Straddling the Line

Nine

Josey parked in a spot marked Reserved beside the factory next to the van that she thought belonged to the guy named Stick. The moment she opened her car door, the sound of caterwauling filled the air. She was early. The band was still here.

She grabbed her overnight bag and locked her doors. She debated heading toward the noise—she did like to watch Ben play, after all—but then she remembered the crude comments the other two band members had made. Maybe she’d just go upstairs.

The freight elevator seemed even spookier this time, but she figured out where the hidden keypad was and got the code right on the second try. Her stomach was doing wonderfully conflicting flips as the thing lurched its way up. She didn’t want to admit to herself how much she’d been looking forward to another night with Ben—and how excited she’d been about spending a little more time at his place. But to just walk right in, like she owned it? At best, this was a third date, assuming the first three meetings counted as one total outing. She was prepared this time, with a little lube she’d snagged at the drugstore and her own toothbrush. She should feel ready. But she didn’t.

She belonged in this world, she reminded herself. She fit here. She fit on the rez, too. It was fine to walk in both worlds. And besides, it wasn’t like the whole of the tribe was sitting around Ben’s apartment, watching them like old-fashioned chaperones, ready to smack Ben’s knuckles with a ruler if he so much as looked at her funny. This relationship was no one else’s business except hers and Ben’s. That’s all there was to it.

Finally, the elevator came to a jarring stop, sending her stumbling. That darn thing was going to take a lot of getting used to. She got the door open and heard—music? Wasn’t Ben down with the band?

Fighting a rising tide of dread, she stepped out into the apartment. “Hello?” she called, but the pounding piano drowned her out. No one was in the band area—she didn’t see anyone at all. A lilting woman’s voice echoed around her. Did Ben even like Sarah McLachlan?

She walked down the main aisle. Without Ben in it, this place gave her the creeps. It was too big, too empty—all the furniture notwithstanding. How did he stand it here all by himself?

Unless he wasn’t all by himself. She realized it was brighter up front, near the kitchen. Someone was here.

“Hello? Ben?”

A head—a female head—popped out from behind a cabinet. “Oh, hey! You’re early!”

Josey froze. “Excuse me?”

The woman—with fire-engine-red hair and piercings in her nose, ears and eyebrows—clicked a remote. The music faded away as she came around the island and gave Josey an explicit once-over. “Wow. He said you were beautiful, but damn, girl. Look at you!” She let out a wolf whistle and then called out over Josey’s shoulder, “Baby! Come meet the new girl!”

“Um, what?” Josey’s head began to spin. She’d thought— Ben had acted like— What kind of stuff was he into?

Footsteps echoed behind her. Josey spun awkwardly to see another punk-ish girl striding toward her, except this one had artificially black hair and far too much eyeliner. She advanced on Josey with a predatory stare. “Not what I was expecting,” she said in a quiet voice.

That would make two—or possibly three, Josey couldn’t tell—of them. These women acted like they knew her—like they knew Ben.

“So, you and Ben, huh?” The black-haired one circled around Josey on her way to join the redhead. Before Josey could answer the not-quite-a-question, the black-haired one slipped an arm around the redhead’s waist and kissed her neck without taking her eyes off Josey.

Josey made a snap decision that she needed to be as brazen as these women clearly were. Otherwise, they might eat her alive. “Yes. Ben and I.”

“He likes you,” the redhead volunteered, leaning back into the black-haired woman’s arms.

She didn’t even know how to respond to that. So she went with, “Oh?”

Both women smiled. The redhead’s was warm and friendly. The black-haired one’s was mercenary. “I’ve always wanted to know—is he good?”

“Excuse me?” Josey couldn’t help it. She took a step back.

“If I had to pick one of the Bolton boys, I’d pick Ben.”

“Really?” The redhead turned enough to give the other one a funny look. “I’d totally do Bobby before Ben. But not Billy. He’s a little too scary.”

“Of course you’d pick Bobby,” the dark one said. “But I like Ben. He’s serious, intense. I bet he’d be great in bed. Is he?”

Both women turned expectant gazes back to where Josey was edging away from them.

“Well…” She wasn’t one to kiss and tell, and this felt a hell of a lot like telling.

The redhead turned back to her companion. “I’m not disagreeing with you. But Bobby—he’d be all over a ménage à trois. If I were going to sleep with a man, I’d want you to be there with me. And Bobby would totally get off watching us go at it, baby. He’d think he’d died and gone to heaven. Ben would never go for that—he’d consider it cheating or something ridiculous. He’s a one-woman kind of man.”

“Oh, honey, that’s so sweet of you.” The black-haired woman kissed the redhead—on the mouth!—and although Josey was trying not to look, she was pretty sure the redhead was giving as good as she got.

This situation was so far out of her control as to be laughable. Bailing was the only sane option. Girl-on-girl—with or without a Bolton watching—was not part of her plans for the evening. Or her life. She took another step backward—and ran into something hard and warm and slightly damp.

Long arms circled around her waist, and light stubble scratched at her ear. “You made it,” Ben said, pulling her back into his chest. “Did you meet the girls? Oh.” He sighed in frustration. “Hey, knock it off!” he thundered, right in her ear. “Sorry.”

“Oops.” The redhead giggled. “Our bad, boss.”

Boss? What the heck?

“So you’ve met the girls?”

Both of the “girls” shot her a smarmy smile. Met? No. Been menaced by? Yes. “Only just.”

“Josey White Plume, this is Gina Cobbler,” he said, indicating the redhead, “and Patrice Harmon. They’re the artists-slash-maids I was telling you about.”

“You seriously forgot gourmet chef?” Gina rolled her eyes. “Men.”

The artists. Slash maids. And chef. The overwhelming relief that these women weren’t manifestations of Ben’s kinky side but merely eccentric employees made Josey’s knees knock together.

“You okay?” Ben whispered in her ear as his arm tightened around her waist a little more.

“I think so.” Better than she’d been ten minutes ago. The artists—she’d assumed it was a man and woman. Not two women.

Who’d never slept with Ben. Who believed he was a one-woman man.

“Good. Will you be okay for a few minutes? I’ve got to shower.”

“We’ll be fine,” Gina told him. “Go, before you stink up the joint. We’ll give her the tour.”

Ben came around to kiss her on the lips before he headed for the glassed-off bathroom. “I already gave her a tour,” he shouted back over her shoulder. He peeled off his shirt and dropped it on a sofa.

“Men,” Gina repeated. “He probably told you the obvious—he’s got a gym and a movie room and a kitchen, that sort of thing.” She spun around to peek in on something in the oven.

“Well, yes,” Josey admitted, taking a cautious jump back into the conversation. She still wasn’t sure about Patrice, but Gina seemed mostly friendly. “There’s more?”

“If you’re going to spend any time here—which we’re all assuming you are, as he’s already given you the key codes—you need to have the real tour.”

Getting the key codes was a big deal?

Josey suddenly realized that Gina—and Patrice—were Ben’s personal versions of that receptionist at Crazy Horse. Flattery would get a girl everywhere. “You’re right. And dinner smells delicious.”

“Thanks!” Gina said brightly. “It’s one of Ben’s favorites.”

In the next fifteen minutes, Josey learned where the cups, forks and plates were; how to turn on both TVs; how to start the treadmill; and which mini-fridge had the red wine and which had the white. She learned how to turn the lights on and off and how to change the music. She even learned where the stairway was—“He only uses the elevator when he’s on the bike,” Gina told her.

She heard about how “the girls,” as they collectively referred to themselves, had met Ben about four years ago at a gallery showing he’d attended with a date.

“First and last time we ever saw that one,” Gina said in a conspiratorial whisper. “She didn’t appreciate art. You do something with a school, right? Don’t tell her I told you, but Patrice loves kids. Quiet ones, anyway. Sometimes, we pack our stuff up and hang out in the cancer ward. Those kids appreciate art. Maybe we could come out to your school? That would be cool. Ben didn’t say if you had an art teacher or not, but everyone should throw paint at a canvas at some point in their lives, don’t you think?”

Josey could only nod along. Gina talked fast. As she shot off ideas and plans at tommy-gun speed, Patrice disappeared into a back room again, carrying Ben’s discarded shirt. “Laundry,” Gina informed her. “Ben doesn’t ‘do’ laundry, but if you need to, it’s back there. Otherwise, Patrice does it when we’re here.”

“And how often are you here?”

“Every other week.” Gina hurried back to the kitchen when a timer went off. “He’ll cook eggs and stuff, but I make dinners he can reheat whenever he gets home and we keep the place clean. He doesn’t charge us much rent at all and doesn’t care who crashes. We’ve got plenty of studio space and no nosy neighbors. As long as we don’t set the joint on fire or do anything illegal, we can stay. We love it here.” She turned a surprisingly stern glare to Josey. “He’s a nice guy, although he doesn’t want anyone to know it. Don’t jerk him around.”

Josey bristled under the implication. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good.” The moment passed, and Gina was off again. She told Josey all about how Ben had let them decorate this place. “When we got here, it was still so a factory. He had a big bed in the corner, but it was awful. All gray. Terrible.”

Like his office. Josey looked at Gina and smiled. “Men and color, huh?”

“Totally,” was the answer she got before Gina was telling Josey how Ben held formal parties for people wearing tuxedos and leathers every so often, and how Gina would make the craziest appetizers she could think of while Patrice and whatever buddies they could gather up walked around with serving trays.

“We met Brad Pitt—pre-break-up. He’d ordered a bike and wanted to come pick it up himself. And Pink—she was so nice!—and even Jack Nicholson.”

“Anarchy,” Patrice called out from somewhere.

“Oh, yeah! The whole cast of that Sons of Anarchy show, too.”

Josey couldn’t help but be impressed. She was standing where Nicholson and Pitt had stood? “Wow.”

Gina nodded enthusiastically. “Ben bitches and moans about Bobby schmoozing, but secretly, he’s just as bad. Looks damn fine in a tux, too. If I weren’t a lesbian…” She got a wistful look in her eye. “Well, maybe not. It’d be like boinking my brother, you know? Ew.”

“Um…”

“Did you see the paintings?” Gina appeared to be completely oblivious to the discomfort she slung around. Luckily, Josey’s mortification was short-lived. Gina talked too darned fast. “Patrice, she does the abstract stuff. She’s really good. She had a gallery show in Denver a few months ago.”

“Wow.” That word seemed appropriate and short enough that Josey could actually get it in edgewise. “How about you?”

“Oh—totally different. I do portraits. Takes me months to get them just right. I’m soooo slow!” This last bit came out as a wail.

“She did the one over there.” Patrice motioned to the library as she walked past Josey with a basket of folded sheets. “It’s Ben’s favorite.”

Gina blew a kiss after her. “You’re so sweet!”

Oh, dear. Josey decided that the best course of action was to go look at the painting before those two got all lovey-dovey again.

The portrait was about the size of a sheet of paper, so it blended in with all the books that surrounded it in the middle of the library shelves. As Josey got closer, her first impression was of bright, California sun. The woman pictured had the kind of blond hair that came straight from a beach and a wide smile. The angle of her body made it look like she was sitting at a table or something, smiling up at the viewer. She was young and beautiful.

“It’s a lovely portrait,” Josey said, trying her darnedest to focus on the artistic merit of the piece and ignore whatever irrational jealousy she felt toward the woman who had earned the right to sit on Ben’s shelf.

“It’s my mother.”

Josey jumped. She’d been so absorbed in the art that she hadn’t heard him come up next to her. She glanced at him. Bare feet, wet hair, gray T-shirt and faded blue jeans. How could he possibly look any better in a tux than he did right now?

“She’s lovely.” Josey studied the face. “You have her eyes.”

Ben wrapped her up in a hug. She loved how she fit with him, how his chin rested on her forehead, how his arms seemed to belong around her waist. When he was near, what seemed big and spooky about his apartment suddenly felt cozy and just right.

“Bobby looks more like her than I do.” He sounded resigned to the sibling rivalry.

“Dinner’s on the table! Byeeeee!” At the far end, a door clicked shut.

They were alone. Ben spun her around and kissed her.

“So,” she said, clearing her throat and trying to grasp everything that had happened in the past half hour. She wasn’t sure she was doing a very good job of it.

“So,” he agreed. For a moment, they stood there, arms around each other. It was a simple hug—the earth did not move and choirs did not sing—but Josey couldn’t help but feel a connection with Ben that she’d never felt with anyone before. Not even in bed.

“We should eat before it gets cold.” He took her hand and led her away from the kind eyes of his mother.

Dinner was indeed on the table. Twice-baked potatoes, spring greens, a homemade loaf of bread and something that looked like a cross between a roast and a Hostess Ho Ho. A bottle of red wine—a shiraz—was breathing on the table. The smells that had been lurking around the apartment hit Josey full-on. The crystal wine goblets caught the light of the taper candles and threw a warm glow around them. “You have a chef.” It was almost too much.

“Gina watches a lot of cooking shows. This is braciola, I think. It’s good.” He sliced the bread and then the meat. “How was the meeting at the university?”

Josey didn’t bother to hide her grin. He wasn’t asking it because he felt he was obligated. She could tell by the way that he watched her that he was actually interested. “Good.”

In between bites of some of the best—and flattest—steak she’d ever had, she told him that, because all of her supply problems had disappeared, she was now working on getting the program certified by the state.

He finished chewing and notched an eyebrow at her. “Let me guess. Don is the sticking point?”

The level of attention he paid to her was making her warm. “He’s provisionally certified. He has a year to complete several classes on child development. A fact that he has yet to learn.” And she wasn’t exactly looking forward to telling him.

“You should sell tickets to that conversation—like a fundraiser for the school. I’d buy one.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” Ben regarded her with open curiosity. The room’s temperature seemed to go up another notch under the heat of that gaze. “What?”

“Are you certified?”

“No. I’m not a teacher.”

“You’re a corporate fundraiser. Except I don’t know what corporation needs to hold fundraisers.” He turned his attention back to the braciola, making it seem like a casual question.

Josey knew better. Wine or no wine, she could tell when someone was fishing for information. “Depends on how you define corporate. Most hospitals are corporations, and a good many universities operate like one. I started out at the New York University Hospital. My grandfather was on the board.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. She could see him thinking, and she wondered which way he’d go—how she got here from NYU, or… “The same grandfather who left you in charge of a trust fund?”

“The very same.”

His smile was cryptic. “You don’t act anything like the trust-fund babies I’ve met before.”

“You’ve met other trust-fund babies with a last name like White Plume?”

“Point taken.”

Josey topped off her wineglass. How many trust-fund babies did he know? “My great-grandfather Harold Stewart was a banker. He ran things for J. P. Morgan, II.” She pointed to her head. “That’s where the red hair came from.”

“Impressive.”

“I don’t know if you know this, but Morgan Sr. fronted the money for Edward Curtis to take all those famous photos of American Indians. And Harold idolized the Morgans. So he took it upon himself to do a little documenting. He packed up my grandfather, George, and lit out for the Plains in a Cadillac.”

“I’ve heard of Curtis.”

He waited for her to go on. A man who listened, she marveled. How rare was that?

“They got a flat tire forty miles from Wall, South Dakota. A Lakota named Samuel Respects None found them.”

“How old was George?”

“Ten. They spent the whole summer vacation with Samuel. Harold bought anything—ancient artifacts, new dance costumes—he could get his hands on. He spread more money around the rez than most people had seen in their lifetimes.” Harold had been an outsider, and he’d bought the respect of the tribe. Josey wondered if Ben was doing the same. Some days, she wondered if, with her trust fund, that’s what she was doing, too.

“So Sam invited him back?”

“Every summer for the rest of his life. They were family. When Harold died in 1952, Sam even made the trip to New York for the funeral.” She smiled. This was the part of the story she liked. “He brought his granddaughter, Mary, with him. She stayed.”

It had always seemed like such a romantic tale—two star-crossed lovers from different worlds finding a way to be together, no matter what the cost. She looked at Ben. Is this connection what Grandma had to go all the way to New York to find?

“So Samuel Respects None’s granddaughter was your grandmother? The one from the bluff?”

“And Mom was their only child. He loved my grandmother very much.” That one truth—the truth that no one could ever deny or take away—was the thing that made Josey hold her head high when people looked at her sideways.

Grandpa and Grandma had loved deeply and passionately until their last days on this earth. The dementia that took her grandmother away from Josey, then her mother, couldn’t touch her love of George Stewart. Even when Grandma couldn’t recognize her husband as an old man, she would sit with photos of him from his first visit to the rez, when he had been ten and Grandma had been six, and tell Josey in an awestruck whisper, “I like this boy. I’m going to marry him.” And Josey would pat her hand and assure her that, yes, she would, and they’d live happily ever after.

Sheesh. One or two glasses of wine, and she was getting misty-eyed. Reading too much into Ben’s attentiveness was a recipe for disaster. She sniffed and tried to pull herself together.

Ben gave her a minute to get things under control before he blissfully steered the conversation away from loves-of-a-lifetime. “He wanted to make things better.”

“His father had paid for Grandma to go to a private school off the rez when she was young. He had a provision in his will that paid for her college in New York, too. When she died, Grandpa tried to think of the best way he could honor her memory. So Mom and I got enough to live on, but the rest of the money went toward building the school.”

“Warren Buffet would have been proud.”

Josey broke out in a laugh. “Actually, they didn’t get along. Grandpa preferred Pepsi.”

Ben laughed with her, a rich, full sound that warmed her even further. So it probably was the wine, but really—how many men could she sit down to dinner with who would make jokes about Warren Buffet? Who’d also heard of Curtis and not one, but two J. P. Morgans? And—this was the kicker—who didn’t laugh at names like White Plume and Respects None?

Very few. She’d be hard-pressed to come up with another.

The remains of dinner sat on the table. Ben stood and began to gather the dishes. “So, Gina talked your ear off?”

“Both of them.” She handed him the dishes, he rinsed them under the tap and put them in the dishwasher. Despite having hired help, he seemed comfortable fending for himself.

Ben laughed again. “At least she doesn’t have access to any of my baby pictures.” He shut the dishwasher and, leaning back on the counter, gave her a look that she couldn’t quite read. “Do you know how to play pool?”