~ 3 ~
What if Gabriel had been the real thing and I’d blown it? The horrifying thought had me sitting on the couch with a whuff, my stomach clenching. What if he’d been the One? I’d rejected him out of hand, and now I’d end up just like my mother, old and fat and alone, without even a daughter to keep me company. And bitchy. I’d gone so over the top, lashing out at Charley like that. I did need to get a grip.
I sipped the tea, letting the warmth and spicy perfume spread through my sinuses, over my tongue, and down to ease my stomach. Amy buys her teas special and keeps them in hermetically sealed containers, blending them herself and brewing at the exact temperature in a loose-leaf tea strainer. Her Nambé ceramic teapot would be sitting in its silver warmer over a tea candle on the kitchen counter. With tea, which is as much scent as anything, Amy was almost more of a chemist than I was.
“Thank you for this,” I said. “It’s really good. I’m sorry I didn’t say so before.”
“But you did. You’re always polite. And you’re welcome.”
That was me. Polite. Until I blew my lid and flipped off a guy who was just being nice. We sat there in silence for a minute, drinking our tea. Overhead the shower water began running.
“Did this Gabriel really offer to walk you from the L stop?” Amy asked. An olive branch, bless her.
“No, not really. Actually, he didn’t even hit on me. This little kid was screaming, so he sat next to me and was making conversation.”
“Ah,” Amy said knowingly, nodding.
“And when I said that Charley must have sent him, he assumed I was talking about a guy and said that if I was worried about someone pestering me, then I shouldn’t be walking alone.”
“Which is good advice,” Amy pointed out. “Thoughtful.”
“Yeah.” Who knows? It didn’t matter either way. Real or not, he was gone. “I should go call my mom, talk to her about Thanksgiving.” Make sure at least she wanted me around. “Thanks again for the tea.”
“And sympathy.” Amy smiled. “Sure thing. Back to work with me. If I have this assembled by tomorrow, Adelina says she’ll look at it.”
“Wow.” Adelina ran the design studio for Exhibition Way, one of Chicago’s hippest fashion design firms. “That’s huge!”
“Well.” Amy wrinkled her nose. “Lots of ‘ifs’ in there, but Brad’s really excited about it.”
“You’ll rock it. I know you will.”
“Thanks, girlfriend.” She high-fived me, then laced her fingers with mine and hugged me. “Don’t dwell. You know she won’t.”
That was true. Still, I dashed up to my room and shut the door, making it in plenty of time not to have to confront Charley again.
* * *
I didn’t look for Gabriel on the train the next morning. That would be stupid, no matter what. If he wasn’t Charley’s shill, there’s no reason he and I would cross paths again. If he was, well then, I’d done the right thing by nipping that debacle in the bud.
The more I thought about it, the less convinced I became that I’d really hurt Charley’s feelings. I mean, she’s an actress and a really good one. Drumming up tears is part of her skill set. She’d stayed the night at Daniel’s and hadn’t come home by the time I left for work, so that made things simpler.
I checked my phone again—nothing new from my mom. I’d worry, except she’d texted me back the night before. My mom does not text. In fact, I didn’t know she even had a phone that could text. Maybe her dinosaur of a flip phone had finally died and she’d been forced into a new one, but odd that she hadn’t mentioned that. A new smartphone should have sent her into a tailspin of confusion and hourly requests for tech support. But when I called the night before, not only did it go to voice mail—with a new outgoing message that sounded downright chirpy—she texted me back thirty minutes later saying she was out, would be out late, and could I call her the next day, maybe on my lunch hour.
I couldn’t even with all that was weird in that message. It left me unbalanced. With what happened the day before, I didn’t need anything to add to my rampant insecurity.
Fortunately, work consumed a lot of my attention that morning. It doesn’t always—hence the occasional sneak reading—but with the holidays coming, my department heads were scrambling to get projects finished before everyone functionally disappeared until after New Year’s. Which meant a lot trickled downhill to me. So, yeah, I’m basically an office drone. That’s the “entry” part of the job. They don’t let you near the actual perfume part of the industry until you’ve put in your time understanding the business end. And then only if you’re really lucky or very talented.
I didn’t have a lot of luck going for me, so I hoped diligence and my talented nose would win out.
The crazy busy morning meant I didn’t escape until after one. Normally I brought my lunch—cheaper, less fattening—but since I planned to call my mom, I’d hit the building food court and find a private corner somewhere.
Holt Tower isn’t all corporate offices. A lot of it is, but one side—it’s really a trio of towers—is a mall for the first three levels, with a food court in the middle that’s kind of nice because it’s in an atrium. Unfortunately the place was mobbed. Who were all these people? Tourists, maybe. The place was already festooned with Christmas decorations and they had carols playing. Maybe people were already coming into town to shop and stuff, then stay for the parades.
Still, seeing the decorations perked me up some, even if they were early. I like Christmas. I even liked going home for Thanksgiving. Cooking with my mom was fun, and we always talked a lot, catching up in ways that phone conversations don’t replicate. And we’d spend the rest of the holiday wrapped up in furry blankets, bingeing movies, eating leftover pie, and drinking peppermint-schnapps-spiked hot chocolate. At least with my mom I never felt self-conscious about what I ate. I didn’t know why I’d been grumpy thinking about it the night before, except that the Gabriel thing had knocked me for a loop.
The pretty boys of the world didn’t matter. My mom and I had each other. Always had and always would.
In anticipation of the next week’s nosh-fest, I got one of those boxed-up Cobb salads from the to-go section of the deli. I hated eating refrigerated salad when it was cold out, but feeling virtuous was nice. Angels smiled on me, because I found a one-top behind a potted palm in a relatively secluded corner. It would’ve been nice to take my salad up to my desk, but my boss frowned on personal conversations at work. And she thought me being at my desk equaled being at work.
I slipped in my ear buds, laid the phone on the table, hit the button to call my mom, and began spreading around the piles of salad ingredients so they’d be evenly distributed.
“Hi, pooky!” my mom answered.
“You have a new phone,” I replied. With my number programmed in and everything. Would wonders never cease?
She giggled. Was this my mother? “Yes. It’s rose-gold. A seven! Aren’t you proud of me?”
“I am proud of you. Shocked and amazed, but proud.”
“Oh, you. Even old dogs like me can learn a new trick or two. Woof woof!”
I had to laugh. “You sound happy.”
“I am happy. And you, pooky? How are you? I’m sorry I couldn’t talk last night.”
“I’m fine. Where were you anyway—you went out somewhere.”
“Yes, well, I’ll tell you all about that. But it’s kind of a long story. I’m thinking about coming to Chicago. Maybe we could have lunch?”
Coming to Chicago? “Well, sure, but…I’ll be home next week. I figured you’d want me there on Tuesday?”
“Well, about that.” She clicked her tongue, her stalling sound. Uh oh. “I wanted to tell you in person, but I don’t see how…Hmm. See, I met somebody.”
“Met somebody?” The avocado mushed in my mouth. It wasn’t fresh anyway. I pushed the salad away. “Somebody like…a man?”
She laughed. “Yes, Marcia, exactly like a man. George. His name is George. He’s from Minneapolis originally, so he invited me to go there with him and meet his kids. Adult kids, that is. He has a daughter your age and a son two years older.”
My brain spun, trying to process all this new information. Mostly I got stuck on wondering how long she’d been seeing this guy and why she hadn’t dropped the least hint about it. I felt like more like an abandoned orphan than ever. He had adult kids she was going to meet. What about our traditional holiday, just the two of us? All I managed to get out was, “Minneapolis, Minnesota?”
She giggled again. So much giggling. “Yes, Minnesota, silly! And we want you to come, too. We’ll take the train to Chicago and then we can all—”
“Mom. I am not going to Minneapolis to have Thanksgiving with strangers. It’s freaking cold there!”
“Chicago is not exactly the Caribbean, darling.” The tartness in her tone took me aback.
“I’m sorry. I just…” I didn’t know what.
“I know this is new, but I thought you’d be happy that I finally did something.” No more giggling. She sounded annoyed, which was unfortunately more like the mother I knew. I couldn’t seem to do anything right. “You’re forever telling me to lose weight, get my hair done, go out and meet people. Well, I did.”
I was torn between protesting that I’d never told her I thought she should lose weight and wanting to ask if she really had. And, if so, how she did it.
“I want you to meet George, at least,” she said briskly, while I mentally stalled, my brain a little blue wheel of crashing systems. “We’ll be in Chicago on Tuesday. We’d like to have lunch with you and I expect you to mind your Ps and Qs. If you want to come with us to Minneapolis then, you can. Or don’t.”
All of these “we’s” that didn’t include me all of a sudden. “You’d just ditch me. On Thanksgiving.”
“No.” She had on her patient voice now. “I’m inviting you to come with us. Or you can stay and celebrate with your friends. You’re always telling me about the wonderful spread they put on and how you miss it to come see me. Now you can finally do that.”
Ouch. Thanksgiving at Daniel’s with Charley, who was pissed at me. No one would want me there either. Unexpectedly, my throat tightened. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Oh, pooky.” Her voice softened. My familiar mom. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” I said, though I was, for no good reason at all. Except that I felt so alone and unloved, crying into my cold, wilted salad behind the potted palm at the food court. It didn’t get much more pathetic than that. “When—” I had to clear my throat. “When did you start seeing… George?”
She was quiet a moment. “Summer.”
“Since summer?”
“Well, just August. Late July. The last week of July, so practically August.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She sighed. “Because I didn’t know it would last this long. I didn’t expect to fall in love, okay?”
In love? I couldn’t catch my breath. “Wow,” I whispered.
“Look…” She was weepy, too. I could hear it in her voice. “Just meet him, okay? Give him a chance. I think you’ll like him.”
“Okay. Fine. Whatever. I have to get back to work.”
“All right.” She sounded really subdued. “Call me tonight?”
“I don’t know—will you even be home?”
“Oh, Marcia. I don’t deserve that.”
She didn’t. I knew it. I was a terrible and mean person. No wonder everyone hated me. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask. And lunch on Tuesday. George is making reservations somewhere nice, so no excuses.”
“Fine. I gotta go.”
“Have a good day. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
I sat there for a while, staring at my phone, the rainbow-horned unicorn wallpaper blurring as the tears kept welling up. I couldn’t go back to my desk like this. Everyone would know I’d been crying. But I had to go back, or the work would just pile up and my boss would freak. Maybe I could call and say I got sick over lunch and had to go home?
No, that would be irresponsible. Put on your big girl panties and suck it up. I’d go to the ladies’ room off the food court and wash my face, fix my makeup. Maybe I’d get one of those giant M&M cookies, since I’d barely eaten any lunch.
Keeping my head down so no one would see my blotchy face, I tossed my mostly uneaten salad in the trash on the way to the restroom. “Green Christmas” by Barenaked Ladies played in the background, its faux perky beat a contrast to the self-pitying envy of the lyrics. Did the person who compiled that playlist even know what the song was about? I doubted if—
I plowed headlong into someone, packages flying, the scent of leather and too much Bay Rum aftershave, my vision going black for a second as my ankle twisted and I fell. Ow.
“Shit! Aw, fuck it all. I’m sorry, lady. Here, let me help you.”
Hands scrabbled at my elbow, and I beat them off. “Just… stop!” Stupidly I was crying again. Shit. Could this day get any worse?
“Aw, motherfucker—you’re crying. You’re hurt. Where are you hurt, lady? Should I call an ambulance? I’ll call 911 and—”
“No!” I got a hold of myself and said it more calmly. “No, I’m fine. That is, I was crying already and… I’m just having a really shitty day.”
Something about the guy’s potty mouth had clearly infected me, that I’d say that to a stranger.
“Topped off with me knocking you over.” He cocked a thin dark eyebrow at me. One pierced with a thick bar. Head shorn on one side, showing a curling tattoo, and a fall of black hair fringed down his pale cheek on the other. Six—no, seven—rings in the ear on the shorn side, and two more coiled through one side of his lower lip that gave the odd impression of vampire fangs. His eyes, though, amid all that black and white, his eyes were a startling bright aqua—like those photos of the Caribbean—emphasized by a ring of deep gray-blue. They narrowed quizzically. “Help you up then?”
I frowned, mostly for me being a dazed idiot. “Did you call me lady?”
He popped an easy grin, perfect teeth gleaming. “Sorry—thought you were older at first. Dunno why. No offense or anything.”
“Great,” I muttered, scrambling to my knees and then my feet, ignoring his helping hand. I skidded a little on the slick tile and he caught me by the elbow. “Stupid boots.” I would never wear them again.
“They’re fucking hot though,” the guy said.
I was spared an answer by a woman handing him one of his dropped packages that had spun away. Though…hot, huh? No one ever called me hot. Maybe I would wear them again. I checked my shoulder bag, making sure my phone and tablet were present and not shattered. He finished collecting a rather impressive array of packages, stacking them again.
“They do offer bags,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but bad for the environment. I always feel guilty, and ’sides, I can carry them fine. Except when hot women in blue leather boots knock me over.”
“Hey—you knocked me over. And you thought I was an old lady.”
He grinned easily, holding the stack in one hand. “Not old, just matronly, maybe. And you weren’t watching where you were going. I tried to dodge you.”
Great. I’d become matronly. Went well with spinster, at least. “I apologize then.” I sounded stiff enough to be all those things.
“Nah, it was my fault. I saw you coming—head down and charging ahead like a little French horse. I should have dodged quicker. Buy you lunch to make it up?”
A little French horse? Lunch? I glanced at my phone. “I just ate, and I have to get back to work.”
“Do you?” He dipped his chin, giving me a look I couldn’t interpret. “Do you really?”
“Um. Yes.” I spoke slowly. “That’s what grownup people with jobs do.”
He held up his one-handed pile of packages, balancing them like a juggler. “I’m a grownup with a job. Well, several. Enough to keep me from being homeless. Doesn’t mean I can’t pop off and buy a whiskey for a pretty girl to make up for knocking her on her arse.”
“Are you a Brit?”
He winked. “Can’t get anything past you, luv. What do you say?”
“About what?”
“A. Whis. Key,” he repeated slowly, just like I had. “You already ate, so let’s go grab a drinky. Take the sting out.”
“I have to go back to work.”
“So go later. It won’t take that long.”
“I can’t go to work drunk.”
He snickered. “One whiskey will hardly make you drunk.”
Well, it might, since I never drank. And I nearly told him so, but the words sounded insufferably prim and stuffy before I even spoke them. He’d thought I was some matronly woman at the food court. One who’d been sniffling over her salad and the fact that her mommy had a boyfriend. I was sick of myself.
And the idea of going back to my desk filled me with a sudden, deep loathing.
“Hey, it’s the holidays.” He waved a free hand at the decorations. “We’re supposed to live it up a little.”
“It’s not even Thanksgiving,” I replied automatically, then winced at myself.
“Looks like a party to me.” His grin widened the spacing of the hoops in his lip and added a bit of a wrinkle to his nose, a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Desks are boring.”
Just like me. Fine. Enough already.
“Okay,” I said. “Where?”
“Pub on the corner?”
I had no idea there was one. “Lead the way.”
“All right-y-oh.” He crooked an elbow for me, raised a brow when I stared at it. “Gotta keep you on your feet.”
“I’m not that bad.” But I took his arm, feeling more than a little wild. The music had switched to “Santa, Baby,” and it made me feel kind of sexy, even. I could work late to make up for the long lunch break. Again. Since I missed out on all the conversations at home anyway. It felt pretty nice to glide down the escalator holding onto a guy’s arm. A woman riding up the other way gave him the side eye, and then me, and that perversely pleased me, too. Not your usual Marcia.
“Name’s Damien.”
“I’m Marcia.”
“Like on The Brady Bunch? I don’t think I’ve ever met a real-life Marcia.”
I got that a lot. “You had that show in the UK?”
“Nah. Hulu. You know. Wasn’t she the good girl?”
“I think they were all good girls.”
“There it is.” He pointed his nose at a pair of heavy doors with big brass handles, opening onto the inside of the mall on ground level. After the glass and chrome of the atrium, the bar seemed unusually dark and closed in. But it smelled good. Like wood oils and peat. Maybe they piped it in for ambience. More businesses were exploring that kind of aromatherapy, which could be a career direction for me if perfume didn’t work out. Not nearly as romantic, though.
Damien led me straight to the bar in the center of the room, slid his stack of packages onto it without bobbling them, then straddled a stool. Feeling a little awkward, I hung my bag on the hook under the bar, then hipped onto the stool next to him, careful to keep my knees together so I wouldn’t flash anyone by accident. Barstools are not really pencil-skirt friendly.
“Two Jameson, neat,” Damien called to the bartender, “the good stuff.” She nodded, getting down a bottle with a black label.
“Let’s get your card first,” she said, then ran it immediately. Apparently Damien’s appearance didn’t inspire confidence.
“Can’t I have mine with Coke or something?”
“Mix good sipping whiskey with that sugary shite?” He looked horrified. “What kind of barbarian are you?”
One who didn’t drink whiskey neat. Or at all.
“Just try it.” He lowered his brows seriously, the ring in his brow dipping with it. “If you don’t like it, I’ll have yours. Then you can get Jack Daniels or some such and add all the soda pop you want.”
The bartender set down two lowball glasses with heavy bottoms, the amber whiskey refracting colorfully. Damien picked up his and waited for me. Once I did the same, he said, “To a meet beautiful. May the story get even better.” He clinked his glass against mine and took a sip.
I took a moment longer, letting the scent of the whiskey permeate my senses. Distillers called that aromatic evaporation “the angel’s share,” a term that’s always appealed to me. Places like brandy distilleries hire noses, too, to check the final blends of their products. I’d thought about that career path, except that I didn’t drink. You have to really love a thing to understand it well enough to make judgments about it.
This aroma nearly changed my mind. The Jameson had a more wonderful and layered presentation than I’d expected. Full bodied and strong, but with intense spicy notes and hints of vanilla. It reminded me of the best kind of men’s cologne, kind of sensual in a warm, masculine way, like a strong embrace, with a hint of sweetness beneath. Something to remember. Damien watched me, that pierced brow cocked over his bright eye. “If you don’t drink, it invalidates the toast.”
“That’s a myth,” I said. “Same with actually touching the glasses. Not necessary.”
But I sipped. Then paused, struck by the amazing flavor—and the way the aromatic aspects rose up from the back of my tongue to engage the olfactory component again. Wow. I’d expected a harsh bite—like whatever that stuff had been that Ice mixed for us at graduation—but this practically evaporated on my palate. Like liquid gold. Amazing.
I opened my eyes to find Damien watching me with an intent expression, a pair of lines between his brows. “What?”
He lifted his glass to take another sip, shrugging as he did. “You’re a different kind of chick.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t get your claws out, Tigger. You just have this corporate America, schoolteacher vibe going, correcting me on the cultural implications of toasting with fucking fantastic whiskey, and then…” he trailed off, bright eyes going to my mouth.
I picked up a cocktail napkin and dabbed at my lips, leaving a few pink streaks behind. I never had refreshed my lipstick. Or fixed my face. I’d totally forgotten that I must look like a hag. Too late now. Defiantly I drank a little more of the delicious whiskey. “Then what?” I asked, bolstered.
He leaned in and whispered, his voice rough and intimate. “A sip of whiskey, and you looked like a woman having an orgasm. Were you?”