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Oriana reached toward Brea and squeezed her hand. “I’ll come with you wherever you want to go.”
But Brea heard the hesitance in Oriana’s voice. She knew that Oriana wanted to see and be seen in such a place, to rub shoulders with future clients, and to ultimately woo Nick into handing over half a million.
Besides. The thought of having one night off from all of that pleased Brea to no end.
“You go in,” Brea urged her. “Kenny has the night off tonight, so I’ll just go back home and hang out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Definitely,” Brea said. “Have fun.”
Brea turned on her heel and rushed back out into the night, listening as Nick cried out, “Let’s go, Oriana,” and tugged her inside. Again, Brea had a strange suspicion about that guy and felt nearly one hundred percent certain that he hadn’t put her name on the list on purpose. Right now, she didn’t care. In fact, so far from Kenny and Valerie, miles and miles from Martha’s Vineyard, and drifting away from Oriana, she wasn’t sure what she felt like. Certainly, she didn’t feel like herself.
Goodness, wasn’t it nice not to feel like herself for once?
Brea walked for over a mile until her feet screamed in her shoes, and she entered a bar that sold beer from the tap and not-so-fancy wine. Somebody played Steely Dan on the jukebox, and people hung on the bar top, singing the lyrics and laughing with one another. It had little to do with Oriana’s “swanky” New York. It seemed more related to home.
Brea sat on a bar stool and ordered herself a beer, which she hadn’t drunk in ages. The bartender placed it on the counter and then left her alone. Brea sipped with her eyes closed, trying to shove away her fears, her sorrows. She was just a woman in her twenties. She was just an anonymous woman in New York City.
“You must really like that beer.”
Brea’s eyes snapped open at the sound of a man’s voice. Three stools down sat a guy in his late thirties, maybe, with scruffy brown hair and big puppy dog eyes. He smiled at her and raised his beer, adding, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Brea was silent for a moment. The guy’s attention was warm and nourishing, a reminder that nobody had looked at her like that, outside of the context of her life, in a long time. It wasn’t that she was attracted to him— her love for Kenny was too strong. But it was lovely to be seen.
“You’re right. I do like this beer,” Brea said. “I feel like I’ve been drinking cosmopolitans for weeks, non-stop. I’ve had enough.”
The man laughed. “You’re a Cosmo girl?”
“Not really,” Brea said. “I work in an industry that demands you dress a certain way, drink a certain drink, and schmooze.”
The man winced. “That’s just about every industry in New York, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t lived here very long.”
The man nodded toward the stool beside her, questioning if he could get closer. She nodded, and he stood, walked around, and sat down. So close up, he was less handsome than he’d been down the bar, and his teeth were slightly yellowed, probably from smoking. Everyone in New York City smoked.
“And where did you come from?” the guy asked.
“Martha’s Vineyard,” she answered.
“That’s heaven on earth, isn’t it?”
Brea nodded. She genuinely believed it was, which begged the question:why had she ever left?Maybe, if she and Kenny had never come here, he never would have gotten sick. Maybe it was all her fault.
“I’m Neal,” he said, sticking out his hand for her to shake. Brea did, introducing herself as well.
“You look like you’re dressed up for a place a lot fancier than this,” Neal said.
Brea blushed. “I had plans to go out, but they fell through.”
“Did a guy bail on you?”
“No. I was going out for a client, but he forgot to put me on the guest list.”
Neal cocked his head. “Really? That’s strange. I guess that means you lost that deal?”
“I’m an assistant,” Brea explained. “I’m working for my best friend. An art dealer. She’s moving up the ranks quickly and hoping to take me with her.”
