" Why are you smiling?" she wanted to know.
"That guy . . . well, everyone really, they think that you and I are . . . well, I know it's not true, but I'm flattered that they would think it could be."
What's that supposed to mean? Julia wondered-^She looked around for photographers or reporters, but everyone else in the room was busy with the troubles of their own lives—no one seemed to be paying attention to hers. No one except Lance.
Julia studied him, then asked, "That was a compliment, wasn't it?"
"Not a compliment," Lance said. "Just a statement of fact."
Julia put her hands under her thighs and swung her legs like she and Caroline used to do when they were girls. She felt little again, not young but small, sitting on this very tall, very uncomfortable bench. She wondered if this was how it felt to get sent to the principal's office, to wait side by side with the eighth-grade bully. But Lance wasn't a bully. And this whole thing wasn't his fault. It was time to tell him so.
"It's not your fault," she said. "I know that. I believe you."
"Thank you," he said simply, taking the apology with grace.
"And your people were not the only ones to get carried away. They started it," she said, emphasizing the point. "But my editor, well, my ex-editor, he fell for it, too."
"I'm sorry," Lance said, sounding sincere.
"That's okay," Julia said, calling on her emotional reserves. "I have an early flight. I'm going back to the people I love. I'm leaving, and this will all be over."
"Great."
"Six thirty this morning, and I'm out of here," she stated flatly.
"Six thirty? Your flight's at six thirty, or you're leaving for the airport at six thirty?" Lance glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. "Because it's four fifteen in the morning right now."
Julia turned to study the clock herself. "It can't be!"
"It is." He raised his eyebrows in mock reverence. "Welcome to the criminal justice system."
"I'm not going to make it," Julia exclaimed, wilting with the realization. "It's her fifth birthday, and I'm not going to make it."
They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Lance turned to her. "What if I was to make sure you made that flight? What would that be worth?"
Julia leaned her head against the notice-covered bulletin board. She heard paper crinkle and felt a thumbtack jab into her skull, but she was far too exhausted to care. "If I made it to the airport with all of my belongings in time to catch a six thirty A.M. flight?" "Yeah," he said.
"If you could do that, you could name your price. But since—"
"I need to make a call," Lance said to a passing guard. A moment later, he was gone, leaving Julia on that hard bench alone.
Forty minutes later, Lance appeared at Julia's elbow. "Come on," he said, holding her coat. "Let's sign the forms and go."
"What? We're ready?"
"Well, I don't know about you, but I am."
The frigid March air hit Julia like a fist as they exited the station, and she recoiled, leaning into Lance. To her surprise, in spite of the hour, a cab was idling on the street at the bottom of the steep stairs. As they reached the sidewalk, the back door of the cab opened and a young man got out. Lance nodded at him and asked, "Everything set?"
"It's all in there," the young man responded. "I signed her out of her room, too."
"Okay." Lance moved to shake hands with his friend. "I owe you."
"Damn right you do."
"Will someone please tell me what's going on here?" Julia asked.
"Oh, sorry." The young man stepped forward and held his hand out for Julia to shake, which she did. "How ya doing?"
"Julia James"—Lance put his arm around her—"I'd like you to meet Tom Ford, a friend of mine." Lance ran his free hand through his hair, a gesture that almost succeeded in muffling his voice when he added, "Tom's also a bellman at the Ritz."
"Oh," Julia said, allowing a lot of pieces to fall into the puzzle.
"Tom and I are members of New York's thespian underground," Lance explained. "There's not a hotel we can't get into, a restaurant we can't eat at, or a Gap where we can't get .in employee discount. We're very powerful. Don't mess with us," he joked.
Tom raised his eyebrow in a "yep, I'm guilty" gesture. Julia looked at her carry-on bags lying in the backseat of the cab and forgot about invasion of privacy and hotel security, serenely grateful that Tom had chosen to abuse his power for a good cause.
"Come on." Lance pushed her toward the running taxi. "We've got a plane to catch." With a wave back at Tom, he said, "Thanks, man. Good luck in LA."
Julia was almost in the cab when she registered the "we."
"We? What do you mean 'We've got a plane to catch'?"
Through the diluted light of a streetlamp, Lance surveyed the exhausted woman who was halfway into the cab with one foot on the back floorboard and one hand on the top of the car. There were a couple of ways he could force her into the car from that] position, none of which he would try in front of a police station, j
He held out his hands. "Julia, I'm a bartender. I work nights and, as you can tell, I didn't show up tonight, so I'm probably fired. I don't have an agent, not one that I'm proud of anyway. I'm not scheduled for any auditions. And yet my picture is on every newsstand in America. You don't know me, but you have to believe me when I say that I am a good actor and I don't want to get ahead this way. Believe it or not, I'm an honorable guy. But honorable or not, I've still got to make rent. If I stay here, I'm gonna stumble, and then you're going to go down with me. I don't want to do that. Remove the temptation, please. Just get me away from this town for a while. Let's regroup. Let's put our heads together. Let's do it in Tulsa."
She shifted. He saw her start to budge. She shifted again, and he wished she'd just get in the stupid cab. He wasn't wearing a heavy coat, and it was freezing out. He tried one more piece of truth. "You're here with me, or you're there with me. It's your call, but the clock is ticking. And you said I could name my price."