Planning for Love (14 page)

“What do you mean, the
official
story?” Gib asked. Without any prompting, he’d prepared a fresh drink and handed it to Ben.

“Doesn’t matter. Calhoun’s a hero, and I’m a laughingstock. Career down the drain.”

Sam shook his head and crossed his arms, his eyebrows drawing together into a thick, dark row. “Suddenly, I’m not buying that line. Look, I feel awful about bringing this up.”

“You should. Usually it takes a trailer hitch and a two-ton tractor to pull so much as the weather forecast out of Mr. Taciturn over there. You picked a hell of a moment to get chatty,” Miguel remonstrated. He pulled out a bag of chips and smacked it open with a loud pop.

“Hey, it’s not every day one of my personal heroes shows up for poker.”

Ben sipped his drink, reminded himself it was number two. Time to pace. He had no intentions of revisiting the drunken island of forgetfulness he’d parked himself on for a month after losing his job. No matter how tempting. “I’m no hero. If polled, I’m pretty sure a whopping, let’s see…
all
of America would agree.”

“Then they’d be wrong. I’ve seen every one of your documentaries. Brilliant work. You deserved those five awards. And you were robbed last year when you didn’t win for your piece on the families of drug gangsters in Rio. Can’t believe they gave it to a film on shark preservation instead. Come on, they’re sharks. Natural predator, right? Where’s the story there?”

Lewis rolled his eyes. Speaking around a mouthful of chips, he said, “You’ll have to excuse Sam’s babbling. He’s a bit of a news junkie. Since he spends most of his waking hours playing with chocolate and frosting, he’s a little bit scared of turning into a girl. He overdoses on news to compensate. Even made his parents install TiVo in the bakery.”

“There’s no shame in staying abreast of the news of the day,” said Gib. “You can’t rib Sam for being well informed.”

Miguel scowled and opened another bag of chips. “Well, make him stop fawning over our new poker player like he’s a friggin’ movie star. Ask for Ben’s autograph and be done with it already, man. I’m ready to play.”

“Go divvy up the chips if you’re so ready.” Sam pointed to the dining table without taking his eyes off Ben. “Shuffle the cards. Grab plates for the sandwich. But I’m not laying out an ante until we hear the rest of Ben’s story. If there’s more to it, you’ve got to spill. Don’t leave us hanging.”

Funny. Ben had spent the past eighteen months either being ignored, or treated like dirt once people recognized him. Now he’d found the one person in the country who respected his body of work. At least, the work he used to do. Doubtful Sam was a hardcore fan of
Wild Wedding Smackdown.
It felt kind of good. Reminded him who he used to be. The man he was proud to be. Too bad that sense of pride came as a package deal along with a double scoop of bitterness and pain at losing it all. Why not tell them what really went down? At this point, his day couldn’t get any worse. Ben took one final sip then set the glass on a bookcase and stepped away.

“Here’s the deal. I didn’t actually drop the camera and hide from the bullets. It was the kind of once in a lifetime moment you yearn for. Never, in a million years would I have dropped the camera.” Sucking in a breath and squinching his eyes shut, Ben paused before letting everything go. The shrink he’d blown off after two visits would be so proud.

“I passed out. Right before the first bullet. I was already halfway to the floor when all hell broke loose. The timing is so split second that it’s hard to tell unless you know what you’re looking for on the video. One of the Secret Service kicked my legs out of the way when he ran to protect Calhoun, which is why it looks like I’m curled in a ball.”

Miguel jerked his chin. “Healthy guys like you don’t just pass out.”

“Not too healthy. You should’ve seen him on the treadmill at the gym this afternoon, sucking wind.” Gib clutched at his chest and loudly gasped for air.

“That was after I’d swum laps for half an hour.” Irritation sharpened his tone. Ben had a feeling Gib wouldn’t let him live the episode down for the rest of his stay in Chicago. “Regardless of my current fitness level, Miguel’s right. A super-high fever made me pass out. Conveniently, none of the news organizations rolled tape of me being loaded onto a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance, still unconscious. They preferred to run with the sensational story of a hardened journalist dropping his camera.”

Silently, Lewis offered his bag of chips. Ben interpreted the gesture as an attempt at commiseration. Grateful for an excuse to step away from the heavy weight of their stares, he took it to the kitchen and dumped the contents into a bowl. Only a handful of people had heard his version of the worst day of his life. It didn’t exactly roll off his tongue. He needed a minute to brace himself for the next step, the inevitable, manhood-shriveling looks of pity.

Miguel and the others crowded into the kitchen almost immediately. Right. Now that they knew who he was, they probably didn’t want him at their poker game. He’d been kidding himself. After all, every one of his buddies in New York and D.C. dropped him. Practically overnight they’d frozen him out, both as friends and professionally. He couldn’t get another job for six months after being let go. Doors slammed in his face time and time again. Why would total strangers want the guy known around the world as “the Cowering Cameraman” sitting at their table? To his surprise, Miguel was the first to speak. He jammed beefy fists into the pockets of his cargo shorts.

“Finish the story.”

“Yeah. We can’t concentrate on the game if we’re worried you’re gonna give all of us Ebola or something,” added Lewis with a wink.

Ben snorted out a half laugh. Teasing he could handle “You’re not far off the mark. The week before, I took a couple days off and flew down to Brazil. My team helped expose a major player in a drug cartel. We wanted to film him being sentenced, to cap off the story. Felt good, watching his face as it sank in he’d spend the rest of his life in jail. The courtroom was filled with family members of his victims. Drug mules who died when balloons of heroin burst in their stomach. Innocent children caught in machine gun crossfire. Strung-out addicts who sacrificed their entire lives to feed their habit. Each family got to speak, to explain why this scum shouldn’t see the light of day again his entire life.”

“You were at the Perez trial?” Sam’s hushed whisper approached hero worship. “The man’s a monster. I heard it was an American news team that finally managed to catch him in a web of lies.”

“You heard wrong. We were with a multi-national team of drug enforcement agents from five different countries. They’d been trying to nail him for a couple of years. We just happened to be around when it all came together.” An understatement of gigantic proportion, but they’d all signed about fifty different confidentiality agreements. Chances were slim these Chicago wedding vendors would even know how to rat him out to the Bolivian government, but why risk it?

“Because I’d been to Brazil, the doctors had a list as long as my arm of funky tropical diseases my body could’ve been hosting. Ebola was about the only thing not on the table. For a while the contender was dengue fever. Nobody wanted to start a panic, so they locked down all information. Even my family didn’t find out I’d been in the hospital for a week until after they released me. Turned out the culprit wasn’t Brazil, but the senator’s recent trip to Colorado. I was the proud owner of a case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.”

“Sounds itchy.” Lewis wrinkled his nose.

“Don’t remember much of it, to be honest. By the time I fully surfaced, it was too late for damage control. I’d been branded the Cowering Cameraman. Got fired before I even regained consciousness.” That probably stung the most. Out of all the indignities, the name calling, the derision, he’d been astonished his producer hadn’t fought for him. Had bowed to public opinion even though he knew damn well Ben lay in a hospital bed covered in icepacks to bring down the stubborn fever. Fucking gutless wonder.

Gib’s jaw dropped to the floor, followed a second later by his butt dropping onto a white, wooden stool at the breakfast counter. “They sacked you? For being deathly ill?”

“More for looking like an idiot. It took me a month to recover, two months to stop being pissed at the world, and three more months to find anyone willing to hire me to hold a camera in any capacity.” Ben held his hands out, palms up, at his waist. “So ends my sad saga.”

Would they believe him? Or would they see it as a trumped up, stupid attempt at an excuse? Ben’s parents and sister believed him. Hard to argue with the facts presented when Ben showed up on his sister’s doorstep, so weak the doorman had to help him from the cab to the elevator. Or the hospital bills his parents helped pay because he’d been dropped from his insurance carrier. But when he’d tried to explain what really happened to a so-called friend at CNN, the guy laughed in his still hospital-pale face. Tried again two more times with worse results.

Didn’t matter, in the end. Ben knew better than to expect people to stick by him.
Nobody looks out for you but you
. Might as well be his family’s motto. Generations of divorces and betrayal seared that little saying into the Westcott family DNA. Why the hell had he even bothered trotting out the truth one last time? Ben figured he should leave now before they tossed him out. He turned sideways to slip between Miguel and Milo, but never made it to the kitchen door. Miguel straight armed him, fist out. It took Ben a second to adjust his perception and realize he was being offered the highest male accolade—the fist bump. Almost in slow motion, he bumped back.

“Dude, you got screwed. Proves you’re not from here. It never would’ve happened in Chicago.”

Milo nodded. “You’ll show them. When
Planning for Love
rockets to the top of the ratings and you get to go on Letterman and talk about your miraculous comeback, vengeance will be yours.”

Sam squished in between Milo and the refrigerator to clap his hand in a staccato salute on Ben’s back. “You can’t let the general ignorance of people get to you. You stood strong against adversity. Hell, maybe someday they’ll shoot a documentary based on your life. Reveal the truth to the world. Wouldn’t that be ironic?”

After rattling in the cupboard, Lewis slammed down a handful of shot glasses. “Bring it in, guys. We’ll do a shot for Ben. For getting a new job, and giving all those douchebags the finger.” Milo produced a bottle of Maker’s Mark and poured a round.

“Really? Is that truly necessary? You know I prefer to show my enthusiasm by a firm
jolly well done
. British reserve isn’t a cliché. It is an emotional chasm that cannot be overcome simply by living in America for five years.” But while Gibson rambled, he picked up a glass.

Lewis handed the shots out, then raised his in the air. “To Ben, and his comeback from one hell of a shitstorm.”

“To Ben.” Everyone else clinked their glasses and threw back their shots.

Ben couldn’t breathe. The small amount of air he managed to suck in made it abundantly clear that the wedding Miguel worked today lacked air conditioning of any sort. Lewis’s chip breath blasted in a straight line past his ear right to his nose. Sam’s weird adulation made his skin feel two sizes too tight. And when he woke up this morning, Ben certainly hadn’t anticipated doing shots with a man so flamingly gay that self-combustion at any moment was a real possibility. In the spirit of public safety, Milo really ought to keep a fire extinguisher in a waist holster at all times.

The show of emotional support weighted him down almost as much as gravity. Over the past year and a half, people had shown Ben their backs and slammed the door in his face. He almost didn’t know how to respond. Girls would cry and hug and swear eternal friendship. Talk the whole thing over twenty more times. Thank God none of them had ovaries. Knowing these men—strangers only half an hour ago—were all on his side? The equivalent of emotional jumper cables to his scarred psyche. There could be only one appropriate response. One way to break them out of this huddle before Ben gave in to the moist pressure behind his tightly clenched eyelids.

“Who’s ready to lose some money? I’m dealing first, and nothing’s wild. You’ve got to have the cards, or balls big enough to convince us otherwise. Ante up, gentlemen.”

Chapter Ten

Life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.

—John Lennon

Whenever the discussion turned to glass half full versus half empty, Ben always came down on the side of half empty. War, famine, cancer, terrorism, cheaters, liars, burnt coffee, burnt popcorn, jammed copiers, lookie-loo traffic jams, middle-of-the-night leg cramps…no matter how big or how small the issue, it was always easy to find a reason why life sucked. A rainbow in the sky translated to Ben as thousands of people who had just sat through an endless, rainy commute. Pregnancy spelled no sex, no sanity and no money for the next eighteen years. Four leaf clover in the lawn? Just a weed, and dandelions couldn’t be far behind.

Despite his life-long cynicism, Ben couldn’t complain too much about his new job. Juggling taping and his production duties over the other four teams out shooting meant crazy hours. But it was kind of a blast editing the rough cuts every day, honing each story down to its powerful core. Being based at Aisle Bound didn’t exactly suck, either. Over the past two weeks, Ivy trumped up some ridiculous thing to celebrate on a daily basis. He’d never heard of Blueberry Cheesecake Day, but it didn’t stop him from scarfing down three slices from Sam’s bakery. So far this office tradition had netted him half a box of saltwater taffy, a giant pickle the size of his forearm, and best of all, a sidewalk grilled burger to celebrate National Beef
and
National Barbeque Month.

Where was the woman with the daily picnic basket full of treats? Already hooked on Aisle Bound’s endless Kona coffee and ever-present snacks, Ben’s stomach growled. “Did the world start spinning backward? A thin sheet of frost settle over the gates of Hell?”

Julianna stepped out of the display window and spiked a brow at him. “I know I’m going to regret asking, but what are you talking about?”

The sleek brunette had proved a hard nut to crack. His usual surefire combo of lazy charm and calculated flirtation failed when it came to Ivy’s assistant. She remained polite, verging on cool and distant, verging on impossible to read and impervious to every one of his conversational sorties. Ben didn’t want to hit on her, for God’s sake. He just didn’t want to wonder every time they crossed paths if she planned to drive an ice pick between his shoulder blades. Julianna’s loyalty to Ivy ran fathoms deep. Although she might not know the whole story of what transpired that fateful April weekend, she’d at least picked up on the layers of tension between him and her boss.

“Ms. Rhodes worships at the altar of punctuality. Practically breaks out in hives when anything veers her off schedule. So,” Ben glanced down at the display on his laptop, “since she’s half an hour late, I need to assume that we’re either in a parallel universe, or she’s been kidnapped by a white slavery ring and is even now in a cargo container on her way to Indochina.”

“While, as owner of the company, Ivy is not required to punch a time clock, she mentioned the possibility of a later start this morning. I’m sure she’ll be here in plenty of time for our first appointment of the day.”

“Stayed up too late color coding her closet?”

“Ivy had a hot date last night!” Milo blurted the news in a rush, stumbling over himself as he leapt from behind his desk. Or maybe he wasn’t yet used to the high heels on his tight leather boots. “A cutie patootie, according to the buzz. Tall, dark and rolling in cashola. The kind of man every mother dreams about her daughter landing. Which is why Samantha set up this blind date for Ivy. The guy’s her lawyer. Well connected and well toned. The complete package.”

Milo sounded ready to jump the guy if Ivy passed on him. Ben didn’t like the idea of her going on a blind date. Was she that desperate to wash the taste of him out of her mouth? Then it occurred to him she might’ve been dating this whole time. It didn’t sit well. The idea weighed heavily in his gut. Kind of like the time he ate three Philly cheese steaks on a dare.

“You’ve certainly got the goods on the mystery date. What else do you know?”

Toying with what he’d haughtily informed the office was a cravat (although to Ben it looked like a skinny scarf in a knot), Milo continued. “Andrew Wolkoff went to Northwestern, then somewhere big back East for law school. Toyed with some headhunters for a while, but ended up back here in his hometown. Doesn’t practice splashy law. Contracts or titles or some such boring thing. But it must pay well, because the plan was to take Ivy out on his boat last night for a moonlight cruise.”

“It sounds dreamy.” Daphne appeared at the end of the hallway leading to her work area. One hand cradled her oversized mug painted with bright flowers. “A perfect first date. Romantic and intimate.”

Yeah, Ben had a date last night, too. Except his was a couple of hours with Sam. They talked back to the idiots on CSPAN over takeout burgers. Nice to have someone to hang with who got as riled up about politics as he did. But the thought of Ivy being intimate with a perfect stranger clenched Ben’s teeth together. “How intimate do you want her to get with someone she’s never met?”

She uptilted her unglossed lips into a slow, knowing smile. “We researched him on the web, silly. Found quite a few pictures. He looks great in tennis whites, but my fave was a shot of him on his boat wearing only trunks. Andy’s got great…potential.”

No wonder she and Milo were collectively licking their chops. He sounded like a Jewish matchmaker’s wet dream. A law degree, all the attendant cash that went with it,
and
looks good half naked? No matter. Ivy wouldn’t be taken in by shallow, outward trappings. It took more than a nice set of pecs to entice her. Probably. Not that he cared.

“Hotness is no measure of character.”

“You ought to know,” Julianna shot back.

Ha! A tiny crack in the armor, but big enough to squeeze through a retort. “So, you think I’m hot? The truth finally comes out.” Ben tipped an imaginary hat and swept into a bow. “Wait until Memorial Day passes and I break out
my
white shorts. You may be forced to physically restrain yourself to keep from throwing yourself at me.”

“Oh, I’m tempted every day to throw something at you.”

“Play nice, kiddos,” Daphne cautioned. “We’ve got a holiday weekend to survive, which means four straight days of events starting in, oh, half an hour. If you get snarky now, there’s no room to grow as we get more and more exhausted.”

Milo eagerly glommed onto the change in topic. “You’ll be running on fumes by Sunday night. I can’t believe you have to do an event on Monday, too. What kind of person throws a picnic on a national holiday for a wedding?”

“The kind of person who pays us double for pulling it together on said holiday. This is a good thing, Milo, not a punishment.” She filled her cup halfway, and filled it the rest of the way with milk. Four sugar cubes, a towering squirt of whipped cream, along with a sprinkle of cinnamon and two liberal shakes of cocoa powder later, she stepped back.

“Can you still taste the coffee underneath all that dessert you’ve loaded into it?” asked Ben. He didn’t actually consider it coffee anymore—more like tiramisu in a cup. All it lacked was a shot of rum.

Daphne delicately licked off a curl of whipped cream. “My sweet tooth is legendary. Don’t even try to keep up. I’ve been here since five checking in deliveries, and it’s shaping up to be a sixteen-hour day. Something’s got to fuel my engine.”

Ben understood. The only thing that got him through college was a serious Mountain Dew habit. Now he couldn’t look at the stuff without feeling nauseous.

“Now, are we ready to take bets? Usual stakes?”

Julianna and Milo each handed Daphne a five dollar bill. She produced one of her own from a pocket, and then stuck all three beneath a paperweight.

“Hey, I want in on the action.” Ben whipped out five dollars and waved it high in the air. After winning at this week’s poker game, he felt lucky. “What are we betting on?”

“Ivy. Every time she has a first date, she bursts in, full of enthusiasm, telling us how ‘he might actually be the one’.” Daphne crooked her fingers into quotation marks. “We’re sick of it. The woman could go out with Daffy Duck and she’d still see him as a possible husband. She’s hopeless.”

Milo sat in the wing chair across from the sofa Ben had appropriated as his temporary office space. “It’s our take on a swear jar. You know, a punishment to help her break a bad habit. And instant infatuation at Ivy’s age is a seriously bad habit. We’re trying to cure an incurable romantic, before she scares away every eligible man in the state. So we all bet. Any mention of The One, and she owes us lunch.”

“How do you know she’ll spill any details?”

Daphne almost did a spit take, but recovered in time to choke down her mouthful of coffee. “How do you know the sun will rise tomorrow? I love her like a sister, but when it comes to love, Ivy’s an open book. Even when you’re dying to slam the cover shut.”

“She can’t help it.” Julianna leapt to Ivy’s defense. No surprise there. “Her whole family perpetuates this ridiculous romance myth. Do you realize that everyone in her family has gotten engaged or married on Valentine’s Day? For over a hundred years? And not a one of them has ever divorced. In the Rhodes family, perfect, true love isn’t just attainable. It’s expected. Can you imagine how hard it must be to live under that kind of pressure?”

Ben dug his fingers into the upholstery to prevent a full body shudder of distaste. No wonder she’d acted so weird at Buckingham Fountain. If he dated every woman in the country, he probably wouldn’t find someone less suited to him than Ivy Rhodes. Her life might be all about love, but his single goal was to avoid that particular condition like the plague. Talk about a narrow escape.

“Bottom line is that Ivy has two focuses in life—her business and her search for the perfect mate. And she’ll happily talk your ear off on either subject. No prompting needed.” Milo leaned forward, dropping his voice to a gossipy whisper. “Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good gabfest as much as any girl or gay, but Ivy doesn’t have an off button on this topic.”

Ha! Milo wasn’t exactly the soul of discretion. When Ben filled in for a second week straight at the poker game, he’d gone on in excruciating detail about his ingrown toenail removal. Gib had offered him five dollars to stop talking, but Milo refused to wind down until they all knew exactly which of his shoes caused the problem, how much the procedure hurt, and how he still refused to give up the offending pair of Italian loafers.

“Alright, you’ve given him full disclosure,” said Daphne. She nudged Milo with her hip. “Now add his money to the pot.”

Milo reached for the bill now lying on the coffee table, but Ben snatched it up, lifting it out of reach.

“Huh uh. Ask anyone in Vegas. The stupidest thing you can do is bet against the house.” Smart Ivy, who caught the bagpiper trying to double dip with her client, wouldn’t have any trouble seeing through a slick, self-important lawyer. Nope, no way would she fall for Attorney Andy. “I’m sure you all know the Shakespeare quote
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers
. The man had an excellent point. So I’m putting my money on Ms. Rhodes. Hope you all enjoy buying us lunch.” He opened his fist and let his five dollars float back down to the table.

“Really, Ben, you’re new to our little group. Trust me when I say you’ll regret this.” Milo tried to hand him back the money. Julianna was quicker, though. She grabbed it and stuck it under the coffee pot.

“A fool and his money are soon parted. There’s a quote for you,” she said with a gleeful grin. Not Shakespeare, but not bad.

“Good morning, all. Ready for the official kickoff to the summer wedding season?” Ivy entered in a flurry of movement. A wide sash swung from the waist of her pink sundress, bobbing along in time to the sparkly pink drops hanging from her ears. From the pale bow around her ponytail to matching sandals, she looked as fresh and inviting as a scoop of strawberry ice cream. Tossing her sweater onto the coat rack, she dropped three bags at Milo’s desk and handed Daphne a white bakery box.

“I looked at your schedule and figured you’d need a boost in a few hours, so I swung by Lyons Bakery. You’ve got a jelly donut for now, a triple chocolate éclair for lunch, and a piña colada cupcake for an afternoon pick me up. Just don’t eat them all at once.”

“This is why we’re best friends.” Daphne circled Ivy’s waist with one arm and gave a quick squeeze. “You look after me so well.”

“Merely good business acumen. With six events in four days, we can’t afford to have you at anything less than your best.” Ivy hotfooted it down the hall, talking over her shoulder. “I have about twenty calls to make in the next hour, so try to hold down the fort. We’ll bump the staff meeting to after lunch, if that’s alright with everyone.”

“Hold it.” Ben stood, hefting the camera to his shoulder. The viewers would eat up this behind-the scenes type of action with a spoon. The more it degenerated into a personal soap pera, the better. “You’re late, Ms. Rhodes. Want to explain this deviation from schedule?” Ivy stopped dead in her tracks. If Ben hadn’t been watching so closely, he’d have missed the way she squared her shoulders before turning around. She marched back to the sitting area and faced him across the coffee table.

“I’m not late. Before leaving yesterday, I updated the schedule. Which is beside the point, as I do not report to you. Your job is to film what happens when I’m here. Period.”

“Defensive, hmm? Got something to hide?” he goaded, hoping to flare her temper and push her into revealing some dirt. Plus, he enjoyed the way her eyes snapped and her cheeks pinked up when she got in a snit.

“My preference is not to air my dirty laundry to the nation in prime time.”

You could frost a bottle of vodka with the chill in her voice. But in Ben’s world, a signed contract meant nothing was sacred or off limits. Compelling reality television could only be produced by shining a bright light on every aspect of the subject. He could pick and choose later what to keep or toss. “Too late for that. Your colleagues here are more than happy to chat about what goes down when the office lights go off. I’m magnanimously giving you the opportunity to comment.”