Second Hearts

  I was painfully aware of Fiona Décarie’s feelings toward me. I was her vagrant-pauper-trollop-minx nightmare. I had no idea what her husband’s take on it was. Jean-Luc had hardly rated a mention.

  I was standing near the information station when they arrived. Taylor showed them to their seats. Both of them thanked her, giving me slight hope that they weren’t completely tyrannical.

  Bente sidled up, handed me two menus and mercilessly told me to get on with it. “What are you, Charli?” she whispered. “A man or a mouse?” I was about to claim mouse status when she pushed me in the back, sending me stumbling forward.

  I smoothed my hair, drew in a long breath and approached their table. “Hello.” My mouth was so dry it felt like I was chewing on sand. “My name is... Charli. You’re Adam’s parents?” I wanted to slap myself for asking such an obtuse question.

  “Charli?” asked Jean-Luc, frowning slightly. I nodded, too worried about what I might say if I answered out loud. Jean-Luc stood up, leaned forward and kissed both of my cheeks. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

  Utter relief washed over me. Perhaps I was going to live through it after all.

  “Please, sit down for a moment,” said Fiona, smiling. “It would be lovely to chat for a while.”

  I did as she asked because I was too scared not to. Ryan had warned me about the sweet façade she’d display in my presence. It was a front she maintained to a T.

  Adam’s parents knew rather a lot about me. I had been under the impression that I was some dirty little secret, an indiscretion of Adam’s that wasn’t supposed to last longer than his Australian vacation. “Isn’t it remarkable how people find their way back to those they love?” asked Fiona, making me sound like a lost puppy.

  I nodded but didn’t answer, fearful of saying something sarcastic and rude.

  Jean-Luc asked what our plans were. I had no answer for him either. We hadn’t discussed the finer details. “Don’t put her on the spot, darling,” said Fiona, placing her hand on his. “She’s only just arrived.”

  I was thankful for the reprieve. Jean-Luc flashed the very familiar Décarie grin and I smiled back, not sure what my expression was exposing. My verbal skills weren’t exposing much at all – except that I was socially inept.

  It was a terrible impression to make on a New York social butterfly. I could see it in Fiona’s flawlessly made-up sapphire eyes. She thought I was little more than a moth from Pipers Cove.

  Jean-Luc was a little more forgiving. He asked many questions about my travels, seeming genuinely interested. Anything to do with my time away from home was easy to talk about. Conversation flowed freely, until his phone rang and he excused himself from the table.

  I had trouble maintaining eye contact with the queen once he’d gone. She obviously didn’t. She glared at me.

  “It’s a frightful situation when the so-called love of my son’s life is waiting tables in his restaurant.” Her tone was ice-cold.

  “It’s important to me that I pay my own way,” I told her.

  “You understand that my sons lead very privileged lives, don’t you?” I nodded. “It’s a life we enjoy. If Adam chooses to lower his standards and slum it for a while I’m prepared to humour him. But you must understand something, Charli….”

  “And what might that be?” I asked, matching her refined vernacular – just to prove that I could.

  “You’re a temporary fixture in his life.”

  I forced myself to look at her. “You’re going to make sure of that, aren’t you?”

  She sneered, but spoke gently, the way Kinsey had when she thought she had the upper hand. “If it’s the last thing I do.”

  Jean-Luc returned to the table, unaware of the nasty turn to the conversation. “Sorry about that. Where were we?”

  I stood up. “I was just leaving,” I said, smiling as normally as I could. “I have to get back to work.”

  “I must say, Charli, I find it admirable that you’ve taken a job. Being self reliant is a remarkable attribute,” praised Jean-Luc.

  “Thank you. It was lovely meeting you both.” I darted my eyes between the two of them, hoping Jean-Luc wouldn’t see through me and Fiona wouldn’t have the chutzpah to call me on my obvious lie. “I hope to see you again soon.”

  “Of course,” beamed Fiona, so artificially that I wanted to gag. “Adam has invited you to dinner on Christmas Day, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes. I’m looking forward to it,” I lied, backing away from the table.

  Bente jumped me the second I was out of earshot. “Well?” she demanded.

  I let go of my rigid expression. “Kill me now,” I whispered, dangerously close to tears.

  I didn’t object when Bente suggested I take an early mark. I doubt it had anything to do with feeling sorry for me. I was a subpar waitress at the best of times. When I was hiding out in the cloakroom I was positively useless.

  “Look, just go out the kitchen door,” she urged. “You won’t even have to face them.”

  I took her advice, ghosting out the back door without raising the attention of a single person in the kitchen.

  Adam didn’t ask me why I was home early. He just took it as a windfall. I didn’t feel the need to fill him in on the night’s events at that moment. Just being in the same room as him somehow dulled the horror.

  He kissed the top of my head. “Hungry?”

  “Starving,” I replied, shrugging off my coat.

  He began patting himself down, searching for the pocket that held his phone. “I’ll order pizza.”

  I used the time to remove all traces of Nellie’s. I unclipped my hair, untucked my shirt and kicked off my shoes. Our new black couches were almost as comfortable as our bed. Sinking into the soft suede cushions made staying awake difficult.

  “Dinner should be here soon,” said Adam, snatching me from the brink of sleep. He lifted my feet and sat beside me, repositioning my legs across his lap. “Are you tired?”

  I couldn’t really claim to be tired. My hard night had nothing to do with being run off my feet; my exhaustion was more to do with the emotional beating I’d taken at the hands of his mother.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “I heard you had a busy night.” His expression remained flat but I could hear the amusement in his voice.

  “You heard wrong.”

  “I thought meeting Whitney, Kinsey and my parents would have made for a very busy night.”

  I lifted my head, trying to gauge his expression, but his face gave nothing away. “How did you know?”

  “Mom called me.”

  Perfect. I should have known she’d get in first. Thinking of all the horrible things she could have said was more torturous than playing the actual conversation back in my head.

  “What did she say?”

  “She apologised. She told me you were an absolute delight and she was sorry that she’d jumped to conclusions before meeting you.”

  Nothing about him was dishonest. I had to believe that he was telling me the truth as he knew it.

  “That was very sporting of her,” I muttered.

  Adam leaned across, stroking his hand down the length of my hair. “She wasn’t too proud to admit she was wrong, Charli. I think you should give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  I wanted to slate him for his gullibility. But I didn’t. I smiled, giving the impression that all was forgiven. “I can do that, for you,” I assured. “But you should probably know something…”

  He looked worried. “What?”

  “Kinsey Ballantyne is always going to be fair game. She gets nothing but the benefit of my bitchiness.”

  He threw his head back in a rush of relieved laughter.

  “Silly preppy girls,” I grumbled. “They’re so easy to spot,”

  “Really? How?”

  “I have a theory. It’s all in the name. A name ending with ee automatically lowers your intelligence. Whit-ney, Kin-sey – “

  “Char-li,” he volunte
ered.

  “I didn’t say it was a perfect theory.”

  Anything he was about to tease me with next was halted by a knock at the door. Adam jumped off the couch to answer it while I headed in to the kitchen to get some plates.

  Colin, the delivery guy, had undoubtedly made a killing during the Décarie brothers' game of furniture ping-pong. A quick search through my now full kitchen cupboards led me to think he’d earned every cent. Along with cutlery, crockery and appliances, he’d managed to box up napkins, dishwashing soap and some matchboxes from a downtown club. I spent a long moment taking it all in, wondering which item Ryan would miss the most. I decided it would be the matchbox from The Renoir Club. On the back was a girl’s name and phone number. I sniggered when I read it. Her name was Kat-ie.

  ***

  I was more than content with pizza for dinner, but Adam felt the need to apologise. We sat on the floor side by side, our backs against the couch, using the coffee table as a makeshift dining table.

  “If I’d known you’d be home for dinner, I would have attempted something more complicated than pizza,” he told me, brushing crumbs off his hands.

  I bumped my shoulder against his arm. “Don’t sell yourself short, Adam. Pizza is a very complex meal.”

  He twisted his upper body to look at me. “How do you figure that?”

  I dropped my half-eaten slice back in the box. “Well, it’s a round meal, cut into triangles and served in a square box. You’d need to be a Columbia law student to understand that level of complexity.”

  A slow smile crept across his gorgeous face. “Do you think it’s possible to be in love with someone’s mind?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “I’m in love with your mind, Charlotte.” He announced it grimly, as if it was a terrible affliction.

  “Damn,” I sighed. “I was kind of hoping it was my body you were in love with.”

  Dinner was effectively over.

  15. The Purple Circle

  Kinsey Ballantyne was turning into a major thorn in my side.

  After our run in the night before, I wasn’t expecting to see her at Nellie’s again any time soon. Any normal person would have been embarrassed by her failed attempt at getting me fired. But Kinsey wasn’t normal. She was resourceful. Rather than staying away, she brought reinforcements.

  As usual, I relied on Bente for the lowdown. They were her pets, after all.

  “Well, you know Whitney and Kinsey,” she said, pointing at them with a limp wrist.

  “Who’s the other girl?”

  The willowy brunette would probably have been quite attractive if she smiled. In the ten minutes since they’d been seated, I hadn’t seen her sullen expression change.

  “Seraphina Sawyer,” she announced poshly. “They call her Sera. She’s seriously rich.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “Yes, I suppose that is a prerequisite. But Sera’s harmless. She’s very quiet.” We busied ourselves folding napkins, giving us an excuse to linger at the information station. “The guy next to her is Jeremy, her boyfriend – again, quiet and non-venomous.”

  “And the other guy is Kinsey’s boyfriend,” I guessed.

  “Parker. He’s a mixed bag – super polite, huge tipper.” She winked at me. “But he’s Kinsey’s boyfriend. That makes him a tool.”

  I had to agree with her. He had to be somehow lacking. No one in his right mind would voluntarily pair up with Kinsey.

  Bente told me his full name was Harvey Parker. Dropping his given name in favour of a one-word-rock-star title made sense. If anyone knew the frustration of having an antiquated, ill-fitting name, it was me. And Harvey was a million times worse than Charlotte.

  I studied Parker a little more closely. Bente was putting faces to names for me: Adam had very vaguely broken down his group of friends while we were discussing my run-in with Kinsey.

  Like Adam, Parker was a disgustingly wealthy second-year law student at Columbia. The similarities ended there. He was fairly average looking – neither attractive nor ugly. His dark brown hair was short and neat. His khaki chinos were pressed and neat. His navy blue V-necked pullover was preppy and neat.

  Parker was neat. That was the only conclusion I could draw by looking at him. Finding out whether he was as void as his girlfriend would involve talking to him.

  “I’ve got Kinsey’s table,” I told Bente.

  Instantly, she giggled. “So you’re up for round two already?”

  “It keeps things interesting.”

  “Well, things are about to get a whole lot more interesting, Charli.” My eyes followed as she pointed toward the door. “Your frog just walked in.”

  I wasn’t expecting Adam at the restaurant that night. Apparently his friends weren’t either. Kinsey spotted him first. She stood and called out his name, waving him over. He motioned to her with one hand, telling her to wait a minute.

  Adam hadn’t spent enough time at Nellie’s to become acquainted with the information station. It seemed a long moment before he finally spotted me.

  “Charli,” he said smoothly as he approached.

  “Adam,” I replied, muting my smile to avoid prying eyes. “I’m working. I get off at eleven.”

  He leaned forward, whispering his words. “Bail. Come home with me.”

  “I get off at eleven,” I repeated, looking past him as I spoke.

  “Fine, I’ll wait.”

  I gave him a half smile that I knew would’ve looked odd. It was the best I could do considering five pairs of eyes were boring into me and Bente was hanging on every word.

  Adam walked over to his friends and sat down at the only spare place at the table – next to Whitney.

  “Yup, very interesting,” Bente whispered before dissolving into a fit of maniacal giggles.

  The purple circle welcomed Adam back to the fold as if he were some long-lost friend they hadn’t seen in years. Maybe a week felt like a year in New York time. Kinsey demanded to know where he’d been and what he’d been up to. Adam ignored her.

  “Nice of you to show up,” said Parker.

  He probably had good reason to sound miffed. I can remember Nicole adopting the same standoffish demeanour when I deserted her for Adam. Of course, she got her own back when she deserted me permanently a few months later.

  Adam smiled. “It hasn’t been that long.”

  “You don’t have to avoid me, Adam,” griped Whitney. “We’re grown-ups.”

  Bente giggled and I purposely stepped on her toe. She swiped at me and knocked the stack of napkins we’d folded on to the floor.

  “Great,” I whispered. “Now we’re going to have to fold them again.”

  She scooped them into a messy heap and dumped them on the buffet. “Exactly. It gives us an excuse to stand here. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  Bente was right –the conversation at table four was going to make a great show. It was the first time Adam and dim Whit had been in the same room since he’d dumped her.

  “I’m not avoiding you, Whit,” insisted Adam, barely casting a glance in her direction.

  “Of course he’s not,” soothed Kinsey, reaching across to pat Whitney’s hand. “He probably just needed time to think.”

  Adam cut her down instantly. “There’s nothing wrong with my thought processes. I’ve just been busy.”

  Whitney’s head dropped and I prayed she wasn’t about to cry. That would have been tragic. Perhaps Jeremy sensed an impending meltdown too, because he jumped in. “Well, wherever you’ve been, it’s good to have you back, man.”

  “Yes,” added Sera charging her glass. “We’ve missed you.”

  “Not as much as dim Whit has,” mumbled Bente, quickly stepping to the side to avoid another toe stomping.

  Unlike Adam, Ryan was acquainted with the information station. He sidled up behind us. “Don’t you get tired of all the cloak and dagger, Charlotte?” he whispered from behind. “Why don’t you just go over there and intro
duce yourself to your predecessor?”

  I spun around. “How would finding out about me do anything other than make things worse?”

  “Why are you worried about her feelings? He got tired of her long before you arrived. He has a right to move on.”

  “And Ryan should know,” teased Bente. “He just described his whole relationship philosophy.”

  He pulled a face at her and she matched it with one of her own.

  “Stop it, children.” I walked away. Offering to wait on Adam’s table was completely self-serving. Not wanting them to know anything about me didn’t stop me being curious about them.

  A disgusted groan escaped Kinsey before I’d even made it to their table. “This is the girl I was telling you about,” she huffed to no one in particular. I took it to mean she’d told everyone at the table about our run-in. I stood clutching my notebook against my chest like a shield as her minions studied me.

  “How are you this evening?” asked Parker, stealing my best waitress greeting.

  “In fine form, thank you for asking,” I replied.

  Parker shot a smirk at Jeremy and Adam. Both of them looked to the table, unsuccessfully hiding their amusement.

  The only venom seemed to be coming from Kinsey. Sera and Whitney stared blankly at me, but Kinsey looked as if she was about to scratch my eyes out. “I want someone else to serve us,” she demanded.

  I turned my head from left to right, pretending to search for someone to accommodate her. “Nope. Not tonight. It’s looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  Jeremy laughed out loud and Sera nudged him in the side to shut him up.

  “Adam,” Kinsey began. “She’s hopeless. I can’t believe you’re putting up with this.”

  Adam shrugged but said nothing.

  I tapped my pen on my notebook. “Look, I’m pretty busy, so if you want to order something, now would be the time.”

  “See what I mean?” Kinsey spoke as if I was invisible. “She’s rude.”