Then she says, very quietly: “Beep boop.”
I stare. She stares back, and then I have to look away because if I don’t, I might… smile? At her joke?
“Do you think,” I say very slowly, because I need to get this back on track, “you could manage a smile and a nice to meet you in the next five minutes?”
Kat takes a long swig from her wine glass before answering, her earrings brushing against her neck, her throat working as she swallows, and out of the heat lamp of her gaze, I realize she… looks nice. Even if she’s an android, Kat dressed the part: a classy sleeveless black dress, black heels, and a necklace with green stones that make her skin extra gold.
She even looks… good?
“What?” she asks, and that’s when I realize I was staring at her in confusion.
“You look nice,” I tell her, the most lukewarm compliment ever given to a woman.
“Did you think I was gonna show up in a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and ripped fishnets?” she asks, but her voice isn’t quite as sharp as before.
“I didn’t think you weren’t.”
“Well, the night is young,” she says, and closes her eyes. Tips her head back. Takes a deep breath. I watch it heave her shoulders and carve out the hollow of her throat, and I feel like she’s made of thorns, sharp little hooks into my thoughts.
I’ve probably had enough wine.
“Listen,” she finally says. “I could use a game plan. Give me something to say to these people, please, because I have no fucking clue. Do I ask about their golf game? Their preferred country club? Their interpretation of the Second Amendment?”
“Definitely not that.”
“The Third?”
“About quartering troops?”
“I don’t know! What do lawyers talk about, Silas? I need a script. I need something.”
“Okay,” I tell her, nodding. I try to think of what lawyers like to talk about but I can only look at her and feel like I’ve seen a statue come to life, stone turned to warm flesh and blood. She does move. She does talk. Sometimes she even asks nicely. “Baseball and football are a pretty good bet with most of the men. The Washington teams. In general, ask if they’ve got any vacation plans coming up, everyone likes talking about that. You can also ask about their kids, but only if you think you can fake interest.”
“That probably depends on the kid,” Kat says, a little too honestly.
“I’ll try to give you hints,” I tell her, glancing over her shoulder and at all my colleagues, milling around the living room. “You know, ‘this is Billy Bob and he loves hot dogs and claiming he fixes up classic cars.’”
Kat’s lips move in something that might almost be a smile. Her shoulders have descended from her ears, and I spent a moment too long looking at the curve of her collarbone, the places where it’s transected by her necklace, the wings that disappear under the shoulders of her dress. It moves a little when she breathes.
“Thanks,” she says, and looks over her shoulder as well. “I did tell you—”
She doesn’t finish her thought because she goes sideways with a yelp and I grab her waist, wine sloshing out of her glass. A little goes on me, most on the plush carpet.
“Shit,” she says, and looks down at herself, then up at me. I make sure she’s upright before I take my hand off her, just in case. She looks at the carpet like it’s a snare. “This is why I never wear these things.”
I assume these things are her shoes, black spindly-looking high heels, bottoms sinking into the thick rug.
“Where’s the kitchen?” she goes on, turning toward the door and making no other move. “I should go get some paper towels or something.”
“Nah,” I tell her, and rub my shoe over the patch of wine on the carpet. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
She looks from me to the rug very, very skeptically.
“That’s what they’re for,” I point out, the spot now invisible. “It was white wine. It’ll dry. It’ll probably improve the room. I doubt you’re the first person to spill something on it.”
“Right,” she says, but she’s still looking at the carpet like she doesn’t believe me. “Still—”
She’s interrupted by the sharp sound of silverware on glass, coming from the main room.