Alex put his drink down. "I can see you. And you're wearing that damn Incredibra. You think I don't listen to you? You don't listen to me! How about-"

"Good night," Nina said. "I'll find my own way home."

Max stood up, too. "Nah, I'll take you. I'm not going to be popular here, anyway. And since I'm giving up the sauce, I doubt I'll be invited back."

Nina headed for the door, but she heard Max tell his father, "Retire and dry out. It's the only thing that'll save you." When she turned back, he was looking at Alex. "God knows what's going to save you," he told him.

"Wait a minute," Alex said, but Max was heading for the door, taking Nina's arm. "Let's go, kid."

"Will you wait a minute?" Alex roared, but Nina walked out into the night, grateful she had Max to lean on, already wishing he was Alex instead.

Chapter 8

"And then what?" Charity said, the next night over non-Amaretto milk shakes.

"And then I went home and cried myself to sleep," Nina said. "But I did the right thing. I know I did the right thing because I feel so relieved. I even spent the day at the library making a list of publishers and planning our book strategy so Alex couldn't find me and convince me to go back to that lousy life he was building for me. I mean, I'm miserable because I love the rat bastard, but I couldn't have gone through another marriage like that one. And Alex was crazed. He was bound and determined that I was going to have my old life back whether I wanted it or not. And the only thing he could think to say was that crack about the Incredibra."

Charity frowned. "I don't get that part. Why did he hate the Incredibra?"

Nina closed her eyes and groaned. "Because I wouldn't take it off until the lights were off."

Charity put her milk shake down. "Let me get this straight. You slept with this guy for two months, and you never took your bra off with the lights on? He never saw your breasts?"

Nina frowned back at her. "Don't make it sound so stupid. I'm forty, for God's sake. I-"

"Did he care? Did he say, 'I hate your forty-year-old breasts, wear a bra to bed'?"

Nina glared at her, shocked. ''Of course not. He'd never say anything like that. Alex was wonderful. He'd tell me how beautiful I looked, and ask me to take it off but-"

"But you didn't listen to him," Charity finished. "You cared more about your own ego than what he wanted. You were just like him."

Nina straightened. "Don't even try to compare us. He bought a damn house, and all I-"

"All you did was refuse to let your lover see you naked because you didn't trust him to love you no matter what you looked like," Charity finished. "You don't believe in unconditional love. Neither does Alex. So you both threw away the best thing you ever had because you didn't believe in each other or yourselves."

Nina tried to think of something to say, some way to tell Charity how wrong she was, but it was hard because she sounded so right. Then someone knocked on the door, and her heart lurched, and she thought Alex, and scrambled to her feet to let him in.

It was Jessica.

Nina blinked at her on the doorstep. "You're kidding me."

"No," Jessica said. "I've been trying to call you all day. Where have you been?"

Nina gaped at her.

"Never mind. May I come in?"

Nina jerked to her senses. "Oh. Right. Sure."

She stepped back and Jessica walked past her and saw Charity sitting on the floor, feeding a pretzel to Fred. "Hello, Charity," she said. "I read your book last night."

Charity looked wary. "Did you like it?"

Jessica nodded. "Yes."

Charity gaped in unison with Nina this time. "You did?"

"Yes." Jessica looked around for a nearby chair and, not finding one, sat gracefully on the floor next to Charity. "What is that you're drinking?"

"Chocolate milk shakes," Charity said. "We used to put Amaretto in them, but we've seen what alcohol can do so we're not doing that anymore."

"Good for you," Jessica said. "I need you to keep your mind clear so we can talk about your book."

She looked at Nina. "You were right. After you left, I thought about what you said, about my being intellectually dishonest by refusing Charity's book without reading it. I read it, and it's wonderful."

"But Howard Press doesn't publish fiction," Nina said.

"It does now," Jessica said. "Times have changed. We're going to change with them. You're hired again."

Nina swallowed. "Oh. Good. I'll get more ice cream."

When Jessica had her own milk shake and they were all seated on the floor, Fred included, Nina said, "So does this mean you'll publish the book, after all?"

Jessica nodded, her mouth full of chocolate and ice ream. "Yes," she said when she'd swallowed, "but we're not going to use those stupid reviews. They missed the point if the book. They missed Jane's growth."

Charity sighed with happiness. "I love you, Jessica, have a pretzel." Fred moaned, so she fed him another one, too.

"That book is Kierkegaard," Jessica continued. "Pure Kierkegaard."

Charity blinked. "Who?"

"Soren Kierkegaard," Jessica told her. "A Danish philosopher. He said, 'Life must be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.'"

"I like that," Charity said. '"Understood backward and lived forward.' Is he single?"

Jessica blinked, and Nina said, "She's kidding. She has a mouth problem."

"Good," Jessica said. "She'll be wonderful on a book tour."

"A book tour?" Charity echoed, and as Nina sat back and watched, Charity and Jessica bonded over chocolate milk shakes and a belief that her book was going to make a ton of money for all of them.


* * *

Downstairs, Alex and Max were popping tabs on cans again, but this time the cans were full of Coke.

"You overreacted," Alex told Max. "We weren't alcoholics."

"Yeah, right, sure," Max said. "We just drank too much every night and passed out and had hangovers.''

Alex started to laugh in spite of himself and his misery. "We never passed out. You're exaggerating."

"But I was right, just the same," Max said.

"You were right." Alex leaned his head back and tried to take stock, equally miserable and relieved after the day he'd spent cleaning up the mess he'd made of his life. "What happened there? How did I lose my grip so fast?"

"You got Nina and didn't want to lose her and you panicked," Max said. "And she didn't help things any, telling you she wouldn't marry you so you'd be free to leave when you grew up. That's no way to treat a guy."

Alex scowled at him. "Don't pick on Nina."

Max shook his head. "Not me. I'm crazy about her."

Alex sat up. "Hey."

Max waved him back. "And she's crazy about you. She just has some stuff to work out."

"Well, how long is it going to take her?" Alex asked. "I want her back now, but she was gone all day, and she's not answering her phone. She even locked her window." He winced as he said it. That had been the unkindest cut of all.

"Well, it would help if you canceled the house contract and told Dad you weren't going to grow up to be a cardiologist," Max told him, exasperated. "You're not exactly innocent here."

Alex nodded. "I know. It's done. All of it. I told Dad today. I also told him that you were right, and I gave him AA's phone number. It won't do any good, but at least he's disgusted with both of us."

"Well, then," Max said. "You did all the right things. Go make your move."

Alex closed his eyes. "She called me a jerk less than twenty-four hours ago and locked her window. I think it might be a little soon to make my move."

Max looked at him with blatant pity. "And then there are those duck shorts you're wearing."

"Hey." Alex glared at him. "Don't make fun of these duck shorts. They remind me of Nina." He grew philosophical. "These are my lucky shorts. I get her when I wear these shorts."

Max closed his eyes and shook his head. "Now I remember why I drank when I was with you. When I'm sober, you sound like a moron. Let me get this straight. You're wearing your lucky duck shorts because you think that will get Nina back?"

"No," Alex said. "I'll get Nina back, anyway. But it's too soon to make my move. So I'm wearing the shorts because I miss her like hell, and they remind me of her."

"And when will you be making this move?" Max asked pointedly.

"When I get my nerve up," Alex said. "A hell of a time you picked for us to go teetotal."


* * *

Charity and Jessica left at eleven, still discussing what a well-run book tour would entail, and Nina was left alone in her apartment with Fred.

Just what she wanted. Just what she'd told Alex she wanted.

Well, she'd lied. She wanted Alex. Not in that damn house, but she could talk him out of that. He didn't want that, either. He wanted the apartments and Fred and old movies and jogging and the ER. All she had to do was convince him that she wanted that, too, and that she believed in him. She hadn't had unconditional love before, she'd had a marriage where appearances were everything and being at the right party meant more than being with the right person. But with Alex, she'd had the right person.

The problem was, she'd been living her life backward instead of understanding it backward.

It was time to go forward.

Fred wiped his nose on her leg.

"Alex loves me unconditionally, Fred," she told him. "I know that. There is no doubt in my mind. It's just my ego in the way. I wanted to give him a perfect body, and all he wanted was mine."

Fred whined.

"One Oreo," she said, and stood up to get him one, but then stopped, struck by an idea. "No, wait. I have something for you that's better than an Oreo," she said, and headed for the bedroom with him trotting after her.

Nina went to her drawer and pulled out the Incredibra, designed to make not-so-perfect women look like impossibly perfect centerfolds. Never again. "Here, Fred," she said, and dropped it in front of him. "It's all yours, buddy. Wear it with my blessing."

Fred grabbed the bra, looking as close to ecstasy as she'd ever seen him, and ran with it.

Nina stripped off her clothes and went to the mirror and stared at herself with the bedroom light on.

There was nothing wrong with her body. All right, it was softer than it had been, and her waist was thicker than it had been, and nothing about it could be called perky, but it was a good healthy body, and Alex loved it. Playboy would never come calling, but she didn't want Playboy, she wanted Alex.

Nina put on her trench coat, unlocked her living-room window and climbed down the fire escape to get him.

Of course, Max was there when she climbed in Alex's window. They were sitting across from each other, their feet on Alex's coffee table, drinking Coke, when they looked up and saw her.

Alex stood up first, but Max was only a beat behind. "I was just going," he told her. "And I've got to tell you, I've never left for a better reason."

Nina smiled at him and he grinned back.

"Leave, Max," Alex said, and Max said, "I'm already gone."

Then he was, and she was alone with Alex, not sure what to say or do next.

"I've missed you," Alex said, "and I was stupid."

"I've missed you, too," Nina said.

Then Alex set his jaw. "But if you've come here to tell me I'm too young for you to marry, you can crawl right back through that damn window. I mean it. I want it all this time."

Nina took a deep breath. The she untied her belt and dropped her trench coat and stood there naked in front of him, with all the living-room lights on.

"Oh, God." Alex walked toward her. "Forget the window. You stay away from that window. In fact, I'm having that window nailed shut, so you can forget about ever leaving me again."

She moved then, too, meeting him halfway across the room, closing her eyes as her naked body touched him, arching herself into him as he held her close and his hands moved down her back.

"God, I've missed you," he whispered into her hair. "I was going crazy trying to figure out how to get you back. What the hell were you doing all day and night?"

"I had Charity and Jessica up there." She leaned her head against his chest, so glad to be with him again and to have his hands on her again that she couldn't talk for a minute. "We were working things out. And when we worked those things out, I'd worked this out, too." She looked up at him. "I thought I'd never find anybody who'd love me enough that it wouldn't matter that I wasn't twenty again, so I decided I'd make sure I never needed anyone. And I did. I'm independent now and I can get by without anyone. Anyone but you."