Five
Cora sat down at her desk for the first time that day, and scanned through her mail. Her hands froze as the familiar blue envelope appeared behind a baby shower invitation for her receptionist, Sarah.
Another anonymous "love letter."
This is the sixth one in the past month, and Cora began to get nervous about them. The first and second ones had been charming accounts of all her "loveliness and beauty." The third letter explained in detail all the things her mysterious admirer wanted to do to her. The fourth went even further than that, and the fifth one ended up in the trash can without being read. Which is exactly where this one is going, she said to herself.
Then there were the phone calls. The calls at her office, her cell phone - she changed that number last week, and at home. Cassie usually picked up the home calls, and amazingly, the phone still worked after all her ferocious slamming of the receiver. "Damn kids," her sister growled last night just before they went upstairs to bed. No one ever spoke during the calls, and dialing the call back code sent her to a blocked number.
She should mention it to someone, but Cora was very aware of her reputation with men. Everyone would just laugh at her if she told them that some guy was stalking her. She would get that "I told you so" bit, and to forgo the embarrassment, Cora endured he prank calls and nasty letters. Maybe, she should tell Cassie at least. Cassie would understand. Right?
Or Jonathan...hmm, maybe not Jonathan. He'd run for sure, if he knew some crazed lunatic was stalking her. No guy wanted that kind of pressure, and their date last night had been so wonderful. This morning, Cora spent an hour in a trial date hearing on the Brentwood custody case, and then a follow up meeting with her client, the former Mrs. Brentwood. She barely remembered any of it. She tossed the blue envelope and floated along in her after-date bubble for the rest of the day.
It was a perfect first date. No weird, disturbing-lunatic behavior, and no need to pull out the can of Mace she always carried with her. He held her hand while they talked. He brushed a strand of hair out of her face when she laughed at one of his jokes. He kissed her over an empty bowl of Mud Pie. And he kissed her outside the restaurant on the way to his car. And in the car. And on her front porch. She asked if he wanted to come in for some coffee or something, but he only kissed her again and murmured, "Next time."
Perfect.
Cora had kissed a lot of frogs in her time. Every six months or more - sometimes less - another would hop her way, and they had all been nothing but toads. She was thirty years old and hoped to be married by now, though it wasn't from lack of trying. There had been a few potentials, but her sister's finickiness in men rubbed off on her somewhere along the way.
Cassie had this strange outlook on men. If a man was nice to her, she would call him a pleaser; if he was mean, he had a problem with commitment. A man could be tall, dark and devilishly handsome. Cassie would think of him as untrustworthy. He could be butt-ugly and she would still say he probably had a problem with authority and was abusive. If the perfect man walked up to Cassie and asked her to spend eternity with him, she would say some off-the-wall quote about eternity and inquire about his definition of the term and whether he could be less than perfect on occasion just so she could bitch at him.
Cassie should have been the lawyer. That is all there is to it. She has no faith in people, the least likeable, but most prevalent, characteristic in an attorney. Cora had too much faith. She wanted to believe in people. And that was the main reason she wanted out of family law. It was too heartbreaking to see bad things happen to good people, especially when children were involved.
Her sister would take one look at Jonathan and start ticking off a list of unacceptable traits and mannerisms. She would probably hate the way his left ear hitched up when he smiled. Or the way he walks with one hand tucked into the top of his pants pocket. Or how he drives like a ninety-year-old grandma with poor depth perception. No, Cassie wouldn't think Jonathan was perfect. The problem with Cassie was that she never looked past the imperfections to find the good in a man. Take that Leland guy. Cora felt guilty for even thinking it, but Cassie had most likely provoked him. Especially with nearly running him over. He might have been a really nice guy - Jonathan seems to think so, and Cora would agree to almost anything he said. And from what Cassie told her about what happened under the trees at the wedding, he was only doing what most men would have done to make his ex-fiancé jealous.
Jonathan scooped her on that mess last night, but with Cassie's wrath over Daddy's house cleaning, she decided it was best to wait until the morning. Then, her sister slept in, and Cora left for work without sharing her new knowledge. As it was, she would have to wait until lunch.
Cora sighed and wished her sister would take a leap of faith just once in her life.
Maybe, if she had, they would both be married by now, and their mother would have been able to hold one grandchild before she passed. Just thinking about that loss caused a tear to come to her eyes. She missed her mother so much. The pain had finally receded enough that she was able to get through most of her days without breaking down. Hopefully, their father would experience the first grandchild soon, but it wouldn't be the same.
Her desk phone rang, jolting her back to reality. Cora wiped her cheeks with a tissue and picked up the phone, "Coraline Price." She winced. God! What a name!
"I know this sounds crazy, but don't stop me...." It was Jonathan. She smiled as he repeated her first words to him. "I want to take you to lunch."
"Lunch? Today?"
"I haven't seen you in twelve hours, and I'm clearing my afternoon as we speak. I'll be at Margaret's down at the Landing. If you are not there in an hour..."
"What?"
"I'll bring lunch to you. I'll find you where ever you are, even if it's in Judge Hollister's chambers," he finished. That wasn't likely, she thought with a smile. Judge Hollister was an ancient judge with a crabbier temper. But just the thought of him barging in with a bag of take-out and spreading out lunch on the old man's floor sent a thrill down her spine.
"Actually," she said, pushing the giddiness away, "I'm supposed to have lunch with Cassie, but she hasn't called me yet." And on cue, line two of her phone began to blink. "Hold on, I have another call....Coraline Price."
"I'm starving and need a drink. Where do you want to meet?" Cassie was in a bad mood. Again. She was supposed to drop the charges on Leland that morning and then go over and tell him that she was the woman he was to spend the next couple of weeks working with. It must not have gone well.
"Good morning to you, too," Cora smiled into the phone.
"Good morning. I'm hungry."
"Fine. How about Margaret's? And do you mind if someone joins us?" Cora held her breath. In Cassie's present mood, she was prone to be quite rude about things.
Cassie drew out, "That depends."
"It's Jonathan. He called and wants to have lunch with me, but I can tell him no."
Cassie laughed, "I doubt that," and then she was quiet and asked, "His cousin won't be there, will he?"
"I doubt that," Cora repeated.
"Great. I'll see you there." She hung up and Cora flipped over to Jonathan, "I'll be there, but Cassie's joining us. Is that okay?"
"So, you will be there?"
"Yes, I'll be there in forty minutes."
"Then you can bring your whole extended family, just as long as you are there," he said. Cora felt her body blush and her spine tingle again. "See you soon," she said and hung up. Then she wriggled a crazy little jig in her desk chair.
"You're in a good mood," a deep voice said from her doorway. She jumped and glared at Charlie for the intrusion.
"I am. Something I can do for you?"
He held up a styrofoam cup, "Coffee. Mocha latte, extra everything. Just the way you like it." He sauntered over, carefully placing the cup in the middle of her desk.
"Thank you, but you don't have to bring me coffee everyday."
He shrugged and sat on the corner of her desk, eyeing her with his beady eyes. "I provide for Mr. Price. I think of you when I'm out."
Too much information, she thought, but kept it to herself. "You're not a gopher, Charlie. You're an intern. You don't have to pick up his dry cleaning and get his lunch if you don't want to."
"I don't mind," he shrugged again, not making any move to leave.
Charlie Trent was a good-looking man, though not as handsome as Jonathan, and he had shown an interest in Cora since starting his internship a few weeks earlier. He was always polite and affable, but Cora was never able to trust red-headed men. A prejudice that she never quite understood about herself, but there it was. He had odd eyes, too. Little black beads, like the eyes of a crow. Creepy.
She suppressed a shudder. "Is there anything else you needed?" Preferably not from her.
"Um, yes. I was wondering if you would help me go over the Johnson files. Say, over lunch?"
"Oh...actually, I already have a lunch date," she admitted, hoping this would be the end of their little chat. The black beads hardened, and knifed into her skull, but softened so quickly that she might have imagined it. "But Laura could help you," she offered.
"Laura's busy," Charlie snapped, and then took a deep breath, pasting a congenial smile on his face. "I suppose you are having lunch with Mrs. Brentwood."
He was fishing. On any other guy, that would be charming. "No, Charlie. I have a date with Jonathan Pryor."
"Jonathan Pryor?"
She pushed her glasses up her nose, and answered purposefully, "Yes, Jonathan Pryor. I met him this weekend. He asked me out for lunch today. Now, if you don't mind, I have some work to do."
The brush-off didn't go unnoticed, but he took his time acknowledging it physically. He left in a huff, barely closing her door with less than a slam, but she didn't care. He wasn't her intern. Thank god.
*****
Margaret's in Laclede's Landing. Great mojitos. But Cora was bringing Jonathan. I would have to be on good behavior and didn't feel like it. I called Mat.
"Hello, sunshine," he said when he answered.
"How did you know it was me?"
"Uh, is this not Oscar?"
"Very funny. I need a lunch date," I grunted at him. He laughed into the phone and said, "You know I don't swing that way."
"You just get funnier and funnier. I'm supposed to have lunch with Cora, but she invited Jonathan..."
"The guy from the wedding?" Mat asked, but didn't sound surprised.
"That's the one," I ranted. "They went out last night, leaving me to deal with Daddy by myself, who decided to erase forty years of marriage from his house in one night. I swear he can't truly be my father. Not that I would ever assume Mother was a cheat, but there has to be some sort of genetic anomaly that allows women to conceive without partners."
"You think you are a miracle child?"
"No, but that would explain Cora," I laughed. "And speaking of which - apparently, she and Jonathan didn't get it all out of their system, because they are seeing each other again for lunch. And I need someone to talk to while they are gushing at each other. I'm buying," I offered, my mind on my sister. I was happy for Cora. I really was. But today, of all days, I could not stomach lovey-dovey couples without a conspirator.
"Actually, I was on the way to the gym...."
"Please, Mat? Please, please, please?"
He laughed into the phone. "Yeah, sure, Cass. But you owe me. Where and when?"
"Margaret's? You know the place?" I was half-way across town, driving way too fast. But I was eager to put as much distance between me and Leland's condo as possible. As quickly as possible.
"Yeah, I know the place. Good fish tacos. Great mojitos."
"That's the one. I'll meet you there."
"I'll be expecting dessert, Cass." The cell phone clicked off. I swerved around a gray Cadillac and honked my horn at the driver. Some people should not be given a driver's license.
As soon as I entered the restaurant, I walked straight up to the bar and slapped my hand down, "Your best mojito. Make it extra strong." I scanned the room. I was the first to arrive. Cora's office wasn't far from here, but it took her a while to get out of the place. It was impossible for her to just walk out. People always stopped her and asked questions or thrust memos in her face to look at. I would have brushed them all off. Cora was too nice sometimes.
I requested a table on the outside patio. The lunch crowd had not quite filled the joint, but it was a popular place, so I considered us lucky to get a table at all. The sun warmed the patio, but the wind blew off the river a few blocks away and, though it cooled my temper, my arms also chilled from it. I wrapped myself in a light jacket that I had the sense to bring along with me and pulled my hair up into a loose ponytail. You never know about public places.
Sometimes they're freezing; sometimes they're sweating out the customers.
My face-to-face with Leland that morning popped fresh in my mind as I waited. He kept staring at me with that quirk of a smile and it infuriated me. In no way could I find amusement in what he did to me. Just because he was tall, dark, and devilishly handsome did not mean I was going to fall all over him in lust. Although, I did fall on top of him, but that was only because I was trying to get away from him.
And all I wanted to do while he casually leaned on his doorframe was to press my mouth against his funny grin and give it something to do other than mock me. Christ! What is wrong with me? Even his clothes incited me. Plain white t-shirt and faded, torn jeans that hung low on his hips. Not too hard to rip off his body as I ravish him. And of all things, he smelled like vinegar. The tell-tale scent of a darkroom - that much I remembered from my artistic photography class in college.
Oh, and the recollection of Chris Stevens, a fifth year senior trying to get all his credits in line for graduation, pawing me in the dark, and the black-eye I gave him. Good memories.
My artsy nature wondered what Leland worked on in his darkroom that morning. Did he already have the photographs for Jam's book? That would speed things up. Or was it something else? Natasha said he was a nature photographer. And the fact that he even used a darkroom still made me wonder what he photographed and how I would get in there to find out. Curiosity itched at me until I reminded myself that this was Leland's darkroom I was plotting to sneak into. I didn't want to be in any room with that man, much less a room without light. He was a Chris Stevens clone in the conduct department.
How in the world am I to get through two weeks with him? Half the time I want to kiss him, and then slap him for kissing me back.
Alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. Rum would help me cope. I've had a long and understanding relationship with rum. We knew each other well. I promised not to abuse it, and it promised to always be there for me when the times got rough. But Leland will drive me to AA meetings, if I kept up like this.
"Another?" The waiter asked me as I set down my empty glass. An extra surety about Margaret's: phenomenal service.
"Yes," I told him - AA, here I come, "and I'll tell you when to stop bringing them." He nodded. A few minutes later Cora showed up arm-in-arm with her perfect man. I forced a smile to my lips and waved them over.
I really, really was happy for Cora. She had gone through a lot of toads to find her prince. I only hoped he was worth it. But did he have to walk with his hand in his pocket like that? It faked casualness. It was annoying.
*****
His darkroom was lit by only a red safe light. Freddie King's soulful harmonica played from the cranked-up stereo in the living room. Leland strung up a black and white to dry. It was good. Not great. He had done better. His dodging needed practice. This new project for that children's book required that the photo be colorized in a certain style. The author wanted an illustrator to add paint to the photo. That meant he needed to lighten parts of the photos, or darken them, according to the illustrator's directions. He had been experimenting with some dodging and burning techniques all morning.
If only that illustrator was not Lighter Lady. He should call that Jam guy now and tell him to find another photographer. Any photographer.
But no. Leland had never turned down a job in his life. A photo shoot was a photo shoot, and a collaboration with an artist was just that. Nothing else. He would do this. He would keep his hands to himself - just as she commanded him to do - and he would not think about how her eyes were the color of molasses and her lips and tongue tasted like rum.
That's what he needed. A drink. Something with rum. Margaret's had the best mojitos. He backed out of the darkroom and noticed his cell phone beeping at him. A message from Angela. That was the third one this morning. Not including the dozen she tried yesterday. Earlier, he swore that he heard his doorbell chime while he was in the shower. But when he got there, no one stood on his stoop.
Yes, a drink. He erased her message without hearing it, turned off Freddie and grabbed his truck keys.
*****
Mat appeared just as Cora and Jonathan sat down at the table. Already, I was getting a tooth ache from their sugary closeness. I finished my second drink and promised myself to go slower on the next one. I did have to drive home after all.
"Hey, Cassie," Mat said, kissing me on the cheek. If only he was not gay, I told myself for the thousandth time in our long relationship, he might be a contender. He was good-looking enough. And those muscular arms pulled the eye of more than woman in the restaurant. And he was a sweetheart to boot.
"Jonathan, you remember Mat?" I said as he sat on my left. Jonathan said, "Of course," extending his hand. Mat shook it warmly, too warmly. I saw Jonathan blink and I stifled a snicker. Cora pursed her lips. "Go ahead and tell him, before he gets the wrong impression," Cora glared at me. She was jealous! Of Mat!
Mat recognized the tone also, and a glimmer shone in his eye. "I'm gay," he said across the table. "But don't worry. I don't convert. I like my men to know their team colors from the start." Jonathan relaxed. And we ordered our lunch.
And of course, soon enough Cora and Jonathan lost themselves in each other. I shook my head. I really hoped this one worked out. If not, Cora will be devastated. She was completely enthralled with this man. I took a moment to really assess him. He was handsome, if not exactly my type. (Forget that I haven't figured out my type, yet.) Brassy brown hair and a strong jaw were his best features, at least of my opinion. Cora probably liked his kind eyes and soft brow most. And he had a nice voice and a good sense of humor. Her sister giggled at his jokes and fell over into him at the more boisterous ones. But his left ear kept twitching. It was distracting. I turned to Mat, who was also watching the couple with interest.
"Wow," he mouthed. "She's really gone on this one."
"Yeah," I agreed and frowned. If Jonathan broke her heart, I will maim him. Mat shook his head and turned his chair towards me. "So, tell me what happened," he asked in a low voice. I knew that voice; it was his "Best Friend/You're Not Getting Out Of This One" voice. I took a giant gulp of my mojito, finishing it. On cue, the waiter brought another.
"Alright, I'll tell, but you are not to do anything about it, you hear?"
He tensed. But he nodded. Although we had not seen much of each other in the past few years, not much has changed in our relationship. He was still the big, vengeful brother I never had, and I was still the girl who always managed to attract the absolutely most detesting man within fifty miles. The great thing about our friendship was that I could always count on him to save me, although I had never asked. And he could always count on me to provide a little boxing practice for him.
"Okay, the wedding. I was attacked by this man who was trying to get even with his ex-girlfriend or something. He kissed me, that's all," I started. Mat's eyes glowed with anger. I raised my eyebrows at him. He nodded for me to continue. "Anyway, I saw him again in the parking lot when I was leaving, and I was so mad that I tried to run him over."
"Good for you," he grunted.
"I missed," I added.
"Damn," he swore.
"So this guy follows me home..." Mat rose up out of his chair. By now Cora and Jonathan were both listening. Cora's face was full of sympathy and renewed horror. Jonathan was disapproving. I hoped it was directed at his awful cousin instead of me. "So to make a long story short, he wouldn't leave and I called the police. He was charged with assault."
"Good," Mat said again. He took a drink and relaxed in his chair. I took a deep breath. He was not going to like this next part.
"Jonathan bailed him out, and I dropped the charges this morning."
Mat shot up out of his chair; it toppled to the ground under him. "What?" He swung his head between me and Cora's date, not sure who he was more upset with.
Jonathan watched Mat with calm eyes. "Leland is my cousin. I just couldn't leave him in jail." My friend turned to me for my explanation. I shrank back from his stare.
"And you, what's your excuse?" he asked me.
"I'm getting to that. Sit down. You're making a scene." He sat and swallowed the rest of his drink in one giant gulp. "I got a call from my agent for another project. I have to finish it in two weeks and collaborate with a photographer."
"So?"
"Leland is that photographer."
Mat stared at me with incredulous eyes, and repeated, "You've got to be kidding? Right? This is a joke?" I shook my head. "Then don't do it. You can't work with a guy like that."
"I have to," I said softly. I looked to Cora for some support. She shrugged at me. Mat was my friend. This was my fight. Was this revenge the wedding thing, when I left her for a drink?
"No, you don't," Mat argued.
"Yes, I do. This project is for Jam Mercea. I can't turn it down."
"Who?'
"Never mind. He's one of the top children's book writers in the country. Illustrating one of his books will launch my career. If I turn him down, I may as well take up waitressing."
Understanding bloomed on Jonathan's face. He didn't know why I dropped the charges. Apparently, Cora failed to mention the whole story to him. He must have thought I was a complete idiot for calling the police and then dropping the charges two days later. I wanted to strangle Cora. But then again, I understood why she never got around to explaining my reason to him. The way she was watching him from the corner of her eye was evidence of her utter infatuation with him.
Mat clamped his teeth down. I had won this argument. He knew how much I loved my art. And somehow, his defeat did not make me feel any better. I wanted to scream at him, "Yell at me, or something! Tell me what a fool I am! Tell me not to do this!" But Mat wouldn't, and I felt awful.
Our lunch arrived and we ate in silence, watching Cora and Jonathan exchange enamored glances at each other. Half way through my black bean enchiladas, I smelled vinegar and heard a very familiar, and very unnerving, voice from behind me, "Hey Jonathan, mind if I join you?"
I choked on my bite and looked up into the face of (yes, you've guessed it) Mr. Right himself.