My brain does a needle-on-the-record-scratch thing. Say what now?
Girlfriend. Blake’s girlfriend.
Of course he has a girlfriend. He’s handsome, wealthy, in his thirties…there’s no way he’d be single. And yet, he flirted with me the day he stole my cab. More than flirted – he asked me to go out to lunch with him! That was kind of like asking me on a date – wasn’t it?
An odd, angry hurt bubbles up inside me like heartburn. I grab my phone and call Isabella. Fortunately, she didn’t work last night, or I wouldn’t dare. Once she crashes after an all-night shift, you wake her at your peril.
“My boss is sick and she was supposed to do some shopping for Blake, so I’m doing it for her. Oh, and Blake has a girlfriend,” I blurt out. “Her name is Sloane. I need to go pick out a birthday present for Blake’s girlfriend. And I’m actually upset about that. Why, though?”
In the background, I hear Latin pop music. “What? That asshole. Didn’t he just ask you out to lunch?” Yes! Exactly! She’s so awesome. Xena lets out a sharp bark. She’s also indignant on my behalf. “Clarita, Blake has a girlfriend!” she yells. She must be at Clarita’s apartment. “That rich hot guy who’s been flirting with Winona? The one who owns Hudson’s? He has a girlfriend!”
“He what? That pendejo!” Clarita follows up with a string of curses in Spanish. Isabella’s taught me most of those. Whoa. For a former kindergarten teacher, Clarita’s got quite the colorful vocabulary.
These days, Clarita is the owner of the Kitchen Krew blog and bulletin board, and the head of the neighborhood volunteer network. She lives in the building adjoining ours. A year ago, a car accident left her mostly wheelchair-bound, and she took disability retirement from her job. Then she and her husband ended up taking in her nephew, Jorge, so he didn’t have to go into foster care. Despite all that, she runs the unofficial volunteer neighborhood network, keeps tab on what everyone’s doing, and acts as the neighborhood mom. I love her fiercely.
“It’s okay. It was never a love-hate thing. It was just hate-hate,” I say gamely. It suddenly hits me, with a gut-punch that makes me mildly nauseous: this is why he tried to job-block me. He asked me out on a lunch date; of course he wouldn’t want me to be here. He’d be worried that I’d rat him out to his girlfriend.
“Anyway, I’m not surprised. He’s lower than a snake’s belly. There’s your Southernism for the day.” I try to sound light-hearted.
“Ah,” Isabella says with satisfaction. “Like a visit to Georgia. I’ll have to go in person someday.”
“When you do, tell them Winona says hey.”
Okay, if I’m being honest with myself, I will admit that I sort of had a teeny hate-crush on Blake and this stings just a little. If it were anyone else I’d buy him a cactus and tell him where to stick it. I’d even help with the insertion. Ha; he’d end up in Isabella’s ER and she’d see a whole new side of him.
However, if I want to keep my job, I’m unfortunately going to have to keep a smile on my face and pretend I don’t want to wring his neck.
“I should go,” I say bitterly. “I’ve got to go shopping for a smarmy butthole.”
“Smarmy butthole. We treated someone with that disorder a few days ago. Maybe leave some Preparation H on his desk,” Isabella suggests. “Or in his chair, so he sits on it. Save some time that way.”
I grin at the thought. “God, I’d love to. But I’d love to be gainfully employed even more.”
I hang up and return to the list. I start with Blake’s girlfriend. I might as well get that one out of the way.
According to Thérèse's notes, Sloane likes diamonds. Is he planning on getting her a diamond ring soon? Oh well, not my business.
I pull my new iPad out of my purse and do a social media search to try to get a sense of her style.
When it comes to jewelry, Sloane seems to go for gargantuan and flashy. All diamonds, all the time. She wears enough ice to sink a dozen Titanics.
And yep, she and Blake are definitely attached at the hip. There are tons of pictures of them side by side at public events.
Well, it actually looks more like she’s attached to him. She always has an iron grip on his arm, but she’s never looking at him; she’s smiling right at the camera. As for Blake, he has a faint, pained smile on his face and a look in his eyes that seems to say he’d rather be trekking through Death Valley naked then where he is right now.
I shake my head in puzzlement. Blake has absolutely everything. Looks, wealth, a beautiful girl on his arm – but I can’t find a single picture with a genuine smile on his face. It all looks forced, manufactured for the camera flash. It makes me feel a little sorry for him. If having everything isn’t enough, how will he ever be happy?
Then I give myself a mental smack upside the head. Why am I wasting good sympathy on a mean, cranky bully who terrorizes his employees and steals cabs and cuts in line and probably-almost-definitely would cheat on his girlfriend with me?
I don’t know, there’s just something inside me whispering that there’s more to him. The genuine smile he beamed at his niece…the lost look on his face in those pictures…or it could just be my hormones talking.
I push back my chair, tuck Blake’s file in my purse, and set out to do some shopping. The jewelry department is located on the third floor. Four suitably scary armed guards stand at attention, two on each side of the glass doors. In their crew cuts and dark suits, they look like bodyguard extras from a heist film.
“Hello, guys!” I sing, and wave my pass at them. They barely move their heads in acknowledgement. Blake probably gives demerits for smiling.
One of them taps some numbers into a keypad, and the doors open with a whoosh. I walk in and stand there for a moment, soaking in the glowing beauty before me.
Hudson’s prides itself on its displays, and this one is a stunner. Three-quarters of the room is a garden theme tableau. Bejeweled mannequins in summer frocks bend over to smell flowers made of more jewels. They hold up ruby-studded birds on their fingers. They sit at small tables in an artificial flower garden sipping from teacups full of sapphires. The air is scented like a summer meadow. Faint strains of classical music drift as if on summer breezes.
This is what I love about Hudson’s – the way their displays dazzle the eye and engage all the senses. It’s an ever-changing series of tableaus, like walking through a museum of modern art.
Ingrid, head of the jewelry department, moves from behind a counter on the far side of the room, crossing the floor with swift, scissor-like strides. Six foot tall, Nordic and intimidating, she wears her white-blonde hair woven into braids that are swirled into a chignon. She’s clad in a houndstooth Chanel suit accessorized with ropes of pearls. Across the room, a couple of sylph-like employees chat with a dark-skinned woman in a sari as she peruses the glass cabinets.
When I tell Ingrid that I’m shopping for Sloane, she makes a face.
“He’s back together with her? I heard they broke up.”
Interesting.
Nope, nope, don’t care. “He must be. She’s on Thérèse’s list.”
She shakes her head disapprovingly. “Too bad. No accounting for taste.”