Unexpected Arrivals(45)
“The ones I’ve met do.”
“Maybe it’s the industry you’re meeting them in. Aren’t they all rather artistic in some form or fashion?”
“No.” The humor danced in her voice. “What gave you that idea?”
“I just figured engineers were artsy.” I shrugged as if she could see me through the phone.
“No, silly—they aren’t artsy, they’re mathematical. The fashion here is just different.”
“So are you going to come back looking like the cover of Vogue?”
“I wish. Unfortunately, long hours have done nothing for my complexion or my figure.”
“Are you starting to resemble the Toad of Babylon?” I chuckled at the reference. Cora could never be ugly, much less an abomination.
“Oh my God, did you just refer to me as a whore?” Her laughter rumbled through the line.
“I said toad! Okay, poor choice of words. Now that I think about it, it didn’t make any sense anyhow.”
“Thanks, I’ll call you the next time I’m feeling particularly heinous, and you can talk me off the ledge.”
“I’ll sing for you.” Third Eye Blind instantly came to mind, and I grinned at the high school memories and times I’d listen to that album on basketball trips. “I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend.” I was tone deaf and had massacred that one line.
“That would certainly bring some levity to my day, even if it didn’t make me feel any better about my horrendous appearance. Don’t quit your day job—the stage is not the place for you.”
“I’m sure you’re just as beautiful as you’ve always been.” The words were sincere. She’d always been the most stunning woman I’d ever seen.
“It doesn’t feel like it in the fashion capital. Everyone here is exotic and thin and just…I don’t know…intimidating.”
“You’ve never been intimidated a day in your life, Cora. And if that’s how you truly feel, I have to wonder how the benefits of this job outweigh the damage it’s doing to your psyche.”
Her tone changed, and she giggled playfully. “It’s not quite that bad. But it would be nice to have one decent date. I don’t need anything remarkable or off the charts—just a romantic evening in a spectacular city.” I could hear the fairy tale in her voice. She’d had that once, and somehow, we’d both let it slip away. “What about you? Anyone new on the dating scene?”
I hated the direction of this conversation. I’d purposely avoided this topic for fear of where it would lead and our inability to come back from it. Cora may have thought she wanted details, just like I itched for them about her life, yet neither of us really needed to imagine the other with someone else.
“Nah. Just doing the casual thing.” And waiting on you. I didn’t say that last part, although it hung in my thoughts like straight dialogue.
The silence lingered on the line. It was comfortable, the way we’d always been with each other.
“Hopefully we’ll both find what we’re looking for,” she whispered.
I didn’t have to find it. I knew exactly where it was—I just couldn’t reach it right now. But that would change in ten months if I had anything to do with it. For now, I had to bide my time and remind Cora of why she needed to be here instead of there. “I’m sure we will.”
“I need to get going.”
I glanced at the clock realizing it was almost one in the morning in France. “Sweet dreams, Cora. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
***
I tried calling Chelsea on my way home from Florida, but it had gone straight to voicemail. I hadn’t heard from her since we had lunch, and while we both agreed there was no possibility of a relationship, she seemed like she needed a friend. The last two days I was in town had been filled with my dad and conference calls with the clients he turned over to our firm. I’d crashed after dinner both nights and left early Wednesday morning to make the trip back to New York. I didn’t want her to think I’d used her. I enjoyed talking to her and felt like we could both benefit from having the other to confide in.
Cora was at work, but I sent her a text telling her I was in the car if she got a chance to talk. The silence that came with the open road never bothered me, although now, for whatever reason, it ate at me with each minute that ticked by. I’d stopped several times for gas and snacks, then again to piss—anything to break up the monotony.
By the time Cora’s name finally lit up the screen on my cell, I was near the point of insanity.
“Hey.” Even though I’d been sitting in the driver’s seat doing nothing other than holding the wheel for over an hour, my greeting came out breathy, as if I’d had to run to catch the phone before it quit ringing.
“Hi. How’s the drive?”
“I’m ready to leave my car at an airport and fly home.”
She snickered. “That bad?”
“I’m just restless. Geneva Key does that to me.”
“How’d things go with your dad?”
“It was the strangest experience of my life. He gave me hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of portfolios for the business, we had lunch like friends, and he told me to go see you in Paris.” I hadn’t meant to admit that last part. She didn’t need to know I’d spoken to my dad about her, much less that he’d suggested an impromptu vacation.