“I’ll get to the point.”
“You seem like the kind of man that doesn’t beat around the bush.”
Now I’m thinking about her bush and what I’d like to do to it. Focus, Clause. “I saw you.”
“You saw me?” she asks as she leans against the chair on the other side of my table and tucks her hands into her overalls. “Here?”
“No, in Westchester.”
I watch as her smile slowly falters, and then she shakes it off. “Oh, I was just running a few errands for my cousin that lives out there.”
“Is that the story you’re telling?”
“It’s not a story,” she snaps and then realizes what she’s done. “I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Deciding that I’m not going to get anywhere like this, I stand up from the small chair and bring myself to my full height. She has to tilt her head all the way back to look up at me, but all I do is take out my wallet and drop a few bills on the table, along with a card.
“Thirty boxes of store-bought cake mix tell a different story.” She gasps as I walk to the door and stop right before pushing it open. “When you feel like talking, there’s my number.”
Walking out into the snowy late afternoon, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time. Hope.