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“I’m bringing pizza.”
“Not for you, for my mother. She’ll be here early Friday evening. I don’t want to do takeout after she’s worked most of the day and driven up from Boston.”
“I’ve never asked Bree for a recipe, so I can’t say for sure. But you should give it a shot.”
She was going to take that shot, too, and pulled out her phone. “Can you text her, give her my number? If she’s willing, she could text me. Remind her she likes me.”
“No problem. See you tonight.”
Which, she thought as he drove off, for her own purposes, she’d consider a date. “But now his firm’s a client, so no taking a shot there unless I’m absolutely, positively sure.
“Back to work, Yoda, so I can close it down in time to make myself presentable. Casually appealing,” she added as they started toward the house. “That’s the goal.”
She planned to knock off at five sharp.
But she got the go-ahead for the florist job.
Then had a long conversation with Burt Springer.
Grateful the conversation wasn’t via Zoom so he couldn’t see the nerves, she took detailed notes. In the end, she’d agreed to work up a proposal and presentation.
When she hung up, she sat very still.
“I can’t blow this. What if I blow this? I can’t blow it.”
Her iPad played theRockytheme and broke her panic with a laugh.
“Okay. It’s okay. I’ve got ideas. I just have to pick the right one and make it shine. And oh shit, it’s almost five-thirty! Shit, shit, shit!”
She shut down, then dashed over to her bedroom.
The red dress lay on the bed.
“No, no, no. It’s pizza in the kitchen! Face first.” She raced into the bathroom, took a breath. “Not too much. Just a little this, a little that.”
Not too much still took time, especially since she couldn’t decide on a happy dance or dropping her head between her knees.
She had three new projects—and one was a whopper. She still had one to finish, a client to satisfy.
“So we’re rolling. We’re busy, productive, and very, very nervous.”
When she walked back into the bedroom, the red dress had been replaced by stone-gray jeans and a red sweater. “Okay, that’s a very nice choice. We’ll go with it because I don’t have time to think about it.”
She changed, decided her wardrobe assistant had made the perfectchoice. As she tossed the sweats in the hamper, Yoda let out a bark and tore out of the room.
The doorbell rang.
“Okay. Here we go.”
Yoda danced at the door, and when she opened it, the dogs immediately greeted each other with canine joy.
“A man, a dog, and a pizza. Jackpot!”
“You have to pay for it with a ghost story.”
“No lack of those around here. Let me take your jacket.”
“I’ve got it.” He handed her the pizza before heading to the closet.
