Valentine's Day Is Killing Me (10 page)

“How about if we go back to casual knowledge of each other until your nerves become steadier?” His smile made crinkles form at the corners of his eyes. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, and wasn’t about to kiss you…I was going to invite you to the theater tomorrow night, however…” He glanced around the apartment hallway and wrecked bathroom. “You may need a few days to collect yourself. The offer stands. But I promise to be discreet and not do anything that you might feel uncomfortable with. You set the pace. Is that fair?”

Jocelyn bobbed her head up and down while scrubbing her teeth into a lather.

“I’ll see myself out. Lock the door, and get your locks changed tomorrow, in case someone made off with your keys.”

Again, she didn’t speak, just mumbled agreement through frothing white paste. As soon as the front door slammed, she collapsed against the bathroom wall and took a very long look at herself in the mirror. She looked absolutely rabid.

Immediately peals of laughter echoed in the bathroom. Her hair was in wiry spikes, dark rings were under her eyes, she was literally foaming at the mouth—had almost been locked up, and now her professor wanted to date her? Oh, what a night!

Jocelyn paced to the living room, chewing on a toothbrush, but became very, very still as she glanced at the sofa. A five-figure mink coat was still slung over the arm of the furniture, and obviously not left there by accident.

Morning entered her consciousness like a sledgehammer. The alarm dug knives behind her eyeballs and gouged at limp gray matter that lay dormant within her skull. Jocelyn slapped the offending buzzer with such force that the clock radio fell off the nightstand. But she had to get up. Even with a splitting headache, she was well aware that her job didn’t allow for too much sick time, and she’d used up most of it during the semester for lectures and important research meetings.

She pulled herself to the side of the bed and sat up, groaning and holding her head in a vise between both palms. All right, she had to suck it up, pop some painkillers, and take this crap like a woman. First order of business, call a locksmith. Get that guy out of there while inhaling black coffee, and get dressed. Put on something understated and tasteful to go visit the professor, only to take his dead wife’s mink back to him—was the man crazy?
Were all men crazy
? Why, for the love of God, would she want to sashay around in a dead woman’s coat?

In the cold light of day, the gift seemed ludicrous, if not offensive. But she decided to keep her thoughts on the positive side, and would just assume that he’d meant it as a sentimental gesture—and that’s how she would return it.

Jocelyn strode to the closet; just thinking about the glaring lights in the bathroom delayed her efforts. She’d put on her little pink mohair sweater that Miss Kimmie suggested, and a little pleated black skirt, with some boots, understated silver stud earrings…yeah, she thought, snatching the items off hangers. This way, she’d look like a student, but wouldn’t mortify her professor by showing up in his office looking like the hoochie she’d appeared to be last night. This was a brand new day. Good riddance to Valentine’s disasters.

Within the hour, the emergency locksmith had arrived and changed her dead bolts on the front door and back door that led to the deck and side fire escape. All SOS messages to her AWOL female crew had been succinctly left and their cell phones and home voice mails, to no avail. Whatever. Tylenol was kicking in, so was black coffee. The only thing she had to do now was get on public transportation and make it downtown to work.

Sure, she’d be a little late, but at least she hadn’t called out. From this point forward, given the shaky state of affairs her academic career was in, she would be mindful of all the rules of her job. Now, she had to—especially since it seemed probable that this was the only career she had left.

Jocelyn thrust her body into a short, black pea coat, tugged on a sassy woolen cap and cocked it to the side, put on her lip gloss, and draped the expensive fur over her arm. She was on a mission. The sun was out, it wasn’t snowing, and she would not be denied.

As she sorted through the new tangle of keys, the phone rang and she dashed for it. If it was one of her girls, even though late for work, she had enough time to give her a good piece of her mind. But as she drew a breath to begin her tirade, a deep, male voice entered her ear.

“Marcus Dorchester, Esquire, here, from Dorchester, Upland, and Johnson. A mutual friend suggested I call you—am I speaking to Miss Jocelyn Jefferson?”

“Yes, but—”

“Good. I normally only take clients upon referral, and do not have a lot of time today—but can squeeze you in at eleven-thirty. Does that work?”

Stunned, it took a moment for all the tumblers to fall into place within her mind and engage her vocal cords. Either her best friend Jacqui had heard her SOS, thought she needed representation—in which case, she did, if Jacqui had pulled out the heavy artillery—or Professor Bryant could have sent the guy, also a good source of knowledge. Rather than give the arrogant voice on the phone the flip-off, Jocelyn mellowed her response.

“Okay. I can do that. But I only get a half-hour for lunch, and I’m already late, so how far—”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby at your job, you can download your version of what happened to me then, and I’ll be on my way. Thank you. See you at eleven-thirty, Miss Jefferson.”

The connection clicked off and Jocelyn stared at the telephone receiver. If a friend had sent this guy, and he already knew where she worked, then whoever called him must have thought it was worse than she’d imagined.

“Look, Ray,” Marcus barked into his cell phone. “I don’t have time to go around Philly visiting some chicken-head, ghetto-fabulous little—”

“You owe me, Dorchester,” Ray shouted back. “She’s not a chicken-head, just a sister that got turned around in a situation. I’m calling in my marker.”

A long sigh entered the phone, and Raymond Mayfield flipped it shut.

By the time she got to work, it was already nine-thirty
A.M
. She knew the boss would be breathing fire; she hated her floor manager. Jocelyn strode off the eleventh-floor elevator with her head held high. Today she would not be cowed. After the police station, what could some bleached-blond shrew with dark roots say to her, or do to her, that would engender fear? An attorney had called her house; this had to be serious. Today, the words,
You’re fired,
would only make her laugh. Margaret was not Sir Donald!

She pushed through the double glass doors of their telemarketing suite and tried to smile at the receptionist.

“Hey, Gail. I know the boss is probably having a coronary, but I had a mini-emergency this morning.” Jocelyn lifted the expensive fur. “Can you put this in the locked closet for a sister?”

“Sheeit,” Gail said, standing and almost toppling her coffee. She snatched off her headset and let the phone console light up with waiting calls. “Gurl! I’da been late, too, suga.” She accepted the coat, held it out, and then pressed it up against her short, plump frame. “Oooooh, chile! Let Miss Thang be mad, plus he sent you roses this morning, too? Whatcha work on that man, mojo? Humph!”

“What?” Jocelyn shook her head and laughed. “This was left at my house by accident—I can’t accept the gift, long story, and—”

“You lost your mind?”

Gail was so indignant that she thrust her chubby arms into the coat and twirled around, making Jocelyn laugh harder, despite the headache. It swept the floor, looking like a huge rug on Gail’s four-foot-eleven frame.

“All I know is, he sent flowers, too—so whatever you did, girl, was da bomb.” Gail strutted over to her wide, walnut reception desk, still wearing the coat, and handed Jocelyn a crystal vase.

Jocelyn whipped off the already opened card.

“Girl, read it,” Gail said, giggling. “It says, ‘Thank you for an adventurous, delightful evening.’” She did a little dance in the coat. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I wanna know what you did that rocked a man’s world where you came out holding mink and roses in the morning? Tell me, whatchu do?”

Jocelyn closed her eyes, threw her head back, and laughed. “I didn’t do anything but nearly get arrested.”

“You had him screaming that loud, or was it you that made the neighbors call the cops? Daaayum, chile, you was wurkin’ it, wasn’t ya?”

“Well,
somebody
around here should be working,” a tight voice said from the hall leading to the cubicles. “The front-desk boards are going crazy, as am I!” The office manager strode forward, her mouth a tight line of fury. “You are so late and so docked, Miss Jefferson. This goes on your record, you are written up—because a family emergency was obviously a lie. The coat and roses tell it all. Do you think we’re here to play games, or that your job is some kind of joke? We do not pay you to strut in here late and disrupt the flow of our activities because you had some sort of wild night on the town. You have two minutes to be at your desk, with your headset on, and dialing for dollars.”

The storm came and went so quickly that Gail and Jocelyn had barely blinked. Gail took the coat off quickly, and yanked open the closet, but hung it up with care.

“Somebody obviously didn’t get laid for V-Day,” Gail whispered, and then winked at Jocelyn, rushed over to her, and gave her a discreet high-five. “But my gurl did!”

They both covered their mouths and laughed as Jocelyn ran away from the reception area, not bothering to take the flowers with her. Why rub salt in the wound? The professor’s note was kind, but really pushing the borders of laid-back casual. Now she would have to root in the bag of garbage he’d collected, just to see what had blown that older brother’s mind. Then again, don’t ask, don’t tell was also a good policy. She did not wanna know, oh!

Two hours slipped by in an uneventful haze. The normal suspects who would have approached her desk, showing off diamonds and flowers, said nary a word. Nods of respect greeted her as she’d passed cubicles. How odd. How twisted. This made no sense. As she worked, Jocelyn allowed her eyes to scan the desks. Soon, she understood how this very sick game was played. She had
roses
in the lobby. Roses, with a capital R. Huge, blood-red, long stemmed beauties separated by fern, baby’s breath, and swathed in crystal, and with a big red bow, whereas the others had cutesy mini-sprays or bunches delivered with no vase. Then she realized that full-length mink worth twenty-grand-large beat any tennis bracelet or one-karat studs, any day.

It was so sick. She began scribbling notes to herself in the borders of her computer call list. This was a weird female phenomenon created by male-dominated industries. Yes, she would use this as a lab experiment. She had been in the control group before; now, a variable toxin was added, a new materialistic drug…hmmm…and the pathology that spun off of that was truly insane.

Doodling away, she rattled off the spiel that she knew by heart, no longer needing the script. But when she saw Gail racing down the aisle, she hurriedly clicked off the next call.

“Gurrrllll…. Ohmigod, you didn’t say how fine hewas! Oh, chile, Lord have mercy, I can’t breathe—you were on the phone, so couldn’t buzz ya, but he’s in the lobby, standing six-something, cold-blooded gray chesterfield, briefcase. Lawd, the man has a job—and, oh, girl, he smells like a million bucks! Where’d you find him?”

“My attorney—oh, shoot, I’m late!”

“He’s an attorney—you snagged a lawya, ohmigod!”

Heads pivoted, necks craned, Jocelyn was on her feet in seconds racing for the lobby. But she came to a dead stop when she spied what Gail had seen, and she grabbed Gail’s arm and dodged into an empty cubicle.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, he’s fine—Gail, ohmigod, what should I do?”

Gail was shaking her by both arms and whispering through her teeth. “Do what you did last night, girlfriend, and knock him dead—rock his world, lose your job—he can get you another one or can pay your bills!”

“No, no, no, you don’t understand—”

“Oh, right, yes I do—not too much, string him out. That’s how you got him to fall by for lunch. He’s looking at his watch.” Gail dipped her head out and huddled back to Jocelyn. “He’s on the phone. Tapping his wrist. Dude wants some more bad, brother is out there jonsin like a crack addict—just—”

“Not another word,” Jocelyn hissed. “Cover me with Margaret and I’ll owe ya for life.”

“Done!” Gail said, and then skipped out to the lobby. She slid behind her desk and into her chair with a wide smile. “Mr. Dorchester, she’ll be with you in a moment.”

Marcus Dorchester snapped his cell phone closed. This was why he hated doing charity cases. People who got everything for free had no sense of time, or what time was worth. If he and Raymond hadn’t gone back to the old days together, this appointment would never have made his Palm Pilot. In fact, screw old ties; he didn’t have it in him today to wait on some airhead drug-dealer’s girlfriend. He didn’t even take cases like this!

Beyond words, he picked up his briefcase, about to tell the receptionist he had to leave and to simply flip her a business card, when he looked up, stopped, and set his briefcase down very slowly. Good Lord in Heaven…he’d owe his boy, Ray-Ray, until the end of time. No wonder the man couldn’t lock her in a cell and throw away the key. Jesus…an angel had appeared in the lobby. He tried to keep a professional expression on his face, but her skin just asked to be scanned…honey-butter-almond, big doe-brown eyes, black silky lashes, hair like shoulder-length velvet, hiding behind a pair of conservative glasses that made the little pink sweater she wore all the more sexy…like the hot-pink bra strap with little white hearts peeking out at the shoulder did…all the way down to her long, curvaceous, black-tight-clad legs, sneaking thigh beyond the hem of a black pleated micro-mini. All legs.
Just slap him
.

“Why, hello,” Marcus Dorchester said, extending his hand.

“Hi,” Jocelyn said, shyly. “Thanks for coming here, and I’m sorry it took me a moment to get away from my desk.”

“No problem,” he said. “We should do this over lunch, anyway.”

Jocelyn glanced at the clock and at Gail’s wide-eyed signals to go for it. “I only have a half-hour.”

Marcus Dorchester flipped open his phone and speed-dialed his office. “Linda, clear my appointments for the next two hours.” He flipped his phone shut.

Gail covered her mouth and ducked her head down to stare at the phone lines that weren’t being answered. Jocelyn’s eyes widened.

“Either your future is important to you, or it isn’t,” Marcus said with authority. “Tell your boss an emergency came up, because it did. Client-attorney privilege. I keep a table down at Twenty-One a few blocks up. Let’s sit where we can talk, and do this right.”

Gail let out a stifled squeal that made Marcus and Jocelyn simply look at her.

“Oh,
I’ll tell her
, Jocelyn,” Gail said with a broad smile. “Go to lunch, and act like you know.”

Jocelyn returned to the lobby, half angry, and half floating on air. She had never been lectured to so hard in all her life! The nerve! Oh, what a windbag. Fine, debonair, intelligent, clearly wealthy, with panache, but a
complete
jerk. She was losing faith in the species by leaps and bounds. Half of her wanted to just jump his bones, just to see what being wined and dined by a man like that would be like—the other half of her was like: Get a grip—not!