Charley smirked at her teasingly. “You haven’t earned that right yet.”
“Fine. The sixth date.”
Charley turned to Annie. “Go on with you. Make your report back to the table. I know that’s why they sent you in.”
Annie chuckled as she left the kitchen.
“Why the sixth date?” Charley asked.
Karen pulled a dishtowel from a rack hanging next to the sink. “Because that’s the night you’ll sleep with me.”
Charley caught her breath. “You’re awfully confident.”
“All right, the seventh date, then. You can’t deny we’ve had a good time tonight.”
“That doesn’t mean we’ll end up in bed.” For an instant, though, Charley pictured Karen in her bed before shutting the image out, and for the first time in a long time, it occurred to her that she might be lonely…physically and intimately lonely.
Karen had leaned around her at the sink. “You think I can’t win you over?”
“Can you?” Charley felt Karen’s hand on the small of her back and shivered.
“Let me try?”
Charley dried her hands on the towel in Karen’s other hand, picked up the forks and dessert plates sitting on the counter, and handed them to her. “Take these out to Annie.” The moment the door swung shut behind her, Charley put on her jacket and let herself out the door that led from the kitchen to the service elevator. She knew if she didn’t leave now, she’d be sorry. She’d never done anything this blatantly rude in her life, and everyone would be angry with her when they realized she’d simply left, but there was no other way to handle it. Putting everything on the line again wasn’t an option now that she was emotionally where she wanted to be, and she was even annoyed in this moment that her friends hadn’t been able to see that while they busily tried to fix her up. The elevator door opened, and Charley stepped in, pulling her phone from her pocket to text an apology to Brooke.
Chapter Three
Charley awoke early on Sunday morning. The first thing that hit her was her rather insolent exit strategy from Brooke’s dinner party. She rolled onto her side and punched the pillow, then reached for Bing, curled up inches from her, and hugged him close. He snuggled against her and she wondered if it shouldn’t have been Karen snuggling into her instead. She heard the loud thump of the thick New York Times hitting the doormat in the Sunday silence. A lifetime ago, Tricia would’ve brought it to her from the hallway where the delivery boy dropped it each morning. I miss Tricia. No, I don’t miss her. I miss being treated with love. I miss a woman who can do that.
The cat stretched, yawned, and turned, regarding her dubiously, as only a cat can, and she knew she’d made the right decision, despite Brooke’s response to her apology as she’d stepped into the cab outside her building. It had been in all caps, which was never good.
Her phone emitted the buoy clangs that signaled an incoming text. That sound had been part of her life since childhood vacations on Cape Cod’s shores, so when she’d stumbled upon it online, she’d immediately downloaded the comforting sound. Imagining it was Brooke with one of her “Furthermore!” soapbox follow-ups, she plucked the offending phone from the nightstand.
Brooke: Annie says I need to apologize, that we were wrong.
Charley lay back on the pillows. She and Brooke had their share of face-offs in the BFF department, but Charley found it painful when they did. You don’t. I was rude.
Brooke: No doubt. But I got nasty.
I deserved it. There was a long pause, but she knew Brooke would never leave an apology there.
Brooke: Annie says no one ever deserves that.
She there?
Brooke: Yes.
Tell her I love her.
Brooke: Goes without saying. You left yr pashmina.
Charley knew that was as close as Brooke could come to saying, “I’m sorry.”
I know. I’ll get it next time.
Brooke: What about me?
Charley sent a question mark, not sure she understood the question.
Brooke: You still love me?
Always. Charley laughed at Brooke’s response, the dancing baby with his shades on and a pacifier in his mouth, and she sent back the red kiss lips. Then, hearing the cats’ supper dish scraping across the kitchen floor, and knowing Bob was the protester behind it, she got up to retrieve the paper and feed the boys.
By two, with the NFL game on as she worked, Charley had nearly finished cleaning off her desk. She’d decided to purge her files, too, and now she needed a break. Her tendons ached from tearing up old bank statements and doctors’ reports. I really need to get a shredder. And she was hungry. She stood by the window looking out at the park across the street. Dead brown leaves scuttled everywhere in the afternoon breeze. Some of the trees still hung on to whole branches of brilliant green ones, though, and in the depth of their last blaze of summer, Charley saw the emerald eyes of the woman from the locker room. She wondered if there was anyone in her life, and what she might be doing right now, trying to imagine her someplace as mundane as the supermarket. No, she’d be at one of the farmers markets. Or at the Guggenheim. As she imbued the woman with life, the phone rang, pulling Charley from her reverie.
“Call from…Vivian Owens,” came the muffled robo-voice. Charley looked around for the receiver. “Call from…Vivian Owens.” Bing jumped off the couch, and she saw the light blinking on the handset. He’d been lying on it. But she didn’t move, listening instead for a message.
“Hello, dear, just Mother reminding you to pick me up at four. See you later.”
For an instant, as Charley stared at the game on TV, she almost wished she’d said no to her mother and let Robert pick up the slack after all.
After lunch and a shower, her back still aching from all the bending and lifting, Charley did some stretches. In front of the closet once again, she contemplated what in her wardrobe would be sharp enough and comfortable enough for this afternoon’s outing. The navy blue chinos with a white button-down seemed just the ticket. She threaded a Vineyard Vines ribbon belt with the pink martini-drinking elephants through the belt loops and grabbed the navy pumps with the gold buckles. While the belt wouldn’t amuse her mother, a staunch Republican, Sally Simmons’s son Jim, a friend since high school who was now a Democratic councilman, would notice it right away when she sat down to watch the game with him, and he’d appreciate the humor. She tied a pink sweater around her shoulders. That should work.
Looking at her reflection in the mirror, an aging (and if she was being polite, voluptuous) ex-jock stared back at her, and she wondered for possibly the millionth time if her mother had felt cheated, not having the “standard issue” daughter. She sensed her mother had finally made peace with her only daughter being gay, but Charley knew she had keenly missed some of the things mothers look forward to sharing with daughters: the first serious boyfriend, prom nights, a wedding, grandchildren, the advice she would’ve given with each of those events. She sighed. There was nothing I could’ve done. I am who I am.
Her mother was waiting in the lobby when Charley’s cab pulled up to the building; the doorman helped her out to the taxi. Charley didn’t need to ask her how she was. The cane she wielded told her it wasn’t a good day, even though she was in a blue suit, heels, and full makeup (“my armor,” she called it). Small talk during the ride covered a myriad of topics from the PBS news shows her mother loved, to the bursitis that had been acting up lately. When they got to Sally’s, Charley mentally squared her shoulders and helped her mother from the cab.
Sally Simmons’s palatial West End Avenue apartment always left Charley envious. The sunny living room where the women gathered was furnished in wingback chairs, sofas upholstered in dark leather, Oriental rugs, and oval walnut tables, all set off by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. It looked like it had popped right off the movie screen, the gentlemen’s club from Around the World in Eighty Days, and Charley found it thoroughly charming. Despite her advanced years, Sally still
hosted these events for her diminishing circle of friends, so many of them long widowed like she was. Charley got her mother settled on a sofa with a cup of tea and some cookies and searched for Margaret McNabb, her mother’s best friend. After spotting her across the room with her bridge group, she made her way over to them and asked Margaret to join her mother.
“My public calls,” Margaret joked, primping her platinum hair. “Why don’t you girls come with me? Let’s cheer Viv up—she’s been so glum lately with the knee.”
Several women joined Margaret on the trek across the room, Charley serving as an impromptu cane for Abigail Morgan, one of her mother’s neighbors. She surveyed the room, wives and widows of the Greatest Generation dressed in their Sunday best, which for some of them, Charley could tell, was a Herculean effort. They seemed at home in this environment, like tropical birds settled in the trees of their native rain forest, all chatting at one another about aches, pains, home health aides, the bad economy, and how handsome the newscaster Brian Williams was. The afternoon progressed quietly enough. Charley spent time in the den with Jim watching football and trading stories on the difficulties of looking after elderly parents. By six o’clock, her mother was ready to leave. Charley got her coat and was walking around the room with her as her mother said her good-byes when she happened to glance toward the foyer of the apartment and to her astonishment, saw the handsome woman from the Y tucking a blanket around the legs of Irene Palmer, a friend of her mother’s who was now wheelchair-bound. “Excuse me, Mother,” Charley said, interrupting her mother’s conversation, much to her annoyance. “Who is that at the door?”
“Why, you know Irene Palmer.”
“No, I mean the woman with her.”
“That’s one of her private duty nurses. Irene has round-the-clock care now. Let me just say good-bye to Judy and we can go.”
Charley silently cursed Judy as she watched Irene’s nurse push her out the door.
Chapter Four
Charley was certain she’d only been asleep for five minutes when Michael Bublé’s “It’s a Beautiful Day” crashed her dream at five o’clock Monday morning. Opening one eye, she grabbed her phone from the nightstand and silenced the musical alarm. Her other eye felt like it was glued shut. Rubbing at the grit, she shuffled into the bathroom. Oh my God, why did I stay up so late? The game wasn’t even that good. Bob came in behind her and complained before she’d reached for her toothbrush, so she picked him up and carried him to the kitchen. Bing trotted in when she opened the bag of food.
The buoy tone echoed in the quiet of the apartment and she checked her text messages.
Busy day here already, just warning u. Need u on deck ASAP.
Charley texted back an icon of a speeding cab and ducked into the shower. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang. It would be the car service. “I’ll be right down,” she said, hung up, and rushed to finish dressing.
In the office, she settled at her desk and opened her email. There were already twenty in her inbox from her boss, who was six hours ahead of her in London. Scanning the subject titles, she could see it would be a long day. Emily’s first request was for Charley to work her magic on the PowerPoint she’d attached. The log Charley used to keep track of things was sitting in its usual place on her desk, and she opened it and began working her way through each message, prioritizing what else her boss wanted. She hated wasting time on a project if its relevance had taken back seat to something else, and Emily’s Road Runner personality sometimes left Charley hanging midair off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote if she didn’t wrangle her properly. She sent the edited list back to her to make sure they were on the same wavelength.
An hour later, deep into Emily’s presentation, Charley stopped and sat back, surprised. Then she fast-forwarded through the rest of it, realizing this was a merger proposal with a new Middle Eastern music streaming entity. Why hadn’t Emily told her about this? Before she could answer her own question, Harry, the department’s second-in-command, appeared at her desk, interrupting her. “Hey, I have a huge meeting today and Robin won’t be in for maybe three more hours. Could you help me with a report?”
“Oh, Harry, I can’t right now. I’m working on something for Emily.”
“Shit. How long will that take you?” Harry came around her desk to look at her screen just as she switched it to the Monday music streaming report she did each week for the Legal and Marketing Departments. She had no idea if he knew what was going on, and if he didn’t, she couldn’t chance his finding out by seeing the presentation.
“Best guess, another hour. I can help you when I’m done.”
“Shit.”
“Maybe you could call Robin, ask her to come in now?”
“Yeah, could you do that? Thanks.”
Charley sighed, dialed Robin’s number, left a terse message, and weighed the merits of finally coming clean to Emily about Harry’s dependence on her when Robin wasn’t around, which seemed to be more often lately. When the document was ready to send, so was a rough draft of how she wanted to present the problem, and her solution, to Emily. She opened an email, polished the draft, and sent them both off. Five minutes later, Charley’s Instant Message pinged.
Hand Harry’s report to Zoë when she comes in. I need u today. I’ll call him and tell him. He can be such a pain.
Poor Zoë. Hired four months ago as the third assistant to the growing group, she was the complete team player, performing admirably and never complaining. Charley had already sung her praises to Emily a number of times.
The phone rang a moment later, and Charley glanced at it, her console holding almost everyone’s line in her department. Emily’s cell number appeared on Harry’s Caller ID, and Charley knew he knew who it was, yet after three rings, she had to answer.
“Wait…he’s not even picking up?” Emily asked. “He had to see it was me.”
“You’re not his wife or his son.”
“Whoa. I should’ve been on that list from day one.”
“Want me to say something to him? You know he’ll have an excuse as to why he couldn’t even look up to see that it was you, but we both know he did.”
“I’ll speak to him,” Emily said quietly. “I need to give him new sheet music if I want him to sing a different tune.”
Charley could almost see that telltale vein of anger coming to life on Emily’s forehead as she buzzed Harry’s intercom. Seconds later, she heard him apologizing profusely, his office back-to-back with the thin wall behind her desk. Emily had allowed a fairly lengthy honeymoon period after joining the firm mid-January, but now she was putting both her team and the other departments she’d been charged with revamping under her thumb, and Charley was enjoying the show. She smiled as she put Harry’s report into a folder for Zoë. It might not be such a bad day after all.
Hours later, Charley sent the final PowerPoint to Emily and decided it was time for lunch, and that she’d call it a day and have it at home since she’d been there seven hours. The merger was still on her mind, but she trusted that Emily would tell her about it when the time was right. When she passed Robin’s desk, Charley reminded her she was scheduled to cover the receptionist’s lunch hour now and delighted in watching her panic.
“Wait, I have a lunch date!”
“Really? Cancel it.”
“But I can’t.”
I could only hope it’s a job interview. “You’ll have to. It’s your rotation. Besides, you know what my policy is about lunch dates. If you’d told me earlier, I’d have covered you,” Charley said. “Did you ask Zoë?”
“She can’t do it.”
“Okay, then.” Charley heard Robin slamming cupboard doors as she walked away and laughed to herself. It had taken her a long time to get here, but she loved being the top assistant, and she ran a tight, efficient ship. Assistants like Robin who shirked their duties pissed her off.
On the walk home, Charley finally let herself think about the woman from the Y, and she hoped she’d see her again tonig
ht. She tried to think of the best, or at least a somewhat clever way, to break the ice and tell her she’d seen her at Sally’s tea yesterday, but everything she thought of fell short. Bing and Bob greeted her at the door. Bob stood over a beat-up catnip mouse, swaying back and forth, daring Charley to pick it up. “Mouse,” she growled as she tossed the mail onto the butcher-block table, knelt on the floor, pinched the mouse’s tail, and slowly slid him around, Bob hunkering down in response. How would I open the conversation with her? Bob swatted at the mouse and Charley pulled it back. What can I safely say? Ears back, Bing pounced, grabbing the grubby felt toy in his teeth. Will she wonder why I didn’t approach her at Sally’s? Bob jumped on Bing and both cats tore down the hall. Getting up off the floor proved a challenge. I clearly need to ramp up my core exercises. She pulled herself up using the back of the couch. In the bedroom, a low thrum of anticipation began vibrating in her chest as she changed into her swimsuit, shorts, and a polo shirt, grabbed a jacket and her canvas gym bag, and headed to the pool.
Lost in Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” on her iPod as she swung through the Y’s front door, Charley didn’t see that Neely Robinson, the pretty young security guard she enjoyed flirting with every morning on the way in to aquatics class, was sitting behind the security desk until she handed over her ID. She pulled out her ear buds. “Hey, what are you doing here? Did they change your shift?”
“Marcus called in sick. And where have you been the last week? I almost had the front desk call your apartment to make sure you were all right.” She swiped Charley’s card through the digital reader.
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you. My boss is in London so I’m already at work at six. I can’t come to David’s classes until week after next.”
“Well, you’re way early for the evening class. Gonna be crowded in that locker room now.”
“I know.” That’s exactly why I’m here.
“So…how was your weekend? Spend it in your usual cocoon of privacy hiding from the world?”
Forging a Desire Line Page 3