Playing Games

“Ned,” he grunted in passing. “Ned Proctor.”

“Well, Ned Proctor. Welcome to my apartment.” Stepping back as he whooshed by, Roxy caught a trace of his scent. He smells great, too. Could this get any better? He was like a fresh splash of something bold and virile, unlike her one and only date in the past three months. What was his name? Michael? Or was it Rupert? Whichever…he’d shown up smelling like an array of discount cologne samples, and she’d sneezed her way around the first block with him before jumping out of his car and hoofing it all the way home—in the fresh air. It took a whole month for her aching sinuses to completely recover from that redolent attack.

“It’s been driving me insane,” she said, watching from the doorway while he tried to manipulate the faucet’s single handle to stop the drip. “And that won’t work. I’ve tried.” For Ned, it was scarcely dripping now. Barely one drop every five seconds, and a puny little drip at that. An ugly plumbing conspiracy meant to make her look silly.

“You couldn’t have lived with that drip until morning, Mizzz Rose?” Glancing down at the floor, he shook his head, letting out the impatient sigh she was already coming to know quite well. “It’s not exactly pouring over, getting ready to flood the apartment below, is it?”

“I’m on…a project. All the dripping was breaking my concentration.”

Frowning, Ned glanced across at Roxy’s makeshift, make-a-house desk area next to the pantry. “It needs a washer, and I don’t have a washer.” He tucked his tool in the waistband of his jeans and headed for the door. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Come on, Ned. I’ve been calling you for days.”

“One day, two times,” he grunted. “And you were on the list.”

“Well, I don’t want to go back on the list.”

“First thing in the morning.”

“I sleep all morning.”

“Then I guess you’ll know what it’s like to be awaken during a sound sleep, won’t you?”

Not to be thwarted on this, the night of her bathroom design, Roxy scooted in next to Ned and yanked at the faucet handle impatiently, hoping to…Well, she wasn’t sure what she hoped to do other than what he wasn’t doing—which was fixing it. But the only thing that happened was a drip that doubled in both frequency and resonance. “So, now what?”

“I’d tell you to live with it, but that’s not going to get me back to bed any quicker, is it?”

“My contract said maintenance emergencies twenty-four seven. All I need is a lousy washer.”

“All you needed was a lousy washer, lady. Heck if I know what it needs now, and I’m not going to find out until morning. What time did you say you get up?”

“Ten.”

“Then I’ll be here at eight.” He grinned at her. “G’night.”

“But what about the leak?”

“Wrap a towel around it, for Pete’s sake.” He pulled the pipe wrench out of his waistband and handed it to her. “I’ve changed my mind…be my guest.”

The wrench slipped from his hand and landed with a hollow thunk on the old wood-and-linoleum countertop. “Well, now you’ve done it,” Roxy warned, her face poker-straight.

“Done what?” he asked.

“Ten…nine…eight…seven…” Pounder next door started up on the five count, and the beat went on for nearly half a minute. “That,” she said, smiling. “That’s what I was warning you about. And this.” She opened a drawer then shut it, not particularly loud, either. With that came the encore, a sequence half again as long as the first chorus, accented, at the end of the performance, by one last clap that knocked an old, black trivet right off Roxy’s wall and into the sink. “So like I was saying, Ned,” Roxy continued, without missing a beat, “it’s driving me nuts—the dripping—and I have a lot of work to do tonight, and if you can please stop it for me, I’d be grateful.”

“How often does that happen?” he asked, nodding at the wall.

Roxy shrugged. “Not more than three, four times a night.” Grinning, “Someone over there’s a Listening Tom. Too bad for them it’s only my kitchen and not my bedroom.” Yeah, right. Sounds from the Roxy Rose boudoir were guaranteed to put anybody to sleep, including Roxy Rose herself.

Ned cleared his throat, turning back around to face the sink. “And what do you do every night to annoy her? Georgette Selby’s her name, by the way. She’s eighty-two. Sweet. Bakes chocolate chip cookies. Used to be a schoolteacher.”

“Normally, it’s just breathing.” Roxy grabbed up the pipe wrench, but he yanked it away from her. “Once in a while I eat Twinkies, and I have this little TMJ thing in my jaw…it sort of pops occasionally.”

Stepping back over to the sink, wrench in hand, Ned bumped into Roxy. “I’m going to bend down now, Miss Rose. Take a look under the sink. If you don’t mind moving back…”

Did she mind stepping back to get a better look at him bending down? About as much as she minded chocolate and orgasms and lots of money. “Just trying to see what you’re doing so I can do it myself next time. So tell me what you’re doing,” she said, struggling to reign herself back in.

“Turning off the water at the valve. That’ll stop the drip and when I get back over here at seven-thirty…”

“Eight.”

“Seven, I’ll get everything fixed up the right way.”

“Think it’s gonna work for tonight? No more drip?” The valve handle was tight and she watched him put extra muscle into his next twist—translating into something so sexy on his backside that it almost made Roxy squirm right out of her skin. Damn those baby-making hormones, anyway. They sure were in overdrive tonight. Success now, the rest later, she reminded herself. “Need another…” a slight tuchus wiggle caused her to gulp “…another tool?” she sputtered. Okay, Rox. Success now, blah, blah, blah. Remember?

“There!” he declared, rather than answering her question. “That should hold it, temporarily.” Ned’s head had barely cleared the open space under the sink when the valve groaned a plumbing obscenity, then let the full force of a geyser rip, shooting water everywhere—the walls, the ceiling, Roxy, Ned. Springing to his feet, Ned yanked the faucet handle, only to have it break off in his hand. No simple fixes now. It was a full-out water cataclysm in need of some instantaneous plumbing surgery, and Ned’s only surgical instrument or know-how, it seemed, was a pipe wrench that clunked to the floor when he leapt back from the deluge.

Scrambling to avoid the fat force of the spray, lest she be caught up in a full-frontal wet T-shirt look, Roxy darted into the bathroom, grabbed up an armful of towels, and dashed back into the kitchen only to find Ned standing there in the middle of Niagara Falls clutching a cell phone, staring down at his pipe wrench. “Don’t just stand there,” she cried. “Stop it. Turn something. Or plug something up.”

Ned shrugged. “The plumber will be here in a few minutes.”

Shaking her head, Roxy stared at the kitchen wall, awaiting the inevitable. And sure enough, before she could even blink, Georgette “Pounder” Selby commenced doing her thing, this time, it seemed, with two fists, and perhaps, a foot.

3

Monday Night and All Is Dry

“WELL, HE’S NOT BAD to look at, but with a pipe wrench he’s lethal, and not in a good way.” Three nights since the great flood and Roxy’s apartment still wasn’t back to normal. To his credit, Ned had sent in a water damage restoration crew, and nothing was permanently ruined. Just soggy.

“And he didn’t come back after he did all that?” Astrid handed Roxy the broadcast notes for the night. Nothing out of the ordinary—a new sponsor, a proposal from station management to add another hour of programming at the top end of her show, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense since her show was called Midnight Special and not Eleven o’clock Special. “They might as well make me drive-time,” she snorted. Drive-time, either morning or afternoon, was a coveted slot. But a deadly one for Roxy’s show since her late-night topics weren’t even close to drive-time subject matter.

“They know you won’t do it,” Astrid said, “but they keep hoping.”

“They’re lucky they get two hours of me a night. And they know that!” Of course, she was lucky to get those two hours, and she knew that. Hiring someone who’d jumped right from clinical counselor to talk-show host in the blink of an eye, and without any radio experience, had been a big risk for her station owners. And now, backing her in a syndication deal, and letting her continue to broadcast from their facilities was a heck of a nice thing to do. Of course, she would own that show, with a piece of it going to Astrid and generous compensation to her station owners, so it was a win-win thing all the way around. She hoped. Gosh, did she hope.

“So you said he wasn’t wearing a shirt when he came over?” Astrid waved at Doyle who was settling into his chair in the engineering booth, ready to scarf down a pizza.

“Nothing but jeans, and I swear…” she raised her hand into the air as if swearing a solemn oath “…I was good. I mean this guy is…like…the best thing you’ve ever had in your dreams—or fantasies—right there in my apartment in the middle of the night. And all I can do is stand there practically drooling. Not that he would have noticed.” Roxy waved at Doyle, too, then sat down in her chair. Still thirty minutes until air. She spread out her latest house plans on the desk. Coming along pretty well, except that aviary where the kitchen should go. “Then I didn’t even see him in the hall all weekend. Not once. I mean, he’s right across from me, so I kept watching, but I don’t think he even opened his door all weekend. Worse than that, he sent this big, burly plumber over—the kind whose pants didn’t quite make it up to his belt line by a good four inches. Believe me, that’s not the bare butt I wanted to be seeing in my kitchen. But it’s fixed, so I may never see him again. The handyman, not the plumber, who I never want to see again.”

“So unfix something,” Astrid suggested. “Then call him back over.”

Roxy laughed. “You’ve been hanging around me too long. I already did that this morning. The bedroom window doesn’t seem to open anymore. Imagine that.”

“Bedroom?” Astrid raised her eyebrows. “Nothing subtle about that, is there?”

“Mind if I interrupt you two with some work matters and do sound levels now?” Doyle asked, still chewing his last bite.

“Check away,” Roxy answered, then laughed. “Which is what I’ll be saying to Mr. Pipe Wrench in a few hours, I hope.”

“In the middle of the night again?” Astrid asked.

“Best time. Just ask Doctor Val. I think for once the two of us would agree on something.” Roxy folded her latest house plans and crammed them in her canvas briefcase. “I think I may have to go buy another home design program. This one seems to have some kinks in it.”

“Could you squeeze in a couple of promos before we go on?” Astrid asked. Then turning to the engineering booth window, she asked Doyle, “Think we could get them in? I know I shouldn’t be springing this on you at the last minute, but management wants a couple of spots to stick on in evening drive-time. They think it’ll tap a new audience.”

“Always drive-time,” Roxy sighed. “But if it brings ’em in, what the heck.”

“Just give me five, and I’ll be good to go,” Doyle called back.

One pizza slice left, he was obviously debating whether to cram it down or leave it for later. Knowing Doyle, he’d go for the cram and order a whole ‘nother pizza for later. “Extra cheese,” Roxy said. “Thin crust. I’ll buy.”

He winked at her before he bit into the last slice. “You bet you will, sugar.”

“Here’s the copy. Go over it a couple of times before you do it.” Astrid plunked some papers down in front of Roxy.

“I prefer to do it spontaneously,” Roxy called after her.

“Just as long as you get the name in…”

“I know. Five times.”

“Seven, if you can. Plus the time it comes on.”

“Like anybody listening in drive-time will still be up to hear me.” These were the people who did Monday through Friday, nine to five. According to market research they were heading to bed after the eleven o’clock news, so there was no chance she was reaching the right audience with drive-time promos. But free advertising was free advertising. “So Doyle, are you ready?”

“For you, babe, I’m always ready. Let me cue up then I’ll give you the count.”

He was on the five count when Roxy picked up her copy and looked at it for the first time.

“One,” from Doyle.

“Good evening, sugars. This is Doctor Val reminding you to tune in tonight as we talk about love, sex, and all the other little things that rock your world…and mine.” Including a building maintenance man who was a solid ten on the rock scale. “I promise to have an extra-specially good show for you tonight, but you won’t know how good until you turn me on.” Ad-lib time because the rest of it was drivel. “And I do so want you to turn me on.” Much better. Much more Val. “So stop by and check me out on Midnight Special at…well, midnight. The best hour of every night for everything. I’ll be waiting for you, sugars.”

Doyle gave her the cut sign, and Roxy wadded the copy and lobbed it into the trash. “I know, I only got the name in once, but they’ll get the drift.”

“And I do so want you to turn me on,” Doyle mimicked. “Doctor Val, raising erections all over the interstate. I can just see all the accident reports. So is the next promo better than this one?”

“Aren’t you the critic?” Astrid snapped at Doyle.

“Hey, I call ’em as I hear ’em.” Doyle gave the cue sign for the next promo just as Roxy slid the copy sideways until it flittered down into the trash can. One more ad-lib coming up, but this one all the way.

“Hello out there in rush-hour traffic. This is Doctor Val with two pieces of advice for you. One is listen to my program, Midnight Special. You’ll be amazed what you’ll hear in grown-up time when we can talk about the good things, the sexy things you’ll never hear on your way home from work. And the other piece of advice is drive naked, sugars. Makes the whole experience much more fun, especially if everybody else commuting right along with you is driving naked, too. So try it, then call me tonight at midnight and let me know if it was good for you, ‘cause, if I’m the one commuting next to you, I’ll be watching, and it’ll sure be good for me. Midnight Special every night at…midnight.”

Roxy turned to Astrid. “Got the name in more.”

“And you’ve got two minutes to do the right one,” Astrid yelled from her glass booth. “Doyle, erase that last mess and get ready for the correct promo.”

“Yeah, Doyle,” Roxy said, grudgingly grabbing the copy from the trash. “Cue me up to do the really good one. The one that will put everybody to sleep.”

Smiling, he gave her the sign, and Roxy read, “This is Doctor Val reminding you to listen to Midnight Special every weeknight at midnight. On Midnight Special we’re full of all kinds of surprises…” She couldn’t help herself. “And on Midnight Special we like to talk real dirty. Lots of sex on Midnight Special. So if you like sex, if that’s what makes you hot at midnight, you’d better tune in and listen to just how hot it can get on Midnight Special. ‘Cause sugars, Valentine gets hot every night on Midnight Special. That’s Midnight Special every weeknight at midnight.” She made a slashing gesture at Doyle and grinned at Astrid. “Seven times, count them. So is that better?”

“After work, the real thing. And Doyle’s locking the doors so you can’t get away,” Astrid grumbled, sitting down in her chair.

“You didn’t really expect me to stick to plain old boring, did you?” Roxy countered.

“Boring pays the—”

“I know,” Roxy said. “It pays the bills, but it doesn’t attract the listeners. And without listeners, there’s no program, and without a program we’re all slapping burgers on a grill somewhere down on the waterfront.” Astrid with her business degree, Doyle with one in engineering and Roxy’s in psychology—the trio couldn’t flip a burger together. But the burger-flipping imagery was good, she thought. “So I do what I have to do to keep us in this job.” She laughed. “And deep down you know I’m right, even though you won’t admit it. So just edit it, okay? Whatever you thinks works.”

“Five minutes,” Doyle said.

Roxy glanced up at the clock, wondering momentarily if Doctor Craig would be calling tonight. For sure he would if her ad-libbed, driving naked promo made it out on the air. Too bad Doyle had erased it.

Then briefly, Roxy imagined Ned Proctor driving naked.

ALMOST MIDNIGHT. He was tempted to turn on the radio and listen to the reigning queen of babble, since his plan to wander across the hall and ask Roxy Rose how her plumbing was doing went down the dumper when she went out a couple of hours ago. Going back across the hall…He’d been wanting to do that for several days now, but he needed some distance between himself and that whole humiliating faucet incident. What was he thinking, anyway, strapping on a tool belt and playing handyman? “Good disguise, Ned,” he muttered, plodding to the fridge for a beer. Three now, on an empty stomach, and he was getting a little buzz. But he didn’t care, since all he was going to do was settle in. “Bet she really bought that handyman bit hook, line and bailing bucket,” he added sarcastically.

He’d been watching Mizzz Rose for the past month, since she’d moved in. Quick glances in the hall mostly. Cute as hell. Sexy, actually. She was like an approaching electrical storm, all full of spark and sizzle. And sure, she was a little off center from normal, in the sense of the women he usually dated, anyway. They were all pretty much run-of-the-mill—good-looking, a lot taller, a whole lot more sophisticated. But Mizzz Rose fascinated him. Had since the day Oswald, the building super, had rented her the apartment across the hall from him and she burst into it like a tornado sweeping through a wide-open Oklahoma plain.

Sure, he’d wanted an introduction to her. Just not the one he’d gotten. There was no turning back from an embarrassment like that one, and no conceivable way to undo it, except maybe switch apartments. Which was as easily said as done, since he owned the building. Unfortunately, it was full right now, with a pretty long waiting list. Nothing open except the boiler room in the basement. So he was staying put for the time being, abject humiliation notwithstanding.

“So do I avoid her, Hep?” he asked his Siamese cat. She was named after Katharine Hepburn—elegance galore with a set of big claws. “Or just pretend it didn’t happen?”

Hep’s answer was a guttural I don’t give a damn growl, as she strutted through the kitchen, back arched, tail up, in search of a fluffed pillow for her nighttime nap.

“You’re right. Just ignore it.” Plodding back into his study with his beer and a bag of chips, Ned looked at the jumble of words on the computer screen, decided to call it a day, hit save then backed it up. No reason killing himself over this one. It wasn’t like he hadn’t cranked out a dozen books just like it before. Pop psychology had a way of bringing out all kinds of issues in people who’d never before had an issue until they read one of his books. To date, twelve bestsellers—the reason he could afford this building. A good investment, his financial guy had told him. Not that he wanted to be a landlord, because he didn’t. But he had to do something with the money he was making. And real estate was as good as anything else. Gave him a place to live, too—an upside that didn’t matter much, since he’d managed to get along for thirty-five years without getting himself too entangled in the usual trappings.

“Well, what will she be doing tonight?” he asked Hep, as he settled into his trusty ten-year-old recliner to listen to Doctor Val McCarthy. Pretty much everything that came out of her mouth was wrong. Bad psychology, bad advice, bad reasoning. But what the hell. She killed a couple of hours, and he sure liked her voice. It was a nice one to hear last thing before he nodded off.

“Welcome to Midnight Special, sugars. Are you ready for something special? Because if you are, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Doctor Val has something extra-specially special for you tonight.”

“That’s what she thinks,” Ned snorted, stretching out in his chair and turning off the floor stand reading light.

“So tell me, what’s on your mind,” Val continued.

“Don’t worry. I always do.” Callers number one, two and three all rang with cheating spouses, boyfriends or both. And Val pretty much rang true with her advice, which was becoming predictable, Ned thought. Same ol’ same ol’. Of course, how many ways could you spin it? You either dump them or you keep them. He chuckled. Or sleep with their significant other’s significant other. That certainly wasn’t a theory he’d seen in any of the books he’d read. Or written!

“Just be true to yourself,” Valentine said, wrapping up a conversation he’d apparently spaced out on. But she was right. Too bad he’d missed it. “There are more big hunks out there for you if you want to go looking. Make sure you’re looking in the right place, though. Someplace without a wedding ring, because if you get yourself hooked into that again, like you did last time, you’ll end up like you are now, wondering why he’s wandering. Now Doctor Val’s gonna go treat herself to something sweet for two minutes. So sugars, I’ll be right back, better than ever.”

“Two minutes, Hep? So she can go look under a rock for more advice?” Chuckling, Ned grabbed his cell phone and punched in the number for Midnight Special. “I have a question for Doctor Val,” he said, when a live voice came on. His Ned voice, only a little higher, because he didn’t want anybody he knew hearing him call that hack. It was a little slurred, too, he noticed, thanks to that beer buzz he had going and a rasp of exhaustion. “But it doesn’t involve a cheating spouse. Do you think she’ll answer my question, anyway?”

“And the nature of your problem is?” the voice on the other end asked. They always qualified the callers. Some made it through, a lot didn’t. He kept his fingers crossed.

“Met a woman I’d like to impress, but the first thing I ever did was pretty damned inept. Performance anxiety, I’d guess you could call it, and now I’m embarrassed to see her again. I just want to know some ways I could start it over between us. Or if I can start it over.” Sure, he’d twist it until it sounded like this was about bad bed performance. But never, ever let ’em know how he’d failed with a pipe wrench. Man, oh man, talk about bored silly, doing something like this. But since Roxy wasn’t home, he wouldn’t get the do-over he’d been plotting all weekend in case he ran into her again. Shutting his eyes, Ned cringed.

“You’ll be caller number one in the next segment,” the screener told him.

“That’s fast.” Actually, this wasn’t the call he’d intended to make. It just sort of slipped out. But what the hell! Go for it, anyway.

“Well, normally we hold that slot for someone else, a program regular, but apparently that’s not happening tonight, so you’re in luck. Just make sure you turn off your radio, okay? And no swearing or graphic words, because we’ll have to cut you off.”

Two minutes later, he got the cue. “Hello, sugar. And what can Doctor Val help you with tonight? I understand you sort of embarrassed yourself the first time you were with her and you’re looking for a way to redeem yourself? Is that it?”

Ned cleared his throat, not so much because he was nervous, but because he was preparing to raise the pitch a tad more, just in case Roxy was listening. Bad with a pipe wrench and getting advice from a radio shrink. Two strikes for sure. “I’ve wanted to meet her for a while,” he began. “And I finally did. But something happened, and yeah, I guess you could say I embarrassed myself.”

“How? We’re all on your side, so tell us the juicy.”

“Let’s just say it was something that comes naturally to most men, and I thought I could do it, but I found myself lacking in the skill. And she was definitely in need of that skill, but I had to call in someone else to help her out when I couldn’t, well, take care of the job.” Ned smiled. Should be interesting.