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Authors: J.J. Murray

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He takes it.

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

It is the first time I have ever held hands all night.

Bliss, pure bliss.

Chapter 23

I
wake, strangely enough, at my regular time—7:30 a.m.—and slide my hand out of Tom’s hand. I’m surprised he didn’t crush it. I swivel to the edge of my side of the bed. I stretch and yawn. That, too, is part of my routine. I look back at Tom, his feet almost hanging over the edge of my bed, his hair plastered to a pillow, the sheets completely untucked, one pillow resting on the floor, the lamp shades on the floor—

It’s only then I notice that the “wall” has fallen into a heap between us.

I frame the scene in my mind. I like this picture.

I’d have to call last night a success.

I slip into my closet, throw on an oversized sweatshirt, and go into the bathroom. After brushing my teeth, I stand in front of the mirror on the back of the door and survey the damage from our groping session. Hmm. No marks or scratches. I’ll bet his back has a few. Not even any chafing. Ha! Another bent fingernail. My hair is a spider’s nest. I check my eyes. Eww. Red streaks.

After a quick shower and lots of lotion, I wrap a towel around me and call the office to leave a message for Tia: “I’m taking an unpaid sick day today. Can you go back and make Monday and Tuesday unpaid sick days? Thanks.”

I look in my cupboards for anything breakfast-like. I rattle a few cereal boxes. Nothing but expired dust in my Trail Mix Crunch cereal boxes. No bacon. One egg. No muffins. Two heels of bread.

I am so unprepared to feed a man.

I weigh the pot of my concoction from dinner. Hmm. I hope he likes leftovers. I put the pot on to warm and fill up the kettle. I put the kettle on an eye and set up two mugs, both with herbal tea bags. I’m about to turn to clean up last night’s mess on the kitchen table when I feel warm hands on my stomach and a man’s lips on my shoulder.

“Morning,” I whisper.

“Morning,” he says.

This has to become part of my routine, too.

“We have a lot of work to do today,” I say. I turn slowly and see him in only his boxers in all his hugeness. Is
hugeness
even a word? “You have to get dressed.”

He tugs at my towel. “I’m wearing more clothes than you are.” He looks me up and down, and I start to blush. “I could get used to this.”

So could I.

While Tom takes a long shower because he has much more body to wash than I do, I put on jeans and a hoody over a green and yellow flannel shirt. I find some rag wool socks, slide them on, and skate to the couch. I watch Tom riding home at Yankee Stadium for a few minutes when my cell phone buzzes.

Tia’s in the office early. “Hi, Tia. You get my message?”

“Yes, but I do not understand.”

“I’ll explain later.”

“But Piper is a pain in my rear. She has you marked absent Tuesday.”

Oh yeah. “Um, give me unpaid sick days for Monday and Wednesday then.” I hear Tom singing something, but I’m not sure what it is. “And probably tomorrow and Friday, too.”

“That is no good. That will give you three unpaid sick days in a row. You will need a doctor’s excuse.”

Shoot. It’s sometimes harder
not
to work there than it is to work there. “Okay, um, wait. Don’t I have some float days?” To work at home, make my own hours, pop in and out when I feel like it—what Corrine does every day. “I’ve never taken any.”

“But you have to have many
paid
days, Shari. Why not use them instead?”

The water stops, but Tom keeps singing. It sounds like ... Boyz II Men’s “On Bended Knee.” That’s nice.

“I’ll explain later, Tia,” I say. “Um, let’s get my week straight. Unpaid sick day Monday. Sick but I worked Tuesday. Float day today. Unpaid sick days Thursday and Friday. No three in a row.”

“You should be an executive to keep all that straight.”

I should be. “If Corrine calls, tell her I’m sick, that my cell doesn’t work, that my apartment building lost phone service, and that Mr. Dunn wants to speak to her.”

Tom emerges from the bathroom with narrowed eyes. I am so glad I have such small towels. “Huh?” he whispers.

I hold up a finger.

He clamps his lips shut.

I have Tom trained already.

“But as far as I know, Mr. Dunn does
not
want to speak to her,” Tia says.

“Just tell Corrine that Mr. Dunn
wants
to speak to her,” I say, pointing beside me on the couch, “and then Corrine
won’t
call him. Understand?”

Tom nods and sits next to me. I take his hand, my eyes straying to that poor towel.

“I do not understand, Shari, but I will do it,” Tia says. “Okay, what if Mr. Dunn calls?”

Yeah. What if he calls? Hmm. “Tell Mr. Dunn that I’m sick, but also tell him that Corrine is sicker and needs more rest.” Hey, I told the complete truth that time. She’s the sickest person I know. “Tell him he can call me anytime, though.”

“Okay, if Corrine calls, your phone is broken. If Mr. Dunn calls, tell him to call you. What if Tom calls?”

I squeeze Tom’s hand. “Tom won’t call me, Tia.” I kiss the back of his hand. “He’s, um, Tom’s here with me. I’ll be working with him all day.” If we ever get out of this apartment fully clothed. That towel has to be crying.

“You are working
with
him?” Tia asks.

“It’s complicated, Tia.”

Tom pouts.

“I’ll explain later,” I say.

“You have a lot of explaining to do later. I am so glad I am retiring next month.”

And this gives me an idea. “One sec, Tia.” I cover the phone. “Will Methuselah’s Breezy Hiccup need a receptionist?”

“I guess,” Tom says. “Sure.”

I uncover the phone. “Tia, I may have a job for you, and soon.”

“And I am not working for you now?” she says.

So true. “Well, yes, and thank you for everything you’re doing for me.”

“I am not sure I am doing anything,” she says. “Now this job. Where will I work and can I work there until I am eighty?”

I cover the phone. “Where will she work?” I skip the “eighty” part. Tia barely looks forty-five.

Tom rubs at his beard stubble with his free hand. “She can work from home. We won’t really need an office because we’ll be traveling so much.”

Yes!

“We’ll be the first ad agency to go to the client and produce everything right there in front of them,” he says. “We may never be home.”

I love that idea. I uncover the phone. “You can work from home.”

“I would like that very much,” Tia says. “And when would I start this dream job?”

“A week from today,” I say quickly.

Tia doesn’t respond for a long time.

“Tia? Did you hear me?”

“Yes. A week from ... I know, I know. You will explain later. It is complicated.”

“Thanks again, Tia. Bye.”

I set the phone on the coffee table and prop up my feet.

Tom props up his feet, too, and he wins by a foot. “I knew you had an accomplice.”

I rake his hairy leg with my free hand while I tell him about Tia, and he agrees that I need her. “Before we do anything today, Mr. Man-in-a-tiny-towel, I need to know how we’re going to get Corrine to come back by Monday.”

“I’ll just call her Saturday afternoon.”

That’s ... too easy. “And say what?”

He puts an imaginary phone to his ear. “Hi, Corrine. Are you ready for the Peterson Bicycle presentation Tuesday?”

That would certainly do it.

“Play her,” he says. “You seem to like to. So, Corrine, are you ready for the Peterson Bicycle presentation Tuesday?”

“What presentation?” I screech.

“I’m cringing,” Tom says, and he tries to cross his legs, but the little towel won’t let him. “Shari didn’t tell you? You and I are pitching full, finished campaigns for Mr. Peterson of Peterson Bicycles on Tuesday.”

“This is a joke, right?” I moan. “My happy spot is so sad!”

“I’m still cringing,” Tom says. “And it’s why I haven’t been calling you, sweetie—”

“You call her ‘sweetie’?” I interrupt. “She’s the sourest person I know.”

He sighs and frowns. “Will you let me finish talking to her?”

I roll my eyes.

“Um, Corrine, I thought you knew about the Peterson project. That Shari. She’s something. No wonder she’s been calling me so often, trying to steal ideas from me.”

“What?” I shout. I also giggle. This is going to be so much fun!

“You’re very good,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“Um, yeah, I think Shari’s trying to pull this one off all by herself, can you believe it? I think she’s after your job. She even followed me down to the bicycle plant in Georgia to spy on me.”

“She didn’t!” I shout.

Tom moves away from me. “This is spooky, Shari. You have her down.”

“I’ve had five years of practice behind her back. Go on, Tom.”

He slides back and rubs my thigh. “Shari is awfully cute, Corrine, but she needs to buy bigger towels.”

No way. I will put only washcloths in there from now on.

“Why didn’t you tell me Shari was so cute before?” He blinks at me.

“Oh. My turn. Um, how do you know she’s cute?”

He nods. “I saw her in Georgia. And well, one thing led to another, and that thing led to another thing, and um, well, things quickly got out of hand, and well ...”

The rat! “Well what?” I shout.

“I don’t want to go into this over the phone.”

“Into what?” I whine.

“Something kind of happened, but I really should tell you in person.”

And now I’m feeling slightly guilty about Bryan. Why haven’t I told Tom that Bryan won’t be coming up? Geez, I’ve forgotten Bryan already!

Tom blinks at me. “It’s your turn.”

What did he say? “Um, what happened between you and Shari, Tom Terrific?”

He shudders. “You’re
very
good.”

I rest my head on his shoulder. “And you’re evil.”

He nods. “I just can’t believe you didn’t get any hints that Shari would try to ruin you like this, Corrine.”

I stick out my chest. “Imagine the left one’s bigger.”

Tom raises his eyebrows.

“Shari dear
has
been telling me to take next week off. The wench! I am coming home immediately!”

Tom sighs. “It’s a very good thing your phone’s busted. She’d be yakking at you all day Saturday and Sunday. Does she know where you live?”

I pat his thigh and stand. “She doesn’t care where I live. Or how I live.” I offer my hand to him, which is stupid because I couldn’t possibly pull him up.

He takes my hand and pulls me to his lap. “You’ll be rid of her in a week.”

And that feels so good to know. “She could always call Mr. Dunn.”

He shakes his head. “Not gonna happen, sweetie.”

I don’t mind if he calls me that. “Nah. She wouldn’t. But what if she did?” I shake my head. “Nope. No matter what she says to Mr. Dunn, she’ll sound like a fool. She wouldn’t want him to know a thing.” I kiss his stubble. “I like this look. Rugged. Bristly.” I squint at his ears. “No sideburns or a moustache, though.” I snuggle into his chest. “You should write for the movies.”

He kisses me on the nose. “Are you ready to become famous?”

“Yes.”

“We have to find a pothole.”

“In Brooklyn? Please. It would be harder to find a fully paved street.”

He nods. “You’re right. Ready to fly?”

“Hey, you get to jump the pothole, too.”

He squeezes my booty, and I nearly cry out for joy. “If I have to. I’m going to be filming your booty a lot today.”

I blush. This man, this man.

“Just make sure you also film the bike.”

Chapter 24

B
efore we do anything with the bicycle, we go to Modell’s Sporting Goods on Fulton Street to buy me my first bike helmet. I pick out a black Giro Phase adult mountain bike helmet, not just because it looks cooler than his plain “turtle shell,” but it has the flattest top.

“It has to hold up the camera, right?” I say. I look at the price. Eighty bucks! Well, my head is worth it. “You pay.”

Tom pays.

I like Tom.

We probably look strange to anyone watching us. Two people, both
carrying
bike helmets, push
one
bicycle from Fulton Street to Columbus, Whitman, and Cadman Plaza parks to get some sound. With the camera lens on, I hit the Record button, and Tom uses his fancy Nike watch to time out thirty-second intervals of sound. The birds are pretty cooperative. I wish it were windier. We get plenty of car horns, buses changing gears, and several sirens. I kick a few leaves. I even giggle a few times to break the silence. Tom turns the bike upside-down and cranks the wheels, hits the brakes, and cranks again. It doesn’t simulate the actual sound of bike tires on pavement, so I make him run alongside me as I ride.

I like Tom. He can almost keep up with me.

Yes, quite a few people think we’re nuts. A few nod at us, a bunch of folks stare wide-eyed, and others shrug as if to say, “Hey, it’s Brooklyn—to each his own.” I try riding and holding the camera at the same time and nearly run into a tree.

Tom pops out the little mini-DVD and pops in another.

“This is my last one,” he says.

“I know a guy,” I say, and we go over to Gristedes on Clark Street to get five rolls of duct tape and all the mini-DVDs they have in stock. At the checkout, I stare at the cashier. Yeah, we’re into that. Whatchagonnado about it?

We sit on the curb outside Gristedes. I watch Tom attaching the camera to my helmet, and he nearly uses two rolls of duct tape just to keep the camera level.

“What are we going to do with the other three rolls?” I whisper.

“You into that?” he asks.

“No. You?”

“No. Besides, it would take more than three rolls to hold me down.”

Interesting. “Maybe we could use them to hold up the ‘wall.’” I smile. “Someone pulled it down last night.”

He raises his hand. “It was me.” He sets the helmet on my head and tightens the straps. “Wiggle your head.”

I do.

“It seems to be holding.”

“The camera or my head?”

He winks. “Both.” He stands behind me and looks through the viewfinder. “I guess we’re ready.”

“As long as the battery holds out.”

“I have a spare.”

I like Tom. He thinks of everything.

And he also tore down the “wall” last night. I don’t need to know why.

I might tear it down myself tonight.

We roll the bike to the Brooklyn Bridge until we get to a less crowded section about a third of the way across. “I’ll run along behind you until we get to thirty seconds,” Tom says. He points at a splash of pigeon poo on the ground. “That’s your starting point.”

Lovely.

“And I ... just ... go?” I ask.

He kisses my cheek. “Just ... go.”

He turns on the camera, and I zip left of the solid yellow line, swerving around pedestrians who don’t know their right from their left. I try to look up as often as I can to capture the Woolworth Building, the Transportation Building, the Manhattan Bridge, and the buildings around Wall Street. I look down to focus on the handlebars, the front tire, my hands—my brown hands! There’s an unspoken sales message there. I look right and left to catch the East River, and I might have gotten a barge or ferry. I look up at the clouds, the sun, and an eternity of blue sky.

After the first run, Tom stands at the thirty-second mark, I roll the bike back to the pigeon poo, and I take off.

Thirty times.

Such is the glamorous life of the wannabe advertising executive.

I take off the helmet, sweat trickling down my cheeks to my ears. “Your turn.”

After readjusting the chin strap, we find that our new helmet just barely fits his big head. The first time he rolls by my thirty-second spot, only twenty seconds have elapsed. Show-off. I have to run to where he stops.

“Try to keep up with me,” he says.

“Try not to show off then,” I say.

He kisses me.

I like Tom. He kisses me at the right moment every time.

For
each
of the next twenty-nine runs, I take ten more steps backward while he rides the bike back to the starting point, and somehow this man gets to me in thirty seconds each time, though he’s laboring and huffing on the last couple of runs.

While Tom does a quick check of what we’ve filmed, I check in with Tia.

“All quiet,” she tells me. “No calls. It is as if the phone gods are smiling on me.”

And me.

“Please let me know what you are doing, Shari,” Tia says.

My stomach gurgles. “Right now, I’m about to go to lunch with Tom.”

“You are on a date?” she asks.

“Something like that. Call me if anything happens. Bye.” I smile at Tom. “How’s it look?”

“Tiring, especially the last couple,” he says. “I am so out of shape.”

That would be a no.

“So where am I taking you to eat?” he asks.

I take his hand. “Someplace I’ve never been able to afford. You’re buying, right?”

He nods. “Wherever you want to go.”

Have I mentioned that I like Tom? I’ll bet I have. I’m already going places with him I’ve never been.

We go to the River Café, which sits in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. So we don’t leave the bike unguarded—we didn’t think to buy a chain lock—we eat out on the deck, the bridge hovering above us. We share oysters and crab soup while watching seagulls, boats, and, well,
life
breaking out all around us.

“How are we going to do the voice-overs?” I ask.

“I have a studio at my house.”

La-dee-da. Doesn’t everyone? “You are bound and determined to get me to your house.”

“Because you’ll love it.”

I’m sure I will. A single room in his bungalow probably has more square footage than my entire apartment. “We still need ‘wheel shots’ all around town. And a decent digital camera.”

“And,” he adds, “a nice deep, long pothole to leap.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard to find.” My feet dance under me.

“Are you nervous, Shari?”

Anything but! I’m excited. I’m doing real work here! “Just happy.”

He looks into my eyes, and I look right back. “You, um, wanna go look at our footage?”

Footage. Hmm. Where’s he going with this? The man is insatiable. Of course, so am I.

“It’ll look better on your TV than on this little screen,” he says.

My poor couch! My poor table! Do we have enough duct tape to keep the “wall” from falling? Will I even want the “wall” between us anymore?

Yes, Lord. I’ll put up the “wall.” They were hypothetical questions.

“As long as you keep your footage to yourself,” I say.

He pouts. “I’m hurt.”

“You remember why, right?”

“I agreed, didn’t I?” he says. “But I’m still hurt, okay? It isn’t easy not doing what I want to do, especially when you asked me to kiss you good night. That was so hard, Shari.”

And it was hard for me, too. All the more reason for me to make you wait, man. Then it will be special. “Best friends first.”

He sighs and nods. “Best friends first.” He leans in and takes my hands. “The camera we’ll buy can have other uses, too.”

How absolutely naughty. “Let’s go get us a camera.”

Tom smiles. “I know a guy ...”

Instead of walking and pushing the bike as before, Tom puts me up on the handlebars, my booty just barely hanging on, and we ride. I know there’s an ad that has a picture of us, well, maybe not
us
exactly, doing this. For three miles to Flushing Avenue, we turn more heads than a hairdresser and a barber combined. And I feel scared, excited, proud, embarrassed, and powerful.
Alive.
I feel alive, maybe for the first time in my life. I want to let go of the handlebars and fly, but I ain’t crazy.

I watch my short legs waving in the air, feel Tom’s hands steadying me, hear him humming “I’m So Glad I Found You,” a seriously old R & B song by the O’Jays. I counter by singing Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together”—and I nearly fall off the bike when he sings the high parts along with me!

This, too, is bliss.

Okay, it’s more than bliss. This is the absolute
junk.

Tom talks to his “guy” at Supersonic and buys a Panasonic Lumix GH1 camera that has more bells and whistles than a train yard. He also buys four interchangeable lenses, another tripod, a high-end photo printer, two years’ supply of printer ink, a couple hundred sheets of premium 8½ x 11 photo paper, and a huge photographer’s bag to put all but the printer inside.

All to the tune of $3,900.

“Your credit card company must love you,” I say.

“It’s my debit card, Shari.”

I have trouble processing that. I have a debit card, too, but the most I’ve ever had in my account after paying my bills wouldn’t cover a third of what he’s just spent!

I ain’t no gold digger, but ... that’s the absolute junk, too.

“So expensive,” I say.

“An investment,” he says. “And you’ll pay your half once we’re incorporated.”

He thinks of everything. “What if I’d rather pay you in other ways?”

He only smiles.

I think we’ll be even by the end of the night. My fingers are itching to give this man a back rub. And a front rub. And a side rub ...

When we leave Supersonic, we both look up. Where’s the sun? We weren’t in the store that long. And then it starts to rain.

“Call it a day?” I ask.

“It’s a day,” he says.

I like Tom. He listens to me.

When we get back to my apartment, I strip down to some old gym shorts and a T-shirt with holes and rips in all the right places, yet Tom keeps his distance and his sweatshirt on. He sits at the other end of the couch while I pout.

“I thought we were done working,” I say.

“This is the fun part,” he says.

We then watch every Brooklyn Bridge video. We number each one and take notes as we go. Some of Tom’s rides give me motion sickness, and mine come out better because it was sunnier when I rode and I was a whole lot steadier. I can hear myself breathing heavily on the last few runs.

We compare notes.

I look at my list. “Numbers four, eight, and fifteen.”

He looks at his list. “I had four and eight, too. Why not thirty-seven?”

I flip through my notes. “Your knuckles were especially hairy in that one. I don’t want to bite off of Geico and the cavemen.”

He flips a few pages back in his notebook. “Fifteen? You were huffing and puffing.”

“It adds realism.”

He sighs. “Well, we agree on four and eight. We’ll make the final decision once I get time to play with it at the studio.” He pops in the Yankee Stadium DVD. “Let’s look at these the same way.”

After watching them and taking rapid notes—fifteen seconds goes by in a flash!—I star only one of the segments. “To be honest, only twenty-four is worth using,” I say.

“Same here,” he says, but he’s studying a blank page!

“You didn’t take any notes, man.”

He shakes his head. “It’s no use, Shari. You were right about the others. So I says to myself, I says, ‘What’s the point in arguing with Shari? She’s always right.’” Tom could never be a gangster. “That’s what I says to myself.”

“And I want you to keep that in mind at all times.”

“I will.” He stands and stretches. “Let’s go to the bedroom and listen to the sounds we collected.”

“Um, that might affect your focus, Mr. Sexton.” And mine. And then we’ll have to put up the “wall” again.

I hear his back crack.

Oh. “My couch is pretty uncomfortable, huh?”

He nods. “It was built for small people.”

“Whatever.”

He smiles. “Small sexy people.”

That’s better.