Improvisation (15 page)

“You two make a good team,” Glen said, an innocent expression on his face.

Jan frowned at him as she brushed by on her way to the door. “Let’s go,” she said, concerned because she had been thinking the same thing.

*

Jan picked up her phone for what felt like the hundredth time, and then she put it down again. Tuesday afternoon. Her classes were wearing her out as she dealt with frantic students trying to cram a semester’s worth of questions into less than a month of class, edgy seniors who knew they were only days away from freedom, and masses of projects and assignments to grade. No matter how prepared she was, the last few weeks of school were always stressful and unpredictable. A night out would be good for her. A night out with Tina would be even better. She felt the echo of the camaraderie they’d shared at the airport. The connection had felt good. Not just between her and Tina, but between Tina and her dad, too.

Her dad liked Tina. Maybe too much, because he was turning into as determined a matchmaker as Brooke. He had been mentioning Tina at every opportunity, suggesting Jan call her and have an evening out. Jan had argued at first, but now she was changing her mind. Missing Tina’s company. She could watch Tina play at O’Boyle’s. Challenge her to a rematch at pool. Maybe flirt a little. Maybe flirt a lot…What could it hurt?

Unfortunately, Jan knew exactly how much it could hurt. So she kept putting her phone away. But she also knew how she felt around Tina, and how much she longed to touch her. If she went into the night with no expectations beyond an evening of play and sex and fun, maybe she could come out the other side unscarred. Maybe…

She picked up her phone and punched in Tina’s number. A few rings later, Tina answered, the sounds of talking and laughter in the background.

“Hey you,” Tina said. Jan’s cynical side wondered who was with Tina, keeping her from saying Jan’s name on the phone.

“Hey yourself. I’m going to the pub tonight with Chloe. Any chance I’ll see you there?”

“No, sorry. I’m actually in Seattle. I thought of a cool idea for a website, and I came over here to pitch it to a couple of businesses. And to spend a few days in the big city.”

Jan forced herself to echo Tina’s laughter.
Why didn’t you let me know you were leaving Spokane?
she wanted to ask. But what reason did Tina have to explain her actions to Jan? “Sounds like fun,” she said out loud. “Well, have a safe trip back.”

“Will do. Talk to you later.”

Jan disconnected and leaned her elbows on her desk. She felt hurt that Tina hadn’t shared any of this with her. She hadn’t told Jan about her website idea, but why should she? Just because they had brainstormed together once and seemed in sync with their ideas, she had no reason to expect Tina to discuss any other work-related issues with her. And just because Tina was staying at her dad’s apartment, she had no reason to tell Jan when she’d be sleeping elsewhere. Jan dropped her forehead against her hands. No, the big problem wasn’t that Tina hadn’t told her these things. It was that Jan wanted to know. She had started to care about Tina—her life, her job, her thoughts—and that kind of caring would only get her hurt. Sexual attraction might be reciprocated, but not
caring
. She needed to remember that, if she was going to get through the rest of Tina’s stay in Spokane without losing her heart completely.

Tina stared at the phone in her hand. “You okay?” Brooke asked as she came into the kitchen.

“Yeah, fine. Some mockups for my cousin’s newspaper ads are ready,” Tina lied. She stole a stuffed mushroom off the tray Brooke pulled out of the fridge and followed her into the living room, where Andy and the other members of their quartet sprawled on various pieces of furniture. She had lied to both Brooke and Jan. Brooke, because she had been after Tina all day with questions about Jan, and Tina hadn’t figured out how to distract her from her matchmaking obsession. And Jan, because she couldn’t let her know how shaken she’d been after a simple breakfast with her and Glen. Watching their affectionate and playful interaction, bouncing ideas off someone intelligent and quick and understanding, feeling a little like part of a family. But a family unlike her own, with its complex web of responsibility and guilt and regret. That morning had scared the crap out of her, and she had run away like a chicken. And, damn it, all she wanted to do now was speed back to Spokane just for a chance to watch Jan play pool at O’Boyle’s.

She hadn’t been lying about her business meetings, however. Glen’s talk about planes had triggered Tina’s memory of her drive to Spokane. The angled blades of windmills, the arched wings of ducks sailing over her car to land in a lake on the side of the freeway, the curve of an airplane wing’s leading edge. She had gone directly back to the apartment and used some of Jan’s lesson-planning techniques to develop the outline for an entire PR package. A little research online had given her the names of several aviation-related businesses with poorly designed and hard-to-navigate sites. A few queries later, and she had lined up interviews with two aeronautical engineering firms. She’d use the hefty advance she’d received from the one she had finally signed to take Jan and her dad out for a nice dinner, as a thank you. Or, maybe, send them out to dinner without her. The safer option.

“Come sit by me,” David, the group’s cellist, said, with an exaggerated wink in Brooke’s direction when Tina came into the living room. He scooted over to make space between him and his partner Jonas. “I want to hear every detail about the evening you spent in a pub with Jan. You know we’re all rooting for you two crazy kids to get together.”

So Brooke was enlisting accomplices in her matchmaking battle. Tina could only think of one way to end the war. “The bar’s called O’Boyle’s,” she said as she sat on the couch next to David. “Jan came with her friend Chloe…”

*

Tina tapped her fingers impatiently on the table at O’Boyle’s, out of rhythm with the jazz combo playing on the small stage. She hoped the directions she had given Andy and Brooke were sufficiently convoluted, but her knowledge of Spokane was too limited for her to be sure. She was fairly certain she had them circling the airport on the way to the pub, and she’d have to count on traffic to buy her some time. Only a week after her visit to Seattle, they had called from just outside Spokane, on their way to a hotel. A last-minute wedding cancellation had given Andy a rare weekend off, and the two of them had decided to spring a surprise visit on Tina and Jan. Surprise inspection was more like it. Tina stood up and waved the moment she saw Jan step through the door.

“Is everything okay?” Jan asked as she shrugged out of her coat and sat across from Tina. “Your message sounded very dramatic, but when you wanted to meet in a bar…”

“Drink this, and then I’ll explain,” Tina said, sliding a shot glass filled with amber liquid in front of Jan.

“What is it?” Jan sniffed the glass and took a small sip.

“Oh my God. It’s a shot of whiskey, not tea with the queen. Just drink it.”

“You’re acting crazy,” Jan said, but she drank the whiskey in several gulps, stopping to cough after each one.

“Really? And you claim you went to college?” Tina asked with a laugh. “I’ll have to teach you how drink a shot someday, but we don’t have time now. Brooke and Andy are on their way here to surprise you.”

“Oh, how nice,” Jan said, setting the glass on the table. “I haven’t seen them since last Christmas when—”

“They think we’re dating,” Tina said. Might as well get right to the point. Jan looked at her with an expression of shock and disbelief. Should have gotten her two drinks, not just one. Tina pushed her own shot of whiskey toward her.

“Why would they think that?” Jan asked, gulping down half. Her shot-drinking ability was improving.

“I might have told them…Stop looking at me like that and let me explain. I saw them when I was in Seattle, and Brooke wouldn’t stop asking about us. So I had a great idea…” It had seemed like one when she was in a different city. Faking a relationship with Jan when they were a few hundred miles apart was easy. Sitting next to her and discussing a relationship? Distracting, to say the least. She should feel claustrophobic. Instead, she felt…
tempted
. And scared as hell. “Instead of fighting her on this, I let her think we’re going out.”

“You
lied
? You know how Brooke is. She’ll never let this go—”

“Would you talk less and drink more so I can explain? The way I see it, if we keep refusing to be set up, she’ll just keep pushing harder. But if we date for a few weeks, and it doesn’t work out, she’ll know we tried and will finally let us be. Brilliant plan, isn’t it? I’m a genius.”

Jan didn’t look convinced. She took another sip of Tina’s drink. “So how long do we have to keep this up?”

“I wasn’t expecting them to come over this weekend. I figured we would have had our fake breakup before we saw them in person again. You know Brooke. For all her meddling, she does want to make people feel comfortable. She’ll go out of her way to keep us apart if she thinks we’re heartbroken over a failed relationship.”

“Have you
ever
been heartbroken at the end of a relationship? How sad can you be after knowing someone two days?”

“Very funny. Fine, we’ll wait at least a couple weeks before you break up with me. That’ll teach me a lesson, after all these years of playing the field,” Tina said. She pulled her glass out of Jan’s hands and finished it off. She had been a mass of confused thoughts since Andy had called her a few hours earlier. The idea of pretending to be Jan’s girlfriend for a few hours had seemed uncomfortably appealing. Planning their breakup was more disconcerting than she liked. Telling Jan about the idea? Terrifying. “I should have ordered more of these.”

Jan flagged down a waitress and ordered more whiskey. “So, what’s our story?” she asked after the waitress left, their two empty glasses on her tray.

“The details are the same. Drinks in the Peacock Room, here, Coeur d’Alene…” Tina said, trying to remember the details she had given Brooke. “But we kissed.”

“When we were playing pool,” Jan said.

“When we were on the pier,” Tina said at the same time. She pictured Jan leaning over to take a shot. “Yours is better. I should have gone with that.”

“So…” Jan prompted.

“So? That’s all I said. We made out on the boardwalk, and we’re sort of dating. But it’s all so new, we’d been hesitant to share our news until Brooke and the others dragged it out of me in Seattle. Eventually we’ll fight and break up. Then we’re free,” Tina said. Where were those drinks?

“We made out in public? Romantic,” Jan said with a snort. “No wonder we’re breaking up.”

“Okay, I gave you a chaste peck on the cheek, then ran to a florist in Coeur d’Alene and bought you a dozen red roses and a heart-shaped box of candy. Last night we sat on the porch swing and held hands. Better?”

“You should have said it started here in the bar. I would’ve made out with you then. Hypothetically.”

Tina’s mouth was suddenly dry. Jan’s voice was casual, but her expression was anything but. Over and over, Tina had imagined their game of pool ending differently. It never occurred to her Jan might have done the same thing. She pictured Jan in bed, naked between the sheets, moonlight filtering in through her curtains…thinking of Tina. Touching the places Tina wanted to touch. Eliciting the responses Tina wanted to hear and smell and taste. Tina blinked, pushing aside the image of fantasy-Jan trembling under her touch and trying to focus on what the real Jan was saying to her.

“So tonight we’re expected to act like we’re…” Jan hesitated. “Dating?”

“Lovers,” Tina said.

“At what point does Mr. Roper come in?” Jan asked. She paused while the waitress delivered their drinks. “Something bad is going to happen. I’m not good at ad-libbing like this.”

“Well, we don’t have time to rehearse,” Tina said. She had been watching the door and saw the moment Brooke and Andy came in. “Here they are. Sweetie.”

“Did you call me
sweetie
?” Jan asked as she took both drinks from the waitress. “Can I change that, or did you already tell Brooke?”

*

“I’ve been warned you’re a pool shark,” Andy said as she chalked her cue.

Jan racked the balls and wished she had drunk more of Tina’s whiskey. After the first awkward moments when Andy and Brooke arrived, she had relaxed and started to enjoy what felt like a simple evening with friends, laughing and catching up on the news from Seattle. She had almost forgotten Tina’s ridiculous ruse until Andy had suggested a pool game. As if she and Brooke were trying to separate the happy couple and grill them individually. “I’ve been called a hustler, but we don’t need to bet any money on the game.”

Andy looked at her with that intense grin Jan had seen before. “Are you calling me chicken?” she asked, slapping a twenty on the table.

“Hey, if you want to lose your money,” Jan said, waving off the rest of the sentence. “Why don’t you break.”

The balls broke evenly, but nothing dropped. “So, you and Tina are dating,” Andy said, leaning against the corner of the table while Jan lined up her shot.

“Yeah,” Jan said. She smacked the cue ball with too much force. She sank the fourteen but had no second shot. “Stripes,” she said as she tapped the nine and buried the cue ball.

“Clever,” Andy said, walking around the table and looking at her options. “And when did this start?”

Something in Andy’s tone made Jan wary. She had to admit she wasn’t the most spontaneous of people. Sitting at the table with Tina’s arm across the back of her chair had been easy enough. Comfortable, while the three of them talked, even though she was overly conscious of Tina’s closeness. But, now, when she was expected to make up details under Andy’s all-too-perceptive gaze? Jan was about to break and tell all their secrets. Only Tina’s occasional glare, from where she sat at the table with Brooke, kept Jan from cracking completely.