I buttoned my shirt back on, topped it with a jacket, and rang Jenny’s doorbell.
As she opened the door, Jenny’s pearl-blue gaze fell to my right hand. In it was a camera case, but not the bottle I’d promised to bring. “I’ll go get some wine right now,” I said. “Red okay? Something with a cork, right?”
She radiated one of her sunbeam smiles and pulled me inside. Her sleeveless blouse clung in all the right places. “Don’t worry, Fay brought extra.” She took me close and gave me a soft kiss that tasted like peppermint.
I set down the camera case and started to put my arms around her for another kiss, but stopped. “Let me wash my hands. The Scout got ornery. That’s why I’m late.”
Her hands went to her hips. “The Scout.” She left it at that, shaking her head. I followed her down the hall. The overly plush carpet bounced under my feet.
“You look nice tonight,” she said over her shoulder. She said this any time I put on a jacket.
Wes Garzen, my closest friend, sat on the living room couch. He was staring at his red wine as if afraid it was about to jump out of the glass onto the cream-colored fabric. I knew the feeling. The carpet and curtains were cream, too. The manager wouldn’t let Jenny change them, so she went and got sofas to match.
“You’re here early,” I said on my way to the bathroom. Wes’s head jerked at the sound of my voice. “You must be excited about meeting Jenny’s friend.”
Wes lifted a brow. “Friends,” he corrected.
When I came back into the living room, I asked if he wanted a beer.
“Sure, if you’ve got one.”
I went up two steps into a small dining room with a table and matching chairs Jenny had inherited from her grandmother. Flowers, candles, and a bowl of very realistic pears sat on a sideboard, along with several bottles of wine. Above the sideboard was a semi-abstract scene of a house and picket fence Jenny had painted.
Across from the painting was the door to the kitchen. I stuck my head through and said, “Ready for duty.”
Jenny leaned slowly into me over the counter, a smudge of olive oil rimming her upper lip. She opened her mouth and gave me a long tongue-filled kiss. Dinner parties made her that way.
“We’ve got everything under control,” she said, straightening and nodding to Fay, her friend and cohost.
“You sure you got all that oil off, Bill?” Fay remarked, turning to greet me. I smiled and opened the refrigerator, in search of an ice-cold can. Fay Ming was a graphic designer. A cascade of silky, jet black hair fell halfway down her back. She and Jenny were a knockout pair when they went to client meetings for Jenny’s Web design business.
Hunt as I might, there were no ice-cold cans to be found in the fridge. Apparently I’d finished them off. Oh well, I thought on my way back to the sideboard in the dining room, Wes would have to stick to wine. And Jenny would be pleased to see me pouring a glass for myself. It was supposed to be that kind of party.
Jenny came out of the kitchen with a plate of cheese and crackers and slid into a dining room chair. I never got tired of watching her do that, especially when she was wearing Capri pants. She was lithe but strong, with delicate cheekbones, a little exclamation point of a nose, and a mouth perpetually puckering in amusement. She brightened any room, a talent I’d learned not to take for granted. I could see the effect on Wes, who peered in from the living room.
Cutting a sliver of Cambozola, Jenny asked about my meeting. I joined her at the table and said Kumar was fine. His company had had a very good year and wanted to show it off in twenty minutes of cinematic glory. The weird part of the day was at the end, with the Scout and Gregory Alton.
“Alton wants you to shoot a film for him? That’s great!” Jenny said, a lilt in her voice. “See? All you have to do is put yourself out there. The work will come.”
“It wasn’t Rita and me, Jen. It was the fact we were working for Kumar.”
“Maybe he’s looking for a spy,” Wes said, now hovering near the steps. “Or it might be even simpler. If Gregory and Kumar are competitors, Gregory probably wants you just because Kumar got you.”
“Enough to pay double?” I said.
“That’s the mentality,” Wes said. “It’s all about getting the other guy’s toys. If you happen to spill a little data about Kumar on the way, so much the better.” Wes was CTO of a startup that had defied the tech crash. He was flourishing.
“It scares me how well you understand these people, Wes.”
“It still sounds like a good opportunity,” Jenny said.
“Maybe I didn’t make it clear how irritating Gregory was. Rita would never work with him.”
Jenny’s eyes gleamed. “That’s perfect. Jump on it yourself, Bill. Make the leap to producer-director.”
“I wouldn’t cut Rita out like that.”
Jenny gave me a smile that could charm a crocodile. “That’s what I like about you, Bill. You’re such a gentleman. Why don’t you check with Rita, though. If she doesn’t want the job, you can take it.”
I returned her smile, but shook my head. “Gregory’s a Bigfucker on training wheels.”
Jenny’s expression flattened into a mock pout. “Poor Bill. You’re just mad you didn’t get to go for your walk today. But we all have to work with people we don’t like,” she said sweetly. “Especially to get our first break.”
I tried to think of a polite way to say, Never in a million years. Jenny was trying to help; I just wasn’t sure whom. Her Web design business was taking off when we met seven months before, and the crash had dimmed none of her aggressiveness and enthusiasm. I saw, in those first few weeks, that my knowledge of the tech world turned her on, and I proceeded to make the mistake of talking about it like an old pro. I wasn’t really, few were, but three years of being sucked into the Internet vortex and then spit out did leave me feeling old, even if I was only in my mid-thirties. As Jenny and I got to know each other, I tried to back off of my old pro status and explain how the dot-con had lured me away from the thing I’d actually meant do with my life: make films. I didn’t yet know what was next for me, I was only resolved that it have little to do with the tech industry. She pretended to accept my resolution, all the while slipping me hints on how and why I should break it.
The shine faded from her eyes when I didn’t answer. As I opened my mouth, the doorbell rang. Jenny put the lilt back in her voice. “Can you get that? I need to set the table.”
I did a double take when I opened the front door. A small woman with long, dark ringletted hair looked up at me uncertainly. She didn’t recognize me, but I’d seen her not long ago from behind a viewfinder. She was the one I’d caught on tape by accident in the parking lot. The one who had been so quick to hide from the lens.
“Is this Jenny Ingersoll’s house?” she asked in a small, liquid voice.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m Bill Damen, her doorman.”
A slender row of fingers took my hand. “Sheila Harros.” She handed me a paper bag. “These are tomatoes. For the appetizer.”
“Thanks. I think we met about an hour ago.”
She stopped in the middle of unwrapping a fine-woven scarf, threaded with glittering red and gold, from around her neck. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“In the BioVerge parking lot. Gregory Alton was there. I was behind a video camera.”
Her eye twitched at Gregory’s name, but she shook her head coolly. “You must have seen someone else.”