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My car pulled up, the black Mercedes I used to travel anonymously around the city. I liked to protect my privacy, and I thought Lola would feel safer in a dark, nondescript car than in one of the more flashy vehicles I owned.
I opened the door for her.
“Where to?” said the driver.
“Jackson Heights,” I said, and we sped away into the night.
By the time we got over the bridge and had left the blinding lights of the city behind us, I was feeling a little better, and so was Lola. She’d straightened her shoulder and was looking out of the window, her head turned in profile as we passed through Brooklyn, and then into Queens.
“You didn’t have to do this, you know,” she said.
“It’s really nothing,” I said. “I’d do this for anyone who was in your situation.”
“Damn, he really got to me,” said Lola.
I looked across at her, and her green eyes shimmered under the yellow lamplight as we got up to Queens. It wasn’t a long drive—forty minutes or so at this time of night. But Lola was shaken up, and we didn’t say much.
When we got to her apartment building, I looked out. Lola sure didn’t live in the nicest part of town. It seemed safe enough and well-lit. But the streets were dirty, and people seemed a lot less well-off around here than in Manhattan.
“Can I walk you up?” I asked quietly. I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries, didn’t want her to feel like she had to invite me into her life.
“Sure,” she said. “If it makes you feel better.”
“It really does,” I said. The truth was that I didn’t mind. But I felt like I was beginning to understand something about Lola. That her pride in what she had was the equal of mine.
We climbed the narrow, rickety stairs of her building and got to her front door.
“Can you wait here?” said Lola.
“Sure,” I said. She looked at me with an embarrassed smile before disappearing inside, and I realized why.
She was checking that her kid was asleep.
I waited there for a minute, maybe half. But eventually, the door on the other side of the corridor opened, and a Latina woman with dark hair and intense brown eyes came out.
She looked at me.
“Can I help you with something, mister?” she said, a little suspiciously. Her eyes darted to Lola’s door.
“I’m just waiting for Lola,” I said. “She’s gone inside.”
The lady said nothing, but watched me intently. I was dressed smartly, in one of my suits, with a silk pocket square folded into a corner in the breast pocket. I’d put it there after offering it to Lola. But she seemed to be looking at me as though I was a potential burglar.
“Alex,” I eventually said, reaching out my hand and smiling. “Alex Lowe.”
“Sara,” said the woman, but she didn’t take my hand. “You a friend?”
“Yeah.”
“Boyfriend?” she said, tilting her head.
“No,” I said. “No, I’m just…I’m actually Lola’s boss.”
“You just said you was her friend?”
“I am her friend,” I said, “but I’m also her boss.”
“I don’t know too many people who’s friends with their bosses,” said Sara, defiantly.
