Free Starstruck by Anne McAllister

they had done that day, teasing and laughing, and Liv stopped being surprised to discover the call was from him and came to look forward to it.
    We’re friends, she thought, pleased, and didn’t bat an eyelash anymore when Frances put on her knowing leer and asked if Joe Harrington had called back. It was a standing joke between them now. Frances never knew that, in fact, he had, and that the secret admirer she teased Liv about, whose calls always made her smile for the rest of the day, was none other than Joe Harrington.
    So Liv had no one to talk to about her feelings when the day came that he didn’t call. For over two weeks she had heard from him every single day. And then one Friday no call came. He had been in Miami the night before, and she knew that his schedule would be hectic all that afternoon and evening, so she had expected to hear from him in the morning. Marv sent her to Sauk City to interview a potter and she didn’t get back ti l l almost noon, but there were no messages on her desk.
    She camped by the phone all afternoon, and while it rang often enough, none of the callers was Joe. Each time it wasn’t, her hopes fell a little further, and by the time she dragged herself out to the car that night, she was convinced that she would never hear from him again.
    After all, who could expect a busy, influential, sexy man like Joe to call and call and call. He was bound to get bored with her and her mundane existence sooner or later. What else could she expect? But it would have been nice, she thought, if he had had the finesse to say, “It’s been nice knowing you,” during their last conversation. Something to let her know that their friendship was over. She stared at the phone during dinner and while she and Noel did the dishes, but it didn’t ring.
    Watched phones never do, she told herself. She decided to paint Jennifer’s room that evening and forget him.
    She tried. She got Noel to watch the younger kids, and coerced Ben into helping her paint. Between them they had three periwinkle-blue walls by ten o’clock.
    “It’s getting late,” Liv told Ben finally. “You go take a shower and get into bed. I’ll finish up.”
    There was only the one wall left to paint and she wanted—no, needed—to finish it tonight. The kids went to bed and the phone was silent and Liv continued to paint. The night air cooled surprisingly for mid-June, lifting the curtains and chilling Liv as she stood in her T-shirt and jeans and regarded her handiwork. There was a storm coming; she could feel it in the air. She laid the roller carefully on the tray of paint and trekked down to her room to find a warmer shirt.
    “Ring, damn it,” she muttered to the phone on her bedside table. But she knew it wouldn’t. However wonderful it had been having a friend like Joe, she knew it wasn’t destined to last. She saw his sweat shirt lying on top of her dresser and her hand reached out to pick it up and rub it gently against her cheek; she still found in it the faint aroma of Joe.
    It’s warm and I’m cold, she rationalized, and he’s never coming back. She slipped it over her head, snuggling into its warmth, pierced by a loneliness she wouldn’t have thought possible, and squared her shoulders and went back to paint.
    She finished by eleven o’clock. The last wall wasn’t as neatly done as the first three. She kept jerking the roller every time she thought she heard the phone ring. It never did, though she had run to her bedroom to answer it ten times at least. By the end of the evening all she had to show for her diligence was a bruise on her shin where she had banged against Jennifer’s toy chest and lots of periwinkle-blue spatters on Joe’s shirt and her own jeans.
    Exhausted and depressed she dragged herself to bed. Stop it, she commanded. But she didn’t. Her eyes ached, her mind ached and she felt absolutely empty. Flicking off the overhead light she kicked her jeans into a heap on the floor and fell into bed.