The High Season(58)
She looked down at her wine. “I loved my job.”
“This might be a get off my lawn thing to say, but the world is getting meaner,” Joe said. “You could be the only person I know who bothers to apologize.” He poured more wine. “Anyway, that sounded glib. I’m sorry about what happened. I’ll help if I can.”
Ruthie waited until the server had checked in and Joe had waved her away again. “You could do something for me, maybe. If I had something to sell—a luxury item, say—would you know the right way to go about it?”
“That’s pretty vague, but probably.”
“I’m not ready to do anything yet, I just wanted to know.”
“Letting go of things can be great,” Joe said. “Change is good.”
She impatiently shook her head. “That’s what the changers say. I mean, if you choose change, it’s good. If it’s thrust upon you, it sucks.” She picked up her menu, suddenly annoyed. “Should we order?”
“You do look exactly the same as I remember, by the way,” Joe said, picking up his menu. “Change looks good on you.”
“You just contradicted yourself.”
“What I mean to say is, you haven’t changed. Not the you you.”
“It’s the dress.”
“I didn’t notice the dress. Except for the zipper. It’s rather provocatively placed, if that sort of thing is in one’s head.”
“Oh fuck, don’t flirt with me, my heart will just explode,” Ruthie said. “Just buy me dinner and stay on that side of the table.”
“It’s a very small table.”
She felt his hand on her knee.
“You’re very handsy,” she said.
“I had to do something. I made you mad about the change thing.”
“I’m over it.”
“It’s because I threw my life up in the air to see where it would land, and I know what that’s like. I left out the anguish part. And it’s because I kept looking for you, planning how I’d ask you to dinner. You’re very hard to run into.”
“Why didn’t you just call me?”
“When the last time you saw a woman you were such an asshole that she dumped half a bottle of wine on you, you tend to be skittish. I wanted it to be casual, so that rejection would be easier to take. I heard the words ‘gorgeous Sancerre’ come out of my mouth and I wanted to knock myself out with the bottle. When I saw you at the farm stand, I practically pounced. I had to grab you when I could.”
“Under the table.”
“There was always something with the way we talk,” Joe said. “I always felt…”
“Randy?”
He grinned. “Understood. And now I have you in my grasp—”
“Literally—” His fingers on her leg, just resting.
“I am shamelessly flirting with you so that you will like me again,” Joe said. “But I’m rusty. Help.”
She wanted to put down her wineglass and run. That would be the sensible thing.
“Let’s eat first,” she suggested.
“First. That sounds hopeful,” Joe said. “Or maybe it’s the zipper.”
34
DANIEL MANTIS FUSSED over Doe, insisting she sit to his right and ordering glasses of rosé champagne “for the beautiful girls” and a martini for himself.
Doe concentrated on Daniel so completely she could barely acknowledge Lark. His head was shaved close, his face tan and smooth, his beautiful white shirt open and pressed sharp. He wasn’t a good-looking man, but he was a billionaire, so everyone and everything was available to him, and everything about him said that he knew it.
For the ultra-rich the world moved at superhero speed. Valets and ma?tre d’s and waiters and bartenders were there a second or two before you wanted them. Then they disappeared and came back again with whatever you asked for, plus things you didn’t, treats from the chef and fresh napkins and forks. Disappearance, reappearance, disappearance, until you had everything you could possibly need except for a catheter. You still had to get up if you wanted to pee.
Daniel focused his gaze on the waiter as he recited the specials. He clasped his hands together and leaned forward a bit. “Last summer I had the most exquisitely simple pasta,” he said. “Olive oil, pecorino, fava beans. Can I have that?”
“I’m not sure if we have fava beans, sir. I’ll check in the kitchen.”
“Fantastic.”
No fava beans, but Daniel bravely withstood the disappointment and ordered fish. He decided on four appetizers “so we can all have a taste, the crudo is amazing.” They sent over six. It was something Doe had always wondered, why those who could afford it were the only ones who got stuff for free.
Doe was careful with the wine. She knew better than to get even the slightest bit tipsy. Lark, however, had finished her champagne in two swallows and started in on the white Daniel had ordered. The meal would cost double Doe’s month’s rent.
Doe kept her face on alert. She was alive to everything Daniel was saying, even if it was pass the salt. Not that he’d salt his food, that was for the middle class. She had to be Daniel-worthy, a wealthy Florida prep kid with style, not the sneaky low-rent paparazzo who’d grown up in a concrete block house with cockroaches in the kitchen, geckos on the wall, and a mother who was a masseuse who occasionally threw in a hand job if the rent was due. The mother who was sending her increasingly desperate texts because she wanted to move to the Hamptons and Doe needed to get her a job, “as a concierge, I think I’d be really good at it.” She ate her sea bass and it tasted like nothing spiked with lemon.