gay. Jessica and Kim could have cared less. This was a girls' night out
Now, walking back toward the hotel, they spoke of when they had last had fun, real fun, and both agreed that they had to go back to childhood and innocence to remember a time when either enjoyed an outburst of pure joyous laughter.
'Tonight, we will attempt the miraculous, Jessica,” Kim announced. “And what would that be?”
'To recapture some of those feelings of childhood, and while not absolutely successful, we might come pretty damned close for a pair of adults with fixed patterns of thinking and behavior.”
“You think so?” asked Jessica. “And how do we do that?”
“Follow me!” Kim suddenly leaped into a water fountain and was immediately drenched and laughing, calling for Jessica to join her.
“What're you doing?”
“Having fun! Making it rain! I'm a rainmaker now!”
Kim's childish abandon infected Jessica, who, checking for any signs of onlookers, suddenly leaped into the fountain alongside her friend. Together they hugged and laughed beneath the shower.
A police patrol car's whining complaint brought them around, and in a moment, they were explaining their behavior to a uniformed officer who gave them a warning and asked if they needed a lift to their destination.
“It's only a half block to our hotel.”
“Better do any additional showering in the privacy of your room, then,” offered the policeman, a wide grin on his face.
The women waved the police cruiser off, their sodden clothes and shoes and purses dripping as they went.
“This is so unlike me,” said Jessica.
“Good!”
“You are a bad influence.”
“Bad or good?”
Jessica sighed. “Good, I'm sure.”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Quite.”
As the hotel came into view, Jessica blurted out, “I'm so afraid of screwing things up with Richard.”
He's got to be quite a man to accept your being here, getting the closure you need on your relationship with Parry.”
“I have no relationship with Parry.”
“Then working out your anger with Parry. Either way, your Richard's a rare chap, I'd say.”
“But all he knows is that I'm on a case in Philadelphia. He doesn't know Jim's working the case with me.”
“Ah, I see.”
They fell silent, each preoccupied with her own thoughts as they entered the hotel, bellhops, security guards, and other guests staring at them, one asking, “Oh, my, do I need an umbrella? When did it start raining?”
They rushed to the elevator and rode up to the twenty-ninth floor, making the cab a puddle and laughing at their foolishness. Jessica still felt a pleasant buzz from her drinking, and the release of all her pent-up feelings tonight had made her feel much better.
The elevator door opened on Jessica's floor.
“You haven't told him?” asked Kim. “All this time has gone by and you haven't told Richard?”
“I've been too… too busy.”
Kim held the door. “Bullshit. You must be a fool. He hears about it through any other source, and what's he going to think?”
“I'll call him tonight, tomorrow.” Jessica wiped at her eyes as water flowed from her still-wet head.
“You do that! Don't put it off another moment. By the way, you look like a drowned rat.”
“And you look like a drowned Chihuahua!” The elevator doors closed on Kim, who rode up the two floors to her room. Jessica turned to walk down the corridor, thinking she ought to have made the call to Richard Sharpe days before. Fatigue and booze clouding her thoughts, she fumbled at her door with the electronic key card. Finally, she found herself alone in her room when someone knocked. Through the peephole, she saw that it was Kim. For a moment, she feared her friend had had too much to drink and had somehow come to the conclusion that they were roommates.
“How did you get back here so fast?” she asked as she opened the door.
'Took the stairs. Listen, Jessica, whatever you do, tell Richard and tell him soon, and believe me, it will be a defining moment in your relationship, so watch closely- or rather listen closely-for his reaction. If you get an immediate reaction that is favorable, you know he's worth your time and effort; if you get the opposite, you know he's not. That's all I will say on the subject, so again, g'night.”
Kim marched off for the stairwell, leaving Jessica to ponder her words.
Jessica had gotten back to her room after one in the morning, and fairly fell into bed. She set her clock to awake at 3 a.m., and until then she slept soundly; in fact, for the first time in days, she had no thought of the case, either consciously or subconsciously. When the alarm clock roused her, she stared at it, estimated the time in London, dialed, and caught Richard Sharpe before he had left for work at Scotland Yard.
“Jess! It's you!”
He sounded so exuberantly happy to hear from her. “I just wanted to hear your voice, Richard.”
“It's so wonderful of you to call. It will make my day go by so pleasantly.”
“How soon before you come to me, Richard?”
“Soon, I promise.”
“I… I can hardly wait.”
He laughed. “That's my line, love.”
“Richard, tell me…”
“Yes? What is it, dear?” He immediately heard the sadness in her voice, had somehow honed in on it.
“You don't think… Do you think that I like it this way?”
“Like it? This way? What way, Jess-what do you mean?”
“Our relationship. Long-distance.”
“Oh, I see… Well, honestly, Jessica, I could swear the last time we were together, you very much preferred the real thing to telephoning it in.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I did, didn't I?”
“I certainly thought so. I wasn't kidding myself, now, was I?” he teased.
“You know you're constantly on my mind, Richard.”
“Good show.”
“Yes, it is.” She managed a laugh.
“What's this all about, sweetness? What's brought on this… melancholy?”
She steeled herself to tell him what she'd been going through, that she was here in Philadelphia, working a case in close proximity to her former lover, James Parry; at the same time, she thought how wonderfully perceptive Richard was to intuit her distress from such a distance. James would never have been so sensitive.
“You haven't been having second thoughts about us, have you?” he asked.
“No, no!” she assured him. “Just that… well, I had it brought to my attention recently that I seem to… seem to enjoy a good distance between myself and anyone who… anyone who gets too close.”
“Ah, I see, and that would be me. Talking to that shrink of yours again?”
She wanted to tell him the truth, but she worried he would not understand. “I don't know. Maybe I do only allow myself to get involved with men who, in one way or another, remain inaccessible. I have a long history of doing exactly that.” She could hear Kim's voice in her ear, shouting, 'Tell him. Out with it.”
“Sounds like you're just second-guessing yourself, darling. We all do that. Don't let the nebbishes of the world, or those inside your head, sweetness, get you down.”
“There's something I have to tell you, something… important.”
“Go right ahead, love.”
Jessica had called him earlier, but missing him, she'd left a message saying she was presently working a case
