Cathy doesn’t respond. She’s not even looking at me. She’s staring at the driver with a dreamy look in her eyes. I’ve seen that look before. She’s in love.
“Him?” I want to ask but I keep my mouth shut. He might not be my type but he’s clearly hers.
She sighs as he closes the door on us. A few seconds later we’re setting off into traffic. “How’s a man like you end up working as a driver?” she asks. “Shouldn’t you be in a gym or on a catwalk or something?”
I sit back and dig out my phone. She’ll be flirting with him for a while.
I pretend to crush candy while I observe her technique. It’s disturbingly effortless. She’s already deep in conversation with him and it seems to have taken no more than a couple of minutes. She knows his name, she’s got his number, and she’s on the cusp of organizing a date. Not once has she said anything dumb or inappropriate.
I get a flash of jealousy. Before now, I didn’t really notice or care how she handled men. Now I’m hungry to learn what you’re supposed to do.
I’ll talk to her about it before tomorrow night. I want it to go well. Maybe turn it into a dating situation.
Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.
Cathy talks to Rocky for the entire drive. By the end I feel like I should be the one ordering the maid of honor dress. We get out of the car and he kisses her on the cheek. “Until we meet again,” he says, climbing back in and driving off, leaving her to grin at me like she’s the cat that ate the mouse in the cream and then smashed the vase her owner loved most.
“What?” she asks as I fold my arms and smile back at her.
“You luuurrvve him.”
“I do not. I just thought he seemed a nice guy, that’s all.”
“Sure you did. Nice enough to know everything about him but his shoe size.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Could make double dates awkward. Boss and driver at one table.”
“Makes riding sharing easy, I guess. And what’s this about you having a date with Mr. Felici?” She walks up to our apartment block and I follow. “Tell me all.”
We take the stairs up to our place while I tell her how the meeting went.
“Wow,” she says when I’m done. “So you’ll be at a swanky charity auction while me and the driver slum it at McDonalds? Is that how this goes?”
“I guess so.”
I hear a voice I don’t want to hear coming from behind us, accompanied by the jangling of keys. “You got my money yet, Miss Addams?”
I motion for Cathy to go on ahead, turning and stopping in time to see Mr. Butler coming around the corner. “I paid in the check. You’ll have it as soon as it clears.”
“I hope so,” he says, leaning toward me. “Or we could still come to an arrangement, you know.”
I rush up the stairs, not looking back. “It’ll be sorted soon,” I shout as I go.
Seeing him was a cold bucket of water to the face, reality coming back in after being with Mr. Felici. An office with its millions of dollars worth of paintings and now this place with the damp and the cracks in the walls along with the heating that only has two settings. Antartica or the fiery pits of hell’s inferno.
I get inside and lock the door. Cathy is already in the middle of getting changed. “Going somewhere?” I ask her.
“We both are. Get your gladrags on.”
“What for?”
“We’re going drinking.”
“It’s not even noon.”
“So what? We need to celebrate!”