I swallowed and looked to him. “That sounds doable.”
He grinned.
My phone in my purse rang.
I let it and continued eating.
It kept ringing.
“You gonna get that?”
I looked back to Jake and answered, “No. It’s rude to answer the phone during a meal or in someone’s company.”
He grinned again and said, “Babe, don’t mind and we’re not at a meal. We’re at The Shack.”
I wasn’t certain about the distinction but our conversation turned moot when my phone stopped ringing.
I took another bite of omelet.
My phone started ringing again.
I felt my brows draw together.
“Babe, get it. Like I said, don’t mind and someone obviously wants you,” Jake urged.
I nodded, set aside my cutlery that was so light I was worried the breeze would sweep it away (so I tucked it as best I could under what remained of my omelet) and reached to my purse.
I got my phone and the display informed me the caller was Henry.
I looked to Jake and said, “My apologies, Jake. It’s Henry. Something might be wrong.”
His face changed minutely, going slightly blank but more noncommittal and he jerked up his chin in what I was deducing was his telling me I should take the call.
I took it and put the phone to my ear, greeting, “Henry.”
“What the f**k?”
I blinked at the table because Henry had never said this to me, nor had he ever spoken in that tone. Or at least, with the last, not to me.
“I…pardon?” I asked.
“What the f**k, Josephine?”
What on earth?
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes, something’s wrong. You haven’t called in two days.”
Oh dear. I actually hadn’t.
“Henry—”
“Worried about you Josephine. Told you to keep in touch, check in, let me know you’re all right.”
“You were traveling to Rome yesterday,” I reminded him.
“Yes, and that flight’s long but it doesn’t take a year. And you know my schedule, Josephine. You know when I left, you know when I landed, and you know when I turn my phone off and on for a flight.”
I did. He waited until the last second to turn it off and he turned it on the instant he could when we’d land.
“I’m sorry, Henry. Things have been somewhat…strange here.”
“Strange how?” he asked immediately.
I sat back and trained my eyes to my lap. “Strange in a variety of ways. None of which I can get into right now because I’m at breakfast with Jake and then I have to go over to the Weavers. But I’ll call you later and explain.”
“Jake?”
“Yes. Jake.”
“Who’s Jake?”
“A friend of Gran’s.”
“Have I met him?”
Henry had been to Magdalene with me frequently and met a number of Gran’s friends and acquaintances.
But I was relatively certain he had not met Jake.
“I don’t think so,” I answered.
“He one of her bridge cronies?”
The thought of Jake playing bridge with Gran’s cronies, none of whom was under seventy years of age, made me smile at my lap.
“No.”
“Then who is he, Josephine?”
I vaguely wondered why he was so determined to know.
I didn’t ask that.
I said, “It’s a long story, Henry, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to tell it to you right now. I’m sitting outside on the wharf and my omelet is getting cold. It’s delicious and I’d like to enjoy it while it’s warm. Not to mention, Jake’s sitting right here and it’s rude to chat on the phone when I’m in company.”
This was met with silence and this lasted quite some time.
“Henry? Have I lost you?” I called into the silence.
“No, you haven’t lost me,” he answered. “You’re on the wharf eating an omelet?”
“A rather delicious one,” I shared.
He said nothing.
“Henry?” I called.
“Phone me when you get a chance,” he ordered oddly tersely. “I don’t care how late it is here. Just call. I’m concerned. You’re coping with a great deal and you’re on your own.”
That was proof Jake was wrong. Henry was irate because he was concerned about me. Yes, he was my employer, but he also cared.
However, Henry was wrong too. I wasn’t on my own.
Jake was with me.
This caused that warmth to return even if all around me was cold but I ignored that and assured Henry, “I’ll phone.”
“And I’m telling Daniel to cancel Paris.”
I blinked at my lap then looked up to the boats bobbing along the wharf. “You can’t do that.”
“I can, Josephine, and I’m going to.”
“But, it’s a video shoot that took months to set up,” I reminded him.
“They’ll have to find another director,” he told me.
“Dee-Amond only works with you,” I continued recounting things he knew.
And Dee-Amond did only work with Henry and had only worked with Henry for the last seventeen years.
He was a renowned hip-hop artist who’d started his own fashion line, which was remarkable and thus quite successful. Henry did all his work on Amond’s music videos and his fashion shoots.
Amond was also a very handsome, though somewhat frightening black man, who had, in his early days, beat a number of what he called “raps,” the charges being rather violent.
He’d since settled and he could be very charming. This was why I spent a particularly enjoyable night with him after a party that we attended after the VMAs seven years prior. After that, he’d asked me to join his “posse” but I’d refused, with some hesitation (this was because he was very charming, and as I’d mentioned, also very handsome and our night had been just that enjoyable).
But I could never leave Henry.
Then again, there was also the small fact I was not a woman who would be comfortable as a member of a “posse.”
Henry never knew, of course. I was always, without fail, discreet and fortunately Amond was too.
“Then he’ll have to reschedule when we can both do it,” Henry replied.
“Henry, I hardly need to be—”
He interrupted me. “Are you going to meet me in Paris?”
I hesitated, looked back to my lap and whispered, “Things are such that that’s unlikely.”