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“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” she asked.
“Lee and I have a bet, the kind of bet I don’t wanna lose.” It wasn’t a total lie. If Lee found Rosie, I would lose a lot: peace of mind, my grip on reality, things like that.
“So you bet Lee you’d find Rosie before he did and return a bag of diamonds to a bad guy?” Ally stared at me like I’d just had half my brain sucked out by brain-eaters.
“Yep.”
“Girl,” she drawled, “you’re so gonna lose.”
Lucky for me, Ally was into the underdog.
The door to Fortnum’s burst open and Andrea Cocetti stormed in.
Andrea was at school with Ally and me and she was in our pack. Rumor had it that Andrea made out with Richie Sambora backstage after a Bon Jovi concert, but this had never been publicly confirmed or denied. Privately, though, she admitted to both Ally and I that it didn’t happen, and thus, in secret, I reigned supreme with my Joe Perry encounter.
We’d stayed friends over the years but didn’t see each other often. Andrea got married about twelve minutes after we graduated and now had four kids. Four kids, especially hellions like Andrea’s, were a good reason not to see each other that often.
Now Andrea was Andrea Moran. She was pushing a stroller and dragging a child alongside her, while an older one followed, carrying a purse the size of an overnight bag and a diaper bag stuffed full to bursting. All this done with such practiced ease it was as if they were all merely accessories, including the children.
“You hooked up with Lee Nightingale!” she shrieked, causing the four customers who were calmly sitting around reading and enjoying their coffees in quiet surroundings to jump and stare. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Over the years, Andrea, too, had been drafted in some of my Lee Maneuvers. Andrea, too, was on Kitty Sue Nightingale’s Christmas Card List and therefore in her address book, and therefore, no doubt, received a call. Perhaps, considering a day had passed, during the second wave.
“It only happened yesterday,” Ally said.
Andrea ignored Ally. “Have you and Leedone ityet?” Her voice was still, really, really loud and the four customers stopped staring at Andrea and swiveled their heads to look at me.
I sighed then said, “We’re taking it slow.”
“Slow!” Her eyes moved from me to Ally and back to me. They looked like they were going to pop out of her head. “I…you…” She made a strangled sound, and I was starting to get concerned. “That isn’t possible. Slow isn’t possible. Lee Nightingale doesn’t move slow. One second he’s looking at you, the next second he’s walking away and he has the little satin bow from your panties as a souvenir.”
God, I hoped it wasn’tthatfast. That would be disappointing.
What was I thinking? It wasn’t going to happen at all.
“That isn’t true,” Ally replied. “He’d take the little satin bow from your bra. Not all panties have them but most bras do. Sometimes they’re rosettes. He’d take those as well.”
I stared at her.
“You’re joking,” I breathed, really not wanting to be a little satin rosette bouncing around with hundreds of other little rosettes and bows in Lee’s sock drawer.
Ally shrugged. “That’s the rumor.”
“Have you seen them? How many of them are there?” Andrea asked.
“I haven’t seen them. It’s just the rumor. I’m just keeping rumors straight. Maybe when Indy stopstaking it slow, we’ll find out.”
I calmed Andrea down with an iced hazelnut decaf latte and promised her I’d call her the minute Idid itwith Lee. At this rate, post-coital, I’d be on the phone for a week.
Once Andrea was settled, I noticed a guy who’d arrived practically the minute the door opened. He’d already bought three espressos, which he sucked down in one swallow, and he’d been reading a sports magazinenow for three and a half hours. He had dark-blond hair a week or two past needing a cut, a killer bod, compact with muscles and not an ounce of fat. He was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and running shoes.
If he wasn’t my height, I didn’t have an ugly bruise on my face and I didn’t already have enough man problems, I would have been flirting with him ages ago. I didn’t do men my height or shorter. They had to be taller than me if I was wearing heels. That was a rule.
I watched him for a few minutes, thinking that had to be a helluva magazine to require more than three hours of study.
Lee told me he had a lot of men. Maybe men enough to go to North Dakota and sit in surveillance at Rosie’s. Maybe men enough to hang out at Fortnum’s and keep an eye on me.
Fucking Lee.
