A Table for Four
By Yuri Alkin
Copyright 2011 Yuri Alkin
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“Josh, can I ask you to be my husband?”
I looked up. You don’t hear a proposition like this every day from a coworker.
“Just for tonight,” clarified Darcy, having caught a glimpse of puzzlement in my stare.
I cleared my throat.
“Is that how it’s done these days? A husband for the night?”
“Shut up,” she said. “I need a handsome, smart guy to pretend he’s my husband for a few hours over dinner. Does that make things clear?”
“It sure does. And thank you for the compliment. I don’t remember you ever calling me handsome and smart before.”
Darcy snorted.
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re my best option in the absence of a real handsome and smart guy.”
“I didn’t say I’d do it,” I warned her. “So you’d be better off trying to flatter me. What if I’m busy tonight?”
“Cut it,” she retorted. And then, changing her tone: “Please, would you help me? I really need this.”
I looked at her. Slim, tall and sharp tongued, Darcy was after all, one the best friends I’ve had in this office. And in three years I’ve known her, this was the first time she asked for help.
“Sure,” I said. “Now tell me more.”
* * *
I didn’t know Darcy could look so glamorous. Nor did I suspect that she could be so uptight over some relationship that was over fifteen years ago. Of all the people I know, she is the last one I’d suspect in carrying a crush for someone for that long. But apparently, I had a lot to learn about her. As well as about myself: being, as of six PM, her faithful husband for eight years I was supposed to share a lot of memories with her. Darcy’s direction to “go with the flow” wasn’t too reassuring.
We were sitting in Salty’s, overlooking the glimmering skyline of downtown Seattle and sipping ice water. The couple we were supposed to meet weren’t late. It was us who were early. In the low voices of underground conspirators we were going over the details of our marriage: two kids, dated for about six months, go skiing every year, love going new places, have a dog, still love each other . . .
The story that Darcy conveyed to me over lunch was simple, sad and in some odd way, typical. Fifteen years ago she had been in love—one of these passionate I’m-gonna-love-you-forever college loves that result in broken hearts, healthy marriages or nasty divorces seven years down the road, depending on the personal tastes of the people involved. Darcy’s love resulted in nothing—or at least, in nothing until the last week. After spending a couple of years together, they decided to part ways right around graduation time. The world was too big, life was too short, and they were too young for a serious commitment. She stayed in Boston, he found a job in Atlanta, they lost sight of each other and when she moved to Seattle four years later, she could hardly remember his name. At any rate, that was how she felt back then. Ten years and some unspecified number of relationships later, the past struck back.
The site—that notorious “Rediscover Your Past!” site—which she decided to browse only out of curiosity, turned up four or five old girlfriends, a few raunchy calls to post a photo, a flirty conversation with a total stranger . . . and him. He had found her and when she saw his brief “Hey, you!” message in her inbox, she suddenly realized she could remember way more than his name.
She replied, not without some hesitation, and two minutes later found herself in a “stupid, stupid, stupid!” conversation. The son of a bitch was married. He had kids. He had a great job. He was a semi-pro windsurfer. And of all places he lived in Seattle.
When he asked whether she’d like to meet, she already knew where this was going. “Happy marriage, my ass,” she thought. The old boyfriend was obviously interested in reclaiming some action he had missed over these years. She had never been into affairs with married men, but this time it was different. She waited for a day and then said “yes”. He was thrilled. They picked a place and time, agreed not to share pictures until they saw each in other in person and spent a couple of hours chatting about college days. And then he told her how much he was looking forward to the chance to introduce her to his wife.
When Darcy caught her breath and was in a condition to reply, she shot back her answer. She, of course, would be delighted to meet his wife. And so would her husband.
Which is how I got into the picture. Finding a devoted spouse in twenty-four hours’ notice could be difficult even for someone as resourceful as Darcy. When I asked what was wrong with being single at thirty-five she gave me an odd look and said that she wouldn’t expect me to understand. I shrugged and let it pass. It wasn’t hard to think of a few reasons. I was about the same age and while being single didn’t bother me much, more and more often I kept finding myself ready to stop the endless dating game and settle down. But the right girl was still to be found.
Now I was listening to Darcy’s last minute instructions, such as a suggestion that we should sound like a four-hand piano duet, and kept thinking about her transformation. She was wearing a blue, rather elegant dress, covered with some sort of sparkly specks—I never knew what those things were called—which was making her different and certainly more attractive than Darcy the Customer Support Professional. But despite that striking change it was still her—my straightforward and cynical friend, who was good at playing pool, but not so good at relationships with people. She was attractive, but I could never imagine going out with her. She wasn’t my type. In fact, I didn’t know if Darcy was anyone’s type. Likely, there was some guy somewhere who could appreciate a stunning combination of sarcasm, directness and low self-esteem, but so far he hadn’t shown himself.
Suddenly, Darcy stopped talking.
“Here they are,” she said in a dramatic tone.
I followed her glance. The man responsible for my being here instead of on the racquetball court was approaching us, accompanied by his wife.
“Stand up,” I heard Darcy whispering. She was already on her feet. I followed her lead, guessing how much respect she expected me to show to her former boyfriend during this evening.
“Gary!” she said with a bright smile. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Gary returned the false compliment.
“Look at you,” he said, giving Darcy a tender look. “It’s almost like you haven’t graduated yet.”
Mid-sized and moderately athletic, he looked every bit his age, and I could bet the fifteen-year toll didn’t escape Darcy’s eye. His hairline was beginning to recede, there were a few gray hair here and there, and the saggy bags under his brown eyes, while not prominent, were still quite visible. Darcy, in turn, wasn’t a sorority girl anymore despite Gary’s claim. The evening was promising to be full of honesty.
“Josh,” I said turning to Gary’s wife and leaving the ex-lovebirds to themselves.
She smiled and extended her hand:
“Theresa”.
Her palm was dry and soft, and her smile was very nice to look at. She wasn’t a knock-you-dead looker, but in the beauty department she had definitely more to offer than Darcy. I found myself staring at her, realized how weird it must seem, given my status as Darcy’s husband, and promptly turned my attention to Gary. He was ready for an introduction and as we shook hands appeared to be almost as happy to see me as he was to see Darcy.
“So,” he said once we sat down and opened menus. “You two are such a terrific couple. Darcy, how the hell have you been?”
“Good, good,” she said enthusiastically, looking at him. “How are you?”
He nodded. Theresa smiled. I studied the menu. The conversation was going nowhere before it even had a chance to begin.
One of the instructions I’ve received from Darcy was to “drive the chit-chat”. And so I felt obliged to rush to the rescue.
“How long have you lived in Seattle?” I asked.
I received an approving tap on my foot under the table from my lovely wife and knew I was on the right path. With a right follow-up, a question like this guaranteed at least a ten-minute conversation, even for two former lovers meeting each other fifteen years after the break-up in the company of their spouses.
“Only a couple of years, actually,” Gary replied. “We like it here, but believe it or not, we may need to move again soon. See, when you’re in marketing . . .”
In the next ten minutes we learned a lot about him. He was in marketing. He was a director. He has coordinated a couple of national campaigns. He loved this area, but was of an opinion that one can grow only through a series of well-calculated and frequent career moves. They lived in a rather posh neighborhood, though not a super-expensive one. The kids were okay with Seattle, but missed San Diego where they used to live before coming here.
He did all the talking. Theresa kept smiling, and her smile was the nicest thing in sight. Darcy and I were listening. I occasionally asked questions, feeling proud of my ability to drive the chit-chat. I wasn’t paying much attention to Darcy, but somehow in the back of my mind, I assumed that she was happy with how the evening was going.
My first inkling that I was wrong was when we were ordering dinner.
“Darling,” Darcy suggested once she found out I was about to order salmon, “why don’t you get the filet mignon? It’s your favorite.”
Filet mignon had never been my favorite and Darcy had never cared about what I ate. The only thing making this 8-ounce dish stand out in my eyes was its price. It was the most expensive item on the entire menu—twice as expensive as the salmon, which was apparently swimming away from me.
“Well, you know, I had beef for lunch,” I objected weakly.
“But you love it,” she reminded me. “And they make them so well here. I’ll ask Jean to cook you salmon tomorrow.”
“Okay, filet mignon it is,” I agreed, wondering who the hell Jean was.
Something in Gary’s eyes told me that he had the same question. However, when he opened his mouth he asked something else.
“Josh,” he wondered, “what do you do for a living?”
“Customer support,” I said, sipping my water and trying to guess what Darcy’s problem was with the innocent fish. “You guys make them buy stuff, then it’s my problem to keep ‘em happy.”
He chuckled.
“I’m sure it can be a royal pain.”
“It is,” Darcy confirmed knowledgeably. “Josh is modest as usual. He’s a VP of Customer Support.”
I almost choked. A VP! Quite a promotion for a front-line support guy. Now I knew what she was up to.
“Wow,” Gary said, somehow omitting the exclamation sign with his tone. “Sounds like you’re a big shot.”
Being modest, I only shrugged and waved away his comment, simultaneously trying to regain my cool.
“How large is your department?” Theresa asked.
This was only the second or the third time she had said anything. I looked at her and, to my surprise, found in her eyes the excitement interest that was so obviously missing from her husband’s “wow”. For some reason, that sign of interest, though caused by a cheeky lie, made me feel good.
Luckily, I was quite familiar with the headcount situation.
“Um… About seven hundred people,” I said, shuddering inside at the monstrosity of this number. “Give or take.”
“Are you counting your people in India?” my executive wife reminded me.
“Of course not,” I said with the air of confidence. “They aren’t full-time employees.”
“There’s at least three hundred of them.”
“It must be so hard to manage a thousand people,” Theresa speculated. Now she appeared to be fully engaged in the conversation.
“Nah,” I said, feeling somehow encouraged by her interest. “You get used to it.”
“What’s the hardest part?” asked Gary.
I didn’t have to think twice. I had heard enough from my management.
“Politics,” I confessed, gravely.
Gary nodded in full understanding.
“Boy, do I know what you mean,” he said, for the first time showing some real enthusiasm while talking to me. “It’s jungle out there.”
“Good thing he can relax at home,” Darcy informed everyone. “I make sure kids don’t bother him too much. Plus, our neighbors in Medina are very nice people.”
She caught me unprepared this time too, though I managed to take it in stride. Being an executive, I should’ve expected to live someplace nice, but Seattle’s equivalent of Beverly Hills was still a bit of a stretch.
I could see that besides getting me she had also hit her real target with this innocent remark. Gary had noticeably saddened. His wife, however, seemed to be happy for us. Slightly cocking her head with short, almost boyish light hair, she was looking at me with what seemed to be a genuine growing interest, making it hard to divide my attention between her and Gary as I spoke.
“We are not in the most expensive part of Medina, of course,” I said, determined to save Darcy from herself. “I can’t afford a fifty-million home.”
“Not yet anyway,” added Darcy. “But George’s been hinting about a promotion. If you keep driving costs down at this rate they won’t forget it. He’s your CEO, after all.”
By the time my filet mignon arrived, I was having the time of my life—or rather the time of someone else’s life. I rode horses, spent my vacations in the most luxurious spots Darcy could think of, collected rare books and wasn’t a stranger to the company’s executive jet. When I heard about my adventurous spirit that made me sail my own boat every other weekend I didn’t even flinch. After a Vice President and Medina I was ready to confirm that I flew to space in a shuttle after paying half a million to Russians or crossed the Atlantic in my own Cessna. So I only added that last year’s trip to San Francisco was a little rough thanks to an unexpected storm, and relaxed again, trying to enjoy the evening as much as possible. I made it a rule to contribute a sobering fact or two every few minutes to uphold my status of a modest man and at least somehow slow down Darcy’s vivid imagination.
Darcy was always in the shadow, taking care of the kids and supporting me in my executive undertakings. She was a housewife, of course, since she wanted the best for our family. Leaving work five years ago wasn’t easy, but she had decided to put her own career on hold until kids grow up a bit. She wasn’t ruling out getting back into the corporate world or starting her own business, but only if it wouldn’t hurt my success. A devoted wife, a caring mom and an active member of Medina neighborhood, she was so proud of me.
Gary and Theresa were already far beyond the initial “wow.” Gary had quickly realized that any statement he makes about himself led inevitably to another story of my success, so he gradually limited his contributions to questions and interjections. He was spending more and more time concentrating on his meal and less and less time talking. In apparent contrast to her husband, Theresa talked almost as much as Darcy. Only unlike my proud wife, she wasn’t saying much about her significant other. Actually, she wasn’t talking about him at all.
She wanted to know what it was like to sail in the Puget Sound, she had an opinion on seasons in Bahamas, and she was curious about our vacation home in Whistler. And while I still didn’t know much about her, she had probably learned a hundred new things about the life of an adventurous executive. Her activity had a couple of visible effects: her plate was still almost full and her husband was growing grim. Darcy meanwhile, was happy to answer every question, making up things on the fly. A couple of times I even wished she’d stop, since Theresa was certainly getting a wrong impression of who I was, and somehow I was finding this irritating. But Darcy’s imagination was unstoppable. She was plowing ahead full steam, and our table was probably the loudest one in this corner of the restaurant.
As I listened to Darcy’s fantasies, I almost longed to live that life—or, rather, lie—for real. Being a top gun at the company, spending vacations in luxury resorts, sailing my own boat, rubbing elbows with local celebrities. . . Only having Darcy for a wife was somewhat of a dark spot in this otherwise dazzling picture. Now, had it been someone like Theresa—
I stopped daydreaming and got back to the conversation at the table. Theresa was clearly off-limits and not only because she was already married. Besides, I was pretty happy with my life as it was. I didn’t care much for the sweet corporate career, be it at my current company or at any other, for that matter. That was my paycheck. Time spent making indie movies made me tick, and no amount of flashy job titles would ever change that.
As it turned out, while I was mentally absent I gained Bill Gates himself for as a personal friend.
“They aren’t close of course,” Darcy was saying, trying to keep it at least somewhat believable. “But they’ve played bridge a couple of times. Was it fun, Josh?”
“Oh yeah,” I said rolling my eyes. “Good thing I lost only a half of my monthly paycheck. And darling, it was only once.”
“How did you meet Bill?” inquired Gary, forgetting his plate for a second.
“I used to work for Microsoft,” I said casually.
It was true—five years ago I had a short stint at the company. I had no doubt, Mr. Gates wasn’t even aware of the existence of the department I worked in during that time.
Gary nodded. By now nothing could surprise him.
“I need to make a trip to the ladies room,” Theresa announced. “Darcy, you want to keep me company?”
Once our wives left the table, Gary looked up.
“So, where did you two meet?” he asked in a rather direct manner.
There was no suspicion in his tone and yet the question, as innocent as it sounded, was dangerous. I had to give it to him—this was a shrewd move. Darcy should never have left the table without me after painting the most envy-stirring picture he had ever seen. Now even the lightest cross-examination could reveal that we were full of it.
“Seattle,” I said, playing it safe. “Funny, sometimes people don’t need to cross the country to find a mate.”
He smiled, somewhat crookedly.
“That was the case with me. Didn’t find Theresa until I crossed a bunch of states.”
I felt relieved.
“A party?” he asked, sending my hopes down the drain. “Or a mutual friend?”
“A party,” I admitted, taking a safe route. “We used to work for the same company, remember?”
“Sure,” he said. “But there are so many ways people can meet. Did you have a big wedding?”
For a moment I contemplated some drastic measures such as spilling wine on his crème khakis, thus forcing him flee to the restroom, and warning Darcy over the cell phone while he was gone. The plan presented a number of challenges and I decided to stay on the dangerous, but more predictable path.
“Nothing spectacular,” I said, hoping he’d stop there. “A regular size crowd.”
“Well, your regular size crowd can be different than what we, mere mortals, would expect,” Gary replied. “Or you weren’t a VP yet?”
He was getting under my nerves.
I tried playing the “it was so long ago” card.
“Um . . . I don’t remember actually. It’s been a while. I think I was a director back then.”
He nodded.
“Trust me, I know what it’s like when your memory starts playing tricks on you. What works for me usually is getting a single detail right. Then the rest falls into place. Say, did you move to Medina after you got married or before?”
He sat waiting for my answer and I could bet he was enjoying the moment. After all, he had the upper hand. It was quite likely that Darcy and her new friend would not be back for at least another five minutes or so. Judging by Gary’s line of questions so far, by the end of that five minutes our case could suffer irreparable damage. He was looking for blood. The ironic part was that Darcy’s ex wasn’t suspicious at all about her marriage. It was my VP title and the whole “we’re the cream of the crop” story that drove him nuts.
And then it dawned on me. Darcy wasn’t interested in keeping Gary warm and fuzzy. Perhaps she had been before coming here, but all she wanted now was to crush him. And had I been a real power player I would’ve ended this interrogation long ago.
I gave Gary a heavy stare, which was my idea of the reaction an angry executive would have when facing a nosy offender.
It worked, since the expression on his face had changed before I even opened my mouth.
“Listen,” I said, furrowing my executive brow and dropping the friendly tone. “I don’t know where you think you’re going with all this, but I don’t appreciate it. All right? I spend more than enough time dealing with the press and the last thing I need on my weekend is a bunch of wise-ass interview questions from someone I’ve never met.”
“I beg your pardon,” he muttered.
“Yes, you should,” I shot back. “If you have a problem with something my wife or I said tonight, just say so. Don’t beat around the bush with all that ‘do you remember this, do you remember that?’ crap.”
“I . . . I don’t have a problem,”
“Good! Then why don’t we talk about something other than my personal life.”
“Gee, take it easy, man” he said, throwing in a white towel the size of a carpet. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I was curious, that’s all.”
I accepted his apology and curbed my executive wrath.
“It’s okay. Let’s just change the subject. What sports do you watch?”
Five minutes later the girls found us discussing the disappointing performance of Sonics in this season.
As I was getting up to let Darcy into her seat, I faced Theresa. This time I noticed that she was about three inches shorter than I—a perfect height difference by my standards. Her smile as she looked at me wasn’t anything like the fake smile of a stranger. It was warm. And I could swear, it was personal. I smiled back and had to make a significant effort to turn to Darcy. That nearly instant glance exchange threw me off my tracks more that all Darcy’s fantasies about my life. I almost forgot that important thing I intended to say.
“Gary here was wondering about our history,” I finally said to my cheerful wife. “I told him I’m never going for another mid-size wedding with a coworker who I met at the company party.”
Darcy showed the self-control of an undercover CIA agent.
“Oh,” she said, looking at Gary. “I guess I can fill you in on other details.”
Gary shook his head.
“Don’t bother. Josh made it very clear that this evening was not about his past.”
Now I found myself in the center of attention of both women.
“I just didn’t want to steal your show, honey,” I explained, innocently. “Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
In the restroom I had to admit to myself and my skeptical reflection that my trip had more to do with the need to spend a few minutes alone than with the amount of consumed liquids.
The situation at hand was plain stupid. I haven’t been a victim of what my college pal Jerry used to call an instant crush for a long, long time. “A man with a high IQ never has an IC, my friend,” Jerry would preach, “but, boy, isn’t she hot?”
There’ve been occasional rapid-fire flirting with a cute party neighbor or an attractive woman standing next in line, but nothing that would make me feel genuinely moved. This time it was different. Way different. And it felt mutual. That smile, those eyes . . .
I had to push Theresa’s image away from my mind and go over the list of reasons to keep it this way.
Supposedly, I was married. She was married. Moreover, she was married with children. I was here with Darcy. I didn’t even have the option of hinting that we weren’t, in fact, a couple. Even if I could, she was still married. Most likely she appeared interested in me because she thought I was some sort of a well-connected millionaire with a taste for crazy adventures. She probably wouldn’t even notice a customer support lead with a hope to break big one day in the indie movie production. Even if this weren’t the case, I’d still be setting Darcy up if I tried to make a move. And then again, she was married!
The situation was hopeless and I was a moron for even giving it a thought. Having arrived at this reassuring conclusion, I felt partially relieved and went back to my fake spouse, her former lover, and his wife, who was paying more attention to me than to her husband after meeting me for the first time in her life. Life was deliciously crazy.
The rest of the evening went by smoothly. The moral grounds I had found in the solitude of a public restroom were firm enough to support me despite Theresa’s attentive face in front of me. Her warm smile and eyes, which brightened whenever I spoke, could no longer shake my confidence. I knew it was a dead-end road and felt invincible like a Spartan. Gary was growing even grimmer, which suited me fine, while my lovable wife kept chirping away.
We cruised through dessert—again, mine was the most expensive item Darcy could find on the menu—signed the bills (Darcy wanted me to pick up the tab, but Gary declined the offer) and were done. The reunion was over, with a healthy fifty percent success rate, leaving one former lover happy and the second one bitter.
I helped Darcy with her coat, straightened my blazer, which Darcy had explicitly asked me to wear, and gallantly waived Gary and Theresa to go first. My manners had considerably improved during the evening—I probably would not have done any of this had I been my usual self. We started down the aisle, heading out of our cozy corner toward the exit. As I watched Theresa walking in front of me, I couldn’t help but feel proud of my ability to make tough but right decisions and stick to them. She could seduce a monk, but thanks to my resolution, I was immune.
Five steps before the exit door, Darcy abruptly stopped.
“Shoot!” she exclaimed, exploring her purse. “My phone! I must’ve left it on the table. Or in the ladies room. Josh, we have to go back.”
“You want company?” Gary offered, turning back to us.
Darcy shook her head.
“No, that’s fine. Don’t wait for us, guys. It’ll be another few minutes anyway once I find the damn thing. Gary, come here, give me a hug. Theresa, it was wonderful to meet you.”
“We should stay in touch,” Gary said confidently, shaking my hand.
I nodded, expressing my full support. We both knew it was a lie.
“It was nice meeting you, Josh,” Theresa said, looking straight into my eyes. She didn’t offer a hug. Instead she extended her narrow palm.
As we shook hands, she looked at Darcy and said:
“You know, you have a great husband.”
Darcy smiled with pride.
“Tell me about it. Josh and the kids are my blessing.”
Something—and I couldn’t quite say what—cracked softly inside me.
We turned and went back.
“There’s no phone,” I said once we returned to the table. “I’ll wait for you outside, while you check the restroom.”
“It’s in my purse, silly,” Darcy said with a chuckle. “You didn’t think we could let them see your car, did you?”
“You made it up? What— what for? What’s wrong with my car? It’s an Accord for Pete’s sake!”
“It’s cute. But it isn’t a Lexus. People like us don’t drive Accords.”
“Agh. . .” I felt surprisingly irritated by this most innocent of Darcy’s fantasies. “So what do you want us to do now?”
“Just let them leave. They should be getting their car from the valet any moment now. In five minutes they’ll be gone and we’ll never see them again.”
There it was. Now I knew what had caused that strange cracking feeling.
“How did you like that gal?” Darcy went on. “Can you believe that—she was practically flirting with you in front of Gary. She probably cheats on him all the time. I hope she does—the bastard deserves it. And did you see—"
“I’ll be right back,” I said, getting up. “Wait for me here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Restroom. Too much wine tonight.”
“Make sure not to step outside.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not a barbarian.”
“They could be still there,” Darcy’s voice said, now somewhere far, far behind.
That was my hope. That she’d be still there, outside, on these steps, or getting into the car—but there, so that I could interrupt whatever she was doing and talk to her.
I had no idea what I was going to say, especially in the presence of her husband, but I couldn’t care less. This was wrong, this was reckless, this was dumb through and through, but I could hardly think of another time in my life when I felt so right about something. I was going to talk to her; I was going to get her phone or e-mail or anything that would put me in touch with her later, and I was on the roll. A legion of Darcys and Garys couldn’t stop me now.
I pushed the door and stepped outside, breathing in the cool moist air. I was in luck—not only had they not left, they hadn’t even got into their car yet. They were just standing a few feet away from the steps, arguing about something.
Still not certain about what to say, I inhaled deeply and started down the steps. Then I stopped. Now I could hear what they were saying. And what I heard was enough to make me wish I was invisible.
“. . . still you could’ve said something!” Gary was ranting. “You didn’t say a word about my work.”
“I signed up to be your wife, not your PR rep.”
“I know and don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what you’ve done tonight. I’m just pissed I didn’t ask you to be more involved. Did you hear them talking? She had more to say about his work than he did.”
“That’s because they are a real married couple.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . Fine. By the way, did you really have to make eyes at him?”
“Did I? I’m sorry. He’s an interesting guy . . . and you know, a single girl like me can get carried away.”
“Do you realize—“
“Gary,” I called, resuming my descent down the steps.
He looked up, his face expression rapidly changing from frustration to benevolence.
“Josh! What’s up, buddy?”
I ignored “buddy”. I was so happy about what I had just heard, that “buddy” didn’t annoy me in the slightest. My sole objective at this moment was to get rid of him as quickly as possible. And now I knew exactly how to achieve it.
“Darcy just realized she has something to say to you. She wants to have a few words with you alone. I know, know . . . of course I’m fine with that. Actually it was my idea to try and catch you now.”
“Ugh . . .” Gary seemed somewhat proud of this new development. “Sure. Where is she? Is she coming here?”
“She’s waiting for you at the same table.”
“Um . . . all right. Theresa, are you okay with me just going there . . . for a minute or two? This is probably important. I mean for Darcy.”
“You’re funny,” Theresa said. “Just go.”
When Gary left, she took her eyes away from the door and looked at me.
“My husband always wants to keep me happy,” she said with a smile.
“He is not your husband,” I replied. “And you are single.”
She glanced back at the steps. I nodded.
“Yes, I heard you two talking.”
She looked at me thoughtfully, still not saying a word.
“I also have some important secrets to share,” I said as I studied her face, which seemed so familiar that it was as if I had known her for years. “But not here. Are you open to getting together later this week? Trust me, it’s not as crazy as it sounds. We can start low key. Starbucks?”
She finally smiled and broke her silence.
“I might be open to it. Starbucks . . . For a big shot you’re really down to earth.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
###
Yuri Alkin is an American writer, writing in Russian and English. His bestselling novel "Checkmate" about an elite leadership seminar that takes a deadly turn, was nominated for the Russian Booker Prize in 2010, and his books have been featured in national Russian newspapers and magazines. The second edition of his critically acclaimed novel "The Price of Knowledge" is scheduled to be published by a major publishing house Ripol Classic in fall 2011. Most of his works combine elements of psychological thriller, suspense and science fiction.