She's Got Mail!: She's Got Mail! / Forget Me? Not. Darlene Gardner

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СКАЧАТЬ company. Moments later, Ben backed out the driveway while wisps of orange and pink threaded the eastern sky. He could be at work by seven-fifteen, park, shower and dress, then move his car before Rosie showed up.

      Twenty minutes later Ben careened down Clark before swerving sharply down an alley. After his car sailed over a bump, Ben cut the wheel sharply to the right…

      “Wha-a-a-?” He slammed on the brakes, his front bumper nearly kissing the rear end of a tacky green economy car. Gripping the steering wheel, Ben glared through the windshield at the offending vehicle.

      “What in the hell is this car doing here?” he yelled. How many people was Archibald Potter renting that space to?

      Seething, Ben quickly went over the facts. At yesterday’s meeting, Potter had checked his computer records. The space had been rented to only two people. Which meant…

      “That tacky green Neon belongs to Rosie,” Ben muttered ominously. Forget the earlier waking-up-in-bed fantasies, this was reality! “What is it with the women in my life? They’re either redecorating or invading my space!”

      Ben slammed the gear into park and hopped out of the car.

      Splash.

      He blew out an exasperated breath before looking down. His sockless, sneaker-clad feet were standing in a pothole of muddy water. “Now I know where her mud-splattered look came from.” He stepped out of the hole. “But before I repark, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” He sloshed his way to the back doors of the building.

      Minutes later, Ben returned to his car to find a square yellow truck halted behind his BMW. Even in the early-morning haze, he could clearly see the scowl on the truck driver’s face.

      “Hey!” the guy yelled out his window, jabbing a cigarette at Ben. “Just ’cause you drive a Beemer, you think you can block traffic?”

      Ben shrugged. “I had to use the men’s room.”

      “What?”

      Ben didn’t want to repeat the reason—the last thing he wanted was his entire office building to hear him yelling that he’d had to take a leak. But the slovenly, burly truck driver looked as though he’d kill if he didn’t get a valid excuse. Ben cleared his throat. Raising his voice, he repeated, “I had to use the men’s room.”

      The driver blinked with great exaggeration. “How unusual—like the rest of us don’t.” He took an angry puff off a cigarette, letting the smoke stream out of his nostrils while he continued talking. “Other guys take leaks without causing traffic jams. You’re costing me time and money!”

      “You’re right,” Ben answered, putting on his best mediating voice while putting his hand on the door handle. “I’m leaving.”

      “Make it snappy!”

      That did it. Ben, always the peacemaker, the good guy, snapped on the “snappy” comment. Enough was enough. If he wanted to park crooked—all right, and also block an alley—for ten lousy minutes, well by damn, he’d park crooked and not have to explain he was in the men’s room.

      His face growing hot, he turned slowly and faced down the driver. “I said, ‘you’re right.’ So what’s the beef, Dog Breath?”

      Ben’s mind raced. In horror, he wondered where he’d come up with the death wish to insult a guy who was twice—maybe three times—his size. And worse, he called him Dog Breath, a label he never used with anyone, even his dog Max. As these thoughts crowded Ben’s mind, Dog Breath threw open his door, jumped to the ground and marched right at him.

      Ben prayed the mud hole—strategically placed between him and the trucker—would hinder the one-man death march.

      No such luck.

      Dog Breath stepped in and out of the hole as though it were a mere dent in the road. The death march continued, unabated. Next thing Ben knew, a big jowly face was inches from his own. He fought the urge to cough at the stench of cigarette smoke.

      “My beef, Mr. Beemer, is that people like you think they own the road.”

      Holding his breath, Ben stared at the man’s chest, which was a blur of plaid. He raised his gaze to the man’s beady eyes, which were difficult to see through the folds of fat. But Ben didn’t want to back down. Hell, he’d backed down long enough…to Meredith, to Heather, to Ms. Parking Space.

      “If I’m costing you time and money,” Ben said, “why are you arguing with me, preventing me from getting in my car and moving out of your way?”

      Dog Breath snatched a handful of Ben’s sweatshirt and jerked him closer. “I’m not arguin’,” he growled.

      Ben would have growled back, but the tightly pulled sweatshirt was like a noose around his throat. “Physical violence,” he rasped, “never solved anything.”

      “Oh yeah?”

      “I’m a lawyer.”

      “All da better.”

      The last thing Ben remembered was a chicken-size fist obliterating his vision.

      ROSIE STARED at the flaxen-haired receptionist, who was studiously applying mascara with one hand while holding a small hand mirror with the other.

      “If Benny said he’d meet you at seven-forty-five,” the receptionist said, her eyes never wavering from the hand mirror, “he’ll be here any minute. He’s very punctured.”

      Rosie paused. “You mean punctual?”

      “Yes,” the woman answered absently, adroitly twirling the mascara wand along her lashes.

      Makeup. Rosie never understood why women took such pains to slather on that stuff. Rather than stare at the eyelash-thickening procedure, she checked out a painting over the receptionist’s head. It was a tropical beach under moonlight. Rosie eyed the pearly crest of waves along a dark beach, the spiked silhouette of palm trees, the man-in-the-moon face which was also…a clock? Rosie leaned forward. The moon was definitely a clock. What kind of office had a tropical painting with a clock for a moon? Lawyers. No sense of decor.

      Rosie compared moon-time with her wristwatch. Both read 7:55. She crossed her arms under her chest. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly always on time herself, but hadn’t Mr. ILITIG8 said, “Not seven-fifty-five—seven-forty-five”?

      Uh-huh. Real punctured.

      The clattering of a dropped hand mirror interrupted Rosie’s thoughts.

      “Benny!” The receptionist stood up, her voice rising with her. “Did you get mugged?”

      Rosie turned to look.

      If she’d run into this man on the street, she’d never have recognized him as the nattily dressed lawyer she’d met yesterday. Today he wore a soiled gray sweat suit that looked oddly stretched out around the neckline. His tennis shoes were caked with mud. His hair, which yesterday had been neatly parted on the side, stuck out in tufts that reminded her of the baby chickens back home. One hand clutched the handle of a workout bag—the other held a wadded white napkin to his chin.

      Ben СКАЧАТЬ