ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT? (Running Wild) (13 page)

“It was great for me, too, lover. It was so powerful I’m still shaking. You’re the best, Clarence. Call me again soon, won’t you?” Edna was placidly finishing the sleeve of a blue sweater, and the soft click of her needles contrasted with her breathless voice and the sexually graphic scenes she’d just enacted.

The performance had Polly mesmerized, which was a good thing, because her injured leg was itching like fury and any diversion was welcome.

“Edna, you ever get turned on when you’re doing that?” she asked after Edna hung up.

"Knitting? Nope.” Edna’s grin was mischievous. 

"Of course not knitting, idiot.” Polly stuck her tongue out and rolled her eyes, and Edna laughed.

“Not usually," she said. She thought for a minute and then shot Polly a shy glance over the top of her half-moon glasses. "There is this one guy, though. It must be pure chemistry, because when I’m talking to him, yeah, I do get turned on sometimes.”

“So what does it? What he says, the way he says it, the tone of his voice, what?”

“It’s partly his voice, it’s low and rich and slow. And he has this laugh that seems to come rippling up from deep inside him. And he treats the whole thing like a game; he sees the humor. But it’s also just him. He’s honest about being lonely; his wife died four years ago and he misses sex.”

"You ever thought of actually meeting him?”

"Lordie, no.” Edna studied her knitting, but Polly noticed that color stole up her neck. "I’m just his fantasy. He calls every week or so.” She laid down her needles and patted her ample hips. "He’d be shocked out of his mind if he realized what Lilith actually looks like.”

"Don’t put yourself down.” Polly privately thought a beauty makeover would do Edna a world of good. “Maybe he’s exactly your type. Look at Maxine and Harry."

Edna shook her head. “I’d be too embarrassed to meet him. He thinks I’m twenty four and I measure thirty-six, twenty-six, thirty- eight.” Her smile was wry. “He’s a senior, his heart might not stand the shock of the real me.”

"You think you'll ever get into another relationship, Edna?” Having a broken leg left way too much time for thinking.

“After John left, I swore I wouldn't. But now I get lonely. I liked being married. I was good at it, and I don’t think all men are like John.” She looked pensive. "But I have no idea where I'd ever meet someone. I go to the library, the cinema, and here.” She shrugged. “Not exactly a singles beat, huh?”

“What about a personal ad?” Polly, bored out of her skull the last few weeks, had perused the personals on the Internet, amazed at the variety.

Edna looked doubtful. “I’d have to lose weight before I could meet anyone.”

“No, you wouldn’t; you’re sexy the way you are. All you really need to do is maybe get Terry to style your hair, buy some new clothes. We could do that on the Internet, too. There’s all sorts of shopping sites.”

“Really? You’d help me get a new look? I wanted to ask you that time you did Maxine for her first date with Harry, but I figured it was maybe kinda hopeless. And I don't have a lot of money to splurge with, either.”

"That’s gonna change now that I have that court order for copies of Gimbel’s telephone and credit card records. We’ll confirm what he spends and see if there are calls to banks in foreign jurisdictions at the start or end of each month. He’s hidden money away somewhere, and by God I’ll find it. We’re makin’ headway, my friend.”

“I hate going through this," Edna confessed. “It’s demeaning to fight for money from the man who fathered your kids and promised to love you forever."

“Yeah, well, we expect too much of men. Most of them are permanently damaged by testosterone.”

Edna giggled. “But Harry seems like a nice man, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, he’s one of the rare few who doesn’t make me want to hit him with something heavy.”

Edna nodded slowly. “How about Dr. Turner? Does he turn you on, Polly?”

Polly shook her head vigorously. “He pisses me off. He makes me crazy. He frustrates me to death.” Polly thought about Bruce and scowled. “Besides all that, he’s obviously not very bright. I insult him and refuse to go out with him and he just keeps right on phoning. Wouldn’t you think he’d get the picture?"

“But does he turn you on?”

Edna could be single-minded and downright maddening at times. Polly opened her mouth to deny it, and then heard herself say what she’d been afraid to admit.

“Well, yeah. Maybe a teensy, tiny bit.” Her voice was plaintive, and that surprised her too. “That's what makes me so damned mad.” She slammed her hands down on her crutches. “I don’t want to be turned on by a bloody doctor, not even a little bit.”

Edna’s knitting needles were flying, but she didn’t have to look at what she was doing, which always amazed Polly. She was watching Polly’s face instead.

"He’s a baby doctor, and you know how much you like babies. And all doctors aren’t alike. Don’t judge Bruce by your father, Polly. Don’t judge the future by the past. I did that for years when I was married to John. I thought just because we’d been together so long, we always would be.” Edna switched needles without looking.

How did she do that?

“It took me a long, hard time to realize that life is change, that nothing stays the same forever, that nothing even needs to be the way it was in the past in order to survive.”

Polly wanted more than survival, but she didn’t say so. "There you go,” she teased instead. "That's what I’ve been telling you. You need a new hairdo and some new clothes. Change.”

Edna thought it over and then gave a decisive nod. “Let’s do it. I’ll put it all on my charge card."

The business phone rang. Edna propped it against her shoulder and without batting an eye reverted to Lilith.

Polly listened for a minute. God, she got turned on herself by what Edna was saying. It had been way too long since she’d taken anybody to bed. And maybe that was the way to get Turner out of her system once and for all.

She moved into the kitchen and called Terry on her cell, got Edna in for a styling that afternoon, and then began her own day's work. When Bruce called that afternoon and asked if she’d like to go out for dinner on Friday, she shocked him almost speechless by accepting.

“Maxine, would you have dinner with me on Friday?”

Harry wasn’t looking at her, and his tone revealed that he wasn’t at all sure how she’d respond.

“Please? I thought we’d go back to the restaurant where we first met and maybe start over.”

Harry was smearing peanut butter on bread as Maxine spooned vegetable soup into Graham. On the way home from the park, Harry had asked if she’d like to see where he lived, which was how they’d ended up in his kitchen.

Graham was slumped in the high chair that Harry had brought up from the basement. The baby was rubbing his ears and yawning so often it was almost impossible to feed him. Maxine knew she shouldn’t have let Harry talk her into giving the kids lunch here, but she hadn’t been able to resist spending just a little more time with him. And she’d been curious about what his house was like.

It was a lot like hers: older, full of toys, Salvation Army modern decor. She loved it.

“What do ya think, Maxine? Should we start over?”

“Yeah. I’d like that. Starting over, I mean.” She glanced over at him and caught the gratified look he shot her. She grinned. “Damn, I blew that, didn't I? I should have pretended to think it over longer, played hard to get. I’ll have to practice being mysterious.” She gave him a suggestive glance. “I’ll start Friday.”

"Could we put off the hard to get?" He handed Sadie a carefully quartered sandwich and gave Graham a portion. The baby squished it in his hand, dropped it to the floor, and yawned again.

Harry got up. "Sadie, keep an eye on the baby for a minute, okay? I want to show Maxine something.”

Sadie nodded, fixing her eyes on Graham and trying not to blink.

Maxine gave Harry a quizzical look as he gripped her hand in his and pulled her to her feet, leading her down the hall and into the living room. 

“What?”  She gasped as his arms came around her and drew her into a fierce embrace.

"Shhhh,” he murmured. “I need to kiss you."

His lips were on hers, warm and firm and certain.

Something melted inside her, and she put her arms around his neck, touching the thick, springy hair on the back of his head, letting her fingers outline his ears and the strong line of his jaw.

He made a sound in his throat and dragged her closer to him, one large palm between her shoulder blades, the other in the small of her back, sliding slowly, enticingly down until he was cupping her bottom. He slid his hand inside her shorts, inside her underwear, and her skin burned.

Her breath caught as she felt the hard ridge of his erection. He was pressing it urgently against her, and she pressed back because it all felt so good, his hand on her bare skin, urging her forward.

“I want you, beautiful woman,” he whispered against her mouth, his voice low and thick and dangerous. "I’ve wanted you since the first time I ever heard your voice.” He kissed her chin, her nose, her eyes. “It’s nearly killing me. I watched you today in the park, bending over to pick up Graham, that round ass of yours just teasing me. When you ran after the Frisbee, your breasts bounced, and I could hardly walk, I wanted you so much. It’s a wonder I didn’t get arrested for having a hard-on."

She had to giggle, even though her heart was hammering and her body throbbed. She rocked against him, teasing, unable to subdue her own cravings.

“I’m renting a room at the hotel on Friday,” he murmured against her lips. “Say that you’ll spend the night with me.”

“Daddy? Daddy, come here; this baby’s sleeping sitting up." Sadie’s tone was scandalized. “Daddy?”

They could hear her pushing back her chair and, a moment later, trotting down the hallway.

Harry groaned and withdrew his hand from Maxine’s bottom, but his arm stayed around her.

She shook her head at him and gently pulled away just before Sadie burst into the room.

“Daddy?” The little girl sounded anxious. “That baby needs to go for a nap," she insisted. “He can sleep in my bed, okay, Daddy? I don’t need a nap today, right, Daddy?"

Harry sighed and turned his attention to his daughter. “Sorry, sport, but you do need a nap.”

Sadie’s bottom lip shot out and her face began to crumple. “I do not. I’m a big girl; I’m not a baby.”

Maxine hastily intervened. “Sadie, you are a big girl, but Graham needs to sleep in his own crib,” she explained, aware of the Technicolor vibes that went right on zipping back and forth between her and Harry. “Maybe you and your daddy would give us a ride home now?”

Instead of agreeing, Harry leered at her and twirled an invisible mustache. “Only if you answer yes to the question I asked, my pretty one. Otherwise well have to hold you and Graham for ransom, right, Sadie?"

“Right, Daddy.” Sadie giggled and clapped her hands.

"I’ll think it over,” Maxine purred. “Threats never work on us girls, right, Sadie? Maybe I should call a cab.”

"Rats, foiled again.” Harry swung Sadie into his arms, and then leaned forward to plant an unexpected kiss on Maxine’s lips, which made Sadie giggle and demand a kiss too. He gave her a huge smack, and then said to Maxine with a groan, "The suspense is gonna kill me, to say nothing of the cold showers."

"I suspect you’ll survive until Friday," she said in a heartless tone. But as they collected children and keys and diaper bag, Maxine wondered if she would.

Polly was in a foul mood by the time Bruce Turner rang the doorbell Friday evening. Deciding what to wear, normally an exciting process had become a major pain in the ass with her leg in a cast.

“I’m not gonna sacrifice expensive silk trousers by slitting one leg open to accommodate this flaming thing,” she fumed. "And I’m not gonna wear one of those stupid jogging suits, either. I’m sick to death of jogging suits.”

“So wear a dress.” Maxine was getting ready for her own date.

“They’re all short, and I'd need to wear panty hose because my legs are white as a fish belly," Polly whined. “But panty hose’ll look ridiculous stretched over this cast, and with stockings the garters dangle on the left side."

“So start a new trend and wear just one stocking.” Maxine was losing patience; it showed in her voice. Before Polly could protest, she took scissors and neatly snipped off the garters that dangled uselessly down Polly's thigh.

“This is economical, the stockings will last twice as long wearing only one,” she said brightly, handing over a lace-topped cream stocking.

Underneath her narrow little blue sundress, Polly’s garter belt kept hitching up. Between that and the sight of her one ridiculously pale bare thigh peeking out from under the short skirt, she felt thoroughly pissed off instead of sexy by the time she was ready.

She was also nervous, and that made her even crankier. She hadn't been nervous about a date since she was fourteen and on her way to the junior prom with the captain of the debate team. Since then she’d dated captains of industry, brilliant lawyers, and minor sports heroes without the slightest tremor in her gut, so why should a lowly baby doctor make it necessary to apply extra deodorant?