The Smart One and the Pretty One

  “All right,” she said, and took her cell phone out of her purse, but the guys were now scuffling, grabbing at each other’s arms, and the joke was lost on them. She stuck the phone back in her purse. She could have just taken her regular big handbag and saved herself the trouble of switching, she thought, snapping the fancy one closed with a sigh. The pretty little glittery clutch was completely out of place at Wahoo’s Fish Taco.

  Daniel came back to the table but didn’t sit down. “I should go,” he said, with a flick of his hand toward the exit.

  Lauren stood up. “Is your mom all right?”

  “I don’t know—that wasn’t her, and I’m worried if I call I’ll wake her up. Her sleep’s gotten pretty erratic lately. But I should get back and check on her.” He reached for her plate and hesitated. “Are you done?”

  “Yeah. But are you?” He still had more than half a burrito left.

  “Done enough,” he said and picked up both their plates. He dumped them in the trash can on their way out the door.

  Daniel surprised Lauren by saying the last thing she expected him to say as he pulled up in front of her apartment building: an amiable and somewhat clichéd “Thanks. This was fun.”

  “No offense,” Lauren said, “but you didn’t actually look like you were having fun.”

  “Really? I was enjoying myself.”

  “Enjoyment looks different on you than it does on most people.”

  “I’m not a big smiler these days,” he said.

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “So are you saying you didn’t have fun?”

  She considered for a moment. “No, it was okay,” she said. “You’re not bad company.” She hadn’t been bored, she realized, and not just because the evening was short. There was a challenge in Daniel’s company that intrigued her. Usually, men were so easy to please. “You could open up a little more, though. It’s like pulling teeth getting you to talk about anything personal.”

  Daniel considered. “That’s fair.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I try to be fair.” She let her hand drop and turned back toward him, ducking her head slightly to the side so she could look at him through her eyelashes. “I guess it’s good night then,” she said, letting him know by her posture that she was in no rush.

  He swiveled in his seat and leaned back against his door. The meaning of his posture was a lot less clear than hers: he was now facing her but had actually distanced himself an extra few inches. “Should we try this again another night?” he said.

  “Do you want to?” she said. “Because I can’t tell.”

  “Yes.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “I’m sorry if I’m—” He let out a deep breath. “Look, I know I’ve been a little weird. It’s just—this isn’t my life. This is a break from my life. And the reason I’m here in L.A. in the first place is because I’m worried about my mother, so I can’t just stop worrying about her because I’m going out to dinner. If I were back home and my life were back in place and my mother was healthy, then I’d—” He stopped again.

  “You’d what?”

  He sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I don’t know. It’s just a different life here for me and I don’t always know what to make of it.”

  “It’s not like you’re from another planet,” Lauren said. “Our dating customs in L.A. are fairly similar to those in New York. Except there’s a lot less swearing at cabdrivers.”

  He laughed briefly and then there was a pause. He shifted and she thought, He’s going to kiss me now.

  But he didn’t. Instead he faced forward in his seat again and gripped the steering wheel. “We’ll be at the hospital on Tuesday afternoon. Any chance you’ll be there too, so we can play some more cards? Maybe place bets on whose mother’s IV bag empties first?”

  “Sounds like fun. I’ll try to be there around the usual time.” Her hand found its way to the door handle. “I hope your mother has an okay night tonight,” she said as she opened the door.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Good-bye.”

  She had stepped out of the car when she heard him say, “Lauren?”

  She leaned back in hopefully. “What?”

  He seemed to be about to say something, but then he stopped and shook his head again. “Nothing. Just . . . thanks for having dinner with me. Good night.”

  “Good night,” she said. She stood another moment, waiting, but he didn’t say anything else, so she pushed the door and it swung shut.

  He drove off quickly, not waiting to make sure she got in safely. Lauren unlocked the front door to the building, biting her lip as she tried to figure out what exactly the story was with the guy. There was mutual attraction—that much she knew instinctively. And a fair amount of mutual wariness as well, which, she had learned from past experience, not only didn’t dampen attraction, but often had a perverse way of increasing it. So why did she have the distinct sense that Daniel was pulling back, holding himself in check? She certainly wasn’t asking anything more from him than a good time, but even that he seemed to begrudge her. And himself.

  She strode briskly across the lobby. But then he had told her what the problem was, hadn’t he? He was too worried about his mother to let himself have fun. Which was probably counterproductive: if his mother was anything like her own, she probably just wanted Daniel to be happy and would actually feel better knowing he had a reason to go out now and then, something fun in his life to balance out all the sick care. Hadn’t he said she wanted him to go out tonight?

  Lauren decided she would just have to work a little harder to help Daniel overcome the guilt and responsibility that were weighing him down and keeping him from pursuing anything more serious with her.

  And that made her wonder.

  If she had bought that beautiful silk turquoise top the other day . . . Daniel had been right on the edge of giving in to her tonight—she could feel it—and maybe that top would have made the difference. Maybe, if she had bought and worn it and shone with the confidence of knowing she looked as good as she could look—which was pretty damn good—well, maybe she wouldn’t be going up to the apartment alone right now.

  The next date she had with Daniel—assuming there was one—she had to at least give that top a chance, see if that gave her an edge that pushed him over his edge. Otherwise, she would never know for sure whether or not it might have made a difference, and a thought like that could plague you for the rest of your life.

  Some things, Lauren thought as she punched at the elevator button with more force than was warranted, were more important than stupid homemade contracts forced on you by interfering sisters with no fashion sense.

  Chapter 11

  Russell insisted on paying for dinner. He said he owed her a meal since her family had had him over to brunch, and even though Ava pressed her charge card on him, he wouldn’t take it. She tucked her card away again in her wallet, thinking of Lauren and her “the guy always pays for dinner,” but she reminded herself again that this wasn’t a date and that Russell had given her a logical reason why he should pay.

  They walked out into the mall and headed toward the escalator that would take them back up to the cinema.

  “Hey, wait,” Ava said, touching Russell’s arm. She pointed. “Isn’t that your company’s store?” She had passed it a million times without thinking about it, but suddenly the sign that said “Evoque Knits” had meaning.

  “One of them, yeah.” They drifted over to stand in front. “We mostly sell through department stores, but we have a few shops, more to increase visibility and name recognition than anything else. They don’t turn a profit.” He studied the window. “What do you think of the display?”

  “Nice,” she said with a shrug. She didn’t really know what she thought of it. There were four headless mannequins arranged in various outfits all in the same brown and green color scheme. “I like that dress on the right,” she added, feeling like she should sound more enthusiastic.

  “Yeah, it’s nice, isn?
??t it?” he said. “Part of the more youthful trend—see how the neckline’s low and the skirt’s fairly short? That’s all new.” He glanced sideways at her, then back at the mannequin. “It would look good on you.”

  She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “I don’t know. It’s not really my kind of thing.” It was a very revealing dress and looked like it would cling embarrassingly. Not her kind of thing at all.

  “I assume this is?” He gestured at her current outfit.

  “More or less,” she said stiffly. As usual, she had dressed to look respectable in something she had ordered online at a price that was reasonable in colors that were serviceable and a cut that was unobjectionable. Today it was a light blue woman’s oxford shirt over a black linen skirt that was, Ava realized as she now glanced down at herself, noticeably wrinkled after the day’s wear. They don’t show you that in the catalogue, she thought with a slightly tipsy sense of self-righteous indignation.

  Russell studied her for a moment. “You could do better.”

  She felt herself flush. “Thanks.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that or that,” he said, indicating the skirt and top in turn. “There’s just nothing right about them.”

  “You sound like Lauren. She’s always telling me I should be more fashionable.”

  “Why aren’t you? More fashionable?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t see the point, I guess. It feels like a waste of time to me.”

  “You prepare for meetings, right?” Russell said. “Write yourself some notes, read through the materials, think of the arguments you’re going to make ahead of time?”

  “Of course.”

  “So why not prepare yourself in the same way? Put a little effort in ahead of time, so all day long you feel confident and prepared and ready to impress people?”

  “I’m not going out in rags,” she said. “You make it sound like I’m running around town looking like Pigpen or something.” She gestured toward herself. “This isn’t scaring people off.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “You look fine. Acceptable. It’s just that you’re young and pretty and you have a great figure and—”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “I don’t know.” She wriggled irritably. “This conversation is annoying me. Can we just go see the movie?”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a surprise. Come on.” He turned around and headed back, not toward the escalator anymore, but across the mall.

  Ava had to move quickly to keep up with him. She said, “The last time someone surprised me was when Lauren brought me to that restaurant to have dinner with you and your friends.”

  “That didn’t turn out so badly, did it?”

  She was tempted to tell him how miserable she had been all evening but refrained. “I just don’t like surprises.”

  “You are the least girly girl I’ve ever met,” Russell said, still walking briskly, forcing her to match his pace. “You don’t like surprises, you don’t like being fashionable, you don’t like compliments, you don’t like to talk about yourself—”

  “Well, it all evens out,” she said, slightly crossly. “You’re the girliest man I ever met. You like all those things.”

  “You know,” Russell said, pulling her onto another escalator with him, one that was going down into the parking level, “some men would be insulted by that.”

  “But not you?”

  “I’m going to change your tone,” he said. “Just you wait. You’re going to thank me when the evening is over, Nickerson.” They got off the escalator and he took her by the hand and led her to his car. Ava hadn’t held hands with a guy in over a year and liked the feel of his fingers, which were warm and dry—but from the absent way he was steering her, she suspected the hand-holding was a practical rather than romantic gesture.

  “Are you okay to drive?” she asked as they got settled in his car.

  “We’re not going far,” he said, which didn’t exactly answer her question.

  But they made it safely out of the garage onto Constellation Boulevard and then down to Olympic, which they took into Beverly Hills. A few blocks up, Russell drove down into another parking garage, one where he had to punch a code into a keypad to open the gate. The garage was empty except for a couple of cars and a security guard sitting near the elevator who narrowed his eyes suspiciously at them until Russell flashed him the ID in his wallet. Then the security guard got up and stuck a key into the elevator button plate, and the elevator door opened. He gestured them inside.

  “Wow,” Ava said when they were in the elevator. “High-level security.”

  “Well, it’s ten o’clock at night,” Russell said. “Not exactly prime office hours.”

  “So this is where you work?”

  “Yep.” He punched the button for the seventh floor.

  “You’re not on the top floor?” Ava said. “I would have expected the managing director to get the best view.”

  “My office is on the top floor,” Russell said calmly. “We’re not going to my office.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “You don’t understand the concept of being surprised, do you?”

  “I understand it conceptually,” she said. “I just don’t see the appeal.”

  “Get out,” he said, shoving her gently as the elevator doors opened.

  They emerged into a small foyer. There was one door in front of them. Russell pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “It’s good to be the boss,” he said. He selected a key and unlocked the door, then gestured her inside.

  “Well?” he said once they had both entered and he had flicked a long row of light switches to their on positions.

  Ava looked around the now brightly lit room. “It’s the world’s biggest closet,” she said. They were in a single large, industrial-looking room that was easily twice the size of her entire apartment, surrounded by racks of clothing and boxes of clothing and piles of clothing and even a semicircle of fierce mannequins wearing clothing. There was also an old velvet sofa and some matching chairs, presumably so one could just sit and stare at the clothing.

  “We call it the Walk-In,” Russell said.

  “Cute.” Ava wandered a few steps. She brushed her hand along a rack of dark blue skirts and looked back over her shoulder at Russell. “Is this where clothes come to die?”

  “More like where they come before they’ve been born,” he said. “Although I don’t know how often things get thrown out, so if you made your way to the back, you’d probably find some pretty ancient items. Up here, though, it’s samples from the upcoming seasons and from some of the current lines too.”

  “Is it your warehouse?”

  “God, no. That’s a thousand times bigger. And in New Jersey.”

  She bent down to stir a crate of silk scarves with her index finger. “So what do you use this for?”

  “Different things. Publicity mostly—advertising layouts and magazine photo shoots and to show fashion writers what’s coming next. We suits like to look through it now and then to remind ourselves what we’re doing, compare our lines to what other companies are showing, check out how well we anticipated the trends and colors. And sometimes”—he sidled up to her and whispered in her ear—“sometimes we steal pieces to give to our friends who are in desperate need of wardrobe improvement.”

  “You wouldn’t be talking about me now, would you?”

  “Yep.” He swept his arm in a big semicircle. “Look it over. What would you like?”

  “I don’t know.” She glanced around the room briefly and gave a shrug. “It’s all very nice, but I really don’t need anything. Despite what you may think.”

  Russell groaned. “You’re insane,” he said. “Any other girl in the world—whatever the size of her wardrobe—would be running around this place like crazy, grabbing every piece
in sight. Can you imagine Lauren in here? There’d be nothing left after she got through.”

  “She would love it,” Ava agreed. “It’s too bad she’s not the one here right now. But I’m not like her. I don’t get my thrills from shopping. I don’t even enjoy it.”

  “Come on,” Russell said. “This is fun. This is kid in a candy store time.”

  “Think of me as a kid with diabetes.”

  “I’m not letting you leave without picking something out.”

  “Fine. If it’ll make you happy and get us out of here, I’ll take a scarf.” She bent over the box again and pulled out a large square of a patterned blue and dark orange silk. “This is nice.”

  “No, no, no,” Russell said and tried to snatch the scarf away.

  She pulled it back, out of his reach. “What? It’s pretty.” She figured she’d hang it on the back of a chair. It would dress up her apartment.

  “Scarves are for women whose necks give away their age. Or for Frenchwomen who really know how to wear them.” He crossed his arms. “You’re definitely not old. Are you French?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Repeat after me: Après moi le deluge.”

  “Après moi le deluge,” she repeated in her execrable high school French.

  “Nope—you’re definitely not French. Give me back the scarf.” She surrendered it to him, and he dropped it back in the box. “Just hold on.” He darted down a little alleyway between two racks and after a minute of rustling and clanging hangers, emerged triumphantly with a dark green dress like the one they had seen in the store window. “I know you like this—you already told me so.”

  “I said it was pretty. On the mannequin. But it’s not the kind of thing I wear.”

  “Just try it on,” he said. “I think it will look great on you. It’s perfect for your coloring, and since you’re pretty small, the sample size should work. But it’s hard to tell without actually seeing it on you.”