Chapter 13 "Apprehension" (Next day, September 1983)

(Song Suggestion-" I Want You to Want Me" by Cheap Trick)

Janine

I awoke very happily with the dream that Egon had finally kissed me, and then rolled over in my bed while I hugged my pillow.

"Egon did kiss me. We kissed last night, "I recalled in a whisper, grinning ear to ear with a giggle.

Shutting my eyes, I recalled him standing very close to me with his large warm hands on my waist and his coffee-brown eyes peering down to mine. The electricity between us was extraordinarily robust before we kissed. Still, when his lips finally touched mine, it surged to the highest peak.

Our kiss was full of magic, and the feeling spread through my body as we kissed. His lips were supple and felt like they belonged against mine.

Every minute of frustration and every hurt feeling with Egon in the past six months had to occur for our first kiss(es) last night, and I had no regrets. The way he kissed me was more romantic than I had ever been kissed.

"Oh my God!" I screamed into my pillow, trying not to wake up my roommate as it was only eight in the morning.

Although my head hurt from drinking, the overall euphoria that I felt outweighed any discomfort.

When I entered my place of employment, I was still jubilant but wanted to keep it on the down-low because I didn't know how Egon would react today in person. Many questions ran through my mind:

Would he pretend it all didn't happen? Or tell me it was a mistake? How would I react if he said that?

I would be heartbroken, but how would it affect my working relationship with him?

The inevitable teasing from Peter was coming today too, and I dreaded it. Dr. V. was the first person I saw as he was in his office behind my desk, and I expected that. He appeared to be a little hungover still from last night and his face was ashen.

"Hey Juliet, where's Romeo?"

Disregarding my boss, I put my purse in the bottom desk drawer. I then printed out the Ghostbusters' schedule and handed it to Peter. Fortunately, there were not any clients scheduled yet for today.

"I guess this means that every time you go in the lab, the two of you are making out like last night," Peter joked, with an obnoxious smile " can't leave you two alone for real now. Is Iggy a good kisser, Brooklyn?"

After thirty minutes of constant teasing, I finally lost my patience and screamed at Peter to stop harassing me. Then I stormed upstairs to work on saving the Ghostbusters' files on disks.

My heart pounded in my chest as I climbed the steps, anxious to see my love. Oddly, there wasn't anyone in the landing or the lab. I felt my heart sink a little but went to work on saving the files.

"Another Ramones fan, alright," Ray exclaimed when he saw me and gave me a high five. He entered the lab, where I waited for many of Peter's files to save onto a floppy disk. On a label for the disk, I wrote, 'Dr. Venkman's dissertation'."

"Oh yes," I replied excitedly, giving him five back, "I'm a huge fan. Last night's band wasn't too bad either. Have you seen them in person?"

"No, have you?" Ray inquired, looking slightly under the weather from last night. Squinting, he shielded his eyes from the room's light, and he turned a nearby lamp off.

"Yes," I excitedly answered.

As Ray and I spoke about The Ramones, Dr. Spengler joined us in the lab with a piece of equipment in his hand and yellow notepad. After we finished, he questioned Stantz. His face was a little pale, and he appeared to have some dark circles under his brown eyes due to exhaustion. I felt my heartbeat skip as Dr. Spengler entered the lab.

Even though I attempted not to stare, I found it very difficult. Egon didn't seem to realize I was there, or he felt embarrassed. I wondered if my theoretical physicist's head hurt like mine did, even though we both switched to drinking water at the end of the night. However, our thirst for kissing each other didn't lessen at any time last night. Despite our friends playing pool right there by us, we were oblivious, and I grinned at the memory.

Egon and Ray went to sit on the sofa to converse, and they were six feet away from me as I sat in front of the IBM computer. Since it would take over an hour to finish, I went back downstairs to work on some paperwork quietly without a word from the two others.

Coming back upstairs an hour later, I made sure I wasn't interrupting a private conversation between Egon and Ray before I walked in. I strolled in and sat on the stool in front of the computer again to check the progress. Since it completed loading, I took the disk from the disk drive and carefully placed the label. Then I deleted the files that I just saved but noticed it barely made a difference in memory. I waited for a natural pause in their conversation before asking them,

"Excuse me, Drs. Spengler and Stantz, the files that I saved from Dr. Venkman's dissertation folder were not as big as I thought and only made a small dent in the memory in the hard drive. Is there a way to prioritize some of the larger files?"

Correspondingly, they rose from the sofa and walked over to where I sat in front of the computer. It was like a pair of bookends, looking over my respective shoulders. My hands felt sweaty as Dr. Spengler hovered over me, and I could smell his aquatic smelling cologne. A blush spread over my face as I remembered how great it felt to have his arms around me and his lips on mine.

"Would you like me to move?"

"No," they answered at the same time, peaking over my shoulders, and I giggled a little.

"The second folder has my paranormal studies dissertation from 1975," Egon informed, " and the one below has data from experiments. Would you please put those on a floppy disk, Janine? Also, would you be able to sort it by date and size, please? It might be faster."

Clicking a couple of buttons, the files sorted.

"Honestly, I enjoyed knowing something Egon didn't," I thought to myself. His voice lacked the softness and intimacy of last night, which irked me.

"Janine, get a hold of yourself. You are working here. Your Prince Charming isn't going to sweep you into his arms and kiss you like last night," I reprimanded myself then.

A folder named "Leslie " appeared, but I felt hesitant to open it until they permitted me so I removed my right hand from the mouse.

"What's that," my big brother wondered about the folder.

"Oh, Uhm, Leslie, my ex-girlfriend, took some pictures of her paintings," Egon replied uneasily, "I'm guessing anyway. I haven't opened these files in several years."

Speechless, I shocked by that piece of knowledge, while Dr. Stantz clicked the mouse impatiently.

"It's going to take a while to load," I cautioned," the file sizes are pretty significant. Do you want me to save them?"

"Sure," Ray goodnaturedly responded as I attempted to conceal my curiosity about the files in that folder.

Since it would take a couple of hours to load, I went back downstairs to complete more paperwork. Though my mind was stuck recalling the pleasant activities of last night at the bar, I wanted to see if there were pictures of Leslie.

"What was Egon's type of woman?" I wondered internally for a few minutes at my desk. Another super-intelligent genius? Someone devoted to her work? A scientist of some type? A professor?

Later, Ray brought me upstairs when the files loaded, and I was curious to see this mysterious woman. Clicking on the first image, it opened to a picture of a beautiful garden painting of many flowers, including white pansies, rose-colored azaleas, purple geraniums, and yellow tulips. Before applying it, the artist used dots instead of brush strokes, and the painting was spectacular.

"Wow," I exclaimed, amazed," that is gorgeous. It looks like a Seurat painting, kind of."

"Not one of your Impressionist artists," Egon coyly quipped from behind me, and I could tell he was grinning by the way he spoke. I was happy that he recalled an earlier conversation like our own private joke, and I felt a bright smile spread across my lips.

"I always thought Seurat didn't get the recognition he deserved," I added. Swiftly, I looked over my shoulder to see a faint upturn of Egon's lips as he glanced down at me. My body trembled as he did so, and my face flushed.

"Are you an artist, J" Ray inquired of me as I rapidly twisted my body around, trying to stay focused.

"Nope. My mother went to art school before she met my Dad, and she took me to all the museums in the City when I was growing up. She's a Seurat fan," I remarked.

The second picture was a photo of Drs. Venkman, Spengler, and Bateman are sitting on a bench outside a sign of Columbia. In the picture, Egon looked the same in his features, handsome as ever, perhaps a little younger in his face but looking uncomfortable with taking a photo. His thick dark hair was wavier and a little flatter. As usual, Egon dressed to the nines- in a three-piece black suit instead of a grayish one. I liked him better in the gray.

"Venkman, come here," Ray yelled at Peter in my ear.

"Ray, my head already hurts, and you are making it worse," I complained, covering my ears from his loud voice.

"Sorry, little sis. How many did you drink last night," my little brother sheepishly probed, giving me a wry smile. His eyes held a knowing gaze as I could tell he wanted to ask me about dancing with Egon.

"Two. Thankfully, the second one was coke, so I guess the first one was full of rum. I don't usually drink, "I complained, rubbing my temples.

"Well, you, thankfully, didn't take vodka shots like we did before we arrived, at least. I knew I should have stopped at five," Ray admitted, regretfully, his face looking grayer.

"Five? I wouldn't have made it out of here at one," I declared, simpering, visualizing the image. Meanwhile, Egon stayed quiet.

"Dr. Venkman had a lot of hair then. What the hell happened," I observed like a smart ass, and the two men behind me suppressed a laugh as Peter slunked into the room.

He appeared haggard, and I noticed that his eyes were bloodshot and red. Peter appeared pretty hungover and in need of sleep.

" I don't care about the latest discovery in computers, if that's what you need, Ray," he said, sourly, "I'll leave that up to you three geeks."

"Look," Dr. Spengler commanded, pointing at the picture, and disregarded his comment. His brown eyes were reviewing the photos.

"Jesus, I have lost a lot of hair," he first remarked a few moments later, touching his forehead," Spengs, you look the same. Who took these?"

"Leslie," he flatly answered as Ray went to the following picture.

"Oh. Is it flashback day," Peter asked, drily, still holding his head, trying to comb down his hair to cover his forehead. It failed, and I stifled my laugh when he gave me a dirty look.

"No, I am trying to clear the hard drive so I can put those free applications on here, remember? I didn't finish yesterday," I replied, being nosy, " who are these people?"

"That's Egon, Leslie, me, Bernadette, and what's Bateman's ex-wife's name? The one who teaches at NYU. Shit, Bernadette? I haven't thought about her in years," Pete babbled, rubbing his forehead with his hands," I don't need to see pictures of her today."

"That's Dr. Bateman's ex-wife," I disbelievingly asked, pointing at a gorgeous woman with long brown hair and a pretty smile.

"Don't start, Melnitz. You and your roommate ran quite a scam last night. I lost $10 playing pool while you conveniently persuaded Egon, a man who doesn't drink or dance, to dance. Sounds like a scheme," he teasingly remarked as I felt my face turn bright red. Dr. V. glanced at his close friend with a knowing glance.

"Yep, it was all a scheme for you to lose money playing pool. By the way, Wendy said you lost $20, and she wanted me to tell you thanks again," I quipped sarcastically. Subsequently, Ray laughed, and Egon smirked.

"Is this Bernadette lady the one who broke your heart," Ray inquired after a minute.

"Yes. I stopped giving my heart to women afterward," Dr. V. drastically cried, holding his heart with his hand, "Oh Bernadette, why? Oh, why?"

After we all gave Peter bemused glances, I studied the picture more. The woman referred to as Leslie was a thin blonde with brown toned hippie-type clothing holding on to Dr. Spengler's arm. She looked content, but he still looked uncomfortable in the picture.

"Do you ever smile in pictures," I inquired of Egon, turning to gaze up at him. He met my eyes for a moment, and the corners of his mouth turned up just a bit.

"Not normally," my crush replied, keeping his eyes on the computer.

"We were about to go to a festival in Greenwich village, I think," Peter informed, "That was a bad year she cheated on me later on, and Bateman cheated with Leslie."

"Oh!" I thought.

It made more sense why Peter disliked Dr. Bateman- he stole Egon's ex-girlfriend. As I looked at his picture and Leslie next to him, they seemed like a strange match.

"See, now you know how mismatched you were," Venkman ribbed Egon, who looked ill at ease already and a little sick from last night.

Egon didn't respond and chose to disregard Peter.

"I would never have guessed you went out with a hippie," Ray stated.

"She... was... Uhm..is.. an artist," Egon remarked awkwardly.

"Here are some little known facts, Spengs, Bernadette finished her masters that year. Then, she studied for her doctorate at Dartmouth and married a law professor. Now they both teach at NYU," Peter reported, irked, tapping his fingers on the table.

Raising his thick left eyebrow, Egon mumbled, "hmmm."

"If Bernadette heard Columbia kicked me out, I'm sure she would not have been surprised, though," my boss lamented.

"Well, it was fun looking at old pictures of exes," Peter snidely commented in an overly exaggerated Brooklyn accent to agitate me.

"Stop it. You have the worst Brooklyn accent," I commented frustratedly, but my boss persisted in using it anyway.

"Shaddup Juliet," Dr. Venkman replied, happy to annoy me.

"Is that the last girl he dated? From five years ago," Ray whispered to Peter in disbelief.

"That I'm aware of, and I'm his closest friend. Why do you think —" Peter stopped, pointing to me.

"Do I need to leave for this conversation," I probed.

Before they could answer, I stood up from the stool and moved away so they could talk privately. I observed that Egon had started to write on his yellow notepad over on the sofa.

"Do you want me to save this on a disk? It would help out with the processing speed afterward," I asked him.

"No, delete the folder," Dr. Spengler remarked without emotion while still writing. I felt a little disappointed that he wouldn't make eye contact with me but shrugged it off.

"Wait, wait, I want those two pictures of us sitting out in front of the Columbia sign and Bernadette. I had hair. I'm sure we can cut out Tom or Leslie somehow," Dr. V. agitatedly recommended, and turned around to look at Egon. Furiously my heartthrob was scribbling something down, solving an equation, probably.

"I don't care either way," Egon admitted.

Sitting back down on the stool, I paused before doing anything to the files, looking at Dr. Venkman patiently. Ray had joined Egon.

"Keep the two with the sign," Peter told me, viewing the strawberry blonde Bernadette, "Damn you, woman, for breaking my heart."

Dramatically, Dr. Venkman left the room in a huff.

"This is an interesting day already," Ray spoke after Peter ran out of the room, "Peter's hung up on an ex, which I've never seen before, and Egon dated an artist? That doesn't even include you dancing with Spengler last night."

Nodding a bit chagrined, I saved the pictures onto the disk and deleted the other two. Then I checked the hard drive and happily observed that space was finally freed up, which would cause the processor to run more efficiently as Ray and Egon chatted. I would put the programs they wanted me to install now.

"I wonder if he regrets his actions with me," I pondered to myself, feeling a little sad, "it did take him six months to kiss me, so maybe he's just processing it all."

Next, I ejected the disk from the drive. Before applying it, I wrote, "Dr. Spengler Paranormal dissertation 1975/pictures 1978" on the sticky tab. I smoothed the label down with my fingers, causing it to stick to the floppy disk. Our phone rang, and I picked up the receiver to answer it on the coffee table next to the sofa.

"Yes, one moment, please," I politely responded, "Ray, would you tell Dr. Venkman. Sarah is on the phone for him, please ?"

The youngest Ghostbuster went in search of him as I put the phone down. Next I put the disk in a white sleeve, and I handed it to my favorite theoretical physicist.

"Egon," I prodded him gently, "your disk?"

"Thanks, Janine," he replied, holding his hand out, waiting, and I placed it lightly in his outstretched hand. Our hands touched the others, and his beautiful brown eyes glanced up from his notepad and met mine with a bit of uncertainty.

Egon put the disk on the end table next to him and reached for my empty hand, trembling a little. Without warning, he clasped my hand and began to stroke the top of it with his thumb gently with a slightly lopsided grin on his handsome face. I simpered apprehensively, and instantly, his facial expression transformed from apprehensive to content.

"Oh, Egon," I whispered warily, "I thought maybe..."

Unfortunately, Ray returned into the room, oblivious that we were in the middle of a tender moment, so I couldn't finish my thought. Egon wore a questioning look on his face as the youngest Ghostbuster walked back into the room heedlessly. Like teenagers caught making out by their parents, we quickly let go of the other's hand, and I spun around to face Ray breathlessly.

"Janine, please tell Sarah he's not in the mood to talk to anyone," the chubby Ghostbuster requested, returning to the sofa. With an awkward grin, I nodded and relayed the message.

Egon

When I woke up the following day, I could barely believe that I had acted in such an impulsive manner with Janine, nor could I think that we danced together or that I kissed her. My head hurt badly from the alcohol, just another reminder that I didn't like to drink, and my time with Janine last night was priceless. At least, she hadn't gone out with that scumbag, Tom Bateman, and I finally spent some time with her socially. Last night was like awakening from a perfect dream that I never desired to wake from. Ever.

I knew I wanted to see her again outside of work, but I didn't know where the whole thing was heading. That made me nervous.

All three of us were drinking coffee with painful hangovers at the kitchen table earlier this morning. Peter had bought some donuts, and we were eating them, rarely talking. I was reading the front page of the paper.

"So," Venkman inquired of me expectantly.

"Hmm?"

"That was quite a little performance you and Juliet displayed last night, Romeo. I would almost say you were happy if I didn't know you better," Peter insinuated, giving me a cunning glance.

"Yes, I was happy."

"Care to elaborate," Ray questioned, joining in. He had a smile on his face.

"About," I responded, knowing that would irritate them when I played dumb.

"You and Janine, Spengler," he stated, sighing heavily, irked.

"No."

I wanted to keep everything to myself until I figured out what I wanted to do with Janine.

"Come on, Iggy," Pete urged, "it's not like we didn't see the two of you dancing and making out all night."

"I am happy when I'm with her," I replied, not looking up from the paper but turning the page.

"Was Brooklyn a good kisser? Was it everything you had hoped for?"

Closing the paper, I gave Peter a nasty look.

"You don't know when to stop," I angrily accused him, "excuse me, gentlemen, I'm going to work on the issues with the proton packs."

Next, I threw myself into my work, purposely blocking Janine out of my mind to solve the issue at hand. It wasn't until lunchtime when I allowed myself to think about it again.

Our pretty secretary came into work later, and I felt both thrilled and worried about seeing her. I wasn't sure why.