"Pine" and 7 Other Short Romances Read online

on the wrong side of some of my clients.

  “What have you heard about the nomads camped on the other side of the Jordan?” the other man asked.

  I think that’s when I first started to suspect something wasn’t quite right about these two. I looked back at him. He sipped his wine. “Not much,” I said, without giving away what I was thinking. “What have you heard about them?

  “They’re probably just camping out near the river,” Salmon said. “That’s what I’d do.” “But that’s not their way,” I said. “They’ve come through, blowing away anybody who gets in their way. And now, suddenly, they show up on our doorstep? Some people say they’re planning an attack.” The two men looked at each other for a split second, not long enough to be obvious, but I noticed.

  Salmon shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Besides, you all are pretty safe. I don’t see how anyone could make it past the walls of this city.”

  Before I could stop myself, I snickered. I had already given up hope that if the Israelites attacked Jericho, that we would survive. Even if my family and I could escape into the inner city, even if the city could withstand their attack, we would still lose our houses and everything we had. And based on what I was hearing from some of the king’s advisers—as you may have guessed, I do indeed know some prominent people—they considered that optimistic. These Israelites posed a genuine problem, and Jericho was reeling from fear.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to save his ego. “I didn’t mean to laugh at you. You must not be from around here. Everyone’s talking about these Israelites, and how invincible they are.”

  He smiled. “No one’s invincible,” he said, sadly, like he was just telling me what I wanted to hear, but he didn’t want to, like he was protecting me from the truth. Someone else might not even have noticed it, but I made a living picking up on subtle signals from men.

  “Yeah. I’m with that,” I said casually. “So what’s your pleasure, gentlemen?” getting back to business.

  “Can I tell you the truth?” the second man answered my question with a question.

  “Always,” I said. “Just remember to respect my rules.” “We were really just looking for somewhere to spend the night, somewhere where they’ll respect our privacy and no one will ask too many questions. Do you think you could do that?” I nodded. If they were on the run, that would explain some of the signals I had been getting. “My brother will be visiting me on his way home from the fields,” I said. “But he respects my business, and won’t ask questions. I’ll tell him you’re out-of-town guests. There’s a place on the roof where you can sleep, not a luxury hotel but it’ll keep you out of sight, out of mind.” The two men looked to each other for approval. Salmon turned back to me. “That sounds fine,” sweetly.

  The second man pulled from his sack several gold pieces. “Will this be sufficient?” “Yes,” I said blandly. It was enough to keep us well through the year even if the harvest were to turn up completely empty. Whatever they were running from, whatever they had done, I thought, it had apparently been quite lucrative.

  Salmon and I spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening talking, as his companion stood guard. Salmon asked about my family, our life. I began to notice him noticing me, and I began to enjoy it. For a few moments anyhow, I think I finally touched happiness. I would have liked, I thought, to have him as a regular guest. I didn’t see how that could possibly be. I confided in him my fears, the inside story. Despite what the king has been telling us, he’s been panicking, trying to shore up defenses for a sustained war against a superior foe. Those aren’t my words; they’re what one of the king’s advisers told me to expect. Salmon was right to get out, to run as far as he could as fast as he could.

  As the sun set, I noticed the king’s men marching toward us on the road, with full-on torches and swords. What they told me, though, changed my life forever.

  I’m not a traitor. I just want to live.

  The Nitpicker's Guide to Magnum, P.I.

  I’m staring at her animated features from across a half-eaten slab of flounder and a mostly-empty glass of Chardonnay. She drones on. Still pretty as when I first met her, but I wonder if I were to choke on an errant bone if it would give me an excuse...

  No such luck.

  You wouldn’t think it possible that any one person could know this much about Magnum, P.I. Much to my surprise, you would be wrong. I bet she could recite every word of the script of every episode by heart. Apparently, she maintains her own very complete “Nitpicker’s Guide to Magnum, P.I.” site on the web. I say “apparently,” because I haven’t seen it myself. Probably only two or three people in the universe have. I chuckle at the thought. I guess the chuckle is well-timed, because she doesn’t seem offended.

  Rather, she nods enthusiastically. “Really!” Her eyebrows shoot up, eyes wide. “No kidding!” “But what bugs me most,” she says, “is how he always lets people walk all over him.” I’m not as expert as she is, but I recall Magnum as a hard-boiled, Vietnam vet, an ‘80’s TV private-eye, fearless and shrewd, the sort of guy who could whoop ass in a bar-fight but knows better than to get into one. Don’t let any of that give pause to her tirade. I guess the good-looking, sensitive, Hawaiian-surf image works even in the 21’st century.

  Or maybe it’s Tom Selleck’s mustache. He’s wearing a goatee nowadays, isn’t he? I reach up and stroke my fingers around my own mustache and goatee, wondering whether it has anything to do with why she’s on a date with me.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Don’t you think that he would have been less interesting a character, if they had written him without those faults?”

  She stares at me, puzzled, as if I had just proposed that water was a dry liquid. “I suppose you’re right,” she says. “That certainly wouldn’t feel right.” Her face falls.

  Oh yeah. A dream date. Or a nightmare. And stuck in it for another hour, because of the Chardonnay.

  We eat in silence for several minutes, listening to the din of conversations we aren’t having, interrupted by the occasional clatter of a glass or plate from a dinner we aren’t enjoying. I happen to glance across the table. Her head hangs low; a clump of her hair is painting tiny, abstract lines onto her green beans. I smile without thinking. Something about her endears her to me. Sometimes we don’t understand why we fall for the ones we love.

  “Jeanette?” I say.

  She lifts her head. “Yeah?”

  I reach across the table and push the wayward strands behind her shoulder. “Will you share my favorite dessert with me, if I share your favorite episode with you?”

  Something tells me she has them all on DVD.

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