Charlie All Night (14 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Cruise

BOOK: Charlie All Night
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*  *  *
Four hours later, Charlie leaned into the mike and said, "Well, here we
are again, all phones working.
And for those of you who were wondering,
the guy being hugged by the blonde on the front page of
the paper is
not me. That's my roommate, Joe, and the reason he looks so surprised
is that he's gay.
Yes, folks, somebody's up to something here in old
Tuttle. I don't mind, but Joe would appreciate it
if whoever it is
would quit sending hookers over to our apartment with cameras. They're
ruining his reputation."
"Oh, he'll love that," Allie said softly as she petted Sam, careful not
to speak into the mike.
"And now, back by popular request, is my producer, the poster girl for
irrationality, Alice McGuffey."
"Hey," Allie said. "Let's try this introduction again."
Charlie shook his head. "You are the person who stood in your office
today and announced to me
that men were the weaker sex, right?"
Allie snorted. "That's not irrational. That's the truth."
Charlie laughed. "I can beat you at arm wrestling anytime, honey."
Allie's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Life is not about arm wrestling."
"What's life got to do with this?"
"What I said in the office was that women are stronger because they
talk to each other, and men are weaker and concentrate on sex and
ignore other more important things, like establishing warm human
relationships."
Charlie groaned. "Why do women always bring every discussion back to
relationships?"
"Because relationships are the basis for life, you dweeb."
Charlie's voice sounded wary. "Tell me you're not talking about
marriage."
"I'm not talking about marriage," Allie said reasonably. "I'm talking
about establishing warm
connections with other people. Men don't do it."
"Hey. I have a warm connection with another person." Charlie wiggled
his eyebrows at her.
"That's sex." Allie wiggled her eyebrows back and stuck out her tongue.
"That's what men use as
a substitute for relationships. But it's not
the real thing."
"It feels real." Charlie scowled at her.
"Yeah, but can you keep the relationship going without it?"
Charlie looked at her, surprised. "My relationship with this woman is
more than sex and she knows it."
"That's not the point." Allie leaned forward. "The point is that women
can survive without all the
physical stuff mat men need because they
know what's important is the human relationship. So they
talk to each
other. They don't get all the warmth in their lives from sex."
"Sex isn't important to you?" Charlie asked, disbelief heavy in his
voice.
"Of course, it's important to me. But I wouldn't come unglued without
it like you would."
"You wouldn't?" Charlie sat back. "Ha."
"No," Allie said primly. "As long as a woman is getting her emotional
needs met by the ones she loves, she can handle sexual deprivation. But
a man doesn't know how to get his emotional needs satisfied except
through sex, so he'll get depressed
and become irrational. Not that anyone would notice since
men are
pretty irrational most of the time, anyway—"
Charlie interrupted her. "I don't believe this. Let me get this
straight—you're saying that if we stop sleeping together, I'll crack
before you will because I don't have any friends and you do?"
Allie froze in her chair.
"Well?"
"Sort of," she said faintly. "Although I certainly wouldn't have put it
that way on the air."
"What? Oh." Charlie winced as he realized what he'd done. "Well, the
cat's out, so you might as
well finish what you've started here. I
can't believe you'd make such a sexist argument."
"Well, there's only one way to find out who's right." Allie stuck her
chin out, daring him. "Today's October second, and is you know we were
fighting last night, so we can count from there. Let's see
which one of
us is the most irrational by November first."
"What?" Charlie said, startled.
"You said it would be no problem." Allie shrugged. "Put your money
where your... mouth is."
"Allie, that isn't funny."
Allie smiled at him, triumphant. "I rest my case. I knew you wouldn't
even try it."
"Did you?" Charlie leaned back. "All right. Fine. We're celibate until
November first. No problem."
"Really?" Allie said.
"Really," Charlie said.
The phone began to ring.
Allie laughed nervously and stood up, putting Sam back in his basket as
she rose. "Well, I'd love to
stay and chat with callers, but I've got to be a producer now. You
started this, you talk
about it."
He watched Allie leave the booth and then turned back to the mike. "She
would pick a month with thirty-one days. Okay, folks, while Allie's
hooking up the caller..." Somebody tapped him on the
shoulder and he
turned to see Stewart. "What?"
Stewart handed him a tape.
"Our engineer has just shown up with a tape in hand. Special request,
Stewart? This isn't like you..." Charlie's voice trailed off as he read
the label. "Oh, very funny. Okay, here's Stewart the comedian's
request."
Charlie shoved in the cassette, and the Rolling Stones blared out "I
Can't Get No Satisfaction." He
flipped off the sound and swung around
to face Stewart.
"So now how much trouble are we in with this one?"
"I'm not in any." Stewart grinned. "You're the one that's not going to
get laid for a month in front
of the whole city."
"Oh, big deal." Charlie stood up and stretched. "Lots of people go
without for months, years, a
lifetime. Priests do it."
"Yeah, but you're not a priest." Stewart turned to go. "Listen, if you
need anybody to meet your
emotional needs, don't come to me. I don't do
that wimpy stuff."
"Thanks, Stewart," Charlie said. "I knew you'd be there for me."
*  *  *
Allie had his sheets and pillowcases on the couch for him when he got
home.
"Here's another nice mess you've gotten us into, Ollie," she said, and
he said, "Me? Wait a minute,"
but she'd already slammed her bedroom
door behind her.
He sighed and stripped down to his shorts, too tired to argue. At least
from now on he'd be getting
some sleep. There was an improvement. Of
course, if he had to choose between cataclysmic, head-banging sex and
sleep, he'd choose the sex, but
since the choice was now moot, he could see
the bright side.
An hour later, he couldn't see the bright side.
He was so tired, he was punch-drunk, but he couldn't get to sleep. He
tossed on the couch, tried
sleeping sitting up, stretched out and took
deep breaths, counted sheep, goats and German shepherds,
and finally,
as the numbers on the digital clock rolled around to 3:30, he gave up.
He picked up his pillow and went in to Allie.
She stirred when he threw his pillow on the bed, mumbled something and
then fell back asleep.
"Glad to see you missed me," he told her body and then climbed in
beside her, rolling so his back
was to her and his rear end was warmly
against hers.
He was asleep in less than a minute.
Beside him, Allie listened to him snore and gave herself the luxury of
one wriggle against him. It was stupid to have missed just the weight
of him in her bed, but she had. She smiled to herself and fell
asleep
for the first time that night.
*  *  *
When he woke up the next morning, Charlie found he'd rolled over in the
night and had wrapped
himself around Allie, his leg slung over hers and
his hand over her breast. It was definitely one of his favorite
positions, and the temptation to throw the bet was overwhelming,
especially when she stirred against him stretching so that his lips
were against her neck and her back slid against his front, and he went
dizzy for a moment at the powdery, sleepy scent of her.
And then she woke up enough to mumble, "I knew you couldn't do it," and
her voice was fat with
sleep and satisfaction, and he remembered he'd
have to concede in front of thousands of people,
letting down not only
his fans but his entire gender.
"Ha." He rolled out of bed. "No problem." "Twenty-nine more days,"
Allie murmured to his retreating back. "And you're already groping me
in the morning."
*  *  *
The morning after had a small notice at the bottom that due to
misinformation, the picture in
the previous day's paper was not of
Charlie Tenniel, but was instead Charlie Tenniel's homosexual roommate.
"Now, this sort of makes me mad," Charlie said to Joe. "Using you to
trash me. Is this their idea
of a slur, to imply I'm gay? It's too
subtle to tell."
"It's subtle enough to screw things up with David," Joe said. "He's
already noticed that you and I
are good friends. He just dealt with it
because he thought you were sleeping with Allie."
"I am sleeping with Allie." Charlie put the paper down. "Which, by the
way, I announced to Tuttle
last night. You have no problems with David.
Who's doing this newspaper stuff?"
"My guess? The mayor." Joe picked up his coffee cup. "The word is that
the new city building is dead. You cost that man a lot of money. And
then there's Roger Preston who is pretty sure to be indicted
on
price-fixing." He frowned. "You really did tell the world you were
sleeping with Allie? That's not
like you."
"It slipped." Charlie stared down at the paper. The mayor and Roger
Preston were good guesses, but there were also these drug rumors about
the station he kept tripping over. Anyone who wanted him
fired would
figure that bad publicity would make Bill get rid of him. Maybe he had
another enemy. "Suppose it wasn't the mayor or Preston. Suppose it was
somebody else who was mad at me. Who
else would have this kind of
clout?"
"I don't know." Joe stood up and carried his coffee cup to the sink. "I
should think the mayor and
Preston would be enough for anybody. Why did
you tell the world about Allie?"
Charlie groaned, remembering. "We have a bet. We're going to be
celibate for a month and see who
gives in first."
Joe snorted with laughter. "That should be a close call. Whatever
possessed you to do something like that?"
"Allie," Charlie said gloomily. "Ever since I met her, I've been doing
one dumb thing after another."
"A smart man would leave her alone," Joe pointed out.
"Well, that's what I'm going to be doing for the next month," Charlie
said.
Then Allie shuffled out, her hair all tousled. "You know, it took me
forever to fall asleep last night.
This is all your fault."
Charlie winced. "Thanks, I needed that." He tossed the paper to her and
stood up to go. "Here.
Read this. Things just keep getting better and
better for us."
*  *  *
Charlie was slightly more cheerful when he went on the air that night.
"And a great big thank-you to
all of you folks who called in last night
to say that my significant other has rocks in her head and that
men are
much stronger than women. And for the other half of you who supported
Allie, hey, just wait.
"I'd also like to thank Allie for wearing the most disgusting bathrobe
she could find this morning and
for not combing her hair before
breakfast. Say what you will about the little lady, she plays fair. And
now, just for Allie, here's the Pointer Sisters."
He shoved the slide up and "Slow Hand" began.
Harry ambled in on his way home. "You might want to keep your joviality
level down a little," he said, passing over Charlie's coffee. "That
way, when you get crazy later in the month, the
change won't be
so noticeable."
"So, you're on Allie's side." Charlie said. "I'm hurt."
"In general, no," Harry said. "In this case, yes. You'll never make it."
"Hey," Charlie said. "Look at me. Do I look tense?"
"It's only been twenty-four hours," Harry said. "Give it some time. I
got a lot of money on Allie,
but I'm not worried."
Charlie jerked his head up. "Money? They're making book on this in the
station?"
"The hell with the station. They're making book on it on the street."
"Oh, great." Charlie slumped back into his chair. "So how am I doing?"
Harry shook his head. "You're a very long shot, my friend. If she gives
in first, there are going to
be some very rich gamblers in this city."
"What if we both make it to the thirty-first?"
"Practically no one's taking that one."
"A month is not that long," Charlie said.
Harry turned to go, grinning. "Tell me that on the thirtieth." He
stopped at the door. "I probably
shouldn't do this, since it might
screw up my bet, but I'm pretty sure you're going to crack. So,
if it
gets bad, living with her, you can come stay at my place. I've got lots
of room."
"This is going to be no problem," Charlie assured him.
"Yeah, well, the offer stands," Harry said.
Charlie watched Harry stop to talk to Allie on the way out. She grinned
up at Harry and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and
Charlie felt the old warmth that he always felt when she
was around. It
wasn't as if he wasn't going to see her. It was just sex. He had things
to investigate,
anyway. He really didn't have time for her. No problem. "No problem
at all." Charlie said to the
empty booth.
*  *  *
After the show, Charlie went home and tried the couch again, lasting
until four-thirty this time before
he climbed into bed with Allie
again, closing his eyes as he felt her body warm and soft next
to his.
And waking up with her was doubly painful the next morning when she
stirred next to him,
and he felt dizzy even though he was lying down.
You've got to get out of here
,
he told himself as he headed to the
shower. Dieters did not live at the
Sara Lee factory. He picked up the
phone and dialed Harry.
*  *  *
Harry lived in a split-level in a housing development full of tricycles
and swing sets. Charlie
dropped his duffel in the living room and
looked around at the chintz furniture and flower paintings.
"You know," he told Harry. "This is not how I pictured you living.
Flowered couches?"
"Sheila picked them out," Harry said. "Want a beer?"
"Always." Charlie followed him out to the kitchen. "Who's Sheila?"
"My wife."
Harry opened the refrigerator, and Charlie saw a twelve-pack, cheese
spread and a piece of pizza.
He spared one longing thought for the
glory of Joe's refrigerator, and then took the beer Harry
handed him.
"You have a wife?"
"Well, I used to. I came home one day and found a note that she'd gone
to her mother's."
"Oh." Charlie followed him back into the spotless living room. "Well,
she must stop by to clean.
The place looks preat."
Harry stretched out in the recliner. "That's Mrs. Squibb. Comes by
twice a week. Don't leave
anything lying around. She throws it out."
"Oh," Charlie said again. "So your wife is... uh..."
"Gone," Harry said. "I waited a couple of weeks and called her, and she
said, 'See, Harry, this is just what I meant. You don't even notice
me.' And I told her I noticed her. I was just busy. The divorce papers
came the next week." Harry shook his head. "I still think it was a
mistake. And who knows,
she might be back."
"Well, sure," Charlie said, still lost. "How long has she been gone?"
Harry frowned, counting back. "Uh, thirteen years."
Charlie stared at him for a minute, trying to decide if he was kidding
or not. With Harry, it was hard
to tell. "No offense, Harry, but if I
were you, I'd make a contingency plan."
"I'm thinking about it." Harry stretched out in his chair, obviously a
happy man. "What about you
and Allie?"
"What about us?' Charlie said guardedly.
"You still leaving in November?"
"Yep." Charlie drank his beer. "What do you do for dinner around here?"
"Order out," Harry said. "You want pizza, burgers, or Chinese?"
"Not Chinese," Charlie said. "Anything but Chinese."

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