A Winning Battle

by Carla Neggers

  His common sense talking. Since when did he listen to common sense? His research suggested Page Harrington was one of Boston’s best professional organizers and in high demand, but even if it didn’t, she was it. His organizer. He was going to find out what made the woman tick.

  Dressed and as knock-’em-dead handsome as he’d ever be, Chris sat on the edge of the bed in his room overlooking the Public Garden and dialed Page B.’s number, which by now he’d memorized. It was easier than keeping track of the matchbook. And, blast the woman, the paper wasn’t footing the bill for this little side trip. He was.

  Anything, he thought, for a column.

  She picked up the receiver on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s me.” He knew she’d recognize his voice; from the note of foreboding he heard in hers, he suspected she’d guessed who it was before she’d even answered. “How would you like to have dinner with me tonight? On me, of course.”

  “Ha!”

  “You’re frank, aren’t you? Look, you wouldn’t want me to have to eat in a fancy hotel all by myself.”

  “I don’t care what you do or where you do it, Mr. Battle.”

  “Not that ‘Mr. Battle’ stuff again. It’s Chris.”

  “Okay, Chris, I still don’t care what you do or where you do it.”

  She spoke without emotion, except maybe a trace of smugness, and hung up on him. Chris leaned back against the headboard and made a face. Well, wasn’t she full of wit and charm? Har-di-har-har. She’d driven him out of his mind with that luscious body of hers and here he’d invited her to dinner to try to make amends for giving her a hard time—and what did he get? Smart-mouthed. That’s what he got. Just plain smart-mouthed.

  Didn’t she know with whom she was dealing?

  “Okay, Chris, I still don’t care what you do or where you do it,” he mimicked. But he couldn’t get the tone right. Thought she was funny, did she? He exhaled and flopped back down on the bed. “You deserved it, Battle.”

  Yes, he had.

  But he’d deserved a lot of other nasty things he’d had thrown at him over the years, and he’d managed to survive. Thrive, even.

  He rolled over, grabbed the phone and dialed her number once more. This time her machine answered. “I know you’re there,” he said, but she still didn’t pick up the receiver. He tried being conciliatory. “Hey, why don’t we have dinner and talk this out? I’m sure we can work something out.”

  For his peacemaking efforts he received the beep of her answering machine. He gave up. He had another idea, which the mind that people all over the country called brilliant and incisive told him had to be one of his worst. Out and out nuts. But he didn’t care. He dialed room service. Did they serve the condos? They did. Terrific. He ordered a magnificent dinner for two, complete with wine, an appetizer, dessert and after-dinner brandy and had it delivered to Page B. Harrington’s condominium, compliments of Mr. Battle.

  He’d shame her into inviting him up.

  * * *

  Page debated sending the entire meal back with a message for Chris Battle to go soak his head. Or no message at all, just a stony silence. Either way, he’d have to get the point: she wasn’t going to have anything more to do with him. But the food smelled delicious and looked wonderful, and all she had in her refrigerator was some leftover black bean soup. Well, why not?

  Besides, she had an idea.

  With a smile and a fat tip she accepted the expensive, elegant dinner. Half she wrapped carefully and put in the refrigerator. Battle’s intentions lacked any subtlety; she knew the meal was meant as a “peace offering.” He undoubtedly expected her to be so touched— in the heart or head, it didn’t matter which—that she’d invite him to join her.

  But Battle was wrong. Page saw the meal as another form of harassment, more palatable than the phone messages and parking himself at the pool while she did her laps, but still harassment.

  Normally she didn’t go for vengeance. It lacked maturity and was essentially a waste of energy. But…what could she say? It was almost spring. Something had to get her through the last days of winter—and Christopher O. Battle was asking for it.

  Her half of the dinner she enjoyed tremendously, alone in her dining room with her daffodils, her view of the Garden, the lights of Beacon Hill beyond and Mozart playing quietly on her stereo. So civilized. So lonely. But she consoled herself by imagining Chris Battle pacing in his hotel room, waiting for her to call.

  When she finished her dinner, she poured herself a glass of the brandy he’d sent up and, returning to the living room, dialed the front desk, which transferred her call to the combative journalist’s room. Feeling full and languid, she sank into the soft cushions of her couch. She could hear his irritation just in the way he picked up the phone and snarled, “Battle,” as if he were ready for one.

  ‘Well, hello,” she said cheerfully. She planned to lay it on thick. “I just wanted to say thank you so much for dinner. It was such a charming mea culpa. And sending enough for two was a stroke of real…well, chivalry, I suppose. Now I don’t have to cook tomorrow night, either. Frankly, I hadn’t thought you capable of such generosity. How very thoughtful.”

  He didn’t say a word. Ha, Page thought, choke, you smug bastard! The meal had to have put him back well over two hundred dollars, but he could afford it. And, she reminded herself, he deserved to pay. She wasn’t going to be the butt of anyone’s joke.

  She asked sweetly, “Mr. Battle, are you all right?”

  “I only have one thing to say.”

  He did sound a bit enraged. Page beamed. “What’s that?”

  “This,” he said darkly, “is war.”

  “What? No—”

  “That’s it. That’s all I have to say.”

  “No, wait. We’re even!”

  “Even? Even? Lady, we’re not even close to even.”

  And this time he hung up on her.

  Well, Page thought, she’d got what she deserved, hadn’t she? Chris Battle wasn’t going to give up on her now! But as she sat back on her couch with her brandy, she wondered if that wasn’t what, on some remote, unconscious level, she’d been after all along. She was goading him and she knew it. More to the point, she was enjoying herself. So many men she intimidated with her success as a businesswoman, her intensity, her togetherness. She didn’t need a man to sweep her off her feet and rescue her from herself. She didn’t need a man to do a nasty column on her that would appear in hundreds of newspapers all over the country, either, but at least Battle was willing to take her on her own terms—not that it would lead to anything romantic. He wasn’t her type. Probably she wasn’t his type. He would want someone he did intimidate.

  “They always do,” she muttered.

  Never had she acted so impulsively, without thought for the consequences of her actions. Under ordinary circumstances, Battle seemed to have an unhealthy measure of determination. If anything, her behavior had increased that determination. Where was her common sense?

  Floating on a spring breeze likely enough, she thought, trying to restore that feeling of victory with a sip of brandy.

  * * *

  Chris hammered his left palm with his right fist as he paced back and forth in his room, looking for something not too expensive to kick. Page B. Harrington had already cost him enough, and declaring war on her didn’t touch his frustration with her. Whenever he thought of his dinner sitting in her refrigerator, he felt a new wave of outrage inundate him. Never had he encountered a woman so thoroughly infuriating and so damn sneaky. She might even be sneakier than he was, which was saying something, indeed. And sweet. He grunted. She was about as sweet as a moray eel.

  Even. Like hell they were even.

  “I ought to go up there and….’’

  And what? Break down her door? Those weren’t his tactics, and there was nothing to be gained in pretending they were. He preferred to use his wit and charm, such as it was. To do his article, he had to get inside her apartment and s
ee her office, how she worked. He had to get inside her head. Tactics didn’t interest him, except to the extent that there were those, such as brute force, that he wouldn’t use.

  He liked to get what he wanted. His readers trusted him to be thorough, if not objective, although he didn’t pull any punches. They always knew where he was coming from, what his biases were. And, most important, that he’d do what had to be done to get the job done right. He ordered a club sandwich from room service and avoided the thought of the two-hundred-dollar meal he’d paid for and Page B. had eaten.

  Slowly the tension in his muscles began to ease, and a certain spot inside him, a spot he didn’t like to confront, forced him to wonder if professional pride wasn’t only one part of his war with Page B. Harrington.

  “Admit it,” he said with a low growl, losing patience with himself, “you’re having fun with this.”

  All right. He’d admit it. But it was still war.

  When his sandwich came, he poured much of his lingering aggravation into a column he was writing on political corruption. But he found himself wondering what the B in Page B. Harrington stood for. Barracuda?

  * * *

  The following morning, before she left for Cambridge and the nonprofit children’s organization, Page checked with the front desk and was informed that Chris Battle had already checked out. She did not breathe a sigh of relief.

  Chapter Three

  They were back at the Newbury Street restaurant with the raw vegetable menu and the nice books of matches, but this time at Chris’s expense. He’d called his friend William Norton that morning and talked him into lunch. A lumbering, curly-haired man, William had an intense, creative mind and an awesome visual memory, the primary reason he’d survived work habits even Chris considered chaotic. By shutting his eyes, William would visualize what he was looking for and remember where it was. Chris thought that was a neat trick. Who needed Get It Together Inc. and its turquoise-eyed proprietor?

  “Your organizing woman made it possible so that you don’t have to do your visualizing act, right?” Chris asked as idly as he could. Even after three days he still burned whenever he thought about Barracuda Harrington and his dinner. Conjuring her up in her black swimsuit and pink glasses was some consolation, but he didn’t have the precision of William’s visual memory. Once Chris touched something, however, it was his. Sometimes his fingers tingled when he imagined them brushing the soft swell of Page Harrington’s breasts. He knew such thinking was dangerous. How could he explain that bias to his readers? But since when had he wanted to stop living dangerously?

  “No, no,” William said, digging into his salad of marinated mushrooms, blue cheese, red peppers and Lord knows what else. “Page helped me to get organized in a way that suits me and my personal idiosyncrasies. I told her I don’t do lists, and she said, okay, fine, I could learn to organize myself using my visual skills. All I have to do is envision myself going through the next day or week, whatever, and use that as a basis for going about and getting things done.”

  “Prioritize?” Chris suggested wryly.

  “Yeah. But Page hates that word.”

  So did Chris, but he refused to make too much of it. He tried some of his pasta primavera. A little heavy on the vegetables, but not bad. His natural perversity led him to crave fried onion rings whenever he was in a place like this.

  “Everyone has priorities,” William went on. “Sometimes it’s just a question of sorting them out. Admit it, Chris. You have priorities, too, just like the rest of us.”

  “Sure. My priority is whatever I happen to be doing at the moment.”

  William shook his head in mock despair. “I’d love to see what happened if Page ever got hold of you.”

  “So would I, but I tried. She turned me down cold.”

  “Too big a job even for her?” William was grinning now.

  “She’s got it into her head I’m planning to make fun of professional organizers in my column.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then she’s smart to stay away from you. I hope you’re not planning to make me sorry I gave you her name.”

  “Come on, it’s all in good fun. We’re not talking money laundering here.”

  “Maybe. But Page takes what she does seriously.”

  “Maybe too seriously. You have to admit this is too good to pass up. Do you know there’s actually a national organization of professional organizers? I love it: an organization for organizers.”

  William regarded his friend with open suspicion. “They’ve helped a lot of people—me, for one.”

  “Who says they haven’t? Look, relax. I’m just trying to get a handle on what kind of person organizes other people for a living. Keeping my own life in order is enough of a chore without tackling someone else’s. Is Page B. Harrington better than the rest of us? Or is she just compulsive and meddlesome? Or is this really just some kind of scam, a glorified, expensive way to get people to clean out their closets? I’m not going into this with my mind made up.”

  “Go on, Chris, you are, too.”

  He shrugged. “Well, okay, so I’m leaning toward thinking professional organizers are pretty silly. But that’s not what I’m really trying to get at. I just want to lay out the facts and let my readers draw their own conclusions. Just do a straight up, simple column. I’ll describe Page and what she does, quote her definition of it and her reasons for getting into this racket, describe her office and her apartment and... well, that’s it. No commentary from me. I’ll just let the descriptions and her quotes speak for themselves.”

  “Only because she turned you down as a client. Otherwise you’d nail her with your commentary.”

  “Probably.”

  William stabbed another mushroom, his suspicion unabated. “So why are you giving me this sob story instead of working on her?”

  “What makes you think—”

  “Chris, I’ve known you a long time. You don’t call up for lunches at places like this on the spur of the moment without an ulterior motive. If we were drinking beer and eating burgers, maybe I’d believe you just needed an ear. So cut the act, okay, and tell me what you want.”

  Chris sighed. “Subtlety isn’t my strong suit.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “I can’t get into her office. She won’t return my phone calls and told the security people in her building that I’m bad news. They’ve thrown me out twice, and if I’m stupid enough to show up again without express permission from Ms. Organizer herself, they’re pressing harassment charges.”

  William waved a hand for a refill of his brewed decaffeinated coffee, something Chris refused to put to his lips. “Would it be dumb to ask why you don’t just give up?”

  “William, have I ever given up?”

  “Not that I know of. It’s probably the biggest reason you’ve gotten as far as you have—blind determination.”

  Chris gave up on the pasta and polished off the last of a glass of too expensive wine. “Don’t forget my wit and charm.”

  “You know what they say, Battle—cream and bastards rise. And you, my friend, ain’t cream. If you were, I’d believe you were buying me lunch out of the goodness of your heart. But you and I both know I owe you.

  You’ve never called in the chips for taking me in two years ago when I got laid off. Three weeks of sleeping on your couch. It was pure hell, but better than laying out my sleeping bag in a subway station. So what’s it to be?”

  “Look, you don’t owe me.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “No, dammit. If I’m ever down and out, I want to know I can count on my friends without having to be indebted to them for life. No, William, this is an out-and-out bribe. Lunch, which you’ve already consumed, and front-row Celtics-Lakers tickets, which are at this very moment in my wallet.”

  William winced. “Nasty, Chris. Really nasty.”

  “Just get me into her condo. That’s where she has her office. I need a description in order
to do my column the way I want to do it.”

  “You’ll be nice?”

  “William.” Chris feigned being cruelly insulted. “I’m always nice.”

  “Yeah, right. I haven’t been to a Celts game in ages. Front row?”

  “Behind the Celtics bench.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, Battle. But I’ll tell you this. I like that woman. She cares, and that’s more than you can say for most people. You hurt her—”

  “And I’ll have to answer to you,” Chris said, finishing for his friend.

  “No.” William grinned and wagged a finger at Chris. “No, pal, you’ll have to answer to her. And in case you haven’t noticed, that’s one lady who can take care of herself. If she couldn’t, I wouldn’t succumb to your bribery.”

  Chris no longer felt quite so victorious. Had he for once taken on more than he could handle? Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. He’d just have to wait and see.

  * * *

  Page didn’t for a single second think she’d seen the last of Chris Battle. She was aware of his attempts to sneak into her condominium and assumed he needed to get into her office for some aspect of his column on professional organizers. But that was his problem. She wasn’t going to cooperate. As far as she was concerned, the nasty journalist was on his own.

  Which worried her. He seemed capable of anything. What next?

  To help her sort out her options, she’d invited her friend Millie Friedenbach to afternoon tea in the Four Seasons lounge. They sat on the elegant upholstered chairs overlooking the Public Garden across Tremont Street. The warm spell had deteriorated into cold, sunny weather more typical of February, although Page didn’t think there was anything “typical” about New England weather at any time of the year, except that it could “typically” be counted upon to change.

  A pianist played softly, and tea was served on English bone china. It was all so civilized. Scones, jams, clotted cream, tiny sandwiches, pots of Earl Grey tea. Chris Battle would have wanted a hamburger, no doubt.