Chapter 7
Seven
The next morning, there was a knock on the door.
Jal set her tea down on the counter and pressed her eye to the peephole expecting to see one of her friends, or at worse, Ciaran, but the hallway outside the door was empty.
She waited a full minute before she flipped the locks and eased it open until the security chain stretched tight.
Outside, the hallway all the way to the stairs was nothing but scuffed drywall and dusty tile. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She turned to close the door and caught a flash of white out of the corner of her eye. On the doormat was a white envelope and a long, narrow box.
She tried reaching through the gap, but the box was just out of reach.
With a sigh, she stood and pushed the door closed to release the chain, opening it only far enough to retrieve the items before securing the door again.
She deposited the box on the counter next to her cup and dug in the drawer beside her for a sharp knife to slit open the heavy, off-white paper.
Inside, was a single thick sheet folded in half.
At the top of the page was a logo with interlocking initials DJ&R and a swanky Fifth Avenue address, and in the middle were a few lines of script written in a neat, masculine hand.
Jal,
Since I didn’t get your phone number, I figured this would have to do. I made a reservation at Amicetto at seven tonight. Hopefully you can make it.
If not, I understand.
Ciaran
Jal slowly set the note aside and tried to ignore the butterfly that had started to flutter its wings in her stomach. The white box was about two feet long and four inches square. She turned it right side up. On the lid, was an embossed sticker with the name of a flower shop a few blocks away.
She retrieved the knife to slit the tape and pried the box open.
Beneath a layer of tissue paper was a half-dozen dark pink flowers, each one a foot long, carefully packed head to tail inside.
The buds were half as wide as the box, each covered by a white foam mesh to compress the blooms and protect them in transit.
Jal lifted one flower free and removed the covering, allowing the delicate ruffled petals of a peony to spring open. Jal pressed the flower to her nose and inhaled the heady sweet scent. Oh look, the butterfly has friends.
After taking another deep sniff, she reluctantly set the flower back in the box to find something to put them in, eventually settling on a wide-mouth mason jar, the largest container she had.
She filled the jar and returned to the table to trim the stems then placed it in the middle of the dining room table, where she could see them from almost anywhere in the apartment.
She went back to the kitchen and looked down at the note, ran her fingers over Ciaran’s words, the paper smooth and cool to the touch.
A weight settled on her shoulders as she thought back to the last time they had been to the same restaurant, how her earlier confidence had so easily come crashing down.
Sure, she’d gotten her money back, but the look on his face, somewhere between confusion and hopefulness, before she’d fled—yes, fled—for the exit, was an expression she wouldn’t soon forget, and didn’t want to see ever again. For some odd reason, she wanted to find a way to make it up to him.
This meeting should have ended a half-hour ago, Ciaran grumbled to himself as he slipped his hand under the desk to check his watch.
The dozen or so people sitting around the wide, oval table had been there for over an hour and still, there was no end in sight.
If he didn’t leave soon, there was no way he was going to get home in time to get changed and make it to the restaurant.
From his left, Cliff leaned over the armrest of his chair and murmured, “got somewhere to be?” His voice was too low for Old Man Dougherty to hear, but he was too busy holding court to notice anyway.
A quick glance around the table told him that most had already tuned out his running commentary on recently completed projects, describing what went well, with a heavy emphasis on what didn’t.
Some, like Ciaran were already getting antsy about the time, with trains to catch, kids to get home to, dinner to get on the table. Or at least ordered.
His throat suddenly felt a little warm and his collar too tight, but he resisted the urge to loosen his tie in front of the whole office. “Sort of.”
Cliff smirked but sat back.
Inwardly, Ciaran sighed. Cliff wouldn’t say anything else now or risk drawing attention, but he’d have something to say for sure the next time they were alone.
The tone of Dougherty’s voice changed. “Oh, and Gray?”
Ciaran sat up a little straighter, “Sir?”
“I heard from the people over at Johnson & Weicott this morning. They’re pleased with the plan for their new building.” The corner of his mouth quirked up briefly, the closest Dougherty ever got to a smile. “Well done.”
“T-Thank you, sir.” he replied, but Dougherty had already moved on to another associate down the table.
Cliff turned his head, eyes wide and flashed him a thumbs up.
Ciaran nodded his head and suppressed a smile. Old Man Dougherty was impressed… Little did anyone in the room know, but that was the biggest compliment of his career, short as it was. He tapped his fist on the armrest once, the only outward sign of celebration, and checked his watch again.
He was less successful in suppressing the wince this time, but just as he started to think of a good enough excuse to duck out of the meeting early, Dougherty made his last comment and thanked the room for their “willingness to stay behind a few extra minutes.”
“Try thirty-five,” Cliff muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he piled up his laptop and note pad and tucked them into the crook of his arm.
Ciaran did smile then, partly at Cliff being as annoyed as everyone else, and partly in relief. He gathered his belongings, made his goodbyes, and tried not to run as he left the conference room.
He was none too gentle as he stuffed his laptop and other essentials into his backpack and made for the elevator.
He wasn’t the only one waiting impatiently for the elevator to arrive.
A half dozen of his fellow coworkers, most of which were married with young children, looked about as harried as his sister and brother-in-law had the few times he’d visited them and their then-newborn twins.
Once outside, he ran for the uptown train two blocks down and forced his way into a car already crowded with a couple hundred fellow commuters.
The air inside was fetid. Sticky with too many smells that he’d rather not think about identifying.
Thankfully, he only had to go a few stops before he was elbowing his way out onto the platform and racing up the stairs.
He made it to his apartment in record time, but he still only had about forty minutes to make it to the restaurant.
He dumped everything onto the small table in the kitchen, and headed for the shower, leaving a trail of discarded clothes in his wake.
Within ten minutes, he was showered, dressed, and heading back down the stairs.
His heart was beating a mile a minute and it didn’t start to slow until he was seated in a yellow cab heading back uptown toward the restaurant.
“Hot date?” The cabbie asked wryly.
Ciaran looked up from fixing his hair in the reflection of the security glass and caught the driver’s eye. He was a middle-aged man wearing a white baseball cap with a blue pin stripe and an interlocking NY logo. Ciaran hadn’t yet learned which baseball team went with which logo.
“Something like that,”
The cabbie chuckled. “Amicetto is a nice place,” he said, his accent an odd mix of Italian and New Yorker.
“Took the missus there for dinner for our thirtieth wedding anniversary last year.
The vongole with the lemon risotto is—“ he kissed his fingertips and pulled his hand back, splaying his fingers, a classic Italian gesture.
“I have no idea what that is, mate, but I’ll keep an eye out for it.”
It was the cabbie’s turn to be confused, though many people did when he spoke.
He just scrunched up his nose and nodded in agreement, though it was clear the guy had no idea what Ciaran had just said.
The last few blocks were spent in silence and, soon enough, the cab rolled to a stop in front of the restaurant and the valet pulled open the door.
He paid quickly with a tap of his phone and tipped generously.
“Good evening, sir,” the valet said as he closed the door of the cab and tapped twice on its roof.
Ciaran smiled and gave him a nod as he strode up the black mats to the front door, his long legs eating up the distance in seconds.
Inside, Ciaran felt, as he always did, like he had stepped back in time.
Little had changed inside since the days of Sinatra, but it was well preserved, with a few modern tweaks that made it even more upscale.
A heavy red curtain, tied back to one side with a thick gold cord, served as a divider between the bar area just inside the front door and the dining room.
In the colder months, the curtain could be closed to keep the restaurant warm and cozy, safe from the cold air being let in every time the door opened.
He wove through the crowd of people clustered around the small tables near the bar and stopped at the host stand perched in the shadow of the curtain.
The woman behind the gleaming white podium looked up at his approach and smiled, her teeth very white in the dim lighting.
She tossed her long brown curls behind one shoulder and stood up a little straighter.
She was very pretty, and the movement made her not-inconsiderable breasts more prominent, but he didn’t feel even a flicker of interest and kept his attention on her face as she asked, “Can I help you, sir?”
“Gray, party of 2. I think I’m a few minutes late.” He informed her, leaning forward to be heard over the din at the bar. “Is my companion here yet?”
“Gray…” She looked down at her reservation book, and made a mark next to an entry. “No, it looks like you’re the first one here, but I can take you to the table if you would like.”
His stomach sank. “Aye, that’s fine.”
She gathered up menus and ducked past the curtain.
Ciaran couldn’t help a sigh of relief as she led him past the table they’d been given last time, toward the back where the din from the bar didn’t quite reach.
She placed the menus on the table and didn’t wait for him to sit down before returning to her station.
He took the seat facing the doorway and took out his phone, making sure that it was on silent, even though it was unlikely to go off given that pesky little problem of her not having his number.
He’d thought of sharing his when he sent the flowers, but held off, wanting to stretch their game out a little longer by waiting to see if she’d come.
It might already be Game Over, he thought as he checked his watch.
It was already quarter past seven, and Jal hadn’t arrived yet.
He wouldn’t blame her if she stood him up, it had been short notice after all, but he couldn’t help feeling a little flicker of hope that she would come.
The waiter approached and he ordered a Macallan 15 neat. He felt like celebrating the win at work at least a little bit. And if Jal didn’t end up showing? Well, then he’d at least have a first-class glass of Scotch to wash away the disappointment.