Chapter Seven
Bryan’s sleek black car with tinted windows was parked outside my building at nine on the dot the next morning. Even more impressive than the punctuality was the consideration — the car wasn’t idling. The engine was off. Most drivers left the cars running while picking someone up, and, frankly, I couldn’t stand that. I’d have to compliment his driver.
Then Bryan stepped out of the car, wearing dark jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a tie with cartoonish giraffes on them.
“Oh.”
“Did the giraffes surprise you?”
“No. I just thought you were sending a car. I didn’t know you’d be in the car.”
“Since I need to go to Philly too, I figured I could bum a ride with you. That okay?” he asked playfully.
“Of course.”
He held the door open, and I slid into the car. I smoothed out the soft folds on my green skirt as the driver turned on the engine and we pulled away.
“Glad to see you weren’t idling,” I said in an effort to be civil.
“If I were president, I’d sign a bill forbidding idling at the curb.”
I smiled despite myself. “Especially for people checking their phones.”
“Oh, well, idling and checking your phone would get you a jail term under my regime.”
“You run a tight dictatorship.” I kept up the volley because I could do better than mere civility. I intended to be so cool, casual and goddamn witty that words would become my shield to protect me from any stupid leftover feelings for him. Vestigial feelings, of course.
“Know what else I’d ban if I were president?”
“Cauliflower?”
He laughed. Damn, I was on fire.
“Actually, I was going to say those asparagus that have stalks the size of baseball bats. So you were kind of close. But I’d also abolish the word moist.”
I curled my nose. “That word must be destroyed. Along with slacks.”
He made a slashing motion with his hand. “Pants. Only pants!” Bryan gestured to the drink holder. There were three coffee drinks in it. “As promised.”
“Someone joining us?”
“No. I brought you the black coffee with a dollop of cream. And I also brought a caramel macchiato. In case you were just pretending you liked black coffee,” he said, then flashed a flirty smile.
“Why would I pretend I liked black coffee?” I kept my tone serious, even though he’d seen through me, and against my better judgement, I found I liked it. But I wasn’t going to let him know that.
“Who knows? But mostly, I just wanted to see if I could remember —” he started, then corrected himself. “I meant, guess. I wanted to see if I could guess what kind of coffee drink you really liked.”
I looked from the coffee to the macchiato to Bryan. I let my hand hover over the first drink, then the second, as if it were a shell game. “Hmmm. Did he guess right? I wonder, wonder, wonder.”
He raised his eyebrows expectantly. I reached for the coffee and took a drink. It tasted like bitter sludge. I wanted to spit it out. I wanted to wince. Instead, I took a long swallow and fixed on a fake smile. “Mmmm. There is nothing like a coffee to get the day going.”
He snapped his fingers in a win-some, lose-some gesture. “Damn. I really thought you were still a macchiato girl. I even got an extra shot of caramel in it too,” he added.
I took another drink. I’d never liked coffee, but somehow the harsh taste was the reminder I needed not to give in, even to the fact that he’d remembered the extra shot.
Soon, the car slowed to a stop and the driver came around to open the door. I gave Bryan a quizzical look. We’d only been driving for five minutes. “I thought we were going to Philly?”
“We are. By train,” he said, then held out a hand.
I waved him off. I didn’t need help stepping out of the car. We walked into the train station, down the escalator, to the tracks, and into the first class car. It was quiet and air-conditioned, with leather-backed dove gray seats.
“Would you like the window seat, Kat?”
I nodded, then sat down, wishing I didn’t find politeness, consideration and manners such a turn-on. He sat next to me, his leg brushing against mine. I should have shifted my body, moved a few inches away, but instead we simply stayed like that, legs touching, as the train pulled out of Manhattan and picked up speed. He answered emails on his phone, and I read some chapters in a business book that had been assigned in one of my classes.
As we sped through the suburbs on the way to his factory, I thought about the skater gal, and what I would ask her if she were my mentor. I’d want to hear the story in her own words of how she started her business. So I went with that, closing the book and speaking in my best curious student voice. Because that’s how I was going to act with him.
“Would you tell me the story of Made Here? I’ve read the version on your Web site, but I’d love to hear it from you.”
He put his phone away, and held my gaze, and in that second I felt an electricity, a tightly coiled line between the two of us. He had a way of making me feel as if he were touching me, even if we were inches apart. Maybe it was because he wasn’t afraid to look me in the eyes, or to hold onto the look. Nor was he afraid to be close. Whatever the reason, the effect was heady, and it was dangerous. Perhaps I should pretend he really was the skater gal. I pictured him wearing cat’s eye glasses and a black wig with pink streaks. There. I’d never been a fan of men in drag, so the image helped me focus.
“I suppose it all began when I was reassigned a few weeks after I started my first job out of graduate school. I was supposed to work in New York, but I was sent to Paris instead for a year…” he said and kept talking, but it was as if someone knocked me out of time. I thought he’d stayed in New York after he ended it with me.
“You were there for a year?”
He nodded. “Yes. I was sent there right after…” his voice trailed off. Right after he broke up with me.
“It’s okay. You can say it. I’m a big girl. Right after you broke up with me.”
He sighed deeply. “Yes. Then.”
I held out my hands. “See? That wasn’t so hard to say. We just get it out there in the open and move on.”
“Okay. So there it is. Out in the open.”
“And now we go back to the whole we just met routine. Good?”
He nodded.
“Where did you live?” I asked, shifting the talk back to Paris.
“In the Latin Quarter. Across the river from Notre Dame.”
“Me too.” I pictured the flat I’d lived in with a hip and trendy young French couple. The narrow staircase that wound up four flights. The cramped kitchen and even smaller bathroom. But it was Paris, and from the window in the second bedroom I had a view of the river and Notre Dame and farther beyond I could see Sacre-Coeur. A torch singer who lived across the street from me used to fling her windows open in the evenings, and she’d sing while cooking, songs about love gone awry. She had one of those voices like whiskey and honey, the best kind of voice for those songs. I half expected her to slink around her flat in a sexy, sequined red dress like a cabaret singer. “So you went to Paris for work. But this was before Made Here?”
“The company I worked for right out of business school had an office there. I thought I’d just visit it from time to time. But instead, they relocated me. So I spent a year in Paris, learning the ropes, and the firm did a lot of business with small suppliers who made handcrafted special goods. High-quality watches, and leather bags, and wallets and such. And I was able to observe some of the processes, the handiwork, the craftsmanship. It got me thinking I could do the same back in the States, but I had to capitalize on something that was on the cusp of being popular but that wouldn’t just be a trend. That’s when the cufflink idea came to me, so when I returned from Paris I connected with Wilco,” he said, referring to his former business partner. “He was the money guy. I was the idea guy. So he raised the capital and I started building the business. And voila. Four years later, here we are.”
I noted that he didn’t say anything bad about Wilco, when it would be so easy to disparage the man given the trouble he’d caused for Made Here. “Voila, indeed. So I take it you’re fluent?”
“Oui.”
“Moi aussi.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So then I can flirt with you in French and it’ll be like a secret language just between us,” he said to me in French.
Flirt. Secret. Us. What was he doing using words like that? Playing with my emotions? “Yeah, not so secret, Bryan. A few million people speak French.”
Then I turned to look out the window. We were passing through a beautiful town in Pennsylvania, rushing by farmhouses and stately white homes with impeccably trimmed green lawns and shrubs.
He peered out the window too, his body moving closer to mine, doing that thing he did where he migrated into my space. I could feel his chest against my arm as we watched the towns zoom by. Soon, he reached his arm across my back, his hand touching my shoulder. Technically, it was the sort of thing friends might do. But it didn’t feel like we were friends. It didn’t even feel like flirting. It felt like foreplay.
And I didn’t want to pretend anymore.
I didn’t want to be mean anymore.
I didn’t want to toss barbs at him anymore.
I wanted him to touch me, so I didn’t dare move. I didn’t risk a look or a glance. The moment was full of too much heat that I didn’t trust myself. I thought I was over him. I thought he’d earned the spot I’d tucked him in back in the far corner of my mind. I was wrong. I had been forcing him there for five years. Because now, with him by my side, inches away, looking out the window of a racing train, I knew all I’d done was white knuckle it through. I’d faked my way through every other relationship, when all I was doing was resisting him. He was the only one I’d ever wanted like this, and my body was on fire for him.
He leaned in to whisper to me, and I closed my eyes. I felt as if I might collapse into him. “The towns are so pretty, Kat. Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I managed to say without melting into his arms.
“And sometimes, I think, they’re even prettier five years later. Just like you. You’re even prettier now, and you were beautiful then.”
I wanted to turn my face towards his and let him devour me in kisses, let his hands find their way underneath my shirt, and onto my skin. I could see kisses on my neck, lips on my belly, legs wrapped around him. It was almost too much to bear. I tried to shake the images – these pictures of him on me, in me, under me – but they’d staked out a home.
Somewhere, there was a modicum of restraint in me, because I didn’t answer him.
Soon, the train pulled into our stop. We both rose, and I noticed his cheeks were flushed. He looked at me, his eyes darker than usual, full of unsaid things.