Page 98 of Suite 7

Then I get in a cab.

19 Vera

Sloane calls Friday morning while I’m standing at my kitchen window with coffee I’ve been holding long enough for it to go cold, watching the city do its Friday thing and trying not to think about tomorrow.

“Come over tonight,” she says. “I have wine and an agenda.”

“Those two things cancel each other out.”

“They complement each other. Seven o’clock. Thai from the place on Birch Street.”

I should say no. Because every hour between now and then that I spend with Sloane is an hour I have to carry both of those facts in the same room without letting them touch. I did it on Wednesday at Maggio’s and she asked me directly and I looked her in the eyes and said no, it doesn’t involve you, and I have been living in that answer for two days.

I can do it again.

I’m apparently getting very good at it.

“Seven,” I say. “I’ll bring dessert.”

I spend the rest of the day at my desk with my phone face-up beside my keyboard. At noon it buzzes once: Tomorrow. One word. I type back: Tomorrow.

Sloane opens the door at seven with two glasses already poured and the energy of someone who’s been thinking about this since before I arrived. She’s in her off-duty silk blouse, feet bare, hair down, and she hands me my wine before I’ve taken my coat off.

“You brought cannoli,” she says, taking the bakery box. “Good. We’re going to need it.”

“That’s ominous.”

“It’s not ominous. It’s a conversation.” She sets the box on the counter and settles onto the couch, cross-legged, in the position that means she’s been waiting to say something for longer than today. “Come sit.”

I sit. The Thai arrives nine minutes later and we eat from the containers for a while. She tells me about the rebrand client, I tell her about a pitch that went sideways, she makes her face at someone misunderstanding what PR actually is. It’s easy. The ease of nine years. I let myself be in it without examining it.

Then she sets her container down and picks up her wine.

“Okay. The agenda.”

“Hit me.”

“Kane,” she says.

The word drops into the room and my hand tightens on my glass before I can stop it. His name in her mouth, while I’m currently in possession of the knowledge that he is picking me up tomorrow night at seven.

“What about him?” My voice comes out level.

“I want to set him up.” She says it like she’s already decided. “There’s a woman I know through the Hartley Group — Claire. She runs events for a hospitality company, she’s lovely, she has a life that makes sense. I’m thinking the Cartwright gala in January. Get them in the same room with a reason to talk.”

“Sloane.”

“I know. He doesn’t like setups. But he doesn’t have to know it’s a setup. One evening. If there’s nothing there, fine.”

“You can’t engineer connection.”

“I’m creating conditions. There’s a difference.” She leans forward and turns her phone toward me. “Here. This is her.”

The photo is a candid, not a headshot — a woman with an easy smile and kind eyes. I look at the photo for long enough to be convincing and hand the phone back.

“She seems lovely,” I say.

“She is. And she’s the kind of person who wouldn’t need Kane to be different than he is. She’d just — fit alongside him.” Sloane sets the phone down. “That’s all I want for him. Someone who fits.”