Stand-In Bride

Her thoughts swung back to the past, and she silently thanked her mother for insisting that she take some courses at the local business school during her summer breaks from college. It had been hard at the time, working a forty-hour week to earn her next year’s tuition money while taking business courses. But it had been Julia’s office skills, not her degree in psychology, that had enabled her to land well-paying jobs, first at the Olson, Anderson & Lake Consulting Firm and now here at the Fortune Corporation.

The telephone rang, and Julia quickly answered it. Somehow an enterprising reporter had managed to slip through the receptionist’s call-screening and reach the desk of Michael Fortune’s executive assistant. She asked some intrusive and highly intimate questions about Michael’s sex life and responded to Julia’s terse “no comment” with snickers and not-so-sly innuendos.

Julia’s cheeks turned a ruby shade of red. “I repeat, no comment!” she said sternly and slammed down the phone. The action was oddly satisfying. No wonder Michael had taken to slamming doors.

Julia shared an apartment with three other young women— Jen, Debby and Kia, all students at the West Bank segment of the University of Minnesota, just west of the Mississippi River.

Kia, a graduate student in social work, shared a room with Julia; they’d lived together for the past two years. Jen and Debby, both drama majors in their senior year, had moved into the apartment in August and occupied the other bedroom. All four used the common areas—kitchen and living room.

Lamentably, there was only one bathroom. During her rare flights of fancy, Julia visualized having a bathroom that was hers alone. It seemed like the ultimate luxury.

The apartment was no worse and a lot better than many of the rental units available to upper-level students who didn’t live in university-owned dorms. The building wasn’t too old and the rent wasn’t too high. Split four ways, it was downright cheap for Julia, which was exactly what she wanted.

And needed. Almost all of her salary went to pay Joanna’s expenses at the rehabilitation center. Though Medicaid had paid for Joanna’s eleven-month hospitalization, coverage stopped when she was discharged from the hospital.

Had Joanna gone to a nursing home, the government would have picked up the tab, but Julia didn’t consider it, not even for a moment. She’d spent the long months after her sister’s accident researching facilities, and the rehabilitation hospital on the outskirts of town was superior in every way. There Joanna could receive the intensive specialized therapy she required to eventually lead an independent, productive life.

The alternative—the nursing home—provided custodial care only. Julia viewed placing Joanna there as giving up hope, of resigning her little sister to a life of institutional dependency.

So Julia had sold the Chandler family’s house, used the money to fund Joanna at the rehab center and had moved back into cheaper living quarters in the university section of the city.

Though she was only twenty-six, sometimes she felt decades older than her student neighbors. “Greek Week,” when the fraternities and sororities took over the neighborhood, had certainly lost its charm for her, especially when drunken serenades and contests went on till dawn and she had to get up for work by six.

But both the apartment and the neighborhood were quiet when Julia arrived home a few minutes before eight-thirty. She didn’t know where her roommates were. The four seldom socialized together, although Julia and Kia occasionally ran or biked together in the evenings or on weekends when their schedules coincided. There were a number of suitable trails and paths around the many lakes and criss-crossing parks throughout the city.

Julia gazed longingly out the window into the darkness, wishing Kia were around now. Julia could use a brisk run to work off the frustrations of the long day.

For a few minutes, she stood by the window and debated whether or not to go out alone. The weather was warm for early October, perfect for an evening run, but the darkness concerned her. What woman anywhere wasn’t aware of the dangers of being out alone at night?

But tonight she felt confined and resented the restrictions. Tonight she wanted to be free of both risks and precautions. Two years ago she’d taken a self-defense class at the Y, and the neighborhood was considered safe, she rationalized. There were people around at all hours, especially since she lived so near the theater district, home of an incredible number of productions staged by the university drama department.

Julia vaguely recalled Jen and Debby mentioning a play they were both working in, Jen as an actress and Debby as a “techie” behind the scenes. A light satire, they’d said, and it sounded entertaining. Julia made a mental note to ask them about the dates and times of the show.

She would go see it, if she ever got out of the office in time to make the first act. The way things were going now, she had her doubts. Just thinking about the long and dreadful day at work stressed her all over again.

The events played through her mind like a tape in a VCR. She only wished she could fast-forward certain nerve-jangling scenes. Like when the voice-mail system had crashed again due to an overload of lovelorn messages to Michael Fortune. The mishap had been followed by an angry visit from Jake Fortune himself.

Unfortunately, Michael had been in a meeting and unavailable, so Julia had been the hapless recipient of Jake’s fury. In a steely, formidable tone, Fortune’s boss-of-bosses had ordered her to pass along his vituperative message to Michael, even making her repeat it back to him word for word, to prove she’d gotten it right!

Her palms had been sweating after that encounter. It was bad enough to get chewed out by the CEO of the entire corporation, but to be expected to spread the vitriol to her boss was ulcer inducing. Julia had not delivered Jake’s message to Michael, and she’d spent the rest of the day worrying that her crime of omission would be detected by Jake Fortune. To her great relief, he hadn’t checked back to find out if she had or hadn’t followed his orders.

The day hadn’t improved as morning dragged into afternoon. The voice-mail system took longer than usual to fix, and by the time it was running smoothly, and an exasperated group of buyers from department stores around the country were able to contact the Fortune Corporation about new orders, everybody’s tempers were frayed.

Next came word that a vital shipment of ingredients from overseas had been delayed at the docks in New York, which meant an even longer wait on the production line. That meant dealing with frustrated supervisors in production who were not pleased with the ensuing delays, as well as relaying the bad news to stores that would not be receiving their Fortune products when expected.

Julia had placed the calls for Michael and received a number of tongue-lashings in true shoot-the-messenger fashion. She could only imagine the wrath they would have expended on Michael.

Finally, Kristina had arrived to complain about her latest fight with the head honchos in advertising, whom she claimed lacked vision and guts and were hopeless prudes in the bargain. Julia had ushered her into Michael’s office and hadn’t been privy to Kristina’s latest campaign to “definitively capture the youth market,” but from the raised voices radiating from Michael’s office and Kristina’s stormy exit, she’d guessed the meeting had not gone well.

Neither had the flurry of calls Julia then had to place to the advertising department. Cast in the hapless-messenger role once again, she had been snarled and snapped at by world-class snappers and snarlers.

And, of course, she could say nothing back to any of them. That wasn’t in her job description. She had to grit her teeth and swallow any retort, however appropriate. Her jaws ached from all that gritting.

Julia decided she definitely was going to run. She was wired and edgy, filled with tension that needed to be discharged. In the mood she was in, God help any potential attacker if he dared to attack her!

Shedding her prim office wear, she pulled on a pair of bright gold running shorts and a purple-and-gold University of Minnesota T-shirt, laced up her running shoes and stepped out into the balmy October night. A slight breeze rustled through the branches of the trees. She ran along the sidewalk, moving to the street whenever she encountered pedestrians. Fallen leaves, the first of many more to come, crackled under her feet. Their brilliant red, orange and yellow hues were already beginning to fade as they lay drying on the ground.

She had run a full mile before the tensions of the day began to slowly drain from her. She turned onto a well-lit path that followed the river and glanced at the dark, swiftly-flowing waters.

Julia found herself wondering if Michael was unwinding right now and if so, where and how. She knew he sometimes used the gym in the downtown City Club, and he’d been known to enjoy beating his brother Kyle at racquetball.

But Kyle wasn’t living in Minneapolis anymore, he was at his ranch in Wyoming with his wife and daughter, so there would be no more friendly games on the racquetball court to help alleviate Michael’s stress. And the City Club gym closed at eight o’clock.

Of course, there were other ways to alleviate tension, other kinds of physical activity that didn’t involve leaving the bedroom. Julia felt heat suffuse her skin and knew it wasn’t completely due to the exertion of running.

She didn’t want to think of Michael and sex, but it was hard not to, considering the fact that hundreds of women had been innundating him with offers of sex all week long.

And he had spurned them all.

It wasn’t that he was bent on leading a life of celibacy. Julia knew very well that her boss had women companions from time to time. She ought to know; she was the one who made the dinner and theater reservations in the city and the travel arrangements when the couple took the occasional getaway weekend. She was the one who ordered the flowers to be sent—always roses; Michael was not cheap when it came to florist bills. She was also the one who either put through or refused to put through calls from his lady friend of the moment, depending on the instructions of Michael Fortune himself.

During her tenure as his faithful assistant, Julia had learned quite a bit about the ABC’s of courtship, Michael Fortune style:

A. Michael favored what he called “serial monogamy.” He dated only one woman at a time and expected his chosen candidate to limit herself strictly to him during that period.

B. None of his relationships seemed to last very long. Julia attributed that to his strong antimarriage bias. An involvement with no chance of becoming permanent, or even serious, was doomed to be self-limiting and short-term.

C. Once Michael decided to end the relationship, it was truly over, no matter how his current partner might feel about the matter. If the woman happened to be the one to call it quits, he accepted her decision without ever trying to change her mind. He just didn’t care enough to bother.

Once, one of his exes, bitter over “being dumped just before I was going to dump him,” had given Julia an earful. “Michael Fortune has to be the one in control,” the woman had griped, while Julia maintained a discreet silence. “He demands that the power he holds as an executive in his office be extended to his personal life, and that makes him a lousy candidate for a romance. I’m sure it’s better to work for him than to be in love with him.”

Julia wholeheartedly agreed. Michael was a considerate, even thoughtful boss, but as a lover… She didn’t pursue that line of thought, steering clear of the dangers of an impossible romantic fantasy.

All those eager women in hot pursuit of Michael should’ve done the same, but they couldn’t have known that being placed on the magazine’s “most eligible” list would render him totally ineligible to them. Michael would never consent to being sought after. He had to be the one in charge of a relationship, which meant beginning it himself. He was the proud hunter, not the hunted.

As she ran, Julia passed a number of other joggers and several strolling couples as well. A great many people had opted for outdoor exercise tonight. When she saw a tall, very familiar masculine form running along the path toward her, she blinked in astonishment.

It couldn’t be! Her imagination was playing tricks on her.

She’d spent so many hours working with him and so many of her off-duty hours thinking about him that now she was conjuring up images of Michael Fortune.

Except that the dark-haired man in the blue running shorts and white T-shirt who was approaching her was no figment of her imagination.

It was Michael Fortune himself, and he looked as startled to see Julia as she was to see him.

Three

“Julia?” Michael stared at her as they met on the path.