“Julie?” Leo tried to draw me out with his eyes again like he’d done before in at the coffee shop.
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
I ran the hem of my dress between my fingers to calm my nerves, focusing on the familiar touch of the fabric. “I’m thinking if there is anything I want to discuss before we get started. You just gave me an open invitation. I’m mulling it over.”
“That I did. Mull away.” He laughed, and sweet baby Jesus, it was a good laugh. I’d even throw in an adorable baby Moses, too, because it was just that good. “Come up with anything?”
“Have all of your other hires here been previous stalker subjects? Or am I the first?”
He was mid-sip as I spoke. Coffee caught in his throat and he choked loudly to force it down like it was solid and not pure, formless liquid. “Stalker subjects?”
“I just found out that you come into my shop at least two times a week, Leo.”
Luckily, he smiled and maintained his relaxed posture, so I assumed I hadn’t completely thrown him for a loop. He didn’t appear as though he felt like he was being accused. “I wasn’t stalking you. I like their coffee. It’s on my route to work.”
“But you left your card.”
“Because I heard of that art exhibit a few months back and thought you would appreciate it.”
“But how did you even know I worked at the coffee house to begin with?”
Ah. Gotcha. Look at me going all Sherlock on him.
There was a heavy pause. I knew he was selecting and arranging his words wisely, something I needed to get better at doing. I’d fallen into the embarrassing habit of letting them tumble out of my mouth the very second they materialized in my brain. Think, speak, when the correct way to do it was think, process, analyze, speak. There was a lot of extra fluff that went into be a socially aware person, fluff I wasn’t sure I’d ever totally embrace.
“I first saw you at the coffee house over a year ago, Julie.”
What the what?
I swear I’ve never had as much internal dialogue in my life as I what I’ve experienced since meeting Leo. Maybe because he said things that elicited responses from me that really shouldn’t be uttered. Even much of what I did end up saying shouldn’t be uttered. Maybe I should become mute and keep everything tucked up in there. That seemed like a good option.
“A year?” There went the vow of silence. I’d make a terrible monk, obviously for more reasons than just the fact that I was prone to talking, but that was high up on the list.
“So that’s how I knew you worked there,” Leo interrupted, attempting to wrap up our conversation in neat little bow.
But that wasn’t possible, because it sort of felt like he’d just opened a can of worms. You know, those ones that spring out in long, stretchy coils. Surprise! I’ve known who you were all along! I’m your secret admirer, Julie!
“That honestly makes me a little uncomfortable,” I admitted. My poor dress was now unraveling at the edge from my nervous fiddling. I coiled a loose thread tightly around my thumb and felt the painful throb as the circulation slowed. “I think we should go back to talking about my reproductive organs.”
“Because that’s so much less uncomfortable than me admitting to having seen you before.”
His words struck me. Seen. That was all. Not, “I’ve loved you for over a year now, Jules,” or “I’ve been thinking of you since the first day I laid eyes on you.” He’d merely seen me at my place of work twelve months ago. That was totally innocent. Nothing to take note of. I was officially the master of jumping to conclusions. Hop, skip, jump!
“Anyway.” He twisted his neck back and forth, craning to loosen his tie. “Any more questions?”
“Are you sure you want to ask me that? Because I can definitely come up with some.”
“You’re right. I take that back. My turn.”
“To ask the questions?”
“Yes, to ask the questions. But I only have one.” His necktie was slung low on his neck now, and he’d at some point unbuttoned the top button to his shirt, revealing the shallow divot below his neck. I hadn’t gotten that right in my drawing. I’d have to go back and fix that. “Would it be so bad if I actually did come into the coffeehouse hoping to see you?”
“Bad? No, not really.” What was he admitting to here?
“Good. Because I half did it for the coffee, half to see if you were working.”
“I’m surprised you drink your coffee straight up, ‘cause it sounds like you like a little half and half.”
Leo’s head slipped down in a laugh and he looked back up at me through his dark lashes as he said, “You’re funny, Julie.” The way he said it made it sound like maybe that was a good thing. I’d definitely take funny over awkward. But then I realized that some people were funny because they were awkward, and that made me panic. “So. About the job.”
“Oh, right.” I’d temporarily forgotten that’s why I was here. For a minute there it felt a little like an appointment with my OBGYN, with all that talk of ovaries and such. I half expected Leo to order a me a Pap Smear and I hadn’t waxed in longer than I cared to admit, so that would be all kinds of embarrassing.
“We’re looking to redo our label for our Chianti Classico.” Leo rotated in his chair and stood up, the seat making a thumping sound as he abandoned it. He walked over to an elaborate bookshelf lined with wine bottles ranging from the size of my hand, all the way to a double magnum. Running his fingers along the rounded curves of each one, he landed on a typical sized bottle and wrapped his fingers around the long neck. “It’s not selling as well in the U.S. as we’d like with our current label, and our research shows that has to do with the modern look and feel of it.” He held it out for me to take a look with the base in his palm and the bottle resting on his forearm the way waiters do as they wait for you to nod in approval. “It’s an Old World style wine, and we’ve decided the label should match. We want this to be a go-to Italian table wine. When Americans think of Italian wine, they think of Chianti. And when Americans think of Italian food, they think spaghetti and meatballs. And when they think of someone serving them that Chianti and spaghetti and meatballs, they think of an overweight Italian woman that talks with her hands and reminds them of their grandma. This is where you come in.”
“Because I remind you of your fat grandma?” Oh goodness, I hoped not.
He grinned and laughed. “No, definitely not.” He paused like he was making the comparison in his head and chuckled again when he was done replaying that reel. “Because you have the talent to create that Old World label we’re shooting for. It’s rare to find someone as gifted as you are with a pencil and paper. Much of what is out there today deals more with computer graphic design. And while our designer will be taking your sketches into our editing programs for the final mock up, we want to start with your organic, raw drawings and go from there.”
This couldn’t be real. Just last week I was telling Ian that I wanted to find a job where I could exercise my almost extinct talent and here I was, sitting across from a man that was asking me to do just that.
I pinched myself. Which then made me jump because I’d forgotten to cut my nails and that really hurt.
Leo’s brow knit together as he looked down at my arm. “What are you doing? You okay?”
“Yeah, totally fine.”
“Okay.” He hesitated. “You know what a bust is, right?”
Were we seriously back onto the reproductive organs?
“We have one we’d like for you to depict. It’s of Renaldo Carducci, my great, great, like great to the sixth power or something, grandfather. He’s the original founder of our wines, so we want to tie in that family tradition into your composition.”
“Sounds amazing.”
“Well, hopefully. That’s the goal. We want people to see this on the shelf a their local grocer and feel drawn to it. Literally. That’s why we’ve chosen you to help us achieve that.”
During his little speech of sorts, Leo made his rounds across the room, ending up directly in front of me, leaning his backside into the desk, his ankles crossed over one another. How he could look so incredible just lounging like that was beyond me. I closed my eyes for half a second and quickly sketched him in my brain, because this was too good not to imprint there.
“So.” His head tipped to the left and a lock of dark hair swept across his forehead. He didn’t bother shaking it off. “You in?”
“Like Flynn,” fell out of my mouth before I could stop it. I realized that might not have been the best choice in words because Errol Flynn had quite the risqué reputation, and I was trying hard to keep this conversation clean since we’d moved past the ovary talk. “I mean, yes. I’m totally in.”
“Good. So now we just need to book our flights.”
“Our flights?” I broke off the thread I’d been messing with between my fingertips. I’d need a new dress by the end of the workday if things kept up like this. It would be nothing but scraps.
“To Florence. That’s where the bust is—well, just outside in Tuscany—and the vineyard, too. I’d like for you to see it all to really be able to depict it on our label.”
Mama mia.
I pinched myself again.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Splinter,” I lied quickly, trying to think of the only other reason why I’d keep squeezing the skin on my arm. I guess a zit would’ve been an acceptable lie too, but of those two options, a splinter was the least offensive.
“Do you need some tweezers?” He skirted the edge of his desk and began rummaging through the contents in his top drawer, fingers wildly searching. Scissors, pens, and paperclips clattered against one another as he shoved them aside. That Leo was concerned about my made up splinter ailment sort of made me go all gooey inside.
“Nah, I’m fine.” I waved him off. “Florence or bust!” I blurted, throwing my hands in the air like a madwoman. Maybe he had some duct tape in that drawer because I really should think about taping my mouth shut to avoid shouting silly things like that.
“Florence or bust,” Leo agreed with a laugh that was really loud and uncontrolled. I couldn’t help the smile that spread onto my face as a result of knowing he at least found my antics entertaining. “But for now, lunch or bust. There’s this new cafe, Namaste, a block over that I’ve been wanting to try out. Grab your coat. We’re gettin’ some grub.”
CHAPTER TEN
“I see how you did that.”
The cafe was packed, the chattering buzz of half the city filling the booths, tables, and even the small patio to the brim, then bubbling over. It was a cacophony of plates rattling, voices humming, and the almost melodic slam of the cash register syncing into a chorus that felt so very New York. My insides vibrated with excitement because this was exactly what I adored about the city: how every aspect of it was alive. Pulsing.
“How I did what?” Leo dipped his hand into his back pocket to pull out his wallet.
“Got me to go to lunch with you.”
His shoulders bounced with a silent laugh. “Julie, I got you to come work for me. I’d say I’m past the sting of rejection from my denied lunch proposal.”
“It stung you?”
We shuffled forward as we waited our turn in line. A girl with a beehive of red hair and a ring through her nose like a cow’s rang up a customer in front of us on her machine.
“Like a bumblebee.” I wondered if the cashier’s hairdo brought that analogy to his mind because I’d been thinking the same thing.
“Male or female?”
“What?” Leo shook his head a little like it wasn’t securely fastened to his neck. “I don’t know. Male, I guess.”
“Well that comparison won’t work ‘cause the drones don’t actually have stingers. The females do, and they can actually sting more than once since their stingers aren’t barbed like a typical bee.”
He stared openly.
“Okay, then a female bumblebee because I have a feeling you’re not done stinging me.”
I blanched. “Why would you say that?”
If ever there was a time when I wished for terribly slow customer service, it was now, but I wasn’t granted that wish because Beehive Girl waved us forward with a summoning flick of her wrist.
“What can I get you two today?”
I hadn’t spent any time looking at the actual menu until now, so I just repeated Leo’s order. I hoped it wasn’t tofu, because even though I considered myself adventurous when it came to culinary feats, tofu was pretty much just the glue that you used to eat in kindergarten in adult form. I didn’t like eating paste anymore.
As our cashier paused for the receipt to print, her fingers waiting expectantly where the roll of paper would come out, she looked me up and down and said, “I really like the color of your dress.”
Black? Okay. “Thanks,” I smiled as she tore off the receipt and handed us our drink cups.
Leo managed to track down the only empty table in the restaurant, if you could call it a table. It looked more like a pallet that you’d find in an alleyway, and the two “stools” were overturned metal pails, scattered chips of paint clinging to their edges like they were the last remaining survivors in an epic battle that obliterated the rest. The lipped edge of it dug uncomfortably into my butt, and I noticed that we didn’t have any utensils or napkins. My eyes roved the room until I located a sink in the back corner that read “Wash Station.” A line a least eight people deep stood behind what looked like a sink where I assumed you were responsible for washing your own cutlery.
Well, this was certainly interesting. I decided whatever it was that I ordered, I would be eating it with my hands.
It was hard to focus on any one thing in the cafe, but my ears kept connecting with the shrill tenor of the cashier’s voice as she repeatedly told each customer that she liked the color of whatever various type of clothing they were wearing.
Leo slid onto his seat and set our water cups onto the pallet-turned-table.
“Do you see what she’s doing?” I asked, becoming increasingly appalled as I watched each phony interaction unfold.
“What?” He turned around on his bucket. “Who?”
“The cashier.”
“She’s taking orders.”
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “No, she’s complimenting the customers.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” Damn was he cute when he said that. Even though his eyes became smaller when he smiled, they gleamed so brightly.
“No,” I corrected him. “It’s not nice. Listen.”
Over the near roar of noise around us, I could make out her saying, “I really love the color of your sweater,” to a middle-aged man sporting a cashmere button-up cardigan.
“Yeah, I don’t love that color,” Leo said, pointing to the man dressed in chartreuse. “To each his own.”
“No,” I huffed, getting more and more fed up with this gal’s completely insincere praises. “She’s reusing her compliments. She’s telling every single customer that she likes the color of whatever it is they’re wearing.”
“Maybe she’s recycling. Seems like everything in here is recycled. I’m pretty sure the napkins are made from toilet paper.” He waved a roll in front of my face, the craft colored end fluttering like a tiny paper flag.
“That’s wrong. You can’t dole out insincere compliments. That’s totally unethical.”
“It’s unethical to reuse compliments.” Leo said it like a statement he was trying to make true by uttering it. Somehow it still came across as a question.
“Yes. You can’t reuse stuff like that. That’s like Being Human 101 type stuff. You have to be sincere.”
“No repeating of compliments. Got it, though I’m not sure why you’re so bothered by it.”
I lifted my water cup to my mouth and took a sip, but the cardboard of it started to dissolve immediately upon the moist contact with my lips. Peeling off the soggy residue
it left on my mouth, I said, “It’s unoriginal.”
“Definitely something you are not.”
“Unoriginal?”
“Julie, you are the most original person I have ever met.” Leo’s eyes slammed into mine and I dumped my water onto the table, one act triggering the other. Liquid soaked into the wooden boards and I grabbed the toilet paper to sop it up. “Except that. That’s getting unoriginal since you’ve done it five times now.”
“Four.”
“Who’s counting?” When he reached across the pallet to draw the napkins from my hands, a spark ignited as our fingers came in contact. He literally shocked me. “Sorry,” he said, rubbing the pad of his thumb and index finger together to minimize the sting. He was right. I wasn’t done stinging him. “Do you want me to go say something to her?”
“What?” I took the sopping paper towels and arranged them into a ball.
He didn’t wait for an answer and stood up from his metal pail with a jolt. Waiting his turn in line, I watched him approach the cashier, his upper half leaning slightly over the counter as they exchanged several words, a glance toward me over his shoulder, and lots of nodding as though she was intently listening to what he had to say.
After a couple moments, he wove his way back to our table and sat down across from me.
“She says we make a cute couple.”
“Excuse me?” I choked on my water, or maybe it was a wad of soggy cardboard. I couldn’t be sure.
“I told her you felt like you didn’t get your money’s worth since she was reusing her compliments, so she gave you an entirely new one.” He slid a piece of paper across the pallet. “And a coupon for a free meal during your next visit.”
“Did you tell her we weren’t a couple?”
“No,” he said. “She didn’t specify. And we are a couple. A couple of people. A couple of colleagues. A couple of friends. It’s still a pretty all-encompassing compliment, but I haven’t heard her tell anyone else they are a cute couple, so I think we should take it as a win.”
At that moment, the same cashier came over with our order perched on top of an upside down trashcan lid. She slid two things that deceivingly resembled burritos our direction, looked back and forth between the two of us several times, and then swiveled away to her post behind the counter.
Draw Me In Page 9
