“I gave it to your wife.” The clerk gestured at Annie.
“Oh, we’re not—” they both said at once and stopped. They looked at each other and laughed. “Come on,” grinned David. The clerk turned to the next customer.
As they exited into the neon-lit night, she said wistfully, “Mrs. Auberson…”
“Is that a hint?”
“Um, sort of. I was just wondering, if there were a Mrs. Auberson, what she would be like.”
“You’ll have to ask my mother that — she’s the only Mrs. Auberson I know.”
He swung the car out of the parking lot and onto the street.
Annie said, “I wasn’t thinking of your mother.”
“I know. I was sidestepping the issue.”
She laughed at that. But not too heartily.
Once inside the apartment, she tossed her coat on his couch and followed him into the kitchen. “Let me unpack them,” she said, referring to the groceries. “You fix the drinks.”
“Screwdriver okay?” he asked, pulling orange juice out of the refrigerator and ice out of the freezer.
“Fine,” she said. “Unless you know how to make a wallbanger.”
“I do, but I think I’m out of Galliano — no, here’s some.” He rummaged around in his liquor cabinet, pulled out two tall glasses and dropped ice cubes into them. A little vodka, then some orange juice—
“A little more vodka than that,” she hinted.
—a little more vodka, then a healthy jigger of the sweet yellow Galliano, a maraschino cherry in each, and a hasty stir.
He handed her the drink and she pecked him on the cheek. A moment later she pulled away from the resultant embrace. “Um, I have to finish putting the roast in the broiler.”
“Broiler? I thought you put a roast in the oven.”
“Boneless shoulder,” she explained. “Flat cut. You broil it. It’s quicker and it tastes as rich as steak.”
“Oh,” he said. He sipped at his drink, then sat down to watch her. He took another sip.
For a bit there was silence — only the tinkle of ice in their glasses, or the slide and scrape of the broiler pan in the oven as Annie adjusted the meat. She sampled her drink, then began shredding lettuce into a bowl.
He said, “I think I may be setting a record.”
“Oh? What kind?”
“We’ve been together for an hour or more now, and I haven’t mentioned HARLIE once.”
“You just did.”
“Yes, but that was only to tell you I hadn’t — and I’m not going to say anything more about him tonight.”
Expertly, she sliced a tomato into neat little chunks. “Okay, fine.”
He sipped his drink again. He found that he was enjoying this. There was a homey atmosphere about the scene, and he had a sense of — belonging(?). A sense of something — he couldn’t quite place it, but he felt more relaxed now.
She dropped a plastic pouch of vegetables into a pan of boiling water, fiddled with the roast a bit, then quickly set the table. She worked with a minimum of fuss and frills. She plopped the salad bowl before him. “Here, you toss.”
“With my bare hands?”
She was already reaching for salad fork and spoon. She handed them to him, then put out the small salad bowls. Clumsily, he filled them.
Before he had finished she was seated at the table, looking at him. She took a bit more of her drink, then said, “Want to eat your salad now, or wait a bit? The meat needs another ten minutes.”
“Oh, we can wait, I guess.” He stared across the table at her sea-green eyes. They were glowing as if translucent, as if there were tiny gems deep within them, catching the light and sparkling it. Her smile was warm and inviting, her lips were moist. Her face was a glow of trust and love—
Love—?
He was smiling too. He could feel it. She was beautiful. Her hair was a tawny red color, streaked with shiny gold, but with a hint of deeper brown. She lowered her eyes uncertainly. His steady gaze was almost disconcerting.
She looked up. He was still looking, still smiling. A swallow to work up her courage, a cough to clear her throat. “Want to talk?” she asked.
“What about?”
“Us.”
“Um,” he said. He finished his drink; he did it to cover his hesitation. “What about us?”
“Am I pushing too hard?”
“Huh?”
“Lately, David, I’ve had the feeling that, except for business reasons, you’ve been avoiding me.”
“Now that’s—”
“Well, not avoiding,” she said quickly. “That’s the wrong word to use. Let’s just say I’ve had the feeling you’re holding back. And that makes me feel like I’m forcing myself on you.”
“That’s silly,” he managed to say.
“Is it?”
He thought about it. “Well, I have been caught up in this Board of Directors thing, you know.”
“I know — maybe I’m just reading meanings—” She got up from the table and went to the stove to take the vegetables out of the water. She dropped the hot plastic bag on the counter.
“You know,” she said, coming back, then pausing over her drink, “I remember something I learned in school once — not in class, but from some friends. It’s the reason there’s more hate in the world than love.”
“It’s easier?” he offered.
“Sort of. Let me explain. It takes two people to make a love relationship. It’s a positive thing; both have to work at it. But it takes only one person to start a negative relationship. It takes only one person to hate or dislike.”
He considered it. “Hm. Okay. So what does that have to do with us?”
“Well.” She paused. “Is our thing one-sided, or are we both working to make it work?”
He didn’t answer right away, just looked at her instead. “You mean — do I care for you as much as you care for me?”
She returned his gaze. “Yes. You can put it that way.”
He broke the contact first. He looked at his hands. “I can’t answer that — I mean, not in the way you want.” He looked around. “Is my briefcase here?”
“You left it in the car.”
“Damn. I’ll go get it.” He started to rise. Her startled face stopped him. Reaching over, he grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “There’s something I have to show you. Wait.”
It took only a moment, but it seemed to take forever. The apartment elevator was slower than ever to arrive. Its doors opened with a lackadaisical sigh. The trip down to the garage went at a snail’s pace.
He was out the doors with a bound, half-running to his car. He banged his leg on a fender in his eagerness. He pulled the case out of the back seat and headed back for the elevator. Again he had to wait, and again it seemed to be deliberately taunting him with its lethargy.
When he got back to the apartment, he was breathless. She had just finished cutting the meat into thin red slices. She looked up with a curious frown. “You didn’t have to run.”
“I didn’t,” he gasped and sank into a chair. He held the case on his lap and flipped it open. Hastily he paged through the sheafs of printouts, looking for the one he wanted. He separated it from the rest, then dropped the case to the floor. “Here,” he said. “Read this.”
“Now?” she asked. She was putting the tray of meat on the table.
He looked at her, at the meat, at the printout in his hand, and finally at her again. Abruptly he burst out laughing. She did too. “Here we’ve been waiting for over an hour for dinner,” he said, “and just as it’s ready, the first thing I want to do is talk about HARLIE. And I promised I wasn’t going to do that.”
She took the printout from him, placed it carefully to one side. “I never asked you to promise that. I like HARLIE.”
That surprised him. “You do?”
“Uh huh. I want to read it.” She picked up his briefcase and put it out of the way.
“But you don’t even know what it is.”
“You want me to read it,” she said. “That makes it important. Now, eat.” She smiled at him.