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My heart jumps in my throat. “Not that I know of.”
“Then he’s just stupid, eh? Not dating you, I mean.”
I know what he means, all right.
“Are you Canadian, Dancy?”
“Matter of fact I am. Did the ‘eh’ give it away?”
“No. Your common sense did.”
His turn to laugh. “Hmm, how old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Ah. Much too old for me.”
Philippe calls out instructions from the other side of the dance floor but Dancy ignores him. “Wait a minute,” I ask as the world blurs along, like I’m a spinning top in the arms of a toymaster. “Dancy isn’t your real name, is it? Dance lessons, Dancy.”
“It actually is. My parents were cruel people who gave a newborn a name that would get my arse beaten many times in school.”
“British, is it?”
“How’d you guess? Do I look like the queen?”
Clap clap! Philippe moves toward us like he has wheels for toes. “Dancy? Again? If you’re going to pick up women, please go for the ones David the Asshole lied to.”
“That’s me,” I sigh, remembering.
Dancy drops his hand from my waist and makes a deep, solemn bow.
“And while you’re great for business, you never, ever do any of my dance moves,” Philippe chides.
“Because your choreography is a crime.”
Philippe sniffs and looks the old man up and down. This is clearly an old conversation on an infinite jest loop. “Your suit is a crime.”
“You know what’s really a crime?” Dancy says as Will wanders over, closely followed by two chattering old women. I hear the words granddaughter and crossfit and good cook.
“What?” Philippe asks, playing along.
He points at Will and narrows his eyes. “That he,” Dancy says with a flourish, finger now pointing skyward as if getting God Almighty’s attention, “hasn’t asked the beautiful Mallory out on a date.”
I die.
I die right there.
Chapter Thirteen
My legs work unbelievably well for someone who is dead.
I flee. This day is too much.
Even I have a limit.
My purse is conveniently on a chair by the door, and in a gazelle-like feat of grace, I loop my arm through the handle and crash through the doors to the outside, hearing Dancy shout, “Was it something I said?” in the distance.
The parking lot is a blur. My electronic key won’t work. I stare at it, dumb, with a head full of buzzing bees all trying to find their way out through my corneas, until I realize I’ve unlocked the trunk twenty times. I walk to the back, slam it shut, and successfully press the right button to open the driver’s door.
