The Perfect Score. Julie Kenner

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      I HATE PRESSBOARD. THAT fake wood with veneer on it filled with packed sawdust that weighs umpteen million pounds.

      So far, I’d managed to chip the corners of two pieces, strip the screw-hole out of a third piece, and mutilate my toe by dropping yet another piece right on it. All in the name of a lateral filing cabinet I didn’t want for a job I didn’t want.

      Honestly.

      And I was all the more irritated because my sister had called earlier, just to say “Hi,” she’d said. But when I’d told her about my furniture dilemma, she’d immediately launched into a narrative about how her boss had insisted she not work at home. He wants her to have a life, he said. And to make sure she was comfortable whenever she did have to work long hours at the office, he gave her an astronomical furniture budget and told her to go for it.

      Even in furniture, Angie wins out. I tell you, it’s enough to drive a girl batty.

      I shoved thoughts of my sister out of my head, and instead focused on the mess in front of me. What I needed was help. Immediately, an image of Mike filled my head. Nice Mike. Cute Mike. Mike with the awesome upper body.

      I shook myself. Bad Mattie. Bad. Bad.

      Still…I did need to get that margarita glass back. And if he asked me what I was doing—and if I told him I was having a heck of a time assembling some furniture—and if he offered to help me out…well, who was I to say no?

      Having thus justified seeing him one more time, I stood and headed to the door. I paused to check my face and hair in the mirror I keep hanging there, decided I looked respectable if not awesome, and pulled open the door to reveal the man himself.

      “Mike! I was just coming to see you!”

      He held up my margarita glass. “Desperate to get it back?”

      “No, of course not,” I said, even though that had totally been my planned excuse. “I, um, was hoping you could give me a hand.” I stepped back from the door and ushered him in.

      He brushed past me, glanced around, then turned to face me directly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but did a sawmill erupt in here?”

      “Very funny.” I plucked the glass out of his hand. “Will you help me if I offer to fill this back up for you?”

      He flashed me a grin, charming, but with a hint of mischief. “With an offer like that, how could I refuse?”

      Since I’m not a fool, I immediately slapped an Allen wrench into his open palm and pointed him toward the instructions (balled up under the television stand where I’d kicked them in a fit of pique.) He scored points by not even looking at me funny as he bent to dig them out.

      I retreated to the kitchen to make the margaritas.

      Not that retreated really describes it. The apartment is only about seven hundred square feet consisting of a big rectangle filled with a living area, a dining area and a kitchen area, pretty much all open to each other unless you’re standing way back by the fridge.

      Between the dining area (carpeted) and the kitchen area (tiled) were two stairs leading up to a tiny bathroom on the left and a decent-size bedroom on the right. That’s it. End of grand tour.

      It’s not much, but you’d think differently if you saw the check I wrote every month. Studio City doesn’t come cheap.

      All of which is to say that even though I couldn’t see Mike the whole time, I could hear him. And it felt nice and cozy—and scarily domestic—to be working in the kitchen while he was shuffling pieces of wood and muttering to himself.

      Since making margaritas requires little more than dumping ice and alcohol into a blender and pressing On, it didn’t take me too long to whip up a batch. Even so, in the short time that I was gone, Mike had managed to assemble an entire base section of the cabinet.

      “Wow. You’re good.” I handed him his drink then sat on the floor next to him, looking at what he’d accomplished in only a few minutes, compared to the nothing I’d accomplished in hours.

      “Call it a guy thing,” he said, then he flashed that grin again. I really like that grin, and I felt my stomach do one of those flip-flop numbers.

      I turned away, suddenly feeling shy. “So, um, what can I do to help?”

      “Just keep bringing the margaritas. I’ve got a handle on everything else.”

      “And you’re sure you don’t mind?”

      He looked up at me, and I felt warm and tingly all over. More, I knew that he was telling me the absolute truth when he said, “No. I don’t mind at all.”

      And so that’s how it happened. He worked and I sat there watching him. Watching and sipping and serving margaritas as the two of us got more and more tipsy.

      “So how come the sudden need for new furniture?” he asked later. By this time he’d finished assembling (in about one-bazillionth of the time it would have taken me), and was kicked back, leaning against my new cabinet, a margarita loose in his hand.

      Technically we still barely knew each other. But we’d spent the last hour chatting in close quarters, and there was something about him that made me feel as though we were old friends. It was a nice feeling; one I hadn’t experienced with a guy since high school, actually. And I told him the ins and outs of my job. “I know I have a good deal, so I hate to gripe. I mean, my checking account is nice and full. But my ideas? They’re starting to dwindle. It’s like I’m losing touch with some spark of creativity.”

      I took in a breath and let it out slowly. “It’s scary. But being jobless is scarier still. Especially if you were raised in a family like mine where the mighty paycheck is king, the power job is emperor and social prestige is God himself.”

      He watched me intently while I told all of this. Not in a way that made me uncomfortable, but as if everything I had to say was important. And when I finished, he was nodding a little. “I know exactly what you’re going through,” he said. “It took all my courage to quit my day job and start freelancing. Hardest thing I’ve done in my life.”

      “But it’s paid off for you,” I said. “Right?”

      “Absolutely.” He’d told me earlier a bit about what he does—designing computer games and writing the script for them and everything—and he’d become less geeky in my eyes. I mean, writing scripts was what I wanted to do.

      “So do you think I’m being a coward?” I asked. At the same time, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted an answer. I realized that I valued his opinion. If he did think I was foolish for sticking it out with John, what would that mean? Because I didn’t think I had the courage to chuck it with John Layman Productions. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But at the same time, the thought СКАЧАТЬ