“Making any progress?” she asked.
“None that I understand, at least so far,” I told her.
She had been sitting at her desk, but as we spoke, she came out from behind it and walked over to me. She was wearing a dark green skirt that had a matching jacket which was currently on a hanger on a brass coat rack in the corner of the room. The top she wore with the outfit was a white silk pullover, and it was cut a little lower, and a little tighter, than you usually see in a business environment. As for the skirt, on one hand, a lot of people would say that it was definitely too short for office wear. On the other hand, it had a six-inch slit slightly off-center to the left. It made for an interesting effect when she walked. I noticed that she was wearing high-heeled shoes that matched the color of the suit. Had she been wearing the shoes before I came in, I wondered, or had she slipped into them before coming out from behind her desk.
Standing very close to me, she said, “How about dinner tonight? I’ll cook.”
“Uh, I can’t, Sandra, not tonight. I have, uh, other plans.”
“Another date, huh?” she asked, with a smile.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry that you made the other date?”
“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “I mean, I’m sorry to have to say no to your offer of dinner.”
She moved a little closer to me. I hadn’t noticed before, but she was wearing perfume, some sort of understated floral scent. I liked it.
“And your relationship with this other woman is more important than your relationship with me?”
I wouldn’t have thought she could move much closer to me without the two of us actually touching, but she did. Our bodies were probably an inch apart now, and she seemed to be leaning just slightly in my direction.
“I, uh, don’t know. We really don’t have a relationship yet, I mean this other woman and I. I just met her and we’re having dinner tonight and that’s why I can’t have dinner with you.”
She smiled again and said, “Why, Jeremy Barnes, are you blushing?”
“This kind of stuff isn’t easy for me,” I told her.
“What kind of stuff?” she asked.
“Talking about one woman with another one. I don’t think I should be doing it.”
“Well, then,” she said, “we’ll just have to stop, won’t we?” As she turned to walk away, she somehow managed to brush her breasts up against my chest. It was not an altogether unpleasant experience.
“I hope you have a good time tonight, Jeremy,” she said, as she got to her desk and leaned back against the edge of it.
“Thanks,” I said.
I turned around and began walking out of her office. As I reached the door, she said, “Oh, by the way, later on, after dinner? If you’d care to stop by for some, uh, dessert, I’ll be home.”
I nodded, and made my escape.
Chapter 29
Silvio’s has been around longer than I can remember. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, just a red brick wall, really, with a dark-stained wooden door in the middle, and a picture window on either side. The windows have old-fashioned drapes, which were pulled shut against the glare of the afternoon sun when I got there at five after four that day. When I walked in, I saw that the place looked pretty much the same as it had the last time I’d been there, about a year or so ago. In contrast to the rather mundane exterior, the interior was much brighter and more cheerful-looking. Basically, it was one large room filled with circular tables of varying sizes. Along both sides of the room were booths that were one step up from floor level. The table in each booth had a small Tiffany-style lamp hanging down over it, and all the tables in the room had green-and-white patterned tablecloths. The walls were covered with pastel-colored murals showing scenes from the Italian countryside. A smiling young woman greeted me and asked if she could seat me. I told her she could and that there would be two of us. She asked if we’d prefer a table or booth, and I said booth, which is where I was sitting when Laura Fleming arrived a few minutes later.
She came in, looked around and spotted me, then walked over to the booth and slid in on the opposite side. She was wearing a long turquoise skirt with matching jacket over a lightweight T-shirt with scalloped edges at the top. Her beige shoes had low heels, and her hair was swept back and held in place by a single large clip. Other than small silver earrings and a watch, she wore no jewelry. Her makeup was so light and so artfully applied that at first glance, one would think she wasn’t wearing any. I hoped she was maybe one-tenth as impressed with my navy casual slacks and long-sleeved red-white-and-blue checked sports shirt as I was with her outfit.
“I was just wondering,” I told her as she sat down.
“About what?” she asked.
“How you can look this good after spending the day with a group of five-year-olds.”
She laughed and said, “Thank you. That’s very kind. Actually, I did take a few minutes to try to repair some of the day’s damage before driving over here.”
“You done good,” I said.
“And since I know you used to teach English, I realize that you’re just having fun with that ‘done good’ comment.”
“Just trying not to appear too intellectual,” I said. “I’ve found that coming across as too smart scares off a lot of babes who are only interested in my body, anyway.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I’ll be sure to let you know when I start feeling intimidated by the sheer force of your intellect. Meanwhile, I’m starved. What are you having?”
“The spaghetti, of course,” I said. “What about you?”
“Angel-hair
