She narrows her eyes and touches the tip of her finger to my nose. “Whatever you say, Chuckles.”
I laugh and dare her to repeat it, and she does, and I wrestle her to her back and kiss her.
She looks frail, but she’s a fighter. She fights for the mail and she fights for people. And it makes me want to do things for her. Something more than carts of food and carnal pleasures.
In my mind, I run through the things that she’s passionate about. Hedgehogs. Is there some kind of a hedgehog zoo in this part of California? They have everything else. She’s passionate about her work, of course.
It comes to me, then, that one of my West Coast development partners has a husband who is one of the top executive coaches in the nation. He’s a pompous ass, but he’s famous among executive coaches. Elle is so invested in her job, she’s probably read all of his books. She’d be over the moon to be able to sit down with him.
And his wife owes me. I’ve made her a lot of money.
A plan forms around having drinks with them. Maybe drinks before a dinner session, because I don’t want to share her for an entire night.
I’m thinking somewhere nice—with the best food. And she’ll want to be wearing something nice to meet such an esteemed colleague. And I know just the thing.
23
Noelle
Don’t let him get into your head, that’s what the traveling team said, but they don’t realize how good it feels to tell him things, how good it feels to imagine he’s even just a little bit with you. What would it be like to really partner on something?
I can’t believe I confessed about my mother to him; it’s something I never told anybody—not even Francine.
But I wanted to tell Malcolm. It felt natural.
I’m hiding so much about my identity, but at the same time, I feel like he knows my heart better than people who’ve known me for years. I cup his cheek. “Confessing to an evil person. You are so full of shit.”
“Didn’t it help just a little bit?” he asks.
“You are so full of shit that you’re evil,” I say.
He rolls his eyes. He doesn’t like when you say he’s not evil. What does it mean? Is this idea of his that he’s evil like a suit of armor? A way he protects himself?
“I like my idea for a new kind of confessional.”
“I’m sure it’s already on the internet,” I say. “I wouldn’t want to see it. I wouldn’t want to read about the horrible things that strangers have done.”
“Me either,” he says. “It sounds absolutely tedious.” My breath catches as he wraps his arms around me, as he sets his chin onto the top of my head. “Why hedgehogs?” he asks. “Why do you like hedgehogs?”
“Hmmm,” I say. Nobody ever asked that. “They’re always out there in the dark, quietly industrious. I like their little cone faces. I like that they seem optimistic.”
“What are they optimistic about?”
I slide down next to him. “I don’t know. Just…life.”
His phone alarm sounds. He has a dinner meeting to prepare for. He asks me what I’m going to do, and I mumble something about maybe having dinner, too. My dinner will be the rest of the room service cart.
The next morning, I send AJ his gift card, feeling just awful about it. “He probably won’t kill the golden goose,” Stella had said.
Probably won’t.
I meet the traveling team down in the lobby at the usual place, waiting for our rides to the Kendrick building. I’m bracing myself for when Malcolm appears. I don’t want them to notice any kind of energy between us. I resolve not to even look at him.
Malcolm arrives after a bit, and he’s perfectly discreet, which is to say, his usual surly self. You’d never know we had mind-blowing sex and shared secrets last night. Or at least, I shared secrets with him.
He’s still a mystery. An exciting and forbidden mystery that I should probably steer clear of.
The session is friendly and productive; Malcolm and Gerrold seem to be inching closer to a deal—that’s clear to me during the moments when I’m not debating on the second croissant.
I’m happy for Malcolm, being that this is what he wanted so badly, but I worry about all of the people with their jobs. Is it truly inevitable that they’re just out of work no matter what?
He had a certain point about New York being full of rickety fire traps if nobody had ever knocked the building down.
Still.
I catch him looking at me while Gerrold is huddling with his son on something. He glances down at the tray of pastries and back at me, raising his eyebrows.
Discreetly I shake my head, suppressing a smile. I already had one.
He gives me a dark look that thrills me to my toes. He knows I want another one.
I gaze up at the ceiling, but I can feel his eyes on me, and when I look back, he’s still watching me. Having his focus on me, it’s so strangely gratifying. And fun. I widen my eyes because, he’s totally going to get us busted. He narrows his, waiting, waiting. He nods at the croissants.
I stand and grab the tongs—just to shut him down. I put one on my plate, and then, just to mess with him, I put another there. Then I give him the look that he seems to like–the witchy look.
His nostrils expand ever so slightly, as if in a secret inhale. I’m thinking about last night, and so is he. I look around to see if anybody noticed. Coralee did—she’s smiling at me, like she thinks it’s funny. “I don’t know where you put it all,” she says.
“I’m hoping it’ll go to my hair,” I joke.
She grins and goes back to her phone, and nobody else really seems to notice.
After the meeting, I find myself alone with Malcolm outside at the limo pick-up point while the rest of the team uses the restrooms. The air whips in from the bay, salty and fresh, and a streetcar clanks down from the next street over, and I do mean down. The streets here are crazy steep.
“Progress,” I say under my breath.
Malcolm’s eyes sparkle. “Yes,” he says. Just one word, and I wonder briefly whether he’s talking about the croissants.
“So, we have a four o’clock session set up,” I say. “It’s going to be a video session.”
Malcolm groans. “I still have to watch the videos? I thought we were past that.”
“That is the program,” I remind him.
“I thought we’d established a new and better program,” he says.
“Nice try.”
“Have you even read my essay answers from the other day’s session? I don’t think you have.”
“I shall be reading them forthwith,” I say, in my own rendition of his accent, “and I’m quite sure they’ll earn you your tick.”
He gives me a dark look that I love. “Well, the program is going to have to take place at the Monaco Club.”
“What?” I turn to him. “It’s an hour of video. And you really have to watch it this time. No multitasking.”
“So diligent,” he says. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch it. We’ll watch it over dinner.”
“Seriously, no more check marks without watching the video.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asks smoothly.
“Stop!” I snort. “I mean it. And isn’t the Monaco Club really fancy? What will they say about us watching a video at the table?”
“We’ll use earbuds,” he says.
“But, taking up a table.”
“With the money I drop there, we could have a three-day orgy on the tabletop.”
“That is definitely not in my coaching program,” I say, but the dinner works. I was worrying what I’d eat—I’m probably the only guest in the Maybourne Hotel who’s going hungry.
“What do you say? Leave at four thirty? I’m thinking cocktails first. I have a surprise for you.”
“You can’t be drunk for the video.”
“I don’t get drunk,” Malcolm says, and of course that makes sense. He’s such a control freak.
That afternoon, I finally g
et around to reading Malcolm’s answers to the essay questions I assigned the other day. I smile at his praise of Antonio’s acting skills. He has kind words for Mia, and it comes to me that they are similar sorts of people, both really blunt and opinionated. But most interesting of all: he has a theory on the dryer-lint bandit. How does he have a theory? I don’t even have a theory! The dryer-lint bandit never was caught. I think back through all the videos. Could there be clues? Right in the video?
The box arrives at three, brought up by another room service person who refuses a tip. The name looks familiar. I open it up, and there’s one of the dresses I tried on the first night I was here—my favorite of the dresses. I hold it up in awe.
What kind of sorcery did he do to figure out about this dress? The price tag isn’t on, but I know it cost an arm and a leg. I can’t take it, but I have a feeling that rejecting one of Malcolm’s presents is about as easy as defying the laws of gravity, or making time move backwards, or not petting Smuckers when he trots up wearing his little bow tie.
And I love it. There’s something else in the box—a book on executive coaching. I frown. Does he think I need a book on executive coaching? Has he figured out I don’t know what I’m doing? The cover is a full-length photo of a confident-looking fifty-something man with his hand draped over a podium. The title is “The Executive Power-Confidant.” I flip through it, and a card drops out.
We’ll be having pre-dinner cocktails with a mystery guest and his wife. Consider this your clue.
I have a bad feeling that this mystery guest is Soren Sheffield. The bio inside the back flap calls him “the world’s foremost authority on the art of executive coaching.”
He lives in the Bay Area with his wife.
Gulp.
Drinks with this Soren Sheffield?
It’s one thing to fool Malcolm, who hates executive coaches, but how will I fool the world’s foremost authority on the art of executive coaching?
I grab the phone and try Stella again. No answer. Furiously, I page through the book, familiarize myself with terms.
The phone rings right before I have to start getting ready. “Noelle!” she says, above the murmur of voices in the background. “I teach in five. How are things going with AJ?”
I tell her I’ve been sending him gift cards. “I hate doing it,” I say.
“God, I’m so sorry. He really is such an unbelievable asshole. The product of some really bad judgement on my part. Though, he’s hot. I know that’s not an excuse.”
“It happens,” I say. “But I have bigger problems than AJ.” I sink onto the bed and pick up the book. “Do you know who Soren Sheffield is?”
“Oh, right, the executive-confidant guy? What about him?”
“Does he know people at the Bexley Group?”
“Hardly,” she says. “He’s like, famous. A big cheese.”
“So, he definitely does not know you, right?”
“Not in a million years,” she says.
“That’s good,” I say. “Because I’m going to cocktails with him and his wife and Malcolm tonight.”
“Wait, what?” she says. “Soren Sheffield? Like, in person?”
I’m running out of time, so I put her on speaker and shimmy into my dress. “I guess he thought it would be a treat for me to meet him,” I say.
“Malcolm is taking you out to cocktails with Sheffield and his wife? Like just you four? What is going on out there? Do you know how many real coaches would jump at that chance? My boss Nadine would die.”
“What should I talk about with him?”
“Nothing! Oh my god. Dude, you cannot go,” she says. “Might I remind you that you are a postal carrier.”
“I have to go,” I say. “I said I was going. I can’t back out now.”
“Then you tell them you have diarrhea,” Stella says.
“Diarrhea?”
“It’s the best excuse because it’s embarrassing. Nobody would say it if it wasn’t true,” she says.
It’s funny that Stella would have this right at her fingertips. I can easily imagine her having an entire hierarchy of excuses. She really isn’t the most conscientious person ever. She quit with no notice, after all, just took off to Estonia without saying anything to her job. Who does that? It worked out for me, but it really isn’t the most responsible move. And then there’s the whole AJ thing. I definitely can’t imagine her coaching an executive.
“I can’t back out,” I say. “Can you give me some hints on shop talk?”
“Yeah, one really good one—easy to remember. Don’t do it.”
“Just a few lines?” I brush out my hair. My blowout from the morning has gone limp. I grab a curling iron and go to work while Stella freaks out on the other end.
“Listen to me closely, my friend: Do. Not. Talk. Shop. Coaching has its own specific rules and language, and lots of things you would never ever say. The second you open your mouth, you will totally give yourself away. Treat it like, if you’re pretending to be a nuclear physicist and trying to fool a nuclear physicist. Do not talk shop.”
“What if he asks me a question about my approach?”
“He seems like kind of…full of himself on his Ted talks. So, maybe he won’t.” She groans. “He might, though. Okay, make sure he knows you do court-ordered emotional intelligence stuff, and he’ll know you’re a nobody. And if he asks you anything beyond that, just say that everything you do is based on the client. That’s a thing in coaching. What is your technique? It’s based on the client. What is your program? Based on the client. How do you wipe your ass? Based on the client. Somebody like Soren Sheffield isn’t going to care what you do once he finds out you’re just the cannon fodder they throw at court-ordered people.”
“Good. Thanks,” I say.
“Whatever you do, don’t say you dress up as a letter carrier. And you can’t let him know about those videos. Malcolm may be buying it, but Sheffield never will. You will be automatically busted.” She then makes me note down a question to ask Soren that will get him talking. “As executive coaches, we work to provide a safe place where leaders can truly be their genuine selves. Can you say a little bit about how to create that space?”
I have just enough time to send a selfie to Francine of me in my dress before Malcolm knocks. I know it’s his knock. I don’t know how, it’s just this two-way line that seems to connect us.
I swing open the door and there he is, looking gorgeous in a black silk dinner jacket. Except he has this troubled look on his face when he sees me. My heart is beating nearly out of my chest; has AJ got to him?
“What is it?” I ask.
“So serious,” he breathes, eyes sparkling. “You just take me by surprise, that’s all,” he says, coming to me. “Elle.” The way he says my name fills me with relief. “Elle.” He makes me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world, and I so wish right then that he knew my real name, that he’d look at me like that and call me Noelle. “Elle…” He pulls me to him. We kiss.
I slide my hand down his silky black lapel. “Hey you,” I mumble against his lips.
“Ready?”
“Yes,” I say back.
“Car’s picking us up in back.” He leads me down the hall and down the back stairway and to a door I hadn’t seen, one that requires a key card. We enter a fancy, secret part of the hotel that has an even more fabulous elevator than the public part.
“Is this a secret celeb elevator?” I joke, but then he tells me that it is exactly that, a convenience for celebrities that allows them to exit discreetly through the parking garage.
On the way to the restaurant, he asks me how familiar I am with Sheffield’s work and if I’ve read his books. I tell him that I’m most familiar with that last book, though I don’t add that I just now speed-read the thing like my hair was on fire.
He’s clearly excited to introduce me to Sheffield, and I so wish I could level with him—about everything. We’ve become close in so many ways, and we have a surprising
amount of common ground—inside, where it counts—even if we couldn’t be more different on the outside.
He’d probably think it was hilarious—given a different set of circumstances.
I stare out the window, feeling nervous. Who am I to pull this off?
I could still say I have diarrhea. I rehearse it in my mind. But suddenly, we’ve arrived.
The Monaco Club is an upscale hilltop bistro with floor-to-ceiling windows. The front is an elegant cocktail area with lots of candles and chandeliers and green velvet furniture, and the back is a spacious dining room.
I’d be thrilled to be here if I weren’t completely freaking out.
Maybe I actually will get diarrhea.
We’re led to a table next to the window—clearly the best table. Malcolm introduces me to Verlaina Henry. Verlaina wears an elegant turban, plum lipstick, and some very hip-looking bracelets.
“Verlaina and I go way back,” Malcolm says.
“Way back,” Verlaina says, clasping his hand. She introduces Soren, who has white-gray hair and a linebacker’s face and body.
Malcolm gives Soren his hard-sparkle smile where his mouth forms into a gorgeous smile while his gaze sharpens on the person.
We all sit and order. There’s a small green crystal bowl on the table that contains a kind of high-end Chex mix, and I really want to empty the whole thing into my mouth, but I content myself with two dainty handfuls of it. Of course, nothing escapes Malcolm’s attention. He adds a double bruschetta plate for the table.
Our drinks come. I know it’s inevitable that the conversation will soon turn to me, and by way of preparation, I gulp half a glass of bubbly.
But what really comforts me is being with Malcolm. I feel aligned with him in a deep way, like we can get through anything together. Maybe we can.
Verlaina and Malcolm spend a bit of time catching up, which includes Verlaina informing Malcolm that she’s heard the Germantown Group is absolutely not now and never will be for sale. Malcolm simply nods, and then he smiles at me, causing something in my belly to twist with joy.
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