A vision of me announcing on the deck, at full volume, that I’d made a pass at Simon flashed across my mind, and while my cheeks certainly heated in embarrassment, I also had a mental chuckle at how odd I must have looked, arms flailing, mouth set as though I could spit nails. And then barking at frightened Simon to follow me to the beach. He must have wondered if I was going to thrash him and dump his body in the lake.
Looking at his hands on the steering wheel, the very hands that were on me in a very pronounced way the night before, I marveled at his ability to stop himself, because I know for a fact he had been in to it. Or his body had been, at least, if not his head.
The thing is, though, I did think his head was in it, at least until he thought about it too much. I glanced over at him once more, noticing we were pulling down our street. As we stopped at the curb, he looked over at me, biting down on the same lower lip that less than twenty-four hours ago I’d had the good fortune to be biting on.
He sprang from the car and ran around to my side before I even had my seatbelt unbuckled.
“Um, I’m just gonna…get the bags,” he stammered, and I studied him closely. He ran his left hand through his hair while his right drummed against the side of the car. Was he nervous?
“So, yeah,” he stammered again, disappearing around the back.
Yep, he was nervous, just as nervous as I was. He worried my bag out of the car, and we slogged up the three flights of stairs to our apartments. We were still not talking, so the only sound was our keys jangling in the locks. I couldn’t leave it like this. I had to square with him. I took a deep breath, and turned. “Simon, I—”
“Look, Caroline—”
We both laughed a little.
“You go.”
“No, you go,” he said.
“Nope. What were you gonna say?”
“What were you gonna say?”
“Hey, spit it out, bucko. I got a pu**y to rescue from two queens downstairs,” I instructed, hearing Clive call to me from the apartment below.
Simon snorted and leaned against his door. “I guess I just wanted to say I had a really great time this weekend.”
“Until last night, right?” I leaned against my own door, watching him flinch as I addressed the elephant in the hot tub.
“Caroline,” he breathed, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back.
He looked like he was in actual pain as his face twisted. I took pity. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
“Hey, can we just forget it happened?” I said. “I mean, I know we can’t, but can we pretend to forget it? I know people say things won’t get weird all the time, but then it always does. How can we make sure things don’t get weird?”
He opened his eyes and looked hard at me. “I guess we just don’t let it. We make sure it doesn’t get weird. Okay?”
“Okay.” I nodded and was rewarded with the first real smile I’d seen since I unwrapped my sweater back in Tahoe. He gathered up his bag.
“Play me something good tonight, ’kay?” I asked as I headed inside.
“You got it,” he answered, and we shut our doors.
But he didn’t play me big band that night.
And we didn’t speak again that week.
“Who peed in your chili?”
I looked up from my desk to see Jillian, composed as always with her casually elegant chignon, black pencil trousers, white silk blouse, and raspberry cashmere sweater wrap. How did I know it was cashmere from across the room? Because it was Jillian.
I selected one of the five pencils currently stuck in my twisted hair bun and returned my attention to the mess that was my desk. It was Wednesday, and this week was both flying by and dragging simultaneously. No word from Simon. No texts from Simon. No songs from Simon.
But I hadn’t reached out to him either.
I was consumed with finishing the last few details on the Nicholson house, ordering expensive knickknacks for James’s condo, and starting the sketches for a commercial design project I had lined up for next month. It looked like chaos, but sometimes it was the only way I could get work done. There were days that I needed neat and orderly, and days when I needed the mess on my desk to reflect the mess in my head. This was that day.
“What’s up, Jillian?” I barked, knocking over my cup of colored pencils as I grabbed for my coffee.
“How much coffee have you had today, Miss Caroline?” She laughed, taking the seat opposite me and handing me the pencils that had spilled on the floor.
“Hard to say…how many cups are in a pot and a half?” I answered, restacking some papers to clear a space for her teacup. The woman walked around drinking tea out of a bone china cup, but it worked for her.
“Wow, I take it you aren’t seeing any clients today?” she asked, leaning over the desk and casually removing my coffee cup. I hissed at her, and she wisely put it back.
“Nope, no clients,” I answered, shoving the new sketches into color-coordinated folders and stuffing them into their appropriate drawers.
“Okay, sister, what’s up?”
“What do you mean? I’m working—what you pay me to do, remember?” I snapped, grabbing for a ring of fabric swatches and knocking my flower vase over. I’d picked out dark purple, almost black tulips for this week, and they were now all over the floor. I sighed heavily and forced myself to slow down. My hands shook from the caffeine arguing through my system, and as I sat and surveyed the state of affairs in my office I felt two fat tears forming in my eyes.
“Damn,” I muttered and covered my face with my hands. I sat for a minute, listening to the tick of the retro clock on the wall, and waited for Jillian to say something. When she didn’t, I peeked through my hands at her. She was standing by the door with my jacket and purse in her hands.
“Are you throwing me out?” I whispered as the tears launched themselves down my face. She waved her arm and beckoned me toward the door. Grudgingly I stood, and she draped my sweater around my shoulders and handed me my purse.
“Come on, dearie. You’re buying me lunch.” She winked and pulled me down the hallway.
Twenty minutes later she had me ensconced in an ornate red booth hidden partially behind two gold curtains. She’d brought me to her favorite restaurant in Chinatown, ordered me chamomile tea, and waited in silence for me to explain my semi breakdown. Actually, it was not entirely silent; we’d ordered the sizzling rice soup.
“So, you must’ve had a helluva weekend in Tahoe, huh?” she finally asked.