by Crowe, Stan
“Which is why you’ve got me doing slave labor.”
“Hey, you put your own handcuffs on.” We shared a laugh. I loved how easy she was to talk to. She had such confidence, poise and friendliness—I felt I’d known her all my life though we’d spent less than an hour together over two days. Maybe this would work out.
We had two more test couples that day and another two on Friday. Though Moiré had a good handle on what I was doing, there were still housekeeping items to handle and a bit of a learning curve for her to climb. By the time she walked out the door that first Friday, I felt she was up to speed.
Monday started early and we plowed through some Russian love stories. I had a hard time reading them with any seriousness and Moiré and I ended up adding a few things to Anton Chekov’s The Kiss before it was done. Before I knew it, the morning was over.
Noticing that it was nearly time to meet Ella for lunch, I sighed. “Hey, I’ve got a lunch appointment to catch. Can I have you just write up the notes we took from Todd and Julie please? I should be back around one.”
“Sure. No rush. I still have P.A.S. one-twelve at two, but I’ll show you what I’ve done when you get back.”
I smiled, thanked her and started my walk to Ella’s place.
My watch beeped noon as I stepped onto the porch at Ella’s posh townhome. I’d seen a Bugatti—in this town? Wow—in the parking garage beneath the units, mixed in with all the Benzes and Beemers. I had wondered how Ella could afford such a place without a job and with only one roommate to split the rent with. From the way she tossed her credit cards around as if they were confetti, I had concluded that she was probably living on her daddy’s dime. For all I knew, he owned the place.
I rang the doorbell. Before the rich chimes finished, a tall, tired-looking brunette answered the door. “Nick. Hi. Ella’s not here, sorry,” she said with an apologetic look.
I shrugged. “That’s fine, Vera. I’ll just wait out here until she arrives.” With a wink I said, “You know how Ella is. I’m not about to risk her wrath on the off-chance that she walks in and finds the two of us alone, no matter how far apart we are. Remember the ‘come on in and have some lemonade’ incident?”
Vera cringed. “Very good point. Well, I hope you don’t mind the heat. I have my lunch on the stove, so I should get back to it.”
I agreed. As Vera shut the door, a familiar giggle sounded from around the far corner of the row of townhomes. Ella popped into view walking backwards, arms out as if she were pushing someone away. The look on her face said she was enjoying something. A hand shot out suddenly, seized Ella by the forearm and then dragged her back out of sight. I started to run, but after three steps, she giggled again and squealed playfully. Then came a loud slurping sound I didn’t care to identify. I waited. Moments later Ella appeared around the corner again looking as though she’d just been handed a million bucks.
“Hey,” I said, pretending I hadn’t seen anything.
“Nicky….” Her massive smirk vanished under a crimson blush. She tried to recover with an attempted smile. “Oh, um, I didn’t think you’d be here for another few minutes. I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I got hung up at school a bit.”
“With that guy you were just with?”
Ella went rigid and she looked away. “He’s just a classmate. I needed a ride home so I could be here in time to make lunch for you.”
I squinted at her and asked, “Classmate? How many guys actually go to beauty school? That’s a bit… odd, don’t you think?”
“Nicholas Cairn!” she blurted. “Angelo is a perfect gentleman. He’s an artist. Just because he chooses to use hair for his art doesn’t mean he’s some kind of freak. Some of the best stylists in the world are men. It’s like all those gourmet chefs.”
I shrugged. “Hey, I was just curious. I’m not accustomed to guys doing hair is all.” I tried to chalk it up to an overdeveloped sense of paranoia and too little sleep. Ella had been good to me. After all, I didn’t actually see them doing anything wrong. Maybe this “Angelo” guy was just really funny and Ella was responding appropriately. My stomach rumbled, so I decided to file the incident away and forget about it. Besides, I had been missing Ella all morning. “Let’s go on in and eat.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. An engine roared and we both glanced over to notice a Porsche 911 bolt from behind the townhomes. The car hesitated at the street, then took a quick right and headed past us. As he drove by, the driver honked twice and blew a kiss at Ella. Okay. High comedy. Right.
Ella blushed again, then grabbed my hand and hauled me quickly inside. “Angelo’s just friendly like that,” she said quickly. “Italian courtesy.”
“Right. What’s for lunch?” Best to just ignore this. No need to read into things—Ella did enough of that for both of us. I turned to watch the Porsche drive away anyway.
She pulled my face away from the window and gave me a quick kiss. “What’d you want, Nicky?”
I glanced at my watch. “I need to be back at the office by one, so I’ll have to leave here by twenty ’til.”
“You walked?”
“I always walk. Good exercise; saves on gas. You know how much gas costs.”
Ella walked into the kitchen, silent. “I’ll make sandwiches then, since you don’t have time for me.”
“Hey, I have time for you.”
She faked a pout. “I was only joking, Nick.”
Ella never had mastered sarcasm. “You say that, but sometimes it’s hard to tell you’re not serious. I know I’m gone a lot. That’s part of needing to manage several obligations simultaneously, okay? I’ll still be here for dinner, as usual, okay. C’mere for a sec.”
Ella pulled out a loaf of sourdough, set it on the counter and then moped across the kitchen tile to where I stood. I took her in my arms and just held her. She seemed to warm to the embrace, but I could still feel the tension in her back and shoulders. After only a few moments, she pushed away with an excuse about having to make food. I asked if I could help, but was shooed to the living room where I happily sank into her leather sofa.
“Oh, hey, Ella?” Vera said from the stove.
Ella looked up from her sandwich-making. “Yeah?”
“You missed a few calls while you were out.”
“From who?”
Vera gestured to a marker board on the kitchen wall. “The fitting for your wedding dress. They called about that. It’s at four-o-clock on August eighteenth. You also got calls from the caterers, the florist, Barbara for your hair and,” Vera paused to read the board, “something about a Jake Connor.”
Ella stopped working. “Jake… Connor?”
I sat up at the odd hesitance in her voice.
“Yeah.” Vera nodded as she moved a boiling pot of something to a backburner. “Some girl from your high school said he was in town and that she had given him your number.”
“Oh. That’s nice.”
“She said she’d told him you were usually here in the evenings and that he told her he might call you tonight, maybe around seven. She didn’t get his number, but she thought you had it. She said you might want to call him if you got home before that.”
Ella was silent.
“Ella?” Vera asked, glancing at her.
Ella continued mutely layering cheese and meat on buttered bread.
“Are you going to call him? Can I erase the reminder?”
Ella jumped as if startled. “Oh, dear. Oh, I’m sorry, Vera. I think I just zoned out for a moment there. Yes, I’ll take care of things.”
Ella and Vera went about their preparations in awkward silence after that. When Vera was done she took her food upstairs “So that you two can be alone,” she told us with a wink. Ella had made pasta salad and chocolate mousse to go with the sandwiches. She made to set the table.
“I got that, Els.” I had two plates on the table before she could respond. I followed the plates with a couple of bottles of her favorite mineral water.
“O
h, thanks, Nick. You really are just too sweet.”
“What’s a fiancé for?” I asked with a smile. “Chivalry isn’t dead.” Ella giggled and pecked my cheek.
We dug in. Ella’s club sandwiches were among the best I’d ever had, so I took time to let the sourdough melt in my mouth as the flavors of the meats danced with it. I complimented her cooking; she blushed appropriately. As I took another bite, I noticed a catalog on the table near me. It was one of the wedding catalogs that Ella had asked me to peruse with her. I had time, so I picked it up and leafed through it for a few minutes. China, crystal, furniture, vacation packages, lingerie. Comprehensive.
“Ella? Weren’t we going to register for some of this stuff?”
She blinked. “Oh, yes. The wedding registry. I guess we should do that soon, shouldn’t we?”
“Did you want to show me a few of your ideas now? I’ve still got a few minutes before I need to run.”
Dabbing her mouth with a napkin, she replied, “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’d really rather look at it when we have an hour or two to just sit down and dream.”
“How about tonight?”
She looked at me oddly. “I thought you were at the lab tonight.”
“Well, sure. But the nice thing about being my own boss is that I set my own hours. I’ll wrap up at seven tonight. I can’t do that every time, of course, but now and again is fine. Why not tonight?”
Ella grew quiet and quickly stuffed a spoonful of mousse in her mouth.
“What?” I asked. She continued to eat.
Then I remembered what Vera had said. “Oh, wait, that’s right. Your friend was going to call then. I can’t believe I forgot that already. What was his name?”
Ella acted as if the mousse was driving her to oblivious ecstasy. Sure, it was good stuff, but not that good.
I stole a glance at the whiteboard. “Right. Jake Connor. Mental lapse.”
“Don’t you need to get back to the lab, Nicky?” Her voice was still and distant.
I looked at my watch: 12:36. “I still have four minutes, Els. Anyway, I was just trying to say that I’m cool if you hang out with your old friend tonight. I’ll take a rain check on dinner. I know what it’s like to want to catch up with friends you probably haven’t seen in years.”
“He’s not a friend.” I couldn’t miss her accusatory tone.
“What’s wrong, babe? If it’s personal, just say so. Don’t worry about me. I know girls have guy friends sometimes.” Including ones that drive Porsches and blow kisses at engaged women, I thought. “I’m okay if you two just want to spend time together since he’s in town. I promise I won’t take it personally.” I fished a ten spot from my wallet, cringing as I realized it was all the cash I’d have for the next several days, “ In fact, go get some ice cream or a burger or something. My treat.”
“I need to get back to school, Nick.”
“I thought you only had morning classes on Tuesdays.”
“I forgot something.”
I frowned. “Couldn’t Angelo just bring it to you?”
Ella leapt to her feet. “Angelo is just a classmate, alright? And that guy Vera mentioned is not a friend of mine at all. I can’t believe that you’d turn lunch into an episode of courtroom reality TV! What are you trying to say, Nicholas? That I’m some kind of tramp chasing any male with a pulse?”
“What… the heck?”
“So, yes. Angelo gave me a ride home. And now that makes me a two-timer? Some random person calls and says he knows me and now you think I’m stepping out on you?”
I got to my feet slowly and held my hands out in a calming manner. “Okay, Ella. Let’s just talk about this, here. It’s pretty obvious we’re not on the same page and somehow you really, really misunderstood something I said.” I put the ten-dollar bill carefully in my wallet.
“See? I’m putting the money away. You don’t have to go anywhere with your friend Jake.”
“He is not my friend!”
Instant silence.
Ella seemed to realize that she had gone a little too far. She looked away and hugged her chest tightly.
“You should go,” she half-whispered. “I need to take a nap and you need to walk back to the lab. I don’t want to be the one to blame for your work not getting done.”
“Ella, hey.” I took a step toward her, but she shook her head vigorously before stalking upstairs to her bedroom. I buried my face in a hand and took several deep breaths. We’d had tiffs now and then—every couple did—but I couldn’t recall a time when things had been this abrupt or convoluted.
Some part of my brain reminded me that people often accuse themselves of their own crimes without needing any help. But Ella? Cheat on me? I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. We had made some pretty serious promises even though we weren’t officially man and wife. She certainly deserved the benefit of doubt from me if from no one else. I was her future husband. I was the man who was supposed to protect her and stand by her when the rest of the world was against her. As a good scientist, I knew better than to just speculate based on circumstantial evidence. That’s all I had with Ella—circumstantial evidence. I needed her trust and she needed mine; all I could do is give her my trust and do my best to earn it in return.
I looked at my watch, but failed to notice the time. I looked again and noticed that the face of my watch was blurry. I wiped at it, but it didn’t change. That was when I realized that there were some small tears in my eyes. I ignored the pain of the argument and without bothering a third attempt at checking the time, I picked up my sandwich and made my way out of Ella’s place. I doubt she even heard the door close.
CHAPTER FOUR
“So, Dad? I need a really great date idea. Got any?”
“Dinner and a flick.”
“That’s so lame, Dad. Everyone does that. Don’t you have anything special?”
“Like what, Nick?”
“Oh, you know. Something that would really impress a girl.”
“I’d have to think about it.”
“Well you managed to impress Mom once. What did you do for your first date with her?”
“Dinner and a flick”
“Fine. What about your second date?”
“Dinner and a flick”
“Well what did you do the night you finally proposed to her?”
“We grabbed a bite, I proposed and then I took her to see Saturday Night Fever.”
“And she still married you?”
My face was steady again by the time I returned to the lab. Moiré was waiting as promised and she had exceeded my expectations in her efforts. My notes had never looked better. With a few small tweaks, she’d improved my filing efficiency by twenty percent. I thanked her for her time and then excused her while she ran off to grab a bite before dressing up some flowers.
I looked at my schedule. Movie night tonight. More movies. In fact, the entire week had been set up to review another nine films, but I was pleased to see that they were the last on my list. Since Moiré was now my assistant, I would want her input on the films as well. Chances were good, though, that we’d be watching them far past the time everyone else would have left the lab. That was a problem I hadn’t thought about when I’d let myself be suckered into hiring her. Rather than fret over it, I decided to simply solve it.
I spent the next twenty minutes surreptitiously asking whether anyone was planning on sticking around after hours. When it became clear that no one would be around, I got a little worried. Me and some other girl alone in the dark was just asking for trouble. The easy solution? Send Moiré home and do without her input. I’d gone on this way for over a year; wouldn’t hurt to carry on with it. Problem solved, I went back to writing up my research.
“Sorry I’m late, Nick.” Moiré’s panting voice startled me out of my thoughts. I glanced at the clock and was stunned to see that it was 5:12 already. Moiré trotted over and set her purse on the table. I could tell she had jogged here if not ran. She checked
a text message and then set the phone down on the table next to her purse.
Turning to me, she said, “A girlfriend had an emergency come up and I needed to take her into town to get something done before four. I called you a couple of times to let you know, but all I got was your voicemail. I guess you didn’t get the voicemail.”
I checked my phone. Four missed calls, one voicemail. And a ringer set to mute.
“Facepalm,” I said, slapping a hand across my face.
“Did you really just say ‘facepalm’?” she asked.
“Yes. Yes I did. Anyway, no problem about your absence. I’m not sure what I would have had you do between three and now anyway. I’m still behind where I’d like to be with this research and was trying to hit this hard this afternoon. I also need to finish some paperwork to see if I can’t get some extra funding.”
Moiré perked up at that. “Yeah? Who are you asking?”
I rifled through my notes. “Well, let’s see. Some applications for possible federal grant money—more of it. An application for money from an independent psychology entity; some kind of research group. And, last… a friend of mine told me I might try for money from some entity called the Women’s Education and Learning League.”
Moiré got a strange look on her face for a moment. “Well, I hope those come through for you. How’s the research budget looking, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Not looking too great, really. I have enough for a few of the more expensive field visits, then some incidentals, but I hate to admit that I’m already tapping more credit than I ever wanted to. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “I guess I can relate. I know a little about having a tiny piggy bank. I don’t mind not getting paid for this, but I’m hoping to pick up a few scholarships.”
“You should be a shoo-in for scholarships, from what I’ve seen.”