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A shiny black town car pulled up, and I stepped back when the driver came around to open the door for a drop-dead gorgeous woman wearing a fur coat with black trousers and a black blouse. She smiled with perfectly pink lips, but it was a cold smile, the kind reserved for nameless help and people on the street. Her dark hair was pinned into an effortless chignon at the base of her neck, revealing large diamond studs that matched a sizable yet tasteful pendant necklace. She commanded the attention of just about everyone on the sidewalk. I wasn’t the only one watching as she brushed past me, the stiletto heels of her boots clicking impatiently on the concrete.
When I turned around, I nearly shrieked when I was almost knocked over by the second person exiting the car.
“Shit! I’m so sorry, miss. Are you all right?”
I found Brandon Sterling gazing at me with obvious concern that changed to surprise, then curiosity, and possibly amusement.
In preparation for the ride, I had changed out of my work clothes into a more comfortable pair of jeans, black ankle boots, and an oversized gray turtleneck sweater that peeked over the collar of my parka. My favorite gray knit beanie covered my bright hair, which lay in a casual braid down one shoulder. I had replaced my contacts, which tended to irritate my eyes in the cold, dry weather, with tortoise-shell glasses. It was a far cry from the normal business attire he had seen before.
“Something funny, Mr. Sterling?”
His smirk grew into an impossibly sweet smile—almost enough to make me forget his crass offer. “Not at all, Red. I was just thinking you look…well, more like the student you are, I suppose. It suits you.” His eyes dropped to my overnight bag. “Going somewhere?”
Something like jealousy blazed across his face. I pushed my glasses up my nose, flustered.
“I’m getting out of town for the weekend to visit family.” I glanced at my watch. “I need to get going if I’m going to make the eight o’clock bus.”
“Bran!”
The woman in the fur coat stood in the middle of the revolving doorway of the office building, ignoring the multiple people waiting awkwardly on the other side. She frowned briefly in my direction before sending a bright white smile toward Sterling.
“Bran, honey, aren’t you coming?” she asked.
“Be right there.”
Sterling wasn’t quite fast enough to erase the sadness from his face before I looked back. He rubbed a leather-gloved hand over his eyes and sighed before giving me a half smile. “I’m sorry about our…meeting on Monday, Skylar. Really. It was…not what I originally intended, I promise. If I could take it back and start over, I would.”
His face tightened as he glanced toward the office—likely at the beautiful woman waiting for him. She had called him “honey.” Was she his girlfriend? Perhaps an arrangement like he had requested with me. Whatever they were, he didn’t seem very happy in her company.
Before I could say anything, Sterling reached out a tentative hand and squeezed me gently on the shoulder, his fingertips lingering a moment before they fell away.
“You have a good trip, Skylar,” he said quietly and walked away.
* * *
I never likedthe long ride to New York. The buses were noisy, usually packed with other poor travelers. I had heard the same horror stories Eric mentioned of the rickety old things bursting into flames right on the interstate. But the drivers were fast and efficient, and it wasn’t uncommon to make the trip in less than four hours if there was no traffic.
Second in line to board, I was able to get my preferred seat: right in the front, where I could watch the road and avoid carsickness. My seatmate was an elderly lady who barely reached my shoulder and didn’t crowd our small space. She lived in Roxbury and was going down for the weekend to visit her son in New Jersey.
“Do you come to New York often?” she asked, the letter “r” barely evident under her thick Boston accent.
“My dad lives in Brooklyn,” I said with a nod. “I grew up there.”
“Oh, what a good daughter you are, going to see your dad. I wish my Tommy would come up more, but he’s got a big job on Wall Street.” She lifted her hands up into the air as if to say, “what can you do?” Then she examined me the way only older women can do without appearing brazen. “Pretty girl like you. Look at all that red hair. Is your family Irish?”
I smiled politely. “A bit on both sides. I’m told I get the hair from my grandfather. I never knew him, though.”
“Does your dad look like him?”
“Not at all,” I told her. “He takes after my bubbe, with dark hair.”
“You’re an Irish Jew? Honey, you are definitely from New York. There ain’t nowhere else someone who looks like you would have a bat mitzvah, that’s for sure.”
I never had a bat mitzvah. Technically I wasn’t Jewish, since my mother wasn’t. Dad didn’t go to temple anymore, and Bubbe never seemed to care one way or another if I did. “I guess not.”
“Your dad like your boyfriend?”
I frowned. “Excuse me?”
