I returned to Mostly Romance at a pace too ambling to qualify as exercise. Sean's story had plumped the folds of my sex. The sensitive tissues chafed with my steps, but I ignored the discomfort.
My thoughts required my full attention.
Sean seemed to assume he'd lose Joe, that Joe would choose me over him. Did he expect me to make Joe choose? I thrust my hands in my pockets and worried my lower lip.
'On your left,' someone warned me from behind. I looked back. An inexperienced rollerblader was headed straight for me. I sidestepped towards a shop window to avoid getting bumped.
The next fellow wasn't so lucky.
'Watch where you goin', man,' said that dreadlocked individual.
The scolding rattled the skater so badly he wobbled into the path of some Japanese tourists. Skirting them by inches, he veered towards the kerb. A balding Italian man grabbed his waist, neatly rescuing him from careering into traffic - for which feat a young punkette with a nose-ring yelled, 'Good save!'
Yes, indeed, this place had all kinds. Philadelphia might not always act like the City of Brotherly Love, bu the diversity of her inhabitants gave her plenty of chances to practise.
I admired Philly's ability to encompass so much variety. I admired it in myself. So why should I make Joe choose? Why shouldn't all three of us be happy? My gloomier half said, 'Because that sort of thing never works.'
As if on cue, Marianne stuck her head out the shop's entrance and grabbed my lemon-yellow lapel. She tugged me behind her to our office. As usual, she'd closed the mini-blinds; said too much sunshine gave her a headache. I opened the blinds halfway, pinched a brown frond off the asparagus fern and turned to face her. I expected a dressing-down, but instead she bubbled over with news of a good-looking man in an Italian suit who'd dropped by to ask me out.
I said I couldn't imagine who it might be.
'You couldn't forget him. He's scrumptious. Sexy eyes. Gold Rolex. He said his name was Larry.'
I hung my jacket over the back of my old-fashioned swivel chair and sat. 'I don't know anyone named Larry.'
'Of course you do.' With the persistence of a bloodhound, Marianne parked her leather-clad bottom on the corner of my desk. Her miniskirt rode up her sheer black stockings. She wagged her pointy four-inch heel. 'You met him this morning. He gave you his card.'
'Oh, that guy.' I opened my centre drawer and pawed through the clutter for a piece of chewing gum. 'I don't know what you're so excited about. He wasn't anything special.'
'Are you kidding? He's totally beddable.'
'Maybe the suit hid his love handles.'
"The Italian suit,' she clarified. "The expensive Italian suit.'
I popped the last stick of spearmint into my mouth. 'Tom wore nice Italian suits.'
My partner snorted. Tom, may he rot in hell, is history. It's time you got back in circulation.'
'I am in circulation. Besides, I don't think I want to start up with anyone else right now. My life is complicated enough,’
This admission was a mistake. Marianne stood, clenched both hands in her satiny black hair and pulled. 'I knew it. You're having a rebound thing with those limp-wristed lodgers. Kate, Kate, Kate, can't you see there's no future in that?'
Determined to play it cool, I swung my feet on to the blotter and crossed my ankles. 'Aren't you the one who's always saying "live for the moment"?'
'If only you would!' Marianne plopped back on her own desk and tugged her gold-braided bolero jacket over her tiny waist. 'At least give the man a call.'
'If you like him so much, you give him a call.'
'You're impossible.'
'And you're so jealous you could spit.'
She glared at this, but her anger faded to a pout a moment later. 'Maybe I am, but that doesn't mean sleeping with them isn't a stupid idea.'
'It wasn't stupid when you wanted to do it.'
Since she couldn't think of a comeback for that, she sniffed haughtily and swept out of the room muttering that I'd better not come crying to her when my heart got trampled.
Her warning hit home. I had a tendency to get serious about the men in my life. This fling with Sean and Joe was the closest I'd come to breaking my habit of serial monogamy. Already, I liked Sean far more than was convenient, and Joe -
I squirmed lower in my chair. Joe was so yummy it was dangerous.