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“Good enough your grandmother would approve?” I ask.
“She does. I took her there when she came down to check out my place. She and the owner hit it off, talking in Italian for half an hour. Turns out, they come from neighboring villages or something.”
“In that case, order away. And for the record, I agree that your script has potential for a movie franchise, not that I think it’s the one for this project.”
“Alright. I guess that’s one decision we won’t make tonight. What do you want?”
“Surprise me,” I say, pleased she’s taking my refusal to agree with her decision so easily. The Fiona I knew and loved could be stubborn to the core. I’m glad some things have changed.
“It should get here in half an hour. What do you want to do until then?”
“I’d love to see how good the view is from that balcony of yours.”
“We can make that happen. Tell you what, let me go change. Why don’t you pour us some wine, and I’ll meet you out there?” Fiona walks into the door I assume holds her bedroom before I get a chance to answer.
I’m on the balcony, slowly sipping the wine and admiring the view when she joins me.
“You found it.”
“It’s not that hard to find a balcony off the living room.” I’d struggled to open the door until I noticed the stick she’d used to keep someone from opening it from the outside, but I wasn’t about to mention that.
“I guess not. Or all that time you spent in the boy scouts is paying off.” She joins me at the railing.
“How did you find this place?”
“An old boss of mine lived here for a while. When a condo came up for sale, I jumped at the chance to live on the river.”
“It’s not the house on the lake we talked about, but I’ve gotta give it to you. This is impressive.” The view is breathtaking. Especially in the light of the setting sun.
“I never get tired of it.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath of the air blowing in from the ocean. It’s close enough to taste the salt in the air.
“You own it?” I’m surprised. I didn’t realize she had such deep roots here.
“If you can call it that when you have to sign your life away to the bank.”
“I can’t believe you bought real estate before I did.” I shake my head.
“You rent? Out there?” She turns and looks at me with those pretty, big eyes of hers.
“I do. My place in LA is about the size of your living room.”
“No balcony?” She takes a sip of wine. It brings color to her cheeks and stains her lip a shade darker.
“No balcony. And the view from my living room is a parking lot and a busy side street. You definitely win in the housing department.” I raise my glass in salute.
“Well, that’s something. We can’t all be hot and upcoming film producers.” She shrugs.
“That bothers you, doesn’t it? That they brought me on.”
The ring of the doorbell saves her from answering my question. “That was quick.”
Fiona hands me her glass and goes inside to grab our food. I hear a brief conversation, but it’s too low to make out what they say. I turn and see her walk back out empty-handed.
“False alarm?” I hand her wine glass back to her.
“You could say that. Mrs. Pearl, my neighbor, is missing her cat. She’s an overweight Persian who escapes every once in a while. I promised I’d keep an eye out.”
“We could walk around the building and parking lot. I’m sure we’ll run into the delivery guy.” I look at Fiona, trying and failing to read her reaction to my idea.
