Chapter 9

The Chamber was charmed by my date. I was my usual professional self and I think it threw Carrie off a bit.

I am somewhat reserved and staid when I am in a professional situation — a far cry from the juvenile way I behave in private. But the members in attendance were old moneyed or new moneyed but either way they were moneyed.

Carrie was used to dealing with these types of people. Some of her clients were multi-national corporations so she was at ease. I, on the other hand, hated the stuffy old bastards and their silicon trophy wives with a passion. So I hid behind the mask of my job — I was representing the newspaper, a charter member of the Chamber — and I was not there as a participant.

We danced and ate and socialized. Carrie was a hit and gradually she even managed to pull portions of my personality into the open around people I knew fairly well.

Of course the newspaper staffed the event as well. I think the photographer was shocked and dismayed when I showed up in a tux — with a beautiful woman on my arm. I know for a fact he expended at least two dozen shots when Carrie and I exited my car. I wondered for a moment if perhaps her boob was loose. I checked but everything was covered. More the pity. Carrie had very interesting boobs.

And more importantly — at least to me — they were original equipment. That couldn't be said of 80 percent of the women younger than 50 and 40 percent of the women older than 50 present.

Carrie was besieged with requests to dance but she always declined — even though I made it a point to assure her that I wouldn't mind so long as she danced with me occasionally. Instead she stayed attached to my arm for the entire night. The only time she danced with anyone else was when the newspaper's elderly owner asked. Actually his elderly wife asked me to dance and I felt obligated to agree.

Carrie was silent for the first portion of the ride home.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" I asked. "You were certainly the belle of the ball."

"I did have fun," she said. "It was a new experience for me. Did you have fun?"

"I had fun being with you," I replied without a moment's thought. "But those really aren't my sort of things."

"I noticed," she said. "You put on a mask the moment we left the car. It was like I was with a stranger."

"Uh, Carrie," I said. "We've known each other a week. I am a stranger, relatively speaking."

As is practiced by my daughter, my reply went entirely ignored.

"Is that the way you act at work?" she wondered.

I thought about my answer.

"It's not really an act," I said. "At work I am expected to behave a certain way. Now that I run the newsroom, that means I have to maintain a relatively serious air. I joke with my people and I don't think anyone considers me a tyrant. But I have expectations of my people, too. For instance, you saw photographers from three newspapers there tonight. Which one do you think was from my paper?"

"The one who blinded me for life," she said.

"I thought either your nipple slipped free or you flashed your hoo-ha when you got out," I said with a smirk.

"I did not flash my hoo-ha," she said with mock indignation. "And I saw you lean forward to check to my sure my boob was covered."

Oops. Busted.

"Anyway, back to your point," she said. "Your photographer did not look like a bum off the street. He wore a tie and jacket. He also kept a respectful distance. I noticed the couple in front of us almost had to push through the other two photographers. Yours stayed back and acted, well, professionally. I noticed the writer you sent blended it. She did not make a spectacle of herself by intruding in conversations. In fact, if she hadn't stopped by to ask you questions a couple of times I wouldn't have known she was there or what her function was."

"The couple in front of us was the mayor," I said. "The woman with him was not his wife. I am on somewhat friendly terms with his family. The other papers were from out of town so it was gossip. The woman with the mayor is his sister-in-law. She is ill and this was something she has always wanted to do. But even if it was a 18-year-old streetwalker I would expect my people to maintain decorum. We could broach the subject privately but we do not practice what I call 'journalism by ambush.'"

Carrie seemed to be taking in what I said.

"But when we sat down for dinner, your mask slipped a little," she said. "You knew the other couple at our table so you were able to drop the charade. It was just a side of you I wasn't aware of. I've met newspaper guys before. They were almost a caricature of the old whiskey swilling, cigar chomping men pounding away on their typewriters."

"I think the biggest thing I faced when I got here was the number of fences that needed to be mended," I told her. "My predecessor was not a professional. She allowed her personal biases to influence her coverage."

"Oh I heard about that at Hope Haven," Carrie assured me. "Ol' Battleax Madelyn told me that you hate all women and that you almost single-handedly shut the place down."

"That is a bit over-dramatic," I responded.

"You think?" Carrie joked.

"What I insisted upon was disclosure," I said. "My predecessor allowed the shelter to hide behind secrecy while she pushed for public donations. I told them that before I was willing to make an appeal I wanted to see what programs are offered and to ensure that the programs and those who offer them are state approved. I didn't ask for specifics. So long as they were willing to put me in touch with the state agency that certified the programs I would go from there. They were unwilling or, more likely, unable to do that. So I was unwilling to ask the public to help. Or more aptly, I was unwilling to provide free advertising for them."

"As is your right and your responsibility," Carrie said.

"Not all feel that way," I replied.

"Let me guess," she said. "Kelly chewed you out for your stance."

"Actually, the opposite," I answered. "She backed my decision fully and even stood up in front of the board of directors and told them that unless they had something to hide they had no reason to keep the information private."

"Wow," Carrie exclaimed.

"Yeah," I said. "Shocked the crap out of me. I fully expected to get it with both barrels. Instead she told the old crones that eventually the state would get around to seeing where their grants were going so they better get their ducks in row."

Carrie sat and looked out the window for a couple of minutes.

"Can I convince you to move back your bed tonight?" she asked.

I glanced to my right and she was smiling at me like a cat smiles at a mouse.

"If my daughter does not have five friends at the house to show you off, I think I could be persuaded," I said.

"Maybe I should call ahead and tell her to go home," Carrie joked. "Otherwise I'm going to ask you to stop at a motel and make love to me."

She slid a little closer and put her hand in my lap.

"If I wasn't in a borrowed dress and wearing borrowed jewelry I would be in your lap right now," she whispered. "I don't want to scare you but I'm falling for you pretty quickly."

I moved her hand to my thigh so I could concentrate on the road.

"I'm not scared," I said. "And I feel the same way. I think I've felt that way since the first moment I saw you."

"Me, too," she said.

"It was a foreign emotion for me," I confessed. "It was conflicting emotions. Part of me wanted to wrap you in my arms and protect you from the world. Another part of me wanted to sweep the cookies off the counter and make love to you right there."

"Wouldn't that have been a sight to greet Ol' Battleaxe Madelyn," Carrie said with a lusty laugh. "Because I wanted to do the same thing to you. She would have walked in on me pinning you down on the floor and having my way with you. Which is the way we'll have to do it tonight. Otherwise your poor bruised bottom will never withstand my hands."

"What about your bruises?" I asked.

"You can kiss them all better," she said. "It's a shame I don't have any bruises in the fun places. But I gather that his prison experience had turned poor Robert into quite the homo."

"You obviously hold a bachelor of science degree," I said.

"A master's in business administration," she said. "Why does it matter?"