Anyhoo.
I wore my hair to just above my shoulders and got it cut at a place that cost a fortune so that it was al soft waves and little flippies at the ends. I did up my face and put on a charcoal gray wool, to-the-knee skirt that fit like a second skin, cupped my ass, straight at the front and flicked out in kick-pleats at the backs of my knees. I wore this with a black, figure-skimming, wool turtleneck sweater and a pair of gorgeous, spike-heeled black boots that cost so much money that I feared Bil y was going to have a seizure when he saw the price on the side of the box. At my ears, I put in a pair of diamond studs that Bil y bought me, likely with dirty money but they were diamonds and he didn’t often help with the rent, so I kept them. On my wrist, I put on my silver Raymond Weil watch with its mother-of-pearl face and finished the ensemble with my black, Lalique glass ring.
I couldn’t afford al this, not with taking care of Bil y and me. To feed my passion for labels, I saved and trol ed for al my treasures, careful y hoarding money or trawling nearly new shops (not to mention, I was addicted to online auction sites) for other people’s glamorous cast-offs. I did it as a hobby. I did it because I loved nice things and lately, I did it to remind myself of the life I’d left behind when I let myself fal in love with Bil y. This also served as a reminder of why I had to find a way to get rid of him.
I spritzed with Boucheron, threw my little Fendi bag over my shoulder (bought for a third of its retail price, never used, from a soon-to-be divorcee at her pre-divorce yard sale), programmed the address in the sat nav and headed to Uncle Tex’s house.
He wasn’t home.
I was surprised, it was Sunday and, for years, Uncle Tex had never left his block. Now he had a job but I didn’t reckon he was to the point of gal ivanting around Denver.
Though, in his latest letters, it sounded like he was doing a fair amount of gal ivanting.
I waited for a while and he didn’t come home. So, I went to a phone booth, looked up Fortnum’s bookstore and programmed the address in my sat nav.
I found a parking spot on Broadway and walked up to the door, which opened at the corner of Bayaud and Broadway.
It looked like a cool store, hip but not in a trendy way, in the way that only long-standing, cool-ass establishments could be hip, that is to say, natural y.
Then, I walked into the store.
And I loved it immediately. It smel ed musty from what looked like acres of disorganized books shelved, from what I could see, wil y-nil y at the back of the store.
I loved to read, loved books, libraries and bookstores and this, I could tel right away, was one of the best.
The front of the store was made up of the book counter to the left, on the right was a big espresso counter and al through the middle were tables and chairs, armchairs and comfy couches with low tables on which to set coffees.
I’d stopped when I’d entered and then my breath left me when I scanned the couches.
Sitting on the couches, al drinking coffee, were a bunch of men. Not just any men. It looked like GQ was having a convention and al the best looking guys had decided to have a coffee at Fortnum’s before going to seminars on how to cope with being real y, unbelievably, fucking gorgeous.
There were five of them; two looked a lot alike, like they were brothers. But, of the lot, it was only the one with the whisky-colored eyes that got my attention. They were al looking at me, but the minute my eyes hit Whisky, I felt light-headed and had to stand stock stil or I’d have fal en over in a dead faint.
I knew what it was, it had happened before when I saw Bil y, that fatal attraction. But either it had been a long time or I didn’t remember how huge the feeling was because it hit me like a freight train and I was thrown for a loop.
To cover this, I looked away and tried to walk calmly up to the espresso counter where a female version of Whisky was serving and was her own, feminine brand of gorgeous.
She was watching the guys then she looked at me, grinning like something was deeply amusing.
“Can I help?” she asked.
I’d forgotten why I was there, looking for my Uncle Tex, so I did what anyone would do when confronted with an espresso machine, I ordered a skinny latte with caramel syrup.
“Gotcha,” she said then went to work on my drink and I realized I was holding on to the counter for dear life and utilizing al the powers I had not to look back toward the couches to see if Whisky was stil checking me out.
Please, God, let Whisky still be checking me out, I thought.
Then I gave my head a firm shake to get rid of my idiot thoughts. I needed Whisky to be checking me out like I needed someone to dril a hole in my head, which was to say, not at al .
A fantastic redheaded woman, who I knew from Uncle Tex’s descriptions had to be Indy, walked behind the counter.