My phone rang. Will Harding, my serial killer client. I had just been there an hour ago.
“Hello?”
There was a pause. “Who is this?”
“It’s Marley, Will. You called me.”
“Marley.”
Pretends not to know me. The list of his flaws was getting longer.
I rolled my eyes. “Your chef? Who comes to your house with food five times a week?”
“Yes. Right.”
There was a pause. “Was there something you needed, Will?” I asked.
“Yes. You included four truffles with tonight’s dinner.”
I suppressed a sigh. “Well, I made some for another client, and I thought you might like them.” Also, I probably would’ve eaten them if I had them in the house, and I’d done plenty of tasting while making them.
“I don’t usually order dessert.”
Doesn’t usually order dessert. In fact, he never ordered dessert, which was further evidence of his serial-killing ways. “I know. But you could live a little. Dessert is fun.”
Nothing from the other end of the line.
Ah. “You don’t have to pay for them, Will. They were a thank-you for being a good client.”
“I see. I thought it was a mistake. That they were meant for someone else.”
“Nope. Just for you.”
There was a long pause from his end. “Well. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“Good-bye.”
I clicked off and sighed. A guy like Will should’ve been doing something on a Friday night. He was . . . well, he wasn’t hideous to look at and, being somewhere in his thirties or early forties, he should have a woman (or man), or some friends. Then again, did Ted Bundy have friends? Didn’t matter. I had a friend, and she needed to be dressed.
Ten minutes later, Georgia looked less like a British schoolmarm and more like a woman in her thirties. Her hair was the stuff of Italian-girl envy—dark blond, sleek and smooth, in a bob that was never frizzy, never messy, never flat . . . just eternally perfect. I applied blush on her cheeks, ignoring the pleading look she sent her dog, and yes, even lipstick. “Now tuck in your shirt,” I ordered.
“No.”
“Just on one side. It’s very hip.”
“It looks like I just got out of the bathroom and forgot what I was doing.”
“It’s on the list. Tuck in your shirt.”
“Marley, look at me. I’m already trying. Don’t push it.”
“You never try. When was the last time you went on a date?” I knew the answer. When she’d been married. So that was five years without a man. Five years!
Emerson had done us a favor with that list. She totally had. Kicking our asses from the great beyond, like any true friend.
“Fine. Don’t tuck. But get in the car, girlfriend. The time has come.”
CHAPTER 10
Georgia
Have a cute stranger buy you a drink.
(Or two cute strangers.)
An hour after Marley had tarted me up, I was settled at Hudson’s, the bar portion of which was packed with New York’s Bravest. Her brother, the beautiful Dante, was fending off lovestruck women as his husband watched in amusement. One of the firefighters had handed over a DVD to the bartender, and Dante’s famous rescue of the little girl was playing over and over, much to the delight of the crowd.
Aside from Dante and Louis, whom I’d met a few times now and who had greeted me like an old friend, I was largely invisible, which was how I liked it. Marley was at the bar, having made her way through the sea of men, and was now talking to her crush, Camden. His eyes kept flickering away from her, a sign that he was scanning for someone better, the asshole.
I knew she was afraid to admit how much she liked him. She’d brushed off their occasional hookup, but she had the curse of having an expressive face, and right now, that face said she was trying too hard to keep his interest. Every once in a while, he’d look at her almost like he was just remembering she was there. Then he’d smile, as if thinking, Oh, hey! Marley’s here! Cool! when he’d been talking with her all along. Nonetheless, she seemed to see him as the brightest star in the sky.
This was the gift of invisibility: I could observe and eavesdrop, and no one noticed or cared. Just one more thing I didn’t have in common with my mother, who went to great lengths to be the center of attention—drenched in perfume, always dressed to kill, flirting with every male who walked past in a way that was painful to watch—her fingers at her bony sternum, the toying with her earring, the laying on of hands whenever possible. It always made me want to fold up into myself.
But for now, I was happy enough. It was wicked fun to watch Dante’s rescue—one of the moments proving New York was the greatest country on earth, right up there with Sully landing on the Hudson and Derek Jeter’s last home game. My scotch was Dalwhinnie, and in addition to the familiar pain in my stomach, I felt a pleasant warmth spreading in my chest as I sipped it. I had never minded being alone, after all. Should’ve been a sign. Should’ve paid attention to it. Should never have gotten married.
Marley glanced at me and gave a terrifyingly bright smile, our code for snap out of it. I obeyed. Sat up straighter. Smiled back at her. Pushed my hair behind my ears, the unfamiliar earrings tickling my neck. Tried to project a sense of approachability and warmth. Confidence, which was allegedly the sexiest thing of all, thigh gaps and big boobs be damned. Yes. I was an attractive woman. You betcha.
Nothing changed. My cloak of invisibility didn’t fall to the ground. It was only with four-year-olds that I could really rock a room.
I kept trying. Fake it till you make it, right? Except I’d tried that with Rafe, and we all knew how that ended.
You watching, Emerson? I thought. I’m fighting the good fight down here.
Emerson had been beautiful, obesity be damned. Green eyes and cheekbones even with all that weight, the best smile, the cute dimple in her left cheek.
Dead at thirty-four.
I heard Marley’s booming laugh. At least she was having fun. Or trying hard.
Despite the horror stories, maybe I’d try online dating. The chance of meeting in a bar was so 1980s. I mean, sure, one would think that sitting in a room filled with many age-appropriate males, at least some of them single and straight, one would attract some male attention.
Nope. Instead, the firefighters, easily identified by tattoos or shirts bearing a firefighting insignia, only talked to each other. Phrases like “Who cares? You only eat ketchup!” were followed by roars of laughter. Someone was being called “Goat Boy” quite often, the reference lost on everyone who wasn’t FDNY. One woman held court; she was the captain of one of the fireboats and much revered by her colleagues.
I should’ve been a fireboat captain. It would’ve been nice to get an awed response when you said what you did for a living. “Preschool teacher” didn’t pack quite the same punch.
I wondered when Rafe would come to see Silvi. Wondered how he looked these days. If he’d remarried by now.
Probably. He should be married. He was born to be married. I should Google him and see. Or, I should not Google him. I should firewall his name somehow to avoid temptation.
A man sat down next to me, startling me so much that I jumped. “Hi,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Is this seat taken?”
“Uh . . . no. Hi.” Had that smiling/false confidence/hair tuck actually worked?
It seemed it had. “You drinking scotch?” he asked.
“Yep. Dalwhinnie. It’s very good.” I smiled doggedly, relieved to have something to report to Marley by the end of this hellish night. Whoops. Didn’t mean to let a little honesty slip out there. Well, if it was the Inferno version of hell, I was only on the third circle. The vile slush circle.
“Are you here with the firefig
hters?” the guy asked.
“Not exactly. I’m with my friend, whose brother is one of them. Dante? The guy on TV there?”
My companion glanced at the screen and grunted.
“I’m Georgia, by the way.” I stuck out my hand. He shook it firmly.
“Beck.”
“Nice to meet you, Beck.”
“I didn’t realize there was a thing here tonight. For them.” His tone was slightly resentful, but I understood. No fun to compete with such male perfection. It’d be like accidentally showing up to a Miss Italy pageant when you thought you were going to book club.
Beck wasn’t unattractive, though his hair looked kind of greasy. (It may have been product; who knew with these metrosexuals?) His skin color was Gollumesque. Then again, I wasn’t exactly Beyoncé.
Have a cute stranger buy you a drink at a bar.
Beck could pass for cute. He was a stranger. And Marley would be happy.
Also, I’d have something to tell Mason, who hadn’t answered my last two texts. This concerned me. Hunter had probably taken his phone away for some reason.
I finished my scotch and tapped my ring against my glass, hoping to draw Beck’s attention to its emptiness.
He didn’t notice. “So,” I said. “Where do you live, Beck?”
“In Tarrytown. You?”
“Here in Cambry. It’s my hometown.”
“Nice.”
“Mm.”
Okay, so the conversation wasn’t exactly razor-sharp, but I was talking with a man.
And my last date, in answer to Marley’s question, had been with Rafael Santiago.
“You want to go someplace quieter?” Beck asked. “My place isn’t far.”
God! Did he mean to hook up? Was this how things were done these days? Because there was no way I was going to sleep with a stranger.
“Well, uh, maybe another time?” I said. “I mean, I’m here with my friend. And also, you and I just met.”
“Right.” He smiled a little, and his attractiveness level kicked up a few notches. I tapped my ring against the glass again.
“What do you do for work?” he asked.
“I teach preschool.”
He flinched. Should’ve gone with fireboat captain. “I guess you like kids,” he said.
“No, I hate them. Disgusting little germ sponges.” I paused. “Yes, I love children.”
He nodded. “And you make bank doing that?”
“I do.” A rather personal question. “What do you do, Beck?” I’d used his name at least three times already. Wondered if he remembered mine.
“I slaughter cattle.”
I laughed.
His face didn’t change.
“Oh,” I said.
“Someone has to.” He drained his drink and slammed the glass on the table, making me jump. “You eat beef?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “Not that often.” I suspected I was about to become a vegetarian.
“Well, you probably think meat comes from a store, don’t you? It doesn’t, okay? Every day, I go in and put a nail in a cow’s head, and guess what? That’s not all! You think I like working in a place where I’m covered in blood all the time? Oh, and it’s not just blood, either. You think those cows come in all shiny and clean? They don’t! They sleep in their own shit, okay? They’re stupid animals and they sleep in their shit, and I get to shoot them in the head and butcher them, and the smell! My God! I have to lather up like five times before I get the stink out.”
“Can I get you two anything to eat?” The waitress stood next to our table, pen in hand.
Beck looked up at her. “Yeah, I’ll have a cheeseburger,” he said calmly. “Extra rare, extra ketchup.”
“Got it. And you?” she asked me.
“I’m good,” I whispered.
“Another drink?”
“My God, yes. Please. Right away.” Shit, the list. “Um, Beck, will you buy me a drink?”
“Sure. Will you go home with me later?”
“No.”
He shrugged. “I guess I grossed you out.”
“You did.”
“Yeah, my grandma says to keep the butchering stuff to myself, but hey. You asked. Fine, I’ll buy you a drink.”
Ta-da! Too bad I couldn’t leave right now. “So, um, are you close with your grandmother?”
“Oh, yeah. We live together. Just until I get out of debt. I’ve made some poor life choices.”
So all those dating horror stories were true, then. Still, I couldn’t help asking what those bad life choices were.
He leaned his head on his hand, staring into the middle distance. “Probably I shouldn’t have bought the Komodo dragon. You ever smell their shit? It is foul. I mean, I thought cats were bad? No. Lizard shit is king. And when it was dying? Kicked the stink up another notch.”
The server came. I closed my mouth, took the drink out of her hand and raised my glass. “To Emerson,” I said, and swallowed the scotch.
“What?” Beck said.
“Never mind.” I stood up, wobbling on the unfamiliar heels. “Thank you so much for the lesson in butchering. And the drink,” I said.
“You women are just out to trick us, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes. Have a good night.”
I walked away unsteadily, nearly twisting my ankle, to let Marley know I was going home. She could catch a ride (or a shag) with Camden, and if that failed, she had her brother here. Also, we only lived five blocks away.
I bumped into someone. “You okay?” he said, grabbing my upper arms.
The second I looked at his face, mine burned with recognition, and my stomach pulled together in a hot squeeze.
I knew him.
Evan Kennedy. My law school crush. I’d watched him and lusted after him from afar, with all the yearning of an invisible woman. I used to stare at him in the law library, drinking in his ease, his smile, his shoulders, his perfect beauty, his thick, dark Kennedyesque hair.
Before Rafe, he was the only guy I’d ever pictured sleeping with.
I was staring now. Because he was . . . yeah. He was.
“Hey,” I breathed. Evan Flippin’ Kennedy.
“Hey, yourself.” He grinned, and my heart lit up like a Christmas tree. He remembered me!
“Was that guy crazy, or did it just seem that way?” he asked.
“Well, I did get a valuable lesson in cattle butchering.”
Evan laughed. He was still holding my arms, and my arms were just fine with that. “You want to grab a drink?” he asked.
“Um . . . yes! Sure. That . . . that would be great.”
He guided me to a booth along the wall, and I slid in, buzzed with scotch and adrenaline. We sat across from each other for a second, and I could feel my heart twisting in a combination of elation and nervousness. “So how are you?” I asked.
“Better than you, I think.” That smile. Then he offered his hand. “Evan Kennedy.”
My mouth fell open. “Yeah. Um . . . yes.”
His hand was waiting. I shook it automatically.
He didn’t recognize me.
“Do you have a name, pretty lady?”
“Georgia. Georgia Sloane.” I smiled, waiting for his synapses to fire.
“Great to meet you. What are you drinking?”
“Um . . . scotch. Dalwhinnie.”
“Nice choice.” He flagged down the server while my brain flailed around for what to say. We’ve already met. We went to law school together. We sat next to each other in Torts.
Maybe it was the slight buzz from the two drinks I’d already had. Maybe it was a game, seeing how long it would take for the pieces to fall into place.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t say anything.
I was heavier back then, but surely
not . . . unrecognizable.
Then again, the woman sitting across from Evan Kennedy was different. Slimmer. She had dangly earrings and makeup and high heels.
This version was having a cute guy buy her a drink in a bar.
Ah. I knew what I’d do. The second he mentioned Yale, I’d pretend I hadn’t recognized him, either. Or he’d say he was a lawyer, and I’d say I’d gone to law school but changed careers, and then we’d laugh over it. It would be adorable. A meet-cute, I think they called it.
“So what do you do, Georgia Sloane? Are you from around here?”
“I am,” I said. “I live just a few blocks from here. I’m a preschool teacher.”
“Really? I love kids. What age do you teach?”
“Four-year-olds.”
“My niece is four! She lives in Berlin, so I don’t get to see her much, but we FaceTime. Great age, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. What do you do, Evan?”
“I’m a consultant for an investment firm. It’s really boring, though, unless you have a sick fascination with leveraged finance in the healthcare market. Can we talk about movies instead? I’m kind of a geek. I go to the movies at least once a week. I also have a pretty serious popcorn addiction.”
He was charming. I was slightly drunk.
So we talked about movies.
But in the back of my head, a memory played over and over . . . One precious spring night, Evan and I had walked from Crown Street to the law school, and we’d had an actual conversation that had sustained me for months. It was nothing special, that conversation, but it had been with him.
I kept waiting for him to say, Wait a sec, hang on, I knew a Georgia Sloane! Did you go to Yale?
He didn’t. There wasn’t one flicker of recognition on his face, not one pause in conversation.
Good Luck with That Page 10