A knock sounded on the door.
I am not a psychic. I couldn’t necessarily know for sure who was on the other side of that door, but it had to be James, because my brain immediately went to static again. It was like I could smell his pheromones through the door.
“Hold on,” Nicky called out. “We’re talking about this later,” he told me.
“No, Nicky don’t—”
But it was too late. His hand was on the knob, and he opened the door to reveal Leon standing there with James right behind him. And James was smiling. At me.
It was still like staring into the sun. I know I’ve said that before, but I really cannot stress it enough. I was truly afraid that I’d come away from this encounter blinded and that he would see me for the ugly teenage girl he used to know.
In some dim corner of my mind, I noted that Leon was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him over the static. I was in complete thrall.
That is, until James stepped around Leon. He held out my appointment book with one hand and placed his other hand on my arm.
Just like with the Note Incident, the static stopped the instant he touched me.
Suddenly the whole world got quiet, and I could hear him talking now. “ . . . I wanted to make sure you got it. Your work address was in the front,” he was saying.
I took the appointment book from him. “Thank you,” I said. It was my regular country voice. I could barely form a sentence, much less give him the Stage Davie treatment.
“No problem,” he answered. “I don’t encounter hit-and-run bunny rabbits every day.”
I waited for recognition to dawn in his eyes now that I was out of my bunny suit.
But he just stood there, studying me, with a little smile on his face, as if I was a strange new species at the zoo.
“No, I guess you don’t get knocked down by somebody in a bunny suit every day. Sorry about that.”
I didn’t know what to say next. This waiting-for-him-to-recognize-me stuff made me feel very, very awkward. Like a soldier right after he’s realized that he’s stepped on a land mine—you know, right before he blows up.
But James had enough charm for the both of us. “So Leon tells me you’ve got next Tuesday off.”
“Yes, yes, I do.”
I had to concentrate on not looking him in his eyes for fear of getting lost in them.
“Well, I noticed you didn’t have anything marked down for that night, so I made an appointment for you.”
I opened up the planner to the last week of May. And sure enough, there were the words, “JAMES FARRELL, Café Stella, 8 p.m.” And a number that I could only assume was his.
My brain shut down for a second, and when it started up again, he was asking questions.
“You live upstairs, right?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Would you like for me to send my driver to pick you up?”
“No,” I answered. “I’ve got to go now.”
“Okay,” he said.
He took his hand off my arm, and the static did not start up again but I did feel a little fixed to faint when he smiled down at me with all those white teeth of his.
I wished I was tall like his sisters. I wished that I could hold my head up and look right back at him.
But only being five-four, I didn’t even try to meet his gaze. “Bye,” I said, my eyes on my feet.
He held up his large hand and spread his fingers wide, “Bye.” And then he was gone.
I sagged sideways against the doorjamb. My heart was racing like I was fifteen again, but the rest of my body felt much older than my thirty-one years. Seeing James Farrell twice in one day was exhausting.