so much to lose. That’s something.”

  It was, in fact, something that made Leslie feel as if her breakfast was going to make a curtain call.

  “I mean, for me to buck him is nothing comparatively, but you’ve got so much to lose.” Naomi stuck out her hand. “Welcome to Team Good Fight. I knew I’d always looked up to you for a reason.”

  Dinkelmann himself arrived right when Leslie and Naomi were shaking hands. Sadly, Naomi had left the door open, so he saw the whole thing. His gaze flicked between the two women with open disapproval and his lips thinned.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, Dr. Coxwell, but there’s a matter I would like to discuss with you.”

  His form of address told Leslie all that she needed to know about his judgment of her behavior the day before.

  “Of course,” she said with a gracious smile that belied her inner turmoil.

  “If you could come to my office in ten or fifteen minutes, I think we can deal with this before your next lecture.” There was a slight emphasis on the last word, which Leslie knew was an accusation. She agreed and he nodded, sparing only the barest glance to Naomi before he left.

  “Trust him to change the field,” Naomi muttered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, it’s always better to fight on familiar turf. And there’s the whole strategic advantage of having you come to him, on his terms. You watch, he’ll be sitting behind his desk, all his artillery mustered around him, and let you sit in one of the armless chairs opposite.” Naomi scoffed. “There’s a reason I always hated military history.”

  For her part, Leslie was wishing she’d hated it a little less, or maybe studied it a little more. She might have moats and siege engines and Greek fire and, maybe, if she stretched to the end of her era, even the longbow.

  But Dinkelmann had gunpowder. Cannons. Infantry and a paid standing army. Hell, he even had better maps, ones that didn’t say “here be dragons” all around the perimeter.

  Leslie left her office, knowing she was sailing off the edge of the world, into terra incognito. It was only reasonable, given that she’d never defied expectation in this job, that she was feeling like dragon chow.

  * * *

  Matt’s past showed no inclination to remain placidly where it belonged. He told himself that it was only reasonable that he kept thinking of the woman with whom he had spent the last twenty years of his life, but it was unnerving to realize what a hold Leslie still had over his imagination.

  He caught himself drifting into memory for the umpteenth time that afternoon and surrendered.

  The Java Joint was a dump.

  No real estate agent could have put spin on that place’s character and Matt had always been mildly amazed that no health inspector had ever shut it down. It had the layer of grunge typical of undergraduate housing, but mercifully uncommon in a retail establishment serving food. The kids working there were indistinguishable from the patrons and the music was so loud that you had to shout to place your order.

  It was quieter at the tables, or the din was lower in the back corner where Matt and Leslie invariably met. He’d had to lean over the table to hear her, at least until he’d summoned the nerve to sit right beside her.

  Come to think of it, that light of pleasant surprise at the sight of him had been a hallmark of her arrival from the very beginning. In those days, though, she’d smiled and blushed a little before she came to the table. They talked about everything and nothing, about politics and history and families and dreams—and gradually, he’d found pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of her life. She lived with a maiden auntie who had a house near the T if not near the university. She lived under rules more strict than he’d ever had to deal with, within a virtual cocoon designed to protect her innocence for marriage. She was supposed to be either at school, at her part-time job at JC Penney or at her auntie’s. There were no other options. He’d understood early that there was no chance of their having a conventional date.

  But they had the Java Joint. Weekly, then daily, then several times a day, they met and talked, and when he first kissed her, it had been at that table in the corner of the Java Joint.

  Such sweetness. He could remember her surprise, her softness, her uncertainty. He had been sure then—and still was—that she had never been kissed before. He had felt protective of her because of that kiss, had been cautious about pushing her too far too fast as a result of it.

  He brought her things. Silly things. A postcard from the pier. A seashell he’d found in Rosemount. The smallest gift gave her the greatest pleasure, and that told him more than he could have guessed about her background and her expectations. He’d brought her ridiculous, playful tokens, things calculated to make her smile: olives from Little Italy and stories of going to the theater. He reme
mbered how she’d fingered those ticket stubs, souvenirs as they were of a world far beyond the boundaries of her own. And that had given Matt ideas, perhaps ideas that would have frightened Leslie’s father as much as the ideas that man had feared young men would have about his precious daughter.

  Over time, Matt had encouraged Leslie to take some adventures during the day: a furtive trip to Gardner Museum had been the first. Then there was another to the Museum of Fine Arts, lobster at Johnny’s—at lunch—veal piccata in Old Town, a Red Sox game on a spring afternoon. He was an ambassador for the city of Boston, all the while falling more deeply in love with a woman so sheltered yet so willing to embrace the world.

  To embrace him. He figured out how to make her laugh, how to persuade her to show him more of her own quirky humor. He earned her confidence in easy steps and found so much more than he had expected. Leslie had a thousand layers of armor, a remarkable self-control that protected the best of herself from casual view. She shared that jewel with those closest to her.

  When had he lost access to the treasury?

  Was that why he had been so convinced that he had to leave? Matt didn’t know, but the reappearance of Leslie’s humor in their conversations made him realize how much she had slipped away, and that without him noticing.

  Could he be part of the reason for the distance between them?

  They had been dating—if that’s what it was—for a year before she came to his apartment at lunch one day. It was autumn again, later, closer to Thanksgiving. Matt could remember how the dead leaves swirled around their feet as they walked in silence across the campus. It had been cold, the wind whipping at his cheeks, but he hadn’t been able to feel beyond the soft heat of Leslie’s hand in his.

  And he was nervous. He felt as if he was walking a schoolgirl across the park. He was certain that Leslie couldn’t feel the same lust that he did. He was going to explode if they didn’t make some progress on the intimacy front, but he was halfway convinced that she would run away from him if he tried anything.

  He was not entirely sure of his strategy.

  He and a buddy rented an apartment close to campus, more of a dump than the apartment on Inman Square proved to be, but infinitely more private than the Java Joint. His buddy had been banished, the apartment was clean—or cleaner than it ever had been or would be again during their tenancy—this was as good as it was going to get.