ANYTIME

Kim Louise

Chapter One

They say hindsight is 20/20—but that’s only if you’re brave enough to look back and learn.

Marlowe Chamber’s long, thick fingers tapped rhythmically against the keys of his laptop. The motions sounded like slow rain in his hospital room. Oxygen from the tube in his nose made a faint, thin whisper-sound the way a cloud might if you could hear it settling to the ground as fog.

Marlowe would swear that hospital rooms were getting smaller and smaller, along with everything in them. The bedside table on his left was barely large enough for a water pitcher and tissues. The visitor’s chair was barely larger than a card table seat, and the TV above the chair couldn’t have been more than 17”. Marlowe had to squint to see Wolf Blitzer’s hairy face. A thick, white pull-curtain separated his bed from the next bed which was less than five feet to his left. If he’d had a “roommate,” they would have been able to hear each other blink.

By the time we are wise enough and brave enough to look back at the lessons learned from the levies, it may be too late for us to see clearly. Until then, we must—

“You look like death in a white sheet,” a voice from the doorway pronounced.

Marlow recognized that voice. Tuck Milsap, his current client. Marlowe’s teeth clenched. A muscle throbbed in his jaw. He kept typing.

Stop doing what Leila DuPont called, “humming with our ears covered.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t hooked to more tubes,” Tuck said.

Marlowe watched his own words form sentences on the screen. “I was when they brought me in.”

And start doing what the Village Vanguard suggests: “Acknowledge the absurd.”

He was close now, he could feel it. Like the end of a good meal or the sweet release after making good love, Marlowe was about to wrap up another prize-winning story. It was writing itself now, making the case for due diligence and activism. Most days, Marlowe wished he could type faster, get the stories out of his head quicker, get paid sooner. But at the end, at the sweet spot, where all his sweat, research, long days, and pavement pounding came together, he’d slow down, take his time, drag it out until the last syllable—

“Chambers!”

“Yeah,” he said, looking up for the first time.

Marlowe hadn’t seen Tuck in months. As usual, the man was a long swatch of precision from his shadow fade haircut to his clear polish manicure and mirror-shine shoes. Not one defiant hair, loose button, or wrinkle. Marlowe suspected the man had OCD and used a portable steamer to press himself throughout the day. “Yeah?” Tuck repeated. His face tightened like a fist, and Marlowe realized his client hadn’t come to check on him. He’d come to check on the story.

“I’m writing the end now.”

Tuck hiked up designer pants so stiff they looked like they could stand by themselves, and took a seat in the chair across from him careful not to scrape his knees on the foot of the bed. Tuck scratched a spot at the top of his head and glanced pensively out the window.

Omaha was waking up. From the Methodist Healthcare Facility, he had an unobscured view of the eastern bulk of the city. The better part of 700,000 residents locked into their morning commute. Dodge Street, the main artery of the city running parallel to the hospital, was choked with traffic. On the horizon, the sun’s orange-red glow peeled away the dawn

Tuck glanced back at Marlowe. His face much less tight and sour. More like it had taken a pity bath and was still damp. “We need to talk.”

Marlowe’s fingers left the keyboard. He sat back against the thin, flimsy pillows behind him and breathed carefully from the oxygen tube.

“I need your advance,” Tuck said. The words rolled out of him like sharp-edged boulders.

Marlowe was sure he hadn’t heard correctly. “Say what?”

“They’re pulling your story.”

Marlowe lowered the breathing tube from his face. If he suddenly had to jump up and strangle the bull out of Tuck, he had to make sure he wouldn’t be yanked back by an air hose.

“They . . . or you?” Marlowe asked, already knowing the truth. At Hughes Enterprises, Tuck greenlighted all stories. He had a board he reported to, sure, but he had that board wrapped around his pinkie for years.

“Let’s just start with the basics. Your stories never come in on time, man.”

“Whose do? Name one investigative journalist in my league that actually gets a story in on time.”

“Anthony Howard.”

“Man, kiss my ass. When has that close-up hog put his life on the line for anything?”

“That’s what you don’t get. He doesn’t have to. He’s a jour-nal-ist. Not a caped crusader. He reports the news. He doesn’t become part of it.”

Of course Tuck would bring up Anthony Howard. Another news man who was just too tidy for his own good.

“I’ll bet he’s never even gotten a splinter from any story he’s covered.”

“Chambers—”

“Hell, if the wind blew and an eyelash got in his eye, he’d probably be on the next plane back to Atlanta.”

“Chambers!”

“What!” Marlowe hollered back. He was so tired of people questioning his professionalism. It was bad enough when it came from random clients. But Tuck was a friend as well as a colleague. If he was going to get in his ass too . . .

Tuck got up and paced under the TV. Blitzer’s Situation Room marched on like a war story across the screen.  “All I wanted was a follow-up. Six years later. And I sent you in because you’re the best reporter I know. And I prayed, I prayed you wouldn’t let me down.”

“Man, I got the story.”

“And almost killed your lungs. The nurse said when they brought you in, you were coughing up tar.”

“Whatever.”

“No. Not whatever. When ever? As in when are you ever going to stick to the news? Focus on the story?”

“I helped clean out some office space. The whole area was like Beirut, man. Or the apocalypse. Even after six years. I had to do something.” He left off the part about Leila. That he had to do something for Leila--the beautiful woman from the Seventh Phoenyx whom he spent most of his time with—day and night. At least he thought he was just spending time until he found the L word jumping off the tip of his tongue. The thought of being in love so fast scared both of them. Soon they were backing away from each other and it was all business and interviews until the day he left.

“You got . . . involved . . . again. I don’t even want to know her name. The only thing I need to know now is whether you can write a check for the advance now and if not, how soon I can expect it.”

Marlowe stared at the masterpiece on the screen in front of him. Tuck was right. He was the best journalist he knew. He was one of the best in the industry, and he was one paragraph away from what his gut told him was his finest work.

“Tuck one hundred words. No ninety nine. Just be still for a minute. Shut up, okay? I’ll be finished in thirty seconds. Sixty tops.”

“You’re not hearing me. I came down here to do this face-to-face. You deserve better than a phone call or an e-mail. It’s done, Chambers.”

“Tucker . . . man . . .”

“I mean it. I can’t keep sticking my neck out only to have the very person I’m protecting chop it in half.”

“Okay, I get it. But, you know me. I report from the inside out, but I always get the story. Always.”

Tuck sat down again. Took another look out the window. “Yeah, but they take too long to come. And they’re too expensive. Your week-stay in this hospital has already cost us $50,000. That’s what Dan the copy chief makes in a year.”

For a moment, Marlowe wondered why Tuck would bring up Dan’s salary. Then it made sense. Tuck’s gripe might be with Marlowe to a certain extent, but it was mostly about the bottom line.

Marlowe’s chest tightened. He couldn’t tell if it was from his weakened lungs or the thought of his friend’s news magazine going under. The economy had been hard on everyone, everywhere. Newspapers and magazines had taken hard blows. People didn’t want to wait for news, and they weren’t so willing to pay for information they could get instantly on the internet. Freelance reporters like Marlowe had compensated by trying to give the editors they contracted with more engaging stories. Some had even resorted to features that were more like reality TV on paper. It may have slowed the hemorrhage of the print industry, but it hadn’t stopped it.

“How many?” Marlowe asked, seeing the layoffs riding his friend’s tidy features. Tuck signed heavily. He sounded like he could use an oxygen machine, too. “Twenty-three . . . to start. The board wants to ‘incrementally decrease the negative pecuniary strain on revenue.’ That’s corporate speak for we’re looking at close to 100 over the next seven months.”

“Too bad you can’t send me in on that. I could do a story on Hughes Enterprises. You can call it ‘Black Business in the Red.’”

“As usual, that’s a brilliant idea. But you’d end up spending more time with LaKayla in Accounting than you would on the story.”

“Man, she’s hella fine.”

“Tell me about it,” Tuck admitted.

Marlowe grinned. “I know you hit that.”

“Hit it and quit it.”

“My dog!”

The two men chuckled and the tense air between them loosened up. “Seriously,” Tuck said, “This habit you have of getting caught up with one-time-use women is going to get you in big trouble one day.”

“One time use? No, man, I loved Leila.”

“Leila? Is that who it was this time?”

Marlowe couldn’t lie. “Yeah.”

“And before that it was Shauntina, and before that Tomika, and before that . . . what’s her name? The gal with the big hips—“

“Sally,” Marlowe said with reverence. She was the best ‘no strings attached’ fling he ever had. Mattresses were made for her movements. If he thought hard enough, he could still feel her on top of him.

Tuck grunted. “Yeah. Ride, Sally, Ride. Her big hips cost me a thirteen thousand dollar video camera.”

“And they got me the Ellie award. Don’t act brand new. That California wildfire story put Hughes Enterprises on the map, and turned LifeWire into a magazine people actually read.”

“Maybe,” Tuck mumbled.

“Maybe? Is that all you got for me?”

“Okay, all right, man. Damn. You did it. You’ve always done it. But the world has changed on us.”

Tucker sounded far away, as if her were talking to that sun he kept staring at and not Marlowe.

“I can’t send you off anymore and wait for you to finish your story whenever you get around to it—which is usually well after you come up for air after being buried between some woman’s legs and right before you cost me something above and beyond what I’m paying you for the story.

“I’m sorry, man. And I know you’ve burned your bridges with other editors. I’m one of the last ones who would even take a chance on your ass.”

Marlowe started typing again. He forced himself to focus away from what Tuck was saying. He shut out all the thoughts rushing into his mind about the balloon mortgage he could no longer afford and the advance money he’d already spent to buy the supplies he used to clean up Leila’s office building after a terrible fire. His fingers tapped the keys, faster now. The words came like he knew they would, sliding into place like mortar-free blocks.

“Forty-five,” he said. “Thirty-nine . . . ”

“It doesn’t matter. They don’t want your story.” Tucker pulled a thin glossy magazine out of the inside pocket of his blazer. “They want this.”

Tucker didn’t have to unfold it. Marlowe could smell the cheap paper and matching stories from where he lay on the bed. Stories twisted so tightly they mangled the lives of the people they were about. Quotes taken so far out of context, they sounded like they were spoken by someone else. And photos that were such an invasion of privacy innocent bystanders should be able to sue for the offense. It was yellow journalism at its worst, and it made Marlowe want to throw those so called “reporters” on their scandal-chasing asses.

“Get that out of my face.”

Tucker opened the magazine and held it up. “No. You need to look at this, because like it or not, this is the way of the news world. At least, the part of the news world that still makes money. If you’re not riding this gravy train, you don’t eat. Period. Nobody wants to read about an organization still fighting the good fight in New Orleans when they can see a box office star like Carmela Moore getting her freak on at a sex party.

The mention of Carmela Moore got Marlowe to look close. The photo was definitely the award-winning Ms. Moore. Marlowe would recognize her body anywhere. Strategic areas on her naked frame had been blurred out. But it was her, riding what looked like a pommel horse with her arm waving and her head flung back in ecstasy.  The caption read, “Gimme Moore! Carmela gets her ride on at the Chocolate Chateau.”

Marlowe winced. “The Chocolate Chateau is a myth. That’s grimy reporting.”

“But it sells magazines.”

Marlowe typed the last sentence in the last paragraph and smiled. If men could “exhale,” this must be what it feels like, the thought.

“Okay. It’s done.” A few more clicks. “Not only is it done, but I just e-mailed it to you.

“You’re not hearing me. This issue of Hot Topics alone sold more copies than the last six issues of LifeWire combined. We couldn’t compete with that before, but we think we can now.”

“By turning a respectable news source into a tabloid?”

“By doing what it takes to stay in business.”

“I don’t have your advance, Tuck. And I need the money from this article I just wrote for you from this hospital bed.” Marlowe refused to admit to Tucker he’d been living off of his 401(k) for three years. And now that it was almost gone, he was counting on money from his feature story to get him through the next couple months.

“I can’t do it. The board is tying my hands on this one. So, unless you’ve got photos of Tupac, Biggie, and Michael Jackson alive and well on an island in the Pacific or you have a Tiger Woods sex tape stashed somewhere, I have to pass.”

Marlowe assumed Tuck’s tied hands comment was code for “I could be next on the layoff list.”

What was left of his 401(k) would cover the advance he got from Hughes. But then he’d be left with no way to pay his bills. He could keep his 401(k) and try to get other assignments. But with the tarnishes on his reputation in the industry and the state of the economy, the chances of him getting an assignment before Hughes took him to court over the advance were slim. And if that happened, what little reputation he had left would be ruined. He’d become like the tragic stories he wrote about. He could see the newscrawl now. Award-winning journalist found homeless with only his laptop and his plaque.

“Give me 30 days,” Marlowe said, staring at the beautiful Carmela Moore and pulling an idea out of his ass.

“A month for what?”

“To get you a respectable story that will still sell issues.”

“There’s no such thing.”

Marlowe glanced at the photo and read the headline again. “There might be. Just give me the time--one month.”

“Man, I always give you a month. Then it’s six more before I hear from you again, and you’re usually in some kind of trouble.”

“Not this time,” he said, hoping he sounded convincing.

Tuck scratched the top of his head, let out a blast of air. “I must be smoking crack.”

“Thanks, man,” Marlowe said.

His friend stood and angled toward the door. “But I’m telling right damn now, if you don’t bring me Thug Life, Baby-baybay, a smooth criminal, or some hanky-panky on the golf course, I’m going straight to the legal department.”

“I got this, man!”

“I mean it.”

“Me, too, Tuck. Me, too.”

ANYTIME: Discussion Questions

·        Is eliminating sexual boundaries within couples help their relationship or hinder it?

·        Should Marlowe have been upfront about his reason for visiting the Epicure?

·        Did Gena’s alter ego give her an insight into the Epicure that she couldn’t have gotten as herself?

·        Do sex coaches have a purpose in modern life? If so, what purpose do they serve?

·        Does Marlowe’s propensity to fall for the women he works with impact the future he and Gena have as a couple?

·        Should Marlowe cut ties with Shereeta?

·        Should Gena go public fully with her center or try to keep it exclusive?

·        Do sexual exploration conferences/workshops/gatherings have a place in society?

·        Is there any aspect of the weekly schedule at the Epicure (group discussion sessions, adult movies, adult toys, position workshop, etc.) that you would participate in if you were there?

·        What did Marlowe have to learn about himself in order to have a relationship with Gena?

·        What did Gena have to learn about herself in order to have a relationship with Marlowe?

·        What do you think is next for this couple?