Strange Bedpersons (4 page)

Nick looked confused. “No, you couldn’t. This is a very ritzy party. Why would you wear an apron?”

Tess shrugged. “All right, no apron. But it’s your loss.”

Nick shifted slightly. “Tess, concentrate here. I need to look like somebody who is approaching commitment. You need to act like somebody I’d commit to. Can you pull this off?” He squinted at her. “Of course you can’t. Why don’t I ever listen to Park?”

“Because he’s an idiot,” Tess said. “Did he tell you I couldn’t do this? The rat. I know you bonded in college, but haven’t you noticed what a valueless twit he is?”

“Valueless is a little harsh,” Nick said. “Immature, maybe.”

“What did he do? Pull you from a burning building?” Tess shook her head. “Lassie wasn’t this faithful to Timmy.”

“He does all right by me,” Nick said. “And he pulls his own weight with the firm. Park may have his limits, but believe it or not, he’s a genius with contracts. And yes, I owe him. The only reason I’m even with the firm is that Park hauled me in with him.”

“I understand that,” Tess said patiently. “And I admire your loyalty. But since then you’ve pulled him out of a jam how many times? Don’t you think you’re about paid up here? Especially since he’s trashing your fiancée.” When Nick seemed puzzled, she added, “That would be me, remember?”

“Right,” Nick said. “At least, I remember when I thought that was a good idea. Look, I haven’t pulled Park out of a jam that many times. And we’re doing all right together. Hell, we could be rich if we nail this Welch account.”

“You’re already rich,” Tess said. “It’s time to move to a higher plane. Get a new interest. One with values.”

“I have values.” Nick cast a disgusted look around the apartment. “Besides, if this is the kind of life you get for having values, I’ll pass. This place is a dump. And where the hell did you get those sweats, anyway? They’re older than you are.”

“Hey,” Tess said, annoyed at having to defend her sweats yet one more time. “I paid for these with honest money at an honest thrift store.” She stuck her chin in the air. “Just because, unlike you and
Park,
I don’t buy overpriced
running togs
that I never
run
in because I might get
sweaty
—”

“Wait a minute,” Nick said. “I run.”

But Tess was already warming to the drama of the moment. “—which would be a waste of the
ill-gotten gains
I used to buy them—”

“I object to the ill-gotten gains—”

“Always a lawyer,” Tess said. “Objection overruled.”

“Look, we don’t cheat widows and orphans or defend rapists or polluters or do any of those other things you tree huggers are always on about,” Nick fumed. “We’re lawyers, not criminals, for cripe’s sake. Cut me a break.”

Tess came down from her high horse. “Sorry. I got a little carried away.” She looked at him, biting her lip. “This is like deja vu. This is every argument we ever had.”

“I know,” Nick said gloomily. “It was the only good thing about not seeing you anymore. I didn’t have to have this stupid argument.”

“Well, you don’t have to have it now,” Tess said. “The door is over there. And this engagement would never have worked for us, anyway. You wouldn’t have let me wear an apron, and as the years went by, I would have resented it. Then one day, I’d have picked up a meat cleaver and there we’d be, in the
National Enquirer,
just like John and Lorena Bobbit.” Nick blinked at her, and she took pity on him and dropped her story. “Well, thanks for stopping by. See you.” She waited for him to get up and leave, feeling absolutely miserable for the first time since the last time she’d left him.

Nick put his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “I can’t leave. I need you.” He opened his eyes and met hers squarely. “This could get me a partnership, Tess.”

Tess felt a stab of sympathy for him. “Oh, love. When are you going to stop trying to prove you’re the best? You don’t have to sweat like this anymore. Your picture is on the society page all the time. You’re a Riverbend celebrity. People adore you. You’ve made it.”

Nick shook his head. “Not till I’ve made partner. I know that in your eyes that makes me an immoral, profiteering, capitalist whoremonger, but I will not be happy until I’ve made partner. I’ve worked a long time for this, and I
want
it.”

“I know.” Tess frowned. “What I don’t know is why Park isn’t giving it to you.”

Nick let his head fall back against the wall again. “Because Park can’t. His father still runs the firm, and Park would walk naked in traffic before he’d confront him or, God forbid, disagree with him. But Park swears his father will retire if we get the Welch account, and then Park can make me partner.”

Tess was confused. “Why doesn’t his father want to make you partner? You’re brilliant. And you practically run that firm now. This doesn’t make sense. You
deserve
partner.”

“His father cares about background,” Nick said stiffly. “Mine is blue-collar. Not the kind of person to be a partner in a Patterson law firm.”

Tess looked dumbfounded. “You’re kidding. He can’t be that archaic.”

“Sure he can,” Nick said. “It’s his law firm. He can be anything he wants.”

Tess slumped back in her chair and considered Nick and what she owed him. The first time they’d met, he’d knocked her on her butt playing touch football, and then sat on her to make her give up the ball, doing terrible Bogart impressions until she’d surrendered because she was weak from laughing. When she broke up with the guy she’d been dating a month later, she’d called Nick trying not to cry, and he’d brought her chocolate ice cream and
Terms of Endearment
on video, and then kept her company while she sobbed through the movie. And he’d never said anything about the mascara she’d left all over his shirt. And today he’d known she was upset about something and brought her pot stickers.

On the other hand, he worshiped money and success, and he’d humiliated her by rejecting her in a parking lot.

They were almost even. But not quite. Because no matter how sure she was that she was finished with him as a romantic possibility—and she was pretty sure, she told herself—he was a friend. If friends needed you, you came through. That was the rule.

Tess felt the prison doors begin to close on her. “Oh, damn,” she muttered.

Nick leaned forward and gave her his best smile, the one that made him look boyish and vulnerable. “I have no right to ask you this, but will you do it? For me? Even though you don’t owe me anything?”

Tess bit her lip. He looked so sweet sitting there. And sexy. Of course, she knew that he knew he looked boyish and vulnerable and sweet and sexy because that was the effect he was going for, but deep, deep,
deep
down inside, he really was a sweet man. He just had a lousy peer group.

And if she did it, she’d get to be with him again.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Tess said.

Nick slumped in relief. “Thank God.” He grinned up at her. “I don’t suppose you could get Park a date, too? Somebody respectable?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Somebody at the Foundation?” Nick said. “Somebody who reads?”

“I’ll ask around,” Tess said. “I will have to mention that he’s worthless, of course.”

“Great.” Nick stood up to go. “Listen, if there’s anything I can do for you, just name it. I owe you big for this.”

“Good. Introduce me to somebody on the board of the Decker Academy.”

Nick gaped at her. “Why?”

“I lost my job,” Tess said, and Nick sat down again.

“I knew something was wrong. I’m sorry, Tess. What happened?”

“Funding cuts,” Tess said. His sympathy was so unexpectedly comforting that she lost her emotional balance for a moment, but then she took a deep breath and grinned at him. “But it’s all right. I met this really nice man at the last censorship protest.”

Nick scowled at her. “Do not talk to strange men, dummy.”

“And we talked for a long time, and he was darling,” Tess said, ignoring his scowl. “And he said if I ever needed a job, to call him, because I was obviously a great teacher.”

“And this has what to do with the Decker Academy?” Nick said, still scowling.

“He’s in charge of it,” Tess said. “His name is Alan—”

“Sigler,” Nick finished. “He must be sixty. What are you doing flirting with older men?”

“But I told him I don’t have a teaching certificate. And he said that was bad because the board would have to vote to make an exception in my case, and they weren’t very open to change, so I thought if you knew any of them...”

“I do,” Nick said thoughtfully. “In fact, a couple of them may be at this Welch thing this weekend. He’s big on upper-class education for some reason.” He frowned at her. “Dress conservatively. These people are not cutting edge.” He thought for another moment, and Tess watched him contemplate her problem, turning it over in his mind, examining it from every angle as if it was something important to his career, instead of hers, and she felt comforted again. “I’ll do what I can,” he said finally. “I just don’t understand why you want to work at Decker. All those rich kids?”

“The pay is good,” Tess said. “And the school day ends at one o’clock so they can work on special projects or something.”

Nick snorted. “Country Club 101.”

“I don’t care. I could be back at the Foundation by one-thirty. A lot of my kids don’t come in for help until then.”

Nick frowned at her. “Two jobs? What are you trying to do—kill yourself?”

Tess stuck her chin out. “I can’t leave the Foundation. They need me. The kids need me. I know you don’t understand, but they need me.”

Nick was silent for a moment. “All right,” he said finally. “Let me see what I can do.” He stood up and then looked down at her, the worry clear in his eyes. “But you have to promise me that you won’t work yourself into the ground if you get this job.”

Tess bit her lip. “See, this is what makes me crazy about you. Say something materialistic so I can get my guard up again.”

“Your sweats are awful,” Nick said. “But your face looks like a million dollars.” He bent to kiss her, and Tess felt the little shock of lust he always sparked in her as his mouth covered hers and his tongue tickled her lips. He tasted of pot stickers and beer and Nick, and she smiled against his cheek when he moved his head to bite her earlobe.

“Charmer,” she whispered against his ear, and he grinned and kissed her again, and she felt the warmth from his lips seep into her bones.

When he was gone, she stared into space for a while, wondering what she was getting herself into. Nick was a darling, she reminded herself, but he was also dedicated to one person and one person only— Nick. He liked her a lot, but he’d cheerfully dump her in a minute if it meant making partner in that damn firm.

So don’t go fantasizing about him,
she told herself sternly. She’d just use him to meet the Decker people and get him to pull any strings he had to get her the job. She wasn’t going to start thinking about his arms again. That always led to scattered thinking, and she still had to decide what to do about Gina, how to protect the other tenants, how to save the Foundation, how to get the job at Decker...

Tess curled up in the chair and put her head on her knees and thought about how good it would feel to be in Nick’s arms again. When her thoughts drifted from security in his arms to making love in his arms, she groaned and reached for the phone and dialed Gina’s number.

No sense in suffering alone.

“You’re gonna do it?” Gina asked when Tess told her about Nick’s proposal.

“Of course I’m going to do it.” Tess cradled the phone to her ear as she slumped back in her chair. “He needs me. He can be a materialistic jerk and a womanizer, but deep inside he’s a nice guy and he needs me.” She shifted in the chair, searching for a better justification for seeing him again. “He probably doesn’t really want to do this. It’s that louse Park.”

Gina sounded doubtful. “I don’t think it’s all this Park’s fault. Nick’s a big boy. He could say no.”

“Nick can’t say no to Park. He’s been baby-sitting Park since college and it’s gotten to be a habit.” Tess’s frown turned into a grin as she thought about it. “You wouldn’t believe how they met.” She sat up in her chair as she warmed to her story. “Nick told me he was tutoring in college as part of a work-study program, and Park showed up, on the verge of getting kicked out of school because of this really important English lit paper he’d flunked. On
Moby Dick.”

“That’s the whale, right? I saw the movie.”

“Right,” Tess said. “Only when Park showed Nick the paper, the prof had written across the top of it, ‘Unfortunately, Mr. Patterson, Ahab dies in the end.’”

“Park didn’t know Ahab died?” Gina sounded confused. “He died in the movie.”

“Yeah, he dies in the Cliff Notes, too,” Tess said. “So Nick said he asked Park how he could possibly have missed that part, and Park said that when he was a kid, his parents only bought him educational toys, and one of the games they bought him was the Moby Dick game—”