FEBRUARY 1-4
2109 Words
“No, it cannot be.” Jo Thompson insisted in her best lawyer voice.
Before Cassidy could add her own protest, Perrin continued on, excitement rippling off her in high-energy waves.
“Uh-huh! Way! Could I make something like this up? Well, I could, I guess, if I wanted to but I’m not.” Perrin spoke loudly enough that half-a-dozen heads turned in their direction despite the noise level in Cutters.
The lounge was hopping and it was barely six o’clock. Another hour and it would really be rolling. The décor was simple and modern in a plush-chairs-around-knee-high-glass-tables motif. The air smelled of exquisite seafood being served in the restaurant beyond the tinted glass wall. The wrap-around windows revealed the tail end of an awesome winter sunset over Puget Sound.
Cassidy had learned from long practice that it wasn’t worth the effort to quiet her friend. Perrin didn’t mind being shushed, but ten seconds later she’d be bound to forget and her volume would climb once again.
Everything about Perrin Williams was loud. She’d dyed her hair half chrome-blue and half the black of India ink. And not side-to-side or front-to-back, but in diagonal stripes three inches wide spiraling down from the high part. The stripes followed the line of the sloping haircut that started well down her bare left shoulder and rose shorter and shorter to the line of her jaw on the right. The clothes following the line of the hair from bare shoulder to a high collar on the other side. It was quite striking once you got past the strangeness of it.
Cassidy hoped that maybe it was wig, but it was always hard to tell with Perrin because she did her fashion statements so perfectly.
Her clothes matched the shocking blue and her accessories the black. Fashion was her life, her shop was as much gallery as boutique, but there was a streak in her that had never left sixteen behind. She giggled merrily at the effect of her news.
“Pamela and Janice? But I thought they each had long-term boyfriends.”
Perrin nodded and took a gulp of her Cosmo.
“I kinda set them up, though I didn’t know at the time I was setting them up, I just kinda did it. Separately I sold them those cute blouses. The ones that were mirror images of each other. You know the ones. Anyway, I showed them to you the last time you were in the shop. The green velour with blue silk sleeves and the other blue velour with the green silk sleeves. Isn’t there a song about that somewhere?”
Jo nodded and Cassidy followed suit even though she didn’t remember the blouses or the song. They’d both learned long ago to never stop Perrin in the middle of a story or she’d sidetrack and you’d never get the ending.
“Well, two best friends dating two guys who were also best friends. You know, the mirror twins on a double date. Totally cute and sure to make the guys’ eyes pop. That’s what I thought. How was I supposed to know they’d decide they were a set and they’d take a trip down the other side of the street? They came in a couple days later to buy the matching pantsuits.”
Cassidy could remember those. Everything switched, which side of the jacket buttoned over, which lapel had been cut on a different slant, which breast had the pocket kerchief, opposite swirls of the slanted pinstripe. She could picture Pamela and Janice, the Swedish-pale and the Jamaican-dark, both very tall, both very curved, an unlikely pair. They probably looked amazing together.
Jo was laughing and Cassidy joined in just a moment late, a moment off beat, but neither of the others noticed. No one else in the lounge noticed—neither the fashionable women nor any of the business-suited men. Thankfully most of her little social ineptitudes were invisible; she’d gotten good enough to hide them even from her closest friends.
“How about you, Jo? What adventures in the wondrous world of law? Huh? Huh? Come on, something juicy,” Perrin begged like a puppy dog eager for a new toy. “Don’t let Perrin be the only one with good gossip. I hate that I always have the best gossip.”
She c****d her head sideways and her hair swirled back and forth in a hypnotic spiral.
“No, actually, I don’t mind. I kinda like knowing more than everyone about everything. So give me some juicy law stuff to add to my collection.”
Jo brushed back the long, black hair that her half Alaskan-native heritage had made as naturally dark as Perrin’s dyed locks. That half-heritage had also granted her a scholarship from the state. Law undergrad followed by corporate law grad.
Her heritage had also given her a broad face that always looked as if it had a nice tan, and round brown eyes that welcomed you in. She brushed some imaginary dust off the navy blue pantsuit that made her look terribly professional and immensely sexy at the same time. There wasn’t a male judge who didn’t smile when she entered their courtroom; nor an opposition lawyer who didn’t groan.
“I made partner, does that count?”
Perrin screamed loudly enough to turn every head in the place and then raised her Cosmo in a toast. Cassidy’s Merlot and Jo’s Irish Coffee followed.
“That’s great! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Cassidy sipped her wine, they really needed a better house red than Ste. Michelle. Nice enough at the price, but limited. Overly fruity.
She flagged a passing pretty-boy waiter, “Could we have three flutes and a bottle of Moet and Chandon? The Brut Imperial ’99 if you have it.”
He scribbled a note and left without saying a word. Clearly he had no idea what it was.
“Ooo, Cassie’s ordering. This should be good.” Perrin knocked back her Cosmo and then rubbed her hands together in excitement.
Jo set aside her Irish Coffee and nibbled on one of the crackers. Being Cassidy’s roommate in college for four years had taught her about clearing her palate. Perrin had been the wild girl across the hall who had taken Jo and Cassidy under her wing to make sure they didn’t stay too focused through all those years together. They hadn’t.
“I found out just a few hours ago.”
“Tell us. Tell us.” Perrin’s hair swung about as she bounced in her seat.
The bottle arrived and he presented the label. She nodded, exactly right.
The sommelier was going to be pissed when he found out that a hundred-dollar bottle of champagne—at retail—had been opened from his collection without his being present. Opened as casually as a ten-dollar Cook’s.
He uncorked it well, with a restrained pop beneath his cupped hand. He just dropped the cork on the table and she picked it up for a sniff. Warm and bright with just the hint of wood she remembered. Never much in a champagne cork, but she liked them for that.
Three baseless flutes that looked like picked flowers were resting at a tilt in a tall, curved vase. Before she could stop him, he began pouring. The flutes were colored, making it impossible to see the wine’s hue. Then she noticed Jo and Perrin’s reactions to the glasses. They were oo’ing and ah’ing about how much they looked like flowers.
She let it go.
Perrin laughed after she sipped, “It tickles.”
Jo took her taste and blinked as if she’d just woken up.
“Cassidy, that’s wonderful. Thank you.”
She took a sip herself. The wine effervesced strongly, releasing its flavors. Pear and citrus. Balanced. She couldn’t detect any real shift. She swallowed…almond. She waited for the hint of toast, but the aroma of garlic bread and steamed clam appetizers arriving at their table made her miss it.
“You earned it. So, how did it happen?”
“You are aware that I recently beat that Class Action suit against the Alaskan fisheries? The partners called me in, all three of them so serious.” Jo drew her face down into a frown. “ ‘Well, Ms. Thompson. We, with our most recent victory in Alaska, are now the most sought after corporate law firm in the Pacific Northwest. So, we’re going to have to make a change.’ He pulled a blank piece of letterhead out of his portfolio and pushed it across the table toward me.”
Jo brushed her hair back over her shoulders.
“First of all it was not their win, it was mine. And second, if they thought I was going to write my own letter of resignation, they could go…”
“f**k themselves!” Perrin filled in. Gave her a thumbs up. “You go, girl!”
Jo tipped her flute in Perrin’s direction, “Exactly my thoughts, though I was preparing to express them differently. Then I looked at the letterhead. You look at something like that a hundred times a day and it just disappears. But there was a change. It didn’t take me long to discover the alteration. My name had been added to the letterhead.”
“Cool!”
“To our Jo.” Cassidy raised her glass and clicked it with the other two. They all knocked it back and she refilled their flutes. Leave it to Jo to make partner two years ahead of any normal schedule.
“It gets better.”
“Better?” The second flute had lost a bit of the effervescence but none of the brightness. This time she caught the toast in the smooth finish.
“By the time I left the boardroom, my name was gold-leafed onto a corner-office door and everything moved in for me. When I left this afternoon, parked right where my old Toyota should be, sat one of those new BMW roadsters I’ve been lusting after. The one I showed you in that ad. Right down to the red rose on the front seat.”
Cassidy remembered the ad, it wasn’t one that you could miss. Something about it leapt out and grabbed you by the…well, clearly she’d had too much to drink already.
“I get first ride,” Perrin giggled and topped off all of their glasses. “Let’s get smashed tonight. Tomorrow you can take me for a drive.”
“I’ll take seconds…I guess.” Long time since she’d done that. Funny thing about being back with them. It was almost like being in college. Perrin always so loud and wild, attracting all the worst boyfriends of course. Which were the ones Perrin always fell for: wild flings, roaring breakups, and a heart that was permanently broken…until the next one. She remained that way still.
But Perrin also attracted the best, yet she never kept those. Cassidy had learned to wait for the ones who recovered quickly from Perrin’s dazzle. Some of them had been quite interesting and she’d never have had a chance at them if they hadn’t flocked first to her friend’s light.
Jo dated the same guy for all four years of college. Where Perrin was long and elegant, Jo was voluptuous and sure of herself in a way that an unsure, sixteen-year-old freshman Cassidy had done her best to copy. Jo so quiet and studious, college valedictorian, summa c*m laude. Cassidy had always been second, finishing as the salutatorian.
Cassidy had some good boyfriends, but none who were four years steady nor even near worth that. She’d forgotten all that, right until this moment.
She’d had enough seconds to last her a lifetime. That was one of the few good things about having left New York. There, she’d been relegated to the second tier of reviewers as well. She was so done with that, too.
She’d been casually watching the people parade through the door when one caught her full attention. A tall blond of such perfection that she looked right out of a magazine. The noise in the bar dropped by a third as every man, as if on some hidden cue, turned to watch her walk down the side of the lounge toward the restaurant.
Had her companion been any less striking, he would have been invisible in her presence. He wasn’t all that handsome. Okay, she had to admit to herself, not as handsome as Jack James for example, but he made up for it in a breadth of shoulder, a confidence of motion, and an easy smile making him impossible to ignore.
Cassidy recognized him from somewhere. A nouveau riche software guy on the news or some such.
Perrin stuck her pinkies in her mouth and let out a wolf whistle. The bar broke into self-conscious laughter. The girl smiled and moved past the tinted glass partition. The man faced their table directly for a moment.
A jolt of recognition pounded against her champagne-befuddled memory.
Where had she seen him?
Recently.
Close, very close.
It was the eyes; she remembered his nice eyes. Okay, screw that. She remembered his unbelievably amazing eyes.
Jo tapped her on the shoulder. “Cassidy. Earth to Cassidy.”
“Um, yeah?” He was gone and she sipped her champagne but didn’t notice anything except that it was wet in her suddenly dry throat.
“ ‘Yeah,’ she says. Good. Articulate.” Jo waved her flute toward the entrance. “Didn’t know you had a penchant for women.”
“I don’t. What woman?”
“Miss Playboy centerfold. Miss Cover of Vogue, Elle, and practically every other magazine out there.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I was noticing her companion.”
Perrin craned her neck around but they were out of sight. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy. Man.” Definitely man.
Perrin looked again. “I missed him. I don’t usually miss the guys.”
“Then why did you whistle?”
“Every guy here wanted to whistle at the girl but was too inhibited. So I did it for them. It’s just the kinda helpful person I am.”
- Writer
