It was late, I was tired. I wanted to go to bed. To sleep.  But Lola wouldn’t let me. Boyed up by Chip’s ‘mystery meeting’ Friday night with Angie, she was rattling on and on  about working behind the scenes of the Santa Barbara Beauty Contest Saturday for NIMR's sake. Not that she approved of beauty contests. They were a ‘work of the devil’, she quoted Angie. A way for men to ogle women in bikinis and judge them based on how well they wiggled when they walked.

“Do you like how I look when I walk in a bikini, Lee?” she asked, brushing her hair at the dressing table in the bedroom.

I should have known. I simply should have known. The universal ‘yes, dear’ when one is afraid to be honest doesn’t always work.  

“Lee!” she pouted and turned . “Don’t I jiggle enough?”

“Sweetie, I fell in love with you, not your body.”

Oops, wrong answer. Honest, but not politically correct.

And so here I find myself, back at my own apartment, barefoot on the cold kitchen floor, trying to decide what kind of comfort food to purloin from the fridge. 10 day old pizza  growing green fuzz or a nice cold beer with which I could  place upon my bruised forehead. Well, ok, not really. The pillow she’d flung at me had been rather soft. It was the principle of the thing.

I’d been wounded to the quick. Our relationship has always been based on honesty. How was I supposed to know that I should have gotten all soppy and given her a knowing leer saying ‘oh yeah, baby…you sure do..’ Instead I was banished from the bedroom and told I could just go find someone else to play house with.

I could only hope this little snit of hers wasn’t permanent.

I needed someone to talk to. Someone who was  a man of the world. Someone who knew all about women. How they think…Chip’s no good, he’s just as ignorant about their mentality as I. Harry’s still a bachelor, and though a man of experience, not the kind that can explain the nuances of how a woman can  say one thing, but mean another, and how one can tell the difference.

Then it struck me.  There was a man. And I was torn.   After all, I still have to work with the man. As his superior. What kind of respect could he still have for me if I brought up my total  ignorance regarding this latest episode in my life?

Still, I was desperate and it wasn’t that late. Sort of.

I pulled out the little address book I hardly ever use…and leafed through til I found the K’s.

If Chip or Harry ever found out, I’d never hear the end of it, and I almost decided against it. But in the end I dialed.

Kowalski had his work cut out for him tonight.