by Holly Rayner
“Well, okay, that’s an unexpected development, and she sounds very interesting,” Stelios replied. “I look forward to meeting her. My car has internet access. Let’s set up the details, and then I can pay you online.”
“That will work perfectly, Mr. Zakiridis.” Zoey said, struggling with all her might to keep her voice light. She kept reminding herself that she had no choice; that it was either this or unemployment.
After hanging up with Stelios, Zoey tried to drown out her guilty thoughts by wrapping herself up in her other cases. It barely worked, and ten minutes later, her mother returned to her office, wearing a huge false smile that made Zoey feel sick to her stomach.
“That’s my good little girl,” Melinda said in saccharine tones. “Now, honestly, Zoey, that wasn’t so bad, was it? I have a great deal more money than I had this morning, and thanks to my forgiving nature, you still have a job. You should really be thanking me for keeping a cool head and looking after the both of us all this time.”
“Were you like this when Dad…” Zoey began, fighting down her emotions.
“You leave your father out of this!” Melinda returned harshly, looking as if she had been stung with a whip. She headed back out of Zoey’s office, giving her daughter a dirty look as she did so.
Zoey sighed in defeat before returning to her computer and the rest of her workload for that morning, trying not to think that all of that fuss had been over one client and that she had several more left to match before lunch.
THREE
Five hours and nine clients later, Zoey boarded a subway train and headed for home. She took it as a good sign that this time round she had room to sit, without having her body shoved against anything. She needed every good sign she could get.
Zoey sighed deeply as she told herself that the day was finally over, and she was going to put every thought of it out of her mind. There was a date in three hours that needed her undivided attention, after all. It was going to be her first one in months, and she was determined to enjoy it.
Halfway back, Zoey spotted an adorable little girl in a pink and white dress. She couldn’t have been a day over five. Her bushy brown hair flew in all directions as she ran around her mother’s legs. Every so often, she’d grab at a pole to steady herself, or else teeter into her mother’s arms. She was peppering her mom with questions at auctioneer speeds, and the overload of cuteness swelled in Zoey’s heart. Almost before she knew it, a smile was playing on her lips, and all her problems seemed to recede to the edges of her mind.
“CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays. Two for twenty,” a voice suddenly called out, and Zoey could only laugh at how spectacularly its owner had ruined the moment.
The trip back felt shorter than the one she had made that morning, and in not too long Zoey was back in Brooklyn, at the door to her apartment building, a five-story, brick affair. Zoey took the elevator straight up to the fourth floor and made a beeline for her apartment.
Inside, she went to her bedroom and began peeling off her clothes. Her room featured a wall unit on the wall opposite the door. It had a small wardrobe on each side, and a chest of drawers in the middle. A thirty-two-inch television sat on top of the drawers, and a mirror was fixed to the wall above that. To the right of the door, as Zoey came in, sat a small nightstand, and a queen-sized bed stood directly beside that.
Wearing nothing but her underwear, Zoey went to the bathroom and filled the tub with bath soap, beads, and soothing hot water. When she liked the temperature, she shed her underthings and dove in, shutting her eyes and allowing herself to relax.
For the first time that day, she felt completely at peace as the beads invigorated her body, and the water drew the tension out of it. Her disgust with her mother and hatred of her job seemed to evaporate, leaving only blissful silence. The water enveloped her like a blanket, and the longer she lay in it, the longer she wanted to stay. But Blake was meeting her at Big Tony’s in a little under two hours’ time, and she could barely remember the last time she had been on a date. That fact barely bothered her now, but Zoey knew that would change when she was out of the water.
At last, she grabbed a nearby loofah and began washing in earnest. Soon, she added the spray of the shower so that she could give her hair a thorough washing. In minutes, she emerged from her bathroom feeling refreshed, but whatever spell the bath had put her under was broken, and her stomach was working itself into knots.
Zoey was convinced she would say or do something awkward, or worse, draw a blank in the middle of a conversation. For some time now, her job at Melinda Forde had been almost her only extended daily contact with people. There, she merely had to rely on a script built on lies, but she was going to have to wing it soon and she didn’t know if she was ready.
“At least I clean up okay,” Zoey said, staring in her mirror. In her stunning sapphire dress that accented her figure and matched her eyes, she felt fairly confident that Blake was going to be blown away by her, and felt a spreading sense of hope as she called herself a cab.
FOUR
Fortunately for Zoey, Big Tony’s was situated in a part of Manhattan that was much closer to her apartment than the dating agency. Traffic was light by New York standards, and it wasn’t difficult for her to get there at all. Her only problem on the ride over was that the cab driver was seemingly addicted to the sound of his own voice.
The diner was a small building with a simple welcome mat and glass doors that bore steel handles. Inside, there were around two dozen elegantly-decorated round tables that appealed to Zoey immediately. A soft jazz instrumental wafted through the intimately-lighted space, and pictures of famous New Yorkers hung on the walls. It was one of those places that sold the atmosphere it provided nearly as much as the items on its menu.
Zoey allowed herself to be led to the table Blake had reserved, and ordered a Long Island Iced Tea while she waited for him to arrive. She was still jittery, but her mood had greatly improved.
Ten minutes later, she was nibbling on a roll, mostly out of simply needing something to do. She texted Blake, only to get an automatic reply. Zoey didn’t like the look of that in the slightest, but she told herself to stay positive. After all, it had only been ten minutes; people were late all the time, and busy people set their smartphones to automatic reply—she had done it herself just a few days ago. But two more drinks and twenty minutes later, things began to get embarrassing.
“Miss, are you ready to order now, or are you still waiting for the rest of your party?”
Her waitress had asked the question with all the politeness in the world, but it was clear from her tone what she thought had happened.
Zoey was unwilling to accept that yet. Not after everything else that had gone wrong that day.
“He texted to say he was running a bit late,” she lied. “Got a flat on the way over here. They’ve said it may take a bit of time to fix, so he suggested I order an appetizer in the meantime.”
With that, Zoey put in an order for Asian dumplings and prayed she would have someone to share them with by the time they arrived. She did not, but mercifully her waitress tactfully avoided the issue.
Zoey found she could barely taste the ginger-flavored pot stickers before her. She wanted to cry. Not in the composed, quiet, way an adult cries, but with the wild abandon of a child throwing a full blown temper tantrum. She wanted to kick her legs and scream “it’s not fair” at the top of her lungs. She wanted someone to wipe her eyes and tell her everything would be all right. But she knew her mother was right about one thing: she wasn’t nine anymore. Adults didn’t get to throw tantrums.
Zoey was perfectly aware that there was no point in doing so, but she waited another fifteen minutes anyway, just to give him the benefit of the doubt. By that point, she had been at Big Tony’s for a full hour and texted Blake three more times.
She finally settled her bill, feeling dejected and unloved, and took the subway back home, no longer caring what an army of jostling people might do to her dress.
&n
bsp; “Some relationship expert I turned out to be,” she muttered dejectedly. “I try to help people find love all day, but I can’t even find a good match for myself.”
By the time she reached her apartment, Zoey felt as if a storm cloud was hanging over her. She fell into bed and reflected that, aside from the sympathetic waitress, at least there were no witnesses to her humiliation, and that it was still possible, if unlikely, that Blake had an excellent excuse for not showing up.
FIVE
The next morning, however, Zoey woke up to a very long text from Blake, explaining where he had been the previous night. As it turned out, about two hours before the date, he had discovered the Facebook page of a woman he used to know, named Elmyra. In high school, Blake had allegedly carried a torch for the girl, but he’d never had the courage to tell her so. He had messaged her, and the two had talked for several hours. It had been long past midnight when the conversation ended, and only then had he remembered his rendezvous with Zoey. He apologized for standing her up, but even more, he was sorry to report he and Elmyra had decided to go out on a date.
Zoey’s face crumpled as she read the message. She had been forgotten. Just plain forgotten, and dumped via text message. She couldn’t decide whether to cry or break everything within reach, so she settled for swearing furiously every few moments. She called the agency and told her mother she was sick because she didn’t think she could face looking at another human being.
Zoey remained at home all that day and the next one, seething at being so horribly cast away. Her phone lay on the floor in several pieces—she had thrown it against the wall when Blake texted to ask if she could recommend a good hookah bar for him and Elmyra to meet at.
By the morning of the third day, Zoey felt reasonably sure she could get back to work without breaking down at her desk, so she got ready and hopped on the subway.
She would have been stuck standing the entire way to Manhattan, except the five-year-old kid from a few days ago was there again, and she talked her into taking her seat. Half a dozen people praised the girl for doing what any of them easily could have, and she took the accolades in her stride, giving most of the credit to her mother for teaching her manners.
Zoey thought about what her mother was teaching her: cynicism, deception, apathy and greed. She had to admit that Melinda had been a much more loving person a long time ago, before her relationship with Zoey’s father had started to go south. But Zoey didn’t want to spend her commute thinking about relationships—she would have enough of that to do when she got to work.
She picked up her smartphone and went to her favorite news site. Almost immediately, she saw something among the top stories that made her sigh.
“Spotted at the city’s exclusive Three Rivers restaurant: real estate magnate Stelios Zakiridis and reality television star Brie Hudson. Speculation is that the pair are dating, though neither could be reached for comment.”
The article was accompanied by several paparazzi photographs of Stelios and Brie in the vicinity of the restaurant. Zoey couldn’t help noting that her client wasn’t smiling in any of them.
“Melinda Forde strikes again,” she muttered. “Well, at the very least this will get my mother off my back for a while. She might even be in a good mood for once.”
And yet, Zoey felt a nameless sort of worry, like another boot was about to drop. She tried to ignore it, instead focusing on the old guy a few seats down. He was singing an old soul ballad in an effort to try and woo a woman half his age. She was listening politely, but it was obvious it wasn’t working. Nearby, two teenagers were filming the whole thing for YouTube. Zoey briefly toyed with the idea of belting out the old Carmen Sandiego theme, but in the end she decided she had enough problems already without a train full of people looking at her awkwardly.
When Zoey arrived at work, it was to find a very conspicuous looking black town car in front of the building. The moment she saw it, she had an ominous feeling, and when she went inside, it grew stronger still. Her office door was open and she could hear an animated conversation going on inside. Her mother was talking to someone, and there were no prizes for guessing who it was.
Tentatively, Zoey stepped inside.
“Oh, there you are, Zoey dear. We’ve just been talking about you. Mr. Zakiridis has some concerns he would like you to address. I think I shall just leave you to it. Have a pleasant day, Mr. Zakiridis.”
Before Zoey could utter a word of protest, Melinda was gone. Zoey saw the bottle of champagne she kept in her fridge was on her desk. It was nearly halfway gone.
She turned to Stelios, who looked very disgruntled indeed. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were a little wild.
Seeing her staring, he smoothed his hair back and took a breath. “Let me see,” he began in a voice he was clearly trying to keep even, “if I can convey to you what happened to me last night…”
“Mr. Zakiridis…”
“She sounded sweet enough on the phone, and even sweeter when she found out who I was, and why I was calling. We set up the date, and she asked me to send a limousine for her because she had been feeling a little down lately and thought a little pomp and circumstance would help her feel better.”
Zoey nodded, listening intently.
“I bought that story, and I picked her up. I suggested we see a Broadway play. The moment I said that, I regretted it. All she would talk about afterward was her own experiences onstage. She went on about her former music group until we got to the theater, and started on her reality career until the play started. She whispered all the way through, trying to explain acting techniques and critiquing the actors’ performances until the intermission. When we stepped into the bar, we were told we would not be welcome at the second half.”
Zoey nodded empathetically, the knot in her stomach tightening.
“When Brie discovered this, she made such a fuss that the theater ushers called in security. I had to make a huge donation to the theater, and promise to keep Brie silent, in order to see the remainder of the play. She apologized so convincingly, and remained so quiet throughout the second half that, remembering your recommendation,” he said the last word somewhat resentfully, “I gave her a second chance. I asked her to pick a restaurant and of course she picks The Three Rivers. One of the most expensive restaurants in the city. Its waiting list is legendary. But I had already agreed to take her out, and I really wanted to try and make the evening work.
So we head to the restaurant and manage to get a table after I have an expensive little talk with the management. The wait staff is slow because the place is packed, and Brie quickly loses all patience. She’s admonishing the poor staff members, criticizing the chef, at one point she threw a glass of wine in a server’s face. The poor woman just snapped and leaped at Brie. I spent the next ten minutes trying to keep them from killing each other. They caused hundreds of dollars’ worth of damage. Customers and staff were running all over the place until security came in to restore order. I’ve been threatened with several…”
“Mr. Zakiridis!” Zoey interrupted.
She couldn’t listen anymore. She felt sorry for the guy, sure, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to spare him everything he had gone through. It was unfair that she was on the hot seat for something her mother had forced her to do. Her mind was whirling at a mile a minute, desperately trying to think of something she could say that wouldn’t get her fired.
“Look, I’m sorry you had such a terrible experience. Sometimes our profiles…”
“I’d rather not hear about profiles right now. The entire story will be in the gossip columns later today. I’ll be asked about the incident, and when I am, I’ll be bound to mention Melinda Forde. But I won’t do that if you’ll do one thing for me.”
Zoey didn’t like the sound of that at all, but if Stelios followed through with his threat, it could ruin her mother, and maybe cost her her job in the process.
“What is it that you would like me to do?” she asked tentatively.
“I want you to agree to go on a date with me, Ms. Forde. After all, it was your recommendation that started all this. Brie Hudson was an unparalleled disaster, the likes of which I hope to never see again. I really think this is the best way for you to make up for it, don’t you?” he asked, folding his arms, and eyeing her slyly.
Zoey was stunned into silence, unable to think of an appropriate response. In her mind, she struggled to discern what was motivating Stelios to do this. She was certain it wasn’t really to make up for sending him out with Brie Hudson. What’s more, he was a client. He was attractive—there was no denying that—but he was still a client. On top of everything, she was an average woman who worked in an office and mostly made things up for a living. What on earth did a billionaire who had most likely been to every corner of the world want with a woman who had spent nearly her entire life within the confines of one city?