Late Tuesday morning finds me on the phone again with Aiyana. This time I’ve got an email from the copywriters—there are three of them but I tend to think of them as one amorphous mass of brains, and they seem to see themselves the same way, frankly—saying that there’s not enough room on the inside flap of the dummy brochure to allow them to list out the five things I targeted as our main selling points.

We’re already behind on this, thanks to me losing the first brochure, but they pulled some pretty impressive copy out of their asses, on a tight turn-around time. I’m not sending it back to them for more revisions.

“There’s plenty of room for five lines,” Aiyana says. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

“The problem is that five items doesn’t necessarily translate to five lines. You know that.”

She doesn’t answer right away, because of course she knows that. “Can’t they, I don’t know, condense it a little?”

“It’s marketing copy for a financial product. It’s already so condensed I’m thinking about slapping a Campbell’s soup label on it.” I sigh. “Which, come to think of it, that would probably be a more effective approach than the one we’ve got right now.”

“Redesigning is going to put me way behind, Jenna.” Unspoken is the fact that she was already behind, because of me.

“You and me both, but if the selling points aren’t on the brochure then what the hell is the brochure for?”

I understand that she’s not being obstinate on purpose, that she has deadlines to meet just like I do. But if there isn’t enough space then there isn’t enough space. That’s not going to change no matter how much she and I click our heels together and wish it would.

“Hang on a sec, Jenna, let me check something.” She puts me on hold. Great.

Ryan comes in with a message slip. Unless a message is important or personal, he generally gives me all my messages in a batch two or three times a day, so I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “I’m on hold. What’s up?”

“Some guy called, said it was personal.” He gestures with the slip of paper. “Mitch.”

Oh, Lord. I feel myself go pale. I didn’t think he’d call so soon.

“Mitch who?” I ask, as though I know a hundred Mitches, a legion of them, and can’t begin to imagine which of them has graced me with a phone call.

Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem to think he needed to leave a last name. You want the number?” He holds out the message slip.

“No!” I say without thinking.

Ryan stares at me. He’s too polite to say anything, but I can read him like a book. He thinks I’ve lost it.

He may be right.

“I mean, not right now—” I begin, but then Aiyana comes back on the line. I hold up a finger and turn my back on Ryan so I won’t have to decide what to do about the piece of paper with Mitch’s number on it. “What did you find out?”

“What if we swapped the colors?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” I close my eyes and try to picture it in my head. It might work. Or it might look like complete crap. I sigh. “Why don’t you try it, just for the hell of it, and we’ll see how it looks. I don’t have any better ideas.”

We both make polite goodbyes and hang up. She’s probably totally pissed at me. Just what I need: her mad at me for bossing her around. I’m technically her superior, but I’m not the sort of person that goes around lording it over people.

Ryan must have taken the message slip with him, because it’s not on my desk. I buzz him.

“Yeah?” he says.

I gnaw at my lip for a second. Why can’t things be easy?

“Jenna?” Ryan has to think I’m losing my mind. Most people are happy to receive phone calls. Especially personal phone calls, at work. Especially from men—well, if they’re women. Or gay, I suppose. And I would think especially from men who sound like Mitch.

In fact, if Ryan had to deal with that voice, he probably can’t understand why I didn’t hang up on Aiyana immediately and return Mitch’s call.

Ryan is right. I am losing my mind.

“Do you still have that message?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says cautiously.

“You can throw it out.” I’m not going to do it. I can’t go through with it. It’s too weird.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I say. “No.”

Oh, God.

Ryan doesn’t say anything.

I relent. “Oh, give me the number.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. “Got a pen?”

“No,” I say. “Never mind. I don’t want it.” I hang up.

I pick up the phone and dial Kari’s work number. I get her voice mail.

“Kari, it’s Jenna. Please call me. I need to talk to you.” I hang up and think about it. If I don’t go through with it, she’s going to kill me.

I think about that for a minute and then buzz Ryan again, but instead of answering, he opens my door.

“I think I’d like that number after all,” I tell him.

He crosses the office and puts the message slip on my desk. “Why don’t I just leave this here,” he suggests carefully, “and you can decide what to do from there.”

I nod. “Good plan.”

He turns to leave, then turns back. “You know I’m not gay, right?”

“Of course!” What an odd thing to say. I met Ryan’s girlfriend at the Christmas party and she is gorgeous. And anyway, why would I care if he was?

“I’ve never regretted it, until I talked to that guy.” He winks at me and I laugh, feeling just a little bit less like throwing myself out my office window. Not that it opens. “You should call him,” he tells me, and leaves.

I really shouldn’t. But I do. I dial each number very carefully, knowing I’ll only dare to do this once.

He answers on the first ring. “Hello?”

Good Lord, he can’t even say hello without making my knees weak. This is impossible.

“It’s Jenna,” I say. “From the bar the other night?” And the hot breakfast date the other morning?

“I’m so glad you called.” His voice softens, gets deeper. Is there no end to the subtle variations of that voice? This is the first time I’ve heard this one. It would melt rocks.

“So am I.” I realize I’m breathless and—more importantly—I’m telling the truth. That freaks me out a little, and I decide I’d better keep this short. “I’m sorry, but I only have a few minutes.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure you’re busy.”

“I am,” I say. “I’ve got this new product and we’re not even half ready—I don’t know if you know what I do—”

“Kari told me,” he says. “Well, I asked.”

“As you can maybe imagine, it’s been a hard week.”

“But it’s only Tuesday.”

I laugh. “You’re right. God, I can’t wait for Friday.”

“Actually,” he says, “that’s why I called.”

I appraise this conversational gambit with admiration. It’s obvious what he’s about to do, and of course I would have to say yes no matter how clumsy he was, but I can’t help but admire his approach. He is smooth.

“Is it?” I ask.

“Yes. I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner, maybe tell me what it is about your job that’s putting that frown in your voice.”

This is crazy. I can’t do this. I open my mouth to say No, thank you, but nothing comes out.

I should have thought about this more carefully before I called. One the one hand, there is an actual ethical issue here, dating him to get soap opera scoops for my friend. On the other, Kari is my very best friend and it means a lot to her.

On the other hand—I guess I have three hands now—I’d get to listen to him talk some more. I can’t say I wouldn’t appreciate that. Not that I’m interested, or anything. But I can still enjoy him.

One way or the other, I should probably give him an answer before he thinks I hung up or something.

Mitch is clearly a master at this. Where another guy might be intimidated by my silence and press too hard, he’s just waiting for my answer.

Caught between yes and no, I go with: “I probably won’t be fit company by the end of the week. Work is really killing me.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about whether or not I enjoy your company, and you just be ready at six.”

Wow, he’s good.

“I guess I could do that,” I say slowly.

Apparently that’s all he needs. “Fantastic. Give me your address and number.”

I do, and he repeats it back to make sure he’s got it right. He gets it right the first time, of course. I won’t have to worry about him getting the directions wrong and being late. I’m starting to have a feeling I won’t have to worry about him doing anything wrong. Apparently the big cosmic joke is that this guy who is totally Mr. Wrong is, so far at least, doing everything exactly right.

“Anywhere in particular you want to have dinner?” he asks. “I have a place in mind but if you want to choose—”

“Oh, no, that’s fine,” I say. “Whatever you like. Just tell me how to dress.”

“Dress to kill,” he says—no, that’s not right. He growls.

It’s a good thing I’m sitting down, because my legs get a little wobbly. I hope we get to know each other well enough that I can ask him to tone it down with the voice. It’s really too much sometimes.

“I will,” I say, though I don’t really know what that means. Dress super-fancy, because we’re going to Per Se? Not likely, I think. Literally dress to kill, because there could be a rumble at the Taco Loco?

“Excellent.” There’s some shouting in the background and he says, “I’m sorry, I gotta go.”

“Okay. I’ll see you Friday.” I’m surprised to find that I wish he didn’t have to get off the phone. I could listen to him all day. Well, I’ll be able to listen to him all night Friday.

All evening, rather; not all night. I will not be having an all-night date.

“You sure will,” Mitch says, and for an awful second I think that I’ve spoken aloud. Then I realize he’s just agreeing that I’ll see him Friday. “Can’t wait.” And he hangs up without saying goodbye.

Damned soap opera people. I know that’s where Kari gets it.

Kari. Damn it. I got a little … carried away with setting up our date-that’s-not-a-date, and kind of forgot about Kari there for a minute. Oops.

As if thinking about her has conjured her up, Ryan buzzes to tell me she’s on line two.

“You called?” she says, when I pick up.

“The eagle has landed,” I intone solemnly.

“The red fox runs at night,” she replies, and we both bust out giggling.

“Okay,” I say. “So he called.”

“Score! What did he say?”

I fill her in on the details.

“Awesome,” she says. “I bet you’ll have a great time.”

“Well, at least I’ll have dinner.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I had tons of fun talking to him on Sunday.”

“You had a lot to talk about,” I remind her, “what with trying to ferret out all the details about his job.”

“Speaking of which,” she says, “get a pen and a piece of paper.”

“What for?”

“I’m going to explain all the storylines on MC for you.”

“Kari, I’m not comfortable pumping him for information.”

“Pumping,” she says, and does her little Beavis and Butthead laugh. It’s a pretty good impression, actually.

“Kari!”

“Okay, seriously, you don’t have to pump him”—she does the laugh again—“for anything. I just want you to have context, in case anything slips.”

I half-listen as she drones on, and make encouraging noises like I’m writing this down. As if.

“Okay,” she says, finally. “Have fun! And you have to tell me every salacious detail.”

Why do I have the distinct feeling that she isn’t listening to me at all?