A Winning Battle

by Carla Neggers

  “I’m sure they do. Are they messy?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him over her roll. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “Just asking a question.”

  “It’s not an objective question.”

  “Who said I was trying to be objective?”

  She sighed. “Messiness doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with it. An unsuitable man can be someone who looks to me—or any woman—to sort out his life for him, to tell him what to do, how to live, to set goals for him. In short, to be a kind of mother to him.”

  “Sweetheart, I assure you, that’s not me.”

  “I know it isn’t. I’m talking in generalities. An unsuitable man can also be someone who runs directly counter to my goals, to the kind of life I want and need to lead.”

  “Ever hear of the word ‘compromise’?”

  “How can you compromise on your life’s dreams?”

  “You don’t necessarily have to compromise on the goals, just on the tactics, how you achieve those goals.”

  “My goals have too much to do with how I achieve them. In other words, tactics are my goals.”

  “Huh?”

  “I need stability. I need to live a certain way.”

  “Then all men are going to be unsuitable, Page. You’re not going to find a mirror image of yourself, somebody who does everything exactly the way you do it. Don’t you see that?”

  “Of course. But it’s not that simple.”

  “Nothing ever is,” he said.

  When she fell silent, Chris ate some of his own roll, giving her space. This didn’t seem to be the moment to press her to clarify her thinking. But he wanted to. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and the muscles tensing all over his body as he forced himself to keep his mouth shut. He was used to pushing—asking question after question, probing, digging—until he had everything clear and straight in his own mind. He couldn’t do that with Page, not yet. His reasons had changed, but he still wanted to know what made Page B. Harrington tick. More than ever, he had to know.

  But he didn’t want to give her an excuse to tell him flat out he was “unsuitable.” His silence, he realized, wasn’t just to protect her; it was to protect himself, too.

  After a few minutes she said, “I wonder if eels blink.”

  “Page.”

  “Doesn’t the idea of eating raw eel disgust you? I read somewhere that eel blood can be deadly poisonous and—”

  “That’s disgusting. Another word and I don’t think I’ll be able to choke down my salmon.”

  She smiled innocently. “Am I ruining your dinner?”

  “That and changing the subject, yes.”

  Their dinners arrived, and she changed the subject again, to politics. Chris let it go. Only elusive targets for his column did he believe in badgering into talking, not women who had gotten into a place inside him that made him feel warm and full and ever so vulnerable. He listened to her discuss a pending state bill, pleased with her depth of knowledge on the subject and more than a little relieved that they agreed on the worthiness of the legislation. They’d already argued over lobster and eel eyes. He didn’t think they needed to argue over politics.

  “But I’m doing most of the talking,” she pointed out as she polished off her second glass of wine.

  “That’s okay. I like to listen to you.”

  “I’m glad, but I’ve been thinking that I know very little about you. I know many of your views because I read your column. I know you’re witty, nasty, irreverent, funny when I agree with you and infuriating when I don’t. I know you’re a pack rat and not terribly neat. I know you have at least two ex-wives and a mother who received this year’s birthday card late. I know—”

  “One ex-wife,” he said, “and my mother always gets birthday cards from me late. But I always remember to call.”

  Page was shaking her head impatiently. “We’ll get to your mother in a minute. What do you mean, one ex-wife?”

  He tilted his glass back and finished his wine, studying the expression on Page’s face. He could see the excitement there, the relief. So he wasn’t quite as bad as she thought he was. He supposed one divorce was a better track record than two, but did it really matter?

  “Her name was Alysson,” he said. “She had no sense of humor, and we divorced ten years ago. Since then I haven’t been too anxious to dive into another marriage. Last I heard, she’d moved out to Southern California, remarried and had a couple of kids. We don’t communicate. I wish her well.”

  “But there are no others?”

  “Other women. I’m not a monk. But not other ex-wives...and no other women currently. You’ve never been married?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t make mistakes.”

  “Sometimes I think I try too hard not to. Why didn’t you correct me when I suggested you had more than one ex-wife?”

  He gestured to their waiter for coffee and said matter-of-factly, “At the time I was doing a job. You were supposed to do the talking and the assuming, and I was supposed to do the listening—”

  “And the judging.”

  “That’s right.”

  For the first time he observed a hint of uncertainty and even guilt in her deep turquoise eyes. “I was just repeating a rumor I’d heard. Sometimes I should keep my mouth shut, I know, but at the time you were either a prospective client or a snake-in-the-grass columnist out to get me. I— Were you embarrassed?”

  “Miffed would be more like it. As you should have gathered by now, I don’t embarrass easily.”

  The waiter came with coffee, and Page smiled. “Or give up easily.”

  “Sweetheart, I don’t give up at all.”

  “I don’t know why—I don’t even know if I want to know why—but I find that encouraging.”

  He grinned. “Good.”

  She insisted they split the bill down the middle and paid her half with two crisp tens. Chris’s twenty looked rumpled next to them. “What do you do,” he said, “iron your money?”

  “Cash machines.”

  “Oh, right. I’ve never bothered getting a cash card. Too much like having access to free money.”

  “I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve had to recommend turn in their bank cards. It’s very easy not to write down withdrawals and even easier to get cash instead of learning to manage cash. But handled properly, they can be a tremendous convenience and timesaver. It all depends on the personality of the user.” She grinned suddenly. “Am I lecturing again?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m not making judgments,” she said, serious. “What matters isn’t whether or not you can manage a cash card. It’s knowing that you can or can’t, knowing yourself. I admire clients who come to know themselves.”

  “Even if what they know about themselves and have accepted would drive you out of your mind to have to live with?”

  She looked him straight in the eye; he liked that kind of directness, even when, as now, it made him uncomfortable. “I don’t have to live with it.”

  “At night you can go home to your nice clean, organized, color-coded condominium.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not much potential for romance with clients, then, is there?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Good. I’m glad I never hired you.”

  “But you still—” She cut herself off, then stood and pulled on her coat.

  “I still what? I still have a disorganized life-style? I’m still unsuitable?”

  He was half teasing, half serious, but she didn’t answer, just walked past him. But he caught up with her quickly. “I’m still unsuitable,” he persisted, “and you’re still attracted to me. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Yes!” She shoved her hands into her coat pocket and whirled around to face him. “Yes, it is. And doesn’t the idea of being attracted to me scare the hell out of you?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, and then smiled as a cool breeze made them both shiver. It
was easy to forget that on spring nights the temperature could fall fast. “But I like to live dangerously.”

  * * *

  All her rules of common sense told Page to say goodnight to Chris in the plush lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel. At most, to have a drink with him in the lounge. She did neither. Her rules suddenly seemed to her too rigid, too confining: she had to be more flexible.

  Nonsense, she told herself, you’ve got a tenacious case of spring fever, and you just don’t want tonight to end.

  But she spun around in front of him and asked, “Would you like to come up?”

  He said sure. Later she might need to try to blame something else—the clear night sky, the starlight—for her actions. But now she knew she was the one responsible for what she was doing, what she was feeling, not the stars or the weather. What mattered to her now was that being with Chris Battle felt right. She wanted to get inside his energy and spontaneity and flow with whatever it did to her. Dangerous, perhaps. But the desire was there, and it was as undeniable as the air they breathed. And it was her conscious choice to act on that desire.

  They didn’t speak again until they were inside her condominium and had kicked off their wet, muddy shoes. Spring in New England was seldom the driest of seasons. Page liked the look of Chris padding across the thick carpet of her living room in his stocking feet. He seemed so strong and capable. As if, in some intangible, imprecise way, he belonged there.

  She asked if he wanted a glass of brandy.

  “If you’re having one, sure.”

  “At the rate I’m going,” she said, laughing, “I may have two or three.”

  “You’re living dangerously, too, huh?”

  “Mmm.”

  The brandy was in the dining room. She poured two glasses and was surprised at how steady her hands were, and it occurred to her that, indeed, she wasn’t the least bit nervous. Just crazy, she thought, returning to the living room. She found Chris standing at the big windows looking out across the Public Garden at glittering Beacon Hill. A plane was flying low over the city on its way into Logan Airport. Chris hadn’t heard her come in. Page took the opportunity to study his slouching yet alert figure, hands stuffed in pants pockets, the back of his cotton shirt wrinkled, its sleeves rolled up above his wrists. Chris Battle at ease. Was he ever not at ease? It intrigued her that he could be so comfortable around her, but she was glad that he was. She hadn’t taken any great pains to be frivolous and flirtatious. No pains at all, in fact. If anything, from the very beginning she’d been an even starchier version of herself. But he didn’t seem deterred.

  He was, after all, the most relentless man she’d ever met.

  “Here you go,” she said.

  He turned and smiled, taking the glass from her. “I left a light on in my apartment.”

  “You do that a lot.”

  His eyebrows went up, but there was pleasure in his eyes. “You’ve been spying on me?”

  “Well, I... yeah, I guess so.”

  “Shameless.”

  It was his toast. They clinked glasses and sat on the rug with their backs against the couch. Page stretched out her legs and noticed she had a tiny run in her stockings from her little toe up to her ankle bone. Chris noticed, too. He slid his big toe from one end of the run to the other. Heat radiated up her calves and thighs and spread throughout her, and it was all she could do to hang on to her brandy.

  “Ruined,” he said. “Do you have a use for wrecked nylon stockings?”

  “I save them for my niece—my brother’s daughter— and she makes dolls’ faces out of them.”

  “Waste not, want not.”

  “She asked me to.”

  “Page, I’m not making fun of you,” he said gently. “I admire your frugality, that you can live in an incredible apartment like this and still feel the need to save nylon stockings. Me, it doesn’t matter a whole hell of a lot where I live, and when something’s had it, I toss it. Of course, when I think something’s had it and someone else thinks so may be two entirely different things. I know a number of people who believe most of my working wardrobe ought to be tossed.” He shot her a look. “Do not analyze or lecture me on what I just said.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” she told him, sipping her brandy.

  He laughed, incredulous. “Liar. You know, you keep up and I’m going to have to start counting your lies. Do organized people lie more than disorganized people?”

  She laughed back at him. “Given your own track record, I’d say not. Want me to count up all your lies? We’d be here all night!”

  “Sounds good to me. Let’s start—”

  He was cut off by the ringing of the telephone. Page extricated her foot from under his and went into the kitchen to answer it. Her knees felt wobbly, but it had nothing to do with nervousness. It had to do with still feeling the warmth of Chris’s body next to hers and her having stuffed her foot into her mouth, run stocking and all. We’d be here all night. What was the matter with her?

  “Hey, there,” Millie said. “William and I are downstairs in the lobby. Can we come up?”

  “Well...”

  “If not, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s fine. By all means.”

  “On our way.”

  When she rejoined Chris in the living room, she sat on the edge of a chair and said, “That was Millie. She and William are downstairs.”

  “You told them to stay down there, didn’t you?”

  He spoke in a near growl that made Page realize he very definitely had other plans, that he wanted them to be alone together. She shuddered with a fresh wave of desire and wondered if her body was getting out of control. But she said primly, “No, I did not. Why should I?”

  “You’re being thickheaded on purpose. But if you want me to spell it out, I will. Don’t think I’m afraid, Page B.”

  “You? Hardly. I wouldn’t think fear is one of your major vices.”

  “Are you implying I have major and minor vices? How come you have only two and I have a whole damn list?”

  She barely controlled a smile and maintained a look of pure smugness. “Genetics, I would think.”

  “Page B., the only reason I’m not going to tackle you for that comment is that we have friends on their way up. But I promise you, I will have my revenge. What’s more, Ms. Superiority, we are going to talk.”

  “Talk? We’ve been talking for hours!”

  “About lobster eyeballs and run stockings—not about a certain note I left in an envelope for you and not about what happened before we went out to dinner.”

  She gave a nonchalant shrug. “What’s there to say?”

  “Lots.” He rolled onto his knees in front of her, and for a second she thought he was going to plead with her. But Chris Battle wasn’t the pleading type. He stood, and before she could think of a comeback, he took her chin in one hand and kissed her hard. “But go ahead and bring on William and your friend Millie. I’m not going anywhere.”

  She grinned at him, feeling a little dizzy from the kiss. “You are a determined man, Christopher Battle.”

  He sat on the couch. “Does that scare the hell out of you?”

  “No, I find it quite encouraging.”

  William and Millie had six-year-old Beth with them. They’d all been over at Faneuil Hall Marketplace “grazing” on the dozens of food booths, people-watching and apparently not doing a very good job of telling Beth no. The little girl sauntered in boasting a new Red Sox cap, an oversize Boston sweatshirt and an armload of knickknacks, most of which, Millie complained, would end up under Beth’s bed by tomorrow. All Page could think of was like mother, like daughter. Millie had never let her organizing friend touch her life... and Page wouldn’t, even if Millie asked. Their friendship was too important.

  Millie had brought a couple of dozen warm chocolate chip cookies with them, but when she saw Chris in the living room, she whispered to Page, “I didn’t realize you had male company.”

  “It’s Chris Battle.”
r />   “Aha. So you did do dinner, huh? We’ll get lost.”

  “No, it’s all right. Really.”

  Millie started to scowl, but Beth had already made her way to the refrigerator and was pulling out a carton of milk, and William had spotted Chris and was saying hello. “Well, I guess I don’t have much choice.” She gave Page a bawdy wink, adding, “Anyway, cookies will give you a boost of energy you’ll need to burn off.”

  “Millie!” Page warned, but her friend ignored her and followed William into the living room.

  Page made introductions as Beth settled on the floor with her glass of milk. She was tall for her age and outspoken like her mother. She was also Page’s goddaughter. Whatever Beth had already consumed, it wasn’t enough to make her wince at the prospect of chocolate chip cookies, but Page and Chris had skipped dessert, and Millie and William were always ready for a splurge. They sat around discussing the Red Sox prospects, and in short order a dozen cookies disappeared.

  After that William Norton and the Friedenbachs did.

  “Battle’s a lot nicer in person than he writes,” Millie whispered on her way out.

  “He’s on his best behavior tonight.”

  “Not for long, I’ll wager.”

  The door shut before Page could choke her.

  “Don’t those two make an odd pair?” she reflected when she returned to the living room, where Chris was back on the floor in front of the couch.

  “Whatever works.”

  “I guess. I worry about Millie, though. She’s tough and it’s no easy trick to pull the wool over her eyes, but she’s impulsive. Last year she got so sick of winter she packed her bags one Thursday morning, picked up Beth from school and drove straight to the airport. They got on a plane flying standby. She didn’t care where it was going as long as the destination was above sixty degrees.”

  Chris was holding back a laugh. “Where’d they end up?’’

  “Jamaica. They stayed until Monday and flew back in time for Beth to be back at school on Tuesday morning. William isn’t that... spontaneous, is he?”

  “Well...”

  “Tell the truth.”

  “You’re the one who organized him. You must know.”