Page 123 of Suite 7

Me: Who’s the someone?

Three dots appear immediately. Sloane types fast when she’s excited.

Sloane: Lisa! My colleague. The one I’ve been telling you about — marketing exec, brilliant, loves architecture. I had drinks with her last week and Kane came up and I just KNOW. Come. I need a witness. And honestly networking is good for you too! 7PM cocktail attire.

I set the phone face-down on my desk.

Lisa.

Not Claire. Not the warm-faced events director from the hospitality company, the one she showed me on her couch three weeks ago over Thai food and cannoli, the one I sat with and said she seems lovely and meant it and meant something else underneath it simultaneously. I thought that plan had gone quiet. I thought Sloane had let it sit, the way she sometimes does when she gets a feeling that the timing isn’t right.

She didn’t let it sit. She found a better candidate and didn’t tell me.

My coffee has gone cold. I drink it anyway.

I can’t say no without raising questions. Can’t claim I’m busy without Sloane asking exactly what kind of busy, and then following up, and then noticing that my version of busy and Kane’s version of busy occupy an identical calendar slot. Can’t explain that watching her engineer an evening around her brother’s love life while I’m currently part of her brother’s love life is the kind of irony that has no good resolution at a cocktail party.

Me: Wouldn’t miss it. 7PM.

Sloane: YES. This is going to be so good. Wear something that makes you feel powerful.

I look at the instruction for a moment.

Sloane doesn’t know she’s echoing Dominic.

I put the phone down and return to work. Forty-eight line items of coverage targets, media contacts, and a press release that has been rewritten four times and is still not quite right. I manage eleven minutes of productive focus before the phone buzzes with a different weight entirely.

Gerald: Sloane told me you’re coming Thursday.

Me: Did she tell you why she’s so excited about it?

Gerald: The gala. Networking. Her words.

I stare at that.

He doesn’t know.

Me: She’s setting you up with her colleague. Lisa. Marketing executive. Loves architecture. Sloane’s been planning this for weeks.

The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again, then stop.

A longer pause than his usual response time.

Gerald: I see

Two words. Completely level. The written equivalent of his face doing nothing.

Me: That’s all you have to say.

Gerald: What would you like me to say?

Me: I don’t know. Something. You’re going to spend the evening being introduced to someone Sloane has personally selected for you and your response is I see.

Gerald: What’s the alternative? She didn’t ask my permission.

Me: You could tell her you’re not interested.

Gerald: In what? She hasn’t told me anything. As far as I know it’s the gala.