“Oh, thanks for waiting.”
I push her hair back from her face, and trace the gold studs following the curve of her ear with my index finger. She shivers.
“You cold?” I ask, suppressing a smile.
She drops her lashes and hides her eyes. “Freezing.”
One skinny strap of her jumper droops from the curve of her shoulder, baring her collarbone so I can read the script I couldn’t make out the night of the yacht party.
“You are altogether beautiful,” I read and pass my thumb along the script marking the fragile bone. “A little reminder in case we all forgot how pretty you are?”
Her smile flickers off and then back on. “My great-grandmother used to say it to me when I was a little girl. It’s from the Song of Solomon.”
I have twenty follow-up questions for everything I learn about this woman, and I can’t ask any of them in this crowd. I reach for her hand and interlock our fingers, checking her expression for any objection. There is none.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say.
She nods and tightens her small fingers around mine. “Let’s do it.”
“You hungry?” I ask, and we walk in the direction of the lot where I left my car.
“I am.”
“It’d be a shame if we came to Harlem and didn’t eat at Sylvia’s. Have you eaten there before?”
“You know, I haven’t.” She tosses me a grin. “But I’d like to.”
The organizers kept our cars under watch during the event, so I retrieve my keys and we walk over to the truck I bought last week.
“What is this?” Lotus asks, walking slowly around the shiny silver–gray chrome beast.
“It’s Lamborghini’s SUV, the Urus,” I say, opening the passenger door for her. “You like it?”
“I guess.” She shrugs like she rides in two-hundred-thousand-dollar trucks every day. “I’m not really a car person. I take the train everywhere.”
“A true New Yorker then.” I check for traffic and pull out into the street.
“No, definitely not.” She laughs. “But I’ve adapted.”
“You’re from New Orleans like Iris, right?”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I glance over at her. Where you’re from seems like an innocuous enough question, but a shadow passes over her face. “The first part of my childhood was in New Orleans. In the ninth ward, yeah,” she confirms. “But then I went to live with MiMi on the Bayou in this little parish where they spoke French more than English.”
“You learned it?”
“Yeah, MiMi spoke French a lot so I kinda had to pick it up. Came in handy with JP.”
“You like working for him?”
“I do, but I know I’ll do something else someday.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure.” She leans back into the luxurious leather seat. “I love my job, but I also have this podcast called gLO Up that’s starting to get sponsors and gain a following. Or I might branch out with some specialty like lingerie or accessories. Who knows? I don’t have to know everything about where I’m going tomorrow to enjoy today, so I just take it as it comes.”
“I’m a planner,” I tell her, negotiating the Harlem streets. “I always have things mapped out, and I usually follow that course meticulously.”
“Sounds like you don’t leave much room for the unexpected,” she says, turning slightly in her seat to study me while I’m driving.