Wild Card

“No, thanks, really,” she said. “I have a conference at three o’clock and would rather not belch my way through it.”

Julia gave another shrug. “Your loss,” she said, starting in on the pizza.

Megan carefully broke a piece off her scone and looked over her business suit for stray crumbs. At the table to her right, a plump woman shopper and her tyke-ish, buddingly overweight daughter had reached the conclusion of their fast-food pit stop. As the little girl started gathering their crumpled waxed wrappers, empty paper cups, and used napkins into the tray between them, Mom admonished her to leave it, somebody who worked in the mall would clean up. Megan saw them stroll away out the corner of her eye, wondering if the kid also caught heat for scrubbing her teeth before bedtime.

“Things moving along okay with your exhibition?” she said to Julia.

“They’d better be.” Julia shrugged. “I’ve got a week to go before the opening, thirty pieces left to hang, and a thousand rapidly multiplying butterflies in my stomach.”

Megan took a bite of the scone.

“Still plan on sticking to watercolors?”

“Mostly,” Julia said. “I’ve decided to take your advice and go with a limited mixed media presentation.”

“So you included the batiks.”

“That abstract series you like, yeah,” Julia said. “I brought a few to the gallery yesterday, and have the rest set to go for tonight, which should just leave me needing to drive over my oils.”

“Those two great big canvases.”

“Right.”

“Think they’ll fit into the Celica?”

Julia shook her head.

“Not unless I plan on strapping them to the roof.” She paused and briefly lowered her glance. “It almost makes me wish I hadn’t gotten rid of the old SUV… but, hey, you’re followed, kidnapped, and almost murdered by professional assassins, you wonder if maybe you ought to appease the gods and trade in the vehicle you were driving that day.”

Megan had seen Julia’s eyes flick downward as she spoke. It was the same, or nearly the same, whenever she mentioned what happened to her. She would leave it out there, the remembered terror thinly wound in defensive humor, making it difficult to know how to pick up on it, or whether that was even something she wanted.

Julia would talk about it one of these days, Megan thought. Eventually she would need to talk about it in an open way. But the timing was hers to decide.

Megan ate another piece of her scone. A couple of high-school-age boys with McDonald’s bags sat down at the table vacated by the round and purposefully untidy mother and daughter. They swept the rubbish and dirty tray that had been left behind to one side of the table, took a bunch of hamburgers from their bags, and plowed into them with enthusiasm.

“I’d be glad to help with the paintings,” Megan said. “Far as your transportation problem, though, my car’s smaller than yours.”

Julia made a swishing don’t-worry-about-it gesture.

“Dad’s got me covered,” she said. “He’s coming over tomorrow in the Land Rover.”

Megan scrunched her forehead. “Roger?” she said.

“He would be my one-and-only father, right.” Julia gave her a puzzled look. “Why the funny face?”

“I didn’t know I made one.”

“That’s because you couldn’t see it from here,” Julia said, and tapped her side of the tabletop.

Megan lifted her coffee to her mouth, sipped. “Guess I was wondering about your handsome curator friend,” she said.

Julia frowned slightly.

“Richard is an assistant curator,” she said. “One among several at the museum.”

“Uh-oh. This already sounds ominous.”

Julia sighed.

“We’re over,” she said.

“Over?”

“And done,” Julia said. “I broke things off last weekend.”

“Wasn’t that your first date with him?”

“Second, if you feel the need to count,” Julia said, chewing her pizza. “Take it from a divorced woman, Meg. It’s better to recognize a dead-end street before turning into it, because those U-turns can be absolute murder.”

“Do tell.”

“You really want to hear about it?”

“I would.”

Julia looked at her, expelled another sigh.

“Last Saturday night, Richard asks me out to dinner, my choice of restaurants,” she said. “I suggest Emilio’s, you know it?”

“Sure,” Megan said. “That Italian place in Santa Clara with the courtyard in back. Very romantic.”

“Which is the reason I picked it… that and the cuisine,” Julia said. “Easy question, okay? What’s Italian cooking supposed to be except this”—she gave the pizza in her hand a demonstrative little shake—“or some kind of pasta dish? Fettuccine, ravioli, lasagna. Maybe veal scallopini. A basket of homemade bread or rolls on the side, a cannoli for desert, nothing too creative. Am I reaching some unreasonable level of expectation yet?”

“Not to me.”

“Bam!” Julia said, doing a fair impression of Emeril Lagasse. “In Richard’s world, asking a date to choose a restaurant doesn’t necessarily mean she’s also entitled to choose her own dish. Most especially not if it contains repulsive, unfashionable carbs.”

“Uh-oh.” Megan had to grin. “He’s one of those?”

“Hold the bun,” Julia said with a nod. “You know how I am, Meg. The reigning Miss Individuality. If he says so right off, no sweat, I find another restaurant. I’ve got nothing against him believing a certain diet works, but don’t foist it on me with a lecture about unburned calories.”

Megan was shaking her head. “Did he happen to notice you’re in pretty fantastic shape?” she said.

“Not the way he might’ve if he hadn’t blown his chances that night, let me tell you.” Julia frowned. “I walked out on him, Meg. Left him right there at the table and hailed a cab home.”

Megan’s eyes widened with surprise and amusement. “No.”

“Yes,” Julia said. “He kept insisting I eat the lobster or grilled fish. And he talked over me— overruled me — when I tried making my preference of Ziti al pomodoro clear to the waiter.” A frown. “That was the last unbearable, embarrassing straw. I’ve only answered his phone calls once since, and that was to tell him to forget my number.”

Megan threw her head back and laughed. “God,” she said. “And I thought my history with men was a road littered with wreckage.”

Julia looked at her.

“Goes to show there’s always a person waiting to outdo you,” she said, laughing a little, too.

They ate quietly. Megan worked away at her scone as Julia got through eating her slice and then reached into the pizza box for another.

“Enough about my life,” Julia said after a bit. “What’s with yours these days?”

Megan shrugged, sipped.

“Work,” she said.

“No play?”

“No time.” Megan sighed. “It’s taken everything out of me just trying to settle into the new position. And lately our projects with Sedco have developed some speed bumps. The Caribbean fiber deal sticks out… Do you know about it?”

“Some,” Julia said. “I heard my father mention it once or twice when Dan Parker was still on their board. He’s