“Hm. That doesn’t feel like a fit to me.”
“It wasn’t. I did it for as long as I could, until I had a decent nest egg, so I wouldn’t have to rely on the bank of Mom and Dad, then I said good-bye high heels, hello sneakers.” She waggled her foot at him to prove her point.
“I think I would’ve enjoyed seeing the high-heel version of you. But the sneaker version is pretty phenomenal, too.” He shoved an octopus roll in his mouth and gazed at her.
Don’t respond, change the subject, break off eye contact. She repeated it to herself like a mantra, hoping it might give her the strength to resist the X-rated trailer playing in her head.
“I prefer sneakers myself. Comfort wins, you know.”
“Speaking of comfort, should we move to the family room? These chairs aren’t made for long conversations.”
“No, I’m fine!” Cora squeaked out, as an image of a shirtless Charlie draped across her on the couch popped into her head. Do not move any closer to him. Do not touch him.
Charlie nodded but didn’t hide a furrow. “So why dog training, of all professions?” The creased brow was gone and he was back to staring at her like he was trying to memorize her face.
“Honestly, deep down I’ve always known this is where I’d end up, despite the corporate detour. Ever since I was little, I’ve always had this drive to . . .” Cora stopped herself.
“What? Tell me.” Charlie sounded like a therapist, and Cora realized that they had officially switched roles.
She was tempted to tell him everything. The mood was intimate and confessional, and Cora knew that Charlie in particular would be sympathetic to what had happened all those years ago. She opened her mouth to tell him about Cooper but swerved at the last minute. “My dog Fritz finally pushed me to take the leap, actually. I saw firsthand how positive training transformed him from out-of-control shelter dog to polite ambassador. I wanted to help people do the same with their own dogs, to find that magic that transforms relationships. So here I am. My life is all about animals. Same with you, but on a much bigger and cooler level, right?” She desperately needed to get his focus off of her, to deflect into more comfortable territory.
He shook his head. “Not cooler. Different. But yeah, I do feel good about what I do. So what’s the best part of your job?”
He was out-gaming her again, circling the conversation back to her. “Ummm. I like changing relationships. I like teaching people how to speak dog and teaching dogs how to speak people.”
“You’re so good at it, Cora.” She felt a ripple every time he said her name. She knew he probably picked it up in some seminar about winning over business contacts, but it worked on her.
“Thanks. You guys make it easy.”
Charlie grinned at her. “Are we your favorites? C’mon. Admit it. Oliver and I are your all-time favorites.” He leaned over and poked at her playfully, like a grade school boy with a crush.
“You guys are up there, I’ll admit it. But I have a thing for . . .”
“Lawyers?” he interjected.
“Boxers.” She laughed. He made a dejected face. “Okay, and some lawyers.”
No matter how rusty Cora was at flirting, she knew without a doubt that that’s what they were doing.
He reached over and grabbed her wrist. She jumped.
“Sorry! I just noticed the scar on the top of your hand. How did you get it?”
“Take a guess . . . how do you think a dog trainer gets a scar on her hand?”
“Of course. Dog bite. What happened?” He was still holding her wrist, examining the scar in a clinical fashion, bringing it close to his face.
Cora felt tingly. The room was getting dark, and Charlie Gill wasn’t letting go of her.
“Too embarrassing to say. Let’s just chalk it up to a rookie mistake. It was my fault, not the dog’s.”
Charlie ran two gentle fingers over the constellation of raised skin. “It must have been a big mistake. Looks like it was brutal.” He placed her hand on the table and looked at her. “Sorry it happened.”
In that moment, though, Cora wasn’t sorry.
In an attempt to shift the energy in the room, she adjusted her chair and sent her wineglass sailing. Shattering on the floor, it woke Oliver from his nap and effectively killed any of the mood that had been building.
“Merde. I am such a klutz. I’m so sorry!”
“No biggie, they’re cheap glasses.” Charlie walked to the sink to grab paper towels.
His phone went off on the table, and Cora saw that Madison was Skyping him. She blushed. “Your phone—someone is calling you,” she said, as if she hadn’t seen the screen.
Charlie rushed over and answered it, leaving the wine pooling on the floor and Oliver doing his best to lick it up. “Hey, Mads!” Cora took the paper towels from him, making sure to stay out of sight, and got to work cleaning up the mess.
“Hiiii, baby!” Madison gushed. “I miss yoooou!”
Charlie cut her off. “Mads, Cora is here, and we just finished Oliver’s lesson. We were both starving so we grabbed some sushi, and now we’ve just had a wine emergency. Can I call you right back?”
There was a pause. “Wine emergency? She’s there with you right now? Okay, that’s fine.” Madison sounded clipped and businesslike now. “How did Oliver do?”
“I’ll let Cora tell you.” Cora panicked as he turned the phone around and handed it to her where she sat on the floor like Cinderella, surrounded by purple-stained towels and a straining Oliver. Madison looked beautiful, even in the flat unflattering close-up of the phone.
“Hi, Madison, how are you?” she asked, not expecting an answer. Cora gestured to the mess on the floor. “I just dorked out and spilled my drink everywhere! Um, Oliver is doing really great! He’s super smart and super easy to train. He misses you, though!”
“Isn’t that sweet? How can you tell?” Madison smiled but her eyes narrowed.
“Oh, well, a dog trainer just knows these things!” she trilled as the blush crept up her neck. Cora resented that Madison wouldn’t take her well-intentioned embellishment at face value.
“I can’t wait to see how perfect you’re making our dog. When I come back he’s going to be a perfect little gentleman. Right?”
“He’ll be a gentleman, you have my word.” My word, she thought ruefully. Here I am thinking smutty thoughts about your boyfriend and I’m talking about my “word.”
“I expect nothing less,” Madison replied, sounding cloyingly sweet but cutting at the same time.
Cora nodded, hoping that the awkward showdown was coming to an end. She rubbed an itch on her cheek and a few grains of rice fell off. Wonderful, she thought. I had food on my face the whole time.
Charlie took the phone back. “Babe, I’ll call you in a little bit. Love you!”
“I love you too, baby! Muuwhah!”
Cora saw Charlie silently pucker his lips at the screen then hang up.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Cora. “We usually talk at the same time every night, and I just lost track of time.” He looked at her plate. “How are you liking those rainbow rolls? Pretty amazing, right? Stop cleaning and take some of this Hokkigai, too, it’s ridiculous.” He held the container with the belted fish claws out to her.
Cora made her way back to the table reluctantly. “Oh, I’m good right now, thanks,” she said, pointing to a half-eaten roll on her plate to prove her point.
“You’re a slow eater! I’m going to eat all of these myself if you don’t hurry up.”
“Just keep going, I’m totally fine.” She hoped that he would polish off all of the trays and not notice that she was barely eating anything. The sushi wasn’t all that was trashing her appetite, though. It was Charlie Gill. His unwavering gaze, his fingers on her skin, the smell of his summertime aftershave every time he leaned close to her. And then there was the very real possibility of forgetting her honor code and doing something she knew she’d regret.
“So how did you and
Madison meet?” Breaking yet another rule by asking an uninvited personal question, but the red wine combined with her empty stomach emboldened her.
“Me and Madison? It’s kind of embarrassing. I saw her walking down the street and I chased her down. I literally pulled my car over, jumped out, and ran down the sidewalk to meet her. Such a creeper thing to do.” He shook his head, feigning embarrassment at it.
“No, it’s so . . . sweet. You were overcome by her beauty.” Cora felt queasy. No one had ever chased her down.
“Exactly! I mean, she looked like this blinding vision of blondness. The sun was shining on her . . . she looked like . . . like an angel.” He stared off, clearly reliving the moment.
She couldn’t help herself. “So what happened when you got to her? Did you know what you wanted to say?”
“I sounded like such a dork!” She doubted that anything that came out of Charlie’s mouth sounded dorky. “I just introduced myself and asked if I could take her out for some coffee. And to my surprise, she said yes.”
Of course she said yes, Cora thought. Look at you.
“So how long ago was that?” she asked him.
“Uh . . . we’ve been living together for three years now, so it was five years ago. And now that you know the math, don’t ask me the inevitable question, please.” He smiled a wan smile.
“Huh?” she faked, even though she knew exactly what he meant.
“The m word.”
“Right. I would never ask that. That’s personal.” She took a huge swig of wine and looked over at Oliver, hoping to telepathically wake him so that he might save her from the conversation with some puppy shenanigans.
Charlie looked at the roll he was about to eat and said, “Well, between you and me, it’s sort of on the radar screen.”
She felt like he’d punched her. He hadn’t been flirting with her, he was just being kind to her, in the same way that he’d been kind to the sushi delivery guy, and everyone else that he met.
“Well, that’s got to be exciting,” she managed to say.
“I guess it is. I mean, I have my doubts about it, of course. It seems so . . . predetermined. You meet, date for an appropriate amount of time, and then get hitched to the old ball and chain. I’m not there yet, but isn’t that how it works?” He looked at her questioningly.
“What comes next is whatever you want to come next,” she said firmly, hoping that it would end the conversation. She needed to leave, to get away from Charlie and his mixed-up signals. At least now she could will herself to shift her focus from dissecting a possible flirtation to training his dog—what she was actually being paid to do.
Charlie didn’t catch her subtext. “Yup.” He sighed. “We shall see.” He looked down at the trays strewn before him. “Eat more, Cora. I feel like a pig!”
“Nope, I’m good. I have to head out anyway.” She made an exaggerated show of checking the time on her phone. “What do I owe you for dinner?” Her tone was as clipped as Madison’s had been.
“You have to go already?” He sounded disappointed. “But you barely ate anything! Stay, hang out with us!”
“I’ve had more than enough, trust me. Seriously, what can I throw in?” She dug into her bag for her wallet as Oliver jumped on her. Now he wakes up! She kept her head down so Charlie Gill wouldn’t see the splotches on her chest and neck.
“Please, not a thing. You get dinner next time, okay? My pleasure to have you here. And Oliver loved it, too.”
“Yes, so nice, thank you for dinner. So I’ll see you next week?” He nodded. “Good luck with homework, and holler if you have any questions.” She sounded professional and disinterested, which was exactly how she planned to make herself sound for the remainder of their sessions together. Charlie Gill was a client and nothing more, no matter how many compliments he paid her or how tingly he made her feel when his hand brushed her back.
Besides, in a few weeks, she’d never see him again.
“Thanks again, Cora. This was great.” He smiled at her and leaned forward to squeeze her shoulder. “You seriously are the best.”
He loves his girlfriend, he loves his girlfriend, he loves his girlfriend, she reminded herself as the warmth of his touch radiated through her body.
SIXTEEN
* * *
“Why are you so grumpy?” Maggie asked Cora accusingly.
“What makes you think I’m grumpy?”
“Because you’re acting like a total bitch.”
Cora had been storming around the kitchen, complaining loudly about the empty milk jug in the fridge and tossing utensils back into the drawer. Fritz kept his distance in the hallway, confused by Cora’s sour mood. She was ready to spit venom at Maggie, but she took one look at her friend and teared up.
“What’s wrong? Oh my God, what’s wrong, honey?” Maggie walked over and put her arms around Cora. The floodgates opened, and Cora began to sob.
“It’s nothing. It’s stupid! It’s so stupid and I feel stupid.” She surrendered to the tears.
“Tell me! Is it Aaron?”
“No, screw Aaron,” she spat.
“What is it? Tell me.”
“There’s this guy, a client, and he’s really perfect but he has a perfect girlfriend who is bitchy, and I couldn’t help it and I really started to like him.” She hiccuped a sniffle and continued. “I was pretty sure he was flirting with me but it turns out he’s going to propose to her soon! I just feel dumb, Mags. I’ve been acting all stupid around him, and I can’t stop thinking about him. I was sure he was flirting! He called me the total package, Maggie! Isn’t that flirting? And I’m horny. I haven’t been on a date with anyone in forever and I don’t know what guys are thinking anymore!”
Maggie chuckled. “I was on a date last night and I have no clue what guys are thinking either. Well, I know one thing they’re always thinking.”
“You know what I mean, don’t joke!” She wiped her eyes with the dish towel.
“I’m sorry. How long has this been going on?”
“A few weeks.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t mean to make this about me, but I’m a little insulted you didn’t fill me in.” She paused. “Ohhh, wait a sec—it’s all making sense now. This is mascara guy, right?”
Cora nodded.
“Is he your nighttime client? Is that who you were with last night?”
She nodded again. “Takeout sushi dinner after our lesson. With wine. Oh, and I forgot to mention that his perfect gorgeous girlfriend is out of town.”
“Wait a sec, you’re drinking wine and hanging out with him while his girlfriend is away?” She shuddered. “That’s sort of gross. He sounds like a douche. Why can’t you be attracted to a nice guy for a change?”
“He is a nice guy. He’s almost too good to be true, minus the girlfriend. He practices animal law. And he’s adorable.” Cora looked glum. “No, more than adorable. Smoking hot.”
“Sorry, but having you stay for dinner while his girlfriend’s not home is a douche move, even if you do have a professional relationship. Think about it. Would you want your boyfriend to have his gorgeous, funny, amazing personal trainer, or stylist, or barista hanging out with him while you’re out of town?”
Okay, Maggie was right, but Cora tried to play it off. “If I knew what it was like to have a boyfriend I might have an opinion.”
“Stop it. You’re being stupid.”
Cora welled up again.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry! You’re really sensitive right now. Are you ragging?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I’m just sad and lonely and I feel stupid and ugly and unlovable.”
Maggie hugged her again. “I love you, girl.”
“Unless I become a lesbian, you don’t count.”
Maggie put both her hands on Cora’s shoulders. “What are you doing today? Clear your calendar, I have an idea!”
“What?” Cora eyed her warily.
“Girl date, girl date, it’s time for a girl da
te!” Maggie sang as she danced around the kitchen. She stopped in front of Cora and posed dramatically. “Shopping montage!”
Cora shook her head. “I’m not in the mood today.”
“No, you’re coming to work with me, and we’re going to do a Pretty Woman shopping montage, minus the prostitution and actual spending. Darnell and I are in the evening gown department today, so we can rock out the frocks on you, baby! Picture it; you, me, D, Lhuillier, Mischka, Balmain . . . c’mon, it’ll be fun! We’ll get a gorgeous new profile photo of you for Facebook!” Darnell was Maggie’s beloved “work husband.”
“Not with these swollen eyes.” She thought for a moment. “I probably should get out of the house, though.”
“Yes! You’re coming! Go get ready, I’m leaving in thirty minutes.”
Cora stayed in her leggings, flip-flops, and the zip front hoodie she’d slept in. She didn’t care what she looked like. She texted her two morning clients during the Metro ride and begged off—business owner’s privilege—but decided to keep Beth Ann on her schedule at two because the situation seemed so dire for little Chanel. Cora didn’t want to give Beth Ann any opportunity to back out of training, and even though she wasn’t sure how she was going to help the pitiful dog, she was convinced that she’d find a way.
They got to the store right as Darnell was unlocking the main gate into Saks, looking dapper in a fitted suit with a subdued Burberry plaid. The lapels and trouser seams were trimmed with thick black cording, and the back of the blazer had a giant black skull with rhinestone eyes.
“Look what ze chat dragged in,” he said with an exaggerated French accent, eyeing Cora from head to toe in mock judgment.
“Careful, D, she’s on the edge today,” Maggie warned.
“Hi, Darnell,” Cora said and smiled thinly. He saw the sadness in her face and reached out to give her a hug.
“My poor little dog lady, queen of the lonely hearts. So single it hurts, am I right? Maybe if you put some effort into your look, you’ll find a new man.” He picked a few dog hairs off her shoulder.
Cora jumped away from him as if he’d slapped her.
Life on the Leash Page 8