Under the Table

by Stephanie Evanovich

  “Just my version of cheffery,” he quipped, reaching for his wineglass. Afterward, he offered to move the party to the library to have dessert.

  “Forget dessert. I have no room left,” she said with a satisfied sigh, wishing she could unbutton her jeans. “And I’d much rather see some of the art.”

  “Do you want to start with impressionist, mosaic, or modern?” he asked excitedly, rising to pull out her chair for her.

  “Let’s go with impressionists,” she said.

  “Do you know art?”

  “Don’t have a clue.”

  Tristan laughed and grabbed both their wineglasses before leading her down the hall. “Then I guess I don’t need to worry about you telling the reals from the fakes. Allow me to enlighten you a bit. Impressionism started in the nineteenth century. You can tell it mainly by all the small, thin brushstrokes, usually oil paints. Mosaics are pieces made up of small stones, pieces of glass, or tiles. Basically, materials that are flat, small, square, and colorful. The impressionist style is named after Claude Monet’s work Impression, soleil levant, the translation meaning Impression, Sunrise.”

  “I’ve heard of him!” she exclaimed, mainly from having seen the movie Titanic over a dozen times. As they entered the room, she brought her voice down to a whisper. The lights turned on automatically, bathing the room in a soft glow with single-bulb lights that shone directly on the artworks themselves. “Do you have one of them? You know, the Sunrise one?”

  “It just so happens that I do.” Tristan handed over her wineglass and sat down on the long leather bench in the center of the room, patting the space beside him. “Come. We’re right in front of it.”

  “Is yours real?” she whispered, sitting down next to him.

  “No.” He gave her an indulgent smile. “The real Sunrise is in Paris.”

  “Oh.” She giggled at her own ignorance. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he teased. “It’s probably happy there.”

  They sat in silence, sipping their wine and looking at the serene picture, with all its mostly pale tones of the sky and sea, with the exception of the bright orange spot that made up the sun and the strokes of orange that served as its reflection on the water.

  Zoey could understand why he found the rooms of art so inviting. The speakers here were turned down to enhance the ambiance. It was peaceful and quiet, with only the faint sounds of music thumping in the distance. She could hear him breathing. It was profoundly romantic.

  Hold up. Not that word. Not here. Not with this guy.

  “It’s getting late,” she said, breaking the silence that just a moment ago was comfortable and now was charged with an energy she had no business experiencing. She stood up. “I should probably go.”

  She didn’t know if he felt it too, but he didn’t try to make her stay. He rose as well. “Can I call you a car? Walk you home?”

  “No thanks.” She gave him a smile but refrained from looking him in the eye. “I’m going to race-walk off the penne.”

  She couldn’t get out of his apartment fast enough. She needed fresh air on her face. She needed to clear her head from the long-dormant feelings that suddenly threatened to surface. Whether that was from the wine or the company, now was not the time to analyze it. He helped her into her jacket and she gathered her purse, all the while thinking about how if the circumstances were different, she’d be wanting and waiting for a good-night kiss. A kiss she would’ve been willing to initiate. A kiss that she could only imagine would be as thorough and thought out as all the other things he did. It only added to her fluster.

  “Are you busy tomorrow?” Tristan asked, opening the door.

  “I am,” she replied, eternally grateful she didn’t have to lie to him. She would need at least a day to get herself back in check. “I’m catering a brunch in Tribeca for a very nice lady and her new in-laws. It should be interesting.”

  “Good luck with that. Not that you need it.”

  She got out to the street and took a gulp of air. She began walking briskly in the direction of home, lecturing herself the entire way. With his initial reaction to the news she was married, it wasn’t hard to surmise that even if he felt a fraction of the chemistry she just did, he wouldn’t act on it. She needed to build his confidence and get him up to speed to meet the woman of his dreams. She couldn’t fail him as a friend or violate his trust.

  But she was ashamed of herself for just how many ways she wanted to.

  Chapter 8

  Tristan communicated with Zoey every day, with the first time being an unexpected text. Zoey was home after the in-law brunch, feeling the rush that came with success. Her eggs Benedict were perfection. The poached whites of the eggs were fully cooked, and the yolks showed no signs of hardening. The hollandaise sauce just the right consistency. The potatoes that accompanied them were crunchy on the outside and soft inside with just the right amounts of peppers and onions to make them savory. She squeezed her own orange juice for the mimosas. All the fruit in her fruit salad was ripe and delectable. She went above and beyond to make sure her stressed-out host looked like the lady of the manor in her mother-in-law’s eyes. She walked away with a one-hundred-dollar tip for her efforts.

  She was in the middle of a postwork nap when her phone pinged. She almost didn’t answer it, fearing that it was Derek, who had already sent several texts since she hung up on him two days prior. With one eye closed, she picked up the phone to confirm and saw an unknown number and the words: HELLO OUT THERE!

  Curious, she wrote back: HI. I THINK YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER.

  After less than a minute she got: ZOEY?

  She had a sneaking suspicion, which made her smile, but asked anyway: WHO IS THIS?

  IT’S TRISTAN. I WENT OUT AND GOT A PHONE TODAY. ALL BY MYSELF.

  LOL

  YOU THINK YOU’RE TRICKY, BUT I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.

  OH YEAH? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

  LEFT OVER LAUGHTER

  CLOSE. IT MEANS LAUGH OUT LOUD

  I KNEW THAT, SO LOL ON YOU. WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?

  I WASN’T REALLY. IT’S ONE OF THOSE THINGS YOU WRITE WHEN SOMEONE SAYS SOMETHING FUNNY. OR YOU DON’T HAVE A READY RESPONSE.

  WHICH ONE IS IT FOR YOU?

  A LITTLE OF BOTH. MOSTLY YOUR ALL BY YOURSELF COMMENT. PROUD OF YOU.

  ONE OF MY NEW JACKETS HAS AN INSIDE POCKET SPECIFICALLY FOR A PHONE, SO I THOUGHT IT WAS TIME.

  He texted her every day. Usually nothing more than a hello, or wishing her a nice day. Sometimes she would start a conversation. Other times she would thank him and wish him the same. But she made sure to text him something worth learning daily. It was usually an often-used acronym, though he was too proper and set in his ways to use them, preferring to spell out each word in its entirety.

  With the distance, Zoey was able to regain some of her equilibrium. Tristan was out of sight, but not quite out of mind. She suffered through Ruth’s uninvited half-hour diatribe about how men and women are incapable of being just friends. It was all the more disconcerting because Zoey had made no mention to her sister about the way she fled his apartment when her thoughts turned to departing the friend zone. But Zoey had to be careful. Getting too defensive would only give Ruth more ammunition.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Zoey argued.

  “No matter what anybody says, one side or the other is in it for the attraction.” Ruth did everything short of pointing her finger at Zoey in accusation.

  “What about gay people?”

  “That’s a nonissue. A gay man being friends with a woman is different because there’s no chance of sex. The same applies to gay women being friends with straight men.”

  “Okay, so then by your theory all the lesbians you’re friends with are really wanting to hit on you?”

  That stumped Ruth enough to make her drop the argument. But it also gave Zoey a lot of food for thought. In the end, Zoey laid the blame on the wine for her reaction to Tristan.

  That didn’t stop Zoey
from feeling a mixture of panic and thrill when Tristan texted her early Friday morning.

  I THINK I’M READY TO GO OUT AND EXPERIENCE THE NIGHTLIFE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN ME?

  Zoey doubted he would follow through if she declined. Or maybe not. He was known for jumping right into the deep end. Maybe it was time to get him out there. The sooner he embraced all New York City had to offer, the sooner she would be able to get back to her own agenda. The clock was ticking, and she wanted to make sure she had enough to afford a lawyer if Derek tried to fight simple mediation. Besides, it was common knowledge that once somebody found a significant other, all their other playmates were slowly left in the dust. What’s the worst that could happen, he would begin to develop a network of friends?

  “Okay, Ruth, now’s your chance.” Zoey looked up from her phone after responding to Tristan that it sounded like a great idea. “Tristan wants to go out and party. Not only can you meet him, but I can also prove to you that my motives are pure and his are innocent.”

  Ruth immediately started making plans for Saturday night.

  * * *

  Saturday afternoon Zoey took her first long look in the mirror. She’d just survived another hectic kid’s birthday party. It was easy money menu-wise, but murder having to listen to a bunch of kids screaming up and down the stairs of a Brooklyn brownstone all while keeping a smile plastered on her face. After a much-needed shower, Zoey gave her reflection a long-overdue assessment and was not thrilled with the final analysis. She always wore the same clothes for working, black pants and a white shirt. Her hair was always tied back for sanitary reasons. She avoided makeup—it was a total waste once she started sweating over the stove. When she wasn’t working, it was jeans or yoga pants and whatever shirt she put a hand on first. She stared at herself in the mirror. She had the nerve to think Tristan needed a makeover? Well, charity begins at home. With a heavy sigh, she began opening vanity drawers and shuffling stuff around, not sure what she was looking for.

  At the back of one drawer, she spied teeth-whitening strips. It was as good a place to start as any. Who doesn’t appreciate a bright white smile? Zoey read the instructions on the box and pulled out a package for both her upper and lower teeth. They seemed so large, even after folding them in and anchoring them to the back of her teeth. They had a slimy feel and a faint aftertaste. She double-checked the package. She needed to wear them for thirty minutes. Sigh. She checked her phone for the time and left the bathroom. She turned on the television and sat down on her futon to wait. Clamping her jaw shut was increasing the slight pounding at her temple. Before long, she was leaning her head back against the futon. The next thing she knew, Ruth was gently shaking her awake.

  “Hey,” Ruth said. “What time do you have to meet Mr. Manners?”

  “What time is it now?” was Zoey’s still-drowsy and mumbled response. Her mouth was dry as a bone, and her lips felt chapped.

  “Almost five thirty.”

  “FIVE THIRTY?!?” Zoey jumped up and made a run for the bathroom, stubbing her toe on the coffee table in the process. She hopped down the hall, making random grabs at her pulsating foot with one hand and ripping the film out of her mouth with the other. There was no time to check for blood or broken bones. She’d kept the teeth-whitening strips in her mouth for nearly four hours.

  She didn’t need to turn on the light in the bathroom to get a good look, but Zoey did it anyway. With her mouth still tightly shut, she stood in front of the mirror and took a deep breath. She gave her reflection a shaky smile.

  Zoey had often thought she showed too much of her gums when she smiled. That problem had been solved. Zoey’s teeth didn’t look all that much different. Her gums, however, were bleached completely white. From where her teeth met the gum line all the way to where it attached to her lips. It was impossible to tell where her teeth ended and her gums began, making her mouth look like it was all teeth. Even her tongue had spots of discoloration.

  Zoey took big handfuls of water and repeatedly rinsed her mouth out. It lessened the icky taste in her mouth but did nothing to weaken the brightness of all that white. She tried to brush her teeth, but the mistreated gums were sensitive, and she was afraid they would bleed. She was already envisioning the gums sloughing off and leaving her with nothing but exposed bone.

  She tried to talk herself down. It was going to be dark. She would adjust her smile a bit. She tried a few subdued, controlled grins in the mirror. The ones that didn’t look faked and pained resembled lecherous grins. Maybe every time someone said something witty, she could put her glass up to her mouth and take a drink. Suddenly heavy drinking sounded like a good idea.

  “You okay in there?” Ruth gave a quick knock.

  “Fine,” Zoey sang. After all the arguing, the last thing she needed was her sister suspecting she was going to any special lengths for going out tonight. It was bad enough she suspected Zoey was harboring secret feelings for Tristan. She closed her mouth and opened the door.

  “You took off like a bat out of hell there.” Ruth leaned against the doorway and crossed her arms. “Is your toe all right?”

  “Yeah.” Zoey gave a quick glance to the slight bruise that was starting to form at the tip of her pinky toe. She put the toilet lid down, set the foot with the injured toe on top of it, and bent down to examine it, moving it around so she’d appear to be checking if it was broken. It was the perfect excuse to keep her sister from getting a look into her mouth. “I guess no dancing for me tonight. I told Tristan I would meet him at his place around seven.”

  But Ruth wasn’t paying Zoey much mind. In fact, it looked like she had stopped listening. Her attention was focused on the box of tooth-whitening strips that Zoey had left on the counter. She was studying it, with a perplexed look on her face. Then Ruth shrugged and plucked the box off the counter, then tossed it in the trash.

  “I meant to throw these out. There is something wrong with them. They didn’t do a damn thing for my teeth.”

  Zoey didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh, cry, or scream but she refrained from making a choice because all of them would involve opening her mouth.

  Chapter 9

  Zoey decided to wear one of the two dresses she’d brought with her when she fled Ohio. It was nothing like Ruth’s cocktail dress, black, form fitting, thigh high, and complete with the dreaded bared arms and matching four-inch heels. Zoey’s was a more reserved royal blue with three-quarter sleeves and a flared skirt that fell just above her knees. She accessorized with black tights, ballet flats, and a half sweater jacket. She had much bigger things to worry about, namely her blinding white gums. Zoey blow-dried her hair and left it down, applied a little blush, shadow, mascara, and lip gloss, then made for the door. Not wanting to break a sweat from either exertion or anxiety, she left, telling Ruth they would meet up with her at the bar, and skipped the walking, taking a cab uptown. The entire ride she practiced ways she could be sparkly and talkative without having to fully open her mouth.

  She forgot about her dilemma entirely when Tristan answered the door upon her arrival. It’s easy to keep your teeth covered when your mouth drops open.

  He was wearing his skinny jeans, with a button-down white-and-black-striped shirt and a gray two-button slim-fit jacket with lapels. A jacket she didn’t remember from their trip to Barneys. He must have taken the initiative and ventured out on his own. He had used the pomade, but she still detected the scent of Old Spice, so he hadn’t gone hog wild. Ruth was going to lose her mind when she got a gander, and that was problematic, for a multitude of reasons.

  “Wow.” Zoey nodded approvingly. “You do clean up nice.”

  “Lady, you are on fleet!” Tristan said in appreciation, stepping back for her to enter.

  “Thank you. I think.”

  “Maybe that’s not it.” He shook his head before trying again. “You are on FREAK!”

  “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.”

  “That you look perfect,” he replied before pa
using, then saying softly, “Beautiful. In every way.”

  He was so open. Honest. It was so refreshing not to have to fend off all the machismo, the posturing. Zoey resisted the urge to wrap her arms around his neck and go in with both lips. Although on fleet may have applied last Memorial Day weekend, she mused, when Ruth had more sailors floating through their apartment than the USS Independence. “I think the word you are looking for is fleek. You are on fleek.”

  And he was.

  “On fleek?” Tristan repeated, adding a chuckle. “I think I’m going to have to start paying more attention. But either way, you are it.”

  Zoey felt her cheeks start to heat up under his gaze. “Thanks. And don’t worry, you shouldn’t be talking like that anyway, unless you just graduated from high school.”

  When she got to the living room, another surprise was waiting for her. Mounted above the fireplace was a seventy-inch television. To her horror, it was on the E! channel, where the programming was almost exclusively about the rich, beautiful, and famous.

  “I see you got a new toy.”

  “I did. Did you know this thing has over three hundred channels? Mind boggling.”

  “Have you christened it with an extensive channel surf?”

  “I’m ashamed to say it’s been on for days and I can’t tear myself away.”

  “Watch anything good?” she said, covertly trying to see how much damage control was going to be needed.

  He scrunched up his face in thought. “Hmmm. Well, apparently housewives exist all over the country and they spend all their time together, even though it’s clear they despise each other. There are people who weigh over six hundred pounds and I guess there is only one doctor in Texas that wants to help them, and he does it by removing part of their stomachs. I found out there are people who are called hoarders that have so much nasty stuff in their homes they can’t move around. I like how people come to the rescue and help them, but I’m still worried for them. Oh, and there’s a crazy lady who owns a dance school for young girls who spends most of her time being mean to them and screaming. And the mothers tolerate it!”