Ciji Ware by Midnight on Julia Street Read Free Book Online Page A

wall, utterly dumbfounded and dismayed.
    “Hello? You still there?”
    “What are you doing here? What time is it? And how do you know where I live?”
    “It’s nearly eleven o’clock. I’ll explain all that when I see you.”
    “Yeah? Well, now isn’t exactly the best time,” she replied, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
    “I’m not surprised you’re feeling mighty out of sorts this morning,” King replied in his distinct southern drawl. “That’s why I decided to stop by. I went for a run down by the river just now, and I got to thinking ’bout how yesterday must have felt on your end of things.”
    “Well, it didn’t feel good !” she responded, her lips inches from the intercom’s microphone.
    “Getting fired never feels very good.”
    “How did you know I was canned?”
    “It was in the media column in the Picayune this morning,” he said. Corlis closed her eyes and groaned. What television station would hire her after this? “Somebody at WWEZ must’ve leaked it as soon as you aired the story last night,” King surmised.
    “Yeah… your sister’s almost-husband is my guess. I’m sure Jack Ebert knows the home telephone numbers of a few media people in this town,” she said bitterly. She shifted her weight onto her other foot. “Look, I really don’t—”
    “Your crew got axed, too,” King’s disembodied voice interrupted.
    “Oh , no … and right before Christmas?”
    “Look… can you buzz me up? It’s starting to seriously rain out here, and I need to talk to you for a moment.”
    In a kind of a daze, Corlis watched curiously as her index finger pushed the button that would give King access to the ground floor hallway, past her neighbor’s art gallery, and farther on to a stairway that led to her apartment on the second floor.
    As she listened to the hollow sound of King’s footsteps on the treads, she glanced down at the rumpled pair of running pants and faded sweatshirt she’d slept in.
    Jeez Louise, she felt a mess.
    She sprinted the few feet into her bathroom, located off the front hallway, and peered into the medicine cabinet mirror.
    I look hideous.
    She didn’t have a stitch of makeup on, and dark smudges, courtesy of her miserable night, formed sooty crescents underneath her eyes. Before she could even run a comb through her hair, she heard a sharp knock on her front door. She grabbed her hairbrush and made a pathetic attempt to bring some order to her unruly brunette locks. Sighing with resignation, she trudged back down the hall, opened the front door, and beheld King Duvallon in all his glistening glory.
    Despite its being December, he was lightly dressed in royal blue running shorts, a white polo shirt, and a beat-up pair of sneakers. He’d obviously been hoofing it for a couple of miles along the riverfront in unseasonably sultry weather as a storm front moved in off the Gulf of Mexico. Perspiration beaded his forehead. His hair was also damp, and sweat ran in rivulets down his neck and into the black chest hair just visible above his open collar. The short stubble on his face, unshaven since his sister’s wedding, most likely gave him a mildly roguish appearance. The deep cleft in his chin intrigued her. How did King shave?
    “I should have called first,” he admitted apologetically. He looked down at his sweat-soaked shirt. “And perhaps I should have showered,” he added wryly.
    “You’re not the only one,” she said, and then wished she hadn’t drawn attention to herself as she observed King give her disheveled garb the once-over.
    “As you might imagine, I didn’t sleep very well last night.” She grimaced. “When I got back from breakfast about seven thirty this morning… I sort of went unconscious. Now I look and feel as if I got run over by a truck.” For a moment they stared in silence across the threshold. Then she added quietly, “Why don’t you come in and tell me how you knew my address, and why you’ve stopped by to see