Chapter 3 #3
“What about her?” Brian knew he was not known for one night stands or flings with hordes of women—he couldn’t be bothered spending the time and energy mostly. But he didn’t like the coach’s line of questioning into his personal life.
“Are you seeing her now?”
“I’m not planning on looking for trouble if that’s what you mean.” Brian smirked at the coach. It was only a half-lie. He wasn’t planning on seeing her socially, only for the interview.
The coach nodded his head. “A one night stand, eh? You know, I really thought you were above all that—I thought you were above the temptation of a tawdry affair.” The coach shook his head as if disappointed.
“You make me sound like some priest.” Brian was annoyed, but he wasn’t sure if it was with the coach or himself.
“You are in a way—a priest of basketball. Only you have a better deal than real priests do—you at least get to fool around.” He smiled, but not all the way.
“Just don’t let yourself get too distracted. If you start feeling restless again see the team therapist.” The coach handed him a card.
“Don’t worry, Coach. Have I ever let you down?” Brian’s mood lightened as he slipped the card in his pocket, thinking he’d sooner call Roxanne. The coach shook his head and stuffed the newspaper in the wastebasket.
“I suppose a little sarcastic publicity isn’t going to hurt us. Hell, it might even help cure you of your over-inflated ego problem.”
“Not a chance. No matter what they say, I know I’m indestructible,” Brian said.
“Now all we need is a cure for your over-active libido.”
“I hope to hell there’s no cure for that.
” Brian thought of Roxanne again. He stood and left the room with a wave of his hand while the coach chuckled.
Maybe he did hope there was a cure—for her.
Thinking of her was becoming a distraction.
But he’d overcome more important distractions than a woman before.
He thought of his daughter. He had to be at practice in ten minutes to get taped and he forced himself to focus on that.
It had never been so difficult to psych himself for basketball.
Roxanne sat with Laura at the wrought iron table on her deck overlooking the Atlantic.
The bulky white sweat suit helped insulate her from the chill of the late October morning air.
She spoke on her cell phone while her friend poured herself a second cup of coffee and pulled her navy cardigan more tightly closed.
Roxanne shivered. “It feels like winter already.”
“It was your idea to have coffee out here at this ungodly hour.”
They were both accustomed to early mornings and good coffee—ever since they went to college together.
That had been almost six years ago. Roxanne went to work for a TV station and got Laura a job working in the Children’s Mercy Hospital’s fund-raising office.
Roxanne had been hooked on doing volunteer charity work at the hospital since she was a child.
They gave her her first big break as on-air talent at their Christmas telethon three years ago.
That was when she met Don and his mother. Roxanne shook her head, remembering.
When she persuaded Time Magazine to do a profile on Dr. Oki and his research team the publicity coup helped double the funds for the good doctor’s cause.
Ever since then she’d been nicknamed Midas around the hospital.
Her reputation was an embarrassment to some of the development professionals because she was only a volunteer, an amateur.
Luckily Laura, and even more importantly Laura’s boss, Harry, were both grateful for the help.
“Hey, snap out of it. About this annual holiday benefit party of yours, Roxy—we may as well get the business taken care of so I can justify my being out of the office all morning. Dr. Oki can’t make it the night you suggested. We just have to move it to the Sunday night.”
“That’s the beauty of holding the event at my house. We can have it any time. Move the date to the following weekend.”
Laura jotted some notes, then looked up with the wrinkled-forehead face of worry and said, “We’ll need all the money we can get.
I was talking to accounting and the new building project is way over budget and starting to affect cash flow for operating expenses.
They said it might even start affecting the cash flow for research soon too. ”
“I don’t think we have to worry about it. They can’t touch the National Institute of Health funding and Dr. Oki’s unit has plenty of that.”
“That’s true. We should be hearing any day exactly how much our NIH grant will be for the next fiscal year,” Laura said absently. She paused, and then gave Roxanne another frown. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you heard from Brian Dennis?”
“I spoke to his agent and scheduled his interview in two days.” Roxanne wondered what Laura had on her mind.
“Don’t you want to see him…socially?” Laura asked.
Roxanne did a double take at her friend’s wicked smile and laughed. So that was it.
“I’m not so sure he’s someone to play with.” She rose from her chair. “Come up with me while I get dressed. I’m coming into the office later,” Roxanne said.
“Okay, but if a man like Brian Dennis showed any interest in me I don’t think I’d be wasting time playing coy.”
“Laura, let’s face it, you’ve never played coy in your life. You don’t know how.” Roxanne’s laugh prompted Bonnie to look up from her paper as they passed through the kitchen.
“What’s so funny, ladies? Am I missing something?” Bonnie’s sarcastic drawl turned their attention and they automatically smiled.
“Roxanne accused me of being incapable of playing it coy with a man.”
“I shouldn’t say incapable. Disinclined is probably more accurate,” Roxanne amended.
“Okay. I’ll go along with that,” Laura agreed.
“Now that you have that resolved you can move on to the problem of paying the bills. When can we put this albatross of a house on the market, or are we gonna have to go down with the ship?” Bonnie peered over the top of her glasses, waiting for an answer.
“Not today. But I’m working on it. Don’t worry.”
Upstairs, they entered Roxanne’s room. A wall of windows overlooked the ocean. A small fireplace helped warm the room even if it was too spacious to be called cozy.
She looked over at Laura who had plopped herself down into one of the two overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace.
“Have you heard from Penelope? Or should I say her lawyers?” Laura asked.
Roxanne nodded her head. “About the lawsuit over the house. I talked to Al Dover. He’s handling everything for me. The court date to have it dismissed has been postponed again. I don’t know how long this will take. I was hoping he wasn’t serious when he said it could go on a year.”
“What about her threat to get you thrown in jail for murder? Is she still harassing the police about it?”
“Not lately. Al says she’s been quiet—a little too quiet suddenly. He says he’s going to look into it and see what she’s up to.”
“God, Roxy. It’s a good thing you have Al for your lawyer. You’ve been keeping him terribly busy. He hasn’t had any time to work on development contracts lately. And I can’t imagine what your legal fees would be like if he was charging you full price.”
“Yeah. I’ll pay him eventually.”
“Well, he’ll never send you a bill. Not after the favor you did him. You practically saved his son’s life.”
“The way you talk. So I got him into the program. It was Dr. Oki’s research that saved Chris.
I’m glad he’s doing so well now. It was an experimental program and it could have gone either way.
” She heaved a sigh. Those were dicey times and Al was very grateful ever since.
If he hadn’t been so persistent in wanting to do whatever could, she would have never called him.
“I wouldn’t have called Al if I wasn’t desperate.
I have no money in my bank accounts. I can barely keep the minimum balance.
Too many bills and too little planning.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Sell jewelry. Al said he can help me with that too.”
“Al’s a good guy.” Laura shook her head. “Too bad he’s already married.”
“Not my type,” Roxanne said. “Too close to the Penelope Boswell set.” Roxanne chose not to go into it further with Laura, but she was definitely on the fence about how good an idea it was to become so indebted to him.
She had been riffling through a pile of sweaters and finally came up with one.
Her friend’s bright green eyes widened and her shoulder length brown hair bobbed about her face as she shook her head.
Roxanne pulled on her sweater and headed for the dressing area to look in the mirror and touch up her makeup.
“Don’t bother. You’ll never improve on that face.” Laura told her with a disgusted wave of her hand.
Roxanne sat down to pull on her black leather boots. She flipped a stray tendril of hair from her face and looked at her friend. “Don’t worry, Laura. Some day I’ll be old and wrinkled and ugly.”
Laura took a last sip of her coffee and stood. She shook her head before turning to leave. “Your outfit is ridiculous as usual. I have to get going into the office.” Laura walked toward the door.
Roxanne also stood, and looked down at herself to see what was the matter with her clothes. Then she decided she looked fine, as usual, wearing black leather jeans with a red cashmere turtleneck sweater that was slightly snug. She decided that was to her advantage.
“I’m going to the hospital too. I have a meeting at Dr. Oki’s lab.
” She escorted her friend downstairs to the front door.
She grabbed her red leather jacket and headed out the door before Bonnie could see her.
She made her escape in her red Corvette with the convertible top down and waves of hair blowing out behind her.