The Girl Next Door cr-3 Read online

  We studied him for a moment. Something was obviously off. His face was flushed, as if he had just been running. His hair, which I had never seen even slightly out of place, was mussed in a haphazard way. His tie was askew. His voice was too loud. His posture, much like the amber-colored beverage anchored in his right hand, was sloshing from side to side.

  “Is he…” Tina started, giggled, then finished: “Oh my God, Jackass is drunk.”

  “Correction: Jackass is hammered,” I said.

  Tina tittered some more, putting her hand in front of her mouth to hide her giggling.

  “That is just so regrettable,” she said. “He’s not a very subtle drunk, is he?”

  I didn’t find it quite as funny as Tina. For better or worse, this was the man charged with being the public face of the Newark Eagle-Examiner. And here he was, surrounded by some of the finer members of polite New Jersey society, totally inebriated. He wasn’t just embarrassing himself. He was embarrassing all of us.

  “About as subtle as a car alarm,” I said. “It just makes me … Oh, would you look at that!”

  At that moment, Jackman was in the midst of spilling his drink on the unsuspecting woman standing next to him. She was wearing a red cocktail dress, which immediately acquired a dark stain down the front. The woman was mortified, but it was about to get worse: Jackman removed his pocket square and started attempting to dry her off, essentially groping her breasts in the process. The woman twisted away to free herself from molestation, but he didn’t seem to understand and clumsily pursued her for several steps until she finally got away.

  The entire group around Jackman was politely pretending nothing had happened. For his part, Jackman was too oblivious to know how ridiculous he looked. In the meantime, a waiter had supplied him with a fresh drink. I noticed everyone was now giving him a wider berth.

  “What a fool,” I said.

  “Oh, give Jackass a break,” Tina said. “He’s under a lot of pressure these days. He’s just blowing off some steam.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I guess ruining a perfectly good newspaper can be tough on a guy.”

  “Say what you want. I know he’s not exactly beloved in the newsroom, but he’s doing everything in his power to save our paper right now. It’s got to be a strain.”

  “Yeah, why don’t you run over and give him a backrub to relieve the tension?”

  “I’m serious,” Tina said. “Those negotiations can’t be easy.”

  “What negotiations?”

  Tina was about to answer when she was interrupted by a chiming sound being piped in from somewhere above us. The show was about to start.

  “Drink up,” she said. “Let’s go find our seats.”

  * * *

  I drained my beer as Tina finished her wine, then she grabbed my arm and escorted me into the concert hall, where she made for the front of the orchestra section.

  “Not exactly the cheap seats, huh?” I said.

  “My best reporter is worth every penny I paid for these,” she replied.

  “I thought you said they were free.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Ouch. Now you’re hurting my feelings.”

  “If you’re nice, I’ll make it up to you later.”

  She gave me a flirty smile and a quick peck on the cheek. Tina had a long history of being all bark, no bite. So I mostly just dismissed the comment as the wine talking. Still, as we made our way to our seats, she pulled more of her body against my arm, bringing me in close enough that I fell under the spell of her perfume. Before I could exert any control over my brain, I began wondering what she might or might not be wearing under her dress and, more to the point, how I could get myself in a position to find out.

  We had to break contact when we made it to our row, which snapped me out of it. I reminded myself Tina was, essentially, my boss. And as nice as it might be to temporarily ignore the prohibition on reporter-editor fraternization, we both knew it would make things too weird in the long run.

  Or at least I think we did.

  “Anyway, you were asking about the union negotiations,” Tina said as we settled into our seats. “Have you really not heard about them?”

  “Sorry, I don’t sit in meetings all day where these sorts of things are discussed, remember? You’ll have to enlighten me.”

  Tina stared straight ahead for a second, as if she needed to summon the strength to explain it all.

  “Gosh, I don’t even know where to start,” she said. “You know we’re losing money, right?”

  “Buckets of it, yes.”

  “Well, one of the reasons is that a lot of the contracts we signed with our unions date back to better days,” Tina said. “So, for example, even though our revenues have plummeted, the guys who drive our distribution trucks are still working under a collective bargaining agreement that guarantees them a three percent raise.”

  “No kidding. Damn, where do I sign up for that?”

  Our newsroom wasn’t unionized. Once upon a time, it hadn’t seemed all that necessary. As reporters and editors, we fancied ourselves highly specialized, highly skilled, highly mobile workers who did not need group representation: if management didn’t keep wages competitive, we would-in the fine tradition of LeBron James-take our talents elsewhere. We told ourselves unions were for auto workers and factory linemen, people who worried their jobs would be outsourced to Bangladesh, not for stars like us.

  Then our business collapsed, taking those illusions with it. Suddenly we were no different from employees in any other contracting industry. And we had grown so comfortable during the good ol’ days, we didn’t have any kind of collective bargaining to give us some shred of leverage.

  So I hadn’t had a pay raise in six years. The pay cuts started three years ago. And really, I was just happy to have hung on to my job. Szanto and a lot of my other (now former) colleagues weren’t as fortunate.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll go out of business if we can’t renegotiate those deals, and Jackman obviously knows that better than anyone,” Tina said. “And it’s not just the drivers. It’s the delivery people, the press operators, pretty much all the unions. None of them want to give in. But they’re also realistic enough to know that if the paper goes under, they won’t have jobs.”

  “And a three percent pay raise doesn’t do much for you if you’re no longer getting a paycheck in the first place,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Tina said. “So it’s like this big game of chicken. We tell them we need concessions. They say they’ll go on strike if we keep pressing for them. We say we’ll go out of business if we don’t get them. And round and round it goes.”

  The audience was getting settled in, as were the musicians, who were fiddling with their instruments and readying themselves for the appearance of their concertmaster and conductor.

  “I guess it just bothers me that all I ever hear about is how we need to cut costs. You never hear about new revenue initiatives,” I said, as a drummer tested the timpani. “It’s going to take a pretty bright person to figure out how a newspaper can monetize the Web, and I don’t have a lot of confidence Jackass is the guy.”

  Just then, as if on cue, Jackman came stumbling down the aisle toward us. He was being loosely steered by an usher, who led him to a row two ahead of ours, where there was just one empty seat. Naturally, it was in the middle of the row. And Jackman, whose dexterity was several scotches behind him, began falling over people on his way toward it.

  “Jackass is made of tougher stuff than you think,” Tina said, keeping her voice lower now that he was in the vicinity. “I know he plays the part of the dandy. But at the paper he worked at in Michigan, he pretty much broke one of the unions he was negotiating with. He just refused to blink. Supposedly it got pretty nasty.”

  “Nasty … how?”

  “Well, he bashed some guy’s brains in, for one.”

  “What!”

  “I’ve heard this story from a few people, so I’m pretty sure it’s true.
The union was trying to intimidate Jackass and sent some muscle to his country club, just to scare him, show him they meant business. The story I heard is that Jackman took a seven-iron and buried it in the guy’s skull.”

  “Holy crap! Didn’t he face assault charges or anything?”

  “Apparently the guy who came at him was carrying a concealed gun. He hadn’t pulled it, but it was on him, so Jackman was able to claim self-defense, and his golfing buddies backed him up. There were no charges.”

  I shook my head as I watched Jackman find his seat and sink heavily into it.

  “All I’m saying is, don’t underestimate Gary Jackman,” Tina finished. “The man has brass balls.”

  I was about to comment on Jackman’s balls when suddenly, from two rows ahead of us, there was a commotion. A woman let out a horrified shriek. Two men jumped up from their seats, as if there were debris falling on them from above. Another man stood up and was staring down at a whitish mess dripping from his tuxedo pants. It was difficult at first to discern what, exactly, had happened.

  Then it all became clear: Gary A. Jackman, the Newark Eagle-Examiner’s dandy, brass-balled publisher, had thrown up on the guy next to him.

  * * *

  Once Jackman was escorted out and order was restored, the actual performance began and things got a lot less interesting. The orchestra was from somewhere in Europe-the Netherlands, perhaps, or maybe Belgium … I honestly don’t know how anyone (besides the Dutch and the Belgians) keeps those two countries straight.

  After the first piece, Tina was chirping about how some well-respected music magazine-not Rolling Stone, apparently-had named the orchestra the best in the world. They certainly passed the Carter Ross Classical Music Test: I drifted off during the first movement of the second piece. Call me boorish or uncultured, but I’ve always found falling asleep at the symphony to be one of life’s greater pleasures. And if you look around at any of your finer concert halls, you’ll see I’m not alone.

  At intermission-or, as I delighted in calling it, “halftime”-I convinced Tina we had received enough refinement for one night and that, as newspaper people, it was time to get back in touch with our more populist roots. So we snuck out and made our way down the street to Kilkenny Alehouse, a comfortable establishment with a beautiful wooden bar, an array of flat-screen televisions, and a plethora of beer on tap. My kind of place.

  Tina stuck with white wine as I bounced between ales. We put away several rounds, yammering about the miserable state of our chosen profession. But, at the same time, Tina and I had long since decided that if the ship was going to take us down, we might as well keep dancing on the decks until it slipped under the water.

  Then we started trading war stories, remembering our brushes with disaster, recounting our triumphs. Even though the bar was all but empty on a Monday night, Tina and I had pulled our chairs together as if a crowd of people had forced us into close quarters. The contact was delicious. Tina’s legs kept brushing against mine. Her hands took turns resting on various parts of my person. And her brown eyes, which had gone just slightly watery as a result of the wine, glowed with particular intensity.

  I wasn’t sure how many hours had passed by the time we teetered out. But a hot July day had given way to a pleasant, temperate summer evening. The air was so perfect-neither too hot nor too cold-it was almost like it didn’t exist. And a nearly full moon hung above us, large and lanternlike.

  As we made our way down the street, toward a car neither of us had any business driving, Tina had draped herself on my right side, with one arm wrapped tightly around mine and a hand on my chest.

  The next thing I knew, we had veered into the darkness of a small alleyway and we were kissing. It was unclear whether I had pinned Tina up against the brick wall or she had pulled me there. Either way, I had one arm wrapped around her, cushioning her against the bricks. My other hand was running up and down her side, making the wonderful journey from her upper thigh, to the curve of her hip, to her rib cage and then back again.

  Her hands, meanwhile, were planted on my ass, which she was using as a handle to draw me even closer to her.

  I had no idea what was happening, nor did I care to stop and examine it. Our mouths just felt too good together. She started letting out these little moans and I heard myself doing the same. My hand had reached her firm, small breast, which I could easily feel through the thin fabric of her dress. Tina had been grinding our lower bodies into each other, with the expected results, then separated just enough to begin fumbling with my belt buckle.

  Then suddenly she wasn’t.

  “Oh my God, this can’t happen,” she said, turning herself perpendicular to me and taking perhaps two steps away.

  “Sure it can,” I said, moving toward her and putting both arms around her shoulders. “Neither of us should be driving anyway. Let’s just get a hotel room and enjoy this.”

  “No, I … That can’t happen,” she said, breaking out of my grasp.

  “Why the hell not? We seem to do this all the time. Maybe that ought to tell us something.”

  She looked down at herself to make sure her dress was properly adjusted, then started walking purposefully-if drunkenly-back toward the NJPAC. The show had obviously been over for a while, but there were still a few police officers around directing what traffic still lingered in the area. I let her stalk away for a moment, then caught up to her as she crossed Broad Street.

  “Hotel,” I said.

  “We can’t. I’m your editor.”

  “Great. I’ll find a new one.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said, walking faster.

  “Then what is the point? We’ve been doing this dance for a while now. You keep telling me you want to have a baby with me. I keep telling you I don’t just want to be a sperm donor daddy. Let’s compromise: we’ll have the baby and do all the other stuff that goes with it, too.”

  “You’re just drunk and horny. You don’t mean that-”

  “I do, too,” I cut in.

  “And even if you did, I don’t want that. I’ve told you that. I’m not the girl you or anyone else is falling in love with.”

  “And why not? I have feelings for you, and I know you have feelings for me. Why don’t we give them a chance?”

  She was making bad time in her high heels, and finally, in one remarkably fluid motion, she took them off and transferred them to her left hand. She broke into a fast jog. It was all I could do to catch up with her and gently grab hold of her arm.

  “Tina,” I demanded. “Why not?”

  She wheeled around and, for a moment, I thought I was going to get eight inches worth of high heel embedded in my face. Instead, I heard:

  “The first guy I fell in love with was a total jerk. The second guy I fell in love with was even more of a jerk. And then, just to confirm it wasn’t a fluke, the third guy I fell in love with turned out to be a jerk, too. After a while, I started thinking maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m toxic. Maybe I just turn them into jerks.”

  “Now you’re the one who’s sounding drunk. Let’s get a hotel room and-”

  “I’m toxic. Don’t you get that? You’re a great guy, Carter. I want to have a baby with you more than anything, and I hope it’s a boy who turns out to be just like you. But I don’t want to fall in love with you, and I don’t want you falling in love with me. I don’t want to turn you into just another jerk.”

  With that, she ran to an idling taxi, leaving me standing on a sidewalk just outside NJPAC, a small cadre of bored cops looking at me like I was prize idiot for letting a beautiful woman get away.

  I remained there for a little. Then I flagged down my own cab, giving the driver my address in Bloomfield. I arrived home to find Deadline in his usual spot (the exact, geometric middle of my bed) and shoved him aside so I could begin the predictable tossing and turning.

  Strangely, though, it wasn’t the thought in the front of my mind that kept me awake. It was the one wedged off to th
e side. Of all things, I kept playing over my conversation with Jeanne Nygard:

  She was having problems at work … Nancy had reason to fear for her life … It wasn’t an accident.

  Could someone really have wanted to kill a waitress/delivery girl? Somewhere in the midst of my fitfulness, I resolved to indulge my curiosity by looking into it for a day, maybe two, if only so I could put it to rest.

  * * *

  The next morning, I saw that Jeanne Nygard had been thinking about me, too. When I retrieved my phone from the pants I had been wearing the night before, it told me I missed a call from her 510 area code number. She didn’t leave a message, so I decided-in keeping with my hard-to-get tactic-I wouldn’t call her back.

  Instead, I shook off a minor hangover, quickly ran through my shave-shower-breakfast routine, and caught a bus into downtown Newark. In addition to retrieving my car, I had to go into the newsroom and make an appearance in Tina’s office. I was entered in an event at the Awkward Olympics: the About-last-night-athalon.

  Tina was obviously gearing up for the competition as well because I was still on the bus when I received an e-mail from Thompson, Tina. The subject: “Good Morning.” The body: “Come see me when you get in.-TT.”

  I considered dawdling but then decided to get it over with. As soon as I arrived at the nest, I forced myself toward her office.

  “Hey,” I said, tapping on the glass but not wanting to enter without being asked.

  “Come on in,” she said.

  I complied. Figuring we had parted ways around midnight, and it was now ten A.M., it had given us both ten hours to sober up and start feeling abashed about the evening’s events. Tina was wearing a subdued light blue blouse, a chagrined expression, and puffy dark smudges under her eyes. Plus, the woman who never drank coffee-she told me caffeine wasn’t good for developing fetuses and she didn’t want any coffee in her system when she conceived-had an extra large Dunkin’ Donuts cup in front of her.

  “I’m sorry I just ran off without thinking of how you were going to get home,” she said. “That was awful of me. I-”

  “It’s okay, Tina. I took a cab, too.”