Seven
The next morning, Ian sat silent during an editorial staff meeting at Veritas. He was still trying to make heads or tails of Chloe’s stunt. Was she simply trying to show off in the presence of a billionaire? Or was she just a phone call away from the loony bin?
“Hey, Walter Mitty,” came the sound of Gunderson’s voice. “Care to snap out of it so you can give a status report and everyone can get back to work?”
Ian blinked and realized everyone was staring at him.
He leaned back in his chair and recounted the craziness that was his first session with Chloe the Matchmaker.
“Wow,” Pete breathed, when Ian wove his tale to a close. “That’s some next-level acting right there.”
“Either that or she’s flown w-a-y over the cuckoo’s nest,” said Gunderson.
“I don’t know,” Ian replied. “She went to Brown so she’s not lacking in the intelligence department.”
“There is something of a thin line between genius and crazy,” Sheryl chimed in.
“So you think it’s all an act?” Gunderson asked.
“I think, it couldn’t hurt to have a billionaire telling his friends he knows a great matchmaker they should use.”
Gunderson nodded. “You’re right. She is a smart lady, indeed. Although, I’m surprised that Russian oligarch fellow fell for it so easily.”
“People are susceptible to suggestion, especially when it flatters the ego,” Ian replied. “If someone told you a rich man was your soulmate, or a pretty young woman was the predestined love of your life, you’d want to believe it too, especially if you thought there was no quid pro quo involved.”
“So the crane operator was young and pretty?” Pete asked.
“Young, no. Pretty…?” Ian shrugged., “Yuri seemed to think so.”
“You know, it’s a lucky thing you got to witness her theatrics in person,” Sheryl said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because now you have a killer opener for your story.”
A slow smile spread across Ian’s lips. “Sheryl, you are a goddess,” he replied, suddenly itching to get back to his desk so he could start typing away.
“When’s your next session with her,” Gunderson asked.
“This weekend.”
“Okay, keep us posted.”
Days later, Chloe slowly awakened to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She was normally an early riser, but the night before she had gone out with a client to a Mexican wrestling match that was wondrously over-the-top and heaps of fun, but did not get her home till long past bedtime.
She was reticent to look at the caller ID, but forced herself to do so since it could be Ian, with whom she had a session scheduled that morning. They were slated to follow his Saturday morning routine, which included an invigorating swim followed by a pulsing run in Central Park. Chloe, for whom swimming was not a forte, would be abstaining from the former.
Maybe, just maybe, Ian was calling to cancel; which would be glorious because she really did not want to leave the sweet cocoon of her bed.
The number on the caller ID, however, was one she did not recognize. It was a local number, so perhaps Ian was calling from a house phone. Because who else would be calling her so early in the morn? Even telemarketers were not that early-birdy.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” came the sound of Alexander’s voice.
It was then that Chloe realized she had not saved Alexander’s number in her phone when she had texted him a few weeks back.
The day after her Bubble of Honesty talk with Jenna, Chloe had called him. When his phone went straight to voicemail, she sent a text message wishing him safe and happy travels. The next day, he texted back, Wish you were here, alongside a few slice-of-life photos of the bright lights and hustle n’ bustle of Hong Kong.
It was a gesture harkening back to their days at Werner + Ball. She was often assigned to clients in North America while he was always off wining and dining international clients. To feed her wanderlust, he would text her photos from his trips. Candid photos of people going about their every day; of weird-looking fruits, thought-provoking architecture, et. al. And she always ate them up, every last one of them.
She had texted him a smiley face emoji as thanks and had not heard from him since.
“Good morning,” she replied, pleasantly surprised.
“Wasn’t sure if you were still an early bird. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
She stifled a yawn. “No, I was just getting up.”
Which was sort of true; her alarm was slated to go off any minute now.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Great. And you?”
“Great, huh. Forever the optimist?”
Chloe smiled.
“I’ve been good,” Alexander continued. “Super busy traveling back and forth between wooing a new client here in Estonia and dealing with an old, high maintenance one in Hong Kong.”
For a brief moment, she was struck by the dulcet of Alexander’s voice and how it was all the more suave and masculine over the phone. Or, maybe it only seemed that way because she was lying in bed with a phone to her ear, like Doris Day in Pillow Talk.
“You’re in Estonia?” she sighed with wonderment. “You don’t hear that everyday. What’s it like?”
“Beautiful. It’s a fascinating blend of Scandinavian and Russian culture and architecture. And they’re impressively advanced when it comes to technology. I’ll send you some pictures.”
“Oh no, you don’t have to do that…”
“Are you saying you don’t like my photos anymore?” he teased.
“No, I love your photos. I just know you’re really busy and…”
“Well, good, because I already took about a dozen I thought you might like. Texting… them… to… you… now.”
Chloe smiled. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. So I’m back in town the latter half of next week and I wanted to see if you’re free for brunch next weekend.”
“Oh, um…” Chloe ran through her mental calendar. “I can do Sunday.”
“Sunday it is. You still love Mediterranean food?”
“With a vengeance.”
“What time should I pick you up? Ten o’ clock?”
“Ten works. But I don’t mind meeting you there.”
“And I don’t mind picking you up. You’d be doing me a favor, actually, as Bertie’s long past due for an outing.”
“Bertie!”
“Yep. It’ll give you gals a chance to finally meet.”
Bertie was the nonsensical name he had given to his cherished, 1959 BMW 507 roadster. During one of their lunches, he had shown her pictures of his ‘midnight beauty’ with the caramel leather interior, just days after it arrived from a collector in Austria.
“I can’t wait,” she replied, facetiously.
“I look forward to catching up,” Alexander said. “Have a great rest of the day.”
“You too.”
“See you soon.”
Chloe hung up and found herself at an impasse between a smile and a frown.
Contrary to Jenna’s prediction that he would ask Chloe out to dinner, he had invited her to brunch instead. Brunch was the sort of thing friends did, was it not? People who were just friends, who just wanted to catch up and nothing more.
Which was exactly what she wanted them to be.
Wasn’t it?
Chloe stretched her arms above her head, in a sluggish salute to the sun, and breathed a deep sigh. She shook her head and dashed all conflicting thoughts of Alexander to a mental folder titled, something to worry about another day.
At present, she needed to focus on getting in the zone for her session with Ian.
She was also on a renewed mission to arrive early for client sessions from here on out, so Alexander’s phone call had actually done her a favor. Otherwise, she definitely would have hit the snooze button four or five times before sliding out of bed… into the shower… and out the front door.
An hour later, Chloe pushed through the left side of a pair of thick, wooden doors that groaned like an old grump; and stepped into the aquamarine glow of the YMCA’s Olympic swimming pool. The cavernous room was empty save for a lone figure who laced through the waters of the pool like a merman.
Chloe watched as Ian butterflied to one end of the pool, flipped under and around, then breast-stroked to the other end, where he paused to lift his head, perhaps having heard the orchestral groaning of the doors.
His eyes found hers. Then he smiled and swam towards her.
Chloe followed his lead and went to stand close to the pool.
She watched as he rose up to rest his arms on the pool’s edge; and was briefly mesmerized by the water droplets on his arm as they slowly, ever so slowly, cascaded down the ripple of his biceps.
Then she watched as he lifted a pair of goggles from his eyes and stared up at her, looking incredibly zen, as though he had not a care and all the time in the world.
His eyelashes, dark and heavy with moisture, were especially voluminous, making his soulful eyes look all the more soulful.
“Good morning,” came the deep, siren sound of his voice.
First Alexander, now Ian. Why were male voices having such an intimate effect on her all of a sudden?
Snap out of it! Chloe thought, mentally pinching herself.
Maybe Jenna was right. Maybe she was long past due for a fling with a Mr. Right Now. He just could not be Ian, her client; or Alexander, her new brunch-buddy.
Chloe had had many a handsome client through the years. Lusting after them was something she had never done, and it was certainly not something she would start doing now.
“Good morning,” she replied, casual and composed.
“Care for a swim?”
“Oh no, I’m a terrible swimmer. Great floater; terrible swimmer.”
Ian chuckled. “I’ll just do a few more laps, then we can head out.”
“No hurry. Just do what you normally do. And if your soulmate walks through the door, I’ll let you know.”
“Cool,” he said with a wink before gliding the goggles back over his eyes. Then he backstroked away from her, rolled onto his belly, submerged his face underwater and resumed his laps.
Chloe ascended the risers nearby and sat in a middle row. She banished all thoughts of Ian, his bare arms and lusty water droplets, from her mind; and focused instead on queuing up an audiobook she had loaded on her phone to keep herself entertained during Ian’s swim. Luckily, the book’s prose was so descriptive, it kept her mind and imagination off of Ian and the pool, and squarely in the wilds of the Amazon rainforest.
About fifteen minutes later, a movement by the pool drew Chloe’s attention and she looked down to find Ian hoisting himself out of the water.
With his back to her, he strutted to a bench nearby, grabbed an oversized towel and secured it about his waist. Then he took another towel, dried his face, neck and hair; and wrapped it around his broad shoulders.
As he began to turn around, Chloe averted her gaze. She looked down at her phone and was suddenly inspired to change the photo on her phone’s lock screen.
Moments later, with a new lock screen featuring a double rainbow arcing o’er a majestic waterfall in Hawaii, she glanced up at the pool, which was quiet and still.
In the bottom periphery of her eyes, she spotted Ian standing at the base of the risers, staring up at her with a bemused expression on his face.
“You’re done,” she said, when nothing more eloquent came to mind.
He nodded. “What are you listening to?”
Chloe maintained eye contact with his eyes and his eyes alone. Not the right angles of his pecs… or the square of his jaw. Nope, just the soulmate-seeking eyes of her client.
“Oh, um… it’s an audiobook about three women who spent a year sailing down the Amazon River.”
Ian’s eyes widened. “Really. Wow, that’s brave. I’m guessing they made it out alive since one of them wrote a book about it?”
Chloe chuckled. “I’m only a few chapters in but, yeah, it’s more a question of to what extent did they make it out unscathed.”
“So is this recon for you? Are you planning a trip to the Amazon?”
“Someday. Maybe.”
“Why maybe?”
She sighed pleasantly enough. “So much to do and only so many hours in a day.”
“Well, you should definitely go. South America is beautiful.”
“You’ve been?”
He nodded. “Some buddies and I, we went backpacking through a couple countries right after college.”
“Nice,” she said with a smile. “What was your favorite part?”
“Patagonia, hands down,” he replied with wistful remembrance.
“Yeah? Why?”
“It’s Mother Nature as kissed by the gods.”
Chloe was struck by the poetry of his words. She wondered if he dabbled as a creative writer in his spare time.
“It’s hard to describe,” he continued. “But everywhere you turn, every landscape, every vista… you basically journey from one gasp to the next and the next.”
“How long were you there?”
“In Patagonia itself, two weeks. To this day, I wish I could’ve stayed longer.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Had other places we wanted to see before we returned to the real world of finding a job and paying down college loans.”
“You think you’ll ever go back?”
“Definitely. I was actually itching to go last year, but Meaghan, my ex, she wasn’t much of an outdoorsy person.”
Chloe nodded. The more he revealed about his ex-girlfriend, the more she understood why they were not meant to be. She was sure this Meaghan woman was a lovely person, just not right for Ian, not in the long term.
“By the way, they have bike rentals here. If you want, I can get you a bike so you can ride alongside me during my run,” Ian said.
“Oh no, I’m actually looking forward to running. I ran cross-country in high school. And, until recently, I used to run the marathon every year.”
“Really. Which marathon?”
“New York.”
Ian’s eyes alighted with surprise.
“Me too! What’s your best time?”
“Three and a half. You?”
“About the same,” he replied, knowing full well he had come in just under four hours. Chloe smiled as though she could see right through his subterfuge.
“Okay, so I’ll go get changed, then you can show me what you’ve got.”
“Well, I’m a little rusty, so don’t hold it against me.”
“I won’t,” he said with a smile.