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“Ouch.”
It was a joke, but the bitter songwriter inside me fucking meant it.
“You going to call him back?” he asked.
“When the year’s off to such a fine start? No chance.”
“Maybe you should.”
“You don’t think that.”
“It’s still the right thing to say.”
I looked out the kitchen window, squinting at the sunshine glinting off the lake in the distance. “I don’t pay you to say the right thing.”
“Fuck off.”
“You don’t pay me to fuck off,” I said, keeping the joke going. Truth was, he hardly paid me at all. It didn’t matter. I didn’t go into business with him because I needed the money. Besides, he could afford to pay himself and the rest of the staff more that way, which made me feel less guilty about enjoying my royalty checks. “Also, you called me, remember?”
“Oh yeah, there’s a message for you on the landline here, too.”
I laughed. “Wait, what year did it turn into last night? Do you think we found a wormhole back to the nineties?”
“I don’t know. Look in the mirror.”
“Good idea.” I bent down to look at my reflection in the toaster and ran a hand over my unshaven cheek.
“Well?”
“It’s not the nineties. I don’t have a single pimple and my hair is unremarkable in color and appearance.”
“Thank God.”
“So who’s the message from?”
“That woman.”
I pressed my ear against the phone. “What woman?”
“The pretty one you bombed with last night.”
“I didn’t bomb with her,” I said. “What did she say?”
“That she left her scarf here. Except I can’t find it anywhere.”
“I have it.”
“What? With you?”
I glanced towards it. “Yeah.”
“Is it turquoise cashmere with a tag that says Made in London?”
“Yep.”
“Huh,” he said. “Guess you do have it. Which is weird of you.”
“I didn’t want someone else to nab it. It’s a really nice scarf.”
He laughed. “Right. Whatever’s best for the scarf.”
“Did she leave her number?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. That was easy.”
