L.A. Caveman (9 page)

"I think the idea of a 'balanced
picture' column is interesting, but it probably wouldn't work
because of your extreme feminism," he continued, blunt. He held his
hands out, palms up in a shrugging What Can I Do pose. "Unless you
make it entertaining to
my
readers," he emphasized the word
possessively, "it won't fly. But, I'll give you this much: I'll
give you back this week's column for you to change to show me what
you can manage in the way of 'balanced.' If I like it, I'll publish
it. If I don't," he gave her a grim smile, "you won't recognize the
column that gets published, even though 'Stan's' name'll be on
it."

He extended his arm stiffly and
formally offered her the white packet. She knew it was the offering
of a new "contract" between the two of them, an informal but
nonetheless binding agreement to work together in a new
way.

She thought about it for long enough
to cause Jake's eyes to flicker with impatience. She made him wait
another few moments just because she could.

She lifted her arm to accept her
column from Jake, sealing the contract.

She gave his grim little smile back to
him, her fingers tightening on her unacceptable column. Maybe she’d
gone a bit over the top. She could fix it. She had to try and
reform this man along with all his misguided readers for the sake
of the magazine and, well, for all womankind.

"I'll have it back to you first thing
Tuesday," she told him, turning to leave.

"By Monday morning, please," he
corrected uncompromisingly.

"Yes, boss," she grumbled, taking care
to sound appropriately disgruntled as she wheeled about. He
couldn't see her smile secretively down at her column. She wrote
quickly, and needed mere hours, not days. She wasn't about to let
him know that though, or how much she was growing to look forward
to debating with him.

The early evening light turned the
brown carpeting an orange-gold in front of the large window by the
elevators. Stanna waited alone for one of the sluggish lifts to
arrive, as everyone else had already trickled out. She leaned
tiredly against the wall, fatigued from the day's unexpected new
workload. It had taken her hours to tackle everything in her in
box.

Usually she was the one waving goodbye
to everyone. When Ian was here she'd certainly had it easier, she
realized.

The stainless steel doors finally
parted and she had to step aside as the vaguely unkempt
blue-uniformed cleaning people wheeled their equipment out of the
car.

For some reason she remembered what
Jake said about her not trusting men. It resonated in her mind the
way only the truth did. How interesting that Jake, a man she barely
knew, would call her on it.

But she had to modify his statement
for accuracy. She didn't trust men in relationships. Outside of the
man/woman love-bond, she trusted them fine. In fact, when she'd
rebelled as a child against her stepfather's overbearing,
narrow-minded chauvinism, the word 'tomboy' best described her. At
age eight, she didn't know she was different from other girls, she
just knew she liked climbing trees, building forts, and playing war
with the neighbor boys. At sixteen she’d had more guy friends than
girl friends. Her emerging grace and improving looks created some
awkward moments when many of the guys developed crushes on her.
She’d never dated any of them, and her impartial sisterliness
salved their egos. They even remained friends. As a benefit of
those friendships, Stanna got the inside scoop on men's behaviors
regarding women.

She knew the schemes and devious,
selfish goals that made up the typical man's mind regarding women.
To an extent, they couldn't help it. It was just the way they
were.

When a relationship surpassed
friendship, men couldn't be trusted. If she didn't already know
that from her supremely typical stepfather dominating her meekly
acquiescing mother, then she'd discovered it in later years
firsthand.

Jake knew she didn't trust men, but he
didn't know the biggest reason why.

She wondered what Jake would say if he
knew. If she told him about the dream that haunted her in words
whispered from her mother’s deathbed: “Chase your dreams, and never
slow down for any man. He’ll catch you and keep you, and you might
be content from time to time but you’ll never be happy. I
know.”

It was a well-meaning chauvinist who
kept her mother from achieving her potential. Her own stepfather.
He'd suppressed her mother’s desire to sing in a country band,
something she'd done while married to her real father when Stanna
was a young child. After his disappearance, her mother seemed to
almost revert to childhood herself in her grief and helplessness,
and old Ray, her stepfather, stepped into the picture.

Ray wasn't even a bad man. Just a
typical one. He was a good stepfather, paying for her college
education and providing for them both. He was kind, in a distant
way. But he had no concept of how a good woman could have ambition
to match a man’s. She remembered his comment once when she'd
visited them on a school break: "Any luck on that MRS degree?" The
crazy thing was, he'd asked in the same tone as one would ask about
any noble cause, with full seriousness and interest in her answer.
When she'd launched into a tirade about equality and chauvinistic
attitudes, he'd just laughed.

Her mother was gone now, and her dream
with her. Stanna vowed she would never let a man do the same to
her.

Her history wasn't exactly flooding
over with boyfriends, but that was by choice. The few she'd
consented to dating didn't inspire too many romantic thoughts. The
men who interested her now had one thing in common. They were
convenient, safe, and predictable. They didn't challenge her or get
in her way.

Only once had she danced with a devil
who’d challenged her, and the resulting scars on her heart cured
her for once and for all against such folly.

What really annoyed her, though,
Stanna thought as she exited the elevator car and strode towards
her battered station wagon, was that the "good" kind of man, the
sweetly sensitive, fun, understanding guy, was so often insipid. Or
gay.

She was obviously meant to remain
single.

Jake concluded his night meeting with
the ad agency representing one of
Men's Weekly's
biggest
advertisers.

It had gone extremely well.

He felt his blood pounding quickly
through his veins as the mirrored elevator closed and began sinking
slowly to ground floor, and managed to restrain his shout of
triumph until he was well out of earshot of the ad executives. Then
he let her rip: "Whoooo-hooooo!" He did a two-second silly dance,
wiggling his butt, until the elevator bumped ground and the
mirrored doors parted to reveal the decadently appointed lobby. He
grinned at the desk-bound security guard and strode out into the
warm Los Angeles night.

"
They like me, they really really
like me!"
Jake couldn't remember the Hollywood actress who
first uttered those plaintive words, but for him it would be,
"They like my magazine, they really really like my
magazine!"

The agency had agreed to buy ad space
in
Men's Weekly
based on his pitch tonight! Anyone in
publishing knew the meaning of such a coup: ad agencies represented
dozens of businesses, and were the strategists who decided where to
invest their clients' money. And they liked his new magazine focus.
They were excited about the niche market of red-blooded men wanting
the straight dope in plain language. They thought it had great
advertising potential.

Well, most of them liked it. He
remembered a few women in the meeting expressed discomfort with the
blatant macho-flavor of some of his planned articles. But even they
admitted there was probably a market for such things.

The circulation numbers and the
revenue would prove the bottom-line truth about the popularity of
the new
Men's Weekly
. He wouldn't have those numbers in for
a couple more months. But ad agencies had their fingers on the
pulse of pop culture. They could smell a winner. They had to, to
stay in business.

His magazine smelled good to
them.

He suddenly had the strong urge to
tell Stanna about it. The memory of her snapping gray eyes made him
want to rub the ad agency victory in her face.

Then he wondered what she was doing,
after business hours, and who she was doing it with. A beautiful
young blond on a Friday night pretty much had her pick of all sorts
of men. The thought bothered him a little, enough to dim his
satisfaction about the night's meeting. Stanna's chiseled pink
mouth pressed to another man's mouth. Just like
Jolene’s.

She could kiss whoever she wanted, he
didn't care. He was annoyed that he'd even thought of it. He
supposed it was a guy territorial thing. They'd tongued each other,
so now she was part of his mental harem. It didn't mean a
thing.

He climbed into his Jeep and enjoyed
the bass rumble of the souped-up engine roaring to life. As he
drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, he wondered if Stanna would go
out with him sometime. Her sweet body and hot-tempered mind
guaranteed an interesting evening. She probably wouldn't. She was
the type who preferred the tame, easily controlled, effeminate
type. The sort of guy who ate paste in third grade.

Why was he even considering dating
that ball-buster?

He had better things to think about.
Like planning the investment strategy of the agency money. Maybe
he'd buy a T.V. spot to promote
Men's Weekly
. Radio spots
and online ad campaigns. He could even afford to create some
marketing gimmicks like bikini contests or
Men's Weekly
nightclub themes for his readers.

The magazine was going to take Los
Angeles by storm, in print and online. Despite Stanna's doubts.
Jake felt excitement coursing through his veins. A big grin split
his face and the exhaust-laden night air whipped around him as he
accelerated.

Jake sped up the 405 on-ramp, easily
gaining freeway speed plus a little. There was surprising little
traffic. He looked at his car clock and found out why. It was
nearly midnight.

Jake idly wondered if Stanna was home
from her date, yet.

"They're all gay!" Stanna declared to
Telly. It was getting late night and they'd been trading
man-stories ever since Telly arrived home from a tedious drink-date
with yet another Mr. Wrong.

Ever supportive, Telly inclined her
head, with its fresh, spiky blond hairdo, in agreement. Then looked
up with a mischievous sparkle as she told her old joke: "'Why is it
so hard for women to find men who are sensitive, caring and
good-looking? Because those men already have
boyfriends.'"

Stanna smiled. "So much for the 'nice'
guys." But she added, "I just can't believe that the regular ones
can't be educated. Upgraded. Polished a bit so their attitudes and
actions with women reflect a brand-new spirit of
respect!"

"You're getting worked up, my dear.
That's good stuff, you should put it in a column."

"Jake won't publish it." Stanna was
gloomy.

Telly conceded as much. "But... since
when have you blunted your voice for any man?" Telly needled
effectively. Stanna felt anger rise, swamping her gloom. Telly knew
just what to say to raise Stanna's fighting spirit.

She found herself rising to her feet
resolutely. Telly was right. Write a boring old balanced column
that he'd rip to shreds anyway? No way. She wouldn't even blame him
for ripping it. Compromises were always pretty boring, and she'd
die before putting out a column that'd put people to
sleep.

He wasn't going to like the revised
column either.

But maybe… just maybe out of the
resulting argument she now expected, she'd be able to make him come
around to seeing things more her way. At least a little
bit.

Telly watched her go. Grinning at her
roommate's back, she wondered what would become of the Jake/Stanna
challenge. For that matter, she wondered what would become of the
Telly/Whoever challenge.

Her track record lately was pretty
dismal; she wasn't hooking up with any man she could tolerate for
even an hour, much less something lengthier. Tonight's ogre was
merely the latest in a series. Whatever gave men the idea that
sports bars and shouted conversation were appealing on a
date?

She remembered the way... Matt was his
name... Matt's spittle had gathered in the pond between his lower
lip and gums as he’d shouted his inane small talk at her. It had
held her attention, though. She didn't dare take her eyes off him,
for when he was especially emphatic, the spittle launched toward
her. She dodged spittle for half an hour before politely calling it
a night.

Perhaps she was looking in the wrong
places.

Telly's precisely plucked brows
slanted into a frown as she pondered.

Work was the logical place to meet
people. A person spent the bulk of their day there, after all.
Unfortunate for her how women and gay men made up the fashion
workforce. And after tonight, she could officially state that blind
date friends-of-co-workers didn't do it for her.