Praise for the novels of
ERICA ORLOFF

MAFIA CHIC

“The author of Diary of a Blues Goddess and Divas Don’t Fake It scores again with a charming heroine and a winsome tale.”

—Booklist

SPANISH DISCO

“Cassie is refreshingly free of the self-doubt that afflicts most of her peers.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This fast-paced and funny novel has a great premise and some interesting twists.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

DIARY OF A BLUES GODDESS

“With a luscious atmosphere and a lively, playful tone, Orloff’s novel is a perfect read for a hot summer night.”

—Booklist

THE ROOFER

“Orloff’s characters are wonderful, most particularly Ava, who is resilient enough to take a chance on love.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“The Roofer is a fantastic novel…fans of urban noir romances will appreciate the contrast between glitter and grim and hopelessness and love in a deep, offbeat tale.”

—Harriet Klausner

Freudian Slip
Erica Orloff

To the memory of two people in heaven

I think of most often, Robert and Irene Cunningham

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, a thank-you to my agent, Jay Poynor, for his unflagging support.

Thanks to Margaret Marbury, the ultimate editor—brains and a sense of humor and an uncanny understanding of publishing all rolled into one.

Thanks to Doris E., an old and true friend. ABBA…what can I say? It was an inspiration during the writing.

I’d like to thank, as always, my family, Maryanne and Walter Orloff, Stacey Groome and Jessica Stasinos, J.D., Alexa, Nicholas, Isabella and Jack. To Ariana, who read the manuscript and said she laughed. To Charlie, for some really insightful reading. And to my faithful writing pals Pam, Jon and Melody. Without you, I’d be lost in the thicket of plot.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a

heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.

—John Milton

Paradise Lost

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

—William Shakespeare

The Tempest

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments

when, whatever be the attitude of the body,

the soul is on its knees.

—Victor Hugo

Les Misérables

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

BOOK GROUP QUESTIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

KATE DARBY WILTED IN the August heat and decided she couldn’t handle the subway tonight. Too steamy, too grimy, too many commuters even at seven o’clock at night. She lifted an arm to hail a cab and smiled when one pulled over to the curb right away.

“Must be my lucky day,” she murmured. She opened the door and slid across the backseat, adjusting her skirt beneath her. “Ninetieth, between First and York.”

The cabbie, black beard flecked with gray, with warm brown skin and a regal nose, nodded his turban-covered head, clicked the meter and pulled into traffic.

Kate leaned back, enjoying the blast of air-conditioning on her damp skin. She lifted her hair, twisting it into a loose chignon, and let the coolness caress the nape of her neck. Her eyes roamed the cabbie’s unique domain. A picture of the Dalai Lama in saffron robes was paper-clipped to the right visor, the holy man’s serene visage beaming at her. A jade-colored Buddha bobblehead perched on the dashboard, happily nodding with each careening motion of the yellow cab. Amethyst rosary beads dangled from the rearview mirror, a silver Jesus, arms outstretched on the cross, swung gently from side to side. A picture of Pope John Paul II was taped to the glove compartment, one hand lifted as if to make a sign of the cross over the faithful. And if Kate was correct, she was pretty sure the turban meant the cabbie was a Sikh. Only in New York.

She leaned forward slightly. “Your cab reminds me of the United Nations.”

He looked at her in the rearview mirror and laughed heartily. “My wife is good Catholic woman. My son is a Buddhist. And I think…God loves us all.”

“You’re probably right.” She edged forward in the seat, resting her head on her forearm as she peered into the front of the cab. She could hear the world’s most infamous shock jock inflaming his listeners over the radio. “God loves everybody. Even him.” She nodded her head toward the radio.

A woman was having an orgasm—real or faked, Kate had no idea—on air.

“Oh, he’s a crazy man,” the cabbie said, in Indian-accented English. “Craaa-zzy.”

Julian Shaw’s raspy voice filled the cab. “You heard it here. Live. Lana Luscious, the world’s hottest lesbian porn star just gave oral sex to Jenna Jones. In my studio. Right here. On my couch. For those of you listening, let me tell you that, if you don’t know Lana, she’s a gorgeous, smokin’ hot brunette with 42-double-Ds, and Jenna is the platinum sex goddess of your wildest imagination. That was so hot. So friggin’ hot. If this couch could talk, baby. So Jenna…did you fake it or was that the real deal?”

“How can you listen to him?” Kate asked the cabbie. She only half listened to the radio now as Julian Shaw sped on to his next favorite point of conversation—mocking gays.

“I always wonder what he’s going to do next.”

“But as a spiritual man…” She gestured with her hand toward the religious items. “I mean…he’s really, really raunchy.”

“I think God has a sense of humor. And maybe…maybe this crazy man is the best and worst of America all in one being. I listen because I want to understand America.”

“America?” Kate tilted her head. “This guy helps you understand America?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” The cabbie nodded his head vigorously. “He is America. He is an insane demigod presiding over chaos.”

Kate smiled. “Now this theory I have to hear.”

The cab stopped at a light, and the cabbie turned his head slightly. “He is America. He is what your country is fascinated with. He is both sides. Yin and yang.”

Kate crinkled her nose. “Um…not seeing the logic yet. Both sides? Lesbians and porn stars? Lesbians and gay men? I don’t understand.”

“No. America loves its sex.” He gestured out the window toward a shop on Fifth Avenue, its mannequins futuristically haunting and sexualized, empty-faced yet erotic. The clothing adorning them accentuating every pointed body part. Yet the overall effect was strangely androgynous.

Kate gazed out, the cab speeding by the window. “Yes, America does.” The next window was Gucci, then a short time later Abercrombie and Fitch. Designers flaunted their wares behind plate glass, with beautiful models, their lips slightly parted with promise. A big poster for a new designer perfume showed a tousled-haired blonde looking as if she was in the throes of passion.

“But then,” the cabbie intoned, “America is very repressed. It pushes sex, sex, sex, but then it’s not happy with sex. It gets offended by sex. Very strange. Very strange.”

“That it is. But still, that show.” She looked at the radio dial. “That show is out of control. I never listen. There was even an argument in the office about him one day. One of the assistants had him on the radio at his desk. He almost got fired for it. The woman in the next cubicle complained that he was creating a hostile work environment.”

“Where do you work?”

“At a publishing house. I’m a book editor.”

“A very honorable profession. I love to read. My son, also. Always his nose in a book. He got a scholarship to university.”

Kate smiled at his pride.

“He wants to be a writer.”

“My boyfriend is a writer. He wrote The Jackal’s Feast.”

“I know that book!” the cabbie said excitedly. “I read it! It was a wonderful book. Very excellent.”

“I was the editor.”

“You are famous!”

“No. Not famous. My boyfriend’s not even famous. The book was well-reviewed though. I think his next one could be huge. If he ever finishes it.”

“I can say I know you,” the cabbie said.

“Sure.”

She leaned back as the DJ continued. Periodically, his words were bleeped. She shook her head. How could anyone stand that guy?

“Pull up over there.” Kate gestured toward the building where David lived. “I’m surprising him with a fresh-off-the-press interview he did with Gotham magazine. The magazine writer clearly adored him.”

“You are a very nice girlfriend then, miss. Surprises are very good. I always like to surprise my wife. One time, I brought home three dozen roses—three dozen. I made her cry happy tears.”

Kate’s eyes watered. She didn’t know why, but the little love stories of people’s lives always touched her.

The cabbie clicked the meter, which chattered and chinged as it spat out a receipt. She handed him a twenty-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you. You have a very nice night. God bless you.”

“Thanks. You, too.” She smiled at the bobblehead jiggling on the dash as she clambered out of the cab and walked to David’s building. The doorman let her in. “Evening.” He nodded at her.

“Hi, Henry. How’s your wife feeling?”

“Better, thanks. The doctor says the treatment is working.”

“Oh, that’s very good news.” Kate prided herself on remembering the names of doormen and bodega owners, the bagel guy, the little old man who walked his terrier each day near her apartment. Her father had always taught her that you could go through the world knowing no one, or go through it knowing everyone. She liked knowing everyone’s name, their little love stories and big love stories. It made Manhattan seem a little smaller.

She pressed the button for the elevator and took it to the seventh floor. David was the perfect guy. Smart, funny, unbelievably handsome. He was going to be famous someday. And she was positive this next book was it.

They hadn’t gotten involved until the first book went to press. But the attraction had been there all through the editing process. Everyone in the office felt it. Leslie, her best friend and fellow editor, told her she was the luckiest book editor in Manhattan getting to work with someone who looked like a Brooks Brothers model—with a brain. The chemistry culminated in a celebratory dinner after his first reviews came out—all positive. They’d been together ever since.

The elevator doors opened, and Kate walked to 7B. She put her key into the lock and entered his apartment. His style was, she teased him, “elegant bachelor,” all dark, sleek wood and clubby brown leather, accented with black-and-white photography on the walls in silver frames. The place was dimly lit and she wondered if he was even home. She was about to call out his name when she spotted it. An opened bottle of Kristal champagne. Two crystal flutes, nearly empty, the last champagne bubbles drifting lazily in the remnants. One glass emblazoned with lipstick on the rim. Red. Not her shade.

Feeling like her knees might buckle, she told herself there were a million possible explanations. His childhood best friend, Judy, could have come into the city for dinner. He could be entertaining his sister. But what blared through her head was what she had told him that morning as she left his place. I can’t see you tonight. I have to work late and then meet with an agent for cocktails.

But then she ran into the editor of Gotham, who handed her a crisp copy of the issue. After drinks with the agent, on the spur of the moment she decided to cab it up to his place.

Shaking, feeling like a fool, she stumbled, almost blindly to the bedroom. And there he was, naked, half-erect and hurriedly putting on his boxers. And there she was, frantically shoving her black-lace bra into her purse.

Leslie.

She turned, bile rising in her throat, and ran.

“Kate…Kate…wait!” He chased after her, grabbing her arm. “It’s not what you—”

She shrieked, not even recognizing the voice that came out of her own mouth. “Not what I think? Don’t patronize me! You bastard!”

“I thought—”

“I was working late? Had drinks scheduled. Couldn’t see you?” She felt tears streaming down her face, and she thought she was going to vomit. She wrenched her arm free and reached into her oversize purse to pull out the magazine. She flung it, as hard as she could, at his face, where, thanks to her high school softball career, it landed perfectly, smacking him on his perfect nose. “I ran into the editor of Gotham and wanted to surprise you.”

The magazine landed on the floor cover-side up. One of the heads read, “America’s Best New Writer.”

“Kate.” His face was pale, and he shook his head. “I was drinking. I…”

With all the fury and hatred she could muster, Kate glared at Leslie who stood, teary, in the doorway of his bedroom. Kate swallowed hard. “You two deserve each other.”

She opened the apartment door and fled down the hall. Over and over, in her mind, as if she were unable to control her own brain, the image of Leslie, topless, in his bedroom, came back to her. In slow motion. In fast motion. In frozen images.

She whispered a prayer, “Please let the elevator come right away.” Thankfully, it did. She stepped in and punched the button for the lobby, jabbing it three, four, five times, willing the elevator doors to close faster and deliver her even quicker to the ground floor and away from him. From them. Running out of the lobby, past Henry’s concerned gaze, she stepped into the hot night. She tried to gulp in fresh air, but it felt like breathing in a sauna.

She just wanted to go home and shower off the ugliness she just saw. She wanted to be alone. She turned to hail a cab and saw the cab she had taken not ten minutes before, with his “off-duty” signal, sitting parked on the street.

Wiping at her tears, she walked to the cab and bent over to peer in the window. Sure enough, it was the same bobblehead dashboard. Her turban-wearing cabbie. He waved and rolled down the passenger-side window.

“What is the matter, my someday-famous friend?”

“Surprising him was not a good idea.”

An expression of immediate comprehension crossed his face. “Let me drive you home.”

Grateful for his kindness, she again climbed into the backseat of his cab.

“Thank you,” she whispered, looking more closely at the name on his license, clipped to the viser, trying to discern the pronunciation—it had six syllables.

“You may call me Mo. That is what my American friends call me.”

“Thank you, Mo. I’m Kate.”

He turned to look at her. “I am very sorry. You tell me where to take you.”

She gave him her address and leaned back, shutting her eyes. A tiny sob escaped. Maybe she wanted conversation. Something to drown out that image seared on her brain.

“Why were you still here?” she asked. “I thought I was going to have stand out there and try to find a cab, and there you were.”

“Something very, very strange. I had to listen.” He pointed at the radio.

“To the sex-crazed DJ?”

“Yes, yes. He was shot.”

Kate opened her eyes wide. “Shot?”

“Yes. He is a crazy man, my new friend Kate, but someone else was even crazier. Someone tried to kill him.”

“That’s New York.”

“No, that too, is America,” he said sadly.

As he pulled onto York, Kate watched the bobblehead. The Buddha seemed less merry now, like he was mocking her.

With each nod of his head, the Buddha told her, “You should have known. You should have known. You should have known.”

CHAPTER TWO

JULIAN SHAW EXPECTED a long tunnel. Then a white light. Or at least his dearly departed Grandma Hannah.

Instead, he got Gus.

“Listen, old boy, try not to panic” was Gus’s advice, delivered in a clipped British accent.

“I’m too confused to panic,” said Julian, but then he spied his body in the hospital bed, and panic struck him like the shock of a defibrillator.

“Remember not to panic,” Gus urged, but it was far too late for that. Julian let out a Friday the 13th shriek, and frankly, Julian didn’t even care that his scream sounded like a girl’s—like the time he dropped a toad down his cousin Tori’s shirt the year she got a training bra.

“What the hell is going on?” Julian looked down at his body, which had a frightening assortment of tubes protruding from just about every orifice. Bags of dark blood and assorted other fluids hung from IV poles surrounding his bed like silent sentinels. Machines whooshed and whirred and beeped. Their eerie sounds echoed in the otherwise sterile quiet of the room, as if the body were just another machine being driven by devices and not life itself. A nurse appeared to be taking his vital signs, which, if her frown were any indication, didn’t seem to be too vital.

Julian approached her and asked, “What’s wrong with me?” but she looked through him as she walked away, pushed through the door, and back to the nurse’s station on the other side of the glass.

“Hey!” Julian shouted. He followed her, but she never acknowledged him, and when he touched her arm, she didn’t react at all. He turned to another nurse, and then a doctor, waving his arms wildly, “Hey! Someone tell me what’s going on!”

But they all continued working, talking with each other, looking at computer screens, ignoring him.

Because Gus had spoken to him, seemed to see him, Julian now faced the short, thin old man in the blue pinstripe suit, with the elegant little silver mustache and one of those old-fashioned monocles perched on one eye. “What’s going on? Do you know?”

“You don’t remember anything, young man?” Gus asked, clasping his hands together expectantly.

“No. I mean…how did I get to be here, and my body there? Am I…you know…dead?” He said dead in a whisper, because he really didn’t want to know the answer.

“No. Not dead. In a coma.”

“A coma?” Julian again looked at his body—long black hair, thick and curly. High cheekbones. Tattoo of an angel on one forearm, another of a hypodermic needle near his elbow, with the words Rock Or Die on the biceps above it. Yep. It was him. He was a good-looking SOB, he thought, even though his face was nearly as pale as the bedsheet.

“Yes, my dear chap. Seems you are in a coma or I wouldn’t be here.” Gus smoothed his burgundy tie, fussed with his diamond tie-tack, and then clasped his hands behind his back, rocking slightly on the heels of his highly polished black shoes.

“Where is here? And, for that matter, who the hell are you?”

“Well, no need for hostility, young man. We’re Neither Here Nor There. And I’m Gus, your Guide.”

“Come again?”

“Neither Here Nor There. As in, neither in Heaven nor in Hell. We’re in between. Or, rather, you are. And I’m to show you the ropes, so to speak.”

“Why aren’t I over there? With my body?”

“Good question, which begs a thorough explanation. As thorough as I can give you when we have a rather pressing agenda. How familiar are you with quantum physics?”

“You’ve gotta be friggin’ kiddin’ me, little man. Not at all. I’m a DJ, the shock jock at WNRQ, not a…physicist. Jesus, I must be dreaming. I gave up heroin a long time ago, but is this a flashback or something?”

“No. I am not a figment of your imagination. Trust me, you are not that creative. All right.” He sighed. “As best as I can explain it, the universe is always moving. Even a table, a chair, a rock, they have moving parts, tiny atoms and particles and, if the string theorists are to be believed—and they’re right, you know—there are parts even smaller than that, like tiny strings in a realm we can’t even begin to understand, it’s so microscopic. Mind-boggling, actually. And the universe—from the cosmos to tiny particles—is in a state of constant motion, ever expanding and accelerating, with the idea that one day, it may actually collapse back into itself, though I am not entirely privy to all the secrets the universe has up its sleeve.” He chuckled slightly.

“Speak English, pal.”

“I’m trying, young man. Again, I can’t be positive of what the future holds for the universe. However, I do know that the universe is not, ever, at any time, in a state of inertia. In terms of astrophysics, cosmic inflation describes the exponential expansion driven by a negative-pressure vacuum energy density.”

“Look, buddy…can we get past all this science stuff, which I can promise you I am not ever going to understand, and get to the part about how it is my body is lying there with tubes up my friggin’ nose?”

“Getting to that. You see the way God made the universe, She created Heaven and Hell, and then the place in between.”

“She?”

“Of course. You mean to tell me you never noticed how women are the nurturers, the creators?”

“Well, maybe but…you know, the whole Bible and…”

“Written, I’m afraid, with a bias. By men. The original Old Boy Network.”

“So you’re saying a chick made the universe. Including Neither Here Nor There.”

“I know. It’s an unwieldy name. I wish She had thought of something…I don’t know, catchier. But nonetheless, just because you happen to be in a coma, you do not, my new friend, have a free pass as far as the universe is concerned. You must be doing something. Consequently, you are Neither Here Nor There, and you have work to do while you are in the in-between realm. We have an agenda, which, I might add, we must get to. Soon.”

“And you?”

“Me? I’m a Guide.”

“Got any identification?”

“Afraid not. I would have presumed the very fact that your body is there and we’re here would be identification enough. It usually is.”

“What’s with the British accent?”

“I was British on earth, and apparently it’s quite difficult to lose the accent, even after centuries in the Afterlife. I’ve retained a love of stout, too. And scones.”

“Afterlife. I thought you said we weren’t dead. Afterlife sounds suspiciously like ‘after you’ve bought the farm.’”

“We aren’t dead. I am dead. Was dead, actually. Now I’m a Guide. Well, technically, I am still dead, but my spirit…Well, I suppose it’s all about whether you view the glass as half-full or half-empty. You, on the other hand, are not dead. You are…well, in this rather in-between state.”

“So what happened to me?” Though his body—the one in the bed—looked painfully uncomfortable, he didn’t feel any pain at all in his newly acquired spirit body. In fact, he felt surprisingly terrific, if he thought about it. Except for the sheer terror stuff.

“You really have no memory of it? Think back.”

“Well…” Julian tried. “You know it’s a little hard to think when I’m staring at my comatose self.” Again, he felt waves of panic sweep over him. He tried harder to remember. “I was on the air. Lesbians. I was talking about lesbians. They’ve made me the number-one late-afternoon and evening drive-time show in radio. Syndicated. I’m on every hour of every day somewhere in the country. Rebroadcasts. Cable. Chicks getting it on with other chicks? The audience loves it. And…” He tried to think. “Oh…yeah. I pushed the envelope big-time. Holy crap, but it was an awesome show. Live sex. On air. The switchboard went wild! Two women were having oral sex right there on my couch. That couch is like a shrine to sex. Then I wrapped up the show. I met with my producer. Then…I went outside. Was waiting for my limo to circle the block and pick me up. And that’s the last thing I remember.”

“Think back. Someone said something to you. On the sidewalk. Someone approached you.”

Julian fell silent, and then a flood of memory and more panic threatened to drown him. “Oh my God…I was shot.” He rushed over to his comatose self. “Oh Christ…in the stomach.” Julian could see bandages peeking over the top of the blanket. “By a guy who was pissed off about my show. Religious fanatic. He’s called in before. I recognized his voice.”

“Yes,” Gus said quietly.

Julian’s terror intensified. “Jesus.” He began pacing. “Oh my God. Holy shit…Am I going to make it?”

“I don’t know,” Gus said. “I’m not privy to that information. It’s not in your dossier.”

“I don’t get it. I don’t get any of this.”

“That’s understandable. Give yourself time. You’ll adapt. In the meantime, you have a job to do. Get your mind off the situation, so to speak.”

“What kind of job? What? Do spirits need a call-in radio show?”

“Hardly. No, this is far more important than any earthly job. Particularly an earthly job involving prattling on about lesbians.”

“You got something against lesbians?”

“No.”

“Does God?”

“No. She’s of the opinion it’s not who you love but that you love.”

“She.”

“Yes. I told you that already. Keep up, young man. Take notes if you must.”

“I’m trying. Give me a break. I’m still working to fathom that. A woman. God is a woman. Damn. All right, I’ll bite. Do I get to meet her?”

“You don’t want to. If you meet her that means…” Gus looked over at the comatose Julian and then moved his hand across his own neck in a cutting motion of death.

“Gotcha. No meeting God. Okay, so you gonna tell me about my job?”

“Yes. You see, we’re not angels. And we most certainly don’t work for the Other Team.” Gus shuddered. “We don’t have the power of either extreme. We talk and eventually, those on earth start to hear us—maybe. And if they listen, then we have some influence.”

“So what? We talk to schizophrenics? People who hear voices?”

“Oh, no. Those unfortunate souls hear voices from chemical imbalances in the brain. Occasionally, I suppose, they may intercept voices from one of us. No, in our case, the people we speak to hear a voice urging them to do something.”

“Like a conscience?”

“Yes. Or maybe, sometimes, if we have a very strong connection to our assigned case, they may actually blurt out what we say to them. You’ve heard of a Freudian slip?”

“Sure.”

“Freud himself had a strong connection to his case worker.”

“So does everyone have one of these voices? One of us?”

“No. There aren’t enough of us to go around, I’m afraid. Those few in-betweeners like yourself are assigned a case, usually based on need.”

“Need?”

“Yes. The person prays for guidance. Or sometimes those around the person pray. A relative will plead their case. And what he or she gets is us. Or, in this case, you. You have one person, one case, you’ll be seeking to influence and help.”

“That’s it? I talk? Like I do on the air. For an audience of one? That’s it?”

“That’s it? My God, man, have you not been listening? You must not be fully comprehending the gravity of this. Perhaps it’s the shock. We take this job quite seriously. This isn’t a ‘that’s it’ sort of matter. Someone’s life—their very well-being, their sense of hope—is placed in your very hands for help.”

“Well, if they’re looking for help from me…they must really be desperate.”

Gus smiled. “She knows what She’s doing. So no time to waste. Come along and meet your assignment. According to the Boss, your case is fairly desperate. She has had a terrible day of unseemly proportions. Simply ghastly.”

Gus took Julian by the elbow and led him out of the intensive care unit. As they walked past other comatose patients, machines whirring like whispering sentinels, Julian saw other Guides, and even a dog—a big old chocolate Lab—lying by the bed of what he presumed was its master. Deducing that no hospital allowed dogs in the ICU, he guessed the dog was a spirit, too.

As he walked through the lobby, Julian struggled to discern who was real—as in alive—and who were spirits. He quickly understood that anyone dressed anachronistically—like Gus with his monocle—was a spirit. And the ones who walked through things—well, they had to be spirits, too. He had a million questions as they left the hospital. So many questions that Julian felt dazed.

The two of them wandered Manhattan’s streets, unseen. Julian kept looking at people, stepping in front of them at times, but no one acknowledged him. Finally, he and Gus arrived at an apartment building in Greenwich Village, which they entered as a resident left, slipping through an open door, and then ascended a flight of stairs to an apartment door.

“Come along,” Gus said.

“What? Do we ring the doorbell?”

“No, we walk through. Just don’t hesitate—that can get messy.”

Gus took him more firmly by the hand and half pulled him through the door. The two of them were now invisible visitors in a small one-bedroom apartment near Washington Square Park. Two policemen in uniform stood in the middle of the messy living room.

“There she is,” Gus gestured toward a brunette with hair to the middle of her back, neither thin nor plump, with rosy apple cheeks and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She clutched a tissue and looked around her apartment as if in shock.

“Can you see anything immediately missing?” the female officer asked, a notebook open, pen poised.

The brunette shook her head. “The TV. But other than that…it’s just the mess. My jewelry box is gone, but my good jewelry I kept in the freezer—I saw it on a TV show once and always have done that. I just checked. It’s still there. They didn’t take much. My dog must have scared them.” Then she started crying. “And now she’s gone.”

“Your dog?” The second officer looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry. That’s difficult.”

“When they left, they must have…let her out. Will you guys look for her?”

“Realistically…this is New York City. We have hundreds of break-ins. Thousands. What kind of dog?”

“A little Yorkie. Just the kind of dog someone would scoop up and keep.” The woman sat down and started sobbing. The two officers shifted on their feet, looking uncomfortable.

Julian stared at Gus. “You’re telling me I have to solve a dognapping? Give me a break. This isn’t a crisis. You know how many people get robbed a day?”

Gus shook his head. “You need to pay attention. This is just the end of a very, very horrible day.”

Julian and his Guide watched as the officers handed the woman a form and a card with a number to call to follow up on her case. The cops let themselves out. Julian watched as the woman wandered into her bedroom and tried to fix her mattress, which had been tossed on the floor. She started crying harder, the sounds changing from sniffles to guttural sobs. She unbuttoned the back of her skirt to change out of her work clothes. While she was undressing, Gus tugged on Julian’s arm. “Give her some privacy.”

Disappointed at missing a free peep show, Julian followed Gus to the living room. The woman emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later, in a black sports bra and gym shorts. She straightened up a bit, returning knocked-over lamps and a spilled basket of magazines to their rightful positions, then opened a bottle of white wine with a shaking hand. Soon, she was lying on the floor of her apartment, a box of tissues and a now half-empty bottle of white wine next to her.

“She’s beautiful,” Julian said, moving closer to her. “But she’s a mess. What’s wrong with her? Why is she crying? Besides the break-in? What happened to her today? This can’t all be over a Yorkie and a television set. So what is it?”

“That’s for you to find out, my boy. And solve. Julian Shaw, meet Kate Darby.”

CHAPTER THREE

KATE DARBY LISTENED to Stevie Nicks’s plaintive wailing on “Beautiful Child” for the hundredth time. This had to be the worst night of her life. Only, she knew it wasn’t. There had been worse nights. Worse weeks. Worse years. But this ranked up there with one of the most colossal bad days ever.

“Okay, God…what do you have against me?” she said aloud. “It wasn’t bad enough to walk in on them in bed together? Lose the love of my life. And my best friend. In one day.” She rolled over on her belly and flopped her face against her forearm and started crying all over again. “Apartment robbed. Place trashed. But the dog, God? My little Honey? Christ…this is the worst night of my life.” Then Stevie finished her ode, and Kate pressed the button on her remote control, starting the song all over again. A hundred and one and counting.

You’ll meet someone better.

“Ha!” she said to herself, shaking her head at the voice she heard in her mind. “Meet someone better.” She looked at her coffee table, staring at a picture of her and David on the ski trip they took to Aspen over New Year’s. He was like that, the king of grand gestures. He’d put plane tickets in her Christmas stocking. He gave her a pair of diamond earrings for her twenty-seventh birthday in May, in a blue box from Tiffany’s, which he’d presented her while they took a horse-and-carriage ride through Central Park. For God’s sake, they’d talked about getting engaged for Christmas this year. Just like the cabbie telling her his love story, his surprise of roses, Kate thought she and David were writing their own love story.

Kate sat up and blew her nose—loudly—in a tissue, which she then crumpled and threw on the floor next to the twenty or so other tissues. Next to the spilled contents of a box of old photos the robbers had upended.

“It just hurts,” she whispered aloud. The whisper turned to a prayer. “God…it just hurts, and I don’t know if I can take any more. My father died—well, you know that, God. I miss him so badly sometimes it’s an actual pain in my heart. And now this. Not to mention my mother remarrying to that investment guy with the comb-over. God…this just sucks. It sucks. And I can’t take it anymore.”

She stood up and walked to the maple bookshelves next to the tall windows that opened onto the fire escape. She picked up a photo of her and Leslie in a silver frame.

Kate had never felt beautiful her entire life, except maybe when she was with her father. But who believes their father? Aren’t all fathers supposed to say their daughters are beautiful? In a size-two world, she was built just a little large, and in a city of little-black-dress sophistication, she was always just ordinary. At least, that was what she told herself. She wasn’t beautiful, she was pretty. She was girl-next-door. Sweet faced, more than sexy. Until she met David, who swept her off her feet. He finally made her feel as if she belonged on the pedestal he placed her on, as if she were stunning. Not just girl-next-door but drop-dead gorgeous.

Leslie, on the other hand, had always been the eye-catching one. Sure, she’d told Kate she was “gangly” and had braces in seventh grade, but come off it. Leslie had been perfect her whole life. Tall, thin, high cheekbones, Southern drawl, long blond hair and she didn’t even need to exercise to maintain her perfect figure. It was positively sickening. Those perfect breasts and rock-hard abs—that she’d seen only too clearly tonight in David’s bedroom.

“So you had to have the one man I loved,” Kate said to the picture. “You could have had your pick of any man in Manhattan. Heck, in the whole tristate area, but you set your sights on David.”

At the thought, Kate felt like she was going to throw up again. She took the picture and frame and tossed them in the trash. Then she sat down on her couch. The apartment was decorated in shades of green—her favorite color—with touches of Boho and eclectic flea-market finds she and her father used to hunt down.

“Well, damn it—now what? My life is ruined.” Like she could show up at her job and work side by side with Leslie. Their offices were next door to each other at Washington Square Publishers. Kate picked up the bottle of wine and took a huge swig.

Maybe you should consider becoming a lesbian.

Kate shook her head at the voice. “I must be cracking up. Like that would ever be an option.” And then—despite the fact that she’d found her boyfriend with her best friend, that her dog had disappeared, her apartment was broken into—despite it all, Kate laughed to herself.

I’m not kidding. Lesbians have more fun.

CHAPTER FOUR

“SHE’S CUTE WHEN SHE smiles,” Julian said to Gus. He leaned closer, as if inspecting a specimen under glass. “She has dimples.”

“Hmm?” Gus was looking at a file that had materialized out of nowhere. They were still standing in her messy apartment, though they had moved to the small galley kitchen—typical by Manhattan standards with an Easy-Bake-size oven and a refrigerator shorter than Julian’s shoulder.

“I said she’s cute. What are you looking at?”

“This?” Gus waved the file folder, and it disappeared. “Nothing. Case files.”

“Shouldn’t I look them over or something, if I’m going to be some sort of celestial social worker?”

“Afraid not. The Boss believes in intuition. In the power of connection.”

“What kind of New Age bullshit is that?”

“She’s afraid of self-fulfilling prophesies. They’re the worst prophecies of all, you know.”

“Slow down, Gus. You may be used to this Neither Here Nor There lingo, but it’s all new to me. I’m still getting used to being…away from my body.”

“Well, the Boss has been frequently misquoted by prophets. A lot of them, I have to tell you, were cuckoo.” Gus twirled a finger round and round by his temple.

“And of all the crazy prophets,” Gus continued, “self-fulfilling ones drive Her the craziest. If you read Kate’s case…Let’s suppose it said she was depressed.”

“I’d get her to pop a Prozac.”

“Precisely. Then you would assume it to be so—that she was depressed. And let’s say it said she was destined to live the rest of her life alone and lonely. Well, you’d hardly work to get her a new trustworthy boyfriend, would you now? No, you’d see the case file, assume it was her fate, and it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy for poor Kate. You’d tell her it was useless to look for love again. But if instead you knew nothing about her story and had to intuit it and learn it fresh, then, frankly, anything could happen—and in this world it often does.”

“So in other words, your Boss doesn’t believe in predestination.”

Gus’s eyes opened wide. “Who knew you were aware of such a word? Your SAT scores give no indication of that sort of vocabulary.”

“I was stoned when I took them. All right, Gus, so what do I do?” Julian looked at Kate crying and inexplicably wanted to give her a hug, which he knew was futile since she couldn’t see or feel him. Not to mention he wasn’t the hugging type.

“Don’t know, my boy. Up to you to figure it out. Well…I’m off.”

“Hold it!” Julian grabbed Gus’s arm. “You’re off? You’re God damn off?”

“You wouldn’t damn Her if you knew what’s good for you.”

“But you can’t leave me here. You can’t possibly leave me here, Gus!” Julian heard the panic in his own voice.

“But I have other cases.”

“Well, before you traipse off to the next friggin’ coma, what if I need you? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know anything, but that this chick has had a really bad day.”

“I’ll check in from time to time.”

“But—”

“Julian, the Boss wouldn’t have entrusted Kate to you if She thought you couldn’t handle it. She is all-knowing. You’ll be fine.”

“No, I won’t be fine. You tell this Boss of yours I am not happy.”

Gus laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well, that attitude may get you a hot table and a complimentary bottle of vodka at the latest restaurant in the Hamptons, and it may even get you a shag with a porn star, but that ‘famous DJ’ attitude of yours doesn’t do anything for the Boss. She really hates star trips. If you only knew what awaited a certain Hollywood starlet unless she shapes up.”

“Star trips? You call not wanting to be left alone as a disembodied voice in some strange girl’s apartment, having no idea what the hell to do a star trip?”

“Julian, my dear young man, you may not like this, but it’s your job, and for now, it is simply what you have to do.”

“And what if I don’t? What if I just leave and go wander around the city? Go hang out with some other…spirits? Go get drunk? I don’t know. What if I just don’t?”

Gus removed his monocle. He sighed. He took out the neat little polka-dotted pocket square that he had tucked into his suit and unfolded it, cleaned his monocle, put it back on, refolded his pocket square precisely and returned it to his pocket.

“Well?” Julian asked impatiently.

Gus clasped his hands together. “I didn’t want to have to get…tough with you. But I’m afraid you just aren’t getting it. There are two outcomes if you die. Go up. Go down. That’s it, my young man. Your score sheet with the Boss doesn’t have very much on the Good Side. However, there is much on the bad side. An endless array of crimes and misdemeanors, so to speak.”

“What do you mean? A score sheet?”

“Heavenly Accounting. It’s a huge department. More employees there than almost anywhere. A lot of CPAs end up working there. All the anal-retentives do also. The Heavenly Accounting department does very meticulous work. You have a file, just as Kate does. Just as I do. The filing system alone is one of the most magnificent works of organizational genius ever invented, thanks to Luca Pacioli.”

“Who?”

“A friend of da Vinci. The father of modern-day double-entry accounting. Your file, Julian, has very, very, very few entries on the good side. I even had Pacioli himself double-check it. If you look at it as an accounting system, your good side is in arrears. In the red. Your bad side…one of the thickest on record.”

“Gimme a break. What about someone like Hitler?”

“Was there any doubt as to which direction he would go?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“Julian, if you accomplish this, if you do what you are asked, and do it well, it will erase a tremendous amount on your bad side. It won’t balance your books, so to speak, but…if you don’t, I’m afraid it will reflect badly with the Boss. Now, I can’t force you to do anything. That’s what free will is. You have free will, even in Neither Here Nor There. But as your Guide, I am urging you to consider what I am saying very carefully.”

Julian stared at Gus. He had never, until today, thought about death. That wasn’t entirely true. He had thought about it a couple of times after he drove while drunk and woke up the next day unsure of how he got home. He had a couple of times when he knew he had shot up too much heroin. When he mixed too many drugs. He had thought about it and brushed the thought away. Death was far away. Far away. Beyond that, he hadn’t thought of going anywhere when he died. Not Heaven. Not Hell. He didn’t believe in either. He thought when you died, you became worm meat. Nothing more. Nothing less. But now, faced with actually going to Hell?

“All right. So that’s it? I just hang out here. With her. The crying chick.”

“Yes, and try to discern what she needs to do.”

“Do I get to see her naked?”

Gus stared at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question before.”

“Well, do I? I mean, if I’m here, can I watch her take a shower? Can I watch her get dressed in the morning?”

“I suppose so,” Gus said, annoyance in his voice. “But that really shouldn’t be your goal.”

“Well, if you’re leaving me here, then I’m lookin’ at her naked.”

“Fine,” said Gus. “I’ll inform the Boss.” He shook his head.

“Fine. You do that.”

“I will.”

With that, Gus disappeared.

Julian was irritated. Who the hell did this Boss think She was? Just depositing him here like this? Screw it. He didn’t want to go to Hell. He didn’t want to go to Heaven, either. And what? Play a harp? What he wanted was to be back in his body. But for the moment, that looked like it was out of the question. However, that didn’t mean he knew what to do in the meantime. He looked at Kate. “Now what?”

He began to closely examine her apartment. It was a very small one-bedroom, though it had floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, with crown molding and hardwood floors. A nonworking white-brick fireplace flanked one wall. At least Julian assumed it was nonworking as there wasn’t a speck of soot anywhere on its hearth. On the fireplace mantle were a half dozen pictures in frames, all of an older man and a little girl. Julian walked closer to the pictures. In every snapshot, the little girl was smiling, her hair in pigtails or braids, her dimples showing.

“This is you,” he said to Kate. “And this must be your dad.” She didn’t react. Julian looked at the pictures again. Her father was tall, with dark hair, a little bit of gray at the temples. He had brown eyes and a big smile, just the slightest hint of a smirk, like he knew an inside joke he just had to tell you. Over to the left was a picture of her father in a fireman’s dress uniform. Ladder 10.

“Is this how he died?” Julian asked, remembering her whispered prayer. She told God that her father was dead. “Did he die in a fire?”

Julian walked over to the couch, near where Kate lay on the floor, sniffling.

“My father used to beat the crap out of me,” he said. He stood over her, looking down, trying to fathom what was in her mind. He was hoping that being in Neither Here Nor There would gain him some sort of psychic power. Then he could figure out all her problems, go back to his body, and hopefully go home. To the living. But he found he had no idea what she was thinking. He had no special powers. “My dad was a prick. Nothing like your dad, I suppose. He looks like a good guy in the pictures. You’re lucky. I mean, he may be dead, but while he was here, he loved you. Right?” He was just guessing, filling in the blanks. But she had so many pictures of him. She missed him. He had no pictures of his father anywhere. So her dad must have loved her.

Julian sat down and leaned back on the velour rollback couch. He scanned the ceiling, hoping for a cue from someone celestial—a guardian angel or something. “Now what? Now what? What the hell does ‘discern what she needs to do’ mean? Christ, I miss my life. I even miss my obnoxious sidekick, Frank. I wonder how he’s doing. I wonder if my mother and father even bothered to come to the hospital.”

Kate rolled over and stood up. She had the remote for the CD player in her hand.

“Shit. Don’t play that song again, Kate. Put on something cool…something upbeat. Something that will make you smile just a little bit.”

Julian stood and followed Kate over to the stereo system and said, over and over again, “Something happy. Play something happy.”

He repeated it ten times, twenty, thirty.

“Play something happy. Play something happy.”

He kept at it, and then he watched in amazement as she stopped, her finger poised on the “Repeat” button for that hopelessly depressing Stevie Nicks’s song. Kate looked conflicted, and she bit her lip. Then she started running her fingers over her CD collection, her lips moving silently as she read the spines of her CDs, looking for something.

“That’s it,” Julian urged. “Pick something else. This is so cool. Like you can hear me.”

He was inches away from her face. He reached out his hand to touch her, but she didn’t flinch. He could feel her skin, could tell he was touching her, but it didn’t translate to his senses in the way things had before he got to Neither Here Nor There. Julian took his hand away and looked at his own fingertips. He didn’t feel warmth or coolness, but instead a vague numbness, like he had been shot with Novocain through his whole body.

He leaned still closer to Kate, close to her ear, and whispered again, “Choose something happy.”

He watched as her face crinkled into a smile. Her eyes grew shiny for a split second.

“Here it is,” she said aloud. She took a CD from the shelf, opened it, and pressed a few buttons until the CD player came to a stop on the ninth song.

A bass being plucked. A little jazzy sound.

“What the hell is this?” Julian asked. “Christ, girl, have you ever heard of the Sex Pistols, the Clas or the Who? What is this shit?”

Then a voice, unmistakable, began singing the tune, “Fly Me to the Moon.”

“Sinatra? Frank Sinatra?” Julian looked at Kate. “I asked for a happy tune, but Sinatra?”

He studied her face as she smiled and then hummed, and then even sang a line or two. She swayed.

“This makes you happy?” Julian asked her, knowing no response was forthcoming. He decided being her caseworker was like being a detective. He looked up toward the ceiling, assuming he was speaking to the Boss, wherever She was. “You know, it would be a lot easier if you would just let me talk to her. Let her have a vision or something. Let me ask her stuff.”

He received no reply. What did he expect, lightning bolts? A voice from on high? A chorus of angels?

Kate wandered over to the mantle, to the picture of the fireman in his dress blues. She ran her index finger along the top of the frame.

“That’s it,” Julian said. “Sinatra reminds you of your dad.” He was pleased with himself for figuring that out.

Kate stroked the picture. “Aw, Daddy,” she whispered. “I wish you were here.”

Then she moved over to the bookshelves and took down a photograph in a simple brass frame. Julian hurried to follow her, to try to see what this picture was.

But the photograph wasn’t of a human being. It wasn’t her father at all. Or the loser who’d cheated on her. Or even her missing dog. Julian looked over Kate’s shoulder. She was staring at a photograph of the New York skyline. Before September 11, when two towers rose high to the heavens soaring above the rest of the buildings.

“Is that how he died?” Julian asked her. “Is that how your dad died?”

Then he watched as Kate put the picture back. The smile disappeared, and soon she was crying all over again.

“Shit!” said Julian. “This is harder than it looks.”

Kate looked in the direction of a clock. “One a.m.” She sighed and walked over to her telephone. She punched in a number and said, “Hi, Helen. This is Kate Darby. I’m just leaving you a message that I won’t be in…today. It’s one in the morning. My apartment was broken into. I’m exhausted. I don’t have anything that can’t wait until Friday. I’m fine. I’m not fine, but don’t worry. I’ll see you Friday. Thanks.”

She hung up and then walked over to her couch. She turned off the lamp and the room fell into grayness, illuminated outside by streetlights. She lay down and curled into a fetal position. She sighed. Julian watched as her eyes grew heavy, and then shut, and her breathing fell into a rhythm of sleep. He sat down next to her. He shut his eyes. But then he realized—and he wasn’t sure how—but he realized he wouldn’t fall asleep. That he couldn’t. That he didn’t need to. Being a spirit was a 24/7 job. Spirits didn’t sleep.

“Damn! What the hell am I supposed to do?” He tried to visualize a beer. It didn’t materialize. He snapped his fingers and said, “Beer, please!” Nothing happened.

He stood up and walked around the apartment looking for more clues to her life. The sooner he solved her problems, the sooner he’d rack up some points in the Good column and hopefully get back to his life.

Her refrigerator was covered with pictures of herself and friends, including one chick with a punky haircut who was in most of them. He tried to open a drawer but found he couldn’t. He thought about it and guessed that if spirits could open and close things at will, the world would seem like one giant haunted house.

He went to the door and decided to practice walking through. Don’t hesitate was what Gus told him. Gus was an odd little fellow, but at least Gus could see him. Talk to him. Have a conversation. When Gus was with him, they had sailed right through the door.

“Here goes nothing,” he said aloud. His first attempt, he smacked into the door. He didn’t feel any pain though. The second time, he made a running start and burst right through.

“Yeah!” he cheered when he found himself standing in the empty apartment hallway. He faced the door of the apartment across the hall from Kate’s and decided to go be a voyeur in someone else’s place. Maybe he’d get lucky and see someone having sex. Live porn. Girl-on-girl would be even better. He looked up and down the hallway, thinking of the possibilities of sex behind every door. Life—if that’s what you called it—in Neither Here Nor There was starting to get interesting.

Walking through the door across the hall, he emerged in a small living room, the mirror image of Kate’s. A “man couch”—black leather—faced a flat-screen television. Two people, their backs to him, were watching a Law & Order rerun. An old woman sat close to a guy around his age, maybe late-twenties, early thirties. The Law & Order rerun was one with Lenny Briscoe—his favorite TV cop. The old woman looked up—stared right at him, in fact, and asked, “Who are you?”

“You can see me?”

“Of course I can.”

He walked over to the couch. “Can he see me?”

“No.”

“He’s the guy who lives here?”

She nodded. “He’s my grandson.”

“Are you a Guide?”

“No.”

“An angel?”

“Yes.”

“Where are your wings?”

“They’re a pain in the ass. Always getting in the way.” She stood, and he could see wings, all folded up, on her back.

“How come you’re here and not in Heaven?”

“Zack needs some help. His wife died over a year ago. Almost two years now. Tragic. Lovely girl. She was in a car accident. And it’s all this time later and still…he won’t go out. Won’t see his old friends. One by one, they’ve given up on him. Except one—Tony. They grew up together. Tony hadn’t been to church since I used to drag the two of them on Sundays when they were little. In Queens. That Tony…good boy. Now he works on Wall Street. Tony, he went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Prayed for help for Zack. My supervisor decided I was the best angel for the job. I know Zack. So, I’m working on it.”

Julian got a brilliant idea. “Well, now Grandma, I think we might be able to help each other.”

“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. He looked closely at her now. Her skin was luminous. But her hair was all white. He could tell she was old. Her voice was a little tremulous. She was wearing a baggy housecoat like the one his own grandmother used to wear. But her skin…it glowed.

“Look, I’m from Neither Here Nor There. I have no experience in this. I have absolutely no idea what the heck I’m doing. I literally started this job today.”

She winced slightly. “Tough job, young man. Usually you Neither Here Nor There fellows are short-timers. You either come out of the coma, or your situation, and go back to your bodies…or you go…you know, up or down. It’s not enough time to get a lot done. Me? I have eternity.”

“Yeah. Tough gig is right. So listen, I need to earn some points with the Boss. I’m looking for some solutions here. I don’t have time to sit around and watch TV, no offense.”

“Who’s your assignment?”

“The chick across the hall.”

“Kate?”

“You know her?”

“Oh, yes. She baked Zack some Christmas cookies last Christmas. Left them in front of his door in a basket. She sent flowers when Meg died. Lovely girl, Kate.”

“Yeah. So…come on, Granny. Let’s get the two of them together, and it will solve both our problems.”

“She has a boyfriend.”

“Past tense. Had a boyfriend. The creep cheated on her. With her best friend, no less. She’s a mess.”

“Poor thing.”

“And her apartment was broken into.”

“I know. A junkie looking for drugs or stuff to sell for drugs.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“We can’t intervene like that. We have to intervene in subtle ways—by comforting and giving strength, not by stopping a crime. I’m not the angel version of Kojak, young man.”

“Well, maybe you can just get Zack to…I don’t know…‘accidentally’ go to the laundry room at the precise time she does? Check his mail at the same time.”

“You’re talking Heavenly Coincidences.”

“Yeah.”

Zack’s grandmother looked over at her grandson. He sighed, shoulders slumped.

“It’s worth a try.”

“Thanks, Grandma. I’m Julian, by the way.”

“Okay, Julian. We’ll see what we can do.”

“I’d sure appreciate it…. Oh, and did you happen to see where her dog went?”

“The little Yorkie?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Well…if Zack just so happened to find her little dog, I think it would go a long way with her, you know. See what you can do. Check with some other angels. Somebody’s got to know where the dog went.”

He turned and walked through the door. It got easier each time he did it. He considered going to look for a couple having sex. But he thought better of it. What if Kate woke up? If she did something that could offer him more clues? He decided to sit next to her while she slept.

He walked through the door into her apartment. She was snoring slightly, nestled under her blanket. He thought the sound she made was kind of cute; not quite a snore, but a little sighing noise. He wasn’t sure why, but in Neither Here Nor There, when he was away from her, he worried. Like he had to be sure she was all right. He decided it was because he was still extremely freaked out by his nearly dead coma body, by being shot, by everything that had happened to him.

Tonight, he’d sit by her. Tomorrow night? Hunt for lesbians.

Night passed slowly. He had nothing to do but pace in her apartment and sit next to her and wonder what she was dreaming about. Occasionally, he’d drift to the window and stare out at the street—at life going on without him. He was unseen. Unheard.

Julian sighed. He never thought he would miss sleep. Hell, he had snorted cocaine to avoid sleep in his life. He couldn’t even turn on the television and considered going over to hang out with Grandma. But he felt strangely responsible for Kate. When the sun rose, and then she stirred near nine, he was excited. Even if she didn’t talk back to him, he could talk to her, and that was sort of like company.

“Good morning, Kate,” he said as she climbed out of bed. He watched her brush her teeth in the small bathroom off of the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the tub while she brushed her hair and pulled it into a ponytail.

“What are we doing today?” he asked, knowing she wouldn’t answer.

He followed her as she spent the morning and part of the early afternoon cleaning up after the break-in. She righted a knocked-over lamp, and put papers that had been strewn on the floor into a desk drawer. While she was at it, she dusted the furniture and organized her shelves. At lunch, she walked into the kitchen and ate a blueberry yogurt. He peered into her fridge. Yogurt, bottled water, wilted celery. He guessed she didn’t cook much. Then he realized he wasn’t hungry. So aside from not sleeping, that meant he didn’t eat in Neither Here Nor There. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had anything to drink since he got there, either.

The phone rang.

“Hi, Mallory,” Kate said when she picked up the receiver, after glancing at Caller ID.

From what he could figure out from only one side of the conversation, Mallory had apparently tried reaching Kate at the office. Kate blurted out about her now-ex-boyfriend, and Mallory then got a blow-by-blow of the entire sordid affair. The break-in. The missing dog. Kate curled her legs under her as she sat in a club chair next to the telephone. Julian flopped on the couch and waited. Women sure could talk on the phone for a long time.

After Kate hung up, the super for the building came and changed the locks. He said he was letting the other tenants know about the break-in, too.

Locks changed, place straightened up, next she made fliers of her missing dog. She printed them out on her computer. While she was in the photo files on her computer, he got a mini-slideshow of her life. She poised her finger on the mouse, considering deleting all the David ones. She didn’t. Then there were the Leslie JPEGs. Leslie and Kate at a bar, looking like they were having a blast. Leslie and Kate at some book signing. Leslie and Kate lying on a beach somewhere. Bikini shots. He liked those.

“She’s a bitch, Kate.”

Still Kate stared at the screen.

So he began talking incessantly. “Delete her. Exorcize her from your life.”

He watched as Kate’s index finger trembled slightly on the mouse. He leaned closer to her face. “Delete the bitch.”

Her face turned resolute. She clicked…and Leslie was gone. Poof. Off Kate’s computer.

“Holy shit, I can do it,” he said. “You can hear me. I know you can.”

Kate stood and walked to the window. The day had meandered toward early evening. Julian looked at her profile as she gazed down on the street. He tried to follow her line of sight, and realized she was staring at couples strolling near the park, hand in hand under the lampposts. A drag queen strutted by in a halter top and tight jeans, a piercing in her belly button. She wasn’t, Julian mused, an attractive drag queen. Her hands were manly and her face was, well…like a guy with a bad wig. Suddenly, she waved at someone coming in the opposite direction. She flew at a guy in jeans, flip-flops and a T-shirt, and next thing Julian knew, the two of them were making out on the corner.

Kate sighed. “Even the trannies have love.”

“Worse, even the ugly trannies have love. Time to get you out of this apartment.”

CHAPTER FIVE

TIME TO GET YOU OUTof this apartment, Kate thought to herself. Sitting here crying isn’t helping matters. She walked to her bedroom and opened her closet doors.

Her closet was just a few inches short of a walk-in—a rarity in Manhattan. The rest of the apartment was small, just shy of 550 square feet. Still, she was beyond lucky to have it. Her father had always been so cautious and insured himself through the New York Fire Department. Plus the settlement she and her mother received after his death. And then the money her grandfather on her mother’s side left her. She knew it was astounding that she had this place at all at her age, in this city. That she owned it—albeit with a hefty mortgage was even more astounding. She would have bought it for this closet alone—let alone the proximity to the park.

She began pushing aside shirts. No, no, no, they’re all wrong.

She frowned. What, exactly, was wrong with her clothes? She had never particularly cared. A jeans and T-shirt gal, she had been a tomboy growing up. Softball, soccer, field hockey. Her dad came to as many games as he could. Now, working in Manhattan, she wore pantsuits in black. Black. Black. Grey. Adventurous was the camel-colored one.

None of this stuff is sexy. You’ve got a great body, you need to show it off a little. Get playful.

She rolled her eyes and searched deeper into her closet, passing by white blouses. While she used to believe you couldn’t go wrong with a fitted white blouse, nothing dangling from the multitude of hangers seemed right. Then, way near the back, a low V-neck, fitted T-shirt with a funky Asian graphic on it. She never thought the shirt was “her,” but it had been a gift when her cousin Mallory went to Hong Kong on business. Mal was always the wild cousin, sneaking off at family gatherings to smoke cigarettes when they were fifteen, running off to Paris for six months after college to drink wine, eat cheese and make love with sexy European men—including an Italian soccer star.

Kate pulled the shirt out of the closet and held it up. With a pair of black jeans, it might be what she was looking for. Not that she knew what it was she was going to do beyond getting out into the fresh night air, away from her apartment. It was unsettling to her that someone had broken in. The super had come to change the lock already, but still, she was creeped out.

She pulled on the top and dug out a pair of True Religion jeans that fit her pretty well. She padded, barefoot, to the bathroom door, on which hung a full-length mirror.

There you go, Kate. Own it. You’re fuckable.

“Jesus!” she said aloud. “Where the hell did that come from? Too much wine yesterday.”

She brushed her teeth and, uncharacteristically, dabbed some lip gloss on her lips. She stared into the mirror. Her eyes were still puffy, so she shrugged and added concealer and then two coats of mascara.

“That’s better,” she said and smiled.

Walking through her apartment, she grabbed her keys, and tucked them and three twenties into her pocket, grabbed some fliers and some tape, and headed out the door.

Even on the way down the stairs, she had no real idea of where she was going, an aimless feeling completely unfamiliar to her. She taped some fliers in the laundry room and next to the mailboxes, and then by the stairwell. Then she burst through the building’s front door like a second-grader on the first day of summer, and a warm breeze stroked her face. It almost felt like a man’s fingers gently touching her. Feeling unexpectedly buoyed, she set off toward her favorite pizzeria to grab a slice and a Diet Coke.

At the corner, she headed east to Gino’s, passing countless NYU students in T-shirts and shorts. Even in summer, the university had plenty of students filling the sidewalks and pizza places and bars of Greenwich Village. Gino’s was a favorite haunt, and the place stayed open nearly twenty-four hours, taking advantage of late-night student munchies. She walked in, the bell on the glass door tinkling slightly. The scent of fresh dough and tomato sauce caused her stomach to remind her that all she’d consumed in the last twenty-fours was yogurt and wine.

“Hey, Carlos,” she said to the owner. He had long ago explained to her he bought the place from Gino and kept the name. “Two slices. Burn ’em. And a Diet Coke.” She sat down at the long bar.

Carlos, of the smoldering dark looks, black eyes and rock-star bald head and earring, stared at her.

“What’d you do, Kate-Baby?”

“Hmm?” she asked.

“What’d you do? To your face? New haircut? Something.” He leaned back and folded his arms across his muscular chest. His tattoo of Jesus on a cross flexed along with his biceps.

“No,” she said, puzzled.

It’s the shirt. Told you. Nice rack.

“What is it?” Carlos asked again.

“Hmm?” She shook her head to quiet this suddenly obnoxious inner voice. What the hell was in that wine last night? They were breasts, or even boobs. But never a rack. What was wrong with her?

“Maybe it’s my breasts…um…shirt.”

Carlos nodded appreciatively. “You should wear it more often, angel.” He propped his elbows on the bar and leaned forward.

Kate felt herself flush. Carlos was one of those guys that it would never, in a million years, cross her mind to date. He oozed sex. Right down to the ever-present bulge in his Levis. She had never been one for meaningless sex, no “friends with benefits.” That was Mal’s thing.

“Okay,” she heard herself say.

The slices came out of the oven, burned the way she liked them. She bit into the gooey cheese and promptly burned the top of her mouth, causing tears to spring to her eyes. She quickly took a sip of ice-cold soda.

“Burn your lips, angel? I could kiss them for you.” Carlos winked at her.

Oh, for God’s sake. Is that the best this grease-ball can do? Finish up and head out the door.

Kate blew on her piece of pizza, and ate it, savoring the perfect combination of cheese, crust and tomato sauce. Carlos continued to flirt with her, and Kate made a mental note to drag out the shirt from Hong Kong more often. She didn’t want Carlos so much, but the attention was rather nice. After last night with David, she had wondered if she was pathetically unlovable.

She finished her pizza, paid her bill with a twenty and waved goodbye to Carlos, who was, typically, onto his next flirtation.

Kate strolled home, starting to feel a bit better. She stopped in Washington Square Park to watch the speed chess players. Sometimes she played a game or two, but this evening, as dusk settled over the sky, she was content to watch. On one end of the park stood one of NYU’s buildings, its deep purple flag flapping in the summer breeze.

She was an NYU alumna. She remembered wistfully looking at the university and knowing there was no way her family could afford it. But her father worked his off days as a carpenter for his uncle’s construction company, and saved every dime. Between that, grants and student loans, she’d been able to attend her dream college.

Three in-line skaters went past. A guy strummed a guitar, playing, she listened carefully, a Radio-head song done as a slow acoustic number. She saw a few skateboarders, more students and a few people in professional clothes, eating take-out dinners. She loved the park.

She walked the rest of the way home and entered her building and then climbed the staircase to her apartment.

As she started down toward her door, she saw the guy from across the hall holding Honey.

“Oh my God.” She felt a sob escape and raced toward her dog.

“Found her just sitting on my doorstep about fifteen minutes ago when I went to do the laundry. Just sitting there, looking up at me. Patiently waiting.”

He placed the now wriggling little dog in her arms, and she could feel Honey trembling—what she always did when she was excited. Her little tail was wagging, and she “yipped” once.

Tears in her eyes, she spontaneously hugged her neighbor. “Thank you, Zack. Thank you so much.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said modestly.

That’s right he didn’t.

“Oh, but you have no idea. I was just lost without her.” She kissed her dog on the nose.

Dog germs.

Kate furrowed her brow.

“What?” Zack asked her.

“Nothing. I…I just have been out of sorts. Don’t know if you heard—my apartment was broken into.”

“I did. I’m really sorry. You know, if you ever need anything, or you’re just…scared to go into an empty apartment, knock on my door and I’ll check around the place for you, or whatever. Anything you need.”

He looked down awkwardly, but she touched his arm. “I will. Thank you. I mean it.” She squeezed his arm slightly. He was so handsome, she thought, and it was such a shame about his wife.

Holding her dog, she turned to enter her apartment. Once she shut the door, she set down Honey, who proceeded to run from one end of the room to the other, yipping and barking.

Shut up.

Honey barked insistently, almost like she was trying to tell Kate something.

“Why are you barking? That’s not like you, Honey. I bet you were so worried and scared when you saw the robber. It’s a good thing you were just lost and he didn’t hurt you.”

Honey moved toward Kate, but seemed to look past her, focusing upon one spot and yipping incessantly.

Go away. Tell the dog to be quiet. Tell it.

“Hush, Honey. What are you barking at? Was the robber there? Can you smell him?”

The dog wouldn’t budge from the one spot. Kate reached down to reassure her little dog. Honey quieted, but still stared, fixated on a spot on the ceiling.

Kate went to the kitchen and set down a bowl of food and one of water. “Come on, Honey,” she coaxed. “Don’t you want to eat?”

Honey still wouldn’t move. Puzzled, Kate walked over to her dog, scooped her up and carried her to her dog dish. Finally, Honey picked at the kibbles and drank some water, then she went over to her green plaid dog bed, turned around three times and settled in for a nap.

Kate walked toward the stereo.

Nothing depressing, Kate. How about the Clash? Or better yet, what about a shower?

Shrugging, she changed her mind about the music. She stood and shed her T-shirt, walking toward the bathroom.

Now this is more like it.

“I swear I need Prozac or something. Shut up!” she said to herself.

Not a chance. We’ve got things to do, Katie Girl. We’ve got things to do.

CHAPTER SIX

“WAKE UP, KATE. WAKE UP, wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!”

On night two, even after peeking into other apartments—and not finding any sex, lesbian or otherwise—Julian found himself next to Katie’s bed, longing for her company. Night seemed interminable again. His old life schedule was a collision of work and partying with odd hours here and there for sleep, as long as it didn’t interfere with his Patron consumption. He liked the 1800 Silver 80 Proof version, perfect for drinking neat. If there was a woman around to do a belly shot off of, even better. He loved licking a sexy belly button. He liked a woman’s stomach, that area below the belly button. He also, for some reason, was fascinated by a woman’s clavicle. Liked to lick along the bone, so delicate. Liked the hollow of a woman’s neck.

Face it, he thought, he loved a woman’s body, period. It was all the emotional shit he couldn’t handle. He stared at the hollow of Kate’s throat, wondering what it would be like to lick it. To kiss her.

Then he wondered what his own body was doing. His assassination attempt had to be big news. He wondered if Kate got the paper in the morning.

“Wake up, little Katie, wake up!” He started singing it, plugging in her name for “Susie” in the old song by Simon and Garfunkel.

He knelt down close to her and sang it in her ear. He watched as the flickers of a dream crossed her face like a shooting star. He had never been this close to a woman before—not in this way. Sex was different. Sex he’d had so close it was claustrophobic, like in the cramped bathroom on a flight from New York to London with a Swedish model. Or that time he had two women in the stall of the bathroom in CBGB’s before it shut down. He would also never forget the time he did it with the wife of his former station manager in the front seat of her Porsche Carrera. The stick shift kept ramming into his butt as she straddled him on top.

But close like this? Never. He didn’t cuddle after sex. He didn’t even like to kiss during sex. He liked it raw and fast with no talking—except for dirty words and moaning. The dirtier the better, frankly.

Kate rolled over, facing the middle of the bed, so Julian walked around to the other side and lay down next to her. He liked listening to her breathing because he felt so lost in Neither Here Nor There. It was contact with a human being. He had no idea how long he’d be stuck in God’s stupidly named in-between world. And he also knew he could find himself ending up there. In Hell, if he died. Or Heaven. One or the other. But he preferred to go back to living in the real world. Where there was Patron tequila. And people who could see him.

“Wake up, little Katie, wake up!” He started singing again. Louder and louder. And finally she stirred. He leaned up on one elbow, thrilled for the company.

She stretched, yawned and punched her pillow. Then she sat up and stared at the clock and groaned.

“God,” she exhaled. “Four in the morning and I wake up with a song stuck in my head. Shut up!”

She punched the pillow again and then flopped backward.

“Don’t go to sleep, Katie Girl. Sit up. Talk to me. Come on. Talk about anything.”

She stared up at the ceiling in the half-darkness—the illumination from the clock radio and city lights outside kept her tiny bedroom a deep gray. She had managed to get the mattress back on her bed that morning. Julian had watched her struggle, unable to lend some muscle.

“Aren’t you happy Zack found your dog? And you can get a new TV. Now we just have to get you over this boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Kate, you should have deleted his picture. Don’t agonize over this guy, this jackass who screwed you over. He’s not worth it.”

He’d had so many one-night stands, he’d lost count. But he wasn’t misleading. He didn’t need to lie to get women, and he had no problem with saying it was for sex and nothing more—not looking for a relationship, I don’t need your number, let’s not do lunch, there’s the door. But he didn’t lie.

He watched her, finding the entire voyeur experience strangely erotic. At the same time, she was his only companion, unless you counted Grandma across the hall, and right now, he needed Kate.

Her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling.

“What are you thinking?” he asked her.

She was silent for a few minutes as he studied her. And then she whispered aloud.

“God? It’s me. I…know you aren’t Santa Claus. I can’t just make a wish and have it all get better. But it’s been a really hard few years. First Daddy. And then Mom marrying that money guy. I’ve tried to like him, God. I honestly have, but he’s…not my dad. Maybe that’s what’s so hard. He’s nothing like my dad. Not heroic. Not handsome. Not funny. Not anything. He’s like striped wallpaper. You barely notice him.”

Julian saw she had clasped her hands together on top of the blanket like a small child saying bedtime prayers. Not that he knew anything about that. He hadn’t ever prayed in his life, he didn’t think, which made his recruitment for this job all the more ridiculous. He wasn’t even agnostic. The very word implied someone who had given some thought to the question of whether or not there was a God. He hadn’t. Not ever. He was nothing. Not an atheist. Not an agnostic. Just apathetic. When would the Boss understand that and let him get back into his body and wake up?

Kate whispered again, “And David. I…feel like my guts have been literally ripped out from me. When I saw them together, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even think past the pain. I don’t think I want much, God. I am truly, truly thankful for the material things I have, the roof over my head, my health, a profession I adore, all of it. But to find someone who loves me. Deeply and totally and all of me. Is it impossible? Is a soul mate impossible?”

“You know, Kate,” Julian said, “if you had told me last week that I would believe in soul mates, I would have said you were fucking nuts, but…this whole cosmic thing going on? Maybe God does exist and does know what He…She’s…doing. Maybe there’s someone out there for you.” He filled in his half of the conversation in the pauses.

“I can’t sleep, God. It’s like I hear this constant chatter in my head. It’s driving me nuts. I know it’s the stress of it all. At least I think it’s stress. I don’t want to go to work next to Leslie. It makes me want to throw up. On the good-news front, I have lost six pounds since this whole thing started—even after eating pizza. The stress diet.”

Kate pulled the covers up. “Please let me fall to sleep, God. Otherwise I’ll be so tired and will look horrible and Leslie can have the last laugh knowing David picked her and I’ve become a hag.”

Leslie, Julian decided, needed to be put in her place. And there was no way Kate was going to do that tired and stressed. “It’s okay, Kate. I was just…bored and lonely. I’m sorry I woke you. Go to sleep.”

He touched her cheek and watched as her breathing grew more shallow. Finally, she drifted off.

Now what?

He climbed from her bed and wandered into the living room. There were no phones in Neither Here Nor There, so what was he supposed to do if he had a question?

“Gus?” He said it loudly. “Gus!”

Nothing.

“Fuck me,” he said. Pissed at Gus, and at God for that matter, he sat down on the couch and waited for dawn. He wanted answers. Like when or if he was going back to his body.

He looked down at his arm. It looked like his arm—the same arm he always had—but when he touched it, he barely felt it. The tattoo of a heroin needle mocked him. He used to love heroin. Love and hate it. He’d be the first to admit he had abused his body, but now he wanted it back. If he could talk to God, wherever She was, he’d tell Her that he’d take better care of himself. A little less Patron, a little more broccoli.

He leaned his head back on Kate’s couch. What did he miss about his body? He’d discovered that the longing for heroin never goes away completely, no matter how long you’ve been clean. He craved, constantly, the euphoric sense of well-being, or floating. That place where everything was like a slow-moving bubble of warmth. Coming down from it, every muscle, every inch of him, hurt. Even his eyelashes hurt. If Gus was right and the universe was made up of strings, in a quantum sense, his particles hurt. Every neuron, proton, every cell.

He hadn’t gone to rehab. Instead, after an on-the-air rant in which he’d said some things that even for his show were pretty outrageous—and after the FCC scandal of it, the fines, the firestorm of criticism, he’d been taken off the air for thirty days. And in those thirty days, he and his producer had holed up in a hotel in Costa Rica, near the rain forest. He’d never gone through such pain in his life. Every day, an ancient native woman visited and brought him an herbal concoction to drink that their guide swore by. Julian sweated and cursed. At one point his producer, Frank, had literally tied him to the bed.

He emerged from that jungle hotel a couple of weeks later, clean but not sober. He drank more heavily, partied harder, screwed more women, chasing the demon of heroin.

Julian sighed. Then, with startling clarity, he realized that he didn’t want heroin. Or Patron. He had lost his earthly cravings. It was as if this lion he wrestled with every day for the last several years had suddenly turned into a kitten. The desire for heroin was completely gone.

“Okay, Boss.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Nicely done. If I could be this way and be back in my body, though, that would be the key. I miss sex. I miss touch.”

Suddenly, from Kate’s bedroom, her clock radio blared an old Britney Spears song.

“Crap, Kate,” he yelled. “Don’t tell me you listen to pop radio garbage. The Ramones, baby. You need to listen to the Ramones. Or Pete Townsend. Or…well, we’ll work on song selection.”

He rose and walked into her bedroom. She was hiding under the covers.

“Come on!” he yelled at her, standing at the foot of the bed. “I’m sick of these four walls. Time to get out of here. Let’s see where you work. Where you go for happy hour.”

Eventually, after one more smack down of the snooze button, she rose and headed to the bathroom. As she undressed, Julian admired her naked form.

“Nice tits. Great ass, by the way. You must do squats at the gym. You know, you need to stop covering up.”

She turned on the shower until the tiny bathroom steamed up. She stepped into the stall and soaped up her body. He watched the way the water formed rivulets through the bubbles on her skin. Even without a scrap of makeup, her skin was perfectly clear.

He watched her and decided shower time might be his favorite part of the day in Neither Here Nor There. Oddly enough, he found himself erect.

“Okay…so, let me get this straight, I can still get a hard-on in Neither Here Nor There? But what am I supposed to do with it?”

Annoyed, he had to be content with watching her rinse her body and wash her hair. She emerged from the shower, cheeks rosy from the hot water, and proceeded to brush her teeth and towel-dry her hair.

“Now the clothes,” he said, following her to the closet.

As she slid hangers across the bar, he spoke, loudly and firmly, “No, no, not a chance, big fat no, what were you thinking? No, no, and no again.”

She put a hand on her hip and sighed. “What is it with me? I hate all of my clothes all of a sudden. Hate them!”

She reached way back in the closet for a skirt and flirty top. She held them up to her body in front of the full-length mirror.

“We can work with that,” Julian told her.

“Maybe since I’ve lost weight, this will fit better.” She scrunched up her mouth and wrinkled her nose. Julian thought she looked like a bunny.

“Put it on,” he commanded her, though he did like looking at her naked.

She padded to her dresser and pulled out a pair of panties.

“No!” he screamed. “No! No! No! Cotton briefs? No, Kate girl, no. Boy shorts, a thong, silk. Not that.”

He leaned over her shoulder and stared into her underwear drawer. Though he had seen lots of women’s underwear, he had never been privy to the mysteries of a woman’s underwear drawer before. He’d taken them off with his teeth, ripped off thongs and judged panty contests on his show. But a woman’s apartment—the way she actually kept her things—that he wasn’t familiar with. His underwear drawer was a laundry basket of clean—or semi-clean—clothes in his closet. Kate’s drawer was, he decided, without enough silk. There seemed to be a shortage of sexy. That would have to be remedied.

She sighed aloud. “Maybe these.”

She pulled out a cotton pair—but at least they were bikinis. Then a bra.

“We’re going shopping today,” Julian said. “I hope you have a high limit on your credit card.”

Kate dressed, fixed her hair, dabbed on makeup, grabbed a soft-sided briefcase and headed out the door with Julian close behind. He wondered if she took the subway. He loathed the subway. But, to his pleasant surprise, she walked to work.

Once in her office building, she made a beeline for the newsstand and coffee bar in one corner of the lobby. He said, “Buy a paper, buy a paper, buy a paper, buy a paper, buy a paper.”

Thankfully, she did. And as Julian soon discovered, he was front-page news: “Shock Jock Clings to Life.”

Well, he mused, at least he was alive. He hadn’t been shuttled down to Hell, or sent up to Heaven.

As Kate walked, Julian noticed more than one appreciative stare. So, apparently, did she. He saw her blush a little. The black skirt she wore fit her perfectly, about two inches above the knee, and she had on black heels with a strap around her ankle. Fuck-me pumps, he decided. The blouse was hot. It was colorful, sort of tropical, like a watercolor on silk. And she had her hair pulled up, but with some loose pieces around her face. He was ready for Leslie. And he hoped she was, too.

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