Offensive Behavior

Oh she’d see him again, she was sure of that, because she’d made it tantalizing enough for him to hang on to the promise of more Sex 101, but it wouldn’t be the same. He’d be different, and what he wanted now and knew he could have, would make things different between them. Temporary.

Exactly what she needed them to be. Because? Because. Four years of wasting her life she wasn’t getting back.

When she made it home, Cara was waiting, although her version of waiting looked like dressmaking. She had a mouthful of pins, their colored heads held between her teeth. There was teal silk spread over the kitchen table, handmade pattern pieces pinned to it.

“What’s that going to be?”

“Dress for Lonnie Parker.”

Cara’s ability to speak with a mouthful of pins was as legendary as her wish for one of her creations to have a starring moment, not that Lonnie Parker or any of the women Cara sewed for were likely to deliver it. “Special event.”

Cara picked up scissors. “Nope. Family birthday.”

“One day your red carpet moment will come.”

Cara put the scissors down and took the pins from her mouth. “One day I’ll have to get a job to supplement my job. I lost my shift.”

“Oh no.” Oh no, oh no. There was rent due, and at least two utility bills pinned to the corkboard in the kitchen.

“I was rationalized out in an effort to concentrate expertise and provide a more holistically satisfactory customer call-center service experience.”

Cara had pulled all the chairs out from the table. Zarley nabbed one, twirled it and straddled it backward. “You were canned.”

“I was consciously uncoupled. I got severance. Enough for rent and I’ll get another job. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.” She tried to remember what was in her account, how long they could last on only her salary. It wasn’t totally dire, but it wasn’t sunshine and lollipops either. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Didn’t want to harsh your bliss. You sounded smitten on the call this morning. But you might have harshed it yourself by now. Google him yet?”

Zarley had steadfastly not googled and Reid didn’t seem like the social media type. “No, but you did.”

“You get bored after you’ve been rationalized.” Cara shifted her weight, a pained expression making her squint. But the fact that she was standing still, not restlessly shifting while they talked, told Zarley she was having a good day. “There are three Reid McGraths in the greater San Francisco area. But he’s not an old dude with a biker beard so that leaves two.”

“There are three of them?”

“Two, stick with two. Both of them are businessmen. Only one of them recently lost his job in a fairly spectacular way. Unlike my simple rationalization, he was booted from the company he started.”

“Yeah, we already know all that, sugarplum, and I told you he had money.”

Cara picked up the scissors again. “He’s like famous, Zar. Came from some nothing cowpoke town and built this big global software business called Plus.”

“He has a plus sign.” She wrote it on her chest with her finger.

“Big controversy about him.” Cara put the scissors to the fabric and snipped. “Some people reckon he’s a genius. But he was canned for, I don’t know,” she waved the scissors, “it’s all corporate doublespeak, but sounds kinda like he’s a bad guy. Not steal all the money bad, but,” she shrugged, “bad enough to go out in a blaze of glory.”

That sounded like Reid. “He’s not good with people.”

“He told you all this?”

Zarley nodded. Cara went back to cutting the silk. “He’s been slumming it at Lucky’s.”

That was becoming very clear. “I guess.”

“So where are you at with him?”

“We’re doing think music.”

Cara snorted. She rounded the table, to cut the fabric from another angle. “What does that mean?”