Chapter 3
With my freshly shaved legs I feel as fabulous as Beyoncé. I want to tell every person I pass, feel them! Feel how soft! But I manage to contain myself, and instead I carry myself with dignity, my tiny bag clutched in one hand and my strappy sandals clicking elegantly on the marble. I’m wearing a swishy cotton sundress that is much better in the heat, so that when I walk out onto the patio bar behind the hotel, I don’t immediately melt into a puddle of swamp sludge.
The air is warm, but far less intensely so than a few hours ago, and the sun has cast a golden pink glow across the sky. The patio is filled with tropical plants that give it a vacation vibe, even though we’re submerged in the pressure cooker heart of American politics. Around the patio, men and women in work attire are frowning at each other over their cocktails, or tapping efficiently on their phones as they nurse a drink. The woman I recognize from when I entered the hotel—the one in the elegant white slacks—is sitting across from a handsome man, spinning a martini glass seductively by its stem on the wooden table. Whatever he’s saying rivets her, and she leans in, a slender eyebrow rising.
She looks up from her drink and catches my eye, and I quickly look away, pretending to be fascinated by the plants in the pot next to me.
“Are you snooping again?” a man’s voice comes from behind me. Not any voice. His voice.
I turn in my seat so fast I nearly fall off, and find him standing there behind me, still in his clothes from the airplane, remarkably, miraculously un-creased. The sleeves of his knit top are pushed up his forearms in response to the weather. They are, unfortunately, very good forearms.
“Beamer? I mean, Charlie?” I correct myself with a frazzled shake of my head.
He shoots me a lopsided smile. “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” he drawls as he takes the seat next to mine.
“Is that your usual pickup line?” My heart kicks up in my chest at the sight of him. Why it’s excited to see him, I swear I do not know. But it starts drumming away.
“Not a pickup line, Mini. An earnest question.” He places his hand over his heart with grave concern. “Are you following me?”
I can’t help it. I laugh. I feel like I’m right back on the airplane, but before my mind catches up with what I ought to say next, the bartender emerges and slides a cocktail napkin over with a glass of water and asks for Charlie’s order.
“Martini, straight up, two olives, please.”
The bartender vanishes to shake up his martini, and I stare at Charlie, last name unknown.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. I’m suddenly nervous, and I pick at the edge of the coaster on the bar top in front of me.
“I thought we were just about to establish why you are here, Mini.” He takes his drink when it appears and brings it to his lips. His lips continue to be very good. Not so full as to be pouty, but just enough that he’s probably an excellent kisser. He’s probably kissed his way into dozens of women’s beds, with all the trappings of wealth that surround him and clothes that don’t wrinkle.
“Wedding.” Keeping the details out of it is the best approach to the impending event, I have found.
He nods. “Beautiful place for a wedding.” Behind him, the woman from the lobby has noticed the striking man in the perfect attire sitting across from me. Her eyes stray from her tablemate and run the lines of his body. I want to make a face at her, or hiss, or maybe stick my tongue out. But I shove my inner child back into its closet and cross and uncross my legs. Charlie’s eyes dart down and linger for a moment longer than necessary before he looks back up at me, and it gives me a little rush of energy.
“What about you, Beamer? I can’t imagine you enjoying a celebration. Actually, I can’t imagine you… enjoying. Full stop.”
His lips twitch. Nearly a smile. “Meetings,” he says.
We’re both being dodgy.
“Meetings for your boring-as-hell work?”
“You’re insightful, you know that?”
“Stop trying to charm me, Beamer.”
“Only when you stop looking so in need of being charmed.”
That line gives me pause. Is it a barb or a genuine compliment? I can’t tell.
“So, who’s getting married?” he asks, stirring his drink around by the spear holding the olives.
Are we really doing this? Are we going to sit at a bar next to each other after having an interaction that was only barely tolerable on a flight this morning? His hazel eyes are fixed on me intently, waiting for an answer, so I guess we are.
“My mom.” I lean forward so that my elbows rest on the bar ledge and my eyes fall onto the coaster I’ve been picking at.
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
“I’m very happy,” I say defensively. “She’s my mom, and she’s in love. Of course I’m happy.”
“Of course you are,” he agrees.
“What are your meetings for?”
He spins his bar seat from side to side, like a little boy sitting with the grownups. It’s an endearing movement. “Oh, you know, corporate takeovers, robbing the little guy of millions, mass layoffs. What you’d expect from a country club master of the universe like me.”
Again, it's possible he’s not joking, but he clarifies, “I’m a contract attorney, and I have a client in DC that needs some hand-holding.”
“Contract attorney? Is it as awful as it sounds? I mean, I barely made it through listening to that sentence, and you have to live that life.”
His lips twitch again. “It is exactly as awful as it sounds, Mini. But it pays for the Beamer, so you should be grateful. Who would you have around to hate if it weren’t for that douchey car?”
Plenty of people , I want to say. Instead, I grin at him, because he’s funny and he’s actually turning out to be quite charming, and I really need it right now. The Daisy of this morning would give me a whack if she could hear my inner monologue now, but I’m glad he’s here and that I’m not sitting alone.
He changes the subject back to me. “So, what does little Daisy Mini do when she’s not trotting off to fancy hotels with her oversized purple suitcase?”
“Daisy Mini?” I raise a brow at him. “That the best you got?”
“I don’t know your last name, so it’s got to be Daisy Mini, I’m afraid.”
I roll my eyes over the smile I’m holding back. “It’s Daisy Thomas.”
“Ah.” He eyes me over another sip of his martini. “What does Daisy Thomas do, then?”
I suck my teeth for a minute because I know he’s going to find a way to tease me for this. “I’m an environmental advocate.”
But he doesn’t tease me. Instead, he pauses over his drink, the rim just touching his bottom lip.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
He clears his throat and sets his drink down. “Nothing. That’s an interesting job.”
I eye him suspiciously. “That’s it? It’s an interesting job? No jabs about how a little old lady like me is trying to save the bees?”
“Well, I mean, if you want me to, I could—”
I stop him with a raised hand, laughing. “No, please don’t. I should have just accepted the compliment.”
He nods. “So what, precisely, are you saving, Daisy Thomas?”
“Black bears. I advocate, work on policy proposals, do some social media. That sort of thing.”
“Your heart bleeds?” he says as he smiles.
I place a hand over my chest, mirroring his earlier pose. “It does.”
He twirls his glass in place, and then plucks an olive off the toothpick and chews it, thinking. I’d like to ask him what he’s thinking about, but something tells me not to.
“What’s your last name?” I ask instead. “Or would you prefer to be known as Beamer?”
He grins and raises his martini. “It’s Bond.”
I chuckle, “No, really, what’s your name?”
“I’m being perfectly serious.”
I blink. “That sounds made up.”
He laughs. “I’m aware.”
“Have you ever asked your mom why she didn’t name you James?”
“I’ve only ever taken the time to feel grateful that she didn’t.”
This makes me giggle. A fully girlish giggle that mortifies me inside. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“She passed away.”
My smile falls. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugs. “I was young.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause—the kind that occurs when you ask someone something too personal. After a moment he turns back to me. “Are you hungry?”
I am, actually. I haven’t eaten since the flight, and my stomach rumbles at the thought of food.
“What tipped you off?”
He gestures at the patio around us. “Let’s sit down and eat something. You can tell me more about saving the wildlife, and if you’re lucky, I’ll tell you all about torts.”
“Tortoises?” I say innocently, as though I’ve never heard of a tort, and he tilts his head back as he laughs. The first free laugh I’ve seen from him. His eyes relax and dimples appear around his mouth, and I hope to God he’s not a serial killer because he seems so… nice.