Once Upon Stilettos

Isabel took the garnish off the rim of her glass and chewed on it, then said, “Well, if you don’t think Owen’s interested, I know someone else who might very well be.”



The others giggled, and I felt like they could use my face to direct ships in the harbor. We needed to move the topic of conversation over to someone else’s love life, pronto.



“Who might that be?” Ari mused.



“I think Rod has a teeny little crush on you himself,” Isabel told me.



“You have got to be kidding.” I wasn’t the sort of woman men had crushes on. The only way I ever met guys was by being set up on blind dates. It was inconceivable that I would have two men showing enough interest in me to stir up office gossip. Though, come to think of it, Rod had been eyeing me in his office earlier, and he had warned me off Owen, which was a possible sign of jealousy.



“He wears an illusion, doesn’t he?” Ari asked. “You see something totally different than we do when you look at him.”



“Ooh, what does he really look like?” Isabel asked, leaning forward across the table. Trix leaned closer, too.



Now that I knew the full impact of the difference between Rod’s reality and his illusion, I better understood their curiosity. Even though the illusion was undeniably attractive, I preferred the reality, simply because it was real. He didn’t look like Rod to me when I could see the illusion. “He’s not that bad, really,” I said, feeling mean for talking about him behind his back. “He’s not particularly handsome, but he has the kind of face that’s really affected by his personality, so he can be pretty cute when he smiles. He’d be better off if he quit hiding behind that illusion and made some effort to work with what he’s got.” I shrugged. “I don’t like artifice that much.” Alarmed at the looks on their faces, I hurried to add, “And don’t you dare tell him I said so.”



“But maybe you should tell him,” Trix said. “For his own good.”



“Maybe when I get to know him better.”



Isabel shook her head. “He’ll never drop that illusion. From what I hear, he’s been doing that ever since his teens. I guess he was competing with Owen, but it’s not as though Owen was any competition. Rod always gets the girls.”



“That’s because you have to ask them in the first place to get them,” Ari said. “Owen doesn’t even manage to catch the ones that throw themselves at him.”



“Someone sounds bitter,” Isabel said, raising an eyebrow.



Ari appeared flustered, for perhaps the first time since I’d met her. She recovered quickly. “Hey, can you blame me for trying? I mean, look at him. At least I can say I tried, unlike everyone else in the company.” She cast a sly, sidelong glance at me. “Well, except maybe for Katie. We’ll have to see how that sweet, innocent, ‘let’s-just-be-friends’ strategy works.”



“It’s not a strategy,” I insisted. To change the subject, I grabbed the dessert menu from the middle of the table. “So does anyone else need chocolate?”



I was ready to go home after dessert, but Ari insisted we had to go to this new club. She led us to what looked to me like a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t even a sign, which she said meant it was truly hot. You had to be in the know to even be aware that it was a club. It looked like a lot of people were in the know, for a line snaked around the building. As we passed the head of the line, I noticed that for every person the imposing man at the door let in, he turned at least three away. Ari and Trix might get in on the force of cuteness. Isabel could work some mojo on him. I, however, didn’t stand a chance. I didn’t look forward to waiting in line, only to be humiliated.



The line moved quickly—probably because the doorman was able to dismiss most of them with a glance—so we didn’t have to wait long in the cold before it was our turn. I hid in the back of the group, behind Isabel, hoping I wouldn’t hurt my friends’ chances of getting in. Hip New York nightclubs weren’t known for their fondness for the ordinary.



I was almost relieved when the doorman shook his head at Trix and Ari. That meant I hadn’t been singled out for my lack of cool, and maybe we could find somewhere else to go. I stepped out from behind Isabel to join the others. The doorman looked at me, did a double take, and then offered me what might pass for a warm smile in big, burly bouncer world. He asked, “Are these people with you?”



I looked behind me to make sure he wasn’t talking to somebody else, then turned back to him and said, “We’re all together. Why?”