Okay, she got what William saw in Boom Boom, but what did a stripper see in an uptight, persnickety columnist who ate a bran muffin at 8:10 sharp every morning?
Old men ought to be explorers. Maybe Mr. Real wasn’t as old or unadventurous as Rosie had labeled him. Maybe Boom saw the real Mr. Real—saw that he was, at heart, a globe-trotting tiger. An old fantasy resurrected in Rosie’s mind, one where she was Isak Dinesen, the writer Meryl Streep had portrayed in the movie Out of Africa. Isak was a woman ahead of her time. A multifaceted adventurer who ran a farm in Africa, maintained a long-term, torrid love affair and wrote memorable stories.
With more flair than she knew she had, Rosie blithely zipped open the envelope, the tip of the blade barely missing her other hand. She paused, staring at the reflection of fluorescent light off the gleaming silver blade. “Stay focused, Rosie,” she whispered. “If you cut off your pinkie, you won’t be able to write back to Mr. Real’s readers.” That’s when she knew which goddess she needed for this job. Wise, coolheaded Athena. Rosie cooly laid the silver opener aside and eased the letter from its envelope.
The date at the top of the letter had been so hurriedly scrawled, it was difficult to decipher it was today’s date. Rosie glanced at the rest of the letter. No, the guy just had horrendous handwriting. Or maybe he wrote it in a frenzied hurry?
Thinking back to the crazed speed at which she drove into work most days, Rosie could relate to that. Already empathizing, Rosie read on.
“Mr. Real, I’m swimming in a Windex-blue sea of exes…an ex-wife, an ex-fiancée.”
Rosie paused, wondering why the word blue seemed to predominate the past few minutes of her life. Maybe there was some cosmic, mythical meaning behind this color? Nah. More likely, this man was simply blue. Depressed. She looked down at the scrawling handwriting and its terse loops and dips. Or angry? She continued reading.
Why are women so needy? Growing up, I was the built-in mediator, cook and limo service for my mother and sister. That was sixteen years ago, but not a damn thing has changed. These days, I’m still a nice guy to an ex-fiancée who wants me to be her caretaker and an ex-wife who has a deranged need to redecorate my office with busted love affair themes. And get this—some strange woman also wants my space!
My ex-fiancée has access to my e-mail, so respond to the P.O. box on the envelope.
Signed,
Wishing to move from Venus to Mars
He liked the Roman gods and goddesses while she stuck with the Greeks. But, hey, same thing. “He’s obviously one very together, insightful male,” Rosie murmured. “If anyone ever needed a goddess’s guidance, it’s this lucky man.”
Rosie quickly looked up. Good. No one heard that last comment.
4
AT 8:30 P.M., after a business dinner meeting, Ben eased his BMW up the driveway of his house in the outskirts of Chicago. Home sweet ranch-style home. The one place in the world where he could walk in and—except for his dog, Max—be alone. No ex-fiancées. No ex-wives. And no space nabbers nabbing his space.
He punched a button above the rearview mirror. The electric garage door opened and he drove inside. The back of the garage was lined with tool-filled shelves. Mixed in with the saws, drills and toolboxes were remnants of abandoned hobbies: a baseball mitt, a pair of inline skates, a battered trumpet case.
He got out and pressed the button on a side wall. As the garage door creaked closed, he looked up at the ceiling from which hung a kayak, an abandoned hobby he’d often dreamed of resurrecting. At one time—Nine years ago? Ten?—he’d loved kayaking down rivers. Feeling the heat of the sun on his skin. Hearing the slap of water against the hull—a hull now covered with dust. He’d even fantasized about kayaking in some exotic locale—like New Guinea or Africa—and taking photographs. Fitting a key into the door lock, he wondered where unused dreams went. Milwaukee?
The door opened into his kitchen, which was filled with the soothing strains of classical music. He always left the radio playing for his dog. Late afternoon, various lights also turned on automatically. “Max?” he called out, looking across the kitchen at the nearly closed sliding door that led into the living room. Through the narrow opening, his Brittany spaniel would stick its nose, nudging and sniffing the air, anxious to greet his master.
But tonight, no nose greeted Ben.
“Max?” he called again, checking the blinking light on the phone. Clients. More legal problems, questions, issues. They could wait. Right now he needed to unwind, chat with Max, do anything but play lawyer.
Still no nose.
Ben crossed the linoleum floor and slid open the door. “Maxwell?”
But instead of the scrabble of dog toenails on the living room hardwood floor, he heard the sharp click click of high heels.
“Not Maxwell, darling. Meredith.” His ex-wife halted in the living room, center stage, and smiled so broadly, the white rectangles of her teeth looked eerily like the white wood-paneled blinds behind her.
“How’d you get in?” Ben looked around. In her deranged postaffair state, maybe she’d cut a hole in a window with that mega-ice-cream-diamond ring Dexter wanted back.
“No hello?” Those blindingly white teeth disappeared behind a pout.
“Hello,” he snapped, scanning the room. “Did you break in to steal another couch?”
Meredith threw her head back and laughed. Ben flinched as one of her hairdo chopsticks came precariously close to getting tangled in his ficus tree. As he debated whether to make a mad lunge to save the tree, she raised her head and propped her hands on her kimono-clad hips. “Darling, darling. I’m not stealing a couch. Or a chair. Or any coatracks.” She opened her arms so wide, he feared she’d break into a song from The Sound of Music. “I’m—” she paused dramatically “—re-modeling your bathroom!”
He stared at her so long, he felt that same eyelid start to go numb.
“Say something!” Meredith gushed, her arms still open.
“You broke into my house to remodel my bathroom?” This had to be a first. A thief who doesn’t steal, but remodels.
She dropped her arms, which fell with a soft fwop against the silky kimono getup. “I didn’t break in,” she said peevishly. “I used the key hidden under the brick.”
“The brick?”
“The third one—the loose one—on the outside of the brick patio. We wrapped the house keys in a plastic bag and stuck it under there…remember?”
He’d almost forgotten. Which was easy to do considering his backyard patio was a sea of bricks. A big, round brickred sea. Something Meredith had had installed as a good-will gift after their ill-willed divorce…the divorce where she got to keep the house, the car, the antiques. But worst of all, she’d insisted—and pleaded and cried—that she wanted to keep their golden retriever, Bogie.
That was a painful trot down memory lane.
Ben had only been bitter over losing Bogie. That dog had been his pal, his kayaking buddy, his confidante. Newly single and worse, Bogie-less, Ben had crashed on his friend Matt’s couch for several months until Ben found this small, affordable ranch home in suburban Chicago. Meredith, knowing Ben loved the massive brick fireplace at their old home, took it upon herself to bestow him with a brick patio. He had thought it a gracious gift until Ben discovered Meredith had just broken up with a bricklayer.
He still wondered what their sex life had been like.
At that moment, Max trotted into the living room, his short tail wagging double time. Max rarely got anxious. Had to be Meredith’s impromptu visit.
“How’d you think I got in?” she said,