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“And that’s a bad thing? What’s your perfect day?”
She looked away from his infuriatingly superior expression. God help the businesspeople he interviewed, alive or dead, if he was this rigid and forbidding on the job. They’d surely tell him all their secrets and turn over all their cash if he looked at them so sternly and used that particular do as you’re told voice.
It didn’t help that his face was still bruised, the cut above his eye red and irritated, and that she wanted the Jack of last night back, the one who looked disheveled and on edge after they’d kissed. The one who for about five minutes might have worshipped her, who caressed her face and held her body as if he knew she felt out of place, was starved for affection, and he was the only man capable of making her feel good.
“It wouldn’t be in Chicago.” The city was seductive but it was also untrustworthy. It lulled you into believing you needed a nice dress for a good restaurant when you were simply set dressing for a play you didn’t understand. “It would be somewhere quiet. No, not quiet, just with less industrial noise. Not this clanging and whirring that never stops.”
She looked up at a patch of blue sky between the buildings, and the long shadows of other buildings, the unforgiving harshness of so much concrete and glass. “I could take birdsong, the sound of the wind in the trees, and the smell of fresh air—it’s much sweeter than you think. It’s a rush.”
She looked at Haley, wondering if someone born here could possibly understand how alien this built environment was to her. “The air here smells like diesel and grime, underarms and old shoes. I’d want sunshine that’s fierce and not filtered between buildings and hardly warms you. That would be a start. Then I’d want endless velvet skies at night and a million stars. And I’d want close friends around me.” She wanted Ernest and his mad enthusiasm and sloppy kisses. She missed him so terribly. “Laugher, good food, and I’d feel at ease, just happy to be. That’s a perfect day.”
He probably thought her lacking in imagination, and now that she’d had that thought, she realized she was. She could
’ve wished for anything and she’d wished for nothing more than home. She should go for a do-over.
“Which tells me you hate the city, you’re lonely as fuck and unhappy besides.”
“That’s not true.” She didn’t hate it; it was her future. It was just taking a little bit of time to acclimatize. “I didn’t say that.”
“You love the city, the sound and smell of industry, the clamor of millions of strangers who’ll never care about you sharing your space. You love the visual and physical pollution, the lack of sunlight and green things and stars, they’re your jam. I see.”
Jackson Haley, covert grade listener.
She waved a hand in the direction of Lake Michigan. “I like all the water. I do love the city.” Another gesture toward the river. “It’s exciting. It’s where I want to be.”
“Aha. What’s question five?”
He said “aha” like you’d humor a child. He didn’t think she was a child when he’d had his hand up her skirt. “You didn’t answer question three.”
“My perfect day would be too unsuitable to print for readers.”
She squeezed her pen and the top popped off the end. “I think I hate you.”
“You think? Try harder. It’s a stupid question. A day you wake up breathing and it doesn’t hurt is a good day.”
“Are you always this chipper or is this a perfect day?” She didn’t wait for a response. “‘Question five. When did you last sing for yourself or someone else and what was the song?’ I’ll start. I sang a Taylor Swift song this morning in the shower.”
“Because you knew you’d be answering this question.”
She couldn’t stop her mouth twisting. She was such a dimwit about not cheating the questionnaire when he had no intention of treating it with any respect. “You don’t sing. I remember.”
“What Taylor Swift song?”
“As if you care. Do you even know who she is?”
“Now who’s being childish?”
He’d asked her this question that first night he’d put her in a cab. Last night, he’d put her in a cab without saying a word except to the driver. “‘Shake It Off.’”
“Is that a song?”
“You’re lucky it wasn’t ‘Bad Blood.’”
He grunted, but it was a sound cut with humor. “Question six, Honeywell.” He gave her a near-blinding grin. “I feel we’re making progress.”
Progress was a dog with a limp chasing its tail. Jackson Haley smiling was bastard measure, slay ’em in the aisles, and damn the cliché. “‘Question six. If you were able to live to the age of ninety and retain either the mind or body of a thirty-year old for the last sixty years of your life, which would you choose?’”
“I have no idea. You go first.”
