Ororo reached over and weakly slapped the snooze alarm, groaning into her pillow and closing eyes so tired they ached. Other sounds gradually filtered into her consciousness, all equally unwelcome.
Her efforts at slipping back into her coma we0e undone when her phone jangled from the floor where she’d dropped it the night before.
“Fuc ,” she hissed. She debated whether to let the machine pick it up so she wouldn’t have to sound coherent to whoever the heck was getting in her face at such an indecent hour “ eleven AM, but so WHAT “ or if she could spare herself the head-splitting five rings instead.
The second ring jackhammered its way into her skull. Right. Up and at ‘em.
Sort of.
Any moment now… she rolled herself up far enough from the bed to slither out of the covers and grab the handset.
“Mmmmmmnnnnggghhh,” she moaned.
“Oh, God, Ororo, I drank so much,” Emma rasped. “Why did you let me do that?”
“Because I the only way I was gonna stop you was to wrest the shot glass from your cold, stiff fingers?”
“Heh. Oh. Oooooooo…” Ororo heard her swallowing a long, thirsty gulp of something in the background.
“Damn, Emma, what’re you drinking now?”
“Hush, you! I’m taking an Advil.”
“Eat something,” Ororo reminded her.
“When my stomach rolls to a complete stop. Brunch?” she suggested.
“Rally the troops.” Ororo yawned and scratched her belly through her flannel top, which of course made her itch all over as blood flow restored itself to her limbs. She hated first thing in the morning grunge and cotton mouth.
“Betsy said she couldn’t move.”
“Then we wheel her out the door on a hand cart and feed her through a funnel.”
“Yukio wasn’t home when I called her.”
“You got two for the price of one,” Ororo mused, reaching over to poke Yukio with the handset, huffing as she stretched from beneath the mound of covers. “It’s Emma.”
“Tell her it’s too fuckin’ early,” she whined petulantly, glaring up at Ororo through narrow slits.
“Breakfasssstt,” Ororo sang.
“Phooey,” she muttered before sitting up and prying the phone from her grip. “What?” Ororo reached for the remote on the bedside table and clicked on the set, deciding to leave it on Springer. Their discarded party clothes littered the floor; Yukio shivered her way back under the covers, having only donned one of Ororo’s spare cotton undershirts before they collapsed. They’d been too tired to make up the sofa bed, but Ororo, thankfully, had left the bottle of ibuprofen within fingertip’s reach. They both downed two with a sip of room-temperature water.
“Eat. Food.” Yukio could hear the shift of Emma’s mattress springs as she got up.
“Why the rush?”
“Because I have a date,” she informed her smugly, her voice a lilting soprano that would make Mary Poppins gag.
“Shut. Up.” Yukio swatted Ororo lightly and crowed “Not the DJ?”
“His name’s Scott,” she reminded her. “And yes. Dinner and a movie.”
“God, you’re so sickening.”
“Whatever. I need you two to help me pick something out.”
“We’ll go closet-diving after we get back.”
“Pfft. Smack your mouth. We’re hitting the stores.”
“She’s hauling out the big guns,” Yukio muttered, covering the handset with her palm.
“Shopping?”
“Yup.”
“Fine with me.” It’d get her out of the house. Staring at four walls wouldn’t help her to get over Vic.
They took turns with the shower and took wagers on the paternity of each guests’ babies. They trotted out the door a scant half-hour after Emma hung up. Betsy and Ali were in sickeningly fresh condition when they arrived in the lobby of El Torito.
“There’s a party on Friday night,” Emma informed them as they stood in the buffet line with their plates. “No jeans.”
“What kind of party is that?” Ali scolded as she scooped sweet corn onto her plate.
“You don’t want to miss this one,” Emma argued. “We’re launching a new book. Ali and I will be there, and we each get to bring a guest.”
“Oooookaaaayyy,” Yukio pointed out, waving the chicken enchilada spatula at her. “So you only get to bring two people.” She didn’t want to get excited if she ended up being the odd woman out.
“So maybe an extra guest pass gets conveniently misplaced. Maybe the event planners have already planned catering for a certain number of guests on the roster to attend, including ten percent of the head count? Hmmmmm… “Emma tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“So it’s just industry types?”
“Should be a little of everybody,” Emma sniffed. “Might do you good to get out and mingle.” Ororo sighed.
“Vic used to hate stuff like that.”
“That’s why you’re not with Vic.” Betsy poured herself some orange juice from one of the chilled pitchers.
“You’re going,” Yukio informed her.
~*~
The happy rush of caffeine was still zipping through her veins as Ororo disembarked from the elevator on the tenth floor. She made her drive-by waves and hello’s to the interns and the news desk manager on her way to her own desk, only to be greeted by a yellow sticky note on her monitor.
“Errrrgh.” She hung her jacket on the peg clipped onto her cubicle wall and snatched it off, not stopping long enough to check her in-basket. It was more of the same.
She rapped lightly on Cassandra’s door and peered around the corner, noting that she was on the phone and already holding out a hand for her to wait. She pulled the door mostly shut and paced in the narrow hall, trying to avoid her usual habit of tugging on her hair. She flicked the corner of the note with her thumb as a distraction until she heard Cassandra’s distinctive alto beckoning her inside.
“You got my message?”
“I have it right here.” She was about to sit down in the chair across from her desk until she stopped her.
“I’m about to go into a meeting, so I’ll make this short. We need you to do the Galliano interview.” Ororo’s shoulders slumped.
“I’ve got to update the article log and pick up that camera-ready artwork! We’re at blueline today!” The proofs for the November issue were quality-checked before print at the bargain price of one hundred dollars per hour.
“Then I need you to work a miracle. I need that interview. Her book launch is this Friday.” Ororo fumed, wishing she were next to her monitor to bang her forehead against it.
“We’ll never typeset it on time.”
“I didn’t get where I am saying ‘never,’ Ororo, and you won’t get far if you include that word in your vocabulary. I had Amara change your three o’clock meeting for a go-see. Charge your Blackberry before you sign in.” Cassandra was already pulling up her contacts list on her email and preparing her phone’s headset. Her platinum blonde hair was clipped mercilessly short, ensuring that nothing detracted from her costly Chanel wool suit. Matte plum lipstick matched her daggerlike fingernails, and she was a regal, imposing figure, seated in the plush leather chair, despite her diminutive stature.
Whenever Ororo argued with her, she felt like a big bully. It wasn’t worth it. And that was how Cassandra Nova stayed ahead.
Ororo left her publisher’s office with a plate that was twice as full as it was before the weekend. Red exclamation points flanked each message in her inbox when she logged on. A light knock on the edge of her cubicle wall interrupted her fantasy of dropping a spider down the neck of a certain wool Chanel suit, and she smiled when she saw Betsy jingling a handful of loose change.
“Snickers?”
“Snickers.” If she didn’t get up now for her sugar break, she’d never see the light of day again. “I just got slapped with the Galliano interview.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Not your fault that I drew the short straw.”
“Not this time. Remy hasn’t gotten back from London yet. And Anna’s still chasing down those book reviews that were due last week.”
“It’s not going to be as bad as I think it is, will it?”
“Nope.”
“Good.”
“It’ll probably be worse.”
~*~
Betsy had it right on the money.
“Here, try this tea my herbalist prescribed for me. It’s cleansing.”
“I’m not much of a tea drinker,” Ororo excused with a gentle smile.
“Coffee’s horrible for your body. Ruins your complexion and digestion. Makes you peak and plummet,” she tsked, and Selene Galliano’s eyes raked over Ororo with something resembling disdain. Ororo suddenly felt as though she had her dress on backwards…
“It’s my only weakness.”
“My therapist says that’s an excuse. You’re only as weak as you let yourself be. Self-defeating behaviors are like a prison.” Ororo fumbled for her Blackberry until Selene glanced at it curiously. “You’re using that?”
“It’ll help me transcribe things more easily.”
“I always feel like I’m on trial with those things, like a court stenographer!”
“I don’t want to miss a thing,” Ororo replied goodnaturedly, even if it was a blatant lie.
“Well, I guess that’s all right. We’ll start with my new book.” Ororo sighed and mentally discarded the carefully planned questions she’d composed all morning long between updating her logs and checking the interns’ copy. “Did you get the copy that my publisher comped you?”
“I haven’t actually read it yet,” Ororo hedged. And why the heck would I, if I wasn’t supposed to be the one doing the interview? Selene’s face fell.
“Oh. That might make this difficult, then.” She reached into her desk and extracted a thick hardcover tome and handed it over the desk. “Go ahead, look that over! I’m just going to call downstairs for my wheatgrass juice. Want me to order you anything?”
“I already ate,” Ororo replied.
“Oh, I never eat up here. My office is my temple.” Her smile was saccharine; blindingly white teeth declared that she was keeping a cosmetic dentist on her payroll.
Selene Galliano was a five-time bestseller of semi-biographical novels that doubled as self-help books, espousing the benefits of positive thinking, holistic medicine and macrobiotics; she also shunned antidepressants. Her books were cleverly packaged with inspirational seminars, DVDs, book tours, and guest spots on Oprah. She had her own talk show in the works. Ororo found her style of ego-stroking prose and philosophy as gripping as a high colonic.
To her credit, she looked like someone who lived the lifestyle that she preached. She was slender as a reed with a naturally olive complexion and waist-length ripples of jet black hair. Slavic bone structure and patrician features stared out from the book jacket of the edition that took up what space Ororo had on her lap.
Ororo was interrupted from transcribing a rambling story from Selene’s childhood by a shrill, sharp bark outside the door.
“Oh, my baby’s here!” she cheered, rising with a swish of black cashmere knit and hurrying to her office door at a girlish trot. “How’s mommy’s widdle snookum wookums? Who’s a good girl? Yesheeizzzzzzz!” Ororo nearly went into sugar shock as Selene cuddled a lunchbox-sized bichon frisse with a pink bow in its hair against her sharp cheekbone.
She didn’t eat in her office, but she kept her yappy dog there???
“Don’t mind FiFi, she’s a love, she enjoys being close to Mommy,” Selene crooned, more to her dog than her guest. The moment she set the dog down onto the marble floor, she promptly chased her tail until she discovered Ororo’s suede pumps.
“I’m sure…OW!” Her immediate reflex to having a dog treat her shoe, and by extension her foot, like a dog biscuit was to shake herself loose, but she ground her teeth until Selene came to the rescue.
“Oh, snookums, that’s not how we behave,” she tutted, and she plucked her up, cradling her and checking her over for possible signs of mistreatment by the intruder. “You just wanted to say helloooooooooo…” More puckery, kissy-face noises ensued before she plopped the dog into a surprisingly plush little basket hidden behind her desk.
The next hour found Ororo suffering myriad, abrupt stops and starts to her questions, mindlessly rambling digressions of Selene’s childhood, and too little relevant information to draft a decent article. She’d finally managed to wrangle the answers she craved as Selene was sipping the last of her godawful wheat grass juice and making less than gracious motions for Ororo to take her leave.
“You know how it is, busy schedule, engagements, and I have to take FiFi to the vet for her shots ““
“When’s the release date of your book again?”
“The fifteenth; I thought you already caught that?” Somewhere between the last few times that she’d nearly nodded off, perhaps Ororo did. “You should take St. John’s Wort. It helps to slow memory loss. I can’t tell you how much more youthful I feel since I changed my diet and found the proper supplements!” Ororo smiled weakly, and as soon as her heels clicked over the marble, FiFi took that as her cue to skitter out from Selene’s desk and give her pumps more abuse. Manicured little claws scrabbled over her ankle and put runs in her taupe pantyhose.
“GAH!”
“Oh, FiFi, you like …er, what was your name again?”
“Ororo,” she cried as she stumbled into the hall. Selene’s expression was slightly amused as she held her dog tucked under her arm. “I’ll give Cassandra your regards?”
“Don’t worry, we’re all set to have lunch tomorrow! I’m taking her to this quaint little place on Pier 39!” Ororo felt her jaw hit the floor as the door was gently closed in her face.
~*~
Ororo didn’t end up needing Emma’s guest pass to the launch for “Suck it Up: Your Guide to Ending Excuses and Improving Your Life.” Cassandra interoffice-mailed her one two days before the event with the injunction that she would also be covering the event for a short blurb in the magazine’s “What’s New” editorial for the December issue. Naturally, while Yukio, Ali, Emma and Betsy cavorted with the beautiful people, Ororo kept vigil by the refreshment table, checking guests for name tags in the chance they’d tell her something quotable and fit to print.
Cassandra hunted her down, raking her eyes over Ororo’s outfit sourly before she barked out commands.
“Mingle! You should have worn one of the press badges from the front desk!”
“I’m not technically ‘press.’” The banquet room was swarming with reporters and photographers from the Chronicle. Ororo didn’t know why they couldn’t just glean what they needed from the press releases the next day.
“Don’t miss a good opportunity to…hold on,” she hissed before diving into her purse for her cell phone. “Yes…oh, no. That won’t do. All right, I’ll take care of it myself.” She clicked it shut and pinned Ororo in her steely blue gaze.
“Flowers. The florist never sent us the bouquet we ordered for Selene. You were supposed to present it to her after my speech.”
“We can’t just go in the back and see if there was an arrangement that they didn’t use on the tables?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she huffed sharply. “These are the kinds of things we can’t take lightly if we want to make a good impression, Ororo. Go.”
“Excuse me.”
“Quick. Head to the florist, here’s my P card, and get something nice. Not too nice. I expect the expense report on my desk by close of business on Monday.” An American Express was shoved ruthlessly into her palm, and Ororo scarcely had time to retrieve her coat from the mezzanine. Yukio caught sight of her from the crowd and followed quickly on her stilettos, already zipping her own jacket shut.
“Where you headed, ‘Roro?”
“Flowers,” Ororo snarled. “I need flowers.”
“There’s a whole shitload on every table. Good ones.”
“Those are ‘arrangements.’ I need a ‘bouquet.’ They’re not the same. Not the same at all.”
“Ooh. Right. Never mind.” She recognized a “Don’t make me snatch you baldheaded, I’m trying to think right now” moment when she saw one. “Wait.” Ororo was yanked after her best friend before she could reach full steam. “Wrong way. This way.”
“Why?” There was an overpriced flower shop three blocks south.
“I know this great place. Cheap, nice, and the owner’s really cool. He’ll cut us a deal.”
“How many other florists are open at this hour?” Ororo grumbled.
“Do ya want cheap flowers or not?” Yukio quipped. Ororo’s sigh was long-suffering as she hunched further into her short London Fog trench coat, cursing the breeze from the bay. When her hair was in its usual ponytail and she had nowhere special to be, she loved a good, windy day. Today wasn’t one of those days.
Six blocks later, Ororo and Yukio entered a little hole-in-the-wall shop that smelled strongly of cut flowers and peppermint. The front window announced that “The Greenhouse” was having a special on day lilies and that delivery was tax-free.
“This is the place,” Yukio informed her as the bell over the door dinged. “LOGAN!” she called into the empty-looking shop. Ororo perused the selection of exotic plants and enormous buckets of long-stemmed flowers already wrapped in neat bouquets. She gently stroked the leaves of popcorn-yellow gladioluses when she heard heavy footsteps clomp out from behind the counter.
“Whole neighborhood can hear ya,” muttered a compact man wearing a soil-speckled apron. His smile was slow and indolent, reaching its full wattage as he drew closer to the attractive, elegantly dressed women. “What can I help ya with, Wild Thing?” Yukio bent down to kiss his cheek and wiped away the smear of red lipstick she left behind.
“We need a bouquet.”
“That’d be my first guess. Wanna be more specific?” he drawled.
“A bouquet just nice enough to kiss the ass of someone important, but not enough to break the bank.”
“Ass-kissable and cheap. How ‘bout these?” He guided them toward a selection of various purple and white bunches that included more of the glads, agapanthus, enormous double hybrid Dutch irises, tulips, spotted dragonlilies, chrysanthemums, and some subtle greens.
“How much for that one?” Ororo inquired, point to a medium-sized bouquet with dark blue blooms and white and yellow accents. He made a thoughtful sound in his throat as he plucked it from the bucket, careful not to drip water on their shoes.
“I’ll give it to ya for half off.” Ororo’s eyebrows flew up in surprise.
“You don’t have to do that,” she stammered. The flowers looked expensive, and the shop looked modest. Cassandra’s orders still echoed in her head.
“I wanna do that.” He headed behind the counter and fetched a plastic sheath to wrap around the damp stems. “Ain’t any trouble. ‘Sides, figure if the two of ya are out here in my shop at this hour of the night, ya don’t have much time ta quibble.” He shucked his gloves before he wrapped the bouquet in an additional layer of pretty pink cellophane and tied it off with a matching ribbon. He laid the bouquet down as Ororo fished in her purse for the charge card, and she felt his eyes watching her; her hands wouldn’t cooperate as she fumbled clumsily in the dark confines. She produced it with a huff of triumph and handed it to him.
At that moment, time stood still.
Calloused fingers, both long and thick, plucked the card from her grasp and swiped it through the reader. She heard Yukio muttering over the roses in the glass cooler in the back, but she couldn’t make out the words. Her mouth went dry.
His skin was still mildly tanned, suggesting he worked outdoors on a frequent basis, even though it was mid-fall. Dark brown hair that looked invitingly thick and unruly begged to be tousled some more. Heavy but well-shaped brows beetled briefly as he wrote up the sales slip and muttered the figures aloud through chiseled lips. He had a square jaw and strong, broad cheekbones. Laugh lines around the corners of his hazel eyes gave his face character. A fine layer of dark hair ended just below his collarbones, visible where his flannel shirt was unbuttoned. Her mind began comparing his rugged looks to Vic’s more European-looking, rangy beauty, even though he was just as densely muscled. Vic topped Ororo by six inches; Yukio’s friend stood as tall as the tip of her nose.
“What’s yer name?”
“Excuse me?”
“Yer name. For the receipt.”
“Oh…God. Sorry. Ororo. Ororo Munroe.”
“Hnh.” He scrawled it on the carbon duplicate and tore off the yellow slip. “That ain’t a name ya hear every day.” He stepped out from behind the counter and handed her the bouquet. “I like it.”
“Thanks.”
“Ya made a nice choice. They match yer eyes.” Warmth bloomed in her cheeks and her stomach fluttered. Or, that could just be hunger setting in…
“Too bad she’s not the one getting ‘em,” Yukio pointed out. “We’ve got asses to kiss, bub.”
“Hold it,” he called out before they turned to go. “Here.” He slid one of the business cards from the deck next to the register. “We’re open later than the place on Third, and ya can’t beat our price if ya ever hafta order anything for a big event.”
“Wish my boss had known that earlier,” she griped, but she gratefully took the card from him and enjoyed that fleeting touch as much as the first.
“Call me if ya need anything,” he rumbled. “Call me Logan,” he added.
“I’ll remember that.” Her feet tugged her toward the door, but she was still peering back at him over her shoulder. “It was nice meeting you.” The closed behind her, his smile her last sight before they hurried back into the night.
They were a block from the party when Ororo finally worked up the nerve.
“What’s his story?”
“What story? Not much of a story at all. I’ve known him for a while.”
“From where?”
“My old roommate dated him for a while before she went abroad.”
“Was that why they broke up?”
“Nope.” Yukio opened the door and let Ororo in first. “He broke her heart.” Ororo’s stomach plummeted in disappointment.
“Why? Was he an asshole to her?”
“No. Not really.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Wanna tell me why you’re pumping me for Logan’s story?”
“No. Not yet.” Yukio tsked and helped Ororo peel out of her coat one sleeve at a time while she juggled the bouquet.
“Then the most you’re getting out of me is this: Logan wasn’t an asshole. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Still not helping.”
“Nope. But you’re the one with the business card burning a hole in your purse.” They waded through the crowd in search of Ororo’s boss, following the sounds of forced laughter and scripted small talk to the long banquet table closest to the stage.
“I want to know if it’s worth talking to him.”
“Talk, my ass. You’re not even over Vic.”
“Yukio…sheesh. I’m not looking for a real relationship. I just want to have some fun.”
“Most people’s definition of ‘fun’ after they break up with someone includes rebound sex and seeing how few times they have to return the other person’s calls. That’s not you.”
“But…I LIKE rebound sex,” Ororo pouted.
“Rebound sex is like the Snickers of relationships. You like three-course meals. You won’t settle for a fling.”
“I can have a fling if I want to. I can ‘fling.’”
“Famous last words, ‘Ro…” She tugged her to a halt. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“If you end up going out with Logan, and if things get heavy, don’t blame me if it falls through. I love you, and I like him, granted, he’s my friend, and a decent guy.”
“So no problem.” It was like waving a flag in front of a bull. Yukio groaned at the gleam in those soulful blue eyes, so transparent when it came to hiding her feelings.
“No, BIG problem. If you’re looking for a serious relationship right now, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Then it’ll be fine. I’m not. Shit, I just threw out the rest of Vic’s fast food cup collection from my cupboards.”
“Fine. He’s worth talking to, Ororo. But just make sure when you do, you’re not just hearing what you want to. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
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