Julia put her hands on Lance's butt and pushed herself upright enough to face her sister and best friend.
"Nina, this is so not funny! People who used to respect me are currently under the impression that I am shacked up! And knocked up and . . . many kinds of up!" Blood rushed to her head. "I don't feel so good," she said, and Lance dropped her onto the mattress.
"Stay there," he ordered, and for once, Julia did exactly as she was told.
"Come on, Julia," Caroline said. "No one is going to believe that about you."
Just then the phone rang. Nina picked it up and looked at the caller ID. "It's Ro-Ro," she said, handing the receiver to Julia, who turned the ringer off. She used the phone to point at her sister.
"Ro-Ro just made a long-distance call, Caroline. Do you still think it's so unbelievable?"
Lance's legs appeared in Julia's peripheral vision. He leaned down and held out a glass of water for her to take. "Thanks," she said, grateful for something to do with her hands. She drank the whole glass before looking back up at him. "And not just for the water," she said sheepishly.
"Oh . . . well." Lance eased down beside her. She felt his weight and sensed his guilt. "Do I have a great agent or what?"
"He is pretty resourceful," Nina added, not helping.
Someone had left the television on downstairs. Julia heard a reporter's voice saying, "Tonight the debate rages on. ..." and the distant cries of picketers: "Give Lance a chance! Give Lance a chance!" The story continued, but Julia could listen no more.
She stood and gathered her composure. She brushed herself off and said, "I'm going to have to issue a statement. I'll walk down there right now and address them myself. I'll pee on a stick in front of them if that's what it takes, but ..."
"Julia." Lance stood and held her arms. His voice was cool and steady, with no hint of sarcasm or ridicule, just stability and truth. "The last time you addressed these people, it involved a hard-sided suitcase and a night in jail. I don't really think public urination would be a step up. Do you?" She pondered this, maybe longer than she'd intended, because she felt Lance's grip on her arms tighten. "Julia, you're exhausted. Let's sleep on it. In the morning, we can make a statement or maybe meet with an attorney. But it's getting late. Let's not try to accomplish anything tonight."
Reluctantly, Julia nodded her agreement. "At least there aren't any more pictures. Without pictures, there isn't much fuel for the fire."
Lance smiled, dimples and all, and said, "Exactly."
Halfway down the stairs, Julia hid her face in her hands and yelled, "Oh, what a mess!" Then she decided that if she wasn't going to get to kill Richard Stone with a hammer, she could at least attack the pile of garbage they'd cleaned out of the guest room. She headed to the mountain of boxes and bags, and began hauling them toward the back door, wishing all of life's garbage could disappear so easily. But before she could hurl the first bag into the backyard, Nina grabbed it from her.
"Don't do that!" she exclaimed, clutching the trash bag to her chest. "Don't you watch TV? They'll go through it! They have no pride."
"Nina, I have to do something! This whole night is driving me crazy!"
"Give the trash to me," Caroline said. "Tomorrow's trash day. I'll put everything out with my stuff. And Julia"—she pointed at her sister—"listen to Nina. Until this is over, nothing goes out that door, okay? Not you. Not him. Not even the trash."
Julia whipped off a little salute to her take-no-prisoners sister. "Fine."
"It will be okay," Caroline said with a hug. "We'll work it all out tomorrow."
Julia picked up the red eight and tried to find a place for it to go. Nowhere. She looked back through the loose cards to the side of the seven stacks and remembered that there had been a black nine in there somewhere. She flipped through the cards until she found it, then she placed it on the red ten and laid the eight down in order. There. Great. Crisis averted.
"Now that's cheating," Lance said from the doorway of her bedroom.
Julia was taken aback by the thought of him watching her nightly insomnia ritual. "I'm good at cheating," she said, growing defensive. "Cheating is what I do."
He grinned. "You should write a book."
"Maybe I'll do that," she said and smiled despite her best efforts otherwise. She thought that might put an end to the conversation, but instead he crossed his arms and asked softly, "Are you okay, Julia? You had me scared for a minute there."
Suddenly, Julia wasn't sitting on her bed playing solitaire;
she was standing on a busy street, feeling the rain in the wind as Lance Collins stood behind her; she was in a taxi, rolling down the window, offering him a ride. Seeds planted that day at Stella's were growing wild, out of control, and far beyond her normal borders. She stared back down at the cards, searching for her next move. But instead of finding a way to change the cards to suit her situation, Julia found herself saying, "If I can't stop Richard Stone, I'll lose everything." It was something that until then, she hadn't even admitted to herself.
"No you won't," Lance said simply. "But we'll stop it anyway." As he turned to leave, he looked back at her and said, "You should try milk and honey."
"Excuse me?"
"To help you sleep." He stepped closer. "My mom's an insomniac, too, but when she's up, she doesn't like to be alone, so I'd keep her company. I was the only kid in the fourth grade who operated on less than three hours of sleep a night. But I was also the only ten-year-old who knew all the Shakespearean soliloquies, so it was probably a pretty fair trade. Plus"—he cocked his head—"I could build stuff. Anyway, she always drank milk and honey. It helped."
As she watched Lance, she realized that part of him was still that little boy, acting his way through the night to entertain his tired mother.
"You should call her," Julia said finally. "If she's like me, she's up. You should let her know what's going on."
He nodded, then slipped his hand under his T-shirt to
scratch his chest. "I'll go do that," he said. Then he reached down and massaged the base of Julia's neck with one hand while he leaned over her, studying her cards. It felt too darn wonderful to make him stop. "You're under too much stress," he said and headed for the door. At the threshold, he stopped and turned toward her. "I'll bring you some warm milk, if you want."