Rachel Gibson - See Jane Score

He shoved his and Marie’s lunch into the microwave and set the time. Besides making him crazy, having a moody teenage girl in his house seriously cut into his social life. Lately, the only time he had to himself was on the road. Something had to change. This situation wasn’t working out for either of them. He’d had to hire a responsible woman to come and stay with Marie and live in his condo when he was out of town. Her name was Gloria Jackson and she was probably in her sixties. Marie didn’t like her, but Marie didn’t seem to like anyone.

The best thing to do would be to find Marie a good boarding school. She’d be happier there, living with girls her own age who knew about hair and makeup and liked listening to rap. He felt a twinge of guilt. His reasons for sending her to boarding school weren’t totally altruistic. He wanted his old life back. That might make him a selfish bastard, but he’d worked hard to reclaim that life. To climb out of the chaos and into relative calm.

“I need some money.”

Luc turned from his observation of the soup spinning around in the microwave to his sister standing in the doorway of the kitchen. They’d already talked about a special account for her. “After we sell your mother’s house and your Social Security starts to kick in, you’ll-”

“I need some today,” she interrupted him. “Right now.”

He reached for the wallet in his back pocket. “How much do you need?”

A wrinkle appeared across her brow. “I think seven or eight dollars.”

“You don’t know?”

“Ten to be on the safe side.”

Curious and because he thought he should ask, he said, “What do you need the money for?”

Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t have the flu.”

“What do you have?”

“I have cramps and I don’t have anything.” Her gaze lowered to her stocking-covered feet. “I don’t know any girls at school to ask, and by the time I got to the nurse, it was too late. That’s why I had to come home from school.”

“Too late for what? What are you talking about?”

“I have cramps and I don’t have any…” Her face turned red and she blurted, “Tampons. I looked in your bathroom ‘cause I thought maybe one of your girlfriends might have left some. But you don’t have any.”

The microwave dinged at the same moment Luc finally understood Marie’s problem. He opened the door and burned his thumbs as he set the soup on the counter. “Oh.” He pulled two spoons from a drawer, and because he didn’t know what to say, he asked, “Do you want crackers?”

“Yes.”

Somehow, she didn’t seem old enough. Did girls start their periods at sixteen? He guessed so, but he’d never thought about it. He’d been raised an only child, and his thoughts had always revolved around playing hockey.

“Do you want some aspirin?” One of his old girlfriends had taken his painkillers when she’d had cramps. When he thought back on it, his money and their addiction had been the only thing they’d had in common.

“No.”

“After lunch we’ll go to the store,” he said. “I could use some deodorant.”

She finally glanced up, but she didn’t move.

“Do you need to go now?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her standing there, embarrassed and as uncomfortable as he was. The guilt he’d experienced a moment ago eased. Sending her to live with girls her own age was definitely the right move. A girls’ boarding school would know about cramps and other female things.

“I’ll get my keys,” he said. Now he just had to find a way to break it to her that wouldn’t make it sound as if he were trying to get rid of her.

Exchanging Pleasantries: A Fight

“Say that again?” Caroline Mason’s fork paused halfway to her mouth, a piece of lettuce and chicken suspended in midair.

“I’m covering the Chinooks games and traveling with them on the road,” Jane repeated for the benefit of her childhood friend.

“The hockey team?” Caroline worked at Nordstrom’s selling her favorite addiction-shoes. In appearance, she and Jane were on opposite ends of the spectrum. She was tall, blond, and blue-eyed, a walking advertisement of beauty and good taste. And their temperaments weren’t much closer. Jane was introverted, while Caroline didn’t have a thought or emotion that wasn’t expressed. Jane shopped from catalogues. Caroline considered catalogues a Tool of Satan.

“Yep, that’s what I’m doing on this side of town. I just came from a meeting with the owner and the team.” The two friends were fire and ice, night and day, but they shared a common background and history that bonded them like Super Glue.

Caroline’s mother had run off with a trucker and had drifted in and out of her life. Jane had grown up without a mother at all. They’d lived next to each other in Tacoma, on the same desolate block. Poor. The have-nots. They both knew what it was like to go to school wearing canvas sneakers when most everyone else wore leather.

Grown up now, they each dealt with the past in their own ways. Jane socked away money as if each paycheck were her last, while Caroline blew outrageous sums on designer shoes like she was Imelda Marcos.

Caroline set her fork on the side of her plate and placed a hand on her chest. “You get to travel with the Chinooks and interview them while they’re naked?”

Jane nodded and dug into the lunch special, macaroni and cheese with smoked ham chunks and crushed croutons baked on top. With the weather outside, it was definitely a mac-and-cheese day. “Hopefully, they’ll keep their pants up until I leave the locker room.”

“You’re kidding, right? What reason, other than seeing buff men, is there for walking into a smelly locker room?”

“Interviewing them for the paper.” Now that she’d seen all of them this morning, she was beginning to feel a bit apprehensive. Next to her five-foot stature, they were huge.

“Do you think they’d notice if you snapped some pictures?”

“They might.” Jane laughed. “They didn’t seem as dumb as you’d expect.”

“Bummer. I wouldn’t mind seeing some naked hockey players.”

And now that she’d seen them all, seeing them naked was one aspect of the job that worried her. She had to travel with these men. Sit with them on the airplane. She didn’t want to know what they looked like without their clothes. The only time she wanted to be near a naked man was when she was naked herself. And while she wrote explicit sexual fantasies for a living, in her real life she wasn’t all that comfortable with blatant nudity. She was not like the woman who wrote about dating and relationships in the column for the Times. And she was absolutely nothing like Honey Pie.

Jane Alcott was a fraud.

“If you can’t take pictures,” Caroline said as she reached for her fork once more and picked the chicken from her Oriental salad, “take notes for me.”

“That’s unethical on a lot of different levels,” she informed her friend. Then she thought about Luc Martineau’s offer to “piss” in her coffee, and she figured she could bend ethics in his case. “I did see Luc Martineau’s butt.”

“Au naturel?”

“As the day he was born.”

Caroline leaned forward. “How was it?”

“Good.” She pictured Luc’s sculpted shoulders and back, the indent of his spine, and his towel sliding down his perfect round cheeks. “Really fine.” No denying it, Luc was a beautiful man; too bad his personality sucked.

“God,” Caroline sighed, “why didn’t I finish college and get a job like yours?”

“Too many parties.”

“Oh, yeah.” Caroline paused a moment, then smiled. “You need an assistant. Take me.”

“The paper won’t pay for an assistant.”

“Bummer.” Her smile fell and her gaze lowered to Jane’s blazer. “You should get new clothes.”

“I have new clothes,” Jane said around a bite of ham and cheese.

“I mean new, as in attractive. You wear too much black and gray. People will begin to wonder if you’re depressed.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“Maybe not, but you should wear color. Reds and greens especially. You’re going to be traveling with big strong testosterone-infused men all season. It’s the perfect opportunity to get a guy interested in you.”

Jane was traveling with the team on business. She didn’t want to catch the interest of a man. Especially a hockey player. Especially if they were all like Luc Martineau. When she’d declined his offer concerning the coffee, he’d almost smiled. Almost. Instead he’d said, If you change your mind about that, let me know. Only he hadn’t said about. He’d said aboot. He was a jerk who hadn’t completely lost his Canadian accent. The last thing she wanted or needed was to attract attention from men like him. She glanced down at her black blazer and pants, and her gray blouse. She thought she looked okay. “It’s J. Crew.”

Caroline narrowed her blue eyes and Jane knew what was coming. J. Crew was not Donna Karan. “Exactly. From the catalogue?”

“Of course.”

“And black.”

“You know I’m color blind.”

“You’re not color blind. You just can’t tell when things clash.”

“True.” That’s why she liked black. She looked good in black. She couldn’t make a fashion faux pas in black.

“You’ve got a nice little body, Jane. You should work it, show it off. Come back to Nordy’s with me, and I’ll help you pick out some nice things.”

“No way. The last time I let you pick out my clothes, I looked like Greg Brady. Only not as groovy.”

“That was in the sixth grade and we had to go to Goodwill to do our shopping. We’re older and have more money. At least you do.”

Yes, and she planned to keep it that way too. She had plans for her nest egg. Plans that included buying a house, not designer clothes. “I like the way I dress,” she said as if they hadn’t had the same conversation a thousand times in the past.