Twelve Nights

by Remy, Carole

  “English Bay.” The words were polite, but the accompanying look was almost disappointed.

  They were walking along the seawall now and Aggie forgot her anxiety, forgot the scheming, forgot the coming ordeal, in the sheer pleasure of walking between ocean and green grass, passing and being passed by walkers and bikers, each intent on their journey. The place had a sense of combined peace and purpose that eased Aggie toward well-being. If only I could walk here every day, she thought, I think I would be a happy woman.

  Reality returned as Danny steered her away from the seawall and up to a tall white apartment building.

  “Is this where the interview is?” Aggie asked stupidly, all peace flown.

  Danny nodded.

  “So you did manage to get me an interview?” Aggie persisted.

  “No.”

  The word didn’t sound like an admission or an apology, just a simple statement of fact. Aggie stopped and pulled her elbow from her guide’s grip.

  “Then why are we here, Danny?” she demanded.

  “I’ll get you in.”

  The young man sounded so calm and assured, Aggie almost believed him. After all, he was the man’s brother. Danny walked through the lobby and she followed. He stopped at a small elevator in a side hall. The door opened at his touch and he escorted her inside. Aggie’s anxiety flooded back. She felt ugly and stupid. She would never pull off the deception. The lawyer would see through her in a minute. Even if he didn’t, she was too ugly and stupid to convince him to let Angela be the twelve-day woman.

  Through her panic, Aggie noticed that the elevator had only two buttons. One said ‘office’ and the other had no sign. Danny pressed ‘office’. They ascended swiftly, surely more than two floors. Aggie guessed that the elevator carried them to the top of the building. They stepped out onto a plush burnt orange carpet. A receptionist sat behind a large semi-circular desk. Two hallways, left and right, led back from the desk into the bowels of the office. No doors were visible from Aggie’s viewpoint. The lobby might have been designed to intimidate.

  Aggie glanced at her watch. It was almost eleven.

  “Put Ms. Trout in a room.” Danny told the receptionist

  “Yes, Mr. Buko.” Aggie watched as she pressed a button behind the counter.

  “When the others are done, send her in to Richard.” It was the longest sentence Aggie had heard Danny say.

  “He won’t be happy,” the receptionist looked nervous.

  “Tell him I said to interview her.”

  “Of course, Mr. Buko.”

  “Danny,” Aggie interrupted. “I don’t think this is such a good idea. If the lawyer really doesn’t want to see me…”

  “Everything will be fine.” Danny’s voice held no reassurance, only conviction. He continued to the receptionist. “At 12:45, have her brought back out here to me.”

  Then he vanished.

  The first thing Aggie did after a young woman escorted her to an office was to pull the tape recorder from her pocket. She saw to her dismay that she had pressed ‘rewind’ instead of ‘record’. She memorized the location of the correct button and replaced the recorder in her pocket. She tried the button. Then she pulled the recorder back out. Bingo. As she went to put the device back in her pocket, Aggie thought of a complication. It was too hot. She couldn’t wear her coat to the interview. She shrugged out of the jacket and laid it across a small table. Then she pushed the ‘record’ button and put it in her purse. Angela had brought a loosely woven tapestry bag for this very purpose. The tape was for ninety minutes. Surely it wouldn’t run out before the interview.

  Aggie checked her watch fifteen times over the ensuing hour. The time went no faster for her prodding. The room she sat in was pleasantly cluttered. Obviously someone’s unused office, it exuded family and warmth. Aggie sat glued to her chair for the first few minutes, two watch-checks, afraid someone would catch her if she snooped. Then she dragged the chair a foot closer to the desk and leaned in. The only visible paper was upside down to her. She struggled to decipher the text. It was a grocery list.

  She examined the photographs behind the desk. A man, a man and a woman, and a man, woman and baby. A woman’s desk then. A man wouldn’t keep a solo picture of himself. The woman was in her late twenties, about Aggie’s age. With a husband and baby. Aggie felt a pang of envy. The bookshelf contained volumes of computer manuals. The woman must be a programmer. Aggie checked her watch for the tenth time.

  Finally, at 12:33, the same young woman came back to the door.

  “Mr. Urbano will see you now.”

  Urbano. Aggie tucked the name away into her small stack of evidence. TransGlobe. Danny Buko. Urbano. English Bay. She followed the secretary down the hall. They arrived shortly at an imposing door. Aggie guessed from the glimpses she caught through open doors and windows that this office must have a great view of the water. Probably the head honcho’s. The young woman rapped once and then swung open the door.

  “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake.” The man behind the desk spoke as Aggie entered the room. Aggie ignored his comment.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Urbano.” She walked forward with her hand outstretched. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  The man’s eyes took in her appearance. The perusal was more invigorating than invading.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Miss Trout.”

  Aggie walked to a chair in front of the desk and sat down.

  “I’m afraid you have wasted your time,” the man began with an apologetic smile.

  “Mr. Urbano,” Aggie countered, “Danny told me to come to Vancouver. He brought me here to your office.”

  “Actually this isn’t my office.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just interview me? I’m here.”

  “My client wants an honest woman, Miss Trout.”

  “My name is Aggie,” she offered with what she hoped was an ingratiating smile. “And I am an honest woman.”

  Most of the time, she added mentally.

  “Why did you write from a New York post office box if you live and work in Cincinnati? “

  “I was visiting my cousin. I explained that in my letter.”

  “Why would you take a box if you were only visiting?”

  “It was my s…cousin’s box.” Aggie hoped the small slip would pass unnoticed.

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-eight,” Aggie admitted as she and Angela had agreed. She hurried on. “I know you said thirty, but twenty-eight is close. I’ll be twenty-nine soon.”

  “But you’re not thirty.”

  “Look, Mr. Urbano, why don’t you ask me some real questions? I love reading and chess. I am the head librarian of a small branch library. Do you want me to recite the Dewey decimal system?”

  For the first time, Richard cracked a smile. It lightened his expression from annoyed to merely suspicious.

  “Why did Danny tell you to come to Vancouver?”

  “To meet his brother.”

  “I mean, why you? Why not one of the three thousand other rejects?”

  “Three thousand?” Aggie echoed. “Whew.”

  “I repeat, Miss Trout. Why you?”

  “You’d have to ask Danny that, Mr. Urbano. Look, are you going to interview me?”

  “I thought I was. You have an insinuating way, Miss Trout. I had no intention to listen to a word, and here we are, talking.”

  Aggie smiled.

  “But I’m afraid I can’t recommend you for the position.”

  “Is that the missionary position?”

  This time Richard laughed.

  “All sorts of positions,” he admitted.

  Maybe he was rethinking the rejection. The longer she kept him talking, the more likely he would relent. Just like a hostage situation. Keep them talking and avoid the ax. Aggie hurried on.

  “I’m eager.” She and Angela had decided on the word as suggestive but not vulgar.

  “What are you willing to
do?”

  Aggie sensed a challenge in the lawyer’s words. Still the descriptions stuck in her throat. She thought of Angela’s advice and remembered her sister’s plight.

  “Anything.” The word was hampered by the gulp in her throat.

  “Give me a list.” The man would not give in. Still, he hadn’t thrown her out of the office yet.

  “Bondage?” she tried.

  “Have you ever tried it?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But I would.”

  “For one hundred twenty thousand dollars?”

  “No,” Aggie realized the truth as she spoke it. “For the curiosity. I’d try it once just to try it.”

  “It could be twelve times,” the lawyer warned. Aggie swallowed and nodded. “What else would you do?”

  “Discipline?”

  “Have you tried that?”

  “No,” Aggie admitted again. “I’m not too sure that I want to.”

  “I’m glad you’re being honest at last.” The man didn’t smile.

  “What else?”

  Aggie felt her face flush. She hated to admit to this urge and she squirmed on her chair.

  “Sodomy.” The word came out as a whisper.

  “Is that a curious interest or an I’ll-do-it-if-I-have-too interest?”

  Again Aggie paused. She looked down at her lap.

  “Curious.”

  The man leaned toward her. “What was that?”

  “I said ‘curious’,” Aggie repeated more loudly.

  “Any other sexual ‘curiosity’?” The man’s tone was faintly mocking. Aggie debated snapping back at him, but swallowed her spleen for Angela’s sake.

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “What about oral sex?”

  “Sure,” Aggie answered. “I thought that was a given. I like all the normal stuff.”

  The lawyer smiled.

  “I think you do,” he commented. “One last question. What do you want the money for?”

  Aggie panicked. She and Angela hadn’t thought of the one most obvious question. She couldn’t tell him the truth, to get her sister who was going to masquerade as her out of prostitution. What else would have compelled her to respond to an ad like that? She couldn’t think of a single reason.

  “Thank you, Miss Trout.” The lawyer stood up from behind the desk.

  “Don’t you want to hear …” Aggie began. Still she drew a blank.

  “You’re a lovely young woman, Miss Trout,” the lawyer began his kiss-off. “You even seem to have the right attitudes about sex, at least as far as we talked. But the fact is that you’re a fraud.”

  Aggie sat mute as a statue. She couldn’t deny the charge.

  “I’m not sure what your game is,” the lawyer continued. “But I’m afraid you aren’t acceptable for the position. Any position.”

  Aggie remembered her earlier joke about the missionary position. No humor now could penetrate her sense of failure. She had let her sister down. A simple interview, and she had frozen on the first unrehearsed question. Suddenly the answer was clear to her, and she blurted it out.

  “It wasn’t the money, Mr. Urbano,” she explained. “It was the fact that he offered the money. The man behind the offer intrigues me.”

  “A good answer, Miss Trout.” The man smiled and extended his hand. “Too bad you remembered it a few minutes too late.”

  It’s the truth, Aggie wanted to shout. But the interview was over. She followed the lawyer to the door and turned to shake his hand as she stepped out.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Urbano.” Her dignity was as firm as her grip. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out better.”

  Aggie glanced again at her watch as she walked straight-backed down the hall. It was 12:45. The interview had taken twelve minutes.

  When she arrived back at the lobby, Danny was standing silently by the reception desk.

  “Aggie,” he greeted her. Just the one flat word. “Come with me.”

  “It didn’t work, Danny.”

  “Come with me,” he repeated.

  “Mr. Urbano told me ‘no’,” Aggie tried to explain as they walked to the elevator. “I’ll just go back to my …”

  She had almost said ‘sister’, Aggie realized.

  “Hotel,” she completed the sentence.

  “I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “That’s all right.” Aggie wanted to get as far from Danny and TransGlobe and Mr. Buko and Mr. Urbano as she could. There was no chance she would get to meet the elusive placer-of-the-ad anyway. He was the only one that had interested her from the beginning and he remained as firmly hidden as ever behind his league of minions. Aggie laughed inwardly at her flowery choice of internal words. Time to get back to the library.

  “I’d rather go to the hotel,” she tried to insist.

  “Come with me.”

  Danny again ignored her protest. Did he ever listen? Was he a robot?

  “Why do you want me to come to lunch?” Direct questions had worked before. Maybe she would get an answer to this one.

  “I want you to meet my brother.”

  That was an answer. Aggie wanted very much to meet this brother. She followed Danny meekly into the elevator.

  Chapter 11

  Jimmy drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. He glanced at his watch. Danny was almost five minutes late. A mild anxiety overshadowed the anger he would have felt had the latecomer been anyone else. Danny was punctual to the second. And he wasn’t particularly good at navigating the streets. Two more minutes and Jimmy would begin to retrace the route from the restaurant back to the office.

  With ten seconds to spare, Jimmy spotted Danny just outside the entrance to the restaurant. He had a woman with him. A tall auburn-haired beauty. As they stepped through the doors, Jimmy got a better look at his brother’s companion. It was the woman he had envisioned that morning. A face like a Botticelli and a body like a Giacometti. The young woman took off her coat and handed it to a server. No, he revised. Giacometti’s figures were too thin. Hers was perfect. Jimmy felt an unfamiliar envy of his brother. As they approached the table, Jimmy stood.

  “This is Aggie,” his brother introduced simply.

  “Hi,” she offered with her hand.

  Her grip was perfect, the muscles strong and the skin soft.

  “I’m Jimmy Buko.”

  He signaled for the waiter to bring another chair, then guided the young woman into the seat himself. He and Danny sat flanking her on either side.

  “Do you have a last name, Aggie?”

  “It’s Trout. Aggie Trout.”

  “I’m hooked,” Jimmy laughed then winced. “You must have heard that a million times.”

  “Maybe a few,” Aggie smiled.

  “So, you’re Danny’s friend,” Jimmy tried again. Stupid, he thought. That’s obvious.

  “Actually,” Aggie began.

  For the first and perhaps only time in his life, Danny interrupted.

  “Yes,” he stated. “Aggie is my friend.”

  “I’m glad,” Jimmy smiled. He shut the tap on his flowing hormones. He couldn’t think these thoughts about a woman with Danny.

  “What do you do, Aggie?” Surely that was an innocuous question.

  “I’m a librarian.”

  Jimmy waited in vain for her to elaborate. Maybe she had Danny’s habit of terse speech. The young woman shook herself and her hair fluttered around her head. Jimmy resisted the instant but trite image of a halo. Then she seemed to come alive.

  “What do you do?” she asked. Her eyes shot sparks of mischief. He bet she knew exactly who he was.

  “I work for TransGlobe. I’m an accountant.”

  Jimmy waited for Danny to call his bluff. His brother smiled and remained silent. Jimmy watched the young woman’s face closely. Was that disappointment? If so, she recovered quickly.

  “I’m not from Canada, so I don’t know much about TransGlobe. What do you make?”

  Jimmy would rathe
r talk about her.

  “Transactions.” He borrowed a sentence from Danny’s abbreviated grammar. “Where are you from?”

  “I’m originally from Alabama,” she began.

  “You don’t have an accent,” he interrupted.

  “Not any more. I moved to Cincinnati to go to university. Then I stayed there to work after I graduated.”

  “What brought you to Vancouver?”

  The young woman glanced uncertainly at Danny.

  “She answered your ad, Jimmy,” he answered for her.

  Jimmy’s shoulders unconsciously straightened. He caught the young woman’s alert smile out of the corner of his eye.

  “Did Richard send you over with Danny?” he asked.

  “No. He rejected me.”

  “Why?” If she was as intelligent as she appeared, the woman probably read her eventual acceptance from that single word. Where had his poker face and voice disappeared to?

  “He didn’t trust me,” she smiled. Her eyes added, but you can.

  Jimmy struggled to retreat mentally. He trusted Richard’s judgment. There must be a flaw in the perfect woman.

  “Why?” he repeated like a parrot. Where had his wits gone? Straight to the bulge that inflated his pants.

  “He didn’t like it that I wrote from New York but I work in Cincinnati. I explained that I was visiting a cousin and used her box number, but he didn’t believe me.”

  The young woman looked less than at ease for the first time since she had recognized his attraction to her. Richard was probably right. She was probably lying.

  “Was there anything else?” he continued to probe.

  “He asked me why I wanted the money and I didn’t have an answer right away.”

  “Why do you want the money?”

  “It’s not the money,” she began. Jimmy’s incredulous expression must have stopped her. After a moment, she carried on.

  “It’s a lot of money,” she agreed. “I do want the money, of course, but I was more intrigued to meet a man who would write an ad like that. You’re not really an accountant, are you?”

  The abrupt question caught Jimmy by surprise.

  “No,” he admitted. He was saved from further comment by the waiter.

  Once the orders were taken, the young woman went back on the attack.