Love's Little Instruction Book

by Mary Gorman

  “She probably felt really badly about it. She asked me to come, after all. Now, you stay here and rest and I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen. I brought a couple of groceries with me, just in case.”

  Maybe it was the fact that time had passed. Maybe it was the fact that he finally had some liquid nourishment in his belly. Maybe it was the idea that he finally had someone competent taking caring him. But by the time he had spooned up the last of the chicken noodle soup, Dave was feeling distinctly better. Judy had given him a couple of aspirin, carried the portable television into his room and set it up, and had gone back into the kitchen to fix up a box of gelatin to leave with him. She had the soiled bedding — and a half a week’s worth of his dirty laundry — piled in his clothes basket to take home and launder for him. He sat now, propped up against the head of the bed, the remote control to the TV by his hand and a warm cup of soda going flat on his bedside table.

  “I’ll come back tonight to check on you,” she told him as she shrugged into her coat. “And I should have your laundry ready by then. If you think of anything you need before then, just call and I’ll bring it with me.”

  “Will Denise come with you?”

  “Probably not. I think I’ll be back before her shift is up. She doesn’t like sickness in general. I’m actually kind of surprised that she came over at all.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when she took Cookie and left me to fend for myself.”

  Judy shrugged. “She did the best she could. She brought you soup, even if it did make you sick. And she cleaned up after you, and got you settled on the couch.”

  “And then she left me. Alone and sick. I thought women were supposed to be nurturing and caring, that having a man to take care of brought out the best in them. That’s the way it always is on TV and in books.”

  Judy looked at him thoughtfully as she scooped up her handbag and began to pull on her gloves. “There’s one major difference between the men in books and TV and the men in real life,” she informed him.

  He looked at her warily. “What’s the difference?” he asked.

  “Men in books don’t whine when they get sick.”

  And with that she turned and left him.

  Chapter Thirteen: The Blizzard

  “I’m really sorry about this, guys,” Presley apologized again a few weeks later as she hoisted her purse strap up over the shoulder of her parka, “but I thought that if I tried any hotels that were farther out than this, they would have been too far for you to get to in the storm.”

  “It’s okay, Presley,” Denise assured her. “We’re just glad that you found any place at all.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Dave promised her. “Just worry about getting yourself home safely.”

  Presley nodded and hugged each of them in turn, then left through the main lobby of WMTR. Dave looked at Denise with his eyebrows raised as if to say “Well? What next?” She gave him a sheepish smile, then stepped into his arms.

  “Thanks for volunteering to stay on with me,” she told him.

  It was mid-afternoon, and the Boston area was about to experience what the weathermen were calling a “major snow event.” Already the flakes were falling fast and heavy. In light of the forecast, management had opted to close the station down except for a skeleton crew — two pairs of employees, each pair containing one on-air talent. The two teams would take turns pulling long shifts to keep the station up and on the air. Denise had been selected on the basis of her upcoming evening shift. She didn’t mind staying and knew that her mother would ride out the storm safely in Cambridge. But Dave had had the chance to go home. He had volunteered to stay on and do the behind the scenes jobs so that Manny, the engineer who would have had to stay, could go home to his very pregnant wife instead.

  For Dave this seemed like an ideal situation — he wouldn’t need to worry about getting home in a blizzard, and he had no family or children to get back to. He’d already called Mrs. Silva and asked her if she could take Cookie in for him. And it would mean long sprints of time alone with Denise — a reward much more coveted than the overtime pay the station would be sending his way until things were back to normal. He would have thought himself fortunate on this basis alone, but then Presley had come in and announced that the hotels, motels, and inns of Boston were full of people who were going to ride out the storm in the city. It had taken Presley four different phone calls to find a place with a vacancy, and even then, the only place she could find within a reasonable distance had only a single vacancy left. Presley had jumped on it, and so Denise and Dave would be sharing a single room, occupying it in opposite shifts from the other team of WMTR workers.

  He thought back to one of the earlier conversations he’d had with the guys about books where the hero and heroine were trapped together by circumstances beyond their control. Sometimes a little forced proximity was just what was needed to force them to confront their feelings for each other. Not that he needed to be forced to confront his feelings for Denise. He was head over heels in love with her. The problem was that he wasn’t sure if she loved him back.

  Sure, they were dating and their friends and coworkers had started to think of them as a couple, but he wasn’t sure if her feelings toward him were limited to warm friendship, or if she was beginning to feel something more. She liked to be with him, sure, but she was the one who always halted their make out sessions before they went beyond a little friendly fondling.

  It might have been that she still didn’t feel ready for that kind of relationship after the death of her marriage, or it may have been that she didn’t feel for him the way he felt for her. Because he wasn’t sure, he was willing to take things as slow or as seriously as she wanted to. After all, he loved her, and she was surely worth waiting for.

  Working during the blizzard turned out to be hard work. Dave and Denise puttered around the empty station offices while Rocky MacDougall and his single-man support team Patrick Hanaghue from engineering were on the air. They helped to answer phones and Dave struggled to figure out the computer program that would put all off the called-in cancellations in alphabetical order to be read on the air while Denise kept answering phones. Pretty much everything was going to be closed for the next day at least and probably even longer.

  Rocky and Pat left the station for their shared room at the Shelton Hotel at six, leaving Denise on the air and Dave still manning the phones. The plan was that Dave and Denise would stay on at the station until two o’clock in the morning — two hours into the playing of the overnight nationwide syndicated show. Then Rocky and Pat would come back and take over, watching things from two until four when the station would be back live with Rocky at the mike. That would be Dave and Denise’s turn to bed down and rest at the motel room. The two teams would alternate twelve-hour shifts each with two hours at the station when they weren’t actually on the air. It would be like working a marathon, only with no known finishing time.

  Things were still chaotic when Denise went on the air. Traffic was pretty much at a crawl with multiple accidents. Calls were still coming in for cancellations and people calling to ask if things had been cancelled. Dave didn’t understand why people didn’t just call the place they suspected was cancelled to inquire directly, but he tried to be a good sport and answered the questions as best he could. Parking bans were in effect all over the place — the station had to keep track of those and announce them as well, and Dave seriously hoped that he didn’t say parking was banned on the odd numbered sides of the street in Revere and the even sides of the streets in Scituate when it was really the other way around. And in the midst of it all, he was still fielding calls with requests for certain songs.

  He and Denise ate dinner out of the vending machines and joked about being able to survive as long as their change held out.

  By nine o’clock things had calmed down enough that Denise put on a long set of songs and le
ft Dave at the helm while she went to her office to pack what she’d need in an overnight bag. Dave was surprised that she had anything there that could be packed, but she told him that she kept quite a bit of stuff in her office — a T-shirt and sweat pants for when she decided to work out between staff meetings and her shift, a blouse and slacks for when she needed to make a public appearance, and soap, shampoo, a disposable razor, sneakers, high heels, a brush, hairdryer, toothbrush, toothpaste, and of course, make up. Dave’s overnight things consisted of a clean T-shirt scrounged up from the prize closet. He made a mental note to keep at least a change of underwear in his desk for now on. At least he’d be able to shower at the hotel. And he could help himself to as many clean T-shirts as he needed.

  By the time Rocky and Pat arrived at the station, Denise and Dave were sitting in the studio with the syndicated show turned down, sharing a bag of microwave popcorn and talking quietly. They looked up sleepily when the relief team arrived. “How is it out there?” Denise asked without getting up.

  “It’s coming down fierce,” Pat replied. “You should try walking in the streets instead of on the sidewalks. They tried to plow the street a couple of times before it got really bad, so the snow’s a little less deep in the road.”

  Denise nodded. “Good idea. Things are pretty quiet here. We’ve got the ‘Midnight Music’ running and the most recent list of cancellations is on the console. How’s the room?”

  “It’s a room,” Rocky replied. “We asked them if they could have somebody make it up for you after we left. It’s got a single king-sized bed so we asked them bring in a cot for one of you to sleep on.”

  Dave glanced at Denise, who seemed unperturbed as she hoisted herself out of the wheeled studio chair. “Thanks, guys.”

  It took them much longer to cover the three city blocks to the hotel than it normally would have. They kept their heads down and didn’t speak as they hurried though the streets of Boston.

  Dave was slightly surprised to find that the room had been made up — he’d figured that the hotel would be short staffed and wouldn’t be likely to find someone to make a bed at two o’clock in the morning, but then again, this was a four-star establishment. A cot stood off to the side of the bed, still folded neatly. He let his gaze skitter away and moved off to look in the bathroom. “Clean towels and everything,” he told her. “Can’t fault the service.”

  She set her overnight bag on the dresser and began to unbutton her coat. “They could have George Clooney for a bellboy, asking if he could personally tuck me in for the night, and all I’d get excited about would be the bed.”

  “Tired?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Do you want to take the bathroom first?”

  “It’s all yours if you can take it. Me, I want to thaw out a little before I start pouring hot water all over my body.”

  Dave blinked, trying to force the image from his mind. “You’re sure?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Go on. The sooner we can both turn in for the night, the better.”

  • • •

  It was five A.M., according to the clock on the dresser. Denise had managed to get in a bit of sleep, but had woken up and now sat there, listening in the semi-darkness. Dave was lying next to her. He’d offered to take the cot, but it hadn’t seemed fair to her that he should have the lesser accommodations when he had volunteered to stay with her through the storm. And they’d both agreed that the cot wasn’t designed for someone of her height. So they’d agreed to share the king-sized bed.

  She rolled over to look at him in the faint glow given off by the bathroom light. He was sleeping with his back toward her, half-curled with his hands drawn in to his chest. She propped herself up on one elbow to get a better look at him. His eyes were closed and his lips were parted, and she could hear the deep, slow rhythm of his breath quite clearly. She smiled. He looked like a little boy, lying there with his beautiful curls and full face.

  He was a sweetheart, her Dave. He was so easy to be with, and he always made her feel cared for. She supposed that that had been missing in her marriage, toward the end. It was like she and Jason had been living parallel lives, sharing space and their paths crossing frequently, but without that sense of caring near the end. She cared about Dave. Deeply. Even though she’d started off by thinking that she only wanted him as a convenient companion, a man to help her deflect the attentions of other men, she knew now that he meant much more to her than that. Her Dave was special.

  She half wondered how he had reached his thirties without someone snatching him up. Sure, he didn’t have the kind of head turning looks that grabbed a woman’s attention and his physique wasn’t exactly fit and trim, but he had a wonderful sense of humor and an easy charm about him that she found very sexy. She hesitated. Dave, sexy? She supposed he was. God knew that he was a great kisser. And she thoroughly enjoyed their make-out sessions. So why did she always stop well short of consummating their relationship?

  There had been plenty of times over the past few weeks when she’d gotten hot and heavy with Dave — making out in the back seat of her car on “The Night of the Lobsters,” cuddling with him on the couch in his apartment, even a couple of quick stroke and gropes in his office while “Bohemian Rhapsody” was playing on the air. Every time, she was the one who had called a halt to the proceedings before they advanced to the stage where clothing was removed. Dave was always compliant, if somewhat less than thrilled. Dear God, he was a patient man. He never complained. He never pressured her. He never asked her what the problem was. He’d just stroke her hair and kiss her, then let her go.

  In a lot of ways, she was afraid of sex. Because she used the birth control patch while she was married, she’d made love to Jason without a condom. There was little doubt in her mind that he’d been having unprotected sex with the skank he’d been sleeping with on the side. He always insisted that condoms “impeded his performance.” Would that she had impeded it years ago. It was all too easy to remember the terror she’d felt, waiting in the doctor’s office for the results of an AIDS test. It had been negative, thank god, but the experience was all too fresh in her mind. After that, she’d been in no hurry to go back to being sexually active again.

  But lying here in the darkness, Denise had to wonder: what would it be like to make love to Dave?

  She thought he would be a careful, considerate lover. She thought that he would be different from Jason. She thought that he would never take her for granted. She sighed. Would it be so awful if she and Dave were lovers? He wasn’t physically unattractive to her. And they’d been seeing each other for weeks now, with no end in sight. If she did take Dave as a lover, it wouldn’t be a fly by night coupling. Lying here in the dark with him, listening to his breathing, feeling his warmth, smelling his scent, knowing that he’d always been so good to her, she couldn’t help but imagine that he’d be a careful, caring lover. She drew a long breath. She wanted to take care of him the same way he took care of her. Would Dave want to make their relationship a sexual one? She snorted. Even though he never argued when she pulled back at the end of their make out sessions, she’d seen the way he looked at her. If she was ever willing, he wouldn’t turn her down.

  She lay back against the mattress and sighed. It had been a very long time since she’d had sex and there were times, such as this, when she really missed sex. Lying here in the darkness with Dave, feeling his warmth, breathing in his scent, and knowing that he wouldn’t turn her away, she stared at the ceiling and wondered.

  • • •

  Dave’s eyes flew open as he snapped into blazing consciousness. Holy Mother of God, her was in bed with Denise. She was lying in his arms, her back pressed against his chest, asleep.

  The part of him that was always half aroused when he woke up roared to throbbing attention as the thinking part of him started to panic. Had he done anything during the n
ight that she — and consequently he — was going to regret? His heart slowed just a little as he remembered turning out the light and climbing into his own side of the bed. Lifting his head, he glanced around the room and let out a relieved breath. He was still on his own side of the bed. Denise was the one who had moved over in the night. Relieved, he settled his head back onto the pillow and tried to relax. He finally had Denise Johnson not only in his bed, but in his arms. There was no way he was going to get up before he had to.

  He closed his eyes and tried to memorize every sensation he was experiencing. The way his arm was draped over her ribs and her arm was draped over his, as if they were enfolding each other, keeping each other close even as they slept. The way her body heat warmed him even through their layers of clothing. The gentle rise and fall of her chest beneath his arm. His toes were pointed toward the foot of the bed as they pressed against the backs of her calves and her hair lay just inches from his face.

  He thought of a production of Hamlet that he had seen in high school and how Hamlet, having ripped through Ophelia for her supposed treachery, turned as she lay face down across the bed crying and gave her a most longing look, then approached her silently, lifted a lock of her hair and kissed it tenderly before leaving her for good. He remembered being impressed by that gesture. It meant nothing to Ophelia. She hadn’t felt it, never knew; but it revealed a lot about Hamlet and the anguish he was going through. Dave opened his eyes and looked at the smooth, shining darkness of Denise’s hair. She need never know. Carefully, he lifted his head, leaned forward, and kissed her hair where it lay just off her neck.

  “What time is it?” she whispered, as he lay his head back down.

  Dave panicked. Had she felt it? He wasn’t sure. He raised his head and looked over at the glowing red numbers on the clock. “A little after ten o’clock. Have you been awake long?”

  “Not long,” she said, turning beneath his arm so that she lay on her back looking up at him. She smiled apologetically. “Looks like I went a-wondering off my side of the bed,” she noted. “I’m sorry.”