Playing for Julia (14 page)

His hand slides down even further through my pubic hair and his sensitive fingers begin to circle me down there.  Around and around.  Oh my god, it feels better than ever.  My hips move in rhythm to his hand. My body is desperate for him again.

“Please Austen.”
I beg. “I want you now.  Don’t make me wait.”

He
spreads my legs wider and eases into me.  I gasp.  He fills me entirely. His face is above mine and he smiles that honey smile.

“Oh, yes,” I sigh
and close my eyes.  “Yes.”

Then he eases back,
pauses and begins to move in and out, slowly at first, then gradually faster and harder.  I can feel him deep inside me, filling me.  My hips match his thrust for thrust.  His mouth covers mine as he kisses me intensely, our tongues swirling around each other.  My pulse speeds up.  Relentlessly, his erection drives into me again and again. Then I lose all sense of anything around us—just us, moving as if we have become one.

I
am panting, my breathing is shallow. My pulse is racing. His breath is faster, ragged, as he thrusts into me over and over.  I feel an urgency building deep inside.  I tilt my hips upward and he goes further into me again and again.  Yes.  Yes.  Again.  Again.

“Oh
h.  Ohh.  Ohh.”  I gasp.  I feel him deep inside and once again I can feel my orgasm ready to explode. He thrusts into me harder.

“Come for me, babygirl.”

All it takes is his honey voice whispering to me and I come, my body tightening inside around him as I climax.  I feel like I am shattering , splintering.  Release…oh yes…it feels so good…oh yes…oh yes.  One more powerful thrust into me and his body arches and he comes.  “Julia,” he gasps and he sinks down, his body limp and heavy on top of me.

His head is beside mine. 
I can hear his rapid breathing begin to slow.  He lifts himself up on his elbows, his body pressing down onto me, and he kisses me lightly on the lips. My legs, my body are utterly soft. My heartbeat begins to slow down.  I reach up to his face and run my fingers along his cheek, then kiss him softly on his cheek.

“I am so glad you are back,” I whisper to him.

“Me, too, beautiful Julia.”

Our bodies sated for now,
we fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Chapter Twenty

Morning in Sausalito and the sun is glittering off the Bay.  In the distance I can see sailboats with brilliant red and blue colored spinnakers—there must be a race going on. At the café down the hill we find John and Emma, just being served.

“Why didn’t you call Julia?” Austen asks John as we join them.
  He sounds puzzled, not angry.

“What
do you mean?  I called Monday and left a message with the receptionist.”  John looks at me, explaining. “Your receptionist was screening calls.  She said you were too busy and she took a message.  I told her that Austen had to go back to Texas and even left my phone number with her so you could call me.  When I didn’t hear from you I figured you got the message.”

“Oh no.  That was a temp.  I can’t believe she actually said that I was ‘too busy’.  I asked her to screen some specific calls about Weekly Events but not…”  I shake my head in disbelief.  “Well, I guess that explains it.  She must have lost the message or maybe didn’t even write it down. She was sort of ditsy and that Monday was a very
, very crazy day.”

So all the hideous
, agonizing pain of the last two weeks was for nothing—a stupid missed message.  I really could have come over to Sausalito to find out from John where he was.  I didn’t have to be afraid of being treated like Mirabelle.

Over brunch Austen and John talk about the
Rolling Stone
photo session and interview. I turn their conversation off.   I am so hungry I eat every bite of the avocado and cheese omelet.  And all the hash browns. And every last crumb of the English muffin with orange marmalade.  Everything is good again.

* * *

The memo is on our desks on Monday morning.  Effective immediately, Tim is Acting Managing Editor of
San Francisco Voices
.  Dan will be working closely with him until a new Editor joins the staff.  The memo is signed by Mr. Mogul, Publisher. There is no mention of Eric.  So now Eric has joined David as a mysteriously disappearing editor.  Maybe someone ought to write an investigative piece about them being purged.  It is almost like those Communist leaders in Moscow who get erased from photographs.

While there isn’t cheering in the halls, all of us are
feeling somewhat relieved.  Now, though, the question is: who will be the next editor?  And how long will he last?

Tim
immediately calls a meeting.  He wants to make changes before we go to print this week.

“Can you take Weekly Events up to six columns for this
edition?  Do you have enough material?  I know it will be a push to do it, but I’d like to get back to where we were.  That should stop the complaints from advertisers and readers.”

“I can try, and I have two reviews—“

Tim cuts me off.  “Don’t worry about any of the other stuff.  Give me the manuscripts for the reviews. You focus on Weekly Events.”

“Sure, I can do it.”

I
t definitely is a mad scramble.  As I add and re-edit listings to fit into the new larger space, I wonder if Tim is going to handle all the movie and art reviews.  I enjoyed working with the freelance review writers; that was one good thing that happened when Eric was in charge.  Now it looks like that is going to be taken away from me. Then my inner voice says: Come on, Julia, a month ago you were excited about being the new editor of Weekly Events. Now you’re reacting as if someone snatched a prize away.  Be happy you have any kind of ‘editor’ title.  Not many women do.

Mark
calls.  He’s heard about the change and asks me to keep him in mind for freelance assignments.  I promise I will and suggest that he call Tim directly.  He says he already has talked to Tim and then asks me to go out to lunch again. Hmmm...is he asking me out for a lunch date?  I tell him nicely I don’t have the time right now.  Maybe later when things settle down.  ‘If’ things settle down, I think. Three editors in less than two months and a fourth one is on his way.
TV Weekly
was never this chaotic.

* * *

It is very late when I get back to our cottage.  Even Ali has heard about Eric’s departure and opens a bottle of our favorite not-too-expensive champagne to celebrate.  We don’t have champagne flutes yet, but at least we can drink the champagne from wine glasses tonight.

“So how
is Ned?”  She smiles as she carefully pours the champagne and doesn’t spill a drop.

“Ned?  I
guess he is okay. I didn’t see him this weekend.  I was with Austen.  He’s back.”

Her
smile disappears, her eyes narrow.  She has on her scolding face.

“Back from where?  And why didn’t he call you?”

“He was in Texas for a funeral.  His Uncle Will died and there were some estate things to handle afterwards.  John was supposed to call and tell me, but the message from him got lost at the office.  It’s been so chaotic there.”

She shakes her head.

“Julia, you should start thinking more long term about your life.  Ned is a really nice guy.  He would treat you well. His family has lived here forever.  He went to school here.  He is normal, Julia.  A nice normal guy. Austen is only going to be here for the summer—you know that. Then he’s going off to that crazy rock ’n’ roll world again. I know it’s fun—“

“
Thanks, Mom,” I snap at her.  “Ali, I know you mean well, but let’s not talk about Austen anymore.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

Ali’s negativity about Austen is really getting to me.  I wish she would stop.  Yes, Ned is nice.  ‘Nice Ned’ seems so pale, so forgettable next to Austen. And I refuse to think about Austen only being here for the summer.  I know it’s true, but he said he was not going to leave me. Deep inside me a little voice asks:  ‘Was that sex talk?  Or real?’  I hope it was real.  I realize I care for him more than I ever thought I would. That jagged hole in my life I felt when I thought he was gone, is filled again now that he is back.

* * *

Closing on Thursday night is the craziest ever, but this issue of
Voices
looks and reads more like it used to.  Most of the political rants have been replaced with cultural articles and reviews.  And, of course, my six columns of Weekly Events.

At the regular editorial meeting on Friday I ask
Tim about starting to include events in Marin.

“
Cool idea.  I like that.  We need to get in there before that new paper in the East Bay does,” he says. “We’ll have to make arrangements for distribution.  Maybe southern Marin: Sausalito, Mill Valley and up to San Rafael, so include all the events in those areas that you can.  We can add northern Marin later.  Not much happens up there anyway.”

“Dale’s going to like this,” Dan adds
with a grin.  “I can see the dollar signs flashing in his eyes already.”

“Do I get more space?” I ask.
  “I’m going to need it for Marin.”

“Your first
real editorial meeting and already you want more space,” Dan smiles and winks at me.  “All you editors are alike.”

After the meeting Dan sticks his head in my office.  “Are you free after work?  Want another excursion to Little Foxes?”

“I’d love to.  It sounds like fun.”

Dan has become visibly calmer during the week; he is smoking less
, smiling more. During Eric’s reign he was a human smokestack, holed up in his office with his new young male assistant, puffing away.  I don’t think we exchanged more than 10 words the entire time Eric was editor; all of us were huddled in our offices avoiding any potential confrontation.

I call Austen to tel
l him about the Marin listings.

“That’s great, baby.  Good job.  I’ll pick you up at 5.  You can tell me all about it.”

“Oh, Austen, I already told Dan I’d have a drink with him after work.  I can drive over there tomorrow afternoon.”

“No, I’ll pick you up
tomorrow morning.”

* * *

Little Foxes looks the same, smells the same, and, again, I am the only woman in the bar. The big, flashy juke box is still lighting up the back.  It is playing a song I have never heard before.  The lyrics start with “The first time ever I saw your face.”  I’ll have to ask Austen about it.  It is a beautiful song and the woman singing it has an incredibly expressive voice.

Dan
does not bother to ask me what I want to drink this time; he orders Manhattans for us.

“Okay, Dan, guru of gossip and news.  I know you know what happened to Eric and David.  Tell me.  I have been thinking about them as if they were both subjects of those Soviet purges—you know, where leaders simply disappear
from photographs and are never mentioned again.”

He laughs.

“Neither of them has disappeared, except from
Voices
, Julia.  What I understand is that Eric talked to Mr. Mogul that week he was Guest Editor and convinced him that
Voices
could be an important national voice against the war.  Mr. Mogul is definitely against the war—from high up there in his super ultra-glamorous movie studio office.  He likes having the title of Publisher of
Voices
because it puts him in touch with the counter-culture while keeping the nitty-gritty of it at a distance. Deep down, he’d rather have drinks at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills than at the Roxy on Sunset Strip. So David got shoved out the door.  He went back to New York almost immediately.  San Francisco, at least the way it is now, was never the right place for him.  It’s too wild here these days.”

The bartender sets the drinks in front of us.

“To happy futures,” Dan toasts.

“To happy futures.”  I respond
and take a sip.  Still strong.  I had better not drink three of them this time.  “Okay.  What about Eric?”

“
You’ll love this one.  Dale, our favorite ad salesman, got frightened about losing his income—he’s up to his ears buying real estate in Marin these days.  So he called Mr. Mogul and told him his investment was going to go down to zero if Eric and his political articles continued.  He told him that our advertisers were all going to cancel. ‘All of them’, he said.  It was an exaggeration, but I understand that one of them actually did and Dale cited that one as evidence.  Money trumped politics.  Eric got the boot, too.”

“So where’s Eric now?”

“Freelancing again.  He is a brilliant writer about political topics.” 

“Okay, since you know everything about everyone—how about Cathy
?  I tried to call her at home twice but there was no answer.”

“Ah, darling Julia, she’s your competition.  She’s editing a section like Weekly Events in that new
weekly paper in the East Bay.”

I wrinkle up my mouth.  Not happy with that.

“So how is your rock ‘n roll bad boy these days?”

“He’s fine.”

“Back in town, I assume?”

“How did you know he was gone?”

Dan laughs.  “For two weeks you were walking around like a zombie, Julia.  Not even lunch with that other young man brought you back to life.  Now—look at you.  Our darling Julia is back.”

After one more
Manhattan, Dan drives me back to the cottage.  I am not as woozy, wobbly as I was last time.