Binding Arbitration (7 page)

That little tantrum cost you a good inning of work and you missed the strike zone by a mile.

“Yeah, well, some things are worth paying for.”

6

(NOT)LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Fire is never a gentle master.

Elizabeth

Cass hooted as the pin-ball machine’s score tabulated, flashing red and white as it dinged. You would never imagine by looking at him that his body was failing him. In spite of being poked and prodded by two specialists, he was having a good day and he’d earned the evening at Dave & Buster’s.

I used to be able to bribe him through doctor visits with candy, but today he’d said, “I’m six now, and I’m looking for bigger pay-offs.” I’d swung around looking for Aidan—it was the kind of thing he’d say—and I’d tried to smile when he said it. It’s funny how biology trumped environment sometimes.

Madi ran up to our booth, eyeing her father, before turning her puppy-dog-pout on me. “Aunt Libby, Cass won’t listen to me. He never does what I say.”

Before I could respond, Cass came alongside Madi looking about as innocent as a choir boy caught with his hands in the collection basket. “You’re a girl. You can’t boss me around.” He was serious, and his smile was so broad that the dimple in his right cheek might cut his sharp little tongue out.

Dr. Steve Dubrowski smiled at his daughter. “You’ve got to stop being so bossy, Madi. Nobody likes a know it all.”

“But you said I was the smartest girl in the world.”

I pulled on one of Madi’s long brown braids and noticed pink glitter dotting her cheek bone. I whispered conspiratorially, “The trick is to make him want what you want.”

“I’ll use my Pixie Powers, like I did on butthead.”

“We don’t call people butthead.” Steve smiled at his daughter. “Here are some more tokens, go play until dinner.”

Cass took the coins and Madi in the direction of the claw.

“Pixie power?” I asked Steve.

“Her grandmother put Madi in a commercial this morning.” He gave me a grim smile. “She’s trying to turn Madi into her mother, minus the character flaws, of course.”

I put my hand over my mouth in mock disgust. “And you found nothing appealing about Danielle in the least?”

He cocked his head to one side. “That’s enough about my ex-wife who dumped us for a cabana boy. What happened with super jock?”

“I think the parlay between our children succinctly sums up my conversation with Band-Aid Palowski.”

“The guy’s dense. I’d give you anything you wanted.”

“That’s because you’re a giver, and he’s a taker.”

“No, I’m interested in taking.” He winked.

I was saved from rehashing a conversation with the man I would love only as a friend, when Vicki bounced up to the table performing a nervous twitter with her hands. New age hocus pocus, maybe. “What did you get yourself into now?” she asked.

“The devil wants a slice of my soul.” I shied away from Steve’s gaze. “But I maneuvered a bail hearing for Accardo.”

Vicki was my closest friend and glowing at seven months pregnant. She could no longer see her feet, or the color of her hair, I assumed. It was as black as midnight on a moonless night, with a single shaft of electric blue running down the larger side of her part. Yesterday, that stripe had been tangerine on blonde. “What?” She ran her hand along the darkest part of her hair. “It’s a fabulous color, and it matches your mood.”

I was used to her eccentric behavior—I blamed it on her weed-riddled parents.

We’d both hailed from cutter-ville. Cutter originally referred to someone who worked in the local stone cutting industry, but it became a derogatory term used by Indiana students, akin to townie.

While I was on Nose-to-the-grindstone Gravel-road, Vicki was traveling along Live-a-little-lane. Both of us expected to end up somewhere better than a dirt path in Southern Indiana. Each of us had our own ideas about how to arrive at our new destination. I had a route mapped out, and Vicki… she didn’t care to read a map. In her estimation, it was always more fun to fly on the edge of your broomstick with a bare backside.

“What happened?” She probed again.

My mind drifted back to the confrontation. “A serious miscalculation on my part, and he was pissed.”

Aidan’s confidently-sprawled form among the sea of empty chairs at Gutheries had made me shake on the insides. He still had that animal magnetism that drew me in and those piercing blue eyes that could cut the flesh from my bones. Any semblance of the guy I once knew was buried beneath the cocky, confident arrogance he exuded. Aidan eyed my approach, sinking further into his chair. His long, denim clad legs splayed out in front of him in the casual manner of a man who knew exactly where he was, where he had been, and what he wanted once he got to where he was going. I felt the first twinges of defeat. “Having my tonsils removed by a Volvo mechanic would have been more fun.”

“He’s pissed you want help?” Vicki prompted me to go on.

“I had entertained doubts that he’d show up, but the threat to his contract got his attention.” Baseball was his God and his life centered on its worship. “He thought I gave Cass up.”

“Ut-oh.” Vicki paled. “Jenny said he was in a snit and talking to himself before he left.”

“He called me and told me where and when he wants to talk to me about what he wants in exchange for his DNA. And I’m not talking Dashing, Noble, Arrogance.”

“He asked you out? I don’t see the problem with that. He’s still hot.”

If I had a Vicki doll, I’d toothpick her irises. “I’d like to tie him to a totem pole and set fire to it.”

Vicki tapped her fingertips against watermelon-shaped stomach through her gauzy embroidered tunic, and waited for me to back down. “He’s always compelled you to combustion.”

Better not comment on the Mu-Mu; she was getting a little prickly about the maternity clothes issue. “What you call compelling, I call manipulative.” I waved my arms around as if willing God’s intervention. “All I want is some DNA.”

“Are you sure?” She asked perkily.

Steve groaned.

“I guarantee you want to see him more than I do. Dealing with him has always been a nightmare, and I have enough to deal with right now.” I gave her a look that roughly translated meant: keep your match-making fairytale dreams to yourself.

She smiled at my frown and stared off in the direction of the kids. “There’s one way to find out if dreams do come true.”

Vicki believed in dreams. Hell, she conjured them. She’d fallen in love with the Fed Ex guy. “I could also believe peacocks can fly to Timbuktu, but they prefer to prance and preen. Oh wait, that describes Palowski and his cunning agent perfectly.”

In the interest of her happy
chi
and keeping a harmonious relationship with Steve, I said. “He’s engaged to what’s-her-face... the one with the practiced-pose-on-the-cover-of-some-trashy tabloid. This only proves he’s as superficial as ever.”

Vicki stopped my rant with a kohl-rimmed eye roll. Voodoo priestess translation: I know what’s best for you.

“Yeah,” I retorted. “If I want to know what life on Mars is like, you know best. Otherwise, I’m still the well-adjusted of our pair. Ask the doc his professional opinion.” And I indicated Steve with a nod, knowing that he’d take my side.

Instead of doing so, he got to his feet. “I better check on the kids before we have to pay for a Claw machine.”

I tried to smile Steve’s frown away. It made me sad that he wanted more, but we’d only be friends. What was wrong with me? He was the holy trinity of dating: straight and sexy, gainfully employed, and matrimonially inclined. Vicki wasn’t trying to dismiss Steve as a possibility for me because she didn’t like him; it was just that she had an affinity for a
Gone With the Wind
kind of saga.

I should be irritated with her, but if it wasn’t for Vicki busting her tattooed ass, I wouldn’t be a lawyer. Vicki stayed with Cass while I’d gone to law school. At night, she worked jobs ranging from a topless cocktail waitress to 911 operator. She’d even done phone sex, while she was a 911 operator, which was a mess to dig her out of.

When I passed the bar exam, she went to secretarial school and took her first professional job. It was a thorny transition for a woman more akin to being an Egyptian Priestess than a legal assistant. I brought her on board at my firm and because of her help I was on the fast track to make partner.

“I should have saved myself the hassle and subpoenaed him into giving me the blood sample.”

“Neither of you admitted it, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t something between you.” Vicki huffed off in the direction of the ladies room, probably to whip up some sort of love potion or bend a voodoo doll to her will.

I sighed, as Steve tried to coax the kids into another game. Here I was, seven years later, aching all over again because he still refused to give me any part of himself. What had been a bloody tournament of wills between us then could still run cold with spiteful emotions now. Only this time I would lose the only part of him I had kept for myself—Cass. I gave up two long-harbored dreams the day we created our son—Harvard Law and love.

In my reflection of the world, love lived only on pages of a southern depression-era novel. And let’s face it: Aidan Palowski was no Rhett Butler.

Elizabeth, 8 years ago

Vicki pulled me, and I tripped over the stairs into the alcoves pool table at McCleary’s. He was bent over the green felt and mahogany surface. His eyes focused on me, and for the first time in my life I felt like I was a strange, exotic, thing, unusual enough to encourage another human being’s pursuit of me to the end of the world. My body jerked strangely in reaction to his examination, and then a slow smile spread to the corners of his generous mouth.

Time came to an otherworldly halt, as we were caught in the vortex of the other’s reflections, my eyes bound to his crisp crystal blue depths. I didn’t believe in love at first sight. In fact, I didn’t give much credence to love at all, but his whole personality seemed resolutely focused on my being, as if he could see under my skin, through my veins, right to my heart.

The increased beating of that very organ awakened me out of my stupor when he came toward me, extended his hand, and we exchanged names. His warm fingers brushed mine. In an instinctual reaction, I stepped away, but he held fast. “Elizabeth is a beautiful name.”

The moment we touched, I came alive, humming with a thin layer of perspiration beading my skin. Streams of subconscious desire leapt through my body. I looked down at my feet.

“Everyone calls me Band-Aid.” He hadn’t released my hand, but gave it a gentle squeeze, forcing me to look up. He had a single dimple in his right cheek. I willed my hand to stop tingling and for the baby hairs on my arms to relax.

As we played pool, I stole glances at him under my lashes. My throat had grown tight and scratchy, despite my liquid refreshment. Afraid that I would say something stupid, I kept my thoughts to myself, but I wondered if our friends noticed the sparks dancing between us.

“So?” His rolled-up shirt sleeves brushed against my bare arm. “I’ve seen you somewhere before. Are you a sorority girl?”

“Do I look like one?” I took off my glasses and breathed onto the lenses before cleaning them with the tail of my shirt.

“Well, you have that ‘uppity’ look about you, and you haven’t put two words together.”

“Maybe you’re confusing uppity with plain old shy.”

“I’ve been looking for half an hour, and there’s nothing plain about you.” His intense aquatic eyes seemed to be puzzling out my behavior. “Where do I know you from?”

“I work at the Waffle House on Kirkwood.”

“If I’d seen you there I’d be a regular by now.” He smiled. “If I win, you’ll go out with me?”

“Are you trying to distract me so that you can catch up on points?” I smiled as I bent over to take my shot.

“I was working up the nerve.”

I wiggled my backside, which he was watching, while I took my follow-up shot. Without looking up from the table I said. “I somehow doubt nerve has ever been a problem for you.” I sank another striped ball into the side pocket. “You’re not going to win.” I set up the final shot.

“How can you be sure of that?”

“I’m about to make this simple shot and win.” I couldn’t stop myself from pouting when escape was within my reach.

He moved closer as I leaned on my stick studying the table. He put his hand on the lower part of my back, and leaned into me. His spicy, masculine scent filled my senses. “I, for one, hope you can’t make that shot, so I can take a shot with you.”

As I leaned over the table, I smirked over my shoulder, sinking the ball into the outside corner pocket. “Too bad, so sad.” I gave him my stick. “You won’t mind putting that away for me, will you?” I recovered my drink, Vicki, and our purses, and we made our way into the throng of the bar. His gaze followed and burned through my backside once again.

Vicki caught my eye. “Those were some serious fireworks.”

“He’s just a jock playboy. It didn’t mean anything.”

“Did you check out his bod? He’s built like a long tall tree I’d be willing to climb.”

“There’s a long line of lady lumberjacks with scraped knees crying in the shadows of his mighty limbs.”

“Come on, there were actual sparks flying.” Vicki bumped my hip with hers. “I considered sunglasses to help with the glare.”

“Sparks lead to fire, fire to flame, flame to burning, and then I’m toast. I know an incendiary device when I see it, and no matter how enticing the packaging, I’m not playing with it. Him.”

“He has the hots for you.” Vicky reiterated.

“I’m not interested.”

“What are you not interested in?” His silky Midwestern twang filled my ears.

I hadn’t seen his approach, but I smelled him. The golden god, who towered over everyone in the room, swirled around me.

“You,” I said.

“Really? I could try harder.”

“You’re not my ilk.”

“Really? What kind of ilk am I?”

“Jock, pretty boy, all the girls chase you, thinking they’ll be the one to snag you.” I resumed playing with the lime in my Absolut and cranberry. “You’re prince charming; they’re all damsels in distress. Yada, yada, yada.”