Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (6 page)

“Do you want a beer?” Jaime asks as the waiter
arrives.  “You look a little
tense.  You need to relax.”

She’s right.  He makes an effort to
relax, slouching back in his chair and letting his
arms dangle
down the sides. “What are you drinking?” he
ask
s her
.

“I’ve got to
go back to work,” she reminds him
.

“I’ve got to show up for work for the fir
st time in forever,” he
counter
s
. 

Not that it’s a fair argument
. 

He
can’t get fi
red from doing nothing because he
had a drink
at lunch. 

Jaime can. 

But he does
n’t mind testing her
. 

“When is Siobhan back?”

“Not for a couple of ho
urs,” she smiles, taking his
bait.  “Chardonnay,” she tells the waiter.

“Glass or bottle?” the waiter
asks.

“Bottle,” Dodge
answer
s, smiling to himself
.
  “So
, where is Siobhan, exactly?” he
ask
s
.

Jaime smiles back at him
, deliberately, knowingly, and nods her head toward the window.
 
T
he gesture
confuses Dodge at first, but as he
follow
s her eyes, he
see
s
Siobhan walking past the window, with Rod Dressler in tow, his arm linked around
hers.  Their backs are toward him and they don’t see him
; fortunately, they don’t se
e Jaime either.  Dodge
panic
s
that they’re coming in here, but Jaime is already shaking her head and nodding back over her shoulder, as Siobhan and Dressler are seated by the hostess at
Maxine’s
,
the
high end bistro next door,
at the corner table of the sidewalk seating, less than twenty feet aw
ay.

Jaime is silent, and Dodge
realize
s she brought him here to show him this.
  Nothing untoward happens between Siobhan and Dressler specifically
while Dodge watches
, but there is something unsettling about it just the s
ame, a familiarity that makes him
uncomfortable. 

An easy laugh from Siobhan.

H
er head bouncing back as her bo
dy pulses with a moment of joy. 

A
hand that occasionally
touches a forearm as they talk. 

These are small things.
 

Somewhere on the planet, though, a small gesture is generating a tempest
of emotion, of potential conflict, between a
couple, a triangle, nations. 

Dodge
can’t say which flap might prove to be a hurricane.

He
smile
s at Jaime, but neither of them can
deny
the mood has changed.

“Dodge
,” she say
s carefully, still smiling at him
, but without the playfulness that had
made this fun
a few minutes earlier.

“Yeah?” he
ask
s
, short on words.

“All the games aside,” she says, perhaps
more sincere than he
’s
ever
seen her.  “You know I’m your friend, right?”

He nods. 
He
do
es
n’t actually have a lot of friends left. 
It’s hard to deny anyone who still identifies
herself
as one.

“Well, I just want you to know what I know,” she explains.

“I know,” he
tell
s her, but he
can’t take his
eyes away from Siobhan and Dressler.

“Hey,”
she says, smiling tenderly at him to get his
attention back.  She ru
bs her foot along the round muscle
of his
calf,
bob
bing her head and
trying to grin
at him to draw his
eyes back to
her. 

“Remember why you wanted to come out to lunch with me to begin with?” she asks, her tone playful again, leaning over the table. 

The AC has kicked on; the sweat i
s vanishin
g, leaving only flesh glowing
in the sun.

Dodge believes
she
is just truly trying to cheer him
up.

It works.  They
can’t leave until af
ter Siobhan and Dressler do, so Jaime orders another bottle of wine. 

“W
hat about going back to work?” he
ask
s her.  He
do
es
n’t want her to get in trouble because she went
out on a limb
,
looking out for him.  But he
prefer
s
her company at the moment.

“Dodge
,” Jai
me says, leveling her gaze at him
.  “We have some time.”

He
gulp
s
, not wanting to think about that,
and knock
s back his
glass of wine, p
reparing for the next bottle.  He
watch
es
Sio
bhan and Dressler leave,
relieved that
Siobhan doesn’t see him
in the window, and even more that s
he simply looks all business. 

He
know
s
that
look.
 

Just like
he knows
the look on
Jaime’s face
, and the feel of a toe on his
thigh.

She’s just looking out for me, he
tell
s him
self.

*****

They
exit the restaurant not long after, making short work
of the second bottle of wine.

Dodge is
quiet.

“What are you going to do now?” Jaime asks, some concern in her voice.

“I don’t know,” he
tell
s
her, wondering t
he same thing.  “I think I got to
just walk around for a little bit or something.”

“Care to escort me back?” she suggests.  “We can kill a little time in the park on the way.  You need to unwind.”

He
hesitate
s
.

“You have to meet Siobhan this afternoon anyway,”
she reminds him
.

She’s right.  He has
to report into the boss, after all.

“And I’m telling you,” she continues, “you have time.”

There’s
not much to argue.  She wraps his
elbow
in both of her arms and tugs him
ac
ross the street to the park.  They
walk down a path that way
, still clinging to each other
,
wander
ing off the path and
across the grass
, her pulling on him.

“Come on, cheer
up,” she says, laughing for his benefit, pushing
him away from her and dragging
him back, knocking him
around, off balance.

He
smile
s
for her.

Her he
art is in the right place. 

His
is not.

“Look!” she exclaims.  “Caution tape - your favorite!”

She runs over to a merry-go-round with a bright yellow strip of
ribbon
hugging its bars, wrapped around each rail and then stretching to the next, all the way around it,
back upon itself, like a snake biting its own tail,
sealing it off.