The Love Experiment Read online

  “You’re doing it. Because I’m doing everything I can to make sure the Courier isn’t going to become a digital-only edition. And it’d better be brilliant. You’d better be ready to fall on your knees for, er, one of Shona’s team.” Madden waved at his face. “The one with the dead fish eyes, what’s her name again?”

  “Honeywell. And she doesn’t have—”

  “Delia, rhymes with Ophelia, that’s it.”

  “Derelie.” Rhymes with necessarily, extraordinarily. Like her eyes. Jack avoided looking into them because they were so clear he could see right through to her brave, tender heart.

  “Yes, Derelie.” The elevator door opened on their floor. “Do one of those fantasy date things like on those TV dating games.” Madden stepped out. Jack should’ve too, but he wanted to put his hands around Madden’s neck and squeeze. “Don’t spare the horses. Romance the fuck out of her.”

  Madden turned back when he realized Jack hadn’t followed. He said, “Get video,” as the doors closed.

  Jack needed food. He needed a smoke. He did not need to spend time romancing Derelie Honeywell and have it immortalized on video. He needed a plan to convince her to drop out.

  He went for his cell, pulled up his calendar and searched for the next open night at St. Longinus. He sent an email to add his name to the list of sinners, in the hope he’d be selected for a fight.

  He was going to need it for absolution, because what he was about to do to Derelie would be unforgivable.

  Chapter Eleven

  Shona wanted to know how the love experiment was going and Derelie wasn’t sure what to tell her. For the millionth time she looked wistfully in the direction of Artie Chan’s empty cubicle. There was no more inspiration there than in her notepad.

  The walking dinkus had given her nothing she could use. If she had to write the story today it would be a commentary on meeting people in the city, how different it was from where she’d grown up, where you talked to strangers and made friends with passersby and even your enemies were polite and didn’t make you want to poison their coffee.

  Her face got hot when she thought about how dismissive Jack was, right down to when he talked about his own messed up family life. But he was angry too, and if she had to guess why, it wasn’t about old wounds, it was about having opened himself up to her, because he’d shut down just as quickly.

  The Defender of the City could dish it out, but wasn’t any good at taking it. He hadn’t been able to take her scrutiny or get past his own ego to answer a few simple questions. How would telling her the last song he’d sung damage his credibility? And yet he’d remembered the things she’d told him and he’d drawn her out despite her attempt to guard her own responses.

  She hit return on Shona’s email and typed: We’ve done part one, two more to go, plus the staring contest. The thought of that made her squirm. But Jack is very uncooperat—delete—busy. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to pin him down for the rest. He was the one doing the pinning so far. Making progress. I’ll keep you informed.

  She’d no sooner hit send than Shona appeared behind her. “Phil really wants this story, so if you’re having trouble getting Jack to play ball, let me know.”

  It would probably be smart to throw herself at Shona’s mercy and admit Jack was being impossible and there was little chance she’d ever get the kind of heartwarming human interest story they were after.

  The first twelve questions were a warm-up. In the next set, he’d have to open up and tell her about his hopes, dreams, memories and achievements. There was a question about his relationship with his mother. This was so not happening.

  But there was another email in her inbox about the voluntary layoffs, so now was not the time to admit defeat, especially if Shona was going to bring it to Phil’s attention. Shona was very keen on getting Phil’s attention, and whose fault was that? Derelie should never have mentioned the whole “saw Phil with another woman in a too-small shirt” thing because she’d lit a fire under Shona’s red-soled stilettos that Shona wanted to quench by poking out Phil’s eyes.

  Office politics Chicago-style was like rolling in barbed wire. Office politics back home was more of the “it’s your turn to unjam the copier, make the coffee, cover the funeral” variety. There was no eye poking, no brooding sabotage of other people’s objectives. And yes, she was Pollyanna, and it was time to grow up and realize the rest of the world didn’t work like Orderly, home of the white squirrel, not red or gray like everywhere else. It was time to toughen up, embrace the ambiguity, sharpen her elbows and keep going after what she wanted.

  And right now, that was Jackson Haley. On a plate. In a purely professional way.

  If everyone knew he was being difficult, and she managed to rise above that challenge without having to resort to using the chain of command to pull off the story, that had to mean her job was safe, it had to. Because once Jack knew she’d complained, she would well and truly cook her goose with him. Cliché or not. He’d have no respect for her if she tattled.

  “No trouble. He’s actually more bark than bite.”

  Shona picked up the picture of Ernest from her desktop. “This dog is more bark than bite. But if you think you can get Jack Haley to play dead and the story is good, I’ll do what I can to see about getting you promoted.”

  Derelie’d get Haley to sit up and beg if it meant more job security and more money. Heel, Dinkus.

  She left Jack alone for the rest of the day, worked on two other stories, “Five Weight Loss Tips You Can Break” and “Ten Everyday Indulgences That Are Good for You,” and made it to yoga on time to claim her place near Yogaboy.

  He sat on his mat in full lotus pose with his legs crossed, feet turned up on the opposite thighs, elegant wrists resting on his knees, with his eyes closed, and a serene expression, his body a perfect example of both physical and mental health.

  Didn’t matter how many classes she took, how much extra practice she did, Derelie would never be that flexible. Her hips and abductors were too tight. Her bound angle pose looked more like a poised frog with her knees sticking up too close to her shoulders instead of lying parallel to the floor. She aspired to a half lotus, but today was not the day to try it out. It might be the day to get Yogaboy to notice her. But he’d have to open his eyes to do that.

  An hour later, her shavanasa was a true corpse pose. She was exhausted and wondered if anyone would stop her lying on the floor for the rest of the night. She turned her head to see if she was alone, and her eyes collided with Yogaboy’s.

  “Namaste,” he said, bringing his hands together prayer-style as he came to his feet.

  “Namaste,” she replied, too shocked to move. She lay there as he rolled his mat and walked off, a sweaty mess on the first occasion of being noticed.

  Once he’d moved past her, she sat. She had to get out of the way of the people taking the next class. Yogaboy had a lovely deep voice, a tan and wicked, knowing green eyes. He was the opposite of every man she’d ever lusted after and everyone she’d slept with. She’d never touched a tattoo on a man’s skin, she’d never dated one who had longer hair than she did, or who looked like serenity was a life goal.

  Her two long-term partners had been boys she’d gone to school with who’d known her since her tomboy days of climbing trees, skipping stones, and stealing fruit from McDowell’s orchard. In both cases they’d gone from swimming in the river to kissing in the shallows to rolling in the hay.

  No wonder she had a problem with clichés—she was one.

  Her one serious hookup had been with a much older man, a harvester salesman who’d thought she was amusing, called her beautiful, bought her dinner, treated her to a hotel out of town and allowed her to be mysterious for once. He didn’t know how she got the scar on her hip, so she told him she’d been thrown by a horse. It made her sound more glamorous. Everyone else
in town knew she’d been drunk and careless and caught it on a barbed wire fence she’d thought it was a good idea to climb. If you needed stiches in Orderly, it was the kind of thing that got around.

  She knew a lot more about sex after her salesman had passed through, but not what it would be like to have sex with a man who could put his ankles behind his head, and it seemed like an important part of her education to find out.

  This was what she’d moved to the city for, to expand her horizons, to live a bigger life. She’d expected to feel like a fish out of water, but it was about time she got comfortable with being wet.

  Maybe Yogaboy could give her a private lesson. Maybe if she could master yoga and meditation, she could find that calm centered place where she heard birds chirp, not sirens wail. Maybe he kissed like he’d discovered treasure and wanted it all to himself.

  She rolled her mat up and went to collect her bag. That treasure thing was all Jackson Haley. Bastard. What was he doing interfering in her fixation with Yogaboy? He’d made it perfectly clear kissing her was a tactical one-off, which was worse than calling it a mistake. If he’d called it a mistake, she could imagine he’d been overcome and that given the right conditions—night, a stakeout, a love experiment—he might be overcome again.

  But that would mean he was a go with the flow kind of guy, and nothing about Jack said relaxed. He was deliberate and rigid and controlling, from the suits to the way he wore his hair, and the contained way he comported himself. Which was absolutely the best thing to know about him. It meant she could focus on using him to advance her career while she concentrated on trying to get a name from Yogaboy before she tried for an orgasm.

  Next morning, her ego got a considerable boost when she learned her story on celebrity pets and their famous parents was the most read. Seeing it displayed online under the heading Most Read Articles: Today’s Top Five was a thrill that had her smiling inanely at her screen. She looked for Jackson Haley’s story of the day and fist pumped when his story didn’t appear on the list.

  It did lead the business top five, but she’d effectively out eyeballed the human headline. She took a screenshot of the list with the intention of printing it out and pinning it up by her bed as motivation for those mornings when getting out from under the sheets was hard work.

  An hour later, her story had dipped to number four and by lunchtime it was gone from the list. Shoot. Consigned to the recesses of a URL wasteland, but she had the proof it had briefly shone and the determination to make it happen again. With Jack’s existing fame, imagine how long the love experiment story might rate, long enough to make her feel like floating instead of treading water.

  That meant not accepting any excuses from Jack about getting together again. Except he wasn’t anywhere to be found, and he didn’t answer either his phone or his email. The next day, she tracked him to his cubicle. He sat with his back toward her, with his earpiece in. He was editing a story on his screen. She didn’t know if he was listening to a call, so she coughed.

  He didn’t quit what he was doing. Didn’t spin around to face her. He kept tapping away, eyes on his words.

  “Jack, it’s—”

  “No.”

  “Derelie.” The earpiece was a ruse.

  “No.”

  He was cutting straight to the chase, she might as well too. “You do.”

  “No.”

  “We need to—”

  “No.”

  “But you—”

  “I didn’t.”

  She made a Muppet sound, very Oscar the Grouch. “What do I have to do to—”

  He swung around. She got to look down at him, but that didn’t make up for what a bad dog he was being. Shame she wasn’t holding a rolled up copy of today’s print edition.

  “Look, Rookie, I don’t have time for experiments. You’re going to have to spike that story.”

  Rookie. That was worse than being called Clickbait. “But you—we—ah.”

  He spun back to his keyboard. “Scoot back to your celebrity pets and listicles and let the real reporters do their stuff.”

  Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes probably looked like they were on stalks. She’d kissed this man’s condescending mouth.

  “Jack, can you check this lede for me?” One of the business writers, Annie Berkelow, stopped beside Derelie. “Hi, who are you?”

  It took time to get her jaw to work. She got out, “De.” And Jack said, “Works for the blogsite.” Blogsite. No one called it that. She wrote for the electronic edition of the paper, but so did Jack and Annie, it’s just that their stories also went in the print edition.

  “Oh,” said Annie, and put a page in front of Jack. She wore a black pants suit with lace-up shoes and her short hair was stylishly tousled. Her dinkus was more glamorous and made her look older. Jack made an edit to the page and handed it back. Annie said, “Ah, that’s better, thanks,” and left.

  Jack didn’t turn around, so he couldn’t see how red Derelie’s face was. He wouldn’t see her furled fists or the tension in her neck. He pressed a button on his earpiece and said, “Haley,” and she knew it wouldn’t matter how long she stood there, he was going to ignore her. But there had to be something wrong with the connection between her mental faculties and her legs, because she was standing there when Annie came back a few seconds later.

  “Still here?” Annie said. She put a data stick in front of Jack. “He’s busy. You need to get out of his way so he can do this. It’s the biggest story we’ve had all year. It’s prize-winning stuff.”

  “He had time for you.”

  “He always has time for me.”

  Jack put his hand to his ear and disconnected the call. He swung around to face them. “Is that the Shenker case study?” he said to Annie.

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks.” He looked directly at Annie. “I’m going for a smoke.” He rummaged on his desk for his tobacco.

  “I’ll come with you. Getting coffee,” said Annie.

  Jack stood, pocketing his cell. Annie led off. Jack stepped around Derelie and she turned toward him, still stupid enough to expect he’d acknowledge her. All she got was the sound of him answering his cell, “Haley,” and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Now that was brutal. And I’m a single guy who writes for the sports pages—if I can see that was brutal, I’m not sure how you’re still standing.”

  Derelie looked up past the chinos and untucked polo shirt into the craggy face of Dante Spinoza. “Jack,” she said, because she was still part Muppet and was having trouble talking and moving at the same time. He’d never exactly been warm and forthcoming, but he hadn’t treated her like dirt either.

  “Being an asshole. Classic. I could give a play by play of that and it would still be brutal.”

  “Is he always that way?”

  “No, that was something new. Did he get you pregnant or something?”

  “What?” Total Muppet flail.

  Spin made a quiet down gesture with both hands. “Joking. Bad joke. Really bad. I’m sorry about that. You’re Derelie, rhymes with happily.”

  “Merrily,” she muttered.

  “Jack’s supposed to do some story with you for the online edition, right?” She nodded. Spin rubbed his jaw, which sported ample stubble. “Find a way to do it without him.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “I don’t know, but that was cold. That was Jack giving it to you old school. He’s not going to come around. He has bigger fish to fry and he’s top dog around here. You can’t win this one.”

  “Cliché.”

  “What?”

  “Bigger fish. Top dog.”

  “Sports, remember? We’re all about the cliché.”

  “I don’t want to be a cliché. I need to writ
e this story.”

  “Can’t you improvise?”

  “What do you mean by improvise?” Please don’t mean make it up.

  “Write a different story.”

  Oh. “I don’t think that’s going to work.” That wasn’t what Phil expected.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “What do you care?”

  Spin looked offended. “Just because I write about tackle counts and sack stats doesn’t mean I don’t have a heart. What are you doing after work?”

  “Are you asking me out?”

  He was older. His nose had been broken more than once. Not that older and a little rugged was a problem. Think harvester salesman with a sporty city flavor.

  His shoulders went back. “Do you want to go out with me?” He sounded as surprised as she had.

  He probably couldn’t cross his ankles behind his head. “Uh.” She probably should know when someone was hitting on her.

  “You’re right.” He rubbed his big hands together. It was hard to imagine how he fitted them on a keyboard. “Let’s keep this professional. Jack is running the team through the big exposé he’s working on. You should come and listen in. He’s brushing you off because he’s a rude bastard and he’s on a big story and they kind of take over your life.”

  Like her little story was doing.

  “Don’t imagine that was the first time he told you he wasn’t on your team,” Spin said.

  “He didn’t have to be so rude.” He’d looked through her like she was part of the city, made of glass, nothing but sidewalk to be trodden over. It was a long way from kissing her, even if there was now zero doubt in her mind that it really had been just about the story for him. She might as well go and see how his investigation was coming along. It would be instructive.