OK! I finally got this one written. It was the dreaded "filler" chapter to get me to where I felt I needed to get. I am so glad to have it out of the way! (I actually named the Word doc I typed it on "filler.") That's not a particularly good endorsement to start the chapter, is it? Oh well. Again, thanks, thanks, thanks for all the positive feedback. At more than a few points, it's definitely what has kept me writing this or only working on my other story, so it isn't for naught! And almost 100 reviews. Cool! 100th review wins a prize (not really . . . )
When he'd left her apartment early in the morning of the 5th, they'd made a promise to not wait two months before seeing each other again. She made the promise in all seriousness, but she actually was thinking "easier said than done;" however, as the summer progressed, it turned out to be done quite easily.
On the Wednesday after he left, she received approval to go ahead with a multi-center clinical drug trial. That meant a mid-July trip to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to work with colleagues there and to make sure the I's were dotted and T's were crossed in regards to patient selection, treatment protocol, and data recording. And that meant four days spent reviewing tedious paperwork and data recording protocols with a particularly obnoxious colleague. But since Houston was something of a halfway point between Miami and LA, it also meant (after clearing his coffeehouse schedule with Bob) four evenings and nights to spend with James.
That was a very good thing for any number of reasons, but most particularly because after spending endless hours collaborating with Dr. Steve Thompson, she needed the nightly reminder that not all men were unbearable, insufferable, one-upping assholes. Steve objected to almost every step in the protocol, suggesting alternate methods. Methods she'd tried, and determined had failed; methods that weren't approved in the NIH's go-ahead. And yet he persisted, until at one point toward the end of her first day there, she'd gritted her teeth and asked, "Steve, with all due respect, whose name is listed as lead researcher on this trial?" And when he'd mumbled, "Yours," she said "Yes. Thank you. I'll be happy to follow your ideas next time you have a treatment protocol approved by NIH, OK?"
After that, he ceased to fight her on every study detail, but had switched to one-upping pretty much anything she said. One of her residents had just been accepted at a prestigious fellowship program at Harvard? He'd had three residents accepted to the same program in the past two years. She'd run a 10K charity race the last time she'd been in Houston? He ran in the NYC Marathon last year. When she took first class to LA this time last year, she'd sat across the aisle from David Letterman? He'd roomed with Conan O'Brien in college. She was halfway tempted to tell him that her brother was simultaneously a NASA astronaut, multi-platinum recording artist, and relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals just to see what Steve would say. And she didn't even have a brother!
"And you want me to go to dinner with this fuck-head?" was James' response after she complained about all this and then slid in "and he wants to go to dinner tonight."
As for going to dinner with this "fuck-head"?
"Well, he's a colleague, and, yeah, it's kind of important that we are, you know collegial."
"Have I told you yet that I have always thought that doctors are the most obnoxious, arrogant, pissy people in the world?" James asked.
"Yes, you've mentioned that. And have I told you yet that I think men who spend most of their adult life using sex to con innocent and lonely women out of their life savings are the lowest of the low? And deserve to spend a night or two with obnoxious company?"
He laughed. "And have I told you yet that I don't mind spending a dinner with obnoxious company if there's a guarantee I'll get laid at the end of the night?" Dinner arrangements were made.
Seconds before they sat down at the ultra-chic restaurant Steve had suggested, she whispered in James' ear, "You realize you would have gotten laid even if you had said 'no' to dinner?"
Steve was his usual obnoxious self, waxing rhapsodic about his new top-of-the-line golf clubs and his supremely exclusive country club. "Do you golf, James?" he'd asked. "Only if there's a little windmill and a hole where you have to shoot through a clown's mouth," James replied. Then Steve filled them in on all the wonderful features of his new BMW. "What do you drive, James?" he asked. "I got a used Ford Contour -- it gets me where I need to go, you know?" And when Steve had asked him what he did for a living, James didn't bother to talk about his minority share or his partnership in Bob's coffeehouse. Instead he said he "served coffees – minimum wage, but somebody's gotta do it, right?"
Walking back to their hotel that night, she kissed James on the cheek. "Wow! That was great! He kept trying to compete with you, and instead of one-upping him, you practically one-downed him."
"You think I didn't one-up him?" James laughed. "I totally one-upped him."
"You must think more highly of the Ford Contour than I do."
"Why does he go on and on about his fancy golf clubs and country club and Beemer and wine cellar and blah blah blah blah blah?" James asked.
"Because he's an arrogant asshole?"
"Well, that's a given. But it's to impress you! Men do that sort of thing to impress women, and I could tell by the way he looked at you – he's trying to win you over."
"Oh, please. He's a colleague."
"Well, golly gee whiz, Juliet, colleagues ain't allowed to lust after pretty women?"
"Ones who are four months pregnant?"
"See! That's just it! The more he heard about my beater car and shitty job and mad Putt-Putt skills, the more it drove him nuts! 'What the hell is she doing with this ignorant hick? Why is she going back to her hotel room with him? Why is she having his kid?' Oh, I totally one-upped him. I'm going back to the Houston Westin with you, and he's going home to beat off, I guess."
"You're disgusting."
"Part of my charm."
Two weeks after the Houston trip she needed to be in Chicago to deliver a presentation at a conference there. Again, Bob gave James the time off. "I'll be working weekends through October, but it's worth it," he said.
She spent most of the night before her presentation refining and correcting her PowerPoint slides. She felt somewhat guilty. He didn't fly out to Chicago to sit in a hotel room and watch her struggle with re-sizing images and cursing Bill Gates and Microsoft, but he said he was "cool with it," and even agreed to listen to her run through her talk. Thank goodness he did, because when she got to the end and asked "Any questions?" she expected to see his eyes completely glassed over. Instead, he pointed out a pretty important error – she'd interpreted the results of a 1987 study one way in one slide, but another way in a second slide. She shook her head. For a guy who liked to perpetuate his "ignorant hick" persona, he regularly impressed her with his intelligence.
So, she corrected the slide, and amazingly, he agreed to sit through the presentation a second time. "Any questions?" she asked at the conclusion. This time he raised his hand like a second grade school boy. "Yes? James?"
"Yeah. I have a question. Can you take your top off?"
She smiled and blushed. "I don't think anyone will ask that."
"They should. Ahhhh . . . come on! Not that your slides weren't totally fascinating. But for a talk about sperm count and reproduction and all, it's not very sexy."
"You realize it's not meant to be?"
He chuckled. "Yes, I am sure the gathered crowd will eat it up. Me? Quite frankly, all this talk about male infertility, low sperm counts, low motility?" He faked a loud snore. "It ain't something I've got a problem with."
"Yes, I'm well aware."
He loved the trips to Houston and Chicago. He'd given her a hard time about going to dinner with her asshole colleague in Houston, but quite frankly, it was kind of a rush to know that she wasn't ashamed of him. And he wasn't kidding when he told her he had one-upped that bastard. He could see it in the guy's face. Anytime during dinner that Sawyer had reached over to hold her hand, asshole Steve had started a new story about his country club, or his Beemer, or his new temperature-controlled wine cellar. And when the dinner plates had been cleared and they were waiting on dessert, Juliet had rested her head on Sawyer's shoulder for a bit. And – ha ha! – that lead to Steve talking about his dad's new yacht. What a prick. Steve-o would spend the next two days going over paperwork or "protocol" (whatever the hell that was) with her, and all the while he'd be stewing over the ignorant, inbred hick she was spending her nights with. Served the son of a bitch right.
Chicago was even better. She asked him if he wanted to hear her presentation, and he figured she just wanted the chance to practice her words and her timing. But when it ended, she looked expectantly at him, as if she really wanted his opinion, and when he'd pointed out a problem he'd noticed, she actually changed her slides! And this trip didn't include any asshole colleagues for him to meet.
They'd now seen each other every two weeks since the July 4th weekend, and it just so happened that two weeks after the Chicago trip she was scheduled for a doctor's appointment that would include an ultrasound and the discovery of the baby's sex. During one of their nightly phone calls he'd asked if he could come. She called that a "stupid question." "Of course you can come," she'd said. And it wasn't that he expected her to say no, but sometimes it still amazed him that she accepted him so easily and so readily. The trips to Houston and Chicago had been great, but they also reminded him of her place as the well-respected researcher . . . and what she was doing with him and why wouldn't she dump him the first time something better came along.
But this evening they were sitting on her couch and looking at that day's ultrasound photos of their son. The little guy hadn't been shy about displaying the family jewels for the ultrasound tech . . . "Heh, heh, that's my boy," he'd thought, but wisely kept to himself.
He had to admit, he was relieved it was a boy. He already had a daughter, and he was thinking about her more and more of late. What if he ever tried to develop a relationship with her? Clementine was a three-year-old little girl who he'd seen only once – in a snapshot. He'd used her mother and conned her out of her life savings. What if Clementine found out he had another daughter? One he'd first seen more than four months before her birth? One whose mother he was falling in love with? No, a son was just enough different, and maybe that would make it better if some day, somehow he became a part of Clementine's life.
As for "falling in love with" Juliet? That's what he told himself, but it was a lie. If he had to be honest with himself, there was no "falling in love." Truth was, he was afraid to admit to himself, he had been love with her from about the time she smart-talked that Word Find lady on their cancelled flight out of Cincinnati. But that was way too weird. Love at first sight – that was for the movies. Six weeks ago, she'd said she loved him, and that had been way too weird too, because she immediately backtracked and chilled him with her "it all seems like it's happened before" or however she had phrased it. Too weird, too weird, too weird. But she hadn't mentioned it again -- not the déjà vu and not the fact that she loved him. Maybe she'd say it again someday, and he would be better prepared to answer this time.
His second night in Miami, he'd sat in bed reading while she went through a stack of paperwork. Finishing his chapter, he looked over to see her still clutching the papers, but her head drooped to her chest, sound asleep. He gently removed the pen from her right hand, and the papers from her left. She roused, but he said "Shhhh . .. go back to sleep," and rearranged her pillows so she could recline all the way. He reached over her to turn off the light on her bedside table, and settled in to sleep himself.
It was the first night they'd ever spent together with no sex involved. That wasn't entirely remarkable, he thought. Instead what was remarkable was that he felt so good about it. Their visits were few and far between and they always felt the inexorable tick of time working against them. When you were only with someone four nights, three nights . . . two . .. you had to make every night count. But, for tonight at least, he'd forget that time was their enemy. She would still be here tomorrow morning, and so would he, and tomorrow night, too. And even if he wasn't going to be here the night after next, he was sure to see her again soon. They had all the time in the world.
It was early September. They'd fallen back into their nightly telephone call routine, but she hadn't seen him in two weeks, and was missing him terribly. Part of the problem, she realized was that for the past few nights, something had been "off" in their conversations. Without body language and other non-verbal cues, phone calls just didn't match up with talking to someone in the flesh. She thought she was just imagining things – she had been extremely busy at work, after all. Even so, she just wanted to see him, and so asked if he thought he could come for a few days next week, or even next weekend.
But he couldn't come, he said. He had to go to Australia. For what . . . he wouldn't exactly say. He offered some half-baked story about coffee vendors and shade-grown coffee cooperatives, but nothing he said added up. How long was he going to be gone? Couldn't say. He'd never been so evasive or defensive around her.
He was leaving tomorrow. "Well that's good to know," she said. "I didn't realize I had to clear my travel schedule with you," he'd responded. Most of her was angry at him, but she could also tell something was bothering him and it made it hard to completely unload on him. Still though, he wasn't being very forthcoming about anything. Well, whatever. No point in arguing about it over the phone. "Fly safe," she said.
You should probably just ignore me when I say how much longer I think this will be. I keep thinking up slightly new twists, etc. But as I am thinking of it right now, maybe seven more? So, if you are enjoying the story, then -- yay! You probably have a lot more that you will eventually get to read. And if you aren't enjoying the story, then this is fair warning. Stop reading now!